"Your witchcraft would have had me crawling on all fours like a beast!" Theoden was back to his normal self, very much alive and very much angered with his servant's traitorous behaviour. Grima was cast out of the hall like a rat, and thrown down the steps.
Grima, like any man, pleaded for his life. Theoden was not paying much attention to such pleas. If anything, it was adding fuel to the fire of his anger. By now the guards were beginning to crowd about the doorway to the hall, watching what was unfolding on the steps. They were so closely pressed together, and taller than I, that my one window to what was happening was the narrow gap between the two sides of a pair of guards who had their arms flung around each other's shoulders. I felt someone's hands on my shoulders, using me as a bit of leverage to see over the guard's shoulders, and a piece of golden hair floated down in front of my face. I looked up at the face of Eowyn, who was surveying the scene with a serious expression, not grimness, but the face of someone about to witness justice.
Perhaps she had hated Grima Wormtongue as much as Theoden had. He had taken her home and family from her with his manipulative ways…I could not blame her if she wanted to see an end come unto him. I would very likely feel the same way if my family and home were the ones in question.
Theoden raised his sword then, and prepared to strike down the black serpent in his hall, but Aragorn pushed past us all, and stalled his hand. "No, my lord! Let him go." Aragorn rushed to say.
Eowyn was tense, and her nails dug into my shoulders. I would have something about it, but she did not even seem to realise that was still leaning on me.
"Enough blood has been spilt on his account." Aragorn held out a hand to Grima, but the man spit at the gesture and then rushed off into the crowd, lost to us.
Eowyn let out a breath at his departure, and my shoulders were at last released from her hold. She seemed to notice how she had been clutching me the entire time, and looked down at me, briefly, but apologetic. "Sorry." She muttered, and stepped back from me.
I watched her from the corner of my eye. She continued to step backwards until she backed into the wall, where upon her entire form gave out and leaned against it heavily for support. "Is she alright?" I asked Legolas, quietly.
The elf glanced briefly backward, as the people began to bow to King Theoden. "I do not think so." He replied. "Her face is empty, and there is sorrow hidden in her eyes."
"Should we do something?"
"One of us could go and console her." Gimli added. "She's just spent Mahal knows how long living in this city, robbed of her family, watching that Wormtongue fellow control her uncle, seeing him deteriorate before her very eyes…"
"What would we even say?" I asked.
"That she has our deepest sympathies?" Gimli suggested.
"Even the greatest of sympathies cannot remove the ill that's been put on this house." Legolas shook his head.
I sighed. "I'll go." Neither of them sounded very cheerful at the moment, and I trusted that I could at least manage a smile if she looked so much like Fali. I approached her slowly, and she stared ahead of herself almost blankly, like someone who is blind.
I cleared my throat, and the noise directed her attention to me. "My lady…" I began with a respectful nod of my head. I smiled, not very brightly, but it would have been improper to grin too much under such heavy circumstances. "Is all well?"
"Who are you?" She asked, taking in my form again.
"Gideon, son of Fili." I introduced myself. "I came with the wizard and my other companions. I'm sorry for the brief chaos we caused. Hopefully you'll be forgiving of that."
"Yes." She nodded. Her gaze was lost again.
"Is something troubling you?" I pressed her.
"He does not remember…" She answered me, vaguely, as though she was speaking to only herself. "He would have spoken if he had…"
"I'm sure his memory will come back to him soon." I said, with hope. "He's only just returned to himself, we cannot expect him to remember everything so immediately."
"Where is Theodred?" The king asked. "Where is my son?"
The moment the question was asked Lady Eowyn began to weep softly. I was at a loss of what to do. If it had been my sister or Vesper, or quite frankly anyone else I knew better, I would have embraced them. Instead, I spoke softly. "Oh, no there is no need to cry now. It will all be well soon." I smiled more. "Come. We'll need to search down the king's son."
She looked at me, with an empty face and sorrowful eyes, just as Legolas had described. "Theodred is dead."
/
I was unprepared for an answer like that, and could only give her 'my deepest sympathies'. Legolas had been right, such words did not seem like enough.
Theoden returned to the hall upon hearing the news, and demanded that he and Eowyn be left alone to grieve privately. Such wishes were obeyed. The captain of the guard, Hama, was left to make arrangements for us and our horses. We were thankful, slept heavy that night, and arose early to attend the funeral of Theodred with the city.
I stood beside Eowyn. She was dressed in her finery, but her face was still etched with a deep sadness. The loss of her cousin had affected her deeply, and I could not imagine the pain in her heart. She sang softly as Theodred was carried past us, as he was laid to rest. Under my breath I followed the words, though I did not understand the entire song.
An evil death has been set forth on the noble warrior…that was one of the lines, and I found it to be true.
