#cenric

Some people think it harsh, sending a boy whose father has just been killed out as a messenger in times of war. "The boy's father's just died, he shouldn't be riding all over the Westfold alone." But they do not know Cenric the way that Gamling does. He knows the look in his grandson's eyes, that the boy's skin has never been thinner, and if he is surrounded by people, all of them apologising for his loss and crushing him with their sympathy, they'll cut right through him.

So every time Erkenbrand needs an able-bodied young man, the swifter the better, Gamling volunteers him. "Do you trust his judgement at this time?" Erkenbrand asked. "A boy his age, grieving ..."

"He's a sensible boy," Gamling said. Which is not quite true. But given the freedom of the open plains, alone save for the most cynical horse Gamling has ever seen, the wind in his hair and the grass-scented air in his lungs, Cenric will have the clarity not to do anything stupid. Trapped in the house, feeling the jagged edges of everyone's grief catch against each other, Gamling can guarantee the exact opposite.

He suspects that Hygeburg is frustrated by her son's reticence, thinks he is running away from his loss while she drowns in her own. It's one of those quiet tragedies among all the loud ones, a mother who needs her bleeding heart to be witnessed and a son who cannot bear for anyone to witness his. Gamling does not comment. After all, he was no better after Maerwynn died. If Gamling were not so experienced when it comes to dead children, if Saruman were not already clawing at the edges of the Westfold, if the children did not need his help ...

Regardless, he gives his grandson every chance he can to be alone and busy. The boy will have time to weep and bear his soul when he is ready. (Or maybe he won't, whispers a voice in his head, maybe none of them will have any time for anything, and at that point he'll be seeing his father anyway.)

It is a cold and blustery night when Cenric comes home late from a week-long stint at the border. Gamling suspects that the smile on his exhausted face is more for the stew that Gamling is stirring than for Gamling himself, but he greets the boy with a pat on the head and instructions to wash.

Cenric wolfs down his first helping, giving his grandfather a monosyllabic summary of this latest task. He is taking his second helping and Gamling is combing through the hair on Bowleg's neck for fleas when Cenric says, "I thought about Father today."

As if they both do not think of him every day. "Really?" Gamling says, keeping his gaze on the old hound's head. "I did too."

Cenric does not reply to his interjection, but Gamling isn't expecting him to listen to what he's saying. "I saw this hawk high up in the sky and it was like he was right next to me ..." And so Gamling settles in for a long chat.