Chapter 24. Bleak

’So what did you tell him?’ Ferdi asked after a short silence.

Farry stared, stricken, at the Querier. ‘I – I don’t understand,’ he said. ‘Why? What is it you say they’ve done? And what does bleak mean?’ His chest was heaving, and he was finding it difficult to catch his breath.

‘Steady now, lad,’ Fortinbrand said, but Farry pushed away the calming hand that the hobbit tried to lay on his arm.

‘No!’ Farry said. ‘What are you going to do to them?’

‘It’s not what I will or no,’ Fortinbrand said, genuine regret in his voice. ‘I happen to think highly of those two hobbits, heroes of the Tookland, loyal Tooks that they be. But Farry,’ he said, and he dropped his voice as his eyes bored into the lad’s. ‘They were sentenced to be banished. And by the Thain’s own wish, there in the Woody End.’

Farry opened his mouth, but no words came. Tears started from his eyes. ‘I –‘ he said. ‘My da never said...’

‘His very words,’ Fortinbrand said softly, regretfully, ‘to the Master of Buckland were these: if they've conspired to keep my son from me, I want them banished from the Shire. And Tolly admitted under Regi’s questioning that they had indeed conspired. As did Ferdi, when the Master of Buckland questioned him. They were undoubtedly guilty, and your da pronounced sentence upon them, there in the Master’s study at Brandy Hall, even before he’d heard all the facts of the case, even before they came to the Woody End to find you in Ferdi’s possession. When Master Merry pronounced his finding, he was simply following the wishes of the Thain.’

‘I wasn’t –‘ Farry sputtered. ‘He never –!’ And then realization struck him. ‘How do you know these things? You weren’t even there!’

‘It is my business to find things out,’ Fortinbrand said.

‘Who –?’ Farry said, but the grown-up shook his head.

‘I cannot speak of my sources,’ he answered the half-formed question. ‘And they are sworn to silence after we have spoken together, lest they muddy the waters before the Tooks have a chance to hear the facts of the case and render judgement.’

‘So...’ Farry said, feeling his way, and distracted by this thought, ‘...am I sworn to silence, too?’

‘There’ll be no need,’ Fortinbrand said, and it seemed to the small lad that his eyes were sad now as he spoke.

‘Because I’m a child?’ Farry said slowly.

Fortinbrand shook his head. ‘No, lad. Because the Tooks called a convocation, when they heard that a banishing offence had been committed, and even now events are being set in motion...’

‘But how can they banish Ferdi and Tolly?’ Farry said. ‘They... they all agreed, there in the Woody End, the escort and – and everyone! They agreed! And my da, he got down on his knees to the escort, and he promised them...’

‘Promised them,’ Fortinbrand prompted.

‘He, he said,’ Farry stumbled over the words as he went back in his mind to that scene, seeing his father kneeling to the hobbits of the escort. ‘He said that he was wrong. No, more than that, he said he admitted to everyone there, in that place, that he was wrong, that he had been afraid and angry, and he had been unjust... no, that was not the word.’ Farry stopped to think for a moment. ‘Unfair, he said, to Ferdi, and to Tolly, and...’

‘And how often would you say you’ve seen your da angry, Farry?’ Fortinbrand asked out of the blue. ‘Is he often unfair? Or is it only when he allows himself to lose his temper?’

Farry was bewildered by the question. ‘I – I don’t understand,’ he whispered.

‘Did you run away because your da was angry with you? Or because he was unfair?’ Fortinbrand pressed, his eyes strangely intent.

‘No!’ Farry said at once. ‘No, but when he’s been stern with me, it was always because I had disappointed him... like when my cousins and I lost ourselves in the old mine... when we’d been told not to play there. Or when we took the trail to the fishing place, the trail that had been closed because it was too dangerous, and we paid no heed and had to be rescued from our own foolishness... and Ferdi was swept away in the middle of the rescue, and everyone thought he’d drowned...’ he gave a sob.

‘But he didn’t drown, as it turned out,’ Fortinbrand said gently. ‘But your da was still angry with you?’

