"Your husband is back, Milady." Éowyn's handmaiden waved her over to the window. "Do you think he has succeeded? He hasn't been gone for too long, has he?"
"That's because he's no miracle worker, no matter how much His Majesty Aragorn wishes that." Éowyn tried to smile too, in vain, as she watched the riders below enter the courtyard of Emyn Arnen. "They probably didn't even let him enter the elf settlement. Just as little as the messengers who brought notes from His Majesty there so far. He's basically a stranger there. His Majesty should have gone himself, months ago already. They wouldn't have dared to leave him standing outside the door."
"But he's always being so busy," her handmaiden pointed out. "Especially since his wedding. They say people in the Citadel are hardly seeing him around. Well, he's got to take good care of his Queen right now, doesn't he? A man belongs to his wife."
"You might be right." Éowyn pressed her lips together in frustration at an innuendo – not the first of its kind – stabbing into her heart like a sword.
She finally needed to do something instead of complaining. That had been a problem all her life: bringing herself to actually make a change instead of suffering silently. The Princess of Eryn Lasgalen had already given her some really useful advice on two occasions, about something that Faramir's advisors would probably have been terrified about, but that would have helped her. But how should she break it to Faramir that she wanted to go on quests with him or, even worse, go to Edoras for a while?
Either way, it was about high time to move. Maybe there would finally be time for a conversation today.
"Who is that?"
She only realized that she had voiced her surprise at Faramir bringing a guest loudly when Viwin answered eagerly. "That red-haired elf who had a baby, right? Maybe she needs something for the child. It must be so uncomfortable out there by the river, so primitive! And your husband is helping her so selflessly. He has such a big heart!"
"Indeed he does." Éowyn's expression darkened further when Faramir took the child from the she-elf that was astonishingly well developed for its young age. It cheerfully wrapped its arms around Faramir's neck and started to pull his hair. How she wished to see such a frisky smile aimed at her at least once. At this point, she would even have been satisfied with being more than a decoration on this deserted hill.
Unfortunately, Viwin knew her better than she liked. Well, the young woman had been working for her ever since Éowyn had been recovering in the Houses of Healing after the war. "I didn't mean to hurt you. Maybe the she-elf shouldn't come here after all. She should be able to figure how hard that is for you since your husband is spending so little time with you. Don't they say, these beings are particularly empathic?"
"Why do you always talk about Firstborn that way?" Shaking her head, Éowyn turned to the scrawny, black-haired figure standing next to her in the hallway; that was easier than watching this perfect image of a family any longer, that she was wishing to have herself. "They are living very remote because of their grief right now, but they never did us wrong."
"Forgive me, it is not my place." Viwin hurried to curtsy. "It's just that some of us are afraid. No one knows what these elves are doing out there. If they won't even see your husband, who can control them? And why did the Princess leave the capital? We're being so cut off from Minas Tirith here. If something happens here … Don't these elves think that your husband is responsible for their friends' death?"
"I hate to be the one adding fuel to the fire, milady." One of the guards hesitatingly approached them. "But hearing your maiden talk … When we visited Minas Tirith for the wedding, I noticed something too. During the festivities, that she-elf with her baby was out in the streets all day. I thought it dangerous for the child, so I followed her."
"You mean you watched her because you two have been listening too much to what the washerwomen and cooks here are saying?" Éowyn answered sharply. "It's loud at a wedding. That's not good for a toddler."
"Is it better in a dungeon? Forgive me," the soldier quickly added at Éowyn's punishing glance. "What I mean is: It surprised me that the she-elf went near the prison. I don't know much about elves, but I've been told they're emotionally very balanced. I've never seen so much hate on a Firstborn's face, milady. You should have seen her. It was really scary."
"You're exaggerating, both of you. Go back to work. You're not being paid for spreading rumors."
Éowyn had had enough of gossip. She went downstairs to start by finding out what had happened at Cair Andros. But she couldn't deny that the words of Viwin and that soldier had brought it home to her how much was going wrong in this palace. And most of it did only because some spoilt elvish Prince had been in a fight with his old war companion.
"What do you mean, you have to leave? You've only just arrived!" With her hands on her hips, Éowyn followed Faramir into the tack room. "Would you kindly stop and look at me when I'm talking to you?"
