Author's Note: Well, I'm just the worst person ever. I'm sorry, sorry, sorry – so sorry – for the long break in posting. There's a few things which I needed to get right in my head before I could write this chapter, and then it was hard to get into the mood to write. It's important to me that I prepare a good update rather than simply update in a timely manner (if that isn't obvious to you now), but this break has been absurdly long. For which I apologize. I hope you can forgive me, and that you appreciate the effort that I put in to each and every sentence. Your reviews are splendid, inspiring, and, to be frank, quite mind-blowing. I cannot express how elated I am with each comment. Dear reader: you rock.
That said, I am incredibly excited to have Aila in Rohan. It will be interesting to see how she feels around the Men, as she has only really been around Elves so far (with the exceptional exception of the Fellowship). I hope that I have done a good job here in bringing the culture and people of Rohan to life. It is my sincere wish that I do not do these proud Eorlingas any disservice in my portrayal of them, as I love them so. Of course, I have taken some creative license, and so there are a few things regarding the Men of Rohan that I'd like to preemptively explain:
1. It is apparent to me that the Rohirrim are basically Vikings on horses and since I have such a penchant for anything Scandinavian, this suits me quite well. There are some storied Viking rituals which I have borrowed for this chapter and some that I have simply made up.
2. The Rohirric language is represented in this story by Old English. This is partially because Tolkien never really created a Rohirric language, and also mostly because Tolkien himself used Old English to represent the language of Rohan. He had conceptualized this tongue to be an ancestor of the Westron/Common speech and so Old English was apt. This is equally compelling for use in my own story since, as stated above, I want the Rohirrim to have a pseudo-Nordic feel.
Enjoy! And rest assured that Legolas and the rest of our heroes shall not be absent from this story-line for long.
. . .
Ch. 34 When in Rome
It wasn't long before her three companions, and Duke, had disappeared entirely from her sight, their proud figures obscured by the risen cloud of dust, kicked up by the thundering feet of one hundred (and six) horses. Éomer, with Aila, led this expansive, charging clan of horse and horse-master – the éored followed after its leader in the loose shape of an arrowhead – so that Aila's last sight of Aragorn and Legolas were from around the shoulder of a grim and stern Man who had checked his horse to follow immediately after the Third Marshal. She had lost sight of Gimli and Duke, being lower to the ground, some moments before. There was a pang in her chest when she thought now of her separation from these friends, and so she turned her head forward, focusing instead on the Man in front of her and, perhaps most importantly, on the horse beneath her. She would see Aragorn and Legolas and Gimli soon, she reminded herself. And Duke. Her thoughts, instead, should be turned to Edoras and her few days alone among the Rohirrim.
They were riding swiftly, such that Aila had to wrap her arms around Éomer's torso to keep herself from falling backward over the great animal's rump; and she knotted her hands together just above the Man's navel and she pressed her cheek against his back, just between his broad shoulder-blades. And her knees, in turn, she held tightly against the sides of the running horse, in a feeble attempt to support herself as she bounced on the horse's wide back. Little known to her, the pressing insistence of her knees only spurred the horse to a faster and wilder gallop.
The éored, led by Éomer's steed in this manner, was making record time.
Perhaps only twenty minutes had passed, or perhaps it had been several hours, but Aila's already broken body felt injured and brutalized by the violence of their swift ride. But the Rohirrim, seasoned horse-men, seemed as comfortable on their mounts as any other might feel on a steady stroll through the countryside. Not so for Aila; and so with each passing moment of her ride, she felt herself to be holding tighter to Éomer, trying to steady herself and to lessen the pain of each rotating stride of his stallion. But these efforts, in fact, did very little toward either endeavor. Sensing such little improvement in her situation, Aila pressed her face solidly against Éomer's back, and she screwed her eyes tightly shut and tried only to endure. Surely, it could not last forever?
And with her head and body so closely situated next to and around the Man, it was unavoidable that his scent would invade her sinuses. The Man's smell was sharp and pungent, immediately unpleasant; a smell of animals, and of earth, and of leather and sweat. Even the strong, steady wind that the swiftness of his horse produced was not enough to blow away this scent before it reached her nose. And though Aila would have liked very much to be completely disgusted by this, the gritty smell of this Man, his smell had a somewhat wooded scent, akin to the razor-sharp pungency of pine; and so, with reluctance, Aila realized that it reminded her of her father.