Farry stared at him, disconcerted. ‘No,’ he said. ‘He was angry, yes, when Ferdi was missing and presumed dead, O aye,’ he said and gulped, ‘but it wasn’t punishing anger... more that he was grieved... that my foolish choices had led to the death of another... and... and,’ he gulped, ‘...and I remembered how he blamed himself for Gandalf falling in Moria, because he’d dropped the stone in the well and wakened the Watcher in the Deep...’

‘I see,’ Fortinbrand said, though Farry wasn’t sure that he really did see. They sat in silence a moment, and then he returned to his earlier point. ‘So did you run away because your da was grieved with you? Disappointed?’

Farry stared at him in shock. ‘No!’ he said. ‘I left – I left because I didn’t want him to be grieved with me any longer!’

‘So he was grieved,’ Fortinbrand said.

‘No!’ Farry insisted.

Perplexed, the adult stared at the son of the Thain. ‘Help me to understand, lad,’ he said at last.

It was so much like the way Ferdi talked to him when he was troubled about something. Farry blinked, almost disarmed by the hobbit’s kind and earnest manner. As if he really cared what Farry had to say ...was it possible?

‘He... he loved... loves me,’ Farry said. ‘I have never doubted that my mum and da, they love me.’ He took a shaking breath. ‘But I was... I was making foolish choices...’

‘And your choices grieved them,’ Fortinbrand prompted gently. Under his breath, he added, ‘Though I would say instead childish choices... child that you are... I think sometimes we forget... because you seem so wise beyond your years sometimes...’ He shook his head as if at himself.

‘Yes... no...’ Farry said, staring down at his hands that had somehow clasped themselves tightly in his lap. He raised his gaze then, to stare into the Querier’s eyes. ‘You know how it is,’ he pleaded. ‘They Talk... They Talk about everything! And if it’s a bad thing, they’re like... one of Maggot’s dogs... with a bone... they shake it and shake it... and never let it go!’

He thought he saw some kind of dawning realisation on the Querier’s face then, and was rewarded when Fortinbrand suddenly swore under his breath, a word that would have earned him a reprimand if Thain or Steward had heard him. A word that Farry as a small child was not supposed to know, but had heard on rare occasion, when he wasn’t supposed to be within hearing of the archer (for it was usually an archer, not considered polite company by most hobbits of the gentry) who had said the word.

Fortinbrand said then, slowly, as if weighing every word, ‘Not your parents, then, I think, lad?’ He took a breath and added, ‘the Talk. You ran away because of the Talk of the Tooks.’

The tension that had been rising in the small lad overwhelmed him now, a wave of grief that crashed over him, threatening to drown him. He covered his face with his hands and gave in to shuddering sobs. But then he felt Fortinbrand’s arms ease themselves around him; the Querier pulled Farry into his lap and held him close, patting his back, murmuring comforting nonsense, but not trying to dissuade him from weeping.

In the middle of his weeping, Farry heard the Querier say, ‘Not now, Sandy, we have all we need. But perhaps you can stir up a plate of food for the lad when we’ve quite finished.’ He heard a murmur from the hobbitservant, and then Fortinbrand went back to his soothing. ‘There, there, lad.’

At last, when Farry raised his head from Fortinbrand’s shoulder, he thought he saw kindness and understanding in the Querier’s eyes. But it also seemed to him that an undercurrent of anger ran there, and he shivered.

Fortinbrand patted him on the shoulder and tendered a snowy handkerchief. ‘Here you are, lad, wipe your eyes and blow your nose.’ He then directed Farry to take a few more sips from the glass that still stood on the side table – though somehow in the interim it had been filled again with fresh, cold water. Most likely Sandy’s doing.

After Farry had done so, Fortinbrand went on as if there had been no interruption. ‘So your da got down on his knees to the escort, and he promised them... He said that he was wrong. No, more than that, he said he admitted to everyone there, in that place, that he was wrong, that he had been afraid and angry, and he had been... unfair, to Ferdi, and to Tolly...’

