Chapter One: Dearly Bought

“When the time comes, will you let me go?”

Adamanta, who sat on a tree root and gazed dreamingly at the Brandywine’s brown waters flowing past them, woke from her silent reverie. She turned to look at her husband’s thoughtful expression. His eyes, unseeing, gazed at the far-off, western bank of the river.

“First, I mean,” he added quietly. “Before you.”

For a moment Adamanta found herself unable to answer. As he sat next to her, with his pale cheeks and his dark hair hanging deep into his eyes, he seemed far away and his words added to the distance between them. His voice was thick and low, sad like never before and her heart ached. Merimac did not speak of it, but Adamanta knew that recent events had shaken him more than he let on. His mother’s death brought forth a side of his character that could not be more different from his usual cheerful and jaunty self. He was deeply troubled but until now she had not been able to guess what was on his mind. He looked at her, searching her face for an answer he did not seem to find.

“Why are you asking me such a question?”

His gaze was uncertain like a child’s would be after he had confessed a misdoing and is doubtful about the punishment the silent parent would deem fit. For a moment she thought he did not know the answer but then he tore his eyes from hers and shrugged. “I don’t want to become like him. He seems fine among company, but whenever I catch him in his office, alone, his eyes are blank and he seems empty.”

Adamanta took his hand in sympathy. She knew he was talking about the old Master of Buckland, who seemed quite at a loss since his wife’s death several days ago. “Give him some time,” she replied and when Merimac laid her head onto her shoulders, she put her arm around him. “Him and yourself. Such wounds take time to heal.”

A gust of wind blew his hair into his face and he shivered. Adamanta kissed his cold brow and looked thoughtfully out onto the gurgling stream. Beside her Merimac was breathing deeply, silently accepting what little comfort she could offer, but her heart was heavy.

~*~*~

She had never answered his question, not even to herself. She could not, though now, twenty years later, she at least remembered – remembered it far too often. Her eyes wandered to the window looking southwards.

“Will you let me go?”

A shiver crawled down her spine and her fingers clutched the soft cotton shirt she had been mending. “I couldn’t,” she whispered, unable to control herself. “It would break my heart.”

Beside her Esmeralda looked up from her own sewing and frowned, but Adamanta paid her no heed. Her heart was racing. Sudden, cold fear was on her. She laid aside the shirt and hurried to the window looking for a sign of the troop of hobbits who had walked to the southern fields, armed with hayforks, knives, axes and bows, determined to hold the root gardens, meadows and crop fields of the Hall.

There was no sign of them. All she could see was a bright sun shining from an untroubled, dark-blue sky. Wind played with the trees, rustling the dark green leaves of Afterlithe.

“Adamanta?” She started. Esmeralda placed a hand on her shoulder, following her glance. Proud she looked, with her hair bound back in a tight knot, yet Adamanta could see the same fear in her sister-in-law’s eyes that held her own heart in a tight grip.

“I feel ill at ease,” she told the older one. “Something’s happening out there.”

Esmeralda nodded. “There are always things happening these days and few make my heart lighter. But we shouldn’t trouble ourselves now. Let us hope for the best and trust in whatever power that guides them,” she said. And then quietly, as if she was talking to herself she added: “While we are still able to trust and hope.”

The Mistress shook her head and closed her eyes for a moment. Gently she then led Adamanta back to their seats by the empty fireplace, but Adamanta kept looking back. Something wasn’t right.

~*~*~

Saradoc called his troop of defenders to a halt. Hobbits of every age and profession stood silent for a moment and then broke into loud shouting and cheering. Twenty ruffians, at whose heels they had been, fled south and east. Some of them shook their fists at the glinting tips of the hobbits’ hayforks and axes which glittered as they caught the light of the afternoon sun.

“That will teach them,” Merimac said as he came to stand beside his brother, grinning broadly. “They will think twice before they try to send us from our fields again.”

“Maybe,” Saradoc wondered. His voice was not optimistic.

Merimac sobered immediately and followed his brother’s thoughtful look to their fleeing attackers. “You don’t trust it.” It was no question.

“Not a bit,” Saradoc replied. “It was too easy and did you see them sneer as they turned their backs on us?”

“Shall we follow them?” one of the boys from Bucklebury enquired.

