Chapter 21

….Then, lest

One moment of the sea's repose we lose,

Nor furnish Fancy with a thousand themes

Of unimagined sweetness, let us gaze

On this serenity, for as we muse,

Lo! all is restless motion: life's best dreams

Give changing moods to even halcyon days.

- An Ocean Musing, by Henrietta Cordelia Ray

Ivriniel's arrival came just as winter was setting in – a dusting of snow swirled around in the courtyards of the Swan Citadel, pushed by the constant and bitterly cold wind from the ocean. Gone were the daily walks of the autumn and the outside lessons; instead, Rhoswen and Lothiriel placed their chairs in front of the fire, smelling and crushing herbs where they could not be disturbed by the wind. Today Lottie was reviewing what she knew – the cloth in front of her was spread with sprigs and bundles, which she would have to smell or identify on sight to pass Rhoswen's test.

Rhoswen surveyed the table, identifying each one mentally as Lottie collected her thoughts. Comfrey, goldenseal, licorice, raspberry leaf, rose petal, honey (a small jar stood on the table, an easy answer for Lottie to give), rose hips, lavender, valerian, john's wort, skullcap, burdock, fenugreek... and the list went on. Aunt Ivriniel walked slowly over to their table, surveying the spread of herbs with a smile. "I remember doing this with Finduilas before she packed her dowry chests for the White City," she recalled. "She did not know what they would have there, so she brought everything. One would have thought she were planning to go into a city infected by plague! Never mind that the greatest houses of healing available to men were already in Minas Tirith."

"Do you know any of these, Aunt Rin?" Lottie asked, trying very hard (as Rhoswen could plainly see) to delay her attempt at identification.

"Just one," Ivriniel said, picking up a dried white flower and twirling it between her fingers. "Simbelmynë," she said, rolling the Rohirric name over in the strange dialect of that country. "The Ever-mind, I think it is also called. If you crush the flower and steep it, it produces a tea that will bring back memory. Fin told me that when I was home for End-year, several years after I was married. I was afraid my husband was losing his mind."

"Was he?" Lottie asked, intrigued – Ivriniel didn't talk about Uncle Hithwon much.

"Yes, as all old men do," the lady of Belfalas said bitterly. "Fin warned me not to use too much of it – it was expensive – is still expensive! - and she did not have much of it."

"But I have heard there is simbelmynë all over Rohan," Lottie said, confused. "Why should it be so expensive, if it has only to come here?"

"It is a flower for graveyards," Rhoswen said solemnly. "It grows on the barrows of the dead, and they do not like to pick it, except in great need."

Ivriniel looked at her in surprise. "I did not know you were familiar with Rohan, Rhoswen."

Rhoswen blushed. "I am not – but my eldest brother Carnil went there with a delegation from the Steward when he was stationed in the city on military duty, and he brought home the most wonderful stories that winter. Simbelmynë was in one of them."

"I suppose your brothers brought home many stories for you," Lottie said, taking one of the flowers in her fingers and crushing it, ever so slightly, to release its scent. Rhoswen nodded, picking up one of the withered rose hips and rubbing it across her fingers meditatively.

"That was how I learned about the world," she said, smiling. "Carnil told me of Rohan, and Lucan of Dol Amroth, Erufailon of the Lebannin and the lands near the mountains, and they all taught me about Minas Tirith. That was how I first met Boromir,"she confided.

"Really?" Lothiriel, as always, wanted to know more. Any small piece of information that let her know more about what Rhoswen had been like as a child.

"You must have been very young then, to hear such stories," Ivriniel said. "Your brothers, as I recall, are all a good deal older than you."

"Twelve or so. At least, that's when I remember hearing the first one – from Erufailon. There had been a skirmish, somewhere in Ithilien, and 'Failon had been there with Boromir's company. He spoke of the Captain-Heir as if he were Beren One-Hand or Isildur, some hero of old come again. And so, one small girl fell in love with the idea of her prince in far-away Minas Tirith."

"Was he what you had hoped for, when you finally met him?" Lottie asked, remembering her own share of stories about her larger-than-life cousin.

Rhoswen considered this. "I could not say. I had quite forgotten about all that by the time I was called to Minas Tirith. I thought I would marry a lord of the provinces – the Captain- Heir of Gondor was beyond my grasp." She chuckled as she remembered something else. "And there was always the reminder of how much older he was."

Ivriniel glanced at the two young women, lost in thought, and suddenly laughed. "Look at you two, comparing stories as though you were already in your dotage and your best years were far behind you! Go and do something else for a while – this herblore will make you old before your time. It is not so cold yet – take a ride in the fields! Feel life around you!"

