New Year's Gift
It was the sudden quiet that woke me. All through the Yuletide season the wild weather howled and prowled round our halls, the fury of wind and rain threatening to drown out the sounds of revelry within. It was the sort of weather that only a short time ago might have covered an orc-raid, and you saw the memories of it in the alert eyes and straining ears of our guards and warriors; but there have been no such raids these three years past. We have begun to make a world without fear.
I was little minded for revelry. I only wanted to be alone with you, to listen for you, to you, though I know it is too early for you to speak to me yet .
My Lord, who misses nothing that has to do with me, of course observed my silence. 'You are very quiet, my love; are you ill?'
And I answering with a smile, 'Not at all, my Lord, I was never better.'
Indeed I was never better. I began to suspect the truth some weeks ago, but I waited to be sure, and even consulted with old Urthel, my Lord's physician, who confirmed my knowledge. Of course the zealous old bumbler wanted to go at once and tell my Lord, but I forbade it. You are my secret, mine, and it is I who will tell my Lord of it. The telling will be my gift to him, presaging the far greater gift that is to come.
The gale blew itself out just before dawn, suddenly, as happens sometimes with our winter storms. I stole from our bed without awakening my Lord, light sleeper as he is, and came to the window to look over our little land towards the broad silver gleam of the River, and the City, and the White Mountains beyond. The rain that lashed us fell as snow on the mountains, and now the new-washed sun falls upon them in colours so exquisite that they have no name, save perhaps in the high-elven tongue beloved of my Lord. He will teach it to you one day.
Now the sun is strengthening, re-creating the slender towers and pinnacles of the City in the spare beauty of its winter light. Child of Rohan as I am, I have become enough of a woman of Gondor to feel some echo of the love that lights my Lord's eyes when he looks on the city that his kindred have preserved for a thousand years, with their labours, their wisdom and their blood – as he has done. As you in your turn will do, when the time comes. Look now through my eyes, for this is your inheritance. Take it, my son, and cherish it, as a Steward should do. As this Steward does.
I think I hear my Lord stirring. Come now, my secret, and make yourself known to him through my voice, through my joy.
A new year, a new world, a new life.