A/N: The chapter ran long and has split itself in two. More soon, I hope!

Chapter 30. Hidden Treasure

Hilly found himself in the stables, not quite sure how he’d got there. He wandered down the line of stalls, stopped for a moment at Whitefoot’s to finger the halter hanging there, and then quickly moved to the next stall to greet his other pony, Flametail.

 ‘There you are, lad,’ he said, holding out his empty hand to be lipped and then rubbing the whorl of hair on the pony’s forehead. ‘No treats, I’m afraid. I’m fresh out.’ He earned forgiveness with a good jaw-scratching and turned away, at a loss. He couldn’t face Posey and the grave-eyed children about to be bereft of both their parents. He kicked his way down the freshly-swept corridor, turning in at the tack room with its racks of saddles and pads and hooks bearing bridles and ropes and harness. He’d clean and polish and rub away at his grief...

He’d soaped a saddle well and got up to fetch a soft cloth from the barrel of rags for the polishing, stopping short to see Diamond’s saddle on a stand in the corner, awaiting attention. Her lamed gelding had been hand-walked back to the Great Smials from Pincup and was undoubtedly under Old Tom’s competent care.

The saddle bags were laid casually over the blanket atop the saddle, as if someone had been interrupted before putting everything to rights. A sudden thought made Hilly cross to the bags, to look within. They were empty; of course Diamond had taken out the clothes, and she’d presented the sacks of gold to the good hobbits of Pinfolk at the festive breakfast, no doubt.

Moved by an impulse he could not understand, Hilly reached into first one bag, exploring its dimensions with his fingertips, and then the other. His fingers closed about something in the bottom of the second bag, and bringing it out, he saw the leather-clad flask that had been Jack’s. Diamond had missed it, somehow, when she unpacked her bags, the rough leather blending into the bag’s insides. He shook it consideringly. He’d only had a mouthful, and there was at least that much left, perhaps more... A wondrous thing, a draught that tasted like golden sunshine and healed you as you slept...

He took a sudden deep breath, and another, thinking furiously, and stood abruptly to his feet.

 ‘Is aught amiss?’ Old Tom called after the escort, racing from the stables, but Hilly’s only answer was a wild wave as he ran across the stones to one of the lesser entrances of the Smials. Running in the corridors was heavily frowned upon, but Hilly cast aside all good manners and ran all the way to Ferdi’s quarters.

Bursting breathless through the door, he was brought up sharply by Fennel, who was talking with another healer; when the latter turned in surprise Hilly recognised his niece Rosamunda, Regi’s wife. ‘Rosa!’ he gasped. ‘Fennel!’

 ‘What is it, Hilly?’ Fennel said, catching hold of him. ‘Does someone need a healer?’

 ‘This...!’ Hilly managed, thrusting the rough flask at the healer. ‘Give him this!’

 ‘Uncle Hilly,’ Rosamunda said smoothly, taking his other arm. ‘You’re overwrought...’ She tried to guide him towards a chair, but he shook off both healers’ restraining hands.

 ‘Give him this!’ he insisted. ‘It’s a healing draught, the same as I had...’

 ‘Fetch Posey,’ Fennel told Rosamunda, and with a quick nod she was gone. ‘Now Hilly,’ Fennel said, taking Hilly’s arm once more. ‘Where did you get this?’

 ‘It was in Diamond’s bags; it’s the same one Jack gave me,’ Hilly said. ‘Diamond must have put it away there after Ferdi arrived with the Master of Buckland...’

 ‘I thought the Man took it with him,’ Fennel said. ‘He wasn’t there when we arrived with the archers, and when I asked what you’d been given, Diamond made no mention of this...’

 ‘She was weary, and overwrought when Ferdi arrived,’ Hilly said, ‘or so Pippin told me later... She knew they’d turn Jack and the boys over to the Rangers, and feared the consequences for them, seeing as how they’d blundered into the Shire.’

