Chapter 54. The Truth Will Out

The great room of the Great Smials was packed to capacity, hobbits crowded around the tables so tight that elbows had to be tucked close to bodies for them all to fit, and that certainly made it challenging to pour out the tea and reach for the food on the platters, much less bring a teacup or morsel to one’s lips. Though he didn’t know quite how such things were worked out, Regi, preceding Pippin, saw from the doorway that a number of hobbitservants and maids assigned to private quarters (such as Sandy) were serving tables now, to supplement the usual kitchen staff. That way they’d be on the spot for what ever grand announcement was in the making, but the almost overwhelming numbers would not overwhelm the cooks and servers.

There was an audible whoosh as everyone stood up from their chairs at the Thain’s entrance with his family, Diamond on his arm, her other hand clasping young Farry’s. He pulled out Diamond’s chair and saw her seated, settled Farry in his own chair between them, and then stood behind his chair to receive the assembly’s bow, customary thanks for the host of the meal, which he as the head of the Tooks and the Tookland merited. He nodded to the crowd, smiled briefly and said, ‘I thank you in turn, and welcome you to the feast. Please, take your seats.’

His businesslike mien was not lost on those assembled there. There was a short silence, broken by the scraping of chairs as everyone took their seats, and then the whispers began. What do you suppose…?

‘Regi,’ Pippin acknowledged the Steward, seated to his other side. ‘It appears the cooks have outdone themselves…’ Diamond was filling Farry’s plate from the platters of sandwiches and teacakes before serving herself, and Pippin gladly heaped his own plate – subtle reassurance for the diners there, looking to him at the head table, that this was more a festive occasion than a solemn one – and took up the teacup that Diamond filled for him, sipping the scalding liquid and sighing his contentment. ‘Just as I like it.’

‘I think the Thain’s teapot must be the last one of all the teapots filled and brought to table, just so it’ll be hot enough to suit your taste,’ Regi said, and Diamond smiled a private smile, confirming his suspicion. So the Mistress had an arrangement with the head server, did she…? He’d never really considered the matter before, but it made sense. Pippin’s response gave the Steward a new appreciation for the Mistress’ subtlety.

‘Nonsense, Regi,’ Pippin said. ‘Don’t be ridiculous! The kitchen staff is very efficient, of course, but the teapots aren’t brought out one by one, or hodge-podge… If you’re looking closely, you’ll see they’re all brought out at nearly the same time, just so soon as the kitchen staff have word that the Thain has left his quarters and is on his way to the great room…’

This was true, of course, but Regi still suspected that the Thain’s teapot was left to the last, in the matter of adding the water just off the boil, immediately before bringing it to table. He marveled to himself once more, at this smallest of signs of Diamond’s loving care.

Hobbits were eating and drinking and talking together, filling the enormous room with happy sound. The hobbits at the head table (Pippin and his family, Regi and his Rosa and their little ones, in the absence of distinguished visitors such as the Mayor or Master of Buckland or heads of other great families) were no exception. Ferdi, as the Thain’s special assistant, might have had a place there if he’d wished, but he usually chose to sit at one of the lower tables with his wife and children; or sometimes, as a former head of escort, he took a place at the escorts’ table, not far from the head tables, where by custom the hobbits of escort and their wives sat to formal meals together, their children relegated to the nursery tables watched over by minders, that the hobbits might attend to any business at hand. He was at the escorts’ table this day, Nell by his side, Regi saw. It was one of the few tables not elbow-to-elbow in hobbits, as only an escort to the Thain, or the wife of one, was allowed there by custom. The tone at the escorts’ table appeared joyful, with frequent bursts of laughter, and not surprising, with both Ferdi and Tolly apparently snatched from the jaws of death so recently, and their friends and fellow hobbits of escort celebrating the fact.

