Chapter six
In which our Heroine meets with destiny
The sound of swords being drawn behind you is quite unmistakable, Grima thought. "So you have come to release me...." He said, his voice like the fumes coming from the cauldron he stirred. "I have wondered how long it would take. I thought I would have more time, but isn't that always the way..." he said, thoughtfully. In truth, he had not thought they would find him at all, but he resigned himself to this moment without thought or fear.
The Elf and the Shieldmaiden exchanged puzzled glances. They had expected a fight of some sort when bringing Grima to justice. Having drawn their weapons they were resolved to bring their quest to its conclusion.
"Listen not to his pleading, lady, for his tongue was ever his best weapon." said Legolas, but it was incongruous that no pleading was taking place and she took his words as a warning.
Grima seemed to grow two inches at the mention of the lady and he still stood with his back to them. The only Lady he knew, who would seek him out was Eowyn. His heart leaped in his tortured breast; at least he could look upon her face once more, even if she regarded him with disgust, he was content to die in the light of her presence. "I would plead but not on my own account but for the child four dwellings downhill who needs this potion to survive the night. Send one of your party to check if you can not hear his mother wailing from here." Grima said, his words apathetic and lacking in the resonance Eowyn remembered
"As for my own fate I have long since accepted it, and I can well imagine what you have in mind, for no punishment can be worse than the pain I now suffer."
The ranger ignored his own advice in order to express his enmity, till now suppressed.
"Speak no more, Wormtongue. I hear you are justly named, and fear the spells you may cast with your words." He said, sounding arrogant and distrustful to both Eowyn and Grima's perceptive ears.
"Please, I seek to harm no one. I plead for the boy who needs this potion. Let me these few minutes to save an innocent child." Eowyn felt so many emotions that she could not consider which were uppermost. Grima sounded sincere, but she could not recall hearing his words otherwise. Her training as a Shieldmaiden came to the fore as she said "Mirghast, please go and check his story. I would never harm an innocent." It seemed to Grima that she put an emphasis upon the word innocent.
The ranger walked backwards out of the hut never taking his eye off his quarry and called out to Legolas. A shout brought the elf to the door and the speed with which his yew bow was drawn and aimed was still unnerving even though it was anticipated.
Grima tuned slowly from the cauldron he was tending and his gaze swept the reed-strewn floor to find the hem of Eowyn's gown and drew slowly to her eyes. Without leaving her face he gestured for leave to reach some hanging herbs not far from the hearth where he stood. She nodded for the benefit of the elf who drew level with her. Grima slowly moved and broke the herb into the brew and just as slowly placed two small logs onto the fire.
The ranger retuned, out of breath. "His story seems to be true, there is a sick child not far from here; but I am sure he must mix lies with the truth."
Eowyn regarded the figure now facing her, looking at her with a direct, piercing stare she had never before seen in his eyes. It seemed to Eowyn that Grima stood taller than she remembered, except for the distortion of childhood memories that can make a short man seem tall. He wore garments of plain black cloth, and a grey cloak, its hood pulled up, shading his pale face, His features melancholy. She noted that he now stood tall before her, a much-changed man, yet still recognisable as the Grima of her childhood.
She took a deep breath and began the speech she had devised, her heart twisting in her chest, her breathing laboured; "Grima son of Galmod, known as Wormtongue, I Eowyn, Daughter of Eomund of the house of Eorl, accuse you of Murder, Deceit and Treason and have come to judge you under common law and the law of kings..."
"I have already accepted that I should be punished and accept the guilt of all that I have done." He said curtly.
Eowyn was taken aback. She had expected a fight, pleading; some grand defence, but was not ready for what she had just heard.
"I wish now for the chance to state all my crimes known and unknown, to meet my fate with a lightened heart." He continued, his pale face blank to her gaze, his eyes dull and expressionless.
"Prey, show some compassion, let me die at peace."
She looked into his dark, heavy lidded eyes to see if the truth of his words could be read there and found his gaze did not slide away as it had in the past.
Legolas spoke, eyeing him warily; "Others have died without such peace."
"Yes and by my hand," Grima agreed, turning his steady gaze to the elf, but he quickly addressed Eowyn again. "The first was the easiest and known to you as Rayfir, son of Draythir." Eowyn thought of the stable boy who had disappeared when she was a child.
