Chapter 33. Seeds of Conspiracy

Earlier that day, the arrival of the post caused no little consternation at Brandy Hall.

 ‘You sent for us, Father?’ Saradoc said, seating his wife in a comfortable chair by the hearth in the Master’s study. He had been enjoying the mild weather with his wife and son, combining business with pleasure, walking along the riverbank to assess damage from the winter’s storms.

Merry busied himself bringing his mother a stool for her feet and pouring out a glass of brandy for her. Esmeralda had been poorly in the cold months and while his father said nothing, the teen had caught a look of concern on Saradoc’s face on more than one occasion.

Master Rorimac cleared his throat and said, ‘News of Tookland.’

Esmeralda half-rose from her chair. ‘News from Tookland?’ she exclaimed. ‘Lalia’s communicating with Buckland once more?’ Her face was hopeful.

 ‘Not from Tookland,’ the Master said soberly. ‘From Frodo Baggins.’

 ‘What news?’ Saradoc said, crossing to take his wife’s hand. Whatever it was, it couldn’t be good, not from the expression on his father’s face.

 ‘Are you well, my dear?’ the Master said, moving to take Esmeralda’s other hand.

 ‘I don’t know why people fuss so,’ she said sharply. ‘I’m perfectly well!’ She took a deep breath. ‘What is it?’

 ‘Mistress Lalia has pronounced the Ban on Paladin,’ Rorimac said. Bad news should not be drawn out, but delivered as quickly and succinctly as possible, like drawing a thorn from the flesh.

Esmeralda took the news better than he’d hoped; wrenching her hand from his, she took the glass of brandy her son held and gulped half the contents. ‘He’ll lose Whittacres,’ she said then, ‘after all his toil, after all his effort to keep his temper in check, after all...’ She was angry rather than tearful.

 ‘Tell me again, my dear, what the arrangement with the old Thain was,’ Rerimac said.

 ‘Grandfather Hildigrim bought Whittacres for a pretty penny,’ Esmeralda said. ‘He sunk all his personal fortune into the purchase of the land, with an agreement to pay an annual sum for the remainder of the debt. The farm had been badly mismanaged and the owner was asking less than its worth. It seemed a good bargain, all round, from what I’ve been told.’ She’d been four at the time that her grandfather left the Great Smials, taking his sons and their families with him.

 ‘Yes,’ Rorimac said, ‘I remember.’

 ‘The first year was spent undoing the neglect of the previous tenant,’ Esmeralda continued. ‘Neglect, and harm! He’d allowed one of the best fields to be used as a dumping ground. Father and my uncle hauled ever so many waggonloads of junk away... and then ploughing and fertilising and planting crops that would not be harvested, but merely ploughed back into the soil in the autumn to enrich the soil.’

Rorimac nodded. Good practice, planting legumes to fix nutrients and then ploughing them under, to enrich badly managed soil.

 ‘They had great hopes for the next year,’ Esmeralda said, ‘though grandfather was on very thin ice. He was counting on those crops the next year, to pay the debt and to feed all of us.'

 ‘It wasn’t a good year for farmers,’ Rorimac said quietly. ‘First drought, and when the rains came they were too late, and so heavy they washed away the few crops that had managed to come up.’

 ‘The crops were a total loss,’ Esmeralda said softly, ‘and most of the sheep and other animals drowned in the flooding. The house was badly damaged; we’d had to climb on the rooftop to save ourselves, and Uncle Hildi was swept away pushing me onto the roof… they found him miles away and days later... I still remember Grandmother weeping in the night and Mother trying to comfort her, and Grandfather saying we’d have to go back to the Great Smials, for he hadn’t enough left to buy food, much less pay on the debt.’ She took a sobbing breath. ‘They’d worked so hard, only to lose all. I remember my father’s hands bleeding after a long day... and now my uncle was gone, the farm was ruined, the animals drowned, the house uninhabitable, and all we had was the nightclothes we’d had on when we scrambled out of our beds as the waters rose around us.’

Saradoc held his wife’s hand tightly. ‘The neighbours were in similar straits,’ he said quietly.

Esmeralda smiled. ‘Thain Fortinbras was a wonder,’ she said. ‘He sent loaded ponies over the hills to the Whitwell valley. Food, clothing, tools, and hobbits! ...to help with the clearing away. Dead animals had to be buried, for starters, and quickly, and homes needed repairs with winter coming on. He came himself and worked alongside all the others.’

 ‘He was probably happy to have an excuse to get away from the Smials,’ Saradoc muttered.

 ‘I remember sitting in the mud of the yard, crying over my dolly, for my mother and sisters were busy trying to salvage dishes and cutlery though there was nothing to eat!...when he reached our farm. He jumped off his pony and swept me up in his arms—I was so filthy! The mud smeared all over his cloak but he didn’t seem to mind. He said, “There, there, now, lass, Dolly’s not so bad off... All she needs is a good washing, I’ll warrant, and one new button eye and some fresh wool on her head and feet and she’ll be good as new!” ’ She smiled faintly at the recollection.

