On Our Own | Éomer Éadig (part one)
Summary : Éomer demands to meet his foreign bride for the first time.
Word count : 5,023
Rating : Umm, I don’t know, maybe an M? Just, mild hints so . . .
Author’s note : Well, one of my first proper one-shots. I am enjoying the various takes on this favourite couple. Hope you enjoy as well!
Part Two is out for you to read!
divider by @saradika-graphics
“I am honestly going to tell you one last time: you can either tell her to come out right now or I damned well will come in.”
“I say, you cannot come in! Even if you were the King of Rohan himself — you cannot come in!”
“I am the King of Rohan,” said the tall, broad man in his armour, without a flicker of amusement but a tone in his voice of rather getting tired and irritated at what was supposed to be a simple matter settled quietly. He had ridden forth from Edoras as soon as news had reached him of the party’s entering the lands of the Mark. And he was not in the best of moods right now to be dealing with nervous chaperones who insisted on keeping him away from the business which he meant to carry out no matter what.
“We have already sent word to the King that no man is to see the Princess until her wedding day,” the lady said witheringly. “The noblemen of her court rode out to explain to him that she is in seclusion, as a proper lady of Dol Amroth. Do you think the King of Rohan would come riding down the road when the Lady Lothíriel has refused to receive him? What sort of a man do you think he is?”
“Exactly like this one, and he will see the bride he is to marry, now,” said Éomer King, tapping himself on his chest and took a step forward to show that he meant to do exactly what he said.
“The king!” someone cried out from behind, and he turned around to see the dark-haired young man, Amrothos son of Imrahil, whose stunned expression showed that he at least recognised the king. He immediately strode forward, kneeling down in front of Éomer, purposefully blocking his way however, and hissing at the lady-in-waiting, “It is the king!”
The poor lady let out a gasp of horror, and attempted a low curtsey.
“Get up,” Éomer said shortly, “and fetch her.”
“But she is a princess of Dol Amroth, my lord,” the woman said, rising but with her head still bowed low. “She is to stay in seclusion. She cannot be seen by you, or any other man, before her wedding day. This is the tradition. The gentlemen went out to explain to you—”
Yes, and it was exactly what set him off into this fey mood, Éomer thought as she recited the same sentences again as if he were a creature too stupid to understand the words. The way the men had repeatedly told him that she was to remain secluded from sight, that had set Éomer into thinking perhaps they were playing false with him. Already, the men of his council were wary towards this foreign band, and Éomer couldn’t help the doubts crawling into his mind as well.
“It’s your tradition. It’s not my tradition. And here, since she is to be my queen in my country, under my laws, she will obey my tradition.” He secretly swallowed a nervous gulp, feeling the beads of perspiration gathering on his forehead by now and wondering how long he would have to keep up with this intimidating charade. Why did he even think this was a good idea, again? Oh right, because the high lords of his council said so.
“She has been brought up most carefully, most modestly, most properly—”
“Then she will be very shocked to find an angry man in her tent. Madam, I suggest that you get her up at once.”
“She is the daughter of Prince Imrahil, and my sister, and a princess of Dol Amroth. We are under the orders of my lord father to make sure that every respect is shown to the Lady Lothíriel and that her behaviour is in every way—”
It was Amrothos who joined in, and he had now risen to his full stature again, standing face to face with the king, and his face a concerned mask of courtesy.
Oh, that awful phrase again. Éomer secretly glanced around, hoping none of his lords were nearby to hear that or they would be outraged. “Lord, you can take your working orders from anybody you wish, I do not care. But you are now in the Land of the Mark, and I am the King. And if I am to marry your sister, and if she is to be Queen of Rohan as part of the marriage, it is the least I can request to see her, or I may refuse to have her at all. That alone would make all the difference in the world, and then it would not matter whether she is seen before her wedding day or not.” He didn’t know if his sentences had more of authority or pleading. But wouldn’t that be an idea, if the marriage tract was broken off because of this little folly. Certainly, the lords of Rohan would not object much. Some might even rejoice in the prospect.
