Often I had gone this way before
But now it seemed I never could be
And never had been anywhere else;
'Twas home; one nationality
We had, I and the birds that sang,
One memory.

They welcomed me. I had come back
That eve somehow from somewhere far:
The April mist, the chill, the calm,
Meant the same thing familiar
And pleasant to us, and strange too,
Yet with no bar.

-Home ["Often I had gone this way before"], Edward Thomas

If there was one thing Thariel was learning from her time as Rhoswen's lady in waiting, it was that women of rank – be they matrons, princesses or queens – never rushed. Careful consideration was the hallmark and standard of well-run campaigns, council meetings, and courtships. It was a lesson that the Stewardess of Gondor was trying earnestly to teach her young charge, who, like all young women, was very inclined to hurtle through everything at breakneck speed.

Unfortunately, Thariel was not practicing her lessons today. Having been dismissed from her work in the Houses of Healing with her father, the teenager was running - rushing, it must be said – from the Houses down to the first level of the city, where her mistress, and sometime teacher was attending to her own Lady. How like the bricks in the walls here they were – Thariel held up Rhoswen with her work, and Rhoswen held up Arwen, and Arwen…well, the Queen was scarcely arrived herself, but in time she would hold up higher things in the city. And one day, perhaps, if she followed all her lessons, Thariel would find herself with wards and charges and children to hold her up and support her work.

The King had despaired, before his Queen had come, that she would not find herself at home in the White City. Being an Elf, she had grown up in the forests of Rivendell, unused to great towers of stone. But the Lady Rhoswen, being clever, as she always was, had begun planting gardens in destroyed sections of the city after the debris had been cleared away, so the Lady Arwen – well, Queen Arwen, now that she and the King had wed, but she had been Lady Arwen then – would feel a little bit more at home. Queen's Gardens, they were called, and there was one on each level of the city, free of access to anyone who called the city home.

There were other reasons, too, for why the Lady Rhoswen had built the gardens, to do with politics and winning over the people; Thariel only knew about these because she had heard Lady Rhoswen discussing it with Lord Boromir one night after she, Thariel had been dismissed for the evening. But he supposed that there were always many reasons for doing things that adults did not tell children, or that Ladies did not confide in their maids.

Here was the place where the Queen and her ladies were today – slowing her run, she could hear their voices drifting out into the street, a quiet suburb of the city without too much in the way of merchant traffic or marketplace noise, though it was but a stone's throw from the main gate. Today, however, the place could not be missed – a knot of sedan chairs, and an equally large number of guards in their household liveries congregated outside the gate to the garden, attendant on their mistresses within.

The King's Guards, at least, paused in their chatter as Thariel approached, mindful of the white rose badge on her over-tunic. Rhoswen did not much like the affectation, but she put up with it only because it pleased Thariel, and Iorlas, when he was on official business for her, to wear a cape or tunic with the rose because it marked them apart, as a heraldic badge marked the warriors on a field or the officers of a house. The young woman smiled, returning their nods and half-bows with acknowledging smiles of her own. Pausing at the gate to the garden, she smoothed her gown, checked her hair, readjusted her cap, which she had nearly lost a quarter of a mile back as she pelted down the hill of the city, and quickly checked the planes of her face to make sure there weren't any smudges of mud where there should not have been.

Her mother's voice rang in her ears, one lesson out of many.

And why must we walk, Thariel?

So we are not flushed and out of breath and we may greet our lady properly.

Exactly so, my girl.

She remembered hating the lesson when her mother had given it, a girl of ten resenting all that kept her away from exploring the world, but was that because it had been her mother who had said it, or the way it had been done? She was sure she would not have hated it so if Rhoswen had reminded her. As Rhoswen did, very often.

She took another deep breath, trying to slow her wildly beating heart a little, and stepped inside the garden. I am in the service of Rhoswen of Gondor, and all my actions reflect upon my lady.

It would be months, years, even, before such a place was as rich in leafy splendor as Rhoswen's garden, centuries, even, before it would rival the gardens of the Queen's youth. The barely budding plants and scraggling flowers, each one looking so lonely in its bed, were no match for the sight of the plot three or four months previously, when a house had stood on the spot, but it was a definite improvement over one month previous, when it had been a pile of rubble.

There were benches, and arbors yet to be covered in vine, and a little fountain bubbling cheerfully away in a corner, to help water the plants. A few trees struggled to life near the walls, transplants from other gardens. A few were in flower, though most, it seemed, would only put on leaves this summer rather than the usual flowers. It was at the fountain that the Queen was seated, in a chair doubtless brought from the nearby caretakers' house for the purpose, while the Lady Rhoswen sat beside her, directing several of her other ladies in a sort of pageant in front of the queen. They were rehearsing something. Thariel recognized the Lady Lothiriel, and the Lady Merethel, and the Lady Faldes, good friends of her own mistress, and a dozen others whose names she knew, if she thought about it long enough, but who would most certainly not have known her name. She was a maid, and above such attention – Thariel doubted they could tell her the names of their own attendants. Rhoswen was different in that regard – she knew everyone's name, rich or poor, and the people loved her for it.

Thariel made her steps as light as possible on the path as she approached. Another benediction from her mother: We are not oliphaunts, Thariel. A lady's steps should be soundless. To which Rhoswen's voice cheekily added So we may better hear slander, and slay false gossip.

"So, they will come forward – come forward, Merethel, yes, and kiss her hand when she holds it out to you, just so, my Lady – and will say something about your continued good health, and they will give you their petition, which I will take and keep, and some gift."

"But how will they know what to give me?" Arwen asked, regal and beautiful and yet still suspicious on her ersatz throne.

"Each guild will bring some representative gift from their trade, my Lady," Rhoswen explained.

"But how should they know what will please me? I have not been in the city long enough to know them," the queen said patiently.

Rhoswen's glance slid from the Queen to Lottie, who, standing behind Arwen, shrugged a little. "I'm afraid I don't follow my lady's logic," Rhoswen said, looking very much as though the need to ask the question pained her. She likes to know what a person needs before they ask. Someone had observed once about the White Rose, and Thariel hadn't quite understood it then, but she thought, maybe, she understood it now.

"Among…my people," Queen Arwen began, "It is customary to give gifts only when you know they will suit the recipient. To make a present of something without knowing the person is…not done."

