Sycldesweoster
Edoras
Summer,
3004
The two figures sat on the edge of the river, watching
the waters rush over their tan feet and toes, the result of a summer of
going barefoot when at all possible. Upstream their horses were busy
drinking, their tails swishing in tandem at the ever-present flies
disturbing their mission of refreshment.
"Goodness,
Léoma and Salupád are thirsty!"
Fréalas
tried to ignite another conversation, but her blonde companion remained
silent. Shielding her eyes from the sunlight, Fréalas looked to
the east, where they had gone out earlier that day to join some of the
other children of Edoras for their almost-daily swordfighting and
archery lessons. There was a dark cloud heading toward them, she noted,
and she hoped that it would bring much needed rain and a temporary
respite from the dry winds of late summer.
In the two years since
Éomund and his ill-fated group of riders had been so untimely
killed by Orcs, the people of Rohan, those in Edoras in particular, had
increased night-time security and encouraged all in the Mark to keep a
wary eye to their borders. A side effect of this included more rigorous
instruction in self-defense and fighting skills among the youth of the
Rohirrim, much to their annoyance during the heat of
summer.
"Éowyn?" Fréalas looked over at her
young friend, for friend she was, even if she was of the royal family
and this made her different, somehow.
"Yes?" The blonde
girl turned her head to speak. "Sorry- just thinking of all the
mistakes I made today. I really need to get more control over how I hold
my bow. The arrows never seem to land where I have aimed
them!"
Fréalas chuckled ruefully. It had been a trying
road for her as well, the skills of fighting not coming naturally to
her, not like learning to decipher runes and scripts that were
available, or how to read the patterns of the stars that shone so
brightly above the plains. But I am coming along, she thought,
now that I'm getting some height. Swinging a sword is a little easier
when one isn't so close to the ground.
"I wouldn't worry
about it," she said aloud. "You're only nine yet, and even the
twins Staenwine and Staentwylas can barely keep from hitting each other
with their arrows. It is especially a challenge when there is sweat in
your eyes, and sweat on your hands,"
"Yes, I
know," Éowyn interrupted. "But I need to learn. I
feel that I must be prepared for… for the
worst."
She hung her head, and wriggled her toes, disturbing
a small school of tiny bluefish that had clustered around the two girls'
feet.
Fréalas stared at her own feet, almost shocked by how
brown they were, since the rest of her seemed only to be covered in
freckles. She didn't know what to say. How did you console somebody who
had lost not one, which would be terrible enough, but both parents? In
the same year at that? Fréalas had known her for several years, as
Éowyn and her mother Théodwyn had spent many summers at the
Eastfold homestead. Éowyn's father, Éomund, was from the same
part of Rohan as Fréalas, so when he and others in the Mark went
out on extended patrols of the land, the elegant sister of King
Théoden and her two tow-headed children would stay in the homestead
near the Firien Woods for weeks on end. Upon the safe return of the
Marshal of the Mark, the skilled defender of Rohan would pack up his
family and return to their home in Edoras.
Until that fateful
day. It had taken several hours for the tragic news to travel from the
royal city down southeast to the Rohirrim who lived by the Mering
Stream. The messenger had blown a horn to call everyone in the
settlement together before announcing the sombre news. He encouraged
everyone on behalf of Théoden King to be even more vigilant, if
that were possible. Nobody knew why, but the Orcs were becoming more
numerous, and brazen. That was enough to convince Fréawyn,
Fréalas' mother, to move her family to Edoras, though her
strong-willed daughter had hated every step her horse made away from
their homestead on the edge of the forest.
Fréalas looked up
from the river again at the sky. "Éowyn," she said,
looking at the approaching storm clouds, "even if you had been
there, there was nothing you could have done."
She
immediately wished she hadn't said anything. Stupid! she thought.
Why can't you just keep your mouth shut, unless you have something
helpful to say?