Pippin’s hobbitservant Sandy was serving the head table himself, and made certain of a steady supply of piping-hot tea. At last, after several cups of tea, more than one plateful of food, and animated conversation, Pippin held his hand over his cup when Sandy would have refreshed it. ‘That will be as much as I need, Sandy, with my thanks.’ The hobbitservant nodded, poured tea into Rosa’s cup (Regi’s was still mostly full from being refilled a few moments earlier), put down the teapot, and excused himself to the Thain. Regi thought perhaps he’d gone to order fresh platters of teacakes, for those at the head table were depleted by half, but no… Sandy’s errand appeared otherwise.

Soon after he disappeared into the kitchen, servers began to emerge with trays of glasses, both of wine and ale, and a sprinkling of fruit juice as well, that the diners might have some choice in the matter. A murmur of speculation arose and as quickly died out again, for this custom dictated some sort of announcement or other, requiring a toast on the part of the assembly, and so a hush of anticipation fell. Of course no one sipped from his or her glass. That would have been a breach of etiquette, to drink before the formal toast was presented.

Sandy brought his tray to the head table, of course, with the right number and manner of vessels. He knew ahead of time that Pippin and Regi would prefer ale, and their wives would take wine, and freshly pressed cider from the apple cellars for the children. There was one curious thing, however. Instead of the usual ale glass, the Thain’s ale was in a silver cup, polished to gleaming perfection, rich jewels glinting from its surface, a thing of beauty and delicate craftsmanship. And yet... Sandy provided the Thain with two drinks, setting down an ale glass beside the silver cup, as if the Thain might wish to drink twice as much as any other there. But the silver cup – the Steward had never seen anything to match it.

‘Elvish make?’ Regi said, nodding at the cup. ‘Where did that come from?’

‘All will become clear shortly,’ Pippin said. ‘It is, as a matter of fact, a gift worthy of an Elven King, and all the more precious for the story behind it.’

As if propelled to his feet by this thought, Pippin stood up from his chair and surveyed the hobbits in the room. The servers had finished handing out the glasses, and now stood lined against the walls of the room with their own glasses in hand, for they’d had their tea before everyone else, that they might not be required to serve food while themselves hungry. Evidently someone – Pippin? Diamond? – had given orders that even the servers and servants were to drink this toast, what ever it might be, that was anticipated.

The hush intensified to silence, and if one of the seamstresses or tailors there had brought a pin into the room, and dropped it at that moment, the sound would have echoed clearly. Regi felt as if he could almost hear his heart beating, so quiet was the room.

The Thain raised his glass – not the silver cup, which he left on the table before him. ‘To loyal Tooks!’ he proclaimed.

The crowd gave a cheer and happily stood and drank the toast, the Tooks at the tables raising their glasses to each other as well before quaffing. There was a murmur of surprise, which Regi understood when he tasted the contents of his glass. It was the Thain’s private stock, the best of the ale produced in the Tookland – and to serve such a crowd, the Thain must have reduced the supply by a significant number of barrels!

He raised his own glass, to pronounce the answering toast to the Thain, but Pippin placed a restraining hand on his arm. ‘A moment, Regi,’ he said. ‘We’ll get to that in time.’

The hobbits crowding the room had their glasses raised in anticipation as well, and their expressions subsided from joyful celebration to puzzlement as their Thain turned back to them with a quiet, ‘Please, take your seats. I have a tale to tell you, before the next toast…’ The hall was filled with the scraping of chairs and a general murmur, and then quiet reigned once more.

Pippin gently put his glass down again on the table, beside the silver cup, and began to speak. He spoke no words of welcome, or, apparently, explanation, but launched into a story with the finest of Tookish skill. ‘In a wood Green and Great, Terrible and Fair, there lived upon a time, a woodcutter and his little daughter. Now the wood was an enchanted one, such that a mortal being must watch his way at all times, for it was a place of lightness and darkness both, and the lightness was ruled by the King of the Woodland Realm…’

Regi gave a start, and saw some of the older heads in the crowd nodding, those who’d heard Bilbo telling his tales before the old hobbit had disappeared from the Shire for the final time. King of the Woodland Realm meant that this story was set in the Mirkwood, now called by an older name, the Greenwood, since the defeat of the Dark Lord and the driving out of giant spiders and other ills that Regi could scarcely credit. Pippin’s silver cup, however, fit the story he was telling. It looked fully worthy of coming from Thranduil, or his son Legolas, who had been Pippin’s companion and remained the Thain’s friend. Imagine, an Elf for a friend! Regi thought. He couldn’t really, and it would be some years before he met Legolas, and began to understand for himself.

