Chapter 24. Reflections of the Past

Melilot was laughing at something Estella had said, recounting her experiences with the Rohirrim and their overabundance of hospitality, when she saw a stir at the head table. One of the councillors of Dindale had thrust his way past the guardsmen surrounding King Elessar and had taken the King by his arm, speaking urgently. The King arose at once to follow, Queen Arwen close behind.

 ‘I wonder...’ she said.

 ‘Probably running out of mead,’ Estella said dryly, ‘and wanting the King to issue an opinion on the matter.’

Melilot shook her head. ‘You seem to think little of Men,’ she said. ‘Belittling the Rohirrim, whom I hear are the souls of hospitality, and now...’

Estella placed a hand on her arm in tacit apology. ‘Forgive me,’ she said. ‘You have known only good of Men, surrounded by the White Company as you are, Men of honour and of duty.’

 ‘What is it, cousin?’ Melilot said, gazing searchingly into Estella’s face. ‘What has happened?’

 ‘An old ruffian crossed our path,’ Estella said.

 ‘Not—,’ Melilot gasped, grasping at Estella’s hand. ‘Not the ones...’

 ‘Not one of the ones that waylaid Merry and myself, no,’ Estella said in reassurance. ‘I saw their deaths with my own eyes. No, this was another, from the time of the scouring of the Westmarch.’ She looked about them, but Freddy had not yet returned. Nevertheless, she lowered her voice. ‘You saw that Merry and Ferdi are wearing boots? They were injured at the hands of the ruffian. They said nothing so as not to worry Freddy.’

 ‘Injured... how?’ Melilot said, thinking of what Budgie had told her of the ruffians in the Lockholes, and what Freddy had suffered there, though her husband had never spoken of such things to her—in his waking moments, that is.

 ‘I will not darken your heart by telling you,’ Estella said.

 ‘And Pippin?’ Melilot said. ‘He walks unsteadily, though he wears no boots.’

 ‘He was injured,’ Estella said, ‘in a fall from his pony, and not at the hands of a ruffian.’

 ‘There’s a mercy,’ Melilot sighed. Just then Beregond came up behind them and bent to speak, his face grave. ‘I beg your pardon, Mistress,’ he said formally.

Melilot stiffened. ‘What’s happened to Freddy?’ she demanded.

 ‘Come with me,’ the Captain of the White Company said. ‘I will bear you to him.’ The crowd parted before them. Estella followed; Freddy was her brother, after all. They walked quickly from the marketplace down a short street to an inn where accommodations for hobbits had been arranged. They walked through the entrance and down a corridor on the ground floor, wide windows on one side open to admit the fragrance of flowers in a courtyard garden, doors on the other, some ajar to reveal comfortably appointed rooms.

 ‘Have you no athelas in your stores at all?’ Elessar was demanding of an old, grandmotherly woman in healer’s garb.

 ‘None,’ she said. ‘We sent what we’d gathered to the White City, to the Houses of Healing, knowing you would be returning to Gondor soon.’

Estella saw the King clench his jaw in frustration. ‘Send your gleaners out to gather more,’ he said. ‘At once! It is late in the season, but they ought to find some where they harvested it before.’

 ‘At once, my lord,’ the woman said, and hurried away.

 ‘What is it? Has his heart...?’ Melilot said tremulously, pulling at Elessar’s cloak.

 ‘Ah, Melly,’ he said, kneeling swiftly to be at eye-level. ‘His heart we have managed to steady again, but his spirit has been sorely afflicted; I know not the cause.’

 ‘His spirit? But what could offer him harm, here?’ Melilot whispered. With a gasp she whirled and seized Estella. ‘That ruffian!’ she said. ‘Did he follow you here?’

 ‘I have had my guardsmen watching carefully,’ Elessar said. ‘He has not been seen anywhere nearby.’

 ‘But Freddy went off alone, with Frodovar,’ Melilot said desperately. ‘Where is my son? Is he safe?’ Her voice rose in her perturbation.

