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Éowyn rolled up her sleeves as she strode the familiar steps towards the armoury, jaw clenched and stomach tight. She’d been embroiled in repetitive meetings with Rohan’s nobles since breakfast. It wasn’t unfamiliar work, but it had definitely increased since her return to Rohan after the war. With her brother, Éomer, establishing his rule as the new king, Éowyn had put herself in charge of running the palace and leading the noble houses as they frantically tried to reestablish themselves under the new government. It was draining work.
Sometimes she wished she was back on the battlefield. In her saddle, one among thousands of riders tense with anticipation. The sound of horns ringing and seven thousand voices screaming Death! and singing old battle songs as they rode down their enemies. As hard as it had been to sneak into the army, those days seemed simpler now. Kill, or be killed. No time for tedious arguments and political debates in bleak halls. Pull the reins, dodge a spear, thrust your sword, keep fighting. And she had. She came face-to-face with the Witch King. A creature of darkness, a whispered rumour. He wasn’t supposed to exist. But his voice was powerful in her ears. His mace made her body vibrate when he slammed it into the ground at her feet. She saw her uncle’s crushed body behind the horrible black spikes, and she fought. She stabbed the Witch King and watched him shrivel and die at her feet.
Yes, those seemed like simpler days. It wasn’t like she could stab the noblemen in the palace for every small disagreement. Though at least then there would be less arguments. Finally reaching the doors to the armoury, she slipped inside and breathed in the familiar smells. Old leather, rusty metal, crumbling stone. All scents she loved. Pushing aside her musings of battle, she moved to the swords and selected a practice sword from the rack. Blunt, heavy, wooden; meant to train young soldiers how to handle a real blade. She gave it a swing, then another, and then she was in her stance, going through her forms. Lunge, retreat, slash, lunge. Again. Again. Faster. Again. Slower. The flicker of a smile as her muscles remembered the motions. This was not new. Again and again she slashed and swung, ducked and retreated.
She remembered what it felt like to be in battle. She remembered the feeling of holding her sword, the terror at seeing the first enemy rush towards her. She heard the screams of the horses. The shouts of soldiers. The weird screeching of the orcs. She remembered, but she didn’t feel. Wielding the practice sword, knowing every inch of it as if it was her own arm, Éowyn felt nothing. The realization startled her and she froze mid-lunge.
Her breathing came faster, and it wasn’t from her exercises. She put the sword back in its place on the rack. Hands trembling, she missed the notch the sword sat in and it fell clattering to the ground. A thought rushed at her as she knelt to pick it up: You don’t even care about the sword, the very thing that saved your life that day. The only reason you have any honour.
Éowyn drew back, leaving the sword on the ground. What is happening? Her chest rose and fell rapidly; was it true? It must be. She felt small; trapped. She didn’t want to be inside, she wanted…what? She felt as if she stood in a strange place with no map or guide. She didn’t know what to feel, or what she wanted. Except this numbness. Anything but this. The familiar room looked threatening, and Éowyn focused on the rectangle of blue sky framed in the armoury doors. Outside. Life is better outside. There are horses and journeys and battles outside. She rushed through the doors as fast as her noble grace would allow.
She kept climbing, ascending the hill above the palace, Meduseld. If I go high enough I can jump into the blue. I will be safe. Finally, at the top, she stopped. Wind whirled around her and she sucked in deep breaths of cool mountain air. Her calves ached at the strain of the quick uphill sprint. She caught her breath, trying to control each gasp, as she looked across the plains.
In the distance, the great mountains. They slid into patches of forest and toppled into low hills that broke at the edge of green plains. She raked in her gaze, crossing the distant fields scattered with black villages to the ringed wall that surrounded Edoras, the capital city, her home. Her exhaustion faded, and in its place, emptiness. Nothing. I still feel nothing. She didn’t know how to react to that.
A loud clamour grabbed her attention and she turned her head to the gates. There were horses. A small group, eight men in all. She recognized her brother, Éomer, in his king’s armour at the front of the party. He shouted something and the men boomed back a laughing response. Then Éomer turned his horse and they rushed out of the gates, armour glittering in the sun, the banner of Rohan flying over the group.