On the other side of the mirror, Aila's father was a tall and classically handsome man, after the manner of Frank Sinatra or Cary Grant. And though his skin was pocked by old, faded acne-scars and wear, it was also darkened to a warm brown color by long hours of work out-of-doors. His fingers were blunted, squared, by years of manual labor, his nails were kept short by teeth (like Aila) and flat by misplaced hammer-strikes. His hair was gracefully making the transition from midnight-black to steely-silver. He was a carpenter by trade, specializing in cabinetry; and he often smelled of wood and sweat and cherry chap-stick. And so, though its scent burned the edges of her nostrils in an unpleasant manner, the smell of Éomer was oddly comforting and soothing. It made Aila feel grounded and safe.
And human.
Some of the discomfort of the ride faded away.
They rode through the day, those horsemen of Rohan, through the afternoon and through the evening, taking no pause to rest or eat. Their horses charged forward, as fresh and strong and swift as they had been that morning. The Men of the éored themselves were unmoving upon their steeds, each a striking, statuesque figure of willful intent and grim determination. Each was focused only on his task, and that was to ride southward. Their horses, however, were surprisingly active; churning legs, swishing tails, a flurry of tossed manes and flared nostrils – and upon each of these wild, moving animals sat a stony Man, engrossed in thought or lost in some world other than this one.
Aila herself constantly moved and adjusted – realigning her hands, pressing her knees tighter or softer, arching her back to stretch taut muscles, elongating her spine to stick her nose into the pressing wind that screamed just over the Man's shoulder. Though she shifted and moved and wiggled, Éomer seemed to pay her little mind. He rode forward, southward. Ever on. Even the set of his shoulders had a determined and doggedly severe character. She could not see his face, of course, but she imagined it to be as stony and austere as his Riders around him.
The sun set then in the west, beyond the reaching fingers of the northernmost rises of the White Mountains. The Riders of the Rohirrim did not travel much further into the deepening night before they reined in their steeds and themselves, pausing, finally, to rest. The pause came suddenly and surprisingly to Aila, as she did not hear any word of command or gesture from Éomer to indicate to his horse or his company that the time had come to pause. Pause they did, however. As though attuned to its master's slightest whim, Éomer's stallion began to slow, reducing its speed to a swift canter, and then a jaunty and spirited trot, and then to a metrical, slow, and delicate walk. And then, finally, to a halt.
And as the horse's movement finally ceased – again as though one were perfectly attuned to the other – Éomer leapt down from his mount, moving with a speed and agility that Aila would not have expected from his large frame. Once his leather boots were upon the plush grass, he turned and offered a hand to help Aila down after him. She took his proffered hand, and then looked, hesitantly, at the ground, so far away – and she was immediately and unerringly terrified of the long way down. Éomer began pulling before she was ready, still considering the best way to get from saddle to earth; but the Man successfully, and unsteadily, managed to unseat her from the saddle. His arms supported her entirely as she awkwardly came crashing down toward the ground – silently, because her voice was stuck in her fearful throat. But his hands were thick and strong, and they wrapped securely around her waist to steady her, and within the space of only a moment, her feet were settled back on firm ground. She lifted a quiet hand to her brow to ensure that she was still upright and unharmed. Her eyes closed momentarily.
But they were brought open again as the Man asked: "What is your name?" His hands were still tightly around her waist and he was staring at her, his eyes narrowed, with a curious expression. He seemed now to drink her in, his eyes moving swiftly over her face and clothing, and his nostrils were flared outward, perhaps trying to test her own scent. Legolas was not there now to stand in front of her to obscure Éomer's view. And as he looked at her, Aila did the same; noting the depth and darkness of his eyes, flat and cunning even in the night. The Man had a short, dense beard – or, rather, an overgrowth of dark blonde hair on his chin and neck that more resembled wild stubble than true beard – and the dark blonde hair on his face matched in perfect hue the dark blonde hair that was tucked into a broad, loose braid at the base of his skull. Some wisps of his untamed, course hair had escaped the regiment of the braid and framed his face. He had round, ruddy cheeks and a strong, straight nose. His beard – his stubble – framed red lips, slightly parted by curiosity. And for some moments, Aila was silent: staring at him as he stared at her.
