Notes: The story of Eomer and Lothiriel. Not completed as of now (August 29th) but well on the way to being so.
Some mentions of blood, violence, death, and romance. Please keep yourself safe!
All the other women on the field worked in partners, like the washerwomen who handled the heavy linens in Meduseld, their hands were constantly busy, and they moved with a purpose that only those with unending work can have, a directness of path and a sureness of what would come next. If it had not been for the solemn silence that accompanied their work, unlike the songs and constant chatter that the washerwomen of home used to pass the time, Éomer might have been able to slip for a moment back to times that had been kinder to him. To seas made of grass and a family that was whole... and not these darkened days that had seen him become a new king longing to be with his sister, and having to hold himself still in a field made dark by the blood of his country-men.
He thought of Éowyn, her broken body taken past the gates of Minas Tirith to where he could not know her fate. He trusted the hands that healed her, but nothing could replace his presence at her side. He should be there, and instead he was here, giving orders with a dry mouth and wondering how they would ever recover from such a battle... how he might muster men- now his men- to fight once more. He allowed himself a brief second of hope, perhaps this might be enough. It might have been enough to win this battle, to show the strength of men. The sun was hot on his back and it made his armour into a blacksmith's forge. He covered his eyes against the sun that was coming out now that the battle was over, and he cursed it. Craven coward, he wanted no sun today, for hope died just as quickly as it had sprouted and he wanted rain and darkness even if just for a second. It was hard to hope, knowing he might be the last of the house of Eorl.
He heard behind him a small groan of frustration. It shouldn't have been audible, but the owner of that groan must have been close to him, and unlike the women who worked in pairs, she was alone and struggling, unable to communicate with anyone else to tell them where more weight needed to be taken to help her pull the lifeless body she dragged from under a pile of rubble. Like the women around her, she was stained with blood both fresh and brown with the hours and like them, her face was grim and tired, her hair frizzing with heat and sweat.
Unlike those other women, she spent several moments by each body trying again and again to feel a pulse, a hint of a breath, trying to detect some sort of movement behind the eyelids that were shut and trying to prompt some in the eyes that had remained open. Éomer knew those that lived had been taken from the field as soon as the battle had ended, and he imagined that this girl did too. If his chest had not already ached, he imagined his heart might have broken for her, for the tears that had cleared some of the dirt and dust from her cheeks in clear lines, but there wasn't anything to break, so he watched her instead.
Her examination having yielded nothing, the girl was once again hauling the body gracelessly to a sturdy piece of wood, outfitted with ropes to help her pull it. It was a daunting task. She didn't look underfed and she wasn't as small as some of the women he knew, the body she pulled, however, was made boneless and heavy in death with no spirit to lift it and it must have outweighed her two or three times with the addition of armour. Éomer thought for a moment of moving to help her, but he found himself frozen, and exhausted by the thought, lost in his own mind and only mildly distracted by the struggles of some poor peasant girl who had been pulled to a task she would never have asked for. It wasn't until she managed to hold her make-shift stretcher still with one foot, and get the greater part of the man's torso onto it that he even thought to wonder why she, of all the other figures on the field, was working alone. She was not some great warrior wishing to honour his fallen friends, nor did she wear the grey wool of the priestesses who often tended to the dead as charity. She was odd in a way that his brain latched onto for needing something useless to occupy it.
Éomer was interrupted by another Marshal, a man high in the ranks who asked him to choose who of the dead would be buried... and who would be burned in the massive funeral pyres these women and men were making. It was not a choice Éomer wanted to make, but they couldn't drag two thousand bodies back to Rohan and bury them all with the honour they deserved, they could barely afford the men to keep watch over his uncle, King Théoden. And Éowyn whispered his treacherous mind. Éomer shook his head and asked to see a list of the dead before any choices were made. He would only have a few hours, he knew. The Pyre of the Sacred Dead was set to light that night. The Enemy's dead were less consecrated. There would be no scented oils or prayers for them. Already three piles of corpses had been doused with crude oil and the bodies destroyed. No one mourned them.
