Chapter 16. Rope

They were perhaps halfway to the ruffians’ well, as far as Farry could reckon, surrounded by ancient oaks with a scattering of beeches and hazel, when Ferdi lifted a hand to point. ‘Look there,’ he said. ‘Scarlet elf cups! A few of those will add some flavour to our travel rations...’

Farry followed the line of the pointing finger to the base of a decaying stump. ‘Elf cups...’ he said dubiously.

‘Perhaps not gathered for the Thain’s table,’ Ferdi said, ‘but I’ve found them to be toothsome either cooked or raw. They’re not much to look at – a bit chewy, you might even say, and the cooks at the Smials would likely turn up their noses at such, but they’re one of my favourites, actually...’

‘Well then,’ Farry said, his love of mushrooms overcoming the soreness of his feet, ‘I’ll race you for them!’

Laughing, he dashed for the prize, hearing the chuckles of his uncle not far behind. Being younger and lighter, he managed to stay ahead, even as laughter combined with sprinting threatened to rob him of breath. Somehow, he was reminded of Hilly’s stories of leading pursuing ruffians into Tookish traps.

It was all a lark, keeping the ruffians out of the Tookland. A lark, and yet deadly serious business – for we'd be dead if they could catch us. A game it was, trap the ruffians and dance away, laughing, like one of the faerie folk of legend. "Catch me if you can!"

The surface under his feet was soft with leaf-loam and leaves fallen from the bare crowns overhead, a sprinkling of moss here and there. He heard twigs crackling underfoot as he ran, and his uncle laughing behind him, punctuated by the repetition of his name. Farry!

Ha. He’d give the old hobbit a run for his mushrooms, he would!

He ran across a spot that was surprisingly spongy – perhaps an extra-thick layer of moss, he thought, if he gave it any thought at all – and shouted triumphantly as he fetched up against the rotting stump where the bright little mushrooms shone, then bent, breathing hard, but gleeful. He thought he heard Ferdi shout in the same moment, probably in mock disappointment at losing, putting on a show, perhaps, to make Farry’s victory all the sweeter, but as he turned to taunt his uncle... he was confronted with a curious sight.

Ferdi’s arms were splayed out to his sides on the ground, as if he’d tripped and fallen, but his legs – indeed, the entire lower half of his body – had disappeared as if the ground were in the process of swallowing him whole. Farry could see only his uncle’s head and shoulders above the leafy mulch that carpeted the forest floor. ‘Ferdi!’ he cried, starting forward, but at his uncle’s shout of urgent warning, he halted.

‘Stay back!’

‘What is it, Uncle? What’s happening?’ he cried, backing up again and freezing, one hand anchoring him to the stump as if whatever had hold of Ferdibrand might reach out to him next.

He listened to his own gasping breaths mix with Ferdi’s as he stared in horror, even as a distant nightmare stirred in his mind – not nightmare, but memory: Hilly, slowly being swallowed by a bog, inexorably drawn down despite all his efforts to win free. 

Hide his eyes, the escort had whispered to Diamond, cradling small Faramir in her lap, for he’d been little more than a faunt at the time, only a few steps – and the scope of a lifetime as it approached its ending – away where solid ground gave way to a treacherous devouring monster of voracious mud and icy waters. And Diamond had turned Farry’s face against her shoulder, had covered him with her cloak, so that he could not see the escort’s terrible end, the waters closing over Hilly’s head at last. But he had been able to imagine what was happening, all too clearly, in his mind’s eye... and in his dreams for years afterwards.

He shook his head to shake the memory away. Hilly had not died, for rescuers had arrived on the scene just in time, even as the escort was drowning, succumbing at last to the icy chill and treacherous muddy water. While there’s breath, there’s life, sounded in the back of his mind.

When he let go his hold on the stump, part of the crumbling wood came away in his hand, betraying how tightly he’d gripped. He took a deep, steadying breath. ‘Is it a bog?’ he said, marvelling at the sound of his own voice, controlled, calm in the face of potentially deadly peril. ‘Can you swim out of it?’

His uncle was motionless now, not struggling. But of course, Farry thought to himself. If you struggle, the bog will pull you down faster! You have to lie flat... slowly swim your way to solid ground...