Saradoc turned to the lad. He had dark hair and eyes and looked to be just out of his tweens. Blood trickled from a cut on his cheek, but apart from that he seemed unharmed. The Master shook his head and put his hand onto the boy’s shoulder. “No, Nibbs, we’ve done enough today. You fought well. All of you,” he added, facing the assembled group of no less than sixty stout-hearted Bucklanders.

The group shouted their approval and shook their weapons in triumph. They had done well indeed. A few cuts and bruises could not be avoided but their assailants bore at least the same number of wounds. The onslaught had been strong at first, but tactics had helped the hobbits to their success. Half of his people Saradoc had sent with Merimac to hide in the high grass, and when Saradoc had feigned retreat and the ruffians had already been sure of their victory, Merimac had surprised them with his troop and their opponents had fled after only a short fight.

“Why not follow them and fight them while we have an advantage?” Berilac asked as Saradoc turned northwards.

“Because we have achieved what we wanted,” Saradoc answered calmly, before he ordered half of his people to keep a close watch over the fields and meadows they had successfully defended. “Be wary and on your guard in spite of our victory.”

“But they would follow us if we were in their stead,” Berilac argued heatedly as he hurried after his uncle. “They would hunt us and make us their slaves like they did with the rest of Buckland. What use is there in defending a couple of fields while the rest of the people suffer?”

“Enough!” Merimac glared at his son, but Berilac would not listen.

“Now we have a chance, Saradoc. If we follow them now…”

“If we follow them now,” Saradoc stopped short and his voice was as sharp as the look he gave his nephew, “we do exactly what they want. Once we scatter we are easy prey and then not only our fields are lost. The Hall and its surrounding areas are the only safe place left in Buckland, Berilac, and I will not put that at risk because I see a chance of following a handful of men. What would you do with them anyway? Slay them?” Saradoc studied Berilac’s unmoved face for a long moment in which the air itself seemed to sizzle with suspense. “You wouldn’t be any better than them if you did.”

With that he turned and after a last doubtful look at Berilac all Bucklanders apart from those that were on watch followed his lead. Berilac stood rooted to the spot, hands clenched at his sides and eyes dark with irritation. Merimac stood beside him and shook his head. “No need to feel misunderstood, son. He is right, and you know it.”

“So you’re on his side?” Berilac shouted.

“I’m not on anybody’s side because there is no side apart from the one we are all trying to protect. So leave it be and come home with us.” Merimac said and though there was a reprimand in his voice it was neither sharp nor angry. He put his hand on his son’s shoulder and led him away. He could see Berilac’s point but Saradoc’s was clearer. The Hall and its folk had priority and if the Master did not trust their victory, neither would Merimac. They had to stick together.

Merimac left Berilac to his sulking once they had caught up with the others and chose the more cheerful company of his friends and cousins. It was only when they were back at the Hall and Merimac wished to consult his son about moving the paddocks that he realised that Berilac had not returned with him. Immediately it seemed to him that a shadow fell upon the land and he shivered in spite of the warmth of the afternoon.

“Oh, that pigheaded fool of a Brandybuck!” he muttered as he gazed back at the road he had just come from. All of a sudden he was more afraid and troubled than he had been in all the months since Men first entered the Shire.

“Merimac, are you even listening to what I’m saying?” He was dimly aware of Marmadas standing next to him, grumbling something about the ruffians not being idle while they had defended their fields. “We might still hold the crop, but they have taken all our sheep. One of the scouts reported that they have broken the fence and driven them out going north eastwards. We assume they are heading for Newbury. However, Tobi, who keeps an eye on the Bridge, reported that they are taking loads of stuff westwards to Hobbiton, though I can’t imagine what they would want to do with a flock of twenty sheep. Merimac! Will you stop nodding to yourself and listen up!”

“He is gone.” His voice sounded strange even to his ears. “I have to find him before he does anything stupid.”

With that he ran leaving Marmadas to call after him in confusion. “I’ll be back soon!” Merimac shouted and to himself he added.
“Hopefully.”

~*~*~

Merimac had reached the southern fields in less than fifteen minutes and there he learned that Berilac had indeed come back and had hurried after the bunch that had run away eastwards. “We tried to stop him, but he wouldn’t listen to us at all.”

