Note to the Reader: Still horror, but the tide is beginning to turn by the end. If you are sensitive, please skip this chapter. Firmly PG-13. There will be a short summary at the beginning of Chapter 27, so you won't miss any plot points if you choose to skip the horror. And thank you for your patience. 

Chapter 26. In which a lecture is interrupted

‘And so, Red, if you’ll do the honours,’ the fat man said, and the youngest of the ruffians held his breath, dreading what he was about to see.

But Red merely leaned forward to undo the young hobbit’s shirt-buttons, baring the small chest, where gooseflesh sprang to life at the chill, and sat back once more, though he ran his tongue around his lips as if he hungered mightily.

‘Beg pardon, little master,’ the fat man said, dipping the pen again and inking a precise circle over Farry’s heart.

Farry withdrew from the tickling sensation, frightened, he knew not why.

‘Don’t move, now,’ the fat man said, and the hobbit child froze, not wanting to anger his captor. His hands and feet had been unbound, but he sat in the man’s lap, and the fat man had a good hold on Farry, with his free hand, and Red and the young ruffian sat in the mouth of the cave, between Farry and freedom. ‘We want to give our artistry a moment or two to dry. Shame to smear it.’

And when he deemed the ink dry, he put down the pen and buttoned Farry’s shirt himself, fumbling a little with the tiny buttons, no larger than those on baby clothes, in the world of Men. So he had done up Red’s clothes for him, long ago and in another world, it seemed. ‘Wouldn’t want you to take a chill, now, would we?’

Everything that was in Farry screamed at him to jump down, to try to run, but the fat man had a good grip on his shirt, and Farry knew that should he try to slide out of his clothing his captor would know it, before he won free. There’d be no point. No, he must watch for a better opportunity... If one came along. He thought desperately of his father and Uncle Merry. Please come! he begged within himself. Please hurry!

‘And now,’ the fat man said, pulling the coiled-up binding ropes from his pocket, ‘we’ve finished our artwork, and we can restore these...’ and he quickly and efficiently bound Farry’s wrists once more, and the young hobbit’s ankles, and Farry noticed for the first time the ink on his hands, and on his shorn feet, and it gave him a dreadful feeling though he did not know what it meant.

He did not remain in ignorance for long, for once the binding was done, the fat man sat him up again, his lap for a chair and his belly for a cushion, and resumed his lecture. ‘The next part,’ he said, ‘needs no cutting lines. Indeed, it would be awkward to try to mark...’

‘You just gouge them out,’ Red said, leaning forward with an eager look. ‘You can use your thumb to press them out, or a spoon, perhaps... You want them to come out whole, of course, so that they are recognisably eyes.’

Farry shrank back against the fat man’s stomach, a questionable refuge at best.

‘I like to take them slowly,’ Red went on, looking to the young ruffian to see if he was listening with proper attention, ‘slowly, mind, and one at a time. How they stare! You have to have someone holding him down, still, for he’ll fight and try to turn his head away, but it’s better when he’s awake and aware and knowing...’ He circled his lips with his tongue again. ‘Especially after you’ve taken the first eye, and he knows exactly what is about to happen, and then,’ his voice cracked with glee, ‘he knows exactly what is happening, as you take the second.’

Farry’s mouth had opened in silent horror, and Red grinned at the sight.

‘And then after,’ he went on inexorably, ‘after that, of course, you take his tongue. Cut it right out, you do, and listen to him gurgle as his mouth fills with blood...’

‘Enough,’ the fat man said. ‘He has the picture.’ And he might have been talking about the young ruffian, but Farry had the awful picture as well, clear in his mind.

‘Please,’ he whispered. ‘Please, have pity...’

Red’s grin grew, and he positively salivated. ‘Good lad,’ he whispered. ‘Nice lad. I knew you’d be a fine beggar, if we only gave you the opportunity.’

But fear had taken all of Farry’s pride and resolve. His eyes filled with tears, and he looked from the fat man’s calm and pitiless gaze to the white-faced young ruffian. ‘Please,’ he begged, ‘Please, no,’ and then he lifted his voice and began to shriek as loud as he could, ‘Help! Help me! Please! Help!’

He struggled against the gag, but the fat man soon had it tied in place, for one could scarcely lecture with such a disturbance going on.

