Chapter Two: Betrothal Tradition

Pippin stirred and shifted slightly in his bed as his dreams took him back to memories.

He had been five that autumn, and confined to his bed as he recovered from the first of the illnesses brought on by that winter’s approaching chill. All three of his sisters clustered around his bed. They were there supposedly to keep him entertained, but in reality were regaling each other with tales brought on by tweenaged Pearl’s descriptions of the wedding she had recently traveled to in Buckland.

“...oh, and it was grand how they displayed the cake, all floating in a boat and surrounded by lily pads until they were ready to serve it,” Pearl described from where she stood near the head of Pippin’s bed.

“In a boat? On the water?” sixteen-year-old Pimpernel asked in a shocked gasp from her perch on the side of the bed.

“Well, ‘twas Buckland,” Pearl giggled, just as Pippin asked crossly, from where he sat against the pillows stacked in front of his headboard, “Was it a good cake, then?”

Pearl laughed again and sank down onto the bed next to him. She pulled her little brother to her with one arm and kissed the top of his curly head as she informed him, “’Twas a very good cake, indeed. Merry said that the second big piece he ate was all for you.”

“Humph,” snorted Pippin, his arms crossed against his chest in displeasure at missing out on such a tasty treat, but he cuddled into Pearl’s embrace nonetheless.

“Surely not as fine as the cakes they bake at the Smials?” ten-year-old Pervinca demanded from where she sat upon the floor, her back propped against the side of Pippin’s bed.

“Oh, no, ‘twas not so grand as the weddings here at the Smials,” Pearl hastened to reassure her younger siblings. “But perhaps, now that I am a tween and may do more visiting across the Shire, I may find ideas for an even grander wedding someday,” she said in a dreamy tone.

“Well!” Pervinca exclaimed. “My wedding shall be grander than either of yours, I daresay, as Da is sure to be Thain by the time I wed.”

“Oh? so you think that he shan’t want my celebration to have floating cakes and other lovely things?” Pearl asked, leaning forward as she did so to peer over the edge of the bed and tumbling Pippin out of her embrace.

Pimpernel cuddled him into her lap as Pervinca responded.

“I daresay no matter how lovely your celebration is, mine shall be far grander, with -- with six kinds of cake!” she announced triumphantly, her ten-year-old eyes alight.

“’Tis the decorations I think of,” sighed Pearl as she sank back into the pillows again. “And the music, and how romantic ‘twill all be...”

“Aye,” added Pimpernel in the same dreamy tone, “and the dress, and how beautiful and handsome everyone will look...”

Pippin realized that Pimpernel’s hands were idly plaiting his curls as she offered her description of her own future wedding day, and he scowled and crawled out of her lap to wriggle under the bedclothes, burying himself headfirst beneath them.

“So,” Pearl asked with a wink to her sisters, “what do you think the day will be like when Pippin finally weds a hobbit lass?”

“Yuck!” could be heard from underneath the covers. “I don’ like lasses!”

At five, Pippin hadn’t realized this wasn’t quite the wisest thing to say in a room full of lasses with hobbits’ good hearing. Nor, at this age, had his foot soles grown quite thick enough to protect him from the merciless tickling that followed.

He awoke with the memory lingering in his mind and smiled ruefully at it. Then he got out of bed and crossed the room, shafts of moonlight reflecting off his white nightshirt, and pulled a dried flower from the pack he’d carried home from Buckland.

A lass had thrown it at his feet as he and Merry rode through her town in their shining mail during Foreyule, on one of their excursions to rid the Shire of ruffians. Pippin had circled back on his pony to pick up the flower, sparing a curious glance toward the corner the lass had disappeared behind.

Merry had laughed at him, but gaily, not cruelly, and said, “It seems we cut a dashing figure for the lasses of the Shire, Pippin. We shall have to explore this further when all these evil Men have been routed.”

Pippin had been looking forward to such an exploration, as he was quite sure he no longer felt that all lasses were yucky. But he was also quite certain, he thought as he knelt before his window and looked out upon the moon’s reflection of the snow-covered objects in the yard, of his duty to the Shire.

Pervinca hitched the corners of the throw blanket tighter around her neck with one hand. The other hand reached up to brush at the tears that silently coated her face. She had thought she’d heard stirrings from her brother’s room a few moments ago, but now all was quiet again in her parents’ quarters. She remained still, in the rocking chair pulled before the embers of the darkened room’s banked fire.


Barley. That was the official explanation given for the visit of a small delegation from the North Farthing to the Great Smials late in Afteryule: to discuss the planting of the spring barley. The Thain, some said, wanted to encourage these somewhat renegade relations to plant in abundance this year, so the ale would flow freely in the celebration of his son’s triumphal return and the restoration of the Shire.

The betrothal ceremony held in Paladin’s office one evening was small, with only those hobbits present who were required to be there. The seven witnesses understood the need for secrecy. Neither one of the young couple was yet of age to be wed, and until they were, there was no sense in shaking up the Shire with something that might not come to pass. They had all learned something of unpredictability in the past year.

Three of those required witnesses were from the North Farthing; four of the Tooks’ choosing. This had been carefully planned: a subtle reminder that the Thain must always take first place in the hobbits’ dealings.

Pippin and Diamond -- for that was the North-Took lass’s name, and he had been pleased to see at first glance that she was not nearly so ugly as a troll -- let their parents sign the documentation for them, as was proper for ones so young.

Their mothers, in fact, were the only other hobbitesses in the room, and each withdrew to her own shadowed corner during the ceremony, looking at nothing else in the room but her own child.

Pippin’s own gaze had wandered far as soon as Paladin looped the silken cord around his right wrist and Diamond’s left and began to speak of them being bound together. Such words, and the rope, brought back memories of his time with the orcs, and he struggled to hold himself in check as those scenes played out before him.

