how to live when all is lost | for sent_to_try_us

[shieldofrohan]

She had been prepared for the end. She had been ready to die with sword in hand, to watch Edoras burn and bring her down with it, while the Shadow covered the land and all that they clung to was swept away. She had done all that she could, and even doing it, she had known it would not be enough. She had been ready.

She had not been ready to survive it. Every day since, she has wished with all her heart that she did not.

He had tried to woo her, at first. If it had not been so terrible to see, it would almost have been funny: the sheer clumsy stupidity of it, to think that power was enough, that a grief-stricken captive would flee to the architect of her misery. He had brought her flowers, and tried to make himself a confidant. She had spat in his face, and bidden him to kill her too, or else she would kill him.

Even Gríma's foolishness had its limits, but his covetousness did not. He would have her, he told her, and she would be his wife and kneel for him, and she would know her place. At the time, she had laughed openly, certain that nothing he could do would break her will, knowing that she had resigned herself to pain and death, believing that there was nothing left for him to turn against her. Éomer was dead. Théodred was dead. The only leverage he had over her was Théoden, who lingered half-conscious and no longer himself; and he needed the King more than he needed his desires met.

She had been so innocent, back then. Even in what had seemed to her the darkest possible hour, with everything lost and all that she loved ripped from her, she had still been so naïve.

The first time he had tried to bed her, she had clawed her nails across his face, snarling and spitting like a wildcat; and Gríma would not have overcome her alone, being both smaller and weaker than his unwilling bride, but he was not alone. She had been held down by his new guard, muscular men of Dunlending stock, and her maidenhead was lost to her most loathed enemy beneath the eyes and hands of three uncaring strangers, and she had wept as bitterly as ever a woman wept - not for her lost virginity, nor even for its circumstances, but because that was the moment at which she understood fully how utterly helpless she had become.

She tried to rally. She tried to find some strength, some pride to carry her forward. At every turn, it was ripped from her.

She had not given way easily. She had made him fight for every inch: made him drag her by her hair sooner than go where she was told; met his demands with stony, proud silence; watched for any weakness. She had left her mark on him more than once, biting and scratching and kicking and punching, and in time, it seemed, he had changed his aim. If he had once seemed to hope that she would love him, he soon sought only to see her broken, like a horse to the bridle; if he had once intended to make her his wife, now he was content to make her his whore. Anything, it seemed, to make her crawl.

She tried to escape, more than once. She knew the King's hall better than anyone still living, and they could not guard her all the time. Her second attempt, in hindsight, had come close to success - would have been successful, in all likelihood, if she had simply fled. But she could not bear to flee and leave him living, and she had managed to come so close, had had the knife almost to his throat, when the men he hired had heard his screams and dragged her off. That she had been soundly beaten did nothing to dissuade her; that thereafter she was locked away for over a week without light or food only hardened her resolve. But then there had been the prisoners.

Gríma needed the King alive. He needed Éowyn alive. The other Men of Rohan, those who had survived his takeover... he needed them far less. He had brought her out of her captivity, weak with hunger and grief, to see the ends of the men who had tried to help her. Háma, Ceolfrith, Harbeorn, and the rest, all men she had known since her childhood, bloodied and beaten and trying to remain strong; he had made her stand there as they were hanged, and their bodies thrown onto the dungheap, and all she could do for them was to give them the honour of not looking away.

And then he had turned to her, and said in a tone low enough for her, Their wives, their children. And when the guards released her arms, and Gríma told her to kneel, she had knelt.

That was a year ago. She has rebelled since, in smaller ways; twice more she attempted escape, alone in her planning, but that made no difference to the deaths that came from it. The second time she came close to killing him, wrapping her hands around his throat so that he could not call for help, was the last time he was alone with her. He was still alive, and she was still a slave, and all that she had accomplished was that her humiliations were more public.

Little by little, he broke her down. She rarely spoke, rarely moved without being ordered to. For a time, she tried to kill herself: refused food and water, until they forced it down her throat anyway; sought any weapon to end things, without success; tried to break her skull against the walls of her room, until they bound her helpless to a bed. In the end, with even that escape blocked to her, she surrendered. She hated herself for surrendering. She hated Théoden, in his sickness and his weakness, for surrendering them. She hated everything, with a ferocity that was the only thing she could still feel, and she had no recourse.

When he told her to kneel, now, she knelt. When he told her to stand, she stood. When he told her to open her legs, or her mouth, or any other part of her, she did. She stood behind his seat, beside the empty throne, and she was a shell: she said not one word, nor shed one tear, nor moved a muscle unless she was told. She had spoken against him perhaps a dozen times since the winter, never for her own sake: to denounce some political cruelty, to refuse him some right that was not his to claim, to say aloud You are not King. Each time, she had been made to pay. Each time, her people had been made to pay. She would never allow herself to close her eyes, as the bodies were brought before her. She would never give their lives lightly, and so she surrendered, over and over again, and hated herself more every moment.

And then, the King died.

She did not weep, finding Théoden cold and stiff in his bed when she came to bring his breakfast. She felt no sorrow, only a dull ache where her feelings had once been. She thought, without the horror she should feel: I would that you had died two years sooner, and spared us all this end. She closed his eyes, and settled his withered hands upon his counterpane, and, despite it all, she kissed his brow.

If he was dead, then Gríma was King. He was King by her hand, by her claim. He was King because he had married the Queen, and so long as she surrendered to him, who was to dispute it? And in time, she knew, his attempts would bear fruit, and she would fall pregnant with his son, and then the line of Eorl would be reduced to a whore's get, and what remained of Rohan would mean less than the dirt.

