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The doors of the Golden Hall burst open with an echoing creak, bringing a flurry of snowflakes into the first few meters of the quiet warmth inside. Among the icy crystals ushered in by the wind are Lothíriel, the new queen of Rohan, and Meriadoc Brandybuck. With each hurried step, the snow piled up on their shoes and coats splashes to the ground. Neither of the two slows down until the large doors are shut again banning the cold, stinging air outside, alongside the shouts and laughter of men.
Merry, satisfied, shakes himself in the fashion of a wet poodle, provoking Lothíriel to cry out in dismay “Oh, what is it with all this snow, ice? What is this cruel cold? What’s the whole point of this dreadful thing called winter?”
Merry just grins and points at the snow shaken from his coat and hair, momentarily resting on the large brown stone tiles, which now - in his opinion - resemble: “Gingerbread cookies! With dough dark from rye flour and molasses. And of course, covered with specks of icing sugar! Do you have cookies?”
But Lothíriel ignores him, not stopping until she reaches the hearth in the middle of the great hall, where she hurriedly peels off her wet gloves, coat and shoes. As her hands reach towards the warmth, her body attempts to shed off the clammy numbness with a dignified shudder. The hobbit joins her just moments later, shoulders hunched forward until he shrugs off his own mantle. He still somewhat resembles a wet dog, an annoyingly happy wet dog grinning from ear to ear.
“Well, cookies or not, I think it’s beautiful. The snow is perfect for moulding and rolling,” he holds up a snowball, he apparently decided to bring into the warm hall, “that is, until a royal Rohirric charge of it hits you in the face.”
Grimacing he puts it to his left eye, where his skin is bright red, a bluish tint already manifesting.
“Should you not be the last person to be surprised by my lord Éomer’s throwing skills?” Lothíriel scoffs as if bored by the obvious, “Have you not sung about your joint fight on the Pellenor - the one song for which you specifically composed a line about witnessing his legendary spear throw that felled Mûmakil Mahûd?”
But looking at Merry who has plopped himself on the floor right between the little wood stack and the fire, she cannot help but laugh. “Oh, I wish Éowyn was here. I am sure she would have an ointment or balm to at least relieve your pain.” She gazes at the hall, seeming even bigger now that it is empty, “Valar, it is hard for me to believe that every person, lord and servant, of this great house that I shall now call mine, has run off to play in the snow.”
Merry, however, snowball still in one hand, and feeding the fire with the other, grins once more. “Oh, please do not worry yourself, my lady, I have sustained and weathered this kind of injury many times. Every soldier has to meet a worthy opponent they cannot conquer at some point in their life - it helps to keep vanity and ambition in check.”
“Well spoken, Master Holbytla, though I have yet to meet one of your kind who is threatened by an overgrowth of either of these.”
“You should take a closer look once Pippin walks through these doors then,” Merry shoots back, all mischievous and smug. “But who would’ve thought that you remembered my title in Rohan!”
“Oh, of course!” Lothíriel pouts until a grin breaks through, “I pride myself in being a dedicated student of the customs and language of Éorl’s line. I am to be one of them after all.”
In the quiet of the hall Merry regards the snowball, which is melting at an alarming rate. Just like the warmth of the crackling fire drives the clammy cold out of his fingers and feet, he can feel a blanket of tiredness unfolding, slowly settling itself over his body.
Lothíriel critically examines one of her jet black curls, the usually smooth spirals frizzing next to the heat of the fire. She sighs, pulling Merry's attention away from studying the pattern which the water dripping from his snowball has painted between his feet.
The hobbit looks at her pretty face, scrunched up in a critical pout. “But my lady, you in turn cannot be truly surprised by the winter and this weather? The maps were indicating that you were moving northwards, after all.”
He decides to throw the remaining snow into the fire, where it vanishes with a loud hiss, just as Lothíriel turns from the fire towards him in protest.
