Prologue: No Laughing-Matter

At last the glad day was at an end; the Sun was gone and the round Moon rode slowly above the mists of Anduin and flickered through the fluttering leaves and the air seemed alive with the whispering of the trees. Samwise took a deep breath of the fragrance of Ithilien and patted his belly, such that it was, as he sat down near where Frodo and Merry were already deep in talk. There was no need for lanterns; the moonlight was bright enough to read by, as if that Jolly Old Fellow strove to make up for the days of darkness they had passed through.

‘A fair feast it was, master,’ he said, ‘and in fairer company than that stewed rabbit and herbs, when last we supped in Ithilien.’

‘But not so fair as the feast that day,’ Frodo said with a laugh. ‘Think on it, Merry! Stewed rabbit, in the middle of nowhere, with no place to lay our heads, and nothing but darkness ahead. Stewed rabbit, with herbs, no less!’

‘And taters, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear,’ Merry said, clapping Sam on the shoulder, ‘dug wild in the middle of the Wilderland.’

‘Our Samwise is a wonder, he is indeed,’ Pippin chimed, entering the grove with a tray in his hands.

Merry scrambled to his feet. ‘Let me help you with that, cousin!’

Pippin grinned and cocked an eye at the older hobbits. ‘So helpful, he is,’ he said, ‘especially when more of that good wine is to be had.’ He let Merry take the tray and its load of glasses, retaining possession of the wine bottle by a quick grab at the neck.

‘Steady, now!’ Gandalf said behind him. ‘Let us treat our honoured guest with the respect it deserves! Do not shake that bottle, you young Tomfool of a Took!’

‘Music to my ears,’ Pippin sighed, but he put the bottle down more gently than he’d taken it up.

Gandalf soon had the cork pulled, without need for the proper implement, which Pippin had neglected to fetch in any event, and the rich dark wine was soon gurgling into the glasses.

At first Frodo put up a hand, refusing regretfully, but Gandalf pressed him, saying that he should take a little wine for the sake of his stomach, and that it would nicely settle the food from the feast.

‘But you were to tell the tale, of how you came to be dressed as esquires, no--knights, rather,’ Frodo said after the first appreciative sip, turning an eye on Pippin, and then Merry, in turn. The White Tree on the youngest hobbit’s breast gleamed silver in the moonlight, while the green horse that Merry bore ran dark and mysterious against its shining ground. ‘I did “try” Gandalf, as you suggested, Pip, but it is as you said.’

‘What, he didn’t tell?’ Pippin said, affecting surprise.

Sam saw that he seated himself rather stiffly on the ground before holding out his glass to be filled, but Frodo’s face was turned towards the wizard in his white-gleaming robes. ‘Not so close as he used to be, indeed!’ the latter said merrily. ‘A laugh is as good as a frown, it seems, when he chooses not to speak!’

‘It is not my tale to tell,’ the wizard said quietly, his eyebrows bristling as fierce as ever as he glanced at the two young knights of the City and the Mark, though his tone was mild and there might have been satisfaction, even pride, in the look.

‘There are tales to be telling, and that’s the truth of it,’ Sam said, getting up from his seat. ‘Come here, Merry, for it seems to me that you’re taller than you ought to be, and at your age I wouldn’t expect you still to be growing!’

Merry obligingly stepped up, and Sam moved to stand back-to-back with him, as though they fought a foe; though he appealed instead to Frodo. ‘See now,’ he said, ‘which of us is the taller? I at least held my own with Mister Merry, before we left the Shire, or had perhaps half an inch advantage...’

‘You have the right of it, Sam!’ Frodo said in astonishment. Gandalf steadied him as he gained his own feet. He sipped once more at his glass and then handed it to Pippin, who sat calmly watching. ‘Why,’ he went on, putting his palm atop Merry’s head and slipping it through the air, ‘he’s a good three inches taller, now!’ He turned, ‘Pippin!’

‘Here I am, cousin!’ Pippin chirped brightly.

‘What sort of trick is this? Did you...?’ Frodo peered suspiciously at the ground, but Merry wore no boots, to raise him to unexpected heights, nor did he stand upon rock or prop.

‘Why is it always my fault?’ Pippin said, his tone eminently reasonable.

Merry laughed. ‘Because it is always your fault, one way or another,’ he said. ‘Why, if it hadn’t been for you, I...’

Pippin gained his feet a little more slowly than his wont, and was that a twinge of pain that crossed his face? Sam wondered. But he spoke cheerily enough as he interrupted Merry.

‘Always my fault,’ he repeated, ‘one way or another. A fine epitaph that will make! Be sure to etch it on my headstone, some eighty or an hundred years hence!’

‘Will you be rivalling the Old Took, then?’ Merry said gaily, stepping away from Sam to take up his own glass once more.

‘If it’s good enough for Bilbo...’ Pippin answered, but Frodo pulled him to Sam’s side with a firm “Stand there, now, like a good little lad.’

‘Little, my foot!’ Merry laughed, and Samwise, turning his head, had to agree.

‘He’s a good three inches taller than me as well,’ he said, ‘and while he might’ve grown an inch or even two along the way... he was half a head shorter than myself, Mr. Frodo, when we left Crickhollow, or I’m an Elf!’

‘You are no Elf, Sam,’ Legolas said, laughing as he entered the grove with Gimli. ‘Have you drunk up all the wine already, or is there some left for the Three Hunters?’

