Lord of the Rings
"The Eternity of Watching"
Elvie Bexer
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As a young man, Gríma son of Gálmód had not been apt to gape at pretty girls like other boys. To him, the beauties that were available represented only pain and heartbreak, for he had learned the hard way that he could never have any of them. They reviled him for his features, for his intelligence, for his difference. In return, he despised them for their lack of capacity to understand his oddities and for their inability to see past his face to all the other things that he could offer them.
Things did not change when Gríma began his work at the King's palace of Meduseld. Since he had become wealthy there was no lack of women who were suddenly willing to bend to his every whim, but he had no interest in a shallow, greedy bride. He had determined long ago that he would have no one. Having no one was safer than loving someone and ending wounded by them.
He maintained a constant state of loneliness, speaking to few, bothering no one, never appearing at social functions unless Théoden King specifically dictated that he should. Even then he was silent, and he never laughed or smiled at anything that was said. His soberness threw off the other men and women around him, and soon they chose to avoid him rather than have their lively mood dampened.
When Gríma was in his late twenties, Théoden's young niece and nephew, Éowyn and Éomer, arrived at Meduseld. Éomer was like any other Rohirric boy: he wanted to be a Rider of Rohan. He trained every day in order to make himself worthier of that position, and he cared little for anything else. He was fiercely devoted to his country and maintained the standards of his people. He was the paragon of Rohirric male-ness. Needless to say, Gríma and Éomer despised each other from the beginning.
But Éowyn was different - from her brother, from her uncle, from everyone else in Rohan. She was an exquisite little lady, well mannered, cultured, and versed in her place in society. However, she never, never accepted it. She wanted to be a warrior just like her brother, and she too trained with swords, once her lessons in etiquette were finished. Because of the strangeness of her own desires, she was more apt to understand those who were different. Indeed, she gravitated towards such people as a moth gravitates towards the flame of a candle. Gríma was one of the many outcasts who she chose to take under her wing.
It started when she would quietly intrude upon his solitude while he worked at his desk. She would enter without asking permission, drag a chair up beside him, and then ask him what he was doing. In the beginning, he'd had difficulty keeping his irritation in check at the interruption; but as the days wore on and she entered heedless of his desire to be alone, he began to look forward to her appearances. She was always deeply interested in what Gríma was doing or reading or writing, and was always anxious to learn how she could do it herself. Gríma became Éowyn's willing teacher, so that by the time she was twelve she had learned how to read and write - a rare skill among women, even women of the court.
At twelve, Éowyn was sent away for a few years to a place where she would be "educated" in how best to be a wife. The very thought of Éowyn in such a place seemed ridiculous to Gríma, but he accepted Théoden's decision to send her away with little protest. He missed her intrusions, but he knew she would be back. When she returned, she would doubtless be wed off to some nobleman, but Gríma did not think Théoden would allow her to live very far away. All that mattered to him was that she was close enough to visit, so that he could still talk to her occasionally, when his loneliness grew too overbearing.
Then Éowyn returned.
At sixteen, she had blossomed into womanhood with extraordinary grace and beauty. The amazing thing was that she did not even seem aware of how beautiful she was. She seemed surprised to notice that things changed between her and her friends who were men, and often wept to Gríma about her disappointment that these friendships could not last. Gríma tried to explain each time how difficult it would be for men to see her in the same light, but even his gentle warnings made her angry. "If they are so shallow, then they were never my friends at all!" she concluded furiously at the closing of each conversation.
This, and other reasons, was why Gríma stayed silent about his suddenly growing feelings for his princess.
Once - and only once - he spoke to Théoden about his interest in Éowyn. He was rejected immediately. "Éowyn will need to marry someone of stature, someone who can help Rohan," Théoden had said firmly. "You of all men know how badly things go for Rohan these days."
Gríma did know; but nothing mattered to him anymore. Nothing mattered except having Éowyn as his wife.
The pain of her uncle's rejection stayed raw for months afterward, and since he had been denied by the King he hardly saw the point in revealing his adoration to Éowyn herself. She would only feel betrayed by his inability to see past her beauty, and then she too would leave him.
How he wished he could explain that it wasn't her glorious beauty that drew him to her; he loved her soul, the wildness of her spirit and her need to be free of the constraints society had placed on her. Even then she grew pale and weary, forced to remain indoors and embroider while listening to lectures about what her future husband would require of her, when all she wanted was to ride her horse as far as she could and never be stopped by anyone.
Gríma wanted nothing more than to give her that freedom. But she - nor anyone else - would ever let him.
This was when the wizard entered his life.
The offer had seemed too utterly perfect at first, as most things often seemed, and Gríma had been naturally suspicious; but Saruman had seemed so very sincere. Do a few simple tasks for me, he had said, And the Lady Éowyn will be yours… forever.
How could Gríma have resisted? A few simple tasks hardly seemed a difficult price to pay for something so precious as Éowyn.
But a few simple tasks grew into increasingly difficult and illegal manipulations, and Gríma, by no means a moral man, began to squirm. But every time he seemed on the verge of stopping his work for Saruman, he would remember the irresistible reward awaiting him, so tantalizingly close, and yet, so far away.
It hardly mattered what he need do for her; he would do it without question and without hesitation, just to have her as his bride, sharing his days - and his nights. Such rewards were too wonderful to resist.
He would do anything to have her, anything at all; and his work would never cease until at last she was his and his alone.
