On the Turning Away

“It's a sin that somehow
Light is changing to shadow
And casting it's shroud
Over all we have known.
Unaware how the ranks have grown,
Driven on by a heart of stone,
We could find that we're all alone
In the dream of the proud,
On the wings of the night,
As the daytime is stirring
Where the speechless unite
In a silent accord.”

~*~
Eventually snow drops bloomed near the old manure pile where the sun melted away the thinnest snow. The drifts and piles had settled, shrunken in on themselves, losing the softness and puffiness of true winter. Was it shying away from the coming light, or holding its ground, preparing to fight? Morwen could not tell. Through the winter, she had taken in sewing, had written every bill of sale and inventory Walda kept in his stack of ledgers in his office, most of them faded almost to illegibility. Walda’s own poor penmanship helped matters very little, but as the winter wore on, at least his chest caused him no pain. Slowly, the tavern started to heal, the scab thick and tender, but the bleeding stopped.

Once again, the carpenter from directly up the hill was called to repair their furniture, and it was decided that every bed in the inn, guest or otherwise, would be anchored to the walls and floor. Rose’s jaw would not have been broken had the Lymer not been able to so easily wrench Morwen’s bed frame apart, and it would cut down immensely on the squeaking when someone had a customer. Not that Morwen would. Few in the tavern would even look at her, unless they were of the King’s men, and even they kept a respectful distance, the same used around the wives and daughters of the higher commanders. Morwen found it odd, and uncomfortable, but realized they showed her that respect because of what she had done for Gamling. Their loyalty saw beyond what she had been before.

And yet, in no way was The Dragon’s Hoard her home any more. Ransacked, violated as it had been, the smears of Rose’s blood still staining the floor boards where Gamling’s boots usually rested, it was only a place she worked and slept. Her heart was up the hill, as she knew it had been for years. But she was needed more in the tavern.

After the trial in the barn, Lily had not been herself. Whether her mind had come unhinged permanently or just for the short term, no one knew at first. Once she’d returned to the tavern and helped to wash, she slept in her bed— for the first time in weeks, apparently— for a full day and two nights, and awoke seeming rested, but remote. She did not speak and jumped at every unexpected sound, eating little and remaining quiet in some hidden corner. But her silence and remoteness were not like they had been before. Instead of afraid or angry, she seemed merely calm, and finally one day she was caught smiling as she sat near a candle sewing.

The city, too, it seemed, was healing, though much more slowly than it should have. Fewer people were afraid to leave their homes, once the search for Valacar the Lymer and his friends had been called off. Since little was known of their orders for that night, it was announced by order of Grima Wormtongue that they had disappeared on a scouting mission in the White Mountains, where it was thought that Gondor, being besieged to the south and east, had sent its refugees to seek aid from Rohan. This, of course, was not the case, though only Gamling and Háma and a few trusted young men full of anger and extra muscle knew what had really happened after the women were taken from the barn. It was better that way. Most of the population was burdened enough already.

And it was under that burden of long-suffering waiting, hope hanging by a few ragged threads, that Theodred got through a late snow squall and returned to Meduseld to speak to his father again.

“Father… I do not wish to do what I do now, but I feel I have no choice, and as your Second Marshal, it is my right.” Theodred’s gaze once again sought his father’s, but it remained unmet. Grima’s, however, was eerily fixed, though Theodred ignored it.

“Forces of great orcs muster daily across the River Isen. Every scrap of game is gone, not a weasel or hare marks the snow, and every songbird is vanished. Every hamlet within a day’s march of the border, save the Deep itself, is deserted, the livestock dead and ravaged where they lay. Even the carrion crows and rats have abandoned them. There is nothing left that these beasts have not destroyed, and those that have survived the attacks have come to the Deep for refuge. There, they starve, and sicken, and die by the dozens in spite of our protection.

“I have my suspicions about where the beasts hail from, and to whom they answer, but that must be left to another time and place. Father, I beg you, let us ride out and strike now before the force gathers to full strength, and sweeps still more of our people into turmoil and death. I wish your good will. I wish your blessing in this, but…” Here the Second Marshal paused for breath, his jaw tightening into a firm, square line.

“I shall take troops as I feel necessary, should my scouts send word of attack, whether by your will or no. It is my right as your Second Marshal to command our forces, and advise you of where need is greatest. Guarding our western border has, this winter, become necessary. I will do my duty, the duty I swore to you and Bema and Mother’s memory long ago before your illness, though I should die doing it. Though I do not wish it so.”

“What over-dramatics are these,” Grima said, his hand languid on the arm of Theoden King’s chair, but he got no farther. Anda, Theodred’s sword, so named for the expression on the faces of those it slew, found purchase against the hollow of Grima’s throat.