"Aila," she responded quietly, blood rushing into her cheeks, and she lifted her hands to lay her palms against his wrists. The intimacy with which they had passed the day, with Aila clutching so tightly to him, gave her sudden embarrassment. The corners of her lips turned up into a small, awkward, apologetic smile. Suddenly conscious of the placement of his hands, at the touch of her palms against his wrists, Éomer dropped them again to his side, and his mouth shut on a long, drawn line. And as he dropped his hands, he also straightened and fully stood up, as he had been hunched slightly forward toward Aila in order to grasp her waist. He was tall, she noted, with not a little awe. He seemed to stretch up toward the heavens right in front of her. Was he taller, even, than Aragorn? For the moment, Aila couldn't think. Her mind was wiped blank.
But with a decisive nod that seemed to effectively affirm something to himself alone, the Man quickly turned his back to Aila, and his fingers worked deftly to remove her pack from the bags which were strapped to the saddle. This pack he thrust quickly into her hands, wordlessly. And then his fingers wrapped securely around the reins of the tall horse and he quietly led the steed away, the only sounds being the heavy, snorting breaths of the animal and the soft plodding of his hooves in the grass. And Aila was left standing, singular, amid the sudden chaos of dismounting Rohirrim who also relieved their horses of their baggage and quietly, also, led them away.
Aila, unsure of what to do or where to go, remained exactly where she was; a solitary statue, a stationary pinpoint, amid the commotion of the horses and Riders. The Riders seemed to be leading their horses, two-by-two, into the very center of their large group, and they tethered the reins of their horses together in an impossibly complicated braid that somehow linked each stamping, snorting, tail-swishing horse to its neighbors on all sides. Two long rows of horses were formed, nose-to-nose; and once that row grew too long, a second complement was added. And once their horses were settled, the Men began themselves to settle down, in winding patterns around the collected horses, a ring of protection around their most valued possessions. They organized themselves into distinct groups, some eight or ten men in a circle, and each of these groups lit a small campfire and went about the business of cooking and eating. Their voices rose up into the air, a gentle and welcoming murmur. Their language, Aila thought, suited them well: it was an exact, cadenced expression of guttural sounds and sharp vowels. One need not speak loudly to elicit differentiation in these sounds, and so their voices were low, and their lips flew merrily about in formation of complicated utterances and rapid speech. And still, Aila stood awkwardly, clutching her pack against her chest, uncertain and unmoving.
It was then that Éomer returned, his own pack slung casually over his shoulder, and he laughed openly when he saw her still standing there, in the same place where he had left her. He waved a hand and she quickly followed after him, some twenty or thirty yards away, to join a group of men who had already built up a fire. These men were constructing also a small tent, only large enough, it seemed, for one of the large, thickly built Men. They called out to Éomer as he approached to join them, and he responded in the same complicated tongue.
Again, Éomer gestured to Aila, and she sank down to sit on the ground within this circle of Men, her pack settled in her lap, her arms wrapped around it. She looked at the fire, and only occasioned a glance at the Men around her when she thought she might get away with observing them unnoticed. She realized that Éothain was among the members of their circle, and he hardly took his eyes away from her. His expression was sour.
"Come," said Éomer once he was seated, cross-legged, on the ground within the circle. He placed his hands on his knees and, even seated, he was taller than any other member of their small circle. Aila hunched over her pack, lowering herself even further. "Pour the cup."
At this simple command, Éothain began to busily remove items from his own pack, and, carefully and with a delicacy which Aila would not have expected from the unhappy Man, he set out a roughly hewn wooden cup and a small water-skin beside it. These instruments he handed directly to Éomer, and the Third Marshal spoke something in their native tongue to the Men gathered within his circle. He poured a bright, clear liquid from the water-skin into the cup; taking great care to pour the drink slowly. The entire scene had a ritualistic quality and the Man moved as through the counted steps of a dance: Éomer stopped pouring the liquid, stared into the cup, poured a little more, reassessed the measure in the cup, topped it off with one last quick drop, and then he was satisfied. He re-screwed the cap of the water-skin to seal its remaining contents, and held the cup aloft before him in both hands. Again, he invocated something in their native tongue, a phrase which the other nine men repeated in kind. Aila was silent, eyes wide as she watched.
