"Why did you say it?" Ailith asked exasperatedly. Sabirah sniffed and lifted another of her mistress's dresses out of their saddlebags.
"By my birth-culture, you own me," she replied. "I am your property, I am your slave."
"Yes, but we don't have slaves in Rohan. It reflects badly upon me," Ailith sighed, sinking onto her bed. Folcred's daughter, also named Ailith, sniggered from the corner where she was sorting through another saddlebag. "Aifea," Ailith said sternly, using the girl's nickname, "this is a serious matter. Eadric has to be accepted by the court and the other lords and nothing can mar his image!"
The younger girl didn't respond, instead smirking to herself as she worked. Ailith stopped cleaning her armour and walked over to her.
"I brought you here to learn a little decorum. Your father is far too soft on you," she said softly to her. "You must learn to respect your elders, starting with myself and my children."
"Yes milady," Aifea replied. Ailith dumped a stack of neatly folded shirts in her arms.
"Take these along to Beleg," she said. Aifea stood and glided from the room.
They had been housed in the Eastern wing of the Golden Hall. It was much larger and grander than anything Aifea had ever seen before. As her father was Captain of the Wold Riders, her family occupied a few rooms in the Fortress itself but it wasn't much. She'd grown up sharing a bed with her older sister Folcra. Although she would be sharing a room with Sabirah here, the bed was much larger and softer than anything she had slept in before.
She paused and curtseyed when she saw her Queen walking towards her. Lothíriel regarded the young girl carefully.
"They call you Ailith as well, is that right?" she asked. The girl curtseyed again.
"Yes, your majesty. That is my name but I go by Aifea to avoid confusing with my lady," she explained.
Lothíriel's lips moved as she thought about this. "Ai from your name and fea meaning little?" she asked. Aifea nodded.
"I was born prematurely and I've always been on the small side," she said. Yes, Lothíriel could see that she was on the small side. She could also see that she was very pretty for her age. This one would be worth watching closely.
"I see you have chores to be getting on with; I won't keep you," she said. Aifea curtseyed for a third time, this time a bit awkwardly, and hurried off. Lothíriel watched her go, slightly amused. The girl had clearly been a little uncomfortable in her presence and the Queen was hardly an intimidating figure. She chuckled slightly as she imagined Aifea coming under the beady scrutiny of Lothíriel's Aunt Irviniel. Then the girl would squirm.
She hesitated before she knocked on Ailith's door. It was probably polite to announce her presence instead of barging straight in. The door opened to reveal the Haradic girl. Her eyes widened and she too bobbed a curtsey before saying a few words of her harsh mother-tongue over one shoulder.
"Common Tongue or Rohirric when we have company, Sabirah," Ailith's voice said from inside the room. "Let the Queen enter and then you are excused."
Sabirah stood aside. As Lothíriel passed, she noticed a curious metal collar fastened around the girl's neck but before she could have a closer look Sabirah had left. She turned her attention to the other woman in the room and steeled her mind in preparation for why she had come here.
Ailith had changed from her armour into a simple red dress. She had stood and bowed respectively when Lothíriel had entered and was now waiting patiently for her to speak. Garbed this way, with her hair pulled off her hair in a simple braid and her armour lying behind her on the bed, Lothíriel could see Ailith for what she truly was; just a woman. She was not some great warrior or lord to be feared; she was a woman of flesh and blood, just as Lothíriel was. Courage flowed through her veins and she raised her chin defiantly. Her blood was the blood of Numenor; she was a Princess of Dol Amroth and a Queen of Rohan. This woman may belong to one of the ancestral houses of Rohan but she was nothing compared to Lothíriel.
"I came here to ask what designs you have upon my son's throne," she said in an icy tone.
Shock flashed momentarily across Ailith's features and were then replaced with a mild cautiousness.
"None," she said.
That threw Lothíriel. She had not known what to expect but certainly not that. Did Ailith really not want to see her son on the throne? Did she have no ambition?
"Hmph. I have heard tales of the political games played by the courts of Gondor but I never thought to find them here. We prefer less elaborate ploys," Ailith said slowly. "I have no desire to see my son on the throne. And even if I did, there is nothing I could do to make him King."
