A/N: I am not JRRTolkien. I do not own any of this. I am not seeking profit from writing this story.
Eowyn flipped to Theodred's picture in the book. "Theodred. He kept his promise, and was back often during January. It was a better month than I had in over a year. We still were not allowed to send anything to the hamlets, but the women were not as harassed, and because Theodred could not be denied access, my Uncle's council meetings were no longer complete farces. Theodred took over the care of Uncle too; he brought Uncle meals and looked after everything.
"I felt bad for him." She admitted, and glanced sideways Faramir. "He didn't deserve the pain of having to care for his father so soon in life. He was too young to have to care for faltering feet."
"But he was older than you." Faramir pointed out. "And it was actually his father, how ever close you were to Theoden King before. I bet your cousin was honored to take care of his father."
"Perhaps, but since taking care of Uncle had become my only job, I found myself with nothing to do for the first time in my life. I couldn't ride; the women looked to Bryn for care of the household, and there were only so many shirts to mend. I did help to make some blankets, but even that seemed pointless as there was no way to bring the blankets to those who needed them, unless an Eored stopped for a rest, or if Theodred was about to ride out.
"I was completely isolated from every one, when I took care of Uncle, and now that I wasn't as busy I felt like a stranger in my home. Theodred noticed, he always was very observant, and included me as much as he could. When he founded out about my horse, he promised to bring me a new one as soon as he could so I could stay active. But other than to him, I was invisible. I slipped in and out of rooms, and no one looked my way. The household ran with out my aid.
"I was useless. It was exactly as Wormtongue said. No one needed or wanted me." She paused and looked at Faramir, who was struggling to keep his face blank. "I notice you do not defend me," she said.
Faramir sighed and replied, "Eowyn, I do not know how to defend you against the past, other than to tell you this. You are not useless, you have never been useless, and unless you change greatly as you age, I cannot see a future where you were not needed. At least I know that I need you. I cannot fight the past for you, other than to commiserate and say that I know what it's like to feel worthless in your home, and only needed because no one else could come. But Theodred helped you? He must have, at least a little. I hear only love in your voice when you speak of him, he must have done right by you."
Eowyn looked at Faramir gravely, and said "You cannot tell this to anyone else."
Faramir narrowed his eyes and frowned. "I would never betray what you have told me to anyone."
"I know," Eowyn replied, "but this is an even stricter secret. You cannot tell this part to anyone, ever. Promise."
"I promise," Faramir swore solemnly.
Eowyn reached into a small pouch she wore at her side, and pulled out two golden braids. "Theodred found out about Wormtongue… in the worst way possible. Wormtongue had become… more aggressive…" Eowyn trailed off… I couldn't escape it, his hands, his voice, his smell, the smell of thatch, and burning torch. There were boots coming down the hallway, the soldier who came on his patrol. He was my escape, he would turn the corner and set me free. "Theodred happened upon us."
"Eowyn!' A different voice. Wormtongue suddenly spun away and ran down the hall. 'Eowyn!' A different set of hands. Too close, too soon, too pure to be dirtied with my filth. 'Don't touch me!' He let go and walked a pace away. I wish I was dead. Theodred hated me now. 'I won't leave you.'
"Wormtongue ran. But Theodred stayed. He sat beside me in that hallway until I fell asleep. And then he must have carried me in to my room, and when I woke up he was still there. 'You see, sister-cousin! I'm still here to prove that some men of the Rohirrum still have honor.'
"'He will kill you if you do anything.' I said first. 'You cannot prove anything.'
"'Eowyn, if you spoke out, I could prove everything.' He replied.
"'If I spoke out? Spoke out to whom? Who is higher here than me? Who can offer me protection if the King cannot? Why would he offer me protection if he doesn't remember me?'
"Theodred's face became hard and he replied, 'The law says that he has to protect all the women in his court.'
"'The law also says that there should be at least seven men on a King's Council and that we should give comfort to the poor. I don't know where you have been the last month, but the law does not matter any more.'
"Theodred thought for a moment and then urgently said 'You have to reveal this. You cannot keep silent. How long has this been going on anyways? Why haven't you said anything before to me? To Eomer? Why were there other women sleeping in this room last night?'
"I couldn't answer him, and so I looked away. I couldn't defend myself, if I did he would hate me more for not protecting my people better. I just lay there, and Theodred sat beside me in deep thought. A knock came at my door, a messenger. Thoedred's Eored was to be sent out later that evening. He rose to thank the messenger, and I roused myself to sit up, and look at him.
