(A/N: Many thanks to my beta, Nieriel Raina, for her help with commas and clarity. This chapter would be incomprehensible without her input. – Le Rouret)

14. The Green Knight’s Esquires

Tamin was not happy to be left behind with Bandobras while his Master precipitately ran off to put himself in danger. He did not understand the grown-ups’ interdiction on his wandering round by himself, for he was yet an innocent, and the potential perils that might menace him thus far had eluded his experience. Furthermore, he was offended by Bandobras’ continual criticism, or so he saw it, regarding his Master’s clothing and effects; it seemed nothing Tamin did, folding or brushing or tidying or arranging, was to the Hobbit’s standards, and while Tamin went round seeing to his duties Bandobras was continually fussing behind him, re-folding and picking off lint and moving about and disarranging what he had already done twice before. Tamin was too polite, and far too conscious of his Master’s regard for Bandobras, to complain; but when at last the Hobbit declared himself satisfied with their work and bid him sit still and hold his tongue, Tamin did so with a vengeance, seething within like a hot spring so that it was a wonder steam did not issue forth from his ears. Bandobras for himself did not note anything was amiss, for he was preoccupied with worry; he paced restlessly about, his cold pipe in his teeth, muttering occasionally and peering out the key hole; if he spared a thought for the Green Knight’s current esquire, it was only that Tamin was nicely quiet for once, allowing Bandobras to fret in peace.

After a half-hour’s wait they heard rushing footsteps in the passageway, and low anxious voices; Bandobras risked peeping out, and when he withdrew pattered to the window. “Help me open this here shutter, Tamin,” he grunted, struggling with the latch; resentfully Tamin unwound himself from the limbs in which he had been entwined and wrenched at the other latch so that the shutters opened. He made to look out but Bandobras shook his head and said sharply: “None o’ that, now, boy! Stay down; there’s a candle lit in here, you know.” Offended by the Hobbit’s officiousness Tamin sulkily withdrew, and glared at Bandobras from beneath his golden hair. The Hobbit peered carefully out; Tamin could hear people running round outside, and men’s voices, some angry, some laughing. Then he heard a trumpet blast, and more laughter, and someone shouted: “Bring them to the Master!” There was a great tumult, and the sound of whinnying horses and chains.

“Damn and blast!” exclaimed Bandobras, ducking down from the window and slamming the shutter closed. “This is a pickle and no mistake! I’m going to poke round a bit outside and see if I can get Gimli and them two foolish Elves back in here.” He loosened his sword and went to the door.

Tamin rose and went to the trunk containing the weaponry. “Let me get my sword,” he said, throwing open the lid and rummaging for his belt and frog. “Then there shall be two of us – “

“No, no, and NO!” said Bandobras. He turned and glared at Tamin, who stared at the Hobbit open-mouthed, too stunned and angry to speak. “Are you daft? You plant your silly self in here and STAY here, do you hear me? No shenanigans out of you tonight, if you please!” And without waiting for Tamin to respond he whisked out the door, and locked it from outside.

The anger bubbling in Tamin’s heart boiled over, and he stamped his foot and bit his lip. Had Halgond been present he would have known a second broken nose would be imminent, for such had been the fair sweet boy’s face ere Tamin’s long patience had been stretched to its limit; but this time the esquire’s anger was selfish, and he fumed with the indignity of it. “How dare he!” he cried, his hands in fists so tight his knuckles whitened. “I have been in battles before! I am no infant! How dare he lock me up like a common criminal! I have every right to find my Master as does he!” And he stalked round the room in his fury, striking at the air with his fists, filled with bitterness. “My Master left us both in here,” he complained to the pallet; “and Bandobras dare flaunt his authority!” Then with a sick suddenness the truth hit him: Bandobras could challenge his Master’s orders, and Tamin could not; that could only mean that his Master thought more highly of Bandobras than he did of Tamin. This made Tamin’s burning heart sink to his feet, and he dropped heavily onto the pallet.

