The Thrum of Tookish Bowstrings

(Title taken from a turn of phrase in The Deputy Mayor)

Chapter 1. Commission 

(About a year after Pippin becomes Thain. Faramir, his son, is four, nearly five.)

‘You want me to teach your son to shoot?’ Ferdi said. It was not Pippin’s most unreasonable request to date, and he could be certain it wouldn’t be the worst, measured against future demands, either. But... ‘He’s but a faunt!’

‘He’ll be five on his next birthday,’ Pippin somehow managed to both counter and agree in the same argument, ‘practically an old gaffer in terms of faunthood.’ Absurdly, he added, ‘I’ve been teaching him to hold and swing a sword since he could stand unaided, as has been the custom in Gondor for centuries, but he’s a Took, and he wants to learn to shoot like one.’

The Thain wanted to put a Tookish bow – a deadly weapon! – into the hands of a tot who’d only recently emerged from toddling, by Ferdi’s reckoning. Though... he scratched absently at his neck, thinking, while Pippin stood waiting patiently – relatively patiently, considering the impulsive nature of that hobbit – for Ferdi’s answer. He had to admit that the young child who’d arrived at the Great Smials with Diamond when Pippin had become Thain had sometimes seemed more like nearly-four, going-on-forty. 

Still, it was the principle of the thing – and his ire grew at the picture in his mind of a toddling faunt flailing about with something as dangerous as a sword. Yes, he’d seen Pippin and Farry at practice, both of them waving sticks in a seemingly controlled manner, but he hadn’t realised until this moment that the sticks represented swords. Swords! 

You’re a Took, Ferdi wanted to say, but didn’t, and never learning to shoot has not seemed to stop you from achieving your aims.

Truth. Though Pippin could hold his own against any other hobbit in a contest of casting stones, put a bow in his hands... and it was time to seek shelter. Well away from the shooting line. Preferably behind him, though that was no guarantee of safety, as Ferdi knew all too well.

‘To – to shoot,’ the head of escort stammered now, and cursed his traitor tongue. He’d kept his stammer in check, the last few years, relatively well, but now it betrayed his perturbation.

‘He can use a child’s bow,’ Pippin said implacably. ‘He’s tall for his age, and so I think he might well be able to manage such a thing and not have to wait until he turns ten or so.’ He levelled a serious look at Ferdi. ‘And as you’re head of escort, I expect you know something of shooting.’ Considering that the head of the Thain’s escort traditionally earned that exalted position by winning the annual Tookland Tournament, Pippin was certainly not wrong in his estimation.

Ferdi opened his mouth to protest further, but no additional words came.

Pippin nodded satisfaction. ‘You may start tomorrow,’ he said in the quiet tone that his head of escort had come to know all too well. Ferdi knew, after nearly a twelve-month of serving this Thain, that all argument was done. ‘That will give you enough time to fit him with a bow and quiver, and to make sure the targets are set properly for one of his height and reach.’

‘Sir,’ Ferdi grated in return.

Pippin nodded and turned away, ready to address the next order of business on his plate for this day, leaving his head of escort alternating between ire and alarm. What if young Faramir shared his father’s talent – or lack thereof – for shooting?

With this Thain, failure was not an option. On the morrow, it seemed, much of Ferdi's time and attention would be given to a shooting lesson.

***

Chapter 2. Lesson

And so, the next day, the head of escort found himself, along with two hobbits of the escort working under him that he’d detailed for this small but potentially perilous task, out behind the stables. Here, a sturdy stone wall comprised part of the structure, where the stable workers piled the soiled bedding they’d cleared away as part of their duties. There it would rot well, at a later date to be shovelled into waggons and spread upon the fields.

The compost made a fine, soft cushion for arrows with practice tips of the sort that young Tooks would use during the early days of instruction in archery, before they gained enough skill to shoot at the butts that were permanently set up in a large meadow near the Great Smials for archery practice and competitions. According to custom (and prudence), the stable hobbits stayed well away from the area when the headmaster informed them that archery lessons were to take place. Ferdi had taken the same precaution. Not only did it spare the stable hobbits potential injury from a badly aimed shaft, but it would spare Farry (and the Thain and Mistress) some of the inevitable Talk from any witnessing young Faramir’s efforts. The hobbits of the escort, of course, knew better than to spread gossip.

Hilly and Tolly finished shaping the straw-and-manure mound into a creditable butt and straightened from their labours, setting aside their shovels. Ferdi inspected their work with appropriate gravity. ‘That’ll do.’ To Tolly, he added, ‘You may go and fetch the lad, now.’

Tolly gave an ironic salute and departed. While Hilly fastened the practice target to the butt, Ferdi used the time to check the fletching on the practice shafts, nodding to himself in satisfaction. As long as the son of the Thain could manage even a modicum of aim, they’d fly true, in the direction of the target. Or so he hoped.

‘Shall I go and spell Adel?’ Hilly asked after some minutes had passed, naming the escort who was currently cooling his heels outside the Thain’s study, ready to run a message at Pippin’s slightest whim.

‘No, I aim to keep you and Tolly here to retrieve arrows,’ Ferdi said.

‘And so the two of us can carry you off to the healers after you fail to properly dodge, I’m sure,’ Hilly said under his breath. Ferdi quelled him with a look, though on second thought, the sentiment made some sort of sense. He ought to have thought of that.

‘Here we are,’ Tolly said unnecessarily as he and Farry rounded the corner of the stables.

‘Well come,’ Ferdi replied, gesturing to the small lad.

Farry nodded and walked to him. Another child, eager to learn, might have skipped or jogged up to him, but somehow the son of the Thain maintained a dignity beyond his years much of the time. Four-going-on-forty, Ferdi thought to himself, and not for the first time. 

In the privacy of the Thain’s quarters, earlier in the day, he’d tested Farry’s eyesight and, as it was appropriately keen (unfortunately taking away a plausible excuse for not going forward with the lessons), had fitted the lad with a bow, finding to his surprise that the smallest available bow shaft nearly matched the lad’s unusual height and reach. As Pippin sat, silently observing, Ferdi had gone over the basics of a proper stance, of stringing and unstringing the bow, of bending the bow using the weight of his body rather than pulling back on the string, repeatedly stressing the importance of never dry-loosing and causing damage to the bow.

The Thain had watched in evident fascination as Ferdi had introduced Farry to arrows and their various points and discussed the importance of fletching to the lad. Ferdi, noticing, had said, ‘You’re not thinking of taking up the sport again, I hope.’

‘I might be inclined to do that,’ had been Pippin’s answer, and Ferdi’s face must have shown his feelings, as Pippin followed this sentiment with a hearty laugh. ‘But not at the present time,’ he said. ‘My plate is rather overfull at the moment.’

Fervently though privately blessing the burdensome nature of the Thain’s office, Ferdi had continued the preliminary lesson until he was certain of Farry’s understanding of the subject matter. 

Now he pulled the selected bow shaft from the bow case and held it out to the lad. ‘String it as you were shown.’

With some difficulty, the small boy complied, but he was stronger than he looked, stronger than Ferdi would have credited in an average child of his age. Ferdi dipped his chin in affirmation and opened his mouth, but Farry spoke first. ‘And never dry-loose the bow,’ he said, the exact words that had been on his instructor’s lips.

‘You have the right of it,’ Ferdi said. He jerked his head at the escort, and they moved to take their places, well out of the line of fire. They’d be watching Faramir’s technique closely, ready to dodge any wayward shots.

‘Now,’ Ferdi said, and he moved Faramir into position. While the escort watched, faces carefully blank, he checked and double-checked Farry’s stance, somewhat surprised that the lad seemed to remember all the points from this morning’s lesson. But then, perhaps he shouldn’t be surprised, having come to know the faunt over the past year. Hardly a faunt. Farry was as precocious and serious for one of his tender years as Mayor Samwise’s Goldi, about the same age, was precocious and lively.

‘All right, then,’ he said at last. ‘Now we will nock a shaft and aim...’ Faramir nodded and fumbled an arrow from the quiver, taking it in his hand as he’d been shown and fitting it to the string. 

‘Remember,’ Ferdi said. ‘Even though these arrows are tipped with blunts, you can still do some damage.’ Blunts were typically used for target shooting, but as they could also stun a bird or small animal, they were often used by tweens for hunting purposes. Farry was a far cry from a tween, however...

‘I remember,’ said his pupil. ‘Through open mouth, or ear or eye, one so struck will surely die,’ he quoted from the morning’s lesson.

‘O aye,’ Ferdi said softly and fervently.

‘And so at a person, I should never take aim, whether Elf, or Dwarf, or Hobbit, or Man,’ Farry recited in his high, clear childish voice, holding the bow loosely with one hand, nocking the arrow with the other. Ferdi took a deep breath and glanced to either side, to see Tolly’s throat working, as if the escort were swallowing down sickness, and that Hilly’s face, though still blank of expression, had lost much of its normally hearty colour. At the Battle of Bywater, the two of them had shot nearly all the arrows in their quivers to deadly effect – that was before Frodo Baggins had put a stop to the shooting after the battle ended. Ferdi himself had loosed more than half his arrows in that terrible conflict by the time a ruffian’s club had struck him down in the heat of the fight.

Even though he privately held that all men were ruffians – never mind the fact that the King was a Man, and friend to the Thain – he still found it necessary to steel himself when it came time to convey that part of the teaching to young Tookish archers in their earliest lessons, for the lives he’d taken still haunted him, and he knew the other Tooks who’d fought at Bywater had the same trouble as he did. But this was neither the time nor the place to face his private demons. Ferdi sucked in one more steadying breath, aware that Faramir was awaiting his response.

‘That’s right,’ was all he answered as he moved in close behind the boy and placed his bow hand over Farry’s on the bow shaft. But as he touched the string with his other hand, Farry said in protest, ‘I want to do it myself.’

So much for controlling the situation for safety’s sake. ‘Of course, young master,’ Ferdi said, keeping his voice expressionless. He dropped his hands, stepped back again and swallowed hard. Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw the two hobbits of escort stiffen at attention. O aye, he thought at them. Be ready to dodge, my good hobbits, at the loosing, lest ye be the ones to lose.

But as he watched, Farry pushed out his bow arm and drew the string, took a breath, released it, and loosed the arrow – twang – moving as if he’d been born to the bow, even to remaining motionless in the necessary follow-through that sped the arrow on its way without spoiling the original aim.

Ferdi registered Tolly’s muffled exclamation even as, astonished, he watched the shaft thud home in the central circle of the target. My word, he plainly heard Hilly’s mutter.

‘Rest,’ he said automatically, but of course, Farry was already gently shaking out his arrow hand, tightening and relaxing his fingers to release the tension and allow his muscles to recover. Exactly as Ferdi had shown him that morning. Exactly.

‘Again,’ was all he added, moving to Farry’s side, and from the corner of his eye, he saw the lad’s nod – a sharp jerk of his chin, reminiscent of his father the Thain. He was also aware of movement behind him, Tolly and Hilly coming to stand side by side and a few steps back from the shooting line, staring down the line of fire from Farry’s bow to the target.

Faramir took up another arrow from the sheath, moved one foot slightly so that he was once more in the position he’d practised that morning, and nocked the arrow to the bow. Ferdi held his breath as the exercise proceeded, from steadying breath to aim to loose to follow-through. Twang.

He more sensed than saw the motion behind him as Tolly whooped and slapped Hilly’s back. He could almost swear from the sound of it that the two hobbits of the Thain’s escort were dancing a jig, even as he stared, unbelieving, at the second arrow quivering in the target’s centre, a thumb’s width from its brother. Not a fluke, then.

‘And... rest,’ he said.

Farry obediently shook out his hand, but the small, heart-shaped face was a study in disappointment. Ferdi thought he heard the lad mutter, ‘But it’s all wrong...’

‘What’s that, laddie mine?’ he said. He swept his hand towards the target, and laughter bubbled up inside him. ‘Not wrong, at all! Why, you’re as good with a bow as your da ever was in casting a stone! And he’s one of the best!’ No matter how badly Pippin shot with a bow, few could match his prowess at casting stones, in Ferdi’s experience. He couldn’t suppress the incredulous chuckle that followed his words, but to make up for it, he added, fumbling for the right words to express his astonishment and appreciation of the lad’s evident gift, ‘Your aim may even be – perhaps – better, as nowadays, I imagine, he’s had precious little time for practice to keep up his eye and his arm.’

‘But it’s not right!’ Faramir insisted, and Ferdi could now see the tears standing in the youngster’s eyes as Farry looked up and then down again, staring at his dusty toes. ‘It’s all wrong.’ And Farry let the bow fall to his side, though he kept a secure hold so as not to drop it.

His laughter quenched as suddenly as it had erupted, Ferdi fell to one knee beside the tot. ‘Help me to understand,’ he said quietly, and something – some quality of sympathy or understanding in his tone – brought the lad’s regard to meet Ferdi’s once more. The eyes were strangely old for one so young. Wearily wise. Four. Nearly five. Going-on-fifty, he thought again. Or more like one hundred and five. He found it necessary to swallow down a lump in his throat before he could manage to say, huskily, ‘What makes it all wrong, Farry? Your aim is certainly true – why,’ he had to take another deep breath before continuing, ‘it’s a wonder to behold.’

‘It doesn’t sound like your bow,’ Farry said. ‘Or Tolly’s.’

‘It certainly shoots well enough, like Ferdi’s, or Tolly’s,’ Hilly put in behind them. Ferdi glanced back, to see the two hobbits of escort only a step or two behind them now. Tolly was staring at the target, lips moving as if he was calculating distance and deflection, though of course he himself could nock and loose in a fluid motion, without apparent thought, and hit his mark every time. ‘Why,’ Hilly added, ‘a few years hence, you could win the Tournament and become Head of the Thain’s escort!’

‘Why would I want to do that?’ Faramir said sourly, and Hilly slapped his thigh and howled with laughter.

Tolly exchanged a glance with Ferdi and countered his younger brother’s glee. ‘The lad wasn’t joking.’ Both Tolly and Ferdi had won the Tournament in their day. Both had served as head of escort – Ferdi was currently serving in that position – and the small lad had the right of it. It was an onerous vocation at best, and given Pippin’s disinclination to have an escort with him whenever he rode out from the Great Smials, it was hardly an enviable task.

‘It’s a child’s bow,’ Ferdi said. ‘That’s all the difference there is to it. The string is half the length, and so the sound is different.’ He shook his head. ‘That doesn’t take anything away from your shooting, Farry. Not a whit.’

‘But it’s wrong,’ Farry insisted.

Ferdi rose suddenly to his feet. ‘Stand back, you two,’ he said. ‘Give us some shooting room.’

His cousins, used to taking orders from him, took a few steps back at once.

Ferdi patted Farry’s shoulder. ‘Stand here a moment, lad,’ he said. ‘I want to show you something.’

He’d laid his own bow case and quiver nearby, and now he went to retrieve them. He strung the bow – more than twice in length compared to the young hobbit’s height – and plucked an arrow from the quiver. It was too bad he hadn’t had the foresight to bring a blunt or two with him, but he hadn’t anticipated shooting for practice this day. As he was a hobbit of the Thain’s escort, his arrows were wickedly tipped hunting arrows, suited to bringing down a deer, a large and furious wild dog, even perhaps – though there was no guarantee, as Ferdi knew from bitter experience – a charging boar.

He returned to where Farry stood. ‘Come now, lad,’ he said. ‘We must move back some way, to start.’ He led the lad into the field, away from the stable wall, well away, until he figured they were far enough that his arrow would not strike all the way through the makeshift butt, to shatter with splintering force against the stone wall. 

Hilly and Tolly kept pace, maintaining their relative distance well back from the shooting line. 

Ferdi nodded at this show of good sense. At least, he thought to himself, you're giving the lad the chance to see if he can hit the broad side of a barn, as his father proved he could not, before Farry came along. But aloud, he said only, ‘This one, you’ll have to let me help you.’ 

He crouched, caught his balance and positioned Farry’s hand appropriately on the bow with his own hand covering it, put the arrow in the other small hand, told the lad to nock the shaft. He had to cant the bow to accommodate Farry’s lack of height, but that should not affect his ability to loose the arrow as he had much experience with shooting from cover, crouching low, during the Troubles, keeping Lotho’s and then Sharkey’s ruffians out of the Tookland proper.

‘Now we draw,’ he murmured, adding his strength to the small boy’s. ‘Take aim, lad.’

They breathed together, loosed the string as one, remained motionless as the arrow sped from the bow with a low, menacing thrum of the bowstring, and then relaxed their shooting muscles at the same time as the arrow thwacked into the target, burying itself to the quills in the soft substance of the makeshift butt.

Ferdi heard a gasp from Hilly, a low whoop from Tolly – for himself, his breath came shallow as he stared at the target. His fletching shone from the space directly between Farry’s first two shots.

At last, he found his voice. ‘Do you see there, young master?’

For all his youth, Faramir had a ready answer. ‘But you shot it.’

‘Nay,’ Ferdi protested, but the boy’s gaze remained flat, joyless.

‘You did,’ Farry said. ‘You drew, and...’

‘Yours was the aim,’ Ferdi said. ‘I only supplied the power.’

*** 

Chapter 3. Power

Ferdi thought he might have been able to convince Farry that he was responsible for his own astounding accuracy in shooting, if only they’d had more time in the moment. But they were interrupted by the tolling of the alarm bell in the courtyard of the Smials.

‘Muster!’ Tolly snapped.

Ferdi shifted focus immediately, and standing to his feet, he slung his bow case and quiver over his shoulder as he took full possession of his bow from the lad. ‘Go,’ he said to the other two hobbits of escort. ‘Gather what news ye may, and meet me at the Thain’s study.’ That was where Pippin and the Steward, Reginard, would likely be forming their strategy for whatever emergency had arisen. Detailed maps lined one wall, and the various Heads would be summoned as needed to the study for general orders before the Thain or his representative rode out at the head of the Muster. He squeezed Farry’s shoulder. ‘I’ll take care o’ the lad.’

The escort nodded and together broke into a run, heading to the corner of the stables, and then out of sight.

‘Take up your bow and quiver,’ Ferdi said to Farry, who was staring at him with wide eyes. Ferdi knew, from a conversation he’d overheard between Pippin and Diamond, that the sound of the alarm bell had been burned into the child’s memory the previous year, in the time of the disastrous wildfire that had taken several lives and had nearly claimed the life of Farry’s own father. ‘We don’t want to leave deadly weapons lying about for any young hobbit to find after the emergency’s done.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Farry answered, with all the precision of a Brandybuck of the Hall. He scooped up his quiver and bow case and slung them over his shoulder in fair imitation of Ferdi’s earlier move, then picked up his small bow in one hand.

‘Good,’ Ferdi said. ‘Now, follow me.’ Turning his head slightly to make sure the lad stayed with him, he moved to the target and pulled out the three shafts, holding them in his hand rather than putting the noisome things away in a quiver. There was no time to clean them, but it wouldn’t do to leave them lying about. The target, harmless in itself, could stay where Hilly had fastened it for the time being. Keeping close to the wall, he walked at a pace that suited Faramir’s shorter legs to the end of the stable wall, where he took the precaution of stopping and peering around the corner of the building before proceeding. It wouldn’t do to lead the son of the Thain into danger, seeing that he did not yet know the cause of the alarm or the scope of the emergency.

But all he could see was excited hobbits milling in the courtyard, some armed with bows and spears, some holding the reins of saddled ponies. He nodded to himself and gestured to Farry. ‘Come, lad,’ he said. ‘We’ll go and see what’s what, shall we?’

Ferdi walked and Farry trotted at his side, along the side of the stables to the courtyard and then across the stones to the Smials proper, a Tookish archer and his small shadow. The courtyard was a babble of voices as they thrust their way through, but Ferdi thought he heard the word ‘swine’ from several quarters in the general commotion, and his stomach knotted. Still, his first priority as the head of the Thain’s escort was the safety of the Thain and of Pippin’s family, which meant he must escort the son of the Thain to the security of the inner Smials. Only then could he turn his attention to getting to the bottom of this.

Once inside, they hurried along corridors that were strangely quiet and deserted, all the way to the private quarters of the Thain, deep in the Great Smials. Haldegrim, another of the escort, stood outside the door to the Thain’s study, an indication that the Thain was to be found within. Ferdi exchanged a glance with him and then guided Farry with a gentle push, propelling the lad along the corridor to the private quarters. ‘Your da’s a bit busy at the moment, I should think,’ he said.

‘No doubt,’ was the lad’s answer, and then they were at the door to the Thain’s apartments. Ferdi thrust open the door to find Sandy, the hobbit in charge of the Thain’s and Mistress’s private accommodations and requirements, in the large sitting room just off the entryway.

‘Farry!’ that hobbit said, moving to greet them. Though he was no child-minder, he said to Ferdi, ‘I’ll take him from here. You’re wanted in the Thain’s study.’

Ferdi nodded at that and caught Farry’s eye, demanding the lad’s attention. ‘Put those weapons safely away, now,’ he said soberly (half to Farry, and half to Sandy, if truth be told).

‘I will,’ Farry said.

Ferdi nodded and held out the practice arrows and his own deadly missile to Sandy with an apologetic look. ‘Can you hold these safe for me until I can put them away properly?’ He could scarcely bring himself to meet the hobbitservant’s steady gaze. Their dirty state, considering he’d pulled them from a target fastened over a pile of soiled stable bedding, didn’t seem to fit this well-ordered room with its gleaming furniture, shining brasses, well-brushed rugs, and faint hint of beeswax hanging in the air.

But Sandy took the arrows without a blink, simply saying, ‘Of course, Ferdibrand. I’ll have them ready for you when you ask for them.’ And in all likelihood, they’d be thoroughly cleaned and sporting a fresh coating of wax when the head of escort saw them again.

Ferdi nodded his thanks and turned on his heel to go.

He paused outside the door to the Thain’s study for a quick consultation. ‘Swine,’ Haldi said grimly. ‘Wild swine, tearing up a copse near Greenacres in the direction of Tookbank, or so’s the word brought just now. Chased a farmer and his sons up a tree. They’d been scattering seed in a field, and got to the copse barely ahead of the savage creatures.’ 

‘Not just mean, but hungry, from the sound of it,’ Ferdi said with a shiver.

Haldi shook his head. ‘Puts me in mind of old Bilbo and his Fifteen birds in five fir trees,' he said, and gave a humourless laugh.

Ferdi simply nodded, his mouth too dry for speech. Haldi rapped twice, opened the door and ushered him through. 

Hilly was already there, hand splayed on the large, detailed map on the wall as if to get his bearings. Then he moved his finger from the Great Smials to a point some way to the west, where he stopped and tapped. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘They’d find good cover here.’ Ferdi wasn’t surprised to see him there, and apparently armed with recent reports; Hilly was one of the most efficient information-gatherers he knew. ‘From the farmer’s report, it’s a group of males – wicked tusks, but a group, not a solitary older fellow. It's nearly farrowing time, so Reni thinks young males are more likely to have attacked than a sounder of females... he did say ten, perhaps as many as a dozen.’ 

Pippin looked up. ‘Ah, Ferdi,’ he said. ‘Word is, this was the sounder that Reni went out hunting last week, but they’d moved.’

‘And now we know where they moved to,’ Steward Reginard added. ‘They’ve grown bolder – they’re now hunting hobbits, from the latest report. That farmer – who was the last to climb a tree after seeing his sons safely aloft – was lucky to get out of their reach, and as it was, they tried to dig around the tree where he found refuge as if they thought they might bring him down.’

Ferdi, seeing Pippin pale at this awful pronouncement, moved forward in support, but the Thain shook off his steadying hand. 

‘I am well,’ he said, straightening. ‘So, Regi, we’ll mount a hunting party and be off within the hour.’

‘O aye,’ Reginard said with a sharp look for the Thain, ‘that we will – but not yourself, Sir.’

Ferdi had seldom seen Pippin caught by surprise, but his younger cousin certainly spluttered at this. ‘Not my – not – nonsense! The Thain leads the Muster!’

‘No,’ Regi countered. When Pippin would have continued to protest, the Steward shook his head, took the younger hobbit by the arm and gave Pippin a hearty shake. ‘No,’ he repeated, speaking over the Thain’s objections. ‘It’s too dangerous.’

‘But –’

‘But – naught! Absolutely not!’ Regi snapped. ‘The Tooks nearly lost one Thain to wild swine, as Ferdi here can tell you – and because the Thain was there in the thick of it, where he ought not to have been, we did lose several valuable hobbits, Sir, as a matter of fact, hobbits that were worth any ten of you!’ He stared grimly into the Thain’s eyes as he added quietly, ‘You’ll only put your escort and the hunters in danger if you insist.’

Silence fell in the room, but Reginard did not retreat from the stance he’d so boldly declared.

Hilly and Ferdi stared at each other, and then they turned their eyes back to Thain and Steward, standing nearly toe-to-toe in their confrontation. Ferdi found himself fighting to breathe – it seemed as if there were not enough air in the room to sustain life.

‘The Thain leads the Muster,’ Pippin repeated in a mild tone – the tone that, to Ferdi (and not to him alone), meant that the issue was decided, that the Thain would be riding out, surrounded by his escort, to lead the hunters in the chase. Mercy help them.

‘Not this time,’ Regi said, equally quiet. ‘The Tooks will back me in this. They’ll take a dim view of you leading the Muster in this situation.’ Pippin appeared prepared to continue arguing, but then the Steward added, ‘Don’t force the hobbits of your escort to lay down their lives for you, as Ferumbras did before you.’

‘I –‘ Pippin said. ‘I –‘ he repeated, less strong. He fumbled to a stop, staring in consternation at his steward, and then he wrenched his gaze from Regi’s intense glare, looking first to Ferdi, then to Hilly, and then, oddly enough, at his toes, as if he needed to make sure that the fur on his feet was in proper order. Ferdi watched him take a deep breath before he raised his chin once more.

‘Let the hunters do their job,’ Regi said, still quietly. ‘It’s what you’re paying them for.’

‘I see,’ Pippin replied. The silence stretched for a breath. Then two. He turned suddenly to Hilly and said, ‘Go over the information you’ve gathered with the hunters. Tell them your conclusions, and let them know that I want a full report on their return.’ He looked to Ferdi and then back to Hilly again, adding, ‘I won’t be riding out.’

‘Yes, Sir,’ Hilly said, and he was gone in the next breath.

As the door closed behind the escort, Pippin sagged, and Regi took hold of him, nodding to Ferdi to offer his arm on Pippin’s other side. Between them, they guided Pippin to the chair behind his desk and eased him down.

‘I am well,’ Pippin muttered.

‘Of course you are, Thain,’ Regi agreed. His look to Ferdi conveyed the rest of his thought. And we’re going to keep you that way. To Ferdi, he said, ‘What are you waiting for?’

Ferdi hardly needed further urging to take his leave. To Haldi, outside the Thain’s study, he said, ‘You’re on duty until I return.’

‘O aye,’ Haldi said. But Ferdi saw some of the tension go out of the hobbit at the unspoken message – the Thain would not be going out on the hunt – before Haldi straightened again and said, ‘Good hunting to you!’

‘O aye,’ Ferdi echoed. He thought perhaps Good luck! might be a more fitting sentiment, or more to the point, Don’t get yourself killed, now, cousin! – but that was neither here nor there. At least he had experience with hunting the wild boar, which was more than the rest of the hobbits of the Thain's present-day escort could say, trained and well-honed hunters though they may be – but the dark memories of Thain Ferumbras' disastrous hunt still haunted his dreams, all these years later.

In the courtyard, he found his own Dapple saddled and blessed Old Tom, the stable master. Though her muzzle was sprinkled with grey, and her dappled coat bore scattered scars, he knew he could trust her more than any other pony he might ride to hold steady against a charging menace.

As he swept the assembled hobbits with his gaze, his lips thinned into a grim line. ‘You!’ he said, pointing to one group of richly dressed Smials Tooks, excitedly chattering as they boasted to one another and checked over and compared their expensive-looking, finely crafted bows. ‘And you – and you!’ He had their attention, for certain, as he singled out the gentry from the common hunters. From their proud manner, they likely expected him to assign them to ride at point, in the position of greatest danger. But the Steward – and bitter experience – had shown him the way forward. ‘Stand down!’ he said now.

A protest arose, but he shouted them down, and the other hobbits of the escort there, Tolly, Hilly, Adelard and his brother Isenard, added their voices.

‘Why should you have all the excitement and diversion?’ someone shouted from the crowd, and another answered, ‘Aye! Why should they have all the glory!’

‘Hunters only,’ Ferdi said, and then he amended, ‘Trained hunters only! This isn’t a joy-ride, nor is it a riding picnic-party! Thain's hunters – by the order of the Thain!’

But much grumbling arose, and Ferdi had the feeling he was about to be over-borne, that even calling upon the name of the Thain would not be enough to deter them. Then Hilly spoke over the murmurs, and at his words, the crowd fell silent, as he snapped, ‘Tell it to the Steward!’

Someone muttered, and Hilly swung to confront him. ‘Well?’ he said, steel in his voice and ice in his gaze.

Gentlehobbits and sport-hunters moved uneasily under the escort’s quiet intensity. Very Thainly of you, cousin, Ferdi thought to himself. If this business of being Thain doesn’t work out for Pippin, and Regi still refuses to take on the job, perhaps you can do the honours. But all he said aloud was, ‘Time is wasting.’ And to Pippin’s chief hunter, he added, ‘Reni! Are you and your hobbits ready?’

‘We are!’ Renilard said stoutly. He was already in the saddle, bow and quiver on his back, a heavy spear in his gloved hand. His small group of hunters followed his lead and mounted their ponies, as did the hobbits of the Thain’s escort, also hunters by training and experience. Ferdi took the boar spear Old Tom held out to him with a nod of thanks and then signalled Renilard to lead them out.

Even though the gentlehobbits weren’t at all pleased about staying behind, one of them raised his bow and shouted after the small band of grim-faced riders. ‘Good hunting!’ Others echoed the sentiment, and as the hunting party rode out of the courtyard, a great cheer went up behind them. What the gentry lacked in practice and prowess, they certainly made up for in noise, Ferdi thought sourly. Ah, well. At least they’d be among the living at the end of this day, and into the bargain, they’d put no working hobbits at risk.

*** 

Author’s note: Some text taken from Chapter 6, “Out of the Frying Pan into the Fire” from The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien.

*** 

Chapter 4. Risk

It was not a cheerful group that rode out from the Smials, not by any stretch of imagination. Grim and determined would be a better description of the mood, though an onlooker might have been fooled by the occasional jest to be overheard, a burst of laughter in one quarter, a question called from one side of the group to the other, and a jaunty answer flung back in return. A song arose, followed by others, and the ponies trotted in rhythm with the music as their riders carried the tune along and bellowed out the choruses. It helped to make the miles pass more quickly. Greenacres, the area in general as well as the particular farm that bore the same name, was a good hour’s ride from Tuckborough at a trot. A shorter time was possible for a rider that might be in a tearing hurry. But these riders needed their ponies to be fresh and alert when they got to their destination, and so they kept the pace relatively slow and easy on the ponies. 

So they rode, resembling an unlikely moving forest. Each rider steadied an upright spear that was fastened to his hunting saddle, deadly metal tip honed to razor-sharpness, oiled and gleaming in the sun, and ready to be lowered into position to fend off a charging boar when the time was right.  

In the last mile or so, the group fell silent as if by accord, and they rode with only the thudding of ponies’ hoofs on the path or turf beside it, an occasional jingle, a creaking of leather. Renilard rode at the fore with his chief assistant, Raolf. Ferdi, having the keenest eye amongst his fellow hunters for following tracks and reading trails, followed close behind with Hilly and Tolly flanking him. The rest of Renilard’s hunters rode next, and the remaining hobbits of the Thain’s escort brought up the rear. 

Before they reached the little wood that Hilly had chosen from the map in the Thain’s study, Reni held up a silent hand, and the entire group came to a halt. It was time for every one of them to string his bow and check his spear a final time, making sure the base was firmly set into the special socket built into his hunting saddle. This would allow the superior weight and power of the pony to stand against the force of a charging wild beast and would help to hold the deadly point steady in the rider’s aiming hand. 

Ferdi strung his bow with the rest, ran his thumb over the string, and hung the weapon from its hook on the saddle, ready to snatch up at need. He reached over his shoulder to check the arrows in the quiver at his back, loosening them in preparation for a quick grab. Finding all in order, he fingered the strap holding his spear upright and settled the shaft in his hand, ready to release it from its confines and lower it into position at the first sign of danger. 

Renilard glanced behind him and nudged his pony forward, into the shadows under the trees. The riders following him spread out into a line. They’d sweep the wood systematically, looking for signs of swine. Spears were the best defence against the largest and most dangerous of the creatures, while arrows would suffice for younger and smaller animals. Reni meant to wipe out as many as they could manage to flush from their resting places before the wily creatures ceded their newly adopted territory and scattered. 

When they came to a patch of marshy ground that bore evidence of sharp split hoofs and digging snouts, the chief hunter signalled another stop. He got down from his saddle, spear in hand, and waved to Ferdi to do the same. Without a word, he moved to one side of the clearing, Ferdi to the other, both scrutinizing the soft, disturbed soil to determine the freshness of the signs left there, while the rest loosed their boar spears and lowered them into position. This was one of the most dangerous moments of a boar hunt, the time before they knew exactly what they were dealing with, how many, and where the nocturnal creatures might be biding away the daylight hours.  

Paradoxically, it was also one of the most ridiculous, considering its heart-pounding nature, if the signs should prove false or, if true, too old, meaning the sounder had moved on. Ferdi grimaced at himself, tempted to use one of Mayor Sam’s pet phrases. Don’t be a ninnyhammer. He tightened his muscles, then forced them to relax as he concentrated on reading the ground. 

Tolly's shout, sounding at his back, gave him a split second of warning before a sudden strong smell of musk hit him, followed by a growl that came from the underbrush before him and a little to his right. Moved by instinct, he dropped his spear, spun and dashed for the line of riders behind him. He could swear he felt the ground shaking under the sharp hoofs of his massive pursuer, but he didn’t dare look around, simply lowered his head and sprinted for all he was worth. 

As it was, he fancied he felt hot breath on the back of his neck as he passed between Hilly’s and Tolly’s lowered spearheads, heard the outraged squeal of a large and angry boar, mingled with the whistling challenge of a pony, the thud of collision amid shouts of alarm. 

He bent over, then sank to his knees, kneading at a stitch in his side that he hadn't noticed until he'd halted, gasping for breath and fully winded, and took in the chaos unfolding behind him. The dynamic force of the charging boar, running onto Tolly’s spear, had nearly overset the escort’s sturdy gelding, driving the pony onto his haunches. As Ferdi watched, two more hunters moved in, thrusting their spears at the maddened monster. Hilly kneed his pony closer and slid from his saddle, greatly daring in the face of furiously slashing tusks and sharp churning hoofs, to deliver the death stroke with his long, keen-bladed hunting knife, only to be caught in the gush and spray of a crimson fountain as the blade found the lifeblood of their terrible quarry. 

Into the silence that followed, Renilard spoke as he returned to the group, moving warily. ‘That’s one,’ he said. ‘Come along, time’s wasting. Let’s go and see how many others we might stir up.’ 

Hilly held out his hand, and Ferdi allowed himself to be hauled to his feet, though he was still breathing hard. ‘You look a sight,’ the head of escort said. ‘None of that blood’s yours, I trust.’ 

Hilly laughed and pulled out a handkerchief to wipe at his face and neck. ‘Mine’s all inside, where it ought to be,’ he said. He nodded at the fallen creature. ‘But that certainly ought to count for more than one! Why, he weighs easily as much as three of you – or more!’ 

Not deigning to answer, Ferdi gave a low whistle to call Dapple to him. He rubbed gently at the velvet nose and pulled a piece of carrot from his pocket for the mare’s pleasure. ‘Be that as it may,’ he said, climbing into the saddle, ‘better him than me.’ Renilard had recovered Ferdi’s spear from the ground, and Ferdi reclaimed it with a nod of thanks as he fastened it in place on his saddle. 

‘Well, I think we’ve established that the swine in this particular sounder are to be found hereabouts,’ Reni said, raising his voice just loud enough to reach the entire group. ‘Let us get to hunting!’ 

‘What have we just been doing, I’d like to know?’ Hilly said in an undertone, and Tolly gave a humourless guffaw. 

‘That was just the appetizer course, little brother,’ he said. ‘Now for the soup plate!’ But as it turned out, when he nudged his pony, the poor beast took a faltering step and nearly fell. 

Tolly instantly dismounted and went to the pony’s head, stroking and soothing. Ferdi called to Reni to halt the group and slid down from his saddle once more, telling Dapple to stand. He knelt beside Tolly’s gelding and began gently to go over the sturdy legs, from shoulder to coronet. Looking up at Tolly, he shook his head. ‘He’s done, for now, any road. He'll heal and hunt another day, I warrant, but he took a serious strain, standing stalwart against that charge.’ Even so, he blessed the pony’s courage and strength. The gelding had held firm, saving Tolly and very likely Ferdi from serious harm. 

‘Lame?’ Tolly said, stroking the shining neck. ‘Ah, lad, I’m that sorry.’ He wasn’t addressing Ferdi. 

‘Ride my Whitefoot, Tolly,’ Raolf said, dismounting and offering his reins to the escort. ‘Reni has me butchering, this trip. I’ll watch over him until the hunt is finished.’ 

‘He’ll have to be hand-walked back,’ Ferdi said. 

‘O aye,’ Tolly said. ‘And it’s a long way to the Smials.’ 

Ferdi put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Greenacres Farm is closer,’ he said. ‘Walk him there, when we’re finished... After what he’s done, I’ll wager the family will fete and feed him to his heart’s content, and rub liniment into his muscles all hours of the day and night.’ 

‘Brave lad,’ Tolly said with a final pat, and then he traded reins with Raolf. ‘Take care of him.’ 

‘You know I will,’ the hunter promised. 

Both hobbits of the escort mounted again, Ferdi on Dapple and Tolly on his borrowed pony, and the hunters lined up their ponies and set their spears, ready to continue. 

They had ridden a little way when the rush of energy, that had seemed to give his feet wings as he fled the charging boar, wore off and reaction set in. It was a good thing Ferdi was sitting down in the saddle, for suddenly he felt weak and shaky. He raised a trembling hand to wipe at his face. 

Tolly, beside him, noticed. ‘Is it well with you, cousin?’ he said. 

‘O’ course,’ Ferdi answered, keeping his voice low and glad that he sounded steadier than he felt. He swallowed hard. ‘I was just thinking how glad I am that the Thain gave the order for trained hunters only, this trip. I hate to imagine...’ 

Tolly threw him a sharp glance. He’d been barely a tween at the time of Ferumbras’ disastrous boar hunt, as had Ferdi, when Verilard, Reni’s predecessor, in an attack of nerves or perhaps prudence, had sent all the tweens who were would-be hunters back to the Great Smials, except for his apprentice Ferdi, before they’d encountered their prey. Thus, Tolly hadn’t been on the spot when the wild boar had turned from hunted to hunter and charged the Thain. Still, he’d seen the damage and devastation when the hunting party returned to the Smials bearing the dead and wounded. He’d heard the stories the survivors told. 

Truth be told, Tolly would hate to imagine, himself, the carnage that might have taken place less than an hour ago, had the gentry – much less, the Thain! – been allowed to accompany the hunt. Filled with curiosity as he was, Pippin would have been there on the ground with Reni or Ferdi, in the thick of things, his hobbits of the escort surrounding him, their attention necessarily split between him and their surroundings. He shuddered, and at Ferdi’s questioning look, said only, ‘Bit chilly, here in the wood.’ 

‘I’d have thought you well-warmed by your part in the action just now,’ Hilly said from Ferdi’s other side. 

‘O aye,’ was all the older brother answered as they rode on. Renilard made a hushing sound, and the hunt continued in relative silence. 

Raolf and two other hunters had the task of field-dressing each of the carcases in turn as they were felled, one plying his knife in quick, practised strokes, and the others mounted and standing guard over him, spears at the ready in case of stragglers. They loaded each carcase onto a pack pony when Raolf was done and followed behind the main body ‘to pick up the pieces, as it were,’ as Hilly quipped at one point, as if it were a simple child’s game of pick-up-the-sticks instead of a bloody and dangerous business. 

The Sun was low in the sky when Reni decided they had finished sweeping the wood for stragglers. They’d bagged a dozen of the large and dangerous creatures, young males of three to five years, the chief hunter deemed, not yet adults of breeding age, but big enough to offer substantial peril and threat to life, especially when food was scarce, sending the sounder out hunting and foraging in a group. They'd fully burdened the pack saddles borne by the dozen extra ponies they'd brought with them based on the report of the farmer who’d been treed by the swine. Any additional meat might be wasted, even if they were able to flush another swine. They could hang extra carcases from a tree and send a waggon from the Smials back to fetch them, the head hunter supposed, but that was no guarantee against carrion birds or stoats. It was just as well that the hunting party hadn't flushed any more of the murderous nuisances. 

Tolly returned his borrowed pony to Raolf with a word of thanks. He moved to the string of pack ponies and unfastened the rope of a piebald bearing more than a hundred-weight of meat, taking it in hand along with the reins of his own lamed gelding. He’d walk to Greenacres Farm, deliver the pork and his pony to the family there, tack up the pack pony with his own saddle and bridle and ride back to the Smials.  

Considering the success of the hunt along with the gratifying lack of casualties (except for swine, of course), not an outcome that was ever to be taken for granted after a hunt for wild boar, Renilard was not willing to take any chances. The head hunter held up his hand to stop Tolly from leaving and said in a tone that brooked no contradiction, ‘I'm sending two of my hobbits along with you.’ At Tolly's look of astonishment, he levelled a stern glare at the escort. ‘If not swine,’ the chief hunter said, ‘then dogs.’ 

Tolly had opened his mouth to protest, but shut it again as Reni added, ‘wild dogs or strays might be drawn to the smell of fresh meat... Whether or not you’re the finest shot in the Tookland, you’ll be vulnerable afoot and alone.’ 

‘Ferdi’s the finest shot in all the Shire,’ Tolly countered. 

‘Whatever,’ Reni said. ‘Just be thankful for the company.’ 

***  

Renilard sent Ferdi cantering ahead of the rest, to bring the Thain a preliminary report on the hunt and to notify the kitchen staff of the freshly harvested meat, enough to fill an entire cold-room, that would be arriving in only another hour or two.

‘Well that is good news, I say,’ Pippin said, rubbing his hands together and seeming as pleased as if there had been no argument about his leading the hunt. He wasn’t one to hold a grudge, Ferdi had to grant him that. ‘What do you say, Regi? Shall we declare tomorrow a half-holiday for all the Smials, and have a grand feast of wild boar?’

‘For all but the kitchen workers,’ Regi amended. ‘Hard knocks on them, but I’m sure the Mistress can work out an extra half-holiday for them in her planning for the next week or so.’

‘P’rhaps when we’re in Buckland next month,’ Pippin said. ‘No need to put on airs or hold grand affairs whilst the Thain and Mistress are away, after all.’

Buckland? That was the first Ferdi’d heard of these plans. He’d have to find out more, for certain, to work out the escort’s part in the Thain’s journeyings. 

But the Thain was addressing him. He wrenched his attention back to matters at hand, hearing Pippin say, ‘Well, then, Ferdi, go and inform the head cook.’

Regi added, ‘They’ll have to dig out the firepits – I don’t think those have been used since Yule, and considering the storm that blew in shortly after, they may need some work. I don’t think the kitchen has adequate facilities to roast more than two of the creatures at once.’

Ferdi nodded and turned to go, but Pippin stopped him. ‘A moment, cousin.’

‘Sir?’ he said, not certain if Pippin was addressing him in his official capacity or not. Sometimes it was difficult to discern with this baby cousin he’d often watched over during summers at Whittacres in their early years.

‘No injuries, you said – except for Tolly’s gelding.’

Ah. An official inquiry, then. ‘Aye, Sir,’ he answered. ‘And that brave lad will hopefully make a full recovery and go out on the hunt again. Tolly has him trained to a treat.’

‘No injuries,’ Pippin repeated in a lower tone. ‘That is something to celebrate, indeed.’

‘It would seem that your head of escort owes you a word of thanks for saving his life,’ Regi said dryly. At the others’ quizzical looks, he added, ‘Trained hunters only, as you remember, I’m sure.’ He'd had an earful from some of the disgruntled would-be hunters.

Ferdi swallowed on a suddenly dry throat. ‘I –‘ he fumbled. ‘I do thank you, cousin,’ he said. ‘I thank you, Sir,’ he repeated, ‘most sincerely.’ 

Pippin shot him a sharp look, glanced at Regi and then back to Ferdibrand. ‘I believe you,’ he said. ‘No need to go on about it.’ 

Ferdi might beg to differ.

Even now, he needed only to shut his eyes, and he could see Isumbold, Ferumbras' head of escort, and Palabard, a hobbit of the escort, shooting arrows that might have been toothpicks for all their effectiveness, and then throwing themselves between the Thain and the furious charging boar, whilst Baragrim, another of the Thain's escort, pushed Ferumbras out of the line of charge and covered the Thain with his own body, a fragile shield of flesh and bone against an enormous monster weighing more than all of the escort combined.

No, indeed. Pippin’s decision not to lead the Muster himself, even though the power of Regi's influence over the Tooks undergirded it... Ferdi fully considered that the Thain had saved the lives of his escort – and not least, Ferdi's own life.               

*** 

Chapter 5. Life 

For days afterward, the Tooks agreed it was the finest feast of wild boar that had ever filled the Great Room elbow-to-elbow with hobbits from the Smials and its surroundings. There was feasting, and singing, and laughter and boasting. The boasting was on the part of the gentlehobbits and sport-hunters who’d not been allowed to go on the hunt, of course, as to what would have happened if the Thain had not put his foot down and called upon the power of the Steward to enforce his will. 

The hunters themselves were strangely silent, their smiles, when they caught each other’s gaze, ironic.

After the feast and accompanying half-day of rest, Ferdi’s days settled into a routine of sorts. Faramir soon graduated from shooting at the well-fortified back wall of the stables to the practice field set aside for archers. Ferdi established an understanding with the Thain and Mistress that he might come and fetch their young lad at any time of the day, from an hour before early breakfast until eventides shortly after the Sun sought her bed. 

Of course, the escort all knew better than to spread gossip, even though the Steward had made it clear to them that they should collect all the Talk they could and report it to him. To avoid accidental spectators and to try to shield the lad as much as might be from the Talk, the head of escort made sure to schedule all the lad’s practices during the times of day when the field was strictly reserved for the hobbits of the Thain’s escort, one of the benefits of a difficult, demanding job, so far as those hobbits were concerned. They had their pick of several times of the day, morning, noon, afternoon and evening, to allow them to take advantage of the changing light in honing their skills and maintaining their aim. 

As a consequence, Farry also benefitted, learning to shoot under any light conditions, whether winter-dark skies under heavy clouds and rain, or bright sunshine, or the uncertain vision to be had in the deepening twilight. Not that it mattered. The lad continued to hit his mark, even when the Sun shone playfully in his eyes from behind the target.

But the lad seemed to take no joy in the exercise. Though Ferdibrand was able to report “satisfactory progress for one of his age” to the Thain on a regular basis, he was unsure how to broach the subject of Farry’s lack of enthusiasm. The other hobbits of the escort had noticed as well, and it was a topic of quiet conversation when any two of them went out together into the wilder parts of the Green Hills to deliver messages to farms or to hunt fresh game for the Thain’s table, per the Steward’s orders.

At last Ferdi could not bear the small tot’s resignation any longer. Faramir had shot two flights of arrows that day with his usual accuracy, at every distance Ferdi contrived. They’d worked out the range of the boy’s small bow, the farthest distance he could shoot, which was constrained more by the power of the bow rather than Farry’s eye, and so they worked through a variety of angles and distances each day.

Now, as Hilly and Tolly retrieved the practice shafts from the various targets, Ferdi crouched to address the son of the Thain, eye to eye, as equals. ‘What is it, lad?’ he said.

‘I don’t take your meaning,’ Faramir said politely. His speech, like his shooting, was precise and more suited to a child twice his age.

‘What’s the matter?’ Ferdi persisted, and when the boy remained silent, he prodded, ‘I thought you wanted to learn to shoot. So what’s the matter? Is it too easy for you? Is it that there’s no challenge in it?’ For that was the only solution he could think of.

But the lad had no answer, apparently. In an effort to goad him, Ferdi said, ‘Is it that I’m such a poor teacher, then? Are you wishing that Tolibold might take over the lessons, rather than simply being an arrow-fetcher?’ He knew that the words would sting the lad’s innate sense of fairness, and he was rewarded.

‘No!’ came the answer, quick and emphatic. ‘Of course not!’ But the lad added no explanations.

‘I don’t know what to do with you,’ Ferdi said quietly.

‘Do with me?’

‘You seem so miserable when you’re shooting, Farry,’ Ferdi said. ‘Your shaft goes thunk into the middle of the target, and your face is as long as a rainy day in summertime.’

Faramir simply shook his head, looking every bit as miserable as Ferdi’s observation. ‘It’s just that it’s not real,’ he said.

