A/N: Hello again and thanks for reading! This would have been posted sooner, but I suffered from some writer's insecurity, rewrote a large section of this, got terribly sick and didn't write anything for a whole week and then this website practically blew up. This is probably one of my shorter chapters! lol! When I started writing this chapter, what follows the first section of this was completely unplanned. But I decided it was a neccessity to put down. This whole writing process is very interesting! Down a little further, this really isn't meant to be a love scene, and you'll see what I mean. It's more just Eomer being Eomer. The next chapter should be relatively short too and I hope funny! Oh, in case you've never seen this word before dishabille it is pronounced dayz- ah - bee. As always, my sincerest hope is that you are entertained. Thanks for reading and PLEASE REVIEW! LOL!
"Izz al Din," Eothain began, reading from the small stack of papers he held in his hand, "Secretive man, that's for sure. Finding somebody who knows anything about him is scarcer than rocking horse shit. Damn near nobody wants to talk about him."
He sat in Eomer's chair, behind his desk, feet canted up, while Eomer and Loti each took up residence on a corner, legs hitched up like flamingos. On the tip of Eothain's straight nose sat a pair of newly acquired spectacles he didn't need. He wouldn't say where he got them, but insisted they made him appear more dignified.
Sorting through the pages, he perused his notes, explaining, "al Din's the chieftain of the largest tribe in the northern part of Harad here. His lands extend all the way along the river to the coast." He flicked a finger at a map of Harad and her plentiful and multifarious tribal kingdoms lying open on the desk outlining the vast expanse of al Din's territory and the sliver of land he controlled along the river to the sea in the west. "His headquarters are here, for obvious reasons, but here's the interesting part. Before he was chieftain, he was a merchant; made his fortune trading textiles and spices. Took charge of the clan by force. Pretty bloody coup it was too, from my understanding. He hired thugs from other clans to form his army that time. He held the tribe at sword point so to speak. They had no choice but to swear allegiance and accept him."
"You learned all that from playing cards?" Loti wondered aloud.
"That and a lot more, lassie! Men will tell you anything so as long as the beer's flowing."
Eothain, beyond just being sociable, had a way of extracting information from people in the subtlest and slickest of ways. He was charming and dapper with ladies, and charismatic and jovial with men. It was no surprise to find that Eomer, competent at recognizing unappreciated talents, put his gift of gab and gossip too god use. Eothian was his chief information officer. Not quite a spy, more like a social informant.
He had dropped his idiomatic way of speaking, for the most part, a thing he only did in the company of Eomer, and Loti had a sneaking suspicion Eothain was far more educated than he let on.
"Your little buddy there, Asif, his clan's lands were here," Eothain pointed to a small slice of land at the far eastern end of al Din's tribal lands. "Asif wasn't lying; al Din decimated them with his thug army and then absorbed whoever was left. Doesn't sound like he treats them very well, either, but, they're not his people so no surprise there."
"What else did you find out?" Eomer prompted.
Eothain scratched under chin, thoughtfully. "Oh, plenty! His wife's dead, whether or not he killed her nobody seems to know. Maybe she got in the way maybe not. Has two son's a little younger than us that he's priming to take over for him. He's got a few brothels… I said he was a merchant? Well, he still is."
What information Eothain couldn't extract through the odd drunken tavern patron or sheer inquisitiveness, he found out for himself, spending the last several weeks stalking the movements of al Din, his family, business associates and personal acquaintances.
"I guess oligarchy doesn't pay that well," Eomer interjected, with a wry smile and an ironic tone. "What does he trade in?"
Eothain raised his eyes to Eomer who was frowning intently. "Little bit of everything. He takes spices, cloth and indigo up north and brings back little bits of this and that. Dol Amroth lace, wine, iron ore, hides, wood."
"Doesn't sound that unusual," Loti contended.
"No, that's what I thought, too. Pretty ordinary stuff for a man who's supposedly running arms and black powder. So I spent a few days poking around the docks down there and talking with your buddy Indalecio. What did you two tell that man anyway? For some reason he thinks you emerged naked and bloodied from a mountain top with a sword in your hand. Imagine the scare your mother had!" He seemed to think himself very clever and laughed rowdily. Eomer didn't think so.
"And…" Eomer waited with growing impatience.
"And," Eomer drawled, mocking his leader's own tone, "his servant told me Indalecio said al Din's his biggest competitor. They're in some sort of pissing contest. They put on the happy face in public but really they can't stand each other. So Indalecio says al Din isn't making his money importing lace and wine. So I said, no, really? So he says al Din's got ships docking in the night real sneaky-like, unloading in the dark. I'll bet my left nut it's not just weapons, it's human cargo, too."
Loti butted in, asking, "How do you know?"
She wasn't inclined to like this Indalecio anymore now than on their first meeting in spite of Eomer's beliefs of the man's honorable sensibilities. From the sound of it Indaledio wasn't indisposed to running his own 'human cargo.' He probably would have liked Eomer to sell her, so he could turn around and resell her himself, to al Din, at considerable profit, too!
"It sure ain't lace, girlie. Let's put it this way, I don't have to smell horse shit to know its horse shit."
Eomer appeared apprehensive in asking, but all concerned knew it needed to be asked, "Human cargo? From where? Did he know?"
Rohirric views on the value of women, life and their role in humanity were clear, to them at least, and voiced, often times, very loudly. Women were the bearers of life and the keeper of a man's home and his heart. She was, therefore, treated as an equal to man in the eyes of Rohirric law and society. A Rohirric man who found his women considered anything less would be gravely insulted. All life to the Rohirrim was precious, too; preserved and revered to the best of their ability…when it was possible. Even in the solemn face of bodily death, life was thought to live on somewhere in the vast reaches of time and depths space. Customary funeral celebrations were not always considered to be sad affairs and held to remind the grievers they would again meet the dead in some sort of everlasting. Slavery and indenture were considered cruel and inhumane, a vile atrocity and an abhorrence to the very nature of a man's free spirit. They were the kindest and most generous of people but also the fiercest, philosophically fatalistic and the most bloody stubborn.
Eothain made a disgusted sound, very similar to the noises Eomer made, Loti thought. "That's a tricky one because Indalecio says he's not selling them down at the slave markets. If al Din was a slaver, he wouldn't bother bringing them in at night. He'd do it in plain sight, right in front of us. There's nothing we can do about it, right? Not on his side of the river anyway. Indalecio thinks he's got buyers lined up beforehand, then kidnaps what he needs to fill his orders. Women mostly, some boys. Whatever the client wants. Exotics bring the highest prices, fair skinned, dark skinned, fair haired…Bought for concubines or house slaves, I guess. Then he runs the weapons in on the same ship."
"He seems to have it all covered. Merchant. Pirate. Smuggler," Loti observed thinking of the chocolate skinned girl she had chased out of Eomer's tent, and, also of her own fair golden complexion and brilliant blue eyes.
"Ya-huh. Al Din's smarter than we give him credit for."
"Yah? Why's that?" Eomer said.
"He knows if we caught him with kidnapped women, especially if they were kidnapped Gondorians, it would give us a reason to go over there and depose him. But… since we don't have any proof he's actually trafficking women, let alone kidnapped women from up north…" He trailed off, leaving Eomer to cringe unhappily.
"Then I don't have a reason to take our Riders over there and burn the damn place to the ground."
"That's right!" Eothain agreed, "Gondor's council's tied their own hands not wanting you to make a fuss. And while they're bossing you around and buttering up this chieftain and brown nosing with that enemy, it's likely their own women, and probably their allies' women, being sold into slavery! And if you do go over there using that as a reason and don't find anything—"
Loti was following Eothain's line of thinking and snorted, breaking in with, "And you're not going to find anything—"
Eothian winked broadly at her understanding, "You'll cause a political nightmare for the Council and they'll discredit you from Arnor to Umbar in front of al Din and all the other chieftains saying that you're a war mongering warlord and you didn't have permission, or you're a hot head and out of control."
