Chapter 7

It was another half hour before things were properly sorted, and the company was back on their way to Minas Tirith. They had lost only two men, both guards of King Elessar's household, but many more were wounded. The Orc party had been small, most likely a raiding party that was part of a scattered band left over from the War. They must have been starving, which is why they had decided to cross the River in full daylight. The rain, at least, gave them some cover.

It was still raining now, and Lothíriel was glad for it. It felt as if she were being washed of the uncleanliness of the Orc blood.

Éomer rode next to her, having left Éowyn to the care of Faramir. "Thank you for what you did today," he said. "My sister is alive because of you."

"Do not thank me," she said. "I did what had to be done."

The man could hear the fear in her voice. "The Rohirrim recognize bravery when they see it," he said. "What you did would have marked a boy's transition to a man in the Riddermark."

She did not say anything until they had ridden into the city amidst gasps and cries and dismounted before the Great Hall. "You are wrong, my lord," she said to him then. "I was not brave. I was more scared than I had ever been in my life."

Éomer stepped closer to her, and she immediately felt dwarfed by the man. Had she had to face an Orc his size, she would not have faired so well. "But you fought through your fear." He brought a hand beneath her chin to raise her face. "And for that, you are brave."

After a hot bath and a change of clothes, Lothíriel was feeling more like her normal self. The small gash, though it looked ugly, was easy to clean, and with a bandage over it, it was almost as if it did not exist. She made her way to the Houses of Healing, where she found Erchirion happily drinking from a tankard, a bandage around his head. Deeming her brother in no danger, she was ready to pass the rest of the evening with a good book, wrapped in her bathrobe.

But her maid interrupted her time alone with a message from Arwen, asking to see her in the Queen's chambers. Though she loved her friend dearly, Lothíriel grumbled as she threw on a more appropriate dress in which to meet the Queen.

Within the half hour, she was walking into Arwen's room. Éowyn was already there, and greeted her warmly. "The hero of the hour," she added. Though she was being sarcastic, there was nothing but friendliness in her tone. "I swear, the men cannot stop talking about you, and the news that the Princess of Dol Amroth knows how to use a sword has been spreading around the city. I overheard two guards talking about how you slew five Orcs single-handedly."

Lothíriel rolled her eyes. Such was the way of gossip. "Should you not be resting?" she asked Éowyn. "The child has had a nasty shock today." She went and sat at the foot of Arwen's bed, facing the other two women.

Éowyn made a face. "Oh, not you too," she grumbled. "Faramir has been hounding me to stay in bed, but both the child and I are as strong as stallions."

Arwen made an impatient sound in her throat. "Why did you not tell us, 'Wyn?" We would never have let you wield the sword, shieldmaiden or no."

The other woman laughed, her eyes sparkling. "Well, had I known Lothi was so skilled with a blade, I would have gladly surrendered guard duty to her. But the reason I did not tell you I was with child was because I wanted to wait until Faramir and I announced it publicly. Besides, I am only three months along. There was no need for everyone to fuss about me. Faramir alone is quite enough."

"Well, congratulations, despite your attempts at hiding it from us," Lothíriel said, smiling. "Have you come up with any names?"

Her friend shook her head. "Not yet," she answered. "Like I said, I'm only three months along. There is plenty of time for names and such." She then turned a mischievous eye on Lothíriel. "How goes it with you and my brother?"

Arwen, too, leaped up at the topic. "You and Éomer?"

The other woman let out an exasperated sigh. "There is no 'me and Éomer.' Friends, I have only known the man for a day!"

"That is enough time to determine whether or not you like him," the Queen said, raising her eyebrows. Lothíriel's mind immediately turned to the kiss she and Éomer had shared the night before, and her cheeks became hot. She looked up to find the elf smiling at her. "And I take it you have fallen for the young King of the Mark."

The woman opened her mouth to protest, but Éowyn and Arwen burst out laughing. "What?" Lothíriel asked indignantly.

Éowyn stopped herself long enough to answer. "You seem to know something we do not," she said. The other woman could only splutter at this. "Fine," her friend replied, winking at Arwen. "Keep your secrets. Arwen and I will get to you yet."

But the other woman could already feel a headache coming on, and she brought a hand up to the bridge of her nose to massage her sinuses. "I never said that I did not," she answered, again diplomatic. "All I am saying is that it is too early to determine anything, and I wish you would not jump to conclusions."

Éowyn rose and walked to Arwen's beside table, where, Lothíriel noticed, there was a large bottle of red wine and three glasses. The woman raised her eyebrows. The bottle looked quite old, and she wondered when it had been laid down. It was possible that her friend was now uncorking a very good and very expensive bottle of wine. Then again, she was with the queen of Gondor, and if she was not entitled to good wine, then who was?

The Rohirric woman poured out three generous glasses and handed the first to the Lady Arwen before giving the others to Lothíriel and herself. Lothíriel took a sip. The wine was good. And strong too, she could not help but think to herself.

