The Maegd Feorran

Summary: As Thengel and his family travel to Rohan to take up the kingship, his eldest daughter writes home.


My dear Arveldis,

I do not know if this will ever reach you, although Mother says we will be sending back to Lossarnach often, but I must have something to do with my hands. Today is our thirteenth day of travel and we long ago exhausted any interest in what games and diversions we thought to pack.

The carriage has been made as comfortable as possible, but I suppose even a peasant might grow tired of a down and velvet cushion if that is all he has to rest his seat upon. Mother sits opposite me, resting her eyes while Torthild lies curled against Mother’s side napping. Remember how in the months before we left, Mother seemed never to tire, despite all that needed to be done? This journey tires her, though. She tells me it is just the waiting and that she is saving her strength for when we arrive, but I believe she is once again with child, a child that will be born in a strange land. I hope it will be a girl, although I know Father desires another son.

He lets Théoden ride with him. I can see them now, Théod also asleep, his tow-head lolling over Father’s arm. I suppose he is unimpressed with the views of his future kingdom.

Now nine days out of Minas Tirith, Rohan seems endless. You could drop all the uncounted vales of Lossarnach into it and they would simply disappear amidst the unvarying grasslands. Oh, how I long for a chatty chilly stream, a dark rumbling mountainside – anything to relieve us of this tiresome sameness! Yet, it is not without its own beauty. The way the wind strays and gambols across the fields reminds me of a breeze on the river.

You know I did not want to come. I begged Mother to let me stay with Aunt Rivorn and Uncle Maegorod. I even asked if I might stay and live with you but she would hear none of it.

“In Rohan you will be a princess” she says, and a princess always does what is best for her country and her family. “Rohan is your birthright” she told me. But it is not for me we have forsaken our home – her home – for another.

Will I ever have Mother’s strength? Even now she sits with her back straight, supporting Torthild, and I know should some need arise she would awake in a moment clearheaded and ready. She says it is her love for Father which gives her strength. When word came to return to Rohan, she simply began packing. Perhaps she always knew it would come, that by accepting Father she had agreed to one day leave her home for his.

Is this how it will be in Rohan? Do the girls and women merely do whatever the men say? Keep their homes and children and wait for husbands and brothers to return home?

Mother says I will have my own horse, and that is something, at any rate. But will they let me ride it when and where I like, I wonder.

I have heard that unmarried Rohirrim bed down with their horses and that their stables are far finer than their dwelling houses. I hope this is not so.

I do not want a husband who smells like a horse.

I fear what birthright I have will be traded with my maidenhead to the lord of a some strategic territory, a man with something my father can value: arms, horses, a well-fortified home near a river crossing, and a son who has not had the good sense to insist on his own heart.

What does it mean to be a princess in Rohan? Which is better? To be a greater lord in a lesser place, or a lesser lord in a greater place? To serve in Gondor, or to rule in Rohan? I know – it does not matter, we have been given no choice. All I know is that I would forsake it all to return to Lossarnach, attend our first Yule ball together, grow up to marry some lordling of no consequence who loves dark hair, and remain your friend forever.

I do not even know if we will have Yule in Rohan.

I must stop now. The sun is setting, and while it casts the grasslands in a rich and golden glow it leaves this carriage in darkness and Mother says I must not strain my eyes.

I do not know when we shall see each other again, but I do know I will be thinking of you every day. Please write soon.

Your friend always,

Tortgyd Thengelsdaughter