For a part of the time, Pippin’s eyes swept the crowd, and for a part of the time, he fixed his gaze on one particular part of the room. Regi, following his gaze, saw the hobbits of escort listening intently. Indeed, Tolly, their head, seemed transfixed by the story, sitting stiff and unmoving, a look of amazement on his face.

Pippin told a story of wonder, about how a small, mortal child, little more than a faunt by hobbit reckoning, succored an injured Elven prince, beloved son of the Wood King, in his time of need, and how the King of the Woodland Realm named her elf-friend to the end of her days. He told how the Wood darkened in time, how the woodcutter removed himself and his daughter, now nearly grown, to the Breeland and the Chetwood, how she met and married another woodcutter who removed to the Shire, to land owned by the Thain and the Tooks, to supply wood to the Tooks of the Great Smials in return for a cottage and the use of a little piece of land. He told of the son of a Tookish healer, a tween, who rescued the toddling son of the woodcutter, lost in the woods… and at this juncture, Regi happened to be looking idly at the rapt faces of the listening hobbits at the lower tables. A sudden motion drew his eye, and he saw Hilly, at the escorts’ table, gaping at Tolly, whose eyes were fixed on the Thain’s face, his expression one of wonder. The Steward, suddenly suspicious, sought out Mardi, seated with his family amongst a crowd of Tuckborough residents, and Mardi, too, was staring at his younger brother as if suddenly realising that Tolly had some part in this incredible tale. To have saved the tiny son of an Elf-friend! Here, in the Shire! It was nearly inconceivable.

…but he’d missed part of the tale in his speculations. Regi took up the thread once more, his brow creased in thought. Ah, yes, it was the time of the Troubles now, and Ferdi had disappeared, and the old Thain had sent Tolly to find word of him.

He listened in horror to Tolly’s capture and subsequent ill treatment, to the point of being left for dead…! Meadowsweet’s gasp was clearly heard in the brief silence that fell then, before the Thain’s voice resumed, just loud enough to reach the far corners of the great room, yet soft enough that the listeners leaned forward in their seats so as not to miss one word. Though the Tooks often spoke with pride about their Steward’s lacking of imagination, the Thain’s tale-spinning was so skilled that Regi saw plainly, in his mind’s eye, the two boys, hiding and watching, waiting for the ruffians to depart, creeping from their hiding place to dig Tolly free of his premature grave, helping the dazed and injured hobbit to a safe hideaway, bringing him food and comfort until he was well enough to make his way back to the free Tookland.

And then…

Understanding bloomed slowly as the Thain continued, moving the tale to cover more recent events. Two Men were found in the Shire, to be bound and brought to the border, to the King’s Men. Tolly took charge, dismissing the others, saying he’d see to the unpleasant business himself.

Two Men… Tolly… It took no imagination at all for Regi to realise that the two Men here were the same two boys, now grown, to whom Tolly owed his life. And yet, the escort had sworn an oath to Thain and Tooks, and was honour-bound to carry them to their appointed doom. He agreed to provide them a last boon, to grant them a last request, to see their old home, to reclaim some family heirloom, hidden on the property they had leased from the Tooks, not something gathered from hobbits, not a thing of the Shire at all, but brought into the Shire by the family, something wondrous…

‘…and because it is a byword, here in the Shire, that legendary treasure is the possession of the finder,’ Pippin was saying, and the listeners nodded almost as one. Regi snorted, remembering Frodo setting old Paladin and Eglantine to laughter, over tea during a visit to the Great Smials, telling of the young hobbits he’d found knocking holes in the walls of one of Bag End’s cellars after Bilbo’s departure.

