Here is the Horse and the Rider

Just when Meliel thought they would reach Edoras without incident, the incident happened. With a thunder of paws and a snarl or two, several wargs came rushing down a rocky hillside onto the road.

Meliel’s jump of terror would have thrown her off her horse, except the horse leaped too, up and sideways, in the same direction. She found herself leaning over its neck, grasping its mane like a lover’s hair. In fact, the horse’s movement between her thighs was somewhat like....

That thought vanished before she could seize it, and her mind turned to the considerably more pressing issue of staying alive.

One of the guards drew his sword. His horse had other ideas and pulled frantically at the reins, trying to retreat down the dusty road in the direction they’d come, its dim equine brain forgetting that its stable in Minas Tirith was three days’ ride away. The other guard’s horse had never seen a warg either, and stood rooted to the spot, eyes rolling. The guard shifted his balance as though to leap down and fight on the ground, then, as the beasts drew closer, thought better of it and re-seated himself, sword at the ready.

The driver of the wagon was hauling mightily on his own set of reins as the horses plunged and neighed, while beside him sub-warden Targon wrung his hands and shouted, "I knew we should not have set out from the city without a larger escort. You have too much confidence in the rule of the King, Meliel, a mighty swordsman he might be but he is hardly here now to defend us...."

Admittedly, here in Rohan they were well beyond the reach of both King Elessar’s laws and his sword. The wargs were racing towards them, teeth gleaming in evil grins. Meliel counted three, a small enough number, perhaps, if one had a troop of suitably-armed guards. Still clinging to her horse’s mane with one hand, she drew her long knife from her belt with the other. That the pelt of a warg was thick enough to turn a blade as small as hers was not something she was going to acknowledge, not now.

Then, suddenly, an arrow sang past her face and hit the leading warg square in the chest. It squealed and stumbled. Another arrow, and another, and one of the wargs went down.

Several horsemen poured down the side of the hill behind the wagon, the hooves of their horses throwing up turves of grass, their green cloaks billowing, their helmets shining in the sunlight. Rohirrim! Meliel had always admired the doughty northern horsemen – why, without their courageous, not to mention timely, charge, the Battle of the Pelennor would have been lost. Timeliness seemed to be one of their finest skills.

One rider led the rest, his russet and silver breastplate glimmering, the white horsehair plume in his helmet floating behind him. He and his gray horse moved as one being, faster and faster.... Why, he was hardly holding the reins, but seemed to stay in the saddle by willpower alone. He leaned forward, spear upraised. The flash of teeth in his beard made a fell grin that put that of the wargs to shame.

Meliel managed to drag her horse back against the side of the wagon, which had shuddered to a stop. Still Targon rattled on, something about northern barbarians remembering their allegiance to the King, and the shieldmaiden who had wed the Steward, but then, Faramir was a brave man and always had been....

Through a veil of dust, Meliel saw two of the three wargs cut down and hewn where they lay by the swords of the riders. The guards urged their horses into the fray. The maniac with the white plume guided his horse into a smooth leap over one of the fallen wargs and skewered the last beast with such force the spear point protruded from the fuzzy hide on the opposite side of its body. The warg reared back and fell over, entangling itself, as though with one last spasm of spite, in the legs of the gray horse. The horse reared, stumbled, and started to fall. In one mighty lunge, white-plume leaped from the saddle a split second before it hit the dirt beneath the full weight of the horse. He thudded face-down onto the road at Meliel’s feet.

She blinked down at him. The wind blew whorls of dust across his armor and away. Silence fell over the field. Targon was still talking.

Meliel handed her reins to him – maybe if he had something to do he’d be quiet – and clambered down from her horse. The maniac with the plume was lying very still. His arms and legs seemed to be at the correct angles, and his helmet should have protected his head.... She realized she was still holding her knife and hurriedly sheathed it.

