We cannot fashion our children after our desires,

we must have them and love them as God has given them to us.

(Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 1749 –1832)

Amrothos of Dol Amroth gazed down at the three young Princes of Rohan, hoping that he looked authoritative enough to make an impression on the infernal triplet. The problem with any offspring the King of Rohan and his wife, the former Princess of Dol Amroth, had produced so far was that the brats were too clever, too unpredictable and simply unflappable.

Not to mention that they were as thick as thieves. There was no point in ordering them to expose who had been the ringleader of their latest misconduct. It didn’t matter anyway. When it came to thinking up new mischief, they complemented each other extraordinarily well. Ælfwine, the eldest and heir to the House of Eorl – Amrothos truly commiserated with Rohan and its people – probably had decided that something needed to be done. Éomund, the next in line, would have come up with the plan and Hroðgar – although the youngest of the outrageous threesome – had  - in all likelihood - carried out whatever they felt had to be carried out.

Why, Amrothos asked himself silently, not expecting any deity to listen and certainly not to answer his question, why had it to be him? Why had he happened to be in Edoras whilst Rohan’s royal couple had gone away, having left behind their dear offspring? Not that he would blame his sister and her husband for abandoning their brood for a couple of sennights. Everybody needed a break now and then. Had he been blessed with this sort of proof of a passionate love, he would have run as far as he could from it, long ago. The way it looked, it was more likely that Lothíriel and Éomer would bestow additional little Rohirrim upon this world. Right now, Amrothos just counted himself lucky that apparently the nursemaids were still able to handle the two youngest of the lot - the two-year-old twins Forðred and Đéodwyn. Otherwise, some desperate member of the royal household might have expected him to deal with them as well.

He managed to stifle a resigned sigh - which could have been interpreted correctly as helplessness - and tried to stare his nephews down. His glare was met by three sets of eyes, their glares on a par with his. Hard to believe that these little rascals were only nine, eight and six years old. Sweet Elbereth, he hadn’t been a paragon of virtue at that age, but he hadn’t been actually dangerous either.

“Very well,” Amrothos said in his most imperative tone of voice. “What happened to Master Caevudor?”

Master Caevudor was a Gondorian tutor, supposed to teach the Princes of Rohan refined manners. In Amrothos’s humble opinion – for which nobody had bothered to ask - the man had been doomed to failure from the very beginning. But after they had filled their grandfather Imrahil’s water jug with frogspawn when he had been visiting the last time – Gondor’s mightiest vassal actually had taken a sip when he felt thirsty during the night - and then nailed his riding boots to the floor, even Lothíriel – who was slightly biased when it came to her children - had to admit that something needed to be done. That annoying habit of their letting their exploratory urges run free at the expense of others, could not continue. They would certainly not grow out of it by themselves.

How could anybody have acted on the assumption that some hapless scholar from Gondor would make an impression upon the next generation of the House of Eorl?

“What is wrong with Master Caevudor?” Hroðgar asked innocently, looking - without batting a lid of his large gold-and-green eyes - up at his uncle.

“You tell me,” Amrothos replied with poorly concealed impatience. “Mistress Ælfgyth informed me earlier this morning that your tutor spent the entire night with his head in a bucket, emptying his stomach of its contents, after having had taken his night meal in your company.” He didn’t specifically mention that the man was still throwing up, very much to the amazement of the healer. There shouldn’t be anything left inside him to regurgitate.

“Master Caevudor thinks it important that we take all our meals in his company so he can correct any misuse of the cutlery at once,” Éomund informed him – unnecessarily. His uncle knew that the tutor had set out to polish the young princes’ table manners. Not that that was really needed. They were able to produce the proper eating habits whenever they chose to . . . they just rarely did so – at least in their parents’ absence.

Amrothos turned his attention towards number two of the pack. It was downright ridiculous how much this boy looked like a small version of his father, culminating in a couple of cowlicks at the nape of his neck. Not that he had ever checked Éomer personally for such cowlicks, but Lothíriel had mentioned it once. On the other hand, Éomund’s phlegmatic nature reminded him very much of his brother by blood, Erchirion, who hardly ever lost his temper.

“And nothing out of the ordinary happened during that meal?” Of course, something had happened during that particular meal. Something always happened when the Princes were around. He just had to find out what exactly they had done to their tutor so that the healer could carry out the proper treatment.

“He complained that the Rohirric food does not agree with him and gives him a sore tummy,” Ælfwine stated, as usual a challenging tone underlying his voice.

He was a beautiful child, having inherited his mother’s fine bone structure and her large slanted eyes, their colour the clear silvery grey of the Dúnedain. He was blond, however, the colour of his hair having darkened over the last couple of years to that of an old gold coin. He was no doubt a Rohír through and through, and he was blessed with an explosive temper that was said to rival that of his late paternal grandfather, the legendary Chief Marshal of the Mark who had had charge of the east marches. When one did not see Ælfwine, one did certainly hear him – or at least one was able to hear where he was.

Very well, there was no point beating about the bush. These were Rohirrim, small Rohirrim, but Rohirrim none the less. If you wanted a straight answer, you had to ask a straight question.

“What did you feed him against his stomach aches?”

There was a short exchange of glances, appointing Éomund as their spokesman. “Marigold,” the boy declared laconically.

That had been too easy. Amrothos knew his nephews well enough and he had been the brother of a healer long enough to know that there was some important detail of information missing.

“Marigold . . . what?” he prompted.

Éomund sighed the sigh of a long-suffering man. “Oil,” he came out with the essential bit.

“Very well, I will go now and tell Master Goðhold, so he can treat your tutor. You will stay here and wait for me.” He had summoned the lot to their father’s study. “You will not move. You will not even lift a finger. You will not touch anything, you will not throw anything and you will not set fire to anything.” He just hoped that those directives covered everything that could come to their mind during his brief absence.

He found Goðhold the Healer awaiting him in the Great Hall.

“They smuggled marigold oil into one of his dishes after he complained that traditional Rohirric food causes him stomach problems.”

“Ah, that explains it.” The man nodded pensively. “The children simply made a mistake. They needed to have given him marigold tea. The oil is only for outer use.”

If there was something Amrothos was absolutely certain about, then it was that the dear children had made no mistake.

“Now I know how to treat Caevudor,” the healer went on. “And I can assure him that nobody has tried to poison him. He appeared slightly hysterical earlier,” he added, shaking his head at this ridiculous assumption.

Amrothos watched the man rushing back to his patient. Goðhold was one of the healers Lothíriel had selected, trained at first herself and then sent for a couple of years to Minas Tirith where he had completed his education at the Houses of Healing. He was a highly competent man. However, as the royal offspring – and the King – were usually treated by the Queen herself, Goðhold had never had to take up a close personal acquaintance with the three Princes of Rohan and therefore his leniency towards them was comprehensible. Their uncle, on the other hand, though quite certain that they hadn’t tried to cause deadly harm to their tutor – in that case they would have resorted to hemlock or some similar reliable poison – was equally certain that they had known perfectly well that marigold oil was not supposed to find its way inside a person.

The Prince of Dol Amroth paused outside the King of Rohan’s study, trying to overcome the antipathy he felt towards re-entering the room and confronting its current occupants again. It was not that he didn’t like his nephews. He liked them a lot – at least when he could act merely as an uninvolved – though amused - observer of their latest antics. Right now he would have preferred to be with own family. His children were perfectly harmless. But then, any child was, in comparison to his sister’s three sons, the embodiment of an innocent little lamb.

He had left his wife and two daughters a day’s journey back in Aldburg, entrusted to the care of his wife’s family. He had had to leave them there. Their eldest, Annereth, had refused with all the emphasis a six-year old had at her disposal to come near the Princes ever again. Her hair was just growing back after it had to be chopped off when her dear cousins had decided to find out what happened when one spread a thin layer of honey all over a pillow on which a little girl with a mass of curls was supposed to rest her head for the night.

Well, they could have had come up with something worse.

When Elphir had finally roused himself to pay his sister a visit last autumn – the first time since she had become Queen of Rohan – they had dusted the sheets of his bed with the ground up seeds of rosehips. Lothíriel had been very proud of them, because she believed that they had found out all on their own that the powder caused an awful itch. Elphir had spent the better part of two days in a bathtub, in water enriched with the juice of the jewelweed. And Amrothos had learnt from Hroðgar – that one still had to learn how to keep his mouth shut - that they had been told by Éomer about the properties of the rosehip seed and that their father had admitted to them having used it for his own pranks as a youngster.

Amrothos had his doubts that it had been by mere chance that the King of Rohan had acknowledged his childhood sins to his sons just when that particular brother-in-law of his was about to arrive in Edoras. Éomer knew his sons quite well, and therefore he must have known that the temptation to put what they had learnt into immediate action would be just too great for the princes. And that the uncle, whom they only knew from not always complimentary anecdotes, would be their most likely target.

No, it wasn’t beneath the great King of Rohan to avail himself of his sons.

Just when Amrothos was about to re-enter the King’s study – although he had no idea how to proceed with his poor attempts to discipline his nephews - a huge creature suddenly appeared in front of him. An uninitiated soul would only at a third glance – that was, if he hadn’t made a bolt for it at the first glance – have realized that it was a dog. The children’s dog. He looked like a black bear, had the size of a young bull, the temper of a wounded boar and was cleverer than a fox. The perfect pet for the Princes of Rohan.

And at the moment he smelt like rotten fish.

“Bah, Draca.” Amrothos pinched his nose. “What sludge have you wallowed in?”

The overgrown pet threw him a blasé glance, emphasizing his low regard for his masters’ uncle with an exaggerated yawn. Another cloud of foul air attacked Amrothos. He staggered backwards.

“Sweet Elbereth! Have you grown a scent gland?”

The dog grinned at him, showing off his imposing fangs. Somewhere down the line of his obscure ancestors there must have been a warg or two. No ordinary parents would have trusted a beast like this with their children.

Well, if there was anything Amrothos would be willing to affirm with absolute certainty, it was that his sister and her husband were far from being ordinary parents. They were loving and caring, no doubt, but their idea of a decent upbringing for their brood had to be considered as rather unique. As far as the prince knew, there was only one established rule and that said: blood and broken bones are to be avoided. It was not always quite clear if that rule included other people’s blood and bones or only those of the children.

As long as both or even one of their parents were around, one could live relatively carefree in the Golden Hall. The infernal threesome was - most of the time - at pains to earn the approval and respect of their father and they simply adored their mother. They tried their best not to give too much trouble their parents, who – in return - always allowed them points for effort alone. Although not even their mother could ignore the fact that they more often than not failed to give no trouble. Most mischief they got into, however, was looked upon by Lothíriel in terms of imaginative or resourceful. Éomer seemed to view his children in that they had caused his ladylove the discomfort of a pregnancy and the pain of birth – something he had to be counted, if not solely at least partly, responsible for - and therefore they had to be regarded as some kind of valuable gift to him from his wife.

And obviously Rohan’s King was determined not to look these gift horses too deeply in their mouths.

Whilst contemplating his chances of getting into the King’s study without the filthy, foul-smelling mongrel pushing his way through to his momentarily detained masters, Amrothos heard swift footsteps approaching. Slanting a glance over his shoulder, he saw Ælfgyth, the steadfast housekeeper of Meduseld, walking at her usual brisk pace across the great hall. She obviously had the intention of speaking to him once again and he had no chance of escape.

“My Lord Amrothos,” she addressed him.

Being wary of another domestic problem being foisted upon him, Amrothos made haste to forestall her, “Mistress Ælfgyth, I was able to squeeze the children for the vital clue. Master Goðhold has already set about treating Caevudor. He will survive.”

The housekeeper didn’t succeed in concealing a smile at his apprehensive tone. “I did not expect Master Caevudor to be in any danger of losing his life. The children are not heartless.”

“You mean they are not that cold blooded . . .  yet,” Amrothos rectified her remark.

“They are just little boys and they have plenty of energy to expend.”

In the past Amrothos had never noticed that the Rohirrim leaned towards extenuations. “Why is everybody around here so intent on excusing whatever those little hellions get up to? What is this? A conspiracy of the lenient and the blind?”

“Rohan is very proud of its princes.” Ælfgyth didn’t even blink.

“Rohan should be very cautious of its princes. One day one of them will rule here.”

“They are your nephews.”

“Excuse me.” The prince frowned at the housekeeper. “I absolutely refuse to be held responsible for that fact.”

“You are their ‘eam’, their mother’s brother. Therefore you are their legal guardian in their parents’ absence.”

“There are two more ‘eamas’,” he reminded her, knowing how weak that argument was.

“But you are the only one who is present.”

She’d got a point there.

“Which surprisingly proves that my brothers’ sense of self-preservation is much better developed than mine.”

Not entirely true. It mainly proved that Lothíriel’s and Éomer’s offspring hadn’t made a serious attempt yet to put him to rout as they had done with Elphir and Erchirion. It was highly in doubt that Elphir would consider another visit in the near future, meaning within the next two decades. Except – as he had demanded – if his sister’s sons were to be kept in kennels for such a period of time. He and Lothíriel had not parted on good terms.

And even Erchirion, who was blessed with a much greater sense of humour, preferred to keep his nephews at bay. After having fallen victim to one of their pranks last summer he had purchased a small house downhill from the Golden Hall where he and his family could dwell in relative security while visiting Edoras.

Just thinking about that particular incident made Amrothos snigger. They had manipulated the rope lacing of the four-poster in the bedchamber that Erchirion and his wife had occupied. The movements of certain marital activities that night had not only loosened the lacing so that the mattress had given way but – for good measure - the canopy had caved in and the occupants of the bed had become buried underneath the wooden frame and the opulent folds of the curtains. It hadn’t helped that Éomer – summoned to the chamber by the commotion – hadn’t been able to stay on his feet and had sank down to the floor, his back against the wall, shaken by laughter. One could hardly fault him for that. The sight of Erchirion, desperately trying to cover his and his wife’s nudity and at the same time trying to clear away the debris had made himself, Amrothos, laugh at least as hard as Rohan’s king.

What had eventually put the tin lid on it for Erchirion, however, had been Lothíriel’s remark on the situation. She had commended the fact that the boys had not just cut off the end knot of the construction, so that the bed would break down as soon as somebody got into it. In her opinion it showed a true understanding of physics that they had manipulated the rope strings in a way that some additional ground motion was needed for the successful completion of their little scheme. She hadn’t been happy when Erchirion had called the apples of her eye devious. She thought them rather ingenious and creative – which reminded Amrothos that he had read somewhere that the urge for destruction was also a creative urge - and her brother narrow-minded and without a sense of humour. It was the only time Amrothos could recall that his older brother had looked as if he were about to throttle their sister. Not that he would have had the slightest chance doing so as long as Éomer had been in the same room, although their brother-in-law had been suffering severely from laughing fits.

The next day Erchirion’s sense of humour had returned and he and Lothíriel had become reconciled. Nevertheless, the very same day he had also bought the old abode of Marshal Éothain, who had just moved to a new, larger house that better accommodated his ever-expanding family.

