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The lamplights made long stripes that slipped across the carriage, and the floor and seats creaked languidly beneath them. The carriage rode at a tilt such that Lothíriel sat higher than Amrothos, for the street sloped steadily upward, connecting the Circles of Minas Tirith.

“Remember, Thiri, you must be nice,” Amrothos said from across the way.

Lothíriel curled her lips, gazing at the facades slipping by: each like the face of a great stone statue, with windows like lidded eyes.

“I’m always nice,” she said. She did not need to look at Amrothos to know his expression. His face would tilt forward, lips pinched and eyes unblinking, in half-ironic imitation of their father.

“No, you know what I mean,” he said. “You need to say more than two words to him this time.”

“I’ve said more than two words. ‘There are many people here today,’ that’s six. ‘Good morrow, Your Majesty,’ that’s four more. That’s ten in total.” ⁽¹⁾

The next house they passed had lights on and the windows were not yet closed. Figures moved within like shadows on a canvas.

Amrothos would exhale—in fact, she soon heard the sound—and lean back against the cushions with his hands clasped before him. His lips would purse to one side, then settle in the manner of a wave.

“What is your quarrel with the King, then?” In all likelihood, he made some emphatic blinks before resuming his gaze.

Lothíriel shrugged.

“I have no quarrel.”

“So why do you become mum whenever you’re in his presence? Why does everyone else need to speak to fill the silence?”

“I don’t know, he’s just so…”

The carriage creaked around a corner, the wheels laboring against the stones. The movement pressed Lothíriel against the door, and the clop-clop of the horse’s hooves grew momentarily louder.

“I don’t know. He’s just so… wild.”

“Wild?”

She looked at Amrothos at last, his eyebrows raised.

“Well, you know,” she said, “it seems like his manners are a thin veneer. Like beneath it all, there is something…”

“What exactly?”

“Like you never know what he might do.”

“What might he do?”

“I don’t know…”

She recalled his hulking presence at the other end of the room, always looking at her like she could never get away. Even out of his armor and leaning on an armrest of a chair, he looked ever-ready to spring. When she was near him, his words were deep and short, but his presence permeated the night, and she felt like she stood on a precipice, the water foaming white below.

“I think you think too much, Thiri,” said Amrothos. “I know he’s a little rough, but he’s only dangerous on the battlefield. There, he is a storm unleashed, but otherwise…”

His eyes slipped over the passing houses.

“I don’t know,” she said, feeling like she might trip and be sucked in somewhere she could not get out of. “I cannot command my heart.”

“I know, Thiri, I know,” Amrothos said. “But nobody asks you to command it. All you must do is spend some time with him and leave him with some pleasant memories of our capital, and your charms. Just as it is my duty to take him out on the town, find him the best vintages, and always let him win at cards. That’s diplomacy.”

“Oh, what a sacrifice. To let another win at cards.”

“Well, that I must—I must let him win at cards.” Amrothos tensed his brow and set his lips in a sporting smile. “And not only that. I cannot tell you how close we came to being finished in Pelennor. When war-mûmakil rattled the earth, that man could have stopped armies with a single look. And sister, I ask you, did we win or did we perish? So yes, I let him win at cards, and you ought to do the same. Smile with every fiber of your being as he sits at the head of our table—and yes, say ten words to him and more.”

“In other words,” Lothíriel let an acrid edge into her voice, “we need him.”

Amrothos nodded.

“And if we didn’t need him, I would be free to be cruel to him, no?”

“Don’t be difficult. What’s gotten into you tonight?”

Lothíriel glanced outside, the stately string of homes now a parade of open, lighted windows. The closer they got to the palace, the brighter everything became, as if one light coaxed forth all the others.

“So I must charm a man because of other men’s deficiencies.”

Amrothos raised a hand to his forehead.

“Why must you be like this? It is none of us that choose our fate, or even our abilities.”

“No, I suppose not.”

They lapsed into silence until the coach came to a stop at the end of a horseshoe. Glancing outside, Lothíriel saw the great stone columns of the palace, blue and gray against the inky sky.

A long line of coaches curved around the horseshoe, leading to the palace door. Though it was not fully dark, the standing torches fluttered and the air was sweet with the end of summer.

“Take heart, sister,” Amrothos said as the coach started again – for that was how it was, arriving at a ball. Coaches stopped, people got out, the line moved on. “This is the last ball. After today, you may never see him again.”