“Oh, on the contrary! Éomer was telling me I was moving to a dry land, full of meadows and heath, where you can enjoy a gallop through the sea of grass, alongside herds of horses, instead of sailing on the ocean. Which is a lovely thing to do, please do not misunderstand me, but I am a daughter of the coast, and without a swim in the waves of the ocean, I have found this year’s summer dreadfully dry. And now, behold, it seems the water does not visit this corner of Middle Earth save in its most unlovable form that is ice and snow.” She turns around to pull up one of the sheepskin-covered chairs.
“Maybe you have just not yet been introduced to an activity that would make this wintery condition enjoyable for you. Like making or eating cookies. Or, say, has Éomer not yet brought you along on a sleigh ride?”
Lothíriel sighs dramatically, sinking down on the chair and wrapping one of the many sheepskins around her shoulders. “No, he has not. And having observed him over the last few days, I am willing to bet that he would dangle off the sleigh at any moment just to grab some snow and start a snowball fight, probably with the coachmen or guards if ‘need be’ meaning, if no one else was around.” She cannot help but giggle about the idea.
“Don’t you think a sleigh ride is as close as you can get to a boat ride in Rohan?” Merry suggests, prompting Lothíriel to throw the other sheepskin at his head.
“Pff, spoken like a true landlubber, who has never felt the sway of a boat under his feet!”
“But I am not!” Merry exclaims, “I am a Brandybuck after all, and know how to row and steer a boat, and swim, too!”
The young queen sits up “You do?! Then you must join me when I visit my family - alas I do not yet know when that will be, or if anyone will come along at all! We could swim in the sea - if you don't mind a bit of sand in your cloak and shoes…”
“Certainly not, I mean, which shoes?” Merry wriggles his hairy toes.
Lothíriel giggles, raising her finger “And should you challenge Éomer to do a race, be it swimming or sailing, surely he will meet a worthy opponent whom he cannot conquer, which in turn will help to prevent any growth of vanity.” Merry chuckles seeing Lothíriel's enthusiasm.
As if preparing herself to impart on her journey seawards, Lothíriel secures her hair in a bun “I would love to run down to the beach again, listening to the endless rolling of the waves, their sound like a promise of eternity. Whenever there was no one to oversee me going swimming, I used to search for seashells, fossils, conches-” Lothíriel reaches up to the golden hoops in her ears, a green-blue spotted conch shell dangling from each. “Did you ever hold one to your ear? To listen to the sea?”
Merry blinks once, twice, thrice, “Frankly, dear Lothíriel, that sounds like one of Striders tricks where he flings himself earthwards to assess what the alleged drums, pounding and silences of the ground have to tell him about all the creatures roaming in or on top of it. All while Legolas could spot and count any company or enemy from a distance that - to a hobbit eye - seems to reach beyond the horizon. Though admittedly we hobbits do have to step onto a box just to be able to look beyond a short growing cornfield.”
Lothíriel giggles “Maybe you should elevate your experience by looking at the world from a horse. But he really did so, the King Elessar? Maybe that's why he was always so dirty, as my Lord Éomer has told me. But no, I meant -”, she twists the little conch shells towards her pinna, “if you cover the opening of your ear with the opening of a larger shell, you will hear a rush not unlike that of the ocean waves. It will not give you any signal about the happenings in the ocean but to me it is like an echo that I can return to even when I cannot return to the ocean itself.”
“I am not sure if this would be an elven torture device or their equivalent to strong pipe weed.”
“Maybe we should invite your friend Legolas to find out. Just imagine he and I will laugh and cry together while passing a conch shell between us. I am sure the court of Rohan would find it amusing. I bet they would be equally amused if I introduced them to seahorses.”
“Sea - what?”
“Seahorses. They are small little fish - though they swim upright and instead of fins they have long horse-like necks.”
Seeing Merry Merry blink once again, Lothíriel delicately reaches for one of the small pieces of coal at the edge of the hearth and begins to draw on the tiles.
