I

Minas Tirith had never, I think, beheld anything quite like our wedding. These ceremonies, between the noble houses of Gondor at least, are most often orderly affairs, with careful attention to legal formalities and the elegance of the language of the vows, which has even, I believe, become somewhat a source of rivalry between certain families. Moreover, as the generations passed and Gondor waned, marriage acquired something of an air of solemnity, as if to impress upon the couple the heavy responsibility they bore in maintaining the bloodlines of Númenor.

But the wedding of the Steward of Gondor and the White Lady of Rohan was much less sedate. From the moment the entourage of King Éomer arrived in Minas Tirith, a week before the event was due to take place, the city acquired an air of celebration the like of which I could not recall ever seeing before. It was naught so grand, of course, as the mood that had surrounded the marriage of the King and Queen the previous summer, but it did seem that the people of Minas Tirith were treating our wedding as if it were taking place between members of their own families. As I went about my business in the city, I was stopped seemingly at every corner by men who wanted to give me their wishes for happiness (gratefully accepted), women who wanted to know about my bride's dress (I knew nothing), and all those who wanted to give such advice, comment and opinion which, it seemed, they believed it was their duty to offer (politely heard). After three or four days of such attention, I retired completely to the Steward's house on the seventh level. Indeed, I hid.

The morning of the wedding itself was bright and warm, a flawless day in the middle of August, but it found me downcast, since I had fallen to thinking how these events in both Rohan and Gondor were customarily family occasions, and I felt keenly my own lack in this respect. I would have been glad even of the presence of my father, although the thought of what he would have said of the disorder that had been brought to the city on my account was enough to make my heart quail. But I missed my brother most acutely, since I knew the delight he would have taken in the whole event, in particular my own discomfort at all the attention.

Thus my uncle found me, late morning, standing with arms folded before the large window in my study in the Steward's house; and I was frowning as I looked upon the sunlight which shone down upon my green gardens and gleamed off the White Tower beyond the wall.

'You have the air of a hunted man,' he said by way greeting.

I gave him a small smile.

He came to stand by me. 'It is a glorious day,' he said, 'and likely to become even more lovely. But seeing your face I think, perhaps, that your mind is less upon the woman who is to be your wife and more with those who will not be here today.'

'You have ever read me too easily!' I answered. 'But I cannot help but wonder how they would be on this day.'

'Your father would be insupportable and your brother would be drunk,' he said bluntly, and I ran my hand through my hair and laughed. 'Now stop brooding, I beg you, and be happy for once!' he commanded, laughing in his turn.

'How was my lady this morning?' I then asked, for it is the custom in Gondor, on the morning of a wedding, for the groom's father to deliver to the bride a gift to welcome her to her new family. Since I had no father living, it had fallen to my uncle to perform this duty for me; and, indeed, upon reflection, I found I could not imagine my father carrying out this task for me and was glad that it had come instead to my uncle. I wondered now whether this, as much as war, was part of what had prevented me even thinking about marrying before; I also knew that had my father lived, I would not have been marrying the woman of my own choosing, but whomsoever he had instructed me to wed. Perhaps it would still have suited our alliances for the heir of the Steward of Gondor to marry the sister of the King of Rohan, but my father would, I think, have preferred and chosen for me a Númenorean wife.

'She was very lovely, very happy, and very nervous,' my uncle replied. 'At least one of which applies to you also, I see,' he added, glancing down; for, as had seemed to become my custom when anxious, I was twisting the silver ring of my stewardship which I bore on the smallest finger of my left hand.

I put the hand behind my back. 'And did she look favourably upon the gift?' I had chosen for her, from out of my mother's possessions and which had been passed down the female line of her family for many generations, a blue gem in a silver setting shaped like a swan, upon a silver chain. And it pleased me very much to have given Éowyn something which belonged to my mother and which bore with it a connection to Dol Amroth, and even more it pleased me that my uncle had been the one to deliver it to her. For, while nothing was of greater consequence to me than my role as steward and head - and sole surviving member - of the line of Mardil, yet it was into my living family that I wished most to welcome Éowyn and by them have her loved as much as I loved her.

'She thought it very beautiful, and when I told her whence it came she thought it more so.'

'I am very glad,' I said softly, and chewed absently at the thumb of my right hand.

He reached up and drew my hand away. 'Come and eat something,' he said. 'We have some hours yet.'

'Indeed, uncle, I hardly feel like eating - '

'Maybe not, but it might at least stop you fidgeting and thereby make you less maddening to watch.' He smiled upon me once again; and, before we turned to go as he had suggested, I clasped his arm, and he took mine, and I thanked him for all of his many kindnesses to me, in which throughout my life he had been better than a father.

Four hours after noon, we left the house and went down into the court of the fountain where the marriage was to take place, before the White Tree; and the sunlight caught on its silver leaves. Already gathered there, stretching back from the Tree along the keel, were many of the folk of Gondor and the Mark, and from many other realms; for, whatever I may have preferred, this was unavoidably an event of diplomatic significance. I looked upon all those gathered there with dismay. And I seemed to have stopped moving, for my uncle gently nudged me forwards until at last we came to the White Tree. Two tables had been laid out there, covered in white cloths, and each bearing a sword and a gold ring. We stopped beside the one on the right hand side, the whole assembly behind us, looking on, and I could hear their murmuring.

The King was already there and greeted me with a slight frown. 'Are you quite well?' he asked with quiet concern, and when my uncle started laughing under his breath, the King caught his eye and a smile spread across his face.

'Mm,' I answered thoughtfully, staring at the ground, unwilling not to answer the King, but unsure of my voice.

'Look,' he said softly in reply, and I raised my head and saw that coming towards us, from the White Tower, walking with her hand upon her brother's arm, was Éowyn; and, once I had seen her, all my worries were driven from my mind.

I heard behind me a few murmurs from the ladies of Minas Tirith, for my bride was not wearing white, as was the custom in Gondor, but had instead chosen to wear midnight blue, and it was edged and embroidered with silver thread, and I knew that she wore these colours because so she had been clad when we had stood by the walls in the Houses of Healing, and the shadow had departed, and we had clasped hands for the first time. And about her neck she wore my gift to her, the swan pendant of my mother's, and her hair was bound back from her face but hung long and loose down her back, and it shone in the sunlight. And she was more beautiful than I had ever seen her; even more so than the first time I beheld her, because now she was not sorrowing or sad, but radiant and smiling as I had most desired to see her.

The King greeted us both and all our guests; and first we paid attention to the customs of Rohan; and this meant I gave to her my sword, for her to hold in safe-keeping for our sons. My uncle passed it to me and I held it by the hilt and offered it to her, saying, 'Ic giefe þé þis ecg. Geheald hit swā þæt úre bearnas hæbben and befæsten hit.' She smiled merrily, and I knew I would suffer later for my accent. But she took the sword and looked upon it; and it was the sword with which I had for years protected Ithilien, and then used in the defence of Minas Tirith. And she looked at me with great love, before passing it to her brother until the ceremony was over.