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The éored had returned, and Éomer was with Firefoot in the wash stall, bucket and sponge in hand, squeezing cool water over the steed’s foam-flecked flanks. He always cared for Firefoot himself when he returned – pulling off his tack, brushing the dust from his hide, and after an especially hard ride, bathing him to wash away the heat.
“Good man, Firefoot, good man,” Éomer repeated, running the sponge down the steed’s dappled sides.
In the warm, hay-heavy air, Firefoot’s hide was slick where the sponge had been. He grunted, his ears sedate and hanging low on either side.
“We got many orcs, didn’t we?” Éomer mused. “Yes, we did. Though let’s not think on it anymore. Let’s just wash it all away.”
Firefoot nickered, lowering his head with his eyelids drooping.
The steed was tired, of course, and had a right to be. They were gone for over a week, and neither had slept in the last two days, having fought and ridden through the nights. Now that he was back, Éomer had half a mind to sleep even here, in Firefoot’s proper stall when the bath was done. It would not be so bad to use the straw for a pillow, and the sap-sweating walls were warm and close in a way he craved.
“Westu hál, brother!”
Ah, but no. Just as he bathed Firefoot every time he returned, he had a habit of seeking out two women he cared for – though this time, one of them found him first.
Éomer turned, rolling his shoulders to coax the blood back into his head.
“Westu hál, demon!”
Éowyn’s freckle-kissed face peered from around the pillar that marked the division between stalls. Then the rest of her appeared: slender, sure-footed, and with shoulders chiseled like a mountainside under her jerkin.
He pulled her into his arms and clasped her tight, clapping her on the back so hard he might have broken a shoulder blade.
“Alive!” she exclaimed. “You’re alive, you big lout! Oh, Béma take you, coming back two days late! Someone thought you fell and I half believed it!”
“I know. I know.” Éomer grinned. “Many wish to be rid of me, but it is not so easy. Old woman death will have to try a lot harder.”
He clicked the side of his mouth and pulled back to gaze at her. Éowyn’s brow grew dark.
“Ever with your jesting, brother, ever with your jesting,” she chided. “But you shouldn’t jest like that. You shouldn’t tempt her.”
Éomer smirked and released her.
“Fair enough. But in times like this, what can one do but jest?”
“I suppose nothing. But still, I do not like it. Maybe you can think of it so lightly, facing it as often as you do, but I cannot. Maybe it’s all the doing-nothing that we do around here. Sitting around like fish in a barrel. Makes you think about things in another way.”
Éomer turned back to Firefoot, taking up the sponge and bucket again.
“I am the sword, though,” he said, “and you are the shield. There is a reason they have the word shield in the word Shieldmaiden. You do not do nothing.”
He ran the sponge over the gray-flecked sides, leaving a glistening trail.
Éowyn put a finger to her lips.
“Well, I suppose. But still, it’s boring without you.”
“Well, we can spar together after I’ve had a nap. But really, do you think it so boring, even with your training and your new friend?”
“No, my training I like. And Hafrith is good and kind and patient and without reproach. But she will not spar with me – though if she did, I expect that’s another thing she would be better at than I.”
She curled her lip, her ice-blue eyes appraising Firefoot’s mane, spongy and wind-tousled.
“You two really ought to have stayed betrothed, though,” she added. “Then maybe old Godswith would have left me in peace, for there would be another candidate for Lady of the Hall, with dear Elfgifu passed on. (1) Instead, I am still saddled with all the official duties.”
Éomer finished sponging down Firefoot and strode slowly to the grooming purse on the wall.
“Well, Hafrith did not want me,” he said. He took out a long, curved instrument and began scraping, keeping his eyes on the tool as it wrested cupfuls of water from Firefoot’s flanks. “And if you think we ought to wed for your benefit, then my sister is even more selfish than I thought.”
He stopped mid-scrape, hanging his head and pursing his lips, for there was never any way to avoid this conversation. A moment later, he turned and met his sister’s eyes, which looked just as glib as he imagined. “Indeed,” he said, “how is Hafrith? I was just going to go and seek her out, after finishing up here.”
“Why?” Éowyn giggled. “To get re-betrothed?”
“Come off it, you.” He swatted at her, and she made a show of dodging, giggling still.