‘I see only two,’ Pippin said, ‘but there’s plenty more where that came from. I have it on good authority from the Third Hunter himself.’

‘Third hunter?’ Sam said. Gandalf laughed, and Sam’s eyes widened. ‘Strider?’ he said. ‘He has yet another name?’ He began to count on his fingers. ‘Strider, Hunter, King...’

‘Elfstone,’ Merry put in helpfully. ‘That’s what they called him in Minas Tirith, as he went around healing after the battle...’

‘The battle?’ Frodo said. ‘You were in Minas Tirith after a battle?’

Pippin laughed. ‘He was in the battle, dear cousin!’ he said, and at Frodo’s dumbfounded look added, ‘in the very midst, no less!’

‘What... What were you doing in the middle of a battle, Merry?’ Frodo said, putting his hands on his hips and staring sternly up at his younger cousin, for the first time struck by the difference in height. ‘Haven’t you any more sense than that?’

‘You might ask the same of the youngster,’ Gimli rumbled, and Frodo turned an astonished look on Pippin.

‘Pip?’

Pippin spread his hands, though the gesture was somewhat spoiled by the half-filled wineglasses he held. ‘It was nothing,’ he said.

‘Nothing!’ Frodo and Gimli said together, and Frodo added sternly, ‘There are definitely more tales to tell than ours, as you said, Samwise, and I, for one, am ready to hear them now!’

‘Now, Frodo,’ Pippin began, all seriousness now, but Merry said, ‘You know how it is when he takes that tone...’

‘Nothing for it but to ‘fess up,’ Pippin said, though he looked down at his feet and shuffled them a bit, as if to make sure of the ground he stood upon. He and Merry had talked about it, after all, and how Frodo would likely take the news of their adventures, pale as they were by comparison to his and Sam’s endeavours. He hadn’t wanted them to come along in the first place, and any hint of danger to his cousins had been enough to pull him out from under the growing burden of the Ring as they travelled ever southwards.

‘More tales than ours,’ Sam agreed, turning and running the flat palm of his hand from the top of Pippin’s head to the air over his own curly top. ‘Three inches taller than you ought to be,’ he added, ‘even allowing for the way a tween can grow!’

‘Assuming, of course, the tween has food in plenty, and sleep for growing on,’ Frodo said, ‘none of which Pippin has had, the past few months, unless he fell into a featherbed stuffed with sweetmeats after we parted company...’

‘Sounds most uncomfortable,’ Pippin said, screwing up his face in a comical way, but his elder cousin was not to be deterred.

‘After we parted company,’ Frodo repeated. ‘Just what sort of mischief have you been up to, Peregrin Took?’

***

Author's Note: Chapter titles taken from “A Conspiracy Unmasked” in Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien. Some text taken from "The Field of Cormallen" in The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien. None of the characters are mine, though on occasion we take tea together.

And no, I don't really have writing time once more. This simply sprang to life in a doctor's waiting room, and so I took a little time this morning to type the first chapter in, and will hope to get up extra early on the morrow to get the rest posted. Think good thoughts.

Chapter 1. ...Or Following You Like Hounds

‘Just what sort of mischief have you been up to, Peregrin Took?’

‘It was nothing,’ Pippin said again, but his tone was flat and he did not meet Frodo’s eye.

Frodo turned to the older cousin. ‘Merry?’ he said. ‘I thought I could count on you to keep an eye...’

‘It’s not his fault,’ Pippin said, at last raising his gaze to Frodo’s face. Sam saw that the young hobbit was tense, perhaps anticipating disappointment from his much-admired older cousin, but how could he disappoint Frodo, seeing as how he’d done something to earn the title “Knight”?

‘Not his fault?’ Frodo said, turning back to Pippin, and then he swung to confront the wizard. ‘Really, Gandalf, I think you’ve rubbed off on them! They’re as close as...’

‘As the stable door after the ponies have run off,’ Merry said lightly. ‘Come, now, Frodo, your glass is empty!’

(Pippin looked down at the two glasses he held; somehow he must have drunk from Frodo’s when his own was done, without noticing. He brightened suddenly.)

‘I’ll just fetch another bottle, shall I?’ Pippin said, turning away, but Frodo caught him by the fine black cloak of his uniform; soft wool it was, but sturdy and unyielding and an excellent tether.

‘Not so fast, Pip,’ he said, but unexpectedly he found himself catching the tween as Pippin, pulled off balance, toppled into him, bringing them both sprawling to the ground with a tinkling of broken glass and a muffled oath from Pippin.

‘That tears it! Ouch!’

‘It’s not like you to be so clumsy, cousin,’ Frodo said from under his now-tall young cousin’s bulk, made heavy by the mail the tween wore, no mithril was it but finely hammered rings of honest iron. ‘Get off me, now, before I’m crushed to crumbs!’

Merry and Gimli froze a moment at his choice of words, but Legolas moved quickly to lift Pippin away, even before Sam could take a hand.

‘I’m sorry, Frodo, I seem to have broken your wineglass,’ Pippin said. ‘I’ll just go and...’ He sucked in his breath as the Wood Elf, with his keen sight undimmed by darkness, extricated a sliver from his hand.

‘You will not,’ Frodo said, allowing Sam to help him to his feet. He brushed at his clothing and gently shook Sam’s supporting hands from their grasp. ‘Are you hurt, Pippin?’