Amrothos groaned. Unfortunately the fact remained that he was now the only ‘eam’ who hadn’t allowed reason to prevail and made a strategic withdrawal. Perhaps he should consider relocating his family to Gondor. With every year the princes got older, life in Rohan bore the danger of becoming more hazardous.

For the time being that was pie in the sky anyway.

“Very well, what do you want me to do?” he asked in surrender.

“My Lord, I would never dare . . .”

“Ælfgyth!” he interrupted impatiently.

“You have to exhaust them.”

“Exhaust them?”

“Everybody will rest much happier if we know the boys are sound asleep and therefore accounted for . . . at least at night.”

Now that was a statement Amrothos could easily comprehend. The question, however, remained: how to achieve such a blissful state?

“I could have them driven across the plains,” he contemplated. “On foot, of course.”

The housekeeper cleared her throat meaningfully.

“What?” he asked wryly. “I can hardly take them riding or to the training field for some sword practice.”

“Indeed,” Ælfgyth nodded. “That could easily be misinterpreted as approval of their misconduct.”

“It might also tempt them in the future to knock anybody aside who momentarily bores them.” Amrothos crossed his arms. “So, what am I suppose to do with the pack?” His eyes darted around the great hall in the desperate hope of finding some cue. They came to rest on the big, black beast claiming to be a dog. Its smell hadn’t improved. “To begin with they could give him a good wash. That would kill two birds with one stone. They would be occupied with some tiring exercise and our noses would be given a rest.”

“And afterwards somebody would have to give each boy a good scrub,” the housekeeper objected.

“Mistress Ælfgyth,” he cut in on her with an upraised hand, “it is not even noon and when I called in the dear children they already looked as if they had spent the morning crawling through a charcoal heap. What is the chance that you don’t have to scrub them tonight anyway?”

He took her resigned look as the affirmation that he had a point. A couple of years ago Éomer had put up a bath house behind the Golden Hall where the three princes could be given their daily - badly needed - cleaning without the servants having to haul barrels of hot water to their shared bedchamber. It was also preferable in regard to the condition of that chamber.

“I will send them down to the watering place to clean the mutt. I hope that gives me enough time to come up with something feasible.” He turned to push open the door to the King’s study. Taking a deep breath he muttered through gritted teeth. “Éomer is going to owe me for this.”

TBC

‘draca’ - dragon

‘eam’ – uncle; mother’s brother. In Anglo-Saxon traditions the ‘eam’ was the natural guardian of children (and the mother). The  father’s brother, ‘fædera’, had no function.

‘eamas’ - plural of ‘eam’

“The urge for destruction is also a creative urge.” (Michael Bakunin, 1814 – 1876)

Parentage is a very important profession,

but no test of fitness for it is ever imposed in the interest of the children.

(George Bernard Shaw 1856 – 1950)

Entering the King’s study – selflessly Ælfgyth had grabbed Draca’s collar and restrained him from carting all the filth adhering to his coat into her Lord’s private realm - Amrothos found, to his utter surprise, the three children precisely on the spot where he had left them: right in front of their father’s desk. Slowly he walked around them and surveyed the room.

“Very well! Out with it! What have you done?”

His accusation was met by three pairs of guileless eyes. The looks from those eyes could be unnerving. Ælfwine had his mother’s eyes, Éomund definitely those of his father and Hroðgar’s eyes had the shape of his mother’s and the colour of his father’s. Nobody gazing at the children could be in any doubt whose collaboration had produced them. Unfortunately, they had not only inherited their parents’ looks but also all their character traits and quirks. It had proved to be an explosive mixture: Lothíriel’s curiosity and single-mindedness and Éomer’s assertiveness and his focused – and sometimes rather forceful - personality; plus both parents’ stubbornness and argumentativeness.

Probably unjust to put the blame entirely on the children. Nobody could escape from their legacy.

For a long moment uncle and nephews stood silently, eyeball to eyeball with each other. Amrothos knew when he had lost. He leant back against the desk and crossed his arms over his chest.

“Just tell me! Have you done any substantial damage while I was gone?” If so, it would certainly fall back on him because he had left them unattended for too long. “I mean, your father is not going to be glued to his chair as soon as he sits down and there will not be another invasion of crayfishes or something of that sort?”

“Of course not,” Hroðgar rejected, with emphasis, such an assumption.

It was by no means a matter of course. 

Last spring they had caught a basketful of crayfishes down at the Snowborn River. They had meant them to be a welcome-back-gift for their father who had been about to return from a month long trip to Gondor. They had deposited the basket here in Éomer’s study and then forgotten all about it in the joy of having their father back – and above all, over the presents he had brought for them. Later that night, while Lothíriel - with the help of the cohort of servants and nursemaids usually necessary to tame her exuberant offspring - had bathed and tucked the brood in, Éomer had retreated to his study. The warmth from the fire had made him drowsy after long days on horseback . . . and had roused the crayfishes after a long day in the basket. The creatures had abandoned their confinement and straightway crawled towards the King who had stretched out on a rug in front of the hearth. They probably had been hungry and had considered Éomer’s bare toes as a quite adequate substitute for some juicy snails.

All dwellers of the Golden Hall had been reminded that night that their Lord had a voice that carried. The next day the crayfishes had ended up on the royal table. Nothing had happened to the culprits, however. Lothíriel had been able to convince her spouse – once again - that they had meant only well.

If it was unhealthy being around the Princes when they meant well, it was downright dangerous when they took their gloves off.

Éomund apparently had noticed the sceptical expression on his uncle’s face. “This is Father’s study,” he expounded on Hroðgar’s previous statement. “Father said, if we should ever again do damage to anything that is his, he will have us immured in the dungeon.” There was a pleased shiver in his voice.

“But Mother said he was just jesting,” Ælfwine added, sounding rather disappointed.

Amrothos wondered how Éomer took such undermining of his authority by his wife. Very likely with that mixture of composure and amused resignation he had employed over the years when it came to Lothíriel.

“I can promise you, whatever I might speak out on from this very moment onwards, I will not be jesting!”

The Princes didn’t look overly impressed by this little opening speech, just politely interested.

“The fact that you put your tutor so effectively out of action does not mean that there will be no lessons for the foreseeable future. After all, your mother attaches great importance to your education.” It was always advisable to bring Lothíriel into it. It increased the chance that the boys would pay attention to whatever you were trying to make known. “Therefore I will take over the tutoring.”

He had said that on the spur of the moment and he could hardly believe that he had actually said it at all. Obviously, neither could the children. They exchanged glances that left no doubt that they wondered if something was severely wrong with their hearing.

“You?” Ælfwine finally asked.

To put it kindly, Rohan’s heir sounded dumbfounded. Apart from the fact that his and his brothers’ palpable disbelief regarding their uncle’s scholastic competence was anything but flattering, Amrothos thought it was at least satisfactory that he had been able to get them to pipe them down . . . just for once.

But now there was no going back.

“Indeed! Me!”

“What are you going to teach us?” There was a note of doubt in Éomund’s question but also a note of hope. He was probably speculating that they might learn something useful from their most notorious uncle.

Amrothos made haste to dash such expectations. “First I need to draw up an academic curriculum.” Lothíriel was always drawing up plans, agendas or schedules. It appeared to work for her. So why not for him? “After all, the situation of it becoming necessary to replace your tutor arose a bit suddenly.”

“How long is it going to take you to draw up a curriculum?” Ælfwine asked, a little too politely.

“Not very long.” That was a more optimistic than a realistic prediction. “In the meantime I have a task for you to perform.” He pointed over his head towards the door. “Draca is sitting on the other side of that doorway. At least I hope he is sitting there and has not decided to disperse the mud he is dragging around with him all over the place. He appears to have joined the pigs in their muddy pool. You will take him down to the watering place and give him a thorough scrub. A very thorough scrub! He will not be allowed back into the Hall as long as he is filthy and stinking.”

“It is not easy to keep him out if he wants to get in,” Éomund argued.

“Either he gets cleaned or he stays in the kennels for the time being.”

“The other dogs do not like him.”

Amrothos felt a certain congeniality of spirit with those other dogs but he wasn’t willing to be considerate of their sensibilities. He decided to ignore Hroðgar’s objection.

“You will go straight down to the watering place, wash that beast,” - the children didn’t mind him calling their pet a beast; they considered it a compliment – “and come straight back here. No field trips. You will take the shortest possible way in both directions, is that understood?” 

“Yes, Uncle Amrothos.”

How agreeable that little chorus sounded. Someone impartial might have trusted such compliancy. Amrothos knew better than to relax. Even if they had the best of intentions at this very moment, that could change in a blink of an eye. On the other hand, they had been instructed by both of their parents to obey their uncles’ orders – it was probably due to their uncles’ inability to communicate properly that they failed to follow them quite so often. In principle Amrothos could assume that they would - basically - do what he told them. In the end, however, it was entirely a matter of chance.

The inseparable threesome started towards the door. Their uncle could see that Hroðgar’s tunic showed a tear just below his shoulder. He was certain that whoever was responsible for the children’s clothes hadn’t sent him out that morning dressed in a torn garment. But it was rather likely that they would need fresh clothes anyway after they’d finished with the task they were about to accomplish. And the citizens of Edoras were neither used to, nor did they expect, their Princes to be immaculately dressed.

“And try to do something about his breath,” Amrothos called after them.

Ælfwine turned around. “About his breath?” His brows contracted in a brief frown that reminded his uncle very much of one of Lothíriel’s. “What is wrong with it?”  

“When he opens his mouth a more susceptible person might faint.”

“There are no susceptible people in Edoras.” Ælfwine glared at him, outraged over the implication that his kinsmen could have such weakness.

“Do you want us to brush his teeth?” Hroðgar had inherited a lot of his mother’s more pragmatic streak and preferred clear instructions.

“I do not think the smell comes from his teeth.” Éomund, in turn, favoured getting straight to the bottom of a problem. “It comes from what he eats.”

“What does he eat?” Amrothos asked carelessly – as he soon became aware - too carelessly.

“He likes goat and sheep dung but if he gets the chance to dig it out, he prefers cat pooh.”

In this case Amrothos would have rather been kept in the dark about the mutt’s favourite dishes. He would never ever again touch that dog. Without another word he waved the children out of the study and they trotted off. He could hear them being enthusiastically greeted by their pet. Slowly the noises faded away. They were on their way to the watering place. So he hoped.

Now he had a short breather to gather himself and come up with some ingenious idea of what to do with the pack for the coming days. The next four days to be precise. In four days the King and Queen were expected back from their journey to the far west of their land, where they had sat court as they did twice a year in very part of the Mark.

Four short days.

An eternity.

Amrothos sighed and slumped down in the chair behind his brother-in-law’s desk. Sweet Elbereth, what was he supposed to do now? How was he supposed to grab - and hold – the attention of these clever little hellions? Suddenly he was overcome by a deep - if late - sympathy for his own tutors. In his time he had worn down a fair number, but – and on that he set great store – he had never bodily harmed any of them. At least not seriously. And only when they had bored him to tears. Admittedly, that had happened occasionally . . . now and then . . . rather often.

With the benefit of hindsight – and taking into account his current experience – he had to admit that his own father, Prince Imrahil, had had a point when he had called him – in an amazingly enough rare moment of exasperation - the visitation for all his sins.

But he had only been one at a time. Three were simply a superior might. As the forces of Sauron had been. It was like the Black Gate all over again. There was no way out. He had to face them. He needed to find something to exploit to his advantage. A distraction. A decoy. Something that would keep them busy. Something that would keep them occupied until their parents returned and thereby delivered their uncle from his torment.

Amrothos began to go through his personal memories of all those tutors who had streamed in and out of the Palace of Dol Amroth. What had they done – more or less successfully - to catch his interest?

Actually, there had been only one tutor whom he remembered in particular and with fondness. Master Innon had been a short, portly man with a huge nose and a perfectly bald head. When he had been introduced to his new teacher, Amrothos, then just ten years old, had thought him to be a rather ridiculous old man. Soon, however, he turned out to be a man with a young head and a fresh-as-a-daisy spirit. His lessons never had been endless repetitions of lecture, exercise and study in a stuffy room. His lessons were all about what a boy could explore and encounter, sense and uncover in his everyday vicinity. Under Innon’s guidance the most common and ordinary things became fascinating objects to rediscover.

Sailing boats, for instance, were nothing out of the ordinary when you lived by the sea. Especially not for a privileged boy who was used to having one at his disposal whenever he felt like going out on the water. He just had to find somebody to pilot the boat – a servant or perhaps an older brother – and then get in it and after the trip get out of it.

One, still fondly remembered, summer, Master Innon had made such an ordinary sailing boat something very special for the youngest Prince of Dol Amroth. He had taught Amrothos to design his own boat and then he had helped him to build it. It had taken weeks. Day in, day out they had worked together down at the beach. They had done everything themselves. Well, mostly. They had a little help from local craftspeople, who found it quite astonishing that the skinny son of their Lord was sweating in the sun while sawing, planing and hammering, coating planks with tar and even sewing the sails. And in the evenings he had gone to bed voluntarily, completely spent, having given it his all.

It had been the summer of his life . . . at least the summer of his childhood. And it had been a very restful summer not only for his parents but for all the residents of the Castle of Dol Amroth.

That was the answer to his problem. That was precisely how he wanted his nephews: hooked, occupied all day and dead to the world for the night. He just had to do with them what his inspirational tutor had once done with him. He would build something together with the threesome.

The only drawback was that sailing boats weren’t all that beneficial in Rohan.

What else was there to build that would hold the fascination of boys? Amrothos propped his elbows on the desk and rested his chin on his folded hands. What could inspire the enthusiasm of a Rohír? One of the more featherbrained prejudices his Gondorian countrymen nursed, was that the Rohirrim were only interested in their horses. They would be surprised if they learnt that the study of Rohan’s King was crammed to capacity with books, scrolls and drawings concerning many types of building and construction.

Éomer had discovered his interest when Gimli and his fellow dwarves, who had settled in the Glittering Caves, had begun to rebuild the Deepening Wall, which had been destroyed during the battle of the Hornburg by Saruman’s forces. He had been impressed by the improvements the dwarfish master builders had made and soon he had been induced to reinforce the fortifications of Edoras and Aldburg. The capital of Rohan was now encircled by a deep moat, which could be filled in the event of a siege. For that the Snowborn had been dammed south of the city. Down-to-earth as the Rohirrim were, they used the small lake for fish farming – very much to Lothíriel’s satisfaction. Rohan’s Queen supported a varied nutrition.

Rohan’s King had found plenty to improve in his land. The long neglected Great West Road had been made up with a solid foundation and now went to the far west of Rohan. The Fords of the Isen had been fortified, – never trust a Dunlending further than you can throw your horse – the building materials, the remnants of what once had been the Ring of Isengard, had been provided by their newest neighbour, Treebeard.

