(A/N: I owe a teeny debt to Werecat99's excellent story "Mater Tenebraum" for one image in this chapter. This chapter is a short one, but the one that follows is giving me grief to edit, so I'll put this forward in the meantime. It would really help at this point if you could give your impressions of what seems to be going on in the story. I feel I may be a bit obvious… )
She went directly to her chamber and closed the door. Within, he could hear her pacing, and laughing a soft bitter laugh. After a moment, she opened the door, and stepped across the threshold, only to have Rade stride toward her down the passage, and push past her into her rooms. She stepped back from him gracefully, and left the door open, affording Grima an excellent view of the proceedings.
Eowyn's eyes were spears, and pinned him to the wall. She drew her face even with his.
"Why have you followed me here?" she hissed. "You are unwelcome within the walls of my chambers!"
He looked away for a moment, then raised brown eyes flecked with gold to meet her gaze with a measure of false resolve.
"I came to thank you, Lady, for not compromising me."
She stepped back and shot him a look that may have disembowelled a lesser man.
"I did not even think of compromising you, Rade. I did not think of you at all. I thought only of Leah."
She moistened her lips and swallowed – words she knew should remain unvoiced, it seemed - and stepped back again.
"Now leave."
Rade straightened, and thrust his chest out in an attempt to reassert his own presence, before leaving the lady's chambers in four long strides.
From his vantagepoint in an alcove in the hall opposite her open door– to be precise, behind a statue in the alcove – Grima had watched the scene unfold with some interest. Rade, favoured by Eomer among the Rohirrim for his skill and for his loyalty, was in a position to be compromised. With Hama's missing niece. Eowyn was certainly keeping secrets, but Grima was fully aware that the lady contained more dark places than perhaps even her brother was aware of. He watched her posture relax slightly, and her face rearrange itself into a more pleasant shape, and one pale hand reach for the clasp of her over dress as the other reached for the door and closed it firmly.
Grima remained in place for a moment, then began to ease himself out from behind the statue. His vision clouded for a moment with the memory of Eowyn reaching one hand for her dress clasp; and other, older memories, of a dusty crawlspace between walls, and Grima, like a rat, wedged in silent voyeuristic fantasies as she slept or bathed. He brushed a hand absently down the front of his robe as he straightened.
"Wormtongue. Lurking outside my cousin's chamber, seeking a beating?"
Theodred, tall and straight, head tilted to one side, cheeks like apples, stood before him, arms crossed.
"Hiding behind statues Grima? When you are not taken with poisoning my father?"
Grima felt his lip begin an instinctive curl of dismay. Idiot boy. He was neither imposing nor startling in his statements of the obvious. Grima pictured Theodred's death in battle, his final words "Oh, I've got an orc attached to my throat and I'm going to die!" Influence, Grima reflected bitterly, is best held by those who have the intelligence to use it effectively, not those who stand about in hallways making unimaginative threats.
"Forgive me, I was merely standing to one side, so that I would not impede your progress."
Theodred paused, and Grima caught a glint of something approaching cruelty in his eye.
"Actually, you have no need. I have merely come to visit my cousin."
A small smile curled his lips, and he turned away from Grima and knocked on the door, announcing himself. Then, without awaiting a response, he opened it and entered, closing it behind him. For a moment, Grima envied him that simple intimacy. Then he turned and headed toward the King's chambers.