Chapter 8. So Close, and Yet So Far Away

They’d followed Wren’s track to the fishing trail, though it was hardly the time of year for fishing! Certainly from the signs, Tolly’d had trouble with the slippery slope.

Renilard was in something of an ill humour, for on top of the after-effects of last night’s celebration, he’d nearly fallen from the top of the bluff into the stream, saved only by a lucky grab at protruding tree roots, and then he’d slipped on his way down the hill again, rolling to the bottom and ending mud-covered, damp, and shivering.

‘We ought to get you back to the Smials,’ said his assistant, who’d waited at the bottom while he followed Tolly’s trail to the top, but the chief hunter shook off Raolf’s helping hands, once he’d regained his feet.

He gave Raolf a sharp look. Mud and all, he thought he might look better than Raolf, who was definitely showing signs of having had one over the top, the previous night. Or perhaps two. Or ten.

‘I still don’t know what is what,’ he snapped. ‘Did Tolly find signs of ruffians, this close to the Smials, and decide to investigate? I cannot imagine any other reason for him to climb the bluff this time of year.’

‘If he did, then he wiped out the signs in his passing, and you’ve put the icing on the cake,’ Raolf grumbled, wiping at his brow. ‘But while you were larking about on the bluff I was going over the ground here, and it looks as if he made his way along the bank of the stream from here, heading downstream.’

‘Of course he’d have to head downstream,’ Renilard muttered. ‘Couldn’t very well head upstream along the bank here, where the stream has cut such a deep bed for itself.’ And he thought to himself that bed was just where he’d like to be at this moment, his own bed, alongside the warm lump of his wife, and no thought of such shuddery things as streams and muddy descents.

Raolf grunted and the hunters mounted their ponies, turning to follow the trail of Wren’s passing. The sun was climbing the sky, making the air less icy, and the snow was softening somewhat, the pony’s tracks no longer crisp and clean-edged, though still fairly easy to follow.

They’d gone some way along the stream, a mile perhaps, with no sign of Tolly ahead, just the trail of pony tracks leading away from the Great Smials. They’d gone slowly, and the morning was half-gone, and no sign of Tolly.

‘Likely he didn’t ride back this way,’ Renilard had said along the way, and more than once, ‘but is already at the Smials, reporting to the Thain and sipping something hot into the bargain.’ It sounded wonderful to him, but he couldn’t very well report to the Thain until he came to the end of this trail, now, could he?

Renilard had got down from his pony once or twice, to see if there might be sign of ruffians underlying Tolly’s trail, but he didn’t find anything. They were following a trail alongside the Tuckbourn of an icy morn, with no good reason, save that Tolly had gone that way first. And then...

‘What’s that?’ Renilard said, pulling up his pony. Raolf didn't answer; the hobbit seemed to be deep in thought, his head down as if he scrutinised the ground with more than his usual care.

Renilard had seen something dark ahead, spread on the snow, and he kneed his pony forward once more, pulling up a few strides before reaching the dark object, which resolved itself into Tolly’s cloak, a small dark blot lying off-centre and another to the side, an overlarge black spider spreading itself on the whiteness of the snow.

He blinked his eyes and shook his head, and the spider became a glove, cast aside for whatever reason. ‘No cloak?’ he said, his words issuing in little puffs of steam on the icy air, ‘...in this weather? No gloves?’

He turned his head to order Raolf to gather up cloak and gloves, just in time to see his assistant, face devoid of colour, slump in his saddle and then slide off to the side, falling to the ground with a thump.

‘What in the world is the matter with you?’ he said, jumping from his own saddle (though it jarred his aching head) and hurrying to his assistant, who lay in a crumpled heap. The sight of a cloak and gloves ought not to make a grown hobbit, a hunter no less, swoon!

But as he picked up his assistant in his arms and turned the hobbit over, he could feel the heat coming from the body, even through the sweat-soaked woollen jacket and cloak. He swore under his breath and called his assistant’s name.

Raolf’s face was deathly pale and little rivulets of sweat trickled from under his hairline. At Renilard’s repeated summons, he blinked and stirred, hugging himself. ‘C-c-c-c-old,’ he chattered, and then, looking up into his chief’s face, he said, ‘What’s happened?’

‘You swooned,’ Renilard said grimly. ‘You’re not fit to be out here. Come along, let’s get you into the saddle.’

And he helped his assistant to his feet, and with Raolf leaning heavily against him, staggered the step or two to Raolf’s waiting pony. The beast had been trained to stand when his rider left him, but seemed mildly astonished at his rider’s manner of dismounting in this instance, and turned its head to watch the struggle to re-mount.

‘You’re going to have to help me a little,’ Renilard grunted. His assistant was quite a bit heavier than he was himself.

‘Help you,’ Raolf said stupidly. ‘Help you do what?’

‘Get on the benighted pony!’ Renilard snapped.

Raolf nodded wisely. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘You have the right of it.’ But then he slumped once again, and Renilard nearly dropped him.

Somehow the chief hunter managed to fix Raolf’s foot in the stirrup, and somehow he managed to get himself under his assistant’s weight and boost Raolf into the saddle. He could feel the hobbit shivering, and so he took off his own cloak and wrapped it round. Then, taking his own pony’s reins in hand, he mounted behind Raolf, holding the hobbit steady, and clucked to the ponies to move out.

And so, in a slow and careful walk, they made their way back to the Great Smials, leaving Tolly’s cloak and gloves to mark the place where they’d left off following his trail.