"It's urgent, love, forgive me. The King awaits my report. I should actually have stopped in Minas Tirith when we were on our way already, but I'll probably have to stay there for a while. I need a few things from here. Aragorn will surely want to discuss this matter for a while." Frowning, Faramir stopped at the wall with the saddles, obviously more interested in the question of which horse he was supposed to take, than in her.
"And when His Majesty calls, his substitute does of course once more have to drop everything for days instead of sending a messenger?" Éowyn hissed angrily.
She would never have been in Faramir's way, of course, if there had been an acute crisis. But if that had been the case, he wouldn't have made the detour here. Nothing had changed about the situation that would have demanded immediate intervention. Apparently, he just didn't want to deal with her.
"I need to talk to you too! Have you heard what the people in this house are saying?"
"I'll be back as soon as I can." After making sure that they were being unwatched, Faramir fleetingly kissed her cheek.
"People are indeed in a more dangerous mood by the day, Éowyn. The elves think that the Stewardaides could strike again if I stay with them for too long. And that the enemies could then make it look like I ordered them to attack. Freezing all diplomatic relations because of that can't be the answer though. That's upsetting people; you've felt it here already. Aragorn and I have to find a way. Somebody else has to go to them. Thank you, Beregond."
He took a cup from his captain that the other man had filled with his favorite wine and emptied it with a few sips.
"Are you trying to drink yourself to death?" Éowyn wiped her eyes when tears started to prickle in them.
She didn't want to keep watching as Faramir let people wear him down. Mistakes had been made with regard to that matter with the elves, but he didn't deserve it that he had to beat himself up over this so much. She had a pretty good idea what other words of the very charming kind he'd been told at Cair Andros.
"I don't plan to. Though sometimes I do feel like I should." Faramir put the empty cup down on a stall door. His hands were shaking so badly though, that it fell to the floor and shattered. When he bent down to collect the shards, he almost toppled over.
"I'm alright." When Éowyn wanted to go to him, worried, he stopped her with a sharp gesture. "It's been a long day. Stay here and smile. Can you do that for me? It's bad enough that people in Minas Tirith are asking the King to prosecute the elves on our land."
Éowyn didn't even manage to give him an answer. In his hectic schedule, Faramir would probably not have registered it anyway. He always took it for granted that she did what he told her to do. Why should she have objected anyway? After all, she was his loving wife, living only for him.
Suddenly, unlike in all of these last few months, she didn't feel numb anymore. Instead, all she wanted to do right now was just open her mouth and scream. Unfortunately, she had a feeling, she could have invited all the people from the surrounding villages into the big celebration hall and stood on a chair in the middle of it, and there would still have been no one to listen to her.
So she silently watched her husband leave the seat of his rule once more together with a few of his people, to take care of something that went south more and more while she could only be sitting around.
When Viwin joined her and touched her shoulder shyly, she let herself be led to her chambers without resistance. After having a cup of tea that the maiden brought her, she fell asleep immediately though the hour was still early.
A positive surprise, for a change, awaited Faramir at the city gate. Before he'd even got close, there were already cheers on the streets that were not meant for him though but for someone who had apparently arrived only shortly before he had. Someone who had actually only just had left the capital.
He caught up with the other visitor and his horse who proceeded only with difficulty because of the growing crowd, on the fifth level. "Gandalf?"
"Why so surprised? Don't you know that a wizard always comes and goes as he pleases, and always at the right time?" His old friend winked at him just like in the old days, but Faramir could sense, he wasn't being half as jaunty as at their last meeting. This catastrophe regarding two Ring Companions of all people, people that Gandalf had protected with his life in the war, had his shoulders slumped and had left new wrinkles under his long beard. He was being too far silent for his usual cheerful flow of speech too.
They gave their horses to the stable hands on the sixth level just as silently, or rather, Faramir did. Shadowfax withdrew to the paddock by himself with an elegant jump over the fence, as usual.
Only when they entered the Citadel, Gandalf paused to eye Faramir. "Is it your office that is causing these shadows under your eyes? Your movements are tired, young friend as if you'd lived the millennia of my life."
"I'm alright," Faramir repeated something that his listener did once more visibly not believe although he really felt surprisingly strong for the weight of his many duties. "I just need to talk to His Majesty right away."
