The Allure of the Dark Angel
Disclaimer - Except for the OC within this fic., everything belongs to JRR Tolkien, the Tolkien estate and anyone else who can lay legal claim to the Lord of the Rings phenomena. No money has been, is being, or will be made from this story. I write it purely for personal enjoyment.
A/N - This fic. is not an attempt to faithfully adhere to canon, as it is also inspired by the movies and the genius of Peter Jackson. Where possible, I will make every effort to stay within the confines of Tolkien's novels. However, in my personal opinion, PJ gave Grima Wormtongue a depth of character that I did not find within the books. Therefore, this aspect of Grima is more firmly based upon the impressions I came away with of Grima Wormtongue after seeing the Two Towers. And of course, as a Grima fan, I changed his final fate somewhat.
This fic is dedicated to the author, Warlady.
Chapter Thirteen – Transient Solicitations
Happiness is an odd thing, an emotion that holds many different meanings for each person and is often found in the most unlikely of places. It is fleeting, easily destroyed by a thought, a word, an action. But when one experiences it, life becomes an easier burden to carry, and even the darker moments of existence seem a little lighter.
So it was that I felt such things in the idyllic days of February, when winter's last grasp held onto the lands of the Mark with withered hands. The shadow grew in the east, and a once virile king fell slowly to ruin. Warriors returned to Edoras, wounded or dead, and those who survived skirmishes spoke of Uruks bearing the mark of a white hand. Through it all, as I treated broken limbs and helped prepare the dead for burial, there was within me a brighter spirit, and despite the well-meaning warnings of those close to me, I welcomed its source.
My days passed swiftly as I worked with Wulfrune and Sunniva to tend the populace of Edoras. There were other healers and midwives within the town, and all were kept busy as refugees continued to stream in from the harried Westfold, bearing their sick, their pregnant and their wounded. My initiate and I were soon familiar faces among the townfolk, and it was a relief to see Sunniva slowly emerge from the dry-eyed silence of her grief. Soon she would truly mourn the loss of her husband and finally begin to heal. I still carried my guilt concerning Alger's death, but kept such things to myself. As Grima advised, it would serve nothing to confess my actions to her. I had unburdened my secret to him. It would be enough.
My routines in the evening altered little. I ate my dinner with the women whose house I shared, then made the short uphill climb to the Meduseld where Elswide always greeted me and reserved a small hearth so that I could make the blood broth for Grima. There was little change in the servants' attitudes toward me. In their eyes, I had simply become as Beornwyn and any other like her who had serviced the king's advisor. What did invite their whisperings was the fact that I had become the only one to do so. The women, especially, were curious. I spoke nothing of my time with Grima as my hours with him were private and no concern of theirs. My status had not changed in the household. I dressed the same, did not sport a fancy bauble or two, flash coin or gifts, and still kept residence outside the Meduseld. They were unsure of my place in the household hierarchy but remained friendly if a little baffled at my willingness to lay with Wormtongue without obvious benefit of payment or social elevation.
I think they would have been surprised or amused had I revealed my thoughts on the subject. I was enamoured of Wormtongue. Of that there could be no doubt, nor was I in the habit of lying to myself. He occupied my thoughts more often than not, and I came to live for the evenings when the sun began its descent into the west, and I made my way to the Golden Hall. It was difficult not to smile foolishly at him when he opened his chamber door and bid me enter with his daily portion of blood broth.
In the first days that I took him as lover, there was little conversation between us, only a fire that burned brightly and demanded to be fed. Any lack of knowledge Grima may have suffered concerning the mating dance between man and woman was soon rectified beneath the heavy furs draped across his bed. I still cannot say why the heat of desire burned so hot within me for this man. Truly, he was neither handsome nor possessed of a warrior's vigor in the thin, hard muscles of his body. Sickly and vulpine in his movements, yet I ached for him, was consumed by the ardor in those sly, narrowed eyes. I took him eagerly into my body again and again, until we were both exhausted and drenched with the sweat of our exertions. I began to understand his obsession with Eowyn, for I became obsessed with him, and it was a hunger that gnawed at me, even as I lay beneath him, my legs wrapped around his waist in a hard embrace.
