Ingilda was terribly excited. “Just think, my Lady, you’ll be a princess! Eldest daughter of the King and second lady of Rohan.”

Ellevain just managed not to snort. Princess indeed! The Eorlingas weren’t *real* royalty, just the descendants of a northern chieftain - for all they were supposed to be akin to the House of Hador. But she knew better than to say that, even to Ingilda.

“They say the walls of Meduseld are all covered with gold, that is why Men call it the golden hall.” her nurse continued happily.

“It sounds very grand.” Ellevain said politely. “Have you seen it, Ingilda?”

She shook her head. “Oh no. I’ve never been out of Gondor myself, but my mother came from Rohan, from Edoras itself, and she told me all about it. It is the King’s city and seat just as Minas Tirith is the chief city of Gondor and seat of the Stewards.”

As the packing and preparations continued Ellevain realized with dismay that moving to Edoras was not going to be at all like their earlier move from the too small house in the fifth circle before Vanawen‘s birth. For one thing practically all their household were being left behind. The servants vanished by ones and twos as other places were found for them. All of Mother’s gentlewomen went except for Merendal, a poor relation on grandmother‘s side, and Gladwen who had no family and nowhere to go. Master Gelmir and one or two of the squires had asked to come but Father had refused them - Ellevain didn’t know why. Of course her tutors, Master Alchoron and Mistress Hirwen, weren’t coming. They couldn’t be expected to leave their other students. But Ingilda was, and Elfgifu too, for they had kin in Rohan and spoke the language as well as they spoke Westron.

Almost all the furniture was going to be left behind as well. “The King’s Hall is already fittingly furnished, we won’t need our old things,” Mother explained, “and there would be no room for them anyway.” So Ellevain was to lose her big carved bed, and her breakfast table and high backed chair of lebethron wood but she was allowed to keep her desk, and book cupboard and the bench that went with them.

The Steward’s wife, Lady Miriel, lent Mother her own state coach for the journey. “Gondor must do honor to the Queen of the Mark.” she said smiling when she came to call and then she took Mother and Ellevain and Aunt Fastraed to see the coach in the big carriage house adjoining the Steward’s stables in the sixth circle.

It was both long and wide, its side panels were painted with scenes of the Elder Days and the arched roof covered with a blue cloth powdered with silver stars. Steps led up to doors in the middle and inside there were rugs on the floor and cushions on the wide seats. Ellevain was very impressed but, typically, Aunt Fastraed didn’t like it at all.

“We would go faster on horseback.” she said. “The little ones could ride pillion and we could get a pony for Elfflaed.” and she gave her niece an unaccustomed smile.

Ellevain smiled politely back. “Thank you, Aunt, but I don’t ride.” she knew immediately that she had said something very wrong indeed from the look of blank shock on Fastraed’s face - but what?

She didn’t find out until that evening, as they all watched out the long night before their pre-dawn departure. She chanced to be in the garderobe off her father’s study and had just opened the door to leave but not yet pulled aside the curtain that covered it when she heard Father and Aunt Fastraed come in talking rather loudly. She should have shown herself at once, but they were talking about her so she stayed where she was and listened instead.

“You can’t blame the child -” Father was saying.

“I don’t,” Aunt replied, “I blame her father for not raising her as becomes a Daughter of the Mark. A princess of the Eotheod who cannot ride! All the Kings from Eorl down must be gnashing their teeth in their graves!”

“There is little opportunity for riding in the City.” Father answered mildly. “Nor is it considered a proper accomplishment for a lady.”

“And she is a very proper little Stoniglander lady,” Ellevain could almost see Fastraed’s lip curl. “learned in old dead languages and dwimmer arts but knowing nothing of her heritage!”

“Such learning is her heritage, on her mother’s side,” Father said heavily, “and a far older a greater one than ours, Sister.”

There was a tingling silence. Then Fastraed said grimly. “You have been in this City too long, Brother.” and Ellevain heard the tramp of her boots and swish of her cloak as she stalked from the room.

She listened for what seemed like a very long time but there was no sound or movement from her father. She started to get worried; if he were reading or writing she should have heard *something*, a rustle of parchment or the scratch of a quill, but there was nothing. Finally she put aside the curtain and went in.

