~ Content warning: angst and minor character death ~

Chapter 55. We pick up the pieces

My feedbox is empty, and my water bucket is nearly so. I pull a mouthful of hay from my haynet to chew as I consider. Unlike the grain and water provided earlier, some hay remains because the net had been so generously filled upon my arrival – was it really only a day ago? ...and since my Ranger-guide brought me to this place in the afternoon of the day before today, it was not even a full day. 

As for now, daylight is just beginning to brighten in the high windows, signalling the end to a night that has seemed almost as interminable as some of the difficult night-marches our Company accomplished after we left the marvellous Valley behind. And I have not yet slept, though I have eaten and rested, watched and listened, waiting...

After I bore the unconscious ostler to the inn's entrance, the innkeeper eased him from my back and carried him into the inn. All along the way from the stable yard to the inn's door, he had issued a continuous flow of orders, one after the other, speaking too swiftly for me to easily follow. Indeed, the two hobbits had tried to interrupt him with questions or objections, but he was having none of it.

Even as this-Bob's weight was lessened and then gone from my back, the innkeeper was reiterating, 'Now go and do what you've been told to do! You can offer Bob precious little or even no good, hovering over him, and you could be doing a lot more good elsewhere.'

'Come along Bert,' said the Nob-hobbit, though I could smell his reluctance and worry for this-Bob.

The tween was of another mind. 'But...!' he protested.

The innkeeper had started to turn away, but he stopped at hearing this, and turned back to us. Belying the nightmare that was his bloody face, his voice was gentle as he insisted, 'Your uncle needs a healer's hands. Go, and find Little Tom, and fetch him to the inn as quick as you can! He'll be in the street, knowing him. And then find Tall Bob, and the two of you – and any of the other grooms you might find – go and round up the horses and ponies and put them safely away. Check them for injuries, and let Tom know if any need tending.'

'We'll most likely find Tom in the street, just as you say,' the Nob-hobbit said, agreeing with his master and clapping the tween on the back, 'for I saw him in the midst of the battle, already tending to the fallen...'

'So, Nob, find him and bring him to the common room, and ask any others who are able to help you bear the injured to the inn,' the innkeeper said, 'as I've been telling you all this time.' And then he turned towards the inn with his burden, and trudged away.

'Come lad,' Nob said, nudging Bert. 'The sooner we find Tom and send him, the sooner he'll see to our Bob.' 

To my surprise, neither of them led me to the stables to put me safely away. No, but Bert took up the end of my rope and clicked softly to me to follow him, and so I did, while Nob walked a little ahead of us.

Back under the archway and out into the street we went. There, lantern-bearing women – both tall and half-sized – had emerged from their homes and were moving and stooping among the scattered bodies.

The Nob-hobbit raised his voice, addressing no one in particular and everyone in general. 'Bring the injured to the inn! Has anyone seen Tom? Tom Pickthorn!'

A woman kneeling nearby lifted her head and pushed her hair back from her face with a bloody hand. 'He's here,' she said, her voice strangely devoid of all emotion. Looking down again, she repeated, 'Here,' in so low a tone, I doubt the Hobbits accompanying me heard, but I heard her and pulled free of Bert's unresisting hand as I moved to close the gap between us. On reaching her, I lowered my nose to her shoulder. She smelled of recent terror, mingled with wild grief and overlaid by numbness. I blew a warm breath over her, but she did not seem to notice.

From the corner of my eye, I saw a younger Man stumble towards us through the churned and bloodied snow. 'Mum!' he cried. 'Dad!' He crouched and took up one of the limp hands, and then he bowed his forehead to the hand he held, and wept.

Nob, who had frozen in consternation, now belatedly moved forward to reclaim my trailing rope, and on reaching us he whispered, his voice rough with grief and loss. 'Tolman.'

The Man wept on, unheeding.

Nob spoke a bit louder. 'Tolman—Tom, lad,' he said to the weeping man. 'Your dad may be beyond all aid, but there's others needing a healing hand... Let us first bring the living to the inn, where you can better see to their needs, and then we'll care for our dead.' And somehow I knew he was thinking of this-Bob who had been carried living to the inn but might well have died after we left him.

To the woman, he said, 'Sally, have you seen my Rose?' But he only received a shake of the head for an answer.

The next thing I knew, Nob and Bert had eased two injured Hobbits onto my back. Then they persuaded two lightly-injured Men to walk to either side of me and steady my riders on my back.

'Find out how many are still living, and then follow us to the Pony,' Nob said to the young healer. 'Bert, you help him; when he tells you someone's gone, cover his face with a cloth to mark him as dead. We have to get the living out of the snow and cold, first thing.' He did not add what we were all likely thinking, The cold cannot harm the dead any worse than they are already, but the tween gulped and nodded.

Back and forth the Nob-hobbit and I went, from street to inn and back again. Lean, I might well be, but hardened by my journeys, I was able to bear one or two Men, or two or three Hobbits, or a Man and a Hobbit together on each slow and careful trip.