"Then our destination is the same."
Gandalf still eyed him skeptically, but fortunately, that was when Aragorn approached them, visibly surprised too, to see the wizard again so soon.
Aragorn's elderly first advisor who had got even frailer in the last few months was walking right behind him as usual, limping but stubbornly, having a quill and parchment ready to write down everything spoken at such meetings. An unavoidable measure that Aragorn had instituted himself, to prove to the folk in great detail everything that he was being busy with since taking office, in case the Stewardaides wanted to provoke riots by lying again.
Faramir would actually have preferred to talk to Aragorn alone; but he knew very well that first, he would have to prove his competence and reliability again, given he had failed to tell the King in time about his old acquaintance with the Stewardaides' leader back then. Retiring to private facilities would have been shady right now, even though it might have been wiser for them to do so because Aragorn would probably feel like snapping his neck in a minute.
"I bring news." He looked towards the windows of the King's chambers where he suspected the Queen to be. "I'm afraid, you won't like them though."
Upon arrival in the smaller of the White Tower's two meeting rooms, once Faramir had described his idea of how to finally be able to enter negotiations with Legolas after written offers of this kind had been of no success so far, Aragorn knew immediately why he hated every single detail of this plan.
"No. I will not let Arwen be officially pulled into such conflicts. Even as the Queen, it's not her job suddenly, to act as a negotiator. We have diplomats trained exactly for that. Arwen never had to represent her own realm in such a way. People would rightfully doubt her ability to do so. What's this about anyway? Is Legolas trying to show the other elven realms that the Queen is taking his request seriously enough to leave the city again after all this time? It doesn't make any sense, especially not politically."
"Well, it was me who suggested it, not him. But it looked to me like he would agree, though he didn't openly say it. She's the only person he trusts enough to let her enter the camp. He doesn't want to take a risk with you or me because of the Stewardaides. With Arwen, he could be sure that she would not even unconsciously bring any harm to the elves." Faramir tiredly reached for his wine mug and massaged his forehead. Probably a futile attempt to do anything against a stinging headache that had been torturing him for a while now which Aragorn knew thanks to a chatty soldier.
"If he wasn't so blind, he'd know exactly that he doesn't anything to fear from anyone coming to him on my behalf! He's finally lost his mind!" Aragorn got up angrily and braced himself on the backrest of his chair.
"He is not. He is being extremely worried after recently losing people directly subject to him for the first time, Aragorn." Mithrandir tried to mediate. "It's not you that he mistrusts, but enemies who still are staying in Minas Tirith. He has to fear that they could be hiding even in your troops, just like one of them is still living at your court in secret."
Aragorn had to admit that he could at least begin to understand this mindset, slightly paranoid as it might be, though he still didn't approve. "Then he should finally let people help him. I'm more than willing to reach out to him, and that's what I wrote to him more than once. But he's even ignored me at my own wedding. And I can't take my chances by just riding to Cair Andros myself. What if they send me away as they did with Faramir? It would only make peoples' fears of the elves worse if the Firstborn humiliate the King of these lands by refusing to talk to him that openly."
"Maybe it would help to cure Legolas of this folly if someone tried to appeal to his conscience a little gentler than you did." Mithrandir questioningly eyed him over the edge of his pipe and turned back to his weed in resignation.
"As much as I appreciate your counsel, this time, I cannot agree. Legolas would never forgive me if I dragged Ilya into this quarrel either. Is this revenge for me not stopping his wife when she rode away? He wanted that himself! If he doesn't like it in hindsight what his wife is doing, maybe he should talk to her more often instead of pulling political strings like an amateur."
"Elessar …" Mithrandir shook his head with a frown.
Aragorn pushed himself away from the chair and held his hands in front of his body. "Fine. It's just that Legolas is starting to demand more tolerance of me than I can come up with. And as if that wasn't enough, now he's getting one of his best friends into danger. He knows exactly that the Stewardaides are only waiting for a chance to get their hands on Arwen again!"
"You can't keep on locking the Queen up. Arwen is a warrior; she won't be sitting around in her tower all her life, smiling prettily. I know you. This is not the kind of wife you would want by your side anyway. She can protect herself from danger just as well as you can, even though she's dangerously neglected her skills for a while after the war."
