Good day to you, Your Majesty,
I have been wondering, and I understand it may be a tactless question on my part, but what is your reason for keeping Eothain at your side? He hasn't been very kind, and not always very respectful, to our Queen.
Thank you for your time if you choose to respond to my impertinence.
⚔️ ÉOMER BIRTHDAY ASK EVENT┃Has my question been answered? ⚔️
“Ah, but it is no impertinence, good sir or lady.”
He inclines his head.
“Indeed, I welcome a diversity of thought in my court, for a measure of dissent does well to keep the government honest. Too often have rulers thoughtlessly suppressed dissent, surrounding themselves with those who only knew to bow and wag their chins, and then failed to see the flaws in their own vision.”
He pauses, pondering his words, and his gaze grows momentarily cloudy. But then he folds his hands into a tent, clasping them firmly, and appraises the questioner once more.
“And so, as you may guess,” he says, “my reason for keeping Éothain by my side is much the same. As an old comrade in arms, he is unafraid to tell me the naked truth — for think on this: if on the field of battle my men sought to please me and spare my pride, and if I missed a vital sign and no one breathed a word, how many lives would it cost? And why should peacetime be any different?”
He pauses again, and draws a deliberate breath, exhaling through pursed lips.
“And so, with Éothain,” he continues, his features settling into a firm yet thoughtful mien, “he has made no secret that he disagreed with my choice of queen; he thought Her Majesty too young, and that she knew too little of the world, and of Rohan — all true, once upon a time, and I could not dismiss his objections, try as I might, and lovestruck though I was in the months preceding our union. But in the end, he is also clever, is Éothain. Once the Queen arrived, nothing he ever said — to the extent that I know it — has risen to the level of slander or naked disrespect. It was always an infection of the voice, an expression of the face, an omission rather than a commission where the fault of his behavior lay. There was nothing for which I could truly fault him without playing the tyrant.
“And yet, now that I think on it, if his behavior is so plain that I am not the only one who sees it, I think it is high time that I warned him, and reminded him of his place. After all, I have my uncle’s bitter experience to teach me: I know too well that no adviser should be trusted above all others, no attendant placed above the rest. Indispensable though he is — for I have not yet found a better record-keeper or a faster, more efficient scribe — no one is irreplaceable, not even a man who has known me longer than I could grow a beard, or has seen me at my greenest after a night of revelry.”