Thariel hadn't spent a lot of time with Rhoswen while she was attending upon the queen, but the look on her lady's face seemed to her to indicate that there had been many mentions of what it had been like 'among her people' in the month or so since she had come. It was a sort of strained smile, which, for Rhoswen, who Thariel knew from much personal experience could teach stone walls patience, was unusual. Looking around at the other ladies clustered in the garden, she could see many side-glances and knowing smiles, and much whispering behind hands.

"You need not keep them, my Lady, if you cannot use them," Lottie suggested helpfully. "I know my own mother, in Dol Amroth, never kept anything from her Favoring Fairs. And Rhos, too, I do not think kept much." The Amrothian woman turned to her cousin-in-law for confirmation, and Rhoswen nodded.

"It is only that they will give it, in token of their support and in hopes of your patronage, and you must be seen to accept it, in recognition that you will consider their petition. Which you and I will read, most thoroughly, when the Fair is over."

Arwen nodded, as if in agreement, though Thariel thought that she, too , still entertained her doubts about the whole process. The new Queen, it had to be said, entertained many doubts about the way many things were done in the city – and the city, in turn, entertained many doubts about the Queen and her way of doing things.

"Ah, Thariel!" Rhoswen noticed, finally, that they had a visitor and, glad of the distraction, moved towards her. "Some message from your father?" she asked.

"No, my lady," the young woman admitted, wholeheartedly wishing that this was not the case, if only so Rhoswen did not look so downhearted by the news. "I…I came to see the garden," she managed.

Rhoswen nodded. "Well, that we can do," she said, trying to sound relieved. "But first, the niceties. I do not think you have met the Queen."

"No, my Lady," Thariel admitted, adjusting her dress more time and resisting the urge to hide behind her mistress like a shy child of three. I am a lady of the City of Minas Tirith and of the Race of Numenor. I am a servant of my Lady Rhoswen. Everything I do and say reflects on them. "My Lady, this is Thariel, the daughter of Arthion, one of our ladies and our very dear friend."

"Your servant, Lady." Thariel neatly tucked up her skirt and made a curtsey, arm drifting out in a little bit of a flourish, as Iorlas' sometimes did when he was making the acquaintance of a particularly prestigious person, or a particularly beautiful lady. As the queen was both of these things, the gesture seemed even more appropriate.

"She has good manners, for one so young." The queen's eyes drifted for a moment over to a group of younger ladies over by the wall, who responded by looking a little mutinous. It was well known that these were the daughters of the city's Forty Worthy Families who had hoped to wed the King themselves, women who were suspicious of the queen on general principle. Women whom Rhoswen worked against every day to redeem the Queen in the eyes of the city.

"Thariel's father is the master of the Houses of Healing, my Lady. She and I are much in company there. And she is a close student of Master Iorlas, as well."

"Ah," the queen said, understanding. "And do you like Iorlas' stories, Thariel?"

"Very much, my lady."

"You find them truthful?" Arwen's tone suggested that she did not.

Thariel considered, carefully, before she spoke. This was the Queen, her sovereign, and the woman to whom her mistress owed her position. No over-eager pronouncements here. "I think they are instructive, my lady."

The Queen studied her a moment. "That is not the same as the truth."

"I think they can…be truth, if we wish them to be. Not everyone acts as though they are in a story, but a story is how we should act."

"Indeed," the queen said. But there was no time to discuss the matter further – an older woman was toddling forward with a tray and a number of clay cups. "Mistress Hithwen, is all of this for us?" the queen asked, rising from her chair to greet the woman as she set the tray down on a waiting table.

"Thought you might be a little peckish after all of your work this morning, my Lady, being out here in the sun and the heat," Mistress Hithwen said, motherly. Arwen smiled, a rare and beautiful sight, and nodded her thanks.

"You should join us," she said, gesturing to one of the few empty chairs.

"Oh, bless you, my lady, no – and I've another tray, besides, of those little cakes the Lady Rhoswen said you liked." The older woman smiled at Rhoswen, who gave Arwen a little shrug of admitted guilt.

"Thariel can help you with the other tray, Hithwen," the Stewardess of Gondor offered, catching the younger woman's eye with a significant glance, and Thariel, glad to be out of the way, followed Hithwen back to her little cottage along the garden's wall and inside the little kitchen, with its little leaded glass windows looking out onto the Queen and her retinue.

Hithwen was the garden's caretaker; a widow, like all the others, whose husband had died in the recent Wars of the Ring. She was the oldest of the gardens' minders – with her children grown up and moved away and her husband a thirty-year veteran of Gondor's armies, there was little left for her in Minas Tirith after her husband perished during the siege of the city. Another one of Rhoswen's clever ideas – Hithwen's work in the Garden kept her out of poverty, supplying her with the use of the caretaker's cottage, and a little bit of stipend besides.

It was hard to say who the little cadre of gardeners loved more – the Lady Rhoswen, who had interviewed and appointed them all, and made it her business to know them all by name, or their official patron, the Queen, who was trying to do the same.

Hithwen had obviously been expecting a crowd – there was another tray of cups and a second kettle, and still a third tray of little cakes still steaming from the community oven. A whole morning's work, Thariel marveled, and all for the benefit of a woman of no relation save that of accidental patronage.

"Smells delicious," the younger woman offered with a smile, waiting patiently while Hithwen loaded the tray.

"And well it should, young mistress, the better to tempt your Lady. She's too thin by half, and no good to her Lord in that state, if they want a child. Now, you'll see she eats them, won't you? At least two, mind you, none of your polite nips here and there and half the cake still on the plate."

"I will not rest until she does," Thariel assured her solemnly, taking the tray with the cakes and following Hithwen out to the garden. Rhoswen loved to worry over everyone else – it made her laugh a little to know that there were some out in the city who would worry over her.

"You are hospitality itself, Mistress Hithwen," Rhoswen assured the older woman as they entered into the little circle of ladies again bearing the second tray of tea and the cakes. The formality of the court lessons had been put away, and the chairs and benches of the garden pulled together in a loose circle so that all could sit and chat for a while.

"We were just admiring this vine here – from where does it come?"

"Grows in the mountains, my lady, near where I was a girl. My Dunir brought it back for me after a spell at the garrison near the beacon at Nardol. It likes a rock to grow over, or a wall to climb. I used to keep it at the window so he'd see it when he came home." At the memory of her husband, Hithwen's smile went a little sad, and her eyes a little misty.

"It reminds me of a flower in my father's gardens," Arwen said plainly. "A happy memory for me as well."

"I could save you some seeds, if you'd like, my Lady."

