A belated birthday mathom for my much-appreciated readers.

Prologue

Healer Woodruff started as she realised she'd fallen into a waking dream. Quickly, her eyes went over the hobbit in the bed, propped up by pillows to gain him as much breath as might be managed, even as she fumbled for his pulse. Finding signs of life, she sank back again. ‘Ah, Samwise,’ she whispered, not loud enough to disturb her patient. ‘Where might you be at this moment, Mr. Mayor? We be needing you and the help you might bring us, and sorely, too.’

The door opened slowly, silently, with no warning tap that might waken Thain Peregrin from hard-won slumber. The healer looked up to see the Thain’s personal hobbitservant, Sandy, face sober as always – for that hobbit was ever on his dignity – but in this difficult time, the expression was different from his customary mien. Even in the dim light, she perceived the redness of his swollen eyes, beyond the aid of any soothing drops she might offer. 

He jerked his head towards the sitting-room beyond, and she nodded, then glanced at the Thain, who had made no sign of hearing the arrival. 

The healer rose from her chair, and Sandy sank into the seat on the other side of the bed, taking up the watcher’s post, tenderly cradling the Thain’s hand in his. As quietly as a hobbit might go, she crept from the room to the meal laid ready for her, leaving the door open, of course. With Pippin so critically ill, she refused to let him out of her sight. 

Rising to return to the bedroom, she pondered the two of them, Thain and servant, as still as statues carved from stone. But no, she could perceive one sign of life. A tear fell from Sandy’s eye, coming to rest on the back of the hand that held the Thain’s, and he rubbed it gently away with his free hand. 

Without speaking, the healer resumed her seat, and Pippin’s other hand, and Sandy rose, laying down the hand he held with infinite tenderness. How he loves Pippin and his family, the healer thought to herself, as if they were his own. He would lay down his life for them; he would exchange places, even now, if it would save the hobbit gasping on the bed.

Deputy Mayor 

‘The next case is waiting outside, Mr. Mayor, sir.’ 

Frodo suppressed a sigh. No matter how many times he’d told old Nibson to call him “Frodo”, the hobbit insisted on addressing him not only by the honorific but also the title he’d temporarily assumed, at least until old Mayor Will Whitfoot was ready to return to the duties of his office. Well, sort of the title he’d assumed. ‘Deputy Mayor,’ he said, with a sinking feeling that it made not a whit of difference at all.

‘Yessir, Mr. Mayor, sir,’ Nibson said obligingly.

‘Send him in,’ Frodo said, surrendering the battle for the moment.

Nibson nodded and looked over his shoulder, then opened the door wider to usher in the next visitor.

Visitor?

Frodo rose from his desk with a sudden, unfeigned smile. ‘Sam!’ he said in delight, moving to greet the faithful hobbit, throwing his arms about Sam’s shoulders for a quick embrace and releasing him as quickly to look him up and down. He seemed little the worse for wear, despite the stories that had trickled back to the Mayor’s office in his absence. Not only had Sam been travelling over the entirety of the Shire, planting saplings to replace specially beautiful or beloved trees that had fallen to Sharkey’s ruffians, but he’d led the hobbits of The Yale in routing out a band of ruffians who thought they’d sneak back into the Shire to regain some of the more valuable possessions they’d gathered and hidden before the Scouring happened. By the time the Thain's hastily mustered archers had arrived, the battle was done, the ruffians were dead or sitting securely bound, ready for the Muster to escort them out of the Shire, and the victors were going over the spoils, doing their best to identify the owners of the jewellery and silver cups and utensils and other family heirlooms so that they might be rightfully restored to their proper places. But all the Deputy Mayor said now was, ‘You’re back!’

‘Yes, Mr. Frodo,’ Samwise said. From the freshness of his clothing and the still-damp hair, Frodo knew he’d taken time to bathe away the dust of the road before coming to give his report on his latest travels.

But Sam was drawing away, making for the door as if to leave again.

As Frodo opened his mouth to protest, the gardener reached the doorway and spoke to someone outside. ‘Come along, lad. The Mayor’s hardly going to take a bite of you.’

‘And if I did, ‘twouldn’t matter,’ Frodo added with a smile for the not-yet-visible youngster. ‘They drew all my teeth, years ago.’