“He does not trust me as he trusts Bandobras,” he thought miserably. “Bandobras has been with him for years and years, and they have fought together many times. They are friends.” He put his face in his hands and moaned. “And now I have no friends,” he said, a tad histrionically; he was far too distressed to be logical. “Fastred has rejected me, and everyone else is so far away – my Master is gone, and O I am so lonely!”

Something cold thumped against his chest, and heart lightening he groped for it: Hísimë’s amulet, smooth and cool and comforting. He ran his thumb over the soft curve of the moonstone, and fingered the little globes of citrine and peridot, then clasped it in his palm; it felt heavy. “How I miss Hísimë and Théodred!” he thought wretchedly. “Hísimë would not think me too young to go and protect my Master, and Théodred would come to help!”

He sat and snuffled a little into his hands, blind to the ridiculousness of his assumptions; but then he heard more tumult from outside, and to his horror, the familiar squeal of a horse, his little white horse, his Isilmë, from the stables. “Isilmë!” he cried, dismayed. “O what is happening? What are they doing to you, poor dear Isilmë? I must go to his rescue! But Bandobras has locked the door and I – “

Open rebellion came reluctantly to Tamin, but so distraught was he that he surrendered with a brief, resentful struggle. “It will serve Bandobras right to see I am gone when he returns,” he thought sullenly; “and how discomfited he shall be, when he finds I have rescued the horses, and without anyone’s help! My Master will be proud of me then.” He made certain Théodred’s pocket-knife was in its place, and hurriedly strapped on his sword. He stood for a moment contemplating the locked door; Bandobras had taken the key, and he did not feel quite strong enough to knock it down. “Besides which,” he thought anxiously, “that would make a terrible racket, and someone would hear me, and I would be captured, and get in trouble, and not be able to help Isilmë or my Master!” Recalling something his cousin Bragadel had taught him, he took from the trunk a boot-hook, and went to the key hole, peering out. The passage was empty and dark, so Tamin inserted the hook, felt round carefully, his tongue between his teeth so intense was his concentration; after a minute he felt the latch move, and with an extra-hard twist it gave with a click. His heart leaping, he pushed the door open and stepped out into the passageway.

He slipped through the darkness, all of his father’s training coming into play; he ducked into shadows, crept round corners, and melted silently into the darkness, exulting in his freedom, yet filled with uneasiness on his horse’s account. When he gained the alleyway he made his way swiftly to the stables; there was a lamp lit, and the sound of horses moving restlessly, calling to each other and pacing in their stalls. Tamin moved as carefully as he could, eyes and ears alert; however, the earth beneath his feet gave way, and he slipped, fetching up against the stable wall, his heart pounding. He looked down at the ground and saw he was standing in thick, slimy mud, oozing from a ditch nearby. “Ugh!” he thought; the sulphurous scent was all round him. “How can they live with this stuff?”

He crept round the side of the stable and found the door ajar, the warm lamplight flickering over the old musty straw. He heard Isilmë call again, and one of the horses – Hammer, from the sound of it – kicked the stall wall and bellowed. The grooms were absent; indeed there did not appear to be anything on two legs, barring Tamin and some barn swallows, in the stable at all. Swallowing heavily to rid himself of the lump that had so unpropitiously lodged itself in his throat, Tamin tiptoed in, his sword drawn.

He could hear a rustling noise over the sounds of the horses’ protests, and a soft voice; then Kaimelas’ mare called out in pain and kicked. There was a sharp cry, and then the sound of someone weeping.

Curiosity overcame Tamin’s fear; he sheathed his sword, and ran lightly down the aisle to the mare’s stall. She was moving restlessly, the whites of her eyes showing in the lamplight below her; she tossed her head and nickered at Tamin. He opened the latch of the stall door to soothe her, but then drew back in surprise.

