Chapter 18. In which an argument is interrupted

What’s the worst that could happen?

So many times Merry had heard his mother ask it of his father, when Saradoc was gnawing over his worries like a dog with an old bone. What’s the worst? ...and Esmeralda would go on, with Tookish intensity, to spin such a web of unbelievable disaster that Buckland’s troubles would pale by comparison, until her husband would laugh at the absurdity, and throw his hands up in surrender, and take his wife and young son to picnic on the meadow.

‘What’s the worst that could happen?’ It seemed a talisman, of sorts, against the horror that was slowly sinking its claws into him now. He must fight the darkness, for Pippin’s sake, and if the death of his old friend was to be paid for.

‘What’s that?’ Pippin said, raising his head, looking away from the coals on the hearth. Percy had gone out, conceivably to fetch more firewood though he’d evidently lost himself along the way or had been drawn into conversation while in the yard, and the fire, unbanked and unmended, was dying. ‘What did you say? You ought not to mutter under your breath, Merry, you know that it drives me to distraction when you do that.’

‘Nothing,’ Merry said.

‘And that’s another thing,’ Pippin said irritably, rising to stretch. ‘When I ask, you always answer that it was nothing.’

Bell and two of her daughters were moving about, bringing sides of smoked meat and rounds of cheese and baskets of breadrolls to the large table on and under which Percy and his family had slept a bare hour or two, giving up their beds to the muster. The Tooks and Tooklanders would each be able to grab a few rolls, slice off as much meat and cheese as they wanted, stuff the rolls full and tie the makeshift meal up in a pocket-handkerchief to sustain them along their way. They carried food along with them, of course; Regi had seen to that, while organising the muster. But a good breakfast would lay a sound foundation for what might be a difficult chase.

‘I think I’ll get some air,’ Merry said, rising from his own cramped position and swirling his cloak around himself. He stepped carefully over and around the slumbering Tooks around them, eased the door open just enough to slip through, and closed it firmly behind him.

Outside, he was surprised to see the sky looking much lighter than it had from his vantage in the lamp-lit room, seen out of a window.

‘Sun’s throwing her promise into the sky,’ one of the hunters said quietly at his elbow, and he jumped. ‘I was just coming to waken the Thain,’ he added apologetically.

‘He’s awake,’ Merry said.

‘It’ll be light enough to see the trail, in perhaps half an hour,’ the hunter said. ‘Enough time for a bite and a sip, and then it’s off to the races.’ He fingered his cap to Merry and melted into the shadows once more, no doubt to waken the Tooks sleeping in the barn.

There was a smell of baking bread on the air, and Merry realised that the hobbits around the fires in the yard had wrapped bread dough, stirred up in the middle night by good Bell, around sticks and were “baking” it over the fire. He hadn’t done such a thing in years...

He stuck his head back in at the door of the smial and called, ‘Time to rise!’

And then, though he wasn’t at all hungry, he walked over to the fire, accepted the bread-laden stick someone offered, and concentrated on the baking at hand.

***

‘Nearly there,’ the brawny man said, scrutinising the great hills surrounding them. ‘Just up ahead... that hill, there. The opening is part-way up on the Eastern side, but there’s a sheltered spot at the base, where we can pass the daylight hours.’ He turned his head to call back softly to the others, ‘Nearly there.’

‘Nearly dawn,’ the fat man replied, ‘so it will be good to get under cover.’ They were too close to the Great Smials for his comfort. He didn’t want to run into any wandering hobbits. Just a few hilltops to the North was a whole warren of Tooks, and he didn’t fancy running afoul of their arrows.

‘Good to get under cover,’ Red echoed at his side, rubbing his hands together more from inner glee than the chill of the frosty air. ‘And in three hours they’ll have the gold at the Three-Farthing Stone, and we’ll form another little message for them, to tell them that there’s more to pay...’

His face twisted in a nasty smile as he looked to their captive, and a shudder of delight passed through his body.

‘Yes,’ the fat man said, ‘but that’s something I wanted to talk to you about. We need...’

