Chapter Twenty-Eight

The White Lady of Rohan

I woke to a woman bending over me. Tall and fair, she wore a flowing white dress that shone only slightly less than the golden hair that fell in waves past her waist. I stared up at her, determined to say something cognizant in spite of the pain in my head. Taking a deep breath, I croaked, "Where is my staff, and where is my flute?"

The woman, whom I recognized as the one I had seen standing with the king, reached beside the bed for a cup of water, which she held to my parched lips. "They are here. The Lord Aragorn commanded them to be brought. He said you would want them."

"Where is the Lord Aragorn?" I asked when she had taken the cup away.

After a moment's hesitation, she answered. "He is not here. But it was he who healed you."

"Healed me?" I did not feel healed. There was a lump the size of a softball on the back of my head, and when I moved to keep weight off it, it jarred my arm and leg. Which, I slowly realized, did not hurt that much. I could feel them, and they only ached a bit.

She nodded. "He is a mighty healer. You have slept for a night and a day. It is now night again."

I looked wildly around. My staff I could see leaning against the wall, and my flute lay on the nightstand, but where were my clothes? The shadowy, tapestried room did not seem to contain them. Under the bedclothes I wore a white nightgown that I could not remember putting on. Breathing through my nose, I tried to remain calm. "Where are my clothes," I wanted to know, "and where is my pack?"

The latter she brought out from behind an inlaid armoire, but my clothes had apparently been taken away for cleaning. I gritted my teeth and switched my head to Rohirric. "My lady, I thank you for your hospitality and for caring for me in this way, but I must go. I have kept my friends waiting far too long as it is." Pushing the blankets back, I threw my legs over the side of the bed.

"They have gone."

Busy examining the back of my right leg, I did not really register what she had said. The angry red streaks had disappeared, and the weeping gash had knit in a smooth line surrounded by healthy pink skin. I thought it would bear my weight, horseback or afoot. My arm looked the same.

I glanced up, "Pardon?"

She spoke very slowly, as one might to a simple child. "Your friends have ridden to war without you, as my uncle and brother have ridden without me. They left after you were safely sleeping. Now they are likely at Helm's Deep, doing battle. They have gone without you."

I stared at her, and then, I am sorry to say, lost my temper. Without actually doing any swearing, I described in great detail (and five languages) exactly what I would do to Aragorn when he returned. When I began to repeat myself, I moved on to Mithrandir, whose idea it had probably been in the first place.

The woman listened with a faint smile. When I ran out of breath, she said, "You mind me of my brother Éomer when one of his mares has turned a foal." Pressing a mug of broth into my hands, she turned away, and then looked back, the smile still playing over her lips. "All of your speech I did not understand, but what I did, I would much like to see." She held out a hand to me. "Éowyn am I, Éomund's daughter."

So this was Éowyn, the king's niece and Éomer's sister. Also, from what I could remember, the object of Wormtongue's twisted desire. I sized up the woman before me. Superficially, she was very like the Lady Galadriel: tall, pale, and blond, with a core of strength inside her woman's body. But Éowyn's strength was human, hard and cold, not born of thousands of years of foresight. I switched the mug to my right hand, and took her hand. "Firiel. And my father's name is Céorl." It was the closest I could come to 'Charles' in Rohirric.

Her grip was strong; for all that her hand disappeared in mine. I could feel calluses from riding and swordwork, and suddenly I realized that this woman might be able to teach me a few things. "Will you lend me a horse?" I asked, letting go.

She shook her head. "The battle is already joined. You would never reach Helm's Deep in time."

"It is not to Helm's Deep that I would go. I would make for Minas Tirith, that you call Mundberg." The presence in the back of my head, which knew and loved Rohan, told me this.

She nodded. "Théoden King commanded that you be given a horse when you are able to ride."

I thought about this, miffed but slightly hopeful. My hand went to my head, to twirl a lock of hair around my finger as I ruminated, but my fingers encountered a matted mass. I looked up, inspired. "If I may not have a horse, may I at least have a bath?"

Éowyn's smile did not reach her eyes. "One is being prepared for you."

The tub was long enough to stretch out in, and filled with gloriously hot water. I soaked until that water was tepid, scrubbing everything and washing my hair twice. When I emerged, pink and wrinkled, I stepped back into my nightgown and found my way back to the bedroom.

Éowyn was still there, sitting at the table before the fire, bending over something. I thought she might be embroidering until I limped close enough to see that the garment, which glinted in the firelight, was a mail shirt. I had often seen Boromir do this, picking the chain over for rusted or faulty links and replacing them from a pile of new ones.

She looked up as I closed the door behind me, tilting her chin towards a tray of food that also sat on the table, but not speaking. I sat, suddenly ravenous, and tucked into stew, bread, and mead, also in silence. Éowyn continued to concentrate on her corselet, every now and then reaching for a new link or wrestling with the pliers. Sated and sitting back with the dregs of the metheglin, I watched her.

After a slow sip, I reached out and touched the grips. "If you have another pair of these," I offered, "I can help."

She did not look up. "I had not thought you to have much knowledge of mailcraft."

I winced, wondering how much Aragorn had told her about me. "Some," I said. "I used to help Boromir with his of an evening."

"Boromir of Gondor? The Steward's son?" Her gray eyes fixed me with the question.

I nodded. "He traveled with our company. I joined them when they passed through the Golden wood, and it was in my capacity as his squire that I repaired his mail." It hurt to speak of him even now, and I wondered why she was asking.

Éowyn nodded. "What manner of man was he?"

I had to wait a moment before I could give a fair answer in an even tone of voice. "A good one, strong and proud. He knew his duty."

