I. AM. BACK!

Hello, my lovelies! Sorry for the long delay. This chapter has been finished for a few weeks now, but I held out on publishing it until I finished the next few chapters to come, but after deciding how unfair that is to you guys (or given that such pressure does not motivate me any more or less), I've chosen to just publish it and be done with it. Chapter 39 is in the making right now. I finally found some motivation again. =)

Thanks to all the people still sticking with me and my inconsistent publishing schedule!

Enjoy reading and spread a little love by leaving a comment!

38. The haunting memory of war

Lothíriel sighed as she closed her eyes.

The light of the candle flickered under her weary breath, for a moment casting eerie shadows across her face, highlighting the dark circles under her eyes, the pallor of her skin, the tiniest pearls of sweat on her forehead. And as she allowed herself to bury her face in her hands for a moment – just one moment of weakness that the world would never see – she could feel just how clammy her skin was under her touch, even though she shivered heavily, even under her dressing gown, even despite the roaring fire in the hearth.

She was exhausted, just so exhausted. And it was not just the usual winter blues (something she, strangely enough, seemed to have only developed ever since she had come to live in the Riddermark – because let's face it, you do not know winter until you have experienced it in the North). It had been these past few weeks of constant stress, the ups and downs, and now the dreary process of watching a kingdom and its king stubbornly marching towards their own demise.

Ever since their talk about a week ago, she had hoped for some change to come over him and their strained relationship, but, unfortunately, few things seemed to have changed. Her lord and husband was as uncommunicative as ever and the council meetings dragged on as dreary as ever, with the same phrases and words being used, over and over and over again, chasing around each other in circles until she could no longer tell where one sentence ended and the other began.

She was just so tired of it all; tired of listening to the same old arguments, tired of sleeping next to a wall of silence, tired of pretending to be strong and above it all while yearning to let loose a waterfall of words and advice … in the hopes of changing their cantankerous old minds for the better. But she knew her hopes would be in vain, nay, would be counterproductive even. And so, feeling utterly helpless and useless, and with nothing that she could do, she was faced with witnessing in silent horror as fatally wrong decisions – as she saw it – were about to be made. Every day now she expected the hammer to fall at last, for the fist of her king to hit the armrest of his throne and the Golden Hall of Meduseld to erupt in thunderous cheers … as they cheered each other on, on their march towards war and the coming of glorious death.

Today she'd had enough of sitting and waiting for that morbid but inevitable spectacle to take place – the waiting, she had come to realise, was almost worse than the prospect of a lost peace. She simply hadn't been able to take the waiting anymore; and so, today, in the middle of the council meeting, while listening to yet another one of lord Braenn's sheer endless tirades against the so-called "savages" of Dunland and the apparently "false, sugar-coated promises of a false Southern peace", she had simply lost it.

Now, she hadn't jumped up and screamed at the top of her lungs or pulled her own hair out or angrily stomped her feet on the ground like the entitled little princess these old councilmen believed her to be. In fact, she had not said a word at all. Instead, she had simply risen up from her seat next to her king – her king, so distracted by the ever repeating monologues of the councillors that he could not hold her back as he had done before and perhaps might have wished to do so again – while fixing each and every one of these old, warmongering men with her piercing sea-grey eyes.

No one had held her back, not even her king, even though she knew he would have liked to do so, but no, even he had not wanted to create an even bigger scandal than was already unfolding in the middle of the Golden Hall. She had agreed not to speak out in public, to prevent putting a target on her back or to put even bigger pressure on her king, but no one could force her to sit here in silence and watch peace go down in thunderous applause. And so, she had simply walked away from it.

It was only once she was outside, once the doors of the Golden Hall had closed behind her and the cold air of winter allowed her to breathe freely again, that she realised what she had truly done. Because while she might not have shouted at the top of her lungs that she disagreed with the refusal of the peace treaty's proposal, her exit was nonetheless a form of silent protest against the councillors' argumentation. Or at least, that's how the gossip-mongers would undoubtedly see and portray it. Oh, indeed, she could already hear the tongues wagging, badmouthing her as the foreign queen that supported only foreign ideas! Of course, they would be right, in some way at least. She did support the peace treaty, though she liked to think that it had less to do with her home country and a lot more to do with the country she called home now.