She shooed them out of the room with the distinct feeling of a mother herding off her daughters when there was a present to be assembled or important marriage business to be discussed, and Rhoswen and Lothiriel left as they were bid, retrieving woolen capes and fur-edged hoods from their cedar chests as protection against the chilling sea breeze.

It was warm enough out in the stable block, the straw-strewn floors and many moving beasts keeping in some of the heat from a few small braziers contained. Lothiriel went to see her horse saddled while Rhoswen waited in the passageway where visiting mounts were kept.

"Does my lady need help?" A voice that sounded familiar asked. Rhoswen turned, surprised when she saw Iorlas, Bergil's uncle, standing in the doorway of the stable block. He was wearing a tunic of the variety the men of the city usually used while doing some heavy manual labor, and his hair was tied back as well, trying to keep what little of it would stay in the tail out of his sweat-framed face. He walked over to steady the horse, and Rhoswen could see a moderate limp in his step, a reminder of his broken leg. The wound had healed, but it was obviously causing him some pain still. Perhaps it was this cold weather – it did not get so frigid in the White City.

"Why are you here?" Rhoswen asked, forgetting her manners in her sheer confusion. Iorlas smiled apologetically, brushing his hands together as if to clean them of some evil deed. One of the city's grooms came over to help her mount her horse, and she continued listening as the other man silently went about his work.

"I asked the Lord Erun if I might attend you in Dol Amroth, Lady, and he consented. They would not let me return to duty in the city until my limp became less pronounced – I told your brother I could ride a horse and bear a sword and would he take me as your guard, so that I might do better service to the City through serving you than writing out reports."

"Why would you wish to do that?" Rhoswen asked, now safely atop her horse and looking down at Iorlas from the saddle. The position strengthened her nerve a little; she was suddenly very cold despite the nearness of the brazier.

"You have given me a debt I can never fully repay, my lady." The Gondorian's eyes were bright with gratitude and – something else.

Rhoswen smiled as benevolently and benignly as she could. "I was not the only healer who attended to your leg, Iorlas."

"But the other healers did not care for my nephew and lend me books that I might read to him, and enlighten myself with, Lady," Iorlas said respectfully. There was something in his voice, something in the way he looked at her, that frightened her a little. His respect was almost too sincere, like a masque – or worse yet, a lie. She nodded tersely and moved the horse to step around him, passing by out of the stable to join Lothiriel in the yard.

"Who was that you were talking to?" Lothiriel asked, peering around Rhoswen into the doors of the stable block. Rhoswen looked behind her to see Iorlas slipping back inside.

"One of my guardsmen. He wished to accompany us, should we need him. I told him we would go alone," Rhoswen lied with a smile. "My brother Erun seems to have told them I am made of glass." Her voice tried to be light, airy, dismissive even; she did not know if it succeeded.

"Well, we know that is not true!" Lothiriel said. "You are a woman of flesh and blood, just as any other is. Where shall we ride today, my earthy sister?" she asked, steering her mount out of the stableyard and into the road beyond, leading out into the outlands of the Swan Citadel.

Somewhere I cannot hear my heart pounding in fear, Rhoswen said to herself. "The beach," she said aloud. "I have a mind to hear waves again."

The wind whipped in bitterly from the vast expanse of the stone-dark sea, the waves slapping angrily on the stones of the beach in sharp succession, furious under the strangely calm sky, one great immense grayness to mirror the water beneath it. Yet all this furor was strangely calming to Rhoswen. One wave would leave, and another would take its place; it was the order of things, predictable in a fashion. Soon it would be End-Year, and there would be parties and masques to welcome back the sun and the new year, and after that spring would slowly peek up its sleepy, frost-tipped green head, shy at first and then growing into the brash color of full bloom.

The horses stood solemnly at their hitching post, back from the shore a ways, while Rhoswen and Lothiriel sat down in the sand, careful of the tide. For a great while, no one said anything. Gulls reeled overhead, chirping and shouting their incessant cries, punctuated every so often by a tremendous rush of surf and the ensuing retreat, the sound of the wave washing back out. Rhoswen wished she were a poet; to share this scene, this fog-like calm when the world was gray like this, would have been marvelous. She could put voice to other people's words, it seemed, but not her own.

"Rhoswen, are you looking forward to marriage?" Lottie's voice came unexpectedly after the last burst of wave, startling amidst the sound.

"Yes, I suppose I am. A little," Rhoswen amended, suddenly unsure herself. It had never been a question of whether she was ready or not; marriage was just something that was going to happen, and that was all there was to it.

Why?" Lothiriel asked.

"I don't know…I shall have my own house, my own servants…my own children, soon enough." The thought of a little one just like Barhador, her brother Carnil's son, brought a smile to her lips.

"You are looking forward to that?"