Lothíriel must have passed her preference for intensive research to her husband. At the request of his Rohirric brethren Elessar had had copied hundreds of books and documents about building and construction from the Great Library of Minas Tirith and sent northwards. It had surprised the heck out of his friends and his subjects to find their King with his nose buried in books and bent over scrolls and coming regularly up with new ideas of how to improve the living conditions of his people. Men were sent to Gondor to learn new crafts and of late, houses built from bricks instead the customary wooden construction stood along the border rivers of Rohan.

But Éomer had also taken care of the traditional building material. Over the last years thousands of saplings had been brought from the lush woods of Ithilien and the valleys and slopes of the Ered Nimrais had been afforested. Already the next generation would be able to enjoy the young woods and the rich Rohirric tradition of wood carving could continue.

Amrothos looked around his brother-in-law’s study. Somewhere here he should be able to find some kind of constructional drawing of something his nephews would be interested in. It would be an easier venture, however, if Éomer hadn’t adopted his wife’s habit of collecting virtually everything that had only remotely to do with the subject of his interest. In his library one could find out about the construction of anything from an entire castle to handcrafting a birdcage. And so far Amrothos hadn’t found out by which method Éomer had arranged his collected treasures. That was if there was a method at all.

Still quite optimistic Amrothos got up and began to rummage through crammed bookcases and filled-to-the-rim chests. As time passed by his optimism diminished. What he came across was either too big – there really wasn’t the need for a bridge in Edoras - or too complicated or too unexciting for the boys. Their uncle doubted that they were still at an age where the prospect of a new swing or a seesaw would have them burst into cheering.

For a while Amrothos became enthralled by a huge tome he really hadn’t expected to find amongst this accumulation. What was Éomer doing with a work about shipbuilding? Not about small boats but sailing vessels meant to cross the sea. Definitely too big for the new reservoir.

And finally, when he was about to give up – not least because his stomach announced that it was well past the time for a midday meal -  he came across just what he had been hoping for. This was quite what those belligerent rascals should find fascinating. Of course, they needed to do some homework first. They had to change the construction drawings because they couldn’t build the object in its original size. They had to scale it down considerably. They needed to begin with the theoretical part, involving some mathematics and some physics before they could proceed to the practical side.

Highly pleased, with his find under his arm, Amrothos left the King’s study. After he had eaten something he would summon the boys again and inform them that over the next days they would work on a special project.

They were going to build a catapult.

TBC

Allow children to be happy in their own way,

for what better way will they find?

(Samuel Johnson 1709 – 1784)

Amrothos couldn’t help it. Ælfgyth’s words were gnawing at him. To claim to have everything under control where Lothíriel and Éomer’s children were involved, was probably indeed nothing but a pitiful over-estimation of his abilities.

They were like little, walking volcanoes. You’d always better be prepared for an eruption, never knowing, however, if it would be a major one or just light tremor.

The worst thing that ever had happened to one of his daughters, was Annereth falling into a shallow puddle of liquid manure in the pig pen . . . where she wouldn’t have been in the first place, had her older cousins not persuaded her to go there. Hroðgar – in comparison – had nearly managed to drown himself when he was about the age of Forðred. During that year’s autumn slaughtering his curiosity had made him fall headfirst into a barrel, where he’d got trapped with his face in the, luckily, only inch-deep brine at the bottom of it. The bubbling noises he’d made fortunately had led those who were already searching for him to his rescue. He had received an abrasion on his forehead but had got past the scare by the time he had been returned into his mother’s arms.

It was probably a good thing that Lothíriel’s countenance never seemed to fail her when it came to her children – or her husband - and that she wasn’t in the habit of fretting about something when it was already water under the bridge. Otherwise she would have been an irreversible bundle of nerves by now.

When one day Erchirion had brought up her sons’ increasing tendency to create mischief, she had shrugged her shoulders.

“Boys are boys, and boys do boy-stuff.” She had given that particular brother of hers, who enjoyed the reputation of being the most levelheaded, a sly grin. “I remember Mother telling me that when you were about seven years old, you destroyed most of the linen belonging to the Palace of Dol Amroth. On washing-day it was hanging from the clotheslines when you set fire to the first sheet in the row and then the next caught fire. And the next and the next and so on. My, my, Erchirion! Neither my sons nor Amrothos have managed anything so remotely destructive . . . yet.”

Amrothos’s indignation at being mentioned in the same breath as the little hellions had been forgotten on witnessing Erchirion’s sheepish expression, a rare occurrence, which one should seize the opportunity to savour.

“It was like ripples in a pond, the unfortunate outcome of an experiment gone wrong,” Erchirion had answered, uncommonly subdued.

“What were you experimenting with and why did I not know about this?” his younger brother had asked with genuine interest, surprised that such an incident should have escaped his attention.

“You were still residing in the nursery,” Erchirion had explained and pointed with his chin at their sister, “and she had not even been born. I only wanted to see if a fire would dry the washing more quickly.”

“With a record like that, you’d better restrain yourself from nagging about my sons,” Lothíriel had advised him, tongue-in-cheek. “At least until they have drawn level with you.”

Amrothos had an inkling that - with utmost probability - his nephews would make certain that their uncle Erchirion would soon be entitled to make some well-founded critical remarks. He wondered how Lothíriel was going to rate their successful attempt to rid themselves of their tutor. Would that - in her books - have the same status as scorching the princely linens of Dol Amroth? Or did they need to do some scorching of their own?

For the time being, calm had been restored at their temporary workshop. Coenræd had taken command with a casualness only a Rohír, whatever his birth, was able to display in the face of three Princes from his ruling house . . . and of their uncle from a far away principality. And those three Princes followed his orders, accepted his discipline and took the occasional rebuke without any grumbles. It appeared they had no problem in acknowledging and respecting somebody else’s greater skills, no matter his station.

Which, in turn, left the question of what Master Caevudor had done wrong.

Ælfwine and Éomund had just wound the skein over the crossbars of the large wheels of the winches. The effort of tightening the thick cords had left them red-faced and a little bit out of breath, but Hroðgar was already more pulling than carrying the heavy catapult arm, which was made from a single log, over to them. The two apprentices began to gain more and more of Amrothos’s respect. They had been told that they should leave as much work as possible to the boys and only interfere when it surpassed their physical ability or when they ran the risk of hurting themselves. So far they had handled their additional occupation as nursemaids quite well.

Coenræd advised the three brothers how to place the butt-end of the catapult arm between the halves of the skein and hold it there, while he and Sibyrht began to twist it up by the winches. Master Ulger’s apprentice couldn’t be more than fifteen summers old, still not fully-grown, but already blessed with bulging muscles on his shoulders and upper arms. He seemed to be born to be a blacksmith. This morning he had presented with pride the iron winches he had forged himself the previous night. And justifiably so. They had been fitted to the frame and now worked without fault. 

Slowly the catapult arm was forced by the tightening skein into an upright position and finally came to rest against the centre cross piece. Now all that was left to do was attach the slip-hook that would pull down and also release the arm to the aft cross piece and their catapult would be ready to fire.

Amrothos thought that this was the right moment to call everybody in for a deserved break. It was well into the afternoon and the boys hadn’t eaten anything since their meagre ‘morgengrýtt’. Lothíriel certainly wouldn’t appreciate it if she got her sons back not only with a collection of minor wounds and blisters but also skinnier than she had left them.

“Very well,” he called. “Time to have a rest.” He stepped onto something and looking down, he found the cord that was going to be attached to the slip-hook. Pulling it would release the wound down catapult arm. He picked the cord up and rolled it to a coil. “All of you have earned your bread, and thankfully Draca has not raided the provisions Mistress Ælfgyth brought us earlier. So there should be more than just bread.”

Turning around, he was once more reminded that one should never rejoice until one was actually out of the woods. Draca, just a short moment ago not even in sight, had miraculously materialised directly in front of the improvised food stand. Obviously having finished off and digested the huge bone he was now ready for a second helping. His big, wet snout moved excitedly, taking in the tempting aromas and he was - as usual - salivating heavily. He was also just about to hop with his forepaws onto the food stand.

“Draca! Leave it!” Amrothos yelled at him.

At this interruption the dog slanted him an irritated glance, but quite obviously didn’t have any intention of letting himself be kept from such an inviting feast. When Amrothos saw him flex his muscles in order to jump amidst the food, he hurled the coiled up rope at the beast, hitting him straight in the neck.

“Leave it!”

With a whine, more from surprise than from pain, the black monster leapt away from the sawhorse table, looking so stunned that Amrothos couldn’t help laughing. The apprentice boys joined in, unlike the three Princes who seemed barely able to keep themselves from lunging out at their uncle.

“That was mean,” Éomund protested, pure outrage in his voice.

“Mother says it is cruel to hit animals,” Hroðgar hissed at his uncle.

“Father says that using force against the weaker only proves the shortcomings of one’s own character,” Ælfwine announced Éomer’s thoughts on the subject.

“And only emphasises one’s inability to deal appropriately with a situation,” Éomund added.

They planted themselves in front of Amrothos, arms crossed over their chests, frowning at him belligerently. Ten years from now he would probably begin to worry if they took up such a stance. At the moment he just kept a straight face and stared back.

“So, you do not take on the weaker? How does that – commendable - attitude comply with you always badgering your cousins?”

“Cousins?” sounded the chorus back.

“Yes, cousins. Annereth, for instance.”

“Annereth?” Hroðgar’s frown changed from combative to puzzled.

“Well, you must remember my daughter. Your cousin? Even though you have not seen her for a couple of months.”

“Of course, we remember her. But Annereth is not weak,” Éomund insisted, pulling back the sleeve of his – rather filthy – linen shirt. He pointed at a faded, crescent-shaped scar just above his elbow. “She bites harder than Ðéodwyn.”

“Mother says Ðéodwyn has got all her teeth now. So she might be able to bite even harder than before,” Ælfwine warned him.

Amrothos couldn’t believe his ears – and eyes. His sweet little Annereth using her teeth as assault weapons? But of course, if she needed them to hold her ground against her cousins, it was no longer surprising that she refused to come to Edoras. She had begun to lose her baby teeth and was momentarily sporting a large gap where not long ago had been her upper incisors. She was additionally handicapped by several wobbly teeth. That was definitely a case of an inferior position.

“You bite each other in the course of a quarrel?” Amrothos asked, making certain that the tone of his voice conveyed his disapproval of such conduct.

“Only the girls do,” Ælfwine enlightened him.

“Typical of girls,” Hroðgar snorted his disdain. His front teeth, by the way, had just grown back.

“They get hysterical pretty easily,” Éomund rounded off the threesome’s early impression of the female gender.

“Says your father?” Amrothos inquired.

Éomund thought about it. “No, I think it was Marshal Éothain who said that.”

“And what does your mother have to say about it?”

“About girls?”

“No, about the biting.”

“When Mother first saw the bite mark, she wanted to know what had happened. When I told her, she said that she was sure that Annereth had a good reason.”

“A philosophical and pragmatic approach in equal measure,” Amrothos murmured. “Did you retaliate upon Annereth for the bite? Return the like?”

“Of course not.” Unblinkingly Éomund held his uncle’s eyes with his own. “I do not bite girls.”

No, he didn’t bite girls. At least not yet. He smeared honey on their pillows.

With some effort Amrothos stifled a smirk. When Imrahil of Dol Amroth had come to the decision that the King of Rohan would make an eligible husband for his daughter, had he allowed for the possibility that his two younger sons would also choose Rohirric spouses and that therefore the majority of his grandchildren would turn out to be a bunch of – to different degrees - rather reckless half-Rohirrim? Although Erchirion, in service of King Elessar, had settled in Lossarnach and his three children were therefore being brought up mainly in Gondor, they were, to their Great-aunt Ivriniel’s malicious joy, already able to strike their Aunt Oraineth with dread just by it being announced they were intending to visit the Palace of Dol Amroth.

Perhaps he should try to persuade Lothíriel to return Elphir’s last visit during the following summer. Together with all her children, of course. The little ones would be old enough by then for the long journey. And he could join her, together with his family. He was sure his wife would love to see the sea again.

While he had been letting his mind wander along that path of cheerful maliciousness, he had kept a watchful eye on that glutton of a dog. Draca was still squatting on his hind legs, his back turned towards them, about twenty feet from the foot stand. His entire posture made it clear that he was mortally offended. That was just fine with Amrothos, if that flaunted attitude meant that the beast would keep out of his way for the rest of eternity.

He herded his nephews and their two helpers to the makeshift table. When Mistress Ælfgyth had been unpacking her hamper earlier, he had wondered who would eat all the food. With the two lads and the three princes pitching into it with gusto, the cold meats, pies and cheeses seemed to vanish into thin air. Amrothos had to dig in himself to secure his share.

All five boys made speculations about how far the catapult would be able to hurl a projectile.

“The range depends on the weight of the projectile and the weight of the counterweight,” Ælfwine expounded around a mouth full of ‘hūnigæpplas’, something he wouldn’t have dared had he known his mother was anywhere close. Amrothos’s rebuking frown at least prompted Éomund to swallow whatever was in his mouth before he amplified on the subject.

“It is important that the projectile is in due proportion to the weight of the counterweight.”

“The counterweight must be heavier,” Hroðgar added, proving that all three of them had been listening to their uncle’s lectures during the theoretical prelude to their project.

“The heavier the counterweight, the further we can hurl the projectiles.” Ælfwine’s gaze looked as though it was dreamily roaming afield . . . far afield; across the training grounds; across the stables and barns; across the fortifications of Rohan’s capital.

“We will begin with an empty counterweight box,” Amrothos made haste to suppress those visions. “And we will also begin with only a small bag of soil.”

Ælfwine opened his mouth to protest but was forestalled by his younger brother. Éomund had visions of his own.

“Perhaps it would not be necessary to break our enemies’ barricades to force them out into open battle. We could hurl beehives over the fortifications. Enraged bees should drive them out.”

“Hornets’ nests!” Ælfwine visibly brought back from his own thoughts, happily expanded his brother’s idea. “Hornets are more aggressive. They will attack more ferociously.”

“But what about their horses?” Hroðgar objected.

A collective “Huh?” went up from the other two brothers and the apprentices. Amrothos quizzically raised an eyebrow.

“The enemy might have horses and other animals within the fortification,” the youngest one reminded them. “The hornets will certainly attack them, too. That is cruel.”

Not to mention that there might be women and children within an enemies’ stronghold.

Ælfwine scratched contemplatively the back of his head. “We will ask Father what he thinks should be done in such a situation,” he decided.

“We will ask Mother also,” Hroðgar insisted, obviously expecting more support for his position from Lothíriel. A clever move. In matters concerning the children her opinion was in case of doubt, always decisive.

And Amrothos thought that the general idea was an excellent solution of the dilemma. Let Éomer and Lothíriel decide about the scope of the weapons they were going to leave to their offspring.

“Very well. And until your parents have the chance to give their wise judgement on this issue, you will not hurl anything living or breathing anywhere under any circumstances. Is that understood?”