"I know!" Éowyn replied,
angrily. "But I won't be killed by Orcs. Never!" Her
granite grey eyes blazed with hatred. "Nobody will take something
away from me that I love, ever again. I will protect myself. And
Éomer."
Fréalas quickly suppressed the darkly
humorous thought of little Éowyn, so earnest, and yet still just a
child, defending her older brother, who at age thirteen was already a
good head taller than most other children his age. It's not
funny, she thought. You would have said the same thing if someone
was attacking Frithlíc, even though he is ungrateful, irritating,
slovenly… She forced herself not to continue down that path. It
was already too well-trodden in her mind.
She reached over and
took Éowyn's hand in hers, prying open the fingers that had balled
up in a fist during her explosion of heated words. "I will protect
you, if you will allow me." Fréalas intertwined their fingers,
and held them in her lap. "I am by no means the greatest warrior in
all of Rohan, it is true, but I promise you that I will learn all that I
can to be by your side."
Éowyn looked keenly at her
face, her expression a curious mixture of defiance and
desperation.
"My mother has told me tales of long ago, when
women fought side by side with men, and the women all looked out for
each other. Sometimes if a girl lost her parents, someone would pledge
to look out for her especially, even if they didn't take her into their
house. That person who did the protecting was called a
sycldesweoster, a 'shield-sister.'"
"A
sycldesweoster." Éowyn repeated the old unfamiliar
Rohirric word, then smiled. "You want to do that for
me?"
Fréalas nodded.
"Yes, I'd like that.
But I will get better at archery so that I can protect myself!"
Éowyn said stubbornly. She looked down again at her feet, now
getting somewhat wrinkled from their extended time in the river. In a
quiet voice she continued, "I always did want an older
sister."
As the two girls looked at the waters, they became
aware of occasional tiny dots that quickly turned into outwardly
circling rings.
"Ai!" Fréalas started out of the
quiet moment, releasing the grubby but endearing hand she had been
holding. "Rain!"
Standing, she turned and leaned down
toward her friend, arms held out. Éowyn's formerly tightly-braided
hair was now a mess, sprigs of grass intertwined with the plaits, a
reminder of the occasional tumbles she had taken during the day's
exercises.
"Well, get up then!" Fréalas said,
hands ready to assist her comrade up from the riverside and back to the
horses.
Éowyn looked up, and a grin as radiant as the sun in
the dark of winter unexpectedly bloomed across her
face.
"Rain!" she exclaimed, as though she personally
had asked the sky for such a thing and, without question, it had
complied. "Come… let us have a rain dance!"
Even
as she spoke the words, the clouds appeared to oblige, and sheets of
rain came pouring down to accompany the bass booms of thunder that now
echoed across the plain. Their horses were silent, but in the repeated
tossing of their heads, their uncomfortable displeasure was more than
apparent. Éowyn turned her face upward, mouth wide open, tongue up,
catching as many stray drops that happened to land on her upturned lips
as possible, the picture of contentment despite the
storm.
"Éowyn, the lightning! We shouldn't stay here!
The horses!" Fréalas guided her companion up and away from the
riverbank, pulling her toward the city. At least the horses agree
with me! she thought sullenly, wondering just how much like a
drowned mouse she must look, until Éowyn took her insistently by
the hand.
"Come now, the storm still has a ways to get to
us!" said the sodden child, her muslin dress stuck to her like
honey on bread. With a look of rapture in her eyes, she continued,
"So you like the stars- I like the fights of cloud and rain."
Éowyn sashayed through the wet grass, Fréalas reluctantly in
tow. "You can't say that it doesn't feel good, the wet ground
beneath your feet?"
Fréalas hated to admit it at that
moment, but truly it was pleasant. Éowyn ran ahead a few paces,
then slowly began spinning, her left side leading, then faster and
faster, spiralling in her own vortex of sudden joy. The resignation in
Fréalas dissipated, and she began to circle as well, but to her
right, a larger circle of outspread freckled arms, her skirt tending
outwards despite being made heavier by the rain soaking her through. By
the river there were now two outwardly turning circles of girls,
self-contained whirlpools in a great grassy sea.