“Until the next one you tell me to be nice to.”

Amrothos did not reply, but by the time they arrived at the entryway, he leaned toward her with his eyes both large and conciliatory.

“One last ball, sister,” he said. “Then we shall do something together.”

“Yes, so you say. But we never do. You never have the time.”

“I promise this time.”

The carriage stopped, and everything fell in line.

The footman came down from his seat in the back of the carriage, opening the door and placing a metal step beneath it. Amrothos stepped out and extended his hand to her, his forearm clad in a vambrace with swan and stars. Lothíriel gathered up her skirts and placed her hand in her brother’s.

“To battle, then,” she said, her face stiff.

“To battle,” Amrothos echoed. His smile seemed more buoyant and his shoulders more free.

With the footmen bowing behind them, they passed between the guards with seabird plumes and long, black-tipped lances. Beyond them lay the hall, bright as an oven.

The hall was an oven indeed—hot and bright—if ovens could have tall, vaulted ceilings and columns decorated with vines and flowers.

Cone-shaped towers of fruit and sweets grew up out of every table, and people eddied about them, and also about the exits to the gallery and the musicians’ enclosure. In the middle of the floor, couples swirled in choreographed intimacy.   

Lothíriel stood by a pillar at the entryway to one of the sitting rooms, where women repaired for gossip and to swoon or to make adjustments to their garments.

Her dress, a tasteful dove gray, hugged her about her chest and waist, and the skirts—the scaffoldwork, the petticoats, and the layers of gray chiffon—fell heavily over her legs. Looking about, she fanned herself, for the clear spirits of Minas Tirith had warmed her insides, and the outside was certainly hot enough.

The last hour had coasted by quickly, and it was not so horrid, she supposed. When they had arrived, she had curtsied down a long line of dowagers in similar gray dresses, to men with chests bedecked with medals, and to some particularly important debutantes. It was an easy affair—she had but to fold her lips into a smile, moon-serene, and let her eyelids descend at proper intervals. “How fascinating,” and similar truisms completed the role, and everyone took it for interest, because a woman such as her did not speak to you or look at you if she had no interest.

Perhaps the King of Rohan would not even come. She had seen many blond Rohirrim that night, but his great shoulders could not be missed, even across a ballroom. Soon, Amrothos would return with fresh glasses of lemon drink or orange drink—likely spiked again, for his notion of fun—and he would have another person for her to greet, and they would dance, and the hours would slip by… 

Then someone clasped her by the forearm.

“So-o-o-o, how is your dashing Rohir, mellon nin?”

She exhaled, closing her eyes, and let herself be born along by Thoroneth, one of her friends who had emerged from the fainting-and-primping room.

They walked past the row of chaperones and wallflowers occupying their posts at the periphery. Lothíriel let her eyes meander to the ceiling.

“Hush, he isn’t my Rohir,” she said. “He’s merely a friend to my brothers. I have been told to be nice to him.”

“Hmm, yes, that is what everyone says,” returned Thoroneth. “But we always know how it ends.”

Thoroneth smiled her lopsided smile, the one that made her mouth look like a checkmark. She wore a dress that gave her the look of a hothouse flower, in magenta with opulent ruffles.

“Oh, no, you must stop that sort of talk,” Lothíriel chided. “Let us talk of something else. Perhaps comment on the size of the room or the number of couples.”

Thoroneth drained the chocolate liqueur she had been holding and placed the glass on a passing servant’s tray.

“Well, the Rohirrim are certainly handsome, as a whole,” she said. “I don’t understand most of what they say, even in the Common Speech, but one of them I danced with was so dreamy…”

“Yes, save some horses; there are plenty of Rohirrim to serve us, no?” Thoroneth’s sister, Limmeth, appeared on Lothíriel’s other side, also clasping her forearm.

“Limmeth!” Thoroneth exclaimed.

“No, it is all well.” Limmeth shook her head. “I am wed now, so I can say such things. And I can teach the two of you, if need be.”

Thoroneth shook her head, releasing Lothíriel’s arm long enough to cover her ears. But she made a show of how ineffectual the gesture was.

“Limmeth, how is married life?” Lothíriel inquired smoothly.

Despite their now-separate households, Limmeth’s dress was nearly identical to her sister’s, except in burnt orange. Indeed, Limmeth and Thoroneth were four years apart, but similar as twins: both had comely, open features, almond eyes, and olive skin—gifts from their ancestor, a hostage Haradrim prince. The only difference to those who did not know them was that Thoroneth was shorter and more round.

