Chapter 22. Lease on Life
Agate shared Bolham's saddle and offered her pony to Tolly to ride. Little Lark rode with her da, while Pippin and Hilly each took one of the lads. Old Gorbyl and Pippin rode side-by-side, with the others in the party following behind, singing rounds and seasonal songs in pleasing harmony. When the little party met Tom and Salsify, riding towards the farm with Haldi, the three childer waved and called fervent thank-yous to those who would be caring for their animals while they had to be away. Haldi called his own farewells to Bolham's tenants and turned his pony's head around to follow behind the Thain.
By the time they reached Bindbole Farm, the Sun had gone to her rest, but the glow of the coloured lanterns in the town to the south defied the darkness. Similarly, strings of lanterns, both plain (for light) and coloured (for a festive touch), brightly lit the yard framed by the sprawling smial and the farm's outbuildings, promising comfort and welcome.
On hearing the clopping of the ponies' hoofs, a hired hobbit emerged from one of the outbuildings, waving.
'Well come, Captains!' he called to Bolham and Pippin. 'We've been doing our best, but we haven't quite managed to drink up all the beer yet! You've come in good time!'
'Good news, indeed!' Bolham said, jumping down from his saddle and then helping Agate dismount.
'I'll take the childer; we'll stir up some eventides, and I'll tell them stories and sing them to sleep,' the healer said, 'whilst you hobbits go to your gathering. You're late!'
'I'm not tired!' Lark announced.
Agate laughed. 'O' course you're not!' she said gaily. 'But I'm hungry – aren't you?'
Tolly hugged his little lass and kissed the top of her head before releasing her to Agate's reaching arms. 'I will come later and make sure you're warm and cosy,' he said. 'And if you haven't fallen asleep yet, you can sing me a song, little songbird.'
'I will!' Lark said, forgetting her objection to going to bed.
Agate gathered up the three children, talking about the spiced cake that would add a festive note to their eventide meal.
Bolham addressed the Thain and the Tooks. 'Give Alder your reins,' he said. 'He'll see the ponies fed and brushed and bedded deep ere he returns to the gathering.'
Alder slapped Tolly on the back. 'Good to see you, Wallas!' he said. 'We didn't know if you'd be up to joining us tonight!' For Tolly had been living as Wallas, of course, when Alder had stopped at the cot with a message from Bolham from time to time in recent weeks.
At this reminder, Agate halted, beckoning urgently to the Thain. He reached her quickly, wondering. She shooed the children towards the smial, telling them, 'Go and find Garnet in the kitchen! I'll be following soon...'
As Gorbi and Flam took Lark between them and walked away, Agate stood on tiptoe and whispered in Pippin's ear. 'Sorry,' she said, sounding wearied by the labours of the day. 'Red and I talked all the way back here... but we know your cousins will listen better to you than to him! To safeguard Tolly's healing, you must warn them! When we talked earlier, Ferdibrand told me that he and Hildibold are the closest to Tolibold's heart among the visiting Tooks. Though connecting with the rest of his cousins here should offer less danger to the hobbit, we must remain cautious...'
She quickly sketched out the plan she and Bolham had formulated as they rode back to the farm.
Pippin nodded and caught Haldi's eye, signalling, Stay with Bolham! Then he headed towards the large, brightly-lit barn, his long strides carrying him rapidly to the celebration.
Even as his wife whispered her urgent recommendations to the young Thain, Bolham stopped Alder as the latter began to lead the group of ponies away. 'That's right,' he said to the hired hobbit. 'So much has happened...'
'Has it now?' Alder said genially. 'All good, I hope!'
'Alder, I'd like to introduce you to Tolibold, our missing Took,' Bolham continued.
'Where...?' the hired hobbit said, looking around the small group of Tooks that remained.
'Here,' Tolly said. 'Right beside you.'
'But...' Alder said, bewildered. 'I thought...'
'We all thought so,' Bolham said.
'Even I thought so,' Tolly put in, sounding reassuringly steady.
'That's right,' Alder said slowly. 'You'd lost your memories, they said... But does that mean...?'
'It means I did not know who I was,' Tolly said, 'and so when people started calling me "Wallas", well, it was as good a name as any...'
'Well I'll be,' Alder said, though exactly what he'd be, he didn't say. And perhaps it didn't matter. 'Well then, whatever your name is, Master Took, let me be among the first to welcome you back to the living! For we thought you lost in the bog!'
'Tolly,' the found Took responded. 'Glad to make your acquaintance i' truth this time, Alder.'
