Chapter 11. And What About...? 

Samwise arrived at Bag End two hours after the first shake. He’d been on his way back from the Great Smials, finalising the wedding arrangements, when his pony snorted and reared. He’d felt the beast lose its balance then, and had instinctively thrown himself clear as the pony went over. He thought the fall must have knocked him into a dream, for the earth shook beneath him and for a terrible moment he was back in Mordor, feeling the ground shudder in response to the Mountain’s fury, reaching in vain for his master’s hand until the shaking should subside and they might creep forward once again.

But no, the air was fresh and living, and there was grass beneath him; he opened his eyes to see that the unsteady world was green, not like Mordor at all. He clenched his fists in the grass, wondering, and remained lying there for a time after the earth once more regained its solidity. The pony lay nearby, quivering in fear. Sam crawled to her side. ‘Steady lass,’ he said, stroking the soft neck. ‘Let us see what’s amiss.’

He ran gentle hands down each leg, then moved back to her head and took her by the bridle. ‘Can you get up?’ he said with an encouraging tug. She raised her head, rolled to her belly, and looked white-eyed about, ears laid flat, nostrils flaring. ‘Come lass,’ Sam said, and the pony stood up at last, though she trembled all over and refused to stir foot. The ground was steady now, she seemed to say, and she wasn’t going to spoil it by moving.

Sam walked a little ahead of her, clucking to her, and she took a step, freezing again. ‘See?’ Sam said. Greatly daring, he stomped a foot. ‘Solid!’ he maintained. ‘Come along.’ With much coaxing and a carrot or two from his pocket, he led the pony alongside the New Road for quite a ways before she was calm enough for him to mount and ride along. All the while he was worrying. How far had the shake gone? What about his family?

His fear increased as he passed each farmstead with collapsed outbuildings and damaged dwellings, hobbits too busy to notice a traveller passing by. Seeing smoke rising above Bywater, he squeezed his legs and the pony moved into a trot. She was starting to forget her fear, or else the memory of stable and home and a good feed was stronger than the inexplicable shaking that had so frightened her earlier.

Coming into Bywater his worst fears were realised. He saw the flattened row wherein the Burrows family had resided and recalled his daughter-in-love and grands were to have been visiting this day. He could see the signs left by frantic digging and swung down from his pony for a closer look.

 ‘All’s out,’ a gaffer said from across the way. ‘Some were still among the living.’

 ‘Who?’ Sam demanded.

The gaffer could only shake his head. ‘Dunno,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t here; I only heard a little while ago.’ He shouldered the basket he carried and touched his hat. ‘Good day to you,’ he said, as if it were any other day, and trudged along the road.

Heart in his mouth, Sam mounted the pony again and trotted briskly toward Hobbiton. He saw more smoke rising there, but as he rode through the town he saw that the smoke rose from fires already quenched. Hobbits were digging here, too, looking more for supplies now than people. The hobbits he passed were also treating the injuries of those pulled alive from the rubble, stirring up soup of rescued food in rescued pots, and setting up makeshift shelters in anticipation of nightfall, still some hours off.

Someone recognised the Mayor and set up a cheer for his safe return.

***

 ‘Samwise,’ Rose muttered, ‘O Sam where are you?’

 ‘He’ll come, Mama,’ Goldi said, wringing out a cloth in cool water and placing it on her mother’s forehead. ‘He’s on his way.’ She only hoped she spoke the truth. The injured had been moved to the shade of the trees in the old orchard, where a spring still bubbled from the side of the Hill. Its cold fresh water was a blessing to injured and caretakers and passers-by.

Aster Grubb had dressed the burns, some blistered, told Goldi and Ruby to keep Rose and Prim drinking as much as possible, and gone on to treat other injuries in the vicinity before moving on to Overhill. She’d check on them, she said, on her way back to Hobbiton.

The wind blew the wisps of a cheer from Hobbiton. Robin was by the chicken pen on the outskirts of the orchard, butchering the chickens who’d been killed by falling debris. He lifted his head and said, ‘There’s a hopeful sign.’

 ‘Perhaps the Thain has sent help,’ Tolman ventured. He was gathering wood from the collapsed chicken house, separating it into piles. Some was salvageable and could be reused to rebuild, but most was suitable only for kindling.

 ‘Too soon,’ Bilbo said. He was repairing the wire fence. Soon they'd round up the surviving chickens and pen them up again. ‘It takes more than two hours to ride from Tuckborough.’

 ‘Has it been only two hours?’ Ruby murmured, attending the conversation, for she was tending Rose and Prim not far from where the boys were working. ‘Come, Prim, you’ve got to drink more. Mrs Grubb said you had to finish the entire waterskin before she returns.’

 ‘Dad!’ Tolman shouted, dropping the wood he held and running towards Bagshot Row. ‘Dad!’

Sam pulled the pony to a stop and jumped down to hug his youngest. ‘Tom,’ he said into Tolman’s dusty curls. He gave a glad cry as Frodo’s Daisy emerged from Bag End. ‘Day! O Day-daughter, when I saw your family’s smial I feared the worst.’

 ‘We were picnicking,’ Day said. ‘No one was hurt.’ She hesitated, ‘but Rose-Mum...’ Sam’s face paled. ‘In the orchard,’ she added, and Sam was gone, Tolman trotting after him.