Amrothos clenched his jaw tight, before speaking coldly to the lady sideways, “Fetch my sister.”
The lady went quite white at the sudden order from Amrothos himself, and seemed momentarily at a loss for words. Then at last, she announced stubbornly, “I cannot fetch the Princess. She is to remain in seclusion.”
“Dear Béma! That’s it. Tell her I am coming in at once.”
She scuttled backwards like an angry cow, her face blanched with shock. Éomer gave her a few moments to prepare and then called her bluff off by striding in behind her. Amrothos cried from behind, “My lord!” The younger man held Éomer’s arm, all the strength and sternness passing in his grip, and his eyes blazing. The king met his glare with the same fiery expression, and the two men stood staring at each other coldly. Then, Amrothos’s eyes went towards some thing behind Éomer, and he let go, without a word, letting the tent flap close.
The small tent was lit only by candles. The covers of the bed, at the corner, were turned back as if the girl had hastily jumped up. Éomer registered the intimacy of being in her small tent, with her sheets still warm, the scent of her lingering in the enclosed space, before he looked at her. She was standing by the bed, one small white hand on the carved wooden post. She had a cloak of dark blue thrown over her shoulders, and her white nightgown trimmed with priceless lace peeped through the opening at the front. Her thick dark hair, plaited for sleep, hung down her back, but her face was completely shrouded in a hastily thrown mantilla of dark lace.
The lady-in-waiting darted between the princess and the king. “This is the Lady Lothíriel,” she said grouchily. “Veiled until her wedding day.”
“Not on my word,” Éomer King of Rohan said bitterly. “I’ll see who I am to marry, thank you.”
He stepped forward, and the desperate chaperone threw herself to her knees, “Her modesty—”
“Has she got some awful mark?” he demanded, driven to voice his deepest fear. “Some blemish? Is she scarred by the pox and they did not tell me?”
“No! I swear.”
Silently, the young lady put out her white hand and took the ornate lace hem of her veil. Her chaperone gasped a protest but could do nothing to stop the princess as she raised the veil and flung it back. Her cool, grey eyes stared into the angry face of the king without a sense of wavering. Éomer drank her in and then gave a little sigh of relief at the sight of her.
She was an utter beauty: a smooth, rounded face, a straight long nose, a full, sulky, sexy mouth. Her chin was up, he saw: her gaze challenging. This was no shrinking maiden fearing ravishment. This was a fighting princess standing on her dignity even in this most appalling moment of embarrassment.
He bowed. “I am Éomer King of Rohan,” he said.
She curtseyed, without a word.
He stepped forward, and he noticed her curb her instinct to flinch away. He took her one smooth hand firmly and kissed it. The perfume of her hair and the warm female smell of her body came to him, and he felt desire pulse at his temples. Quickly he stepped back.
“You are welcome to Rohan,” he said. Why had his voice turned suddenly husky? He cleared his throat, wrinkling his nose in disdain of what the atmosphere was doing to his brain. “You will forgive my impatience to see you, I hope.”
“I beg your pardon,” she said icily, speaking in a low and lilting voice. “I did not know until a few moments ago that my lord was insisting on the honour of this unexpected visit.”
Éomer fell back a little from the whip of her temper. He certainly did not see that coming, and now he did not know what else to reply. “I have a right . . .”
She shrugged nonchalantly, an absolutely Southern gesture, as if she had not a care in the world and could shrug anything away. “Of course. You have every right over me.”
At the ambiguous, provocative words, he was again aware of his closeness to her: of the intimacy of the small tent, the sheets invitingly turned back, the pillow still impressed with the shape of her head. It was a scene of ravishment, not for a royal greeting. Again he felt the secret thud-thud of lust.
“I’ll see you outside,” he said abruptly, as if it were her fault that he could not rid himself of the flashes in his mind.
