Someone had started up a song.

This was not an uncommon occurrence in any land that considered itself friendly with the Elder Race, but the song—for once—was thoroughly mortal.

Don’t be silly, Frodo thought.  Have you heard every single Elvish song?

…Did the elves have drinking songs, for that matter?  Did the elves even drink?

Galion did, you lummox.  Hm.  He’d have to ask his uncle if they ever sang anything like what he was currently hearing from the other end of the hall.

“Mr. Frodo?”

“Sorry, Sam,” said Frodo, snapping back to the present (which entailed standing right next to a barrel holding a beer uncannily similar to the one he’d left behind in Bag End).  “I was woolgathering.”

“It’s funny, sir,” said Sam.  “I was starting to think these folk didn’t know how to make merry.”

Frodo smiled.  “Have all the feasts hitherto not convinced you as much?”

“Well—what I mean to say, Master, is that those are different.  They’re—pure, so to speak, just praise and glory and trumpets.  This, on the other hand—this is different.”

Frodo nodded.  “Not quite like home, I daresay, but it does make me miss it in a way the others didn’t.”

Sam looked away, as if the Shire wasn’t something to be discussed at the moment, and Frodo suddenly remembered the secret Sam had carried with him all the way to Gondor.

He’d only been betrayed by a dream.

“Me, too, sir,” said Sam, finally.

Frodo nodded to himself.  “Now that I’ve finished my notes, I can beg the King our leave.”

“I’d like that,” said Sam, after another pause.  He refilled his cup and drank.  “You know, if I’d a-known this would be here, I wouldn’t have been half as happy to watch over your cousins for you.”

Frodo eyed the barrel for a good moment, then refilled his own cup.  “You’re a stout fellow, Sam.  I daresay you can handle another.”

Sam shrugged and took a long pull.  “Really, though?”

“What?”

“Peacock feathers?”

“I don’t know why I said it; it just slipped out of my mouth.”

“Where would they even get—”  Sam stopped, raised both eyebrows very slowly, and then jerked his head in Frodo’s direction.

Frodo turned around.

There, clear on the other side of the hall, Merry and Pippin were talking to a short, stout lady who, had she been a hobbit, must have reached her century ten years ago.  She was wearing the most ludicrous headdress, from which protruded, like a fountain of garish eyes, three peacock feathers.

She reminded Frodo of no one so much as Lalia Took, whom he’d had the singular misfortune of knowing before she died.

And yet, here she was, stooping over and pulling two of the feathers from her hair, and handing them to Pippin!

How does he do that? thought Frodo, vaguely disquieted.

“Sam,” he said, “I think you’d better keep a closer eye on them now.”

Sam nodded and left, and Frodo mused upon what he would do next.

Filling his cup once more, he made his way over to the singing.