Sam reflects on the events that led to him becoming a spy for the Conspiracy – in three ficlets.

This is for Dreamflower, who won a drabble from the “stump the author” challenge on lj. She requested a drabble about Merry’s first approach to Sam about the Conspiracy. Erm, I got a little carried away. It’s just a *wee* bit longer than a drabble. ;D

My Conspiracy

Spring 1393 SR
Frodo is 25 and Sam 13 (about 16 and 8 in Man years)

Master Frodo calls at me from the back door and leads me to his room. He closes the door and leans down to look me in the eyes, and he’s real serious by the way he talks but I can see a twinkle of mischief in those blue eyes of his also. He’s up to somewhat and he needs my help with it, which is fine by me. I do for Master Frodo from time to time and never mind none what all he comes up with for me to do.

“I’ve something to ask you Sam,” he says, “a mission, if you’re willing and have the time.”

“What’s that, Master Frodo?” I ask.

“Oh, it’s nothing really,” he says, which is his way of saying that it is something. He’d not be asking for my help if it weren’t. So I wait real quiet and expectant-like ‘til he continues. “Mistress Tuttle has been making hints in my direction regarding her daughter Tulip. I think she might be planning something, but I don’t know what. I do know, however, that she always goes down to market on Trewsday mornings and that she visits with the weavers for a time while she’s down there. Do you think you could manage some transactions for me tomorrow morning at the market and bring me back any little tidbits you might pick up while you’re down there?”

“Daisy’ll have to come with me,” I say, for I’m still not allowed to be a running errands like that by myself.

Master Frodo doesn’t like this but he ain’t got no choice but to accept it. So next morning, Daisy and I trot down to market to fetch things for Gaffer as we need in the smial. When I see Mistress Tuttle arrive and head for the weavers’ booths, I make my excuses ‘bout having to fetch for Master Frodo and I trot off at a smart pace afore Daisy can say aught. I sneak through the booths until I come to where the weavers are and I pretend to browse while I perk my ears towards Mistress Tuttle. She and her friends ain’t a bothering to keep their voices down none, so I have no trouble overhearing what all they got to say. When I have the information I need, I grab whatever’s near at hand, purchase it from the coin as Master Frodo gave me, and meet up with Daisy as she’s making her way up the Hill.

That afternoon, Master Frodo finds me while I’m working alone in the side garden, wending the vines in the trellis. Gaffer’s off away in the lower gardens and Mr. Bilbo is probably hiding away in his study or taking one of his short little hikes down to the Water, so we’re all alone.

“So?” he asks.

“You were right, sir. Mistress Tuttle wants you to court Miss Tulip. She’s going to come up tomorrow morning and ask Mr. Bilbo if you could tutor Tulip in her Shire history. Seems as Tulip has a sudden wanting to learn all about the Fell Winter,” I say.

Master Frodo nods and I can see as he’s got a plan already forming in his head. He’s real smart like that. “You did good work, Sam-lad,” he says, smiling proudly, which would be award enough but he goes on a talking. “You and your father should join us for tea today and I’ll get you some bread pudding for all your hard work.”

The next day, Mistress Tuttle comes up the walk path and spends some time speaking with Mr. Bilbo. When she comes back out, her face is pinched up and she don’t look too happy. She’s actually muttering under her breath when she walks past my Gaffer and me as we’re trimming the hedgerow. Gaffer mutters somewhat about ungrateful hobbits a wasting the master’s time, but I just keep my head down and keep trimming.

I find out later as Master Frodo got Mr. Bilbo to agree on insisting to tutor Tulip himself, what with Mr. Bilbo having lived through the Fell Winter and all. Mr. Bilbo might not have liked tricking Mistress Tuttle, but he also weren’t about to force Master Frodo to do something as he didn’t want to be a doing. Mr. Bilbo don’t ask Master Frodo how he got his information, but next time Mr. Bilbo sees me, he tips me a wink and pats my head.  

Summer 1411 SR
Frodo is 42, Sam 31, Merry 29, Pippin 21 (27, 20, 18 and 13 in Man years)

The master’s having another bad day.

He weren’t too happy last week when he opened his front door and found Master Merry and Master Pippin standing there, and unannounced at that. They’ve been doing that a lot lately, coming by without leave and staying for a week or two or longer. Only this time, Master Folco and Master Fatty have been coming down from Overhill every day too and the four of them are near to driving Mr. Frodo out of his wits.

