On separate ends of the King's House there slept peacefully two Noldor Elves. Both woke immediately to the chilling sound of a woman's pain-filled scream. Neither wasted a moment in rushing to find out what was the matter.
Those whose rooms were located nearest to Éowyn's were already standing outside her door in fear, some calling to her and receiving only pained cries in response. Arwen and Erestor arrived at the same time and the small crowd immediately parted for them.
Erestor tried the handle but found it locked. "Mortal doors..." he mumbled disdainfully. He took a step back and squared his shoulders as he threw his weight against the door to no avail. Several of the women in the hallway feared that such a blow had hurt the Elf. To all appearances one so bookish should not have had nearly enough strength to break a door, but his second try was enough to make the lock give way.
By the time they got in to Éowyn's chamber she was no longer screaming in pain, but merely sobbing. She no longer had the voice to cry aloud. Erestor knelt beside her, looking deeply into her eyes, asking what troubled her. She did not respond verbally, but Erestor was able to read in her eyes that she did not know what was happening, only that she was in terrible pain.
Arwen took Éowyn's hand to try to impart comfort to her, but Erestor stopped her. "You no longer have strength for both yourself and others, Arwen," her father's advisor said. "Especially not now that you are with child." She had no choice but to accept Erestor's words, true as they were, but she remained seated nearby.
Several of the ladies asked Erestor if the Lady would recover and urged him to do something to help her. Erestor turned, looking defeated. "There is naught that i can do," he said helplessly. "My skill is not in healing. Please, you must not stay here. I do not know whether or not the Lady will convalesce, but if she is to, she must not have so many about her." Where was Elrond when he was needed, Erestor had to wonder. And if that was not bad enough, but Glorfindel and Aragorn, too? Erestor asked the last concerned lady leaving to call Éomer, though he was not in the least prepared to deal with his reaction.
Turning again to the weeping Éowyn, Erestor had to remove Arwen's hands from her hand and forehead. "Saes, pen-neth... you can not use your strength like that anymore." Erestor sighed at the determined look in her eyes. "For one, we do not know what manner of power it would take to help her, for we have no idea what is causing this. For another, you are already supporting the life of another being. And finally, you just do not have the power you used to have."
Arwen was about to argue with him when she heard one of the children cry out. Findiel lay in her cradle crying louder than she thought one so little could cry. Arwen brought her into Éowyn's bedchamber, hoping that they might benefit one another. Éowyn took her little girl into her arms, holding her close, but neither one's pain was any lessened.
Arwen and Erestor had no choice but to sit by powerlessly, and Erestor now understood fully the fact that the age of Men had come. He could not even ask Éowyn anything, she was in far too much pain to respond coherently.
That was when Éomer rushed in panicked. He stared at his sister and niece as he knelt beside the bed. "What plagues you, Éowyn? What is wrong with Findiel?" he asked in terror. Her only answer was to clutch tightly to her brother's arm. Éomer looked between Erestor and Arwen, hoping and almost expecting that they knew something. Neither did.
Erestor asked Éomer if she had eaten anything strange or different at dinner. Éomer shook his head and said, "We dined together, she and i and Lothíriel along with.... It was them! They did this to her!" Éomer shouted in realization and moved to bolt from the room, had it not been for Erestor's surprisingly strong grip.
The advisor did all he could to keep his voice calm. "I need answers Éomer, maybe there is something i can do if i know. Who did this to her?"
"Those Haradrim!" Éomer hollered.
"You are going to need to give your answers in a calmer fashion, Lord Éomer," Erestor said, beginning to lose his patience with the impulsive mortal.
"What Haradrim do you speak of, Éomer?" Arwen asked gently.
Éomer attempted to lower his voice, but could do nothing about the roughness of his angry tone. "Two of them, they came here not yesterday wishing to see Faramir about a diplomatic matter. I had them lodged at the Merry Widow until his return. I invited them to dinner last night, Éowyn invited them this evening."
Erestor looked ready to explode. "Men from Harad? They came into the city to see Faramir? Why am i just hearing of this now?!"
Éomer looked a little annoyed that Erestor thought he should have been informed when clearly the men did not wish to speak to him. "We offered to have them speak with you or Arwen about their situation, but they did not wish to."
"Of course they did not! We are Elves, we would have known immediately that they were up to no good!" Erestor cried, fed up with mortals and ready to walk away from the whole thing. What was the point of assisting the Steward if no one bothered to tell him anything?
Just then Berethil, Lothíriel, and Éomer's attendant rushed in. The attendant bowed before Éomer before holding out two empty vials. "My Lord, these were found in the room the Southorns kept at the inn... along with one of them, dead."
"What of the other?" Éomer asked quickly, his eyes flashing.
"There was no sign of him, my Lord. Both of their horses were gone from the stable," the other man said.
Éomer handed the vials to Erestor, hoping he could make something of them. The Elda immediately recognized the traces of black water in the one vial. "This did not cause her this pain, this is nothing but Enchanted water from Mirkwood."
Éomer flew into a rage all over again, "What manner of enchantment do you mean? If that Elf had anything to do with this i will kill him with my bare hands!"
It was not the right thing to say with two Elves standing in the room, especially not when one of them was the wife of that Elf's best friend. "Prince Legolas has not been in Mirkwood since before the Council met," she informed Éomer rather bitterly. "And furthermore, he has never been to Harad. If it had not been for Legolas, you would likely not have a kingdom to rule."
