Chapter 12. Best Laid Plans

The would-be ruffian sighed and rose from his crouch, and pulling a cloth from his shirt, he tied it over his face. ‘If you please, my lady,’ he said, indicating the large cloak that encompassed Diamond and Farry. Diamond unwrapped herself from the cloak and Jack gently lifted it away with a bow and donned the cloak. After he pulled his hood over his head, only his eyes could be seen.

 ‘One small hope,’ he said, and Diamond saw the corners of his eyes crinkle in a smile. ‘You say you won’t give us up, and so I’ll trust you, and hope your Farry is too young to remember our faces... and Hilly has not seen us yet, and he won’t if all goes well, so that he could not point us out to a King’s Man whether he wanted to, or not.’

He moved to the boys, wakening them gently. Rob gave a start, seeing Jack cloaked and hidden, but Will immediately took the cloth Jack held out to him, saying gaily, ‘What a fine game, Rob! We are to play at disguises! Do you suppose Farry will know which of us is which?’ He shot a worried glance at Diamond, and her heart ached for the youth, the threat of death hanging over his head.

Little Rob, laughing softly, allowed his brother to tie a cloth round his face and snugly fasten the muffling hood. When the boys were sufficiently disguised, Jack sent them off to fetch water.

He doused the fire carefully, that no tell-tale plume of smoke might rise to betray them. ‘Cold breakfast is in store, I think,’ he said, ‘and then we’ll travel as quick as may be over the Bounds and gone. My hope is that the message to your husband saying you’ve been found safe will reach him before the one that says you’re missing!’

Jack knelt by his pack and reverently removed the silver-grey rope. ‘Forgive me,’ he breathed. ‘This is a foul business to put you to, but I mean no harm. I beg your aid in this, and not your hindrance, that all may be well in the end.’ It was a curious speech to address to a rope, but as Diamond watched, the man moved to Hilly’s side and began to bind the hobbit’s wrists.

Hilly stirred and tried to pull away, but by the time he was fully awake the deed was done. He gasped at seeing the shrouded Man knotting the rope firmly, and looked about himself immediately.

 ‘Mistress!’

 ‘All is well, Hilly,’ Diamond said with as much assurance as she could muster.

 ‘Is the lad...?’ Hilly was careful not to use any names. If the ruffian knew whose wife and child he held... 

 ‘All is well,’ Diamond repeated firmly.

Jack pulled at the rope to gain Hilly’s attention. ‘They’ve not been harmed,’ he said, growling low, and not sounding like himself at all. ‘And they won’t be, neither, if you cooperate with us.’ The blanket fell away from Hilly’s shoulders and Diamond saw that Jack had dressed the hobbit some time in the middle night when the fire had dried his clothes sufficiently.

 ‘What do you want?’ Hilly snapped. The situation was a desperate one. The last thing he remembered was the bog, and Diamond and Farry shoving branches into the water in an effort to build him a bridge to safe ground. Had Diamond managed to get him free, somehow, only to be taken by ruffians coming after her husband’s gold?

 ‘Just that you’ll come along quietly,’ Jack growled. ‘Give me your word that you won’t shout for help, and I won’t have to put a gag in your mouth.’

 ‘You will keep quiet, Hilly,’ Diamond said, holding sleeping Farry a little closer. ‘They’ve promised us no harm if we do as they say.’

The escort looked to her and nodded. ‘As you order it, Mistress,’ he said, ‘I will obey.’

Farry awakened and Diamond whispered to him about the “game” before he could be frightened at Jack’s muffled countenance. Indeed, it was all she could do to keep him from muffling his own face to join in, but she persuaded him that they were “playing at ruffians” and he must do his part properly.

The lads returned with the water. Rob stopped short to see Hilly bound, but his brother whispered “All part of the game!” and he nodded and accepted a wafer of waybread and a handful of dried fruit from Jack. The “ruffians” ate quickly, keeping their faces concealed, and Diamond fed Farry half a wafer, breaking off small pieces for him, and pocketed the rest for him to nibble later.

After all had drunk of the icy water, Jack brought the waterskin to Diamond. ‘Would you care for a wash, my fine lady?’ he said ironically, maintaining the harsh voice of his disguise.

 ‘If you please,’ Diamond said with dignity, and as she held out her hands he poured water over them and supplied a rag for her to dry her face and hands.

 ‘Very well,’ he said, ‘Time’s a-wasting.’

He put Farry and Rob together on the pony’s back, took Diamond’s arm, and began to walk. Will took up the rope and looked to Hilly. ‘Come along, you,’ he said, trying to growl as Jack did.

 ‘You’re a young one,’ Hilly observed, following the tug of the rope.

 ‘I’m old enough,’ Will said bleakly. Old enough to finish my life at the end of a rope, he thought to himself. It was to have been so simple... slip into the Shire, and slip out again, unseen, with a bag of gold to start a new life. His gran would’ve scolded, he knew, but Jack had said... and they’d trusted the old man... and now Jack, in their middle night discussion when all the others slept, had said his gran had the right of it, and thievery didn’t pay, and they’d be lucky to get out of this with their skins.

 ‘South,’ Jack was saying to Diamond. ‘South-southeast. We'll give Pincup a wide berth. This part of the Shire isn’t heavily habited, and we’ll travel unseen, I think, through the woods until we reach the Shirebourn, and then we’ll follow her course a ways, walking in the shallows to throw off any who’d track us before we turn southwards again for the last run.’

 ‘It’s as good a plan as may be,’ Diamond said, thinking of her feet. She was a farmer’s daughter, true, and mother of a lively lad, but that didn’t prepare her to traipse halfway across the Shire!

 ‘The pony and I will be pack beasts by turn,’ Jack said. ‘Rob’s used to walking, and I’ll carry Farry and let the pony carry you, when you tire.’ He cast a speculative eye over Diamond’s pony. ‘He’s lame, but he’ll bear up if we don’t press him too hard.’

 ‘You’d likely go faster without us,’ Diamond said, and he shook his head.

 ‘We’ve already been over that ground,’ he said. ‘I won’t leave you bound, and I dare not leave you free.’ He nodded to Hilly, following Will at the end of his rope. ‘That one would undoubtedly find himself another bow and come after us, shooting.’

  ‘Likely he would,’ Diamond sighed.

The day continued misty, and fog shrouded the tops of the Green Hills and filled the valleys with curtains of damp cold. ‘All the better for us,’ Jack muttered. ‘We’ll be hard to find in this murk.’

 ‘I certainly hope so,’ Diamond said fervently. Hilly, who’d been listening intently to their low-voiced conversation while giving the impression that he was sunk in his own gloomy thoughts, began to wonder.