All three muttered their assent with only a minor delay. “Yes, Uncle Amrothos.”

“Good! So, if everybody has freshened up and has recovered their strength, we should return to our task.”

“May Draca have the left-overs?” Hroðgar asked politely, but he had already begun to gather what he and his equally ravenous companions hadn’t polished off earlier.

“For all I care,” Amrothos conceded, knowing that that didn’t exactly speak for his rigorousness. “But put it down and aside from the table. He has to learn that he cannot just help himself to a snack whenever he feels like it.” Meaning all day and all night!

While Hroðgar fed the pet monster, the others returned to put the finishing touches to their catapult. Sibyrht had also forged the bolt, which went through the catapult arm, and the slip-hook. Master Ulger had kept a watchful eye on his apprentice. The breaking of bolt or hook could cause a serious accident. Amrothos trusted in the master blacksmith’s thoroughness and judgement. He left it to the two older lads to fix the slip-hook to the aft cross brace; the very last detail was finally carried out by the three Princes. Hroðgar solemnly handed the release cord to Éomund, who uncoiled it and passed it to Ælfwine, who in turn fastened one end to the lever of the hook.

“Done,” he announced with satisfaction, taking a step back. “Now we can shoot.”

“Indeed,” Amrothos agreed. He had to admit to himself that he was also looking forward to some target practice. “But let us pull the catapult to the very edge of the field, so we can take advantage of its entire length.”

As the device had solid wooden wheels, its overall weight was much greater than Amrothos had anticipated when they had planned it. All six of them were wheezing after having pushed it over a distance of only 20 yards.

“That’s more than just a toy, my Lord.” Coenræd wiped some sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his frequently patched shirt. “That is a genuine weapon.”

“Can we begin now?” Ælfwine called impatiently, dashing off to where they had stored their ammunition.

The previous evening, before they had returned to Meduseld after their day’s work, Amrothos had sent them down to the common pasture. There, where the stream that ran down from the Great Hall, disappeared underground and left the city through a culvert, they had found loamy soil with which they had filled a dozen discarded feed bags. Over the past days they had also collected rocks the size of a man’s fist, which would provide the counterweight. Now they were rushing that material to the site where they had positioned their catapult. The largest of the bags had to be roughly the weight of Hroðgar, and they needed to drag it in twos, but they were remorseless with themselves, slaving away at their venture until the last rock was placed next to the catapult.

Mistress Ælfgyth – or whoever was unlucky enough to have to force the Princes to bed in the evenings - should be highly pleased. Tonight they would be so exhausted that in all likelihood they were going to stumble over their own feet.

Edoras’s grapevine appeared to be working well. All of a sudden gaggles of people flocked to the training field. It had got around amazingly quickly that the catapult had been finished and that its builders were now up for some target practice. One could come to the conclusion that the residents of Rohan’s capital had positioned a lookout somewhere, who had given due notice of the beginning of the spectacle.

Since their King had married the Princess of Dol Amroth, the ‘ceasterware’ of Edoras had got used to being entertained regularly, not only by the royal couple’s lively marriage, but also by their Queen’s kin. Not to mention the royal offspring. Sometimes Amrothos couldn’t help but get the impression that by now the good people felt entitled to the entertainment.

Gléowine, the late Théoden King’s faithful minstrel and the three Princes’s on-and-off substitute tutor, had once admitted to his granddaughter’s husband, Erchirion, that his kinsmen had feared that another queen from Gondor would lead to a new rift between the House of Eorl and the ‘þéod’. The Rohirrim had known this under the reign of Thengel and his Gondorian wife, Morwen. Nobody would dispute that the new Queen Éomer had chosen, was different. And so was her family from that far away coast. However, that fact had not led to some kind of estrangement. Rather to a state of constant bewilderment on the part of the people of Rohan and particularly of those of Edoras.

But they had got used to that as well.

Amrothos watched the growing crowd with a trace of uneasiness. He called for Master Ecgbehrt’s apprentice.

“Coenræd, perhaps you should go and tell our audience to stay at a secure distance until we know what way our masterwork is going to perform.”

“As you wish, my Lord. But I do not think they will come too close for the time being,” the lad remarked, probably with the intention of putting Amrothos’s mind to rest. “They will be careful. They know that you have constructed the device.”

“Thank you,” the so praised murmured obligingly, but he was already addressing the young Rohír’s back. Amrothos turned to his nephews. “Well, let us see if you are able to wind down the arm.”

It took all their combined efforts, weight and shouts of encouragement to pull the catapult arm down and fix it with the slip hook. Ælfwine took the smallest bag from his uncle and placed it on the cup.

“Make sure you always give a warning before you fire,” Amrothos reminded them. He had to smile when he saw that all three had grabbed the release cord. 

“Hohƒul’!” Ælfwine shouted. One day his voice would rival his father’s. Under his breath Rohan’s heir counted, “Ān, twēgen, ðrīe!” and the threesome pulled jointly, for the first time, the release cord.

Amrothos followed the projectile with his eyes, surprised by the speed and the range the bulky thing attained.

“Higwæg!” he heard Éomund exclaim.

“Indeed,” he remarked. He hadn’t quite expected the catapult to hurl a bag, which had the weight of a well-fed cat, that far. Even with an empty counterweight box it had covered a good forty yards. The onlookers were delighted and broke in loud cheer.

Coenræd came running back across the field. He made a move to collect the mistreated bag.

“Leave it there,” Amrothos advised him. “We will use it as measuring point.”

Although the Princes protested, Amrothos had them first launch all bags without an additional counterweight. The heavier ones landed just a few yards in front of the catapult.  While the Princes collected their ammunition for another sequence, he checked together with the two apprentices how the device had weathered its first trial. It proved to be well built and sturdy. Nothing had come loose or unstable. Therefore Amrothos allowed the counterweight box to be filled with a few of the so far withheld rocks and had the boys begin with the heavier bags this time around.

They repeated the routine again and again until the counterweight box was nearly filled to its full capacity and the catapult hurled a bag of soil, its weight matching approximately Hroðgar’s, nearly the entire length of the training field. A solid ninety yards. The construction was much more effective than Amrothos would ever have guessed. Considering that it was supposed to be some kind of toy, it was probably a bit overdone.

By now dusk had begun to settle over the city and many of their audience, who had watched the demonstration animatedly, set out for their homes. Others came closer and had comments to make and their opinions to offer.

“Uncle Amrothos.” Ælfwine snapped his fingers next to his uncle’s ear in order to get his attention. Amrothos, who had been in conversation with Master Ecgbehrt, caught his hand with his own to keep him from making that annoying noise.

“Ælfwine, watch your manners.”

“What is he expected to learn from watching them?” Éomund asked saucily, earning a chuckle from Ecgbehrt.

“And you watch your mouth,” Amrothos warned him sternly but couldn’t quite stifle a grin when the boy began pulling faces, pretending to attempt a look at his own mouth. Hroðgar giggled, but it almost immediately metamorphosed into a yawn. His eldest brother dug his elbow into his ribs.

“Uncle Amrothos, can we not try to launch the smallest bag with the filled up counterweight box and see how far it flies?”

“Not tonight, Ælfwine. It is time for you to get back to the Hall. You are all in desperate need of a bath.”

“One more launch is not going to take that much time,” Rohan’s heir pleaded. Did he indeed? Ælfwine never pleaded.

“It would be better if we had a go at it now, when nobody is around any more.” When Éomund had some sensible suggestions to make, he reminded Amrothos even more of Erchirion. “The people are either at home or here with us. If we launch the small bag now, nobody can be hit. Tomorrow on the other hand . . .” He let his voice trail off tellingly and shrugged with his shoulders.

“And even if we hit somebody with the small bag, it cannot really hurt that much.” His excitement made Ælfwine’s eyes shine pale and silver in the fading daylight. “Please, Uncle Amrothos. Only one try.”

“Ælfwine.” Amrothos made an effort to sound firm, but in fact he was rather curious himself how far the smallest bag could be hurled with the counterweight at its heaviest. “You will make sure at all costs that you are never going to hit anybody with whatever projectile you are using, be it even a ball of wool.”

“Why should we use balls of wool?” Ælfwine looked uncomprehending. “They wouldn’t cause any damage to the enemy.”

“But if we dunked them in oil and . . .,” Éomund began to enunciate an idea but was interrupted by Master Ecgbehrt.

“My Lord, if you aim for the empty barn,” he pointed towards a timbered building with a steep, thatched roof at the north end of the training grounds, “it would stop the projectile if it flies too far.” Obviously the master carpenter was also as interested as the Princes and their uncle about the real potential of the catapult.

Torn between his role as the consequent uncle and the lure of giving the gadget an ultimate try, Amrothos pondered the pro and cons.

“That small bag cannot do any damage to the barn, my Lord,” Ecgbehrt assured him and therewith tipped the scales.

“Very well,” he called upon his nephews. “Reposition the catapult and wind down the arm. Let us see what our construction is actually able to do.”

He didn’t have to ask them twice. Full of beans they put their backs into it, but without the help of the two apprentice boys they wouldn’t have managed the forty-five degree rotation of their big toy. The long day and the physically hard work had exhausted the children. But that was what everybody had been aiming for.

With their last ounce of strength they wound down the catapult arm and fixed it. Nobody protested when Coenræd placed the smallest bag of soil on the cup.

Ælfwine grabbed the release cord. “‘Hohƒul’!” he shouted and pulled.

The makeshift projectile was launched and flew with high speed towards the barn, but its flight path was much higher than expected and carried it northwards over the roof of the barn and out of sight. Just a heartbeat later they heard muffled shouts of surprise. At least not muffled shouts of pain. Nevertheless, a curse slipped from Amrothos’s lips.

“Damnation.”

“Mother says . . .”

“Not now, Hroðgar!” he bellowed back over his shoulder, already running to where the noise had come from.

The barn stood parallel to the city wall near the gate. When Amrothos came scurrying around its corner all he found was a group of guards up on the wall-walk, peering over the palisades towards the barrow field.

“Was anyone hit?” Amrothos called up to them.

The men turned around. “Was that a shot from that catapult?” one of them asked. “It came straight over the barn, went over the wall and landed on Fengel King’s grave mound.”

“Sweet Elbereth,” Amrothos groaned. That was much further than he had figured out.

His nephews had caught up with him by now, as had the two apprentices. “He has been dead for more than seventy years. I do not think he will mind,” Ælfwine reassured him.

“I doubt your father will appreciate hearing you talk disrespectfully about the dead,” he rebuked the boy, who had a good chance of being buried himself out on that barrow field, one day.

“I was not disrespectful,” Ælfwine rejected the accusation promptly. “Father says . . .” he began, but Éomund cut him off, being the only one who was permitted to do so.

 “. . . we should hold the dead in fond memory but our thoughts and care must first and foremost belong to the living.”

“Have you ever considered writing down all those pearls of wisdom?” Amrothos couldn’t abstain from asking. Of course, his sarcasm bypassed the rather literally minded boys.

“Only people with a bad memory need to write everything down,” Ælfwine retorted matter-of-factly, but then Éomund added with a challenging grin, “Gondorians, for instance.

“Is your mother aware of your opinion?”

“Father says that Mother is the exception to any rule.”

Clever of the boy . . . and clever of Éomer.

Perhaps their last sprint across the training grounds had put them over the edge at last. After Amrothos had waved his farewell to the guards, the threesome did not object to his order to follow him straight uphill to the Golden Hall, where Ælfgyth was awaiting them with the - not precisely welcomed - tidings that the water had been heated in the bath house and that they would not eat until they had scrubbed themselves adequately clean.

“Including fingernails and ears,” their uncle laid down the rules. By now they were too tired and too hungry to respond to the trace of maliciousness in his tone and just trotted off. A rare occurrence.

“And the city still stands in its entirety?” the housekeeper asked, allegedly intrigued.

“It does indeed,” Amrothos replied politely and asked, “And did you have to shake any more children out of pottery?”

Ælfgyth chuckled in good humour. “A bath has been prepared for you in your bedchamber, my Lord,” she informed him instead of an answer and then left to return overseeing the preparation of the ‘æƒengereord’.

For the prospect of a hot bath and a good meal Amrothos wouldn’t have minded some more teasing from the resolute woman, whose wit was as dry as dust. Only when relaxing in the pleasantly heated water and savouring the fruity red wine the ‘byrele’ had supplied earlier, he became aware of how tense he had felt since the episode with little Forðred. And other than Mistress Ælfgyth he didn’t feel comfortable at all when in a state of tension. He liked his life fairly peaceful and unhurried. He was getting older. 

The lamb roast, flavoured with coriander, sage and with a gravy based on honey and ‘æppelwīn’, and served with the first carrots of the season and freshly baked rye bread, did its bit to raise his spirits. The tiredness he felt had nothing to do with weariness but just made him look forward to his bed. With the royal guard gone, only few were attending the evening meal served in the Great Hall, mainly the men of the ‘durūweru’, the ‘geodūð’, who noisily occupied the rear tables and a couple of ‘duduð’, so that the servants had little to do and soon joined the attendees. The main topic of the conversation was the catapult and its unforeseen capacity. Tonight Amrothos was quite glad that he was seated apart from the others, in solitary contentment at the top table, and after he had satisfied his growling stomach, he decided to retire for the night before one of the men approached him to discuss the possible merits of a siege machine for the Horselords.

In his chamber – after having bolted the door; no more invasions by over energetic princes at the crack of dawn – he shed his clothes, climbed into the bed, huddled under the quilt and was off to the lands of dreams before he even became aware that he had set out for it. His slept soundly, although in his dreams all kind of objects, animals and people were hurtling through the blue sky, the latter apparently enjoying those rides. He wasn’t so sure about the animals. But the people certainly were having fun. At some point they even began to blow enthusiastically their horns whilst sailing through the air. Soon enough that became pretty annoying.

Amrothos had got used to the noise of the Rohirric horns, which were ritually blown for all kinds of occasions. But tonight he felt disturbed. It took his brain a moment to figure out why, and slowly it dawned on him that the sound he heard wasn’t in his dreams. Instead it was calling him back to awareness, slowly, but it finally registered that that unpleasant din was a prolonged signal of alarm.

Becoming fully awake, Amrothos sat up abruptly and stared at the narrow, high set window of his chamber. It was a slender stripe of pale silver in the darkness surrounding him. The night was just giving in to the dawn of a new day. A horn sounded anew, the source fairly close. He assumed that it was blown by one of the doorwards positioned, day and night, in front of the Hall.

Swearing under his breath, Amrothos rolled over and felt for fire steel and flint to light a candle. Hastily he dressed and broke a fingernail on the latch when he tried to fling open the door, forgetting that he had secured it the previous evening with the bolt. He let out another lengthy curse and eventually getting out into the corridor, he broke into a run. Entering the Great Hall on the dais he found both gate panels wide open and saw the silhouette of a doorward, standing at the edge of the platform, still continuously blowing the horn. He jumped the three stairs down to the main floor and sprinted along the aisle and out onto the terrace.