“I shall be honoured,” he heard her reply coldly from behind, and got himself out of the tent briskly enough and nearly collided with Amrothos, hovering anxiously outside. The latter’s face wore a cool, austere expression that seemed to ask him how well he liked his sister now that he had seen that she wasn’t one to cower easily like the chickens that surrounded him at his court.
“Forgive me, lord. I was only anxious.” Much as he hated sounding apologetic, that was one thing Éomer couldn’t help being, especially when he knew it rightly to be so. But, ah, a King must put up with the appearance, or he’d be considered an ineffectual angel. That was mostly what his counsellors kept counselling him these days, preparing him to meet with this Dol Amroth party. It was nerve-wrecking, he wished he didn’t have to think about these things; he accepted to marry Imrahil’s daughter because he thought he needn’t think about these things if it was only the Prince Imrahil, in whose opinion and character Éomer held high esteem.
“That my sister’s face should not be scarred by the pox? Of course,” Amrothos replied courteously, but as cool and crisp as his sister had been. He smirked dourly, adding, “I hope my lord is satisfied now.”
Éomer could only attempt a nervous laugh.
Then, he was led to a pavilion and Amrothos left him with a word of sending the Princess when she was ready. Looking around the large campsite, with people scurrying to and fro, Éomer started to ponder. There would be at least fifty of them, this entourage escorting his foreign bride, not counting the knights scouting round the lands. It was almost a little court, and he was reminded of what the lords of his own court said, especially Déorbrand’s words. We cannot let them make a little Dol Amroth in Rohan, my lord. The country wouldn’t stand for it, his high lords wouldn’t stand for it, and Éomer damned well won’t stand for it. Many had not been very warm to the idea of the royal household using the speech of Gondor in the days of Thengel, and in the later years they had grown wary of outsiders. He’d send that lady-in-waiting home at the first moment he could. Stubborn, old cow. If only she had quietly acceded . . .
But even he could not deny one thing: the people actually didn’t object — the country people particularly seemed to adore the princess. But then again, it might only be because she wore a stupid, fancy headdress; because she was different — foreign, rare; because she was young; and pretty. No, Éomer recollected, the people might not have even seen her at all. He only heard news that they had been giving out alms in the name of the Lady Lothíriel, so no wonder the people might love her for being kind — even if it might be little more than a strategy on her side.
But then she was pretty, no one could possibly help falling in love with her once they saw her. Perhaps ‘pretty’ did not justify her at all . . .
The King’s musings were interrupted, not unwillingly, by a herald announcing loudly and emphatically, “The Lady Lothíriel, Princess of Dol Amroth, and Queen of Rohan!” It was at least interesting, that she was already using that title.
The Princess — with her face naked to every man’s gaze — stepped out of her tent with her head held high, dignified, and walked into the pavilion calmly, only a little flame of colour in both cheeks betraying her composure. Éomer swallowed nervously. She was far more beautiful than he had imagined, and a hundred times more haughty. She was dressed in a gown of rich dark velvet, slashed to show an undergown of carnation silk, the neck cut square and low over her plump breasts, hung with ropes of pearls. Her dark hair, freed from the plait, tumbled down her back in a great wave of dark shadow. On her head was a pearl tiara, in the shape of two swans together. She swept a deep curtsey, and determinedly came back up with her chin slightly up, graceful as a dancer, looking at him straight in the eyes defiantly.
He faltered in his bow in return, amazed at the serenity that she could muster in this most embarrassing of moments. For Béma’s sake, he must be gaping like a fool in contrast.
She started speaking in a ceremonious manner, “I beg your pardon for not being ready to greet you, my lord. If I had known you were coming, I would have been prepared.”
The lack of former coolness in her tone, and the absence of the snides, provoked him to be sarcastic this time. “I’m surprised you didn’t hear all the racket,” he said, almost a scoff. “I was arguing at your door for a good ten minutes.”
“I thought it was a pair of porters brawling,” she said coolly.