A few of the silent Rohirrim still on the field and their Gordorian counterparts were roused from their thoughts at a shout from the girl. Her voice was hoarse and raw, made dry by her hours of work and silence. When no one came fast enough she shouted again and her cry was loud and commanding. It didn't sound like the voice of a peasant. Éomer saw her kneel and pull out a flask of liquid. Gently she cradled the head of a man of Rohan and offered him the flask, he drank too fast and she helped him turn and retch before again cradling his head and controlling the flow of water to his mouth in a thin trickle. A third time she yelled, and now Éomer came at a run followed by a few others. As he got closer her could see that the girl was speaking in a low, quiet stream to the man she held. New tears came from her and were staining his clothes now, and when the people she called didn't come fast enough for her liking, she began to try and help the man to his feet. Neither of them were in a state to stand that quickly and it was Éomer and a man of Gondor who ended up taking the weight, leaving the girl to find her own feet. She jogged to catch up with them as they hurried him to the city. "Stop, stop it! You'll kill him, you'll hurt him." Again, Éomer was caught by the girl's voice. She spoke first in Westron, and her accent was soft and lilting, with a clipping of words that indicated a class higher than the one she put on for show. Then she repeated the words in Rohirric, halting and slow and with an accent more terrible than even Gimli's.
"You have to lay him down! He's got an arrow in his leg. If it moves, he'll bleed out." The two who carried the man slowed their pace, and the girl jerked her chin to her stretcher but Éomer shook his head and and called for the a cart to be brought. Once she had been heeded, the girl grew quiet and resembled a small gnat slightly less. Unlike the sharp tone she had used on Éomer and Harbig, the Gondorian soldier who helped him, she spoke to the wounded soldier like he was a small child who she was calming after a storm. Éomer's Westron was rusty, but he understood that she told him the pain would be over soon, and when the soldier began to drift again into unconsciousness, she coaxed him to wakefulness, pleading and taunting in turn, even singing to him when he turned restless with pain. Éomer wondered if it was worth telling her that the man probably couldn't understand a word she said, but he stopped himself. The wounded horseman looked young and frightened and her words seemed to calm him. That seemed enough.
Finally a cart filled with weapons, but big enough for a man and lead by a team of two horses came to a halt beside them. All three of those who had charged themselves with this man's safety pulled the weapons from the cart impatiently, leaving them in the dirt to be organized again later and Éomer and Harbig sacrificed their cloaks to pad the wagon. Harbig agreed to drive the team of horses through the city, as he knew the city best and the three of them together would slow the journey. Thought she looked about to protest at first, the girl confessed that she could not do it, only knowing how to ride one horse and not willing to risk the life she had saved on pride.
Left in the dust of the cart, Éomer found the excitement had awakened him and he turned awkwardly to the girl and examined her properly while she peered further and further into the distance with a hand to shield her eyes, looking for all the world like she was wishing she could send herself as a bird alongside such precious cargo.
"You are not a peasant woman." Éomer said at last, and she turned her head after a moment too long. He could see the muscles in her jaw tighten and then relax and she turned back to the horizon and shook her head.
He could see now that he was looking for it that her dress was plain, and an unflattering shade of pale yellow, but that the quality and fabric was expensive and well made. Or had been before the girl had used it so ill. The shabby apron she had put over it -probably stolen from the laundry or the kitchens- he noted, did not save from dress from the mud and dirt and blood and the countless other stinking things that covered fields of battle. She wore a hardly belt made of good leather, if soft with use and she had made her own holes to make the thing fit. On it was her water-skein, and a knife in it's sheath the quality of which he could not vouch for without seeing the blade. He caught sight of a small pouch as well only as the girl nervously fingered the opening and closing it before catching herself and shrugging his attention away like it did not bother her.