Crouched in the far corner of the stall, huddled into a dirty, disheveled ball, was a girl with yellow hair, cowering from the mare’s stamping feet. A lit lamp was at her side, and she clutched in her hand a quantity of seamstress’ pins. The lamplight reflected upon something in the mare’s hock, and Tamin saw to his disbelief that there were pins stuck all over the hock and fetlock of the mare’s left hind.

“Here; what are you doing?” he cried, shocked past caution; he sprang into the stall angrily and fell to his knees, trying to pull the pins out. The mare called again, and one of the pack horses neighed back from the other side of the stall wall. “Why are you doing this? You do not stick pins in the horse’s feet; that is unnaturally cruel!”

“I – I was not putting them in!” the girl sobbed, cringing back from him. “I was – I was, was taking them out!”

Tamin looked closely at her; she was fair and pale-eyed, like Hísimë, and he wished to believe her; however something in his heart misgave him, and he was unsure. “Well,” he said reluctantly, “help me take the rest of them out then; and then you and I will check all the horses, to make sure none of the others have been harmed so!” He carefully withdrew a pin from the mare’s hock and it flinched back, making to step on the girl, so Tamin pushed her aside, and she gave a little scream and scrambled away from him to huddle trembling in the other corner. Tamin stared at her in amazement. “What is the matter?” he demanded. “I was not hurting you!”

“But you will hurt me!” she sobbed, covering her tangled hair with one dirty arm; Tamin saw she clutched the pins so tight that they were piercing her skin, and she was bleeding. “You will; you always will – “

“Stop being so strange, do; you are making more noise than the horses!” he said, anxious and afraid. “Do not help me then, but be quiet and let me work!” He ran his hands over the mare’s hocks, determining they were free of pins; then hauling the protesting girl to her feet, he dragged her into each stall, one by one checking his Master’s little herd. Isilmë he left for last, because he wanted to sit with his little horse, yet did not trust the girl to stay without force, and postulated he might have a chance to question her if he sat with her in Isilmë’s stall. He found many more pins in the horses’ feet and legs; one of the pack horses had been stuck with a nail right up into his frog, and was bellowing miserably. “Shameful – shameful!” he muttered, and the girl just sat cowering in the filthy straw and watched him, fetching her breaths in terrified sobs and flinching from him whenever he got too close. At last he dragged her in to Isilmë’s stall; his little white horse was delighted to see him, but agitated too; Tamin when he ran his hands down Isilmë’s legs found a quantity of pins stuck into his joints, though he stood patiently while Tamin carefully extracted them. The pricks of blood stood out redly against Isilmë’s lovely white coat, and made Tamin angry. When he was finished, he turned on the girl and said,

“Well, will you speak now? This is a shameful thing that has been done to our steeds; it is cruel and heartless and unkind and petty! If you are not the perpetrator of this vile act, I demand you disclose unto me the reprehensible fellow guilty of doing such a thing, and he shall feel the recompense due him!”

Tamin’s anger terrified the girl further, and she curled herself into a ball; Tamin saw to his dismay the needles were dug further into her hands, and stuck out of her like hedgehog’s quills; she did not seem to even see this, but rocked back and forth, sobbing and covering her head with her arms. “Do not hurt me; do not hurt me!” she entreated. “I do not want – I do not – please – “ Tamin, his heart pricked, stepped forward to comfort her; but this seemed to frighten her further and she screamed, making Isilmë jump in surprise and snort. She clutched her skirts around her knees and rolled away from him, pressing herself into the corner. “No!” she cried, scrabbling at the stall wall. “Do not – I beg you – “

“Stop – stop!” Tamin begged her, terribly aware of the noise she was making. Isilmë blew and nudged him, and Tamin moved back against his horse’s flank; the girl, seeing this, quieted, and regarded him with tear-filled eyes. “I will not hurt you,” he said to her, careful to not make any further moves toward her, but stroked Isilmë’s velvety nose, showing her how temperate he was, and how disinclined to violence. “I promise, I swear to you, I will not hurt you!”

