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