Until the last moment I swore I would meet Éomer's gaze when he got close enough to distinguish from his fellow riders but at the last moment my nerve failed me. The gate shook when the men rode under it. The vibrations seemed to rack my body more than was usual, but maybe I was only shuddering.

Once the head of the procession had passed, I was able to look for my brother and Eadric in the crowd. I couldn't find the young stablehand in the press. Erchirion was easy to spot however, about halfway back, his black hair standing out starkly. He looked exhausted and dirty but when he saw us he raised his arm and waved gamely.

Lithoer pulled me into a tight embrace. "Oh thank Valar! Oh thank Valar!" She whispered into my hair. I returned her embrace, trying to wave back to my brother at the same time and feeling a sweet little bit of relief under the strange numbness of dread a smile opened out on my face.

"He doesn't look hurt, does he?" She wanted confirmation.

I shook my head as well as I could with her arms so knitted around my neck. "He could do with a good scrubbing and I wouldn't like to guess the last time he washed that..."

But she wasn't listening to me. "Come, come, let's go down to see him!"

As we ran down the steps I asked Gænwyn, "Did you see Eadric? That young stable hand you assigned to assist me? I couldn't spot him."

She shook her head. "I don't think I did. But I wasn't really looking for him to be honest," she added quickly when she saw my expression.

I nodded but felt uneasy. Éomer had promised to bring him back as his squire. What would it mean if he hadn't? He wouldn't have left Eadric at the front simply to spite me, I was sure of it. And even with his mind full of battle and responsibility it seemed unlikely he would forget a promise. A slow nausea began to build in my stomach. It seemed like an ill omen.

"I'm sure he was just lost in the throng."

The stables were a riot of activity and we hung back, not wishing to interfere. However when my brother appeared at the entrance, hair slicked down with sweat and grimy with dust, Lithoer ran forward, shouting his name. He turned and caught her in a passionate embrace.

It wasn't appropriate to our Gondorian upbringing—I felt I should look away—but the nearby riders of Rohan met the display with a brief shout of approval. When they broke apart Erchirion was red to the ears but looked more than pleased with his reception and they returned to me and Gænwyn with their limbs intertwined a little more intimately than was normally required for a gentleman offering a lady his arm.

Gænwyn glanced at me and laughed. "They're engaged, Lothíriel. It would be a cold woman indeed that would deny her betrothed a kiss upon his return from battle!"

But she'd mistaken my flush for a blush. I wasn't thinking of etiquette; I was thinking of strong hands around my own waist, of being pressed hard against a broad chest and being enveloped in the smell of sweat and pine and dusty roads traveled on horseback. I was thinking of things I'd only read about in Haradrim poetry and dreamed about on the warmest nights of Minas Tirith to wake gasping in the dark, unfulfilled.

Seconds later when my brother caught me up in a hug it occurred to me briefly that I got all those things (for he certainly smelled of sweat, dust and horses and he clutched me to his broad and reeking tunic) but my only response was to push him away with all my strength and squeal, "Oh, Erchiri you're absolutely filthy!" How utterly different than the reaction I'd envisioned.

He laughed and only drew me tighter, planting a kiss on my cheek even as I tried to squirm away. "A little dirt won't do anything to diminish your radiance, Sister," he assured me with a cheeky grin.

When he released me, I brushed my clothes off pointedly but then favored him with a genuine smile and a return of his kiss, though I was careful to pick the cleanest spot on his cheek. "I'm glad to see you well, Brother."

He peered down at me with a considering look. "You as well."

"Do you know where Eadric is, Erchirion? I didn't see him in the throng?"

His brow contorted. "The stable boy who asked for your favor the morning we left? I'm sorry Lothi but I'm not sure. I rode with the éoreds from the Eastenmet and Éomer rode with those from the Westenmet. I barely saw him during the battle and since we've been riding hard for days and barely making camp or conversation." He rubbed a hand over his face. "Damn but I'm tired!"

