15. A Trap Is Sprung

August 1421 – The Shire

‘A poor end to a lovely afternoon,’ Merry thought idly, scanning the darkness around him.  Estella lay sleeping beside him, head pillowed in his lap, and the hard rock behind him pressed into his back uncomfortably.  The gloom held no answers, but his mind worked on, fitting the puzzling events of this summer together with their present situation.  Stray arrows in the woods, close calls on suddenly rickety bridges that had been sound, all of these had seemed mere accidents and coincidences, at least until today.  One hand still gently stroking the silky curls that tumbled down her back, he carefully lifted the sodden cloth from the gash along his ribs.  Though it had bled impressively a few hours ago, the arrow had barely grazed him before getting tangled up in his cloak.  Its continued presence and the dark stain that had spread down his coat had served to convince their attackers that the hit had been true, and they had gladly left him here to die.  Unfortunately, in a lovely but foolish display of defiance and loyalty, Estella had doomed herself to spend the next few days in this damp cave, which Tengo Goodbody had intended as Merry’s tomb.  He had watched from the floor where the burly hobbit’s thugs had dropped him, waiting for an opportunity for escape that never came.  Tengo had kept his prize in hand, dagger drawn, at all times.  Merry had been quite certain she would be safe as long as he himself posed no threat.  He had forgotten the slow simmering temper that his bride-to-be had inherited from her mother.  Took women were dangerous to cross.  When their captor had roughly cut the love knot from her hair, Estella had slapped his hands from her dark curls.

“I will never marry you, Tengo Goodbody!  Never!  Do you hear me?  Never!” she had challenged, small fists tight with fury.

“Brave words!” Tengo had sneered and shoved her down beside Merry’s still form.  “But I’m sure a few hungry days under the ground will change your mind!”

He had turned back at the entrance, where a half dozen hooded hobbits were struggling with a great boulder.  “I’ll return when your passions have cooled somewhat, along with the body of this interfering whelp,” he had called back with a dark laugh as the last crescent of light disappeared and their exit was blocked.

The anger that had fueled her courage died with the silence and darkness that now enclosed them, and Merry had awkwardly gathered her into his arms, despite the trammeling cords that still bound his hands.  His conscious presence had turned her attention away from the uncertain future and she had busied herself with cutting him free.  Overconfidence or sheer stupidity had kept Tengo’s hobbits from searching them, and they had found several useful things still about their persons, not the least of which was Merry’s pocket knife.  Estella’s next discovery, however, had had less pleasant effects on her state of mind.  Wrapping his arms about her, Merry had felt her small hands slide beneath his jacket, as had become her habit in weeks past, and he winced as she brushed against the shallow wound.  A small whimper had escaped her lips as she pulled back a hand, sticky with his blood, and burst into tears.

It had taken some time to calm her from her near hysterical reaction, which he had sensed was due as much to the present situation as to one she had made every effort to forget.  Merry had found out in well-watered late night discussions with Freddy that Master Bolger had done more than protect his own small domain during the Troubles.  The scattered farms and sheds of Budgeford had proved to be a haven for the rebels, and no little amount of the grain that had been kept back for the planting had made its way into their hide-outs in the Brockenbores, while protection money to pay off the ruffians had drained the family’s coffers.   The wounded had often been left in their care, and too many had never risen from their hidden sickbeds deep within the house.  Merry’s blood on her hands had been too harsh a reminder of that dark little room where their lives had fled from between her fingers and their eyes closed forever, some of them not much more than boys.

‘My poor heart,’ he smiled sadly, seeing in thought the dark lashes on tear-stained cheeks that the lightless cave hid from his sight.  “I’m sorry you’ve seen even this much of war, my love,” Merry whispered softly.

He refolded and secured the cloth against his side and ran questing fingers over the raw marks about his wrists.  New scars would soon join the old.  He had almost lost the small advantage he’d gained himself by feigning unconsciousness when his assailants had moved to bind his hands.  Instinct swelled by panic screamed at him to fight or to flee, to do anything to avoid being bound once more, and it had required every ounce of his will to remain limp and unmoving as he was thrown over the saddle of a dark pony.  He could hardly rescue Estella if they decided to kill him out of hand.  He didn’t dare imagine what might have happened to his gallant mare, or whether he would ever find his silver horn again.  Though he had managed a single short call, Pippin and the others had been far ahead when the path had skirted under the trees where the ambush had been laid.  Four hobbits, hooded and armed, had darted out from the trees and tried to pull him down.  Merry’s mount, usually a calm and steady creature, had reared up with a cry and momentarily scattered his attackers.  The clear call of the Horn still shivered in the air when a voice had called from the cover of the wood.

“Bring him down!  Bring him down now!”

