return

1264 the return of the king
love you. Once I pitied your sorrow. But now, were you
sorrowless, without fear or any lack, were you the blissful
Queen of Gondor, still I would love you. Éowyn, do you not
love me?’
Then the heart of Éowyn changed, or else at last she understood
it. And suddenly her winter passed, and the sun shone
on her.
‘I stand in Minas Anor, the Tower of the Sun,’ she said;
‘and behold! the Shadow has departed! I will be a shieldmaiden
no longer, nor vie with the great Riders, nor take joy
only in the songs of slaying. I will be a healer, and love all
things that grow and are not barren.’ And again she looked
at Faramir. ‘No longer do I desire to be a queen,’ she said.
Then Faramir laughed merrily. ‘That is well,’ he said; ‘for
I am not a king. Yet I will wed with the White Lady of Rohan,
if it be her will. And if she will, then let us cross the River
and in happier days let us dwell in fair Ithilien and there make
a garden. All things will grow with joy there, if the White
Lady comes.’
‘Then must I leave my own people, man of Gondor?’ she
said. ‘And would you have your proud folk say of you:
‘‘There goes a lord who tamed a wild shieldmaiden of the
North! Was there no woman of the race of Númenor to
choose?’’ ’
‘I would,’ said Faramir. And he took her in his arms and
kissed her under the sunlit sky, and he cared not that they
stood high upon the walls in the sight of many. And many
indeed saw them and the light that shone about them as they
came down from the walls and went hand in hand to the
Houses of Healing.
And to the Warden of the Houses Faramir said: ‘Here is
the Lady Éowyn of Rohan, and now she is healed.’
And the Warden said: ‘Then I release her from my charge
and bid her farewell, and may she suffer never hurt nor
sickness again. I commend her to the care of the Steward of
the City, until her brother returns.’
But Éowyn said: ‘Yet now that I have leave to depart, I