‘Not real,’ Ferdi pressed. ‘Farry, you are shooting real arrows, that could strike down a squirrel or a coney for the pot! Ask one of them, and they’d say it’s real enough.’

‘But...’ Farry said, and seemed helpless to go on.

‘It’s the sound,’ Hildibold said quietly from behind Ferdi. The head of escort had not heard his approach, but then he was a hobbit, after all, and not a clumsy-footed ruffian. Ferdi looked over his shoulder to see the escort nodding quietly to himself, as if he saw confirmation in Faramir’s face. ‘The sound, it isn’t real, as he said.’ 

Perplexed, Ferdi rose to his feet and half-turned, looking from escort to small son of the Thain. 

Hilly, seeing the confusion on his face, and Tolly’s, said, ‘Don’t you remember what he said, that first day? It’s the sound of his bow – a child’s bow.’ He took Farry’s bow from the child’s unresisting hand. Because he was too well-disciplined to fire a bow dry in illustration, he took one of the arrows that he’d just replaced in Farry’s quiver, fitted it to the bow, and shot. Twang. The small group watched the arrow speed to the target, lodging just outside the centre ring. ‘It isn’t real,’ he muttered.

‘But when I let him use my bow, he took no more joy,’ Ferdi protested.

‘A moment, cousin.’ Hilly handed the child’s bow back to Farry, took his own bow from his back, pulled an arrow from his quiver and shot in a smooth motion – thrum – though his aim was not much improved in using his familiar companion weapon. He swore under his breath as he slung his bow over his back once more. It was all too clear that Ferdi would be assigning him extra practice on the shooting range in what would have usually been his “spare time”.

Then, looking from Ferdi to Tolly, he said, ‘He can shoot his bow with his own strength, but the sound of the bow lacks power – rightly reflects the lack of power in it. With your bow, though Farry aimed for the target, yours was the strength that made the sound that Farry knows is right. It has the power to bring down a deer, a dog on the attack, even – when the luck is with the hunter – even a wild swine. His bow can only bring down a squirrel or coney. Perhaps, if he’s lucky, a fox.’

Ferdi looked to Faramir. The lad was nodding. ‘But his bow is real enough to do that... and he was the one who aimed the shot from my bow, that went almost all the way through the target to the stones beyond...’

‘It’s not real to him because he hasn’t enough experience with how power and aim can be separate, yet work together,’ Hilly said.

‘I don’t follow,’ Ferdi said in an unconscious echo of Farry’s earlier statement.

Hilly was the one to crouch down now as he turned his full attention on the boy. ‘Farry,’ he said. ‘You’ve seen how Thain and Steward work together.’

Faramir nodded.

‘I’m sure you’ve heard your da give an order, only to have Regi stop him, or change what he’s said,’ Hilly said.

Ferdi found himself holding his breath. This sort of Talk was perilously close to insubordination, which was not tolerated by the tradition-bound Tooks. Hilly could get himself into real trouble if it came to the wrong ears... along with anyone else who seemed to be supporting him. Especially since it sounded as if he might be leading the son of the Thain astray.

‘Hilly...’ Tolly’s voice sounded in warning. 

But the younger brother wasn’t having any. ‘He’s to be Thain himself someday,’ the escort said. ‘He’ll understand then all too well how it works. Pip’s learning.’

‘Learning,’ Ferdi and Tolly echoed in the same breath.

‘The Tooks followed Paladin – your granda,’ Hilly clarified to Farry, and the boy nodded, ‘who was Thain before your da, as your da is now Thain, and you’ll follow him.’

If Pippin should live so long, Ferdi thought to himself.

‘But the Thain,’ Hilly said, seeming now to choose his words with care, ‘he is only a Hobbit, after all. Mere flesh and bone.’ He was silent for a moment, then ploughed on. ‘Hobbits can make mistakes.’ He let the words hang in the air, took a deep breath, and continued. ‘Aye, even the Thain. Now your granda, Paladin, he had a Tookish temper on him. And sometimes, he was so cumbered about with the responsibilities of the Tookland, he couldn’t see as clearly as he might...’

Ferdi thought of how Paladin had disbanded the Thain’s escort. Regi, as ruffians encroached on the Shire and then the Tookland, had gathered the best archers he knew and reinstated the practice of guarding the Thain from harm.

Tolly, meanwhile, remembered how Paladin, desperate for information during the Troubles, had sent hobbits out on perilous quests to find out what the ruffians were up to, and what their plans might be to overrun the Tookland the way they’d taken the rest of the Shire. Reginard had intervened a few times to spare the best of the Tookish archers from possible capture and imprisonment in the Lockholes – or worse. ‘Regi...’ he said now.

‘Aye,’ Hilly said, standing to his feet and stretching muscles cramped from crouching. ‘Regi took the Thain’s orders and made sure they were carried out in a way that would satisfy what the Thain was really asking for.’ More confident now, he said, ‘And the Tooks got used to following his orders, knowing they originally came from the Thain.’

‘And so they are still following Regi’s orders,’ Ferdi said slowly.

‘Have you noticed, Farry, how sometimes what your da has ordered is slightly different in the way it’s carried out? Yet the results are what he wanted, in the end.’

‘It may take a few years before they’ll take orders directly from Pippin,’ Tolly said. ‘As it is, if they don’t like what they hear, they’ll check with the Steward first.’

‘O aye,’ Hilly said, a glint of grim humour in his eye. ‘They started to heed Paladin so quickly only because the Troubles began but a few years after he became Thain. I expect it’ll take longer for Pip, if only because he went a-journey in the Outlands, befriended Outlandish people and made his home in the Wilds of Buckland for some time.’

‘And had adventures,’ Tolly said quietly.

‘O aye, that’s certainly a black mark against him in the eyes of the Tooks, as well as the Tooklanders and the rest of the Shirefolk,’ Hilly agreed. ‘But before your da came along, Farry, the Tookland was a poorer place. Gaffers shivered in the winter cold for want of wood for a fire. More food was stockpiled in the Great Smials than the hobbits living there could eat, whilst others might go hungry.

‘So you see, Farry, your da gives the orders to fill the needs he sees, now and in future – why, this winter, don’t you know the foresters were cutting the old and sick trees that will keep old gaffers and widows warm next winter. And don’t you know that as soon as the springling Sun warms the soil enough, they’ll be planting two or more baby trees for every one they’ve cut.’

Hilly got down on one knee, the better to see eye to eye with young Faramir, and dropped his voice. Ferdi and Tolly found themselves leaning in to hear the rest of what he had to say to the little lad. ‘But Farry, your da learnt these ways of caring for folk from the Brandybucks, the way they watch over Buckland. Merry’s father, old “Scattergold”, taught his son and Pippin well when Pippin was his Steward in Buckland. The Tooks haven’t done such things in such a way... and while they might not listen to your da, not for some years yet, they’ll listen to Regi.’    

‘But Regi, all on his own, wouldn’t have thought of these things,’ the childish voice said in reply, and Ferdi wondered at his immediate grasp, at the wisdom the words expressed. ‘The Tooks would hardly think of such things, I should think. They kept the ruffians out of the Tookland, but they kept tight inside their borders until my da came to roust them out.’ From the mouths of faunts!

‘That’s right,’ Hilly said with a smile for the child. ‘And so, your da, he’s the one taking aim... but it’s Regi who brings all the might and power and strength of the Tooks behind him, to bring his arrow to the target.’

‘So,’ Farry said, and the hobbits of the escort waited to hear what would come out of his mouth next. The small son of the Thain stood straighter, seeming deep in thought. At last, he began to speak. ‘If I am to be Thain after my da,’ he said, ‘then I must learn to aim, and aim more than arrows, and the targets will be more difficult, I think.’

‘I imagine so,’ Hilly said seriously.

‘So,’ the young hobbit repeated, his eyes fixed on some point in the distance before he looked back to the hobbits of escort, locking eyes with Tolly. ‘I want to study with the Steward, to learn his thoughts for how he conducted the defence of the Tookland, keeping the Tookland free in the time of the Troubles, when ruffians overran the rest of the Shire.’ He took a deep breath. ‘And I would like to know how it was the Tooks came to trust and follow him.’ His eyes pinned the three grown-up hobbits, strangely accusing. ‘Even if it was because he learnt how to re-cast the Thain’s orders without the Thain quite realising...’

Ferdi found himself blinking at this, but Tolly nodded.

The young-old eyes moved to Ferdi. ‘And I want to study with the Master of Buckland, to learn of him how he orders Buckland, of course, but also to understand how he learned... what he knew... how he planned to take on the ruffians at Bywater, how he directed the Shirefolk in the battle, and afterward, in the Scouring, to drive out their oppressors.’

Ferdi nodded.

Farry turned to address Hilly. ‘And I want to study with the Thain, that I may, if I might, learn of him how to aim into the mists of the future, and hit my mark.’ He swallowed hard and continued courageously. ‘I want to hear him talk of his mistakes, and how he made the things better that he could make better, and how he was able to bear with those things he couldn’t change.’

Ferdi had to clear his throat at this, feeling a sting of tears. Farry, at his young age, dealt with quite a few things he could not change, including the unrelenting Talk of the Tooks, made worse by the gloomy predictions he’d overheard that his father would die young and Pippin’s bouts with breathlessness as well as the attentiveness of the healers.

But Hilly nodded and said quietly, ‘Those would be good things to learn, indeed, Faramir.’

‘And...’ Ferdi found himself holding his breath, and thought perhaps the other two archers were holding theirs as well, as the serious grey gaze took them all in. ‘When I’m old enough that it will not be such a scandal amongst the Tooks and a cause for the Talk and a worry to my mum and da...’

The hobbits of the escort waited.

‘I want to have a hunter’s training.’

As the three hobbits of the escort were themselves hunters, there was nothing to be said in answer to that.

*** 

February continued mild and drizzly until the end of the month, when a hard freeze surprised those who had been predicting an early spring. The less-optimistic gaffers, who’d seen many “early” springs – or at least the promise of one – had mounded up the now old and crumbling leaves from autumn over the budding daffodils and jonquils that had dared to send up shoots, and so many of the bright blooms were saved, tucked away in their beds for a later arrival.

Although Farry’s shooting lessons had continued on rainy days as well as sunshine through the mild weather, Diamond put her foot down with the turning of the weather. ‘Too cold!’ she said to her husband, who had expressed the opinion that ‘if hobbits always waited upon fair weather, nothing would get done at all! Not even saving the world, for that matter.’

Ferdi, who’d come to fetch young Faramir for today’s lesson, wished Regi were on the spot in the entryway to the Thain’s apartments, there to voice his oft-repeated “None of your nonsense now, lad,” but he wasn’t. The Steward was likely already in the Thain’s study, getting an early start on the day. In any event, Ferdi was in no position to chide his younger cousin’s whimsy, and even if he had been, he was not at his best this morning. Changes in the weather made his head ache; the greater the change, the worse the ache, though he did his best to conceal his discomfort from those around him. It was something to be borne, the reminder of a ruffian’s club at the Battle of Bywater, and complaining (or the cossetting of cousins clucking their concern) wouldn’t make matters any better. In fact, too much solicitous attention made Ferdi feel all the worse, and so he avoided stirring anyone’s sympathy if he could help it.

He couldn’t help breathing a sigh of relief as he let himself out of the Thain’s apartments and closed the door behind him. Adel, the escort on duty at that moment, misinterpreted the sigh. ‘Off the hook for today, are you?’

‘It seems I am merely a messenger at best, or an escort at the worst this day,’ Ferdi assented. He went to the second parlour, where the hobbits of escort were invariably to be found when not actively running messages or going about some other business of the Thain’s, to let Hilly and Tolly know that Farry’s archery practice had been put off until the weather warmed once more.

‘I’m going to check on the ponies,’ he finished. Although the sideboard was practically groaning with the best of a Tookish breakfast, the smell of the food was making him feel faintly queasy. He’d take himself off to the quiet refuge of the stables until the breakfast was cleared away, and hopefully his head would be feeling more like functioning when he’d had his fill of listening to ponies serenely chomping their hay and occasionally swishing their tails. 

Hilly had scarcely paid any attention past the part where Ferdi told him they would not be going out to the butts this morning, but Tolly nodded at Ferdi’s concluding words and said quietly, ‘Is there anything needed?’ 

Hilly might have understood his older brother’s question as meaning the Thain, but Ferdi and Tolly, although cousins, were closer than brothers. Thus, at Ferdi’s ‘No, naught,’ in reply, Tolly simply nodded and looked back down at his plate, hiding his concern in order to spare Ferdi’s feelings.

The first week of March continued cold, and partway into the second week of that month, Pippin swooped his little family off to Buckland, meaning that there would be no more archery lessons for at least a fortnight.

The Great Smials seemed a completely different place with the Thain and Mistress gone. Servants launched into a flurry of spring-cleaning, dusting and polishing, and the kitchens turned out meals that were plain and filling, not at all fancy, although the kitchen staff feasted on a number of “trials” that the head cook and her assistants dreamed up to grace a future feast. In the Thain’s absence, Steward Reginard stayed busy collecting and consolidating reports towards Pippin’s return: the lambing season had begun in the surrounding high Green Hill country, and barley sowing was in full swing, both important crops for a struggling Tookland. 

‘It has been an eventful year,’ Sandy said as he polished the silver in the butler’s pantry of the Thain’s quarters. He’d asked Rusty, another hobbitservant, to help him, both for the pleasure of conversation to pass the time and a chance to take the pulse of the Smials Tooks.

Rusty shook his head and examined the tines of the fork he was cleaning. ‘Fear! Fire! Foes! as that Horn-cry of Buckland goes.’ He dug between the tines. ‘Not to mention storms and shocks and the treasure-hoard gone missing...’

‘And all the changes a new Thain brings,’ Sandy added as an afterthought.

Rusty laughed. ‘O aye,’ he said with perfect Tookish intonation.

‘They certainly weren’t best pleased at first,’ Sandy said as if it hardly mattered. ‘But it seems they’ve mostly changed their tune, considering that widows and gaffers have had enough firewood to keep them warm, this whole winter through...’

Rusty gave a noncommittal grunt, and encouraged, Sandy continued, ‘And of course, he kept Tuckborough from burning over their heads in the Great Fire.’

‘So something good did come out of Buckland after all,’ Rusty said with a snort, and Sandy shared a grin with him.

They polished in silence for a moment, and then Sandy said, ‘So do you think he’ll last another year? Or do you think the Tooks will cook up an excuse to throw him out again?’ He held his breath, not quite looking at Rusty, for the scandalised intake of breath had been enough to warn him to say no more.

‘Bite your tongue!’ Rusty hissed. He looked about, but they were alone in the Thain’s quarters, as Sandy had planned. With the family out of the Smials completely, gone to Buckland on a visit to Pippin’s Brandybuck cousins, Sandy had shut up the private apartments and was embarked on a grand round of Spring Cleaning, more easily accomplished without the gentry underfoot. He dropped his voice. ‘They couldn’t really throw him out... could they?’

‘They can – and will – do anything Regi tells them to do,’ Sandy said in an equally low tone. ‘You know that as well as I do.’

‘I don’t know why Regi didn’t step up as Thain in the first place,’ Rusty muttered in response.

‘Because Paladin gave orders otherwise, and that hobbit is nothing if not obedient,’ Sandy countered.

‘Not always so much,’ Rusty said.

Sandy’s ears perked up. ‘Why?’ he whispered. ‘What have you heard? Anything juicy?’ He gave his best grin. ‘What with the Thain and his family gone, the gossip’s been dry as dust lately.’

‘That’s just it,’ Rusty said, burnishing the fork to a high shine. ‘You’ve heard the talk, I gather, of Thain Peregrin ordering the escort to teach little Farry to shoot?’

Sandy, who’d been in the room for Farry’s first instruction in the basics, said, ‘I’d heard something to that effect.’

‘Well the Talk’s reached Regi,’ Rusty said.

‘So?’ 

‘Regi told the escort yesterday that there’ll be no more of that,’ Rusty said. ‘Why, when the Thain comes back, the Steward’ll have it out with him. Let him know that the Tooks take a dim view of training a faunt in the way of weapons! He’s but a little child! Let him learn when he reaches a proper age, with the rest of them.’

‘I thought the trouble had more to do with the fact that the lad, at his tender age, can already outshoot the hobbits of the escort. He’s something of a prodigy, I’ve heard.’

‘Totally unnatural, is what they’re saying,’ Rusty responded in an undertone. ‘Why, if the Thain’s determined to overrule Regi in this, the Tooks will make the lives of his wife and son miserable with their gossip and gab!’

Sandy shook his head. ‘What a pity,’ he said, true regret in his tone. He held up his hand, polishing cloth still in his fingers, to stop what Rusty was about to say. ‘I mean it, Rus,’ he said. ‘From what I’ve heard, the lad has a gift.’

‘You don’t open a present before the proper time,’ Rusty argued, ‘whether Yuletide or wedding or birthday.’ While Sandy was thinking this over, Rusty added, ‘The proper time for young Faramir to open that gift is still some years away, according to custom.’

‘According to custom,’ Sandy echoed. How the Tooks valued their traditions.

‘If the Thain isn’t careful, he’ll spoil that child,’ Rusty said, and shrugged at Sandy’s frown. ‘I didn’t say it. That’s the Talk of the Tooks, and he’ll ignore it at his peril.’ 

*** 

The day after the return of the Thain from Buckland, Pippin's small son Faramir played quietly on the hearthrug in the Thain’s study before a cheerful fire. Farry's Uncle Merry had carved him a fine set of wooden figures, a baker's dozen of Dwarves in cloaks and hoods, a Wizard with protruding eyebrows, prodigious beard and a cloak and tall hat, and a small Burglar wearing a hood that was somewhat too large.

He paid no attention when Thain and Steward were called from the study to attend to something-or-other. He was old enough to keep well away from the fire in the grate, and if he should become bored or hungry, his family’s apartments were next door to the Thain’s study. He kept playing at his game of Bilbo and the Dwarves. By the time Thain and Steward returned, he’d made his way to the space under Regi’s desk (the Misty Mountains, and the goblin tunnels beneath), on his way to Pippin’s desk (the Lonely Mountain). Uncle Merry wouldn’t carve a Gollum or goblins or spiders or any other fearsome creatures, so Farry had to pretend those. Uncle Merry said that imagining them was enough, in any event.

The grownups did not notice Farry there, in the dark space under the Steward’s desk. They were standing before the large, detailed map on the wall, talking about something or other. He only started listening when he heard his name.

‘And so I have had to countermand one of your orders, Regi.’

‘But...’

‘I want the lad to learn to shoot, and it’s best if someone who is on good terms with a Tookish bow is the one who guides him in this. O I could guide him, all right, I know the theory – but I could not show him the right way to do it, as we both well know.’

‘But it’s unseemly...’ the Steward answered, adding something about ‘when the lad is older, as would be proper...’

‘No,’ was Pippin’s flat reply. ‘I have learnt from bitter experience not to put things off, Regi. Indeed, I do not have the luxury of time.’

‘I don’t take your meaning,’ Regi said.

‘O,’ Farry stiffened at the undercurrents in his father’s quiet tone. ‘I think that you do. Time, Reginard, is not on my side.’

‘But you’re growing stronger,’ Regi said. ‘Why, after what happened in Buckland, I should have thought you’d belong in bed for a good week or two! You’ve no right to have journeyed back here from Brandy Hall as soon as you did, much less to be on your feet and walking about the Smials to see that all is in order.’ He paused, and Farry could clearly see in his mind’s eye the Steward’s penetrating look. ‘You have me to do such things for you, you know.’

‘I’m growing stronger,’ Pippin said as if in agreement, but the irony was strong in his voice. ‘Stronger by the day, I could swear. And when I am quite done with “getting better”, and the healers have tried all the draughts and potions they can dream up, and you are confirmed as Thain, Diamond can go to her family in Long Cleeve, or perhaps the Brandybucks will take her in. I doubt she’ll want to live on the charity of the Thain.’

Farry sat frozen. Somehow, small as he was, he knew – in his bones – that his father was talking about death.

Pippin added, lower, ‘I have nothing to my name, Regi. The Tooks are barely scraping by as it is... what with the disappearance of the treasury, it’s been a challenge – as you well know – to keep the roads in repair, to pay the staff, to buy the needed supplies to keep things running.’ Incongruously, he laughed. ‘Being Thain keeps us fed and a roof over our heads, isn’t that rich? But I have nothing to leave my wife, my son after me, save perhaps a sword and a shield and fond memories of the love I bear them.’

He heard the Steward take a long breath. At last, instead of protesting or arguing against Pippin’s grim foretelling, Regi said, ‘But the farm...’

‘The farm is Pearl’s by right and inheritance. She’s eldest. She should not live as a tenant on her own land.’

‘What are you talking abou...?’

‘I signed it over to her, one of the first things I did as Thain. I believe you were busy about some other task at the time.’

‘But what about Diamond? And how is she to care for Faramir?’

As for young Faramir, he was scarcely breathing as he followed this terrifying conversation with growing comprehension.

‘Think of this, Regi. At least Farry has a valuable skill. Why, with his shooting, he can become a hobbit of your escort, perhaps even Head, when he's old enough, after you become Thain.’

‘Or he could be Thain after you.’

Pippin’s tone was suddenly bleak. ‘That would be nearly thirty years from now. By the traditions of the Tooks, Farry would have to be of age to be confirmed as Thain. I don’t have thirty more years left to me, Regi.’ The Thain had to clear his throat before continuing. ‘I doubt I have as many as the number of fingers on Frodo’s right hand, to be honest.’

‘You’ve confounded the healers for years now!’

‘O yes,’ Pippin said bitterly. ‘They’d have had the grass growing green over my grave a dozen times over already.’

‘But that Healer-King of yours,’ Regi said. ‘You told me yourself what he said about Shirefolk.’

Pippin’s face softened briefly at the mention of Strider. ‘Tougher than they look,’ he said. ‘Some benighted noble actually thought Frodo and Sam were props, being held up to conceal the identity of the “real” hero who brought the Ring to the Fire. Strider certainly set him straight. O he didn’t say so in those words, exactly. As I recall, his discourse was somewhat more blistering in nature.’ His smile turned grimly amused at the recollection.

‘So you told me,’ Regi said.

But Pippin, apparently realising he’d been neatly taken down a side trail, returned to his point. ‘You know all too well how my days are numbered... I see how you cosset me, your soothing, your taking on of the burdens you think will break me – and don’t think I am ungrateful for some of your interfering ways, though it irks me to no end to be in need of such – Diamond and I know, you know, Merry and the Brandybucks know...’ Farry, peeping out from under the desk, saw him wipe at his forehead, seeming bemused by the resulting dampness of his fingertips. ‘I think that Ferdi suspects, though that hobbit wouldn’t have told his own father what was for tea if he thought... the old hobbit... didn’t need to know...’

To his small son’s alarm, Pippin was panting for breath after this long and passionate speech, but he held up a shaking hand to stay any reply from his Steward. At last he straightened and continued. ‘...and yet you seem determined to play “All is well” with the Tooks, to my dying breath, and perhaps beyond,’ his eyes drilled into his Steward. ‘As you did with my father...’ He shook his head. ‘And the Tooks, fools that they are, went along with you! Why, my da had been dead for some hours before you notified them.’

The official notification had been Regi’s placing the seal of the Thain upon the empty plate set at Paladin’s place in the great room of the Smials.

Regi stared straight ahead. It was truth; he’d more or less managed the Tookland in the final year of Paladin’s life, waiting for the ailing Thain to name his successor, and dreading the whole time that his name would be the one spoken in the end.

That look of keen inquiry was back as Pippin regarded his Steward thoughtfully. ‘What is it, Regi?’ he said in a low voice. ‘Is it that you wish to avoid being confirmed as Thain at all cost?’

Though he’d dodged this question a number of times from a number of Tooks, Regi felt somehow compelled to answer this one. ‘What hobbit in his right mind would want to be Thain?’ he muttered. He swallowed hard and met Pippin’s gaze squarely. ‘Lalia, of course, though she had to content herself ruling through her son because of the traditions of the Tooks...’

‘...and let us never forget Lotho,’ Pippin said obligingly.

Regi shuddered. ‘It’s been said that only a mad hobbit would seek to have power over others. Perhaps a little madness ran in their veins, though they were nothing like Mad Baggins – neither the old one nor the young one.’

‘It seems I’m in good company, then,’ Pippin said. Of a wonder he chuckled and held up his hand again. ‘O not Lalia, nor Lotho, but... Mad Bagginses? It would be an honour to be named amongst them. Even though I don’t deserve to carry even their pocket handkerchiefs for them.’ The chuckle led to a cough, then to a minor fit of coughing, though as he lifted a pocket handkerchief of his own to his mouth, he shook his head at Regi when the Steward would have tried to steady him.

When his breathing was at last again under control, Pippin regarded his handkerchief thoughtfully, folded it and put it in his pocket once more. ‘No blood this time,’ he said. ‘Take heart, Regi. I’m getting better.’

‘Or so you’ll say to the healers,’ Regi said.

‘O aye,’ Pippin grinned, and of a wonder mischief sparkled in his eyes. ‘We’ll play “All is well” to the far limits of our powers, shall we not? Indeed, a diverting game!’

‘A game...’ Regi said, and cleared his throat as if he were fighting some strong emotion. 

Pippin nodded sombrely, though mischief still shone from his eyes, and held up his hand as if in pledge. ‘Not to worry, Regi. I shall make fooling the healers my solemn aim.’ He drew a breath that was a little too deep, for it set him to coughing again. Once he had his breath back, he said, ‘And I will do all I can to see that my family will be well after I must leave them. Indeed, I have no doubt that they will be able to make their way, Diamond with her good sense, and Farry with his fine aim.’

Chapter 6. Aim

Although Hilly had picked up from the Talk going around the back corridors of the Great Smials that the Steward was calling a halt to young Faramir’s archery lessons, and reported as much to Ferdibrand, the Steward had not sent for the head of escort by the time of Farry’s next practice session. Ferdi half expected, after exchanging glances with Isenard who was on messenger duty outside the door to the Thain’s apartments, that Pippin would tell him the lessons were off.

But no. Both Thain and Mistress greeted him warmly and offered him a seat at table to share early breakfast (which he declined, saying, ‘My hobbits are already waiting on the shooting range’). ‘Farry’s just getting ready,’ Diamond said, and lifted her voice to hurry her small son along. 

Ferdi wanted to wince at her Don’t keep Ferdibrand waiting! He was only a hired hobbit, after all, used to waiting on the vagaries of the gentry. Though Diamond was invariably warm and considerate, and Pippin was, from their shared past, his baby cousin, still, the two were now Thain and Mistress, and Ferdi never let himself forget that fact.

His attention was claimed by the arrival of his young pupil, well bundled up against any errant spring breezes that might assault him on the open practice field in the chill of the early morning. The grey eyes above the warm muffler encompassing the lad’s neck and lower face shone bright, however, and Ferdi privately congratulated Hilly on his insightful talk with Faramir at that previous session.

‘Well then, come along, young master,’ was all he said aloud.

He had to suppress a wince at Pippin’s jovial, ‘Try to shoot at least as well as your father,’ in farewelling the lad, only to immediately swallow down a grin at Diamond’s rejoinder, ‘At the very least!’

‘That’s a good sign,’ Isenard said, pulling the door closed behind them in the corridor, shutting off the sound of the laughter of the Thain and Mistress. 

‘A good start to the day,’ Ferdi agreed. ‘Come along, Farry.’

The lad nodded silently and fell in beside the head of escort, who remembered to shorten his stride to a comfortable pace for a small child.

A stiff breeze was blowing when they got to the practice field. Ferdi nodded his thanks and apologies to Hilly and Tolly, who merely nodded back and then exchanged greetings with the son of the Thain.

‘Well then, Hilly,’ Ferdi said as he watched Farry pull his bow from the bow case and string it. He frowned to see the lad fumble a bit, after all the practice sessions they’d had, but put it down to the chill in the air, or perhaps the lack of practice whilst the boy was visiting his Brandybuck relations. ‘I hope you used the time well while you were waiting for us.’

Hilly gestured at the target that stood immediately before them at a fair distance, its face feathered with many arrows. Although most of the shafts showing the colours of that hobbit’s fletching, highlighted by the added yellow that designated practice shafts, decorated the second and third rings, and one laggard cheekily grinned from the fourth ring, three shone from the centre area of the target.

‘I rather hope you got better as you went along, rather than worse,’ Ferdi said dryly. He pulled out his own bow, strung it, and blew on his fingertips to warm them before taking an arrow from his quiver and loosing it at Hilly’s target. The arrow thunked satisfyingly into the middle of Hilly’s three well-placed shots, Ferdi’s fletching shining yellow-and-blue in contrast to Hilly’s red-and-yellow.

‘How you do that in this fickle wind...’ Hilly muttered.

‘Practice, little brother,’ Tolly said. ‘Simply practice.’

Ferdi nodded his agreement, then turned his attention to young Faramir. ‘We’ll begin with this target,’ he said, turning the child to their left, to face a target set up at half the distance he and Hilly had just shot, well within the reach of Farry’s bow. As an added benefit, the lad would be shooting with the wind at his back for his first flight of arrows. After he was well-warmed-up, they’d turn towards another target that would offer the challenge of a side wind.

Farry nodded, took a shaft from his quiver, and fitted it to his bowstring. He stood a long moment then, simply staring at the target, and Ferdi wondered what the lad might be thinking. At last, he drew.

Sighted.

Loosed.

And missed the target entirely. 

Missed the butt that the target was fastened to, in point of fact. Couldn’t hit the side of a barn, echoed from somewhere in the thoughts of all three hobbits of the Thain’s escort in about the same moment.

Ferdi realized his mouth was open only when he had to swallow as he tried in vain to find the words to respond to this unprecedented happening. ‘I – I,’ he faltered. ‘Young master...’

But to his horror, even as he bent down to address the young son of the Thain, Faramir’s bow fell from the lad’s grasp, and the lad himself crumpled to the ground.

‘Farry!’ Ferdi said in belated shock, bending further to the child, loosely curled on the cold, damp turf. But the bright eyes were closed now, and when Ferdi pulled the muffler away, he saw that the small, heart-shaped face was deathly pale. ‘Farry,’ he said again, more softly, but as urgent as before. ‘Farry, lad, d’ye hear me?’

He was vaguely aware of Tolly and Hilly crowding close, and he looked up to snap, ‘Tolly, go! Tell Woodruff to meet us at the Thain’s quarters... and Hilly, you run ahead, let the Thain and Mistress know...’ He gathered the lad in his arms, his alarm growing at the limp heaviness of the child as the small body lolled in his grasp.

The other escorts were off like shots from their bows. Hugging the small son of the Thain closer, Ferdi followed at a jog, trying not to jostle his burden. The thought was in the back of his mind that he’d have to send someone after Farry’s bow and the arrows, Hilly’s and Ferdi’s in the target, and young Farry’s, somewhere beyond the butt the lad had been aiming for. But his main thoughts were only to get the lad to Woodruff, chief healer at the Great Smials, and to his soon-to-be-worried parents.

Was it his imagination, or did the small body give off heat, as if Ferdi were bearing an oversized flannel-wrapped brick, heated in an oven and slipped under the bedcovers to warm the bed? He hugged the lad tighter to himself, put his head down, and ran faster.

Pippin met him partway between one of the lesser doors to the Smials – the one nearest the practice field – and the Thain’s quarters. ‘Farry!’ he gasped, reaching out to his small son.

‘I’ve got him,’ Ferdi replied. Pippin nodded, seeing the sense in the escort’s words. Together, Thain and escort trotted through the corridors, in violation of tradition that dictated walking, not running, in the halls of the Great Smials, but of course neither cared a whit at that moment.

Pippin was gasping when they reached his apartments, but Ferdi retained enough breath to snap at Haldi, who’d replaced Isenard outside the entrance door at the Thain’s beck and call, ‘Go out to the butts – retrieve all the arrows you can find there, and the lad’s bow! Scour the ground to find them all – not all are in a target.’

‘Aye,’ Haldi said, and was off at once, for he understood the importance of not leaving deadly weapons lying about where anyone might pick them up.

But Healer Woodruff was waiting impatiently, her arms extended to claim Ferdi’s burden. ‘Give him to me,’ she demanded. ‘Don’t stand about jabbering!’

Even as Ferdi held out his arms to her, she gathered the child to her bosom, turned, and hurried to a settle lined against the wall, where she laid Faramir down on the plump, soft cushions. ‘There now, lad,’ she said, smoothing the golden-brown curls back from the small, pale face. ‘Let us see what is what...’ And then, even as Pippin and Diamond crowded nearer, she gave an exclamation of alarm as the small body stiffened and began to shake.

‘Stand back!’ she said, spreading her hands to the sides to stop their approach, and such was the authority in her tone that all took a step or two backward.

‘O – O!’ Diamond gasped, and Pippin added, ‘What is it? What’s the matter with him?’ in tones that wrung Ferdi’s heart.

‘Fever fit,’ Woodruff said grimly, her hands now carefully bracing Faramir against the cushions. As the breathless onlookers watched, she took hold of the lad, as gently as if she were grasping a fragile butterfly, and turned Faramir onto his side. She then rested her hands on the small body to hold him in place, that he might not roll off the cushions onto the carpeted floor.

The whole time, all the other adults in the room – Pippin, Diamond, Ferdi, Sandy the Thain’s personal hobbitservant, Tolly and Hilly – stood in helpless horror, watching.

Though the shaking seemed to last an eternity, in reality it was only a few moments before Farry went limp and still again.

Keeping her hands on the lad as if to make sure he stayed still, Woodruff looked up at his anxious parents. ‘He’s burning with fever,’ she said, and her countenance darkened with anger. ‘What was he doing out of doors in this state, I ask you?’

‘He was fine – fine at early breakfast,’ Diamond sobbed. Pippin put an arm around her and gathered her close, murmuring broken comfort.

Woodruff turned to Sandy. ‘Make up his bed!’ she snapped. ‘Clean linens, and have fresh ones ready to replace them; cool water in a bowl, and cloths...’ The hobbitservant nodded and hurried from the room. 

Next the healer confronted the hobbits of the escort. ‘Well?’ she demanded, sweeping all three with a scathing glance.

‘He – he...’ Ferdi stammered, at a loss for words.

But Pippin broke in. ‘There was a fever going ‘round Buckland when we were there,’ he said quietly. ‘It had – has – a fast onset.’ As Woodruff turned to him, he nodded to emphasise his words. ‘A hobbit could rise from his bed in the morning, or from the noontide table, feeling fine, and within an hour or two, be suffering from chills and fever and aching head, fit only for the bed...’ 

‘How many days in duration?’ Woodruff broke in.

‘Five, I think,’ Pippin said after a pause. He looked to Diamond, who nodded, tears sparkling from her cheeks. ‘About five,’ he confirmed. ‘A bit less for some, p’rhaps longer for others.’

‘And how are you, yourself, Sir?’ Woodruff said sternly.

Pippin loosed Diamond long enough to spread his hands in illustration of his next words. ‘Never better,’ he said. ‘Please,’ he added, putting his arm around his tearful wife once more and pulling her close. ‘Help my little lad.’

‘Mistress?’ Woodruff said, momentarily ignoring the Thain, though she was using the fingers of one of her hands to soothe Farry’s forehead as she spoke.

‘I am well,’ Diamond said, gulping through her tears.

We’ll see about that, Ferdi could almost see the thought leap like a spark from the fire in Woodruff’s eyes. But all the healer did was lift little Farry in her arms once more, tenderly brushing her lips against his forehead as if to check the level of his fever. She murmured, ‘Don’t you worry yourself, lad, we’ll soon have you tucked up, and we’ll sponge you with cool cloths to help you feel better.’

‘Better,’ Diamond half-sobbed.

‘Aye, Mistress,’ Woodruff said. She walked slowly out of the receiving room, away from the entryway, heading for the private rooms in the Thain’s apartments, separated by a hall that had doors opening to the butler's pantry, the small kitchen where Sandy stirred up exquisite delicacies for the Thain and Pippin's small family when they were not eating in the great room, the quarters for Sandy and for Farry's nursemaid, the extra rooms for servants or guests (though whole suites of rooms were set aside elsewhere for important guests such as the Master of Buckland and the Mayor and their families), the small sitting room that the family used, and the bath room and family bedrooms. The Thain and Mistress followed.

Standing helplessly in the Thain’s receiving room, flanked by Tolly and Hilly, Ferdi heard the healer talking as the little group receded down the hallway. ‘We’ll do what we can to make him comfortable until the fever breaks, Sir and Mistress, though I’m afraid for the next few days at least, he’ll be feeling poorly...’ 

Chapter 7. Poorly 

(About five years later; Faramir is now ten years old.)

‘Well then,’ the Thain said to the hobbits who had gathered in his study at his summons, and stopped as if he could not find the words he wanted. 

Not so long ago, rogue Men had threatened grievous harm to young Faramir in their determination to obtain a ransom in gold from the Thain and the treasure-hoard of the Tooks, once lost under Ferumbras (or his mother Lalia), but then found again under Pippin. In the end, theirs had been the loss. They’d lost their gamble, and they’d forfeited their lives into the bargain. Following that, the fever that had swept through the hobbits of the Muster like a scythe after the lad’s safe return had merely been like bitter icing slathered over a rancid cake.

Ferdi looked around the room, taking the measure of the hobbits waiting to hear what the Thain might have to say. Reginard had been called away hours ago on some errand. Pippin was still showing the strain of recent events, though Diamond was a force to be reckoned with in her efforts to make sure the hobbit rested and ate well. Ferdi thought he rather resembled their cousin Frodo when that hobbit had returned from the Outlands, somehow both greater and yet, oddly, at the same time diminished. On further thought, Pippin was about the age now that Frodo had been then, making the remarkable resemblance between the two cousins even more striking.

Ferdi himself, still recovering from his near-fatal encounter with the ruffians who’d stolen the son of the Thain, felt a bit shaky, though he did his best to conceal it. Tolly looked like a hobbit released from the Lockholes, the result of his long bout with the recent fever, worse than the one that had overshadowed young Faramir’s fifth birthday some years earlier. Hilly’s appearance was only a little better. 

Truth be told, all four of the hobbits in the Thain’s study were looking somewhat more than poorly this day, in Ferdi’s estimation. Or would it be somewhat less than poorly? A piece of whimsy worthy of the Thain himself. Ferdi dismissed the thought and tried to fix his attention on Pippin.

‘I –‘ Pippin said, and fell uncharacteristically silent again.

‘Yes, cousin?’ Hilly said in his most helpful tone, putting the conversation on a personal level rather than an official one. Time would tell if it were the right move, but then, Hilly seemed to have a sure sense of just how far he could push his childhood friendship with the Thain.

‘Farry turned ten on his last birthday,’ Pippin said at last, and his listeners exchanged glances. So this was about the young son of the Thain. ‘I – Ferdi took me to task, last month, of how shockingly I have neglected my little son these past few years, such that he even took it upon himself to run away to Gondor, poor lad, where he “might not be a bother” to his parents.’ He swallowed hard. ‘That I was overwhelmed with the responsibilities of being Thain is a poor excuse at best.’

His three listeners stiffened at this opening, for the circumstances of Farry’s running away had blackened Ferdi’s and Tolly’s reputations; because they had tried to cover up the lad’s disappearance while searching for him, the Thain had accused them of child-stealing. Even though they were exonerated in the end by the testimony of young Faramir himself, the Talk of the Tooks was not in their favour. And then, of course, real child-stealers had crept into the Shire...

Ferdi wrenched his attention back to the Thain, who was sounding rather diffident at the moment, less sure of himself than usual. ‘I know it is traditional for young Tooks to take up the bow when they reach the age of ten,’ Pippin was saying.

Things were becoming clearer. Pippin was addressing, as it was, the three hobbits who’d been responsible for Farry’s shooting lessons when the son of the Thain had been a mere faunt.

‘After the fever,’ Ferdi began cautiously, but Pippin cut him off with an impatient wave.

‘Yes, yes, I know, after that fever, he was too poorly to take up the lessons again...’

‘And when he did take up the bow, his aim was not what it had been,’ Hilly said smoothly. ‘His head ached, or his eyes... the fever...’

‘It was just as well,’ Pippin said. ‘The Talk was against us as it was.’

His three cousins nodded in response.

‘But – he ought to have started his instruction again when he reached the age of ten,’ Pippin continued doggedly. ‘And he didn’t.’ He drew as deep a breath as he was able. ‘And that brought more accusations, more talk, that the Thain and Mistress were overindulging their son, letting him slip the “customary” lessons that all young Tooks must suffer, whether they will or no.’ The wry twist of his mouth called to mind Pippin’s own trials with the customary archery lessons.

‘So I called you here to ask you today...’ Pippin said, and spread his hands. ‘Should the lad have private instruction, as you three were part of some years past? Or should he learn in company with the other lads his age here in the Smials?’

Ferdi exchanged glances with the other two archers, but as he opened his mouth to answer, Regi spoke quietly from the doorway. ‘That may be a moot point, pending the inquiry.’

‘Inquiry?’ Pippin said in honest surprise, his eyes sweeping the hobbits in the room. Seeing that they were as much in the dark as he was, he met Regi’s sombre gaze with a look of puzzlement. ‘What –?’

‘The Tooks have called a convocation,’ Regi responded, and from the toneless way he spoke the words, Ferdi knew he was perturbed indeed.

Pippin’s eyes narrowed as he regarded his Steward. ‘Why wasn’t I –?’ he began.

‘It has come to their attention that there has been a banishable offence,’ Regi said over the Thain’s question.

Ferdi’s dizziness intensified, and he swayed, but Tolly took his arm and steadied him. The two had come too close to banishment themselves, not long before Yule, when Pippin had accused them of child-stealing. But Faramir had proved their innocence – hadn’t he? As Tolly’s grip tightened on his arm, he had the feeling that his cousin was having the same doubts.

‘Banishment,’ Pippin said, his voice bleak. Not surprisingly, it was the most difficult task for a Thain to have to carry out: sending a hobbit who had proven a danger to others into exile, outside the Bounds of the Shire, a brand on his cheek to mark him forever outcast from former family, friends and homeland.

‘Mercy,’ Hilly whispered, and Ferdi clearly heard him gulp. They’d all been too close to this in recent weeks.

Pippin had marshalled his senses. ‘But how can the Tooks call a convocation without informing the Thain?’ he asked in his most reasonable tones.

A long, uncomfortable silence followed, but at last Regi answered. ‘The Thain stands accused,’ he said quietly, and his voice roughened as he added, ‘among others.’ Although he cleared his throat, he apparently had nothing more to say, simply waving to the doorway, where several others could now be seen waiting.

And so, instead of discussing the benefits of having Faramir train with other Tooks his age, Ferdi found himself being shepherded, along with Pippin and Tolly, by Haldegrim, Isenard and Adelard, hobbits of the Thain’s escort, through the strangely empty corridors of the Great Smials to the great room. Hilly followed behind the group, uncharacteristically at a loss for words.

The lack of hobbits in the Smials proper was explained as soon as they entered the large gathering room. The tables had been removed, replaced by row upon row of benches and chairs, and it looked as if the entire population of the Great Smials, plus a great many hobbits from Tuckborough and outlying areas, every one of them a Took, were seated there.

Ferdi wondered how the room had been so altered, how so many had been gathered together in the space between early breakfast and now, an hour or so before teatime, without his knowing, or Hilly or Tolly – or Pippin, in particular. Yes, none of them was at his best, but... The event had obviously taken some time and care in the planning.

Custom would have had the seated hobbits rise and bow to the Thain as he entered, if this were any other occasion. But the crowd sat unsmiling, silent and staring on their benches. In the front row, Ferdi could see Tolly’s Meadowsweet and his own Nell, sitting together, their arms around each other, eyes wide and faces pale with fear. He was glad to see that Diamond was not there. Likely one of the healers had decreed that she be kept quiet and apart until some resolution was reached, lest the tension cause harm to the babe she was carrying.

Through the roaring in his head, Ferdi could scarcely hear the preliminaries as someone began to speak in sonorous tones. A baker’s dozen of prominent Tooks sat at a long table that remained by the entrance, one of the head tables, in fact, where the Thain and Steward and their families would typically sit at mealtime. An unlucky number, he thought numbly, and found it difficult to swallow down the lump in his throat.

The escort manoeuvred the three accused hobbits to stand at the front of the room, to one side of the table, where Regi’s brother, Everard, already stood. There was some small discussion that didn’t seem to be a part of the proceedings, whereupon chairs were produced for Pippin, Tolly and Ferdi, and it seemed important – though understanding the reason was beyond Ferdi in that moment – that they should sit in the chairs, with Everard standing beside them and Regi just beyond him, even as Hilly was sent to sit on the front bench of spectators. At least he seems to be out of it, Ferdi thought. Out of what?

Fortinbrand, a distant cousin of Ferdi’s and a prominent Took of the Smials, stood up. ‘When the Thain returned from the Woody End with Ferdibrand and Tolibold, before the recent Muster, he announced to the Tooks and Tooklanders that the two had been falsely accused of a serious crime.’

Many of those in the room nodded at this. They had been there, in the courtyard of the Smials that day, and had heard the words of the Thain. (They had also likely heard, and perhaps spread as well, the gossip that the accusation might or might not have had some truth to it. No smoke without fire, after all...)

‘The Thain also told you that the false accusations had been dealt with, the accusers had been confronted, judgement was passed, and restitution was awarded,’ Fortinbrand continued, and swept the crowded room with a keen gaze. ‘But he did not tell you the full truth of the matter.’

A murmur arose, that was as quickly quelled as Erlingar Took, obviously chosen as the moderator of this meeting by the fact he sat centred among those sitting at the table, banged a hammer against a steel plate to command order. The sound cut through the noise of conversation like a knife through hot butter, and silence fell once more.

‘I –‘ Pippin said, but Fortinbrand now turned to address him directly.

‘Thain Peregrin,’ he said formally, his voice cold. ‘Were these, or were these not the words you spoke, in informing the Tooks why Tolibold was taken away, bound, and Tolibold and Ferdibrand were returned to the Smials under escort, still bound, until you spoke the words of freedom?’

‘I –‘ Pippin said, and then he stood straighter and nodded. ‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘That is what I said. Ferdi and Tolly were never guilty of –‘

‘Please answer the questions as they are asked,’ Fortinbrand cut him off.

Ferdi was sweating now, a cold sweat that trickled icy down his back. He’d only seen one convocation before this one, but he’d read of them in the records, and not only were the Tooks following tradition to the letter, but they were deadly serious about it. This was much more serious than the hearing Fredegar Bolger had conducted over race-tampering some years earlier. Of course, race-tampering was not a banishing offence. 

And somehow, Ferdi was caught in the middle of this nightmare, with these other hobbits who shared his predicament.

‘From what has come to light,’ Fortinbrand said, ‘these two hobbits,’ and he indicated Ferdi and Tolly, ‘were accused, tried and sentenced to banishment for intending harm to the son of the Thain.’

There was a stirring on the benches at that, but it was soon quelled as the Tooks sitting there leaned forward to hear more, some eager, others resigned, the rest appearing horrified at the accusation.

Fortinbrand’s gaze now swept the five hobbits sitting and standing at the front of the room. ‘Who accused them?’

‘I did,’ said Pippin.

‘No, I,’ Everard put in. ‘It wasn’t the Thain’s first thought – I was the one, put it in his head.’

Pippin held out a staying hand. ‘No, Ev’ard,’ he said firmly. ‘It was my accusation that carried the weight.’ Looking courageously back to Fortinbrand and the Tookish councillors arrayed along the table, he repeated clearly, ‘I did.’

‘It is our understanding that Regi was swayed by his brother’s arguments, and did not make the first accusation,’ Fortinbrand said. ‘In point of fact, we were told that he argued against an over-hasty judgement,’ he added, and the other councillors nodded at this. ‘So, Reginard, you may go and take a seat amongst the Tooks.’

But the Steward stubbornly shook his head. ‘I will stand – or fall – with Thain Peregrin,’ he said. 

Erlingar allowed the resulting murmur to continue for a few moments before he rapped the room to relative quiet with a few hammer strokes. ‘Next question,’ he said into the silence.

‘Who rendered judgement?’ Fortinbrand asked. ‘Was it you, Thain?’

‘No!’ Pippin said, stung. ‘That would hardly be justice!’

‘Was it justice?’ Fortinbrand asked, his eyes narrowed.

‘It was the Master of Buckland,’ Regi said. ‘Master Meriadoc heard the witnesses and pronounced judgement.’

‘Meriadoc Brandybuck?’ Fortinbrand clarified.

‘Yes,’ Regi said. ‘It would have had to be him, or perhaps the Mayor. The Thain was an injured party...’ But he was drowned out by cries of indignation from the crowd.

‘A Brandybuck! A Brandybuck, to pronounce banishment on a Took!’ The ire of one of the councillors could clearly be heard above the tumult.

‘A Brandybuck,’ Fortinbrand echoed as Erlingar called the room to order once more. ‘Did it not occur to you to call a convocation of Tooks to deal with this? It is the right of a Took to be banished only by The Took – or if The Took is involved somehow, and unable to render judgement, then by fellow Tooks, by custom and tradition.’

