Chapter 4 – The Gate Is Open

They reached the Gate in a few short minutes, and joined the group of tweens standing in a crowd a quarter-mile from the Hedge. Frodo edged close to Edon and grabbed tight to the older lad’s shirttails, and the other lads huddled closer together as well. They joined the back of the crowd, grateful for the extra distance between them and the hidden entrance.

“Has anyone tried to get near it yet?” Morti asked in hushed tones to a lass just in front of them.

“Not yet,” she whispered back.

The minutes passed in excited silence, as lads and lasses nudged each other toward the Hedge, no one budging an inch from their spot. Frodo began to relax. He let go of Edon’s shirt and looked about the crowd with interest. He recognized only a few of the tweens from Brandy Hall and Buck Hill, and a handful from Bucklebury. The rest must be from Newbury, Crickhollow and other nearby settlements and towns. Many of them were giving Frodo curious and impressed looks; he was easily the youngest hobbit there. Frodo didn’t notice this however.

Morti and Fendi pulled out their sacks of food and passed them about. The friends ate standing, nibbling on bread and cheese, apples and pears, strawberries and blueberries. Edon handed out the muffins he had brought, and Morti produced a water skin and passed that around when the food was gone. Fendi tied the empty sacks back onto his belt.

More tweens arrived with every minute, but others began to trickle away as their curiosity was assuaged. At one point, a lad of small stature dashed out toward the Hedge, but changed his mind after going only a few yards. He turned about and ran back to the crowd, but even that small dash was enough to earn him many pats on the back.

“There’s not much action,” Fendi intoned a half-hour later.

“Why don’t you go?” Sed suggested, nudging his shoulder softly.

“My knee’s bothering me,” Fendi said.

“Is it now? It was fine just a minute ago,” Morti said with a grin.

Fendi shrugged. “It comes and goes. You go.”

“I would, but… well, I don’t want to,” Morti said truthfully.

After a time, when nothing further happened, Edon tapped his friends on their shoulders and nodded toward the back of the crowd, of which they were now in the middle. “Come on, we have to get Frodo back to Hedge Field.”

They wormed their way through the crowd and emerged with sighs of relief. They had come and been seen. They would not lose face at Brandy Hall and would be able to walk with their heads high.

As they separated from the crowd, they looked up toward the road and saw Gil and his friends approaching. Edon noticed immediately that Fuchsia was not with them. He could not begin to guess what that meant, but a small flutter of hope stirred in his chest. Maybe if he could just speak to Fuchsia when she was alone…

Frodo tugged on his sleeve then and pointed back toward the crowd. Edon looked at him questioningly, then followed his direction. Standing on the far edge of the crowd, closest to the Hedge, was a small group of young lasses and looking back directly at him was Piper Redleaf. She noticed him looking and hastily turned away, a nervous hand flying up to tidy her hair. Edon continued watching her for a moment, uncertainty flooding through him. Could Frodo have been right? If he had been, what then?

“Eldon,” came Gil’s voice as he and his friends came closer. Edon turned to face him. “What a surprise to see you here. I take it you’ve breeched the Hedge already.”

“No, I did not attempt it,” Edon said. “No one has yet.”

“Well, it’s a good thing I came then, isn’t it?” Gil grinned and looked down, distracted by a sudden movement. He stalled for a moment, surprised to see Frodo there, hiding ever so slightly behind Edon. Gil thought of apologizing then to the lad, but realizing that anything he said would be misconstrued and twisted about with Edon standing right there, he simply shrugged and made his way to the front of the crowd.

The crowd parted to let Gil and his friends pass, and the spectators started buzzing excitedly. Finally, they would get a bit of a show. Gil’s group paused at the front of the crowd, and Gil handed his waistcoat to one of his cronies. Then he proceeded to stretch and roll up his sleeves.

“He’s a ham,” Sed said with disgust.

“He’s stalling,” Edon corrected.

Finally, after a few more minutes of fanfare, Gil took a series of quick, deep breaths, then dashed out toward the Hedge. The crowd grew quiet and waited to see how far he would get. When he was halfway there, he began to slow but continued forward without pause. He was within a hundred yards of the Hedge when a bounder popped his head out of the tunnel and shouted a warning.

