Chapter 5. Life 

For days afterward, the Tooks agreed it was the finest feast of wild boar that had ever filled the Great Room elbow-to-elbow with hobbits from the Smials and its surroundings. There was feasting, and singing, and laughter and boasting. The boasting was on the part of the gentlehobbits and sport-hunters who’d not been allowed to go on the hunt, of course, as to what would have happened if the Thain had not put his foot down and called upon the power of the Steward to enforce his will. 

The hunters themselves were strangely silent, their smiles, when they caught each other’s gaze, ironic.

After the feast and accompanying half-day of rest, Ferdi’s days settled into a routine of sorts. Faramir soon graduated from shooting at the well-fortified back wall of the stables to the practice field set aside for archers. Ferdi established an understanding with the Thain and Mistress that he might come and fetch their young lad at any time of the day, from an hour before early breakfast until eventides shortly after the Sun sought her bed. 

Of course, the escort all knew better than to spread gossip, even though the Steward had made it clear to them that they should collect all the Talk they could and report it to him. To avoid accidental spectators and to try to shield the lad as much as might be from the Talk, the head of escort made sure to schedule all the lad’s practices during the times of day when the field was strictly reserved for the hobbits of the Thain’s escort, one of the benefits of a difficult, demanding job, so far as those hobbits were concerned. They had their pick of several times of the day, morning, noon, afternoon and evening, to allow them to take advantage of the changing light in honing their skills and maintaining their aim. 

As a consequence, Farry also benefitted, learning to shoot under any light conditions, whether winter-dark skies under heavy clouds and rain, or bright sunshine, or the uncertain vision to be had in the deepening twilight. Not that it mattered. The lad continued to hit his mark, even when the Sun shone playfully in his eyes from behind the target.

But the lad seemed to take no joy in the exercise. Though Ferdibrand was able to report “satisfactory progress for one of his age” to the Thain on a regular basis, he was unsure how to broach the subject of Farry’s lack of enthusiasm. The other hobbits of the escort had noticed as well, and it was a topic of quiet conversation when any two of them went out together into the wilder parts of the Green Hills to deliver messages to farms or to hunt fresh game for the Thain’s table, per the Steward’s orders.

At last Ferdi could not bear the small tot’s resignation any longer. Faramir had shot two flights of arrows that day with his usual accuracy, at every distance Ferdi contrived. They’d worked out the range of the boy’s small bow, the farthest distance he could shoot, which was constrained more by the power of the bow rather than Farry’s eye, and so they worked through a variety of angles and distances each day.

Now, as Hilly and Tolly retrieved the practice shafts from the various targets, Ferdi crouched to address the son of the Thain, eye to eye, as equals. ‘What is it, lad?’ he said.

‘I don’t take your meaning,’ Faramir said politely. His speech, like his shooting, was precise and more suited to a child twice his age.

‘What’s the matter?’ Ferdi persisted, and when the boy remained silent, he prodded, ‘I thought you wanted to learn to shoot. So what’s the matter? Is it too easy for you? Is it that there’s no challenge in it?’ For that was the only solution he could think of.

But the lad had no answer, apparently. In an effort to goad him, Ferdi said, ‘Is it that I’m such a poor teacher, then? Are you wishing that Tolibold might take over the lessons, rather than simply being an arrow-fetcher?’ He knew that the words would sting the lad’s innate sense of fairness, and he was rewarded.

‘No!’ came the answer, quick and emphatic. ‘Of course not!’ But the lad added no explanations.

‘I don’t know what to do with you,’ Ferdi said quietly.

‘Do with me?’

‘You seem so miserable when you’re shooting, Farry,’ Ferdi said. ‘Your shaft goes thunk into the middle of the target, and your face is as long as a rainy day in summertime.’

Faramir simply shook his head, looking every bit as miserable as Ferdi’s observation. ‘It’s just that it’s not real,’ he said.

‘Not real,’ Ferdi pressed. ‘Farry, you are shooting real arrows, that could strike down a squirrel or a coney for the pot! Ask one of them, and they’d say it’s real enough.’

‘But...’ Farry said, and seemed helpless to go on.

‘It’s the sound,’ Hildibold said quietly from behind Ferdi. The head of escort had not heard his approach, but then he was a hobbit, after all, and not a clumsy-footed ruffian. Ferdi looked over his shoulder to see the escort nodding quietly to himself, as if he saw confirmation in Faramir’s face. ‘The sound, it isn’t real, as he said.’ 