"Aren't you?" Rhoswen asked, shocked that Lottie would suggest otherwise. Another unspoken truth. Lothiriel shook her head and scowled.

"It all sounds so…dirty. The getting of children and the having of them. And women die in childbirth all the time! Why should I go through all that trouble to please a man by giving him a son? Can't he be pleased by me?"

"I don't want to have children just for Boromir's sake," Rhoswen defended. "Well, I-I do, but that's not all of it. He can have them, certainly, but…" she trailed off, trying to find her thoughts. "I feel empty every time I see a mother with her baby. I feel like I'm missing something, like I'm cold inside. And to feel that warmth, of a child next to me, seems the only thing that will warm me." She brought her hands up and wrapped them around her shoulders as if she were cradling something between them. "Why do you ask, all of a sudden?" She wondered aloud, looking at Lottie for a further explanation.

It had suddenly struck her how odd it was that Lottie – Lottie, who never turned up her nose at the chance to tell a dirty joke or insinuate something or eek one more bit of information about marital congresses out of some newly married acquaintance of hers – should so abruptly find the whole business…what was the word she had just used? Dirty. Something was surely rotten here.

"You know that lady Riressil has been confined to her bed," Lothiriel began, collecting her own thoughts as she played with the hem of her gown. "Mama would have someone visit her, and I went, a few days ago, and she was so miserable, sitting there, waiting for this…this thing to leave her and be done with the whole business. And I thought, 'Why on earth would I ever want this for myself?'"

Rhoswen knew of Riressil, and a little of her condition; the lady had eaten some sweetmeats with some herb or another in them and accidentally brought on false labor; the healers had confined her to bed with a strict diet and the lady, who was inclined to enjoy her food, was not taking it well. "Riressil is a fool who did not follow her midwife's instructions, Lottie, and any pain she has is her own doing for the moment," she found herself saying harshly. Lottie looked at her normally soft-spoken friend in shock. Rhoswen stopped herself and paused for a moment. "What I mean to say, Lottie, is that you are no fool, and you will have no such problems in pregnancy. And to see the look of joy on your husband's face when you show him the beautiful baby you will doubtless produce for him, that will be all the payment you need."

"What if it's a daughter?" Lottie asked miserably, "and he wants sons?"

"Your father is no fool either," Rhoswen said strongly. "He would not give you away to a man like that. Besides," She said, leaning in close to Lothiriel and feeling her cheeks color against the cold, "there will be joy enough in the begetting of the thing, too, won't there? Because your father won't marry you off to any old bezoar, he loves you too much for that. He'll be young, and strong, and handsome, and he'll love you terribly." Who knows? Perhaps the stars will align and it will be my brother whom you love already, she said inwardly, watching Lottie's face and knowing her friend was thinking of the same man.

Lottie smiled in surprise, giggling a little as Rhoswen's elbow hit a ticklish spot in her side. "Will you listen to yourself?"

"Oh, I am listening," Rhoswen said, "If it will make you laugh as you have made me laugh, so much the better. You needn't worry about it all so soon, Lottie, you are not getting married this instant, anyway."

"Am I not allowed to worry about things as you do, Rhoswen?" Lottie joked.

"No, never," Rhoswen shot back. "I shall be the worry-wort, and you shall always be there to talk me off my cliffs of woe." She paused for a moment. "What have I been worrying about recently? I thought I was much better of late."

"That guardsman in the stables, Rhos," Lottie said solemnly, her flash of mirth gone. "What did he say that put you so ill at ease?"

Rhoswen's strong veneer fell away, a shield discarded by a fleeing footsoldier. "Oh," she said weakly. "You saw that."

"Yes, I did, and I want to know what he said that put you so on edge," Lottie said strongly. "Did he talk to you of babies and marriage, too? Because if that is the case, I know several of your brothers and mine would like a word with him."

"It was nothing like that," Rhoswen said, trying to brush the issue away and finding it was stuck to her chest like a cocklebur. "I was his nurse, in Minas Tirith. He is the uncle of a…a friend of mine, a little boy of eight named Bergil. I did not think I paid him any special mind, but…he seems to have formed an attachment."

"And that troubles you?" Lottie asked, more for the benefit of letting Rhoswen acknowledge it than the actual answer; she knew already that it troubled Rhoswen, who never liked to be the center of attention for fear she'd slip and fall, to the amusement and pleasure of all.

"You know my mind better than any other, friend," Rhoswen said simply, acknowledging Lottie's suspicions and turning her eyes back to the beach.

"What will you do about it?" Lottie wondered aloud. Rhoswen shrugged, shivering at the same time.

"I do not know," she said truthfully. "Pray I do not see him, at least." There seems little else I can do.