The queen's face split into what was unmistakably a grateful smile. "I should like that very much. You are most kind, Mistress Hithwen."

The gardener smiled and curtseyed and did her best to brush the kindness away as the small gesture that it was, and from there, the talk of the ladies turned to other things, the price of silk and the shortage of peaches and a dozen other domestic terrors. Thariel lingered near the tea-trays, passing around the cakes without taking any herself and pausing, near her lady, to whisper in her ear, "Hithwen says you're to take two, my lady, and eat both."

Her mistress smiled. "She thinks I am too thin?" she asked with a chuckle, taking her two cakes without pause. "Valar save me and my waistline from interfering old matrons. Will you sit with us?" The invitation was veiled, spoken towards Thariel and away from the rest of the group.

Thariel gave a barely imperceptible shake of her head. "I'm not hungry, really." It was true, she'd eaten before leaving the houses, the plain, filling food of the staff luncheon.

The plain fact was that they bored Thariel, these other women of the court. Once she had wished to be like them, like a high-born lady in a story whose only concerns are her dress and her jewels and the dispositions of her lover, whiling away her days in some perfumed bower and writing little bits of witty verse. Then she had met the Lady, who loved stories and jewels but who also loved the honesty of work, of digging in her garden or slaving away with the cooks to produce the evening's meal. When she was around Rhoswen, Thariel found herself listening, truly, to everything that was said. When she talked, her words meant something, unlike these other ladies, whose words served only to fill the air. Useless ornament. Their husbands would never trust them with anything more than the watch-word to their house, but Rhoswen had held, at times, the keys to the armory, and the King's House, and the treasury, and even the Great Key to the City itself. And that was a far better prize than pretty words alone could ever win.

So Thariel served the tea, and listened, and her mistress sat back in her chair and contemplated the scene before her – the ladies, chatting amicably, the Queen, saying little, and Thariel and Hithwen, nearly invisible to all of them, making sure no cup ran dry.

Rhoswen was pleased with Thariel so far. She'd come a long way in the short time Rhoswen had known her, with less of the spoiled teenager and more of the young woman about her now. And Bergil had told her, just the other day, that he'd seen her taking a walk with Narthion, Boromir's squire, of whom Rhoswen approved immensely, for his good manners and his steady nature.

Growing girls were easy to make over into women. But grown women into queens, well… Rhoswen glanced at her Queen, and tried not to let her smile crease too much. It was not that Arwen lacked nobility or grace; she had, perhaps, too much of both. At the end of the day, it was difficult for some to know that the queen was older than their oldest grandsires, that she had seen things that would make even the oldest stones of the city seem young. Why, her father had fought with Isildur!

A child would fix that. Rhoswen was certain of it. Arwen was young yet, for an elf, and Aragorn young for one of the blood of Numenor, and it was not difficult to see that theirs was not a cold bed. But a child takes time, and the mortar with which Aragorn's kingship had been built had not yet set. So, the Stewardess worked by smaller measures. She was pleased to hear that Hithwen would give Arwen the seeds for those flowers – that was good. The talkative little widow would tell her friends about it, and then there would be climbing vines with bellflowers outside every window on the street. And that was better than a banner at the window, in Rhoswen's opinion. And some of the older ladies had given up their veils. Arwen did not cover her hair in the fashion of married matrons, and the court had been quick to take that cue from her, at least. There was talk, too, of high-waisted gowns in the elvish fashion coming into style.

At present, the conversation was centering around the discussion of a new poem, only just this month in circulation, telling the story of a lady in love with a man of Rohan. The ladies were speculating whether the piece had any basis in reality, and were pressing Lottie (known to be both a connoisseur of poetry and a good friend with the Lady Eowyn, and therefore an expert on the customs of that lady's country) for any choice details out of her own knowledge. (The Rohirrim, too, were becoming fashionable, as the Stewardess had predicted. Rhoswen had seen more heavy silver cloakpins appear in the last month than she'd ever seen in the city at all.)

"My Lady, you are bored," someone observed softly in her ear. Rhoswen sat up, realizing the Queen had moved her chair closer to Rhoswen's so they would not be overheard.

"Am I so transparent?" the younger woman asked, smiling as though Arwen had just told a joke.

"Only, I think, to me," the queen said with an amused smile of her own. "Shall we leave the ladies to their silks and take a walk?" The look in her eyes seemed to add And talk of other things I hope they will not overhear.

Rhoswen rose from her chair, taking Arwen's arm companionably for a turn around the garden. The other women did not pause in their deep discussion, though Lottie's eyes followed Rhoswen's for a moment as the two women rose.

"I am sorry we cannot offer my lady more stimulating company," Rhoswen said, when they were sufficiently removed from the others, as the Queen bent to examine one of the bushes.

"Aragorn warned me that I would not find much in common with the women of Minas Tirith," Arwen mused. "I am seeing now that his prediction was a true one."

"A flower has but a single season, Lady," Rhoswen said, stroking the outstretched petal of a magnolia, the only tree of any size that was actually blooming within the garden. "When the flower has been told its only purpose is to be an ornament, it thinks of nothing else."

"A good comparison," Arwen agreed. "But where does that leave me, if I am not a flower?"

Rhoswen considered the magnolia again. It was late for blossoms, but it had been a strange spring – perhaps the tree had just been waiting to put out buds until the right time. "You are the tree, Lady – you will stand far longer than most of us will. I think that frightens them." She turned her gaze back to the others for a moment.

"More than my foreign ways?" Arwen asked pointedly. Rhoswen's face froze, and the Queen's smile curled a little as her fingers found her own magnolia flower, gently pulling it off the branch to settle it in her own cupped hands, stroking thoughtfully. "The men of the White City forget that elves have keen ears."

Damn the city and its open windows and its over-reaching tongues, Rhoswen thought heatedly to herself, feeling her own face color. "My lady, if I –

"Why should you apologize for your countrymen, Lady Rhoswen? The slight is not yours. And you have done your best to protect me from them."

Rhoswen gave her queen a significant look. "I am not without fault myself, my Lady." She had found, over the last weeks, that it was always better to tell Arwen the truth, for she always seemed to find it out eventually.

"But you are patient with me," Arwen reminded. "And you mean well. I could not ask for a better teacher."

Rhoswen could not help but turn her gaze directly towards the Queen. "You could have far better teachers than me. I was not…not raised to a life like this one." My training was in how to clean stains from cloth and count stores and tend burnt fingers and all the other chores of a country knight's wife.