Perplexed, Ferdi rose to his feet and half-turned, looking from escort to small son of the Thain. 

Hilly, seeing the confusion on his face, and Tolly’s, said, ‘Don’t you remember what he said, that first day? It’s the sound of his bow – a child’s bow.’ He took Farry’s bow from the child’s unresisting hand. Because he was too well-disciplined to fire a bow dry in illustration, he took one of the arrows that he’d just replaced in Farry’s quiver, fitted it to the bow, and shot. Twang. The small group watched the arrow speed to the target, lodging just outside the centre ring. ‘It isn’t real,’ he muttered.

‘But when I let him use my bow, he took no more joy,’ Ferdi protested.

‘A moment, cousin.’ Hilly handed the child’s bow back to Farry, took his own bow from his back, pulled an arrow from his quiver and shot in a smooth motion – thrum – though his aim was not much improved in using his familiar companion weapon. He swore under his breath as he slung his bow over his back once more. It was all too clear that Ferdi would be assigning him extra practice on the shooting range in what would have usually been his “spare time”.

Then, looking from Ferdi to Tolly, he said, ‘He can shoot his bow with his own strength, but the sound of the bow lacks power – rightly reflects the lack of power in it. With your bow, though Farry aimed for the target, yours was the strength that made the sound that Farry knows is right. It has the power to bring down a deer, a dog on the attack, even – when the luck is with the hunter – even a wild swine. His bow can only bring down a squirrel or coney. Perhaps, if he’s lucky, a fox.’

Ferdi looked to Faramir. The lad was nodding. ‘But his bow is real enough to do that... and he was the one who aimed the shot from my bow, that went almost all the way through the target to the stones beyond...’

‘It’s not real to him because he hasn’t enough experience with how power and aim can be separate, yet work together,’ Hilly said.

‘I don’t follow,’ Ferdi said in an unconscious echo of Farry’s earlier statement.

Hilly was the one to crouch down now as he turned his full attention on the boy. ‘Farry,’ he said. ‘You’ve seen how Thain and Steward work together.’

Faramir nodded.

‘I’m sure you’ve heard your da give an order, only to have Regi stop him, or change what he’s said,’ Hilly said.

Ferdi found himself holding his breath. This sort of Talk was perilously close to insubordination, which was not tolerated by the tradition-bound Tooks. Hilly could get himself into real trouble if it came to the wrong ears... along with anyone else who seemed to be supporting him. Especially since it sounded as if he might be leading the son of the Thain astray.

‘Hilly...’ Tolly’s voice sounded in warning. 

But the younger brother wasn’t having any. ‘He’s to be Thain himself someday,’ the escort said. ‘He’ll understand then all too well how it works. Pip’s learning.’

‘Learning,’ Ferdi and Tolly echoed in the same breath.

‘The Tooks followed Paladin – your granda,’ Hilly clarified to Farry, and the boy nodded, ‘who was Thain before your da, as your da is now Thain, and you’ll follow him.’

If Pippin should live so long, Ferdi thought to himself.

‘But the Thain,’ Hilly said, seeming now to choose his words with care, ‘he is only a Hobbit, after all. Mere flesh and bone.’ He was silent for a moment, then ploughed on. ‘Hobbits can make mistakes.’ He let the words hang in the air, took a deep breath, and continued. ‘Aye, even the Thain. Now your granda, Paladin, he had a Tookish temper on him. And sometimes, he was so cumbered about with the responsibilities of the Tookland, he couldn’t see as clearly as he might...’

Ferdi thought of how Paladin had disbanded the Thain’s escort. Regi, as ruffians encroached on the Shire and then the Tookland, had gathered the best archers he knew and reinstated the practice of guarding the Thain from harm.

Tolly, meanwhile, remembered how Paladin, desperate for information during the Troubles, had sent hobbits out on perilous quests to find out what the ruffians were up to, and what their plans might be to overrun the Tookland the way they’d taken the rest of the Shire. Reginard had intervened a few times to spare the best of the Tookish archers from possible capture and imprisonment in the Lockholes – or worse. ‘Regi...’ he said now.