Their pace grew
faster, dizzying almost, spinning and spinning until the inevitable.
Fréalas, quite disoriented in all of the turning, lurched sideways
into the increasing mud, stopping the fall with her hands. Once she
caught her breath, she called to Éowyn, "We had better go back
now, honestly! Where are the horses? We are lucky not to be struck by
lightning, or worse." She tried to look serious as she patted the
mud off of her hands on her shirt and skirt, wringing out the hem as she
did.
She looked at Éowyn, still circling, now in a slower
pattern, unheeding this entreaty to safety. Fréalas was moved to
pity at seeing the unfettered joy on the younger girl's face. It was an
expression she had worn far more often during her visits to the
Eastfold, back before many tracks of tears had transformed her pale
visage into its more common stoic expression. Memories assaulted
Fréalas: A face shining with happiness, sticky fig preserves around
her mouth, Éowyn's first exposure to the sweet fruit. The little
blonde child, standing still as a statue in a frock of scarlet,
surrounded by colourful butterflies alighting on her hair and shoulders
amid flowers in the garden. Unbidden, such memories jumped to the
forefront of Fréalas' mind, her mood turning to a bittersweet
melancholy.
Fréalas stepped the few paces to reach her
spinning friend, and slowed her to a stop, placing her hands on the
girl's shoulders. The two horses, which had been quiet during the first
thunder rumblings, were now making anxious, sharp whinnies, a sure sign
that it was time to go back over the Snowbourne to
Edoras.
"I know you love storms," Fréalas said,
pleadingly. "But couldn't we watch the jousting of the clouds from
inside, where it is drier?"
Resigned, Éowyn shrugged,
and turning, walked upstream toward their horses. Fréalas followed,
noting how delicate the younger girl seemed, her dress stuck to her arms
and legs with the weight of the rain. It isn't fair, she thought,
that somebody that young should carry so heavy a burden as being
without her parents, the only girl in that big stone house. They got
on their horses in silence, and crossing the river, made their way past
the barrow-mounds to the gate of the city. But she isn't really
alone, Fréalas chided herself. She has Éomer to watch
over her, and the King himself has taken her under his wing. And did you
not just pledge yourself to be her protector as well?
The
horses knew their way and trotted resolutely back in the direction of
their warm and dry stables. They made muffled clip-clops as they
traversed the main road, side by side, until Fréalas turned to go
to her house, down the west side from the Golden Hall.
"You
will be sure to dry Léoma off properly?" Fréalas asked,
knowing full well that her friend would hand the horse over to someone
in the royal stables so she could rush to her room and watch the summer
skies play out their battles of lightning and rain.
"I
will," Éowyn smiled, pausing to wipe the rain off of her face
and pull her braids back over her shoulders. "Thank you for the
rain dance, my scyldesweoster." Then she hastened her speed
and continued up the road to Meduseld.
Fréalas turned
Salupád down the muddy road, hanging her head in advance of the
lecture she would soon receive from her mother about being out on the
plains in a thunderstorm. And Frithlíc… she was sure that he would
have no shortage of commentary on how she needed to handle her sword. He
now appeared to be the apple of the eye of Guthig, the swordmaster who
was leading instruction on the intricacies of fighting. She sighed, and
patted Salupád's neck. "Almost home," she murmured,
trying to counter the horse's nervousness as they walked past the many
thatched-roof homes, smiling as she saw the occasional infant playing in
the mud, enjoying the summer shower.
*******
Léoma=
lightning
Salupád= dark-coated
sycldesweoster=
"shield-sister"
Staenwine= stone-friend,
builder
Staentwylas= stone-two (twin)
Chapter 3, The Company of
Strangers
Return to Fanfiction listings
Home