‘Nothing but a scratch,’ Pippin said brightly, and tried again. ‘I’ll just go and...’

But Frodo interrupted him. ‘Can I not take my eye from you for a second without...?’

‘No,’ Merry said. ‘You cannot. He finds himself in all sorts of mad scrapes, whether an older cousin’s eye is upon him, or not.’

Frodo sighed heavily, rolling his eyes to the stars peeping through the leaves above them. ‘You really ought to have stayed at home,’ he said. ‘Here I imagined I was saving you from fear and injury by taking myself off...’

Merry spoke again, but his light tone had dissipated and the words came out between his teeth. ‘Did you now, cousin? Just what did you think—we’d take ourselves off, back to the Shire, if you crept away...?’

‘No,’ Frodo said in surprise. ‘As a matter of fact, I had little hope of getting away, Merry, especially of getting away in a boat, knowing how you are with boats. I hoped only to gain enough time for the Men to argue you into staying with them. But I fully expected to look around and see you following...’

He shook his head and added, lower, ‘It gave me such a turn to hear Faramir tell that he’d seen his brother, dead. I thought, perhaps, ill fortune had fallen on you all and Sam and I alone were left of the Company. But Faramir hastened to reassure me that someone must have survived, to care for Boromir’s body and set him on the water, that the Anduin might bring him home at last.’

Merry bowed his head. ‘And follow I would have,’ he said, fisting his hands at his side. ‘Nothing would have kept me from following, and Pippin as well.’

‘But you didn’t,’ Frodo said. ‘You went, instead, to Minas Tirith. And so I can only assume that Boromir brought you there, and went out again to meet his fate.’

‘You do your young cousins a disservice,’ Gimli growled, coming up to place a protective hand on Pippin’s shoulder, and another on Merry’s, as the two stood, tense, facing Frodo. ‘They would have gone after you, have no doubt of it, and Aragorn as well, had they been able.’

‘Then you were attacked at Parth Galen!’ Sam broke in excitedly, and looked to Frodo. ‘I knew I heard the clashing of steel in the woods, Mr. Frodo! I knew it, though I didn’t know what it portended at the time...’

‘I left it too late,’ Frodo said regretfully. ‘If I’d taken myself off earlier, into the Brown Lands...’

For the first time since his refusal to tell a tale that was not his, the white wizard spoke. ‘I’d say that your timing worked out for the best,’ he said quietly, and drawing on his pipe fanned the coals within until his face was lit with a reddish glow and sparks shone in his black eyes.

‘For the best!’ Frodo said. ‘My cousins, in Minas Tirith, as the city was attacked! ... in the midst of battle, as was said...!’

‘O it was worse than that, Frodo,’ Merry said tightly, forgetting himself and all his resolve to spare Frodo in the wash of emotion: remembered fear for Frodo, as they’d run about Parth Galen shouting Frodo’s name, followed by fear for Pippin as the Orcs tried to seize them, desperate hope at Boromir’s bursting into their midst, turned to grief and despair...

‘Worse,’ Frodo seized on the word. ‘What could be worse than being in the midst of battle?’

‘Now you’ve done it,’ Pippin said under his breath. He’d been sucking on his wounded hand, but now he stood straight, flashing Merry a glance before standing square before Frodo once more.

But Merry was not so easily reeled in. The long days of watching, first after the armies of the West had marched away, and then at his cousins’ bedsides in Cormallen, had taken their toll, and he was not as rested as he might be. ‘Not being in the midst of battle,’ he said. Pippin reached over to take his hand, and Gimli squeezed his shoulder, and he took a sudden deep and shuddering breath, recalled at last to himself, and fell silent.

Frodo scrutinized the faces before him: Merry, his face ghostlike in the moonlight, his lips drawn into a thin line; Pippin, his jaw stubbornly set; Gimli behind them, impassive, but with a glint of sympathy in his eyes.

‘Not being in the midst...’ he said, puzzled. ‘What ever do you mean, Merry?’ He passed a hand over his brow. ‘Either I’m still muddled from that long sleep, or...’

‘Perhaps you ought to sit down, Mr. Frodo,’ Sam said, tugging at his arm, but Frodo turned with an absent smile and patted Sam’s hand.

‘I am well, Samwise,’ he said. ‘I am merely trying to find out what it is that my cousins are keeping from me.’

Chapter 2. A Conspiracy Unmasked

‘Keeping from you?’ Pippin said, adding a laugh that wouldn’t have fooled a faunt, much less his world-weary older cousin. ‘Why, you know, Frodo, that we’ve never been able to keep anything from you! You know us much too well!’

‘Keeping from me,’ Frodo said firmly. ‘Already I’ve found out that Merry at least has been in the middle of a battle, or worse, and that I “might ask the same of the youngster” in the words of our venerable Dwarf.’

Gimli harrumphed theatrically at being called venerable, but none of the hobbits laughed.

Sam, attempting to be peacemaker, said, ‘Well you know very well, Mr. Frodo, that both of them have been in the middle of a battle – why, have you forgotten what happened at Balin’s tomb?’

‘Yes, of course – I mean, no, I’ve not forgotten,’ Frodo said, and his younger cousins relaxed, only to tense again as he continued with a look of keen inquiry, ‘but I rather had the impression that that battle was not the one referred to just now.’ He looked from Merry to Pippin and back again. ‘So just what battle is it that we are discussing?’

