Chapter 25. Facts

‘Damning facts,’ Farry echoed. It was a phrase he thought he’d heard the Steward use once, when he was playing under one of the desks in the Thain’s study and the grown-ups had forgotten he was there. He suspected it was not something often said in a child’s hearing.

‘Conspiring to cover up your disappearance,’ Fortinbrand said, counting on his fingers. ‘Stopping the post between the Thain and Mistress, that neither might realise you were not with the other... and when you and Ferdi reached his sister’s house, he tried to pass you off as a lad he’d found in the woods. Tried to deny that you were the son of the Thain, though the forest Bolgers saw through it fairly quickly, and began to think he had descended into madness, as his mother did before him.’

Farry nodded. ‘It was my fault,’ he whispered.

‘He did not notify either the Thain or the Mistress that he had you, and you were safe, and he planned to bring you home again, but instead he sent a note to Tolly, telling him to keep the secret as long as he could,’ Fortinbrand went on inexorably.

‘It was my fault,’ Farry repeated, louder. ‘It was not his doing!’ 

‘Are you saying he did not do those things?’ Fortinbrand said, sitting back, raising his eyebrows as high as they might go.

‘No!’ Farry said, and shook his head, ‘I mean, yes! He did those things. But it was my fault!’ he insisted.

‘How is it your fault that Ferdi and Tolly were guilty of child-stealing?’ Fortinbrand asked. ‘Of keeping your from your parents, and concealing your whereabouts from those who know and love you?’

‘I ran away,’ Farry whispered. Fortinbrand merely nodded. Somehow encouraged, feeling listened to, Farry went on. ‘I ran away, and when Ferdi caught up with me, I told him that no matter what he did – should he take me back to the Smials to my mother, or on to Buckland to join my father – they couldn’t make me stay. They couldn’t stop me from running again. I’d run away again and again, until they stopped trying to bring me back.’

‘I take it you were determined,’ Fortinbrand said, but his tone was accepting rather than ironic.

‘So it was my fault,’ Farry insisted. ‘Ferdi said he’d strike a bargain with me.’

Fortinbrand leaned forward. ‘Now this is something I want to hear from your own lips, lad,’ he said. ‘What was the bargain?’

‘I must be silent – not speak a word, the whole time we were at his sister’s house, whilst my leg was healing,’ Farry said. Fortinbrand didn’t ask about the fox’s bite on his leg, and he’d known that Farry had been out of his head with fever, so the lad discerned that the hobbit already had those details.

‘And?’ Fortinbrand pressed, as if he knew there was more. Which he probably did.

‘And I was to obey, and if I should stumble, I must agree to go back to my parents and not run away again.’

‘Aha,’ Fortinbrand said. ‘And if you prevailed?’

‘Ferdi would take me wherever I wished to go,’ Farry said. ‘I think he was hoping I’d come to my senses and ask to go home, though at the time I thought he meant he’d take me to Gondor.’ He met Fortinbrand’s quizzical gaze steadily. ‘And he would’ve, too. He is a hobbit of his word.’

Fortinbrand nodded slowly. ‘There is nothing of Lotho or Lalia about him,’ he said, and under his breath, he added, ‘It’s shameful that we even have to have this conversation.’

‘Then why?’ Farry asked. ‘Why would the Tooks banish him?’

Instead of answering his question directly, Fortinbrand’s eye took on a thoughtful look. ‘Farry-lad, do you know who the Councillors are?’

Farry stared at him, then tilted his head as he considered. ‘I think I heard Regi mention something like that once,’ he said at last. ‘But...’ And then he added, ‘Should I?’

Fortinbrand shook his head at him. ‘Too clever by half,’ he breathed. ‘Farry, lad, how old are you?’

‘Eleven, on my next birthday,’ Farry answered, though he wasn’t sure just why Fortinbrand was asking that question. Surely the hobbit knew how old Farry was.

‘The Councillors,’ Fortinbrand said, his eyes intent, ‘they are the keepers of the records, lad.’ Farry nodded, though he didn’t understand, not really. The Querier seemed to recognise this, for he went on. ‘They are the keepers of the traditions of the Tooks, going back to the very first Took, Tokka of the Marish, it was, or more properly, his son, for Tokka was lost in battle as an archer for the King when the Northlands fell to the Witch King.’

Farry stared at him, lips half-parted. The Querier nodded. ‘O aye,’ he said softly. ‘Most Tooks have no interest in the old tales, or in old, mouldering records. But there is safety in knowing our history, in knowing our traditions... in knowing errors that have been made, so that we are not doomed to repeat them, and in knowing solutions that have been found to problems in the past, even the far past, that we do not have to grope our way in the dark to find them again.’

‘I didn’t know any hobbits knew the old tales,’ Farry murmured. ‘Except perhaps Mayor Sam, who sometimes tells us stories he read in one of Bilbo’s translations.’ Or maybe Uncle Merry, he thought, though he wasn’t quite sure. At least, he’d heard Uncle Merry say that so many of the old tales were so dark, they weren’t fit for hobbits. So that meant he knew at least some of them, didn’t it?

Aloud, he said, ‘And what do the Councillors have to do with us, then? With my running away? With banishing Ferdi and Tolly, though it’s all my fault?’ Suddenly hopeful, he said, ‘But if they’re keepers of tradition, and seekers of safety... does that mean they can keep Ferdi and Tolly safe?’