‘I never banished anyone before,’ Pippin said, staring at nothing, sounding numb. ‘Nor had Merry. I –‘ he fell silent.

‘I –‘ Regi said into the hush that followed. ‘I’m sorry, Thain. I ought to have known. I ought to have been able to advise you...’ His voice broke. ‘The fault is mine. Don’t punish Peregrin for my own failing...’

As far as Ferdi could see it, the Tooks, should they take a hard line in this difficult situation, could see fit to banish himself, Tolly, Pippin and Everard for various reasons. Regi might well be pulled into the current and drowned along with them, as an old Marish saying went. The Tooks in their wrath might even express the desire to banish Merry from the Shire for his part in this whole miserable business. His mother was a Took, after all, making him vulnerable to a Tookish judgement. Lucky Merry, he thought. At least he’s in Buckland. That’s halfway banished already.

Erlingar rapped with his hammer a few more times, cutting into Regi’s plea. ‘You’ll have your chance to answer questions,’ he said, and to Fortinbrand, ‘Now then, Querier?’

‘So,’ Fortinbrand said, taking up the thread of the narrative again. ‘They were accused, tried and sentenced to banishment.’ He let the awful words sink in before asking in a mild tone. ‘Why is there no brand on their cheeks?’

To his horror, Ferdi realised his hand had risen of its own accord to cover his cheek, where the heated iron had been bare inches away from leaving its terrible mark, all too recently. He closed his eyes as weakness washed over him, heard a rising murmur in his ears, and then – nothing at all.

A pungent smell made him recoil, try to turn his head away. Smelling salts, he thought. Who has swooned? ‘He’s coming around,’ someone said into the darkness. Healer Woodruff, he thought. ‘Stand back! Give him some air,’ someone else said. Mardibold? Of course he’d be here, seeing that his younger brother Tolly seemed to be in danger of banishment.

‘Ferdi? Ferdi, do you hear me?’ Woodruff insisted. ‘We could carry him to a couch or a bed,’ someone else said. ‘Lay him down, make him comfortable. Get him off the hard floor, at least.’

‘No,’ came the voice of Fortinbrand, bending close, from the sound of it. ‘If he or anyone else is to be banished this day, he has a right to hear the proceedings against him and the others.’

Banishment, he thought. Not a nightmare, then. It’s all too terribly true. He forced his eyelids open, saw Woodruff bending over him, other faces, blurred, behind her. ‘What...?’ he said, reaching out a fumbling hand.

‘Steady now, lad,’ she said, taking his arm, her voice kind, which only served to worry him more. Woodruff grew ever more gentle as circumstances darkened. His prospects must be grim, indeed. ‘Do you think you can sit in a chair?’

He nodded, his head swimming, and let her hands, and others, take hold of him, help him up to a sitting position on the floor, then onto his feet before they eased him down onto a chair again. He looked to one side: Tolly, jaw clenched, sweat running from his forehead. 

On his other side sat Pippin, face white with strain, and breathing raggedly, though he waved the healers, Mardibold and Woodruff, away in irritation when they would have turned to him. ‘Let’s get on with it,’ the Thain said tightly.

The crowd at the front of the room dispersed as hobbits returned to their seats, leaving all in order again.

‘The question was asked,’ Erlingar said as smoothly as if no interruption had occurred, ‘as to why these hobbits, sentenced to banishment, do not sport brands. Indeed, why were they returned to the Great Smials? Why were they not carried over the Bounds and cast out?’

‘Because the accusations were false!’ Pippin hissed, with such intensity that he had to quell a coughing fit immediately after, though he waved off all offers of aid.

‘How do we know they were false?’ Erlingar followed up. ‘Querier?’ he said to Fortinbrand.

‘We would call as witness, Faramir Took,’ Fortinbrand said to the councillors.

‘This is highly irregular!’ Rudigrim Took spluttered. ‘A child is hardly to be considered a competent witness!’

***

Chapter 8. Witness

Ferdibrand’s ears were ringing and the room was oddly tilted, but he could swear he had just heard young Farry called as a witness in this trial by Tooks. ‘This is highly irregular!’ he next heard Rudigrim Took splutter. ‘A child is hardly to be considered a competent witness!’ There was a mutter of agreement from several other councillors around him.

‘Farry,’ Pippin murmured, and then he turned to the councillors and said, ‘Please. Don’t put him through this.’

‘We could simply put it to the vote and banish the lot of you now,’ Erlingar said, knitting his eyebrows at the Thain. ‘But it might be less painful for the child to give his account, to let the truth come out, than to see his father and others banished when he might have shed some light on the matter.’

‘He is hardly an impartial witness,’ Sandovar Took said, and Rudigrim harrumphed in agreement. ‘I should expect him to save his father the Thain at all cost... even to throwing the rest of these hobbits here before us to the white wolves.’

‘Let him speak for himself!’ Erlingar’s voice rang over the protests of the other councillors. ‘He has that right! He, after all, is the injured party in this whole miserable business.’

Ferdi heard Pippin give a choked, ‘Farry!’ and saw the lad walking to the front of the room. Though he was tall for his age, he looked very small, surrounded by grown Tooks as he was, the only child in the crowded great room. Ferdi put a supporting hand on Pippin’s and squeezed gently in reassurance. Farry’s word had saved Ferdi and Tolly from banishment once already, in this very matter. 

Faramir walked directly to stand solemnly before Fortinbrand. To Ferdi’s surprise, the Querier sank to one knee and took the lad by the hand. ‘Farry,’ he said gently. ‘Do you promise to tell the truth?’

‘I promise,’ the child said in a high, clear voice that carried to the far corners of the room. 

Fortinbrand pressed, ‘Do you promise to tell all the truth? That means not only telling the things that happened, but it also means not leaving anything out that happened. You must answer my questions as fully as you can manage.’

‘I will,’ Farry said, and added, ‘I’ll try my best.’

‘I’m sure that you will,’ Fortinbrand said. He raised his eyes to meet Erlingar’s gaze, nodded, and looked back to the small lad. ‘Well then,’ he said. ‘Can you tell me why these hobbits were accused, tried and sentenced to banishment?’

‘I ran away,’ Farry said, and gulped. ‘I was going to go to Gondor.’

‘Did they promise to help you go to Gondor?’ Fortinbrand asked.

‘Yes – no – yes,’ Farry said, blinking. The crowd murmured, and one of the councillors was heard distinctly saying, ‘Do you see? I told you! A child cannot give credible testimony.’

‘Which is it, Farry?’ Fortinbrand said. He sat himself down on the floor and drew the child into his lap. ‘Just tell me what happened, as if you were telling me a story.’ He held up his hand as Faramir opened his mouth to begin. ‘The truth – all the truth you can remember, as best you can remember it, that is.’ 

‘I ran away,’ Farry repeated. His guileless eyes stared into Fortinbrand’s kindly ones. ‘I – I heard the Tooks saying I was a disgrace and a worry to my parents,’ Ferdi heard soft echoes of shame and disgrace from the listening hobbits as if the Tooks found such gossip shocking and disgusting, ‘and I didn’t want to grieve them anymore, so I – I ran away. But a fox tried to eat me, and I had to climb a tree.’

A horrified murmuring broke out in the crowd, then, that fell as quickly to silence as the assembled Tooks leaned forward to hear the small child go on.

‘Uncle Ferdi found me,’ Faramir said, and he turned his head to look at Ferdibrand. ‘He helped me. He bound up my leg, where the fox had bitten, and he took me to his sister’s home in the Woody End.’

‘And not home to your mother?’ Fortinbrand asked in a neutral tone.

‘No!’ Farry said. ‘I told him I was going to Gondor, and if he took me back to the Smials, I’d only run away again as soon as I could manage.’ 

‘So what did he do?’ Fortinbrand said as if it was of little import.

‘He said he’d wager with me. If I could keep silent for a week, he’d take me to Gondor, but if I spoke a word, even a single word, I’d have to go back to my parents and vow not to run away again.’

There was the beginning of an indignant murmur from the crowd at take me to Gondor, which dissolved into chuckles here and there in the crowd at the nature of the bargain Ferdi had struck with the lad. A silent Took? Unheard of!

‘Ferdi told me he would have sent word to me, should he lose the bargain, so that I could follow them and reclaim my son,’ Pippin said.

Erlingar rapped once with his hammer. ‘Please do not speak out of turn,’ he said to the Thain. ‘You’ll have the chance to answer questions, if they’re asked, and to make a final statement when sentence is carried out.’ Pippin nodded and pressed his lips together. It was no less courtesy than Merry had allowed Ferdi and Tolly as a formality when he’d passed judgement on them in the Woody End.

Fortinbrand put an arm around Farry and hugged him gently. ‘A moment, lad,’ he said. He raised his voice and addressed Tolly. ‘Tolibold Took, do you agree to tell the absolute truth?’

‘You know I do,’ Tolly said. ‘Always.’

‘But you weren’t telling the truth when you tried to conceal Farry’s disappearance,’ Fortinbrand said.

‘No,’ Tolly said, his voice suddenly low. He fixed his eyes on his feet, clearly ashamed. Ferdi wanted desperately to speak in Tolly’s defence, but he knew it would only make matters worse to speak out of turn. The Tooks were already predisposed to think the worst of them. He’d heard snippets of the Talk when others hadn’t realised he was nearby. All he could do was reach his other hand to Tolly, to take Tolly’s hand and give it a squeeze, making a chain of sorts, linking the three seated hobbits on trial together. Everard stood a little apart, staring despondently at the floor.

‘Tell us why,’ Fortinbrand said mildly.

‘We were trying to prevent a scandal,’ Tolly said miserably. ‘The Talk was already swirling about the Thain and his family – his wayward son. No different from himself, a plague to Paladin, he was, a scapegrace and ne’er-do-well! A taste of his own medicine, as it were!’

Faramir gave a shuddering sob that was heard throughout the hall, and several of the onlookers were heard to shuffle their feet.

‘The idea was,’ Tolly said, ‘that Ferdi would find the lad and take him on to Buckland, where his father was visiting. I was to make everyone believe that was truth, until he was able to make it come true.’

‘But it didn’t come true,’ Fortinbrand prompted.

‘No,’ Tolly said, lifting his face to meet Fortinbrand’s gaze. ‘The lad is a stubborn Took.’

Fortinbrand’s lips twitched, but he managed to maintain a sombre expression in the end. ‘And so you were accused, and bound and taken to be questioned by the Thain,’ he said. ‘And by the time you arrived in the Woody End, the Thain was there, having come to reclaim his son, and not in Buckland any longer.’

‘Aye,’ Tolly said.

‘And the Master of Buckland was with him,’ Fortinbrand said. ‘And it was decided that he should be the one to question the witnesses and pass judgement, because the matter involved the Thain’s own son.’ He paused and added, ‘And so that is what the Master did.’

‘Aye,’ Tolly said.

Fortinbrand looked to Regi. ‘And you spoke against a “rush to judgement”, I believe were the words you used, Reginard?’ Ferdi felt Tolly give a start at the question. How would Fortinbrand know, unless he’d talked to someone who was there – the Master of Buckland, or one of the hobbits of the escort who had been on the spot, including Tolly’s younger brother Hilly, who’d held the smoking brand in his hand awaiting the Master’s order to carry out the sentence, though Hilly had seemed as surprised as the rest of them to hear that a convocation had been called... Or Reginard himself. Fortinbrand was remarkably well-informed, Ferdi thought, wondering who the Querier had been speaking to as he was building the case against the accused. Of course, anyone questioned would have been bound to silence, under penalty of serious consequences to themselves should they dare to speak of it.

‘I did,’ Regi said, and he raised his hand and added, ‘I promise to tell all truth and only the truth, and to answer the questions as they are put to me.’

‘Then wait for the questions, if you will,’ Fortinbrand said dryly, and despite the seriousness of the situation, there was a nervous titter from the crowd.

‘And what were you doing whilst the Master of Buckland was making up his mind?’ Fortinbrand said, turning his attention back to Faramir, his tone once more warm and kindly. ‘Or did he already have his mind made up?’

‘Leading the witness,’ Erlingar said sternly.

‘I beg your pardon,’ Fortinbrand said. ‘Let me ask again, Farry, if you don’t mind. What were you doing while Master Meriadoc was questioning the witnesses?’

‘I had a fever,’ Faramir said. ‘Rosie said – I think – I don’t remember, exactly...’

‘Take your time, lad,’ Fortinbrand said in reassurance.

‘It – it was probably from the bite on my leg,’ Farry stumbled on. ‘I was out of my head, they told me afterward. I was saying things that didn’t make sense, and having nightmares, and crying out in my sleep, things that made it sound as if Uncle Ferdi was guilty of the terrible things they were accusing him of.’ At the crowd’s angry murmur, he cried, ‘But it wasn’t true! It was a dream! Nightmares!’

‘There, there, lad,’ Fortinbrand soothed, patting Faramir on the back. ‘Only a dream, you said.’

‘And then I woke up,’ Faramir went on. ‘They were about to apply the brand to Uncle Ferdi! I had to stop them! I had to! I ran out of the smial... I shouted to them to stop...’

‘And they stopped,’ Fortinbrand agreed. ‘And then what happened?’

‘And then they asked me... and I told them... and Uncle Merry –‘ Faramir gulped. ‘He said there’d been a false accusation. He said –‘ and the lad gave a gasping sob, ‘– he said a false accuser must pay the penalty!’

‘Banish the Thain,’ Fortinbrand said quietly.

‘And Ev’ard,’ Faramir sobbed. ‘All because I ran away!’ He turned to the accused, weeping, and said brokenly, ‘O Da! I’m so so-sorry! Please forgive me!’

Tears were starting from the Thain’s eyes, and he opened his mouth as they ran down his cheeks, as if he would speak, but didn’t, and he mutely held out his hand to his little son in an agony of feeling.

Farry laid his head on Fortinbrand’s shoulder, weeping violently, and the Querier patted and rubbed his back and soothed the lad in whispers until the storm passed. When Farry lifted his head again, Fortinbrand had a pocket handkerchief ready. ‘Here lad,’ he said kindly. ‘Wipe your face and blow your nose, and we’ll continue.’

Farry nodded and obeyed.

Fortinbrand waited, then said, ‘Is it well with you, Farry?’

Farry nodded again.

Fortinbrand said in a quiet, reasonable tone, ‘But your father – the Thain – and Everard are here in this room before us, even as we speak. They were most assuredly not banished...’

Not yet, anyhow, Ferdi thought to himself, and he thought he could see that many of the others in the room were thinking the same by the looks on their faces.

‘They talked about resit – restit –‘ Faramir said, uncharacteristically stumbling over the word. For a ten-year-old, his speech was almost invariably unusually precise for a child. Perhaps the strain was beginning to tell on him.

‘Was the word “restitution”, Farry?’ Fortinbrand said.

The lad nodded. ‘Yes. That was the word,’ he said.

‘And what was the restitution?’ the Querier asked.

‘I –‘ Farry said. ‘I don’t know, exactly. Ponies, I think,’ he said, looking to Ferdi. The small boy nodded to himself. ‘Yes, that was a part of it. Ponies for Uncle Ferdi’s string, and...’ he looked puzzled. ‘Something for Tolly. I don’t know what, exactly. But they all agreed it was enough.’

‘To pay his debts from wagering,’ Fortinbrand said. ‘Debt, in one with such a responsible position as a hobbit of the escort, is disgrace. I’m surprised, actually, that the Thain did not discharge him from his position for it.’

‘Irrelevant to the matter at hand,’ Erlingar said with a tap of his hammer.

‘Not irrelevant at all, I should argue,’ Fortinbrand returned. ‘Such debt would have made the hobbit vulnerable to offers by ill-doers, to help them in “a little matter” – that might turn out to be a great deal larger matter than he might anticipate.’

‘Such as stealing the son of the Thain for ransom?’ Sandovar said.

Tolly’s mouth was forming a silent No!, his horror plain on his face.

‘He did let those other ruffians go,’ Rudigrim said thoughtfully. ‘The ones he showed safe passage out of the Shire, past the Bounders and King’s Men.’

‘Irrelevant to the matter at hand,’ Erlingar repeated, tapping his hammer a few more times to quell the rising mutter of the crowd. ‘We heard that story, in full, and this Council is satisfied on that account.’

‘But it was the Thain who told that story as well...’ Rudigrim insisted, making it clear that some of the councillors, at least, were having second thoughts. ‘And now that very hobbit stands accused... so, what if that tale is also suspect, even as is his fine speech in the courtyard of the Smials, as he spoke the words of freedom and gave Ferdibrand and Tolibold their release?’

The councillor stood to his feet, to address the assembly. ‘What if all the Thain has said is called into question? What if all his words are suspect?’

***

Chapter 9. Suspect 

Things seemed to be getting worse, if it were even possible. Wholesale banishment, was clearly heard from the crowd of spectators in the babble that followed Rudigrim’s accusation. No less, someone else answered.

‘Let us not get ahead of ourselves,’ Erlingar said over the undercurrent of talk. ‘There’s quite enough on the plate as it is.’ He waited until the crowd quieted and added, ‘This Council went over that particular matter, regarding Tolly and the ruffians he aided, to our satisfaction before this convocation was called to order. We will not revisit it here. As things stand at present, there is enough evidence against the hobbit now to banish him, unless we are satisfied otherwise on hearing additional testimony, without reopening a case that has already been investigated and closed.’

Meadowsweet gave a sob, and Ferdi saw her break free from her hold on Pimpernel to lift a handkerchief to her face. 

Fortinbrand had withdrawn from the discussion at hand, for he had his hands full with a fully distraught Faramir, who was shuddering with silent sobs. ‘There, there, lad,’ he said, hugging the child close and rubbing his back with a large, gentle hand. ‘Steady on.’ And to Ferdi’s astonishment, the Querier added in an undertone, ‘Remember what we talked about.’

A tiny hope arose in him then, a stalk of spring green pushing through the soil into a wintry landscape, braving the killing frost. He could not believe that Farry would willingly take part in this, unless the lad believed he might do some good.

Or some adult had led him to believe that... some cynical part of him added. He shook his head to dismiss the thought.

‘You have something to add, Ferdibrand?’ Erlingar said.

‘Do you promise to speak all truth and only truth?’ Fortinbrand asked him.

‘I do,’ Ferdi said shortly, aware of the ironic looks from the other hobbits on trial. They all knew, as a result of the debacle of his near-banishment in the Woody End, of his relationship with Truth. He knew truth when he heard it spoken, knew a lie as it left the mouth of the speaker. Of course, that was no guarantee of his own truthfulness, he supposed. Louder, more emphatically, he said, ‘I do promise.’

‘What was the restitution agreed upon by Peregrin and Everard?’ Fortinbrand said.

Ferdi opened his mouth to reply, only to pause at the clear warning he could see in the Querier’s eye. Was the question a trap? How would he know? All he knew to do was to tell the absolute truth. He took a deep breath and answered. ‘Everard was to accompany my son Odovar to the pony market, to pay for the ponies he selected there; and he was to take on Tolly’s son...’

Erlingar’s hammer interrupted him, and when he turned a face full of inquiry to the table, the chief councillor said mildly, ‘Let Tolibold tell his own part.’

Obligingly, Fortinbrand turned to Tolly and repeated the formal question. ‘Tolibold, do you promise to speak all truth and only truth?’ For Tolly hadn’t exactly sworn to tell the truth when he’d been asked a few moments earlier, now, had he?

But, ‘I do,’ Tolly said clearly now, and swallowed hard. ‘I promise.’

‘What was the restitution promised you?’

Tolly gulped. ‘Ev’ard would take my son Gorbi under his instruction as an engineer’s apprentice, and Pippin would pay his way to the Lonely Mountain, to learn digging from the Dwarves.’ He swallowed before continuing, ‘and Pippin offered to discharge what was left of my debts, and Ev’ard to pay a part of them as well.’ He lifted his chin and said stubbornly, ‘I had been paying on them for some time already; they weren’t so great as they might have been.’

‘Ponies for Ferdibrand, and discharging Tolibold’s debt,’ Fortinbrand repeated, his hand still soothing Faramir’s back, his voice deadly calm.

‘And the lad who would learn to be an engineer,’ Rudigrim added.

‘Yes, there’s that as well,’ Fortinbrand confirmed. ‘Anything else?’

Ferdi and Tolly exchanged glances, perplexed. At last they turned to Fortinbrand and answered as one. ‘No.’ ‘Naught.’

‘There you have it,’ Fortinbrand said into the air. He turned his face to the table of councillors and added, finality in his tone, ‘I have no more questions.’

Erlingar stood up from his seat and raised his voice, speaking as he walked down the length of the councillors’ table to stand beside the hobbits on trial, waving a hand as if it were necessary to call the attention of those in the room to them. ‘So you see, my fellow Tooks,’ he said, his voice ringing through the large hall. ‘You have heard the evidence. The Thain called it “restitution” in the courtyard, but it was only a pittance... Everard Took paid a much higher proportion of what he owned, in comparison to the vast wealth of the Thain, of course, but the fact remains that he only paid for a pony or three, and agreed to take on an apprentice. And if this journey to the Lonely Mountain is ever to take place, well, that remains to be seen.’

Tolly, driven to desperation, leapt to his feet. ‘No!’ he shouted. ‘That was not the way of it at all! You don’t understa –‘

Into the rising tumult of the crowd resulting from Erlingar’s summation and Tolly’s outburst, the sharp rapping of the hammer sounded, as Rudigrim had scooped up the hammer to restore order in Erlingar’s absence from the table.

‘Take them out!’ he shouted. ‘Guards! Escort them from the room. We will have a discussion – a civilised discussion – and the Tooks will render their decision.’

Hands jostled Ferdi from several sides, “helping” him so vigorously from his seat that he nearly tripped and ended sprawling on the floor, but somehow he managed to gain his feet, at least temporarily. The general confusion, a mixture of the babble of the spectators, the sounds of wild grief skirling above the conversations, Tolly’s continued protests mingled with a shout from Everard, rose around him, muddling his head.

He wasn’t quite sure how he came from there to here, this quiet room, sitting in a comfortable chair in a parlour, silent except for the ticking of a dwarf-made clock, the pop of a fire on the hearth, and an occasional cough from the Thain, the last one followed by a muttered protest. ‘I am well, Ev’ard. Don’t fuss.’

‘Ferdi? Are you with us?’ Tolly was bending over him.

‘Where else would I be, I ask you?’ he said irritably.

Tolly gave a sigh and sat down on the footstool where someone had evidently taken the care to prop up Ferdi’s feet. ‘Anywhere but here, I warrant.’

Ferdi looked around the room. The Thain stood, in defiance of Regi’s and Everard’s attempts to get him to sit himself down. He and Tolly made up the count: all four of the hobbits on trial were present, along with Reginard, who’d thrown in his lot with them.

The cheerful fire on the hearth, the cosied teapot and five cups, waiting in vain, the plate piled high with tea biscuits, were all aching reminders of what they were about to leave behind. He knew what was going on in the great room at that moment. The discussion was continuing, and when the last Took had had his or her say, Erlingar would tap his hammer and ask if anyone had anything to say in defence of the accused. Ferdi very much doubted that anything that might be said, with things having gone this far, would change the way the wind was blowing.

The Tooks had not locked them in, of course; there were no locks on the doors in the Great Smials. There was no need for locks here. The councillors could have perfect confidence that when they sent to fetch the accused back to hear their doom pronounced, they would find them in the same place they had put them.

He struggled to his feet, pushing away Tolly’s supporting hand, and went to Pippin. ‘Cousin,’ he said, ‘I – I don’t know what this is about.’ All the Tooks who had been directly involved in the trial that had taken place in the Woody End just before the turning of the year had expressed satisfaction and relief with the solution they had worked out there. What business was it of all these other Tooks?

‘We have made a mockery of justice, it appears,’ Pippin said calmly. ‘At least, I have, to all appearances.’

‘I don’t follow,’ Ferdi said, made aware that Tolly was now standing at his shoulder when that hobbit spoke.

‘Restitution,’ the escort said brokenly. ‘I – we –‘ He was breathing raggedly. ‘I have ruined us all, with my pride.’

Pippin, seeing Ferdi’s blank look, said, ‘By tradition.’ The words were heavy with irony.

‘By tradition?’ Ferdi prompted.

The Thain began again, ‘By tradition, as I admit to my chagrin...’ His eyes measured each hobbit in the room as he resumed his explanation. ‘Not all that long ago, all the hobbits gathered in this room lived through a trial in the Woody End.’ He waited to see each one's nod. ‘Merry reminded me then that restitution in the case of a false accusation encompasses half of the accuser’s worldly goods and holdings, to be rendered to the accused. Liquidated, if necessary, and turned into money, or simply transferred as is to the ownership of the injured party.’

‘Such a harsh penalty has made false accusations rare indeed in the history of the Tookland,’ Regi said.

‘And I should have heeded his counsel,’ Pippin said, ‘even forced upon you, Tolly and Ferdi,’ and irony mixed with regret shone from his eyes, for he had some years earlier declared his reluctance to force any other to his will, ‘all unwilling though you might be, the compensation you both were due.’ 

‘But I didn’t need your money,’ Ferdi said in outrage. ‘I –‘

‘The Tooks would hardly count the pledge of loyalty on Pippin’s part that you accepted, instead, to be equal to half his wealth,’ Regi countered, his reasonable tone suited to a quiet discussion while hammering out policy in the Thain’s study, perhaps, but seeming out of place in the here and now.

‘Well they ought to!’ Ferdi said hotly. ‘It is worth more to me, in fact!’

‘Why, “a loyal Took” is a byword the length and breadth of the Shire,’ Everard put in. ‘Perhaps they would take such a thing for granted, and see Pippin as escaping or avoiding the consequences of his actions.’ He sighed. ‘As it stands in my case, the cost of a few ponies, and training Gorbi, does not constitute half of my holdings, either.’ He swallowed hard. ‘Even though we all had the best of intentions, I fear the Tooks will see me, too, as avoiding the penalty I owe.’

‘And so the original penalty stands,’ Pippin said quietly. ‘Banishment. At the very least, for Ev’ard here, and myself.’

‘The fault was ours to begin with,’ Ferdi argued stubbornly. ‘We hid the disappearance of your son from you, from Diamond, from the Tooks... in a sense, we really were guilty of child-stealing as charged...’

‘And the Tooks may still see it that way,’ Pippin said, his tone heavy with sorrow. ‘I’m sorry, Ferdi. Tolly.’

Tolly pushed past Ferdi and fell to his knees before the Thain, covering his face in his grief. ‘The fault was mine!’ he sobbed. ‘I let those Men go – they were hardly ruffians, but I let them go! And then, I deceived the Tooks, hid the disappearance of your son... but worst of all...’

‘Tolly,’ Pippin said, putting his hands on Tolly’s shoulders to try and urge him to stand.

‘No,’ Tolly said raggedly. ‘Don’t you see? It was my pride, my foolish pride –‘

‘And mine,’ Ferdi broke in, for all the good it did to say the words, which was none at all, really. ‘You must let me have my part, old friend.’ He took a shaking breath and continued, though Tolly's hands remained over his face, and he did not turn to hear what Ferdi had to say to him. ‘Dearest of cousins, I quite insist.’ He closed his eyes, took another breath, opened them again, stared at the escort a moment longer, then took his eyes from Tolly, to meet Pippin's gaze. ‘I was mistaken to think of you giving me your money, the restitution that Merry originally proposed, there in the Woody End, as “Thain’s charity” – and now we all must pay the price of my error.’

‘And the Tooks are all too likely to banish us all, such a muckle we’ve made of things,’ Regi said. All but Tolly looked at him in astonishment. ‘I have thrown in my lot with you, remember,’ he said wryly. ‘I stand – or fall – with the Thain.’

‘I won’t be Thain for much longer,’ Pippin said absently.

‘No matter,’ Regi said. ‘You’ll always be Thain, so far as I’m concerned.’

‘To the end of my days,’ Pippin said, quoting from the oath he’d taken at his confirmation. He shook his head. ‘Or something to that effect, anyway.’ He looked down at Tolly again, took that hobbit by the arms, and hauled upward. ‘Get up.’

Resisting the pull might well cause harm to the Thain, as Tolly knew all too well, considering the precarious state of Pippin’s health. Ferdi breathed a sigh of relief to see Tolly give in to the pull, lowering his hands from his face, wet with tears, and allowing Pippin to help him stand to his feet again.

Pippin took the desolate escort into an embrace, holding him tightly. ‘And so we are to be banished, all together,’ he said softly. The others in the room nodded, and he looked from face to face, still speaking mostly to Tolly, it seemed, but including every one of them in his words as well. ‘We will go to the Southlands, and our families with us,’ he said, and swallowed as if there were a lump in his throat.

Ferdi raised his hand to rub at his eyes, to find wetness there. Looking around, he saw tears on every face as they anticipated the inevitable. But Pippin was not finished with what he had to say.

‘I know of a fair, green country where we will be welcome,’ he said. ‘Honoured guests,’ he went on, ‘and the people there will be glad to call us their own. A land nearly so green and lovely as the Shire herself, as achingly beautiful as the Green Hills that we love, with high rolling hills and forests of graceful trees and tumbling streams and waterfalls. It is a place,’ he continued, ‘where I upon a time found hope, and healing, and unlooked-for joy after all my ills.’

He turned his head aside to cough, and Ferdi wondered if he might find healing there again, in that southern country, but there was evidently more to be said. ‘Ithilien, that land is called,’ Pippin said. ‘And the land is ruled by a Prince who is kind, just and wise – I named my son for him. Faramir.’

‘Ithilien,’ someone echoed, Ferdi wasn’t quite sure who. It might even have been himself, for his lips had moved, testing the word, tasting it, though he hadn't thought he'd spoken aloud. The name sounded foreign to his ears, and yet it resembled the whisper of leaves in response to a caressing breeze.

‘We can make a home there,’ Pippin said. ‘A new settlement of hobbitry. Much like Marcho and Blanco, as they set out to find a new home – a new beginning that one day became the Shire.’ He patted Tolly’s back. ‘All is not lost, cousin. When one life ends, another is just beginning...’

Ferdi was moved to step forward, to encompass both cousins in his arms. He was aware of Everard and Regi doing the same, felt arms encircle his shoulders, as the five soon-to-be exiles huddled closely together, comforting one another.

A great shout rang in the air, strong enough to vibrate the closed door on its hinges and causing them to break apart once more. Aye!

Pippin looked at each of them in turn, and then he nodded to himself. He tried to speak, but his voice failed him. He cleared his throat and said hoarsely, ‘The Tooks have come to agreement.’ 

*** 

Chapter 10. Agreement

Silent hobbits of the Thain’s escort came to usher them back to the great room, avoiding the questioning looks of the accused. Haldi, apparently in charge of the escort detail, without meeting anyone’s gaze simply gestured to the doorway, and then the corridor, in an indication of the course they were to follow.

Pippin led the way, head held high, walking with solid steps. He had leapt a bottomless chasm in the darkness of Moria, had been taken captive by Uruk-hai, had wrestled in thought with the Dark Lord – and lost, but not betrayed his friends, had stood against a hill-troll, upon a time. What was a banquet hall full of Tooks, by comparison?

The others took his lead and followed, walking firmly, heads high, eyes straight ahead, even though they were resigned to the doom that surely awaited them.

A murmur came to them as they approached the great hall, reminding Ferdi of the sound of battle, and he had to suppress a shiver. He thought he saw a tremor pass through Pippin at the same time, and wondered what his cousin might be remembering.

The crowd quieted as they entered. Looking to the front of the rows of Tooks, Ferdi saw Rosa, Regi’s wife, in the front row now, and Everard’s Mentha, and that Diamond had taken a seat beside his own Pimpernel, clenching a handkerchief in a white-knuckled hand, though she nodded to acknowledge Pippin’s entrance. Farry stood near his mother, hands fisted at his sides, but otherwise unmoving.

The chairs had been taken away, and so the four who had been accused, and Regi with them, stood where Haldi indicated, to one side of the councillors’ table, to await their fate. Ferdi reached out to either side, finding Tolly’s hand on his right, Pippin’s on his left, and taking firm hold. He was marginally aware of Reginard reaching for and clasping Pippin’s other hand in his own, joining hands with Everard at the end of the line, the five of them forging a living chain.

Erlingar cleared his throat. ‘The Tooks have discussed this situation,’ he said. ‘They have no more questions.’

He paused and seemed to be waiting for some sign. Pippin nodded. The others stood as statues, staring straight ahead.

‘It appears that Ferdibrand and Tolibold, accused of intending harm to the son of the Thain, did not receive the proper restitution as dictated by tradition and custom,’ Erlingar continued. ‘Therefore, the falseness of the accusation against them comes into question. The matter of their guilt was not satisfied in the disposition of their case.’ He swept the room of Tooks with his gaze. Ferdi saw people nodding, but no one spoke. ‘Therefore, the penalty for the offence they were accused of still stands.’ He paused to take a breath. ‘Banishment.’

Even though Ferdi was prepared for this verdict, to hear the word spoken aloud, with such finality, was a blow, and his heart sank within him.

‘Yet Peregrin, and Everard,’ somehow the lack of Pippin’s title sounded all the more ominous in Erlingar’s summation, ‘have admitted to putting forward a false accusation, against these very hobbits.’ He paused again. ‘The penalty for a false accusation is to suffer the same punishment that they would have seen applied to those they accused. In this case,’ Erlingar said, and paused again as if for emphasis, ‘banishment.’

Talk about having your cake and eating it too, Ferdi thought absurdly.

‘And you, Reginard,’ Erlingar said, turning to the small group standing by the councillors’ table. ‘Do you still stand with Peregrin?’

‘I do,’ Regi said stoutly.

‘Very well, then,’ Erlingar said. ‘Five Tooks stand before you, all of whom are under sentence of banishment.’ The onlookers nodded in response.

Ferdi saw that young Faramir, though pale and tense, was gazing fixedly at something. He turned his head slightly to follow the lad’s line of vision, only to see Fortinbrand. Remember what we talked about.

‘So it seems we are obliged to banish these Tooks,’ Erlingar continued in a mild tone. ‘And we conveniently have a convocation of Tooks assembled here to do the honours.’

Ferdi wanted to snap at them all, to demand that they finish this, get it over with, stop tormenting the accused by stretching this out, but somehow he managed to maintain his silence. It would make no difference in the end.

Unexpectedly, Rudigrim spoke up. ‘But what if there were a way to salvage these hobbits from destruction?’

Erlingar turned towards him, evidencing surprise. After all, the convocation had already voted, and lustily, too, considering the power of that roaring Aye! that had sounded all the way to the parlor where the accused hobbits were awaiting their doom. ‘What, indeed?’

‘Restitution,’ Rudigrim said into the echoing silence. ‘Proper restitution, I mean.’

‘How so?’ Erlingar said, as if it were a matter of polite conversation, and not that the fate of five Tooks, and their families, hung on the words being spoken into the silence of the assemblage of hobbits there.

‘What if half of all that Peregrin holds were to be joined to half of all that Everard owns, to be divided between Ferdibrand and Tolibold?’ Rudigrim said, as if he were presenting some theoretical concept of purely esoteric interest. 

Erlingar pulled at his lower lip, eyes lowered in evident thought. Looking up, he said, ‘Interesting.’

It was almost as if the entire room were privy to a confidential conversation between the two councillors. If a tailor or seamstress had brought a pin to the convocation, and then dropped it, the sound of it falling onto the polished floor would have been clearly heard.

‘It seems,’ Erlingar said slowly, as if thinking aloud, ‘that a proper restitution, as you have called it, would satisfy the nature of the accusation against Ferdibrand and Tolibold, as false, I mean...’

‘True,’ Rudigrim said. ‘Then those hobbits would not have to bear the brand, and be cast out, to wander in exile for ever more.’

Ferdi drew a shaking breath and felt Tolly squeeze his hand. He dared not turn his head to look at Tolly, dared not move at all, lest he interrupt this extraordinary exchange.

But Erlingar was not quite finished. ‘And,’ he said, and paused, then went on, ‘Peregrin and Everard, by paying the penalty in the form of a proper restitution, would also satisfy the requirements of Tookish law and tradition.’ As if it were merely an afterthought, he added, ‘And such a course would save Reginard, as well, from following Peregrin into exile, a brand on his cheek. And so law and tradition – and justice – would be served.’

‘Eminently,’ Rudigrim said. ‘At least, that is my reading of the traditions handed down through the years, until the present day.’

‘No,’ Pippin said, wrenching himself free of the living chain and marching to the middle of the table of councillors, coming to stand squarely facing Erlingar. Ferdi’s heart sank to his toes. That baby cousin of his could never seem to let well enough alone. He plainly heard a gasp from the direction of Pimpernel, Meadowsweet and Diamond, Rosa and Mentha, while grumbling arose from the crowd, resembling a warning rumble of distant thunder.

Farry stiffened, standing beside his white-faced mother, his face stricken, mouth making an O of astonishment and dismay.

At least Pippin was observing the proprieties as he consigned them all to banishment... ‘Permission to speak?’ he asked the chief councillor.

Erlingar nodded and tapped his hammer. ‘Granted,’ he snapped, and added, ‘Is it that you don’t care to part with your riches, then?’

Pippin gave him a wintry smile. ‘Leading the witness,’ he said gently.

Erlingar went red in the face but managed to sputter, ‘Say your piece, then, Thain.’ His glare spoke volumes – Pippin was not likely to remain Thain for very much longer at this rate.

But Pippin turned to face the hobbits filling the rows and rows of seats. ‘Seize all of my own personal holdings, if you wish,’ he said, spreading his hands to the sides as far as they would go to encompass the entire amount. ‘Do what you will with them – give them all to Tolibold and Ferdibrand.’

A soft no sounded in the stunned silence. To be honest, Ferdi wasn’t completely certain whether he’d spoken it, or Tolly had, or perhaps both of them had spoken as one. All of Pippin’s holdings... The idea was beyond comprehension. For after the treasury had been found, showers of blessing had arrived from the Outlands in recognition of Pippin's accession to the Thainship: gold and silver, pearls and precious jewels, and more, from Kings and Princes, Men and Elves and Dwarves. Pippin, even without the treasury, likely held as much personal wealth, in Ferdi's estimation, as had been piled up in the hoard of long-dead Smaug of Bilbo's tales, so far as Ferdi could imagine. Perhaps more. He had trouble imagining caverns filled with piles of wealth. But he had seen the reality of Pippin's now-extensive holdings.

It seemed that no matter what the outcome might be, whether they willed it or not, their lives were about to change forever. Exile, versus wealth nearly inconceivable for a Tookish archer of the rank and file. Gone would be the free and easy life they had known, replaced by the burden and responsibility of riches. Pippin’s wealth, since the finding of the treasury and the other events that surrounded it, had continued to mount, almost alarmingly, despite his best efforts to use it well to the benefit of others. Ferdi and Tolly could look forward to the same. But our lives will be changed in any event, a small voice in the back of Ferdi’s mind said.

But Pippin wasn’t done speaking. ‘The treasury, however,’ he said, and he moved his hand in a sweeping gesture that included all the hobbits in the great room, and beyond. ‘Although it bears the name treasure-hoard of the Thain, it belongs to the Tooks. To the Tookland.’ His eyes seemed to look into a far distance as he added, ‘It never belonged to me. It is the result of generations of labours of Tooks and their descendants after them.’

His eyes returned from that far distance, to survey the hobbits sitting before him. He added quietly, ‘It is not mine, and never will be.’ With a decisive nod, he said, ‘Take all that is truly mine, if need be.’ He turned back to the table of councillors to await his fate.

Ferdibrand had seldom seen a Took at a loss for words, but now he beheld an entire roomful of such wonders. Pippin’s strained breathing sounded clearly in the absolute silence that had fallen on the room. The councillors sat at their table as still as sun-struck Trolls for a long moment, and no rustle of clothing or shuffle of feet or even a cough or sniffle was to be heard from the ranks of closely packed benches, as if all the hobbits there had been put under a spell.

Pip has that effect on people sometimes, Ferdi thought incongruously.

At last Erlingar shook his head as if coming out of a dream, and tapped his hammer, though no one was making any sort of noise, much less commotion. He looked down one side of the councillors’ table, then turned his head to survey the line of councillors to his other side.

He cleared his throat, and Ferdi, feeling lightheaded, was suddenly reminded to take a breath. ‘I think,’ the chief councillor said slowly. He cleared his throat again, more vigorously, and spoke a little louder. ‘I think that we need take no vote on this amendment to the judgement to be rendered.’ He looked up and down the table again, as if to fully gauge the nods of the other councillors. ‘Peregrin and Everard will hereby pledge and provide an accounting to this Council regarding half of what each...’ he looked directly at Pippin as he said, ‘personally,’ and then swept the roomful of Tooks with his gaze as he continued, ‘owns, in the form of goods or property or the equivalent in coin,’ and despite the fact that he was speaking the words that tradition demanded, with the slight modification that Pippin had introduced, words that required the utmost gravity in their pronouncement, he smiled a little as he went on, ‘to be divided equally between Ferdibrand and Tolibold, to demonstrate their own remorse for their actions and to establish the latter’s innocence in the matter of the false accusation.’

Ferdi stood like a statue, his hand clenching – and clenched in – Tolly’s hand, and it was as if the both of them must hold on for dear life, like two drowning hobbits, yet at the same time too stunned to move or speak or even breathe.

Erlingar then nodded to himself and raised his voice to address the roomful of Tooks. ‘It seems a reasonable request,’ he said. ‘I do not think we need to seclude and exclude the accused as we take another vote – in fact, I do not think further discussion or a vote will be necessary – unless someone has a strong objection?’ He banged his hammer, once, definitively. ‘If any object to this change, sound your Nay! loud and clearly now, or hold your peace ever after.’

He waited the requisite three breaths for a shout of disagreement, though Ferdi doubted any of the hobbits on trial were breathing at that moment. He certainly wasn’t.

Erlingar tapped the hammer again, a single, light tap. ‘Next item,’ he said.

Caught in the middle of taking a restorative breath, Ferdi choked. The proceedings were interrupted whilst he fought the paroxysm of coughing that followed as a blur of hobbits slapped his back and he instinctively recoiled from the reek of smelling salts for yet another time that day, raising a hand in self-defence.

At last he was settled in a chair again, that had mysteriously materialised behind him, steady breathing re-established, his relative calm marred only by the fact that Healer Woodruff stood behind him, resting her hands on his shoulders.

He heard Erlingar say, ‘Where were we?’ and Fortinbrand answer, ‘Next item.’

‘Ah yes,’ Erlingar affirmed. ‘And this is the final item that the Tooks must agree upon.’

‘Finally,’ Tolly muttered, raising his hand to wipe at his face. Woodruff’s hands tightened momentarily on Ferdi’s shoulders, but she said nothing, and none of the councillors nor the Querier rebuked the erring hobbit. Perhaps they felt much the same.

‘Seeing it was gossip – the Talk of the Tooks – that set this whole miserable business in motion in the first place,’ Erlingar said, and his gaze pinned young Faramir, still standing by Diamond. Under that unnerving regard, the lad stood straighter, but his expression remained set, determined somehow, perhaps, thought Ferdi as if in a dream, perhaps resembling his father Pippin, standing upon a grey mound surrounded by grim warriors, tall and fair, as arrows poured into their ranks and a wave of hill-trolls broke upon them.

‘It was idle – but ill-natured, nay, even cruel – Talk that drove the lad to run away,’ Erlingar said. ‘A courageous move on his part!’ Ferdi could see surprise on the watching faces that mirrored his own, but the councillor continued. ‘Who among you would exile himself, thinking to spare his parents grief – even if that thinking was flawed, the thinking of a little child, to whom it seemed that all the Talk was against him? Why,’ he said, his voice suddenly lower, ‘grown Tooks have left the Great Smials on less provocation, swearing never to return.’

There was a pause then, broken only by the subtle shifting of bodies and shuffling of feet as the listeners remembered the names of Smials Tooks who had left the Smials for one reason or another. Mostly not for happy reasons. Pippin had been one of them, in fact, though he had returned to take up the office of Thain.

‘And so this Council proposes,’ Erlingar said, and swept the hobbits who had been accused, and now tried, with his glance, ‘and we would include all in this vote, that regarding this matter, the Talk stops. Here. And now. No more gossip about Faramir Took running away and shaming his parents. No more vicious and harmful Talk about the loyal hobbits of the Thain’s escort conspiring against that hobbit for the sake of gold.’ He paused and scanned the rows of spectators, his glance pausing deliberately here and there. ‘No smoke without fire,’ he said, his tone heavy with irony.

‘They’ll have plenty enough gold now, no need to conspire,’ Sandovar said, but Erlingar stared him to silence.

‘Be that as it may,’ the chief councillor said, emphasising each word, ‘Any Talk of the sort that comes to the ears of these councillors will be weighed and measured, and if it seems fitting, the hobbit or hobbits will be charged and tried for false accusation and will pay the requisite penalty of half their holdings,’ his eyes swept the room, settling on the hobbits on trial. ‘To be divided among those who are vindicated today.’

*** 

The rest of the convocation passed in a blur. Ferdi was scarcely aware of anything else that was said, only that at one point he was prompted to stand up from his chair to hear the final verdict, that there was another thundering Aye! from the assembled Tooks as they approved the recommendations of the Council, followed by a final definitive-sounding rap from Erlingar’s hammer. 

He came back to himself, somehow sensing the nearness of his beloved Pimpernel, and realised that she was standing before him, lifting her hand to his face but not quite touching him, her eyes questioning. He raised his hand to hers, pressed her palm against his cheek that would not be subject to a branding iron this day, and closed his eyes at the feel of her touch. ‘My Nell,’ he said, his voice failing him as he spoke her name. ‘Nell,’ he repeated, and for some reason needed to take a breath that came out as a gasping sob – but he added as firmly as he could manage, though he scarcely recognised the sound of his own voice, ‘my own.’ 

She threw her arms around him and buried her face in his neck. ‘O my love,’ she whispered into his shirt. Feeling her trembling against him, he gathered her close and, eyes still closed, simply held on.

There was a babble of voices around them, and he was jostled, and then someone took him by the arm. He would have resisted, but then Haldegrim’s voice sounded in his ear. ‘Come, cousin,’ the escort said. ‘Let’s get you to a quieter place.’ He thought he heard Woodruff speaking to Nell in the same moment, and opened his eyes to a blur of motion as Haldi put an arm around his shoulders and gently urged him forward. ‘Nell,’ he protested, but then he felt her slip her hand into his palm, and he was content to follow Haldi’s prompting.

He lost some time, it seemed, for in the next moment he realised he was seated again, in the same soft chair in the parlour where they had waited to hear their fate, his feet propped up once more. The parlour seemed much more crowded now from the sound of it, though Ferdi’s blurred vision took in only his immediate surroundings. Nell sat on one arm of his chair, her arms around him, and Woodruff crouched before him. ‘...your head, Ferdi?’

‘I...’ he said, but didn’t seem able to form words.

Woodruff frowned and looked aside. ‘Mardi,’ she said, ‘if you’ve quite finished rejoicing over your brother’s restoration, I do believe Ferdi belongs in a bed.’

‘I am well,’ Ferdi protested, nestling into Pimpernel’s embrace and slipping his arm around her in response. ‘It’s just... it has been a lot to take in.’

‘You can say that again,’ he heard Tolly say, and his brother Mardi laughed, though Ferdi could still hear the strain in the older hobbit’s merriment, as if Tolly's healer brother could barely credit that Tolly was sitting there with his wife and all his brothers surrounding him, that the whole miserable affair had been concluded in a way that did not end with his younger brother’s banishment, along with four more stalwarts amongst the Tooks.

‘But don’t say it,’ Woodruff countered hastily. ‘Save your breath, Ferdi. In fact, I’d like you to take deep breaths now. In... out...’ She raised her voice slightly. ‘And you, too, Thain. Steady breaths.’

‘Steady breaths all around,’ Everard was heard to say. ‘Why not?’ His following laughter was tinged with a note of unbelieving wonder.

‘So, Tolly,’ he heard Mardibold say. ‘How does it feel to be one of the richest hobbits in the Shire?’

Tolly, true to form, simply replied, ‘I can think of worse troubles.’

*** 

Chapter 11. Troubles

(About five years later. Faramir is now fifteen.)

‘Lotho’s louts are up to something; that’s the word we’ve had from several directions, anyhow, though nobody seems to know any more than that. Something big, one of them said.’ Thain Paladin puffed on his empty pipe and sat back in his chair. There’d been no tobacco to be had in the Shire for some months now, not in the occupied parts, and certainly not in a Tookland under siege. Ferdi waited.

Finally, the older hobbit spoke again. ‘I want you to go out again, find out what you can. It’s possible they might know more. They’re the best chance we have in this, I think.’ He didn’t mention a place, and he certainly spoke no names. All the better to keep Ferdi’s sister Rosemary and her family safe from Lotho’s wrath, should he find out that they were collecting information and passing it on to the Thain.

Ferdi nodded and turned to go, but the Thain called him back, more solemn than Ferdi had ever seen him. Paladin rose from his chair and came around to the front of the desk. He put his hands on Ferdi’s shoulders, gazing intently into his eyes, and then pulled the younger hobbit into an embrace. ‘You’re all the family that’s left to my good friend Ferdinand,’ he whispered, naming Ferdi’s father. For of course, Rosemary was officially disowned, her name stricken from the Yellow Book, her very existence unmentionable by anyone living under the purview of The Took. ‘Don’t lose yourself, now. If they catch you, it’ll be the Lockholes – or worse.’