Of course he wouldn’t. Once Berilac had put something into his mind he would see it through, even if it meant to beat his head against a brick wall. And this wall, Merimac had no doubt, was a strong one. He did not dare to call for Berilac. Saradoc’s words were still clear in his mind and now they seemed to him even more probable than before. Unconsciously, he ran from one cover to the next, sometimes hiding behind a tree, sometimes sneaking around a now abandoned house or smial. A dead silence had fallen over Buckland. In these days even the birds seemed to be fewer and their twitter less cheerful.

He had long left the Bucklanders’ tiny refuge behind, when he heard a rough voice and taunt laughter – the very sounds he had dreaded to hear. He crouched behind the closest tree and laid his hand onto the hilt of a small dagger he always kept with him these days. Sweat lay on his brow and his heart thumbed wildly in his chest as he strained his ears and sneaked a glance from behind the tree trunk.

Merimac gasped and his eyes widened in utter shock. Less than twenty paces ahead stood Berilac, breathing hard, his eyes like livid fire. Blood trickled from his nose and ran over his chin. He was swaying but he would not bend to two enormous broad-shouldered and square-faced ruffians standing before him.

Merimac dug his nails into the tree’s bark. His heart urged him to storm right at them, but his mind warned him to be careful and stay hidden and out of their reach as long as he could. He needed a plan, and quick. Wildly he searched the ground for stones to throw, but the grass was as smooth as any well-tended meadow in Buckland, and he would not throw his knife, the only weapon he had against the brutes.

“Did you really think one small, little maggot could fight us?” one of the ruffians scoffed.

Instead of answering Berilac charged. His knife found the laughing one’s hip and successfully wiped the sneer from his face. The man screamed in pain and stumbled backwards, swearing and clutching at his hip. Merimac secretly congratulated his son. Even small, little maggots had teeth!

But the momentary joy vanished as quickly as it had come. Merimac stood still, heart, body, and soul momentarily frozen. Time stopped as realisation struck him. Berilac had stopped moving. He stood, slightly bent over like an old gaffer whose back would not allow him to walk straight. His knife, which he had held with both hands, slipped from his fingers. The second man, similar in figure than the first but with less hair, seemed to support him, one arm around his stomach, the other holding Berilac’s shoulder. Then the stranger drew his knife, deeply buried in Berilac’s stomach and pushed the hobbit away from him, so that he landed hard on his back and did not move again.

“That will teach him!” he growled and turned to his companion.

Merimac stood thunderstruck, deaf and dumb to the world around him, his eyes fixed on his son. Like a drunken person he swayed towards the motionless body even as the ruffians withdrew. Cover and stealth were no longer of importance. Nothing mattered apart from that still, brown-haired figure. As if in a dream he stumbled towards his son, dizzy and disbelieving.

“Berilac,” he whispered as he sank to his knees next to the boy’s body, and tears sprang unbidden to his eyes. He was breathing – harsh and laboured – but breathing nonetheless.

“Berilac,” he whispered again and as he brushed his hand across the pale brow his son’s green eyes fluttered open.

“Father,” the voice was barely audible, but to Merimac it seemed that he had never heard a more beautiful sound. It was all he needed to wake from his stupor. Swiftly he took off his shirt and pressed it onto the bleeding wound on Berilac’s right side.

“I’m sorry, father,” Berilac breathed and his eyes fluttered. “I…”

“Hush,” Merimac whispered and put a finger onto his boy’s blood-covered lips. “Save your breath. I’ll take you home now and everything will be all right.”

Merimac tried to smile and hide his fear, even as Berilac sucked in his breath and his face contorted with pain. Hastily, but very carefully Merimac stripped Berilac of his shirt and tried to bind it around his son as a make-shift bandage. He had just finished when Berilac’s laboured breathing was again interrupted by a breathless “Father…”

Merimac looked at his face and saw that the pain had been replaced by fear, but before he even realised what was happening, a hard blow onto his back made him fall over and knocked the breath from his lungs. Instinctively, Merimac reached for his knife but before his fingers even touched the hilt a strong hand grabbed him around the wrist and turned his arm until he uttered a muffled scream of pain.

“Don’t even think about it, maggot,” a voice threatened behind him. He was lifted to his feet like a stumbling child and his knife was taken from him. Bent with the pain in his back, Merimac turned to see a third man standing before him, this one wielding a club. He was smaller than the other two but his arms were strong. He grinned, revealing a mouth in which only a handful of rotten teeth were left. Merimac looked away in disgust and clutched his throbbing wrist as he forced himself to breathe.