Sudden inspiration came to him. ...and a rope could help. ‘Hold fast,’ he said, pulling his pack from his shoulders. His rope, meant to safely anchor him to a tree so that he could sleep in such a refuge without fear of falling, would be at the top...

‘I am holding fast,’ Ferdi answered, sounding dazed, his head bent as if he were closely scrutinizing the ground that threatened to gulp him down. ‘I have no intention of doing otherwise.’

‘I’ll throw you my rope,’ Farry said, pulling the coil from his pack. ‘I can pull against the bog as you swim out.’ He took hold of one end and tossed the rest towards his uncle in a practised motion. But Ferdi didn’t move. ‘What is it?’ Farry called. ‘Are you injured?’

‘I’m not so sure this is a bog,’ Ferdi said.

‘Not a bog?’ Farry said, keeping a tight hold on his end of the rope.

‘I’ve never seen or felt the like,’ came his uncle’s reply. ‘It’s almost as if... there’s nothing beneath me.’

‘Nothing...’ Farry echoed.

‘Even in a bog, you’ve got the mud surrounding you and sucking at you,’ Ferdi said. ‘And how is it you were able to skim across the surface like a water-bird? You’ve no wings to speak of.’ Farry saw him move one hand, and a crackling arose as of twigs snapping, and his uncle froze again. ‘When I kicked my feet just now, it was if they were hanging mid-air...’

‘Nothing... hanging...’ Farry whispered as a terrible realisation began to dawn. ‘Uncle, could it be...?’

‘I’m open to suggestions,’ Ferdi said. Farry could see his knuckles whitening on the leaves and soil he was gripping.

‘Could it be one of the pits from the Troubles? Somehow the engineers missed one, when they were filling them in again?’ As Ferdi lifted a blank face to stare at him, he added, ‘A ruffian trap?’

‘I took your meaning the first time,’ Ferdi said irritably. ‘Those blasted engineers – they were supposed to mark every pit they dug on a map, so that they could find them again one day, in the unlikely possibility we might be able to hold our own against the ruffians, at least until the rest of the Shire-folk awakened and helped us to drive them out again.’ He shook his head slightly. ‘Though at the time it seemed as likely as the King coming back.’ 

There was another crackling sound, of branches being pushed to their limits and threatening to snap, and Ferdi froze again. Farry thought he could see his uncle’s chest heaving with the realisation of his peril, but even as he watched helplessly, Ferdi took himself firmly in hand, forcing slow, deep breaths and raising his head to stare directly into Farry’s eyes.

‘I don’t feel anything,’ the older hobbit said. ‘Not mud, not water...’ He gulped another breath and continued. ‘I think, Farry, that there is only air below me. Which would lend credence to your thought that this is one of the old traps.’

‘Then why did you fall through?’ Farry said. ‘I thought they were built to take the weight of a hobbit but not a ruffian when you were playing Follow the Leader?’ 

‘It certainly worked as designed just now,’ Ferdi said. ‘You ran right over it, and following you, I fell in.’

Stricken, Farry said, ‘I didn’t mean to...!’

‘Of course you didn’t, lad,’ Ferdi said, his voice suddenly more gentle. ‘No matter what happens here, it is not your fault.’ His mouth twisted. ‘Blame the engineers, if you must.’

‘But you’re no ruffian!’ Farry protested.

‘I thank you for that, nephew,’ Ferdi said, with a nod of his head that resembled the bow he was unable to make in his present predicament. ‘The years have deteriorated the wood in the cap, it seems.’

‘I thought the Tooks were careful to maintain the traps.’

‘They were! Until we took them all down.’ Ferdi was talking about all the Tooks here in a general sense; he’d been in a bed, gravely injured in the Battle of Bywater, at the time all the traps came down. If anyone had asked him, he’d have said to leave the traps up until they knew for certain that every last remaining Man had been expelled from the Shire.

‘They seem to have missed this one,’ Farry said. He shifted the end of the rope to one hand, picked up a long stick with the other and crouched down, probing the ground in front of him to determine where the solid ground gave way, moving forward by inches.

‘So it appears,’ Ferdi agreed. And then he said something so completely unexpected that Farry stopped and straightened to regard his uncle in amazement and dismay. ‘You have to go for help, lad.’