Father was sitting in the big chair behind his writing table, turned half sideways and staring into the brazier where a bright fire burned against the evening chill. He looked at her in astonishment. “Ellevain?”

“I heard you and Aunt talking,” she said, “I’m sorry I listened but I wanted to know what I’d said to upset her. Is horse riding really so important?”

Father laughed and held out his arms, she climbed up onto his knee and snuggled her head under his chin. “You might say that it is, we Rohirrim aren’t called the ‘Horse Lords’ for nothing you know.”

“I can learn to ride.” she offered.

He laughed again, shortly and not happily. “We’ll never hear the end of it if you don’t. Oh my little Ellevain, my Elven fair daughter of Westerness, whatever are you going to do in Rohan?”

“You said it was very different.” she ventured.

“Different indeed.” he answered a little grimly. “Edoras is much smaller than Minas Tirith, more town than City, and built of wood not stone - as is the King’s Hall.”

“Ingilda says it’s covered with gold.”

“That is true. Door posts and walls are all covered with carved scrollwork overlaid in gold. The pillars upholding the roof are carved and painted and the floors are paved with colored stone.”

“It sounds pretty.” she said hopefully.

“Pretty.” he echoed in a tone she could not interpret. “Perhaps. I thought it very grand when I was a boy.”

“You shouldn’t have told Aunt our Dunedain heritage is higher and better than hers,” she admonished her father seriously, “it wasn’t polite. And you hurt her feelings and made her angry.”

“Yes I’m afraid that I did.”

“She’s a very strange Woman isn’t she?” Ellevain continued curiously. “Why does she always dress like a Man?”

Her father laughed again, more easily than before. “Not like a Man but like a shieldmaiden. Fastraed preferred arms to marriage and took service with our kinsman Herubrand Helminga, Lord of the Westfold.”

Ellevain was very startled indeed for a moment, then she remembered some of the stories Ingilda had told her. “Oh! I see, like Guthfrid and Gunnild or Queen Swanwhite and her Maidens.”

“That’s right.” he agreed. “Shieldmaidens are a very ancient tradition of our people though most eventually put aside their swords for husband and children. Few chose to live out their lives as warriors as Fastraed has.”

“Why did she?” Ellevain wondered.

Another laugh from Father. “Probably because she never met a better Man than herself!”

***

They left in the eleventh hour of the night, the dark hour before the dawn, following the nightly train of supply wains out of the City. Ellevain, wrapped warmly in cloak and woven rug, curled sleepily in a corner of the big coach with the little ones fast asleep on the seat beside her. Ingilda dozed on her other side with Elfgifu beyond her, and Mother and her Women sitting opposite. The curtains of deep crimson silk stiff with gold embroideries had been rolled down over the windows so they could not see City passing by outside, or the rest of the cavalcade, but Ellevain knew there were three sumpter wagons behind them followed in turn by half a score of Riders. And that Father and Aunt Fastraed rode directly ahead of the coach with the other ten Rohirrim around them.

Ellevain fell asleep for a while and when she awoke the curtains were tied up letting in the mid-morning sun as they rolled through the green countryside of Anorien. She had packed Master Nolendil’s philosophy away with her other books and had with her instead a copy of Pengolodh’s ’Cirion and Eorl’ bound together with a gloss to make a single thick and heavy tome. She heaved it onto her lap and began to read about her father’s ancestors.

***

It took them nine days to pass through Anorien, riding from sun-up to sundown and stopping every night at one of the inns that lined the old east-west road. The late fall countryside was brown and bare and tree and grass glinted with frost in the mornings, but it was well settled, dotted with town and hamlet, farm and manor, and there was considerable regular traffic on the road but it drew aside to make way for the state coach and its honor guard, the merchants and other travelers watching them pass with curious eyes.

To the south the jagged snow capped peaks of the White Mountains marched in a near straight line from horizon to horizon, until the sixth day when suddenly they drew back in a great curve that cradled the terraces and towers of a shining white city. Ellevain knew this was Vinyamar, the pleasure city built by Atanatar the Glorious and seat of the Princes of Anorien.

