Chapter 4. Once Bitten, Twice Shy

Regi looked in at the doorway to the second parlour, nodding to the hobbits of escort waiting there. At the moment Hilly was standing at the door to the Thain’s study, and he hadn’t known where Tolly had got himself to—most likely he was in the parlour by this time of the morning, seeing as how it was nearly second breakfast!

But Tolly was not in the parlour, nor had his hobbits seen him. ‘The stables, perhaps?’ Isenard suggested.

It was a possibility. Tolly, as head of escort, was on duty from early breakfast until teatime, unless specifically relieved of his duties by the Thain, or directly given a task lasting past teatime, or starting after, though he’d be given time off in compensation as soon as was practical. If he weren’t trailing the Thain or Mistress or their son, or carrying a message for the Thain, he ought to be found standing duty outside the Thain’s study, or waiting in the second parlour where there was invariably a game of Kings going, or in the stables, checking on one of his ponies, or the ponies belonging to the Thain, so that they could be ready to ride out at any moment, on the Thain’s order.

However, when Regi checked the stables, all he could find out was that one of Tolly’s ponies was gone.

As Tolly was gone, without leave, and without explanation.

With an uneasy feeling growing, Regi next sought out Meadowsweet, who spent her mornings dancing attendance upon Diamond. Usually Haldi’s Laura made herself available to the Mistress in the afternoons, and either the wives of the escort or minders took turns watching their children while they were occupied with business.

‘Tolly?’ Meadowsweet said, putting down the tablecloth she was mending. ‘Why, he’s...’ she stopped to think. ‘He was gone when I wakened, sent on some errand or other by the Thain, I thought...’ Her voice trailed off at sight of Regi’s face. ‘He’s not?’ she said, and she thought of Tolly’s worries, the previous afternoon, that they’d blame him for the ruffians who’d taken the son of the Thain. He’d shown a pair of ruffians safely out of the Shire, some time earlier, and what if they’d told others how to slip by the Rangers?

He’d known, when they left last night’s celebration, that the Thain would be wanting him first thing, “to hear his report”. Pieces began to fall into place, pieces of uneasy, scattered dreams that had troubled her when she wakened so early, to find him gone, and as her thoughts swirled, the colour drained from her face. She blinked, swallowed hard, said carefully, ‘He’s... he’s not in trouble with the Thain, I hope?’

‘Why would you think such a thing?’ Regi said, while Diamond rose from her comfortable chair and settled on the settee next to Meadowsweet, a comforting hand on Sweetie’s arm.

‘It’s only,’ Meadowsweet began, and the waking nightmare of some weeks earlier returned in full force, Tolly being taken away against his will, accused of child-stealing, and she might never see him again... She burst into tears, hiding her face in the mending.

Diamond tried to soothe her, and heard her moan something to the effect that she’d put her foot in it, but proper.

Regi’s suspicion had been stirred, however, by Meadowsweet’s reactions, and he stared sternly down at the weeping wife. ‘What do you know of this?’ he asked.

‘Naught!’ Meadowsweet sobbed into the tablecloth, and she shook her head, but Tolly’s gentle, loving manner last night now took on an ominous shade of meaning, coupled with his despair on returning from the Bounds, and his almost desperate grasping at hilarity in the celebration afterwards. Had he, perhaps, let the murderous ruffians go?

But no, Mayor Sam had gone with him, to witness their end.

‘What do you know?’ Regi demanded.

‘Naught!’ Meadowsweet repeated, bringing the tablecloth down to stare at him with reddened eyes.

Regi found this difficult to believe. He drew a deep breath, preparatory to launching into a flurry of questions.

But Diamond put him off, rising from where she sat beside Meadowsweet, to address young Faramir who'd been perched on Diamond's footstool, laying a staying hand on her son’s shoulder. ‘You work those sums, as I showed you,’ she said, ‘and if there’s anything you need, Sandy’s in the little sitting room, polishing the andirons.’

‘Yes, Mum,’ Farry said, looking up from his slate of sums with wide, startled eyes, and if anything brought home the seriousness of this situation to Meadowsweet, it was this: Diamond was leaving her son, who’d been as recently as yesterday in the clutches of ruffians, leaving Farry to go with Meadowsweet to the Thain’s study, where undoubtedly the ruffians would be the topic of discussion. Diamond, willing to leave her son—albeit, deep in the fastness of the Great Smials, with servants nearby—and ruffians, and Tolly who knew where...

‘Come along, Sweetie,’ Diamond said, putting out a hand to Meadowsweet. Tolly’s wife had no choice but to take it, and rise to her feet, and suffer Diamond’s arm slipped around her waist, subtly guiding her to the Thain’s study. Regi fell in at her other side, and Sweetie felt like nothing so much as a prisoner under escort.