But Éomer did not drink from this cup – rather, he passed to the Man immediately to his right. And this Man, after staring into the depths of the wooden cup as if to measure its volume, took a careful, unhurried, deliberate sip from its contents. He said no word once he had done this, but handed it to the Man to his right. And this Man, Éothain, again took measure of the contents before he took his drink. Again, the cup was passed. Each Man, in turn, performed this little ritual; glancing into the cup to measure its remainder, pressing the wooden brim to his lips and, with a great amount of care and attention, imbibed some quantity of its contents. And when the cup reached Aila, it was not handed to her; instead, Éomer, who sat to her right, reached out and took the cup from the Man who sat to her left. She breathed a silent sigh of relief.
Éomer looked into the contents of the cup for a few moments, swishing the remaining liquid around at the bottom of the wooden vessel, before looking up to the Men around the circle and smiling. "Very well done," he said, in the Common Speech, and he tilted his head back, swiftly draining the remaining contents of the drink. And as he drank, the other Riders said something more in their native tongue, and the ritual seemed to be finished.
As soon as he had drained the cup, Éomer picked up the water-skin once more and poured a small amount of its liquid into the cup again, and this time he handed it directly to his left, to Aila. She accepted it, surprised, and looked down into the mug. There was only a half a finger's-width of liquid in the cup, surely only enough for one drinker. Her brain worked rapidly. The ritual was over. Éomer was only offering her a drink. She pressed her nose into the center of the cup and inhaled, perhaps too deeply. The sharp scent of alcohol burned at her nostrils. Nodding to Éomer in wordless thanks, she pressed her lips to the cup's brim and quickly threw its contents to the back of her throat. The liquor had a sweet, dewy flavor that was only just apparent beneath the sharp sting of the alcohol on her tongue. And she couldn't have guessed whether it was a type of alcohol more akin to vodka or whiskey or gin, but it was strong. Unexpectedly strong. She grimaced as the alcohol burned her mouth and throat, and she coughed weakly. The Men around her laughed, and she opened her eyes again to smile, apologetically, at them.
"Thank you," she said to Éomer as she handed the cup back to him.
He nodded, a small smile evident even in the darkness and through his short beard, and he said, "Georne!"
The Third Marshal collected up the cup and water-skin, handing both of these back to his lieutenant Éothain, and then it was time to eat. As Aila accepted her ration of food, simultaneously thinking how she wished she had lembas and being glad that she had something, anything, to eat that wasn't lembas, Éomer cleared his throat beside her.
The other Men were engaged in their own conversations and were paying their leader, and Aila, very little mind. She turned her head to look at the Man from Rohan in time to hear him say, "Aila," in a way as if he were testing her name on his tongue. She didn't say anything immediately in response, and so the Man asked, bluntly: "What interest are you of Saruman's that you should be so kept from him?"
And though Éomer's face was serious and firm, Aila chuckled a little and looked down to her feet. Her right eyebrow raised a little higher over the other. "Caught that, did you?" she said, turning her gaze back to the fire. She tore off a bit of bread and put it into her mouth, slowly and quietly chewing as she thought of her response. After only a moment, she pushed the piece of bread into the corner of her cheek and, softly, spoke around it. "To be perfectly honest, I'm not quite sure," she admitted, and she could see from her peripheral vision that Éomer watched her earnestly. "But it was Gandalf that warned against my going too near to Isengard, and the White Wizard – and I trust Gandalf enough that I am willing to blindly follow that advice, no matter the inconvenience."
"You mean the inconvenience of being separated from your companions," said the Man, and again his deep voice and deeper meaning were blunt.
"Yes," she said quietly in response, still staring into the depths of the fire. She swallowed the bread in her mouth, and fiddled with tearing a new piece, not watching the movement of her hands. "They are my only companions in this whole world."
"Surely that is not the case," replied Éomer swiftly. "Have you no family?"
She turned to look at Éomer then, to meet his dark brown eyes, and she thought for some moments before she replied, simply: "They are my family."