Kneeling down, heedless of her skirts in the dust, she laid her hand on the arch of the man’s broad shoulder. She could sense the breath entering and leaving his body even through the leather and metal, fast but deep. She brushed away the long blond hair that escaped his helmet, fell around his face, and dabbled in the dust.

Another of the Rohirrim leaped from his horse and rushed forward. "My lord!"

Oh, Meliel thought. The maniac was Eomer, king of Rohan. The king by whose strong arm she and her retainers were now safe. He was an amazing spearsman, no doubt about it, if a bit reckless for a king. Still, he had been king for no more than a year, and could have seen no more than thirty summers, if that many.

He was moving. He must have been stunned by his fall. She might not need to call for her pouch of medicines after all. As she leaned back, something nudged her arm. She looked around to see the gray horse, back on its feet, nuzzling worriedly at its erstwhile rider’s leather-clad flank.

"Eomer?" asked the other warrior, dropping down onto his haunches. "Are you well? I have urged you not to lead these patrols yourself, you should not risk..."

"Peace, Elfhelm," said Eomer’s voice, partially muffled by the ground. His limbs contracted, he raised his head, and then, as though suddenly realizing he was now on all fours, he turned and sat down, hard. The white horsehair plume now hung before his face. With an impatient snort he blew at it, but it merely lifted and settled again.

Meliel had the distinct impression that he would have groaned had he not been surrounded by spectators. Scooping the plume aside, she peered into his face beneath the rim of his helmet. The nose guard, carved in a horse’s head, had done its work, and while his fair skin was dirty, only a small trickle of blood ran from a scrape on his cheek into the bronze-colored whiskers.... A pair of stern brown eyes was glaring at her.

"May I ask..." Eomer began, then turned aside to cough. If Meliel hadn’t been kneeling before him he’d probably have spat – there was dirt in his beard that had turned to mud on his full but tightly-held lips.

"...who I am and what I’m doing here?"

He looked back around at her, from the corners of his eyes, a steady assessing gaze that make her lean back. She had not spent many years as wife, mother, and healer without learning to tread carefully around a man’s pride.

"My name is Meliel," she said. "I am a healer. I cared for the lady Eowyn in the Houses of Healing in Minas Tirith. She spoke to me of various herbs that grow only in the mountain vales of Rohan. I’ve come to gather an assortment of them, so that I may study their uses."

"Ah. Eowyn," Eomer said, as though his sister’s name explained everything. "She did not warn you to bring more than, than..." His large, strong hand indicated the wagon, the warden and the young boy who was its driver, and the two guards.

"There is much work to be done in the city. I did not wish to deprive the King of any more men than necessary."

"Obviously, Lady Meliel, you need to re-think your definition of necessary."

She opened her mouth on a tart response, then closed it again, sparing his embarrassment.

Eomer braced one arm against the ground and started to get up. He would have managed to conceal his gasp from most people, but not from Meliel. She noted how his face went pale, what she could see of it between the helmet, the dirt, the blood, and the beard. His breathing was too deep and regular for him to have suffered a broken rib. Probably he had pulled a muscle, or even sprained his shoulder. He most certainly had to be bruised, after his hard landing. Better than being crushed beneath the horse, though. Eomer’s uncle Theoden had died on the Pelennor Fields, crushed beneath his horse.

Taking Eomer’s arm, Elfhelm heaved him to his feet, and steadied him while his helmet, plume and all, scribed a circle against the blue spring sky. Meliel extended her hands, caught a glint from those golden-brown eyes, and lowered them again.

Stiffly, with Elfhelm’s help, Eomer hauled himself onto his horse. Meliel held her breath while he exerted every ounce of will as well as muscle to keep himself in the saddle. When he at last looked down at her, her exhale of relief was mingled with a smile of admiration.

His brows knit slightly at that smile and then loosened, as though wondering whether she was mocking him, then dismissing his concern as unworthy. "I extend the hospitality of Meduseld to you and your retainers," he said, and, without waiting for an answer, nudged his horse into a walk. Elfhelm mounted and rode at his side, but only after setting several of the Rohirrim to work clearing away the dead wargs.