“What is it, man?” he demanded even before he had come to a halt next to the doorward. He didn’t need the answer. Looking down at the city that spread beyond the Hall’s foundation, he saw the unreal glow of a fire. Flames were leaping up against the leaden sky.

The stables! The stables were burning.

But how? There hadn’t been a hint of a thunderstorm in the air the previous evening. There was no sign that it had rained. It couldn’t have been lightning that had set one of the thatched roofs alight. He had lived for a decade in Rohan and never had a serious fire afflicted its capital. Knowing about the high combustibility of their preferred building materials, wood and wheat straw, the Rohirrim were extremely cautious about their home fires.

Amrothos left the doorward to his horn and more flew than ran down the stairs. He joined the flood of people, men and women, all streaming towards the location of the fire, disregarding the wide loops of the main path and running straight down the slopes. Some slipped at the steeper spots, taking a tumble, getting back to their feet and rushing on. A couple of times Amrothos also nearly hit the ground but always managed to catch himself.

The closer he came to the stable yard, the louder became the roar of the flames. None of the stables were on fire. It was the empty barn, which they had used the evening before as a mark for their last shot with the catapult. Here a babble of voices intermingled with the hisses from the fire. Orders were shouted, the voices tense, alarmed but not panicky, although the citizens of Edoras would have had enough reason. Sparks could spread the blaze to the surrounding buildings. One could not hope to save a construction of timber and straw from the devastating forces of the fire. All one could do was to prevent the other wooden structures nearby from falling victim to the destructiveness of the flames.

The men first on-site had already started two bucket-brigades from the watering-place to the burning barn. Another one was lining up and a forth one. Women and the smaller boys were forming queues to return the buckets quickly to the watering place. Fortunately it was constantly fed by an anabranch of the stream channel, so water was in adequate supply. More women with wet rags rushed around, stamping out burning splinters. As a precaution the horses were taken from the stables of the mares and the stallions and driven into the fenced open field of the training grounds. Neighing and snorting the agitated animals crowded in the farthest corner, around the catapult, away from the heat and the flames.

Yet amidst all the frantic activity there was an amazing semblance of order.

Amrothos took his place at the front of a bucket-brigade to relieve a man whose arms were getting tired from throwing the water high above his head to the source of the fire. It must have started just below the ridge and now the flames were eating their way down the roof. Despite all efforts soon the entire thatched covering was on fire but at least it became clear that the mutual effort of the city’s residents was successfully preventing a further spread of the blaze.

Soon Amrothos had lost all sense of time, throwing water into the flames, tossing one bucket aside, grabbing the next one. The smoke added to the physical strain. When he was finally relieved from his front post, his shoulders hurt and he couldn’t feel his arms any more. He just needed a short moment to regain his strength. Breathing hard, he took a few steps aside, bending forward to prop his hands on his thighs, but he straightened up again almost immediately, when his eyes caught a short figure that was running around, crushing glowing embers with a wet feedbag.

“Hroðgar,” he shouted. However, he was either not heard or ignored.

Damnation. If that one was here, the two others couldn’t be far. He had totally forgotten about them, idiot that he was. They would certainly not be willing to miss out on all the fun. The servant able to keep them inside the Hall, while there was something like a huge fire happening, hadn’t been born yet.

“Hroðgar!” he called again, but the boy just disappeared from his sight. “It is high time that somebody gave those hellions a proper licking,” he cursed through clenched teeth and set out to capture the pack. Almost immediately he crashed into another person who turned out to be Master Ecgbehrt’s apprentice.

“Coenræd, the Princes are somewhere around. I need to find them.”

“Of course they are here,” the lad replied, matter-of-factly. “Who do you think started the fire?”

“What?”

“They set fire to some sort of projectile and hurled it with the catapult onto the roof.”

“I am going to kill them!”

Obviously the tone of his voice conveyed his suddenly overwhelming desire for murder quite unmistakably. The young Rohír slanted him a worried glance. “You are surely jesting, my Lord?” he inquired cautiously, but Amrothos’s glare held nothing reassuring.

“I do not think that the Queen would like that,” the apprentice pointed out.

“I put my trust in the King’s sense of justice,” Amrothos growled.

That very moment parts of the thatched roof caved in. The fire was fed by fresh air and the lad ran off to join the men who battled tirelessly against the boosted flames. Spitting out every single curse he knew in Westron, Rohirric and Sindarin, Amrothos rushed around, searching for his nephews. He had to find them before the blasted children got themselves seriously injured. He’d rather not envision how Lothíriel would react if anything happened to them. And besides, if anything or anybody was going to hurt them, it would be him.

Barely avoiding hitting a woman who hauled more buckets for the water brigade, he almost collided with Ælfgyth. In ten years this was the first time he found the ‘boldweard’ of Meduseld other than immaculately dressed. The tall woman wore just a loosely belted Bliaut, her greying hair hanging down her back in an untidy plait. She had Éomund grabbed by the scruff of the neck. Lothíriel was right. That woman was highly competent.

“Cease that struggling,” Amrothos bellowed at the boy. “Where are your bloody brothers?”

Éomund stared in utter surprise at his ‘eam’. Never before had he heard him use such a scathing tone to him or one of his brothers. Seeing that this time his usually so easygoing uncle was surely infuriated enough, the young prince virtually sprang to attention.

“They are helping to put out the fire,” he answered with more demureness than anybody would have ever expected from him. “Do you want me to find them?”

“Oh, you would like that, would you not? Forget it! You will stay with Mistress Ælfgyth and do not dare to get out of her sight.” He looked at the woman. “Have you seen one of the others?”

“Both, but I was not quick enough to get a hold of them, too.”

“Hroðgar!” Amrothos hollered without warning, making the housekeeper jump. He had seen the youngest of the threesome lurking in the background and trying to sneak off. “Come here! At once!”

Reluctantly the boy trotted closer, not daring to disobey his enraged uncle by feigning deafness once more. At least it appeared that this time they were perfectly aware of the whole extent of the mischief they had caused. Impatiently Amrothos grabbed him by his arm and hauled him next to Mistress Ælfgyth.

“Stay here. I’ll get Ælfwine.”

He found Rohan’s heir having taken command of a group of boys who were chasing flying embers with wet rags. Without prior warning Amrothos grabbed him from behind at his shoulder and within a blink of an eye received a hard punch in the gut as well as an old soppy feedbag in his face. In his defence one had to say that Ælfwine looked thoroughly stricken when he realized that he had just hit his uncle.

“You bloody little menace,” Amrothos grunted, spitting dirty water. Unceremoniously he dragged his nephew – not caring that he was just severely embarrassing him in front of the other boys of Edoras - to where his brothers – amazingly enough - were still waiting virtuously beside the housekeeper of the Golden Hall. Ælfgyth was taking care of the Captain of the ‘Durūweru’, whose tunic was charred on its left side and whose lower arm was badly burned and showed severe blistering.

“You need to go up to the ‘Hālwendehūs’, Oslafa” she advised the man. “The healers have to treat this burn as quickly as possible.”

“I am hardly in any pain,” the man protested.

Ælfgyth didn’t accept any argument. “With a burn that is one reason more to have it properly treated without delay.”

“I’ll stay here and do my part to help extinguish the fire,” Amrothos decided. “Do you feel well enough to take these culprits with you and lock them away in the dungeon?” If they believed the dungeon to be such an exciting place, let them acquire a true taste of it. Right now Amrothos was so angry that he didn’t care that they were, after all, only relatively small children, who might be frightened in those holes dug into the rock under the Golden Hall, never mind that they theoretically might consider it an adventure.

“Of course, my Lord,” Captain Oslafa replied without a second thought.

That response alone should have made Amrothos wonder, and if not, at least the absence of any protest from Ælfgyth upon such a request. But he brushed that faint sense of bemusement creeping up on him aside. For the moment he just wanted the infernal triplet out of his sight and securely locked away, with no means of escape

“You will go with Captain Oslafa and do not dare try to get away or I promise you are going to receive the worst spanking of your life.”

“We have never been spanked. Mother says  . . .”

“H r o ð g a r!”

At least his brothers had recognised the acute danger he was in and yanked him away from their uncle, leading the way uphill to the Great Hall. Their appointed keeper followed them wordlessly, with a perfectly straight face. - Which said more than any grin could have.

“And from you,” Amrothos growled at the housekeeper, knowing that it was unfair to vent his anger on her again, “I do not want to hear a single word in their defence.”

“It was not my intention to defend or accuse anybody, my Lord.” With that ambiguous remark she walked off to join the women who scooped the water for the bucket brigade.

Grinding his teeth – if he didn’t stop that, said teeth had a good chance of being pulverised by the end of the night – Amrothos rushed back to help in combating the fire. He was thankful that he could put his mind to something other than his cursed nephews and to the fact that tomorrow their returning parents would be greeted by the smouldering ruins of a barn – and a brand new working catapult.

TBC

The use of the - for most of you - unfamiliar Old English characters has caused a bit of a confusion regarding the correct pronunciation, but it’s really pretty easy:

Æ, æ called ‘ash’ is pronounced like the short ‘a’ in ‘cat’

þ, Þ called ‘thorn’ is pronounced ‘th’

Đ, ð called ‘eth’ is also pronounced ‘th’

‘Sunt pueri pueri, pueri puerilia tractant’ (Latin proverb) - Boys are boys, and boys do boy-stuff!

‘morgengrýtt’ – morning meal

‘hūnigæpplas’ – literally honey-apples/some kind of bread pudding in the AE cuisine

‘ceasterware’ - citizens

‘þéod’ – people/folk

‘hohƒul’ – careful

‘ān, twēgen, ðrīe’ – one, two, three

‘higwæg!’ – exclamation of surprise, corresponding approx. to a modern day ‘Wow!’

‘æƒengereord’ – evening meal

‘byrele’ – cup-bearer; typical female role with the function to keep the guests of a Great Hall supplied with drink

‘æppelwīn’ – cider

‘durūweru’ – door guard/ guard of the Hall

‘geodūð’ – young warrior/warrior in training

‘dudūð’ – doughty warrior/veteran

‘boldweard’ – housekeeper

‘eam’ – uncle/mother’s brother

‘hālwendehūs’ – healing house/house of healing

'anabranch' - a section of a river or stream that diverts from the main course

Thanks to all who commented on the last couple of chapters. My apologies for not having responded to every review individually. RL is a bit on the busy side at the moment.

One looks back with appreciation to the brilliant teachers,

but with gratitude to those who touched our human feelings.

The curriculum is so much necessary raw material,

but warmth is the vital element for the growing plant

and for the soul of the child.

(Carl Jung, 1875 – 1961)

By noon, the residents of Rohan’s capital had managed by a combined effort to put out the fire. Their great success was that they had prevented it from escalating and spreading to other buildings, which could have easily have led to the destruction of the entire lower part of the city.

Amrothos was - to put it mildly - worn out. The tension that had kept him going all morning had expired together with the flames. Without prior warning, fatigue hit him like a poleaxe. He leant against the palisades that surrounded the training field for some support. His back hurt, his arms hurt and his eyes and throat stung. And if the way his hands looked was an indication of his appearance in general, he could have rivalled any charcoal burner. As could have all the others who had battled the blaze. Under less serious circumstances he would have considered the sight of all those soot-blackened figures to be quite funny.

Hearing footsteps, he looked back over his shoulder and saw Ecgbehrt approaching. The old carpenter had obviously inspected the catapult . . . and the ammunition that had led to the disaster.

“My Lord,” the carpenter greeted him, resting his arms on top of the fence. “That was some kind of wakeup call, that’s for sure.”

Amrothos groaned. “I still cannot believe that they really did cause that fire. Do you have any idea what they actually did?”

“I had a look at it just now.” The old man pointed with his thumb back over his shoulder at the catapult. “They have got a flagon with some of the spirit the healers use for disinfecting and it seems they got a few balls of wool from the weaving chambers.” He glanced pointedly at the Prince. “Balls of wool,” he repeated. “Does that remind you of something?”

For a long moment Amrothos’s mind stayed perfectly blank. But then, in sudden realisation, he slapped his forehead with his palm. “Why should we use balls of wool?” he recalled aloud Ælfwine’s question from the previous day. “After that Éomund said something about dunking them in oil.”

Ecgbehrt nodded in grim remorse. “That was when I interrupted him.”

“And I did not pay attention. Damnation. Éomund and his ingenious ideas. They tried to hurl a ball of burning wool over the barn.” He shook his head, rubbing with both hands over his face. “It was my fault. They are too young to fully assess the risk. I should have told them not to operate the catapult without me or another custodian in attendance.”

“My Lord, most of my life I have instructed apprentice boys. When they come to me, they are older than the Princes, but in many ways still very much children. And after all these years and all those boys, it never ceases to amaze me, how differently their minds work from ours. Never take for granted that things are for them the same as for you.”

“Thank you for the well-intentioned comfort as well as a useful piece of advice, Ecgbehrt, but I am afraid both come a little bit too late.” He gave a crooked half-smile. “I am really looking forward to what Éomer will have to say.”

“Do not worry too much,” the ‘ealdorman’ reassured him – although his sympathy sounded slightly mocking. “Éomer King has become much more . . . serene over the years. Nowadays he saves his fits of temper for the kind of incidents that really matter.”

Had he not heard it with his own ears, Amrothos would have never believed that somebody had really characterised the King of Rohan as serene.

“And you do not think that the burning down of a barn will be enough to raise the King’s rage?”

“Not necessarily.” Ecgbehrt shook his head, amused and unconcerned. “Three days, four at the most and you will find Master Gimli arriving. And as soon as he gets here, he and the King will begin to plan not only a new barn but . . . I really do not know. Just let us wait and see how this part of the city is going to look by the end of the summer.”

Those words of comfort had hardly been spoken, when a horn sounded from one of the watchtowers. The signal that heralded the King. The guards had sighted the royal procession approaching Edoras. On top of the towers the standards of the King and the Queen were hoisted, announcing that Rohan’s sovereigns were back in residence.

Amrothos would have appreciated being allowed more time. “Sweet Elbereth, it is just noon. I thought they would not be back before the end of the day.”

At his uncommonly subdued tone, Ecgbehrt gave a chuckle. “I heard that the King had planned to spend last night at Upbourn and meet Lord Æðelwærd of Harrowdale. So they had to cover barely twelve miles this morning.”

“Could you not have given me more notice so that I would have had the chance to seek shelter somewhere?” the Prince asked resigned, but he set out for the stable yard.

The open space, flanked on two sides by the huge stables for the stallions and the mares and on a third by the destroyed barn, was wide enough to easily accommodate the entire éored of the Royal Guard as well as the two dozen other riders in the entourage of King and Queen. Within a few short moments the gates had admitted nearly a hundred and fifty horses and riders inside the walls of the city, headed by the Lord of the Land.