Mithrandir had finally managed to light his pipe and drew the smoke deeply into his lungs. When he noticed Aragorn's yearning glance, he got a second pipe from his cloak pocket, to Aragorn's surprise, and started to stuff that one too. Aragorn couldn't even remember the last time he had taken a few minutes of silence to smoke; with his usual casual support, his friend let him know what he thought about Aragorn letting every pleasure be taken away from him.
"I'm not locking her up, I'm just not exposing her to unnecessary risks. We wouldn't even need to have this discussion if by now, Legolas had finally positioned himself openly against his mad demands back then. But his revenge is still all he can think of."
Aragorn crossed his arms, taking a deep breath, trying in vain to recollect himself. A moment later, he turned his head in surprise as he heard that Faramir and Mithrandir were standing up.
"Maybe you should first ask your wife what she thinks about something before you say no."
With a smile, the wizard eyed Arwen who had appeared in the big arched door. "Your Majesty."
"Seeing you again so quickly shines a light on the otherwise so glum days in this city."
Arwen said a quick, kind hello to Faramir as well and then turned to Aragorn.
"Now will you tell me what it is that I'm supposed to think anything about? Not only the King knows everything happening at his court. I was worried when they told me, you've hurried here, looking like someone just died."
"Rightly so." Aragorn sat back down on the heavy white chair reluctantly and briefly caressed his wife's hand, grateful that she was being so mindful of him.
There was at least a quick grin on his lips when Mithrandir handed him the burning pipe and Aragorn scrunched her fine nose. There were some beloved Secondborn habits that not even his Firstborn family had ever been able to rid him of, not even his partner. After a drag or two, with something to hold on to in his hand, he didn't feel that outraged anymore and could start to talk.
"Legolas could talk with Faramir or my advisors in a neutral place just as well," he finally said. "That's not what this is about. He's been trying to prevent negotiations for months."
Arwen bit her lip indecisively. "I fully agree, but we have to think about the good of the realm. If there's even a small chance that Legolas will talk to me, I guess I'll have to ride to Cair Andros. I don't like the thought much either, but the road really isn't too long, and it's easy to secure." For a moment, bad memories flickered in her deep blue eyes, of her kidnapping during which she had been brought to North Ithilien as well. But she got herself together again almost immediately.
"What are our people supposed to think of me never leaving my house anymore, although I have fought creatures of Mordor for my own folk for centuries? If there'll be guards accompanying me, I'll be just as safe as I am here."
"Legolas will not allow you to bring soldiers into his camp." That was a problem with regard to this matter that even Faramir was seeing.
"He will." Arwen straightened up a little. It was plain to see that she wasn't familiar yet with using such a determined tone of voice, but she was right about one thing: She indeed had to try and finally appear more like a ruler to the outside.
"If he really likes the thought of negotiating with the Queen, he'll have to learn that I'll come to him on behalf of my realm just like Aragorn would, not like an old friend that he can be rotten to whenever he wants. I'll insist on having at least two men by my side. If he doesn't like that, he's very welcome to keep on burying himself in his self-pity."
Aragorn's eyes wandered to Arwen's side where he knew her to carry the key to the parchments about Legolas' activities in a pocket of her dress, as usual. The thought of what might happen if this possible conversation would not bring any results weighed down on him heavily. "Fine. But only because I fear the alternative."
"I did not come here for nothing then." Mithrandir gifted him with an appreciative glance for bringing himself to make this decision.
"Me, I'll wander the streets for a while, to learn how bad the situation here really is. If Her Majesty should get herself into trouble, after all, you know best how fast Shadowfax can be."
Aragorn thanked him quietly. It helped a lot, knowing you had such a mighty ally. That would at least keep him from pacing the throne room until the marble came off while he waited for Arwen to return.
The closer Tarisilya's group got to its destination, the more often Éomer's words of good-bye echoed in her mind.
It's only been a year since the war, Ilya, and we have forgotten everything already? How blinded have people in Gondor become, carelessly listening to a few voices of riot? Rohan stood by them when the White City threatened to fall, and now I hear whispers of people who want to chase my sister out of the country, while your folk is even met with open hostility. We need to do something, or we'll soon be at a point again when we do what Sauron had planned ourselves. I won't be able to keep my people calm forever.