“Speak again,” Theodred ordered the shivering counselor, his silvery icicle gaze piercing Grima’s watery blue one. “Lie again. Defy me, your better in every way, to my face again, Worm, I dare you. But, do so only if you possess the craft to turn steel to silks and feathers and save your miserable neck, for if I hear one more word from you, the fountain of your life’s blood will paint these flags. I swear it by the memory of my mother, who turns in her grave to see what your poison has done to my father and king.”

Shifting his grip on the sword called Dread, Theodred swung it sideways, double-handed, connecting the flat of the blade with the side of Grima’s head and bowling him onto the floor.

“Speak again,” he thundered, glowering at the undignified heap of counselor on the floor, then turned back to Theoden.

“Father, I ask pardon for this violence in your house, and for my defiance of what is supposedly your will. I will send for the Eohere soon, because I love you, and what I promised you lays heavy on my heart. Know me for a good son, should we not speak again.”

Then kneeling, he took his father’s cold, limp hands in his own and rest his head against them, missing the touch of a palm to the back of his head, his king’s blessing. He would go on without it, he vowed, rising.

“Be well, Father, and my love go with you,” and without further ceremony or pomp, the Prince rode from Edoras to his stronghold at the Deep, and thought long on what had happened in his former home.

He sent the muster summons by carrier bird two weeks later. He received no reply.
~*~

The king’s household, tossed into silent turmoil by Theodred’s sudden arrival and equally sudden departure, took to mind the wisdom of the hare and sat watching and waiting, all eyes and ears turned not toward the throne, but the oily black shadow that squatted toad-like beside it.

Grima’s bruise faded, thanks in part to mugwort and bergamot. His anger, fed by obsession and loneliness and wine, did not.

The brown-headed messenger bird, bred specifically for Helm’s Deep, arrived at Meduseld one morning, and met its death by Grima’s own hands before the disgusted eyes of the harelipped serving girl. It was she that removed the bird’s remains from the chamber pot, and she that copied stroke for stroke the tiny message tied to the poor beast’s leg, though she could not read or speak. It was she that took the copied message to the gardener’s wife, the maid freed from Grima’s service before her. That girl, heavy with a child that she thanked the moon and stars nightly was not the seed of the Worm, found Gamling. So it fell to Gamling to send the message to Erkenbrand, guarding the city gates. Theodred’s favorite of his father’s hunting dogs, a boisterous, brindled boar dog with a cudgel for a tail, carried the message safely down the levels alongside Háma’s children and a basket of warm spice cakes Feanreth made for her Uncle Erkenbrand. The children and dog were duly praised, and rewarded for their bravery, and went unmolested back to their home smiling broadly. Hope swirled in their footsteps.

Unexpectedly to few within the hall, Erkenbrand and the eohere rode out a day later, their orders from Theodred tucked into Erkenbrand's belt pouch, and with them went a lonely brown-headed delivery bird caged beneath his cloak. Bred in Edoras, the bird would fly their messages faithfully, with no knowledge of how much could rest on his dainty sepia feathers. Lucky beast, Erkenbrand thought, as he rode west. He, at least, will have peace.
~*~

Crocus flowers followed the snow drops as the drifts beside the barn faded away and turned the inn yard to mud. News came, chattered on the wind by the sparrows and chickadees that, inspired by spring’s early arrival, flapped and fluttered over nest sites. Lily laughed watching Cubby and her brother play “ring the rosies” around the year’s first dandelion, a pitiful little excuse for a weed in the lee of the kitchen wall, but for all that, the brightest color anyone had seen in months. Rose’s bandages came off. She could chew her food again, and swallow, and speak without pain. After a visit with her sister— kept quiet and private in the tack room of Walda’s barn— Bliss found the means to smile again, but the natural cheer of her disposition would take longer to return.

One evening, later than most folk went visiting, a knock sounded on Háma’s door, and he answered it warily, Feanreth and Gytha already half way into the loft as the door opened.

“Offa. Wulf. Welcome. Enter, be welcome,” he said, opening the door wide for his neighbors to enter. “Haleth, draw some ale for our visitors. Feanreth? Tuck your sister in please.” The lump of blankets that was Fyrene shifted and mumbled, but said nothing to the men before the door, and after a glance at each other, she was ignored.

“We’ve come to talk with you about your lad here, Háma,” Offa said, cracking his great knuckles one hand at a time.

“Haleth? What have you done, boy?” Háma asked, gesturing the two men to the bench near the fire.

“We owe him a debt, for his part in… in what happened to my Wulfwyn,” Offa continued, waving one hand in a placating way. “Nothing’s amiss, don’t fret.”