"What foul deed was this? Do you mean the Stable boy? I would not care to know what became of him if he suffered at your hand." She said, horrific images floating before her eyes.
"His end was quick and as painless as I could give him. I broke his neck while he tended a horse and carted his body to a grave far from Edoras."
"What could a boy have done to you?" Eowyn replied, confused and sickened.
"Nothing to me."
Grima paused to tend his cauldron for a few seconds and returned to his former stance. "There were others along the way... a tortuous way of pain, as has been my life and I welcome my release from it." He continued. "I have suffered a change since I killed Saurman, and I wonder since then how many of my actions were manipulated by him. The irony has not been lost on me, as I once thought of myself as the greatest of the art. I have become to a healer to this village in the hope of making my burden lighter," a sardonic laugh escaped him, "but it seems even when I do good it is for my own benefit."
"I would know why you killed the boy." said Eowyn tremulously, her voice hardly concealing the shudders that ran through her body. There were tears gathering in Grima's eyes but somehow Eowyn knew they were not for the boy. "To answer that requires the revealing of a great secret, one so great I have spoken it to no man, though some who may have suspected have been sent to their doom." he paused as he needed to compose himself. He continued; "It is difficult to give voice to that which was been buried so deeply, but know this secret was kept from you due to your station and your youth, and like a journey, once embarked upon it is easier to go on than to go back. I would ask you to help me by answering a question in return. When the boy was thought missing did you help to search for him?" he said, clearly knowing the answer.
"No, as I was abed with an ankle injury; you know that because you tended it for me."
"So I did," he said, his eyes finding hers once more. "If the bone had not mended properly it would have caused you to limp for the rest to your life. It took all my healing skills to ensure you now walk without fault." "That was the fault of my lack of riding ability. My uncle was sure I was too young to ride and blamed himself for the error of it." "The boy had put a bur under the saddle. I found it myself and with these very ears I heard him laugh about it. I could not let him live...I was overcome." Grima said sadly. Eowyn looked at him, shocked. "He did not deserve to die for it!" she said, her confusion rising. "Still you do not see." Grima sighed, and sank to his knees in front of her. "I have watched over you all your life. It was I who persuaded your uncle to give you your first horse. When he gave it to you was it not I who held the bridle and then lifted you to the saddle? Your first swords were brought from Gondor but you never guessed who was sent for them? I bought from the finest sword master in Gondor and the price was far beyond what your uncle had given me for them." Eowyn was drawn through time and her mind raced to all the events in her life in which Grima had been in the background and found a new enlightenment there, but another part of her said it couldn't be true; it must be a well prepared ruse designed to confuse her. Perhaps she should have taken the Ranger's advice and not allowed him to speak. She became aware that Legolas still had his bow at full draw and although she knew he would not tire easily she yet still gestured for him to relax. "Do you mean to imply that I am the cause of your evil deeds?" she said, incredulously. "Not the cause, gracious lady, but the reason. I said I was overcome, but not with hatred, but with love. A love that had no chance of fruition. A love with no chance of its ever being returned. You, a lady of a noble house, and I, a mere servant. I had to rise if ever I was to have a chance to be worthy of your liking. And it was this ambition, which I now see, was my downfall. I thought I kept my secret safe, but there are those of power who make it their business to learn of many things, and can keep their secrets closer. "Saurman was my chance and my downfall. In order to have you I had to betray your family and Saurman convinced me it could be done. So desolate was my heart that I clung to any possibility of the fruition of my dreams. Saurman had promised me my land to rule and a queen to sit by my side whose eyes would only look upon me with love... So much he said was in his power to give. "I see the lie of it now, for Saurman was the greatest of deceivers. But I became an instrument of evil and I have felt the knife of hope twist within me." Grima was finished. He sank to his knees and the tears seen before fell down his face in unheeded rivulets. "I slit his throat and ended all hope of ever possessing you. I saw what I had become in that one instant and ran from it. I have hated myself more than you could ever hate me. Release me, I beg you, for I am done." He bent his head and offered his neck to her sword.
Eowyn looked askance at the man bent so vulnerable before her ready blade. He had admitted his crimes, yet why did she hesitate? She stood for some minutes, silent and still before speaking to the Elf by her side.