Her hands were bloodied, the skin too soft for the labour she had done, and he saw that she had tried to bandage the hands and continue her work... how long had she even been out here? The bandages would have to be removed and her hands scrubbed clean if she didn't want the sores to get infected, it would be painful and the good salves were being saved for the men coming from the field. Perhaps he could spare her some from his kit. It happened to all horse riders after holding the reins for days at a time, and the hands would heal and grow stronger but even the best riders could find their hands chaffed and he couldn't imagine that he would need the ointment more than her.
Her skin was tanned and darker than he was used to noble women having and her nose and cheeks were covered in freckles. Whatever her status, she was no stranger to the sun, and she did not shy away from hard work. "I should return to the fields. There might be more out there-"
Her Rohirric was truly awful, but despite himself, Éomer appreciated the effort. "We should tend to your hands before you lose them."
For the first time the girl seemed to notice herself, she looked down at the bloody remains of what must have once been elegant long fingers and smooth skin, and she saw that her dress was soaked with sweat, her cheeks were still wet and she used the back of her hand to wiped them, only spreading the dirt and dust further. She shifted from foot to foot, noticing the discomfort and realizing where her shoes, mens boots and obviously stolen (how had he not noticed them?) and the wrong size had chaffed. She looked up at him, then at the sky. The sun had finally begun it's downward descent. She glanced back at him and after a moment of examining him, perhaps as he had examined her, she slowly and painfully sunk her tired body into a graceful bow. Nobility for sure, Éomer decided. Her voice cracked as she murmured, "Your Majesty."
It was so painfully out of place that Éomer was stuck for a second. Should he return the bow? Should he offer this noble girl his arm, or would that offend her, after she had seemingly done everything in her power to hide her birth on this field? He compromised by nodding to her and pulling her up from her curtsy. Now that they had finished that little farce, she looked at him with a frank, open gaze. "You think I'm-" She faltered, searching for the word, and not finding it she shrugged, then gathered herself seemingly unwilling to let him think whatever it was he thought, and she started again. "I'm not pretending to be a maid to feel 'one with the people' or some other inane platitude."
It sounded like she was trying to defend herself, though he couldn't imagine what attack she thought he would use. If a noble woman wanted to dwell in shit and blood, what did he care, she had saved a man's life, who would truly hold it against her that she did it in a borrowed apron?
"I don't see any other Ladies here helping you. Have they all gone to sup and left you behind?" She smiled at that, though he hadn't expected her to. With fingers that had gone stiff, she untied her water-skein and took a long sip before wordlessly handing it to him. He accepted it and finished what little water remained. Again there was silence between them as he held the skein and she seemed deep in thought.
"I'm not useless, you know. It was no use pretending I was, I'm a terrible pretender." With the water, it hurt less to hear her speak. The ends of her words grated less, and her breeding became more obvious.
"This seems like a speech you've memorized." What was she looking at? There was nothing more to see. The pyres had been stacked with the dead, the sun would go down in a bare few hours and the bodies would become ash. They would return to the earth they came from and if Men prevailed, then a cycle of life would begin anew and this battle would fade into legend.
"It's a good one." She admitted, "I've been rehearsing it all day. I don't think anyone will truly be too displeased with me. There's so much of import happening and I've simply wandered off to a battlefield that has turned to a graveyard. It gave me something to do, scripting my speech, thinking about words is better than thinking of all those boys... Men, I suppose, sent off to die. How ever do you forget how terrible the eyes are?" More quietly, so that Éomer could barely hear, she whispered "Am I to see them every time I close my eyes?"
How indeed? The girl looked young. Under the grime, she couldn't have been much older than twenty. Probably the last time she had heard those lullabies she had sung, they have been sung to her. The air was turning cold and she shivered. Éomer reached for his cloak to give her before remembering that it had been given away already. He extended his hand to the girl and she took it this time, allowing him to lead her towards his horse. "Give me your speech then, Lady, I'll hear it."