Her mouth pinched. "That much I knew from his visits here, infrequent as they were." I suppose she caught the look on my face, because she hurried to explain. "I do not mean to pry, or disturb the memory of the dead. It is only that Lord Aragorn told me a strange thing: he said you were handfasted with the son of Denethor."

I hid my face in a long drink and did not reply.

"I see I have disturbed you. Well, I will speak plainly: my uncle thought to form an alliance with the White City though my betrothal to the Steward's elder son. I wished to know what manner of man I might have married."

I choked, spluttering the honey liquid all over my empty tray. When I regained both control and dignity I said, "Boromir told me none of this."

"He likely did not know. My uncle sent the rider to Mundberg scarcely two months ago." She spread the mail out over the table, producing another pair of pliers as well. Offering them to me by way, I thought, of apology, she bent to her work.

Beginning a patch of three links by five, I worked by touch, watching her from under my eyelashes. The more time I spent around her, the more she reminded me of Boromir. Like him, she was direct to the point of brusqueness, and courteous because of training and not by inclination. I took a deep breath and made my own overture of friendship by saying as much. "You are very like him. I am sure you would have gotten on well." 'Or torn each other to shreds,' I did not add.

"That comforts me," Éowyn said, finally. "If I were to leave Rohan for a city of stone, I would I would at least wish to wed with someone I could get on with."

'Over my dead body.' "But you did not love him or even know him!" my mouth protested before my brain could stop it.

She shrugged and wrestled a link away from its fellows. "Love comes after marriage, if at all. I will marry to seal a treaty, as the king's niece." She did not sound angry or resentful, only resigned.

"I loved him, for my part." The mead was beginning to loosen my tongue, and also to make me melancholy.

Éowyn took up my patch and began to fix it in place. I helped, taking one side, and our hands brushed in silence for a long moment. Moving on, I pointed out a few rusty links she'd missed, helping on those, too. When we finished, Éowyn held the garment up to the fire. It shimmered, moving like a living thing in the light.

She looked over it at me. "I thank you for your help. It is tedious work."

I inclined my head, standing as well. "Am I to sleep here tonight?"

"If you do not mind sharing a bed. This is my chamber." She bundled the mail up and laid it aside.

I stared, mortified. "I would not take it from you, my lady. Is there not another room?"

"There is not. Refugees from the Eastemnet and the Westfold fill every guest room, and I cannot lead them journey to Dunharrow until you, my lady, are able to travel."

I bit my lip, thinking. "Then I will lay a pallet on the floor, if you will lend me blankets and perhaps a pillow."

"If you are to find a spare blanket in all Edoras, you will have to take it from the stables." She disappeared into the wardrobe, to emerge a moment later in a nightgown much more dignified and less voluminous than mine, plaiting her hair.

I pulled my own, now-dry tresses from the neck of my gown and did the same, over my shoulder because my arm still would not bend to let me reach behind my head. Éowyn banked the fire and blew out the candles, turning down the lamp by the bed.

Pulling back the blankets, she got in one side and I got in the other. The bed was big, perhaps queen-sized, and I could lie comfortably without touching her or sharing a bolster. I heard her draw the drapes on her side, and did the same on mine. Safe and warm and full, I burrowed under the blankets, leaving only my head free.

"Goodnight, Firiel," she said quietly, slurring the second 'i' so that the name became 'Firel'.

"Goodnight, Éowyn," I replied, after getting over my astonishment and burying the urge to correct her pronunciation.

I do not know when I woke in the dark, but it was to the sound of sobbing, muffled by a pillow. I wondered if someone had sought refuge on the room with us, because I could not imagine Éowyn's sharp gray eyes filling with salt water. They were experienced tears, from someone who knew who to save up sorrow until they were alone. Similar sounds had often come from Amy's room, and I had ignored them.

Now I reached over to touch a slim, shaking shoulder. "My lady? Éowyn, what's wrong?" Although, I wanted to know less and less as the sobs went on.

She turned away from me, curling around her pillow. "Why have you come?" she demanded in a hitched, broken voice. "Why has Gandalf healed one invalid to leave in my charge another?" The sobs were quieter after she go this out, but angrier.

I thought about what she'd said. The wizard had healed her uncle, and then they had ridden off to war...leaving me to convalesce under her care. Had she wanted to ride to war, too? Had I kept her from doing so? Without answers to theses questions, I said the only honest, comforting thing I could think of: "My lady, I want to be here even less than you want me here. I will be well in a few days, and then you may ride to battle, or do whatever you please."

"No, I may not. Lord Aragorn may have laid the burden of your care upon me, but my uncle charged me to lead the people in his stead. The refugees must be led to Dunharrow, and some manner of defense mounted here." The resentment had left her voice, and now she sounded only tired.

I tried to be angry with her, but the feeling would not come. I felt sorry for her. "I will do my best not to be a burden, and will help in whatever capacity I may. You need not concern yourself." Still, the words emerged a bit frosty.

"I thank you," she said, matching my frost.

I lay rigid and unspeaking after this, and Éowyn did the same. Neither of us slept, but at least she had regained composure, to my relief and, I am sure, to hers. After a while, I ventured to ask, "What would you do, if you could do as you pleased?"

She answered instantly. "I would ride. Most women do, before they marry. Elfhelm would give me a place in his éored, and Rohan has need of all her warriors in these dark days."

I nodded, even though she couldn't see me in the dark. "So has Gondor, and I would go to her, for an oath I have sworn. But I cannot." I tried to speak around the lump that had appeared in my throat. "I cannot ride. I cannot even walk."

"You will yet. Where will wants not, a way opens." Her hand reached out to me under the covers.

I clasped it in mine. "And you will yet ride to battle and win renown." We lay in the dark, joined by common purpose and what might be friendship.