He stood quietly, awaiting his doom; for even though he felt numb and less afraid than he thought he would be, he knew in his heart that it was very likely that neither he nor Berilac would ever return home. And there was nothing he could do against it. He was too small, too weak.

“Don’t worry. I don’t have no mind for killing, as long as you do as I ask.”

If he had been able to Merimac would have laughed. The blow he had received told a different story.

“Leave,” the man told him and Merimac could not help but to look up in surprise. “This land is no longer yours and I would suggest you surrender the rest as well if you don’t want to end like this one.” He nodded at Berilac whose eyes were closed again.

Merimac made no reply but knelt down once more. He caressed his son’s pale cheek and whispered a few words into his ears. He then pulled Berilac’s arms around his neck and tried to heave the limp body onto his shoulders. He painfully remembered the cheerful giggles of a young boy who loved to be carried piggyback even if the destination of his ride was his bed.

Merimac’s legs trembled as he struggled to his feet, his son’s dead weight heavy on his aching back. Roaring laughter accompanied his task and made it all the more difficult to get up. “What are you doing, Halfling?”

Merimac mustered all the strength and courage he could find within himself. As he turned to face the man he stood straight, with grim determination on his face. “I am Merimac Brandybuck,” he said proudly and unfaltering, “son of Rorimac Brandybuck, and I am not going to let my child die in the wild.”

For a moment the ruffian seemed to hesitate. His eyes were full of wonder, but once Merimac turned his back on him, he laughed the louder for it. “Take him with you then,” he sneered. “It won’t make no difference. Before you reach home he’ll be dead.”

As Merimac walked on the straight route to Brandy Hall, stubbornly holding on to his determination, he felt that the words were not far from the truth. In the beginning Berilac moaned and muttered and listed to Merimac all the people the boy was sure he would never be able to say farewell to. Yet, eventually, he fell silent. Blood trickled down Merimac’s back and thighs – blood that was not his. Had it not been for the warm shaky breath Merimac felt on his neck, he would have thought his son dead already.

The journey home seemed to drag on endlessly. He sweated and ached so much he had to will himself for every single step. Several times he stumbled and almost fell, but he did not dare to rest. Every delay would reduce Berilac’s chances. Besides, he was not sure if he would be able to pick his son up again, once he lay him down.

His legs felt like lead and his heart was as heavy, trembling with anxiety. A hundred questions, all beginning with that fateful line ‘what if’ filled his mind. What if he was being followed? What if he did not make it home in time? His eyes burned with exhaustion and fear, when eventually Merimac gave up his fight. He sank to his knees, trembling all over. Berilac still lay across his back and Merimac did not dare to put him down for he dreaded that the face he would be looking into would no longer hold any sign of life.

“Master Merimac!”

At first Merimac thought he imagined the voices and shook his head, standing on the verge of despair. How he would tell Mantha, explain to her that he had not been able to protect her son and defend him when his need was greatest, he could not guess. What Bluebell would say to that he did not even want to know.

“Master Merimac! What happened?”

Suddenly they stood all around him. He recognised them as the hobbits watching the south eastern brink of the Hall-land, as the Bucklanders had come to call the refuge that was Bucklebury and Brandy Hall.

“Help him,” Merimac told them with the last bit of strength left in him, as Berilac’s weight was gently lifted off his back. “Bring him home and help him. Be quick! Please, be quick.”

He was not able to look at his son again, for a handful of hobbits hastened away with Berilac in their arms as soon as he had finished his words. Another, so he was told, was already on his way to the Hall to alert Fastred Bolger and Ted Puddifoot, the old healer from Bucklebury and the young one from the Marish, who, for the time being, both resided in Brandy Hall.

“You’re bleeding, sir. Can you walk?”

“No,” Merimac shook his head as if in a daze. “I’m fine. It’s all his. Save him, please.”

“It’s all right, Master Merimac,” the same voice told him. “Master Berry is in good hands now. Come, let me help you to your feet.”

Merimac was dimly aware that two pairs of hands grabbed him under the arms and helped him to his feet. His entire body seemed to throb with a dull pain and every limb was trembling with exhaustion. He was unsure whether to trust his legs but somehow, with the help of Rufus and Togo, he managed it to the Hall where he was already expected by Saradoc, his form glowing red in the light of the sinking sun.