If Lottie had another suggestion, she did not voice it, only nodding in what seemed half-felt agreement.

"You will say nothing about this to Mother?" Lottie asked suddenly, as if afraid Rhoswen would break her trust.

"Only if you will say nothing to Erun," Rhoswen acknowledged. "I do not want him to worry overmuch over me."

He would do that without my prompting, my friend, Lottie thought to herself as they picked each other up of the beach, patting skirts and pulling strands of hair back behind their ears despite the wind. The ride back to the citadel was a quiet one, hardly interrupted by shout or call. Everyone was indoors today trying to ignore the wind and the cold. But there was sound enough coming from the solar when the two women returned from hanging up their cloaks – a veritable marketplace jumble of sound, laughing women and bargaining men. Lottie opened the door on an almost pleasantly chaotic scene. The trunks of a merchant lay scattered about the room, all in various states of yielding up their contents. The air was filled with strange and exotic smells, the new perfumes from the shops of the Swan city, and the packing cases of the weavers and dyers lay open to cloth of every make and color, a grand and private bazaar for the delectation and delight of the ladies of the Prince's household.

"Finally, my prodigal daughter returns," Heledirwen said, emerging from the colorful tableaux followed almost cautiously by several merchants and their daughters, here to help display their finest wares. "And wind-blown, too," she said, stroking Lottie's reddened cheek with a fond and only slightly disappointed air about her. "You should not have been out riding in this weather."

"I needed fresh air," Lottie said, her standard answer for most of her wrong-doings. "What's to be done with all this, then? I thought we were not to have new gowns until after the End-Year. Papa said –"

"But my girls must have costumes for the Masque," the Lady Heledirwen said, taking Rhoswen by the hand and leading her through the maze of boxes and cases to what seemed the nexus of it all. Several merchants, palms a little sweaty, stood by waiting to show their wares to a regally throned Ivriniel, holding court amidst the swathes and silks and receiving each box presented for her consideration like a queen receiving guests at a banquet.

"No, the jewel should be less green – a pale spring green, to match the leaves of the – Lottie and Rhoswen! You have returned!" Aunt Rin turned her attention from the jeweler's box in front of her as the man went to inquire through his cases for what she desired and beckoned over her nieces. "Come sit by me and see what I have bought you today."

"We didn't need –" Rhoswen began, wondering what outrageously expensive gift Ivriniel was about to bestow. But Ivriniel would have none of it – she laid her fingers over Rhoswen's mouth and sat the young woman down next to her, beckoning forth her maid to bring forward plans of some kind – artist's renderings of what seemed to be masks.

"Since I have never had twins to dress before, you must humor me; it has always been a fancy of mine to see such a costume at the End-Year Masque, and now that I have two of you who look enough alike I must see it done. You shall be Telperion and Laurelin. You must excuse the cartoons," she gestured to the plans, "but he was in such a haste, and that was all he had time for. There will be gilding, of course, that is not shown, and I thought ribbons of some kind, trailing a little…"

She went on, and Rhoswen and Lottie pulled the plans closer, musing on the images before them. Rhoswen couldn't help but run her fingers over the intricate design, inked on in painstaking detail. If these were poor copies, she could not even begin to think of what the real ones would look like. Lottie had gone on and on several days previously about the End-Year masque, the grand party that brought out the old year and rang in the new, how everyone wore masks, many of them generations old, and flirted tremendously, and generally raised a little raucousness. It was one of many things by which Dol Amroth distinguished itself from the Tower of Guard – not content with simply a grand feast and a giving of gifts, the End Year was a revel of nearly a week in length, filled with parties and intrigues and a good deal more fun.

But she had not thought that the masks of which her friend had spoken were quite so…beautiful. On paper, the leaves did not quite flare like she thought the leatherworker would mold them, but even so, the design seemed to levitate off the page. There were two, one so deep a blue-green it was almost shot through with black, half a face covered in the leaves of a night-time forest, gently illuminated by the silver crescent beaten into the brow. The other was an early morning sun, peeked coyly from around the tips of leaves the color of new shoots and ripening wheat. The two trees of Valinor, the trees that had given forth the sapling that had become the White Tree.

"They're breath-taking," Lottie said, quite as shocked as Rhoswen was. Hadn't she been telling Rhoswen that getting a new mask was almost as important as being allowed to wear one of the famous heirlooms? "Aunt Rin, you shouldn't…"

"I am allowed to overspend once in a while, Lottie," Ivriniel said placidly, patting her neice's hand. "I want Rhoswen's first End-Year in Dol Amroth to be a good one, and what better way to celebrate her entry into our family than with new masks? Your daughters will wear them one day and you can grandly remember your youth. 'This was the mask I wore the year that I was married,' you will say, and your daughter will screw up her nose at you and beg you not to say any more about when you and your husband were young and in love."