They had ceased to watch her so closely, now. It had been months since she had made any attempt at escape or rebellion. She had no contact with her own people, those who were loyal to the line of Eorl; she had no weapon and no horse. She had only one thing to aid her: the last scraps of Éowyn, Éomund's daughter, who had once sworn that she would never bend.

She would die, she swore, there in the dead man's room. She would die, before she lived a day as King Wormtongue's queen.

And she hurled herself at the guardsman, and as he stumbled back, taken by surprise, she scrabbled the eating-knife from his belt, and drove it into his eye, and then his throat, and she ran. There were few windows in the living-quarters of the hall, and fewer still large enough to climb through; she ran for the nearest door, a headlong and desperate dash which had no chance of success, no hope of escape...

And out into the summer sunlight, so dazzlingly bright after months almost entirely spend inside. She staggered at the heat of it like a hammer-blow, and tried to catch herself, looking back into the shadows of the hall and out into a city that was no longer hers, and wondered why they were not yet upon her; but there was no virtue in wondering, or in pause. She held the knife white-knuckled, turning toward the stables. It would do nothing to defend her, if armoured men came to reclaim her. It would not save her from capture - but it could save her from once again surviving it.

They did not come.

She did not discover why until she was outside the city. She had taken, of all among them, the King's own horse: Snowmane knew her well, and he had almost smashed down the door of his stall when she called to him. He charged through the street and down the Barrow-Road, and she clung bareback to his mane, almost flat against his back, the bloody knife still in her hand; and as the gates were closed to bar her leaving, the guards at last moving to prevent her, she dug her heels into the stallion's flanks and urged him on, with all the swiftness that only Rohan's horses could claim, and the guards were Men of Rohan, and they hesitated a split second to recognise the King's horse, and then he was upon them, and bursting out onto the open hillside, and he did not stop until the strength left him, and then he settled from a gallop to a trot, his white flanks heaving and dark with sweat.

And it was then, and only then, that she found she was not alone.

That was two weeks ago. Now, she and her strange rescuers are far from Edoras, outside the borders of the Mark, farther than she has ever been. She has spoken to them, by now: enough to know that they were sent to retrieve her, that their rulers seek an alliance, and that they will see her returned to the throne. It should be a hopeful thing, but it fills her with a terrible dread to think of it. Will she be Queen, who has already betrayed her people a thousand times, and surrendered them and herself to the man who would destroy them? Will she take up their cause, only to fail them anew?

She should have died, she thinks. She should have died in the escape. She should have died in the imprisonment. She should have died a year and a half ago, when she saw her people fall. But she is alive, and she cannot pretend that she has no duty to them, and even in the direst moments of her imprisonment, she has never been so afraid.

They brought clothing and supplies, and at last she is permitted some of the things she has been denied: she is given a knife to eat with, and a belt, and riding-gear. She looks, as they ride into the courtyard, almost the woman she was before the war: she is tall and fair and she sits upright in the saddle of a milk-white warhorse, her chin raised and her long golden hair fluttering in the August breeze. But there is an emptiness behind the grey eyes that fix themselves on some imagined point, and her hand clutches tightly to the horn of her saddle, the mark of a shackle half-visible on her wrist, and, inside, she is nothing the same.

She does not dismount when they draw to a halt. She barely seems to have realised that they have stopped at all. It is with the slowness of one moving through a dream that at last she turns her head, looking uncomprehendingly at the small party who have left the palace to meet them.

"They will follow me here, as like as not." Her voice feels rusty, alien on her tongue. It is the voice of the old Éowyn, who had never knelt with her head bowed and called herself whore and slave. It is the voice of a woman who expects to be taken seriously, coming from the mouth of one who has grown to expect mocking laughter. It is the voice of a Queen, and she is not Queen; she is not sure she is even human any more.

She wants to scream. She wants to say: Kill me or leave me to the wolves, but do not ask me to be Éomund's daughter now. She is dead, the Lady Éowyn is dead, and all is lost. Do not look at me as though I carry hope; I have none even for myself. She wants to say: I cannot offer you alliance, I cannot offer you help, I can offer you nothing at all. But there is no other Lady Éowyn, and she is needed, all the same.

"They will follow me," she repeats, and her hand winds tighter in the reins, her nails digging into her palm. They are longer nails than she would choose. It has been a long time since she has been trusted with either work to keep them short for, or with scissors. "Are you ready, if they come?"

Comments

[shieldofrohan]

Both shine through bright as firelight, and some small part of the tension leaves Éowyn's shoulders, seeing that she is not alone. It should not matter, she thinks - but it matters more than anything, that Glinda should understand and be at her back.

And the anger...

She does not need Glinda's anger. It hurts her a little, almost, to see it: it hardens the soft sky-blue of Glinda's eyes, robs her of that gentleness which makes her seem so much above the ugliness of the world. But anger is better than pity, and she cannot say it is unjustified.

"Thank you," she says softly, and settles the crown back upon her head, reaching for the wine. "I think it is almost time. Finish eating. You will need your strength, too."

[sent_to_try_us]

They move so easily between roles, from the one who must be coaxed to the one who does the coaxing, and Glinda's smile is both rueful and amused as she lifts the bread to her mouth again. Even with the honey it seems dry and tasteless, but she needs her strength just as Éowyn does. It would not do to have her waver or even faint while her queen is dealing with the traitor. Her role is to be a silent, remorseless reminder of the power of the Uplands arrayed behind the young queen of Rohan. She does not like it, especially not now she knows how strong Éowyn is alone, but it is necessary - for the moment, at least. In time, everyone will see Éowyn rule as well as reign.