The two men turned to see Loti unsuccessfully stifling a giggle. Eothain's big mouth split into a clowning grin, teeth covered in a yellowish brown plaque obscured mostly by his bushy and tightly curling beard. Eomer did not smile. Eothian abruptly sobered, brushing aside this bit of joviality while Loti's tongue swept obsequiously over her own smooth, straight, white teeth just to make sure.
"You could lose any power you've gained, eh? But if you don't go over there…"
This time it was Eomer who interrupted. "We'll never find the weapons or the powder kegs."
"Right again. If we don't find the weapons, we'll never know where they're going, or who's buying them. You know, at first, I didn't think it was real smart idea to run the weapons and the women together, too much risk in getting caught. But I can see now why he does it. There's really less of a risk if he brings them in together because fewer shipments lowers the chances we might catch him red handed."
Loti had been nibbling her lip, but now ventured to ask the obvious. "So why bother moving some of the weapons over land if he's bringing them in by boat too?"
Eothain gave her a one shoulder shrug, speculating, "Could be a sacrificial shipment, just to see what we'd do."
"Those two barrels of powder, though," Eomer put in, "they were worth something. Swords and weapons are replaceable, but I can't see a man like al Din just giving up those casks to see what we'd do. It's only two barrels, but still, black power's dangerous to make and expensive."
"It's not cheap to send out a boat for such a small amount of cargo… Maybe he gets what he can get while he can get it and brings it down over land."
"Or," Loti added her own hypothesis to the mix of conjectures and suppositions, "it's a little of both. Asif's wagon load could have been a distraction. Something to draw your attention away and keep you occupied while he runs a bigger load right under your nose."
Both men nodded agreeably at this; it was a possibility.
"Well," Eothain said with a loud exhalation, fanning himself with the short stack of papers in his hand, "Suppose it don't matter how he's getting the stuff over there. He's getting it."
There was a long moment of quiet between the three. The sounds of life continuing outside the solitude of Eomer's tent seemed excruciatingly loud what with the whickering of horses, the voices of talking men, the jangling of harness and tack. Each kept his own eyes averted, not wanting to ask what needed to be said but knowing for the good of all it must be. Loti felt the anxiety in the room, a heavy weight of tension in her own chest.
It was EomerKing who finally broached to topic. "So what are we going to do about it?"
Eothain stopped fanning himself and tossed the stack down on the desk with a papery plop.
Their blue gazes met head on, grim and foreboding. "Are you sure you want to do this, Eomer?" His friend urged cautiously, taking off the spectacles and tossing them on the table with a tiny clinking noise
In all the months Loti had known these two, never once had Eothain referred to Eomer by his given name. Rooster, Gelding, Sodder, Tosser, Boy, His Majesty the Royal Pain in the Ass were all regularly heard and commonly used. He was even jokingly called Eomund the Younger occasionally when he became too bossy. But never Eomer.
Eothain had done his research on the man al Din, knew much more that Eomer did not. This would be a deadly serious game, its outcome unknown. She liked Eothain very much indeed, depended on Eomer, and her heart twisted in fear for them both, all because of a use of a name.
But Eothain didn't stop there, speaking candidly in a way a man might to his closest and oldest friend. "Boy, he's as ruthless as you are kind hearted. Aaahh, don't give me that modesty horseshit, either," he scolded crossly, as Eomer shifted his position on the desk corner, making a sneering, dismissive face. "You're the only one who doesn't see it. And don't go thinking Izz al Din's held back by councilors and politics. He's got two or three times as many men who're willing to fight and die for him than you do here. He'll come after us if he thinks were getting in his way. He's a rich man and ambitious. A little thing like EomerKing and his two thousand or so men isn't going to stop him."
On a long sigh Eomer answered. "Do I have a choice?"
The question wasn't meant to be answered. Both men knew he did not. And both men knew Eothain would do whatever his friend, not his king, asked, but that didn't stop him from scowling, drawing his ruddy brows together in concern. "You've seen what that stuff can do as well as I have," Eomer added in what was an unneeded effort to convince Eothian.
"Seen it! Ha!" Eothain spouted a short laugh and a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes as he dug a finger into one ear, "Yah, I've seen it. Still can't hear right from it, either, and got the knot on the back of my head to prove it."
"By now somebody'll have told him some big northerner's been nosing around, asking questions about him. He's bound to figure out who it is and what we're after."
"So you don't mean to be subtle about it?" Eothain comfirmed.
"Only as subtle as we have to be. He's not dumb. He'll know what were looking for and that we're itching to catch him at it. Until then we'll just have to wait and see what Asif brings us."
XXX
As the days passed into high summer, hot and laborious, the Horse Lords of the Riddermark subsided into their existence, entertaining themselves in the way of men far from home, with drinking, gambling, whoring, and other lewd and debaucherous acts of chicanery and gluttony. No man seemed exempt from the boredom of camp life and each man sought his own release and reasonings to participate in the goings on.
Eothain lost a substantial amount of Eomer's money playing cards one night in an attempt to uncover more of Izz al Din's dirty laundry. Word did come of the birth of his newest son, who just happened to be a girl; inciting Eothain and his closest twenty two friends to get stinking, stumbling, dry heaving drink. Wolf and Eoin, gallant gentleman both, were involved quite a large taproom fist fight. Precipitated by defending some woman's honor, and aided by a hogshead of dark ale and a handful of other Eorlingas, the situation resolved itself when the tavern caught fire. Aric met the news that his erstwhile lover was once again pregnant with a groan like a hungry bear after months of hibernation. Hifur, whom Loti saw only on occasion, succeeded in singeing off several inches of his glorious black beard whilst engrossed in his scientific need to exploded stuff, much to the unspoken delight of more than one Horse Lord. One fine dark evening, Loti's labors for the day completed, she plucked a lantern from its nail and headed for the privy, in a pre bedtime ritual. She jiggled the latch on the wobbly privy door, and if fell open limply with a feminine gasp and a throaty male groan wafting from the grimy interior. Bringing the light up higher to get a better look inside, there was a toss of blonde hair and Eomer lifted his head, distracted from his industrious nibbling. Eomer, occupying the cramped space from stem to stern with his bare breasted companion and otherwise amorously engaged, shot Loti a level blue look, reached out, hooked a finger in the latch and shut the door, seemingly unaware of the privy's stink.
Most evenings were spent around the campfire talking, singing, or listening to stories of one kind or another, or participating in the Rohirric man's favorite activity, gossiping. Every man was invited to share the hospitality of their king's hearth and welcomed with alacrity and too much ale. Some nights as many as fifty men might be about the fire, deep voices humming like bees in the hive before buzzing off to investigate and pollinate another's fire.
There was a man from Edoras named Tellyn who was a frequent visitor to the fire and always heralded with much excitement. Tellyn, a tall young man with dark hair and a roguish countenance, who, by unfortunate circumstance of birth was part Dunlendish, not everyone could be full blooded Rohirrim, after all, was a farmer by trade but musician by night, and would spend his evenings plying his skills at various gatherings. His instrument of choice, by way of its portability, had a flat wooden body, with incurving sides and a long, fretted neck and peg head with knobs for six strings.
His songs, anything from drinking tunes, to battle hymns to ballads, were in turns hilarious, raunchy, bloody, tender and sad and all were encouraged to join in the singing.