"'I do not like the timing of this. This has Wormtongue's hand all over it. He seeks to delay my actions to protect you. I will do my best before I go, and I swear by my life that I will return, and I will return with a plan to help you.' He stopped before he left the room. 'You did not look surprised that I was being sent out today. Has this happened to everyone who has stood between you and him?' I did not answer, and he turned to go again. He looked back at me, from the doorway. 'What happened to Aefgaeld wasn't an accident, was it." he stated, and then left before I could even blink.
"Theodred was the brightest of all of us. We always forgot that, Wormtongue certainly underestimated it. Theodred never flaunted his brilliance, but then, he never had to. He was much like you are now. Before he left, in between overseeing the muster of an Eored, and the collection of blankets to take to the hamlets, Theodred some how found time to speak to Uncle alone. Theodred found the one safe place that I could be, in all of Meduseld, and he convinced Uncle to let me go there when I was not in the King's Service. For the weeks that Theodred was gone, I became an assistant healer.
"Go ahead and laugh." Eowyn told Faramir. "From your clean white walls of the Houses of Healing, and the soft whispered promises of hope, the thought of me filling that role is… ridiculous."
"It seems out of place here," Faramir agreed, solemnly though his eyes sparkled. "But I know that not all places are Gondor."
"Rohan is not Gondor. These were not Houses of Healing, they were places to die." Eowyn replied, and absently twirled the braids in her hands. "There was little hope there at the end of winter, and none by the beginning of spring. For the first time in a year I began to understand that forces were moving beyond my walls. The orcs were mustering and attacking villages, and the number of dead and dying that were brought to Meduseld was frightening. The smell was beyond recall, and the calls of the dying were horrific. For two weeks I worked with the healers, patching up different riders who Eoreds were close enough to send them to Meduseld for healing, and poor villagers, half starved and frozen by the winter and then ambushed. The first man I ever killed was there. It was a mercy death," she added, seeing Faramir's glance. "An orc raid that the Riders were too slow to stop. He was the last of his village, but with just a few drops of poison that I gave him… he was no more. A peaceful death, a happy escape from life. How I envied him. The thoughts came back again and again each day when Wormtongue came too close…" Mine. You think you can escape me by going to the Healers? Mine. You want me, I must have you. Mine.
Eowyn shuddered, and said, "I cannot tell you all. I'm sorry. I'm not that strong."
Faramir hugged her close, and tried not to notice as she made herself relax. "Little by little. That's all I ask. And you are much stronger than you think."
"I hated being envious of the dead. I hated that only among the dying, where Wormtongue's sensitive stomach turned at the smell of blood, was I safe. I hated that I couldn't be confident in Theodred's promised to come back and help me. I hated the small vile of poison I had hidden in my room. I hated that I needed it there in order to feel safe." Eowyn choked back a sob. "I am not a strong person Faramir. I wanted to die. Strong people do not want to die."
"Eowyn, Eowyn." Faramir murmured under his breath, franticly trying to find the words to say. Slowly Eowyn's breathing returned to normal. "I don't have the answers Eowyn, but I think, that strong people are the one who have nothing to live for and manage to get up and be useful each day. To me, that seems to take as much courage as the people who have prepared to die in battle."
"You say that to make me feel better." Eowyn sniffed.
"I say that because I pray that it's true, for the past strength of both us." Eowyn shifted a little. "But Theodred came back? And this hair and your big secret?" Faramir gave her hand a little squeeze. "If you want to keep talking that is."
"Theodred came back. And he came back with Windfola – the horse that brought me here. He was a beautiful stallion, gray as smoke against the dark sky. I loved him, and for the first time in almost two months I had something alive to take care of. My hands clutched the reins as I told Theodred that I didn't deserve my cousin or my horse. Theodred laughed and said it was all a part of his plan to keep me safe.
"And he handed me this," Eowyn showed Faramir one of the braids. "Do you know about the betrothal customs in Rohan, Faramir?" He shook his head. "For the royal family there is a much more formal proceeding, but in order to get engaged there is an exchange of formal presents and a braid of your hair that is made into a bracelet. I understand here you give rings instead, but the idea is the same."
"You were engaged to Theodred?" Faramir was beyond amazed.
