[Folwren]

Norjm followed the eorl quietly out of the hall, through a doorway and up a staircase. His cane bumped quietly on the first stair. The shadows here were thick, and Norjm could see nothing.

Eodwine led Norjm to his chamber. The door to the private room was closed. Eodwine invited Norjm to sit at the small table. Once both were seated opposite each other, Eodwine began.

"Thank you for coming today. I do need to have an innkeeper soon, for the king has commanded me to remove to lands that he has granted me, and I need someone whom I can trust to hold this inn for me. Tell me about yourself, and why you want to be my innkeeper."

Eodwine wondered how bad his eyesight was, and if it would hinder his work, but he decided to hold his peace for now and hear the man out.

Norjm laid his stick aside and laid his hands on his knees beneath the table top. He looked back at Eodwine nearly squarely in the eye.

"I wish to be your innkeeper, my lord, so that I can give something more to my daughter than I ever can at present. For now, I am a mere carpenter, sir. I do what I can with my eyes as they are." He motioned vaguely towards his face. "I was not always thus. Before the Great War, I lived in the Westfold, under Erkenbrand. In a skirmish against orcs I was badly wounded."

Norjm sighed and turned his eyes towards the light of the window. "I don't want to burden you with my tale, sir. Suffice to say I lost most of my eyesight and much of my memory, as well as my position in Erkenbrand's company. I could not fight, and I could not advise. And war was happening quickly and men were always on the move. You remember, surely...

"Soon after the war and while I was yet recovering from my wounds, we came to Edoras and made what living we could. My wife died two years ago, and my daughter and I have been living as well as we could since. However..." And here he looked again and Eodwine and it would have been hard to tell that he could scarcely see him, so keen was his g lance, "Fliede deserves more. She is the one who asked me to come today. And it was for her only that I agreed."

There was a slight pause, and then Norjm spoke again, quickly. His voice was sharp. "I do not want you to feel sorry for me. I have not come to beg this position from you. You asked me to tell you about myself and why I came, and I have done just that, to the best of my ability. If the other man who came here is more worthy of the post - if he could hold it better - then by no means give it to me because you feel sorry for me. I will not accept such charity from you."

Eodwine leaned back in his chair and regarded the elderly man. It was a study in contrasts. One young and too confident, full of energy and little experience; the other old, having paid a heavy price for the wisdom of his years, almost blind and having experience in many things but not as an innkeeper. He hoped there might be others who would show interest, for he did not care for the possibility that his choice lay between these two. If it did, however, he leaned toward Norjm, for one reason only: his thought was for another's wellbeing rather than for his own gain. Well, there was a second reason: he felt akin to this man since they had both lost a wife. And he had to admit that there was a third reason: he liked the man.

"I have an inn that needs to be profitable," Eodwine said finally. "Whatever my thought of your story, I need a man who can do the job. Can you, with such bad eyesight as you have yourself said? And if you can, how?”

“I do not know for absolute certain if I can,” Norjm answered at once, and truthfully. He paused, seeming to hesitate, and then he said, “I would need help. More help than my daughter can give me. She can be my eyes, so far as seeing other men and people and what condition things are in, but she could not help me when it came to the money keeping and the books, if this job would require that. She cannot write well, for I have been unable to teach her that, and her mother died when she was yet learning.

“And I can not answer your question further unless you tell me more, or ask different questions, for I know little about innkeeping.”

Eodwine could not stifle a grin. "Truth be told, I know little of innkeeping either, and I was hoping to find someone to whom it would come easily. Someone who had run his own business, I was thinking." Norjm did not look encouraged by his words. "Of course, I knew very little of eorlship when I was given it by King Eomer the first of the year! So if my new innkeeper is the right man, whatever his background, well and good.

"But now, I would ask you-" Eodwine entered familiar territory, that of placing a small bit of responsibility in the one being tested, to see how he responded. "-what would you like to do now, in order to get a sense of what innkeeping is all about?"

Norjm looked downwards. In days gone past, when he could still see, he would have studied Eodwine’s face for any sign that his expression or eyes might give. But it had been many years since he could see any man’s face and he had grown accustomed to looking to himself for answers and not seeking cues or help from other men.

“If I could have what I wished at this point to get used to innkeeping, I would first like to know the enviroment – what room I had and what I would be in charge of. I would then like to know what is expected of me – what rules or guidelines I would have to live by. And after that.” What to say? He knew nothing. He couldn’t just say ‘I’d like to run the place for a week and see how it went’, the eorl needed to chose someone before then. “I don’t know.” He stood up, abruptly, feeling awkward and somehow ashamed. It was a ridiculous situation, he being blind and all and not knowing what was expected or what he would have to do. He should not have come. “I’m sorry. It would not be right for me to take the place of innkeeper. You need a better man than I. I would ask for a trial, but you need to choose before then. You can not give every man who comes to ask for this position a trial, and I realize that.”

Eodwine suspected that the man was right. He was unsure of himself, unable to see, and inexperienced. Why had he come? Eodwine smiled inside: because his daughter had persuaded him to.

"Norjm, I think you are right that you should not be my innkeeper. However, I will have much carpentry that will need to be done in Scarburg, and my man Stigend will need help. Someone who is skilled and is willing to be commanded is what I need. Would such a role suit you?"

Norjm sat down again as abruptly as he had stood. He couldn’t help it. The offer came unexpectedly, like a crack of deafening thunder out of an utterly blue sky. For a moment he could not answer, but inside his head there was only one thought - that this eorl deserved the lordship he had, for he was a good, noble man.

“My lord,” he said finally. “I accept with my whole heart, if you truly mean it. I do not know how skilled I am, but I am willing to be commanded. Ask anything of me. I am your servant.”

Eodwine smiled. He had not actually asked Norjm to be a carpenter, much less his man. It did not matter. Norjm was the kind of man, no matter his age, that Eodwine wished to call his liegeman and friend. He looked Norjm in the eye, still smiling.

"I hold court tomorrow. If you still want to be my man in Scarburg, come and I will you make bond with you." Eodwine rose. "Let us return to the Hall. You shall have lunch with me and my men today."