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Runaway  by Lindelea

Chapter 5. Truth, Half-Truth, and Outright Evasion

Supper at the Bolgers’ table was crowded, cheerful, and noisy, save the eddy at the corner of the table where Farry sat eating his silent meal. He had bowed shyly to his host, nodding his thanks since he could not speak them. Hally gravely accepted the gesture, urging him to be seated. The conversation ranged from one topic to another, mundane matters such as firewood, chores, and whether the winter, already upon them, would be mild or harsh this year. Farry heard the occasional murmur that was not meant to reach his ears.

‘He looks just like I remember Farry Took, but why won’t he speak?’ Robin whispered to his father with a worried glance at the visitor. ‘Is he under the Ban, d’you suppose?’

‘Nay, Rob,’ Hally answered easily. ‘A lad his age, barely into his teens? Hardly! And besides, were he silent because he’s under sentence of shunning, he’d discourage us from speaking to him, knowing the penalty.’

Farry kept his eyes on his plate, aware of Robin’s scrutiny, as well as that of the other children. They had played together on the Bolgers’ infrequent visits to the Great Smials, and it was all too likely they would see through the deception. He began to suspect that Ferdi’s condition of silence was inspired by prudence rather than malice or an attempt to trick him into going home peaceably.

Rosemary kept the plates filled until the talk began to run low as stomachs filled and sleepy thoughts ran slower.

‘Sun’s seeking her bed, and so must we soon,’ Hally said finally, folding his serviette and putting it into its intricately carven ring. The others followed suit. Robin stood up from the table and gathered all the serviettes, placing them neatly on a shelf to await the next meal, while his sisters cleared the table, carrying all to the washstand where Buckthorn was adding hot water to the basins, ready for washing. Another brother had taken up the broom and was sweeping the floor, while others headed out to their evening chores in byre and yard.

Farry sat and watched until Ferdi gave him a poke. ‘I do believe our young friend can dry dishes with the best of them,’ he said. ‘We washed up after ourselves after tea, you know.’

‘I noticed,’ Rosemary said. ‘Exemplary guests you are. Come, Farry!’ she said, holding out a towel. Farry rose slowly and limped over. ‘Does your leg pain you so?’ she asked. Farry shook his head with vigour. His leg was getting better. Of course it was. Why, he ought to be all healed and ready to leave on the morrow.

‘I washed it well and bound it up,’ Ferdi said, rising from his place. ‘You might want to look it over before we go to our rest.’

Hally said, ‘That’s a good idea, Rose. Let the lad dry dishes, to pay for his supper, and then we’ll take a look at the leg.’ He looked to his brother-in-love. ‘Ferdi, how about a pipe?’

‘Perfect end to a good meal,’ Ferdibrand replied, and the two sauntered out to smoke and watch the stars appear above the clearing.

They listened to the cheerful bustle within, quietly puffing away, before Hally spoke again.

‘He really is Faramir, isn’t he?’

Ferdibrand smoked in silence, deigning not to answer.

‘Ferdi, does the Thain know he’s here?’

Ferdi took his pipe out of his mouth, examined it closely, shook his head.

‘Does he know the lad is with you?’ Hally pressed softly. His family were all busy about their chores; there was none to hear, for which he was grateful. He began to feel the stirrings of alarm. Ferdi was acting unlike himself, serious, uncommunicative. Why, the Ferdi he remembered from their last visit to the Great Smials had nearly talked his ears off, had been full of lively jests and frequent laughter.

‘You’ve taken him from the Smials, without his parents’ knowledge or permission? Ferdi, there’s a name for that, though I cannot tell you what it would be... it’s the sort of thing the ruffians did, but hobbits do not do.’

‘Kidnapping,’ Ferdi said quietly. ‘The Thain told me about it, how Men steal folk away for one reason or another.’

‘Are you... ked... kad...’ Hally stumbled over the unfamiliar word.

‘Kidnapping?’ Ferdi supplied helpfully.

‘That’s the word. Is that what you’re doing?’ Hally asked uneasily. It didn’t sound like something Ferdi would do, but then, Ferdi was not acting at all like himself.

‘Not exactly,’ Ferdi said.

‘And what does that mean?’ Hally persisted. He knew how close-mouthed Tooks were with any but their own, when it came to serious matters. Though he could spin stories all the day and into the night, Ferdi might not tell his own sister the time of day, now that she was married to a Bolger, if he didn’t think she needed to know.

