Chapter 6 - “Pennies Dropping”

Penny brought the empty jug back inside and left it on the counter. She did not feel she could face Halbarad for the moment and didn’t return to the little parlour. She wanted some air, needed to clear her head. There were too many things about this place that were beginning to freak her out a little. She wanted to have a look around this fake ‘Bree’: find the chinks in its armour. She imagined it like a film set: all painted flats held up with sticks and weights. None of it real.

It would cost a bit to create this kind of set-up, surely? And how come she, an avid Tolkien online nut-case, had never heard even a whisper of this place? It would have been all over ToRN just for starters, wouldn’t it? There would be countless LOTR fans willing to cut off their right arm to come here, latrine or no latrine, if word had got out about this place.

But there was something about it. She couldn’t put her finger on it.

She came out of the door under the arch and onto the road. She stayed on the opposite side from the sewer and, gingerly picking her way round fresh horse droppings, headed in the direction away from the gate.

She took her time, taking in her surroundings.

She noticed she was getting stared at quite a bit. Scowled at, even. These role-players clearly weren’t friendly towards outsiders. That much was certain. Or was this all part of the game? But why would someone go to these lengths just for her benefit? It was all highly unlikely and far- fetched, yet it was the only explanation she could come up with. The idea that there was some community of LOTR role-players somewhere in the world and she had been kidnapped and dumped among them seemed equally ludicrous.

The buildings were all clearly solid and either made to look old or already were. Fences and gates were stained with age and nails were rusted. The cobbles were worn smooth in two lines where countless carts had bumped over them. This had to have been here a while. It made it seem all the stranger that she had not heard about this place somehow on the Tolkien-nut grapevine.

Suddenly she felt a hand upon her arm. She spun, surprised, to find ‘Halbarad’ glaring down at her. He snarled something at her and pulled her back with him towards the inn. She shook herself free.

“What do you think you are doing! How dare you pull and push me about like you own me! I have the right to walk where I please. I want to see ‘Bree’ and find out just how mad you all really are. And you can’t stop me!” She had her hands on her hips, her eyes defiant.

When Halbarad, still sitting at the window smoking his pipe, had seen her walk past and down the street,he had nearly choked.

News of her arrival would have spread within five minutes of her coming through the gate. That she was foreign, lost, had been wearing male clothing, was in the company of a filthy Ranger and had made a scene at the inn would also be well known by now. Given what had happened the last time ‘outsiders’ were here and then hooked up with a Ranger, tongues would be wagging and people fearful. The Black Riders would not easily be forgotten, nor should they be.

Even as he had stormed after her he had seen the faces at windows, the glares and whispers of the villagers watching her pass. Worse than that, she was being far too curious. More than once he saw her stop and peer over fences or stare at a hobbit passing her by. Added to which now she was arguing with him. Again. After her performance this morning and her mentioning of names she should not know he had little choice but stick with her and keep his eye on her but it was going to take all his patience to put up with her.

“You are making your presence here far too noticeable,” he growled. “If it was not for the fact that it would bring yet more unwanted attention, I would slap you, you stupid wench. What is the matter with you!”

“Worried I might find something, are we?” She was looking at him belligerently, a smirk on her face. “Like a telephone? Or where the REAL toilets are? Electric cables for microphones? Oi! Get your hands off me! Put me down! HEY!”

Halbarad had put his arms about her waist, lifted her off the floor and was carrying her back to the inn. Yes, the villagers were staring, but at least in amusement now rather than suspicion. Let them laugh. Better than the usual surliness and mistrust he got from them. The gatekeeper had been even ruder to him than usual that morning. Halbarad could not blame Aragorn. Nor, indeed, could he blame the villagers themselves. He would be surly and mistrustful himself if Black Riders had been in his village and more than once.

She was still protesting as he put her down, shoved her through the door (though not too roughly, as tempted as he was) and then bustled her down the corridor to the parlour. He closed the door behind them and turned to find her glaring at him in fury.

“I have had just about enough of this! And of you, for that matter! I want to know what is going on! Don’t stare at me like I’m some mad woman! This is not funny any more and I won’t put up with it. Do you hear me? Talk to me, godammit! Say something. Something intelligible, at least!”

