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CHAPTER 6

Letters

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As was her custom of late, when the messenger arrived from Ithilien, Éowyn took her letter from Faramir into one of the courtyards, where the fruit trees were just in bloom, and read it under the shade of one, seated on a bench near the wall. Of late the healers had been warning her against excessive exertion or time outside, but she had found that there was no suitable place within the house to read letters from him. Her husband's gift with words never ceased to amaze her, and though he praised her often and spoke of their intimacy frequently, it was not uncommon for his letters to draw a blush to her cheeks as she read.

My love,

I have little to official to report to you tonight, and by extension little to say to Lord Aragorn. And so I may spend the chief of my time tonight in writing to you, in a vain attempt to replace my absence of the last several weeks with words.

I am almost accustomed to waking up without you in my arms, a thought which horrifies me more than the Shadow in which we both once walked. For without you I feel a new shadow surrounds me, one from which I cannot be drawn, because I do not know when I will see your beauty, nor when your radiance will fill me again.

For the first time since my arrival here, the weather when I arose reflected my mood in waking alone. The sky was filled with dark clouds, and the men were sluggish about their work. When Beregond asked me why I was not also affected, I merely smiled. I have been living without the sunlight for weeks now, and though I seem used to it, I cannot say I am comfortable without it. Your letters sustain me as do the waters of the Anduin, yet I find they are not enough. The faint scent on them, so like yours when you are come from bathing, only serves to increase my hunger for your presence—

"My, how very faithful the King's Steward is in his correspondence. My husband can only trouble himself to write once a week when he is away."

Éowyn looked up from her letter to see Queen Arwen standing before her, looking like a goddess stepping into a dream. With great care and equally great reluctance she folded her husband's letter and returned it to her pocket. "Aye, my lady, he is perhaps the most faithful correspondent I have ever known," she replied. "His faithfulness shames my neglect of writing to him as often, yet I fear I do not have his skill with words."

Arwen smiled. "I have heard accounts of his writing," said she. "For several months I heard nothing but complaints that you had stolen the most eligible bachelor in Gondor."

"Did you!" Éowyn exclaimed. "I can only imagine what they had to say about him—his writing, you say?"

The gracious Queen nodded. "I remember one lady particularly whose cousin died under Lord Faramir's command, and she said that his letter to her uncle was the most eloquent thing she had ever read, and at such a time, too."

"I can think of nothing more eloquent than my husband's gift with words." Éowyn smiled fondly as she stood. "Alliteration and metaphor run in his veins. He should have been a scholar and a sonnetist instead of a soldier and a steward."

"It seems his gift has touched your speech as well," said the Queen, a smile on her face.

"Only a very little. Were I to live a thousand years with him, I could not learn the gentleness of his tongue."

"Walk with me." It was not a command, as one could expect from Arwen, but rather a request. Éowyn did step onto the path with the Queen, however. The two had never been unfriendly toward each other, but the lady of Rohan had never been wholly comfortable around Arwen. Few mortal women were, in company with such beauty, but Éowyn's discomfort sprang more from her former feelings for Arwen's husband.

"It is a glorious day," she said, in an attempt to override that discomfort.

"Yes, it is," Arwen murmured. "On days like this, I do not miss my home so much."

"Nor I mine," Éowyn spoke in mild wonder. She had never thought to hear one of the Elves express longing for something other than what they had. "I miss the openness of Rohan."

"And I the seclusion of Rivendell." The Queen laughed lightly as they rounded a corner together. "It seems that neither of us have married where our personal comforts would have directed us."

At that Éowyn smiled, feeling more than a little toward Arwen as Mithlomi must feel toward her. "Perhaps it is best to say that our hearts were wiser than our heads," she replied.

"And more foolish." Arwen's smile faded somewhat. "Yet I cannot regret the reason I stayed here instead of sailing to Valinor."

"Were I in your place, I could scarce argue such a sentiment," Éowyn said, absently pulling at a leaf on a tree as they paused.

She glanced up to see a puzzled look on the Queen's face. "'Tis strange to hear that choice of phrase, Éowyn," she said, taking slow steps.

"Why strange?" the lady of Rohan asked, suddenly wondering if she had given offense.