‘Yes, Merry,’ Pippin said in his lightest tone. ‘Just which battle?’ But his attempt to deflect the older cousin was a dismal failure, for Frodo, instead of dismissing his words as nonsense, turned his full and most piercing regard on the youth.

‘Which battle,’ he said softly, ‘...as in, more than one, I take it.’

‘Well,’ Pippin said, striving for casualness, ‘I wasn’t really in all of them. After all, we weren’t at Helms Deep with Gimli and Legolas and Strider and all the others, and I really had nothing to do with the battle for Minas Tirith, for I was tight inside the walls of the city most of the time, and the battle was mostly outside the walls and in the First Circle...’

‘And you missed most of the battle before the Black Gate,’ Gimli put in.

Pippin brightened and turned to him – anything! – to get away from Frodo’s grim stare. ‘That’s right, I did! I was out of that battle fairly early, and a good thing, too, for I understand the fighting was fierce, what with all those Orcs and Hill Trolls and Southrons and Easterlings...’

‘Did you get hit on the head with a rock, as Bilbo did at the Battle of the Five Armies?’ Frodo said sternly.

‘Why, no!’ Pippin said, in perfect honesty, all wide-eyed innocence. But Merry sighed, for Frodo knew that look as well as he knew the fur on the top of his feet.

‘And that still doesn’t tell how you got to be taller than a proper hobbit ought to be,’ Sam put in, trying to distract Frodo from his purpose, for he knew a conspiracy when he saw one.

Pippin, however, rather spoiled things by drawing a hand across his eyes. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said vaguely, ‘I don’t know quite what’s come over me, but...’ and he swayed, and Frodo moved to catch him, but was not buried beneath him this time, because Gimli and Merry took a hand, easing the young hobbit to the ground.

‘Pippin! What’s the matter? Strider!’ Frodo cried in alarm.

‘No need to take that tone; I’m perfectly well,’ Pippin said hazily, but his hands went to his breast as if he guarded some hidden pain, and his breath came short.

‘Steady, lad,’ Gimli said gruffly. ‘Steady breaths, in and out again. You know you’re not to excite yourself, or be worried about aught...’

‘And you ought not to worry him,’ Merry said to Frodo. ‘He’s been... under the weather, and it’s not long since he regained his feet.’

Gimli snorted and muttered under his breath, about being under-something-or-other, and whether it was weather or whether or not - though Frodo didn’t quite hear. Sam stood still in shock, for it must be his imagination, but he could have sworn the dwarf had said something about a troll.

‘Ent-draughts,’ Pippin whispered.

‘What was that?’ Frodo said, bending closer, his tone as gentle now as it had been firm earlier, and he removed his cloak and, bundling it together, tucked it under the young hobbit’s head. He turned. ‘Gandalf, is there any more wine? And where is Strider? Oughtn’t he to be here, with some athelas or something, or some other healer?’

‘Ent-draughts, Sam,’ Pippin repeated, his voice slightly stronger. ‘That’s what it was, made us grow so tall.’

‘Ent-draughts?’ Sam said, scratching his head. He crouched down to address the youngest hobbit. ‘What in the world are Ent-draughts? Draughts made from ants? Or someone’s auntie brewed them?’

‘Ents,’ Merry said. ‘Tree-herders. They look a lot like trees themselves, actually, except they can walk. Sort of like the trees of the Old Forest move about, only these really can stride along at an astonishing rate, and they talk, and drink...’

‘They don’t eat, though,’ Pippin said, ‘and they stand up to sleep.’

‘Ents?’ Sam said, completely befuzzled.

‘Don’t change the subject,’ Frodo said, and when Pippin would have sat up again he stayed his younger cousin. ‘We really ought to have a healer...’

‘The healers said I could get up, Frodo,’ Pippin said in an injured tone. ‘They said so!’

‘Healers,’ Frodo said. ‘Now we’re getting somewhere. What did you need healers for?’ He peered suspiciously at Pippin. ‘Does this have anything to do with a battle?’

‘As a matter of fact,’ Gandalf said quietly, ‘it does.’ He sat himself down on the other side of Pippin and held out a glass. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘I poured out another glass of wine, and I think a few sips might do you some good.’

‘No, really, I’m all right,’ Pippin said. ‘I think I ought to refrain, at least for a bit. I’m woozled as it is.’

‘I meant for Frodo here,’ Gandalf said, pushing the glass into Frodo’s hands, and then he helped the youngest hobbit into a sitting position. ‘Steady, now.’

Legolas, who’d been poised to leave in search of Aragorn, relaxed somewhat as his eyes met the wizard’s, and the old man nodded in subtle reassurance.

‘I wish everyone would stop telling me to be steady,’ Pippin said. ‘Makes me feel all queer and... unsteady, rather!’

‘Drink that now,’ Gandalf said with a nod to Frodo. ‘Your cousins ought to have known they couldn’t keep all their absurd exploits and ridiculous feats from you.’

Frodo thought back to his awakening at Rivendell, and Gandalf’s use of “absurd” at the time. ‘They’ve been doing all sorts of heroic things, I’d imagine,’ he said.

The wizard smiled. ‘That they have,’ he said. ‘And I do believe if you try them a little more gently, they’ll bare a clean breast of it all.’

