Chapter 2. Lesson

And so, the next day, the head of escort found himself, along with two hobbits of the escort working under him that he’d detailed for this small but potentially perilous task, out behind the stables. Here, a sturdy stone wall comprised part of the structure, where the stable workers piled the soiled bedding they’d cleared away as part of their duties. There it would rot well, at a later date to be shovelled into waggons and spread upon the fields.

The compost made a fine, soft cushion for arrows with practice tips of the sort that young Tooks would use during the early days of instruction in archery, before they gained enough skill to shoot at the butts that were permanently set up in a large meadow near the Great Smials for archery practice and competitions. According to custom (and prudence), the stable hobbits stayed well away from the area when the headmaster informed them that archery lessons were to take place. Ferdi had taken the same precaution. Not only did it spare the stable hobbits potential injury from a badly aimed shaft, but it would spare Farry (and the Thain and Mistress) some of the inevitable Talk from any witnessing young Faramir’s efforts. The hobbits of the escort, of course, knew better than to spread gossip.

Hilly and Tolly finished shaping the straw-and-manure mound into a creditable butt and straightened from their labours, setting aside their shovels. Ferdi inspected their work with appropriate gravity. ‘That’ll do.’ To Tolly, he added, ‘You may go and fetch the lad, now.’

Tolly gave an ironic salute and departed. While Hilly fastened the practice target to the butt, Ferdi used the time to check the fletching on the practice shafts, nodding to himself in satisfaction. As long as the son of the Thain could manage even a modicum of aim, they’d fly true, in the direction of the target. Or so he hoped.

‘Shall I go and spell Adel?’ Hilly asked after some minutes had passed, naming the escort who was currently cooling his heels outside the Thain’s study, ready to run a message at Pippin’s slightest whim.

‘No, I aim to keep you and Tolly here to retrieve arrows,’ Ferdi said.

‘And so the two of us can carry you off to the healers after you fail to properly dodge, I’m sure,’ Hilly said under his breath. Ferdi quelled him with a look, though on second thought, the sentiment made some sort of sense. He ought to have thought of that.

‘Here we are,’ Tolly said unnecessarily as he and Farry rounded the corner of the stables.

‘Well come,’ Ferdi replied, gesturing to the small lad.

Farry nodded and walked to him. Another child, eager to learn, might have skipped or jogged up to him, but somehow the son of the Thain maintained a dignity beyond his years much of the time. Four-going-on-forty, Ferdi thought to himself, and not for the first time. 

In the privacy of the Thain’s quarters, earlier in the day, he’d tested Farry’s eyesight and, as it was appropriately keen (unfortunately taking away a plausible excuse for not going forward with the lessons), had fitted the lad with a bow, finding to his surprise that the smallest available bow shaft nearly matched the lad’s unusual height and reach. As Pippin sat, silently observing, Ferdi had gone over the basics of a proper stance, of stringing and unstringing the bow, of bending the bow using the weight of his body rather than pulling back on the string, repeatedly stressing the importance of never dry-loosing and causing damage to the bow.

The Thain had watched in evident fascination as Ferdi had introduced Farry to arrows and their various points and discussed the importance of fletching to the lad. Ferdi, noticing, had said, ‘You’re not thinking of taking up the sport again, I hope.’

‘I might be inclined to do that,’ had been Pippin’s answer, and Ferdi’s face must have shown his feelings, as Pippin followed this sentiment with a hearty laugh. ‘But not at the present time,’ he said. ‘My plate is rather overfull at the moment.’

Fervently though privately blessing the burdensome nature of the Thain’s office, Ferdi had continued the preliminary lesson until he was certain of Farry’s understanding of the subject matter. 

Now he pulled the selected bow shaft from the bow case and held it out to the lad. ‘String it as you were shown.’

With some difficulty, the small boy complied, but he was stronger than he looked, stronger than Ferdi would have credited in an average child of his age. Ferdi dipped his chin in affirmation and opened his mouth, but Farry spoke first. ‘And never dry-loose the bow,’ he said, the exact words that had been on his instructor’s lips.

‘You have the right of it,’ Ferdi said. He jerked his head at the escort, and they moved to take their places, well out of the line of fire. They’d be watching Faramir’s technique closely, ready to dodge any wayward shots.

‘Now,’ Ferdi said, and he moved Faramir into position. While the escort watched, faces carefully blank, he checked and double-checked Farry’s stance, somewhat surprised that the lad seemed to remember all the points from this morning’s lesson. But then, perhaps he shouldn’t be surprised, having come to know the faunt over the past year. Hardly a faunt. Farry was as precocious and serious for one of his tender years as Mayor Samwise’s Goldi, about the same age, was precocious and lively.

