Chapter 22. Explanation

After another long silence, Ferdi spoke. ‘D’you remember, lad, coming back from Tolly’s wedding? You were only a faunt at the time.’

When it seemed his uncle was waiting for an answer, Faramir replied, ‘I do,’ though he did not quite understand the shift in topic. However, somehow he no longer had the feeling that Ferdi was trying to steer him away from the knowledge he sought.

‘You remember how the Rohan – Starfire – charged Socks, and you were thrown through the air, and your mum caught you and curled herself around you whilst the stallions fought over her head, threatening to trample the both of you underfoot?’

Suddenly tense with remembering, Farry nodded, and then for Ferdi’s benefit, he said, ‘I remember.’

‘Your da, in his fear and fury, ordered Starfire destroyed,’ Ferdi said. Farry nodded in the following pause, but then his uncle continued, apparently not needing Farry’s assent. ‘And I... I took the stallion, and I rode him, far, far out into the wild Green Hills,’ the older hobbit said. ‘And at last, I dismounted and took out my knife, that he might die quietly, by the hand of one he’d learnt to trust, and not fighting, terrified, against the restraints as the stable hobbits held him and Old Tom gave the death stroke.’ Farry could hear tears in his uncle’s voice at this recollection, though he had no doubt Ferdi was as dry as himself.

‘I...’ Ferdi went on. ‘But I had not the courage to finish him, and so I turned him loose, there in the wilderlands, and I walked all those miles back to the Great Smials, and told no one what I’d done. And everyone assumed that someone else had taken him away and destroyed him. Including your da.’

‘I remember,’ Farry said quietly. ‘Gran was furious with Da. She scolded him until he sent Regi to tell Old Tom not to destroy the stallion.’

‘How do you know that? I’d heard later the healers had dosed you to sleep!’ came Ferdi’s surprised exclamation.

Farry laughed in spite of himself. ‘They dosed Mum to sleep... but I fell asleep in Gran’s lap whilst the healers were fussing over me, and I woke up again soon after someone tucked me into bed. I heard all of Gran’s scoldings! She was more angry than I’d ever heard her before...’ And some of the wonder he’d felt as a faunt came back to him now. ‘And Da told Regi to tell Old Tom, but I heard when Regi came back later to say the deed was already done.’

‘O aye, and your father apologised to me for losing his temper and condemning the pony,’ Ferdi said, ‘and that’s when I confessed to him that I’d loosed the pony rather than see him die.’

Farry found himself holding his breath as his uncle continued bleakly, ‘And he crafted my confession into a tool to force me to recapture the stallion and ride him in the All-Shire Pony Race, that he might claim the winner’s purse, for the Rohan was the fastest pony we’d ever seen.’

‘How...?’ Farry breathed.

‘It was thievery, to take the pony and let him go, when he didn’t belong to me, should the Thain choose to take a hard line in the matter,’ Ferdi said. ‘The penalty for a thief is to live under the Ban for a year and a day. Farry,’ he said, and the lad heard remembered desperation in his tone, ‘I had already lived under the Ban, for something that was not even my fault, for nine years because of your grandfather’s anger. I could not face it again.’ And Farry gulped, for Paladin had consigned Ferdi to shunning because of something Pippin had done in leaving the Tookland to choose to live amongst the Brandybucks, a double injustice. 

‘But Pippin so graciously offered me a way of escape,’ Ferdi went on, with some bitterness, Farry thought. ‘His words were these, exactly: If a thief confesses before an assembly of Shire-folk, Tooks and Tooklanders, and repays double what was stolen...and the Thain perceives that he is truly sorry for his actions, and not likely to repeat them... He told me that I could redeem my mares if I recovered the stallion, rode him in the All-Shire race, and turned the purse over to him. The Thain. Ah, lad!’ he cried in distress. ‘It meant that my ponies were forfeit, my two mares, to pay for “stealing” the stallion. But those two ponies of mine, Penny and Dapple, they were all I had to my name! He would have taken all I had...’

