Chapter 42. Thain: To See a Well-Beloved Face

Messengers had gone off in all directions; the Thain’s hobbits of escort had organised various search parties to go out along all the roadways and paths and byways, Thain Ferumbras had returned to his study after issuing orders that he was to be kept informed of all developments, and Frodo…

Well, Frodo was something at a loss. He felt completely superfluous. Ferumbras had invited him to await news in the study, but he’d told his host as graciously as he could manage, that he felt too restless to settle in a chair, and the old hobbit had simply nodded his understanding. He’d placed a hand on Frodo’s shoulder in parting. ‘I’m as worried as you are, lad – and he will be due some sort of punishment or other for pulling this stunt, whatever it might be. But I am not an unjust hobbit, and I will listen to his explanation and take his account into consideration…’

‘I doubt our holiday will survive the consequences,’ Frodo had said ruefully, and the old hobbit had shook his head in regret.

‘I expect you’re right. Well, my door is open to you, so if you grow weary of restlessness, there’s a comfortable chair there before the fire, and a glass with your name on it, waiting to be filled and emptied again.’

Frodo had thanked him and watched him walk off, into one of the lesser entrances to the Smials.

He pivoted slowly, his gaze sweeping around from the Smials, to the yard and outbuildings, and back to the Smials again. He’d thought of going to Pearl’s, but dismissed the thought, not relishing the idea of perching on a chair in her apartments, waiting anxiously, any more than a chair in the Thain’s study. Worse, perhaps, as Pearl would be beside herself in anxiety over her little brother’s whereabouts and the whys and wherefores and consequences of his actions. Isum would be no help – Frodo had seen him ride out with one of the small groups of searchers.

There was something… Something or someone he’d seen in the controlled frenzy that had filled the wide courtyard before the Smials, before the bulk of searchers had departed in all directions… He swept his surroundings again, his eyes squinted in concentration… There! A lone figure, head down, walked slowly away from a lesser entrance to the stables.

Frodo had gathered, from snatches of overheard conversation, that Storm Wind had been stabled there, in one of the quieter stalls on the periphery of that wing of the stables. He nodded to himself and began to walk purposefully in the direction of the questing hobbit. No one stopped him or called to him; as an honoured guest, he had not been tasked with any role in the search, though at the start he’d been consulted, of course, for the benefit of his knowledge and understanding of his young cousin’s thoughts and habit of thinking.

‘Didn’t think, rather!’ Frodo said wryly to himself. He lengthened his stride, not quite breaking into a jog, for he didn’t want to call attention to himself and his quarry. That was the last thing he needed, more interference! No, but he wanted quiet, to think his thoughts, to ponder, to consider, to play the old game Bilbo had employed, whenever the old hobbit had misplaced something. Where would I go, if I were a... ‘Pippin,’ he said aloud.

The problem was, he really hadn’t an inkling.

He’d nearly caught up to the other hobbit – young Ferdibrand, he saw now, apprentice to one of the Thain’s hunters, he thought, but not attached to one of the search parties. There was some sort of problem with the hobbit, he thought, and was reminded when he tapped the fellow on the shoulder.

Ferdi jumped in alarm, swinging around, startled nearly out of his wits, for he said naught. ‘Do you have something?’ Frodo asked him, and the fellow simply stared at him as if half-witted. He was not the bright, voluble hobbit Frodo remembered from Bilbo’s last Birthday party in the Shire.

‘A trail,’ he said patiently, pointing to the ground. ‘Did he leave a trail to follow?’

Ferdi drew a deep, steadying breath, followed Frodo’s pointing finger, looked back to Frodo’s face, and shrugged.

Frodo pursed his lips, remembering something of the tragedy that had reduced Ferdi to his current circumstances, and reached slowly to place a hand on Ferdi’s shoulders, turning him back in the direction he’d been facing before Frodo had hailed him. ‘A trail?’ he said, striving for utmost patience, and speaking as if it really didn’t matter to him one way or another. He was just a visitor, lost in the exigencies of the emergency, seeking to relieve his boredom. ‘What do you see there, on the ground?’

No pressure. No expectation. No scorn for the “poor half-wit” as he’d heard one of the tweens in Pippin’s set say. Just a simple, offhanded question.

As he’d hoped, the fellow bent his head once more to study the ground, and though Frodo could not see anything, they began walking once more, Ferdi leading, scrutinising the ground ahead of them, and Frodo following silently, hand still on the fellow’s shoulder. They walked to the fence and stopped, while Ferdi looked long at the ground, then nodded to himself, silently mouthing a few words.

Frodo did not dare ask a question, for fear of putting the fellow off. When Ferdi began to move away from the Smials, away from Tuckborough, away from any established path or track and into the wild Green Hills, he followed, though he wasn’t really prepared for any sort of long hike. He hadn’t a water bottle, or even a cloak! Still, his companion seemed to know something, to be on the trail, and he didn’t want to lose the opportunity.