One muggy summer's night, much to Loti's shock and amusement, Tellyn, seated in the place of honor on his king's right, turned and handed the instrument to Eomer. His face burned red with embarrassment even under the brown of his tan and orange ring of firelight when as many as forty half stupored men assaulted His Royal Majesty, Eomer, Son of Eomund, Eighteenth Ruler of the Kingdom of Rohan with catcalls and raucous bellows.
"So you play more than just the skin flute, do you, Rooster?" Cried one man.
"My sister said those fingers were talented!"
"Is that how you get so many women, then? You sing them to sleep first?" Came a clear heckling from across the fire.
"He has to or they'll find out he's too quick on the draw!"
Tentatively, he took the instrument out of Tellyn's hands, placing it over his knee, sheepishly plucked out a few cords and began to sing.
He was good. Very good, in fact. Free of its normal throaty rasp, Eomer's singing voice was a deep, resonant baritone, dark and sweet as melted chocolate poured into caramel, refined through years of secret practice. His true talents were revealed during the ballads, when the beauty of his voice and the passion he imbued it the words over shadowed even the simplest accompaniment.
She listened captivated, leaning forward on her knees longing to hear every note, every pluck of the strings, wondering again of this oddity who was both sword wielding soldier and sweet voiced singer. His words floated to her like ashes from the fire, then drifted up to the heavens, an offering in song to the stars.
Loti, too, was not without her own personal triumphs. Eomer had finally given her a place to sleep.
One afternoon with a gruff, "Here," he pulled back the flap of a small tent, revealing a modestly decorated interior, complete with a rickety camp bed and an ancient table for her "gods awful clutter"; the clutter in question being one pink scarf, one gown, one wooden box containing a hairbrush and mirror, and one leather bag full of soaps all of which took up approximately two square feet of space in one of his trunks.
When she stared up at him in open mouthed delight, he grunted, sounding exactly like a constipated truffle hog.
And then there was Glullyn. He was generous, attentive and handsome, a young man of excellent character, and a natural horseman. He was a fine and worthy addition to any man's army. Any army that was except Eomer's…
Eomer disliked the lad, or rather, he disliked the boy's intentions and affections for Loti.
"Men are only looking for one thing no matter what they say. You of all people should know that! Or are you too smitten with him to see it?" He snarled.
It was, she supposed, this sentiment that lead him to see she received her own private quarters.
In any case, Loti enjoyed spending as much time as possible with Glullyn. Eomer was right, though, he was quite obviously sweet on her. He never attempted anything so outwardly blatant as holding hands or kissing though, probably fearing Eomer's threat to emasculate any man who touched her without his almighty blessing.
At night, when time allowed, Loti would sit next to him around the fire, dissolving into fits of giggles at something he said, Eomer's shadowed face frowning across the flames in unacceptable disapproval. She found his overbearing protectionism reassuring. It meant Glullyn's feelings for her were more than just the imaginings of a silly girl; that maybe it was possible for a girl like her to love and be loved in return. Would he ask Eomer's permission court her when they both returned to the Riddermark? She hoped so. She liked Glullyn, too.
Revelry and high spirits couldn't last forever, though.
Riots were a constant threat and had become an all too frequent occurrence, even on the northern side of the river. Large hordes of men would pour into the streets, wielding sticks or clubs, hurtling stones at the horses, denouncing the Rohirrim's presence, renouncing Gondorian rule; violence their main avenue of airing grievances.
Two men had died, pulled from their mounts in a crushing onslaught of insurgent rioters, and beaten in the street before their fellows could regroup and drive back the swarm of angry humanity. The Riders of Rohan were fierce and mighty men, but even they were not immortal.
They had no families, no wives or children left behind, but they were young men. Too young to meet their end frightened and alone.
Loti had gone with Eomer to see the dead men, although he wished otherwise. Eomer was no stranger to death and brutality, but had not ever become immune to it; an undervalued emotion in a man who, by right of his title, could send another to his death.
The crowd of men surrounding the bodies parted, allowing him to pass. EomerKing's Riders stood grim and quiet, hushed by his presence and the immediate awareness of their own mortality. He lowered his eyes to the two lifeless men laid with due care upon the sandy ground, the blood and bruises of their struggles fresh on their still warm bodies, the acrid smell of death in the air.
Then he stepped forward, erect and strong, separating himself from the secure anonymity of the crowd as though he had forgotten any of his men stood near. No sounds echoed in the clearing except for the sigh and wuffle of horses unnerved at the closeness of death as he knelt beside each man, dead faced himself, and placed a hand over their hearts, head bent in reverent humility. She knew he must touch the dead, so their ghosts would not haunt him, but Loti had no doubt that for Eomer, this was a very public way to perform a very private act.
What did he say to them, she wondered, studying him as he bowed before the fallen, yielding to them his pride. Did he thank them? Praise them? Commend their souls so that they may find peace? Did he pray for them? For himself? Did he beg their forgiveness?
It was an honorable death, she was given to understand. To die well, as in battle, would secure one's everlasting fame. It was accepted and expected. "All men must die," Eomer had stated quite plainly. Loti thought it truly a waste.
These warriors had been the first of his men to die here; a result of this clash of culture and politics and evil. They certainly would not be the last victims of this conflict.
Eomer spared no expense for the funeral celebration, knowing full well the importance of food and drink as a useful distraction. He attended only briefly.
It was not too long after this that Loti noticed a change in Eomer's behavior. He was moody and erratic to start with but he was becoming a man she almost couldn't recognize. Anti social wouldn't be a word she would use to describe him, but the passing of everyday aided his farouche mood and his need for solitude was growing, a want to seal himself away from the world. Eomer became withdrawn, quiet, and distant, drawn into himself like a snail into his shell or a wooly caterpillar feeling threatened. He would stare blankly, not listening, or pick up papers, not reading, walk about the camp listless and restless without any purpose or direction. He rarely spoke of anything, save work, and ate little, claiming he 'didn't feel like it.' Rutterless, he drifted from day to day like a ship at sea unable to anchor, buffeted by a power he could not control, helpless to help himself.
He did drink, though.
Loti rose from her bed late one night practically bursting, in need to find the privy. The masses that had circled the fire earlier, laughing and joking, had long since gone to their own beds. All but one.
Eomer sat all alone on a log before the dying embers, staring sightlessly into the white hot interior, hissing and popping with the occasional tongue of blue flame. His shoulders were hunched, elbows propped on his knees and he was singing very, very softly, his lips hardly moving, the words barely more than a hiss of air from his mouth. There was a bottle of something at his feet. Whiskey or ale? The blue eyes never lifted as she came nearer, staying fixed on the circle of fire before him in distraction and despair. Did he know she was there?
Her hand rested lightly on his shoulder, as a perching bird's might. There was no movement from him beneath it, no flinching at her touch, no tension or startlement. His tune was an old one, sung in some ancient guttural language she didn't understand, yet somehow very beautiful. Still, she thought she didn't need to know the words to recognize the meaning of his low, sad crooning. This was a song of loss and pain.
"Eomer," she whispered, regrettably thinking she shouldn't have bothered him in this moment of privacy, "is…everything alright?"
No, of course it wasn't, she could see that plainly enough. But what else could she offer besides her compassion?
He did speak then, but did not turn his face from the fire. "Go away," Eomer insisted, his voice as distant as his thoughts.
Three days later Eomer didn't get out of bed.
Loti found the king still abed when she brought him his morning meal and sighed, thankful he had finally found peaceful sleep. She could handle any problems that arose, so with a smile, she left him to the world of his dreams. At mid morning, she poked her head in to check. His food was still on his desk, untouched. Still asleep then, she thought and backed out. By mid day Loti stood in the doorway, scowling deeply. His long, limp body lay half naked and still in the heat of the day, head buried under his pillow like an ostrich. Not asleep then. A thread of worry tugged in her belly. This was beyond just unusual behavior for Eomer. He was always awake at the ass crack of dawn! Could he be sick?
