Chapter XIV

I knew that I was in for it when Théoden/Father would find me, probably still copying the next day's lesson in the library. My mind had morbidly envisioned him practically purple with rage, screaming at me for my impudence, audacity, boldness, and anything else that he could name. My mind replayed it over and over again in my head. I could not even envision what my punishment would be. It would probably be suggested by Wormy himself, and I would loathe it for many days, if not years. I had stabbed Wormy's pride straight to its heart, and it was a wound that he would immediately seal up with cruelty, patience, and anything that could hurt anyone who so much as challenged him again. Would I be removed? Would I be forced into a marriage that was not even a choice of male that was usually promised? Would I have to marry Gríma? And what then? What would happen on our wedding night? What would he do?

I drowned in terror, and I could almost see Théoden sign my death warrant, at Wormy's request, on charges of treason for an insult to his Chief Advisor. Sweat rolled down my face as my eyes saw everything that would be done to me. Everything that would hurt me. I did not even realize I had fallen asleep when Éowyn woke me with a cup of something that smelled awful.

"Ardeas! Awake! Uncle requests your presence in his study. And you are in a state! Here drink this."

I was not given a choice, as she practically shoved the cup in front of me.

"Rhya says it is good for anxiety. Some of the noblemen drink this like ale." She chuckled to herself.

I sniffed the liquid suspiciously and nearly gagged, but I plugged my nose and downed it as quickly as possible. It felt like a slug was crawling down my throat. But I was rewarded a few seconds later feeling much better, and a little lighter. I felt like I could stare down anything.

"Good. Now come. You know how Uncle detests being kept waiting."

Something in her tone caught me a little off guard. I looked at her as clandestinely as possible. Did I catch amusement in her voice? Or something else? It was always hard to tell how Éowyn was feeling unless she told one. I gave an inaudible irritated sigh at myself. I was like a damn open book. Anybody and everybody could see straight through any lie that I said. Hopeless.

I wish it would have taken longer to get to Théoden King's study, but it took only a short time, and when we reached it, my heart was beating so loud I am sure the people in Minas Tirith could here it. The punishment had better not be nearly as bad as the examples that my imagination was feeding my brain.

"I will leave you here," said Éowyn, and she departed but a moment later, leaving me awkwardly standing in front of the door to the study. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and knocked on the door.

"Come in," came Théoden's voice. It was a little changed, I noticed. He seemed weary and tired, as if he had trudged leagues upon leagues, but still had more to go.

I came into the room and saw Théoden tiredly staring through some papers. Wormy, to my immediate, though hidden, disgust stood behind him, glaring at me.

Théoden motioned to a chair before his desk, "Sit down, child."

"Yes, Father," I answered in the meekest voice possible.

I looked at Wormy out of the corner of my eye. His smile reminded me of that of a child who had not wanted to share his toy and then screamed and wailed until the adult, in an exasperated voice, had promised to give it back.

Wormy leered at me from behind the desk, not that it would have mattered. He could made passes at me right here and now, and Théoden would not have noticed.

"Now, it has come to my attention..."

Inwardly, I cringed. He took that precise moment to take a sip of ale from the flagon next to him.

"...that you have offended my chief councilor and advisor."

His glance was not angry, wrathful or anything of that sort. He just looked so tired, not even really annoyed. I felt awful. This appeared to be taxing him, even this. His mouth showed a hint of a smile, as if he thought what I had said funny, but it vanished as quickly as it came, replaced by a weary look.

"Do not do it again, child. Do not forget your place in this household." His voice sounded as if he just wanted to go back to bed and not be bothered. I nodded my head respectfully but looked at him curiously. He was over sixty, but he had always been hale for his age. I wondered why he should change now.

Wormy was there before I could comment on the King's weariness.

"My lord and King, perhaps you are too tired to continue. If you would allow me, I would take care of this trivial matter so that you could rest."

I glared at Wormy who sneered at me. If we had been neutral parties then, we were definitely at war now. Let him come.

But Théoden waved it off. "Now, Lord Wormtongue, this is important. Perhaps when this is over I will retire for the night. But this is too important to lay by the wayside. Please, leave us. I would prefer to speak to my daughter alone."

"As you wish, your Majesty."

If Wormtongue could have stepped on my toe onthe way out, I think he would have, but he would have had to have walked over to me, and that might have been an eensy bit conspicuous.I gave a sarcastically sweet smile to him on his way out. Victory was mine.

Théoden cleared his throat, and I turned my attention back to him.

"Yes, Father?"

He gave a light cough, and I began to doubt whether he had the strength to give a real cough at all. I did not dare ask to fetch him tea or anything of the like. The look on his face said he was going to finish whatever it was he had to say and damn anyone who tried to stop him.

"Ardeas, I believe my councilor had the correct idea, if perhaps the wrong means."

I struggled to keep an unladylike snort inside me.

"You have grown into a beautiful young woman, and whether you like it or not, I do think it is time that you at least began thinking about a husband."

He paused for effect, probably expecting me to run screaming from the room like that infamous incident that now seemed so very long ago. I gave a hesitant smile and hoped he would continue. I just wanted to get this over with. It was too much to drag out.

"I hope you know," said he, leaning back in his chair, folding his hands on his stomach, "what sort of opportunity I am affording you. Many women of your age and stature are not permitted to have any sort of choice in the matter of their husbands. It is rare that any woman should choose her own husband."

I nodded, hoping he could interpret it any way he took it. He thought I was thanking him. He smiled at me, but it did no help. I felt as worthless as ever.