We offered to accompany him back up the hill so he could clean-up and change his clothes, but he shook his head, "I'm sure you've wasted quite enough of the morning staring at boring black shapes in the distance. Now that you've satisfied yourselves that my countenance is no fouler than when I left, you should go enjoy the festival."

With the perfect sincerity of a girl on the eve of her wedding, Lithoer peered up at him and said, "I think you've gotten fairer still. I wouldn't have thought it possible." He bent down and rewarded her with a brief but tender kiss. I bit back a quip pointing out that, at the moment, his face was mostly obscured by dust.

But only a groom would think that we would possibly have the time to enjoy the festival now that the wedding was sure to take place the next day. Tonight Lithoer, along with her parents and two brothers, would be formally presented to my father. Of course they had dined privately with my family almost every day since the party from Gondor had arrived. I had tried, unsuccessfully, not to be jealous of the easy way she had fitted in at our table after the initial blush of nerves had receded. But tonight she would officially become an acquaintance of ours, a critical first step to becoming our newest addition the following night.

The schedule for the wedding, as well as the question as to who would feast who each night, had been the subject of intense debate. Both families, both kingdoms, were eager to heap their hospitality on the other and since it had been agreed that the wedding would be a mix of Gondorian and Rohirric traditions (which differed in several key ways) both had some justification for it. In the end it had been decided that Rohan and Lithoer's family would host the feast that night (and I had no trouble believing that preparations had commenced even before the group of riders had been spotted, just in case the riders returned) and my father and Gondor would host the feast the next day.

As my brother's sister it wouldn't have been proper for me to be too much involved in the planning of a feast that was, essentially, in my family's honor, but as Lithoer's friend I was allowed to at least help her prepare.

But by mid-afternoon I wished I'd gone back to the house with Erchirion. Gænwyn and the band of ladies of Edoras I'd grown to know a little bit while helping Lithoer with her troth, had gone off to help with the feast preparations. It was Lithoer's mother and her cousins, none of whom I had ever met, who were helping her with her ablutions.

I hung back, feeling out of place and isolated in the flurry of activity and rapid Rohirric. I would have loved to have something to do—any simple little task to keep my hands occupied—but no one wanted to impose by giving me one, and I couldn't work up the courage to ask. My Rohirric was quite good these days but I always felt a certain reluctance, not to say shyness, about speaking in front of strangers. I could tell that I was coming off as haughty and aloof and struggled to make myself seem more inviting but I didn't have much energy for the project. All I really wanted to do was curl up somewhere in solitude and weep for a few days.

Lithoer would have made an effort to include me but she was trapped in the center of a storm of activity. She was scrubbed, polished, filed, plucked and oiled from head to toe. Two at a time her cousins and female relatives worked to pamper and perfect her, a fate she accepted with laughing good humor though at times it looked quite painful.

I stared out the window, trying to remember the contents of the letters I had sent Amrothos even as I prayed to forget them.

I allowed myself to wonder about Eadric and sunk deeper into depression. The explanations for his absence were grim. At best it meant that Éomer had begun to hate me so much that he had broken his promise. At worst it meant Eadric was dead or too severely wounded to travel. Either option made my stomach turn.

The feast itself was mercifully short. As a relatively unimportant player in the diplomatic machinations I was also placed, thankfully, far from Éomer. My luck in seating placement had only extended so far however. I had been seated between Amrothos and Marshall Elfhelm, who had so disapproved of me when we'd first met. We didn't speak much past the necessary greetings when first seated and then there were the speeches to listen to (from both fathers and kings) but during the meal the silence became almost oppressive. Amrothos chatted with the girl to his left, one of Lithoer's cousins. The girl didn't speak enough Westron to allow him to either flirt with or denigrate her satisfactorily. It didn't stop him from trying however. His only other alternative was to speak to me.

Finally, after the second course had been served, Elfhelm broke the silence. "I used your map often this past year, my lady. I thank you for that work."