The servants waiting nearby suppressed gasps of horror at her impertinence, but the King was eyeing her with a smile as if a new filly were showing promising spirit. “No, it was me, threatening your lady-in-waiting. I am sorry that I had to march in on you.”
She inclined her head slightly. “That was Lady Saelwen. I am sorry if she displeased you. She gets agitated easily. She cannot have understood what you wanted.”
He did not know what to reply to that. Her calm composure was making him feel agitated. He was having a difficult time, trying to rack his brain for some sensible answer.
She did not make him struggle for long. She continued, “Have you dined, my lord? Shall I order dinner?”
“As you wish.” He hoped it came out naturally enough.
“Can I offer you a drink first? Or somewhere to wash and change your clothes before you dine?” She examined consideringly the tall length of his height, from the mud spattering his golden hair to his dusty boots.
“I’ve washed,” he said. As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he could have bitten off his own tongue. He sounded like a child being scolded by a nurse, he thought. ‘I’ve washed,’ indeed. What was he going to do next? Hold out his palms so that she could see he was a good boy?
“Then will you take a glass of wine? Or ale?”
She moved towards the table where the servants were hastily laying cups and flagons.
“Wine.”
She raised a glass and a flagon and the two chinked together, and then chink-chink-chinked again. In amazement, he saw that her hands were trembling. Pouring the wine quickly, she held it out to him. His gaze went from her hand and the slightly rippled surface of the wine to her pale face.
She was not laughing or smirking at him, he saw. She was not at all at ease with him. His initial rudeness had brought out her pride in her, but now, alone, she was just a girl. He recalled that she was almost eight years younger than he, still just a girl. The daughter of a formidable ruler of a principality in Gondor, but still just a girl with shaking hands.
“You need not be frightened,” he said very quietly. “I am sorry about all this.”
He meant — your failed attempt to avoid this meeting, my own brusque informality, my inability to stop this happening for you as well as myself, and, more than anything else, the misery that this business must be for you: coming far from your home among strangers and meeting your new husband, almost dragged from your bed under protest. Oh, how Éomer felt he had not been pressed by the general agreements of his lords to ride out and meet her. And analyse her, they particularly instructed. How he wished he could have done things on his own.
She stared at him, the look in her eyes bordering on incredulity, until she lowered her eyes down. He stared at the flawless pallor of her skin, at the long eyelashes and the dark eyebrows. After a while, she looked up at him. “It is all right,” she said, only the faintest of quivers audible in her voice. “I have seen far worse than this, I have been in far worse situations than this, and I have known worse men —” She stopped, biting her rose-red lips hesitatingly, and stealing a quick glance his way while he tried to check his wince. “You need not fear for me. I am not afraid of anything.”
The dinner was brought in. Éomer, determined to overlook their introduction, tried to be as affable to the Princess as he could be without seeming like a doormat for everybody to walk over him. Once or twice he glanced at her sideways, as if to get the measure of her. Finally, she turned to look at him, full on, one eyebrow slightly raised as if to interrogate him.
“Yes?” he demanded, flustered that he had been caught, and instantly donning the mask of King.
“I beg your pardon,” she replied equably. “I thought my lord needed something. You glanced at me.”
“I . . . was thinking you’re not much like your portrait,” he admitted nervously.
She flushed a little, and replied uneasily but slowly as if choosing her words with care, “I’m afraid portraits are usually designed to flatter the sitter — especially when the sitter is a princess of Dol Amroth, on the royal marriage market.”
Oh, the way she phrased that hurt him just a little too much. “You consider this, er, as a selling-buying business? You consider yourself bought?” He tried not to wince, not to show the discomfort on his face.
She shrugged. “That is one way to view these marriage transactions.”
Éomer could only gaze at her, this cold, seemingly heartless beauty.
“When I said you weren’t much like your portrait . . . I meant, better-looking,” Éomer said begrudgingly, to reassure her. “Younger. Softer. Prettier.” He could swear his face was probably steaming, but somehow he just needed to get that out.