'Likewise, Tolly,' Alder said. And then he nodded to Bolham. 'Captain, I'll just put these wanderers away and join you in a bit. Mind, the longer you linger out here, the more beer the band will be drinkin' and the more talk and song you'll be missin'!'
'We cannot have that!' Bolham said heartily. 'Come, my friends! I promised the band I'd bring you Tookish archers with me, and they'll be wondering if you got lost along the way...'
'Well, I suppose you might say I did get lost along the way,' Tolly said.
Hilly took one of his arms and Ferdi took the other, and Haldi walked alongside Ferdi as they followed The Red towards the promised gathering, held on the threshing floor in the largest barn to accommodate all the hobbits who were likely to attend. Scraps of music floated on the air, along with the mouth-watering smell of roasting meat. Oddly enough, the music stopped, and they heard no voices raised in laughter or song or even conversation as they approached the building.
***
Pippin's rapid pace left him out of breath when he arrived at the celebration in Bolham's largest barn. On entering, he found Harliburt Took in the crowd of Took and north-Took archers filling the space and seized the Tookish farmer's arm. 'I need to make an announcement,' he gasped.
Harley immediately waved his arms and bellowed for quiet. His resonant bass cut through the talk and laughter and music quite effectively. A hush fell, and all eyes turned to the tall archer who now bowed to the Thain, saying, 'Sir...'
'Please,' Pippin panted. 'There's no time... They're coming...'
'Who's coming?' several voices asked.
The Thain's eyes flashed as he straightened, compelling the crowd to silence. 'The missing Took...' he said, and gulped a breath, '...has been found!'
A cheer began but fell into puzzled silence at Pippin's sharp, chopping gesture. 'All of you know him,' he said, and now he had their full attention, both Tooks and north-Tooks alike.
'He nearly died in the mishap,' he explained hurriedly, '...and when he awakened, he had no memory of who he was or whence he'd come. But...' he added, emphasising the word, 'because of his strong resemblance to a north-Took, the hobbits who found him thought he was their loved one, long ago gone on a journey...'
'Wallas,' someone in the crowd said, and Pippin nodded and pointed towards the voice.
'Yes,' he said. 'Tolibold and Wallas might easily be mistaken for one another, from the painting I saw in Gorbyl's cot... Or brothers... even twins...'
'But...' the Thain cut through the rising talk, 'Healer Agate sent me ahead to tell you... though he has begun to remember, and he may seem perfectly well, my cousin is still at risk! Any shock, she warns, could lead him to lose the memories of both Wallas and Tolly permanently! And so I must ask...' Pippin's voice broke, and he cleared his throat.
The rest of his plea emerged in little more than a whisper. '...I beg of you, go carefully in greeting him, in speaking with him... Listen more than you talk; answer his questions, but ask him no questions o' your own!' He opened his mouth to speak further, but no words came.
Suddenly Mayor Sam stood beside Pippin, sweeping the crowd with a piercing gaze. Like the Tookish archers there, he had been invited to this gathering as a special guest of Bolham's. Having become accustomed to addressing crowds, he pitched his voice to reach the edge of the hushed gathering but no further. 'Do you understand what the Thain has told you?' he asked.
A subdued "Aye" sounded.
'Are there any questions?' the Mayor asked. No one spoke. After slapping Pippin's shoulder gently, he melted into the crowd again.
'Thank you,' Pippin managed before falling silent as the door behind him opened. A chill went down his back, possibly from the icy breeze that entered with the arriving hobbits. Then he heard Bolham say at his back, 'Here we are...'
***
The threshing floor was brightly lit with strings of lanterns criss-crossing the space above the celebrating hobbits' heads. The large space had been transformed into a banquet hall, with trestle tables and benches set up in rows taking up three-quarters of the floor. The other quarter had been left clear for the dancing that would commence when the Faire ended for the night and the archers' families joined the celebration. To sustain reminiscence and storytelling (and of course the later dancing), a long line of serving tables, practically groaning with platters of food, were arrayed along one side of the room, and barrels of beer stood nearby, tapped and ready to dispense their riches.
Curiously, when Pippin's escort and special assistant entered with their host, no one was eating or drinking or making music. The gathered hobbits stood crowded together in the empty space, facing the doorway. The young Thain was there, too, standing with his back to the door, but at Bolham's greeting, he spun around, beaming. 'Welcome to the feast!' he said.
'You took the words right out o' my mouth!' Bolham responded, and chuckles rose from some of the north-Tooks standing there.
The Tookish guests, however, seemed to have forgotten the Thain's recent instructions... or perhaps Pippin's astounding news had not really sunk in until this moment.