‘All right, then,’ he said at last. ‘Now we will nock a shaft and aim...’ Faramir nodded and fumbled an arrow from the quiver, taking it in his hand as he’d been shown and fitting it to the string. 

‘Remember,’ Ferdi said. ‘Even though these arrows are tipped with blunts, you can still do some damage.’ Blunts were typically used for target shooting, but as they could also stun a bird or small animal, they were often used by tweens for hunting purposes. Farry was a far cry from a tween, however...

‘I remember,’ said his pupil. ‘Through open mouth, or ear or eye, one so struck will surely die,’ he quoted from the morning’s lesson.

‘O aye,’ Ferdi said softly and fervently.

‘And so at a person, I should never take aim, whether Elf, or Dwarf, or Hobbit, or Man,’ Farry recited in his high, clear childish voice, holding the bow loosely with one hand, nocking the arrow with the other. Ferdi took a deep breath and glanced to either side, to see Tolly’s throat working, as if the escort were swallowing down sickness, and that Hilly’s face, though still blank of expression, had lost much of its normally hearty colour. At the Battle of Bywater, the two of them had shot nearly all the arrows in their quivers to deadly effect – that was before Frodo Baggins had put a stop to the shooting after the battle ended. Ferdi himself had loosed more than half his arrows in that terrible conflict by the time a ruffian’s club had struck him down in the heat of the fight.

Even though he privately held that all men were ruffians – never mind the fact that the King was a Man, and friend to the Thain – he still found it necessary to steel himself when it came time to convey that part of the teaching to young Tookish archers in their earliest lessons, for the lives he’d taken still haunted him, and he knew the other Tooks who’d fought at Bywater had the same trouble as he did. But this was neither the time nor the place to face his private demons. Ferdi sucked in one more steadying breath, aware that Faramir was awaiting his response.

‘That’s right,’ was all he answered as he moved in close behind the boy and placed his bow hand over Farry’s on the bow shaft. But as he touched the string with his other hand, Farry said in protest, ‘I want to do it myself.’

So much for controlling the situation for safety’s sake. ‘Of course, young master,’ Ferdi said, keeping his voice expressionless. He dropped his hands, stepped back again and swallowed hard. Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw the two hobbits of escort stiffen at attention. O aye, he thought at them. Be ready to dodge, my good hobbits, at the loosing, lest ye be the ones to lose.

But as he watched, Farry pushed out his bow arm and drew the string, took a breath, released it, and loosed the arrow – twang – moving as if he’d been born to the bow, even to remaining motionless in the necessary follow-through that sped the arrow on its way without spoiling the original aim.

Ferdi registered Tolly’s muffled exclamation even as, astonished, he watched the shaft thud home in the central circle of the target. My word, he plainly heard Hilly’s mutter.

‘Rest,’ he said automatically, but of course, Farry was already gently shaking out his arrow hand, tightening and relaxing his fingers to release the tension and allow his muscles to recover. Exactly as Ferdi had shown him that morning. Exactly.

‘Again,’ was all he added, moving to Farry’s side, and from the corner of his eye, he saw the lad’s nod – a sharp jerk of his chin, reminiscent of his father the Thain. He was also aware of movement behind him, Tolly and Hilly coming to stand side by side and a few steps back from the shooting line, staring down the line of fire from Farry’s bow to the target.

Faramir took up another arrow from the sheath, moved one foot slightly so that he was once more in the position he’d practised that morning, and nocked the arrow to the bow. Ferdi held his breath as the exercise proceeded, from steadying breath to aim to loose to follow-through. Twang.

He more sensed than saw the motion behind him as Tolly whooped and slapped Hilly’s back. He could almost swear from the sound of it that the two hobbits of the Thain’s escort were dancing a jig, even as he stared, unbelieving, at the second arrow quivering in the target’s centre, a thumb’s width from its brother. Not a fluke, then.

‘And... rest,’ he said.

Farry obediently shook out his hand, but the small, heart-shaped face was a study in disappointment. Ferdi thought he heard the lad mutter, ‘But it’s all wrong...’

‘What’s that, laddie mine?’ he said. He swept his hand towards the target, and laughter bubbled up inside him. ‘Not wrong, at all! Why, you’re as good with a bow as your da ever was in casting a stone! And he’s one of the best!’ No matter how badly Pippin shot with a bow, few could match his prowess at casting stones, in Ferdi’s experience. He couldn’t suppress the incredulous chuckle that followed his words, but to make up for it, he added, fumbling for the right words to express his astonishment and appreciation of the lad’s evident gift, ‘Your aim may even be – perhaps – better, as nowadays, I imagine, he’s had precious little time for practice to keep up his eye and his arm.’

‘But it’s not right!’ Faramir insisted, and Ferdi could now see the tears standing in the youngster’s eyes as Farry looked up and then down again, staring at his dusty toes. ‘It’s all wrong.’ And Farry let the bow fall to his side, though he kept a secure hold so as not to drop it.