"I...I must go out. I need to be alone. Watch him 'till I return." She said, turning from Grima to leave, but hearing his voice once again before reaching the door.
"My Lady," he said with a tearful sigh, his eyes not leaving the floor, "Please take this medicine to Diagon, who even now lays suffering for want of it." Grima made no attempt to move, and the Ranger stirred to fill a bowl with the green, strangely scented liquid and handed it to the silent Shieldmaiden, who left without a sound.
Eowyn found the boy with little trouble. She handed his mother the bowl and watched as she helped him drink it before falling asleep. He was pale and ashen, his skin waxy and his limbs weak. Turning from the tearful scene she wandered into the strange forest that surrounded the village, making her way down to the water's edge, to ponder Wormtongue's words. As she sat on a grassy bank she watched strange birds approach and drink of the water, ignoring her presence. She looked unseeing as the antics of several small furry creatures as they ran up and down the branches of the needle-trees. Eowyn had never seen a Sea before. Her experience had been limited to plains and woodlands, and here she felt out of her depth in such unfamiliar surroundings. As she watched the sun's reflection on the water, she wished she could wade out into it, let it swallow her, wash over her and through her body, cleansing her mind of the thoughts that she had came here to think..
As she watched the water, she saw a man, a Rhunlander, sail his boat out onto the water, propelling the strange, animal skin craft with a long pole that became wider at each end. She continued to watch as the man stood up carefully, seemingly secure in his footing despite the unstable surface supporting and uncoiled from his belt what looked like a whip. He gazed into the water for a moment, as if he was waiting for the water to calm, and then cracked his whip down into the water, and as it flew back, a silver fish was flung into the Fisherman's boat. He repeated this twice more, before seeming happy with his catch and propelled his boat to the shore, not far from where Eowyn sat, trying to straighten her muddled thoughts. As the man approached, he loked her up and down, and it seemed to Eowyn that he intended to speak to her, as he sat down not far from her pearch on a rock overhanging the little shore.
"You would be one of the bearded strangers." He said. It was a statement, not a question, and so Eowyn nodded in affirmation but made no reply, fearing that he was about to tell her to leave, as Grama Grawley had done the day before.
"They call me Mogray." He continued, his speech halted and hesitant. "You here for our Grimaulkin, I know. Is that why you're crying?" he said intrusively. Eowyn, startled, put a hand to her cheek. It seemed her teers had come unnoticed, and she brushed them away with her sleeve.
"What do you know of him?" she asked, curious as to the connection between this rough fisherman and the former Councillor.
"What everyone else knows of him? I knew his mother, Greymae, and that none now stand for his mother's line except Grawly. She's his aunt, so to speak. And that he came back to us when we needed him, for all the time he'd been away in the wide lands and done some bad things, by the look of him. I knew when he came back that something had broken him."
"Then this land is his home?" Eowyn questioned the man once more.
"Aye. The witch's son come back to his homeland, to be the saving of my brother's Son when he was green with ague. I was surprised he lasted so long out there, among the Hairy Faced Devils. No offence meant, girl, if you be set to take some." He regarded her sourly, as if contemplating what she would look like without eyebrows. "Have you come for him, Lass? Can you not see fit to leave him here with his people?" he asked, suddenly earnest.
"I am not sure. I need to think." The sun had gone down by the time she returned to the village, to Grima.
It seemed the Elf and the Ranger had allowed him to move from his place on the floor and he had filled several clay bottles with the medicine he had brewed, and now sat with Mirghast by his fire, Legolas, wary of any attempt he might make to escape, stood by the door. As she entered the room the Ranger and the Elf stood up, and Grima sank once more to the floor his hands clasped in front of him, trembling slightly. Eowyn stood before him.
"I want to talk with you, Grima. Alone."
"But my Lady!" Legolas interrupted, "He'll surely kill you!" Eowyn silenced him with an imperious wave of her hand.
"Will you, Grima?" she asked, her eyes cold and dark as she watched him.
"Never." He whispered, breathily, looking only at the hem of her robe.
"Please Legolas, Mirghast; leave us alone. I will come to you by morning."
"And if I am right and he kills you as soon as he has the chance?" said Legolas, frustrated. "Then kill him." She said.