 ‘I am here, Mother, fear not,’ Frodo said, emerging from a room farther down the corridor. He hurried to hug Melilot, to murmur reassurance. When she was as calm as might be under the circumstances, he circled her with one arm and led her to Freddy’s bedside.

Her husband lay in a bed that was Man-sized but with the legs sawn away, thus made low enough for hobbits to enter and exit with ease. He was as white as the pillows that propped him. Melly knelt on the bed beside him and took his hand. He clenched his fingers into a fist and tried to pull away. ‘Freddy,’ she soothed, but he continued to fight her hold. Baffled, she released him.

 ‘Mayor,’ he whispered without opening his eyes. ‘Ruffian.’

Melilot looked to Frodovar. ‘Fetch Samwise,’ she said.

Elessar knelt beside the bed, laying a hand on Freddy’s forehead, calling his name. Freddy calmed somewhat, but stiffened immediately when his wife tried to take his hand. ‘No,’ he whispered. ‘Please.’

 ‘He doesn’t want me to hold his hand?’ Melilot said, confused, blinking back her tears as she met the King’s compassionate gaze. ‘But that’s—that’s unheard of! I cannot leave him to walk alone in the dark!’

 ‘Put your hand on his arm instead,’ Estella said suddenly, and Melilot reached out slowly, to rest a gentle hand on Freddy’s arm. He did not jerk away this time, but lay quietly.

 ‘Freddy,’ Melly said softly. ‘Freddy, I’m here, my darling. Freddy, do you hear me?’

 ‘Mayor,’ Freddy said again.

Running feet sounded in the corridor outside, and Samwise skidded into the room, Frodovar at his side. ‘Samwise is here, Freddy,’ Estella said, placing a hand on her brother’s other arm. In the meantime the King’s palm remained on the hobbit’s forehead; Elessar's eyes were closed in concentration.

 ‘Mayor,’ Freddy said, and half-sobbed, ‘Ruffian.’

 ‘I know, Mr. Freddy,’ Samwise said quietly, sitting down upon the bed. Looking to Melilot, he added, ‘but how did you all know?’

Melly shook her head. ‘I only just now heard the news,’ she said, ‘and that because I pressed Estella. I still do not know exactly what happened to delay you in Rohan, though now I can hazard a guess.’

Sam nodded and looked down at Freddy, frowning slightly as he saw that neither wife nor sister held the ailing hobbit’s hands. He reached out, delicately for all the rough appearance of his work-worn hands, to touch the fingers. Freddy’s hand curled into a fist and he jerked away with a moan.

 ‘I see,’ Sam said slowly.

Elessar opened his eyes. ‘What do you see, Sam?’

Mayor Sam looked to the King. ‘It’s the old trouble come back, Strider,’ he said. ‘Something’s happened to set him off again.’

 ‘Set him off?’ Melilot asked.

 ‘He was very ill after the Lockholes,’ Sam said. ‘I watched my master and his cousins care for him, for days, despairing of his life. That dratted wizard cursed him, you know.’

 ‘Budgie said something to that effect,’ Melilot said faintly. ‘He said it was why Robin could no longer live in the smial where he grew up, that Sharkey had cursed the rebels in the Lockholes to a terrible fate.’

 ‘Tell me,’ Elessar said, his hand remaining on Freddy’s forehead.

 Sam gulped, memory taking him back to the days of the scouring of the Shire, the ruin they’d returned to, damaged Shire and broken lives, all in need of nurture and rebuilding. Most of the hobbits had rebounded quickly, but those in the Lockholes had faced the longest recovery. Some, like Lobelia Sackville-Baggins, had never really recovered from the experience, though she’d been over an hundred years old anyhow. Still, she’d never been the same.

 ‘Sam,’ Elessar said, bringing Sam back to the present.

 ‘He said...’ Sam began, and screwed up his eyes in his effort to remember. ‘He said, “...most suited to hobbits”.’

 ‘Suited,’ Freddy murmured, his hands clenching into fists and relaxing again, while a spasm of shared pain crossed Elessar’s face.

 ‘What was suited to hobbits?’ Melilot demanded, seeing remembered horror dawning in Estella’s eyes.

