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.