Plans

The very darkness of night seemed to have oozed its way into the large kitchen of the Bolger farmhouse. The lamps and the glow from the fire on the hearth appeared as they might if the flue were partially blocked allowing smoke to haze the room. But the air was clear.

The kitchen was filled with hobbits. They sat on chairs, counters, overturned buckets and the floor. Odovacar Bolger, only recently out of his bed and still recovering from injuries inflicted by the Ruffian, sat at the head of the table. But the attention of those in the room was not on the head of the family but rather on his son and one of their cousins. Bolgers, other relations, friends and farm hands had come to hear the news brought to the Bridgefields and Budgeford by Fredegar and Ronoldo.

"That evening, after we had gone to the inn at Quarry, we followed the wagons the rest of the way. We followed them to the quarries." Freddie took a big swallow of the strong hot tea in his mug and waited for a response from everyone.

A chill moved through the stuffy room. Several of the hobbits shivered. No one spoke for several long moments.

"Ya went ta them quarries? Ta the ones where them odd hobbits at Quarry dig stone?" Nob Gamwich finally managed to whisper.

"No. It wasn’t to those quarries the wagons went, Nob. They don’t want Shire hobbits knowing what they are doing. They even left those Sherriffs they had with them at the stand of trees near the town of Quarry." Fredegar brought his gaze up from the worn surface of the kitchen table to slowly look around the room at all the familiar faces. His eyes finally came to rest on those of his father. They stared at each other from opposite ends of the table, Fredegar silently asking for reassurance, Odo silently giving it. "It was those other quarries, Nob, all of you; it was the old quarries."

Some in the crowd looked shocked, others scared, others nodded their heads knowingly.

"You went to the quarries," the strong deep voice of Tobias Bolger inquired, "or is it that you went into the quarries?"

Fredegar continued to look at his father. "Into them, Uncle Toby. Ronnie and I went into the old quarries." Freddie took a deep breath. "We went into them because the wagons went into them. We kept to the shadows, we made no noise, we saw no ghosts." He closed his eyes and took another deep breath. "We could feel the evil of the place though, and we could see the couple hundred Ruffians who are living and working there. They had about fifty hobbits there as well, but we figure them to be Bree and Staddle Hobbits, their manner of speech was somewhat different to ours. They seemed happy at their work, so Ronnie and I are sure they’ve been lied to about what they are doing. There were no guards set nor were they being watchful, as the brutes think no Shire hobbits will dare to come near those quarries. They have tons of our goods. In cool deep caves they have our food and ale. In dry caves they have sacks of our grain, our hay and straw. They are eating our food, drinking our ale, making bread with our grain and feeding their beasts with our beast’s fodder."

Freddie opened his eyes and his father flinched at the boldness he saw in them. His son stood, shoulders squared and head high, fixing the crowd of hobbits with his fierce glare. Ron rose to stand beside his cousin.

"They are not being watchful, did you all hear me?" Fredegar continued to look carefully at each hobbit. "They are not being careful. Ronnie and I got in, and Ronnie and I got out again. If we are careful, if we are not greedy, if we are willing to go slowly . . . some of our food and our ale and our harvested crops will indeed be OURS again. We can do this thing. We can strike a blow against Lotho and his Ruffian Men. We can fight back against those hobbits who have crept out from among us to side as Sherriffs with these villains." He looked again into his father’s eyes. "Who will stand with us?"

Every hobbit in Rosamunda Bolger’s kitchen, including Estella and Rosa herself, rose to stand with Fredegar and Ronoldo.

Naznock sat in comfort at the Great Road Tavern, feet propped up on the hearth where a small fire, befitting the time of year, burned merrily. He had good reports to send off south. The Gathering had begun again with the coming of spring harvest. More would follow through the summer and into the large harvest season of the autumn. He sneered, thinking with pleasure that he and his lads would be eating and drinking well in the coming months.

May was near to becoming June. Natuck and Slengan were doing an excellent job of keeping the ridiculous "Chief of the Shire" and his harridan mother in their wretched little hole in the ground. Slengan was showing a real gift for charming the old hag while her idiot son believed everything thing Natuck said without question.