Sam had reached one arm out, and in the next moment, he was tugging gently. Frodo was reminded of a long-ago fishing expedition, teaching Merry how to pull gently at a nibble on the hook, so as not to frighten the fish away before the hook was set. ‘Come, lad,’ the gardener said again, more softly.

A slight figure came into view, perhaps shorter than the average hobbit, and more slender – though such could be explained by the short rations the Shirefolk had lived under during the time of the Troubles. Even so, Frodo quickly perceived that this was a mere stripling youth. A tween, at best. The all-purpose appellation ‘lad’ was perfectly fitting in this case. His clothing, though clean, was shabby and much-mended. The ragged nails on his hands, though well-scrubbed, bore evidence that this hobbit was not afraid of difficult, dirty tasks. He pulled his cap from his head in a show of respect and stood, twisting it in his hands. His curly hair, dampened and brushed into some sort of subjection, sprang free and stood about his head in defiance of any and all restraint, an exclamation point of sorts. And his face was pale, his expression stiff... his eyes were wide and wary.

Instinctively Frodo dropped his voice. He put out a hand to the youthful visitor, and hesitating, the lad took it. Frodo moved slowly backward into the room, drawing the lad after him. ‘Come in,’ he said kindly. ‘And... Welcome.’

The young hobbit entered the inner office, caught between Frodo’s quiet pull and Samwise’s subtle push. Somehow between them, they got him to one of the visitors’ chairs and sat him down.

Frodo patted the thin shoulder and raised his voice. Not too loud. He might startle this half-tamed creature into flight. ‘Nibson! A spot of tea, if you please.’

‘Certainly, Mr. Mayor, sir,’ came the inevitable answer.

Frodo left Samwise standing beside the lad’s chair and made his way around the desk to sit down.

As soon as he was seated, the lad sprang to his feet, standing at attention.

‘Sit, lad,’ Frodo said.

‘Yessir, Mr. Mayor, sir,’ the young hobbit said, while continuing to stand.

Frodo would have sighed, except he’d seen the young hobbit’s trembling. ‘Are you in some sort of trouble, lad?’ He looked to Samwise. ‘Is he, Sam?’

‘No,’ the lad gulped.

‘Yes,’ Sam said quietly, and then he shook his head. ‘Beggin’ your pardon, Mr. Frodo, he’s no trouble-maker, not this lad, but he’s got some troubles that I thought you might be able to help him with.’ He laid a large, work-worn hand on the tween’s shoulder and urged the visitor back down to a sitting position. Taking the other chair for himself, he sat down and seemed to abandon the topic at hand as he launched into a description of tree-planting in the Eastfarthing.

At last Nibson entered, bearing a tea tray with a cosied pot and three cups. ‘Tea, Mr. Mayor, sir,’ he announced. He set the tray down upon the desk and seemed about to pour out when Sam, having jumped up from his chair, intercepted him.

‘Thank you, Nibson,’ Frodo said. ‘Why don’t you go and have a cup yourself with Mistress Grizzlewold?’

‘If you’re sure and certain, Mr.—’

‘I won’t be needing anything for a time,’ Frodo said, interrupting the inevitable honorific. ‘Why, we’ve everything we need! Biscuits, even! And teatime still an hour or so off...’

‘There’ll be scones for tea,’ Nibson confided, ‘but they weren’t quite out of the oven just now...’

‘Well, you go on down and take some refreshment yourself,’ Samwise said firmly, and having fixed Frodo’s cup to his master’s taste, he handed it to Frodo, who sipped gratefully at the hot, reviving beverage. He put down the pot, and somehow, without Nibson quite realizing how neatly he’d been handled, the Mayor’s assistant had been escorted out of the inner office, through the outer office, and was heading towards the smell of baking scones wafting from the little kitchen that served the needs of the hobbits working at the Town Hole to restore order and peace to the Shire.

Samwise returned, leaving the door a handspan ajar. A closed door invited listening, as it were. A door that remained partly open was of little interest.