Mid afternoon came and went and it was clear he would not be getting up. People were asking for him, and wondering. Could he sign this, come and attend to that, Firefoot bit one of the herd lads, would he give permission to have the gray bastard castrated, did he want to go and grab a pint, could the boys from Dunharrow have an extra keg of beer seeing as how they done extra patrols this week and Himself didn't even have to ask? By evening, Loti decided she must do something. The place could simply not run without him and who knew how long this might last.
She eased the flap back to find him still flat on his stomach, head still covered by the pillow. Her original plan was to rouse him commando raid style; march in, grab him about the balls and haul him forcibly out of bed by them. But as she stood there in the door with her eyes on him, the grip she held on her anger released, replaced with tenderness and sympathy that swelled her heart.
"It's just that sometimes a man just needs to work things out on his own. This is the first time you've seen it…" Eothain's words echo distantly in her mind. "It's gotten worse over the last year or so, but the man's got a lot on his mind. It'll happen again. Oh, and don't go asking him about it, either."
Don't ask him about it, because Eomer did not want to be felt sorry for.
She looked back to the man on the bed, physically so big and strong, proud and capable, reduced to this. Eomer's demons were strong though too, and growing stronger, it seemed with every passing day. "Kill himself? Ghaw, girl! He's not going to kill himself," Eothain had said. But now Loti wasn't so sure. Eomer was well known to be headstrong, rash, and reckless in battle, even careless and heedless of consequences at times. He may not gut himself with his own knife, but, in the throes of melancholy, might choose to die at the hand of his enemy, in a purposeful, premeditated martyrdom. Would that be how he finally achieved peace? By slipping his earthy bonds in battle so he could receive his immortality through song and story?
Was this why Gondor was so eager for him to marry and produce an heir? Surely his headlong spirit and inclination to act without thinking was well known. Aragorn was his friend, had fought with him in battle… Could he see it, too, his friend's self destructive proclivities? Did he worry his friend might die and leave his people with no figurehead, no leader and no one to follow? Did Aragorn worry as much for the Riddermark as he did for his friend, or his own country and people?
Loti felt a moments stinging pity for Aragorn. The man really was in a tight spot.
And what would become of his people if Eomer were to die with no son? Who would lead them? The man called Erkenbrand? His sister? His sister's son, if she ever had one? His sister's husband? Would the Kingdom of Rohan cease to exist; the Oath of Eorl forfeit with EomerKing's death and no male heirs or relatives to succeed him? Would the Rohirrim, a people with hundreds of years of their own history and society submit to Gondorian rule?
She swallowed thickly, suddenly fearful. Eomer wouldn't do such a thing, would he? Let his demons take over and succumb to them…much as her mother had…
No, she told herself, then, no, again with more conviction.
Above all things, Eomer was a man of honor and she was well aware of his feelings towards Gondorian aristocracy; the Prince Imrahil and the man Faramir who would soon be his brother in law excluded. He wouldn't choose to end his own life, if only out of sheer dislike of Gondor's nobles.
She scarcely knew how she made it to his side. Lowering herself, Loti perched on the edge of his bed, the frame creaking a little with her weight, slight though it was, but he did not stir. Her hand lifted, as if free of her own will to rest on the broad, flat angle of his shoulder blade, big as her own hand.
Not sick then, she determined. His skin was warm to the touch, and damp; sweaty but not clammy. If his sickness was of the heart and not of the body, then there was nothing she could do. Medicinal tea or infusions of this or that were useless when it was the soul that was diseased; the essence of him eaten from the inside out. She was helpless, powerless to give him relief.
She could feel the tightening in her chest, a raw soreness in her throat as her palm heated to his skin, bonding their link. It wasn't pity, not at all. She cared for Eomer and wished if it were pain he felt that she could take it into her own body, draw it from him like she might poison from a wound. Because surely he was poisoned. She wished to free him, wished to help him before it took him, before he died a prisoner of himself.
What could she do for him? How could she protect him from himself, his actions, and his demons? How could she shelter him, keep him safe? How could she save his soul and his heart from rotting and dying in his own chest, or from being eaten away like acid poured on flesh?
What could she do for Eomer that she could not for her own mother?
Nothing.
He must fight his own battle, wage his own war against his demons, and come out victorious…or not at all. But in either case, there was very little she could do except offer him the compassion of her touch, to let him know another cared.
"Oh, E," she sighed, hoping he heard, "You are the most stubborn, blockheaded, difficult, impossible man I have ever known!" And pulled her hand away, the link between them broken.
To do nothing for a man as great and strong as Eomer left her with the most hollow and empty of feelings.
In the morning she found his bed abandoned, his tent deserted, saddle, boots and weapons missing. There was a note, propped up on his desk like a paper tent. 'Girl,' it read black in his chicken scrawl, 'Gone out.'
XXX
He lay for a moment with his eyes shut, his mind and body stirring out of sleep and not wanting to wake. Couldn't he just lay here languoring near the edge of consciousness until tomorrow? Why couldn't he just forget who he was and his responsibilities for the rest of the day?
Dammit, he could not.
After a few minutes of lying there counting sheep, who turned into horses that enjoyed biting herd boys in the shoulder, he made a disagreeable noise, deciding that he wasn't falling back to sleep. With a sluggish flutter and some reluctance, he opened his eyes, mazy and sleep crusted as they adjusted to the dim light of the room and he yawned hugely, his jaw opening with a pop. His had been the slumber of a man after a morning's hard labor, and so it had been. The small room had only one window that he remembered and light shone brightly around the edges of the closed shutters like a square ring of fire.
Groaning and stretching, Eomer wondered what time it was. Time to get up soon, he figured; there was a different kind of work to be done. He took a deep breath, inhaling the sweet intoxicating scents of herbs and flowers and relaxed back on the bed. It had been a long time since he had slept on a mattress filled with billowy soft feathers and he was loathed to leave it, or its occupant.
Goosebumps rose in a wave that stippled his skin, prickling the hairs of his chest and arms. The room was quite cool despite the heat outside and he put a hand out, groping.
Was she still there?
She was.
As a regular thing, Eomer didn't like to pay for his pleasures. Women were to be chased, hunted, and prized in victory. And he thoroughly enjoyed the chase nearly as much as he enjoyed the sex; feeling the thrill of conquest, having the knowledge that he had won, defeating all other potential lovers or suitors and maybe the woman's own inhibitions. Not that he hadn't bedded whores before, but he always found it an awkward business, even in the Mark with their unconstrained views of sexual propriety. Maybe it was boyish embarrassment, maybe feelings of inadequacy, or lack of self control that made him feel odd, uneasy… dirty. There was no sense of accomplishment, no knowing she had wanted him and wanted him willingly. She was simply there for fucking.
Again, he thought, arguing with himself, not that he didn't mind a good all night fucking festival. He could rise to that challenge any day and Eomer laughed at his own wry humor.
But the damnable fact was he wasn't a young man anymore. For a Rohirric man to live to old age he must be very lucky indeed, avoiding various infections and diseases, farm injuries, famine, and war. Add full time soldiering to that list and it meant he was well beyond middle age. All men his age were married. All had children and families of varying degrees. All but him, that was. That meant there was no one his own age to go carousing with, no one with which he could share his adventures. Oh, sure, Eothain and his other friends wouldn't scruple at spending all night in a tavern drinking and playing cards, but when the fun was over, they had warm beds and loving families to return to, leaving Eomer alone to see that his own needs were fulfilled.