Why am I not dead? Grima thought, his mind racing. What could she want to talk to me about? He knelt on the reed-strewn floor, not daring to move. True, she had put her sword back in its scabbard, but he knew how quick she was at drawing it. He traced her steps to the chair by the fire, heard her sit down upon it.
"Come, sit with me. How am I to talk with you if you will not come near me?" she said, her words cool, unemotional. Grima approached apprehensively, taking the other chair. He could not look at her face. It was too painful. For all her remembered beauty, in the flesh, now...she was ethereal. Her moonlight hair and alabaster skin seemed to glow, reflecting the firelight in shades of yellow and gold. He could not look at her face...he felt sure she would kill him with her eyes if he dared.
"Grima..." she said, speaking in a whisper. "Why...?"
"For you..." He felt there was no more he could say. For once the words that had served him so well in the past were ashes on his tongue. He felt her sigh, and then trembled, as the sigh became a sob. He felt his own tears run then, burning his flesh with their heat, his muscles convulsing as he fought the instinct to hold her close, to comfort her, dry her tears...
Eowyn wept, inconsolably, feeling a pain in her heart more desperate than the loneliness that consumed her. This man had committed atrocities, murders, and had helped bring about untold carnage...for her. Such strength of passion he must hide, such obsession. Did he still feel this way? She did not know, but couldn't bring herself to ask. All at once she grew angry with herself. Had she come all this way just to let him see her weakness? He must think her pitiful...he could not even meet her eyes.
"Look at me, Grima! Does it hurt you to see me like this?" she whispered. He had heard her. He knelt at her feet and kissed the hem of her robe before looking into her eyes, his own red and streaming with the pain in his heart.
"More than all the torture I have ever endured." He replied. "I wish it were in my power to heal your pain, but I am a pathetic worm, not worthy of looking at your dazzling face, knowing I have caused you this misery."
"Do you love me still, Grima? Or am I truly mad?" she shivered.
"More than life itself. Will my death end your tears? I welcome it from your hand." He said truthfully, his gaze never leaving her eyes, the icy pools that had thawed, like snowmelt flowing down her cheeks. He wished he could drown in those tears.
Eowyn had never felt anything as strong as the pain she felt now.
"I cannot kill you." She whispered to the astonished Grima, and held out her hands to him, unsure of what she needed to do to stop the crushing feeling that stole her breath and made her tremble. As Grima took her cold hands in his own the contact shattered her and she fell to the floor beside him, sobbing, for all her loneliness, her dreams and her feelings that she had not the courage to share, and he broke down and gathered her to him, pulling her close.
It seemed he held her for an age, yet he felt light and strong still. She had cried herself to sleep as he held her, in his embrace as in his heart, and lay there still. Grima had no desire to move, ever again if need be, just to stay this close to her, this one time. He breathed in her sunlit scent, wanting to absorb her very being, to have her with him always. She seemed at peace now. He had been concerned lest her sleep be troubled, but she lay quiet as a child in his arms. He felt light, as if he had been filled with sweet air, and there was a lightless in his heart that he had not felt for many years. Grima was content. It was with sorrow that he looked out of his window and saw that it was already first light, and that he had precious few hours left to hold his Love before she must awake and return to her companions, who were without question concerned for her safety alone with him.
As the first rays of sunlight found their way into the room, Eowyn stirred. The first person you see after an enchanted sleep...Grima mused, wishing he knew how to cast such a spell. She knew he loved her. And now she would leave him once more, to return to her citadel where doubtless some foreign lord awaited her, to woo her, love her and give her joy in a thousand ways he could not. As she awoke he sighed, a soft, soothing sound, as her eyes found his and she became aware of where she had lain.
"Grima..." she whispered his name, and he wanted to remember forever how his name sounded on her lips in that yielding, breathy way.
"You should have woken me." she said, her voice slowly shedding the restfulness of sleep.
"I dared not." He said, wishing he could tell her how he felt when she lay in his embrace, but knowing that he must not.
"Have I slept long?" She asked, sitting up.
"A hundred years." He joked, feeling happier than he had ever felt. Eowyn laughed, a tinkling sound he and thought never to hear again...her laugh was an unconscious balm to his wounded heart.
"I have to go..." she said, softly.
"I know. They will be waiting..." Eowyn felt a thousand words unspoken become one breath, and she stood up, smiled at Grima, his heart skipping a beat, and left without looking back.