Stepping back, Ferdi tried to smile. ‘They’ve found me a bit difficult to catch, this far.’

Paladin nodded, a sharp jerk of his chin, and stood straighter, squaring his shoulders, and Ferdi became suddenly aware of the bags under the older hobbit’s eyes. Paladin was pale from too much time indoors, and he seemed thinner, even though the Tooks, having resisted all attempts at gathering by the ruffians, still had sufficient food to eat – which was more than you could say for the rest of the Shire. There were new lines in the Thain’s face that hadn’t been there only a few months ago, in the time before the disappearance of his son. Why, Ferdi realised in shock, the old farmer was going grey, and even though he’d straightened, Paladin was still standing somewhat stooped as if bowed down by burdens.

‘Go with grace, lad,’ the Thain said quietly. Ferdi nodded and took his leave. 

‘He didn’t mention any places or names,’ young Faramir said thoughtfully. ‘Not even when he was deep in the Smials, far from the borders of the Tookland, and listening ears?’

‘You never knew how word might come to Lotho,’ Tolly said gravely, and at the teen’s sharp intake of breath, he put up a staying hand to hold back the indignation he saw in Farry’s face. ‘Not that any Tooks would let anything slip a-purpose, lad, not at all. But you know how it is, when they get to talking.’ Because Farry knew all too well how it could go with the Talk.

‘Not to mention,’ Regi said. ‘By that time, there were Outsiders living in the Great Smials.’ Not-Tooks, he meant. Hobbits who came from other parts of the Shire.

‘How did they come to be here?’ Farry asked. ‘You said,’ he continued, looking from one face to the next, ending with his father, who looked as fascinated as Faramir himself felt at the recounting of this piece of Tookish history. Of course, Pippin had been busy about other things at the time of the Troubles. He returned his gaze to Regi. ‘You said that Lotho sealed the borders. No one was allowed in or out of the Tookland.’

Tolly gave a muffled snort, and the teen grinned at him. ‘Except, of course, those the Thain allowed to go in and out.’

‘That’s just it,’ Regi said. ‘Lotho’s louts had caught wind of a Took outside the Tookland, and they were hunting him down. They tracked him to a farm on the outskirts of Bywater, and then they lost his trail. They accused the farmer of hiding our hobbit...’

‘And did he?’ Pippin said. ‘Brave fellow.’

Regi shook his head. ‘He did not,’ he answered. ‘That farmer actually wasn’t one of ours. I suppose the Took they were hunting might have gone to ground in his byre, to hide away the daylight hours, before making his way back to the safety of the Tookland. The farmer told me, when I questioned him, that the ruffians found signs someone had hidden in the hay, and that was enough for them to accuse him.’

‘More than accuse him!’ Hilly broke out bitterly. ‘They burned his home, his byre, his sheds – they slaughtered all his animals, would have even killed the cats and the dogs, had the cats not fled and the farmer not whistled the dogs to run away, across the field, as if they were after sheep! On the grounds of a suspicion!’ Lower, he added, ‘And he received more than one blow for that little show of resistance.’ 

‘They gathered all the hobbits of Bywater and marched them out to the farm to watch the spectacle,’ Regi said quietly. ‘They wanted to make an example of him.’

Farry gulped down sickness, saw a matching sickness on his father’s face, while quiet fury radiated from the Tooks who were sharing the teaching of this particular history lesson: Regi and Ferdi, Hilly and Tolly, all of whom had been in the thick of the Tookish resistance.

‘They left the farmer and his family with the clothes they were wearing,’ Regi went on. ‘No one in the area was willing to take them in, for the ruffians had made it clear to those who were forced to watch the firing that the next time, they might just burn a smial with the hobbits inside and the doors chained shut.’

‘Perhaps we’ve had enough for today,’ Pippin said in a low tone. Farry looked to him in surprise, and he met his son’s gaze squarely, adding, ‘It is a lot for a teen to take in.’

Farry knew that many hobbits in these days of peace and plenty did not know the details of the stories he was hearing. Those who had lived such events generally did not care to speak of their memories. Added to that, the Thain, Master and Mayor were united in their efforts that the hearts of the Shire-folk should be protected from the evils that Men were capable of. Some Men, Farry reminded himself. There are a great many good Men in the world, as my da is often quick to remind the Tooks. Not that they believe him.

Now the teen said, ‘I am well, Da, truly I am. I think,’ and he paused to find the right words, ‘I think it is best to draw the sting, to force out all the poison at one go, to put it all behind us, rather than to do it in fits and starts, letting it fester in between.’

Pippin locked gazes with Faramir for a few more breaths, then nodded and looked to Regi. ‘Go on,’ he said.

The Steward returned the nod and turned back to Farry. ‘The family had nowhere to go,’ he said. ‘While the ruffians followed them, laughing and jeering, they stumbled across the fields in the direction of Tuckborough. They told that poor farmer and his wife, and their children with them, that the Tooks were likely to shoot them out of hand – that the Tooks had already shot and killed folk who’d come too close to their borders.’

‘And that much was true,’ Ferdi said quietly. ‘Though the ones killed were ruffians – Men, not Hobbits.’

Farry swallowed hard. ‘How horrible,’ he said. ‘Caught between a rock and a hard place would be easier, I should think.’

‘And as they reached the borderland, an arrow flew right past the farm family and caught one of Lotho’s louts in the arm,’ Regi said. ‘The archer called out, No further! You Men, turn around and take yourselves back to your Boss! Tell him the Tooks aren’t having any today! And two more arrows buried themselves in the ground to either side of the group of ruffians. And another of the Tookish archers, watching from cover, called, Those shots were aimed to hit where they landed! We can aim for your hearts just as easily! Now go!

‘So they turned and ran, stumbling, tails tucked between their legs,’ Hilly said in dark satisfaction. ‘ ‘Twas a fine sight, indeed.’ And Farry realised that he was looking at one of the archers who had lived this particular story.

‘But the farmer...?’ he said. ‘He had nowhere else to go.’

‘The farmer stood his ground,’ Hilly replied. ‘No, he did more than that, actually. He stepped forward, putting himself between his family and those deadly Tookish bows, brave fellow. He stood there, knowing that arrows might well be aimed at his heart, and told us what had happened... asked us to take him to the Thain.’ The escort’s eyes looked into a far distance. ‘His courage impressed us, and we talked it over and decided that one of us would bring him in.’

‘You would have left a family... little children... with no shelter, no food, nowhere to go?’ Farry said in dismay.

‘Och, no, lad,’ Hilly said, real distress in his tone. ‘That would make us no better than the ruffians, now! Yet we had to guard the Thain. It might have been a ruffians’ trick.’

‘Of course we were not going to let them anywhere near Paladin,’ Regi said. ‘Suspicions were running high in those days. Any Tooks found outside the Tookland were being beaten, some severely, and taken to the Lockholes. Who knew if this were a trick of Lotho’s to get someone past the Tookish border defences, to gather as much information as possible and then leave again to bring word to Lotho and his louts? Can you understand that, Farry?’

Farry nodded.

‘So they brought the farmer to me,’ Regi said. ‘I questioned him at length. We shut them up in a parlour and set a guard at the door, with instructions to listen to all they said to each other, and yet not speak to them at all, at least, until we could be more sure of them.’ At Farry’s wondering look, he said, ‘O they had all the comforts of home – regular meals, changes of clothes, escort to the privy and bath room. All they missed was their freedom, and in the end, they chose to throw in their lot with ours, though it meant they might never see their farm again.’

Pippin said, ‘Sounds very Shirriffish to me – I mean, the Shirriffs as they were under Lotho, or Sharkey, that we encountered when we returned to the Shire. Every which way you turned, there was a Rule to be followed.’

‘I’m sorry to have to admit it,’ Regi said. ‘In some ways, we were no better than Lotho and his louts. But we were fighting for our homeland, and later, it seemed all too clear we’d soon be fighting for our very lives.’

*** 

Chapter 12. Lives

A short silence fell, and then Faramir leaned forward. ‘You said,’ he began slowly, thinking through his question, ‘I know we were talking about how Tooks crept out of Tookland to gather information for the Thain, but no one ever talked about where they went or who they talked to...?’

‘That’s right,’ Regi said. ‘That way, if one were captured and questioned, no matter how they pressed him, he couldn’t betray anyone else to Lotho, except perhaps – should the questioning be so severe he could not resist giving answers –’ Farry found himself blinking a little at the thought, but the other hobbits in the room were nodding grimly. Every one of the Tooks there knew from personal experience that Men were capable not only of great deeds but also dreadful doings. Even Faramir.

‘He could only betray the hobbits he visited, who had collected the information he sought,’ the lad said at last, a question in his voice.

‘That’s right, Farry,’ Regi confirmed. ‘That policy of Paladin’s probably saved a few hobbits a great deal of trouble, and perhaps even their lives, for some Tooks were taken in their forays outside of the Tookland, and the hobbits they’d talked to were marched to the Lockholes. As time went on, the ruffians' treatment grew worse, and they began to beat their prisoners.’ He smiled without humour. ‘Including a Shirriff who’d enthusiastically thrown in his lot with Lotho and done immeasurable harm up to that point. Gordibald, when they’d mistreated him long enough, threw them his name as you’d throw a bone to an attacking dog, and to his relief and shame, they took it.’

‘It wasn’t true?’ Farry said, incredulous. ‘He named an innocent hobbit to the ruffians?’

‘Hardly innocent,’ Tolly said, but his tone was troubled, and another short silence fell as they all pondered the irony of a hobbit being punished for his deeds by those he’d benefitted with his performance of those same deeds.

‘Some escaped, thankfully, before they could be questioned,’ Ferdi said. ‘And in my case, they were so pleased to have captured the Fox, they thought only of finishing me before I could slip out of their hands, and so they did not question me – and that mistake on their part, I’m glad to say, kept Rosie safe, and her family with her.’

‘Thain Paladin, who never left Tuckborough during the Troubles, was the only one who had the whole plan in his head, all the names and places and strategies. Not even I knew the half of what went into Tookland’s defences,’ Regi said. ‘For I travelled about, inside the borders, but the ruffians were always testing the traps, and there was always a small chance I might be captured. Thus,’ he said, ‘I knew which of our people were stealing out of the Tookland, but for the most part I had no idea where they were sent, or who they talked to.’

‘We talked to the Thain alone on our return,’ Ferdi assented, ‘and he used what we told him to formulate his plans going forwards.’

‘And glad I was to see any of you return,’ Regi said, shaking his head in remembrance. ‘It was never a sure thing.’

But Farry had seized on another idea. ‘Traps, you said,’ he murmured. ‘Testing the traps. What traps?’

Regi smiled faintly. ‘We hadn’t the resources to build habitations and plough new fields and dig new wells during the Troubles,’ he said obliquely, and at Farry’s blank look, he winked and added, ‘we kept the engineers plenty busy contriving ways to keep the ruffians from crossing the borders.’

‘All around the borderlands,’ Ferdi agreed.

Pippin sat up suddenly. ‘I remember!’ he said. ‘You told me it was fortunate I ran into you, when I rode from Bywater to Tuckborough across the fields, to bring back an army of Tooks and drive out the ruffians for good! You said something about laying traps, and that I’d never get past them without a guide.’ He turned to Regi. ‘As a matter of fact, I seem to remember you saying that Ferdi was quite brilliant in laying traps for unwelcome guests, and so the Sackville-Bagginses hadn’t come for tea with the Thain and Mistress in quite a while!’

The laughter that arose was welcome in the midst of such a grim discussion, and when it died down, the mood seemed lighter. ‘So what were the traps?’ Farry asked again.

‘Well,’ Ferdi said, and looked from Hilly to Tolly. ‘Every hunter worth his salt knows how to set a snare...’

‘The principle’s the same, whatever the size of the game,’ Tolly quoted, ending in another hearty laugh. 

There ensued a discussion of snares and trip-wires and loops and bent-sapling traps. ‘Of course, it all required ongoing maintenance,’ Ferdi said. ‘For example, a young tree, bent for too long a time, will lose its ability to spring upright again, so those traps had to be refashioned every few days.’

‘And the other traps had to be moved, lest the ruffians learn to avoid them,’ Hilly added. ‘And we had to make sure the caps on the pits remained covered with leaves, or grass, and that no larger animals had blundered into them. Though the deer and other animals never did; they seemed much wiser than the ruffians we caught.’

‘Pits?’ Farry said, intrigued. He was next entertained by an account of all the well-diggers in the Tookland being employed to dig and reinforce dry-wells (‘Well, they were supposed to be dry, anyhow,’ Regi said) that were twice the height of a ruffian in depth, and a little more than a ruffian’s height in width, with walls too smooth to climb. These were covered with a lattice of woven willow, which was concealed under a covering of leaves (in the woods) or thin, grassy sod (in open land).

‘Wouldn’t it be awkward if a hobbit fell in?’ Farry said. ‘Or did you know where all the traps were?’

‘No one could know where all the traps were,’ Hilly said. ‘But those of us skulking about the borderlands, watching for encroaching ruffians, were also responsible to set up the movable traps and make sure the pits were covered, so we had a better idea of where they all were than those benighted ruffians ever did.’

‘And the design of the pits allowed for a hobbit’s weight, but not that of a Man,’ Regi said. ‘Quite brilliant, actually. Hobbits running from a pursuer could lead him into a trap; they could run quite safely over a pit, with the cap springing under his feet, but holding his weight, but then it would splinter under the weight of the ruffian, dumping him into the pit – where he’d stay until his fellows could rescue him.’ He laughed. ‘Eventually, they learned to carry ropes with them.’

‘Eventually,’ Tolly said with a grin. ‘At least, we never found any remains of Men in the pits when we filled them all in again.’

‘Filled them in again?’ Farry said.

Tolly laughed. ‘O aye!’ he said. ‘You didn’t think we’d leave the traps to mar the land after hobbits drove the ruffians out of the Shire, did you?’

‘As it was, the Tooks took their traps down too soon,’ Regi said. ‘We might have left them a little longer, and avoided some of the troubles that lingered.’

‘I remember,’ Pippin said. ‘Merry and I spent some time chasing ruffians all over, including in the Tookland, as we scoured them out of the Shire.’

‘Like the ones who attacked the farm where Aunty Tilly was hiding?’ Farry said, remembering a story he’d heard told more than once in Buckland. Ferdi had gone out to gather information, but he’d brought back much more, one trip: Estella Bolger, seeking refuge from Lotho’s determination to have her for his own. Because of the urgent nature of the news he was bringing the Thain, he’d left her with a farm family in the wild Green Hills, disguised as a half-grown lad, and there she had stayed until the Troubles were ended.

‘Any road, the pits were filled in, those that didn’t fill with water, anyhow, and the ones that did fill with water, the well-builders constructed a stone surround and roof for each, along with a bucket, rope and crank,’ Regi said.

Ferdi added, ‘And you can see those wells still standing today, in the middle of nowhere (for as you know, Farry, the borders of the Tookland run through some of the wildest country in the Shire as well as roads and farm fields and settlements). Even to this day, they’re there to provide a cool, fresh drink to any hunter or forester who might pass through the area. I do believe the Mayor oversees them, does he not?’

Pippin nodded. ‘His Shirriffs keep an eye on the wells and let him know when a well is in need of repair – a rotted rope, a damaged bucket, roof needing repair, and such. Samwise has told me about it – he’s bemused at the idea of maintaining wells in the wildest parts of the Shire, though he also says, considering the times he wished for water in his travels, he won’t begrudge other travellers who are seeking to quench their thirst.’

‘I should like to see one of these wells,’ Farry said after another short silence. ‘I’d like to look down those smooth walls, all the way down to the water, and imagine how it was when Tooks were keeping the borders. And draw a bucket of fresh water, and drink a toast to the memory of their deeds.’

‘Perhaps I can take you into the wild country to see one,’ Pippin said, ‘next half-holiday, or if I can get away before that.’

‘You, Pip?’ Hilly said boldly. ‘Shirking your duties? You know that half-holidays almost invariably involve some speech or other on the part of the Thain to open the celebration!’

‘Perhaps I can ask the Mayor to open such a celebration for me,’ Pippin said mildly. ‘That’s part of the business of being Mayor, after all. And then I can slip away, and...’

‘And how would you know to find a well in the middle of the wild Green Hills, any road?’ Ferdi challenged, rearing back in his chair and fixing a gimlet eye on his young, sometimes-impetuous cousin. All they needed was for the Thain to lose himself, with his son, in trackless territory, spurring a massive Muster and hunt for them. And hopefully they’d be found before they starved to death, or worse.

*** 

Chapter 13. Worse

‘Yes, Pip,’ Hilly said, leaning forward. ‘How would you know how to find a well in the middle of wild country? Why, they’re not even to be found on the maps!’

But the Thain only threw back his head and laughed, while the others simply sat there and watched him, partly in irritation at his light attitude towards a potentially heavy subject, partly in amusement at his contagious merriment, and partly in satisfaction at this continued evidence of his good health, wrought when Mayor Sam had gone to the Southlands a few years earlier in search of healing for the Thain, returning with a wondrous potion from the Tree-folk of legend.

At last, gasping as a result of his extended bout of laughing (but – so happily! – not shortness of breath from long, wasting illness), Pippin wiped his forehead and shook his head, still working to contain a series of remaining rills of laughter. At last, he pointed to Ferdi, then Tolly, and finally to Hilly. ‘Why,’ he said. ‘The Thain always travels with an escort, or haven’t you heard? And the escort are all hunters, quite familiar with the wild Green Hills, or so I’ve been informed...’

And then he was off, laughing again, and this time, seeing the joke, the hobbits of the Thain’s escort laughed with him.

***

Early the next morning, Tolly sought Ferdi out in the stables, where the latter was usually to be found at that time of day, for it was his habit to exercise each of his ponies in turn and then give them a thorough grooming before starting his duties for the day. Though he had plenty enough to pay for someone else to work his ponies and care for them, the windfall of wealth from Pippin’s and Everard’s holdings had not substantially changed Ferdi's way of life. Nor Tolly's, for that matter. 

‘I thought I’d find you here,’ the head of escort said. Tolly had been elevated to that post ever since Ferdi had become Pippin’s special assistant, and later chancellor, and he’d kept the position by winning the Tournament every year, though he’d been heard to say lately it was hardly worth the bother, the Shire was such a quiet place these days. No adventures to be had for love or money, it seemed. Thankfully. 

He leaned himself against the wall and crossed his right leg over his left, a picture of careless ease. A long piece of hay protruded from his mouth. He removed it, ran his finger along its length, and stuck it in his mouth again, chewing gently at the stem.

‘Did you now? What was it, gave you the idea I’d be here?’ Ferdi said, vigorously plying his brush on Spatter’s dappled flank. The mare tossed her head, then pulled another mouthful of hay from her rack, munching contentedly.

‘You’re always here, this time o’ the morning,’ Tolly said easily. ‘That’s how the Thain knew where to send me to find you.’

‘Are you saying I’m driving my cart in a rut?’ Ferdi said. He reached a ticklish spot, and the mare tossed her head again and danced a little in warning. ‘Steady now, lass.’

‘More like you’re on a path,’ Tolly said around the hay stem he was chewing. ‘Unlikely to get lost, at least, off in the woods or wild hills.’

‘On a path... in a rut...’ Ferdi said. He sighed. ‘Why, we haven’t had a Muster in more than a year!’ He moved to the mare’s other side, offering her a piece of carrot from his pocket in passing, and commenced brushing again. ‘Pip, since his wondrous healing, has been marvellously well these past few years. Harvests have been abundant since the rains returned, ending the long drought. No fevers to speak of, sweeping the Shire and threatening lives. No incursions of wild swine or sheep-worrying dogs to test the skills and nerve of trackers and hunters. Not even any wolves, crossing the frozen Brandywine. In fact, the last two winters have been unusually mild!’ He punctuated each point with several strokes of the brush. From his tone, he might have been cataloguing a list of grievances.

‘Fear, fire, foes,’ Tolly quoted. ‘Be careful what you wish for, cousin.’

Ferdi snorted. ‘Too early in the year for fires,’ he said. ‘I doubt there’s more than a token Fire-watch set in the woodlands at present. And as for foes... I tell you, Tolly, life is so tedious, so predictable these days, since Elessar put his Edict back in place. What with those murdering ruffians nearly killing the Thain for his gold, a few years back, the King’s Men are certainly taking much more care in keeping their fellow ruffians from sneaking across the Bounds these days.’ He snorted. ‘I’d heard the Bounders are becoming quite fond of tea-parties!’

It was a jest, of course. The Bounders remained dedicated to their duty of beating the Bounds, though they hadn’t had to send word to the Thain to call a Muster in many months. The word had spread widely in the Outlands that Elessar’s northern Rangers were very efficient – and ruthless – in enforcing Elessar’s Edict, keeping Men out of the Shire, and not many rogue Men were willing to risk their necks these days on such a gamble. The Shire was too well-guarded at present, so those Men who would seek their fortunes by preying on others were looking for greener pastures, in a manner of speaking, and causing sufficient trouble elsewhere that the King’s Men were in no danger of falling idle.

Ferdi tossed the brush into the grooming bucket, pulled out a polishing cloth that he’d tucked into his belt and commenced to rub Spatter’s coat to a high shine. ‘I can tell you, too, Tolly, it’s a real pleasure to let my lass sparkle... All that talk about the Troubles reminded me of how I left Dapple shaggy, just so long as her winter coat lasted, to be ready at any time for one of our excursions.’ He stepped back to admire the result of his exertions. ‘She stayed well-hidden, there in the woods, whilst I stole closer to a ruffians’ campfire to hear their talk, when old Paladin sent me out to gather news.’

‘Which reminds me,’ Tolly said, folding his arms. ‘Our baby cousin, the Thain, has sent for you.’

‘He’s early,’ Ferdi said. ‘He knows I don’t arrive at my desk until after early breakfast. Unless, of course, there were some emergency,’ he measured the head of escort with a glance, ‘which I rather doubt, at present, just from watching you chew your cud like a contented old cow.’

‘Hah,’ Tolly said, uncrossing his arms. He pulled the hay stem from his mouth, studied it briefly, and dropped it to the well-swept floor. ‘Who are you calling old? I’ll have you know I’m all of one month younger than you are!’

‘As I know very well,’ Ferdi grumbled. ‘You throw it in my face often enough. Age before beauty!’ He harrumphed, quite resembling an old, disgruntled gaffer who’d discovered he’d drunk more than half his pint without noticing. ‘And what would it be that our baby cousin would be wanting?’

‘That would be telling,’ Tolly said in his best know-it-all manner, which meant, Ferdi knew, that he didn’t know.

‘Did he say it was urgent?’ Ferdi wanted to know as he picked up the face cloth and dampened it, then moved once more to the mare’s head. She finished munching her mouthful of hay and lowered her face to be washed, along with her ears. Ferdi obliged, his moves as gentle as if he were tenderly caring for a faunt, and Tolly laughed.

‘Going to take her into your lap and read her a story when her bath is done?’ the head of escort asked.

Ferdi stroked the soft neck. ‘I would,’ he said, ‘but I hear the Thain is asking for me. Would hate to keep the hobbit waiting.’

*** 

When Ferdi entered the Thain's study, he found young Faramir standing with his father by the large map on the wall. 

Pippin was tracing a line with his finger. ‘So,’ the Thain said. ‘We went from that point along the Stock Road. Of course, at that time, it was not well-kept – not much used unless a traveller was on foot or rode a pony, for it was hardly fit for carts in those days. Ferumbras had let the roads go to ruin, more or less, except for the great East-West Road, and Paladin hadn’t the resources for the repairs needed to set all in order when he became Thain.’ 

He tapped his finger on the map. ‘That is approximately where Frodo saw the first Black Rider, while Sam and I threw ourselves flat on the grass in a little hollow not far from the road to conceal ourselves...’ he shuddered, but when Farry rested a supporting hand on his arm, he smiled and said, ‘I am well, my lad, very well indeed.’ Drawing a deep breath, he added, ‘And glad I am, as well, that their kind is forever gone from Middle-earth.’ 

Almost as if it was not of his will, he shuddered again, and Farry felt his father’s muscles tense under his touch. ‘I can still remember their fell voices on the air, calling to each other... the rising shadows at Weathertop... running at them with a torch at the Ford...’ he shook his head as if to clear it ‘...as if a flaming brand were enough of a weapon against such as those.’ His eyes, unfocused, stared into the past. ‘Their Black Captain at the Gate of Gondor... and their cold voices at the Black Gate, crying words of death, as they flew out of the gathering mirk...’

Ferdi had frozen, just inside the door, and Regi at his desk sat still as a statue. Both knew from experience that it was best not to startle the Thain when his recollections seized him so strongly, a rare occurrence, but all the more memorable for that. 

But Farry stood firm, his hand on his father’s arm, an anchor to tie this Traveller to reality – to life and love and well-being.

After several breaths, the Thain returned from the mists of distant memory and smiled at his son. ‘I am well, Farry,’ he repeated.

The son of the Thain, perceiving the softening of tension in his father’s body, relaxed as well. ‘Of course, Da,’ he said, and took his hand away again.

‘Now, Ferdi,’ Pippin said as if nothing out of the ordinary had just occurred. ‘Farry would like to trace some of the various notable journeys in our family history... I know we were talking about going to find one of the foresters’ wells, and Reni has informed me that one of them is to be found not so far – perhaps an hour or two of walking – from the Stock Road where it winds through the wild Green Hill country.’

Ferdi came out of his frozen stance and nodded, then moved to join the others at the map. He knew that particular well, had drunk of its sweet waters on more than one occasion. ‘That’s right,’ he said. He drew a small circle on the map with his fingertip, some way to the south of the line that marked the road to Stock. ‘Somewhere in this area,’ he said.

‘So I thought we would start at Bag End and follow Frodo’s journeyings as far as Crickhollow,’ Pippin said. ‘The well would not be much out of our way.’

Considering the Thain’s reaction just now to the memory of that journey, Ferdi was not so sure that this was the best idea for the moment. He said impulsively, ‘I have a better idea, cousin!’

As Pippin turned to him with a look of mild inquiry, he continued, ‘I think that you should plan to make that particular journey with Mayor Sam and Frodo-lad, at the least, and perhaps a few other of the older Gamgee children.’

‘O yes!’ Farry said. ‘I’m sure that Goldi would want to! We’ve talked about retracing the journeys of our fathers...!’ He stopped speaking suddenly, blushed, and dropped his gaze to his toes.

‘But organising such an endeavour would undoubtedly take some time,’ Pippin said. ‘And I must be off to Buckland next week, or early in the following week, to be there well before the middle of March.’

‘As you do, every year without fail,’ Ferdi affirmed. Since he'd learned the reason for Pippin's annual visit to Buckland, to support Merry through the memory of the battle that had nearly claimed the Brandybuck's life, nowadays he did all he could to smooth Pippin's path on these anniversaries. However, he felt the need to add, ‘And yet, with the King coming to the Northlands this year, you will only be ever busier as the time approaches to meet him at the Bridge.’

Distracted by this new topic, Pippin said, ‘Perhaps I can persuade you to accompany us to New Annuminas this time, Ferdibrand?’

As this was certainly not a conversational direction that Ferdi wanted to follow, he firmly turned the talk back to the topic at hand. ‘It would take some time and planning to properly retrace Frodo’s journey to Crickhollow!’ he said. ‘With so many hobbits (Mayor Sam and his children, you and your son, perhaps a few of the escort)...’ he ticked them off on his fingers, ‘...and you’ll be camping along the way, not staying in inns... and the nights are still very cold this time of year, for it is not even the first of March!’

‘What did you have in mind, Ferdi?’ Pippin said, one eyebrow raised.

‘If Farry would like to retrace some of the notable journeys in the history of the Tooks and the Shire, perhaps I could take him to the Woody End to start, in the same manner as I travelled when ruffians held the Shire and I was gathering information for Thain Paladin so that he could better plan the Tookish efforts at resistance.’ 

Seeing that Pippin was not completely persuaded, he added, ‘You had much better make your journey to Crickhollow in the autumn. That gives you plenty of time to plan it out with the Mayor, and better yet, you’ll be retracing Frodo’s steps, and yours and Mayor Sam’s as well, at about the same time of year when it actually happened. That will give the young hobbits a better idea, I think.’

‘Hmmm,’ Pippin said, rubbing at his chin in thought. ‘You have a point.’

Farry, recovered from his earlier fluster, jumped enthusiastically on this idea. ‘Perhaps we could even retrace Aunt Estella’s escape to the Tookland!’ he said, but then his face fell. ‘...though it wouldn’t be quite the right time of year. I think she said it was closer to May than March...’

‘But in May, you’ll be meeting with the King and Queen once more,’ Ferdi reminded the Thain, with a nod for the lad. ‘I do not think a few weeks’ time will make a great difference in this case. Autumn – when you and Frodo –’

‘And Sam,’ Pippin put in. 

‘And Sam,’ Ferdi agreed, ‘travelled to Crickhollow – is a completely different season! And although Estella’s travels were in late spring, it seems as if springtide is practically on our doorstep, come early this year. The daffodils are already blooming, for this past winter has been so mild.’ He nodded. ‘The nights are cold, true, but we can bundle well in cloaks...’

‘...as you seek shelter in the hollow of a log or crook of a tree,’ Regi said dryly.

Ferdi laughed heartily, shaking his head in remembrance. ‘There were certainly no inns in my story,’ he agreed. ‘Lotho had closed them all down long before Estella made her daring journey.’

To his satisfaction, the Thain nodded after a moment of thought. ‘It sounds like a good plan,’ he said. ‘I don’t know that I’ll be able to join you...’

‘It takes several days longer than the usual journey to reach Hally and Rosie’s, travelling on foot, as would be appropriate for the journey we are "recreating" – my pony threw a shoe, that trip – so, traveling on foot, avoiding the road and following game trails and hidden ways,’ Ferdi granted. ‘And if we are to relive the journey that I took with Estella Bolger – now Brandybuck – I must admit that coming back will take even longer.’

Pippin shook his head. ‘I cannot put off my visit to Buckland,’ he said.

‘Not a problem, Pip,’ Ferdi replied. He looked to Faramir. ‘I think that Farry and I can retrace this particular journey, along with an escort or two for company,’ though he saw Farry stir at the addition, as if he would protest this departure from historical accuracy. This was neither the time nor place to fight this particular battle, which, knowing the stubbornness of Pippin’s son (the lad was so like his father and his grandfather before him), might take all of his powers of persuasion to win. So Ferdi forged on, ‘I think we can manage such a thing without too many difficulties.’

*** 

Author’s note: Some text taken from “Three Is Company” and “A Knife in the Dark” in Fellowship of the Ring, and “The Siege of Gondor” and “The Black Gate Opens” in The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien.

***  

Chapter 14. Difficulties 

In the interest of historical accuracy, Ferdi and Farry set out from the Great Smials in the middle night on pony-back. They led their saddled ponies on foot out of the courtyard of the Smials, hoofs wrapped in cloth to minimize the noise of their leaving, only mounting after they reached the soft grassy verge. Instead of riding through the streets of Tuckborough, they skirted the town and headed into the surrounding hills to pick up a thin, wandering path through desolate sheep-country that trended generally eastward, even as Ferdi had in the time of the Troubles, for secrecy had been a key to his safety in those days. 

Of course, their departure was hardly secret! – Pippin had made sure that Hilly spread plenty of Talk throughout the Smials about Farry’s history lessons, and how the lad wished to see at first hand how the courageous efforts of the Tooks had kept their homeland free of ruffians. The Tooks in their pride found this attitude eminently sensible on the part of the son of the Thain. In addition, Ferdi had sent word to Hally and Rosemary Bolger to expect them in five days’ time. ‘Give her a chance to bake up some marvellous treats to welcome us to her doorstep,’ Ferdi had said with a grin. He considered his sister to be one of the finest bakers in the Shire.

Farry, having tasted her cooking, agreed.

They followed the wandering track up hill and down, splashing through small streams and skirting rock falls, talking together when their way allowed them to ride side by side along a grassy stretch. It helped to pass the time, and kept young Faramir awake as the stars wheeled in the sky above them. 

The Sun was throwing her promise into the eastern skies when their ponies reached a sheltered hollow near the top of a great hill. Ferdi slipped from his saddle and told Spatter to stand, and Farry did the same with his pony, Spatter’s half-sister. Since they were both Ferdi’s, and he’d trained them himself, their riders could be confident of finding them where they left them, without the need for hobbles or ties. ‘Come, Farry,’ the hunter said now, shouldering his quiver and bow. ‘Not far now.’

Though he was tired from the sleepless night, Faramir nodded and checked his own weapons. Though he was not much of an archer these days, he could hit a mark at close range. Thus, Ferdi had insisted that they go armed on this journey, and the Thain had agreed.

‘I still don’t understand why we’re armed now, when you weren’t then,’ Farry returned to an earlier argument as they trudged the rest of the way to the top of the hill, careful not to slip on the frosted grass. Away from the warmth of his pony, the icy air felt bracing, bringing him to sudden wakefulness and leaving him feeling as if he could keep on through the day without need for sleep.

‘Remember, Lotho had claimed all the deer for himself not long after the turning of the year, saying he was “protecting” them from the depredations of over-hunting, and so it was his view that only a renegade hobbit would carry a bow,’ Ferdi said. ‘Not to mention, his ruffians were gathering all the weapons they could lay their hands on at the time. Those Men, once they had felt the sting of Tookish arrows, believed that any hobbit with a bow was a Took or under Tookish influence. Thus, it was less dangerous to slip through the wilderlands unarmed than to arouse the suspicions of Lotho’s louts and be thrown into the Lockholes on sight.’

‘But now...’ Farry said.

‘But now, young hobbit,’ Ferdi answered, ‘we are travelling through wild country...’

‘It was just as wild back then,’ Farry countered.

‘Ah, but I was not travelling with the son of the Thain back then,’ Ferdi said. ‘Had Pippin not already slipped away to follow Frodo, I doubt his father would have let him anywhere near the borderlands, where ruffians might seize him and Lotho might use him to turn Paladin to his will.’ He levelled a serious gaze at Faramir. ‘But I am travelling with the son of the Thain now, and I am pledged to keep you safe, young master.’

‘You haven’t called me that in years,’ Farry said.

Ferdi snorted. ‘Perhaps there’s a reason for that,’ he said, then changed the subject. ‘Be that as it may,’ and he stopped and waved a hand to encompass the view, ‘behold – the Eastern borderlands of the Tookland. Or, as we liked to call it then, “No Man’s Land”.’ He chuckled. ‘You cannot see the traps now, of course, but you could not see them then, either. They were well hidden, though old Brockbank told me that sometimes they might notice movement in a copse and, looking closer, see one of Lotho’s Big Men dangling by one foot from a tree, wildly waving and likely shouting for help. His eyes were far-seeing, that hobbit’s were.’

Farry caught his breath at the sight of lower hills rolling away before him, dotted with copses that rose above the icy mists in ever-growing numbers until they merged together into the unbroken forested mass of the Woody End. He thought he could imagine the sparkle of the distant Brandywine on the horizon, though he knew that in reality the river was much too far away to be seen even from this high vantage. 

As they watched, the Sun rose above the horizon, at first red and rosy but soon dazzling to the eyes. Ferdi pointed to a spot where smoke was serenely rising on one side of a nearby hill. ‘That’s the farm where I’ve arranged to leave our ponies until we return to claim them.’ He turned his head to note Farry’s nod and continued, ‘As we talked about, my pony threw a shoe, that trip where I ended up bringing Estella with me as I returned to the Tookland, and so I left her here with old Brockbank and his assistants and went forth on foot.’ He paused. ‘O’ course, we won’t be leaving the ponies here, with no one to watch over them.’ One side of his mouth lifted in a grin as he added, ‘If you prefer, we can go down to the farm a-foot, leading the ponies.’

‘No need for that,’ Faramir said. He was not so committed to accuracy as to insist on walking when he could ride. He’d be doing a lot of walking over the next fortnight as it was, more than ten leagues each way. Perhaps double that distance, or even more than that, considering they’d be winding about, avoiding encounters with anyone, just as Ferdi had done in the past. He had not only worked to avoid Lotho’s Big Men but had also avoided contact with hobbits so that no one might mention their seeing him to a ruffian, either on accident or a-purpose, and set Men on the hunt for him. 

‘So,’ Ferdi said. ‘Not much more to see here.’ Still, he turned and began to walk down the eastern slope, and Farry followed. They came to a small opening in the hillside that was guarded by a large rock. ‘It is well-hidden, even today,’ Ferdi said, ‘though not quite so cosy inside as it was back then.’ They pushed their way past some brush that was growing up around the entrance, pulled a battered door open wide to let in light and air, and stopped to look into the gloom beyond. Ferdi’s voice echoed as he added, ‘The Watchers had to be able to easily see the Eastern borderland without being seen themselves. Aldebrand considered digging their shelter on the western side, but then the ruffians might have spotted movement over the hillside as they took turns taking up the Watch. So when the Chief Engineer found this great rock in his survey of the hill, he hollowed out a cavern behind it, to give them cover.’

The door creaked on its hinges as Ferdi swung it to and fro. ‘Of course the hinges were well-oiled in those days,’ he said. ‘Silent as a swooping owl.’ He turned Farry back away from the doorway and gestured at the concealing boulder. ‘D’you see how the rock would have blocked any sight of the door opening? Even so,’ he said, ‘it was only open during the daylight, that no lamplight might betray the Watchers’ presence, and they kept warm with cloaks and blankets and ate cold food brought in by night.’

Farry shivered, and his uncle gave him a sympathetic grin. ‘Aldi put in a hearth – he was always thorough in his work, that one, may his dreams ever be peaceful ones – but I don’t think they ever used it. The smoke might have given away their location to Lotho’s louts, and knowing those Men, they would have been determined to hunt down the Watchers and wreak their revenge.’

Farry shivered. ‘That’s why you called this place “the post of greatest danger”, when we were talking in the study,’ he said.

‘Aye, lad,’ Ferdi answered. ‘Only the bravest and steadiest Tooks held the Watchers’ posts – they had to deal with endless boredom as they exercised unblinking vigilance. And they’d be the first to fall in any large-scale attack, or if the ruffians were able to discern their hiding place.’ He employed an old Tookish phrase of welcome now as he propped the rickety door open and beckoned to the lad. ‘Come ben.’

Farry thought he could distinguish some shapes in the deepening darkness. These sprang into solid reality as the hunter sparked a torch to life: a rustic table and chairs, broken bed frames lining one wall, a small hearth. The walls and floor were rough-hewn dirt and stone. ‘This was old Brockbank’s post, along with his assistants,’ Ferdi said, moving the torch to illuminate the small room. ‘He’d worked as a shepherd, watching your grandfather’s sheep, but as he’d grown too old to wander in the time of the Troubles, he volunteered to take this dangerous position.’

‘It seems cosy enough,’ Farry said dubiously.

‘I slept away the daylight hours here, the times I slipped across the borders into the Outer Shire,’ Ferdi said, ‘and set out again after the Sun sought her bed, that our movement down the hillside, my pony’s and mine, would not be seen by any lingering ruffians.’ He laughed at the face Farry made, seeing the dusty ruin left by years of neglect. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘We’ll take a few hours’ sleep at the farm where we leave off the ponies, and then we’ll continue. We can walk by night if you wish,’ and he aimed a calculating glance at Faramir, ‘or we can walk at least some of the time, or even all of it, by daylight so that you can see the countryside.’

‘While I would like to walk by night,’ Faramir said slowly, ‘as that is what you did...’ His brow furrowed as he considered. ‘I suppose we could do the journey a second time by daylight, so that I can see the countryside...?’

He could swear Ferdi sighed, though the hobbit turned a blank, polite face to him as he said in an even tone, ‘Whatever you wish, young master.’

‘Ha,’ Farry said, though he didn’t explain. He thought he’d worked out why the Thain’s archers used the honorific with him sometimes, and Ferdi had just confirmed his private theory. Instead, he said, ‘We don’t have to make the journey twice, I think. It will be enough to travel part of the distance by night, and the rest by day, and have the best of all worlds.’

He looked around the room again. ‘You slept here?’ he said. ‘And Shepherd Brockbank and his assistants lived here?’ The dismay in his tone communicated his opinion of this “smial” that was little more than a hole in the hillside.

Ferdi laughed, but it had a grim sound. ‘As I mentioned, he was a Watcher,’ he said. ‘He and a few others took turns watching for signs of ruffians to the East. If they saw movement below, they’d send a messenger to the archers to let them know that Men were testing the defences again.’

‘Didn’t the traps and archers keep them out?’

‘He was also watching for a mass of many Men marching together, Farry,’ Ferdi said more quietly. ‘Lotho fumed and fretted about the Tookish resistance, and his Big Men boasted that they were going to march upon the Tookland in overwhelming numbers and make an example of the Thain and his family.’ He nodded, his eyes sober. ‘We took that kind of talk seriously, and even more so after word came to us that a new Boss had arrived, named Sharkey, and things were growing ever-worse in the Shire proper.’

‘And did they...?’ Farry asked.

Ferdi shook his head. ‘Thankfully, the Travellers returned and stirred the Shire-folk to action,’ he said. ‘But I’ve no doubt it was coming, Farry. I heard some of the ruffians’ plans myself, from their own mouths, and their boasts had the ring of Truth to them.’ His eyes were haunted with shadows from the past. ‘Your father, and your Uncle Merry, and Mayor Sam with them, saved many lives of Tooks and Tooklanders, coming when they did.’ His gaze bored into the younger hobbit. ‘The lives of all your family among them.’ He took a shuddering breath. ‘To make an example of Pippin’s father, mother and sisters,’ he repeated. ‘Farry, you’ve seen something of the evils of Men.’

‘I have,’ Faramir said. But he was bothered that his uncle had seemed to leave out one name from his narration. ‘And Frodo...’

Ferdi shook his head. ‘I don’t see that Frodo saved all that many lives,’ he said, ‘except, of course, for the lives of the ruffians that threw down their weapons at Bywater.’ He held up a staying hand when Farry would have answered him indignantly. ‘I’m not talking about what he did in the Southlands, Farry,’ he said. ‘That was a wonder, and a marvel, and though it is difficult to grasp even now, after hearing Pippin’s stories, I know that Frodo saved all the free peoples at great cost to himself – Hobbits and Dwarves, Men and Elves alike.’

He took a deep breath and shrugged tension from his shoulders before continuing, ‘But when he returned, I think, from what your father has said, that he was too weary and sick at heart and had seen too much death and pain in his travels. He told your father and the others that he wanted no more killing.’ Ferdi sighed. ‘And in the end, he saved the Tookish archers from the shame of shooting down unarmed opponents. He knew, somehow, the terrible harm that it would do to our very souls... and he saved us from that...’ (he was speaking of his fellow archers, such as Reni and Tolly and Hilly, for he himself had been struck down and left for dead earlier in the battle) ‘...and so that is what we choose to remember him for.’

With an air of finality that told Faramir the discussion was at an end, Ferdi turned back towards the entrance. ‘Come along.’ Farry took a last look around before the torch was extinguished, thinking of the brave hobbits who had guarded this approach to Tookish lands.

‘One more thing to see here, I think,’ Ferdi said as they walked back up to the top of the hill, to reclaim their waiting ponies on the other side of the crest. He stopped and gestured at a jumbled outcropping of rocks on the western downslope immediately below the crown of the hill. ‘Here is where the bonfire was laid,’ he said.

‘Bonfire?’ Farry said, seeing nothing out of the ordinary.

Ferdi laughed. ‘O aye, young hobbit,’ he said. ‘Biggest bonfire you ever saw! The wood was piled higher than a hobbit’s head, it was, soaked in oil and ready to light at a moment’s notice. If a Watcher saw an army of Men approaching, he was to pour more oil over it and throw on a torch. There,’ he said, pointing to a distant hilltop, ‘and there, and there... more hobbits waited to light their beacons, to spread the news into the heart of the Tookland and to the bounds, to Muster for the fight of our lives.’ He smiled. ‘Your da told me of seeing the beacons of Gondor,’ he said, ‘calling neighbouring lands to her defence. But our beacons were only for the Tooks,’ he added. ‘We knew all too well that there were no others to come to our aid.’

***  

(Next update: Friday)   

Chapter 15. Aid

‘It’s not a five-day trip from the Great Smials to the Bolgers’,’ Farry said as they rode a zigzagging path down the slope, remembering what Ferdi had said about his sister expecting them.

‘Ah, but we’ll be dodging imaginary ruffians, much as I was doing my best to avoid the real ones back in the day,’ Ferdi reminded. ‘I’m sure you’ll find it quite diverting. Ruffians will slow you down, whether they’re real or imaginary.’ He chuckled and added, ‘And the return journey with an imaginary Estella will slow us down even more, you’ll find. Though not as much as I’d anticipated she would.’ The track narrowed, and he nudged Spatter ahead.

The conversation had helped to keep the lad awake; now Farry found his head nodding, jerking him awake in the saddle several times that he was aware of. As it was, he didn’t remember coming to the smial, nor his uncle lifting him from the saddle, carrying him inside and laying him down. He awakened slowly, to find himself on a soft bed, warmly covered, bright daylight shining outside the round window and promising smells in the air.

Hearing laughter and talk, he threw back the covers and emerged into the main room, where the long table was set for the farmer, his family and helpers. A hearty rabbit stew was bubbling away on the hearth and an army of loaves fresh from the oven steamed in their ranks on snowy cloths laid out along a long, well-scrubbed sideboard.

‘Ah, Master Faramir,’ Ferdi said, turning and addressing him formally. ‘If I may present Missus Warren...?’

Farry bowed and said, ‘At your service, and your family’s.’

The farmer’s wife made a deep courtesy to the lad. ‘We’re proud to be of any service to the Thain,’ she said with an air of formality that matched Ferdibrand's, hinting at much practice as she carefully enunciated each word, though a wild-country lilt peeked through as she spoke, ‘and of course, his son.’

‘Speaking of service,’ Ferdi said, putting out a hand to raise their hostess upright once more from her prolonged obeisance. He dropped his voice. ‘We’re keeping it rather quiet, if you please, mistress, that the son of the Thain is to be out and about in the wilderlands...’ She was more of a missus than a mistress, but she didn’t seem to mind Ferdi’s elevating her in rank in his form of address. Besides, her cookery smelled fit to serve to the King.

Eyes wide, she gasped, ‘O! O’ course!’

‘So if you please,’ Ferdi repeated, ‘we’ll just take our nooning now and not wait for the rest to come in from the fields. The fewer the better, as it were,’ he added, tapping the side of his nose with a cautionary finger.

‘Certainly!’ their hostess said with a solemn nod, and then she smiled and extended her hand in invitation to Farry. ‘Come, lad, sit yersel’ doon a-bench there, and we’ll soon hae yer bowl a-brimmin’!’

Ferdi encouraged the teen to “eat hearty”, and Missus Warren was happy to support his efforts. Farry lost track of how many times she topped up his bowl and added another hunk of fresh-baked bread to his plate. ‘Ah know how tweens eat, ah do,’ she said, and even though Farry was only a teen, he was glad for the bounty. They’d be eating dried food out of their packs for the next four and a half days, along with what little they could forage at this time of year (which was not all that much, from his understanding), and walking for hours, generating an appetite for much more than any hobbit could carry on his back.

Shouldering their packs, they walked out of the smial as the Sun reached her zenith, showering profuse thanks upon their hostess, who stood in the doorway to watch them go, beaming and waving enthusiastic farewells with a snowy pocket handkerchief. 

‘That was a meal and a half,’ Ferdi said in satisfaction, once they’d finished receiving her farewells, proffered a final bow of thanks and turned to take up their eastward journey once more. ‘Good Farmer Warren and his helpers will have a feast to look forward to, an hour or so from now.’ He glanced sideways at Faramir. ‘You showed a great deal of your da’s usual cunning, getting up just in time for a meal.’

‘He learnt it from Frodo Baggins,’ Farry said, and laughed. Under the gentle early-Spring Sun, which had burned away the night frost and morning mist, the land stretched out before them, fresh and green. The world seemed a fair place, and full of promise.

As if discerning the lad’s mood, Ferdi raised his arm to point ahead. ‘Now imagine the land covered in darkness and silence, except perhaps the hooting of an owl or rustling in the shadows,’ he said. ‘If the moon is bright, we’d have to take care to slip from shadow to shadow. And if not, we’d have to take care not to stumble over a stick or rock or rough ground in the darkness and turn an ankle or break our necks. Occasionally a border guard might touch your elbow, startling you out of your skin as he seems to appear out of thin air, because he's seen you from his hiding place, and he knows you need him to guide you around the traps. And all the while, watching and listening for ruffians on the prowl...’

Farry shivered, and his uncle nodded in satisfaction. ‘Now you’re seeing it properly in your mind’s eye, as it would have been then in the deep of the night,’ Ferdi said. ‘But it’ll be more real to you when darkness falls.’

‘A border guard?’ Farry asked in a subdued tone.