He smiled at the thought that, at least, having learnt from Bilbo’s example, he had a clean pocket handkerchief on his person, and then shook his head at himself. Concentrate, lad! he almost heard Bilbo’s gentle urging. Use your eyes! Look for what you don’t expect to see!

He looked, and looked some more, looked hard, and began to see a faint trail in the grass. Something had passed this way, and as they passed through a muddy spot where they crossed a trickle of a stream, he saw hoofmarks.

Ferdi nodded and turned to Frodo for the first time. ‘G-g-galloping,’ he said. Frodo recalled that this was a hobbit of very few words, these days. Pippin was one of the few who sought him out, who talked to him, who defended him to others when they made caustic comments at Ferdi’s expense.

Frodo nodded in return. ‘Quite right,’ he said. ‘Please, do carry on.’

Ferdi raised an eyebrow at his politeness, but turned back to the trail once more, all business.

They walked for hours, winding ever deeper into the wild country, great hills rearing to either side. They stopped only once, where a spring trickled from the hillside where they walked, and Frodo was very glad to refresh himself, for the day was warming. It would have been a beautiful day for a long walk and picnic, he thought to himself ruefully. Ah, Pip, he said under his breath, shaking his head.

Ferdi simply ploughed on.

Frodo half-hoped that they followed the trail of a wandering Storm Wind, that somehow the pony had won free of her stall without any involvement on Pippin’s part, which would lessen Pippin’s troubles – or would it? What reason would the lad have to hide himself, or run away? Even if it had been a prank, surely he’d have returned at some time after breakfast, to begin his promised holiday?

No, he supposed he rather hoped that the trail involved both Storm Wind and Pippin. At least this way they’d find the lad when they found the pony.

The Sun had reached her zenith and was halfway down the sky – and they’d walked all that time, slowly, Ferdi concentrating on the trail and Frodo trying to see the signs that led them, with no food and no water except for that brief rest at the spring – when Frodo saw an ominous sign ahead of them – a wheeling of carrion birds above the hillside they were approaching.

‘O no!’ he said, and Ferdi stopped to look at him. He had merely to point, and the other hobbit gasped in dismay, and began to run forward, abandoning the trail.

Frodo told himself that they could always come back to this point and resume their efforts later, once they found the dead rabbit or sheep or whatever might be drawing the attention of the birds. He jogged determinedly after Ferdi, with every confidence the Took, familiar with this country, hunter that he was, would be able to find their way back without too much trouble.

…but it wasn’t a rabbit or sheep, as things turned out, when they reached the spot.

Pippin lay sprawled on the ground, his face reddening in the afternoon Sun, beating down on him. His skin wouldn’t burn if he were dead! Frodo thought desperately, but he wasn’t sure. Would it?

There was no sign of the pony, but it appeared the lad had taken a bad fall, for he made no response to Frodo’s shouted repetition of his name as the searching hobbits came panting up to him.

Ferdi reached him first and fell to his knees, hands held out helplessly in front of him, afraid to touch the prone figure.

Frodo arrived a few seconds after and knelt down. ‘Pip?’ he said anxiously, and reached out to brush a wayward lock from his cousin’s forehead. The flesh was warm to the touch – sunburn, he decided, for when he took up the limp hand, it was cold in his grasp. ‘Pip? Speak to me, lad. Can you hear me? Pip!’

He looked to Ferdi. ‘Run!’ he said. ‘Run for help! I’ll stay with him.’

Ferdi jumped to his feet and pelted off, zig-zagging down the hillside rather than risking a direct descent, leaping over some of the larger rocks in his way. It was not long before he was lost to sight; he had several miles to go, though, before reaching the Smials (less, if he happened upon any of the other search parties, and Frodo could only hope), and Frodo doubted he’d be able to keep up such a pace for more than the first mile.

Frodo unbuttoned the top button of Pippin’s shirt, and several more, and loosened his cousin’s clothing, reassured to see the regular, if rapid, rise and fall of the chest. He kept talking to his cousin, repeating his name in hopes of some response, as he began to feel gently of the limbs, first arms, from shoulder to hand – the left arm was broken, he thought, though no pain crossed his young cousin’s face as he worked his way from elbow to hand a second time – and then legs.

Next he felt gently of Pippin’s neck, easing his fingers around. ‘I’d like to throttle you, for this stunt, cousin,’ he said, only half-joking, ‘but I’m just checking to see if you saved the Thain the trouble of breaking your neck for you! …Pip! Do you hear me?’