In which our Heroine meets with destiny
The sound of swords being drawn behind you is quite unmistakable, Grima thought. "So you have come to release me...." He said, his voice like the fumes coming from the cauldron he stirred. "I have wondered how long it would take. I thought I would have more time, but isn't that always the way..." he said, thoughtfully. In truth, he had not thought they would find him at all, but he resigned himself to this moment without thought or fear.
The Elf and the Shieldmaiden exchanged puzzled glances. They had expected a fight of some sort when bringing Grima to justice. Having drawn their weapons they were resolved to bring their quest to its conclusion.
"Listen not to his pleading, lady, for his tongue was ever his best weapon." said Legolas, but it was incongruous that no pleading was taking place and she took his words as a warning.
Grima seemed to grow two inches at the mention of the lady and he still stood with his back to them. The only Lady he knew, who would seek him out was Eowyn. His heart leaped in his tortured breast; at least he could look upon her face once more, even if she regarded him with disgust, he was content to die in the light of her presence. "I would plead but not on my own account but for the child four dwellings downhill who needs this potion to survive the night. Send one of your party to check if you can not hear his mother wailing from here." Grima said, his words apathetic and lacking in the resonance Eowyn remembered
"As for my own fate I have long since accepted it, and I can well imagine what you have in mind, for no punishment can be worse than the pain I now suffer."
The ranger ignored his own advice in order to express his enmity, till now suppressed.
"Speak no more, Wormtongue. I hear you are justly named, and fear the spells you may cast with your words." He said, sounding arrogant and distrustful to both Eowyn and Grima's perceptive ears.
"Please, I seek to harm no one. I plead for the boy who needs this potion. Let me these few minutes to save an innocent child." Eowyn felt so many emotions that she could not consider which were uppermost. Grima sounded sincere, but she could not recall hearing his words otherwise. Her training as a Shieldmaiden came to the fore as she said "Mirghast, please go and check his story. I would never harm an innocent." It seemed to Grima that she put an emphasis upon the word innocent.
The ranger walked backwards out of the hut never taking his eye off his quarry and called out to Legolas. A shout brought the elf to the door and the speed with which his yew bow was drawn and aimed was still unnerving even though it was anticipated.
Grima tuned slowly from the cauldron he was tending and his gaze swept the reed-strewn floor to find the hem of Eowyn's gown and drew slowly to her eyes. Without leaving her face he gestured for leave to reach some hanging herbs not far from the hearth where he stood. She nodded for the benefit of the elf who drew level with her. Grima slowly moved and broke the herb into the brew and just as slowly placed two small logs onto the fire.
The ranger retuned, out of breath. "His story seems to be true, there is a sick child not far from here; but I am sure he must mix lies with the truth."
Eowyn regarded the figure now facing her, looking at her with a direct, piercing stare she had never before seen in his eyes. It seemed to Eowyn that Grima stood taller than she remembered, except for the distortion of childhood memories that can make a short man seem tall. He wore garments of plain black cloth, and a grey cloak, its hood pulled up, shading his pale face, His features melancholy. She noted that he now stood tall before her, a much-changed man, yet still recognisable as the Grima of her childhood.
She took a deep breath and began the speech she had devised, her heart twisting in her chest, her breathing laboured; "Grima son of Galmod, known as Wormtongue, I Eowyn, Daughter of Eomund of the house of Eorl, accuse you of Murder, Deceit and Treason and have come to judge you under common law and the law of kings..."
"I have already accepted that I should be punished and accept the guilt of all that I have done." He said curtly.
Eowyn was taken aback. She had expected a fight, pleading; some grand defence, but was not ready for what she had just heard.
"I wish now for the chance to state all my crimes known and unknown, to meet my fate with a lightened heart." He continued, his pale face blank to her gaze, his eyes dull and expressionless.
"Prey, show some compassion, let me die at peace."
She looked into his dark, heavy lidded eyes to see if the truth of his words could be read there and found his gaze did not slide away as it had in the past.
Legolas spoke, eyeing him warily; "Others have died without such peace."
"Yes and by my hand," Grima agreed, turning his steady gaze to the elf, but he quickly addressed Eowyn again. "The first was the easiest and known to you as Rayfir, son of Draythir." Eowyn thought of the stable boy who had disappeared when she was a child.
