Avoidance, Eowyn's Tale Begins
By Author's Name; Author = StefaniaB
Rated PG
Genre Romance (Het)
Warnings: Mild sexual situations
Chapter 3: Eowyn's Tale Begins With a Bitter Promise
“It's so long ago,” Eowyn rested back, cradling her head against the side of Faramir's chin. “I don't know how much I can remember or want to remember of the darker events that led me to your side. Do you really want to hear them?” she asked.
“I do, since you forgot to tell me about them ....”
Thoughts of a husband, real or imagined, were hardly in her mind two years ago, as she twisted in her bed in Minas Tirith's Houses of Healing. She was alone, trying to find a comfortable position for her shattered arm, trying to find comfort for her shattered hopes.
Eomer had visited numerous times before the Captains of the West rode for their impending journey to the Black Gate. On his last visit, she demanded to join them.
Her brother appeared to be severely troubled, “Eowyn, you have only the use of one arm,” he said, stating the obvious.
“My right arm is strong,” she reminded him then. “I care not if my left cannot carry a shield. I do not expect to live. Do you?”
Eomer sat beside her on the humble but comfortable bed. “I cannot count on living past the Black Gate. But I must count on your living, Eowyn. Whether we succeed or fail, I still might fall in battle. Neither you nor I have children. We are the last of Theoden's line.”
His hand lifted her chin so that he could regard her directly. Eowyn wanted to lower her head but his hand prevented that.
“So you must stay here and recover. You may have dreamed of being a queen, my sister, or thought you should have been one. If I should not return, you will, indeed, be Queen of Rohan, by Theoden's will and my decree.”
She felt her stomach constrict as the enormity of her situation descended on her. In effect, her brother was ordering her to get well, return to lead their people, marry a man of noble birth, and produce a legacy of children. Not at all what she wanted for her future. Would there even be a future for her people? No, Eowyn wanted what all men, and too many women, of Rohan dreamed of these days-a swift, glorious end in battle.
“You must have a future, even if you can't face it now,” he pleaded. “Not all of our troops go with me in our combined host. Most Rohirrim who survived are camped outside the city or here, injured, like you. Only those that specifically chose to go to Mordor ride with us.
"Promise me that you will stay here. Give those that remain here the opportunity to ride with you and return the remains of our uncle to our home, to make a last stand for Rohan or, should we prevail, have a celebration worthy of the greatest sagas.”
Eowyn composed her features, sniffed back her tears as she draped her right arm over Eomer's shoulders, “May your name be remembered in the songs of our people, for as long as those songs exist. But from myself, go with the love of a sister for her brother.”
After he left, she sank onto the bed yet continued to look out the door , which Eomer had neglected to close. The sun set and shadows enveloped her room. Still she stared out the door onto the corridor, her arm heavy with pain. Her mind lingered on the image of her brother, as he left her. And then her mind lingered sadly on Aragorn, as he said farewell with a gentle rebuke at Dunharrow, reminding her again of the futility of her dreams of love between them. Someday she would know real love, predicted the man who would be the king of Gondor-if he indeed returned. If the free peoples of the West survive the next few weeks, perhaps real love will have a chance, perhaps not for me, but those left among us, Eowyn thought bitterly.
Chapter Four: Eowyn's Tale: Betrayal, or Really Friendship?
Eowyn rose from her bed, shivering in her thin patient's gown, then wrapping the blankets across her body. Out in the corridor was a portico opening onto the courtyard below, where the overflow of injured warriors slept fitfully in their cots. Huddling within the yards of wool, she dragged herself out of her bed, dismayed that her legs felt weak and useless. She managed to creep to the portico's ledge, where she sat watching the prone soldiers murmur and toss: Rohirrim, Gondorians, and others she couldn't even identify.
“I suspected that you might be wandering, my lady, when I didn't see you in your room,” the Gondorian nurse Ioreth had come up behind her, a smile on her face that broadened her cheeks and reddened her complexion. Of some indeterminate age around 60, Ioreth moved quickly, with determination, despite her stocky frame. She always seemed cheerful.
Eowyn wondered what reason Ioreth could possibly have to be cheery.
“I cannot sleep. My mind keeps churning.”
“So your mind is where the pain is. I only half believe that,” Ioreth chirped, plopping herself on the ledge behind Eowyn.
“My arm feels more comfortable when I sit up. I wish I could sleep here, sitting up.” Eowyn admitted, begrudgingly.
Ioreth leaned over and winked: “ I have just the remedy for a painwracked mind and it works well for a painful arm, too.”
Eowyn straightened in indignation, “ I need no narcotic.” My arm will be fine, she assured herself. Broken arms have never stopped a true warrior. A contrary arm will not stop me.