I looked up from where I had been staring blankly into some sort of white soup. "Oh? I am gratified to hear it was used. Where were you riding?"

He had been working in the Westemnet, riding with the larger shipments of grain coming into and then flowing out of that region. I quizzed him on where he'd been, the villages he had visited and the general news from the region and he quickly warmed to both the subject and me.

"I'm from the Eastmark and most of my riders are from the there. I barely know the West of the country but it is where most of our wheat is produced. I was well glad to have something to show me what I could expect on the road: where good water could be found and which villages offered an inn. It means the world to a man after many days of travel... but of course you already know that, being a rider yourself these days I hear!"

I grinned and inclined my head with a little bobbing nod of thanks. "I can remember one innkeep's wife who I almost kissed when she offered to draw me a bath after a particularly muddy ride!"

"I know the feeling, my lady!" he said with a lusty wink.

I blushed but couldn't stifle a little chortling laugh.

"You know I never would have thought that you would have taken to the Mark so well when you first arrived," he said after a moment's pause. "You were such a miserable little thing on the journey who would have thought that you would be riding out with an éored after less than a year!"

He was trying to pay me a compliment and, after more than a year among them, I had grown to accept (if not to appreciate) the Rohirrim's more direct way of speaking, but his words seemed to take the glow out of the candles for me. I had been horrible to Elfhelm and everyone else along with us on that ride, sitting in the back of the cart and glaring out at the world. Inevitably, the shame of the memory reminded me of the fresh insult I had offered to his King.

I smiled, false and winning. "After a month of eating nothing but venison stew in Edoras I felt sure that there must be something else to eat in the rest of Rohan, so I simply rode out to find it. No great act of heroism, I assure you."

He roared with laughter at that. "Oh, very good, my lady! Very good!"

We chatted after that quite easily about my experiences in the Mark but when our conversation turned to the situation with the Wild Men a question suddenly occurred to me. "You didn't by any chance happen to meet a young man named Eadric when you were there did you? From Underharrow? He would have ridden in with Éomer King."

I had fully expected him to say no. Elfhelm had been essentially Éomer's second in command in the campaign. He would have no reason to remember one rider among what would have been hundreds amassed to fight off the Wild Men. To my complete surprise he smiled. "Oh, you know Éomer's little shadow? When did you meet him?"

"In Underharrow, before he rode out. Why do you call him Éomer's shadow?"

Elfhelm laughed at that and held out his hands in a placating gesture. "I suppose it's only proper to say 'squire' since Éomer did make him one. But he's never taken a squire before and I'm not sure he knew what he was getting into when he chose that one. The lad is too eager by half and twice as green as that. He made quite a scene at the camp though, dashing about with his Lord's armor and tack like he was on a quest given to him by Mithrandir himself!"

I could imagine it only too well. I grinned. "But then do you know where he is? I looked for him in your number this morning but I didn't see him?" I didn't add that, had Eadric returned to the city he would have certainly had the audacity to call on me, and rank could go into the West with the Elves.

"Éomer sent him to Aldburg the morning that we left. I'm not sure why. Perhaps just to be rid of him for a spell... Though they get along quite well, of course. My lord simply isn't used to having a squire, that's all," he said, mistaking the meaning of my frown.

I didn't doubt for one minute that Eadric was completely in awe of Éomer and had allowed himself to become quite carried away with the idea of being his squire. Nor did I find it difficult to believe that the attention made Éomer uncomfortable. What I didn't understand was why Éomer would have sent him to Aldburg when he had promised to bring him back with him to Edoras. Did he mean to punish me by not allowing me to see my friend? I quickly dismissed the thought as unworthy of him. Perhaps he had simply needed something from Aldburg, or, as Elfhelm suggested, a rest from his company. But Éomer had promised. Surely it meant something that he had broken that promise.

I was relieved to hear that Eadric hadn't been hurt, but it brought all my questions into sharper focus.

"He was well however when he left? Not hurt in battle?"