For years now the central parts of Rohan had been secure again for all travellers and Éomer was wearing neither mail nor armour but plain riding clothes devoid of any finery, as he preferred them. Nobody, however, would have taken him for a common rider. The King of the Mark had a natural presence one found impossible to overlook. He sat on his magnificent and rather obstinate steed – the beast’s master would have emphatically contradicted the latter appraisal - with a naturalness only a Rohír was able to display on horseback. He reined in the stallion and contemplated, apparently unperturbed, the still smouldering ruins of the barn.

Amrothos didn’t dare to put too much trust in that tranquillity. When he came up to Éomer, his brother-in-law seemed to sense his presence and turned towards him, thoughtfully taking in his sooty appearance.

“Ēalā, Amrothos. Is there a particular reason why the barn was burned to the ground?”

“Ēalā, Éomer. Welcumen bæc.” Amrothos returned the greeting, then paused, searching for a fairly straight answer to – what was essentially – a complex question. “I am afraid it is not only a long story but also a complicated one.”

“Complicated?” The Rohír dismounted. “I should have known that this faint hope of mine that just for once something involving you might turn out to be simple had to be in vain.” He handed the reins to a stable-hand, who had come running to take over his king’s horse. Éomer bid the big slate-grey farewell with a slap on his hind quarters, but the wilful steed was already occupied in attempting to get a nip at his handler.

“What makes you think that the fire has something to do with me?” Amrothos asked with genuine indignation, although he had – admittedly – very little reason to be in a huff.

“It has not?”

At the sound of his sister’s voice, Amrothos spun around. Having concentrated his attention on Éomer, he’d missed Lothíriel in the milling crowd of men and horses. Unperceived by him, she had already dismounted and must have handed her mare over to Osmund, her personal stable-lad. Now she stood there, just a couple of yards away, regarding her brother’s filthiness with that look of composed tolerance that she usually reserved for her offspring.

After ten years of marriage and five children, Lothíriel still looked like a fawn but was – according to her husband - as tough as a mule. Which was – according to Lothíriel – the basic requirement for a woman wedded to Éomer. Not to mention for the Queen of the Rohirrim. And she was the only woman Amrothos knew of, whose husband used – undisputedly - ‘mīn lytle mūl’ as a term of endearment.

Said husband raised a sceptical eyebrow at his brother-in-law. “Indeed,” he mused. “What could it be that makes both of us think intuitively that you might have been involved somehow in the creation of this chaos?”

“Thirty years of experience?” Lothíriel suggested amiably.

“My personal experience goes back for only ten years,” Éomer reminded her and added under his breath, “Bema, Þoncie Þē.”

Amrothos decided that, at this point, he could still afford some indignation. “I can assure you, I was not directly involved in the outbreak of the fire. I was in my bed.”

“The favoured whereabouts of the presumed innocent,” his sister teased before her voice became more serious. “Has anybody been injured?”

Amrothos could put her at ease. “Only a few burns, mostly caused by flying embers, and somebody got knocked down by an empty bucket. All casualties have been treated by Goðhold and his healers.”

“And what did cause the fire?”

“Ahh . . .” Amrothos really wished he had taken the time to work out a prudent answer to Éomer’s question - which had to come as sure as eggs were eggs.

“Amrothos!” There was a clear warning in the eyes of Rohan’s King. “I want one short sentence.”

“Well, the fire was caused by a catapult.” That was a short sentence, wasn’t it?

But short sentences were also perfectly able to produce some confusion. Even with two people who were usually rather quick to understand complex matters.

“A catapult?” Lothíriel’s expression settled into a frown. “Since when do we have a catapult?”

“A very good question, ‘mīn se lēofesta’,” Éomer smiled ominously at the other man. “And I am certain your brother has a straight answer.”

“Since yesterday.”  Amrothos knew he was playing with fire – bad pun – but he simply couldn’t resist. After all, Éomer had demanded short sentences.

“It certainly did not fall from the sky,” Lothíriel pointed out.

“It was built.”

“For somebody who has a generally acknowledged talent for convoluted sentences, you are suspiciously monosyllabic today.” Éomer began to sound impatient. “Why did you build a catapult?”

Rohan’s King, on the other hand, had an undisputed talent for unequivocal questions, which demanded unambiguous answers – even from Amrothos of Dol Amroth. But the latter wasn’t a man who gave up quickly.

“I did not actually build it. It was rather that I had the stewardship of the construction.”

“Then who actually built it under your stewardship?” Éomer pointed his forefinger at the other man’s face. “And no more quips.”

In a way Amrothos was looking forward to finally throwing the fat into the fire.

“Ælfwine, Éomund and Hroðgar.”

Silence.

The parents of the named, stared at him. Lothíriel was the first who recovered if not her poise, her speech. “You let them build a catapult?” she exclaimed, flabbergasted. “And let them fire something off?”

“You know, Amrothos,” Éomer kept his voice painfully neutral, “life in the Mark without you would not be the same.” He gave the younger man a look of mingled annoyance and disbelief. “Where is this . . . masterpiece?”

Silently, the Prince pointed toward the training field and then led the way to the spot at the fence where he had earlier stood with Ecgbehrt. Amrothos noted that despite his theory that his king had turned into patience personified, the ‘ealdorman’ had preferred to retreat from the potential battlefield.

The royal couple observed the catapult for a while from a distance without saying a word. Finally Lothíriel cleared her throat.

“It looks . . . big.”

“Fairly big,” her husband agreed. “Amrothos, I thought that you had comprehended that our sons are nuisances as they are,” Rohan’s King enlightened his brother-in-law, who noted that there was no disapproval of that statement by the mother of the nuisances.

Éomer went on, “We try our utmost to prevent letting them get their hands on anything that could be used remotely as a weapon. And you had nothing better to do than help them to build a siege machine? A siege machine!” he repeated, ignoring the Prince’s mumbled objection that it was only a rather small catapult. “Quite frankly, I am surprised they managed to destroy only the one barn.”

“Why were you playing with them anyway?” Lothíriel wanted to know. “They were supposed to be occupied with their lessons. Before we left, I instructed Caevudor in what I wanted accomplished educationally by our return. There should not have been time for any kind of building activity.”

“You must have forgotten to inform your sons about your wishes regarding their scholarly improvements,” Amrothos reminded her with a false smile, “because they decided to put their tutor out of action.”

“Out of action?” Éomer shifted his concentration from the catapult to the person responsible for it. “How did they manage to do that?”

“They fed him marigold oil.”

“Marigold oil?” For a reason Amrothos didn’t quite understand, the mentioning of that substance made Rohan’s King grin. His Queen seemed to know why, because she gave her husband a reproachful frown. Otherwise she ignored him. Instead she directed another question at her brother.

“Where did they get the oil from?”

Yes, they’d known each other for thirty odd years and had never spent more than a few months apart. However, Amrothos still had failed to fully understand Lothíriel’s way of thinking. She seldom said the things or asked the questions he expected her to say or ask. Not ‘Why did my sons feed their tutor marigold oil?’ or ‘How did the poor man get over being poisoned?’ No, she wanted to know where the culprits got the oil from.

“I did not ask,” Amrothos admitted with a shrug of his shoulders.

But Lothíriel persisted with her query. “Why not?”

“I did not consider it important.”

“Well, it is,” his sister informed him with emphasis and explained, “It is strictly forbidden for them to help themselves to any of my remedies. If they have breached that rule, they know that it will have serious consequences.”

“Is it also going to have consequences that they tried to poison their tutor?”

His sarcasm bypassed her – or she just ignored it due to long years of practice.

“You cannot poison a grown man with marigold oil,” Lothíriel declared prosaically. “Nevertheless, that is no excuse for putting it in his food. What I do not understand is why he ate up whatever dish they put it in. It tastes awful and has a strong smell.”

“Probably because our good Master Caevudor simply expects all Rohirric food to taste awful and have a peculiar smell,” Éomer interrupted. “I think we are going to need a new tutor. I have been in contact with Erchirion already. I thought this time we would leave it to him to find a suitable candidate after the two Faramir sent us failed so pitifully. What I am much more interested in right now,” Éomer came back to the more significant problem, “is if you asked them at least why they set fire to that barn?”

Amrothos heaved a silent sigh. This looked like it was going to turn into a full-scale interrogation.

“They tried to hurl a burning projectile over it. They must have miscalculated the range and hit the roof.” He thought it a good idea to carry on with the short and precise answers.

“And why did they use a burning projectile?”

Amrothos couldn’t help but get the impression that his brother-in-law was getting into the kind of mood that always got on his nerves. But it was an understandable question, no doubt. On the other hand, did the little hellions really need something like a rational reason?

“I do not have the slightest clue yet what gave them the idea in the first place or why they got up in the wee hours of the morning for some clandestine target practice.”

“You did not ask them?”

“It was not the time. I just wanted them out of the way so they would not get hurt.”

“I suppose you did not consider the question why they set fire to a barn important,” Éomer remarked affably.

“Amrothos, you are a father yourself,” Lothíriel stated a glorious and undisputable fact. “You should know that, when it comes to a child’s action, it is always important to establish the who, what, where, with what, why, how and when.”

“What?” Amrothos asked, momentarily befuddled and unable to do anything but scowl at the grinning King. He would have liked to explain that his own offspring were kind and friendly and easy to cope with, but after what he had learnt about Annareth the previous day, he thought it better to talk to his wife first about that biting habit before he nominated his daughters as shining examples of good behaviour.

Getting no immediate response, Lothíriel waved a hand dismissively. “Forget about it. Éomer and I shall talk to the boys ourselves. Where are they?”

Now came the really difficult part of the story. How to tell a mother that the apples of her eye had been banished to a damp, vermin-infected, dug-into-a-rock and void-of-any-daylight dungeon?

“Well, I was just about to go and get them when you arrived,” he assured his sister.

“To get them from where?” Lothíriel slanted him an impatient look and repeated, “Where are they?”

“In the dungeon.” It was out.

“In the dungeon?” Lothíriel eyed her brother incredulously and then blew out an irritated breath. “I must say, Amrothos, sometimes you are worse than the children. They are going to smell abominably.”

That was not the reaction he had anticipated.

Rohan’s Queen directed her next words to her husband. “I’d better go and get them out of there myself, before they have another unpleasant encounter with some rats. I think, however, that we should talk to them at once, before I have them scrubbed clean.”

With that conclusion she turned and walked briskly up the hill towards the Golden Hall. The men followed with their eyes.

“Ahh, Éomer,” Amrothos addressed the parent who had been left behind. “They haven’t been in the dungeon for very long. I do not think that the rats are a danger to them.” At least he hoped not or he wouldn’t give a rat’s behind for his head. Lothíriel would have it on a platter.

“I doubt that that is your sister’s primary concern. She worries more for the rats . . . and for the people who live and work in the Hall.” Éomer took his time to clarify this – preposterous – statement. His grin widened, probably because his brother-in-law looked just as puzzled as he felt. “You see, Amrothos, the last time I had the pack locked away in the dungeon in order to think over their latest misconduct in some peace and quiet, they caught two rats and smuggled them into their chamber to keep them as pets. Unfortunately for us, they got hold of a female and a male.” Éomer looked at the other man with a comical frown. “Do you have any idea how quickly those rodents reproduce? And how difficult it is to clear a building the size of this Hall of all the vermin?” Rohan’s King gave a deep-drawn sigh. “But the worst consequence was the constant shrieks from the servants. Those shrill screeches really got on my nerves.”

Amrothos wondered if he should dare to laugh. “When did that happen?” he asked eventually.

“Shortly after your last visit. But do not worry about the cleanliness. Lothíriel thought it would be a good opportunity to give the entire Hall a very thorough cleaning after the winter. We decided to stay in Erchirion’s house for that period of time.” Éomer slanted his brother-in-law a curious look. “I am surprised you have not heard of this before.”

“So am I,” Amrothos replied but he was eminently interested in another question. “The great King of Rohan found it necessary to send his own sons to the dungeon?”

Éomer just shrugged his shoulders and returned the respectful greeting from a couple of women who passed them. “A man gets desperate from time to time.” He made a gesture toward the main path and the friends began to walk uphill toward the Golden Hall, following the Queen but at a more leisurely pace.

“What was their misdeed?”

“They got Firefoot drunk.”

And Amrothos had thought that after the burning down of the barn none of his nephews’ escapades still held the ability to surprise him. A sober Firefoot could be described – with a lot of goodwill – as bad-tempered; an inebriated Firefoot . . . he would rather not envision. Or at least, he wouldn’t like to come face to face with the big slate-grey after the stallion had got down a barrel.

“Were there any casualties?” he inquired, thinking in terms of a handful of maimed stable-lads.

“Mainly damage to the stall and a few bruises. Poor Firefoot was so drunk he could hardly keep on his legs and his hangover lasted three full days.”

Amrothos flinched in sympathy. He had been lucky in comparison to the royal steed. None of his hangovers had ever lasted longer than a day . . . if one left aside his five-day-drinking bout after he had been caught in that compromising situation which had made him ultimately a – very happily - wedded man. And unlike the horse he had been able to ease his belly by throwing up.

“How did they get the ale into him?”

“Oh, Firefoot used to like his ale and got a sip now and then. But being greedy as he is, he drunk at least the entire bucket the boys had offered to him, all at once. And they had thought that such a big horse should be able to manage at least as much ale in one go as Gimli.”

This time Amrothos couldn’t keep his chuckle inside, even though still doubtful if the actual cause of the fire might have some serious consequences for him. “It seems that your horse cannot hold his liquor.”

“When it came to heavy drinking, Firefoot used to be a novice. So three gallons of strong ale knocked him out cold.” Éomer grinned. “Nowadays he is abstaining. The mere smell of ale will send him running.”

“Clever beast,” Amrothos remarked and received a pointed glance from his brother-in-law. “Excuse me. Nowadays I am abstaining. Although your sons could certainly drive a man to drink.”

“You are not the first man who has mentioned that.”

“And may I ask who the first one was?”

“Me!”

Amrothos decided to avoid the pitfall behind that laconic reply and remained silent, something that didn’t come naturally to him. Today, however, a bit of restraint might prove to be favourable for his health.

In silent accord – for the time being - the two men continued their way uphill. The people they met greeted their King, quite obviously pleased to see him, with a cheerfulness unthinkable in Gondor. There, the respect his subjects undoubtedly showed for Elessar was accompanied by distance and filled with awe. The Rohirrim had proven in the past that they were unshakably loyal to the House of Eorl. They respected their King but also showed genuine affection for Éomer the man, and his family.

It was their candour and the deeply rooted sincerity of the Rohirrim that had once induced Amrothos to settle in the Mark. That mainly, but also because his wife, and all the good Rohirric qualities she possessed – which he loved dearly - would have had the effect of a ball of lightning on Gondorian society.

When they reached the high stair of stone leading up to the Golden Hall, Éomer, as usual, took two steps at a time, pulling ahead of his brother-in-law. At the stair’s head he turned around to look down over the city, observing the stable yard in its new layout. When Amrothos came up to him he murmured cogitatively, “I think I will send a messenger to Glaemscrafu and ask Gimli to come to Edoras. We should take advantage of the situation and make a few structural alterations to the area around the stables.”