Mr. Frodo don’t tell me naught but I can see these visits are beginning to wear on him. He loves his cousins dearly and is pleased they like visiting as often as they do, but sometimes – most times actually – the master likes to be on his own, free to do what he wants and go where he likes. With Master Merry and Master Pippin here, they keep asking him where he’s going, can they go along, why don’t my master settle down already, that last topic being one guaranteed to rise my master’s ire more’n aught else they might say. They seem to think that with no one about to keep an eye on him – I don’t count seemingly – that my master will up and run away without a moment’s notice soon’s they turn around and take their eyes off him.

Mr. Frodo puts up with it for as long as he can but after a week of having them underfoot, his patience is wearing thin. I hear the strain in his voice when he greets his cousins good morning and I know well enough what that tone means. So do they but they don’t pay it no heed.

I’m under the kitchen window seeing to the kitchen garden, pruning what needs pruning and pulling the stray weed here and there where I see them starting to shoot up. The ripened vegetables need pulling up also and so I keep a couple of baskets next to me, one for the food and one for the weeds and clippings. I’m there to work and not listen, but I can’t help but overhear everything as is being said.

“Morning Frodo,” Master Pippin says, chipper as can be. “Merry and I made second breakfast.”

“I was thinking that we could go down to the Pool and do some swimming,” Master Merry says. “It’s been so warm these last few days, a good swim would be quite refreshing. After that, we can…”

“That sounds splendid, Merry,” Mr. Frodo says, interrupting his cousin, which just goes to show how worn to the nerves he is. He don’t hardly interrupt no one, what with being raised better’n that, so for him to do so now means that he’s near the end of his tether. If his cousins know what’s best for them, they’ll be backing away slowly and leaving Mr. Frodo alone today. Mr. Frodo goes on to say just that, only more polite-like. “You and Pippin should fetch Fatty and Folco while you’re at it; you will all have a grand time, though you may find it difficult getting Fatty and Folco near the water. I think I shall stay here and get some work done. Those accounts won’t balance themselves, after all.”

“You won’t be coming?” Master Pippin says.

“It won’t be the same without you there, Frodo,” Master Merry goes on. “I have the whole day planned of things we can do together.”

“Is that so?” Mr. Frodo says and I find myself holding my breath as I dig up the carrots. There’s about to be a confrontation here, or my name isn’t Gamgee. Sure enough, when Mr. Frodo continues, his voice is real tight and overly calm. Reminds me of the stillness in the air, almost expectant-like, just afore a storm hits. “And why is that, Merry?”

“Why is what?” Master Merry asks, and from the sounds of it, he can smell the storm coming just as easy as I can. I can’t be too sure though as there never is any telling with Master Merry.

“Why is it that you are suddenly so determined to plan every single minute of my existence?” Mr. Frodo says. He’s trying to sound flippant, but the strain of it only makes him seem that much more a tempest. He must notice this and decide to give it up, for he continues normal-like. “Believe it or not, I am quite capable of minding my own affairs. I do not need you or anyone else to govern what I do.”

“That’s not what we’re doing,” Master Pippin says.

“Isn’t it? What are you doing then? Spying on me? Making sure I don’t take off into the Blue like Bilbo did?”

“Of course not,” Master Merry says but we all know that Mr. Frodo has the right of it.

“You know, lads,” Mr. Frodo says, and his voice is dripping with sarcasm now, for all that it sounds so sweet, “if you’re that concerned about me leaving, then why don’t you just have Sam spy on me for you. He’s here all the time after all and it would really be much more convenient for everyone involved.”

“Sam?” Master Merry says, and there are any number of things as can be read into the tone he uses, too many for me to make heads or tails of, but one becomes obvious when he continues. “And I suppose you’re going to tell us next that we shouldn’t bother worrying about you at all because your gardener lad takes such perfect care of you.”

A long pause follows this and I know without peeking that Mr. Frodo is giving Master Merry his icy Baggins glare. When he finally answers, his voice is even tighter. The clouds are setting to burst open if this continues too much longer. “You want to leave this room. Now.”

They do just that. A few moments later the back door opens and slams, and Master Merry goes storming around the smial to the back garden, Master Pippin trailing along behind him. Neither of them notice me sitting in the vegetable patch. Silence reigns in the smial and I wait a few minutes afore standing and peeking into the kitchen to find Mr. Frodo sitting at the table, his head resting in his hands and his shoulders slumped under his dressing robe.

