Everything changed after they passed into Rohan. To start with they were met on the other side of the Mering by a troop of more than a hundred riders dressed in long scaled steel hauberks and gold edged green cloaks, their faces half hidden by masked helms with horsehead crests.

Their leader pulled off his helm to show a grinning, heavily bearded face and a long, disordered mane of fair hair. Father stared at him for a long moment then cried; “Framgar!” and urged his mount forward for a clumsy one armed horseback embrace.

“Welcome Thengel King, a hundred thousand welcomes!” the other Man said, grinning even more broadly as they broke apart.

Father sat back in his saddle and surveyed his old friend. “Look at you! You’ve grown fat as a farm-thane!”

“Nay, I have but put on a dignity suited to my years.” Framgar protested laughing.

“But how do you of all Men come to be captain of the King’s Guard?” Father demanded. “I cannot believe you would have been my father’s choice.”

“I am but recently appointed, by Queen Idis, in place of your father’s captain who, no doubt out of grief for his King’s death, resigned the office and went home to his manor.”

“Hmmm.” said Father, and looked thoughtfully at the men behind Framgar before bringing him over to the coach to present him to Mother. “My dear this fat fellow is my oldest friend and foster brother. Framgar, this is my lady and Queen Morwen of Lossarnach.”

The Man bowed, “Hail Morwen, Queen of the Mark.”

“And this is our son, Theoden, and our daughters Elfflaed and Flaeda.” Father continued and Framgar bowed to them too, his eyes lingering on Aranuir - or Theoden as the Rohirrim called him. 1

They resumed their journey with their augmented escort. In Anorien the state coach and Rohirrim outriders had drawn no more than interested stares from fellow travelers and laborers in sight of the road but here in the Eastfold of Rohan their way was lined with folk come to see and cheer the new King.

Mother had all the curtains on the coach tied up and the people threw flowers into it as they cried their welcome. Mother sat by the windows, smiling and waving acknowledgement, and made all four children do the same. Ellevain obeyed rather self-consciously, not quite able to understand the greetings as they were shouted in an accent rather different from Ingilda’s or Father’s, but very aware of the joy and relief behind them. Life under her wicked grandfather must have been just dreadful for the people to be so happy to see Father.

She couldn’t imagine where all the folk along the road had come from. Unlike Anorien the land seemed thinly settled, here and there smoke rising above the rolling hills bespoke a settlement of some kind but she saw no farm fields just acre upon acre of grassland dotted with grazing sheep, cattle and many, many horses.

***

They didn’t stop at an inn that night, Rohan had them but they were small and rather mean places not fit for entertaining Kings and their trains. Instead they guested at the manor hall of a local noble - or thane as they were called in the Mark - and his housewas completely unlike any Ellevain had every stayed at before.

An earthen bank topped by a log stockade enclosed a long rectangle divided into two by a dike and wattle fence. The outer ward held stables, storage barns, workshops and the like while the inner, reached by a wooden bridge over the dike, had two long halls set at right angles to each other with a pair of small houses opposite them. All were built of wood with porch posts and door and window frames carved and painted with strange designs in bright green and red and yellow. The yard was of bare earth with clumps of weeds showing here and there.

Ellevain tried to hide her shock and dismay at the poverty of the place as she walked over the bridge holding tightly to Ingilda’s hand but did not quite succeed, for Mother suddenly bent down to say softly in her ear. “Isn’t it exciting? Our fathers fathers must have lived just like this in the Elder Days before the fall of Beleriand.”

Ellevain gave the place a considering second look. It was rather like the description of Hurin’s holding in the ‘Narn i Hin Hurin’ even to the fence between the outer service yard and inner ward with the living halls and houses. She brightened up a little, she could pretend she was Nienor - or what’s-her-name the older daughter who died.

***

Mother and her women, Aunt Fastraed, the children and their nurses were all to lodge in the northernmost of the two houses which faced the great hall. Inside it was a single large room, longer than it was wide, with richly patterned hangings of green and scarlet and blue covering rough plank walls. Below them a bench-high wooden platform ran down both long sides piled with rugs and furs. The floor, which Ellevain suspected was of earth like the yard outside, was covered with straw matting and a fire burned brightly in an iron brazier set on a flat oblong stone in the center of the house, its light augmented by yellow candles in holders fastened to the posts that framed the walls.