“Look, Merry. A Seahorse has a bulbous belly, but both their tail and neck are long and pointy; in fact, not only their necks but also their snouts looks not unlike the one of Rohan's white stallion,” she points towards the banners hanging from the large wooden beams of the ceiling before equipping the head of her seahorse with two little ears.
Merry peers closer to identify the dark markings on the similarly dark tiles. “So, they are shaped much like the letter S?”
Lothíriel nods, “Indeed. Even so, when I was younger, I used to draw a little seahorse instead of writing the first letter of my name in cursive.” She adds the remaining letters of her name behind her drawing before continuing in a quiet voice. “At the same age, I used to be terribly afraid of growing up and marriage and having children, because child births are complicated, dangerous events as often as they are joyous ones. But for seahorses, it is the males who bear and birth the children, so I often imagined myself being one. They used to be my favourites; in fact, they still are.”
Merry cocks his head “How do you know all this? I only ever gathered so much knowledge about those animals that Gandalf told us about, even though our parents always warned us that we could never be sure if he was making up a third of the creatures.”
“I wish I had had a wizard to aid me on my quests for information instead of my dear aunt Ivriniel trying to stop me from running down to the harbour,” Lothíriel says, “there I gathered everything I know by asking traders, sailors, captains. Especially the ones who observed the different kinds of seahorses and tracked where they appeared. I even started drawing them myself whenever I found them on the beach, though I never had much time to do so, since they cannot survive outside the water for long. Actually,” she notes, adding lines that form skewed squares onto the drawing of the seahorse, “they do also have rings around them that look a bit like the scales of human armour.”
“Your dedication to seahorses really parallels the Rohirric dedication to… their kind of horse,” Merry observes.
“I guess it really does.” Lothíriel concludes. She throws the piece of coal back into the fire and rubs her fingers carefully across the sheepskin to get rid of the dust. “I brought all the drawings of them with me. They hang in my room, not unlike the horse that hangs here.” She gestures towards the banners.
“Well if you have acquired their passion for their horses, wouldn't it be fair if the representatives of Rohan at least familiarise themselves with your seahorses?” Merry asks.
“Well sure, but…” Lothíriel's voice trails off leaving her sentence unfinished. The furrow that manifests itself on her otherwise perfectly smooth forehead is so deep that Merry briefly wonders if frowning is practised as part of Rohan's royal etiquette or if Éomer simply transferred his magnificent frown to Lothíriel by proximity.
The hobbit’s eyes shoot back and forth between the banners hanging from the ceiling and Lothíriel’s charcoal seahorse, while her eyes remain fixed in the middle distance, seemingly lost in the fire. When Lothíriel remains silent, Merry bends over to examine the drawing once more, muttering to himself, “Head like a horse, pointy ends, bulbous trunk, like my uncle… and say, my lady, a pattern stretched across the body like armour?”
“Yes, just so,” Lothíriel looks up, “and shaped like a capital ‘S’ or ‘L’,” she adds, drawing the shape into the air once more.
Merry pushes himself to his feet, stretching head to toe, before bowing, “Well, my lady, your company has been a delightful escape from the icy winter outside. Now however, the kitchen is calling me for… a… mission. So long!”
“What mission? Why?” Lothíriel is evidently confused.
“Oh, I am a hobbit. We always have a mission in the kitchen!” Merry says, donning his coat.
“Will you make a quick detour to the courtyard outside and let Lord Éomer know that his wife and queen is waiting for him?” Lothíriel asks, “Perhaps the promise of a hot bath will be enough to get my lord and his éored inside.”
Merry grimaces “I can certainly try, though I fear I may be greeted with a cold snow shower in response. But thank you again for this conversation, my lady Lothíriel. See you tomorrow, at the latest!” And with that, the hobbit turns on his heels and marches towards the doors of the Golden Hall, rehearsing for himself “Shaped like an ‘S’, pointy ends but bulbous trunk, like my uncle, ears like a horse, pattern like armour. Shaped like an ‘S’, pointy ends, bulbous trunk…”
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When King Éomer of Rohan wakes up, he feels a strong tingle in his nose. He rolls over and sneezes. Oh no, he thinks before sneezing again.