Naznock took a long slow drink of his ale, replacing his mug on the table with a solid thud. The next little annoyance was also well in hand. Tookland grains and goods were not all moving to the center of their little realm. Tooks had been found who had sided with Lotho’s becoming Chief while having little love for their own Head Rat. These had readily believed the slander against that . . . what was his name? Naznock thought a moment before the name came to him. Paladin, Paladin Took. Yes, they had believed what they were told about him and had been more than happy to spread it about. Naznock’s raspy chuckle escaped him. The Took’s Head Rat thought he had seen the worst Naznock and his lads could do when they sealed off his borders. He was in for a surprise.

And that brought Naznock’s thoughts around to Buckland. Something wasn’t right there, though he couldn’t say what it was. They seemed cooperative enough. Things were moving along smoothly. He paused. Too smoothly? He stared into the flames dancing in the grate. He would tell his lads to try being more observant. It was well they were taking a good many of the healthy young males from Buckland and putting them elsewhere. The Hobbits from the far north of the Shire, whom Naznock had sent to Buckland, would feel no real loyalty to the land’s deposed Master, so they would be easier to set against him.

Naznock sighed. All in all, Sharkey was getting what he wanted out of the rat land called the Shire.

The Gaffer had stayed with Daddy and Dimm Twofoot until Lotho’s Men once again filled the streets and byways of Hobbiton. They dare not chance breaking the Rules, so the recent widower returned to live in his lonely shack. Bell’s quilt remained on the neatly made bed. The lap-robe and shawl she had knitted for herself were draped over the back of her rocker. These things did not haunt Hamfast, they comforted him. They reminded him that there was love to be found in this life and that it never really dies. They gave him a reason to hold on to his friends and family. Wrapped in the quilt at night, he was once again wrapped in Bell’s embrace. Touching the shawl and lap-robe was touching her and their Sammy. The lad had saved his own money to buy the yarn for his Mum. "In a nice warm yellow, Mum, ‘n the palest of pinks. Like the sun a shinin’ down all bright ‘n warm on them pink roses you love," was what their lad had said to Bell on his birthday when he gave the gift to her.

On this early Forelithe morning Ham Gamgee did what he did every morning. He and his achy joints made the long walk to the privy, then back to the shack to get dressed and fix breakfast.

"Just breakfast now, you be noticin’ that, Bell? Not enough food for first ‘n second breakfasts any more." The Gaffer sighed. "Nor enough for afternoon tea. I’m not complainin’, mind, just remarkin’. I be savin’ the complainin’ for when there be nought for elevenses ‘n dinner. It’ll be a sorry day in the Shire when there ain’t but three meals a day."

Since Hamfast Gamgee truly believed that, wherever his dear Bell’s spirit dwelt it was somewhere that she could see and hear him, he spoke to her as he went about his day.

"‘N I know you seen there be naught for this one ‘n only breakfast than porridge. Aye, naught but porridge." He lifted the lid on the pot and stirred the hot cereal. "Mind, I like porridge well enough, but it made a nicer second breakfast after a first o’ eggs ‘n scones, bacon ‘n sausages, fried taters n’ gravy all washed down with some o’ your good strong coffee." Ham replaced the lid, set the spoon in his bowl then went to dip his cup into the water barrel in the corner of the single room. "‘N there I go, makin’ myself all hungry for what I’ve nought. Right fool-headed that be." He set the cup on the small table next to his bowl. "There be no eggs, no scones, no bacon nor sausages. There be taters, but I saves them for luncheon. ‘N there ain’t no coffee, strong nor weak." He swung the pot away from the small fire, grabbed the handle with a towel then dished up his breakfast. "It be seemin’ to me that is what they, them Ruffians ‘n Lotho Pimple, want. That there be nought for us regular folk. I hear tell there be crops, but I hear tell they be gettin ‘gathered’. ‘Gathered!’ Plain stolen is all that means." The Gaffer set the pot down to put his hand to his chest. His breaths came rough and hard drawn for a few minutes before settling back down. "Forgive me, m’love," he sighed as he finally caught his breath. "I’ve it better than some, from what I hear goin’ ‘round. I get some o’ the old things from time to time from the Cottons, bless ‘em. Like this here butter," he said as he put a dab on his porridge. "No cream, but this be right tasty."

