Disclaimer:  All hobbits and Middle-earth belong to JRR Tolkien, but in my dreams, they belong to me.

Betas extraordinaire:  Marigold and Llinos.  Thank you!

A King’s Ransom

It all began yesterday when I returned home from attending a Faunt Blessing in Tuckborough.  It is part of my many duties as The Took, the head of the Took clan, to impart a blessing to the new faunts as a rite of passage into childhood.  It helps the fledgling-child and their family to understand that the faunt is no longer a baby to be coddled.

I returned home late in the afternoon from the Blessing.  My dear wife, Diamond, had recently put our youngest down for a nap and after looking in on the two older children in the day nursery, she sat beside me on the sofa telling me about her day.  Then she asked how the Blessing went; if there was anyone she knew in attendance and what sort of food they served after the ceremony.  Consequently, we engaged in light conversation for nigh to an hour before she mentioned tea would be ready soon and that I should get washed while she readied the children.

“Oh, by-the-by,” she said as an afterthought, “We found a very odd looking metal teapot in that old mathom box we’ve been keeping.  I put it aside for you to look at and decide if you want to keep it or give it to the tinker.  I’ve gone through the extra items it has accumulated over the past twelve months, but all of the original items are still inside the box for you to go through.”

There is a tinker who comes by the Smials every three months or so to mend the pots, pans, and any cooking utensils worth the effort.  Whenever he visits, my wife usually adds to the burden he already carries by collecting any appropriate items we, as a single family, no longer use or are broken (which is usually the case) and gives them to the tinker to either repair and sell for himself, or to do with as he pleases. 

The mathom box in question is actually a box full of trinkets that my father gave to me last year before he passed away.  I simply could not bring myself to immediately empty the chest after he was buried, hence, the box found itself in a nice dark corner in which to brood until I was emotionally ready to inspect every item passed down to me.  In the course of the past year, other mathoms of less interest had been added to the collection.

“Where is it?” I asked her, referring to the teapot, looking around the room for the item.

“On the tea table,” Diamond replied over her shoulder as she headed towards the day nursery in the back hallway.

Satisfied with her answer, I turned to the tea table while she tended the children.  I saw that the tea table held an empty tea tray from Viola’s visit earlier, a centrepiece of daisies and golden candles...but nothing else.  I wished to enquire further, so I waited for Diamond to return with the children.

“Papa!” Bonny and Faramir shouted when they entered the room.  All at once, they began to recount the fun they’d had while playing in the gardens that afternoon with their cousins.  I laughed at their lively conversation and gave them kisses and hugs in response.  

After I greeted the children, I realised my curiosity had been greatly piqued with regard to the “odd-looking” teapot, as my lovely wife had described it.  I bounced my five-year-old son in my arms, yet my focus ever returned to the tea table.

“I don’t see it anywhere, love,” I remarked, still digging deep into my memories in search of a teapot my father had apparently once owned. 

While holding the baby, Diamond looked at the tea table, then gazed about the room.  “Perhaps I placed it on the hall table near the door,” she said hesitantly.  I noticed that Diamond started to bite her fingernail absently.  I have discovered over the past eight years that this is a bad sign.

She turned to our eldest, “Bonny, do you remember that little gold teapot we found in Grandpapa’s old chest?”

I watched our seven-year-old’s head with plaited pigtails bob up and down in assent.  “Yes, Mummy!  I remember it was very pretty, but inside it was very ugly.  Faramir was playing with it.”

My daughter’s remark suddenly jogged my memory; ‘very pretty...inside it was very ugly’.  Could it be the Lantern?  My knees grew weak to the point that I had to put my son down for fear of dropping him.  What Diamond guessed to be an ugly teapot is actually a golden lantern that at one time belonged to my great-great grandfather Gerontius.

I looked my young son in the eyes to show that I was serious.  “What did you do with the teapot, Faramir?” I asked, though my tone was sweet.

Faramir smiled shyly, put his finger in his mouth and then announced, “My toy - my toy!”  So much for my seriousness.

“What did you do with your toy, Faramir?” I gently prompted him.

“I hided it!”

“You mean, you hid it!” Bonny corrected her brother.

“Where did you hide it?” I asked, trying to conceal my increasing alarm.  It seemed that my only way to finding this keepsake was through the playful nature of a five-year-old.

“I hided my toy in the toy box!” Faramir blurted, then stuck his tongue out at his sister.

“Where is the toy box, love?” Diamond intervened, sensing my growing distress, yet she probably could not have imagine what my concern was about.

Faramir pointed towards the door.  “There!”

“I don’t see a toy box over there,” I replied.