Wide-eyed, one of the Tookish archers stumbled forward, holding out his hands. 'Tolly?' he said. 'Cousin... is it really you?'
'It was, the last time I looked,' Tolly answered easily enough. 'I cannot answer for the time before that, however.'
Laughing and weeping, the archer grabbed him in a fierce hug. 'You scoundrel!' he said. 'You ne'er-do-well! You rogue...!'
'You forgot "rascal" and "rapscallion",' Tolly laughed, returning the hug. 'You're slipping in your old age, Siggy!'
'They said you were dead!' Siggy protested. 'I didn't want to believe it, but...' And then he clapped his hand over his mouth as if to keep any more words from emerging.
Whatever else he'd been about to say was lost in the jostle of more Tookish cousins, hugging and backslapping and calling fond insults and weeping and laughing, with Tolly at the centre of it all, whilst Bolham's band encircled them with cheers and joyous laughter.
Bolham watched closely for any sign of distress from the found hobbit, but Tolly seemed to be holding up well against the onslaught. Thus, when he judged that every Tookish archer there had welcomed their lost-and-found comrade back from the dead, The Red raised his voice to claim everyone's attention. 'Hoi!' he boomed.
As was their custom at such gatherings, the north-Tooks answered at the top of their lungs. 'Hi!'
In the relative quiet that followed, The Red said, 'Welcome, fellow rogues and rebels! ...along with our counterparts from the southerly Shire! Welcome to our annual remembrance of the day we determined that we'd shown the last Man in the North Farthing our borders, and our Troubles were over!'
The threshing floor erupted in a grand 'Hurrah!'
Bolham dropped his voice to add, '...and they were over, more or less. We were more fortunate than many of the folk in the other Farthings, having secreted a good bit of the North country's harvests deep in the Wood, where the ruffians would've had trouble finding them even if they'd been able to get past our defences...'
A rather grim laugh answered this remembrance.
'Nonetheless,' Bolham said, 'since the ruffians fired and spoilt as much as they could as they fled our wrath, we faced the daunting task of rebuilding as quickly as might be done to shelter as many as possible as snugly as could be managed, what with another winter already encroaching on us.'
The north-Tooks responded with nods and mutters.
'In our race against the snows, we failed to recognise that Men remained in the Farthings to our south,' Bolham went on. 'However, to their credit, our Tookish brothers took a large hand in scouring the rest of the Shire and ridding the other Farthings of any remainder of the ruffians that had done their best to ruin the land!'
Pippin, standing at Bolham's side, raised his hand high, dampening the cheer that followed upon Bolham's accolades. 'Along with many other Shire-folk!' he said when he had the massed archers' attention. 'It wasn't just Tooks that chased out the ruffians, but Bucklanders and Chubs and Grubs and Goodfellows and Cottons and...'
More genuine laughter sounded as Bolham slapped Pippin's back and said, 'O' course! But if ye name every one o' them, we'll all starve to death... or at least the food will go cold!'
Not to be daunted, Pippin called out, 'Just two more names!'
'Aye!' shouted the assembled Tooks and North Tooks.
'Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee!' Pippin said into the quiet that followed. Knowing the north-Tooks were likely to discount any deeds done in the Outlands, no matter how world-shattering, he added, 'For Deputy Mayor Frodo oversaw the restoration of the Shire's functions as they had been, as they should be, and as they are today... and Mayor Sam began by doing his best to make the Shire green again, and continued by carrying on Mayor Frodo's and Mayor Will's work to this day...!' He beckoned to Sam, who came to stand beside him, blushing despite his nearly ten years as Mayor of the Shire.
'Three cheers for Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee!' Bolham shouted, and the three rousing cheers that followed made the rafters ring.
'And now!' The Red continued, 'It is my duty to remind you that the night is not getting any younger, and the children who are enjoying the Winter Fest will be tiring, even of puppet shows and jugglers and storytellers and other delights, and our wives and sweethearts and sisters will be leaving the Market and putting the childer to bed, and many will then join us here for the dancing and feasting to come...!'
He beamed at the archers filling the room. 'And this, I don't need to remind you, is what we fought to preserve! The life of the Shire and the Shire-folk! Not just everyday life, but the right and the means to appreciate and celebrate our blessings!'
'To have blessings at all,' someone muttered, but Bolham heard and pointed into the crowd, shouting, 'Exactly, Gamm!' Then dropping his voice once more, he said, 'There are stories to be told... there are always the stories to be told, but some are fit only for the ears of those who lived them, or so it seems to me. Why, even my Aggie, who took refuge in the Wood with us, will not come out to join us until the clock strikes nine!'