‘I cannot tell you, Hally, for it is between the Thain and his son.’

‘But the Thain isn’t here,’ Hally argued. ‘How can it be between...?’

‘I am keeping him safe, Hally, and that is all you need to know.’

‘What are you keeping him safe from, is what I’d like to know!’ Hally said, then lowered his voice. ‘Ferdi, if I didn’t know you better I’d say you’d gone off your head. This is madness! Taking the Thain’s son without his knowledge--’

‘I didn’t take him,’ Ferdi said.

‘Then how would you say you came by him?’ Hally retorted. Ferdi was silent. He wanted to tell Hally, but the scandal of the Thain’s son running away was sure to hurt Pippin; folk would think him cruel, or weak, at the very least incompetent to rule his own family, much less Tookland. The best thing would be to convince Faramir to return to the Smials of his own volition. This whole incident could be passed off as a boyish lark, like the ill-fated trip Faramir and his ne’er-do-well cousins had made to the abandoned mine; at least, Ferdi hoped it could be.

‘I rescued him from a fox,’ he said.

‘And then you brought him all of forty miles, to my home,’ Hally said.

‘Your home is more than halfway to Buckland,’ Ferdi said smoothly.

‘Ah,’ Hally nodded, reassured. ‘You’re going on to Buckland in the morning then.’

‘Not exactly,’ Ferdi replied.

‘It makes me nervous every time you say that, brother,’ Hally said, eyeing him suspiciously. ‘What do you mean now?’

‘I want to give the leg time to heal. I do not want to bring the lad to his father, bleeding.’

Hally nodded. He could see the sense in that. ‘So why doesn’t he talk?’

Ferdi shrugged. To tell of his bargain with the lad would be to give away the secret that Farry had run away. ‘Lads are stubborn,’ he said. ‘Perhaps he has a wager on with a friend.’

‘Funny kind of wager,’ Hally muttered. From the lad’s wariness, he’d almost think Farry was afraid of Ferdi, somehow.

‘Perhaps you can coax him to talk,’ Ferdi said. ‘You’re right, it’s not natural for a bright and lively child to be silent for any length of time.’  He took his pipe from his mouth and knocked out the ashes. ‘Shall we go in?’

They went back into the kitchen, where washing up was just finished, and Hally raised his voice to call out, ‘All right, you lot, ‘tis time to seek our beds.’

‘Aw, Dad!’ the young Bolgers chorused in disappointment.

‘But what about our story?’ Buckthorn put in.

‘Story?’ Hally said, affecting surprise.

‘We always get a story while the fire burns down!’ little Pick said.

‘O the story,’ Hally said, slapping a hand to his forehead. ‘Of course.’

The Bolgers settled themselves around the fireplace, littlest ones on the hearthrug, bigger ones pulling chairs close, Hally in the seat of honour, the rocking chair by the fire.

‘Now let me see, where were we last...?’ Hally said forgetfully.

‘The Fox and the Badger!’ Buckthorn shouted, and Ferdi snorted.

‘Surely you’re not filling their heads with a lot of stuff and nonsense,’ he said. He discouraged talk of his deeds during the Troubles. Whenever asked, he always demurred. He didn’t know that Hally had begun telling the tales to his children; if he had known, he’d have offered to do the storytelling himself this night, keeping to safe topics like Mad Baggins and his talks with dragons.

‘It really happened,’ Robin said earnestly. ‘It’s why you never came to see us during the Troubles.’

‘I saw you, right enough, lad,’ Ferdi said quietly. ‘You just didn’t see me, is all.’

‘He used to creep in under cover of darkness, for a bite and a bit,’ Hally said softly, ‘and he’d look in on you sleeping, and take his bit of news and go off again.’

‘Why didn’t you tell us?’ Robin said.

‘What you didn’t know, you couldn’t let slip,’ Ferdi said.

‘I’d never tell!’ Robin said indignantly.

‘If the ruffians knew you had an uncle from Tookland who visited regularly, they’d’ve watched the house a whole lot closer than they did,’ Rosemary said.

‘As it was he got caught in the end,’ Hally said soberly.

‘Did they throw you in the Lock-holes, Uncle Ferdi?’