Halbarad waited for her to finish. He had his back against the door to prevent her leaving. She eventually ran out of steam and sat on a chair by the fire, looking both furious and upset.

“Finished?”

His voice was calm and cold. A wiser person than Penny might have realised he was in fact very angry and near the end of his tether. He came over to her, pulled a chair over to sit in front of her and glared at her, his hands on his knees.

“Listen, you stupid woman. I do not know who you are, or where you come from. You either can’t or won’t tell me, but let me tell you this: you are not leaving my sight till I can get you to Elrond.”

She raised her head at him, her eyes narrowed in anger but curious as to what he was saying as he continued.

“Yes, you heard me: Elrond. I am taking you to Elrond. And Aragorn is likely to be there too I imagine. At least I hope he will. If not I will leave you there and go and find him and the tubuk he is said to have joined. More to the point is that YOU,” he jabbed his finger at her, his fury clear as he snarled at her, “YOU are a liability and incredibly stupid. These are dangerous times and you have behaved in the most ridiculous manner from when I first laid eyes on you standing and screaming on the top of a hill. I am beginning to doubt your sanity, if truth be told, but even so, given what you seem to know of me and those I love dear, I have little choice except take you with me. BUT, and let me make this ABSOLUTELY clear,” and he moved his face close to hers, “You WILL start to behave. Language barrier or no language barrier. If I have to keep you tied up and my sword drawn to do it, I will. I will NOT allow you to jeopardise my life or that of my friends or put them in danger with your loose tongue or appalling behaviour!”

He stopped for a beat, then growled quietly and with menace, “I hope I have made myself clear.”

She did not know what he was saying but it was obvious he was very angry. It was apparent that she had irritated him to the point where he was now exploding at her.

She felt very aggrieved, considering she felt she had done nothing wrong, but the way he was talking left her in no doubt that she had better keep on his good side for a while. She was, ultimately, entirely at his mercy given that she didn’t know where she was, couldn’t speak the language, and had no means of even trying to get home. The fact that he was walking about with a sharpened sword that he had already waved at her twice added weight to her decision. She still didn’t know what the set-up was here. She wasn’t prepared to risk his anger, on the off-chance that this was a TV show and that he couldn’t kill her, and then find out she was wrong. For all she knew he was just one nutter amongst several and no-one would care or miss her if she disappeared.

“I don’t see what the problem was,” she muttered, feeling tears in her eyes. Then she looked at him, her face twisting into a sneer, “Or is this all part of the roleplay? Oooh! Better be careful or Bill Ferney’ll get the Nazgul on me! Ooh. ‘Cos I’m SO scared!”

Halbarad had stood and bent to pick up his pipe where he had left it on the hearth. He now turned to her with a gasp, his face etched with shock. He nearly dropped his pipe.

“Did you just say...? WHAT did you just say!”

Penny could see that either he was a very, very good actor (which she doubted) or he was genuinely concerned and possibly a little scared by what she had just said. She had to hand it to them: they really got into character. She laughed.

“Please don’t tell me you are freaking because I said ‘Nazgul’!”

He clamped his hand over her mouth suddenly, snarling at her. Whatever he said he clearly meant it as his hold on her was stronger than it needed to be. His eyes were flashing with anger and mistrust. He lifted his hand from her mouth and waited. She giggled. He scowled. She bit her lip and tried to look solemn. She failed.

He could see she just found the whole thing funny. That settled it. She WAS insane. In that moment he moved away from her before he really did lose his temper and did something he would regret.

Even as he did so there was knock at the door and a hobbit came in with a linen tablecloth, which he spread over the table and smoothed down. He was soon back with two bowls and spoons, two mugs and a pitcher of beer. Then a tray was brought with bread, cheese, cold meats and a tureen of stew. The hobbit bowed and left them, closing the door behind him. Halbarad turned to Penny.

“Come. Eat something.” His voice was neither warm nor gentle. He had had enough of her.

