Darkness Unescapable

Days passed with their harsh light and flat shadows. The hoped-for arrival of Eomer and Theodred never came. Eowyn wandered the halls of Meduseld like a grim ghost, mechanically attending to the household of her dotard uncle.

Worry for her brother and cousin painted dark circles under her eyes. But save for those circles, there was no other color in her face. And there were no words she could say to release those fears that stole her sleep.

Eomund's daughter found herself listening to the snatches of rumor and gossip among the servants, pulled in like fishing nets from the townsfolk of Edoras. But there, too, there were no words that could comfort the white lady.

It was deep winter, with short days and a howling wind like wild, mad horses. The darkness now seemed as kin to Eowyn as the cold. With frostbitten fingers, she struggled to read the accounts of the household by the light of one flickering tallow candle.

She sat at the rough wooden table in the room that served as her study, from which she ran the affairs of the house of Eorl. Her breath came out in shimmering white puffs and obscured her view of the paper before her.

Yet for all the sameness and despair, things have a way of making themselves happen, conceiving themselves into existence from nothingness.

"My lady," whispered a servant, tentatively peeking his head through the door.

"Yes, Symon?" Eowyn said dully, looking up from the sheaf of parchments before her.

"My lady, Master Eykr has returned," the servant said hesitantly.

Eowyn raised one eyebrow slightly. So, the great merchant of Edoras, Eykr, had returned from his trip to Gondor. Suddenly, the full implication struck her. She sat forward instinctively.

"Speak further, Symon," she ordered.

"My lady, Eykr would speak with you - but not here," he whispered.

Eowyn frowned but made no comment. "Where then?" she asked.

"He awaits you at his house, my lady," Symon replied. "And he begs you to make haste."

Eowyn turned her head slightly, concerned and bewildered by such a request. But she betrayed nothing by look or word.

"I shall go there directly," she said quietly, rising from her seat. Symon stepped fully into the room, and she saw why he had not entered before. Over his arm was her coat and cloak. If Eowyn had at all doubted that there was more afoot than a simple merchant's report, she doubted no longer. She threw on her coat and cloak and pulled the hood over her head. Symon stepped aside and let Eowyn pass.

***

The early morning streets of Edoras were mostly empty. The eerie dark blue pre-dawn sky was pierced with icy stars. But Eowyn saw none of this as she slipped through the streets.

Eykr, son of Eykbrand, lived in the finest house in Edoras - except for Meduseld. A large, two-storey building with eight rooms and elaborate horse carvings on the shutters, the house seemed quiet. But Eowyn could see light spilling from the cracks.

She knocked on the door, and a moment later, Eykr's daughter, a woman not far from Eowyn's age, opened it.

"Who?" she started to say.

Eowyn looked at the girl, letting her catch a glimpse of her face.

"Oh! My lady!" the girl gasped. "This way!"

Eowyn followed her inside, noting the roaring fire on the hearth and the basket of kittens that slept contentedly by it. She reflected that her arrival was not unexpected. Truly, the mystery deepened.

The girl lead Eowyn up to Eykr's bedchamber. Eowyn hesitated before entering. She could smell the iron tang even from the threshold. Eykr lay on his bed, gaunt and ashen faced. Red-soaked bandages had hardened to a deep marroon.

"My lady!" he gasped, struggling to move.

"Peace, good Eykr," Eowyn said gently but without warmth, pulling back her hood and coming to stand by his bedside. "I have come at thy behest at this early hour to meet with thee, only to find thee thus!"

Eykr the merchant looked up at the lady with his mismatched blue and brown eyes.

"My lady, war is afoot in Gondor!" he croaked, finding that his throat was too parched to speak much more.

"You have just returned from thence?" Eowyn asked quickly.

"Aye - he's but two hours returned!" wailed a plump woman in finely spun brown wool. Eykr's wife twisted her apron in her hands. "Attacked by orcs, he was! Orcs sent by the men of Gondor to keep him from returning home!"

Eykr made another groaning sound as if to speak. Eowyn turned her eyes back to him.

"They..." he gasped, then coughed with a wet, rattling sound. "They..." he fell limply against his pillows. "They will march..." Eykr whispered, then closed his eyes and passed over to the hall of his ancestors. The looked at him reproachfully, as he hadn't even stayed alive long enough to finish his sentence - 'They will march from the East, not the south.' But then, the ancestors reasoned that everything happens with a purpose. And they turned their attention from their newest arrival back to the room where the Lady Eowyn watched Eykr's wife and daughter begin to keen and wail.

She backed away as Eykr's wife rushed the bed. There were no words she could offer at this moment, and so she slipped away from the room, down the stairs and out into the cold dawn air.

Throwing her hood over her face, she rushed back toward Meduseld. Her mind was a riot of thought. They will march...

They will march on a kingless kingdom.
They will march on a kingdom where the only ones who could defend fought on the northern borders.

And there was nothing Eowyn could do except sit and await the moment of doom.

Or was there?

If Eykr's words were to be believed, they had not yet begun to march. And therein lay the one hope for Rohan. Eowyn's quick steps turned into a run - for run she must if she was to be on her way to the great city of Minas Tirith before the sun was mid-sky!

Eowyn had scared stepped over the threshold of Meduseld when a frantic servant came running up to her.

"My lady! We have searched everywhere for you!" the girl gasped.

"I am here now," replied Eowyn, taking down her hood. "And I need you to - "

Her words were cut off by the maid, who spoke in a rush, tugging at Eowyn's sleeve to pull her along, deeper into the shadowy hall.

"My lady! The king has fallen gravely ill in the night. He burns with fever, and he can hold neither food nor water," the girl chattered as she dragged Eowyn across the great hall to the small room where Theoden slept.

Eowyn immediately felt chill fear for her beloved uncle. She feared the hand of Grima - the hasty hand that perhaps was growing impatient of waiting for the king to die of his own accord. And then, Eowyn realized that she could not leave her uncle's side. Without her watchful presence, further ill might befall him, and if he were to die without any of the House of Eorl present in Meduseld...then the path was clear for another. And woman though she was, Eowyn held enough sway to stave off any direct claims to the throne long enough for Eomer and Theodred to return.

She sighed as she entered her uncle's chamber, wrinkling her nose slightly at the rancid odor of the airless room. It smelled no better than the meanest shepherd's cot.

How fitting, she thought with despairing irony.

~
Eowyn knelt by her uncle's bedside, gently stroking his feverish brow with one cold hand.

"Uncle," she whispered. "What has happened?"

There was little response other than a groan. Eowyn felt the anger in her heart flare up, yet it was like a flame - consuming and without direction.

Swiftly, she rose to her feet and turned to face the two pinched-faced maids.

"Add coals to the brazier, this room is like a buttery rather than a sickroom," she ordered harshly. "Fetch me a basin of water and the healer's pouch from my chambers."

The two maids ran off to obey the lady's orders, exchanging withering glances once safely on the other side of the door.

Eowyn removed her cloak, though she kept her coat on for warmth. She sat down on the edge of her uncle's bed and studied his pallid face.

"What is to become of us?" she whispered to no one - since no one was really there.