‘Yes,’ Frodo said. ‘Let us have a thorough wash of the matter, shall we? No more conspiracies! All is well, Gandalf tells me, and the Quest -’ his face darkened briefly, so briefly that none save the wizard, perhaps, saw it ‘- the Quest is achieved. No need for any more secrets, especially after all we’ve been through.’

‘You’re quite right, Frodo,’ Merry said after a thoughtful pause. He sighed. ‘We didn’t want to distress you, after all you’d been through, but...’

‘But I need to know,’ Frodo said. ‘I need to know that it was the right thing, to allow you to come along – that I did the right thing in not persuading Lord Elrond to send you back to the Shire.’

‘Have no doubts about it,’ Gandalf said. ‘Had they gone back to the Shire, had they not come to Isengard, and Rohan, and Minas Tirith, all manner of ruin might have resulted, despite yours and Sam’s best efforts...’

‘Isengard!’ Sam said, startled. ‘I thought we were doing our best to stay away from Isengard!’

‘Yes, well,’ Gandalf began, and cleared his throat, looking at Merry.

‘Very well,’ Merry said.

‘All’s well that ends well,’ Gimli put in helpfully.

‘Yes, we’ve agreed that it’s well, and even good, into the bargain,’ Frodo said. ‘But what I want to know is, what is all this about battles, and how did you get to be knights of Gondor and Rohan!’

‘That is what we're trying to tell you, Frodo, if we could only get a word in edgewise,’ Pippin said. He was breathing quite steadily now, and might have regained his feet if not for the wizard’s steadying arm.

‘Hush, young hobbit!’ Gandalf said.

But Pippin turned to him, to say very reasonably, ‘Now how can I hush and satisfy Frodo’s wishes at the same time?’

‘Hush,’ Frodo said, and looked to Merry. ‘Now, Merry, why don’t you begin?’

Chapter 3. Not Too Safe

‘Well,’ said Merry, affecting deep thought about the matter, ‘I suppose we were really in it, and no going back, when the Riders of Rohan attacked. Seeing as how they wouldn’t be likely to know a hobbit from a hole in the ground, we thought discretion the better part of valour, and crept under the cover of Fangorn Forest...’

‘The Riders of Rohan attacked...’ Frodo began, but Pippin interrupted.

‘And that’s where we met Fangorn, Sam! I mean, Treebeard!’ At Sam’s puzzled look, he went on, ‘You know! Ents!’

‘Tall as a tree, and he looked a great deal like one as well,’ Merry said.

‘He’d never heard of hobbits!’ Pippin put in. ‘He made a new line, just for us!’

‘I thought you were told to hush,’ Frodo told the youngest hobbit. ‘You’re rather muddling things, rather than making them clear.’

‘And that was when we met Gandalf, again, of course,’ Merry said, not to be turned from his course. ‘The Ents were rather stirred up by all of Sauruman’s doings, and so they marched upon Isengard...”

‘The Riders of Rohan attacked,’ Frodo repeated, seizing the strand and pulling with all his might, in the interest of untangling the tale. ‘Why would the Riders of Rohan have attacked? It seems to me that they are a large part of Strider’s forces, at least from the numbers of them to have been standing on the Field, earlier.’ He turned an eye on Sam. ‘Didn’t he say they were from Rohan, when you asked, Sam?’

‘The fellows with the horses on their surcoats, yes, that’s right, Mr Frodo,’ Sam said obligingly. ‘And the ones in the black, with the silver Tree, were...’

‘Yes, I know very well,’ Frodo said. ‘Boromir’s Tree.’

‘No, Strider’s,’ Pippin said logically.

‘Why would the Riders have attacked?’ Frodo wanted to know. ‘We weren’t offering them any harm...’

‘They were rather disturbed to find intruders in their territory,’ Merry said. With any luck at all, they wouldn’t have to mention Orcs. After Frodo’s experience with Orcs, surely it was better to leave the creatures out of the tale.

But he had not anticipated... ‘And they slew Boromir?’ Frodo said, deeply grieved, and putting down the wineglass, he covered his face with his hands. ‘How evil did set good men, one against another...' Uncovering his face again, he whispered, 'Faramir said there were the marks of many wounds upon him.’

‘N-no,’ Merry stammered, at a loss. ‘It wasn’t like that, at all!’

‘It’s a wonder they all stood so proper, in their ranks and all, and didn’t fall upon one another,’ Sam said reflectively. ‘What with Boromir being slain by the Riders...’

‘No!’ Pippin said, rather more strongly than he ought, for his face twisted in pain and his hands went again to his breast.

‘Steady breaths,’ Gandalf remonstrated, but the tween pushed at his restraining – er, supporting hands. The wizard had promised Frodo's cousins that he'd let them tell their tale, in their own way, but he was beginning to have second thoughts on the matter.

‘It wasn’t the Riders,’ Pippin said, vehement despite the discomfort it cost him, ‘and I cannot believe that you of all hobbits, Merry, would allow such a...’

‘Pip!’ Merry hissed, but Frodo overrode him.

‘Not the Riders,’ he said. ‘But you just said the Riders attacked you at Parth Galen...’

‘Begging your pardon, Master, but they never said no word about Parth Galen,’ Sam said. He had a good ear for detail.

‘The Riders were attacking the Orcs,’ Pippin insisted, and now that the word had been spoken, Merry’s shoulders slumped in defeat.