“How is he?” Merimac asked before Saradoc could pester him with question.

“Alive,” his brother assured him, but his face was troubled. “You look dreadful. What happened?”

Merimac gave his brother a brief account of what had occurred while Saradoc led him to Berilac’s room. A fire jittered merrily in the hearth and candles had been lit. The smell of myrrh and alcohol lingered in the air, mixed with several other herbs Merimac’s tired senses were unable to distinguish. Adamanta stood at the bed’s head. Her eyes widened when he entered the room and for a moment her face, which seemed almost as ashen as her son’s, seemed to light with relief. Beside her, Pimpernel stood, bravely fighting the tears that threatened to spill over her eyes. She and Berry had married only two years ago and for the first time, with a pang of guilt, Merimac realised that on the way home he had only worried about his little family and had unintentionally left out Nel.

“That’s it,” Fastred said as he cut off the thread of the stitches he had just done. “You may bath the wound with myrrh, Ted, and if he wakes up, see to it that he drinks some tea. Cinquefoil should help against a possible infection and dandelion to stimulate the blood production. He has lost a fair amount. Also,” and now he turned to Adamanta, “I would like him to get some broth as soon as he is able to have it. One made with narrow bones would be excellent and some thyme. Even garlic,” he added as an afterthought.

As he turned around the aged healer came face to face with Merimac. They looked at each other for a long moment, before Fastred waved him outside. “You look dreadful, boy,” he told him as he looked him over.

“Will he make it?” Merimac asked, ignoring the comment. He had known Fastred all his life, or so it seemed to him, and he was glad that the old healer had taken care of Berilac although he had, in fact, retired a couple of years ago. In times like these, however, every helping hand was needed, and Merimac trusted Fastred’s skill.

“If he wakes up to drink and have some broth, he has a fair chance,” Fastred replied truthfully. “If he doesn’t I will have to find another solution to get some nourishment into him. For the time being, however, all we can do is to wait.”

Merimac nodded weakly and Fastred put a hand on his shoulder. “You did all you could, Mac. He is all right. No organs have been damaged as far as I can tell, and with what you had you wouldn’t have been able to stop the bleeding anyway.”

Again, Merimac nodded, unable to find anything to say.

Fastred gave him an assuring smile. “I suggest you wash that blood away, and then, I think, little Bluebell will be glad to see that at least one member of her family returned hale.”

Only now Merimac became aware that dried blood stuck to his hands and legs, where it had run down in small runlets from Berilac’s wound. Merimac swayed at the sight of it and Fastred quickly grabbed him by a trembling arm. “Rest Mac,” the healer advised him. “Rest for tonight at least and tomorrow things might look brighter already.”

“I will try,” Merimac replied and his voice wavered. Slowly he turned his back on the healer, but when he was about to disappear behind a bend he felt Fastred’s hand on his shoulder once again.

“Take these,” the healer told him as he handed him a small pouch of dried herbs. “Valerian leaves, all that are left of last year’s. You seem to need them.”

Merimac looked at the small leather pouch, feeling both grateful and exhausted beyond measure. “Thank you, Fastred.”

~*~*~

Merimac gazed blindly at his hands. They were smeared red and covered with small foam bubbles. He had always considered them strong and vigorous, gentle and protective, able and capable of every task he set himself. He dunked them in the basin and immediately the water turned a pale red. Merimac shivered and looked at his dripping fingers once more. For a moment he wondered whether he could still trust the strength that used to be in them, after all he had not even got a chance to defend himself. His right wrist was already sporting a reddish black bruise. He shook his head and stepped into the bathtub he had prepared for himself.

The warm water eased his aching muscles almost immediately and yet the pain in his back prevented him from being comfortable. Steam hung in the air like mist on a late autumn morning. The warm glow of the fire was on his cheeks. He closed his eyes and listened to its flickering and the occasional crack of a log. It would have seemed like a peaceful moment, if his heart had not been that heavy as it thumbed almost painfully in his chest. To Merimac it felt as if it still cringed with fear and worry. He could not forget the moment Berilac fell motionless to the ground and once again he asked himself why he hadn’t helped him, why he had stayed as if rooted to the spot instead of running to his son’s aid.

And so he lay in water stained with his son’s blood, and inhaled the soothing fragrance of valerian. His mind was troubled, his body ached, but his soul was numb.

~tbc~