Chapter Text
The wind was playing with the Snowbourne, and the sun caressed its rippling surface as it set behind the White Mountains. I sat on a hill before the river, my knees tucked beneath my chin, my hair loose and untamed about my face. Behind me, my mare whinnied impatiently. She knew as well as I that as night fell over the Westemnet, the fields and moors of Rohan became dark and pernicious - that death followed travelers at night like their shadows did during the day. I stood wearily, my body aching from my long-held seat on the hillside. Long had I watched the Snowbourne that day, following its constant currents with my weary eyes.
I mounted, back creaking, and wound up the reigns in one hand, resting the other on the hilt of the hunting knife laced against my shin. My mare turned her head to the side, as if to check that the blade was there as well. “There, there, Meleare,” I murmured. “We’re nearly in sight of your oats and stall now.”
I rode back to Edoras somewhat reluctantly; Meduseld, as grand as it was, had become a prison for many. What with the ailing King and his pet snake ever at his side, there was little to celebrate within the great Hall. It had been a home to me for little more than five months, and yet for all its coldness and near cruelty, due mostly to the gloom that came creeping about with the rumors of war, it was a kinder home than most in Rohan knew. The stables, though, were wrought with the same oaken bannisters and musty twang of horse hide and dung as my home to the East.
With Meleare stabled and groomed, I retired to my quarters unnoticed, much to my gratification.
My presence had become a constant thorn in Wormtongue’s side, but he was too much of a coward to confront me, and instead prodded some of the burlier, less respectable soldiers into harassing me. “A woman in arms - a tart and a threat.” Fortunately, my apartment lay on the far side of the hall, well out of the way of the usual drinking haunts.
When I made it to my apartment -a tiny room in the guest wing, but too close to the servant’s wing to denote that I was anyone of quality- I began to settle in for the night and sat at my dressing desk. I brushed mindlessly at my hair, staring at the drapes fluttering about my window, and caught in the sort of reverie that comes when one’s eyes have been burnt by too much sun. Startled by the sound of a fly buzzing conspicuously in my empty water pitcher, I turned back to my vanity, and was suddenly stilled by the reflection that stared back at me.
I had grown up in a small southern fief on the border of the Firien Wood and the Mering Stream, not but a few leagues from Gondor, but I looked like neither a horsewoman of the Rohirrim nor a lady from a cosmopolitan tale of Osgiliath-old. I had been raised as a lady and warrior both, as was the custom in our country for families of high esteem and office. In truth, the people of my father’s province held their Marshal in high regard. My mother, however, was not loved at all.
And though I looked much more like her, with her dark hair and icy eyes -like the stone and sky and not like the earth- the people of my father’s fief had loved me. For a while, peace had ruled over our land like the seasons did, each year bringing with it predictable change. Petty scandals and court drama were the only turmoil my people knew, and my mother’s heritage made me a topic of contestation at sewing circles and on market days. But when the dawning days of war came swiftly in my young years, my mother and my bloodline were tossed aside while arms and ointments were taken up.
So too, perhaps, was any hope my family or court may have had to make me a proper, marriageable lady. I was taught to fight and to ride and to accept the deaths of those that were named as ‘enemies’ before words of courtship or dowries were ever mentioned. With every farming family or herd that was lost, it seemed that another weapon was thrust at me in the yard, or a larger horse appeared in our stable.
I was smaller than the other children that were trained; slighter and more agile. What I lacked in strength, I made up for in grace and logic; a product of my blood, and though in peacetimes it would have been a curse and cause for teasing, my size and skill became respected. And for two seasons of every passing year, I became another sword beneath my father’s roaming banner, serving beside him as a page and then a second, hunting out goblins and wolves and the other fell beasts of the woods and mountains.
The remainder of my year, however, was spent under the tutelage of my mother. A sharp contrast it was indeed to the roaming lifestyle I favored, but I suffered it for a little while. She refused to abandon all hope for a lady-daughter, and so I became proficient in languages and maths, basic healing and the running of the house. The arts of her own people she kept mostly hidden from me, though over time she shared some knowledge on the condition I kept it hidden.
That was all until several months' past, when the whispers of war became far louder, and I felt within me a compelling urge to ride out against my mother’s orders.
I had always rebelled against her in this way or that, and eventually she grew to resent it. After twenty-seven summers beneath the eaves of the Firien Wood, my father, still reliant on the aid and leadership of my elder brothers, conspired to find a seat for me in Meduseld as his representative to the court. Perhaps in another age, my womanhood would have prevented such a thing, and as it turned out, Meduseld already had enough handmaids. And so it was that I was to be named Shieldmaiden, and granted the same privilege and status of any the King’s other warrior charges or captains. And yet, for all my skill in battle and training in the ways of aristocracy, I was unlooked for and unwanted in a time where the mention of the word ‘war’ in the halls of Edoras often resulted in a beating for a man and far worse for a woman.
Despite the irrational denial of it by Théoden King, and his pasty councilor, Gríma Wormtongue, discontent grew ever stronger amongst those that had witnessed the evidence of the war at hand. But proposals for action went unanswered, and instead were marked as dissent and warmongering. These were the lies spun by Wormtongue, whispered into the ear of a withering King. And in the confusion and fear of our Capital’s people, these lies were warped into a false truth.