 ‘Pretty large blunder,’ Fennel muttered. He was as sceptical as any other Tooklander of a report of “good Men”, but he’d had to admit on examining Diamond, Farry, and Hilly that no harm had been done, save the sleeping draught, and that hadn’t harmed the escort, really; it had only sent him into a deep slumber from which nothing could waken him for two days.

 ‘In any event,’ Hilly said, abruptly recalling himself and thrusting the flask at Fennel once more, ‘this is the draught! This is what they gave me! You’ve got to give it to Ferdi!’

His voice rose in his urgency, and Woodruff came from the bedroom. ‘What is the meaning of this?’ she scolded softly. ‘Why have you come to disturb the peace of a dying hobbit?’

 ‘He’s not dying!’ Hilly said stoutly, and the healers exchanged glances. Seeing this, Hilly forced himself to speak calmly. ‘He doesn’t have to be...’

 ‘Hilly,’ Fennel said reasonably, pushing the flask back into the escort’s hands. ‘I’ll be happy to examine this at a later time, but surely you’re not suggesting we give a sleeping draught...’

 ‘A sleeping draught!’ Woodruff protested. ‘He’s barely getting any air as it is!’ Sympathy came into her face then, and she put a hand on Hilly’s arm. ‘I know he’s suffering,’ she said more gently, ‘and you’d seek to ease him, Hilly, but...’

 ‘No!’ Hilly said, shaking off the healers once more. ‘That is not my meaning at all! You don’t understand!’ He looked from face to face. ‘I drowned in a bog, drowned, mind you! I was trapped, sinking slowly, immersed in icy water for hours, long enough to lose my wits, anyhow, and when my strength failed I drowned!’

He heard a gasp behind him but doggedly plunged on, staring from Fennel, who was nodding — he’d heard as much from Diamond — to Woodruff. ‘I wasn’t breathing when they pulled me from the bog, and they had to pound the water from my pipes,’ he said.

 ‘You were lucky the Old Gaffer’s Friend didn’t take you as well...’ Woodruff began, but Hilly interrupted.

 ‘The next day we walked for miles, leagues,’ he said, ‘half of it wading along the course of the Shirebourn; ah, how cold it was! I was chilled, shivering by the time we climbed out again to make camp, my head felt like fire and my chest was so heavy I could scarce draw breath!’

 ‘You weren’t fevered or coughing when I examined you,’ Fennel began.

 ‘It was the draught! The healing draught!’ Hilly insisted.

 ‘Posey,’ Woodruff said, ‘your husband is overwrought. Take him to his rest, and Rosa will watch the little ones.’

Hilly turned to see Posey, standing white-faced with Rosa’s arm about her. ‘You drowned?’ she said in a shaking voice.

 ‘You don’t understand!’ Hilly said. ‘It’s a healing draught!’

 ‘Come along, Uncle Hilly,’ Rosa said, giving Posey a squeeze and releasing her. She moved forward, and Posey broke from her horrified daze to take Hilly’s other side.

 ‘Come, my love,’ she said softly, her fingers tightening on his arm, reassuringly warm and alive. He’d drowned?

Rosa and Posey led Hilly, still protesting, from Ferdi’s quarters and down the corridor to his own, where they sat him down in a chair in the sitting room. Rosamunda gathered Ferdi and Nell’s little brood with “Come, chicks! A little eventides is in order, I think, and then we’ll have a sleepytime story...” The young hobbits huddled uncertainly as she shooed them out the door and shot a significant look at Posey.

 ‘A little eventides,’ Posey murmured, her hands tightening on Hilly’s shoulders. ‘Sit here, my love, and I’ll fetch you a bite to eat. Why, you haven’t even made a proper tea!’ she said in chagrin, ‘...and here you’ve ridden all the way from the Bridge! I’ve given you no proper greeting at all.’ Still clucking to herself, she stepped lightly from the room, leaving Hilly alone with the crackle of the fire on the hearth.