“We’ve both got good trades,” Wulf the tanner said, the elder of the two brothers by just enough that the difference was noticeable. “And we’ve both got room for a good strong lad as apprentice. We’d take him and gladly, no money required.”

“It’d be your repayment for saving… for trying to save my Wulfwyn, and probably me as well,” Offa said, looking at the boy in question over his ale. “Either of us you worked with, you’d have a good living once you’re learned up a bit. I’ve seen you cut wood and carve, and you’re a natural to it. The eye converts well to metal, once you learn how it behaves.”

“But,” Wulf said over a gulp of his ale, “you’re also right smart, and from what little Mathilde says, learning your letters and ciphering. You’re more likely to use that in with me, old as I am. My son Offa, he’s got the working down, but not the books. You’d help each other. And in my line, you’re more likely to meet the high folk. With your Da’s position behind you, you’d stand to even gain a place in the village counsel, or go to Gondor as book binder to the king, should you choose.”

“Now, my nephew Wulf works with me already,” Offa said, nodding. “You know that from playing with Mathilde as you did. But he’s near done and ready to move out on his own. Got a lass he fancies now, so I don’t reckon it’s going to be longer than a year or two before we’re looking at a wedding. That’ll mean plenty of work with me, but there’s more prestige in leatherworking, if you fancy being well-thought of.”

“And more mess, and stink,” Wulf added. “There’s never a day I don’t smell horse piss or dog shite on somethin’ I wear, but the money’s good and the need is always there. So the choice is up to you lad. Either one of us’d be glad to have you.”

“You’re a smart lad, and brave, and strong. It’ll get you far,” Offa concluded. “And we’d like to help.”

Shocked, Haleth did the only thing he could think of: plop himself down on the floor beside Hama’s stool and take a swig of his father’s ale to work the saw dust feeling out of his mouth.

“I… I don’t know what to… I always thought I’d go to the eohere,” he finally stuttered.

“No reason you couldn’t still do that too,” Háma said carefully, taking back his tankard. “Wulf was quite the undercaptain in his younger days. Taught me a thing or two, leastways.”

The cottage was quiet while the men and lad looked from one to the other and back again, occasionally sipping at their small ale. It was Haleth, finally, that broke the silence. “Thank you, my lords, truly. I just… I’m not sure how to answer, just now. May I have some time to think on it? A few days, a week?”

“I like that answer, boy,” Wulf said rising. “No good to go into a decision like this on a whim. We’ll call again in a fortnight, after you and your Da have had time to talk it all out. If you want to speak with me, or see where and how we work, come along by. Now that the thaw is coming, we’ll be busy again soon enough. It’ll be a good time.”

“And I’ll extend the same offer,” Offa said, rising. “Any time you’d care to come, you’re welcome gladly.”

Saying their goodnights, Offa the Smith and Wulf the Tanner left the cottage. In their wake, Haleth drew a deep breath and looked up at his father with wide eyes.

“All I did was run to the smithy when Wulfwyn screamed. Was that really so important? Even though she died anyway?”

With no answer to give, Háma simply reached for his son and held him tight, his head already taller than Háma’s shoulder.
~*~

No more flowers bloomed before Saruman’s orcs crossed the Isen. Not a single man in the forces guarding the river crossing and Gap had seen an attack of such numbers executed with such surprise, and such vicious, relentless focus. Theodred fell surrounded by Dread’s last meal, the blade and fuller shining dully under the veiled sun. It had taken four of the beasts, and a final, massive orc unlike anything Elfhelm had ever seen, to murder the Prince, but he took that creature with him too, spitting contemptuously into its face before he fell beside it.

“Leave me here,” he panted as Elfhelm and Grimbold together tried to stanch the bleeding and take him to the eastern shore and help. “Let me lie here— to keep the Fords till Eomer comes!”* And when a moment later he smiled peacefully at the far shore, they realized the White Horse had come for their prince, and they did as he bade. He lay there on the tiny spit of sand and stone that he and his men had held against the foulest treachery to ever come from the bowels of Orthanc, his men close around him and his banner bright against the grey and black of the river banks. When a slight wind blew, lifting the heads of the mourning Riders who remained, they saw, or thought they saw, Theodred’s rearing white horse standard turn to the west and canter comfortably on that wind, and took it as a sign.

The War had begun.
~*~

A.N.--
* (Unfinished Tales, Pg. 359) Tolkien, J.R.R. ed. Christopher Tolkien.

Lyrics: "On the Turning Away” by Pink Floyd. Thanks for letting me borrow the lyrics and inspiration.

"The White Horse had come for their Prince" references an old Norse myth that Sleipnir, the 8-legged steed of Odin, would come to warriors about to die and carry them to the land of the dead. The idea was first used by Katzilla in her series of Eomer tales, though since it is so old, I feel comfortable referencing it here as well.