‘Orcs,’ Frodo said slowly.

‘Orcs,’ Pippin said, drooping in Gandalf’s grip, but he forced himself to sit up again, straighter, before anyone could suggest he might be carried away to his bed.

‘That would make more sense,’ Frodo said. ‘Orcs killed Boromir, not Riders of Rohan...’

‘Of course not the Riders,’ Merry snapped. ‘Boromir had a great deal of respect for the Rohirrim.’

‘And didn’t they lend him a horse, to ride to Rivendell?’ Pippin said. His breathing was better, now that the horrid word Orc had been spoken, brought out into the open, and Frodo had showed no signs of fainting or other distress. ‘They wouldn’t just give a horse to anyone. They didn’t even want to give a horse to Gandalf!’

‘Fancy that,’ Merry said, to stop the flow of words before Pippin said anything else that they’d agreed not to tell Frodo, at least not on his first day “up”.

‘And so Orcs attacked the Company, and slew Boromir,’ Frodo said, ‘and the Riders, hearing the sounds of battle, came to your rescue.’

‘It was something like that,’ Merry said, obliged to be truthful, but Frodo beetled his eyebrows at the younger hobbits.

‘Something,’ Frodo said sternly. ‘Just what is it that I’m missing?’

Pippin decided to go straight to the point. ‘Frodo only got up for the first time today,’ he said, turning his head to crane up at Gandalf. ‘Oughtn’t he to be going to bed, soon?’ After all, he and Merry had agreed not to tell Frodo about the Orcs today and he couldn’t think of any other way to keep the news from coming out, as things were shaping.

‘Sounds like the pot calling the kettle “black” to me,’ Frodo said. ‘If anyone’s for bed, it looks to be you. Now... What is it that I’m missing, Pippin?’

‘I thought you told me to “hush”,’ Pippin said in his most plaintive tone.

‘Well, I’m telling you to un-hush,’ Frodo said. ‘Merry has not done a satisfactory job of explaining, no, not at all.’ His expression grieved, he added in a lower tone, ‘I had been hoping, by leaving you, that you’d keep safe somehow... that Boromir would take you to his City, or that somehow you’d find your way home again...’

‘Rather like stray pups,’ Pippin said vaguely, to Sam’s surprise, for the same thought had crossed the gardener’s mind.

‘Keep safe,’ Merry echoed, and began to laugh, but it was not a happy sound.

‘Not too safe,’ Pippin affirmed, but he kept himself from laughing, which was still something of a painful exercise for him. Instead he drew a shaky breath, and forced a smile.

‘I can imagine, with Orcs attacking,’ Frodo said. ‘And,’ he said, feeling his way, ‘and... Boromir fought them.’ He nodded to himself. ‘He died fighting them, but you lived...' With sudden insight, he said, 'He was slain defending you... I’m glad...’

His cousins looked at him in shock, but Legolas nodded. ‘He redeemed himself,’ the Wood Elf said, ‘after nearly losing himself to the Ring.’

‘I am glad that he was not forever lost,’ Frodo said, and sighed. ‘He was a brave man, and a good one, and I hoped we might meet again under different circumstances.’

Chapter 4. Someone As You Can Trust

‘How about another glass of wine?’ Pippin said in too bright a voice, and Frodo, peering at him closely, saw that his younger cousin’s eyes, in the lantern light, shone with unshed tears.

‘I think you’ve had enough, young hobbit,’ Gimli rumbled.

‘I meant, for Frodo here,’ Pippin said.

‘I’m fine,’ Frodo said, squeezing Pippin’s shoulder gently. But it was the wrong move to make, evidently, for the youngest hobbit could not suppress a yelp.

‘Pippin?’ Frodo said in alarm. ‘What is it?’

‘Nothing, nothing at all,’ Pippin babbled. ‘Caught me on a ticklish spot, that’s all, and...’

Gimli grabbed Gandalf’s half-full wineglass from the wizard’s hand and practically shoved it into Pippin’s face. ‘Drink up,’ he said.

Frodo’s eyebrows rose at this reversal, but then looking to Merry he surprised a terrible expression on his Brandybuck cousin’s face. Merry was gazing at Pippin in the same way as on a long-ago day, when he’d braved the icy Brandywine to haul Pippin from the waters’ dreadful grip after a boat capsized. The lad had been blue, and not breathing, when Merry reached the shore with him, and though they’d piled blankets around Merry and tried to force him away, to the Hall, to a hot bath and hot drinks, he’d refused to leave Pippin’s side while his Uncle Merimac kept working over the little lad. Merry had stood there, that same expression on his face, until Pippin had coughed, and vomited water, and spluttered, and finally, breathed.

‘What is it you’re remembering, Merry?’ Frodo said softly.

Merry gave a start, drew a shaking breath, and tried to smile.

‘I left him in your charge, just as...’ Frodo went on, his brow furrowing with thought. Just as that day, so long ago, when he was pleading with us to take him fishing, and I had a cold and wanted to curl up with a book, and so I left him in your charge. You took your eyes off him, and... ‘I left him in your charge,’ he said again, ‘and you nearly lost him, did you? I know that look too well.’

Imagine his astonishment to look over at Pippin, to surprise a mirror of Merry’s look. ‘Don’t tell me,’ he said faintly, pinning Pippin with a steely gaze. ‘You nearly lost him as well.’

