[littlemanpoet]

"Explain your arrangement with the Lady Saeryn, Eodwine." Lothiriel the queen was seated in a chair lined with soft furs. Waterbowls in which floated flower petals, lit beneath by candles, rested upon small wooden tables in each corner of the room, filling the air with the warm fragrance of mixed rose, lavender, and apple.

Eodwine was standing before her alone, her ladies in waiting having been dismissed. He was suddenly very ill at ease, having expected thanks for rescuing Linduial, only to be confronted with this.

"She is," he paused, "my apprentice in the mead hall, doing all the things a Lady has authority to do."

"All things?"

Further discomfited, Eodwine wondered what the queen was implying.

"I beg your pardon, lady, but I fail to take your meaning."

"The Lady of a mead hall such as yours, Eodwine, would be understood to have wifely duties to perform to her lord's satisfaction. Does Saeryn perform these as well?" She held him with her eyes, having caught him off-guard with both subtlety and directness at once.

"No! I would never-!"

Lothiriel raised a hand. "The girl has no parents. It is known that you have made of yourself her guardian, which certainly is becoming of a man of your station. But it is said, Eodwine, that you treat her in all ways, seen by others, as a man treats she who is his betrothed. Eodwine, you cannot have it both ways. Are you the girl's stand-in father, or lover? What are your intentions?"

The situation had not been put to him quite in this way before. Seen in this light, it was obvious to Eodwine that things could not remain as they were. The queen was right. He was 'riding two horses into battle at once', as the saying went among the Eorlingas; and he had been blind to it.

"My queen, I have been a fool. And you have been most wise and discreet in showing it to me so pointedly yet gently." Eodwine relaxed, no longer on his guard; he had not been aware that he had been defending a castle, as it were, but having his confession off his chest made him see it. Not only had he been on his guard with the queen, but before all his household; for though he had not allowed himself to see the quandary of his position quite in the light Lothiriel had rightly shown him, he had known it to be the case deep down in the places of his mind where he put things he preferred not to see.

Lothiriel nodded once. "Foolish you have been, but wise to see it now. Folk do talk, and what they say is not what should be heard of the Eorl, true or not. What does your heart tell you, Eodwine?"

Eodwine imagined Saeryn in his arms; her eyes, full of love, looking into his, then closing as she drew near for a kiss. His blood heated with desire. Then he imagined her huddled by the hearthfire, wrapped about in furs against the cold, himself seated beside her, holding her gently as she leaned on him, trusting him completely; for tears slid down her face in worry for her brother Degas. He felt his heart go out to her in care and affection, with the protectiveness of a father; and he knew in his heart of hearts that it was right and best.

"My heart tells me to father her until she finds a suitable husband."

Lothiriel studied him before saying, "I did not advise you one way or the other, for I knew not which way your heart would speak. You would not be the first man of four decades to take a bride who could be his daughter, and both happy with the marriage."

"Yes, I know 'tis done, but when I think of her need first, the father comes to the fore in me."

"What if she feels otherwise, my friend?"

Eodwine allowed a small smile. The queen had changed the air between them with a word, 'friend'. "I know not, lady. What she feels may change over time, and I would not have her bound to a mouldering husband that she ceases to love."

"Although-" Lothiriel smiled.

"Although," Eodwine replied with increasing ease, assuming a more spreadlegged stance, his hands clasping behind his back, "as you suggest lady, she may grow in love for an elderly husband as the years live on. But I doubt me that she knows her own heart in the matter. Lothiriel, queen, I will tell her all my thought and ask her mind."

"I think you must. Now, if she says that she would espouse you, Eodwine, she cannot remain at the mead hall; she must come here."

The queen's words had come like a thunderclap. Eodwine stood stock still. Again, the queen was right.

"It is as you say, my queen."

After he had taken his leave of the queen, he considered. What did he want, Saeryn as beloved betrothed at a distance or as foster-daughter nearby? He did not want her at a distance, that much was sure; so it seemed that it was best to have her as foster-daughter. But what would Saeryn want?