‘Now, if the family are slow to pay,’ he continued, ‘we’ll do things decently and in order, just one token a day, to hurry them along in gathering the gold,’ he said, touching the appropriate places on Farry’s body as he spoke. ‘Ear first, and then thumbs, and then toes...’

‘That’s three days,’ Red informed the young ruffian. ‘And if you be sure to do your carving at the same hour each day, they come to know when it’s approaching, and it is diverting to watch their dread increase as the sun climbs in the sky.’

‘Very diverting,’ the fat man said dismissively, ‘and if three days is not sufficient, well, perhaps the eyes will hurry them along. You may take one eye a day, if you think they’ll require more time, or both at once.’

The young ruffian nodded again, swallowing down the bile that rose in his throat. Perhaps chimney-sweeping was not such a dirty business after all. Cleaner than this, anyhow. But he’d made his bed... he knew that they’d never let him get away with his life, should he try to escape them.

‘And then the tongue,’ the fat man said, ‘and then, if the guest has been pleasant and cooperative, eager to please and not to offend, you might do him the kindness of cutting out his heart before you leave him for his penny-pinching relatives to find. Assuming, of course, that they’ve neglected to pay your wages for your time and trouble.’

‘Wages,’ Red chuckled. He loved a good jest.

Farry wanted to vomit, but the gag in his mouth made that a dismal prospect. He had no doubt that these cruel ruffians would allow him to choke on the unpleasant result, and the cloth in his mouth would end up tasting unbearably foul, and they’d leave it there to torment him further, at least until the moment came for them to take it out, to take his tongue.

‘Of course,’ the fat man went on, ‘if there’s treachery—if they should set a trap, to try to catch the one who goes to collect the gold—why, then it’s simple butchery. No need to spread the work over a week of days; you just take it all, and leave the wretch for his deceitful relatives to find.’

‘Deceitful is right,’ panted a new voice. Farry had squeezed his eyes shut, but now he opened them, to see the brawny man standing in the mouth of the cave. ‘They set a trap, by the Three-Farthing Stone.’

‘And...’ the fat man said delicately.

‘He’s dead,’ the brawny man said.

‘Well, then,’ Red said, reaching for his knife. ‘Let’s get started.’

***

Jay held up his hand, bringing his hobbits to a stop, and then he bent over, hands on his knees, panting for breath.

Mayor Samwise was not far behind, and he seemed in much better physical condition even than his Shirriff.

‘What is it?’ he said, puffing a bit, but not so out of breath that he couldn’t speak.

Jay took a few more gasping breaths and straightened. ‘Two of them,’ he said succinctly. ‘Look!’

Sam looked. ‘Two, coming towards the Stone,’ he confirmed. The footprints were different. ‘And one, going back.’

‘The paths cross here,’ the Shirriff said, regaining his breath. ‘But they weren’t travelling together, not if I’m reading the signs aright.’

‘Which do we follow?’ Sam said.

Jay took a moment to scratch his head. The decision was critical; a young hobbit’s life might hang in the balance. ‘It could be a trick. The second could be leading us away...’ he said.

‘Or the ruffians have moved,’ Sam said. ‘Or there are two groups of ruffians.’ He looked troubled. ‘But that would be a greater failing on the part of the Northern Rangers than I’d like to imagine.’

‘What do we do, then?’ Jay asked. The Mayor'd had more dealings with Men than the Shirriff had, even with the Battle of Bywater in Jay's experience.

‘We’ll split the group,’ Sam decided. He motioned the others to gather around, quickly dividing them evenly according to weapons and ability. He’d lead one group, and Jay would lead the other, and perhaps they’d meet somewhere beyond.

‘Good hunting,’ Sam said in parting.

Jay raised a hand. ‘And you,’ he said, and then he let his hand fall, and he was off at a slow run, just slow enough to keep the footprints in view, and his followers on his heels watching ahead, wary of traps.

Sam waved his own hobbits into motion, and nose nearly to the ground, with those behind him looking ahead of them, to watch for ruffians’ tricks, he ran.

***

‘No,’ the fat man countered, unexpectedly, and he took up Red’s knife before the younger brother could. ‘We have to keep this one alive, long enough to cross over the Bounds.’

‘But,’ Red said, ‘they have to be punished! They’re not playing the game as it ought to be played!’