After the ceremony was finished and everyone had expressed their condolences, we scattered to our separate corners of the city.
Aragorn said today we would not practise my swordsmanship. It did not seem right.
I sought out solitude, and pulled out the journal I was keeping throughout the journey, though my head was too full of worries and sympathies to write much of anything. I forced myself to record our dealings with Grima Wormtongue, and how we had saved Theoden, the King of Rohan, but too much thought on such subjects only crammed more worries into my head.
Eventually I rose, chose a private space, and practised a few drills and stances.
It was more something Fali would do, but I found that it occupied my mind enough to stop the thoughts of everyone's sorrow, and my growing worries, that were leaching to the surface again. Seeing a funeral upon our second day in Rohan was not the most hopeful welcoming.
I wondered what Fali thought of when she practised by herself. I found my mind wondering back to the familiar training grounds of Erebor, and my siblings scrambling in the sand to be at each other's throats, and I playing along and practising dutifully. Cousins firing arrows expertly at targets and even Ori's son trying his luck with various weapons. Much like his father, Orian was better suited for the pen and parchment.
He'd do well, taking his father's place in the libraries officially, now that we knew he was truly gone.
I shook the thoughts of death from my head again. No, no…I had to distract myself. I struck harder against my imaginary foe.
My mind forced itself back to Erebor and familiar times. I recalled the last time when I had fought in the sand of the arena. It had been with Vesper as my opponent, and the others had been along the side, puffing out tired breaths from their fights and watching me keenly.
Vesper had just become leader of the South, though she still remained under the advisory of her mother, and the encouragement of her father. Such a change in her. She stood taller, her gaze was harder, her grip firmer. Leadership had steeled her up. Truth be told we thought she would not visit in the early summer, with everything changing for her. But she came and we treated her as we always had.
Orian shied away from her a little, almost afraid of his cousin in the first few days. Fali eyed her curiously. Vesper had turned very serious, and her restless and almost carefree nature had been quieted some.
Really, she had just grown up…if a bit quickly…
Our fight lasted a long time, and I wondered if she was going easy on me. I never knew, for I never asked. Her hair had been up when we started and by the time I had been sent into the sand, too slow and exhausted to keep up with her, her hair had fallen from it's confining pins and was straying down her shoulders again.
She was beaming down at me, and although the others could only see her back and thought her appearance triumphant, I saw her joy. She hadn't looked so serious right then.
"You fight well." Vesper had said that on that last day, but it was not her voice that said it now. I turned sharply, dropping my sword in the process. I must have looked like a child caught misbehaving.
It was Lady Eowyn, and she smiled softly at my fumbling.
"Thank you." I replied, followed quickly by "My condolences for your family's loss."
"Thank you." She accepted the sympathy in a quiet tone.
"I don't really fight so well." I said modestly of myself. "I've been practising with Aragorn. It's easier to look like you're doing very well when you have no one fighting against you."
"I could." She looked at me, and I saw a spark in her eyes that was familiar. It was like Fali's and like Vesper's spark. Determined, thrill-seeking, adventurous, confident…yes, it was the same as theirs.
Briefly I considered if it was my fate to constantly have women like this around me. My mother, my sister, my friend…now that I was without them, destiny planted Eowyn before me.
"Perhaps later." I said. "Today is a day meant for recollection of happier times, and comforting others." I smiled, comfortingly. "You must be strong, to have such fire still burning in you."
She understood, though I felt beastly for bringing up the tender topic, though I had done so delicately. She nodded. Perhaps she had only wanted something to occupy herself, as I had. Something that would drain her body of energy and her mind of thought.
Maybe I should not have refused her…
There was the whinny of a horse, and she then flew to the nearest window with such haste a piece of hair come from it's pins, just as Vesper's had on the day I had last seen her. For a moment there was hope on her face, and then a clear disappointment, which she corrected to a serious look.
I took up the other window and saw a lone horse on the horizon, just atop a hill. On it sat two children, young, disheveled, and frightened. The one sitting in the back of the saddle, most likely a boy from what I could see at my distance, fell down, looking quite lifeless.
The second one began to cry, scared.
"Oh no." I quickly retrieved my blade and set it back in my belt. I began to seek out Aragorn, or Legolas and Gimli. Even a servant wandering the halls. Eowyn followed at my heels, tucking her hair back into place quickly and walking with such quick, long strides she passed me. She found a pair of servants and ordered the one to fetch a healer promptly and the other to race down to the stables and fetch a horse for her. Evidently, the situation was so dire to her, that a saddle was not required.
She sped off, leaving me behind and I watched from the lower windows as she rode over the plains, the horse bareback and without a lead.
It was the finest example of horsemanship I had ever seen, rivaling even the work of the cavalry I had witnessed earlier.
