Chapter 60. Worth Doing Thoroughly

Tolly had often heard the Thain describe “a Prancing Pony breakfast” in glowing terms, but really, he’d not done it justice, to Tolly’s way of thinking. Legolas had cloaked himself and left the inn early, before the dawning, after telling Tolly to go ahead and eat breakfast without him. And so he’d eaten breakfast in the inn’s common room, enjoying a seemingly endless procession of eggs, bacon, ham, crispy sausages, beans, fried tomatoes and mushrooms, and pastries and breads with a variety of jams as well as butter and honey, and a choice of tea or coffee or both!

After breakfast, he took up his saddle bags and went out to check on the Buckland pony and found the Wood Elf there, cutting pieces from an apple and sharing them between the messengers’ mounts. At Tolly’s soundless step, he looked up. ‘Ah, there you are!’ he said. ‘How was breakfast?’

Tolly looked at him quizzically. ‘As Pip likes to say, it was something to write home about. But—’

His fellow messenger laughed. ‘Last night’s “supper” more than sufficed for me!’ He patted his middle. ‘I will likely need nothing more for some time...’

The Took filed away the remarkable fact that Elves ate as little as Men, at least compared to Hobbits. Legolas had eaten heartily of the plain fare at the guard post, and he’d quite obviously enjoyed the Pony’s fare last night. However, he’d given Tolly the impression that the food and drink he’d shared as they rode was more for the hobbit’s sake than his own, and so the Took couldn’t help wondering... The Wood Elf had travelled with Pippin when the latter was still only a tween, and tweens were notoriously hungry even when they weren’t walking league upon league on a desperate undertaking. Had it left the Fair One with the impression that hobbits required quantities of food at regular intervals to maintain their health?

Tolly found this idea rather agreeable but also amusing. Yes, hobbits were happy to eat six meals a day, when they could get them! But they could also go a long way on short commons – as Tolly knew from experience. Some time later, he’d discover that his experience paled in comparison to that of Mayor Sam and the long-departed Frodo Baggins, but by this point he’d heard only disjointed snippets of the Quest here and there, and it would be some time before the Thain made a point of acquainting the Tooks and Tooklanders with the entire story of the Nine Walkers.

As if the Wood Elf knew what the Took was thinking, Legolas said, ‘But why go on short commons when there’s no need to do so?’

‘You did,’ Tolly answered without thinking.

Legolas laughed. ‘I am well, Tolly. No need to worry about me. My people enjoy our feasting, but if we were to feast all the time, then feasts would not be anything out of the ordinary to be enjoyed, would they?’

Tolly scratched his head, and then allowed as to the Wood Elf was making some kind of sense. Perhaps.

Legolas cut the last part of the apple into two pieces and handed one to Tolly, who took the hint and held it out to the stallion from Buckland, even as the elf-horse swept the last piece from his rider’s palm.

The Wood Elf gestured to the saddle bags hanging over Tolly’s shoulder. ‘Are we ready to deliver our messages?’

‘I should say we are more than ready!’ Tolly returned, a wide grin spreading across his face.

‘Then let us ride to the Chetwood, my friend,’ Legolas said. ‘I have consulted with the Rangers, and they have given me directions to our desired destination.’

‘My but you’ve been the busy one,’ Tolly observed, even as he lifted Strider’s bridle from its hook outside the stall and began to ready the stallion to depart.

Legolas chuckled. ‘As your cousin the Thain is fond of saying, ‘Busy is as busy does!’

Tolly shook his head and grumbled, ‘And I never know what he means when he says such stuff and nonsense – not that he would explain it to me anyhow!’

Though, as Tolly was aware, Elves could ride without bridle or saddle, the elf-horse bore both, perhaps to avoid drawing attention to his rider. As it was, in Bree at least, with its mix of Hobbits and Men, the travellers were not all that remarkable as they rode through the town on that bright Spring day. In the cool of the morning, the Wood Elf’s cloak and hood were not the only ones to be seen. Except for the fine elf-horse, he might have been a simple traveller passing through the town.