Eowyn quickly turned and looked at him. "Let me explain two things, first of all, this was not an engagement like yours and mine will be, if you still love me after all of this. Secondly, this is a secret beyond all else I tell you. You promised that this would go no further than us. Do I still have your word?"
"You do." Faramir promised. "But how? And why?"
"I was just as confused. Theodred explained that if I was engaged than Wormtongue could be challenged and banished for his behavior to me. If his behavior was brought forth and I wasn't engaged, it could be declared that I was compromised and that I would have to marry him for propriety's sake. But engaged to some one else, I was safe from being tied to Wormtongue forever.
"But the heir to the throne. I couldn't believe he was just offering engagement like it was something worthless. There were too many questions I wanted to ask, and Theodred took one look at my face and began to explain. 'This is not a real engagement.' He said. 'I love you as a sister, as a cousin, but you need to be kept safe, and this is the safest way I could think of. I do not plan to reveal that we are engaged, as that would be life bonding, and not what either of us desires. But I do plan to tell Uncle and Wormtongue that one of the Riders in my Eored is interested in becoming engaged to you, and I plan to have some five riders with similar hair color always around you while we're here so that it would be impossible to tell which one is interested.'
"'Then why not give me some of their hair?' I asked.
"'Because I could not take the risk that who ever I asked would not end up pressuring you into a formal engagement, and I will not see you married with out love.' Theodred answered. 'Between you and me, there is no fear that we will actually wed.'
"'What if Uncle wants to know who the Rider is? What then?'
"'Uncle will not wonder. Wormtongue might, though. I have honestly not planned that far. One solution would be for us to become publicly engaged for a while, and then find some way to break it off after Uncle is better and Wormtongue is gone. But I would like to leave that for the last, last resort.'
"'Why do I need the braid at all, if you're just going to express interest in me, not going to be publicly engaged?' Mentally I was asking if he was ashamed of me so much that he didn't want his riders or himself to be seen with me.
"'Eowyn, the fact that no one has found you so far is a testament to good spirits looking after you. If some one other than I had found you two weeks ago, you would have been married before you could blink. If you wear this hair, a completely different color than Wormtongue's, than we can prove that his attentions to you are completely unwanted, no matter who stumbles upon you.'"
Eowyn paused. "He blamed me for being so weak I think. He was upset that he had to rescue me. But his plan was solid from what I could understand. And so I slipped on the braid, and on the sixteenth of February, I was engaged. I had a horse as an engagement present, and a braid of hair to seal the bond."
Faramir was silently thinking over everything. "Not that I would tell anyone," he said slowly, "but why must that be a secret? It seems like it was safe plan, and no one found out did they?"
"No one found out that I was engaged to Theodred. Wormtongue found out that I was engaged to some one in Theodred's Eored." Eowyn shivered as she remembered that day, and paused. Faramir did not press her, and eventually she spoke again. "So he sent the Riders out to their doom at the first Battle of the Isen. Before Theodred left, I made him a similar braid with my hair, to thank him for the safety of not having to marry Wormtongue no matter what happened. He died on the twenty-fifth of February. Barely ten days after our engagement. His last words were to Eomer, but he died with my braid on his wrist.
"When the survivors found it, the news spread faster than I thought possible. Theodred engaged? To whom? And did she carry his child? Did the line of Kings still continue somewhere?
"Theodred was forty one, unmarried, unpromised when he died. I think the country longed for something to hope for, as it became clearer that the year was only going to grow harder with the spring. They wanted the betrothed to step forward with his baby to give them courage to go on. It was all the women talked about.
"I never stepped forward. And as far as I know, Theodred never left anyone with child. But if I had stepped forward, even now, I fear that there would have been a civil war between those who wanted Eomer on the throne and those who wanted Theodred's choice to rule as Queen. I would not make a good Queen. I would never have been a good Queen. Oh, for his sake I would have tried to learn, if we had been discovered and there was no way out. But I loved death too much to be a strong guardian of life.
"Theodred I think guessed a part of this, and so he took a great risk when he gave me his braid. For the first time ever he put his country, which he cared for more than the air he breathed, in jeopardy, so that he could protect his family. For that I will never be able to thank him. For that I will never stop honoring him."
A/N: Sorry for the delay. September was a crazy month. The rest of the story should be uploaded in a more consistent manner. Thank you for reading!