Limmeth smiled, her lips more symmetrical than her sister’s. It was the sort of incandescent smile that made you feel as glad as she did.

“Oh, but don’t you look dazzling, dear Princess!” she cried. She turned to admire Lothíriel from head to toe, her smile growing more intimate. “As for marriage, how dare I describe something so exquisite with tools as rough as words?”

Lothíriel smiled, leaning into Limmeth’s shoulder.

“Indeed, how could you,” she mused. “And so I take it, you do not rue your freedom?”

“No indeed, for when your husband is a kindred heart, what might have been a cell becomes a pair of wings—”

“And it is a pleasure not to dance to our mother’s whims and plan your own fantastic feasts, no?” That was Thoroneth, advancing her opinion.

They chatted on, and with a friend on each arm, Lothíriel felt somehow softer, less sardonically content to bide her time. The spiked lemon drinks she had had were affecting her more, and her head reeled, so she did not notice him until it was too late.

She only saw him when both Limmeth and Thoroneth started to a stop, pulling on her arms, and she stopped also. She glanced down, away from the inverted pyramid of candles that descended from the ceiling, and there he was. Impossibly big: wide as one and a half men with mountain-heavy shoulders. He wore a dark green jerkin embroidered with gold, and his face was one she could believe was not meant to be fierce, but made her want to run away and her soul to sink into her ankles.

Thoroneth and Limmeth fell instantly silent, their glances bouncing off each other in their sisterly way. Then they descended in curtsies according to their rank: Thoroneth a head’s height, Limmeth a little less than that, and Lothíriel, like the next part in a mechanism, a single hand’s breadth.

Both sisters remained silent, but when they realized Lothíriel would not speak, Limmeth said, “Your Majesty,” and Thoroneth echoed her. 

The King bowed deeply.

“Princess. My ladies.” His eyes settled on Lothíriel like a hunting hawk. Lothíriel felt goosebumps down her shoulders and her chest grew empty.

“I—umm…”

There it was again. There was something about the King, who was handsome in a rough, round-faced and open-cheeked way, that made it near-impossible to speak or meet his eye. Even now, with his hair made flaxen by a bath and his fine clothing, she could not help but feel the way she did at five years old, when she had visited a menagerie and seen a lion. He was a great golden beast larger than a horse, and she stood at his cage as if at the edge of a precipice. She wanted to touch the golden paws and whiskers, and his deep rumble warned her what would happen if she did.

She could not speak. Her tongue was glued to the roof of her mouth, and her words scattered like beads from a broken necklace. And yet... for her friends she had to speak, for the moments trickled past and Limmeth and Thoroneth looked about and smiled—less full now, but like it was an assignment. The laws were such that she was to introduce them, since she was of higher rank and already knew the King. So she chased down her words, unsticking her tongue from the roof of her mouth with a painful effort.

“This is—Lady Limmeth—of Pelargir,” she said, molding her lips stubborn wax, “and her sister—Lady Thoroneth of Minas Tirith—daughters of the Lord Beriandir—and his wife Lady Ivriniel…” She listed the family’s accolades and connections as was the rule, and Limmeth and Thoroneth curtsied again.

The King smiled, a look very alien on his fierce face. His eyes barely left Lothíriel as he kissed both extended hands.

“Are you enjoying the ball, Your Majesty?” Limmeth asked. Now that the wheels of society were greased, her smile was winning again.

“Yes, much,” he said, but continued to gaze at Lothíriel, who felt like she was melting into thick air.

“Have you danced yet, Your Majesty?” Thoroneth put in.

“Oh, no,” he said. “I am afraid I do not know your dances.” His voice was quiet, as if tempered on purpose, but still recalled the lion’s warning-growl.

Lothíriel’s legs wanted to bolt, but Limmeth and Thoroneth’s arms kept her squarely in place.

“Do not know our dances?” Thoroneth sang out. “Well, that can mean only one thing.” She glanced at her sister, her checkmark-smile returning.

“Oh, do not tell me.” Limmeth smiled so wide that her eyes became slits.

“We must organize a vine dance, shouldn’t we? It’s been far too long…”

“Did I hear a mischievous bird twitter ‘vine dance?’”