Very regal, to dispense both duties and invitations without a backward glance. "My thanks," Meliel called after Eomer, and reached up to collect her reins from Targon.

"So that’s young pup we met in Minas Tirith in the spring," he said.

"Young, yes. Pup? I think not. He is a man full-grown. And yet...." She frowned thoughtfully as she mounted her horse.

"Hmph." He drew his handkerchief from his sleeve and put it up to his nose. "Those dead beasts smell worse than horses."

"Then we must move on," Meliel told him, and by squeezing the horse between her thighs, suited action to word.

#

The sun was setting beyond the mountains by the time Meliel had her retainers suitably housed in the city of Edoras. Wearily she found her way to her own room, one of the guest rooms in the great hall of Meduseld itself. For a long moment she looked out of the window, down from the hillock upon which the town was built and across the rocky plain. Then the last russet gleam of light died away from the grasslands below, and their color ebbed from burnished gold to brown. Torchlight sprang up in the city, accompanied by voices jesting and laughing.

Meliel settled gratefully into the bath set close beside the fire in her room and scrubbed away the stains, if not the fears, of her journey. Eowyn had spoken often of this place. Meliel wondered whether Eowyn’s new home in Emyn Arnen could compensate for its loss. Surely she would be content knowing that Meduseld still stood, that her brother ruled their people, and that her husband honored her above all other women.

Slowly toweling herself dry, Meliel remembered Faramir’s courtship of Eowyn at the Houses of Healing. Their growing joy in each other had filled her heart and at the same time driven the thorn of memory deep into it. Her husband Danahil had not been unlike Faramir. Their courtship and marriage had been everything she could have desired, save that it had been too brief, ending one evil night two years ago, when Faramir himself brought word of Danahil’s death in a skirmish in Ithilien. Thanks be to everything that was holy – and to the hobbit Frodo – that the end to the war had come before her and Danahil’s son, Amador, had seen more than the one battle before the walls of Minas Tirith.

A year had passed, and still she saw that day before her waking eyes, the carnage of men and horses and wretched creatures of the Dark Lord. She and Targon and the others had worked without ceasing to treat the wounded. She had not allowed herself to feel fear or grief, but still she had not been able to stop herself from looking at every face, from casting swift glances over the parapet to the crimson-stained fields below, searching for Amador. Until at last he came to her, wounded but alive, and she had treated him with the same brisk care she had given to the others, wiping her tears on her sleeve because her hands were covered with blood.

Now the young man worked to re-build the city. Last month he had left his mother’s arms for those of a wife. Like Eowyn, Meliel thought, she should be glad of what she had, and not regret what was gone, whether taken by death or by time.... Impatiently she pulled on her dress, laced her bodice tightly around her bosom, bound up her dark hair, and walked out into the corridor.

The smells of roasting meats and baking bread made her mouth water. She was hungry, and perhaps not only for food, but food would do for the moment to fill the empty space in her belly .

A man stepped out of another room, shut the door, and, intent upon his own thought, almost collided with Meliel. Recognizing Elfhelm, she stopped and smiled a greeting. He bowed in apology, started to walk away, then turned to her as though he had made up his mind to speak. "Lady Meliel. During those months between the time the lady Eowyn returned home, and the time she left again for Minas Tirith with her new husband, she spoke of you and your healing skills."

"Did she? That was very kind of her, although it was King Elessar who restored her life to her and Faramir who gave her reason to live it."

"Still, lacking either of their lordships’ presence now, I would like to ask you if I should be concerned for my lord Eomer’s condition."

"Condition?"

Elfhelm frowned. "He groaned and grunted in pain when I removed his armor, and indeed, I could see bruises aplenty on his body, but I fear he is also damaged internally."

"He has been leading scouting patrols himself, you said on the road."

