return

1260 the return of the king
over all the Lady Éowyn wore a great blue mantle of the
colour of deep summer-night, and it was set with silver stars
about hem and throat. Faramir had sent for this robe and
had wrapped it about her; and he thought that she looked
fair and queenly indeed as she stood there at his side. The
mantle was wrought for his mother, Finduilas of Amroth,
who died untimely, and was to him but a memory of loveliness
in far days and of his first grief; and her robe seemed to
him raiment fitting for the beauty and sadness of Éowyn.
But she now shivered beneath the starry mantle, and she
looked northward, above the grey hither lands, into the eye
of the cold wind where far away the sky was hard and clear.
‘What do you look for, Éowyn?’ said Faramir.
‘Does not the Black Gate lie yonder?’ said she. ‘And must
he not now be come thither? It is seven days since he rode
away.’
‘Seven days,’ said Faramir. ‘But think not ill of me, if I say
to you: they have brought me both a joy and a pain that I
never thought to know. Joy to see you; but pain, because now
the fear and doubt of this evil time are grown dark indeed.
Éowyn, I would not have this world end now, or lose so soon
what I have found.’
‘Lose what you have found, lord?’ she answered; but she
looked at him gravely and her eyes were kind. ‘I know not
what in these days you have found that you could lose. But
come, my friend, let us not speak of it! Let us not speak at
all! I stand upon some dreadful brink, and it is utterly dark
in the abyss before my feet, but whether there is any light
behind me I cannot tell. For I cannot turn yet. I wait for some
stroke of doom.’
‘Yes, we wait for the stroke of doom,’ said Faramir. And
they said no more; and it seemed to them as they stood upon
the wall that the wind died, and the light failed, and the Sun
was bleared, and all sounds in the City or in the lands about
were hushed: neither wind, nor voice, nor bird-call, nor rustle
of leaf, nor their own breath could be heard; the very beating
of their hearts was stilled. Time halted.