Chapter Text
Hilde was awoken in an instant, much as she nearly always did in the middle of the night with a frantic banging on the flimsy wooden door to the small hut she called home pounding angrily in her ears.
As she slid from the warmth of her coverlet, the cool night air and dirt flooring chilling her bare feet, a sliver of fear knotted her stomach at the lack of light outside.
Most usually the person, or sometimes person’s, in need of her aid would have some form of torch or lantern with them; something to guide them in the shadowed night, but from the slivers of the night sky she could see through the oiled canvases covering the windows, there was nothing more than the stars and the feint shine of a half-moon to guide the owner of a very firm hand.
Tossing on a coverlet over her nightgown and seaming it up at the sides as she slid on a pair of leather shoes to race towards the door, Hilde unlatched the wooden bar across the frame and peered outside.
She was unafraid of harm to herself, she knew her way well enough around a knife and needle if it came to defending her honor, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t wary all the same.
Danr, the son of the eastward blacksmith along the opposite end of the city where her hut lay, and one of Eomer’s faithful guards, a guard that was still most certainly banished along with the rest of Eomer’s men, nearly filled the doorway with his tall frame.
He was nervous and shifty eyed even when he was completely calm, but his predicament now made the ticking of one eye stand out horridly sore.
She glanced around him, fear making her movements jagged, praying that no lights were coming to investigate the noise; he’d be dead before morning if he was caught, and Hilde didn’t doubt that Grima would kill the poor boy himself if he knew.
“What are you…” Hilde trailed off to see behind Danr, laying on top of his horse, was a man as limp as if dead.
Clearly that wasn’t the case though or Danr wouldn’t have risked his hide in bringing him to her.
Even in the darkness she could see the gleam of sweat upon the man’s brow, the way his back rose and fell with his breath in labored movements, and that his tunic wasn’t of rohirum make.
All this she took in in an instant.
Without a word, she slipped outside and checked the man’s pulse, it was erratic and weak but at least it was still there.
“Take him inside and lay him on the cot,” She ordered hastily, hardly daring to breath as she realized the severity of the situation had grown even greater, “Move as quietly as possible, then leave.”
Danr stared at her open mouthed as if he wished to say something, but she was already moving past him into her hut to prepare the cot for the ill man.
Hilde made quick work of pulling the thick curtains over what few windows she had and tying them shut, it wouldn’t do any good if the night watchmen saw her hut alight in the middle of the night without having processed the entrance of someone into the city at this late hour.
By the time Hilde had finished her task and started up sparks of a small fire in the hearth, Danr had carried the unconscious man inside and as he questioned her softly, she pointed towards the cot in the corner of the room.
At last, as the fire roared to life, she moved away and grabbed a low standing stool, a bowl, and the slender pitcher her brother had given her
Hilde moved towards the side of the cot as Danr gave her room to examine the man.
Blood covered the front of his tunic. She ripped open the elegant, richly stitched, fabric without mercy to how long it must have taken to make with hasty but precise movements.
Underneath the tunic lay a sheath of chainmail, strong, heavy, and linked with skill, and it took them both to remove it.
Once that was set aside, she took to examining the man’s bare torso, thankfully for her he didn’t seem to possess any injuries below the navel, though his pants were just as grimy as the rest of him.
Danr spoke softly as she ran her hands over the unconscious man’s face, looking for any sign of further injury and checking his eyes, “He took many arrows to the chest, a possible broken arm, and he’s lost a lot of blood. I tried giving him some water, but he won’t take to it.” As he talked, she made a soft noise in the back of her throat. Two arrows wounds, mildly deep and hastily bandaged, both crusted over with the beginnings of an infection, set near his upper left chest; and yet as she looked she saw more to his pain, a deep gash, inflicted by Eru knows what, lined his side and his left arm; and yet again as she gently rolled him over, she saw another gash like that of arrow that had almost missed scraping over his ribs, it was unlikely he didn’t possess a broken rib or two at that.