‘Really, Frodo,’ Pippin protested, his face immediately assuming the bland and innocent expression he used when he didn’t want his cousins to know what mischief he’d been making. ‘I don’t know where you get such an idea...’

‘Perhaps it’s because he can read either of us like one of his beloved books,’ Merry said in his driest tone.

‘Orcs killed Boromir,’ Frodo said suddenly, so suddenly that both younger cousins jumped, which made Pippin yelp again, albeit softly. ‘And they took you prisoner, I think, or you would have told me.’

‘Now you’re making less sense than I do, most of the time,’ Pippin protested weakly.

‘I’m making perfect sense,’ Frodo contradicted. ‘Orcs took you prisoner, and they were bringing you to their Master...’ He frowned, thinking on the maps he’d perused with Elrond and Gandalf. ‘But not to Mordor,’ he said slowly, ‘for Fangorn lies in another direction entirely from Parth Galen.’

Pippin and Merry exchanged glances. It appeared that they didn’t need to do any explaining, at the moment. Frodo was working it out for himself.

‘They were taking you to... Isengard?’ Frodo said. ‘That’s right,’ he said, looking to Gandalf. ‘Saruman had turned against the West. He hoped to get the Ring for himself, isn’t that right? And he had Orcs?’

‘He did,’ Gandalf said quietly. He’d poured himself another glass of wine, and now he sipped from it, and peered into its depths as if he hoped to find some answer to Saruman’s perfidy there.

‘But then the Riders of Rohan attacked,’ Frodo said, gaining momentum, ‘and... and they wouldn’t “know a hobbit from a hole in the ground”, as you so quaintly put it, Merry, and so you crept into Fangorn, that we were specifically warned against, thinking it the best of a bad choice, and met...’

‘Ents!’ Sam said in triumph, before his face wrinkled with puzzlement, and he scratched his head. ‘Though I’m blamed if I know what Ents are, and what they have to do with the two of you being taller than you ought.’

‘But that doesn’t explain how I nearly lost the two of you,’ Frodo said, returning to the uncomfortable part. ‘The Ents sound particularly pleasant and hospitable, what little you’ve told of them, and they marched on Isengard, as you said, so they are allies...’

‘Perhaps it has something to do with the troll,’ Sam said brightly, having just finished a man-sized glass of wine. Nearly everyone there stiffened.

‘Troll?’ Frodo said slowly, standing to his feet to gaze down at Pippin.

‘Gimli said something about a troll, a little while ago,’ Sam said, not quite so bright now, for he sensed he’d put his foot in it, though he hadn’t a clue how or why. ‘Trolls—trolls are a dangerous lot...’ he fumbled.

‘Was there a troll, Gimli?’ Frodo said.

The Dwarf hemmed and hawed, but finally he allowed as there had been a troll in the battle, more than one actually, a whole company of the fell beasts as a matter of fact, and...

‘And you were in this particular battle, Merry?’ Frodo said, turning a cold gaze on the Brandybuck.

‘No,’ Merry said with a thankful sigh for the fact that he could be truthful and did not need to evade Frodo’s question, at least at the moment. ‘No, I sat that one out.’

But Frodo wasn’t finished with him yet. ‘That one,’ he said significantly. ‘Ah-hah. I’ll deal with you presently.’ He turned to Pippin. ‘And you were in this particular battle, Pip?’

‘As a matter of fact, I was,’ Pippin said. ‘But I was out of it pretty early, and rather well protected against flying arrows and hewing axes and swords and...’

Gimli gave a snort at this, and Frodo turned to him. ‘Well?’ he said. ‘You have some light to shed on the matter?’

‘If you can call it protection,’ Gimli said stiffly. ‘I mean, you could, I suppose. Something like being struck by lightning makes one worry less about the rain.’

‘You’re not helping,’ Frodo said. ‘You might think that you are, but I’m sorry to inform you, that you are not.’

‘He’s not supposed to be,’ Legolas said lightly, and tapped Gandalf on the shoulder. ‘Save a little of that for me?’

The wizard emptied the bottle into his glass and held it up to the Wood Elf.

‘He’s not supposed to be?’ Frodo said.

Legolas laughed. ‘Look at you! Elves, having all the time in the world, are more straightforward in their discussion than you all are proving to be! Gandalf, how long are you going to allow...’

‘We were doing quite well, until you interfered,’ Gimli harrumphed, and stung at being compared to “Elves”, he added, turning to Frodo, ‘A hill troll fell on the lad, well, the lad slew the troll, actually, saving a life or three in the process, and that’s the long and the short of it! He was buried until I hauled the troll off him, and squashed flatter than a spider after a lass has finished screaming and taken action...’

‘I’m well!’ Pippin protested, rather ineffectually, considering the circumstances.

‘Well I’m glad we’ve cleared all that up,’ Frodo said, dusting his hands of the matter. Yes, he was shocked that a troll had fallen on Pippin, but no, he really hadn’t had time to absorb the information. Later on that night the realisation would waken him from a sound sleep, and he’d sit bolt upright, exclaiming, “Pippin!” and would have to be soothed back to sleep by a startled Aragorn. But for the moment he had other fish to fry.

‘And so, Merry,’ he said, ‘you weren’t in “that” particular battle, the one with the trolls, I mean.’

‘No, he was in the battle with Oliphaunts,’ Legolas put in helpfully.