‘My blade is sharp,’ Red said. ‘I’ve been honing it as we walked. I wanted to be ready.’

‘You’re a gem, little brother, a treasure indeed, but...’

‘But what?’ Red said, sensing trouble.

‘This is not our usual way of doing things,’ the fat man said. ‘We’re not in our own territory, where we know all the ins and outs and can easily throw off pursuers. We’ll have to go carefully.’

‘I know how to be careful,’ Red said, the whine back in his voice. ‘I know how to do things so that we don’t leave a blood trail, and...’

‘I’m ready,’ the club-wielder said at the fat man’s elbow. ‘You said, when we got there, that you’d have Orders.’

‘That’s right,’ the fat man said, glad to break off the argument. It would come up again, he knew, but it would be better if it waited until they were under cover, when they had some leisure time to go over the details of what must yet be done.

He looked to the Northeast, toward the Three-Farthing Stone. So close they were, fifteen miles, perhaps a little less. A man could trot the distance, and be in good time to claim the gold. Not that he had any illusions about the matter. The Thain of the Shire was no fool, though your common average hobbit might appear simple, to the likes of one who’d rubbed elbows with the nobles of Gondor, or to his companions, some of who'd known and served Lotho, and listened to Sharkey's grumblings in the night watches.

“No tricks” the note had said. Were the hobbits simple enough to believe it? They were said to be a trusting folk, not given to treachery and certainly not bred to suspicion. If a man went to fetch the gold, and it was unguarded, well, that would indeed be gravy on the taters, but if a man went to fetch the gold and ran into trouble, well, that would make for fewer to share in the riches they were about to strike. And no blame could attach itself to the fat man. Luck, pure and simple, and sometimes a man’s luck ran out.

He wondered what luck he was hoping for, even as he gestured to the club-wielder and put a fatherly hand on the man’s shoulder, turning him to look to the Northeast. ‘There,’ he said, ‘you just keep the sun at your right shoulder, and head a little toward her—you don’t want to go directly North, you understand, not unless you want to be chief guest at a banquet held by the Tooks...’

‘I understand,’ the club-wielder said.

‘Cross the Stock Road, and pretty soon you’ll recognise the territory. The Three-Farthing Stone is just to the South of Bywater, do you remember?’

‘I remember,’ the club-wielder said. He’d become quite familiar with the area around Bywater, running errands for Lotho Pimple.

‘I expect they’ll leave the gold there, about the third hour or so, and take themselves off, poor trusting souls that they are. If you see any about the Stone when you get there, just wait for them to depart.’

The club-wielder grinned unpleasantly. Yes, the hobbits he’d known had been simple folk, trusting and obedient, and not inclined to counter Orders. It was those upstarts, the ones who’d spent so much time in the Outlands, who’d been spoilt by the experience, they were the ones who’d thrown out the ruffians from their comfortable arrangements. But they were hobbits too, when all was said and done. They’d probably never even heard of a ransom before. To hobbits, contracts were sacred things, to be handled with care and not to be broken, and it made sense that they’d treat the ransom demand with the same care.

‘So you’ll fetch the gold and scoot yourself back here,’ the fat man said. ‘We’ll be done with our business here when the sun seeks her bed, and that gives you plenty of time to get there and back again. But,’ he raised a warning finger, ‘we cannot wait for you, if you’re late... you’ll have to find your own way out of the Shire.’

‘Shouldn’t be too hard,’ the club-wielder said, and hastened to add, ‘to get there and back again in time, I mean.’ Find his own way out of the Shire? He thought he could manage that, easily enough. He’d walked the length and breadth of the Shire, carrying messages for Lotho, and then for Sharkey, all except for the land of the Tooks, of course, but once he was near Bywater he wouldn’t have to worry about Tooks any more. Why not scoop the bag of gold from the Three-Farthing Stone and just keep going? The idea sounded better to him the more he thought about it.

What kind of luck am I hoping for? the fat man mused, but he let his face fall into a jovial smile, slapped the club-wielder’s back, and said, ‘So be off with you! And good luck!’