"Yes. All this last autumn and winter, he..." Elfhelm hesitated, obviously weighing his concern against propriety, if not Eomer’s anger. "...he has been even more daring than usual, raiding the orc-nests in the mountains, hunting warg. And when he is not riding, he is pacing, like stallion fenced in too small a paddock."

"I cannot diagnose, let alone make suggestions for a cure, without examining him."

"He will allow none of our leeches to approach him. But if you were to offer him your thanks for our rescue of your party today, and offer to repay his skills in battle with your healing skills...." Elfhelm lowered his voice. "Eomer is our king, and we will follow him to whatever end. But he is young, as yet he has no heir, and it would be best for us all if his end were to be in the far distant future."

And of course you bear no affection for him, Meliel told Elfhelm silently. She indicated the door through which he had come. "Is this the door to Eomer’s apartments?"

"It is, yes, but I meant, perhaps later this evening...."

"No time like the present." Darting back into her own room, Meliel gathered up her pouch of medicines. Then, concerning herself with neither a knock nor Elfhelm’s amused gaze, she walked into Eomer’s room and shut the door behind her.

The room was large, its posts and beams painted with knotwork patterns. A bed, half-concealed by richly-colored embroidered hangings, stood in the shadows. Fur rugs warmed a stone floor. A leather bathtub on a light wooden frame, larger than her own, sat before a bright, hot fire. Eomer lay back in it, his elbows angled over the sides, his shoulders glistening in the light. A tangle of wet hair, like a blond warg’s pelt, hung from his head over the rim of the tub. "Elfhelm?" he asked.

Remove the armor from some men and they resembled nothing so much as a flabby sea creature extracted from its shell. Not this man. Even without their carapace his shoulders were broad and his chest deep. She could feel his masculinity in the pit of her stomach, like some exotic spice.... No, it was not food she wanted. And yet no more than food was on offer. "It is I, Meliel."

He glanced quickly back over his shoulder, but whatever indignation he might have expressed was erased by a grimace of pain.

"You are injured. I am a healer. Let me look at you." She had said those same words to many men without hearing the double-meaning she heard now, but she persevered, taking a step closer. "I cared for your sister. Perhaps now, at this quieter moment, you remember her speaking of me?"

Eomer turned back around. "Yes, I do remember. She was pleased to see a female healer. As I, perhaps, am not."

Meliel took another step, and another, feeling as though she were indeed easing her way into the presence of a temperamental stallion. "There are women healers in Dol Amroth. I am a kinswoman of Prince Imrahil of that city, although I was born in Minas Tirith. My husband fought and died for Gondor. My son fought but did not die."

"Many of my kinsmen died for Gondor," said Eomer.

"Yes. And we are grateful."

He didn’t answer. She couldn’t see his face, but it seemed to her as though he gazed beyond the walls of the room, at the same scene of slaughter that haunted her. And he had gone on to yet another battle after the siege of Gondor.

Eowyn had spoken of Eomer as well as of Edoras, of how he had been thrust suddenly from being the king’s nephew, third marshal of the mark, first to being the king’s heir and then to king himself. How with the press of events he had never mourned for either his cousin or his uncle, but had simply stepped swiftly and surely into their places. And here he was now, a warrior both fierce and, Meliel suspected, weary of his own ferocity.

"Where does it hurt?" she asked, knowing that even if he answered he would speak only of his body, not his spirit.

For a moment she thought he wouldn’t answer. But perhaps he recognized Elfhelm’s quite reasonable concern, and how it was time set to aside his pride as he had set aside his armor. "My left shoulder," he said quietly.

"Then let me examine it."

With a gurgle of water he leaned forward. The same light that played across his musculature also highlighted the purplish bruises on his fair skin. A stool stood beside the tub. Meliel placed the comb that lay upon it into her lap, opened her pouch of medicines, and sat down. She took Eomer’s upper arm in one hand, braced her other hand upon his shoulder, and began moving the one against the other. His skin was warm and damp beneath her palms. "There," he said, between his teeth.