Amrothos appeared at Thoroneth’s elbow, two glasses of lemon drink in hand.

Lothíriel eased one arm out of Thoroneth’s grasp and took a glass. Thoroneth straightened up to her full height—which, granted, was less than imposing.

“Verily, I did,” she said. “We must have a vine dance. For it is cruel to leave the King of Rohan out, but anyone can master the vine dance.”

“Yes, verily,” said Limmeth, squeezing Lothíriel’s arm. “Amrothos, as I recall, mastered it when he was three.”

“Which was the height of my accomplishment in the ballroom, I’m afraid.”

Limmeth pinched her eyes at him and then at the King.

“Indeed,” she said, “which is why I think there is hope for anyone. A vine dance, Your Majesty, is when we all link arms and hop to a rhythm, following each other. The leader pulls the line in fanciful curlicues, around tables and columns or anything at all. You may be fanciful in your leaping, too, such as scissoring your legs, but that is not required for a beginner. Do you wish to try it?”

The King, who gazed at Lothíriel, inclined his head.

“Well, I am not much of a dancer,” he said, his fierce forehead softening a little. “Indeed, I have been likened to a trained bear when I dance, but I will try if everyone wishes.”

“I wish it!” Thoroneth exclaimed.

“And so do I”—“and so do I!” echoed Limmeth and Amrothos.

The only one left was Lothíriel, whose shoulders had relaxed, but grew taut again in an instant.

And yet, four sets of eyes could not be argued with, so she inclined her head.

The King’s eyes were still upon her, but now that she had acquiesced, there was a sudden upheaval.

Within a moment, Amrothos and Thoroneth hastened off to spread the word about the vine dance. Limmeth’s arm detached from her own, and she absconded to alert the orchestra. But the hulking, bulky presence of the King never left her side, so she took sip after sip from her glass, its tapered waist the only thing she could be sure of.

She thanked her fortunes that he did not speak to her now that they were alone, and that the drink had a light, pulpy body, which did not mask the darkness of the liquor. Amrothos had been true to his cruder nature. She tried to picture the flavors behind half-lidded eyes, but images of barrels and citrus peels escaped her.

Quite soon, the vine dance was announced and organized with a bustle. After much braiding back and forth of bodies, she found herself with the King on one arm and Limmeth on the other. Their hands and forearms draped over each other’s shoulders, and they were closer than ever before. To nobody’s surprise, Thoroneth and Amrothos were at the head of the vine, veterans in leading and their enthusiasm unequaled. Lothíriel sighed, unable to remember where her drink had gone, and resolved to look at the King. She lifted her eyes, but before she could comprehend the scale of his torso, the orchestra wrenched the dance to life.

The music that accompanied the vine dance—really a country dance that was elevated to greater halls—was a tempest of strings and flutes punctuated by drums. The flutes and drums were the wind and sails of the dance, and the melody, with its darting, dashing strings, chased after it like the wake of a ship.

The line, following its leader, moved to the left a few paces, then to the right, then left again. The dancers hopped gingerly with each exclamation of the flutes: some flutter-light and crossing their legs as Limmeth had recounted, others laboring in comic imitation of the movement.

Lothíriel, for a time, did not dare to look at the King—not at his face and not even at his feet—for the very fact of his presence, his body as big as a wardrobe, was too much for the senses. His great breath, quickening above her, shot shivers through her arm, and she could not shake the notion that this was dangerous, and should have been forbidden, but through the hieroglyphic ritual of the dance, it was neither… The vine swayed back and forth, and instead of thinking, she clung to him like she might have done to the side of a boat, both of them pushed and pulled by the current of bodies.

Before long, the stream of limbs they belonged to turned into a spiral, coiling tightly and then uncoiling, the leaders towing it to the line of tables. Down that line they went, and then between the columns, and somewhere in that time, Lothíriel glanced up at the King, her head buoyed up by invisible bubbles.

She was already out of breath, but she gasped when she saw him.

The King of Rohan jumped zealously to the beat, making jerking, heavy-footed efforts to reproduce the crisscrossing steps of his neighbors. He was no practiced dancer, but a dancing bear he was not. Even as he faced away, she sensed the edge of his smile, just as she sensed the tension in his shoulder. As the vine unwound, he raised his eyes and she expected to want to run, but he did not look fearsome at all.