She did not warm to the praise as he expected her to do. She merely nodded as if it were an interesting observation. She remained cold and rigid as an iceberg, and Éomer was falling deeper into the pit of despair with every passing minute.
“You had a long voyage, I hope it was not much difficult,” the King remarked, trying not to let the silence take over and make things more awkward than they were already.
“A bit,” she said. They were then in danger of falling into silence, but she miraculously took up the topic and continued, “We set out from Swansong in August, so the heat was terrible. When we reached the Drúadan Forest, we had to send scouts ahead to ask leave to enter it from the Wild Men to whom the King Elessar gave the Forest as their own. It was not very pleasant, and we were all quite sure we would get lost for a year or two. I think the trees were quite interesting, very different from what we are used to seeing back at home, though Amrothos was particularly adamant in his despair; he is scared of the dark trees — he always has been.”
A laugh escaped Éomer — a real, genuine sound that came unchecked, something rare since they brought back Theodred’s body from the Fords. But, when he saw her looking at him alarmingly, he cleared his throat. “Forgive me, my lady. No disrespect was meant.” He swallowed, not knowing what else to say. “The Wild Men of Drúadan Forest helped us when we were coming to the aid of Mundburg — forgive me, I meant Gondor — for the Battle of the Pelennor Fields. Their help was sorely needed, for without them we would never have been able to come in time.”
He shifted slightly, noticing her grey eyes on him, unwavering. “You were there,” she remarked with some awe. “At the Battle of the Pelennor Fields. And . . . the Black Land.” Her face went through a change of expression, softened into something like sympathy. “It must have been terrible.” The tone came a little bit fatuous to his ears, but all thoughts of that vanished when he saw her round eyes covered with a thin film of silver, and he saw the earnestness in them.
Éomer made himself smile with some effort, reassuring her and bringing her to lighter subjects, “Well, it is all over now. And perhaps in the future you will be glad to visit the Entwood near our borders, though certainly your brother might not.”
“Can I?” She asked, amazed. “And is it true, there are talking trees there?”
He noticed that her manner of speech had mellowed. She was speaking faster and her words fell more freely, and unguardedly, though that proud, elegant lilt in her voice remained. “Yes, I have seen some myself. I could have written more to you about them, if you were interested.” He wanted her to be pleased, and more than that, he wanted her to be at ease with him. He felt like he wanted to do anything for her that could please her, like a little pet to indulge in.
She inclined her head a little bit to the side, as if hiding her flushing face purposefully. “It was kind of you to write to me so often. It made me feel that we were not complete strangers.”
It was Éomer’s turn to flush. “I was ordered to write to you,” he said awkwardly. “As part of my duties.” He didn’t even know why he said that. He just wanted to get that out honestly. “But I liked getting your replies,” he added hastily. Oh Béma, he didn’t exactly excel at this, Éomer despaired again, and flushed scarlet to his ears. He saw her staring down at the ground. Perhaps there was no need to tell her that he was ordered to write — yes, he was still being ordered around, more or less — perhaps it would have been better to let her think that he was writing of his own choice, that he was master of himself. He took her silence as offended, and apologised again, “I am sorry.” At least he was good at this one thing, apologies.
“I don’t mind,” she said quietly. “I was ordered to reply as well. My letters went through my father, and family, and my tutor before they were sent. And, as it happens, I should like us to always speak the truth to each other.”
“You would?” He looked astonished.
“Yes, I would,” she said, looking at him now. “I would like us to be honest with each other, unreserved, with our opinions and wishes and concerns in all the matters of the marriage. In fact, I would like to tell you now of all that I believe should be known and settled between the two of us before the wedding takes place.”
Éomer leaned an inch forward, his attention caught and curiosity roused, wondering what she would have to say. But a part of him felt dissatisfied at this change of mood, the way she was now speaking formally like an envoy rather than a blushing bride. There was no doubt that the stateliness became her immensely, but Éomer was already missing that twinkle in her eyes when she talked of her journey and the forests.