‘Aye,’ Ferdi said. ‘Were you not paying attention? They were out here in the borderlands, in hiding, watching for ruffians. When they saw them, they fired a warning shot, but if the ruffians were foolish, they might offer chase, and then it was the borderers’ task to lead them into the traps.’

‘Like Hilly,’ Farry murmured.

‘Exactly,’ came the quiet answer.     

They trudged along for hours, it seemed (and in truth, it really was hours), uphill and down and around the edges of some of the great hills, along faint tracks that Ferdi told Farry were game trails, or splashing along shallow streams (“good way to conceal your tracks”), over grassy expanses and through cool, shadowy woods that seemed to grow deeper as they trended eastward towards the Woody End, even as the Sun followed her course down from her high place towards the western horizon behind them. 

At first, they saw signs of civilisation, ploughed fields where the land allowed, dogs working a flock of sheep on a hillside, smoke rising from isolated farmhouses, and heard the ring of an axe, chopping. These grew fewer as the country grew wilder, less inhabited, the hills reared less high and the woods at last came together to the point where instead of copses of trees dotting a grassy landscape, the travellers were surrounded by trees with the occasional interruption of a clearing or streambed. The icy water in the streams made Farry shiver, but he didn’t complain. The constant motion helped him keep warm. Besides, he had no intention of giving Ferdi a reason to cut their journey short.

When the Sun was halfway down the sky, they took a brief rest in the shelter of a pine grove. ‘This would have been a good place to hide away a winter’s day,’ Ferdi said. ‘Another hour or two of walking eastward from this point, and we’ll be out of the borderlands and into the Woody End of the Shire proper.’ He indicated a large depression in the needle-covered loam. ‘The deer seek shelter here on bitter days, d’you see, Farry?’

The lad nodded. ‘And the trees are climbable,’ Ferdi added. ‘We won’t climb up for this short rest,’ he said, then studied Farry more closely. ‘Unless you’re tired, that is. We can stretch out the journey, stop at the Cockerel for more supplies...’

‘No,’ Farry said stubbornly, though his feet felt as if he’d been walking for days instead of hours. ‘That wouldn’t be right. The Cockerel wasn’t even there during the Troubles! ...seeing that the ruffians had burned it down when Lotho closed the inns.’ Then, with a sidelong glance at his uncle, he teased, ‘Unless your ancient bones are starting to ache, old gaffer, and you’re longing to quaff the best beer on the Stock Road.’

Ferdi chuckled and shook his head. ‘I’d hazard a guess that you’re not done yet,’ he said.

‘You’d guess right, then,’ Farry said. He stuffed the last of his share of the bread-and-cheese that the farmer’s wife had pressed on them into his mouth and rose, dusting his hands. ‘The day’s not getting any younger.’ Ferdi cleared his throat, and he amended, ‘The night, I mean, that we are pretending.’ A little afraid of the answer, he asked, ‘Will we be walking all the night through, then, until tomorrow’s dawning?’

‘Nay,’ Ferdi said. ‘We’ll reach our first resting spot not long after middle night.’ It would mark the end of the first of five steady days of travel.

Farry breathed a private sigh of relief. ‘And even sooner, if you’ll stir your old bones,’ he said.

Ferdi laughed and rose to his feet. ‘As you wish, young hobbit.’ He stretched, picked up his pack by the loop fastened between the straps, and shrugged it onto his shoulders. ‘We’ve been working our way more or less on an eastward line to this point,’ he said, ‘following the course of my travels to gather information for the Thain.’

‘More or less,’ Farry said, thinking of their rather wandering course, if the angle of the Sun had been any indication of direction. 

His uncle grinned. ‘O aye, young hobbit, and rather more than less, to this point, as I said.’

‘And now?’ the teen asked.

‘And now, we’ll turn aside from our trail for a bit,’ Ferdi said. ‘You wanted to see one of Lotho’s wells, after all, and the nearest one to our path is about an hour’s walk to the south from here. We’ll walk there and back again to this grove of pine, and then we’ll continue our eastward journey into the night so that you may have a taste of night-walking.’

Faramir knew the reason for this course of action. Tolly had also ventured into the Woody End to gather information in the Troubles, though his informants had not lived quite so far to the East as Ferdi’s, and so he knew and had used some of the same game trails Ferdi had followed in those days. That had been important, for some reason, to Farry’s da and the head of escort when they’d discussed how to proceed with this rather unusual history lesson.

But “Lotho’s Well” was out of the way of their familiar paths. It had seemed more prudent in planning this journey, or so the grown-ups had maintained, to stay within the general area of a well-known course. Accordingly, Ferdi had sketched a map of their planned travels, there in the Thain’s study, under the eyes of Tolibold and his hobbits of the escort, along with the chief hunter Renilard as well as Thain and Steward, including this side-trail to the South. In the case of unforeseen events, searchers would know how to trace their steps, even though Ferdi had been teaching Farry how to leave no trail that a tracker might follow. 

‘Night-walking?’ the lad said now. ‘Different from sleep-walking, I hope.’

Ferdi laughed at that and started to answer in the same vein. But then the wind, blowing from the east, brought a faint sound of distant baying to them, and his face changed. ‘Dogs,’ he said under his breath.

‘Perhaps it’s hunters,’ Farry said, trying to reassure himself as well as his uncle. Wild dogs could be a menace, as he knew from personal experience, as did his Uncle Ferdi. He wondered if they might run into – or have to avoid, as it were, considering they were trying to eschew all contact with hobbits due to the nature of this particular journey – one of the local Shirriffs responsible for this Farthing of the Shire. One of the duties of the Shirriffs who worked under Mayor Sam was to track down wandering beasts, call together a muster of local hobbits if necessary, and capture those that were harmless or kill the dangerous ones. Dogs who looked to no hobbit as master, running wild in a pack, belonged to the latter category as they were capable of reverting to their wolfish ancestry, attacking deer and livestock... and Shire-folk.

Ferdi shook his head. ‘Wrong time of year for that,’ he said. ‘No, Farry, this changes the nature of our journey...’ He shook his head again and laughed, though now there was no humour in the sound. ‘Actually, it makes it more true to the life, in one sense,’ he said. ‘Weaponless and alone, I had to be ever ready to climb a tree for safety, to get away from predators on four legs as well as two.’

He eyed his nephew. ‘So, I think,’ he said. ‘We’ll dispense with travelling by night, and we’ll sleep in a tree during the dark hours.’

‘Good thing we brought our ropes, then,’ Farry said with a mixture of disappointment and relief.

‘Ah,’ Ferdi responded with a chuckle that sounded a little more genuine. ‘I could hardly not bring ropes along on a journey! You know what our Mayor Sam says about rope!’

*** 

Chapter 16. Rope

They were perhaps halfway to the ruffians’ well, as far as Farry could reckon, surrounded by ancient oaks with a scattering of beeches and hazel, when Ferdi lifted a hand to point. ‘Look there,’ he said. ‘Scarlet elf cups! A few of those will add some flavour to our travel rations...’

Farry followed the line of the pointing finger to the base of a decaying stump. ‘Elf cups...’ he said dubiously.

‘Perhaps not gathered for the Thain’s table,’ Ferdi said, ‘but I’ve found them to be toothsome either cooked or raw. They’re not much to look at – a bit chewy, you might even say, and the cooks at the Smials would likely turn up their noses at such, but they’re one of my favourites, actually...’

‘Well then,’ Farry said, his love of mushrooms overcoming the soreness of his feet, ‘I’ll race you for them!’

Laughing, he dashed for the prize, hearing the chuckles of his uncle not far behind. Being younger and lighter, he managed to stay ahead, even as laughter combined with sprinting threatened to rob him of breath. Somehow, he was reminded of Hilly’s stories of leading pursuing ruffians into Tookish traps.

It was all a lark, keeping the ruffians out of the Tookland. A lark, and yet deadly serious business – for we'd be dead if they could catch us. A game it was, trap the ruffians and dance away, laughing, like one of the faerie folk of legend. "Catch me if you can!"

The surface under his feet was soft with leaf-loam and leaves fallen from the bare crowns overhead, a sprinkling of moss here and there. He heard twigs crackling underfoot as he ran, and his uncle laughing behind him, punctuated by the repetition of his name. Farry!

Ha. He’d give the old hobbit a run for his mushrooms, he would!

He ran across a spot that was surprisingly spongy – perhaps an extra-thick layer of moss, he thought, if he gave it any thought at all – and shouted triumphantly as he fetched up against the rotting stump where the bright little mushrooms shone, then bent, breathing hard, but gleeful. He thought he heard Ferdi shout in the same moment, probably in mock disappointment at losing, putting on a show, perhaps, to make Farry’s victory all the sweeter, but as he turned to taunt his uncle... he was confronted with a curious sight.

Ferdi’s arms were splayed out to his sides on the ground, as if he’d tripped and fallen, but his legs – indeed, the entire lower half of his body – had disappeared as if the ground were in the process of swallowing him whole. Farry could see only his uncle’s head and shoulders above the leafy mulch that carpeted the forest floor. ‘Ferdi!’ he cried, starting forward, but at his uncle’s shout of urgent warning, he halted.

‘Stay back!’

‘What is it, Uncle? What’s happening?’ he cried, backing up again and freezing, one hand anchoring him to the stump as if whatever had hold of Ferdibrand might reach out to him next.

He listened to his own gasping breaths mix with Ferdi’s as he stared in horror, even as a distant nightmare stirred in his mind – not nightmare, but memory: Hilly, slowly being swallowed by a bog, inexorably drawn down despite all his efforts to win free. 

Hide his eyes, the escort had whispered to Diamond, cradling small Faramir in her lap, for he’d been little more than a faunt at the time, only a few steps – and the scope of a lifetime as it approached its ending – away where solid ground gave way to a treacherous devouring monster of voracious mud and icy waters. And Diamond had turned Farry’s face against her shoulder, had covered him with her cloak, so that he could not see the escort’s terrible end, the waters closing over Hilly’s head at last. But he had been able to imagine what was happening, all too clearly, in his mind’s eye... and in his dreams for years afterwards.

He shook his head to shake the memory away. Hilly had not died, for rescuers had arrived on the scene just in time, even as the escort was drowning, succumbing at last to the icy chill and treacherous muddy water. While there’s breath, there’s life, sounded in the back of his mind.

When he let go his hold on the stump, part of the crumbling wood came away in his hand, betraying how tightly he’d gripped. He took a deep, steadying breath. ‘Is it a bog?’ he said, marvelling at the sound of his own voice, controlled, calm in the face of potentially deadly peril. ‘Can you swim out of it?’

His uncle was motionless now, not struggling. But of course, Farry thought to himself. If you struggle, the bog will pull you down faster! You have to lie flat... slowly swim your way to solid ground...

Sudden inspiration came to him. ...and a rope could help. ‘Hold fast,’ he said, pulling his pack from his shoulders. His rope, meant to safely anchor him to a tree so that he could sleep in such a refuge without fear of falling, would be at the top...

‘I am holding fast,’ Ferdi answered, sounding dazed, his head bent as if he were closely scrutinizing the ground that threatened to gulp him down. ‘I have no intention of doing otherwise.’

‘I’ll throw you my rope,’ Farry said, pulling the coil from his pack. ‘I can pull against the bog as you swim out.’ He took hold of one end and tossed the rest towards his uncle in a practised motion. But Ferdi didn’t move. ‘What is it?’ Farry called. ‘Are you injured?’

‘I’m not so sure this is a bog,’ Ferdi said.

‘Not a bog?’ Farry said, keeping a tight hold on his end of the rope.

‘I’ve never seen or felt the like,’ came his uncle’s reply. ‘It’s almost as if... there’s nothing beneath me.’

‘Nothing...’ Farry echoed.

‘Even in a bog, you’ve got the mud surrounding you and sucking at you,’ Ferdi said. ‘And how is it you were able to skim across the surface like a water-bird? You’ve no wings to speak of.’ Farry saw him move one hand, and a crackling arose as of twigs snapping, and his uncle froze again. ‘When I kicked my feet just now, it was if they were hanging mid-air...’

‘Nothing... hanging...’ Farry whispered as a terrible realisation began to dawn. ‘Uncle, could it be...?’

‘I’m open to suggestions,’ Ferdi said. Farry could see his knuckles whitening on the leaves and soil he was gripping.

‘Could it be one of the pits from the Troubles? Somehow the engineers missed one, when they were filling them in again?’ As Ferdi lifted a blank face to stare at him, he added, ‘A ruffian trap?’

‘I took your meaning the first time,’ Ferdi said irritably. ‘Those blasted engineers – they were supposed to mark every pit they dug on a map, so that they could find them again one day, in the unlikely possibility we might be able to hold our own against the ruffians, at least until the rest of the Shire-folk awakened and helped us to drive them out again.’ He shook his head slightly. ‘Though at the time it seemed as likely as the King coming back.’ 

There was another crackling sound, of branches being pushed to their limits and threatening to snap, and Ferdi froze again. Farry thought he could see his uncle’s chest heaving with the realisation of his peril, but even as he watched helplessly, Ferdi took himself firmly in hand, forcing slow, deep breaths and raising his head to stare directly into Farry’s eyes.

‘I don’t feel anything,’ the older hobbit said. ‘Not mud, not water...’ He gulped another breath and continued. ‘I think, Farry, that there is only air below me. Which would lend credence to your thought that this is one of the old traps.’

‘Then why did you fall through?’ Farry said. ‘I thought they were built to take the weight of a hobbit but not a ruffian when you were playing Follow the Leader?’ 

‘It certainly worked as designed just now,’ Ferdi said. ‘You ran right over it, and following you, I fell in.’

Stricken, Farry said, ‘I didn’t mean to...!’

‘Of course you didn’t, lad,’ Ferdi said, his voice suddenly more gentle. ‘No matter what happens here, it is not your fault.’ His mouth twisted. ‘Blame the engineers, if you must.’

‘But you’re no ruffian!’ Farry protested.

‘I thank you for that, nephew,’ Ferdi said, with a nod of his head that resembled the bow he was unable to make in his present predicament. ‘The years have deteriorated the wood in the cap, it seems.’

‘I thought the Tooks were careful to maintain the traps.’

‘They were! Until we took them all down.’ Ferdi was talking about all the Tooks here in a general sense; he’d been in a bed, gravely injured in the Battle of Bywater, at the time all the traps came down. If anyone had asked him, he’d have said to leave the traps up until they knew for certain that every last remaining Man had been expelled from the Shire.

‘They seem to have missed this one,’ Farry said. He shifted the end of the rope to one hand, picked up a long stick with the other and crouched down, probing the ground in front of him to determine where the solid ground gave way, moving forward by inches.

‘So it appears,’ Ferdi agreed. And then he said something so completely unexpected that Farry stopped and straightened to regard his uncle in amazement and dismay. ‘You have to go for help, lad.’

‘I’m not leaving you!’ came Farry’s quick, unthinking response.

‘No,’ Ferdi said, ‘but you must. Don’t you see, lad...?’ he said, and shook his head. ‘No, but you’re just a child. That’s it,’ he added, his gaze growing more intense. ‘Your rope is too short to anchor to a tree; I might grasp it and try to pull myself to safety, and even if the rest of the cap were to give way, if the rope were anchored to something solid, I could catch myself from falling.’ He took a shaky breath. ‘But that’s not the case here.’

‘I don’t take your point,’ Farry said. Why, his uncle hadn’t even reached for the end of the rope that was lying near him.

‘Farry, I weigh thrice what you do, at the very least,’ Ferdi said, ‘for all that you’re taller and stronger than others your age.’ He bent his head, then looked up again. ‘You must go and find help.’

‘Where?’ Farry challenged. 

As if afraid to move his arm to point, Ferdi nodded with his head. ‘North,’ he said. ‘Straight north – keep the Sun at your left shoulder, and keep moving until you strike the Stock Road. From there, turn eastward – it’ll take you to the Cockerel. You’ll find help there.’

‘And how am I to find my way back here again?’ Farry challenged. ‘I’m no hunter or tracker.’

‘You could use your knife to mark a tree where you come out on the Road,’ Ferdi said. ‘I know we’ve not yet taught you trailing or tracking, but surely you’ve noticed blazes on trees before? I think you even asked me about them, upon a time, though it was cloaked in so many other questions of yours, I might be mistaken.’

Farry shook his head. ‘I cannot,’ he said. ‘You said yourself, the wilderlands are no place for a teen to wander alone. And you expect me to leave you trapped here, unable to move? With wild dogs on the hunt?’

Ferdi regarded him bleakly as he went on. ‘Keep the Sun at my left shoulder? She is seeking her bed soon enough...’ And in truth, the wood was darkening around them, and the shafts of sunlight coming through the bare crowns of the trees were now sharply angled.

‘And...’ he began, but Ferdi interrupted.

‘You’ve made your point, lad,’ he said. ‘Your da should never have let Fortinbrand teach you to marshal your arguments.’

Farry smiled, though it wasn’t funny.

‘So what is your plan?’ Ferdi asked. ‘I’m fresh out of ideas.’ He looked around them. ‘At least there’s a good climbing tree nearby,’ he said. ‘Point taken about the dogs... should we hear them approaching, I want you up that tree faster than I can say “Jack, son of Robin”.’

‘So...’ Farry said, thinking his way even as he spoke. ‘So we use our two ropes together. Tie them together, and then they should be long enough to anchor to the nearest tree, I hope anyhow...’ He nodded as the plan became clearer in his mind. ‘Take my rope,’ he said. ‘Tie it to your pack, and shrug it loose, and I’ll pull it across the surface. Can you move that much without falling through?’

‘It seems I had better make the attempt, at least,’ Ferdi answered. ‘It seems like as good a plan as any I might think of. Better, perhaps, considering all the arrows you were able to shoot through my scheme to get you to safety.’

Farry stared at this frank talk coming from his uncle, and then he nodded. ‘Very well,’ he said.

‘Lay down your end of the rope for now,’ Ferdi said. ‘Should I fall while I’m trying to get this pack off, I don’t want to take you with me.’

Farry complied. Reluctantly, it must be said. He hated the helpless feeling of watching his uncle move by fractions of an inch, as slow as the progress of a garden slug, or perhaps slower. Every movement was accompanied by the ominous crackling of the woven willow lattice that supported his weight. So far, anyhow.

At last, Ferdi’s pack was off and lying beside him, and Ferdi took up his end of Farry’s rope and tied it to one of the straps. ‘Here you are, lad. Haul away.’

Farry picked up his end of the rope and slowly, hand over hand, pulled the pack towards himself. He sighed as it reached him, heard his uncle sigh in the same breath. ‘So far, so good,’ he said under his breath, and he undid Ferdi’s knot from the shoulder strap of the pack. 

He opened the pack, found a coil of rope at the top as he’d expected, and laying the pack aside, he tied the ends of the two ropes together, using one of the hunter’s knots that Reni had showed him. He hoped it would be enough. ‘Ready? Here it comes again.’ 

‘I will endeavour to be ready,’ Ferdi said, raising one arm slightly as if in pledge.

Firmly holding one end of the rope, Farry tossed the rest to his uncle. Then he stood to his feet and moved towards the nearest tree. To his dismay, the doubled rope still came up short. He could wind it around the trunk of the tree, but he didn’t have enough rope to make it fast.

He turned back to Ferdi. From the look on his uncle’s face, he knew he didn’t have to say anything about this kink in their plan. ‘Take hold of your end,’ he said. ‘We’ll try to pull you out.’

‘I think I can crawl across the top of the lattice, just as Hilly crawled out of the bog.’ Though he certainly looked unhappy about this course of action, Ferdi took hold of the rope and made as if to pull himself along its length.

‘But he didn’t,’ Farry said in surprise, tightening his hold as the rope grew taut. ‘Jack and Will had to rescue him. He was too far gone from the cold...’

‘Not that time,’ Ferdi said in irritation. ‘I’m talking about the other time...’ His voice trailed off as the willow branches under him creaked alarmingly in response to his movements. 

When he spoke again, his voice was more subdued. ‘Farry,’ he said.

‘I’m here,’ Faramir replied, trying to maintain his light tone. But his uncle did not answer in a similar vein, something along the lines of, I’d like to know where else you think you’d be. 

Rather, Ferdi’s tone was low, and deadly serious. ‘If I feel it start to go,’ he said, and he raised his head to stare into Farry’s eyes, ‘I’ll let go, but the rope might tangle in the branches and take you down with me. You have to let go the rope.’ Seeing Farry’s headshake, he took a breath. ‘You cannot hold my weight, lad, you’re nought but a child. You have to let go if I start to fall.’ 

‘Never!’ the teen responded in startlement. ‘What are you – ?’

‘Farry,’ the intensity in his uncle’s voice cut through his protest. ‘This pit is deeper than four grown hobbits laid head-to-foot. Tall ones, like the hobbits of the Thain’s escort. It might be dug even deeper than that – we wanted to make sure the ruffians would have difficulty getting out. A broken ankle or two was icing on the cake.’

Ferdi took a few shallow breaths as if afraid a deeper breath would send him plummeting. ‘If you were pulled head-first into a fall...’

‘I don’t know,’ Farry said stubbornly. ‘My da has told me often enough that my head is the hardest part of me.’

To his relief, the irritation was back in his uncle’s voice as Ferdi said, ‘Then use that head of yours, and let go the rope if the lattice gives way!’ Ferdi’s eyes bored into him. ‘Or I’ll not use the rope at all.’

‘That would be foolish of you,’ Farry returned evenly. ‘The rope, with my pull on it, will take some of your weight off the branches.’

Ferdi bent his head to his extended arms, muffling his next words. ‘You sound more like a Thain than a teen.’ 

‘Thank you,’ Farry said. ‘I think.’ Though it made his guts twist inside him, he added, ‘I will do my best to let go the rope if you begin to fall.’ It was the best he could do; he knew all too well that Ferdi would be able to hear a lie in his voice if he prevaricated. ‘It’s instinctive, you know, to hold tighter in such cases.’

Ferdi opened his mouth as if to argue, then changed the subject. ‘Look at the bright side,’ he said. ‘Perhaps this is not a dry well; I may fall into water instead.’

‘Very promising,’ Farry agreed, and seeing his uncle lift his head, he renewed his grip on the rope and stiffened as he felt more of Ferdi’s weight hit the line. The water can break your fall and then chill you and drown you, instead. But rather than voicing his thoughts, he said, ‘Do you know if this is a dry well or not?’

‘I am not looking forward to finding out, either way,’ Ferdi answered.

But as the older hobbit began to inch his way across the crackling willow lattice with its covering of loam and decaying leaves, a surface that seemed ominously to give under his weight as he struggled to pull himself free, that he might crawl along on top of the fragile lattice to safety, the baying of dogs on the hunt broke out – too near, and coming closer.

‘Dogs!’ Farry shouted in horror, his hands freezing on the rope. Luckily for him, however, Ferdi froze as well, and the snapping noises subsided into uneasy silence once more, a precarious safety. ‘Uncle Ferdi, the dogs!’

*** 

Chapter 17. Dogs

Ferdi froze again, but not for fear of falling through the cap on the pit. His concern now was all for Farry. ‘That tree looks climbable,’ he snapped, lifting a hand to point, oblivious now to his own peril. ‘Go, Farry! You’ve no time!’

And indeed, from the sound, the dogs were either chasing some prey, a deer perhaps, in their direction, or they’d caught scent of the hobbits, their keen noses discerning the sweat of worry and toil, carried to them on the changeable breeze. In any event, they were rapidly approaching.

Without thinking, Farry ran to the tree Ferdi had indicated, skirting the pit trap (or so he hoped). He had to jump up to catch the lowest branch, and as his feet gained the lowest rung of this rough tree-ladder and his hands caught a higher branch, the hunting party burst noisily into the clearing. The majority, seeing Farry’s movement, quickly ringed his tree and began to jump, snarling and barking, their teeth clicking together uncomfortably close to his feet as he pulled himself higher and at last out of their reach.

With the feeling of a returning nightmare, he hugged the trunk of the tree and turned anguished eyes to Ferdi, whose upper body was splayed absolutely still upon the pit cap. ‘Ferdi!’ he shouted.

But his uncle raised neither his head nor his voice in answer. Farry caught his breath as he grasped his uncle’s ploy, to remain unnoticed by the eager hunters, until they should lose interest and wander away, or catch the scent of other prey and be drawn into a new chase.

Hearing fierce growling below him, Farry looked down. To his dismay, he saw two of the dogs engaged in a battle of “tug” over his pack and its contents. While he watched, the bag spilled, and the dogs pawed and nosed their way through the contents, gulping down the dried travel rations and tearing and shaking the rest as if they gloried in the ruin they were wreaking.

Another two of the dogs, intent on reaching Faramir, continued to jump at the base of the tree, and three others were busy destroying Ferdi’s pack and its contents.

Anger sparked then in the lad, and he pulled his bow from the bow case on his back and strung it, then grabbed an arrow from his quiver. He blessed the Tookish archers who’d trained him never to lay down his weapons while in the field – why, from the stories told, they’d even slept with their bow cases and quivers strapped to one shoulder, ready to be on the move instantly, should their situation demand such response.

‘You –‘ he said. ‘You curs!’ He fitted his arrow to the bowstring and sighted, but then common sense asserted itself. He couldn’t risk shooting, striking one of the pack, driving the others mad with the smell of fresh blood, not when Ferdi lay helpless and vulnerable before them. He eased the tension on the string and continued to watch. He would shoot if he saw his uncle in imminent danger, but otherwise, he must hold tight to his temper, and to his nerve.

The bright blue of the sky above the leafless treetops was fading to pale steel that reminded Farry of the blade of his father’s sword. For the first time, he noticed wisps of clouds painting bright brushstrokes against their pale background, mares’ tails portending a change in the weather from fair to foul. Soon dusk would be settling on the land. Farry shivered at the increasing chill in the air. The breeze had fallen to stillness, and the clearing and surrounding woods were now eerily silent as if even the birds that passed the winter in the Woody End were afraid to sing their evening farewells to the Sun. 

The dogs had completed their devastation below and now began to sniff about the perimeter of the pit. Farry remembered Hilly’s words, that deer and other large animals never seemed to blunder into a ruffian pit trap. Perhaps Ferdi’s ploy, remaining silent and motionless, together with the wrongness to a dog’s senses of the loam-covered willow lattice, would be enough to protect the imperilled hobbit.

With any luck, the dogs would grow bored and wander off. Nothing to see here! ...as the Tookish archers had taunted captive ruffians hanging by an ankle from a young, lithe tree or caught in a deep-dug pit trap. P’rhaps next time you’ll simply go about your own business and keep your noses out of ours!

But then, the largest of the pack of dogs, a wild-looking creature that made Farry think of hearthside tales of the White Wolves who’d crossed over the frozen Brandywine River during the Fell Winter, suddenly stood still, raised its head and growled. Its nose was pointed at the centre of the willow lattice covering the pit. Pointed at Ferdi, still splayed motionless on the surface.

‘Go on, you beast!’ Farry shouted, trying to distract it from whatever had commanded its attention. He found himself wishing he’d scooped up a handful of pebbles and carried them in his pockets as he’d walked, but with a bow case and quiver slung over his shoulder, the thought had never occurred to him before this moment. Drawn by the sound of his voice, a couple of the dogs trotted over to the base of his tree and sniffed about, but the rest of the pack slowly began to gather behind their pale leader. ‘Ferdi!’ he shouted in warning, though his uncle’s choices in this situation were little to none. ‘Don’t move!’ he said. ‘Don’t move! I’ve been watching them... They’re wary of the footing... if you stay absolutely still, I think they’ll soon be moving on.’ His uncle gave no indication of hearing, but of course he wouldn’t now, would he?

The loss of their supplies was a blow, but once Ferdi was able to win free of the trap, they’d be able to spend the night in the tree, out of the wild dogs’ reach even if they should return later in the night. At least their ropes remained intact, tied together and lying atop the lattice, vaguely snakelike but probably of little interest to wild dogs. After dawn, they could make their way northward to the Stock Road, and then turn eastward to the safety, shelter and food that the Crowing Cockerel promised. There they could notify the local Shirriff to form a hunting party, to track these dogs down and make sure they’d never menace any hobbit again.

As for their journey, it had lost much of its savour. While Farry would be happy to retrace his da’s and Mayor Sam’s travels with Frodo from Hobbiton to Crickhollow – preferably in company with a large body of hobbits, including other teens and his father and theirs and an escort or three into the bargain, he felt no pressing need now to slip through the woods, pretending to gather information for the Thain. Perhaps they’d visit Lotho’s Well on that later journey to Crickhollow. He would still like to drink a toast in honour of the defenders of the Tookish borderlands. Just not right now.

At the thought of the well, thirst prickled at the back of his throat and he swallowed on a dry mouth. Not that he could do anything about it at this moment. His water flask, and Ferdi’s, even if they should remain intact, had been fastened to their packs.

The son of the Thain had spent a lot of time and effort persuading Ferdi to do this, but now he could understand why his uncle had argued long and hard against it. He could understand why Ferdi had traced out their path precisely on the large, detailed map on the wall of the Thain’s study as he talked over their course with Thain and Steward and all the hobbits of the Thain’s escort. Why he’d insisted they go armed into the wilderlands. Why the hobbit had suggested they do at least part, if not all, of their walking by daylight, rather than in the dark. Why Ferdi had sent word to Rosemary, his sister, and her woodcarver husband Hally, to let them know exactly when to expect the travellers’ arrival, if all went according to plan.

According to plan. Faramir now faced the bitter realisation that his uncle’s sound arguments against this venture had been just that – sound – and not simply an attempt to put off the teen’s idea for his own convenience and comfort. Failing that, Ferdi had made all the arrangements he could think of, it now appeared to the teen, in the event all did not go according to plan.

And even with the grown-ups’ best efforts to fool-proof this journey – Fool of a Took! echoed in Farry’s thoughts – it would still be four more days before they were missed, before Rosie and Hally sent word to the Thain that they hadn’t arrived as scheduled. And even by quick post, it would take hours for word to reach Tuckborough. And then how many hours after that, for searchers to retrace their path?

At least another two days after that – why, it could be nearly a week before they find us, the lad thought numbly to himself, for they’ll be going afoot and not by pony, and they won’t be travelling by night, as we did, for fear of missing any traces we might have left. Should his uncle die out here – should he, himself, die, it would be his own fault.

‘You’re too headstrong,’ Farry muttered to himself, bruising his fist on the rough bark of the tree as he echoed a snippet of the Talk he’d overheard years ago, before the Tookish Councillors had put a stop to it, ‘just like your father was before you!’

And then his attention was caught by movement below. He saw the leader of the wild dogs take a step towards Ferdi. As he watched, the lips of the pale-furred wolfish dog drew back to expose gleaming teeth. He heard it snarl, and then it advanced another step towards Ferdi. From the crackling that arose in the twilight stillness, Faramir discerned that it was now standing on the deteriorating cap that covered the ruffian trap.

In the next few seconds, it was as if the world hung in balance. Ferdi remained absolutely still. The wild dog moved tentatively forward a step, then two, and then, evidently mistrusting its footing, began slowly to back away. Hope rose in the watching lad – only to be swiftly quenched as the other dogs, following, pressed after their leader. Irritated, the wolfish leader curled backward and slashed at the nearest encroaching dog, then turned once more towards the motionless figure at the centre of the trap and launched itself in an attack.

In a panic, Farry screamed his uncle’s name, and as if moved by the raw terror in the lad’s voice, Ferdi raised his head, then threw up his arm to protect his throat. Without conscious thought, the boy in the tree raised his bow, drew and loosed. Rest, and reload. Even before he shook out his hand and grabbed for another shaft from his quiver, he saw the arrow strike home, burying itself in the wolf dog’s ribs. Mid-spring, the dog twisted to bite at the shaft. Its body continued the momentum of the leap, bowling into Ferdibrand...

 ...and while Faramir watched in helpless horror, the willow lattice collapsed inward under the combined weight of the wolf dog and its intended prey, slowly, inexorably, until at last, with a terrible snapping of branches, the cap gave way completely, dumping its burdens into the patiently waiting trap.

His ears rang with an agonized scream, No-o-o-o-o! and at first, he thought it was his uncle’s death cry, but for the roughness of his throat when next he tried to swallow. He felt hot tears drip from his eyelids, and a sob shook him.

Farry’s grand adventure had turned from a dream into a nightmare.

*** 

Chapter 18. Nightmare

Farry sat, numb, not noticing the passage of time, the increasing chill in the air, the shadows creeping upward from the ground as the last of the Sun’s light played upon the treetops.

But the voice speaking in the back of his mind was growing increasingly insistent. Farry! Pay attention, lad. What would you do first?

He thought it was Haldegrim’s voice. Take deep breaths to calm yourself, lad. And he heard himself answering, as if in a dream.

‘But you sent them away!’

‘That I did, laddie-mine,’ Haldi answered calmly. ‘That I did.’

‘But... we’re in the middle of nowhere, afoot and alone... I thought you were escorting me to Whittacres, to visit Aunt Pearl and her family! Not...!’

‘Not alone and afoot in trackless territory, aye lad?’ The escort bent to see eye to eye with the young hobbit. ‘Actually, ‘tis “a little commission for the Thain”, it is.’ He eyed Farry sternly. ‘Your tutor reported that you’ve been daydreaming in your lessons, lad, and so your da thought you might be wanting something more interesting, that you could sink your teeth into.’

‘I – I don’t follow,’ Farry said. What did dismounting, helping Faramir down from his pony, and then shouting and sharply slapping the rumps of both ponies to send them galloping away have to do with making lessons more interesting?

‘So, lad,’ the escort said. ‘You now, at this moment, find yourself lost and alone, no one to help you.’

‘You’re here,’ Farry said with a question in his voice.

‘Ah, but no, I’m actually not here, for all practical purposes,’ the escort answered. He caught Farry’s eye, his own gaze demanding. ‘What if you’d been able to escape those murdering ruffians, nearly four years ago, before the Muster was able to track them and rescue you? In the middle of the high Green Hills, as you were? What would you have done then?’

‘I –‘ Farry answered, but he came up short.

The escort nodded and straightened. ‘So we’re to have a little lesson here, today,’ he said. He suddenly grinned the reckless grin that Farry had often seen, waiting with the rest of the young Tooks for an archery lesson, for the headmaster invariably insisted that his young charges should be on the spot, ready to learn, well before each lesson’s beginning time. 

Thus, Farry and the other teens had the opportunity to watch the hobbits of the Thain’s escort at their own practice until their reserved practice time was over – perhaps by the headmaster’s design, Farry had thought to himself more than once. Haldi sometimes wagered with Hilly at the practice butts, goading the younger escort into paying more attention to his aim, or so Farry had observed whilst the other teens stood clumped in small groups or sat in the grass and gossiped, occasionally cheering a well-placed shot or hissing or whistling derisively when an escort missed the central circle of a target. 

Yes, Haldi now had that same look on his face, as if he was daring Farry to exceed his expectations, and he abandoned his careful, formal manner of speaking that the hobbits of the escort assumed amongst the Smials Tooks and around visiting gentry, his Tookish lilt thickening as he said, ‘Sure and certain, our ponies will come galloping into the courtyard at the Smials at some time or other, most likely a little later today, and there’ll soon after that be a Muster called at the Smials – and p’rhaps all of Tuckborough, I’ve no doubt – and hobbits will be preparing to search in all directions.’ 

He smiled faintly and scratched his chin between his gloved thumb and forefinger. ‘I imagine, even, the Thain will call on your Uncle Ferdi and Renilard to try and backtrack the ponies to narrow the search in one direction, all the quicker to find us – to find you.’ He chuckled and shrugged, then pulled his cloak a bit more snugly around his neck. ‘Sorry, lad, I almost forgot that I’m not here.’

‘It’s a game,’ Farry said slowly.

‘You might call it that. But a deadly serious one,’ Haldi said. ‘So, laddie-mine, what is it you need to think on? What do you need, to live, that is? At least, long enough for the Muster to find you?’

‘I suppose, if I were bleeding, it would be important to stop that,’ Farry said. That was one of the first lessons taught in the archery instruction for young Tooks, emergency measures for someone who was injured.

‘O aye,’ Haldi said seriously. ‘There is that. And what next, I ask? What’s the quickest thing that could kill you?’

‘Having air to breathe?’ Farry guessed. ‘I mean, not having air? Like the old saying, While there’s breath, there’s life.’

‘That would be true,’ Haldi said. He made a show of looking around. ‘But I don’t think you’re in danger of drowning hereabouts. No bogs or streams nearby.’

At the mention of streams, Farry suddenly realised he was thirsty. ‘But our flasks are tied to our saddle pads!’ he said in dismay. ‘We need to find a source of water!’

Haldi shook his head and sat himself down on a nearby log, for they’d stopped upon reaching the edge of a copse that boasted, as Farry had absently noticed before he dismounted, at least one “good climbable tree” or two. The escort began settling his cloak as if he anticipated a long wait. ‘Sorry, lad, but there’s something else to consider first.’

‘But I’m thirsty!’ Farry said.

The escort smiled faintly. ‘As am I. But I happen to know that a hobbit can go a good three days without water before he’s at risk of dying. And our Mayor Sam and his Master Frodo went very far on very little water, in a land much harsher than this one, indeed, or so the Thain has told us.’

‘Food,’ Farry said, then shook his own head. ‘No, for it seems to me that a hobbit can go even longer without food than without water.’ He grimaced. ‘Though it sounds a great deal unpleasant to me!’

‘All right, then,’ Haldi said, his soft Tookish lilt growing stronger as a fey light came into his eye. He tilted his head. Are ye no’ feelin’ a nip o’ the cauld, laddie-mine, e’en as we speak?

Farry came back to himself, out of the past, out of the strange dream that had come over him, to find himself shivering. ‘Frost-fairies,’ he whispered to himself, and his breath came out as a mist, a sign that the temperatures were dropping rapidly from the almost-pleasant winter afternoon. Looking up at the rapidly fading sky, he could see the thin mares’ tails of clouds, now darkening to deep rose and purple, were thickening ominously. ‘Shelter, Haldi,’ he said aloud. ‘Shelter’s the thing, even more than food, or even water.’ A hobbit lacking shelter in adverse conditions could die in a matter of a few hours.

He hoped Ferdi’s cloak would be sufficient to keep his uncle warm in the pit trap. If the dry-well had remained dry and had not filled up with water, if Ferdi hadn’t fallen into water, that is, he might not die of a chill. He might very well have died of the fall, though, Farry-my-lad. As for himself...

He couldn’t risk falling asleep on a tree branch without a rope to tie him in place. He might very well die of a fall himself, and if he didn’t die, he might wish he had if the dogs remained in the clearing. And even wrapped in a thick cloak of warm Tookish wool, he was shivering cold as the air grew damper, somehow more of a bone-chilling cold than freezing but dry air would have presented.

You’ve often heard our cousins make sport of Ferdi for sleeping in trees or hollow logs, phantom-Haldi said in Farry’s memory. Well there’s a good reason for it! The Tooks who ventured outside of the Tookland in the days of the Troubles had to take their shelter wherever they could find it. For some it was a haystack or a byre or an abandoned smial, for others a hedgerow or even a ditch in dry weather, but in the woodlands...

Was it his imagination, or had he seen the shadow of a hollow, slightly higher up on the tree? Some animal or bird of prey might be lodging there. He’d have to bake that bread when it was risen. No point fretting about it when he didn’t even know if the hollow was real or a trick of the light. There was only one way to find out. Farry climbed. One branch. Two. 

Yes. He could see the hollow now, slightly above him, where a branch had broken off. He reached up, only to feel a mixture of relief and disappointment. He wouldn’t have to contest with an owl or a stoat over this hole as it wasn’t really a proper hole at all. But...

His fingers could feel the softness of crumbling wood, even holes where woodpeckers had drilled for insects. He might be able to make something of this after all.

Carefully, he pulled his knife from its sheath. It wouldn’t do to drop it, not with those dogs waiting below. Keeping a tight grip on the handle, Farry began to scrape away at the decaying wood. He found he could dig his knife in and loosen the wood, then pull large chunks away with his free hand whilst he steadied himself with his knife hand. It took some nerve on his part, but he kept at it. One benefit was that the physical labour was warming. It was also keeping him from feeling sleepy.

He didn’t know how long he dug at the rotted stuff, pulled it free, let it fall to the ground as he carved out a sort of rough shelter. It might have taken half the night, for all he knew. When he’d started, the Man in the Moon had peeped out at him through thickening clouds, then shone behind the clouds, but as both the night and Faramir’s work progressed, eventually he could no longer see the moon. He didn’t know if it had set, or was now hidden behind a heavy cloud cover. A wind was rising in the treetops around him, portending a coming change in the weather.

He pushed through the outer wall of the tree to sudden emptiness – and fumbled the knife. With a fearful cry, he lunged for it but stopped himself abruptly on second thought. He wouldn’t do himself any good if he should impale himself on his blade in the inky blackness inside the tree, now, would he?

Carefully, he felt his way past the wall of crumbling wood, and then he groped his way downward along the inside of the hollow space. Another horror would be if the tree were hollow all the way to the roots, and Farry fell down the hole, to become trapped. The searchers might never find his body. He breathed a sigh of relief to find roughness under his hand, a sort of floor, there inside the bole. And resting on that coarse surface was his knife!

Reclaiming his tool, he scraped away at the sides of the opening he’d made until he had a hole large enough to crawl through. He put his knife back in the sheath. Holding tightly to the sides of the entrance he’d carved, testing his weight on the decaying wood by inches, he slowly, cautiously, crept inside. Even after he’d let most of his weight settle to his knees, he held on to the lip of the entrance for long moments. But the “floor” of his improvised shelter held him without the slightest indication of giving way.

With a sigh, he fumbled to settle his hood firmly on his head and then curled himself into a tight ball inside his cloak. Now that he was no longer concentrating fiercely on digging out a shelter, on not dropping his knife, on keeping his balance on the branch and not falling, he gave in to shuddering sobs. 

He wept until he had exhausted himself, his eyes hot and swollen, his nose clogged, before he was able to allow sleep to claim him. In that curious state between waking and sleeping, he heard the rising of the wind, the creaking of the trees around him. He felt his own refuge bend and sway, but the floor beneath him remained steady.

His last thought as he slipped into restless dreams, shaking with an occasional dry sob of disbelief and numb despair, was to wonder if Ferdi had survived the fall, and if so, how his uncle was faring at the bottom of the ruffian trap.

*** 

Chapter 19. Trap

It was perhaps the light that woke the young hobbit, rather a dull, sullen light, but far different from the inky blackness that had surrounded him as he’d gone to sleep. The silence, too, was strangely unnerving. He realised that the wind, which had roared through his uneasy dreams, had dropped to near-stillness.

Faramir gulped back a dry sob – his eyes were hot and dry, as if he had no more tears to weep – and uncurled from his rolled-up position. He stretched his limbs as well as he could, finding them stiff and cramped. It was surprisingly warm in his small, rough-walled lair – probably, from what he remembered of Haldi's lesson, due to his body heat and the warmth of his exhalations in this confined space.

His private theory was confirmed as he stuck his head out through the opening to survey his surroundings. He shivered at the damp chill, and his breath issued in a cloud, telling him that the temperature, though above the freezing point, was low enough to offer a danger of succumbing to the cold. The daylight was dimmed by heavy cloud cover, and he couldn't tell what time of day it might be, though he suspected it was well past dawning. He would not be using the Sun's help to find his way northwards to the Stock Road and thence to the Crowing Cockerel to summon aid, not this day, at least.

The clearing was silent. Farry scrutinised his surroundings as far as he could see from the opening he'd carved, and then he leaned out and studied the ground. No dogs.

'Hulloo!' he called softly, and then repeated the summons a little louder. Surely if the wild dogs were nearby, they'd return to jump at the tree where he was sheltering.

He looked towards the centre of the clearing, where a gaping hole provided silent testimony to the events of the previous evening. 'Ferdi?' he called. His voice in his own ears sounded young and tentative. He tried a little louder. 'Uncle Ferdi?'

No answer came, not that he was really expecting any. Could his uncle even hear him from the bottom of a dry-well that was two ruffians deep, if not more? At least no dogs came baying or sniffing or jumping in response to the plaintive sound of the lad's voice.

He gathered the shreds of his courage, wrapping them around himself much the same way that he nestled further into his winter cloak. He had to know the truth, no matter how much it hurt him.

The prickling at his throat when he swallowed down this hard knowledge was another reminder. Rescue, should the sky remain cloudy, preventing him from finding his way to the Crowing Cockerel, was perhaps a week away. From Haldi's lessons, Farry knew he might die of thirst in half that time. He had to find water, if he could. If the cloud cover persisted, preventing him from finding his way safely to the Stock Road, he had to find their flasks, his and Ferdi's. They'd be at least half-full, he thought. He swallowed down a lump again and blinked, though no tears came to his eyes. They had planned to fill the flasks with fresh, cold, pure water from Lotho's well, and drink a toast together to the brave hobbits who'd kept the borderlands in the time of the troubles, and another toast to the courageous Travellers who'd done their bit in the Outlands.

'And I'll drink a toast to you, Uncle, if I ever come this way again,' Farry promised under his breath as he made sure of his bow case and quiver, eased himself out of his refuge and began to climb down. He didn't actually remember unstringing his bow and putting it away, but it had been in its case when he'd wakened. But then, the Thain's archers were constantly harping on the forming of good habits – for habit would step in when an archer was distracted by circumstances, such as a battle going on all around him as had been the case for those at Bywater, and for those who'd followed Paladin to other parts, to drive out the ruffians. And, Farry thought to himself, for those who had been in the Muster that had rescued him from murderous ruffians.

Farry had found such repetition tiresome, truth be told, but now that he had experienced its usefulness himself, he had to give credit to the archers that they knew what they were talking about after all.

He hesitated before letting himself down from the last branch, looking around thoroughly and listening hard. The dogs were gone.

Still, better to be safe than sorry. He steadied himself on the branch by leaning his shoulder against the bole of the tree while he took out his bow and strung it. It was a matter of a second or two after he swung down from that last branch to pull an arrow from his quiver and loosely nock it to his bowstring.

Cautiously, trying to look in every direction at once, he made his way to the edge of the pit. When he felt the willow branches start to give under his foot, he stepped back. The entire cap had not collapsed, but only the middle section. 'Ferdi?' he called.

He thought he heard the low whine of a dog in reply, and his stomach clenched. What if the dog had survived? He hated to think of the scene that might await him. Still, he had to know. So he sat at the edge, where the solid ground ended, and kicked at the lattice, sending showers of sticks and leaves down into the pit under the force of his blows.

He had never been so happy as when he heard his uncle's voice shout, 'Hi! Who's there!'

'Uncle Ferdi!' he cried. 'Uncle Ferdi, you're alive!'

'Praise be,' came the fervent answer from underground. 'Farry,’ his uncle added hoarsely. ‘Is it well with you, lad?' 

Laughing and crying at the same time, though his eyes remained too dry for tears, Farry nodded. Of course, his uncle couldn't see such a thing. Somehow he found his voice and shouted, 'Yes! I'm well!'

So of course his uncle hushed him. 'If the dogs are gone, and I gather that they are, unless you shot them all like you shot my silver friend, here, then go quietly, lad! Do not call them back here!'

Farry ducked his head with a blush. More quietly, he answered, 'Cover your head, Uncle. I want to kick away the lattice from the edge here.'

Hearing Ferdi's assent, he laid his bow and arrow aside, within easy reach of snatching up quickly, and kicked away at the woven sticks and leaves with a will, wreaking havoc on the damaged lattice, until the entire half of the remaining structure on Farry's side of the pit gave way and cascaded downward. Farry thought he heard both hobbit and canine yelps, but his uncle called reassurance to him that "they" were all right.

Farry looked around the clearing again, waited a long moment as he listened for the baying of a dog pack on the hunt, and then unstrung his bow and returned it to its case. It would take him little enough time to re-string it, should he hear the dogs approaching, but it would do him no good to leave it strung and risk the weapon losing its effectiveness from the cool damp air. Then he leaned over the edge, to look down into darkness.

'Don't fall in!' came his uncle's alarmed tones.

'I won't lean over too far,' Farry said. 'And the ground seems solid here at the edge.' He knocked his knuckles lightly against the rim. 'I think the engineers must've lined the trap with rock.'

He heard a fervent 'O aye' from the darkness below. 'Still,' Ferdi added, his voice rasping,' I'd feel better about it if I didn't see so much of you hanging over this pit!' Farry heard him follow this sentiment with a cough.

It seemed his uncle could see him, outlined against the sky, even though he could not make out any details at the bottom of the ruffian trap. His uncle's voice, and the whine of the dog, were all he had to go by.

Listening hard, he heard his uncle soothing the canine prisoner. All right, fellow. All will be well. 

‘You've befriended the wolf that attacked you?’ Farry said in bewilderment.

‘Saved my life, he did,’ came Ferdi's answer. ‘He's not so bad, once you get to know him. Though the fall knocked me out, he offered me no harm while I lay there, defenseless. As a matter of fact, when I awakened after falling into this pit, he was snuggled against me. Kept me warm through the night.’ 

Farry realised his mouth was hanging open at this recital of events, so he closed it with a snap. 

