Chapter XVI
My troubles were far from over.
Gríma Wormtongue had decided that I ought to be married. Soon. Whether I liked it or not. He said it was not good for a young lady to remain single. Ha! Tell that to Éowyn! If he even began to hint around the subject of marriage, he would see Éowyn Unleashed. And that was not exactly a stroll through a garden either.
But this still put me in knee-deep horseshit.
Théoden, of course, in a sickening way, was going along with it. His desire was innocent: he wanted to be a grandfather. Gríma's was less virtuous: he wanted me out of the way. Apparently, I wielded a great influence over the King, since he had adopted me. Did Wormy care to take in mind that because of my female specific organs, I would never even be listened to by anyone on political issues? But no matter: I needed to be married and should start a family, or so they said.
Things were definitely not working well.
Éowyn was not much comfort (surprise surprise). She had beaten out any idea of arranged matrimony from Théoden's head long ago.
I really should have known this would be coming, but I wanted to delay thoughts of those kind for a long, long time. I denied this scenario's existence (which was only unsuccessfully fooling myself) and now, like most bad situations that you try to suppress, it had come back and bitten me quite viciously in my donkey. I had thought Théoden would respect my wishes, which I thought were rather evident, though he, and I don't know if this was just him or men in particular, could be incredibly dense at points. What really enfuriated me the most was in the casual way it was spoken and in that atmosphere that it was brought up.
It was breakfast, and as usual, Gríma sat in between myself and Éowyn, but I had moved down the bench to be closer to Théoden as Éomer must have breakfasted early, and I did not care to remain close to that horrid beast that smelt of urine and wet dogs.
Perhaps it was the way that Théoden smiled at me that morning: hopeful, and almost pleading. He looked so pitiable: his hair had turned white, and he looked a bit like an old, old grandfather, begging for something. I knew what he wanted, and I felt my stomach lurch when he smiled so fondly and hopefully at me.
Gríma had claimed the hair color was due to stress. Anyone could see that, but what caused the stress was another question entirely.
Krane was not at the table either, so no moral support glances from him.
It is funny how one knows what is coming all along, yet still chooses not to believe it when it does.
"Lady Ardeas, it is high time that you should have a husband," came Wormy's voice. At least he cut straight to the point instead of using flowery language and dragging it all out.
I stayed silent. Best not encourage this sort of behavior. Not very smart to do so.
"A journey to Gondor is, of course as everyone knows, out of the question at this time. The roads are too dangerous for a civilian caravan that is traveling for non-wartime purposes."
Peachy. He was going to set me up with one of the local nobles. Hurrah.
"I believe that I have found a suitable young man for you. He comes from a well-bred family, his wealth is immense, and he is only eight years your senior."
Eight years! Stars, he was twenty-six! Around Éomer's age, in fact. Dammit! What was I going to do? Well-bred and immensely wealthy almost always add up to royal prick, a royal prick who does not care about me or my needs in the least. Brilliant.
"Would you care to hear his name, Lady?"
He smiled at me, cold-blooded way. Damn him. I half expected a forked tongue of a serpent to slither in and out of his mouth a couple of times.
"Yes, I would be interested in hearing the name of the man with whom I will now have to spend the rest of my mortal life, my lord," I responded in a voice that would have frozen the Sea. Only Gríma seemed to have noticed my icy tone. Théoden, or should I say Father, was oblivious. Jerks, the lot of them.
"His name is Marris, son of Patrican, a lord of the Eastfold, and a leading major in the military. Marris himself has also shown impressive skill in commanding, and very much deserves his current military post of captain."
Marris... It sounded vaguely familiar. I think he had a twin sister or something. I cannot remember whether his parents were alive or not. I tried to pull a face to match the name, but it was an impossibility.
"Oh," was all I said. If he expected some spontaneous wails of despair, he had arranged the marriage of the wrong girl. If I was going to be miserable by his hand, then goshdarnit he was not going to know that he had reached me.
"The King and I have already taken the liberty to set up a meeting between you and this fine young man and one later with his family. I expect you should get along well with his mother Hulda, and especially with his twin sister Belindis."
Belindis! That was his twin sister? That little snot! I hated her the day I met her. I did not hate her nearly as much as I did Mortelia, but Belindis was a wicked girl of 26 who was married with two sweet children she did not deserve. I never understood how her children never picked up her spiteful disposition. This was just getting better and better.
I looked down, refusing to meet eyes with Wormy. "When will I meet this man, milord?"
"This afternoon, if that is convenient."
He did not plan this meeting for my convience. Éowyn and I usually went out together to talk after lunch. The ass.
I gave a clandestine glance at Éowyn. She staring intently into her food, playing with it with her fingers. She appeared to be pretending that she was not hearing a thing. She noticed me watching, mumbled something indistinct, and left the table. She was not going to stay and rescue me from the situation.
I wanted to scream and pound my fists on the hard oak table and cry that it was not fair and that I did not want to do this. I wanted to stand, grip my dress, and scream with all my might and tell everyone to go do something inappropriate. This was not fair, and I was sick of it. I think I did the only sensible thing one can do when one is truly unhappy and unable to throw a tantrum, but desperately wants to: I burst into tears.