“You – you will be gentle then?” she asked hesitantly, wiping her face with her pinned hands; one sharp edge scraped down her cheek and made her bleed; she did not even seem to note this. She let go her skirts and shifted her legs; Tamin saw her feet were bare and filthy, and looked as though they had been burned by hot oil. The marks were shiny and red and inflamed and looked very painful. “She is scarce older than Hísimë,” he thought, his heart wrung with pity. “And how like her she is; if she were clean, she would look very much like Hísimë.”

“I am always gentle,” Tamin said, absently rubbing Isilmë’s neck while the horse nibbled and nuzzled against him. “Well,” he amended, thinking of Halgond, “I am gentle with girls at least; I have been known to fight with boys, I fear. But I am well ashamed of my past actions and have promised my Master I will not fight thus again.”

The girl appeared to consider this; she was still afraid, but the thoughtful and appraising look on her face made Tamin very nervous. She watched Tamin as he and Isilmë doted on each other; behind her terror she looked almost hungry. “You are friends with Dwarves,” she suddenly said. It sounded like an accusation, and Tamin was bewildered by it.

“Yes, I am friends with Dwarves,” he said. “I know it is considered unseemly for an Elf to befriend a Dwarf, but in truth I do not understand the age-old conflict; and though I own I find Dwarves very different and confusing at times, I do not mind them much at all.”

She looked very cagey then, and glancing sideways round her to make sure no one was listening besides Tamin and Isilmë, she said in an undertone: “Dwarves are behind all of this.” At Tamin’s blank stare she waved her bloody hands around and said eagerly: “The trouble here. In Esgaroth. It is the Dwarves.” Tamin looked skeptical, and she said earnestly: “It is! I heard them. It is Dwarves. It is their fault.”

“What is their fault?” asked Tamin, mystified.

“Everything,” she said, waving her hands again; the pins stuck into her fingers and palms flashed in the lamplight. “All of it. The water – the – the – Master – the Master said – “ Her face changed, became frightened again, and her eyes filled with tears. “He said – he said I had to – or he would – “ She broke down and sobbed, and Tamin fell to his knees to comfort her; but she cringed back again and cried desperately: “It is! It is the Dwarves, the Dwarves! It is their fault – theirs! Look,” she said, scrambling to her feet and stumbling to the stall door. “I will show you. I will prove it to you!”

“But – “ said Tamin, greatly confused; she gestured to him, and giving Isilmë an apologetic look, he scooped up the lamp and followed her out of the stall.

He put up the lamp’s shutters when they exited the stable, and hurried after her down the street in the darkness, hoping no light would escape to disclose them. Despite the painful-looking burns on her feet, she stumbled and lurched rather quickly, though when he reached for her to help her, she cringed away, her eyes rolling with fear at him. So he followed her up the street, past the Inn and down an alleyway. There were no folk about, and no lights on in the houses; everything had a desolate air, and Tamin wondered how many of the homes were abandoned. At the end of the alley there was a large rickety building, dark and shadowy; its eaves were low over its small windows and the front door was broken. It looked like the face of a sneering, broken-toothed beggar, and it smelt of blood and sulphur and filth, and something else Tamin could not identify, but recognized as the same scent they had found in the house in the village that morning, emanating from the room his Master would not let him enter. He hesitated, looking up apprehensively at the ramshackle building, but the girl turned back to him, her eyes alarmed.

“Follow me; follow me!” she entreated him desperately, holding out her pinned and bloody hands. “It is empty; I swear it is empty! Quickly, quickly!” She gestured to him, and reluctantly he followed her round the back of the structure. It was weedy and overgrown, and there was a quantity of rubbish stacked up against the walls or hidden in the scrubby grass. She stumbled over the stuff, and Tamin reached for her once to steady her; but she backed away again with a frightened whimper, and he withdrew.