Instead, the flesh around her eyes grew tight, for he looked like a much younger man, his body too big and growing faster than his skill at using it. Even as he labored, though, he threw back his head and smiled at nothing in particular. His eyes were gold with the chandelier’s light, and his beard and eyebrows—their lines once harsh and ferocious—hovered so guilelessly that it made her want to reach out and touch them.

She was so transfixed that she did not look away when he turned and saw her. And when he did, he actually hid his eyes. But then he turned back, his breath escaping in punctuated huffs.

Before long, Lothíriel was smiling, though she did not want to. Her words fell from her lips before she could catch them.

“Enjoying yourself, Your Majesty?”

The King grunted, for he had landed in a way his foot did not expect.

“Very much, Princess.” His voice, more than a rumble or a growl, was the product of deliberate exhales.

“Try not to labor so much.” She smiled, pulling on his great arm. “This is a dance meant to liberate the spirit. A dance most anyone can do, like my friend said.”

“Yes, but I wish to do it properly, if I am here.”

“There will be time for that.”

On and on they hopped, and soon, the buoyant bubble feeling spread throughout her body. Now and again, the King smiled, and she felt warmer still, though she tried to bat away the feeling. In time, they headed into the darkness where the torches flared: out into the garden where it was cooler and there were fruit trees.

Here, the long and intricate vine spread apart, growing longer and looser with people clasping each other’s hands and instead of their shoulders. The vine also separated into parts, and in the creamy, flowered air they danced in smaller circles around the trees and the fountains.

Lothíriel and the King found themselves separated from Limmeth, who was pulled into another circle. Then, just as it came time to flow toward another landmark, she and the King got mysteriously lost, for by now, the music was far away and hardly a shepherd.

In any case, they stood alone under a white-blooming tree, and what was left of the vine dance quivered like shades in the not-too-far distance. Others were breaking off as well, so perhaps what happened was not so strange.

She and the King still held hands, and she jolted when she noticed.

“Er, my Princess, I apologize,” he exclaimed, letting go. As as he did, her neck and cheekbones flared.

“No—I apologize,” she returned, bringing her hand to her neck. “I need not be so afraid of you—I do not know why—you have done nothing…”

It was happening again. Though her flesh was loose with liquor and the dance, her lips turned to wax again.

The King shook his head, chuckling with a curved lip.

“You will not be the first,” he said. “That I can vouch. I was born with a frowning face, and my talents lie on the battlefield, not in these halls.”

“If only—if only there was a way…” She raised a hand just shy of her lips. What was she trying to say? The drink loosened her tongue but impaired her reason, so she let her words dissolve.

Limmeth emerged from behind a fountain, her smile ever-wide and ever-winning.

“Ah, there you are, Your Majesty, Princess.” In the lights from the torches, her skin looked golden and lovely with her orange dress. “Was that not perfectly diverting?”

The King and Lothíriel glanced at each other, Lothíriel’s lips congealing. The King looked this way and that, clasping and unclasping his hands.

Limmeth’s smile grew even brighter.

“Perhaps—too diverting,” she said. “There are so many people within, and not enough air and the dance is so vigorous. Perhaps a walk along the colonnade of fruit trees could be a tonic. And I can be your chaperone.”

“Our chaperone?” Lothíriel broke the seal on her lips.

“Well, why not? I am wed; that is all that matters.”

“Quite so,” Lothíriel nodded and glanced at the King. His brow was stiff again, making him look fierce, but she was less afraid of him now. He extended a hand and she took it.

They walked to the colonnade, where between each pair of columns there was a tree in a silver vat. The torchlight barely reached here, and much of the light came from the moon and stars, reflected off the silver.

After a while, Limmeth fell behind, though her footsteps echoed in the awnings.

As he walked, the King of Rohan was quiet, and if he seemed to be the size of a wardrobe, it was a wardrobe she could step into. The world dragged from the drink and the blossoms, and she did not hate the way his arm felt under her touch.

“My Princess,” the King said. “If only—I wish—if only there was more time for us to spend together like this.”

“Alas.”

“But I am to leave in three days’ time and return to Rohan.”

“And will you never return here?”

“We shall see. My realm needs much healing.”

Lothíriel nodded, her features feeling waxen again. A tightness grew inside her chest, and she looked down at where her hand rested, curled around his large, embroidered sleeve.

“I—maybe we could write,” she said. “If—you have time…”

“I will find time.” His voice was low and came from deep within his chest, making her vibrate also.