‘But this was no legendary treasure, waiting to be stumbled upon,’ the Thain continued. ‘This was a treasure of another sort, a precious gift, given in thanks by a grateful Elven King to those who aided his beloved son, helpless, trapped beneath a fallen tree, and if the woodman had not been seeking his little daughter, had he not come upon the son of the Woodland King, had Legolas remained trapped, unaided… What might have come to pass?’

He paused and looked from face to face, and at last he added, a little lower, so that his listeners leaned forward to hear, but still audible to the far ends of the room. ‘Legolas accompanied the Ring-bearer in the Quest to save Middle-earth (and, as a part of that, the Shire itself) from darkness complete and everlasting, as some of you have heard, and all of you ought to know… but that is a story for another time. Suffice it to say, he is a mighty archer, and slew many evil creatures, not least of these, a Messenger of the Dark Lord, winging high in the sky with a message that might have brought great harm to our cause, had it reached its destination.’

Regi saw him smile briefly at the mix of wonder and confusion on the listening faces, and heard him say under his breath, ‘Yes, that tale must be told, in full I deem, that they might know the danger…’ And at last give Frodo the honour he is due, and may he live long and blessed and healed there, and know that we love him and think often of him, he did not say aloud, not at that time, though Regi had heard him say so much, and more, in quiet discussions with the Mayor, when they thought the Steward absorbed in the papers on his own desk.

‘As I’ve told you, the Woodland King gave the little girl to drink from his own cup at the feast,’ Pippin said, and he reached then, picked up the silver cup, and lifted it high to catch the light. ‘And the Men unearthed it from where it had slept for years, buried secretly in the dark of night to keep it safe. And, just as you brought it away from that encounter – shining now, and restored as is only right to beauty and light – here is that cup…!’ There was a gasp from the crowd. Regi happened to be looking at Tolly at that moment, and saw the escort’s gulp. How wondrous a thing, that Tolly had come into possession of the cup – the only explanation was that the ruffians, er, Men had presented it to him – and perhaps without his realising its origin, even then, past seeing it on the mantel above the hearth in the woodcutters’ cottage.

‘There was also a necklace of Elven make, a stone beyond price, hung on a chain of delicate filigree, wrought of mithril. The King had hung it around the little girl’s neck with his own hands, a token of his friendship and his people’s protection, and these—‘ he paused, his face stern, his tone forbidding, ‘—these were buried in Tookish soil – but they were not the property of the Tooks! Nor were they spoil, to be possessed by the finder. And yet,’ his face softened somewhat, ‘what hobbit in his right mind would give up such treasure, even had the Men commissioned him well outside the Bounds, paid him a handsome sum, given him a map, hired him to find the treasure and bring it back to their mother – the little girl I have told you about.’

There was a stir in the crowd as the listeners put these facts together – a little girl, barely older than a faunt, grown to maturity, grown old, and her sons, on a quest to retrieve something precious to her, at the risk of their own lives. There was also indignation on more than one face, that the Thain could think hobbits so dishonorable.

Pippin saw the look as well, and shook his head sadly. ‘I can see the cup before me,’ he said. ‘I hold it in my hand. You will have the chance, over the coming years, to take it in your hand, to examine the intricate workmanship – it is obviously the work of a master smith. A hobbit of honour and integrity might be able to unearth this cup and bring it to its owners, without too difficult a time resisting temptation. But the necklace…’ His own look grew faraway, and Regi wished he could see what the Thain was seeing in his memory. ‘I saw it.’

In the silence in the great room, Tolly’s choked off, How…? was clearly heard, before that hobbit slapped his hand over his mouth to stifle any other sound.