Some girls came in with water and basins for washing and there was a good deal of confusion as everybody in the crowded little house changed for dinner. Ingilda dressed Ellevain in a good warm dress of soft red wool with silver needlework at neck and hem. Then she took down her hair and combed it smooth, but instead of putting it up again left it loose with only a pair of gold pins to keep it from her face.

“It is not the custom in Rohan for little girls to put up their hair.” Mother explained when Ellevain objected. Her own long hair was coiled into a silver net held in place by a narrow pearled fillet, and she wore a flowing dress of sea green silk under a heavy fur lined gown of dark blue velvet. Ellevain and the two little ones were also well swathed in furred mantles by their nurses before the group ventured out into the blustery November evening to cross the yard to the hall.

This was illuminated by the reddish light of torches and the fire burning on a hearth in the middle of the long room. There neither hood nor chimney and the smoke was left to find its own way out through a hole in the high peaked ceiling. Brilliantly colored tapestries covered the walls and ornately painted and gilded shields hung above the benches and trestle tables. In the middle of each of the two long row of tables was a high backed settee, wide enough for two, facing each other across the fire. Father was already seated on one of them but everybody else was still on their feet, milling about and talking, only to fall abruptly silent and make way and stare as the royal children followed the new Queen down the hall to their places. Mother sat on the settee to father‘s right but Aunt Fastraed steered the children on, past their father, to sit on a cushioned bench to his left; first Aranuir, then Vanawen and finally Ellevain, with Aunt on her other side.

Once they were settled in their places everybody else started to sit down too. The settee on the wall opposite was quickly occupied by a short man with very broad shoulders whose long, fair hair and beard were with grizzled with age. He wore a baggy scarlet tunic, lavishly embroidered at the neck with yellow and gold thread, and green leggings cross gartered with yellow ribbons. He was dressed in fact very like the figures on the tapestry behind him, as was the Woman seated beside him. She wore a yellow gown under a bright blue mantle fastened at the shoulders with a pair of large golden brooches joined by several strands of gold chain glittering with citrine and garnet.

It really was very like the rude halls of the Men of Elder Days. No sooner was everybody in their place when Women and boys came through a door at the far end of the hall carrying great platters of meat and loaves and cakes of bread, spits of game birds, beakers of drink and bowls of honeyed fruits all served jumbled together without ceremony. The meat was plain boiled or roasted with neither spices nor sauce nor vegetable garnishing. The bread, though white, was chewy with a thick crust and the drink was not wine but a thick, sweet stuff Ellevain wasn‘t sure she liked.

The little ones were all bright eyes and questions. Aranuir asked his of Father, sitting beside him, but Ellevain bore the brunt of Vanawen’s curiousity.

“You’re using your fingers!” her little sister said accusingly.

“So is everybody else, there aren’t any forks.” Ellevain answered shortly. There were however knives, hers had a bone handle ending in a horse’s head, she used it to saw a roast pigeon in half taking one part for herself and giving the other to Vanawen. Then she took two cakes of bread from the nearest platter and slathered one in butter and honey for the baby.

“There’s no table cloth” Vanawen said around a bite of bread.

“I guess they don’t use them in Rohan, don’t talk with your mouth full, Vanwe.” Ellevain replied.

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. Maybe they just don’t like them.” at least there were napkins, big squares of unbleached linen tucked under the wooden trenchers, Ellevain used one to wipe the dripping honey off her sister’s chin. “Don’t gobble, Vanwe.”

“Who’s that?” the little girl demanded next, pointing rudely at the Man and Woman across the fire.

“Our host and hostess, I don’t know their names. Don’t point, Vanwe, you know better.”

“Why do they have the fire in the middle of the floor instead of a fireplace?” was the next question.

“I don’t know, I guess they prefer it that way.” Ellevain answered. She’d been wondering the same thing herself, Rohirrim had lived cheek by jowl with Gondor for some five hundred years now - surely long enough to learn how to build a chimney!

“But it’s smoky.” It was too, from the torches burning on the posts upholding the hall roof as well as the fire.