She stifled a sob, and Diamond murmured something meant to be soothing.

‘Yes?’ Pippin said, looking up from the papers he was perusing as they entered, and seeing Meadowsweet, he rose from his chair. ‘But what about Tolly?’

Meadowsweet managed to keep hold of herself as Diamond explained. ‘Tolly left the Smials, early this morning, to all appearances. He’s nowhere to be found, at least, and one of his ponies is gone.’

Diamond guided her to a chair, and both wives sat themselves down.

Pippin resumed his own seat and gestured to Reginard to pour out cups of tea. ‘Perhaps he’s exercising the beast,’ he said, ‘and lost track of the time.’

‘Tolly?’ Regi said, pausing in mid-pour. ‘In the dark of a winter morn? If it were the summer, perhaps, but in the winter months he pays one of the stable lads to exercise his ponies for him. The gloom troubles him, as you know...’

‘I know,’ Pippin said, ‘but it’s never affected his ability to satisfactorily perform his duties. He’s a very loyal and devoted hobbit.’

Diamond spoke her fear. ‘Pippin,’ she said, hesitating, and her husband turned to her with an inquiring look. She cleared her throat. ‘Are you certain...?’ she said.

‘Certain,’ he prompted, when she stopped.

‘Are you certain the ruffians are dead?’ she said in a rush, and accepted the cup of tea Regi held out to her with a gasp of gratitude.

‘Why, of course!’ Pippin said, rising again from his seat to go to his wife, to envelop her (carefully, of course, minding the tea) in comforting arms. ‘Of course they’re dead. I saw them myself!’

‘Is that where you came back from?’ Regi said. ‘I had the impression you’d been in Buckland.’

‘We went to meet the King by the Bridge, true,’ Pippin said. ‘But he has ways of seeing things afar off, and he showed us the ruffians, dead.’

‘You saw them afar off,’ Regi said slowly. ‘But not in the flesh?’ He had difficulty imagining such a thing, but then it was generally said of Regi that what he lacked in imagination he made up for in energy and attention to detail.

‘What are you saying, Reg?’ Pippin said, but Diamond spoke at the same time.

‘But Mayor Sam was there as well, with Tolly, and surely he wouldn’t...’

‘And Mayor Sam is well-known for his emphasis on the quality of mercy,’ Regi said ponderously, his tone heavy with irony. 

Meadowsweet could scarcely breathe for the fear that rose in her, like bitter bile in her throat, but the Thain’s calm, measured tones helped her to keep control of herself.

‘They were dead, I can assure you of that, Regi,’ he said. ‘Elessar said as much, and I trust him implicitly.’

‘But was he there?’ Reginard said, frustrated. He had trouble believing what he’d not seen with his own eyes, what he could not reach out and touch with his hands, and he had not yet heard the full tale of Pippin’s time in the Outlands, to know of the wonders as well as terrors beyond the Bounds of the Shire.

‘Sam was there,’ Pippin said, and when the steward would speak again, he stepped away from Diamond and raised a staying hand. ‘Nay, Regi, I will not jump to conclusions nor borrow trouble, not this time!’

‘But...’

‘Nay, I said,’ Pippin repeated, and Meadowsweet felt the return of hope at his insistence. ‘Tolly has ever been an upright and honourable hobbit, with years of faithful and loyal service behind him. I will not begin to believe anything less of him on such scanty evidence.’

‘Why would he leave the Smials like that, not a word to anyone, not even his wife?’ Diamond said, putting down her teacup to lay a hand on Meadowsweet’s fists, clenched together in her lap.

Pippin spread his hands. ‘I have no idea,’ he said. ‘I must admit, it’s unlike the hobbit to do such a thing. At least we know he’s not in league with Ferdi, this time, in some hare-brained scheme to save the Thain from worry by worrying him half to death...’

Regi snorted. ‘Ferdi’s in no condition to be in league with anyone.’

Pippin shook his head. ‘I halfway wish that he were,’ he said. ‘He’s the best tracker in the Tookland, but I cannot ask him to take up Tolly’s trail from the stables this morning...’

‘I’ll send for the chief hunter,’ Regi said. ‘I doubt the healers will even let anyone talk to Ferdi, much less worry him about Tolly’s unusual behaviour this morning.’

‘No,’ Pippin said. ‘He’s too recently come from his deathbed, to be bothered about anything.’

He seemed to think a moment, and then nodded to himself. ‘Yes, Regi, send the chief of the hunters to me at once, and we’ll set him on Tolly’s trail. Surely there’s some sort of reasonable explanation for him taking himself off in the dark of a winter morning...’ he considered, and added, ‘...especially knowing he was wanted, first thing.’

Meadowsweet swallowed down her fear. She wished she could feel as confident as the Thain sounded.