"But that is what makes you a better teacher. You remember what it is like to learn. And I will learn." Arwen's gaze drew back to the ladies and their conversation on the other side of the garden, and she smiled again. "I do like those flowers of Hithwen's," she repeated absentmindedly.

"That was well done," Rhoswen admitted.

"Was it?" The Queen looked amused. "I did not mean for it to be."

"That was what made it well-done. Sincerity is not a quality women at court usually cultivate. The common people prize it when they find it – they do not place much stock in artifice. It tastes too much like politics, which they will very happily ignore if given the chance."

"You are generally without artifice," Arwen observed.

The younger woman allowed herself a guilty smile. "That is because I never learned better, my lady."

"I think you do not give yourself enough credit. You lie quite well, when it suits you."

"But not well enough to fool you, Lady," Rhoswen reminded her.

Arwen laughed at this. "Perhaps not – but my family has a gift for seeing falsehoods." She allowed herself another arch smile. "So, do you think me ready for tonight's festivities, then, teacher?"

"I did not think you were ever unready, my lady," the Stewardess corrected. "And I do mean that."

The queen allowed herself a smile. "And the rest of the city? Do you think they are ready?"

"They shall have to be, Lady. The College of Heralds can hardly contain themselves amidst all the excitement of new titles and embellishments of arms. Most of the badges have not changed since the days of Elendil. They have been very industrious these past weeks."

"Your own house is to have a new sigil, too, I understand. A rampant bear."

It was hard to tell if Arwen approved of the image. "My idea, my lady. Boromir wished for towers and arrows – It seemed the lesser of many, many evils."

"My mother used to tell my brothers and I stories about the wild bears east of the Misty Mountains, and how hard it was to best them in battle. It is a fitting creature, I think, for the Lord Boromir. One feels the white banner of the Stewards never suited him."

Rhoswen nodded, remembering the conversation that had preceded the arrival of the bear emblem. How true that is.

A bell chimed, deep in the city above them, and the Queen's gaze drifted towards the sound. "So, should we release my ladies back to their homes to prepare for this evening?"

"It would probably be best, Lady. Doubtless the proper arrangement of hair will take many hours before a looking glass."

Arwen smiled. "Will you come back with us?" She meant in the sedan chairs with which they had come down - an unnecessary badge of honor that annoyed both Queen and Stewardess, both women well-used to walking or riding.

"I think I may exercise the privilege of walking back today," Rhoswen said. "With Thariel, I think. I need the exercise – I have not slept well of late."

The queen nodded, and together the two women made their way back to the group of ladies, still deep in their discussion of poetry, though they had moved on to epics other than the story involving the Rohir.

"Ladies, my thanks to you for your time. My lord Aragorn and I will see you all tonight." On hearing her voice, the chatter stilled and the women rose almost as a single mass to make their curtseys and depart. Rhoswen hung back from the rest of the group, waiting for Thariel to finish helping Hithwen move the chairs back inside and tidy the rest of the tea things.

Conversation waited until the street outside. "How were the Houses this morning?" The Stewardess asked her maid as the two of them picked their way down the crowded street, the men of Rhoswen's guard following at a respectful distance to allow the ladies their talk.

"Quiet, my lady," Thariel admitted. "Or quieter, anyway. It is strange, to see women and children in the wards again. When I left there was a mother who had just given birth."

"I imagine she was not so quiet about that."

"No, my lady," the younger woman amended. "But childbirth pains are different from the screams of the dying. And the cries of a newborn babe even more so. The men in the soldier's ward smiled when they heard it."

Rhoswen could not help but smile at the thought of the battle-hardened veterans of the Citadel smiling at the sound of a child's first noises. They know as well as we do that this is a new age, she mused. We should hear more children's voices from now on, rather than the sounds of war. "It is good that they should hear it – it should give them hope for the future."

"Indeed, my lady."

"And how were the ladies, today?"

"Truth be told, mistress, they did very little except discuss the poem. And King Éomer, at length."

Rhoswen's glance found Thariel's, searching her face for more information. "Did Lottie say anything?"

"Not really," Thariel remembered. "She was very brief with her answers and did not offer any opinions of the King, even when she was asked." The maid looked at her mistress. "Does he really like her, then?"

"Yes, he does. Though she doesn't like him –yet. It would be a good match for him, and for her, too. To say nothing of the politics, which won't interest Lottie and should interest Eomer, though I know for a fact they don't. I don't think he wants them to. And Lottie will never agree to a purely political marriage."

Thariel nodded in what she hoped was a thoughtful way and tried to think about what it would be like to have to marry for politics. She was having a hard time imagining what that would look like when her father was the Warden of the Houses of healing – a gardener with limitless supplies of healing herbs? A weaver of bandage linen?

"They didn't talk at all about the Honor Court?"

"Neldis mentioned that her husband wasn't pleased that his contribution to the Siege of the City wasn't going to be recognized, but apart from that, Lady, no, nothing. They may not have wanted to speak around the Lady Lothíriel."

"Mmm." Rhoswen nodded. "Lord Agrenor didn't do anything during the Siege of the City except send men – and without a captain, too."

"Neldis said their son –"

"Oh, yes, that son. Aglanir. They would have been better off without a captain at all – he's not much older than you. Good looking, but a little hopeless. He came into the houses with a big gash on his forehead from tripping over something. I heard him telling one of the maids that he got it from an orc blade. Men and their pride."

The word pride brought Thariel's mind around to another man in their acquaintance. "Is Lord Boromir ready for tonight?"

The Stewardess considered this. "As ready as he will ever be, I think. It's hard to tell some days what exactly he's thinking."

"And you, Lady?"

"Much the same as my lord husband, I think. As ready as I will ever be."

"I think that is all we can ask for, my lady," Thariel said sincerely. It seemed like something Rhoswen herself would say.

"Indeed," the older woman agreed, smiling despite herself.

They walked the rest of the way up the city in relative silence, both women content to survey the city around them as they walked. It was comforting, at least to Rhoswen, to hear sound returning to the city again, hawkers and peddlers and merchants of all kinds. The Street of Silks and the Tailor's Alley were doing a brisk trade today, as maids and groomsmen rushed back and forth between the townhouses of the fifth and sixth levels and the shops supplying their masters with all the glamour necessary for their presentations at Court.

