Chapter II – Cold
Though it was Éowyn's funeral, more than half of those present had their eyes fixed on Lord Faramir. The Steward's eyes were glassy and distant, and when the ceremony required the people to speak, he stayed silent as if he could not hear what was being said. The King knew, however, that Faramir could hear every single word, because he watched his Steward flinch every time her name—Éowyn—was mentioned.
"It is a thing of incomparable anguish to have a loved one torn away before her time," the leader of the ceremony was saying in a tragic voice that sounded choked with tears. "The Lady Éowyn, Princess of Ithilien, has left a beloved husband, a brother, a sixteen-year-old son, and a newborn daughter to suffer in this world without her presence. We thought that we would always have the Lady Éowyn to grace Gondor with her splendorous beauty and worldly renown—the greatest gift of Rohan to our nation. It is with agony that we now realize that we were wrong…" The moment of ringing silence seemed to engulf the crowds in shadow. The ceremony leader cleared his throat. "With this deepest sorrow in mind…we now say our final farewell to Éowyn, the White Lady of Rohan…"
Éomer stood opposite of Faramir with his own wife, crying out in grief with great heaving sobs. His entire body was racked with agony, his face scarlet from weeping. Elboron was stiff and silent, his eyebrows arched in anger, but tears trickled slowly from his eyes. Faramir was as pale as death himself and stricken dumb by the appearance of the great bier that bore his wife down to the gravesite.
The men carrying her body stopped in front of the family, and for a moment everything went still. The only sound carried on the wind was of confused children crying because they did not understand why the Lady Éowyn whom everyone loved would speak no more.
Éomer approached first, having barely calmed his sobs. He murmured words in Rohirric over his sister's body, chanting some foreign rhythm that only he and Éowyn would have understood. When he retreated, Elboron stepped shakily forward, unsteady on his feet.
"Mother…" he whispered. His tears slipped down his chin and landed on Éowyn's cold hand, and Elboron looked away with a rough cough to hide his moan. He pushed through the crowds angrily and sprinted up through the gates of Minas Tirith. Though Aragorn called to him, he did not stop. Aragorn nodded to his son, Eldarion, who ran after Elboron into the city. Faramir said nothing but finally took his turn to step up to the bier.
Faramir laid a shaking hand on Éowyn's arm. She was wearing the mantle that he had given her, woven of blue thread the color of midnight and set with silver gems around her throat. Finally his composure slipped. "So much death…" Faramir bowed his head and shuddered. "So much… I should have saved you, Éowyn… I should have been there. I failed you…like I failed the others… Like Father and Boromir and—" He turned away abruptly, withdrawing visibly into himself like a wounded animal might when it fears the killing blow. He was trembling, and though others tried to ask him if he was cold, he said not another word for the remainder of the service.
Of all those present, the one with eyes more for Faramir than any other was Prince Elphir of Dol Amroth, Faramir's cousin. As Éowyn was laid gently into the grave, he moved up beside Faramir and laid a hand on his shoulder. Elphir whispered words of comfort into Faramir's ear, soothing words full of the promise of a new day and a shining sun, but Faramir made no sign that he heard or, if he heard, that he understood.
The shadows grew longer, and Éowyn's bier was covered with a mound of dirt upon which Éomer planted a single blossom of simbelmyne, in the burial fashion of their people. The crowds began slowly to depart, wailing songs of lament into the darkening evening. Prince Elphir gave Faramir's shoulder a squeeze and tried to steer him away, but Faramir would not budge. Aragorn noticed and slipped over quietly, touching Elphir on the arm.
"Will he still say nothing?" Aragorn whispered, wet tear streaks in evidence on his cheeks. The pain engraved as in stone upon Faramir's face grieved him more deeply than anything since his mother's death had grieved him.
"No, my liege. He will not speak," said Elphir, his hand still tight on Faramir's shoulder. "Will you not do something for him? Is there nothing you can do?"
Aragorn shook his head, fresh tears rising to his eyes. "There is nothing, Elphir. He must be given time." At Elphir's nod, Aragorn turned away. Arwen fell into step beside him and looked sadly at his face.
"You feel guilt," she whispered in Sindarin. "Ease your mind. The fault is not yours."
"Arwen, I should have been there! I could have saved her!" His tone was fierce and full of pain. "I am the King! What is my purpose, if not to protect my people? You do not understand, and you should not try to!" Arwen stopped by the side of the path, but he kept walking, propelled by some intense desire to get away from the place where Éowyn had been laid to rest and where her husband and brother remained, grieving in silence.
"We are brothers in our grief, Faramir," said Éomer eventually to break the silence. His wife Lothiriel, sister of Elphir, began to make her way towards the city after the crowds, and Elphir finally let go of Faramir's arm to follow her. Faramir did not move. "Let us be brothers true from this point forward."
The silence lasted for so long that Éomer was almost sure that Faramir would not answer. Finally, though, Faramir spoke. "I do not wish to join you in brotherhood, good King Éomer." His voice cracked on the name. "I only wish to be alone." Éomer paused, and Faramir's resilience weakened. "Please…" Éomer turned then and left him alone with the rising moon and the lonely dust of his wife's grave. Just before he entered the city, Éomer looked back down at the lonely figure now lowered on one knee in front of the grave, his back arched so that his head rested on his knee. Though the wind was fiercely cold under the grey sky, it seemed as if Faramir could not even feel its biting cold through the numbing agony of his loss.
"Something must be done about Faramir." Elphir's statement caught everyone's attention, and the room fell silent. Aragorn, Arwen, Éomer, Lothiriel, and Elphir himself were all that remained of the crowds of mourners who had come to the funeral of the Lady Éowyn. As far as anyone knew, Faramir had still not returned to the city, and it was now nearly midnight.
"What is there to be done?" asked Éomer wearily, wiping more tears out of his eyes. "If he won't listen, then he won't be reasonable."
"The man's been pushed beyond his limits," said Lothiriel. "I don't think it is wise to judge him."
"No one is judging Faramir," Arwen replied gently. "But Elphir is right—something must be done."
"I agree with Éomer," said Aragorn, shaking his head. "There is nothing we can do to help him until he realizes that he must help himself."
"Aragorn! The dear man is still out there, kneeling by his dead wife's grave, probably blaming himself and pushing himself into a pit that he may never be able to climb back out of without our help!" exclaimed Arwen.
"Listen!" cried Lothiriel. "We all agree that Faramir needs help, whether from himself or someone else. Standing here and pitying him will do nothing! Who is to say that he is as broken as you all judge him to be?"
"Lothiriel, you do not understand," Elphir growled, frustrated. "When his brother died, it destroyed his hope. I was there. I watched him hold it back, as if it didn't exist. All of the grief stayed inside because he couldn't afford to let it out when so many of us relied on him as a captain. Then when his father died, he lost his faith in the world, his faith in humanity, his faith in goodness. When his second son died in infancy, he was tired—tired with age, though he was still yet young. Now this? How much abuse can one man take before he is broken?"
"Elphir is right," murmured Aragorn. "If you know anything about Faramir, then you understand that this event in Faramir's life is not what has pushed him into this despair. It is the culmination of countless events in his past that have pushed him and pushed him—once almost to death. Since we found friendship, I have done everything that I can to help lift the burden of the memories of his past, but a pane of glass can only sustain so much before it shatters. You cannot put back together a pane of shattered glass."