There was great feasting in the hall of Meduseld, as in the days of old.  For it was no longer often that visitors came from the South.  And such a visitor!  For there at the king’s side sat Boromir, Steward’s Son of Gondor, and a man much admired for reasons that had nothing to do with treaties and allegiance.  Proud and forthright he was, but joyful also, reckoned more like to the woven images of Eorl and his sons than the graven, grim statues of his forebears that graced the Citadel of Minas Tirith.  His prowess, with sword and with spear, was often praised as was his friendship with Théodred the king’s own son, for they were much alike and distantly related it was said.

Even now he sat, showing his honor to Rohan by filling his plate once again with all set before him and reaching once more for the braggot* – a rarity in southern lands where honey was not made as sweet.

But the steward’s son was not enjoying himself as much as those about him might believe.  He would rather have let his features settle into the glower that mirrored his heart, but instead laughed raucously when the stripling Éomer stopped talking, the punch line evidently given.  Once more Boromir hid a frown behind the rim of his goblet, even while over it he watched the young princess of Rohan slip surreptitiously from the table.

How he longed to follow her!

Normally, he enjoyed when his duties – or rare lack of them – allowed him time in Rohan; though he loved the cool stone and orderly streets of Minas Tirith, the rough and hearty spirit of Rohan always warmed him.  Théodred King’s-son was indeed a kindred soul – where else might either find one so similar in age and circumstance?  and together their ventures into the wide plains for hunting and for sport had resulted in many a song and story told and retold about the fire. 

But this time was different.  His father had given unequivocal orders:  go, meet with Éowyn, Sister-daughter to the King, and evaluate her suitability as a wife.

Wife.  The very word …

Certainly, he could concede the necessity of such a person, eventually, but Boromir was not yet even thirty-five – more than ten years younger than his father had been at his own wedding day – and what beside heirs could a wife offer that women had not been giving Boromir almost before he knew what to do with it?

And Éowyn … Éowyn!  She was little more than a child … though not an unadmirable one.  He’d seen her often in the few days since his arrival: in the stables disheveled from a morning’s ride; in the practice yard gamely sparring with the men of her cousin’s éored and, he’d noticed, certainly holding her own; and in the hall at eveningtime though more often sitting by the fire with the king’s great hounds than gracing the king’s high-table.  In fact, he considered, he’d seen her just about every place about the town except where a young princess approaching womanhood aught to be!  A womanhood nonetheless showing promise, as his practiced eye could see by the simple gown she’d worn that night –   He snorted with recognition:  it had been well chosen.

Hah!  Wife! … Wife ... Well, perhaps it bore some looking into.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Éowyn broke into a run just outside the hall and stopped herself only to avoid pitching over the foundations of Meduseld.  Below her all Edoras was peacefully gathered in, and settling window by window into the quiet night, but she felt no such peace.  Her shoulders ached from sitting straight and her mouth felt stiff from smiling.  And the new braiding on her dress (added to hide a hastily-let-down hem) itched!  Éowyn scratched her ankle with a sandaled foot.  In fact, the whole thing itched; she grabbed handfuls of it at her waist and twisted back and forth.  Then both gown and hands fell resignedly to her side.

She felt like a horse at parade and not in any way that she liked.

Éowyn thrust a lip out over Edoras.  She would not let them treat her like a brood mare; she wasn’t a piece of plow land, a treaty to be negotiated!  She could bring greater honor to Rohan on horseback and grasping a sword than on her own back grasping –

She slapped a hand over her startled mouth; perhaps she had been spending too much time in the practice yards!  But in another moment she lowered it again, determinedly.  She was no longer a child … Éowyn made a most unbecoming face into the night; they hadn’t even told her why he was here.

Not that she’d needed to be told.  She may be young, but she’d never been foolish.  Everywhere she’d been about Edoras these past few days she’d found steel-grey eyes watching her, measuring.  Only when Théodred had gone hunting and taken the steward’s son with him had she felt able to breath freely in her own house again. 

Although, when she’d heard the women gossiping that he was in the training yard working with her cousin’s éored, she’d run to see.  His extraordinary skill and flawless technique, the way his strength seemed to come so effortlessly to him, the dark hair on his exposed chest – she hadn’t been able to tear her eyes away.  She’d found herself wanting his attention, his approval; it disgusted her.  And then he’d caught her looking, and laughed.