"What foul deed was this? Do you mean the Stable boy? I would not care to know what became of him if he suffered at your hand." She said, horrific images floating before her eyes.
"His end was quick and as painless as I could give him. I broke his neck while he tended a horse and carted his body to a grave far from Edoras."
"What could a boy have done to you?" Eowyn replied, confused and sickened.
"Nothing to me."
Grima paused to tend his cauldron for a few seconds and returned to his former stance. "There were others along the way... a tortuous way of pain, as has been my life and I welcome my release from it." He continued. "I have suffered a change since I killed Saurman, and I wonder since then how many of my actions were manipulated by him. The irony has not been lost on me, as I once thought of myself as the greatest of the art. I have become to a healer to this village in the hope of making my burden lighter," a sardonic laugh escaped him, "but it seems even when I do good it is for my own benefit."
"I would know why you killed the boy." said Eowyn tremulously, her voice hardly concealing the shudders that ran through her body. There were tears gathering in Grima's eyes but somehow Eowyn knew they were not for the boy. "To answer that requires the revealing of a great secret, one so great I have spoken it to no man, though some who may have suspected have been sent to their doom." he paused as he needed to compose himself. He continued; "It is difficult to give voice to that which was been buried so deeply, but know this secret was kept from you due to your station and your youth, and like a journey, once embarked upon it is easier to go on than to go back. I would ask you to help me by answering a question in return. When the boy was thought missing did you help to search for him?" he said, clearly knowing the answer.
"No, as I was abed with an ankle injury; you know that because you tended it for me."
"So I did," he said, his eyes finding hers once more. "If the bone had not mended properly it would have caused you to limp for the rest to your life. It took all my healing skills to ensure you now walk without fault." "That was the fault of my lack of riding ability. My uncle was sure I was too young to ride and blamed himself for the error of it." "The boy had put a bur under the saddle. I found it myself and with these very ears I heard him laugh about it. I could not let him live...I was overcome." Grima said sadly. Eowyn looked at him, shocked. "He did not deserve to die for it!" she said, her confusion rising. "Still you do not see." Grima sighed, and sank to his knees in front of her. "I have watched over you all your life. It was I who persuaded your uncle to give you your first horse. When he gave it to you was it not I who held the bridle and then lifted you to the saddle? Your first swords were brought from Gondor but you never guessed who was sent for them? I bought from the finest sword master in Gondor and the price was far beyond what your uncle had given me for them." Eowyn was drawn through time and her mind raced to all the events in her life in which Grima had been in the background and found a new enlightenment there, but another part of her said it couldn't be true; it must be a well prepared ruse designed to confuse her. Perhaps she should have taken the Ranger's advice and not allowed him to speak. She became aware that Legolas still had his bow at full draw and although she knew he would not tire easily she yet still gestured for him to relax. "Do you mean to imply that I am the cause of your evil deeds?" she said, incredulously. "Not the cause, gracious lady, but the reason. I said I was overcome, but not with hatred, but with love. A love that had no chance of fruition. A love with no chance of its ever being returned. You, a lady of a noble house, and I, a mere servant. I had to rise if ever I was to have a chance to be worthy of your liking. And it was this ambition, which I now see, was my downfall. I thought I kept my secret safe, but there are those of power who make it their business to learn of many things, and can keep their secrets closer. "Saurman was my chance and my downfall. In order to have you I had to betray your family and Saurman convinced me it could be done. So desolate was my heart that I clung to any possibility of the fruition of my dreams. Saurman had promised me my land to rule and a queen to sit by my side whose eyes would only look upon me with love... So much he said was in his power to give. "I see the lie of it now, for Saurman was the greatest of deceivers. But I became an instrument of evil and I have felt the knife of hope twist within me." Grima was finished. He sank to his knees and the tears seen before fell down his face in unheeded rivulets. "I slit his throat and ended all hope of ever possessing you. I saw what I had become in that one instant and ran from it. I have hated myself more than you could ever hate me. Release me, I beg you, for I am done." He bent his head and offered his neck to her sword.
Eowyn looked askance at the man bent so vulnerable before her ready blade. He had admitted his crimes, yet why did she hesitate? She stood for some minutes, silent and still before speaking to the Elf by her side.