His dark hair was matted near the temple with blood, an indication of a head wound, and his left shoulder was protruding awkwardly; the skin around the socket already mottled with bruises as dark as the circles underneath his eyes.
She pointed to his shoulder, outlining the awkward angle, “That is no broken arm, he has dislocated it.”
Danr could tell form the tone of the healer’s voice he was needed, so he pushed back hair and said in a meek voice, “What do you need from me?”
Hilde moved towards the man’s head, “Just hold him down as best you can and stick this in his mouth…let us pray he does not cry out.” She handed the boy a rag she’d been winding up in her hands and he stuffed it into the man’s mouth, then pinned him in place by putting one hand against the man’s hip and the other on his right shoulder.
Hilde grasped the injured arm, moving around the side of the cot, then pausing a moment for strength both mentally and physically, she tugged the man’s arm slowly but with strength.
Almost immediately there was a loud popping sound and she saw the shoulder fall back into place.
Surprisingly the injured man didn’t cry out, he merely gave off a low groan in the back of his throat, but he was either in too much pain from the arrow wounds or too weak to react.
Neither was a good sign.
Danr moved away from the cot, watching as Hilde gently removed the cloth from the man’s mouth and tossed it to the side, taking a new one from her apron pocket to dip into the bowl of water sitting atop the stool near her.
“We found him and his group near the edge of fangorn…”
Hilde’s head whipped around, her hazel eyes alight like fire, “Silence! I need not know any details of who he is or what he was doing. Grima will find out sooner or later that a mysterious man appeared in my hut in the middle of the night, and the less I know of his true nature the better. Go, Danr, before the watchman comes back. I do not think I could bare it if you were found out.”
Danr gave her a sad look, but he backed towards the door, “Be safe, Hilde. This man does not hail from our land.”
Hilde glanced down towards the injured man, for the first time taking in his looks, his hair dark and thick, and his skin underneath the sheen of sickness was likely still lighter than her own tanned skin.
His chest and arms showed strength in them, a well-trained physique, not an archer by any means, likely a warrior of blade, and his brow showed a certain determination that came with a strong-willed man.
Through all this though, his breath was labored, skin clammy and cold to the touch, with sweat peppering his strong brow, and she looked back to Danr with a weary expression, “I will be well taking care of him alone. Be off, Danr. May fate be with you.”
“And you, my lady.” Danr closed the door gently behind him and she heard him leading his steed away as quietly as possible, she prayed he’d be able to leave the city as he entered, without notice, and turned back to her patient.
Danr d risked life and limb bringing him back, and for that alone she wished him all the luck she had left to give.
Hilde worked throughout the night, and that night felt like an eternity.
In random intervals, as she used what skill and knowledge she had in the way of herbs to treat the man’s wounds and fever, he would nearly come to consciousness. Numerous times that night she was forced to rush to his side to keep him from crying out names she didn’t know or cries of agony she couldn’t understand, and once he would’ve leapt from the cot if not for the severity of his wounds.
It was a constant battle that she fought as bravely as she could, and yet most of the fighting was done on his part.
She could tell even though his pain filled haze that this man was a warrior at heart, even with a fever raging through him so high she could feel it with her hand inches away from his skin, he struggled to overcome the severity of his wounds.
She was simply there to guide him through.
At last, just as the light peaking from underneath the curtains over the windows was changing from a dull grey to a hazy blue, the sound of voices woke Hilde from a fitful doze.
She grimaced as she stretched her legs out from their spot curled to her chest, and half glanced behind her to see the injured man sleeping almost peacefully.
He’d made it through the night.
Hilde would’ve smiled at this if she hadn’t recognized the tone of the voices nearing her door.
Her heart leapt to her throat to see the tunic and chainmail still laying near the cot, in the open air, and with clear indication that this man was not of Rohan.
With the speed of a mare spooked easily, Hilde leapt up and grabbed the bloodied tunic, tossing it into the fire and shoved a few logs overtop before racing towards the chainmail and pushing it as far back underneath the cot as possible.
