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To the River Daughter
The two riders stopped their horses and turned back to see the sun glinting off the gold roof of Meduseld. The much plainer thatched roof of the White Horse was barely visible above the tall wooden barricade which still fenced Edoras even in these years after The War of the Ring. For one, the sight brought only relief from the uncomfortable feeling of never being looked at as a human being; for the other, wistful memories.
The obligations of fealty had been observed and the ownership of the Old White Horse Inn settled. Its timbers were ancient and creaking, its shutters splintering, and its walls in desperate need of chinking to keep the old wind which blew down the mountain from creating chilly drafts. Sometimes when the wind blew the wrong way, ash and smoke and even sparks from the great fire actually blew into the Great Hall, rather than up the chimney. Bethberry had never enjoyed that task, of clearing the cinder and airing the rooms and cleaning the soot off the furniture and walls. Yet she would miss the old place and good times it provided.
The leave-taking of Ruthven had been hard, for the old woman had pleaded her ancient bones and crippled gait as reason not to join Bethberry and Sôông on their journey east. In the rag woman Bethberry had found the one stalwart companion who had stood her in great stead as she faced all the usual and some of the unusual traffic an Inn sees. In great measure it had been Ruthven who had enabled Bethberry to tarry so long as innkeeper, finding in the twisting alleyways and grim social life of the Rohirrim both the dark and the comic aspects of life most often overlooked in the heroic tales of light and power. To Ruthven Bethberry had given most of her goods and chattel that she had not sold off with the Inn, for the old woman could use such coin to ease her final years. Glad Bethberry was that she would not be leaving Ruthven alone to face her last days, for Annawyn the seamstress would keep a watchful eye on the elderly woman, ensuring she had hot meals and enough wood to keep her small fire burning, no matter how crippled she became.
Bethberry smiled to herself imagining Annawyn’s face when everyone found her parting gifts to them. Too many players to be named one by one, yet each received, tied with the remnants of cloth from the game banners she had sewn, bottles sealed with wax. In them, a chutney originally of Annawyn’s devising, but flavoured and spiced with Bethberry’s own herbs and fruits: roast apple and anise, with currants and carrots and honey-sweetened wine. What would the strange little man Madi make of his apple pips? wondered Bethberry, for some of them had indeed grown into spindly trees. It had been beastly, harvesting the apples, for most were infected with small grubs and went for mash for the pigs, but enough firm, ripe apples were eventually found to make the preserve.
Bethberry’s horse whinnied and broke her reverie. She petted her mare’s neck and thought of Ćlfritha’s kindness in selling her the horse. Ćlfritha, who had nearly lost her family’s entire homestead in the disasterous theft of her horses years before the War. None of them had realized at that time just what the theft foretold. Ćlfritha too had chosen to remain in Rohan, for the broad grasslands were her home and horses her domain. And besides, Ćlfritha had never recovered from the horror she had witnessed long ago beside the Anduin and could barely look at Sôông—not that she blamed him--without remembering the terrible dread she had felt and violence she had seen.
“You are lost in thought of the past,” remarked Sôông to her after some time.
“Yes,” she replied. “A bad habit I thought belonged only to the elves. Well, let me make amends. Race me to the River Snowborn.”
And so it was that Bethberry took her leave of Rohan, journeying east where so many more stories yet remained to be learnt and told and told again.
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