Pippin smiled, locking gazes with Tolly. ‘I saw it,’ he said. ‘The King has a way of seeing things afar off…’ and the Tooks nodded, having heard of this wondrous quality on the part of the King, on more than one occasion. As a matter of fact, it was becoming common practice amongst Tookish parents to warn their children to mind themselves and their behaviour, as the King might well see their deeds, good or bad. ‘He showed me the necklace, in the hands of its owner, and the joy and hope shining in her eyes…’

Regi felt a sudden pricking of tears in his own eyes, to his surprise. And yet, on second thought, he understood. To be exiled from the place one knew as home, and to feel unable to return, and then to have the token returned to her, that spoke of welcome, well, yes. He could understand.

Pippin need not tell the tale all the way to the end. The listeners understood now, could take the pieces cut from whole cloth and sew them all together, in a manner of speaking – the story told by the Thain, together with bits and pieces of whispered Talk, rumour, that the head of escort had led a pair of ruffians to the Bounds and let them go, and for what reason…? And yet the Thain had not sacked him, so there must be more to the story… And yet, Men in the Shire in defiance of the King’s Edict were up to no good, and so…

Alas, poor Tolly.

Pippin’s voice rang out, clear and commanding. ‘Tolibold Took! Stand forth!’

Tolly blinked and trembled as he stood slowly to his feet, and Regi saw Ferdi rise and move to his elbow, in support, and whisper something in the hobbit’s ear, some encouragement, he thought, for the head of escort straightened, and allowed his old friend to escort him to stand before the Thain at the head table, the two of them facing the Thain together. It seemed fitting, somehow. These were the two who had been accused of being in league with ruffians and nearly banished from the Shire, after all, and in good part because of Tolly’s releasing the two Men, his old friends, and innocent of wrongdoing, Regi thought soberly.

‘Tolibold, by your actions, you restored a priceless possession to an elf-friend, and I honour you for it,’ Pippin said. ‘I think that I, myself, had I been able to hold that necklace in my hand as you did, and not simply see it from afar – I would have been tempted to keep it. As you must have been, and you’d have been able to do so, as you had those Men in your power, and held the power of life and death over them…’

Tolly stood before them, close enough to touch over the table, and his mouth gaped slightly in surprise. Regi could almost hear him thinking, …How did you know…? He saw Ferdi’s hand tighten on Tolly’s arm in silent support.

‘Tolibold, by your actions,’ the Thain went on, as if repeating a ceremonial incantation, ‘you preserved the King, and the Thain as well, from having the blood of innocents laid at our feet, and for this, I honour you.’

The head of escort’s throat worked, he swallowed hard, and then he gave a small nod, looking into the Thain’s intent gaze. Regi was distracted by a gasp – he looked beyond Tolly and Ferdi to the escorts’ table, to see Meadowsweet weeping freely, her face shining with tears.

‘Tolibold, by your actions,’ the Thain concluded, ‘you have proven your loyalty, to friendship, to the King, to the Thain, to the Tooks and the Tookland…’ He held out the silver cup, and Ferdi took it, as Tolly seemed incapable of motion, and Ferdi pressed it into Tolly’s hand and closed Tolly’s fingers around it.

‘Don’t you drop it now,’ Regi heard Ferdi whisper, and had to fight down a smile as the hobbit continued, ‘wouldn’t want to waste a drop of the Thain’s private stock, after all!’

The Thain picked up the glass before him, the ale likely flat after sitting through his long tale, but what did it matter? ‘To loyal Tooks!’ he thundered, lifted his glass high, and then drank.

The crowd roared in response, stood as one, and drank the toast.

Tolly looked to the Steward, who by custom should speak the answering toast, but Regi only smiled and gave a significant nod.

The head of escort was breathing shallowly, his expression dazed, but then understanding flashed in his eyes, and lifting the silver cup, he turned to face the rest of the room. ‘To the Thain!’ he shouted, raised the cup high, brought it down and drank, as the room echoed with the response from all the Tooks, Tooklanders, and servants gathered there, loud enough that the bedridden hobbits in the far reaches of the Smials, and their watchers, heard the tumult and wondered.

To the Thain!