She cleared her throat and he laughed at the nod to formality, though it was short and rough and felt foreign in his mouth. Despite this little act, when she actually spoke it didn't sound like a speech. It sounded like words she had asked herself all day. It sounded like words she had used to keep herself moving when her muscles had protested. It sounded like the whisperings of a scared lady who had seen her personal hell, and felt the weight of her own helplessness, who had found a way to help and clung to it, despite how very small the task was. "Why should I watch from behind white walls? My Father and brothers were here, they fought... our kinsmen fought... my countrymen died. I cannot wield a sword but I can honour those who did. What's a little more blood to these grounds? They soak it up and ask for more. Why should I sit and feel the soft cloth of my dresses, and eat food that still has taste when children of Gondor were slaughtered because my Uncle failed his position. I am alive when many who are more worthy have died. I'll never repay that debt... and so, what is a little sweat and blood. What is a little subterfuge?"
Éomer lifted the girl to his horse and pulled himself up behind her, gripping the reins but letting Firefoot have his head and take them to the shattered gates of Minas Tirith. "Many have done less, Lady."
"And many done more." She turned to look at him in the saddle, "A debt is a debt Éomer, King."
"You know my name." He said, "And I do not know yours. I call you 'Girl' in my head, but surely there's another name your brethren call you."
"You can call me Ella." The way she said it made it seem like this was a temporary name for a temporary knowing, but perhaps it was her difficulty with his language that made it seem so. He felt her go stiff against him, the higher up the gates they climbed. He should have answered her. He should have agreed that a life debt is a great burden indeed, but one that she had begun to clear away. He didn't though. He didn't know how to say it.
"Lady Ella?"
"Princess Lothiriel." That was a surprise. He had fought alongside her father, Prince Imrahil and knew the man and his sons to be honourable and skilled fighters. Imrahil had been the one to notice Éowyn yet lived, and had brought his men to aid his own. It did not surprise him that such a man had produced a daughter as stubborn as Ella, or one so lost in what her honour owed those who fought for the city and people she obviously loved.
"Why Ella then?"
"Would you like a name it took all morning and noon to say?" They were coming now to the top level of Minas Tirith, and if Ella had helped to navigate at all, perhaps they might have made it there before the sun fell, but as it was she was lost in thought and he was as well, and they wandered like two dreamers just awaking off Firefoot's back and into the newly cleaned castle. Servants came and clucked over Lothiriel like she was naughty kitten who had spilled some milk. Éomer couldn't quite believe his eyes and Ella submitted to the treatment mildly... or at least mildly enough. She snapped only once when a three more women came to join the whole disapproving mess, and with the sudden force of her own status, as if she had just remembered she had any, she sent all but one away.
"Be careful with her hands." Éomer found his voice suddenly, "It'll hurt to take those bandages off."
The single maidservant who remained bowed to him before leading Ella away. Éomer wasn't exactly sure how she did it so smoothly, since she didn't touch the princess, and certainly didn't take her hand. It seemed like habit more than anything else. Ella froze suddenly and spoke urgently to the woman, her voice growing sharp and brittle with need, before she finally got the response she wanted. Again he was struck by the tangible thread between Ella and the maid as Ella broke free and ran to him, her skirt hiked up to her knees. Though there had been no hands on her, it was like an invisible tether kept her from causing any disruption too large. Where she had been determined and self assured in the field, here she was a princess and was to behave as such. Only then she was reaching her hands out to take his.
"Mirella says your sister is under the care of Aragorn and Ioreth, she rests in the House of Healing on the Sixth Level with my kinsman, Faramir. She lives, Éomer, King of the Riddermark. Perhaps... Perhaps it is time to see her. There is no delay that will save you from pain." Her hands gripped his tighter, though it must have hurt her, and her eyes searched his, "You will find what you find when you look upon her, go in peace, knowing she lives."
He might have found the information himself. In fact, he didn't doubt that as King, the information would have been available to him the moment he asked to hear it but there was something in the way Ella gripped his hands, reminding him that delaying would not make the pain lessen in his chest, something in the way she had pulled away from her duty to make sure he knew. It felt like she was easing some of the debt she owed to those who had saved her city. It felt like she was giving him something small but very real. A little bit of her strength in exchange for a little bit of his. She understood his fear and didn't hide from it. He understood hers.
Perhaps there was hope, however small.