Erestor interjected before things became too heated. "This is easy enough to find without going to Mirkwood, and this would cause your sister no harm. Faramir had a good bit of it over the summer, and if you want to know what i think, it did him more good than harm. It is this other vial that worries me. Éomer, you need to give me details about these men."
Éomer did not feel he had many details to tell about them, but he searched his mind for everything that stuck out at him. When he mentioned the odd ring Castamir wore at dinner and that he served wine to Éowyn Erestor's interested fell. "A poison ring," he muttered. "All we can do now is watch and wait, and try to keep her in comfort. Did she nurse her children tonight, Berethil?" Erestor asked, not wanting to hear the answer.
"She nursed Findiel, my Lord," the nurse said sadly. "I told her i would do it for her, but she told me to take my rest for the night." Lothíriel gently took her sleeping nephew from Berethil's arms, hoping against hope that his sister would be all right, the baby girl still crying in her mother's arms, even as Éowyn's body was still wracked with pain.
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"It can not be..." Faramir sobbed into his hands, hoping that for once he had seen something that could be prevented or changed. Glorfindel had no words of comfort to offer the young man, knowing full well that this time was not different.
Aragorn knelt beside his son, fighting back his own emotions. If what Legolas had said was true, he understood how hard this would be for Faramir. "Ion-nín... come," Aragorn said gently, offering to help Faramir up. "Every moment we are here is a moment lost. We shall leave immediately. We can get to Minas Tirith in three days if we go via the river."
Faramir rose slowly with his father's aid. Together they went back into the inn the gather the few supplies they had. Aragorn went to wake Belthil, telling him that if he was still interest he could join them, but that he would have to come immediately. Belthil, being a soldier who had been quartered in strangers home for the last few months, was ready at an instant and only minutes later they were heading down to the docks. Aragorn was rather sure that this once he would have to use his title in order to get a suitable vessel in the middle of the night with no notice. Glorfindel and Legolas agreed to follow by land with their horses, though Legolas was fairly sure that Gimli would not be happy about traveling by horse again so soon.
Once their transport was secured by a very unhappy dock keeper, whose expression changed tenfold when he heard the name of Elessar, the three set off at once. Faramir, in anxiety, paced the deck of the small ship all night. Aragorn was glad that he had hired an expert mariner to steer them, for though he was capable of the task himself, he wanted to be able to calm Faramir as much as he could.
Belthil understood nothing of what was going on, why they had to leave Pelargir so suddenly in the middle of the night nor what was troubling his uncle so. When sleep finally had the mercy to find Faramir, Aragorn told the young man of the situation, explaining Faramir's visionary gift as much as he could. Aragorn was very glad that the wind was strong and in their favor. He guessed that if conditions persisted the journey might only take two days instead of three. He feared that three days on a ship with pent up worry would be too hurtful for Faramir, but it was the fastest way to get back to the city.
It was in fact at the dawning of the second morning that the White City was seen washed in gold so red in the sunrise. The ship had barely docked at the still-abandoned port of Osgiliath before Faramir was already halfway across the Pelennor.
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liz: My apologies for not responding to your earlier review. For some reason i did not receive all of my alerts for a while there. Anyway... Eowyn is supposed to be 24, or there abouts, and she should really know better. But then, i have known people older than that who did not know better. In this story, these Haradrim aren't really evil. They never fought for Sauron in the War, they only thing they have fought against is the oppression of Harad. But they don't really represent the whole country either. They are just ordinary people who are capable of being led astray or going a little round the bend -naturally Gondor isn't trying to take over Harad, but these guys are just paranoid, sort of. It was Faramir who inspired me to write them thusly. That scene in The Two Towers inIthilienwhen he sees the man he killed and has pity for him.... Very Fara'.
As for your latest review - I think this chapter explains a little more about the vials. Calimehtar had a vial of Enchanted water (because of herbalists in Middle-earth arbitrarily carry some around - like Glorfindel, so says me), but he also mixed an entire vial of the clear stuff, even though they only needed enough to put into the poison ring. I liked Faramir's vision too, but i don't think he liked it much. It made him cry.
grumpy: Hopefully Erestor explained well enough about the different vials. I can't say yet who will live or die. You will have to wait until next chapter.
Crimson: Maybe i did have it in for her all along... but i can assure you that no Mary Sues will be falling out of the firmament into Fara's needy arms. He couldn't get that lucky.
linda: The site has definitely been hay-wire lately. What else is new? Oh well, it's still fun anyway. And yes, Faramir's nephew is going to be a great source of comfort for him in the future.
Voldie (aka Hud): That was a wild review, to say the least! I am still pondering some of it. Men can breast feed, actually, but it takes enough estrogen and progestren. All men have some of both and all women have some testosterone. I know this because my testosterone level rises every Sunday afternoon for three to four hours during football season, and yet my dad, being the only guy in my family, really hates football. Go figure.
I will gladly write more... it's all i can do. However, i don't believe i own green shoes. I'm not sure what it is with foreign languages and green shoes, but i recall someone back in my schooling days thinking that the German(?) phrase "ista poda hoduts?" (where are your green shoes?) was hilarious - and yes i know i mangled that German, but i speak every language but Greek and German isall Greek to me.
I wish i could promise all my dear readers to have the next chapter i keep referring to in the above reviews up tomorrow... only i will be rather busy with the Chamber of Commerce mixer (shudder). Hopefully i will get some writing done when i get home though, and maybe have the next chapter up Thursday or Friday night.