Chapter 15. A Way of Escape

It took Pippin and Rosemary both to calm Farry, but at last he fell into exhausted sleep.

'Why is he afraid of you, Ferdi?' There was quiet menace in Pippin's voice.

'He's not afraid of me!' Ferdi struggled not to lose his temper. His head ached fiercely from the growing strain, but while Hilly held an arrow on him he dared not raise a hand to rub at the pain.

Merry's eyebrow went up, and Hilly muttered, 'Could have fooled me.' Surely Ferdibrand had taken leave of his senses.

'I don't know how he managed to coerce the lad, but...' Hally began, and Ferdi’s shoulders sagged, though he continued to hold his hands away from his sides, staring fixedly at Hilly’s unwavering arrow. Ferdi’s brother-in-love had thought over the situation, and clearly had not decided in Ferdi’s favour.

'What?' Pippin demanded.

'He never spoke a word to anyone, Farry didn't, I mean. Ferdi tried to pass him off as some lad he'd found in the woods, knowing we hadn't seen Farry in some time.' His tone was troubled, remembering what Rosemary had told him on his return from the Stoat and Stout, how Ferdi had shouted for Farry, even risen from his bed to search for lad, and spouted nonsense when he saw him.

'I wanted him to go home of his own accord,' Ferdi said evenly, having mastered his temper. 'I struck a bargain with him, hoping I could trick him into returning with me if he did not hold up his end of the bargain. I thought it would be easy; I never imagined he could hold his tongue so well,' he finished wryly.

'You must admit, brother, you've not been well, this visit,' Hally said. He looked to the Thain, sorrow writ large over his face. ‘He’s not been himself; it is the truth, I swear.’

‘It is the truth,’ Rosemary echoed.

'What are you getting at?' Ferdi asked.

'You've not been yourself,' Hally replied. 'I don't know how to say it more plainly.'

Merry nodded thoughtfully. He had noticed that as well since he'd been here. Ferdi didn't seem like the Ferdi he’d known at all, and hiding here with Faramir wasn’t the kind of thing he would do, were he in his right mind. Not in his right mind, Merry mused, anger slowly turning to sadness. It wouldn't be the first time, in Ferdi's family...

There was a silence, broken only by the crackle of the fire and an occasional fevered mutter from Farry.

'Put up your bow,' Merry said at last. Pippin lifted his head.

Hilly looked to the Thain. He didn't take orders from Bucklanders, not even the Master.

'Merry, what are you about?' Pippin demanded.

'I've known Ferdi even longer than you have, Pip,' Merry answered, his resolve growing. 'I do not believe he's a danger to anyone at the moment, and with all of us here he'd never manage to take the lad away now.'

'Put up your bow, Hilly,' Pippin said, and Hilly lowered his arrow and eased the tension on the string. Ferdi breathed a sigh of relief and lowered his hands to his sides.

'I want to talk to Ferdi in private,' said Merry, finality in his tone, as if he’d worked his way through a difficult puzzle and saw now clearly the solution. 'Put on your cloak, Ferdi, and we'll walk.'

'But...' Hilly protested.

'I know what I'm about,' Merry said. 'Come along, Ferdi.' The hunter rose silently from the bed, took his cloak from the peg by the door, and followed Merry outside.

A sullen dawn had arrived; thin rain was spitting fitfully out of a grey sky. The storm's detritus of broken-off branches and an uprooted tree littered the clearing, and other uprooted trees could be seen in the surrounding wood.

'Fine day for a walk,' Ferdi said. He shrugged deeper into his cloak, fingers of wind plucking away at him, as he tried to keep pace with Merry’s long strides away from the house. Every step jarred his head, but he made no complaint. He was concentrating so fiercely on walking that he missed what Merry said next, only realizing when the other came to a stop some small distance into the woods, the house barely visible through the trees, and stared at him.

‘Did you say something?’ Ferdi asked.

'Go ahead,' Merry repeated. 'Walk.'

'I do not take your meaning.' Ferdi still felt shaky, and he wished he could go back to the house, back to sleep. Back to sleep, and forget that the last hour or so had ever happened.

'Walk,' Merry repeated patiently. Somehow he had to reach Ferdi through the fog of madness, make him understand that this was a mercy, a way of escape, a parting gift for the sake of old friendship. 'Go. Spare your family the pain of a trial, and seeing you banished with a brand on your cheek.' He took a deep breath. The air smelt of rain and leaf mould, and he wondered if he was doing the right thing. 'Go on, Ferdi! Just be sure you keep going until you're over the Bounds. If you're found inside the Shire, things will not go so well with you.'