"I...I must go out. I need to be alone. Watch him 'till I return." She said, turning from Grima to leave, but hearing his voice once again before reaching the door.
"My Lady," he said with a tearful sigh, his eyes not leaving the floor, "Please take this medicine to Diagon, who even now lays suffering for want of it." Grima made no attempt to move, and the Ranger stirred to fill a bowl with the green, strangely scented liquid and handed it to the silent Shieldmaiden, who left without a sound.
Eowyn found the boy with little trouble. She handed his mother the bowl and watched as she helped him drink it before falling asleep. He was pale and ashen, his skin waxy and his limbs weak. Turning from the tearful scene she wandered into the strange forest that surrounded the village, making her way down to the water's edge, to ponder Wormtongue's words. As she sat on a grassy bank she watched strange birds approach and drink of the water, ignoring her presence. She looked unseeing as the antics of several small furry creatures as they ran up and down the branches of the needle-trees. Eowyn had never seen a Sea before. Her experience had been limited to plains and woodlands, and here she felt out of her depth in such unfamiliar surroundings. As she watched the sun's reflection on the water, she wished she could wade out into it, let it swallow her, wash over her and through her body, cleansing her mind of the thoughts that she had came here to think..
As she watched the water, she saw a man, a Rhunlander, sail his boat out onto the water, propelling the strange, animal skin craft with a long pole that became wider at each end. She continued to watch as the man stood up carefully, seemingly secure in his footing despite the unstable surface supporting and uncoiled from his belt what looked like a whip. He gazed into the water for a moment, as if he was waiting for the water to calm, and then cracked his whip down into the water, and as it flew back, a silver fish was flung into the Fisherman's boat. He repeated this twice more, before seeming happy with his catch and propelled his boat to the shore, not far from where Eowyn sat, trying to straighten her muddled thoughts. As the man approached, he loked her up and down, and it seemed to Eowyn that he intended to speak to her, as he sat down not far from her pearch on a rock overhanging the little shore.
"You would be one of the bearded strangers." He said. It was a statement, not a question, and so Eowyn nodded in affirmation but made no reply, fearing that he was about to tell her to leave, as Grama Grawley had done the day before.
"They call me Mogray." He continued, his speech halted and hesitant. "You here for our Grimaulkin, I know. Is that why you're crying?" he said intrusively. Eowyn, startled, put a hand to her cheek. It seemed her teers had come unnoticed, and she brushed them away with her sleeve.
"What do you know of him?" she asked, curious as to the connection between this rough fisherman and the former Councillor.
"What everyone else knows of him? I knew his mother, Greymae, and that none now stand for his mother's line except Grawly. She's his aunt, so to speak. And that he came back to us when we needed him, for all the time he'd been away in the wide lands and done some bad things, by the look of him. I knew when he came back that something had broken him."
"Then this land is his home?" Eowyn questioned the man once more.
"Aye. The witch's son come back to his homeland, to be the saving of my brother's Son when he was green with ague. I was surprised he lasted so long out there, among the Hairy Faced Devils. No offence meant, girl, if you be set to take some." He regarded her sourly, as if contemplating what she would look like without eyebrows. "Have you come for him, Lass? Can you not see fit to leave him here with his people?" he asked, suddenly earnest.
"I am not sure. I need to think." The sun had gone down by the time she returned to the village, to Grima.
It seemed the Elf and the Ranger had allowed him to move from his place on the floor and he had filled several clay bottles with the medicine he had brewed, and now sat with Mirghast by his fire, Legolas, wary of any attempt he might make to escape, stood by the door. As she entered the room the Ranger and the Elf stood up, and Grima sank once more to the floor his hands clasped in front of him, trembling slightly. Eowyn stood before him.
"I want to talk with you, Grima. Alone."
"But my Lady!" Legolas interrupted, "He'll surely kill you!" Eowyn silenced him with an imperious wave of her hand.
"Will you, Grima?" she asked, her eyes cold and dark as she watched him.
"Never." He whispered, breathily, looking only at the hem of her robe.
"Please Legolas, Mirghast; leave us alone. I will come to you by morning."
"And if I am right and he kills you as soon as he has the chance?" said Legolas, frustrated. "Then kill him." She said.
