AN: I've written the next part too so I will try to upload it later today. Thanks to everyone for reading my work!
Every part of Ailith seemed to ache. She was sore, she was dirty and she felt like she had been on the horse forever. She gazed groggily at the horizon. There was her birthplace; the Fortress of Wold.
The Wold itself was a series of rolling chalk hills, all grass and sheep with small communities scattered across them. On the highest stood the Fortress. If it once had a name, it had long been lost to history. It was a single stone keep surrounded by a thick stone wall, built with the single-minded purpose of with-standing whatever various evil forces cared to try and attack it.
Finally, Folcred raised a hand and the Riders slowed their horses. The Fortress loomed closer and closer until it seemed to be impossibly large. As they approached the first of the gates, the doors quickly opened to receive them. In, through the gates, under the murder hole and through the inner gate. Stable-hands sprung forward to grab the reins of the horses.
Ailith swung off her horse with her usual arrogance but as soon as her feet hit the compacted earth of the courtyard, her legs buckled and she had to grab the saddle to stop herself from falling.
"Woah there," a voice said. A pair of hands caught her under the arms and relieved the pressure off her legs.
"Thank you," she mumbled without looking round and walked shakily after Folcred's disappearing back.
He led her up the wooden steps into the imposing Great Hall. Most childhood memories of rooms make the room appear to be larger than it actually is. To Ailith, the beams on the ceiling seemed as high as ever. Folcred was holding a door open at the far end. She nearly whimpered when she saw a spiral staircase beyond. Somehow she managed to climb the steps, her leg muscles screaming at her.
The room at the top was almost empty save for some chairs and a table with a map of Middle Earth laid across it. As Ailith nervously glanced around, Folcred pushed past her to join the hulking figure by the fireplace. A door opened and two others joined them, a middle-aged woman helping a very old man. She settled him into a chair and then swept towards Ailith. She paced around her and then said despairingly "She is too skinny."
She stopped in front of her. Ailith met her icy gaze.
"Do you know herb-lore?" the woman said.
"Yes. Rosemary is for remembrance-" Ailith stuttered but the woman cut her off.
"Petty court gibberish," she sighed. "Tell me, how would one use aconite to treat an inflammation of the stomach?"
"Um, would you make a tea?" Ailith tried but the woman laughed, a single sharp note that tore through her.
"With aconite? Aconite is a poison, child, it shouldn't be anywhere near a patient!"
She shook her head sadly and walked back across the room. The old man in the chair raised his head and fixed Ailith with a beady eye.
"If two men came to you with a dispute over the ownership of a horse," he said in a quavering voice, "how would you determine the truth?"
Now she was panicking. She had never in her wildest dreams expected to arrive home to an interrogation. Who were these strangers? Where was her father?
"I'm not entirely certain, my lord. I think I would listen to the accounts of both men," she said but again she was silenced, this time by a wave of a hand.
"Foolish child. The horse, the horse will recognise its true master! We are the Horse People, in them we lay our trust!" he said imperiously. The bear-like figure who had been waiting in the room when she arrived now stepped forward and it took everything in her not to step back. He was massive, over six foot tall with muscles bulging under his shirt. He had thick black hair and a wild tangle of a beard and two black eyes that seemed to bore right into her.
"Nine years we wait. And instead of the educated pair of hands we expect, we get a soft-headed lady of the court!" he growled.
"We had to send her away. She would have gone the same way as her mother if we hadn't and a fine mess we would be in now," the woman said in a low voice.
"We are in a fine mess. She is of no use to us like this," he said angrily.
"You are going to cast her aside just like that?" a voice said from behind Ailith. It was the voice of the man who had caught her when she nearly fell in the courtyard. She glanced at him over her shoulder. He was dressed all in grey and black, his dark hair brushing his shoulders and his blue eyes smiling at her encouragingly even while his face remained impassive..
"She completed the ride in two days on a horse she had never ridden before. Isn't that impressive?" he asked, addressing the room again.
"No-one asked for you to be present, Beleg," Folcred snapped.
"She has ridden long and hard and instead of giving her the welcome she deserves, you drag her up here and start to question her knowledge!" Beleg said hotly. "I am the only family she has left and I say-"
"What? How can you be my only family! I've never even met you! Where is my father?" Ailith cried. Beleg glanced at her in disbelief and then glared at the four by the fireplace.
"You are many things, Grimfast, but I didn't think you were a cruel man. Or was it you, Merewald, who decided that she would not be told?"
Merewald swelled with anger.
"The Lord is tired, he needs his rest," she said.
"The Lady hasn't seen him for nine years. I think five minutes of his Lordship's rest will not harm him," Beleg countered. Merewald lips pursed but she beckoned to Ailith and led her out of the room.
"Do not say anything to him," she said sharply as she led Ailith through the keep. "We will be lucky if he is awake, he is usually asleep by this hour."
She opened a door and bustled through it.
"Good evening, my lord! You have a visitor!" Ailith heard her say brightly. Ailith stepped nervously over the threshold. This room swam with nostalgia. The tapestries on the wall; the wolf-skin rugs on the stone floor; the massive bed covered in furs; all of it brought up powerful memories of her childhood. She noticed the figure lying in the bed and fought down a sob.
The last time she saw her father, he was ageing but as fit as any Rider of the Mark. The image of him riding away from Edoras, his armour gleaming, his cloak billowing behind him, his golden hair shining in the sunlight, would be imprinted on her memory forevermore. Not the weak little body lying swaddled in bedclothes. A pair of bleary eyes opened and tried to focus on her.
"Gléowyn?" Ailred whispered hoarsely. A tiny moan of horror escaped from deep inside her. He reached out a withered hand, his signet ring slipping down his finger. Merewald motioned for Ailith to step forward and take his hand. She did so and tried not to cry as the ice-cold fingers gripped hers stiffly. "Gléowyn, my love," her father crooned. "Where is our little sunbeam? Where is Ailith?"
She felt like she was falling backwards. She didn't understand; she wanted her father.
"She's playing outside," she lied. It seemed to be the safest thing to say. Ailred sighed happily and shut his eyes. His breathing eased and eventually the grip on Ailith's hand loosened. She pulled her hand away quickly.
"He thinks I am Mother," she said quietly. Merewald approached her and laid a hand on her shoulder.
"Be thankful he recognises you as anybody, child. His illness has eaten away at his memory," she said kindly. She steered the girl out of the bedchamber. As soon as the door closed behind them, the sympathetic and almost matronly air about her vanished.
"Tomorrow morning, you will come to me and I will give you a list of herbs and what they look like. You will go out and find them for me," she ordered. Ailith opened her mouth to complain but the older woman got there first.
"You are a disappointment to us, child. We have no use for disappointments; everyone must pull their own weight here. We don't make allowances, no matter who you are. The North waits for no Man," she said and then swept away, leaving Ailith alone in the corridor.
Ailith may have been born here, this may have been her home, but it had never felt so unwelcoming and alien to her. She remembered her little room in Meduseld - where she felt so welcome, so wanted - and she broke down in tears. She wanted her father. She wanted to go home.