15. You Shall Weep and Lament

Remembering Day at Brandy Hall was always a solemn occasion, but this day there was a mood of despair mixed in with the usual sorrow. It was always difficult when someone was lost to the River, drowned, the body never found. Remembering Day brought closure in such cases, but in the case of Berimas' family, carried off by ruffians, their ultimate fate unknown, the day only made the ache of loss all the more acute.

Berimas, Ilberic, and Doderic lit the candles on the nine boats, for Celandine and her children, and set them afloat on the River, at the same time as the Shirriff's family set his memorial afloat, since all had been lost together. The ten little boats floated into the current, as a group, until they hit a swirling in the waters that broke them apart, sending them separately downriver. Merry, Master of Buckland, placed a hand on Berimas' shoulder, wishing he had any words at all to speak, and then Ilberic and Doderic led their sister's husband away, choosing not to wait to watch the rest of the memorial boats lit and launched.

The crowd was sober, the singing subdued, and there was little of the usual talk at the feast afterwards; as a matter of fact, people ate with less appetite than usual.

Berimas broke down completely and had to be led away, to mourn the loss of his entire family.

Not all of Buckland stood on the banks of the River to celebrate the lives of loved ones remembered. Many grim-faced hobbits patrolled the High Hay and the riverbank, watching for the return of ruffians.

***

King Elessar met with his Captains in a great pavilion on the field of the Pelennor. His advisors sat behind him, faces grave. Among them were two not in armour, dressed rather plainly, though their clothing was of good quality, suitable for long journeys, and fine enough to admit them to the more rarified strata of society, without being flashy enough to call attention to the wearer.

Legolas nudged Gimli. 'Now we find out the meat of the message.'

Elessar measured the company with his steady gaze. 'We are gathered here to cut off the head of a serpent before it grows to striking length,' he said. 'It has already a deadly bite, as others have found to their dismay.' He nodded to one of the plainclad Men, who rose to address the gathering.

'My name, it does not matter,' he said clearly. Legolas frowned slightly at the accented words; an accent he could not place. 'My homeland--ah, but my home is wherever I pitch my tent. My loyalty, however...' he bowed to Elessar. 'My loyalty is to Gondor, for the shelter of my family during the Dark Times.'

He eyed the company. 'The King has asked me to speak of my travels. I can tell you much of southern lands; my life is a constant journey between the White City and the Haradwaith. I speak to many people, I hear many things, and what is not told to me directly, I sometimes overhear...'

He told now of a small kingdom in Harad, which enjoyed the blessing of a harbour on the coast, a gap in the rocky cliffs. Its ruler had used the harbour to gain a hold over neighbouring states, who enjoyed his relatively generous terms compared to the heavy fees exacted by the harbourmaster at Umbar -- not to mention the "accidental" losses they sustained, sailing in those waters, where the occasional corsair yet plied the waves.

Giving Umbar a wide berth, landing in the harbour at Haragost, the traffic of ships and merchants and trade with neighbour nations steadily increased the ruler's power until he decided he needed more land, more peoples, ever more power. He married the daughters of several neighbouring kings, for starters, and then when the other royal families mysteriously succumbed to accident or illness (poison?), he appropriated those lands in his brides' names.

'But then he coveted a land where the ruler had no marriageable daughters,' the merchant said. 'What to do? He engineered a petty border dispute and used it to bring his army against his neighbour. The land had valuable mines, where gold is to be found, and thus there was need for labourers... he began to conquer more land, to find slaves to work in his mines. He grows ever more rich and powerful. They call him... the Lion, and he is a dangerous foe, as other nations have found to their undoing.' There was a silence as the assembled contemplated this report.

'But what of the hobbits?' Gimli spoke up.

The second merchant looked to the King for permission before speaking, not quite as confident as the first. 'The son of the Lion has a collection of exotic pets. He heard of the little people, perhaps from a merchant,' he winced -- not himself, certainly, but he was a merchant, and he did not want these warriors to blame him for another's gossip. 'His father wished to please him, and sent word that he would pay for the little creatures, giving their weight in gold for each one brought safely to the palace.'

