Chapter 3. Not Too Safe

‘Well,’ said Merry, affecting deep thought about the matter, ‘I suppose we were really in it, and no going back, when the Riders of Rohan attacked. Seeing as how they wouldn’t be likely to know a hobbit from a hole in the ground, we thought discretion the better part of valour, and crept under the cover of Fangorn Forest...’

‘The Riders of Rohan attacked...’ Frodo began, but Pippin interrupted.

‘And that’s where we met Fangorn, Sam! I mean, Treebeard!’ At Sam’s puzzled look, he went on, ‘You know! Ents!’

‘Tall as a tree, and he looked a great deal like one as well,’ Merry said.

‘He’d never heard of hobbits!’ Pippin put in. ‘He made a new line, just for us!’

‘I thought you were told to hush,’ Frodo told the youngest hobbit. ‘You’re rather muddling things, rather than making them clear.’

‘And that was when we met Gandalf, again, of course,’ Merry said, not to be turned from his course. ‘The Ents were rather stirred up by all of Sauruman’s doings, and so they marched upon Isengard...”

‘The Riders of Rohan attacked,’ Frodo repeated, seizing the strand and pulling with all his might, in the interest of untangling the tale. ‘Why would the Riders of Rohan have attacked? It seems to me that they are a large part of Strider’s forces, at least from the numbers of them to have been standing on the Field, earlier.’ He turned an eye on Sam. ‘Didn’t he say they were from Rohan, when you asked, Sam?’

‘The fellows with the horses on their surcoats, yes, that’s right, Mr Frodo,’ Sam said obligingly. ‘And the ones in the black, with the silver Tree, were...’

‘Yes, I know very well,’ Frodo said. ‘Boromir’s Tree.’

‘No, Strider’s,’ Pippin said logically.

‘Why would the Riders have attacked?’ Frodo wanted to know. ‘We weren’t offering them any harm...’

‘They were rather disturbed to find intruders in their territory,’ Merry said. With any luck at all, they wouldn’t have to mention Orcs. After Frodo’s experience with Orcs, surely it was better to leave the creatures out of the tale.

But he had not anticipated... ‘And they slew Boromir?’ Frodo said, deeply grieved, and putting down the wineglass, he covered his face with his hands. ‘How evil did set good men, one against another...' Uncovering his face again, he whispered, 'Faramir said there were the marks of many wounds upon him.’

‘N-no,’ Merry stammered, at a loss. ‘It wasn’t like that, at all!’

‘It’s a wonder they all stood so proper, in their ranks and all, and didn’t fall upon one another,’ Sam said reflectively. ‘What with Boromir being slain by the Riders...’

‘No!’ Pippin said, rather more strongly than he ought, for his face twisted in pain and his hands went again to his breast.

‘Steady breaths,’ Gandalf remonstrated, but the tween pushed at his restraining – er, supporting hands. The wizard had promised Frodo's cousins that he'd let them tell their tale, in their own way, but he was beginning to have second thoughts on the matter.

‘It wasn’t the Riders,’ Pippin said, vehement despite the discomfort it cost him, ‘and I cannot believe that you of all hobbits, Merry, would allow such a...’

‘Pip!’ Merry hissed, but Frodo overrode him.

‘Not the Riders,’ he said. ‘But you just said the Riders attacked you at Parth Galen...’

‘Begging your pardon, Master, but they never said no word about Parth Galen,’ Sam said. He had a good ear for detail.

‘The Riders were attacking the Orcs,’ Pippin insisted, and now that the word had been spoken, Merry’s shoulders slumped in defeat.

‘Orcs,’ Frodo said slowly.

‘Orcs,’ Pippin said, drooping in Gandalf’s grip, but he forced himself to sit up again, straighter, before anyone could suggest he might be carried away to his bed.

‘That would make more sense,’ Frodo said. ‘Orcs killed Boromir, not Riders of Rohan...’

‘Of course not the Riders,’ Merry snapped. ‘Boromir had a great deal of respect for the Rohirrim.’

‘And didn’t they lend him a horse, to ride to Rivendell?’ Pippin said. His breathing was better, now that the horrid word Orc had been spoken, brought out into the open, and Frodo had showed no signs of fainting or other distress. ‘They wouldn’t just give a horse to anyone. They didn’t even want to give a horse to Gandalf!’

‘Fancy that,’ Merry said, to stop the flow of words before Pippin said anything else that they’d agreed not to tell Frodo, at least not on his first day “up”.

‘And so Orcs attacked the Company, and slew Boromir,’ Frodo said, ‘and the Riders, hearing the sounds of battle, came to your rescue.’

‘It was something like that,’ Merry said, obliged to be truthful, but Frodo beetled his eyebrows at the younger hobbits.

‘Something,’ Frodo said sternly. ‘Just what is it that I’m missing?’

Pippin decided to go straight to the point. ‘Frodo only got up for the first time today,’ he said, turning his head to crane up at Gandalf. ‘Oughtn’t he to be going to bed, soon?’ After all, he and Merry had agreed not to tell Frodo about the Orcs today and he couldn’t think of any other way to keep the news from coming out, as things were shaping.

‘Sounds like the pot calling the kettle “black” to me,’ Frodo said. ‘If anyone’s for bed, it looks to be you. Now... What is it that I’m missing, Pippin?’

‘I thought you told me to “hush”,’ Pippin said in his most plaintive tone.

‘Well, I’m telling you to un-hush,’ Frodo said. ‘Merry has not done a satisfactory job of explaining, no, not at all.’ His expression grieved, he added in a lower tone, ‘I had been hoping, by leaving you, that you’d keep safe somehow... that Boromir would take you to his City, or that somehow you’d find your way home again...’

‘Rather like stray pups,’ Pippin said vaguely, to Sam’s surprise, for the same thought had crossed the gardener’s mind.

‘Keep safe,’ Merry echoed, and began to laugh, but it was not a happy sound.

‘Not too safe,’ Pippin affirmed, but he kept himself from laughing, which was still something of a painful exercise for him. Instead he drew a shaky breath, and forced a smile.

‘I can imagine, with Orcs attacking,’ Frodo said. ‘And,’ he said, feeling his way, ‘and... Boromir fought them.’ He nodded to himself. ‘He died fighting them, but you lived...' With sudden insight, he said, 'He was slain defending you... I’m glad...’

His cousins looked at him in shock, but Legolas nodded. ‘He redeemed himself,’ the Wood Elf said, ‘after nearly losing himself to the Ring.’

‘I am glad that he was not forever lost,’ Frodo said, and sighed. ‘He was a brave man, and a good one, and I hoped we might meet again under different circumstances.’