Paladin caught some of his son’s struggles and wondered if Pip were having second thoughts at last. He choked for a moment on his words until those green eyes lost their hazy focus and stared back at him. A slight movement of a muscle in Pippin’s chin reflected their determination. Paladin gave a barely perceptible, albeit shaky, nod in return, and stammered on. His mind also was not on the familiar words he repeated by rote.

Instead, he saw before him the first ceremony to which he had taken his young son in the Thain’s office. Thain Ferumbras, it had been then, and Pippin just on to six months old. Paladin had moved his family to the Great Smials the preceding winter, following the lad’s birth.

It was now clear summer, though, and Paladin carried his lad through hallways dimmed to a pleasant coolness after the land’s bright sunshine. He hesitated a moment before knocking on Rumby’s door, still a tad unsure of himself in his new place at the Smials as the Thain’s official assistant. Then Pippin stirred a bit, and he looked down at this lad he carried, and the courage he had not for himself came in clear waves for his son. Paladin reached up and rapped sharply on Rumby’s door.

“Come in,” Rumby answered in a gruff, yet creaking voice, then when Paladin entered carrying Pippin, he let out a great huff of air from his seat behind the desk.

“Oh, it’s you, Paddin. Glad you could come a tad early, let me meet the Heir on our own, you know. Well, well, hand him over,” he demanded kindly, rubbing his hands together.

Paddin gently eased Pippin into the awkward grasp of Thain Ferumbras, who blinked in alarm as soon as Paladin let go and hastily set the babe on top of the desk.

“Well!” Rumby sighed in relief as Pippin reached out to grab hold of the finger he tentatively poked toward the babe. “He’s quite the little one, ‘tisn’t he?”

Paladin forced himself not to bristle on his son’s behalf as Thain Ferumbras continued muttering beneath his heavy, beetled brows. “Or are they all that small?” He looked up at Paladin as Pippin continued to tenaciously cling to a finger and smile a toothless grin. “You’ll have to forgive an old hobbit, Pad, who’s never had aught of his own.”

Paddin gave a tight smile and nod in return, then looked down upon the desk and reached out a finger to be grasped tightly in the other small fist. Pippin chortled with glee. Eg had made sure he was well-fed, well-napped, and recently changed before this expedition.

“Eg would have liked --” Paddin began hesitantly, to be interrupted by Thain Ferumbras’s vehement, “No lasses!”

Pippin blinked, startled, and was still for a moment before resuming his gurgles.

“I’m sorry, Pad,” Rumby stated more quietly, “but if we were to let any hobbitesses in, you know The Took would insist upon her chair being wheeled in here, and I’d rather not have that. The lasses ‘twill have enough time to content themselves with fussing o’er him at the feasting after.”

Paddin nodded sadly, but sagely, in agreement. He did not wish Mistress Lalia to be present at this event if it could be helped. The one time she had successfully managed to insist upon holding Pippin, he had let out particularly ear-splitting shrieks after being clutched to her enormous bosom.

Rumby, as Pad thought this, had leaned forward so that his face was a mere few inches from Pippin’s. “Gootchy-gootchy-goo!” he huffed.

Pippin blinked twice, uncertainly, before withdrawing his hand from the less familiar finger and stuffing that fist into his own mouth.

Luckily, the witnesses for the ceremony soon arrived, and all bustled to their places. Saradoc Brandybuck and Bilbo Baggins were among those Paladin had chosen to stand before Thain Ferumbras and inscribe their names in the Yellowskin -- hobbits who had the good sense to make a Took marriage, or the good fortune to be born with Took blood.

Rumby, claiming palsied hands made it difficult for him to carry too many things at once, let Paladin hold Pippin for the ceremony. Thain Ferumbras placed but one of his own hands on the infant’s head as he clutched a well-worn book with the other. His face, but for his bushy brows, was hidden behind the book as he held it close to his nose to read with failing eyesight the words he was beginning to forget.

It was a comical sight, yet Paddin’s only temptation to laugh came from the joy he felt as Rumby concluded the readings, placed the book open to a certain page upon the desk, and grabbed Pippin’s right ankle to gently press the foot upon a pad of ink as Paddin held him slightly lower. Then Thain Ferumbras moved the foot to the pages of the Yellowskin, the annals of the Took families’ births, deaths, marriages and deeds, and pressed a small footprint upon the page. Heir to the Thain, marked that page and that foot, was Peregrin Took, son of Paladin, of the Great Smials of the West Farthing of the Shire.

Paladin blinked, and looked once more at the tableau before him in the Thain’s office this winter evening. He realized he had stopped speaking a moment ago, and saw the other hobbits waited only for him to release them.

The lass stood quietly, head bowed and eyes downcast beneath the bangs of her dark curls, as she had throughout. Only her left hand, raised in front of her and joined to Pippin’s wrist, seemed to contain a spark of something more than docility.


Paladin could not release completely the bonds that now tied his son -- nay, never again could he do so for that joyous little lad he’d first brought before the Thain -- but he tried to ease them as much as he was able.

“Go,” he told Pippin a short time later as he clasped his lad to him in a hug. “Go live with your cousin and be merry in the smial that Frodo’s offered you. Laugh, and dance, and sing, and enjoy your youth as much as you might.”

Always before, as Pippin departed from his office, Paladin had sent him off with a mock salute and a jesting "Thain Peregrin." This time, the title was too close to home, and bore too much sting. The words died on his lips.

To Gerin North-Took of the North Farthing, the lass’s father, when he came to take his leave, Paladin commanded him as he reached the Thain’s door, “Make certain your lass is worthy of my son.”