Prologue: No Laughing-Matter

At last the glad day was at an end; the Sun was gone and the round Moon rode slowly above the mists of Anduin and flickered through the fluttering leaves and the air seemed alive with the whispering of the trees. Samwise took a deep breath of the fragrance of Ithilien and patted his belly, such that it was, as he sat down near where Frodo and Merry were already deep in talk. There was no need for lanterns; the moonlight was bright enough to read by, as if that Jolly Old Fellow strove to make up for the days of darkness they had passed through.

‘A fair feast it was, master,’ he said, ‘and in fairer company than that stewed rabbit and herbs, when last we supped in Ithilien.’

‘But not so fair as the feast that day,’ Frodo said with a laugh. ‘Think on it, Merry! Stewed rabbit, in the middle of nowhere, with no place to lay our heads, and nothing but darkness ahead. Stewed rabbit, with herbs, no less!’

‘And taters, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear,’ Merry said, clapping Sam on the shoulder, ‘dug wild in the middle of the Wilderland.’

‘Our Samwise is a wonder, he is indeed,’ Pippin chimed, entering the grove with a tray in his hands.

Merry scrambled to his feet. ‘Let me help you with that, cousin!’

Pippin grinned and cocked an eye at the older hobbits. ‘So helpful, he is,’ he said, ‘especially when more of that good wine is to be had.’ He let Merry take the tray and its load of glasses, retaining possession of the wine bottle by a quick grab at the neck.

‘Steady, now!’ Gandalf said behind him. ‘Let us treat our honoured guest with the respect it deserves! Do not shake that bottle, you young Tomfool of a Took!’

‘Music to my ears,’ Pippin sighed, but he put the bottle down more gently than he’d taken it up.

Gandalf soon had the cork pulled, without need for the proper implement, which Pippin had neglected to fetch in any event, and the rich dark wine was soon gurgling into the glasses.

At first Frodo put up a hand, refusing regretfully, but Gandalf pressed him, saying that he should take a little wine for the sake of his stomach, and that it would nicely settle the food from the feast.

‘But you were to tell the tale, of how you came to be dressed as esquires, no--knights, rather,’ Frodo said after the first appreciative sip, turning an eye on Pippin, and then Merry, in turn. The White Tree on the youngest hobbit’s breast gleamed silver in the moonlight, while the green horse that Merry bore ran dark and mysterious against its shining ground. ‘I did “try” Gandalf, as you suggested, Pip, but it is as you said.’

‘What, he didn’t tell?’ Pippin said, affecting surprise.

Sam saw that he seated himself rather stiffly on the ground before holding out his glass to be filled, but Frodo’s face was turned towards the wizard in his white-gleaming robes. ‘Not so close as he used to be, indeed!’ the latter said merrily. ‘A laugh is as good as a frown, it seems, when he chooses not to speak!’

‘It is not my tale to tell,’ the wizard said quietly, his eyebrows bristling as fierce as ever as he glanced at the two young knights of the City and the Mark, though his tone was mild and there might have been satisfaction, even pride, in the look.

‘There are tales to be telling, and that’s the truth of it,’ Sam said, getting up from his seat. ‘Come here, Merry, for it seems to me that you’re taller than you ought to be, and at your age I wouldn’t expect you still to be growing!’

Merry obligingly stepped up, and Sam moved to stand back-to-back with him, as though they fought a foe; though he appealed instead to Frodo. ‘See now,’ he said, ‘which of us is the taller? I at least held my own with Mister Merry, before we left the Shire, or had perhaps half an inch advantage...’

‘You have the right of it, Sam!’ Frodo said in astonishment. Gandalf steadied him as he gained his own feet. He sipped once more at his glass and then handed it to Pippin, who sat calmly watching. ‘Why,’ he went on, putting his palm atop Merry’s head and slipping it through the air, ‘he’s a good three inches taller, now!’ He turned, ‘Pippin!’

‘Here I am, cousin!’ Pippin chirped brightly.

‘What sort of trick is this? Did you...?’ Frodo peered suspiciously at the ground, but Merry wore no boots, to raise him to unexpected heights, nor did he stand upon rock or prop.

‘Why is it always my fault?’ Pippin said, his tone eminently reasonable.