Even now she paled at the memory, and stamped her foot on the flagstone terrace.  The soft sole of her sandals made only a disappointing ‘chhht’ on the worn stone.  She sighed again into

the stillness; it was hard, even for her, to be angry when below her was all of Rohan, settled in peace.

“It is a fair prospect.”

Éowyn wheeled.

Boromir chuckled.  ‘If she’d had a knife, I’d now be plucking it from my eye.’  He lifted himself from the dark of a column and stepped carelessly into the moonlight, raising his goblet to hide a smile.

‘Like a cat leaving the dairy,’ thought Éowyn.  His approach made her take an echoing step back.  She gasped, and for a moment teetered at the edge of the terrace.  Then a strong arm caught her about the waist.

For a long moment Boromir held her pressed against his chest, seeming to consider how it suited him to have her there.  Though his gaze was uncommon cool, Éowyn felt it burn her where it touched, and an unaccustomed blush of effrontery begin to climb up her chest.  Then, just as quickly as he’d caught her she was released.  Éowyn felt her blush deepen:  she hadn’t even thought to push him away.

Boromir pulled a swallow from his cup.

“’Tis a poor hostess absents herself from the table before the feast is through.  Still –”  he heard the girl draw a breath of umbrage and ignored it – “I will say again, it is a fair prospect –” and his eyes, sharp as steel and grey as the stone of Mundburg, bore into her once more, then flicked away; “and I, too, was wearying.”

Silently Éowyn took a deep breath, and held it; in that one short speech he had slipped so easily from insult, to praise, to sympathy.  And they said he was no politician.

Oh, she recognized the game that he was playing, though she herself had only witnessed it before.  Cautiously, she drew a smile from her lips and parried, curtseying:  “it will be some years before I am mistress of my own table, Sir.  And if the king not object to my leaving, then who may?”

“Who indeed, Lady, who indeed?”

‘Certainly not a foreign-born guest in my uncle’s house, Steward’s-Son, no matter how great his sword or his claim might be” thought Éowyn.  Suppressing her own smile, she straightened.

“Might it be there is common ground between us then, Princess?” the man ventured, “and I do not mean the fertile fields of ancient Calenardhon.”

“There is nothing common about land given over freely and in friendship, Lord, and such a breadth of it between the house of Húrin and of Eorl the King!”

This time Boromir nearly snorted his drink up his nose.  So!  A sword was not the only edge she knew how to wield.   He was pleasantly surprised.

He bowed, slightly, acknowledging the hit. “I meant your seeming dislike for the fuss and stance of ceremony, Éowyn,” and watched with interested an eyebrow rise at her name.  “Of all the duties our life is heir to perhaps the most tiresome, that turns good food between friends into public display.”  Again he took a pull, and turned to her.  “Will you not agree?”

Éowyn inclined her head and the moonlight skipped over her crown of braids.  Her face for a moment hidden, she frowned.   Did he actually mean to pay court to her?  She must put him off that track:

“Indeed, Sir, the kitchens did you great honor.  Before you was laid the finest Meduseld has to offer.”

Now Boromir could not help but laugh outright, though softly.  The kitchens honor him? 

“Of that I am sure and, of course, grateful.”  He raised his cup to her.  “Rohan has so many riches.”  Then all at once he stepped closer and seemed to loom before her, leaving no ground for retreat.  “Yet you left the table.  Perhaps there was something there for which you had no stomach.”

Of a sudden Éowyn was flustered – his closeness, the sudden great wall of him – “I –”

“Was it the drink?”  Impossibly, he neared.

“No, I –”

“The talk?”   There was no more space between them.

“Sir, I –”

“The company?”  His eyes lanced hers.

“My lord –”

“Then perhaps you were just running away?”

Here at last she found her ground:  “I run from no man!”

Then his great laugh seemed to chase the echo of her shout about every corner of the gallery at once.  “That is good!” and he blithely stepped aside, the foray seeming complete, the intelligence gained.  He saluted her with his goblet; “nor do I,” and drained it dry.  “Perhaps you have my heart already!” 

Éowyn gasped sharply.  He was teasing her, she knew; she saw in his grey eyes a twinkling that mirrored the stars but for a moment she felt quite unable to reply in kind.  She turned her face again to the night, and chewed a lip.

