I’m being roughly shaken awake.

“Berilac! Get up. Now!”

There is a tone in my Uncle Saradoc’s voice that I have never heard before.

“You’ve five minutes to get dressed, son. Be in the main entry.” I hear my father add in an equally strange tone. As soon as I reached the tunnels nearer to outside walls, I heard the horns. I grabbed the first hobbit I saw as he was running past me.

“Madoc, what . . .”

“The Horn-call, Berilac! It’s the Horn-call!” he exclaimed as he tried to tug away from my grasp.

“I know that, but . . .”

“Don’t know the why nor wherefore of it. Just know it is and the Master and your father are waiting for you in the Entry.” Madoc wrenched free and started away. “Go, Berilac. Just go!” And he was gone around a turn in the tunnel.

As I run, I realize that terror was what I had heard in my father’s and uncle’s voices. Terror in Madoc’s voice. Not worry nor concern as I’ve heard in the past. They were terrified. Now, hearing the horns crying out, so am I. I get to the Main Entry and, still with no explanation, I’m running out the doors, onto the back of a waiting pony and flying away from the Hall east on the Ferry Road then north on the Buckland Road. Racing along with my father and uncle to the continuing sound of the horns, heading I know not where.

Finally, the Master chooses a small farm lane leading off the road to the east. We slide our ponies to a halt in the farm yard. My uncle is off his pony with the speed of a youth, running into the small farmhouse without as much as a knock nor calling out a greeting. Father and I are on his heels, following him into the main room of the simple home.

There, lying beneath several quilts upon the sofa, shivering as though he were outside in the dead of winter, face pale as the moon, is my best friend, Freddy Bolger.

Uncle Saradoc has stopped. He turns and, grabbing my arm, flings me toward the sofa. “Comfort him, Beri. Speak to him. See if you can make sense of him.”

I barely manage to stop before falling atop poor Freddy. Hands grab me and push me down upon a stool that has been hurriedly placed beneath me. My face is now barely two feet from Fredegar’s.

His eyes are clenched tightly closed, as though he fears what he’ll see if he opens them. His voice is small and tight with a terror greater than any of the voices I’ve heard this night. I lean even closer, trying to hear his muttered words.

“Black . . . big black . . . not . . . I don’t have it . . . gone . . . not me . . . gone . . . horses . .
. black, big . . . I don’t have it . . .”

I listen a while to this stream of nearly meaningless words before I take hold of Freddy’s hand with my right hand while idly brushing sweat-soaked curls away from his face with my left. His eyes fly open. He looks at me but doesn’t see me as he continues his stream of words.

I feel a gentle, though trembling, hand upon my shoulder and Uncle Saradoc speaks as softly into my ear as his terror will allow. “He was at Crickhollow, Beri. With Frodo and Sam, Pippin and . . .”

His voice catches. His hand on my shoulder twitches.

“. . . and Merry.”

I hear my uncle swallow hard. I hear him take a deep breath. “They aren’t here with him, Beri, and he has given Caladoc the impression that there are enemies abroad in Buckland.” The trembling hand pats my shoulder then is withdrawn.

Now I understand the sounding of the Horn-call of Buckland.

“Freddy, lad. Freddy, it’s Beri. I’ve got hold of you. I’ve got hold of your hand, Fredegar. Freddy?” I’m babbling away nearly as nonsensically as my dear friend. I try patting his face. It’s cool and clammy beneath my fingers. “Freddy? Come now, my friend. Do you see me, Freddy? Freddy?” Still he has the glazed, terrorized stare of a cornered animal. Still he mutters his chain of words.

I let go of his hand. Grimacing in pain myself as I do so, I strike him firmly across his colorless cheek.

There is no cry of pain or surprise. His eyes and mouth both close and he lies there, no longer even shivering.

A clock ticks slowly from its place on the mantle. I hear the shuffling of hobbits leaving the room and I know without looking that the Master, my father and I are now the only ones in this vigil by the sofa.

“Berilac?”

I almost don’t hear Freddy speak, if he hadn’t said my name I might not have. Interesting how your name will most always catch your ear. His eyes are still closed. He recognized my voice.

“Yes, Freddy-lad, it’s me.”

“Beri-lad,” he whispers. “I’m . . . two months
older.”

I feel a bit of the tension leave my shoulders. It is a long standing jest between us. My friend has come back to himself.

“They were . . . sneaking up . . . on the house, Beri.” He swallows, or tries to, he gagged a bit instead and at the side of my vision a small mug appears. I hold up Freddy’s head, helping him drink until he moves his head aside. “Big People, Beri. They . . . they were big . . . Big People. All cloaked. Black. All cloaked in black. Drink.”

I hold the mug to his lips until he once again is finished. He lays his head back a moment. He opens his eyes but stares at the ceiling, he doesn’t look at me.

“I ran. Remembered this farm . . . that this farm was somewhere west of the house.”

Freddy chuckles nervously as he finally turns his head a bit, focusing his eyes on me. “How did I manage to remember that, Beri?” His chuckling grows sharper, higher in pitch as the wild look returns to his eyes. He has wormed his other arm out from under the quilts to grab my hand tightly with both of his. “They . . .They were . . . were . . .” He finally looks about, eyes flitting over the room, stopping to widen at the sight of Uncle Saradoc and my father standing behind me. He now speaks to them. “Did they . . .” he hastily swallows, “. . . follow me? Did I lead them here? Is everyone . . .”