“Yes, there was,” Diamond put in quietly.  “It was the box I had prepared for the Tinker.  Bonny, take Faramir and go into the dining room and wait for us there - we will be only a minute.”

Once the children had gone, Diamond became nervous.  “I suspect the teapot is something precious, isn’t it?” she asked, tears glistening in her eyes.  Even little Blossom, in her mother’s arms, started to whimper.

I took both her and the baby in my own arms, not wanting Diamond to be upset over something that was clearly my fault for not being more careful with my things.  “Well, for a start, it’s not a teapot.”  I heard her sigh on my shoulder; it appeared my attempt at a jest was not taken as such.

“The Tinker is probably still in the kitchen having tea with the cook,” I reasoned.  “I’ll explain to him it was a misunderstanding and all will be well.  Go and start tea with the children -- I’ll return in less than a quarter of an hour.” 

However, when I arrived at the kitchen, only the cook and her helpers were there.  I asked the whereabouts of the Tinker and was told that he had already left.

“He did not stop for tea?  Do you know where he was headed next?” I asked.

“Why should he stop for tea, sir?” the cook responded with mild surprise. “He finished his work and left right after luncheon.  Said he was goin’ t’ meet a fellow in Tookbank.”

Diamond must have thought me mad as I told her of my plans to recover the lantern.  I kissed her on the cheek and said I’d be back before the sun set.  My pony, Shadow, should still be warmed up from our trip to Tuckborough, so he ought to be ready to ride to Tookbank.  As I galloped Shadow towards the town, I had plenty of time to think on just how precious -- how dear the golden lamp was to me.  After all, I must have inherited it by becoming a good storyteller in my own right.  Yes, I’ll admit it; I can spin a good yarn when the fit takes me.

When my great-great-uncle Isengar returned from the Sea, he brought back with him a few baubles he had picked up along the way, and each had a story behind it.  One of these baubles was a lantern made of gold, a lantern obtained in foreign parts, for it obviously looked nothing like the lanterns we use here.  It appeared every bit the teapot everybody thought it was, complete with an urn, spout, lid, and handle.

A fellow seaman had purchased the golden lantern in Belfalas from another man who had obtained it in a raid near Poros -- that is what Uncle Isengar had reported anyway.  The seaman gave it to Uncle Isengar as a parting token of everlasting friendship at the end of their voyage at sea.  Once he was at home, Uncle Isengar felt he needed no trinket to remind him of his friend nor anyone else he had met on his adventure, so he presented it to his father, Gerontius -- mostly as a gesture to lessen the punishment for being a tearaway, as it were¹.

When the Old Took passed away, the lantern was returned to his son, and whenever Uncle Isengar’s favourite nieces and nephews were his audience the old Seahobbit would take out the lamp and light it.  He loved the shadowy effect it had on his own face, and the illuminating effect it had on the faces of his young, enraptured listeners.  But then, when Isengar began to feel old age creeping into his bones, he found a new recipient of his special Storyteller’s Lantern.

After Bilbo had returned from his adventure in the Misty Mountains and enthralled a new generation of nieces, nephews, and cousins with new stories of trolls, eagles, and dragons, Isengar handed the lantern down to his fellow-adventurer and narrator.

When Bilbo turned eleventy-one and decided he wanted to return to the Last Homely House to finish his Book, one of the birthday gifts he gave away was the Lantern; given to my father, Paladin Took.  My father was a brilliant storyteller; he taught me everything I know about how to capture a listener’s imagination, and he, in his turn, learned from two of the best.

Once, when I was very young, my father took advantage of a rain day and told a story of an adventure that he and his cousin Adelard took when they were tweens².  Of course, he said, they were accompanied by adults, but nonetheless, things had been conveniently covered up and never spoken of again.  But did it really happen?  I have my doubts; my father could tell a tall tale and never blink an eye afterwards regardless.  To me, that is the mark of an exceptional storyteller; the listener cannot tell fact from fiction.  And to think the Lantern now belongs to me -- or ought I to say, it did belong to me?  How careless I had been!

As I rode on to Tookbank, I held little hope of ever finding the trophy prized by my father, Bilbo, and Uncle Isengar.  However, I had not been prepared, emotionally, to go through my father’s treasures immediately after his burial, yet I knew it was I that had been neglectful by not placing the chest where it would not have been disturbed.

Fortunately for me, Tookbank isn’t far at all from Great Smials, located a mere three miles to the west.  I arrived just as the market was closing for the day.  My eyes gazed to and fro over the stalls, looking for a hobbit carrying a small wooden workbox over his shoulder much like a shoulder pack.  I also trained my ears to listen for clinking metal objects, which would be attached to the outside of his workbox.  I tethered my pony in front of the Feather And Fur, the local inn, in order to better search the area.