She led him to a door set in the ground, and grasped one of the handles, tugging hard. Tamin took hold of the other handle and they heaved together, and the doors creaked open; they lay them in the dirt and stared down into at dark, dank cellar. Cobwebs grew in the corners of the entryway and the hinges were rusty; there was a trickle of filthy, foul water running down the stone steps, making them slippery and treacherous. The girl went straight way down, slipping on the last two steps in the darkness, and she landed with a thump on the floor; Tamin rushed down to help her up and she tried to scramble away from him again.

“Stop that!” he remonstrated her irritably; his voice sounded flat in the heavy humid air, and it stank. “I told you; I am not going to hurt you. Now hold still and let me take these pins out of your hand.”

“I cannot see you,” she protested, shrinking back. “How – how can you – “

“I can see well enough,” said Tamin. “Just hold still!”

Her breath shrilled in her throat, rapid and panicky, and her hands were cold and trembled as though she had palsy; but she sat still and let Tamin pull the pins out of her palms and fingers. While he worked, her breathing slowed a little, and her shoulders relaxed; he heard her swallow hard, and then felt her move a little towards him. “That is better, is it not?” he said gently. “You see? I told you I would not harm you. Now, what is it you want me to see, that proves the Dwarves are so evil?”

“We need light,” she said, groping for the lamp; their hands brushed together and she clutched at him. She was sticky with blood. “Light,” she begged, and Tamin opened one of the shutters. A ray of warm yellow light pierced the gloom, revealing a dirt floor webbed over with rivulets of sluggish slimy water, steaming slightly in the chill darkness. The room was cavernous and cold, the beams draped with cobwebs and dirt, and it smelled horrible. There was a hollow dripping noise, and the soft susurration of a snake moving somewhere beneath the barrels and tarps strewn about. Tamin rose cautiously to his feet, holding the lamp aloft and shining the ray of light about, descrying an old work bench covered in rusted tools, rat droppings and bones, and everywhere slime and filth. Then to his surprise, the girl approached him, trembling from head to foot, but her grey eyes alight from within. She reached toward him with a filthy bloody hand, and lightly touched Hísimë’s pendant where it swung over his breast.

“Is this a girl’s?” she asked wonderingly. The moonstone glimmered wan and clean in the darkness, and the green of the peridot caught at the light. Tamin thought she looked eager and afraid and ashamed all at once, and wished he could bring her to Osgiliath. “She would be washed and fed and nursed,” he thought, his heart sore; “then perhaps Hísimë would teach her not to be afraid of me!” He thought of Hísimë’s large pale eyes and lovely tendrils of golden hair, the bloom of health on her smooth cheeks, and fetched a sigh. This poor girl should look like that, and not be so broken and dirty. “Perhaps I will ask my Master to bring her home with us,” he thought. “She cannot live here, the poor thing!”

“It is a girl’s,” he said, taking up the pendant in his hand and showing it to her. “Her name is Hísimë.”

“Did you take it from her?” she asked, looking closely at it, her eyebrows lowered.

“No!” said Tamin, offended. “Of course I did not take it from her. She gave it me ere I left, and I promised to return it. It is to protect me.”

She looked up at him then; her eyes had lost their fear, and she smiled; it was not a very nice smile. “Is it working?” she asked coquettishly, and touched his hair.

It was Tamin’s turn to flinch back. “It appears to be so far,” he said cautiously. The look on her face was making him very uncomfortable. “Now, show me the proof of the Dwarves’ culpability.”

Her smile faded and the frightened look came back. “Are you sure?” she asked; she glanced at the steps leading up out of the cellar and wrung her hands. “Do you really, truly want to see it? You do not want to see it, do you? Not really? We do not have to see it – we can go – we can run away – we can – can get out – “

A terrible sense of foreboding washed over Tamin. “What do you mean, get away?” he said suspiciously. “You swore this building was empty – “

There was a rustling noise outside, and he turned to the cellar door; there were black shapes against the faint light of the night sky, and he saw the gleam of a weapon. “Look out!” he cried, dashing the lamp to the floor and plunging the room in darkness. He drew his sword and said, “Get behind me, quick!”