She nodded, feeling very lost and alone all of a sudden and came to sit on one bench. Halbarad sat on the opposite one but pointedly at the other end of the table from her so they were not facing each other. He dished out some stew into her bowl and cut her a hunk of bread, then served himself and ate quietly, not looking at her once.

The stew was good. She now realised that it was only Halbarad who didn’t use salt. The meat was suspect though. Of the three pieces in her bowl two were kidneys and the other had a valve in it and she strongly suspected was a piece of heart. She ate round them, enjoying the veggies. She glanced at Halbarad out of the corner of her eye and noticed he was tucking into his offal with relish. Gross!

He poured beer for himself and then clunked the pitcher down heavily between them so she could reach it. She poured herself some. She needed a drink. Her head was beginning to throb again and she was aware that she was sniffing, her nose running.

The beer was surprisingly good. It was no doubt home-brewed or local. It was not dissimilar to the ‘real ales’ she had tried at various points in her undergraduate years. She thanked God she had been to uni surrounded by Northerners who had weaned her off lager and on to bitter. She drained her mug and poured herself another.

She realised she was actually very hungry. She picked up the bread and, cutting herself some cheese, munched happily enough. Well, she was being fed well by these nutters she had to admit.

She glanced at Halbarad once more. He was still ignoring her. Something about his reaction to her talking about Nazgul had scared her a little and she was not sure she knew why. She shook her head. This was ridiculous. He was getting to her now, making her succumb to all this roleplaying lark.

“Thank God I didn’t start mentioning Mordor,” she muttered. He glanced at her, glared and carried on eating. ‘Fine. I’ll just shut up completely then, shall I?’ she thought. Bloody hell! She poured herself another mug of beer, ignoring his raised eyebrow as she did so.

Halbarad watched her as she drank her way through her third mug of beer. He had never seen a woman drink quite so much or so fast. Apart from the fact that she was leaving little beer for him, which irked him because Butterbur served a good brew, he little relished the idea of having to deal with this mad woman while drunk. Yet again she was in danger of bringing attention to herself.

He picked up the pitcher and brought it over to his end of the table.

“That’s enough of that, young lady.”

She scowled at him.

She was beginning to feel a bit woozy. Whether it was the beer or the cold she wasn’t sure. She didn’t think it would be the beer. It wasn’t that long since she left uni and she could still hold her drink pretty well. Well, moderately well. Ok, she couldn’t hold her drink at all but it would still take more than three mugs to make her feel as peculiar as she was feeling right now.

She hung her head in her hands. She had a splitting headache. She got up and went to a chair by the fire once more. The clothes were nearly dry she could see. She sat, staring at the fire with her mug of beer in her hand. She was feeling worse and actually feeling cold despite her proximity to the flames.

“Bloody fantastic,” she shivered, “I was already feeling like crap but, no, I had to wash clothes in a freezing river till my fingers were numb. Yeah, ‘cos THAT’s a bloody intelligent thing to do when you’ve got a cold.” She shot a filthy look over her shoulder at Halbarad.

Halbarad had lit his pipe and was watching her. She was looking pale and shivering slightly. He remembered her sneezing this morning. Her eyes were half closed and she wouldn’t stop sniffing. She pulled out her handkerchief, blew her nose, and groaned, holding her head once more. She put down her mug on the hearth and leant forward in her chair to get nearer to the fire, hugging herself and rubbing her arms. Halbarad was concerned. She was ill. He cursed himself for sending her to wash the clothes. She was deteriorating rapidly before his eyes.

As far as Penny was concerned the rest of the late afternoon and evening was a bit of a blur.

She was aware of the hobbit returning to clear the table and Halbarad talking to him while gesturing towards her. The next she knew someone was wrapping a blanket round her and talking kindly. She looked up to see it was the hobbit woman from the washing stoop. Someone, possibly the same hobbit woman, was leading her upstairs to her chambers. She was vaguely aware of being helped out of her dress and into bed still wearing the undershift. There was a fire lit in her room. She drifted into unconsciousness.

At some point someone came in her room. She felt a cool hand touch her brow. She opened her eyes but couldn’t really focus properly. Someone was trying to get her to sit up and drink something.