"I remember that face all too well on this one," Heledirwen said, nodding at Lottie. "And yet you love that lily mask almost as much as I do."

"Ah!" Ivriniel cried as the jewel merchant opened another velvet lined box. "That is the one! That green!"

"My lady has excellent taste," said the jeweler graciously. Rhoswen doubted he would have said otherwise regardless of what her choice was so long as his commission was paid in good time. Picking up the piece and letting it catch the light from the window, the craftsman held it out to Ivriniel and let the Lady of Belfalas judge it for herself on a closer level. A square cut stone, set in a delicate filigree pendant so as to let the light pass through it, hung on a heavy-looking golden chain, glittering greenly.

"Yes, this will do very well," Ivriniel said, holding it up to Rhoswen's face as the younger woman looked on with astonishment – the stone was easily the size of a pigeon's egg and no small weight, either.

"It is too much," Rhoswen stammered as Iviriniel smiled and shook her head.

"It is just enough, my dear. Let other women wear small gems – a princess is outshone by no one. You will say nothing about its price," she said quickly to the merchant as Rhoswen gaped. "My maid will settle the account with you when we are finished. Now, what have you in purple and sapphire for the Princess Lothiriel?"

It went without saying that then merchants left happy that afternoon, their trunks lighter and their purses fuller, fat and happy with their meal of golden castari. The finery was packed away for end year and the room swept clean of wayward thread and beads, the chairs set back to their original positions so Ivirinel's minstrels could join them for the rest of the afternoon.

"Yoneval, we have been you should sing us something…wistful," Ivirinel decided as the troubadour came in, joining them with one of his elaborate bows and setting himself on a short chair where everyone could hear him. The troubadour considered this, tuning his lute and strumming experimentally.

"Wistful," he repeated thoughtfully. "A song about lost youth, about innocence…"

"About the passage of time," Ivriniel clarified. "Today has been a day for long memories."

The minstrel smiled and nodded. "I have just the piece," he said, clearing his throat and strumming the opening chords. The room stilled as Yoneval began singing, opening, of all things, with a question, haunting and, Rhoswen quickly realized, quite true.

"What is a youth? Impetuous fire.
What is a maid? Ice and desire.
The world wags on.

A rose will bloom
It then will fade
So does a youth.
So do-o-o-oes the fairest maid," the troubadour trilled, his audience spellbound.

Comes a time when one sweet smile
Has its season for a while...Then love's in love with me." Yoneval smiled, and strummed the lute again, changing the key and quickening his pace, a light and capering note in his voice.
"Some they think only to marry, others will tease and tarry,
Mine is the very best parry. Arien she rules us all.
Caper the caper, sing me the song,
Death will come soon to hush us along.
Sweeter than honey and bitter as gall.
Love is a pastime and it never will pall.
Sweeter than honey and bitter as gall
Arien she rules us all

"A pretty tune, but bleak," Ivriniel pronounced when the last notes died away. "And why have you used Arien as the goddess of love?"

"If one could describe a love like that in the song, Lady, as well you know, it would be the love that consumes, that burns and leaves nothing behind, that cannot be consoled in sorrow. Such was Arien when she became the sun. Such, then, is love. "

"I thought it very fine," Lothiriel declared with a winning smile. "Yoneval is the best poet in the whole city of Dol Amroth when he is here. Is that not so, Yoneval?"

"If it is, lady, it is only because I have prettier women to write about than other men,' the troubadour said gallantly. "The ladies of the Swan Citadel have no peer throughout Gondor."

"I would not say that – to do so would be to insult my cousin!" Lothiriel corrected, making Rhoswen blush. "In her own city and, indeed, here in Dol Amroth also, she is reckoned among the fairest of the fair. What is it they call you in the City, Rhos? You have a nickname – Erun has told me of it!"

"The White Rose. It is a play on my name, nothing more," Rhoswen said, trying not to take the focus away from Lothiriel.

Yoneval was smiling now, as though a great mystery had been explained to him. "It pains me, then, that I should talk of the death of roses so carelessly! I pray you pardon me, lady, and allow me to make amends. When I was in the city a few days ago I heard a rather magnificent song. Not one of my own making, alas, but beautifully composed. May I sing it for you, ladies?"

"Indeed, I do not think we can let you leave without singing it, after such an introduction," Aunt Ivriniel said, smiling at Rhoswen and turning back to Yoneval.

The man smiled enigmatically, briefly catching Rhoswen's eye as he began. The look made the lady startle; his eyes, straight on, were radiantly blue, and everything she'd heard the maids saying about his good looks and charm suddenly became clearer to her.