He felt Pippin’s skull next, and found the back of his cousin’s head wet. He brought away a hand red with blood, and his stomach turned, just for a moment, before he steeled himself, wiping his hand on his breeches and wishing he’d had the forethought to bring water, cloak, any number of supplies for this unforeseen result.

At least he had his pocket handkerchief. He tore this into strips, left his young cousin just long enough to find two relatively straight sticks not far away, where a small copse grew in the valley below – keeping his eye on the still figure the whole time, and stumbling over rocks as a result. He used the strips of cloth to bind the sticks to Pippin’s arm, to support the break until a healer could see to it.

Pippin moaned as Frodo worked on the arm.

‘Pippin? You’ve hit your head, it seems. Do you hear me, cousin? Pip?’

To his joy, a faint groan answered his latest query. ‘Pip! Pippin!’

‘You don’t have to shout,’ his cousin muttered. ‘I can hear you just fine. Five more minutes, I beg of you, just five more minutes…’

‘Pippin,’ Frodo said, less loud but still urgent. ‘I’m here, Pip.’

‘That’s a comfort. I think,’ Pippin responded, though he did not move, nor did he open his eyes. ‘Merry?’

‘No. Frodo.’

Pippin’s eyes squinched as if Frodo’s name were a problem for him to solve.

‘Frodo,’ he said. ‘No, Frodo’s not here.’

‘I am, rather!’ Frodo said, feeling absurd.

Pippin’s eyes blinked open, and he stared upward, or appeared to.

‘That’s right,’ Frodo said, well pleased at this evidence that Pippin was coming to himself once more. ‘There’s the lad. Don’t try and move. Help is on its way.’

Pippin just blinked in surprise, or perhaps astonishment. ‘Where am I?’ he said. ‘What is the time?’

Frodo glanced at the angle of the Sun. ‘Nearly teatime, I’d guess,’ he said. ‘I don’t have our picnic with me, however. I expect it’s sitting on some table or other, back at the Smials, packed and ready to go.’

‘How short-sighted of you,’ Pippin murmured, his eyes closing once more, but then he added, ‘Teatime? Have you lost your senses?’

Frodo wanted to argue the point, that it appeared more likely that Pippin was the one to have lost his senses, to ride off on the Thain’s most valuable pony as he had. However, it didn’t seem quite the right time.

‘Yes, it’s teatime,’ he merely reasserted. ‘At least, I think it is.’

‘Who in his right mind would wait until dark to take tea, I ask you?’ Pippin said, and winced.

‘Dark?’ Frodo said, not sure of his young cousin’s meaning, but feeling the stirrings of unease.

‘What happened? Where am I?’ Pippin said. ‘Where are we, rather?’

‘We’re some miles from the Smials,’ Frodo said.

‘How did we get here?’ Pippin asked, opening his eyes again to peer in Frodo’s direction, though he seemed unable to focus his gaze.

‘I walked, on my own two little feet,’ Frodo said. ‘As for you…’

‘Yes, but what happened?’ Pippin demanded, trying feebly to sit himself up. Before Frodo could move to prevent him, he sank back again with a groan.

‘I was hoping you would be able to tell me that,’ Frodo said. ‘What do you remember?’

But Pippin was staring at him – or appeared to be staring at him – with a frown of puzzlement, and his next words sent a shock of alarm through his older cousin, from Frodo’s head to his toes. ‘Who are you?’ Pippin said. ‘Who’s there?’

‘It’s Frodo!’ the older cousin repeated urgently, laying his hand on Pippin’s shoulder, but managing to refrain from giving that shoulder the shaking he wanted to administer. ‘Frodo’s here, lad, don’t you know me?’

Pippin shook his head, or started to, and then groaned and half-lifted his right hand, as if he wished to rub at an ache in his head, but was too weak. ‘Of course I know you,’ he said. ‘I always know you! I don’t know what you’re doing here, of course, or why we’re out in the middle of the wild part of the Green Hills in the middle of the night – though I suspect it’s your fault somehow, that we’re off on a jaunt and have come wrong somehow – have you lost us, as you did summer before last, when we accidentally used the map for kindling?’

Frodo did not point out that it was Pippin who’d used the map to start a fire when the wood was slow to catch – the heedless tween had grabbed at the first bit of paper he’d found in Frodo’s pack, not the paper he’d included for starting a fire, but by mistake, the map they’d been following on an earlier holiday jaunt.

No, for he was busy staring at his younger cousin in consternation. After a moment of thought, he slowly raised his hand and waved it in front of Pippin’s face, to no effect.

‘Pip…?’ he began, and then thought the better of it, and said instead, ‘Where does it hurt, lad?’

‘Everywhere,’ Pippin breathed. ‘But my head… my arm…’

Frodo lowered his hand again, letting it come to rest on his cousin’s shoulder. ‘Steady on, lad,’ he said. ‘Just stay as still as you can. Help is on its way.’