“The memory of you,” he said, “will be a balm in all my labors.”

Lothíriel closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, she looked at the stairstep descent of the city past the colonnade. It was barely darker than the sky.

“You have given me a gift,” the King said.

“No—no... I have given you—so little…”

“For me it is not little. For you were patient and kind when another might have laughed at my manners and my dancing. My life was naught but war until now. I hardly know what women are—especially ones like you, in places such as this.”

Lothíriel looked out into the darkness, and though it was thick as ink, she thought she could see the parapets of the lower levels.

Her chest grew tighter yet, and she pressed her fingers into his arm.

“I am—I am so sorry,” she said. “I had misjudged you…”

A wing of goosebumps rushed over her chest, and finally she looked at his face.

In the bluish wash of light, he looked younger and kinder again, with his eyebrows angled and his lips round.

She did not want to feel compassion for him, but she did.

“You—you had been lonely,” she said, “and you did not know how to behave, and were ill at ease. That is why you always looked so—” Frightening? Because you were frightened yourself? Her tongue still dragged, but she felt buoyed up again by the bubble-like feeling.

The King inclined his head, like the lion laying his head on his paws.

“I am sorry that I offended Your Highness.”

“No—no, it was no offense.”

They stopped before a vaulted archway between the columns, and Limmeth’s steps stopped behind them also.

Lothíriel looked back, and Limmeth was in deep admiration of the blossoms.

“Your Majesty,” she said, turning back. “What may I do to make it right? I might not have laughed outright, but I have been cold, and it was undeserved. It is difficult when things are so unfamiliar…”

The heat flared across her cheeks as the King observed her. Even in this light, she saw his look unmistakably: the same as it was across ballrooms and sitting rooms, with chaperones and family filling the silence.

“You are not so cold now.” He smiled, and again she could not get away from his eyes—though now she both did and did not want to. Her other hand came to his arm, and he made a quarter-turn such that they faced each other.

“Princess,” he said, “may I ask for a token? Just a simple one…” His breath seemed to catch in his throat, and his face was again in shadow. “Though if it’s untoward—”

“What is it?”

“Just a kiss. It may be on the cheek if you wish it. In memory of our time together.”

A hot zigzag cut across her chest.

“A kiss?”

“If it is untoward, forget I spoke—”

“Oh, no, Your Majesty.” Her heart squeezed, and she pressed his arm.

She did not need to look to know what she would see of Limmeth—her head thrust back and her arms behind her, mesmerized by a tree. Knowing the things Limmeth got up to with her fiancé—and her prior fiancé, who had fallen in the war… No, there was no need to worry about Limmeth.

She turned back to the King, whole eyes were soft and eyebrows gently rounded. He looked at her with his lips in an “o,” and his face tilted downward.

“I can give you a kiss,” she said. “Worry not about my friend. She will be silent.”

“My Princess, I thank you.”

And so Lothíriel got up on her toes, her hands sliding upward—up his arms, even as his hands came to cup her lower back. They were nearly big enough to encircle her waist, no space between his fingers at her spine.

Every bit of skin felt exposed when he touched her, and she wanted to put her cheek to his great chest. Every bit of her felt like it was rubbed with something harsh, but she did not mind.

Her chest felt light, as if something within it swept her up.

Their lips came together, and the last things she saw were his round cheeks, his skin like well-worked leather, and also his eyes, which seemed to hate to say goodbye. Then she closed her own and pressed her lips against his, and they both moved their mouths a little, his mustache brushing her skin.

Neither begged entry with a tongue, but it was still lovely. Lapping like waves against a shore—first her caressing him, then him caressing her—the moments passed by quickly. When they parted, every bit of her again felt rubbed raw again, but it did not matter. She felt so light. The only thing she rued was that she never pressed her palms to that wide chest, never smoothed, never traversed its generous breadth as their lips made sweet, tentative acquaintance.

After the kiss, Lothíriel recalled but little. Her head spun through the rest of their walk, and then Thoroneth appeared in the colonnade, crying out and delighted to have found them. They returned to the main ballroom, and by the time they reached its doors, she missed having his heavy hands over her waist, but also found it hard to look at him again. She did not understand why, and it upset her. But she could not think of it long, for Amrothos and a dozen of their friends waylaid them, and there were several more dances.

