A small but insistent ache by Quente  

There was one other Peredhel who was not male, Arwen pondered, holding her stomach and gazing out the window of her bower. Her room was high on a city-facing side of her citadel, and she was looking out over a fair view of Gondor in the spring. It was a beautiful city of Men on a fine early afternoon, but Arwen’s thoughts were bleak.

Estel had departed not a week past for a campaign with Faramir, to rout orcs out of the western slopes of the Ephel Duath, but Éowyn had not joined them.

Éowyn was at the Houses of Healing even now, assisting with whatever matters might arise from those injured in the battles of the past year, and continuing her apprenticeship with the healers. Arwen had been left to rule the city, which had until this noontide occupied much of her time. But at that very moment she was suffering from an ache in her lower belly that surely was not the result of lunch.

Could it be – that she had lost a child?

That morning, she had begun her monthly courses. Those had started for the first time not long after her marriage, something her father had not thought to prepare her for, but which the good Ioreth had informed her was the ordinary lot of the daughters of Men. (“Please don’t change your mind,” Aragorn had begged, upon learning of her difficulty.)

The days of bleeding were sporadic still – her body was adjusting to the changes brought by mortality. Arwen wished for her father, then, to come and advise her – but he was busy with closing Rivendell for his long departure. Had Elros also been subject to strange aches and pains once he allowed the swift healing and agelessness of the Elvish race to pass from him?

And yet. There was something that felt particularly female about this pain; surely it was related to her menstruation. Arwen glanced down at the book of history in front of her, on a chapter discussing Elwing – but of course, historians such as Pengolodh would never record a detail about such a private matter. Perhaps she’d do better with a medical tome; Éowyn could assist in pointing her to the place where the medical texts were kept in the Houses of Healing. Or perhaps Éowyn herself might have insight into this issue.

Resolved, Arwen called her Senechal and reordered her afternoon’s schedule. “I am going to the Houses of Healing to consult upon a matter,” she said. And then, seeing the alarm rising in Arandur’s expression, she hastened to add, “It is a – a woman’s concern.”

“Ah.” Arandur’s expression changed, and his lined face turned almost gentle as he regarded her. “I will do as you say, my queen.”

Turning, Arandur called for the queen’s guard to escort her, and went to cancel the afternoon’s audiences.

~

Arwen donned the warm robe that her grandmother had made her, soft and green as the grass on Cerin Amroth – more for comfort that the need to protect her from the cold. Surrounded by her guard, she turned toward the long steps that were the shortcut between the gates. The sound of hammer and saw rang around her – much was still in the middle of repair, even in the upper circles of her city.

The afternoon of early spring was cool still, and walking eased the soreness of her stomach.

If only Elwing had written a journal, Arwen thought, sighing as she rubbed her belly beneath a fold of cloak. But of course Elwing had chosen other than Arwen, and perhaps had never suffered such a thing as this. And perhaps life had been too grim for Elwing to pause and ponder her own body’s humanity – although Elros had written cheerfully enough to her father about every latest wrinkle and fold.

Aging was strange. A woman’s body was even stranger. Arwen was not vain; she’d had centuries to hear all that Men and Elves might say about her appearance, and thought about losing it all with as much relief as trepidation. But pain – she did fear pain that came from nothing but her own body and its strange weaknesses.

But had she lost a child?

Arwen left her guard at the entrance to the houses, taking only one guardsman with her, and asked after Éowyn. She was soon directed to the stillroom, where Éowyn was reaching up to hang a bundle of herbs to a long beam that ran low above a large central table. The smell was thick and riotous but comforting – mint and chamomile, Athelas, pungent turmeric from the southern traders.

“Arwen,” Éowyn said, smiling. “I thought you were occupied by work at your Court of the White Tree, this day?” Arwen’s court was ordinarily held outside so that the lovely young sapling could keep her company as she helped order and lead the city and household.

Arwen and Éowyn had long since banished any shyness or hesitance between them, as often as they were together, and Éowyn was swiftly growing out of her youth and into the hard-won wisdom of Men.

“I am indisposed and could not suffer audiences, I fear. I hesitate to disturb your work,” Arwen said, “but I am in need of your council.”

“Ah?” Éowyn’s expression changed to concern, and she moved closer.

Arwen dismissed her guardsman to stand outside of the door.

“My courses are upon me, and my stomach aches. I fear it is some illness of – of miscarriage, perhaps, for the pain is low and fierce.”