Gently but firmly, Meliel’s fingertips probed the taut skin and the muscle beneath, provoking a quickly suppressed gasp from Eomer. At last she laid his arm back on the rim of the tub. "You have a sprain. I shall treat it. Rest would help. Relaxation, if, indeed, you ever relax."

"I am a king. Kings do not rest."

"You cannot heal a wound by ignoring it," she told him.

His answer was to sink farther into the tub, so that his head was pillowed on its rim and his knees emerged into the firelight, buttressed between strong thighs and calves.

Averting her eyes from those parts of his body still beneath the water, she reached into her pouch and unstoppered a small vial. A brisk, fresh scent filled the room. "Sit up," she instructed. "Breathe". With a sound that might have been either a chuckle or a grumble he sat up and inhaled deeply.

When her hands began kneading the oil into his shoulder Eomer inhaled again, short and sharp this time. In pain, she supposed, although she could think of other reasons for such a gasp. "I shall brew you a tisane of herbs for rest and sleep, that you must drink when you go to bed tonight."

"I should not..."

"You have many sentries. You can close your eyes and rest for one night."

He said nothing, but stiffened beneath her hands. That had been too close a shot. Meliel did not press her advantage. In silence she went on kneading until his muscles loosened again.

She leaned over to rinse her hands in the bath water, his head tilting slightly to follow her move. Then she pulled a long strip of cloth from her pouch and wrapped it snugly about his shoulder. A man as young and vital – and stubborn – as he was would heal quickly, she thought, but what she said was, "Leave this in place for several days, try not to move your shoulder any more than necessary, and you will be as good as new."

"Very well, then."

Meliel picked the comb up from her lap and turned it over in her hands. She was a healer, not a hairdresser, but she could not resist the challenge of Eomer’s tangled hair. Delicately, starting at the end of the long strands, she began to comb the snarls away.

Again he inhaled, not deeply, not sharply, but shakily. She paused, holding a double handful of his hair like reins, realizing that this time she had startled him not with pain but with pleasure. A pleasure perhaps greater for being unexpected in a way that pain was not.

Smiling – the feeling was mutual, although she refused to analyze it – she combed out the wet tangles until his hair gleamed gold in the firelight and slipped through her fingers like silk thread, both fine and strong. She sensed his knotted sinews loosening even further, the tension flowing away from his body like the scented vapor from the surface of the bath water.

There. That hadn’t hurt him. It might have helped, for the moment. Meliel put down the comb.

"A woman’s touch," Eomer said, adding, "My sister used to comb my hair."

"She misses you, I’m sure."

"When she has time to think about me."

Eomer, Meliel thought, must find himself lonely, especially for someone who was not intimidated by his rank – he had not once insisted upon "my lord".... Oh my.

He turned his head toward her, brows at an angle that hinted of humor. "Is this then, how you deal with all your male patients?"

"What do you think?" she replied, less briskly than she’d have liked.

"I think not," he said with a thin smile. "I also think that if you had a husband you would not have come gathering flowers in Rohan."

"I am a widow."

"I am sorry to hear it." His nod was gracious, but the look he cast up at her from beneath his brows was sharp as his spear, and held nothing of sorrow. His shoulders coiled, lazily, like a thoroughbred testing its paces. A woman’s touch, but not that of a sister.

Meliel stood up so quickly she almost knocked over the stool. "It is almost time for dinner."

"That it is."

"I’ve had a long day. I’ve worked up a good appetite."

"As have I."

She gathered up her pouch and stepped backwards toward the door. "I will prepare you a tisane at bedtime, Eom.... My lord."

"You will be welcome, my lady," he said, and added, "Meliel" so softly the word was almost lost in the creak of the door hinges.

She had stepped into the cool of the corridor and shut the door before she realized he had said "you", not "that". But she was not surprised.

#

Meliel looked appreciatively around the great hall, at the pillars crowned with carved horse heads, at the colorful banners ranged along the walls. She had never before thought how chilly were the white stones of Minas Tirith and Dol Amroth, compared to the warmth of wood and these shades of red and green and gold.