She screamed and bolted for the back of the room, and a half dozen men rushed down the cellar steps. They slipped on the slime and stumbled in the gloom, cursing and shouting: “Get him! Get him!” Tamin’s eyes were better than theirs though, and ere the foremost man knew where the boy was, Tamin had struck off his head with a single blow. The smell of fresh blood filled the room, and Tamin danced forward, slashing at another man; then there was a sudden flare of light, and the men, blinking, found him, and with a concerted roar rushed at him.

Tamin was quick and well-trained but outnumbered and out-muscled; he managed to wound two more men quite severely ere he was rapped smartly on the head by a big hulking fellow with a cudgel. He saw stars and his sword-hand weakened; the next thing he knew he was flung to the slimy floor, and a great booted foot stamped on his fingers until he released his sword; then he was dragged to his feet and held still, and the men were laughing, and the girl was screaming for mercy. “Let her go, let her go!” he cried, struggling and looking round wildly. Then he saw a man approaching him, holding aloft a sputtering pitch torch, smiling cruelly at him.

“Let her go?” he said with a laugh. “Certainly! Bring her here, boys!”

Two men dragged the girl out of the shadows. She was screaming and struggling against them, and they were laughing at her; they had torn the front of her bodice away, and her nose was broken; blood streamed down her face and into her open mouth, down her chin and throat and all over her breasts.

“Have mercy; have mercy!” she cried to the man with the torch. “Do not send me to the Master; not to the Master, please, please! Do not send me to the East! You promised! You promised you would not send me to the East!”

“O be quiet, you little slut!” said the man irritably. “You make too much noise; and besides, this is easier!” With a laugh, he drew his sword and ran her through. The other men laughed as she gurgled and lurched, her eyes wide and terrified, and they dropped her; she fell to her knees, one trembling arm held out in supplication to Tamin; then with a sickening wet cough she fell lifeless to the floor.

“You horrible man!” cried Tamin, filled with terrible fury, fighting and struggling so hard he nearly wrenched his arms out of their sockets. “How could you – you – “

“Do not waste your sympathies on the likes of her, pretty boy,” laughed the man with the torch. “She served her purpose, did she not? For here you are, nicely caught in our snare!”

“O you will pay for this!” shouted Tamin, kicking with his feet and struggling anew. “You horrible – you vile – you – “

“Spare us your accolades,” grinned the man with the torch. Kicking the girl’s body aside with his boot he stalked to the back of the room. “Bring him!” he commanded the men, and Tamin was dragged helplessly along.

At the back of the cellar was another door, leading further underground; the scent of dirt and moist loam was overpowered by the stench of blood and decay. The man with the torch lit a lamp on a table, and there before Tamin’s appalled eyes were displayed the most contemptible and wicked devices he had ever seen: iron helms with spikes on the inside, racks, cages, whips and saws; sharp pokers and iron-banded cudgels and other things that he did not understand, but looked cruel, rusty and covered in blood and hair. “Welcome to the Master’s play-room!” said the man with an expansive gesture, and the men holding Tamin laughed. The boy’s heart went cold, and he began to feel very afraid. “O that I had obeyed my Master!” he thought. “O that I had obeyed Bandobras! What will these men do to me? What shall I do?” He watched the man with the torch come forward, a cruel and speculative look on his face, and felt very sick. His limbs began to tremble and he cringed back as the man leaned in, grasping his jaw with one hand and examining him carefully.

“The little bitch did her job well,” he said with an awful smile. “I declare, you are even prettier than that foolish Elf-prince! The Master will like you; he will like you very much. And you will be good to your new Master, will you not, pretty boy?”

The men guffawed, but Tamin cried indignantly: “I have but one Master, and that is Legolas of Dol Galenehtar!”