And though it felt proper to say, Aila immediately wondered at the veracity of this statement. Duke, of course, was indeed her family, but she wondered if she could apply such a concept to the others. When she thought of Aragorn, and Legolas, and Gimli, did she think of them as brothers? Aragorn, surely, was too important, too impressive, too regal for her to name her brother; to reduce his character in such a way as to name him as her equal. And Legolas – eternal, strong, noble Legolas – the Elf was beyond the reach of her limited human understanding, his role to her did not fit in the traditional familial roles that her weak mind could construct. But then she thought of Gimli – ah, Gimli! Short, proud, quick-to-anger Gimli, whom she could easily think of as a brother. Had she ever had a brother on the other side of the mirror, Aila imagined (and hoped) that her relationship with him would have been very nearly akin to her easy friendship with Gimli. The Dwarf had, after all, openly threatened Éomer in defense of her. It seemed quite a brotherly thing to do.
Yes, they were, all three of them, her family. Her heart swelled in her chest, a pleasant and painful movement. They were her family, and she had turned her back on them all to go to Edoras.
Éomer was silent for a minute more. "Then you have done me a greater service than first I imagined, in agreeing to come with me to my city. Forgive me, I did not realize that I was pulling you from so tightly-knit a group."
"As I said, they will be in Edoras shortly. Within only a few days, I think," she said, smiling at the Rider. "And you swore yourself to protect me, so I will be safe until I see them again, I trust. I have heard it said that the Men of the Mark do not lie."
"Yes, indeed!" replied Éomer, sudden laughter on his lips. "And you shall be safe, I swear it. Though perhaps, if you are meant to keep away from Saruman and his influences, then I do you more disservice by leading you into Meduseld than by allowing you to roam in the Wild. There are those in service of Théoden-king that serve rather a different master – or, that is how I see it, though I may be quite alone in that belief."
"Wormtongue, do you mean?" And as she said that, Éomer looked at her sharply.
"How come you to know this name?" the Man demanded, his expression, even in the darkness, obviously intent and anxious.
"I could not say," Aila replied warily, "but I know a little of him and his loyalties."
"This is not well," replied Éomer, his voice quiet, and now it was his dark eyes that were turned to the fire. The other Men continued to pay their leader and Aila no mind. "Our state is weakened, and I am afraid that any news of our weakness could inspire an attack against us, if indeed word of Wormtongue's influences have traveled far abroad. Was this the word in the North that you heard?"
"No," said Aila quickly, her mind working rapidly to contrive a way that she could explain her knowledge of Wormtongue. "I cannot say where I first heard his name, or heard tell of his broken loyalties, but I think you can rest with the assurance that no such news is traveling abroad."
Éomer did not seem to readily accept her statement, however, and he was silent for several minutes. The air was darkening around them, and Aila largely lost sight of the Third Marshal's features.
"It is time for sleeping," he said, after a long pause, and his voice was devoid of any latent content or emotion. The other Men in the circle, suddenly, were paying full attention to their leader. He nodded to each in turn, a deep frown on his face, and then he looked again to Aila. "You shall sleep in here," he said, gesturing to the small tent some ten feet behind him. The other Men watched and listened with absorbent eyes and ears. "It is meant for the First of the éored, but I cannot sleep in it and leave a woman to sleep outside, exposed in the open air." And he reached for her pack, taking it from her with his large hands and he moved to place the pack inside the tent. As he did this, the other Men began to busily move about to ready themselves for sleep; one stamped out the fire, the others spread bedrolls or arranged packs or cleared small rocks and debris. Aila, awkward and unsteady and embarrassed, scrambled after Éomer.
She whispered, gasped, mumbled her thank-you's to the Man, again and again, until she was successfully ushered into the tent itself. She crawled through the opening and was refreshingly glad to close its flap against the strange clan of Men by whom she was surrounded. Aila laid back, placing her head against her pack, and she closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. A dull throb was evident just above the bridge of her nose, between her eyebrows.
The flap flew open again, flung aside by a swift hand, and Éomer was looking at her, his eyebrows drawn close together over narrowed eyes. "We will make Edoras by early afternoon," he said to her, and again his voice was plain and straightforward. "It was originally my plan to present you before the king once we arrived at Meduseld, but I think now that the wiser course would keep you hidden from him – and from the eyes of the snake, Wormtongue. My advice is this: rest well, and be prepared to make haste into the shadows of Edoras as soon as we arrive. I shall aide you as a can, and to you I swear, still, my protection."