She danced with all the requisite people, and as the music trilled, she thought sadly of the King who stood at the edge of the ballroom, with the lemon drinks and orange drinks and the wallflowers and the dowagers. She told herself that she must say a proper goodbye to him before she left. But even this was not to be, for when they went into the cloak room, there were a score of other leaves to take and the King was only one of many.

He kissed her hand, and his mustache brushed over her knuckles again. But she could not bear—perhaps could not dare—to look him in the eye. Perhaps, having so many people around them spoiled it all, and it made her feel ashamed of what had happened.

In any case, she did not think of him again until she was alone—back in her chambers in another part of Minas Tirith, where the family had their local house and stayed on visits to the capitol.

Her lady in waiting helped her out of her dress, and she sat before her fine-carved mirror, gazing at her storied beauty.

The King had certainty judged her fair, but what else did he know of her, feel for her? What else had made him haunt her steps, and also so fearful? And what, beyond fear and curiosity and a tenuous goodwill, did she actually feel for him?

Some said to pity was to love, but she doubted such a truism.

In the end, she blew out the candle and thought, what’s done is done. In three days’ time, he would be gone and the labors of the land would swallow him up. If they met again, and even if they wrote, it would be as indifferent acquaintances. They were too different after all, and everything that passed between them too complicated, too marred by too many other people. If he was the first man she had ever kissed, why not let it be? He had given her a gift, and it was a kingly gift, and she would fall asleep on many a night recalling the feeling.

The autumn came, drizzling and sweeping its meager leaves down the avenues of the White City. Like eddies along a shore, the leaves swirled and settled against houses and fountains, to be swept up away by men who were happy to think of such things again.

September was on the wane, and the Dol Amroth family was closing up their capitol house, making ready to return to the south. Lothíriel and her chief lady in waiting, Anoreth, were directing the packing when Prince Imrahil, Lothíriel’s father, called her into his study.

Prince Imrahil was an efficient man who wasted neither time nor gesture. When she arrived, he was finishing a letter and only looked up when her shadow fell across the table.

“How are you, my daughter,” he said, and his words were not a question.

“Quite well, my father.” She descended the requisite hand’s breadth.

“Lothíriel, we have too much to do,” he said, putting aside his quill and pinning her with his eyes. “So I will not waste words. How would you like to the Queen of Rohan?”

Lothíriel’s mouth opened just a bit.

“Of Rohan?”

“Yes, of Rohan. You might have heard of it. It lies just north of the White Mountains.”

“I know where Rohan lies, father.”

“Well, how would you like to be Queen of it?”

Lothíriel clasped her hands over her sash, rivers of cold rushing down her arms.

“But that—that would not require—”   

She dug her fingers into the backs of her hands, her words a rapid coverup for the fact that his own would not assemble into meaning.

Her father exhaled, annoyance creeping into his voice.

“Well, of course. You divined right. Per the laws of his land, the King of Rohan has written to me, asking to court you with the intent of marriage. But I told him better—he can wed you as soon as he likes, and as soon as arrangements can be made. For peace is not yet certain, and we need every alliance we can secure. So I ask you again, how would you like to be the Queen of Rohan?”

Lothíriel stood transfixed, hot needles searing into her lungs. The cold made rapid inroads up her shoulders and down her arms, and when she finally managed a sound, it was laugh.

“Well, hah, father,” she scoffed. “Why ask me, then? It seems you have decided already.”

Prince Imrahil furrowed his brow.

“Lothíriel, I care not for such speech,” he said, clasping his ring-encrusted hands together. “Is it a common thing, my daughter, to get an offer from a King, even for such a one as you? Do we have suitors camped outside our doorstep? Last I checked, I saw naught but leaves. And need I remind you of your duty? Your brothers were bred for the sword, and you for this.”

He followed her with his eyes as she looked out the window, her mind growing ominously blank.

His eyes were large and gray and striking, just like hers, except beneath a craggy brow. He would sit there, dogged as a monument, and there was not a thing she could do.

“I hardly know him,” she breathed at last, watching a leaf between the panes of iron.

“So?” His tone was the equivalent of spreading his hands. “You have a lifetime to come to know him.”

“Well, he frightens me.”

“And how does he do that?”

“Well, er—” Her throat grew thick and she clasped her sash again. “I cannot say exactly… well, he did, he did almost until the end…”

“So he no longer does? So what then is trouble?”

“I cannot know—”

She wrestled her eyes away from the window. His long and neatly bearded face was staid, but somewhere in its lines she imagined compassion.

