#kingstead

She was a newly crowned queen. Her marriage was young, not yet reached a year. There were many things she was not yet accustomed: constant servants asking after her needs, living in a palace with daily expectations, and having Eomer leave her side.

They were headfirst in a love match that upset some believed matches for the eligible king of Rohan. King Eomer ascended the throne unexpectedly. His uncle and cousin were killed during the War of the Ring. Both were older men, prepared for a throne their whole lives. Eomer was never expected to find himself there. And thus, a proper royal match was not made important.

Eomer was stubborn. He did not care when his advisors told him to marry a better suited match. The moment they said abandon her, he found a ring and asked her to wed him as soon as possible.

Now, their first child was just as stubborn to be born weeks early, without its father present.

              “Man of Rohan, this one.” She groaned out after another long, hard contraction. “It is going to be a father’s son. I feel it in my heart.”

The labor was fierce and strong. It refused to calm.

Eomer and her discussed what the moment would be like when their child was born. He spoke at length of how he’d wrap them in his own royal blanket that he was placed in as a newborn and bless them as a child of Rohan. How longing his eyes would be as he lost himself in those moments, those future visions, the promise of what happy end might come to them after so much loss.

Her head lulled back. Tears welled in her eyes. “Please. Please. I need him. Eomer must be here.”

The midwife touched at her belly. The spread of long fingers across the stretched skin. “My dear lady. The king is not here.”

              “No,” she sobbed. Her heart fell. Most of her energy already spent, she could not focus on what to do. Pain rippled up through her body, taking her breath away, silenced her cries. “He has to be. He has to.”

*-*

The steady rainfall blinded riders to the distance. Their horses slipped in loosening earth. Sounds of what they pursued were lost to its applause. It bounced off their metal helmets and rolled into their eyes as they scanned the blur on the horizon.

A pack of wargs was seen heading across the Kingstead. They worried after the crops. Their country was still battling the War even if it has been won.

Rohan was not victorious until it survived a season without great loss.

Fear steamed up from the kingdom. Hope broken and splintered to the edges of the continent.

Firefoot shifted anxiously beneath King Eomer. He frowned. The night’s pursuit had only caught the path in which the wargs traveled, soon to be lost to the rising mud of the lands.

He exhaled deep. He missed Edoras. Meduseld. The woman he loved.

Thrust into a position above his station, Eomer had longed for days of open country with his Eored. The blowing winds of the Riddermark through his hair, the rhythm of his horse’s elopement, chasing the taste of sweet green, filled his mind through the long days in advisement with men older than the dirt they stood on, recounting the dire need of a king to restore their people to glory.

Now, those days were not what he longed for most.

It was time with his wife. The love of his life and the family they were to create was all he dreamed of. He thought endlessly of time outside the walls of Edoras, on open plains teaching his children to ride their own ponies and running free in the grasses of the Kingstead.

He liked the idea of sun across his homeland. Edoras drenched in morning light. Little innocent eyes that looked up to him and he, without fear, knowing they were home safe.

Little did his wife know how much he thought of her. How often he yearned to feel her hand in his, just to stay the fear in his heart that she might be gone. His mind pictured what a loving mother she would soon be. The sweet kindness in her smile with that slight dimple in her cheeks was enough to break open the locked away heart inside his chest, and with it, make him believe that love was possible.

Many years had passed since he’d known family. War had torn what little family he had apart at the limbs until they were all disjointed.

Eowyn’s marriage had her kept far away from him now. All the way to Gondor, many days journey just to gaze upon her sunny face. The only constant in his life.

              “My lord Eomer,” a voice called out in the blowing winds of the rainstorm. He turned his head. “Over here.”

Firefoot marched through the damp ground to the rider’s side. Down below them was a faint impression in grass, almost lost at the swell of water beneath the soil.

              “The trail,” he announced for the other riders. It took force to break the cover of rainfall. “Follow it. They can’t be far.”

They were a few miles passed the initial prints when a banner of green and red broke through the haze. It traveled fast to their party. Swords were drawn, despite the friendly colors shown.

Eomer held his steed steady.

              “My lord. My lord.” The rider urgently rode to him. His breath struggled in between his words. “You must return to Edoras at once.”

              “What’s happened?” He asked.

Thoughts to being misled away from his home city as a distraction for attack entered his mind.

The rider quickly dispelled those fears with much larger ones. “It is the queen. Her waters broke. The child is on its way.”