"Edoras is a dangerous place for us both," said Aila, and the Man stared at her wordlessly for several moments more. Whether he understood her meaning or not, Aila didn't know, but he quickly withdrew his hand from the tent and was gone.
. . .
Aila had only just closed her eyes to go to sleep, but a hand thumping against the flap of the tent roused her once more. The edges of her eyes felt tight and sore, and there was a thick ache in the back of her eyes which was only relieved by the heavy pressure of an insistent, prolonged blink. She lifted balled hands to rub at her eyes, in an infantile fashion. Another loud thump against the stiff canvas of the tent forced her to crawl out of the opening to see what was the matter.
It was morning. That was the matter. The sun was rising; its wan, bleeding light leaking out of the east and lighting the rolling grass of the Rohirric countryside as a pale sage.
Éomer was standing just outside the tent, and he looked fresh and eager. His dark brown eyes were wide and intelligent, and his wild hair was newly wrangled into the organization of a stout braid. He offered a hand to help Aila to her feet, which she took.
They, in actuality, did not make Edoras until early evening, and the Sun was already hanging low in the west when Aila first caught sight of the proud city.
The city of the Rohirrim was tightly rimmed by a wide, low wall made of roughly cut stone and about ten feet in height. Within this ring, wide hillocks and running slops rose and tumbled, and a multitude of squat wooden houses with golden thatched roofs huddled together, arranged according to no plan or poetry. The land within the walls eventually rose to a imposing rise, peaked at a crescendo of thick grass and exposed gray stone. This miniature mountain looked to be formed by a wind from the east, so that its eastern slope was a gentle and meandering rise to its broad, flat, venerable peak, but that it suddenly dropped on its western side to a sheer, rocky, impressive bare face that fell precipitously to the grassy plains below. And abutted against this bleak drop stood the old and dignified long-hall of Meduseld.
There was a broad wooden gate in the outer wall through which they now rode: Éomer first, and his éored followed after him, three Riders abreast. The great doors, painted a deep emerald green, were thrown open for the easy passage of the Riders. And to each side, rising high above the wall and standing as sentries, fluttered two bright pennants that each featured a creamy white horse with a long, regal neck and spindly, stylized legs atop a thick body. The manes of these horses flew back from their necks like tongues of fire, and their eyes were a shining black, their hooves edges in gold. The fields which these horses pranced within were each a rich, dark green or a royal, deep red, and then these colorful fields were framed with bright, rich yellow. Gold tassels danced from their corners.
Once within the walls of Edoras, Aila turned to watch the long snake-like chain of the Riders enter through the narrow way. She saw that, once they were inside the city, Riders began to peel off from the main group, veering this way or that in groups of two or three or ten. Éomer, however, continued westward. Toward Meduseld. Soon, only he and a company of some twenty Riders were on their way up the rising slope of the mount. The breath caught in Aila's throat and she pressed her lips into a thin, severe line. The grand hall looked royal and proud and sinister. She thought of Legolas and his loaded question. Would see she him again? – What would befall her in this city of Men?
And to the immediate left of Théoden's ancient house, there stood a well-kept and finely built stable, into which Éomer rode. The horse, in entering this structure, was moving swifter than Aila might have liked but the horse quickly reduced its speed and, not a moment too soon, came to an expedient halt, and Aila saw that stable-hands were already waiting to groom and tend to the Third Marshal's horse, and the others. Foreign, dark, curious eyes were staring openly at Aila.
Éomer paused for only the breadth of a heartbeat before leaping down from his horse, once the stallion had stopped, and only after he had nodded to one of the stable-boys in particular, beckoning the boy to attend him. And again, as soon as his feet were settled on the ground, Éomer turned to offer his hand to help Aila down. This time, however, he waited patiently, his dark, keen eyes settled expectantly on her. And so she swung her right leg over the body of the horse, and made as if to slide slowly down as one might slip down a slide. Éomer's hands were again on her waist, then, and he supported her as she, infinitely more gracefully than before, alighted to the dirt-strewn floor of the stable.