In Sam’s absence, Frodo had poured out two more cups. One lump sufficed for Samwise these days, and the merest hint of milk; the hobbits had grown used to tea without any sweetening or milk over their long travels, and as their supplies dwindled, they’d lingered over their mugs of hot, plain tea – when they could have a fire, that is – and the taste of home. 

Looking at the hollow-eyed tween, however, the Deputy Mayor found himself sweetening and creaming the last cup of tea with a reckless hand. He told himself that it wouldn’t be a problem; hadn’t another storehouse of the ruffians’ gatherings been found recently? Most of the supplies had been shared out to hobbit families in the area, but he knew that Nibson had made sure the Town Hole received enough supplies that business might be suitably conducted with tea and biscuits (and even scones) for visitors.

The two older hobbits urged the tween to drink up whilst his tea was still hot, and between them, they pressed him to devour a troll’s share of the biscuits, all the time chatting of inconsequentialities. At last, Frodo, pouring out another cup of tea for each of them as he cheerily told of the latest discovery of a ruffian storehole, watched Sam rise from his seat and move silently to the doorway, peer to one side and then the other, nod to himself in satisfaction, and return to his chair.

‘Well, then,’ Frodo said, and he nodded meaningfully to the tween. ‘Go on, lad. That tea’s not going to drink itself.’

‘Nosir,’ the tween murmured and obediently lifted the cup to his lips.

‘Well then,’ Sam said, taking his cue. ‘This is Sandy.’

Frodo nodded but did not rise from his chair as he rightly suspected the tween would jump to his feet as well, spilling the sweet, milky tea that would do more good inside himself than on the carpet. ‘At your service, and your family’s,’ he said.

‘Well, that’s what I brought him here to talk about,’ Sam said.

Frodo studied the plain, honest face he knew so well, finding a troubled look in the hobbit’s clear gaze. ‘Go on,’ he encouraged.

‘Sandy here, his dad Bramble was a jobbing gardener,’ Sam said. ‘You might not remember him – he came around Bag End twice in the year, for the digging in the Spring and the fruit-picking in the Old Orchard, come harvest-time.’ 

Frodo nodded again without comment. Truth be told, Spring and Harvest were two times of the year when Bilbo had been at his most restless, taking Frodo with him for a “ramble” as he called it. They’d walked and camped the length and breadth of the Shire, halfway to the edges of the world, or so it had seemed to Frodo in those innocent times. After Bilbo had left Bag End for the last time, Frodo had kept up the wandering tradition. Thus, he’d never met the itinerant hobbits who’d come to Bag End to help Sam and his Gaffer with the heavier seasonal work, though he’d taken over the task of providing the Gaffer the coins to pay them after Bilbo’s departure. But Sam was still speaking.

‘...pitchfork in his hand,’ Sam said. ‘He’d been digging old Proudfoot’s taters when the call went out to the hobbits of Bywater, that the time had come to throw the ruffians out, lock, stock and barrel.’ He finished on a sigh. ‘And so he fell at Bywater.’

Frodo’s breath stilled as he remembered that dreadful, bloody day, yells and shrieks and terrible cries, the thud of viciously wielded clubs, the thrum of Tookish bowstrings... He closed his eyes and bowed his head, and Sam fell silent.

The only sound in the room for long minutes was the ticking of the dwarf-made clock on the mantel, and the crackle of the little fire on the hearth.

When the Deputy Mayor opened his eyes and raised his head again, he saw the tween staring straight ahead, tear-filled eyes fixed on the wall behind Frodo, though he sat as still as a statue and did not give in to weeping. The lad might have been a statue, if not for the tears and the white-knuckled hands gripping the arms of the visitor’s chair. ‘I see,’ he said quietly.

Sam swallowed hard, tears standing in his own eyes. He raised a hand to wipe at his face, then moved to place his hand on the tween’s arm, giving the merest squeeze. ‘Sandy, here,’ he said. ‘He’s the eldest of nine.’ His lips twitched in what might have been a rueful smile. ‘Hard-working lad, to be sure. His mum’s been taking in washing, and his sisters all working with her, but the hobbits in Bywater don’t have much coin to spare for such, and even many of the gentry are doing their own washing these days...’

Frodo waited.

The youth broke the silence. ‘I can work,’ he said, blinking away the tears in his eyes and lifting his chin defiantly. ‘I’m a good, hard worker.’