“And yet…” She paused, her features growing still, “if you wish to seek her hand again, perhaps now is as good a chance as any – though a spear’s throw in the dark it is likely to be. You haven’t heard what happened yet, but you will. Perhaps it’s better if Hafrith told you…”
“Why, what happened?” Éomer stopped with the sweat scraper halfway down the horse’s flank.
His voice was more tense than he intended, and Firefoot raised his ears.
Éowyn lowered her eyes and pressed a finger to her lips.
“Well, like I said,” she replied, “it isn’t mine to tell. At least, I doubt I can do it justice. But I do think you ought to go to her, once you’re all finished here. I can show you where she’s been hiding.”
Once Firefoot was scraped of sweat, comfortably stabled in his stall and chewing on feed with extra oats, Éowyn led Éomer to the farthest stall in the stables.
She paused at the door, peering between the slats.
“Yes, still there. She hasn’t come out all morning.”
Éomer furrowed his brow and nodded at his sister.
“Thank you, demon. You should leave us, though. I will find you in the training hall when I’m done.”
Éowyn left, walking away with her head tilted back, swiveling back and forth to gaze at the horsehead carvings.
Éomer slid aside the door, and inside, next to the large bay mare who occupied the stall, he saw a huddling figure. She sat on a mound of hay with her knees pulled up to her chest, and she was crying.
Éomer’s chest gave a wince, as if a knife was stuck and twisted between his ribs.
Now that they were no longer betrothed, things were easier between them. She was a sweet, amiable girl – though very frightened when she first came to Meduseld. He wanted the best for her from the moment he first saw her, but it was more natural now, without the fate of the realm coloring their every act.
“Hafrith?”
He stepped over the threshold.
Her only answer was a whimper. He came toward her and lowered himself to his haunches.
“Hafrith? Dear?”
It was alright to call her dear, was it not? Why should it not be? They were friends. Now that she loved another, a good man whom he esteemed as well, that dearness was honest and pleasant.
He extended a hand and she looked up, scrambling to sit up straight.
“My – my lord,” she hiccupped, dabbing her face with the back of her hand. “Wel – welcome back…”
She made as if to rise, but he waved her down.
“No, no, don’t get up.”
She obeyed, her face soft-featured and blotchy in the slatted light.
The mare rotated her ears, fluttering her tail.
“I heard that you’ve been feeling poorly?” Éomer shifted gently toward her. “What is amiss, will you not tell me? Is there aught I can do?”
Hafrith shook her head. She was round-faced and rounder in build than Éowyn, and she wore a long linen dress, quite practical for hiding in stables.
“No, no, my lord,” she said. “I thank you, but there is nothing anyone can do…”
She pressed her hands over her cheeks, blinking her eyes.
Éomer furrowed his brow and shifted closer yet, settling on the hay beside her.
“Now, Hafrith,” he said, “I doubt there is nothing anyone can do. But even if it were so, will you not tell me? A load is always lighter if there are two to carry it.”
The round-faced girl looked up, and in the light through the bars, her eyes were green as a field in summer.
“No, no,” she repeated, and it was clear that she was holding her breath. “There is nothing anyone can do. None can help me carry my load. It is all done now.”
She shook her head, and Éomer stayed silent, watching her from beneath tented brows.
She released a shivering breath and averted her eyes.
“I am to go home to the Eastemnet in five days’ time. My father said so.”
“Go home?!”
Éomer’s cry was loud enough to raise a whinny in the next stall, and the mare in theirs flicked her tail, like a cat swatting.
“Yes, home…” Hafrith squinted, her face twisting to avert a sob. She took a shaking breath. “Elfred – Elfred and I begged His Majesty to let us wed, to make an exception, but it was useless. My father would not budge, and your uncle needs my father’s forces in the east, though he will not say it. And in the end the law is the law. I cannot marry without my parents’ consent til I am twenty, and he cannot change it without his Council’s backing, though he is the King. That’s what he said – and now… now…” (2)
She spoke very fast, as if trying to outrun something, but her sobs waylaid her.
She covered her face, wheezing and seeming to choke on her own breath.
“And now, and now,” she gasped, “now I must go… and – and they’ve sent Elfred away to the Fords of Isen, and, and…”
Her words turned into a plaintive wail, and Éomer jumped to his feet, clenching his hands at his sides.
“They what?!”
Hafrith pressed her leaflike hands over her face. Éomer started to pace the stall.
