March 22nd
Quick AN – I have discovered an interesting glitch in this website's e-mail alert system. If you update less that 24 hours from the previous update, even though it's a new "calendar day" US West Coast time (which I think is where the site is hosted), the system doesn't send updates to anyone. So check back to see which bits you've read and which you haven't.
Faramir's Diary
Earlier we both sat on the lawn beneath one of the trees in the garden. When it was time for lunch, I held out my hand to help her to her feet. Her hand in mine was not at all what I expected. To look at, her hands are small, slender, delicate. But when her palm met mine, I felt callouses to match my own, wrought from years of handling a bow and sword hilt.
So strange. At one and the same time it was disconcerting because it was so different from what I expected, and yet comforting – a sense of connection, of shared experience. Of course, it is not really connection and shared experience, for it is my imagination alone that is conjuring these things. It would only truly be shared if she felt the same way, and I doubt that she does.
Later, as I sat alone at my lunch, I thought back to other meals, to conversations with soldiers as we ate, or drank in taverns. Some men talk of bedchamber as they talk of the battlefield, seemingly seeing women as the enemy to be conquered. Others, kinder and gentler men, grow wistful and talk of the loves they have left behind them. They talk of the softness, the gentleness, the yielding sweetness of their sweethearts. And yet in that instant when our hands met, I knew that I was drawn to the callouses, the steel, the strength in Éowyn. Oh, of course I am drawn to her beauty. But I am drawn more to her spirit which seems to me to be the match for any man.
Aye, her spirit! Yesterday I talked to the halfling, Merry. What a picture he painted of her on the battlefield, helm cast aside, that glorious golden hair blown by the wind, facing the Witch King. "I am no man!" Underneath the icy exterior she presents to the world, there is a fire and a passion. Oh, to have seen her fight.
Merry also gave me some insight into why Éowyn is so reserved. He does not know the full story, but apparently there was a traitor in the court at Edoras who haunted her footsteps. A man of considerable power, evidently, for at one stage he managed to get her brother imprisoned, and was even implicated (though there is no proof) in the death of her cousin, Prince Théodred. This man was Saruman's tool, and had cast spells over King Théoden's mind for many years, so that he could not see what was going on around him in his own court. I cannot begin to imagine how terrifying it must have been for her – to know that this man desired her, and also had the power to overcome anyone who took her side.
And now to other matters. There is something Merry is not telling me about. Every time I mention that I still have not pieced together events in the run up to my time in the Houses, he goes silent, an awkward kind of silence. Everyone seems to react that way. It is almost as if they have been told by someone – by whom? - not to talk to me about it. It is both puzzling and disquieting, and if the aim is to prevent me from worrying then it is having quite the opposite effect.
Éowyn's Diary
Nothing much happened today. I spent the morning in the garden with the Steward, which was a pleasant diversion.
Oh Béma – I just read that last sentence aloud. I have been in this wretched country too long. Even their prissy language is rubbing off on me.
I think I shall go and seek out Merry. At least he speaks the common tongue with a pleasing bluntness much more akin to my own people.
