Chapter 40. The Treasure-hoard of the Thain

Tooks were already departing for Michel Delving when Ferdi resumed his escort duties. Indeed, the greater part of the Tooks of the Great Smials would descend upon Michel Delving, along with Shirefolk from all over the Shire, for Lithe. Usually the Tooks had their own Lithedays celebration closer to home, as sensible folk do, but this was an election year, and the election was in Michel Delving.

 ‘Just yourself and a pack pony,’ Pippin said as Ferdi poked his head in at the study door in answer to summons.

Ferdi nodded and withdrew. ‘Where are we going?’ Hilly said, accommodating his usually quick stride to Ferdi’s slow progress.

 ‘Don’t know,’ Ferdi said. ‘They never tell me anything, you know; I only work here.’ His leg gave a twinge and he adjusted his gait. ‘Do me a favour, Hilly, and run ahead to the stables? Have them saddle Socks and Penny and prepare a pack pony. I don’t like to keep the Thain waiting.’

 ‘Not to mention the Thain doesn’t like to be kept waiting. It takes an impatient sort to be Thain,’ Hilly said under his breath. With a grin he clapped Ferdi on the shoulder and trotted off.

Pippin waited patiently in spite of it all for Ferdi to mount and take up the pack pony’s lead rope, before leaping lightly to his own saddle. ‘Beautiful day,’ he remarked, turning Socks’ head to the wild hills to the south and west of Tuckborough.

 ‘Beautiful,’ Ferdi answered noncommittally.

They took a track that wound deep into the hills, crossing shallow streams, passing through copses of trees, until at last they ended on the side of a hill under a sheltered overhang. From the valley below the entrance was not obvious. Pippin slipped from his saddle and hobbled Socks, saying, ‘Here we are.’

Ferdi got down more stiffly as Pippin took the pack pony’s rope. ‘Steady, Penny,’ he said. She’d likely stand without hobbles, but just in case...

Ferdi wondered if this was a meeting place of some sort, for there was no indication of why they had stopped here. There was an overhang, true, and an old fire-circle of stones, though no fire had burned there recently. It seemed a place to take shelter in a storm, to wait out the weather before proceeding, but not a destination in its own right.

Pippin smiled briefly and pressed a place on the stone wall. ‘Dwarf-made,’ he said succinctly. Ferdi’s eyes widened as a large expanse of stone four hobbits wide and two high swung back.

 ‘Here,’ Pippin said, reaching inside and emerging with two torches. ‘Make yourself useful.’

Ferdi lit the torches, handing one to Pippin. ‘What do we want in here?’ he said.

 ‘In all the time you worked for my father, you never saw this place?’ Pippin said. ‘Behold the treasure-store of the Thain.’ He smiled again, a grimace really. ‘A tight secret, it is,’ he said. ‘A handful of hobbits know about this place: the Thain, the Steward, the Chief Engineer, and now the head of escort.’

 ‘I oughtn’t,’ Ferdi blurted without thinking. ‘You never know how long I’ll remain head of escort. Why, with the next tournament...’ For, by tradition, the position went to the finest archer of Tookland, as determined in the annual contest after the barley harvest. Tolly might well beat Ferdi this year, seeing how Ferdi’s luck had been going of late.

 ‘You wouldn’t tell your father what’s for tea if you thought he didn’t need to know,’ Pippin said. ‘Ah, but ‘twould be a shame if the Smials should fall down over our heads and no one survived with the knowledge.’

They entered, Pippin leading the pony, and Pippin cautioned Ferdi to stay well away from the barrels stored to one side of the hole. ‘Black powder,’ he said succinctly, his words echoing, and Ferdi nodded. It was a gift from the King of the West to the Shire, that the art of fireworks should not be lost with the departure of Gandalf. The Hobbits had found it quite handy for blasting out new excavations as well. Happily they were not curious enough to discover other uses for the stuff.

 ‘You keep torches near the entrance for the convenience of ignorant thieves,’ Ferdi said. ‘I see it now. They enter, light the torches, approach too close to the barrels in their greed, and set off the powder.’

