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At four, Moder took a wet cloth to the gravy and crumbs on Éowyn’s cheeks, and told her it may be a joy to run about and play like a wild thing, but there was no need to eat like a wild thing at the table. She was four now, and could use her eating knife and spoon, and not get food down her front, or gravy in her hair.
‘A big girl of four,’ Moder said, ‘has better manners than that.’
Éowyn ate slow, taking little bites, and kept checking her sleeves weren’t dragging in the bowl.
At seven, she was in the house of her uncle, and her uncle was king. The king’s house was big, bigger than home at Aldburg, but there was no room for a girl to run about and wrestle her brother, not with so many people about, not with better things expected of the king’s niece.
Théodred laughed and took Éowyn’s arms away from Éomer’ neck and lifted her off his back.
‘Little one,’ he said, ‘it is a breach of the king’s peace to fight in his halls, if you would scrap like cats in an alley, you must do so outside.’
It had been raining and Éowyn had been told by the nurse to play inside, but Théodred was prince and his word counted for more. Éowyn ran, and in the mud she scrapped with Éomer and the boys. Nurse was not happy when Éowyn came with mud on her hems, and said Éowyn may like to frolic in mud like a piglet, for the king’s niece was a piglet and alley cat both, but there was no need to bring the mud into the hall. There was enough of that coming off the riders’ boots.
Éowyn saw the mess and felt bad, and afterwards she always got the worst of the mud off before coming inside.
At ten uncle gave her a gown and two necklaces for her nameday. She had received dolls and playthings all her life. Wooden dragons, soldiers of dwarven make who marched with the turn of a key, and dolls whose skirts she could cut short and tie stick swords to their hands to lead the soldiers and fight the dragon.
‘You’re too old for such things, now you are growing into a fine young lady,’ Uncle Théoden said, his eyes warm and doting as he stroked her hair. ‘Raiment fit for a daughter of kings.’
Éowyn put the gown and jewels away in her chest, shut the lid and took from under her bed the dolls and soldiers of last year, for she had been granted no new ones. The dolls looked at her and asked why she tore their pretty dresses.
Éowyn tore their pretty heads.
At twelve Éowyn had her first sword with a true blade. It was a training sword, blunt, but it was steel, not wood, and Háma swore and cursed that it smarted when she landed a blow.
She laughed and told her uncle and brother and cousin what Háma said when they dined that night, and they laughed also, but told her that she was not to use such words.
‘That is the language for the training yards only,’ Théoden said gently. ‘It is not for the house of kings, and not for a young lady anywhere.’
Éowyn heard Éomer use that word just that morning, looking for his boots, but Éowyn knew by now things were different for Éomer. He would be marshall and lord and rider, and all would know him as such for his deeds, not his manners. Éowyn was to be a lady, a lady only had her manners. Théodred told her that to be a lady was not to be without strength, that women could be ladies and warriors also, but Eowyn did not think she was one of those women. She had not the reserves for both. Being a lady wearied her more than wielding a sword ever could. A lady and a warrior had to remember many rules, they had to watch every step and neither could afford to falter, but when Éowyn landed a blow as a warrior, there was a thrill to lift the spirits. Each time Éowyn landed a blow as a lady, she felt her spirits fall a little more.
At thirteen Éowyn bled. She was a woman. She stood still as all her hems were lowered, and she didn’t wear braids in the hall anymore. If she wasn’t training or riding, her hair was down, and had to be brushed. Éowyn brushed her hair three times a day, and with a hundred strokes at night. She didn’t scrap in the yard anymore, it wasn't right for the boys to grab her. Théodred gave her cream for her hands, thinking them a nice gift, a little touch of luxury. Pretty smelling creams from Gondor, to smooth her skin. She put them on every evening, and everything she touched afterwards was soiled and smeared. She could smell lavender all over her sheets and pillows and it made her stomach churn.
She held Éomer’s hand and felt his skin as tough a leather, and wished that she had callouses grown all over her skin, thick as hide.
At sixteen, Éowyn’s gowns had trains. She pinned them up during the day, but the skirts were still long. With long skirts it was impossible not to trail in the mud, so she didn’t run or walk where there was dirt. If it was raining, she walked on wood or stone or not at all.
She begged Éomer not to ride down to the ditches, because there she could not ride with him.
‘I will ride with you another day then, little sister, when the mud has cleared,’ Éomer said. ‘Have you not duties to do within doors?’
She did. She had to fill Uncle and his councillor’s cups, and stand for long hours during meetings in the corner, and when they put their hands on their cups Éowyn knew that they wanted filling. Éomer sat at this table now, and Éowyn did not look him in the eye when she served him, though he tried to catch it.
Grima tried to catch her eye too. He touched his cup more than the rest, and he smiled up at her, the tip of his white tongue pointing through his bloodless lips. She didn’t like serving Grima, and told Théodred as much, and Théodred winked and said he doesn’t care for Old Wormtongue either, but a lady is gracious to all.
One day, her maid laughed and said Éowyn’s bodices needed letting out. Grima smiled at Éowyn lower than usual.
Come dinner, she served kingly portions to her uncle, cousin and brother, and ate little herself.
At nineteen she felt her spirit drifting away from her body. She would watch overhead as she walked and talked, seeing some figure below in a white gown with a golden goblet and skin as pale a milk. The woman in white knew all sorts of things Éowyn did not know, and with each thing learned, Éowyn was less. Éowyn couldn’t remember the precise last time she laughed time so loud her belly hurt, or she ran down a hillside with dirt flying around her, for there had been a last time, but she had not marked them as such. When still she laughed, when she still she ran, when she still scrapped and felt the earth beneath her feet, there was always a next time.