I burst into the quarters that had been given to us. Gandalf was absent, no doubt consoling Theoden over his loss, but the other three were present, doing small tasks, like smoking a pipe in contemplation, inspecting the fitness of the remaining arrows, or if you were Gimli, eating a piece of bread.
"Gideon?" Aragorn looked up past the wisps of white smoke emitted from his pipe. He was beginning to drop the title of master.
"What happened?" Legolas looked up, and Gimli paused mid-chew.
"I don't rightly know." I tried to explain. "A horse came, with two children for riders. One has gone unconscious I believe. They look as though they've been through quite the ordeal."
For a moment it looked like none of us knew how to proceed. The occurrence was unusual, but children were not our business. At the end of the moment, I said "I think I shall see them, Eowyn raced out to collect them, and it seemed to cause a stir in her."
At this they agreed to follow me, and we soon found ourselves in the Hall again, where the one child, definitely a boy now that I could see him before me, was just being revived. Eowyn was wiping away the tears of the little girl with as much motherliness as Fali, and soon the two children were sitting before great bowls of stew and eating it with vigor. Eowyn did not leave there side.
Just like Fali, I thought…if she were here those two would be friends in an instant and watching over children and hobbits alike.
Slowly, as we sat back and let Eowyn work, she coaxed the children's story from their lips. By the end I was filled with a gripping tension, and my mind was full of images of chaos and flames. Wildmen had taken to burning down villages and storming the plains.
Our worries were growing, and at a hasty pace…
"They had no warning." Eowyn said, sadly, speaking toward her uncle, Theoden, who listened with patience. "There were unarmed. Now the Wildmen are moving through westfold, burning as they go, every rick, cot, and tree."
The young girl spoke up with a sudden desperation, asking where their mother was. Somehow they had expected she would be here before them. Eowyn gently quieted, and she soon resigned to finishing her stew, as her brother moved closer to her side.
"This is but a taste of the terror that Saruman will unleash. All the more potent for he is driven mad by the fear of Sauron." Gandalf advised the king. "Ride out and meet him, head on. You must draw him away from the women and children…you must fight."
Aragorn nodded. "You have two thousand good men riding north as we speak."
It then dawned on me, past any thought of the children in front of me, or how much Eowyn reminded me of my sister, or sympathy for this house in which we were guests, that I was to be part of this. If Theoden gave the word to fight, then I had to fight.
A battle.
I had never seen a battle before, much less participated in one.
I hated fighting. I hated death.
I was like my mother, and I would have wanted nothing more than to stand between two opposing forces and demand peace, without a single drop of blood meeting the ground.
But things like that were now the past and I was rather beside myself with my fears and my follies.
Fighting…why was it that everything led to fighting? This man had just lost his son because of fighting and now he was considering sending thousands back out into fray.
Perhaps it was to avenge the fallen…dwarfs knew something of avenging, loyal to our kin as we were.
"Eomer is still loyal to you, his men will return and fight."
At the mention of the name 'Eomer' a certain look fell over Eowyn's face like a shadow. Disappointment, again. She must have expected him to return, not the appearance of two children. The similarity of their names meant they were related in some fashion. Perhaps brother and sister even.
"They will be three hundred leagues from here by now." Theoden said, exasperated. "Eomer cannot help us." Both he and Eowyn looked quite saddened by this fact.
The silence around us was heavy. Aragorn was still smoking his pipe, having carried it with him, Legolas had ceased inspecting his arrows and was watching the whole scen, alert. Gimli had taken up eating again, on a separate table, and was filling up on the missed and reduced meals we had been having.
My head was filling with a growing dread, and repeating the word 'war' over and over again. War…was I prepared for something like that?...war…how soon would it be upon us?...war….blood, and death and the pain, both in your body and heart, it brought…war…it had such an ugly face to me.
"I know what is that you want of me. But I would not bring further death to my people. I will not risk open war."
The words broke the cycle within me and offered relief, but left my head suddenly too empty. Now all I could think was…if not war…then what will be done?
"Open war is upon you, whether you would risk it or not." Aragorn said, firmly, serving to remind us of the seriousness of the situation.
He was right, I reminded myself. We were like mice backed into a corner by a cat. Fighting was the only logical way to get out of this. My mind started swirling with fears again. I caught Legolas looking over me, for I had no doubt paled.
I returned his look, and with effort, controlled my shallowed breathing until it was normal again, and my face appeared calm. The elf, now more sure that I was alright, looked away.
"When last I looked, Theoden, not Aragorn, was king of Rohan." Theoden spoke, a little harshly.
Gandalf finally stepped in. "Then what is the King's decision?" He asked.
I held my breath, waiting for an answer.
A bit late, but the holidays happened. Speaking of which happy holidays and a great new year.