'Little creatures?' Gimli rumbled in outrage.

The second merchant shrank back, raising his arms as if to shield himself from a blow. 'Not my words,' he begged. 'I am only repeating what I heard in the marketplace. Please...'

'Peace,' said the King, and motioned the merchants to return to their seats.

'Our problem is, we have a ruler who is growing and consolidating his strength, and as a hobby he has taken hostages from amongst my subjects. Our task is to convince him to leave off conquest, and give us back the hobbits in the bargain.'

'In any event, we must get the hobbits back,' Legolas whispered to Gimli, who grunted in return.

'I am informed,' Elessar said, with another glance at the merchants, 'that these people will respect a show of force. They are more likely to seek to achieve their ends by subtlety and stealth than to clash on a battlefield. I propose to march this army down the Harad Road to Haragost, to beard this Lion in his den... demand the release of slaves, the restoration of territories to their traditional ruling families, and the return of our people to us.'

'You do not anticipate battle, then?' Eomer said. He sounded disappointed.

'No, but it is good to go prepared for any eventuality,' the King replied.

'We can always hope,' Eomer muttered to the Marshal on his left, who nodded, and Gimli, standing nearby, snorted in agreement.

***

When Celandine awakened, it was again to darkness, but the motion was different. She realised somehow that they were in the hold of a much larger ship, and bigger waves were rocking them than she'd ever felt on the River. They were on the Sea! ...being taken who knows where, but in any event, they were very far from home now, and unlikely ever to see the Shire again. She allowed herself to weep a little weep, as the children were still evidently asleep -- she had found all of them by touch before letting herself relax -- but as she felt the first one stir, she wiped her eyes and spoke briskly.

'Well! We are having quite an adventure!' she said.

'Mum?' Meadowsweet said questioningly.

'It's all right, lass,' Celandine said. 'We must keep up our spirits, now, if we're ever to find our way home again.'

'Are we, Mum?' Berilas asked.

'Of course!' Celandine said. 'Do you think your father, and Uncle Doderic, and Uncle Ilberic, not to mention the Master and all the rest of the Brandybucks, will rest until they have us safely back in Buckland?'

She kept them hopeful with such talk, though a squeeze from Alyssium's hand told her that at least one of her tweens wasn't fooled. She returned the squeeze, and Alyssium began to tell how the Brandybucks would likely jump into every boat in Buckland just to follow them and bring them back. She soon had the littler children laughing at the imagined sight of an old farmer in his leaky rowboat joining the flotilla, having one son to row and another to bail...

Again, they could not keep track of time. She suspected that meals were irregular, and the only light they saw was the lantern that was brought with their food. They were allowed to eat and take care of their needs by its light, before the guard would take it away again. They received no answer to their queries. Celandine wondered if the guard were deaf or merely stupid.

At last, the feeling of motion eased; they no longer rolled upon great waves. Had they entered a harbour, perhaps?

In any event, a number of Men came into their hold with large baskets, and indicated that the hobbits should climb in. When Celandine hesitated, one of the Men pinched little Poppy hard enough to make her cry, and made a menacing gesture towards Berilas... She could not let them harm the children, and so, she climbed into the indicated basket, holding tightly to tiny Blossom, still wrapped securely in the shawl, and watched the lid descend. Poking at it cautiously, she found it fastened down. Then the basket was lifted, and carried. She listened, hearing strange noises, shouting, music, clanging sounds, much jabbering in a language she could not understand.

She called out to her children, and was encouraged to hear them answer, as they were carried along.

It was much hotter than the Shire that they'd left, making her guess that they were off South somewhere. Strange smells wafted by her, some savoury, like roasting meat, and others that sickened her in their strangeness. She had the feeling they were passing through a bustling marketplace, but then things grew quieter. Gates clanged, they were carried through a place that smelt of flowers, where birds sang, and then there were more clanging gates.

