Thanks to Epilachna and Finlay for beta reading. Middle-earth belongs to Tolkien.

Chapter One: Consider the Pond Skater

Consider the pond skater. On his long legs, barely thicker than hairs, he darts across the water, making minute indents into the shiny surface in the process. His middle pair of legs propels him forwards, while he uses the hind legs to steer. Such a delicate little thing he seems to be, and yet he is a predator. With the claws on his front legs he snatches his prey, tiny bugs just above or below the surface, and devours them. Creatures of the water and creatures of the air are his food, but he himself commits to neither realm. And he is successful: a common bug in every part of the world, he has even colonized the open oceans.

Faramir turned away from the garden pond with a feeling of unease. He did not like the water bugs, their erratic movements and spindly legs. With firm steps he walked up the path back to the house, alongside the rose bushes and past the bee hives.  Bees, he thought. Bees are much better. So purposeful and so organized. He admired the regularity of their honeycombs and their relentless devotion to the welfare of the hive. Each single bee was bound up in a pattern of life that cared not for self but only for the greater good. Would that people were more like this, thought Faramir. Life in the new community in Ithilien was peaceful and amicable by and large, but he saw with concern the emerging signs of selfishness among the people. Only the other day he had been called upon to settle a quarrel between two men who were arguing about access to a communal field for grazing their cattle. Bees would not waste any time on such petty squabbles. They worked for the swarm, building up their hive without ever thinking of personal gain. And the abundance they created gave people two invaluable gifts: honey to sweeten their food and wax for candles to light up the darkness.*

With these ponderings drifting through his mind, Faramir had reached the stair that led up from the garden to the paved terrace surrounding the house. He sighed. Something in his reflection about bees left him dissatisfied, but he could not quite work out what. He wanted to tell Éowyn, but she would just laugh and tease him about the solemn turn of his mind that could look at nothing without a little bout of philosophizing. She called it men’s problems, which she considered a kind of idle indulgence, while women had to get on with the real questions of how to get the grease stains out of the best tablecloth and what to feed to the king and queen on their next visit.

When he arrived at the house he was greeted by the dogs, two large shaggy hounds with long bushy tails. He patted them absentmindedly and went in through the garden door. The room that opened out onto the terrace was a bright and pleasant apartment in which Éowyn often spent her mornings with letters and household accounts. He found her there now, seated on a green armchair, but she did not look as if she was inclined to laugh and tease. Her face was sweaty and pallid.

“Faramir,” she said faintly. “I don’t feel at all well. I’ve sent for Merilwen.”

~oOoOo~

Grey light hung over Edoras. Dawn came a little bit later at this time of year, and the birds’ twilight song had not yet ceased when Déoric, son of Féadred, awoke. He kept his eyes closed and let his mind test the texture of the world against the weightless blur of his dreams. Last night he seemed to have forgotten to close the shutters, because he could feel the light through his closed eye-lids. His left arm was hanging over the edge of the bed and his fingertips touched the wooden floor. The right foot was sticking out from under the blanket. His left leg: missing. Still missing.

He opened his eyes, turned, and nestled his face in the delicious, camomile scented warmth that was Fana’s neck and hair. Her arm lay on top of the blanket. It was pale and freckled like her face and defined by strong muscles that seemed surprising in such a dainty woman. Déoric ran a single finger along the smooth skin from her shoulder to her wrist. On her hand, the morning light glinted off the gold ring. He touched it, reassured by its solid respectability, and then moved his flat palm back up her arm. With a sigh, Fana rolled over and curled up against him. He pulled her closer and rested his cheek against her hair.

“Are you awake?”

“No,” mumbled Fana. Déoric pushed back the strands of hair from her face and kissed the tip of her nose. Then he slid his arm under the blanket and explored her sleeveless nightgown until he found the spot on her back where he knew her to be ticklish. She squirmed and giggled at his touch.

“Yes, you are,” he said.

“No, I’m still sleeping.”

“Wake up, or I’ll tickle you again.”

“I’m tired.” She pushed his hand away and burrowed her forehead into the welcoming space formed by his neck and chin.

“Sleepyhead! Who do you think will milk the cow?”

“Dirlayn will do it. She promised me yesterday. I’m too tired.”

“How can you be so tired all the time? You used to never be tired at all.”

Fana sighed. She opened her eyes, planted her elbow into the pillow and propped up her head on her palm. Her gentle fingers traced the outline of Déoric’s face.

“Well,” she said with her mischievous grin, “I know someone who kept me up last night.”

Déoric felt himself blush. Then he smiled back at her. She was, after all, his wife.

“It’s the big day for me today,” he said. Fana leaned closer and kissed him, first on both cheeks and then on the lips.

“You’ll be just fine, Déoric. My father wouldn’t let you fall. Can I come and watch?”

“Won’t you be too tired?”

“Not for this.” She kissed him again, playfully. “It’ll be a sight to see.”

“Don’t mock me!”

“I’m not mocking you, Déoric. I’m very glad for you.”

“We don’t know yet if it’ll work,” he replied.

“It will, and it’ll make all the difference to you.”

“No. You’ve made all the difference to me.”

”Too much flattery, my dear husband!” She sat up and flung back the blanket. “Shift, I need to get dressed.”

She walked over to the window and washed her face in the bowl of water that had been left on the little table for this purpose the previous night. From the bed, Déoric watched her movements, which were brisk and purposeful. By the time he had peeled himself from the blankets and reached for his crutches, she was dressed and sat down on a chair to get her hair in order. He passed her on his way to the washbowl and leaned down briefly to kiss her head.

“Wait there, I’ll do your hair,” she said when he had put on his clothes.

“I can do it myself.”

“I know, but I like doing it.”

She pushed him into the chair and opened his braids. With a moan of contentment he surrendered to her touch, to the tender, even strokes of the comb and the sensation of her fingers brushing against his neck. It was hard to imagine now that his stubborn sulkiness had kept them apart for over a year. The ease with which she touched and claimed him seemed still new to him after less than three months of marriage, but at the same time he felt comfortable and safe in the realm of intimacy that was their little bedchamber. The week before their wedding, Léofred, the king’s advisor, had seen to it that a better, broader stair had been fitted so that Déoric could climb it to share with Fana one of the two small rooms under the roof. It was this stair that they came down ten minutes later to find Déoric’s mother Dirlayn just coming in with the milk pail.

“Good morning, you two,” she said. “You’re up late. Don’t let your father wait, Fana.”

“We won’t,” replied the young woman. “We’re just leaving.”

“What, without breakfast?”

“We’ll get something to eat later when we come back, Mama,” said Déoric. ”I’ll probably have a better appetite then.”

“Are you coming with us?” asked Fana.

“No, dear,” said Dirlayn. “If Déoric is so nervous that he’ll even forgo his breakfast, then he’d better not have too many onlookers. I’ll have plenty of chances to see him another time.”

“If it works, that is,” said Déoric.

“It will work. Now off you go my lad, and good luck.”

She kissed him quickly on the cheek and ushered them out of the door. By now the sun had risen high enough to burn away the morning mists and illuminate the mellow colours of late summer. The air smelled of rain and of ripening apples. In Dirlayn’s tiny garden potatoes, beans and marrows were ready for harvest.

Déoric and Fana stepped out into the lane. In the slow pace that Déoric had become accustomed to and that Fana was beginning to match with increasing grace, they made their way down to the gate and out of the city to a field hemmed by willow trees. This was the place where, not quite a year ago, the young scribe Déoric had begun to see the world in the peculiar way which allowed him to draw it so naturally that the king himself had commissioned him to make illustrations for the book of Rohan he was copying. The discovery of his artistic talent had become the turning point in his life, after his injury in battle had left him feeling worthless and defeated. Without his left leg, he was convinced that he would never ride again and that there was neither honour nor livelihood for such a one as him in Rohan. The king had proved him wrong on the second count. Now the moment had come when the first would be put to the test, too. Éomer had declared that the newly appointed Chronicler of the Mark could not be driven about in a cart in order to collect the stories of the Eorlingas, and that the missing leg should be no hindrance if only a suitable saddle was crafted.

The saddle was soon made, but Déoric had dithered. At first he had claimed to be busy preparing for his wedding, and then he had hesitated to name, at the king’s request, a horse he trusted enough to dare and mount. In the end, Éomer had lost patience. The idea of having his own historian travelling the Riddermark and recording the rich heritage of his people had become dear to him, and he wanted Déoric on the way as soon as possible. But all his urging was in vain until he received support from an unexpected quarter. Part of his betrothal gift to the Princess of Dol Amroth had been a fine road horse, with which Lothíriel fell so much in love that she chose to ride it home and leave her trusted palfrey behind in Edoras. When Éomer complained to her in a letter about Déoric’s hesitancy, she replied promptly with the suggestion that the scribe should have the use of her horse for the time being. This was an offer that Déoric could not turn down without offending the princess, and so he relented, in spite of his fear of failure. He had chosen his favourite spot by the river as the scene of his first attempt in the hope that it would inspire him with confidence.

When they arrived, Fana’s father Ethelhelm, the stable master, was already waiting with the docile brown mare. Déoric greeted the horse with tenderness and let her munch the carrot he had pulled out of his pocket.

“Well, Ivornel, my dear,” he said quietly. “Will we make it today, you and I?”

“Of course you will,” said Ethelhelm. “Are you ready?”

Déoric patted the mare’s neck and nodded.

“Good. Let’s get you mounted then. That’ll be the hardest part. After that it’ll be child’s play.”

Fana took Déoric’s hand, which had begun to rise to his mouth. His old habit of knuckle-biting was not quite dead yet. She pressed his fingers. He looked at the saddle and rehearsed again in his head what Ethelhelm had explained to him: Stand to the right of the horse. Hold on with both hands to the handles that replace the pommel. Jump and pull yourself up until you get your foot into the stirrup, then mount in the usual manner.  Once you’re seated, the saddle is shaped in such a way as to help your balance and stop you from falling.

“Do it,” said Fana. “You know you can.”

Déoric leaned down and kissed her. He handed her the crutches and tossed back his braids. Ivornel stood very still and snorted gently. With a swift movement he grabbed the handle and leapt. For a few seconds he hung helplessly, while his foot flailed in the air not finding the stirrup. He pulled as hard as he could, to no avail, and was close to muttering a curse, when he felt Ethelhelm’s hands pushing him up. Suddenly, he was mounted.

And then the fear melted, even as he straightened up and took the reins; the worry, the secret shame gave way and his mind was filled with this single thought, which seemed to stretch to the horizon: that he was sitting a horse again.

“That’ll get easier in time,” said Ethelhelm, but Déoric barely listened. He drank in the sensation. The world looked different, sounded different, it even smelled different from the saddle of a horse. It was a sweet promise of freedom. He stroked Ivornel’s mane.

“Let’s go,” he whispered. The mare paced smoothly to the far end of the field and Déoric recognized without effort the gentle movement of the animal and the way his own body fitted in with the swaying pattern. He took her round in a big curve and approached the place where Fana and Ethelhelm were watching. No words were spoken as he passed them, for the looks they exchanged said enough. When he reached the far end of the field for the second time, he turned the horse round and gave her the signal to trot. At first he fell in easily with the mare’s rhythm, but after some thirty yards he felt himself beginning to slide. He reined her in.

“Ho, that’s enough for a start,” cried Ethelhelm. He ran up to Déoric and held on to the reins. “You have to learn to walk before you can run.”

“But I’ve only just started!”

“I didn’t mean you should dismount. Just take it slowly and find your balance. Why don’t you ride up to the Hall? Fana and I can come with you and I’ll take Ivornel to the stables with me.”

Déoric grinned.

“I confess the prospect of arriving at the Hall on horseback rather than on crutches does appeal to me.”

Ethelhelm returned his smile.

“I knew you were not free from vanity, Déoric! Off you go then. I’ll carry your crutches.”

Shortly afterwards, they were ascending the main road that led to the Golden Hall. Common as the sight of horsemen was in the streets of Edoras, many turned their heads when Déoric rode past, and some who knew the young scribe called out words of encouragement. Déoric held his head high. Only last August had he sat by the roadside to watch the escort of Théoden King, miserable with the thought that he would never ride again and that his life henceforth would be useless and full of humiliation. Worst of all, he had believed that Fana, his precious Fana, would not want to wed a one-legged man. The memory of how he had rejected her made him flinch. Yet here he was, riding up the streets of Edoras, with Fana to his left and her father to his right, on his way to the little scribe’s room at the back of the Hall of Meduseld, which had seen the transformation of the dejected cripple to the confident artist and budding historian.

When they arrived at the top of the town, Déoric dismounted, which was fairly easy because it involved little more than sliding off. He hugged the brown mare. Some pang of regret must have shown in his face when he swapped the reins for his crutches, for Ethelhelm laid his hand on Déoric’s shoulder and said:

“You’ll ride again tomorrow. And every day after that, if you so desire.”

“I know,” said Déoric. “Thank you, Ethelhelm.”

The older man gave him a brisk nod.

“I’ll leave you two love birds to say farewell. I know how hard it is for you to separate for the duration of the day.” He winked. “Your mother would be happy to see you sometime today, Fana. She has made a big batch of apple pancakes and would like you to try some before the boys eat them all.”

With this he led the horse away on the path towards the stable buildings. Déoric and Fana were left standing at the bottom of the broad stair leading up to the Hall of Meduseld.

“Well,” said Fana and pushed back the strands of her loose blonde hair that the breeze had blown into her face. “How do you feel now?”

Déoric smiled. “Can’t you tell?”

“Oh, I could, but I want you to tell me.”

“Wonderful,” said Déoric. “Just wonderful.”

“Good. I’m glad. Listen, I’d better be going. If Mother feels she has to bribe me with pancakes, then there’s something amiss at home and I’ll be needed. Have a good day, Déoric. Oh, goodness, you never went back home to have your breakfast!”

“I’m sure I can get something from the kitchen here. Just tell my mother. Good-bye, my sweet.”

“Good-bye, Déoric.  I’ll see you tonight.”

She stood on tiptoe, put her arms round his neck and gave him a brief kiss. Then she turned and skipped away down the street towards the market place. Déoric made his way up the stairs, all sixty-seven steps. He greeted the guards and entered the Golden Hall. It was empty apart from a couple of maids who were busy taking down some of the tapestries for cleaning. The one they were currently removing bore the image of Eorl the Young. Déoric stopped and asked the women to let him have a look. They spread out the tapestry on the mosaic floor and he leaned forward to inspect it. He nodded. Yes, this was what had struck him about the picture, way back last year when he had first begun to think of creating images. The people who had made the banner, a group of genteel ladies a couple of hundred years ago, he imagined, had shown what they knew, not what they saw. The horses looked ill proportioned and off balance, because there was no foreshortening of their limbs, and the uniform colour of their fur made them appear flat and dull. This was the crucial thing that Déoric had learned about art; that things do not necessarily look like what people know them to be. While every single hair on a horse’s body, if inspected individually, might be of the same colour, the whole body of the animal would be a pattern of lighter and darker hues, depending on how light and shadow played on the muscles. When it came to drawing, he trusted his eyes and not his brain.

He entered the scribe’s room only a little bit later than usual and was embarrassed to find the king there waiting for him. Éomer sat on the spare chair with his elbow casually leaning on Déoric’s desk.

“Good morning, my lord. I am very sorry I am late. I had my first ride this morning on Ivornel.”

Éomer waved his hand in a dismissive gesture at Déoric’s apology.

“I’ve been here but a minute or two, Déoric, and I’ve entertained myself well.”

He pointed to a pile of parchments on the desk next to him, which he had been browsing.

“I see you have found a fair number of unusual stories already. Very good. Make sure you won’t neglect your artwork, though.”

“I won’t, my lord. I was sketching at the market place last week.”

“Yes, yes, I’ve seen the drawings. Your work is coming on nicely. And I’m also glad to hear you’re back on a horse at last. How soon do you think you can be on your way? I’d like you to make your first tour into the country before the winter.”

“I will try my best, my lord. Maybe in three or four weeks I’ll feel confident enough to ride out.”

“Good, good.”

In one smooth, vigorous movement, Éomer rose from his seat to let Déoric pass through to his own chair. Déoric expected him to leave then, but the king continued:

 “A rider came early this morning from Dol Amroth, bringing tidings of the princess.”

“I hope she is well.”

“Oh, yes, very well, very well,” replied Éomer. “It seems, though, that you are more in favour with her than I am, for I only received a letter, but you have a letter and a parcel, too.”

He knelt down to pull a package out from under his chair and placed it on the desk in front of Déoric. From his tunic pocket he took a scroll and handed it to the scribe. Déoric, crimson in the face, broke the seal and unrolled it. He read:

Dear Master Déoric,

forgive me for my presumption in asking a favour of such a busy man as yourself. I am truly delighted with the drawing that you made on the occasion of my betrothal to King Éomer, but deep down in my heart I wish there was some colour in the picture. Call it a princess’s vanity – I was very proud of my ruby red gown!

So I hope you will not think me too demanding if I ask you to try painting with colours. I know there is less than a year from now till the wedding, but you are such a talented artist that I feel you will be able to master the skill sufficiently by then to render a passable image. For this purpose I am sending you a box of colour powders and other artist’s gear, which have been supplied by Amarant, my father’s court painter, together with instructions for their use by his hand. Be careful with the powders, since some of them are very poisonous!

Please be so kind and generous to agree to my request. It would make the pleasure of choosing the fabric for my wedding gown all the sweeter, if I could know that you will immortalize it in a painting.

I extend my sincere congratulations to you on the occasion of your own marriage. May you and your wife always be happy and prosperous. Finally, thank you very much for your latest portrait of the king. You have caught the twinkle in his eye just right this time.

I remain with the best wishes for you and your family

Lothíriel of Dol Amroth

PS: I trust you are treating my horse with the devotion she deserves.

Without a word, Déoric passed the letter to the king and undid the string and oilcloth with flying fingers. A minute later they were both able to survey the content of the parcel: Not only the box of colour powders, but a glazed ceramic palette, a bundle of brushes in different sizes and a large jar labelled “gesso”. A rolled-up wad of parchments was covered in a neat, spidery hand. Déoric placed all these items on the desk carefully like an ancient treasure just unearthed.

“Well then, Déoric, “said the king. “You’d better start practising.”

*The image of “sweetness and light” was first used by Jonathan Swift in “Battle of the Books” and made famous by Matthew Arnold in “Culture and Anarchy.”

Chapter Two: Ribbons

For a week Déoric did little else than ride and paint. The skills of horsemanship came back to him readily enough and once he had found his balance, he rode the brown mare quite confidently. While mounting was still tricky at times, he no longer depended on the help of others. Every day he grew a little bolder, and when, on the fifth day, he finally galloped across the fields outside the city, he felt a delight that almost matched the elation of his wedding day.

The box of pigments proved a more formidable challenge. Master Amarant’s instructions seemed bewildering. An egg, why would he need an egg? And what was he to do with the gesso? The long and detailed explanations about things like mixing, glazing and underpainting were even more confusing. All his early attempts were failures, with paint smudged, colours turning out wrong after they had dried and the overall results looking awkward and embarrassing. After a few days Déoric realized that he was making a fundamental mistake. He treated the paint brush as if it were a stylus. He drew outlines and then filled them in with colour. He wasn’t painting at all, he was still drawing. The foundation of drawing was the line. But the foundation of painting, he suddenly understood, was the block of colour.

Once this insight had taken hold, he began to make some progress. He read Master Amarant’s account again, this time with comprehension. The word layer revealed its meaning. For a whole afternoon he painted series after series of little squares, observing carefully how the tone of a colour changed when overlaid with another. He wrote down which combinations of paints he had used and any points of interest that arose from his experiments. The following morning he felt ready to try again. On a new board, smoothly prepared with gesso, he began to build up an image from coloured shapes. He remembered his own discovery: that the artist must show what he sees, not what he knows, and he saw with a new interest the shadows and lights and the way a colour would take on different hues according to the shape of the object. There could be a hint of green in the red, a touch of purple in the grey.

Three days later Déoric completed a small picture showing an apple and a rose. It was a simple motif and had no claim to distinction, but Déoric was pleased because the fruit looked round and shiny and the flower had crisp petals rather than the indifferent blurry lines of colour that had marred his previous attempts. He showed his work to Léofred, who took it to the king.

“Not bad for a start, Déoric,” said Éomer. “You have much still to learn, but of course you have only just begun. How is the riding coming on?”

“Very well, my lord.”

“Splendid. We shall soon see you set off on your little adventure then. When do you think you will be ready?”

“Very soon, if it was only for the riding, my lord, but I have so much else to do. I believe I could go in about a month’s time.”

“That would be the beginning of October. Very well, if you stay away for five or six weeks, you will be back before the worst of the winter is upon us. You should be able to visit a fair number of villages in that time. We shall have to find you an escort. Do you think your friend Niarl would be willing to go with you?”

“No, my lord, I think he has other plans right now.”

“Oh, does he?” Éomer leaned back on his seat and stretched out his legs in front of him.  “Do tell.”

“Well,” said Déoric, “there is this girl he likes...”

~oOoOo~

At noon time on the day of rest, two riders made their way through the streets of Edoras. Déoric, still thrilled by the feeling of sitting a horse again, greeted acquaintances from the height of his seat with an air of satisfaction. Next to him, on a fallow gelding, rode his best friend. Niarl’s clothes and his reddish braids looked neater than usual, and he wore a broad smile. Both men were dressed in light tunics to keep cool in the late summer heat.

“I hope I’ll be able to help somewhat,” said Déoric.

Niarl laughed.

“Who knows what challenge she will set me? But in any case, I don’t think you could be any more useless than I was when it was your turn.”

“Oh, Fana made mine so easy that I didn’t need any help.”

“Easy? Well, I really hope that Aedre isn’t going to ask me to draw her family!”

Déoric gave a smug little smile.

“Don’t worry. If she does, you’ve got the right man with you.”

“But I have to fulfil at least two-thirds of the task on my own, as you well know.”

“I could teach you quickly.”

Niarl tossed back his braids and grinned.

“You know, Déoric, you are getting way too full of yourself. I liked you better when you were moping.”

“You did not!”

“I did. That Fana has spoiled you.”

“Oh, be quiet, Niarl, or I’ll go home and then what would you do?”

“I’d go and find someone else.”

“Ah, but then you’d be late and Aedre wouldn’t be pleased. Never, ever give a woman the impression that you don’t take this kind of thing seriously enough.” He nodded emphatically. “Really, Niarl, listen to a married man.”

“See what I mean?” exclaimed Niarl. “You’re insufferable!”

Their good-humoured squabbling continued until they reached the house of Oswald the cobbler.  Niarl dismounted, but Déoric, who still found it hard to get onto a horse, remained in the saddle. Presently, the door was opened and two young women came out. The cobbler and his wife were seen to watch from the doorway.

Oswald’s daughters, Aedre and Udele, were handsome girls of eighteen and nineteen years. Udele was tall and fair. Aedre’s hair and eyes were brown and her build stockier than that of most Rohirrim. She took after her Dunlendish grandmother. The most striking feature of her face were her full, beautifully curved lips. Right now, these lips were smiling.

Udele stepped forward.

“I welcome you, Niarl, son of Wulfgar, and you, Déoric son of Féadred. We have heard of Niarl’s desire to court my sister Aedre. She grants it gladly should you fulfil this challenge: to find, before sunset, thirty scarlet ribbons that have been hidden in Edoras. At least twenty of those must be found by Niarl, while Déoric may bring the other ten. The ribbons have the letter A embroidered on one end, so make sure you get the right ones. Do you accept the challenge?”

Déoric cleared his throat, for this was his part.

“We accept the challenge and will fulfil it before sunset. Await us here at the agreed hour.”

While they had been speaking, Aedre and Niarl had been gazing at each other in rapt engrossment. When Déoric had finished his speech, Niarl reached for the pommel of his horse, but suddenly he turned back around and stole a kiss from Aedre’s lips.

“Shoo!” cried Udele. “What insolence! Off with you and find the ribbons!”

Niarl laughed and mounted, Udele slapped his horse on the thigh, and the two men rode down the street with a clattering of hooves. When they came to the first junction, they split up and went different ways.

It took over half an hour until Déoric spotted the first ribbon. It was tied to the fence of a house near the infirmary. Ten minutes later he found one among bunches of herbs at a market stall. Another one hung from a tree, and the horse statue from which flowed the fountain in front of the Golden Hall wore a pretty red ribbon on its left ear.

When he came down again from the top of the town he noticed a flash of scarlet on an upper window of a house that stood slightly set back from the street. A sturdy vine climbed up the wall and obscured part of the window, but he could clearly see the ribbon tied to the shutter, about four feet above his head. He unhooked one of the crutches from the holder at the saddle and reached up. The tip of the crutch touched the ribbon, but there was no way of loosening the knot. Déoric looked at the vine. The stem seemed strong enough to carry his weight. If he pulled himself up with both arms, he should be able to get his foot just into the –

Suddenly he laughed. He was a one-legged man after all, and he should be used by now to engaging his head rather than his muscles. He dismounted and knocked on the door. A girl of maybe fourteen years opened.

“Good afternoon,” he said. “My name is Déoric. I wonder, is that one of Aedre’s ribbons that’s flying from the shutter of your upper window?”  

“Are you Niarl’s friend?”

“Yes.”

“Just one moment,” said the girl and disappeared into the house. She left the door ajar and Déoric could hear her going up the stairs. Then she appeared at the window. Within seconds, she had untied the ribbon.

“Can you catch or shall I bring it down?”

“I’ll catch it.”

The girl dropped the ribbon and Déoric caught it easily in his outstretched hand.

“That’s five I’ve got now. Thank you!”

“You’re very welcome. Do you think Niarl will find enough?”

“I’m sure he will,” said Déoric.

“That’s good,” she replied. “Aedre promised me I can be maid of honour at the wedding.”

“I shall see you then. Farewell for now.”

By the mid-afternoon he had gathered ten ribbons. The last one had been tied to a doorknob on a house in the lane coming up from the smithies. Seeing himself in this part of the town, Déoric decided to pay a visit to a friend. He rode up to the corner house at the top of the street. A group of children played a skipping game in the enclosed yard.

“Hullo, Déoric,” called a boy of maybe eight years and ran up to the gate to open it. “Is that your new horse? It’s mighty nice!”

“She’s not mine, Grimstan,” said Déoric and dismounted gingerly. “I’ve only got her on loan. Her name is Ivornel. She belongs to the Princess of Dol Amroth.”

“Can you ride her?”

“As you see.”

“Can I look after her for you? I can get her some apples.”

“That would be very kind of you.”

Meanwhile, the other children had approached and began to pat the mare. Déoric took his crutches and turned towards the house. Cyneburg, a tall girl of twelve, put a hand on his arm.

“No,” she said, “Grandfather is out here in his garden.”

She led Déoric across the yard. He ducked under the washing line and found himself in a sunny, sheltered corner. Heat radiated from the walls of the house. A tiny garden had been created here with plants that hung in baskets on the wall or stood in clay pots on the ground. Most were of the useful kind, carrots, cabbages and cooking herbs, but here and there flowers added bright dots of colour. A ginger cat lay curled up under a wooden bench. Gléowine the old minstrel stood bent over a potted rosebush and applied a liquid to the leaves from a ceramic jar. When he heard Déoric approach, he looked up.

“Greenfly,” he said and nodded at the plant. “If I don't get rid of them, they will kill my roses. Soapy water usually does the trick. How are you doing, Déoric?”

“Very well, Master Gléowine. How about yourself?”

Gléowine straightened up and put a hand on the small of his back.

“A bit stiff, but not too bad otherwise. The hot weather does me good. I have been out here tending to the plants for an hour or so, but I need to sit down now. Come and have a seat with me. Tell me how you fare with your stories.”

“I haven’t worked on them much recently,” said Déoric. “I had other things to do.”

“But the king has ordered you to collect the stories, has he not?”

“Sometimes I think the king wants me to do more things than I can accomplish in a lifetime. I have recorded quite a few stories since I last saw you, but I am beginning to get confused. I heard two that I thought I knew, but the man who told me told them differently. You know that one about the baker and the apple tree? He said it was a rook and not a magpie that took the trinket. My father always said it was a magpie. Now I don’t know what to write down.”

“Hm.” Gléowine sat with one of his braids in each hand, running his thumbs up and down the white hair. “Do not worry about that too much, my lad. It makes very little difference for the story.”

“But which one is right?”

Gléowine shrugged.

“Who knows? Which one rings truer to you?”

“The one with the magpie, because magpies like to take shiny things.”

“Write it down with the magpie, then.”

“Can I just do that?” asked Déoric.

“My dear Déoric, of course you can. You will have to. There are always little differences in stories, because people like to tell them in a way that suits them. It will be part of your task to decide which variation is best, because you cannot record all of them.”

The ginger cat woke and stretched in the lazy, self-absorbed way of cats. Then she jumped on Déoric’s lap. He tickled her under the chin.

“I can see how that would apply to the made-up stories,” he said. “But what about the true ones, what about history? If I get variations in them, how will I find out the truth?”

“You will have to think, Déoric. You will have to think really hard. Can you do that?”

“I will try. I don’t think I have much choice.”

Gléowine smiled his enigmatic little smile that suggested he had seen a cause for mirth that Déoric would not understand. Déoric let it pass. The old man could not offend him, however much he liked to point out all of Déoric’s follies. Without Gléowine’s superior mind and his boldness to tell it as it was, Déoric would in all likelihood still be pining for Fana and blaming every imaginary misfortune of his life on the missing leg. The young man was well aware of this. Foolish he may have been, ungrateful he was not. He knew a friend when he found one.

They sat in silence for a while and then began a lighter kind of conversation. Déoric told of Aedre’s challenge for Niarl, of his riding and his painting, and Gléowine spoke at length of the weather and of the trouble with greenfly. The late summer sun burned down on them. The cat purred, the washing flapped gently in the breeze. Time flowed by in such a leisurely way that Déoric forgot about it altogether. Suddenly he noticed how long the shadows had grown. He jumped up and grabbed his crutches.

“I must go,” he said. “The ribbons must be at Aedre’s house by sunset.”

“Aye, you had better go then. Do not let me see you disappoint your friend, you silly lad.”

Déoric gave the old man an affectionate pat on the shoulder.

“I shall come again soon. Good luck with your roses.”

Ivornel greeted Déoric with a gentle whinny. The children had provided her with apples, water and a shady spot to stand, but seemed to have lost interest in the horse after a while, for they were now all gathered at the other end of the yard engaged in a game with pebbles and sticks. Déoric hooked up the crutches and mounted.

When he came out into the street, he saw just how low the sun stood. He spurred Ivornel into a light trot. The streets were quiet at this time of day, with most people having gone inside for their evening meal. It took him only minutes to reach the house of Oswald the cobbler. By the looks of it, Niarl had just arrived. The two young women came out of the door and rushed to the gate.

“I have ten,” called Déoric and held out a hand full of ribbons.

“That can’t be right,” said Niarl. “I’ve got twenty-six.”

Udele took the ribbons out of the young men’s hands. She counted them and checked for the embroidered letters.

“Well done,” she said at last, “you have met the challenge.”

“But you said you hid thirty!”

“No, I didn’t.” said Aedre, her face one broad grin. “I said you had to bring me thirty. We hid fifty. I wanted to be sure you’d find enough.”

Chapter 3: Taking Shape

Far to the South and East of Rohan, somewhere in the land of Ithilien, wild roses flowered in a garden, and in the garden stood a house, and in the house was a room with a bed, and in that bed lay a very disgruntled young woman. An older woman of maybe not quite fifty hovered by the bedside. Her face showed a mixture of concern and well-worn patience.

 “But my lady, you really must keep to your bed,” she said in the tone of someone who knows that they are right, but barely expect to be listened to.

“I feel much better now, Merilwen. And the bleeding stopped three days ago.”

“My lady, would you not rather be safe than sorry? In another week, I would allow you to get up for a while to see how you fare. The bleeding might start again, and it might not. We’ll have to see. But for now, for the sake of your babe, you must lie down.”

 Éowyn pressed her lips together and turned her head aside.

“I can’t bear it,” she said quietly while Merilwen arranged the bedclothes. “I need to be up and moving. I need to go outside and feel some fresh air on my face.”

Merilwen pulled up a chair to Éowyn’s bedside and sat down. With her firm, broad hands she smoothed back her dark hair, which was tied in a bun at the nape of her neck.

“Lady Éowyn,” she said in her soft voice. “Have you seen many women bear children? Have you lived closely with those who’ve had newborns?”

“Not closely, no. I know how it goes, though, Merilwen. I know of the pain, and I will be brave.”

“It is not the pain I wish to speak to you about, my lady. The pain only lasts for a day or two. There’s more to having a child than just that. This little one inside your belly is taking over your life now and will do even more so after the birth. At least for a while, you will not be able to think of what you need, because the needs of the child will be so great that they will fill your whole world. You will have it easier than most women, for you will have servants to help you, but if you wish to feed the babe yourself as you told me, then you’ll have to be there for it any time, day and night. What is more, you will find that you can think of little else than whether your babe is safe and well. I have heard many women say that there had been no greater upheaval in their lives than the arrival of their first child. I believe you would do well to use this time of bed rest for teaching your mind to quell its own desires, because that is a skill you will need later.”

Éowyn looked at the healer sheepishly, like someone caught in a thoughtless act.

“Do you think I am being selfish?”

“No, my lady. You are just like any other person without a child, myself included. I’m only telling you what I have seen in others. A newborn child is so helpless and needy that it commands a mother’s care without pause. And every mother I ever saw wanted to care for her newborn. Those who are too ill to do so can become quite distressed when they see others take care of their child. Where there’s a babe in the house, all other things must wait.”

Éowyn considered her hands and rubbed the shapely nails with the tip of a finger.

“Will my life never be the same again?” she whispered.

Merilwen took the young woman’s hand and stroked it with her thumb.

“No, my lady, it won’t. But I think you will find that you can get used to a life that is different. Do you remember Déoric?”

“How could I forget him?” said Éowyn with a smile. “You speak of him whenever you get a chance.”

“That’s true,” replied Merilwen. “He is close to my heart. I feared for him when he left the Houses, and I have seldom rejoiced so much in anything as I have in his letter. What I wanted to say about him, though, is this: when Déoric lost his leg, he thought that his life would never be the same again, and he was right. He was wrong, however, to think that he could never be happy again. As we have seen, he has found the good life for himself, but it is so different from the life he used to lead that he couldn’t have imagined it. I think this is what you will find, too.”

“I thought at first a child would simply add to our happiness,” said Éowyn. “I see now that it will take away a lot of my freedom. But Merilwen, I am not so unused to caring for someone as you think. I looked after my uncle for many years when he was poorly. I did it out of love for him and because it was my duty, but I often felt like a bird caught in a cage.”

“You may feel like that again to begin with. But remember that your child will grow and gain strength and skill every day. Soon it will walk and then talk and little by little grow away from you. One day you may be surprised to see that your child doesn’t need you any longer or at least not as much as before, and then you will be free again, though you may find that freedom less alluring as it seemed when you couldn’t have it.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad. But I think you are right. I shall have to learn how to be patient and ask less for myself.”

“So, will you promise to stay in your bed then?”

Éowyn sighed. “I promise. But leave the windows open, will you?”

“That I will. Coming to think of it, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t get a day bed put up for you on the balcony. Would that cheer you up?”

“Oh, yes!”  Forgetting her promise in her enthusiasm, Éowyn sat up in bed. Merilwen gently pushed her back into the pillows.

“Lie down, my lady. Have a bit of patience. I will get it arranged straight away. In half an hour, you’ll be out in the sunshine.”

“Thank you.” Éowyn’s hands stroked the bedclothes, drawing swirly patterns with her index finger. “Merilwen? Did you know that Mithrandir called Ioreth Wise Woman of Gondor? I think if he had met you, he would have had something similar to say about you.”

Later that afternoon, Éowyn awoke from a light slumber and opened her eyes to the blue sky. The sound she had been half-conscious of even in her sleep came from the fields beyond the garden. It was the strange rasping of the cicadas. A gust of wind carried up the scent of wild roses from the bushes beneath the balcony. The child was awake; she felt it moving. With her hand on her belly, she closed her eyes again and tried to imagine a life that was different, yet happy.

~oOoOo~

Déoric cracked the egg and carefully separated the yolk from the white. He placed the yolk on a piece of cloth and set the bowl with the white aside to be sent to the kitchen, where it would make someone’s portion of scrambled egg a little bit paler. The thought made Déoric grin.

When the skin of the yolk had lost its sheen, Déoric gently lifted the cloth and let the yellowish bubble slide to the edge of the fabric. He held it over a ceramic jar and with a small knife cut into the membrane. The content of the yolk drained into the jar. Déoric added a spoonful of water and some drops of linseed oil and stirred the mixture. Then he closed the jar with a stopper and put it aside. This would be the base for his paint; he would blend the egg mixture it with the pigments on the palette.

A smile crept into his face as he lifted the lid of the beech wood case beside him. Inside, more than a dozen tiny boxes were arranged in two neat rows, each labelled in black ink. Master Amarant had explained these pigments in much detail. Some of them were referred to as earths, because they were based on special kinds of clay, others were scraped off corroded metals or extracted from boiled wood shavings. Déoric ran a finger over the boxes: Burnt umber, a rich brown. Vermilion, a beautiful bright red. Sinopia, a colour he found useful for flesh tones. He had recently made his first attempt at painting something human: his own hand. Terre Verte – this one gave him trouble, sticking to the brush rather than flowing. Flake white, very poisonous according to Master Amarant’s notes, because it contained lead. Bright yellow orpiment. Lamp black, made from the soot collected off oil lamps. Woad. Verzino. Verdigris. And there was his favourite, ultramarine, the intense blue of the ground lapis lazuli stone. It was the most precious of his pigments and he used it sparingly, fighting the temptation to try and paint his grassy country under a brilliant blue sky. He wasn’t ready for such glory yet. Sometimes, when he was out riding, he closed his eyes to shut out the images that clamoured for his attention.

Even more urgently he wanted to paint people; Fana of course, but also Gléowine, or the king in his handsome garments of olive green and rusty red. Alluring as those images were though, he knew he was but a novice in the art of painting and had to stick to simple things, inanimate objects like vegetables or pieces of crockery. These were dull, but necessary exercises, and he tried as best he could to rein in his impatience. At least the motif he had chosen this time was one much closer to his heart than the ceramic pot he had painted yesterday. He had asked Éomer if he could borrow the item for a day or two and the king had readily agreed. It lay in front of him now, familiar and yet strange, for he hadn’t seen it since that day in May when he had handed it over to the Princess of Dol Amroth. It was the book he had made for Éomer King, the book that had changed his life. He touched it gently and then turned to the board on his desk.

The last layer of gesso, which he had applied earlier, was dry. He was ready to paint.

~oOoOo~

The following day Déoric sat at his desk and tried to catch up with some scribing tasks. Drawing, painting or recording stories seemed more attractive work at any time, but he was, after all, still the king’s scribe and as such he needed to attend to the much duller chores of writing inventories. His stylus worked neatly and briskly down the pages. Propped up on the window sill stood the half-finished painting of the Book.

Noon was approaching when Léofred came in and seated himself on the spare chair.

“We need to think, Déoric,” he said. “The king wants you to ride out into the Westfold by the beginning of October, and I agree that it would be good if you could have a few weeks of travelling and collecting stories before the winter. But there will still be scribing work that has to be done, and I am too busy to deal with it all. I was wondering if your uncle would be willing to step in, if we offer him a farm hand in exchange.”

“I’m sure he would. The thought had occurred to me, too. I shall write to him directly. He and my aunt would soon be visiting us anyway, and it would just mean to come earlier and for longer.”

“Good, then hopefully he will agree. But, Déoric, we must face the facts. You are Chronicler of the Mark, you are supposed to record our heritage in word and drawing, and now you are expected to be painting, too. The scribe’s duties can no longer be placed on your shoulders. You must train up an apprentice, or maybe your uncle could be persuaded to do so, since he has already produced one very fine scribe. We need to look out for a lad who would be willing to learn the scrivener’s craft.”

Déoric twisted a braid around his paint-stained finger.

“I think I know someone suitable,” he said. “Guntram’s son, Brecc. I’ve been teaching him to read and he is learning very well. I believe he will make a good scribe.”

Léofred smiled.

“You never cease to amaze me, Déoric. There are so many sides to you. Scholar, artists, teacher – oh, and lover, of course.” He winked. “It is very endearing that your wife accompanies you to work almost every morning.”

The bashful part of Déoric wanted to pick up a sheet of parchment to hide his face behind, but he shoved this impulse aside and looked Léofred straight in the eyes.

“Indeed,” he said. “And you know what, Master Léofred, come spring I shall also be a father.”

A broad grin spread on Léofred’s face. He stepped round the desk and gave Déoric a hearty hug. “Congratulations, my boy. This is wonderful news. Not that I’m surprised, mind you. Your Fana has been flourishing ever since you wed her. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a happier young woman or, for that matter, a more devoted husband.”

Bashfulness did get the better of Déoric for an instant and succeeded in colouring his cheeks, but he checked it manfully and beamed at the king’s advisor.

“I am very happy, Master Léofred. Nothing better could have ever happened to me than marrying Fana. And that is saying a great deal, if you consider my good fortune during this last year. All I hope now is that I can make it up to her for all the sorrow I caused her with my foolish behaviour. It puts me to shame just to think of it.”

Léofred shook his head.

“Don’t blame yourself, Déoric. You needed time to come to terms with what had happened to you. Of course you could have acted more wisely, but it’s asking a bit much to demand wisdom from a man of barely twenty. It’s a thing that takes long years to gain, like all virtues. But enough of such solemn talk.” The smile returned to his face. “Are you hoping for a son or a daughter?”

Déoric shrugged. With his silver stylus, he doodled leaf shapes on a scrap of parchment.

“I don’t know,” he said. A twisted stem appeared, linking the leaves into a rampant vine. Long, drooping flowers sprouted from the tips of the branches. “I find it hard to imagine that there will be a real child. At this time, it is just something the women talk about. And when I say something, they giggle and look at me and say I don’t understand. I find it embarrassing to see my mother giggling.”

Léofred laughed. “Now, that’s something that I find hard to imagine. She seemed a very solemn and dignified woman to me.”

Seed pods grew out of the flowers, then the stylus scattered the seeds and tiny plants sprung up all over the parchment.

“She’s had some hard times,” said Déoric quietly. “I remember her being always cheerful when my father was still around, but since he died she has never really stopped being sad. And then there was all the trouble with me. It’s only since Fana has moved into the house that I see something of her old self again. And now she’s all thrilled with the idea of being a grandmother. Don’t you think that’s a bit strange? I mean, you’d think it would make her feel old and melancholy, wouldn’t you?”

With the sheet now entirely covered in rambling plants, Déoric began to shade in leaves and petals.

“I really couldn’t say, Déoric,” replied Léofred. “I never had a wife or child, let alone a grandchild. It’s an unknown world for me.”

Déoric looked up.

“Are you lonely?” he asked, tentatively.

Léofred made an evasive gesture with both hands.

“There’s no sad story, you know. I simply never met a woman I wanted to wed, so I suppose I don’t know what I’m missing. And I have friends. I consider you a friend, Déoric.”

“I’m honoured that you should think so, Master Léofred. I can’t think of anything I’ve done to be worthy of your friendship, but you have certainly been a friend to me. If it wasn’t for you…” Déoric looked around and indicated the desk, the piles of parchments, the whole scribe’s room. His voice faltered. Léofred patted him on the shoulder.

“Come, now, Déoric, you’re not often lost for words. There’s no need for meekness. It’s been a pleasure to give you a hand up and I have greatly enjoyed helping to bring out your talents. However, I believe we are now on more equal footing, and we should behave accordingly. So I suggest that henceforth you simply call me Léofred. Or would you prefer it if I addressed you as Master Déoric?”

Déoric snorted.

“You know, I might just ask you to do that,” he said with a grin. “It would help me to feel even more self-important than I already do, what with getting letters from a princess and everything.”

“Ha, now you’re pushing it! Right, I have things to do, and you’d better get going and write that letter.”

Déoric looked blank.

“The letter to your uncle, remember?” said Léofred. “That was what I came to talk to you about in the first place.”

“Oh, yes, of course. We seem to have rambled on quite a bit.”

“Indeed,” replied Léofred. “A bit like that.” He tapped the parchment Déoric had been doodling on. The young man looked at it as if he saw it for the first time. He laughed.

“I wish painting came to me as easily as that.”

“Maybe one day it will,” said Léofred.

Chapter 4: Pressing Questions

Déoric sat at the table and watched the two women bustle about. It was wash day and they had been up and about before Déoric had come down for his porridge. Fana brought in armful after armful of firewood for the stove, while Dirlayn carried in the water pails. They moved quickly, and when Fana looked over her shoulder to fling a piece of banter at Déoric, she promptly collided with his mother in the doorway. The buckets wobbled in Dirlayn’s hands and water splashed to the floor.

“Careful, Mother!” called Déoric. “The babe!”

“What about it, Déoric?”

“Will it not get squashed?”

Dirlayn laughed and put an arm around Fana’s shoulders.

“Not easily,” she said. “It floats in a bubble of water.”

“Really? How do you know that?”

Dirlayn shook her head. “There are some things, Déoric, that menfolk won’t be told.”

“Ah, you keep saying that. Huh! It’s the great secret knowledge of women, this child-birth thing. I wonder why people bother having fathers at all.”