"My men have orders to make sure he does not rail against you," she says, carefully. "I have heard - some of the things he has said." Pure bile, spat out by a small, weak man. It had been hard to believe that a supposed king could ever use such words, much less against the woman he claims as his wife - against a noblewoman, a royal woman, a woman of the ancient bloodline of their people. He must not be allowed to say them again, not in front of the entire court. He will not be allowed, even if it means he has no opportunity to say anything else ever after.

"I will say nothing unless you wish me to," Glinda says. "Only make some small gesture - and my men will obey you, should you command them; you are the queen, your word is law." She does not add that Éowyn's word is law only because Glinda has commanded it to be. "And when it is over, we may come back here, and he will be as nothing to you ever again." This she is not so certain is true - Éowyn has tossed and cried out in her sleep, and even now her cheekbones are sharper than they should be, her body is thinner. But she can at least be certain that she can take the other woman's mind away from her troubles, and be determined that she will.

[shieldofrohan]

"I will not command them." She does not like to say it, to be so harsh: she thinks of Glinda soft and warm beside her in the bed, and she wants to find the gentleness she has always lacked, to allow Glinda trust and - yes - even power. But she cannot be Éowyn, she must be the Queen, and it must be said. "They are your men; but this is the court of the Mark, and the justice of the Eorlingas, and if it must be meted out, then it will be meted out by Eorlingas of the Mark."

She meets Glinda's eyes again, and there is an intensity in them that forgets both their humanity: that is the command of a queen to an ally, not of woman to woman. "It is delicate already, to have won this place by another's steel. It needles at the pride of the Rohirrim, and at my own claim. If any of your men move to defend me, you will prevent them; or I must have them dragged from the hall, and that would be ill hospitality. Do you understand me? Do not defend me, and do not permit them to defend me, for if I show weakness now, I am lost."

Without waiting for an answer, she downs the rest of her wine and stands. For a moment, that weakness flickers behind her eyes, the last she will permit herself to falter. "When it is done," she says, so quietly that it may be hard to make out, "say all thou wilt, do all thou wilt. We will hide ourselves away, and know nothing but one another, and let no man speak against it. But for now, Glinda, beloved, swear to me that thou wilt not try to save me."

It is not that she knows Glinda wishes to save her. It is that she knows how much of her wants desperately to be saved.

[sent_to_try_us]

With each word Glinda can feel her jaw tighten, her teeth gritting together with the effort of maintaining control. Éowyn speaks as the queen - as she should, as she must - but oh, it is difficult to listen as a subordinate and not a lover. And, like it or not, in this she must be the subordinate.

"I swear," she manages, and is proud when her voice does not waver. "I will so swear - but if he or anyone else comes at you with a blade, I cannot stand by, you cannot ask that of me." In truth Éowyn can, and Glinda is not exactly the most effective of protectors, but that is not the point. Men like Gríma are dangerous and unpredictable; she has seen it before, in her father's court, and seen how quickly his men moved to stand between him and the blade. Éowyn is a queen new-come to her throne, and her standing is not yet strong - who knows but that among the crowd come to see justice done there may not be one (or two, or many) who think justice would be better served if Gríma continued to rule?

She stands too, smoothing her dress down, hands automatically going to check that her coronet is sitting well on her head, tucking loose curls away. Looking up at Éowyn she is once again struck by the beauty of the other woman - the gleaming gold of her hair, the strong, straight lines of her nose and jaw, the lithe perfection of her body - and has to look away again, lest emotion overcome her. This is not a good time to feel she may be falling in love with the queen. This is the time to calculate, like her father, and plan cold and dispassionate plans - only Glinda has never been good at that, and if she tries to think of what move she ought to make should Éowyn be killed she will most certainly weep.

[shieldofrohan]

"I have my own blade," Éowyn says, quietly, implacably, and, touching her hand to the sword at her waist, abandons the table and the food and the uncertainty of what is between them in favour of the door.

The great hall is neither the largest nor the grandest in the world, but it has a splendour undulled by what has passed in it of late. Timbers raised centuries ago arch high overhead, carved with knots and animals and friezes of battle and hunt. The walls are hung with weavings and tapestries both new and old, and between them, braziers chase away the shadows, catching the gleam of gold in weaving and wood both. The doors are open, bright morning light lancing into the room: at each side, a tall Rohirrim with a spear stands ready to bar the way.

It is not yet full, but it is not empty, either. There are three dozen men at least, and almost as many women, waiting and talking to one another in low tones. None are armed - she is following her uncle's lead in this: there will be no weapons borne in her hall, except by her word, and even the Uplands' men will have found their swords taken gently but firmly at the threshold - but many are armoured, mail and burnished leather shining in the uneven light. There is a tension thick in the air, drawn tight as a noose: whether they fought with Éowyn or are here to see what will become of their master, there is nobody in Rohan to whom this is unimportant.

Least of all her. Éowyn feels the tightness in her throat as she enters, the sudden pounding of her heart and the dizziness that follows it. There are so many ways that this can destroy her, and so few paths which are sound; and they are not marked, and the ground is shifting beneath her. She looks back at Glinda, and steels herself: I am not alone. I am the blood of kings and the only justice my kinsmen will know, and I am not alone.

She is paler than ever, white as marble - but her face is hard and fair as marble, too, and it shows no doubt. She steps up onto the dais, gesturing for Glinda to follow her (it is important that Glinda should be invited, that no part of it should be a presumption), and stands there a moment, looking out over the growing audience of her people.

Not too long ago, in the scheme of things, she knelt at the foot of this throne. The laughter still seems to ring about the eaves, the cold ache of stone under her knees, the possessive hand in her hair. The ache of a split lip or a bruised breast, the bite-marks livid on her throat.