His laughter quenched as suddenly as it had erupted, Ferdi fell to one knee beside the tot. ‘Help me to understand,’ he said quietly, and something – some quality of sympathy or understanding in his tone – brought the lad’s regard to meet Ferdi’s once more. The eyes were strangely old for one so young. Wearily wise. Four. Nearly five. Going-on-fifty, he thought again. Or more like one hundred and five. He found it necessary to swallow down a lump in his throat before he could manage to say, huskily, ‘What makes it all wrong, Farry? Your aim is certainly true – why,’ he had to take another deep breath before continuing, ‘it’s a wonder to behold.’

‘It doesn’t sound like your bow,’ Farry said. ‘Or Tolly’s.’

‘It certainly shoots well enough, like Ferdi’s, or Tolly’s,’ Hilly put in behind them. Ferdi glanced back, to see the two hobbits of escort only a step or two behind them now. Tolly was staring at the target, lips moving as if he was calculating distance and deflection, though of course he himself could nock and loose in a fluid motion, without apparent thought, and hit his mark every time. ‘Why,’ Hilly added, ‘a few years hence, you could win the Tournament and become Head of the Thain’s escort!’

‘Why would I want to do that?’ Faramir said sourly, and Hilly slapped his thigh and howled with laughter.

Tolly exchanged a glance with Ferdi and countered his younger brother’s glee. ‘The lad wasn’t joking.’ Both Tolly and Ferdi had won the Tournament in their day. Both had served as head of escort – Ferdi was currently serving in that position – and the small lad had the right of it. It was an onerous vocation at best, and given Pippin’s disinclination to have an escort with him whenever he rode out from the Great Smials, it was hardly an enviable task.

‘It’s a child’s bow,’ Ferdi said. ‘That’s all the difference there is to it. The string is half the length, and so the sound is different.’ He shook his head. ‘That doesn’t take anything away from your shooting, Farry. Not a whit.’

‘But it’s wrong,’ Farry insisted.

Ferdi rose suddenly to his feet. ‘Stand back, you two,’ he said. ‘Give us some shooting room.’

His cousins, used to taking orders from him, took a few steps back at once.

Ferdi patted Farry’s shoulder. ‘Stand here a moment, lad,’ he said. ‘I want to show you something.’

He’d laid his own bow case and quiver nearby, and now he went to retrieve them. He strung the bow – more than twice in length compared to the young hobbit’s height – and plucked an arrow from the quiver. It was too bad he hadn’t had the foresight to bring a blunt or two with him, but he hadn’t anticipated shooting for practice this day. As he was a hobbit of the Thain’s escort, his arrows were wickedly tipped hunting arrows, suited to bringing down a deer, a large and furious wild dog, even perhaps – though there was no guarantee, as Ferdi knew from bitter experience – a charging boar.

He returned to where Farry stood. ‘Come now, lad,’ he said. ‘We must move back some way, to start.’ He led the lad into the field, away from the stable wall, well away, until he figured they were far enough that his arrow would not strike all the way through the makeshift butt, to shatter with splintering force against the stone wall. 

Hilly and Tolly kept pace, maintaining their relative distance well back from the shooting line. 

Ferdi nodded at this show of good sense. At least, he thought to himself, you're giving the lad the chance to see if he can hit the broad side of a barn, as his father proved he could not, before Farry came along. But aloud, he said only, ‘This one, you’ll have to let me help you.’ 

He crouched, caught his balance and positioned Farry’s hand appropriately on the bow with his own hand covering it, put the arrow in the other small hand, told the lad to nock the shaft. He had to cant the bow to accommodate Farry’s lack of height, but that should not affect his ability to loose the arrow as he had much experience with shooting from cover, crouching low, during the Troubles, keeping Lotho’s and then Sharkey’s ruffians out of the Tookland proper.

‘Now we draw,’ he murmured, adding his strength to the small boy’s. ‘Take aim, lad.’

They breathed together, loosed the string as one, remained motionless as the arrow sped from the bow with a low, menacing thrum of the bowstring, and then relaxed their shooting muscles at the same time as the arrow thwacked into the target, burying itself to the quills in the soft substance of the makeshift butt.

Ferdi heard a gasp from Hilly, a low whoop from Tolly – for himself, his breath came shallow as he stared at the target. His fletching shone from the space directly between Farry’s first two shots.

At last, he found his voice. ‘Do you see there, young master?’

For all his youth, Faramir had a ready answer. ‘But you shot it.’

‘Nay,’ Ferdi protested, but the boy’s gaze remained flat, joyless.

‘You did,’ Farry said. ‘You drew, and...’

‘Yours was the aim,’ Ferdi said. ‘I only supplied the power.’

***