He’s struggling to rise but I easily hold him down.

“No, Freddy,” comes the Master’s voice. “No, lad. They didn’t follow you. No one . . .” He pauses and I know why. “No one has been hurt . . . unless . . .”

Freddy’s eyes widen. “No! No, sir, they’re gone. Gone. Several days now. Gone.” He falls back to the sofa, covering his face with his hands.

“Gone?” My father and his brother ask together.

“Gone,” Freddy mumbles from behind his hands. “Gone. Gone from the house. Gone from Buckland and the Shire. Into the Old Forest through the private entrance. Gone through the Hedge and into the Old Forest and . . . just gone.”

I’m suddenly chilled as though the door or a window had blown open. The room seems darker. Gone? Into the Old Forest? I didn’t miss that it sounded as though Freddy started to say more and had stopped himself. I feel cold to my heart. Gone?

I hear a scuffling behind me. My father barely catches his brother as he falls to the floor. I look at them, sitting on the floor, heaped together. They look as bloodless and cold as I feel. Son. Nephew. Cousins. Friend.

Gone.

############

Someone is shaking me. Let them. I’m tired.

“Mister Berilac. You’re needed.”

“G’way,” I mumble. I don’t even want to open my mouth to answer, let alone open my eyes. I was out all last night, and most of this day, sneaking two more families into the Hall. Two more families and four loads of goods from caches some of the farmers had managed to keep hidden. I’m tired. I’ve done my share.

“Berilac. It’s the Master’s request.”

Drat! I’ll have to open my eyes. I’ll have to actually get up. These days a request from the Master is an order, even when it is given to his nephew. Poor Uncle Saradoc, he hates that dealing with these Ruffians has driven our lives to that point.

“Thank you, Madoc. Tell him I’ll be there shortly.”

“You’re to be there now.”

I raise my head and open my eyes. “Now?”

“Now, Berilac.” Madoc knows he doesn’t need to be overly concerned with propriety if the matter is important. Apparently this is. “I was told to bring you naked if you were fool enough to be sleeping that way. Your uncle means right now.”

I throw off the covers, grab my dressing gown off its hook and put it on while heading for the office of the Master of Buckland.

“What’s this . . .”

“No idea, Mister Berilac. So there’s no need to ask.” Madoc is back to propriety now that we’re in the hallways and tunnels. He is escorting me as though I haven’t lived in the Hall my whole life and have never been to my uncle’s office. We walk hurriedly along in silence. All sorts of horrible thoughts are swirling about in my head. So many things that may have been discovered by the Ruffians and the punishments they may be doling out upon the hobbits of Buckland. Arriving at the office door, Madoc opens it for me then shuts it behind me.

My Uncle Saradoc sits behind his desk nearly glowing, my father sits in the secretary’s chair looking very much the same. In a chair before the desk, turned round to see me enter, is Theobald Bolger, one of the few from Freddy’s band of rebels who escaped the Ruffians. The thought of my dear Freddy away in the Lockholes clenches my heart, but even Theo has a look about him as though he’s a new father. I’ve not seen such happy faces for over a year.

“Your news, Theo. Tell Beri your news,” Uncle Saradoc says, his voice like a child’s at Yule.

“They came riding up after dark, dressed in armor and with swords. They climbed the gate and Merry chased off the Chief’s Big Man and . . .”

“Merry!”

I must have swooned as I am now sitting in the other chair before the Master’s desk and I’ve no recollection of sitting down. I can feel it, I’ve the same sappy smile on my face as the others do.

“Pippin?” I manage to whisper.

They all nod.

“Frodo? Sam?”

"I saw it with my own eyes." Even Theo’s voice is smiling, his hair bobbing with his nodding. “Yes. Yes, all four of them. It is the first time I've been glad to be the Master's eyes and ears at the Bridge as I've finally something good to report." He drew a deep breath and continued his tale. "The four of them were all done up in clothes like in the storybooks, with armor and swords and Merry and Pippin have shields as well. They were put out at how things are. Merry seemed to be in charge and tore up the no admittance notice then called to Pippin and they climbed the gate first. Merry ordered the Chief’s Big Man to leave. Threatened to run him through if he didn’t. Then Pippin tore up the rules in the Shirriff’s building and broke Rule 4 by stoking up the fire. Frodo said his family, meaning himself, needed to be dealing with the Pimple. That he needed putting in his place. It was a bit later that I took Merry aside and told him I was there for the Master and he sent me straight off to the Hall to bring my report.”

I’ve stood. I’m trembling from toe to top. “Where are they headed?”

“Hobbiton, of course, in the morning, to deal with Lotho-Pimple,” says Theo.

I’m already heading for the door. I shall leave as soon as I'm dressed. I need to see them for myself. I need to hear my cousin's voices. I need to hug them close and feel that they're real, then I need to throttle Merry for not telling me about all this to begin with. “Send word that I’m headed for the ferry and to have one of the ponies hidden at Maggot’s ready.”

They don’t ask where I’m going as I open and shut the office door to run through the hallways to my room. They know where I’m going. I want to welcome them home and then be there when my cousins and Sam set Freddy free.