However, defiance or protest had hardly been on her mind when she had left Meduselde's Hall behind earlier today. It had been exhaustion, simple as that; the desperate attempt to gasp for air in a situation so stifling it had felt almost impossible for her to breathe anymore. And it was not just the business with the council meetings and the peace treaty; it was everything. The pressure put on her by the public to finally produce an heir, the gossip and prejudice that seemed to follow her around wherever she went, nature itself that seemed to have turned against her with its forlorn appearance (although she should have learned to suffer through a Northern winter by now) … and of course, Éomer.

That was the worst of it: knowing that the relationship they could have had, had things not happened the way they did, was now forever tainted by the decisions she had made. At this point it did not really comfort her anymore to hold on to the belief that she'd had no other choice but to act as she did. The only thing it did was to show quite plainly just how inescapably caught up they both were in this net of duty and desire, selfishness and surrender.

It had been in this moment of sheer hopelessness that she had thought to seek refuge in the stables of all places (indeed, she often forgot how much healing she had also experienced in this place she now proudly called home), knowing that at least her mare Cwén would not look upon her with wary eyes, and so her feet had carried her there before she had known what was happening. Her hopes, however, had been crushed when she had found none other than Déor already waiting for her at the stables (or, perhaps, it was really a mere coincidence, but she thought that rather unlikely), and so she had been forced to turn on her heel and head back up the slopes towards Meduselde.

Now, after their long absence king and queen had been blessed to forget about the infatuated Rider, but it wasn't long after their return, after the initial shock of the Southern proposal had worn off, that the knight had straight-up resumed his favourite pastime of mooning over her and lavishing her with his attention. Of course, by this time that pitiful performance of courtly love had long lost its initial charm, and even the amusement she had felt, in the beginning, at the sight of her husband's overt jealousy, had long worn off and instead turned into discomfort and unease. Because not only were the less than subtle advances not welcome, but they also put an even bigger strain on the already strained relationship between king and queen.

Lothíriel knew her husband well by now, and even though he would never stoop so low as to admit it out loud, she could sense that he had stopped long ago to see it as nothing but a silly little game. There was genuine anger in him whenever his eyes glanced in the direction of his best friend making a lovestruck fool of himself, or perhaps, it was fear more than anger – fear that he could seriously lose his wife to another man. Of course, she knew that would never happen, and even though she was hesitant to call the reason for it honour (because the word had always left a bad taste in her mouth), for now, she simply had no other words to call it.

(Beating wildly in her heart was another word, but she fought hard to ignore it.)

So, understandably, when she had spotted the infatuated knight already standing there at the stables, undoubtedly, to take care of her mare, feeding the gossip even more by his foolish actions, or perhaps even hoping to catch her alone, the queen had taken one look at the possible outcome of that encounter, turned on her heel and sped back up towards the Golden Hall. Of course, she knew that she couldn't run away from this problem forever, and that the surest way to put an end to it, was to have a firm and serious talk with the man, and yet, so far, she had shied away from doing so.

She had told herself that her hesitation was nothing more than caution, that it was better to ignore those childish fancies rather than to acknowledge them and by doing so to feed even more into the rumour mill. But there was also a small part of her that, perhaps, craved the lavish attention she was getting; a remnant of her life spent as a lady of the Southern courts when she had spent her days amusing herself with the ridiculous lengths lovestruck men claimed to go to for her – never seriously entertaining the idea of falling for such infatuation of course, instead always looking for a way to spy out even the most minuscule pieces of information that she could take advantage of, like the good resourceful little lady she had been taught to be by her aunt and her father and her world.