“Father, please,” she said, making a quarter turn to face him. “I do not understand—I know not—I know that I was bred for this, but I am not ready. I know neither myself, nor the King, nor my own sentiments. One day I was afraid of him, and the next I was not—” 

“You were glad to receive him many times this summer.”

“Yes, father, because I was told to.”

“You liked him well enough during those meetings, or so I was told.”

“No—”  

“Did someone tell a lie, then?”

She felt like she was sinking.

“What exactly is the King’s fault, pray tell me plainly?”

Prince Imrahil leaned back in his chair, annoyance sharpening his voice. The words crowded against her throat, and all she could do was raise her hands to her face.

“Father, please don’t,” was all she managed.

Her father raised his hands to his face as well, and there was a strange tension in his brow, as if two disparate expressions wrangled for dominance.

“Daughter,” he said at last, “I have no time for this at present.”

Smoothing his hand over his face, he rose and walked haltingly around the table.

The air turned viscous as he put his hand at the bottom of her back, steering her almost gently to the door.

“There are still months ahead to get accustomed to the prospect,” he said. “Much to do, and much to arrange.”

His voice was stiff, as were his motions, and she well understood it. Beyond a perfunctory press of her hand at a public gathering, she could not recall the last time he had touched her.

Now, they were at the door, and he opened it into the hallway.

“We can speak more on it later,” he said. “But my word is final, and I will not say no. The King is a good man, and the only way he shall not have you is if he changes his mind.”

He turned away, the door clicking shut, and she stood alone in the darkened hallway. On one side of her, a long line of doors stretched out, a sliver of light beneath each. To the other side lay the wide-curving staircase, the light slanting wanly through its windows.

With dizzy steps, Lothíriel walked toward it.

Something cold dug its claws into her chest, and she finally thought of the King, the good and the bad of him, the soft and the hard of him, the parts that made her want to run and the parts that made her want to remember.

Maybe? Maybe? But no, no, no, no, not on her life. Especially when they trapped her into it so cruelly, and not even the King, who purported to want her, had spoken to her first and asked her if she wished it. It mattered not that she took pity on the King once, and the other thing did not matter either.

The air, already thick, turned to a swarm of needles, and the sides of her vision grew dim. With her first step down, her ankle buckled, and the ball of her foot slipped, making her land harder and more precariously than she expected.

But she did not mind. Needles pricked the bottom of her feet and fingers, but she lifted her chin and resumed her descent. It did not matter that her body no longer belonged to her, and that her vision made everything look bright and dark all at once. Not halfway down the stairs, her ankle turned again, this time dragging her down several steps. Her legs, numb and and unfamiliar, made as if to regain their balance, but they failed and she felt oddly glad. Her hand, which was barely on the balustrade, was white and unreal. She let herself fall, and the world went black.

She woke at the bottom of the stairs, hardly feeling her body except the left side of her head. It throbbed and was hot and wet.

Lady Anoreth and a chambermaid were leaning over her, and Anoreth was vigorously rubbing her arms.

“Oh, Your Highness, Your Highness,” Anoreth repeated, her voice like a petulant lute. “Oh, what a misfortune… How ever did you fall, Your Highness?... Please, do not move—we have called a healer—oh, what a misfortune…”

The maid did not speak and stared at her with wide eyes.

“I—I am to marry the King of Rohan,” Lothíriel said, and was surprised how quickly she formed the words.

Her mind was so clear it was uncanny, and she tried not to think of the King, except to hate him.

Her head throbbed harder, but she did not mind. Inside her chest, there was a calm, empty feeling.

“Oh.” Anoreth sat back on her haunches, and her face went through a rapid succession of emotions, settling on a cool, self-possessed smile. “Oh, but is that not wonderful, Your Highness?” She released Lothíriel’s arm and clasped her hand, pressing it between her own. “They say the King of Rohan is a good man, and what a stroke of fate it is, to be a King so young. Oh, what a stroke of good fortune, Your Highness. What a stroke of good fortune.”

(1) When she was crown princess, Marie Antoinette is said to have feuded with the king’s official mistress, Madame du Barry. She continually snubbed her, and when finally pressured by the court to speak to her, she said, as a concession, “There are many people at Versailles today.” In a similar way, Lothíriel makes an inane statement to Éomer as a passive-aggressive means of satisfying her family. Back