"Do you know," the Queen continued, "that I once thought I had lost Estel's love to you?" She looked over her shoulder to see Éowyn's look of wonder. "For so long I tried to hate you. When first I saw you with him, I could see the kinship between you, and I resented it. Yet having met you, I could no more hate you than I could myself."

Éowyn was slow and cautious with her reply. "And once I thought to despise you, because you had the prior claim to his heart." It seemed strange to be talking about this, two years after each of them had married, two years after Éowyn's infatuation with Aragorn had ceased. "Yet I freely admit that I did not love Aragorn so well as I admired and esteemed him. He was the greatest man I had met till then, and it was natural that I should feel more strongly for him than for others."

A burden seemed to be lifted from Arwen then, and she laughed again. "'Till then'?" she echoed. "Have you met a man who exceeds my husband?"

"As day exceeds the night!" cried Éowyn. "For in my dear Lord Faramir I have found all that could be desired in a man."

"Then it is well that I am called Evenstar," Arwen replied merrily, "and prefer the dusk over the dawn."

Éowyn laughed. "Then we shall never agree, and that is probably for the best."

The two ladies were still laughing when Éowyn noticed a door opening on the other side of the courtyard. Into the space walked Lord Aragorn. While Éowyn stifled her laughter, Arwen did not, but turned her merry countenance to her husband, who smiled as he approached. "Here I find this the happiest of places," said he, "for it cannot be often that two such beautiful women are so joyous in one another's company."

Éowyn started to blush, so she smiled and bowed her head. "Still flattering, I see," said Queen Arwen.

"Always flattering." Aragorn kissed Arwen's cheek. "What was the argument of such merriment, pray?"

Arwen took her husband's arm, and they began to walk again. "Why, you, Estel," said she. "Lady Éowyn claims she has found a man who exceeds your virtues, which I find to be utterly impossible."

"As do I," said Aragorn, his eyes bright with mirth.

"Yet the Queen informs me," Éowyn countered, greatly amused by the King's response, "that when you are gone, you barely write her once a week, while my Lord Faramir corresponds with me daily."

"What say you to this?" Arwen asked.

"I say that I choose to make my messages more dear in their sparseness," the King replied, masterful as ever.

"While my husband chooses to make his letters dear to me in their eloquence," said Éowyn. "Every line is poetry."

"Does he spend all his time penning sonnets?" Aragorn asked. "That will never do, if he shirks his duties to write poems."

"Nay, my lord," Éowyn laughed. "For him, to write a letter filled with metaphor is as natural as it is for me to ride a horse."

"Ease indeed," said Arwen. "Yet can you offer proof?"

"Only with the letters themselves, which are quite personal," she replied. Too late she saw Aragorn's slight motion to his wife, and suddenly Arwen had snatched Faramir's latest letter from her fingers. "My lady!" Éowyn cried.

At her pleading look, Arwen returned the letter, giving an apologetic glance to Aragorn. "If his letters are so personal, it would not do for us to read them," said she.

The King gave his wife a look of mock disapproval. "I suppose you must be right," said he, "though Faramir may very well have orders when the next messenger arrives that he is to write a song praising his wife very soon."

Éowyn laughed. "So long as he does not have to perform it."

"That is half the point," Aragorn replied, "to embarrass you as well as him."

Arwen gave her a somewhat more serious reply. "Do you doubt his skill in music, Éowyn?" she asked.

"Nay, quite the opposite," Éowyn replied. "He has the most pleasing voice, and is skilled on several instruments."

"So the rumors in court claimed," said the Queen, touching the Princess's arm. "I do not believe you realized two years ago what a prize you had caught."

"I admit, I did not," said she. "I knew his kindness and gentleness, but knew little else, save that he loved me."

"Which is the greater part." Arwen looked up at her husband fondly, then turned her gaze back to Éowyn. "Will you not join us for lunch?"

Éowyn smiled, suddenly very lonely for her own husband. "I ask that you excuse me, my lady, for I have not yet finished reading Faramir's letter, and I wish to send my reply today."

