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The wine flows late into the night, sorrow and celebration mingling in a draught more potent. Never has the Golden Hall seen such a gathering. The tone changes, becomes more ethereal, time at once compressing and stretching, as the night grows later and the Elves take charge of the singing. One by one the guests depart, saying a few quiet words as they trickle out to take their rest. Éowyn wants to stay but feels her head weighing heavily.
Yet her eyes are inexorably drawn to a figure that does not fit, appearing among the rest as if from some remote time and place; but not as a shade, lesser and faded, but as something other, something more, even among her fair Elven kin. The Queen Arwen.
It is no wonder that these kin are arranged like a fence around her. She feels, herself, an urge to protect, presumptuous as it is.
Across the space the Queen looks directly into her eyes. She does not want to be caught staring, and yet she cannot look away; too late. She feels regarded with some curiosity. She tries to think of some pretext to march through the fence and speak to her, but none comes.
I wonder if she, too, tires of being accounted among the possessions of men—treasured, coddled, but still a thing.
She turns finally to bid a good night to those few left, Faramir the last. At least he has not been one to regard her as a mere belonging.
Once alone she drifts to sleep on scraps of song. The enchantment is beautiful, but she cannot quite trust in it. She is half-afraid to wake and find them all gone.
***
But lo, the next day comes and brings the same visions, ethereal and earthly alike, though the time has come for some to depart.
She is glad that her betrothed—the word brings panic no longer—will remain here with her for a time. But she is surprised to find that the Queen will also stay while the King Elessar travels on with his companions. And she is astonished when the Queen approaches her with the Lord Elrond.
“We wish to have words alone... is there a place we may converse in private?” And the Queen casts her eyes, resolved but sad and faltering, to her father. His eyes are inscrutable, unbearably brilliant, set in a face still as stone.
She is stricken dumb, but quickly gathers herself and leads them out. There is one place fitting. Across the courtyard littered with blown leaves, through a creaking door half-covered in ivy. She wordlessly points up the path, not daring to look either in the eye, and then turns and shuts the door.
A father taking leave of his daughter. Surely the occasion is not one for such overwhelming sadness? She does not ask why she herself feels it.
***
The next day passes in a joyous haze under the late summer sun. She spends much of it with her betrothed—her beloved—shamelessly taking this time for her own, their own. But she cannot forget the sadness in the eyes of the Queen.
“You have studied the ways of the Elves, have you not?” she says to him as they lie upon the grass, looking up at the clouds.
“Studied their ways?” He leans on an elbow to look at her. “Something of their history, and their languages, yes, but only at second-hand. I have not been among them. The daily habits of Elves are as much a mystery to me as to most Men in these days. Though I suppose we are both learning somewhat, being in their company.”
“I wonder why it is that…” she begins to ask, then changes tack, not wanting to draw attention to emotions that may well be private. “Do Elves, once joined in marriage, sunder themselves from their kin?”
Now Faramir sits up and studies her for a moment. “You speak of Queen Arwen and her father, Lord Elrond?”
“Yes. She…” Again she hesitates. She tells herself that if she is to help assuage this sadness in any way, there is no better person to advise her, of those she can ask. Or she may find out that these matters are not for her concern. Better to ask than to make some foolish mistake and trouble the Queen herself. “She seemed so sad, upon taking leave of her father. Surely they will meet again, one day? He will travel to Minas Tirith, or she to her homeland in the North?”
He turns to the gently waving curtain of grasses before them, a somber expression on his face. “As I understand it—they will not meet again. Elrond is one of the Half-Elven, and was given the choice to cleave to one kind or the other, and he chose the path of the Eldar. With her marriage to the King Elessar, Arwen has chosen the path of mortal Men. When he departs to the West, to the Undying Lands—and that he will do soon, I would guess—they will be sundered for ever.”
Dimly she recalls the history of the founding of Númenor and something of the tale of the Half-Elven. None of it had seemed to hold any significance for her when she had learned it. A fantastical story to aid in the learning of the Elven language, for which she had little patience; nothing more. Now it seems a grave injustice, to cause such sorrow.
“Perhaps I will offer to ride with the Queen, to show her somewhat of the countryside, on the morrow. She should not be left alone so, in her grief.”
Faramir smiles at her, all sorrow passing like a cloud, and takes her hand. “She is fortunate indeed, to have such a guide as you.”
***
Before her courage fails Éowyn comes to the Queen not long after daybreak. That I should need courage, for this, a simple ride! The cautions of her people against dealing with Elves, even as foolish as they seem now, the lingering shame she yet feels—there are sound reasons to be wary, but she tamps them all down. A kind of fascination, something that causes her heart to beat faster—this she considers not at all. If nothing else she will be a gracious hostess.
But she has a moment of panic on forming the words to address the Queen. “My— Your Highness—“
“Lady Éowyn.” Arwen spares her with a small smile, that same gentle amusement as at their first meeting.
Éowyn is proud of the strength of her hands—veins and calluses and scars showing hard-won skill—but they seem rough and ungainly now as the Queen takes them in her own: graceful, feminine, flawless. She is flustered but continues on.
“I wondered if it would please you to ride with me on horseback, down in the grasslands. Not too far. It is quite safe.” She had not thought that perhaps the Queen would be weary of riding still, or would not consider it a pleasure at all. She could be one of those delicate ladies meant to decorate a fine court and do little else. Perhaps her remaining kin would not allow it.
But the Queen smiles more surely. “It would please me greatly.”