Would it be desirable? she wondered:  to have a wife as helpmeet, comfort, to bear heirs and keep a home?  Or better to have as companion one who could fight at your side, and fully know the danger and the glories of a warrior’s life?  She could not say.  She did not know his heart.

She hesitated a moment, and then replied:  “it is true, Steward’s Son, I am unskilled in the subtler arts of women.  I do not dream of a future spent embroidering flags for a husband to carry into battle while his sons play with wood swords about my knees.  I can ride better than any man of my cousin’s éored and swing a sword with the best of them.”  Then she faced him.  “And I prefer plain talk to the dissembling of courtiers, and would demand the same from you:  is this such a one who you would have for queen?"

But Boromir merely smiled.  “I fear you will never be queen, Éowyn; for only your uncle in the realm of Men is king.  Should I ask for your hand you would be but Steward’s wife, though it is a title in Gondor not wholly uncommanding of respect.”  Then he seized her gaze as surely as he had seized her body before, and leaned slowly toward her:  “And should I ask, you would come.”

Éowyn felt fury, white and sharp, well up inside her at his patronizing sarcasm, his vain and outrageous assumptions – how could she respond so quickly to his every word!!  Again she felt the blush sweep up her chest, climbing to her eyes.  Perhaps he was no courtier, but now she knew him for an excellent tactician.

“Come, Éowyn.  Is it such a fearsome thing?  To be the wife of the man who will one day rule the greatest realm of Men in Middle-Earth?  I imagine more eyes will weep because of you than for you.”

He watched with interest as shock, anger, confusion and stubborn acknowledgement flashed across her face like heat lightning across the sands of Harondor.  That openness was, he thought, the second virtue she would have to unlearn.  But it also touched him.  He reached for her hand.

“Lady, when our war with Mordor is behind us –”

But Éowyn was not so ready to concede the contest, and lithely sidestepped him.  “No state of war exists between Mordor and Rohan, sir.”

“State of war,” Boromir mused;  “Gondor is a State of War, Miss, and do not deceive yourself:   as nightly I sleep with the flame of Amon Amarth leering through my window, Gondor and Rohan,” – he stressed the word, “will be at war with the Enemy openly if not in our lifetimes, than in the next.”  He turned to gaze again over Meduseld and all of Rohan beyond.  “Orcs from the black pits of Mordor already roam the hills of Ithilien and have been seen on the fair leas of Lebennin.  Soon Arnor, too, will feel the shadow’s touch.”

“Still,” returning to Éowyn he drew a breath.  “I know of no other land more beautiful.  It holds my heart.  You should come one day, with your brother and cousin perhaps, to see it.”

“What?  your heart, Sir?”

His laugh was like distant thunder on a summer night.  “Even so, my girl, even so.”

“I would remind you I am no man’s girl, Stewards-son.”

“But would you like to be, Éowyn?  That is the question we have sparred over here tonight.  And such a match I have not so enjoyed for quite some time.

“When this war is over,”  he pressed his words upon her again, this time not to be dismissed, “I will look forward to such a time as I might return to Rohan, and see what the years have made of you.”

Then a last time he clasped her to him.  Her face beneath the moonlight was like a new snowfall, warred over by anxiety and anticipation in turns.  As his lips neared hers, he turned his face at the last, dropped a kiss upon her cheek, and quietly released her.

Éowyn felt like a weathervane after a storm has passed.  Searching for some last riposte, she managed a polite and graceful curtsey, though her tongue could find no words.  So silently she took her leave and managed quite a few measured steps before bolting for the door and disappearing into the light beyond it.

‘Indeed,’ Boromir mused, it was as he had thought:  a womanhood of some considerable promise.  He upended his goblet in salute, only to find it disappointingly empty.

“Well! that is one thing for certain I am in need of!” he declared, and turning with a soldier’s precision and purposefulness, Boromir Steward’s-son of Gondor returned directly to the Golden Hall of Meduseld, considering his mission accomplished.

. -end

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*Braggot, depending upon who you consult, is either a variety of mead made with malted barley or a beer made with lots of honey.  The honey not only adds sweetness and spice, but ups the alcohol content considerably.

And why this level of detail in piece so otherwise filled with fluff?  Comes of hanging out with mead makers.