He did not speak her name again in sleep though I am certain he dreamed of her. I could not begrudge him such thoughts as she was indeed beautiful in many aspects. She had been a part of his life, after a fashion, for many years, and the few times I had seen them converse there was no mistaking that even though she despised him, Eowyn of Rohan was as drawn to Grima Worntongue as he was to her.
Still, for those hours that he was awake and alone with me, I held his full regard, and as the days passed, his manner eased. We would lie in his bed, his head on my breast or belly, hands caressing my thighs gently, and speak of his early years in Rohan and Harad. It was again like the summer evenings we spent on the outer walls of Edoras, when I first arrived and came to know the beguiling man behind the baleful countenance.
"I have no memory of my mother and only wish to have none of my father."
I stroked his tangled hair away from his temple, sorrowing for a child born but despised. I knew nothing of his sire, Galmod, save that he had once been a lowly minister in Theoden's household. But Grima's words and the tone of his voice said much. There are times when it is a blessing to not know certain things or certain people. It allows us to sleep peacefully at night. And I had no doubt that Grima's rise to power within the Rohirric court had little to do with any influence of his father's and everything to do with his own will and resourcefulness.
I asked a question that had drifted through my thoughts many times after meeting Wormtongue. "Was your mother of Dunland?"
He stiffened in my arms, rigid with a heavy silence that told me I tread on dangerous ground. I continued caressing his hair and the side of his face, seeking to reassure him that my inquiry bore no hidden malice. "The woman whose husband I treated and who widowed my initiate was Dunlending." I reminded him. "Groa had the same dark hair and stature that you do. Her man also." I knew my tactic worked as Grima slowly relaxed, his muscles again pliant against my leg and hip. "Despite what the Rohirrim may think, Dunlendings bleed red blood as they do, love and die as they do."
Grima shifted his position, rolling onto me. There was a speculative glint in his eyes that matched the puzzled half smile hovering at his mouth. "Are you merciful because you are a healer? Or are you a healer because you are merciful?"
It was an easy question to answer and I returned his smile. "I became Udela's initiate in my seventh season because a wounded bird died in my care."
His eyes narrowed with interest. "Unusual. She chose you because you killed something?"
I laughed. "No. I tried my very best to save it, but birds are fragile creatures, and it died sometime in the early morning. What impressed Udela was my dedication to it. I stayed up all night, doing all I could to bring it back to health. When it no longer breathed, I mourned, buried it and proclaimed to her that next time, I would do things differently." I ran a gentle finger down the long slope of Grima's nose. "There is more to healing than setting broken bones, son of Galmod. Sometimes, it is simply the willingness to hold the hands of the dying through the darkest hours and offer solace to those they leave behind."
Firelight played across his pale shoulders, deepening the black of his hair. He stared at me for a long moment, as if contemplating my words and his response to them. I had nearly forgotten my original question, but he did not. "Yes. My mother was Dunlending, or so I was told. A girl mayhap not so savage or unclean and my father less discerning about who he bedded, but still unwilling to let any of his blood be raised among mongrels."
I could hear the bitterness seep into his voice. Caught between two peoples, outcast in both. And the harsh childhood he did not speak of cloaked him still, manifesting itself in a thirst for power, a need for acceptance and a will to control. Words seemed trivial, for what could I say in the face of a grim reality? The scorned child had become a dour man with hidden anger and questionable motives. Instead, I traced the bones of his pallid features with my fingertips, learning the curve of his cheeks, the deepening hollows beneath his eyes, the high slope of his forehead. His mouth was soft against mine, and I felt the flutter of his lashes as he closed his eyes and sank into my embrace, as much for comfort as for desire. I was a healer because I was merciful. I was this man's lover because I was captivated.