Relief and joy spring up inside and she feels herself smiling in return. “Let us meet on the terrace in a short while, then, and we can go down to the stables. Need you any clothing suitable for riding?”
“I have no need. Unless you intend us to go hunting for game?” Again that smile, barely curving her perfect mouth but causing her eyes to sparkle with something akin to mischief. Perhaps she is underestimating the Queen’s capabilities.
“No…just a simple ride.” She thinks she sounds utterly foolish now but does not care.
Later she comes upon the Queen, standing on the terrace, and feels her breath catch. She is a living figure out of some half-forgotten tale from Éowyn’s childhood, lithe and graceful even in stillness, shadowy hair flowing in the wind away from her face, so pale and yet so alive, lit from within. Her steps slow as she gazes without willing. The Queen turns and smiles.
“Shall we go down?”
I should not be the one needing to be put at ease. She nods dumbly and then manages, “Yes…this way.”
At the stables Éowyn learns one habit of the Elves, at least—they use no saddle nor bridle on their horses. She had seen some Riders of the Mark go without such in a show of skill, but never for serious endeavors.
As they leave the paddock and go out onto a track in the tall grass, the Queen’s horse seems more closely bonded in thought and intention with its rider than her own. She thinks that she should feel envious but does not. She asks, guileless, “How long must it take to learn to ride without saddle?”
“Not long, as we account such things. We know somewhat of the language of horses and can ask them to bear us or to walk with us when we must,” the Queen answers. Éowyn wonders for a moment how long a time not long would be, to an Elf, and then sets that thought aside.
“We ask as well, but…it is different, I suppose,” she says. “I do not speak to my horse in his language.”
A merry laugh, free of mockery, is the Queen’s response. “It is not so different. You learn, as we do, to speak with body, and with mind, which become as one. The horse knows the mind of the rider, whether she means to reveal it or not. The mind of the horse is perhaps more open to me.”
They continue on in silence for a time. Éowyn glances at the Queen, admiring her posture in the saddle—or where the saddle would be—but is determined not to stare. So she gazes out at the sun-washed land, the waves of grass. Once again, as with her betrothed, she sees it with fresh eyes, and wonders what the Queen thinks of it.
“Have you wide open spaces such as this in your homeland?” she asks, imagining the Queen racing across a moonlit plain, at one with her horse.
But instantly she regrets the question as the reply is slow in coming. “No…not so much. The land of my father is wooded.” She says no more and Éowyn does not inquire further.
But then, after a time, she continues. “I would venture out with my brothers, sometimes, to a hidden stretch of grass where we could gallop our horses. Sometimes I would best them in races.”
At this Éowyn smiles knowingly. “Were they cross with you, then?”
“Oh yes. Quite.” And Arwen’s merry laugh returns, lifting their hearts.
The track they follow takes them out of the settlements surrounding Meduseld and bends to the west, along the foothills of the mountains. Éowyn has planned to circle around to the north, then east again and back south, to make a loop, greater or smaller depending on the mood and willingness of the Queen. She is glad now that this ride will not, apparently, end up as a short jaunt of a league or less. She wonders if they could indeed go hunting together, someday.
After a time they come upon a hillock with a flattened top that had been one of her favorite places as a child, in the years after she first came to Edoras with Éomer. They would ride here with Theodred, provisioned with dried meat and bread, and spend the afternoon playing with wooden swords and galloping their ponies across the turf, defending their imagined fortress. Small adventures, free of nurses or tutors; times treasured long afterward, as shining jewels in the dark.
“Shall we stop here for a time? I have brought some bread and wine.” She swings out of the saddle, looking up just in time to see the Queen spring lightly down, and to marvel again at her grace.
She stands at the center of the hillock. It looks so much smaller, now. She tries to picture Theodred, her dear cousin, her hero, showing her how to hold her sword, and feels her throat constrict suddenly. He had no funeral. He lies in the cold ground, alone. She looks away, trying to compose herself.
She feels a touch on her shoulder and turns to face the Queen. “You have memories of this place…it is special to you?” she asks. It should be intrusive but instead the question is comforting. And so Éowyn takes a breath and settles herself on the grass. She tells of her small adventures, so long ago, while they tear off pieces of bread and sip the wine.
As the sun turns on its path toward the mountains to the West, they mount their horses again and turn toward Meduseld. The silence between them is companionable; Éowyn is relieved that she does not feel the need to keep talking to fill awkward space, or worse yet, to endure a stream of chatter. But she had not expected it to be so.
The track becomes wider as it winds among houses and barns. They come to the stables and Éowyn feels a slight pull of regret. But then, she thinks, she can go riding with the Queen again soon, not only here, but when they are both settled in their new homes.
As they tend to their horses the Queen asks, in a voice softer and less melodious than is her wont: “Will you miss this, your home? Your people?”
No. The answer forms in Éowyn’s mind, reflexively, but it does not escape her mouth. These last days have changed her mind still further. It is true, as she had said to Faramir, that Edoras is no longer her home; yet the thought of it brings memories of happier days—this day not the least—to temper the bitterness. She can give a more subtle answer now.
“I will miss it, at times. But I am eager to be away and to begin my life anew.”
She turns to look at Arwen as she feels herself being regarded. Those eyes, eternal mirror of the evening sky—she feels pierced, pinned to the spot, by the rapid swirl of emotion, fear and sorrow and pain and wonderment and joy. It ends in joy. With it they are both released.
“Yes…yes.” Arwen bows her dark head, lashes sweeping away tears, and reaches out a hand to grasp Éowyn’s. Together they walk back up to the Hall.