After two or three such journeys – not enough that I had yet lost count – I saw a few of the townsfolk returning at last from the West-gate. Their small numbers made me wonder if another battle had happened there, and would there now be more wounded and dead to fetch to the inn? A grievous thought. Perhaps I ought to have trampled those bad Men underfoot! But it is neither in my nature nor a part of my training to deliberately injure two-footed creatures. Except, perhaps, Orcs? Though I have never met one of them. At least, I don't think I have.

The reason I can say that such harm-inflicting behaviour is "not a part of my training" is because I heard both Our Big Man and the Other Big Man (the one with the shield) tell my hobbits of a country of Men in the South-lands whose horses are trained to fight in battle along with their riders. I admit that I listened with interest as I grazed nearby. Shadowfax also told me a few such tales when I was ill, and there was a need to keep walking, and his storytelling helped, somehow – but my memories of that latter time are misty at best.

Bert looked up from his grim work and waved to that-Bob in the much-reduced crowd of returning townsfolk, calling to him. From the words they exchanged as I waited for two more injured Men to be settled on my back, I gathered that most of the town's Men, after marching the ruffians to the West-gate and watching them slink away, had shut that Gate tight and then divided themselves into groups that scattered to guard all the Gates, at least until the dawning. Many of the Hobbits, meanwhile, were even then spreading out along the entirety of the hedge-and-fence enclosing the town to keep watch for any further mischief, though that-Bob was of the opinion that 'the rotters will be off licking their wounds for at least a day or two before they come back – and when they do, we'll be ready for 'em!'

In any event, the tall groom and the shorter one departed from the battle scene in the direction of the inn and its stables. Bert had evidently remembered seeing the other horses and ponies in the stable yard. They were gone for some time, and then they returned, each leading a beast behind him – a pony for Bert and a horse for that-Bob. With these reinforcements, we were able to clear the street of still-living combatants relatively quickly.

At last it was time to retrieve the dead who remained – two Hobbits and three Men of the town had given their all, and several ruffians had paid for their treachery. Nob took charge of the pony Bert had been managing and handed my rope to the tween, saying something about my patience and steadiness, and that he feared the other pony might baulk at being asked to carry the dead. 

Thus, the tween led me to the still forms of "Sally" and "Tom", for the woman still knelt by her husband, pale and unmoving. By that time, other women were sobbing over their Men or Hobbit-folk or sitting or kneeling quietly in the snow, in the silence that descends upon the world between middle night and dawn. But the slain ruffians lay alone where they had fallen, and no one mourned them.

'Mistress Salsify,' said Bert softly, but the woman showed no signs of hearing.

Again, he repeated, 'Mistress Salsify, we've come to help you take Master Pickthorn home.'

Though she had seemed as still as a statue or stone troll, at hearing these words, she lifted her hands to cover her face and began to sob.

And Bert laid a gentle hand on her shoulder and stood, wordlessly waiting. Nor did I move.

At last the storm of tears came to an end, and the woman wiped at her face and nodded. Bert helped her to her feet where she stood, tall and slender like a beech or willow in the wood, and I remembered that she had been taller than her husband when I had seen them together in the town. Kind and gentle folk, the both of them were, the husband a healer and his son the same, and the wife an herb-gatherer. I remembered, then and now, how she would pass me, tied up outside The Prancing Pony after a hard day's work, and would often stop and take a handful of fresh green stuff from her basket and offer it to me, a refreshing treat and a welcome one. 

Though the Hobbit tween was little more than half her height, Bert was much stronger than his stature might suggest. Thus, the two of them were able to lift the poor healer between them and drape him gently over my back.

So I carried little Tom Pickthorn home, down the main road to a branching lane that zig-zagged up and over the Hill to the healers' abode. On the woman's direction, we did not stop before the door, meaning I carried him over the threshold and across a large room, all the way to a corridor that had doors to other rooms opening to either side. 

I had never been inside a Man's stables before, and my head was whirling at all I saw. While Bert walked softly, as hobbits do, my footsteps and the woman's fell muffled upon soft coverings that smelled like sheep – or, more precisely, their wool – and blanketed the floors, much like a bed of straw might. A fire burned to one side of the large space, reminding me of my Sam and his wish for "a homely meal; something hot out of the pot" and Youngest's delight at the prospect of "a real good meal" when our Company found the opportunity to light a fire along our way. A closer look reassured me that this fire was tamed and contained behind a metal cage of sorts. In passing, I saw a frying pan, much like my Sam's, hanging from a nail on the wall!

I saw many other objects and shapes in the room, including an easy chair like the one my hobbits brought out to the pasture for the old pet's comfort, one sunny day in that marvellous Valley where, if all is well, Merrylegs still grazes. But most of my surroundings as we passed through the larger room and into the narrower hall were incomprehensible to me, bearing little resemblance to what one might find in a stall or loose-box.