Wouldn't it be nice to have someone who was just his, he asked for the ten thousand millionth time? A woman who was his and his alone. To know what she liked and how she liked it? To kiss woman goodbye when he left and not wonder if she would still be there when he came home. To know that there was someone out there who loved him. To have someone who would mourn him in death and remember his life. Someone who he could shelter and defend, this unknown woman and their unborn children…
He didn't want a plaything, he wanted a partner.
His chest rose heavily, and Eomer sighed, scratching himself. Funny things, a man's balls; so firm and drawn up, like unripened fruit, full and sore with his unspilled seed, now flaccid, soft and relieved like his cock. Hell, he was getting old, pondering the functions of his body!
Well, not going to find you a wife here, old boy, an inner voice echoed in his ear.
But finding perspective wives and plugging whore's holes wasn't the reason he came this morning. He came for companionship.
The gods damned place smelled like sex when he ducked his head under the lintel and entered the lavishly decorated main receiving room. Wretchedly vile places, whorehouses, he thought disgusted with himself, but men were wretched creatures and he had a burning need. Mornings in such places were usually slow; the goods for sale on display in bedraggled dishabille and available for entertaining, since only a barbarian would consider fornicating in the light of day.
Well, and so he was.
Stereotypes aside, the girls' eyes gleamed greedily at the sight of Eomer, either from lack of sleep or because of his appearance, when he was ushered with business like zeal into the large parlor. A soldier, especially a well dressed one with obvious wealth, would pay in gold coin. Eomer didn't stop to peruse the Madame's riches, instead, he grabbed the first girl he thought promising and bounded up the stairs.
Searching again, his hand brushed against the cool skin of her arm and she stirred with a sigh.
"Are you awake?" He asked huskily, his voice still hoarse from sleep.
"Mmmm," she breathed and sighed again.
"Come here, then."
Eomer gathered her into his arms, pulling her on to him so she laid full length over his body. She was tall and rounded and hippy with dark olive skin and big brown eyes and her large, high breasts pressed flat against his chest. He didn't want her; for right now he only wanted to hold her, and buried his face in the abundance of her coarse brown curly hair, smelling her inviting honeysuckle scent.
The feel of her in his arms was comforting, almost like she belonged to him, and he supposed for a languishing moment, she did.
He had been so lonely, so, so desperately lonely; so in need of another's touch, in reassurance that he himself still lived and might still know love. He needed to know he hadn't yet compressed into a ball of hate and anger, and torment and death.
And in the normal course of events, his loneliness had turned to sadness and his sadness to-
No, he wouldn't think of it. It was gone now. Eomer had found his answer, this time at least. He was still a whole man. It wasn't that he only wanted to bed the whore; he wanted to make love to her, to know that he still could.
She jiggled up and down as he laughed a little bit. He wasn't too far gone into the realm of beasts if his sense of humor was intact; less so if he could make fun of his own faults. From the very first time, Eomer perpetually had trouble…lasting. The first time was without exception a bust, in more ways than one. After that, though…
But this girl…oh, she knew things, did things he didn't know possible, helped him to last for a very long time.
Splaying his fingers, Eomer smoothed his hands over the long expanse of her back, smooth and bowed nicely to her mounded buttocks, feeling something growing between them.
Now it was her turn to giggle. "Mmmm," she said, drawing her knees up and rolling her hips wantonly.
There was something growing between them!
The growth in question was wedged like a sausage surrounded in a fleshy bun. His breath caught in his throat and she did it again, the satin sleekness of her secret curls skimming his belly.
"I don't—I mean, we don't have to. I'm happy just like this…holding you." Yes, the ache was gone, the burning eased, but the want was still there. She would hear no protests from him if she chose to do more.
"Man no leave bed mine with stiff cock," she replied in thickly accented Westron, her voice deep and gravelly, as though rocks were caught in her throat. She reached between their bodies and grasped him for emphasis, "You hairy face like animal, cock like beast. Big!" She smiled appreciatively, and then reached between his legs and cupped his testicles. If this was her idea of dirty talking, she was doing a very poor job of it. "Balls hairy, big like bull. Powerful seeds. Not healthy leave in there. Seeds die, balls shrivel, fall off. Cock no work, wife very angry."
No chance of that happening, he thought hazily. Blood throbbed behind his closed eyes in hard, even red and black waves in time to his heart beat as she slid the tip of him inside the gap between her legs, moistening him in preparation. Everything down there…seemed to be…functioning…just fine.
"I help pull seeds out hard cock. You powerful again, feel better. Balls, cock, healthy. Wife happy. Many sons!"
Eomer couldn't contain his laughter, and his belly quivered underneath her slight weight at her crude, muddled wording and to-the-point, very misguided advice.
"I speak truth!" She exclaimed, appalled at his flippancy, "Laugh now, no laugh when cock broke. Wife thank me. You thank me when done here. Yes, yes?"
The tip of him was poised at her opening and he could feel her heat, questioning, inviting. Oh, yes, he would thank her when he was done, alright. Eomer grabbed hold of her hips, fingers digging into her flesh, and took her in one mighty thrust, sheathing himself completely inside, soft and warm. The brutality of his entry made her gasp in pain, but she was smiling when he pulled her by the neck to take her mouth. He liked knowing the line that divided pain from pleasure was so close, enjoyed using a woman until she was dry and his own cock rubbed raw from friction. It meant he could still feel.
She was a lusty whore and he met the gentle, insistent rocking of her hips with his own thrusts, while exploring her mouth and keeping her rhythm steady with hands that gripped her bottom.
It struck Eomer that she was making love to him, so with her muffled cry of "Uff!" as he crushed her to his chest, he rolled, not breaking their tenuous link. He settled himself more firmly between her thighs and began to move again.
On impulse, he brushed the hair back from her face, wanting to look into her eyes dark as it was. It was ridiculous, he had chosen this girl not the other way around, and it was bothersome that he should bring another woman into this bed, but he could help thinking of something that girl Loti had said.
"The best assassin is the one you never notice. One day you'll see me scrubbing your floors, enjoying looking at my bottom, and the next you'll have me warming your bed. But my job is to kill you. Maybe I'll do it right away, maybe in a few weeks, but you will be dead. Did you know I once killed a man using nothing but a wine glass?"
Eomer's eyebrows went up curiously as he lifted another spoonful of supper to his mouth. "How did you pull that one off?"
"Ground the glass and put it in his food. Doesn't take very much. It's a horrible and slow way to die," she said matter of factly, in a moment of unbragging candor.
He had stopped chewing at that and swallowed convulsively, glancing down at the food she had so kindly offered to bring him that evening, his sky blue eyes going big as tea cups.
"Oh, don't worry!" She bubbled cheerfully, "I'm becoming quite fond of you! I only wanted to kill you two times this week. Luckily for you, today isn't one of those days!"
Loti, that obstinate wench…
A low moan broke from his throat at the thought of her, eyes rolling to the back of his head as his cock grew painfully tight. He began thrusting with a deeper rhythm, the muscles of his back and buttocks tense and strained with self control.
He'd catch hell from her when he returned, and rightfully so, taking off like he did, knowing she would be running around in a worried panic looking for him. The girl was probably having kittens right this minute! She was always attentive, compassionate and concerned for his well being, mixing in the right amount of severity, sternness and suggestive nagging to do what few could ever do—keep him in line. Eomer had no doubt one day Loti would be an excellent wife and mother, he only hoped it would be later rather than sooner. And if that was selfish, to hell with it!