Dirlayn and Fana looked at each other and started to giggle.

“Right then!” said Déoric and slapped his hand onto the table. “This is where I retreat. I’ll go up to the Hall and speak to other ignorant people like Léofred or the king.”

When Déoric arrived at the Golden Hall, he found Léofred and the king engaged in conversation. He meant to bow and walk past them through to the scribe’s room, but Éomer gestured for Déoric to join them.

“I’m pleased that you’re leaving tomorrow. Let’s hope the fair weather will hold. Have you met your escort yet?”

“Yes, my lord. Léofred introduced us yesterday.”

“Good, good.” Éomer spoke in his usual tone, half jovial, half commanding. Déoric could tell that the king was in good spirits, for the smile never left his face. A letter from the princess had probably just arrived.

“Déoric, since you are journeying westwards, I want you to go as far as Hornburg and take a parcel to Lord Erkenbrand. It is nothing urgent, so you need not hurry on that account. There are some documents Lord Erkenbrand has requested, and I have also included a letter asking him to offer you hospitality.”

“Thank you, my lord.”

“The parcel is on your desk, next to your box of paints. You will miss your painting practice, won’t you? But it is only for a few weeks.”

“My lord,” said Déoric, “I had meant to take my painting things with me. I’ve prepared a few small panels that won’t take up much space in the saddle bags.”

Éomer leaned his elbow on the armrest and his chin on his palm.

“I don’t think that would be wise, Déoric. You’d better leave the paints with Léofred for safe keeping.”

“But my lord, I need to keep practising. I’ve only just worked out a way to render folds in fabric, and I’m getting better at mixing colour, and there are so many things that I need to explore further.”

“What if something happens to the pigments on your travels? The Princess of Dol Amroth has expectations, Déoric, which you must not disappoint. No, no, it won’t do. Leave them here.”

Déoric turned round to Léofred, but the king’s advisor gave him a solemn look that told him not to expect any support from that quarter. He felt reluctant to give in; however, the king seemed to consider the matter settled and rose from his seat to pat Déoric on the shoulder.

“Good luck, Chronicler of the Mark,” he said. “Bring us back many stories.”

“I will try my best, my lord.”

He found the parcel in the scribe’s room just as Éomer had said. A pair of saddle bags lay in the corner. One was to hold his writing equipment, the other was meant to go home with him that evening to be filled with his clothes and other necessities. Déoric began to pack his wads of parchment, his wax tablets and the box of styli and placed the king’s parcel on top. He stopped and let his hand rest on the wooden case that contained his pigments. After a minute or so, he emptied the bag and packed it again with the box of paints at the bottom. Three small wooden boards, already prepared with gesso and wrapped in linen, were easily slipped down one side. Déoric closed the flap and pulled the leather strap through the buckle.

Voices by the door made him look up. Léofred appeared with Brecc, the tanner’s son. The boy looked around the room with a mixture of awe and curiosity.

“Brecc has come to see the place where he will be apprenticed,” said Léofred. He turned to the boy. “Déoric tells me that you have learned your letters very well.”

“Yes, Master Léofred. I like writing.”

“That is good. But there is a lot more to the scrivener’s craft. You’ll have much to learn. “

“Don’t frighten my apprentice before he has even started!” cried Déoric. “Brecc, I am sure you will do very well. My uncle will arrive within the next few days, and I know him to be an excellent and very patient teacher. Unfortunately, he will only be able to stay for two or three weeks, since my aunt is not well and can’t spare him for long.”

“That is an inconvenience indeed,” said Léofred. “I cannot blame him, but I’m afraid the work will pile up.”

“I’ll catch up soon enough when I come back,” replied Déoric.

He got up and took some boxes from the shelves. Brecc watched while Déoric showed him quills and ink pots. Meanwhile, Léofred sat down on the spare chair and looked over a sheet of accounts Déoric had written the previous day. A couple of times he shook his head and picked up the stylus to make an amendment. Déoric saw it from the corner of his eye and wished once more that he could handle numbers as easily as he did letters.

 When Brecc had left, Déoric returned to his desk. Léofred put down the accounts and handed Déoric a small leather pouch.

“Here is some coin for you to use on your journey.” He looked around. “Where are your paints?”

“In the saddle bags,” said Déoric without lifting his eyes from his hands that were spread out on the desk.

Léofred sighed.

“You did hear the king telling you to leave them here, didn’t you?”

“I did. But it wasn’t exactly an order, more a ... preference. I cannot stop practising right now when I am beginning to get better at it. And, Léofred, the paints are mine. The princess gave them to me and she never said that they were the king’s to command. I think I should be allowed to do what I want with what is mine, no matter what the king says.”

Léofred shook his head.

“Think of what you’re doing, Déoric. I will not say that you owe gratitude to the king, because one might want to make a case of what people would owe to you. But think carefully. Assertiveness is a virtue, but so is prudence.”

Déoric looked up.

“What is virtue, Léofred?”

In the short pause that ensued, Léofred rubbed his beard. The crackle of the bristles was clearly heard.

“Virtue is a balance,” he said. “It is courage tempered with caution, generosity tempered with prudence. Virtue means to have neither too much nor too little of any admirable quality.”

“And what does your idea of virtue tell me to do in this case?”

“Ah, yes, there lies a difficulty. Being virtuous doesn’t always help us how to decide. How did you mean to justify your action?”

Déoric fiddled with his braid and shrugged.

“I’m not sure. The way I see it, I have duties to the king, but I also have duties to the princess. She gave me the paints for using, not for storing them away. And in a way I even have duties to my art. A talent isn’t just a gift, it is also a responsibility. I feel it would be wrong to go for weeks on end without practising.”

“Duties, eh? Very well then, Déoric,” said Léofred and rose from his seat. “If you have thought about this carefully and aren’t just being a reckless youth, then I shall not try to dissuade you. You are old enough to take responsibility for yourself. Well, I have business to attend to. Until tomorrow, Déoric.”

Déoric bid his friend farewell, but when Léofred reached the door, another thought occurred to him.

“Léofred?”

The king’s advisor stopped in the doorway and turned round.

“If it’s not asking too much,” said Déoric, “I would be grateful if you could look in on my womenfolk from time to time and see that all is well with them.”

“That I will gladly do, Déoric.”

“Thank you. Well, I’d better be going, too. I still need to pack my clothes, and I want to say farewell to Gléowine before I go home.”

He flinched when he reached for the crutches.

“Are your arms giving you trouble again?” inquired Léofred.

“Yes, the sores are quite bad at the moment. I’ve padded the crutches some more, but it doesn’t help much.”

“You need to give your arms a rest,” said Léofred.

Déoric snorted. “And how would I get home, hop on one leg?”

“No. I’m sure the king would object to the Chronicler of the Mark making such a spectacle of himself. I’ll give some thought to the matter. Now off you go. I shall see you in the morning before you leave.”

~oOoOo~

Dirlayn’s little garden was shaded by a canopy of gently flailing laundry that emanated a soapy smell. The sun, still vigorous for the time of year, would dry Déoric’s clothes before the end of the day. At the moment, the damp lingered here and there, as Fana found when she ran her hands over the socks and tunics and the oddly shaped trousers with the sewn-up left legs. A tiny black beetle had landed on Dirlayn’s white nightgown. Fana watched it and marvelled at the green and purple lustre of the shell, then she flicked it away with her finger. She picked up a small basket, opened the garden gate and walked up the lane towards the market place to buy ale and meat for their dinner.

Not quite half an hour later, with her purchases stored snugly in the basket, she crossed the square to join three young women who were sitting on a bench; the sisters Aedre and Udele and their neighbour, Eadlin. Fana put down her basket and sat down beside Udele.

“I have news,” she said. “Do you want to guess?”

“Your brothers have set fire to the stables,” suggested Udele.

“Good grief, I hope not!”

“Déoric has been made Captain of the King’s Guard and received an order from the Princess of Dol Amroth to create a monumental tapestry depicting the Battle of Hornburg.”

“Oh, don’t be silly, Aedre!”

“Well, what then?”

Fana smiled and with a slow and deliberate gesture folded her hands over her stomach. There was a moment of suspense and then Aedre jumped up and embraced her tenderly.

“Oh, Fana, really? When?”

“In the springtime. In April, Dirlayn thinks.”

“That is wonderful, Fana. I am so happy for you,” said Udele.

“What does Déoric say?” asked Aedre, her arm still wrapped around Fana’s shoulder.

“Oh, quite a lot...”

“How very unlike him!”

“Don’t tease her, Aedre,” said Udele. “Your Niarl isn’t exactly taciturn either. Fana, this is such delightful news; I’m really very, very glad.”

“But what if the babe is born with one leg?” asked Eadlin. The sisters turned and stared at her. Fana looked to the ground.

“How can you be so stupid!” hissed Aedre. “A parent’s injuries aren’t passed on to the child.”

Eadlin’s cheeks coloured.

“But, really, Fana,” she said, “I don’t understand how you can live with a one-legged man.”

Fana was about to say something and it was clear from her looks that it wouldn’t be an amiable reply, but Udele put a hand on her arm.

“Eadlin,” she said gently, “we all feel for you, but your loss will be no more bearable if you grudge Fana her happiness with Déoric.”

“I don’t grudge – oh, what do you know!” Eadlin leapt up from the bench and ran away across the market place. On the far side, she disappeared between the houses. 

“I can’t help it,” said Fana miserably. “It’s not my fault that Déoric came back and Oswyn didn’t. And she can’t expect me to wish it had been the other way round.”

“Nobody says you should,” said Aedre.

They sat in silence for a while, Fana in the middle and the sisters leaning against her. Then, as if on some secret command, all three of them sighed.

~oOoOo~

There were a few farewells to be said. Déoric rode up to the house of the stable master to take leave of Fana’s family and then paid a short visit to Sigrun, the mother of his friend Halol, who had fallen on the Pelennor. His chief destination, though, was the house of the old minstrel. As usual, laundry hung in the yard, but today there was no sign of the children. Gléowine, though, sat on his bench among his plant pots again. Most of them stood empty now, only the sunflowers nodded their seedheavy heads, and the last of the roses had come into their full glory. Déoric dismounted and sat down beside Gléowine.

“Well, that’ll be me off tomorrow morning then,” he said.

Gléowine reached out and stroked Ivornel’s muzzle.

“Do you hear that, my pretty?” he said. “This young rascal here is going to take you for a long ride. Are you sure you are willing to put up with his antics?”

The horse snorted and shook her head.

“Ivornel!” cried Déoric. “You’re not supposed to take sides with him against me!”

“Ah, the horse has got more sense than you have, Déoric,” said Gléowine. He winked. “Look after yourself, will you? The last of the orcs are all but routed, so I hear, but that will not stop you from taking a tumble and cracking your skull. I want to see you back in one piece.”

“I shall be careful. Aldfrid, my escort, is a very experienced man. I don’t see us coming to any harm, other than getting cold and muddy if the weather should turn.”

“Well, well. Let us hope you are right,” said Gléowine. “I am looking forward to hearing all the curious stories you will come back with. Mind you, I was thinking only today that few of the old stories can be as strange as the ones people will be telling about our days in times to come.”

“Do you think so?”

“Oh, yes. I would not be surprised if the story of the Ring War would become the best remembered story in all of Middle-earth, and not only because of the might of the enemy who was destroyed. Because you see, it is not only a story of Rohan or of Gondor or any other one place. Men from many parts of the world took part, and one woman at least, as we know, and hugely proud we are of her, are we not? But that is not even the most remarkable thing.”

“What is then?”

“Are you feeble-minded, Déoric?  Were Men the only creatures you saw on the battle field? This war brought together everyone, from everywhere, with a love of freedom and goodness and light. Elves, Dwarves, even the Ents. And then that strange people of the Hobytla. Ah, I wish I could have seen them.”

“Did you not meet Meriadoc? He rode to the Pelennor with us. He...”

Déoric paused.

“Gléowine,” he said at length, “why do we have a Rohirric word for hobbit?”

Gléowine smiled.

“Ah, but my dear Déoric, we do not just have a word!”

~oOoOo~

“Oh no!” Fana had glanced up and seen the dark clouds. “It’s raining.”

“Quick!” cried Dirlayn.

They dropped the half-peeled vegetables on the kitchen table and rushed outside. Already the shirts and trousers on the line were speckled with dark spots. With brisk movements they pulled down Déoric’s clothes and flung them into the wicker basket that stood on the path. Their own garments they abandoned to the rain; they could do without them for another day or two.

Once inside, Dirlayn dragged the clotheshorse from the corner, where it had lain folded up, and placed it by the hearth. Fana was already busy getting a fire going. They picked the clothes out of the basket and draped them over the clotheshorse. When they had finished, they looked at each other and laughed. Dirlayn pulled Fana into a brief embrace.

“It’ll be fine,” she said. “Give it half an hour by the fireside and it’ll all be dry again.”

“I should have brought it in earlier,” said Fana. “It’s just as well that Déoric doesn’t depend on me alone to look after him.”

“We shouldn’t have left it to the last day,” replied Dirlayn. “But you really couldn’t have done the wash on your own, not in the state you’re in. Maybe I should have taken yesterday off from the infirmary.”

She sat down on her armchair, leaned back and laughed.

“How many women does it take to care for one man?”

~oOoOo~

Déoric had meant to go straight home from his visit at Gléowine’s house, but their conversation had left him with an itching question, and he could only think of one way to find an answer. So in spite of the rain he returned to the Golden Hall and to his scribe’s room, sat down at the desk and began to write:

Dear Meriadoc,

I hope you are well and have received the letter I sent you in response to yours. I am writing to you today to trouble you with a question. Just this afternoon I spoke to my friend Gléowine, who used to be minstrel to Théoden King. We were talking about all the different races that had helped win the war, and so ‘Hobytla’ were also mentioned, and it was then that I began to wonder why our language would have a word for a people with whom we have never had anything to do. But Gléowine told me that not only do we have a word, but we have some very old stories, too, about the little people that live underground and tread so silently that they are never heard and vanish in the wink of an eye. This intrigued me, and I cannot help thinking that there must be some kind of link between your people and mine that is buried in the past and that no one knows about. Would you have any idea what that link could be?

I have more good news about myself, if you care to hear it. Fana and I are very happy and looking forward to becoming parents in the spring. The king has seen to it that I got a special saddle made and now I am riding again – I have a loan of the Princess of Dol Amroth’s horse! The princess has also given me a painting kit and wants me to learn to paint. I have not made huge progress yet, but am applying myself with much zeal to the task. It amazes me that such noble folk take the trouble to concern themselves with my affairs – though admittedly, they can hope to get something out of the bargain. I will do my best not to disappoint them. Tomorrow I will set out to travel the West of my country and begin to collect stories there. I am curious as to what I will find.

I hope things are going well in the Shire and that you enjoy your well-deserved peace. Please give my best wishes to your friends, especially to your wounded cousin.

I remain with kindest regards

Déoric, son of Féadred

He rolled up the parchment and sealed it. In the morning, he would give it to Léofred and ask him to see it delivered.

Chapter 5: On the way

After all those weeks of talking about it, it was strange to be on the way at last. They had set off from Edoras mid-morning, after long and cordial farewells and much unsolicited advice from just about everyone Déoric knew. The rain of the previous day had taken the unseasonal heat out of the air and for the first time there was a feeling of autumn about the land. In the afternoon, though, the sun gained the upper hand again and made steam rise from the grassland and sweat glisten on the brows of the two men. They rode in silence for much of the time, because Déoric’s thoughts were occupied with what he had left behind as much as with what lay ahead, and Aldfrid seemed a man of few words, who did not speak unless Déoric spoke to him first.

The day was nearly at an end when rainclouds moved in again and they were obliged to seek shelter under the trees of a little copse. Both men dismounted and treated their horses to a few carrots.

“How much further today?” asked Déoric.

“About an hour, I reckon,” said Aldfrid. “Eikfeld is a large village and you’ll be sure to find many people to talk to there.”

“Let’s hope we can move on soon,” said Déoric, “so we can get there before dark.”

The rain was short and abundant, as it so often was at this time of year. A blanket of dark cloud still covered most of the sky when they set off again, but towards the West, just above the horizon, a broad gap let through the setting sun. The light that fell on the trees made the wet leaves glow. They looked as if they had been wrought from glass by some Elven craftsman. Déoric sighed. Years would pass before he would be able to paint that.

They reached Eikfeld in the twilight and rode up to the village green. A group of children followed them and pelted them with questions, which Déoric answered with good humour. Yes, they came from Edoras; yes, this was the king’s standard, no, they had not seen any orcs, yes, they meant to stay the night. Aldfrid confined himself to nodding and smiling.

Under the ancient oak trees on the green they dismounted and were greeted by a man with grey braids, one of the village elders as it turned out.

“You’re welcome to stay the night at my house,” said the man, Redwald, after Déoric had explained his quest. “We can talk by the fire after supper, and tomorrow you can speak to other folk in the village. Word of you will spread soon enough, I dare say.”

Word spread quickly indeed, for even on that same evening, after a meal of fried eggs and onions, they were joined in Redwald’s large wooden house by nearly a dozen villagers, all eager to see the king’s chronicler and to tell their stories. They started with well-known tales of Fricca the Goldenhaired and of Helm Hammerhand, but soon they moved on to stories Déoric had not heard before. He took his wax tablet and stylus and began to take notes.

Silence fell. Déoric looked up and gave an encouraging smile to the woman who had stopped dead in her tale of two sisters lost in the woods and their encounter with a strange giant. He saw that everyone in the room, apart from Aldfrid, who had nodded off in a corner, was staring at him.

“And what happened then?” he said, but the woman, the elderly mother of the village’s blacksmith, didn’t take her eyes off the wax tablet in Déoric’s hand.

“Are you writing down what I’m saying?” she asked in a tone that carried suspicion as well as awe.

“Well, yes, that’s rather the point, isn’t it?” said Déoric. “The king wants me to make a book of stories.”

“When you said you were collecting stories,” said Redwald, “I thought you meant to commit them to memory like the minstrels do.”

“My memory is not all that great,” replied Déoric. “I’m a man of letters, I’m afraid.”

He saw the people exchange glances, and here and there a brow was furrowed. The crackling of the fire seemed almost too loud.

“Since you’re not sure if you want to give me your stories, let me offer you something in return.” Déoric pulled from his bag a small square of parchment, his silver stylus and a board to lean on. He looked at the old woman, the way her face was shaped: from a broad, round forehead and large, wide eyes, via a smallish nose and small mouth down to an almost non-existent chin. The stylus in his hand began to move.

“What’s he doing?” he heard one of the men whisper. Redwald rose from his seat and came across the room to look at Déoric’s parchment.

“Good gracious!” he murmured and leaned closer. One by one the other people in the room drew near.

“No, please stay where you are!” cried Déoric when the blacksmith’s mother got up, too. She sat down again and cast a look at him that spoke of her growing bewilderment, while the eyes of the onlookers moved back and forth between her face and Déoric’s parchment. Déoric worked as quickly as her could, because he sensed the mounting unease of the woman and felt uncomfortable himself with the crowd looking over his shoulder and with their whispered remarks. Another ten minutes or so and he handed the parchment, a rough sketch rather than a proper drawing, to the old woman.

She looked at it and drew breath sharply.

“Is it some kind of magic?” she asked.

“No,” said Déoric. “You saw me do it. It’s a skill. I have a bit of talent, but mostly I learned how to do it. I made illustrations for a book that the king gave to the Princess of Dol Amroth. I drew the king, too.”

“Well, it is very good.” The old woman inclined her head and with a delicate gesture passed the parchment back to Déoric.

“Oh, no, keep it, it’s a present,” he said. “And now, please, what happened to those two little girls?”

With a certain amount of fuss, the old woman tucked the parchment into her sleeve. Then she smiled.

“Well, as I said, there they were all alone in the wood, and it was all dark and eerie, and suddenly they saw this giant, and he was as big as a tree and also...”

And so Déoric traded drawings for stories all evening until the fire had burnt down low and his eyes were sore from the strain in the dim light. The following morning a similar scene unfolded on the village green, and Déoric realized that he would have to keep his artistic skills secret in future, lest he run out of parchments before he’d even reach the Hornburg.

It was not quite noon yet when he announced that he had heard enough stories for a day and, on a whim, asked for a raw egg. He received one and set out to prepare his tempera, surrounded by a crowd of curious villagers. Many were children, and they had drawn closest - so much so that Aldfrid had to warn some of the younger ones not to touch Déoric’s pigments - but a fair number of adults seemed to have found time to spare from their work. Déoric grinned. They’re all wondering what trick the one-legged madman is up to now, he thought. From the grass at his feet he picked up an oak leaf, which was pleasingly patterned in hues of green and tan. He placed it on the lid of his box and began to paint. The village folk watched him, and more than one had a mouth gaping...

In the early afternoon they were on their way again, riding steadily but without haste. It was sunny and the land looked fair and mellow under the autumn sky. They saw the feathery seed heads of grasses nodding in the wind among the wildflowers of creamy white, yellow and lilac. Elder bushes stood adorned with shiny purple berries like outlandish gems, filling the air with their sweet smell.

Déoric mused on the sensation his skills had aroused among the people of Eikfeld. Their admiration had flattered him – Ethelhelm had not been far off the mark when he had said that Déoric was no stranger to vanity – but he was also saddened by it. If painting, drawing and even writing caused such a stir, what did that say about the people of the Mark? Gondorians would not have been so easily impressed.

After two hours’ ride they reached a little lake, tucked away at the bottom of a rocky cliff studded with birch trees. Reeds grew all around the shore save for one sandy spot that led up to a grassy slope. They decided to take a rest, since Aldfrid was sure that the next village lay less than five miles away and it was only mid-afternoon. The horses began to nibble the long grass straight away. Aldfrid shaped his cloak into a pillow and lay down for a nap, but Déoric made his way to the lake. He crouched down on a flat rock by the shore and scooped up water in his hands to wash his face. After the long, hot summer and the mild weeks of early autumn, the lake was still fairly warm. Déoric rolled up the sleeves of his tunic and splashed his arms. He took off his shoe and sock and dug his toes into the wet sand, which was firm, but pliable. In that manner he thought for a while, elbow on knee and chin in hand, watching the iridescent body of a dragonfly that hovered over the water. Then he removed his tunic and, with a certain amount of wriggling, his trousers. He seized the crutches and began to wade into the lake.

The ground fell steadily and by the time the water reached his hips, it was notably cooler. He rammed the crutches into the sandy ground and plunged forward into the lake. The initial little shock when the cold water engulfed his chest soon gave way to an exhilarating feeling of freshness. The sores in his armpits stung a bit, but other than that it was glorious. He began to splash about. Kicking his leg worked better than he would have thought, but mostly he moved forward with strong strokes of his arms. It did well enough.

After a while he stopped swimming and lay on his back, keeping himself afloat with little wavy movements of his hands. He tilted back his head and looked at the sky. The clouds shifted, transforming continuously before his eyes. A hare grew long legs and became a horse, which broke up into a cat and a couple of swords, while another cloud that resembled a seated woman developed a bulging belly that made Déoric smile.

He breathed out and allowed his body to sink. The water closed over his head and filled his ears. He stretched out his limbs and then curled up his body; knee, hands and elbows folded to his torso. Thus he drifted for a few precious seconds while he imagined his unborn child floating in the tepid waters of that strange land between not being and being in the world: the silence and the weightlessness. Is that how you feel, he whispered in his mind, is this the whole of your world? When his body began to ache for air, he swam back to the surface and took a deep breath.

~oOoOo~

That evening they were bidden into the big longhouse at Burharg, a somewhat smaller village than Eikfeld, and just like the previous night the storytelling commenced. This time Déoric left his wax tablets in his bag and endeavoured to commit the tales to memory. The following morning he hid himself away in the house of the miller where they had slept and wrote down what he could remember. Before they set off again, he listened to another round of stories and an hour after they had left the village, he bade Aldfrid to stop so that he could take further notes. This became their pattern from then on as they journeyed from village to village, sometimes in this direction or that, depending on where the settlements lay, but always keeping a general westward course. The king’s standard ensured their welcome wherever they went.

Some places had seen grave damage during the war, others were virtually untouched, but everywhere men were fewer than they ought to have been and they saw many women with lines of grief etched into their faces. Déoric’s thoughts turned to those who were missed in Edoras, first of all his friend Halol and then, inevitably, his father. This was a sorrow that had scabbed over, but would still bleed if picked at. It was best not to dwell on it. He set his mind on the stories he heard, and whenever he got hold of a fresh egg, he tried out his paints.

In this manner, travelling no more than maybe twenty miles a day in a zigzag fashion, they slowly made their way to the westernmost parts of the Riddermark. After eleven days, they reached Helm’s Deep and rode up that long, narrow cleft in the White Mountains that led to the Eorlingas’ ancient retreat. Through the gate in the Deeping Wall they came, where guards greeted the king’s standard rather than the two men that bore it, and at the door of the Hornburg they were met by the Warden of the Keys, who carried their letter from the king to Lord Erkenbrand. Soon they were received by the lord of the Westfold in a spacious chamber that looked out over the battlements.

“Hail, Déoric, Chronicler of the Mark,” said Erkenbrand, Éomer’s letter in hand. “I thank you for delivering the documents I requested of the king. However, I hear from him that you are by no means a mere messenger, but a scholar and an artist. I shall be glad to talk with you over supper, though first I am sure you will want to refresh yourselves. Goldwyn here will show you where you will stay.”

The housekeeper, a rotund ginger-haired woman in her forties, led them up two flights of stairs to the guest quarters. Déoric struggled on the narrow spiral staircase and would have fallen at one point, had not Aldfrid with his quiet watchfulness seen him stumble and caught him from behind. They were assigned a small, comfortable room, where a fire was soon lit by a maid and pitchers of water poured into large bowls by another. Déoric washed, set his hair in order and changed his clothes and in little under half an hour was fit to be seen by polite company, but Aldfrid only grabbed a crust of bread from his pack and said he wanted to go to sleep. So Déoric found himself sitting down for supper as the only stranger at Lord Erkenbrand’s table and, to his embarrassment, placed at the man’s right hand side.

Lord Erkenbrand was a man of heavy build, and tall, though not quite as tall as Éomer King. Déoric had seen him from time to time in Edoras, though always from a distance, and it was only in sitting next to him that he marvelled at the man’s broad shoulders and massive hands. Like the king, Erkenbrand wore his long hair loose rather than braided; it was as thick and wavy as his beard and showed touches of grey. Déoric remembered that in Erkenbrand was said to live again the image of Helm Hammerhand. Looking at the size of the hand that held the wine goblet, he could well believe it.

He had been introduced to the members of Erkenbrand’s household, notably his wife, a handsome and cheerful matron, and his three grown-up daughters and adolescent son. All in all, there were at least twenty-five sitting down at the table, including the Warden of the Keys and the marshal of Erkenbrand’s éored. Déoric felt not a little intimidated, but he reminded himself that he had even dined at the king’s table before and would surely be able to live up to the occasion without falling into a tongue-tied stupor. In fact, he had no choice but to talk, for Erkenbrand questioned him eagerly about his journey and the success of his quest so far.

“I see you have your work cut out. Does Éomer want you to create a whole library for him single-handedly?”

“I don’t think so,” said Déoric, “though sometimes it feels like it. The Princess of Dol Amroth has promised to bring books with her, and I believe the king wants to have something on the shelves when she arrives. He has sent to Mundburg for books, and in the store room we’ve found many tomes that must have belonged to Thengel King or the Queen Morwen. There were some fascinating books among those, and not all of them story books. I liked one about the distinctive features of gemstones, and one was all about insects, with beautiful illustrations. But all of these were written in Gondor. Éomer King wants something that has been achieved in the Riddermark. So he relies on me, because Gléowine doesn’t write, and the handful of people who can have more pressing things to do. And he still hasn’t appointed a new minstrel.”

“Just make sure you won’t get chosen for that task, too,” said one of Erkenbrand’s daughters with an impish smile.

“There’s no danger of that,” replied Déoric. “I’m pretty tone deaf.”

“That is just as well,” said Erkenbrand. “It seems to me that you have enough to do as it is. Did you find many new stories?”

“I collected a good few, but not as many as one might expect. After a while, one finds that there is a lot of repetition. In fact, in the last village we visited, I didn’t hear anything that I hadn’t heard before.”

“Travel further west from here,” suggested Erkenbrand. “The people in the outlying regions of the Westfold are a peculiar folk and I wouldn’t be surprised if they had some unusual tales in store for you. You can rest here for a couple of days and then continue your journey. If you spend one or two weeks in that part of the country and then return here for another short break, you will still be able to make it back to Edoras in good time before the onset of winter.”

“That seems like a good plan,” said Déoric. “If we stay here for a couple of days, that’ll give me opportunity to do a bit more painting. I’ve rather neglected my practice.”

“Paint all you like,” said Erkenbrand. “I’m sure we can provide you with plenty of eggs. Our chicken coops are rather well stocked, aren’t they, Béohild?”

“Not as well as they were before you had half of them roasted for the midsummer feast,” replied his lady with a smirk.

“Come now, we had reason to celebrate, and I didn’t want to appear miserly.” Erkenbrand drained his cup and held it out to the servant to be refilled.

Eventually the topic of Déoric’s tasks and travels was exhausted and conversation turned to other matters. It had been a good harvest this summer in the Westfold and Lord Erkenbrand was confident that his people would get over the winter comfortably. A group of dwarves was expected to arrive within the next few weeks, for Gimli, the famous dwarf who had been a companion of the hobbits who destroyed the enemy’s Ring, was bringing some of his kinsfolk to set up home in the glittering caves of Aglarond. Erkenbrand’s eldest daughter was going to be married before Yule. The wine was excellent, from Anfalas in Gondor, the best wine that had come to the Mark in many years...

This very wine was beginning to make Déoric feel drowsy, and he was glad when the Béohild rose and gave the sign for everyone to retire. In his room, he found Aldfrid snoring. The shutters were not quite closed and moonlight patterned the flagstone floor. With a yawn he sank down on his bed, dropped the crutches on the bedside rug and slipped under the blanket. Like every night, he thought of Fana and tried to imagine her beside him. He whispered words of love for her under his breath and then fell asleep with his shoe still on.

 Chapter 6: The art of getting lost in the rain

The following morning Déoric rose early, stabbed awake by pain in the missing leg. He opened the shutters and was met by a surge of chill air. The window looked backwards, into the gorge, where clammy tufts of mist undulated along the rockfaces. Maybe the sun had already risen somewhere out on the plain, but in this deep chasm only a hint of light gave shape to the world. The sky was a dull grey roof high above. Déoric stretched his arms and regretted his foolishness in going to bed fully clothed. He felt as if his mind had been crumpled along with his tunic. This was his last set of clothes; Goldwyn had taken the rest away for washing the previous night. He glanced briefly at the slumbering Aldfrid, smoothed down his tunic as best he could and, taking care on the staircase, made his way down to the front door.

Outside, the fresh morning air wiped off the sticky sleepiness that still clung to his neck and face. The entrance of the Hornburg opened out onto the battlements. Déoric stood on tiptoe to look over the parapet. He thought of the transformations he had seen in this place. It didn’t seem that long ago that he had stood there on two legs, head to head with his two friends, while the whole valley in front of them had been teeming with orcs and fierce Men from Dunland. Niarl, being Niarl, had tried to joke about it, but when the first orc heads had appeared atop the huge ladders, it had been Déoric’s lot to swing his blade and save his friend from a blow that would very likely have been fatal. That had been the first and the last time he and Halol had drawn swords together in earnest.

He had escaped injury that night, though he was not quite sure how. Certainly not by his own valour, for he had been very thoroughly frightened. In fact he remembered little of the battle apart from the noise and the stench and the utter confusion. Whether he had dodged more blows than he had countered he could not quite tell. Somehow, when the morning came and the horns resounded off the mountainsides, he found himself exhausted, soaked in sweat, but alive and whole.

What a different view the battlements had presented then! A nauseous field of corpses had stretched out ahead, and beyond that – the forest. Such trees he had never seen before or afterwards. Long limbs clad in lichen had swayed even though there was no wind, and the darkness that lurked under their heavy boughs had spilled out onto the grass in front. With victory, however dearly bought, rushing through their veins, the Eorlingas had been calling out with glad voices and many threw their swords into the air, but the forest spooked them and none who could help it went near.

Déoric, Halol and Niarl, being both unscathed and in possession of swift horses, had been among those chosen to act as messengers and spread the word of the battle across the Riddermark. Glad to be thus excused from the gruesome task of clearing the battlefield, they had left straight away, but had taken the cumbersome route through the hills rather than facing the forest.

There was no forest now, only two large mounds and a single grave in the middle where Háma, the captain of the king’s guard, had been laid to rest. It was said that in the mound to the left had been buried the men of the East Dales and in the one to the right those of the Westfold. Looking at the mounds in the pallid twilight and remembering the sight of the battlefield, Déoric was suddenly touched by some doubt whether in the aftermath of that battle, with so many dead, it had really been possible to tell with certainty in every case who was who. While he could not imagine that anyone would deliberately fabricate a lie on such a matter, he wondered if maybe the wish for this neat solution, together with the general upheaval, had spawned the story. He stowed away the thought for future consideration.

A broad flight of steps led from the battlements to the gate in the Deeping Wall. Déoric went down and greeted the guard. In the measured pace dictated by his crutches, he walked out into the grassy field towards the two mounds and then beyond in search for something he could pick up and take inside to paint. However, he found little to attract his attention. The valley was bare of trees now, only straggly bramble bushes colonized the crevices in the rocks on either side. A few stones lay about, but they were rough and dull, with no shiny surfaces or interesting patterns that would have been worth his time and his pigments.

Déoric began to peer under the bramble bushes, not quite sure what he was looking for, when his eyes were drawn by a glimpse of shimmering gold. He crouched down, always an arduous undertaking, and pushed aside a bramble shoot to discover the thing that had glinted golden even in this grey morning light.

It was a chrysalis. Déoric knew little of butterflies and other crawling creatures, but he couldn’t help thinking that this one had chosen the wrong end of the year and would probably hatch only to meet an untimely death. He held it on the palm of his hand and tried to imagine the creature encased in this almost weightless shell. What did it look like? He tried to recall the illustrations from the Gondorian book. The caterpillar had most likely been garish, maybe plump and green or black and yellow and covered with hair. It would have been munching away at leaves and flowers for weeks, oblivious to the world around it; a life driven by a single need: to grow. With this single-mindedness it would have wiggled about, devouring everything edible in its path. And now it lay still. Inside the chrysalis, it was separated from the world, taking nothing, giving nothing, seemingly dead. Yet something was happening inside, some mysterious process by which the wriggly caterpillar was transformed into a butterfly. One day the wall of the shell would tear open and the delicate insect would emerge, unfolding graceful wings to catch the sunlight for the first time. Déoric let them drift past in his mind’s eye: the caterpillar, the chrysalis and the butterfly. He wondered which stage he was at. He certainly wasn’t munching and devouring without thought for anything else, but neither was he shut off from the world in a tight and rigid shell. That left the butterfly, that fragile creature of beauty fluttering about without much noticeable purpose. He tried to apply the image to himself. Then he laughed and shook his head. No, he said to himself, this was silly. Just because he had found a chrysalis it didn’t mean that it was a symbol of his life. The very point was that he was not a butterfly. Gently, he let the chrysalis slip back into the grass under the bramble bush.

Inside the Hornburg the household had awoken and servants bustled about between the kitchens and the great hall. The ladies, Déoric was told, would not come down but break their fast in their rooms, but Lord Erkenbrand and his men welcomed him at the table which was laden with ale mugs, large bowls of porridge, fragrant loaves and platters of cold meat.

“Good morning, Master Scrivener!” called Erkenbrand from the far end. “Come, sit with me and tell me what you mean to paint today.”

“I’m not sure yet,” said Déoric and leaned his crutches against a chair. “I went out to see if I could find some kind of interesting object, like a curiously shaped branch or even a late flower, but I saw nothing suitable. I’d really much rather paint people, but I am still practising – “

“Well, why don’t you practise painting people then?” boomed Erkenbrand and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “In fact, why don’t you paint me?”

Déoric took a slab of bread and daintily spread some butter on it. He sighed. The lord of the Westfold would be a truly magnificent subject, and one he felt that was most certainly beyond his powers.

“I could draw you,” he offered.

“Not up for the challenge?” asked Erkenbrand.

“I don’t have to take up every challenge, just because it is a challenge,” replied Déoric. “That would not be wise. I need to use my resources sensibly.”

“You think you would be wasting your time on me?” said Erkenbrand and grinned.

“I didn’t mean to say that –“

“Ah, but the thought sprang up in my mind nonetheless. Can you do anything to convince me otherwise?”

Déoric took a sip of ale and held on to the mug, for he reasoned that his fingers were better placed there than between his teeth. He looked at Erkenbrand’s mane. Burnt umber and yellow ochre, he thought, with a glaze of flake white. Why not. I can but fail.

“I will paint you,” he said. “Though I must warn you that it could take all day and we may not even get finished. And I won’t take the blame if you’re not pleased with the result.”

~oOoOo~

Two days later Déoric and Aldfrid emerged from the gate in the Deeping Wall and made their way out of the valley while the barely dry portrait of Lord Erkenbrand was passed from hand to hand in the great hall. Déoric had pronounced the picture to be only just tolerable, but this did not discourage others from finding it quite noteworthy. Béohild insisted that it would take pride of place over the fireplace and Erkenbrand had some trouble to make her admit that at little more than one foot by one, the panel would look lost rather than impressive.

Such concerns, however, did not touch Déoric and Aldfrid, who continued their journey much in the same style that had brought them to the Hornburg. One village seemed much like another and the people differed but little: kind, honest and a touch suspicious about the pursuits of the one-legged stranger. The third day saw them arrive at the Ford of Isen. On the far side the shallow bank of the river was rimmed by willow and alder trees, but the southern shore extended down to the water as a flat, pebbled shelf. They crossed the shallow waters and steered their horses onto the eyot in the middle of the river. Just above the high water mark they found a burial mound, carefully edged with slate-grey boulders. It showed signs of having been recently tended, and a handful of wilted wild flowers quivered mournfully in the breeze. A single spear was planted on top, and from the spear hung the green flag with the white horse. 

“This is where he fell,” said Aldfrid. It was the first time during their whole journey that he spoke without having been addressed by Déoric. They paused and looked, each following his own musings on how things might have been had Théodred survived. Not another word was said, and when at last they moved on, they rode away from the river briskly, as if the thoughts that lingered there might otherwise weigh down and drown them.

As they came into the farthest part of the Westfold, they found that the overlong summer had not extended this far, the land being a bit further North, or else that the year had caught up with them at last. The air felt sharper against their faces and the grass had turned ochre and limp. Here and there, patches of withered bracken painted the hillsides russet. In the gaps of the dry stone walls, the last flowers clung sadly to the tail end of their lives.

The villages lay further apart here than in the heartland of Rohan, and twilight had almost turned into night before they reached the next settlement. However, the yield seemed to justify the effort of travelling this far, because Déoric heard for the first time more new stories than familiar ones.  This was border country, and many tales talked of the Dunlendings, of their brute rage and deceitful cowardice. Helm Hammerhand was a hero in many of these stories, and some of the deeds told here Déoric had never heard of before. Helm had chased off a pack of wolves by setting fire to their tails. Helm had broken an arm-thick branch off a tree with his bare hands and used this club to crack the skull of the Dunlending who had stolen his sword. Helm had cornered a band of orcs in a cave and frightened the life out of them when he tore the limbs off their chieftain. Déoric sat until late at night by the light of a rushlamp and scribbled down notes.

On their fourth day in this border country, it began to rain. The clouds were trailing low, almost touching the crests of the hills. It was boggy land they were travelling on, low rolling grassy knolls dotted with gorse bushes and small, twisted trees. Here and there, a hill rose not towards a gentle slope, but a sudden cliff of jagged, reddish rocks. There were caves opening up in some of those cliffs, though most were shallow and offered little shelter when Déoric and Aldfrid huddled together in the musty shadows for a bit of rest. It was too damp to get a fire going. They were thoroughly drenched, as were their horses, and in the end they decided it was best to move on and find the next village as soon as they could.

So they rode on, north-westwards they believed, guessing rather than knowing that noon had come and gone, for the sky was so thickly covered with billowing clouds that there was no telling where the sun stood. They kept to the moorlands, which were open and, if nothing else, afforded the nearest thing to a clear view in this steaming weather, while to their right wooded slopes of larch and ash rose, a wall of bare trees clumped together in muted hues of brown, grey and purple. Beyond, they could only vaguely perceive dark shapes that may or may not have been the southernmost foothills of the Misty Mountains. It was the only thing that still gave them some sense of direction. They had hoped not to stray quite so far to the North, because for all that Isengard was said to be deserted, they wished not to come too close to the former lair of the White Wizard. Whether or not they were now passing in the shadow of that dismal place was beyond their skill to determine. Heavy, soggy vapour hid all features of the land from their searching gaze. It wafted around the horses and crept behind the men’s collars.

Somewhere to the left they could just make out a lone tree that must have been coppiced at one time, for it looked almost like a broom, with a sturdy trunk from which rose a bunch of long, straight branches, each covered in smooth young bark the colour of copper. Those youthful limbs stood in stark contrast to the ancient body that bore them, grey, cracked and disfigured by knotty growths, some as large as a man’s head. Indeed, a few of these growths formed a pattern of two round ones on top and a longer, more prominent one underneath, which in turn sat above a gaping hole; and this bizarre arrangement gave the whole tree the look of a man with a shock of auburn hair crying out in fear or surprise. Like a sentinel of long forgotten times he seemed to guard the path ahead and give a mournful salute, or maybe a warning. Déoric passed it with a shudder.

It rained on and on. By now they were so wet that they had stopped caring. Déoric sat in a dreamy daze, reflecting on how ridiculous it was to have water dripping off the tip of his nose. In front of him, Aldfrid’s horse glistened with moisture while the hunched over figure of Aldfrid seemed to cling to whatever little comfort his pulled-up shoulders provided. For the last half hour it had grown steadily darker and they could no longer fool themselves that this was only due to a gloomier set of clouds. Evening had come and there was no sign of the settlement that they should have reached hours ago. They had to admit that they were lost.

The attack could not have come at a more inopportune moment, even considering how generally unwelcome orc attacks are. It was a band of half a dozen small, swarthy orcs and two of them lost their heads to Aldfrid’s sword before Déoric even quite realized what was happening. The crude voices woke him from his stupor and he drew his own sword, which felt heavy and awkward in his hand after more than a year of wielding the quill.

A yell hit his ear. One orc came at him from the left with a curved blade, while another grabbed the reins of his horse. Ivornel reared in panic. Déoric’s sword met the orc blade with a clang. The orc stumbled backwards, but the effort to counter the thrust made Déoric lose his balance. With his foot still entangled in the stirrup, he slid off the mare’s back and fell face down into the wet grass. He cursed. Ivornel shook herself free from the other orc’s grip and bolted. She sprinted away, dragging Déoric behind her. He felt clawed hands grabbing for him and something cut into his thigh, but within seconds the skirmish fell behind and gave way to a wild chase through the grass and bracken.

Déoric managed to turn far enough to lift his face out of the grass and tried to shield his head with his arms. Gorse twigs whipped him. He scraped his hand on a stone. Ivornel’s hooves were close, whirling, drumming, seemingly everywhere. Mud splashed into his mouth and nostrils. He gasped and struggled to get his foot free. As he wriggled, he inadvertently kicked Ivornel’s side. She whinnied and flung herself to the right. A hoof hit his left forearm. Pain soared instantly. Then the mare reeled round again, this time to the left, and Déoric was thrust out over the edge of the cliff that had caused her to turn. Now, at last, too late, his foot slipped out of his boot and he tumbled, down, down, down, over rocks and shrubs and pebbled dips till at last he lay still on a patch of sodden grass at the bottom of the slope.

The pain in his head blurred and merged with the piercing hurt in his arm and thigh and his invisible leg. The black dots that had begun to oscillate in front of his eyes grew and multiplied until they filled his whole world.

And it still rained.

Chapter 7: Different perspectives

Fana awoke in the dark, but something told her that it was close to dawn and she should be up. She stretched out a hand and found the space next to her empty and cool, though she could still feel the dent in the mattress where Dirlayn had slept. The clanking of milk pails rang up from the kitchen. Across the landing, the door of the other bedroom opened with a creak and Déoric’s uncle Himlebed’s footsteps plodded down the stair. Fana pulled up her knees and twisted the blanket around her wrists. She ran it past her face until she came to a patch that still smelled of Déoric and then breathed in his scent. With every passing week, it became harder to find.

She lay like this for a little longer before she slowly slid out of her warm nest and set her naked feet on the wooden floor. The room was colder than she had expected, and for a while she sat on the edge of the bed with the blanket around her shoulders. A spot halfway down her left leg began to itch and she scratched it. Her probing fingertips could make out a row of three tiny flat bulges. Fana sighed. Bed bugs again. She’d believed they’d got rid of them. The thought of these little brown creatures crawling up her legs in her sleep to feed on her blood turned her stomach.

Carefully so as not to stub her toes, she padded over to the window and opened the shutters to let in what little light there was, sufficient to get washed and dressed. Then she went down. An empty bowl with traces of porridge stood at Déoric’s place. Himlebed’s place, that was. Dirlayn came in from the kitchen with a loaf on a wooden board.

“Oh, here you are, my dear,” she said. “Did you sleep well?”

