Chapter 5. Shadows of the Past

Not one of the greengrocer's family went to the gallows. There was no point in it, to grieve themselves over it all by the sight that would undoubtedly meet their eyes. There would be time enough, when the sunset bells rang and it would be time to claim the bodies, to wash them and lay them out for burial, to perform the small duties of final affection and farewell.

Turambor set Robin small tasks in the sheltered portion of the greengrocer's stand, away from prying or pitying eyes: tying bunches of herbs together, mostly, and washing the sand out of the greens. The youth worked without speaking; they all did, Turambor's sons and their wives and the greengrocer himself. His own wife sat with Seledrith, for she had lapsed into staring silence, holding the baby close, and she wouldn't let anyone take him from her.

Merileth sat nearby; heavy with child, she wasn't allowed to be on her feet helping. Denny had seen Seledrith and Robin safely to the greengrocer's and had just started homewards when he saw his wife hurrying towards him, their toddler in her arms, face pale and eyes wide. He intercepted her with an exclamation of concern, only to be interrupted.

'Surely it's not true!' she gasped. 'Surely...' Her protestations died as she looked into his face. 'O my poor sister,' she mourned then, as the tears spilled from her eyes.

'Come, my love,' Denny said, drawing her under the greengrocer's spacious awning that shaded the fresh, sparkling produce from the bright morning sun. He pulled her through the back of the stand, to the sheltered portion behind, and she fell upon her younger sister with an awkward hug, but Seledrith did not seem to notice her presence, nor took her attention from the baby in her arms.

'Seledrith!' Merileth said in shock.

'My love,' Seledrith cooed, staring downwards, a half-smile on her face. 'My sweet little love.'

'Let be,' Turambor said after greeting his eldest daughter. 'It is kinder to let her dream, for the moment. There's nothing to be done until the sunset bells, in any event.'

And so the quiet hours passed, quiet behind the greengrocer's stand, anyhow. Even the greengrocer's grandchildren played quietly under an aunt's watchful eye. The market bustled as usual, and Airin and her husband Turamir managed the stand between them, even when quite a crowd gathered, seeking fresh greens and spring onions and herbs and potatoes from storage and carrots kept fresh in barrels of sand, and all wanting to be served at once, of course, that nuncheon might come on time to the table.

At last the crowd waned, and it was time to sit to their own meal, supplemented by the kettle of stew that Denny had rescued from ruin, though no one had much appetite. In the afternoon the bargain hunters came to haggle over the greens, now growing weary, and late in the day much of the leavings were sold for half- and quarter-pennies, to those who would soon be feeding their pigs. Enough was left to feed Turambor's own pigs, and this was packed into buckets, clearing the tables to be scrubbed and made ready for the morrow, for the greengrocer's shop was open every day whether it was a market day or not.

Something of Seledrith's mood seemed to have infected Robin; he went about the scrubbing of the tables with a half-smile upon his face, and Denny, who had forsaken his knife-sharpening business to work with the greengrocer's family this day, was surprised to hear the youth humming under his breath. Robin had worked quietly through the morning hours, moving slowly, occasionally muttering to himself under his breath, but after the daymeal he had suddenly squared his shoulders with a nod to himself. Denny had wondered at the time, had decided that the youth had accepted the situation, bad as it was, had resolved to carry on as best he could. But humming...

'Robin,' he said softly. 'Is it well with you?'

'Why are we so sombre?' Robin countered. 'You'd think...'

Denny took a shallow breath. The lad had lost his wits from grief, that was clear to him. 'Robin,' he said, slowly and carefully.

Robin actually chuckled. 'Why indeed?' he answered himself. 'Nothing has happened.'

'Nothing!' Denny said, startled.

'Don't you see?' Robin said, cocking his head to one side. 'Farry's father spoke for us. He promised he would.'

'I beg your pardon?' Denny said, feeling stupid.

'He said he'd speak for us; didn't you hear him? He spoke for me, first, and they released me...'