The days and nights passed in this way, and I refused to consider the future. For a short time, I wished only to live the moment and be content. But there was no denying the world around me, and it began to crack with the weight of danger rising from the Westfold and the writhing gloom from Mordor that darkened the noonday sky.
I often caught glimpses of members of the royal household. Eowyn, beautiful and stately, seemed shrouded in ice, cold and just as brittle. She had been reserved but friendly enough when I dealt with her during my first journey to Edoras, but now there was a distance to her as if a door had shut to the outer world, leaving only a wintry façade for others to see. Her brother seemed as forbidding, and talk among the servants revealed that he had withdrawn his folk and their horse herds from the East-mark. Only scouts remained to observe and report of orc activity from Mordor. Rumors flew among the people of Edoras. Conjectures that Saruman of Isengard was in league with Mordor inundated the marketplaces and mead halls, and Theodred, the king's son had joined forces with Grimbold, the marshal of the beleagured Westfold, to secure and hold the fords of Isen.
As the windy month of March approached, I began to worry. The land of the Mark seemed squeezed from two sides, and if the rumors were true, Rohan was under attack. War, beyond the bloody skirmish or raid, loomed on the horizon, and many prayed and spent sleepless nights wondering what the future held. Through it all I held my silence with Grima, but watched, both fascinated and repelled, as he seemed to swell with power, glutted on a dark knowledge that revealed itself in the sway he held in the Rohirric court and over Theoden himself.
For the man who sat on Rohan's throne, palsied and diminished with age and sickness, was not the king. No, the king crouched, uncrowned, at the foot of the dais and surveyed the Hall with calculating eyes, noting this Rohirrim's harsh words and that one's disapproving stare, and another's whispered malcontent. During the day he would slink through the shadows of the Meduseld, watching, learning and murmuring his spells into the ears of a fading old man. And at night, when the arc of the moon's journey carried her to the far side of the horizon, he would stare out over the fields of grass, always towards Isengard, with a face painted in the warring colors of triumph and fear.
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Chapter title is taken from a quotation by George Eliot - "For character too is a process and an unfolding...among our valued friends is there not someone or other who is a little too self confident and disdainful; whose distinguished mind is a little spotted with commonness; who is a little pinched here and protuberant there with native prejudices; or whose better energies are liable to lapse down the wrong channel under the influence of transient solicitations?"
Except for Maeve and the Tolkien characters, other character names are taken from the following sources:
1) Anglo Saxon Names - 2) Female Anglo-Saxon Names -
Other resources: 1) Encyclopedia of Arda - 2) Terms used in Traditional Chinese Medicine - 3) Medicinal and Magical Herbs of Medieval Europe - 4) The Thain's Book – 5) Lord of the Rings Fanatics – , 6)The Reading Room – , 7) The Haradrim – , 8) The Swan – , 9) Eowyn of Middle Earth – , 10) Suite 101 – , 11) Questia – , 12) The Grima Dictionary – , 13) The Undefinable Shadowland – , 14) The Lexicon of Rohan – , 15) TolkienWiki Community – , 16) Languages of Middle Earth/Lesson Two – , 17) BBC – h2g2 – Anglo-Saxon (Old English) – , 18) Map of Middle Earth – , 19) Tolkien Maps –
20) The Undefinable Shadowland – 21) A Short History of the term "Farrier" – 22) Journal of Ancient and Medieval History at Dickson College – Significance of the Stirrup – 23) The Legacy of the Horse – 24) The Rider: Technique and Tack – 25) History of Rohan – 26) The Battles of the Fords of Isen – larsen-family.us/1066/isenfords.html 27) Herd Behavior – 27) Documentation of the Dress – An Anglo-Saxon Cyrtel – 28) Clothing and Appearance of the Pagan Anglo-Saxons – mahan.wongwang.ac.kr