“Not quite,” replied Fana. “I lay awake for some time in the middle of the night, and I think that’s why I slept in.”

“Never mind, dear,” said Dirlayn. She cut off a thin slice of bread and spread it with butter and honey, just the way Fana liked it. Fana allowed herself to be served and gratefully sank her teeth into the bread. The smell of fresh milk from her cup was delicious; it no longer made her feel queasy as it had during the early weeks of being with child. Dirlayn did not sit down; instead she picked up her coat from the hook by the door.

 “Listen, Fana,” she said, “I’m in a hurry. I’m needed at the infirmary. Himlebed has forgotten to take something for his midday meal. Would you be so good as to take him a bite up to the Hall?”

“Of course,” said Fana and scratched her leg again. “I’ll do it right away when I’m finished here.”

“Thanks, dear. Have a good day.”

Dirlayn put on her coat and slipped out the door. A gust of wind blew in a handful of crumpled brown leaves. Fana finished her breakfast at leisure and tidied away all traces of it in the kitchen. Then she swathed a slab of bread and a chunk of cheese in an oil cloth, put them into her basket together with two apples and a flagon of ale, and wrapped herself up in her big woollen scarf.

Outside, the wind caught her hair and lifted it up in a playful toss. It was fresh, but not unduly cold, and it smelled of autumn, of shorter days and smoky fires and fields lying bare. Fana breathed in this melancholy scent that brought up images of her childhood. One year, she must have been about eight or nine, Déoric, Niarl and Halol had roasted potatoes in a bonfire just outside the city and when she had come up to join them they had showered her with a basketful of dead willow leaves. But she had got her own back, later that day, when they were sitting by the river splashing their feet and she had sneaked up behind them and run off with their boots.

By the time Fana arrived at the Golden Hall, a fine haze of a rain had picked up and gave her face a second wash. She hastened up the stair and was glad to get under cover. A fire was burning in the Hall, sending licking tongues of light up the columns and banners. At the far end she saw the king speaking to some of his advisors. She scurried along the wall behind the pillars and remained largely unnoticed; only Léofred saw her and gave her a friendly nod.

In the scribe’s room, she found Himlebed and Brecc busy at work. Déoric’s Gondorian uncle was a tall and skinny man with angular features who wore his dark hair and grizzled beard neatly cropped. He greeted Fana and thanked her courteously for bringing his meal. Brecc gave her a shy smile. He was copying a list from a wax tablet onto parchment with ink. Fana watched how his quill scratched each letter, stroke after careful stroke, with his lips pressed together and his eyebrows pulled down.

“What’s this?” she asked and pointed at a sheet that was covered in strangely interwoven lines. They criss-crossed the page and seemed to form some sort of pattern, but several lines were smudged and others had been abandoned in mid-stroke.

Brecc snatched the parchment from her and hid it under a pile of documents. Without a word, he continued with his task. Himlebed looked up and smiled.

“Oh, this is a little whim that Brecc has taken a fancy to. He is trying to make knot patterns.”

“What, like the wood carvings on the front of the Hall? I thought it looked a bit like that. But that’s not the way to do them. He’ll need to do a grid of dots first.”

“And how would you know that?” said Brecc with a sullen look.

Fana smiled.

“Because Déoric isn’t the only one with an uncle who knows useful things. My mother’s brother is a wood carver. He made the carvings over the door of the new infirmary. I’ve seen him plan his designs; you need a whole sheet full of dots, and then you connect them.”

“There you go, Brecc,” said Himlebed, “I told you there would be some kind of craft secret to it.”

Brecc shugged.

“I’ll work it out somehow,” he replied.

“Don’t be silly,” said Fana. “I’ll speak to my uncle and I’m sure he’ll be happy to show you. When Déoric comes back, you can impress him with your own artwork.”

“Would you do that?”

“Of course, why not?”

Brecc’s dour expression was supplanted by an eager look. Himlebed smiled at Fana.

“Thank you, Fana,” he said. “If Brecc can get his patterns sorted, he’ll maybe be able to free his mind again for his scribing tasks. He’d make a splendid apprentice if he wasn’t thinking about knots all the time.”

She left them to their inky pursuits and went back out. From the platform in front of the Hall she looked out over the city and the lands beyond. The rain had ceased and the building sheltered her from the wind. Down by the river, the willow trees dunked their last few fallow leaves into the water. Autumn had come late, but sudden. Damp, cool air was soaking the whole country with a vague yearning. And somewhere out there was her Déoric. Fana hugged her shoulders and pulled her scarf closer. It was nice for Brecc to take an interest in patterns, and she was sure he would work it out and do it very well. Déoric, of course, would consider it a waste of time, but then Déoric was a very special person indeed.

~oOoOo~

A merry fire crackled in the hearth and the table was set with steaming dishes. Éowyn, at last up and about again, came into the room and joined her husband. She began to eat with a hearty appetite and was halfway through her soup before she noticed Faramir’s serious mien. She waited until the serving woman had left before she addressed him.

“You seem, troubled, my love. Will you tell me what worries you?”

Faramir lifted his eyes from his wine goblet and gave her a wan smile.

“Nothing very grave, dearest," he said. "But all those petty squabbles are beginning to wear me down. Now, here is Olcharad offended that he wasn’t made a captain last week, and he no longer speaks to Cúmol on that account. Meanwhile, Cúmol’s wife is spreading rumours that Serveren was only interested in Olcharad as long as he had a prospect of becoming captain this year and will break up the betrothal before long. I have spoken to both men this morning and persuaded them into a grudging reconciliation, but it disappoints me so to see people behave in such small-minded ways.”

“People will do that kind of thing,” said Éowyn. “Don’t take it to heart too much. It must be the nature of Man.”

Faramir shook his head and twisted the handle of his spoon between his fingers.

“I have been thinking about bees,” he said. “You know, they way they all work together for the best of the hive. They have no selfish desires. All they want is for their hive to flourish, and hence they live in perfect harmony.”

“Yes, Faramir, I’m sure bees do. But would it not strike you as odd to demand that people should behave like bees?”

 He looked at her and gave a little laugh, followed by a heavy sigh.

“I used to think a ruler only had to be wise and just and then things would simply fall into place,” he said. “But they don’t. There are so many conflicting interests wherever I look. I have thought long and hard about this, and I believe what I must do is find in each case whatever cause of action will bring the most happiness to the most people. What do you think?”

Éowyn took at sip of wine and looked at him over the rim of the glass. Then she slowly shook her head.

“I don’t think you’ve really thought this to the end, Faramir,” she said. “Or, if you really mean it, then you’d have to start by inviting a few dozen people to come and live in this house with us. I would need to give away all my dresses but one. We wouldn’t be drinking a bottle of wine between us, because the happiness would be spread about more if ten or twelve people could each have a sip. And imagine a man who has worked hard over many years and has with honest trading and prudent diligence acquired such wealth as to allow him to purchase a large and comfortable home for himself and his family. Would you force him to take in against his own wishes a dozen poor families, because they are living in crammed cottages and it would make them happy to move into such comfortable quarters?”

“I think you are taking this a bit too far now, Éowyn.”

“Not at all. If you wanted to use that rule, you’d have to use it properly. But I don’t think it could be used properly, because we don’t have the same duty towards everybody. Our nearest and dearest are of greater concern to us than other people, and I think that is right. I certainly think you should care more for me than for the carpenter in the village or for a farmer in Lebennin. But our carpenter here should be of greater concern to you than a farmer somewhere else in the country, and to him in turn you have a greater duty than towards an Easterling or one of the Haradrim. It is a question of degree.”

When he didn’t reply immediately, another thought occurred to her and she saw no reason not to impart it straight away.

“The other thing is,” she said, “how could you predict what would bring the most happiness to most people? And how could you measure it? Does each person just count for one, or would you also consider the extent of their happiness? Would you make one person unhappy, if it makes another one happy to the extreme? And what if that which would make people happy is unjust?”

“How could it be unjust, if it makes them happy?”

“Very easily! What if they were of a cruel disposition and found enjoyment in tormenting animals or, even worse, other people?”

“You are determined to find fault with my idea, aren’t you?”

“No, Faramir. I am determined to make you think about it properly.”

Faramir paused and then, suddenly, laughed.

“You know, Éowyn, I suspect you will turn out to be a better philosopher than I am.”

~oOoOo~

The wolf trotted among the shadows between the tree trunks. He was a rather young wolf, who had barely seen two summers. His grey fur was long and shaggy, his paws tipped with white. It was a while since he had left his pack. He had seen light and darkness and light and darkness and light and darkness and light until he hardly remembered how long ago it was that he had been with his mother and siblings. There had been some purpose in his mind at that time, some urge to go and find other wolves, to find a mate, to form a new pack. But there had been no other wolves, only light and darkness and light and darkness and light and darkness. Hastily caught prey the few times he had been lucky, a pheasant, a rabbit. Water drunk from a stream or on one occasion from a clear, still pond. That was where he had seen the other wolf, the only one he had found, looking at him from the water. But he knew about these strange wolves in the water, he had seen them before. All one had to do was touch the water with a paw, and the other wolf would flee. This one fled, too. He drank, for he was thirsty, but he wished that just this once, the wolf in the water had stayed. There were no other wolves anywhere.

So here he was, one wolf on his own. Whenever the darkness came he curled up against the trunk of a tree or the side of a large boulder, but these were always cold and smelled strange, not like the warm, comfortable bodies of his brothers and sisters. There was no creature anywhere in this wood to greet him, or welcome him, or make him feel at home.

This time the light was all grey and water fell from the sky. It dripped from the branches of the trees and glistened on the ferns and the mossy rocks. It gave the wood a heavy smell. The wolf sat on his haunches for a while, unsure where to go next. His fur kept him warm and dry, but the greyness crept into his mind and made him feel cold from the inside. Cold and empty.

It was not his stomach that was empty. He had found the remains of a dead deer earlier and had devoured most of it without hesitation. The meat filled that spot inside him that felt the hunger, but the emptiness remained. It was a hunger he had never known before, a hunger for another warm body beside his own.

There was nothing else to do, so he moved on. Water, trees, stones, moss, this was the world. Cold. Silent. He could go anywhere. So he had nowhere to go. Silent. Cold. A world full of moss, stones, trees, and inside him, a hollow place. 

When the twilight came, the trees ended. He stopped and looked. This was something he had not seen before. All his life, there had been trees. Now this. The land tilted downwards, naked under the sky. No trees, only grass. Empty. Cold. Silent. The wolf did not move. He looked.

Not everything in the naked land was grass. There were some stones. There were clumps of tall thistles. There was – a smell.

It was alien, unsmelled-of. It was a smell of blood, but mixed with it were others, strange ones, that fitted no animal that he knew. He was not hungry, so he had no wish to find any more carrion. The smell of blood was quite fresh. The animal could still be alive.

He was a wolf. He followed the smell. Out from the forest he came and, step by step, slowly wandered across the grass. Suddenly, the grass ended and the ground fell out of view. He looked over the edge. There was a steep slope and at the bottom of it lay sprawled out the thing he had smelled.

Not a wolf. Not any animal he had ever seen before. It was big, like one of the big deer, and it had three legs. The fur was very strange, all flat and odd colours, and left the face and the front paws naked. Even from a distance, it smelled of too many different things. He pawed at his nose in confusion. 

From up here he couldn’t tell whether the animal was dead or alive. He wasn’t hungry. He could have walked away.

He didn’t walk away. He stepped carefully over the edge and slid more than tread down the slope. Pebbles clattered ahead. At the bottom of the cliff, he came to a halt, panting. A few steps away lay the strange animal. The wolf yelped at the strength of the smell. The animal didn’t move. The wolf crept closer.

The animal lay very still.

Slowly, very slowly he lowered his muzzle on the creature’s chest and leaned his head against the strange fur. It was damp, but there was some warmth here and what was more, that familiar sound, du-dum, du-dum, du-dum, that he had heard so often when he had lain close to his brothers and sisters. The hollow place inside him welled up with a melted feeling. He snuggled against the creature’s body and listened to the noise in its chest until he fell asleep.

The idea to include Celtic knot patterns came from Dreamflower.

Chapter 8: Awakening

A big thank you to surgicalsteel for medical advice on the content of the following chapters.

From somewhere out of a depth of numb nothingness, Déoric’s mind swam to the surface. The first thing he noticed was the pain throbbing in his head and leg and his left arm. It made him regret the small spark of consciousness and wish to return to blissful oblivion. The next thing was the cold. His leg and his hurting arm felt chilly to the point of pain, and an icy wind stung on his face. Only his right arm and his torso were curiously warm. They seemed covered with a heavy blanket. He opened his eyes and glanced at his chest. It took him a while to make sense of what he saw: the grey fur so luxuriously draped over his right side ended in a sleek head with pointed ears and a long muzzle; the glistening black nose was just a hand’s width away from his chin.

The creature was asleep. Even if he had felt able to, Déoric wouldn’t have dared to move. How a wild wolf could have found him and yet left him alive was beyond his understanding, but he felt so weak and dizzy that he knew any attempt to escape would be futile. What would happen when the wolf awoke he could not tell and didn’t want to imagine. For now, he was almost grateful for the comfort of the animal’s cosy body, and the delicious pool of warmth was the last thing his fading consciousness knew as the cold and the pain were slowly blotted out.

~oOoOo~

It was the beginning of winter and the shadows were long even at noon. Towards the evening, a heavy snowstorm hit the city of Edoras and brought the icy message to the people that none could afford to face this season unprepared. The Rohirrim, though, had ample stores of food and fuel and met the onslaught with equanimity.

Dirlayn placed another log on the fire and rose, pushing herself up by placing her hands on her knee. Sparks rose and danced about like fiery midges. The room was dim with the shutters firmly closed against the weather. By the table sat Fana peeling potatoes. Her dress stretched a bit tighter these days over her belly. When a muffled knock was heard, she looked up, but before she had even put the knife aside, Dirlayn was by the door. It was opened and closed swiftly to admit a single figure wrapped up in a hooded cloak.

A brief expression of disappointment rippled over Fana’s face and settled quickly into well-practised resignation. The visitor stamped both his feet on the mat by the door and brushed the snow off his shoulders.

“Sit by the fire, Master Léofred,” said Dirlayn and pulled up a chair for him. “You must be half frozen coming here on a night like this. Wait, I shall bring you some spiced milk.”

“Don’t trouble yourself, Mistress Dirlayn,” replied Léofred and took off his cloak. “The fire will do me nicely. How are you keeping, Fana?”

“I’m very well, thank you, Master Léofred,” said Fana and picked up the potato knife again. Léofred sat down and looked earnestly at the two women.

“I thought I’d better come and tell you straight away,” he began, and this opening caused both Fana and Dirlayn to sit up and stare at him with alarm in their eyes.

“The news is grave, but not disastrous,” he continued and laid a soothing hand on Dirlayn’s arm. “A messenger came to Éomer King about an hour ago bearing a letter from Lord Erkenbrand. Aldfrid came back to the Hornburg a week after he and Déoric had set out from there. They had been separated when they were attacked by a stray band of orcs. There is no sign of Déoric.”

The wooden bowl hit the floor with a clunk when Fana jumped up; it tipped over and potatoes rolled onto the sandy floor. Dirlayn’s face had gone white.

“This doesn’t have to mean anything really bad,” said Léofred quickly. “Aldfrid is sure that he’d killed all the orcs and he believes Déoric was not seriously injured. Apparently Déoric’s horse took fright and bolted. She was later found by some villagers, wandering alone in the moors. Nothing terrible needs to have happened to Déoric. I hope he is sitting safe and snug in some other village.”

“Has Lord Erkenbrand not sent out people to look for him?” asked Dirlayn.

“He was intending to do so at the time of writing the letter, which was on the day of Aldfrid’s arrival. However, I doubt that we will hear more any time soon. They will all be snowed in by now. The messenger barely made it to Edoras. I fear we will get no further news while the winter weather lasts.”

“I thought the orcs had all been routed,” said Fana.

“They have in most parts of the Mark,” replied Léofred. “But out there in the far flung corners of the Westfold, some might still come over the border from Dunland or down from the Misty Mountains. I wish he hadn’t gone into that part of the country. I wonder that Erkenbrand didn’t advise against it.”

Dirlayn shook her head.

“He may well have, and to little avail,” she said. “You know how stubborn Déoric can be. If he’d got it into his head, for whatever reason, to go that way, then he would.”

“True enough,” said Léofred with a sigh. “It’s the downside of his perseverance. Well, let us try not to be too disheartened. Unless we hear otherwise, we ought to assume that Déoric is safe and well. You will not get upset, will you, Fana?”

“I’m trying not to,” replied Fana and knelt down to gather up the potatoes. “I am sure that whoever finds Déoric would be happy to help him. And if he is staying away a little while longer, that’ll give you more time to finish your surprise. Have you worked out a way to steer it yet?”

“Sadly not, but I have one or two more ideas,” said Léofred. “Well, I am glad you’re being brave about it, Fana. Please don’t worry too much. I am sure everything will be just fine. Mistress Dirlayn?”

Dirlayn shrugged. “I’ve seen him ride off to battle twice,” she said. “I am quite used to worries by now. At least this time I have things to take my mind off it. I have my work at the infirmary and I have Fana to keep me company.”

“That’s good to know.” Léofred stood up. He rested his hand on Dirlayn’s shoulder for an instant before he put on his cloak.

“Good night, Fana. Good night, Mistress Dirlayn.”

“Good night, Master Léofred.”

“You be careful out there,” said Dirlayn as she opened the door. “The snow has made the steps all slippery. Good night.”

When he had gone, the two women sat at the table and looked at each other.

“Well?” said Dirlayn.

“Well,” replied Fana. “We’ll just have to wait.”

Dirlayn sighed. “As is the fate of women.”

They gazed into the fire, each knowing that the other would seek to picture the same face in the flickering flames. After a while, Fana began to peel the rest of the potatoes. When a silverfish crawled out from under the peelings, she shuddered.

~oOoOo~

It wasn’t exactly nothingness this time. There were things happening, but his head was too sore, his senses too feverish to mind. There was pain, and there was a voice, a strange voice, rough but not harsh, there was darkness and more pain, and dim light forcing vague shapes through his half-opened eyelids. There was a cup pressed to his lips at times, and he swallowed, whether it was cool water or the sharp and sour potion that replaced it now and then. There was movement, and yet more pain, pain in his head, pain in his arm, pain in his thigh, it was everywhere. Sometimes the pain seemed to slumber and then woke again like a wild creature stirred from its rest. Déoric let it devour him. He had no strength to care. He wanted to sleep.

And so he slept, for hours or maybe days, he knew not how long. Then the moment came when he emerged from sleep with a cleared mind and a sudden desire to know what had happened to him.

When he opened his eyes, he almost cried out in fright. But quick as the mind is, it realized that there was no ogre sitting in front of him, but only an old and rather ugly woman. Whatever attempt she may have made to tame her frizzy grey hair had been futile and it stood in shaggy tufts around her head, from which extended a pair of overly large ears. Her skin was shrivelled and patchy and strewn with dark brown spots. Two warts the size of acorns sat on her left cheek; they were flat, dry and cracked on the surface, looking more like a bizarre fungus than part of a human face. From a few much smaller warts on her chin sprouted curled, wiry hairs. She was the most hideous woman Déoric had ever seen - but the reason he could see her crooked and blackened teeth was because she smiled.

“Does the head still hurt?” she asked, in the voice that he had heard in his fever. She spoke the Common Tongue, but with a strange accent. Her breath smelled of caraway seed.

Déoric felt dazed and had only just begun to take stock of his body. A dull pain sat over his left brow. He reached up to his forehead and his fingers brushed against a bulge.

“Aye, you must have knocked your head quite a few times. How’s the arm?”

Déoric looked at the hand he had just raised and noticed nothing uncommon, but then he realized that his other arm, the left one, was tightly wrapped up in bandages from the elbow downwards. The sleeve had been cut open. Now that he turned his attention to it, he realized that it had been hurting all the time. He touched it with his right hand and felt the rods under the fabric.

“Broke that one, you did,” said the old hag. “Lucky for you that you met someone able to set and splint it. But I am forgetting my manners. My name is Lunet. Welcome to my cottage.”

“I am Déoric, son of Féadred. Did you rescue me?”

“I did indeed, dearie, I did indeed. You’ve been here for three days now, and lucky for you it was that I found you.”

She showed her blackened teeth again in a crooked smile. Déoric tried to sit up, which wasn’t easy with only one arm to use. The bump on his head began to throb.

“And where is ‘here’?” he asked.

She grinned.

“Oh, you have strayed out of the horse-land, dearie. Lost your way, did you? This is Dunland.”

Déoric held his breath for a moment, then he looked at her more closely. Brown eyes, brownish skin, and the grey hair might have been dark at one time. So, he had fallen into the hands of the enemy. He groaned. There was no way he could escape in his current state, and at least so far the enemy seemed to have looked after him well enough.

He began to take in his surroundings. The room was dark, lit only by the fire in the hearth, which seemed to have blackened the beams of the low ceiling in the course of many years. Bunches of dried herbs, garlands of onions, pots and pans and all manners of household contraptions hung there and made the room seem even lower. Shutters closed the two small windows. The floor was covered with sand.  A large cauldron hung over the fire and from it rose a nauseating smell. Suddenly Déoric’s mouth was filled with foul tasting saliva. Before he could do anything to check it, his stomach turned and flung up whatever contents it still held. He leaned forward and was sick onto the floor.

When he was finished, Lunet handed him a damp rag to wipe his mouth, and knelt down to clean up the mess. She opened the door and chucked out the soiled sand. A gust of cold air made Déoric shudder. Lunet closed and bolted the door, then she sat down on a stool beside his bed – her bed, he realized, there wasn’t another bed in the room, and no other room in the cottage.

“You don’t need to tell me, but I’m a nosy old woman, so I need to ask what happened to you.”

“I’m not sure.” Déoric rubbed his forehead. He felt woozy. “There were orcs, I think, and I fell... The horse hit my arm - ”  He faltered, suddenly gripped by that cold and paralyzing feeling that alerts us to something terribly wrong.

“My horse!” he wailed. “I’ve lost the princess’s horse. Éomer King will have me flogged and roasted on a spit!”

“It’s the kind of thing he does, your king?”

“Of course not! He is a kind and generous man. But this horse – it belongs to the Princess of Dol Amroth – I had it on a loan and was supposed to look after it well. And how will I get home without a horse?”

“With or without a horse, you won’t leave here in a hurry,” said Lunet. “Go and take a peek outside.”

He looked at her with doubt in his eyes.

“You can get up,” she said. “Just take it easy.”

Déoric rose and clung to the bedstead with his good arm. One of the windows was just about two yards away. He held on to the wall, shuffled over and opened the shutters. Instantly, he recoiled and sheltered his eyes with his hand. The light was dazzling, for the sun glinted on a land clad in white. To the left he saw the edge of a forest, branches bent down with the weight of the snow. To the right, a gentle slope led down to a valley where, maybe two miles away, the chimneys of a village were smoking. Beyond, low hills stretched out as a blank, featureless desert. Déoric leaned forward and looked down. The snow came up almost to the window ledge.

“Oh no!”

“Yes, the skies have been busy while you slept. It snowed for three days and nights solid. The wind piled it up nicely in some places. And I have a feeling that we’re in for more. I’m afraid you’ll have to content yourself with my company for a while. Now close the shutters, you’re letting all the heat out!”

Déoric obeyed. Flake white, he thought with a last glimpse at the snowy landscape. Then it struck him. His box of colours was in Ivornel’s saddle bag, along with all his notes, the harvest of four week’s work. He stood for a while without moving, while his face turned paler and paler. Then his hand went up to his mouth and he bit his knuckle hard. But the pain could not distract him for more than a few seconds. He winced.

“You’d better sit down, dearie, you look like you’re going to take a little dizzy turn,” said Lunet. Gently, she wrapped his good arm over her shoulders and helped him get back to the bed. It was a rickety thing, made from roughly hewn logs and strapped together with leather belts, but he was glad to lean back on the furs that were piled up in place of blankets.

“This is terrible,” he said, panting. “It couldn’t have been any worse.”

“Oh, I think it could have,” replied Lunet. “Be grateful for the snow. I don’t think I could have carried you the seven miles or so, but the sledge did nicely. I don’t often venture that far from the cottage any more, but since it had just started to snow I thought it would be a good thing to go and get stocked up on juniper and elderberry before the winter set in for good. The last of the elderberries were vastly overripe, but it was just as well I got them. I had used up all my elderberry juice a few weeks ago, when a fever made the rounds in the village, and you had need of it. You were near delirious.”

Déoric remembered the strong flavour of elderberry juice from his childhood, when his mother had given it to him as a cure for fever. It had tasted much better than whatever concoction Lunet had poured into him, but then it occurred to him that Dirlayn had always sweetened it with honey. Lunet’s household didn’t look as if it afforded such a luxury.

“How did I get such a bad fever?”

“It was that slash in your leg; it had become all infected.”

Déoric looked at her with horror.

“Will I lose it?” he whispered.

“No, dearie, don’t worry. I’m not that bad a healer, I’m proud to say. The poultice I made you may stink, but it has drawn out the inflammation very well.”

“And I’ve been here for three days?”

“Yes, and have slept for most of the time. I thought you’d be in much pain, so I gave you something to make you drowsy. Couldn’t say how long you’d already been lying there, but it can’t have been terribly long, because you were not as cold I would have thought.”

“I had a weird dream,” said Déoric, “of a wolf that covered me like a blanket and kept me warm.”

She looked at him quizzically, then turned her head to one side.

“It might have been more than a dream. You see, my eye-sight isn’t all that good at a distance, so I couldn’t quite say, but there was something that fled when I approached you. I thought it was odd how there was only a little bit of snow on you, down one side. And come to think of it, I believe you reeked of wolf.” She bent over him and sniffed. “Still do a bit. Well, your wolf friend probably saved your life. You’d have been gone with the cold otherwise, I reckon.”

Déoric blinked and shuddered. “Why would a wolf do such a thing?”

“Oh, wolves do strange things sometimes, especially when they’ve lost a cub. They like to be friendly.”

“Friendly? Wolves like to be friendly? You must be joking. Wolves are dangerous and cruel and vicious; they kill and maul people.”

The old woman snorted.

“Seen it often, have you?” she asked.

“Well, no, but I’ve heard stories.”

“Hmhm.” She nodded, more to herself than to Déoric. “Probably stories told by people who don’t know the first thing about wolves, or any other animal for that matter. I’m not talking wargs here, mind, they’re fell beasts. But your common wolf, you know, is more scared of you than you could be of him. Sure, he’s got teeth and claws, but Man has swords and arrows. Wolves only kill so they can eat, or to defend their pack, but Man kills for all sorts of reasons and sometimes for no reason at all. If you met a wolf in the wild, most likely he’d run.”

Déoric shook his head.

“But this one didn’t run.”

“Well, you weren’t much of a threat, were you?” said Lunet. “Have you ever watched a pack? I have. They’re very loving with each other, wolves are. They do like to be friends. And if you think of a she-wolf whose pups have died or a young wolf who’s been separated from his pack – well, such a wolf could get very lonely and might look for any kind of friend he could find.”

Something about this struck Déoric as being true beyond the mere words that were spoken, but he couldn’t quite say what it was. The long conversation had exhausted him and he snuggled his cheek against the furs and went back to sleep.

Chapter 9: Story time

The date for Niarl and Aedre’s wedding had been set for the second day of rest in December, being the customary three months from the day of the Challenge. When the time drew near, Déoric’s prolonged absence began to unnerve even Niarl. He was loath to get married without his friend by his side, but calling off the wedding would be unheard of. With the snow lying almost two feet high beyond the gates of Edoras and the news from the Hornburg become common knowledge, Niarl could no longer maintain his cheerful protestations that Déoric would be back any day now. The feast would have to go ahead without him, and when he said so much to Fana on the Friday before the big day, she only nodded and smiled at him in a helpless, forlorn way.

Fana and Dirlayn prepared for the wedding with as much care as they ever would. They brought out their best frocks and dressed them with new ribbons, they brushed and braided each other’s hair and put on what few trinkets they owned. On their way to the feasting hall, they held on to each other, for where the lanes had been cleared, the cobbles were slippery, and in other places grubby snow lay in crusty, unsightly piles that needed to be negotiated with care lest one fancied a tumble and a soiling of one’s festive garments.

They were among the earliest guests to arrive. Flames blazed in the huge fireplaces at either end of the feasting hall. Some pieces of apple and cherry wood had been added to the more common oak logs; their sweet fragrance mingled with the scent of the fir garlands that bedecked the walls. On the long tables, dishes of cold meats, fresh loaves, spiced carrot pies and apple and bramble tarts stood waiting.

The door through which they had entered faced another door at the opposite end of the hall. Halfway along the width of the room a canopy of green cloth had been adorned with scarlet ribbons and yet more fir garlands. Three musicians - two fiddlers and a flute-player - sat in a corner and busied themselves about their instruments. Fana and Dirlayn found seats on the benches along the walls, not too far from the canopy.

In less than half an hour, some four score people had crowded into the room. Before long, the sound of a horn rang from outside one of the doors, and was answered from the other door at the far end. The bridal party entered through one and the groom’s from another. Oswald the cobbler and Wulfgar the carpenter each went ahead of their group, with the child they were about to give into marriage one step behind, followed by the rest of their household. All guests stood and watched as they walked across the room towards each other. About ten feet from the canopy, they came to a halt.

“Blessings be upon our meeting,” said Wulfgar. “I bring Niarl, a young man of the Mark, whom I brought up to honour the laws and customs of our land and to defend what is ours. He has come here today to pledge himself in marriage to your daughter Aedre, if she so be willing.”

“And I,” said Oswald, “bring Aedre, a young woman of the Mark, whom I have brought up to nurture and cherish and to build up what is ours. She has come here today to pledge herself in marriage to Niarl, for this is her will.”

“So be it,” said Wulfgar.

At this, Niarl and Aedre stepped forward and closed the gap, so that they came to be standing under the canopy. Each carried a sword; Niarl’s had clearly seen some action, while Aedre’s looked smooth and newly forged. Niarl offered the hilt of his sword to Aedre.

“This sword has come to me through my father and his father’s fathers before him. I give it to you for safe keeping in the hope that one day you will pass it on to our son.”

She took the sword and presented hers likewise.

“I promise to keep this sword in the spirit in which it has been offered,” she said, “and ask you to accept this blade from my hand to wield in the defence of our home and our land.”

The exchange of swords was followed by an exchange of rings, after which a kiss sealed the marriage and everyone clapped and cheered. Niarl turned to face the guests with his arm wrapped tightly around Aedre’s shoulders, looking even more pleased with himself than he usually did. Aedre’s face was one big lantern of happiness, and no wonder. She was a married woman, with Niarl by her side, and now there would be feasting and dancing.

Fana looked around. There was about one man for every two women in the room. Even if she had felt like dancing, she’d have to sit out at least half the evening. She noticed Sigrun leaning against the wall in a corner; she looked like she was furtively wiping away some tears. Fana clenched her hands. Aedre was lucky. So was she. Or had been, anyway. Yet even with the war over, men could still get lost. Who knew how much snow covered Déoric’s body? But no, she would not allow herself to think like that.

“I was sorry to hear about Déoric,” said a voice behind her. “I hope he’ll come back safely soon.”

Fana looked over her shoulder, but the speaker had already turned and was moving away. It was Éadlin.

~oOoOo~

Three days had passed since Déoric had come to his senses in Lunet’s cottage. On the second day, they’d had a long argument about her sleeping on a hammock in the goat shed, which Déoric felt certain should be his quarters, but Lunet had just laughed at him and asked him how he was going to get there with his broken arm and single leg and no boot. So he continued to sleep in her bed, ill at ease but forced to admit that it was the only feasible thing to do. He was exhausted still, drifting in and out of fretful naps, while his various worries pinched and punched his wakeful hours. Lunet sat or worked in silence for much of the time, and he had no inclination or maybe just no strength to pick up again the strands of their first conversation which had so forcefully arisen in the bewildering moments of his first awakening. She ministered to him with the calm and measured movements of an experienced healer, and though he felt awkward about his frailty and unsettled by her alien speech and hideous appearance, he came to trust her notwithstanding that sinister word invisibly stamped on her forehead – Dunlending. Whatever the Dunlendings might have done to his people in the past, however evil and hostile their men might be, in the house and the hands of this old woman, he was safe.

When Déoric awoke on the fourth day, she was busy about the cottage as usual. His head seemed clearer this morning, and when he sat up there was none of that dizziness that he had become accustomed to expect. He stretched out his arms, which almost touched the ceiling that came sloping down at this end of the room. It was warm, the fire in the hearth bigger than on the previous days.

Lunet looked over her shoulder.

“Better today?” she asked.

“Very much, thank you,” replied Déoric.

 “Then take off your clothes,” she said.

Déoric gave a start.

“What?!”

“Take off your clothes,” she repeated. “You smell, so you do. I have a pot full of water heating up over the fire. Do you strawheads never wash your clothes?”

“Yes, but –“

“I won’t look, though I dare say I wouldn’t see anything I haven’t seen before. I tell you what, my bashful young friend, I’ll put out a bowl of water for your own use and I’ll go away and see to the goats, is what I’ll do. Here’s a tunic and a pair of breeches that you can wear while your own things dry.”

She dropped a bundle onto the bed and turned to the hearth, where she filled a pottery basin with water from the cauldron. Then she walked over to the door.

“See that you’re decent again by the time I come back, dearie,” she said and went out.

Déoric shuffled over to the hearth and began to undress. Lunet was right, of course, he smelled worse than something fished out of a cesspit. He hadn’t changed his clothes since the day he’d left the Hornburg and the feverish sweat had not improved them. They reeked of sickness and stale fear. His trousers weren’t soiled, though. For the last few days he had used a chamber pot, but suddenly it occurred to him to wonder how Lunet had kept him clean prior to that. He flinched and chucked his trousers into the cauldron as if he could thus rinse the embarrassing thought out of his mind. The water bubbled with a sharp, fresh fragrance, as if Lunet had added healing herbs rather than soap.

He turned to the bowl. It felt good to dip his hands into the warm water. Only now did he realize just how grimy they were. He rubbed them clean and then bathed his face. Next to the bowl he found a piece of soap and a cloth and used them to wash himself from head to toe. His skin was red and sore in places, and he had to agree with Lunet that it was high time for him to get a wash. Once he was wet, he began to shiver in spite of the roaring fire and returned to the bed as quickly as he could to get dressed. The tunic and breeches Lunet had left him were roughly woven and frayed around the seams, but they fitted fairly well and warmed him almost instantly. He wondered who the clothes may have belonged to, but knew straight away that he would not dare to ask.

There were neither shoes nor socks. On his bare foot, Déoric returned to the hearth and added his tunic and sock to the boiling water. What now? He looked around and tried to remember how his mother dealt with the laundry. A large wooden spoon hung from a hook on the wall. He took it and began to stir. Clothes soup, he thought, my favourite. A giggle rose in his throat.

The bubbles had calmed a bit. He looked with curiosity at the hundreds of tiny seeds that floated to the surface. What had Lunet put into the water? With the wooden spoon, he scooped up some of the seeds to take a closer look – and noticed the legs. A groan escaped him. These were not seeds. They were tiny insects, brownish, almost translucent, with oval bodies and miniscule heads. He let the spoon sink.

“Are you decent, Déoric?” came Lunet’s voice from the door.

“Yes, well, I’m... Come in!”

Lunet entered and marched straight over to the hearth.

“What’s the matter, dearie?” she said. “Sit down, you’re white as goat’s milk. Feeling dizzy again?”

“It’s... I ... Lunet, are these what I think they are?”

He handed her the spoon. She brought it up close to her face and screwed up her eyes. Then she put the spoon down.

“Yes. You’ve caught yourself some body lice, dearie. Have you not been itchy?”

“I have, but I thought that was because of the sweat...” Déoric slumped down on the nearest chair, while Lunet inspected the cauldron.

“Well,” she said, “You probably got rid of most of them with your clothes, though a few may still hang on to the hairy bits, they will. See to it that you wash well for the next few days, and you should be fine.”

At that, without any warning, Déoric burst into tears.

His outburst surprised him so much that at first he didn’t notice Lunet’s gnarled hand on his shoulder.

“Shhh, shhh, dearie,” she muttered. “It’s all been a bit much for you, eh?”

“It’s ... so disgusting,” sobbed Déoric. He couldn’t quite understand how such a trivial thing could shock him so much, but he soon realized that it was just the last little bit that had pushed him over the edge. And then the whole rest of his sorrows piled up on him all at once. He shook, he trembled, and the tears fell in warm droplets onto his hands.

“And I’ve lost my horse, and I can’t get home, and my mother and Fana will be beside themselves and...”

“There now!” Lunet knelt down in front of him and took both his hand into hers. He felt the thin, loose skin bunch up where her fingers met his. She stroked his hands with her callused thumbs.  “We’ll get you home once the snow is melted, don’t you worry.”

She soothed and cooed some more in her strange, Dunlendish voice, assuring him that nothing but the weather kept him prisoner and that all would be well, though she refrained from promising to find his horse. By and by, Déoric’s sobs subsided into hiccuppy sniffles, and he drew calmer breaths. But he was not yet willing to let go of his despair.

“It could be weeks before I get away from here,” he said. “And I had collected so many stories. Now I fear I’ll forget most of them before I ever get back to Edoras.”

“Tell them to me,” said Lunet.

He looked up at her, at that crumpled, wart-ridden face.

“Will you remember?” he said.

“Perhaps I will and perhaps I won’t. But that doesn’t matter. Telling them to me will make you remember them better, it will. Go ahead,” she said and pulled up a stool. “I’m quite comfortable here and ready for story time.”

Déoric hesitated. The stories he had gathered in the border country were full of the Dunlending’s villainy. It wouldn’t even take Déoric’s ample sense of politeness to see that those weren’t the best kind of entertainment for the Dunlendish woman who had saved his life.  But something had to be said. He decided to be evasive.

“Do you know what happened at the village of Gilsham?” he asked. Maybe it would be easier if he could get her to tell of the guilt of her people, rather than him accusing them.

“Gilsham?” She rubbed the back of her hand. “That was a sad business, so it was. The story goes that at that time, the people of Dunland still held some of the fertile land of what you now call the Westfold, and grew crops there. But the Eorlingas came and drove them out into the hills, and when they saw that the winter was upon them, they grew desperate and Bleddyn gathered as many men as were willing and able and led them into the plain. They went from village to village, raiding the grain stores secretly at night and sending what they could lay their hands on back into the hills with their trusty ponies. But when they came to Gilsham, the men of the village had been waiting for them, for they had heard of their raids, and they turned on them with swords and fierce dogs. And because it was night time, they carried torches when they came rushing out of the barn where they had been hiding. And in the fight that ensued, a torch fell into a pile of hay and set it ablaze, but the men of both sides cared not, for they were so engrossed in their struggles. And so the fire got out of hand and carried from hut to hut until the whole village was burning, and many were lost, men, women and children, and Bleddyn died and all of his companions.”

Déoric stared. Absentmindedly, he wiped the last remaining tears off his chin. He shook he head.

“But our stories say that the men of Dunland pillaged and plundered recklessly,” he said, “killing anyone who stood in their way without mercy, and that Bleddyn wrestled the torch out of a woman’s hand and threw it into the hay with a grim laugh and fled with all his men.”

“Well,” Lunet replied,” I’m not surprised that your stories do.”

“Are you saying they are not true?”

“Is there such a thing as truth? Or is there just the ways people see things, you think?”

“Of course there is truth!”

“And how do you know what it is?” she asked.

“Well...” Déoric floundered. “I think... I always thought you just look at things and see how they are, and that is the truth.”

“But what if we can only see what we expect to see? What if we cannot recognize a thing unless we already have the shape of it in our mind?”

“I don’t think I understand you,” said Déoric.

Lunet stood up and smoothed out her dress. She walked over to the hearth and fished Déoric’s clothes out of the cauldron with the wooden spoon. They dripped and steamed, and Déoric fancied he could see the tiny dots of the dead lice making a disturbing pattern on the fabric of his tunic. He shuddered. Lunet found a wooden bowl and dumped the laundry into it. Then she wiped her hands on her apron and turned back to Déoric.

“Did you know,” she said, “that the people of Dunland once lived in all the lands you now call the Riddermark? And that the Eorlingas came and drove them out, declaring it to be their own by decree of the King of Gondor, as if it was his to give away? Our home.”

Déoric rubbed his hands up and down, up and down his thigh. It was something to do to stop himself from scratching all over his body.

“No, I didn’t know that,” he said at last. “I’ve never thought about who might have lived in the Mark before the days of Eorl the Young.”

“Well, it was us, and now you know, don’t you,” said Lunet. She turned her back on him and began to wring out his trousers. The hot water ran into the bowl and little splashes of it painted dark pockmarks into the sand. Her hands were red and glistened in the firelight.

Déoric didn’t know what to think. If the Eorlingas had indeed – stolen, one would have to say, the land from the Dunlendings, that put a different light on things. He could see it now. He hadn’t recognized it before, because, as Lunet had put it, the shape of it hadn’t been in his mind.

Still, the Dunlendings had fought alongside orcs and wargs at the Battle of Hornburg in an attempt to destroy the Eorlingas, whose women and children had been cowering in the caves. Déoric had been there! No amount of past wrong could excuse their atrocities at Helm’s Deep.

Helm...

He had to ask.

“Lunet, do the Dunlendings have tales of Helm Hammerhand?”

She was finished with wringing and spread his clothes over the back of a chair that stood near the hearth. Then she took again her seat on the stool and looked at him with her tired brown eyes.

“Helm Hammerhand,” she said. “Oh yes, let me tell you a story or two about Helm Hammerhand.”

Chapter 10

In the night Déoric awoke with the urgent sense that something was wrong. Even more wrong than before. He was in Dunland, he had a broken arm, he had lost his horse and his luggage and he was stuck in the snow, but he had known all this for a few days now. It took him a while to pick up the thread of his daytime thoughts from the tangle of uneasy feelings which had woven his dreams. Once he found it, the whole skein unravelled and revealed how his precious stories appeared to him now, threadbare and moth eaten. Would that Lunet had never told him!  And yet, if she was right, how could he wish not to know?

Was she right? Was there a way of knowing? Her stories had told of the same events; they confirmed what had happened, but they made it look so different!

Helm had chased off a pack of wolves by setting fire to their tails. Helm had broken an arm-thick branch off a tree with his bare hands and used this club to crack the skull of the Dunlending who had stolen his sword. Helm had cornered a band of orcs in a cave and frightened the life out of them when he tore the limbs off their chieftain.

Heroic deeds, he had thought at the time. Suddenly they looked like acts of mindless cruelty. Ever since childhood, Déoric had known the story how Helm had killed Freca with a blow of his bare fist for the insults Freca had offered him in front of his council. Only now did it occur to Déoric that an insult was no sufficient reason to kill a man. Come to think of it, Helm had insulted Freca first. As for the reason for their quarrel...could it be true? He wasn’t sure. Not that he thought Lunet would lie, but she might be mistaken. All the Dunlendings with their stories about Helm the Pitiless could be mistaken. He tried to remember a story that would prove them wrong, that would show Helm as a kind and caring father, but he could think of none. The stories of Helm told in the Mark all ran in the same vein and showed him as strong, brave and unbending, a man not of words but of deeds.

All of those great deeds were only great as long as wolves, orcs and Dunlendings were bad.

Well, orcs were evil. He was sure of that much. Slaying orcs could never be wrong, and Lunet had not tried to say so. Wolves? He had been brought up to think of them as fell and cruel, but now he doubted it. The memory of soft fur covering his side was still very vivid. That wolf had curled up to the body of an injured man for the sake of what little warmth he could find there and had fled at the approach of an old woman. Lunet said wolves were timid and inclined to be friendly. His recent experience bore out her claim. What kind of person went out of their way to seek those creatures in the woods and kill them?  

And the Dunlendings? They were monsters, if he wanted to believe the stories he had heard again and again ever since he’d been old enough to sit up at the fire with the adults at night. Ruthless, callous, brutal, with no honour and no other desire in their miserable lives than to beleaguer the Eorlingas. They had looked like that sure enough in the flickering torchlight at Helm’s Deep. The world had been frightening then, dark and death-dealing, but it had at least been easy to understand: here was Us and there was Them. But now he slept in a Dunlending’s bed, wore a Dunlending’s clothes and shared a Dunlending’s meagre food. What was left of him depended on an old woman whose clothes were tied together with string because she hadn’t seen a sewing needle in ten years. All of Dunland had melted together into one face, and that face, for all its warts and crooked teeth, was the face of compassion.

She could have left him. She could have walked past his mangled body, and the snow would have covered him and nobody would have ever known. Fana and his mother would have been waiting for him all through the winter and the spring and for years to come and would have never known. Why had she picked him up? What had compelled an old woman to load the enemy onto her sledge and drag him seven miles through the snow so she could tend his wounds in her home? Could it be that, when all was said and done, the Dunlendings were just people?

There was no answer to these questions, but they weighed down the night with a choking sensation as if a huge and heavy animal had settled on his chest. He lay awake and listened to the mice rustling and the wind whispering behind the shutters, one man alone in a cocoon of darkness, far from home and with the certainties of his life crumbled away. At one point he had half a mind to get up and seek Lunet in the goat shed to escape this terrible loneliness, but he remembered the snow and his injuries and thought better of it. He had no idea how close it might have been to dawn when at last sleep overcame him again.