A great Honors Court was convening this evening, as every Lord and knight pledged their fealty to the king and renewed their oath of homage to him. In return for their promises of support, the King would grant them land (or confirm ownership already vested). Inheritances from the dead captains of the Siege of the City were finally being decided – the issue that had caused Boromir so much anguish. Tonight he would take his oath as Prince of Osgiliath, and that, he and Rhoswen hoped, would decide once and for all the lingering question of loyalty that still hung around the new king.

Other visitors to the King's House came through the main gates, emerging from the sixth level on the wide green lawn before the doors to the King's Hall. It was an impressive entrance, meant to belittle the everyday visitor. Rhoswen seldom used the doors on the seventh level, preferring, as she had always done, to take the back doors up through the servant's corridors and up into the house proper. It kept her humble, remembering that all of this, all her power and her careful preparation, meant very little without a small army of cooks and tailors and warders to back her up. She liked them to see that she knew about their work, and was interested in it.

She was still not sure if they appreciated it – she knew from Iorlas' reports that there were a few who hated to see her below stairs, as though it were beneath her station and dignity or that they merely disliked that she might see misconduct of some kind. But there were some who took the opportunity, as she made her way upstairs, to ask a favor, or a piece of advice, and Rhoswen did not grudge them that. A thousand little inquiries were far easier for her to answer than to burden the ear of the King, or the Steward, with

There was no feast tonight, no groaning board to lay, but the kitchens were still busy washing and preparing the many, many cups that would circulate to drink the health of the king and the new age of Gondor, and washing the many, many trays on which the pages (now in some distant room of the King's House receiving their liveries for this evening from the Master of Ceremonies) were to serve the wine. Deeper still into the castle the Cellerer was working with his assistants to assemble the many, many casks that would be served tonight and bring them up to the kitchen where they would be measured and poured.

It was a short walk upstairs – no petitioners today. Rhoswen and Thariel made their way in good time, stepping in and out of the bustle downstairs without so much as a sideways glance from the servants, each one bent on their own tasks for the night's festivities.

The rooms of the Steward, too, were busy; in their bedroom, Narthion and Bergil were well occupied helping Tavron, Boromir's groomsman and valet, put the finishing touches on their lord's costume for this evening, polishing the heavy silver collar of state. His circlet, a sign of his new status as prince, gleamed on a bed of velvet nearby, awaiting the formal presentation this evening. All three stopped their work as Rhoswen passed by, bowing graciously.

The Steward himself was in his offices, connected to their other apartments by a longer corridor. In past days it had been the custom of the king , and the stewards, to carry on affairs of state in their bedchambers, but Rhoswen believed business and family life should remain a little separate. And Boromir's style of business was not the most orderly. Let him have the office to litter with papers and keep the bedchamber clear. No clerks worked at any of the outer desks – they had a half-day for the honors tonight – but the Steward himself was still hard at work, hunched over his papers with single-minded purpose. A strange rumble, the only sound in the room apart from the scratching of the quill, drew Rhoswen's attention. His stomach, she thought. A tray of food, no doubt brought several hours ago, lay untouched on a small sideboard.

Rhoswen looked from the tray to Boromir's desk and back again. Another rumble from the direction of Boromir's person. "Husband, have you eaten today?"

"Mm?" The Steward didn't seem to be listening.

"I said, have you eaten?" Rhoswen said, taking a plate and placing a few pieces of fruit and a large piece of cheese upon it. Boromir did not move, his quill still moving across the parchment in labored strokes. She rolled her eyes and strode purposefully over to his desk. Finally, when she was at his shoulder, the scratching quill stopped. "The Steward is little use to his King half-starved," she pointed out, gently prying the quill out of Boromir's hand and clearing a square foot of the desk in front of him of papers and parchments.

"Rhos, the delegation from Dale arrives any day now and I do not know where we shall give them houseroom," Boromir pleaded, though he made no effort to move her and her plate of food away.

"Let us worry about the delegation from Dale tomorrow," his wife ordered. "Now eat. You're worse than a child." She sat on the edge of his desk to supervise what was little more than a snack, determined that he should rest at least a few minutes before returning to his duties. "Has the tailor been by this morning?" She asked, in between his bites of apple. A nod. He finished chewing.

"The tunic has been fitted, Narthion has polished my boots and my sword, and Bergil was sent to the Master of Ceremonies with my finished cloak," her husband reported. "Do we pass muster, Captain?" he asked, turning a slightly bemused glance on his wife.

"Yes, exceedingly," Rhos said, leaning over the arm of his chair to brush a stray hair away from his face and kiss his brow. "I do not want us to look like paupers at the Honors Court. The King should be seen to be generous with his favor for his Steward."

"I shall look the very picture of preferment," Boromir confirmed. "How was your practice with the Queen this morning? Shall the Favoring Fair proceed without upset?"

"So you were listening when I left this morning!" Rhoswen was surprised. "Yes, I think we shall all do very well."

"How's Arwen settling in, do you think?"

The Stewardess considered this. "She's bored," she said, finally and frankly. "She has few official duties yet and fewer friends to occupy her, and those companions she does have do not match her mind."

"I imagine a life spent in the House of Elrond would make anyone tire of poetry," Boromir agreed.

Rhoswen resisted the urge to laugh and instead settled for a compressed smile and a light shove on her husband's shoulder, knowing the comment mirrored his own feelings about listening to national epics. "Why are you dealing with the delegation from Dale?" she wondered aloud. "Shouldn't that be something I handle, since it is a matter for the household?"

"The letter came while you were gone; I thought swift action best," the Steward said. "Dale has good access north, good connections in the east, and they all but command the river south of the Lake. We – the King – needs to give them good reason to treat fairly with us. They shall need a house in the city, eventually, not just a set of apartments."

Rhoswen was impressed. "Who now will say Boromir was not a good steward of his King's gifts?" she said, fondly giving him another kiss. "Leave it for tomorrow. I shall take it to the Queen and we shall attend it together. It is really her privilege to mete out space for dignitaries. Not something to busy the Steward of the City with. Or the Captain General, or the Prince of Osgiliath."

"You make me sound so grand," Boromir said, ruefully. "Can we not go back to the days when I only had one title, instead of ten?"

"I am afraid not," his wife confirmed.

"And do I have to wear that silly circlet tonight? It makes me look like a fool."

"It makes you look very dignified, and yes, you do need to wear it. You more than anyone. Anyway, it will only be a little while, and then, when we are done this evening, you may come back and take it off and not worry about it until the next state occasion. Besides, I don't know why you're complaining – it's not half as heavy as some."

