The Marriage of True Minds

Éowyn stood on the highest tower of the sixth level, gazing north.  Her face was pale and wistful, her mouth was set in an expression of sadness, but her eyes, her eyes seemed to burn in her face.  She had the look of one whose desperate quest has ended in failure. Faramir shivered to see it. 

Yet she brightened when she saw him, and, smiling, beckoned him closer.  “I am surprised to see you, my Lord. I thought you were busy.”

He glanced at her sharply. There was a slight edge in her words, but her face was calm.  She pointed towards the North, a thin half-smile gracing her face.  “I look to my homeland, my lord, and all is well.  I wonder what I shall find there when I return.”

She was right.  The skies were clear as far as the eye could see, and the sun shone down warmly.  Éowyn sighed, staring off into the distance.  “When I left Rohan, I wanted nothing more than to fall and burn as the world ended. But it has not ended, and I find now that I do not want to fall away.  I thought Rohan was the most blasted and accursed place in the world, where everything I touched seemed barren. Now, perhaps it is not so.”

Faramir stared at her. She was not usually so open about her feelings.  There was always much to be intuited from her silences, things she could not bring herself to say. Yet he was the man to understand her - he had never realised what a gift it was to sense the hearts of men, until he had met her.

He placed a hand on her shoulder and turned her to face him.  Taking her chin in his hand, he said, “Éowyn, why do you tarry here, and do not go to the rejoicing in Cormallen, where your brother awaits you?”

“Do you not know?”  Again he sensed that mocking tone, and began to see what lay under it.

“Two reasons there may be, but which is true, I do not know.”

“I do not wish to play at riddles. Speak plainly!”  Her mockery had become tears swimming in her eyes, but she did not look at him – rather she looked out beyond him.  He chose his words carefully, as though she were a nervous throughbred that might shie away, and spoke as gently as he knew how, to soothe her.

“Then if you will have it so, lady, you do not go, because only your brother called for you, and to look on the Lord Aragorn, Elendil's heir, in his triumph would now bring you no joy. Or because I do not go, and you desire still to be near me. And maybe for both these reasons, and you yourself cannot choose between them. Éowyn, do you not love me, or will you not?”

She turned to face him again, and of all things, he saw surprise cross her lovely face.  “I wished to be loved by another,” she stammered. “But I desire no man's pity.”

He almost laughed to hear her throw his words back at him – there was hope,  after all! “That I know.” he said. “You desired to have the love of the Lord Aragorn. Because he was high and puissant, and you wished to have renown and glory and to be lifted far above the mean things that crawl on the earth. And as a great captain may to young soldier he seemed to you admirable. For so he is, a lord among men, the greatest that now is. But when he gave you only understanding and pity, then you desired to have nothing, unless a brave death in battle. Look at me, Éowyn!”

She met his eyes – waiting for something, waiting for his conclusion.  He stroked her cheek, and a tremulous smile spread across her lips.  “Do not scorn pity that is the gift of a gentle heart, Éowyn! But I do not offer you my pity, For you are a lady high and valiant and have yourself won renown that shall not be forgotten; and you are a lady beautiful, I deem, beyond even the words of the Elven-tongue to tell. And I love you.”  He felt his heart soar within him.  “Once I pitied your sorrow. But now, were you sorrowless, without fear or any lack, were you the blissful Queen of Gondor, still I would love you. Éowyn do you not love me?”

She stared at him, reaching  one hand up to caress his cheek, trembling, she spoke slowly, as though she could not believe what she felt.  “I stand in Minas Anor, the Tower of the Sun, and behold! the Shadow has departed! I will be a shieldmaiden no longer, nor vie with the great Riders, nor take joy only in the songs of slaying. I will be a healer, and love all things that grow and are not barren.”  When she turned to him again, she was smiling with her heart instead of merely her lips.  “No longer do I desire to be a queen.”

Faramir laughed, the joy which had filled him, bubbling up in his voice.  “That is well, for I am not a king. Yet I will wed with the White Lady of Rohan, if it be her will. And if she will, then let us cross the River and in happier days let us dwell in fair Ithilien and there make a garden. All things will grow with joy there, if the White Lady comes.”

Yet Éowyn looked at him nervously at these words.  “Then must I leave my own people, man of Gondor?  And would you have your proud folk say of you: 'There goes a lord who tamed a wild shieldmaiden of the North! Was there no woman of the race of Númenor to choose?'"

“I would,” said Faramir. And at her smile he could not help himself, and leaned close and kissed her.  She responded with an ardour he had not expected: she let him hold her close, and drop sweet kisses on her lips.  Her laughter was so joyous it turned almost to tears.  They stood together, bathed in the glow of the sun, and he knew that at last Éowyn was healed.

Title:

From Sonnet 116.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove:

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come:

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.