Ham picked up his bowl and cup, balanced them in one hand so he could open his rickety front door then close it behind himself before taking a seat on the bench that Dimm Twofoot had made for him. It wasn’t anything like the view had been from #3 Bagshot Row. This was just a plain, dusty road, scrubby tufts of grass here and there set against a backdrop of more black tarred shacks like the one against which he was leaning his back. The warm sun of the new day felt good to his various aches and pains. The front of his tiny house faced east and he enjoyed watching the morning grow. In the late afternoon, early evening, the Gaffer enjoyed an identical bench beside his back door where he watched the day’s ending. He didn’t like to look to the north. Northward lay heartache.

The Men had started to put up shacks around Bag End, ruining a good portion of the garden Ham had worked in most of his life. Part of it they hid behind a tall fence. Worse, to the old hobbit, his dear old hole was gone. It hadn’t been enough for Lotho to merely kick them out of their homes, no, not nearly enough. Bagshot Row was gone. The fronts were ripped off the old comfortable holes. Floors ripped up and ceiling beams torn down, interior walls demolished until no trace of them remained. A sand and gravel pit; Hamfast’s home had become a sand and gravel pit called Hill Pit, accessed by Pit Road. The bitter taste of bile came to the old Gaffer’s mouth, burning his throat every time he looked to the north.

This morning, there wasn’t any comfort in the view to the south either. Ham had nearly finished his porridge when his eyes caught a wisp of something that looked like a smudge-cloud pulled across the otherwise clear sky. He followed it back till it became dark and dense. Back to where it rose straight in the Shire sky before the high winds caught it to draw it toward the north-east. Although Hamfast Gamgee had never been there himself, he knew the smoke, for smoke it was, rose from Tookland.

The dawn came early to Tookland, but it wasn’t the rising of the sun. The light was orange and flickered through the windows and onto the walls of farmhouse and farmhole bedrooms. The stillness of predawn was broken, not by the twitters, chirps, and songs of birds, but by the ringing of farm bells. Every farm whose land touched upon the borders had smoldering, flaming fields. Those, and only those, who had refused to take the spring grain harvest to the Great Smials found their granaries burning, or worse, exploding.

The families and farm hands ran to the fields lugging water-swollen blankets or buckets only to stop and stare. Just behind the line of flames were Men. Ruffians and Hobbit Sherriffs, spaced close enough that it was hard to get past them yet not too closely packed together either. Their hands held short swords and knives, clubs and whips . . . pitch-forks and hay-rakes. Every tenth one, or so, held a bow with the arrow nocked but lax, waiting only for a reason to draw back the string. Slowly their line moved inwards. Oiled straw was spread upon the fields, just ahead of the flames, so the fields filled with young green grasses from the spring planting, alfalfa, wheat, barley, and oats were smoldering. The smoke first blocked the stars then defaced the sun.

The morning dragged on. A few Tooks were injured while trying to attack the lines but, as according to orders, none were killed. Suddenly the Ruffians and Sherriffs quit laying down the straw. They raked the fires out. Many of them left while those who remained started moving about in the now familiar pattern of border patrols. Excepting the eastern end of Tookland where The Green Hills were poorly suited to grain crops, the entire border of Tookland was moved inwards by ten acres that morning.

Merry awoke to his younger cousin urgently shaking him and calling his name. The Took’s green eyes were wide with fear, his hands cold and trembling.

"Smoke, Merry! I smell smoke. Oily smoke."

"There’s no smoke, Pippin."

"And green grass smoldering, Merry. I can smell it, Merry. Get up! We have to sound an alarm or something."

Merry got out of bed and went to his room’s window. He got up on the small bench placed there to enable the hobbits to comfortably look out over the sill and from there he leaned out as far as he dared while sniffing the air. There was no smell of smoldering grass nor smoking oil, nor did a fire’s glow compete with the light of the not quite risen sun.

"I can smell it. I . . ."

"Pippin," Merry interrupted. "There is nothing burning."

"But Merry . . ."

"It was a dream, Pip, just another dream." Merry steered the shivering lad over to his bed. "Lie down, Pip."

Oddly cooperative, Pippin did as he was told. Whether it was Denethor’s last moments,the razing of the city, or the terror of the palantir Pippin had problems with dreaming about fire. Pippin was already asleep as Merry pulled the blankets up to cover his cousin’s shoulders.