Éowyn felt as if she were being pulled back in time. Watching not Éomer but Aragorn ride away, rejecting her plea to ride with his company to battle. He left her kneeling in the dust at her own gate. Her stomach seized, but nothing came up. Instead, she saw more memories. Flashes of other horses parading through those gates. Her father, her brother, her cousin, her uncle, all of them riding away from her. More often than not, they didn’t come home. When they did, it was with great tales and a hero’s welcome. The thought made her eyebrows furrow.
Those were the days when she prepared food and board for the soldiers. When she listened, envious of their tales as they bragged about what they’d seen, reenacting proud moments of their fights. They always hailed her at the celebrations, thanking her for providing bed and food. They retreated into the palace to sleep, to snore, to dirty her halls, to leave their mess and dirty bedding for her to clean up. And then they disappeared. Leaving her behind.
Oh, she had renown. She was the only daughter of her mother Théodwyn and King Théoden’s only niece. Meduseld’s success depended on her sharp eye for leadership and strategy. When she held the reins, the palace ran like the finest racehorse, sleek and dependable. But she didn’t want to be a steward of the palace. She longed to fight. She did fight. Afterwards, in the Houses of Healing, she thought she’d made her peace with her past life. She thought it was over. Why were these thoughts still tormenting her?
It was too much. The open sky suddenly seemed too vast. Éowyn turned and ran for the shelter of the palace. She passed the old horse-head fountain, the gilded doors, the carved pillars at the entrance. Her vision dimmed as her eyes adjusted to the shadows of the great hall. That was when she realized she made a mistake. Inside was worse. Everywhere she looked she saw sour memories, moments in time she had not thought about in months suddenly rushing to swell the void she thought was filled. Glimpses of Wormtongue slipping behind a pillar, his beady eyes following her as she left the hall. Touches that were nothing but gentle and everything but innocent. She heard the words he whispered when he found her, so cold, so alone, so stern, and he always seemed to find her. She saw her uncle as the spindly creature he’d become under Saruman’s power, mumbling through the halls, lost and undirected. She’d coax him back to his room and tell his servants to keep him safe. She suspected Wormtongue managed to lose him in the palace halls. She could never prove it.
She hurried past a heavy wooden door, locked now, but she remembered the awful night spent inside that dark chamber. Watching the life leave her cousin’s body as she held his hand. Screaming into her cloak when she could do nothing to avenge his death. Loathing her brother as Éomer hacked down swarms of orcs in revenge. She saw his transformation, the ease that softened his face after that. She desperately wanted that same ease, and she knew she would never get it while she was trapped in the palace.
Éowyn turned down a familiar hallway. She knew every grain of wood here, and slammed the door behind her. Her room. Not even Wormtongue could reach her here; he wouldn’t dare. It was her safe place.
But it isn’t, is it? Everywhere she looked, she remembered. Alone at night, staring dully at the ceiling or the stars outside the window, waiting for dawn. Crying in the moments when it was all too much. The mirror with the crack in it. She’d told the servants she’d dropped it. She hid the gash across her four right knuckles in her long sleeves and no one ever thought anything might be amiss. In fact, she could count on there never being anyone.
There’s never anyone. Just me and this numbing. Nothing. Nothing. The same nothing she thought she’d destroyed in the Houses of Healing. It had come back for her. She was still trapped in this grim palace, watching her brother ride away while she stayed behind presiding over meetings that anyone with a grain of sense could lead. Was it all for nothing? Minas Tirith, the battle of Pelennor fields, her young hobbit friend (he’d left her too), her time in the Houses of Healing? Her lover; would he return? He wasn’t here, was he? No, he’d ridden off, back to Gondor, leaving her behind. Alone. Always alone.
Éowyn’s head jerked to the side as if she’d been slapped, as if that would shake the horrible thoughts out of her head. She felt the pricks of tears in her eyes and she hated them because there was no feeling behind them. There was no emotion; it was just a bodily response. She felt as if she’d been scooped out of her body, left like a corpse on the field for the hawks to pick at. She felt weak.
She refused to cry. Instead, she blinked the pricks away and reached for a cloth on her nightstand. Instead, her fingers brushed paper. Her hand clenched and she blinked. Then Éowyn picked it up, carefully. It was a note. The paper felt crisp and grainy. She unfolded it. There were three creases, evenly spaced, across the length of the page. The paper was filled with lines, even and consistent, hardly any difference in the spacing of words or the size of letters. The script was elegant, clearly practiced.
‘Éowyn, my love,’ it began.
Faramir wrote this. He’d given it to her the morning he left, after they’d spent their last night together until the wedding. Here was physical proof that he was real. He existed. He had been in her room.