Hope deserted him as swiftly as he saw Fortinbrand’s lips tighten in a grimace. ‘Then what good are they?’ he demanded.

Fortinbrand stared into his eyes for a long moment. ‘They are like the bit in the pony’s mouth,’ he said. ‘The Tooks, lad, are the pony, forging ever ahead. They are a fine people, bold, proud, courageous... When the rest of the Shire fell to the ruffians, the Tookland remained free.’ His gaze demanded some response, so Farry nodded. 

Fortinbrand continued. ‘The Thain, if you will allow, he is the reins that steer the pony in the direction it should go. But a Thain who exercises poor judgement can lose control of the pony... like a rider who pulls on the reins while laying on the whip and kicking his heels into the sides of the beast – as I’m sure you’ve seen a tween do, when he’s trying to impress others with his riding “skill”, stirring up a pony to fight him so that the hobbit can “best” the beast and win the admiration of others as ignorant as he is.’

Farry felt some of the hobbit’s indignation breaking through Fortinbrand’s assumed calm, and thought the Querier might possibly be speaking from personal experience.

The Querier sighed. ‘And sometimes a hobbit doesn’t know any better,’ he said, ‘or he keeps the reins too tight, such that the pony develops a hard mouth, or too loose, such that the pony becomes wilful and learns not to take direction, or perhaps he doesn’t understand ponies at all! Or he doesn’t think of the pony as flesh and blood and brain and feelings, but simply a tool to do his bidding.’ He shook his head. ‘– or a pony, whether neglected or goaded by its rider, might take it into its head to run away...’ 

‘But you’re not talking about ponies and riders, not really,’ Farry said. He wasn’t sure exactly what Fortinbrand was talking about, really.

The Querier nodded at him, but at least he didn’t say anything like too sharp by half, especially since Farry was feeling duller by the moment. ‘The Tooks are the pony in this case, lad,’ he said. ‘I know you’re very young, but I hope you can understand this at least. They’ve been goaded and neglected by turn, and they’ve taken the bit in their teeth.’

The Councillors are the bit, Farry thought in confusion. He shook his head.

‘The last Thain to lose control of the Tooks was Ferumbras,’ Fortinbrand said, learning forward. ‘They learnt not to mind a single word he said. Lalia, the mother of the Thain, now, they feared her well enough. She was spiteful, and not afraid to use her power as The Took to vent her spite on others, to answer any slights against herself or her son, real or imagined, and to seek any advantage she might grasp. She even flattered and threatened the recordkeepers by turn, according to her whimsy and caprice – and a sort of sly understanding how to move them to her will – until it seemed easier to retreat into the vaults and bury themselves in reading musty old chronicles than it was to try and talk sense to her.’ 

‘O aye,’ Ferdi said in a low voice. ‘She was every bit that. Actually, Fortinbrand was being uncommonly charitable towards Lalia there, perhaps because he did not want to speak ill of the dead. In point of fact, she was a thousand times worse than he described her. A thousand times worse.’ 

And then he said, ‘Go on, lad. I apologise for the interruption.’

‘Yes Uncle,’ Farry said, shaken by his uncle’s condemnation, though on second thought, he was not surprised, from what little he had overheard about old Lalia the Fat so far as the Talk of the Tooks went.

Fortinbrand took a deep breath, and his voice dropped as he said, as if in self-reproach, ‘And then, even after she was gone, well, the recordkeepers had got used to that state of affairs, found old records much more pleasant companions than fellow Tooks and Tooklanders, and stayed there! They hadn’t the skills to ride out against the ruffians – they’d spoilt their eyes with much reading as it was. Paladin seemed to be doing just fine, and Pippin – your da, he made a good start, at least, until his health pulled him down.’

The Querier fixed Farry with a stern glare, but somehow that lad didn’t think Fortinbrand was looking at him at all, but at some scene in the past. ‘We might have done something then, I suppose, besides asking him to step down for his own sake, and his family’s.’ Farry saw him swallow hard. ‘Some of us did. Others said it was his right, that he’d taken an oath “to the end of his days.” Some of us argued then to call a convocation, call the Tooks to account for how much more difficult they were making things for the Thain with their Talk and speculation... Some folk argued to leave well enough alone... And look where it got us!’

At Faramir’s look of bewilderment, Fortinbrand sighed. ‘I don’t expect you to understand, lad, things that happened before you were born, as in the days of Ferumbras and Lalia, but... those who understand know that there’s a power in knowing what has gone before, especially when it comes to shaping the present, and what is to come...’

Farry nodded, and Fortinbrand went on. ‘What “leaving well enough alone” and burying ourselves in the record vaults got us under Ferumbras was a Tookland falling slowly to pieces,’ he said. ‘No leadership to speak of, everyone looking to his own... the roads going to ruin, holes in the rugs, tapestries unravelling, windows going cloudy from neglect, grass springing up between the stones... all signs of a greater malady creeping over the Tookland... ruffians and darker things prowling around the borders... until an upstart like Lotho Sackville-Baggins got the idea he could buy up ever-greater portions of the Shire and proclaim himself Chief! Not like Mayor, who’s elected, nor Thain, who is chosen, but setting himself up as some sort of Power... well, it happened once.’

The Querier’s eyes bored into his. ‘And the Councillors are not going to let it happen another time.’

***