If there had been any tears left to the lad, he would have wept them in that moment.

‘He also said, If you recover the pony but you do not win the purse, you may give up your two mares, or you may accept the Ban.’ And Farry, knowing Ferdi’s capacity for remembering all he heard, had no doubt that his uncle was quoting his father word-for-word. ‘Believe me, Ferdi, I wish there were other choices in the matter, but it is your own doing that has landed us in this mess. And of course I believed him. After all, he was the Thain, and I was merely a working hobbit, an archer, someone almost beneath the notice of one of the gentry.’ 

Farry, having a high opinion of archers, wanted to protest, but his uncle wasn’t finished. 

‘And so, Farry,’ Ferdi said in a low tone, ‘when the Tookland Pony Races came, and Hilly told me he’d taken over working Penny after I was injured, I saw my way to winning enough gold to – perhaps – redeem my ponies. Even if the Rohan and I did not ride to win in the All-Shire Race the following month, I could save my mares. And though I still faced the torment of confessing my deed before an assembly of hobbits, at least I’d still have my lasses.’

‘And so you rode in the race, having swallowed half a sleeping draught for the pain in your leg, and your leg tied to the stirrup leathers, risking death...’ Farry said, sick at heart for what he was learning about his father’s capacity for ruthlessness.

‘And you know how it all came out,’ Ferdi said. ‘Starfire jumped several fences, took himself into the race, and spoilt all my plans.’

Mute, Farry nodded, unable to speak for the devastation he felt.

But his uncle wasn’t finished, it seemed. ‘But then, Farry,’ Ferdi said. ‘Somehow my risking my all to save my lasses shocked him into his senses, your da, I mean.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Farry whispered.

He didn’t know how Ferdi could have heard him, but apparently he did, for he went on, ‘He came to me, as I lay there in the infirmary, knowing that I had lost everything, including any respect on the part of the Tooks because of my reckless foolishness, riding in that race, and he... he humbled himself to me.’

‘Humbled himself...?’ Farry said numbly.

‘He could not reverse the judgement he’d pronounced – by tradition and the ways of the Tooks that go back all the way to the first Took, they say, as The Took and head of the family, there is a protocol that binds him in all he says and does, that protects himself as well as others...’

Farry nodded, not quite convinced, though Fortinbrand had said much the same thing to him.

‘We will find a way out of this mess, together, cousin, your da said. And we did! ...he did,’ Ferdi said lower. ‘He made it so that my ponies were mine to keep, and he asked instead of demanding that I ride in the All-Shire Race...’

‘All for gold,’ Farry said, and he couldn’t keep the bitterness out of his own voice now.

‘Ah, lad, but he explained that, too,’ Ferdi said, ‘and once I understood, we began working together, rather than him trying to force me to his will, to achieve his aim.’

‘Explained what?’ Farry burst out.

‘I don’t know how well you remember those early days,’ Ferdi said. ‘But I do know that you remember finding the treasury, where Lalia or perhaps Ferumbras had hidden it away.’

‘I remember,’ Farry said more softly.

‘That whole first year,’ Ferdi said, ‘your da had almost nothing to work with. Here he was, responsible for maintaining the roads for the King, for overseeing the welfare of the Tooks and Tooklanders, for paying those in the employ of the Thain – servants, and foresters, and archers, and fieldworkers, and more – and yet, he had almost no funds to pay them with! His father before him had faced the same problem, and he’d been advised to carry on as if the treasury had not vanished into thin air. And so Paladin became known for his hard, cold ways, spending a penny and demanding tuppence in change...’

Farry nodded.

‘...but the Tooks put up with him because he brought us through the Troubles as a free and independent people,’ Ferdi said. ‘We owed him a great debt, and though we shook our heads at his parsimonious ways, we never questioned the whys of it all.’ He paused and returned to the thread he had been spinning. ‘And so, your da wanted the gold to pay for the lease on a farm that is part of the holdings of the Tooks.’