Her comment moved something in Boromir's memory, and his displeasure at the thought of his own crown faded behind a nostalgic smile. "Whatever became of that golden robe you wore the night before…"

"Back to the treasury, and long may it stay there," Rhoswen said promptly. "I wouldn't wish that outfit on anyone again – how the queens of Númenor managed I don't know."

"Pity," Boromir said. "I liked that golden goddess." His hand rose from the arm of his chair and rested on Rhoswen's knee with a hopeful, mischievous smile, and his wife, grasping his meaning quicker than perhaps he meant, smiled in surprise.

"What, here? In the middle of the day?"

"That door's quite thick, you know, and we haven't got to be anywhere for hours yet. And you did say I should take a little rest," Boromir wheedled, smiling.

"No," Rhoswen said, rising from the desk, trying to maintain a retreat when everything in her body wanted to advance forward and be damned. "Not in your office, surely."

"My lady wife is both wise and winsome," Boromir admitted, rising from his chair and then, without warning, bodily lifting Rhoswen off the floor and carrying her back through the corridor. "No one to disturb us for an hour, Tavron," Boromir said over his shoulder as he passed the rest of his personal staff on the way to their bedchamber. "My wife and I have urgent matters to discuss. And we shall need fresh bathwater before dressing this evening," He added, shutting the door behind them and leaving his stunned servants in the outer chamber.

One promised hour later, the bathwater was waiting as both Steward and Stewardess emerged from their nest flushed and smiling, and if any of their servants disapproved, not a word was spoken by anyone about it. Chemises were exchanged, tunics and hose tied, sleeves straightened, belts and girdles buckled on, and the second-most powerful couple in Gondor made ready for the Honours Court.

Precedence for the evening lead from the bottom of the list, lower titles and decorations being given first and those highest honors later, which meant that, as a new Prince of Gondor, Boromir and Rhoswen would be last. It was common knowledge that Boromir would be given something, but precisely what the Steward would be gifted had been a matter of great secrecy and greater speculation. A calculated move, meant to ensure those politically minded few needed to stay for the whole pageantry in order to see what lay in store for their Steward.

Rhoswen had been afraid that something would go wrong, that Boromir's circlet would be lost or the new cloak with the sign of their house would go missing or that someone would forget the words. She needn't have worried – after listening to the formula a hundred times over, it was clear no man would ever forget the oath of fealty.

Kneeling, finally, before the king, the words echoed heavily in Rhoswen's mind as she heard her husband repeat them as he had sworn before his father, when he first became a captain of the city. This at least, the heralds had not changed. It was a heavy oath, and an old one, full of tradition, and she heard all of it in every note of Boromir's voice.

"Here do I swear fealty and service to Gondor, and to my lord Elessar, son of Arathorn, King of this Realm, Heir of the Line of Isildur, Rightful Holder of the Throne of Gondor. To speak and to be silent, to do and to let be, to come and to go, in need or plenty, in peace or war, in living or in dying, from this hour henceforth, until my lord release me, or death take me… or the world end." Boromir's voice had been heavy on the promise of death, and Rhoswen felt a slight tremble in his body as he said the words. Yes, he has tested that oath. He has been close to death. "So say I, Boromir, son of Denethor, Steward of Gondor."

"I will not forget it, nor fail to reward that which is given. Fealty with Love, Valor with Honor, Disloyalty with Vengeance." Aragorn's voice was grave and measured, though he'd repeated the words so many times this evening Rhoswen was sure they were beginning to lose some of their meaning. "Much service you have given this city, Boromir, son of Denethor, and though you have known me but a short time, you have given me much service already as well. What gift can a king possibly offer a man such as you?"

"My house is charged with service, my lord," Boromir said, so that all could hear. "That is the duty of the Line of Stewards – to serve the city."

"May I have a hundred men, then, who know their duty so well as you do," Aragorn answered with a wide smile. "To you, Boromir, son of Denethor, for your service to your King, we give as gift-right the Princedom of Osgiliath, and the demesne around it, boundaried from the outer reach of the townlands of Minas Tirith to the River, and for three leagues to the east of the River also, for the maintenance and supply of the castle you will build there for the King's pleasure and defense. Also we give to you the rights of the quarries at Ondroth north of the City, and the income from all taxes levied there, and the rights to a toll leveraged on all traffic coming south on the river Anduin…"

Taxes, levies, fees for markets and barges and all manner of entitlements. A prince's gift, indeed. No other lord's list had been as long, or as legally diverse. Aragorn meant to show that, ruined or not, he expected quite a lot from the Prince of Osgiliath. He was to maintain his post as Captain-General and Marshall of the City, and retain also the title of Steward of Gondor, though the office was now unnecessary. Rhoswen was practically staggering under the weight of it as she heard, as if from a very far distance, her own name.

"And to the Lady Rhoswen, his wife, the estate at Emyn Celeb, also called Silverhill, and all the incomes, taxes, and levies of that place, for her own right, to be divided for inheritance as she wishes, in recognition of her service to her king."

Rhoswen's eyes rose at this unanticipated gift, only to see both Aragorn and, beyond him, Arwen, smiling widely at her surprise. Osgiliath and all the rest she had expected, but for herself? An estate of her own, gifted and held in her own right, to be inherited and passed on as she saw fit? If the long list of honors given to Boromir was not enough indication of his support, this was one more reminder that Aragorn was rich with his favors to those who served him well.

"May we endeavor always to deserve your favor, my Lord," Boromir said, speaking quietly for the both of them, since Rhoswen had quite lost her voice. The King smiled, and signaled forward the pages bearing the circlet of the Prince and the cloak with Boromir's new device on it.

"Know also that in recognition for his service, we grant to Boromir our Steward a new sigil for his house – a black bear on a white field, parted green in fess." The cloak unfurled with a silky snap, letting the snarling, rampant figure of the bear posture for the whole hall, paws raised to strike, teeth open for the kill. A white field for the White City and the stewards before him, a green base for the land on which Boromir would build his city, the bear standing erect and poised to attack, ready for anything. It summed him up perfectly. Rhoswen's hand found her husband's as they knelt and squeezed it tightly, trying to say everything she could not find words for in her touch. The squeeze she got in return answered all her fears with confidence.

They stood, they bowed, they took their place at the side of the hall and drank the health of the king, and the prosperity of Gondor. Then it was over, and the Court was dismissed, filing out in ranks, some to linger on the green lawn in front of the King's House, and others to descend, quickly, into the streets below, heading for home.

Returning to the safety of their own rooms, Rhoswen smiled a little to see that Tavron and Maireth and the others had tidied the little mess she and her husband had made of their bed earlier.