Ferdi met Hally’s gaze. It was not common knowledge, these days, that towards the end, before the hobbits had risen up against their oppressors, the ruffians hanged the worst troublemakers, when they could catch them. The hobbits who’d lived to bear the scars never talked about how they were acquired, and other hobbits were too polite to ask. Ferdi had been rescued from the end of a rope before it was too late, though he’d bear the mark of the rope to the end of his days.

‘I escaped,’ he said, ‘with a little help from the Badger. Your father was there, too, wearing a hood on his head, and a nice little group of hooded hobbits they were who spirited me out of the ruffians’ clutches.’

‘Hurrah!’ shouted Buckthorn.

‘Father, how did you gather the bits of news for Uncle Ferdi, anyhow?’ Robin said. ‘The neighbours all thought you were in league with the ruffians. I remember how they stopped coming round for tea and a chat, and we never went to them, neither.’

‘Either,’ Rosemary corrected.

‘Well, that was the beauty of it, you see,’ Hally said, leaning back while Ferdi smiled and relaxed. They were off the subject of the “Fox”, which was fine with him. Hally continued, ‘The ruffians thought we were in league with them as well. They were always coming round to sample your mum’s fine baking, and they’d bring sacks of flour and other foodstuffs so she could cook for them, and there was extra to feed you children, so it was a good bargain all round.’

‘How could you?’ Parsley asked, shock in her tone. ‘How could you feed them? When hobbits were going hungry?’ She had been very small during the Troubles, and had now only dim memories of the time. The ruffians had found her quite charming, and talked to her freely while her mother bustled about, to all appearances too busy to take notice of what was said, though all the time Rosemary was listening intently.

‘Ah, but they relaxed when they ate, you know, and the talk ran freely. We were able to gather up the bits and crumbs that fell and pass them on to the Tooks and Brandybucks, y’know...’ Hally went on to tell how the unguarded talk gave warning to the Tooks as to where the ruffians would strike next in their attempts to enter Tookland. The Tooks would lay traps, the ruffians would be stymied, and Tookland would remain free of ruffians.

‘And Uncle Ferdi took the news back to Tookland?’ Buckthorn asked.

‘Not only took the news back, but laid many of the traps himself,’ Rosemary said proudly. Ferdi shook his head and mumbled something dismissive, and she laughed. ‘ “It’s just like snaring a coney,” you used to say,’ she chuckled. ‘ “An awfully large coney, at that.” ‘

Hally noticed his littlest ones nodding; Pick was asleep, leaning against his mother’s knee. ‘Fire’s burning low,’ he said, sweeping the room with a stern glance. ‘Off to bed with the lot of you!’

There was a disappointed chorus, but the little Bolgers obediently took themselves off to their beds. Hally and Rosemary lifted the littlest ones and carried them off, crooning a lullaby in sweet harmony.

When Hally came back into the main room from tucking in his littlest lads, he saw Ferdibrand walk over to the door and take his blanket from where it was bound to his pack. Ferdi shook it out and laid it before the hearth.

‘What’re you doing?’ Rosemary asked, emerging from the girls’ room. She had directed Farry to lie down upon one of the beds in the corner of the kitchen and now unwrapped the bandage around his leg.

‘Getting ready to sleep,’ Ferdi said. ‘You’ve no extra beds, it seems.’

‘Then let the lad sleep there,’ Rosemary said. ‘You’re the Thain’s special assistant, and he’s merely a foundling with no rank to speak of. He should not take precedence over you, Ferdi, it wouldn’t be proper.’

Hally caught Ferdi’s eye and raised an eyebrow. The son of the Thain should not take precedence over a hired hobbit? It ought to be laughable, but he didn’t feel like laughing. Worry stirred in the back of his mind once more, and he firmly pushed it down.

‘He’s injured,’ Feribrand argued. ‘Let him have the bed.’

‘Now, Ferdi,’ Rosemary scolded. ‘We may live plainly but we know what’s proper.’

Ferdi nodded, resignedly. If he were to play out this charade, the proper thing to do to avoid exciting further suspicion would be to have Faramir sleep on the floor before the hearth.

Rosemary gave the wound another thorough washing before binding it up with fresh dressings. She was sympathetic to the lad’s pain, but ruthless in her assessment and treatment. ‘Such a bite is no joke,’ she said sternly. ‘We must avoid infection if we want it to heal quickly.’ The lad bore her ministrations stoically after that. He certainly wanted it to heal as quickly as possible, as well.





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