‘They’re hobbits,’ the fat man said. ‘They most like don’t even know the rules. No, there’s a reason for what we do here, and ransom is not what we’re after.’

‘It’s not?’ Red and the youngest ruffian said together, in matching surprise.

‘No,’ the fat man said. ‘No, what we need from this young son of the Thain is protection, and diversion.’

‘Diversion,’ Red said slowly.

‘Not as you mean, little brother,’ the fat man said. ‘We’re not talking about your whiling away the hours with a little pleasant knife-work. No, we’re talking about diverting the Thain from his purpose, distracting the hobbits with rage and grief, from thinking clearly, from realising where we are, and where we’re bound.’

He spat. ‘We don’t want to risk a blood trail. There’ll be no cutting of ears or toes, or thumbs, for that matter.’

‘But there will be knife-work,’ Red said, a little anxiously.

Farry too was anxious, for related reasons, and he held his breath to listen.

The fat man smiled and held the knife out—to the young ruffian. ‘You’ll take out his eyes, and his tongue, as you’ve been instructed,’ he said. ‘Take the eyes first, and if he doesn’t faint from it, you’ll have to give him a rap with the hilt of the knife, right about here,’ he indicated the place on Farry’s head with the knife’s hilt, ‘stun him just long enough to relax his jaw, not hard enough to crack his skull, of course.’

‘Why him?’ Red cried in frustration.

‘Because, little brother, you and I will be preparing to fetch our fortune,’ the fat man said, ‘for we need to make torches—there are none in this little cave, for some reason. We’ll have to cut some saplings in the copse there, and rub oil into cloths and wrap the heads.’  Then he turned to the young ruffian, to say, ‘Write out the last note you learned, the one to be sent when there’s been treachery, and then take our young guest, find a secluded spot not far away to do the deed.’

‘Why not in the cave?’ the young ruffian said, trying to keep his mind occupied with practical matters, details other than the terrible thing he was about to do.

‘Don’t want to risk spooking the ponies,’ the fat man said. ‘They’ll be carrying heavy loads soon; we don’t want a panic at the smell of blood, perhaps have one of them injure herself. That young one is enough of a fighter already. Here, now,’ he went on, digging out a large and not-very-clean handkerchief from his pocket. ‘Wrap up the parts in this...’ The young ruffian took the cloth, bundling it quickly into his own pocket without thinking, listening to the fat man’s continued instructions. ‘Bring it all back to our well-muscled friend, here,’ and the brawny man grunted, from where he sprawled on the piled cloaks, resting from his labours, ‘and he’ll take it and leave it where it can be found and brought to the Thain. While he’s dithering over it, we’ll be making our way out of the Shire...’

The fat man carefully tore another section from the Shire-map he carried and handed it to the young ruffian, then busied himself among the packs. The note was quick to write, easy enough, save for the horrified eyes that silently watched each letter as he formed it. The young ruffian sighed and rubbed the cramp from his hand after he laid down the pen, not looking at Farry. The fat man read the note over, nodded in satisfaction, and set the note down, with a rock over it in the event the breeze might come up. Wouldn't want to take any chances, have the note blow away, have to tear another section from the dwindling map to replace it. The young ruffian took up Red's knife and tested the edge of the blade. It was as sharp as any edge he'd ever known.

The hobbit child struggled and protested as well as he could, bound hand and foot and gagged, but the young ruffian slid the knife into his boot, to free both his hands, and lifted Farry without much trouble, bearing him away.

The young ruffian moved around the base of the great hill, finding at last a sheltered place, a grassy dip, with thornbushes screening three sides, and he laid the young hobbit down, and then he took himself off behind the brambles, for some reason, perhaps a call of nature.

There was no way of escape for Farry, of course, bound hand and foot as he was. He might worm himself a short distance before the ruffian returned, but he wouldn’t get far.

Farry was breathing rapidly, dizzy with fear, but as he looked up at the bulk of the hill looming above them, hoping against hope to see hobbits coming for him, his eyes widened in recognition. He knew this place! “Hoard Hill” it was, where previous Thains had kept their treasure, of old, until Ferumbras (perhaps on Lalia’s urging, or perhaps with the increase in strangers in the Shire in his last years as Thain) had removed all to the fastness of the Great Smials.

