Disclaimer: The world belongs to Tolkien, the words alone are mine.

A/N:  *cringes* Please don’t kill me.  This sprung up out of a nuzgul supplied to me by Beauty in Disguise, who said: ‘Write something about Éowyn in Harad’. Betaed by Claudia.

She is glad to touch the earth again, even if it is earth soiled by the presence of the foe.  Ships are not to her liking – Faramir, who half grew up with the swans of Dol Amroth, the gentle rock of the boats and the calls of the sailors of his mother's people, has teased her, gently, about it more than once.

“Forth Eorlingas,” she murmurs, even as she allows Faramir to take her arm, lead her up towards the city.

The city of the Corsairs is a sprawling affair, destroyed and rebuilt many a time.  The place smells of salt and damp.  The leader, the man they have come to meet, is small and dark, his wife taller than he is.  But there is a fire in his eyes; Éowyn knows better than to underestimate him.  This one has bound together the tribes of the South, has been named their King, above all other Kings, has had the cunning to feign affection for peace, to make snake-tongued promises to the North.

Elessar, Elchirion, and Faramir greet him courteously enough.  How soon they forget, these children of Gondor.  Erkenbrand, sent in place of her brother, bows low.  Undómiel is, of course, ever-graceful, making Elchirion’s dull little wife seem clumsy by comparison.

If Éowyn has to smile for one more second she thinks she will scream.  Still, she chatters idly with the guests and hosts.  They speak of unimportant things, at ease now that they think the deal is signed and done.  Tomorrow, Elessar says, - and none would gainsay, surely, he who is as tall and fierce as an Elf-lord of old - tomorrow the treaty will be signed, and peace be made.  The Haradrim will be welcomed in the Reunited Kingdoms; no more will there be any need for fear of the South.

They say that, but it will not come to pass.  Not if Éowyn has anything to do with it.

The mark was laid upon her as a child.  Many speak of the shield-maidens; sometimes with pride, or dislike, discouragement, distaste.  None of that matters, for few know what it truly means.  Faramir has asked her sometimes, as he lays with her at night, has asked her for the meaning of it.  He strokes his fingers over the lines of it, dark against her pale skin, and she smiles, and lies to him.

She loves him too much to speak the truth.

She lies awake a little while, while her husband sleeps, renewing the vows of old while she examines the cracks in the ceiling; the spider spinning silken webs in the shadows of the corner.

For Bema.  For Rohan.  For Fastred and Folcred, fallen kin, and all riders lost.  To keep the Oath of Eorl ever-sacred, ever-more.  For Gondor.  She turns to run a hand down Faramir’s cheek, and smiles and snuggles into him, and rests awhile.

For Gondor’s sake, Rohan will be strong.  Éowyn will not fail.

Like most men, even those who should know better, they underestimate the power of women.  The shield-maidens have used this to their advantage for hundreds of years.  Theirs is the power of silk and shadow; whispers in the dark.  What Gondor plans here cannot be allowed - by her blood-oath she must prevent it.  Elessar thinks he can forge peace with paper and pretty words.

 Éowyn thinks him a fool.

And perhaps that makes her even more a fool, who once loved him.  Yet even did she believe the Haradrim would not betray their own promises of peace, she thinks she would do this.  Too much blood has been spilled, blood of Mother Rohan, blood of the children of Bema, of the chosen, of the Riders.  There is no place for forgiveness now.

Faramir wakes as she is about to leave.  His eyes are fixed upon her, pain and love and forgiveness.

“Must you?”

She smiles.  She would not love him if he were not a clever man.  Yet she can see from the look those eyes that he will not betray her cause.  Which is well, because duty would have to come before love, even if the thought makes her stomach turn.

“Yes.”

He is still watching her as she leaves.  She slips a hand down to her belly, feels the growing curve there, imagines she can hear a second heart-beat to match her own.  This one will be a girl, she thinks.  A son she has given him already; this daughter shall be hers.  Not Shield-maiden, but Sword-maiden, born to the blade, to the blood-oath, to the birth-right, to Bema.

And Faramir shall not speak against her.  That knowledge is a comfort, as sure as the cool metal of the knife-hilt in her palm.  The corridors are dark as she slips along them, the moon hidden behind cloud (and somehow that is not a surprise, as it is said that Bema controls the moon, and this is merely another sign of the righteousness of her actions), her footsteps Elven-light.

When she slips back into bed, her husband pretending to sleep as she curls around him, there is no blood on her hands.

There never is.