Chapter 32. Shoot First, Ask Questions Later

Renilard stared from the two ruffians to the head of the Thain’s escort in surprise. Of course, he’d known a Man or two in past times himself, back before the time of the Troubles. There’d been a conjuror-fellow, wandering the Shire with just a pack upon his back, earning his bread by astonishing hobbits young and old with simple tricks. Not a bad fellow at all; Paladin had granted him a pass, that he might tramp the lanes and fields of the Tookland, long after Men in general had been banned by the Thain’s order. Renilard had seen him in the marketplace of Tuckborough a time or two, had even flipped a few coppers into the upturned hat resting on the cobbles after laughing at the man’s jokes.

There’d also been a tinker of his acquaintance, who’d sold and repaired metal items, and carried teapots and other goods for sale, though after Paladin took a disliking to Men in the Tookland, the Tooks had to travel to Bywater to treat with him. Most of the travellers passing through the Shire were dwarves, at any rate. There never had been many Men in the Shire so far as the history of the Shirefolk went back, when a long-dead king had granted the land to hobbits to hold; at least, there hadn't been until Lotho began hiring his oafs and the Troubles began.

Keeping his arrow ready and centred on the heart of the spokesman, he worked his way over to Tolly, who’d let his bow droop somewhat--he’d be sending an arrow into the ground at the feet of the ruffians, at this rate. ‘They know you?’ he said. ‘You know them?’

Tolly seemed to be at a loss for an answer; his jaw worked, he swallowed, and then he raised his chin and shouted to the other hunters. ‘Bind them!’

‘Not going to shoot this lot, are we?’ Renilard said. ‘I thought the general idea, lately, was to shoot first and ask later.’

Tolly paid him no mind, watching as one of the other hunters, Joliard by name--a close cousin of Renny’s--approached the Men with care. ‘Robby!’ he called. ‘Is it well with you?’

‘Turned my ankle,’ the Shirriff said in chagrin. ‘I ought to know better than that...’

‘Renny,’ Tolly said, turning to the Thain’s chief hunter, but not to answer his questions. ‘Go and help him; see if his ankle needs to be bound up.’

‘Aye,’ Renilard said, and though he was dissatisfied, he thought he’d ask his questions later, after they’d disposed of the wretches to the Rangers.

...which, as it turned out, he had no part in, for Robby’s ankle turned out to be badly sprained if not broken, swelling in an alarming fashion and turning several shades of violent hue. Someone had to help the hobbit hobble along to the nearest habitation, and Tolly elected Renilard for that honour, accompanied by his cousin, while the other hunter, Mugwort Grubb, went with Tolly.

Four of the ponies were gone when Renilard and his cousin, supporting Robby between them, reached the spot where they’d left the beasts tethered, and he nodded his head. Tolly would have reached this spot long before the injured Shirriff and his escort could, for they'd been moving very slowly of necessity, what with the roughness of the ground. Robby had made the best of things, and they'd done what they could to spare him, but he'd been sweating profusely and pale with pain and exhaustion long before they came to the ponies and lifted him up.

It was clear to the hunter that Tolly had got up the nerve to put an end to the wretches, as was only right; for finding them this deep in the Shire meant they were up to no good, and it was a long trek to the southern Bounds, and they might try and make mischief along the way if they saw their way to escaping. Two ponies for Tolly and Mugwort to ride, and two to carry the bodies of the late ruffians to the waiting Rangers, that would be about what would be needed. There’d be no reason to take the pack-ponies if the Men were walking on their own feet.

He made a full report to the Thain upon his return to the Smials. Tolly wasn’t back yet, which was not surprising. It was a long way to the Bounds, after all, and then he'd have to make his way back again.

***

Once the greater part of the hobbits who’d captured them were well behind them, Ted ventured to speak again, even though this Tolly who confronted him, grim-faced and silent, was so different from the hobbit who had sworn everlasting friendship with the woodcutter’s boys. ‘Do what you must,’ he said, ‘but I have a last request to make of you, before we go to our doom.’