The King and Queen both nodded, and left the garden arm in arm. And so Éowyn finished reading her letter. When she had returned to her desk, she wrote a reply to it, feeling it was not as eloquent as he deserved, but it did contain one of her better efforts. In it she also warned him vaguely of Aragorn's threat to demand a song, and she smiled to think of what Faramir would compose in response to the challenge.

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Éowyn and Mithlomi had spent much of a day in the city when the handmaiden noticed how slow her lady's step had grown, and how very pale she had become. Gently she engaged Éowyn in conversation to distract her as she led her back to the King's house. When they reached the top of the citadel, Éowyn glanced at the maid in surprise. "Why did we come back here?" she asked.

"You seemed tired," Mithlomi admitted.

The lady of Rohan sighed. "Perhaps I did," she murmured. "If we go inside, you will tell me to lie down."

Mithlomi bit her lip. "I might tell you to lie down regardless, my lady. You do not look well at all."

The maid was rarely this forward about things, but when it came to Éowyn's health, she felt she had to be assertive. That was, after all, the whole reason for her presence in the steward's house; and Lord Faramir had left her with strict instructions to look after her lady. That was a charge she would keep, no matter how much the lady resisted.

Éowyn sighed. "Very well."

Some time later, Éowyn had settled down to rest, and was asleep within minutes. Mithlomi was not terribly surprised by this, as her lady did sleep quickly these days. But the quality of her sleep was poor. She rarely lay still for more than a few minutes, but was always turning over. For a little while Mithlomi had thought that perhaps this was due to Lord Faramir's absence, as Lady Éowyn often turned to the empty side of the bed, but now the handmaid wondered if something quite different was wrong.

Gently, she touched Éowyn's forehead. The lady turned her head immediately, but Mithlomi kept her hand there. She was indeed a little too warm, as the handmaiden had noticed nearly every time she had touched Éowyn in the last few weeks. She bit her lip again, a habit which she had tried to break several times but had never shaken. It came back at times like this, when she had to do something.

It was time to speak with the King.

Mithlomi hurried through the house, taking shortcuts through gardens and grand, unused halls to the Hall of the Kings. Once outside the door, she was stopped by a guard who asked, "What business brings you here?"

She curtseyed. "I am Mithlomi, handmaiden to the Princess Éowyn. I come with urgent news for the King Elessar."

The guard opened the door and relayed this information to a young man who stood just inside it. The door closed again, then opened a few moments later. "King Aragorn requests the presence of Handmaiden Mithlomi directly."

She was ushered into the room, suddenly feeling very bold as she approached the throne. Naturally she had been in company with the King before and even spoken to him, but always demurely and in the company of others. Now it seemed very forward to have driven out the rest of the court because of a little fever. Yet this had been part of Lord Faramir's charge: to report anything out of the ordinary to the King.

Aragorn stood before she reached him, and Mithlomi curtseyed low. "My lord," she began, "forgive my intrusion."

"It is no intrusion," said he, taking her hand and lifting her up. "You bring news from Lady Éowyn?"

Slowly Mithlomi shook her head. "She did not send me, my lord. I came on my own."

There was a long, weighty pause. "Lady Éowyn is unwell."

The handmaiden nodded. "Aye, my lord."

The King took a few steps away, his hands clasped behind his back. "I am not in her presence enough to observe her closely, Mithlomi, but is it possible that Lady Éowyn is with child, and does not yet know it?"

She blinked several times; such a thing had not occurred to her. Some of Éowyn's earlier symptoms, those that had come before Lord Faramir's departure, matched what she had understood of childbearing. Yet those symptoms were long gone, so Mithlomi shook her head. "When we arrived here I might have thought thus, but no more. For she has a fever, mild, but persistent, and that developed after Lord Faramir left." When he made no answer, she added, "She does not sleep well, but she is tired always. She does not eat, either."

The King seemed engaged in an intense study of the floor pattern after she spoke. At last he said, "You were right in coming to me with this, Mithlomi. Go back to your mistress, and if anything at all changes with her, send word to me at once."

Mithlomi nodded. "Yes, my lord. I beg my leave of you."

She curtseyed again and quickly left the King's presence, returning to her lady's bedside. It was evident that she had not missed much, for Éowyn was still sleeping restlessly. And the scene before her did not change for many hours.