Why am I not dead? Grima thought, his mind racing. What could she want to talk to me about? He knelt on the reed-strewn floor, not daring to move. True, she had put her sword back in its scabbard, but he knew how quick she was at drawing it. He traced her steps to the chair by the fire, heard her sit down upon it.
"Come, sit with me. How am I to talk with you if you will not come near me?" she said, her words cool, unemotional. Grima approached apprehensively, taking the other chair. He could not look at her face. It was too painful. For all her remembered beauty, in the flesh, now...she was ethereal. Her moonlight hair and alabaster skin seemed to glow, reflecting the firelight in shades of yellow and gold. He could not look at her face...he felt sure she would kill him with her eyes if he dared.
"Grima..." she said, speaking in a whisper. "Why...?"
"For you..." He felt there was no more he could say. For once the words that had served him so well in the past were ashes on his tongue. He felt her sigh, and then trembled, as the sigh became a sob. He felt his own tears run then, burning his flesh with their heat, his muscles convulsing as he fought the instinct to hold her close, to comfort her, dry her tears...
Eowyn wept, inconsolably, feeling a pain in her heart more desperate than the loneliness that consumed her. This man had committed atrocities, murders, and had helped bring about untold carnage...for her. Such strength of passion he must hide, such obsession. Did he still feel this way? She did not know, but couldn't bring herself to ask. All at once she grew angry with herself. Had she come all this way just to let him see her weakness? He must think her pitiful...he could not even meet her eyes.
"Look at me, Grima! Does it hurt you to see me like this?" she whispered. He had heard her. He knelt at her feet and kissed the hem of her robe before looking into her eyes, his own red and streaming with the pain in his heart.
"More than all the torture I have ever endured." He replied. "I wish it were in my power to heal your pain, but I am a pathetic worm, not worthy of looking at your dazzling face, knowing I have caused you this misery."
"Do you love me still, Grima? Or am I truly mad?" she shivered.
"More than life itself. Will my death end your tears? I welcome it from your hand." He said truthfully, his gaze never leaving her eyes, the icy pools that had thawed, like snowmelt flowing down her cheeks. He wished he could drown in those tears.
Eowyn had never felt anything as strong as the pain she felt now.
"I cannot kill you." She whispered to the astonished Grima, and held out her hands to him, unsure of what she needed to do to stop the crushing feeling that stole her breath and made her tremble. As Grima took her cold hands in his own the contact shattered her and she fell to the floor beside him, sobbing, for all her loneliness, her dreams and her feelings that she had not the courage to share, and he broke down and gathered her to him, pulling her close.
It seemed he held her for an age, yet he felt light and strong still. She had cried herself to sleep as he held her, in his embrace as in his heart, and lay there still. Grima had no desire to move, ever again if need be, just to stay this close to her, this one time. He breathed in her sunlit scent, wanting to absorb her very being, to have her with him always. She seemed at peace now. He had been concerned lest her sleep be troubled, but she lay quiet as a child in his arms. He felt light, as if he had been filled with sweet air, and there was a lightless in his heart that he had not felt for many years. Grima was content. It was with sorrow that he looked out of his window and saw that it was already first light, and that he had precious few hours left to hold his Love before she must awake and return to her companions, who were without question concerned for her safety alone with him.
As the first rays of sunlight found their way into the room, Eowyn stirred. The first person you see after an enchanted sleep...Grima mused, wishing he knew how to cast such a spell. She knew he loved her. And now she would leave him once more, to return to her citadel where doubtless some foreign lord awaited her, to woo her, love her and give her joy in a thousand ways he could not. As she awoke he sighed, a soft, soothing sound, as her eyes found his and she became aware of where she had lain.
"Grima..." she whispered his name, and he wanted to remember forever how his name sounded on her lips in that yielding, breathy way.
"You should have woken me." she said, her voice slowly shedding the restfulness of sleep.
"I dared not." He said, wishing he could tell her how he felt when she lay in his embrace, but knowing that he must not.
"Have I slept long?" She asked, sitting up.
"A hundred years." He joked, feeling happier than he had ever felt. Eowyn laughed, a tinkling sound he and thought never to hear again...her laugh was an unconscious balm to his wounded heart.
"I have to go..." she said, softly.
"I know. They will be waiting..." Eowyn felt a thousand words unspoken become one breath, and she stood up, smiled at Grima, his heart skipping a beat, and left without looking back.