 ‘Dad!’ Goldi said, seeing him come. All would be well now.

***

The Tooks labouring in the Party Field had finished putting up the open-air kitchen, and now good smells wafted through the air. Residents of Bagshot Row were fed, and hobbits of Hobbiton came up the Hill in a steady trickle as the word spread. With so many guests expected for the wedding breakfast the day after the morrow, there was plenty of food available now for all.

Not long after the Mayor embraced his wife and then his children, a rider forced his lathered pony up the Hill at a precipitous pace. He’d been told in Hobbiton that the Mayor had been through and had gone up to Bag End. He rode down the Row, shouting for Samwise.

Pippin Gamgee came out of Bag End where he’d been clearing away debris. ‘I need the Mayor!’ the rider said breathlessly. ‘D’you know where I’m to find him?’

 ‘The orchard,’ Pippin said, pointing the way, and without taking time for thanks the rider kicked his weary beast into a trot.

 ‘Rude sort, very Tookish of him,’ he said to his brother Merry who’d come out behind him.

 ‘He was a Took,’ Merry said, staring after the pony. ‘I have a bad feeling, Pip.’ They started for the orchard.

The Took pulled his pony to a stop at the edge, throwing his pony’s reins over the nearest branch. Seeing Samwise sitting beside Rose he ran forward, falling to his knees before them. ‘The Thain,’ he gasped, ‘The Smials, it’s all come down.’

 ‘The Thain sent you?’ Sam said. He squeezed Rose’s hand and got to his feet.

 ‘No, Thain Peregrin’s injured. He’s in his study and they’re still trying to figure out how to get him out with half the Smials fallen in,’ the rider said. ‘A dozen dead, so far, when I left, and dozens missing, including the Thain’s family.’

 ‘Farry!’ Goldi gasped, half rising.

The messenger belatedly saw her. ‘Miss Goldi,’ he said awkwardly. ‘He’s not dead, not that we know of at least...’

 ‘We’ll go,’ Sam said to Goldi, and then he spoke to her older brothers who had come up behind the rider and were standing aghast at the news. ‘Saddle ponies,’ he said. ‘Goldi and I will ride to the Smials.’

 ‘We’ll come too,’ Merry Gamgee said grimly.

 ‘You ought to stay,’ Sam began, but Pip broke in.

 ‘Dad, it’s Faramir!’

Sam started to shake his head, then found himself nodding. The three, Merry-lad, Farry and Pip had been thick as sultanas in Rose’s rice pudding since the first time he’d brought his family to the Great Smials after he became Mayor. Truth be told, there were no more trapped hobbits in the vicinity needing digging out. They’d be of better use at the Great Smials. Hobbits first, then supplies, then clearing away the debris, that was the proper order of business.

 ‘Get a lantern ready for each of us,’ he said, ‘and make sure they’re brim-full of oil. It’ll be dark soon after we reach the Smials.’

 ‘Thank you, sir!’ the messenger gasped. ‘I’ve got to tell the Tooks at the Party Field,’ he added, and with the briefest of farewells he ran back to his pony, pulled the reins loose, jumped on its back and jerked the poor beast’s head around, thumping its sides with his heels.

 ‘He’ll kill that pony, riding so,’ Merry said disapprovingly.

 ‘Somehow I don’t think he’s worried about the pony,’ Pip replied.

***
 
 Ferdibrand wakened slowly, at first not sure where he was. He was lying on something hard, so perhaps he was camping, on a journey? He opened his eyes, but instead of stars above there was only darkness. Memory returned then, ah yes, he had not slept on the ground for years, so why was the ground beneath him now?

He put out a cautious hand, trying to find his bearings, and encountered... he worked it out to be a bed, though he’d never approached it from this angle before. Sitting up, rolling to his knees, he moved his arms across the tumbled surface. Yes, it was a bed. His bed? Had he fallen out of bed?

Turning away from the bed one of his hands contacted the wall. Not his bed then, for it was never this close to a wall. Where was he? Rising to his feet, he walked carefully along the wall, but there was an obstruction before he’d gone more than a few steps. He felt its smooth sides; it felt much like a wardrobe would, were it lying on its side. This object was canted slightly. As he worked his way around it, he found out why when he trod upon something soft and yielding.

His mind told him what it was before he fell to his knees to feel with trembling hands. It was a soft female body, female he knew because of the skirts splayed to the sides more than for any other reason. The fallen wardrobe covered the upper part of the body.

 ‘Nell?’ he whispered. ‘My own?’ He inhaled deeply and was rewarded with a floral scent... but not violets. His Nell always smelt of violets; it was one way that he knew when she was near. It was not one of their daughters, either, for he knew their scents. He felt his way down the limbs to the feet. These were cold. There was no life in this body.

He remembered then the sleeping draught, and Mardibold. The healer had evidently left a watcher by the bed. Nell had gone out for some reason... or had she? Ferdi worked his way around the room, encountering many familiar objects in unfamiliar places. The whole room seemed to have been tossed like cherries in a falling basket. ‘What time is it?’ he wondered aloud, but of course there was no answer. There was no one else in the room besides Ferdi and the unidentified watcher.