 ‘I cannot remember completely,’ Sam said, ‘though I read it in his own hand, before he left the Shire.’

 ‘The papers he was working on,’ Frodovar said quietly. ‘The ones he always locked in his desk. I looked for them after he fell ill, when the Thain convinced us to take him South, but the locked drawer was empty.’

 ‘He sent the pages to me,’ Sam said, ‘to finish the book that Mr. Bilbo started, and Mr. Frodo continued. It talks of the scouring of the Shire, and the greening afterwards.’ He shut his eyes tightly again, searching his memory. ‘I remember one of the words,’ he said suddenly, ‘an odd word, one I’d use for a flower more than a curse... “exquisite”, he said, but “exquisite...” what?’

 ‘Exquisite torture,’ Budgie said from the doorway, his younger cousin Robin at his side. His voice was strained, his eyes haunted.

 ‘Yes?’ Elessar said quietly.

 ‘The entire curse was this: Death by slow starvation is exquisite torture, most suited to hobbits...’ Robin whispered. Budgie steadied him as he swayed.

 ‘Are ye well, Robin-lad?’ Budgie said, much as if he was speaking to the tween of those terrible days long ago, though strands of silver now touched the dark locks, and laugh lines graced Robin’s eyes.

Robin shook off his cousin’s hand and crossed to the bed, looking down at Freddy’s curled fingers. ‘They broke his fingers, you know,’ he said in a conversational tone, as if the subject were far away and long ago. ‘They liked to play the Question game, you see. For every right answer, it was a reprieve. O they loved their games, the ruffians did.’

 ‘And for every wrong answer?’ Elessar prompted.

Robin raised hot eyes to gaze steadily into the King’s face. ‘For every wrong answer it was a burn, or a broken bone. They broke all of Mr. Freddy’s fingers on his right hand, you see, and then they busted up his hand, bone by bone, and then they would have started on the left hand but for the chief ruffian saying someone’d have to feed Mr. Freddy, did they make him helpless, or he’d starve to death, and Sharkey wouldn’t like that much, no he wouldn’t!’ Robin was breathing hard when he finished that speech, as if he’d run a race.

 ‘He’s not been able to make a tight fist since, not even since they re-set his fingers and the bones of his hand,’ Budgie said.

Frodovar had listened in horror, but Estella was nodding. How she remembered those dark days.

 ‘Broke his fingers...?’ Frodo said, wanting to be sick.

Hearing his voice, his father opened his eyes and looked at him, then at Sam. Freddy tried to sit up, but they restrained him. Grabbing urgently at Sam, he said, desperation in his tone, ‘Mayor... ruffian...’ only to sink back, eyes closed. Budgie stepped forward to take up a wrist, but nodded as he felt the heartbeat steady once more. The drops were doing their work.

 ‘Saruman allowed such treatment?’ Elessar said tightly.

 ‘O yes,’ Budgie said, but Robin interrupted.

 ‘That wizard... He told his Men that Freddy and I were his special pets, and that they might do whatever they wished but that they must not take our lives. We had to stay alive so that he could vent his poison on us, and glory in our wretchedness.’

 ‘He would come around to gloat,’ Budgie said, and Robin continued.

 ‘He’d stop in Mr. Freddy’s cell, he would, it was just across the way from mine, and shake his head and cluck his tongue at the state of Mr. Freddy’s poor broken hand. “We’ll have to do something about that,” he’d say, and go away again, and soon those ruffians would return and stand about Mr. Freddy and stomp on his fingers and shout, “Do something about that! We’ll have to do something about that!” Aaaaargh!’ He covered his eyes as a terrible cry of grief escaped him. Budgie gathered him close as he began to sob.

 ‘Do something about that,’ Frodo echoed faintly. ‘But that’s...’

 ‘What?’ Elessar said sharply.

 ‘That’s what the Mayor was shouting, about the mead running low, just before Father...’ His voice trailed off and he looked back to Freddy.

Freddy did not open his eyes, but he moaned once more, ‘Mayor... ruffian...’

***
The story of the greening of the Shire is found in "A Small and Passing Thing", also on SoA.