The throne was surrounded by important-looking people; there was the steward who had spoken to everyone outside the city, and Éomer, and the other man who Helen had seen twice but whose name she still didn't know; then, standing close to the steward, was a fair-haired woman who looked very much like Éomer. They were all dressed in beautiful clothes, but somehow seemed very relaxed. Helen could also see the four boys who had been outside; she wondered again what on earth their role was in the whole thing. Then she saw noticed two other… well, men she supposed, but odd men… one was short, not as short as the boys but still short, but with a very long beard, and the other was tall, blond, and strangely… ethereal? But she had no time for that; before she'd managed to sort her head out she was standing at the bottom of the steps, and all the people had turned and were looking at her curiously, several of them looking slightly relieved – she guessed that was due to the change of clothes.
"May I present the Lady Helen," said Gandalf with a sweeping bow and a twitch of a grin at the side of his mouth. "Lady Helen, may I introduce Prince Imrahil of Dol Amroth." He gestured towards the previously-nameless man, who bowed. Helen forced a weak smile, then realised that they were all clearly waiting for something; confused, she bowed back, only just enough to be noticed, then looked at Gandalf for help. She was way out of her depth here. "The Lady Helen is unused to the ways of the West, I deem," Gandalf smiled, "But I am certain it will make no difference to her welcome here."
"No indeed," said the lady with a smile, picking up her long white skirts and moving down the steps towards them. "I for one, though I myself am not of this city, will vouch for that. I am Éowyn, and I am honoured to meet you." She took one of Helen's hands and held it between her own.
"Th-thanks…" mumbled Helen, turning slightly pink.
"Éowyn is the Lady of Rohan, and her deeds in recent times will be proclaimed across the lands for many years to come," Gandalf said. "Her brother you have already met; King Éomer, Lord of the Mark." Helen glanced up at Éomer, her face getting redder by the moment as she remembered their earlier meeting, but managed to nod her head at least. "This is the Lord Faramir, Steward of Gondor and Captain of the Rangers of Ithilien." The Steward smiled at her; his eyes were gentle and kind.
Then Aragorn stood up from his throne.
"Lady, it is indeed an honour for me to welcome you to my kingdom; especially on this day, which I hope will stand forever in memory as a day of rejoicing. For though perhaps my own days as a wanderer are ended, it seems that perhaps yours have just begun; and I would ask to learn more of the lands from whence you came." Then he smiled. "But we will not be overly formal; come, the sun is setting in the east and a feast awaits us in the halls."
Éowyn turned back to Helen then with a smile, offering her arm to her.
"Come; I do not know precisely in which direction we are headed, but I am sure that we will not be led astray if we follow the crowds." Then she smiled in Faramir's direction, and Helen saw a kind of happiness in her eyes that she had seen only once or twice before; it was gentle and loving, and Helen felt a pang of sharp jealousy as she realised that the two of them shared something beyond anyone else's reach. She noticed too that although Aragorn smiled kindly at Éowyn, she seemed to ignore it and looked away, as if embarrassed. An affair gone wrong, maybe? But that didn't make sense; perhaps she'd just made a fool out of herself, like Helen had earlier, although somehow Éowyn didn't seem like the kind of person to do that. She gave a mental shrug though as Éowyn guided her out of the hall, following behind the small boys.
"I do hope this feast is up to feeding us four hobbits," said one of the boys, moving back to walk next to Éowyn – but as he turned Helen noticed that he didn't look like a boy at all up close, but rather like an unusually small and curly-haired man, and he was wearing armour of white and green. "I don't think they're quite used to our appetites, you know." Éowyn laughed.
"I am quite certain, Master Merry, that the lord Aragorn will have remembered. And where are your manners? You have not yet introduced yourself to the Lady Helen." Merry looked very abashed at this and immediately bowed to Helen with what could only be called a flourish.