‘That you are, lad, that you are,’ Sam said, patting the tween’s arm. But his eyes, meeting Frodo’s, were troubled.

Frodo steepled his hands, and his two visitors were quiet again as he surveyed the tween and considered. Doughty though he might be, Sandy was small for a hobbit – and Frodo suspected that, even well-fed, the tween would be on the slighter side. He rather reminded Frodo of Pippin, before they’d started out on the Quest. At the thought, his missing finger throbbed, and he absently rubbed at his injured hand.

Sam opened his mouth as if to speak, and subsided as quickly, though he gave the tween’s arm another pat as if seeking to provide comfort where he might.

Too small, and too slight, for such a great burden, Frodo was thinking. He might have said the same of Pippin, come to think of it, but his young cousin had made up for his lack of stature in determination and courage, had risen to great heights, not only the literal result of the Ent draught, but more.

Still, he had some power for good in this lad’s life, he thought. ‘So you’ve been working to help support your widowed mother and your sisters,’ he said.

‘I have,’ the youth said sturdily.

Frodo looked to Sam, and he caught the small dip of Sam’s chin. ‘But digging ditches and trenching gardens don’t pay well enough in these times, I should think,’ Frodo said. ‘If hobbits lack the coin to send out their washing, I’d imagine quite a few have been digging their own gardens as well.’ And moving heavy soil, in any event, seemed too heavy a task for those narrow shoulders.

‘Well,’ he added. ‘I happen to be travelling to the Great Smials tomorrow, for Pervinca’s birthday.’ He looked at the tween from head to foot again. ‘I can put in a good word with the Thain for him. I’m sure he could find him a place at the Smials.’

He returned to meet Sam’s penetrating gaze and nodded slightly in reassurance. Not a ditch-digger, or a gardener, or a stable worker, my faithful Sam, but a job in the Smials proper, with proper feeding, and warm clothing, and tasks more suited to his abilities. ‘They’re always looking for good, hard workers there, in the kitchens, or polishing the brass.’ He grinned suddenly, remembering one of Bilbo’s jests. ‘There’s an awful lot of brass to be polished at the Smials.’

He was gladdened to see Sam relax subtly. ‘So then, Sam,’ he said in dismissal. ‘Take him to the Inn, will you? Buy him a good meal and a bed, and I’ll take him with me in the morning.’

The tween was blinking now, not because of threatened tears, but in complete astonishment. ‘A – a place?’ he echoed. ‘I’m to have a place – in one of the Great Holes?’ He rose suddenly, rushed forward, and seized Frodo’s hand in his, holding it firmly enough that the Deputy Mayor had to suppress a wince – and even so, Frodo saw Sam start forward from his chair – and as quickly adjusting his grip to one that was soft, gentle, yet conveyed the youth’s fervent hope and joy.

‘That you are, lad,’ Frodo said with a smile. ‘That you are. I’ll have Thain Paladin arrange to send your wages home to your mother.’

‘Thank you, sir, O thank you!’ the lad said tearfully, but these were tears of joy and profound relief.

‘I’m sure you’ll make good,’ Frodo said, suffering his hand to be prisoned in the tween’s grasp until the young hobbit came to himself and stepped back, standing to his full height, determined and resolute.

‘That I will, sir – Mr. Mayor, sir!’ came the firm answer.

Sam nodded to Frodo, his own eyes shining his appreciation, took the tween’s arm, and murmured in his ear, and with a backward glance of gratitude, the youth allowed himself to be led from the room.

Frodo sighed. Perhaps being Deputy Mayor was not such a trial, after all.

***

A little more than a dozen years later, not very long after Pippin followed his father Paladin to become Thain of the Shire... 

When the grand wedding breakfast was finished, there was a scraping of chairs as Thain Peregrin proposed the first toast, to the first couple Regi and Rosa, of course, and then Ferdi proposed the second, to Regi’s younger brother Everard and new bride Mentha. Then suddenly, Rosa was being lifted away from Regi, carried laughing out the door by smiling, singing hobbits, and Regi looked up to see Pippin grinning at him. 

'Are we ready?' the Thain said.     

