It was very quiet in the inn, and the landlord was, as ever, disposed for conversation with a customer, even if he was not from Bree.

‘Now tell me what you think of that,’ he said with pride as he passed the tankard over the counter.

The customer took up the tankard with proper respect, looked critically at the foaming surface, and took a long swallow before replacing the tankard on the counter with careful deliberation.

‘I’ve tasted worse,’ he said.

Barliman, quick to suspect an insult from a foreigner but suspicious of enthusiasm, decided to take this as a compliment. ‘Wizard’s Blessing, we call that,’ he said. ‘Not the 1418 brew, of course – history now, that is – but named after it. Best year I ever had, 1418. Bit of disturbance we had that year, I remember, but the beer? People came from all over, just to taste it. Never did better business.’

‘Business not good now, is it?’ said the stranger, looking around him.

Barliman scented another insult. ‘Too early yet for the regulars,’ he said. ‘It’ll fill up later. The passing trade’s been better since that Strider set himself up as king, that I will say. And we get a fair number staying.’ Not to neglect a chance of further profit, he added in a mollifying tone, ‘Would you be wanting a room for the night yourself, sir? I’ve a nice one free round the back.’

‘Sorry,’ said the stranger, ‘just passing through.’ He took another pull at the tankard, and fumbled in his purse for a silver coin, which he flicked over to the landlord.

Barliman looked at it suspiciously, then attempted to bend it to assure himself it was not made of base metal.

‘A southern mark,’ he said. ‘We don’t get so many of those.’

‘Southern coin’s good anywhere in the kingdom,’ said the stranger defensively. ‘You know that.’

‘Aye,’ said Barliman grudgingly. Slowly he counted out the change; the stranger counted it again, carefully, before stowing it in his purse. There were no flies on the stranger, Barliman decided, noting the dagger-hilt at his belt beside the purse-strap. There was something in the way the stranger’s fingers flicked over the hilt that suggested he knew well how to use it, but there was a mildness in his expression and attitude that did not suggest the brigand.

‘You’re a southerner yourself, sir, by your speech,’ Barliman said with careful politeness. ‘At first sight I took you for one of our Rangers, but I couldn’t place you, and I know all of them. At least, I did before they mostly went off to that new place at Deadman’s Dike – Norbury I mean – or down south, and took to fine living.’

‘You don’t approve of fine living?’ asked the stranger. ‘Or southerners?’

‘Now I didn’t say that,’ said the landlord hastily. ‘Southerners are all right down south, I dare say, but I don’t hold with them coming here and telling us what to do. They don’t know nothing about how we live up here, southerners don’t.’

‘Know the south, do you?’ said the stranger.

Barliman missed the implication. ‘Me? I’ve never left Bree, and I’m never going to,’ he affirmed stoutly. ‘I know what I know and I know how I like to live, and that King down south, he should leave the likes of me in peace to get on with it.’

‘Not interfering with you, is he?’ asked the stranger mildly.

‘Not so far,’ admitted Barliman grudgingly. ‘But with him living down south in his great castle, he’ll be forgetting what life is like up here in the North, stands to reason. North’s north and South is south and the two don’t mix, that’s what I say. Begging your pardon, sir, for saying so. And now we have this Prince fellow, or Steward, or whatever he calls himself, coming over on a visit, or rather to poke his nose in our affairs, which he don’t know nothing about, southerner as he is. Begging your pardon again, sir, for saying so.’

‘No matter,’ said the stranger absently. ‘There’s folk in the South who would have said the same sort of thing, only the other way round, if you follow me.’

‘Not sure that I do, sir.’

‘The King’s from the North,’ said the stranger. ‘There’s plenty in the South who didn’t like that, believe me. They thought he wouldn’t stay long with them, but he did. They thought he would never learn their ways, but he has. He belongs to both, in a manner of speaking. Now folk are finding that having the roads open to the North makes better trade. There’s even some that are coming North themselves, to see what’s what.’

‘As it might be yourself, sir?’ asked Barliman shrewdly.

‘Aye,’ said the stranger. He gestured at the tankard. ‘You could put another drop in there, landlord.’

Barliman took up his jug just as Nob dashed in full of excitement.

‘Hobbits from the Shire!’ he proclaimed. ‘On ponies and all, very fine. I think it may be the Thain and his son on their way up to Norbury.’

Instantly Barliman was all bustle. Shire-custom had picked up wonderfully since the Disturbances, and the Thain’s visits in particular had excited much local interest – and a corresponding increase in the consumption of Wizard’s Blessing.

‘If you’ll excuse me a moment, sir,’ he began, but the stranger was no longer there.

**********

The Thain, walking across the courtyard with his son, turned his head sharply and murmured, ‘That tall man over there – I’m sure I’ve seen him before. Something about his walk.’

Faramir Took grabbed at his father’s sleeve and shook it urgently. ‘Never mind him,’ he said. ‘Just tell me once again what I have to say to the Prince when we meet him tomorrow.’

Faramir, hidden in the shadows by the stable, smiled to himself.