CHAPTER TEN:
My world was lost amongst a vast array of psychotic emotions. I had no voice left in me, as the men in their clinking arms fastened ropes around my body, speaking classically rogue. What were these people doing so close to Rohan?
My mind was filled with an allotment of dangerous thoughts of Eomer's defeat and my own death. Shackles clicked over my hands and they blindfolded me with chortling, repulsive mannerisms that made my skin crawl. I would have screamed, if it weren't for the large round stopper of fear widening my eyes and filling my entire being with a catastrophic sense of dread.
I was lifted onto the backside of a horse, and a man brought my hands together round his waist. I felt disgusted, and the first thought of a man that came to mind was Eomer. But this mans hands were different; rough, calloused and suddenly the horse was flying forward, trampling forth. I held on with what lease I had with my hands to the shreds of the man's waist, my eyes blinded by the linen strapped over my eyes.
The men were silent as their band of twelve men galloped forth. I could tell that we were going in through the forest, because the shade of light darkened over my eyes, and ever so often there would be a burst of light that slivered through the linen. I felt hot tears threatening to fall. My life seemed to be worth nothing without Eomer, and if he'd indeed fallen to the grotesque blades of the Southern people, there would be no more of me. There would be no future. Yet, the idea of his life held what was left of my shattered soul together- almost as if it was a glue. He couldn't be dead, I told myself, shutting my eyes in mediocre fear.
Just yesterday things had been so wonderful. The best day of my entire life since I'd come unto Rohan as a servant and scaled my way up the steps in society. Everything I had worked for was lost between the fingers of my set course, like sand; you cannot hold it, only watch as it slips away from between your palms.
They would kill me. I knew it at the core of me, unless they recognized me as a woman of the court. They could use me, torture me until I gave them actual information. I would never break for his sake though, that I knew for the only life that sustained me now. I wanted to scream, but there was nothing that could stop them now, and I would not test their tolerance in a prisoner. All I could do was wait, clinging to the back of the southern man as the horse trampled forth on a jagged step.
Me, of all people. Why did they find me? Were they watching myself and Eomer yesterday? I shuddered as the cold wind slapped across my face, the sharp claws of branches whipping my face as we traveled forth. It was close to an hour before there was any notion of faltering. Yet as I felt the horses pace waver and wane into a walk, I suddenly heard voices, the clamor of pots, and then scent of smoke. I was lifted from the horse by the tough hands of a southern man, and then the man on the horse followed after, taking me gruffly by the arm, his armor clanking.
I could sense men all around, and I knew that this, it was their camp. Fear drenched through my entire being, and I felt myself wringing my hands together as he guided me forward, like a blind old beggar I felt, and stumbled often over the wood and leaves pasting the forest floors. The keen scent of verdant shrubbery and foliage was caught in my nose like an intoxicating purity, along with the subtle dreariness of the black smoke and roasting something or other.
It felt more glacial in this area, with heavy gale's sporting icy reigns across their camp. Suddenly, the blindfold was ripped off of my face. The encampment was exactly as I'd pictured it. Men sat round a huge bonfire, clanking in their armor and holding weapons at the ready, conversing deftly with heavily lidded eyes flashing my way ever so often. Men. I hated them all with a passion so fierce it crippled me, and the man had to push me forth into a canvas tent set up most likely for their leader.
Once within, there was a man with a large black beard sitting prominently behind a mahogany desk; the color of Eomer's eyes. Tears filled my eyes all at once, and I went rigid with fear as the cold man gazed upon me.
"Good work, Cairion," The man spoke heartless, "I do believe this will award you a higher position in the king's eyes."
The man spoke to Cairion, the name of the man who held me with hot, rough skinned hands in one place. Though, I could not imagine leaving from that spot. If I'd had any brave bone in my body, there may be a chance for me, yet, I was not brave, nor did I harbor any vein of courage within me. I felt myself bleed on the inside, a hatred so great and powerful dislodging in the pit of my stomach, yet receding in lapping waves that issued themselves upon me as lamentation.
He then turned his attention upon me, "Welcome to your new home, concubine of Rohan," came the man's vile words. My eyes stayed level to the floor. It would not cast my gaze upon him, and as I awaited his words I prayed silently for Eomer to know where I was, to be safe. I prayed for his existence. That was what would keep me living through these days, till death did me part.
I just hoped it would be quick.
"We're taking you back to King Dredaus, of the Southern peoples. Your…family," He corrected my tears that fell moist into the floor, "I take it from your hair and eyes? You know, whore's of Rohan are not taken with so much as a fleck of mercy. They are slaughtered," his voice penetrated my being, and I allowed tears to fall freely and fresh down my face, "Yet…"
There he paused, and I waited with a contagion of suffrage dismembering my heart and organs.