Only recently had she begun telling him about her life as an assassin. She had been not only an emissary of death but also of pleasure. From what he had gleaned from the few halting things he's pried out of her, like liquor out of a drunkard's hand, she had been bedded by dozens of men, not all of whom she'd killed. He hated listening to these stories, but knew he must if he were to understand her better and help her to heal. But it was what she didn't say that troubled him the most. The missing years of her life that must certainly be, if it had not already become, a fatal injury to her heart, pustulant and abscessing. It was the not knowing what sorts of cruelty had been perpetrated against her that churned like white water rapids through his mind. Emotional abuse? Mental mistreatment? Physical submission? Nothing could make him more angry, a man—no, not a man, an animal—taking her by force, against her will; some filthy, dirty bastard's paws groping that lovely body, seeing in his mind another's mouth on hers, another man smothering her body, looming over her, riding her as she—
No, he couldn't think about that… Not right now…
If she would only tell him what had happened, who had done it, he would gladly throw all caution to the wind, and seek revenge on these so called men for all her losses. She was too beautiful, too young to live with death and hate and anger, feelings he knew all too well could kill a man.
Gods, he wished he could help Loti, do for her what he could not for his own mother, his own sister, and the scores of women in the Riddermark left scarred and heartbroken from war.
The room was dark, his vision blurred by the ferocity of his own feral lust, but Eomer thought he could see the glint of dark blue eyes, a flash of skin like bronze dipped in cream, and the spill of chestnut hair, lightened into streaks of amber and cinnamon by the sun.
He could feel her light touch on the back of his bent head, cupping, comforting, caressing down his neck and fingertips trailing across the broad expanse of his back, tracing the thick cords of his spine, laying flat her palms on his shoulder blades as though she could bond their flesh merely through the want of physical contact. All of his fears, his troubles, his hurts were no more then, the bricks inside his chest replaced with utter peace and contentment, a moment of joy devoid of all hopelessness and desolation. The abandonment of his heartache to the feel of those hands on his skin, unburdening his thoughts to her lips and mouth, and purging the poison and misery from who he was, the man he had become, into the body of the woman who now surrendered to his own.
Grazing his lips along the sharp curve of her jaw, he gave into his own passion, the belief in his own fantasy. He knew it was she who kissed him back, lips parting, tongues meeting, in question, in answer, yielding to his demand, seeking and tasting of sweet red wine, the tip of her tongue soft, warm, and wet.
A hand, fingers long and delicate, cupped his face then slid slowly to his throat, her thumb resting on the pulse that surged there unbridled and rabid, feeling the beating force of his life. The wave of peace overtook him again, washing through his body with tingles and prickles that made his body shudder and a sensation like goose bumps that tickled his belly and balls.
Eomer missed these touches, these simple acts of affection, not necessarily of a lover but of a woman who loved him solely for who he was. Once it had been the caressing of a heartsick boy's blonde head by his mother's large, smooth hand; a mother dead these many years. More recently, the insistent poking of a sister so stubborn, so bloody intransigent, she could rouse him out of the deepest bout of melancholy with nothing but single minded determination, persistence, and a tongue as sharp as barbed wire; a sister who he had finally let go.
Now, though, he was truly alone. There was no one in all of the world to love him only for himself. Oh, sure, Eowyn still did, he could argue, but that was the sisterly, familial kind. She had no choice, damn it, and he knew no matter what her pig headed older brother said or did, she always would. Unfortunately, it wasn't the kind of love he needed, the kind of close intimacy he might receive from a lover or a wife.
His heart was dying. It had been for some time, adding to his despair; breaking off into pieces, one at a time like splinters of rock chipped from a boulder. Soon only a ghostly outline of the man he had been would be left to wander amongst the living, his heart hardened, his body mangled, his soul doomed, his essence gone. His life over.
Slowly, so unwilling to break the spell cast over his imagination, he lifted eyelids heavy and intoxicated with unslaked, red blooded yearning, hoping to see long, feathery lashes flicking like the wings of a butterfly, and slightly slanted dark blue eyes as wide as almonds gazing back with enraptured abandon.
He pushed up a little, confused, feeling like a fish swirled too fast in a glass bowl and left out in the fog.
It was so dark, in the room, in his head. Was she there watching him, reading his eyes, his face, searching his expression for his thoughts and feelings until he could meet her own eyes in the humid, velvet darkness? Was it her Eomer found his pleasure in? The flat golden belly and narrow waist, pelvis and hips fitted tightly to his own, and breasts, small and round, the brownish nipples puckered to points. His hand cupped one breast carefully, swirling a thumb around the pliant, aroused nipple. It was warm to the touch, and full, swollen, and his hand closed over it, squeezing, so life like in its softness and movement for a woman who was a dream.
She must have felt his uncertainty, his hesitation and doubt, instinctually drawing him down so his warmth covered her, his heart touching hers, beating together in time.
"Ghaw, girl," he whispered to this naked, erotic figment of his imagination, his throat tight, his belly twisted in knots as he nuzzled and nibbled her ear, "You're so beautiful."
Eomer pushed inside, still rigid and achingly aroused, and loving the way her moan mixed with his, how she eagerly she lifted her hips to accept him fully.
"Oh, gods," he sighed, ramming against the soft flesh of inner thigh, her legs wrapped tightly about his hips. It was deafening, the blood coursing, pulsing, singing in his ears He dropped his head, pressing his cheek next to hers in hope of relieving at least some of the pressure surging through his skull like the pounding of a very large, very loud drum. In the excruciating roar, in the heavy, murkiness that swirled like clouds of smoke in his head, he let go his grip on tangible truths and realities, and began imagining it was she who laid spread beneath him, and he opening her, allowed ownership of her body.
XXX
"Oh, gods," Eomer murmured a little while later, rolling over onto his back. Reality was beginning to set in again.
He turned his head on the pillow to look at the whore, half laughing in embarrassment, and having trouble remembering her name. His chest heaved, rising and falling rapidly as he tried catching his breath. "I'm sorry," he huffed, laying an apologetic hand on the crest of her thigh. "Did I—Are you hurt? I'm sorry, I didn't mean to."
Alima, that was her name!
A soft rustling came from her pillow as she shook her head.
Eomer rested on his back for a few minutes, silently staring up at the ceiling of the dimly lit room, the bed sheets clinging damply to his hot body, for once not thinking. After a while of quiet mindlessness, he sat up, throwing his legs over the side of the bed. His mouth and throat were as dry as a bag of wool and tacky with thirst. He could smell himself, too, the ripe pungency of his own sweat and the fragrant film of her slickness still on his cock.
With a tremendous effort and equally as much reluctance, Eomer stood, jelly kneed. Her room was rather small and, with his eyes adjusted to the lack of light, crossed to the chest of drawers in only two steps. The tinderbox was a different story and he ferreted inside it before finding the flint and lighting the room's single candle. He poured each of them a cup of wine from the decanter, handing on to Alima. The smell of fresh fruit made his nose twitch, his belly felt like an empty pit he hadn't eaten in so long, and his fingers plucked a peach out of the bowl next to the wine before making his way to the window.
He cracked open the shutters, letting in a bright yellow slice of light, and stood for a long moment looking down on the street below, the cup of wine forgotten in his hand. The street was alive below with the sounds of city life and commerce; amicable greeting of friends, the creaking of wagon wheels, the repetitive swish, swish, swish of a broom on a door step, children crying, dogs barking, all mixed with the yeasty smell of bread baking and the faint tang of fresh horse shit. Ghaw, he hated cities!
Eomer shifted irritably against the window jam.
It was a terrible thing to make love to one woman while thinking of another, not to mention frustrating because there wasn't a damn thing in good conscience he could do about it! He was her king, Loti his subject. And, of all things, his secretary! He had given her the protection of his body, to seduce and bed her just because he could would be a devastating violation of her trust. His honor and her trust in his honor were the only ties binding them together. One slip of the knot and they would be irrevocably severed, he without her invaluable help and she without the one person in the world who actually cared about her welfare.