His throat clenched taut. It was early. Too early.

Eomer urged Firefoot with a strong kick. The urgency at which his horse moved convinced him that it understood more than just command. It ran its hardest across the lands. Even as the rising waters held the ground in slippery hands, Firefoot rode through without break of haste.

The ride was agony. It was not for rain nor chill, but terror.

Edoras’ outer gate was opened as to not break stride until the outer steps of the Golden Hall. He threw himself off the horse without care of its secure. His legs bounded to the entrance of his palace nearly on the edge of coming out from under him.

He entered the hall to the sound of screams. It echoed through the resounding emptiness of Meduseld.

              “Eomer!” She screamed.

It chilled his bones. The powerful clench of his heart tightened harder in his chest.

              “Where is my wife?” He demanded.

Gamling, whom he’d left in absence of his guard, jumped from his post. “My king.” He bowed.

Eomer yanked the helmet off his head and tossed it to the ground. “The queen.”

              “She’s gone to the chambers.” The man spoke in confusion and fear.

              “Take me to her,” Eomer commanded stronger still.

              “But the chambers. They’re for -.”

He did not hear it. His feet marched through the halls of his palace, followed the sound of his beloved’s horrifying screams. Over and over he heard his name parted from her lips. A nightmare he lived in real life.

A woman carrying a basket of linens exited a door. Her hurried steps caught his attention.

She noticed him and suddenly bowed. “My lord.”

              “I’m here to see the queen,” he said.

Her eyes went kind of wide with surprise.

It was custom that men not be welcomed in the birthing chambers. Women were in the realm of childbirth that no man knew to be part of. It was their comfort that stayed fixed between them.

His wife was different. She looked to him for her comfort. They, the only two left of their families.

              “King Eomer, she’s -.”

              “I know,” he said. “She wants me there.”

Again, her screams broke through the walls. The door almost rattled under the power of her voice.

This time, he did not wait. He entered the forbidden chambers with faltering courage.

She was on the edge of the bedside with a midwife perched between her spread legs. Her strength was gone. She bowed forward. Tears dripped from her eyes in silence.

              “Why isn’t he here?” Her voice now cried gently. Her body was but a quivering mess slumped over her large belly. “Eomer,” she whimpered.

The state of his wife was worse than he imagined. She was tired and broken and in pain. Her face was red from exertion. Dried rivers of tears stained her cheeks.

He marched forward with a heavy heart. “I am here, my love.”

The tears fell stronger now. Her eyes found his across the chambers.

The midwife turned a foul eye to him. “Men aren’t permitted here, my lord. It is women’s business.”

              “Oh hush you,” his wife gasped out.

A hollow calling spread through her face. It called out to him.

              “Here comes another one,” the midwife declared.

A wave of pain washed over the queen. Her body was thrown over itself, screams from her mouth shuddering the very skin off his bones, as she was forced to endure it.

He made quick work of his armor and chainmail and boots. They were tossed in the corner and he climbed into the bed behind her. She was so exhausted; she barely had the strength to return upright.

Eomer lined his body with hers. He placed her head against his shoulder, loaning his strength to hers.

Her eyes remained closed as her body fell into his embrace. His arms held her close.

              “Where have you been?” She whimpered. “I needed you.”

A tear dared prick his eye. “Forgive me, my love.”

He grasped her hand with his. There was slight motion through her fingers slowly curling in between his. What weak frailty he held against him. He pressed a hard kiss against her temple.

              “She has to use all her might, my lord. All her strength, but I fear she’s tired herself already.” The midwife held his wife’s knee firm to the bedframe. Small red smears stayed on her skin. “She must find it all now.”

Eomer kissed his wife again and then whispered in her ear. “Our babe is almost here.”

              “It is?” She asked. A hopeful upturn to her voice.

              “One last show of force, love.”

              “I have none left.”

That he knew. There was no strength for her to sit.

For all the terrors of battle and the horrors that laid in the wounds there, Eomer felt more fearful for what would become of his wife in that moment. Her body was spent. She had given her all, and still not won.

              “That is why I have come. You are to use mine. Hold me tight,” he told her.

              “Now, my lord,” the midwife said.

A ripple traveled up her spine. Her face winced. Pain escaped her lips in the wave.

              “Hold to me,” he muttered in her ear. “Use my strength, love. You are bearing our child to the world.”

Her hand clenched his with force. She released a strong cry. Her body held up by his, but still managed to move a child through.

              “Very good. The next push may be the one.”

