Eorling Mead Hall

[Ithaeliel]

As the crowd dissipated, Ithaeliel caught snatches of anxious conversation. This one mentioned the Queen of Rohan, that one whispered about a girl at the horse fair, and the word "kidnapped" slipped from the mouth of a worried woman as she passed by. The tall girl gave a slight gasp when she heard that, her green eyes wide in astonishment. "What has happened here of late?!" she wondered aloud. As her gaze drifted around the street, she eyed a pile of rubble where a familiar place had once been. "Oh... oh, dear, the hall! I'd so been looking forward to it!" She turned to a man who stood nearby with a panicked look on her porcelain face. "Do you know what is going on here? What's happened to the Eorling Mead Hall?"

"'Tis only being renovated," a man told her. "No cause for concern, maiden. But... poor Lady Linduial..."
"Linduial?!" Ithaeliel cried. "The Queen's cousin? Is she the one who's been-"

"-abducted," the man finished. "A rescue party is to be organized. Surely you won't help?"

Ithaeliel would have willingly complied, but she had traveled from far away without a mount of any kind, and the moment this man issued his offer she became painfully aware of the exhaustion in her body and the brittle feeling in her bones.

"Sir, I wish I could, however I'm very tired and do not think I could travel any further. I feel as though I were an old woman at the moment," she joked dryly.

The man returned her jest with a chuckle and a dry smile of his own. "Well, I hope you find a place to rest your weary self, as it seems your planned venue of respite is in ruins."

Ithaeliel laughed a little and shook his hand with more enthusiasm than she might have expected of herself. "I am Ithaeliel of Minas Tirith."

"Pleased to meet you," said the man as he bowed. "I am Eorl. Good luck to you in Edoras, and I hope you have a pleasant stay."

"My thanks to you, Eorl," nodded Ithaeliel before walking uncertainly toward the mead hall. Perhaps someone would tell her what to do...

[littlemanpoet]

It was well past dark. Eodwine was sitting in the kitchen, nursing a half a mug of ale, his chin in hand, elbow resting on the table. It had been a day worth forgetting. But that must not be. All had gone well until Linduial had gone missing. With Lothiriel's appearance at his front door, Eodwine's day had become the second worst in memory. Worst had been the windswept day he had finally come home from war only to find his farmstead burned, the bodies of his wife and children burned husks in the middle of it all. He shook his head and felt his throat tighten and his lips quiver. This will not do. He furrowed his brow, wiped his eyes on his sleeve, and pulled an angry pull on his ale, spilling some down his chin as he filled his mouth with the nectar. Think! Linduial must be found. He didn't need Lothiriel to tell him that. He was a little irked that she had taken over the task of finding her, as he was the princess's guardian; but he understood that Lothiriel took special interest, seeing as they were related.

Eodwine looked up. There was someone moving quietly in the shadows just beyond the kitchen door.

"Eodwine?"

It was Saeryn.

"Can you not sleep, d-" There I go again. "-dead of night and all that?"

Saeryn rubbed her eyes as she slipped into a seat beside him. She yawned. She was exhausted, yet awake. She was quiet for a moment before responding, her voice little more than a whisper.

"Dreams. When my mind lets me sleep, the dreams wake me." She blinked away worried tears, ignoring them. "I take it you are much the same?"

The smell of her filled his head. His arm wanted to curl around her slender shoulders. So easy, so likely on a half drunk night like this. Nothing but empty air separated her leg from his on the bench.

Stop it.

"Aye." He sighed. "Would you like something to drink?"

Saeryn usually avoided spirits, disliking the fuzziness that took over her senses. Tonight though... with thoughts of Linduial already clouding them, she just wanted to sleep, to forget her worry. She remembered the last time she drank anything stronger than cider... she'd been recovering already from an injury and had stood, head reeling. Unsure whether it was injury or alcohol, she'd gone to bed, excusing herself early. Now, health regained, memory returned, in the latest hours of the night, she wanted her cares to dissipate. Saeryn wanted, just for a little while, not to think of Linduial and Degas, of Fenrir, of Caelyn. Of the hurt young man healing in a room nearby. Of her place in the world, or even merely in Eodwine's Hall. Of Dunlendings and the Rohirrim, of every little thought that plagued her as she tried to sleep. Sitting beside a friend; she couldn't sleep anyhow...

"Something. Anything."

Something in her tone woke Eodwine out of his preoccupation with his own battles. He looked at Saeryn's face and could see from the dim firelight, the tears collected beneath her soft eyes.

"Saeryn," he said, his throat catching, "I'm sorry. I have been thinking only of myself." Regardless of his worries over attractions and age difference, regardless of his dream, he gathered her to him and held her close, and it seemed good to him.

Saeryn relaxed against Eodwine for a moment, gathering herself.