A pity it was, for our pastureland was burned and our children were orphaned while a blinded King sat idly on a gilded throne.
With my thoughts buried in dark memories, I succumbed to the growing dark of night and fell into something like sleep.
The next day was much the same. I woke early to complete my chores and training with the charges my age, and then rode to the Snowbourne. I settled on the same hill as I had the day before about an hour before sunrise. This time, I had brought a grindstone and set to sharpening my daggers and hunting knife. Behind me, Meleare snickered to herself softly as she cropped the frozen grasses and herbs sprouting on the hillside. I reached out every once and a while to stroke her foreleg, and she would blow warm air at my face in thanks.
She was young, as war horses went, for she had been a foal when she was gifted to me on my twenty fifth Begetting Day. My mother had hated the prospect of her daughter riding a creature designed to kill, but my Ada encouraged every bit of protection I could harbor for myself while I rode with him. She was more than a shield, though, and perhaps like my mothers’ folk, I thought of the gentle mare as a friend.
The sun rose up over the rooftops of Edoras sooner than I had expected, painting the city in a primrose wash. I smiled at the sight, imagining the city as it began to stir. Long moments passed while I heard the first bells begin to chime and watched as smoke from chimneys grew thicker, the smell of baking bread carried on wisps of a cool breeze. My post upon the hillside was neither lively nor boring; scenes such as these were a daily comfort.
When I turned back to the plains, I cursed myself for my lapse: Three horses, one a brilliant white, another gray, another chestnut, were racing towards Edoras. I rose, eyeing them as they sped through the shallow banks of the Snowbourne and continued up the hill to the city. I watched after them for but a half-second before sheathing my daggers and clacking my tongue for Meleare.
I kept a fair distance behind them and they did not appear to notice me, for Meleare’s footfalls were light. They slowed only as they passed by the funeral mounds of the court. When they took back to the reigns, I followed them to the city gates, and watched them dismount as they were confronted by the gate keeper, Hama, who led them to Meduseld.
I led Meleare through the unmanned gate and through the backstreets of Edoras. We darted through crowds of people gathered about market stalls and wells, all the while making a course for the stables. When at last we arrived, I passed Meleare to a groom and raced to the servants’ entrance of Meduseld. I stopped short at the sight of two guards now standing on either side of it.
“Morning,” I murmured, and made to pass through the door. A spear suddenly blocked my way, and a chuckle sounded from one of the men.
“You must give us your name and purpose, little miss,”
I looked from one man to the other, scowling at the amused looks upon their churlish faces.
“And when was that deemed necessary, I might ask? Another of Wormtongue’s policies?”
The men shared a look, and both stepped towards me. The burlier one rested a hand on his knife.
“It would do you well not to ask questions where they are not looked for, half-breed. Now give us your name and purpose, or we will be apt to punish you as we see fit,”
A spark came to the eye of the other guard as the first said this, and I saw his gaze drop from my face and onto several other areas of my person. I pulled my cloak about myself, as if my sudden shivering was a symptom of Winter’s clinging chill.
“I am an honored guest of the King’s, and you know well what my name is. My purpose is my own, as it ever has been,” I announced, subconsciously fingering the hilt of my own knife beneath the folds of my cloak.
The brutish man stepped closer to me, his hot breath breaking over my face as he loomed above me.
“A guest you may have been, but some feel that your stay is long overdone. Women are not soldiers, and you are neither a soldier nor a proper woman. Now give me,” he growled, pulling his knife completely free, “your name and purpose,”
I looked to my left, finding that the queer party of three - no, four , there was a stout figure among them - was now ascending the stairs to the Golden Hall. My stubbornness fell, and I centered my gaze on a boil squarely festering between the first guard's overgrown eyebrows.
“My name is Calahdra of Fenmarch, daughter of Cadda, as you know very well, and I wish to enter the Halls of the King, as is my right as Shieldmaiden to our liege,”
The guards shared another smirking look, and before they were given the chance to demand any more of me, I darted between them and through the door.
My eyes took some time to adjust to the gloom of the Hall, for the windows had been covered and the fires had not been tended as they once had been. But when at last I could see, I crept into the shadows of a pillar and gazed upon the main door.
A knock sounded upon it moments later, and the double doors opened with an unkempt screech. I did not appear to be the only one perplexed by the curious quartet now striding purposefully towards Théoden’s throne. The center most figure and most prominent to my eyes was an elderly man, cloaked in grey and black. I would not have noticed him if it were not for the way my skin seemed to crawl at the sight of him. It was not an unpleasant feeling, but rather a warning to me that this man was more than he appeared... and he did not appear to be much at all.
The man next to him was handsome and dark, with a rough mane of black hair about his head and a regal spark to his weathered eyes. On his far side was a burly dwarf –the first I had ever seen though I recognized him immediately from his wild hair and wilder eyes.
I was glad that I looked at those three before the last, for it seemed that as I beheld him, little else mattered to my eyes.
Tall, stately, sculpted. He was a creature out of a fantasy. His golden locks shone even in the dim light of Meduseld, and his bright gray-green eyes sparkled furiously. The aura of a warrior clung to him, and I was drawn to it like a hapless moth to flame.
Perfection was the only word that truly seemed to do him justice.