"But, but," Lothíriel stumbled, her cool demeanour falling instantly, "he's Éomer's eldest son!"
Ailith raised her eyebrows. "I thought you had noticed. But Elfwine is Éomer's eldest true-born son. As far I'm concerned, Eadric has no father. He has a mother and from his mother he gets a name, a family and a duty. He needs no father."
"Has he not asked?" the Queen asked.
"No. He is content with the life we have given him at the Fortress."
"Really?"
"I swear to you, one mother to another."
Her face and tone were so impassive that Lothíriel could not discern if she was being truthful or not.
"But, your son would be King. You would be the most powerful woman in the land; a Queen in all but name," she exclaimed. Ailith shrugged.
"If I wanted to be Queen then I would have said yes when Éomer asked me," she said mildly. Once again, Lothíriel had that strange sensation of falling backwards. She inwardly cursed herself. It was foolish to think that she had been her husband's only love; a naive little girl's dream. Just because she had done little more than flirt and exchange innocent kisses in the gardens of Dol Amroth before her courtship with Éomer didn't mean that he had been the same.
"When?" she mumbled. A frown appeared on Ailith's face.
"Oh, long before he met you," she said sympathetically. "And he loves you more than he ever loved me, I can see it in his eyes when he looks at you. What I had with Éomer lasted little more than a month; it was a time of War, we were both lonely in our own ways and we just sort of snapped together for a while."
She smiled, a good-natured smile that was honest and completely open. "All I want is to get these few short days over and done with, see my son take his rightful place as a lord and then return to the Wold where you need not see us ever again if it pleases you. I swear to you, I have no other motivations."
Dinner that evening was a slightly awkward affair. Ailith was seated with Éomer and Lothíriel at the High Table, as was her cousin Beleg. Lothíriel was struggling to discern their relationship fully. They evidently respected each other greatly but there was a mutual camaraderie, a quiet companionship they enjoyed that Lothíriel usually saw in old veterans who had fought alongside each other in countless wars and battles.
Ailith's own veterans were sitting with the other Riders and the younger members of her party were seated with the Royal children. Lothíriel often found her eyes straying towards where Eadric and Elfwine were deep in discussion. They were not far apart in age and they seemed to have become friendly in the few hours since Eadric had arrived. She wondered how much Eadric truly knew. Just because his mother had no ambitions for him did not mean he did not harbour them himself.
Her attention was distracted by the Haradic girl sitting close to Cahal and Eadric. It was hard not to notice her; her dark hair and olive skin stood out amongst the blondes and red-heads even more than Cahal and Elfwine's Gondorian colourings. Even from here, she could see the girl's strange collar and she wondered what on earth it was for.
"Your maidservant, Sabirah," she said to Ailith, "what is that around her neck?"
Ailith winced. "Oh, that. Sabirah, my sweetling, come here," she called. "Show the Queen your collar."
Sabirah approached the High Table shyly and extended her elegant neck so Lothíriel could clearly see her collar. It was more of a choker than a collar; made of twisted gold and mithril.
"A dwarf we befriended made it for us. I didn't want him to put mithril on it in case it attracted bandits but he insisted," Ailith said.
"I am proud to wear such a beautiful collar! Much better than the leather thing I used to wear!" Sabirah announced proudly.
"That's true," Ailith agreed as Sabirah made her way back to her seat. "She used to wear little more than a leather band around her neck. I tried to make her stop wearing it but she insisted so I had a better fitting one made."
"Why do they wear them?" Éomer asked. "We saw plenty of people wearing collars during the campaign, mainly women but occasionally men."
"It's a mark of ownership. Occasionally a man will be a slave but it is usually just the women. I met one woman who was first owned by her father, then her brother when her father died, then her husband and finally her son when her husband died," Ailith said. There was silence as she sipped from her cup and she looked around to see Éomer and Lothíriel staring at her.
"Women are owned?" the Queen asked shakily.