Someone barked an order and her basket was laid down, the top lifted off, and she emerged, blinking, into an ornate room where a Man sat before her on a throne. A murmur of wonder swept the room as she was lifted out of the basket and placed on the floor with her children, who huddled close. The people were all dark-skinned, she noted, dark-haired, and dark-eyed, dressed in brightly coloured clothing, with gold bracelets at wrist and ankle, golden earrings, golden chains about their necks. Their eyes were wide at the sight of the hobbits who stared back with wide eyes of their own.

A servant came forward with a glass bottle and pressed a little bulb, to spray sweet-smelling perfume over the hobbits. Celandine made a wry face; she guessed that they didn't smell very attractive to these fancy Big Folk, not after all those days in the dark, with no way to wash, and no change of clothes.

A Man stepped forward and she recognised him as the one who had pinched Poppy to get the hobbits to climb into the baskets without a struggle. He was the ship's captain, though she had no way of knowing that.

'Your Highness, I bring you the new creatures you desired for your collection,' the captain of the ship said. He poked the seller, who bowed and gestured towards the little huddle of hobbits before the throne. Celandine gasped as she recognised the seller as one of the ruffians who'd taken them captive.

The captain and the Prince spoke in a language she did not know, though she listened as hard as she could.

The Prince got down from the throne to walk around the creatures, ooing and aahing. 'Exquisite,' he said, rubbing his hands together. The captain and the seller exchanged satisfied glances. 'Absolutely charming,' the Prince added. 'They look quite like little people, don't they? What lovely creatures.'

'You will find they are quite trainable,' the captain said. 'With patience you can make them understand what you want of them.'

'I am well pleased!' beamed the Prince. 'Yes, very well pleased, indeed! These will make my collection the envy of all my neighbors! No one else has these creatures; I am the first to obtain them.' He clapped his hands, and a servant came forward. 'Weigh the creatures,' he said. 'As per our agreement, their seller is to be paid their weight in gold.'

The guards warily prodded the little things onto the scales, one by one, and when the weighing was done, quite a pile of gold resulted, to be quickly packed into sturdy sacks. The seller bowed low to the Prince, thanking him for his generosity, and gestured to his companions to take the gold. They staggered cheerfully under the weight of their burden as they left the throne room.

'My, look at that! They have clothing!' Jessamin, who had been assigned the task of the care and feeding of the new creatures, said to her sister.

'I have seen monkeys clad like humans. It adds to their charm, I suppose,' Bessime answered.

'Yes, but these little creatures look so... human, somehow. Very engaging. One would almost think they could break into speech,' one of the courtiers remarked.

'Ah, but their jabbering makes no sense whatsoever,' a guard said in a bored tone. 'Believe me, they chattered all the way here from the ship, calling from basket to basket, and if there were words in it, I certainly didn't find any.'

'They are filthy!' Jessamin murmured to her sister. 'Do you suppose they know how to bathe?'

'We'll have to teach them,' Bessime answered. 'All the animals in the collection must be well-groomed, after all, by the order of the Prince.'

With smiles and gestures and some prodding from the guards, they were able to lead the little creatures from the throne room, down long corridors, to one of the bathing rooms, where they hit their first snag.

The little creatures would not allow themselves to be disrobed; the littlest ones wailing in a most distressed manner, while the biggest one glared fiercely.

Finally by dint of much patient coaxing, they were able to remove the creatures' coverings, though the one held tight to the shawl and seemed so distressed that they relented and allowed her to retain it.

'There,' Jessamin said in relief. 'I do hope that they will not be this difficult in every way.'

They led the little creatures from the dressing room into the bathing room, and Jessamin motioned two of the girls into the tub, to be ready to catch the little ones.

***

The hobbits caught their breath as the door opened to a room containing a large steaming pool. 'They're going to drown us!' Alyssium whimpered.