“Have you seen the Tinker?” I asked one of the vendors.  He was busy packing his merchandise for the night.

“Went over yon by the smithy bout an hour ago,” the hobbit answered indifferently.  “Not seen ’im since.”

I enquired of the blacksmith if he had seen the Tinker.  “He left with a peddler-chap I’d not seen b’fore,” replied the smith, then pointed toward the next town. “Had a queer look about ’em.  They went that way.”

Then I felt a bit of apprehension; I thought of Trollsbane locked up in my livery chest in my bedroom.  What sort of roguish company was the Tinker taking up with?  I stood in the empty market stewing over what sort of explanation I would give Diamond for breaking my word.  Going further down the road could mean that I would be extremely late returning home that night.  Well...I am a storyteller!  I found Shadow and we were off again.

Half an hour later, I spied three figures up ahead walking along the kerb.  But as I drew near, I saw there was no Tinker among them.

“Tinker stayed in Tookbank -- at the inn.  Said he had a customer t’ visit in the mornin’.” said the taller fellow.  “Just me, my brother, an’ a friend makin’ our way t’ the East Road t’ get home.”

I let an oath I’d learnt in Minas Tirith roll off my tongue in frustration.  But just as I turned to take my leave, I saw a shiny, gold object dangling from the first fellow’s shoulder pack.

“How did you come by that?” I asked.

“Come by what?” he asked in return, then took on an accused tone. “I’d not pinched anythin’ from that market back there.”

I almost raised my eyebrows in questioning gesture at his last remark, but thought better.  I figured I’d have a better chance at recovering my own property if I remained calm and unassuming.

“I am referring to that lantern,” I answered the peddler, pointing to the shiny object.

“I bought it from Tinker,” he replied in an accent I quickly identified as that of Bree.  “My wife needs a new teapot,” he added unconvincingly.

“Bought it from the Tinker?  And what will it cost if I purchase it from you?”

“Not for sale.”

“Every merchant has his price,” I reasoned casually, trying to goad him into selling the lantern.

“Not this time.” 

The peddler must have known what true gold looks like -- and it’s value.

At that moment, one of the other peddlers nudged the first and mumbled something in his ear about the family.  “All right,” he finally said, “three silver pennies and no less.” 

I understood this peddler’s motives; he was born and raised in Bree and is not well-off.  He is one of many like him who continuously sell their wares on the road between that peculiar town and the Shire in order to make ends meet.  How they obtain their wares is sometimes questionable.  With all of this in mind, I was quite certain this fellow did not recognise me as the Thain of the Shire.

“Ridiculous!” I responded.  However, I nonetheless regretted wearing my expensive red waistcoat with the intricate patterns stitched into the front sections.  This itinerant merchant must have smelled the money I carried as a fox smells the blood of his prey.

There I stood in the road, desperately bargaining with a stranger who possessed something that not only was worth four times what he was proposing, but was actually priceless when I thought of my father, cousin, uncle, and grandfather.  And it was mine in the first place. 

The peddler merely gaped at me expectantly.  “Four silver pennies.  Take it or leave it.”

“How much?” I almost laughed at the peddler in disbelief.  He actually increased the price while I deliberated!  I tried not to sound too frantic, but I fear my rant had belied my intent to appear the casual buyer.

“Four silver pennies!” he repeats with equal fervour, looking me in the eyes and matching my own exasperation. 

“I’ll give you one,” I countered.

“Three.”

“Two.”

“All right,” he finally agreed, “Two silver pennies.”

I sighed heavily, then reached deep into my trouser pocket to bring out my purse.  I counted two silver pieces into the palm of my hand and then gave them over to the peddler.  He was lucky; I rarely carry this much money with me.  Or, perhaps I should count myself lucky for carrying it. 

Two silver pennies is what my father used to pay his field workers monthly for their labour, unless bartering crops was part of their wage.  I had just handed this peddler a month’s wages -- no -- a king’s ransom for something that was, in fact, mine.

I took my leave of the peddlers (and my two silver pennies), bidding them a safe road home.  I used my shirtsleeve to remove the finger-smudges from my precious Lantern, and then I smiled to see the shiny metal catch the golden sunset.

On the way home, I contrived a story for Diamond and the children worthy of merit from the previous possessors of the Lantern.  How I had to fight off six armed peddlers single-handedly...

The End

¹ - This remark refers to my rendition of Isengar’s adventure at sea, called “Gandalf and the Seahobbit”.

² - Paladin and Adelard’s adventure can be read in, “The Storyteller”.