Éomer's attention was then on the boy. "Wes hāl," he said, dipping his chin in greeting to the small boy, who looked to be no more than twelve. The boy returned the Rider's greeting, though his head nodded into a deeper bow than Éomer's had. And then the boy said something to Éomer, in a reverent and shy voice, that caught the Third Marshal's sharp eye and caused a deep frown to form beneath his beard.
But whatever the boy had said, Éomer quickly righted himself and the Man directed all three of them – horse, Aila, and stable-boy – into a nearby box stall. The boy was so short that he was hidden entirely to the other Men once he was within the walls of this stall. And with the stallion serving as a living wall between the three of them and the other Riders and stable-attendants, Éomer began to speak to the boy, in a hushed and rapid voice, and continued to do this for several minutes. Aila watched, her eyes slightly glazed for lack of understanding, and she watched the repetitive movements of Éomer's lips as he formed the sharp words of his native tongue. The boy's head was nodding quickly in acquiescence to whatever it was that Éomer said; it looked as though the poor boy's head might roll right off with the next exaggerated nod.
"Good," said Éomer finally, switching back to the Common Speech for Aila's benefit. She only just realized that he had made the switch and was actually using words that she understood. "Aila," he said, both to address her and also to call her attention to him, as he had noticed her flagging understanding. She lifted her eyebrows at him, but his expression was as yet stern and cautious. He was taking her protection seriously. "Aila," he said again, "you must go now with Eadric," and he gestured to the boy. The boy's attention immediately transitioned so that he was nodding now at Aila. "He will take you to Hilla, my sister's waiting-woman, and she will hide you and look after you, I am sure, once the situation has been explained to her. You and I, Aila – we must not been seen together, as it would raise suspicion which no explanation could quell, but know that I will be keeping careful track of where you are and I will do everything in my power to keep you safe and from Wormtongue's sight."
"But the other Men," said Aila slowly, looking from boy to Man. Eadric, who seemed not to understand the Common Tongue, continued to nod vigorously. "The other Riders ... they have all seen me travel into the city with you. Surely it wouldn't be possible to keep knowledge of my presence here from spreading?"
"The Men of my own éored are faithful to me," replied Éomer, with a sense of the definite and an obvious touch of pride in his voice. He seemed very nearly offended that she could make such an inquiry. "I shall circulate word that you are not to be spoken of. We will all endeavor to keep you safe in this city, until your friends can retrieve you."
And with that quick and baldly unsatisfying explanation, Éomer turned to untie Aila's pack from the horse's saddle. When the Man turned around again, he looked at Aila with a critical and dissatisfied eye. "You should remove your weapons, and give them to Eadric to carry. It is uncommon for a woman to walk in Edoras so armed. It is already enough that we cannot help your odd clothing."
Aila's right hand flew then to her shoulder, and a cold, sinking feeling settled in her stomach when her hands gripped the hilt of the sword. Glamdring. She swore quietly to herself. She should have left the sword with Aragorn for its swifter return to Gandalf – now the returned wizard would have no weapon until he arrived in Edoras. Éomer watched her expression change with a curious look on her face, and then his thick hands moved to help her divulge herself of the swords and her strange grey-green cloak. These, and her pack, he handed to the small stable-boy.
"Go now, with Eadric. I will send word to you when I can." Once his hands were free of her things, Éomer took a small step forward toward Aila, and he did something which greatly surprised her. He bent forward, putting his right hand onto her shoulder, and he slowly lowered his head to press his forehead against hers briefly. Again, it was an odd ritual that Aila did not understand, but she allowed him to do it – though she fought against herself to keep from taking a surprised step back.
The boy quickly slung the strap of her pack over his thin shoulder, almost simultaneously wrapping the swords in the folds of her cloak, and then he reached out to grab Aila's hand, leading her out of the stall and out of the stable.
"Thank you," she said to Éomer as she moved to follow the hurrying boy. "Éomer, thank you."
"Sīe þu hāl," said the Rohirric Man, and he watched her disappear out of the stable. Thankfully, Eadric led her away from Meduseld, and the pair of them, hand-in-hand, disappeared into the huddled collection of modest wooden houses.
. . .