Farry nodded, familiar with the concept. Much of the land in the Tookland was held in trust by The Took, and farmers leased their land for their lifetime, passing the land and the lease on to their children after them. The money from the leases provided the funds to pay for foresters and fieldworkers, to hire Bucklanders to build or repair bridges, to purchase goods in quantity from the Outer Shire, such as pipe-weed and wheat and wine, to be sold in the marketplaces in towns in the Tookland for the benefit of Tooklanders, and more.

‘He’d promised a dying farmer, you see, that his sons would not have to leave the land when he died, even though they’d not been able to save enough to take over the lease when he was gone,’ Ferdi said. ‘That’s what he wanted the gold for, Farry, and not for any self-serving reason.’

‘But...’ was forced out of Farry. ‘Fortinbrand taught me that the end, no matter how good the cause, can never justify any means that are hurtful or cruel or thoughtless, or done out of malice or spite or greed.’

‘No, that’s right, Farry,’ Ferdi said. ‘And that is why your da was in the wrong, to try to force me to his will instead of reasoning with me. And, I think, that is part of why he presented Starfire to me, in the end. It was his way of making restitution in that case.’

‘But he didn’t learn his lesson!’ Farry half-sobbed. ‘For he – he accused you and Tolly of child-stealing, when it was my own fault for running away! He would have seen you banished! Just as my grandfather made you pay a terrible price for my father’s choices!’

And here he was, bearing such a dreadful legacy. He wondered if, when he became Thain, he would visit such injustice on the hobbits who had sworn an oath of loyalty to him, should his own son (if he should have any, that is) displease him. Perhaps he shouldn’t be Thain after his father. 

Or if he had no other choice, perhaps he'd end like Thain Ferumbras, unmarried and childless. Though that was no solution, really, if the Thain himself were found wanting. All agreed, from scraps of conversation Farry had overheard here and there, that Ferumbras had been worse than useless for the most part. He'd even heard whispers that it was a mercy that old Ferumbras had died when he did, as Men were beginning to encroach on the Shire in greater numbers. Farry had heard quiet expressions of doubt that Ferumbras would have stood up to Lotho the way Paladin had. The Tookland might have gone the way of the rest of the Shire in the Troubles, and then where would they all have been?

‘I told you, he was impetuous,’ Ferdi answered quietly. ‘It is his worst failing, and his greatest strength.’

‘I don’t understand!’ Farry cried miserably.

‘Farry, when a crisis arises, your da sees his way clearly,’ Ferdi said, ‘and immediately, he has a solution, usually an excellent one, in fact.’ Farry sat unmoving, letting his uncle’s words wash over him. ‘He’s saved countless lives, and trouble beyond all knowing, with his quick wits and decisiveness.’

‘There’s a “but” in there somewhere,’ Farry said, and his uncle chuckled.

‘Perceptive you are, lad, but then, you always have been. But...’ Ferdi said, and paused. ‘Let me put it this way. What if you have a young, lively, half-tamed ox, and you hitch him to a plough?’

Farry knew the answer to this, from asking a plethora of questions whilst watching the fieldworkers going about their business. ‘He might run wild,’ he answered. ‘It’s why they always yoke two oxen together, a young one for his strength, and an old one for his steadiness.’

‘O aye,’ Ferdi said. ‘You have the right of it. And so, your da has wisely surrounded himself with steady advisors and helpers, hobbits who might not be so quick and decisive but who can pull him up short if he starts to run away with the plough.’ 

Farry nodded at this and said, for his uncle’s benefit, ‘So... what you’re saying is that he saw himself for what he was, and repented of it, and sought to redress the wrongs he’d done in... in running away with the plough... and he suffered himself to be yoked...’