"I am truly sorry, my lady, for my lack of attention to such an honoured visitor," he said, still bowed. "May I introduce my friends to you?" Helen laughed – it was such a strange picture, this miniature man coming over all gentleman-like and anxious to please.
"Please do," she said, trying not to giggle.
"My name is Meriadoc Brandybuck, Esquire of Rohan," he began, bowing again. "This," he said, tapping one of the others on the shoulder, "Is Peregrin Took, Knight of the City of Minas Tirith and of the Realm of Gondor, otherwise known as Pippin, or occasionally Pip." Peregrin-Pippin-Pip grinned at this; he was wearing black and silver, and there was a tree embroidered on his black coat.
"I am honoured to meet you, Lady Helen," he said, mirroring his friend's bow. "Frodo! Sam! Turn and greet this fine lady! You might be the most important hobbits in Middle-Earth, but you're not getting away with losing your manners!" The remaining two 'hobbits', as they seemed to be known, turned, and one glared at Pippin.
"Now don't you be getting all cheeky now, Pippin! Mr. Frodo isn't likely to be forgetting his manners in such grand company as we've managed to land ourselves in!"
"This," interrupted Merry, "Is Samwise Gamgee, or Sam as we like to call him; and Mr Frodo Baggins, the Ring-bearer." Sam turned red; the two of them bowed.
"How do you do, Lady Helen?" asked Frodo with a smile.
"Um… I'm… okay… pleased to meet you all," said Helen awkwardly. "Er… what's this whole ring thing about anyway?" She couldn't understand why all five of them, Éowyn included, laughed at this.
"That, Lady Helen, is a rather long story, which I am sure will be answered in good time," Éowyn said as they entered a large hall, with a huge table down the middle; Helen couldn't help thinking of medieval banquets. Well, she'd always wanted to go to one of those re-enactment things; this was probably a lot more realistic. "I am not certain where we should sit; there are so many honoured guests here." As it turned out though, it didn't seem to matter; Helen had always thought that the most important people sat at the head of the table, but everyone seemed to sit just where they wanted; she ended up sitting between Éowyn and Éomer - much to Helen's horror as she recalled again her behaviour in front of him and the other men. Faramir sat on Éowyn's far side, and she resigned herself to not talking much; she could easily imagine the two of them to be quite enough engrossed in each other; Éomer sat by Merry.
It didn't go quite as badly as she thought it might; Éowyn and Faramir seemed to be quite happy just sitting near each other, and when they did talk they often tried to include her. The problem of course was that they didn't know what to talk about – they were full of the joys of the coronation and Helen was still more than a little lost. They told her that there had been some bad guy called Sauron and that Frodo and Sam had taken his ring to a mountain and that as soon as the ring was destroyed Sauron died, but that didn't help much, and she was too self-conscious to ask. Éomer started to talk to her, asking her about where she came from, but she didn't know what to say – how could she compare it when she'd seen so little of this place? She did manage to stutter out an apology though:
"I'm – um – I'm sorry about earlier," she said, playing with her bread. "I, er, I wasn't in the best of moods, and I, um, think I was a bit rude." Éomer laughed.
"Do not aggrieve yourself with the memory, lady," he said, "For I am certain I would be no gentler were I myself uprooted from my land with no warning; indeed I imagine I might be considerably more vocal with my discontent than you were." Helen turned pink again.
"Yeah, well, I'm, I'm sorry anyway." She tried to think of something to change the subject, looking around the hall. "Um, so, what was this ring?"
"You choose a ripe subject for discussion, lady. It has been the source of all our hopes and fears for this year past; for it was lost by the Enemy, Sauron, many years ago, and was thought to have passed out of this world. By some chance, though, it was found; it came to Bilbo Baggins, who then passed it to his kinsman, Frodo. Gandalf discovered what it truly was, and it was decided in a great council that it should be destroyed. Then from Rivendell there set out a Fellowship of Nine – Frodo, and the other three hobbits; the King Aragorn, though in other guise than you see him in now; Legolas the Elf of Mirkwood; Gimli son of Glóin, dwarf of the Lonely Mountain; Gandalf, who was parted from the company early on; and Boromir of Gondor, who fell near the Falls of Rauros as the company travelled.