‘Aye,’ Hilly said, standing to his feet and stretching muscles cramped from crouching. ‘Regi took the Thain’s orders and made sure they were carried out in a way that would satisfy what the Thain was really asking for.’ More confident now, he said, ‘And the Tooks got used to following his orders, knowing they originally came from the Thain.’

‘And so they are still following Regi’s orders,’ Ferdi said slowly.

‘Have you noticed, Farry, how sometimes what your da has ordered is slightly different in the way it’s carried out? Yet the results are what he wanted, in the end.’

‘It may take a few years before they’ll take orders directly from Pippin,’ Tolly said. ‘As it is, if they don’t like what they hear, they’ll check with the Steward first.’

‘O aye,’ Hilly said, a glint of grim humour in his eye. ‘They started to heed Paladin so quickly only because the Troubles began but a few years after he became Thain. I expect it’ll take longer for Pip, if only because he went a-journey in the Outlands, befriended Outlandish people and made his home in the Wilds of Buckland for some time.’

‘And had adventures,’ Tolly said quietly.

‘O aye, that’s certainly a black mark against him in the eyes of the Tooks, as well as the Tooklanders and the rest of the Shirefolk,’ Hilly agreed. ‘But before your da came along, Farry, the Tookland was a poorer place. Gaffers shivered in the winter cold for want of wood for a fire. More food was stockpiled in the Great Smials than the hobbits living there could eat, whilst others might go hungry.

‘So you see, Farry, your da gives the orders to fill the needs he sees, now and in future – why, this winter, don’t you know the foresters were cutting the old and sick trees that will keep old gaffers and widows warm next winter. And don’t you know that as soon as the springling Sun warms the soil enough, they’ll be planting two or more baby trees for every one they’ve cut.’

Hilly got down on one knee, the better to see eye to eye with young Faramir, and dropped his voice. Ferdi and Tolly found themselves leaning in to hear the rest of what he had to say to the little lad. ‘But Farry, your da learnt these ways of caring for folk from the Brandybucks, the way they watch over Buckland. Merry’s father, old “Scattergold”, taught his son and Pippin well when Pippin was his Steward in Buckland. The Tooks haven’t done such things in such a way... and while they might not listen to your da, not for some years yet, they’ll listen to Regi.’    

‘But Regi, all on his own, wouldn’t have thought of these things,’ the childish voice said in reply, and Ferdi wondered at his immediate grasp, at the wisdom the words expressed. ‘The Tooks would hardly think of such things, I should think. They kept the ruffians out of the Tookland, but they kept tight inside their borders until my da came to roust them out.’ From the mouths of faunts!

‘That’s right,’ Hilly said with a smile for the child. ‘And so, your da, he’s the one taking aim... but it’s Regi who brings all the might and power and strength of the Tooks behind him, to bring his arrow to the target.’

‘So,’ Farry said, and the hobbits of the escort waited to hear what would come out of his mouth next. The small son of the Thain stood straighter, seeming deep in thought. At last, he began to speak. ‘If I am to be Thain after my da,’ he said, ‘then I must learn to aim, and aim more than arrows, and the targets will be more difficult, I think.’

‘I imagine so,’ Hilly said seriously.

‘So,’ the young hobbit repeated, his eyes fixed on some point in the distance before he looked back to the hobbits of escort, locking eyes with Tolly. ‘I want to study with the Steward, to learn his thoughts for how he conducted the defence of the Tookland, keeping the Tookland free in the time of the Troubles, when ruffians overran the rest of the Shire.’ He took a deep breath. ‘And I would like to know how it was the Tooks came to trust and follow him.’ His eyes pinned the three grown-up hobbits, strangely accusing. ‘Even if it was because he learnt how to re-cast the Thain’s orders without the Thain quite realising...’

Ferdi found himself blinking at this, but Tolly nodded.

The young-old eyes moved to Ferdi. ‘And I want to study with the Master of Buckland, to learn of him how he orders Buckland, of course, but also to understand how he learned... what he knew... how he planned to take on the ruffians at Bywater, how he directed the Shirefolk in the battle, and afterward, in the Scouring, to drive out their oppressors.’

Ferdi nodded.

Farry turned to address Hilly. ‘And I want to study with the Thain, that I may, if I might, learn of him how to aim into the mists of the future, and hit my mark.’ He swallowed hard and continued courageously. ‘I want to hear him talk of his mistakes, and how he made the things better that he could make better, and how he was able to bear with those things he couldn’t change.’