If she were to make advances towards him, though…
Ghaw, man, you'd find an excuse to sleep with your best friend's wife, he thought angrily.
His thumb was idly tracing the cleft on the peach's surface. That's how she had felt just now, split and ripe under his fingers, soft and juicy inside, sweet on his tongue. But her flesh, her nectar, was forbidden for him to taste, like fruit stolen from an orchard, denied to him in anything other than a fantasy.
Eomer raised the cup, taking a healthy swallow to rinse the taste of uneaten peach from his mouth and the salt of her skin from his lips.
He sighed, this time a sound of deepest longing. Who would want him, a man who seemingly could not settle down? Certainly not Loti, a girl who deserved the safety of a home and the security of a stable man.
Would his love ever be enough? This was a question he still had no answers to nearly twenty years after he first asked it. For his mother, his love had certainly not been enough. For his sister, just enough. Did love require something more? Was that 'something more' something he was lacking?
Eomer snorted, gazing out at the acres of unfamiliar buildings and city streets, and the miles and miles of endless crystalline sky, supposedly so much like the vast expanse of the sea he had never seen. He may as well ask why his cock stood up in the morning!
He had no clue.
As for Loti…
Maybe he just wanted a wild tumble in a tangle of limbs and half discarded clothing and slippery, sweaty skin under a heaving blanket, possibly involving a convenient and secluded pile of hay! It was natural for a man to want a woman as beautiful as she-what man could resist?-but he could not allow himself to indulge in that temptation. He must resist or risk losing too much of the normal life he so desperately wanted her to live. The girl needed him and he… well, there was a part of him that needed her, too.
Until the time came, if it ever did come, he could only allow himself to indulge in the idea and the fantasy.
His thoughts had turned from the subject, not wanting to continue dwelling on the impossible when an odd tingling danced up his spine. Unable to bear the prickles, he closed the shutters with a clatter and turned his back to the window, finding the whore, Alima, frowning ponderously at him in the glow from the candle.
"You women's problems," she declared hitching the bed clothes up higher around her bare chest.
Eomer gave her a sideways grin and glanced down, cupping himself. "Really? I didn't know that men could have problems like that!"
She made a censorious click of her tongue. "No, no, not what I saying. You problem with wife."
Leaving the sunshine of the window behind, he returned to the wine decanter to refill his cup, asking rudely, "Why would you say that?"
Alima was blunt, not concerned about tact or indelicacy. "You in me, use my body. Head, not here. Eyes," her fingers came up to her own eyes, making jiggling motions, "see not me. See other woman. You want slow, gentle, to love me long time. Then you fast, hard. Hurt me. You try make her feel you. Reach her inside me."
Eomer suddenly felt uncomfortably hot in the small, cool room. Had it been that obvious? He leaned back against the chest of draws, light from the single candle bathing him in a pool of flickering orange, his skin hot as the tiny flame.
He sniffed, turning his head from her all seeing brown eyes, sneering slightly in indignation at her affronting appraisal. Who the hell was she? "What makes you think you know so much about it?" The question and his tone were both challenging.
Her own voice was very calm but certain. "You think I not know. I know men. I know you."
She shifted in the bed, sitting up higher against the headboard and she shrugged as though knowing Eomer did not want to hear the rest. "Men come, want finding comfort. Sometimes here," she pointed between her outstretched legs, hidden beneath the quilts, "sometimes here," pointing to the side of her head, "sometimes here," she finished, pointing the long, slender finger to her heart. "What man want, I have. Not problem What man need… Is bigger problem. This," she gestured with a nod at her crotch, "not always fix problem. You…" Her voice trailed off and her eyes swept his naked candlelit body from head to toe, lingering speculatively on his male parts with a laugh, "no problem finding woman for warming bed. This," again nodding between her legs, "not fixing problem… You problem here and here." She touched both head and heart, diagnosing his emotional state of affairs with the same sort of grim matter of factness a healer might give bad news to a patient
He didn't answer, what was there to say, although he did stiffen and bristle at her explanation.
"She being the one fixing you. You and women, lots come, lots go. She still in here," Alima said, finger to her head, "She not go."
The whore turned back the bed linens and patted the spot on the mattress he had just vacated. "You come, sit, talk. We fix, or be heart that shrivel, die, not balls."
He felt terribly exposed, but oddly enough, not physically, even as he stood naked as the day he was born. She had spoken openly, honestly, without reservation or hesitation and, damn it, he knew it was true! His body was tall and strong and powerful but only a shell, a covering for a man whose spirit was injured at best, broken at worst. It was oddly disconcerting to have his soul laid open and examined by a woman, a whore, who knew nothing of him or he of her; this unknown woman who he had just finished making love to.
But she knew men, had probably see this same problem hundreds of times in the past; men lonely and desperate, in need of female companionship. And isn't this why he had come here, searching for comfort, looking to cast aside his despair, to feel the healing touch of a woman on him, around him?
Eomer set down the cup softly and came to the edge of the bed stead, slowly lifting the covers and climbing back in next to her. It was warm in the bed, her skin was warm, still flushed and heated from his uninhibited use of her body. She pulled his head to her shoulder, stroking the long strands of his blonde hair.
"When we done talking, you love her again properly. Call out her name."
Sometime later, Eomer sat on the edge of the bed again, the strength of his climax still vibrating, like rolls of thunder rumbling in his veins, in the tips of fingers and toes, and in the thick muscles of thighs, buttock, back and belly. He bent, picking up his britches and shirt, stiff with dried sweat, and began to dress.
When at last he was finally ready to take his leave, Alima was sitting up straight, the linens from the bed wrapped snuggly around her, waiting to be paid. His saddlebags were slung over his shoulder and Eomer put a hand inside, coming out with a small purse of coins; a year's worth of wages for someone like Alima. After a short lived argument with himself about the virtues of frugality and man's responsibility to man and his own role within that grand scheme, it was something Eothain's father had told them as young men. His decision made, he crawled back across the bed, taking her face in his hand. He kissed her softly, reverently on the mouth and dropped the purse in her lap.
A whore knows the price of her own body, but not the value of her own life.
"Do something different, eh?"
XXX
Loti woke in a state of grogginess, unable to place herself, her mind mixed and swirled, a jumble of fragmented images, dark and incoherent, and her heart beating in a heavily contented rhythm. She lifted her head from her arms folded over the disorganized papers on her desk, a pleasant burning numbness in fingers and toes, arms and legs, a lingering quivering in the muscles of her belly.
It was a dream, she told herself, feeling weak and alive and deliriously spent. A dream, nothing more… Yet, she still felt the caress of his hands on her fevered, glowing skin, the taste of his kisses, the cold wetness of his tongue on her breasts and nipples.
She had known him, this man from the dream, and had no fear of his touch or his intent. A competent lover, he had taken her gently and with tenderness, but also with a needful urgency. In the shadowed cool black of the dream he spoke, his voice like something from her past, long dead, familiar, yet unable to be placed. There was wetness between her legs, a faint hot throbbing of deepest arousal and an ache of bone deep wanting. Closing her eyes, Loti cupped her breasts, nipples excited and tingling under the fabric of her shirt, recalling in memory the touch of his fingers, skilled and slippery, and the stroke of his cock, opening her to the thrill of his ownership and possession.
Who had he been, this man in the dark who left the echo of her name in her ear, the echo of his body in her flesh.
XXX
A movement at the tent's doorway startled Loti, and she glanced up from the work on her desk. A head was poking in, smiling. A big, blonde, stupid head with an idiotic, pompous crooked grin!
