"When is Mama coming back."
Cael said it at the small breakfast table.
He had said it on the previous morning at the eighth bell. He had said it on the morning before that at the same hour. He had said it on the morning before that. He had been saying it, by Aldric's count at the small breakfast table, on every one of the seventeen mornings since Tauriel had ridden out of the south gate at the head of the small escort with Cael and Lúthien lifted up into the second wagon at her side, and at every one of the seventeen mornings Aldric had said the same word.
He said it now.
"Soon, Cael."
The boy at the table set his small spoon down.
He was nearly five. He had been at the small breakfast table at his father's left hand for as long as he had been eating with the small spoon and not with the small wooden bowl-edge his mother had been feeding him from at the upper room. He was wearing the small grey tunic of the spring fitting, with the small Dúnedain star at the throat. His hair, in the small careful inward way of a boy who had been at the spring fitting four weeks ago and whose mother had been the one to cut it, had grown half a finger longer at the back than was the proper length the keep barber would have left it at.
He looked up at his father.
He did not, in the looking, ask the next question.
He had not, on any of the seventeen mornings, asked the next question. He had asked the first one. He had received the same word. He had returned to the spoon. He had eaten the second half of the small porridge bowl in the same small steady careful way he had eaten the first half. He had, in the small inward way of a four-year-old who had been told by his mother before her going that she was going to a place to ask a question, Cael, that I cannot ask at the keep, and I will not be gone for less than the count of weeks you can count on your two hands twice over, counted the mornings.
Aldric had — at the third morning, when he had registered that the boy was counting — set out the small wooden tally-stick the carpenter had made for him at his quiet request the previous afternoon. The stick had on it, on the upper side, the count of mornings since Tauriel had gone, and on the lower side, in the small careful chalk-marks Halbarad had taught Aldric to make in the third year of the founding, the count of mornings until — by Tauriel's own estimate in the small letter she had written to him at the second day from the road — she would be on the way home.
The upper side had seventeen marks.
The lower side had, by yesterday morning's chalk, twenty-three.
By his own setting-out for the boy, the upper side and the lower side would, when their marks were equal, mean the wagons were on the upper bend of the south road. He had not — at the third morning, when he had set the stick out — committed to the boy that the marks would be exactly equal at the bend; he had committed only that they would be close. Cael, at the third morning, had registered the stick. He had not, on registering, asked any further. He had been, by the small inward count of his own, doing the small steady careful patient work of waiting for the lower side to be down to twenty.
He set his spoon down today and looked at his father and did not ask the next question.
Aldric reached across.
He set his hand against the side of the boy's head, in the small slow careful gesture he had been making at the small breakfast table for years.
He said, in the small low voice he had been using on the seventeen mornings: "She is at the High Pass. The High Pass takes six days to cross at the slow pace the wagons set. The pass goes down into the valley where my friend Elrond lives. She will reach the valley by the eighth or ninth day from now. She will be at the valley — Cael — for some weeks. Then she will turn the wagons around and come back. She will be at the upper south road by the count on the lower side of your stick. I have not — Cael — I have not changed the count since I set it out. The count is the count. She is well. Lúthien is well. Arethil is well. The escort is well. The two Rangers Dírhael sent to ride at her side are at the second wagon at every hour, by Dírhael's promise, and by the promise of his hand to me at the door of the south gate."
He paused.
"You are well, Cael."
The boy nodded once.
He did not, then, return to the spoon immediately.
He looked at his father for a long careful beat.
He said: "Story tonight."
Aldric registered.
He had been — by his own count of the seventeen mornings — registering the small careful inward way the boy had been preparing the request for some days. He had been registering, in the small careful set of the boy's shoulder at the dusk hour on the long fur of the upper room, that the boy had been waiting for the moment in which the request would, by its own time, come up to him.
The request had come up.
Aldric had not, in any of the seventeen evenings, been the one to set the story. He had not, in any of his own evenings with the boy since the spring, set a story. Tauriel had set the stories at the dusk hour for some years. He had been at the side of the small fur at the dusk hour. He had been listening to her at her work. He had not been the one to do the work.
He drew a slow breath.
He said, in the small flat voice: "Story tonight, Cael. Yes."
The boy returned to the spoon.
He finished the small porridge bowl in the small steady careful way.
He read it badly.
He had been at the inner chamber until the ninth bell of the night, on the small folded report from the second anchor at the western foot of the Twelfth — increased pressure, no incursions yet, the captain at the anchor estimates within the fortnight — and on Maira's small folded follow-up note that the second of the four anchors, at the eastern bank of the southern Greenway, had registered the same elevated pressure at the same week. He had read both reports through twice. He had set the small folded note he had written for Gorlim at the morning's first courier on the corner of the desk. He had not, by the ninth bell, had any further matter on the desk that could not wait.
He went up.
The boy was at the long fur in the small lamp-light, with the small wooden hoop that the dwarven smith had made for him at the year-mark. Lúthien — Aldric registered, with the small private cost of the registering — was not at the upper room; she was at Imladris on the long road, in the small carry-shawl against her mother's shoulder. The room was, by the boy's small inward count, half-empty in a way it had not been half-empty before.
Aldric set himself on the long fur beside his son.
The boy registered him.
He set the hoop down.
He looked up.
Aldric did not, at first, know what story to set. He had been preparing the story, in the small inner inventory of his day at the desk, for the better part of the afternoon. He had been preparing it in the small inward way of a man who had not — in the long count of his life in this country or in the long count of his life before this country — set a story for a child at the dusk hour, and who had been trying, in the small careful way of a man who could prepare a council session in an hour, to prepare the story by the hour the boy would, by the small inner count of his own, want it.