Ferdi had to clear his throat at this, feeling a sting of tears. Farry, at his young age, dealt with quite a few things he could not change, including the unrelenting Talk of the Tooks, made worse by the gloomy predictions he’d overheard that his father would die young and Pippin’s bouts with breathlessness as well as the attentiveness of the healers.

But Hilly nodded and said quietly, ‘Those would be good things to learn, indeed, Faramir.’

‘And...’ Ferdi found himself holding his breath, and thought perhaps the other two archers were holding theirs as well, as the serious grey gaze took them all in. ‘When I’m old enough that it will not be such a scandal amongst the Tooks and a cause for the Talk and a worry to my mum and da...’

The hobbits of the escort waited.

‘I want to have a hunter’s training.’

As the three hobbits of the escort were themselves hunters, there was nothing to be said in answer to that.

*** 

February continued mild and drizzly until the end of the month, when a hard freeze surprised those who had been predicting an early spring. The less-optimistic gaffers, who’d seen many “early” springs – or at least the promise of one – had mounded up the now old and crumbling leaves from autumn over the budding daffodils and jonquils that had dared to send up shoots, and so many of the bright blooms were saved, tucked away in their beds for a later arrival.

Although Farry’s shooting lessons had continued on rainy days as well as sunshine through the mild weather, Diamond put her foot down with the turning of the weather. ‘Too cold!’ she said to her husband, who had expressed the opinion that ‘if hobbits always waited upon fair weather, nothing would get done at all! Not even saving the world, for that matter.’

Ferdi, who’d come to fetch young Faramir for today’s lesson, wished Regi were on the spot in the entryway to the Thain’s apartments, there to voice his oft-repeated “None of your nonsense now, lad,” but he wasn’t. The Steward was likely already in the Thain’s study, getting an early start on the day. In any event, Ferdi was in no position to chide his younger cousin’s whimsy, and even if he had been, he was not at his best this morning. Changes in the weather made his head ache; the greater the change, the worse the ache, though he did his best to conceal his discomfort from those around him. It was something to be borne, the reminder of a ruffian’s club at the Battle of Bywater, and complaining (or the cossetting of cousins clucking their concern) wouldn’t make matters any better. In fact, too much solicitous attention made Ferdi feel all the worse, and so he avoided stirring anyone’s sympathy if he could help it.

He couldn’t help breathing a sigh of relief as he let himself out of the Thain’s apartments and closed the door behind him. Adel, the escort on duty at that moment, misinterpreted the sigh. ‘Off the hook for today, are you?’

‘It seems I am merely a messenger at best, or an escort at the worst this day,’ Ferdi assented. He went to the second parlour, where the hobbits of escort were invariably to be found when not actively running messages or going about some other business of the Thain’s, to let Hilly and Tolly know that Farry’s archery practice had been put off until the weather warmed once more.

‘I’m going to check on the ponies,’ he finished. Although the sideboard was practically groaning with the best of a Tookish breakfast, the smell of the food was making him feel faintly queasy. He’d take himself off to the quiet refuge of the stables until the breakfast was cleared away, and hopefully his head would be feeling more like functioning when he’d had his fill of listening to ponies serenely chomping their hay and occasionally swishing their tails. 

Hilly had scarcely paid any attention past the part where Ferdi told him they would not be going out to the butts this morning, but Tolly nodded at Ferdi’s concluding words and said quietly, ‘Is there anything needed?’ 

Hilly might have understood his older brother’s question as meaning the Thain, but Ferdi and Tolly, although cousins, were closer than brothers. Thus, at Ferdi’s ‘No, naught,’ in reply, Tolly simply nodded and looked back down at his plate, hiding his concern in order to spare Ferdi’s feelings.

The first week of March continued cold, and partway into the second week of that month, Pippin swooped his little family off to Buckland, meaning that there would be no more archery lessons for at least a fortnight.

The Great Smials seemed a completely different place with the Thain and Mistress gone. Servants launched into a flurry of spring-cleaning, dusting and polishing, and the kitchens turned out meals that were plain and filling, not at all fancy, although the kitchen staff feasted on a number of “trials” that the head cook and her assistants dreamed up to grace a future feast. In the Thain’s absence, Steward Reginard stayed busy collecting and consolidating reports towards Pippin’s return: the lambing season had begun in the surrounding high Green Hill country, and barley sowing was in full swing, both important crops for a struggling Tookland. 