Amrothos decided not to mention that the ‘ealdorman’ of Edoras had already expressed his suspicion that his King would happily seize this opportunity to indulge once more in his passion for building.

They greeted the single Doorward in front of Meduseld – Lothíriel had probably taken the other one with her to unlock the dungeon – and entered the Great Hall. Immediately something from behind the next column lunged with a shriek at Éomer and clung to his legs. Amrothos was so startled that he jumped a foot straight up into the air. He had become rather jumpy these days. Rohan’s King – in contrast - didn’t even flinch, just bent down and picked up the small child.

“Good day, son. I see you have escaped the nursemaids again.”

Little Forðred smiled proudly at those words and hugged his father tightly around his neck. Another year or so and he might be able to seriously choke a less powerfully built person.

Éomer gently loosened the stranglehold and turned with the boy in his arm around towards the daylight coming in through the doors of the Hall. He brushed the golden locks from his son’s forehead and now Amrothos could see that his youngest nephew was sporting a shiny reddish bump just below his hairline.

“That looks bright and new,” his genitor commented. “How did it happen?”

“Đéodwyn,” the little one lisped his twin’s name.

“What did she hit you with?” his father wanted to know.

“Spoon.”

“She hit you with a spoon?”

“Wooden spoon,” Forðred clarified.

“And I suppose she had a good reason,” Éomer stated and set down his wriggling son. The boy dashed away, howling like a wolf whose tail was on fire.

Amrothos look at his retreating nephew, slightly dazed. “How do you bear with them, day in, day out?” he asked, all of a sudden feeling totally worn again.

“How did Imrahil bear with you? From what I have heard, you were not exactly a paragon of virtue.”

“Perhaps,” Amrothos conceded. Another pointed look from his brother-in-law led him to yield even further. “Probably. However, I was only one. The gap between Erchirion and myself was wide enough so that we did not work each other up. Erchirion rather had an alleviating influence.”

“You mean he usually managed to cloud the mischief you had caused before your father became aware of it.”

“Ahh . . .” How to contradict such a conclusion without actually lying?

Éomer took note of that obvious hesitation with knowingly raised eyebrows but refrained from directly commenting on it.

“Last year, when the boys played a couple of pranks on their grandfather and I tried to apologise for their misbehaviour, it was he who appeased my annoyance. Your father told me that over the years, he had convinced himself again and again that he had done everything to prevent any possible mischief his sons – and particularly you – could create, only to learn that, despite all his preliminary measures, one of you came up with something no adult in his usual mindset could have foreseen. He advised me always to remember that it is we, the adults, who fail to feelsituations from a child’s point of view, and that failure leads us to teach them other than what we think we are teaching them.”

“And what are you going to teach your sons today?”

“That everything you do in your life has consequences. And that any punishment just for the sake of punishment is pointless.”

Right on cue Rohan’s Queen herded her eldest offspring - and their pet dog - into the Hall after having freed them from their cold and dark prison. The threesome had got even filthier during their detention and there was indeed a peculiar smell to them. But most notably, they looked more crestfallen than Amrothos had ever seen them before.

Éomer regarded his sons with a solemn glance.

“Suna.”

“Gōdne dæg, Fæder,” they murmured simultaneously.

It was obvious to Amrothos that his nephews would have had preferred to have been left in the dungeon, but he had to acknowledge that they showed backbone. As downcast as they might feel, they looked unwaveringly straight into their father’s stern face, something that one or other seasoned warrior had failed to do.

“I think we need to discuss your recent behaviour.”

Éomer's voice was mild but held that unmistakable tone. The one which, while impossible to describe, was easy enough to recognize. Had it been directed towards him, Amrothos would have known that the time had come to pay attention.

Unfortunately the solemnity of the situation was ruined by the rapturous shriek of a child. Little Forðred had discovered his mother and came dashing across the Hall. His father took a step aside and also his brothers got out of his way to clear a path for him – straight into Lothíriel’s arms. She bent down to catch the toddler and he helped her to lift him by bouncing off the floor. She settled him on her hip and Forðred wrapped his arms around her neck, placing a sloppy kiss on her cheek.

“Mīn dēorling,” Lothíriel returned his kiss. “Have you escaped the nursemaids again?”

The answer was an – for his uncle – incoherent flood of words. His mother, on the other hand, had apparently no problem in understanding the babytalk. She listened attentively.

“Now, why should Đéodwyn do something like that?” she asked. While Forðred babbled on, she pushed the strands of his silky baby hair from his forehead to examine the small swelling. “That was not very nice of you,” she admonished him gently. “If you were still hungry, you should have asked your nursemaid for another piece of honeycake and not eaten your sister’s.” 

That explained the spoon attack.

Éomer had kept his austere face but Amrothos saw the tender gleam in his eyes while watching his youngest son happily reunited with his mother. Nevertheless, he gave his order tersely, “Let us all proceed to my study,”

Amrothos went ahead and opened the door for his sister to precede him. “In a pot?” he heard Lothíriel say. “And you got stuck? What an adventure.”

Draca tried to sneak behind his masters into the King’s study but was stopped by a firm “Sit!” from Éomer. Obligingly, the huge dog plopped down on his bottom. No doubt, he had come to understand who was the Lord of this Hall. The last thing Amrothos saw of him before the door was closed on his furry face was a pair of doleful eyes.

Lothíriel took her seat in a chair that stood behind the desk next to Éomer’s and Forðred wiggled around a bit to find the most comfortable position on her lap. Éomer himself waited until the three culprits had taken position in front of them, as usual getting in line in accordance with their age. Amrothos, leaning against the large council table at the other end of the study, observed his nephews. Soon they might have to consider rearranging their line-up corresponding to their size. In another year Éomund should have caught up with Ælfwine in height.

Their father sat down and propped his elbows on the desk. Unsmiling he looked at them over his loosely folded hands and they returned his gaze, doing their best not to blink. Just when Éomer opened his mouth to begin the harangue, there was a knock at the door. Rohan’s King made a sharp sound of impatience, which whoever was on the other side of the door took as permission to enter. When it opened, a tiny figure squeezed into the study as soon as the gap was wide enough.

With a squeal of delight the little girl rushed across the floor and hurled herself in the direction of her father’s arms. Since Ðéodwyn had learnt to walk, Éomer had become quite adept at catching little girls, midair.

All the while the King of the Horselords was showered with wet pecks and kisses – Amrothos tried not to laugh, which wasn’t easy - a nursemaid stepped into the room and curtseyed.

“My Lord; my Lady. I beg your pardon for intruding. But when Ðéodwyn became aware that you had returned, I could not hold her back.”

“That is quite all right, Ecgið,” Lothíriel assured her, slanting her husband and their daughter an amused glance. They were having a similar conversation to what she’d had earlier with the twin brother. “You can leave her with us.”

The nursemaid curtseyed again and left. When she had said that there had been no holding the little girl when she had heard of her parents’ return, she hadn’t been quite truthful, as the object of Ðéodwyn’s affection was clearly her father. But with four sons worshipping the ground she walked on, Lothíriel could afford the generosity of accepting with good grace that she came only third in her daughter’s favour, after Éomer . . . and a pet goose named Ælfetu.

It took Éomer a moment to calm the excitedly twittering Ðéodwyn. Settling on his lap, the little girl with her big grey eyes finally found the time to greet her mother. She reached for Lothíriel who took the chubby hand and placed a kiss on her palm. Coming so close together on their parents’ laps, the twins eyed each other reproachfully.

“Now that all our children are accounted for,” Éomer declared wryly, “we can begin to examine those unpleasant incidents that have occurred during your mother’s and my absence.” His last words were aimed directly at his three eldest sons, his voice perilously soft. They straightened their spines, but they met his gaze bravely. “Shall we begin with the question of why you found it necessary to poison your tutor?” Éomer sat silently, waiting for a response.

The three exchanged brief glances. Ælfwine took it upon himself to answer.

“He always complains about Rohirric food. That it is too heavy and not well enough cooked.”

“It is not refined enough for his taste,” Éomund threw in.

Hroðgar nodded. “Sophicated.”

“Sophisticated,” his eldest brother corrected him. “And he said that about ale.”

“That ale is not a sophisticated drink,” Éomund clarified. “Only ordinary people drink it. People with no breeding.”

“I thought we breed horses? And cows and sheep.” Hroðgar looked slightly confused.

And Amrothos wondered if Faramir had indeed chosen the tutor or if it had been Elphir in the end.

“And you thought,” Éomer said, forcing any annoyance Amrothos would have felt in his stead about the indication behind those revelations out of his voice, “that you would give him a real reason for complaining by spiking his dishes with some of your mother’s marigold oil to make him sick?”

“It was not from Mother’s stock,” Éomund pointed out.

“We are not allowed to take any of that,” Hroðgar informed his father.

“Then where did you get the oil from?” Lothíriel interrupted.

“From the ‘hālwendehūs’,” Ælfwine replied.

“We asked,” Éomund rushed to set that right.

“Politely,” Hroðgar stressed.

Amrothos couldn’t hold back a suspicious noise and was hit by a reprimanding glare from his brother-in-law.

“You asked Master Goðhold for marigold oil and he gave it to you?” Lothíriel probed further, obviously suspecting that there was more to the story.

Again the brothers did their silent communication bit.

“No,” Éomund admitted after a short hesitation. “We asked his ‘læceþegn’, Ulferð.”

“And what did you tell him that you needed the oil for?”

“He did not ask.”

“Hmm.” Thoughtfully Lothíriel ran her fingers over Forðred’s hair and tidied his unruly locks. “Do you have any idea why he did not enquire further into your rather unusual request?”

By now at least Ælfwine and Éomund had an idea what their mother was aiming at and both looked uncomfortable.

“Well?”

“He did not ask because . . . it was us.” Ælfwine sounded amazingly miserable.

“Your sons,” Éomund amended, more in a whisper than his usual voice.

“Indeed, he did not ask any questions because you are the Princes of Rohan. And you knew that beforehand.”

Lothíriel’s tone was mild and flat. Amrothos remembered that kind of voice quite well from his own mother. The Princess of Dol Amroth had never reprimanded her youngest son, had never raised her voice. She had just stated his latest misdeed, not even sounding disappointed with him, just sad as if what had happened had been her fault. And her son had prayed that the ground would open up and swallow him. Right now the three Princes of Rohan looked as if they hoped for a similar clemency of nature, because their mother showed no mercy with them.

“You took advantage of your station and by doing so misused Ulferð. What do you think he felt like when he learnt what you did with the marigold oil? You tricked him into giving you something that is meant to do good and used it to make somebody ill. That is guileful.”

Amrothos nearly snorted. Said the woman who once knocked out an entire band of Dunlending raiders by feeding them an overdose of some sort of purge?

“And it is also absolutely guileful to make your tutor sick just because he does not approve of Rohirric food,” Éomer added in that special kind of fatherly tone that Amrothos recalled so very well from his own childhood. Had Éomer taken lessons from Imrahil?

But unlike when they had just been confronted by their mother and backed down as meekly as lambs, the boys were prepared to stand up to their father, probably afraid their hero might take them as being spineless otherwise.

“It was not only about the food,” Ælfwine protested.

“It is about anything Rohirric.” There was a passion in Éomund’s voice that Amrothos hadn’t known his slightly phlegmatic, if clever, nephew possessed. “Everything in Gondor is better. Nothing in Rohan is good enough.”

“No even we.” The eldest prince jabbed his forefinger in direction of his four siblings and at last against his chest. “Because we are . . .” he had to make use of the ten fingers of his hands, “only five eighths Dúnedain.”

“That is less than all eighth,” Hroðgar explained, just in case the mathematical abilities of the grown-ups weren’t any longer what they once might have been.

“He says that the union with the House of Dol Amroth is for the House of Eorl a . . .” Ælfwine turned to his younger brother for help. Éomund deliberated on the unuttered question for a short moment.

“Appreciation,” he said slowly. “That is the word Master Caevudor uses. And he says that we should be glad that we have more Dúnedain blood than Rohirric.”

“What?” The disbelieving question slipped out of Amrothos mouth but nobody paid him attention.

“But we are not Dúnedain. We are Rohirrim,” Ælfwine stated forcefully.

“Aye,” Forðred piped up from his mother’s lap.

“Aye,” his sister echoed, tipping her head back to smile at her father.

Amrothos was glad he had positioned himself behind the threesome. His effort not to laugh out loud put him on the verge of tears. He admired his sister and her husband, who managed to keep perfectly straight faces. Not only at their youngest, who felt they had to shove in their oar, but mostly at the preposterous claims of the Gondorian tutor. To think that he had felt sorry for the man. He wondered how Caevudor estimated the value of his two daughters? Or Erchirion’s children? After all, they were only half-Dúnedain, which was less than five eighths. Right now Amrothos felt very much tempted to seriously poison the man himself.

“Does the Gondorian nobility keep stud books of their lineage?” Éomer asked with mocking interest.

“Only the asses do,” Amrothos replied dryly.

His brother-in-law gave a snort, but his attention focused back on his sons.

“Yes, you are Rohirrim,” he said, “and Rohirrim do not deploy devious tactics against their adversaries. We face them squarely and in the open. Deceit is not our way. It is the refuge of cowards. And I do not want to believe that my sons are cowards.” Icicles of disapproval hung on each word and, put to shame, the faces of the three boys turned red.

Hroðgar cast a wistful glance at his mother, probably reminiscing about the time when he had occupied that privileged and secure place on Lothíriel’s lap where Forðred was lounging now, gaily unaffected. But Éomer still demanded their attention.

“You should have come to me or to your mother and told us about Caevudor’s errors. No circumstances warrant what you did. You will go and apologise formally to your late tutor.”

“But Father . . .” Ælfwine began to rebel against that instruction but received a nudge in his ribs from Éomund that stopped him. The second in line had obviously caught the term late tutor.

“May we explain why we put the marigold oil into his soup?” Éomund asked.

“Absolutely,” his father retorted, keeping any eventually revealing emotion out of his voice.

“And while you are at the ‘hālwendehūs’ you will also apologise to Ulferð for taking advantage of his good faith,” their mother added.

This time the threesome muttered their agreement without hesitation.

“Was that all?” Hroðgar asked, one of his feet already moving in the direction of the door.

Amazing, but since Amrothos knew the responsibility for the pack was back in the hands of their parents, he had began to find their antics quite amusing again.

“Was that all?” Éomer repeated his son’s question, not sounding amused at all. “We have not even begun yet.”

Hroðgar heaved a sigh. But his hopes of getting off that lightly had probably been remote anyway. His brothers slanted him rebuking glances.

“When we returned to Edoras today, your mother and I were aghast to find the great barn destroyed by flames and absolutely appalled when we learnt that it had been our sons who were responsible for that fire.” Éomer paused, his eyes fixing theirs. “Who is going to explain how that could have happened?”