Elfhelm shook his head. "Not that one, my lady! Oh, he was surely reckless enough, but I quite have the idea that my lord was looking out for him in some of the messier situations we found ourselves in."

Again the candle flames seemed to dim slightly as shame washed over me. A king with no heir had risked his life for a stable boy at the word of a treacherous woman like me. Each fresh example of Éomer's goodness only made me feel lower, more contemptible. I thought of a line from one of the letters I had sent Amrothos—his loyalties are easily discerned and might as well be chains of iron on his wrists for how surely they bind him. Only a paramount fool would leave himself so exposed–and felt sick.

When the feast was over gifts were exchanged and loyalties pledged but there would be no dancing since we wished to be fresh enough to dance until dawn the next night. My father made another speech welcoming Lithoer to our table. I rose, thanked Elfhelm sincerely for the enjoyable conversation and then took Amrothos' arm. "Please walk me home, Brother," I said, my first words to him that night.

I kept my head down as we walked out of Meduseld, practically clutching Amrothos' arm as I dragged him forward. I didn't want to see Éomer, didn't want to talk to him. "I truly am sorry that you were hurt by what I did, Lothi," he said as we made our way down the path. "But I think someday you'll thank me for what I've done."

"Just be quiet Amrothos," I said softly. "I don't want to talk about it."

I knew I would forgive him eventually. No matter what he did, Amrothos was my brother and the first person ever to love me. In his darkest hour he had acted ignobly, wrongly and he had hurt me deeply. But who knew better than I how easy that was to do?

Formally it had fallen to my sister-in-law Gyril, as the wife of the heir, to prepare the feast but in the end the plans had been mostly mine. She was a sensible woman and, though far more experienced than me at organizing parties and feasts, had never been to Edoras and had no real knowledge of Rohirric tastes or traditions, much less the language of all the available vendors. It wasn't that she had shirked her work—I had never thrown a party myself and wouldn't have known even where to start—but she'd asked me to accompany her everywhere she went as a translator and adviser. The purse had come from my father and Elessar, the experience had come from Gyril but the taste of the wedding feast would be mine. Quite literally, as I had selected the courses to be served, as well as the wine and spirits, but even more so because I had chosen the musicians, and decorations. I felt I had done a much better job of it than I had helping Lithoer with her troth.

The day passed much more pleasantly than I had expected. Preparations kept me busy and I had no fear that I would see Éomer either since the men were all out hunting for the evening feast.

The wedding itself took place on the steps of the Meduseld just before dusk. So many nobles from both Gondor and Rohan had come to see it that the hall, big as it was, had been precluded.

Lithoer looked absolutely radiant.

Her wedding dress had been a gift from my father but I had been allowed to select it. It was cut in silk and velvet with long, tight sleeves and a fitted bodice and, eschewing the fashion of the day which called for a voluminous, flowing pillow of a skirt, contented itself with a simple but elegant fall of cloth. The single embellishment was a train that would trail her by several feet. She looked perfectly at ease and perfectly comfortable as she came up the path on horseback and slid down to walk up the steps to join my brother on the dais. Standing on the dais as well I had to peer around Lithoer's mother to glimpse my brother's reaction to her. Erchirion looked as if he'd never seen anything so beautiful in his life. His eyes seemed to shine out with emotions—love, devotion, and most of all an overwhelming joy and eagerness. He brought both hands to his lips for an instant as if overwhelmed, before he mastered himself again.

Later when the floor was opened for dancing I was among the first to claim my turn with him. "They say all bridegrooms think their prize is the fairest maiden ever to walk this Middle-earth. But they were all idiots and dupes. You know better. You know that this is only true of Lithoer," I teased him.

He threw his head back as he laughed. "Too true, Sister!"

When the song ended I chatted with Gænwyn for a while. Occasionally someone would ask me to dance but I pleaded fatigue. I was in hiding after all, the last thing I needed to be doing was spending a lot of time in the focus of so much attention.

