3. The Name of the Game

‘Where are we going?’ Faramir asked as they strode along. Ferdibrand’s pack was on Farry’s back, and he in turn was on Ferdi’s back, legs wound about the hunter’s waist and arms about Ferdi’s shoulders.

‘Does it matter?’ Ferdi asked. He could tell the lad was taken aback by the silence that followed.

‘Y-yes, it does!’ Faramir stammered at last. ‘I’m not going back, you know.’ He sounded very determined.

‘Ah,’ Ferdi answered, and there was another silence. Finally he added, ‘Then you’ll be happy to know that we are headed in the opposite direction from the Great Smials, at the moment.’

He felt the lad tense, then relax.

‘Where are you taking me?’ Faramir asked shortly thereafter.

‘I thought we’d pay a visit to the finest cook in the Shire,’ Ferdi said pleasantly.

‘Your sister?’ Faramir said, consternation in his tone. ‘But they’ll know who I am, they’ll tell...’ his voice broke off, but his arms tightened about Ferdi’s neck.

‘Take care,’ Ferdi said, putting up a hand to loosen Farry’s grip. ‘We’ll get on better if you let me breathe.’

‘They’ll send me back!’ Farry said, his voice muffled as he pressed his forehead against Ferdi’s cloak.

‘They won’t if I’m with you,’ Ferdi replied. He felt the small chin nod. ‘So,’ he said, just to make conversation. ‘What is Gondor like, anyhow?’

‘I don’t know,’ Faramir answered.

‘Don’t know?’ Ferdi said in mock amazement. ‘Then whyever are you going there?’

‘My parents spent a year there when I was little,’ Farry answered. ‘I don’t remember much, except it was Big.’

‘Ah,’ Ferdi commented. ‘That’s no surprise.’ He asked further. ‘How old were you?’

‘It was before my Da...’ Faramir’s voice trailed off.

‘Before your Da became Thain,’ Ferdi finished for him. The little body was again stiff against his back.

‘Is that what this is about?’ Ferdi asked more softly, and heard a grudging answer.

‘What?’ he said, and waited, but no further answer came.

‘You’re running away, because you don’t want to be Thain after your father?’ He wished he could see the lad’s face.

‘I’ll never be Thain,’ Faramir replied.

Ferdibrand pondered. Never be Thain. Did Faramir mean that his father would die before the lad reached the age of majority? The succession generally passed from father to son unless there was no male issue, or the son was too young when the father was rendered unable to continue as Thain by death or disability. In that event, the Tooks would choose the best available hobbit, much as the first Thain, Bucca of the Marish had been chosen. This outcome was all too possible, considering the state of Pippin’s health at the moment.

Another possibility was that Faramir felt he’d disqualified himself from the succession, hard to imagine in someone only ten years of age, yet Faramir had gained as much notoriety in his short time at the Smials as any hobbit twice his age or more.

‘That’s a mercy,’ Ferdi said at last, and waited to see what would come of the comment.

It was uncomfortable, he decided, carrying someone who had stiffened his body so.

‘What’s the matter?’ he asked.

‘You think so, just like everyone else,’ Faramir answered. ‘You think Tookland’s better off without me. Is that why you’re carrying me away without a word against it?’

‘You don’t sound at all like a ten-year-old,’ Ferdi observed.

‘I think a lot,’ Farry replied. ‘I’ve had a lot of time for thinking.’

Ferdibrand was silent for quite a few strides before he asked, ‘So, what is it that you do so much thinking about?’

Faramir didn’t answer.

‘Do you think about the fun you’re not having, because the Tooks are watching all you do?’

‘Fun,’ Farry muttered. ‘You’re still angered with me about the fishing trip.’

Ferdibrand laughed in surprise. ‘Angered?’ he said. ‘Angered? Why in the world should I be? I only missed the birth of my first son, and why was that? Because some hobbit lads thought that they knew more than the foresters who posted signs that a dangerous trail was closed. My friends and relatives thought me dead, drowned, and why was that? Because some hobbit lads thought their fun was more important than their elders’ warnings. It was hardly your fault that the trail crumbled away beneath you, and when I went to save you, it crumbled away beneath me and cast me into the stream…

‘My wife was torn between kissing me and putting me on water rations when I finally appeared before her, and let us not forget the healers who decided to listen to my breathing when they heard how I was half-drowned, and popped me into a bed for two weeks...’ He took a few deep breaths. ‘...but am I angry about it?’ Ferdibrand forced himself to speak lightly. ‘Why, I hardly remember the incident.’

‘You’re the only Took that’s forgotten,’ Farry said, low. ‘Adelgrim died in the stream, and I’m to blame.’

‘You’re not to blame, lad, not fully. Other lads were part of the mischief, and Adel took his own share of the blame, though none will speak ill of the dead.’