‘It has been an eventful year,’ Sandy said as he polished the silver in the butler’s pantry of the Thain’s quarters. He’d asked Rusty, another hobbitservant, to help him, both for the pleasure of conversation to pass the time and a chance to take the pulse of the Smials Tooks.

Rusty shook his head and examined the tines of the fork he was cleaning. ‘Fear! Fire! Foes! as that Horn-cry of Buckland goes.’ He dug between the tines. ‘Not to mention storms and shocks and the treasure-hoard gone missing...’

‘And all the changes a new Thain brings,’ Sandy added as an afterthought.

Rusty laughed. ‘O aye,’ he said with perfect Tookish intonation.

‘They certainly weren’t best pleased at first,’ Sandy said as if it hardly mattered. ‘But it seems they’ve mostly changed their tune, considering that widows and gaffers have had enough firewood to keep them warm, this whole winter through...’

Rusty gave a noncommittal grunt, and encouraged, Sandy continued, ‘And of course, he kept Tuckborough from burning over their heads in the Great Fire.’

‘So something good did come out of Buckland after all,’ Rusty said with a snort, and Sandy shared a grin with him.

They polished in silence for a moment, and then Sandy said, ‘So do you think he’ll last another year? Or do you think the Tooks will cook up an excuse to throw him out again?’ He held his breath, not quite looking at Rusty, for the scandalised intake of breath had been enough to warn him to say no more.

‘Bite your tongue!’ Rusty hissed. He looked about, but they were alone in the Thain’s quarters, as Sandy had planned. With the family out of the Smials completely, gone to Buckland on a visit to Pippin’s Brandybuck cousins, Sandy had shut up the private apartments and was embarked on a grand round of Spring Cleaning, more easily accomplished without the gentry underfoot. He dropped his voice. ‘They couldn’t really throw him out... could they?’

‘They can – and will – do anything Regi tells them to do,’ Sandy said in an equally low tone. ‘You know that as well as I do.’

‘I don’t know why Regi didn’t step up as Thain in the first place,’ Rusty muttered in response.

‘Because Paladin gave orders otherwise, and that hobbit is nothing if not obedient,’ Sandy countered.

‘Not always so much,’ Rusty said.

Sandy’s ears perked up. ‘Why?’ he whispered. ‘What have you heard? Anything juicy?’ He gave his best grin. ‘What with the Thain and his family gone, the gossip’s been dry as dust lately.’

‘That’s just it,’ Rusty said, burnishing the fork to a high shine. ‘You’ve heard the talk, I gather, of Thain Peregrin ordering the escort to teach little Farry to shoot?’

Sandy, who’d been in the room for Farry’s first instruction in the basics, said, ‘I’d heard something to that effect.’

‘Well the Talk’s reached Regi,’ Rusty said.

‘So?’ 

‘Regi told the escort yesterday that there’ll be no more of that,’ Rusty said. ‘Why, when the Thain comes back, the Steward’ll have it out with him. Let him know that the Tooks take a dim view of training a faunt in the way of weapons! He’s but a little child! Let him learn when he reaches a proper age, with the rest of them.’

‘I thought the trouble had more to do with the fact that the lad, at his tender age, can already outshoot the hobbits of the escort. He’s something of a prodigy, I’ve heard.’

‘Totally unnatural, is what they’re saying,’ Rusty responded in an undertone. ‘Why, if the Thain’s determined to overrule Regi in this, the Tooks will make the lives of his wife and son miserable with their gossip and gab!’

Sandy shook his head. ‘What a pity,’ he said, true regret in his tone. He held up his hand, polishing cloth still in his fingers, to stop what Rusty was about to say. ‘I mean it, Rus,’ he said. ‘From what I’ve heard, the lad has a gift.’

‘You don’t open a present before the proper time,’ Rusty argued, ‘whether Yuletide or wedding or birthday.’ While Sandy was thinking this over, Rusty added, ‘The proper time for young Faramir to open that gift is still some years away, according to custom.’

‘According to custom,’ Sandy echoed. How the Tooks valued their traditions.

‘If the Thain isn’t careful, he’ll spoil that child,’ Rusty said, and shrugged at Sandy’s frown. ‘I didn’t say it. That’s the Talk of the Tooks, and he’ll ignore it at his peril.’ 