"I am just worried about Linduial. Eodwine... we will find her again, won't we? I'm so worried for her. I feel so guilty when I am in Marenil's presence. I cannot help but feel like if I had not been cloistered in the cellars, I would have been with her and this may not have happened."

Eodwine's head jerked in startlement. Saeryn looked up, wondering. He smiled.

"You are not to blame, my l-" he paused, thunderstruck at what his tongue had been about to slip out of his mouth. He started over. "You are not to blame. My lacking as a lord is to blame. I should have sent Garwine with Lin. She shall not be unaccompanied away from the mead hall once we have her back. And we will have her back." Eodwine's voice had strengthened, his final words spoken as if day could hold off night.

"No." Saeryn pulled away from Eodwine, startled. "You can't blame yourself! If anybody is to blame..."

Saeryn stopped, unwilling to betray Degas. She had already forgiven him in private, knowing that there was nothing he could have done. He'd explained how they had been separated. He never could have guessed...

Eodwine read the look on her face when she stopped speaking.

He hung his head and sighed. "'Tis a tangle of blame, enough for all to go around." His eyes came up, suddenly fierce. "But there is one only who is blameworthy. That one holds Linduial for ransom. He shall pay for his crime. I will see to it."

Saeryn nodded, accepting this. She sipped Eodwine's drink, searching her thoughts for something unrelated to Lin's disappearance.

"Eodwine... your dream. What was it?"

Eodwine looked suddenly at Saeryn as if she had trapped him against a wall and was threatening his life.

"I forgot."

Eodwine knew he was a bad liar, and from the sudden look in Saeryn's eyes, she apparently knew it too.

"The dream, Eodwine. What was it?"

"You don't want to know", he mumbled, pulling the drink out of her hands and sloshing some liquid more or less in the general direction of his mouth.
Her curiosity was made stronger than ever by his refusal.

"Eodwine... please?" It took conscious effort to avoid batting eyelashes or pouting lips. She really wanted to know.

Eodwine looked at her sidelong. "I warned you, you don't want to know." Her face began to look as if she could not decide between begging and throttling. Eodwine raised a hand. "All right!"

"Shhhh! You'll wake the others!"

Eodwine nodded absently. "All right. He stared at his mug. "I dreamed that-" his voice caught in his throat. He did not want to say this to her, but he had to and knew it. "I dreamed that- No. Let me say it aright. My wife came to me in a dream while I slept last night. She said to me, 'Eodwine, I am not dead. Come find me'."

He turned to her, his eyes intent to read Saeryn's face, to see how the dream affected her. He did not know for what he hoped.
She could not remember him ever having mentioned his wife before. She searched her memory for a story, or even a word or two in passing, and found nothing. She knew that Eodwine's wife and children had died, but she could not remember where that knowledge had come from... and she knew very few details.

"Go on..." she urged tentatively, her voice no louder than the slight breeze through the kitchen window that played with her hair.

Was that fear in her voice? Kindness? Eodwine began slowly. "I found her and the children, blackened husks in the remains of our house. At least, I had always thought that; now I am not sure who or what those husks were. Kéðra. 'Heather' in the Common speech, you know. What if she is still alive, captive-wifed to a Dunlending who has no right to her? Should I go find her? If I did, where would I look? How would I find her? She would be so changed." His speech had quickened with each new thought. "But maybe the dream was no more than a dream." He paused, his head hanging over the table, staring vaguely at the table top. "Little I can do about it until Linduial is found, though that may be too late."

He turned to Saeryn, searching her face to see what she made of his strange murmurings.

She did not know how to respond. How long had it been? Could he be right... But she had had much the same dreams, her parents calling to her from a distance, bidding her to follow them. They had died on the road, or so she had been told. She had been young... how could she be sure?

She looked away, staring dismally at shadows. Dreams were only ever just dreams, she wanted to tell him, yet that would make a hypocrite of her. She had never meant to stay here... she'd merely been passing through, following the road her parents had taken, following the road Caelyn had already treaded upon. She'd wanted to know... to see the last sights her parents had seen, to meet with her sister and to escape her brother.

She hadn't planned to settle at the Inn; she hadn't planned to become Eodwine's hostess. She meant to leave the Inn with the coming of spring to follow the voices in her dreams. She'd been travelling north by a roundabout way. She failed to notice Eodwine looking at her as she fell into her own thoughts.

How could dreams so similar come to such different people? When Degas had found her with news of Caelyn's death, Saeryn lost her nerve, afraid now to follow. Her attention wavered and she looked back at Eodwine. Time, she thought, to be honest once more. With no light and a bit of ale to loosen inhibitions, Saeryn spoke quietly, half hoping Eodwine would forget by morning.

"I followed dreams. My parents called to me. My sister called. I wanted to follow their path, to see what had become of them, or at the very least, to see what they had last seen. My dreams brought me here, Eodwine. I never meant to stay. I cannot fault you for taking such dreams as you've had so seriously when it is because of mine own, not just because of Fenrir, that I ever left home at all."