"King Dredaus has resigned you to be held at ransom, for that of your special circumstances."
I glanced up bewildered and flummoxed, "I do not-"
"You're the king's whore, correct?" he ruffled through maps and papers on his desk with cruel, unfeeling distaste apparent on his lined face. He did not care.
"This makes you very important to us," He spoke drearily, and droned on, "Thus, you shall be held at ransom for your precious King to retrieve."
"No!" I whispered hoarse.
The man with the beard simply chuckled darkly, "Take this wench to the holding stock. Keep an eye on her, Cairion."
Cairion nodded his head in curt agreement, his dark locks shifting forward over his dark, olive complexion. He was young, this much I gathered, but as I was shuffled from the tent, he was nothing more than stiff and dissenting with a sternness upon his face. I felt my hope break, and everything was lost.
I could not allow them to lure Eomer into their trap. It would be my fault if they did. This knowledge pained me beyond anything that was, and had been before- and I discovered a thick stream of tears dripping down my face, casting a ruddy effect upon me.
What had I become? This was not what was supposed to happen. I was supposed to become married to Eomer, live a life with him- bear his children. I wept at this thought, and knew that I must not allow Eomer to fall. I was put in this position, and had a choice in the fact of what might play out.
We approached an alcove between the thick trees, and a smaller, more simple tent was set up for prisoners. There was an old man sitting in the tent, its flap of door pinned wide. I felt myself buckle under the pressure of being pushed forth, and I fell on my knees, receiving a dark expression from Cairion.
"Get up!" He ordered, and I stumbled upwards, crying loudly. Men glanced this way and that, trying to find the origin of shrill cries. Eomer, oh Eomer. Please, help me.
I wished for Eomer to save me, yet I knew that was the last of my concerns. More, the concerns for myself dimmed with the idea of Eomer in his dangerous position. Would he know what was happening beneath the veil of Rohan? I wished to run and fling myself upon him, have him hold me with his strong arms in a loving embrace. But this would not be anymore. There was no chance in finding him again…there was only death now.
Cairion tied me to a post to the right of the tent, and he allowed me to slump to the forest floor. He himself plopped on a barrel, running his hand through his glossy black crow hair. I shuddered as the chills of wind incessantly caressed me like memories, icy and filled with crippling numbness. I could not move, nor speak, and I felt my chin high in rebellion.
"You know," Cairion spoke with dry humor, "Your lucky."
I stared straight, my eyes unfocused. I hardly caught his low voice, sifting beneath the lively gusts of wind.
"You really are…" He spoke to himself, as I'd given him no sense of acknowledgement. His dark hair fell over his surly face; tendrils of matted curls, giving the impression that he was encrusted with a film of dirt. His skin was darkened as well, and held an olive tone as my own did, though he was darker and seemed to hold rings of black around his eyes. The typical southern man.
"Lucky?" I hissed in despair, feeling the espionage of hatred coil and squirm round my innards. How could he possibly say that? I wanted to slap him, see him struggle as I did. I wished to see them all slain, and though my heart wallowed in a pit drenched with sorrow and bleeding lamentation, there was nothing more for me but a nightmare of hell turned living, "My life is lost already boy, and you would do well to stay silent in my presence. I am not the king's whore. I am…" But the words were too horrible to utter, and a great film of heavy tears weighted my eyelids and mouth, so that I clasped a hand over them, shielding my obvious suffrage from his eyes.
He did not look at me, nor did he especially care if I spoke as if I were higher than him. He simply sniffed and sighed lightly, plying with his leather gloves, "They all think that they are close to him, and then it turns out that they are simply another foolish capture, and in the end, believe me, you'll be glad for death. I've seen it before. Their using the same tactics in luring Eomer of Rohan to meet us on the battlefield; trying to get him to save his woman. Alas, when they call him to arms, relay the information of your whereabouts, he will not care. He will betray you just as he has the rest of his people." There was a smugness to Cairion's voice, and the wind howled despicably with wicked claws.
My shoulders began gesticulating, and that was when I realized that sobs were coming from my lips. I couldn't keep myself whole in this. Was this truth? Was what Cairion saying alight with something that I should have known all along? I buried my face into my knees, hating life and all its damned creation. What would become of me? Was I so much a ruined soul that in the end, all my futile attempts to cling to this world, and become a woman I could stand and be proud of, was it all for nothing? My fingers dug into my knees and I cried in a criminal carelessness. Some of the men ordered me to shut up, but I simply wept on, crumpling my lips so that the howling sobs could not be released, so that they came in hiccupping squeals.
"You know nothing!" I ached, "Nothing!"
"Oh, but I do Maerien." He sighed, leaning back sultry.
This was the last I heard of him, before I cried myself to sleep, lying upon the leaves of a sodden forest, desperation my only companion.