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At the End of His Rope  by Lindelea

Chapter 86. Bywords

The Blue Goose was bursting at the seams, what with the Thain and his family taking up several rooms, not to mention the Thain's escort and steward, the King and the wood elf and the dwarf and the dozen guardsmen, who were actually not in the inn, proper, but staying in loft of the stables. When the Master of Buckland rode into the yard in the morning, accompanied by half a dozen Rohirrim on tall horses, the innkeeper could not suppress a moan. His wife patted him on the shoulder, saying, 'Perhaps they will all leave today, dearie,' then took up her tray for the Thain, leaving him to bury his face in his hands. Either there was no business at all, save a wandering dwarf who only wanted to sample the beer, or there was more than he could manage. He wondered if he ought to go back to woodcutting, but it was a chilly job in the wintertime.

The King was in the stables, looking at the false guardsmen.

'You can see that they are none of them ours,' Bergil said, exposing the last face. 'They are ruffians, for certain.' He pointed to an extra hole in the nearest "guardsman's" hauberk. 'Look. They shot our men down, took their gear, took their place.'

'How many rogue guardsmen do we have wandering about the Shire?' the King said bleakly. 'And how did they know about the gold?'

'The gold is easy enough,' the grizzled sergeant said. 'It would have been talked about in Bree, the hobbits' determination to pay their way, not to accept charity from the King. There was some grumbling in Breeland, I heard, that they ought to pay their way as well, but they do not have the gold that the Thain is reputed to have.'

'They could have watched the unloading,' Bergil added. 'Once they saw it was nearly through, they could expect the payment to be on its way from Tuckborough. Just a few careful questions while drinking at the Prancing Pony and they'd have all the information they'd need. All they had to do was watch for heavy waggons pulled by more than the usual number of ponies.'

'We had a hundred guardsmen in Buckland,' the sergeant said. 'I don't know of any missing. Perhaps these came down from Fornost... I mean, the ones whose gear we are now seeing.'

'Ruffians bold enough to slay the King's guardsmen,' Elessar shook his head. 'I don't like this. Did they attack four together? ...or was each a messenger, slain as he came along? And in that case, how many messages have we missed? Were they coming from Fornost or Gondor?' He looked up. 'In any event, we are not stirring from Buckland until we find some answers. I will not put the Queen and our children at risk, nor those of Ithilien and Rohan.'

He turned to the sergeant. 'Take five guardsmen with you back to Buckland. I want you to send groups of ten to Fornost and South along the Greenway to the first outpost, find out what messages have been sent. We will compare their records to what we have received. I want to know exactly who's missing, and how many. In future, messengers are to go out in force. It won't be as swift, but it may be more sure.' The sergeant saluted and went to gather his men.

'Ruffians in the Shire?' a voice said quietly behind them. The King turned to see the Master of Buckland, flanked by Eomer and five other tall Riders of Rohan. Merry was nodding. 'Estella was right,' he said. 'I thought she was being hysterical, and I only waited until daylight to come, and accepted Eomer's offer of escort, to calm her. I should have known better.' He looked grimly at the bodies laid out in the straw. 'And worse,' he said. 'Ruffians in the guise of guardsmen. Perhaps the Tooks have the right of it.'

'Shoot first, ask questions afterwards?' Elessar said wryly. 'A bit hard on the legitimate guardsmen, wouldn't you say?'

'Renegade Men can be a bit hard on hobbits,' Merry answered implacably. He'd had his own run-ins with ruffians, once with his wife, rescued barely in time by Rangers, and he had the scars to show for it. Estella's old nightmare had returned, for good measure, last night, and he'd been afraid that her distress might somehow harm her or the unborn child. 'What do you propose, Strider?'

'First we need to know what we are dealing with,' the King said. 'I will meet with a Ranger later today, spread the word amongst the Watchers, find out what they have seen and heard. This might be an isolated incident, or there might be a nest of vipers needing to be cleaned out.'

'I'd suggest any of your guardsmen riding about the Shire employ an escort of hobbits, then,' Merry said, 'for their own safety, especially in Tookland. The Tooks will be very upset over this. I was glad just now to see that Pippin was not killed outright, and is well enough this morning to sit up and eat breakfast, but that will not go far to placate the Tooks. And that gold still has to be got to the ships.'

'With a dozen guardsmen and Rohirrim, and a score of Tookish archers, I do not think that will be a problem,' Elessar returned.

Pippin came into the stables, walking slowly, Regi and Ferdi flanking him. 'Then let us take the gold now and be done with it,' he said. 'It is a danger to the good innkeeper and his family, having it here, if there are still ruffians after it.'

'What are you doing out of bed?' Elessar said in exasperation.

'Walking,' Pippin said simply. 'A great pleasure for someone struck to the heart, let me tell you.'

'And you feel up to riding?' the King asked, his voice deceptively mild.

'Why not? The pony does all the work.' The Thain eyed the King. 'Strider, there's no point in ordering me back to bed. It's like the old saw about teaching a pig to sing.'

'A waste of your time, and it annoys the pig,' Ferdi added helpfully.

Regi said, 'He will not rest as long as the gold remains in those waggons.' He glanced aside at the Thain. 'Otherwise, I'd be sitting on him myself.'

'A conspiracy of Tooks,' the King muttered.

'Yes, and they're likely to shoot you full of arrows if you cross them,' Merry said philosophically. 'You can never be too careful, dealing with Tooks. Shortest tempers in the Shire. "Tetchy as a Took" is a byword in the Shire.'

'I thought it was "Stubborn as a Took".' Elessar said.

'That's another. Tooks are famous for many things,' Reginard said. 'Most of them uncomplimentary.'





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