‘I’m not leaving you!’ came Farry’s quick, unthinking response.

‘No,’ Ferdi said, ‘but you must. Don’t you see, lad...?’ he said, and shook his head. ‘No, but you’re just a child. That’s it,’ he added, his gaze growing more intense. ‘Your rope is too short to anchor to a tree; I might grasp it and try to pull myself to safety, and even if the rest of the cap were to give way, if the rope were anchored to something solid, I could catch myself from falling.’ He took a shaky breath. ‘But that’s not the case here.’

‘I don’t take your point,’ Farry said. Why, his uncle hadn’t even reached for the end of the rope that was lying near him.

‘Farry, I weigh thrice what you do, at the very least,’ Ferdi said, ‘for all that you’re taller and stronger than others your age.’ He bent his head, then looked up again. ‘You must go and find help.’

‘Where?’ Farry challenged. 

As if afraid to move his arm to point, Ferdi nodded with his head. ‘North,’ he said. ‘Straight north – keep the Sun at your left shoulder, and keep moving until you strike the Stock Road. From there, turn eastward – it’ll take you to the Cockerel. You’ll find help there.’

‘And how am I to find my way back here again?’ Farry challenged. ‘I’m no hunter or tracker.’

‘You could use your knife to mark a tree where you come out on the Road,’ Ferdi said. ‘I know we’ve not yet taught you trailing or tracking, but surely you’ve noticed blazes on trees before? I think you even asked me about them, upon a time, though it was cloaked in so many other questions of yours, I might be mistaken.’

Farry shook his head. ‘I cannot,’ he said. ‘You said yourself, the wilderlands are no place for a teen to wander alone. And you expect me to leave you trapped here, unable to move? With wild dogs on the hunt?’

Ferdi regarded him bleakly as he went on. ‘Keep the Sun at my left shoulder? She is seeking her bed soon enough...’ And in truth, the wood was darkening around them, and the shafts of sunlight coming through the bare crowns of the trees were now sharply angled.

‘And...’ he began, but Ferdi interrupted.

‘You’ve made your point, lad,’ he said. ‘Your da should never have let Fortinbrand teach you to marshal your arguments.’

Farry smiled, though it wasn’t funny.

‘So what is your plan?’ Ferdi asked. ‘I’m fresh out of ideas.’ He looked around them. ‘At least there’s a good climbing tree nearby,’ he said. ‘Point taken about the dogs... should we hear them approaching, I want you up that tree faster than I can say “Jack, son of Robin”.’

‘So...’ Farry said, thinking his way even as he spoke. ‘So we use our two ropes together. Tie them together, and then they should be long enough to anchor to the nearest tree, I hope anyhow...’ He nodded as the plan became clearer in his mind. ‘Take my rope,’ he said. ‘Tie it to your pack, and shrug it loose, and I’ll pull it across the surface. Can you move that much without falling through?’

‘It seems I had better make the attempt, at least,’ Ferdi answered. ‘It seems like as good a plan as any I might think of. Better, perhaps, considering all the arrows you were able to shoot through my scheme to get you to safety.’

Farry stared at this frank talk coming from his uncle, and then he nodded. ‘Very well,’ he said.

‘Lay down your end of the rope for now,’ Ferdi said. ‘Should I fall while I’m trying to get this pack off, I don’t want to take you with me.’

Farry complied. Reluctantly, it must be said. He hated the helpless feeling of watching his uncle move by fractions of an inch, as slow as the progress of a garden slug, or perhaps slower. Every movement was accompanied by the ominous crackling of the woven willow lattice that supported his weight. So far, anyhow.

At last, Ferdi’s pack was off and lying beside him, and Ferdi took up his end of Farry’s rope and tied it to one of the straps. ‘Here you are, lad. Haul away.’

Farry picked up his end of the rope and slowly, hand over hand, pulled the pack towards himself. He sighed as it reached him, heard his uncle sigh in the same breath. ‘So far, so good,’ he said under his breath, and he undid Ferdi’s knot from the shoulder strap of the pack. 

He opened the pack, found a coil of rope at the top as he’d expected, and laying the pack aside, he tied the ends of the two ropes together, using one of the hunter’s knots that Reni had showed him. He hoped it would be enough. ‘Ready? Here it comes again.’ 