Denny thought to himself that either he was being exceptionally thick, or Robin was seriously deluded. Had Pippin in truth spoken for the others, successfully spoken, that is, would they not have returned? Where were Gwill and Gwillam, or Jack and Will, whatever they might be called? He was all too sure of the answer.

'Robin...' he tried again.

'He promised,' Robin said, 'and Farry told me that he is as good as his word.'

'Farry?' Denny said.

'Fararmir Took,' Robin said matter-of-factly. 'We're the same age, did you know that? When we met in the Shire, we had both seen six summers. He was only half my size, of course...'

'Of course,' Denny said, humouring the youth.

'I wonder if he's still half my size?' Robin said, pursing his lips in thought. 'I've heard he's tall, like his father, and I'm certainly never going to be tall, but then neither is Will--Gwillam, I mean, and my own father...

'Gwill is nearly as tall as I am,' Denny said.

'No, I meant my own father,' Robin said. 'Gwill adopted us, ten years ago, took us in. His name was Jack, then...'

'So I've heard,' Denny said dryly.

'But when we came here, he said it would be better to have different names,' Robin said. 'Even though Diamond promised him there would be no pursuit...'

'Why would she do such a thing as that?' Denny said, glancing from one side to the other. But the marketplace was nearly deserted now. 'He had taken her prisoner, from what I heard this morning, and young Faramir for that matter. I cannot think the Thain would forgive such abuse of his family...'

'And his cousin as well,' Robin said.

'His cousin,' Denny said.

'Hilly,' Robin said. 'He was riding with them, to keep them safe from wild animals or such. But his pony blundered into a bog...'

'I'd heard about that,' Denny said. 'He nearly doomed himself, throwing young Faramir to safety.' He'd heard about Hilly and the bog, ten years ago when he'd first met the hobbit, but nothing about him being taken prisoner along with Diamond and Faramir. He wondered if it would be news to the King as well.

'You heard how he got out, didn't you?' Robin said, his expression brightening.

Denny had to scratch his head. 'No,' he said slowly. 'As a matter of fact, that part of the tale was never told. I just assumed he dragged himself out somehow.'

'Diamond had pulled branches to the edge of the bog and shoved them in, as far as they would go,' Robin said, 'but by the time she'd built a sturdy enough bridge, Hilly was too far gone to save himself, and she was too cold and stiff and tired to crawl out over the branches to try to pull him out. I doubt she'd have had the strength anyhow--he was sunk up past his waist in the mire.'

'How did he get out?' Denny said. He'd been humouring the youth, but now he was honestly interested.

'Will crawled out over the branches,' Robin said, his expression reflecting remembered fear. 'I was sore afraid... we'd lost our mother and father, and then our grandmother, and were all alone in the world, just Will and I, and here he was crawling into a bog, with only Jack's rope for safety...'

'Your brother went into the bog after Hilly?' Denny said, and whistled low. 'But he was only a lad...'

'He was nearly fifteen,' Robin said stoutly. 'Just a little younger than I am now. Old enough to do a man's work; our father was teaching him the cobbler's trade...'

Old enough to do a man's work, Denny thought bleakly. Old enough to pay a man's price for entering the Shire. Too young to know better...

'Will--Gwillam--he and Gwill saved Hilly from the bog, and then Gwill built a fire and kept Diamond and Farry from freezing to death; their clothes were wet and they'd been sitting on the wet ground, and her pony was lame, and the bog had swallowed Hilly's pony, and there they were in the middle of the woods...'

'Gwill is Jack,' Denny said quietly to himself.

'Why of course he is,' Robin said with a little laugh. 'Didn't I just say so?'

'Why was he in the Shire in the first place?' Denny asked. He had quite forgotten about table-scrubbing by this point.

For the first time since they'd cleared the tables, a shadow crossed the youth's face. 'He thought he knew where the Thain kept his hoard,' he said, and shook his head. 'All his life he'd lived upright,' he looked up with an earnest expression, wanting Denny to believe, 'all his life,' he repeated, 'and it was all taken from him in a few moments by robbers who took all he had and beat him and left him for dead.'

