Cushions

He’d thought about this carefully. Now was the time to speak.

“You will have to propose to her,” Éomer said.

“Are you joking? Me propose to Éowyn?”

“Well who else is there in the room that I could mean?”

“Éomer,” Éothain retorted, “there is no possibility that I am going to propose marriage to your sister. I have as much desire to marry Éowyn as… as… as I have to marry you!”

“But it would solve the problem of her… dalliance with this Faramir. She can marry you, you can both live in Édoras, and Éowyn can be the Mistress of Meduseld.”

“No. She wouldn’t wish it, I wouldn’t wish it…”

Before Éothain could continue Éomer interrupted. “She was love sick for Aragorn barely two months ago. Now she believes herself in love with this Gondorian. It would take little for her to believe herself in love with you instead!”

“Hmm – she would sooner have one of those elven ‘brothers’ of Lord Aragorn’s, I would think; she seems to prefer her men dark-haired. But that is not my main reason for refusing your kind offer of your sister’s hand… Or have you forgotten Cwengyth?”

If he was being completely honest Éomer would have had to admit that he had, indeed, forgotten her. Well, forgotten that his friend had spent the last few hours, before they had ridden to the muster, in the company of Éowyn’s childhood friend. The same young woman who had joined in with Éowyn when the two young men had taught her how to handle a sword.

What he actually said was “Ah. Cwengyth. You are serious about her?”

“We are betrothed. Or we will be when I get home. She has agreed, although we have had no time to talk to our families, and so it is not official. And, my Lord King, do not even think of telling me that if it is not official it doesn’t count.

“Firstly I want to marry her, not Éowyn; secondly, I value my balls; and, thirdly, Cwengyth is no respecter of persons, so if she knew our betrothal was broken at your behest you would also need to keep your hand on your own balls at all times, or it might be the end of the House of Éorl.”

Ah well, Éomer thought, it had been a good idea but… he burst out laughing.

“Best we both keep our manhood, Éothain,” he managed when he stopped laughing. “So… who else do you suggest?”

………………………………….

It really wasn’t Lothíriel’s fault that she overheard the conversation between Father and Faramir. The weather was warm enough for her maid to have thrown open the windows of Lothíriel’s bedroom and, despite herself, she was drawn to it to watch her brothers ride out, as they now did most mornings, with the King of Rohan. If Father and Faramir decided to have a conversation on the terrace, just below, it was hardly Lothíriel’s fault, and it might have been rude to draw their attention and embarrass them.

“I really don’t know what to do, Uncle Imrahil,” Faramir said. “I am sure that I wish to marry Éowyn, but there are so many uncertainties. We are both in mourning, and so we cannot even consider a betrothal, but should I make no move to ask her to be my wife she may feel that I do not care for her.

“If I am to ask her, then I must also ask her brother, and there is no certainty that he will agree to my suit. Once Aragorn is crowned, after all, I will have no official position. It would make it harder for me to ask for her hand in future if it has been denied once. And I am not sure that Éomer approves of me at all; I think he would rather she marry one of her countrymen.”

‘How strange,’ Lothíriel thought, ‘that, only a few months ago, hearing Faramir fret over proposing marriage to another would have been such a disappointment to me. And now I can only feel sympathy for him – and, perhaps, even a little fellow-feeling. These Rohirrim have certainly stirred our affections!’

Father was speaking. “Are you certain of your own feelings, Faramir? Emotions have been running high recently and you must consider whether this is a woman whose face you would wish to see at breakfast for the rest of your life. Can you see her as the mother of your children?”

Lothíriel considered her father’s words, just as Faramir seemed to do. Yes, there had been a lot of emotion in the air when she first saw Éomer, but she had not associated any of it with the remote figure sitting at his sister’s bedside. Probably there had been a lot of emotion in the air when the camp at Cormallen was first set up; but by the time she arrived there the emotional level didn’t seem to have been particularly high.

The thought of eating breakfast with him every morning, however, was most agreeable. The ‘having babies’ took a little more thought. But then there was more to it from the female perspective, and being the mother of Éomer’s children sounded preferable to being the mother to anyone else’s, from what she understood of the process.

“Yes,” Faramir answered Father. “Yes, I am certain of my feelings; I have never felt this about any other woman and, yes, the prospect of both breakfast and babies fills me with longing.”

“Then I would suggest you ask the lady if she is happy to consider a betrothal once the period of mourning for your father and brother, and her uncle and cousin, is complete. And that you get to know her brother better. He is a good man; the boys and I grew fond of him during the time we spent together before and after the fighting at the Black Gate.”

‘Perhaps,’ Lothíriel thought suddenly, ‘that is why Éomer is avoiding me! Perhaps he wishes to propose and cannot for he is still in mourning. I suppose I am, too, for both Uncle Denethor and Boromir!’

But she wasn’t totally convinced by her own reasoning and thought Faramir’s contention, that Éomer might wish Éowyn to marry one of her countrymen, might be something Éomer would also apply to himself.