'I don't know about you, but I certainly am!' Regi answered, his own grin stretching his face. He rose, and together they walked to meet the waiting Mayor, the brides already standing beside their parents.    

At Samwise's nod, Pippin took Rosa's hand from her father's, placing it in Reg's waiting palm, then moved to stand beside the Mayor, to witness their vows, Ferdi on the Mayor's other side as Everard's witness. Regi saw that part of the time the Thain was not looking at them, but beyond, and he guessed that Diamond stood behind them, watching.     

As he and Rosa repeated together the traditional vows, the words took on new meaning and new depth to him, and he squeezed her hand gently, feeling a return pressure from her.     

'...to seize each moment, to live to the fullest the love that's between us...'     

'...to refuse no joy set before us...'     

'...that each day might be a golden coin to add to the treasure trove of our love...'     

Diamond watched her husband, standing straight and proud, elegant in his black and silver against the bright festal colours the other hobbits wore. His eyes met hers, and the corners crinkled in a smile; she knew he was remembering their own wedding day, and for a moment she had difficulty fighting down giggles. But she sobered as the vows reached their end, and he began to mouth the words along with the marrying couples...     

...until I've drunk the last drop in the cup, and no more days remain to me...     

...as long as life shall last, until I take my last breath of the sweet air.     

Her eyes filled with tears, but she lifted her chin defiantly and smiled at her husband.     

***     

As the guests filed into the largest pavilion for the wedding supper, the Thain stood up and clapped his hands for attention. The crowd quieted, and he cupped his hands to his mouth, the better to be heard.     

'Tooks and guests! We must observe proper etiquette, in respect for the newly married couples. Therefore, there will be no dancing atop tables...' there was a chorus of groans throughout, but Pippin waved his arms and continued, '...until Ferdibrand, here...' he gestured to Ferdi, standing by Everard and his new bride, '...demonstrates the proper technique.' There was a general cheer, and the musicians struck up the first tune.    

Mardibold smiled at Rosamunda, holding out his arm. 'I believe the first dance is mine,' he said.     

'I believe you are right,' she returned, and the two brides led off the dance with their fathers. At the end of the dance, Mardi delivered Rosa to Pippin.     

'You're next, I believe,' the old healer said as he placed Rosa's hand in Pippin's. The Thain bowed low, released her hand and took her arm. They stepped off together as the music began, and he smiled ironically into her eyes as he led her expertly through the figures, fully aware that her healer's self was watching him for the first sign of shortened breath.     

'I arranged with the musicians to play the piece slowly for us,' he said in answer to her lifted eyebrow. 'It makes the dance last longer. I can hardly bear to relinquish you to your husband as it is.' At the end of the dance, he bowed over her hand, then placed it in Regi's. 'Never let her go,' he warned.     

Regi smiled, looking into Rosa's eyes. 'That's one order I shall have no trouble carrying out,' he said.

Pippin bowed again and turned away, heading off to claim the empty seat by Diamond.    

'Did you want to dance?' he asked solicitously, but she shook her head, taking his hand.     

'I could sit here with you forever,' she said.     

After several more dances, a number of hobbits began to call for a song. Merry and Estella Brandybuck made their way to where the Thain and his wife were seated.

'How about it, Pip?' Merry asked. They had often sung together in the past.     

'You go ahead without me this time,' Pippin said. 

Merry had not been told of his near-brush with death, though he'd heard of the fire, of course, and had been interested in the use of Buckland's black powder to put it out. It was just as well. Pippin's position as Thain was shaky enough without Merry playing "older cousin" and rushing to his bedside. Merry might suspect that he was not well; it was not that easy to conceal, but he knew enough about Tookish politics to play along with Pippin in the game of "All's Well". Though he now gave his younger cousin a sharp look, he merely smiled and made an assenting gesture.                                               

'Will you be playing your flute later?' Estella asked, lingering when Merry would have turned away.    

'No, I gave it the night off, 'twas looking peaked,' the Thain answered easily.     

Merry nodded, and then he and Estella were grabbed and pulled forward by Pervinca Took. 'Come along, cousin!' she cried gaily. 'It's time for you to pay your way!'