Her retainers sat at a lower table, apparently celebrating their narrow escape from death that afternoon by indulging in all the ale they could drink. The Rohirrim lady next to Targon was even listening to his never-ending babble. There was something to be said for new and different, Meliel did not suppose but recognized as fact.

She tore off another succulent bit of venison and placed it between her lips, then mopped the plate with a piece of bread and put that, too, in her mouth. The dark gravy was dotted with little red berries, giving it an intriguing tart-sweet flavor that evaporated from her tongue and filled her senses like steam. She’d have to ask what the berries were, perhaps they had medicinal properties....

The berries weren’t causing the tickle through her senses now. Swallowing, she glanced yet again across the table, to where Eomer sat. Yet again he caught her glance and returned it, even as he parried the conversation of those around him. His long fingers tucked morsels of food into his mouth, delicately, so that no drops of gravy clung to his moustache. His laugh was honed as sharp as a dagger. Whatever moment of relaxation Meliel had brought to his bath had been replaced by an entirely different sort of tension.

A tension both pleasing and disturbing. She knew what she had awakened in the young man, perhaps not entirely inadvertently. She knew what she had awakened in herself. You cannot heal a wound by ignoring it, she had told him, even though she herself had been doing just that. As a healer, she treated the wounds of the flesh. But how many men – and women – had survived the war only to find their spiritual wounds unhealed and unhealing. Those wounds she did not know how to treat. She knew only that it was the body with all its appetites and all its fears that knit the spirit to the living world.

She lifted her pewter flagon and saw her own face reflected in it, a distorted pale blotch, shadowed by the rim of her dark hair, so tightly wound it made a helmet. She was older than Eomer, more experienced in some areas, less – much less – in others. She was not Rohirrim. Perhaps, as third marshal, he had tumbled some willing woman in an East Mark haymow. But as king – no, a king did not graze his own fields. To be a bachelor king was to be alone.

Eomer drank from his own flagon, his head tilted toward Elfhelm, listening gravely to the man’s casual words. But from the corner of his eye Eomer watched Meliel, his level gaze curious, intelligent, and unnerving. His tongue moved slowly between his lips, stating his intent as clearly as though he’d written it on a piece of parchment and handed it to her. He, too, needed more than food or a relaxing tisane.

The company rose from the tables and drifted away. Meliel made sure that the two Gondorian guards led a tipsy Targon to his bed, and that her young driver was seated safely beside the fire that burned in the center of the hall, a beacon driving back the dark.

Eomer sat down on the great carved chair beneath a green and white banner and leaned slowly back, his hands braced on the armrests. A bard stood beside the fire and with a bow to the assembled listeners began to chant the lay of Theoden King, who had died before the walls of Minas Tirith full of years and honor. Out of dark, out of doubt, to the day’s dawning....

Tear stung her eyes as Meliel remembered Theoden’s broken body carried into the city. And yet there were worse things than death. Death was easy. Living on after others had died, trying to use well the days, that was difficult. She looked up at Eomer King. His features were still and solemn, his brows drawn together in a frown. His mind paced back and forth, back and forth, through the dark corridors of memory. ...red fell the dew in Rammas Echor.

Meliel whispered to one of the servants, requesting hot water and a cup be brought to her. The bard began another lay: "Where is the horse and the rider? Where is horn that was blowing? They have passed, like rain on the mountains. The day has gone down in the west, behind the hills into shadow...."

Collecting cup and water, she carried them through the shadows to her room, her heartbeat thudding as heavily in her chest as her steps on the wooden planks of the floor.

#

It was perhaps half an hour before the knock came at her door, although Meliel was sure at least an age of the world had passed away. Counseling herself to act the mature woman she was, not the innocent bride she had once been, long ago, she gathered up the flask of hot water, the cup, and the little bag of herbs for the tisane, and opened the door.

