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In the years that followed, Gilraen would blame the spring. It had come upon Minas Tirith like a storm, with warm breezes and unfurled blossoms and the smell of green growing things, wildflowers in the fields and bright sunshine on Gilraen’s hair when she rode out in the mornings on Andett. After the winter, with its drab skies and pinioned chill, all seemed suddenly possible; wanderlust was as natural as breathing.

“Mother,” she said at the breakfast table, one sunny morning. “I wish to visit the Shire.”

Eldarion, who had been surreptitiously engaging in a kick-war with Lúthien under the table (her brother might be twenty-three, a man full-grown, but he was in many ways still a boy), looked up with a laugh. “The Hobbits? Why, little sister?”

She was near as tall as he, and only three years younger. Gilraen thought the gap should matter not at all; Eldarion thought otherwise. Perhaps this was one of the reasons she longed to stretch her neck to the horizon, like Andett when she felt the urge to race. Gilraen might be third-born, the youngest of the King and Queen’s family save little Míreth, but she was not a child.

“It has been two years since Elanor last visited her family,” Gilraen said, as regally as their mother might have. “She will wish to see them again; and I wish to know our world better than I do now.”

Their father, the High King of Gondor and Arnor, looked up from his attempts to persuade Míreth to eat her breakfast without throwing it on the ground or screaming. “I have promised the Halflings that no man will disturb the peace of their land.”

“If you say I am no man,” Lúthien said, under her breath. (Eldarion snorted.)

“Without their permission,” Gilraen answered, ignoring her childish older siblings. “Surely they would give me that permission. Elanor would lend her support, I know.”

Under the gaze of both her parents, she resisted the urge to squirm. This was a reasonable request; if she, third child, had a longing for the open road, to fly free from the beautiful cloister that the White City sometimes resembled, she thought that her parents might be able to understand. Had not her father walked the paths of their world as a simple Ranger? Had not her mother countless years of Elven memories?

Her mother’s brow furrowed. “It would not be only you. Quartering a troop is much to ask of such a peaceful folk.”

“I do not wish to go with a troop of soldiers,” Gilraen said, her fingers pressed tightly together in her lap. “I do not wish to be part of a procession, to be stared at and admired. Cannot we be simple travellers?”

Even as she asked, she knew they could not. She was a princess, and Elanor a high lady; although the Reunited Kingdom was peaceful in this Fourth Age, there would always be bandits, and the occasional marauding goblin or troll. Gilraen was a competent swordswoman – all of the royal children could protect themselves – but she lacked experience in battle.

“Perhaps as small a troop as you think safe,” she said, as graceful in defeat as she could manage.

Her father finished spooning the last of Míreth’s porridge into her mouth, then wiped her face clean. “There is an alternate solution,” he said.

Seeing the smile-lines around his eyes, Gilraen felt her heart leap.

~

Ithilien had embraced the spring even more than Minas Tirith. When Gilraen handed Andett’s reins to one of the Steward’s stablehands and slipped into the gardens, she was overcome with the smell of fresh-turned earth and early flowers, and the hum of bees.

Morwen was on her knees in front of a flowerbed, her hair pulled back and her hands muddy. She looked up when she heard Gilraen coming, and her face brightened in welcome. There was a streak of dirt down one cheek, where she must have absentmindedly brushed a finger, but somehow it became her. “I did not expect you today! This is a welcome surprise.”

“Your gardens are beautiful,” Gilraen said, sinking into a squat next to her. It was far from elegant, but she was not a princess here, only a friend. “What will go here?”

“Only flowers,” Morwen said, and laughed. She was always laughing; she was the fair to Gilraen’s dark, in more ways than coloring. “Vegetables are more practical, and they are beautiful too. But I confess that flowers gladden my heart.”

“Mine too. If only my flowers grew as well as yours.”

“You simply lack patience,” Morwen said, the brightness of her eyes taking any sting out of the mild criticism. “You could be an excellent gardener, if you would take the trouble.”

Gilraen shook her head ruefully. “I will leave it to you.”

Wiping her hands unselfconsciously on her gardening apron, Morwen got to her feet. “Surely you did not come to talk of gardens and flowers! Come inside, and we will beg lemonade of my mother and sit on the balcony together.”

But as it happened, the Lady Éowyn was teaching a class of small children how to fall without injury, so the two girls slipped past and up to the balcony without disturbing them. “Elboron has left his sketchbook out again,” Morwen said, tutting fondly. She moved it from the table to an unused chair, and set the pitcher in its place. “So, tell me. What brings you to Ithilien with your eyes snapping and your hair awry? Have you fallen in love with one of the Elf-lords again?”

Gilraen felt herself blushing, although that escapade was three years hence. The Elven colony in Ithilien was a peaceful place, and it had certainly not deserved a lovesick teenager pining her heart out for a particularly handsome inhabitant. Luckily for all concerned, her love had been of short duration; her uncle Legolas’s mirth at her affliction had perhaps contributed to its demise. “No! I shall never fall in love with an Elf again. Legolas laughs, Mother smiles, and Gimli says dark things about Elves being more trouble than they are worth. And all of them think I am a child, which I certainly am not.”

Morwen’s mouth went round with surprise. “Twenty years is not a child, I agree – but why so vehement? Has Eldarion been teasing again? I wish he would not.”

“I shall never forgive you for having the kinder brother.”

“Do not tell me you have fallen in love with Elboron,” Morwen said, setting down her teacup with a decisive clink. “I shall never forgive you. It is bad enough when you are lovesick for Elves, or Horselords, or that blacksmith from Dale. I refuse to lose you to my own brother.”

She was laughing again, but Gilraen knew there was an element of sincerity there as well. “I will leave him to Lúthien,” she said (for half the kingdom had been hoping for that very match since they were children, despite the disinterest of the principals concerned). “I have not come about love at all!”

“Then what is burning on your tongue? Say it,” Morwen demanded, waving her hand in the most peremptory fashion.

Gilraen leaned forward in her chair.

~

When she returned to the Citadel that evening, Gilraen found her father closeted with Legolas and Gimli. “Go ahead,” her mother said, smiling. “Else they will get lost talking of old times and be late for supper.”

Her father’s study was a broad, pleasant room; the spring nights still kept their chill, and a fire burned in the grate. When Gilraen stepped inside, knocking on the door to signal her presence, three welcoming faces turned her way.

“How is my favorite girl?” Gimli asked, thumping his hand on his knee.

“That is Míreth,” Gilraen said, smiling (for her baby sister stole all hearts), “but I am well, uncle Gimli.”

“I have been telling them of your plan,” her father said, and she saw that he held a map. “What sayeth Morwen?”

For Morwen was not only a gardener of some renown, and Gilraen’s closest friend, but one of the best swords in Gondor; and it was as all these things, but perhaps less of the gardening, that she was such an integral part of this journey. “She is glad to come,” Gilraen said, claiming her favorite chair by the fire. “She also has never been to the Shire.”

“Three is too small a number,” Legolas said, tapping a finger against his lips. Gimli muttered something in his direction, and he laughed. “I am not saying us, never fear. We are bound for Erebor this spring, and not even you can persuade Gimli otherwise, fair heart. But you should take another with you, for night watches, and company, and another sword at your back. The Lady Elanor is gentle and kind, but I do not think she is as doughty as the Hobbits in our Fellowship were.”

Gilraen had to agree. Elanor was sweet, pretty, and had one of the most beautiful singing voices Gilraen had ever heard. She was also pleasantly plump, hated swordplay, and preferred sedate movement to speed. If they were set upon by bandits, she would be the one Gilraen and Morwen formed ranks around, not a fellow-in-arms. This was not a problem, but a third sword would be welcome.

She said as much, then asked, “Do you have anyone to recommend?”

“Much as your brother would add to the spice of your journey,” her father said, mischief in his eyes, “Faramir and I had planned for the boys to help supervise the garrison refit this year. You shall have to do without them.”

“I am distraught,” Gilraen said, solemnly, then stole Gimli’s glass for a swallow of brandy. Here in her father’s study, the rules were relaxed; she was not Gondor’s princess, but an indulged daughter and niece. Usually Gimli would swat at her hand in jest, but today he was distracted.

“Nálin could go,” he told Legolas. “If the Hobbits will have a Dwarf.”

“I am sure your name is not forgotten in the Shire, Master Dwarf,” Legolas said, smiling at him. “Merry and Pippin will certainly welcome any kin of yours. You will only have to fear that they will fill Nálin’s head with exaggerated stories of your deeds on the field of battle.”

“My battle deeds are never exaggerated,” Gimli said, loftily.

Gilraen left them to the old argument. “Nálin?” she asked her father, still nursing her stolen glass, which Gimli had not yet reclaimed.