Merry laughed. ‘Because it is always your fault, one way or another,’ he said. ‘Why, if it hadn’t been for you, I...’

Pippin gained his feet a little more slowly than his wont, and was that a twinge of pain that crossed his face? Sam wondered. But he spoke cheerily enough as he interrupted Merry.

‘Always my fault,’ he repeated, ‘one way or another. A fine epitaph that will make! Be sure to etch it on my headstone, some eighty or an hundred years hence!’

‘Will you be rivalling the Old Took, then?’ Merry said gaily, stepping away from Sam to take up his own glass once more.

‘If it’s good enough for Bilbo...’ Pippin answered, but Frodo pulled him to Sam’s side with a firm “Stand there, now, like a good little lad.’

‘Little, my foot!’ Merry laughed, and Samwise, turning his head, had to agree.

‘He’s a good three inches taller than me as well,’ he said, ‘and while he might’ve grown an inch or even two along the way... he was half a head shorter than myself, Mr. Frodo, when we left Crickhollow, or I’m an Elf!’

‘You are no Elf, Sam,’ Legolas said, laughing as he entered the grove with Gimli. ‘Have you drunk up all the wine already, or is there some left for the Three Hunters?’

‘I see only two,’ Pippin said, ‘but there’s plenty more where that came from. I have it on good authority from the Third Hunter himself.’

‘Third hunter?’ Sam said. Gandalf laughed, and Sam’s eyes widened. ‘Strider?’ he said. ‘He has yet another name?’ He began to count on his fingers. ‘Strider, Hunter, King...’

‘Elfstone,’ Merry put in helpfully. ‘That’s what they called him in Minas Tirith, as he went around healing after the battle...’

‘The battle?’ Frodo said. ‘You were in Minas Tirith after a battle?’

Pippin laughed. ‘He was in the battle, dear cousin!’ he said, and at Frodo’s dumbfounded look added, ‘in the very midst, no less!’

‘What... What were you doing in the middle of a battle, Merry?’ Frodo said, putting his hands on his hips and staring sternly up at his younger cousin, for the first time struck by the difference in height. ‘Haven’t you any more sense than that?’

‘You might ask the same of the youngster,’ Gimli rumbled, and Frodo turned an astonished look on Pippin.

‘Pip?’

Pippin spread his hands, though the gesture was somewhat spoiled by the half-filled wineglasses he held. ‘It was nothing,’ he said.

‘Nothing!’ Frodo and Gimli said together, and Frodo added sternly, ‘There are definitely more tales to tell than ours, as you said, Samwise, and I, for one, am ready to hear them now!’

‘Now, Frodo,’ Pippin began, all seriousness now, but Merry said, ‘You know how it is when he takes that tone...’

‘Nothing for it but to ‘fess up,’ Pippin said, though he looked down at his feet and shuffled them a bit, as if to make sure of the ground he stood upon. He and Merry had talked about it, after all, and how Frodo would likely take the news of their adventures, pale as they were by comparison to his and Sam’s endeavours. He hadn’t wanted them to come along in the first place, and any hint of danger to his cousins had been enough to pull him out from under the growing burden of the Ring as they travelled ever southwards.

‘More tales than ours,’ Sam agreed, turning and running the flat palm of his hand from the top of Pippin’s head to the air over his own curly top. ‘Three inches taller than you ought to be,’ he added, ‘even allowing for the way a tween can grow!’

‘Assuming, of course, the tween has food in plenty, and sleep for growing on,’ Frodo said, ‘none of which Pippin has had, the past few months, unless he fell into a featherbed stuffed with sweetmeats after we parted company...’

‘Sounds most uncomfortable,’ Pippin said, screwing up his face in a comical way, but his elder cousin was not to be deterred.

‘After we parted company,’ Frodo repeated. ‘Just what sort of mischief have you been up to, Peregrin Took?’

***

Author's Note: Chapter titles taken from “A Conspiracy Unmasked” in Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien. Some text taken from "The Field of Cormallen" in The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien. None of the characters are mine, though on occasion we take tea together.

And no, I don't really have writing time once more. This simply sprang to life in a doctor's waiting room, and so I took a little time this morning to type the first chapter in, and will hope to get up extra early on the morrow to get the rest posted. Think good thoughts.