She sat up, keeping the sheets and blankets round her as she realised it was Halbarad. It was a mug with something hot in it. She could smell honey... wine... and... herbs or spices or something.

She looked at him blearily. He said something and pointed at his nose and throat. Something for her cold presumably. She drank. It tasted vile. She made a face. He laughed but made encouraging hand gestures for her to keep drinking so she finished it as quickly as she could and then, handing back the mug to him, sank back into the pillow and went to sleep.

Halbarad put another blanket over her. He touched her brow again. She was burning up. Best to let her sweat it out of her system for now but he would have to keep an eye on her.

He had sent the hobbit woman away when Penny had started murmuring in her sleep. Good job he did too. She had mentioned Aragorn several times, and his own name, as well as other things he did not understand. Still, the hobbit had brought him some hot water as he had asked.

He rummaged in his pack and brought out some dried athelas, mixed it in a bowl with the water and put it on a table by her bed.

Penny was vaguely aware of an aroma filtering through to her. She felt her head clearing a little. She opened her eyes and, able to focus better this time, saw him standing over her, concerned, with a bowl in his hand. She smiled weakly.

“Let me guess. Athelas.” She chuckled slightly as she drifted back to sleep.

He shook his head. He gave up. How on earth she knew about athelas he had no idea but little she said any more could surprise him he did not think. She had secrets and an untold story that much was clear. He just hoped Elrond could get it out of her.

He stayed in her room all night. Her temperature went steadily up and he kept her well covered to encourage it even though she threw off the covers or tried to. Once she was sweating profusely and the fever had well set in, he stripped the blankets back and started wetting her brow with a cool, wet cloth soaked in the now cold athelas infusion. Sometime in the early hours the fever broke and she became calmer, sleeping more soundly. He could leave her be now. He pulled just one blanket up over the sheet covering her, then went to sit beside the remains of the fire to light his pipe and mull over this strange woman.

She knew of him, Aragorn and Elrond. She had mentioned the Nine and yet had considered them a joke or perhaps didn’t believe they existed. This would not have been odd except that few had heard of the Nine and those that had certainly knew them to be real and feared them. No. Little she said or did seemed to make any sense at all.

Just before dawn he could see she was sleeping peacefully and he left then to go to his own room.

Penny was woken by a gentle knocking on her door at six in the morning: Halbarad had asked for them to be woken early. She was surprised to feel her head much clearer and her throat not at all sore. She still had the cold but it was mild and receding now, she could tell. A serving woman bustled in with a bowl, jug of water and a towel. She smiled at Penny and disappeared.

As Penny sat up she saw the bowl of athelas beside her and the extra blankets bunched at the bottom of the bed. She could smell pipesmoke in the room. So he had been here looking after her. She shook her head. He was full of contradictions: snarling at her one minute, refusing to explain anything to her or be reasonable, and then he was giving her his cloak or getting her shoes or sitting with her in the night when she was ill.

She had washed and dressed by the time Halbarad knocked. He was pleased that she looked so much better. He gestured to her to hand him her now clean PJs, which he stuffed into his pack, and follow him downstairs.

In the parlour the table was laid with bread, honey, jam, butter and fruit. As they entered a hobbit wandered past them in the corridor with a pot of tea on a tray. Penny spotted it.

“Oooh! Tea!”

Halbarad saw her reaction and asked the hobbit to bring them some.

“Is he bringing some?” Penny was asking and Halbarad, guessing her question, nodded. She beamed.

Halbarad shook his head and laughed softly. It was rare to find anyone other than hobbits who drank the stuff.

When the hobbit returned in a little while with the tea, Halbarad noticed her staring at the poor man. She couldn’t keep her eyes off him. He could see her eyes flicking from the hobbit’s feet to his ears and back to his feet. Halbarad sighed and shook his head.

The hobbit left and Penny gleefully poured herself some tea with milk.

“Have you never seen a kuduk before?” asked Halbarad. She furrowed her brows at him. “Kuduk. You were staring at him just now. And the one on the stairs yesterday. Kuduk.”

Penny looked at him baffled. ‘Kuduk’? What the hell was a ‘kuduk’ when it was at home?

