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Pearl of Great Price  by Lindelea


Chapter 23. Repercussions

After tea, Saradoc took charge, leading the visitors back to the parlour whilst the Master went to his accustomed nap. ‘We’ve Tooks arriving later for a visit,’ he said. ‘You mustn’t be here when they come.’

 ‘That meal was fine enough to see us all the way back to Woody End,’ Gundy said.

 ‘Nonsense,’ Saradoc said firmly. ‘I’ll have the kitchen pack you some rations for the journey. However...’ he looked to Rosemary. ‘Is the lass going back to Woody End with you?’

 ‘Well now,’ Gundy said slowly. ‘I had thought to ask the Master’s advice in the matter.’

 ‘He’d say the same I’m thinking, I’m sure,’ Saradoc said. ‘It’s not safe for her there. Lalia’s just ruthless enough to flaunt all custom and set aside the handfasting if she can have the girl brought back to Tookland. If her son went along with her designs and married the girl as ordered, well, we’d have a dreadful mess on our hands.’

 ‘I cannot imagine such a thing,’ Gundy said, aghast.

Saradoc’s lips tightened into a fine line. ‘You don’t know the Mistress well, then,’ he said. ‘It would be best for Rosemary to disappear until the wedding.’ He met the woodcarver’s eyes squarely. ‘If somehow word gets out as to who else was involved in the handfasting, Woody End would be watched, I’m sure.’

 ‘Five years?’ Gundy said. ‘Where are we to hide a girl for that amount of time?’

Saradoc’s voice became gentle as he turned to the frightened girl. ‘Rosemary,’ he said, ‘there’s a hobbit family I know of down in Haysend. The mum has several little ones, and twins on the way, they think, and she’s badly in need of a mother’s helper. She wrote to the Master to ask if there was a tween in the Hall who might be sent.’


 ‘Mother’s helper?’ Rosemary said.

 ‘That’s right. It’s a good family; I’d trust my own daughter to them if I had one. Will you go?’

 Rosemary looked helplessly to the woodcarver. ‘It’s a fine idea, Rosie,’ Gundy said. ‘It’ll be a relief to know you’re safe from the old vixen and her designs.’

 ‘Fine, then,’ Saradoc said. ‘We’ll send you all right off, to your various “ends”.’

 ‘Hally?’ Rosemary said, and the young woodcarver took her hand.

 ‘I’ll be working and waiting,’ Hally said reassuringly. ‘Five years from today all the Bolgers of Woody End will return for our wedding, and I’ll carry you back with me to our own house and home.’

***

When Paladin Took’s family arrived at Brandy Hall in the depths of the middle night, many of the windows were shining out in welcome. Though the sensible farmer would have been deeply asleep, had he been at home, many of the Brandybucks in the great hall were sitting down to midnight supper.

Pip and the girls were asleep under thick blankets, an oilcloth over all, in the waggon bed and Eglantine nodded beside her husband, both cuddled together under the same cloak for warmth and comfort. Paladin himself was half asleep, but he wakened when the waggon stopped in the courtyard before the Hall.

He kissed his wife on the cheek. ‘We’re here, my love,’ he said.

Yawning, Eglantine lifted her head. ‘Here?’ she said, confused, and then she remembered. No, they were not home, but still visiting, at Brandy Hall this time.

Paladin passed the reins over to his wife and jumped down from the waggon to rap at the main entrance to the Hall. A servant whose name slipped Paladin’s memory opened the door, grinning when he recognised the brother of the young master’s wife. ‘Welcome, sir!’ he cried. ‘We’ve been expecting you!’ He turned to shout, ‘Hob, fetch the young master!’ Turning back, he said, ‘But do not leave your family in the cold, sir! Come, bring them in, all is in readiness for you.’

He walked out to the waggon with Paladin, lifting the sleeping Pip out of the waggon bed. ‘My, he’s grown,’ the servant said. ‘Getting to be quite the lad.’ Nell and Vinca wakened and Paladin helped them down from the waggon, shooing them after the servant bearing Pip. They’d be shown right to their beds and would probably fall back into dream, not even really remembering the arrival the next day. Paladin rather envied them.

He helped Eglantine down as a servant took the ponies’ heads. ‘We’ll see them fed and bedded down soft, sir,’ Paladin was told.

 ‘My thanks,’ he answered. ‘They’ve had a long journey, and not much rest along the way.’

 ‘Good lad, good lass,’ the servant crooned, petting the soft noses. ‘Don’t you worry, sir, we knows how to treat ponies in this-here stables.’

Saradoc strode from the Hall. ‘Dinny!’ he shouted. ‘Well come and well met! Supper’s nearly done but I’m sure we can scare up a plate for you.’

Paladin shuddered at the thought of eating in the depths of the night. He was quite sure his stomach had gone to sleep hours before. ‘No, thank you kindly, but we ate along the way.’