"Does it feel any different?" she asked, sitting down on the bed and watching Boromir close the door behind himself, a little of his grandeur sliding off his shoulders as the door blocked the rest of the world out. Here in his bedchamber he could be Boromir once again.

"No," her husband admitted, setting aside the hated circlet and unsettling the cloak from his shoulders, folding the bear and his green field over the back of a chair.

"Good. That is as it should be." Rhoswen moved to her dressing table to remove her jewelry and begin untying her sleeves to get ready for bed.

"I might ask the same of you, my lady wife, as you are an heiress in your own right now."

Now there was a question. Did she feel different? She'd given little thought to the idea that she was now a landholder, sworn (by virtue of her husband's oath) to defend and uphold her king. "I've never heard of Silverhill," Rhoswen admitted. Sleeves and ornaments removed, she rose from the dressing table, turning towards her husband so he could help her out of her dress. "Have you a map where I can see my new domain?"

"It's a little place to the west, in the Lebannin." Boromir's fingers flew through the laces with practiced care. "A summer house, really, with a little estate and some orchards, near the river Erui. There's a mine, there, too, or there was. I'm sure your Lady Dis could supply you with enough engineers to see if it still has any silver in it. A pretty little place, just for you."

"Did you help him with that?"

"I … might have." The Steward gave a little smile and a modest shrug. "If you complain about how hard I work, wife, it is nothing compared to you. I…suggested to the King that your efforts needed their own reward, and gave … a few suggestions about what that reward might look like. Besides, all the lands promised as dower-right in your marriage contract reverted from the property of the Stewardship to the property of the Crown."

"So I really married an unlanded pauper," Rhoswen realized, joking with her husband. "It is good my father isn't here to chastise you, sir, for leading me astray. Still," she added, "I suppose you can be forgiven, since you now have enough market-rights and barge fees to at least keep a roof over my head."

"I rather think that money is to go towards building a better roof elsewhere," Boromir reminded her, though he knew she didn't need the reminder.

"We should make plans to begin having Osgiliath surveyed," Rhoswen noted. "Perhaps before the end of the summer we can begin removing some of the old stone and examining the foundations."

"Another excellent task for our friends the Dwarves. I'm not sure how soon I could begin such a project, though - Aragorn wants to take a progress to Rohan. Now that the honors are over, it's time we returned the body of their king."

Rhoswen had all but forgotten that King Théoden still lay in the deepest parts of the Houses of Healing. Though she was there nearly every day, she seldom had cause to go into the deeper vaults where the dead were kept before burial. It was not usually the custom among the Rohirrim to embalm their dead, but it was also not the custom of the Rohirrim to ride to war in distant countries. The men of the rank and file had been buried on the Pelennor, the ground they had died to defend, but a king was different. A king must lie at home.

There had been no easy way to return Théoden to the hills of the dead outside Edoras when his nephew had returned to Rohan. It had been decided then that Aragorn would bring the body north, arrayed in state, when sufficient state could be mustered to do so. Now that his house was in order, his wife installed, and his nobles recognized and ratified, sufficient time and resource could be given to the thought of a royal progress.

"It'll be quite a trip, all the way to Edoras and back with a royal retinue. Perhaps the Three Walkers can cover it in a week, but a royal baggage train takes more doing."

"The real question is who will stay and watch the City," her husband remarked. "I was thinking Faramir might manage it. I offered to stay, but Aragorn wouldn't hear it. It's funny – we've made such a celebration over the King returning and now, when one of his first official acts of business is to leave, we're not sure what we're going to do without him."

It was, the Stewardess admitted to herself, a little humorous. But there were other things about this trip that troubled her, other…considerations to be made. After the Battle, it had only seemed right to promise that they, the people of Gondor, would care for the body of the King until Edoras was ready to receive him, but now…Valar above, did it have to be just now, when…

Well, if that was the way of it, then she would make do. "Faramir will need to go. He has business in Edoras," Rhoswen declared. At Boromir's somewhat confused look, she added, significantly, "With the Lady Éowyn, husband." Boromir's sudden smile was a wide one. "And you must go, too, and the Queen. No, I'll stay," she said simply, with the air of one remarking that she wouldn't be able to attend a friend's sewing party, or some other petty engagement.

"Rhoswen, what have you got going on that the chamberlain can't handle? The Queen will need you. I will need you."

The stewardess took a breath and looked at the floor for a moment. "I suspect the queen will understand my reasons."

Boromir looked a little confused, and his wife sighed. This wasn't when I planned to tell him, but if needs must. "I can't go because…' Rhoswen stopped, smiled, and went to face her husband, trying to hide a satisfied smile that would not be repressed. "Because someone has come between us, my love, and I cannot go until they have removed themselves."

The wide smile quickly left. You might have stopped the Steward with a pin, going by his expression of outrage and shock. "Who? Rhos, who is it? I swear to you, if I have done something wrong, if I have –"

"No, Boro, there is someone between us," Rhos said again, with a special emphasis on every syllable, her trickster's smirk getting still more confused looks from her husband for her pains. She shook her head and took Boromir's hand. "You dear sweet man, you can be very dense when you want to be," she observed with a sigh, laying his hand against her girdle. "There is someone between us," she repeated, drawing her eyes downward.

Her husband stopped, started, realized where his hand was, and found his eyes very wide indeed. "You meant that you…that we…that..."

"Yes, you lummox, we're going to have a baby," Rhoswen exclaimed, prompting a great crow of delight from Boromir and the most exuberant embrace they had ever exchanged, which was quickly replaced, after Boromir remembered his own strength, with a solicitous series of apologies.

"But how do you know?" he asked, breathlessly looking her up and down for some outward sign – though what that would be he had no idea, his exposure to pregnant women being very limited. "You're still so small!"

Rhoswen allowed herself another eye-roll, remembering several weeks' worth of upset stomachs and headaches, and dresses that suddenly did not fit. "Believe me, I am quite sure." Well, mostly sure, which is why I was going to wait another two or three weeks until I was, really, quite sure. But now is as good a time as ever to tell you, if we must make our plans.