“Eeww,’ next to him, Lothíriel, apparently having been awake before, draws her small leather-bound booklet up over her nose. Éomer opens his mouth to say good morning but out comes just another sneeze. He fishes for a handkerchief on his nightstand and noisily blows his nose.
The pretence scowl Lothíriel is trying to conjure on her face cannot quite hide her triumphant grin, “I did say yesterday that all this winter and snow will not lead to anything good. I even heard that Master Regolweard regrets allowing the whole household to tumble recklessly through the snow after slipping and breaking his arm!”
“Aye no, it's not that bad. Not for me,” Éomer disagrees, smiling widely, the hoarseness and nasality of his voice, however, disagreeing with his statement.
He suppresses another sneeze and rolls over to take Lothíriel into his arms, but she tries to escape, hiding her head under the quilt, giggling. “Oh no my lord, you will not pass on the cold consequences of your snowball fight yesterday. These consequences are thine own to bear.”
Yet she giggles even more when he attempts to weaken her defence with a tickle. “I am familiarizing myself”, the leather-bound booklet emerges from under the quilt as Lothíriel tries to accompany each of her words with a hit onto her husband’s arm, “with the old and cherished battle customs of Rohan and I am declaring this tickling to be an improper form of combat!” She squeals and gasps for air as Éomer finally succeeds to wrap his arms around her and plant a kiss on her forehead.
“If my lady insists…”, but before he can finish his sentence, he is overcome by another sneeze and there is a knock at the door. Éomer’s forehead knits into his characteristic frown as he looks at his wife, who merely shrugs.
“How late is it, love?”, he asks.
Lothíriel gently runs her index finger over the crease in his forehead, “Certainly not early.” Éomer groans and pulls the blanket up over both of them, all the way up to his chin, his blue eyes searching Lothíriel’s brown ones.
She laughs again, “Oh do not implore me to reverse the hours of your morning slumber. I am sure outside Master Regolweard is merely fulfilling his duty by summoning us to appear punctually at today’s celebratory yule breakfast. Especially so, since we are entertaining guests not only from the Westfold, but also from the Shire.” There is a singsong in her voice indicating that she is not too concerned for these formalities herself. She gives Éomer a quick kiss and steps out of bed. “Besides, I am looking forward to discovering whatever this yule tradition is. There has to be something about this whole cold and dark winter season that is enjoyable for me. I will have a bath.” She blows him a kiss, before slipping into her dressing gown and through the small door.
Left alone in bed, Éomer cannot prevent another sneeze. “Just a minute,” he shouts, trying to don his formal costume as quickly as possible before stumbling to the larger main door.
Instead of face to face with Master Regolweard, however, Éomer finds himself bellybutton to face with “Merry!”. Under his swollen left eye, shimmering in various shades of lilac and blue, the hobbit is sporting his usual grin.
“Good morning, your Grace. I know you have planned a magnificent second breakfast in honour of your guests and kingdom and such. However, any hobbit knows that just one breakfast does not suffice, thus I have prepared a first breakfast just for you and Queen Lothíriel.” Merry hands the frowning Éomer a small leather bundle, “in fact, you might consider the attached delicacies as a suggestion for a momentarily renewal of your coat of arms, also in honour of your lady wife, Queen Lothíriel.” He bows briefly and puts on his gloves before turning around.
“I don’t understand,” Éomer meekly holds up the small bag, but the hobbit is already marching off, “Merry, wait!”
“No, I must be excused for I have unfinished snow business! But it’s a hobbit riddle,” Merry shouts over his shoulder grinning and adjusting the woollen scarf around his neck, “About what you love and what you have in common and which things not. And about animals,” he adds before disappearing around a corner.