However, perhaps, just perhaps, the real reason for her hesitation was much simpler and had less to do with strategy or the remnant characteristics of a person she no longer wanted to be and had a lot more to do with … well, with loneliness. Yes, perhaps she hesitated because like this she could be sure that there was at least one person in this whole kingdom who did not look upon her with hate in their eyes. It was selfish and foolish, she knew that … and yet she could not for the life of her let go of that strangely comforting illusion her pitiful little heart clung to.

Surely, it was that shameful weakness inside her – more even than the need to avoid another scandal – that had driven her back up the slopes, all the way back towards Meduselde then. That she would run away from the talk she knew she would have to have one day, the talk that would surely lose her one of the last friends she truly had in this place she now called home (although, she could not have known at that point that he was in fact the last true friend she had left), rather than to face it. And surely, it was that same shameful weakness that had her hiding in her chambers for the rest of the day then; hiding from the world and her problems and … and the wary green eyes of her lord and husband.

How did it come to this?

When had she become a queen that hid herself away in her chambers?

It was as if she had reverted back to her old self – back to that frightened princess from the South who had been married off and sent off to a place altogether strange, to live with a complete stranger? Back then she had hid herself away out of fear, because she had not known what waited for her outside the safe seclusion of her chambers. Now she hid because she knew very well what awaited her, and because she was too craven to face it and to suffer the consequences. Was that really how her life was going to be from now on? Fighting a lost battle in silence, cowering in the shadows, waiting for the inevitable, a stranger in her own home? Perhaps, her father had been right in at least one regard: she was about to lose her head, as she had already lost her –

A short but firm knock on the door tore Lothíriel out of her spiralling thoughts. Immediately her eyes snapped open and she sat up again, trying to control her breathing, shaken by the darkening path her thoughts had taken. However, even though the sudden slap of reality had left her momentarily overwhelmed and dazed, she had enough presence of mind left to check up on herself before she called out for the visitors to enter.

A quick look in the mirror revealed her exhausted appearance – the dark circles under her eyes, the almost deadly paleness of her skin, the sheen of sweat on her forehead – but she simply straightened her shoulders and put on her mask, ready to play the part of the queen that was always in control of herself for as long as she needed to. And when she was satisfied at last that she could convincingly put on the act of a hale and hearty ruler, only then did the queen call out, and bade them enter.

'Milady!', the voice of Madlen exclaimed as the door swung open, greeting her queen in her familiar devout tone, and Lothíriel could not help but smile a little at that. But even though there was definitely a sense of relief washing over her, knowing that it were her two maidservants who had come to wait on her (and that always proved to be a reliable source of distraction and amusement), she could not deny that there had been a small part of her that, perhaps, might have hoped and feared that it would be her lord and husband waiting for her at the door to come to her.

But, of course, that thought was ridiculous, and she knew it well. Her king had long forgone the empty act of courtesy of knocking at their chambers' door – they shared these chambers after all, and they had shared too much to waste time and energy on such formalities (also, they had both surrounded themselves with enough walls to keep the other out, there was simply no need to hold on to even more boundaries). So, contenting herself with the way things were, the queen simply decided to put it out of her mind (ignoring the pang of yearning she felt throbbing in her chest), and to welcome the lovely distraction that was sure to come now.

'Please forgive our tardiness, milady, but we were kept by another matter that needed to be addressed first.', Madlen, meanwhile, went on to say, and in typical Madlen-fashion her apology almost took on a grovelling note, and the queen was sure the handmaiden was but a stern glance away from falling to her knees. Of course, although decidedly sympathetic with the poor girl, Lothíriel still did not exactly work hard at suppressing the smile that had stolen itself onto her lips as she imagined the scenario unfold before her inner eye, though, perhaps that smile could also be attributed to her natural excitement at seeing her friends, welcoming the amusement and distraction they always brought.

However, when the queen turned around, joyful to greet her friends and handmaidens, and she beheld the younger woman, Aida, looking at her, the smile on her face froze instantaneously and then vanished. A shiver ran down her spine as she recognised the emotion in the young handmaiden's gaze, and a single thought ran through her head.

Now she knew what it felt like to be truly hated.