"I know a lady bright and fair
with star-white roses in her hair
In all the world she is most pure
no man could withhold her allure

She is the lady of my lord,
the man to whom I owe my sword
To him she shows the deepest love
a golden treasure from above

I could not part them, for my heart
knows it was curséd from the start
to love a maiden fair and fine
while knowing she could not be mine

So I will sit and sing my song
in grief in deep as day is long
And in my heart will still compose
a verse to praise the true White Rose."

Lothiriel clapped endlessly as Yoneval finished the bitter little ballad, and Rhoswen felt strangely warm. Someone had written a song…for her, it seemed. "Where did you find this song, Yoneval?" Lothiriel was asking the troubadour.

"A place whose name I will not repeat in the lady's ear, it is so uncouth. A common wine-stew, no more. Sometimes a poet must sink to such places," he added sadly, though he really did not seem sad about it except for show. "The song, I thought, was too pretty to be sung there, and so I rescued it from the mouth of the poor soldier singing it (rather well, though, I thought, though he had no lute or rebec to accompany him) and brought it here for your pleasure."

"Was he of Dol Amroth, this soldier?" Rhoswen asked, suddenly finding her voice again. Her skin was cold. Yoneval turned to her, with a mischievous look in his eyes as though he would find out from her the great secret to who had really composed the tune.

"No, Lady, now that I think of it, he was not, and sang with the accent of one from Minas Tirith. A wonderful voice, though, for someone not of Dol Amroth." Yoneval's eyes darted back and forth for a moment, thinking rapidly. "But if my lady wished, I might frequent the place again and offer him lessons in the playing of an instrument or in singing, if that would please you, and tell you all the things a man may learn in the course of a conversation."

"It would not please me," Rhoswen said quickly, rising from her chair gracelessly, her throat suddenly dry. She remembered her courtesy before she took a step towards the door, and said to Yoneval, rather tonelessly, "Thank you for your songs, Master Poet. They were well said." The troubadour bowed and let her retire, leaving Lothiriel to mend the silence and call for another song before going to console her friend.

"Rhoswen, why did you leave so suddenly? It was only a harmless favor Yoneval offered," Lothiriel said reasonably, shutting the door to her room behind her tightly so that they might not be overheard. Rhoswen was in a chair by the fire, her shoulders tense.

"I know what he was offering," Rhoswen accused. "To…to take messages to this soldier, tell him of my approval, arrange meetings and all the while drag my honor through the mud down to that horrible little wineshop!"

"I think you already know who wrote it," Lothiriel said dangerously, locking eyes and staring Rhoswen down. Rhoswen turned quickly, cracking her elbow into the back of her chair. "I think you already know and don't want him to know that you've unmasked him. Because you're afraid."

How many men have come with me here, and how many of them know of poetry, and how many of them have expressed desire for me? Yes, I know, and yes, I am afraid, and why should I not be? "Because I'm afraid of what the rest of the court will think of me, with my betrothed gone until heaven knows when and a little-known soldier composing songs to my beauty?" Rhoswen said miserably, turning back to face the fire, holding her elbow and cursing her haste. "Is that not sufficient grounds for fear?"

"There is no danger in words of love, Rhoswen. I think I know that better than most, living where I do," Lottie said strongly. "Let him write his songs. I think if he wished for more he would have acted differently already."

"To follow me to Dol Amroth, to dog my steps whilst I am here, is that not acting differently?" Rhoswen asked, nearly hysterical at the idea that Lottie was not seeing this the same way.

"Rhoswen!" Lottie said strongly, seizing her friend's shoulders and forcing her to look into her eyes. "He has not followed you here, he is in your service, and the service of your brother. Your brother, who, I might add, is well known for protecting you to the last. If he has spoken with him of the matter of his presence here, and Erun has allowed him, then that should be all the surety you need. Your brother is a perceptive man and not easily fooled. Has this man dogged your steps? Is he waiting behind every corner? Has he sent you notes, flowers, tokens of his esteem? Tried to make his presence known to you? No! He has waited, because it is obvious he respects you far too much to ask for your attention. Because he respects Boromir as well," she added. "He has said as much in his song."

Rhoswen took a deep breath. "What would you have me do?" She asked, almost helplessly. She knew what Lottie was saying was true, but she didn't want to believe it.

"Call him to an audience. Bring the matter to his attention and see what he does with the information." Lothiriel paused. "Do you know why my uncle Hithwon liked his musicians so?"

"Why?" Rhoswen asked dryly.

"Because he was assured of their loyalty and their good opinion, and those two things meant that he could divert and direct the minds of his people, to an extent. Boromir has been gone for nearly four months now; there is talk – I will not say where from – that he may not return. Let the troubadours sing of such things as his return and your marriage. It will allay the fears of the people a little, remind them what they shall look forward to when he comes back. You shall be married, produce an heir, and life will move on as before. It will be that simple. It must be."