“A young Dwarf, distant kin of Gimli’s. Hotheaded, but I imagine this is the natural state of Dwarves. Good with an axe, which according to their own account is also the natural state of Dwarves. I would trust him at your back.”

“It is only across our own lands, and those of Rohan,” Gilraen said, as Gimli announced with an air of finality, “Eighty-one!” and took back his glass. “Will you let the four of us go?”

Her father’s hand was still on the map, and when he held it out to her, she took it. “I only wish I could come with you,” he said, smiling, and reached out to ruffle her hair. “I will send a messenger to Sam in the morning.”

~

The day they set out was bright and breezy, snapping Gilraen’s riding skirts about her legs. Andett pranced beside her, catching her rider’s excitement; Elanor’s pony eyed her warily and side-stepped.

“Ride safely,” her mother said, and folded her into a hug. “I packed some lembas in one of your saddlebags.”

Next to her, Gilraen could hear Éowyn reminding Morwen to give Merry her fondest wishes, and Gimli rumbling something to Nálin, who was taciturn and very bearded. Lúthien was weeping, for she hated partings, and embracing Elanor, who was firmly promising to return soon and unharmed.

Eldarion pressed a pipe into her hand at the last moment. “A visit to the Shire would not be complete unless you try Old Toby,” he said, his eyes sparkling.

“I will bring some back for you,” she said, correctly diagnosing his interest. “Try not to burn the kingdom down while I am gone.”

Then they were riding away, and Gilraen turned to wave. Their families looked idyllic, waving back. Lúthien stood arm-in-arm with their mother; Míreth perched on their father’s shoulder; Eldarion and Elboron were play-jostling each other for a better spot; Gimli had turned to say something to Faramir; Legolas was making Éowyn laugh.

Gilraen waved one last time, then turned her face resolutely towards the horizon.

~

The first few days of their journey resembled a long picnic. They rode through country Gilraen knew as well as the gardens of the White City; she had grown up being taken on excursions by her parents and all of her myriad aunts and uncles. Here was the hamlet where her pony had thrown her, and Gimli had bought her sweet dough balls from the farmer’s wife in order to distract her from her bruises. Here was the brook she had played in, shrieking, trying to dunk Eldarion and Morwen under the water, until Éowyn waded out and hauled them all to shore. Here was the field with the best climbing tree in all of Anórien.

She had expected Elanor to complain of saddle-weariness before long; but although Elanor was as home-loving and plump as any Hobbit that Gilraen had ever met, she was of sturdy stock. Instead of complaining, she sang in the saddle, now rousing drinking songs that they all knew in and joined in cheerfully, now haunting love ballads, now melodies of hearth and home. Nálin’s strong tenor and Morwen’s husky alto blended with Elanor’s sweet soprano, and Gilraen croaked along as best she was able.

Ten days into their journey, they stopped in Edoras, for neither Morwen nor Gilraen could pass through Rohan without visiting the Golden Hall. Gilraen could not remember a year where she had not climbed the Hill or been bounced on Éomer’s broad knee; she had drunk her first beer at a harvest dance, and Andett had been foaled here.

Lothíriel would have sent additional swords with them – Elfwine, who at seventeen was full in his impressionable age and followed Elanor around dreamily, would gladly have volunteered. But Éomer laughed and said that if Aragorn thought these two shieldmaidens (“and you, Master Dwarf,” he said, politely, to Nálin) could handle the road, far be it from him to place nursemaids on them. They feasted, instead, and danced until midnight, and then went on their way with slightly pounding heads in the morn.

The evening after Edoras, Morwen brought out traveling cloaks. “We keep to the North-South road through the Fords of Isen,” she said, “and though I do not doubt my uncle’s ability to keep the peace in his lands, the main road will always draw desperate men. Let us go quietly without names, lest we tempt them by our supposed wealth and ransom.”

Gilraen thought that most bandits would not risk attacking the daughter of the King, or the swordmaster daughter of Ithilien, but anonymity suited her, so she donned the cloak without protest. “Am I so recognizable?” she asked, as she raised the hood. “Or is it your shining hair that marks us?”

Morwen, whose striking sunlit hair was common in Rohan, smiled. “You have Elf blood, dear heart,” she said. “You could not be anyone other than Gilraen, daughter of Arwen Undómiel.”

“I doubt bandits can tell Elf blood from Man at a distance,” Gilraen demurred. “But our traveling companions do draw the eye.”

They turned together to look at Elanor and Nálin, who were starting the night’s fire. Elanor held an armful of wood, which she was handing to Nálin, who had twigs crackling already. As they watched, she looked up, smiling. “Come,” she called. “I have made Nálin promise to tell the tale of Bilbo and the dragon tonight.”

“Thorin and the dragon,” Nálin corrected, grumpily, though Gilraen, whose long acquaintance with Gimli had rendered her immune to Dwarven prickliness, could tell that he was not irked.

“Thorin and Bilbo and the dragon,” Elanor corrected, agreeably. “The first brave Hobbit, and his Dwarven friends. I confess the very thought of such adventures makes me shiver. But it is a fine tale for a spring night.”

“Someday I will journey to the Kingdom under the Mountain,” Gilraen told Morwen, brushing a stray leaf off the shoulder of her cloak. It became her; instead of a horsemaiden of Rohan, as she had looked before, she was now a young Ranger, golden curls tucked underneath the anonymous darkness of her hood. “I am sure Gimli’s relatives would welcome me. I have a wide Dwarven acquaintance from the time I have spent in the Glittering Caves.”

Morwen’s smile was as sharp as the sword which nestled in its scabbard at her hip. “Try and leave me behind, and see how fast I chase you down.”

Laughing, they joined Elanor and Nálin at the fire.

~

Just before they reached the Fords of Isen, they stopped to replenish their supplies. Morwen, who kept stewardship of the map and had planned their route carefully, drawing on the wide knowledge of the King’s messengers, declared that they would leave the North-South Road after the Fords and strike out through Enedwaith, riding north to the Gwathló.

“Less chance of encountering highwaymen,” she said cheerfully, helping Elanor down from her saddle. “Although there is always the chance of opportunists.”

“You say that as though the prospect excites you,” Elanor said, eyeing her askance.

Nálin snorted. “A journey would be no journey without a small spice of danger, my lady. Fear not; my axe will drink the blood of any scum who dares to menace you.”

Elanor thanked him prettily and set her hand on his broad arm, to be escorted down the village street.

Morwen settled her swordbelt and offered her own elbow to Gilraen. “Shall we?”

They had scarce gone ten steps, however, before the sound of weeping reached them. Looking about, Gilraen soon located the source; a woman, sitting on her step, her face in her hands.

“What ails thee, good lady?” she asked. “May we be of service?” She hoped it was not a domestic disturbance. Such ugliness was a part of life, but her father punished those men who beat their wives, and although she might not have the strength or the authority to visit his justice here, she would be loath to leave having done nothing.

But the tear-streaked face the woman raised was clear of bruises. “It is my Brytta,” she said. “She went for mushrooms this morning, but she has not returned, and when my husband went to search for her he found her basket in the meadow.”

“How old is she?” Morwen asked. “Might she have simply wandered home, and be building mud castles with a little friend?”

The woman shook her head. “Nay, lady, she is sixteen this spring. She knows not to wander, for though we are peaceful and there is no trouble here, yet there are many travellers, and she is beautiful.”

Gilraen detached her arm from Morwen’s and sank down on the step next to the woman. “Are they still searching for her?”

The woman nodded, scrubbing at her cheeks with the frayed cuff of her sleeve. “If they do not find her before the sun sets, I fear they will not.”

“We will join the searchers,” Morwen said. “We will find her.”

Gilraen approved of the impulse. An extra day would mean little in their journey, and could make such a difference here.“We do not know the land,” she said, “but do you have a younger child that might ride with me as our guide?”

The woman pressed Gilraen’s hand in silent gratefulness. “Yes, my Háma,” she said. “I will call him. Bless you.”

“I will tell Elanor and Nálin,” Morwen said, in an undertone, and strode off down the street.

The woman called for her son, and as they waited for him, Gilraen slipped an arm around her shoulder. “Do not weep too soon, good lady. Mayhap she has injured herself and we will soon find her and bring her home. You may have to nurse a sprained ankle, and scold about daydreaming, and naught else.”

The woman sniffed, visibly trying not to begin crying again. “I know we are lucky; I would not have missed her until this evening, had the barn cat not had her kittens. Brytta loves cats, and makes quite the pet of this one,” she said, with a watery smile. “I thought the mushrooms could wait. If my husband had not gone for her and found her missing, it would have been hours yet before we would have begun the search.”

