6. Traces Of Life

Rejoining the good-natured half dozen of their little company was a relief from the sullen silence Diamond had imposed between them upon waking, obviously still chewing over the previous evening’s events. She had frowned into her tea and refused Pippin’s help striking the little tent, and their wordless trek back had begun shortly after dawn. Aside from a few questioning and amused glances from her brother, they all seemed to detect her brittle mood and broke camp with quiet efficiency. Three days from the Northwest Marker, with a fine warming breeze blowing up from the south and a high blue sky full of sun, they set out, mulling over what little they each knew of the mystery ahead.

The northern-most farmstead lay empty and still, its small stretch of pastures and fallow fields shimmering with snowmelt in the morning sun. They stopped just beyond the neat lane that led up to the farmhouse, low and turf-roofed, and eerily abandoned already, though after the snowfall, they were unlikely to find any tracks in the muddy ground. Feet padding softly over the winter-pale grass, boots gratefully packed away two days past, Pippin led them into the deserted courtyard, where a few forlorn hens flapped dispiritedly in their direction.

“I don’t know what you hope to find here, Master Bounder, for the weather has surely taken any trace of the culprits,” Diamond said.

“Perhaps, but we must still try your skills to find the missing. Sancho and I did not make thorough search of the place, certain of what we’d find by the time we got here.”

The others scattered at Diamond’s direction while Pippin trailed her as she slowly entered the house. The little squirrel, whose anxious body was curled in the angle of shoulder and neck, suddenly jumped with a skittering screech and dashed about the still kitchen before coming to rest disconsolately among the flowery pillows of the wide chair by the cold hearth. A knitting basket sat at its foot, a half-finished scarf neatly folded on top of the yarn.

“There, now, little fellow, your mistress will be back soon enough,” Pippin said, gently scooping up the quivering creature. It chattered angrily at him and bounced again from his hands, disappearing into some shadowed corner of the room.

Diamond walked back in from exploring the small rooms beyond the hall, her expression grim. “They left with nothing more than the clothes they stood in. The children’s rooms are tumbled, the master bedroom neat as a pin,” she said, poking through the cabinets and shelves. “It looks like they left half an hour before lunch,” she added, wrinkling her nose at the withered remains of a salad. “Lucky for us the baking had already been done, or the whole place might have burned down.”

“The door had been left wide open, like all the others.”

“They must have left that very day, or we’d see more signs of animals wandering in.”

“This little one is the only one we found here, though we had a time getting him out of the pantry.”

“The pantry? What was a squirrel doing in a pantry?”

Pippin shrugged and set to lighting a small fire in the cold hearth. “He seems to have lived here, probably a fallen runt the children adopted.”

“Still… Why in the pantry of all places? You’d think he’d dash on up a tree when danger struck. Instincts and all that…” she murmured, carefully opening the narrow door. It was quite dark inside, and she absently reached along the doorjamb for the small shelf where a candle stub or lamp must surely rest, as it did in every kitchen she had yet seen. The shelf was bare. Gazing back into the kitchen, she saw the small lamp, carelessly dropped near the door.

“Something’s not right,” Diamond muttered, beginning to comprehend what had disturbed her since she had walked into the deserted farm.

“Eh?”

“The pantry light, did you set it there?” she asked Pippin, pointing it out to him.

“No, we couldn’t find it…” he said, reaching down for its brass handle. It had burned dry, singing the pale wood it had lain against, though not enough to set it alight. “The Burrfoots were not the reckless sort. Someone else was here.”

“Yes, and they, too, searched the pantry for your noisy little friend. We can only hope they left some signs of themselves within,” she replied, lighting a fat candle from the small blaze he had just kindled.

Neat shelves of blond wood ran the length of the narrow space, canisters, jars and sacks lined up on each one, though looking somewhat bare at this tail end of the winter. Upon the tiled floor lay a fine dusting of flour, as if just shaken from the goodwife’s apron. Its fine particles were smudged about where the Bounders had stepped just inside the entrance, but a little further in, clear to her eye in the wavering light of her candle, was a single oversized boot print.

                                                                               *** *** ***

Sancho trailed into the Red Hill House in Michel Delving after the three Bucklanders who had just ridden clear across the Shire upon his word and the thin letter of a simple gardener. A strange mix of mirth and wariness distinguished these hobbits from most of those he had known, rather like a few of his fellow Bounders, and it had been easy to fall into the alternating spells of hurried silence and garrulous talk that had marked their three day trek. He watched them now, wading ahead of him through the dinnertime crowd to a free table at the back of the common room, Merry Brandybuck head and shoulders above the rest. Calls of recognition and welcome met them, which the tall hobbit returned affably, though he declined to join any of them at their tables.