Rhoswen was silent, as if trying to find something to say to this proposition and failing. Lottie knew her friend too well to let this pass – if she dealt one more blow, the thing was as good as done. "You told me once you would rather be more like Aunt Ivriniel than any other woman in the world," she said strongly, her voice almost threateningly soft. "Here is your chance to begin the game. You are not the same girl who left Minas Tirith in melancholy. Let the world begin seeing the woman you have become, a woman who knows how the world works and is intent on seeing it that way, a woman who has her husband's best interests at heart, even if he is not here to see it." Lothiriel stepped back for a moment, wanting to survey her work from a distance. Her friend's face was no longer in turmoil, but rather quiet thought. Lothiriel smiled in spite of herself. She knew that look. It meant Rhoswen was seriously considering her proposition.

Finally the other woman spoke. "What should I say?" she asked quietly.

The Amrothian princess smiled with subdued triumph. Here, finally, was the unquiet woman Rhoswen had spoken of as her ideal. "Begin," she advised, "by thanking him for his visit…"

The scrollwork on the arm of the chair stood out in sharp relief against Rhoswen's wandering thumb, exploring the nooks and crannies of the carved surface while her hands held on for dear life. It was a heavy, ornate chair that usually stood in the corner of the room she shared with Lottie, too imperious for daily use. But imperious, it seemed, was good for audiences with wayward servants.

Rhoswen had thought to stand for the meeting – Lottie insisted she sit; the bigger the chair, the better. "It should be as though they have interrupted you at something – that it is not their time, but yours, that is being inconvenienced. And what if you should feel faint? No, Rhoswen, the chair. Why do you think Uncle Denethor receives in the King's Hall? Because his chair of state is there, and that shows his power, his place."

I wonder if Denethor's chair of state has a cushion, Rhoswen thought to herself. This one is most uncomfortable without it.

Near the window, Lothiriel paced, muttering to herself and wondering if she was forgetting something as they waited for Iorlas to appear. Finally there was a knock on the door, and Maireth went to answer it while Lottie fluttered behind a curtain, intent on watching from the shadows. Rhoswen picked up her book and flipped open to the first page, her hand shaking as she did so.

I am no reed that bends in the wind, she told herself, bracing her hands against the tops of her legs to stop them from shaking. I am the rock the waves break upon. I know the strength of the wind and I yet endure.

"Master Iorlas, of my lady's Guard," Maireth announced. Rhoswen looked up from her book with the most disinterested look she could manage, which probably erred on the side of mournful rather than disinterest itself. Iorlas stepped forward into the room, wearing his best livery and with his hair combed and worn loose in the traditional soldier's style.

"My lady called for me," he said, looking at Rhoswen with no little amount of trepidation on his own part.

"Are you enjoying it here in the White City, Iorlas?" Rhoswen asked suddenly. That was not it; I was supposed to thank him for his visit, but make it sound as though no time would have been good enough for me. Too late!

The guardsman did not seem to know what to say. "It is a fine place, Lady, and full of many wonderful things I would not have seen in the city. The Lord Imrahil is a fair and just ruler."

"I have been hearing a great deal of late of the wonders of the city," Rhoswen went on, the words coming from some heretofore unknown reservoir, her voice not her own. "The markets, and the docksides, and…the poets! We have several staying here at the Citadel, did you know that?" she did not wait for an answer. "One of them brought me the most interesting poem yesterday." Curious, I was supposed to say curious! "It mentioned me." She closed her book – her hands had stopped shaking – and looked Iorlas straight in the eye. "I am a stranger here in the city. Yet someone writes a song about me – and my Lord Boromir." Was he shaking? Was he honestly shaking? Or was that some trick of her imagination? Was she shaking? "Iorlas, did you write that song?"

The soldier studied his shoes a moment and then returned his gaze to Rhoswen. "Yes," he admitted finally. "If it has offended you, Lady, I will make certain it is sung no more."

Rhoswen closed her eyes for a moment, a great burden lifted off her chest. It was as Lottie had said; he did not seek to threaten her in the way she had thought.

Iorlas gathered she had feared something, for he went on. "I would not dream of dishonoring you, Lady – my love of the Lord Boromir and the Lord Erun your brother is too much."

"Was any of what you said true?" Rhoswen asked, her voice cold and as emotionless as she could make it. Still, to her ears it sounded high and girlish, hopeful, even. No, no hope here! I do not hope for anything from him!