“We will find her,” Gilraen said again, firmly. Perhaps she should not promise what she had no idea if she could deliver; but she could not hold a crying woman in her arms and not render what comfort she could. And it would be the height of bravado to kidnap a girl from her own village fields – and ride with her where? Through the Fords? There were too many people there to escape unnoticed, if the girl struggled.

She tried not to think of other possibilities.

Háma, a gap-toothed boy of about eight, arrived at the same time as Gilraen’s companions. Elanor came straight to the woman. “A pot of tea, I think,” she said, briskly. “When your daughter returns, you will want to have something for the searchers. Do you have any pie?”

“Yes,” the woman said. “There is half a mutton one in the larder, and I could make another with the early blackberries.” She already seemed less tearful, with a task to fix her mind on.

Elanor placed a hand on her back to shepherd her inside, nodding to Gilraen. Gilraen nodded back thankfully, and joined Morwen and Nálin, who had brought the horses. She boosted Háma onto Andett’s back, then sprung on behind. “Guide us,” she said to Háma, who pointed a finger to the west, and they were off.

The meadow the girl had gone missing in was not far. Her basket had been left upturned where it had fallen, mute testimony to the speed of her departure. The searchers had moved off to the north, where there was a wooded thicket; Gilraen could only faintly hear their calls, as they moved through the brush.

“Perhaps the girl ran off with a lover,” Morwen said, before wincing, obviously remembering the child sitting in front of Gilraen.

But Háma was already shaking his head. “Not Brytta. She twos with Halfor, the baker’s boy. She wouldn’t run away.”

Gilraen surveyed the ground. With the searchers already in the thicket, perhaps she might try down near that brook.

The boy was still talking. “Mama likes Halfor, but she says Brytta is too young for twoing. But Brytta says she is sixteen and this is the Fourth Age.”

She would leave the boy here, ostensibly to guard the basket. If they did find the girl’s body, she did not want him with her.

“Háma,” she said, swinging out of the saddle, “you stay here and guard the – ”

When she broke off, the boy turned to look at her. “Yes, milady?”

As she had dismounted, Gilraen had caught sight of what lay to the south, in the opposite direction from the searchers in the thicket. “Háma,” she said, praying she was right, “what is that there?”

“It is a hay barn, milady,” Háma said, confused, as he jumped down. “We keep hay in it.”

She swung back into the saddle. “Thank you,” she said courteously, over her shoulder, as Andett started forward.

“The lady does not know what a hay barn is?” she heard him ask Morwen, but then she was out of earshot.

The door of the barn was slightly ajar, and Gilraen pushed it open. She paused for a moment, listening, but she could not hear the searchers from here. Down below, Háma and Morwen’s faces were turned up the hill towards her; she imagined Morwen had figured it out by now. A cat stalked past, head held high, and somewhere a frog was croaking.

And someone was snoring.

She climbed the ladder as noiselessly as she could, then stood forbiddingly over the sleepers. “Brytta and Halfor,” she said, in her best doom-filled voice, “thou art in so much trouble.”

Later, over the remains of the mutton and blackberry pies, Nálin laughed into his beer. “Hay barn. Classic.”

Elanor primmed up her mouth. “I know it is springtime, and blood runs hot, but they truly frightened her parents. Her mother has been worried about the flood of travellers for some time, and I know she will have imagined all kinds of horrors happening to Brytta.”

“If her mother had not sent for her early, she could have returned in time and no harm done,” Morwen pointed out. “They have been twoing for months, and they are sixteen. An accident of timing, that is all.”

Morwen had not held the weeping woman in her arms. Gilraen had seen the possibilities in her own mind’s eye; seen a kidnapped girl, an abandoned corpse. It may have all turned out well, although Brytta and Halfor would never be allowed to forget the time they upended the village for a roll in a hay barn, but it had been a sobering reminder of the realities of life. Even in a peaceful Rohan, with none of the war and depradations of their parents’ time, such violence remained a possibility.

“We sleep here tonight?” Nálin asked. “Too late to go on.”

Gilraen looked to Morwen, who nodded. “The blacksmith has offered us beds for the night, to thank us for our help.”

“Beds,” Elanor said, rapturously; laughing, they all raised their glasses in a toast.

~

When they crossed the Fords of Isen and struck west into Enedwaith, Gilraen’s skin prickled in excitement. This was travelling, as she had always imagined her father travelled; not the well-trod roads of the lower kingdoms, packed with merchants and farmers, itinerant peddlers and caravans. This was them and the land, with a far-off horizon and a wide blue sky.

Háma had taught Elanor his favorite working ditty, and she sang it as they rode. They travelled at a steady but easy pace, not more than thirty miles in any day. Far from the comforts of home, they might be a bit dirty, and simple in their garb – the only hairstyle any of them wore now were long braids, underneath their traveller’s cloaks – but their way was a peaceful one, and full of cheer.

“I grow weary of that song,” Nálin said, grumpily. “The sheep are in the meadow, hey nonny nonny – let them stay in their meadow, and be damned.”

Elanor laughed. “Why, good master Dwarf, you must pick the next song, then! If sheep are not to your liking, give us tales of battle or great glory.”

Nálin harrumphed, but Gilraen noticed that he did not move his pony away from Elanor’s. “We do not need to sing all the way to the Shire,” he said, darkly. “We will be taken for a minstrel company.”

Elanor smiled at him. Her face, already pretty, transformed when she smiled; they did not call her Elanor the Fair for her hair alone, though its golden sheen was uncommon for a Hobbit. “It would be a fortunate minstrel company that had the benefit of your talents, Nálin.”

“Hmph,” he said.

“Is it just me?” Morwen asked Gilraen, under her breath, as they rode behind.

“No,” Gilraen said, sharing a conspiratorial glance. “She is surely flirting.”

Why not flirt, in the sunny balm of the springtime air? Nálin was a handsome young Dwarf, Gilraen thought, although she was not always sure of how Dwarves reckoned such things. Surely his beard was of an impressive length and volume for his age, and she had caught his eyes looking merry rather than stern on many an occasion. He wielded his axe with impressive force when they needed firewood (while grumbling about how it deserved to be sharpened on the bones of his enemies, not dulled by menial tasks), and he rode without complaint. A paragon, to be sure.

And it was spring, after all; spring, the season of love.

“I will give you a song of the cleansing of Moria,” Nálin said, abruptly. “There are no sheep.”

Elanor’s clear laughter floated over their heads like the blossoms on the trees.

~

As far back as she could remember, Gilraen had known how to camp. Her father could escape from the Citadel only rarely, but even then there were halcyon days when he bundled her and Eldarion onto their ponies in the sleepy dawn, before spending the whole day fishing, or exploring a wood, or picnicking in an open meadow. They would sleep under the stars, snug in their bedrolls, before heading back in the morning, to baths and lessons and responsibilities once more. When Morwen or Elboron had happened to be visiting – which frequently happened in their childhoods; the five of them trundled back and forth between Ithilien and Minas Tirith at will – they had come along too. (Lúthien came only seldom; she preferred books and embroidery to the outdoors.)

Now Gilraen thanked that early training for her ability to sleep anywhere, on any ground. She was no pampered princess, uncomfortable except in a featherbed; her sleeping roll was enough, placed near the fire for warmth and near the others for safety.

Being a good sleeper did not protect her, however, from her dreams. She came awake one night to find Morwen holding her shoulders. “Shhh,” she said. “It’s me. You’re safe.”

Gilraen had dreamed of a mountain, splitting in two and belching flame, destroying all that lay in its path. The screaming people who fled had had faces she knew; she shuddered, trying to banish the thought of her mother, melted by the mountain.

“Is it my watch yet?” she asked, stretching her neck.

“No,” Morwen said. “But if you cannot sleep, come away and talk to me.”

Gilraen picked up her bedroll and carried it around the fire to Morwen’s. In its flickering light, Elanor and Nálin slept peacefully, curled close. She kept her voice low to keep from waking them. “You can sleep now. No need for both of us to be wakeful.”

“I will sleep soon,” Morwen said. “Sit and let me see your shoulders.”

Unsure, but trusting, Gilraen sat cross-legged on her bedroll, watching the flames flicker. Morwen’s fingers touched her neck, finding the knots, and she bit her lip against the sound of relief. “Oh! How did you know that hurt?”

“I have eyes,” Morwen said, with a touch of her mother’s dryness. “You slept wrong on it last night, I think. Hold still and let me fix it.”

The night was quiet. Gilraen sat under Morwen’s clever fingers, and thought of how far they were from home. She had not thought about it before, not like that. If something happened at home, they would not be able to reach her; if something happened here, it would be over before her family knew to worry. The thought both frightened and thrilled her. Out here, under the stars, she was not a princess of Gondor – she was simply a girl, with her comrades, responsible for her own fate.

“If you wish to tell me your dream,” Morwen said, “I know that it helps sometimes.”