But the old storehole had not gone unused, in later years. Farry’s father had found it an excellent place to keep the Tookland’s supplies of black powder, the secret of which Gandalf had given King Elessar, before he departed over the Sea, that the beauty of fireworks might not be lost for ever from Middle-earth. And the King, after giving a great deal of thought to the matter, had entrusted his friends and Counsellors to the North Kingdom with the secret, for their love of wonder, and their delving. The Shire engineers had learned, after initial suspicion, to use the stuff, and now large dwellings and storeholes could be delved in a fraction of the time needed previously.

If the ruffians were to enter the upper storehole, a little more than halfway up the great hill, with torches...

Farry’s head cleared and suddenly he felt steady, cold and steady. They were going to do this terrible thing, the ruffians were, and their life or death was in his hands. He could speak, and spare them, or he could remain silent.

They were going to cut out his tongue anyhow, he argued with himself. They were going to put out his eyes, and torment his father with the results.

But if he did not speak, when the young ruffian removed the gag, would he be any better than the ruffians? Would he not be a murderer, by omission?

He squeezed his eyes shut. He must think. He was about to die, he was sure of it, and what did he want on his conscience, when he died? Would they welcome a murderer at the Feast?

...but his Uncle Ferdi had killed a ruffian, in the Troubles, he argued with himself. And hobbits had killed Men in the Battle of Bywater. But Frodo Baggins had stopped hobbits from killing unarmed men.

These Men were pitiless, Farry thought to himself. They were evil. It would be fitting for them to be blotted out in their greed. They would be the agents of their own destruction.

Farry, himself, would be destroyed with them, no doubt. But if he spoke, to warn them, they would destroy him anyhow.

With difficulty, he decided to remain silent.

As it turned out, he had no chance to speak. The young ruffian returned, wiping his mouth, having evidently been sick at what he’d been asked to do, and crouching down before Farry, he said, ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry, lad. I... I don’t want to do this. I wish...’

Then don’t! Farry willed, staring into the eyes that gazed so earnestly into his.

The young ruffian seemed to read the words in Farry’s eyes, for he dropped his gaze and then raised it again, to stare steadfastly into the eyes he was about to plunder. ‘I must,’ he said, ‘for you see, if I were to let you go, they’d take my eyes and tongue, and wrap them in a cloth, and send them in a note to your father, saying they were yours...’

He took a shuddering breath and raised the knife, and Farry, despite his resolve, flinched away. But the young ruffian reversed the knife, holding the blade between his fingers, hefting the knife as if feeling its weight. ‘You won’t feel anything,’ he said thinly. ‘Not a thing. I promise you that, at least. It’s all I can do...’

He put a restraining knee on Farry’s chest, took hold of Farry’s chin with a firm hand, and took aim. Farry could not help closing his eyes as the knife came down... and then darkness took him.

***

The young hobbit lay limp before him, but still the young ruffian hesitated. The sun shone down on him, accusing, flooding the hollow with light. The birds had ceased their singing as if horrified by what was about to happen. ‘I must,’ he whispered. Swallowing hard, setting his jaw, steeling himself, he moved to begin... and froze.

There was a thrashing noise in the thornbushes, not far away. He hadn’t noticed it before, but in the silence it intruded on his concentration.

He sat back, and then leaned forward to try again, but his hand was shaking. ‘I cannot,’ he whispered, and sudden tears came to his eyes. Perhaps he could take the young hobbit, get away somehow... but Red would come after them. He’d find them, and extract a terrible revenge. And the young hobbit would suffer worse, much worse.

The thrashing noise came again, and he pushed himself to his feet, telling himself that he needed to look into the matter. Perhaps there were hobbits closing in, and he must run back to the cave to warn the others. It was as good an excuse as any. He’d be running out of time soon, and if Red came looking and found the job not yet done...

There was a lamb, of all things, in the thornbushes. A mute lamb, it seemed, for the poor thing thrashed pitifully, staring at him with pleading eyes, opening its little mouth in a silent b-a-a-a-a-a.

‘Poor little fellow,’ the young ruffian said. He moved to free the lamb, though what it would do without its mam was beyond him. Perhaps they could carry it with them, roast it after they passed the Bounds of the Shire, once it was safe once more to kindle fire.

And then the thought struck him, and he sucked in his breath. Could he do it? Could he make it work? Would the fat man believe the deception?