She sits. It takes all the will she has to fold her hands neatly in her lap, away from her sword.

"We have one case before us only," she says, not shouting but pitching her voice loud enough to carry throughout the hall. "All else will wait. Fetch him forth."

She wants, so badly, to reach back, to reassure herself of Glinda's presence. She wants to take the other woman's hand, cling to it as she speaks, anchor herself to this moment and no other. She needs it, with a dull desperation that coils and claws under the skin. But she cannot falter, not for a moment: she sits straight and tall, her face grimly set and her fingers curling against her skirt, and wishes that she and he had killed one another on the battlefield.

By the time he is brought out, the crowd has swelled to half its size again, the hall now filled with solemn, waiting watchers.

The man who enters is not so diminished as she would like, but he is diminished. Gríma was always a sallow, ugly creature: now, stripped of robes and whispers, clad in a prisoner's garb and with his hands bound, he is shrunken and withered, his greasy black hair clinging to his scalp, his deepset eyes darting this way and that, seeking either pity or escape. He should be pathetic. The disgust she feels should be all she feels: he deserves nothing more, and is worthy of nothing more. But she finds she fears him still. He is a weak and cringing thing, but it was never strength that gave him power: and he must be permitted, at his own trial, to speak.

For a moment, her hands grip the arms of the throne as a drowning man might grip a spar: her knuckles are as white as her face, her fingers seemingly trying to burrow into the carved wood. She takes a deep, slow breath, and stands.

"Gríma son of Gálmód, you stand accused of treason. Of murder and regicide, of cowardice and oathbreaking; of betrayal of your lord and your people; taking up arms against your liege; dereliction of duty and failure to uphold your responsibilities to the Mark. Further: of spreading false witness, theft of grain and gold and horses, denial of burial rights to free men of the Mark, and rape." This time, saying it, she does not flinch. She cannot flinch.

"This is an error." He manages to sound almost convincing, spreading his hands as much as his bonds will allow. "My lady, all that I have done, I have done for the love of the Mark and its people."

Her hand itches for her sword. Bile rises in her throat. She manages to stifle it all to a mere tightness in her tone.

"You will have your chance to make a defence. Until then, be silent. Who stands for the prosecution?"

"Hlutor son of Hildmund, once lord of the Undeeps." Hlutor Halfspear is a tall man of about fifty, with darker hair than many Rohirrim, growing grey in places. A deep scar splits one of his cheeks, leaving an odd, white cleft in his beard. "By your leave, my liege."

Éowyn does not trust herself to say more than is necessary. She only nods and, with a brief glance back at Glinda, settles back into her seat and gestures for him to continue.

It is not easy. She has spoken with Hlutor, of course, less than an hour ago; she has told him what she does not wish to hear, and he does not betray her. But someone must make the case for the Crown, and it cannot be a partial one: there is evidence to be considered, to be laid before the gathered audience and turned over. She is not Gríma. She will not be capricious. She will not let it be said that she killed him out of fear or anger, or to rid herself of a rival: this will be a fair trial, and she will pass a fair judgement.

Hlutor speaks at length, and without pause. He is an old hand at legal matters, and it shows: he is matter-of-fact and steady, but not emotionless, and he lays out each charge as a man might lay out a card or a chess piece, with economy of words and persuasive simplicity. He speaks of the old King's suspicious illness, and of how it coincided with the weakening of Rohan's forces. He is circumspect in saying that poison was suspected and never proved; that the weight of evidence is in the way Gríma reacted to that weakness.

(Here, and not for the first time, the accused man attempts to speak, declaiming with apparent outrage that it is a mockery, a farce, an empty allegation. Éowyn halts Hlutor's testimony with a raised hand, and says, with perhaps more venom than she intends, "If you are not silent, prisoner, then you will be gagged. Am I understood?" - and thereafter, besides wordless sounds of protest, Gríma is, and she is a little disappointed.)

Hlutor continues: outlines as a soldier the failings and cowardice of Gríma's military surrender and the treasonous nature of his claiming the throne; speaks of the stripping of titles from their rightful holders in favour of Dunlendings and foreigners; speaks of the sale of horses and goods to Rohan's enemies, and the failure to attend Gondor's call for aid; on and on he speaks, dry and level, and the sun moves in the sky, and although he has said nothing about her (by her own order), Éowyn feels the nausea twisting in her gut.

Almost an hour he speaks, and still it is not done, for there are other cases to be brought against Gríma besides the kingdom's. There are four other lords, here to witness that they were stripped of title and land; there are a handful of farmers, to swear that they were denied protection when they sought it. There are the widows of Háma and Ceolfrith, to speak of how their husbands were murdered and denied burial - and here, for the first time, Éowyn can bear it no more, and turns her face away, so that only Glinda can see the sick twisting of grief and guilt on her face.

They should break then. It has been a long morning, and it is far from over, and she feels light-headed and dizzy, and she cannot bear to hear his defence. But if she leaves this seat, she is not sure her legs will hold her; and if she leaves this hall, even only to breathe fresh air and take food and water, she will not find it in herself to return.

So the Queen remains, and so they all remain, and at last the chosen witnesses have all been heard, and it is the defendant who is called forward. She forces herself to look at him, to let hate overtake fear. I should have killed you, she thinks numbly. I should have killed you before any of this came to pass, and be damned whether it seemed a fair trial. It would have been a fair verdict.