The simplest of conclusions, but with it she began to retrace her memories. The letter on the nightstand. She set it down and glanced at the mirror; underneath it lay two cloths. She hadn’t yet washed the one he’d used. Next to the door, her chest; that was where he’d set his travel bag. Éowyn gripped the sheets, twisting them around her knuckles. The sheets. He’d been under them with her, a night she never thought she’d have.
She jumped off the bed as if it burned her. Her room looked different, somehow. Felt different. It felt occupied. What else? There was something else. She made for the chest, kneeling and opening it. There, on top. The blue cloak. She pulled it to her face; it smelled of him. There was another scent, something musty that she couldn’t name but it reminded her of the city of Minas Tirith. His city. His mother’s cloak. He’d given it to her the day they thought they might die together. They didn’t die. Instead, she’d accepted his hand in marriage. Faramir brought it with him when he came to Rohan for the leaving of the great guests. She hadn’t expected it. It brought her joy. Standing, Éowyn shook the cloak out and wrapped it around her. Fastened it in front, smoothed it over her dress. She wanted to smile. But the numbness lingering in her chest didn’t allow it. Something is changing. What, she didn’t know, but she knew she needed to find out.
Éowyn left her room, the cloak rippling around her, a warm and calming presence. She moved through the gloomy passages, back towards the great hall. Her hands clenched and her stomach heaved with fear, the halls still whispering their tainted memories in her mind, but she strode forward anyway. As she approached the open doors she saw Hama, the loyal swordsman and guard to her family. “My Lady of the Shield-Arm,” he greeted in his deep voice, thick with Rohirric accent. “Hama,” she returned as they passed. His greeting stuck in her mind. Lady of the Shield-Arm, yes, that’s what they called her, wasn’t it? She’d heard it before, but never been directly addressed by it. Lady of the Shield-Arm. Something sparked in her chest. It was almost a feeling, but not quite. She wanted more of it. Éowyn walked back up the hill overlooking the plains as she had done so many times.
The wind was at her back, blowing the cloak around her shoulders and ankles. I raised my shield and sword against the Witch King and defeated him. I avenged my king. I am a shield-maiden of Rohan. I am the Lady of the Shield-Arm. The deep blue fabric soaked in the sunlight and she realized it was the only blue she could see. Everywhere she looked she saw green and grey and gold. No blue. Just the sky, and herself. Éowyn stood tall. Anyone in the city could look up and see her. Would they see her failures? Her pain? Let them. Let them see that I wear blue instead of green. More of that not-a-feeling. I am going to marry a lord of Gondor because I love him. I chose him. I fought in the great battle and lived. More. I defeated the Witch King. More. I lead Rohan and helped my brother secure the throne. More. I survived.
It was as if the solid numbness inside her broke and feeling came rushing back in. Wave after wave. She felt proud of her accomplishments. She felt exhausted after a long day of meetings. She felt sadness at the loss of her uncle and cousin. She missed Merry, and most of all, she missed Faramir. That was a new feeling, a longing she was unfamiliar with. She didn’t know where it fit inside of her yet. She soothed it with a thought of her own: I will see him soon. Then, as powerfully as the feelings came, she felt them wither and die.
Éowyn’s breathing came rushed, raggedly slowing to a steady pace. She thought she’d left the numbness in the Houses of Healing. She didn’t know she’d brought it back with her. Of course it’s still here. It’s been here all my life; why would it disappear now? Yes, it was still here. It took away her pleasure at sword practice. It reminded her of the evil in the great hall. It told her that her bedroom was a prison. These things were true. But they are not true today.
Today she lead her nobles through discussions that would bring prosperity to Rohan’s war-damaged economy. Today she sent Éomer on a mission to bring their struggling citizens to Edoras, where she would make sure they were cared for. She was not stuck here. She was here for a few more months, and then she would go to grow a garden in Ithilien with the love of her life.
It felt as if the numbness shrunk in her mind. It was still there. But it was smaller, now. And in the space it no longer filled Éowyn felt the growth of new pathways, new thoughts. The possibility of a future seemed available to her. It felt real. She felt alive. She knew the numbing pain would return. Even in Ithilien. Even with Faramir. Even when she was alone. Éowyn smiled to the blue sky. It would come for her, yes, but she realized something had changed. She wasn’t afraid of it now.