Imrahil's Daughters

Chapter 3

"You told him what!"

Lothíriel winced at her brother's exclamation. "Do keep your voice down," she entreated him.

Her head pounded and the bright morning light flooding into Ivriniel's solar hurt her eyes. Perhaps she should have waited to call this renewed council of war, but her worries had hardly let her sleep.

Her aunt poured her a cup of tea. "Here, have something to drink."

Lothíriel nodded gratefully and stirred in a spoonful of her special honey. Reserved for the family's use, it came from the beehive she kept in what had been her mother's private garden, but today not even its delicate taste could cheer her up.

Amrothos began to pace the small room. The whole solar was decorated in shades of pink and lavender, giving his face an unhealthy hue by contrast. "Have you gone out of your mind?" he demanded to know. Suddenly he cast her a sharp glance. "Or were you drunk?"

"No, I wasn't!" Lothíriel snapped back. Though she'd had more mead than was usual for her. It was all that man's fault for not even giving her a choice of drink. Let alone of what company she wanted to keep!

Her brother raked a hand through his hair. He looked rather worse for wear after the night's festivities, but probably so did she. The thoughts tumbling round and round in her mind had given her no rest and dawn had painted the sky a delicate turquoise before she'd slipped into a brief sleep of exhaustion.

"Have you any idea of his temper?" Amrothos asked. "Why, Éomer is famous for it! Believe me, you don't want that directed at you."

Ivriniel stirred in her seat where she sat contemplating Lothíriel's words. "Surely he wouldn't hurt a woman, would he?"

"No," Amrothos admitted grudgingly, "but he wouldn't hold back with his words. Lothíriel would receive a right tongue lashing."

Lothíriel shivered. Just having those steely blue eyes boring into her had been quite enough. How could he be so different from the patient man who hadn't minded her crying all over him. "I might have panicked a little," she admitted.

"A little?" Amrothos barked in disbelief.

"It's not my fault if the man can't take a hint!" she shot back, her sense of grievance returning. "I tried everything short of bashing him over the head to get rid of him. Not even talking endlessly about the weather put him off."

"Well, what do you expect," Amrothos answered. "He's not one of your soft courtiers. The man is used to battling Uruk-hai."

"And that's exactly how he holds a conversation! He just kept pounding away at me and wouldn't take no for an answer. And then he threatened to ask Father, so I had to come up with something fast. It was the best I could think of on the spur of the moment!"

One disaster after another. It seemed the man only had to get near her to make her behave in a manner completely inappropriate in a properly raised princess. She'd felt like a hapless deer being cornered by a pack of hounds and had said the first thing that had come to her mind, using an old childhood nickname Amrothos had given her. Oh, if only she had that imaginary sister to take the blame for kissing King Éomer in a cupboard! It was a mystery to her how matters had gone from bad to worse so quickly. In a single evening all her carefully planned defences had been swept away.

Amrothos seemed to read her thoughts. "So much for your wonderful plan," he said. "What are you going to do now?"

She took a deep breath. The answer had come to her just before she fell into an exhausted sleep. "There's only one thing I can do."