Gríma falls to his knees at once, his hands raised in supplication, a final desperate attempt by the Worm to wriggle out of the snare. There are tears in his eyes. "My lady. My queen. Éowyn! Will you treat me so ill? Perhaps I was a poor lord, I who was not born with the wisdom and the vigour of Eorl's line! perhaps I have made errors, in seeking the survival of the Mark! I regret it, with all my heart: I regret most of all that I could not summon the art to save Théoden from his sickness. But must I be made the cause of all Rohan's sorrows, in times when all the world is suffering? I have loved you, and tried to serve you, and done only as I thought needful by your will and your uncle's word, ere he passed. Will you allow this sham and this slander, lady, and no mercy? Is it not enough that you have brought an army to cast me down - brought an army against your kinsman, against your husband?"

At that, there is a silence. It emanates outward from Éowyn where she sits, a thunderous silence so taut and unbearable that it catches on others like a wildfire, until the sound of her foot on the stone is deafening. She stands, and she takes nine steps: down off the dais, to stand before him directly, and look at him eye to eye.

"You are not my husband." Her voice thrums with fury, barely-contained. Her hand is white-knuckled on the pommel of her sword. "I swore no vows to you. I gave no marriage-right to you, no consent and no claim. This I swear by Béma the Hunter and all the Valar; this I swear by my sword and my crown and my life: that I am no wife of yours, and never was. That you knew I had not married you, and yet told all the world that you held the throne by marriage, and brought me forth under threat as proof of it." Her voice is rising - but somehow, she is still managing to cling to control; the volume is to carry, not out of unmanaged fury. "I swear that you were never my husband, Wormtongue, only my jailer; and if ever I loved you or consented to be your bride, then may I be slain where I stand and my head struck from my shoulders and my name be forgotten, for it is not so and never was, and I owe you nothing but justice."

For a moment, she stands there, inches from the man she fears most, and in the force of her loathing he seems to shrink, and she sees that he is terrified; that at last he knows that no cunning or skill will save him, and that he cannot convince her to mercy.

She turns away, and moves to take her seat again.

"You gave me marriage-right enough!" His voice is shrill and fearful, and yet there is a vicious, hysterical laughter in it, too. "You opened your legs for me readily enough, Lady Éowyn; yes! and your mouth too, and your arse, and there are men here who will swear to it as fervently as you forswear me: that they have seen you climb into my lap naked as a spear-tip and beg my favour and my pleasure. You were ready enough to be my bride when the old King lived, when I could give you protection and spare us the war. And when you could cast me aside, o! how swiftly you have found another army and another lord! Did you promise yourself to him, or to his son? Or have they already had you, for the cost of their swords?"

I have my own blade, she had told Glinda, before all this began; and she should use it now. No one could call it less than honourable; if he had committed no other crime, she would be justified in striking him down for the words coming out of his mouth. Spittle flecks his lips, his eyes wild and mad as a rabbit in a trap, and it would be just and right to strike the head from him, dispense justice swiftly and soon, and be free.

But her hand will not obey her. She is frozen with her back to him, and she is shaking like a newborn foal, her eyes suddenly wide and wounded, all the hard-won composure slipping away. She should say something crisp and noble, deny all he says, remind him of how many men it took to hold her down. She should say anything. She should do something. The tears are burning the backs of her eyes, the bile burning her throat. She cannot bring herself to look at Glinda, either. He is not so far from the mark as he should be, after all - for whatever her reasons, has she not given herself away to those who lent her their army? One of the Uplands, at least, has had her.

Behind her, the hall has erupted into uproar and outrage. There is shouting and swearing and the sound of blows, and she does not know whether someone has killed him, or been held back from doing so, or whether it is her dishonour that they want to repay. She swore by her life, after all: some in this hall must be doubting her word.

"You are guilty." Her voice is a thin, unsteady wisp, too quiet to be heard. She cannot force it to be louder, any more than she can force her hand to her sword, any more than she can force herself to turn. "And you are exiled for your treasons, and a man of the Mark no longer, and for your other crimes, for murder and rape and all that you have done against men and women of Rohan, you are condemned to die. Burn his body: he deserves no burial."

She cannot tell, any more, whether she is heard. She cannot hear herself, over the thundering of blood in her ears. She can do no more than try not to stumble, or to run: gathering together the last shreds of her composure, holding herself tall and pushing down the rising urge to vomit, she flees the hall.

[sent_to_try_us]

It is - awful.

It is awful from the moment she steps through the great doors; it is awful to see the eager faces, worse still to see those who frown or glower at the sight of the young queen - and Glinda, too, the enemy in their midst for all that she represents support for Éowyn. She represents another land stepping into their affairs, a powerful lord interfering in Rohan's business. All she can do is stand straight and tall, chin held high, and pretend she cannot hear the whispers or see the speculative stares.

It is awful to see Gríma and to imagine what he did to Éowyn. Glinda spends most of her time staring straight ahead, mouth tight and jaw clenched, feeling a muscle jump in her cheek each time an image coalesces unbidden in her mind. She has witnessed the scars on Éowyn's body, on her heart, and it is all she can do to keep her mouth shut and her face serene. They accuse him of many things, and yet the worst of them is still barely spoken of. Glinda tries to look at Éowyn when the young queen glances back at her, tries to offer at least the hint of a smile, tries to be reassuring - but it is hard, dreadfully hard.

