Chapter 15. Out of the Frying Pan

Ted stared at the approaching riders and dropped the armload of wood he bore, narrowly missing his toes. ‘Dad!’ he shouted, turning to run to the smial. ‘Dad! A muster! Another muster!’

‘What’s that lad on about now?’ Langred grumbled, watching his wife fuss over their unexpected guest. Honestly, if the hobbit didn’t waken soon he’d have to send for the healer, and who was to pay the fee? Who knew if the fellow had any coin to his name? While he looked familiar, the farmer couldn't put a name to him. His clothes were cut well. He might even be one of the Great Smials Tooks. But you couldn't always tell from clothes.

Though the farm was less than five miles from Tuckborough proper, Langred was not one to leave home any oftener than need be, even sending Aster with the occasional waggonload of goods for the market. The last time he'd been to the Smials was two years previous, when he'd hauled a half-drowned "Smials Took" from the stream and brought him home. Too bad he'd short-sightedly asked a barrel of the Thain's private stock for his reward, rather than the bag of coin the Thain had tried to present him.

He’d just spent most of his hard-earned hoard to buy a new plough, to replace the old one, faithful friend for years. He'd hated to do it, but the old plough had met with one rock too many a month or so before Yuletide. Good thing they’d been nearly done readying the field for winter wheat. They’d used hand tools to finish the task, and a heavy job it had been, too.

‘A muster!’ Ned said, starting up from the table. He threw open the door, earning a rebuke from his mother, who crouched by the hearth. Aster’s sharp words died quickly, however, at the sound of ponies’ hoofs.

Langred rose ponderously and rubbed at his backside as he crossed to the door. Two days in the saddle, he’d been, following Mayor Sam’s part of the Shiremuster, and his sons had shared the other plough pony for two days, when they hadn’t been walking and leading the ponies. It was a great relief that the Thain’s son had been recovered relatively unharmed, and the remaining ruffians escorted to the Bounds. Langred didn’t know what the Rangers beyond the Bounds did with ruffians taken alive in the Shire, and he didn’t want to know. His slower-witted son had asked a few questions, but he’d soon put a stop to it, and his quicker-witted son had the sense not to ask.

No further sign of Men had been found, and the hobbits of the muster were finally released to their homes.

But now it looked as if further sign of ruffians had been found elsewhere, and perhaps the mutterings of their unexpected guest had some basis in truth.

The farmer pulled the door closed behind him, his sons flanking him, as the mounted hobbits rode up—the Thain at their head!

‘Sir!’ he said, standing a little straighter. ‘Is it more ruffians, as that poor fellow tried to tell us?’

‘Poor fellow!’ Pippin exclaimed, sliding out of the saddle. He swayed a little, and the farmer reached quickly to steady him. There’d been rumour among the muster, before the hobbits were sent home, that the Thain and Master had set off at a gallop for the Brandywine Bridge, where the King was waiting for them, or so the messenger had said. Langred could hardly credit that the hobbit could have got there and back again since wresting his son from the ruffians' grasp, but it seemed obvious the Thain had not had much rest.

‘He’s in here,’ Langred said, turning to the door. ‘Pulled him out o’ the stream, and...’

Renilard rolled his eyes at this. They’d read the tracks backwards, evidently. Tolly hadn’t been the rescuer so much as rescued. He wiped a sudden sweat from his brow, feeling a flush of heat that belied the chill of the wintry day. His assistant, Hilly, a dozen others he knew of at the Great Smials, and now himself... The pieces fell together, muddled as his brain was, and he understood that Tolly had been out of his head with fever, and that’s what this whole miserable business was about.

‘We saw no sign of ruffians,’ he muttered to nobody. ‘Out of his head, I wager.’

Adelgrim shot him a sharp look. ‘You don’t look so well yourself.’ He hurried to tie the ponies, the Thain’s, his own, and Reni’s, to the ring on the post before the farmer’s door.

‘Very sharp of you to notice,’ Renilard said sourly. He did not resist as Adelgrim took his arm, for it suddenly felt good to lean into the support, and he let himself be led to the door of the smial. He lost a moment or two, then; when he came to himself again, he was sitting on a bench, and a lass was holding a mug before him and urging him to drink. He sipped; bitter stuff, but it cleared his head somewhat.

‘Fever!’ he heard the farmer’s wife say. ‘No, we’ve not been troubled... you say there’s fever about?’

‘Tolly,’ Pippin said, going to his knees beside the blanket-wrapped figure. ‘You’ve led us a merry chase.’

‘Ruffians,’ Tolly whispered. ‘They took Ferdibrand...’

Pippin patted his shoulder. ‘That they did, Tolly, but we got him back again, did we not?’ He removed a glove, to lay his hand against the hobbit’s cheek. ‘Not fevered,’ he said, looking up in puzzlement. ‘I thought...’

‘He was as cold as death when I found him,’ Langred said.

‘In the stream?’ Renilard put in, beginning to put things properly in their places.

‘Aye, in the stream, draped over a rock as if he’d fallen asleep there.’

The hunter nodded, looking to the Thain. ‘Like Raolf,’ he said. ‘Like Hilly.’ He grabbed at his mug and took a fair-sized swig of the steadying bitter stuff. Like myself. Aloud, he added. ‘Taken of a sudden, with a rush of fever heat, he might’ve sought the cool of the stream, or seen a thing that wasn’t there and gone in after.’

‘But he’s not fevered now,’ Pippin said, and shook his head at himself. ‘Stream cooled him, much as you’d put a fevered hobbit in a bath to bring the fire under control.’ He gave the blanketed shoulder a gentle shake. ‘Tolly? Do you hear me?’

‘Dead,’ Tolly half-sobbed, and then his eyes opened and he seemed to see the Thain. Erupting from his blankets, he grabbed at Pippin’s arm. ‘You have to get out,’ he said urgently. ‘Mustn’t stay here. They’ll find you... Hang you up ‘til you’re dead.’ He looked around wildly. ‘Dead!’

Pippin and the farmer’s wife soothed the delirious hobbit as well as could be, and they managed with vague promises to get Tolly to lie back in his blankets. His eyes closed once more, and his grip loosened. Pippin gently pulled free and drew the blanket around the head of escort again. ‘We need to get him to a healer,’ he said.

Aster drew herself up. ‘In this chilly weather?’ she said. ‘In his state? You’ll kill him, sure as if you struck him with arrows.’

Pippin looked at the hobbits who’d accompanied him. Renilard was pale and sweating, shivering, huddled in his cloak, not a good sign. Adelgrim and Regi stood just inside the door. The rest waited outside with the ponies. ‘Regi,’ he said. ‘Send two hobbits to fetch a healer. Fennel, if he can be pulled away. Or Fescue, at the very least.’

Regi nodded and slipped out the door as quickly as possible, to keep the heat in the smial.

Tolly half-roused at the chilly draught of Regi’s leaving. ‘Got to get out,’ he muttered.

Pippin patted his shoulder. ‘All’s well, cousin,’ he said.

But Tolly seemed not to hear; he only shook his head weakly, and then he was still.