“No… no!” he cried. “This wasn’t meant to happen! They cannot do that! Why – I –”
Hafrith sobbed, and the hay crunched under his feet, the mare following his movements with reproachful eyes.
“No, no!” he repeated, running his fingers over his forehead and cheeks. “No, I’ll go and talk to my uncle – I’ll make him see sense… He cannot – he must not…”
The girl made no answer. She sobbed and sobbed, curling back into a ball with her knees against her chest.
Éomer finally stopped and regarded her. She looked like a basket of cloth someone had abandoned.
His breath quivered and his shoulders grew weak. Lowering himself to his knees, he tried to catch her eyes.
“No… No, Hafrith,” he whispered. “We’ll do something… We have to.”
He crept forward on his knees, and when she finally lifted her face, he clasped her hands.
“No… No,” he cried. “We’ll bring him back… We’ll keep you here… It can be done… Hafrith…”
The girl sniffed and looked at their hands, his thumbs caressing hers.
He had never truly wanted to wed her, in his heart of hearts. Though she was old enough to wed with her parents’ permission, she always felt too young, which was why he had insisted on a long engagement. But in the end, he only ever saw her as another sister, to succor and protect.
She wrinkled her nose, tensing her cheeks against another sob.
“No, no… Hafrith,” he whispered, unclasping one of her hands and wiping a tear from her face. “It will be well. Something will come through, I am certain. Time will pass quickly and in due course you will be twenty, and then you will be free. Indeed, do you have to go? Even if we do not wed, why not stay here? Éowyn and I love you. Everyone loves you –”
She froze and then shook her head – a hard, spasmodic shake.
“No, I cannot,” she gasped through her hiccups. “I’ve made enough of a mess of things already.”
“You’ve made a mess of nothing –”
“No, no…” Her eyes dodging his like a rabbit fleeing an arrow. “Indeed, what I had with Elfred was a dream. It does not do to dwell in dreams. We must wake up and do our duty, and I must go when I am called.”
“Must you?” He pulled her hands toward him, moving ever closer until their foreheads nearly touched. “I do not wish for you to go.”
Hafrith lowered her head and a silence settled, save for a horse snorting in a nearby stall.
“Hafrith, don’t go,” he repeated. “We can tell your father that you are needed here. Tell him some cock and bull story about you having a better chance to find another suitor here. Promise him we’ll watch you like hawks. To serve at court is an honor – I’m sure he’ll bite. He’s an ambitious bastard.”
Hafrith shook her head, her features like a waxen doll’s.
“I cannot, I cannot. It is far too great a disgrace. The longer I stay, the greater the disgrace. You’ll see for yourself, if I do.”
She pulled away, and Éomer sat back on his haunches.
Both fell silent, with the only sounds the horses snorting and the wood settling. Éomer wrinkled his brow, wrenching his mind this way and that to try and understand.
He couldn’t understand. After all, if it was such a disgrace to prefer a less coveted suitor, was it not already said and done? How could her disgrace grow with time?
Hafrith covered her eyes, angling her body away from him.
The horse raised her head from her trough and seemed to judge them both.
“Oh, Hafrith,” Éomer said at last, and before he knew what he did, he slid toward her with a rustle of hay. He threw his arm around her, pulling her to him.
He couldn’t understand, but perhaps there was no need.
“Well, you know, Hafrith,” he said, his breath catching as he pressed his temple against hers, “you must know – there will always be a place for you here. Whatever comes to pass. You must know that.”
She shivered in his arms, and he fully expected her to pull away, but she did not.
Instead, she pressed her small, warm body against his and nodded, ever so slightly.
“Of course, Éomer, of course,” she whispered between sobs. “And I love you also. Ever as a brother you have been for me in these strange parts. And so you will stay. Ever in my heart. Always.”
(1) Elfgifu, in my headcanon, was Théodred’s wife. She died before she and Théodred could have children – indeed, was possibly murdered by forces hostile to the throne. After her loss, Théodred was reluctant to take another wife, which gives additional context to the pressure for Éomer and Hafrith to marry. Back
(2) I like to imagine that in Rohan the age of ultimate majority is 20. People younger than that can train into professions, live away from home, and marry with parental consent. But at 20 they are completely independent from a legal and social standpoint. This is based on the fact that in England the age of majority was 21 well into the 20th century. Also, in some Medieval and Renaissance-era European societies, people could not marry without parental consent until their mid-20’s. Back