I stood and left the room, hearing Gríma saying something about me being so happy to Théoden.
Inside every person, and sometimes not very far inside, is a bratty little child who wants his way(1). Except, I think I deserve at least a little bit to be obstinate after what happened.
---
I do not quite remember what happened after that except that I went to my room and sat around feeling miserable the rest of the morning, crying at random intervals. I think someone knocked on the door, but I must have pretended that I was not there, and they left. The person I had wanted to speak to the most was Krane, but in my stupor, I really did not care to leave my safe, warm room to find him.
Just before lunch, after still not seeing anyone, I just let myself go. I grabbed my blanket, stuffed my face into it, and screamed my heart out and pounded my fists on the bed. It helped a little, but it did nothing to help the situation at hand. There was another knock at the door.
My mouth, still muffled in the blanket, yelled out "What?" in my most I'm-in-a-very-bad-mood-don't-provoke-me-voice.
"'Tis time for luncheon," came Éowyn's voice. She sounded vaguely repentant.
"I am not hungry."
The door burst opened and I could almost see Éowyn from the way she spoke.
"Oh stop being so obstinate! Your moaning and groaning is not going to solve a thing. You are most likely not going to convince Uncle to get you out of this mess, but it could be a lot better if you looked at the best of things."
I gave her my glare. "Such as?"
"Uncle could have had you marry Lord Arkadia or whatever his title is."
"I would jump off the top of Meduseld before I married him." It was true. Lord What's-his-title had a hunched back, a very foul mouth, and sixty-two years behind shrewd, cruel eyes.
Éowyn smiled in triumph, though still retaining her cool manner.
I pretended to look thoughtful. "No, I take that back. More likely, I would push him off the top of Meduseld."
She shook her head. "Come on. You do not have to eat, but you should at least have something to drink before meeting Marris."
I narrowed my eyes, "Do your best not to mention his name."
Éowyn gave an exasperated sigh and left the room.
I pulled myself under the covers and lay their with my eyes wide open in the darkness beneath the blankets. I could feel the wood slats underneath me, digging into my back like wooden spikes. I felt like I was being impaled by a blunt object that was not cleanly slicing me, but instead taking its precious time. I screamed when something crawled through my hair.
I jumped out of bed and went to the looking glass that Théoden had gifted me a few years back. Little white things were hanging onto my hair, and I felt the desperate urge to itch my scalp.
Dammit.
The day I was meeting my future husband was the perfect day to find nits in my hair. Not that his thoughts on my appearance bothered me overly much. No matter what the hygienic habits of the Edoras society were, I was going to bathe while the rest of them ate luncheon.
I peered out from behind my door, making sure no one was in the hall. If there had been anyone traversing the hall, I would have been utterly mortified and embarrassed and forced to run back into my room, lock the door, and huddle on my bed in a vague uncertainty. Fortunately for me, everyone was stuffing their faces like veritable pigs. I scurried down to the bathing closet, and pulled a tub about my size down the hall back to my room. I really did not want to bathe in the bathing room where anyone could walk in on me (fine, not exactly anyone, but any female). Luckily, the noise from the main hall somewhat dimmed the large wooden tub I was hauling. With the tub safely in my room, I hastened back to the closet and filled a bucket with water and made several trips until the tub was full, and thankfully, still had not encountered anyone. My luck was almost unbelievably good.
It was a pity that Edoras had no hot springs, but I made do with the cold water. It was uncomfortable but not unbearable. I used to bathing brush to thoroughly scrape my scalp clear of the little nits after rubbing the filmy soap through my hair. After giving the rest of my body a good wash, I dragged for what seemed like forever the tub down the hall and dumped the water out. After returning the tub and drying my hair at my dressing table, I spread yeast liberally through my hair. If that did not kill the little imps, nothing would. After letting it set for a short while, and hoping that most of the nits were dead, I went down to the bathing room and washed it out of my hair. There was no need for anyone to see me and know that I was trying to kill nits.
I selected a midnight blue dress, the finest I had, and tied a strand of shiny black beads around my throat, and then dabbed a smidgeon of rose oil on my neck. If I was going to meet my doom, I intended to go down looking my best, and then braided two white wildflowers into my black hair. I gave myself a once over in the looking glass. The black beads sparkled at me like spider's eyes, cold, contemptuous and dripping with poison. I shivered uneasily at the thought.
People began to exit the dining hall, and I heard raucous laughter in the hall. Brutes. I hope they choke on their afternoon mead.
AN: I'm so sorry that I kinda sorta promised to finish the story on the 26th. I had really hoped to post the last chapter then, but somebody scheduled a vacation in during that time so I wouldn't be able to. I've made a lot of progress on this story I think (my first work of any kind to surpass the 100 page mark :so happy:).
PS: Kudos to anyone who can guess new characters' quality by their names before next chapter.
(1) Bill Watterson quote.