Hilla was a mature and thickly built woman, with a mass of wavy, course hair the color of straw and a rounded, red nose. She also had a pair of the largest breasts that Aila had ever seen – and which were prominently displayed by the woman's tight-fitting and low-slung bodice. They stood in her doorway for only the span of half a minute as the boy, Eadric, spoke quickly to her in their Rohirric tongue. But Aila only heard the boy get as far as to say Éomer's name before she was interrupting the boy with her buoyant laughter. She wobbled to the side of the door, holding tight to the frame to support herself as she laughed, and she allowed them both access into her house.
The inside was poorly furnished, but meticulously maintained, and there seemed not to be even a speck of dust in the whole place. The floor was scrubbed clean and laid with what appeared to be clay, the thatched roof hung low, and a bright fire was burning in a blackened hearth. When the woman had finished laughing – her chest heaving with the momentous effort of each guffaw – she spoke a few careless and unhurried words to the boy, gesturing to a corner of the small room. Eadric quickly deposited Aila's bag, cloak, and swords in this corner and, without another word or backward glance to Aila, hurried out of the house.
"Well," said the woman in the Common Speech, "another of Éomer's women, eh?" Her speech was thickened by an accent obviously colored by the trilling melodies of her native tongue. The woman laughed again, and shook her head in an amazed sort of way. "I fear for our Éomer – for his taste seems to be flagging," she said as she looked at Aila's dirty, torn, and strange garments. "But perhaps you clean up nicer than I expect – come! You smell, and I do not allow animals into my home."
"Excuse me," said Aila quietly, timidly. She was taken aback by the boisterousness of the woman, confused by the circumstances, and slightly offended by the blatancy of this last insult. "But did Eadric properly explain? I ..."
"Yes, yes," said Hilla, waving her hand in a dismissive manner. "I don't need that fool child to explain to me. This happens more often than you would care to know, girl! That Éomer of yours – the occasion is often that he takes a fancy to a girl, and he brings her here to me, because he can't rightly parade his conquests around the high hall of Meduseld now, can he?" laughed the woman. "No, I already know what you need: you need a place to stay away from the eyes of his uncle the king – lest Théoden rightly force the rascal to marry one of you – and you need a bed, until the time that Éomer calls you to his!" Aila's jaw went slack and she stared at Hilla open-mouthed. "But first," continued Hilla, waving her hands again at Aila, but this time to gesture for the girl to follow her, "you need a bath!"
It was not the bath which Aila had expected. She followed Hilla out of the house and into another nearby longhouse, which had no windows and which leaked steam whenever someone opened its doors. And during the whole walk, she argued with Hilla regarding her status as one of "Éomer's women." Hilla only laughed at her, and flapped her hand dismissively. And if Aila had hoped that a relaxing bath would soothe her anger, she found that a Rohirric bath was not a pleasant experience, and that was for several reasons. Attendants stripped Aila of her clothing, and, once she was properly sweaty from the heat of the room, rubbed dirt and pungent herbs into her skin. But she was not allowed to wash this muck off with water until the attendants had scraped the majority of it from her skin with thin, rough switches. In the end, Aila's skin was bright red and irritated, sweaty and emitting the unpleasant, bitter scent of the herbs. Hilla seemed satisfied. Aila was prepared the strangle the large woman.
She tried, once more, on the way back to Hilla's house to explain to the woman what was going on, but once more she was rebuffed by a disbelieving laugh. Aila's stomach burned with anger and embarrassment, but she quickly found that she was too exhausted to continue to argue. For this night, at least, she would be safe, regardless of the misunderstanding between herself and her hostess. For this night, it was enough that the woman was willing to allow Aila into her home. She could set the record straight regarding Éomer in the morning.
And so, defeated and quiet, Aila sank onto the thick mattress which Hilla had provided her, pulling the rough blanket up to her chin. Exhaustion and relief flooded from the crown of her head right down to her toes. Soon she would be reunited with Legolas and Duke, and Aragorn and Gimli. And Gandalf! If she were less exhausted, her body might have shivered in anticipation and excitement. Gandalf was coming back, she reminded herself. He would be in Edoras in the next day or two. She need only bide her time. And so she fell asleep with this happy thought in her mind.
Morning would bring news of Éomer's arrest and imprisonment.
. . .
[Old English Translations]
Georne = You're welcome
Wes hāl = Hello / Well-met
Sīe þu hāl = Good-bye / See-you-well