And then Ferdi coughed again, raised his voice and called, ‘Is there any water, lad?’

The thought made Farry want to cough himself, his throat was that dry. ‘A moment, Uncle,’ he called back. ‘I’ll go and fetch your flask.’

It was rather more than a moment as he scoured through the wreckage the dogs had left, trying to find the pieces of their packs, where their water flasks had been fastened. When he found his own flask, his breath came short. Powerful jaws had crushed and torn the vessel, leaving no chance that it might have held any water through the dark hours. Determinedly, the lad kept searching, even though he now held out little hope.

And then, in the last place he looked – It’s always in the last place you look, laddie, he heard Adelard’s chuckle in his mind – under the remains of what he thought might have been Ferdi’s spare shirt, he found his uncle’s water flask, tooth-marked but seeming intact.

He shook it. Less than a quarter of the flask’s contents remained, from what he could tell. Some of the contents must have leaked out as it lay on the ground. It would have to do. It was all they had. He opened it and tilted it to let some of the lifegiving liquid run into his mouth, swishing it around. His mouth was dry enough to absorb it all, leaving none to swallow. He could have gulped the entire contents, but he didn’t; he allowed himself one more heartening swallow.

Then he steeled himself and took the flask over to the pit. ‘It’s not much,’ he said. ‘We were going to fill our flasks at the well, remember? We didn’t think we had to save any.’

‘I’ll take what I can get,’ Ferdi rasped, but then he added, ‘but you drink it, lad, if there’s only a little. We’ll be fine here, my furry friend and I.’

‘No,’ Farry said. He would have told his uncle that he’d already drunk his fill, but Ferdi would hear the lie and know it for what it was, so he settled for, ‘I had some, already.’ He thought to distract his uncle then, so he added, ‘The flask might be damaged, so we’ll have to be careful tossing it down to you.’

He held the flask over the lip of the well. ‘Can you see it?’ he said. ‘If I drop it from here, will you be able to catch it?’

As he’d hoped, Ferdi fastened on the problem at once. ‘I think so,’ he said. ‘I won’t be able to see it in the darkness after you let it go, but if you drop it straight from where you’re holding it, I think I can catch it.’

‘Very well, then, here it comes,’ Farry said, and let the flask slip from his grasp before he could have second thoughts – and a second swallow.

‘Got it!’ came Ferdi’s triumphant call from the darkness below, followed by another cough as if the shout had strained his voice, and then, ‘You were right... not much here. Still, a swallow’s better than naught, I should say.’   

He must have had that swallow of water, for his next words sounded much more like himself. 'Can you go for help, lad?' the older hobbit said. 'Take your bow and quiver, and make your way northward?'

Farry shook his head, though of course his uncle was unlikely to see the gesture. 'The sky's all over clouds,' he answered. 'Heavy clouds. I cannot even tell in what part of the sky the Sun is keeping herself at the moment.'

His uncle was silent, which made Farry listen harder. He heard the dog whine again, and the hobbit trapped with him murmured low. ‘There’s only one more swallow left, old fellow. D’you think you can lap it out of my hand, should I pour it out for you?’ After a pause, he heard his uncle say, ‘There’s a good fellow.’

He listened to another long moment of silence until Ferdi spoke again. 'Is it cold? Rainy? Snow?' The older hobbit chuckled grimly. 'I tell you, lad, the bottom of this pit is about the same temperature as one of the cool rooms off the kitchens in the Great Smials, and I've no idea of the weather, whether it's freezing up there, or blazing hot.'

'It's not blazing hot,' Farry said with a shiver.

'You should get yourself to shelter if you're cold,' Ferdi said.

'How did you –?' Farry began, but his uncle interrupted him.

'I can hear your shivers in your voice,' Ferdi said. 'Or...' he added, then stopped as if thinking through a problem. 'Farry, I think Isen's worked with you on properly building and sparking a fire, has he not?'

'Yes!' Faramir said, wanting to slap himself on the forehead. Why hadn't he thought of that?

'So go, scrounge up some kindling and small branches, scrape away the ground cover down to bare dirt – or rock would be better, if at all possible, and then get flint and steel out of one of our packs...'

Farry hated to interrupt him. 'The dogs, Uncle Ferdi,' he said.

He heard instant alarm in the answer. 'The dogs? They're back? Get up that tree right now, young hobbit! Don't worry about me – I'm as safe as if I were in a fortress at the moment!'

'No,' Farry said reluctantly. 'They ate up all our packs.'

He heard his uncle echo softly from the darkness below, '...ate up all our...'

Farry took a steadying breath. ‘But I was able to find the flasks, after all, and I can find your tinder box next, Uncle. I’m sure I can!’ He knew exactly what it looked like. Pippin had presented it to Ferdi on his previous birthday, a shining, finely tooled silver box with a tight-fitting lid. Just a mathom, Pippin had said at the time, when Ferdi drew a sharp breath as if about to say it was much too fine a treasure for the likes of himself, I do believe Gimli gave it to Merry before Merry gave it to me. If you think the Dwarf would like it, you can give it to Gimli next time you see him. Won’t that be a fine joke!

‘Good lad,’ he heard Ferdi murmur, sounding weary, but then the older hobbit added, all too evidently injecting cheer into his tone, ‘you do that, lad. Find the box and build that fire. Get yourself warm before you catch your death.’

‘Why would anyone go chasing after death, to try and catch it, is what I’d like to know,’ Farry muttered under his breath. It was a favourite of his father’s whimsies, and he could almost hear Steward Reginard answer with his inevitable ‘None of your nonsense, now, lad.’

The memory made the teen smile, and he almost felt better as he set out to find the silver box. As soon as he’d found it, he figured he’d better build the fire and get it going well, and then he must gather as much wood as he possibly could before darkness fell once more, enough to burn all through the long winter night and well into the next day. Not only could he warm himself, but he’d have another weapon against the dogs if they should return to the clearing, one that would not run out, like the arrows in his quiver. He was already missing one – the one he’d shot into Ferdi’s present companion in the pit.

Of course, once he had a fire going, there’d be no question of climbing the tree again, to curl in the warm little nest he’d dug out for himself, or to seek safety from the dogs or any other wild creatures that might be about. No, but he’d have to stay by the fire, to make sure it didn’t creep out of its established circle to set the surrounding woodland ablaze. A fire was something of a two-edged sword, he mused, or a Gollum of a creature, both servant and deadly foe in one. But the same fire that could threaten the woods would help him keep the dogs at bay, should they return. 

He nodded to himself. It was a sound plan. He’d thrust a few long sticks into the flames, burn the ends, and then pull them out again and keep them handy. They’d catch again quickly if he needed a flaming brand to wave in his defence.

*** 

Chapter 20. Defence

Though the fire was both cheering and warming, it didn’t solve their other pressing problem: water. The son of the Thain stared up at the heavy clouds covering the sky, thinking about Mayor Sam’s request to the Lady. ‘A little water,’ he whispered. Might it fall from the sky? Could he contrive some way to catch such bounty? Now that he had a good fire going, the thought of rain, snow – even sleet – spurred more hope and longing than dread.

Farry slumped, exhausted by his labours and thirstier than he had been, but he surveyed the satisfying quantity of fallen and dead wood he’d been able scrounge from his surroundings with a feeling of pride. From his experience cutting wood with Ferdi’s Bolger relations, he estimated that it would last more than a day, even two. Come to think of it, the supply of wood for burning might outlast Farry himself, and his uncle, considering their lack of water for drinking.

How would he catch it, if water were to fall from the sky?

He shook his head at himself. He’d have to cross that bridge when he came to it. Too bad it was only a saying and not reality. He could use a bridge – and the water it spanned – right about now. In any event, if and when water fell from the sky, he’d think of something. Or perhaps Ferdi might have an idea to offer.

‘Uncle?’ he said now. It had seemed wise to him to check on Ferdibrand at intervals during his labours, and he had always received a prompt answer – until this moment.

When no answer came from the pit, he started up in alarm from his comfortable place where he was being warmed by the fire. ‘Uncle Ferdi?’ he called louder, leaning over the edge of the pit to stare downward, into darkness. ‘Ferdi!’

‘I’m here, lad,’ came the reply, sounding inestimably weary. ‘Where else would I be?’

‘I – I just,’ Farry said, feeling foolish as he stammered in his relief. ‘I’ve got a fire going, Uncle.’

‘That’s good,’ Ferdi answered. ‘Good, lad.’ There was a lengthening pause, and then his uncle spoke again. ‘Farry, lad.’

‘Uncle?’

‘Is it well with you?’

Farry’s hands were somewhat raw from hauling wood from the surrounding forest and breaking what pieces he could into manageable lengths, and his arms and shoulders were aching from the unaccustomed exercise. His legs were so tired that he could feel their muscles twitching, and his mouth felt as dry as Mordor, or so he imagined. So of course he answered, ‘I can scarcely think of a time when I’ve been better!’

His ears were sharp enough to catch a soft snort from the pit. But then Ferdi spoke again. ‘I have a favour to ask of you, lad.’

‘I’m all ears,’ Farry said obligingly. ‘Ask away.’

He listened to silence from the pit for the space of a few breaths. Then, quietly, so quietly that Farry had to lean towards the pit to hear, the older hobbit said, ‘It’s all closed-in, like, here, lad... so... close... the walls...’ He could hear the strain in his uncle’s voice as Ferdi spoke, and he caught his breath in sudden understanding. Ferdibrand was a hunter, more comfortable under the open sky than in a hobbit hole. Indeed, he’d heard the hobbit joking about feeling closed-in while in the Thain’s study, and wouldn’t the Thain like to take a nice ride with an escort somewhere, or perhaps Pippin might have a message for Ferdi to carry to a farm in the wild Green Hills?

And often, in response, Pippin would laugh and send him off on a "little commission for the Thain", or he might agree that it was a beautiful day for a ride, and he was certain that Socks or Cloudtail would be obliging.

Silence stretched between them. Too long, Farry thought. Too quiet. ‘I’m here, Uncle,’ he said urgently, and some quality of sympathy in his voice must have reached Ferdi in his dark prison, for the older hobbit spoke again. ‘It’s why I’d rather the ruffians had killed me than that they’d take me to the Lockholes, lad. To be shut in –!’ There was a pause, and he said, lower, ‘Had they marched me to the Lockholes in truth, I would have done my best to break free, if only to have them shoot me down to stop me, if I could not win my freedom...’

Farry was struck by sudden memory of the quick friendship that had sprung up between Ferdibrand and the Man Faramir and his wife Eowyn, when the two had come to the Northlands in a bleak time of drought and famine, helping to escort wains heaped with supplies from the lands to the South for the hard-pressed Northerners. As a Southern Ranger, Prince Faramir could, and did, talk for hours with the Tookish archers about traps and strategies for defying foes that were both numerous and deadly – and he had often had been found in Ferdibrand's company, walking and talking about hunting and shooting during the time the King lifted his Edict in the interest of providing aid to Shire-folk, when Buckland had hosted the visiting Big Folk. Meanwhile, the Lady of Ithilien shared Ferdi's appreciation of fine equines and open sky – feelings so keen that they approached the level of physical need in the both of them. Prince Faramir had called them kindred spirits, making the Lady throw back her head and laugh and Ferdi duck his head with a blush before shooting a jest of his own in return. Ferdi had even idly mentioned travelling to Ithilien someday to return the favour, shocking the sensibilities of most of his Tookish cousins. With the exception of the Thain, of course.

‘I’m here,’ Farry repeated when it seemed his uncle had no more to say on that matter.

‘So if you could talk,’ Ferdi said low, as if ashamed to admit his weakness, ‘– if we could talk, ‘twould be a comfort.’

Farry swallowed on a dry throat. He had no doubt that Ferdi’s throat was equally dry. But then the teen had a bright thought. ‘Of course, Uncle!’ he said. ‘But I must see a hobbit about a pony first, and then we can talk until the cows come home, if you wish.’

Of a wonder he heard a chuckle from the darkness below. ‘O’ course, lad. Take your time.’

Taking up his bow and quiver for protection away from the fire, Farry skirted the pit to the crumbling stump that had begun this wearisome business in the first place. ‘Scarlet elf cups,’ he said to himself as he knelt to touch the crimson fungi growing in profusion there.

He broke off a small sample, lifted it to his nose and sniffed its subtle earthy smell. He nibbled at one edge, nodding at the mild flavour. Perhaps a hint of beetroot. He wrinkled his nose and popped the mushroom into his mouth. It was a bit chewy, but even uncooked, it was remarkably palatable, and best of all, chewing seemed to bring moisture to his mouth, easing the torment of his thirst.

He broke off a larger specimen but found it not quite as agreeable. Tough, it was, and a bit stringy. ‘All right, then,’ he said to himself. He dug out his pocket handkerchief – still clean, as he hadn’t felt the need to wipe his nose along their journeys, and even if he had, his sleeve would have been more handy, not being in polite company – and harvested a goodly quantity of the bright little mushrooms, leaving the larger ones. Early on in the process, he popped the first one he'd picked into his mouth and chewed it as he worked.

Returning to the pit, he carolled, ‘Half-past teatime!’

‘Eh, laddie?’ Ferdi answered, sounding understandably befuddled.

Farry took up a piece of bark from his woodpile and dumped about half of his bounty on it. He tied the corners of his handkerchief together to safeguard the rest and moved to the edge of the ruffian trap. Holding out the bundle over the pit, he called, ‘Here, Ferdi, I’ve got somewhat for you. Are you ready to catch it?’

‘Ready?’ Ferdi said, half question and half confirmation. Farry let go and next heard the older hobbit say, ‘Got it,’ followed not long after by, ‘Farry! You’re a wonder! I’d forgotten all about...’

‘Easy enough to do,’ he replied. ‘I only just remembered them myself.’ He settled down between the fire and the edge of the pit and took up a small handful of sustenance from his improvised platter.

‘You cannot see it, of course, but I am bowing to you, the founder of our feast,’ came Ferdi’s voice from the dark depths.

‘As I bow to you in return. Tuck in!’ Farry answered.

‘You won’t have to tell me twice,’ Ferdi said. His voice sounded stronger.

Perhaps if he could find more scarlet elf cups nearby, it might be enough to sustain them until rescuers found them, even without water? He could only hope. ‘So what did you want to talk about?’ he asked, his mouth full. He would chew these mushrooms thoroughly before taking more, and perhaps fool his body into thinking it was feasting.

‘Tell me of the sky,’ Ferdi said. ‘I can see but a small circle above me.’

So Farry shoved his mouthful of mushrooms into his cheek and launched into a description of last night’s sunset clouds, the ever-changing colours of the mare’s tails against the fading sky, the moon playing I-hide-and-you-seek-me, the darkness of the middle night, and the heavy, sullen sky above them now. Finishing, he said, ‘Very well, then, your turn to talk whilst I chew a mouthful or two.’

‘We would certainly not want you to choke, eating and talking at the same time,’ Ferdi said acidly. ‘Very well...’ He definitely sounded stronger, and Farry’s eyes prickled with what might have been grateful tears, were he not too dry to shed them. ‘I do have a question.’

‘Ask away,’ Farry said gaily, ‘and I will do my best not to choke on my answer. Or on these excellent elf cups.’

But of all that his uncle might have said, the teen wasn’t expecting Ferdi’s next words. ‘How is it, young hobbit, that you chanced that shot? You might have killed me.’

‘I –‘ Farry said, nonplussed.

Ferdi continued. ‘I’ve been giving it some thought, you see. It helped me to pass the dark hours of the night, working out the angles and the distance, the movements of my furry companion here, the timing, the distraction offered by the other dogs...’

‘Uh-huh,’ Farry said noncommittally. 

‘And so, what I’d like to know,’ the older hobbit said, ‘is – were you out of your wits? To chance such a shot? Why, it’s not one that I’m sure I would have taken, in your position.’

Stung, Farry answered, ‘I always hit the mark I aim at, Uncle.’

‘Always?’ Ferdi scoffed. In his mind’s eye, Farry could see his uncle scrutinizing him. ‘Always? When on the shooting range, you hit the third or fourth circle?’

‘Always,’ Farry affirmed.

His uncle was silent for a long moment after that, but then he said, an echo of the past, ‘Help me to understand, lad.’

Farry swallowed a sudden lump in his throat. So had Ferdi spoken, gently, empathetically, when Farry had been a mere faunt, aiming to take up the bow like a real Took, but finding to his disappointment a child’s bow wanting, with its impotent twang.

‘I –‘ he began.

‘I’m listening.’

I know that you are. You’ve always listened to me, even when others didn’t, Farry thought to himself. Perhaps Ferdi might actually understand.

He took a deep breath, and at last, he found the words. ‘When I was little,’ he said. ‘It was right after we returned from Buckland that time,’ he said. ‘The time that the Ferry broke loose as we were crossing over to Buckland, and Haldi fell in the River trying to prevent us floating off down-River, and Da saved him, but he couldn’t save us... and the Brandybucks couldn’t figure out how to get a rope to us, for the current was too strong for a boat, and so we tied the end of Mum's yarn to an arrow, and my da drew Haldi’s bow for me, and I aimed it...’

Their adventure was not common knowledge amongst the Tooks, though it had become something of a tale of wonder to be told amongst the Brandybucks. And the Thain had sworn Haldi to secrecy, lest the Tooks find out about the matter and be scandalised at how close their Thain and Mistress and small son and their escort – all Tooks – had come to drowning, a disgraceful end, so far as the Tooks were concerned. And so the teen could almost feel the consternation rolling off Ferdibrand in waves, and for some reason, it struck him as comical. It took him a moment to stifle and settle down the ripples of laughter that came over him, before he could speak calmly again.

‘Anyhow, we got back to the Tookland after that visit was over, and the next day, Regi told my da that I wasn’t to learn archery anymore, not until I was ten, which would be the proper time for a young Took to learn such. And my da, knowing I’d saved our lives with my shooting, he wasn’t having any of that! But then –‘ and a lump came into his throat, and he had to swallow it down.

‘Then,’ echoed Ferdi, as if he’d heard the lad’s tone change from indignation to grief at the same time as Farry's feelings.

‘But then... they kept on talking... and... and I knew my da was going to die... and leave me... they said... he said...’ And if there had been any tears left to Farry, they would have been pouring down his cheeks in that moment. All he could do, however, was gulp a dry sob.

‘And then,’ Ferdi repeated gently.

‘And my da said, with my shooting, I could someday care for myself, I could support myself on the wages of a hobbit of the Thain’s escort, or even be head of escort for Regi someday,’ Farry said, gulping back more sobs. ‘So I decided I wouldn’t.’

‘You – wouldn’t...?’

‘I wouldn’t shoot like an escort,’ Farry said, and shaking his head, he chuckled grimly at his own childish foolishness. ‘If I didn’t shoot like an escort, perhaps my da wouldn’t die, you see.’

‘O Farry,’ came his uncle’s response, sounding grieved. Not at Farry, but for that little child he had been, and trying so desperately to make everything come out right.

‘So, after the fever, I just started aiming at a different spot,’ Farry said. ‘The third ring of the target, or just off to one side of the target, or the wrong tree, when we were shooting in the woods, or...’

‘I take your meaning,’ Ferdi said. ‘And so your aim was true, e’en so.’ After a pause, he added, ‘And so, you didn’t shoot to kill my furry friend, here, or even to wound?’

‘How did you –?’ Farry began.

‘The arrow glanced from a rib,’ Ferdi said, ‘Oh, it was caught up in the dog’s thick pelt, and penetrated the skin a little, a flesh wound, but it didn’t go through to his heart.’

Farry sighed in relief at this confirmation of his hitting the mark he’d chosen and admitted, ‘I only meant to drive him away.’

*** 

Author's note: Much of what I know about scarlet elf cups came from this link.

Chapter 21. A Way

There had been no sunset this night, and there would be no stars or moon to watch over him, as in the lullaby Farry’s Mum had sung to him as a little child, and now sang to the twins and little Jonquil every evening as she tucked them into their beds. His dry eyes prickled at the thought. He wondered what his da was doing at this moment? Relaxing with a glass of ale with Regi or another cousin? Perhaps Uncle Merry had surprised him with a visit and even now was sitting down to late supper. 

Or perhaps Farry’s mum and da were sitting in front of a comfortable fire in the sitting room, sharing a last cup of tea before seeking their pillows. Farry had often enough peeped from the doorway of his room, seeking a glass of water or reassurance for a nightmare, to see them so, Diamond’s head resting upon her husband’s shoulder in a room lit only by firelight and a turned-down lamp, or Pippin stretched out with his head in Diamond’s lap whilst her fingers soothed his hair. 

If only he were there now... he would have taken every mild scolding they had to offer for getting up out of bed again – along with the requested glass of water. 

Thinking about that was a torment, so he shook his head to clear it and threw a few more sticks on the fire. He had spent much of the day resting, following the lessons in survival that Haldi had taught him over the past year, conserving his energy. Because he had the fire to warm him, he didn’t need to move about to keep warm in the winter cold, so, half-reclining between the warming fire and the edge of the pit, he passed the time swapping stories with Ferdibrand. They took turns asking each other questions about some past event or action that had been puzzling, and usually the answer required some length in the telling. But hobbit teens are lively creatures who often find it difficult to sit still for any length of time, and Faramir, though tall for his age, was no exception.  

Thus, when he could no longer bear his enforced inactivity, he’d excuse himself to his uncle and go into the surrounding forest to haul more deadwood to add to his pile. He’d also searched all around the edges of the clearing for more mushrooms, roots, and edible greens that might have sprouted in the mild winter weather, never going out of sight of the fire so that he wouldn’t lose himself in the wood. Of course he shared the fruits of his labours equally with Ferdi, even though his uncle repeatedly told him to keep a “Lotho’s share” for himself, to which he always answered, ‘I have all I want, Uncle.’ It was mostly true. At least, Faramir kept telling himself that. The mushrooms he sought out and the roots he dug, eaten raw, as clean as he could manage – as having no water for washing, he was only able to brush the dirt off – and a handful or two of tender greens were helpful in their current situation, but their wild provisions certainly didn’t hold a candle to what the cooks at the Great Smials could stir up. 

He’d also scavenged the vicinity for all the scattered pieces of their ruined packs and their contents, hoping for something useful, though in the end, it appeared the dogs had spoiled everything the hobbits had brought with them. He had even busied his fingers with neatly folding the sad, torn scraps he’d found and placing them in a few ordered piles nearby as he and his uncle traded stories to pass the time and keep up their spirits.

Leaning over towards the mouth of the pit, he cleared his throat and reminded Ferdi of where they’d left off in the current story. ‘And so you drank half a glass of a sleeping potion – did I hear that right? half a glass! when you were, as you quoted Hilly as so elegantly putting it, “about to ride in a jostling pack of ponies at break-neck speed” – and wrapped up your leg in a bandage, and made a form in the bed with pillows (rather like Frodo when the Black Riders came to Bree, I fancy).’ 

‘I find healers nearly so terrifying as Black Riders, to tell the truth,’ came from the pit, drawing a smile from the lad. 

‘Then you swapped clothes with Hilly,’ Farry said. 

‘Not exactly,’ Ferdi answered. ‘He wasn’t about to put on a nightshirt and hop in the bed, after all. He simply changed out of his racing clothes, shook out the dust, brought them to the infirmary in a bag and helped me into them.’ 

‘Then Hilly half-carried you out of the infirmary – and no body noticed because everyone was at the Pony Races, and he helped you onto Penny’s back, and you tied a scarf over your face – how handy, that the racecourse was dusty that day so they couldn’t tell it was you riding and not Hilly! – and told him to bind your bad leg to the stirrup leathers so you wouldn’t lose the stirrup... conveniently arranging for Penny to drag you to your death, should you fall whilst riding in the race...’ 

Farry found himself shaking his head in complete and utter incredulity as he spoke. ‘So tell me now, Uncle...’ 

‘Yes?’ Ferdi said. 

‘Now that you’ve explained to me how you ended up in that race when Hilly was the one, supposed to be riding...’ 

‘Yes,’ Ferdi repeated when Farry paused to figure out how to phrase his question without saying such words as “idiotic” or something similar. 

He swallowed as best he could and blurted, ‘What in the wild Green Hills were you thinking?’ When his uncle didn’t answer, he pressed further. ‘Why? Why would you do such a thing? It boggles the imagination!’ 

Ferdi remained dumb, and Farry felt the stirrings of alarm. ‘Uncle Ferdi?’ 

‘I am here, lad,’ came the answer, sounding somehow bleaker and more hollow than before. 

The teen breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Then,’ he said, and paused. ‘Why won’t you tell me?’ 

There was a long pause as if Ferdi was sifting through his words before speaking them. At last, he said, ‘I don’t want to speak ill of your da, Farry.’ 

Farry took a few shallow breaths, stunned by the turn the conversation had taken. ‘Speak ill...?’ he said at last. Then, shaking his head vigorously (though of course Ferdi could not see it), he said, stronger. ‘No! That won’t suffice. Now I have to know. D’you understand, Ferdi?’ 

After another lengthy pause, his uncle answered quietly, ‘I do, lad.’ 

‘Then tell me,’ Farry said. He took another shaking breath and added, ‘The Tooks didn’t call that Convocation five years ago for no reason – they wouldn’t! All the ill feeling in the world over him going on an adventure and befriending Outlanders and choosing to live in Buckland instead of the Tookland... none of that would have been cause for a convocation.’ 

In the face of Ferdi’s continuing silence (for perhaps he’d been confused by the sudden and apparent change of topic), Farry added, ‘He used you and Tolly very ill indeed, that time... nearly got you both banished. Nearly was banished himself as a consequence. So I believe that if you have ill to speak of him, now’s the time to do it – and luckily enough for my da’s sake, I am the only listener in the present moment.’ 

He took a deep breath and added, ‘But... he’s my da, Ferdi. And that is why I must know. I have a right to know, especially if he is training me to follow him as Thain. For the sake of the Tooks and the Tooklanders, I have to know.’ He found himself blinking eyes that stung, as if with tears, though no tears came.  

Slowly, haltingly, he added, ‘I know who I think my da is, but what if he isn’t?’ 

Ferdi’s fervent response came quickly this time. ‘Never, Farry! Bite your tongue!’ 

‘But for the Tooks to call a convocation,’ Farry said. He swallowed hard, gathered his courage, and spoke plainly. ‘Fortinbrand and I spoke at length, when he was conducting his investigation, and little lad that I was, he guided me gently through questions that, now I’m a little older, I understand were aimed at finding out my da’s character... at least so far as a small child might be able to shed light on such a thing.’ 

‘I wondered about that,’ Ferdi said, so quietly that Farry had to strain to hear the words.  

The teen took a shaky breath and went on. ‘I know that Men can seem fair and be false, as if they are wearing a smiling mask that hides the ugliness beneath.’  

Ferdi surprised him then, by answering, ‘And many Men, the ones with whom your da claims friendship, seem fair and are truly so.’ 

‘What happened to all Men are ruffians?’ Farry demanded. 

Of a wonder, his uncle chuckled. ‘I swear,’ Ferdi said, ‘I have never said those words.’ 

Farry shook his head. Of course Ferdi was telling the truth: he always said something more along the lines of “Ruffians, all of them” when some action or other on the part of a Man had distressed him. 

‘So is the King a ruffian, or not?’ Farry pressed, for it was an old joke between them. 

Ferdi did not disappoint. ‘I haven’t made my mind up about him yet.’

‘And Prince Faramir?’ Farry wanted to know.

‘That Man is practically a Took,’ Ferdi answered. ‘Why, if he weren’t so tall, I’d suspect someone robbed a Tookish cradle some years back and then carried the babe off to the Southlands... especially considering the eminently sensible wife he married.’

Farry suddenly realised that his uncle had successfully diverted him from the topic at hand. As the worry that had suddenly arisen with Ferdi’s mention of “speaking ill” crashed over him once more like an overwhelming wave, he took a shuddering breath. ‘But that’s neither here nor there, Ferdi. I think... are you trying to evade the question? I love my da, I do! But...’ and he spoke his fear, ‘has he spent so much time amongst Men that he can wear a false face, as some of them do?’ He fought down another sob that threatened. ‘And that face that I know...’ It had not occurred to him before, and to think such a thing now was shattering. ‘Is there something dark underneath, that I never saw? Never knew was there?’ 

Sickness rose in his throat as nightmare memory surfaced. ‘The fat Man, who was so jolly and spoke so kindly when it suited him to do so... he could put on a good face... but he would have cut me to pieces, slowly and with great pleasure, from the way those Men talked, or his awful brother would have, had the Muster not come in time to save me from them.’ 

‘Farry, I –‘ 

‘You are a loyal Took, Ferdi, and yet... you tell me there is yet ill to be spoken of my father.’ There. He’d said it. 

‘Yes,’ Ferdi said at last, and Faramir’s heart sank within him. ‘And no.’ 

Farry’s mouth twisted. ‘Are you secretly an Elf, then, Uncle, and I never realised until this moment? For you are telling me yea and nay in the same breath.’ 

‘As it is with all of us, lad,’ Ferdi said. ‘As it is with all of us.’ 

‘You’re saying we’re all part Elf, then...’ 

‘I’m saying there is good and ill in every Hobbit, lad, e’en as there is in Dwarves, from what I’ve gleaned from old Bilbo’s tales, and Elves, from what your Uncle Merry has told me of the old histories, and Men as well. For Boromir was a noble Man, was he not? He travelled as one of the Nine, guarded his companions faithfully, looked after their safety, fought for them, even died trying to protect Merry and your da. And yet he tried to take the Ring from Frodo.’ 

Farry remained silent, pondering this. Ferdi spoke again. ‘And you know that hobbits can be petty and insular and downright unpleasant, even without leaving the Shire and rubbing elbows (so to speak) with Outlanders? Think of Lobelia, before they marched her off to the Lockholes, and Lotho – may their dreams be all of peace, no matter what terrible choices they may have made in their lifetimes – and Ted Sandyman, who threw his lot in with the ruffians, as well as the other hobbits who turned against their own kind in the Troubles...’ 

‘So what is the ill you would speak of my father?’ Farry demanded. 

‘I would not,’ Ferdi countered. 

‘What is the ill you can speak, then?’ Farry insisted. 

He listened to another long silence, but finally, Ferdi began to speak. ‘Your da’s worst failing is that he’s always been impetuous, lad. Acting without thinking.’ The older hobbit paused and then continued, ‘Not active malice, not at all! ...or the Convocation would have been right to banish him.’ 

Farry nodded to himself. He could understand the distinction, and yet...? ‘Impetuous,’ he prompted. 

‘Aye, from his earliest years,’ Ferdi said. ‘He was such a bright little lad, so curious about everything. Always asking questions, and if he didn’t get the answer he wanted, he’d ask the question again, or else he’d take it into his head to go off and investigate on his own, and that was when he’d really get himself into trouble – and us, his older cousins who had been set to watch over him, into the bargain.’ Of a wonder he chuckled. ‘D’you remember that story he told before the hearth in the Great Room, of tipping a stone into that well, deep in the Dwarf-mines under the snowy mountain, for no good reason whatsoever?’ 

‘So what does my father being impetuous have to do with you, badly injured as you were and even, if I’m remembering right, in danger of losing your leg – what were you doing racing in Hilly’s place?’ Farry said, coming back to the original point. 

For that was the point that, at this moment, begged explanation. 

*** 

Chapter 22. Explanation

After another long silence, Ferdi spoke. ‘D’you remember, lad, coming back from Tolly’s wedding? You were only a faunt at the time.’

When it seemed his uncle was waiting for an answer, Faramir replied, ‘I do,’ though he did not quite understand the shift in topic. However, somehow he no longer had the feeling that Ferdi was trying to steer him away from the knowledge he sought.

‘You remember how the Rohan – Starfire – charged Socks, and you were thrown through the air, and your mum caught you and curled herself around you whilst the stallions fought over her head, threatening to trample the both of you underfoot?’

Suddenly tense with remembering, Farry nodded, and then for Ferdi’s benefit, he said, ‘I remember.’

‘Your da, in his fear and fury, ordered Starfire destroyed,’ Ferdi said. Farry nodded in the following pause, but then his uncle continued, apparently not needing Farry’s assent. ‘And I... I took the stallion, and I rode him, far, far out into the wild Green Hills,’ the older hobbit said. ‘And at last, I dismounted and took out my knife, that he might die quietly, by the hand of one he’d learnt to trust, and not fighting, terrified, against the restraints as the stable hobbits held him and Old Tom gave the death stroke.’ Farry could hear tears in his uncle’s voice at this recollection, though he had no doubt Ferdi was as dry as himself.

‘I...’ Ferdi went on. ‘But I had not the courage to finish him, and so I turned him loose, there in the wilderlands, and I walked all those miles back to the Great Smials, and told no one what I’d done. And everyone assumed that someone else had taken him away and destroyed him. Including your da.’

‘I remember,’ Farry said quietly. ‘Gran was furious with Da. She scolded him until he sent Regi to tell Old Tom not to destroy the stallion.’

‘How do you know that? I’d heard later the healers had dosed you to sleep!’ came Ferdi’s surprised exclamation.

Farry laughed in spite of himself. ‘They dosed Mum to sleep... but I fell asleep in Gran’s lap whilst the healers were fussing over me, and I woke up again soon after someone tucked me into bed. I heard all of Gran’s scoldings! She was more angry than I’d ever heard her before...’ And some of the wonder he’d felt as a faunt came back to him now. ‘And Da told Regi to tell Old Tom, but I heard when Regi came back later to say the deed was already done.’

‘O aye, and your father apologised to me for losing his temper and condemning the pony,’ Ferdi said, ‘and that’s when I confessed to him that I’d loosed the pony rather than see him die.’

Farry found himself holding his breath as his uncle continued bleakly, ‘And he crafted my confession into a tool to force me to recapture the stallion and ride him in the All-Shire Pony Race, that he might claim the winner’s purse, for the Rohan was the fastest pony we’d ever seen.’

‘How...?’ Farry breathed.

‘It was thievery, to take the pony and let him go, when he didn’t belong to me, should the Thain choose to take a hard line in the matter,’ Ferdi said. ‘The penalty for a thief is to live under the Ban for a year and a day. Farry,’ he said, and the lad heard remembered desperation in his tone, ‘I had already lived under the Ban, for something that was not even my fault, for nine years because of your grandfather’s anger. I could not face it again.’ And Farry gulped, for Paladin had consigned Ferdi to shunning because of something Pippin had done in leaving the Tookland to choose to live amongst the Brandybucks, a double injustice. 

‘But Pippin so graciously offered me a way of escape,’ Ferdi went on, with some bitterness, Farry thought. ‘His words were these, exactly: If a thief confesses before an assembly of Shire-folk, Tooks and Tooklanders, and repays double what was stolen...and the Thain perceives that he is truly sorry for his actions, and not likely to repeat them... He told me that I could redeem my mares if I recovered the stallion, rode him in the All-Shire race, and turned the purse over to him. The Thain. Ah, lad!’ he cried in distress. ‘It meant that my ponies were forfeit, my two mares, to pay for “stealing” the stallion. But those two ponies of mine, Penny and Dapple, they were all I had to my name! He would have taken all I had...’

If there had been any tears left to the lad, he would have wept them in that moment.

‘He also said, If you recover the pony but you do not win the purse, you may give up your two mares, or you may accept the Ban.’ And Farry, knowing Ferdi’s capacity for remembering all he heard, had no doubt that his uncle was quoting his father word-for-word. ‘Believe me, Ferdi, I wish there were other choices in the matter, but it is your own doing that has landed us in this mess. And of course I believed him. After all, he was the Thain, and I was merely a working hobbit, an archer, someone almost beneath the notice of one of the gentry.’ 

Farry, having a high opinion of archers, wanted to protest, but his uncle wasn’t finished. 

‘And so, Farry,’ Ferdi said in a low tone, ‘when the Tookland Pony Races came, and Hilly told me he’d taken over working Penny after I was injured, I saw my way to winning enough gold to – perhaps – redeem my ponies. Even if the Rohan and I did not ride to win in the All-Shire Race the following month, I could save my mares. And though I still faced the torment of confessing my deed before an assembly of hobbits, at least I’d still have my lasses.’

‘And so you rode in the race, having swallowed half a sleeping draught for the pain in your leg, and your leg tied to the stirrup leathers, risking death...’ Farry said, sick at heart for what he was learning about his father’s capacity for ruthlessness.

‘And you know how it all came out,’ Ferdi said. ‘Starfire jumped several fences, took himself into the race, and spoilt all my plans.’

Mute, Farry nodded, unable to speak for the devastation he felt.

But his uncle wasn’t finished, it seemed. ‘But then, Farry,’ Ferdi said. ‘Somehow my risking my all to save my lasses shocked him into his senses, your da, I mean.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Farry whispered.

He didn’t know how Ferdi could have heard him, but apparently he did, for he went on, ‘He came to me, as I lay there in the infirmary, knowing that I had lost everything, including any respect on the part of the Tooks because of my reckless foolishness, riding in that race, and he... he humbled himself to me.’

‘Humbled himself...?’ Farry said numbly.

‘He could not reverse the judgement he’d pronounced – by tradition and the ways of the Tooks that go back all the way to the first Took, they say, as The Took and head of the family, there is a protocol that binds him in all he says and does, that protects himself as well as others...’

Farry nodded, not quite convinced, though Fortinbrand had said much the same thing to him.

‘We will find a way out of this mess, together, cousin, your da said. And we did! ...he did,’ Ferdi said lower. ‘He made it so that my ponies were mine to keep, and he asked instead of demanding that I ride in the All-Shire Race...’

‘All for gold,’ Farry said, and he couldn’t keep the bitterness out of his own voice now.

‘Ah, lad, but he explained that, too,’ Ferdi said, ‘and once I understood, we began working together, rather than him trying to force me to his will, to achieve his aim.’

‘Explained what?’ Farry burst out.

‘I don’t know how well you remember those early days,’ Ferdi said. ‘But I do know that you remember finding the treasury, where Lalia or perhaps Ferumbras had hidden it away.’

‘I remember,’ Farry said more softly.

‘That whole first year,’ Ferdi said, ‘your da had almost nothing to work with. Here he was, responsible for maintaining the roads for the King, for overseeing the welfare of the Tooks and Tooklanders, for paying those in the employ of the Thain – servants, and foresters, and archers, and fieldworkers, and more – and yet, he had almost no funds to pay them with! His father before him had faced the same problem, and he’d been advised to carry on as if the treasury had not vanished into thin air. And so Paladin became known for his hard, cold ways, spending a penny and demanding tuppence in change...’

Farry nodded.

‘...but the Tooks put up with him because he brought us through the Troubles as a free and independent people,’ Ferdi said. ‘We owed him a great debt, and though we shook our heads at his parsimonious ways, we never questioned the whys of it all.’ He paused and returned to the thread he had been spinning. ‘And so, your da wanted the gold to pay for the lease on a farm that is part of the holdings of the Tooks.’

Farry nodded, familiar with the concept. Much of the land in the Tookland was held in trust by The Took, and farmers leased their land for their lifetime, passing the land and the lease on to their children after them. The money from the leases provided the funds to pay for foresters and fieldworkers, to hire Bucklanders to build or repair bridges, to purchase goods in quantity from the Outer Shire, such as pipe-weed and wheat and wine, to be sold in the marketplaces in towns in the Tookland for the benefit of Tooklanders, and more.

‘He’d promised a dying farmer, you see, that his sons would not have to leave the land when he died, even though they’d not been able to save enough to take over the lease when he was gone,’ Ferdi said. ‘That’s what he wanted the gold for, Farry, and not for any self-serving reason.’

‘But...’ was forced out of Farry. ‘Fortinbrand taught me that the end, no matter how good the cause, can never justify any means that are hurtful or cruel or thoughtless, or done out of malice or spite or greed.’

‘No, that’s right, Farry,’ Ferdi said. ‘And that is why your da was in the wrong, to try to force me to his will instead of reasoning with me. And, I think, that is part of why he presented Starfire to me, in the end. It was his way of making restitution in that case.’

‘But he didn’t learn his lesson!’ Farry half-sobbed. ‘For he – he accused you and Tolly of child-stealing, when it was my own fault for running away! He would have seen you banished! Just as my grandfather made you pay a terrible price for my father’s choices!’

And here he was, bearing such a dreadful legacy. He wondered if, when he became Thain, he would visit such injustice on the hobbits who had sworn an oath of loyalty to him, should his own son (if he should have any, that is) displease him. Perhaps he shouldn’t be Thain after his father. 

Or if he had no other choice, perhaps he'd end like Thain Ferumbras, unmarried and childless. Though that was no solution, really, if the Thain himself were found wanting. All agreed, from scraps of conversation Farry had overheard here and there, that Ferumbras had been worse than useless for the most part. He'd even heard whispers that it was a mercy that old Ferumbras had died when he did, as Men were beginning to encroach on the Shire in greater numbers. Farry had heard quiet expressions of doubt that Ferumbras would have stood up to Lotho the way Paladin had. The Tookland might have gone the way of the rest of the Shire in the Troubles, and then where would they all have been?

‘I told you, he was impetuous,’ Ferdi answered quietly. ‘It is his worst failing, and his greatest strength.’

‘I don’t understand!’ Farry cried miserably.

‘Farry, when a crisis arises, your da sees his way clearly,’ Ferdi said, ‘and immediately, he has a solution, usually an excellent one, in fact.’ Farry sat unmoving, letting his uncle’s words wash over him. ‘He’s saved countless lives, and trouble beyond all knowing, with his quick wits and decisiveness.’

‘There’s a “but” in there somewhere,’ Farry said, and his uncle chuckled.

‘Perceptive you are, lad, but then, you always have been. But...’ Ferdi said, and paused. ‘Let me put it this way. What if you have a young, lively, half-tamed ox, and you hitch him to a plough?’

Farry knew the answer to this, from asking a plethora of questions whilst watching the fieldworkers going about their business. ‘He might run wild,’ he answered. ‘It’s why they always yoke two oxen together, a young one for his strength, and an old one for his steadiness.’

‘O aye,’ Ferdi said. ‘You have the right of it. And so, your da has wisely surrounded himself with steady advisors and helpers, hobbits who might not be so quick and decisive but who can pull him up short if he starts to run away with the plough.’ 

Farry nodded at this and said, for his uncle’s benefit, ‘So... what you’re saying is that he saw himself for what he was, and repented of it, and sought to redress the wrongs he’d done in... in running away with the plough... and he suffered himself to be yoked...’

‘He yoked himself, rather,’ Ferdi said. ‘For don’t you know, Farry, how, after the Convocation – how your da has sought counsel in any decision he’s made that affects more people than himself? The larger the decision, the more carefully he ponders it. O –‘ Ferdi said, and Farry could just see his uncle in his mind’s eye, holding up a staying hand, ‘– I’m not saying he’s become indecisive, no, not at all! But you know how iron is brittle, and breaks easily, but when it’s tempered into steel, like your father’s sword, it can withstand a blow?’

‘I think so,’ Faramir said.

‘Well, that is what your da has learnt... he nearly stepped down as Thain after he realised he’d falsely accused Tolly and me, did you know that? But Merry (and Regi, I think) talked him into staying, for the good of the Shire. For his ideas are good ones, Farry, and his heart – he has a good heart. Believe me when I tell you. There’s no evil there, hiding behind a mask, not like those cursed ruffians that you and I had the bad fortune to fall afoul of.’

‘You sound as if you trust him,’ Farry said. ‘...that you find him trustworthy.’

‘I would trust him with my very life,’ Ferdi answered. ‘Indeed,’ he added simply, ‘I have.’

‘He saved your life?’ Farry said.

‘He did, lad, and nearly gave his own life doing so,’ Ferdi said. ‘But that’s a story, I think, we’ll let lie. ‘Twould be quite a scandal amongst the Tooks, should the details ever be known. Suffice it to say, it involved a river. And nearly drowning.’ Farry thought about his da saving Haldi, and how they’d hushed it up to spare the escort’s reputation amongst the Tooks. It seemed Haldi wasn’t the only Tookish archer to fall afoul of a river, only for Pippin to rescue him. But Ferdi was speaking again, and as he returned his attention to his uncle’s words, Farry realised that Ferdi had firmly changed the subject. ‘But I deem ‘tis your turn to answer a question now.’

‘Is it?’ Farry said.

‘It is.’

‘So what burning question is gnawing away at you?’ Farry said, giving up on finding out more about a river. And nearly drowning. At least for now.

‘When we were sitting there, listening to Fortinbrand build the case against us – and it was looking dark, so dark, so certain that all five of us were to feel the brand on our faces that very day and be cast out of the Shire forevermore...’ 

Farry gulped, but said bravely, ‘I remember.’

‘I heard Fortinbrand say to you, in such a low voice, I’m sure he meant for no one else to hear, Remember what we talked about. And you calmed from your weeping, and you laid your head upon his shoulder, as if he were a rock you could cling to, even as he continued his questioning and dug the pit deeper, in a manner of speaking, that the Tooks were about to vote to throw us into. Farry,’ his uncle said. ‘I’ve always wondered. You were calm after that, at least, until your da rejected the proposition that Erlingar and Rudigrim seemed to be working out, there on the spot.’

Faramir shivered at the memory – thinking that everything was about to come out right after all, and then the Thain’s quiet No.

‘What was it, you and Fortinbrand talked about?’ Ferdi asked, and then he backtracked slightly. ‘If it’s something you’d be allowed to tell, that is. I know that anyone the Querier interviews whilst building a case to be brought before a Convocation is bound to silence, under penalty of serious consequences should they dare to speak to any other.’ He paused and added, ‘I suppose that would even apply to a small child, although I’ve never heard of a child standing witness before, as you did.’

Farry took a breath and held it as he considered. At last, he let it out again and spoke. ‘I don’t think it matters so much anymore,’ he said. ‘It’s not as if it would have any bearing on the outcome now.’ And, he thought to himself bleakly, it was more than likely that he and Ferdi would die out here. His thoughts were growing clouded, and he’d heard his uncle’s speech increasingly slurring with either exhaustion or weakness as the interminable winter night dragged on. Even if they were able to talk all the way through this night to the morning, they were both growing weaker. Not long, and it would be three days without water. And rescue was still days away, by all reckoning.

*** 

Chapter 23. Reckoning

”I suppose it started on the morning of the Convocation,’ Farry said slowly. ‘Just when it seemed everything was going back to the way it was supposed to be.’

‘Come Farry,’ Diamond said after Pippin had dropped a kiss atop her head and squeezed their young son’s shoulder in passing as he left the breakfast table to take up the day’s work in his study. She got up from the table and went to sit on the comfortable sofa before the fire that Sandy had sparked two hours earlier, when he’d laid the table for early breakfast, nicely warming the small private sitting room in the Thain’s quarters before the family arose.

Diamond patted the seat beside her. ‘At last,’ she said. ‘I think it’s high time we got back to our lessons.’

Ten-year-old Faramir sighed but sat down obediently enough and crowded close as his mum opened the book. Truth be told, he didn’t find his reading lessons all that much of a difficulty. They paled by comparison to the trials of running away to Gondor a little more than a month earlier – thank goodness Ferdi had found him before he’d got too far! – and saving Ferdi and Tolly from banishment by a furious Thain who’d thought they’d had somewhat to do with his son’s disappearance, and then being taken by ruffians, in the Shire in defiance of Elessar’s Edict, and who’d let Farry know in no uncertain terms that his life would last only so long as was convenient for them.

The fever that had gone round the hobbits of the Muster, with some of them falling seriously ill, had disrupted the smooth operations of the Smials just when things should have settled down after Farry’s rescue. The Thain had taken Tolly to meet the King at the Bridge for healing (for the royal party were conveniently on the spot, in the midst of their now-habitual migration between North and South), leaving Regi to run the business of the Tookland whilst Diamond watched over all the domestic matters at the Great Smials. She had the added burden of having to make preparations for the two-day journey to the Bridge to meet the royal party, stopping on their way to Gondor, as had been scheduled months earlier. Regi, already staggering under the weight of many obligations, could offer Diamond little in the way of help and support in her planning. Ferdi, whom Regi (and Pippin, if the truth be told) depended upon heavily in bearing the load, had spent more than a week in bed, recovering from his ruffian-inflicted injuries. 

And then the Thain and his little family had travelled to the Brandywine Bridge to farewell the King and Queen, making their way Southwards again after spending a year in the Northern Kingdom. What a celebration that had been! What joy, after all their recent trials!

And after a day of rest from the return journey, following the departure of the royal party – with so much recent disruption, Pippin, Diamond and Farry had not stayed in Buckland for a visit as they might have at another time – the Thain and wife and son had breakfasted as if this were only a usual day in the Tookland, somewhat dull, perhaps, in its routine. Frankly, a little tedium might be a good thing, at least for the present. Or so Faramir thought privately. Though he was only ten, it seemed to him that his parents were still weary this morning, even after a day of rest.

Though Faramir had yet to see his uncle since their return, he’d gladly received his father’s news that Ferdi was on his feet, as well as Tolly and the rest of the hobbits from the Muster. And so this morning Pippin had gone to his study as was his custom on any usual day.

‘It has been such a long time! Let’s start at the beginning,’ Diamond said. She opened the book to the first page, a brightly illustrated picture of an apple tree heavy with glowing red orbs, and laid it on Farry’s lap. Holding the book steady with one hand, she slipped the other around her little lad and snuggled him with a happy-sounding sigh. She pointed to the letters. ‘A –‘ she prompted.