“Do you mean ‘hobbit’?” she asked. Halbarad looked uncomprehendingly at her. Penny was surprised.

She had been irritated and stunned by his not knowing of Tolkien or recognising the name ‘Bree’ or ‘Butterbur’ (though it was possible, she supposed) but ‘hobbits’ were now standard amongst loads of roleplaying things, surely, even amongst those who knew little or nothing of Lord of the Rings. The same was true of ‘elves’. That word - ‘hobbit’ - had to have international currency amongst roleplayers, surely?

“Hobbit,” she said again. No, he quite clearly did not know what she was talking about. “Periannath,” she said.

Halbarad’s jaw dropped. She was using Sindarin!

A slow smile spread across his face. He nodded. “Periannath, yes. It is what the Eldar call them.” She nodded as he said the word ‘Eldar’.

Halbarad’s mind was reeling a little. She knew of the Eldar, then, as well.

“We call them ‘kuduk’,” he continued. “‘Periannath’, ‘Kuduk’: it is the same thing.”

Penny was looking at him baffled. Clearly ‘kuduk’ was their name for ‘hobbit’. This seemed very odd that they were translating things into their own language. Why not use that which Tolkien used?

They ate the rest of their breakfast in silence, each mulling over this new level of communication between them and what it could mean. It was only as Penny was following Halbarad to the stables as his horse was brought out to them that she remembered something. From the Appendices. ‘Kuduk’ – she knew she’d heard the word before! It was the Westron word, the local Bree word, for ‘hobbit’. ‘Hobbit’ had been the Tolkien translation for it.

Her heart was beating a little faster and her mouth had gone dry. Suddenly an already strange situation had taken an even weirder turn.

She stared, her mouth open at Halbarad as he tied his things to the saddle.

They were speaking Westron. Or what they thought was Westron. Her mind was racing. Had anyone created a Westron? She had never been into studying the languages of Lord of the Rings and she was now mentally giving herself the kicking of her life for not doing so. She read the books and knew the stories and enjoyed fanfic but that was about it. She had seen some of the language websites. Loads of Quenya and quite a bit on Sindarin, but little on Westron from what she could recall.

Westron was near enough non-existent, wasn’t it? What on earth were these people doing? Was this their native tongue with Westron muddled in? ‘Athenticity’ seemed to be the watchword round here. Authenticity to the point that... that...

She looked round. That was what was wrong. She had noticed it yesterday.

Everything was too real.

Halbarad had climbed in the saddle, had walked the horse over to Penny and was now holding his hand out for her so she could climb up behind him.

She was in shock. She was trying to process all the information that was now flooding into her head, all those little things she had noticed or only now seemed significant. She was trying to make sense of it. She could feel her heart thumping and she was not sure why. She felt like she had all the pieces to make sense of it all, but she could not see it.

As they moved off, through the archway, and East through the village, Penny suddenly realised she had not had an opportunity to look for a telephone or car or someone sane who spoke English. Then she remembered Halbarad’s fury and how he had spoken to her when she had tried to do a rekkie yesterday. This man clearly had other ideas about what was going to happen. She had a brief moment of hope at the thought that perhaps he was going to take her to somewhere else, somewhere where there WAS contact with the real world. Why did she think that unlikely? Why did she feel not a little panicky at all the things racing through her brain?

As they neared the Eastern gate she could see a ramshackle, darkened hovel to one side of the road. She snorted. Bill Ferny’s place! Of course.

She sighed and shook her head. What was she worrying about? It was a reconstruction. That was all it was. Why she was here or how she got here she still did not know, but she must not let the buggers get to her. She felt irritated with herself that she’d let herself get freaked out.

She had just convinced herself when she took a last look at Bill’s place over her shoulder. There was a figure at the filthy window, staring at them as they rode past. He had slightly sallow looking skin and squint-eyes. Very odd looking. She could see also see another figure stood next to him. He was swarthy with an unpleasant look about him and dark, bushy eyebrows.

Her heart was in her mouth as she realised that Bill Ferny, for it could only be him, had a bruised and broken nose.