Near the end of the corridor, Salsify turned aside to open a door and then led me into the room beyond, halting me beside a long, low platform with soft coverings. Together, she and Bert slid Tom-the-healer from my back and onto the platform. And then she did a curious thing; she took up a folded coverlet and covered him with it, boots and all.

Bert and I waited whilst she bowed her head, and then she nodded and looked up. 'My Tom will sleep here until I can return to him,' she said softly. 'I'll go with you to the inn, for I know a fair bit of healing after all my years with Tom and our Tolm.'

When we reached the Main Street at last, it was strangely empty, with only the churned snow and dark spots to mark the battle ground before the inn. All the wounded and dead had been carried away. Unusual shadows danced in the patches of light on the ground, cast by the cloth stuffing the townsfolk had forced into the shattered panes and splintered wood surrounding their windows to keep out the cold.

Despite the shadows on the street, lamplight still gleamed from the buildings lining the street, offering warmth and comfort; shining through the darkness as if to testify that though Bree might be battered and its people bloodied, the town and townsfolk had not been broken. As Bert led me to the stables, I couldn't help thinking that we must all be prepared to stand up against more than mere ruffians. More precisely, even though the Shadow Ones – those who began my adventure in the first place by frightening away all the horses and ponies in Bree – are in the past (and never to return, or so I can only hope), we are called upon to withstand not only ruffians but shadows and dark shapes in the woods and wolves howling round the fences. All of us will stand together: the innkeeper and his brave and faithful Nob, the stable workers, comprising Hobbits and one Man, along with the healer's wife and son, and the ironmonger and the blacksmith, and the woodmen and the farmers, and the animals, and everyone else in the Bree-land who would resist evil and uphold the good, for that matter! ...until whatever end may come.

But I cannot help hoping that my Sam will return to me before the end of all things comes upon us. 

The night is behind us. I drink what is left of my water, then pull another mouthful of hay, absently chewing as I watch the light of day brighten the windows above my head. 

...until whatever end may come...

I look up and toss my head as the heavy stable door slides open just enough to admit that-Bob and young Bert and the other Hobbit grooms, each one burdened with buckets full of fresh, cold water from the well which they put down just inside the door. The Man shuts the heavy door firmly and goes directly to the feedroom, and soon I hear the other horses and ponies nickering and snorting at the welcome sound of grain being measured out. Two of the grooms take two buckets each and begin watering us, one by one. Another trundles a wheelbarrow to stand under the opening to the hayloft. He climbs up the ladder as quick as a squirrel scurries up a tree, and soon generous forkfuls of hay are falling from the heavens, so to speak.

Amidst all this activity, Bert comes directly to me where I stand, my head thrust over the half-door to my enclosure. On reaching me, he holds out his empty palm, and I rest my muzzle there, not nuzzling for treats but quietly waiting, and I prick my ears forward. In other words, I ask for news in every way I know how.

But the tween bursts into tears, and he throws his arms around my neck and presses his face against mine, and so I fear the worst.

...and then I hear the words interspersed between sobs and heaving breaths, and I press my face closer to his to try and show my understanding. 'He'll live,' the lad is gulping. 'He's going to live... O Bob...'

That-Bob passes by with buckets of grain, sets one of them down by my half-door, and pats the tween's shoulder in passing, and somehow he and I both understand that Bert is not talking about him, if you take my meaning.

My sigh of relief whuffles Bert's shirt – which has the effect of making the tween laugh through his tears. With a final pat, he pushes himself away and throws himself into his work.

Before long, I have all I might have ever wanted: a freshly-filled haynet, a feedbox heaped with grain, a bucket of cold water lately drawn from the well...

All but my Sam, that is.

When I have finished drinking and eating, I lie myself down in my clean, refreshed bed of straw and give myself up to a well-earned rest, if I do say so myself. (And I do.) Perhaps I will dream of my hobbits before I waken to see what next this day will bring.

*** 

Author's notes: 

I took the liberty of imagining "little Tom Pickthorn" as a healer. From Butterbur's description, it sounds like he was a relatively short Man (like Butterbur himself). I added to his story a taller wife and a son who had followed him as a healer. Following Tolkien's hints, I placed their home "over the Hill" and decided it would be a comfortable, well-kept dwelling. Though Tom, in the original text, is little more than a name briefly mentioned, Tolkien's description of him suggests that he was well-regarded, even beloved among his fellow Bree-landers, being one of a group of "all good fellows, and they're missed", making it easy to imagine him in the midst of the battle, trying to help those who had been injured before he, himself, was struck down.

After this chapter, the story becomes lighter again. The people of Bree learn well from this hard lesson; as Butterbur tells the returning Travellers, 'It isn't safe on the road and nobody goes far, and folk lock up early. We have to keep watchers all round the fence and put a lot of men on the gates at nights.' But inside the fence, life will remain relatively safe and uneventful due to the wisdom and precautions of the Bree-folk.

I don't know about you, but I find fluff quite comforting these days. Hugs (if you are one who likes them), and thanks for listening.

***