‘A last request?’ the second hobbit said, and laughed incredulously. ‘Did you hear that, Tolibold? This lot of ruffians thinks we might grant them a last request!’

‘Master Grubb,’ Tolly said stiffly. ‘They go to their deaths, and understand that fact very well, for reasons you may not be privy to knowing.’ He did not look at the prisoners, and his heart inside him was a stone, if stones could be said to ache.

‘O and I suppose you are “privy” to knowing such?’ Mugwort said, nettled, and then his good nature reasserted itself as he jumped from his saddle to help up one of the ruffians, who’d stumbled. ‘Steady now! Lots of holes in this part of the wood, little creatures digging under the ground. Wouldn’t want you to turn your ankle like the good Shirriff did, and have to carry you!’

‘He’d have to drag himself along, at least until we reached the ponies,’ Tolly muttered. He was trying to think of them as just another pair of ruffians, two more in a series of men in the Shire for no legitimate purpose, up to no good, but he was having little success.

‘Hard to walk along with hands bound behind you,’ Mugwort said in the manner of one making polite conversation, and he pointed ahead in his most helpful manner. ‘Mind that rough ground, there.’

‘My thanks,’ Tod said--not little Toddy any more, but a Man grown--and old enough, Tolly told himself fiercely, to know better than to be where he was now.

‘If you please,’ Ted said. ‘It’s not all that much out of the way, if you’re taking us to the southern Bounds.’

‘He wants to see the sights, he does!’ Mugwort crowed in astonishment. ‘Why,’ he said, shaking a wise finger, ‘I suppose you’d be asking for the grand tour, would you?’

‘We just... we’d like to see our old home once more, just once more, before our ending,’ Ted said unsteadily, and if his hands had not been bound behind him, he’d have wiped a trickle of moisture from the corner of one eye. He had no illusions about the situation; how ironic to run into an old friend at this juncture, one whose hands were as bound as Ted’s in this situation, bound by his duty to his Thain, and the King’s Edict banning Men from the Shire. They’d known... but confident in their knowing of the ways of the Shire and Shirefolk, they’d thought themselves safer than other men.

‘Not all that much out of the way,’ Tod echoed. ‘By the blood that’s between us...’

Tolly felt a burning pain in his heart, almost as if the old handkerchief with its faded brown stain were a fiery dart, smouldering inward from his pocket.

Mugwort misunderstood. ‘You’re brothers, you said,’ he responded. ‘What would bring brothers this far into the Shire, I ask?’

‘We meant no harm,’ Ted said, ‘though you won’t believe it. We simply came to reclaim what was ours, our family’s, by rights.’

‘Men lost all rights in the Shire after Bywater,’ Mugwort said firmly, though he maintained a pleasant tone. ‘They ran you lot out of the Shire, and good riddance, I say. My old dad fell in that battle, struck down though he was bearing only a pitchfork to defend himself.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Tod said. ‘It wasn’t my father, or my uncle, or my brother that struck him. They didn’t go to Bywater, but the hobbits came after the battle and burned our cottage and drove us from the land, ushered us down the Stock Road and out of the Shire, and no time to gather our belongings.’

‘Belongings!’ Mugwort snorted. ‘Gatherings, more like.’

‘They didn’t gather,’ Tolly said belatedly, pricked by his conscience. ‘They were honest woodmen, working for what they held.’

‘Woodmen!’ Mugwort said. ‘If they were in the Shire they were working for Lotho, cutting down trees willy-nilly with no regard nor consideration! Good riddance, I say!’

Though the talk continued in that vein, with Mugwort carrying the major part of the conversation with his remembrances and observations, the Men noticed a slight change in direction--the westering Sun was no longer directly to their right. Instead of moving southwards, they’d taken a slight turn towards the West. Without saying yea or nay to their request, Tolly had adjusted their course.

Though there was no future for them, Ted hoped that at least their journey would not be in vain. Tolly was an honourable hobbit, and he might see his way to finishing on their behalf what they’d set out to do.