And Farry caught his breath, for he suddenly realised that Fortinbrand, like Farry’s Uncle Ferdibrand, had that odd quirk that allowed him to remember all he heard and repeat it flawlessly, even to using the same phrasing Farry had employed in the telling.

‘So what was it that he promised them, lad?’ Fortinbrand finished.

Farry raised his eyes to meet the Querier’s sober gaze. ‘He promised them that he’d do better.’

‘And how well does your da keep his promises, Farry?’ the hobbit asked quietly. ‘Can you tell me of the promises he’s made, that you know of, and kept? or broken?’

‘But he doesn’t!’ Farry said, bewildered. Seeing that the grown-up didn’t understand, he tried again. ‘He – the most he’ll say is “maybe”, but it’s not a promise, it’s... it’s his way of saying he will do his best to make something come about. He never says he’ll do something, and then not.’

‘Very Thainly of him, I’m sure,’ Fortinbrand said, his lips tightening. ‘A Thain must be careful of giving his word, or pronouncing judgement – for he must never go back on his word, and once he speaks a judgement, he is not allowed to reverse it – 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...’

He eyed the lad keenly. ‘But you said he promised the hobbits of his escort...’

‘He was on his knees to them,’ Farry said, his voice distant in his own ears as he looked into the past. ‘Like he was swearing an oath.’

‘Swearing them to silence, perhaps,’ Fortinbrand prompted. ‘That they might not tell of his serious lapse in judgement.’

‘No, not at all!’ Farry said in surprise. ‘O they discussed how it would be when we returned to the Smials.’

‘Did they?’ Fortinbrand said, leaning forward a little. And yet Farry had the idea that the Querier already knew all about the events that had gone on in the Woody End, and was merely confirming what he knew by talking to Farry. ‘So did they make up a story together?’

‘No,’ Farry said, shaking his head earnestly. ‘They agreed on the truth to be told... that I ran away, and Ferdi followed, and Tolly stopped the post so my mum might not worry, and they were accused, and I woke in time to clear them.’

‘But in the end they hushed up the fact that you ran away,’ Fortinbrand said. ‘It was not common knowledge. Your da, in the courtyard, simply announced that Ferdi and Tolly had been falsely accused, and the accusations had been dealt with, and restitution was paid.’

‘That was truth!’ Farry said, confused.

‘But it was not the whole truth, lad,’ Fortinbrand said quietly, holding his gaze until he nodded. Lies of omission.

Farry dropped his eyes to his lap. ‘Hilly said...’ he whispered. ‘Da wanted to tell the whole truth, and let the Tooks do their worst, he said, but Hilly said the Talk would tear him to shreds. And he laughed and said he’d take his chances, for he’d certainly earned the criticism and it would help to keep him humble, but then Tolly asked him, would he wish the same for Diamond? And he sobered, and he said he wasn’t sure it was the best course, but he was open to counsel, as taking the bit in his teeth and charging ahead had not served anyone well to that point, it seemed. But the escort, they had decided to trust him, and they said they would back him on what ever he should choose to say.’

‘And if your da was the accuser...’ Fortinbrand said. ‘He was, was he not?’

Farry saw no point in denying the fact, seeing that Fortinbrand already knew the words Pippin had spoken in the Master’s study at Brandy Hall, words that Farry hadn’t even been there to hear spoken, and what Tolly and Ferdi had said under questioning. Frankly, he wasn’t sure why the hobbit was bothering to take the time to talk to a child, even though Faramir had been the one to precipitate the events they were discussing. ‘You know that he was,’ he answered.

Fortinbrand smiled at his wording before turning solemn again. ‘Too sharp by half,’ he murmured. ‘And so,’ he said aloud, and stopped. ‘Farry,’ he said. ‘I happen to know you were fevered, there in the Woody End, that you did not hear the trial the Master of Buckland conducted, nor what Ferdi and Tolly said in their own defence... which of course was not enough to sway the judgement against them, seeing that they confirmed the most damning facts.’

***