 ‘A bath, perhaps?’ Saradoc said helpfully, ‘or would you prefer to go straight to your rest?’

 ‘My wife is tired, I fear,’ Paladin said as Eglantine stifled a yawn, ‘and I am not at my best, either.’

 ‘You must be exhausted after travelling all the day,’ Esmeralda said, meeting them at the door. Saradoc had forbidden her to stir beyond the threshold, “where you might catch a chill, my dear,” but she stood in the doorway to greet her brother, her toes on the threshold if not beyond.

After hugging Paladin, she put an arm around Eglantine, walking with her to the guest quarters, chattering away. ‘...and if aught is not to your liking, you tell me immediately and we shall set it to rights,’ she finished. ‘Merry wanted to stay up to see your arrival, but I told him Pip would be too sleepy to greet him properly, and he is only a teen after all, and needs his sleep, so I sent him off to bed after late supper as usual.’ Eglantine reflected that, despite her years in Buckland, Esmeralda could still talk like a Took. Naught was needed on her part but an occasional nod.

 ‘O it is so good to see you all!’ Esmeralda finished at the door to the guest quarters. She kissed Eglantine on the cheek and stood upon her tiptoes to reach her brother’s cheek. ‘Now, my loves, sleep well, and sleep yourselves out. No need to be up with the Sun, you are on holiday after all! We shall see you at second breakfast if not at early breakfast.’

 ‘Thank you,’ Eglantine murmured, and Paladin added his thanks, giving Saradoc a hug for good measure.

 ‘Good night, then,’ Saradoc said, and they turned away as Paladin closed the door.

 ‘Something’s wrong,’ Paladin said to Eglantine as they undressed.

 ‘Wrong?’ his wife said.

 ‘Allie’s worried about something,’ Paladin said. ‘I wonder what it is.’

 ‘I’m sure we’ll find out on the morrow,’ Eglantine yawned, and collapsing onto the featherbed she was asleep before she could pull up the comforter. Paladin climbed in beside her, pulled the covers up over them both, and fell asleep before he could wonder any further.

***

Pip woke everyone in good time for first breakfast. ‘Morning-morning-morn!’ he chanted. ‘Time to greet the dawn!’

Pervinca pulled her pillow over her head, but Pimpernel laughed and hugged their little brother, chanting with him the rest of the nursery rhyme. ‘Sun is up, and we must sup before the day is gone!’

 ‘Nooning-nooning-noon! Time to greet the moon!’ Pip went on.

Pervinca moaned and said sharply from under the pillow, ‘Go do your greeting someplace else! There are sensible hobbits trying to get their growing-sleep around-abouts!’

 ‘C’mon, Pip,’ Nell whispered. ‘Do go out quietly so that I may dress, and then we’ll go meet Merry.’

Pippin tiptoed from the room and Nell hurriedly donned her best dress, doing up the buttons. It was so warm! When she came into the little sitting room she saw a bright fire crackling on the hearth. Some servant must have crept in and tended the fire in the depths of the night. On the farm she would have shivered her way out to the byre after a hasty cup of tea, just as the kitchen fire was beginning to warm the room. How amazing, to have a fire all night long!

Hand in hand, smothering giggles at an overloud snore from their father, Pip and Nell crept from the suite and down to the great room where early breakfast was in progress.

Merry was watching the door from his place, and he was up in an instant to greet them. ‘Welcome!’ he grinned after hugs. ‘Father said you’d probably sleep in, but he told the servants to lay your places just in case.’

 ‘Some of us are sleeping in,’ Pip said with dignity. ‘Some of us have not had enough growing-sleep. I, on the other hand, have had plenty! I think I’ll be the tallest hobbit in history at this rate.’

 ‘No doubt,’ Merry laughed. ‘Let us give you something to grow on!’ He proceeded to load their plates with good things: rashers of crispy bacon, little sausages, chops of pork and lamb, eggs fried to a turn, fried bread, fried tomatoes (“Where do they get tomatoes in mid-winter?” Pip whispered to Nell), beans baked in tomato-rich sauce, and all the necessities of a proper breakfast.

After breakfast, Merry sought out hats and mufflers and cloaks for the visitors so that they would not have to go back to their suite, and they joined the young Brandybucks for a glorious snowball-fight in the field leading down to the Ferry landing. There had been an unusually generous amount of snow lately, and they aimed to take complete advantage of the treat until the rains returned to wash all away into the River.

Glowing, all the young folk tumbled laughing into the Hall for second breakfast. ‘Well, Pip, it seems you’ve found Merry,’ Paladin said, greeting his tousled son. ‘Now go put yourself in order before you disgrace us; we’re sitting at head table with the Master, you know.’

Pip groaned, but at his father’s stern look he sighed and turned away from the door to the great room.