Back in his chamber, Éomer sits down at the small desk, fumbling to untie the knots that hold the leather bundle together. It opens to reveal a marvellous velvet lining in the same shade of green as the banner of Rohan that is covering the desk. Deciding not to worry about where the hobbit might have acquired, lent or stolen the bag, Éomer instead regards the oddly shaped gingerbreads that it seems to contain. The fragrance of cinnamon, ginger, cloves and cardamom is tempting despite his blocked nose. He holds one cookie up in front of his eyes, wondering if he would have suspected that someone - Saruman in particular – was trying to poison him, had anyone dropped unidentified “S”-shaped cookies outside his bedroom a few years ago. But Saruman is no longer a threat, he thinks, and “S” was never anyone’s emblem. Emblem. Why would I put any such odd shape onto Rohan’s coat of arms? Since he can make sense neither of its bulbous form stretching into two pointy ends, nor of the rectangular pattern of icing that is adorning the cookie, he starts to turn it, trying to figure out if the shape is to represent some kind of throwing weapon, Rohirric or from Dol Amroth – perhaps something beloved by Lothíriel, or her brothers, but unknown to him. But what else was it supposed to be about? Animals? The scent of warm spices turns out to be too tempting, so he takes a bite, leaning back, closing his eyes and remembering that gingerbread is possibly the best part of winter, even in comparison to snow.
When Lothíriel returns to their chamber moments later, dressed and hair braided, Éomer is already munching a second cookie. Lothíriel takes a deep breath and sighs, “Mmmh. What is this? It smells so good – cinnamon, cardamom – almost like home,” she says, hanging up her dressing gown.
“Gingerbread,” Éomer says, offering her one, “delicious, but also posing a riddle. And a suggestion for a new coat of arms. Merry sent them.”
“A riddle? From Merry?” Lothíriel asks but taking a proper look at the cookie in her hand, she starts to giggle.
“But none of it makes sense!” Éomer despairs, waving two gingerbreads in front of her. Lothíriel, still chuckling, places the bundle on one side of the desk, takes out a few cookies and then arranges them on the banner of Rohan, that is serving as a tablecloth, so that they cover the white stallion running in its middle. Éomer regards her in confusion.
“My love, what…?’ Éomer takes her hand in search of an answer.
Lothíriel grins and bites the pointy end off a cookie before running her index finger along the furrow that once again is splitting her husband’s forehead into two, causing him to repress another sneeze. “What is your favourite animal? And what is my favourite region, or where am I from?” she asks.
“Horses!” Éomer blurts out before she can even finish the second question. Then he looks at her before his gaze falls on a sketch of seahorses hanging on one side of the desk. His mouth forms an “Oh... A seahorse.”
He drops both cookies he is holding to take her into his arms, "I hope you are not so weary of Rohan and its horses that you would like to separate and establish yourself with a new coat of arms…?"
Lothíriel snuggles up to him, "No, although if I had to represent myself with just symbols and colours, I would by now probably choose the white seahorse on green ground," she says and Éomer takes the expansive smile stretching across her face as an expression not of greed but her commitment to their joint life, friends and passions encompassing countries, places and landscapes far apart and unlike the other.
"Since you have acquainted yourself with our horses and habits, I suppose it would only be fair, if I come along to look at your seahorses." He drops a kiss on top of her head.
"That is indeed what Merry said," Lothíriel lifts her head from Éomer’s chest to answer his kiss, "Will you still journey to Dol Amroth with me, even if I have asked him to come along?” she asks.
“Hmmm,” the king hesitates, presenting his most dramatic frown, “I suppose. If you present and argue the case for the increased expenses in front of the council.”
In return Lothíriel rolls her eyes, stealing another kiss and then another cookie. “Only if you reward me in gingerbread.”
Éomer chuckles before his queen takes his hand and they walk through the door, towards the festivities and their second breakfast.