Merry laughed and began to sing a rollicking tune. Many hands began to clap, and voices throughout the celebration took up the choruses as the dancers and watchers alike joined in on the fun.     

Mardibold watched the smiling Thain tapping his fingers in time with the music, then went to his brother, who was keeping time with a drum. 'Tolly,' he said quietly.     

'What is it, brother?' Tolibold laughed. 'I can hardly hear you amongst the din!'     

'It takes breath to play a flute or sing,' Mardi said obliquely.

Tolly followed his gaze. He met his brother's eyes, nodded, rose, and walked over to Pippin and Diamond.     

'It's my birthday tomorrow, you know,' Tolly said.     

'Yes, I know... I've been wondering what you're going to give me,' Pippin chuckled.     

'O aye, what do you give the Thain who has everything?' Tolly said, rubbing his chin. 'I've been giving it some thought.'     

'Have you now?' Pippin said easily.     

'Yes, and I think I've found something you don't already have,' Tolly answered. He held out the drum. 'Made it myself. Here, an early birthday present, just the thing for the celebration.'     

Pippin took the drum slowly, admiring the fine workmanship. 'O cousin...' he said. 'A fine gift, indeed.'     

'Don't be expecting anything tomorrow, now,' Tolly warned, shaking a finger in Pippin's face. 'And I want to see that put to good use,' he added.     

Pippin laughed and began keeping time to the music; the drum had a deep, pleasant tone. Diamond picked up a pair of spoons from the table and added her own rhythms. Her husband cocked an eye at her and said, 'If this Thain business doesn't work out, we can always hire ourselves out as musicians.'     

'Let's keep that in mind,' Diamond said. She smiled up at Tolly, and he nodded in return before heading off to the beverage table for a cup of wine.     

'Look at that!' Pippin said suddenly, and Diamond followed his gaze.     

Pimpernel was dancing with Ferdibrand, laughing up into his face, the two perfectly matched in the dance.     

'They make a nice couple,' Diamond murmured.     

Pippin gave her a sharp look. 'She's older than he is,' he said.     

'She'll steady him nicely, then,' Diamond said. 'She could be the making of him.'     

'Ferdi? ...and my sister?' Pippin said. 'But...' He was about to mention the tradition that widows seldom remarried. Seldom? How about almost never?

'Why not?' Diamond answered, laying her head against his arm. 'Stranger things have happened. Look at how the son of the Thain married the daughter of a north-Took farmer, for instance.'     

Eglantine came up to them, little Faramir in tow. 'I've given Farry's nurse the evening off,' she said imperiously, waving at the swirling dancers. 'My grandson and I are going back to my rooms to roast mushrooms on sticks over the fire and tell stories until the dawn, or until we drop off, whatever comes first.'     

'Until the dawn!' Farry said adamantly, tugging at Eglantine's arm. 'Come, Gran,' he said. 'I'm starving!'     

The grown hobbits laughed, and Diamond seized her son for a quick good-night kiss. 'You be good for your gran, now,' she admonished.     

He gave her an insulted look. 'Always!' he said. 'Gran's my best friend!'     

'There's my lad,' Eglantine laughed, reclaiming her prize. 'I imagine I might even have some sweetmeats tucked away...' They walked off together, Faramir chattering happily.     

Pippin leaned over to whisper in Diamond's ear. 'D'you know what this means?' he said.     

'What does it mean?' Diamond said indulgently.     

'We could slip off, just the two of us, with no one the wiser,' he said, mischief dancing in his eyes. 'Look, Regi's busy...' he nodded at the dancers, 'he won't be thinking of anything the Thain needs to do, and Farry's busy...' he nodded towards their departing son, 'and he won't be thinking of anything his mother needs to do...'     

'Just the two of us,' Diamond breathed. It seemed as if they hadn't been alone together in ever so long.     

'We could start with a walk under the stars,' Pippin said, 'and see where that leads us.'     

'Let's do!' Diamond exclaimed, and hands joined, they rose from the table and walked casually to the entrance of the pavilion, nodding to hobbits at their right and left.     

At the entrance, a Took cousin stiffened to attention to address the Thain. 'Are you going out, Sir?' he said.     

'Well, yes,' Pippin replied.     

'Allow me just a moment, Sir, to arrange your escort,' the Took said.     