*** 

The day after the return of the Thain from Buckland, Pippin's small son Faramir played quietly on the hearthrug in the Thain’s study before a cheerful fire. Farry's Uncle Merry had carved him a fine set of wooden figures, a baker's dozen of Dwarves in cloaks and hoods, a Wizard with protruding eyebrows, prodigious beard and a cloak and tall hat, and a small Burglar wearing a hood that was somewhat too large.

He paid no attention when Thain and Steward were called from the study to attend to something-or-other. He was old enough to keep well away from the fire in the grate, and if he should become bored or hungry, his family’s apartments were next door to the Thain’s study. He kept playing at his game of Bilbo and the Dwarves. By the time Thain and Steward returned, he’d made his way to the space under Regi’s desk (the Misty Mountains, and the goblin tunnels beneath), on his way to Pippin’s desk (the Lonely Mountain). Uncle Merry wouldn’t carve a Gollum or goblins or spiders or any other fearsome creatures, so Farry had to pretend those. Uncle Merry said that imagining them was enough, in any event.

The grownups did not notice Farry there, in the dark space under the Steward’s desk. They were standing before the large, detailed map on the wall, talking about something or other. He only started listening when he heard his name.

‘And so I have had to countermand one of your orders, Regi.’

‘But...’

‘I want the lad to learn to shoot, and it’s best if someone who is on good terms with a Tookish bow is the one who guides him in this. O I could guide him, all right, I know the theory – but I could not show him the right way to do it, as we both well know.’

‘But it’s unseemly...’ the Steward answered, adding something about ‘when the lad is older, as would be proper...’

‘No,’ was Pippin’s flat reply. ‘I have learnt from bitter experience not to put things off, Regi. Indeed, I do not have the luxury of time.’

‘I don’t take your meaning,’ Regi said.

‘O,’ Farry stiffened at the undercurrents in his father’s quiet tone. ‘I think that you do. Time, Reginard, is not on my side.’

‘But you’re growing stronger,’ Regi said. ‘Why, after what happened in Buckland, I should have thought you’d belong in bed for a good week or two! You’ve no right to have journeyed back here from Brandy Hall as soon as you did, much less to be on your feet and walking about the Smials to see that all is in order.’ He paused, and Farry could clearly see in his mind’s eye the Steward’s penetrating look. ‘You have me to do such things for you, you know.’

‘I’m growing stronger,’ Pippin said as if in agreement, but the irony was strong in his voice. ‘Stronger by the day, I could swear. And when I am quite done with “getting better”, and the healers have tried all the draughts and potions they can dream up, and you are confirmed as Thain, Diamond can go to her family in Long Cleeve, or perhaps the Brandybucks will take her in. I doubt she’ll want to live on the charity of the Thain.’

Farry sat frozen. Somehow, small as he was, he knew – in his bones – that his father was talking about death.

Pippin added, lower, ‘I have nothing to my name, Regi. The Tooks are barely scraping by as it is... what with the disappearance of the treasury, it’s been a challenge – as you well know – to keep the roads in repair, to pay the staff, to buy the needed supplies to keep things running.’ Incongruously, he laughed. ‘Being Thain keeps us fed and a roof over our heads, isn’t that rich? But I have nothing to leave my wife, my son after me, save perhaps a sword and a shield and fond memories of the love I bear them.’

He heard the Steward take a long breath. At last, instead of protesting or arguing against Pippin’s grim foretelling, Regi said, ‘But the farm...’

‘The farm is Pearl’s by right and inheritance. She’s eldest. She should not live as a tenant on her own land.’

‘What are you talking abou...?’

‘I signed it over to her, one of the first things I did as Thain. I believe you were busy about some other task at the time.’

‘But what about Diamond? And how is she to care for Faramir?’

As for young Faramir, he was scarcely breathing as he followed this terrifying conversation with growing comprehension.

‘Think of this, Regi. At least Farry has a valuable skill. Why, with his shooting, he can become a hobbit of your escort, perhaps even Head, when he's old enough, after you become Thain.’

‘Or he could be Thain after you.’

Pippin’s tone was suddenly bleak. ‘That would be nearly thirty years from now. By the traditions of the Tooks, Farry would have to be of age to be confirmed as Thain. I don’t have thirty more years left to me, Regi.’ The Thain had to clear his throat before continuing. ‘I doubt I have as many as the number of fingers on Frodo’s right hand, to be honest.’