She would have said things could not get any more awful, and then they do: when Gríma speaks, in his whining, wheedling voice, to defend himself, and claims Éowyn as his wife. When Éowyn goes to stand before him, her voice tight with fury, her body tense. She is not the only one - there is a general shuffling in the hall, men drawing themselves up, hands going to where the hilt of a sword would usually sit. Glinda's hands are behind her back, now, so that no one can see how her fingernails dig into her palms, how white her knuckles are. Not that it especially matters, not after what Gríma says next: she feels herself flush with anger and embarrassment, cheeks pink, ears burning, and bites down on her own lip to keep herself silent. But no one is looking at her; everyone is looking at Éowyn and her prisoner, her tormentor, her would-be husband and king. No one is wondering whether Glinda might be the one whose bed Éowyn would fall into. It does not matter: in the asking he shames her family as well as his queen, and yet another kind of rage burns deep inside Glinda's breast - a selfish one, this time, for how can she expect that Éowyn will ever again want her kisses, her touch, with this man's words still ringing in her ears?

Faintly, she recognizes her men looking to her for guidance; almost unthinking, she spreads one hand out across the skirt of her dress, hold fast, and watches as Éowyn walks out and the hall erupts again behind her. Now there is only her, and a room full of angry, shouting, fighting men.

"Take him into custody," she says to her commander, who has insisted on staying close enough to throw himself between her and any danger - not on the dais, of course, but still only feet away. "See the queen's judgement is done." Her words are clear and calm, and Glinda is surprised; she feels numb, detached from all of this, overwhelmed by the horror of Gríma's words and deeds. It is a small comfort that her man nods briskly and strides forth, gesturing to the others and to Rohan's men. She is grateful when he makes sure that the ones to put hands on the traitor are Éowyn's men, Rohan's men, and that the soldiers from the Uplands are only there to keep the crowd back and see that there is no interference. Glinda stands where she is, ice-cold and serene, until Gríma has been removed and men are starting to stream out of the hall. Then - at last - she can go to Éowyn.

She wants to run, but does not. She walks with her head up, holding back the roiling emotions, doing her best not to imagine her lover alone and distraught. It will help neither of them if she runs; people will be looking to her, now, and it is her duty to defend Éowyn even in this. Glinda tries to project an aura of calm, of cool control, managing to glance and nod in acknowledgement to the more impressively dressed nobles she passes. The palace is in tumult, like an ant nest kicked open. Perhaps she ought to be issuing commands, taking control - but she cannot bear to. Not until she has at least seen Éowyn, until she can be sure that the young queen is all right.

There is a guard outside the room, his face pale, but he stands aside as Glinda approaches and lets her slip through the door. She closes it behind her as quietly as possible, takes a moment to compose herself again before she turns to Éowyn, unsure what she will face but steeling herself to face it anyway.

[shieldofrohan]

She had almost managed it. That's the thought that keeps battering at the inside of her head, now that she is out of the hall: now that she has escaped the eyes on her every move and the knowledge of the witnesses. She almost made it through, and why could she not have made it five minutes more, without bringing the whole delicate affair crashing down?

"I was a fool," she says, when she hears the door open and close. She does not look up - remains curled tightly at the foot of the bed, with her face buried against her knees and her hands gripping at the back of her neck - but she knows it is Glinda. She was clear in her instructions: no-one but Glinda or the guard is to enter, and he has a heavier tread. "I was a fool to try and hear him out, a fool to grant him fair trial when he deserved only a beggar's death. Foolish, weak, cowardly. Look what he has made of me!"

Her voice is not steady, and lacks any of the command she has fought to maintain these past several hours. She is trembling where she sits, rocking lightly to and fro, as if trying to shake off the weight of things. When she raises her head, her face is blotchy and tearstained, her crown now sitting askew among the braids.

"I should not have brought you here. I would that you had not seen it."

[sent_to_try_us]

There is a moment, when Éowyn is not yet looking up at her, that Glinda can take in a deep breath and let it out slowly. She feels herself tremble, and tenses her body to overcome it. This is not the time for weakness, much though she wants to run to Éowyn and sob against her shoulder. This is the time to stand firm and help the young queen lever herself up again.

"He is nothing," she says, eventually, her voice soft and calm - and this is quite an achievement, for Glinda feels she could easily burst into tears. "You are still queen, and you are - you are wise, and just, and fair - " With each word she comes a step closer to Éowyn, until she is kneeling by the other woman's side, reaching out tentatively to straighten her lover's crown and brush her hair back away from her face.

"I do not think less of you," Glinda adds, in case that is part of the problem - certainly she would be very concerned about what Éowyn might think of her, had their places been reversed: but then, too, it seems rather unlikely that she would ever have escaped from under Gríma's thumb and then been able to fight her way back to her throne, so they would never have met at all. "And your men stand firm for you."

Gently, carefully, her fingers trace the line of Éowyn's jaw, along her neck to her shoulder, and Glinda lets her hand come to rest at the nape of her lover's neck - warm, reassuring, a reminder of her presence even when her words are failing her.

[shieldofrohan]

"But I do." Éowyn lets out a long, shaky exhale. There is a hard knot in the pit of her chest, twisting tighter by the moment, but at least - unlike the first few minutes after she slammed the door behind her - she can remember how to breathe at all. Her hand fumbles upwards, grasping Glinda's more tightly than she intends. She is still shaking, and her fingers will not quite obey her. "I do think less of myself. He meant to hurt me, I know it, and once again I give him all he asks for."

She is quiet for a moment, catching her breath, but it is not a silence that invites comment. The tears drip off her chin, her fingers twining in Glinda's, clinging to her for balance. Her breath rasps in and out, louder than she would have thought possible.

"Is he dead?" she asks, at last. "It is an ill thing, if so. Blood should not be shed in that hall, not in peacetime. Yet..." Yet it would be a relief, too. It would be over. She swallows, and fixes her eyes on the fireplace, last night's embers still in the hearth. "Tell me if he is dead. I did not see."