When it came time for the bride and bridegroom to retire more speeches were made. My father toasted the health of the bride and wished her many sons. King Elessar spoke about the renewed bonds between two nations (still managing to wish the bride many healthy children). I had expected Éomer's speech to be likewise diplomatic but he spoke instead about his memories of Erchirion and Lithoer each. He spoke about Lithoer's efforts during the war to support Rohan and of how beautiful and sought-after she'd been in her youth.

"We are proud to send such a jewel of Rohan to our Southern brothers. We know that she will be as beloved there as she is here and do her homeland much credit."
He spoke of first meeting Erchirion in the darkest days of the war and at length about the service he had done for Rohan after the war helping to rebuild the destruction.

"Many men of Gondor rode into battle at Pelennor fields with me and I thank them all for their courage. I will honor them with my last breath. But only one man rode back to Rohan with me. Only one of that host came home with me to put my lands in order and for that I will honor him twice."

The speech didn't surprise me, though I think it did some of the other Gondorian attendants. It was full of emotion without being sentimental; it was wholly the truth while still being diplomatic and the words were eloquent without being anything less than entirely suited to their purposes. I had always known that Éomer was a great orator. I had always had a complex relationship with his ability to avow so easily such deep emotions. But when his speech turned to love, I felt my face begin to flush steadily."

As he spoke the words the room exploded into a roar of approval (it must have been loud but I remember it only as a dim roar, as faint as a far off breaking tide) and he turned and looked directly at me. It was as if all the blood in my body froze solid. I couldn't move for a long time as he held me in his gaze. His face was impassive but his eyes were full of a blazing light. His fury was clear but so was the unvoiced question in them.

For a subjective eternity I couldn't move. Then, imperceptibly quickly, I gave a short nod. He turned away from me without returning it.

When the speeches were finished Lithoer and Erchirion were ready to 'run the gauntlet.' All the guests crowed around the central isle of the hall, all pushing to be towards the front. Tradition held that Erchirion must protect his new bride and ensure that they made it safely to the two horses saddled outside that would take them to their new home (in this case the small cottage in lieu of their actual home in Dol Amroth). The guests were allowed to throw at the new couple whatever they wanted. In this case it would only be handfuls of wheat and flowers or perhaps at worse a little water or wine but there were of course stories of jilted lovers throwing handfuls of dung or knives at new couples. One Princess of Dol Amroth had been said to be so unpopular a choice that on her wedding day she had faced a thicket of rotten produce and had almost refused to be taken to her marriage bed she was so indignant.

They were supposed to wait until the musicians struck up the cue to run but Lithoer, laughing and grabbing my brother by the hand, dashed forward a few seconds early. The crowd at the front, eager not to be robbed of their opportunity, hurled forth such a profusion of wheat and flowers it looked as though the hall had been taken by a sudden blizzard. No sooner had the pair emerged, laughing and now with Lithoer thrown over Erchirion's shoulder, then the next volley was showered down on them. When they passed us my handful went slightly wide but Gænwyn managed to get Erchirion full in the chest and squawked with delight.

And then they were out into the night, swinging up onto their horses as we guests swarmed out to see them off. Men shouted lewd advice and suggestions, women threw more flowers and wheat and it seemed like everyone was screaming how much joy and prosperity and heirs they wished them.

When they were out of range and out of sight the tide of people receded back into the hall quite quickly. After all the show was over and the mead would flow and the dancing would continue until dawn. Gænwyn started back towards the hall but turned round when she saw I wasn't following. "I'm going to stay out here for a moment," I said. "I need to clear my head."

She nodded and went back in.

He was standing exactly where we had stood the night of the dance, when he had snatched the flower from my hair. I still remembered the feeling of his fingers on my cheek and his hand over mine as he indicated the constellation of Eorl. Though the night was warm, a slight shiver went up my spine at the memory.