‘He yoked himself, rather,’ Ferdi said. ‘For don’t you know, Farry, how, after the Convocation – how your da has sought counsel in any decision he’s made that affects more people than himself? The larger the decision, the more carefully he ponders it. O –‘ Ferdi said, and Farry could just see his uncle in his mind’s eye, holding up a staying hand, ‘– I’m not saying he’s become indecisive, no, not at all! But you know how iron is brittle, and breaks easily, but when it’s tempered into steel, like your father’s sword, it can withstand a blow?’

‘I think so,’ Faramir said.

‘Well, that is what your da has learnt... he nearly stepped down as Thain after he realised he’d falsely accused Tolly and me, did you know that? But Merry (and Regi, I think) talked him into staying, for the good of the Shire. For his ideas are good ones, Farry, and his heart – he has a good heart. Believe me when I tell you. There’s no evil there, hiding behind a mask, not like those cursed ruffians that you and I had the bad fortune to fall afoul of.’

‘You sound as if you trust him,’ Farry said. ‘...that you find him trustworthy.’

‘I would trust him with my very life,’ Ferdi answered. ‘Indeed,’ he added simply, ‘I have.’

‘He saved your life?’ Farry said.

‘He did, lad, and nearly gave his own life doing so,’ Ferdi said. ‘But that’s a story, I think, we’ll let lie. ‘Twould be quite a scandal amongst the Tooks, should the details ever be known. Suffice it to say, it involved a river. And nearly drowning.’ Farry thought about his da saving Haldi, and how they’d hushed it up to spare the escort’s reputation amongst the Tooks. It seemed Haldi wasn’t the only Tookish archer to fall afoul of a river, only for Pippin to rescue him. But Ferdi was speaking again, and as he returned his attention to his uncle’s words, Farry realised that Ferdi had firmly changed the subject. ‘But I deem ‘tis your turn to answer a question now.’

‘Is it?’ Farry said.

‘It is.’

‘So what burning question is gnawing away at you?’ Farry said, giving up on finding out more about a river. And nearly drowning. At least for now.

‘When we were sitting there, listening to Fortinbrand build the case against us – and it was looking dark, so dark, so certain that all five of us were to feel the brand on our faces that very day and be cast out of the Shire forevermore...’ 

Farry gulped, but said bravely, ‘I remember.’

‘I heard Fortinbrand say to you, in such a low voice, I’m sure he meant for no one else to hear, Remember what we talked about. And you calmed from your weeping, and you laid your head upon his shoulder, as if he were a rock you could cling to, even as he continued his questioning and dug the pit deeper, in a manner of speaking, that the Tooks were about to vote to throw us into. Farry,’ his uncle said. ‘I’ve always wondered. You were calm after that, at least, until your da rejected the proposition that Erlingar and Rudigrim seemed to be working out, there on the spot.’

Faramir shivered at the memory – thinking that everything was about to come out right after all, and then the Thain’s quiet No.

‘What was it, you and Fortinbrand talked about?’ Ferdi asked, and then he backtracked slightly. ‘If it’s something you’d be allowed to tell, that is. I know that anyone the Querier interviews whilst building a case to be brought before a Convocation is bound to silence, under penalty of serious consequences should they dare to speak to any other.’ He paused and added, ‘I suppose that would even apply to a small child, although I’ve never heard of a child standing witness before, as you did.’

Farry took a breath and held it as he considered. At last, he let it out again and spoke. ‘I don’t think it matters so much anymore,’ he said. ‘It’s not as if it would have any bearing on the outcome now.’ And, he thought to himself bleakly, it was more than likely that he and Ferdi would die out here. His thoughts were growing clouded, and he’d heard his uncle’s speech increasingly slurring with either exhaustion or weakness as the interminable winter night dragged on. Even if they were able to talk all the way through this night to the morning, they were both growing weaker. Not long, and it would be three days without water. And rescue was still days away, by all reckoning.

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