Éowyn nodded, her face grave, “That is always a fear, but it is also true that pain often comes with courses, whether there was a child or not. We usually treat it with hot poultices of a certain root, the ginger root. Would you like one? I can prepare it.”

“Please,” Arwen said, and took herself out of the way to a window seat to watch as Éowyn created the poultice.

The ginger root she used was gnarled and fat, and the scent of it skinned was clean.

“Do you use it too?” Arwen asked.

“Ah – the amount that I ride horses has caused my own courses to be light,” Éowyn said. “But many of the ladies in Edoras suffer thus, and so I was often asked to aid in creating these.”

Once Éowyn skinned the ginger, she sliced it and put it into a mortar along with hot water dipped from the pot on the hearth. Then she pounded it, the spicy smell cutting through all the other herbs. The scent did not uplift the heart the way athelas did, but it was still pleasant and cleansing.

“I fear…” Éowyn sighed. “My own fear is that because my courses are light, and sometimes come not at all, that it will be some years before I have a child. And in this age, I would prefer that we did not wait. My lord is in his third decade, and out on campaign often with the king. I fear – that he will leave nothing behind.”

Arwen met Éowyn’s eyes, sharing her commiseration. “Have you ever wondered why Elves do not have many children?”

“No,” said Éowyn, “although now that you speak of it…” She fetched linen from a chest and unfolded a square of it next to the pestle.

“Elves will only have children in times of peace,” Arwen said, “And those times, I have not seen these last thousand years or so.”

Éowyn blinked, and then laughed. “You are so fair of face, my queen, that I had forgotten that the span of your life is beyond the line of Eöl in entirety. But I divine your thought, that Men and Elves have different customs about times of war. For Men…death is the first step into a vast darkness, impenetrable. The warriors go to the Halls where they feast beside their fathers, it is said, although none know for certain. But what of everyone else? Our sight is set within the limits of our lifespan, and not into that which happens afterwards.”

Éowyn spooned the pulp onto the fabric and folded it securely into a square, which she placed on the hearthstone to warm.

“As mine should be,” Arwen said slowly, turning the thought over in her head. Men had children in times of war, for the warriors might not return. And all Men would someday not return, for they were not bound to Arda as Elves were…her thoughts falling swiftly into sorrow, she put her hands over her face. “Oh Éowyn, it is so hard.”

Éowyn went to her then, and sat beside her, looping an arm around her shoulder to pull her close.

“Grandmother Arwen,” Éowyn said, “The women of Edoras would say that it is ordinary to think of great and deep matters during one’s courses, and to feel sorrow as a result. The antidote is to wear this poultice, rest, and listen to harpists sing of joyful things. Have you heard the Lay of Arwen and Aragorn? For that is a love story that would surely bring you joy.”

Arwen laughed at Éowyn’s teasing. “If you may lend me a place to lie, I will rest with the poultice upon my stomach, and let my mind dwell in a pleasant memory or two from my own – better – version of that song. You are right – if the fate of Man is inevitable, it is not my own task to change it, but to labor and enjoy what I may of these years.”

“The days of the Queen,” Éowyn said solemnly, smiling. “And they are blessed indeed.”

~

Arwen lay and let the heat of the ginger-poultice sink into her stomach, while her mind walked in happy memory. She thought of the songs of the great Eagles when they cried news of the fall of Sauron; thought about long afternoons of embroidering Estel’s standard at Imladris with Bilbo reading to her from old books; thought about the first moment she saw Aragorn in all the brashness of his one-score of years, adorned like a prince in the birch groves of her father’s land.

The pain eased, and her heart lightened.

And then a moment of insight fell upon her, so deep and sudden and visceral that it shocked her into laughter.

Éowyn appeared in the doorway of her room. “Are you well? What is it?”

“I will not long suffer these pains,” Arwen said, smiling, her mind full of the memory of the weight in her arms – a babe, born not long after her body fully adjusted to all of its changes.

“That is well,” Éowyn said warmly, coming to sit beside her on the bed, touching her arm. “I rejoice to hear of it. But until then, I will make up poultices enough to last a while. Has it helped?”

“I am much improved,” Arwen said. “Although once we step out of the bounds of this world, I have some words for our creator. This seems unnecessary!”

“You and the rest of us,” Éowyn agreed. “Now rest, get used to your body’s ebbs and flows. I’ll inform your guard that you are improving, so that they may stop pacing holes into the flagstones.”

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