Gilraen did not think that it would help her. I dream that everyone I love dies was too stark a truth for this warm night, as she relaxed into Morwen’s touch. “I dream that I lose people,” she said, choosing a simpler form of the truth.

Morwen’s hands did not falter on her shoulders, bringing relief and comfort both. “You will not lose me.”

“You cannot promise that,” Gilraen protested, her knuckles white where her hands were folded together.

Morwen leaned down and pressed a kiss to the top of Gilraen’s head, as her fingers kept massaging the knots out of her shoulders. “You will not lose me,” she repeated, her voice a promise.

Gilraen slept better the next night.

~

When Elanor woke up one morning with a headache that would not let her open her eyes, they were luckily only an hour’s easy distance from a village, one of the new settlements that had come to Enedwaith since the dawn of the Fourth Age.

“If you lash me to my saddle,” Elanor said, with a faint glimmer of the gentle humor that had won her so many hearts, “I can go on. It is not as if I am controlling my pony anyway – he follows Andett, and will keep following her no matter what I do.”

“Bah,” Nálin said. “Be quiet. Your head will hurt more if you talk.”

The butcher offered her bed to the afflicted traveller, and Elanor lay down in the dim, protesting prettily all the way. Gilraen tried to pay, but the butcher refused the coin. “She is only a wee lass,” she said, putting a hand on an ample hip. “My mother used to take those turns sometimes. A day or two’s rest will put all right. Never you mind the coin, just sit you there and let my Imlad bring you bread and ale.”

Gilraen would have insisted, but Morwen put a hand on her arm, and she subsided, gracefully.

“Would you let us tell stories from our travels?” Morwen asked the butcher. “We are but simple folk ourselves, but we have been to many lands, and know many tales.”

The butcher beamed. “Now that would be a kindness. I thank you.”

Morwen started with the tale of Aragorn called Elessar and Arwen Undómiel. With Legolas for an uncle, growing up listening to his gift for the telling of tales, she had learned much; by the end, when they took the throne of the Reunited Kingdom, what seemed like the whole village was sitting and standing in the town square in front of the butcher’s shop, hanging on every word. It was evidently a tale they had heard many times before, for they hissed and laughed and commented at the appropriate parts, but they seemed to enjoy it all the same.

Hearing the story of her own parents always felt strange to Gilraen, so when Morwen finished, she smiled wickedly at her and asked, “Does anyone here know the story of the Lady Éowyn, shieldmaiden of Rohan?”

“I met her once,” a grizzled old man volunteered, from his seat on the edge of the village well.

“Sure you did,” a youth said, winking at a pretty girl.

The old man squawked with indignance. “I did! It was after the Battle of Pelennor Fields, and we were both in the Houses of Healing. Children these days, no respect for their elders…”

Before the audience could seize the stage entirely, Gilraen hurriedly began the tale. “Éowyn was only a girl. Perhaps she looked a bit like this,” she said, gesturing at Morwen.

Everyone looked at Morwen. They considered her. “She was a princess,” one woman said, doubtfully. “Fancy clothes and all that.”

“But Éowyn was a shieldmaiden,” Gilraen said, “and shieldmaidens have to be ready to fight, not sit around looking beautiful. Although she was beautiful, as beautiful as a ray of sunshine, and she drew all eyes to her.”

“That she did,” the old man said, fondly.

“I will go and see to Elanor,” Gilraen heard Nálin murmur to Morwen, and then he faded back into the house.

She continued her story. “Éowyn was raised by her uncle Théoden King, along with her brother Éomer and her cousin Théodred. Theirs was a happy life, until the power of the Dread Lord Sauron woke once more, and the influence of the evil advisor Grima Wormtongue began to grow in the mind of Théoden.”

By the time she had finished, it was nearly time for supper, and the audience reluctantly dispersed. “Come back tonight,” Morwen said, “and perhaps we will be able to persuade our Dwarven companion to give you a story of his people.”

But when they looked in on Elanor, Nálin had fallen asleep in the chair by her bed, his hand over hers. They left them to slumber undisturbed, and Morwen told the story of Legolas and Gimli and the Glittering Caves instead.

Gilraen thought that she looked glittering herself, sparkling in the firelight. Her hood was thrown back, and her golden hair caught the light; she gestured with her hands as she told of Gimli’s grumpiness and Legolas’s teasing, making her audience laugh, and her every move was gracefulness itself.

Yet Gilraen had seen her half-awake in the mornings, with a line pressed into her cheek by her bed-roll; had seen her the worse for wear after a night of too much ale and dancing, including the infamous time she tried to drink with Gimli (he had downed two for every one of hers, but to no avail); had seen her all over mud in the gardens – abjectly failing at embroidery – gutting a freshly-caught fish – red-faced and bristle-haired after a swordfight – trying (and comically failing) to sing the low notes in a sea chanty – pitched over on her back after a play tussle, pretending to be mortally wounded.

She should not still look like magic in the firelight, when Gilraen knew her to be fully human. And yet she did.

~

The next morning, Gilraen awoke in her bedroll on the floor. For a moment, she thought she was in Minas Tirith, and blinked, trying to make the world resolve into the quiet serenity of her bedroom; then her disorientation faded, as she saw the sleeping face of Morwen, curled up next to her. She was in a butcher’s house, with her friends, and they were nearly to the River Gwathló, on their way to the Shire.

Morwen’s face was peaceful. Her eyelashes seemed impossibly long, her cheeks rosy.

“Aye and it is a fine morning,” Nálin said softly. He sat in a chair near Elanor’s bed.

Gilraen jerked her eyes away from Morwen and got up, wincing slightly at the morning chill. “Did you even sleep?”

“I slept.” He was, as ever, laconic.

“She had a bad night,” Morwen said, her voice honey-thick with drowsiness. “I think we should wait another day before traveling on. We have the time, and it will be easier to travel when she is hale.”

Elanor protested when she woke, arguing that she did not want to be a burden, but her friends carried the day. “We do not want you to relapse,” Morwen told her, pressing her hand.

They took turns sitting with her, while the others did what they could to aid the villagers in their daily work. There was certainly enough to go around; this was not the poorest village they had passed through, but neither was it prosperous yet. Someday it would be a bustling market town, Gilraen thought, but these things took time, and it was less than three decades since the War of the Ring had ended and the expansion of Men had begun.

She was working on the butcher’s mending that afternoon, telling Elanor stories, when the day took a sudden turn. She could see the spring out the window – blossoming trees, sunny breeze – and hear the laughter of children at play; and then the door swung open, and a breathless Morwen tumbled in, followed closely by Nálin.

“There is an upset in the village,” Morwen said, sinking down on the foot of Elanor’s bed. “The baker has sworn that if he catches the blacksmith’s boy, he will thrash him. He suspects the boy of stealing loaves.”

“That is a serious accusation,” Gilraen said. In a village as small as this one, every tradesperson was important, and trust was the vital currency. If distrust crept in, the villagers would have a hard time keeping their economy moving, and it might disintegrate once more into a hamlet of farms. “What does the blacksmith’s boy say?”

“He swears he did not take them,” Nálin said. “But he looks to be a hungry lad. That age is difficult, when the family is poor.”

Gilraen frowned. “It is a serious accusation, to be called a thief in a village. Men have been banished for it. Is there aught else to support the claim, other than his hunger?”

Morwen shook her head. “Not that I heard. He has gone to ground somewhere, which does not look to his credit.”

“I will go and find him for you,” Nálin said, getting to his feet. “No Man can hide from a Dwarf. We are skilled trackers.”

Gilraen thanked him, but he was already out the door, not needing to stoop at the low lintel.

Elanor sighed. “Perhaps best to leave the matter to the village. They are the ones who must live with it, after we are gone. It is sad for the boy, but he is young, and the baker will not wish to antagonize the blacksmith. If this is his first offense, the thrashing will suffice.”

“And if he is innocent?” Gilraen asked. “All of the King’s subjects deserve justice, whether they be hungry boys or indignant bakers.”

Elanor spread her hands. “I do not disagree. But there is no King’s justice here, only local justice. The nearest magistrate is a two-week journey by wagon-cart, and the baker will not have that time to spare, even if he thought it worth the travel.”

Gilraen knew it was true. The rapid expansion of the Reunited Kingdom had left civil society struggling to catch up, and there were still wide swathes of country in which justice and medicine was left to the local level. If the village healer was inexperienced, illness and injury took more than its usual tithe; if the village was contentious, mob rule and rough justice were harsh mistresses. In time this would not be so, but for the present the blacksmith’s boys of her father’s kingdom must shift for themselves.

“Surely I must do what I can, since I am here.”

Morwen’s voice was unaccustomingly soft. “You have no authority here, Gilraen. This village counts itself Gondorian, but they have never seen your father, nor you. You cannot simply make yourself its master.”

