It was true, Eomer was young, it was false to assume he was a fool, or that he would take the kind of insults that Wedia was flinging in his direction without feeling any need to remind the woman of just whom she was speaking too. “Enough woman.” He stated when she’d finally finished talking, “I am king of Rohan, I do as I see is best for my people, and you dare insult those poor mites, that have no families to take care of them. A little girl, who was but the age of Lothiriel when first she came here, living in the wilderness keeping the others alive, is not Madam a whelp, nor even if it were true a bastard which I take it you are implying?” He stopped only for a few brief moments as his normally warm and if not warm at least respect filled eyes when they looked at this matronly woman, were full of disgust as he gazed at her.
“I madam, was out doing what any king should do, when his land has just over came a war, and you, if you have the mind of scullery maid, are not exactly the best of attendants for a Queen. If you love her as you so claim, the least you could have done, was to have asked me to hold consul with you in a far more private a place. The middle of the greeting hall is not such a place. Now if you please, I have a babe in my arms and a Queen, who is apparently ill.”
He coldly nodded his head and walked past the elderly woman, acting as if she were nothing but scum, and at that moment, Eomer truly believed she was. His mind was running over all the other matters she had mentioned, so he turned to Deorwine, “I should see what the old fools have been telling my Lothie before I go seek her out, go gather them and have them meet me in the war room.”
As Eomer made his way towards the area he had just suggested, he pondered over the change in Wedia, he had always believed the woman to be good and honest, to not have such filthy vile thoughts in her head. To call tiny children who had braved the elements and fought to stay alive such names, it shock him and made him re-evaluate his opinion of her. He did not however have very long to think about her when in came the elders. They would not make eye contact and they kept putting on the ‘we are but old men’ type attitudes.
The refuted everything that Wedia had accused them of, claiming that her own people were the ones to be causing mischief and gossip. Eomer listened to them, he heard lies in among the truth, but as it was so intermingled it was hard to tell which was which. He lifted his hand to shut them all up, and peered at the only one he truly knew and one who at least in Eomer’s eyes he knew for a fact had been a good man, for he had been among the eldest of Theoden’s guard when first he himself took up the sword and rode Firefoot out to ride the boundaries.
“You.” He said with an angered sounding voice, just enough anger, and yet enough respect to make the whole lot of them shut up and work out to whom he was exactly speaking. “If the Dol Amroth ambassadors, have been telling my Queen lies, what possible gain would they have, what would their profit be in having the Queen leave Rohan?” His clear blue eyes falling on one and one alone, only at that moment Wedia was at the door, Deorwine was keeping her out, but Eomer looked over and said, “let her in Deorwine.”
Standing he looked at the gathered old men, “you are dismissed, but I shall be seeking you out later for answers to the questions I have put to you.”