Too shocked and confused to speak, Lothíriel simply turned back towards the mirror, for a moment unsure whether or not her eyes had only played tricks on her. But as she dared to look up, she caught a glimpse of Aida's reflection in the mirror, and no, there could be no mistaking that pure look of unadulterated hatred and disgust on the young woman's face. Shaken to the core (and indeed, she was surprised just how much it hurt to be looked at like that by a person she called friend), the queen tried her best to recover from the first shock by putting on her mask, pretending to not have seen what so clearly had burned itself into her mind and heart.

On the outside, she looked calm and collected and every bit the queen she claimed to be (her training as a lady of the Southern courts proved to be useful once again, despite the pain and tears it had caused as well), though on the inside about a thousand questions and a thousand more speculations were running through her head. She knew she should have been more suspicious and should have noticed much sooner that the younger handmaiden wasn't her usual giddy and smily self – but, of course, there were so many other things on her mind these days, and she was simply not on top of her game.

Lothíriel wondered what had happened and when exactly the love and warmth young Aida had felt for her had turned into hatred and anger. She knew the young woman had adored her from the beginning, though perhaps not as much and not for the same reasons as her older sister, Madlen; but still, Aida had admired and liked her. Now, however, the young handmaiden looked at her as though she had betrayed her in some way, though in what way she could not say.

Could it be the – ?

The queen was torn out of her inner thoughts when she caught the sounds of the two young women whispering wildly with each other, and when she stole a glance at them through the reflection of her mirror, she saw that the sisters were actually arguing with each other. It was unclear what the argument was about as they were both talking in Rohirric, and even though she had come quite far in her studies of the Northern language, she could not keep up with their fast and hushed exchange of words. However, when she noticed the little looks the two sisters threw her way every now and again, she realised with dread that they were definitely talking about her.

At that realisation Lothíriel lowered her gaze, swallowing hard to swallow the shame she felt at having so openly spied on a discussion these two women so very obviously didn't want her to overhear. But try as she might, she could not keep herself from straining to try and learn what the sisters were saying about her, even if it meant flouting every rule of propriety (though, of course, she could explain away her rude spying by pointing out that the sisters themselves acted rudely by clearly talking about her, albeit in another language she as of yet could not fully comprehend).

The snapping of two fingers brought the tension to an immediate halt then, and when the queen looked up with bated breath to see her handmaidens' reflection in the mirror, she understood immediately that the discussion between both sisters was officially over. It was clear even from her distant point of view that the older sister must have exercised her authority and thus ended the argument – prematurely, as it would seem. However, even though it became evident that the younger sister seemed unhappy with her older sister's decision, she grumpily caved in under the older sibling's stern gaze, and thus both sisters each turned to their assigned tasks.

As Aida went to work on her lady's hair, to comb it out meticulously before braiding it for the night, Madlen went to sort out the queen's shifts. As per usual the older handmaiden was looking for the bloody evidence of yet another moon passing without any news of an heir, though tonight the maid seemed much too distracted to really pay attention to the undergarments in her hands. Lothíriel, too, knew very well what she was looking for, but she quickly turned her gaze away, not wanting to have her feelings of disappointment doubled by seeing the disappointment inevitably appear in the young woman's gaze. Because even though the handmaiden would find no blood on her shifts tonight, the queen knew that there was little cause to celebrate. Her moonblood had been late before, every now and again, especially during the second half of her first year of marriage. It was the stress, plain and simple, and she was having more than enough of that now already for her to go and worry her already weary head over the treacherous hope of yet another false pregnancy.

And anyway, right now, she clearly had more pressing things to worry about, namely, why her young friend and handmaiden Aida appeared so overly tense and quiet, and would barely meet her gaze in the reflection of the mirror, and why, whenever she did, her eyes burned with such passionate anger? Well, having had enough of it, the queen mused that there was only one way to find out, right?