Denny nodded. Such things were not so common now, with outposts of Kingsmen patrolling the King's roads, but even now such incidents were possible, though not as likely. 'And so he turned robber himself?' he said curiously.

'No!' Robin said, stung. 'He said that the Thain had piles of gold lying about in chests, uncounted, unguarded. No one would be hurt, and the Thain would hardly miss the little bit of gold that we needed...'

'That you needed...?' Denny echoed.

Robin flushed. 'He'd taken us in, well, we took him in, actually. Will found him in the brambles where the robbers had kicked him after they were through with him, and he and I pulled him out and dragged him to our shelter...' A crude shelter it had been, enough to keep off the rain. They had left the village as illness ravaged family after family, Robin's father hoping to escape infection through isolation until the epidemic had run its course. A desperate appeal to the King had been sent, but no reply had come.

Likely the messenger fell ill, himself, and died along with his message, Denny thought as he heard the story. After their grandmother had followed their parents in death, the boys had made their way back to the village, finding it empty and desolate. They had fled--Denny could only imagine the terrible scene--back to their hovel, managing to live on berries and roots and rabbits that Will snared.

Denny sat down upon the table he'd been about to wash, shaken by Robin's narrative.

Robin fell silent, his look grown inward and far away.

'And so Gwill--Jack--saved Diamond and Farry and Hilly, and won the Thain's gratitude, even though you all were in the Shire in violation of the edict,' Denny said, turning away from the subject of desolate village and desperate orphaned children.

'That was part of it,' Robin said, 'though Jack was so grateful, to escape with our lives, that he vowed never to leave the upright path again.' He dipped his cloth in the bucket of soapy water and began to scrub vigorously at the table between them. Denny stood to avoid a soaking and tendered his own cloth.

'Part of it?' Denny prompted.

'Jack saved the son of the Thain again, when the ruffians took Farry and dropped him in the river,' Robin said.

'Jack saved...' Denny said slowly. His memory of the kidnapping was dim and vague; one of the kidnappers had shot him through with an arrow while he was performing routine escort duty and he was a lucky man, indeed, to be alive to tell the tale. 'He was the man at the river, the man with the rope, that saved the young hobbits?' The rescuer had fallen into the maelstrom at the base of the waterfalls where the Lake spilled its waters to form the source of the Baranduin River.

Denny had heard stories of the rescue, from his fellow guardsmen, while he lay in his bed in the Houses of Healing. The rescuer had saved the kidnapped hobbits, had been clinging to his rope as the guardsmen hauled him to safety, when the rope came free of its mooring, plunging him to his death. Although his body had never been found...

'So you see, Farry's father promised to speak for us,' Robin said. 'I'm sure that when the King heard the story he stopped the hanging. I'm sure of it. He promised to speak for us. You heard him!'

Denny swallowed hard and tried to smile to meet Robin's bright expression, though he feared it was a dismal failure. Robin had persuaded himself that no hanging had taken place... but if that were the case, where were Gwill and Gwillam? He jerked as the sunset bells began to ring.

Turambor emerged from the back of the shop, removing his apron and hanging it on a protruding nail. 'Are you done here?' he said.

'We're just finished,' Denny answered, giving a final swipe to the table.

'Good,' the greengrocer said. He turned to call to his oldest son, 'Turamir!' Turning back he said, 'Targil is bringing one of the carthorses, to carry them back.' He eyed Robin with concern. 'You had better stay, lad.'

'But I...' Robin said, and stopped, the bright expression fading from his face as the sun's colours fade from the sunset sky with the coming of darkness. 'Are you finished...' he whispered, and then, 'You had best stay... I had best stay...'

'Lad?' Denny said gently, reaching out to lay a hand on the trembling arm.

Robin took a shuddering breath, terrible realisation on his face. 'He said, "I'll speak for you",' he whispered, turning haunted eyes to Denny. 'I'll speak for you. And he did, he spoke for me.' He gasped, his eyes looking on some private nightmare. 'He spoke for me,' he said again. 'Did he not speak for them, then?'