‘Oliphaunts! I’d dearly love to see an Oliphaunt!’ Sam exclaimed.

‘Not these Oliphaunts, you wouldn’t,’ Pippin muttered darkly.

‘You were in the “Oliphaunt battle” as well?’ Frodo said in an ominous tone. ‘Just how many battles...?’

‘I’ve lost count by now,’ Pippin said in his most careless manner. ‘But I wasn’t in the Oliphaunt Battle, not really. I was safe behind the walls of Minas Tirith at the time, and the battle was out on the plain. Glorious battle it was, too, all those banners and horns and things, though I missed seeing the best part because...’

‘Merry!’ Frodo said, interrupting this stream of reminiscence. Merry jumped again, and stood at attention. ‘Merry,’ Frodo said in a gentler tone, and he went to Merry’s side, and put an arm about his younger cousin’s shoulders, though he had to rather reach up to do so. ‘Tell me about the battle, or battles, however many it might have been, where Pippin nearly lost you’

‘I cannot,’ Merry said, and he swallowed hard, and opened his mouth, and for a moment no further sound came out. At last he managed to rasp, ‘Please, Frodo.’

‘You cannot remember?’ Frodo said, brushing a hand across the scar on Merry’s forehead, a scar that had not been there, the last time he’d seen his cousin, half a Quest ago.

But Merry fought back a sob, and then he buried his face in Frodo’s shoulder, and Frodo put both arms around Merry and hugged him tightly, revelling in the feeling he thought he’d never know again. ‘Merry,’ he whispered. ‘All is well, Merry. Steady on, lad.’

‘He cannot... tell you,’ Pippin said in a hollow tone, and his expression was bleak, and an echo of some remembered hoplessness.

‘But I can,’ Gandalf said, patting the youngest of the hobbits on the shoulder.

‘Please, no,’ Merry sobbed against Frodo’s shoulder.

‘You see, Frodo,’ Gandalf said, quite as if he were a kindly old grandfather, recounting the deeds of a young hobbit on the playing field, ‘Merry faced a terrible foe on the field of battle, and though terrified, he kept his wits about him...’

‘She should not die alone, unaided,’ Merry whispered, ‘so fair, so desperate...’

‘Merry,’ Frodo hushed, stroking and soothing the younger cousin’s back. ‘Hush.’

Pippin struggled upright, somehow gained his feet with only a little steadying from Gandalf on the one side and Gimli on the other, and he tottered forward, to envelop Frodo and Merry in his embrace. ‘He killed the Witch King, Frodo.’

‘I didn’t,’ Merry shook his head. In the meantime, Frodo was standing still, feeling rather as if he'd been struck by lightning.

‘O yes you did, Merry!’ Pippin said, nodding vigorously. ‘Good as, anyhow. You and Eowyn between you, the two of you killed him! He and the rest of his evil kind are banished from the world—the others were destroyed when the Ring went into the Fire, but you destroyed the Witch King first!’

‘You did that, Merry?’ Frodo said, putting his cousin back, resting a gentle hand under Merry’s chin and lifting, until Merry was forced to look into his eyes. ‘You... you killed the Witch King?’ And while it is true that he grasped what was said, in that moment, and was seized with wonder and dread, it wouldn't really hit him, not really, until somewhere between middle night and morning, some time after being soothed to sleep by Aragorn, when he would sit up suddenly, exclaiming, "Merry!" ...and have to be soothed to sleep again, before he should waken Samwise.

‘He nearly died of it,’ Pippin said, tears coming to his own eyes, ‘but Strider saved him... “The hands of the King are healing hands” as they say in Minas Tirith.’

‘I’m sorry, Frodo,’ Merry whispered, tears still spilling from his eyes.

‘Sorry!’ Frodo said, startled.

‘We never should have kept it from you,’ Merry said. ‘We just thought...’

‘...and knowing what you’d been through, and...’ Pippin added.

‘And I’m so proud of you both,’ Frodo said, his eyes shining, and then he was gathering his cousins close for another long and heart-felt hug, though he slightened the grip of the arm holding Pippin when he felt the youngest cousin stiffen. A Troll!

Sam broke the silence, after the three cousins had embraced long and silently, and put one another away, and were gazing from one to another in amazement to find themselves alive, and whole (relatively, anyhow), and in this place, after all that had happened.

‘Yes, Samwise?’ Frodo said, turning his head at hearing the gardener clear his throat.

‘I was just wondering,’ Sam said.

‘What were you wondering, Sam?’ Frodo said. He could think of any number of things that bore wondering, at the moment.

‘I was just wondering,’ Sam said again, and stopped.

‘Yes, Sam?’ Pippin and Merry said together.

‘Well, you see,’ Sam said.

‘Did you want another glass of wine, Sam?’ Frodo said. ‘Gandalf, is there any more of that wine?’

‘I was just wondering,’ Sam said, ‘how a draught, of all things, could make a body taller than he ought to be?’ He scratched his head, looking from Merry to Pippin and back again. ‘Can’t understand it at your age!’ he said. ‘But there it is: You’re three inches taller than you ought to be, or I’m a dwarf.’

***

A/N: A small bit was borrowed from “The Field of Cormallen”, from The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien, from which the rest of this story was spun, and chapter titles come from a few turns of phrase in “A Conspiracy Unmasked”, from The Fellowship of the Ring, also by J.R.R. Tolkien.