"Men are easily rattled, even when they're usually as stable as His Majesty of Rohan. Don't let all that doom-mongering infect you." Glorfindel read Tarisilya's thoughtful glance at the soldiers of Rohan all around them, clad in the usual red and grey armor, right.
But his words didn't really sound honest. For that, Glorfindel had pushed too often for not taking any breaks and choosing the shortest route to Lórien in the last few hours, after they'd originally still kept the speed slow. By now, the Golden Wood was fortunately visible in the distance.
"Your Highness, wait." One of the soldiers suddenly stopped his mare and stood up in the stirrups, pushing his high helmet back from his face a little, so he could make it out easier what had attracted his attention. "This looks like an attack."
"We will not go astray," Glorfindel sharply shouted to the man after following his glance and also spotting a fire only just burning out. The distance had prevented them from noticing it immediately but now the group did also pick up on the smell that the wind had almost completely blown away in the last few hours: There were corpses being burnt over there.
"Wait a minute. That flag …" Tarisilya inched Tercelborne slightly closer to the fire. Her heart was suddenly in her mouth. Her instinct had already understood what her mind was noticing only now.
The colors of the flag spread out on the ground in front of the fire were the Dunlendings'. This was a sight you remembered when you once had to spot such a thing between the mutilated corpses of some good friends. This flag was blood-smeared though. An ax was stuck in it.
"The dwarves did this."
An old sadness rose in Tarisilya when more of these long-suppressed images of a catastrophe that she had been confronted with on her journey with Aragorn a year ago filled her mind. You could never forget a massacre like that, though she strongly hoped that the victims' souls had found some peace in the Halls of Mandos by now. Her anger towards the people responsible had never gone away completely, though she was trying not to make the same mistakes as Legolas. Part of her could impossibly feel sorry for the men dead in the fire over there.
Glorfindel gave her only a few seconds to honor the deceased in silence, with her eyes closed. "We have to carry on."
It wasn't the first time that he was searching the rough mountains to their left where it was difficult, even for elvish eyes, to identify anything. The cheerful singing of the birds and the swish of the river nearby made noises hard to classify. But an elf with his life experience knew when he had to listen to his instincts. "We are not alone."
"Obviously not." With a small smile, Tarisilya pointed at the woods of Lórien from where one of the marchwardens came to meet their group on a snow-white horse.
The joy of reunion vanished though when the messenger got closer and she could make his worried expression out better.
"Your Highness … Lord …" The silver blond Galadhel bowed to them hectically. "Lady Galadriel didn't expect you to arrive so soon. Forgive me, I should have departed earlier. This is actually exactly the sight that we wanted to spare Her Highness." The same unbridled hade sounded in the Galadhel's voice that Tarisilya had felt at the sight of the fireplace, too. It had been his friends and former comrades, too, that this disaster back then had robbed of their lives on Middle-earth in the most brutal way.
"It was only yesterday when these terrible Dunlendings reached the edge of the Golden Wood on their flight from the dwarves. These people are fast and cautious. They could escape our bows. Fortunately, the dwarves have practice tracking them by now. But a few of them could have survived. So let us not linger here for long."
"We'll come back to look for them later," the Rohir captain explained reluctantly. Just like his people, he wished to finally see the last members of that certain villainous clan dead or at least arrested. "They won't be able to hide forever. In the meantime, let us stay closer to the river to evade an attack."
"Let us go." Glorfindel grew more and more restless. There was no doubt, he wanted Tarisilya to be as far away from this danger zone as possible, and he was glad when she obeyed without resistance.
Glorfindel had let himself be distracted, only for a moment, but a warrior, in particular, knew that even one second could be too long when you had a job to do. When Glorfindel noticed a tiny movement in a very deep rock crevice from the corner of his eyes, it was already too late.
"Get out of here!" Startling, he leaned to the side and gave Tercelborne a slap on his croup that had the horse run off before Tarisilya, in her surprise, could even use the right driving aid.
In the next second, several arrows closely buzzed past the Rohirrim and the elves. The first couple of soldiers and horses were being hit. The thick wall of men around the elves had holes immediately.
Cursing silently, Glorfindel drew his own weapon. He had not been careful enough; he had let grief and angry blind him – and now the person that he should have protected with his life was in the worst of dangers.