‘A is for Apple, hanging ripe on the tree,’ Farry said. The picture gave him a clue, and he’d already learnt this page before his lessons had stopped at the beginning of Yuletide.

‘And B –‘

‘B is for –‘ he began, only to be interrupted by Sandy, his family’s hobbitservant, clearing his throat.

‘Yes, Sandy?’ Diamond said, looking up. Was it Farry’s imagination, or did the hobbitservant look more grave than his usual dignified manner?

‘Beg pardon, Mistress, but something has come up.’

‘Does my husband need...?’ Diamond began, but Sandy shook his head.

‘There’s a hobbit here to see you,’ he said, ‘actually,’ he corrected himself, ‘he wants a word with the lad.’

‘Farry!’ Diamond said in surprise. Then she rose at seeing the hobbit hovering in the doorway to the private sitting room. Faramir stood up, too, and laid the book aside. His feeling of unease grew, he knew not why, only that Sandy was more solemn than he’d ever seen the hobbit. But his mum laid a reassuring hand on his shoulder. ‘Fortinbrand!’

‘Mistress Diamond,’ the visitor said. ‘I apologise for this interruption, but... I need to ask young Farry a few questions about a matter that has come to my attention.’

‘He’s not made mischief, I hope!’ Diamond said, looking from the visitor to her son and back again. ‘I’m certain he’s put those days behind him...’

‘Not at all,’ Fortinbrand said smoothly. ‘If you don’t mind, Mistress, I’ll just sit down with him here and have a little chat whilst Sandy is sweeping and dusting your apartments. If the lad needs anything at all, Sandy will be here, won’t you, Sandy?’

‘I will be happy to be of service,’ Sandy responded, but to Farry’s heightened senses, something was not quite right.

‘In any event, Mistress,’ Fortinbrand said, ‘I understand you were to be talking with the head holekeeper this morning, something to do with the linens... she’s waiting for you now in the laundries, as a matter of fact.’

‘Waiting for me now?’ Diamond said, obviously befuddled. ‘But I wasn’t to be there for another hour...’

‘She wanted to be sure to have some of your time, Mistress,’ Fortinbrand said. ‘Especially since your meeting from yesterday was postponed until today to allow you some extra rest after your journeyings.’

‘How did you –?’ Diamond said, and then shook her head. It was Fortinbrand’s business to ask questions, usually on the Thain’s or Steward’s behalf, so it was perfectly natural that he’d know about the postponement. ‘Did Pip –?’ she said now, ‘or Regi –?’

‘Mistress,’ he said, inclining his head, saying neither aye or nay to her implied question.

Diamond sighed and threw up her hands. ‘Very well!’ she said. ‘Who am I to gainsay my husband when he has sent the Querier to ask questions!’

Farry saw Sandy’s mouth tighten at the corners, but it was more of a grimace than a smile.

He’d learnt something of patience in his brief – but interminable – sojourn with the ruffians, and so he held his tongue whilst Diamond performed a few last-minute fusses and then took herself out the door to the Thain’s private quarters, separated by a hallway from the more public rooms.

Fortinbrand closed the door to the little sitting room – to Farry’s shock, for he could not remember that door ever being closed before! – firmly behind her immediately after they heard the main door to the suite close, meaning Diamond was on her way to the laundries. ‘We will be uninterrupted,’ he said, dividing a look between Sandy and the small lad.

‘But if Mum forgets something and –?’ Farry began.

‘She will be quite occupied for the next few hours, lad,’ Fortinbrand said. ‘And so will we.’

Farry realised his mouth was hanging open and shut it firmly.

’This was the morning of the Convocation?’ Ferdi said. ‘Pip was in his study with Regi, though Regi was soon called away, I understand, and Hilly and Tolly and I were in the second-best parlour, eating one of the finest breakfasts I can remember the kitchens ever stirring up, and Isen was Messenger, I think, standing outside the Thain’s study door...’ He paused. ‘I imagine Sandy had already been questioned and sworn to silence. And they neatly got Diamond out of the way so that Fortinbrand could set the final stitches in our shrouds by questioning you to confirm or deny what he’d already discovered.’

‘Yes,’ said Farry, though he shuddered at his uncle’s choice of metaphor.

He thought he heard his uncle choke, then, as if in consternation or dismay. ‘They thought to give the condemned a final meal, I suppose,’ Ferdi said. ‘It all makes sense now. We were in the parlour, eating, and Haldi made some excuse or other, and Isen and Adel were taking turns on messenger duty – I imagine they’d all been questioned and sworn to silence as well... and all the while, hobbits were taking down the tables in the Great Room and putting in the benches, and it must not have been long before Tooks and Tooklanders began to arrive, preparatory to banishing us...’

Farry took a shuddering breath.

‘Well then, lad,’ Ferdi said. ‘They can hardly do any worse to me now. So what did you and Fortinbrand talk about?’

‘There now, lad,’ Fortinbrand said. ‘Is it well with you?’ He indicated the sofa, with its abandoned book. ‘Shall we make ourselves more comfortable?’ To Sandy, he said, ‘If you would please fetch the lad a glass of water or somewhat...?’

The hobbit was certainly living up to his title as official Querier, Farry thought sourly, for his uneasy feeling was continuing to grow within him, and what he really wanted at this moment was the comforting presence of his mother. Sitting in her lap, preferably. But he obediently went over to the sofa, picked up the book and closed it with more care than usual, set it on the side table, and sat himself down, meeting the solemn gazes of the adults with a questioning look of his own.

‘Well then,’ Fortinbrand said, sitting himself down and turning to face the lad. ‘I’m sure you’re wondering what this is all about.’

Farry had learnt to hold his tongue in the clutches of the murderous ruffians, to give nothing away that they might use against him or potential rescuers. Better yet, Fortinbrand’s usual unruffled exterior seemed a bit – ruffled, perhaps? taken off balance? – by Farry’s calm silence.

‘Well then,’ the Querier repeated. ‘Sandy? That glass of water?’

The hobbitservant gave a start and offered a slight bow and murmured apology together in the same moment. It was almost never necessary to make a request of him twice; he prided himself on his quality of service. He must be severely rattled, Faramir thought to himself.

As Sandy turned away, Fortinbrand said more quietly, ‘A matter has come to our attention in recent days...’

‘Our?’ Farry said. Just the one word. A question, demanding an answer.

A look of surprise crossed the Querier’s face, after which he appeared to scrutinise the lad more carefully. ‘I have the feeling your father is raising no fool,’ he said quietly, as if to himself.

Faramir tilted his head in consideration. ‘I couldn’t say,’ he admitted candidly. ‘I’ve done any number of foolish things in the last few years.’

‘Childish things, I should say,’ Fortinbrand corrected. ‘For we must take into consideration your tender years.’

Faramir hmphed internally, but even so, the Querier seemed to read his feelings, for his gaze grew keener. ‘I think, you would say, perhaps, that not everyone has taken your youth into consideration.’

Farry waited. Sandy brought a glass of water and placed it on the side table beside the book, then withdrew without a word, closing the door between hallway and sitting room behind him.

‘The Talk has been fierce,’ Fortinbras said at last, as if feeling his way, and Farry couldn’t help a snort, which brought a smile to the Querier’s face, though there was no humour with it. ‘You’ve heard your share, I take it.’

Farry gave him a nod, short and tight, holding firmly to his feelings.

‘There’s quite a bit of speculation as to why you ran away in the first place, I gather,’ Fortinbrand said. He must have read Farry’s confusion and consternation in his face, for he nodded. ‘Not surprising.’

‘How did you –?’ Farry demanded. ‘They hushed it up! They told me I wasn’t to speak of it, for the harm it would do to my mum and da...! And I didn’t! I promise I said nothing!’

‘Little child that you are,’ Fortinbrand said, his tone gentle, ‘I do not doubt your word, young Faramir.’ He took a deep breath. ‘But the Tooks are very good at piecing small, seemingly unrelated facts together into a scandalous and ultimately damaging whole.’ 

Upset, Farry said, ‘I – I don’t understand...’

‘Faramir,’ the Querier said, laying a hand on the lad’s arm. ‘You did run away, not too long before Yule, when everyone was busy about getting ready for the celebration, and the usual routine was disrupted, and your father was in Buckland, did you not?’

Farry stared at him.

‘The story that Tolly put about was that Ferdibrand had left and taken you with him, to join your father at Brandy Hall, but in truth, you’d told falsehoods to various hobbits to cover your departure – you are too clever by half, lad – and when he found out you’d gone, Ferdi went out after you, to find you, and to bring you to Buckland in truth, to cover up the scandal of your running away.’ The Querier smiled. ‘Tolly is neither devious nor imaginative enough to make up such a story on his own, so I imagine it was Ferdibrand’s idea, though I’ve not yet questioned either of them to be certain.’

Farry opened his mouth and closed it again.

‘So, from what I’ve been able to put together, Ferdi found you and took you on to his sister’s home in the Woody End, where he was supposed to be bringing you to Buckland. But for some reason, he didn’t.’

Farry swallowed hard.

‘And so the Thain, when he sent word that you were to join him – wonderful irony, that – and it became evident that you had disappeared from the Smials, and Reginard returned unlooked-for and found Tolly deep in deceit in covering up your disappearance...’

‘It wasn’t like that!’ Farry said. ‘They were trying to prevent a scandal!’

‘And instead they precipitated one,’ Fortinbrand said calmly. ‘For Regi arrested Tolly, and took him off to the Woody End, where the Thain met up with them, and Ferdibrand... and the Master of Buckland got pulled into it by virtue of his love for his cousin, and his habit of coming to Pippin’s rescue...’

Farry was breathing ragged breaths now, and the Querier stopped speaking and reached over him to take up the glass of water. ‘Drink now, lad,’ he said.

Farry complied. He was trying to calm himself, for he’d heard his da talk about keeping calm in the face of the storm, lest your emotions betray you, but... Farry was only ten. This storm was threatening to sweep him off his feet. 

‘Good lad,’ Fortinbrand said when Farry had taken a few sips and set the glass aside again, sitting himself up straight and square to face the coming questions. ‘Now, your mother has undoubtedly taught you the importance of telling me the truth, and all that is truth, in your answers, has she not?’

Farry, noting the omission of his father from this statement, gave the Querier a quizzical look. He had the impression that Fortinbrand was not one to use words carelessly. But all the lad asked was, ‘All that is truth?’ 

Fortinbrand said, ‘There is something called a “lie of omission”, lad, do you know what that is?’

Farry could guess, but he shook his head. From what he’d read of the situation, especially Sandy’s reactions, this was serious business. Perhaps deadly serious, he really didn’t know. But he had better be sure of what he knew, and not rely on guesses.

‘It’s when you know the truth, but you don’t tell it, and you let someone else make an assumption, sometimes the wrong assumption. That is what makes it a lie, even though it is the other person who speaks it. By your silence...’

‘I understand,’ Farry said.

Fortinbrand fixed him with a keen eye. ‘So do I have your word that you will give me all the truth you know in answer to my questions, and not just what you think I wish to know or even what you think I need to know? Can you let me be the judge of what useful information might consist of?’

‘Are you going to judge Ferdi and Tolly?’ Faramir said.

He got the feeling that he’d stunned the Querier silent, and to cover his confusion and fear, he took up the glass of water again and took a deep draught.

’All this talk of water is making me thirsty,’ Ferdi complained.

’You asked for this story,’ Farry countered.

’So I did, lad,’ Ferdi said. ’So I did.’

At last, Fortinbrand seemed to make up his mind. ‘I am not the judge, Farry,’ he said quietly. ‘It is not my place; I am simply tasked to ask as many questions as I can think of, and to turn the information over to those who will judge the case, that they may make the proper decision.’

He leaned a little towards the lad and dropped his voice. ‘So, lad,’ he said. ‘I need to hear it from your own lips. Did you run away?’

‘Why do you need to know?’ Farry said stubbornly.

‘Because if you did not run away – should you try to hide the fact to spare your parents from the buffeting of the Talk by denying it, or even should you choose to withhold your answer –‘ Farry met the challenge in the Querier’s eye, telling a falsehood by omission, ‘– why then, the outcome for Ferdibrand and Tolibold looks ever-increasingly bleak.’

*** 

Author's note:

A ten-year-old Hobbit child would be roughly between six and seven years of age for a child of Man. 

Chapter 24. Bleak

’So what did you tell him?’ Ferdi asked after a short silence.

Farry stared, stricken, at the Querier. ‘I – I don’t understand,’ he said. ‘Why? What is it you say they’ve done? And what does bleak mean?’ His chest was heaving, and he was finding it difficult to catch his breath.

‘Steady now, lad,’ Fortinbrand said, but Farry pushed away the calming hand that the hobbit tried to lay on his arm.

‘No!’ Farry said. ‘What are you going to do to them?’

‘It’s not what I will or no,’ Fortinbrand said, genuine regret in his voice. ‘I happen to think highly of those two hobbits, heroes of the Tookland, loyal Tooks that they be. But Farry,’ he said, and he dropped his voice as his eyes bored into the lad’s. ‘They were sentenced to be banished. And by the Thain’s own wish, there in the Woody End.’

Farry opened his mouth, but no words came. Tears started from his eyes. ‘I –‘ he said. ‘My da never said...’

‘His very words,’ Fortinbrand said softly, regretfully, ‘to the Master of Buckland were these: if they've conspired to keep my son from me, I want them banished from the Shire. And Tolly admitted under Regi’s questioning that they had indeed conspired. As did Ferdi, when the Master of Buckland questioned him. They were undoubtedly guilty, and your da pronounced sentence upon them, there in the Master’s study at Brandy Hall, even before he’d heard all the facts of the case, even before they came to the Woody End to find you in Ferdi’s possession. When Master Merry pronounced his finding, he was simply following the wishes of the Thain.’

‘I wasn’t –‘ Farry sputtered. ‘He never –!’ And then realization struck him. ‘How do you know these things? You weren’t even there!’

‘It is my business to find things out,’ Fortinbrand said.

‘Who –?’ Farry said, but the grown-up shook his head.

‘I cannot speak of my sources,’ he answered the half-formed question. ‘And they are sworn to silence after we have spoken together, lest they muddy the waters before the Tooks have a chance to hear the facts of the case and render judgement.’

‘So...’ Farry said, feeling his way, and distracted by this thought, ‘...am I sworn to silence, too?’

‘There’ll be no need,’ Fortinbrand said, and it seemed to the small lad that his eyes were sad now as he spoke.

‘Because I’m a child?’ Farry said slowly.

Fortinbrand shook his head. ‘No, lad. Because the Tooks called a convocation, when they heard that a banishing offence had been committed, and even now events are being set in motion...’

‘But how can they banish Ferdi and Tolly?’ Farry said. ‘They... they all agreed, there in the Woody End, the escort and – and everyone! They agreed! And my da, he got down on his knees to the escort, and he promised them...’

‘Promised them,’ Fortinbrand prompted.

‘He, he said,’ Farry stumbled over the words as he went back in his mind to that scene, seeing his father kneeling to the hobbits of the escort. ‘He said that he was wrong. No, more than that, he said he admitted to everyone there, in that place, that he was wrong, that he had been afraid and angry, and he had been unjust... no, that was not the word.’ Farry stopped to think for a moment. ‘Unfair, he said, to Ferdi, and to Tolly, and...’

‘And how often would you say you’ve seen your da angry, Farry?’ Fortinbrand asked out of the blue. ‘Is he often unfair? Or is it only when he allows himself to lose his temper?’

Farry was bewildered by the question. ‘I – I don’t understand,’ he whispered.

‘Did you run away because your da was angry with you? Or because he was unfair?’ Fortinbrand pressed, his eyes strangely intent.

‘No!’ Farry said at once. ‘No, but when he’s been stern with me, it was always because I had disappointed him... like when my cousins and I lost ourselves in the old mine... when we’d been told not to play there. Or when we took the trail to the fishing place, the trail that had been closed because it was too dangerous, and we paid no heed and had to be rescued from our own foolishness... and Ferdi was swept away in the middle of the rescue, and everyone thought he’d drowned...’ he gave a sob.

‘But he didn’t drown, as it turned out,’ Fortinbrand said gently. ‘But your da was still angry with you?’

Farry stared at him, disconcerted. ‘No,’ he said. ‘He was angry, yes, when Ferdi was missing and presumed dead, O aye,’ he said and gulped, ‘but it wasn’t punishing anger... more that he was grieved... that my foolish choices had led to the death of another... and... and,’ he gulped, ‘...and I remembered how he blamed himself for Gandalf falling in Moria, because he’d dropped the stone in the well and wakened the Watcher in the Deep...’

‘I see,’ Fortinbrand said, though Farry wasn’t sure that he really did see. They sat in silence a moment, and then he returned to his earlier point. ‘So did you run away because your da was grieved with you? Disappointed?’

Farry stared at him in shock. ‘No!’ he said. ‘I left – I left because I didn’t want him to be grieved with me any longer!’

‘So he was grieved,’ Fortinbrand said.

‘No!’ Farry insisted.

Perplexed, the adult stared at the son of the Thain. ‘Help me to understand, lad,’ he said at last.

It was so much like the way Ferdi talked to him when he was troubled about something. Farry blinked, almost disarmed by the hobbit’s kind and earnest manner. As if he really cared what Farry had to say ...was it possible?

‘He... he loved... loves me,’ Farry said. ‘I have never doubted that my mum and da, they love me.’ He took a shaking breath. ‘But I was... I was making foolish choices...’

‘And your choices grieved them,’ Fortinbrand prompted gently. Under his breath, he added, ‘Though I would say instead childish choices... child that you are... I think sometimes we forget... because you seem so wise beyond your years sometimes...’ He shook his head as if at himself.

‘Yes... no...’ Farry said, staring down at his hands that had somehow clasped themselves tightly in his lap. He raised his gaze then, to stare into the Querier’s eyes. ‘You know how it is,’ he pleaded. ‘They Talk... They Talk about everything! And if it’s a bad thing, they’re like... one of Maggot’s dogs... with a bone... they shake it and shake it... and never let it go!’

He thought he saw some kind of dawning realisation on the Querier’s face then, and was rewarded when Fortinbrand suddenly swore under his breath, a word that would have earned him a reprimand if Thain or Steward had heard him. A word that Farry as a small child was not supposed to know, but had heard on rare occasion, when he wasn’t supposed to be within hearing of the archer (for it was usually an archer, not considered polite company by most hobbits of the gentry) who had said the word.

Fortinbrand said then, slowly, as if weighing every word, ‘Not your parents, then, I think, lad?’ He took a breath and added, ‘the Talk. You ran away because of the Talk of the Tooks.’

The tension that had been rising in the small lad overwhelmed him now, a wave of grief that crashed over him, threatening to drown him. He covered his face with his hands and gave in to shuddering sobs. But then he felt Fortinbrand’s arms ease themselves around him; the Querier pulled Farry into his lap and held him close, patting his back, murmuring comforting nonsense, but not trying to dissuade him from weeping.

In the middle of his weeping, Farry heard the Querier say, ‘Not now, Sandy, we have all we need. But perhaps you can stir up a plate of food for the lad when we’ve quite finished.’ He heard a murmur from the hobbitservant, and then Fortinbrand went back to his soothing. ‘There, there, lad.’

At last, when Farry raised his head from Fortinbrand’s shoulder, he thought he saw kindness and understanding in the Querier’s eyes. But it also seemed to him that an undercurrent of anger ran there, and he shivered.

Fortinbrand patted him on the shoulder and tendered a snowy handkerchief. ‘Here you are, lad, wipe your eyes and blow your nose.’ He then directed Farry to take a few more sips from the glass that still stood on the side table – though somehow in the interim it had been filled again with fresh, cold water. Most likely Sandy’s doing.

After Farry had done so, Fortinbrand went on as if there had been no interruption. ‘So your da got down on his knees to the escort, and he promised them... He said that he was wrong. No, more than that, he said he admitted to everyone there, in that place, that he was wrong, that he had been afraid and angry, and he had been... unfair, to Ferdi, and to Tolly...’

And Farry caught his breath, for he suddenly realised that Fortinbrand, like Farry’s Uncle Ferdibrand, had that odd quirk that allowed him to remember all he heard and repeat it flawlessly, even to using the same phrasing Farry had employed in the telling.

‘So what was it that he promised them, lad?’ Fortinbrand finished.

Farry raised his eyes to meet the Querier’s sober gaze. ‘He promised them that he’d do better.’

‘And how well does your da keep his promises, Farry?’ the hobbit asked quietly. ‘Can you tell me of the promises he’s made, that you know of, and kept? or broken?’

‘But he doesn’t!’ Farry said, bewildered. Seeing that the grown-up didn’t understand, he tried again. ‘He – the most he’ll say is “maybe”, but it’s not a promise, it’s... it’s his way of saying he will do his best to make something come about. He never says he’ll do something, and then not.’

‘Very Thainly of him, I’m sure,’ Fortinbrand said, his lips tightening. ‘A Thain must be careful of giving his word, or pronouncing judgement – for he must never go back on his word, and once he speaks a judgement, he is not allowed to reverse it – by tradition and the ways of the Tooks that go back all the way to the first Took, they say, as The Took and head of the family, there is a protocol that binds him in all he says and does, that protects himself as well as others...’

He eyed the lad keenly. ‘But you said he promised the hobbits of his escort...’

‘He was on his knees to them,’ Farry said, his voice distant in his own ears as he looked into the past. ‘Like he was swearing an oath.’

‘Swearing them to silence, perhaps,’ Fortinbrand prompted. ‘That they might not tell of his serious lapse in judgement.’

‘No, not at all!’ Farry said in surprise. ‘O they discussed how it would be when we returned to the Smials.’

‘Did they?’ Fortinbrand said, leaning forward a little. And yet Farry had the idea that the Querier already knew all about the events that had gone on in the Woody End, and was merely confirming what he knew by talking to Farry. ‘So did they make up a story together?’

‘No,’ Farry said, shaking his head earnestly. ‘They agreed on the truth to be told... that I ran away, and Ferdi followed, and Tolly stopped the post so my mum might not worry, and they were accused, and I woke in time to clear them.’

‘But in the end they hushed up the fact that you ran away,’ Fortinbrand said. ‘It was not common knowledge. Your da, in the courtyard, simply announced that Ferdi and Tolly had been falsely accused, and the accusations had been dealt with, and restitution was paid.’

‘That was truth!’ Farry said, confused.

‘But it was not the whole truth, lad,’ Fortinbrand said quietly, holding his gaze until he nodded. Lies of omission.

Farry dropped his eyes to his lap. ‘Hilly said...’ he whispered. ‘Da wanted to tell the whole truth, and let the Tooks do their worst, he said, but Hilly said the Talk would tear him to shreds. And he laughed and said he’d take his chances, for he’d certainly earned the criticism and it would help to keep him humble, but then Tolly asked him, would he wish the same for Diamond? And he sobered, and he said he wasn’t sure it was the best course, but he was open to counsel, as taking the bit in his teeth and charging ahead had not served anyone well to that point, it seemed. But the escort, they had decided to trust him, and they said they would back him on what ever he should choose to say.’

‘And if your da was the accuser...’ Fortinbrand said. ‘He was, was he not?’

Farry saw no point in denying the fact, seeing that Fortinbrand already knew the words Pippin had spoken in the Master’s study at Brandy Hall, words that Farry hadn’t even been there to hear spoken, and what Tolly and Ferdi had said under questioning. Frankly, he wasn’t sure why the hobbit was bothering to take the time to talk to a child, even though Faramir had been the one to precipitate the events they were discussing. ‘You know that he was,’ he answered.

Fortinbrand smiled at his wording before turning solemn again. ‘Too sharp by half,’ he murmured. ‘And so,’ he said aloud, and stopped. ‘Farry,’ he said. ‘I happen to know you were fevered, there in the Woody End, that you did not hear the trial the Master of Buckland conducted, nor what Ferdi and Tolly said in their own defence... which of course was not enough to sway the judgement against them, seeing that they confirmed the most damning facts.’

*** 

Chapter 25. Facts

‘Damning facts,’ Farry echoed. It was a phrase he thought he’d heard the Steward use once, when he was playing under one of the desks in the Thain’s study and the grown-ups had forgotten he was there. He suspected it was not something often said in a child’s hearing.

‘Conspiring to cover up your disappearance,’ Fortinbrand said, counting on his fingers. ‘Stopping the post between the Thain and Mistress, that neither might realise you were not with the other... and when you and Ferdi reached his sister’s house, he tried to pass you off as a lad he’d found in the woods. Tried to deny that you were the son of the Thain, though the forest Bolgers saw through it fairly quickly, and began to think he had descended into madness, as his mother did before him.’

Farry nodded. ‘It was my fault,’ he whispered.

‘He did not notify either the Thain or the Mistress that he had you, and you were safe, and he planned to bring you home again, but instead he sent a note to Tolly, telling him to keep the secret as long as he could,’ Fortinbrand went on inexorably.

‘It was my fault,’ Farry repeated, louder. ‘It was not his doing!’ 

‘Are you saying he did not do those things?’ Fortinbrand said, sitting back, raising his eyebrows as high as they might go.

‘No!’ Farry said, and shook his head, ‘I mean, yes! He did those things. But it was my fault!’ he insisted.

‘How is it your fault that Ferdi and Tolly were guilty of child-stealing?’ Fortinbrand asked. ‘Of keeping your from your parents, and concealing your whereabouts from those who know and love you?’

‘I ran away,’ Farry whispered. Fortinbrand merely nodded. Somehow encouraged, feeling listened to, Farry went on. ‘I ran away, and when Ferdi caught up with me, I told him that no matter what he did – should he take me back to the Smials to my mother, or on to Buckland to join my father – they couldn’t make me stay. They couldn’t stop me from running again. I’d run away again and again, until they stopped trying to bring me back.’

‘I take it you were determined,’ Fortinbrand said, but his tone was accepting rather than ironic.

‘So it was my fault,’ Farry insisted. ‘Ferdi said he’d strike a bargain with me.’

Fortinbrand leaned forward. ‘Now this is something I want to hear from your own lips, lad,’ he said. ‘What was the bargain?’

‘I must be silent – not speak a word, the whole time we were at his sister’s house, whilst my leg was healing,’ Farry said. Fortinbrand didn’t ask about the fox’s bite on his leg, and he’d known that Farry had been out of his head with fever, so the lad discerned that the hobbit already had those details.

‘And?’ Fortinbrand pressed, as if he knew there was more. Which he probably did.

‘And I was to obey, and if I should stumble, I must agree to go back to my parents and not run away again.’

‘Aha,’ Fortinbrand said. ‘And if you prevailed?’

‘Ferdi would take me wherever I wished to go,’ Farry said. ‘I think he was hoping I’d come to my senses and ask to go home, though at the time I thought he meant he’d take me to Gondor.’ He met Fortinbrand’s quizzical gaze steadily. ‘And he would’ve, too. He is a hobbit of his word.’

Fortinbrand nodded slowly. ‘There is nothing of Lotho or Lalia about him,’ he said, and under his breath, he added, ‘It’s shameful that we even have to have this conversation.’

‘Then why?’ Farry asked. ‘Why would the Tooks banish him?’

Instead of answering his question directly, Fortinbrand’s eye took on a thoughtful look. ‘Farry-lad, do you know who the Councillors are?’

Farry stared at him, then tilted his head as he considered. ‘I think I heard Regi mention something like that once,’ he said at last. ‘But...’ And then he added, ‘Should I?’

Fortinbrand shook his head at him. ‘Too clever by half,’ he breathed. ‘Farry, lad, how old are you?’

‘Eleven, on my next birthday,’ Farry answered, though he wasn’t sure just why Fortinbrand was asking that question. Surely the hobbit knew how old Farry was.

‘The Councillors,’ Fortinbrand said, his eyes intent, ‘they are the keepers of the records, lad.’ Farry nodded, though he didn’t understand, not really. The Querier seemed to recognise this, for he went on. ‘They are the keepers of the traditions of the Tooks, going back to the very first Took, Tokka of the Marish, it was, or more properly, his son, for Tokka was lost in battle as an archer for the King when the Northlands fell to the Witch King.’

Farry stared at him, lips half-parted. The Querier nodded. ‘O aye,’ he said softly. ‘Most Tooks have no interest in the old tales, or in old, mouldering records. But there is safety in knowing our history, in knowing our traditions... in knowing errors that have been made, so that we are not doomed to repeat them, and in knowing solutions that have been found to problems in the past, even the far past, that we do not have to grope our way in the dark to find them again.’

‘I didn’t know any hobbits knew the old tales,’ Farry murmured. ‘Except perhaps Mayor Sam, who sometimes tells us stories he read in one of Bilbo’s translations.’ Or maybe Uncle Merry, he thought, though he wasn’t quite sure. At least, he’d heard Uncle Merry say that so many of the old tales were so dark, they weren’t fit for hobbits. So that meant he knew at least some of them, didn’t it?

Aloud, he said, ‘And what do the Councillors have to do with us, then? With my running away? With banishing Ferdi and Tolly, though it’s all my fault?’ Suddenly hopeful, he said, ‘But if they’re keepers of tradition, and seekers of safety... does that mean they can keep Ferdi and Tolly safe?’

Hope deserted him as swiftly as he saw Fortinbrand’s lips tighten in a grimace. ‘Then what good are they?’ he demanded.

Fortinbrand stared into his eyes for a long moment. ‘They are like the bit in the pony’s mouth,’ he said. ‘The Tooks, lad, are the pony, forging ever ahead. They are a fine people, bold, proud, courageous... When the rest of the Shire fell to the ruffians, the Tookland remained free.’ His gaze demanded some response, so Farry nodded. 

Fortinbrand continued. ‘The Thain, if you will allow, he is the reins that steer the pony in the direction it should go. But a Thain who exercises poor judgement can lose control of the pony... like a rider who pulls on the reins while laying on the whip and kicking his heels into the sides of the beast – as I’m sure you’ve seen a tween do, when he’s trying to impress others with his riding “skill”, stirring up a pony to fight him so that the hobbit can “best” the beast and win the admiration of others as ignorant as he is.’

Farry felt some of the hobbit’s indignation breaking through Fortinbrand’s assumed calm, and thought the Querier might possibly be speaking from personal experience.

The Querier sighed. ‘And sometimes a hobbit doesn’t know any better,’ he said, ‘or he keeps the reins too tight, such that the pony develops a hard mouth, or too loose, such that the pony becomes wilful and learns not to take direction, or perhaps he doesn’t understand ponies at all! Or he doesn’t think of the pony as flesh and blood and brain and feelings, but simply a tool to do his bidding.’ He shook his head. ‘– or a pony, whether neglected or goaded by its rider, might take it into its head to run away...’ 

‘But you’re not talking about ponies and riders, not really,’ Farry said. He wasn’t sure exactly what Fortinbrand was talking about, really.

The Querier nodded at him, but at least he didn’t say anything like too sharp by half, especially since Farry was feeling duller by the moment. ‘The Tooks are the pony in this case, lad,’ he said. ‘I know you’re very young, but I hope you can understand this at least. They’ve been goaded and neglected by turn, and they’ve taken the bit in their teeth.’

The Councillors are the bit, Farry thought in confusion. He shook his head.

‘The last Thain to lose control of the Tooks was Ferumbras,’ Fortinbrand said, learning forward. ‘They learnt not to mind a single word he said. Lalia, the mother of the Thain, now, they feared her well enough. She was spiteful, and not afraid to use her power as The Took to vent her spite on others, to answer any slights against herself or her son, real or imagined, and to seek any advantage she might grasp. She even flattered and threatened the recordkeepers by turn, according to her whimsy and caprice – and a sort of sly understanding how to move them to her will – until it seemed easier to retreat into the vaults and bury themselves in reading musty old chronicles than it was to try and talk sense to her.’ 

‘O aye,’ Ferdi said in a low voice. ‘She was every bit that. Actually, Fortinbrand was being uncommonly charitable towards Lalia there, perhaps because he did not want to speak ill of the dead. In point of fact, she was a thousand times worse than he described her. A thousand times worse.’ 

And then he said, ‘Go on, lad. I apologise for the interruption.’

‘Yes Uncle,’ Farry said, shaken by his uncle’s condemnation, though on second thought, he was not surprised, from what little he had overheard about old Lalia the Fat so far as the Talk of the Tooks went.

Fortinbrand took a deep breath, and his voice dropped as he said, as if in self-reproach, ‘And then, even after she was gone, well, the recordkeepers had got used to that state of affairs, found old records much more pleasant companions than fellow Tooks and Tooklanders, and stayed there! They hadn’t the skills to ride out against the ruffians – they’d spoilt their eyes with much reading as it was. Paladin seemed to be doing just fine, and Pippin – your da, he made a good start, at least, until his health pulled him down.’

The Querier fixed Farry with a stern glare, but somehow that lad didn’t think Fortinbrand was looking at him at all, but at some scene in the past. ‘We might have done something then, I suppose, besides asking him to step down for his own sake, and his family’s.’ Farry saw him swallow hard. ‘Some of us did. Others said it was his right, that he’d taken an oath “to the end of his days.” Some of us argued then to call a convocation, call the Tooks to account for how much more difficult they were making things for the Thain with their Talk and speculation... Some folk argued to leave well enough alone... And look where it got us!’

At Faramir’s look of bewilderment, Fortinbrand sighed. ‘I don’t expect you to understand, lad, things that happened before you were born, as in the days of Ferumbras and Lalia, but... those who understand know that there’s a power in knowing what has gone before, especially when it comes to shaping the present, and what is to come...’

Farry nodded, and Fortinbrand went on. ‘What “leaving well enough alone” and burying ourselves in the record vaults got us under Ferumbras was a Tookland falling slowly to pieces,’ he said. ‘No leadership to speak of, everyone looking to his own... the roads going to ruin, holes in the rugs, tapestries unravelling, windows going cloudy from neglect, grass springing up between the stones... all signs of a greater malady creeping over the Tookland... ruffians and darker things prowling around the borders... until an upstart like Lotho Sackville-Baggins got the idea he could buy up ever-greater portions of the Shire and proclaim himself Chief! Not like Mayor, who’s elected, nor Thain, who is chosen, but setting himself up as some sort of Power... well, it happened once.’

The Querier’s eyes bored into his. ‘And the Councillors are not going to let it happen another time.’

*** 

Chapter 26. Time

Farry broke away from the Querier’s gaze. He looked around the quiet, comfortable room, with its gleaming brasses, polished furniture, well-brushed rugs, cheerful fire in a shining grate. Though there were no windows in the Thain’s apartments, deep as they were in the Great Smials, the glass on the lamps lighting the room sparkled. A faint smell of beeswax hung in the air, testimony to Sandy’s determined efforts, though it was swiftly being overtaken by delicious smells coming from the small kitchen. ‘There’s no grass growing between the stones in the courtyard,’ he said in confusion. ‘And all the windows are shiny-clean! ...from what I remember, anyhow.’ He looked down at the floor, and then up again at the Querier. ‘And there are no holes in the rugs...?’

The Querier sighed and seemed to remember he was talking to a young hobbit. ‘When your grandfa first took over as Thain,’ he said, ‘he came from a tidy, prosperous farm to being obligated to oversee a country in itself.’ He stared at Faramir. ‘He had no warning – Ferumbras died suddenly – and no preparation to be Thain of all the Shire, much less the Tookland – and no resources.’

‘I know about the treasury,’ Faramir said, glad at last to be following some part of this remarkable conversation. He was also a little relieved that the Querier had seemed to forget he was supposed to be asking questions.

’Hah!’ Ferdi said. ‘You succeeded in diverting him from his course! I cannot tell you how many times your da did the same to Merry and myself...’

‘Only briefly,’ Farry said.

‘Sometimes “briefly” is all you need, if you are looking to get into mischief...’ 

Fortinbrand stared at him in astonishment and then, of a wonder, laughed. ‘O’ course you do, lad!’ he said, leaving off his careful, precise manner of speaking. Only briefly, as it turned out, for he resumed his serious expression. ‘But that is neither here nor there,’ he said. 

Faramir looked from one side of the room to the other and then back to the Querier. Truth be told, he was tiring of all this serious conversation.

But the Querier had not finished. As a matter of fact, the Querier was drawing him back... back, the lad suddenly realised, to the crux of the matter, to what had Sandy, that unflappable hobbit, so perturbed. ‘But we have gone far afield of what we were supposed to be talking about, lad,’ Fortinbrand was saying as Farry, tired as he was, attended to him once more. ‘And for that, I extend my apologies.’

Farry forced himself to concentrate, clenching his fists in his lap as reality reasserted itself. The very lives of Tolly and Uncle Ferdi were at stake here! He had managed to get the grown-ups to see reason, there in the Woody End, when Hilly was clutching the branding iron in his hand, and Haldi and Isen were holding Ferdi tight between them, and the other grown-ups were watching – simply watching! – as injustice was about to be carried out.

’I thank you for that, Nephew.’

And here it was, happening all over again, like a bad dream that kept repeating, and no matter how he tried, he couldn’t seem to waken himself from it. ‘But it’s not right!’ he burst out. ‘They all agreed!’

‘Who all agreed?’ Fortinbrand said, understandably thrown off his course by Farry’s outburst.

‘There was restitution,’ Farry insisted. ‘They all agreed on it! O Ev’ard shouted at everyone, and he seemed to think they ought to banish him at least – I was listening from where we were playing, you see, though the grown-ups thought none of the children heard them talking, I think.’ He looked to the Querier in distress. ‘I don’t know why anyone should be banished, Uncle Ferdi, or Tolly, or Ev’ard...’

‘Or the Thain,’ Fortinbrand added quietly.

Farry gulped. ‘They agreed,’ he said weakly. ‘I heard them, though I wasn’t supposed to be listening.’

‘The problem we face, Farry,’ said Fortinbrand, speaking as if Farry were a fellow adult, ‘is that the Thain – your da – has lost control of the Tooks. The Talk was bad before... but now, it is running wild through the back corridors. “Serious crimes”, Tolly and Ferdi were accused of, e’en as the Thain announced to all in the courtyard when he proclaimed their Release, and so, don’t you know,’ and bitterness crept into the smooth voice, ‘speculation is spreading like wildfire as to the nature of their “serious crimes” – and as everyone knows, there is no smoke without fire...’

‘But it’s – it’s my fault – I – I ran away,’ Farry protested.

‘Who would blame a child for the ill-considered choices of a grown hobbit? Two grown hobbits, both with responsible positions...’ Fortinbrand said sadly.

Farry stared at him. ‘I would!’ he insisted.

Fortinbrand regarded him thoughtfully for a long moment. ‘I do believe you see more clearly than most, lad,’ he said at last. ‘But... though the Tooks were put off at first, by the Thain’s talk of restitution, once it became known that the Thain himself was the false accuser... and Ferdi and Tolly were – and remain to this day – obviously no wealthier than they had been before...’

‘Will they ever trust the Thain’s justice again?’ Farry said bleakly. And at Fortinbrand’s questioning look, he explained, ‘That’s what Haldi said, when my da insisted that they tell the Tooks the whole truth of the matter – that I had run away, and that my da had falsely accused Ferdi and Tolly...’ He went back to his original point. ‘But they agreed on the restitution! They said it was enough!’

‘So the Tooks have lost faith in the Thain’s judgement, and in his justice,’ Fortinbrand said. ‘And because Reginard has staunchly supported him throughout, they’ve lost their confidence in the Steward as well. And after Regi, Everard is next in line to be Thain, but he is under threat of banishment at present, since the restitution did not meet the requirements of the old laws... and Ferdi, next in line after him... and absolutely last in the succession... last in the line of hobbits descended from the Old Took...’ He shook his head and chuckled, though the sound carried unbelieving despair rather than merriment. ‘And so, we reach the end of the line. What are we to do?’

Farry stared at him in silent dismay. The adults seemed to have no answers. He was beginning to realise that not only had he put Ferdi and Tolly at risk of banishment, but Everard, and Farry’s own father as well, simply by his childish choice to run away. And perhaps – the thought occurred to him that much more was at stake than only those hobbits who had worked their way through a trial and resolution in the Woody End – perhaps all of the Tookland, and even the Shire!

But Fortinbrand was speaking again, haltingly. ‘And yet, Farry, your da has accomplished so much in his short time as Thain... Yes, his father kept the Tookland free of the riffraff, but he knew nothing of governing the Tookland after the emergency was over. Peregrin... If it weren’t for the Talk, bad as it has become, which now threatens every accomplishment he’s made, and any he might make in future... Under his watch, the land is being reclaimed – trees that the ruffians cut down are replanted, the farmers are cooperating together so that no one crop is overplanted to the detriment of another, the roads are in good repair... and perhaps most importantly, gaffers are keeping warm through the winter, and those who cannot care for themselves are being cared for, with kindness, love and tenderness. When he is able to keep hold of his temper, he is the best Thain the Tookland has known in a long time...’

’Impulsive, as I told you, Farry,’ Ferdi said.

Farry nodded, at last seeing the wisdom in what Ferdi had told him about his da, his strength-and-weakness. At last, he began to see a connection between what Fortinbrand had tried to explain to him, five years earlier, and what Ferdi had explained not so long ago. He took a deep, steadying breath, and then he went on with his storytelling.

‘I still don’t see why anybody needs to be banished,’ young Farry said stubbornly, though he was close to tears.

Fortinbrand opened his mouth as if to speak, and then, to Farry’s surprise, closed it again, staring at the young hobbit. Abruptly he jumped to his feet, calling for Sandy.

The hobbitservant was quick to respond, though as he stood in the doorway to the small sitting room, his nerves were showing by the way he twisted a linen polishing cloth in his hands. ‘Yes, sir? Was there anything wanted?’

‘I want you to feed this child,’ Fortinbrand said, then paused. ‘His minder is a Took, is he not?’ he said. At Sandy’s mute nod, he drew a long breath in through his nose and let it out in a forceful exhalation from his mouth. ‘It cannot be helped,’ he said. ‘He will be in the great room, I imagine, and must not be called away. You, however,’ and he eyed the hobbitservant. ‘You will remain here, I take it?’

Sandy stood straight and stopped twisting the cloth in his hands. He tucked the cloth into his belt and let his hands drop to his sides, as if he were a soldier called to stand at attention before marching off to battle. ‘I am not a Took,’ he affirmed with a quiet dignity.

‘Good,’ Fortinbrand said. Farry wondered why it was good that Sandy was not a Took? But then the Querier spoke again. ‘I must step out,’ he said, ‘and I wish the lad to stay here, and not take it into his head to wander...’ he looked down at Farry, ‘I imagine you’ve learnt your lesson about that sort of thing, but still,’ and he looked back to Sandy, ‘I don’t want to take any chances. Too much is hanging in the balance.’

‘No sir,’ Sandy responded, though the normally unflappable hobbit looked as befuddled as Farry felt. ‘I mean, yes sir.’

‘So feed him, and see to it that he lies himself down for a nap.’

It didn’t seem the right time for Farry to protest that he’d given up naps some time ago, so the lad kept his mouth shut. At least the Querier hadn’t ordered Sandy to tuck him into bed!

‘Yes sir,’ Sandy said, and then held out a hand to Farry. ‘Come along, young master.’

’So I took his hand, and he led me to the little kitchen and filled a plate for me, and I asked him to fill a plate for himself and please not to make me eat alone, and because I was only a child, I guess, he did so.’

‘So then what happened? How is it that Fortinbrand called you as a witness?’

Farry laughed. ‘I’m actually getting to that, Uncle! What is it you say, when someone interrupts you in the middle of a story before the hearth in the great room?’

‘All in good time.’

‘Exactly!’

‘That’s all well and good...’ Ferdi grumbled. ‘But I can feel my hair turning grey. I’m likely to die of old age before you come to the end of your tale.’

Farry sobered abruptly at mention of dying, though he knew his uncle had only been talking lightly in the face of much heavier realities. He forced himself to answer in his most cheerful tones, ‘We cannot have that! Very well, he fed me, and he deigned to eat at the table with me – but not our table, not the Thain’s table, I mean, not the one in the large sitting room, nor the one in the small, private sitting room. We ate in his little room, and of course it was an adventure of sorts as children are not allowed in the servants’ quarters as a rule. It is not a big room, but it has a bed, and a table with two chairs, that he might share a meal with the minder, I suppose, and so we ate our meal there.’

‘Ah,’ Ferdi said. ‘A little less talk about eating and drinking might be welcome at about this point in your tale.’

‘And when we were finished,’ Farry said obligingly, ‘he asked me if I knew the way to my bed, and I stared, for you know Sandy – he never tells a joke!’

Ferdi spoke so low, the lad almost missed the words. ‘You’d be surprised, lad, at what the common folk get up to when the gentry are not on the spot...’ 

Ignoring this revelation, Farry continued, ‘So I went to my room, and I lay myself down, and I could hear the splashing and clinking that meant he was washing our dishes, and then the most curious thing happened...’

Young Faramir had been feeling sleepy, in truth, somewhat drained by the heavy conversation with the Querier, not only the questioning but the talking that had gone along with it. His eyes drooped closed as he listened to the sounds of washing-up coming from the hallway that led from the small sitting room to the more public rooms.

But then the sounds stopped, and he heard voices! Yet he had not heard any arrivals... no knock had come upon the door to the suite, and the beginning of the conversation had overlapped the washing-up sounds, meaning that Sandy had not admitted anyone to the Thain’s apartments. What in the world?

So of course he crept from his bed to listen. He immediately recognised the speaker as Rusty, who served both Ferdi’s and Tolly’s families in much the same way Sandy served the Thain’s family. ‘...asleep. I peeked in on him just now.’

‘You oughtn’t –‘ Sandy began, but Rusty interrupted him hotly.

‘There’s an awful lot of things that people oughtn’t right now, I can say. You needn’t be looking down your nose at me...’

‘Don’t –!’ Sandy said, and Farry caught his breath, for the hobbitservant’s voice broke on the word, and was that a sob that followed?

‘The Talk is, they’re to be banished this day. All of them,’ Rusty said.

‘No,’ Sandy whispered brokenly. ‘In the name of all that’s good...’

‘It’s not good,’ Rusty said, ‘and they can never make it so.’ He gave a loud sniff as if he was himself fighting tears. ‘And I won’t stand witness to the branding! And I won’t stay in such a Shire, I won’t!’

‘What are you saying?’ Sandy said. ‘You cannot stop it. We... we cannot stop it.’

‘I’m going with them,’ Rusty said.

‘Going with –‘

‘I’ll follow them like a hound, if I must,’ Rusty said. ‘They’re my family, Sandy, those hobbits are. Tolly and Meadowsweet, Ferdi and Pimpernel, all their children! You know they won’t go into exile alone; their wives would never – never allow such a thing.’

Farry felt tears spring to his eyes at the desperation, and the fierce loyalty, in the hobbit’s tone as Rusty finished, ‘So if they’re to take their families with them, well then, I’m leaving the Shire too.’

‘But,’ Sandy said, and paused. He cleared his throat, and Farry could almost imagine him swallowing hard before he went on. ‘What life is there outside the Shire? I would, if I thought... Is there life?’

‘You haven’t listened well to your Master if you think they’re being sent to their deaths,’ Rusty said severely.

‘But... to live... outside the Shire...?’ 

‘There’s hobbits in the Breeland. They live peaceably enough,’ Rusty argued.

‘Do you think they’ll go to the Breeland, then?’ Sandy said humbly. ‘I...’ he added. ‘I never imagined life – my life, anyhow – anywhere but here.’

‘I don’t know where they’ll go,’ Rusty said, his voice firm. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

There was a short silence, and then Sandy said, ‘I thought – I thought it was only Tooks that could survive...’

Rusty laughed, a short, sharp, bitter laugh, and Sandy cautioned him to keep his voice down lest he wake the lad.

Too late, Farry thought to himself, but he withdrew to his bed and lay himself down, just in case the hobbitservant should check on him.

Which Sandy did, being thorough in all he did, which, at the moment, included minding the small son of the Thain.

When the voices resumed, Farry sat up again, listened to ascertain that they were once more in the little kitchen, and crept to the doorway to hear them better.

‘It’s all right; the lad’s sound asleep,’ Sandy said. ‘But if you had wakened him...’

‘What will they do to us? Banish us for neglecting our duties?’ Rusty said, though he kept his voice low.

‘Bite your tongue,’ Sandy said. ‘I was left in charge of the lad, and I mean to do my duty to the last.’

‘At least until you watch them draw a brand across the face of your Master and turn him out,’ Rusty scoffed.

‘I – Don’t!’ Sandy said, the last word a plea.

‘Mayor Sam hasn’t a drop of Tookish blood in him,’ Rusty said now, evidently confusing Sandy as much as their young eavesdropper.

‘I don’t take your meaning.’

‘You said only a Took could survive outside the Shire, or someone with Tookish blood. Granted, the Thain, his cousin the Master of Buckland, even Mr Baggins (the both of them), they were all Tookish, them as went off into the Outlands and wrestled with the Dark Lord, or what not. But Mayor Sam, he’s just like us. And yet he followed his Master to the end of the world, and back.’

‘To the end of all things,’ Sandy murmured. ‘And back again.’ He gave another sob. ‘But there’s no “back again” for them.’

