Chapter 5. Home Again, Home Again

'What was that, Pip?' Ferdi asked, looking down at the circle of stones to one side. 'You wanted to light a fire?'

'Were you not paying attention?' Pippin asked, turning to scrutinise his head of escort. 'I said our feast awaits!'

'I could have sworn you said something about a cold fire-circle.'

'I did,' Pippin confirmed. 'But it was more to the effect that the fire-circle wasn't doing us much good, cold as it is...'

'And so you were suggesting that we light a fire...' Ferdi repeated.

'No!' Pippin said. 'Quite the opposite, I assure you!' 

'That almost makes sense,' Ferdi said, 'except that it doesn't.' 

Pippin eyed his cousin as he removed the cloth that had protected him from the dust in the store-hole and stuffed it into his pocket. 'We've got to get some food into you,' he said honestly. Ferdi was sounding much less stiff and formal at the moment, and while the younger cousin might have welcomed the change at some point in time, it was enough out of character to concern him now. 'Did you happen to miss breakfast this morning?' he asked. 'Did my summons come as you were sitting down to eat?' The young Thain blinked at this thought, accompanied by the realisation that he'd never taken such matters into consideration before this. Why had it never occurred to him that the hobbits of his escort were flesh and blood, and he had a duty to look out for them just as much as their duty was to look out for him?

'I am perfectly well,' Ferdi said, confirming Pippin's worry. His cousin seldom used four words in speaking escort-to-Thain when three words would do perfectly well.

'Perhaps we should have our picnic here,' the young Thain said, but Ferdi held up a staying hand as Pippin moved to unfasten one of the bags holding food. 

'No, cousin,' the head of escort said stubbornly. 'You said it yourself: the longer we linger on the doorstep, the better the chances that some passer-by will see us here and become curious.' 

'Have a sip of water, then,' Pippin said, pulling one of the water bottles from its hook and extending it to Ferdi. 

His older cousin sighed in exasperation but deigned to drink. Pippin took a few swallows himself before stoppering the bottle and hanging it up again. 'Now,' he said. 'Let us make tracks.'

'Let us not make tracks, rather,' Ferdi said. To Pippin's relief, he sounded more alert than he had earlier. Still, this little trek from Smials to Hoard Hill ought not to have affected his cousin appreciably. Though he'd seemed perfectly fine earlier in the day, perhaps Ferdi was coming down with something? Pippin privately resolved to keep a close eye on his older cousin until they reached the Great Smials.

'As you wish,' the young Thain said in reply. He started walking at an angle down the hillside, his ponies following after. When he turned the corner and began to walk in the opposite direction, zig-zagging down the hill, he breathed a sigh of relief to see that Ferdi was following close behind them.

At last they reached the spring that Pippin remembered. He stopped, encouraged each of his ponies to drink in turn, and then hobbled them. Since both of the ponies he led bore saddlebags filled with food, Pippin removed the bags, settled one pair of bags over each shoulder, and turned away. He found himself staggering a little under their weight as he turned back towards the spring where Ferdi had just finished watering his own ponies. 'Perhaps we ought to have stopped to eat a few times along the way,' he told his cousin. 'I hadn't realised quite how much food they'd packed...!'

'You don't know the half of it,' Ferdi answered. 'My ponies are also carrying a supply of food intended for our refreshment.'

Pippin shook his head in wonder. 'You had the right of it earlier, when you said I needed you with me to help me dispose of all the evidence!'

'I'm not normally one to say I told you so, but...' Ferdi said, raising an eyebrow as he let the sentiment trail off, eliciting a laugh from his younger cousin. 

Pippin had long ago noticed how the prospect of food seemed to dissipate any differences between hobbits. Now he felt himself relaxing as Ferdi, as if without conscious thought, set aside his formal manner.

The cousins sat down on convenient rocks near the spring and began to unpack the bounty that resembled a feast in the great room more than a picnic in the middle of nowhere. 'I don't know about you, but I have an entire cold roasted chicken here,' Pippin said, glancing over at Ferdi. 'I suppose you must have all the accompaniments...'

'Not in this bag, I don't,' Ferdi said, for he had also just unwrapped an entire chicken that had been stowed in one of his ponies' saddlebags. 'One for you and one for me?' He set the chicken down on its waxed cloth and dove into the other bag in the set. 'Ah!' he said. 'Jars of pickled vegetables and fruit preserves, well-wrapped against cracking or breaking...' He pushed gently on the edge of a disk of beeswax affixed to the top of a thick-walled crock and finished in triumph, '...and here is a sealed crock of butter!'