The sharp twang of bowstrings followed and only the purest chance had saved him from a quick death at the wrong end of dark fletched arrows.  Off-balance and overmatched, Merry had been dragged from the saddle, and horn and sword were knocked from his hands.  Estella’s angry cry sounded to his right and he had turned straight into a heavy fisted blow that had left him dazed and flat on his back.  The large bruise above his ear still throbbed in reminder of that hard knock, and he promised himself an equal return if he ever caught up with the villain.  The likelihood of that event was small, given their current situation, and he did not dare to hope for rescue.  Soon after they had left the path, bound and gagged, Merry had heard the shrill scream of distressed ponies in the distance and wondered bleakly what trap had been set to waylay their companions.

***   ***   ***

Though Pippin had only heard the Horn of Rohan winded a few times, there was no mistaking its clear call, and he threw himself into his saddle without a second thought.

“Merry’s in trouble, mount up!” he called back over his shoulder to Freddy Bolger and their two pretty companions where they sat upon the green hill hungrily

investigating a well packed picnic basket.

Without waiting for a response, Pippin galloped off across the field that separated their resting place from the small wood they had passed earlier, and whence the horn’s call had come.  The distance closed slowly, too slowly, and by the time he crossed the line of trees, he found only the signs of struggle and none of the participants.  Many feet and hooves had churned up the muddy dirt of the road, and the tracks led off in several different directions.  Before Pippin could investigate further, the scream of a downed pony drew him down the path towards the outer edge of the wood.  He hurried to find Freddy upon the ground, curled around an obviously broken arm, his white mare shrilling desperately nearby.  There was little that might be done for her broken leg and Pippin quickly gave her what mercy he could.  The two girls had stopped short of the treacherous rope that stretched low across the way, and they now slipped over it to help Freddy to his feet.

“There’s not much we can do for you here, Freddy,” Pippin said, cutting the cord free of its anchoring tree.  “You girls take him back to the nearest farmstead, then send on to Budgeford for help.  Have them rally the foresters of Buckland and any bounders that might be about.  There’s sign of a struggle up the road, and I don’t think our companions came out on top.”

He helped the portly hobbit up into the saddle, where the dark eyed lass held him fast, and they went off at a gentle walk.

“I’ll mark a trail as I go!” Pippin called after them.

Returning to the site of the ambush, he worked his way slowly over the trampled ground, looking for any indications of what might have happened.  A small glint of light led him to Merry’s silver horn, fetched up under a low bush.  He set it over his shoulder and continued searching.  Assuming the other riders had been hostile, which he felt they must be, Pippin finally decided that Merry and Estella would likely be in the company of their assailants and there was only one trail of more than two sets of hooves.  Leading his chestnut mare on foot, he set off into the wood, eyes scanning the forest floor anxiously.  Several yards from the road, a splash of blood, already dark, marked a pale stone underfoot.  He hoped Merry had been the one to score against his mysterious opponents, but only time would tell.  Pippin jogged on faster now, pausing occasionally to scratch markers into the trees he passed.  He reached the edge of the wood as the sun sank westward and fading light presented him with a difficult choice:  to go on and possibly loose the trail in the night, or wait for dawn, which left his friends at their captors’ mercy for longer than he cared to think about.  The rolling fields stretched out to shadowy horizons to either side, and the dark hills of the Brockenbores rose before him a little further north.  They could have gone anywhere.

He had no illusions that his poor attempts at tracking could come anything near to a Ranger’s skills, though he hunted with no less determination and haste.  He cast a final glance towards the darkening sky and drew back under the eaves of the forest.  After freeing the mare to find her own supper, he settled in the angle of two great roots, where the leafy mulch of the previous fall still lay thick and warm from the summer sun.  Shrugging unhappily into his cloak, he nibbled at one of the journey cakes he had started carrying in his pocket since they had returned home, in memory of their hungry trek across Rohan.  He would gladly trade every sweet loaf in his mother’s kitchen for the aid of any one of the members of the Fellowship on this hunt.  Though the wide world no longer hung in the balance, at this moment his own personal part of it certainly did.  More than kin, more than friend, Merry had always been Pippin’s anchor, the only constant in the changing set of circumstances that had made up his young life.  His mother’s long illness after his birth, along with the recurring dark spells that had taken her since, had led to Pippin’s first lengthy stay at Brandy Hall at the tender age of three.  Bewildered and forgotten by the adults who had crowded around to question his uncle, Pippin had hid himself in the dark nook between two overstuffed couches in the parlor, trying to make sense of the hushed conversations around him.  To this day he remembered that first meeting, when a smiling lad had knelt beside him, blue-gray eyes bright and kind, and had offered him a sweet.  Merry had taken his hand, and in a very real sense, had never let go.  That same warm hand around his own had been his first memory of Cormallen, before he even opened his eyes, the gentle pulse against his skin a comforting counterpoint to the sharp pain that had come with every breath.  Even in this last year, when shadows had crowded round to dim that steady flame, it was his cousin’s resolve and care that had lent direction to those strange months of restless wandering through the Shire.  And now Merry lay somewhere, near or far, perhaps even at death’s door, the bright happy love so recently found with him, and there was little Pippin could do but wait for morning’s light.