I brush off my breeches and take my clippers to the lower garden. I select some roses and delphinium, and a bit of the acanthus, lilacs and sage. I peek into the kitchen window when I get  back and make sure my master’s still sitting there. Then I sneak inside to his bedroom and put the flowers in the vase that he keeps on the bedside table, filling the vase with water from the ewer. He’ll find the flowers later when he comes in to change into his day clothes, and they’ll make him smile.  

Rethe 1418 SR
Note: This vignette takes place during the same timeframe as Chapter 5 from “The Trouble With Love”.
Sam is not yet 37, Merry is 35 (about 23 and 21 in Man years)

Mr. Merry and Mr. Pippin arrive just in time for luncheon. I don’t see them for more than a few moments but from what I see of them, they don’t look too happy. Mr. Merry looks a positive wreck, like he ain’t slept well in some time, and Mr. Pippin’s just trying to keep up with him and cheer him up. They glance over in my direction as they tether their ponies to the garden fence, then they disappear into Bag End.

About an hour later, Mr. Pippin comes out and I help him take the ponies down to The Bush for stabling. As we go down the Hill, Mr. Pippin lets out all about Mr. Merry and Miss Estella. Seems Miss Estella finally up and declared her heart to Mr. Merry but Mr. Merry went and turned her down, claiming he don’t love her, which is just a bold-faced lie if I ever heard one. According to Mr. Pippin, Mr. Merry felt as he couldn’t claim Miss Estella for his own acause of the upcoming possibility that Mr. Frodo would be leaving us and Mr. Merry going with him and possibly never coming back. Not to mention that Miss Estella is courting another lad to boot. So Mr. Pippin offered to take the ponies to The Bush to give Mr. Merry time to talk to Mr. Frodo about his heartache, though Mr. Merry won’t be telling Mr. Frodo the full truth of it either.

It’s plain as a pikestaff that Mr. Pippin is wound up with worry for Mr. Merry, more so than for Mr. Frodo at the moment. After all, Mr. Pippin’s always been a hobbit as lives in the present, and Mr. Merry is in pain now, whereas Mr. Frodo won’t be leaving for who knows how long. We stable the ponies and take a pint while we’re there. When we get back, Mr. Pippin goes inside and I go back to work.

I don’t see Mr. Merry until that night. He comes out to the shed as I’m putting my tools away for the evening. In the moonlight, he don’t look nearly so forlorn except that the shadows make the bags under his eyes look darker. He lingers outside the shed making small talk about the weather and the crops until I finish cleaning my tools and putting them in their place. I step out the shed and he leads me partway down the Hill to the Party Field. We sit against the Party Tree and look out over Hobbiton, little lights twinkling here and there in the distance and all along the bridge over the Water.

“I got your letter,” he says once we’re settled. So it’s straight to business. I guess after speaking out his troubles to Mr. Frodo, he’s not wanting to repeat them. I guess also that concentrating on Mr. Frodo helps the heartache to feel less sharp. “You said Frodo acquired more foreign maps. What else can you tell me?”

“I don’t got much more,” I admit. “Truth is, Mr. Frodo’s usually pretty good about putting everything away so I don’t see it. He does go down to the Road a’times and speaks with the Dwarves when they pass through. I see him going down the Hill sometimes when Gaffer and me are out smoking our pipes. Once I heard tell he was seen talking to Elves.”

Mr. Merry don’t say anything for a while. He’s absorbing what he’s heard and he’s thinking right fierce on it. He licks his lips and hugs his chest against a sudden chill wind. “It’s getting worse, isn’t it?” he asks. “Every year, Frodo grows more restless. This year he’ll be fifty, the same age as Bilbo when he went on his adventure. You know what this means, don’t you?”

“That Gandalf’s due to show up and whisk Mr. Frodo away on a quest to hunt treasure,” I say, only half-joking. Truth is, I’ve been keeping a sharp eye out for the wizard since the beginning of the month. If there’s one thing I learned from my studies with Mr. Bilbo, it’s that history has a habit of repeating itself. “You don’t really think Mr. Frodo’s planning on leaving, do you?”

“I do. If he’s to have any hope of seeing Bilbo again, he’ll have to go soon. Pippin and I have no way of knowing when he might be getting ready to leave. We can’t start visiting unannounced too often or he’ll get suspicious.” Mr. Merry looks up at the stars and sighs. “Sam, I hate to ask this of you…”

“Ask me what?” I say.