Sancho considered what little he knew of this distant cousin, for though they had met, they had run in very different circles, and Pippin’s tales of his best friend where large in action and short on personal detail. What he did know, mostly from his gammer’s talk, was that after some years of the kind of tweenaged recklessness and disreputable behavior that plagued the well-moneyed sons of the great families, Merry had become a generous and jovial gentlehobbit, whose store of brandy and song never seemed to run dry, but who rarely failed to curb his less responsible cousins’ excesses. His reputation had taken a strange turn after his return from abroad, half a foot taller and a sword at his side, and though, like Pippin, laughter and song still followed his steps, there was now a perilous quality to the graceful physicality that had always animated his frame. Pippin had it too, that steel behind the smile and the rounded cheek, and Sancho had known when they had first been paired up that no ordinary threat would even slow his partner’s headlong curiosity. Nonetheless, the Shire didn’t know what to do with such hobbits as these, save send them off to beat the bounds, and there was something strange and shocking still about the long sword at Merry Brandybuck’s hip and the comfortable ease with which his hand rested upon the pommel. Sancho’s ill-concealed fascination with the blade had led the tall Bucklander to hand it over for his examination one night, a mirthful twinkle in his eye. Sancho had nearly dropped the three feet of heavy steel, though he had had both hands on the leather-wrapped hilt. The horses that formed the guard had seemed to wink in the candlelight, and he had returned the sword with a weak smile, ever more conscious of the other’s strength as he sheathed it without effort. Walking now between his cousins, broad shoulders at ease beneath the green cloak, Merry was just the sort Sancho was glad to have at his side. Few things daunted his partner, and the worry behind Pippin’s eyes had been very real, as real as the unexplained scars glimpsed in months of travel with the talkative young Took. Pippin had spoken freely of his travels, though never of their purpose, and had described the fair lands and folk he had encountered with marvelous detail, but like everyone else, Sancho’s only hint of more dire events was the Steward’s Tale, as it had become known, which had been retold many times since the first, six years ago. The young Bounder hoped that whatever they had learned abroad would serve at home today.

Settling at an empty table and calling for a meal, their small party gladly accepted the tankards of ale the lass dropped before them with a bobbing curtsy. The food had just arrived when Merry’s eyes lit with joy and he waved across the busy room with a shout.

“Sam! Samwise Gamgee! What’s drawn you from your roses, my friend?” he asked as the robust hobbit made his way to them.

“Ah, same as you, Master Merry, a steady hand at plowing a straight row. The Mayor’s garden needed a trim,” he replied, quickly covering his puzzled expression with a false smile. It would, of course, be best if Merry’s presence weren’t connected to Sam or the Mayor at all.

“Indeed. But, come on Sam. Sit with us awhile, and no more of this ‘Master’ nonsense, or I’ll tell all I meet that kings and princes count you as a hero of the Age,” Merry warned teasingly.

“I wasn’t born to the first and can’t honestly speak to the second, but an ale will go down nicely with the company,” he allowed, sitting with a sigh.

“Any word back from Pippin, then?” Merry asked quietly when the maid had left Sam’s ale.

“Not a one, sir, but I think we’d have heard about it if Long Cleeve were troubled. There’s quite a lot of traffic between them and Oatbarton, even in the kind of weather they’ve had this week.”

“Has the Mayor relented on detailing a few more Bounders to investigate?” Sancho asked, leaning over his stew.

Sam shook his head, eyeing the packed tables nearby. Some things simply could not be spoken of under such circumstances, and would have to wait for a more private setting to discuss.

Merry gave him a searching look and a knowing grin. “A steady hand on the plough indeed. You’re doing a little more than trimming the hedges, my friend.”

The round-faced hobbit blushed slightly and shrugged. “I serve as needed, like everyone else.”

Merry shook his head and downed his ale, but his face was serious as he set down the empty tankard.

“We’ll be heading out in the morning. Is there anything you can tell us about the farmsteads in question that Sancho here wouldn’t be aware of?”

“No, the Bounders are rather more in touch with the outlying settlements than anyone else. I would be careful of the waterways though, the snowmelt from that last dusting has everything a little unsteady and unpredictable.”

“Oh, I don’t think a little water will slow us much… And between the three of us, we’ll keep your Shirriff from drowning on the way.”

Both Sam and Sancho shared a worried and rather reluctant glance, eyeing the chortling Bucklanders with some distaste.

“He’s just kidding, right?” Sancho whispered to the dark-haired hobbit at his side, but Sam shook his head.

“Ah, no. I’m sorry to say he isn’t. Not even the Great River in Gondor made him look twice, and you can barely see the other side at some points. I hope you’re not afraid of wetting your feet.”

Sancho swallowed the little lump of dread that had settled in his throat and prayed that the rivulets between the White Downs and the Northwest marker had stayed small. He couldn’t swim, didn’t want to swim, hadn’t yet failed to find a way around the very need to consider having to swim, and if at all possible he certainly wasn’t going to do so this week, or ever at all. Excitement and duty were fine, and short rations and long days were an acceptable risk for the more enjoyable parts of the work, but every hobbit had his limit, and that was his. Leave it to Pippin to have such a strange group of hobbits for friends.