‘No, there’s not,’ Rusty said, and somehow his voice was gentler, and then he was making soothing noises, and the sound of muffled sobs came to Farry’s ears, and he wiped tears from his own face to hear it as he could all too clearly imagine Sandy weeping, and Rusty holding him and patting his back.

At last the storm seemed to be subsiding, and Rusty said quietly, ‘So I’m going.’

Farry heard Sandy gulp. ‘We can go?’ he said, very hopelessness in his tone.

‘We can,’ Rusty said, and Farry had never heard him speak in such a firm tone, not even when he’d come upon young hobbits making mischief.

‘Then...’ Sandy said, and Farry heard him gulp back a sob. ‘Then I’m going too.’ He paused and added, ‘Even if my Master tells me to stay... I’ll – I’ll follow. Like a hound.’

‘We’ll be hounds together, then,’ Rusty said, and Farry heard a sound as if one of the servants had slapped the other on the back. But then Rusty seemed to have a second thought, for he said, ‘But Sandy... what about your sisters?’

‘My littlest sister just married, last year,’ Sandy said. He paused and then went on, ‘They’re all grown up and married now, with families of their own.’ He sniffed. ‘Maybe I can still write letters to them, and they can find someone to read them, and to send a letter back to where ever we end up living. I won’t be the one banished, my name unmentionable in the Shire ever after...’

‘It’s a travesty,’ Rusty said. ‘But the Tooks are making the bed, and much joy to them, lying in it when they’ve quite finished. I would hate to see the Tookland five years hence.’

‘But you’d better go,’ Sandy said. ‘For I don’t know where the Querier went, or when he will return, and if he finds you here...’

‘What can they do to me?’ Rusty said. ‘Discharge me from my position? Ha!’

‘Please,’ Sandy said. ‘We’re supposed to be grounded to quarters until after the Tooks have come to agreement.’

‘And then they’ll round us up to witness the branding in the courtyard of the Smials,’ said Rusty. ‘I had better start packing.’

‘But they won’t be allowed to take anything with them but the clothes they’re wearing!’ Sandy said. ‘You know – a small bag of food, enough for three days, a water bottle, and three silver coins. A brand on the cheek to prevent them from crossing the Bounds ever again. And every hand against them...’

‘Then I had most definitely better pack a bag, and so should you,’ Rusty said stoutly. ‘Just as Mayor Sam astounded the Tookish cousins with the heavy-loaded pack he carried all through the Outlands e’en to the Dark Land, full of wonders... everything except rope, to hear the Thain or Master tell the tale.’

‘Well then,’ Sandy said, and somehow he sounded calmer now, even somehow cheerful, in a grim and determined way. ‘Be sure to pack some rope in your bag. And so will I.’

Farry, peeping from his doorway, saw the two servants emerge from the little kitchen. He froze, but neither saw him. They shared a hug, and then an even more curious thing than Rusty’s sudden appearance in the Thain’s quarters happened: Rusty pressed a spot on the wall opposite the door to the kitchen, and a hidden door opened. ‘Until the Tooks have done,’ he said, and stepped through the doorway.

‘Have done their worst,’ Sandy said quietly, and closed the door behind Rusty, leaving, Farry had no doubt, a smooth-looking wall where the opening had been. He’d wondered how servants moved so quickly and quietly between quarters, and now he had an inkling that there was much more to the Great Smials than he’d ever before imagined.

Too bad his family were about to go into exile.

At least, that was what Sandy and Rusty, two level-headed, practical adults, were obviously expecting to happen as a result of the upcoming convocation.

*** 

Chapter 27. Convocation

’Rusty – said all that?’ Ferdi said, sounding humbled. ‘I – I never knew...’

’He did,’ Farry responded simply. The two sat in silence for a few more moments, and then he continued the tale. ‘The next thing I knew, Sandy was bending over me, his hand on my shoulder, and I’d fallen asleep for true, and Fortinbrand was standing in the doorway, and he was different somehow.’

‘Different – how?’

‘I don’t know how to describe it,’ Farry said. ‘He – it was as if he’d been filled with energy and purpose. ...not that he wasn’t purposeful before, but it was different. In the time before, it seemed to me as if he knew the answers to all the questions before he even asked them of me –‘

‘Which he most likely did,’ Ferdi agreed.

‘– and he expected me to answer a certain way, and then when I didn’t, it had surprised him. Surprised him so much,’ Farry added slowly, ‘that he went away for a time.’ Speaking more quickly again, he went on. ‘And now, he fairly crackled with energy, like – like Cloudtail, before a race, how he dances under the saddle and seems eager to be off and running.’

‘Off and running,’ Ferdi mused.

‘He told Sandy to make sure I was properly dressed for company, and to brush my hair and properly brush up my toes... which was puzzling indeed, for it was just us, after all, Sandy and myself and the Querier – and Rusty, who could pop out of the wall at any moment, it seemed, though nobody was supposed to know that.’

The moment Sandy straightened up from brushing the hair on Farry’s feet into some semblance of order, Fortinbrand took the lad’s hand. ‘Well now, Farry-lad,’ he said. ‘We must hurry. The Convocation will be starting all too soon, I fear, and we have business.’

‘Business? For the lad?” Sandy said in startlement, and then he quickly assumed his emotionless mien and gave a slight bow and murmured apology.

‘No harm done,’ Fortinbrand said. ‘Indeed, Sandy, I thank you that the lad is fed and rested and ready to face what lies before him.’

And Farry had a vision of Sam and Frodo, toiling up the side of the Fiery Mountain, though they’d hardly been fed and rested. He shivered.

Fortinbrand noticed. ‘Is it well with you, lad?’ To Sandy, he said, ‘Does he need a jacket or jumper?’

Farry was glad in that moment that Sandy was not a minder. He was able to evade smothering layers with a quick, ‘No, I’m fine, really – I just had a tickle go up my back.’

‘Fine,’ Fortinbrand echoed with a squeeze for Farry’s hand. ‘We’ll just be going, then.’

He propelled them rapidly out of the Thain’s apartments and down the corridor, barely acknowledging the escort standing ready outside the Thain’s study as they went, though Farry, looking back over his shoulder, saw Isenard staring after them, perhaps curious, though the hobbit’s expression was overall bleak. They turned a corner, down another corridor – quickly enough that Farry began to be out of breath as they pulled up in front of an anonymous door. 

The Querier bent down to address the panting lad. ‘Farry,’ he said seriously. ‘No matter what happens today, we will see justice done.’

‘No matter what...?’ Farry said, curiosity warring with worry at the older hobbit’s words.

‘No matter what,’ Fortinbrand said firmly. He stood up straight then, rapped twice at the door, and then opened and entered.

An older hobbit rose to greet them. ‘Come in,’ he said. ‘Shut the door. Now, what is all this about? I thought you had collected all the information necessary for the Tooks to administer justice!’

‘Not justice, Erlingar, not from what I’ve found out from the lad, this morning, whilst asking my final questions,’ Fortinbrand said. ‘And for that, I blame myself. It seems I ought to have started with the lad himself, in this case. As it was, I nearly didn’t question him at all...!’ And then he stopped, as if suddenly remembering his manners, and said, ‘Young Master Faramir, if I may present to you Erlingar Took.’

So Farry knew that, by protocol as he understood it, he outranked this elderly hobbit. At least for the moment. At least so long as his da remained Thain. He bowed properly, adding a shade more to the bow to convey respect, and said, ‘At your service.’

He did not say, ‘and at your family’s service,’ for they were both Tooks, after all.

Erlingar’s eyebrows went up at that, and Fortinbrand nodded in confirmation. ‘As I told you,’ he said.

‘Well then, lad, sit down,’ Erlingar said, indicating one of the chairs. Farry perched on the edge as the adults took chairs of their own. Then he waited. If he waited long enough, one of the adults was likely to speak and perhaps provide more insight into what was happening than if Farry were to prattle on like a child.

Erlingar exchanged a few glances with the Querier as the silence stretched out, and he said at last, ‘I see what you mean.’ And then he sat forward on his chair and rested his hands on his knees. ‘Begin,’ he said to the Querier.

‘Farry,’ Fortinbrand said, and Farry turned a face full of polite inquiry towards him, which for some reason made the hobbit smile. ‘It is very important that we are clear on this next point.’

Farry nodded, though he hadn’t an inkling what the hobbit was talking about.

‘Have I influenced you in any way?’ Fortinbrand said.

‘Influenced?’ Farry said, puzzled.

‘Have I filled your mouth with words to say, or your ears with my thoughts, that you might think them after me?’

Farry considered these questions seriously, aware of the slight frown on Erlingar’s face, a frown that grew in intensity as the silence stretched out. And was that anxiety he saw in Fortinbrand?

Truly, Fortinbrand had given him some serious food for thought, but... Farry shook his head at last. He didn’t feel influenced at all, if he understood the term. ‘I can think my own thoughts,’ he said, though it sounded odd to his ears, so he tried again. ‘I have enough of my own words to say, I don’t need anybody else’s.’

He thought old Erlingar stifled a chuckle at that, but all the old hobbit said was, ‘Do you find him a truthful child, Fortinbrand?’

‘I have found no deceit in him,’ the Querier replied, ‘except, perhaps, when he was laying his plans to run away.’

‘So you did run away?’ Erlingar said. ‘There’s been some doubt about that, whether your parents were to blame for you choosing to go off without a word to anyone, or whether Ferdi and Tolly actually were in league together to carry you off for whatever nefarious purposes they might have been entertaining. Even collusion with ruffians, which went wrong when their plans were foiled by Regi, intercepting Ferdi’s note to Tolly. So the ruffians retreated, to lick their wounds, and returned in force to take their revenge on Ferdi for failing them, and to take the son of the Thain in truth, to move the Tooks to their will...’

Farry’s mouth had opened as this recitation went on, and as Erlingar came to the end, he gulped and said, ‘No! No, that wasn’t the way of it at all!’

Fortinbrand got up from his seat and came to place a steadying hand on Farry’s shoulder. ‘No, lad, but that is only one of the threads of the Talk that is running wild in the Smials, and beyond.’

‘The Talk,’ Farry whispered. He took a shaking breath, gathered the scraps of his courage, and looked Erlingar straight in the eye. ‘I ran away,’ he said clearly. ‘It was the only thing I could think to do. They... they forced me to it...’

‘Who forced you to it? Your parents?’ Erlingar said, his gaze penetrating.

‘Leading the witness,’ Fortinbrand said under his breath, and colour rose in Erlingar’s cheeks, though the older hobbit had the grace to acknowledge the Querier’s correction with a nod. 

To the lad, Fortinbrand added, ‘Steady, Farry.’ His hand gave a squeeze to Faramir’s shoulder. I have confidence in you. You can do this thing. Whatever it was he was supposed to be doing.

Farry took a deep breath now and sat straighter. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I love my parents, and they love me, I know they love me, and that’s why I had to run away, because the Talk was hurting them... I didn’t want the Talk to hurt them anymore!’ There. He’d said it.

Erlingar made a gesture of some sort to Fortinbrand, though he spoke no further, and the Querier said quietly, ‘Tell us, Farry. You must have overheard something, then, did you? Was it your parents you heard, talking about how hurtful the gossip was? Or was it someone else?’

‘It was Tooks,’ Farry said bitterly, shaking his head. ‘O, they say, little pitchers have big ears, though I don’t think they really believe it, the way they talk so freely, about things they have no knowledge of. And it seems to me...’ he trailed off and bit his lip.

‘Go on,’ Erlingar said quietly, and Fortinbrand gave Farry’s shoulder another gentle squeeze.

So Farry finished the thought. ‘It seems to me that the less they know about a matter, the more they think they have to say!’

The adults were silent at that. Erlingar’s eyes went wide, and he looked from Farry’s face to the Querier, and evidently the two grown-ups shared a long glance. And then Erlingar gave a nod, and Fortinbrand asked the next question. ‘What sorts of things did you hear them say?’

Farry was breathing shallowly now, and trying not to break down in tears. ‘Worthless,’ he whispered.

‘What was that?’ Erlingar said, leaning forward more.

A little louder, Farry repeated, ‘Worthless boy. He’s a trial and a plague to his mother! Why, how can the Thain manage the Tookland, when he cannot manage even one small lad, I ask you? Better off without him! Worthless, trouble-making, ne’er-do-well, he’ll end a wastrel, just as his father was as a tween... best thing he ever did was to run away to the Buckland... why in the world did they bring him back again?’

‘Enough,’ Erlingar said, his voice still quiet, but his eyes were snapping with anger. He looked to Fortinbrand again. ‘I believe I understand now.’ He shook his head. ‘There is so much more to this than we’d ever imagined.’ 

‘I thought you ought to know,’ Fortinbrand said, sounding humble, and even... somewhat less assured than he’d seemed to Farry’s senses, up to this point.

‘You were right to bring this to my attention,’ Erlingar said, and he rose from his chair. ‘I must speak to Rudigrim before the convocation begins... This changes the entire face of the matter that has been set before us...’

Somewhat creakily, he crouched before Faramir and looked the young hobbit in the eye, but it seemed he was still speaking to Fortinbrand as he said, ‘I have never – never, mind you! – heard of a child called as a witness in a convocation of Tooks.’ He looked up over Farry’s head to the Querier. ‘Do you think he can be a creditable witness?’

‘I hope so,’ Fortinbrand said. ‘For all our sakes.’

Erlingar nodded and looked back to Farry. ‘Very well, then,’ he said. ‘Put him behind one of the service doors to the kitchen... have one of the escort stand with him there, after they’ve escorted the accused to the front of the hall, until it’s time to call him forth. The Tooks will likely take a dim view of us springing him on them like this... But Rudi and I will do what we can to blunt their ire enough that he may be heard...’

’And so, you know the rest, after the Convocation started,’ Faramir said. ‘Fortinbrand brought me back to Sandy, and asked him to wait with me until I was sent for, and to make sure I had something more to eat and kept my clothes clean. Adelard came for me after he and Haldi and Isen had escorted my da and Tolly and... and you to the great room, and he and I stood listening behind one of the service doors to the kitchens to the preliminaries. And he squeezed my shoulder when he saw me trembling, and told me he didn’t want me to get it into my head to switch the labels on the spice jars, what with the kitchens so dark and deserted at that moment. All the cooks and helpers who were Tooks were seated in the great room, and all the ones who weren’t Tooks were confined to their quarters until the convocation should be over...’

*** 

Chapter 28. Over

Farry fell silent at last. He’d talked himself hoarse with that last story. He thought he might go and see if he could find any more of the scarlet elf cups, though he’d stripped the immediate vicinity. Failing that, he’d break off some hazel twigs, peel their thin bark, and chew on it. It wouldn’t be much, but it would be better than a parched mouth and the cramping emptiness he was feeling in his middle. As it was, they had talked the night away, and the forest was slowly brightening around him.

‘Uncle Ferdi?’ he said. ‘I’m just going to see a hobbit about a pony.’

‘You do that, lad,’ sounded hollow from the darkness of the pit. ‘See if he’ll give you a ride to the Cockerel whilst you’re at it.’

‘Ha ha,’ the young hobbit responded dutifully. 

‘Farry –‘ his uncle’s voice stopped him as he started to push himself to his feet.

‘I’m here,’ he said at once, letting himself settle to the ground again. It wasn’t as if he had to hurry off anywhere in particular.

‘It looks lighter up there... is dawn coming?’

‘Yes Uncle,’ Farry said. ‘We’ve talked the night through, it seems.’

‘And, what of the sky? D’you think you could find your way to the Cockerel this morning, perhaps?’ Ferdi’s voice sounded unutterably weary. Defeated, even. Farry shivered at the thought that his uncle might be resigning himself to abandonment and death, even as he used the last of his breath in a final, desperate effort to try and save his nephew.

‘Heavy clouds, Uncle.’ He forced cheer into his voice. ‘It’s growing colder. P’rhaps it’ll snow.’

‘P’rhaps,’ was all Ferdi said.

Farry listened to the silence stretch for a few breaths, and then he said, ‘I’ll be right back, Uncle.’ He waited for Ferdi to say that he wasn’t going anywhere, but apparently his uncle was saving his breath, so he nodded and said to himself, ‘Right.’

Getting to his feet was more difficult than he’d anticipated, and once he was standing, he swayed so alarmingly that he thought it prudent to drop to his hands and knees once more. It wouldn’t do at all to fall into the pit.

He crawled a safe distance away and rose again. He found himself weaving and staggering, and somehow it struck him as comical. ‘Drunk as a Brandybuck!’ he announced to the trees around him, and chortled. In the next moment, he stumbled and measured his length face-down on the ground.

What’re you doing? phantom-Haldi whispered in the back of his brain. Farry-lad! Pay attention!

‘I don’t understand,’ little Farry said. ‘I certainly wouldn’t get all silly! No matter how cold and tired and thirsty I got!’

Haldi crouched to look the youngster directly in the eye. ‘But that’s the nature of the beastie, lad... you would.’ His face serious, he added, ‘Tell me again, what you remember of Hilly in the bog.’

The young son of the Thain abruptly sobered, and the escort nodded. ‘O aye,’ the older hobbit said. ‘From what the Mistress recounted, he was as jolly as a drunken hobbit, there, as the cold dragged him down into its clutches, stealing his faculties from him... and she would have tried to make her way out to him, trusting to the precarious safety of the branches she’d shoved towards him, to try and pull him out, but that he retained just enough wit to stop her from putting herself in danger, leaving you, barely more than a faunt, alone in the Wood.’

Farry shivered, breaking up the memory, causing it to fade and tatter as mist in the face of a sudden breeze. ‘Got to build up the fire,’ he said aloud. He fisted his hands and relaxed them again, preparatory to pushing himself up, and noticed that he’d fallen onto a patch of velvety moss.

Another memory stirred, dim in the back of his mind, and he rested his forehead on the cold, damp ground before him, for something told him it was critically important. Not only the cold, but lack of water and food was telling on him. Something inside himself was telling him he would not last for many more hours without help. And help was days away...

‘Fire-watch,’ he whispered. Yes! He’d been in the study one day, playing on the hearthrug whilst the grown-ups discussed serious matters. They’d been talking about the woodcutters and foresters who lived in the Woody End. The Mayor was responsible for the Shirriffs and the Post, the Thain was the master of the Shire-moot, and captain of the Shire-muster and Hobbitry-in-arms, and Buckland was a law unto itself... but fire was a menace to all in its path.

Pippin had wanted to know if anyone kept watch over the woods in the Shire, and if so, who? And how would he, as captain of the Shire-muster, know to call hobbits together to battle a blaze?

It seemed the hobbits who lived in the forests of the Shire had a loosely organised Fire-watch, working with the Mayor’s Messenger Service and the Watch (more generally, Shirriffs and Bounders). Those who lived and worked in the woods were familiar with where smoke ought to be seen or smelled, and so there was an understanding that any unaccountable smoke, either sight or smell, was to be investigated by anyone who discovered it. As a result, a number of hobbits might converge separately on a traveller’s fire (which had the benefit of sitting down together around the fire and swapping tales and sometimes flasks of strong drink), or they might come together, drawn by the smoke of a fire – still small, if luck was with them – that didn’t belong in the wood; together, they could beat it out before it grew large enough to require calling on the resources of a muster of hobbits.

Deep in the Wood as he was, he realised only in this moment that he hadn’t smelled smoke for the last half-day of their travels, and apparently no one had, up to this point, noticed Farry’s fire. He had kept it small and manageable: just large enough for warmth and protection, but small enough that he didn’t burn up too much wood too fast, considering the energy it took to gather the wood in the first place.

‘A – a big fire,’ he whispered to himself. ‘I need – need a big fire, bonfire, singing on and on fire...’ And he giggled at the sound of the nursery rhyme, seeming so out of place and time here, before taking himself once more sternly in hand. ‘Big fire,’ he repeated, and clenching his hand, clutched moss. ‘Lo – lots of smoke,’ he said with a nod. ‘Just like you showed me, Haldi.’ He nodded again, to show the escort his understanding.

And so he removed his jacket, retaining his warm woollen cloak, and filled it with handfuls of moss. The cold was both a blessing and a curse; by the time he returned to the fire, he was shivering violently, but he was also more alert than he’d been. 

He shook out his burden of moss, put his jacket back on, damp and dirt-smeared as it may be, and held out his hands to the fire as if he could scoop its warmth to himself, doubly grateful for its presence. He’d just warm himself, and then he’d build up the fire, much bigger, and when the wood caught and started to burn briskly, he’d add the moss to make smoke. He’d ask Ferdi’s advice, first, as to how big a fire he should make to attract attention. He wasn’t sure he had the energy to collect more wood. How slowly should he burn the wood he had, to make it last long enough?

When his teeth had at last stopped chattering, he said, ‘I’m back, Uncle.’

But there was no answer from the pit.

Starting up, he called, ‘Ferdi! Uncle Ferdi!’ But he might as well have been alone there in the Wood.

In a panic, he began to throw all the wood remaining in his pile onto his fire, and once that was done, he threw the moss on top for good measure. Then he huddled together, hugging his knees, staring at his work. Suddenly he shook his head and passed his hand over his eyes.

‘Fool of a Took,’ he muttered. ‘How long can that possibly last? You’ve doomed us both with your thoughtlessness.’ He tried to rise, to go out into the surrounding trees and gather more fallen branches, though he’d have to go farther, having scavenged all the wood nearby. But weakness claimed him, and he sank down on the ground again.

If he’d had any tears left to him, he’d have wept them then and there. All he could do was sit there between the roaring fire and the yawning pit. 

He began to realise that he was too warm – for the moment. ‘No cause for alarm,’ he muttered to himself. ‘It won’t last all that long.’ For relief from the heat blasting from the fire he’d made, he laid himself down on the welcome chill of the ground.

Oddly enough, he felt peaceful. Even sleepy.

*** 

Returning to his own part of the Wood always brought a sigh of relief, Shirriff Dunnock thought to himself. He was hardly a far-traveller – though he was better-travelled than most who lived in these parts, seeing as he was one of three Shirriffs charged with keeping order in the Eastfarthing, which in these quiet days meant mostly rounding up livestock that had wandered, and watching for any sort of trouble, whether Man (unlikely as it might be, with the King’s Men and Bounders doing their job with extra care these days) or beast. As a matter of fact, the hunt to deal with a dangerous pack of wild and stray dogs had taken him and the forest dwellers he’d deputised far from home. 

Those dogs would menace neither deer nor hobbit in future, so it had been worth the trouble. Still, it would be good to stop in at the Cockerel and quaff the best beer on the Stock Road, one of the benefits of Shirriffing in this district.

Except... he might have to put off anticipated pleasure a little longer. He slowed, then stopped, adjusted his quiver on his back and raised his nose, the better to sample the air. ‘D’you smell that?’ he said.

Robin Brambleburrow scratched his ear. ‘Smoke?’ the forester said doubtfully. ‘Could be someone as lives hereabouts...’

‘We’ve come too far to be smelling fire from the Burrowses’, and not quite far enough to smell smoke from the Longholes’,’ Dunnock said. He knew every hobbit-hole in his district; often stopped in as he made his rounds, to pick up a bite to eat and a bit o’ the latest gossip. Why, simply being on friendly terms with the widely scattered residents of the Woody End did half his job for him, he found, for they were more likely to notice something out of place in their familiar surroundings than a wandering soul like himself.

‘The Cockerel, maybe?’ Robin’s cousin Chaffinch said hopefully. He threw back his head and sampled the air. But Brambling, Chaffinch’s brother, grunted and shook his head. He was a forester of few words, but he was solid and dependable and a decent shot with a bow.

Dunnock agreed with Brambling. ‘Too far,’ he countered. ‘Though it’s coming from that direction. Whatever it is, it’s between us and the Cockerel.’ He sniffed again and adjusted his stance. ‘A little to the west, perhaps.’

‘That’s handy,’ Burdock Brushbeater said. An herb-gatherer, he lived a few miles to the north of the Crowing Cockerel. ‘Won’t have to go too far out of our way to investigate.’

‘But a wild-fire, this time o’ year?’ Chaffinch said, scratching under his cap. ‘Most likely just a traveller’s fire.’

‘A traveller, this time o’ year?’ Robin mimicked his cousin. ‘What hobbit in his right mind would be camping in the depths o’ winter, when there’s a perfectly good Crowing Cockerel only a few miles from here?’

Brambling snorted.

‘Probably one o’ them daft Tooks,’ Chaffinch said, and Dunnock hushed him. Working for the Mayor as he did, he didn’t think it wise to disparage the Tooks and by implication, the Thain.

‘Come along, you lot,’ the Shirriff said. ‘There’ll still be beer a-plenty at the Cockerel if we come a bit later than we’d planned...’

‘Dunno about that,’ Burdock grumbled under his breath, but he shouldered his own quiver and began to trudge in the direction the Shirriff indicated.

*** 

Some time later, Burdock tapped Dunnock’s shoulder. ‘Smoke’s gettin’ less,’ he said. ‘It’s as Chaff said, just a traveller’s fire, more’n likely. We don’t have to stop...?’

Dunnock said stubbornly, ‘It’d be worth my feather if it’s something more serious than that. If’n you want to abandon me, just for beer, go ahead. But don’t ask for any favours in future...’

At the irritation in the Shirriff’s tone, the herb-gatherer subsided. ‘I was just trying to save some trouble,’ he said.

‘The smoke is getting less,’ Robin affirmed, trading glances with his cousins, ‘but all the more reason to take a look, make sure our careless traveller has put his fire out properly and not left it to burn itself out, and burn the Wood to the ground...’

‘We don’t even know it’s a traveller!’ Burdock protested.

‘But it could be,’ Chaffinch insisted, for that had been his idea in the first place, and he was the type to see an idea through, once he’d had it.

And in telling the story later at the Crowing Cockerel, it stood him in good stead, as his listeners stood him to congratulatory mugs of beer while he regaled an appreciative audience.

For even though the smoke continued to lessen, so that the Shirriff himself expressed a doubt as to what they’d find... in the end, they were all flummoxed when they reached the clearing, to see the nearly burned-out fire.

‘You see, a traveller,’ Chaffinch said triumphantly, even though he was in the same moment disgusted with the irresponsible fire-maker. ‘And look! He didn’t even put it out... just left it to burn down by itself. Didn’t scatter the coals, nor kick dirt over it, neither!’

But Dunnock had spotted something beside the fire, that had looked at first like a pile of clothing, lightly dusted by the snow that had lately started sifting down, but there was something about it... ‘What in the name of...?’ he muttered, and then he broke into a run, the others following belatedly. ‘It’s a child!’ he said.

‘A child!’ ‘Here in the Wood!’ ‘Alone!’ the others gabbled. ‘Who would –?‘

‘Probably one o’ them benighted Tooks,’ Chaffinch muttered under his breath, and Robin hushed him, for Dunnock had gently taken up the limp figure and turned it over, to reveal that Chaffinch had the right of things.

‘Not just any Took,’ the Shirriff muttered. He began chafing the lad’s cold hands. ‘Farry? Young Master Faramir? D’you hear me, lad?’

‘Son o’ the Thain?’ Burdock gasped, falling to his knees beside them. ‘Here, Dun, let me see him.’

And knowing that the herb-gatherer had some knowledge of healing, Dunnock eased the lad into Burdock’s grasp, even as he ordered the others to scavenge as much wood as they could find, and quickly, that they might build a warming fire. Then he sat back and watched Burdock examining the child, feeling a terrible fear at the realisation that he could not see the small chest rise and fall. Was the lad even breathing? Had they come too late?

‘He’s alive,’ the herb-gatherer pronounced, ‘but I don’t like the look o’ –‘ He looked up from scrutinising the lad’s fingers. ‘Gi’ me your water flask, Dun. Mine’s about out; I wasn’t sparing, thinking we’d be coming to the Cockerel soon enough.’

*** 

Author’s note: some text drawn from “Of the Ordering of the Shire” in The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien.

*** 

Chapter 29. Enough

Faramir was dreaming, and of a wonder, considering his circumstances, it was a good dream for a change. He’d dreamt of water since the beginning of their troubles – a pure cold spring bubbling from the ground, a laughing stream, a splashing fountain, Sandy pouring a glass of fresh water from a pitcher, even his sloshing water flask hanging from his pack. But every time he lifted the water to his lips – whether glass or flask or from dipping his cupped hand in the spring or stream – the water that he brought to his mouth was dry as dust, and he knew sharp disappointment and even sharper thirst. 

But this water... he could feel the mouth of a flask against his dry, cracked lips, and instead of air or dust, this water was wet. He felt a sudden urgency – he had to drink it quickly, before it disappeared into the mists of his dreaming. But when he grabbed at the flask, hands restrained him, and someone spoke to him, gentle but firm. 

‘Steady, lad – small sips! We don’t want you to founder yourself.’ 

‘But what’s the son o’ the Thain doing out alone in the End o’ the Wood?’ 

‘Not alone,’ he tried to whisper, but another voice spoke over him. 

‘He’d be travelling with an escort, for certain... it would be worth an escort’s place to leave the lad alone in the Wood! Why, I heard the Thain is capable of banishing anyone who should put his son in peril!’ 

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Robin.’ 

‘Well, Shirriff, they say he’s a stickler for responsibility.’ 

‘No, but I’m saying no escort would ever put the Thain or his family in peril. They’ve sworn to defend them with their own lives, if need be, and some have laid down their lives, as a matter of fact, like that poor, brave fellow, some years back, who jumped between old Ferumbras and a wild boar.’ 

Another hobbit spoke from the direction of the pit. ‘I think I know where his escort is... Look there...’ 

‘What’s that, Brambling?’ came the Shirriff’s voice, moving away from Farry, towards the pit.

Farry lifted his head, tried to open his eyes, but the movement made him dizzy, and the hands holding him tightened. ‘Steady lad,’ the first voice repeated. ‘D’you think you could take another sip?’ And the flask was there again, and he wanted to speak, to plead with them to pull Uncle Ferdi from the pit. Instead, he ended nearly choking on the life-giving liquid, and the flask was taken away again while the hobbit holding him leaned him forward and slapped his back. 

‘ 'Tis a hunter's pit,’ came the answer. ‘Look here, Shirriff, something broke the cap on this side ...or mayhap it’s one of the old ruffian traps! But I thought those were all filled in...’ 

As if in a dream, Farry heard the Shirriff's near-immediate response. ‘Robin! Get yourself to the Cockerel, as fast as you may go. Bring back rope, and three litters, and hobbits to carry them, and a healer into the bargain.’ The Shirriff’s voice, giving orders, was now coming from the direction of the pit. 

‘Three litters?’ 

The Shirriff's voice sounded again, much louder than before. ‘Halloo! Can you hear me down there?’ And lower, ‘No answer ...I can’t see down there, too dark, but someone fell through – this great, gaping hole is testimony to that. The hobbits of the Thain’s escort often travel in twos. Two walking together... and if the lad were slightly to one side...’ 

‘I’ll be back before you know it!’ 

Farry gave a sigh of relief and allowed the flask to dribble more water into his mouth. ‘Good lad,’ the hobbit holding him said. Each sip that followed carried new wonder, new life. He wondered if his da and Uncle Merry had experienced this very feeling with the Ent draughts they’d drunk with Treebeard.

He considered idly how long it would take Robin to get to the Crowing Cockerel and come back with help. The world seemed misty and far away; the only reality for Faramir now was a flask that regularly returned to his lips to offer him another small sip, and an encouraging voice with it.

‘Shirriff, I just thought of a place where there’s some rope closer than the Cockerel,’ another voice spoke, accompanied by the sound of a generous armload of firewood being thrown to the ground. 

‘Where?’ 

‘Lotho’s Well – it’s only a mile or so from here, as you know. I can go and bring back the rope from the well – it ought to be long enough to reach the bottom of this one, wouldn’t you think?’ 

‘Good thinking, Chaff, you do that!’ There was a pause, then, ‘How is he, Burdock?’ 

‘Very weak, Dun... I don’t know how long he’s been out here. Do you see any sign of a flask or pack? I mean, he had his bow case and quiver on his back when we found him, but he ought to have more...’ 

The Shirriff’s voice came from further away now, no longer near the pit. ‘I think those dogs were here before we chased them halfway across the Farthing... tore everything to pieces, from the look of it. Here’s his flask... crushed... holes that look like they were made by wicked teeth... empty. Our lad is lucky to be alive, it seems.’ 

Farry must have swooned then, for when he wakened, he was warmer than he had been. He could hear the snapping of a fresh-kindled fire, and someone was wiping his face with a damp cloth. ‘Good, you’re awake.’ 

The lad tried to sit himself up, but his rescuer restrained him. ‘Steady, lad,’ he said. It was the voice he’d heard when someone had been giving him water. Water! 

He must have croaked the word, because the hobbit lifted him and then held a flask for him to drink. ‘There you are, lad, small sips.’ He strove to open his eyes, but it felt to him as if a heavy weight was attached to each eyelid. 

‘We’re ready for you, Burdock!’ 

The hobbit looked over to the side. ‘I’ll be right there!’ He laid Farry down again. ‘Now, lad, they’re going to lower me into the pit, see, and we’ll get your escort out... I need you to lie here and wait, can you do that for me? I don’t want you to try and get up and maybe fall into the fire or somewhat.’ 

Farry shook his head. ‘I won’t,’ he whispered. 

Burdock patted his shoulder. ‘Good lad. I’ll be back soon with more water.’ 

Farry was a little confused at that. Burdock was going down into the pit for more water? Was it a well after all? But Uncle Ferdi had said it was dry... Farry blinked and tried to sit up, to look and see what was happening, but he was well-wrapped, and somehow, he couldn’t keep his eyelids open. 

When he wakened again, he heard a dog whine nearby, and Burdock’s voice exclaiming, ‘Who’d’ve thought old Gammer Goodbody’s dog would end in a ruffian pit? We looked for him, after she died, but he ran off and disappeared!’ 

Farry heard the welcome sound of Ferdi’s voice. ‘You know this dog?’ 

‘Uncle Ferdi!’ 

‘As I live and breathe,’ came the answer, somewhat rasping, but very much alive. ‘Farry, lad, you don’t know what a relief it is to hear you speak.’ 

Farry nodded, his throat too tight to form any more words. ‘Steady, lad,’ another voice said, one that he didn’t recognize, and then hands were helping him to sit up. ‘Burdock here says you may have another drink if you wish.’ 

‘So you know this dog, you said,’ Ferdi asked again, and coughed. 

‘I do! He was the constant companion of my mother’s old gammer!’ Burdock said. 

‘Here sir, drink some more water.’ Chaff was the speaker, Farry thought. The one who’d gone to Lotho’s Well. His thought was confirmed when the hobbit said, ‘Fresh out o’ the well, it is.’ He sounded self-congratulatory as he added, ‘Thought I might as well bring along the bucket with the rope.’ Ferdi must have taken the hobbit’s advice, because Chaff’s next words were, ‘That’s it, sir. Small sips, now.’

Meanwhile, Burdock was still speaking. ‘She never feared going out into the Wood to gather herbs and dig roots, not with him by her side. But her old heart gave out on her, a month or two ago. Found her in her bed, looking as if she were asleep, with her door all covered in claw marks and the window busted out as if the dog had jumped through it when he couldn’t get out any other way. Poor fellow.’ 

‘Well then,’ Ferdi murmured. ‘I’m glad to know he has family to take him in. Saved my life, he did.’ 

‘Probably saved his own as well,’ the Shirriff said. ‘If he’d been with that pack of dogs when we caught up with them...’ 

‘He must’ve joined with them after Gammer died,’ Burdock said. 

‘He seems tame enough now,’ the Shirriff said. ‘And if he didn’t attack you in the pit... He might have been unsure of what you were, half a hobbit sticking out of the ground as it were, thought you were a danger, and that’s why he launched himself at you, taking you both down, as you said. I s’pose we won’t have to put him down like the others. Not unless I find him menacing livestock or hobbits.’ 

Ferdi fell silent then, and Farry certainly had nothing to say except the occasional whispered thanks. Time passed, unmarked by any clock, measured in regularly administered small sips of water for the two travellers and for the dog, and quiet conversation amongst their rescuers.

Robin’s voice was heard, calling halloo! and approaching rapidly. He jogged into the clearing, followed by ponies bearing riders... at least, all three ponies held riders as they entered the clearing, though one of the riders catapulted himself from the saddle before his mount had quite come to a halt. ‘Farry!’ 

And then Farry’s da was there, scooping him up, holding him close and chanting his name. 

Voiceless, Faramir stared in wonder, his mouth forming the word. Da!

‘There, Pip,’ the second rider said, slipping from his saddle. ‘You see? I told you it would come out right. The forester said they’d found Farry alive...’ 

‘Uncle Merry?’ Farry croaked. ‘What are you doing here?’ 

‘I might ask the same, rascal!’ Merry chuckled, though he brushed at his eyes with his hand as he knelt between Faramir and Ferdi. ‘Ah, Ferdi,’ he added. ‘From Robin’s report, we were expecting the worst!’ Lower, he said, ‘Fallen into a bottomless pit, he said, or near-bottomless, for all that mattered. So far down, he couldn't see the bottom for the dark.’  

‘Dog saved my life,’ Ferdi whispered, indicating the silvery, shaggy-furred wolfish animal, larger and heavier than many a grown hobbit, lying near him. ‘We fell into the pit together, and I landed on him instead of the stones at the bottom.’ He took a few breaths as if winded after even so short a speech. ‘Kept me warm through the long dark afterwards.’

If he or Merry said any more, Farry missed it, dozing again in the security of his father's arms. Some time later, he wasn't sure whether the time was long or short, he wakened at the sound of someone speaking nearby. 

‘Thain Peregrin, Sir,’ the Shirriff said, and from his voice, he was bending close. Farry opened his eyes, and the hobbit with the feather in his hat smiled. ‘At your service, and your family’s.’ 

‘I should say so,’ Pippin said fervently. ‘Farry, what –?’  

Another hobbit bent down, saying, ‘Let me take a look at him, Sir.’ From his manner, Farry surmised he was a healer. 

‘We had to hammer out a few details before the King comes to the Bridge,’ Merry was saying to Ferdi. ‘The Crowing Cockerel’s halfway between Tuckborough and Brandy Hall, after all, not to mention they do boast the finest beer on the Stock Road...’ 

‘Not to mention,’ Ferdi said. 

‘Pip told me about this mad scheme of yours to show the lad your journeys into danger to meet Uncle Badger near Stock and exchange information about what Lotho’s ruffians were up to,’ Merry said. ‘What I’d like to know is, why didn’t you take a whole party along? No need to put yourself in danger...’ 

‘ ’Twasn’t my idea,’ Ferdi said, coughed, and cleared his throat. ‘The lad is a stubborn Took, as you know.’ 

‘Farry, what happened?’ Pippin said as the healer went over Farry’s limbs and then lifted his shirt to prod at his abdomen. 

The lad did not protest; that odd lassitude was stealing over him again, and if there weren’t so many hobbits crowded in the clearing, all talking at once, he might have fallen asleep once more. 

‘Here Sir, we need to keep him drinking,’ Burdock said, bending close and offering a flask to the Thain. ‘Small sips. This is nice and fresh, just drawn from Lotho’s Well, as a matter of fact.’ 

‘Of course,’ Pippin said. ‘I thank you.’ He took the flask and helped Farry sip, repeating, ‘How did you come into this state? What sort of pit or cave is this, that you've discovered, or Ferdi, as it were...?’ 

Farry forced his eyes open. ‘It was one of the old ruffian traps,’ he managed to say. The water was wondrously reviving. He was also relieved that the healer had left off his examination and turned to Ferdi. 

‘I thought the engineers filled them all in!’ the Thain said indignantly. 

‘Evidently not this one,’ Ferdi said, and gave a yelp. 

‘Did that hurt?’ the healer asked. 

‘What do you think?’ Ferdi snapped indignantly. 

‘How about here?’ the healer said, unruffled, as he elicited another stifled cry from Farry's uncle. Adding insult to injury, he said, ‘Here now, sir, don't put that down! You ought to keep drinking.’ 

‘How you imagine I can drink with you poking and prodding at me – are you trying to put me out of my misery by having me choke to death?’ 

‘Drink, cousin,’ Merry said, extending his own flask. 

Ferdi took it and sipped, and his eyebrows went up. ‘Much better,’ he said. 

‘Hall’s finest,’ Merry said in an aside to Pippin. 

‘There’s nothing wrong with you, I see,’ Pippin said.  

‘Tell it to the healer!’ Ferdi said. 

‘Now, Ferdi, you know better than that. I’m only Thain. Healers don’t listen to me.’ 

‘Have another sip,’ Merry said. ‘Plenty more where that came from.’ 

‘Don’t mind if I do,’ Ferdi replied. ‘I'm glad that Convocation didn't banish you after all, Merry, half-Took that you are,’ he added in a thoughtful tone. He took another sip from Merry’s flask and gave a sigh of contentment. 

‘Convocation?’ Merry said in consternation. ‘Pip, what convocation is he talking about? The Tooks had a convocation?’ 

‘He's delirious,’ the healer said. ‘Quite common when a hobbit goes too long without water,’ he added. ‘It's a sign you’re dying of thirst and need to pay heed.’  

‘Keep drinking then, cousin,’ Merry said in alarm. 

‘Water would be better,’ the healer insisted, and he nodded thanks at Burdock as the latter handed him the flask Ferdi had dropped, now freshly filled, but not containing the Hall’s finest. He put the flask into Ferdi's free hand and closed his fingers around it. ‘Do you want me to help you drink this, or can you manage on your own?’ 

‘Stop plaguing me,’ Ferdi protested in exasperation, causing his cousins to exchange worried glances. Ferdi was usually much more circumspect with healers, given their propensity to stir up nasty-tasting draughts and other unpleasant consequences for uncooperative patients. But they relaxed somewhat as he began to alternate sips of brandy with crisp, cold water from Lotho's Well. 

Perhaps putting Ferdi’s irascibility down to delirium, Hawthorn simply nodded and patted him on the shoulder, then rose to his feet, moved to the dog, and began to run his hands over the furry body and limbs.

‘In any event,’ Pippin said, sounding grim, ‘I think the engineers are going to have a new task to turn their attentions to over the coming months... I expect they’ll be studying the old maps, and checking every single pit that was dug during the Troubles. And no new excavations until the survey is complete!’ 

‘I’m sure they’ll give it their every effort,’ Merry said. ‘If only to be able to get back to digging just so soon as the weather warms in the Spring.’ 

Farry coughed, and Pippin turned his full attention back to his son. ‘Come now, Farry, another sip. I’m told this comes from Lotho’s Well, which you had planned to visit.’ He hefted the flask in a toast. ‘To the defenders of the Tookland!’ 

‘To the defenders,’ Farry echoed gladly, even though technically those same defenders had been the authors of this particular misadventure, and eagerly swallowed the water his father offered him, cold and sweet. 

‘Healer Hawthorn,’ the Shirriff said. ‘Are they fit to be moved?’ 

‘I think we can safely carry them back to the Cockerel,’ the healer said. ‘I wouldn’t take them any further than that, however. I’d like them to rest there through the night, where I can keep an eye on them.’  

‘And the dog?’ Ferdi said. 

‘Dogs are resilient creatures,’ Hawthorn said. ‘He’ll probably be on his feet before you are.’ 

Burdock spoke up. ‘If you don’t mind, Robin, Chaff, Brambling, we’ll carry Snowdrop on a litter to my parents’ – I’m sure they’ll take him in. My old dad looked for him for days...’ 

‘Snowdrop!’ Merry said in an undertone. ‘Snowbank would be a more fitting name.’ 

‘Blizzard, perhaps,’ someone else muttered. 

‘In any event,’ the healer said, cutting into the conversation, ‘I’d like to get these hobbits inside, out of the chill, into warm baths and then beds, and make sure they get some hot food, as much as they wish to eat.’ 

‘That’s the most agreeable thing a healer has ever said to me,’ Ferdi said to no one in particular, and Merry laughed.  

Hawthorn looked over from his examination of the dog and raised his voice slightly. ‘Thain Peregrin, if you please!’ 

‘Healer Hawthorn,’ Pippin responded. 

‘If you would like to send for a coach to bear them back to the Great Smials on the morrow,’ the healer said, getting up from the dog's side and dusting his hands, ‘I think with food, water, and rest through the remainder of the afternoon and evening, and a good breakfast on the morrow, they should be ready to take their leave.’ 

‘We can send a quick post rider to the forest Bolgers at the same time, to spare them from worrying when Farry and Ferdi fail to turn up on time,’ Pippin said. ‘Haldi! See to it.’  

‘Yes Sir, as you wish,’ the escort said from somewhere behind them. ‘I’m that glad, Sir, to see the lad's all right,’ he added. 

‘Thanks to you, in part,’ Farry said, but his voice was faint in his own ears. He’d have to tell the hobbits of the escort all about how their lessons had kept him alive through his ordeal. Later. 

‘Steady lad, rest now,’ his father said, breaking into the young Took’s thoughts. ‘Here are the litters, and bearers into the bargain. We’ll have you to the Cockerel in time for tea.’  

Farry breathed a sigh of relief. This busy clearing, that had been so quiet and desolate only a few hours before, the babble of voices on all sides, the hands that lifted him onto a litter... it was all becoming real to him. This was not one of his dreams of rescue. 

His father took his hand and walked beside him, letting Haldi, the archer who’d escorted the Thain to the Cockerel, lead his pony back to the inn.  

‘You’re really here,’ Farry said, looking up into his father’s face. 

‘Of course I am,’ Pippin said with a squeeze for Farry’s hand. ‘I’m just glad your Uncle Merry and I were meeting at the Cockerel when that forester came panting into the common room.’ He shook his head. ‘I would hate to have found out second-hand, by pony post.’ 

‘I’m just glad we were found,’ Farry whispered. ‘Da?’ he added. 

‘What is it, dear heart?’ 

Farry swallowed. He still felt as if he could drink the Brandywine River and not have done, but he was feeling much better than he had only an hour earlier. ‘I think I’ve had enough of retracing old paths for the time being.’ He took a breath. ‘Is it all right with you if we put off any more journeying for a time?’ He held the next breath, afraid his father might see him as a coward, or weak. In truth, he was simply very tired. 

Pippin smiled down at his eldest son and gave Farry’s hand another squeeze. ‘I think that’s a wise idea, lad. For the time being, we’ll leave off any plans for journeying.’ 

***  

To Be Continued...

Story Notes

(All links lead to pages on Stories of Arda and are provided for the sake of convenience. This story is dedicated to all the readers over the years with whom I have enjoyed an ongoing conversation, along with all the fanfic writers over the years whose stories continue to offer hours of delight and comfort. Finally, to Nilmandra and Rorrah, who made all this possible.) 

Thanks go to Dinossiel for pre-reading chapters and helping brainstorm a few inconvenient plot hitches.

Chapter 4. The story of Ferumbras' disastrous and deadly hunt is detailed in Pearl of Great Price and in a nightmare recounted in StarFire.

Chapter 5. Pippin's problems started when a troll fell on him in battle, though Elessar's healing skills and a farewell Ent draught drunk with Treebeard on his way homeward did a great deal to help him going forward. However, a serious bout with pneumonia (The Old Gaffer's Friend) shortly before he came of age caused lasting damage to his lungs, as detailed in Jewels and all stories set after that time in the timeline. He finds healing once again in an Ent draught as told in At the End of His Rope and in more detail in A Healer's Tale. Some details of the Tooks' resistance to Pippin returning to take up the reins can be found in Flames.

Chapter 6. At the time this chapter was written, Influenza B was currently cutting a swath in our area. Symptoms: five days of worryingly high fevers (as much as 104 or 105F in children), chills, and headache. Since then, of course, COVID-19 came into the news.

Chapters 7 through 10. Farry's running away and the events that followed are told in more detail in Runaway, co-authored by JoDancingTree, and its sequel A Matter of Appearances.

The background for elements in Chapters 11 through 29 can be found in tantalising hints in Tolkien's "The Scouring of the Shire" and "The Grey Havens" as well as The Proposition and The Rescue (two WIPs here on SoA that I'll be happy to tackle if there's any interest in them – both are outlined to the end, but need to be written out in final form. If you happen to drop me a line or leave a word to that effect, I'll add them to the list of works to finish sooner than later...hopefully).

Chapters 23 through 27. Many thanks to FantasyFan for beta-reading this section and offering comments, insights and food for thought. 

For various reasons, I have decided to end this story here as "Part 1" and (hopefully) continue in a "Part 2" to be posted later, depending on progress in revising and beta-reading. Time and energy are factoring into this, too.

Parts 2 and 3 "call back" to scenes and themes in Part 1 as this was originally a long and cohesive story. (It still is cohesive, and the "Epilogue" chapter in Part 3 reflects back to all the chapters in this story and not just the second half, but chapter 29 presents a natural break, so I'm going with it. One less WIP. Technically speaking.)

In conclusion, I hope this finds you and yours well. Stay safe.

*** 

(If you do happen to visit an old story, I'd love to hear your thoughts, especially if you can point me to similar stories that I might add to my reading list, or if you notice a glaring mismatch since I'm trying to shoehorn things together into one rather large and elaborate quilt. Okay, so I mixed my metaphors. Such is life.)