I went to him and stood before him, trying to hold myself as erect as possible and not to shake. "You wanted to see me? We aren't alone out here tonight, Éomer. Are you sure you want to speak to me with so many around?"

There were more than half a dozen young pairs of lovers scattered around the dais, enjoying the moonlight and the view. If we spoke in more than a whisper one or more of them would be able to hear us."

Wordlessly he took me by the hand and led me down the steps. As always the touch of his flesh to mine was a singular experience. Why was I so much more keenly aware of the warmth of his skin and the lithe taught muscles beneath than any of the other men who had ever touched me? Still it would have been more common to offer me his arm and I wondered why he had taken my hand, a more intimate gesture. I glanced down at our hands and noticed a long white bandage that was wrapped from his wrist to his elbow. Because I had been avoiding his gaze, and practically unable to look at him since he had returned, I hadn't noticed it until that moment.

We were still moving through the smattering of people who hadn't gone back into the hall so I felt safe to ask. "Are you badly hurt?"

He didn't look at me but I saw his profile clearly as he frowned. "No."

"Are you wounded anywhere else?"

"No."

"Truly?"

"No more than the usual scrapes and bruises of battle."

"Why did you send Eadric to Aldburg?"
His frown deepened. "I needed something retrieved from my home. As my squire Eadric insisted that it was his duty alone to fetch it."

"He is unhurt then?"

That brought a small smile. "No more than the usual scrapes and bruises of battle."

Éomer led me down the steps and then turned into the labyrinthine hedged garden that occupied the eastern side of the lawn around the Meduseld. We followed a twisting branching path but Éomer seemed to know where he was going and so we wound deeper and deeper into the dark until the noise of the party was so dim we could hear the night noises: the hum of crickets, an occasional bird calling and the whistle of the wind across the plains. We didn't need a torch the moon was so bright. The bright silver light made everything seem magical, more like an elven garden than something built by the hands of men.

By the time Éomer finally stopped walking I had forgotten the reason for our walk, that the walk had a reason at all other than the pleasurable feeling of being in a place so quiet and beautiful. The party, my turmoil, Amrothos and the letters, seemed to belong to another lifetime, another world entirely. He led us to a small clearing at the very edge of where the lawn changed from a tangle of hedges and flowers and paths into a simple sweep of grass on the western side. In the clearing there were four old plinths in an irregular pattern. Once they must have been the bases for statues of some kind but only one held any remnant of what it had once been: an irregular bump on its flat top that could have been the beginning of any number of things.

"What is this place?" I asked.

"It's called Brego's Walk. People say that he liked to visit this place and that the statues were of his forefathers but more likely than not that's a fiction, the Rohirrim do not normally build statues. No one really knows what they were or if they'd even been built in the time of Brego. More likely they were why he decided to site Edoras here."

With no thought that it might be the last time I touched him, I released his hand. I wanted to see the full extent of the clearing and so I walked for a while between and around the statues. Éomer stood near the tail head and watched me as I circled the plinths, weaving in and around them until I finally came to stand before the most complete one at the farthest end of the stone clearing, right where it gave away into the grass lawn.

I stood looking up at the lump of stone on the top trying to imagine what it might have been: the feet of some king? The bottom of a queen's dress? A rearing horse's hoof? I didn't hear him as he approached for he moved as silently as any other predator but I knew where he was. Like a divining rod over an underground spring I felt myself tense and quiver when he came to stand behind me. I turned to face him and drew myself up, folding my shoulders back in just the way I had been taught a lady should.

The languid, detached feeling of the walk was gone and my body and the air thrummed palpably with a tense, quavering energy. From his cloak he extracted a stack of folded papers and threw them down on the crumbling stone bench beside me. "Did you write these?"

TBC

AN: A huge thanks to all those who reviewed (please let me know what you think of this chapter as well! If writing is a huge fire, and sometimes it feels like it is, reviews are the wood that feed it. And as always a huge thanks to Lady Bluejay who did her usual excellent work betaing this chapter. She's a hero among women.