“Narcotic? Phissh. What you need is a nice glass of Feanorian wine,” Ioreth tapped Eowyn's good shoulder conspiratorially. “This morning Mithrandir opened the Stewards' wine cellars and gave our staff bottles of Feanorian wine. It's a suitable reward, methinks, for these last days of heart-breaking work. You were my last patient. I intended to have a glass of the Feanorian after I finished for the evening. Why don't you join me with a drink that eases your mind and that arm?”
She realized the weight of her exhausted muscles then, the number of her sorrows crushing in on her. Eowyn felt Ioreth's arms carefully envelop her waist, avoiding her bound arm, guiding her up, back to her room. Shortly afterwards, the nurse returned with a bottle and two glasses. Ioreth was right. The wine tasted wonderful. Eowyn sipped as she listened to the nurse chatter about her grown children, her deceased husband, and the White City where Ioreth had lived all her life.
At some point, Eowyn must have put down her glass and reclined on her bed, for she found herself beneath the covers as the bright noon sun filtered into her room through the high windows near the ceiling. A wave of panic gripped her. She called for Ioreth, but no nurse responded to her call. At last, the Warden of the Houses of Healing himself came into her small room and closed the lattice door behind him. He was a balding man, jowls beginning to collect around his mouth. Yet he still projected the air of an authority whose word was seldom contested.
Have the Captains rode off, then?” Eowyn tried to sound demanding, as befitted the highest ranking woman in Rohan, but her voice rasped. “Where is Ioreth? She pretended pity and instead drugged me.”
The Warden sat himself at the foot of her bed, spreading his sable robe of office about him, then silently motioned for Eowyn to show him her arm. With some difficulty she sat up and managed to raise the broken limb enough for the Warden's inspection. She dug her teeth deep into her lip to keep from crying out. He finally responded, “The host rode out this morning before 10 am. I was told most of the people remaining in the City came out of their houses to see the Captains off. I would not know. I was here. Perhaps Nurse Ioreth saw them depart. She does not report to duty until mid-afternoon.
Then she had missed them. Aragorn, her brother, Gandalf, and the others had gone to their deaths while she was sleeping. She was betrayed by a nurse with simple curing on her mind.
“My dear lady, you must stay abed for at least a week, so I was commanded and so I prescribe, myself. Your arm needs rest to heal. It has been shattered in three places.”
“In three places?” Eowyn challenged him. “How so, Warden? How could you know?”
“Why, by examining it while you were still unconscious, of course, prior to setting it,” the healer said.
She observed the great cast that trapped her left arm, “I have never seen a binding like this, and I have set many a broken arm in my country. I would like to know more about how Gondorian healers tend to breaks such as mine.”
“Then you would need many years of training and study,” the Warden observed her curiously. “I didn't realize that you had medical knowledge, Lady.”
“Why, I don't. That is, I am trained in healing arts in the fashion of the women of my country: watching and learning, listening to the most knowledgeable and experienced healers among our people. I do not know what is customary here in Gondor, but it is ever the responsibility of the nobility of my country to do much work among the people. It was my choice and interest to tend the ailing, from sick children, expectant mothers, and, all too often, caring for wounds and broken bones.
“There was a need, you see. Most of our male healers rode off with the eoreds out on patrol. We had all too few healers in our towns and countryside. The women had to tend to the sick and injured at home. I did my best with what I knew.” Just getting the words of her explanation out overwhelmed Eowyn with weariness. She was loth to have the Warden see how exhausted she was. Yet the need to lie down was so great.
“It is tragic that evil times give healers the best experience,” the Warden shook his head. “I would like to learn more of the medicine of Rohan, if you would spare me some conversation when you are better. Meantime, if you would like to learn more of Gondorian healing arts, we have a fine medical library right here in the Houses of Healing. I can bring you a few of the introductory texts that we read at the beginning of our course of study.”
“Excellent, since you have made me a prisoner of this small bed. And you can bring that traitorous nurse to my side this evening, too.” Eowyn sighed. The Warden's examination had inflamed the nerves in her arm. She curled in her bed, grinding her teeth, willing the pain away. At least I now understand what a broken arm feels like, as well as how to bind it, she thought. Later I can treat those with such an ailment in a more knowledgeable fashion. If there is a later, of course. Her mind was cloudy and swirling.
She didn't hear Ioreth enter, but now the nurse was at her bedside. “Ah, you're sleeping much better, I see,” Ioreth declared, placing a hand on Eowyn's right wrist to check her pulse. “Can you sit up, my lady? I have some Feanorian claret to help you to sleep.”
“You put a narcotic in that wine last night,” Eowyn accused her feebly, her weary voice barely above a mumble.
“Not at all, lady,” the Nurse laughed. “Your body wants to rest. So a little wine goes a long, long way, so to speak.”
“I wanted to see the great company march out, “ Eowyn said, as she sipped the deep red wine, feeling a slight pucker of tannin on her palette. “Since you made it impossible for me to see them, then you must tell me of their leaving.”