Eodwine had watched her face work, biting her lip, frowning, wondering what these signs meant. Then she had spoken, revealing yet another kinship between the two of them. Maybe she was half his age, it did not matter. Soul-friends they were meant to be, it seemed to him. He smiled affectionately.

"Maybe-" He, or maybe the drink in him and the late hour working, chose to allow his tongue to speak more of its want. "Maybe, sweet Saeryn-" he reached down to her hand and found it pliable "- lovely Saeryn-" he raised her hand "-after we have found Linduial and brought her back to safety-" he closed his other hand over hers "-you and I can go on errand to help each other find those we seek."

[Anguirel]

Away-the streets of Edoras

Cuichelm's rejoinder to Manawyth's invoking of Eodwine's title had led to copious laughter from his armed freemen and sycophants. They had lost no time in hauling Manawyth up and tying him, seated backwards, bound and gagged, to a mule. The streets were none too clean after the Horse Fair and several of the less nobly minded Rohirrim seized handfuls of dung and flung them at him.

Manawyth was afforded a split-second of satisfaction when one of the townsmen aimed ill and struck the tall man-at-arms who had caused the situation full in the face. Incensed, the pompous fellow drew his sword and thrashed the offender with its flat till Cuichelm bade him stop with a lazy glance of prohibition. The Lord turned his horse until he looked the defenceless Manawyth in the eyes.

"We're going to Meduseld, Dunlending. The King and his officers have little love, so I here, for your sort, but I am an influential men, and can probably-since you are friend-moderate the hanging to a mere dismemberment. Or, of course, you could insist on the trial by ordeal and keep us all entertained. The gods know we could use a laugh at court at the moment, what with the abduction of the Queen's cousin!"

Manawyth jerked his legs ineffectually. That cousin had to be the Lady Linduial. He had talked little to her but listened much, and found enough to laugh at slyly in her naive confidence. But he was deeply saddened by the thought that the girl's spirit had punished her so soon. He knew Eodwine and Thornden-who had treated Manawyth with particular justice and kindness-were bold men and would give their all to return the young noblewoman to safety; but he felt incredibly frustrated at his complete inability to help.

The prospect of Meduseld, too, was not comforting, for he was inclined to agree with Cuichelm on the attidude of the King towards Dunlendings. It had been King Eomer who had ordered the merciless reprisals; he was known among Dunlendings, indeed, as "Edigh the Bloodied One." Manawyth had considered resorting to a call for an Ordeal before, but Cuichelm's flippancy decidedly put him off the idea.

Very well then, he thought grimly. You'll have to lose your hands, at best...or elude these forgoil fools, somehow...

***

The somehow, beyond any expectation, arrived. For when Cuichelm and his train were close to the hill topped by the Golden Hall, there was a cry of anger somewhere behind Manawyth's field of vision-that is, in front of Cuichelm-which quickly magnified in size. There seemed to be a considerable crowd blocking Cuichelm's progress, and their shouts now began to be distinctly heard-

"Down with Cuichelm! Down with the Geld!"

"No more taxes! Why should we pay when there's no war on?"

"Down with the Geld! Let the Witena have its say!"

"The King, the King! Where is he? He'd put a stop to this. Justice and the King!"

"The Geld" was a phrase Manawyth remembered a pair of dissatisfied drinkers at the Mead Hall mulling over one night. It was essentially a tax that pressed hard on the common smallfarmers, levied by King Eomer, on the advice of certain nobles, in order to pay for a future war planned, in alliance with Gondor, against Harad. The problem was that in the minds of the populace, the war was a projected, distant and rather improbable idea; the harvest share they were surrendering was rather closer at hand. It seemed that Cuichelm must have been one of the lords who had advocated the Geld, and that a party of Rohirric countrymen were protesting against him. Armed violence was probably not far off.

"Silence, men," Cuichelm bellowed. "The King shall answer your plea as and when he wishes! Go back to your farms and your cursed cattle..."

His voice was drowned out in a cacophony of disordered yells, of anger, pain, surprise and sheer meaningless human noise. Some kind of riot was evidently in order. Cuichelm shouted an order that just about carried-

"Harry them, men! Harry them!"

Then something akin to actual battle came into being. Manawyth could even see some of it now; partisans of Cuichelm clustered round each other, wielding whatever came to hand, the rebels, for that is how they now appeared, attempted to swamp them or pull them from their mounts. It was uncertain who had struck the first blow.

What was certain was that at one stage an angry Rohirric farmer cried, "The King! The King! Stop abusers of justice!" and sliced the cords that bound Manawyth. He fell from the mule in an undignified manner, clueless as to who had rescued him, and scrambled, ignored by all, out of the way. When he was clear of the surging, thronging riot, he ran all the faster. He no longer knew where he was going, but he intended to escape the farce that had caught up with him.