“Then I will ask,” Gilraen said. “You can have no quarrel with my asking.”

“None at all,” Morwen said, and got up to see to Elanor.

The boy was pushed into Gilraen’s presence scarce an hour later, stumbling through the door closely followed by Nálin. “Trees,” the Dwarf said, shortly. “Men always think that climbing trees makes them invisible.”

Gilraen tried to look as authoritative as she could, although she suddenly felt rather ridiculous, as if she was five again and dressing up in her mother’s gowns. “My name is Gilraen.” She almost added ‘daughter of the King of Gondor,’ but some instinct made her stay her hand; or maybe it was the silent presence of Morwen, sitting quietly at her left hand. “I would see justice done. The baker says you took his loaves. Did you?”

The boy was skinny, knobbly-kneed. His growth had come upon him over-quickly, and he looked as panicked as a deer chased by hunters. “No! I did not take them! But he will say that I did, and if he thrashes me I shall not be able to work for some time, and I must, or my family will grow hungry.”

“The blacksmith is in poor health,” Morwen told Gilraen, quietly.

“Yes, lady,” the boy said. “I know that I have erred, for I have said to my fellows many times that it would be easy to take a loaf set out to cool, while the baker is cavorting in the miller’s field. But I only jested – I am no thief.”

“Might one of your fellows have taken the opportunity?”

He looked stricken, as if the thought had not occurred to him. “I do not think they are thieves. But I cannot say for certain. It is sure that any who had a mind might have done so.”

Gilraen opened her mouth, but whatever she might have said was drowned out by the advent of the baker, who barrelled into the room and was only arrested by the outflung hand of Nálin, who stood stolidly between the baker and his quarry.

“Pardon,” the baker said, politely, to Gilraen. He was a broad, blond young man, who could only have had some dozen years on the boy. “I am here for the boy, who has stolen from me.”

“Hast thou proof?” Gilraen asked, her hands folded tightly together to stop their tendency to shake. “I have been talking to the boy, and it seems that anyone in the village might have had an opportunity.”

The boy lent his voice to hers. “It’s true! When you and Muineth are …” He stuttered to a halt, the recipient of a truly ferocious glare from the baker, who had turned a bright red.

“I care not with whom you dally, good sir,” Gilraen said, trying to reassert control over the room. “Before you exact justice on this boy, however, it would become you to make sure that he is the one you seek.”

The baker looked at her mistrustfully. “Your concern for him does you credit, lady. Women have tender hearts. But this is a man’s business, and he knows he must pay for what he took.”

“It is not my tender heart that speaks,” Gilraen said, hearing her father’s steel in her voice. “If you punish him beforetime, the true thief will think himself undiscovered, and may continue his crime. Do not choose the easy way, instead of the true.”

The baker stood still for a moment, then threw up his hands. “I have no gift for this. If it is not the boy – who I have caught staring at my loaves many a time, and who has boasted of how he would steal them – how I am to find the thief?”

“I come from Minas Tirith, and I have experience with King’s justice,” Gilraen said. “If thou wilt give me the authority, I will try to find your thief.”

The baker squirmed under the sudden gaze of everyone in the room, as they waited for his answer. He was young still, only a few years older than Gilraen herself; no doubt he had thought of simply thrashing and having done. The young tended to think so.

Finally, he nodded. “I give it into your hands, lady. But if you find not the thief, I will take my own justice.”

“Agreed,” Gilraen said, for she knew she would receive no better bargain. She was inexperienced and on suffrance; and at least it was a chance for the boy, where there had been none at all. “Sit down, good sir. I would ask you some questions.”

He took the seat that Morwen surrendered, as she moved to sit at Gilraen’s feet. The boy crouched on the other side of the bed, eyes wary, until Gilraen motioned to Nálin to take him outside.

“You can speak freely here,” Gilraen said, keeping her voice as dispassionate as she could. How had her father done it, when he heard cases in his throne room? “We seek only the truth. Is what the boy said true – do you leave your loaves unattended?”

The baker looked as if he was heartily regretting his agreement, but then he nodded. “It is not what you think, lady. The miller and I – we would wed, but she fears her boys are not ready for a new father. It has only been six months since he died. But I swear there was nothing between us before then!”

She stopped his torrent of explanations. Six months was a short period, but understandable, particularly in a world where a partner was protection against the vagaries of chance. There might be even be love here; the surreptitious field meetings meant there was at least attraction, and a widow might do worse than a solid, healthy young baker. “I wish you well. When you met with the miller, how long would your loaves be left alone?”

“An hour, perhaps,” he said, still a blushing pink.

“Was there anyone who might have seen who took the loaves?” She smiled at him. Her father would not have – he was always formal; but she was not her father, and it felt right. “Perhaps an ancient neighbour who knows everything that happens in the village?”

The baker looked less uncomfortable, and she even saw the quirk of a little answering smile. He would be attractive, when he recovered from his anger and consternation; she could see why the miller had succumbed to spring and his charms. “You mean Old Areth, bless her. But she lives with her granddaughter by the stream.”

“At the other end of the village,” Morwen clarified. She had been so still at Gilraen’s feet, that Gilraen had almost forgotten her.

“There is my brother,” the baker said. “But he was tending our field when the loaves were taken.”

Gilraen nodded. “I would speak with him, if you would be so good to find him for me.”

The baker’s brother was some ten years older than him, and his eyes darted around the room as he entered, taking in each one of the three women. “I do not know what you wish with me.”

“Only to ask you a few questions, good sir,” Gilraen said, motioning him to sit down. He moved like a cat, cautious and wary. “Your brother tells us that you watch his shop for him if he needs to be away.”

The baker’s brother smiled, thin-lipped. “I do. But that day I was working. I cannot be idle in the shop every time my brother decides to scratch his sword. You are well-fed; you do not know what it is like to know hunger. The fields must be kept.”

“I meant no slight upon your industry,” Gilraen said, tamping down her annoyance at his words. True, they were none of them the whip-slender of the hungry: Morwen had the slim muscled power of a swordswoman, Nálin the stolid strength of a Dwarf, Elanor the plump comfort of a Hobbit, Gilraen the curves of her mother. But his remark had not been mere observation – there had been a bitter tang to it, a judgement. “I only wish to find the truth.”

He snorted. “The truth is that my brother leaves his loaves so that he may sport, and that young malcontent helps himself. He should be horsewhipped.”

“Did you see the boy steal? Or do you simply guess that it was him?”

“I was not near the house,” he said, sullenly. “I cannot say for sure. But you can see the guilt in his face.”

“Liar!”

All faces in the room jerked to the doorway, where the baker stood, supporting a wizened old woman. She was pointing with her cane to the baker’s brother. “Liar!” she repeated. “You were not in the fields today.”

“I was!” he protested, but his face gave him away. Gilraen had seen that look before, when Eldarion had been caught sneaking back from the kitchens at midnight, when Elboron realized that a monster fish was too strong for him and was about to pull him into the river. It was panic mixed with chagrin.

There were quite a few people in this room now, too many for Gilraen’s taste, but the old woman seemed not to care. She advanced on him, still waving her cane. “I saw you! You kicked an alley cat, which is what made me remember, and then you went in the back door of the bakery.”

“I never!”

If he had admitted returning to the house, and simply said he had forgotten to mention it, he might have escaped. But he was not a clever man; and perhaps he saw the growing thunder in his brother’s eyes, and thought denial was his only option.

“Why did you say you were in the fields, if you were in the bakery?” Gilraen asked, quietly. Her father used quiet tones as a way to command attention. She found that it worked for her as well, cutting through the raised voices. One simply needed enough steel.

“I am innocent!” the baker’s brother said, turning to her, his hands upturned in supplication. “It was that boy!”

“You would have had me thrash an innocent boy for your own gluttony,” the baker said, his face red with anger. “You have never been stinted in my house. How dare you?”

“It was not gluttony!” the baker’s brother cried, indignant, condemning himself out of his own mouth. He realized this a moment later, but had no choice but to go on. “I thought if you began to suffer from thievery, you would stay at home on guard! She is no good for you!”

“You have never been happy with me and Muineth,” the baker said, his face red again with anger. Luckily he was still supporting Old Areth, or it might have come to blows, and in such a small room that would have been disastrous for bystanders. “But this is too far.”

The baker’s brother looked nearly ready to cry. “I only wish what is best for you!”

“You fear that I will turn you out when I bring Muineth home,” the baker said, shortly. “I had not meant to – there is room aplenty, between the mill and the bakery. But now perhaps I should.”

“Sit you down, mother,” Gilraen said, taking Old Areth’s arm and leading her to the chair. Morwen quietly made her comfortable, while Gilraen turned again to the duelling brothers. “Are you satisfied with what I have found?” she asked the baker.