~oOoOo~

Lunet let him sleep the morning away. He awoke to the sound of her clattering with her saucepans. When he opened his eyes and sat up, he saw that they were not alone in the cottage. On a stool near the hearth sat a woman, neither old nor young, with haggard features and clothes that looked little more than rags. She held an infant on her lap, and four other children of different sizes leaned or clung to her in one way or another.

“You don’t need to be scared of him, you don’t,” said Lunet from behind her pot without turning round. “Strawhead he may be, but won’t bite you. Go and show him your skipping trick, Elain.”

One of the children, a scraggy girl with auburn hair, hid her face in her mother’s sleeve.

“Good morning,” said Déoric for want of something wittier to say. The children stared at him, two of them with their mouths open. The woman gave him a fleeting glance and wrapped her arm tighter around her youngest. Déoric began to push his fur covers aside, but when he saw the looks of panic in the children’s faces, he pulled them back up and remained in bed, leaning with his back against the wall. Eventually Lunet faced the room, wooden spoon in hand.

“This is Déoric, a young man from Edoras, and story teller by trade, he is. Déoric, meet Tegan and her children.” She listed a handful of incomprehensible names which Déoric instantly forgot. “They’ve come for a fever draught for little Myf.”

Now Déoric noticed that the infant looked pallid and sweaty. The other children kept scratching their heads, and Déoric saw the white dots in their dark hair. He wondered why the mother didn’t take a nit comb to them. The sight made him feel itchy all over again. He nodded at the woman in what he hoped would look a genial manner. She returned his greeting curtly and began to fuss over her infant. Lunet shrugged, an awkward movement of her hunched shoulders, and poured a dark liquid from her saucepan into a wooden mug. She shuffled over to the woman and administered her potion to the child. The little one squealed and spluttered. Lunet murmured something in Dunlendish. Bending over the infant, the mother stroked Myf’s little head and cooed incomprehensible words.  At last, Myf relaxed and swallowed.

Meanwhile, the other children had approached Déoric, first with looks and then with hesitating steps. A boy of maybe four years with the bulging eyes and lolling tongue of the feeble-minded stretched out a hand to touch Déoric’s braid. At that moment, the children’s mother looked up and called out sharply. Startled, the children scurried back to where she sat and hid behind her back. As soon as Lunet had finished her ministrations, the woman spoke a few hasty words and then ushered her children out of the cottage. A powdery cloud of snowflakes blew into the room when she opened the door.

“You’ve got to excuse her,” said Lunet after they had gone. “Can’t expect her to like you much, what with her husband slain at that battle and with you perhaps someone who knows him that did it, you are.”

“But I didn’t - ” began Déoric and stopped himself. As far as this woman was concerned, he was of the people of Helm the Pitiless.

“Do all the people of Dunland hate and fear us?” he asked instead.

 “Pretty much,” she replied, already busy again at her pot with the next potion. It stank of garlic and rancid butter, and he saw her sprinkling in fistfuls of dried herbs. Déoric sat in silence for a while and mulled over the picture of himself as a villain. It did not seem a faithful likeness at all, but then he had already begun to realize that people’s views about others, however firmly held, were not necessarily true.

“Why did you take me in then, me, a Strawhead?” he said at last.

Lunet stirred the vile herbal concoction with a spoon carved out of goat’s horn.

“Can you not guess?” she asked.

“No,” said Déoric. “I am an enemy of your people. You told me a bunch of stories last night about the despicable Eorlingas. I’m one of them. You could have left me out there to die and then there would have been one less of the abominable Strawheads.”

She shook her head.

“Think properly, Déoric, will you,” she said in that strange manner of ending her sentences with questions that weren’t questions. “Why do you think I live out here all by myself, just me and my goats, rather than down in the village?”

Déoric hesitated. He liked the old woman too much to answer, because you’re an old witch, though he knew the truth lay somewhere along those lines.

“Because,” he said, “you are ... different?”

She chuckled and waved the spoon at him.

“You’re ever a polite one, eh, Déoric? Yes, I am different, me. Having sharper wits than everybody else around you doesn’t make for an easy life, son, believe you me. I knew even as a young girl that this whole thing about Us and Them couldn’t be true. It makes no sense, you see. Stand one of our men next to one of yours, take off their clothes, what difference is there? Colour of hair? Fiddlesticks! I took you in, Déoric, because when I stumbled upon you on the hillside I saw you for what you were: a Man, injured, cold, maybe dying. I knew for sure that you were some mother’s son, and maybe some girl’s sweetheart. You are one of my kind, Déoric, yellow hair or not, and there was no other choice than to take care of you. What sort of woman would I be if I left another woman’s child out to die in the cold?”

Déoric said nothing and looked at the floor. He noticed a cockroach crawling along and felt inclined to squash it with his foot. But he just kicked up the sand and flicked back his braids. Lunet came over and pushed the cup into his hand.

“I didn’t mean to humble you, son. Takes a while to learn wisdom for most, and many never learn it at all, they don’t. You will, though, in due time. Drink this. It’ll make you feel better.”

Déoric drank and tried not to pull a face. Lunet certainly knew how to make her medicines bitter.

“Now go and make yourself useful,” she said and thrust a creel at him. “You’ve had plenty of rest, so some exercise will do you good, it sure will. The woodshed’s round the back. There’s an axe hung up inside the door.”

“But how...” Déoric looked down at his bandaged arm and single foot.

“Work out a way,” said Lunet. “You’re a clever man, aren’t you?”

She turned away and busied herself with her pots to show that she considered the matter settled. Déoric looked at the creel, which was oval and nearly three feet across, with handles on either side. He was currently holding it by one handle and it dangled down to the floor, but there was no way he could carry it when it was filled with wood. For a moment he wondered if he could attach some straps to it and wear it on his back, but he dismissed the idea as soon as it emerged. He had enough problems with his balance as it was. Maybe it could be dragged along the ground. Déoric glanced towards the door and smiled.

Four hops took him across the room. In an instant, he had opened the door and pushed out the sledge. It was long enough to accommodate both him and the creel. He sat on it facing backwards and pushed himself with his right leg. Lunet had cleared a narrow path to the back of the cottage that she scraped clear every other day. It was already covered with a new layer of snow about four fingers deep. On either side, the white banks rose up to a height of nearly four feet. Clods of snow fell off as Déoric brushed past. A splattered pile lay in front of the shed where the snow had slid off the roof.

There were two doors. Déoric pulled himself up by the handle of the first and opened it. Five goats turned their heads and stared at him.

“Sorry, ladies, wrong address,” said Déoric. He felt a wave of embarrassment to think that this was Lunet’s bedchamber.

The second door opened into the woodshed and he saw the axe where Lunet had said it would be. He found an upturned bucket to sit on and after a couple of fumbled attempts managed to chop up a few logs. He tossed them into the creel and made his way back in the same manner in which he had come out. Once inside the cottage, he set the creel on the floor.

“Your wood, madam,” he said. “Any more orders?”

Lunet looked at him and gave him one of her lopsided smiles.

“That’ll do for now,” she said. “Sit down, son, and let me look at your arm. Hold still.”

She undid the bandages and splint and laid bare Déoric’s arm. It was covered in bruises that were beginning to turn yellow, and it seemed to have shrunk. With her twisted fingers she touched it and ran her palm from the wrist to the elbow and back.

“Why is it so thin?” asked Déoric, trying to conceal the worry in his voice.

“Because you haven’t used the muscles, you haven’t. They’ll get a lot thinner yet before this is all healed up, but they’ll grow stronger again once you give them some work to do. Try to move your fingers.”

Déoric wriggled his fingers.

“They tingle a bit,” he said.

“Hmm, yes. That’ll probably stop. It looks good, son.” She began to wrap him up again. “Not sure how well it would serve a warrior, but it’ll do fine for a right-handed scribe, it will.”

Suddenly, Déoric laughed.

“It’s the shield-arm! The same that Lady Éowyn broke! I never thought I’d have anything in common with her.”

“And who is Lady Éowyn, dearie?”

“Do you not know? Then let me tell you. A truly glorious story of the Eorlingas, and I can vouch for its truth. Lady Éowyn was very brave. She rode...”

~oOoOo~

It had been easier, Éowyn thought, to be brave with a sharp sword in hand and someone to point it at. And a broken arm, for all that it hurt, was just an arm after all. This pain, however, strangled the very core of her body, and each new wave of assault was worse than the previous one.

Here came another one. It gripped her belly and soared up her back, and Éowyn could not remember how she was supposed to breathe and count. She whimpered and bit down on the leather rag Merilwen had given her. Tears ran over her face unchecked. She was barely aware of the attendants hovering about. Only Merilwen’s voice seeped into the haze of agony that filled the world.

“Not long now, my lady, not long now,” she said. “This is the hardest part, and it’s almost done. Soon you’ll have to start pushing. You’ll need all your strength.”

Good, thought Éowyn, that was good. Using her strength and pushing would be better than this, this flaccid state of simply suffering it. So when Merilwen told her to start pushing, push she did with all her might. It was indeed the relief she had hoped for, concentrating her efforts and her mind. Then a new pain seized her, ripping open a tender part of her body. Yet Merilwen urged her to keep pushing, and so she did. She felt, or imagined she could feel, how little by little the child slid out. Then she noticed the urgent whispers among the attendants. Merilwen’s face swam into view, her expression grave.

“My lady, the babe’s head is out, but the shoulders are stuck. I’m afraid this is going to hurt a lot. I’d like you to take some poppy syrup.”

Obediently, Éowyn swallowed the potion offered to her on a spoon. She saw the anxious faces of the other women and a wave of fear grabbed her and made her feel sick. She had no time though to think, for two of the women seized her legs and pushed them up until her knees almost touched her ears. She heard Merilwen shout instructions and then, before the poppy syrup had taken any effect, she was torn apart. That such pain was possible, she could not have imagined. With her last grain of strength, she screamed and, just before she drowned in a warm, black sea, she heard another scream mingle with her own; high-pitched, piercing and wholly new to the world. The babe lives, she thought and allowed herself to sink.

Chapter 11 Winter Wonders

Thanks to Morthoron, who is taking over as beta from a very busy Epilachna, and thanks to Epi for all the help she’s given me with this story.

There has been some dissatisfaction about the issue of the modern Welsh names for the Dunlendings. I have given this some consideration and have decided to keep this as it is. The names were chosen for a reason, namely to highlight the historic parallel of Rohirrim/Dunlendings with Anglo-Saxon and Celtic peoples. Using medieval Welsh would not resolve the problem of the connection with Sindarin, but would have pitfalls I’d rather avoid. The alternative would be to use entirely made-up names, by which the story would lose the historic reference and appear less authentic. 

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It was still early, but Éomer sent a servant to the scribe’s room to get some ink. He felt no inclination to drop in personally, as he had so often done when Déoric had been busy there. Occasionally, when he could spare the time to tutor the youth, Léofred would sit there with Brecc, but mostly these days the room lay deserted. Éomer realized that he had begun to think of it as a dismal place. Even his own room seemed dismal at times. Right now, it was very quiet, for the fire had not been lit yet, and all that could be heard was a faint cracking and clicking. Suddenly he realised what those noises were, for his eyes had stared at his desk and seen it for a while without taking it in: four tiny holes just next to his ink well and another two closer to the edge. Éomer looked on the floor and found, on closer inspection, two little piles of sawdust. He groaned. Curse those woodworms! He hated the thought of them sneakily munching away inside his very home, destroying things slowly but surely with their insatiable appetites. And somehow, he felt that something was gnawing at his insides, too. My whole soul is worm-eaten, he thought.  I have been a prisoner of this city for too many weeks, with no news from either my sister or my beloved.

When the servant returned, Éomer had to stop himself from walking up to the door with his hand outstretched.

“My lord,” said the servant. “I could only find this. It’s half empty, I’m afraid.”

He handed him an ink bottle.

“Thank you, Béogard. Whenever the Chronicler of the Mark returns, it won’t be too soon. You may leave now.”

With a bow, the servant withdrew. Éomer sat down again at his desk by the window and smoothed out the sheets of parchment in front of him. The prospect of writing to Lothíriel lifted his spirits. She might have not received his last, so he’d make sure to answer her questions once again. He picked up a quill and cut it to his liking; then, in his careful, rounded letters, he began to write.

My dearest Lothíriel,

You will forgive me, I hope, if I fail to show the necessary interest in the matter of your wedding dress. It is not for lack of trying, but I cannot bring myself to care greatly whether you settle for saffron or carmine, and therefore my advice in this matter would be highly dubious. However, you may consider it a compliment that I trust in your judgement completely. Besides, I would marry you regardless, even if you were dressed in a sack.

Being as we are in the claws of a crueller than usual winter, I find it hard to imagine that May will come and bring me my bride. But no doubt the year will turn as it always does and melt this snow that delays your precious letters, which I so ardently crave. I shall not say I am destitute, but the tedium wears me down. My sister hasn’t written to me since September, or perhaps her letters have got lost. There is no fighting to be done in this weather, and Aragorn is, so I have heard, as snowed in as we are. Master Léofred keeps me busy with matters of government, which inspire me about as much as the inside of a wooden chest. My court artist and royal story collector is missing in the Westfold, which deprives me further of interesting conversations, but I should be less selfish here and show some due consideration and anxiety for his welfare. I would find it easier to muster such feelings if the darned fool had not, against my explicit orders, taken your box of pigments with him, as I only noticed the other day. If he loses them, I swear I will have his hide!

Worry not, my sweetest, my people look favourably on the prospect of having a Gondorian queen – and if they do not, I shall make them! It is true, many think we paid dearly, too dearly perhaps, for the rescue of Mundburg, but my efforts are beginning to bear fruit and more and more people understand what price your country has paid for the safety of all of Middle-earth by holding back the flood from Mordor for so many years. And it was good that Aragorn came to give his respects to Théoden King. The people appreciated that. They were not too pleased though with Faramir carrying away such a prize! I am slowly persuading them that in you they get just as great a treasure in return.

I am trying to picture you standing by your window overlooking the beach. You will find it hard to believe that I have never seen the sea. Keep describing it to me, I like to read your beautiful words, my little secret poet. If I had not already appointed a new minstrel, a splendid chap by the name of Guldbert, I would have asked you. In the Mark, women do not play the lute, or any other instrument for that matter, so I am looking forward with great curiosity to hearing you.

The messenger will leave this afternoon in another valiant attempt to deliver a letter to Dol Amroth and I hope with all my heart that he will prevail. If I do not hear from you again before the spring, I will boldly assume that the cause is the adversity of the weather and not any coldness of feeling on your part, and I request that you do likewise with regard to hearing from me, because the not-so-humble writer of these lines is your wholly and truly devoted

Éomer

He rolled up and sealed the parchment and, without much further thought, left the chamber and walked out into the great hall, letter in hand. Here the fire roared mightily in spite of the early hour and the light of the flames licked the banners that hung from the high ceiling. He paused for a moment under the image of Eorl the Young. For all that Déoric had claimed that the proportions of the horse were all wrong, he could not but feel immense pride to see his forefather presiding so magnanimously over the grandest dwelling of his people. The Eorlingas had neither the refined culture nor the ancient history of the Gondorians, but they could look back on five hundred years in the Mark filled with honour and valour and had nothing to be ashamed of. He was the king of a splendid people.

When he heard footsteps approaching from the treasury, he hid behind a pillar. It was bound to be Léofred with more tedious talk about accounts. A servant girl, who was busy sweeping under the benches along the wall, looked at him with a question in her eyes, but before she could open her mouth, Éomer put his finger to his lips and winked at her, making good use of the famous twinkle in his eye. She giggled and dropped a curtsey. He sneaked away behind the row of pillars and out by the door, hailed by the guards. Outside, he wrapped his arms around himself against the cold and looked out over the plain.

Hoar frost lay on the land in the way he imagined the salt crusts Lothíriel had spoken of that brined the rocks below the castle at Dol Amroth, covering streets and roofs and the bare limbs of the trees. Yet it had touched some things with more delicate fingers than the salty sea: A spider web hung between the ears of one of the horse statues. It would have been invisible, had not the frost traced it with a ghostly white hand.

The air was very still and a gentle white sun rose in the East into a mellow and cloudless blue sky. Éomer breathed in the sharp scent of the cold. And then the glitter began. First he saw just a tiny flicker from the corner of his eye, but then he found himself surrounded by a flurry of glints. Wafting down in lazy twirls were miniscule snowflakes that sparkled in the morning sunshine. No cloud had given birth to them; they had frozen straight out of the chilly air to caress the country with a shiny enchantment. Elves, he thought, could not have conceived anything more beautiful than this. Diamond rain. He had heard of it, but never seen it.

He took it for a sign.

~oOoOo~

Somewhere else entirely, the hoar frost bristled on pine needles and painted bare alder trees into a pattern of white branches against black stems. Here and there, under the heaviest boughs of the trees and in crevices of rocks that the snow had not reached, the frost had found some cobwebs and turned them into glittering nets drawn with a silver pen. For the sun was shining down on this cold and lovely scene, piercing through the bare twigs with a twinkle here and a shimmer there; a whole world of frosted beauty that looked so delicate, it might break at the slightest touch.

Alas, there was no-one to see it. No-one, at least, who walked on two legs and was gifted with speech. The wolf that prowled through the undergrowth had other things on his mind than appreciating the scene. He had been travelling steadily northward for some days, but appeared to have come round in a circle. The snow had changed the shape of the forest; nevertheless the place looked familiar. There was the little brook, now rigid with ice, and the group of boulders that had given him shelter. Yes, he’d been here before, some little time ago. It had been the day after he had found the injured animal. The memory of the faint warmth and the thumping sound in the creature’s chest made him wince with longing. He had felt quite comfortable curled up to this animal, before the other big animal had come and he had fled. Thinking back, he wasn’t sure why he had passed on such an easy meal. He couldn’t have been hungry then. He wasn’t very hungry now, not after that rabbit. Not hungry, just cold. Cold, and very, very alone.       

On the far side of those boulders, he remembered, there was a hollow, overhung by rock and screened by a shrub. It would be a place to sleep, and not quite so cold, maybe. He was so tired. Tired and cold. It would be good to sleep in a little hollow beneath a rock, even with this emptiness inside. He trotted around the boulders.

When he saw it, he couldn’t understand how he hadn’t smelled it. The cold, maybe, had numbed his senses, or else the memories he had pondered on had made him pay no heed. It mattered not. He lay down on the snow and rested his head on his paws. No sleep for him now, he’d have to watch. For the hollow was already occupied by two sleeping creatures. They were young wolves.

~oOoOo~

“With child, too!” said Lunet. “No wonder you are restless. But the snow will melt before your babe is due, you mark my words.”

Déoric shrugged. His arm was itching inside the bandages. He rubbed it from the outside, futile though this was. Lunet, for a change, didn’t potter about the cottage and stir her potions in her pots. She had been sitting for the last hour or so listening to the one story Déoric knew to be true – his own.

“I hope you’re right,” said Déoric. “It grieves me to think of her sorrow and worry. There is no kinder and sweeter girl than Fana in all the Mark.”

“And she loves you truly,” said Lunet, “I can tell.”

“She does,” agreed Déoric. “And yet, I wasn’t quite sure until the day of the challenge.”

“And what challenge would that be, dearie?”

“When a man of the Mark wants to wed a girl, it is the custom that she sets him a task he has to fulfil. Often it is a feat of courage or riding skill. You see, the man is to show his devotion for the girl by rising to her challenge. However, if she does not wish to marry him, she will set him an impossible task. I know it was silly of me, but I was worried that Fana would give me a challenge I couldn’t meet. It would have been so easily done. But she didn’t.” 

“So what did she ask you to do?”

“She made it very easy for me,” said Déoric. “I was to draw a portrait of each member of her family, showing enough likeness so that a random person asked to judge could recognize them. The most challenging part of the whole undertaking was to get her little brothers to sit still.”

“Well,” said Lunet, “most men would have blanched to hear that challenge. Can’t say I’ve ever known anyone who could have met it, I don’t. She was making double sure that nobody else could come and claim her, she was.”

Something thudded against the door and the sound of angry voices came in through the shutters.

“There’s people outside, there is,” said Lunet, needlessly.

“Who are they?”

“Lads from the village, who think they know how to deal with a Strawhead,” said Lunet and made for the door. “I’ll give them a piece of my mind.”

“No,” said Déoric. “Let me talk to them.”

She cast him a quick glance and then stepped aside. Déoric stood up and hopped over to the door. As soon as he opened it a crack, the shouting grew louder and a hail of snowballs pelted against the wood. He slipped outside and leaned against the wall of the cottage.

The shouting stopped. A single snowball flew past his shoulder and hit the cottage wall with a thump. Then everything was still. A group of seven or eight boys, all of them several years younger than himself, stared at Déoric. One of them, who had stooped to pick up another handful of snow, let it drop and gaped.

“Good morning,” said Déoric. “My name is Déoric. Is there something you want to talk to me about?”

He saw their looks wander from his bandaged arm to his missing leg and back. Then their eyes turned to one among them, a stout lad of maybe sixteen years with long brown curls. It was clear from their expression that talking hadn’t been part of the plan.

The curly-haired lad scowled.

“Get out of Dunland, Strawhead!”

Déoric took one of his braids and made a show of holding it up in front of his eyes.

“Oh, yes, my hair is yellow. My name, though, is Déoric, as I said. Do you have a name? Where I come from, we like to know who we’re talking to.”

There was some shifting of legs and shuffling of feet among the group and one boy said something in Dunlendish. A quick exchange of short sentences followed and then the curly-haired lad shrugged and turned his head aside.

“I’m Gruffyd,” said the other boy. “What are you doing here?”

“Right now I am trying to find out why a bunch of youths make such a racket outside an old woman’s cottage. But if you mean, what brought me to Dunland: I got lost, I was attacked by orcs and badly injured, and Lunet found me and took care of me. She seems quite unconcerned about the colour of my hair.”

“Did the orcs cut off your leg?” asked another boy. “I’m Drytan,” he added quickly.

“Pleased to meet you, Drytan,” said Déoric. “I lost my leg at the Battle on the Pelennor Fields in Gondor last year to an Easterling and his sharp axe.”

The curly-haired lad, apparently feeling a need to assert his role as leader of the group, straightened his shoulders and looked at Déoric.

“My name is Idwal,” he said, “and I want to know where the other soldiers are and why they were riding in border country.”

“I don’t think the Eorlingas must give a reason for patrolling their borders,” replied Déoric. “But I’m no soldier. I’m an artist.” And since the word seemed to convey little meaning to the lads, he added: “I make pictures. Like this, see.”

He took a stick from a pile of kindling that Lunet had left by the door and turned aside to a flat patch of untouched snow. With swift, sweeping movements, he drew the outline of a horse. The boys came closer and looked.

“Is that all you do?” asked Idwal in a voice that made clear how unimpressed he meant to be.

“I collect stories, too,” said Déoric, “and I write them down.”

“Not much of a warrior, are you? But you have been in battle. Have you been at the Hornburg, too?”

“Yes, I have.”

“Killed any Dunlendings?”

“Not that I know of,” replied Déoric. He wondered how many of the boys had lost fathers, brothers or uncles at that battle. “I just got a few orcs. Mostly I tried not to get hurt. I guess I was never a great warrior to begin with.”

“That’s just as well,” said Idwal and gestured to the other boys that it was time to leave. “We don’t want any Strawheads here. As soon as you’re better, see that you get back to your own country.”

He turned and began to stomp down the hill along the narrow track in the snow they had made on their way up. One by one, the others followed. Gruffyd was last. He looked at Déoric and shrugged.

“Good picture,” he said over his shoulder before he joined the line of boys marching back towards the village.

Déoric went back inside. Lunet stood at the hearth with her back towards him and stirred something in a pot.

“Well done,” she said without looking round.

“They were just boys,” said Déoric. “It won’t be so easy when the men from the village come up.”

Now Lunet turned round and looked at him.

“Déoric,” she said. “These lads are the men from the village, these lads are. There are two very old men, but they are too frail to make it up the hill and I doubt they would care to in any case.”

“You mean the men were all ... killed?”

“Yes. Your warriors were very successful.”

Before he knew it, Déoric’s finger was in his mouth and he bit his knuckle.

“But that can’t be right,” he said after a while. “There were a lot of Dunlendings taken captive at Helm's Deep, and they were disarmed and made to clear up the battlefield. After that, they were sent back home.”

“Well, they can’t have been from our village,” said Lunet. “Luw, Idwal’s father, was the only one who came home, but he died a few days later, he did. Poisoned wound.”

“The Eorlingas don’t use poisoned weapons!” cried Déoric.

“I dare say in the heat of battle, those orcs didn’t always look very carefully who they were hitting.”

Déoric sighed.

“Why were they fighting alongside orcs anyway?”

“Because Saruman, curse him, had promised to give them back the land the Eorlingas had taken off them.”

“But that was hundreds of years ago!”

“Ah, but people still remember.”

Déoric did not know how to reply. Remembering the past was not the privilege of the Eorlingas. He did not like it that the Dunlendings seemed so keenly aware of those ancient wrongs, but he could hardly blame them. So he just shrugged and the topic was not touched between them again. Weeks went by and they lived on goat milk, goat cheese and a rather repulsive broth Lunet made from wild onions and dried mushrooms. Now and then a woman from the village would come to the cottage to ask for advice or for medicine, and twice Gruffyd knocked on the door on some flimsy pretext and sat for a couple of hours talking to Déoric. But by and large, they were alone up there in that tiny world that closed in on him, between the cottage, the privy and the wood shed – he never went near the goats again – and beyond that nothing but snow, snow, snow.

Chapter 12: Thaw

When he awoke, the rhythm of dripping water was music to Déoric’s ears, as it had been for the past few days. The thaw had come at last and with it came news. Gruffyd stamped the soggy snow off his feet before he entered the cottage. He greeted Lunet with a sentence in Dunlendish and Déoric with a smile. It was clear from the expression on his face that he had something to tell.

“There are dwarves in the village,” he said as soon as he had sat down, “more than a dozen. They came last night and asked for shelter because of the upcoming storm.”

“Brave to travel at this time of year, they are,” said Lunet. “Do you know what brings them after all these years? If they have sewing needles, I’ll come down to get some.”

“I doubt it,” said Gruffyd. “They’re not traders. I think they must be dwarves of some importance by the look of them. Very fine clothes, you know. And they’ll travel on southwards from here. Déoric, they’re bound to come to Rohan. You could send a message home with them. That’s why I came up straight away to tell you. They plan to be gone before noon. You’d better come back to the village with me now.”

Lunet shook her head.

“Gruffyd, you silly boy, what are you thinking? He could sledge down, but how would he get back up, you think? No, you’ll take the sledge, my lad, and go and ask politely for one of them to come up here and speak to a wounded man of Rohan, will you.”

“Please, Gruffyd,” said Déoric. “Lunet is right, I couldn’t do it myself.”

Gruffyd turned red and rubbed his ear.

“I’m sorry, Déoric,” he said. “I didn’t think.”

“Never mind,” replied Déoric. “You did your quick thinking when you realised this would be a chance for me to send a message. Thank you for coming up here so early in the morning, and please be so kind and ask for one of the dwarves to come out here before they leave.”

Lunet had already unhooked the sledge from the door and sent Gruffyd off with another admonition to be courteous. Déoric grinned.

Less than two hours later they heard hoof beats outside. Lunet opened the door and a flustered Gruffyd ushered in two dwarves with handsome armour and magnificent beards. One wore an impressive woollen cloak in shades of jade and ivory.

“Gimli, Son of Glóin, at your service,” said the one in the cloak.  “Bor, Son of Thror, at your service,” was the introduction of the other.

“Déoric, Son of Féadred,” replied Déoric and attempted to bow.

“I am Lunet, no son of anybody, as I’m sure you can tell,” said Lunet with a grin. “We’re a bit short of chairs I’m sorry to say, but if you don’t mind, one of you can sit on this upturned crate here, you can. Gruffyd, there are obviously ponies outside. Go and take them round to the goat shed; you can’t leave them standing in the cold like this.  The goats won’t mind, they won’t.”

“That is very considerate of you, madam,” said the dwarf called Gimli. “But in any case we can stay but a little while. We need to press on and hopefully reach the Gap of Rohan before tomorrow night. I could not refuse, though, when I heard that a man of the Mark needs my help. The King of Rohan is a friend of mine. How can I be of service?”

Déoric glanced at Lunet, but she showed no response to this revelation. He looked at the dwarf with awe.

“If it isn’t too much trouble,” he said, “it would help me greatly if you could make it known in the Mark that I am stranded here and need someone to come and take me home. I have lost my horse and I’ve broken my arm, so I don’t know when I’ll be able to ride again...”

“By the time someone comes out here, you’ll be fine,” said Lunet. “You kept your other arm nice and strong, you did, when you chopped up all that wood.”

“I shall gladly take your message,” said Gimli, “but where shall we take it? Will any place in the Mark answer? We are bound for the Hornburg.”

“That will do very well,” said Déoric. “Lord Erkenbrand knows me. In fact, I hope he may have news of my escort, Aldfrid. I was separated from him when we were attacked by orcs, but I hope he escaped unharmed.” With a sudden hot shame he realised that he had given hardly a thought to Aldfrid’s safety this whole long winter.

If the dwarves found anything remarkable in this tale, they didn’t show it. They listened with grave dignity and assured Déoric that they would speak to Erkenbrand on his behalf.

“And assure him, please,” added Déoric, “that I have been treated with the utmost kindness. Whoever comes to take me home ought to come in peace. Also, since you’re a friend of the king’s, you’ll probably want to send him word of your coming, and if you would be so kind and have a message included to my wife and my mother, I would be very grateful.”

The dwarves nodded slowly and solemnly.

“Will the king know who you are?” asked Gimli.

“He will,” said Déoric. “I am the Chronicler of the Mark.”

His proud title sounded somewhat less grand to him here in Lunet’s grubby cottage, and he wasn’t too sure just how good a chronicler he was at the moment, but the dwarves accepted the explanation with further nods.

“You will excuse us now,” said Gimli. “Our companions are awaiting us and we must make haste. Rest assured that your messages shall be delivered with all the speed we can muster. Farewell, Mistress Lunet. Farewell, Chronicler of the Mark.”

Both dwarves rose from their seats and performed a dignified bow. Lunet led them to the door and a short while later the neighing of ponies indicated the departure of their unexpected guests.

~oOoOo~

Snow was melting from the mountain passes. The weather had turned not long after Yule, with the snow clouds retreating and a crisp, dry cold making the heart of winter more bearable; but only now, halfway into February, was it warm enough to bring about the thaw that cleared the roads and released the people of Edoras from their prison. Riders came and went again on errands as varied as the colours of their horses, but one whose arrival was eagerly awaited failed to appear. It was four months since Déoric had ridden out, yet Fana refused to believe that he could be dead. She was sure she would know it, sense it, if his spirit was no longer out there. But she felt as enveloped and carried by his love as if he had been right beside her.

Still, she missed him. At night she lay awake and sent her mind out into the expanses of her country in a stubborn quest to reach him with her thoughts. With the child kicking and punching her from within, she had more than one reason to forgo sleep.

She tried to evoke him in every last detail. His eyes, large, oval shaped and of the palest greenish grey. His slightly nasal voice. The little mole at the side of his neck, just under the ear. His lips, his hair, his beautiful hands with the long, slender fingers. There was a small, dented callus on the first joint of his middle finger from holding the stylus. She thought of the fine blonde hairs on his chest, curled like the tendrils of sweet peas. She even thought of the stump and of the sadly scarred skin that no longer made her cringe. Déoric had flinched the first time she touched it, less from pain, she believed, for the wound was thoroughly healed, but from fear that she would after all turn away from him in disgust. But all she felt, then and now and always, was tenderness for him. The missing leg was little more than a curiosity to her, and she minded it much less for her own sake than for his.

She had just prepared herself for another night of such ruminations, when a knock on the front door startled her over her washbowl. Before she had even dried her face, she heard Dirlayn hasten down the stair and open. Fana rushed to follow her. In the front room stood Léofred. Rain dripped off him onto the sandy floor.

“He’s alive,” he said. “He’s stranded in Dunland, but he’s alive. Aldfrid is riding out to get him.”

While Dirlayn flung her arms around Léofred’s neck, Fana sank down on a chair, sobbing.

~oOoOo~

He worked slowly. It would be a rather crude sketch, because the board was still rougher than he had hoped and the charred stick he used for drawing didn’t allow him to render any fine detail. His left arm, free from the splint and bandages now and feeling ridiculously light and fragile, wasn’t quite able to hold the board steady enough, so he had propped it up against the wall instead. This arrangement required him to turn his head a lot, but at least it gave him a stable surface. The drawing itself proved difficult, too, though for a reason that was entirely new to him. So far, he had always drawn what was in front of his eyes. Now he felt tempted to smooth over the harsher aspects of Lunet’s features, for it seemed unkind to him to show them to their full extent. She didn’t look half as ugly to him now than when he had first seen her. He wondered whether it was really always enough to just draw what he saw. Maybe there was a way to include what he knew also. How could he show the wit, the wisdom and the kindness of the old woman?

He could think of only one way to try. As he drew, he let his mind revisit scene after scene of their time together and hoped that the essence of her character would somehow flow through his hand onto the board.

An hour passed. Lunet sat very still.  She didn’t even move when an earwig, disturbed in its wriggly progress across the ceiling, dropped right into her lap. It squirmed and writhed its way to her knees and plunged down from there. Seconds later, it had disappeared in a crack between the floorboards.

Eventually Déoric decided that any further efforts would only result in smudging what little he had achieved. He shuffled back to see the drawing at a bit of a distance and was surprised to find that the features formed by the coarse black lines were indeed Lunet’s. On the board, she even wore her wry little smile, though she had kept her face quite solemn during the sitting. Without a word, he passed the drawing to her.

Would she see it?

She looked at it for a long while.

“I used to have a better version of this face,” she said at last. She touched her brow and nose and lips gingerly with her fingertips.

“Is this what your king values in you? The eye that does not lie? The hand that tells it as it is? Well, I dare say he has a more fetching face to show the world, he has.”

“Are you offended?” said Déoric quietly.

“No,” she replied. “The truth does not offend, though it can sadden, it can. I can see that you have a great gift. You’ve shown me what I look like, but also what you think of me. I thank you for that.”

“It is nothing,” said Déoric. “I have to thank you, and I do not know where to start. If there’s anything at all I can do for you...”

He left the words hanging in the air, unsure of what he could possibly offer her. Lunet put the board aside and smiled.

“I appreciate your gratitude, Déoric,” she said in a graver voice than usual. “And I do have a favour to ask of you, I have. I hope you will write down those stories I told you. It would comfort me to know that something of my people will survive when we’re all gone.”

Déoric frowned.

“What do you mean, when you’re all gone?”

“I told you. There are no men left in the village, and not many elsewhere in the land.”

“But when the young people grow up...” Déoric began.

She shook her head.

“We are a dying people; can you not see that, Déoric? We’ve always been close to starving, ever since we came to live in these marshes and hills. The war has cost us too much, way too much, and we’ve used up the last of our supplies, we have. We’ve lasted this winter, but at what price? Many had to slaughter their animals. There’s nothing left for another winter, there isn’t.”

“You’ll have to hope for a good harvest,” said Déoric.

“Harvest? What kind of harvest do you think we get from boglands and sandy hills, pray? There’s nothing much but pines and birches and heather growing up here and reeds and rushes in the marshes. We’re herdsmen and hunters, always have been since your forefathers drove us out of the fertile lands, they did. But who’s to hunt now, with most of the men dead and gone? The womenfolk may go into the woods and gather mushrooms and berries and wild onions, but we cannot survive on just that, not for long. Our herds may recover, but it would take years and until then - no, Déoric, this is the end. In a few years’ time, your king may claim this land, too, for what little it’s worth.”

“No! You cannot just sit here and die! You must do something. The king must do something!” Déoric twisted his braid round his hand. “Indeed, Éomer King will help, I’m sure he will.”

“And why would he do that, do you think? We’re the enemy, remember.”

“He doesn’t know what you’re really like. He can’t know the truth. If he hears the truth, he’ll help.”

Lunet sighed. She shifted her hands in her lap, one on top of the other and then back again. They were covered in dark spots, like her face.

“And who’ll tell him?” she said quietly. “Does he listen to you?”

“I don’t know. But I’ll tell him. I swear, Lunet, I’ll tell him. He has to listen.”

She shrugged.

“I will not ask this of you, Déoric,” she said, “though I confess it has been my hope that you would speak for us. You have a gift with words as well as with shapes, and if anyone can persuade a mighty lord, you can. But don’t get yourself into trouble on our behalf. Your tales may not be well received, they won’t. What king wants to hear about the wrongdoings of his forefathers?”

“Éomer King is generous and honourable,” said Déoric. “He thinks of you as savage foes, but he’ll change his mind when he hears what I have to say.”

“Well,” said Lunet, “you seem to know your king, you do. For your sake and ours, I hope you’re right.”

Chapter 13: Open spaces

A week later Gruffyd came up to the cottage once again with a visitor. Aldfrid led a second horse by the bridle – the mare Ivornel, who bore Déoric’s crutches and saddlebags. It was late in the afternoon, the dull and chilly hour of winter twilight. Déoric stood next to Lunet by the cottage door.

“He’s got my horse,” he said, stating the obvious.

“Now, aren’t you the lucky one,” replied Lunet. “A mighty fine horse, and all your gear, too, it would appear.”

 “Hail, Déoric,” called Aldfrid as he dismounted. He cast a suspicious look at Lunet, who shuffled back inside.

“Welcome, Aldfrid,” said Déoric. “I am very glad to see you. And you, too, my sweet,” he continued and patted the mare’s neck. She snorted and began to search his pockets for treats. Aldfrid unloaded the horses in silence. When Gruffyd took hold of Ivornel’s harness, Aldfrid made it clear with a gesture that he was going to tend to the horses himself. Gruffyd shrugged and indicated the path to the goat shed, then he picked up Déoric’s saddlebags and carried them into the cottage. Déoric followed, leaning on his crutches with grateful relief.

Once inside, he crouched down on the floor eager to reclaim his possessions. The saddlebags looked darker than he remembered and when he touched them, they felt hard and brittle. Worry crept up his back and made him shudder. He opened the buckles on the flaps of the first bag and peered inside. It contained his clothes, all carefully laundered and folded. Underneath he found his spare shoe, newly polished. Déoric pushed that bag aside and opened the other. A wad of parchments lay on top and their warped look confirmed his fear: the whole bag must have been submerged in water. Carefully, he smoothed out a sheet and breathed with relief. The silverpoint writing was still legible. He congratulated himself for not having used ink; however, his next concern was for his paints. He found them at the bottom of the bag, wrapped in a cloth. Whoever had packed them with such care need not have taken the trouble. When he removed the cloth, he found the casket stained with streaks of many colours and in parts encrusted with a layer of pigments. Inside, it was a mess. Only a couple of the tiny boxes had lost their lids and spilled their contents, but water seemed to have seeped into most of the others. One by one, he opened them to survey the damage. Some had congealed into lumps, others had formed solid blocks and yet others had disappeared altogether, probably dissolved and washed away. Few looked as if they could be restored for use.

Before he could raise his finger to his teeth, Lunet had put her hand on his arm.

“You’ve got your horse back and your stories,” she said, “and I dare say your king will be pleased enough just to see you again, or if he isn’t, he’s not worth a goat’s tail, he’s not.”

“You don’t understand,” whispered Déoric. “These were all the pigments I had. I won’t be painting again.”

“Oh, think properly, Déoric,” began Lunet, but she was interrupted when Aldfrid came in.

“There's not room to scratch your nose in that shed,” he said. “I got the horses in, but they’ll be most uncomfortable.”

“It wasn’t built for strawhead horses, and that’s the truth,” replied Lunet. “If you don’t like it, you can leave them outside, you can. At least that would leave me a space for my hammock without having to intrude on young Master Déoric’s privacy.”

He stared at her, but didn’t say anything else. Gruffyd looked up from the parchments.

“My mother says the other strawhead can sleep in our house tonight,” he said, “since it’s crowded enough up here as it is.”

The sentence penetrated into Déoric’s mind and distracted him for a moment from his misery. He glanced at the sword girded to Aldfrid’s side and wondered how Gruffyd’s mother had mustered the pluck to invite a warrior of the Mark into her home.

“Are you sure?” he said.

“Well, I told her it would be alright,” replied Gruffyd.

“I’m not sleeping in any Dunlendish house,” said Aldfrid. “The woodshed will do for me.”

“But, Aldfrid - ” said Déoric, however, he was interrupted by Lunet.

“I will accept your mother’s kind invitation,” she said and began to wrap up for the outdoors. “Let’s leave these two to catch up on their news, shall we. Déoric, there’s broth in the pot, there is; see to it that your friend gets something to eat. I’ll be back up here in the morning before you leave.”

She was up and by the door quicker than one might have believed for a woman of her age, but Gruffyd still lingered. He knelt down where Déoric sat on the floor next to his spoilt box of paints.

“Farewell, Déoric,” he said. “I’m glad we’ve met.”

“So am I,” replied Déoric and put a hand on Gruffyd’s shoulder. Their brief embrace was watched with a smile by Lunet and a suspicious frown by Aldfrid. A minute later, the door closed behind the Dunlendings and Aldfrid and Déoric were left alone in the cottage.

“How have you been?” said Déoric while he randomly opened and closed the lids on the pigment boxes. “And how did you escape from the orcs?”

“The usual way,” replied Aldfrid. “I slew them.”

“And then?”

“I hunted round for you, but couldn’t find you. So I returned to the Hornburg and asked Erkenbrand to send out a search party. But all they found was your horse and your bags. And then the snow came and I couldn’t get away.”

After this extraordinarily long speech, Aldfrid sat down on a stool and took off his boots. He didn’t seem interested in hearing Déoric’s story, and Déoric didn’t feel like telling it just yet.

“Well, I’m glad you’re here now,” said Déoric and shuffled over to the hearth to serve up the meal out of the pot, a watery stew of onions and mushrooms. “And I’m glad you found Ivornel. What happened to my saddlebags?”

Aldfrid made a face when he tasted the soup.

“She lost them,” he said. “A slash from an orc blade maybe loosened the straps. It was only by chance they were discovered, lying at the edge of a stream.”

Déoric sighed. He wouldn’t find out anything else about it now, and what difference did it make anyway? What was lost, was lost. He tried not to imagine what the king would say.

~oOoOo~

Déoric opened the door and blinked into the sunshine. After the dim interior of the cottage, the light outside seemed biting and far too bright. All was quiet, except for the gentle snorting of the horses, which were saddled and ready to go. Aldfrid adjusted his stirrups. The air had the fresh, tinny feel of melting snow; it moved about in sudden gusts that tumbled down from the hilltops. Déoric could almost taste it, a sharp and slightly acid tint to his very breath.

Lunet stood by the door of the cottage while he mounted, wrapped up in her grey shawl and heedfully keeping out of the way of the chill water that dripped down from the icicles on the eaves. Her crumpled, walnut-coloured face under the tangled grey hair showed no expression beyond silent watchfulness.

“Farewell, and thank you,” said Déoric for at least the fifth time that morning.

“You take good care of yourself, dearie,” she said. “The world isn’t too overcrowded with women who can look after you when you get yourself into trouble.”

“I will be cautious, Lunet,” said Déoric. “And I have Master Aldfrid to take care of me.”

“Aye, as he did the last time,” mumbled Lunet. Aldfrid either didn’t hear or pretended not to; in any case, he had finished fiddling with the harnesses and so they mounted and set off along the path that led from Lunet’s cottage along the side of the hill. When they had ridden perhaps a hundred yards, Déoric turned in the saddle and waved at Lunet. She stood just outside her door and did not raise her hand, but he knew that she was watching. He kept glancing over his shoulder now and then. Her figure became smaller and smaller each time he looked back until at last he could no longer make out whether she was still standing there or had gone back inside to seek the warm comfort of her hearth.

After all that time spent inside the cottage, Déoric rejoiced in the light and air of the outdoors. With the snow mostly melted, lingering only in patches where it had been blown into dips or crevasses on the hillsides, he saw clearly for the first time the land that had harboured him during this long winter. The downs were sparsely covered with tough grass and last year’s bracken, and pierced in many places by the grey rocks that lay underneath. He could see how even the hardiest sheep and goats would struggle to find sustenance here. Rivulets of icy waters trickled down from these hills. They were tinted red by the peaty soil and formed short waterfalls or little ponds depending on the shape of the land. Few trees could take hold on the stony ground.

The valleys, however lush they looked from a distance, were no more suited to feeding a people than the downs, for these were marshlands, where the woolgrass flourished and midges abounded. A thin line of homesteads skirted along the foot of the hills, and meagre gardens flocked around the houses as if looking for warmth. Next to a cottage some hundred yards below, a handful of boys were playing a game with sticks. One looked up and pointed at Déoric and Aldfrid. The boys shouted angry words and shook their fists. Before the riders could move out of sight, a stone flew up from the group of boys. It landed on the slope and bounced off a rock. Déoric and Aldfrid exchanged looks. They turned their heads the other way and spurred on their horses. From then on they stayed clear of those settlements and kept to the uplands.