‘They speak ill enough of the living,’ Faramir muttered so low that it was a good thing Ferdi had a hunter’s sharp hearing.

‘Folk with sense don’t listen to the Talk,’ Ferdi said, and felt the lad’s warm breath against the back of his neck as Farry snorted. ‘What was that for?’

‘Don’t have to listen to the talk,’ Faramir said. ‘Looks are enough to tell me what they think of me. Worthless son, burden to his parents, a blot on Tookland...’

‘Sounds as if you take after your father in more than looks, then,’ Ferdibrand commented.

‘How dare you speak of the Thain so?’ Faramir hissed in outrage. Ferdi smiled. The lad had absorbed the attitude of the rest of the Tooks in that much, at least.

‘He’d tell you so, himself,’ Ferdi said placidly. ‘He was a wastrel before he settled down. He’d earned any number of names for himself: scapegrace, scalawag, scamp, ne’er-do-well.’

‘He’s a hero!’ Faramir said stoutly. ‘Threw the ruffians out of the Shire, and they say he’s the best Thain Tookland ever had, and...’

‘He didn’t start out that way,’ Ferdi said. ‘You forget, I knew him as a lad. Mischievous, he was. Burned down the old Thain’s stables, you know.’

‘Nearly burned down the stables!’ Faramir snapped. ‘You ought to know, you were there at the time.’

Ferdi actually laughed. ‘Some heroes we were,’ he said wryly. ‘Have you ever heard of such a worthless trick as dying a white pony blue?’ Faramir had no answer, and they continued in silence for a time before Ferdi spoke again. ‘The trouble was, we hadn’t enough to do,’ he said. ‘Nothing worth our while, at least, especially Pippin. Spoilt, he was. What he needed was good, hard work, and problems worth sinking his teeth into.’

He strode along, turning thoughts over in his brain. ‘All right, here’s what we’ll do,’ he said finally.

‘What?’ came the muffled question.

‘I will take you to my sister’s home, on one condition.’

‘What is that?’ Farry asked, a little more clearly. He’d lifted his head and was tense again, listening.

‘You do as you’re told, and don’t speak a word.’

‘That’s two conditions,’ Faramir said.

‘You’re splitting hairs,’ Ferdbrand replied. ‘You do as you’re told, and hold your tongue, and when your leg is healed I will take you wherever you want to go, if it’s in my power to do so.’

‘To Gondor?’ Faramir said. Ferdi was a hobbit of his word, he knew, and if Farry could secure a promise, now...

Ferdibrand took a deep breath. He was not a gambler, and the stakes were awfully high in the game he’d engaged. ‘If that is where you want to go,’ he said. Were he to lose the toss, would Gondor be far enough away to avoid the ire of the Thain? Perhaps he ought to jump aboard a ship instead. No hobbit said to have sailed away on a ship had ever returned to tell the tale. Still, if Ferdi did not play the game the way he saw it laid out, Pippin would lose his son anyhow. This might be Farry’s only chance for reclamation, young as he was; the lad was on the wrong path and running faster with every step. ‘But—‘ he added.

‘But, what?’ Faramir asked.

‘If you disobey whilst your leg is healing, or if you speak one word, I’ll take you directly back to Tuckborough. Do we have a deal?’ He held his breath, waiting, then finally felt the head nod against his shoulder, but then the lad spoke again.

‘I don’t want to go back,’ Faramir said, his voice muffled again. Ferdibrand could feel the lad burying his face in his cloak.

‘Farry, your parents love you very much,’ Ferdi said. Perhaps he could still talk his way around this problem.

He half-expected a denial from a lad who was feeling sorry for himself over his latest punishment for mischief, but instead, he heard a tearful, ‘I know that.’

‘Then why would you go breaking their hearts this way?’ Ferdibrand asked. ‘Do you not love them? Are you not thinking only of yourself?’

‘I do love them,’ Faramir whispered, ‘but I cannot stay and watch...’ He took a shuddering breath. ‘My da will be leaving me, soon enough,’ he finished defiantly. He’d grown up in the shadow of Pippin’s chronic breathing problems—lungs scarred from being crushed under a troll, worsened by a near-fatal bout with the Old Gaffer’s Friend*--growing worse every year it seemed.

‘So your Mum will be well off, will she, with both you and your da gone?’ Ferdi said.

‘She’ll have the babe,’ Faramir said slowly. ‘A new start, someone called it. “It’s too bad about her husband,” they say, “but she’d be better off if that lad were not such a worry to her.” Too bad,’ he snorted, but Ferdi could hear the hurt in his tone.

Silently, Ferdibrand cursed the Talk. Gossip was more of a blot upon the Smials than any wayward son of a Thain. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I see that you are set in your course. Do we have a bargain?’

‘We do,’ Faramir said, his young voice firm.

***

*Old Gaffer’s Friend: Shire term for pneumonia