'So, what's that other matter that kept you?', Lothíriel asked pointedly then in an attempt to strike up a conversation, though her attempt seemed futile at first, as the air remained as silent and as tense as before and the only thing that showed that her question had even been registered were the hands of her maids ceasing what they were doing. A quick peek into the mirror, however, proved that her words had very much struck a cord, as she could see young Aida throwing a glance over her shoulder at her older sister who was staring at her with wide eyes, mouthing for her to keep her mouth shut. But, as it would seem, the younger sister was well and truly done with keeping quiet.

'Does milady truly wish to know?'

'Aida, don't!', Madlen called out in horror and in warning, and her inner terror made Lothíriel all the more curious to figure out what this was all about. The younger sister for her part, however, who had worded her question before with only the barest minimum of respect in her voice, as if to dare her lady with more than just the question itself, was sick and tired of being kept in check, and so, when her queen nodded, as if to offer a challenge herself, to see how far the young handmaiden would dare to go here, Aida simply ignored her older sibling's warning.

'How can you do that to us?!'

'Aida!'

'No, Madlen, it's fine, really. I'd like to believe that I'm among friends, and friends should be able to be open with each other.', the queen spoke quickly then as she turned around to face her handmaiden, intervening, trying to appease the older sister's worries before she would stop her younger sibling. And indeed, upon the queen's intervention, the older sister did not utter another word of protest or chiding. In the silence that followed, the eyes of Lothíriel and Aida met, and even if there was no desire for reconciliation in the young handmaiden's look, there was at least some respect now. Both women knew exactly where this conversation was heading, and yet the queen did not shy away from it, and at least in that regard, the young maid was willing to give her credit for that.

'Please, Aida, continue. I am listening – but you will have to be more specific than that.', Lothíriel offered then with the calm demeanour of the queen, stretching out her hand, metaphorically speaking, in a gesture of good will. And young Aida, though still somewhat caught between the angry impulse to confront her and the sense of propriety that cautioned her against addressing her betters in such an informal and harsh manner, seemed to gladly take her up on that offer. The momentary insecurity from before seemed to vanish behind a mask of hard eyes and bared teeth.

'How can you do that to us?! How can you expect us to make peace with those wild men? We have not fought and died and lost to give up now! Do you expect us to curtsy too, and kiss their feet?!', the handmaiden hurled at her, and she wasn't exactly mincing her words here, but Lothíriel decided that the young woman had every right to her anger and that she would not take that right away from her. She had known all along that it was only a matter of time before word got out that she supported the peace treaty; to be perfectly honest, after today's dramatic exit from the council meeting she wouldn't be surprised if gossip painted her as the sole originator of the whole idea of a peace treaty to begin with – just another Southern thing, after all, that the Southern princess tried to impose on the North.

No wonder then that her young friend would rehash what hear-say and rumours had, undoubtedly, been putting out there. After all, she couldn't know any better – she was young and unlearned of the workings of this world, and the queen wouldn't hold that against her, thus letting the disrespectful tone of the young woman slide. However, perhaps, it was even more than that. It was strange really, and she could not quite explain it, but for a moment there she felt as though young Aida reminded her of herself – her self after the war, when she had been angry and hurt and blinded by hatred and fear. Perhaps that was the real reason she simply swallowed the vicious sarcasm and turned a blind eye to the unveiled insubordination thrown her way?

'I understand your frustration, Aida, but – ', she started slowly then, calmly, her hands raised in a sign of pacification, but soon enough it became a sign with which the queen tried to make herself heard, because the young handmaiden was barely interested in listening to whatever she had to say – the way the young woman snorted in contempt and rolled her eyes and curled her lips into a snarl made that unmistakably clear, 'Aida, listen. I know this might seem like a defeat to you. But this is not giving up. Making peace is not losing. Making peace can be a victory in and of itself. It can be a chance at a better life. For all of us.'

'A better life for whom? No, there cannot be peace between beasts and men. They are savages! Mindless, heartless brutes!', Aida countered defiantly then, and she had just barely let her finish; now wildly shaking her head and turning away for a moment, it seemed as though she were unable or rather unwilling to hear what her queen was saying here, let alone accept it.