Above, the white sky was a great mother bird that drew everything under her wings, the bleak hills and boglands as well as the ragged farms. Brown, amber and pallid yellowish green dappled with the white patches of the last remaining snow were the colours of this plaintive landscape, and every now and then they heard the call of the curlew, three short, sharp cries that echoed up from the marches. This was the only sound save for the noise of their horse’s hooves, clanking against rock or falling muffled onto the spongy, moss-covered soil. Until dusk they rode on and then camped by a cliff. That night a starlit dome stretched out over their heads. Hardly rivalled by the modest light of their little fire, it displayed its pattern of brighter or fainter glow against a velvety black, a secret language that neither of the two men could read. Even their shrivelled apples and dry slabs of bread tasted sumptuous under such a splendid tent, and the scent that rose from the soup pot on the cooking fire tickled their noses with a tasty promise.

In the morning, Déoric felt strangely restless. It gave him a pang to think of Lunet left all alone in her cottage. They set off at dawn. As usual, Aldfrid spoke very little and Déoric joined in the silence. A light wind from the south blew his hair out of his face and its cool caress made his cheeks feel fresh and firm. In front of him, Aldfrid sat slightly hunched, his shoulders drawn up and his head bent forward. His thin braids fell down nearly to his waist and bounced gently to the rhythm of his trotting horse. Their pale, dull blonde colour suggested that they were shot with grey, and they were tied at the ends with slim leather ribbons of faded green. The smell of the horses undulated around the riders, a warm, almost spicy scent that carried a curiously mixed promise of both adventure and home. The steady movement of the animals was tranquilizing. Ivornel’s fur shone like a ripe chestnut freshly peeled from its shell, but to the touch of his hand it felt soft and silky.

Shortly after noontime, they stopped for a meal at the edge of a forest. While Déoric busied himself over the cooking fire, Aldfrid led the horses to a little grassy spot. The hazy sky was cloudless, but water dripped down from the branches of the trees, making for a little local rain shower that was easily avoided by keeping a couple of yards out of its way. The two men had just settled down to their bowl of soup when they became aware of dark shapes emerging from the forest. At the same time, a terrified neigh turned their heads and they saw their horses disappearing down the hillside.

They looked back at the figures which now stood in the full light – three wolves. Aldfrid’s hand was on the hilt of his sword immediately.

“Wait, don’t!” hissed Déoric. He looked at the animal at the front of the group and tried to remember the face of the wolf he had seen only once in a dizzy blur. It was a silly undertaking – the wolves all looked alike to him. Still, he had an odd inkling that this wolf was no stranger.

“I think... I think I might have met this one before.”

Slowly and without taking his eyes off the wolves, he passed his bowl to Aldfrid.

“Move back a bit,” he whispered.

“But Déoric - ”  began Aldfrid.

“Just do it, please. I know what I’m doing.” At least, he hoped he knew it.

Aldfrid slowly slid over to one side. The wolves were watching, keen eyes fixed on Déoric as he crouched down and held out a hand. The leader made a move towards him and stood still. One of the other wolves growled and bared its fangs. However, the first wolf remained calm and eyed Déoric earnestly.

“It was you, wasn’t it?” said Déoric. The wolf took another step forward and sniffed. Déoric tried not to move. He felt the muscles in his leg going tense and sore.

“Well, I’m glad to see you’ve found some friends,” he said and tried to shift gently into a more comfortable pose. Man and wolf looked at each other. In the silence, the far off whinny of a horse echoed up the hill.

“Thank you,” said Déoric. At this moment, he lost his balance and fell over to one side. Aldfrid jumped up and drew his sword. The wolves turned and fled. Seconds later, they had vanished under the eaves of the forest.

 Aldfrid shook his head.

“The horses are gone,” he said.

“They were gone before we even noticed the wolves,” said Déoric.

Aldfrid made no reply, but got up and began to walk down the hillside. Soon his figure was lost from view behind a couple of rocks. Déoric hesitated, then he poured Aldfrid’s stew back into the pot, placed the lid on it and put out the fire. His own meal was still lukewarm, and he ate it with enthusiasm, not having seen any meat all winter long. Every now and then he peered into the murky forest or down the hillside, but there was no further sign of either the wolves or his companion. Mist hid the country in the middle distance. He began to study the boulders against which they had leaned their saddlebags and noted the strange patterns of the lichen. In his mind, he considered the pigments needed to mix the right colours, but cursed himself when he remembered the state of his paint box.

As the afternoon wore on, the sun broke through the haze and lent some cheer to the bleak surroundings. Déoric welcomed the change, especially since he was beginning to feel the chill, but it wasn’t long before he had a different reason for displeasure. Something stung him on the side of the neck and then, a little later, on the back of his hand. As soon as he thought of what to look for, he spotted the cloud of tiny insects hovering about him. He waved an irritated hand at them. What a country! The snow had barely gone and here were midges already.

It was nearly evening when Aldfrid returned on horseback, leading Déoric’s mare. The two men spoke little, merely enough to confirm the need to camp for another night. Aldfrid insisted in keeping the fire going and sharing watches, in case of wolves, as he said. Déoric shrugged and consented.

The following day dawned bright and crisp. Their descent from the hills was punctuated by thickets of elder and hawthorn, which extended bare, bizarrely twisted fingers into the clear morning. The borderlands stretched out empty of habitations for many miles, home only to birds and hares that fed on the abundant grass. Here the ground of the plains was firm enough to ride on and birches and willows grew in clumps among the small green knolls, their reddish twigs swaying gently as if trying to sweep the last memories of winter off the ground. Soon enough they saw proper fields bordered by beech hedges or dry stone dykes, with larks singing away vigorously under the brilliant blue sky and the people of the Westfold already at work in them with their sturdy horses and sharp ploughs. Towards the West, heavier and thinner clouds were layered in such a way as to paint the sky in a pattern of grey and pale yellow, against which stood the feathery shapes of a group of poplars.

By nightfall they reached a settlement of neat wooden houses with carved horse heads at the gables. A crowd of villagers by the well eyed them curiously and whispered at the arrival of the strangers, but their words sounded sweet and welcoming to Déoric’s ears, for they were spoken in the familiar Rohirric tongue. They were back in the Mark.

Chapter 14: A kiss, a chair and a letter

A small chest of drawers stood near the window and above it hung Déoric’s portrait of Erkenbrand. Déoric glanced at it more than once during the meal – it was the last thing he had painted. Back then he had been looking ahead and hoping to improve his skills greatly by and by. That chance was gone. He sighed.

Erkenbrand’s household had changed. His daughter had married and left, but the party sitting down for dinner that night had increased and not diminished, for to Erkenbrand’s right sat two dwarves, Gimli and another who introduced himself as Mîg. Déoric was astonished to hear that the dwarves were establishing a settlement in the caves of Helm’s Deep.

“Dwarves right here in the Mark!” he exclaimed. “Why, that is wonderful indeed. We’ll have so much to learn from your skill in metalwork and mining.”

Gimli bowed his head.

“We will be glad to be teachers to the Eorlingas,” he said. “Even if times are now approaching when there will be less need for swords and axes, there are many things we can craft that will serve peace. But not all of us are smiths and warriors. Mîg here is a poet, and that is why I have brought him along tonight to meet you, for I hear that you are a wordsmith, too.”

“Someone has exaggerated then,” replied Déoric. “I make neither verses nor stories, I only write them down.”

“That is an honourable craft,” said the dwarf Mîg, “though one might think that as a man of runes, you would wish to record more than just the words of others.”

“I have tried my hand once or twice,” admitted Déoric.

“And how did you fare with your story collecting before you got lost?” asked Erkenbrand. “Shall we hear some tales that are new to us?”

“I am afraid I have committed none of them to memory yet,” said Déoric in an attempt to avoid the subject, since he was still unsure of how to handle those stories about the villainous Dunlendings. After his experiences in Dunland, he couldn’t imagine them to be entirely right, but it was clear that they were not completely wrong either. He had seen the Dunlendings taking sides with orcs and wargs against the Eorlingas, after all. This reminded him of a question that had nagged him.

“Lord Erkenbrand, we did show mercy to the Dunlendings after the battle of Helm’s Deep, didn’t we?”

“Oh, yes, to those that were left,” boomed Erkenbrand. “Made them clear up the battlefield and then sent them home, good riddance.”

“So there weren’t many survivors?”

“There were a fair number, but many more had perished. It was a fierce battle, and they were more easily crushed than the orcs. Many had wounds from which they would hardly recover, and others had run off into the eerie forest.”

“Was no aid offered to those who were wounded?” asked Déoric.

“Those who still stood took the wounded away with them,” replied Erkenbrand. “It seems those Dunlendings would rather bleed to death than be touched by a Strawhead.”

Déoric clenched the knife and fork in his hands. How many had died due to the Dunlendings’ stubbornness? Idwal’s father, Gruffyd’s father, Tegan’s husband? How could they have been so stupid? Then he remembered what Lunet had told him, those rumours that the Eorlingas burn their captives alive. But it wasn’t true! So much wasn’t true that one people told about the other. Would they hate each other for all times because rumours and false tales grew like weeds on the deserted battlefields?

“I fear we have digressed,” he heard Erkenbrand say, “and we are boring our guests. Master Mîg, will you be so good and entertain us with some of your songs?”

The dwarf stood up and bowed. He smoothed down his beard and began to sing, in a voice much softer than Déoric had expected. The words were in the dwarven tongue, but after a while he felt as if he understood, or else that images formed in his mind without passing the portal of language: images of roaring fires in halls of stone, of hidden jewels and gleaming metal, of hands joined in friendship and work. It seemed clear that the dwarf sang of a place where his heart lay, however much he had come to dwell in another. 

Déoric allowed his thoughts to drift away, eastwards, home. He pondered on the note he had sent off earlier that day, in the hope that the messenger would reach Edoras well ahead of him.  This was to spare his mother and his wife two or three further days of worry, should the message he had sent through the dwarves have got lost for some reason. As the dwarf’s voice floated through the room, Déoric wished he could have rolled himself up inside that scroll and sped home to Fana on a horse much too fiery for his diminished body.

~oOoOo~

The winter had departed as suddenly as it had assailed the country. When Déoric and Aldfrid set off from the Hornburg the following morning, the sun shone down on them with force, and though it was only February, they felt warm enough by noon to cast aside their cloaks. The grass hung limp and wan coloured; no first glimmer of budding leaves shone on the trees and shrubs, and yet a feeling of spring wafted over the land. It’s the smell, thought Déoric as a wave of scattered memories washed over him. It always does that when the seasons change.

By late afternoon, they were surrounded by a wobbling cloud of crane flies. Déoric swatted one that had landed in Ivornel’s mane.

“They don’t actually bite,” said Aldfrid.

“Do they not? I always thought they did.” With a slightly queasy feeling, Déoric contemplated the sorry mess of tangled thread-thin limbs on his palm. He wiped it off on his trousers.

“Ever been bitten by one?”

“Not that I know of,” admitted Déoric. “I wonder how they get through the winter? They look so flimsy.”

Aldfrid shrugged and didn’t reply.

 “Will you be glad to be back home?” said Déoric, and it occurred to him that he had never asked the man about his life. Aldfrid was so quiet most of the time and so matter-of-fact whenever he spoke that Déoric had failed to think much about him. Now he realized, to his shame, that he didn’t even know if the man had a family.

“Very glad,” replied Aldfrid. “I have a wife waiting and my little girl. You know her.”

“Do I?” Déoric frowned in puzzlement and wondered whom Aldfrid could mean.

“Yes. You gave her one of your drawings. With horses.”

“I don’t – wait, you mean you are Fryn’s father?” Déoric’s mind flung up images of the child he had befriended one winter’s day in the fields outside Edoras, when they had both lamented the loss of their fathers. He remembered well how thrilled the girl had been months later when she told him of her father’s return. It was the day he’d been made Chronicler of the Mark, the day of his reconciliation with Fana. And this was Fryn’s father? “The one who was left behind in Mundburg because he’d lost his memory?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You didn’t ask.”

“No, I didn’t,” said Déoric and lowered his head to hide his face. He had been inconsiderate to say the least, treating Aldfrid like a piece of furniture rather than a person.

The rode on in silence for a while and then Déoric said, “Would you like to have your picture, too? Should I draw you, maybe?”

Aldfrid didn’t look round.

“I would like that very much,” he said. “It would be something to comfort my wife when I’m away from home.”

 “That’s what we’ll do then,” said Déoric, “as soon as we get home.”

~oOoOo~

When Déoric entered the house, he found Fana bent over a sewing task and Dirlayn sitting at the table in quiet conversation with Léofred. Both women jumped up and rushed to embrace him. Déoric dropped his crutches and flung himself into their caress, left arm around Fana and the right around his mother. He held them for a long time, though he didn’t dare squeeze to tightly when he felt Fana’s bulging belly pushing against him.

At last they let go of each other. Dirlayn pressed Déoric into a seat by the fire, but their need to be reassured of their reunion was not yet fulfilled and all three of them kept stretching out hands to touch arms, shoulders and faces.

“Dunland, Déoric!” cried Dirlayn. “How in all the world did you escape?”

“They didn’t do anything horrible to you, did they?” said Fana with wide eyes. She sat on a stool right beside Déoric and held on to his arm like her younger self had once clutched a rag doll.

“No, they didn’t,” replied Déoric. “I don’t even know where to start explaining. It’s a long story. But rest assured that nobody has been horrible to me, apart from the orcs, that is, and the snow. The Dunlendings are – well, I don’t really know what to say, only that they are not how we always thought. For a start, there are very few warriors among them now. They’re more a people of old women and little children.”

“You’ll need to tell us more about that, Déoric,” said Léofred.

“I will, eventually,” said Déoric. “For now, though, I’d like something decent to eat. Without onions or dried mushrooms, if possible.”

 “There’s sausages and potatoes,” said Dirlayn, “but I’ll have to warm them up first.” She disappeared into the kitchen. Léofred followed her, presumably to allow Déoric and Fana a moment’s privacy.

“Well?” Déoric placed his hand on Fana’s neck, right under her ear, and stroked her cheek with is thumb.

“Well.” She sighed. “I’m so glad to see you, Déoric. I was worried that you wouldn’t come back...in time, you know.” She hugged her belly and smiled at him. The smile made her lips seem so irresistible that a kiss could no longer be postponed. It had been a long and lonely winter and the kiss had to make up for it. They were still engrossed in their tender exchange when Dirlayn and Léofred returned with the food. As if caught in some impropriety, they broke apart. Léofred grinned.

“You’ll be glad to get some good ale, too,” said Dirlayn. Instead of a reply, Déoric seized the mug and drained it. Then he settled down to his meal, intently watched by the other three. The first piece of potato was so sweet and soft on his tongue that it nearly drove him to tears. At Lord Erkenbrand’s table they had, to his regret, served plenty of meat and bread, but no potatoes. He ate with unabated enthusiasm. Once his plate was cleared, he leaned back and let his eyes rest on the familiar faces.

“I am very grateful, Léofred,” he said, “to find you fulfilling so faithfully my request to look in on my family from time to time.

The corners of Léofred’s mouth twitched for a second, but he quickly raised his hand and rubbed his beard.

“It was my pleasure, Déoric,” he said. “And now I have something to show you.”

“Master Léofred has been keenly awaiting your return,” added Dirlayn. “He is so eager to see what you will think of his invention.”

“An invention?” Déoric wiped his mouth with his sleeve, which earned him a stern look from both his mother and his wife. “I cannot possibly imagine what he would have invented.”

“You’ll see,” said Fana, grinning.

Meanwhile, Léofred had disappeared into the narrow passage that led to the back of the house. Déoric was puzzled, but presently he saw Léofred coming back pushing a strange looking contraption, which he placed in front of his young friend with a gesture that was half embarrassed, half pleased.

Déoric scanned it with curiosity. There were a horizontal and a vertical surface, attached in such a way as will always be called a chair, but the front legs ended in two small metal casters and attached in the place where the second pair of legs should have been were two cart wheels. A slim wooden board extended from the right front leg just above the caster wheel.

“That is the footrest,” explained Léofred, having followed Déoric’s eyes. “This won’t be of any use in the streets and with all the stairs, but it’ll get you round the house and garden well enough. I’ve got another one the same as this up at the Hall. It’s a bit of a tight fit, but it just goes through the door of the scribe’s room. Somebody can push it along, but you can also propel it yourself if you place your hands on the wheel rims.”

Déoric cast a sceptical look at the contraption. It appeared sturdy enough, but he wasn’t sure whether his sense of dignity wouldn’t suffer if he used such a wheeled chair. He glanced at his crutches. In nearly two years since he had lost his leg, he had learned to move about with them fairly well. Of course, there were the underarm sores... Those had healed up nicely during the lazy winter. Anything that would prevent them from forming again had to be worth a try. He lowered himself into the chair and gave the wheel rims an experimental shove. The chair rumbled across the floorboards with amazing smoothness.

“It’s good,” he said. He attempted to steer it round the corner of the table and found that it manoeuvred with ease.

“I spent quite a while on the wheel balance,” said Léofred. “I hope it’ll make your life a lot easier.”

Fana grabbed the two handles that protruded from the back of the chair and pushed Déoric around in what little space was available.

“You weigh nothing, Déoric,” she said. “Whatever else the Dunlendings did to you, they failed to feed you.”

“Too true,” said Déoric, “though it wasn’t through any meanness on their part. You shall hear about all that later. But first, Léofred, I’ll have to thank you for this wonderful present. It’s just what I need. How did you come to think of it?”

Léofred shrugged.

“Oh, sometimes I have these ideas, you know,” he said. “And every now and then one of them runs away with me. But now I shall leave you to your womenfolk. Take a good rest. The king expects you up at the Hall the day after tomorrow.”

Under a shower of thanks and good wishes, Léofred slipped out the door. Once he had gone, a tingling silence settled on the room for a moment, and then Fana, Dirlayn and Déoric all started talking at the same time. With much laughter and very little method, they shared at least a portion of their more relevant news.  A new wing for the infirmary, why, excellent! And Aedre with child already, well, Niarl didn’t wait about, did he? At last Déoric’s look fell on a scroll that lay on the shelf next to a haphazard pile of scarves and gloves.

“Did Uncle write?”

“No, not Uncle,” said Dirlayn. “This came from the North. Probably from that Halfling again.”

She took the letter and handed it to Déoric, who opened it eagerly and read:

Dear Déoric,

Thank you for your letter, or both your letters, I should say. I have meant for a while to reply to the first, but was distracted with one thing or another, and now that the second has arrived I will no longer delay.

First of all, let me congratulate you. Chronicler of the Mark sounds like a very respectable title indeed. So you are a scholar? I confess I had not expected that, but things being as they are, we seem to have much in common. Maybe this correspondence is something we should continue? I am also interested in legends and history, and at times I entertain myself with researching old archives and studying accounts of days gone by. And an artist, too! There, I am afraid, I cannot follow you. My own attempts with a paint brush have always had rather pathetic results.

Perhaps more importantly, I extend my congratulations to you on the occasion of your marriage. I hope you and your Fana will always be very happy. I am certainly very pleased to hear that you have wed such an amiable young woman. As for fatherhood – what can I say? You seem a lucky man indeed. I hope you will not think me insolent if I tell you that you strike me as very young to be married. At your age, a hobbit would be considered little more than a child. My people usually do not wed until they are in their thirties. I am thirty-seven years of age and am only now beginning to think of courtship – you may wish me luck!

With regard to your question, it is one that I have pondered about before. It is an intriguing one indeed. This is not the first time I hear about those stories. They were mentioned to me by Théoden King when I was introduced to him. And like you, I have wondered about the word Hobytlan. Your king told me at the time that the Eorlingas used to live in the North of Wilderland, as did apparently the ancestors of my own people. That might explain things, but I do wonder if there maybe was some kind of contact in the less distant past, for otherwise we would have to assume that your people have a very good memory indeed. It is some fourteen hundred years now that the Hobbits settled in the Shire, and we know little about our history prior to that time.

Our ancestors, you must know, lived in the vales of the Anduin and travelled to the West and North in times so far in the past that I would know nothing about it, had my friend Gandalf not told me. It would seem that different groups took different paths when they made their way into Eriador, and I believe it is possible that some of them came to Rohan, long before your people ever settled there, and stayed. I do not think, though, that we will ever be able to find proof. I have searched the libraries both here at Brandy Hall and at Great Smials, but alas, our records do not go back any further than the founding of the Shire and rarely concern themselves with anything outside out own country. If it was indeed so that a group of hobbits, perhaps of the kind we call Stoors, lived in the Riddermark long after the rest of our people had moved into the North, I would dearly like to know what became of them. But I do not think we will ever find out.

Thank you for your kind wishes. Most of us are very well, though my cousin Frodo, alas, is still suffering a great deal. I wish there was more I could do for him, but I can only attend to him with such acts of kindness as are usually ministered to those who are feeling poorly.

On a more cheerful note, I am planning to come to Rohan next year with my cousin Peregrin to attend the wedding of your king. I will make sure to visit you then, and we can talk some more about old legends. Please write again and tell me where your house is. Until then, I remain with best wishes for you and your family,

Merry Brandybuck

“...his cousin Frodo,” muttered Déoric when he had finished. “That must be the Ringbearer.”

“Was the Enemy really destroyed by a Halfling, Déoric?” asked Fana. “It seems hard to believe.”

“I barely know what to believe these days,” he replied, “but I’m pretty sure it’s all true what they said about those Halflings. And having met Meriadoc, I don’t find it all that hard to believe.”  

Crane flies are better known in some parts as Daddy-long-legs.

Chapter 15: A foreseeable confrontation

For the rest of that day and all through the following morning, nothing could move Déoric from Fana’s side. By mid-afternoon, though, he began to feel nudged by a desire to call upon some others who had a claim to his heart and his news. So he set off together with Fana to the snug little house in the Smithy Lane that was now home to Niarl and Aedre. They were received with great cheers and much slapping of shoulders on the young men’s part. Ale and spiced milk warmed their spirits, and after an hour or so, the most crucial tidings had been shared and the flow of conversation became a trickle, punctuated by smiles and nods and a general sense of everyone being very pleased indeed. Soon Déoric felt a need to move on, for neither Niarl nor Aedre would have much interest in the questions that pressed him most. Fana decided to stay; she and Aedre had other things to talk of still. Déoric embraced her tenderly and promised to be home before dark.

At the house of Gléowine, he was welcomed by the old minstrel’s daughter and her children, who swiftly led him into the little parlour where he found his friend wrapped in blankets in an armchair by a cosy fire. Gléowine’s trusty friend, the ginger cat, purred on the hearthrug.

“Well, Déoric, some mischief you have got up to,” said Gléowine, but the smile on his face belied his stern tone. “Come, sit with me and tell me how much is true of those rumours. I hear you were held prisoner in Dunland?”

“I was,” said Déoric, “but only by the weather and the injuries caused by an orc attack. I broke my arm, but it has healed up well.” He pushed up his sleeve and stretched out his arm for examination. Gléowine shook his head.

“You need to be more careful with your limbs, lad,” he replied. “I assume you found someone to patch you up?”

“Yes, an old woman. She was quite remarkable, really.”

“Hm. You seem to have a talent for being rescued by remarkable older women,” said Gléowine, who had on a previous occasion heard all about Déoric’s convalescence in the Houses of Healing in the tender care of Merilwen. “Is your Fana not jealous?”

Déoric had to laugh at the thought.

“Not of Lunet, certainly,” he said. “Why, she’d only need a hunchback and goitre to make her the perfect picture of hideousness! But she is kind and wise and generous. And she has left me with many questions. Questions I would like to put to you, Master Gléowine.”

“Place another log on the fire then,” said the old man, “so I can be comfortable while you ask me.”

Déoric crouched down by the hearth and did as he was bidden. When he tried to push himself up again, his glance fell on the wood basket and he saw that he had disturbed a slender, black beetle that began to crawl along the woven rim.

“A Black Corsair,” he murmured, remembering the name from childhood. “Do you know why we call them that? I hear there are a fierce people in the South called the Corsairs of, what, Amber?”

“Umbar,” said Gléowine. “It is the name of their city on the coast of Harad. They are pirates and pillagers, and had their fleet made it up the Anduin, it would have looked grim for us on the Pelennor. It was our great good fortune that when the ships arrived, they carried men of Gondor instead.”

“I’ve heard of the black ships,” said Déoric. “So is the bug named after the pirates?”

“Who knows? The beetle is a predator. It even attacks big June bugs. Draw your own conclusions.”

“Such a little thing?” Déoric had difficulties imagining this. His eyes sought the beetle again, but the creature had already disappeared.

“What difference does size make?” said Gléowine with an impatient movement of his hand. “They bite people, too, though I dare say they do not eat them. A cat may look at a king, you know.”

“And a little bug may bite a big warrior?” Déoric grinned. “I suppose you’re right.”

“Those questions you have mentioned,” said Gléowine, “have nothing to do with beetles, though, I assume?”

“No,” replied Déoric. “They concern stories.”

“Ah. You think there is anything left that I know about stories and you do not?”

“Plenty, I’m sure,” said Déoric. “Remember that I told you, just before I left on my journey, how I found that some stories were told somewhat differently by different people? And how you said I would have to think hard to decide which one’s true?”

“I still have a minstrel’s memory, my dear Déoric,” replied Gléowine. “Have you hit upon one where you cannot work it out?”

“Not just one, Master Gléowine,” said Déoric and rubbed the cat behind the ears. “And I’m afraid the two versions I’ve heard cannot be reconciled with each other in any way. Yet I trust the source of the disturbing stories...”

“You had better tell me all about it then.”

Déoric did and it took a while. He recounted all the stories he had heard in the Westfold and all that Lunet had told him, and he paid special attention to everything that concerned Helm Hammerhand, whom the Dunlendings called Helm the Pitiless. Gléowine listened with his head cocked. His face did not give away his thoughts. When Déoric had finished, he leaned his chin on his palm and stared into the fire.

“What shall I do now, Master Gléowine?”

The old man sighed and pulled his blanket tighter around his shoulders.

“I am not as surprised as you might think I would be,” he said. “One people’s hero is another’s villain; that is nothing new. But let me remind you, Déoric, that the Riddermark was granted to the Eorlingas by the King of Gondor and in taking it for our own we did nothing for which anyone could reproach us. When the Dunlendings made alliances with the enemies of Gondor and invaded our lands, it was Wulf who led them and who brought us to grievous harm. Helm lost both his sons in the struggle.”

“What of the daughter?”

“I do not know. It may well be true what you say. Even so, you must understand that Helm had good reason to avoid an alliance with Wulf.”

“So you think we’re blameless?”

“No,” said Gléowine. “I think nasty things have been done on both sides.”

“None of the stories say that, though. They all make it look as if the other side are wicked while one’s own side is only putting up a righteous defence.”

 “We tell our stories our way, they tell theirs their way.”

“But why not just tell the truth?”

“It is not only about truth, Déoric. We must tell the tales that our people need. Had our stories not nurtured our minds to think of ourselves as heroes and men of honour, do you think we could have defeated the armies of Saruman and of Mordor?”

Déoric shook his head.

“I see what you mean,” he said, “but it doesn’t please me. Honest men should stick to the truth, even when it hurts. In any case, Sauron is defeated now, and the White Wizard has left. Surely there’s no longer a need to nurture our valour by maligning the Dunlendings?”

“Times have changed, that much is certain,” replied Gléowine. “Whether we are ready to change the ways we have been thinking for hundreds of years, I cannot tell. Perhaps Éomer King will look favourably on your revelations – and perhaps not. There is really only one way to find out. Are you sure you want to take the risk?”

“I’ll have to,” said Déoric. “I promised Lunet.” He glanced at the window. “And I promised Fana I’d be home before dark, so I’ll have to go now. I was glad to see you, Master Gléowine. Thank you for your advice.”

“Thank you for coming, my boy. Let me know how you get on.”

He reached out with his skinny hand and gave Déoric an affectionate pat on the arm. When Déoric opened the door, the ginger cat slipped out with him.

~oOoOo~

The second chair was as easy to steer as the other was, fitted under his desk neatly and allowed him to move in comfort all over the scribe’s room. Déoric blessed Léofred for this handy invention. However, when the king called for him on the afternoon of his first day back at the Hall, he abandoned the chair and took his crutches. He felt he needed his full height to face Éomer.

The king sat on his throne, a guard on either side, engrossed in the study of a parchment. Léofred, for whose support Déoric had rather hoped, was nowhere to be seen.

“Master Déoric!” exclaimed Éomer and put the letter aside. He grinned.

“My lord.”

“I am glad to see you back. I do not know if you are to be pitied to have met with such misfortune or congratulated on having escaped it.”

“I don’t feel particularly pitiful, my lord.”

“Very well, very well. But, Déoric, I must speak sternly with you. You took the princess’ pigments with you against my orders. I hope you have at least made good use of them.”

The twinkle in the king’s eye and his barely suppressed smile invited Déoric to tell of his artistic successes and be forgiven. Déoric cringed.

“My lord,” he said and drew back his shoulders as best he could while leaning on the crutches, “I’m afraid the pigments have been spoilt. The saddlebags landed in a river after the orc attack. It was my fault entirely. I should not have taken the box with me. I am very sorry.”  

Éomer’s eyebrows rose. He was clearly annoyed, but Déoric’s pre-emptive apology was not without effect. He shook his head and took a deep breath.

“Well,” he said, “that is extremely vexing. The princess will be very displeased. I would have thought you would be more reliable. However, the damage is done and it will not help to lament it. Let me hear more cheerful news. How did the story collecting go?”

“I found a few interesting tales,” said Déoric.

“Only a few?”

Déoric clenched his hands round the crutches to stop himself from biting his knuckles.

“In many villages I heard the same few stories over and over again,” he said. “It was only when I came into the far corners of the Westmark that I encountered many new tales...”

“I can hear in your voice that you are not very pleased with those tales, though. What is wrong with them?”

Déoric sighed. He had hoped that the thorny subject would not come up during his very first interview with the king, but it seemed inevitable now to say what he had to say. It would have been easier if he hadn’t foolishly ruined his paints.

“My lord, most of those stories are about strife with the Dunlendings, and in all of them the Dunlendings are spoken of as evil and contemptible folk.”

Éomer looked at him blankly.

“And what,” he said, “is the problem with that?”

Shifting and twisting his crutches in his hands, Déoric looked over to the windows and then down at the floor.

“I know we’ve always been accustomed to think of the Dunlendings as villains,” he said. “But during this long winter I’ve come to think that this is not necessarily true.”

The king leaned forward on his throne.

“You astonish me, Déoric. Explain yourself.”

“Not all the Dunlendings are fighting men,” said Déoric. “In fact, most of their men are dead. The women and children are left. And I pity them.”

A sharp, perpendicular line had appeared on the king’s brow.

“Why would you pity a gang of murderers and thieves, or even their women and children?”

“My lord, I owe my life to a Dunlendish woman!”

“Do you?” snapped Éomer. “I would have thought you owe it to your mother.”

“Please, my lord, hear me out! The misfortunes that befell me left me injured and unconscious on the heath in Dunland just as the snow set in. It was an old Dunlendish woman who took mercy on me and tended to my wounds, and had she not done so, I would have surely died. She cared not that I was an enemy of her people, she only saw a man in need. Can we not look at them with the same merciful eyes? She told me that Saruman had lured them into his army with promises of giving them back these lands, for it was they who lived here before the Eorlingas came. Now they are close to starving, because they have no land that is fit for growing crops, and with most of their men fallen there are not enough hunters to provide them with food. They need help. Please, my lord, can you not help?”

“What do you expect me to do?” The king’s voice was cold and sharp. “Let them have lands that we need to feed our people? They are our enemies, Déoric!”

“They are just Men, not orcs. And if they used to live in these parts – “

“That was hundreds of years ago! We live here now! And whatever some Dunlendish witch has whispered into your ears, the land never belonged to them in the first place, but was a part of Gondor. For goodness sake, Déoric, you have been at the Battle of Helm’s Deep, haven’t you? And tell me, was it an orc or a Man that severed your leg on the Pelennor?”

Déoric gritted his teeth.

“That,” he said slowly, “is beside the point. Many will starve there next winter. Old folk, children, pregnant women. None of them has held a sword in the war.”

“I do not care! They have burned down whole villages in the Westmark! What about the women and children and old folk who lived there?”

“My lord, I am not saying that they haven’t done evil deeds, but I believe wrong has been done on both sides. It is only that our stories never tell us how things looked from the other side. Take Helm, for example -”

“I can imagine that the Dunlendings have nothing flattering to say about Helm Hammerhand,” said Éomer. “He showed them their place and they hate him for it.”

“He killed a man just because of something he had said! Do you think that was right? Did you know that Wulf was truly in love with Helm’s daughter, and she with him? And that when Helm married her off to one of his nobles, she languished and died? And that Helm, when he heard of it, laughed and said that such a feeble waif was not worthy to be called a woman of the Mark?”

“Helm was a hero of Rohan, who protected our lands from the cruel Dunlendings!”

“Ah, but the Dunlendings say Helm was a brute who killed Freca out of spite and ate his victims.”

“Well, clearly their stories are not true!”

“Maybe ours aren’t either.”

“How can you say such a thing?”

There was a pause during which the echoes of their raised voices rung around the hall. The two guards stared at the far end of the Hall, pretending not to hear. Eventually, the king continued, in a quieter tone.

“Who are you, the Chronicler of the Mark or the advocate of our enemies?”

“You told me at one time that you valued a man’s courage to tell the king an unpleasant truth,” replied Déoric.

Éomer hesitated, but then he shrugged off Déoric’s remark and pushed his chin forward.

“They may be struggling for a while,” he said, “but trust me, they will recover, they always do, and then they will pester us just as much as before.”

“They have nothing left,” said Déoric. “They have slaughtered even their horses.”

The disgust on Éomer’s face was painful to behold.

“Does that not tell you all you need to know about them?” he said. “They are little more than orcs!”

Déoric was trembling.

“Would you keep your horse and let your children starve?” he asked.

“I would never be in such a quandary, because I would not abase my country by making alliances with orcs and wargs and fighting against honest Men. Have you forgotten Háma, who was cruelly struck down by the gates of Hornburg by a Dunlendish chieftain? He was my friend and they murdered him. We have done nothing wrong. The Eorlingas have defended their own, and then went on to fulfil their oaths and ride to the aid of Gondor. If anywhere at all, it is to Gondor that we look for approval, Déoric, not to Dunland.”

 Déoric stood in silence and breathed slowly.

“I know why you’re saying that,” he said at last.

At this, the king’s jaw tensed.

“It is not for you to make such remarks, Déoric. Leave me.”

 “Very well, my lord,” said Déoric and bowed his head. “There is much work waiting for me in the scribe’s room.”

The king frowned and gripped the armrests of his seat.

“I do not think you ought to go to the scribe’s room. Who knows what you will write! You cannot be trusted. You will defile the memory of our heroes and the honour of our land. I dismiss you from your duties. Go home.”

“But my lord –"

Éomer raised a hand to cut off Déoric’s words.

“Go,” he said quietly. Déoric opened his mouth to speak again.

“Go!” shouted the king. “Get out of my sight, before I do something I will regret!”

So Déoric left and went, tock-shuffle, tock-shuffle, along the length of the Golden Hall and out through the gate and down the sixty-seven steps and he didn’t turn round, not once.

The Black Corsair, like all other creepy-crawlies in this story, is a real insect; a subspecies of the assassin bug.

Chapter 16: Waiting

At a table in the Shield of Emnet Inn, a young man of the Mark found it hard to believe the folly of his friend.

 “And you told that to the king? Are you out of your mind, Déoric?”

“Why, what would you have done?”

Niarl took a swig and put his mug down with a bang.

“Déoric! I would have kept my mouth shut. There was no reason to tell him all that.”

“How can you say there’s no reason? Don’t you care about the truth?”

“Not as much as I care about my own skin. Truth is just an idea. Have you thought about what you’ll live on, you and Fana and your child and your mother, if you break with the king? How will truth help you, if you’re left out in the cold? People are more important than ideas.”

“The Dunlendings are people, too. And I’ve always thought the Eorlingas cherished truth very highly.”

Niarl turned his empty tankard round and round between his hands. It made a scraping sound on the table. He sighed and looked at the ceiling and then back at his fingers.

“Look, Déoric, I wouldn’t tell lies, but there would have been no harm in simply keeping quiet about this whole thing. They’re just Dunlendings after all.”

“Niarl!” Déoric reached across the table and grabbed his friend’s arm. “They are of our kind!” And suddenly the rest of the sentence came to him without thinking. “What sort of man would I be if I kept quiet about a whole land full of people starving?”

Niarl, however, was not impressed. “You’d be a man who is still bringing home some coin to feed his family. How could you be such a fool, Déoric?”

“I promised Lunet I’d speak for her people. Would you have me break my promises?”

“Now, that was jolly stupid of you to make such a promise, wasn’t it? Déoric! Who has ever heard of such a thing, a man of the Mark befriending a Dunlending? It’s ludicrous!”

“I didn’t befriend her, Niarl, she befriended me, and if she hadn’t done so, the crows would now be feasting on my dead body, kept nice and fresh over the winter by several feet of snow. I’m sure I have explained that before.”

“All right then, but what about that boy, that Grumpid? Surely you didn’t have to befriend him? What if he is a spy?”

Déoric rolled his eyes.

“His name is Gruffyd. And he’s just a boy, Niarl. He’s not much older than Fana’s brothers. We liked each other because we both thought the other lads from the village were mindless bullies.”

“There you have it,” said Niarl. “Bullies and ruffians. I can’t see how you’d want to anything to do with them.”

“You just don’t want to see my point, Niarl,” said Déoric and emptied his mug. “I don’t think you can. Perhaps one needs to see those people eye to eye to understand. Let’s talk about something else. Have you thought about what it’ll mean to you to be a father?”

Niarl, reluctant though he might have been to change the subject, could not resist this question and began to bask at length in the glory of the son he intended to have. The moon was out by the time they left the inn and the night air, crisp and nippy, cleared the ale daze from their heads. They walked home in silence and parted with just a tap on the shoulder of the other. Déoric hastened as best he could to his house, which lay in darkness.          

~oOoOo~

It was cool in the bedchamber. Déoric hurried to slip under the blankets. He meant to keep his cold limbs away from Fana’s warm body, but she turned over and pulled him into her embrace.

“Sorry to wake you up,” he whispered and kissed her on the forehead.

“I wasn’t asleep. I’ve been waiting for you.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I should have come home earlier.”

“Stop apologising,” she said. “I’m just glad you’re here.”

They lay for a while, arm wrapped about each other and listening to the familiar sounds of the room: a gentle rattle of the shutters, a creaking of wood, their own breaths.

“Do you blame me, Fana,” said Déoric, “for speaking to the king as I did?”

“No,” she said. “You did right to tell him. It’s supposed to be peacetime now. We must change how we’re thinking, and the king must lead the way.”  

“Fana.” He burrowed his face into her hair and inhaled the scent. “You are too good to be true. But what will we live on?”

“Something will turn up, Déoric. Fear not. And until then, humbling though it is, we’ll have the charity of our parents.”

“I’d rather not depend on that,” said Déoric.

“I know. But it’ll do for a while, and then you’ll find something else to do. Just you wait and see.”

Déoric sighed. “I hope you’re right.”

“So do I,” she said and clung closer to him. Her belly pressed against his stomach, and it wasn’t long before he could feel the twitching movements of his child. Thus, with their unborn infant between them and the anxious future hanging over them, they drifted off to sleep.

~oOoOo~

Far away in Ithilien, a young woman quite new to motherhood had problems of a very different nature. Things had not turned out the way she had expected and she just could not fit herself into the image of the blissful nursing mother that she had so fondly nurtured during her pregnancy.

“It still hurts every single time,” she told the healer who sat by her armchair. “It’s as if someone pushed in a needle.” Merilwen subtly examined the suckling infant’s placing at his mother’s breast.

“I can’t see anything wrong in the way he latches on,” she said. “Some women get such stinging pains for a while and then they disappear. Applying a heated stone after the feed might help; I’ll send your maid to prepare one.”

She turned to the maid Acha and gave her some murmured instructions.

“How long before it gets better?” asked Éowyn and flinched with pain. Acha scurried out of the room.

“I can’t tell, my lady,” said Merilwen and sat down again beside her. “But Elboron is growing well, so you must be doing it right. The pain is a nuisance, to be sure, but a brave woman like you will bear it tolerably. Or do you wish me to look out for a wet nurse?”

“Oh, no,” said Éowyn with a tender glance at her tiny son. “After all the frowns and disapproving looks I’ve endured from the Gondorian ladies, I won’t give them the satisfaction of seeing me fail. I can stand the pain, but it’s so disheartening to know that I’ll have to do it all over again a few hours later. There’s just no end in sight.”

“Take heart, Lady Éowyn,” said Merilwen. “Come May, your son will be able to take gruel and other light food. It won’t go on like this forever.”

Éowyn sighed.

“Come May, my brother will wed Princess Lothíriel. Merilwen, will I be strong enough by then to travel to the Mark?”

“I don’t see why not. Lady Éowyn. You have recovered very well. Even if you cannot sit a horse, some other way of transport may be found.”

“And shall you come with me?”

“I, Lady Éowyn?”

“Indeed!” said Éowyn. “Do you not recall me saying to you, some while back when you showed me the letter from Déoric the Scribe, that one day you shall travel to the Mark with me and see him again?”

Merilwen smiled in that calm, dignified way of hers.

“I do remember that, Lady Éowyn. I would be honoured to accompany you.”

“And so it shall be,” said Éowyn. “We shall travel together.”

Elboron had nodded off at the breast and she gently moved him aside and cradled him in the crook of her arm, while her other hand rearranged her clothing. Both women looked in silence at the slumbering infant. Traces of milk still clung to his upper lip, and he had curled up his hand behind his ear.

“Are you sure it matters not?” said Éowyn, for the umpteenth time, when she looked at the little fist.

“I’ve never known it to cause anyone any trouble,” replied Merilwen. “It’s just one of those things that happen from time to time. Don’t let it weigh on your mind. He’s a fine, healthy boy and I have no worries about him whatsoever.”

“What if - ” began Éowyn, but at that moment Acha returned with the hot stone wrapped in a cloth. Éowyn handed the child to Merilwen, who nestled him against her shoulder, and leaned back in her chair while the maid placed the stone. When the heat seeped through her clothing and into her aching breast, Éowyn closed her eyes and contemplated allowing herself to fall asleep, too.     

~oOoOo~

Three days after the quarrel with Déoric, Éomer King sat in his study and conferred with his chief advisor. Things were going well in the Mark. Almost all damage that had been caused by the war was meanwhile repaired, and plenty of strong, healthy foals had been born that would in time allow the herds to recover. The last harvest had been abundant and though the winter had been severe, ample food stores remained that would see the Eorlingas well fed until the new crop. With quiet satisfaction, Léofred placed account after account in front of the king. Éomer read and nodded, signed and approved. Yet he seemed not as pleased as he should have been.

“Is anything the matter, my lord?” Léofred asked when their business was concluded.

Éomer leaned back in his chair and stretched out his legs.

“It does not seem right to me, Léofred, that we should prosper while others starve.”

At this, Léofred rubbed his beard thoughtfully.

“You are, I assume, referring to the news about the situation in Dunland?” he said.

The king sighed.

“Léofred, would you say the Eorlingas have acted dishonourably?”

“I would not say so, my lord, and most certainly not in front of my king,” replied Léofred with a sly little smile. “As for what I think: I see nothing shameful in our past, no. We settled in the land granted to us by Gondor; we built it up, we defended it. Things were rough at times, and your forebears responded to the needs of their people as they saw fit. Of course, things are different now. How future generations will judge the conduct of the Eorlingas will depend very much on you, my lord.”

Éomer snorted. “Thank you for reminding me of the full weight of my responsibilities, Léofred. Not that I was in any danger of forgetting it. But what can I do?”

Léofred tapped the parchments with the accounts that still lay on the desk between them.

“You are a generous man, my lord,” he said. “Generosity will give what it can – nothing more, nothing less. You have seen for yourself that we prosper.”

“And we can spare...?”

“A little, here and there. It will add up.”

“See to it then,” said Éomer. “We will give what we can spare and for now we will not worry if it is enough to fulfil their need. We shall do our duty by them. Let time tell if they are worthy of it.”

He seized the parchments and handed them to Léofred.   

“There is something else, though.”

“Yes, my lord?”

“It pains me to have thus sent off Déoric in disgrace. I have a great fondness for the lad and would rather than not see him back in the scribe’s room. Moreover, his words weigh heavily on my mind. I think there is much truth in what he said. Way back, Léofred, in the days of the war and before it, I used to believe that all I wanted was for our people to be free and live in the way we always have lived of old. Now I am beginning to think that is not enough. If the war has shown me one thing, it is this: that no people’s fate is separated from that of the others, and that what concerns one part of Middle-earth should concern all. That, I believe, was also what Déoric was trying to tell me. He was just unfortunate enough to have befriended a people who were very low in my estimation. As for his boldness, I fear I have encouraged it previously and ought not to blame him. I wish I could have him back. I feel it is a sorry court without my royal artist and chronicler.”

Léofred  smiled. “You are the king, my lord. If you tell him to return to his duties, I am sure he will be delighted.”

“And yet, I cannot be seen to condone such behaviour as Déoric has shown towards his king right here in the Golden Hall, in front of others who may have told their wives, who may have told their sisters and so on to their neighbours and all over Edoras. I must be seen to be a king and act like a king.”

“I understand, my lord. There is a solution to that,” said Léofred slowly.

“And what would that be?”