"In a manner of speaking. Some considered it to be an actual ownership, others just a formality; I believe in the areas of Near-Harad close to the border with Gondor it has been completely abolished but in the Great Desert the practice is alive and well. I knew another widow who was owned by her son but there was no doubts at all who was the head of the family."
Beleg's face blanched and he took a large gulp from his tankard. "Terrifying woman," he agreed. "Still, I gained a meagre amount of respect from her for owning as marvellous a woman as you."
Éomer choked on his food. "Beleg owned you?"
"Of course he did! I wore a collar too!" Ailith replied loftily. "If I didn't then someone would have tried to claim me and the whole situation would have been very embarrassing."
"Why don't you just tell them how we got Sabirah?" Beleg asked. "That is what you have been angling for with this entire conversation and it is our best story."
Ailith glared at him but then sighed and laid down her knife. It was indeed her best story. And it was the only one she was comfortable telling.
The desert sun beat down upon them as they rode into the small town. They dismounted by the fountain in the town square and let their horses drink the water; they had been in the Great Desert for many moons and the Barren Hills still lay between them and the Gondorian-Harad borders.
"Hey, pretty lady! Pretty lady with hair of gold!" a voice shouted. Ailith looked across to one of the little shops and saw a wiry Haradic man brandishing material at her. "Come see, come see! Silks, cottons, only the best!" he called haltingly in the Common Tongue. She walked over to his shop and surveyed the fabrics with a critical eye. When she looked unsure, he hastily added, "I have more! Lace from the Kalb tribe of the Great Desert! Very fine!" He turned and shouted in Haradic and a young girl of about six hurried out of the shop with swathes of materials in her arms. She heaved them onto the table and cowered as the shop owner said something else to her and raised his hand as if to strike her. As he turned back to Ailith, all smiles and smarm again, the little girl glanced up at the older woman. Her eyes were completely devoid of the spark of life. She scratched at her leather collar and Ailith's heart twisted as she saw the red lines against her neck where the collar dug in.
"How much for the girl," Ailith asked, interrupting the shopkeeper's careful sales pitch. He faltered and glanced at the girl with disdain.
"You don't want her. She lazy, she sad all the time."
"I do want her. Name your price."
"Gold. If you take body from me, I want gold for troubles," he said slyly.
Ailith glared at him. They had no gold. They bought goods through bartering when they needed them; it was too dangerous to carry money around. Bandits and brigands hid between the dunes and occasionally one heard of ambushes by rival tribes. She and Beleg both carried marks of protection from the Chief of Tribe Chiefs but what if they weren't noticed until their life blood was soaking into the sand of the Great Desert? No, it was safer to forget about the gold. But now she had no means to save this poor child...
A thought occurred to her.
"What about my hair? My hair is made of gold," she said. He nodded greedily.
"Yes, yes. You give me hair of gold, I give you girl."
She drew her dirk and quickly cut the long length of her hair off until it was a few inches long. She handed it to him and he shoved the little girl towards her. He said something in Haradic as he ran the tresses through his fingers. The girl nodded and took Ailith by the hand.
Ailith paused and then picked her up and moved quickly but discreetly towards her horse.
"We have to go," she said to Beleg as she sat the girl in her saddle and mounted behind her. He groaned and frowned at her.
"What have you done? How long do we have, this place looks nice!" he moaned.
Ailith looked back at the little shop. The owner was getting very excited; barking and waving the hair at his wife as she fetched a pot and stoked a small fire.
"However long it takes hair to burn," she said.
Éomer roared with laughter and pounded on the table and even Lothíriel couldn't help but chuckle.
She looked towards the Haradic girl sitting with her and Ailith's children and smiled. Her smile faded slightly as she saw the other girl from the Fortress approach them, the one they called Aifea. She flicked her blonde hair and leaned toward Eadric, a wicked little gleam in her eyes. That was a gleam that Lothíriel had seen many a time; the gleam of a girl who knew she was desirable and knew exactly how to use it.
Her smile faded completely when she saw Elfwine's expression. He was gazing at Aifea with a peculiar expression that his mother usually only saw when her son was with Princess Náriel of Gondor.
Yes, that pretty girl was, at this moment in time, more of a threat to her son than Eadric could ever be.