'There has got to be bread somewhere...' Pippin said, turning to his second set of saddlebags. As he'd anticipated, he unwrapped several loaves of bread, along with a small round of cheese of a suitable size for travelling, sausage rolls, fresh apples, and hand-held pastries baked with fillings of brandied fruit. Ferdi's second set of saddlebags yielded similar bounty.

'A veritable feast,' one or the other cousin said, and the two took turns repeating the sentiment as they replenished their energies. Quite companionably, they ate and rested and chatted about inconsequentialities, resembling for the moment more the cousins they were than the roles of Thain and hired hobbit they were obliged to act.

The Sun smiled down on the picnickers from her high place as she climbed ever higher in the cloudless summer sky. Under her gentle warmth, after eating more food in this one sitting than he usually took in over an entire day, Pippin fell asleep.

Ferdi, still eating, looked over in surprise at the sound of a snore from his younger cousin, but then he nodded wisely. 'Walkin' all this way was indeed wearin' on a body,' he said softly, leaving off the carefully formal speech he maintained in the company of hobbits of the gentry. 'And whilst I know verra well that ye walked the length and breadth o' Middle-earth – and back again – in yer younger days, that was afore the Old Gaffer's Friend near-to ripped the lungs out o' yer breast.' He shook his head and took another hearty bite, chewing long and thoughtfully. 

When he finished eating, he gently massaged the aching calf of his injured leg. 'You've walked farther,' he told himself. Though, I have to admit, not after dogs have done their best to tear me to pieces. Still, the muscles are about as healed as they're ever going to be... He dismissed his gloomy thoughts and busied himself with wrapping up and stowing away the uneaten food. After checking on the ponies and refilling the water flasks at the spring, he sat down again to enjoy the sunshine.

Luckily, the meal had finished the work begun by the water Pippin had insisted he should drink before beginning the descent. The plentiful, nourishing food and rest had completely restored the head of escort to his usual state of alertness, and he had no trouble watching over the sleeping Thain and the grazing ponies until Pippin showed signs of wakening again.

'Ferdi?' the young Thain asked. 'How long was I asleep?'

'Perhaps an hour, Sir,' Ferdibrand answered. 'Would you like another bite or sip before we start for home?'

'No, I'm well,' Pippin said. As he stretched and then pushed himself to his feet, he noticed that Ferdi had neatly packed away all the food again while he slept. Likely the hobbit would have retrieved the saddlebags from the ponies and unwrapped everything without complaint if Pippin had said he was hungry, but since the young Thain wasn't hungry, he didn't want to test the idea. Instead, Pippin picked up his water flask, finding it strangely heavy. Removing the stopper revealed that the flask was full to the brim of icy water, no doubt fresh from the spring. 'My thanks,' he said, hefting the flask and meeting Ferdi's eye before lifting it to his lips.

'It was no trouble at all,' Ferdi said. While Pippin was quenching his thirst, Ferdi removed the hobbles from the Thain's ponies and stowed them away. After handing Pippin the ponies' lead ropes, the escort took up the younger cousin's flask and filled it again, then stoppered it and hung it from its hook on Sun-dancer's harness. 'If you're quite ready, Thain...?' he asked, turning back to Pippin.

'Regi told you to have me home before dark, I gather?' Pippin guessed.

Though his head of escort did not deign to answer, the twist of his mouth revealed the truth of Pippin's surmise.

And so Pippin nodded his assent along with unspoken thanks to spare his cousin the trouble of answering. Next, he firmly grasped the lead ropes of his ponies, and began walking ahead of Ferdi rather than simply following the escort's lead. 

Soon he heard Ferdi call to him. 'Are we going the right way?'

'We are!' Pippin called back over his shoulder. He was deliberately choosing a different route than he'd taken previously in returning from the treasure-store. He'd noticed others' preference for walking with the Sun at their backs rather than in their eyes; Regi had done so when he'd introduced Pippin to the storage hole, and Ferdi had also shown this tendency in their earlier visit to the place. It would not do to wear a distinguishable trail on or around this particular hillside. Therefore, the young Thain had purposefully turned his face towards the westering Sun as he began to circle the base of the hill. 

The spring where they'd refreshed themselves emerged from the south side of Hoard Hill, and the Great Smials lay to the north, meaning the large hill they were visiting lay between them and home. Six o' one, half a dozen o' the other, Pippin thought to himself. Whether we skirt the eastern or western side of the hill, we'll still be turning northwards in the end... 