“Send him away for while. Make it known that you are giving him a chance to redeem himself. When he returns, you can reconcile with him without losing face.”

Éomer shook his head.

“How could I do that to him? He has got his young wife, and I am told she is with child. He will not be pleased to have to leave her yet again.”

“Let him stay until the babe is born,” said Léofred. “It can only be another month or so from now. Once Fana is safe, he can ride out for a few weeks.”

“And what will he live on in the meantime?”

“Leave it with me, my lord,” said Léofred. “I would not let the lad or his family be distressed.”

“You take a very personal interest in him,” said the king.

“That I do,” replied Léofred. “In him and his family.” He indulged in a little smile that Éomer could not quite fathom and then took his leave.

~oOoOo~

In the second week in March, a veritable heat wave struck the country. The people of Edoras shed their winter coats with glee. Fana and her little sister Ardith sat on the front step of Ethelhelm’s house and held up their faces to the spring sunshine. In the few square yards of garden in front of the house, pink and blue hyacinths imbued the air with their heavy perfume. It was midday and the sisters watched the buzzing crowds in the marketplace.

“If you put your hand here, you can feel it moving,” said Fana and guarded the little girl’s hand to a spot on her rounded belly. Ardith smiled.

“So I can! Are you excited, Fana?”

“Yes, very much. Are you? You’re going to be an aunt, just fancy!”

“I think that will be nice. But aren’t you scared of the birth?”

“Only a little bit. Look, there’s another bumblebee!”

A gap between the slabs of the front step was the entrance to a bumblebees’ nest. For the last hour or so, they had been taking note of the insects as they returned to their home, each with two coloured parcels of pollen on their back legs.

“This one’s got orange bags. We haven’t seen orange yet, have we?”

“No,” said Fana. “Pink, red, purple, yellow –“

“Do you think we’ll see blue?”

“No, I don’t think there could be blue. They all come back with different colours because of where they’ve been and what kind of pollen they’ve found. But they can only bring what’s there, and I’ve never yet seen a flower with blue pollen.”

The bumble bee disappeared in the crack, and since there was no other in sight, Ardith lost interest.

“Mother says Déoric is going away again.”

“Yes,” said Fana, “but not before the babe is born.”

“But when, Fana? How much longer?”

“I don’t know, dear. A few more weeks, probably.”

Ardith smiled, but a child passing by caught her attention and she jumped up and skipped across to the garden fence. While she stood chatting with her friend, Fana leaned back in a vain attempt to get more comfortable. She gritted her teeth. A bumble bee, strangely confused, bumped into her face and she waved it away. Ardith talked and talked until eventually the other child was led away by an impatient grandparent.

“On second thought,” said Fana when her sister at last returned to her side, “you’d better go and get Mother.”

~oOoOo~

“So - ha! - yes, I am to prove myself worthy by riding out again and finding stories that are more to the king’s liking.”

“Don’t talk like that, Déoric,” said Niarl, brushing deftly with his currycomb. “You are very lucky that Éomer King has changed his mind. And I thought you liked this whole story collecting business.”

“Yes, but the unspoken understanding is that I am not to stir up any more trouble.”

“Well, don’t then.” Niarl gave his horse a hearty pat. The animal snorted and swished her tail.

“Don’t you see, Niarl? I cannot tell what I will find. What if it’s something else that Éomer King doesn’t want to hear?”

“Then you will jolly well keep quiet about it. And don’t start that whole song about truth again. You have to think of the here and now. Forget your endless agonising about history.”

“Gléowine says that history is just things that happen,” said Déoric. “They are pointless, until we make them into a story.”

“There you go,” replied Niarl and picked up a hoof to inspect it. “Just make all the history you stumble across into stories that are fit for our king.”

“I don’t think that’s what Gléowine meant. It can’t be right to tamper with truth.”

“Here we go again!” cried Niarl.

Déoric stroked the mare’s velvety nose.

“You’ve got it easy,” he said to the horse. “You never have to decide what’s right and what’s wrong.”

He leaned against the side of the stall and wondered why his life had to be so complicated.

“Oh, will you be done with worrying, Déoric!” said Niarl. He had finished tending to his horse and sat down on an upturned bucket. “Wait and see. You may not come across anything that the king would not be delighted to know.”

“Niarl! Déoric! Are you here?” came a woman’s voice from the stable doors. When they craned their necks, they saw Udele hasting towards them. Niarl jumped up.

“Is anything the matter with Aedre?”

Udele reached the stall and stopped, panting.

“Aedre? No, not Aedre, she’s just busy with the washing. But you’re wanted at home, Déoric. Your babe’s been born.”

Chapter 17: One arrival and three departures

 “It was quick for a first child,” said Fana’s mother. Her eyes shone as she handed her granddaughter to Déoric, who received the infant with the awkwardness so often seen in young men. He held her up; a tiny body that fit snugly into the hollow of both his hands.

“It didn’t seem quick to me,” said Fana. She looked pale and tired but couldn’t stop grinning.

“It was quick enough for me to miss it,” said Déoric without taking his eyes off the child. Her face was barely as big as his fist, her eyes shut tightly. Someone, probably Dirlayn, had swaddled her in the shawl that Fana had only finished knitting a few days ago. Until this moment, one babe had seemed much like another to him. For the first time ever he regarded an infant with more than a fleeting interest.

“She looks like me,” he whispered suddenly. “Just look!”

“Well, she’s your child, Déoric,” said Dirlayn.

“I know, but still...” He ran his thumb along the infant’s cheek and chin. “And she’s so small!”

“That’ll be because she’s my child, too,” said Fana and pushed herself up on her elbows.

“She was a little early, wasn’t she?” said a neighbour – just how many people were in the room? – with a knowing smile.

“As happens often enough, I’m sure,” said Dirlayn calmly. Déoric was too excited to mind, though he did know what the woman had alluded to, and he saw Udele throwing her an angry look. He grinned. And if she was right, who cared? Here he was with his wonderful wife and wonderful child. Nothing could spoil this moment, not all the gossip of all the well-meaning spinsters in Edoras. He leaned over Fana and kissed her thoroughly on the mouth, caring nothing for what the onlookers might think.

“Now here’s a splendid scene,” said a male voice, one that Déoric knew well. His father-in-law had just come in.

Ethelhelm shuffled through the crowd of neighbours and took the chair that was hastily vacated for him next to Fana’s bed. Tenderly, he took her hand and pressed it between his own.

“My little girl,” he said. “You’ve done well.”

“I’m glad you think so, Father,” said Fana. She held out her hands to Déoric, who reluctantly let go of the infant, and handed Ethelhelm his first grandchild.

All were now assembled who by custom should be present for the first important event in a newborn’s life, the bestowing of a name. Déoric would have given her a name full of high virtue; he would have named her after honour or valour or truth. But this was not his hour. Fana had given birth to the child, and as was the tradition, she would name her, too. The dozen people or so who were crammed into the room turned their faces to her in expectation.

“Your name, little one,” she said, beaming, “shall be Blythe.”

Yes, thought Déoric, that’s just right.

~oOoOo~

“What are these?” asked Pippin with a mixture of alarm and amusement in his voice. He tapped the pile of parchments, neatly secured with string, which lay on the bench next to some items of clothing, clearly meant to be packed into the gaping trunk on the floor. “The book’s all finished; you can’t add anything else to it now.”

The book in question was their wedding present for the King and Queen of Rohan. They had agonized long what they could take; there was no craftsmanship within the boundaries of the Shire able to produce a gift fit for a king. It had been Frodo who had pointed out that the true proficiency of Hobbits was in a glorious but fleeting, or rather, consumable art: cooking.

“You don’t mean we should take a mushroom pie to Edoras?” Pippin had asked. “That’s hardly a suitable present for the king of Rohan!”

“No, but think of, say, Mrs Maggot’s recipe for mushroom pie... and your mother’s recipe for trout and asparagus omelette...and Sam’s recipe for rabbit stew with potatoes...and many others. I think if we collected all the best recipes in the Shire and made them into a book, it would be a treasure to be cherished even by a queen. And it would be very much ... in the spirit of the Shire.”

This suggestion, odd though it seemed to them at first, became more and more convincing the longer they thought about it, and so they had spent much of the last four months on this scheme, collecting recipes from all over the Shire, discussing their merits and, of course, testing and sampling. Sam had volunteered to cook every recipe considered during their fortnightly meetings at Bag End, which made these conferences such sumptuous occasions that even Frodo began to put on weight. At first, Merry had meant to do all the writing himself, but it soon became clear that he would never get finished in time, and on Frodo’s advice he had mustered the help of half a dozen Tooks and Brandybucks who were known for their fair hand. Frodo himself wrote quite a few sheets, when he felt well enough.

And then it had occurred to Pippin that the other real treasure of the Shire was the beautiful countryside, and he had tramped around with his pastel sticks to draw all the most famous views in the four Farthings. The book that had resulted from their combined efforts was splendid indeed and it already lay, securely wrapped in linen and leather, at the bottom of the trunk. Pippin was right then, to be puzzled about Merry’s parchments.

“These have nothing to do with the book,” replied Merry. “They are passages from some old history books in our library that I’ve copied out to give to my young friend in Edoras, you know, the scribe? We are both interested in finding out what connections there may have been in the past between Hobbits and Eorlingas, though I do not have much hope that we ever will.”

Pippin shrugged; his interest in history had never been as keen as Merry’s.

“Is that the lad who lost his leg? What was his name, Doriac?”

“Déoric, yes. If I am not mistaken, he has a great career ahead of him. I should introduce him to you, Pip. I am sure he would be interested in hearing you sing a song of the Shire or two. And he is an artist, you know. You two could compare pigments or whatever it is you folk do.”

Pippin, who had been without a kindred spirit in Art since the death of his Uncle Ferumbas, his drawing teacher, smiled and fiddled with the strings that tied the parchments.

“That sounds good, Merry.” He sighed. “I wish we could have gone to Rivendell to look at the paintings again.”

“Another time, Pip. We really cannot make such a long detour at the moment, unless we want to be late for the wedding, and that would never do. Maybe on the way back…”

“Do you think so? But we’ll back for Frodo’s birthday, won’t we?”

“Oh, yes, I think we should make quite sure of that,” said Merry. He had continued to put items into the trunk and now placed the parchments on top. “Well before his birthday, I would say. In fact, I don’t feel good about leaving him at all, but it would have been unspeakably rude to decline the king’s invitation. Well, we’ve talked about all this before. There, all done now; I’m a genius at packing. What do you say to dinner, followed by a glass of wine and a smoke and then an early night? Let’s make sure we’re fresh to set out at the crack of dawn.”

“Yes, I suppose,” replied Pippin. “You know, it will be so strange to travel by cart.”

“Indeed,” Merry agreed, “but it will also be much more comfortable, what with all our luggage. And the roads, I hear from Strider, are in much better repair now than they used to be.”

“I know, I know. It just seems rather grand to me, after we’ve walked across half of Middle-earth with nothing but our packs.”

“Look at it this way,” said Merry and closed the trunk. “As Knights of Gondor and the Mark we have a reputation to maintain.” He sighed. “I just hope that Frodo will be all right.”

“Sam will look after him,” said Pippin.

“I know, I know. Come on then. What’s for dinner?”

“Miss Violet Bracegirdle’s Thyme and Parsley Potato Bake with crunchy bacon,” said Pippin. “It’s been in the oven for nearly an hour now and should have a lovely golden crust. I’ll let you have all of it if you let me mop up all the sauce.”

“Not in your dreams!” said Merry as they jostled through the doorway.

~oOoOo~

“It is most unwise. He is too young for such a journey.”

A member of the lesser nobility, but blessed with above average ambition, Serveren of Pinnath Gelin had jumped at the opportunity to become a lady in waiting of the new Princess of Ithilien. In that budding province, she had reckoned, her importance would be far greater than at the bustling court of Minas Tirith, and the barbarian lady would come to depend on her, Serveren’s, superior knowledge of propriety and decorum. Things had not turned out quite the way she had expected.

“Nonsense!” said the barbarian lady and shifted the infant to her other hip. “On the contrary, he is too young to be separated from his mother.”

“If you had but employed a wet nurse - ” began Serveren, and was cut short by her mistress.

“ - then I would let my child form his first tender bond with another woman. I shall no debate this again, Lady Serveren. Elboron shall come with us, he shall see his mother’s native land and he shall see his uncle wed.”

Serveren shook her head sadly. However much she was officious and overbearing, she truly cared about the infant.  “I only hope you will not come to regret it. So much could go wrong. What if he gets stung by a wasp?”

“Whatever makes you think of wasp stings?” said Lady Éowyn with a puzzled look.

“I heard that the child of one of the kitchen maids was stung on the neck only yesterday,” said Serveren. “It seems a dreadfully early time of year for wasps to be about.”

“Indeed,” replied Lady Éowyn. “But I heard also that the child was perfectly fine after the sting was treated with raw onion and vinegar. If it gives you any comfort, I shall carry a supply of both with me.”

“But this was a child of several years! Your son is only a few months old, and considering that he is not quite - ”

“There is nothing wrong with him! Merilwen says it is just a whim of nature and it has never caused any trouble for anyone.”

“Merilwen is only an ordinary woman,” said Serveren.

“She is a skilled healer and experienced midwife.”

“Is that why you are taking her to Rohan with you?”

Lady Éowyn gave her a quick, sharp glance. Elboron, who had been watching the exchange with obvious curiosity, used the pause to express his views in the shape of a happy babble.

“I am taking Merilwen because I promised her so a long time ago,” said Lady Éowyn. “I had thought of asking you, too, but it cannot be so. I am afraid I shall have to burden you with the task of seeing to the ordering of this household while I am away.”

A smile spread on Serveren’s face.

“I will not disappoint you, Lady Éowyn,” she said.

“I know you will not.”

“Dah!” said Elboron.

~oOoOo~

“And how do you like these?” Brecc spread out a handful of parchments in front of Déoric. Each was filled with his carefully traced knot patterns. Déoric picked them up one after another and surveyed them with the same thoroughness with which he had just appraised Brecc’s handwriting samples.

“Very neat,” he said at last. “Do you enjoy making these?”

“Yes, very much.”

“Hm.” Déoric rubbed his beard. “I confess I’m not quite sure what one would do with a whole page full, but...” He turned one of the parchments this way and that. “...if you could make a border down one side or a frame around a body of text, it would be very pretty indeed.”

“Do you think so?”

“Yes. Why don’t you try it out? Take a short text, say...” He shuffled through a pile of parchments and pulled out a sheet. “...this one, copy it out and draw a frame around it. I’m sure the king would be delighted. It looks very, um, very true to the spirit of the Mark.”

“I shall.”

Brecc took the sheet and sat down behind the desk to start on the new task straight away. While he measured out the margins, Déoric turned to the purpose of his visit in the scribe’s room and began to assemble a box of writing supplies he would need for his forthcoming journey. He was just debating with himself whether to take any ink or to rely on the silverpoint stylus only, when Léofred came in. He enquired after the well-being of, as he put it, Déoric’s three women, glanced over Brecc’s shoulder at his work and sat down on the spare chair.

“Is that you all set to go?”

“Almost,” said Déoric. “There’s not much to pack. I’ll travel as lightweight as possible this time.”

Léofred’s smirk vanished as quickly as it appeared.

“And are you pleased about your new escort?”

“Very much so. Not that I was ever displeased with Aldfrid.”

“Of course not. But the man deserves a rest. Well, I shall look after your womenfolk while you’re away, Déoric.”

“That is a great comfort, Léofred,” replied Déoric.

The king’s advisor rose and took his leave, but in the door he turned back.

 “Oh, and Déoric,” he said, “I think you will be glad to hear that Éomer King is sending eleven cartloads of supplies to Dunland. There may be more by and by, but it’s all we can spare right now. But don’t mention it to him. He’s a bit shy about it.”

And then, with a wink, he was gone.

They set off from Edoras the next morning shortly after the dawn chorus had faded.

Chapter 18: Emerging patterns

Each new wave changes the pattern. A darker streak in the wet sand here, a lighter one there. The way a piece of seaweed lies this way or that. Tiny hills and valleys strewn with specks of little black stones, sometimes clustered together, sometimes spread out as if the seed pod of a poppy flower has suddenly burst and flung its contents into this strange and shifting country.

Shadows of clouds moved on the water. Lothíriel glanced over to where the city of Dol Amroth lay, a tight, rocky bay encrusted with grey and white houses. Then her eyes returned to the beach.  A thin layer of dry sand covered her bare arms, glittering with miniscule fragments of seashell that stuck to her skin when she tried to brush them off. On her feet, which had been wet from the surf, these fragments formed an almost even surface of black, white, yellow and pink, reminiscent of the mosaic floors that could be found in many of the well-to-do houses in Dol Amroth. Lothíriel built a mound of sand, covered it with her shawl and lay on her side, with her head resting on this impromptu pillow. From her new angle, the sea looked like a wall against the sky, or indeed like another, stranger sky; solid, greyish-blue and studded with its own peculiar stars: the twinkling crests of distant waves. Only closer to the shore these waves looked alive and moving, and advanced on the land in long, rippling bands of pure white.

She remained like this for some time, a crimson huddle of fine cloth from which extended her smooth limbs, lightly tanned even this early in the year. The morning sun had climbed a hand’s width over the horizon before she rose and shook the sand off her skirts. It was high time she made her way back to the castle. Yet when she had ascended the stone steps that led up to the cliff path, she wavered and stood for another while. Her lips moved. Eventually, she turned sharply and hastened along the path.

The guards greeted her briefly as she slipped into the castle through one the side doors and hurried up the stairs to her rooms in the turret.

Her day room appeared to her like the carcass of a roasted bird left after the feast. It had been stripped of all her possessions; empty shelves were the bones of the place laid bare. In her bedchamber, her wardrobe gaped at her. Her trunks had already been carried down the winding staircase the previous day to be heaved on the sturdy carts that would accompany her to Rohan. Only one small case remained, for such items as she would need until the last minute. Her travelling clothes lay spread out on the bed. She sat down beside them and reached for the small book on the bedside table, her notebook, in which she liked to scribble all her whimsical ideas. She opened it and read the last entry.

Tomorrow I leave for Rohan to become a queen. I hope the poor king knows what he has let himself in for with me. I am determined to civilise his court, in the most gentle and charming manner, of course.

She shook her head and smiled. It seemed odd, even laughable that she, easily the most bookish noblewoman Gondor had seen in a thousand years, should marry the lord of a land that prided itself in just having brought forth its first ever book. Should marry him, and gladly. She had only met King Éomer once, nearly a year ago, but even then the foundation of their attachment had already been laid in the form of their warm and animated correspondence. Since then, many more letters has travelled back and forth between them, and she felt she knew him well, certainly as well as any princess could hope to know her bridegroom. How he tied his laces, whether he liked his eggs fried or boiled, these were things she would find out by and by. For now, she knew his mind. That was good enough. It would be strange not to be writing to him anymore.

She heard footsteps coming up to the door. Her maid brought her morning meal. Lothíriel sat down at the small table by the window and gazed out at the ocean while she sipped her milk.

When she had finished her breakfast, her maid helped her to change into her travelling clothes. Lothíriel thanked the girl and dismissed her. For a long while, she stood by the window and watched the early fishing boats returning to the harbour.

Footsteps again, this time heavier ones, ones she knew very well.

“Good morning, Father.”

“Lothíriel.”

“I am ready,” she said and smiled.

Her father strode across the room and wrapped his arm around her shoulder.

“I know you shall miss the sea, my child,” he said. “And the sea, if that were possible, would miss you and your songs. But you shall come back to visit. It is not a farewell forever.”

“I know, Father. Do not worry about me. I think I shall be very happy in Rohan.”

“If I did not believe that,” he replied, “I would never have encouraged this match.”

She leaned against his shoulder and breathed in his familiar smell. All would be well, she knew, and yet the sorrow of parting was not lessened. Would that Éomer but lived a day’s ride away! She sneaked up her hand and dabbed her tears with her sleeve before her father could see them.

~oOoOo~

The two riders ambled along under a skyful of fluffy clouds. Earlier on, a spring shower had soaked their clothes, but not dampened their spirits. They talked and laughed. Déoric smiled at his escort. He had exchanged the most taciturn soldier in Edoras for possibly the chattiest one.

“...and then she said she would never fall in love with one of her patients, because that would not befit a healer, and once she had come to view a man with a healer’s eyes, she could never think of him in any other way. So I said, well, we shall see about that. She changed her mind soon enough.”

Niarl grinned. Déoric recalled the scene at the infirmary, well over a year ago now, when Aedre had bent over a vomiting Niarl who had been delivered to her care courtesy of a skirmish with a stray band of orcs. As far as introductions went, this one had certainly not been the most romantic, but Niarl’s charm had prevailed, to nobody’s surprise.

It was the second week of their journey. Just like the first time around, Déoric had found very little in the way of new tales in the villages around Edoras and after the third day had decided to press on eastwards at the greatest speed he could muster. They had soon crossed the River Entwash and then turned north towards that remote region between the River Anduin and the Forest of Fangorn which was known as the Wold. Settlements were few and far between here, but Déoric found that his judgement had been right. The stories these hardy hill folk told him were almost all new to him. They had only visited three villages and already he had filled nearly two dozen sheets. Marvellous creatures roamed some of these tales: Elves, which seemed no wonder given that the Elven realm lay just a day’s right beyond the River Limlight, and others, stranger still, great tree trolls terrifying and yet noble-hearted. Déoric thought of the eerie forest at Helm’s Deep and wondered what truth hid in those stories.

The weather was improving by the minute. Déoric rejoiced in the stark colours around him: brilliant white clouds against a deep blue sky, fresh green grass and bracken and most of all, the rich yellow of the gorse bushes and the clumps of daffodils that sheltered in the valleys. None of the hills were very high, yet trees were scarce, just a twisted oak here or a group of wind-swept birch trees there. Sheep grazed almost everywhere and Déoric wondered how the farmers kept track of them in this fence-less wilderness. Their bleating, close by or echoing from a distance, accompanied the conversation of the two men. Every now and then, the sight of a gambolling lamb brought a smile to their faces. Déoric sighed. This lonely country seemed beautiful to him and yet melancholy. His father had been killed in the Wold.

By mid-afternoon they saw herds of horses, roaming just as freely on the bleak hills as the sheep. They reached the village about an hour later. It was one of the larger settlements on the Wold, home to some thirty families. Their houses were built in a different manner from that usually employed by the Eorlingas: not long, rectangular buildings, but round ones, covered in turf rather than thatch or wooden shingles. They did not face a village green to form the ring shape common elsewhere in the Mark, but stood scattered with generous spaces between, which seemed to be used for every kind of business from hanging laundry to grooming horses.

Déoric and Niarl might have felt at loss where to turn in this seemingly haphazard jumble of homesteads, but their arrival caused enough stir among the villagers to bring the Elder out to them before they could ask for him. Niarl displayed the king’s standard and Déoric explained their business. Within half an hour they had washed and changed their clothing and sat down for soup and bread at the Elder’s house. Soon afterwards, village folk began to crowd into the room in the manner Déoric had seen time and time again, some eager to tell their tales, some suspicious, some merely curious. Soon there was such a throng that the Elder suggested moving outside. Beside one of the rare trees on the Wold, stone benches stood in a circle and here the whole party reassembled, while further village folk joined them.

Storytelling commenced and Déoric was careful to encourage and praise without patronising. A few times, he had to ask for clarifications. Niarl sat alert and listened carefully; he was of great help to Déoric with regard to recalling the stories later when they were on their own. Once again, Déoric was glad to have his friend with him rather than the eternally sleepy Aldfrid.

Currently, it was the turn of a heavy-set man in his thirties. He told his story with skill and expression. The other villagers seemed familiar with his tale, but followed it with eager faces.

“So,” said the man, “on the third day, there was still no trace of the children, and the parents were beside themselves. That evening, a messenger came to the village with news that the tree men had come out of the forest and were marching westwards. On hearing that, the mother begins to wail that the tree men have snatched her children and taken them away. Says the messenger, he’s seen three children in one of the holes of the Hobytla. Why hadn’t he said so straight away, cried the father. He’d thought nothing of it, said the messenger, he’d thought they were playing at hide and seek. So half the village set out to the holes of the Hobytla to get the little ones. But halfway there they meet with such a frightening sight that all the women trembled with fear and many a man, too. There was one of the tree men, a huge, trollish shape over ten foot high and with lichen growing on his head and arms like gnarled branches! And in those arms, as if they were cradled by their own dear mother, lay the three children, all fast asleep! And now the children’s father stepped forward, sword in hand and said, give me back my children, you big brute, or you shall feel the bite of my blade. But the tree man just stretches out a leg – such a leg, like a tree trunk, so thick and rough – and kicks the sword right out of the man’s hand! And there was a cry from the villagers, but the tree man paid them no heed and he bent forwards and very gently put the sleeping children down on the grass. And then, without a single word, he strode away, walking just like a big stork, and was never seen again.”

The man had finished and his friends rewarded him with applause. But Déoric, whose foot had been twitching all through the latter half of the tale, blurted out the question that was almost shaking him.

“What did you mean when you said the holes of the Hobytla?”

The man, somewhat taken aback by this unexpected response to his story, furrowed his brow. Déoric realised his gaffe and added, “This is a wonderful story and I will be sure to tell it to the king. I thank you. We seldom hear about the tree men in Edoras and this tale will make us understand them better. But I am curious to find out what you know about the Hobytla, for it is a matter that interests me.”

“They’re all gone long ago,” replied the man. “My grandfather said that he’d never seen any of them, but his father did.”

“Three generations back?” cried Déoric. “But that is not very long at all - not considering that they were thought to have disappeared hundreds of years ago.”

“Oh, no,” chimed in a woman. “They were still around in my great grandmother’s time, but then they vanished and nobody knew how or why. You can still see the strange holes where they lived.”

“Where?”

“Over Halsted way, there’s three in the hillside,” said the man who had told the story. “I can take you there in the morning, if you wish.”

“That is kind of you,” said Déoric. “I’m very keen to learn more about the Hobytla and their connection with the Mark. I met one of them during the war.”

His revelation didn’t impress; clearly the folk of this village had heard nothing of the Ringbearer and his companions. Déoric felt inclined to remedy this, but remembered that it was his task to collect stories rather than to tell them. He cast round his glance and saw a woman who appeared eager to tell her tale. He nodded at her and she stood up and began to speak.

Dusk crept up between the huts and the sky turned dull and grey. A little distance away, Déoric could see tiny flickers of green and yellow in the twilight: fireflies, dancing and flashing in their search for a lover. With the sun gone, it quickly grew cold. When the woman had finished her tale, folk began to seek their homes. Déoric and Niarl returned to the house of the Elder and were shown a place to sleep. As he pulled his blanket round him, Déoric wondered for a while whether he was really going to see the dwelling places of Meriadoc’s people, but the day’s ride had taken its toll and he soon fell asleep.   

Chapter 19: Holes

Déoric awoke at daybreak and dressed himself silently, then set to work with his stylus. By the time Niarl opened his eyes, he had already written down most of what they had heard from the village folk. The story of the tree man was uppermost in his mind, not only because of the mentioning of hobbit holes, but also because those strange creatures had begun to pique his curiosity. He had heard rumours of them that connected them to the eerie forest at Helm’s Deep, and he would have liked to know more, but it seemed too much to hope for that he would ever set eyes on one of them.

They broke their fast with their hosts, and soon afterwards Helmgar, their friend from the previous night, came to collect them. Outside, the sun had risen with the fiery intent of painting the land in vibrant colours. The young grass glowed like lit from within. Orange clouds, criss-crossed as if someone had scored them with a fork, stretched out in a long band over their heads and faded to a softer pink near the horizon. Verzino, thought Déoric, and orpiment with a layer of vermillion. Malachite glazed with verdigris would perhaps be a good way of rendering the colour of the grass. Not that he would have the opportunity to find out...

“What makes you frown?” asked Niarl.

“Nothing much, other than that I am a fool.”

“Oh. Nothing new then.”

“I thank you for your sympathy.”

“It is nothing,” said Niarl with a mocking bow.

Helmgar, who was riding ahead, waited to let them catch up. They rode three abreast and Helmgar begun to entertain them with further stories, for which Déoric was profoundly grateful.

An hour’s ride took them to the banks of a small river, a tributary to the Limlight. In spite of its modest size, it had washed out a wide bed among the hills which bore witness to the strength that was not otherwise apparent in the waters flowing sedately among pebbled shoals. On the far side, a slope rose nearly forty feet high and quite steep. Long grass grew on it, dotted with a few broom bushes that were just about to come into flower. A little further downriver, where the glen became narrower and bent to the East, Déoric could see dark patches in the bank; those had to be the holes of the Hobytla.

Since the river was shallow, they forded it with ease and rode up just along the edge of the water until they reached the place and dismounted. Helmgar offered to stay with the horses.

The holes sat at least fifteen feet up and if there had ever been a proper path leading to them, it was now gone.

“I can’t walk up that slope with the crutches,” said Déoric and handed them to Niarl. “It’s too steep. I’ll have to crawl.”

With the help of a few handy broom bushes, this task was soon accomplished and Déoric entered the first hole after Niarl and took back his crutches. The hole was barely high enough to stand, in fact Niarl, who was the taller by about an inch, had to duck slightly. It was easy to see, though, that this hole would have made a comfortably sized room for a Halfling. Faded patterns on the wood-panelled walls indicated that the former inhabitants had cared for appearances. Grainy mud covered the floor, but when Niarl scraped it away with his boot, he revealed half-rotted wooden planks underneath. The place was empty, but a doorway led off to the left.

“Round doors,” said Déoric as they went through, “how very curious!”

The next room was longer, more like a tunnel, and filled with a greenish light from a window that was overgrown with grass and hence not visible from the outside. Stone slabs showed where a fireplace had been. At the far end, they saw another door. Déoric realised that the Halflings had not dug back into the hill, but alongside close to the surface, to allow light to come in through window shafts. Even empty and dilapidated as it was, he could still tell that this had once been a comfortable home.

 They peeked into the next room, which was the last and smaller than the other two. Déoric guessed it had served as a bedchamber. Like the others, it was completely bare save for the wood panelling and a shutter that covered the window from the inside.

Déoric drew in the earthy smell.

“Nothing much to see,” said Niarl. Here in the back room, there was hardly any dirt and his steps squeaked on the floor boards. “Shall we go out again?”

The next hole consisted of only a single room with bare earth walls and floor. It had perhaps been a storage place of sorts. The third hole lay further along the slope and it took a fair amount of scrambling to reach it. It still had a front door, round like the others had been, with blistered traces of ancient green paint and a small hole in the middle where a doorknob might have been. It hung squint in its frame and opened outwards with much creaking.

This was the largest of the three holes by far, with five rooms, one of which had clearly been a kitchen. And here they found, at last, a sign of habitation: the broken remains of a stone sink. When Niarl lifted it up at one corner, a handful of woodlice scurried away.

Painted decorations were discernible on the walls here, too.

“There must have been more trees in the Wold at one time,” said Niarl and ran his hand along the wooden panelling.

“Probably.”

And that was all. Apart from that pitiful piece of masonry, the place was empty. Empty, empty, empty. Déoric rubbed his temples; his head felt heavy with disappointment. Well, what had he expected? Cosy homes, the fires only just died down, the pots still on the hearth?

It was after they had turned their back on the holes and while he was sliding down the slope on his bottom that he realised what he had hoped for: a clue, some kind of little detail that would be the key to the disappearance of the Halflings. He shook his head. How foolish to think that he would find something that generations before him had overlooked.

At the foot of the bank they rejoined Helmgar, who had found a pleasant flat stretch of grass that would do them for their midday meal.

“Have they always been like that, empty?” asked Déoric as he opened his saddlebag.

“Well,” said Helmgar, “not always, but at least as long as I can remember. They’d left a lot of their things behind, it is said, and after many years, when it was clear they wouldn’t come back, people went and took what they could use. My neighbour has a chair he says his father got from here. His little boy sits on it.”

“But nobody ever found any, any bodies or so? Or signs of a fight?”

“Oh, no. Orcs didn’t get them, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“Hm. I wonder,” said Déoric. His mind turned to a story he had heard on his first journey and which he had quite forgotten until just now. It seemed to...fit. There was no telling, of course. But he would write to Meriadoc about it.

~oOoOo~

 “Don’t you think the air feels fresher?” asked Éowyn.

They had passed into Rohan. Merilwen, not one to disappoint her lady, drew breath and said, “It does a bit.”

At the front of the group of travellers, Faramir reined in his horse and turned to speak with the guards. The men dismounted and led their animals to the brook that trickled out of the woods to their left. Soon a resting place was prepared with blankets and cushions on a flat grassy patch among the birch trees, and the women – Éowyn, Merilwen, the maid Acha and Rówiel, the infant’s nursemaid – opened the saddlebags and laid out food for their meal. Elboron slept tightly in the woven basket that served as his travelling cot. The leaves of the trees had unfolded just far enough to provide a pleasant canopy, and the sun shone just brightly enough to make the travellers appreciate a bit of shade. In the fresh grass, twitching movements and gentle chirping noises revealed the presence of grasshoppers.  

“We have made good speed this morning,” said Faramir. He spread butter on a slab of bread and accepted a slice of cold ham from Acha. “If we ride swiftly for the rest of the day, we shall reach Aldburg before nightfall. I should be glad if we did not need to camp for tonight.”

“I do not believe you,” replied Éowyn with a grin. “The Ranger in you is all too happy to be out in the wild.”

“The Ranger never had to consider the comfort of women and children,” said Faramir.

“Women and children can cope,” said Éowyn. “Look at Elboron, he is quite comfortable.”

Indeed, Elboron had slept more during this journey than he ever did at home. The gentle movement of the horse lulled him into his dreams better than any cradle could.

“That is because he has a real rocking horse,” said Faramir.

The basket with the sleeping child stood between them, and both parents kept looking at him and smiling throughout the meal. When all had refreshed themselves, Acha and Rówiel tidied up quickly.

“Let us rest now for half an hour and then prepare to ride on,” said Faramir and gestured for the party to settle. He, however, did not follow his own advice but wandered off into the wood. The guards left to see to the horses. Acha and Rówiel curled up beside each other and closed their eyes. Just as they nodded off, the infant awoke and began to whimper. Éowyn picked him up and immediately a smile appeared on his face. “Ba,” he said, displaying the single tooth in his lower jaw.

“Yes, clever boy,” said Éowyn and put him on the blanket beside Merilwen.

While she leaned back, with her elbow planted on the ground , Elboron rolled over onto his belly and looked up at his mother with a triumphant squeal.

“Well done!” cried Merilwen. “What a neat trick, young prince! But you don’t want to eat that.” She reached out and removed the grasshopper that the infant had by uncanny happenstance caught in his chubby hand and was about to put into his mouth.

“Here, have this instead,” said Éowyn and gave him a rattle. Elboron looked as if he would prefer another grasshopper, but as none came his way, he settled for the toy. He held it in his right hand with a strong grip.

“Merilwen?”

“Yes, my lady?”

“There’s something I have been thinking. You’re going to laugh at me.”

Merilwen said nothing and looked at Éowyn with a kindly smile.

“It seems to me...” Éowyn lifted her head and fixed her eyes on the branches of the tree above her head. Her hand reached out and patted Elboron on the back.

“Well, you know how the Ringbearer lost a finger? And Elboron has got one to spare. I keep thinking that Elboron is going to give back to the world what the Enemy took from it.”

She kept staring up at the tree.

“There’s no reason not to see it like that, Lady Éowyn.”

“Really?” Éowyn turned her face to Merilwen.

“Really.” Merilwen stroked Elboron’s little hand with the six fingers. “So much was lost in the War, much that can never be brought back. But for those that are born now, in this new age of peace – for them, everything seems possible.”

“I have thought so, too,” said Éowyn. “And yet, one does not wish to weigh down one’s own child with expectations that are too great and too heavy.”

“Not expectations, my lady,” said Merilwen, “but hopes.”

“Well put, Merilwen.” Éowyn picked up Elboron and held him close to her face. “But the Child of Hope is smelly. I think it is time to waken Rówiel.”

While the nursemaid changed the infant, Éowyn went down to the water and washed her hands and face. Soon the whole party was on the way again. This time, Éowyn rode with her husband and left the women to their own chatter.

“You look thoughtful,” she said. “Are you worried about something?”

“Not really worried, no,” replied Faramir. “But my thoughts do drift back to Ithilien. We left many half-done tasks behind.”

“And left them in good hands for the time being.”

“Hm.” Faramir moved his lower jar from side to side, as if chewing a thought.

“Captain Cúmol is a very good man,” he said. “He will handle things with wisdom and circumspection. I confess I am less pleased with your choice.”

“You didn’t say anything about it at the time.”

“I had other things on my mind then. But, Éowyn, the more I think about it, the more I struggle to understand why you asked Lady Serveren to oversee the household.”

“Have some confidence in her, my love. Her manner is not the most charming, but she is capable. I am sure we will hear a good report of her when we return.”

“She is ambitious,” he pointed out.

“Yes. This is a sentiment not unknown to me. Faramir, people respect ambition in a man, admire it even. Perhaps it is time we learnt to respect it in a woman, too. Serveren wants to distinguish herself. I gave her an opportunity to do so. She will make the most of it, mark my words. Where Captain Cúmol acts with circumspection, Serveren will act with determination. I think they will complement each other.”

“You have told me before how irritating you find her presence at times.”

“Yes, I do, at times. I believe, though, that her faults are of understanding rather than of the heart. She finds it hard to see how anyone could think differently from herself, and her way of thinking runs in tracks carved out by many simple minds before her. That often makes her a tedious companion, but I have no complaints about her beyond that. Narrow-minded she may be, but I’ve seen in her neither deceit nor coldness of feeling. She is always most tender and kind to Elboron. And she did marry Olcharad, even though he was not made Captain. I remember people predicting that she would break the betrothal. She didn’t. I have observed her around her husband and I am convinced she is truly attached to him. Really, Faramir, I see no harm in her.”

“Just to mean well is not enough,” said Faramir. “She may go about with the best of intentions to set everybody’s life to rights, but she is so awkward and blunt about it that she raises resentment in people.”

Éowyn laughed. “Has she tried to set your life to rights, my love?”

“Hm, yes. She upbraided me about allowing the dogs into my study. She said it was a disgrace to have them roam the whole house so unchecked.”

“And what did you say in reply?”

“Well.” Faramir paused. “I had to thank her for rescuing my manuscript and clearing up the mess from the spilled ink.”

Éowyn laughed again.

“Oh, well, my dear. You dug that hole yourself, and then you fell into it.”

Chapter 20: Unexpected encounters

Thanks to Dreamflower, Thranduil Oropherion Redux, Linda Hoyland and Morthoron for various bits of advice.

Niarl’s horse was lame on the right hind leg. They had checked the leg and found the swelling of the fetlock that caused the animal to limp, but were unable to do much about it. There was no external sign of injury, and since they had come nearly half a day’s ride from the last village, turning back was not an option. They would have to find a place to stay the night and hope that some rest would mend things soon.

Currently, there was no thought of stopping, though. On the heather-covered uplands, they had been searching for almost two hours to find even a trickle of water, but had no such luck. Their water skins held barely enough to see themselves to the end of the day, let alone their horses. They had some ale in a jug, but they felt wary of quenching their thirst with it. Niarl now led his mare by the bridle, after they had moved as much of his provisions into Déoric’s saddlebag as they could expect Ivornel to carry.

“I could maybe try the crutches at least for a while, just to give you a break.”

“Don’t be daft, Déoric. A bit of walking won’t do me any harm. And please don’t start apologising again. It’s not your fault that you can’t break into a run and scout out a nice little brook for us.”

There was no contesting the truth of this, and Déoric had to content himself with feeling miserable. The heather, brown, tough and scratchy, came up to Niarl’s knees in places and hampered their progress. By mid-afternoon, the heather made way for grass and the ground slanted ever so slightly downwards. Another half hour took them to the edge of a small, bracken-filled glen, and here at last they heard the welcome gurgle of running water.

Descending was not easy. The plant cover hid some almost perpendicular cliff faces. Niarl had to leave Déoric with the horses and walk a good stretch in each direction before he found a promising slope. Even so, Déoric had to dismount and crawl down among the old brown fronds and the newly unfolding green as Niarl led the horses ahead of him. The bottom of the glen turned out to be lush and narrow, less than twenty yards across and lined with fresh, green bushes and a single, oddly-shaped rowan tree. Down here, the bracken grew unusually high and formed a veritable little forest of tiny brown trees. The brook ran over round, mossy boulders much in the manner of others they had encountered in the Wold and formed an eddying pool near the tree. It was there that Niarl took the horses to drink while Déoric was still struggling in the fern thickets halfway up the bank.

“Do you think we should stay here overnight?” he called down.

“It looks promising. And quite frankly, I need a rest,” said Niarl and leaned against the tree.

“Surely that’s no reason to disturb my rest?” replied the tree.

Déoric had never seen Niarl jump quite so quickly. And then he witnessed the somewhat more astonishing sight of the tree turning round. It turned and revealed a face with large, round eyes under grey-green hair much like lichen, and he realised that what looked like two long, sturdy branches were in reality arms and that this was no tree at all but –

“ - a tree troll?”

“Hm, ho, tree troll? No, no troll. I would prefer it if you said Ent, though that is a hasty word even for me to use. Oh, do not fear, there is no need to back away like that.”

“You mean you’re harmless?” said Niarl, who had succeeded in putting a good seven yards between himself and the creature, but was prevented from retreating further by the rock face behind him.

“Harmless?” The tree man released a grumbling sound that may well have been laughter. “I do not think so. No, I would say I am dangerous. Yes. Very, very dangerous. I have been fighting orcs and wizards. Well, one wizard, and ill did it go for him! But I have no reason to fight you. I leave the horse people in peace, as long as they leave me and my trees in peace. My name is Quickbeam in the common tongue.”

“I am pleased to meet you, Quickbeam,” said Déoric from his safe distance. He took heart from the fact that the horses continued to drink calmly and didn’t seem to feel disturbed by the creature. “I am Déoric, son of Féadred, the Chronicler of the Mark. This is my friend and escort, Niarl, son of Wulfgar. We are travelling by order of Éomer King to collect stories of the Mark.”

This was the usual introduction they had presented everywhere on their journey and it flowed off his lips without requiring any thought, though the look the – what had he called himself, Ent? – gave him made him feel like a little boy playing with a wooden sword when suddenly the grow-up men come into the room with their real blades. For a start, there was something radiating off Quickbeam that created a peculiar impression of ... depth. He seemed deeply, deeply rooted, both in the soil and in something else – time, perhaps...?

“You are quite a distance away from the next village,” said Quickbeam. “Did you get lost?”

“Yes,” said Niarl with a grin. “It’s Déoric’s speciality. But he always finds people to rescue him.”

“Is that so? Hum ho ha. In that case, I shall have to be the one who does the rescuing. Since you are seeking a camp for the night, I can tell you that this is as good a place as you will find. In the morning, follow the course of the river to the North-West, but do so from the high ground to begin with. About half a mile from here, the river goes through a deep gorge that you will not be able to traverse with you horses. Once you have passed the gorge, you will find it easiest to return to the valley. The village itself sits by the river, about half a day’s ride from here.”

“Thank you, Master Quickbeam.” Déoric had at last reached the floor of the glen and called for Ivornel so he could retrieve his crutches. “We may have to walk all the way, though. Niarl’s horse is lame.”

The tree man tut-tutted into his greenish beard and began to rummage in a rough, bark-like contraption that turned out to be a bag with a long shoulder strap. He pulled out a water skin.

“I do not know if this will help,” he said, “but you might want to give it a try.”

“Water?”

“Not just water, no, hum ho. It is an Ent draught. A secret recipe, if you must know. I always carry some with me when I leave the forest to visit the trees of the Wold.”

He poured a clear liquid into a shallow dent on one of the large boulders and gave a kind of low whistle. Straight away, Niarl’s mare picked up her ears and came over. She sniffed the Ent draught and then gulped it up greedily. Niarl and Déoric stared at her as if they expected to see her gallop away immediately. The tree man laughed, a slightly disconcerting, rumbling sound.

“Now leave her to rest,” he said. “Who knows, she might be better in the morning. Hum ho. In the meantime, I would welcome your company for this evening. If you have a story to tell, all the better, and I shall tell you one in return.”

Few proposals could have pleased Déoric more, and so they hastened to set up camp, listening to an urgent instinct that advised them to do without a fire. When their horses were provided for and their bedrolls spread out in a cosy nest of greenery, they squatted down for their evening meal of dry bread and salted bacon.

“Will you not sit down?” said Niarl. “Have something to eat.”

“If it’s all the same to you,” replied the tree man, “I prefer to stand. I hope that does not make you feel uneasy. And thank you, but I do not require the same kind of sustenance that you need. A sip of my Ent draught will do me just fine.”

So they each partook of what rations were suitable for their kind, and then Déoric told two stories to which the Ent listened with solemn mien. To finish his recital – for he noticed that his throat was beginning to feel dry – Déoric chose the story he had heard in the last village, of the Ent rescuing the two children.

“Oh yes,” said Quickbeam, “they were pitifully lost, hum ho ha. I was going to take them back to the village, but their folk found them before I had got very far.”

“So it was you?”

“Of course. Other Ents do not venture into the Wold. But I am not only hastier than my brethren, but more adventurous, too. And I have many friends here.”

“You do?”

