The deep, clear azure of the sky was the kind that made the dreamers come out and lay under the blue canopy, watching the clouds. It was the kind that made poets and bards craft songs of the simple beauty of life. It was the kind that stirred love in the lover's soul, without warning or reason. The wind was soft, warm and fragrant. The sound of baby birds singing and the laughter of children hung in the air. And all these things under cloud and sky Elfhild cursed.

Again she stood in the garden. That garden. The flowers opened in their ignorance of her pain. They swayed on in a happy, demented way. Not caring. For a lingering instant the flutes and viols and harps returned, trilling an eerie sound. The phantom forms of dancers swayed around the young Queen of Edoras for her torment. They seemed to delight in her frustration, in her anguish.

 The wise old crones with so much herb-lore, standing off to the side, without sympathy. The maidens giggled happily, stupidly--dreaming, no doubt, of one day being in the same, dream-like scene as Elfhild was. Of being adored by a man--nay, found irresistable, so much that he asked you to forever be his, unto the world's ending. But most horrid of all of these were the women with rosy cheeks and worn but loving gazes. Those who bounced toddlers on their laps, cradled babies in their arms, and blushed faintly as they touched their swelling bellies.

All her wedding blessings had promised this to her. Now it was so cruel to look back and see how they had come to no avail. Elfhild shook her head, dismissing the phantasmagoirc spectrum she was weaving in her mind for her own punisment. "Oh, Theoden, Theoden!" she whispered, "forgive me." The blame had again smacked her in the face. In shame, she again faced the facts. "I am a young woman, capable and blossoming in my age. Yet I shall not be young forever..." and again she found her self moved to weep that she was childless, four years after her marriage to the king. Now she was nearly twenty-three, and all her childhood maiden-friends had been wed, and now had children to raise.

Every spring the memory of her wedding came back to haunt her. Whenever spring came and life new swept through the hearts of all. Glancing back, her shame hit home. She looked upon Meduseld, the golden roof gleaming, blazing like fire in the noon sun. Out across the wind-swept fields of the Mearc she saw the houses and villages of her people. Children and families would be dwelling in those houses. Mothers with their babes asleep singing softly, rocking them, nursing them. Fathers would be teaching their children how to ride, and do sword-play. Ah yes. It was one sickening cornocopia of family love down there. In her quiet envy, the Queen Elfhild grew to despise the image of mother and child. Unless it could be her, it mearly taunted and tormented her. In cold pride she hitched up her forrest-green skirts and strode back up the cobble-stone path to the Golden Hall.

*

"When I saw you riding up, I thought I was looking at Epona herself." Theoden linked his arms gently around Elfhild's waist, reaccounting their first meeting to perhaps draw her from her sorrow. "You were so high and lovley, but so wild and untame. I still am amazed to find that you are mine." He softly kissed her cheek, but she turned away. "Do not try to ease my sorrow, for it is justly earned." She turned to face him; her shining eyes, brimming with sorrow took Theoden aback. "I know I have born you no heir, no child." He smiled weakly, used to Elfhild's sudden spells of sorrow. "All in time, my love, all in time. We are young still." Elfhild sighed. True as it was, she had tried for four years. Her age would mean nothing to the Fates if she kept on trying, only to end up an old made-no-more with no child.

That was something little girls play with their friends, something maidens moon over, something mothers delight in, and something old crones look back on fondly. Even if these images were un-realistic, in her mind, they were vibrant and true: every single faery-tale story she had ever heard. With a sudden wave of angre and desperation, she turned again towards her bridegroom, grasping his mead-coloured hair in her white hands. "Give me a child, or I die!"

Theoden let her sudden outburst soak in. He was immediatly distressed and uncomfortable with her words. She was asking him something impossible. He could not just grant her desire. "Children..." he began amidst her supressed cries, "are a gift, Elfhild. I--I can not just..." but she pushed away from his grasp and fled from their room. "Something!" she cried, "something must be done! Surley there is something that can be done!" with a rush she found herself alone in the empty hall. There she fell to her knees, and softly prayed, "Epona, Great Mother. Lend me your spirit! Lend me your grace and strength!" and then the rage re-kindled, and she challenged the Goddess. "That is why we pray to you, is it not?"

And then someone grasped her shoulder. For a moment Elfhild gasped, expecting to see the White Spirit clothed in moonlight astride a Snowy horse. Then, she shook her head and discearned through her tears the face of the laundry maid. "My lady," she began softly, "forgive me, but I heard your plea." Elfhild rose and assumed the posture of a well-bred woman and Lady. "If that's what you've been s' worried about..." the young girl stoped, afraid that she'd just admitted she'd noticed her queens times of sadness, "but I know someone who could help, my lady, if it's not to bold of me to say."

"Go on, child," said Elfhild. The maid nodded. "Afore I came to work for You Ladyship, I was in the service o' washing and lookin' after the children of a woman..." here she motioned out yonder, indicating the villages surrounded by the blue and purple misted mountains,"...an' she was a mid-wife, m'lady. She was aweful wise." here her eyes grew wide and mysterious, "An' I even heard tell she was one of them sorceresses, m'lady. An I'll bet she can give you somethin' to help."

Of course Elfhild had asked the advice of the royal sooth-sayer, but all he could answer was that "When the fates find it right you shall concieve a child." Elfhild declared him an idiot right then and there. But here was a woman who's life centered around the birthing of babies, and she apparently had many of her own. Her knowledge of the otherworld was based on this one, and her love for it. Surley she could help.

The young laundry maid nodded again at Elfhild's silence. "Forgive me, m'lady. It was not my place to say anything." But Elfhild grabbed her as she turned to go. "Wait!" she said. "No, wait, umm..."

"Freya," answered the girl. "Freya," Elfhild repeated,"please, take me to your former mistress, lady...?" Freya smiled. "Rhiannon." Elfhild smiled, echoing the name of the woman soon to be her saviour. "Rhiannon." and then a sence of hope washed over her as it had not done in years, and Elfhild, queen of Edoras looked down on the scrawny little laundry-maid dressed in fading browns and greys, knowing that, somehow, through this girl, she had recieved divine intervention.

* * *