21 March 3019 T.A., The Houses of Healing
A terrible shriek tore through the still, night air. Lothíriel jolted awake from where she was dozing on a thin pallet, and she rubbed her eyes as her ears rang with the echoes of the scream. She pulled herself to her weary feet, straightening her grey smock and walking as if in a daze in the direction that the shriek had come from.
It was near midnight; were it not for the scarce torches lit for safety, she would not be able to see where she was going. The Houses of Healing were still; the wounded slept fitfully, and the healers snatched what sleep they could between rounds, before they were woken yet again by soldiers in pain or suffering from nightmares.
She entered the chamber where the shriek had come from, and immediately sensed a horrible trembling in one of the cots nearest the door. Lothíriel crouched beside it, placing her hand on the soldier's pale face, sheened with perspiration and his eyes wild and distant.
A fever, as she might have expected. And likely nightmares as well. She fetched water and clothes from a well-stocked table in the chamber, and returned to his side. The soldier thrashed away from her as he moaned aloud, his eyes squeezed shut. The water sloshed onto the linens.
Her heart twisted at the man's suffering. Unwearyingly Lothíriel dampened a cloth in the cool water and pressed it gently to his forehead, his unshaven cheeks, his neck. She frowned; his skin was far too hot, even for a fever.
Another healer had entered, making no sound, and Lothíriel glanced up as the healer bent over, lifting the lid of one of the man's eyes.
"Delirium," the healer said confidently.
"What of his wounds?" Lothíriel asked in a hush. "Might I change the dressings, perhaps?"
"If they need it, by all means. He was stuck in the gut, I believe."
Lothíriel lifted the tangle of blankets from around the soldier's arms, and then opened the front of his shift. A rank smell assaulted her senses, and she bit back bile rising in her throat. Stuck, indeed! What had once been undoubtedly an arrow piercing was now a raw, gaping wound of rotting flesh and blackened insides. There was a hiss from the healer as she caught sight of this.
"Go, girl! Fetch the warden at once. We need more skill here."
She jumped to her feet, obeying without question. It was a relief to breathe the cool night air in the corridors, though to her dismay the image of the man's decimated body would not leave her vision. She was choking on nausea as she pounded her fist on the door to where the Warden slept, her breaths short and ragged.
The grumpy face of the Warden peeked through the door, holding a single candle and wearing a faded nightshirt. "What is it, girl?" he barked.
"A man—west chamber—I think he is dying—I was sent—"
The candle was set on a table behind the door, and the Warden fetched a dressing gown, pulling it over his shoulders as he followed her hasty steps. Lothíriel explained to him, as best she could, the soldier's wound before they arrived at the chamber. Immediately the Warden swooped down towards the soldier, speaking very quickly and quietly to the healer. The man was moaning aloud, and the noise was beginning to wake the other occupants of the room, who shifted restlessly in their own cots with grunts and groans of discomfort.
She felt awkward standing uselessly; she did not know what to do—if she could do anything. The healer had stripped away the man's clothing, and she was putting some sticky salve on his flesh as the Warden tried to tip a vial of herbs into the man's mouth.
Lothíriel did fetch several more bandages, and laid them beside the man's cot should they be needed. As the healer and Warden hastened in their work, she was bumped aside awkwardly. She stood several paces away, wringing her hands together anxiously, wishing she could do something. But she was no more use here; her duties had run out, and she left the chamber to leave the healers to their task.
She no longer felt like sleeping; rest would elude her now. Instead, Lothíriel paused at her cold cot and picked up the blanket, wrapping it around her shoulders and making for the gardens of the Healing Houses, where she would most likely find peace.
It was a chilly night, and she was thankful for the blanket. Thousands of stars glittered above, but they were dim compared to the smoldering blazes in the sky where the eastern mountains stood tall. She wandered the empty stone path, making no noise, and somehow was not surprised to see her cousin's back as he faced the eastern view.
"Could you not sleep, Faramir?" Lothíriel asked gently, coming beside him. He turned, and gave a smile.
"Nay," he admitted. "I have slept too much of late. How are you?"
She chewed her lip for a moment, and then said, "I cannot sleep, either. But my issue is rather the opposite—I have little opportunity to rest, I become more tired, and sleep less."
"I am sorry."
"Do not be!" Lothíriel said with a hollow laugh. "I am pleased to work."
Faramir turned back to the east, and she saw that his brows were drawn together. His thoughts would be with the armies, then, as hers were. She did not know where they were, or where they ought to be—and so she glanced all around the mountains, giving a silent plea for the protection of those she loved.
"Do you visit Éowyn often?" Faramir asked abruptly.
"Oh—I have only been able to once since…since that first day," Lothíriel said.
"I have spoken with her." Her cousin's voice was low, resonant—and when she glanced up at him she saw a light in his eyes that was completely foreign to his visage. She stared, realized her rudeness, and then turned away with warm cheeks.
"That is well," Lothíriel managed to say. "She is in sore need of friendship, as I have always thought."