Eomer loomed in the doorway. The high collar of his green tunic was embroidered with gold knotwork, and more embroidery edged his rust colored surcoat. A lesser man would have been engulfed by such garments. But Eomer wore them well, as he wore armor well, as simply the external layers of his quick mind.

Wordlessly, he held out his hand. Silently, Meliel placed her own hand in his. His fingers tightened around it, gripping but not stifling. He led her down the hallway to his apartments and bowed her inside.

The tub had been removed, but the fire had been stoked, and burned brightly. Beneath the odors of smoke and leather Meliel sensed the elusive fragrance of her healing oil. She laid the water and herbs on a table, concealing an embarrassingly shaky inhalation. If he wanted the tisane, she would prepare it for him. And yet she hoped – she dared assume – that he would not.

Eomer shut the door, bolted it, and turned to her. The top of her head barely came to his chin. She set her hands on his chest, feeling the intricacies of the embroidery beneath her fingertips, and raised her face to his.

No, he did not want a sleeping draught. His swift embrace almost lifted her off her feet and yet did not crush her. His beard and moustache bristled against her cheek. Her exhalation of delight and surrender swept through his hair and vanished. Then his lips were upon hers, delicate at first, then insistent. But her need was as great as his, and she returned his kiss open-mouthed and eager, tasting berries and ale on his tongue.

His large, sure hands unbound her hair and sent it tumbling down her back. They unlaced her bodice and flirted with the hem of her dress. She wasn’t quite sure how his surcoat and tunic were fastened, but when she fumbled at them he smiled and showed her the hooks and eyes hidden in the seams. Golden-red hairs softened the hard breadth of chest, as though his body were embroidered like his clothes.

Either his eyes were smoldering or merely reflecting the firelight. It didn’t matter. The bedclothes were cold behind her naked back. Eomer’s body, naked except for the bandage, was hot and solid as stone against her side. His throat was salt-sweet on her lips and his back firm to her hands. His hair smelled of new-mown hay.

He was not unskilled in pleasing her – he might lack experience, but not imagination. She guided his mouth and his hands to the sensitive places of her body and listened in amazed gratitude to the small sounds escaping her throat.... Suddenly he caught his breath in pain and listed away from his wounded left side.

"What sort of healer am I, to demand too much of my patient?" Meliel murmured into his ear, and at his quick frown, "Never fear, I shall do the work."

His frown eased into a laugh. He rolled over onto his back, propped the breadth of this shoulders against the pillows, and watched with slitted eyes as she leaned over him, stroked him, kissed him, and finally rode him like a horse. Thinking of Elfhelm’s "stallion", she laughed, not loudly but freely. His teeth flashed in his beard, a grin both fierce and joyful.

At last, as warm and damp as though she’d just risen from her bath, Meliel slumped down at Eomer’s side, and relaxed into the shelter of his strong right arm. Outside the window the wind keened. Inside the distant murmur of voices sounded to Meliel like the sea, unending, constant in its rhythms. Here, she thought, they would not think of the sea. Here they would think of the day going down into shadow and then rising again, through generation after generation of men, everlasting.

"Out of dark, out of doubt," she whispered.

"To the day’s dawning," Eomer replied, and a moment later was snoring softly.

Meliel lay awake for a while yet, marveling at what chance had brought her here, until she, too, succumbed to the peace that is sleep.

#

The odor of all her packets of flowers and plants lingered on her hands. Meliel could smell them as she tied her hair back and stepped into the bath. She had spent seven days riding about Rohan gathering samples, the Rohirrim escort hand-picked by Eomer at her heels. If they had been bored escorting a woman picking flowers, they were either too polite or too respectful of their king to say so.

Her mission was a success, she thought as she eased down into the warm, fragrant water. And the mission she hadn’t even known she was on had also reached a satisfactory conclusion. She tangled her legs with Eomer’s, making a knotwork of flesh.