"Thank the Valar!" Loti cried, throwing down her quill and slumping back in her seat as the rest of Eomer's impossibly tall body appeared inside, "You're alright!"
"Of course I am," he said still smiling and shucking off his gloves. "Did you think I wouldn't be?"
Immediately, he began to disarm and disrobe, unlooping sword belt, and unbuckling the straps of gauntlets and chest plate, plopping them all haphazardly on the bed in complete disregard of his usual fastidious nature.
"Eomer," Loti demanded without preamble, "where in bluest Valinor have you been?"
"I left you a note."
"Oh, yes! Yes, you certainly did and a very specific note it was, too! Girl, gone out," she quoted, jerking her head in a mechanical sort of way on the two words, "Gone out? Gone out! Gone where?"
"Out," Eomer taunted.
Off came the hefty chain mail shirt with a slink and the steel apron that protected his thighs, adding to the mess on the bed. His smiled curved in a flash of white teeth over his shoulder as he propped first one foot and then the other on the bed rail removing his leather greaves, but didn't satisfy her with any further clarification.
It occurred to Loti that he was acting peculiar, so fixing him with a fishy eye, she asked, "Why are you smiling? You never smile." Smiling wasn't really an accurate description of what was plastered on his face. He was beaming and looking foolish and sophomoric, like he had just played a very funny joke on someone.
Standing on one foot, he wiggled out of a boot. "I'm in a good mood. I thought you'd like that." He dropped his boots on the ground and pulled off his shirt, grimy with dirt and wet with sweat.
"You thought wrong. Where have you been?"
Instead of answering, Eomer put the shirt to his nose, sniffed, grimaced at the smell, and rolled it into a ball. "Here," he threw it, catching her in the face with a soppy splat, "wash this."
"Uhhhg!" Loti exclaimed in revolted horror, yanking the damp thing off her face.
Now it was her turn to have a sniff. Carefully, she brought it to her nose and inhaled cautiously. It had the usual male smells of stale, salty sweat, his own natural musky scent, the earthy smells of steel and leather, but, also, a faint—she sniffed again—just a hint of something like—
She balled the shirt up in her fist and hurled it back at him. It missed its mark and it landed in a sodden heap on the ground instead.
"Eomer! Where have you been?"
The sun was past its zenith and illuminated the tent's canvas in a soft yellow tan glow; the wide width of Eomer's shoulders outlined dark against it. A hot sea wind blew in, rustling the canvas fabric and lifting the hair from the back of his neck. His hair had grown long since their first meeting in the early spring in the streets of Aldburg and now hung to the middle of his shoulder blades; its waviness wild and rippling in the humidity. He was sweating, too, tiny beads and droplets of sweat shown over the taught sinewy muscles of back and skin.
"Eomer," she said in even tones of extreme impatience, but the man was too busy dodging the unlit chandelier that hung from the tent poles above.
"Eomer!"
"Whaaat?" He droned in mock annoyance.
Striding to his desk in full cocky swagger like a rooster in full plumed strut through a brood of appreciative hens, Eomer dropped into his chair, and kicked his bare feet up on the corner of the desk. He had very big feet…
"Where. Have. You. Been?"
He didn't answer the question, but raised one heavy blonde eyebrow in suggestion. His clear blue eyes were bright and glossy, and full of unspoken mischievousness.
"Oh," Loti said in belated realization, then, "Oh," a little more self consciously, returning her attention to the latest stack of requisitions she was composing, and gave her best impression of a Rohirric, "Mmmhmm."
Hogsheads of ale and casks of salt never seemed so interesting.
Linking his fingers behind his head, Eomer rocked back in the chair. "You were worried about me." This was more or less a statement rather than a question.
She dipped her quill in the inkwell and resumed her writing, saying in a low, emotionless voice, "It is none of my business who you choose to sleep with."'
"That's not what I asked."
"What do you want me to say?"
"I want you to tell the truth. Were you worried about me?" The smile in his voice was evident.
Loti had the strangest sense he was teasing her and continued on, intent in her writing, not raising her eyes from the page. "Of course I was worried. Shouldn't I be?" She said in the same flat, dry tone as before. "That was reckless, going off on your own, not telling anyone where you were going. And childish. You should have waited for someone to go with you. What if you had been attacked in the street?" Pausing for several seconds in her castigations, she shot Eomer a quick sideways look. He wasn't smiling now but still wore a wry expression, as though he enjoyed her stern berating. Did he like it when she nagged him? "How will I ever manage to become a maid in your household if you are dead? Sometimes you're so stubborn."
"And difficult, and blockheaded, and impossible?"
So, he hadn't been asleep the day before! "Yes, those things too."
Yawning like a cat soaking up the sun, he had either bored of the topic or just wanted to change the subject. "What have you been up to today?"
Loti replied crossly, "Working," and reached for the pen knife, chunking off a portion of the quill's shaft, sharpening it to a fresh point with the same care she might in sharpening a knife.
"Well," he huffed conversationally, "that's what I pay you for."
"You do not pay me anything," she countered with a tartness as smooth as lemon cream.
Eomer narrowed his eyes into clear blue slits of immaturity and perused her person critically. "Hmm… you're very docile today, aren't you? That boy Red serve you properly while I was gone?"
Her head snapped around at the suggestion of impropriety. Then she saw his face; he was teasing her! Or, at least, she thought so. Turning back to her requisitions list, she said mildly, "You're an ass."
He gave a snorting chuckle, and wiggled in his chair, making it creak and squeak while trying to scratch his back.
"I'm glad to see you are feeling better," Loti said in a soft voice and an honest tone during the silence that followed.
There was no answer to this so Loti continued on with, "You could have told me about it, you know, what was bothering you. Did you think no one will understand?"
There was no answer to this either.
Eomer groaned instead and, rocking the chair back on two legs, stretched and cracked his back with several dull pops, then rubbed a hand over his stomach. "Ooh…aaahh!" He grunted and sighed. "I worked up quite the appetite this morning. Woman, go get me something to eat so I can get some work done."
Loti felt her skin crawl in agitation. Now he wanted to work! With a toss of her head, she fixed her mouth into a tight smile of greatest insincerity, and wrapped her hand threateningly about the ink pot.
Catching sight of the convulsively closing hand, Eomer moved with the swiftest of decisions, dropping his feet to the ground and hopping up out of the chair. "Maybe I'll go wash up first, eh?"
Her phony smile followed him right out the door.
"Oh!" He piped up, leaning back in, and using that voice that could make even the biggest mistake seem like no big deal, "Before you go burning my clothes in a fit of jealous rage, check the, ah—" he drew a u-shape over his chest, finishing the sentence with the quintessential Rohirric combination of ambiguity. "Mmmhmm. Eh?"
With a glimmer in his eye and a wink, he ducked out and padded off. Some seconds later, she heard his deep gravelly voice barking out unfriendly commands, apparently seeing something he didn't like, and the scrambling sounds of harness and tack.
That man was a paradox, wrapped in an oxymoron, surrounded by contradictions all rolled up in a ball of enigmas!
Heaving herself out from behind her own desk, Loti walked to the bed where Eomer had dropped his things, looking for the leather bag he so artfully described using sign language. It was nothing more than a pouch hung on a string so it could be worn under his shirt, this being the best way to thwart any nimble fingered pick pockets. Putting her hand in, she pulled out a tiny carved wooden idol of what could only be described as a woman, hugely obese with sagging breasts and fat thighs; its surface polished to a smooth dark patina in spots, possibly from being rubbed by a finger. She shrugged, digging deeper, pulling out a few coins, a folded letter from his sister and—
Disbelieving, Loti pulled out a three foot length of purple ribbon. That dirty bastard had bought her a gift.