Uncle King still had enough of him to ask, on one of his last few good days, why is it Éowyn still trained so hard, when it brought her no pleasure.
‘I watch you in the yard child, and you do not smile as once you did with sword in your hand. Always you snarl and sneer and make such faces. There is no call for you to fight, you have honourable service in the hall, where I see you happiest.’
Éowyn thanked him for his concern and assured him she was well enough, and made no more mention of it, for chances were Théoden would not remember their talk on the morrow. She did not tell him that in the yard her soul claws its way back into her body, and there she does not smile, but she screams with her steel.
Éowyn, she knew, would die with steel in her hands.
She prayed that the flesh would die with her, and not linger on after.
2.
At twenty four, Faramir gives her use of his own clothes, from his last fleeting days of boyhood, and the odd gown of rough wool scavenged for her use. One fine white gown he finds for her, and worn underneath her starry mantle it is well enough for feasting, but all else is plain dress. ‘There is not much lady’s raiment to be found in this city,’ Faramir says. ‘Yet you have little need of finery.’
Faramir speaks of her beauty, but it comes to Éowyn that others think likewise for different reasoning. Nobles now come to the city, and they have heard of the wild shieldmaiden of the North who wore men’s garb and rode to battle. For her birth and her deeds, they are prepared to make allowances.
Éowyn wears a fine gown well and exceeds their expectations by eating with a knife. The Rohirrim are not without manners, and its lady impresses without labour.
Éowyn laughs with Merry and Pippin and Éomer, she talks plants with Legolas, debates swords and axes with Gimli, and the nobles find that she does not speak only in growls and battle cries.
In day, the skirts are higher, about the ankles when worn with good, thick soled boots. The breeches do not drag or need pinning. The streets of Minas Tirith are stone, but horses ride upon them and there is filth enough to need minding.
Merry tells her, now there is peace and the king is returned, that the merchants and city dwellers return also, and are selling their wares, and there are jolly splendid markets on the lower levels, and would Éowyn like to join himself and his kin as they explored.
Well, Éowyn thinks, her clothes are no fine thing. Her gowns are made of rough wool and could be worn in rough company.
At twenty five, Éowyn is married. She is a bride, and her trousseau is piled high with gowns of velvet and silk. They will last long for want of use, but Eowyn does not yet know this.
Gimli and Legolas have been called on by Faramir to help them in their labours. Ithilien is being cleaned and Emyn Arnen is being rebuilt. It is dirty work.
Gimli leads them through a thicket of trees, there has been fresh rain and the trampled leaves underneath are sweet smelling as they’re trampled into mulch.
‘Now here lady, it floods, but if you don’t mind the dirt, you’ve got a good bit of land past here which stays dry enough, but grows plenty of grass. Just the place to plant your horses.’
‘Peace, Master Gimli,’ Éowyn says, smiling, ‘there was more filth on the Pelennor than here.’
Faramir and Legolas laugh, and Gimli smiles and says he should have known better than to think a touch of mud would disturb the Lady of the Shield-Arm.
The air is warm, and they eat their midday meal around a fire, spit roasted pheasant, charged black on the skin and sweet and juicy within.
Éowyn eats with her fingers.
At thirty six, Éowyn is a mother, a healer, a gardener. Her belly is stretched, her curves are full. Faramir cradles her thighs, her bosoms, and kisses them. Éowyn laughs and accuses him of plumping her, and blames his son and his kitchens for the mischief. The kitchens especially, she has gotten too used to eating too well. Faramir kisses her belly and calls her ripened.
She grips his silken shirts with coarse hands, rough on smooth, and he buries his fingers into her soft flesh and cradles the muscles there under. Tough skin and ample curves, she is well padded all over now. Faramir vows to kiss each freckle on her skin, but there are so many he accedes defeat, and kisses without distinction.
He laughs and pulls straw from her hair.
‘Have you been rolling about in the stables?’
‘I have been training the new foals,’ Éowyn says.
‘Does this training look much like playing?’
‘Tis part of their training.’
At forty two, Éowyn and Faramir go riding. Minas Ithil is razed, but still evil lurks there. They are armed, and the men cheer when they see the Wraithbane is of their party.
The shadows of the Witch King lay low over the ruins of his halls, and nerves are not at ease. Éowyn’s horse shies at the squawking of a crow, and Éowyn is not thrown, she keeps her seat and lets loose her tongue, and curses.
She flinches and readies her apologies, but here, at the age of forty two, in the forest kingdom she helped raise from horror, on the grounds of her slaughtered foe, there is none to scold her and bid her mind her tongue.
At fifty, Éowyn ceases to bleed. She counts the months, her sheet stay dry, and she takes Faramir to her bed with renewed vigour. He spills in her belly for the first time she Elboron’s birth. Éowyn feels like a bride again on her wedding night.
The realm is full of pretty young maids now, milk skinned, smooth handed, clear of brow, and they rustle about the kingdom in a cloud of silk and perfume. Éowyn’s mouth and eyes carry the marks of a thousand laughs and a million smiles. She smells of straw and fresh earth and fire smoke. Her boots wade through dirt and pound on stone, and Faramir says she is more beautiful than all. Éowyn knows not know if she believes his words, or if she minds them. She knows Faramir believes his words, and he is the only being alive she would have think her beautiful.
They go to court, and a noblewoman, ten years Éowyn’s younger, sits at Éowyn’s side and looks at Arwen, unchanged from her first days in Gondor, and sighs and asks Éowyn if she did not wish herself an elf also, ever beautiful, ever young?
Éowyn smiles and says no, she remembers what it is to be young.