 ‘Very convenient indeed,’ Pippin said. ‘No need for a trial afterwards. The Chief Engineer brings a lantern, if he wishes to fetch away some powder. It’s just a bit safer.’

 ‘But we didn’t need a lantern,’ Ferdi said.

 ‘No, for we are not here to fetch powders,’ Pippin said. ‘Something more substantial, rather.’

 They skirted the barrels. Deep in the back of the cavern delved there, the light of the torches fell upon more barrels and chests, most covered with layers of dust.

Pippin muffled his nose and mouth against the dust and opened the nearest chest, which was full of bags. He handed his torch to Ferdi and lifted a bag in each hand with a soft jingling noise, checking to make sure they were closed tight and transferring them to the pony’s back. ‘The proceeds from the Tookland Pony Races,’ he said conversationally. ‘Half the entry fees went into the purses of the ten fastest, and the other half was laid to rest here, most of which must go to Michel Delving to pay for Tookland’s entries in the All-Shire race.’

Ferdi nodded. He’d paid a month’s salary to enter Penny, confident that he would at least recoup his investment. She had run as well as he’d expected. If not for the Rohan... Starfire, he corrected himself. Well, Starfire would have a chance to redeem himself, and Ferdibrand.

Pippin finished loading the pony, leaving the chest nearly empty. He sighed, and Ferdi wondered. Was his cousin truly burdened by the wealth surrounding them? Many’s the time he’d heard Pippin chafing against his father’s grasping ways, seeking ever more gold yet never seeming to spend any except in traditional necessity -- road repairs, for example. Even in his spending Paladin had been well known as one who’d spend a penny and expect tuppence in change.

Ferdi shifted restlessly, and Pippin’s eye came to rest on him, speculatively, he thought.

 ‘The gold won’t turn my head,’ the head of escort said. ‘Have no fear.’

 ‘That was never my thought,’ Pippin answered, and hesitated. He seemed to make some decision then, for he nodded and said, ‘You’ve seen one great secret...’

Ferdi waited.

 ‘A bare handful of Tooks know of this,’ Pippin said.

 ‘So you’ve told me,’ Ferdi answered, but the Thain shook his head.

 ‘Not the secret of the hole, Ferdi,’ he contradicted. He moved to the next chest, brushing away the dust and opening the lid. He beckoned Ferdi closer. This chest, too, was full of bags.

 ‘Take a look,’ Pippin said. As Ferdi stood, wondering what sort of trick his cousin intended, Pippin waved to the bags. ‘Go ahead,’ he said. ‘Take up a bag. Open it. You may have the contents, if you wish.’

 ‘I don’t want charity,’ Ferdi said between his teeth. He had not thought Pip the type to flaunt his fortune in a less fortunate cousin’s face.

 ‘Take it,’ Pippin said. ‘Pour it out.’ His tone brooked no contradiction. Ferdi handed him both torches and bent to the chest.

The bag was not as heavy as Ferdi imagined a bag of gold to be; perhaps it contained merely silver... but as he pulled loose the knot that tied it closed, and tipped the bag into his palm...

 ‘Pebbles?’ he said stupidly. ‘Plain rock?’

Pippin laughed, a humourless sound. ‘Behold the treasure-store of the Thain,’ he said. With a wave that encompassed the rest of the barrels and chests in the rear half of the cavern, a vast fortune of gold and silver or so the rumour went, he added, ‘The rest are all the same.’

 ‘Where’s the gold?’ Ferdi said.

Pippin shook his head. ‘ ‘Twas gone, my mother told me, when my father ascended to become Thain. Whether Ferumbras squandered it all, or old Lalia before him, we’ll never know.’

 ‘The firewood you bought for the widows and gaffers,’ Ferdi said, stunned. ‘You said, “The Thain’s paying,”!’

 ‘And so he did,’ Pippin said thoughtfully. ‘I had to sell a dozen sheep from our family’s farm to pay the woodcutters,’ he added. Shaking his head once more, he said, ‘Well, let us not linger. I promised Diamond we’d be back in time for tea.’