CHAPTER 45

“Stay near me, Cado, lest you lose your way,” Danulf said, as he strode off down the winding street.

Cado had to trot to keep up, but he was not about to complain. The Man--Master Danulf, he should remember to call him now--had spoken his name. He was no longer bumping along atop a horse, nor was he tied up, nor was he locked up in a cell. In spite of the fact that he was beginning a year of servitude, he felt freer than he had since the awful night of the Ball.

He hoped that Clovis would use a bit of common hobbit-sense in their new situation, but considering his brother’s demeanor when they had been allowed to see their father, he rather doubted it.

They had seen one another briefly in the passage in front of the room where Clodio was recuperating. Clovis was being ushered out by a rather large and imposing Rohirric woman.

“How is he?” Cado asked anxiously.

Clovis sneered at him, and shrugged. “He’ll live,” Clovis said in a flat voice. Then he added, “I don’t suppose we’ll see each other much now we’re *slaves*. Looks like *you* landed in clover.” The look he gave Cado was envious.

Now Cado shrugged. He looked down a moment to blink away the threat of tears, and then looked up at his brother. “Good luck, Clovis,” he said.

Clovis did not respond, and the large woman led him away, and Cado went in to see his father, as Danulf stood outside the door.

Clodio was sitting up in bed, and though thinner than he should have been, and pale, he looked otherwise well enough. Cado noticed that Mistress Poppy and Miss Viola were in the room, though they were at the other side of the room, their heads together over some book, giving Cado the illusion of privacy with his father.

His father’s face was sad and somber, not an expression Cado was accustomed to seeing there. He had often seen his father look proud and gloating when they had been still in the Shire; he had seen him often enough disdainful and angry, or cross and fretful, and on their journey here, he had often seen him look bewildered and confused--but never this rather solemn thoughtfulness.

“Do you blame me as well, Cado?” he asked.

Cado shrugged. To be honest, he did feel much of their current situation was his father’s fault. Yet it wasn’t blame--if he blamed anyone it was Clovis, but--

“I don’t think blame matters anymore, father, if it ever did.” He looked at his father closely. “I never tried hard enough to talk Clovis out of anything he wanted to do, even when I thought it a bad idea. Part of me was always curious to see what might happen, and to be part of the excitement.” This was something he had thought about over the last couple of nights, alone in his cell in the dungeon. Even when he had known his brother’s ideas could lead to disaster, he’d felt a bit of excitement over them as well. Following his brother’s lead had often taken him into trouble of one sort or another, but he had never been bored. He realized now that he had his own share of blame to carry.

“I was a poor father, Cado. I have ruined your lives. I do not think Clovis will ever forgive me.”

His father looked so sad as he said this that Cado was moved to embrace him. “You are still our father,” he said, “and I hope they will allow me to see you again, before you have to leave.” Moved by a sudden impulse, he did something he had not done since he was a very small child, and kissed his father’s cheek. He drew back and swallowed the lump in his throat. Clodio returned his embrace awkwardly, and then Cado had to leave. He turned and looked back briefly, and then had followed Danulf.

He was getting a bit out of breath, when Danulf stopped briefly to speak to a friend who called his name out as they passed. While the two Men spoke in Rohirric, he panted a bit and caught his breath. He overheard his name, and the Rohirric word for hobbits--holbyltlan. He supposed he would have to learn the language, and he felt a bit panicked, as the thought occurred to him that perhaps Danulf was the only one in his family who spoke Westron. He guessed that Danulf was telling the Man about him--he wondered what other people would think, of Danulf having to take someone who had injured him into his household.

Danulf and his friend clasped hands briefly, and then the other Man moved off. He looked down at Cado. “I think that I need to remember your legs are not so long as mine, Cado. Do not hesitate to remind me if I am moving too quickly for you.”

Cado blinked and nodded, they went on at a slower pace. The hobbit looked about him in amazement at the tall buildings. He had not entered Bree, and Tharbad had been only a small settlement; he had never seen so many buildings in one place in his life.

Soon they stopped in front of a small half-timbered house. There was a small courtyard before it. Danulf paused for a moment, and then suddenly three children flew from the doorway, calling, “Fa! Fa!” Danulf laughed and bent to accept their embraces. Feeling a bit awkward, Cado stepped back.