He turned to Pippin, then, and swept the visiting Tooks with his gaze as he added, '...for she sees the value in our remembering how as well as why we resisted, that the memory of the price we and our brothers and friends paid, in order to be here today, and able to laugh and sing and raise a glass, should never fade away.'
Harlow, Bolham's forehobbit, lifted his arms and shouted, 'So let us eat and drink and be merry, and when the clock strikes nine, let every hand be holding a glass of good North-Shire beer, and we will drink a toast to those who stood with us in our time of Troubles – those who stand here now and those who could not be here! For we will never forget!'
At these words, the archers' cheers rattled the rafters. Then the hobbits who had bunched together in the centre of the space spread outward, and the musicians took up their instruments once more. Music mingled with the assorted sounds of conversation and laughter, the clinking of silver on plates, a joyous confusion of remembrance and celebration.
As the evening went on, Tooks and north-Tooks swapped stories about resisting and confounding Lotho's ruffians. Tolly had no stories of his own to tell, but he and Hilly heard a great deal about a pair of north-Took brothers who had borne a remarkable resemblance to the two Tookish brothers. About the only question Tolly heard addressed to him was, 'Would you care for more meat and drink?'
The hours sped by in a pleasant fog of food and drink and conversation punctuated with laughter. Then Bolham suddenly boomed, 'Nine o' the clock!' Silence fell.
On cue, Harlow lifted the glass he held. 'A toast! To those who stood with us in our time of Troubles, both those who stand here now, and those who cannot be here with us now... Let us never forget!'
The gathered hobbits raised their glasses and shouted, 'We'll not forget!' Tooks and north-Tooks drank the toast.
Soon afterwards, the archers' wives and older children began to arrive. Among the Tooks, Hilly's Posey, Pippin's Diamond, Ferdi's Pimpernel, Regi's Rosa and many others each sought out Tolly individually to deliver joyful hugs and tearful greetings. Since the newcomers asked no questions, Pippin assumed that Agate had intercepted the returning Faire-goers to issue the same caution, that they must go carefully in order to safeguard Tolly's progress, both present and future.
The musicians paused their endeavours and joined the feasting, fortifying themselves for the lively dance tunes they'd soon be playing instead of the occasional music that had lent a festive air to the previous conversations and remembrances.
As one small group of Tooks sat down with their freshly-loaded plates, Hilly said to his brother, 'So I suppose you won't mind if I should slip and call you "Wallas" on occasion...'
'Why Hilly!' Posey laughed in surprise.
'I won't mind in the least,' Tolly said. 'Why, I'd got quite used to answering to that name, actually... though I deem it might be a hard name to live up to, considering his reputation...'
'Son!' old Gorbyl said, coming up behind them and patting Tolly's shoulder. 'Fro' what the Tooks've been telling me about the Troubles down in the southerly Shire, I'd say you've no worries on that account...'
Tolly moved over on the bench to make a space between himself and Hilly, saying, 'Please, Da, take a load off your feet and sit yersel' here!'
Hilly, who'd heard much about Gorbyl from Bolham and others in his band over the course of the evening, smiled and patted the empty spot beside him on the bench. 'Aye,' he said, 'If you please, old hobbit! Sit down with us, for you're one of the family now! And...' he hesitated and then went on, '...since our own da has already passed on to the Feast, I hope it won't jar your ears if, at times, I might slip and call ye "Da" as my brother "Wallas" does...'
'Not at all...!' old Gorbyl declared, sitting down as invited. Perhaps he blinked away a tear, or perhaps it was only a speck of dust, for they were, after all, celebrating on the threshing floor in a barn. 'But only if ye can tolerate my occasional dodder, should I forget and call ye "Son" as I do your brother Tolly...'
'It would be my honour to do so,' Hilly said, offering an unusually formal reply to Gorbyl's witticism that had Posey staring at him with wide eyes.
But he only squeezed her hand, sending a sort of I'll tell you all about it later message, saying aloud, 'Be sure to try the beets! They've used a different mix of spices than we do back home... but they're delicious!'
And so Posey sampled the beets and declared them delicious, all the while wondering what Mardibold, Tolly and Hilly's older brother, would make of all this. Not to mention Meadowsweet...
***
The grand celebration ended when the clock struck twelve. No clock was in the barn, of course, but on the dot of twelve, Bolham lifted his hands high and shouted, 'Until next year! And many happy returns!'
'Until next year!' Bolham's band raised the shout, echoed by the visiting Tooks. 'If we're invited again, o' course!' Pippin added.
Amid a general chuckle, Bolham slapped Pippin on the back. 'I'll see what we can do,' he answered.
***