 ‘Grandfather came to him, hat in hand, and my father behind him, sober, mud-covered and still in their night-clothes, their hands raw from digging what they could salvage out of the mud—Grandmother’s china teapot was chipped but unbroken, imagine it!’

 ‘Yes, my dear,’ Rorimac murmured.

Merry listened in fascination. His mother had never told this tale before, though now he knew why she insisted on pouring out tea each day from the chipped old pot when Saradoc could have bought her a dozen new ones.

 ‘I’ve never seen Grandfather look so old—so old and broken,’ Esmeralda said, catching her breath in a little sob. ‘He was always so strong and jolly, singing as he worked.

 ‘He came to the Thain and said, “Well, Sir, this is the end for me. There’s naught I can do, cannot even feed the wee bairns.” He reached out and stroked my mud-streaked face before he continued. “I have nothing left, and the payment for the land comes due next month. I must... must throw myself upon the charity of the Thain. May we come back to the Smials, come to work for the Thain and Mistress?” And then I saw tears in his eyes. I’d never seen Grandfather cry! And his remaining son behind him... my father’s shoulders slumped as if he carried a load that was breaking his back.’

 ‘But they didn’t go back to the Smials,’ Rorimac prompted.

Esmeralda looked up. ‘No,’ she said. ‘The Thain told him there was no room in the Smials and he’d just have to see how to keep my family on the land. Then they worked out the arrangement we’ve lived under ever since.’

 ‘And that was...?’ the Master said. He knew that Paladin made regular payments, and that the debt was nearly paid, but he’d never heard the details.

 ‘For sixty years we’d pay the shearings of fifty sheep, washed and combed and ready for dying and spinning, to commence five years after the flood. The Thain paid the debt on the land and all the repairs and bought new animals to restock, and he filled the pantry with enough food to take us through the following harvest.’

 ‘Lalia must have been fit to be tied,’ Rorimac muttered.

 ‘Grandfather died the following year,’ Esmeralda continued, ‘and Father took on the farm and the obligation. He worked hard, and Paladin worked right beside him though he’d not reached his teens.’ She took a deep breath. ‘They built up the farm and the flock and five years after the flood made the first payment, and every payment thereafter.’

 ‘Four years left on the debt,’ the Master said, pulling at his chin.

 ‘Yes, four years left,’ Esmeralda said, ‘and Lalia’s been looking for some way to ruin my brother ever since he lost his temper at Bywater market.’

 ‘The wool of fifty sheep,’ Saradoc said, ‘and he has no way to deliver it to the Smials, even if he shears them all himself, and his family washes and cards the wool without hired hobbits.’

 ‘What about the equivalent in gold?’ Rorimac said. He shook his head. ‘No, Lalia wouldn’t accept it from Brandybucks.’ He sighed heavily. ‘I’m sorry, my dear. The only way I can see to save your family’s farm is to apologise to Lalia.’

 ‘But—that would be admitting you were in the wrong!’ Esmeralda said in shock.

Rorimac nodded. ‘Rosemary offered once to go back and do her duty,’ he said. ‘If she is still willing...’

 ‘No!’ Esmeralda said sharply. More softly she repeated, ‘No. We will not use that girl to try to save the land. Besides, you have no guarantee that Lalia would lift the Ban against my brother, even if you sent Rosemary back to Tookland.’

 ‘No,’ Rorimac said, ‘especially if she has a grudge against your brother. Her spite is well-known throughout the Shire.’

 ‘Indeed,’ Esmeralda said glumly.

Rorimac put his hand on her arm. ‘If there is a way to save Whittacres, we will,’ he said. ‘Perhaps Frodo Baggins can make Paladin’s payment, if we can get the gold to him quietly enough. He inherited Bilbo’s estate, after all, and it’s plausible that he’d be able to pay the debt off completely. Lalia might accept payment from him, and see it as a way to get back something from Bilbo, somehow.’

Esmeralda began to shake her head, but Saradoc said persuasively, ‘And if he pays it with our gold... what’s mine is yours, beloved, and always has been. You know that, my love. There’s the gold my mother settled upon me at my birth, just waiting to be scattered.’

 ‘And if we cannot save the land, Paladin and his family will always find a welcome at Brandy Hall,’ Rorimac said. ‘We can always use another fine hobbit, and hard worker that your brother is...’

 ‘But let us first try to save the land,’ Saradoc said. ‘I’ll load a pack-pony with enough gold to pay off the debt completely and make a little journey to Michel Delving to talk to the Mayor about this year’s Lithedays fair, and perhaps stop off in Bywater on the way.’ He squeezed his wife’s hand. ‘I’m sure I can quietly get a message to Frodo to pick up “his” pony from the stables at the Green Dragon after I depart.’

 ‘You are devious, my love,’ Esmeralda said with a faint smile.

 ‘I prefer to call myself a “creative thinker”,’ Saradoc answered, kissing her fingers. ‘By hook or by crook we shall see that Lalia’s revenge is neither sweet nor sure.’