‘I will endeavour to be ready,’ Ferdi said, raising one arm slightly as if in pledge.

Firmly holding one end of the rope, Farry tossed the rest to his uncle. Then he stood to his feet and moved towards the nearest tree. To his dismay, the doubled rope still came up short. He could wind it around the trunk of the tree, but he didn’t have enough rope to make it fast.

He turned back to Ferdi. From the look on his uncle’s face, he knew he didn’t have to say anything about this kink in their plan. ‘Take hold of your end,’ he said. ‘We’ll try to pull you out.’

‘I think I can crawl across the top of the lattice, just as Hilly crawled out of the bog.’ Though he certainly looked unhappy about this course of action, Ferdi took hold of the rope and made as if to pull himself along its length.

‘But he didn’t,’ Farry said in surprise, tightening his hold as the rope grew taut. ‘Jack and Will had to rescue him. He was too far gone from the cold...’

‘Not that time,’ Ferdi said in irritation. ‘I’m talking about the other time...’ His voice trailed off as the willow branches under him creaked alarmingly in response to his movements. 

When he spoke again, his voice was more subdued. ‘Farry,’ he said.

‘I’m here,’ Faramir replied, trying to maintain his light tone. But his uncle did not answer in a similar vein, something along the lines of, I’d like to know where else you think you’d be. 

Rather, Ferdi’s tone was low, and deadly serious. ‘If I feel it start to go,’ he said, and he raised his head to stare into Farry’s eyes, ‘I’ll let go, but the rope might tangle in the branches and take you down with me. You have to let go the rope.’ Seeing Farry’s headshake, he took a breath. ‘You cannot hold my weight, lad, you’re nought but a child. You have to let go if I start to fall.’ 

‘Never!’ the teen responded in startlement. ‘What are you – ?’

‘Farry,’ the intensity in his uncle’s voice cut through his protest. ‘This pit is deeper than four grown hobbits laid head-to-foot. Tall ones, like the hobbits of the Thain’s escort. It might be dug even deeper than that – we wanted to make sure the ruffians would have difficulty getting out. A broken ankle or two was icing on the cake.’

Ferdi took a few shallow breaths as if afraid a deeper breath would send him plummeting. ‘If you were pulled head-first into a fall...’

‘I don’t know,’ Farry said stubbornly. ‘My da has told me often enough that my head is the hardest part of me.’

To his relief, the irritation was back in his uncle’s voice as Ferdi said, ‘Then use that head of yours, and let go the rope if the lattice gives way!’ Ferdi’s eyes bored into him. ‘Or I’ll not use the rope at all.’

‘That would be foolish of you,’ Farry returned evenly. ‘The rope, with my pull on it, will take some of your weight off the branches.’

Ferdi bent his head to his extended arms, muffling his next words. ‘You sound more like a Thain than a teen.’ 

‘Thank you,’ Farry said. ‘I think.’ Though it made his guts twist inside him, he added, ‘I will do my best to let go the rope if you begin to fall.’ It was the best he could do; he knew all too well that Ferdi would be able to hear a lie in his voice if he prevaricated. ‘It’s instinctive, you know, to hold tighter in such cases.’

Ferdi opened his mouth as if to argue, then changed the subject. ‘Look at the bright side,’ he said. ‘Perhaps this is not a dry well; I may fall into water instead.’

‘Very promising,’ Farry agreed, and seeing his uncle lift his head, he renewed his grip on the rope and stiffened as he felt more of Ferdi’s weight hit the line. The water can break your fall and then chill you and drown you, instead. But rather than voicing his thoughts, he said, ‘Do you know if this is a dry well or not?’

‘I am not looking forward to finding out, either way,’ Ferdi answered.

But as the older hobbit began to inch his way across the crackling willow lattice with its covering of loam and decaying leaves, a surface that seemed ominously to give under his weight as he struggled to pull himself free, that he might crawl along on top of the fragile lattice to safety, the baying of dogs on the hunt broke out – too near, and coming closer.

‘Dogs!’ Farry shouted in horror, his hands freezing on the rope. Luckily for him, however, Ferdi froze as well, and the snapping noises subsided into uneasy silence once more, a precarious safety. ‘Uncle Ferdi, the dogs!’

***