[sent_to_try_us]

"Not yet." It is not the answer she wants to give; it would be a relief if he had been struck down in that first roar of fury from Éowyn's men, but he was not, and in a way it is better so. A hall of justice ought not to be sullied with men's lifeblood. Glinda swallows hard and watches Éowyn's profile - the strong nose, smooth brow, beautiful high cheekbones - and the tears that still roll down her face. If only she could lean in and kiss those tears away! But Gríma's words still echo in her head, if not in Éowyn's, and she cannot bear to be another of those who would make demands on the young queen's body and think it right.

"He was taken away," Glinda says, softly, "back to his cell, to make what peace he can with himself. It will be tomorrow, I think." She would prefer it to be today, to know that the evil personified in Gríma is gone at last - but despite his crimes he is still a man like other men, and it must be seen that Éowyn will be fair and reasonable, that he will be given time enough to wrap up his affairs and prepare himself for the end. Éowyn cannot afford to seem impetuous and shallow, as women are so often seen.

Gently she settles herself closer to Éowyn and reaches out to curl her free arm around the other woman's shoulders, pulling her ever so slightly towards Glinda. She aches to hold her lover close, to whisper reassurance, but is not quite sure she dares.

[shieldofrohan]

"Tomorrow." Time, then, to recover: time to compose herself and try to regroup. It is good, she decides. She will steel herself, and she will be able to see it, and it will bring her some peace to see the light leave his eyes. "Good. Tomorrow."

And it will be one more day that he is alive, and she will not rest easy, knowing it. And she will not rest easy, knowing that what he said will feed the suspicion and mislike of her subjects, long after he is gone. And it will not be over, will never be over, and there will be no peace: he has killed any peace that might have been in her.

She remembers, then, that she felt at peace for a moment the night before; and in the same moment, Glinda puts an arm around her and draws her close, a comforting warmth; and Éowyn recoils as if she has been burned, sobbing sharply, covering her face with her hand.

"Look what he has made of me," she says again, low and despairing. "Look what I have made of you. It is ruin: it is all humiliation and ruin."

[sent_to_try_us]

Éowyn jerks away from her, and it stabs through Glinda's heart with a pain she's never felt before. Her jaw clenches again, mouth tightening, and she is not quite sure how she manages to keep her reaction under control. She swallows hard, feeling as if a lump is stuck in her throat, and tries to take a measured breath in.

"He is nothing," she manages. "He is nothing, Éowyn, do you hear me? And you have not ruined me, you have done nothing to me I did not ask for, I will not have it - " In this, at least, she can be entirely certain, and her voice is rising to something sure and strong. "You will not say that," Glinda tells her, trying to stay calm, knowing she is failing. "Not of me."

She wants to take it back at once, wants to swallow the words down, but it is too late - and besides, it is true, and she will not have Éowyn's pain deepened by what they have done together. Unhappy, but unwilling to bend, she holds the other woman's gaze for as long as she dares before looking back down at their twined fingers.

[shieldofrohan]

It is the best thing she could offer - that certainty, that firmness. Éowyn seems to have lost all her own certainty, and it is a relief to be able to borrow it from someone else.

She can hardly see Glinda's face. Every time she draws it into focus, it blurs into nothing again, smeared by tears that seem everlasting. But between blinks, she can see the intensity of Glinda's look, and she does her best to meet those blue eyes, even if she cannot see them.

She swallows.

"Not of you," she agrees, and her voice is low and muffled. A smile briefly twists her face, ghoulish among the tears. "How could anything ruin you? But how can you... He is right, for all he may be nothing. He is right. I had no strength of my own, and so I took yours. And now you must doubt me, and I must doubt myself, for I did not hesitate."

Her recollection of how this has all happened is not, of course, perfect. Or even very good.

"And I stopped fighting him. Not all that he said was a lie. I never consented to his affections, nor his cruelties - but I stopped fighting him long ago. I did not marry him, and to that I can give my oath. But how can I say I was other than his whore?"

[sent_to_try_us]

It seems as though time has drawn out, honey-slow, while Éowyn speaks; Glinda finds herself picturing the young queen with Gríma again, even more unwilling this time if that were possible. She tries not to grimace, tries to banish the images from her mind - to focus on Éowyn, on what is here and now - but it is hard. And if it is hard for her, how much harder for Éowyn?

"You were not," she says, eventually. "He may have thought you so, but he was wrong." She could not, if asked, justify why exactly this is so - but there is steel in her voice, barely masking the intertwined anger and shame and grief. "If you are - if you were a, a whore - " and she stumbles over the word, one she had never expected to say, "then so too must I be, and even more so, for I was willing. Am willing." And no one had coerced her, no one had forced her with violence or cruel words; unlike Éowyn, she has no bruises, no blood, no bite marks to bear witness. It is still hard to swallow, even harder to meet the other woman's eyes, hardest of all to keep fighting back tears. But right now she needs to be able to act as Éowyn's proxy and support: later, then, will be her turn to give in.

[shieldofrohan]

A look of great pain passes across Éowyn's face at that, and for a moment, she can think of nothing to say. There is nothing she could say which would encompass all she feels in that moment: how Glinda's words hurt and heal in equal measure, how it is impossible to think of Glinda debased as she herself has been, how terrible the guilt she feels is at drawing Glinda into a world where she must say such things at all, and how beneath it all there is a small voice that wonders how much farther such willing would go. How he never actually called her whore, and what a terrible fall she must have had, to find that whore is a kinder word than wife.

She cannot say it. She cannot say any of it.

Her hand at last leaves her face, and touches Glinda's instead, a light graze of fingertips against the soft curve of Glinda's cheek.