“You’re the only eyes and ears we have here,” Mr. Merry says. “You need to spy on him.”

“Ain’t that what I’ve been doing?” I ask.

“To a degree,” he replies, “but it’s not enough. Just observing him isn’t going to help. You need to find out everything you can about his activities. I need to know not just who he’s talking to, but what he’s talking to them about. I need to know what he doesn’t tell anyone. That means following him, when you can, reading his journals, his correspondence, checking his accounts. Where is he spending his money and for what? If we get enough clues, we might be able to piece together what he is planning. You’ll have to lie to him, possibly several times.”

“What if he catches me?” I ask.

“Tell him anything he wants to hear, whatever it takes to keep his confidence.”

“And what if he figures out what I’m doing and he tells me to stop?”

“Tell him you will, then be more discreet.”

Now it’s my turn to look up at the stars and sigh. This is going far beyond observing and overhearing. This is poking my nose in my master’s business and that goes against everything my father ever taught me.

“Look, Sam, I know this is going to be difficult for you and I’m asking a lot, maybe too much,” Mr. Merry says. He squeezes my shoulder encouragingly. “But it’s for Frodo’s own good. If it helps, he did tell me once that I can have you spy on him for me.”

“He didn’t mean it like that though,” I say, “but I can choose to ignore that.”

“He told you about that?” he asks, shocked, and I can’t blame him. All these years, he never knew I overheard what he said about me that morning.

“I was in the garden working,” I confess. “I wasn’t trying to listen.”

“So you were spying even then?” he says and he smirks to cover up how awkward he feels. “Why Sam, I do believe you were born to spy on Frodo, to be a part of our little Conspiracy. You’ve a natural talent and you shouldn’t let it go to waste.”

“I won’t. I’m in it to the end, Mr. Merry, on the condition I can go with you when you all leave,” I say.

“You’d leave the Shire?” Mr. Merry says. “Well, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by that. You always would do anything for my cousin.”

“Even spy on him, seemingly.”

“He’ll be angry when he finds out.”

“He can only ever stay angry for so long,” I point out.

“True enough,” he admits. “What about Rosie?”

“I ain’t promised her nothing yet,” I say, “and she ain’t asked me to, what’s more.”

“Maybe she’s just waiting for you to make a move,” he says. “Maybe she’ll get tired of waiting.”

“Then she gets tired of it,” I say. “There’s not much as can be done about it now.”

We’re silent for several minutes, each of us lost in our own thoughts, me of Rosie and him of Estella. He lost his only chance with his love in order to protect Mr. Frodo, and I look to be taking the same risk. My hands shake a little as I think on it, but I push it off as the cold and tuck my hands under my armpits to warm them.

After a time, Mr. Merry holds out his hand for a shake, as good as any legally-binding contract with seven signatures in red ink. “We have a deal then.”

“That we do,” I agree and shake his hand. The pact is sealed and just like that, the Conspiracy is formed. I feel a weight come over me as I let go Mr. Merry’s hand and the burden nearly chokes me for a bit until I can push the fear down to my gut and put aside my panic. Mr. Merry squeezes my shoulder again and he keeps it there until I nod, indicating I’m all right now.

He stands and holds his hand out to me and helps me to my feet. We walk back to the gate at the edge of the Party Field. He turns to go up the Hill and I turn to go down. After a few paces, he stops and turns back around to face me.

“Sam,” he calls.

“Yes sir?” I say, turning around.

“I take it you heard what I said about you before, that day in the kitchen?”

“Aye.”

“I didn’t mean it. Not then, and certainly not now.”

“I know that now, Mr. Merry. Don’t you go fretting on it.”

“Pippin and I will be leaving for Tuckborough at the end of the week. Frodo will be coming with us. We should be able to keep him for a week at least, if you want to get started,” he informs me.

“He always leaves me a key,” I say and I almost feel sick, knowing the trust my master puts in me to do that, knowing I’m about to betray that trust in the worst possible way. But then I think of living in the Shire without Frodo here to cheer it up and make it glow. I think of Mr. Frodo wandering the wilds with no friends to keep him company on the long road, and of all the troubles Mr. Bilbo faced on his adventure, and what if Mr. Frodo runs into trouble of his own and has no one there as can help him. I swallow down the nausea and wave good night to Mr. Merry. I turn and head down the Hill, and I know, with everything that I am, that my life will never be the same again.

The end.

GF 1/30/07