Grima's father, Galmod, had been a respected captain of an eored. A friend of Theoden king, it was thought by all that he would someday be chosen as one of the three marshals of the mark.
He had found Grima's mother, Cwena, when he came across a group of dunlending taking turns assaulting one of their women. Galmod rescued her and, discovering her beauty, took her as his wife. However, Cwena was never truly welcome among the women of Rohan. She spent increasing amounts of time wandering the hills searching for herbs for her dunlending medicines until one day she never returned.
Distraught, Galmod searched among the caves of the wargs and the camps of the orcs but found no trace of her. He led the men of his eored on increasingly dangerous raids into the villages of the dunlendings until Theoden was forced to take away his captaincy. He had been convinced that the wild men had stolen her away. Grima knew better. Grima knew she had simply left them-as he was doing now.
"But this is your home!" Galmod set his tankard on their table with a loud clank.
"I have no home." Grima stared into Galmod's drink-reddened eyes, refusing to look away. "I'm neither an Eorling nor a Dunlending. I don't belong anywhere."
"That's not true! Why only this morning you were reading letters for the master of the horse."
Eowyn's look of pity flashed through Grima's memory. "A skill that no one values or respects-"
"-But one they need! Why you might even become adviser to Theoden king himself one day."
"And I will be all the more useful once I learn the secrets of the wizards."
"Of all you've told me this night, that is the most worrisome. I tell you the white wizard is no friend of Rohan."
"Did not Gondor give him the tower of Orthanc to guard Isengard?"
"And yet he now calls himself "Lord of Isengard."
"Does he not still guard the gap to our west?"
"So he says, but I say he's formed a pact with the wildmen."
Grima shook his head. "Your fears do you no credit."
Galmod's face flushed with something other than alcohol. "Your youthful ignorance will get you killed-or worse! From a distance, the Istari may look like men, but they are as different from us as we are from orcs. Don't trust the wizards."
Grima gripped his own empty cup and fought down the urge to smash it into his father's face. In a voice that quivered with suppressed rage, he said, "I have long ago learned to trust no one, but I will use anyone if they may be of benefit to me."
Besides, he thought. What other choice do I really have?