"I'm sorry," she says, and kisses her. It is not a hungry kiss, but it is a desperate one, clinging to Glinda's lips as if it will keep her from falling further; the only thing she tastes is salt, and finds she is not certain that all the tears are her own.

[sent_to_try_us]

She is about to speak, to protest that Éowyn has nothing to be sorry for, when Éowyn kisses her and all coherence vanishes. Glinda can't quite bite back a little sound, need and guilt twining together inside her - and although she trembles, she leans into Éowyn, her hand coming up to curl around the back of her lover's neck and hold her close.

In the end, what undoes her is the taste of salt in their kiss, the way Éowyn kisses her as though it is the only thing anchoring her to safety. Tears spill over her cheeks, mingling with Éowyn's - and no matter how much Glinda tells herself she ought to stop and pull away, she cannot. Selfishly, she does not want Éowyn to see her cry; selfishly, she does not want to stop kissing, in case Éowyn thinks better of it and never kisses her again.

[shieldofrohan]

There is guilt, and there is grief, and there is horror, and there is fear; and most of all, clasping Glinda's cheek with her hand and tasting her tears on Glinda's lips, there is comfort. It is a strange, twisted comfort, but it is comfort all the same. She is shaking still, shivering as if freezing, and the tears will not stop - but she is not alone, she need not be alone, and the warmth and gentleness of Glinda's presence is a million worlds away from anything Gríma did. And Glinda, she must remind herself, does not need to be held down; has not been threatened; is demanding nothing.

(Let her be demanding nothing. Please, let this be real.)

Her thumb caresses Glinda's cheek, feeling without surprise the tears there. There, again, is guilt: terrible guilt that she has brought Glinda into this painful world, that she has made her a part of it. Guilt most of all that she is relieved, for she need not be alone in it.

When at last she breaks the kiss, it is only so that she can instead draw Glinda into a painfully tight embrace, burying her face against the other woman's shoulder.

[sent_to_try_us]

It is an awful kind of relief when Éowyn doesn't pull away - when instead her arms go around Glinda, wanting her closer, for it is so very easy to be close. She wraps her arms around the other woman, one hand cradling Éowyn's head, the other gently rubbing her back. The young queen's crown presses uncomfortably against her cheek, but it does not matter. Nothing matters, Glinda feels, except for the woman in her arms.

"Hush, my sweet," she murmurs into Éowyn's hair, presses a kiss against her lover's head. "Hush, my darling. I am here; all will be well." It's even possible for her to make herself believe that could be true, as long as she doesn't think about Gríma - about the cruelties he's inflicted, the venom he's spat at this woman she cares about so very much. Glinda closes her eyes, breathes in Éowyn's scent, tries to compose herself so that when Éowyn draws away she will have no cause to worry about Glinda - as if she hasn't enough to worry about already.

[shieldofrohan]

"It will not." Her voice is muffled against Glinda's gown, but it is steadier and more certain - if no less miserable. "I have faltered when I most needed to hold fast; and all that they will remember is the accusations he made, and that I fled in shame, knowing the truth of them. They will remember the truth of them."

The truth of them is not total, of course: but it is enough. It is exactly what she feared, the opening for anyone to leverage against her. And they will say that she is weak, that she lost her temper, that she could not face the challenges of rule. They will say, if only in private, that she was better-placed at the foot of the throne than upon it.

And even if they do not say it, she will say it to herself.

"I wish I had killed him. On the battlefield, or here today. I wish I had let it be so simple; and whatever else they said of me, they would not say I was a coward."

[sent_to_try_us]

They will get nowhere going back and forth, and Glinda knows she ought to at least keep quiet if she cannot agree with Éowyn (which she certainly cannot), but there is something within her that rebels at the thought that any of what Gríma had said could be true. Her arms tighten around her lover for a moment before she forces herself to relax again. But even so:

"You did not flee," she says against Éowyn's hair, very softly, almost a whisper. And then, closer to her normal speaking voice, "And I am glad you did not, at least not today, for this is a very fine gown indeed and the stains would never come out; you ought to warn me, you know, when you ask for your clothing." Although she is trying to make light of it, there is a wobble in her voice, a catch at the thought that Éowyn might have beheaded Gríma right then and there. At least when her father has had it done there has been some warning, and although she had to witness she could unfocus her eyes and pretend nothing was happening. Knowing someone is to die and seeing it happen are quite different things - and although she knows that Éowyn must have killed men, and cannot even think she was wrong to do so, it is hard to picture that of the woman who has touched her so gently and clung so close to her in the night.

[shieldofrohan]

She laughs. It is a thin, weak laugh, and more than a little damp around the edges; but it is a laugh all the same, and the offer of lightness is worth more than anything, in such a moment. Her fingers clutch for a moment more at the back of Glinda's gown, and then, slowly, loosen.

It is a moment more before she can find it in herself to pull away. Her face is still blotchy and tear-stained, and the tears themselves have not been altogether stemmed, but she has herself a little more under control: a thin veneer of marble, over the roiling mass of raw and bloody shame. She sniffs, clearing her throat. Her hand finds Glinda's cheek again, calloused fingertips tracing smooth, salt-wet skin. For a moment, her throat moves without sound, as if something is trying to force its way up. At last, she shakes her head, just a little, and swallows whatever it is back down, and finds her voice again.

"I am sorry," she says, "that you had to hear it." And she sounds almost steady, somehow. She manages to hold Glinda's eyes, even. "And I did flee. I fled him today, as I fled him all those months ago, because I could see nothing else to be done. I am not as strong as I would wish, to stand and fight to the last." Her breath comes out in a long, low shiver, her thumb brushing a tear from the corner of Glinda's eye, as though she herself were not still crying. "I did not want you to see me this way again."