"I have thought about this matter greatly, and though a husband of Gondor would strengthen our ties greatly, I believe you are much too young for such a long journey. If you would find it better, you might consider speaking with Éowyn. I think that she would help you."

Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.

By putting off this magical fairy tale journey to Gondor, he was only delaying the inevitable. Oh yes, that made me feel so much better.

"But Gondor is not the only option, child. There are many eligible young men living here in Meduseld." He smiled kindly at me, "It would please me greatly to see you happily married. And I do not think Théodred will be marrying soon, and that distresses me greatly." He smiled in a hopeful manner. It was so pathetically sad, I wanted to help him. But I was not entirely sure of losing my innocence so he could become a grandfather. At least I think that was the object of his hinting. I knew for a fact that Théodred had, shall we say, known a few women. Surely he could be arranged into a marriage. He was approaching forty and still unmarried, a very rare occurrence as most men were married before twenty or just after, seldomly after thirty, and very unusually after forty. By age 30, unmarried men were expected to remain lifelong bachelors for whatever reason, and usually these reasons were not made public. I had never expected Théodred to be married, but now more than I ever, I wished he would. I could not bear refusing Théoden of such an virtuous thing as wanting to be a grandfather, but could I not wait until I was twenty before losing my maidenhood to some man who probably would not care about me and leave the marriage bed for anyone, and anything, including small animals, and then push me down a long flight of stairs if I even gave a passing thought to another man, while I could do nothing. It was simply the way life worked for women.

But Théoden was sitting there, having leaned forward toward me, smiling so sadly, so wearily, that I felt that I had to marry soon, or he would die of grief.

He sat back in his chair in a more proper posture and cleared is throat.

"You may go now, Ardeas."

I stood and curtseyed respectfully. As I was at the door, he stopped me with a final sentece.

"You will consider what I have told you and perhaps talk to Éowyn on this?"

"Yes, Father," said I.

He nodded to me, sighed, and turned back to his papers. He made me feel as if I had eaten a baby. I removed the word 'baby' from my head. Bad description.

I wandered for a bit before returning to my room and collecting sewing that Éowyn had insisted I learn. I took it all down to a small reading room next to the library (which really did not serve a purpose as there were chairs in the library itself) and sat next to a fire in the large hearth and began to mend a jacket of mine, ruining stitch after stitch. I finally pulled the thread out and threw it all into the small basket and stared into the fire until I fell asleep.

--

I wakened a good deal of time later with a horrendous pain in my back from sitting in the wooden chair. The fire had nearly gone out and only a few glowing hot coals cast an eery light around the room. With the fire nearly dead, the room had grown cold. I sighed and began to pick up my basket and depart for my room.

It is all very quiet in the halls, so dark I can barely see in front of me, and I most likely would have run into something if I had not known Meduseld as well as I did. I made up my mind as I approached my room. I was going to, by any means necessary, get Éowyn and I outside Meduseld to talk. There was too much welled up inside of me, and I needed to get it out to someone before I burst.

--

Sleep did not enter my room for the longest time, so I spent at least an hour, if not more, contemplating the various things that came upon my mind. One matter in particular raised itself up and forced me to consider it.

What exactly would "knowing" a man be like? Éowyn had said that when one of the women of the court, on request of Théoden, had told her what lay between a man and a woman. When Éowyn described it to me after I asked how people were made, she desribed in the barest details about what made a man a man and a woman a woman and how that all had to do with making a child. She said that the first time a man or a woman had done such things, they had lost their innocence and that they would never be the same again. She did not know if that was for the better or the worse when I asked her.

The more I think about it, I am, to say the least, scared to lose my innocence. I tried to be more confident with myself about this whole "losing one's innocence" idea by saying things like "I am not going to have something stolen from me by any man." You have most certainly guessed that it did not help. I was still scared, and I was still apprehensive as to how I would bring up this conversation with Éowyn.

Perhaps I should not bring it up at all.

I could move on with my life, and when Théoden was tired of waiting for me to choose, I would marry whomever he chose and bear that man's children if any. I would-

The thought was banished into the furthest reaches of my mind. I could never stand that.

I sighed and closed my eyes in one last valiant attempt to sleep and was pleasantly surprised to find myself growing drowsy. It is a wonderful feeling to be at the one final spot in the waking world before entering the world of rest and sleep. It is too bad we do not quite realize exactly when we fall into slumber.

AN: Sorry for any of you on author alert if you got the alert twice. The document went beserk and I did not realize that I had uploaded a whole bunch of blank little boxes in place of story. I now officially hate Windows, and I am going to buy an Apple. Because I type all my stuff on an old windows 95, I have to transfer them via floppy (remember them?) to the family computer for uploading, so while perusing this chapter, I realized that the cute little boxes had Xed out a good bit of my story when I had though it was only one word, so I spent a good deal of type rushing back and forth between computers, reading and memorizing from Lucille (my windows 95) and scurrying over to Denise (the plucky family computer who has a bad tendency to just blink at me, refusing to do what I ask of it, and then after a few pointed remarks on my part ie swears it crashes, mostly out of spite, I think. Denise is still a toddler.). I HATE floppies and/or Windows. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed,

Sincerely,

Regnet

Yes, I name computers, and while Lucille is official since it is my computer, Denise has not been accepted by the rest of the family. :( I also plan on naming my first car Susie. And yes, I am aware that I am slightly insane. No need to write me about that. :D