Chapter 27. Not So Bad, Really

Hildibold took his loaded plate to the low, grassy bank of the River and sat himself down on a rock not far from the water’s edge. He had an un-Tookish fascination with water, drawn rather like a moth to a flame, or so had said his despairing mother on one of the many occasions she braved the shallows of the Tuckbourne to rescue her squealing, splashing toddler. ‘Like a bee to the flower,’ his oldest brother, Mardibold, had grumbled more than once, pulling little Hilly out of yet another puddle.

Now the hobbit of escort watched the smooth-rolling waters of the Brandywine in wonder. It was the largest body of water he’d ever seen in his life, and it stirred a longing deep within. “Gone to Sea” was whispered of Tooks who’d disappeared in the past and never returned. If the River was so broad, so majestic, so wrought with power and mystery, what must the Sea be like?

If it weren’t for his beloved Posey, Hilly just might scratch that itch.

The helpful guardsman spoke up behind him and he nearly spilled the contents of his plate. ‘May I join you?’

 ‘You don’t need to dance attendance upon me!’ he snapped.

 ‘Not at all,’ the guardsman said, smiling.

Hilly gestured to the riverbank with his knife. ‘I don’t own it,’ he said shortly. ‘Please yourself.’

The guardsman settled to the bank, and to Hilly’s surprise he took off his shining black boots and the knitted things underneath—he’d heard the word for them once but sensible hobbits have no use for such—revealing feet that looked pale and deformed, somehow, lacking a hobbity covering of warm, curly wool. Hilly caught himself staring and firmly fixed his eyes on his plate, until the River drew them once more.

 ‘I’m off duty at the moment,’ the guardsman said, wriggling his toes in the soft grass.

 ‘Good for you,’ Hilly replied, keeping his eyes on the River. What did the Man expect? Tea and cakes?

 ‘Guard duty from middle night until the dawning,’ the guardsman went on conversationally.

Hilly sighed in exasperation. ‘Just what is it that you want?’ he said rudely, half-turning to shoot the guardsman a reproving look, and then turning firmly back to the soothing water once more.

The guardsman shrugged. ‘It’s restful,’ he said, ‘watching the River go by. I like to sit on the banks of the Anduin, back home, the same way.’

Hilly ate the next few bites in silence, and then, drawn by curiosity, he said, ‘The Anduin? Is it as large as the Brandywine?’

The guardsman had a pleasant laugh, and for some reason Hilly felt no need to bristle. ‘Larger,’ the Man said.

 ‘Larger?’ Hilly said in astonishment. He stared across the broad sweep of water, trying to imagine such a thing.

 ‘Some call it the Great River, the way you call the Baranduin the River,’ the guardsman said.

 ‘Brandywine,’ Hilly corrected.

 ‘Brandywine,’ the guardsman echoed obediently. When in Rohan...

 ‘What’s your name?’ Hilly demanded abruptly. Pippin had introduced the guardsman, calling him his “first friend in Gondor”, but the outlandish name did not stick in Hilly’s memory.

The guardsman scrambled to his knees (not to his feet—he did not want to tower over the hobbit), bowing from the waist. ‘Bergil, son of Beregond, at your service,’ he said.

 ‘Hildibold Took at yours,’ Hilly said automatically, putting down his plate to stand and bow. His mother had raised him with manners, after all. He sat back down and reclaimed his meal. ‘Why don’t you eat something yourself?’ he asked.

 ‘I already ate,’ Bergil said, ambling closer to the water and sticking one foot in. He shuddered involuntarily, sat down on a rock at water’s edge, and immersed both feet with a satisfied sigh. ‘Feels good after the long march.’

Already ate! As if that would stop a hobbit... but though the guardsman’s mien seemed quite hobbity to Hilly’s feeling—what an odd notion!—he was, after all, a Man. Pippin had said that in Gondor, Men might eat only two meals in a day. Strange folk they were.

They sat in silence while Hilly finished his meal, and then, drawn by the water, he stood up from his rock, laying his plate upon it, and walked down into the water, stopping ankle-deep, feeling the pull and surge of the mighty River. ‘Chilly,’ he said.

 ‘It is,’ Bergil answered, ‘but not bad once you get used to it.’

Pippin had said much the same thing about Men, as Hilly recalled.

As if thoughts of Pippin had conjured the hobbit, the Thain spoke from behind them. ‘Hilly!’ he said. ‘What ever are you doing in the River? Do you know how dangerous it is?’

 ‘I can see my feet,’ Hilly said evenly. ‘You taught us yourself that part of a river’s treachery is holes, that if you step into you’ll be swept off your feet... but I can see no holes before me.’ And, unlike most hobbits, the escort could swim. Pippin had insisted on teaching all the hobbits of the escort this most un-Tookish of skills. Hilly had not grumbled quite as much as the others saddled with this requirement.

 ‘Besides,’ he added, ‘were I to fall, no doubt this King’s Man would haul me out again.’

Bergil chuckled. ‘Dressed in mail?’ he said. ‘Men might be great fools in your eyes, Master Took, but I am not so foolish as that!’

 ‘Say “Thain”,’ Hilly said, seemingly changing the subject. Perhaps not. Was he calling Pippin a fool for his friendship with Men, or was he expressing his opinion of the guardsman?

Bergil exchanged glances with Pippin, then turned to Hilly. ‘Thain,’ he said.

 ‘It is not all that difficult,’ Hilly said. ‘It is the proper title, after all, and has been used without mishap for hundreds of years.’