The man spit on his face. “Idiot boy,” he said contemptuously, and slapped him. It stung, and Tamin winced. “The time of the Elves is long past; and the stunted Dwarves are dwindling. There is new power in the world, and it is the power of Men. You had best accept this, for there is no changing it; we are everywhere, and we will have everything – everything.” He leered at Tamin. “Now then,” he said sweetly. “Let us hear you call me ‘master.’ Just for practice, you know.”

“Never,” hissed Tamin, and though he knew his Naneth would have disapproved, he spit back at the man. The man flinched, and his eyes went angry. He drew back, and at first Tamin thought he would walk away; but then the man kicked him violently in the stomach. All the breath went out of him, and he sagged and gasped; through the roaring in his ears he heard the men laugh. “A fighter!” the man called. “We will have fun preparing this one, boys!”

He was turned and flung roughly against a table, fetching up on his face. He scrabbled against the sticky surface with his hands, but the men were on him again, holding him down and pinning him against the table. Someone kicked him from behind, and he cried aloud in shock and pain. “Call me ‘master’!” the man shouted. “Come along, boy; say it! Say ‘master’ to me!”

“No!” croaked Tamin, struggling to catch his breath; his feet slipped on the greasy floor, and he could feel the sharp edge of the table digging into his stomach, already sore from the man’s kick. “Never!”

“This will not do!” cried the man gaily, and kicked Tamin again; Tamin bit his lip to keep from crying out, and the men laughed and laughed. “Say it, pretty boy! Call me ‘master’!”

“I’ll call you master, and more beside!” cried a clear, piping voice from the entryway; there were several twangs and thunks, and the laughter died away into shouts and screams. There was more shouting, and the bellow of war-cries, and then the men let Tamin go; he wheeled round to see Bandobras and two strange Dwarves attacking the men, and the men fighting weakly back. Bandobras had cast aside a bow, and was fighting grimly with his small sword. He looked very gallant and very small standing there among all those big men, though he fought well, and danced aside from their blows. Tamin’s heart was flooded with relief and remorse together, and he thought: “What if Bandobras dies! He will have died defending me! O how angry my Master will be then!” He groped for his sword, but remembered he had dropped it in the other room; then he recalled the knife Théodred had given him, and fumbling in his tunic he drew it and flicked it open with a reassuring snick. He saw his tormentor’s back turned to him, and he sprang upon him, sinking the knife deep into the man’s back, up to the very hilt. The man screamed and arced back, struggling to dislodge him; but Tamin held tight, withdrew the knife, and reaching round slit the man’s throat. He fell heavily, and Tamin leapt aside, looking round wildly to make sure the Hobbit was not in danger.

He saw, however, that Bandobras and his Dwarvish friends had done their work quickly and well; two men were down with arrows in their throats, and the other two dead with the telltale marks of axe and sword; Tamin’s man lay spread upon the floor, his blood mingling with the gelatinous muck. Tamin was battle-tried and not given to giddiness, but his head roared with the sudden violence of it all; he was trembling head to toe, and felt very sick and ashamed. The enormity of his disobedience visited itself upon him, and it was a heavy load indeed; writ large into the furious Hobbit’s face was the disappointment and disapprobation of his Master, and Tamin felt ready to sink into the mucky floor with the mortification of it.

“Well!” said one of the Dwarves, smiling grimly and wiping his axe blade. “That is what I call a nick-of-time rescue; would you not agree, my good Hobbit?”

“And a totally unnecessary one!” said Bandobras angrily. He swung on Tamin, blood spattering from the tip of his blade across the boy’s chest. His small face was dark with fury. “You idiot!” he sputtered, shaking his sword in anger. “Why’d you go of doing something like that? You want to get yourself up and killed? Don’t you know what your Master’d do to me if aught happened to you whilst I was supposed to be watching out for you?”

“N – nothing, Bandobras,” gulped Tamin, his lower lip trembling. “He loves you more than me.” Then he burst into tears.

The Dwarves cleared their throats and looked politely away. “I think I shall check the cellar entrance in case we’ve been followed,” said one judiciously. “Care to join me, Ibun?” Together the two stumped out of the dank room, leaving the sobbing boy with the Hobbit.