“Oh, yes. There are a couple of alder trees not far downriver from here, and pines about a mile away on the hillside, and a grove of old rowans - ”

“Your friends are trees?” said Niarl. Déoric, for want of a spare leg with which to kick Niarl’s foot, nudged him with one of his crutches. The Ent, however, only rumbled his good-natured laugh.

“As much as those horses are friends to you,” he said with a gesture towards the two mares. “But I promised you a story and I shall not withhold it any longer. It is a story that - ”

Déoric, who saw that the light was beginning to fade, felt compelled to interrupt.

“Master Quickbeam,” he said, “forgive me, but would you consider it too bold of me if I asked to draw your image while you speak?”

“Draw my image? What do you mean?”

“I mean... Have a look at this.” He drew from his saddlebags a wad of parchments and handed the Ent some sketches he had done during the last few days. Fingers like sturdy twigs reached out and held up the sheets. The Ent looked at each picture for longer than was comfortable for Déoric to watch. Eventually, he passed them back.

“I see you possess Elven skills, my young friend. Hum ho. I did not know that Men wielded this peculiar magic as well.”

“There is no magic involved, Master Quickbeam. It is a skill that I honed in many hours of patient exercise. The Men of the Mark don’t usually practice this Art, but the people of Gondor do. Éomer King has commissioned me to travel through the Mark and record the life of our people in word and image. Few in our city of Edoras have heard of ... Ents, and even fewer have any idea of what they really are. I would be honoured if you would allow me to bring home a picture that would show them there’s truth in the old tales.”

The Ent made a stiff forward movement that might have passed for a bow.

“The honour is all on my side,” he said and folded his arms.

And so, while the Ent told a story that was long and complicated and hard to follow, Déoric took a likeness like none he had ever done before, and he rejoiced in his good fortune that Niarl was sitting beside him awake and alert, bearing witness that this was all perfectly true and not just the offspring of a feverish mind.

~oOoOo~

They awoke rather later than they had meant to, but it had been a merry evening under a moonlit sky. The jug of ale had been emptied, Quickbeam had laughed a lot and Niarl had entertained their small party with songs of the Mark. He had even got up at one point and shown off a dance, which had clearly amused the Ent, who tried to join in.

The morning sobered them with a fine drizzle and the need to move on. Quickbeam, as he had announced the night before, was gone, set off at the first light of dawn to return to his home in Fangorn Forest. For a moment, Déoric wondered if he had dreamed the whole encounter. However, Niarl’s word and his own drawing of the Ent confirmed it as real.

Whether it was the effect of the Ent draught or else half a day’s rest had sufficed to set her to rights, in any case, Niarl’s mare no longer limped and the swelling of the fetlock had subsided. They hastened to pack up and climb out of the glen, an endeavour that proved strenuous for Déoric, who couldn’t use his left arm as much as he would have needed to. Once they had won the high ground, they mounted and rode off north-westwards as Quickbeam had advised them. Soon the early rain eased off. The sun remained veiled, though, and hence the land appeared lacklustre and sullen.

By noon the weather turned brighter and they began to watch out for a place to rest.

“Look there, they must be two of Quickbeam’s friends,” said Niarl and pointed.

Déoric followed the gesture. Behind a couple of birches, the sky displayed a pattern of greyish-blue and dusty-white yellow. It was a strangely colour-drained backdrop to the lush trees in their first green.   Déoric considered the kind of brush strokes he would use to render the scene.

It was a landmark of sorts, and the birches attracted them as is the way of trees, so they rode up to take their respite there. When they drew closer, they saw a mound on the far side of the trees, where the grass grew longer and greener and tiny white dots marked the blooms of that most melancholy of flowers: Simbelmynë. For a few paralysed seconds, Déoric stopped breathing.

This was the place. There was no telling how he knew, but this was it.

Déoric.

No voice had spoken his name, he had felt the word rather than heard it.

Déoric.

“I am here,” he whispered. His lips trembled.

He didn’t need Niarl’s confirmation that there were three broken spear shafts still embedded in the mound.  He didn’t need to recollect what the other riders had told him and his mother on their return. He didn’t doubt. He had found the place. This was it.

Later he couldn’t remember how he had got off his horse or where Niarl went or how long he sat there with his hands clutching the grass. He cried. What else was there to do?

It was quiet and still, with no wind even here on the top of the hill and somewhere high above he heard the trill of the skylark. It reminded him of something, some time and place connected with death and sadness and a sudden determination to live in spite of everything, but he couldn’t quite remember when and where that had been. 

“You have to draw this, Déoric,” said Niarl, when he eventually returned. “You really have to.”

“I know.”

Niarl brought him parchment and stylus from the saddlebags and Déoric wiped off his tears and began to draw: the birches with their peeling white bark, the mound, the backdrop of hills. The tip of a broken spear, surrounded by pale white flowers. And then, on another sheet, he drew his father’s face. He had tried before, more than once, but the image had always faded under his fingertips.

“It’s him,” said Niarl, looking over Déoric’s shoulder. “You’ve captured him very well.”

“I suppose.” Déoric sighed. “Drawing the dead from memory is not the happiest way to employ my art.”

“But much appreciated by those who loved them.”

Déoric made no reply, but reached up and squeezed Niarl’s hand. They lingered a while longer, in silence, for what else was there to say, and then whistled for their horses and set off to follow the path on which Quickbeam had sent them.

~oOoOo~

Late in the afternoon they found themselves still in the river valley with no sign of the next village. It wound on in a haphazard fashion, as if it didn’t really care what direction it was taking. Had it not been for the sun, they would have lost track of which way they were heading. Yet following the river meant at least that they couldn’t get lost. It was a pleasant river, too, just quick enough to make an agreeable noise. The banks were steep at times and flat and sandy at others, with hazel thickets in places and myriads of a pale blue flower that neither of the men knew.

“I don’t doubt Quickbeam’s word,” said Niarl, “but I wonder if he has misjudged the distance. With those long legs of his, he might easily overtake people on horseback, especially on such unkempt paths as these.”

“So what do you suggest?” said Déoric. “We don’t have much choice.” His voice sounded distant.

“That slope doesn’t look too steep. Let’s get out of this valley and see what we can see from higher ground.”

They ascended the bank, letting the rushing sound of the river drop away behind them. When they reached the crest of the hill, they realised what had been absent during their journey in the valley: wind. Now it teased their hair and stroked their faces with cool caresses.

It must have carried a scent of sorts, for the horses shook their heads in unease and took a few sideways steps before the men regained control of them. A glance down the far side of the hill showed a dark, huddled shape half propped up against a boulder.

“Orc,” hissed Niarl.

They drew their swords and scanned the surroundings. There was nothing to see, though, just open space and a few rocks that could not have hidden anything much. Weapons clenched, they advanced on the creature.

When they came close enough, they saw that the orc’s foul rags were soaked in black blood, already caked in places, but glistening wet in others. Flies buzzed about, attracted by the stench or some other instinct that made them seek out death and decay.

Death, however, had not struck yet. The orc stared at the men with eyes that were half-closed but not broken. Niarl brought his horse forward until it loomed over the creature.

“Where are your comrades?”

The orc opened his eyes a fraction further. He drew breath with a horribly gurgling sound that made Déoric grind his teeth.

“Gone,” he rasped. “Left … me.”

“This could be a trap,” said Niarl quietly to Déoric.

“I doubt it,” Déoric whispered back. “Who would they be trying to ambush in this empty land? But keep watch. I want to have a closer look.”

He slid off his horse, seized the crutches and went over to the orc. A whole swarm of flies took off at his approach, but returned within an instant. He flailed at them.

The orc lay motionless and twisted in a strange angle. Déoric had an inkling that the creature’s back might be broken.

“Do you swear you are alone?”

“Yes,” said the orc between two heavy breaths. Then he mumbled something else. It took Déoric a few seconds to work out what the word had been. Hurt. With such injuries, the orc had to be in agony. Déoric looked him in the eye and felt his insides tighten when he recognised the expression: pleading. The enemy was begging him for mercy.

This could mean only one thing. Déoric’s hand tensed around his sword hilt, but queasiness made him avert his face. The flies, unchecked, continued their sickening dance. One settled on Déoric’s hand and ran up his arm.

“Niarl,” said Déoric with all the urgency he could muster. “I can’t do this. Please…”

“Step aside,” said Niarl. He didn’t dismount. With one powerful stroke, he brought his sword sweeping round. There was a scraping sound when tip of the blade hit the rock, and then the orc’s head toppled over and fell into the grass.   

Neither man moved. For a few seconds, the drone of the flies was the only sound to be heard. Then it was joined by another. Déoric wept. Maybe it was because he had already shed tears earlier that crying came so easily to him now. Maybe his mind just faltered after having seen true suffering in so loathsome a creature. And to think that he had ever wanted to be a warrior!

“Come on, Déoric.” Niarl leaned forward and touched his shoulder. “Let’s get away from here. I’m not completely convinced that there are no other orcs about.”

“I know.” Déoric wiped his sleeve across his face “It’s strange that there should have been any. Hadn’t they all been routed?”

“I can’t tell. There might still be scattered survivors from Isengard hiding away somewhere. Hunger maybe drove them into the Wold. It’s hard to be sure. Let’s go. The sooner we reach the village, the better.”

Déoric took Ivornel’s bridle and mounted. They rode off at a trot and were grateful to leave the nauseating noise of the flies behind.

“Forgive me for being such a weakling,” said Déoric after a while. “I felt so sorry for him. Did you feel sorry for him, too?”

 “Yes.” Niarl stared straight ahead. “I suppose I should be grateful that you didn’t try to draw him.”

“Maybe I should have.”

They rode on in silence for a while. Déoric’s thoughts were torn between the memory of his father’s grave and the pitiful encounter with the dying orc. At last they saw the first houses of the village in a ravine leading off from the western bank.

“Promise me one thing, Déoric,” said Niarl after they had forded the river.

 “And what would that be?”

“Don’t tell Éomer King about this.”

Chapter 21: Surprises

After the memorable two days of such unexpected encounters, the remainder of their journey was uneventful. Déoric filled another dozen sheets or so with new tales, but the closer they drew to home, the more familiar were the stories of the villagers. Not that this was any worry, for the overall yield of the expedition satisfied him. Moreover, he felt sure it would satisfy the king, too, and perhaps make him look favourably on Déoric again. The only thing he had found that could possibly annoy Éomer was the discovery that even orcs can raise feelings of pity in a man, but since there was no need to mention it, he wouldn’t.

Nightfall prevented them from reaching Edoras after a bright and breezy day, the first in April. When forced to decide whether to ride on for a couple of hours in the dark or to seek the hospitality of a near farmstead, they had chosen the latter. The farmers were an elderly couple who could have passed for brother and sister had it not been for their talk of “our sons,” so similar in posture and expression had their shared life rendered them. They treated the young men to carrot stew and apple crumble and the latest news from Edoras.

“Just think, the Lady Éowyn is back! She arrived two days ago with her husband and her little boy.”

“Ah.” Déoric looked up from his plate. “For the wedding, of course. Is she well?”

“How would we know, young man? We only heard that her party was riding past. It’s not for the likes of us to step forward and greet her.”

“She has been kind to me,” said Déoric. “She encouraged me at a time when my courage was in short supply. I would dearly like to see her and see her happy.”

“She’s spoken to you, face to face?” The tone of awe in the farmer’s voice was unmistakable.

“Well, yes. I wrote her inventory when she prepared to leave for Gondor. I felt miserable then about my leg, and she told me I would know joy again. She was right, of course. Life doesn’t end because of one misfortune.”

“Words of wisdom,” said the farmer. “We’ve faced some tough times in our lives, but we’ve always pulled through.” He put his arm around his wife’s shoulders and she leaned her head against his. “And it’s good to see you young people so full of vigour and hope.”

Déoric, however, didn’t feel very vigorous after the day’s ride and soon they sought the beds hastily prepared for them in the hay loft. They closed the shutters on the window to shut out the moonlight and snuggled down with their blankets

Niarl sighed.

“I could have travelled on for a bit longer,” he said. “It seems to have gone by awfully fast.”

“Don’t you miss Aedre?”

“Well, yes, but Aedre would still be there, whether we returned tomorrow or next week.”

Déoric shook his head, however pointless this gesture was in the dark. “I’m sure to her it makes a difference. I does to me. I’ve missed Fana and I’ve missed my little one. I’m not keen to ride out and leave them again any time soon.”

“Well, let’s hope then that the king will be pleased enough with your crop of stories to let you back into that cosy scribe’s room of yours.”

Now it was Déoric who sighed.

“You know what? I missed Éomer King, too.”

~oOoOo~

On the bench in front of the house sat Dirlayn with Léofred by her side, talking quietly. Blythe slept on Dirlayn’s lap. They looked up when they heard the sound of Déoric’s crutches on the paving slabs.

“Déoric!” Dirlayn smiled; it was clear that she would have liked to get up and embrace him, but was prevented by the sleeping babe. “I’m glad you’re here. Why, I would have never expected you to arrive so early in the day.”

“We almost made it yesterday, but decided to stay the night at a farm. Where is Fana?”

“She was very tired. I told her to go and lie down. Mothering is a strenuous business. She’s fine otherwise, though, so don’t worry. Come and sit with us.”

Déoric moved towards the bench, where the other two shuffled apart to make space for him. He settled down, bent over and breathed a kiss on his daughter’s cheek. Léofred put a hand on the young man’s shoulder.

“Welcome back, Déoric. You’ve been missed in more than one quarter. But more of that later. I’ll have to leave now.” He leaned forward and said to Dirlayn: “You tell him. He needs to hear it from you. Until tomorrow.”

With this he swiftly rose, walked out through the gate and up the street. Déoric looked at his mother with an anxious expression.

“What are you to tell me? Is anything the matter with Fana?”

“No, Déoric, don’t fret, all is well. It is a very different matter of which I need to speak to you. It is about Léofred.”

“Léofred? What about him?”

Dirlayn stroked one of her braids with her fingers.

“Can you not guess?”

Déoric frowned. The king’s advisor had seemed both healthy and happy. To be sure, he might have news from Éomer, but he would hardly leave those for Dirlayn to tell.

“No, I can’t,” he said. “What is it?”

To his surprise, his mother blushed and turned her head aside with a smile.

“He has asked me to marry him,” she said.

Déoric would have jumped up, even on his one leg, had his mother’s hand not suddenly rested firmly on his arm.

“Mother! How presumptuous of him! I cannot believe it! I hope you told him to – “

“Hush, Déoric! There is not presumption in the matter, other than yours in taking offence on my behalf. I told him that I would be very happy to become his wife. Don’t you look at me like that! You must know better than anybody else what a good man he is.” 

“Yes, but Mother – “

“And he is very fond of you, as I am sure you well know.”

Déoric was struggling for words. He bit his knuckle, reverting to that old habit that he had hoped to have overcome.

“What about Father?” he said at last.

His mother looked down at the ground, where a line of ants scurried between two cracks in the slabs. For years they had tried to get rid of them, but no amount of boiling water had purged them for good. Eventually, Dirlayn had resigned herself to sharing her garden with these little creatures.

“Déoric, nobody will ever take your father’s place. Can you not understand? Your father and I, we shared everything you share with Fana now, that thrill of first love, of having a child, all the vigour of youth. All that will always remain precious to me. My affection for Léofred is quite different. It is based on friendship and respect rather than passion. What we seek in each other is comfort and companionship. Will you deny that to me – or to him?”

These words could not be without effect on Déoric, and he lowered his head in painful embarrassment.

“Mother,” he began, “I could not...I would not...I’m sorry. I had not thought of the needs of your heart, or of his. He is, as you say, a most excellent man. You have to excuse the folly of youth to think that love is our privilege alone.”

“Oh, Déoric!” She put her free arm around him and held him tight. And even though he was taller these days than she was, he felt as comforted by her touch as he had been when he was a little boy and his head had fitted neatly under her chin.

It seemed an awkward moment for it, but since the subject of his father had already been brought up, Déoric couldn’t stop himself from sharing his news. He rummaged in his bag. Dirlayn took the parchment that he held out to her.

“What is – oh.”

She sat very still and stared at the sheet.

“Is this where...?” she asked at last.

“I think so,” said Déoric. “I have no proof, but I...felt him there. As if I could hear his voice in my head.”

Dirlayn said nothing. He guessed that she summoned the memory of his father’s voice in her mind, just like he had done while he drew the picture. Féadred had always been a fair-spoken man. Suddenly, something occurred to Déoric that he had hitherto failed to understand.

“Mama,” he said. “You know how I always wanted to be like him. And I thought I couldn’t be, but now I see that he was not just a warrior. He was a story teller, and I – I think he would be proud of me.”

“Oh, Déoric!” Dirlayn hugged him again. “Of course he would be. How could you ever have thought otherwise!”

~oOoOo~

It was with an anxious heart that Déoric approached his king the following afternoon. Éomer had left him in peace during the morning, while Déoric sorted through the parchments from his saddlebags. By the time he was summoned into the Great Hall, he had compiled a neat bundle of the most interesting stories and few select sketches.

“I want a word with you, Chronicler of the Mark,” said Éomer by way of a greeting. “You will remember that we did not part on the friendliest of terms.”

“Forgive me, my lord,” said Déoric. “I hope you will be better pleased with the results of my latest journey. I have brought you a sample of – “

 “That has time till later,” said the king and waved his hand impatiently. “It is of our original quarrel that I want to speak to you at this moment.”

Déoric cringed. He had hoped to soothe the king’s anger with his new achievements and steer clear of the contentious subject.

“Do no fret, Déoric. I have no intention to bite off your head. For a start, I have already had  a rather filling midday meal. And please do take a seat. I do not want to be responsible if you fall over with exhaustion.”

He nodded at one of the guards, who brought a small, leather-upholstered chair and placed it next to Déoric.

“I have given this a lot of thought while you were away, Déoric,” said the king. “The Dunlendings are our enemies. Were our enemies during the war, anyway. However, I think some of us, and I am guilty of this myself, have made them worse in our minds than they really are. You were right to point out that, first and foremost, they are just people. I think sometimes we like to think of others as being very bad, maybe to distract ourselves from seeing the badness in our own hearts.”

“That is true,” said Déoric. “I think we even do that with animals. People like to think that wolves are evil, and they use that as an excuse to go and kill them.”

“Yes, perhaps. I am not concerned with wolves, though, I am concerned with the Dunlendings. I have convinced myself now that they are people and that they may even have grievances against us.”

“That does you credit, my lord.”

“Ha, I dare say it does. But Déoric, thoughts alone are of little value. What matters is deeds. My deeds matter more than other people’s deeds. I am a king, and what I do sets the law. Therefore, I must act in such a way as to set a good law for the Mark. At least that is what I first thought. But why stop there? I have come to the conclusion that everybody should act in such a way that they would approve of it if everybody else would act in the same manner. So I had to ask myself, if the Rohirrim were starving, what deeds would I approve of in other people?”

“Léofred told me that you sent supplies to Dunland.”

“Yes, but they will only go so far. They do not need charity; they need farmland. We cannot give them ours. What is to be done then?”

Déoric frowned, as if he had been given a tricky sum to do. “I don’t know, my lord.”

Éomer laughed.

“Good,” he said, “then you will be impressed with my proposals. Lord Faramir has promised to send me plans for a new kind of plough that has been devised in Ithilien. Ploughshares wrought from steel, imagine that, Déoric! The dwarves of Aglarond will help us there. If we share this knowledge with the Dunlendings, they will be able to get better harvests from what little farmland they have. And then, then, Déoric - ”

He paused and grinned.

“Then we help them to drain their bogs.”

He leaned back and folded his arms, apparently expecting exclamations of wonder or at least applause.

“How can you drain a bog?” asked Déoric.

“I do not know,” replied Éomer, “but there are people in Gondor who do. King Elessar has promised to send me up a couple of men to show us how it is done.”

“My lord,” said Déoric. “I hardly know what to say. This is truly wonderful.”

“Isn’t it just? I thought you might approve. Furthermore, I have sent word to Dunland and asked some of their chieftains to come to Edoras so we can negotiate the terms of peace. I confess I am rather pleased with myself, Déoric. I hope you are pleased with me, too.”

“Of course, my lord. This is more than I had hoped for.”

“It gives me satisfaction to exceed your expectations.”

For the first time during this conversation, Déoric fully met the king’s eyes, and he was not as surprised as he might have been when he saw Éomer’s barely suppressed mirth. He allowed himself to smile. The king smiled back and gestured at him to come closer. Déoric leaned forward.

“There is another thing, Déoric,” the king said and rose from his seat. “Another thing I have thought. It is not right to treat people as if they were things. Every Man carries his own value within himself. I am your king, but that should not mean that you exist only to do what suits me or to think only what furthers my aims. I was wrong to expect you to tell me only what I would be delighted to hear. You were right to speak your mind to me on a matter of great importance. I am sorry I did not take it more gracefully.”

And there he stood, Éomer son of Éomund, thirty years old, taller than most, wiser than many, well and truly a king.

Chapter 22: Old friends, new ideas

The city of the Horse Lords smelled strange. Merilwen was not unfamiliar with the odour of horses, but in Minas Tirith and Ithilien it was only ever encountered in certain places. Here, it tinted everything. The nose grew used to it after a while, and then it was surprised again when turning a corner or stepping out of a building to meet with an even stronger whiff. It was no unpleasant smell, and judging by the state of the streets, someone was obviously employed to remove any horse dung from public places. However, it was pervasive, and it struck Merilwen afresh through the opened shutters in the morning, pushing aside what little of her own scent wafted through the room.

She moved back from the window and turned to the washbowl. Once she had put her face and hair to rights, she was ready to leave. It was the day of rest and that left her free from all duties this morning, unless the Lady Éowyn should unexpectedly call for her. It was also her fiftieth birthday, a date that none remembered now save herself, and she had resolved to provide her very own birthday treat: seeking out the young man who was so inexplicably dear to her. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t saved lives before, many times. Why this lad had become so special to her, she could hardly tell. Perhaps it was because he had needed her so much, not only to tend to his wounds, but to support his spirit. And to know how he had flourished since and gained such happiness in spite of his misfortune – ah, would that all the scars of the war were so beautifully healed! Yes, it was the healer’s heart that rejoiced at the very thought of Déoric.

An errand boy at the Golden Hall had given her instructions, and though she lost her way a few times, friendly Rohirrim were eager to point her in the right direction and so she soon arrived at the gate and peered into the little garden. A young woman was busy pegging laundry to a washing line strung between the house and the fence. Merilwen recognised her as Fana, from the drawing Déoric had sent her. The older woman who knelt in the vegetable patch had to be his mother. Déoric himself sat in a wheeled chair, stylus in hand, sketching the scene.

There’s my boy, she thought, and then checked herself. It gave her a pang to see the two women who had the right to call him theirs, but this lasted only for a moment, because when Déoric noticed her, he dropped his drawing on his lap and whirled his chair round.

“Merilwen!” The wheeled chair rumbled over the paving slabs. “Mama, Fana, look who’s here! Come in, come in!”

So she was ushered in, and welcomed, while Déoric’s mother wiped her hands on her apron, and “We have heard so much about you,” while Fana smiled and picked up a tiny infant from a basket on the bench and held it up to her, while Déoric grinned and “Did you come here with the Lady Éowyn?” and she was urged to sit down on the bench to tell them everything as Déoric brought his chair beside her, and his face was tanned and his eyes shining and she was incredibly glad to see him so well.

They had exchanged a couple of letters during the last year, but there was still a lot to tell. She soon found to her surprise that she had just as much to say as Déoric, about Ithilien and the new life there, and the Lady Éowyn and her son, and about their journey to Edoras.

“And do you not find it distressing, living so close to the Black Land?” asked Déoric’s mother.

“No, not distressing. Ithilien is neglected, but it’s easy to see that it was once very beautiful and will be beautiful again. That encourages us greatly in our work. The Black Land is just like an empty, hollow shadow now; it holds no threat or menace anymore. The Lord Faramir even thinks that in times yet to come, things might flourish there. I can’t see that happening, but those young people are always so optimistic.”

“I know what you mean. Déoric thinks we should make peace with Dunland.”

“But Mother, Éomer King has agreed with me!”

“Very well, Déoric, and I hope you’ll both be right, but I do believe you see things a bit too rosy. The old lady who looked after you is certainly a kind and generous woman, but that doesn’t mean the same is true for the rest of those Dunlendings.”

“Dirlayn, if there can be one exception to our ill opinion of them, then there is no reason not to think that there can be more,” said Fana. “You’d really have to meet every single one of them and decide for yourself.”

“The Dunlendings are your neighbours to the north?” asked Merilwen.

“The northwest. I was stuck there all winter with a broken arm and got to know a few of the people. It changed my mind quite a bit.”

“Men are not orcs,” said Merilwen. “They may go down the wrong path, but they’re never irredeemable. Our king has made peace with the people of Harad, and while some of our folk have hard feelings about this, I believe we will see the benefits of it as time goes by. Who knows, there might be a way to live at peace even with the Easterlings.”

“Now who’s overly optimistic!” said Déoric and rubbed his stump. “I confess I would find it hard to forgive the Easterlings, which just goes to show that we tend to be unduly influenced by our personal experiences.”

“But by the same token, your experience in Dunland has made you think better of them. Maybe you should try to get stuck in the East next winter.”

“Most certainly not!” said Fana. “Déoric will make all his further musings on the merits of other people from the safety of his own home. I will defy even Éomer King himself to send him away again.”

Merilwen smiled.

“You take great care of him,” she said. “That’s good to know.”

~oOoOo~

A long conversation with Merilwen delayed Déoric’s chief plan for the day, which was to consult Gléowine. However, after the midday meal, he escorted Merilwen back to the Golden Hall with a promise to show her his work the following day and from there he made his way to the house of the old minstrel, whom he found outside among his plant pots.

“Good day to you, Déoric. Did you get yourself into trouble again?”

“Not yet,” said Déoric and sank down on the bench. “In fact, Éomer King appears to have changed his mind. He’s come up with a plan to help the Dunlendings.”

“Has he now? Did he come to think better of it all by himself or did someone put in a good word for you?”

“Oh.” Déoric raised his eyebrows. “Did you?”

“No, not me.”

“Léofred then. I hadn’t thought of that, but you’re probably right. Why do I always need people to sort things out for me?”

“Because you are young and reckless.” Gléowine chuckled. “But never mind. Diplomacy is all very well, but it is not exactly a straight forward way of dealing with things. You may be a fool, but an honest fool.”

“Well, I thank you, Master Gléowine. Your compliments are precious gems indeed.”

“Do not sulk, Déoric. You know I think highly of you. How did you get on with your stories on this journey? Have you been bamboozled by conflicting accounts again?”

“Well.” The ginger cat made her appearance and rubbed her head against Déoric’s leg. “I’ve found conflicting stories, but I think I’m beginning to make sense of them.”

“Really? Do tell.”

“I heard this story about a man who had to get the severed heads of seven orcs as a challenge from his bride.”

“Oh. She was not too keen on him, was she?”

“Possibly not. Anyway, in one village it was told quite straight forward, how he got the orcs one after another, each in a different manner. However, in another village, some twenty miles away, the story had a little twist. Before he found his seventh orc, he came to a gorge where a troll lived, and that troll would have eaten him, had he not outwitted it. I found that curious at the time, but I came to understand it the following day when we travelled past a similar gorge near the village and were almost caught up in a rock slide.”

“So what exactly did you understand then?”

“That the episode with the troll was probably meant for the children of the village as a warning not to go near the gorge where such accidents threatened. Whoever added that bit must have believed that the thought of the troll would keep the youngsters away. Not that I think that would have worked.”

“You would have been there like a shot to see if it was true?”

“Probably, and my friends as well, Fana ahead of us all. That doesn’t matter, though. What I understood there, Gléowine, was that the differences in the story had a purpose. It wasn’t about what had actually happened, about what was true in the strict sense, but about what seemed useful to the people of that particular village.”

“Well done, young man.” Gléowine picked up the cat and began to tickle her under the chin. “Now tell me, has this helped you at all in coming to terms with the conflicting stories about Helm Hammerhand?”

“Not yet, but let me think. The Eorlingas colonised the Mark by leave of the king of Gondor, so they thought they had a right to be there. The Dunlendings had lived here before, so they also thought they had a right to be there. They felt hard done by; while we thought all was well. They kept pestering us, thinking they were only trying to get their own back, while we felt they were trying to take what’s rightfully ours. And so it went on for ages, and then Helm struck a crucial blow against Freca and that threw back the Dunlendings for a good long while. Now, the Eorlingas would have rejoiced in that and the Dunlendings, obviously, not. So, to the people of the Riddermark Helm Hammerhand was a hero and the stories show Freca as an insolent upstart who gets his just deserves. To the people of Dunland, though, Helm is a brutal tyrant and Freca the hero who gives his life in an attempt to stand up to him. And they cannot both be right.”

“No,” said Gléowine. He let the word hang in the air, like an unfinished line in a song. Déoric knew he was supposed to notice something, but what? They couldn’t both be right, but...?

“But they could both be wrong? Neither story is true?”

“You are always going on about truth, Déoric, as if truth was some gemstone or precious metal that you could unearth if you only dig for long enough. I do not think it is like that. Both stories were true, in their own way, at the time. To the Eorlingas, feeling a threat from Dunland, Helm was a hero defending their land. That was true. To the Dunlendings, Freca was a hero trying to claim back some of what they considered theirs. That was also true. Is any of this still true now? Look at what has come out of it, generations of war and strife.”

“So you think it was foolish of them to tell the stories as they did?”

“No, not foolish,” said Gléowine and shook his head, “but regrettable.”

“So what is the truth that we want to see now?”

“That is for you to find out, Déoric. We could hang on to our old truths, but where will it lead us? Truth has many faces – you should seek the one that nurtures our people. Perhaps we should part with the notion that we should find the perfect truth. Perhaps it would be enough to be...”

“...less wrong?” said Déoric.

“Yes, that may well be the best we can hope for. But no, that sounds too despondent. Stories do not only carry on our old grudges, they can also show us how to do things better. Remember, Déoric, that stories are not only about the past. They are also about the future.”

“I would like to believe that, Gléowine. But what can I do about it?”

“Hm.” Gléowine stroked his beard and glanced around the yard, which was, for a change, deserted of his lively grandchildren. “I think, Déoric, it is time that you sat down and rewrote that story.”

~oOoOo~

When Déoric returned home, halfway through the afternoon, he found his father-in-law, who had brought Ivornel and Fana’s pony. He stood with them by the gate, since there was no way to bring the horses into the garden without them trampling on Dirlayn’s plants.

“What’s happening?”

“You’re riding out together. The two grandmothers have decided that the young mother needs to get out a bit and spend time with her husband. I am merely instrumental to their will. Your mother has taken Blythe up to our house, to stop Fana from changing her mind at the last minute. Fana is inside getting into her riding gear.”

Indeed, at this very moment Fana appeared, ready to go. She didn’t look as if she was likely to change her mind and she mounted her pony without any hesitation.

“Thank you so much, Papa,” she said. “We’ll make sure to be back before Blythe is hungry again.”

“Don’t worry, my dear, we can always find her a wet nurse.”

“Don’t you dare! Good bye, until later!”

Déoric, surprised but happy enough to comply with this plan, clambered onto his mare; they waved to Ethelhelm and rode down the streets to the city gate.

“Where now?” said Déoric once they had left the cobbles and gained soft grass underfoot.

“Up into the hills for a bit,” said Fana eagerly. “We haven’t got much time, because Blythe will want fed in about two hours, but we can go up just a little bit.”

“And can you cope?”

“I’m fine. I’ll take it easy, but I’ll be just fine. My mother was back in the saddle four weeks after I was born! So surely I can cope after six. Anyway, what about you? How’s your arm now?”

“I’ve been riding with this arm for weeks. It twinges a little sometimes, but it’s not a problem. Let’s go then and not waste time.”

So they turned towards the mountains and found their favourite path into the foothills. It climbed gently among thickets of hawthorn and hazel, the former freshly in leaf, the latter covered in catkins. They spoke little, listening instead to the snorting of their horses and the chirping of the blue tits. The day was pleasantly warm and the sun ahead hung half hidden behind wispy clouds. With the equinox passed, the daylight would last them until it was time to return.

When they reached the source of a little stream some six hundred feet above the plain, they turned eastwards and took a narrow trail that ran parallel to the slope. A dense line of conifers obstructed their view for about half a mile, until the path emerged at a lush meadow that ended abruptly in a cliff. Here stood a group of linden trees under which sheltered the bee hives of Fana’s Uncle Eadgar. It was too early in the year for the sweet linden blossoms, but the bees had still ventured out and droned about the grass in search for wild flowers.

Déoric and Fana dismounted close to the edge of the cliff. From here they could see Edoras, less than half an hour’s ride away if they took the serpentine path that led down from the meadow. It had been a cherished spot with them both in their days of roaming about the countryside before the war. They settled down in the grass and let the horses graze freely. A soft breeze had picked up and carried a scent of fresh growth with it.

“You seem deeply in thought, Déoric.”

“It’s been a thought-provoking day.”

“Yes. I liked what Merilwen said about Men never being irredeemable,” said Fana. “It must be dreadful to be an orc, don’t you think?”

“Probably. I saw one die, you know, just a few days ago. In fact, Niarl killed him to end his suffering. It was a very strange experience. Very unsettling. I couldn’t help thinking that he was just someone in pain, someone needing help. It was the first time it ever occurred to me that an orc could be a person. Could you imagine that?”

“I don’t know. I can’t quite imagine them at all. People say they’re horrible, but what do they look like?”

It took Déoric a few seconds to realise that Fana had never seen an orc. She had lived her whole life in the safety of Edoras, and even though she had been at Helm’s Deep along with everyone else, she had sheltered in the caves with the other women and had later been among a group that left via the mountain path and never crossed the battlefield. The enemies had no face for her.

“Well, they are somehow…twisted-looking. And they’re not all the same. Some are taller than others. They’re – wait, I’ll show you.”

Déoric, never without his shoulder bag, pulled out the sketchbook he always carried with him these days.  It consisted of two smooth wooden panels about two hands by three, held together with a leather strap. On the inside, the surfaces were prepared for his silverpoint stylus, a skill he had mastered after Guntram the tanner had shown him how to apply the white gouache.

Fana leaned against his left shoulder, lightly, so as not to disturb him, and watched as he conjured up the image of an orc soldier with a few well-placed lines.

“You see, they have fangs, like this…and bow legs … they can’t seem to stand up straight…their eyes are yellow, I think, not that I’ve ever looked that closely. I slew a couple at the Battle of Hornburg, but that was in the dark, and on the Pelennor it was mostly Men that fought us. The ones that attacked me and Aldfrid, well, that all happened very quickly. And then this other one.”

He lifted his stylus and moved over to the second panel. Ten minutes later, he had drawn the dying orc. He didn’t manage to capture the stricken expression he had seen in the creature’s eyes exactly, but close enough to give Fana a vague idea.

“There,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything to strange. There was no evil left in him, just pain and sorrow. Almost like a Man, one might say.”

Fana took the sketchbook and examined the picture.

“Poor thing,” she said. She rubbed her head against his arm and let her fingers run over his wrist and the back of his hand.

“You have such clever hands, Déoric. Everybody admires how you can do these pictures.”

“Hardly everybody.”

“Well, you know what I mean.”

“I’m not sure I do, but it’s enough for me that you’re impressed.”

He put his arm around her and looked down at the city of Edoras. The pattern of roofs looked somewhat like that of a honeycomb, albeit less regular. It was market day, and so the gate was busy with folk coming and going. From this distance, they appeared not unlike bees.

Yet the beehive wasn’t a fitting image for his people in spite of these similarities. For we, thought Déoric, are each of us named and needed, or even if not needed, then still named and loved. Our minds strive for so much more than just the survival of our kind, else we would not even know such words as honour or beauty.

And, his thoughts continued, it was good that bees were so different as to bear no resemblance to Men; that bees, and birds and wolves and deer and all other animals for that matter, lived a life quite of their own and would continue to do so even if there were no people in Middle-earth at all. It would be a sad world indeed otherwise.

Chapter 23: Enter the ladies

Lothíriel awoke and a sigh rose almost immediately to her lips. Another day of travelling lay ahead, and she was tired of it before it had even begun. She resented long journeys at the best of times, and this one in particular. Her father’s decision to take the coastal road, cross the Ered Nimrais and approach Rohan from the West had turned out to be, if not disastrous, then at least a real nuisance. It was a safe enough road, but lonely, with few settlements that could offer them hospitality, and to make matters worse, a persistent haze hid the lands that might have otherwise entertained Lothíriel on the way. She felt that the small advantage of having fewer miles to travel and shorten their journey by maybe a day was too dearly bought with insufferable boredom. It was most vexing to voyage so far and see nothing! If only they could ride faster, she thought as her maid fastened the ribbons of her gown. But it was not becoming for the Princess of Dol Amroth, let alone the future Queen of Rohan, to travel at anything more than walking pace, or so her Aunt Ivriniel insisted. Lothíriel had argued that in these empty lands, nobody would know even if she flew past in a gallop, but Ivriniel had said it was the principle of the matter. And her father, as usual, humoured his sister’s notions of etiquette, for since the death of his wife, he had trusted her in all things pertaining female decorum. Lothíriel admitted that her aunt was kindness personified and always meant well, but she wished that this benevolence was paired with a little more flexibility of mind.

Ivriniel, however, was not inclined to depart from the wisdom of her foremothers, and so their journey dragged on day after tedious day. The fog rarely lifted, revealing only tantalising glimpses of trees and hills now and then. There was no sense of progress in this roiling sea of grey. The previous night, when they had set up camp, her father had assured her that they had reached the borders of Rohan, though what hidden landmark might have imparted this knowledge to him she could not tell. Yet she was glad of it, because it meant that sooner rather than later their journey would come to an end. She was almost as impatient just to be done travelling as she was to see Éomer again!

“Lothíriel?” Aunt Ivriniel lifted the tent flap and stepped inside. “Good morning, my dear.” She greeted her niece with an affectionate kiss.

“Good morning, aunt.” Lothíriel suppressed another sigh. “Is it time to set off?” She wasn’t sure whether she would not prefer the confines of the tent to the shapeless world that awaited her outside.

“Just about, my dear, just about,” said Ivriniel. ”And I have an inkling that you will enjoy the ride today.”

She took Lothíriel by the hand and ushered her out.

A breezy wind touched their faces, a sensation that was as welcome to Lothíriel as it was unexpected. She drew breath and pressed her aunt’s hand. The mists had dissolved overnight. In the clear light, she saw that the camp nestled at the foot of a steep, rowan-clad hill. Dew clung to the grasses. She looked east, where the clouds loomed flecked with colour by the still hidden sun, peach and coral and a pale golden glow. Underneath this promising sky stretched out low, rolling hills greener than any she had ever seen. The country of Rohan lay ahead of her, lush and inviting, fresh and crisp. It would make a delightful picture.

With a moment’s pang she thought of her pitiful attempts at painting. It was futile; she had no talent for the art of shape and colour, however much she desired it. Another, then, would have to paint in her stead. She would make sure to nurture him and mould him to her tastes. Silly man to lose his paints! Well, Lothíriel of Dol Amroth had ways of dealing with that!

“Is this more to your liking?”

Her eldest brother approached her, leading his horse by the bridle. He grinned and gestured at the scene.

“Much more to my liking,” agreed Lothíriel. “I can see my new homeland is welcoming me.”

The faintest hint of a touch made her glance downward. A lacewing had settled on her smallest finger. She lifted her hand to look closely at the delicately veined wings.

“You are such a pretty thing,” she said quietly. “And useful, too, or so I have heard. You are an example to us all.”

The lacewing didn’t disagree.

~oOoOo~

Gléowine’s challenge drove Déoric into the scribe’s chamber early that morning and he set to work well before Brecc was expected to arrive. He had been awake late the previous night, talking things over with Fana, and so he had a fair idea of what he was going to write. There was an ending he would have liked to use, but whichever way he turned it, it didn’t match the facts – yet. Perhaps he would just have to leave it open and see what Éomer King would do.

Déoric leaned back in the wheeled chair Léofred had fashioned for use at the Hall. It was a comfort to be back in the scribe’s room. He opened a bottle of ink and inhaled the sharp smell. Not that he would use ink for drafting, which he preferred to do with a stylus, but the familiar scent took him back to his early days in this place and filled him with eagerness to meet a new challenge. Brecc had taken good care of all the tools of the scribe’s trade, as Déoric noted to his satisfaction. Parchments sat in neat piles on the desk, covered with a cloth to protect them from dust. On a small wooden tray lay well-cut quills. Everything was clean and tidy. A space on one of the shelves remained empty – his box of pigments should have sat there. He shook his head to chase away the feelings of regret and frustration. Desk, parchment, stylus – he had a task to attend to and couldn’t afford to mope over what might have been.

 He had barely filled the first page when to his surprise the Lady Éowyn entered with an infant on her arm.

“My lady! I am honoured. I hope you are well?”

“Very well, thank you. I have come to show off my child,” she said. “But I hear from Merilwen that you have one of your own, so you might not be as impressed as I could wish. This is Elboron.”

Déoric smiled and held out his hands.

“He is heavy,” he said when the child sat on his lap. “Blythe doesn’t weigh anywhere near as much.”

“A few months make a big difference,” she replied and sat down. “How old is your little one?”

“Not quite seven weeks.”

“Oh, if you are still counting weeks…”

Elboron clasped one of Déoric’s braids and tugged it.

“He is a splendid little boy indeed, Lady Éowyn. You are right to be proud of him.”

“Yes.” She looked around the room. “We have both changed a fair bit since that day you wrote my inventory,” she said without any obvious cue.

“I know that I have. You, my lady, do not look greatly changed to me, but I would imagine that your life in Ithilien is very different from what we know here.”

“Very different,” she agreed, “and not necessarily as I had pictured it. The land is very lush, you know, not at all what one might think of a country so close to Mordor. In fact, we live very pleasantly, thought there is, of course, much work to do still. The biggest surprise, though, was motherhood.”

“I can understand that. If there is one thing I have learned it’s that things are often different from what we expect,” said Déoric. “You will probably not remember this, but just before you left to get married, you told me that I might find joy again.”

“Oh, I do remember that,” said Éowyn. “And you didn’t believe me, did you?”

“Ah, but I did,” Déoric replied. “I couldn’t feel it or imagine how it could come about, but I knew you were right, if you see what I mean.”

“Sometimes knowing something doesn’t count for much if we cannot also feel the truth of it,” said Éowyn. “I knew that having a child would change my life, but it wasn’t until I held Elboron in my arms that I really understood.”

Déoric smiled and bounced the infant on his knee.

“I know,” he said. “They bring out a soft side in us that we didn’t know was there.”

“I’m sure you were never very short of soft sides.”

“Ha!” Déoric grinned. “I am amazed you should know me so well.”

“There is nothing amazing about it. You may be a man of surprising talents, but your character is very easy to figure out.”

“Is that praise or censure?”

She smiled. “You may see it as you wish.”

“Well, I thank you, my lady.” Déoric turned his attention to the little boy and gently untangled his braid from the child’s grip. Something about the hand caught his attention and he took a closer look.

“Oh.”

“Merilwen says it is nothing to worry about,” said Éowyn, who had been watching him. “Do you find it disturbing?”

“Oh, no,” said Déoric. “Only curious. He’ll have the edge over other children when it comes to counting on his fingers. Besides, it’s much better to have something spare than something missing.”

“I do hope people will think of it like that.”

“I’m sure they will.” He stroked Elboron’s curly hair. “There is a story about a boy with eleven fingers who after the death of his mother was chased out of his village by the elders. So he came to settle in the next village, where they welcomed him, and he grew up to be a wise man and a great healer. And so the villagers who had welcomed him were rewarded for their virtue, but the people of his home village saw that it was their loss.”

Éowyn gave him a critical look.

“You are making this up, are you not?”

“And what if I did? Master Gléowine thinks stories help us to shape the future. I say, they can also teach us to think right here and now.”

She smiled.

“You have grown bold, Chronicler of the Mark. But remember, your duty is first and foremost to record, not to invent.”

“There may be some wisdom required in how we record things, too,” replied Déoric and pulled a sheet over the parchment he had been writing on.

“Wisdom, yes, and delicacy, too. You were lacking a bit in the latter when you confronted your king about the Dunlendings, were you not?”

Déoric felt himself colour and he fixed his eyes on Elboron, but then he heard the lady laugh.  

“Do not worry, Déoric, I have not intention of lecturing you. You said what you had to say, and you bore Éomer’s wrath in response. That was the best you could do. And you have made my brother think. If nothing else, that must count in your favour.”

“You are very kind, Lady Éowyn.”

“I can easily afford to be kind,” she said. “Have you ever noticed, Déoric, that happiness makes people generous? I have wondered at times whether the cause of evil isn’t often misery. If that is so, then my brother’s efforts to aid Dunland will make the world a better place in more ways than one.”

“I think you are right. Here.” He handed the child back to her. “He looks like he wants his mother. Thank you so much for letting me meet him.”

“It was my pleasure.”