‘Unusual weather we’re having,’ Tolly said after they’d exited through the gate at the southern corner of the town. ‘The Roads are clear and dry, quite unusual for March!’

‘I ordered it especially,’ Legolas said.

Tolly studied his companion briefly out of the side of his eye. He didn’t know if the Wood Elf was joking, or if Elves might, somehow, have influence over the weather. He wouldn’t put it past them.

Whether or not Legolas was commanding the weather, the Sun smiled upon them as they rode to Staddle and then north, skirting the deep valley where Combe lay, to Archet and the Chetwood beyond. But just after they had passed through Staddle, Tolly had a sudden thought and reined his pony to a stop.

‘What is it, my friend?’ Legolas said, for he’d noticed at once, or perhaps the elf-horse had, and halted in the same moment.

‘How do we know they’ll be there?’ Tolly asked. ‘And what do we do if they’re not? Shall we then seek them in the wood?’

‘I expect that we’ll find them at home,’ Legolas said. He turned his face to Tolly, and the hobbit saw his eyes twinkling in the depths of his hood. ‘It’s Highday!’

‘Highday!’ Tolly echoed. True, in their travels, especially with the oddity he’d noticed regarding his perceptions of the passing of time in the Elf’s company, he’d lost track of the days. But even so...

‘The Breelanders keep the same calendar as the Shire, more or less,’ Legolas said. ‘Some of the names of the months differ between the two lands – though March* has the same name in both the Shire and the Bree-land.’ The elf-horse tossed its head, and he patted its neck. ‘They keep the same days, as well, with Highday a half-day of work to accommodate a half-day of celebrating the successful conclusion of another week!’

‘I didn’t know that!’ Tolly said. Somehow the knowledge of shared calendars and customs made Bree feel less strange and foreign to him and helped him feel less out of place. He touched the stallion’s sides with his heels, and the two messengers rode on.

At the easy pace that Legolas had set, they reached Archet, situated on the edge of the Chetwood, at about the same time as the Sun reached her zenith. On the Bree-hill side of the village, Tolly saw familiar-looking habitations with round windows and doors. He might have been in the Shire... if not for the squarish stone buildings built along the track that wound its way into the heart of the Chetwood.

They pulled up before one of the last of these large houses – well, large by a hobbit’s measure, though much smaller than The Prancing Pony, of course – and dismounted. Tolly tied the stallion to the sturdy fence that separated the house’s small front garden from the track and then took three vellum documents, rolled, sealed by the Thain, and tied with ribbon, out of his saddlebags. The house belonged to someone who loved growing things, it seemed; spring flowers were already blooming in profusion in the window-boxes, and the sweet smell of daphne perfumed the air. Rosy camellias framed the gateway, while forsythia bushes on either side of the door beamed with their own sunshine. Vines twined in and out of the fence poles, lush and green, and bergenias, magenta flowers standing upright like small soldiers from their evergreen leaves, mingled with hostas, bleeding hearts and ferns.

‘Are we ready?’ Legolas said, looking down to Tolly’s upturned face.

‘I don’t know about you, but I am certainly looking forward to this,’ Tolly returned boldly.

They passed through the gate and the blooming yard to the door, and Tolly raised the brass knocker, let it fall, and waited.

*** 

*Author’s note: This part of the story is set in early March (Rethe in both the Bree-land and the Shire reckoning). In my stories, when he is not living in Buckland, Pippin tries his utmost to travel to Buckland about a week before March 15, the anniversary of Merry’s stabbing of the Witch-king, and stays for a week after the anniversary, making a visit of about a fortnight, at least as often as he’s able to get away that long. Some visits may be longer, some shorter, but he is faithful in being there to support his beloved cousin through Merry’s memories of Shadow.

***