 ‘And hurry!’ Paladin rapped out after him. ‘You know how Master Rorimac is about being punctual to meals!’

 ‘Come, Pip, I’ll race you!’ Merry said, coming up behind him. With Merry’s help, making the grooming a game and then racing each other back to the great room, he managed to slide into his chair just as the Brandybucks rose to acknowledge the Master’s entrance.

The talk this morning ranged over many topics, among them a mysterious handfasting that had taken place at teatime the previous day.

 ‘And no one knows who the hobbits were, and they disappeared again afterwards,’ Violet Brandybuck whispered to Pimpernel and Pervinca. Pip was much too deep in plans with Merry to listen to girls’ talk.

 ‘It’s like a fairy tale!’ Pervinca said, her eyes glowing.

 ‘You read too much, Vinca,’ Nell said, giving her sister a nudge with her elbow. ‘You need to get your head out of the clouds and into the byre.’

 ‘It is like a fairy tale,’ Violet said dreamily. ‘The girl was no older than you, Pimpernel Took, and the boy not too many years older than Merry, I think, not out of his tweens at any rate. I wonder what their story is... handfasted, and then whisked away. D’you suppose they locked her in a tower of glass-and-gold, and turned him into a frog to wait by the pond until she grew up and kissed him to break the spell?’

 ‘I would never kiss a frog!’ Nell said, wrinkling her nose in disgust.

 ‘You did once,’ Pip put in. Frogs, now, that was more like it. He’d discuss frogs any day.

 ‘You kissed a frog?’ Violet was torn between amazement and disgust.

 ‘Ferdi dared her,’ Pip said smugly. To the mortification of all, Nell burst into tears, burying her face in her serviette.

 ‘Now see what you’ve done!’ Vinca snapped. Their mother was there in an instant, hands on Nell’s shoulders, explaining to the Master that the child was exhausted from the journey, and please to excuse them—she’d pop her back into bed and watch with her until the noontide. The Master gestured to a servant to accompany them, and to watch over Pimpernel so that her mother could return to finish her meal.

Paladin had his suspicions, hearing the scraps of talk floating about. He was a Took, after all, and if he did not choose to gossip, he had heard enough Talk in his life to put two and two together with a certain amount of ease. After second breakfast, in the parlour with his wife, his sister, and her husband, he came straight to the point.

 ‘The handfasting yesterday,’ he said. ‘What was that all about?’

Saradoc put down his teacup and gazed directly at his brother-in-love. ‘I expect you know what it was all about,’ he replied.

 ‘Rosemary Took?’ Paladin snapped.

 ‘And if it was?’ Saradoc said. It was a fine line he was walking. He must tell the absolute truth, but little enough of it that Rosemary would remain safe.

 ‘She ran away,’ Paladin said. ‘She ought to have been returned to her father. He’s not well, you know.’

 ‘Surely he’s disowned her already, knowing the malice of the Mistress,’ Saradoc said.

 ‘He’ll own her again as soon as she returns to the Smials to take up her duty,’ Paladin countered. ‘Surely this so-called handfasting was a farce, a ploy, and no true joining. She belongs at the Great Smials.’

 ‘Yes, well,’ Saradoc said awkwardly, ‘she is now under the Master’s protection.’

 ‘Protection?’ Paladin bristled. Eglantine put a hand on her husband’s arm, and Esmeralda tensed.

 ‘Protection,’ Saradoc repeated quietly.

 ‘Are you saying the Tooks meant the girl harm?’ Paladin said, breathing heavily.

 ‘I’m sure there were the best of intentions,’ Saradoc said, feeling his way carefully. ‘But—perhaps the results would not have been best for the girl.’

 ‘And the Brandybucks know best, it seems?’ Paladin said, his face darkening. So sure of themselves, they were. No matter that he’d had his own doubts about the situation; Brandybucks were always boasting that they knew better than the Tooks, and now it was no joking matter. ‘Where is the girl?’

 ‘Safe,’ Saradoc said.

 ‘You won’t tell me?’ Paladin said, deeply insulted. ‘You think I offer her harm?’

 ‘I think you’d have no choice but to tell the Mistress of Tookland where she was, were you to gain the knowledge,’ Saradoc said. ‘Please, Dinny, I don’t like it any more than you do.’

 ‘Was she forced into the handfasting somehow, by well-meaning but interfering Brandybucks?’ Paladin snapped.

Saradoc kept tight rein on his temper, lest unforgivable words pass his lips. ‘The handfasting was her choice,’ he said evenly, but could not resist adding, ‘unlike another matter that was set before her.’

Paladin slammed his teacup down on the saucer with so much force he shattered the delicate china. He rose abruptly from his chair, saying between his teeth, ‘Come, my love, we cannot stay.’