Bandobras was quite taken aback by Tamin’s tears; he stared at the boy in dawning comprehension, then sighed and ran one bloody hand through his curly hair. “Confound it all,” he muttered, and going to the boy took him roughly round the waist and gave him a quick awkward embrace. “Now, you look here,” he said a little uncomfortably, shaking Tamin by the elbow. “Sure and he might love me best, for he’s known me longer nor you. But you’re an Elf, you are, and he’ll wind up loving you longest, for he’ll go on loving you for ever and ever, and he’ll have to stop with me eventually, you know.”

The inference was yet novel to Tamin, and he blinked back his tears; suddenly his jealousy seemed very petty. “O I am so sorry, Bandobras!” he sobbed, throwing himself upon the Hobbit’s shoulder. “What have I done! I have placed us both in danger and for no good reason! O must my Master be angry with me, and O how justified you are in your anger! O Bandobras, please forgive me!”

“All right; all right,” said Bandobras uneasily, giving Tamin a couple of stiff pats on his back. “That’s enough of that, now, you silly boy. Now come along of me, dear heart, and let’s go of finding our Master; for he won’t go getting angry – O no, not our Master! – rather he’ll be a-blaming himself for this, and I’m thinking he’s got enough on his plate at the moment.”

“Yes, Bandobras,” sniffed Tamin, and he and the Hobbit wiped their blades carefully, and quit the room. But when they entered the previous chamber did Tamin’s heart wring anew, for he saw, crumpled in a pathetic little heap upon the floor, the body of the girl who had enticed him thither; still were her poor hands bloodied, and her pinched face was set in a terrified grimace. “O, the poor thing!” he said, his tears pricking once more. “How terrible they were to her, and how my heart burns for her, though she sought to harm me! O she was so frightened, Bandobras; how I wish I could have saved her!”

Bandobras fetched a sigh, looking down on the girl lying in the muck and blood. “Damned shame,” he muttered, then said a little loudly: “Get your sword, then, esquire of the Green Knight! The Master’ll be none too pleased if you go and leave it in this here mud, you know, seeing as he gave it to you and all.”

Tamin hurried to it, and lifting it he wiped it clean carefully upon the cloak of one of the men he’d slain. There was a sound on the steps above them, and he looked up; the Dwarves were looking down at them, their eyes bright in the darkness. “All serene down there?” one called softly. “It is clear, and the moon is bright, confound it! We will all have to be extra-careful, even our little Elvish friend, as it is rather obvious he is no good at being surreptitious.”

“An astonishing thing too, for an Elf, I own!” said the other, the one the first Dwarf had called Ibun. “Nír, let us see if this youngling might redeem himself, and pay us back for saving his hide; he might walk point, and so flush out any enemies who lie in wait for us!”

Bandobras spluttered in protest, but Tamin raced up the steps, and dropping to one knee, he grasped Ibun by the hand. “O but I will, I promise I will!” he said earnestly, gazing up into the Dwarf’s kindly face. “O that you have put your lives in danger for me, when I was being so stupid and stubborn and small-minded! And you have saved me, and I am ever so grateful to you; and I shall do everything I can to repay you, well barring money of course, for I have none unfortunately, though I might later when I become a knight, because esquires when they become knights are given some money, but perhaps by then my debt to you shall be repaid and it will not be necessary – “

“Here, now, enough of that, lad,” laughed Ibun, and Nír chuckled and shook his head. “This is no time for histrionics! We need to get back to the Master’s hall, double-quick and double-quiet; do you think you can lead us without following any more girls about?”

Tamin blushed and felt miserable, and privately resolved to never disobey again, for the consequences were too dire, and embarrassing as well. “O yes!” he said, with an enthusiasm he didn’t feel. “I will start leading you straight way!”

“Do that then!” said Nír with a laugh, and though Bandobras shook his head and muttered under his breath, he followed them, and they slipped quietly into the darkness.