That didn't surprise Lothíriel; growing up on centuries of propaganda most certainly did not help to broaden her maid's mind to such an outlandish idea as peace with their arch enemy. As she recalled, she herself had not acted much better when she had first come here or when she had been told who she would marry, unwilling to even open herself up to the mere possibility of accepting it all – pride and prejudice, apparently, were not limited to station or culture. And perhaps it was that very shared similarity she saw between herself and the young woman, driving home the frustration of who she had been and how much time she had wasted based on preconceived notions, that, maybe, made her reply sound a little more pointedly than she might have intended it to be?

'Because they cannot ride a horse or live in houses as grand and sturdy? Because they cannot read or write? I believe to recall that the latter is not a very common skill around here either, even among the highest of – '

'Because they are murderers and thieves!', young Aida bellowed then with surprising volume, and her typically so giddy voice echoed off the walls of the royal chambers with terrifying fury. Madlen at this point seemed to have heard enough and, awakening from her state of shock at this whole conversation taking place, the older sister rushed over to them. But even though she put her hand on her sibling's shoulder, to try and calm her down, the younger sister simply shrugged her off, too far gone at this point to give a fuck about the fact that she was literally shouting at her queen and mistress right now, 'Because they killed and pillaged and burned and – '

'Crimes, undeniably. But crimes not only committed by the wild men.', the queen protested then, slightly out of breath, and slowly beginning to realise that the conversation was quickly getting out of hand; already she felt like her own calm and rational demeanour was no longer a match for the fire the young handmaiden was spitting here, but she was not ready to give up just yet, 'Is it truly so hard to imagine that they are people just like you and me? I'm sure they had their own losses to mourn, their own injustices to bemoan, and – '

'No, don't do that! Don't you dare compare us to them!'

'But why not?'

'Because – ', Aida started then passionately, only to stop dead in her tracks, seemingly overwhelmed by the sheer force of her emotions running high, and one could just see it in her eyes, as unshed tears were forming in them, the despair to make herself heard, the struggle to keep herself from crossing a line here, and, above all else, the pain it brought her to speak of it. As she turned around to her sister then, who was hiding her own tears in the shadow of her lowered head, for a moment, it seemed as though this were the point where she would go no further, as though words were failing her to convey her emotions and thoughts. But then the moment passed, and when the young woman turned to face her again, neither the trembling of her lips nor the many tears on her cheeks could hide the determined look in her eyes – the look of someone whose anger was made of pain and therefore all the more potent because of it, 'Don't you know what they have done? What they have taken from us? From us, from my sister and me, from us personally?'

'Aida, I – ', Lothíriel started out to say, only for her to stop short of uttering the words, not able to bring herself to say that she understood what the young handmaidens had been going through – because, how could she? Even if she understood the anger, and the pain behind it, it did not mean that she understood it. Their parents had been killed in a Dunlending raid when they were little, she remembered, but knowing it was one thing, and understanding it quite another. And it was in that precise moment that the queen knew that she had lost this argument, because despite all her clever arguments and her rationale, it became unmistakably clear that it was just no match for the emotional pain these people felt, and, perhaps, never would be.

'No, don't you dare say you understand! You don't! You cannot!', young Aida shot back at her then, not caring that her queen had not actually uttered the words yet, not caring that she had rudely cut her short before her mistress could have even begun to speak the words, not caring that her older sister had started to grip her shoulder again, to try and calm her down, to keep her from going too far and to say something that could then not be unsaid. However, it became soon very clear that they had long passed the point of no return.

'And how could you?! You're just a … you're just a – ', the young handmaiden stuttered on incoherently, angrily, full of a fury that made her mouth run wild, but the moment she realised where her words were leading her, she had the good presence of mind to stop herself short of calling her mistress by one of the many derogatory names some of the councilmen had used for her in the past. But still, the unspoken words still hovered in the air between the three women, and even if it had remained unsaid, they all knew what she had meant to say. The line between the three friends had been inevitably crossed, and all three of them could sense the shift.