'Nonsense,' Celandine said, though it had been her first thought as well. They'd all heard of the ruffians' trick during the Troubles of holding hobbits underwater in order to gain information, or just for sport. The game had gone too far in one instance, and a Shirriff had died. These must be the latter kind of ruffians, for with no common language they could hardly be seeking information.

There was only one thing to be done.

'I'll go first,' Celandine said. She pressed the shawl with the sleeping babe into Alyssium's arms. 'Take care of her,' she said, her voice breaking, 'for as long as you can.'

'I will, Mum,' Alyssium sobbed, and Celandine hugged her gently. With a last brave smile for her children, she turned, her face losing its smile as soon as her back was turned. Expression bleak now, she walked towards the beckoning Big Folk, down one step, then another, and then the water closed over her head and she waited to drown.

...only to be lifted out of the water by a laughing servant girl, who poured some sweet-smelling stuff onto her curls and began to rub until her head was covered with lather.

'It's a bath!' Mayblossom squealed, and the other children laughed through their tears. 'It's only a bath, after all!'

One by one, they coaxed the little creatures into the tub and began to lather them with perfumed soap, washing away sweat and grit and dust. Only the one holding the shawl hung back, resisting, and as Jessamin pulled at the shawl once again, the biggest of the creatures pushed herself away from the servants, actually swam to the edge of the tub! ...hauled herself out, and ran dripping to embrace the remaining little one, shawl and all.

'Come now,' Jessamin coaxed. 'Let us get rid of this dirty old shawl... look at you, you were all clean and now you're streaked with dust again!' She tried again, gently, to pull the shawl out from between the creatures, but they only grasped all the harder.

Suddenly, Jessamin dropped the shawl as it began to move and mewl.

'What is it?' Bessime gasped.

'I don't know,' Jessamin said, backing away. Once she was out of reach, the wet creature hugged the shawl to her, dust streaking her wet skin, and carefully unwrapped it to reveal... the tiniest infant the serving girls had ever seen.

A chorus of ooohs and ahhhs broke out. 'Isn't it the most adorable thing?' one of the girls gasped.

'Hush!' Jessamin warned. 'Can you not see you are frightening the creatures half to death?' Indeed the little mother was grasping the infant tightly to itself, while the other little one began to sob in fear and confusion.

Some instinct prompted Jessamin to kneel, to be on a level with the little creature. She held out a tentative hand, saying softly, 'It's all right, Little One, we won't hurt you or your babe.' Turning her head slightly, she whispered, 'Give me a wet cloth.' One was quickly pressed into her hand, and she extended it to the little mother. 'Here you are... your babe needs a wash as well, I'd say.'

The little mother snatched the cloth from her hands, then bit her lip and said something.

'It is almost as if she said thank you!' Bessime commented, charmed.

'They seem quite intelligent for animals,' Jessamin agreed. The little mother had begun washing the tiny babe, removing the filthy covering on the babe's bottom, gently washing the reddened skin, then holding the naked infant close, watching the Big Folk warily while the other little one pressed close.

The little mother then said something to the other, and reluctantly, she crept to the pool, allowing herself to be lifted in, and washed.

'They appear to be housebroken,' Bessime said wryly, 'all but the babe, it seems.'

'Well, the mother seems to have been trained to care for it,' Jessamin answered. 'We shall provide her with what she needs, and see what she does. If she cannot care for it properly, of course it will have to be taken away.'

'I'd like to see you try,' Bessime said, raising a sceptical eyebrow, but she obediently extended a dry flannel to the little mother, who wrapped it about her infant. It was just about the right size to be a towel for the little thing.

'Very well,' Jessamin said. 'Now let us see if the clothing we had made ready for these little creatures will suit, for there is not much time before we must present the creatures before the court...' She smiled at the little mother, which still watched her warily, and crooked a coaxing finger. 'Come along, little creature, come along, little one...'