He shifted just far enough to give her room in the tub. For a few moments he ladled the hot water over her shoulders, so that it ran sensuously down her back. Then he set the wooden dipper aside, wrapped his arms around her, and drew her back against his chest. How quickly she had grown accustomed to his body pressed against hers, and to his voice caressing her ears. For first their bodies had met and spoken, and then, freed, their words had teased out the old dreams and the old griefs just as she had combed the tangles from his hair.

Now he scooped her hair away from the back of her neck and began nibbling her nape, his beard and moustache both tickling and tantalizing. His hands on her breasts could sense her pleasure. Her voice trembling, she said, "Tomorrow I shall return to Minas Tirith."

"So soon?" His breath thrilled across her cheek.

"I have my herb garden to tend. It will soon be time for the spring planting."

"And when next I come to Minas Tirith, to pay my respects to the king and to my sister and her husband, will I see you?"

"If you like." She reached behind her back, sliding her hands down his smooth, taut, wet flanks. "However, there is someone I should like for you to meet. My kinswoman Lothiriel, daughter of Imrahil of Dol Amroth. She is of an age to marry, but her father would not give her to just any man. You fought beside him. He has great respect for you."

Eomer’s mouth retreated, and his fingertips stopped their intriguing movements.

"She is beautiful," Meliel went on, "with sable hair and gray eyes, like a vision in human form of Queen Arwen. You should see her riding her mare along the beach. They are like one creature, horse and woman."

"Meliel, you..."

"...have work in Minas Tirith."

"I like a mature woman," he protested, his hands tightening on, but failing to contain, her breasts.

"I’ve noticed. But I am mature enough to have a grown son, who will soon make of me a grandmother. A young woman, now, a young wife, would surely have her charms."

For long moment he sat in silent thought. Then he asked, "Lothiriel is like unto the Queen, you say?"

"She is, yes. And I hear that you and the dwarf Gimli almost came to blows debating the beauty of Galadriel of Lorien and Arwen, the Evenstar."

He chuckled. "Elfhelm has been hinting that it is time for me to put myself out to stud."

"It is indeed. You need a woman to take you properly in hand," Meliel said, and took him in hand as she spoke.

His response was both laugh and groan. He stood up, lifted her out of the water, and wet as they both were carried her to the bed and laid her down on it. "You are as beautiful as the queen," he lied gallantly. "And you are probably right about my making a marriage. Perhaps I will discuss the matter with King Elessar."

She looked up at him as he stood over her, in the fiery shadows like a statue of kings of old. Beautiful, indeed. "You have removed your bandage. Your shoulder must be healed."

"That it is."

"Then play the stud, and cover me." She opened her arms to him, beckoning.

Eomer covered her, bracing himself on both arms, his frown now one of concentration, not of worry and grief. "Meliel, I shall remember...." His hair fell down like a curtain around her, mingling with her dark hair on the pillow, and she gave herself up to using well the moment, before that moment was forever gone.

#

Meliel and her company, supplemented by yet another escort, rode down from Edoras onto the plains. Targon chatted away on the wagon: "Polite enough folk, for barbarian horse-herders, don’t you think? Very helpful. They must realize the importance of our mission. Most warriors are simply killers, mind, why should they understand the role of healers...."

Meliel shifted in her saddle, gingerly. Her thighs were so sore she hoped the beast would not shy at any small insects or the like, or she would never be able to cling to its back. But riding in the wagon would not only require too many explanations, it would be less of a reminder. She wanted the body-memory just as she wanted the memories in her mind, for spirit and body were inextricably intertwined.

She glanced back, at the gates of Edoras and the troop of horseman gathered before it, illuminated by the rising sun. Rohan’s king sat tall and straight on his horse, set apart from the others and yet not entirely alone. The white plume on his helmet rippled in the wind. One of his men lifted a horn to his lips and blew a high, clear, uncomplicated note that had in it something of the wind that shaped the plains of Rohan, and something of the songs of its people.

Eomer lifted his spear, saluting the departing company. Meliel waved, then turned to the road ahead, her smile tinged with sadness, but a smile nonetheless.