The Abduction of Éomer, King of Rohan

Chapter 14

After a brief struggle with the heavy cloak, I managed to wriggle free and crawled out from under it. Gasping for air, I found myself face to face with a wilted cabbage. As I had thought: I was on board Cawelcwén! When I twisted round I saw that Éomer had already opened up a wide gap between us and the pier. Then I became aware of shouting.

"Éomer!" Amrothos was yelling. "Are you mad? What are you doing?"

"Can't you see?" Éomer shouted back, sitting on the rowing bench and ploughing the oars through the water. "I'm abducting your sister." Already we were near the open river.

Amrothos ran along the pier. "You can't do that to me," he wailed. "I've just spent the last week chasing her up and down the Anduin!"

One of Éomer's riders nudged his horse forward and called out something. Éomer shook his head and shouted what sounded like orders. The rider saluted and turned back.

I sat frozen with surprise. This couldn't be happening!

"Lothíriel!" my brother shouted, waving frantically. "Swim over here!"

I looked over the gunwale and hesitated. Streaked with swirls of mud, the water did not look particularly inviting.

"I wouldn't, if I were you," Éomer said in a conversational tone. "It's mucky and cold. Believe me, I know." As if to emphasize his words, a dead fish floated by.

"Have you lost your mind?" I asked, still stupefied. "Father will be livid."

"I will deal with that when I have to. First I want to talk with you. And you will listen!"

I cast a look at the receding shore. Not too far away to swim yet for a daughter of Dol Amroth. Should I chance it? Meanwhile Bane resembled an anthill that somebody had poked a stick in.

"We will lose them in the traffic on the river," Éomer said, following my eyes.

"You are mad," I declared.

Yet I could not help feeling a grudging sort of admiration for his bold action - it was the kind of thing a pirate princess might have done.

Despite his words, Éomer seemed to be in no hurry to talk. Threading his way between the many small boats that dotted the Anduin, he steadily made for the opposite shore and let the current sweep us along. Soon the docks dropped out of sight behind us. I settled down in my usual place in the stern and wrapped the cloak around me, for the early morning chill still hung in the air. Almost I could believe that the last couple of days had never happened.

The hills of Emyn Arnen rose ahead of us, sloping down through open meadows dotted with birches. In one place a small stream emptied into the Anduin and the trees formed an arch over it with their branches clad in fresh green. When Éomer beached the boat on the shingles, a pair of white egrets took off with a rush of wings and circled over us before heading off upstream.

He held out his hand to help me get out of the boat. "Are you cold? Shall I light a fire?"

I shook my head. "I'm fine." Wrapping his cloak around myself, I sat down on a boulder warmed by the morning sun.

Éomer - I would have to get used to thinking of him by that name - pulled Cawelcwén further up onto the shore. Next he tidied the oars away and threw the last few cabbages in the water, where they bobbed up and down for a moment before the current took them. I watched him in silence. After all he was the one who had wanted to talk.

All possible chores done, he picked up a stone and tossed it in the water. Then another one. And another one.

"It seemed like such a clever idea at the time," he finally said. "I would meet you away from Gondor's court, with nobody the wiser."