Dismayed, Diamond met her husband's gaze. She'd forgotten for a moment the rigid insistence on protocol here at the Smials. He squeezed her hand reassuringly, turning back to the Took cousin. 'That's all right, we're just going back to the Smials.'     

'I'll walk you there, Sir,' the cousin said helpfully, and proceeded to make good his word.     

'Thank you very much, cousin,' the Thain said soberly as he opened the door for them and politely stood aside for them to enter.    

The door closed with a final-sounding thump, and Diamond slumped against her husband. 'He'll guard that door like a watchdog,' she said in despair. 'What do we do now?'     

'Well...' Pippin said consideringly. 'This is not all bad.' He grinned down at her. 'Do you realize, my love, that we have the entire Smials to ourselves? Think of the possibilities!'     

She smiled. 'We could go to the kitchen and switch all the labels on the spice jars,' she teased.     

'Yes, the thought had crossed my mind,' he answered. 'Or we could go back to the Thain's apartments, just the two of us, no small son asking for another drink of water, no servants knocking at just the wrong moment to ask if there's anything else we require...'     

'Mmmmm, sounds very promising indeed,' Diamond smiled.    

Hand in hand, giggling like mischievous tweens, they stole through the deserted corridors to the Thain's private quarters.     

Slipping through the shadows behind them, a silent figure followed surreptitiously. When the couple reached the Thain's quarters and crept inside, softly closing the door behind them, the lurker waited a moment, then tiptoed up to the door and stationed himself beside it.     

Sandy had been assigned to the new Thain upon the latter's arrival at the Smials, as his personal hobbitservant, and he prided himself on his dedication to his duty. His sole aim was to give his employer satisfaction. This was a golden opportunity for service. No knock would come on the Thain's door this night, no one seeking a decision, no one bringing a report, not even someone asking helpfully whether anything more that night would be required by the Thain or the Mistress...     

...he would see to that.

Some years later, when the Tooks are holding a welcoming feast for Mayor Samwise, who has returned from his travels to the Southlands, to bring back a cure for a dying Thain...

Sandy's head appeared in the doorway. He looked first to the sleeping Thain, and then to to the calm face of the healer sitting by the bedside, as if seeking for some hope there. 'Mistress Diamond sent you a plate from the feast,' he whispered. 'Do you want me to put it on a warmer, here?' 

'I'll take it now,' she said quietly in return, rising, but he waved her back into her chair and disappeared. 

Within a moment he returned, laying a serviette in her lap with a flourish, and then setting a well-laden plate upon it. 'Wine?' he breathed, and she shook her head, though such a meal would go finer with wine: juicy roast, puffed pudding, fluffy potatoes roasted in their jackets, two kinds of bread, already buttered, vegetables and a dollop of fruit compote; why, large as the plate was, it could hardly hold the bounty! Still, a healer sitting on watch had a duty to keep her head clear.

'Is there aught else you'll be needing, Woodruff?' he said to the healer. 

'Naught, Sandy,' she replied with a smile. 'You go on to the feast, now.' 

He shook his head, but she pressed on. 'You must, you know, to honour Mayor Sam and Mistress Rose. After all that the Gamgees did for your poor mother, after the Battle of Bywater...' She knew that Sandy's father had fallen there, leaving a large and hungry family, and Sandy, the oldest, but a tween. Samwise, perhaps with Mr. Frodo's help (for how would he have known of a situation at the Great Smials without Mr. Frodo, or perhaps even Pippin's suggestion?) had found the lad a place as an underservant, where he'd worked hard, and learned enough to rise in station until he became the finest hobbitservant to be found in the Shire. And only right! Nothing but the best for our Thain... she thought. And no doubt, she had the right of it.

In any event, Woodruff could see her words strike home in the wry twist of Sandy's mouth. 'I s'pose I ought,' he said. 

'Of course you ought,' she persisted through a mouth full of melting roast. 

His smile became more genuine, and he bowed, more a nod of his head than anything else. There was nothing for it, but to go to the feast and honour the Mayor. 

***

Author notes:

Some text taken from “The Grey Havens” from The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien, and from the stories Striking Sparks and A Healer's Tale.