Suddenly the eldest spoke to his father in Rohirric, as he stared in the hobbit’s direction. Cado blushed as three pairs of wide blue eyes turned in his direction.

“Danwine, speak in Westron. Cado does not know our tongue,” said Danulf. He stood, with the lass in his arms.

“Yes, Fa,” said the boy.

Cado studied the children; all three were fair-haired. The eldest had hair of a golden-red, much like his father, while the hair of the younger two was fine as silk and nearly white. Danwine was perhaps a head taller than Cado, and looked to be of much the same age--or perhaps a bit younger--as Bergil. The younger lad was about half a head shorter than his brother, while the lass was almost the same size as Cado himself. She smiled at him, and then put the first two fingers of her right hand in her mouth, and shyly hid her face in her father’s shoulder. In spite of her alarming size, Cado thought she looked barely out of faunthood. Danulf gave her a fond smile and dropped a kiss on top of her head.

The Man turned to Cado. “Cado, these are my older children--Danwine, who is ten, Edric, who is eight, and this little maiden is my Gerde--who is only three. Children, this is Cado, about whom I told you. He will be staying with us for a while.”

Cado gave them a brief bow, and took refuge in Shire manners. “Cado Banks, at your service and your family’s,” and even as he said it, he thought how ironically appropriate the old formula was. No doubt Pippin Took would have thought it a fine joke.

The three children gazed at him, and then suddenly the younger boy blurted, “Were you so very bad?” he asked.

“Edric!” Danulf spoke sharply.

Cado blushed to the tips of his ears, and swallowed. “Yes,” he said faintly, “yes, I was very, very bad, my brother and I, and we hurt your father. I am heartily sorry for it now that I know him.”

“Well, then,” said Edric, “if you are sorry then that is all right! Can you play with us?”

“Goose!” said Danwine scornfully. “A holbyltla is not a child, to play games with. The King said he was to do work!”

“Well,” said Danulf, “who is to say that some of that work may not be playing with my unruly children?”

“Fa!” both boys chorused at once, indignant at his jest.

“Come,” said Danulf. “I would go greet your mother and brother, and your grandfather as well, if he is to home.”

They went within, and Cado looked about, appraisingly. This would be his home for a whole year. It certainly had none of the amenities one would find in a well-appointed smial like the one the Bankses had lived in in Underhill; but it did not look any the less comfortable than many of the cottages in which the working class hobbits lived. They were in a large room that reminded him of the home of the farm family from Rohan that they had met in their travels. But he had only had the merest glimpse of that house; he studied this one closely. There was a large hearth, and in spite of the heat outside, it was ablaze, for a pot hung there with toothsome smells that awakened his appetite. A woman, with hair as pale as the younger children was stirring the pot. She had a babe in a sling, much like the ones hobbit mothers used in the Shire. A large table dominated the room, and an older Man sat there honing a knife. The Man much resembled Danulf, save for the eye-patch and a scar on his brow that reminded Cado of the scar Merry Brandybuck had sported when he had returned from his journey. For the first time, Cado wondered just *how* Merry had come by that scar.

The woman straightened up and gave her husband a smile. Danulf nodded. “Estrith, this is the holbyltla the King has placed in our care. Cado, this is she who is my wife, Estrith, daughter of Fréawine.”

“Greetings, Cado,” she said, her words heavily accented.

Cado nodded, and then turned, as Danulf said, “And this is my father, Danhelm Speararm, former armsmaster to Éomer King, from the time the king was yet the Third Marshal of the Mark.”

The hobbit bowed once more, to both of them, and once more offered his service. He noticed a twinkle in old Danhelm’s one eye that told him the older Man also understood the irony in his courtesy. Cado blushed and bit his lip.

Danhelm chuckled. “I understand you did me a favor, young one,” he said.

Cado’s eyes grew wide. What on earth was he talking about?

“I do believe that you and your brother taught my son the value of his helm.”

Cado couldn’t help it--once he was able to close his mouth, which had dropped in astonishment. He laughed as well, and then he laughed some more. Had it been *months* since he had found anything to laugh at? Good heavens, perhaps his life had finally taken a real turn for the better.