Her efforts to conceal it left it half visible, so she whipped her bloodied apron off and tossed it over top.
As she did this, she managed to pin the length of her braid to the back of her head and tug the long curtain on one side of the room across the way for the illusion of giving the man privacy.
All this she accomplished in only a few moments, and the result left her breathless and flushed as the door was unceremoniously opened with enough force to have the front half of her hut shaking, and then there was Grima’s favorite swarthy bloated guard standing before her.
He looked her over like a butcher readying himself to cut the best section of meat off a pig, and then stepped to the side to let Grima waltz in.
Hilde refrained from wrinkling her nose at the smell that always lingered around the man, she would’ve wondered if he was still as sickly as the last time she saw him, but the smell was enough to confirm her suspicion.
She caught his gaze and felt all the indignation the man possessed baring down on her, something told her she wasn’t looking her best at the moment, but Hilde didn’t care that her hair was falling from her braids, her smock was covered with blood where her apron had failed her, her hands were raw from pounding herbs all night, and the dark circles underneath her eyes were likely more shadowed then the dark land itself; the elation of having her patient survive the night was enough to make her feel ready to take on a battalion of wild men alone.
“Grima,” She smiled, more baring her teeth than showing them pleasantly, “how nice of you to visit, are you in need of another salve for that special place on your…” her words were cut short by a snarl, and she held back another smile as the guard behind him hid a clear snicker by coughing suddenly.
“Where is the outsider?” His voice was like ice.
“My patient is sleeping.” Hilde replied smoothly, not alluding to his questions of ‘outsiders’, and Grima put on a different sort of sneer.
“Where does he hail from? Why didn’t you alert the watchmen last night?”
She bided her time by repining the braid beginning to fall from the wooden needle she had woven into her hair, and cleared her throat, “He is a hunter. He, and his group, were overtaken by a band of…bandits.” She stumbled for a moment in her blatant lie but picked up right back off without a hitch, “They were trailing a hunt at the edge of palinor fields, near fangorn. I was told he fought for his men’s lives most bravely before he was wounded. His group left him with me in the dead of night and then went to hunt down the rest of the wild men who had attacked them.”
Grima’s stare became all the more uncomfortable the longer he held her gaze, and he held it as long as possible before humming low, “They did not tell you where they hailed from?”
Hilde shook her head slowly, “No, my lord. They had not the time to answer should I have asked.”
His dark eyes light with deadly gleam, “Then how do you know he does not belong to this supposed band of wild men? Let me see for myself, the king would never entertain such filth in his halls.”
Like lightning he moved towards the curtain, but Hilde had foreseen this, and she was faster.
She stood firm, like a dragon guarding her treasure, though her hands were clenched and shaking, and glared at him, “If he was a wildman, would I not have called the night guard? You know I would have never dared treat one of those…monsters.”
“I am not so certain of that.” Grima’s eyes darted across her figure, taking her in like a drink of water, and Hilde’s gaze darkened.
“You know where I hail from, you know how they treated my father, I would rather die than treat a barbarian from the north.”
He was silent, his guard’s expression in a snarl of attempted intimidation, then at last with a sigh Grima stepped back, “Very well, but the moment he comes to, I wish to speak with him.”
“Of course, my lord.” Hilde sneered right back, though bowing low as he stepped towards the door, but as he passed the threshold he paused and looked back to her, “You might as well be informed now rather hearing it through the gossip at the market place. The king’s son is dead, he passed last night in his sleep.” Grima’s expression shifted to a look of near amusement as her eyes widened and her face paled, “I would have called for you in the night if the watchmen had not seen you working. Perhaps if you’d been more inclined to help your own kind, he….ah, never mind, there is nothing more to be done.”
As he left, and the guard slammed the door shut, the front of the hut shaking like her knees, Hilde collapsed to the floor.
A plume of dust met her fall, and she buried her face in her hands.
She did not cry, she shook; shook with anger and pain and exhaustion.
Theodred.
Dead.
Not him.
Not him who was so full of life.