“I guess they don’t mind that.” said Ellevain.

“Pears!” Vanawen cried and lunged across the table at the carved wooden bowl holding the fruit.

Ellevain pulled her back. “No, Vanwe, finished your meat and bread first!”

Then Aranuir tugged at Vanawen’s sleeve to get her attention and started self importantly passing on to her everything Father had told him, giving Ellevain a chance to eat in peace. Meduseld wouldn’t be like this, she assured herself, it was the King’s own house not a country gentleman’s manor. It had to be more comfortable and civilized - hadn’t Father said the floors were of colored stone and the walls patterned in gold? It must be much grander than this.

Ellevain had never been a great eater and she finished her half a pigeon, cake of bread and baked apple long before the grown-ups were done eating. She sat quietly, with hands folded, and looked around. The Men were becoming noisy, calling to each other up and down the long tables and across the width of the hall, perhaps they were a little drunk. Ellevain herself felt surprisingly sleepy, and the little ones were nodding despite the noise.

Aunt Fastraed, who’d been talking to the Man on her left all evening suddenly turned to her niece. “Take the children out after the horn goes round.” she said.

“Yes, Aunt.” the girl said obediently, then puzzled: “What horn?”

“That horn.” Fastraed said, nodding up the hall.

A Man with a solemn face and white wand of office was advancing towards the host’s seat on the opposite wall followed by a very pretty blond girl in an un-girdled white gown bordered with green and gold, carrying a great gold mounted drinking horn reverently in her two hands, with a manservant bearing a large copper-gilt pitcher at her heels.

Silence fell over the company as the mistress of the house rose and came from behind the table to take the horn from the girl’s hands. She crossed the hall to stand before Father and raised the horn high. “Westu Thengel hal! Take this horn and drink my King, and rejoice as your people rejoice in your return.”

Solemnly Father took the horn from her hand and drank then gave it back. To Ellevain’s astonishment the Woman next offered it to Aranuir. “Hail, Theoden, Prince of the Mark.” But, realizing the great horn was too heavy for his small hands, their hostess held it for him as he took a sip. Vanawen was next, then it was Ellevain’s turn.

“Hail Elfflaed, Daughter of the Mark.” the Woman intoned. She let Ellevain take the great horn in her hands and it was very heavy. The girl took a tiny sip of the mead inside then carefully handed it back over the table. ’Elfflaed, Daughter of the Mark.’ that was her name now. It gave her an unpleasant, fluttery feeling inside. It was like the new name would turn her into somebody else - and she didn’t want to be anybody but Ellevain Aranchilien of the White City.

It took the mistress of the house a long time to go down the tables, offering the horn to each of the diners, but finally she returned to her own place, drained the last drops and sat down. Boys went around refilling the goblets and horns on the tables and in all the bustle nobody seemed to notice as Ellevain collected her little brother and sister and led them down hall to the door, where they met Ingilda and Elfgifu, who took them across the yard to their lodging.

The children were put to bed on feather bolsters spread on the wooden platforms with wool rugs and furs tucked securely under their chins. Then the candles were blown out leaving only the dim red light of the brazier’s glowing coals. The mead Ellevain had drunk did its work, despite her strange and uncomfortable surroundings she was fast asleep long before her mother and aunt came to bed.

When they left the next morning the thane - whose name was Uffa - rode with them along with seven other Men. And so the journey continued; some of the places they stayed were much better than Uffa’s manor with wooden floors and private chambers, and a few were much worse with the royal family sleeping in ‘rooms’ curtained off from the main hall and their escort camping in the courtyard. And at each stop the master of the house and his sons and retainers would join their ever lengthening train.

Mother seemed to be enjoying it all thoroughly, maybe she was pretending to be her namesake Morwen of Dor Lomin. The babies didn’t mind either, adjusting happily to the smoky halls and rough lodgings as long as Mother and Father were near. As for Ellevain, she put on her best face and pinned her hopes on Meduseld.

Then they came to Aldburg.

***

NOTES

1. While the Rohirrim don’t exactly hold Ellevain and Vanawen’s dark hair against them they are very pleased that their future king should have their fair coloring.