‘You’ve confounded the healers for years now!’

‘O yes,’ Pippin said bitterly. ‘They’d have had the grass growing green over my grave a dozen times over already.’

‘But that Healer-King of yours,’ Regi said. ‘You told me yourself what he said about Shirefolk.’

Pippin’s face softened briefly at the mention of Strider. ‘Tougher than they look,’ he said. ‘Some benighted noble actually thought Frodo and Sam were props, being held up to conceal the identity of the “real” hero who brought the Ring to the Fire. Strider certainly set him straight. O he didn’t say so in those words, exactly. As I recall, his discourse was somewhat more blistering in nature.’ His smile turned grimly amused at the recollection.

‘So you told me,’ Regi said.

But Pippin, apparently realising he’d been neatly taken down a side trail, returned to his point. ‘You know all too well how my days are numbered... I see how you cosset me, your soothing, your taking on of the burdens you think will break me – and don’t think I am ungrateful for some of your interfering ways, though it irks me to no end to be in need of such – Diamond and I know, you know, Merry and the Brandybucks know...’ Farry, peeping out from under the desk, saw him wipe at his forehead, seeming bemused by the resulting dampness of his fingertips. ‘I think that Ferdi suspects, though that hobbit wouldn’t have told his own father what was for tea if he thought... the old hobbit... didn’t need to know...’

To his small son’s alarm, Pippin was panting for breath after this long and passionate speech, but he held up a shaking hand to stay any reply from his Steward. At last he straightened and continued. ‘...and yet you seem determined to play “All is well” with the Tooks, to my dying breath, and perhaps beyond,’ his eyes drilled into his Steward. ‘As you did with my father...’ He shook his head. ‘And the Tooks, fools that they are, went along with you! Why, my da had been dead for some hours before you notified them.’

The official notification had been Regi’s placing the seal of the Thain upon the empty plate set at Paladin’s place in the great room of the Smials.

Regi stared straight ahead. It was truth; he’d more or less managed the Tookland in the final year of Paladin’s life, waiting for the ailing Thain to name his successor, and dreading the whole time that his name would be the one spoken in the end.

That look of keen inquiry was back as Pippin regarded his Steward thoughtfully. ‘What is it, Regi?’ he said in a low voice. ‘Is it that you wish to avoid being confirmed as Thain at all cost?’

Though he’d dodged this question a number of times from a number of Tooks, Regi felt somehow compelled to answer this one. ‘What hobbit in his right mind would want to be Thain?’ he muttered. He swallowed hard and met Pippin’s gaze squarely. ‘Lalia, of course, though she had to content herself ruling through her son because of the traditions of the Tooks...’

‘...and let us never forget Lotho,’ Pippin said obligingly.

Regi shuddered. ‘It’s been said that only a mad hobbit would seek to have power over others. Perhaps a little madness ran in their veins, though they were nothing like Mad Baggins – neither the old one nor the young one.’

‘It seems I’m in good company, then,’ Pippin said. Of a wonder he chuckled and held up his hand again. ‘O not Lalia, nor Lotho, but... Mad Bagginses? It would be an honour to be named amongst them. Even though I don’t deserve to carry even their pocket handkerchiefs for them.’ The chuckle led to a cough, then to a minor fit of coughing, though as he lifted a pocket handkerchief of his own to his mouth, he shook his head at Regi when the Steward would have tried to steady him.

When his breathing was at last again under control, Pippin regarded his handkerchief thoughtfully, folded it and put it in his pocket once more. ‘No blood this time,’ he said. ‘Take heart, Regi. I’m getting better.’

‘Or so you’ll say to the healers,’ Regi said.

‘O aye,’ Pippin grinned, and of a wonder mischief sparkled in his eyes. ‘We’ll play “All is well” to the far limits of our powers, shall we not? Indeed, a diverting game!’

‘A game...’ Regi said, and cleared his throat as if he were fighting some strong emotion. 

Pippin nodded sombrely, though mischief still shone from his eyes, and held up his hand as if in pledge. ‘Not to worry, Regi. I shall make fooling the healers my solemn aim.’ He drew a breath that was a little too deep, for it set him to coughing again. Once he had his breath back, he said, ‘And I will do all I can to see that my family will be well after I must leave them. Indeed, I have no doubt that they will be able to make their way, Diamond with her good sense, and Farry with his fine aim.’