She didn’t continue, instead looking at him with studious observation. He realised that she was waiting for his approval, encouragement, anything. He replied, “I’m listening, my lady.”
Nodding her head slightly once, she began, “I understand that this marriage is intended to form friendship and allliance between Dol Amroth and Rohan and, as such, it is expected to bring about prosperity for both nations. I will not pretend to say that my ties with my homeland, my family, and my people, are severed by my marrying you and becoming Queen of Rohan. My loyalty must always lie there where my life was started. However, I hope you will be happy to know that you, your country, and its well-being, will now be my first priority — as a dutiful wife’s priorities must be. And as a personal request for my side of the marriage, I only ask you to be honest with what you require of me, so that I may be able to fulfill them. And, if there is anything I should be made aware of regarding your personal life, you need not hold it back. Nor would I meddle in your, er, affairs, you can be assured of that.” She sealed her lips in a pause, eyed him for a moment. “My lord?”
She is nothing if not dutiful, this bride of mine, was what Éomer was thinking as he listened to her reciting, for he believed she must have learned it by heart. He wondered if it was all to her credit. “Um,” was all he could manage to get out, under her soul-staring gaze. “It is all right. I — I appreciate it, thank you.” He didn’t know what else to say anymore. The only thing he wanted to know, he couldn’t possibly ask her. He had deduced from her letters that she was reserved, and even aloof. But he didn’t think she would be this forward. And cold. And distant. Éomer was beginning to consider throwing away all thoughts of passion in their marriage, it didn’t seem likely that passion was in her list of agenda.
They fell silent. But to his amazement, he saw that she was struggling to speak as well — she was biting her lower lip uncertainly, her eyes cast down but blinking, and her fingers were tracing the goblet absent-mindedly.
“My father said he found you amiable. That no doubt you would be kind and understanding.”
This caught him by surprise so much, Éomer couldn’t help raising both his eyebrows. He was disconcerted at least, by this somewhat outburst. He didn’t know whether to have this as a compliment, or an expectation strategically laid down for him to live up to. He let out a chuckle, nervously. “And, what do you say to that?”
She raised her eyes to his — cool and grey and stormy — and yet his eyes went to the lips that were parted slightly, looking like a red rose in full bloom in the morning mist. After a few seconds, she lowered her eyes to the floor and said quietly, “I do not know yet. But I should like to learn better in the future.”
Éomer felt his breathing grow shallow, faster. There was something provocative in her words he felt his heart almost pounding in his ears in the silence with the two of them. He rose up, unable to sit any longer, lest he might be overcome by the desire to pull her across his lap.
“I thank you. It is late, and I will leave now. My company shall ride ahead of you tomorrow morning. Good-night, my lady.”
He bowed. She stood up, looked surprised, a little alarmed and almost disappointed at his leaving so soon. But she seemed to think better of it, and dropped into a curtsey, “My lord.”
He started to leave, satisfied knowing that he did the correct thing to do before he made an awkward situation out of it. But before exiting, he turned around and said, “Lady Lothíriel, I have one thing to ask of you as well.” She did not respond to it, standing and waiting patiently, as if she wouldn’t accede to it until he had named what he would ask. He thought hesitantly as well, taking his time, trying to moisten his dry lips. He couldn’t possibly be honest with her about everything yet. He couldn’t possibly admit to the throbbing pulse at his temples and in his groin. These Gondorians were real prudes — Éomer even wondered if his bride even knew anything about what goes on behind the bedroom door. Surely they must have told her something about it. They couldn’t have always walled her up; but he remembered her being veiled and sequestered and he smiled grimly. “I only ask that you will be honest about everything in the future as well.”
A small smile crept onto her serene face, and she curtseyed again, saying, “As you wish, my lord.”
Sincerely Snow,
7th April — 18th April