“Aye,” he said, turning his smoldering eyes off his brother for a moment. “I thank you, lady.”

She nearly left it there; but some instinct led her to place a hand on his brawny arm. “Fear leads us to do things we would not otherwise consider,” she said, making her voice as gentle as her mother’s. “If he has been a good brother in years past, you might stay your hand.”

For a moment, she thought he would shake her off; but then he sighed, and she saw the good humor returning to his face. “If I forgive you,” he said to his brother, “you must be sweeter-tempered anon. And accept my Muineth, and make her feel welcome. And make your apologies to the boy.”

“I promise,” his brother said, visibly swallowing his pride.

“And I shall still duck you in the pond,” the baker said, a grin breaking out across his wide face.

His brother looked indignant – but then he laughed, ruefully. It was not a very good laugh, and Gilraen still did not like him (she could not forget that he would have had an innocent boy thrashed for his own ends), but she could see that he was not a wholly evil man. Though few men were; she did not believe, as some did, that there were good men and evil men, and few in between. “That is fair,” he said.

“Perhaps you could find some extra work for the boy to do, and pay him in bread,” Gilraen suggested, mindful of the boy’s hunger, and the family he supported.

“I could at that,” the baker agreed, all good humor now. “I grow tired of this sneaking around – I shall ask my Muineth to join hands with me, and there shall certainly be enough work for all, when we have both the bakery and the mill to run. Especially for you,” he said to his brother, hitting him playfully in the shoulder.

“I shall go tell the boy that his innocence is proven,” Morwen said.

The baker shook his head. “Nay, I shall. And my brother has something to tell him as well,” he added, with a pointed look.

The room felt empty when they had gone. Old Areth, still sitting in the chair by the window, pointed at the bed and asked, “What ails her?”

“Oh Elanor,” Gilrean said, remorsefully. “I forgot about your headache. Have we made it worse, with all this noise and upheaval?”

Elanor’s eyes were bright, and she smiled. “Not at all. I feel much better; and that was wonderful. I am so glad that we were here.”

Now that she had space to breathe, Gilraen found that she was glad as well. She had spared an innocent boy the lash, given the village the truth, and brought justice. It had all been a whirl – but she thought that on the whole, she had done well.

Morwen was smiling. “Your father’s daughter,” was all she said, but she touched Gilraen’s hand as she said it, and Gilraen’s face suddenly felt warm.

~

“There!” Elanor pointed. “A point for me!”

It was indeed a raven, startled out of its tree by their passage. Nálin scowled. “I saw it first.”

“But you failed to say it first,” Elanor said, teasing him. “My point. Next – hmm. I know! A hare.”

Nálin raised his bushy eyebrows. “If we see a hare, I vote Gilraen shoots it. Supper.”

“I think they enjoy bickering,” Gilraen told Morwen.

Since they had left the village, two days past, she could not quite shake the feeling of change in the air. What it was, she had not yet begun to understand; but something inside her had shifted. There was an air of constraint between her and Morwen that she had never felt before – they had forever been free and easy together, closer than sisters. And yet now Gilraen found herself watching the curve of Morwen’s neck as she rode, the sway of her hips as she laid out her bedroll at night, the way her throat moved when she laughed, the way her hands stroked her mare’s nose…

She could not say anything to Morwen. So Gilraen tore her eyes away and pretended she had not been looking; she tried to reclaim their easy banter, even though it was not as easy as it had been before.

“I am sure they do,” Morwen said. “Have you not heard Gimli and Legolas?”

Gilraen laughed – and then said, “Wait. Gimli and Legolas?”

Morwen turned in her saddle. “What? How could you not know?”

“I thought they were close friends.”

“But…”

“Close friends often live together. And travel together. And have inside jokes. And tease each other. And play-fight,” Gilraen said, keeping her face straight with a valiant effort. “Close friends often get caught kissing each other under the moonlight by a ten-year-old whose immediate reaction is to squeal and hide her eyes.”

Morwen glared at her. “For a moment I thought you actually did not know.”

“As if Legolas and Gimli could be anything other than handfasted,” Gilraen said, stroking Andett’s neck absentmindedly. “If I had been a more romantic child I would have known all along, but at ten I was still in the ‘put frogs in Eldarion’s bed’ stage, and covered my eyes when my own parents kissed, let alone anyone else.”

“That changed,” Morwen teased.

Gilraen turned up her nose. “Hush.”

She had kissed a young Rohirrim at a midwinter festival, the year she was fifteen. For three days she had been convinced that she was in love, before she realized that she had forgotten his name. She had fallen in and out of love many times since, and Morwen had been there for every one of them, to commiserate and tease by turns. Gilraen had never made promises, never been serious; only flirted and kissed, chased unattainable Elf-lords and stablehands, enjoyed the years of her youth amidst the flower-blossoms and greenleaf bowers of the Citadel.

She had not yet found the kind of love that bloomed all around her, as timeless and stable as the ground beneath their feet, the love of Aragorn-and-Arwen, Éowyn-and-Faramir, Legolas-and-Gimli. That love did not come to every person; her parents’ generation sometimes seemed a class removed in both doughty deeds and truest loves, giving the bards material for centuries. Would that love come for her, in the end?

“I was a child then,” she announced to Morwen, loftily. “Love may choose to come to me when it will, but I am finished with playing at it. I am a woman now, not a girl.”

“Flirting is fun. And for all your grand lady airs, you think so too.”

It was true, there was a delightful rush of excitement, kissing a Horselord under the banquet table, teasing a blacksmith from Dale, dancing with a tall Gondorian soldier. And perhaps Gilraen did not want to forsake that excitement entirely. Yet it was ultimately sterile, without love behind it; she found, with some surprise, that she was ready now for what her parents’ generation had, that she wanted it with all the ache in her heart.

“Perhaps,” she conceded. “But I am a woman now, and I must focus on adulthood, not childish games.”

“I feel the same now as I did when I was a girl,” Morwen said. “It is only that I have more responsibilities now.” She sighed, her teeth pressing into her lower lip. “I must decide what my life’s path will be, and set my foot on it. I want to be useful – I want to help people.”

“I as well,” Gilraen said.

They both had examples to point the way. Morwen’s mother, the Lady Éowyn, taught swordsmanship to all who had swords, girl and boy, and self-defense to those who did not. With all her years of experience behind her, Gilraen’s mother managed the Citadel, one of the cornerstones of the White City’s economy; while her father defended the realm, engaged in diplomacy, and dispensed justice, her mother kept the vast practical machinery of commerce humming along. They worked in harmony, and both roles were essential.

But Gilraen found none of these examples to be right for her. She had not her mother’s skills; her sister Lúthien had inherited those, and was already stepping into place beside their mother. Nor was she a great swordswoman, to take her place as shieldmaiden in Gondor’s army, teach its children (as Éowyn did), or lead its defense (as her father and brother did). She could fight, but Morwen had inherited that magic, not her. And army life did not call to her; she did not dream of her parents’ battles, or of cleansing the last orcs from their hiding places, or of fighting legendary dragons in the far north.

“I do not know what I want to do,” she admitted.

“You did well with the baker and his loaves,” Morwen said, thoughtfully. “Might you help your father with the king’s justice?”

Gilraen smiled at the thought of her sitting by her father’s side, counselling him. “I would like that – but he has much wiser minds than I. And the White City has watched me grow from a child, knows me as the young scapegrace princess; I have not the years or gravity yet to change their opinion of me.”

“Mayhap you should go where they know you not,” Morwen said.

“There! A hare!” Elanor cried.

“Shoot it, Gondor!” Nálin called over his shoulder.

By the time Gilraen unslung her bow from her back, however, the hare had vanished. Nálin stared darkly at her, no doubt judging her speed, but Gilraen was not entirely sorry it had got away. They had provisions enough until their next planned village halt, and it was spring. She knew what it was like to yearn to race across the meadows.

“I win,” Elanor told Nálin, smiling.

He acceded, though Gilraen could see that it was difficult. Dwarves did not like to lose, even frivolous travel games such as this. “Name your forfeit, lady.”

Elanor’s smile turned a little wicked at the corners, and she said demurely, “Perhaps I shall name it later, Master Dwarf.”

Morwen and Gilraen exchanged a speaking glance.

~

They came out of the woods like spiders, swarming the road.

Later, Gilraen’s strongest memory of the moment the bandits attacked would be of how peaceful it had been: Nálin telling a story of his childhood in Erebor, Morwen drowsily nodding along, the merry peal of Elanor’s laughter. She would not remember if the birds had been singing; she thought she would remember if they had not been, but their journey had been peaceful for so long, perhaps she had relaxed her vigilance.