 ‘I fear Hilly, and perhaps other hobbits, are insulted each time Men employ the phrase Ernil i Pheriannath,’ Pippin said mildly. ‘It is an outlandish phrase, you see, and sounds rather like a Tookish insult, a phrase we learned off a travelling dwarf years ago...’ He made a throat-clearing sound that did have some slight resemblance to the title.

 ‘I see,’ Bergil said thoughtfully, filing this fact away for future reference. No wonder Merry and Frodo had been convulsed with laughter the first time they heard Pippin so addressed, and had been carefully polite whenever a Man of Gondor used the phrase. “Halflings are so pleasant,” one noble had said patronisingly. “They always seem to have laughter in their hearts.”

Bergil repressed a snort at the memory. ‘You might have told me,’ was all he said.

 ‘And spoil your pleasure?’ Pippin replied. ‘The Men of Gondor seemed so enamoured of the phrase, I hated to disillusion them.’

 ‘You really are a Prince of the Halflings, you know,’ Bergil said. ‘Much as Faramir is Prince of Ithilien.’

 ‘He is?’ Hilly said in surprise, and then kicked himself. Of course they were talking about a Man and not Pippin’s small son.

To his credit, Bergil did not laugh at the escort’s mistake, nor even smile. ‘He is,’ he said. ‘He was elevated to the position by the King, although he still retains the title of Steward of Gondor as well.’

 ‘So I could be “Prince Peregrin” of the Shire,’ Pippin said thoughtfully.

 ‘I like “Thain” better,’ Hilly muttered. ‘Prince!’ He hmphed. Lotho Sackville-Baggins might have welcomed such a title, but then he was a hobbit who’d liked to put on airs. And look where it got him!

 ‘It would never do,’ Bergil said. ‘That would make your son “Prince Faramir”, and that would be much too confusing.’

Pippin threw back his head and laughed. ‘I cannot imagine confusing Faramir with Faramir!’ he said. He made a motion of reaching up to pat a head high above him, saying in his deepest voice, Run along, son! Father’s got some business to attend to! Bergil and Hilly joined in the laughter.

Pippin set Hilly’s plate aside and sat down upon the rock with a sigh. Bergil looked at him sharply and said, ‘Something certainly smells enticing, coming from the kitchen tents. I think I’ll fetch myself something.’

 ‘You do that,’ Pippin said, his eyes on the River. ‘I’ll sit here with Hilly, so that when he’s swept away in the current I can recount his ending to his grieving wife.’

 ‘I can see my feet,’ Hilly repeated as Bergil bowed and took his leave.

 ‘Aye, and no doubt we’ll see them waving in the air as the River pulls your head down to the depths,’ Pippin said.

 ‘Pippin,’ Hilly said in annoyance. Alone together, they could be cousins for the moment, and not Thain and escort.

 ‘We’ll be leaving for the Lake tomorrow,’ Pippin said. ‘If you think the River is wide...’

 ‘Have you seen this Lake?’ Hilly asked.

Pippin shook his head. ‘Only heard tales about it,’ he said. ‘They say it’s so wide you cannot see the opposite shore, and large waves break upon the strand when the wind is high.’

 ‘I cannot believe it,’ Hilly said, raising his eyes from the hypnotic flow of the River to look at the opposite bank. Once again the Sea-longing stirred within him. Gone away to Sea...

 ‘Will you come with us to the Lake?’ Pippin asked.

 ‘I have a choice?’ Hilly said, his heart leaping within him.

 ‘You do,’ Pippin said. ‘Diamond and Farry and I are going, of course, and the Master of Buckland and his family. We’ve nearly convinced the Mayor that he’s not needed in the Shire until the first of May. Surely the planting festivals can muddle along without him opening them.’

Hilly nodded, overwhelmed at the thought of travelling to a great City of Men, on the shores of a Lake so broad he could not imagine the sight. But Posey...

 ‘I’ll give you some time to think on it,’ Pippin said. ‘Give me your decision by supper time, for I’ll be sending a message back to Reginard shortly thereafter, to let him know how long we expect to be gone.’

 ‘I’ll do that,’ Hilly said. ‘Thank you, cousin.’

Pippin smiled. ‘Just don’t run away to Sea in the meantime,’ he said lightly, ‘or let the River carry you there.’

Hilly smiled himself and wiggled his toes in the yielding bottom, digging them in as the water flowed over and around them. He tried to imagine a body of water so large that you could not see the other side...

Pippin threw a stick into the River and watched it carried downstream. Then he began to tell Hilly of the places the stick would pass on its journey to the Sea. Hilly listened in wonder. Truly the world was a large and wondrous place!

Bergil returned, bearing a large basket. He proceeded to deal out plates and brought out covered bowls of food. ‘I told the cooks you might be feeling peckish,’ he said, ‘and they sent you a little something to tide you over until suppertime.’

 ‘Very kind, I’m sure,’ Pippin murmured.

Hilly scrambled out of the water. ‘You went without your boots?’ he said. ‘Isn’t that frowned upon?’

Bergil chuckled. ‘Perhaps they mistook me for a hobbit,’ he said. ‘In any event, they showered me with food.’

 ‘A tall hobbit,’ Hilly said.

 ‘A very tall hobbit,’ Pippin agreed with a twinkle.

 ‘Just call me Bergilin,’ Bergil said.

 ‘Or Bergibold,’ Pippin said.

 ‘Bergilard,’ Hilly suggested. ‘Bergiland?’

 ‘Just so long as you don’t call me late to supper,’ Bergil laughed, a hobbity sentiment indeed.

Pippin was right, Hilly mused, somewhere in the midst of eating and laughter and talk. Men weren’t so bad, really, once you got used to them.