The Abduction of Éomer, King of Rohan

Chapter 4

Chapter 4

He surged out of the water and flung back his hair, one hand extended in a claw. With the other he took a swipe around him, before dropping into a fighting crouch. Steel glittered in the dawn light.

Instinctively, I grabbed the oars and took a hasty stroke to carry me out of reach. My breath caught in my throat. Where had my brother got that knife from? The man was downright dangerous! As if dazed, he shook back his mane of wet blond hair. Blond? Blond! It couldn't be! His eyes fastened on me, then flickered to both sides, as if seeking for enemies in the mist. It wasn't Amrothos at all! Impossible. I looked in the bottom of the boat, half expecting my brother to still be lying there, wrapped up in his carpet.

Holding his knife at the ready, the man straightened up. "Who are you?"

He was so tall, the water only reached his waist. And that deep, commanding voice – I had heard it before. Léona? I felt as if somebody had just dumped me in cold water.

"What are you doing here?" I stuttered.

His eyes narrowed. "Do I know you?" He lowered his knife a fraction. "Princess Lothíriel?"

Still stupefied, I nodded.

He shook his head, as if he could not quite believe it either. "What's going on here?" He looked around at the river and the small island. "And where is here anyway?" A sudden thought seemed to strike him. "Did you dump me in the water?"

He looked murderous! I snatched up the oars and took another couple of strokes away from him.

"Stop!" he snarled. "Come back this instant!"

So commanding was his tone, I nearly obeyed. Léona here! How could that be? But it was slowly coming clear to me. I must have got the wrong man! But how had he come to be lying on the floor in my brother's tent?

"Where are we?" he asked again. "Answer me, woman!"

"On the Anduin."

"What!"

"The Anduin," I repeated. "That's Cair Andros over there."

"It's a dream," Léona muttered. "It has to be a dream." He lifted his arms and looked down at his soaked shirt. "Only it's too cold to be a dream. Béma! Would you care to explain, Princess Lothíriel, why you brought me to Cair Andros and dumped me in the river?" His voice had the sting of a whip.

I jumped at his tone. "I didn't mean to! It was an accident."

"An accident? Wonderful!" Just watching him standing there in the water made me shiver with cold, but he appeared quite unaffected by it.

He seemed to have decided I posed no threat, for he turned his attention away and peered down at the water. Spotting something, he bent down to retrieve it. Another dagger! How many of those deadly things did he carry round with him?

"You're not supposed to be here at all," I told him.

"I know that!" he snapped back. "I'm supposed to be in my warm, dry bed."

He had no need to make me feel guilty! "Well, you shouldn't go to sleep in my brother's tent then, should you," I pointed out. Although I might have had something to do with that – had he shared my brother's wine?

Léona frowned. "What has that got to do with it?"

"Everything! It's not as if I wanted you along!"

He was unimpressed by my low opinion of his company. "Then why am I here?"

"It was dark and you lay on the floor," I explained, "so I wrapped you up in a carpet, thinking you were my brother." My beautiful plan was in tatters – and all because of this annoying rider of Rohan being in a place where he had no business to be!