The queen fell back to his hold. Her eyes lazily opened to the sight of his face so absorbed with her. She moved her face closer to his neck, pressing gentle into his cheek.

              “I have waited so long,” she murmured.

              “As have I.”

              “If it is a son, we should name him Eohric. For he is most like his father. Powerful and fierce.”

              “He has shown a good fight,” he agreed.

A small smile curled her lips.

              “Alright, now. My lady. Bear down with all you can give.”

Eomer braced himself, willing all the strength inside his body to go to hers, as he wanted nothing more than her to return to her normal self than the weakened body he held now. He had control of her chest, bringing her forward. He instructed her to breathe through the pain. It helped him with war injuries. Eased the pain, in the very least.

There was a sudden change within her as she pushed. A sound of relief gasped from her lips.

              “Here they come,” the midwife sounded happily. She moved away from his wife to hold up the waxen white infant before them.

His tear finally fell down his cheek as he pulled his wife higher. He held her shoulder against his to keep her tall. “See, love? You’ve done it. My good girl.” He kissed her once more. “You are a mother of Rohan. I am forever in your debt.”

Her mouth whimpered as the babe began to cry. It swollen little face was moist and angry at its displacement.

It was wrapped in a cloth blanket and handed over.

Eomer’s arms held it against his wife’s chest from behind, allowing her the moment’s rest.

              “Oh Eomer.” She cried happy tears. Her fingers ran against the lips of their newborn child. “It is your face I see in it. Those large eyes and strong brow. A child of Rohan indeed.”

Another wave went through his wife. She was given a loan of strength. Her arms found weight in them as she took hold of the swaddled infant herself.

He helped his wife move from the edge of the bed. Her body pulled gently to her pillows and given a comforting back support of more fluffed pillows.

A servant entered the room. She held a pitcher of water. They pressed it to the queen’s lips. A cloth was used to wipe the sweat from her brow.

Eomer was beholden to a woman whom he loved deeper still. For she’d just managed an impossible feat that struck fear through his person and yet she was absorbed with the face of their child she could not care after her own body.

They cleaned her up as best they could. Bloody water filled a bucket. So much blood it gave him pause.

              “What was it?” The servant asked the midwife. “Pray tell what has our queen given birth to?”

              “A shieldmaiden,” the midwife replied.

Eomer was struck with surprise. He blinked several times. A girl. A daughter…

              “There will be more, King Eomer. An heir you will have.”

He gave a look to the midwife who’s forearms were still covered in his wife’s blood.

              “Allow me a moment with my wife,” he said.

His words were heeded. The doors closed behind the two women, though the midwife’s dour frown spoke to her displeasure at his authority in the birthing chambers.

King Eomer looked on at the sight before him: his wife and child. Long had it been since the days were warm despite the piercing cold of the wind. Shadows passed over Meduseld with long stays. His city laid quiet as if still in mourn.

He forgot to remember all their struggles as he found place for himself in a life not imagined.

His wife’s longing eyes looked up at him. “Do not despair.”

              “Despair.” His brow raised. Long slow strides marched to his wife’s bedside.

Her stare caught against their daughter’s slender features, beauty beyond words, and precious love held in such a small body. “She did not know your preference. It is not said out of disappointment.” The smile returned to her face. A small cry came from within her arms. “Your heir is a shieldmaiden, my king. Come. Look to her now and give her blessing.”

Yes, it was true. In his heart he hoped for a daughter like his wife. It was she who freed him from the alone future he pictured for himself all those years ago at Pelennor Fields. For a daughter of untold strength was what he desired to help him forget woes of old.

The small infant swaddled in a royal stitched blanket with the colors of red, green and gold. Its white flesh stuck out against the fabric. A patch of golden hair atop its small head. Two eyes rested in peace. Pink lips the shape of a bow were together in peaceful slumber.

              “You are a father, Eomer.”

Her voice rang clear through his mind.

              “By your efforts, my love. You have once again given me something for which I cannot return.” Eomer pressed his lips to her warm cheeks. “I am blessed beyond my worth.”

And Rohan rejoiced in their king’s happiness. The merry songs of their celebrations filled Meduseld for a week. Lands spread forth from Edoras sent gifts of every caliber to the Golden Hall for the realm’s new princess who bore the name, Philippa. In her honor, there were feasts throughout the land.

Even King Aragorn hosted a lively night of celebration at the birth of his friend, King Eomer’s daughter.