"To Mordor?" Hathel repeated in a strangled whisper, feeling horror seize her heart and squeeze it. Her entire body now felt distant from her mind, numb even. Her ears rang. Sounds seemed to come from far away.
The Warden stroked her hand gently and peered into her widened eyes with concern and sympathy. "He asked that I not keep this from you, against my better judgment – but, child, you must not grieve yourself over it! You must rest, and pray that they will return, for there is nothing you can do now but ensure that you are healthy enough to face whatever comes next."
"To Mordor?" she repeated in a daze. "Mordor?"
The Warden's face was a mask. "You must rest now. I am sorry I told you. The Elves may be wise, but leave a healer to do a healer's work!"
She did not hear him. A vision flashed like white fire into her brain, sending horror searing through her veins: his white gold hair, bloodstained and dirty, spread out on the dusty earth, his carved features now blank and empty, staring at an ashen sky – and an Orc hewing viciously at his lifeless body, mutilating her beloved Elf, tearing him apart as she knew with sickening certainty they would do if they killed him. Panic leapt into her throat and surfaced as a wavering, breathless scream.
"I will not rest!" Hathel shrieked, now feeling quite mad. Her heart was skipping rapidly and her spine tingled with blind, frantic terror. "I cannot rest! Let me up at once, let me go, let me go to him – I will not lie here while he goes to die, I will not, I will go too! Let me go, I must go, I cannot wait here, I must go now! They will kill him!" Her voice ended in a hoarse wail, and she beat the Warden's hands away in a frenzy. "My lord, my lord! Oh, my lord!"
"Ioreth!" shouted the Warden, as he fought to restrain her. He seized her flying wrists and forced them down, but she jerked upright, face frozen in a mask of mad grief, and twisted wildly to one side, heedless of her wounds. She screamed at the top of her lungs, forcing out all her frustration and fury and fear and sorrow. The world was black. Hopeless. He would never return from Mordor. The shadow would spread. She would not survive its coming.
He will not come back.
She saw again, in rising and spiraling terror, the smoke rising above the village where she had grown up, heard the sounds of her old companions being slaughtered as she cowered out of sight, smelled the sickening stench of rotting flesh that even now seemed to cling to her skin, returned to Pelennor fields and felt the Orc's blackened blade ripping into her side as she reeled away from his furious gaze; and the panic built inside her skull until she felt she would burst, as she saw clearly Legolas's beautiful Elven face stripped of all life, wavering before her unseeing eyes.
Oh, my lord, my lord!
"Ioreth!" The warden shouted again, and the next thing Haleth knew, the old nurse had come bursting into the room, forced a foul-tasting liquid down her throat, and she fell into a fuzzy drowsiness that smoothed the horror from her heart and eased her struggling limbs. She felt herself grow limp. It was a relief to fall once again into darkness, and to forget those terrible words.
"Haleth child, Legolas has gone with the King to Mordor, for a last battle."
When she awoke, she was calm. She blocked out the future, and blocked out the past, and refused to think of anything but the immediate present. There was nothing outside what she saw and heard and felt within the confines of her little room. Nothing at all.
For two days she existed in sullen, numb silence, staring blankly without thinking at the ceiling and eating her meals without tasting them. The Warden, who had begun tending to her personally since he had caught a glimpse of the blind panic that lurked beneath the surface of her control, made sure there was always a bowl of crushed athelas by her bed, and the fresh sharp scent kept her terror at bay and allowed her to keep a firm hold on the little shreds of hope she managed to unearth from the back of her mind. She clung to them, went over them again and again until they were worn and colorless thoughts, but still warm.
But on the third day of this, Haleth heard two young healers speaking outside her window. There was a breeze, and her curtains and the trees outside rustled, concealing most of their words. But she caught a name: Eowyn. And that roused her from her mental prison.
When the Warden came to check on her, she was sitting up, her face pale but calm, her wide dark eyes empty of the madness that had seized her before. She moved her lips into a thin smile, though it felt heavy and false.
"Hello," she said pleasantly as he began crushing a new batch of athelas. The air was immediately fresher and more alive. She felt stronger.
"Good afternoon, Hathel," said the Warden warily. "How are you feeling?"
"Much better, thank you," she replied. "Although I would like some sunshine. Might I go out to the gardens today?"
He considered her, his sharp healer's eyes narrowed in appraisal. She looked back calmly.
"All right," he conceded at last. "I'll send someone in to take you out. But only for a short while, and you may not attempt to walk under any circumstances, or your leg will never heal."
"Thank you," said Hathel quietly, and she meant it. After a few moments, in which the Warden felt her forehead, checked the splint on her left leg, and began wash his hands to change the bandage on the wound in her side, she ventured, "Is the Lady Eowyn here in Minas Tirith?"
The Warden sighed and shook his head. "The truth, my child, is far more grievous. She is in these very Houses, as we speak, recovering from a terrible wound. But there is hope yet for her, and in that I may rejoice, for so fair and sad a woman I have never seen, and I pray that she will live to enjoy happier times."
"A terrible wound?" Hathel echoed in surprise. She had not been expecting that. "How ?"
"It seems the Lady Eowyn is not so different from yourself," said the Warden dryly. "She too rode to battle in the guise of a man, although for what reason I cannot guess. You would do well to notice, my child, that both she and you are living proof that women do not do well in battle, and would do better to stay at home."
But Hathel was not concerned with gleaning a moral from their conversation. Now more than ever she wished to see the Lady of her country, the King's beloved niece. For they shared a common history, it seemed, if only in this one aspect.
"Might I see her, please, if she is well enough?" she asked timidly. The Warden's hands stopped in their careful ministrations and he stared at her. "She was my Lady, if you understand me," Hathel continued hastily. "The people of Rohan love her dearly. It would so put me at ease to speak with her, if only for a little while. She was our hope in dark times. Our White Lady."
But the Warden's face was grim. He continued to dress her wound and shook his weary head. "No, I cannot allow you to see her, not yet. I am sorry, for I know that she was beloved by all the people of the Mark. But she is not yet well enough, and I cannot compromise her health even for one of her own, not when she is so delicate."
Disappointment sank like a fog about Hathel's shoulders, and she sagged against her pillows. She had not realized how much she longed to see Eowyn until the request was denied. But the Warden was still speaking.
"But she had a companion, a halfling, I do not know if you have heard of them. He has recovered remarkably quickly, and I believe he is growing restless. If you wish, you may speak with him. Doubtless you two will have a lot to say to each other. He was yet another who was supposed to remain behind."
"A Halfling?" Hathel said in disbelief. "Not the King's esquire, the little creature he so doted on?"
The Warden's face tightened almost imperceptively at the mention of Theoden, but he answered, "Yes, that is he. Meriadoc is his name, I believe. Would you like me to ask if he is willing to meet you in the gardens? He is out there often, now."
"Yes," Hathel breathed. "Yes please, if you will."
"Very well." He stood and went to rinse his hands, having finished with her bandages. "I'll see to it. Now take some rest. He's a talkative little thing, and you look pale."
That's that. Next chapter should come very soon. As long as vacation lasts, this is what I do before bed. Thank you so much to the kind reviews you left, I'm so glad that you're enjoying the story. It means so much to me that you find my writing believable. I write mainly for myself, but it's the best feeling to know that others enjoy it as much as I do.
Lucky for Hathel, Legolas will be back soon, and things can get happy again.