So full of hope.
Her friend, her prince, the one who would one day have been her king.
Hilde was broken out of her own anguish from the sound of audible pain coming off someone else and she flew towards the curtain, pushing it aside to step past and she found herself staring into the most unusual pair of eyes she’d ever seen.
They were as dark as steel but flecked with colors like that of a storm cloud about to break. They were so unlike the eyes of the rohimirm, and so shockingly bold, she knew immediately where this main hailed from.
Her mother had once told her stories of the men from Gondor, her travels had taken her far across their lands when she’d been younger and she’d told of how those of strong blood and keen minds held eyes like silver stars, and how even the least of their kind was honorable to the end.
Hilde stared into his eyes until his expression shifted to one of pain and he half fell back against the cot.
She quickly moved towards him, her voice breathless and laced with a pain of her own that ran far deeper than any wounds, but still in awe that this injured man was strong enough to sit up on his own, “Please, stay still. You have been gravely injured.”
She quickly moved forward as he tried again to move, and the result was her practically shoving him back onto the cot as she realized he was intolerably stubborn.
Her mother had failed to mention that in her stories.
Hilde was well versed at playing the stubborn game though, so after a few moments of a good hard stare the injured man got the notion and laid back with a wince.
She stood slow, keeping eye contact with him, and with careful movements gathered a fresh bowl of water and a pile of clean cloth.
Sitting back down beside the cot she poured the water, sprinkling in a few crushed herbs she’d made a few minutes before she’d dozed off and Grima had come storming in.
Hilde began tearing the cloth in her lap into thin strips, ignoring the man whole hardly for a moment to compose her thoughts.
His slightly labored breathing filled the silence, and she felt him studying her.
“How do you feel?” She questioned him softly as she worked, realizing at last he wasn’t about to fall back into a stupor, and she was met with an intelligent answer.
“Horrid.”
“Then I have done my job well.” The joke was partially on his expense, and she was betting on it, but her bet won over and she watched from the corner of her eye his expression lighten just a bit.
He never smiled, but the air of sickening doom seemed to lift for a brief moment.
“Where am I?” His words were soft and filled with distraught, and she started at the tone them.
“Forgive me, I should have told you when you first woke. I am Hilde, a healer in this land and you are in Edoras, the city of the golden hall. It is the middle of the week and the sun has just begun to rise, you have spent most of the night fighting a fever but it has thankfully broken now.”
“Rohan,” The man murmured, his gaze turning distant as his eyes trailed the weather beaten wooden slats that made up the roof, then he looked back to her, “I heard you speaking with the guard, why did you not tell him where I was from?”
Hilde took a moment to responded, moving around the hut with a quiet calm as she tore more strips of cloth and dipped them in the herbed water, “Because I do not know. I forbid Dadin, the man who brought you here, from telling me in order to protect you. Grima, the, ah, current ward of the city, does not take well to those he does not know in Edoras…If you are someone other than a Rohirmim then you would best be dead in his sight.”
Thankfully for her the man got the hint and refrained from telling his story.
He was quiet for so long she thought he must have fallen back asleep, but when she looked to him, she saw him staring at her with those star-like eyes of his, “At least let me tell you my name. I am in your debt, Lady Hilde.”
“Debts to not matter to a healer, and neither do names.” She smiled almost sadly and inched her chair closer, leaning over him to gently lift the bandages covering his wounds.
As she worked, she could tell he was fighting back moans of pain, like most of her patients did, but she could also tell that sleep was calling him again.
This time she did not fear letting him succumb to sleeps embrace for she knew it would be a sweet one now that his fever had finally broken.
As she moved from one wound to another, she saw from the corner of her eyes his gaze settle on her face intently, then he softly whispered, “Boromir.”
Hilde paused in her work to study his face, and they shared a look.
“Sleep well then, Boromir. When you wake, all will be well.”
She thought she saw a smile lift the corner of his mouth, but perhaps that was just her imagination, and as he at last let himself fade she continued her work as gently as possible.