“We miscalculated the range of our projectile,” Éomund began, but his father silenced him with a curt wave of his hand.

“I want you to start at the beginning and tell us what you three were doing out there at the crack of dawn, playing around with fire. Who gave you permission to leave the Hall before sunrise?”

“We did not think that we needed permission to get up early and go outside.” Ælfwine had started his excuse with his usual self-confidence, but watching his father’s reaction, his voice got quieter with every word. Finally he added in a fairly meek but also petulant tone, “We did not leave the boundaries of the city.”

Éomer leant back in his chair and Ðéodwyn settled comfortably against his chest. “Answer me two questions,” he requested, purposefully mild. “Have you ever been given the impression that you had not to ask if you wanted to go out in the dark? And would you have gone out before sunrise this morning without asking for permission – never mind for what reason – had your mother and I been in residence?”

All three kept silent.

“Well?” their father prompted.

Amrothos remembered plenty of situations like this one from his time as the usual suspect. It was as enjoyable as pulling a tooth.

“No,” Éomund at last ground out.

“No . . . what?” Today was definitely not Éomer’s most indulgent day.

“No, we would not have gone outside this morning had Mother and you been at home.”

“Then why did you sneak out, knowing perfectly well that it is against the rules?”

“Because . . .” Ælfwine chewed on his lower lip before he admitted. “We wanted to try something out.”

“Something you knew your mother and I would have forbidden.” That was not phrased as a question.

Éomund swallowed heavily. “It was my fault,” he burst out. “It was my idea to use a burning projectile. Like the beehives.”

“Beehives?” Lothíriel asked alarmed, obviously having forebodings. “You are not saying that you hurled beehives around?”

“No,” Hroðgar made haste to reassure her. “Uncle Amrothos would not give us permission.” A thoughtful frown appeared on his forehead. “He did not say anything about burning balls of wool.”

“And because I did not single out burning balls of wool as prohibited ammunition, you thought it to be acceptable to shoot them onto a thatched roof?” Amrothos interrupted despite having resolved at the beginning of the interrogation to keep his mouth shut. But Éomer didn’t seem to mind. He quizzically raised his eyebrows.

“We did not do it on purpose,” Hroðgar pointed out and received a nudge from Éomund. “What?”

“We miscalculated the range of the burning projectile.” Éomund came back to his earlier approach of trying to explain the disaster. “It was much lighter than the bag of clay we hurled yesterday evening over the barn. That even went across the fortifications and landed on Fengel King’s grave mound.”

Once again on this day Lothíriel and Éomer appeared slightly bewildered.

“You bombarded the barrow field?” Éomer asked his brother-in-law.

“Not on purpose,” Amrothos emphasised. “We miscalculated the range of the projectile.” A glare from Éomer told him that, had the children not been in the room, he would have had plenty to respond to that quip.

“I do not understand why the bag flew that far but the ball of wool that did not even weigh half as much, dropped on the roof.” Éomund looked thoroughly puzzled. “We did not change anything at the catapult. We did not move it and the counterweight was the same as the night before.”

Amrothos groaned inwardly. Now that explained the whole mess. And he saw that Lothíriel and Éomer had also comprehended what had gone wrong. It earned him an accusing look from his sister. Her husband rubbed the nape at his neck.

“It appears,” Éomer began, and though he addressed his sons, his eyes fixed on his brother-in-law, “that your uncle, in spite of all his physical ingenuity, failed to inform you that although you might not be able to see the air, it nevertheless is there. It is not only important to consider the weight of the projectile and the thrust by the catapult but also the drag caused by the air.”

The boys looked blank for a moment. No doubt, Master Caevudor would have done better, had he taught exact science instead of counting the noble stock of his pupils.

“You can see the air and you can feel it,” Lothíriel intervened. “When it is very cold and you breathe out, you can see the air just in front of you. And when it is windy, you can feel it on your skin and can watch it move your hair or the banners in front of the Hall. It is there, isn’t it?”

The threesome nodded in unity.

“A heavy item cuts through the air more easily than a light item. Like a large knife cuts more easily through a loaf of bread than a small knife.”

Tilting his head, Éomund regarded his mother thoughtfully. One could almost hear his mind spinning. “You mean that ball of wool did not fly as far as the bag of clay, because it was lighter?” he asked.

Lothíriel smiled affirmatively.

“The air slowed it down?” Ælfwine looked at his father for confirmation. “It could not get through the air because it was too small?”

“In principle, yes,” Éomer corroborated that explanation.

Hroðgar scratched his nose. “Then, from now on, we will use only heavy things.”

“You will not have the time to hurl anything anywhere,” his father declared firmly. “You will be very busy in helping to put right the damage you have done.”

The boys exchanged apprehensive glances.

“The remnants of the barn have to be cleared away and a new one has to be built. By the end of next month the first haymaking of this year’s harvest season will start and by then we will need the barn for storage. The work has to be done in addition to the day-to-day work. That means it will be an extra burden for our people, a burden you have imposed upon them by your thoughtlessness. Until the new barn has been built, you will make a contribution to the efforts according to your best abilities.”

“You want us to help with building the new barn?” Ælfwine asked, obviously considering if that might be just an extension – not necessarily an unpleasant prospect – of their building activities.

“No, I certainly do not want you involved in the construction work. Having to keep you out of mischief,” Éomer waved their burgeoning protest quiet, “would only slow down the work. You will relieve the men of some of the everyday chores. Each morning at sunrise you will be down at the stables to help the stable hands to feed the horses and muck out the stalls. After the ‘morgengrýtt’ you will do your utmost to make good for all the lessons you missed while your mother and I were away.”

“But I thought we do not have a tutor any more,” Éomund blurted out. A short glance from his father quietened him.

“I will ask Gléowine to stand in as your tutor until a new one is found. As we all know, it will not be the first time.”

The threesome did not look very happy. They certainly preferred caring for the horses to sitting virtuously over their books.

“In the afternoon,” Éomer continued, “you will be back at the stables. There is plenty of saddlery and harnesses to clean and oil, not to mention the guards’ armour. And if that does not keep you busy until dark, you will help the wives of the men who are working at the barn. Cleaning out a hen-coop has never done any harm.”

There was a pause.

“Have we understood each other?”

“Yes, Father.”

“You are the Princes of Rohan. Your first duty is the welfare of your people. One day, one of you will be King. A king’s power has only one warrant - to do everything to ease his people’s lives. With your carelessness, your impulsiveness, you disregarded your duty and abused the power of your station. Instead of easing people’s lives, you have burdened them and the fire you caused endangered their livelihoods and their lives. That was very ill done, very ill indeed and I hope I will never again have to learn that my sons have inflicted such harm on our people. I am disappointed.”

The point had been reached at which the culprits could no longer meet their father’s eyes. With slumped shoulders they studied their toecaps, probably wishing that the floor would reveal a deep, dark hole so that they could crawl into it. A single tear ran down Hroðgar’s cheek and he shook his head to make his hair fall over the side of his face to conceal it. Their father’s words in that cool, flat voice had apparently a worse effect on them than any shouting could have had.

Amrothos cast his sister a glance, wondering how she felt, having watched that lonely teardrop running on the face of the baby of the three. Her large eyes seemed even bigger than usual and shadowed as if she had to keep back her own tears. But she did not interfere in her husband’s dealings with the boys. Éomer himself did look very slightly uneasy at the pitiable sight of them. Treating the weaker harshly was not the King of Rohan’s cup of tea.

“You may go now,” Éomer said, his voice a hint more forgiving. “Clean yourself up and get something to eat. Then you can go down to the stables and offer your help to care for the horses of the Royal Guard – that’s after you have dropped by the ‘hālwendehūs’ and made your apologies to Caevudor and Ulferð.” 

He didn’t have to tell them twice. They just nodded and made haste to leave the study. Before they closed the door again, one could hear Draca greeting them with a happy yap.

Amrothos slanted his brother-in-law a glance. “How long do you think that dispirited mood is going to last?”

Éomer grinned, peeling Ðéodwyn’s chubby fingers gently from the hilt of the dagger he was carrying at his belt. “I think we are on the safe side for at least a sennight. After that, all bets are off. At this age they hardly do anything on purpose or out of spite. That’s what makes them so dangerous.”

“Perhaps you could have prolonged that period of time by imprinting your words on their bottoms.”

He had meant those words only as a jest but he saw Lothíriel going very still and contemplating him for a moment, silently.

“You are an adult, Amrothos,” she finally said in a low tone, probably because Forðred was still perched on her lap, but reproach was plainly underlining her voice, “a grown man of thirty-six years. You are superior to any child in means of strength of the body and experience in life. Having to establish your argument by noise or even by force shows nothing but that your reason is weak. It gives the dangerous message that might makes right, that it is permissible to hurt someone else, provided they are smaller and less powerful than you are. Adults have to exercise the power they hold over children carefully if they wish to act as good role models. A child who is treated with love and indulgence is taught a loving attitude to the surrounding world. A child who is treated with violence and harshness gets the opposite elementary attitude. Children are educated by what the grown-ups are and not by their words.”

She looked down at her son, snuggled against her in a blissful state because he had his mother back. She touched a smooth cheek with her fingertip and was rewarded by a drowsy smile. She turned back to her brother.

“The boys know exactly what they did, that they disappointed their parents and let their people down. Believe me, they are feeling very bad right now and they will do everything that is within their means to help correct the damage. Corporal punishment is not going to do any good and as far as I remember, you have never been exposed to a spanking - not even after you knocked me down with Grandfather’s shield.”

That accusation came unexpectedly to Amrothos, making him speechless for the moment so that Éomer beat him to his chance of a reply. “You knocked your sister down? You knocked her unconscious?” The glare that hit the Prince was harbouring between patent disbelief and pure indignation.

Amrothos raised both hands in an appeasing gesture. “That was twenty-five years ago.” One was well advised to be cautious in Éomer’s presence when it came to Lothíriel – as he knew from past experience. “And it was an accident,” he added, just to be on the safe side.

“I was unconscious indeed,” Lothíriel said, her answer directed to both men, but she looked at her husband. “It is correct, however, that he did not do it on purpose. He sneaked into the armoury – which was strictly forbidden – and tried to lift our grandfather’s parade shield from the wall mounting. It proved to be heavier than he had anticipated and it slipped from his grip and crashed on my head.”

“It only happened because you used to follow me around all the time. You were not supposed to be there,” Amrothos pointed out in his defence.

“And neither were you. Our grandfather wanted your tutor to give you a beating, but Father would not allow it. For a moment you had thought me dead and that gave you the scare of your life. Father held the view that that was all the punishment you needed, and indeed, for a sennight or two you treated me very agreeably and from then on went out of your way to err on the side of caution so that nothing would happen to me.”  She smiled at her brother in mock frustration. “That protectiveness sometimes got highly annoying and I have never been quite certain if you were worried ultimately about my well-being or yours.”

Amrothos saw the corners of Éomer’s mouth twitching and to conceal an inevitably emerging full grin, Rohan’s King buried his lips in his daughter’s silky hair, giving her a kiss on the back of her head before he sat her down and got up from his chair.

“Be grateful that I share your father’s dislike of beating children. Otherwise, to serve justice, you would be about to get a proper licking right now.” When Amrothos chuckled at his words, Éomer raised his brows offering caution, although there was a teasing glint in his eyes. “You’d better take that seriously, dear brother, because I do not see any reason why it should be acceptable to spank a child for punishment but not an adult.”

“I would love to watch Éomer tan your backside.” Lothíriel also got up from her chair and whispered into little Forðred’s ear before she sat him on his feet. Reluctantly the boy toddled over to father and sister. Nose to nose the twins gazed at each other charily. After a couple of heartbeats Forðred raised his hand and petted his sister’s cheek.

“Good boy,” Éomer praised his son. The children had tipped their heads backwards to be able to look up at their father. “You two make peace and keep out of mischief for the rest of the day.”

“Just for the rest of today?” Amrothos couldn’t refrain from asking.

“For two-year-olds that is a long time span.” To their delight Éomer ruffled the hair of both of the twins. “I will go back down to the stables to get a better idea about the situation and discuss it with the men. On my way, I think I drop by Gléowine. He has to fill in as the boy’s tutor once again.”

“Very well.” Lothíriel put forth both her hands and the twins each took hold of one. “You two can come with me to see Mistress Ælfgyth. I am sure she has some goodies for you. And later you can accompany me to the ‘hālwendehūs’.” She smiled at the two men. “I am so glad to be back home. And I am looking forward to sleeping in my own comfortable bed tonight.”

“So am I,” her husband agreed in a low voice and with a suggestive grin, the innuendo so unambiguously ambiguous that it wasn’t even an innuendo anymore.

Lothíriel rolled her eyes, but when she left the room, she made a point of adding an extra sway to her hips. It had a certain mock to it, considering that she held a toddler with each hand.

Amrothos observed with more dread than amusement that interplay and the unequivocal lusting glance that Rohan’s King sent after his Queen.

“If I were you, I would not even think about it any more,” he cautioned the other man.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Think about the possible consequences.” The Prince shuddered involuntarily, imagining one more little blond hellion. “Too much of a risk!”

His brother-in-law chuckled and shrugged his shoulders. He was the very picture of a man who had accepted his fate. Worse! He was the very picture of a man who was perfectly content with his fate.

“I doubt it can get worse than it already is. After Ælfwine, Éomund and Hroðgar there is absolutely nothing left to surprise or scare Lothíriel and me. But I see your point.” Éomer made a move to follow his wife and to attend to his own responsibilities. At the door he paused, slanting his brother-in-law a last glance over his shoulder.

“Ten years ago I was pressured to produce an heir for the House of Eorl because some people feared for Rohan’s future. Now I have five of them so far, and I am afraid they might be very well the end of Rohan . . . as we know it.”

FINI

I’m afraid Éomer was wrong. It can get worse. There will be three more. And King Elessar is going to make a grave mistake. He will insist upon inviting all eight children of his Rohirric brethren along their parents to the twenty-fifth anniversary of his coronation.

How can I put it?

Once Minas Tirith withstood the forces of Sauron. But will it be able to survive a visit from the next generation of the House of Eorl?

One day I might give an answer to that question.

‘ēalā’ – OE term of greeting/hello

‘welcumen bæc’ – welcome back

‘mīn lytle mūl’ – my little mule

‘Bema Þoncie Þē’ – Bema be thanked

‘mīn se lēofesta’ – my dearest

‘sunu(a)’ – son(s)

‘mīn dēorling’ – my darling

‘ælfetu’ – swan

‘hālwendehūs’ – healing house/house of healing

‘læceþegn’ – healer assistant

Tolkien implies in his notes that the marriage between Éowyn und Faramir, the union between the House of Eorl and the House of the Stewards, means a diminution of Númenorian blood. The higher races of Men are becoming more like the middle ones. The inversion of that argument signifies that the House of Eorl would undergo an appreciation through the union between Éomer and Lothíriel. (. ? .)  Éomer is right! That sounds indeed a lot like considerations you may find in a stud book.