"Indeed."
They stood in silence for several moments more; the night crept on, and her legs began to ache from exhaustion. Eventually Lothíriel yawned hugely. "I should at least try to sleep," she said at last. "So should you, Faramir."
He smiled, his teeth flashing in the darkness. "I will, little cousin. Find your rest and your strength; you shall need it."
Lothíriel trudged back through the corridors. All was silent now; she paused by the west chamber, pushing in the door gently to see—
The Warden and healer were not there. The figure in the cot was utterly still, and a white sheet covered him head to toe.
She clasped her hand to her mouth, muffling her cry of dismay. Her knees nearly gave way, and she stumbled back to her cot. She barely reached it before collapsing, tears streaming down her face as she cried into the stiff pillow. Despite her work in the Healing Houses the last days, none of the patients she had tended had died. Those that were unfortunate enough were usually taken away so quickly that she merely saw glimpses of the healers hastily bearing away a cot. It hurt her head, it hurt her heart to think of the man's suffering, that he had died…
Lothíriel tucked her knees to her chest, willing herself to control her weeping, and she hiccupped. Deep breaths, deep breaths…she could not react to death this way. She could not. She must be firm, she must be stern, she must be pragmatic…
There was no sleep that night, for the echo of the soldier's final shriek pierced her ears for many hours, and she could not dislodge it from her mind.
The days were endless, grey, and weary. It was not the last death, nor even the gloomiest—not two days later, a woman, swollen with child, was brought to the Healing Houses, to lay, bitterly weeping, by the cot of her husband who died not an hour before her arrival. She was evidently one of the first of the refugees to return to the city, and Lothíriel was kept busy at the doors of the Healing Houses, where eager women waited to know if their menfolk lived.
She had the unfortunate task of reading the lists which the Warden had compiled of the dead and injured. Occasionally she had the pleasure of informing a woman, Yes, your son is alive! Yes, your husband survived!, but those were few, and most often punctuated by the news that they departed on the march to Mordor.
But most often, Lothíriel gave the worst tidings of all: I am sorry. He is unaccounted for. My regrets—he was killed on the Pelennor. Or, He lies in the Healing Houses. I will send a messenger when you may see him.
No training, no experience—as princess of Dol Amroth or otherwise—could have prepared her for this. Lothíriel's ever-tender heart, always so ready to weep with those that wept and mourn with those that mourned, was overwhelmed and overcome by the grief she witnessed every day—nay, every hour. And when the crowds of women were gone, she tucked the lists away and gave herself to the mindless tasks of rolling bandages, folding and putting away clean linens, seeing that the supplies in each chamber were well-stocked, and that any soldier that needed water or food was provided for. It was all she could do, all she was useful for—and that was well, for she did not have the courage to look into men's eyes and to tell them they would die, or be disfigured the remainder of their lives, or never walk or speak again. That, at least, was the duty of the healers.
Some nights later she was sent by the Warden to seek sleep at her own house that night, instead of on that thin cot. Lothíriel could not argue—she had not the strength for it—and aimlessly she walked home in the late afternoon light. The city was quiet; hushed, as if it had all gone to sleep at once. Her hearing felt muffled, and she tried to shake herself to rid the sensation, but to no avail. Then without warning, a bright light flashed in the sky, causing her to blink, and she heard with clarity the sound of shifting stones around her, as if the very walls of the city were crying aloud in triumph. Befuddled beyond belief, Lothíriel shielded her eyes from the golden sunset, staring out eastward—
The red flames in the mountains, which she had seen there as long as she could remember, were no more. She could see distant stars in the dim sky beyond.
"Oh," she said.
A cry went up from the watchtowers, but she was too tired to listen. Yet when she set her trudging steps again towards her father's house, somehow they did not seem so heavy.
"War's over, and I am sure of it," the grumpy old cook told her later, serving a hot bowl of soup made up of various odds and ends. They were sitting in the kitchen, Lothíriel still wearing the smock of the Healing Houses. This change in station had evidently made the old man more willing to speak candidly with her, and he sat down heavily with his own stew.
"That evil old mountain was a-flaming the day I was born, and I was sure it would be a-flaming 'till the day I die," he said through a mouthful of vegetables. "The new king's gone and defeated it, or I'm an oliphaunt's uncle."
Lothíriel smiled at this. "The air does feel different," she admitted. "More wholesome."
"That is just the city being emptied—less people to stink it up, your ladyship. It'll return soon enough."
And she did not argue the point.
She washed with cool water that night, and donned a clean shift for the first time in several days. It was luxurious, and tucking herself into bed, Lothíriel decided to thank the Warden for sending her away, as much as she had argued against it.
Éomer's ring still encircled her finger, and she held it up to the light of the taper, the red depth glittering. She had not thought of Éomer very much in the last days; a brief fear for his safety in the battle that surely must have passed seized her heart. But she comforted herself in the next moment. He had survived many battles before this one; he would return to her, she was sure…
But somehow, her heart was still hollow.
