Smoke & Mirrors

Chapter 12

Four days later they struck camp to make their way back to friendlier lands. Aragorn had arranged for specially sprung waggons to carry the wounded, but the going was slow and it took them three weeks to return to Minas Tirith. However, on their arrival the populace greeted them enthusiastically and in the evening there was a great feast in Merethond.

Éomer was pleased to see his sister, who had come from Emyn Arnen to meet them, but felt a pang when he witnessed Éowyn's enthusiastic reunion with her husband. The two could hardly keep their hands off each other and Aragorn and Arwen were no better! He had the mad impulse to write to Lothíriel and ask her to come to Minas Tirith, but it would have been silly for her to ride all that way for just a week or so.

At least Éowyn looked in the best of health and literally glowed with contentment whenever she stroked her gently rounded belly. She was full of the small news of her new home and it eased his heart to see her so happy and relaxed. She and Faramir retired early, pleading fatigue – not that anyone believed them – and Éomer decided to follow suit. Lady Malheril and her like were on the prowl and he had no stomach to endure such insipid company.

Dismissing his guards to their own devices, he rode down to the Rohirrim camp on the Pelennor Fields. Aragorn had offered him rooms in the Citadel, but he preferred staying with his men.

A yawning Ceola took Firefoot's bridle and led him away. From the campfires the sounds of revelry, laughter and singing drifted over on the warm night air and he debated whether to join his men for a couple of rounds of drink. However, he felt strangely discontented and would probably not have been good company, so he just called after his squire to bring him a jug of ale. It was foolish to be so low-spirited when they had gained a victory and he had nothing to complain about, he told himself. Perhaps getting quietly drunk was the solution to his unsettled mood.

Ceola had lit the lamps in the tent, and after shedding his cloak Éomer suddenly noticed a pile of papers on the table. What were they? His heart gave a funny lurch when he recognised the elegant handwriting. Quickly he sorted through the pile – no less than eight letters from Lothíriel. She had taken her promise to write seriously!

That moment Ceola entered with the jug of ale. "When did these arrive?" Éomer asked.

"A servant from the Citadel brought them down this evening," the squire replied. "Shall I fetch you something to eat, my lord?"

"No, no." Éomer waved him away. "You go and enjoy yourself, I won't need you tonight. But go easy on the drink!"

Dismissing the lad from his mind, he sat down and sorted through the letters. His supremely efficient wife had even numbered them so he could read them in the right order! Briefly he felt guilty for not having written once beyond a short message announcing their success, but then he had never been a very good correspondent, as his sister often told him.

The first one was dated just a couple of days after they had left and was full of the small happenings of Edoras: little Wynn, Háma's daughter, learning to shape her first letters, one of the servants announcing her betrothal, a funny account of the cook's fearless cat defending its favourite resting place by the hearth against a deer hound twice its size and the birth of twins to one of the townswomen.

The words flowed easily from Lothíriel's pen and it seemed to Éomer almost as if he could hear her speaking to him. Suddenly he longed to be home, to have a cold mountain breeze blow away the warm, stagnant air, to see the green, rolling plains, to hold his wife in his arms...

He sighed. Only a couple more weeks, surely he could stand that. The next letter, written a few days later, continued in the same vein with all the small, dear news of home and a brief report on the progress of his foals by Tidhelm, the Keeper of the Studbook. But when he reached the postscript his breath caught. It looked like it had been added after the main letter, the writing very precise: Éomer, I regret to inform you that I have not conceived.