Chapter 24: Rewriting history

Dirlayn and Léofred had decided to make their wedding a very quiet affair. After all, neither of them still had a parent to give them away, and they could not hope to have a son to inherit Léofred’s ancestral sword, other than Déoric, who already had his father’s blade and no earthly use even for that. They also felt that challenges and set periods of betrothal did not befit their mature ages. In fact, they had waited only for Déoric’s return, and a week later they were wed in a simple ceremony with no-one present but Déoric and Fana and Éomer King, who presided. This haste was prompted as much by Dirlayn’s desire to let the young people have a place to themselves as by her wish to take up residence with her new husband. So she moved into Léofred’s house a stone’s throw from the Golden Hall and Déoric and Fana savoured the delicious if somewhat overwhelming feeling of being masters in their own home.

Two days afterwards, Déoric busied himself in the scribe’s room on a task entirely for his own satisfaction. Brecc had told him the previous morning that his older brother was about to set off for Dunland as an escort to a second mission of supplies. Déoric had asked for the young man to drop by at the scribe’s room before his departure. On the way home that afternoon, he had gone to the market and bought a few sewing needles, which now lay on his desk, neatly pinned to a piece of leather. But there was more he wanted to send.

Slowly and deliberately, he went through his stacks of drawings. Every now and then, he would pick out one and put it aside: a vague, but very lifelike sketch of Fana, a nicely finished portrait of his mother, Blythe sleeping in her basket, a view of Edoras as seen from the river. He chose nearly a dozen and wrapped them up in cloth together with the needles and the panel on which he had painted The Book. Brecc sat nearby, painstakingly copying a parchment that Déoric had set him as a practice task. About an hour before midday, Brecc’s brother Stearc came in. He wore his riding boots and said the convoy would leave within the hour.

“I would be grateful if you could do me a favour,” said Déoric and held out his parcel. “I would like you to give this to an old woman who lives in a cottage above the village of Carbryn. It’s one of the first villages north of the Gap of Rohan. The woman’s name is Lunet.”

“Gladly, though I think you would be better off giving it to one of the Dunlendings, Déoric,” said the young man. “They’re more likely to know her.”

“What Dunlendings? I don’t understand.”

“But didn’t you know? A whole delegation has just arrived this morning to have talks with Éomer King.”

“Oh.” Déoric had noticed a certain buzz about the place, but had attributed it to the imminent arrival of the party from Dol Amroth and indeed to the wedding preparations which became more noticeable by the day. He knew that Éomer had sent messengers to Dunland, but had not expected a response so soon. “How many are there? Are they with the king just now?”

“I know nothing of the matter,” replied the young man, “other than that they are here.”

“If it’s the Dunlendings you’re talking about,” said Léofred, coming in the door, “yes, they are with the king. Ten came, but I cannot tell if there is anyone from your village, Déoric. You’ll find out soon enough, though. Éomer King wants you along there in an hour. He says he wants to discuss the matter of Helm Hammerhand.”

“Is that wise? I thought these were supposed to be peace talks? Why bring up a subject that is bound to cause hard feelings?”

“I dare say the king has considered his plans carefully, Déoric. Bring along whatever you have on the subject. Have you finished what I saw you writing the other day?”

“Not entirely finished, no. I couldn’t because, well, there’s something I don’t know yet.”

“Well, take it anyway. And to you, Stearc, I wish a safe journey.” He clapped Brecc’s brother on the shoulder and left the room. Déoric put his parcel to one side and began to assemble the pages he would need. An inkbottle fell off the desk and shattered on the flagstone floor.

“My goodness, you are nervous, Déoric,” said Brecc and crouched down to pick up the shards.

“I’m not.”

“You are so.”

“Let’s not fight, eh? These are peace talks after all.”  

The Dunlendish party turned out to be rather unconventional. When Éomer had invited the chieftains, he could not have been aware just how devastating the war had been for the men of Dunland. There was only one man with the looks of a warrior about him. The others were old men, long past the age of weapon bearing, a couple of sturdy women, and three lads with barely the shadow of a beard between them. Déoric suppressed a shout of joy when he recognised one of them to be Gruffyd. Gruffyd grinned.

The delegation was seated in two rows at a right angle to the throne. Éomer gestured for Déoric to bring his wheeled chair to the other side.

“This is my chronicler, Déoric son of Féadred. He has travelled in the Mark and in Dunland and has heard the stories from both sides. Let us hear what he has to say. Déoric, I believe you have recently taken some notes about Freca and Helm Hammerhand. I wish you to present them now.”

Déoric’s hands tightened around the arm rests of his chair.

“As you wish, my lord.”

He took his parchments and began to read. The tense attention of the listeners soaked up his every word. He read the story of two countries - ill at ease with each other but not openly at war - and of two leaders determined to stand up for their people. It was the story also of Wilone, Helm’s daughter, of how she travelled in the Westfold and met Freca’s son Wulf and fell in love with him. Déoric told how Wulf persuaded his father to secure him Wilone’s hand in marriage and how Freca went to Edoras with an anxious heart. He told how Helm saw Freca’s appearance at the council as a threat, how they quarrelled, how Helm killed Freca. He told of Wilone’s marriage to a man of the Mark and of her untimely death. It was a story of anger and of despair, of hurt feelings and bruised honour. He told of all the fights that followed, of dying men and weeping women, all the while carefully avoiding any implication that either side was right or wrong. Though he didn’t dare look up, he could feel that the king and the Dunlendings still listened with eager curiosity. When he had reached the last sheet, he braced himself for what was to follow.       

“From then on there was ever strife between the people of the Mark and the people of Dunland, for neither could ever forget what had befallen and each thought their grievance grave and serious, caring  little for the sorrows of the other.

However...”

Here Déoric paused and boldly looked around at his audience. The king’s mien was solemn.

“Well, Déoric,” he said with a trace of impatience in his voice. “However what?”

“I have not written the end yet, my lord,” said Déoric, “because I think the story is not finished. However, if you wish, I will tell you what I would like to write.”

Éomer glanced at the Dunlendings, whose faces showed polite interest mixed with a hint of unease. He nodded.

“We will hear it, Chronicler of the Mark.”

The Dunlendings turned their eyes towards Déoric again. He imagined he saw Gruffyd wink. From his bag, he pulled his wax tablet and began to read out the passage he had drafted earlier.

“However, in the days of Éomer King, this ancient enmity came to an end and it was decided they would dwell no longer on what had been and strive instead for a new understanding that would allow each people to live in peace with the other. And from then on friendship flourished between the people of the Mark and the people of Dunland and the old wrongs were laid to rest. And so it was that as a new age dawned over Middle-earth, another stain of darkness was removed and it was said that wherever there is a will for peace among Men, hatred can be overcome and a better life for all is within the grasp of anyone who so desires.”

Déoric felt his hands tremble and his eyes well up as he came to the last sentence, but he knew it so well, he had thought about it so hard, that he easily recited it from memory. When he had ended, nobody spoke. The hush made him feel queasy. Eventually, Éomer cleared his throat.

“If I understand you right, you mean to say, Déoric, that it is up to us here today to bring about this glorious future?

“I believe it is, yes,” whispered Déoric.

“Hm.” Éomer rubbed his beard.

“My lord king.” Gruffyd stood up. “I believe Déoric is right. We have come to some good agreements this morning, which can pave the way to the peace we all desire. I don’t see why he shouldn’t add that ending to the story right now. It would be a good way to ensure that we all make the best effort we can.”

Éomer grinned. “I see your young men are just as forward as ours,” he said to the older Dunlendings. “Well, I, for one, am inclined to listen to them. If you agree, then Déoric shall complete the story here in front of our eyes, and I shall have a copy made for you to take back to Dunland.”       

Looks and nods were exchanged among the Dunlendish delegation and then a white-bearded man stood up.

“I was saddened by Master Déoric’s tale,” he said. “It made me feel ashamed that we’ve sent our sons to their deaths; sent them to fight alongside orcs, all because of things that happened long before any of us were born. I had three sons and five grandsons. I sent them off into battle for the sorcerer at Isengard and I sought to ignite their hearts with hatred against the Strawheads by reminding them of the abominable Helm and his cruel deeds. Not a day has passed since that I haven’t regretted that hour. Of the eight, only one came back. The eyes of my womenfolk are always red now. It was our hatred, fuelled by our old stories, which led to our destruction. Will we allow those who come after us to make the same mistakes? I say, no! Éomer King is right. Let his chronicler finish the story the way he has suggested, and we shall take our copy back with us and read it out in every village in Dunland. And let us all pledge here today that we will make the story come true.”

He sat down again. In the silence, everyone stared at Déoric.

“Well,” said Déoric, “I will need a desk.”

~oOoOo~

It was quiet in the house. Fana had just settled Blythe to sleep in the basket near the fireplace, when she heard the knock on the door. She smoothed down her dress and her hair, conscious of being the mistress of the house, a role that still felt new to her and a little too big.

She opened.

The two lads came up to her shoulder and with their heads of curly dark hair she would have taken them for Dunlendings, had her glance not fallen on their uncommonly large, bare, hairy feet. When she looked at their faces, she saw that they were indeed no children.

“Mistress Fana?” said one of them. “I am Meriadoc Brandybuck, at your service, and this is my cousin, Peregrin Took.” The other Halfling – for this was what she now knew them to be – smiled and bowed. “We have come to see Master Déoric.”

“He’s not home yet. But do come in and wait for him. I’m sure he’ll be here within the half hour.”

She ushered them in and placed them on the chairs by the table, where they sat with their legs dangling.

“Would you like a bite to eat? I can give you bread and butter and ale. The evening meal is not yet finished.”

“Thank you, Mistress Fana,” said the Halfling called Meriadoc. “We have already partaken of an afternoon meal with the King.”

“But that is not to say,” added the one called Peregrin with a quick look at his companion, “that we wouldn’t appreciate another little morsel.”

“Pippin!”

Fana laughed.

“There’s more than enough,” she said. “If you would excuse me.”

She scurried into the kitchen where she prepared a plate of buttered bread, garnished with freshly harvested radishes, and filled two mugs of ale from the barrel in the corner. A couple of buckwheat pancakes completed the meal. When she returned with her tray, she found that the Halflings had slipped off the chairs and stood huddled over the infant’s basket.

“…how you can still see that they’re tiny even though they’re quite big,” said the one called Peregrin. “It’s the shape of their hands and faces, I suppose.”

Fana put the tray on the table. The noise startled the Halflings, who straightened up and hurried back to their chairs.

“That’s a fine child you have there, Mistress Fana,” said the one called Meriadoc. “A little girl, I take it?”

“Yes. How could you tell?”

“Oh, just something about the mouth, and the set of the jaw. She resembles your husband.”

“So everyone says.” She noticed how they were eyeing the food keenly. “Oh, please do help yourselves.”

The Halflings didn’t need any further urging and got busy, while Fana sat down beside them with a sock she needed to mend.

“So, you’ve come for the King’s wedding then? Déoric mentioned that he might have the opportunity to see you, Master Meriadoc. He speaks very highly of you.”

“See, Pippin?” Meriadoc licked a smidgen of butter off his lip.  “My reputation precedes me. Mistress Fana is already predisposed in my favour. You, on the other hand, will have to take care that you make a good impression. See to it that you keep your Tookish nature reined in.”

“You misrepresent me, Merry! My nature is all amiable. Mistress Fana, I beg that you pay no heed to my cousin’s slanderous remarks. He will paint me in the most sinister colours and remind me of every single folly of my youth just to make himself appear wise and respectable.”

“Not at all, Pippin. I am merely, as the senior hobbit, giving you sensible advice regarding your conduct in foreign parts.”

“Of which, of course, I have had no prior experience.”

“Of course.”

Fana laughed, her hands shook and so she pricked her finger with the needle. She flinched and rubbed off the tiny spot of blood.

“You are merry folk to be sure,” she said. “Tell me, how do you like Edoras?”

“Much better than the last time we were here,” said Peregrin. “Éomer seems to have done a lot of work to the place. The market looks very busy.”

“Not just the market. I noticed thousands of ladybirds in the city this morning,” added Meriadoc. “I saw a wall that was all red with them. Are they always so plentiful here at this time of year?”

“No, I have never seen so many before. They arrived only two days ago. Déoric says Master Gléowine will be pleased, because they’ll surely make short work of the greenfly on his roses. Oh, here he comes now.”

She jumped up to open the door for Déoric, hugged him and left him to greet his guests while she slipped into the kitchen and stirred the stew. When she returned, Déoric sat in his wheeled chair, while the Halflings had pulled up their chairs on either side of him and studied the parchments he had taken from his bag.

“…a typical village in the Wold. And here’s one of the tree men, or Ent, as he called himself - ”

 “Why, it’s Quickbeam!”

“You know him?”

“Of course. He is the hasty Ent who made up his mind straight away to attack Isengard.”

“Really? Oh, yes, I think he mentioned something like that. Well, he was a truly remarkable person, I have to say. Though I think you’ll be even more interested in this.”

Déoric presented another sheet, and the Halflings leaned closer. Fana sat down and picked up her mending work again.

“Good grief, Merry, these look like Hobbit holes! Very dilapidated ones, but still.”

“You are right,” said Déoric. “They are abandoned, though for not as long as one might think. Just imagine, I met some people who told me that their great-grandparents had known Halflings in the Wold!”

“What happened to them?”

“Nobody knew. They all left one day. However, I have some kind of idea, because I came to remember a story I heard in the opposite corner of our land, in the Westfold. I have the notes I took up at the Hall, and I’d be happy to show them to you on the morrow. But I can tell you right now what the story amounts to. Sometime in the not too distant past, for the people who told it claimed it happened in their great-grandparents’ days, a group of little folk was seen travelling on foot through the far corners of the Westfold. They seemed like children, and yet not so, and they carried heavy burdens. And when the people of the Mark approached them to find what their business was, they vanished without a trace, and so it was agreed that they possessed some kind of Elven magic.”

Peregrin snorted.

“You big folk just cannot understand how light-footed Hobbits are.”

“Be that as it may,” said Déoric. “I inquired, I hardly know why, after the direction of their journey, and it was said that they came from the East and moved to the North-West. In the light of what I heard and saw in the Wold, I am inclined to believe these were the Halflings who left there three generations ago. Whence they went from the Mark, I cannot tell.”

“They never made it to the Shire,” said Peregrin, his brows drawn together in a frown. “We would have known if any new Hobbits had arrived almost within living memory.”

He cast a pained glance at his cousin, who shook his head and rubbed his ear lobe.

“No,” Meriadoc said eventually. “They never made it to the Shire. Because that is not where they went.”

“Whatever do you mean, Merry?”

“Can you not see, Pip? The Latecomers! The Latecomers of Bree-land!”

Peregrin’s eyes widened and he clapped his hands to his mouth.

“Good grief, Merry, are you sure?”

“Yes. How silly of me to think only in terms of the Shire hobbits. Pip, the solution has been sitting under my very nose and I haven’t seen it.”

“I’m afraid I can’t follow,” said Déoric.

“Oh, forgive me, I was carried away.” Meriadoc straightened his waistcoat. “There is a place called the Bree-land, to the East of the Shire, beyond the Barrow Downs. It’s a small country, consisting only of the town of Bree and three villages around it. One of those villages is Staddle, and a group of hobbits lives there who are called the Latecomers. They keep to themselves, so we don’t know much about them, but it is said that they have arrived in Bree-land very recently, less than four generations back.”

“But that is remarkable!” cried Déoric. “How is it possible that nobody has inquired where they came from?”

“Maybe some people have inquired, and not received much of an answer. As for the Shire hobbits, I’m afraid to them the Breelanders are outlandish folk anyway and they tend to shake their heads about them rather than expect them to make sense.”

At that moment, Blythe awoke and began to cry. Fana sighed. The child would be hungry and she would have to leave the room to feed her, since it was not fitting to do so in the presence of guests. She lifted the infant out of the basket and, with a last regretful glance at the unusual visitors, climbed up the stair to her bedchamber. The last thing she heard before she closed the door was the voice of Meriadoc.

“We will find out what we can when we return home. I am looking forward to seeing your notes tomorrow, and your drawings, too. By the way, my cousin here is also an artist…”

Chapter 25: Getting together

He knew she would be coming to him and then he’d have to own his folly. Or perhaps the king had already told her, in which case she would probably come to scold him. Either way, her good opinion of him would be lost, if not forever, then at least for quite some time. Such gloomy musings were Déoric’s response to the news that the party from Dol Amroth had arrived at Meduseld the previous afternoon. Restlessly, he pottered about the scribe’s room, unable to set his mind to any fruitful task. Brecc looked up from his knot patterns a couple of times, but said nothing.

She came late in the morning, when the noon hour was already approaching, and she didn’t come alone. The king was with her, and Léofred, and her father, the formidable Prince of Dol Amroth. There was barely space to stand for this crowd, and the men remained by the door while she stepped forward, a small wooden casket held at hip height.

“My lady Princess.” Déoric cast down his eyes.

“Good morning, Master Déoric. I trust I find you well. We have come to see how your art has progressed. I thought you might have used up the pigments by now,” she said and placed the casket on the desk, “so I have brought you another box. In future, though, you shall order your artist’s supplies directly from Minas Tirith. The king has agreed to this arrangement.”

Déoric clenched his fist. So, it was as easy as that? Just send to Mundburg for more? He had never wondered about where the pigments had been bought, but now he came to think of it, it seemed only logical that such commodities could be found in the shops and markets of the big city. Why, then, had Éomer not ordered new paints? Of course, it was not the king’s duty to cover up Déoric’s mistakes…

“Well then, Master Déoric, show me some of your work.”

He had known this was going to happen. That didn’t make it any easier.

“I do beg your forgiveness, my lady. I have nothing to show you but a few clumsy sketches. The paints were lost, through my own fault, when I travelled in the Westfold last autumn. The king had advised me against taking them with me, but I ignored his counsel. They fell into a river and were spoilt. I am very sorry.”

He heard her sigh as she sat down.

“Well, that is a great disappointment, Master Déoric. I had put much trust in you and your talents.”

“I am honoured by your trust and mortified that I have disappointed you, my lady. I will do what I can to give you a grand portrait in silverpoint.”

“A poor substitute! What use is a picture of my glorious dress in black and white or even in shades of grey?”

“I am sorry, my lady. I will - ”

“May I make a suggestion?” said Léofred. “There are two things that you will want to see in your wedding picture: The looks on your faces and the rich garments you will be wearing. The former are fleeting, but they don’t require colour. The latter will keep. Let Déoric make a silverpoint sketch on your wedding day. That’ll require all the sitting you’ll be willing to do on that occasion anyway. Then, in a year or two or whenever he has mastered the skill, sit for him again in your wedding garments, and he will use the earlier sketch to complete as fine a painting as you can ever wish for.”

This was a solution that had not occurred to Déoric, but that was typical for the way Léofred was thinking. Would the princess agree to it?

“It will be a long time to wait for our wedding picture,” she said.

“I believe it will be worth the trial of your patience. What do you think, Déoric?”

“I will do my very best. And I promise, my lady, to draw or paint whatever else you desire. I’m yours to command.”

Éomer laughed.

“There, my dear, you have one loyal subject already. After such a vow of devotion, I think you may forgive him.”

“Éomer is right,” added Prince Imrahil. “The young man is willing to serve you, and I wouldn’t stop him if I were you.”

“Very well. Master Déoric, I forgive you. Beware, though, I shall remember your promise.”

Déoric glanced at her. The princess smiled like someone who had got exactly what she wanted. But then, so had he. The new box of pigments was his and, what was more, it need never be empty. He felt the advantage was all on his side.

~oOoOo~

How April had passed so quickly remained a mystery to Déoric, but there was no denying that May had arrived and with it the long expected wedding day. Edoras had never looked so splendid. Most trees wore their coat of early green, while many others still bore pink or white blossoms. Pansies, bluebells, peonies and lily-of-the-valley abounded even in the smallest patches of garden. Whoever could afford it had painted or whitewashed fences and walls, doors and shutters, and those who couldn’t at least made sure their houses stood scrubbed clean. Women had been up since before the break of dawn to string garlands of flowers and blooming branches along the streets and tie green and white ribbons to the gateposts on the left, blue and silver ribbons to those on the right. Thus the banners of the Mark and of Dol Amroth, which flapped in a lazy breeze in front of the Golden Hall, were echoed all over the city.

The doors to the Golden Hall were flanked this morning not only by guards in festive attire, but by two man-high figures made of white flowers, a horse to the left and a swan to the right. As noon drew near, the people of Edoras began to crowd into every open space at the foot of the stair, while the steps themselves were kept clear by a line of guards. Soon noble folk could be seen emerging from the Hall and talking up places on either side of the flower sculptures. Here was the Lady Éowyn with her husband, there were Prince Imrahil and Lord Erkenbrand and their families, and other honoured guests. Déoric, who had come early and stood with Fana and Blythe at the front of the crowd, saw the Halflings at Lady Éowyn’s side; now and then she exchanged a smile with Meriadoc. Of course, Déoric remembered, these two had been comrades in battle. A dwarf whom he thought he recognised as the obliging Gimli stood beside a pale Elf in green clothing. The general murmur stopped when two tall dark-haired figures stepped out of the doorway. King Elessar and Queen Arwen had arrived only the previous night, and few had seen them. Now all eyes were drawn towards this pair. A cluster of clouds hid the sun, but the Queen appeared bright and shimmering nonetheless in her gown of green and silver. As for the king, Déoric hardly recognised him. When he had seen Elessar before, in the Houses of Healing in Mundburg, the man had looked grim and weary and decidedly scruffy – no wonder, given the circumstances. His harrowed features then bore no resemblance to the serenity of his countenance as he stood in front of the people of Edoras. He seemed tranquil and hauntingly beautiful, or perhaps it was just a reflection of the lady by his side. 

Cheers arose from the crowd when Éomer King appeared and stood beside the horse figure. Flanked by two lady attendants, Princess Lothíriel followed and made her way to the flowered swan. Prince Imrahil took his daughter’s hand and presented her to the King of Rohan. As vows were spoken and swords exchanged, many people nodded with approval that the traditions of the Mark were thus respected. By Gondorian custom, though, King Elessar wound a band of white silk around the joined hands of the bride and groom, and this ritual was watched with curiosity, for it had not been seen in the Mark since Thengel had wedded Morwen of Lossarnach.

Man and wife now, Éomer and his new queen stepped forward to receive the salutations of their people. Just at that moment, the clouds tore open and revealed the midday sun. The light fell on the emeralds that adorned Queen Lothíriel’s hair and neck and made them glow like wet, translucent leaves. Had they been wrought by some Elvish craftsman? Déoric remembered a day on his first journey, when he had seen trees shimmer like jewels and had wondered when he would be able to paint such a scene. With his new box of paints stashed away safely in the scribe’s room and with this woman as his patroness, he felt confident that the time would come when he would paint this and so much more, even the magnificence of the image before his eyes here and now. He pressed Fana’s hand. For a few seconds, a fine drizzle fell, sparkling in the sunshine as if it was raining diamonds. Then both sun and rain disappeared and wispy white clouds spread over the little window of blue sky.

With the ceremony over, most people turned to secure a seat on the numerous benches put up on all the open spaces around the Golden Hall, since this was a day of merrymaking for all. A steady stream of people, though, shuffled into the Hall, for many had been bidden to join the feast there, Déoric and Fana among them. Blythe, curled against Fana’s shoulder, peered around with wide eyes. They couldn’t see any of their friends in the throng, neither Dirlayn nor Léofred or any of Fana’s family, and so they sat down at the first best table they could find.

“Déoric! I seem to have lost all my folk, can I sit with you?” Gruffyd took a seat without waiting for an answer. At Éomer’s invitation, the Dunlendish party had stayed for the wedding. “Is this your wife? Good day, pretty lady, I’m a fierce warrior from Dunland. What a sweet babe!”

He continued to chatter with an eagerness that made Déoric smile. By and by, others came to their table, and in the end their little group consisted of Merilwen, Gléowine and his daughter, and the other two lads from Dunland. Déoric wondered for a moment how they would all get along and what they would talk about, but he need not have worried, for the wedding rites they had just witnessed and the feast that was being served provided ample fuel for conversation to begin with, and soon the disparate party was quite at ease and rather merry. Gléowine even went so far as to say a few words in praise of the king’s new minstrel and his performance at the ceremony. 

When the dishes were cleared away, people started to get up and mingle. A maid came up to their tables, asking if Master Déoric was ready to do the portrait now? Déoric left Fana talking childcare with Merilwen and edged along the aisles, dodging servants with piled up platters in the effort to fight his way through the bustle. Before he had got very far, he noticed Gimli and the pale Elf standing not five yards away and went over to greet them.    

“Ah, Master Déoric. We meet again.” The dwarf bowed and Déoric returned the gesture as best he could. “May I present my friend Legolas, son of King Thranduil of the Woodland Realm? Legolas, this is Déoric, the Chronicler of the Mark. Éomer is training him up to be an artist.”

“Indeed? Good day, Master Déoric.” The Elf inclined his head by just a fraction. His eyes barely glanced at Déoric before they drifted off as if to look at something way beyond the walls of the Hall.

“Why, Legolas, do you know Déoric as well?” said a voice at waist height.

“Gimli seems to know him, which should be recommendation enough,” replied the Elf. Then, as if suddenly jolted out of a reverie, he turned to Déoric again. “Forgive me. My mind seems to have wandered… You have chosen a wonderful craft, Master Déoric.”

There was the vaguest hint of a smile, and then the Elf’s features regained their former pensive air.

“It’s the sea longing,” whispered Gimli. “It’s uncommonly severe  today.”

“Well, I have only known Déoric for a few days,” said Peregrin, “and I can tell you that he is a very good man. Anyone with a wife who makes such good buckwheat pancakes must be a good man.”

“Pippin,” said Meriadoc in a gently scolding voice, “make sure Déoric does not misunderstand your jokes.”

“Oh, don’t worry, I quite agree. That Fana was willing to marry me must be the best thing that can be said about me.”

“Nonsense! Your drawings aren’t half bad, either.” Peregrin punched him playfully in the arm.

“They’d better not be. I have to go and see the king and queen now to draw a sketch for their wedding painting.”

“Ah, so we shouldn’t hold you up then. Come, Merry, I say we go and find Aragorn and give a toast to the members of the Fellowship, both present and absent. What a shame that Gandalf couldn’t make it. Good-bye, Déoric, I’ll come round to see you tomorrow and we can talk some more about pigments. For now, ties of old friendship call.”

The four nodded at him and turned away. Déoric was not sorry to see them go; the blank expression of the Elf had made him feel uneasy. Sea longing? What was that supposed to be? He wondered if Prince Legolas had found the sight of his stump disconcerting. Elves were immortal and seemed to possess perfect bodies; were they also immune to loss of limb? In any case, he much preferred to speak to the Halflings on their own.

Déoric approached the dais and waited until he caught Éomer’s eye. The king gestured for him to come nearer.

“My lord, my lady.” He bowed his head. “Felicitations on this happy day. I can do the drawing now, if you are ready.”

“We are indeed,” said the queen. “Please excuse us, Lord Elfhelm. We are about to put Master Déoric’s genius to the test.”

Éomer waved to a servant to move up a chair for Déoric. By the time the king and queen had settled themselves on their own seats, Déoric had brought out his drawing board, parchments and stylus. He looked at the couple from under half-closed eyelids to determine the basic shapes and then began to draw in faint strokes the outlines of the figures. At first he felt awkward to be watched by such a large and illustrious audience, but soon his mind made them fade into the background and he worked with confidence and purpose. In fact, he was so immersed that he hardly noticed when Queen Lothíriel began to fidget.

“Master Déoric,” she whispered. “Shall you be much longer? Some of the guests are getting restless.”

He looked around. True enough, here and there people showed signs of impatience. The feast was over and the dancing was supposed to follow, but until the king and queen rose from their seats and gave the sign for the music to begin, everybody would have to wait. He inspected the result of his efforts so far.

“Another little while, my lady. I shall make haste.”

“Please do, Déoric,” said the king. Then he turned to his bride. “Are you not glad that Déoric lost his paints? Imagine he was trying to do a full painting here and now!”

“You are right, that would not do,” she replied. “You may ascribe to my love of the Arts this folly of ever having thought of sitting for a painting on this day.”

Déoric tried to hide his grin as he added a few last details to his drawing. He would have to ask them for another sitting within the next few days, but he could let them go for now. Catching the sitters’ expression was the crucial thing, while the finer points of light and texture could wait till a later time.

“I’m done, my lord.”

“Very well, Déoric.” Éomer rose and lifted his right hand. “Let the dancing commence.”

Déoric carefully rolled up the parchments and gave them to a maid to place in the scribe’s room. He picked up his crutches from the floor and watched how servants dismantled the tables to make space for the dancing. On the far side of the dais, the musicians were tuning their instruments.

Déoric found Fana near the spot where he had left her, and Blythe sitting on Merilwen’s lap.

“I hope you’ll excuse me from dancing today,” he said. “My arm hurts a bit.”

“That’s quite alright,” replied Fana. “I’m happy just to talk and watch.”

She snuggled up to him as soon as he sat down and he put his arm round her shoulder.

“Are you going to join the dancing, Merilwen?”

“Good grief, no. I get out of breath far too easily these days. Besides, I like to hold this little one here.”

So, they stayed where they were, watching as the sets formed and moved about in their circles and rows and figures of eight. When Déoric saw his mother and Léofred whirling past, he was astonished to see how young they looked, and how happy. Soon his eyes got tired of trying to follow the movement of this dancer or that, and it all dissolved into a chaos of colour as the festive garments shone in the light. He sighed, deeply contented that he had all the pigments he could wish for to paint this and anything, anything he liked.

“She has gone to sleep,” said Merilwen.

“Oh.” Fana stroked over Blythe’s head. “I haven’t brought her basket, how silly of me. Pass her here, your arms must be getting tired.”

“Oh, no, no, she’s fine where she is. And if you wish, you can leave her with me for a while. I promise not to run away with her, much as I might feel tempted.”

“Thank you, I wouldn’t mind getting a bit of fresh air,” said Fana and fanned her neck with the top of her dress. “We’ won’t be long.” She pulled Déoric up by his hand and they went out, past the flower statues and down the big stair. It was later than Déoric had thought, and the sun stood very low. The merrymaking continued out here, too, and since there was no other seat to be found, they sat down on a wall by an inn. People danced to the tunes of pipes and fiddles. A couple of men walked about placing lanterns on fences and low branches. They would soon be lit and mirror the stars over Edoras. Déoric drew in the evening air. The scent of lily-of-the-valley floated down from a bunch of the flowers that grew in a window box.   

“It’s strange to think it was only a year ago,” said Fana. He knew what she meant. This was the wall they’d been sitting on the night they had finally reconciled. “So much has happened since.”

“Yes, indeed. So much that I wouldn’t know where to start recounting it all.”

“And which was the best thing, you think?”

“Getting Blythe, of course.” He took her hand. “Not that wedding you wasn’t a great event in my life, but Blythe… I can’t get over how she is so entirely new to the world. Every time I look at her, I am amazed.”

“I know what you mean. Oh! What was that?”

Fana rubbed her temple where something had just hit her. They looked around and saw small dark, shapes gliding about with a faint hum. Déoric reached up and caught one in his hand. He opened his palm and revealed a large beetle. It was as thick as his finger, with brown wings and a line of white zigzag shapes running along its sides and fanned antennae that looked almost like antlers. Prickly little legs tickled his skin.

“Goodness, what is it with bugs this year?” cried Fana. “First the ladybirds and now the cockchafers! We’ll have to pick them out of the garden in the morning, or they’ll just eat everything. Dirlayn would be really upset if we lost her vegetables.”

“Get your brothers to help. They’d love that kind of job.”

“Ha! Most likely they’ll want to keep them as pets! Or even worse, bake them into a pie.”

“They’re probably very nourishing.”

“Bah!”

“Don’t make a face like that. There are starving children in Dunland, you know, who’d be glad for a bowl of cockchafer soup.”

“Déoric! I wouldn’t have thought it possible that you could ever make a joke about starving Dunlendings.”

“Oh, well. I suppose it doesn’t seem like such a desperate cause anymore. If Éomer’s plans succeed, then the cockchafers of Dunland will not end in the pot but as pets under the beds of unruly boys.”

“You’re being silly.”

“Yes.”

She wrapped her arms round his neck and pressed her head against his chest. He inhaled. As ever, she smelled of the camomile infusion she used for rinsing her hair.

“Do you think the peace will last?”

“Who knows?” he said. “As far as Dunland is concerned, I am hopeful, but they’re not the only adversaries. The king says he will soon lead another campaign in the East with King Elessar. You heard Merilwen, though. They have peace with Harad now, and maybe peace will come at last with the Easterlings. And even if not, I don’t think we’ll have war on our doorsteps again. Not in our lifetime, and not for generations to come.”

“Well, you’ve done your part to bring that about. It might have seemed foolish at the time to risk a breach with the king, but you were right to stand up for the Dunlendings. I’m so proud of you.”

“I didn’t think much of the consequences at the time. I just couldn’t keep quiet about it. Fortunately it all turned out for the best.” He leaned back and stared up at the sky. “There, I can see the first star.”

Fana turned her head and looked in the direction he was pointing.

“What do you think stars are made of?”

“Joy,” said Fana. “Pure, brilliant joy.”

Chapter 26: Epilogue

Déoric wheeled his chair into the scribes’ chamber. The little room in which he had begun his career had become too small a space for him, Brecc, and the apprentice scribes, especially since it had to double as artist’s studio. At the queen’s insistence, the former armoury had been cleared and its contents moved to one of the outbuildings. It gave plenty of room to the people usually bent on the task that was so close to the queen’s heart: the writing and illuminating of books. Apart from Déoric and Brecc, there were two young men and one woman – Eadlin, the girl who had once in her grief resented Fana’s love of Déoric and who now, with the queen’s encouragement, learnt the delicate art of gilding.

The old scribe’s room had been dedicated to accommodating the growing library. It held those old volumes Déoric and Léofred had years ago found in the store room, new tomes Éomer King had bought from Gondor, the queen’s books and, in a place of honour, two special treasures: Déoric’s Book of the Mark, which was meanwhile known as the Green Book of Meduseld, and the book of Shire recipes which had been the wedding gift of the Halflings. Déoric had copied it, so that the cook could have the use of it without spoiling the pages.

Two shallow steps led down into the new scribes’ room, and a wooden board had been placed over them to allow for Déoric’s chair. Coming down this ramp at speed and rumbling on across the floor almost all the way to his desk added a daring element to his otherwise sedate occupation, and as always he savoured this moment with boyish glee. It was still early; he was the first to arrive.

At the far end of the room, by the windows, stood propped up against the wall on top of a chest of drawers the painting he had completed the previous day. He scrutinised it now with some anxiety lest he found a flaw that had heretofore escaped his notice, but he saw nothing to irk him.

Seven weeks ago, Queen Lothíriel had given him a mirror for painting a self-portrait. What was supposed to be another practice exercise on his way to perfecting this art had turned out to be his best picture yet. It showed Déoric son of Féadred from head to waist, gazing straight out of the panel, his unbraided hair spread like a cloak round his head and rippling onto his shoulders. His right hand held together the fur-lined edges of his coat. The colours were warm browns and dark reds, with white highlights on his face. It had been a sunny day when he had sketched the picture, and the room had been bright, but Déoric had painted the background a uniform black against which his image glowed as if lit up from within. He was particularly pleased with the calm and steady expression of the eyes and with the curve of the lips between the soft moustaches.

It was a splendid portrait in every way, and Déoric wondered for an instant if he wasn’t thinking somewhat too well of himself to paint his likeness into such a noble image. But wasn’t he the Chronicler of the Mark and court artist of Meduseld? Had he not created precious books and treasured paintings, the first of their kind to be made in his homeland? And had he not stood up to the king in the name of truth and compassion and done what was right rather than what was to his advantage? Was the budding peace between Dunland and the Mark not a plant grown from the seeds that he, Déoric, had sown? No, there was no reason to make his face look humble. The rest of his body, he thought with a sardonic glance at his stump, was another matter, but the painting only reached down to the waist. It was, after all, the artist’s privilege to choose the format of his self-portrait.

He turned his attentions to his desk and let his hand rest briefly on a bundle of small sheets covered in delicate paintings; his illustrations for the book of the queen’s poems. His first attempts at painting the sea had been pathetic, but they were much better now, after he’d been to Anfalas at her insistence “so that you know what I’m talking about, Master Déoric.” The colours in particular he could not have imagined before. The sea seemed to have also cured him of a spell of gloominess that had seized him the previous summer.

This was the fourth book he was working on, after the book of the kings of the Mark and the two tomes containing tales of the Westfold and the Eastfold. The latter two had been adorned not only with Déoric’s drawings, but with beautiful borders of knot patterns by Brecc’s hand. Now he had the queen’s book to consider, and he already knew what would come next: Tales of the Shire. Meriadoc had supplied him with a good dozen during his last visit and had promised to send more by and by. He had also proposed to visit Bree-land and speak to certain Halflings in Staddle. There would be stories from the Latecomers, providing the long lost missing link between the Hobytla and the Mark. Déoric already cherished a delicate woodland scene by Peregrin’s hand, which he would use as a title page, and he kept in a little wooden casket an ancient piece of parchment he had found among the oldest records of Edoras. It was an account of the building work at Meduseld and it mentioned in a half sentence that the narrow well in the Hall, the very same in which the Lady Éowyn had lost her necklace and into which Fana had climbed to retrieve the trinket, had been fashioned by “the little folk.” He had no proof, but he felt certain that this could only mean the well was the handiwork of Halflings. It would add another interesting facet to his book.

However, this was not a day for thinking about books. The queen had decreed that it was time to start on The Painting and in an hour she and the king would sit for him in all their majesty. He would have felt confident to do this a year ago, but at that time the queen had not fitted into her wedding dress. Déoric began to assemble everything he would need for this purpose, palette, brushes, eggs, his sketches from the wedding day, the box of pigments. That box was always well stocked these days, for the queen had made sure that a word from Déoric sufficed to send a man to Mundburg with a list of orders.

“Master Déoric?”

A servant had entered the room.

“This was brought by the courier that returned today from Dunland,” said the man and handed Déoric a slim parcel of grubby cloth tied with string. “It is for you from an old woman, though our men could not remember her name.”

Déoric took the parcel eagerly.

“Thank you.”

With a brief greeting, the man left.

The string was knotted thoroughly, and it didn’t take long before Déoric lost patience and cut it with a knife. He began to unroll the linen. The bundle felt so light and thin that he wondered how it could contain anything. For a second, he hoped that it was a message, but of course neither Lunet nor anyone else in her village could write. Twice she had sent him word, but never more than that she was well and hoped the same of him.

When he opened and unfolded the piece of cloth fully, he saw that it was a message after all, for onto his desk dropped the thing Lunet had sent him: a single ear of wheat. He picked it up and studied it closely. Fat, pale yellow grains ran in neat rows along the stem. It had been a good harvest. He tried to imagine rippling fields of wheat where those plaintive boglands had been. He smiled. They wouldn’t drain all the land, he hoped, otherwise, where would the curlew live?

When his hands smoothed the cloth on the desk, he discovered that it held something else, a very light, brownish-green, shell-like thing. It was a chrysalis. He wondered how Lunet had come by this. She must have been very confident that the butterfly wouldn’t hatch before its arrival in Edoras. How long did they stay in this state? He didn’t know. The insect might emerge very soon. He placed the chrysalis on the windowsill along with the ear of wheat and returned to his task of preparing for the painting. By the time Brecc stomped in with his hearty greeting, Déoric had everything arranged on a tray.

“Can you help me with this? I want to get things set up in the Hall right now. Oh, and pass me the easel, I can put it on my lap.”

He wheeled himself back up the ramp, followed by Brecc, who carried the tray. The Golden Hall was still empty, apart from the two guards on duty. Morning light streamed in through the high windows and lit up the specks of dust floating in their endless dance. Brecc and the guards positioned the royal chairs according to Déoric’s instructions.

“No, turn it a bit to the left. We don’t want the sun right in the queen’s face. Just a bit more. Right, that’s fine.”

“I’m glad to see you are well prepared, Déoric.” Éomer King approached from the front of the Hall, where the royal chambers lay above the entrance. He wore his wedding tunic of dark green silk, with two lions rampant facing each other on his chest, embroidered in red and gold by the queen as a gift to her bridegroom. “My lady is on her way.”

Indeed, Queen Lothíriel and her two ladies in waiting just emerged from the stairwell that led down from the royal apartments. Their soft shoes made no sound on the stone floor, but their dresses rustled, and the queen’s robe of carmine silk almost seemed to whisper secret words. One of the ladies in waiting carried the infant Elfwine, who clutched a small wooden horse in his chubby hand.

The ladies nodded their greeting and Lothíriel ascended the dais on which stood the royal chairs. When the other two ladies sat down a little to one side, Elfwine wriggled himself free and crawled over to his mother. She stepped aside and snatched the train of her dress out of the reach of his inquisitive little fingers.

“Mama!” wailed Elfwine.  

“Not now, darling. Mama is busy.”     

“I could include the princeling in the painting,” suggested Déoric.

“No,” said the queen and firmly handed the child back to his minder. “I do not think that would make a good impression on future generations.”

He wasn’t surprised when he saw her wink. He knew her well enough by now. If she had once insisted that he should make sure to catch the twinkle in the king’s eye, it was perhaps because there was usually a twinkle in hers, too.

The royal couple took their seats on the chairs Déoric had so carefully arranged, inevitably disturbing their position in the process. With skill and patience, he coaxed the king and queen back into the correct angles for the perfect lighting. Meanwhile, Brecc set out Déoric’s painting supplies on a folding table next to the wheeled chair. At last all was ready. Éomer and Lothíriel sat beautifully attired and wearing blissful expressions, as if they easily relived the memory of their wedding day and thus rendered superfluous the portrait drawings made on that occasion.

Déoric grinned to himself. Some years ago, he would have worried that the painting would be a fake, because it didn’t show the real wedding day. He could shrug off such scruples now. Everyone who looked at the king and queen could see the great tenderness between them. They each seemed to have found something they had been missing all their lives before. That was what Déoric was going to paint. The fine garments were mere decoration.

Nevertheless, the garments would have to be painted with great care. He observed how the light fell on the fabric and planned in his mind how he would blend the colours and apply glazes to achieve the same effect on his panel. He sketched some rough lines onto the prepared surface. Then he studied the sitters again. After a few minutes, he dipped his brush into the egg mixture and then for a while the world dissolved into a pattern of shapes and colours.

~oOoOo~

It was nearly evening when Déoric left the Golden Hall. The sitters had been supremely patient and allowed him several hours, almost until midday, for his work, and after that he had continued all afternoon to paint as much as he could with the memory still fresh in his mind. They would need another sitting session, perhaps two, but he felt already confident that the outcome would be grand indeed.

He didn’t have far to go. It was the one day in the week when his little family took their evening meal at the home of Léofred and Dirlayn. When he arrived, he found only his stepfather sitting in his armchair.

“Good evening, son,” said Léofred as Déoric leaned his crutches against the wall. “Your mother is cooking. I’ve only just arrived myself. Fana and the little ones are out in the garden, looking at butterflies. How did it go?”

“Very well, I think. The foundations are laid. Now I need to build on them.”

“As ever. Well, I am sure you’ll make a splendid effort.”

“I’ll do my best. The queen has waited so long for this painting, I cannot possibly disappoint her.”

“I know you won’t.”

Just then, a flurry of footsteps was heard from the open door and a moment later Déoric’s secondborn, Synne, came in.

“Granda!” exclaimed the child and flung herself into Léofred’s arms. Léofred picked her up and kissed her cheek.

Granda. Blythe always called him Léofred. And here was Synne, just learning to talk, and she said Granda. But he isn’t really your grandfather, Déoric wanted to say. However, the words never reached his mouth. Other words elbowed them aside, words from a man who would never speak again and who lay at rest in a field of Simbelmynë, not far from the grave of Théoden, his master.

Truth has many faces – seek the one that nurtures your people.

He looked at the faces before him. Synne, with her little fingers dug into Léofred’s grizzled hair, her mouth sticky with honey cake. Léofred held her tenderly and somehow looked younger and full of life.

“Do you love your Granddad?”

“Yes,” said the child and smiled, showing her tiny white teeth. And that, at least, was true.

~oOoOo~

Consider Man. Whether he has two legs or only one, the path of his life makes indents into the course of history, however minute. His beliefs and desires propel him forwards, while he is well advised to use his reason to steer. He may seem stubborn at times, easily swayed at others, and always in one way or other dependent on his fellow man. Great cruelty he is capable of, great depravity and great wickedness. And yet, he need not prey on other Men, for Good or Evil are his to choose: he is not born committed to either realm. This, Man needs to be forever aware of, that both paths are open to him and that he alone is responsible for which one he takes. Perhaps it is the need for moral reflection that makes Man so strong.  Common now in every part of the world, he flourishes only where he chooses virtue and extends the hand of friendship to others, each of them named and cherished, and seeking truth as best they can.

The End

Many thanks go to all the people who supported this story, especially Epilachna, Morthoron and Finlay for beta reading, as well as those numerous folk who have given advice on individual passages and practical questions. Thanks also to the reviewers and those readers who chose not to review but nevertheless loyally followed the story (a certain Welshman springs to mind…).

If anyone thinks they recognise the self-portrait, they're quite right. It was painted by Albrecht Dürer in 1500.

The philosophical content of this story was inspired by a number of books I read last year, and which I would like to recommend:

“Beast and Man. The Roots of Human Nature” by Mary Midgley

“Freedom and Discipline” by Richard Smith

“Moral Education: Beyond the Teaching of Right and Wrong” by Colin Wringe

“Virtue Ethics and Moral Education” by David Carr and Jan Steutel