Everyone’s eyes were on him, and he knew it. He made a great show of throwing his hands up in dismay at being caught, kicked at the ground in disappointment, then finally backed up when the bounder left the tunnel and approached the lad with a warning shake of his hand. Gil gave in then, and turned back toward the crowd, which erupted into applause and cheer.

“That was fantastic, Gil!” called a young lad.

“He’s the bravest hobbit that ever lived,” a lass near the back of the crowd said with a sigh to her friend.

Gil’s friends had started a chant near the front of the crowd, that was quickly picked up by everyone there. It was painfully familiar, a victory song that once had been sung for Edon. “Gil the Brave will have no Grave for he will never die. He is the best in all the West; how's that for humble pie!"

Edon shook his head at it all and turned back to his friends. “Come on,” he said over the noise of the crowd. “Let’s go. I’ve had enough of this show.”

It was not until they were on the road that Edon noticed Frodo was no longer with them. He stopped in his tracks and turned about full circle, looking for the teen. His friends were also surprised to realize that they were one missing. “Frodo?” Edon called.

Morti, Fendi and Sed looked about now also. “Where could he have gone?” None of them had seen when the lad had slipped off.

Edon motioned for his friends to stay put, then walked back to the field. He looked all around and made his way back through the crowd, calling vainly for Frodo over the cheers. He got no response and saw no sign of the teen. After searching for about five minutes, he gave up and rejoined his friends with a shrug. “Maybe he went on ahead alone,” he suggested.

“He must have,” Morti said. “Let’s go. I don’t want to stand about all afternoon listening about how wonderful Gil is.” For even at that distance, the occasional cheer could still be heard.

The lads left and Edon kept his eyes peeled for any sign of Frodo. They were well down the road before the sounds of the celebration faded behind them, and they were soon approaching the boulder on Hedge Field. They could see Saradoc standing there already, but he was alone and scratching his head. The friends looked amongst themselves, each of them feeling a sense of dread at the sight, but none of them willing to give voice to it. They turned off the road and headed for the boulder.

“Hallo, Cousin Sara,” Morti and Fendi greeted. “Good day, Mr. Saradoc,” Sed and Edon said behind them.

“Hallo, lads,” Saradoc said, a frown on his face. “Have you seen Frodo by any chance? I was supposed to have met him here, but I’m beginning to think he may have changed his mind.”

“We have seen him, sir,” Edon said, fingering his earlobe in nervousness. Sara narrowed his eyes at him and Edon remembered too late the scabs on his knuckles. He yanked his hand back down, out of sight.

“Well, lads, where is he?” Sara asked, looking at each of them sternly.

“He came with us to the Gate Opening, but we got separated,” Morti answered. “We thought he had returned here.”

Sara’s eyes narrowed even further at this news. “He’s a bit young for such games, don’t you think?”

“He wanted to go,” Fendi said.

“Is that so?” Saradoc asked. “And so you just let him?”

The lads nodded and waited for his response. Saradoc sighed. He had to go the Hay Gate anyway. He would find Frodo there if the lad was still about and send him on home. If he wasn’t about, then he had most likely slipped off to return to Brandy Hall alone. Still, if Frodo did come back here… “You’ll stay here, at least an hour. If he comes by, tell him I’ve gone to the Gate and that he’s to return to the Hall.”

“Yes, sir.”

Saradoc walked past them, giving Edon in particular a hard stare. Esme had told him what Gil had said earlier that morning, how he and Edon had put Frodo between them and their argument, and the news did not do much to improve Sara’s opinion of the eldest Brockhouse child. He could see he was going to have to speak with Frodo about his continuing acquaintance with these lads; they were not a good influence for his young, wayward cousin.

He left them to their guard and was soon at the Gate, where the celebrating had died down. He quickly dispersed the crowd, and seeing no sign of Frodo amongst the departing tweens, he could only shake his head in disappointment. His plans of spending the afternoon alone with Frodo were dashed, and there was no telling when the lad would approach him with such an offer again. As soon as Sara returned home, he would suggest coming out again tomorrow, but he knew already from experience that Frodo would deny the offer.

Sara went to the tunnel, feeling silly for having even hoped in the first place.  

“He’s not coming,” Morti said after an hour’s wait. “Can we go now?”