“To me!” she called, whipping her bow off her back and notching an arrow, quick as any Elf. The first bandit fell, clutching his throat, and she fought back sudden nausea; this was no time for squeamishness, for they were all in danger.

Nálin was beside her, wielding his ax with a fury. Somehow he had pulled Elanor off her pony and onto his, setting her before him where he could protect her with his body and his ax. She saw him cleave a head in two out of the corner of her eye, but her focus had to be saved for her own fight. Another arrow, another bandit down, and then it was time for swords.

On her left, Morwen rode like her Rohirrim ancestors, shrieking like an inhuman wind.

There had been perhaps twenty bandits to start, although Gilraen had hardly been counting. Now there were ten, and then five, as the injured lay where they fell or staggered to their feet and fled. They could not get close enough to wreak any real damage, or they risked the killing edge of Nálin’s ax, the sharp whistle of Morwen’s blade. Gilraen began to think the ambush nearly over –

And then an arrow sprouted from her arm, and she looked at it in consternation and confusion, for she had not seen the bow-woman, perched in the trees, and she had never been shot before, and fuck that hurt…

“She is awake,” Nálin said, his voice strained.

“Morwen,” Gilraen said, without opening her eyes. “Morwen.”

A hand squeezed her uninjured hand. “I am here. I will not leave you. Nálin, take Elanor and go for help. There should be a village ten miles due north. Ride like the goblins of Moria are on your tail.”

“There could be others,” he said, in a rumble of an undertone; Gilraen, fighting back nausea, could hear every word. “I cannot leave you alone. Let Elanor go.”

“By herself?” Morwen asked, her voice stark and sharp. “And what if the bandits attack her? I dislike dividing our numbers, but it must be done, and quickly, before they have a chance to regroup.”

“If they come upon you again –”

“She cannot be moved, or the arrowhead may do further damage and cause an infection. Ride, Nálin, as you value your life.”

Someone kissed Gilraen’s forehad – she thought it was Elanor – and then she heard a horse break into a gallop, and she fainted again.

~

The next time she swam back up into consciousness and pain, she opened her eyes, squinting them against the unforgiving brightness of the sky. “Morwen.”

“I am here,” Morwen said. “Nálin has gone for help.”

Gilraen wet her lips with her tongue, and Morwen touched a wet cloth to them, dripping rivulets of water into her mouth. “What… happened?”

“A bastard hit you with an arrow,” Morwen said, the same remote cold fury in her voice that Gilraen had heard when she had been talking to Nálin. “She was in the trees – I did not see her. I am afraid she got away. After you were hit, we lost discipline, and they took the opportunity to make a bolt for it.”

Gilraen remembered slumping forward on Andett’s neck. She fumbled for the important question. “My arm?”

“Yes,” Morwen said. “Not your stomach, or your chest. It could be worse. Though I doubt you are thinking that right now.”

What Gilraen was thinking was that she should have seen the bow-woman in the trees, and that arrow wounds in the arm were painful but rarely serious (if the head was not moved and no infection resulted), and that she did not want Morwen’s voice to stop. “Talk to me,” she said, opening and closing her non-injured hand until Morwen put her own in it.

“I do not know what to say,” Morwen said, her voice rough along the edges, but she cleared her throat and kept talking. “You will be well. A healer will come. We will return to the Citadel, where our mothers will flay me alive for letting you be shot. Perhaps I shall run away to the North instead.”

Gilraen pressed Morwen’s fingers. “It is only an arrow wound. I have always wanted an interesting scar.”

“We should have had the troop after all,” Morwen said. “I could not keep you safe.”

Gilraen shook her head, though the movement made her dizzy. “I am glad you are here. Imagine what Eldarion would have said if he had been here when I got myself shot.”

“There is that,” Morwen said, and though her voice was calm, her fingers trembled in Gilraen’s. “He would never let you live it down.”

Gilraen felt herself fading again, so she said faintly, “Don’t… don’t leave me…”

“I will never leave you,” Morwen said.

~

The bandits did not return – Elanor said afterward that if they had come anywhere close, they would have seen the look in Morwen’s eyes and fled for their lives – and help arrived soon after. Nálin and Elanor had ridden like Shadowfax himself, and the nearest village had a healer.

The healer, when she came, took one look at Gilraen’s wound and told Morwen to stop acting like the world was coming to an end. “Let go of her hand, child. She will not die – it is an arrow in the arm, not a sword to the belly. You have not moved her, good. I will take the arrowhead out now.”

Morwen helped, then went and vomited behind the bushes. Gilraen, swimming back up to consciousness – the extrication of the arrowhead had not been pleasant – said “Morwen.”

“Hush,” said the healer, her voice brooking no rebellion. “She is here. Rest. There is a wagon ride to come, and the bumps will be painful.”

In the end, when the wagon arrived, Morwen climbed into it and pillowed Gilraen’s head and shoulders in her lap; Gilraen hardly felt the bumps, except for the biggest. Nálin squatted next to her and told her stories about Moria and Erebor, diamonds and dragons and the daring of Dwarves. She closed her eyes and pressed her face into Morwen’s sleeve.

~

The first time Gilraen woke that she truly felt like herself, there was birdsong in the tree outside her window, and Morwen was sitting at the table, writing a letter. “Morwen,” she said.

“Good morning,” Morwen said, setting down her pen. “I have been writing to the Shire to explain our delay. You are looking better.”

Gilraen stretched out a hand, and Morwen came to take it, simple and easy. “I am feeling better. How much longer can I wallow in my bed and force you all to amuse me?”

Morwen’s mouth quirked. “Gwend says the wound is clear, and should heal in a few days.”

The arrowhead had been the tricky part. Gilraen knew that arrow-wounds suppurated and festered when the arrowhead turned in the wound; one of her childhood friends had lost a father that way, on one of the last orc-scouring expeditions. The luckier simply lost a limb.

She imagined herself with only one arm. She would still be Gondor’s daughter; but Gilraen was no swordmaiden of doughty renown, to take a fierce pride in a missing arm. She could wield a sword, but her joy was in other things, not in battle.

“Thank you for staying with me,” she said. “I was afraid.”

Morwen swallowed. Her face was shadowed; she did not look as if she had slept well. “So was I.”

“At least it is over now, and I shall have the impressive scar to remember it,” Gilraen said, surreptitiously checking that her memory was correct and she did still have both arms. “If I will be able to ride again in a few days, we need not send Elanor on ahead; we can still complete our journey.”

That made Morwen smile, shaky but true. “How did I guess that you would refuse to turn back?”

Gilraen shrugged with her uninjured shoulder. “We are nearly there. If we go on, I can recuperate in the Shire at my leisure. If we turn back, we will have to go all that way again. Going forward is the only practical solution.”

“As you wish, milady,” Morwen said, dropping a curtsy.

Gilraen let go of her hand in order to find a spare pillow and hit her with it. “I am sure the healer told you to amuse me, not make fun of me. How are Nálin and Elanor?”

“They are well,” Morwen said, sitting carefully on the edge of the bed. “Elanor continues to flirt, and Nálin continues to pretend he does not notice. Both of them were very worried about you; but Gwend has told them that you will mend, so they are sleeping now. She reminds me of my mother, for she will brook no resistance to her decrees.”

Gilraen frowned. “Your mother is nice.”

“And stubborn, and bossy,” Morwen said, a teasing lilt in her voice. “Much like a certain girl with an arrow-slit in her arm.”

“You are not allowed to say mean things to me right now,” Gilraen said, nudging her with her knee.

~

When her arm healed enough to travel, they went on. But the attack had changed the merriness of their travel; now they rode warily, with much less singing and storytelling, ready for bandits at any moment.

This Gilraen had expected. What she had not expected was to find that more had changed than their wariness alone.

For Morwen would hardly meet her eye.

~

They reached the Brandywine soon afterwards. It was summer as they rode through the Shire, a riot of flowers along their path and excited children popping out of doorways to cheer Elanor’s return home and goggle at the visitors. Gilraen laughed and waved, and Elanor insisted on stopping so that she could hug all the children and tell them how much they’d grown since her last visit. The joy hung tangible in the air.

For a while, Gilraen forgot the strange tension that hung between her and Morwen; the sense of words unspoken, the feeling of lingering gazes that never quite met. All was hearty welcome and abundant feasts, tall tales and raucous dancing and bouncing small Hobbits on her knee. The Hobbits who had been in the Fellowship wished to know all the events of Gondor and Rohan, and every step of their journey, and Gilraen wished to learn everything about Hobbits – and only partly because she knew she would be asked upon her return home.

“I love this,” she said to Morwen, late one night when they were catching a breath of air outside a crowded dance. “I loved the journey, being free, being not a princess, but a simple traveller among friends; but I love this even more, coming to know this warmhearted people. Stories and tales cannot do them justice. It is living among them, even for a short time, that shows their true heart.”

