Chapter 33. Like Lambs to the Slaughter

They struck the Stock Road and now Tolly turned them to follow the road southwards. Along the way they met fellow travellers who paused and, if they could, drew off to the side of the road at the sight of two Men walking along, armed hobbits riding behind them, as if to drive them on their way.

‘More ruffians!’ cried one of the bolder among those they met, an old farmer with a faded scar over one eye.

‘Aye,’ Tolly answered.

‘I don’t like it; I don’t like it at all,’ the farmer said, shaking a hoary head.

‘What would you like, then?’ Mugwort said cheerily. ‘Would you rather we leave them to run free?’

‘I’d ruther they don’t cross the Bounds at all, at all,’ the farmer said with a scowl.

‘We’ll be sure to tell the Thain your sentiments, won’t we, Tolly?’ Mugwort said, nodding in a wise manner.

Tolly grunted, which the farmer took for agreement, and he cleared his throat in a satisfied manner and clucked to his pony, pulling a cart full of firewood back to his farm on the Marish.

When the road turned to the West, Tolly made to follow, but Mugwort pulled up short and called to him. ‘What’re you thinking? To bring them to Tuckborough, that the Thain might have a better look at them?’

‘Nay,’ Tolly said, but he only added, ‘Get along there, you!’ to the two Men, who’d stopped when Mugwort did, since he held the ropes tied to their bound hands, while Tolly led the two extra ponies.

‘Then, what?’ Mugwort said, but getting no answer for his pains, he shrugged and muttered something or other to his pony.

A little while later, he thought he knew the answer. ‘Ye’re heading to the Cockerel, eh, to take the track to Pincup? Instead of striking directly southward?’

Tolly made no answer, but Mugwort whistled a cheery little tune as they went along, thinking of the good beer to be had at the Crowing Cockerel, and in between choruses he said to the Men, ‘Your lot burnt down the Cockerel, as you well know, but hobbits built it up again!’

For some reason the Men had nothing to say to this sentiment, and Mugwort whistled to the end of his tune and struck up another. He waved cheerily to the astonished hobbits they met along the way. He proposed stopping at the Blue Goose, to whet their whistles, but Tolly led on without pausing, and after a moment Mugwort shrugged and followed.

He was no ruffian, after all, marching prisoners off to the Lockholes, stopping to eat and drink without offering any to the wretches he escorted. He wouldn’t have minded buying a pint for the condemned men, a parting gift, a small grace. He had no doubt that they were condemned. The Tooks of late had taken to shooting trespassing Men and bringing them, dead, to the Bounds, to the waiting Rangers. He figured that if the Rangers meant to keep intruders alive, they’d have raised some objection to this practice.

The Green Hills were rising to their south, their crowns visible above and beyond the tall trees. They'd passed two more inns without stopping, and Mugwort was counting off in his head the miles to the Cockerel, when Tolly halted their progression.

‘What is it?’ Mugwort said, peering about them. There was nothing along this stretch of the Stock Road save trees and brambles and a few rocks sticking out of the mossy ground, so far as he could tell.

Tolly indicated a faint track, branching off to the south. ‘We turn south here,’ he said.

Mugwort suffered a stab of momentary disappointment. He had been looking forward to the beer at the Cockerel, after all. Ah, well. Plenty of time on the way back from the Bounds, and delivering ruffians to their death was thirsty work, needing a fair amount of beer to salve a troubled conscience. O’ course, they couldn’t let the Men wander the Shire, not when they were plainly troublemakers and lawbreakers, not after what Men had done in the time of the Troubles.

But Tolly did not proceed; instead he dismounted. ‘Here, you,’ he said to the ruffians. ‘The country is rougher than the road, and we don't need the trouble of picking you up when you fall on your faces. You’ll ride from here on.’

The Men nodded and moved toward the ponies, though their faces were puzzled, for certainly, they’d make a comical sight, riding with their legs hanging halfway to the ground. Of course, turning off the road onto this seldom-used track, no one was likely to see them.

However, Tolly had a different idea, as his companions soon learned. He tied up the ponies to a nearby tree and took up his bow once more, nocking an arrow and holding it ready to shoot. ‘Lean over the pony’s back,’ he growled when the prisoners reached the ponies' sides, and then to Mugwort he said, ‘They’ll be riding, as sacks of barley might ride.’

‘O aye,’ Mugwort said, understanding, and he felt a little sick before he took hold of himself. ‘Twas the safest way to transport ruffians to the Bounds, after all, dead, and tied a-ponyback. No trying to wriggle out of their bindings, no endless wheedling to try and convince the escort to let them go free, to give them a sporting chance to elude the Rangers, rather than turning them over as if they were sheep or pigs to be slaughtered.

It was a drain on the conscience, a weary, disheartening task, and of course Tolly was only being practical. Still, to take a man’s life, in cold blood...

He thought at first that Tolly would shoot them, and then they’d work together to wrestle them into place on the ponies' backs and secure the bodies with ropes, but instead he found himself grasping at each ruffian’s shoulders in turn and dragging him over until he was balanced on the pony’s broad back, head and feet hanging on opposite sides, and then lashing him in place.

‘Good,’ Tolly said when the task was completed, and he lowered his bow, eased the strain on the string, and shrugged his shoulders as if to release his own tension.

When he raised his head again, he pierced Mugwort with his gaze. ‘Take yourself off,’ he said. ‘Go home, laddie.’

Mugwort started at him, open-mouthed. ‘Take...’ he echoed, when he was able to speak.

‘Aye,’ Tolly said. ‘Mount your pony and go on back to Tuckborough. Report to the Thain, tell him I took this lot o’ ruffians to the Bounds.’

‘You’re taking them...’ Mugwort said, looking from Tolly to the ruffians, hanging over the ponies’ sides like so much baggage. ‘You’re not...’

‘I’m asking,’ Tolly broke in to interrupt his fumbling effort. ‘Nay, I’m telling you, lad, for your own good. Go.’

‘But you...’

‘I’ll be in no danger from these,’ Tolly said with but a glance for the ruffians. ‘Go, Mugwort. There’s sights not fit for your eyes.’

‘Well, if they’re not fit for my eyes, how can they be...?’

Tolly made an impatient gesture with his bow. ‘Ferdi and I’ve escorted more ruffians to the Bounds than you can count on your fingers,’ he said.

‘But,’ Mugwort said. ‘You told me we’d shoot them and then take them to the Bounds...’

‘I told you that it didn’t matter how they came to the Bounds, dead, or living, so long as they came there,’ Tolly corrected.

‘But you can’t shoot them, tied to ponies! What if the arrows go through...?’

‘There’s more than one way to take care of such as these,’ Tolly said, and held up a commanding hand to forestall any more argument on Mugwort’s part. ‘Don’t ask, laddie, for I won’t tell you; but these won’t come living to the Bounds a-ponyback, I swear that much.’

With a distinctly queasy feeling, Mugwort nodded and turned to his pony. He remounted, gulped a little, and raised a hand in farewell. He tried to say Grace go with you but the words stuck in his throat.

As if Tolly guessed his thoughts, he smiled grimly. ‘Aye,’ he repeated. ‘And tell the Thain I’ll be back, soon’s I’ve done my duty by them.’

Mugwort nodded, reined his pony around, and touched the beast with his heels, heading along the Stock Road at a brisk pace, glad to be heading back to the solid and steady ground of the Tookland.