'A stranger from a strange land? A stranger with strange morals?', Lothíriel finished the sentence young Aida had meant to hurl at her, and even though there was a small smile playing around the corners of her mouth, there was no joy in that smile – it was the kind of smile the prisoner at last freed from the shackles would offer the executioner. Spurned by her friends, the queen was all the lady she had been trained to be; and even though she had been wounded by their rejection, she did not look upon them with anger or frustration. Rather she looked upon them with something akin to pity, or rather with sympathy – young Aida with her lips still trembling in defiance, caught between the shock of having crossed that line and the hurt anger still egging her on; and poor Madlen who cowered in the shadow of her younger sibling, palms flat on her ears, eyes closed, too fearful to witness the confrontation between her sister and her mistress – because deep down she could understand their feelings of betrayal so well, and she also understood that, in a way, this had been the only way this conversation could have turned out, and that they had all been caught in its trap.

'Believe me, I truly can understand your frustration. I, too, have loved and lost, and yet I have seen my own country make peace. I have helped my country make peace.', the queen offered then, reaching out with words, emphasising that her sympathy did not come from hollow phrases but was deeply rooted in the pains of her past. But, of course, along with remembering the losses of the friends she had to mourn, also came the sting of shame she always felt when she thought back to how she had been made to go along with the hero narrative her father had decided to spin around the knights she knew were beasts in reality. And perhaps that expression of shame, of regret, of the secret longing to have followed a different path had also been etched onto her face, as the young handmaiden was more than ready to pick up on it.

'Yes? And you have forgiven?', Aida asked then, still as defiant and stubbornly honourable as before. But it was not clear who or what exactly she asked had been forgiven. The people at whose hands the queen had endured her losses or the shameful decisions she had told herself to make in the aftermath of it all. And to her infinite shame, Lothíriel did not find it in herself to answer, for she knew, despite all her lofty claims, in her heart she knew she would never forgive. Perhaps … perhaps Éomer had been right to criticise her before, perhaps in truth she was really nothing more than a hypocrite.

For a moment then, all three women stood in silence, left speechless by the turn of the conversation and the old wounds it had reopened, each one alone with their brooding thoughts, and the only thing disturbing the silence was the crackling of the firewood in the hearth. It was in this moment of tension, when the shock began to wear off and the realisation of what had happened slowly started to set in, that Madlen was the one to break the silence – unable to bear it any longer, torn between her sister and her mistress.

'M-milady, forgive us, we have taken up too much of your time. We will take our leave.', the older sister stuttered frantically, and, of course, leave it to Madlen to try and deal with a situation her sense of propriety and manners couldn't even begin to process, let alone handle, by relying on the rules of etiquette that she rehashed almost blindly and automatically. It would have been an amusing sight indeed, had the situation not been so dire and tense. But Lothíriel could sympathise with the poor woman, and she saw no need to force her to be in this situation any longer, and thus the queen only nodded with a sad smile – she didn't trust her voice yet to speak, feeling herself about ready to break – and allowed them to be dismissed.

Once permission was granted, Madlen didn't have to be told twice that she could go, and thus moved quickly to usher her little sister (who seemed only too glad to oblige) out of the royal chambers, perhaps, fearful of yet more emotionally charged conversations to come. However, before the older handmaiden left the room herself, she turned around to address her mistress one last time, and her words, though meant as a gesture of attempted reconciliation, did leave the queen with a sense of dread and foreboding.

'Milady, please forgive my sister, she was … not herself today. But … unfortunately, she is not alone in her anger. There are many who feel like her.'

FUN FACT #1: Nope. I haven't forgotten about the Déor-plotline. We will have to bring that to a satisfying conclusion. (And I hope, I will!)

FUN FACT #2: According to the rules of narratives, we are moving into the "Darkest Hour"-trope. The darker and grimmer it will seem, then the much more satisfying the return of the light will be. Remember that when things will look hopeless in future chapters to come.

FUN FACT #3: I'm glad I can offer the characters of Aida and Madlen some more depth and development and not leave them reduced to mere comic relief characters. True character depth, especially in minor characters, is still a challenge for me. Even after 20 years of writing I am still learning.