“You need to get to know Éomer better,” Father said to Faramir. “In a less formal, family, setting. I suggest that I invite him and his sister to dine with my family tomorrow evening; for we already know that Aragorn intends that, as it is the last evening before he is crowned, he will spend it with the members of the Fellowship and his foster brothers.

“And, as my nephew, you will, of course, be one of the family; I would have invited you in any case.”

As the two men walked out of earshot Lothíriel smiled and hugged one of her cushions to her chest. She was almost certain that Éomer could not refuse Father’s invitation without being rude. She must make sure she looked her best.

………………………………….

Seating arrangements were never a problem when only the family were at home; people sat beside whoever they had been conversing with before they went into the dining room.

As this was meant to be a family dinner this tradition would still be followed despite the two guests. However there seemed to be something akin to a complicated dance going on in the reception room which, had she not been an interested party herself, would have amused Lothíriel greatly.

Faramir was trying to speak to both Éomer and Éowyn, which should have been fairly easy as Éomer seemed determined to stick to his sister like a burr, except that Éomer seemed to be trying to steer Éowyn away from Faramir. Éowyn gave the impression that she was trying to escape from her brother but not, of course, from Faramir.

Lothíriel’s sister-in-law, Miraina, was also part of the party, having arrived from Dol Amroth to attend the coronation. She seemed to be gently trying to move Lothíriel closer to Éomer. Lothíriel had no problem with this, of course, but she did wonder whether it meant Miraina had guessed that she found him very handsome, or whether she simply thought it would make for a more even sitting arrangement, closer to that of a formal dinner.

Whichever it was, it seemed as if Éomer, having greeted her briefly on his arrival, was more intent on trying to keep his sister and Faramir apart than on talking to Lothíriel. He didn’t even seem to be trying to actively avoid her; he just seemed to be ignoring her.

Lothíriel thought that might be even worse than being avoided.

Father seemed to be taking little notice of the machinations of his dinner companions and yet, somehow, he managed to steer everyone into the dining room in such a way that Éomer ended up sitting between Faramir and Lothíriel, with Éowyn opposite them, beside Father. This meant that the King of Rohan really had to talk to either Lothíriel or Faramir.

Faramir more or less solved the dilemma by engaging Éomer in a conversation about tomorrow’s ceremony, and how it might differ from Éomer’s own forthcoming coronation, before going on to discuss the return of the wounded Riders to Rohan. Lothíriel wasn’t sure this were quite the sort of conversation Father had in mind, when he suggested the two men should get to know each other better, but she supposed that it was, at least, a start.

Éomer did look almost longingly towards Lothíriel herself, after a minute or two, but then turned resolutely towards Faramir leaving Lothíriel to her own devices as Amrothos was talking to Erchirion about tailoring. She decided to leave Éomer to Faramir and began to talk, across the table, with Éowyn. She was actually quite surprised when the White Lady of Rohan happily picked up on her overture and, by the time the meal was over, the two young women moved into the withdrawing room together.

………………………..

It was a more complicated coronation than Éomer expected his own would be, once he got back to Edoras. Still, if you only had one every nine or ten centuries or so, he supposed you might want to make it something of a major event. And, of course, the people of Gondor were not mourning the death of their previous king, whereas coronations in The Mark were usually within days of the death of a monarch.

Even so the coronation of King Elessar was a bit too fancy for Éomer’s tastes; even the food at the banquet was rather too fancy, although very good. Éowyn tried to impress him with the information that Steward Faramir had done much of the organising, with some input from Gandalf, but she was not terribly successful. Éomer was not going to be sweet-talked into agreeing to his sister marrying the man just because he could organise such an event; it was hardly a skill that would be called for very often.

That Aragorn believed him worthy of a Princedom was a greater commendation.

Thoughts of Princedoms brought Éomer’s mind to his friend Imrahil. Actually Imrahil seemed to rate Faramir highly as a skilled leader of men although, as he was Faramir’s uncle, he might be slightly biased. Imrahil, in full regalia, looked very impressive, followed by his sons, with his daughter on his arm. Éomer was pleased that Éothain had insisted on him having new clothes made, his hair and beard newly trimmed, and his breastplate polished otherwise he might well have looked like a poor relative at a feast.

Princess Lothíriel looked quite beautiful. Dressed in silver and blue, the colours of her house, she had a silver device of swans worked into her hair. It was such a beautiful colour, Lothíriel’s hair – so black it shone. Théodred once rode a stallion that gleamed like that and Éomer had wanted one like him. But almost all the black horses had been taken by the Enemy in the past two or three years…

She had a good figure, he thought, almost as tall as Éowyn, breasts just big enough to form a shadowed valley between them, nice hands. Her hands looked as if they would have a good feel for the horse she rode. Except that she didn’t ride. He had heard her, himself, say that she “would much rather not ride, but travel in one of the wagons.”

Éomer turned determinedly away from his perusal of the Princess of Dol Amroth and allowed himself to be distracted by another dark-haired beauty of the court of Gondor, but somehow her dress was just a little too low, her hair was not quite such a perfect black as Lothíriel’s, her voice just a little too high. He would be glad to get away from this place and go home. Where he was sure he would soon forget any desires he might have for Imrahil’s daughter.


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