"Is that why – at breakfast –" Rhoswen nodded silently. "But you should have said something this afternoon, before…" Boromir seemed very, very out of his element now, and now very guilty about his activities this afternoon. "How far along –

"How long have you been home, husband? Say I am that far along, and leave it." In truth, she did not truly know. That night, before they had left for the Black Gate, she had hoped and prayed, and it may well have happened then, but a part of her – a part of her hoped it had been later, after the battle, when they had made love in his tent and spoken of all her adventures in Dol Amroth and the poem about the hunter and the deer, when he was home for good and there was no question of his leaving again, or being pulled suddenly into peril. She wanted a child begotten in joy, not in anguish.

"But should we have –" The Steward was still a little scandalized by this afternoon's events in the light of this stunning revelation.

"I am with child, Boromir, not made of glass. I won't break. And neither will the baby." The Stewardess smiled privately. "Ioreth says there's no harm it, at least for a few months. But she also says I should not ride, and I should probably not take any long journeys, which means that your progress to Edoras shall have to go on without me."

"It could be two or three months before we return," Boromir mused. "I wouldn't want to miss – "

"You won't miss a thing," Rhoswen promised. "Except watching me grow as large as a house, perhaps."

"There will be just that much more of you to love, then," Boromir said loyally, his eyes bright with emotion. "A baby, Rhos, truly?"

"Truly." She studied him, trying to read his face. "Are you pleased?"

"Pleased?" Boromir gathered her up in his arms and held her close. "Rhos, I don't have words for what I am!" Words did not seem enough! He was so outrageously happy he wanted to shout from the rooftops, to wake the whole city, if he could! He wanted trumpets and banners and a shower of gold to cover his wife with, his darling, beautiful, sweet, clever wife.

In the absence of parades, they settled for a quieter celebration of a different kind, the air in their bedroom warm and soft and contented, in its way. For a while after both lay awake, simply silent, and finally, Rhoswen curled onto her side and went to sleep, sounder than she had been for the past several weeks.

How had he not noticed? After a through exploration of her body, he could see, now, that she was fuller, rounder, in places she had not been before. But surely he should have taken the sickness and the sleeplessness as what they were. How strange this all was! An hour previously he had been filled with thoughts of Osgiliath, of Rohan and the royal progress and all the sights of Edoras that he would show to Rhoswen. All of that had fled, and nothing of value, it seemed, existed outside of his arms. It still left him speechless. A child! His child!

The stillness of night left much time for thinking, and Boromir's mind was still far, far away. It was strange, that this marriage which had started as a mere play for heirs by his father had now reached its original conclusion. And so much more besides that, the eldest son of Denethor thought privately. Would this news bring him the joy it now did if he had done as his father had asked, merely wedded and bedded and returned to his duties as Captain-General after?

Not likely.

And he was glad, so very, very glad, that things had been different, that this joy - wild, indescribable thing - was his. Over and over again his mind had returned to that day when he had first seen Rhoswen. Nearly two years ago – or was it three? It seemed like centuries. Waiting outside the city gates astride her horse. So young, and so quiet, so eager to please! Faramir had said then that she was too sweet for him. Cannot I not desire sweetness in these dark days? He had asked his brother.

Sweet, perhaps, but strong beneath it. Strength she had proved a hundred times over and a hundred times again. The Steward looked at the woman sleeping beside him and could not help but smile again. A woman who was merely sweet could not do as Rhoswen had done. Of the maid he had met at the city gates all that time ago there was little trace, her shyness and naivite stamped out, replaced instead by resolve and command. He had despaired, then, of being bound to a girl who would only be a burden to him, and yet, looking back on all the time they had spent together, he saw only the woman who had shared the load. In the midst of war and sickness and death, it was always Rhoswen who had pulled him back from the precipice, Rhoswen who had made him go on, Rhoswen who had toiled, wept, waited, endured.

Wherever he found briars, there was always the Rose.

Was this some wild dream that he had lived? Had all of this been meant for someone else, some other man, and he had only borrowed it a time? Were the gods so good that they would give him all this for his own?

Rhoswen turned over in her sleep, almost as if she had heard his thoughts, and with a little murmur of sleepy pleasure pressed against his side, as if to reassure him of her presence. I am no dream, the warmth of her side seemed to say, nor is this child. Boromir smiled, and felt that joy kindle up again in every hidden corner of his soul.

Let the future bring what it would, and the past remain where they had left it.

For now he was content.

To keep from ending

The story does everything it can,

Careful not to overvalue

Perfection or undervalue

Perfect chance,

As I am careful not to do in telling.

By now a lot has happened:

Bridges under the water,

No time outs,

Sinewy voices from under the earth

Braiding and going straight up

In a faint line.

I modify to simplify,

Complicate to clarify.

If you want to know your faults, marry.

If you want to know your virtues, die.

Then the heroine,

Who resembles you in certain particulars,

Precipitates the suicide

Of the author, wretchedly obscure,

Of that slim but turgid volume,

By letting slip:

Real events don't have endings,

Only the stories about them do.

-The Story Of The End Of The Story, James Galvin

This, I think, is where I leave you.

There is so much more of this story to tell. You haven't met the little Hadradrim Firat and his brother the Cyr of the Red Deserts, or Serawen and Hirluin's son Gelinion, or gotten a chance to see Éomer clumsily charm Lothíriel, or congratulate Erun and Merethel on their engagement (finally!). You haven't met Rhoswen and Boromir's children, or watched them build Osgiliath back into the Citadel of Stars.

Perhaps one day I will finish writing all of these things. But not, I think, in the space of this story. Several chapters ago, when I was (once more) bemoaning having to drag myself out of bed to write, someone said that, since Boromir had returned to Gondor, the story should end. I took issue with that, since the whole point of the story wasn't merely to have Boromir survive, but to have him live, and, because I liked the idea too much to let it go, to let him have a child. (The idea of the big, strong warrior with a tiny baby in his arms still enchants me.)

Having given Boromir his happy ending (for the second time) I think this is where I leave you.

It has been a long road. In the time it has taken me to finish this story, my characters also attended the marriage of Caspian the 10th, witnessed the fall of Jerusalem, lived through the Great War (twice) and remembered the fall of Erebor. All of those women (they have all been women) have taught me a lot about the person I am, and the person I want to be. I've visited another country, gotten a bachelor's degree, and watched a lot of seasons change. Yes, there have been many, many asides to this story, and I have enjoyed them all. But I've always come back to this one. "Rose" has been like a security blanket, in many ways, a reminder on bad days that some of you out in this wide world think I am good at something.

Seven years is far too short a time to dwell among such excellent and admirable readers, but I think my ship needs to turn into other currents now.

For your support, your admiration, your praise and, of course, for loving Rhoswen and all her friends as much as I do, thank you.