Iorlas paused for a moment and considered his words with care. "It is the fashion in Dol Amroth to love women too far beyond your station to even hope for their acknowledgement, Lady. To compose such a poem and bring their beauty to the attention of others is the only reward one hopes for. That is the nature of… my love, Lady – as a peasant loves his queen for making his king happy."

Rhoswen laughed drily. "I am no queen."

"You are the nearest thing we have had to a queen in many years, Lady," Iorlas added quietly.

How I wish now that were not true. If only Boromir had been a lesser man; then I would have been content. But I must sail with the tide I am given, and all the ill winds that come with it. "It is not in my power to command you to be silent, Iorlas. You are a free man and may sing about what you wish. You are dismissed," she said, and the guardsman gave his salute, turning to leave. "Iorlas?" Rhoswen said, making the man pause at the door. She nearly forgot why she had called him back, so amazed was she with her own boldness. "Should you like lessons in how to play the lute? There is a troubadour who wants nothing better than to teach you," she explained, a little reticently. The soldier's face brightened, and he nodded once. "I will tell him your name, then." Though I ought not to, something in her mind said dourly.

Iorlas nodded again and then he left, Maireth shutting the door behind him and slumping behind it a little. In her chair, Rhoswen sighed and sagged, worn out from sitting with such an iron-straight back for so long. Lottie emerged from the curtain in a cloud of dust, clapping.

"That was magnificent, Rhoswen! I liked your way better, going straight to the point like that – it frightened him! And to see you – you looked every inch a queen! That is how the future Stewardess must act in court!"

"My own court, disciplining musicians," Rhoswen joked weakly. "Sounds like quite an endeavor."

"But you will have courts, you know," Lottie reminded Rhoswen, half-rescuing her from the deep carved chair and hefting it, together, back to its place in the corner of the room. "Boromir shall see to the stuff of wartime, and taxes, and land disputes, and you will have almost everything else."

"I always assumed that would be private business I would see to, not public reprimands."

Lottie shook her head, setting the room back to rights. "Behind every great man there is a great woman, giving him counsel," she quoted. "One of Aunt Rin's sayings. She, of course, has handled her own affairs of state for years since the death of Uncle Hithwon, but she is the exception, rather than the rule. That was why she started the Courts of Love."

Rhoswen, standing by the fire flexing her arms and trying to move some blood back into them, laughed. "The what?"

"The courts of Love!" Lottie repeated, taking Rhoswen's hands and spinning her about the room. "Every year, at the End Year, Aunt Rin gathers together all her poets and her ladies and they hold debates and arguments concerning matters of the heart, and business between men and women. It is very serious, and a good way for a woman to learn both the skill of arguing and how to handle affairs of the heart."

"Those are so much more complicated here than they are at home," Rhoswen complained, setting her work-basket back in its proper place. "Either you are in love with someone, or you are not. You tell them, or you don't. Why should there be rules and forms to follow?"

She looked up just as she said that, seeing Lottie across the room with eyes blazing. "For hope," Lottie said distantly, her eyes staring the back of the chair she had clutched for support "While you may be married to a Hithwon, you can still keep the idea of a Lu….a lover in your heart, and there is no idea to make it anything more than admiration and desire. They will be after the masque," Lottie specified. "It is always a treat to see who has offended or honored whom after that party."

Rhoswen nodded, only half-agreeing with Lottie. How strange and complicated her life had become since leaving Minas Tirth – or rather, since leaving Anfalas! I have so many secrets, she mused. And so many of them do not seem to be mine. I heard that she said Lucan to herself just then. But do they help or hurt me? Now I command men and fear the whims of other women. What would my mother think of me, if she could see me now? She did not have the answer to that question: her mother was as foreign to her as Mordor was, an unknowable place, beyond all thought. But there was someone nearer whose reaction she also could not place.

What will Boromir think of me when he returns? Will he still even wish to marry me, after all the places he has been?

Well, I'm finally done with the middle school, and I'm nearly half-way done with my student teaching at the high school. Student teaching is hard work, let me tell you. And it's really hard to work on a story when your mind has to be in many other time-periods and work modes at the same time. Merc's brain was just not feeling the medieval vibes.

One of the other reasons it took me so long to get this chapter going is because I couldn't find a good song for Yoneval to sing first. Fortunately for all of you, my roommate, who is also student teaching, is in the middle of a Romeo and Juliet unit right now and left the Zeffirelli version on our kitchen counter where it begged to be watched for weeks. Finally I conceded, and right in the middle of Act one, scene five, I found my song. You should go watch it on YouTube – the guy who sings it has a beautiful voice. The other song, alas, is an original. Blame the poor quality on Iorlas' poetry writing newbie-ness.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this (rather long by my standards) chapter. It might be all you see for a while – upcoming college graduation means lots of job searching and not a lot of time for writing.