They did not leave the road to go up to the city but the Prince, Glorindol, and his young son Lord Narcil came down to the inn to meet them. The sign of the Setting Sun was the largest inn Ellevain had seen yet, with stables and carriage house on one side of the great forecourt and kitchens and a bathhouse on the other. The public rooms included a banquet hall splendid enough for a king and the best guest rooms opened onto their own little gardens.

Ellevain was allowed to attend the grand dinner given by Prince Glorindol for the new King and Queen of the Mark in the inn’s banquet hall. Ingilda dressed her for it in a green silk gown all sewn with flowers of gold and put a cap of netted gold and pearls over her carefully pinned hair.

Prince Glorindol was the premier noble of Gondor and a descendant of the ancient kings, but he looked more Rohirrim than Dunedain, being rather short and golden haired like Father, and his mother had been a half-sister of King Fengel which made him near kin. He sat at Father’s right hand at the high table, with Aunt Fastraed on his other side. Ellevain was between her mother, at Father’s left, and the Prince’s son Lord Narcil who was more than twice her age but very polite, treating her like a grown-up lady instead of a child.

The Prince seemed to know a great deal about affairs in Rohan, which made sense given that it was on his western border and that he was blood tied to its kings. And he seemed very pleased that Father was going to be the new King.

“Relations with Fengel have been difficult to say the least, especially after he began flirting with the Princes of Rhovanion.” he said.

“Our hereditary enemies as well as yours.” Fastraed agreed grimly. “Another of his follies!”

“Yet we are akin,” Father mused, “the Wainriders blood mixed long ago with that of the remaining Northmen and today they speak a tongue not unlike ours and share some of our ways.”

“Thengel!” Aunt protested.

But Prince Glorindol looked interested. “You think some rapprochement might be possible?”

“I think it is worth trying for.” Father answered firmly. “We need allies on our northeastern flank, to let old grudges stand in the way of that would be a greater folly than any of my father’s.”

“Father was not thinking of the security of Gondor but of breaking our ancient alliance.” Fastraed reminded him emphatically.

“I know it.” Father said calmly. “Yet it need not be that way. We Rohirrim could be a link between the Rhovanioni and Gondor.”

“As Thengel King has said it is worth a try, my Lady Fastraed,” the Prince agreed. “especially now that the Enemy has returned to make trouble among the Easterlings.” he grinned at Father. “If I can be of any help to you in your project, my Lord, you may command me!”

“Have no doubt but I will.” Father laughed. And Ellevain remembered that he and the Prince were old friends having campaigned together before he’d married Mother and taken up a command in the City Guard.

The Prince and his son saw the Rohirrim party off when they resumed their journey at dawn. As the coach rolled westward Ellevain, looking back, saw them ride up the branching road towards the terraces and towers of Vinyamar, called the beautiful, and regretted they were not to guest with them in the palace built by King Atanatar II. But there would be other chances to see Vinyamar, she told herself. They must pass it whenever they traveled from Rohan to Minas Tirith and surely they would make that journey many, many times in the years to come, going to visit Grandpapa and Grandmama and Uncle Angeloth in Lossarnach

At midday on the tenth day of their journey they passed through the Firien Wood at the foot of Halfirien hill and crossed the shallow Mering stream into Rohan.

***

NOTES:

Canon: In ‘Appendix A II: The House of Eorl’ we are told that Fengel was ‘- greedy of food and of gold, and at strife with his marshals, and with his children.’ We are also told that his only son Thengel left Rohan when he came to manhood, served Turgon of Gondor married, rather late, a noble Gondorian lady and returned unwillingly to claim the throne upon his father’s death.

We are also informed that Thengel was Fengel’s third child, meaning he had at least two elder sisters, and that Theoden had four sisters, one older than himself and the rest younger, two born in Gondor like himself and two in Rohan. However only Theodwyn, mother of Eomer and Eowyn, is named in LotR.

Fanon: The names of Thengel’s sisters, their ages and character is entirely my own invention, are their nieces Ellevain and Vanawen, (Elfflaed and Flaeda). Prince Glorindol and his son, and his connection to the House of Eorl, are also my own invention. Readers of ‘Siege of Minas Tirith’ and ‘The Steward and the Queen’ may be interested to know that they are respectively the father and grandfather of Idril, yet another OC.