Morwen smiled, her cheeks flushed, her eyes meeting Gilraen’s and then darting away again. It was a cool night, but warm inside. “I am glad that it has been what you longed for.”

The days passed in a whirl. Gilraen rode and walked over most of the Hobbit lands; there was always a willing Hobbit to serve as a guide, and even some brave younglings who would ride before her on Andett. Nálin smoked much pipeweed and spent most of his hours with the elderly Hobbits, trading endless tales of ancestors; if his had more diamonds and theirs more prizewinning marrows, both parties looked contented. Elanor was hardly ever to be seen, except at the dances and dinner parties, bonfires and fairs that were held in their honor. (Her family was large and had missed her excessively.)

Gilraen did not see much of Morwen. The Hobbits were excellent gardeners, and Morwen seemed to spend most of her time discussing gardening and herblore, and working side-by-side with her new friends. Gilraen, who could not seem to stand still, had no patience for such things; they crossed paths in the evenings, and never failed to smile at each other, but Gilraen missed the free interchange and ready sympathy of their earlier friendship.

But was she truly missing something she had once had, or longing after something she had only begun to glimpse?

Gilraen’s dreams were confusing, that long summer in the Shire.

~

In the end, it was a dance that tipped the balance, that brought everything into the light.

They had indulged in a famous Hobbit dinner, and Gilraen was feeling particularly replete, but the music started and they spilled out into the warm night air, laughing and reaching for partners. Elanor was dancing with her Uncle Merry, who swung her into the air as if she were a feather and he a much younger Hobbit. Nálin had solemnly joined hands with a small Hobbit lass, five years old at most, who beamed up at him with a sunny smile.

“I think,” Morwen said, at her shoulder, “that all this talk of gruff Dwarves is simply a cover-up for their tremendously soft hearts.”

Gilraen turned, smiling in agreement, her heart light. Later, she would not know what had prompted her, but there in that moment, it seemed only natural, surrounded by dancing Hobbits (and one soft-hearted Dwarf), to hold out her hand and say, “Dance with me.”

They had danced together before, back in Gondor. There were the maidens’ dances at Midsummer festivals, and when the boys had been too trying in dance lessons, they had loftily refused to partner them. Gilraen had held Morwen in her arms before, turning about a ballroom, in stiff formal dresses, or about a maypole, with flowers in their hair.

But somehow that was not the same as this, under the summer sky.

The jollity receded, and all Gilraen could see was Morwen’s face, so familiar, so dear. Morwen smiled up at her – for Gilraen was the taller, if only slightly – and Gilraen’s heart turned over in her bosom, and fell back into place.

“Oh,” she said, surprised, for many things had become clear.

Morwen raised an eyebrow, and all Gilraen wanted to do was kiss it. She wanted to kiss the eyebrow, and kiss her forehead, and kiss her cheek, and kiss every part of that dear beloved face. She wanted to hold her tighter, their bodies pressed together – she wanted Morwen’s hands to thread into her hair, throwing it into disarray – she wanted to sweep Morwen up into her arms and carry her off on Andett into the summer night.

She did none of those things. “I – ” she said, and then abruptly pulled away, fleeing into the night.

~

Gilraen was not a coward. Or she had never been one before; she had been a tenacious child, third-born, determined to be all that her older siblings were, unwilling to shy away from anything they could do. If Lúthien’s horse leaped a fence, hers would too. If Eldarion could climb a tall tree, she would try too (even if she fell out and broke her arm).

Now she sat on a stump in a Hobbit wood, and tried not to let the hot tears in her eyes fall.

She was not a coward; but she had never seen a sign that Morwen cared for her in that way, and it seemed too hard that she should have fallen in love at last and not have it returned. This was her forever-love, she felt it in her bones. She had fallen in love many times before, but that was only a pale imitation of this, a fun but shallow pretence.

Morwen cared not; and if she could not hide her newfound realization, she would lose not only the woman she loved, but her best friend as well. What should have been the happiest of discoveries instead threatened so much of what she held dear – and so Gilraen sat in a wood, trying not to weep, for what might have been, and the sadness of what was.

“I hope there are no dangerous animals in these woods, for I did not bring my sword to the dance.”

Gilraen jumped, then hurriedly scrubbed at her eyes, keeping her body turned away. “I am sorry for leaving you – I felt suddenly unwell – I did not want to be ill in front of the Hobbits.”

“Oh Gilraen,” Morwen said, and then she was kneeling at Gilraen’s feet, heedless of her skirts. “Dear heart, you are many, many things. But you are not a player upon a stage; you cannot hide your feelings, not from me.”

“I do not know what – ” She could not hope, not even now. She did not dare to.

“Do you think I have not seen the confusion in your face, as you have looked at me these past weeks?” Morwen asked, her voice quiet, as if to a skittish horse. “Do you think I have not felt your eyes on me, or the way you smiled, half-caught?”

“I am sorry,” Gilraen began, wretched. She had done it, she had ruined everything.

“Dear heart,” Morwen said, raising her face to Gilraen’s. The moonlight caught it, and the shining beauty of the joy in her eyes made Gilraen’s breath stop. “I have loved you this twelvemonth gone, and despaired of ever being more than your friend. You cannot be sorry for that which has gladdened my heart almost beyond which it can bear.”

For a moment they stayed thus, frozen in the moonlight – Gilraen sitting on a tree stump, Morwen kneeling at her feet – and then Gilraen leant down, took Morwen’s face between her shaking hands, and kissed her.

Gilraen was not a coward.

She was, however, the happiest of all women.

“Do you think they will worry about us?” she asked, some time later.

Morwen, breathless in her arms, rested her cheek on Gilraen’s breast and laughed up at her. “I think Elanor has known for some time. Nálin certainly has; he advised me on Dwarven courting rituals a fortnight ago.”

“Oh,” Gilraen said, and for want of a better response, kissed her again.

~

epilogue

They rode into the White City as brown as nuts, their horses laden with pipeweed. It was harvesttime, and the trees were splendidly colored, as if to beckon them home in a blaze of glory.

“So you are not murdered by bandits after all,” Eldarion said, irrepressibly, as they dismounted outside the Citadel.

Gilraen had hoped to surprise them all and arrive home with as little fuss as possible, but she had known that the Golden Hall would no doubt send word of their progress, and of course as soon as they came within sight of the City her father would have been informed. They were all gathered here in welcome, from little Míreth to tall uncle Legolas.

“That story must have been greatly exaggerated,” she said, swinging down out of the saddle with consummate grace. (She had had plenty of practice, this long journey.) “They put a hole in my arm, but it has mended.”

“You look well,” her mother said, as they embraced.

Gilraen laughed. “I am scratched and burnt, sore and dishevelled, and as scruffy as any Ranger. I thank you for the kindness, but – ”

Her mother raised an eyebrow, effectively cutting her off. “That is easily mended. You look well.”

Next to her, Morwen was embracing her father, happy tears on her cheeks. Elanor was telling Lúthien and Elboron about the baker and his brother, Nálin at her side. All the people she loved were here, and Gilraen knew suddenly that one of the best parts of journeys was coming home.

“I am well,” she said, and smiled at her mother. “I have something to tell you all, when it is quieter.”

“Ah,” her mother said, her wise eyes sparkling. She pressed Gilraen’s hand between hers. “I thought you might.”

~

It was spring again, the day that Gilraen, daughter of the King, wed Morwen, daughter of the Steward. The two foremost families of the realm were joined together, as they had been in friendship for many years past, and it was a day of thanksgiving throughout the land.

Their wedding day was filled with laughter and joy. First of the King's children to wed, Gilraen wore flowers from Ithilien in her hair; Morwen carried wildflowers, for as she told her mother, she had won her bride's love on the journey north, and she would forever remember the wildflowers that bloomed during that long spring. They danced together in the sunshine, shining with happiness, and more than a few onlookers had to dry their eyes.

The celebrations continued for three days, for many had come no small distance, and the White City was host to Dwarves and Hobbits, Rohirrim and Elf alike. But on the second day, the brides kissed their families and escaped the noise and revelries for their honeymoon, a long anonymous journey through the countryside and eventually to Erebor, where they were made welcome by Nálin's mother and other of Gimli's kinfolk.

Thus began their travels, for Gilraen and Morwen, princesses of Gondor, were never ones to stand still, when they could be riding free. In the years that followed, they journeyed through the kingdoms of Middle Earth many times, and had many adventures. Sometimes their friends and family joined them - Legolas and Gimli, Nálin, Eldarion and Elboron, Elfwine, even Éowyn once. Other times they rode alone. Gilraen brought the King's justice to places that had none, and Morwen gathered herblore from all races, becoming known as one of the foremost healers of her era.

And thus they lived, together and joyful, until the end of their days.

~~