Esmeralda gave a sob into her handkerchief; she had followed the entire conversation without a word, unusual for her, but she had known with a sick feeling of inevitability what the outcome must be. Paladin softened at the sound and turned to his sister. ‘I’m sorry, Allie,’ he said. ‘You know how it is.’

 ‘I know,’ she whispered, rising to throw her arms about him, then his wife. She swallowed hard and added determinedly, ‘You must go. You’ll find your things are packed up, the waggon is ready, and we’ve had food prepared for you to eat along the way.’

 ‘You had a long journey yesterday, and you’re getting a late start today,’ Saradoc said. ‘Stay at an inn along the way.’ Paladin looked at him in astonishment. Of course, the Brandybucks had gold just lying about to squander on inns, but an honest farmer...

 ‘Here,’ the heir to Buckland added, pressing a folded note into the farmer’s hand. ‘The Bear and Bugle keeps a suite of rooms for the Master of Buckland, though it might be used three or four times a year.’

 ‘That’s along the Bywater Road,’ Paladin said slowly.

 ‘That’s right,’ Saradoc said. ‘You don’t have to go back to the Great Smials, to take the news to Lalia. The Master’s already sent out a quick post rider. You can go direct to your farm if you wish. I’m sure the Mistress will be sending a messenger to the farm to pump you of everything you know, as soon as you return.’

He tapped the folded note. ‘Stop over,’ he said. ‘The suite’s already paid for, just sitting empty. Your ponies are likely to pull up lame if you don’t. They ought to have had a week of rest before going on.’

Paladin’s shoulders slumped, all indignation gone. ‘I cannot,’ he said heavily. ‘If word came to Lalia’s ears...’

Saradoc nodded sympathetically, taking the note back from Paladin’s outstretched hand. ‘I understand,’ he said. The two embraced and then set to the business of packing up the Tooks for as quick a departure as was feasible.

***

 ‘But why?’ Merry demanded yet again, after wildly protesting Pip had been pried from him and forced into the waggon by his grim-faced father. He’d watched the Tooks drive away without a farewell song from the few sombre Brandybucks lingering in the courtyard to see them off.

 ‘Merry,’ his mother said soothingly. ‘Come into the parlour for some tea.’

 ‘I don’t want tea!’ Merry shouted, forcing himself to calm down only as his father’s hand descended heavily upon his shoulder.

 ‘Merry,’ his father said. ‘Apologise to your mother for shouting and come into the parlour.’ Drawing a deep breath, Merry complied.

He sat himself down stiffly on an ornate chair and waved away the tea his mother poured. ‘Why?’ he said again, forcing himself to speak calmly despite his inner turmoil.

 ‘Do you remember the handfasting yesterday?’ his father said, confusing him.

 ‘What does that have to do with this?’ he said.

 ‘Did you recognise the girl?’ Saradoc asked. Merry stared. ‘Did you?’

 ‘No,’ he said, thinking back. Her hair had been shorn like a boy’s, he remembered, but that was about all. The young Brandybucks had speculated that perhaps she was recovering from the fever that had been making the rounds of the Shire.

 ‘It was Rosemary Took,’ Saradoc said. ‘You’d heard she ran away?’

 ‘A quick post rider came from the Thain,’ Merry said.

 ‘Mistress Lalia was trying to force the girl into marriage,’ Saradoc said, an expression of distaste crossing his face.

 ‘Marriage!’ Merry said, shocked. Ferdi’s sister wasn’t that much older than himself.

 ‘She will be furious that your grandfather has taken Rose under his protection,’ Saradoc went on. ‘Any Tooks that have dealings with Brandybucks...’

All colour drained from Merry’s face. ‘Pip,’ he whispered, then added desperately, ‘but Uncle Dinny had nothing to do with it, nor Pip! Why...?’

Esmeralda leaned forward, tears sparkling in her eyes. ‘Merry, you’ve heard us talk about the Mistress before, haven’t you? I know you’ve heard the talk, even though you have too much sense to repeat what you hear in the Master’s study.’

Merry nodded slowly, reluctantly.

 ‘She is The Took, the head of the family, and if she decides that a Took has harmed Tookland somehow, by his actions, she has the power to pronounce the Ban on him.’

Merry swallowed hard. ‘She wouldn’t—she couldn’t—’ he protested.

 ‘She would,’ Saradoc said grimly. ‘She’d order the entire family shunned, if she thought Paladin had crossed her. Think on it. He wouldn’t be able to hire hobbits to work his fields, he couldn’t help a neighbour in need, he wouldn’t be able to sell his crops in the marketplace.’

 ‘He could lose his family’s farm,’ Esmeralda whispered, and her son looked at her. It was her family’s farm as well. He realised, suddenly, that his mother was cut off from her roots, from her family, as effectively as if a tall, thick wall of brick had been built between Buckland and Tookland.

 ‘O Pip,’ he moaned, and buried his face in his hands.





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