'I've done nothing to warrant banishment,' Ferdi protested. He didn’t understand why Merry was looking at him so. What was wrong with his old friend, had he lost his senses? Merry’s next words were even more confusing.

Merry shook his head. 'You really have gone mad,' he said. 'Nothing? You've taken a child that doesn't belong to you – the only son of the Thain, no less! – forty miles from his home. You’ve kept him hid from his parents the last week, and who in the Shire can say what your intentions were?'

'He ran away!' Ferdi was nearly shouting in frustration. 'I wanted him to return of his own free will – what would be the good of dragging him back, only to have him run again the next chance he got? This time a fox nearly had him. What might happen next time?'

'Ferdi, we've been friends a long time,' Merry said. 'I remember rubbing mud into your hair the first time I met you. In Paladin's barnyard it was, when Pervinca was just a babe in the cradle. I wish I could believe you.'

'My father whipped us both that day, for scaring the colts,' Ferdi said with a distant smile, but then he came back to the present problem. 'Merry, what is so hard to believe?'

Merry snorted. 'Look at the evidence! What would you think, if it were someone else?'

'I am sworn to protect the Thain and his family,' Ferdi said reasonably. 'That is what I was doing.'

Merry shook his head. It was no use trying to reason with Ferdi; he was mad, quite mad. 'Go,' he said sadly. 'The way is open before you.'

'Abandon my family, Merry? Over specious charges?’ Merry listened in silent astonishment as Ferdi continued. ‘Nell is waiting for me back at the Smials. What would she think if I just walked off? It would be an admission of guilt, and I have done nothing!'

‘Nothing!’ Merry said under his breath. He gritted his teeth in frustration. 'You could have sent a message to Pippin,' he hissed. Tooks were so stubborn!

'And what would he have done? Raced here to claim his son, swept him off to the Great Smials, and no chance at all to change Faramir's thinking, to prevent him running again.'

'So you say,' Merry muttered.

'Aye,' Ferdi said strongly. 'And so Farry would say, were he not fevered. And Tolly will tell you the same when he gets here.'

'Let us hope for your sake he does,' Merry said, biting off each word. 'On the other hand, if the two of you conspired together, I would only expect his story to match your own.'

'You're accusing Tolly and me of hatching up some plan to steal the son of the Thain?' Ferdi said in astonishment. 'Wherever would you come up with such an idea?'

'Such things are common in the world of Men,' Merry said grimly. 'Pippin and I had hoped to stop the contagion from spreading to the Shire... but then, you've had a lot of contact with ruffians, Ferdi. You might have learnt this of them.' He hesitated, then added, 'Tolly escorted several ruffians out of the Shire just a month ago. Who's to say what they might have talked about?'

'Tolly? Conversing with ruffians? And you think I'm mad! All I learnt of ruffians was how to fight them, Merry,' Ferdi said, shaking his head in disbelief. 'You cannot think...'

'I do not know what to think,' Merry said slowly. 'All I know for sure is that it's raining, and I don't care to be any wetter than I am already.’ He added soberly, ‘This is your last chance, Ferdi. Take it, and go.'

'I'm not going anywhere, unless ordered by the Thain to do so,' Ferdi said stoutly. ‘Pippin has got to believe that this is all foolishness! Once he calms down, he’ll see reason.’

'Do not make me pronounce the sentence of banishment on you, Ferdibrand,' Merry said softly. There was pain in his voice, and Ferdi gave him a sharp look.

'You?'

'Pippin cannot judge this case; he is an injured party,' Merry said. 'It's up to me, or the Mayor, and I'm on the spot.'

'You... you believe me capable of such a deed,' Ferdi said slowly.

'I do,' said Merry, 'but if it is any comfort, I think you've gone mad, and cannot see the wrong in't.'

'I am not mad.'

'You'd be the last to know if you were,' Merry said sadly. 'That's part of madness. You think you're fine and it’s everyone else who has the problem.'

'It will all come clear when you speak with Tolly,' Ferdi said. 'I will not run, Merry! I've done nothing to warrant such a cowardly choice. Tolly will set everything straight.'

'I hope I don't end up having to banish you both,' Merry said.

'You're not the only one,' Ferdi agreed, and they turned back to the house.

Merry pondered. Ferdibrand’s refusal to go was undoubtedly another indication of his madness. His story couldn’t possibly be true. (Couldn’t it? a part of his mind still nagged.) What of the note and confession?

He shook his head hopelessly. Ferdi was out of his head, dangerously so. Merry had tried to reach him, and failed. There could be only one outcome to this case.