return

1136 the return of the king
indeed white as a lily, cold as frost, and hard as graven stone.
But he bent and kissed her on the brow, and called her softly,
saying:
‘Éowyn Éomund’s daughter, awake! For your enemy has
passed away!’
She did not stir, but now she began again to breathe deeply,
so that her breast rose and fell beneath the white linen of the
sheet. Once more Aragorn bruised two leaves of athelas and
cast them into steaming water; and he laved her brow with
it, and her right arm lying cold and nerveless on the coverlet.
Then, whether Aragorn had indeed some forgotten power
of Westernesse, or whether it was but his words of the Lady
Éowyn that wrought on them, as the sweet influence of the
herb stole about the chamber it seemed to those who stood
by that a keen wind blew through the window, and it bore
no scent, but was an air wholly fresh and clean and young,
as if it had not before been breathed by any living thing and
came new-made from snowy mountains high beneath a dome
of stars, or from shores of silver far away washed by seas of
foam.
‘Awake, Éowyn, Lady of Rohan!’ said Aragorn again, and
he took her right hand in his and felt it warm with life
returning. ‘Awake! The shadow is gone and all darkness is
washed clean!’ Then he laid her hand in Éomer’s and stepped
away. ‘Call her!’ he said, and he passed silently from the
chamber.
‘Éowyn, Éowyn!’ cried Éomer amid his tears. But she
opened her eyes and said: ‘Éomer! What joy is this? For they
said that you were slain. Nay, but that was only the dark
voices in my dream. How long have I been dreaming?’
‘Not long, my sister,’ said Éomer. ‘But think no more
on it!’
‘I am strangely weary,’ she said. ‘I must rest a little. But
tell me, what of the Lord of the Mark? Alas! Do not tell me
that that was a dream; for I know that it was not. He is dead
as he foresaw.’
‘He is dead,’ said Éomer, ‘but he bade me say farewell to