He had not prepared it.
He had set out the small inventory and had not, in the small inventory, found a story that came up in any of the small careful shapes he was used to preparing in.
He had — at the ninth bell, on the way up the stair — set the inventory down and decided that he would tell the boy the small story Halbarad had told him at the third year of the founding, in the long evening at the small wooden table in the lower chamber, the small story he had not — in the years between — told anyone.
He did not, now, remember the story properly.
He sat on the long fur.
He set his arm at the boy's small shoulder. The boy did not, on the setting, move; he leaned in, slightly, against the side of his father's chest.
Aldric drew a slow breath.
He said: "Cael. I am going to tell you the story Halbarad told me in the third year, in the long evening at the small wooden table. I have not — Cael — told this story to any other person. I do not remember it perfectly. I will — I will get pieces wrong. I will not — by my best attention — get the shape of the story wrong. The shape will, by my best attention, come up the way Halbarad set it out. You will, in your own years, hear the story from Halbarad himself if you ask him. He sets it better."
"Halbarad."
"Halbarad. Yes."
"Old Halbarad."
"The old Halbarad. Yes."
A small pause.
The boy nodded.
He waited.
Aldric began.
He told it badly. He told it in the small unsteady way of a man who had not, in fifteen years, set a story for a child at the dusk hour; he told the small first part — about the long road north and the small grey wolf at the second bend — in the small careful steady way he had been hearing it in the second year of the founding; he then forgot, at the small third bend, what came next. He stopped. He started again. He did not remember the order of the small steady events Halbarad had set out at the small wooden table. He fumbled. He made up — in the small flat private way of a man who had been making up the small careful workings of a country for fifteen years and had been doing it well enough to keep the country together — the second-and-third middle parts in his own voice. He arrived at the small last part, which he did remember properly because Halbarad had set the last part down twice; the last part was about the small grey wolf, at the end of the long road, not eating the man who had been walking it for sixty miles, because the small grey wolf had, in the third bend, taken on the small inward fact that the man was — by his own walking — already too far along the road to be eating.
He set the last part down.
He stopped.
The boy did not, for a long beat, comment.
He looked up at his father.
He said, in the small steady careful voice he had been building: "You did not tell the middle right."
"I did not. Cael — I told you I would not. I do not remember the middle."
"That is a problem."
"It is a problem."
A long small steady pause.
"Tell it tomorrow."
"Tomorrow."
"With the middle right."
"Cael — I will not remember the middle tomorrow."
"Then tell it without the middle."
"Without the middle."
"You can — you can put a small middle that is yours. Mama puts a small middle that is hers, in the stories that have no middle. She tells me that the middle is hers and the small grey wolf is not — is not the small grey wolf with that middle, but is a small grey wolf with the middle. That is — Mama said that. I do not — I do not have the words for the small thing. The small middle that is — yours."
"My own middle."
"Your own middle. Yes."
He set his small head against the side of Aldric's chest.
Aldric registered, in the small steady careful inward way, that his son had — at the small dusk hour of the seventeenth evening of his mother's absence — set out for him the small careful practical instruction of how to set a story for a child. He registered it as he had registered, over four years, every other small careful practical instruction the boy had set out for him on small things of the small careful daily work of being a father at the keep. He registered it with the small flat private acknowledgment of a man who was being taught the work by a child of four who had been taught the work by his mother who had, in this room and in the room at the upper rooms of his own house, been the one doing the work for the boy at the dusk hour for years.
He drew a slow breath.
He said: "All right. Tomorrow. I will tell you the small grey wolf with the small middle that is mine. The small middle will not be the small middle Halbarad set out at the small wooden table. The small middle will be — Cael — a different kind of small middle. The man on the long road will, in my small middle, meet a person at the side of the road and will sit down at the side of the road for a small while. He will eat a small piece of bread. He will speak to the person at the side. He will then get up. He will then go on. The small grey wolf will then come up at the third bend."
The boy registered.
He said: "What does the man say to the person at the side."
"He says — Cael, he says he is tired. He says he has been walking a long road. He says he does not know whether the road ends at a thing that is — a thing he wants, or at a thing he does not. The person at the side gives him the small piece of bread. The person at the side does not — Cael, does not — answer. The person at the side sets the bread in his hand and goes on with his own work. The man eats the bread. The man gets up. The man goes on."
A small careful long pause.
The boy nodded.
He set his small head a fraction lower against his father's chest.
"That is a small middle that is yours."
"It is."
"It is — yes. It is. Mama will, when she is back, also have a small middle. We will hear hers. Yours is — yours. I will hold yours until then."
Aldric, on the long fur, set his hand against the back of his son's small head.
He did not, for some minutes, speak.
He held.
⚜ ━━━━ ROYAL PROCLAMATION ━━━━ ⚜
Read more chapters for free in the public library:
unwrittenrealm.com
⚜ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⚜
By order of the Crown.
The royal vault holds chapters the public throne room has yet to receive. Those who pledge fealty on Patreon may read ahead of the realm:
Noble — $7 — Twelve chapters ahead.
Royal — $11 — Nineteen chapters ahead.
Emperor — $17 — Twenty-six chapters ahead.
New chapters added weekly. Full schedule posted in the war room.
patreon.com/Kingdom1Building
Long live the Kingdom.