"Alright," Éowyn said, sitting once more and sipping her wine. "Then tell us exactly what has happened between the two of you so that Arwen and I do not 'jump to conclusions.'" She flipped her golden hair over her shoulders and looked at Lothíriel smugly. The princess swallowed more wine, realizing that this was going to be a long night, and she would not easily escape the questioning.

Sighing again, she decided to tell them the story.

Lothíriel woke the next day with sore muscles and a sore head. She moaned as she got out of bed, and found that she could neither face the open window nor raise her arms above her head. The weapon and wine had certainly laid waste to her entire body, and she felt like crawling back into bed. That feeling deepened when she remembered what she had told Éowyn and Arwen last night about Éomer.

Her brashness, the kiss… even how she thought how handsome his blue eyes and whiskers made him. Lothíriel made a face at herself in the mirror as she splashed cold water from the washing basin on herself. Éowyn had known exactly what she was doing when she poured the wine; Lothíriel would never have said any of those things sober. Now, she could only hope her friends' memories were as hazy as hers.

Thinking this, she wondered how she would ever face the King of Rohan now that she had revealed all her secret thoughts about him to his sister. "You are an idiot," she muttered to herself as she cleaned her teeth.

It was why she asked to take her breakfast in her room, where she could sit by herself and think on her actions. It also lessened the suspicion that she had been drinking last night; she doubted her father would be happy to see her this way, her eyes bloodshot and her clothes still smelling of wine.

After several glasses of orange juice, Lothíriel was beginning to feel more like herself again, and she read over her diary for the week. She was scheduled to work at the Houses of Healing today, and she thanked Eru for the excuse to avoid her friends and Éomer. With the help of her maid, she quickly donned the simple dress of the healers; when she came to Minas Tirith, she had already known something of the healing arts, and the Houses, which were always understaffed, took her and her help gratefully.

She arrived an hour earlier than she was scheduled to, but as the Houses always needed workers, she was quickly made busy. She lost herself in the work. Lothíriel had always been good with her hands, and healing came naturally to her. The sight of blood and other bodily fluids did not disgust her, and she made decisions quickly. While she did not do the gruesome work of the barbers, she sometimes assisted them in the daily deeds of tooth pulling, lancing, and the occasional amputation.

She recognized many of the guards that had been injured the day before in the fight with the Orc band, and she volunteered her time with them, even though she thought war wounds were the most difficult to heal.

One soldier was Rohirrim, barely a child out of his teens. He had taken a deep cut to the chest from an Orc scimitar, and while the wound was not critical, it was ugly. "My lady!" he recognized her in the midst of her changing his bandage. He tried to bow and cover up his nakedness in the same motion, but only succeeded in irritating the wound. He cried out and clutched at his chest.

"We dispense of titles here," Lothíriel said gently, moving the boy's hand so that she could wash the wound. "I am just Sister Lothíriel for now. What is your name?"

"Halef, son of Hama, my—" the boy caught himself, "—sister." His accent was thick, but his common was very good. Not just a common soldier, then, Lothíriel thought. At least the son of some captain or other.

Lothíriel continued talking to the boy, soothing him as she rubbed the wound with alcohol so that it would remain clean. The healer before her had hastily bandaged him up, no doubt because there had been others more seriously hurt. She ran her needle through candle flame to sterilize it before she began to sew the wound shut.

Halef winced each time the needle entered his skin, but he let slip no other sign of pain, like a true Rohirrim soldier. "The other soldiers say you, like Lady Éowyn, is a shieldmaiden," he ventured, wondering at this lithe, beautiful girl before him. The bones in her hands were fine, and her touch was so gentle, he could not imagine her fighting with a sword. "Is it true that you slew five Orcs before the men could get to you?"

Lothíriel did not pause in her sewing, but rolled her eyes. "Stories do grow as they travel," she commented. "I am hardly a shieldmaiden. I played at swords with my brothers when I was younger, and that is the extent of my knowledge of weaponry." She was near the end of her work on the boy, but Halef insisted.

"Did you kill five Orcs?"

She tied off the thread and cut it with a sharp pair of scissors before pouring alcohol over the entire wound again. Halef hissed at the pain. "I killed two," she stated with finality. "And that was due more to their stupidity than my own skill." She took fresh bandages and began to wind them around the boy's torso again.

"You are brave and beautiful, my—sister Lothíriel," the boy said to her embarrassment. It made her more than a little angry as well. Halef would only concentrate the heroic deeds she did as told by someone else and her looks, but here, before him, she had expertly stitched his wound in record time with minimal pain to him. And he said nothing of that. To him, she was like a statue; perhaps a brave and beautiful one, but a statue nonetheless that was made to be looked upon and admired, not to be treated as human.

"Thank you," she said curtly as she tied the ends of the bandage together. "You should probably rest here for two more days, but after, you should be ready again for duty, Halef." With that, she left the boy and continued to work.