"Then the Fellowship went their separate ways; Gandalf was lost, Boromir dead; Merry and Pippin had been captured by the Orcs who killed Boromir. Frodo and Sam went on alone to Mordor, the land of Sauron; the others tracked Merry and Pippin across the plains of Rohan, my country. Gandalf returned; Merry and Pippin were found unhurt after my company destroyed the Orcs; their master, Saruman the wizard, was trapped in his tower of Isengard. Eventually the armies of both Rohan and Gondor fought and defeated some of Sauron's armies before this very city; then we rode to the gates of his fortress and fought once more. But we were saved by Frodo and Sam, who had by some luck unimaginable been able to destroy the ring. Sauron's fortresses collapsed and his armies fled."
Helen was entranced; none of it made a huge amount of sense to her – for a start this Sarman guy seemed to be everywhere at once – but it sounded like a pretty amazing tale. Éomer sighed.
"That is not a very full telling of a history which has changed the shape of the lives of almost all the peoples of Middle-Earth; other armies fought in other places, and other forces have been at work; but in short with the fall of Sauron a new age has begun. The King of Gondor and Arnor has returned. It will be many years before the hurts caused by the Enemy are even near to fully healed; for the Elves in particular it marks the end of their time on these shores. But there is peace on the horizon, at least in part."
The two of them sat in silence for a while; Éomer seemed lost in a trance both happy and sad, while Helen sat slightly shell-shocked. There was so much to take in, and so much to ask.
"What's Rivendell?" she said finally.
"Rivendell… ahh… I fear you ask the wrong person," he smiled in answer. "I myself have never been there, but it is a great place, the home of Master Elrond, an Elf of great renown. If you wish to know more, Gandalf is perhaps the most knowledgeable of those gathered here." Helen nodded.
"I think I'll ask him then. But what are Elves anyway? Are they like hobbits?" Éomer laughed, and Helen couldn't help noticing that it sounded rather like a roar – albeit a particularly nice one.
"I would not say that in front of either an Elf nor a Hobbit if I were you, lady; they are very different peoples. Elves – do you see over there?" He pointed some way down the table to where the short bearded man and the blond-haired one were sitting. "The blond one is the Elf, Legolas, Prince of the Woodland Realm. Elves are wise, and they are in many ways more gifted than mortals; they also have the distinguishing feature of pointy ears, or so I have gathered – I have met only three in my lifetime. The other two are over there," he said, gesturing towards the other end, where a group of men in dark clothing sat with two others, tall and dark-haired and with the same ethereal quality as Legolas. "They are Elladan and Elrohir, the sons of Master Elrond of Rivendell, and they sit with the Dúnedaín, the Rangers – Aragorn is their chief. The red-haired man is in fact a dwarf, Gimli son of Glóin."
Intriguing though Helen found this subject, she didn't have time to follow it up; for at that point Aragorn rose, and with him everyone else in the room.
"Greetings, friends," he said, raising his cup. "I will not keep you long; I wish only to thank you all. Each one of you has played a part in bringing me to this kingship; though perhaps I have not always wished for it, I take my place willingly and I intend to do my utmost to bring true peace to the West." Lifting his cup, he bowed to the company. "May the blessings of the Valar be upon you all."
Thomas: Thanks for your support. It's great to bring another person to the world of Tolkien ;-)
Eathlin: I'm so glad you liked it! I did consider asking Gandalf to pinch her, but then I thought, would you really ask Gandalf that? I thought not, and it seemed more extreme this way!
Southern Gaelic: Thanks again for reading it, is this a better length? I'd been thinking maybe they should be shorter rather than longer, but I guess not!