“I suppose,” Edon said and they left the shade of the boulder. Edon looked back to the east, at the Hedge looming in the distance and the merest hint of the treetops of the forest beyond. The sight nagged at him for reasons he could not explain, but he ignored the feeling and followed his friends west, toward Bucklebury and Brandy Hall.  

Gil knocked upon the apartment door, and a moment later Esme once again answered his call. She gave the lad a measured look but was far too distracted with a wailing bairn and her harried nursemaid to pay the tween much mind. “What do you want, lad?” she asked.

“I’m here to speak with Frodo, as you wanted,” Gil reminded her.

Esme crooked her head at him in confusion, then glanced back behind her at the wall clock. The time for afternoon tea had arrived, and Frodo was not yet home. She could only assume that the training was going well and that her husband was keeping the lad longer than he should. She would have to talk to him about that when they returned.

She squinted at Gil, trying to think. At length, she said, “I’ll send him to your apartment when he comes home. I’ve already spoken with your mother, so she’ll know what it’s about.”

“Yes Cousin. Good day to you, Esme.”

“Good day.” Esmeralda turned away and closed the door.

Gil slunk through the tunnels, avoiding Fuchsia’s doorway. He doubted very much she would care about his victory at the Gate. She hadn’t even wanted him to go and considered the tradition to be childish and crass. “An opportunity for lads to pretend at being grown hobbits,” she had said. Gil had just laughed; she never could see the fun in such things.

He dreaded also what his mother was going to say to him when he returned home. If Esme was tired of his constant competition with Edon, he could guess already what his mother would think of the matter. A long-winded lecture was awaiting him, no doubt, one that would likely end with his mother advising him to go to Edon to shake hands and make up.

Bile rose in his throat at the very notion of shaking hands with that traitor, but he swallowed it down and continued forward. With luck, and a little bit of sweet talk, he would only be restricted to his room for a day or two. By then, Fuchsia should have calmed down and all would be well again.  

Sara was joined early in the evening by his brother. Mac had a new crowd of tweens to disperse when he arrived, though not as big as the earlier crowd, for it was getting late now and the children were going home on their own. He waited until they all were gone, then went down the tunnel under the Hedge, emerging on the other side to find his brother standing with one of the bounders, smoking a pipe.

“Long day?” Mac asked with a grin. “Working hard, I see.”

“Quite long,” Sara answered. “Back-breaking work, for the gardeners at any rate.”

Mac looked north up the Hedge. The gardeners were a good distance away already and the Hedge was looking pristine and glorious. “We should bring them in soon.”

“No, we should bring them in now,” Saradoc corrected. “They’ve been bagging the trimmings as they go, but they’ll need help carrying it all through the tunnel. Are the carts here?”

“Not yet.”

“Then let’s get the bags Inside and have them waiting for when they do arrive,” Sara said and nodded to Hob as he stamped out his pipe.

Hob nodded in return and ran off towards the workers. He whistled halfway there, an ear splitting whistle that stopped everyone cold. Soon, the gardeners were climbing down their ladders and opening fresh bags for the new trimmings. Sara and Mac lent their hands carrying the bags through the narrow tunnel and the sun was low in the sky when the carts finally arrived to haul away the day’s cuttings.

The bounders went up and down the line, making sure all was in order and putting out the torches that still stood ablaze. Hob walked the line closest to the forest, pulling the torches from the ground and putting the flames out in the dirt. The line was long, and the last torch stood a good distance from the Gate to the south. He pulled this up and stamped it out, same as the others, averting his eyes from the absolute blackness of the forest as he did so, thus missing the lump of fabric laying upon the ground at the forest’s edge.

He returned to the others, who stood waiting for him, and together, they carried the last of the day’s trimmings through the tunnel. Saradoc was the last one through. He took out his key and locked the gate firmly behind him, rattling the door to ensure it was secure.

The carts now loaded, the gardeners and bounders climbed onto the cart bed and fell back onto their day’s work, exhausted and eagerly looking forward to the supper awaiting them at the Hall. Mac and Sara took their place next to the drivers, and with a click of the tongue and a whish of the reins, the ponies were goaded into movement. The carts lurched forward, and soon the forest was far behind them.
 
 
 

To be continued…