The ground was, perhaps, somewhat more uneven and littered with rocks on this side of the great hill than Pippin remembered from going the other way on his previous visits. That's all to the good, or so it seemed to Pippin's way of thinking. Folk are less likely to go this way for more than one reason – our choice of this route on our homeward trek is a good one even if the other way is smoother and easier! At least, that's the way it ought to work out since we're trying to avoid wearing a path by following the same course every time, coming and going.

After they'd walked for some time, one of the pack ponies behind him stumbled, and Pippin half-turned. 'Steady there, lad! Foot by foot!'

Considering Ferdi's healing leg injury, perhaps they ought to have taken the easier route after all. But it was too late to change courses now, for they had skirted nearly half of the bulk of the hill by this point. They'd soon be able to leave this hill and this broken ground behind them and seek a smoother course leading towards the Great Smials.

At about the same time as he spied what appeared to be a westward-facing opening in the hillside just ahead of him, Pippin heard a startled outcry from his cousin. He turned around and, seeing Ferdi sprawled on the ground, called his cousin's name. Ferdi!

One of the pack ponies, head down, had moved forward to nuzzle the fallen figure. The other danced in place, head high in alarm, rolling its eyes until the whites showed. Pippin dropped his ponies' lead ropes, pushed his way between his astonished pack ponies, and sprinted to his cousin. When he reached Ferdi, the young Thain lunged for the spooked pony's lead rope and then used the rope and his body to force the panicky beast back a step, then two – difficult enough with a calm animal, but as things stood, his cousin, who'd shown no signs of getting up again, was in serious danger of being trampled.

As it was, Pippin cried out when one of the dancing hoofs came down on his own foot. Grimly, he held fast and leaned into the pony, pushing it back one more step before stopping.

Then, 'There now,' Pippin soothed, winding the rope firmly around his fist and exerting a steady pull while patting and stroking the high-flung neck with his free hand. Although he'd often seen Ferdi quickly bring an unruly pony under control, Pippin did not have his cousin's talent or experience with ponies. 'Steady, lad... steady!' he murmured, remembering a scrap of Merry's advice to avoid direct eye contact. 'There you are... naught to harm you here... steadily... steadily...' 

Absurdly, Bilbo's carefully! carefully with the plates! echoed in his brain.

'Steadily,' he said again. Of a wonder, he seemed to have hit on the right word, for the pony was calming under his hand. As the gelding's head began to lower, Pippin softened the pull on the rope but continued his gentle caresses. 'There now,' he said.

At last, the pony, though still tense, stood quietly. 'There you are, my fine fellow,' Pippin repeated. 'Now we have you where we want you, what do we do with you?'

He settled for leading the gelding in a wide circle around Ferdi and tying its rope to the harness of one of his own pack ponies, which had planted their feet when he'd dropped their lead ropes. He breathed a sigh of thanks for his luck; many of the riding ponies in the Great Smials stables had been trained at a young age to stop and stand in place if their rider dismounted or fell. The ponies he'd been leading had obviously been trained for riding as well as carrying a burden.

'Good lad, Sunny,' he praised, patting the chestnut pony. 'You'll find a little extra in your pay packet for this day's work, I trow.' The pony snorted in answer.

He turned and hurried to reclaim Ferdi's other pony before it should tread on him; that would be all they needed! More icing on the cake...

'Come along,' Pippin said to that pony, whose name he'd forgotten. Even nameless, it followed him docilely enough as he led it to the other ponies and fastened its rope to Sun-dancer's harness. 'Now, Sunny,' he said to his improvised hitching post, 'Stay right there and don't take it into your head to wander, if you please...'

To avoid spooking the nervy pony, Pippin walked slowly and quietly as he skirted the ponies to reach the place where his cousin still lay. 'Ferdi?' he said.

'Tripped over a rock,' Ferdi, face-down, muttered into the dirt. 'Of all the...' 

With relief, Pippin realised that the fall had merely stunned his cousin and not left Ferdi unconscious. 'Never mind that now,' he said. 'Let's turn you over.' Suiting action to words, he'd soon helped his head of escort into a sitting position. '...but don't let's try and stand up quite yet,' the young Thain cautioned.

'Why?' Ferdi said irritably. 'Don't tell me you've hurt yourself as well!'

'No, the pony did that for me,' Pippin answered, running his hands down one of Ferdi's legs and then the other. When he reached the damaged calf that still showed lingering evidence of one of the stray dogs that had attacked Ferdi six weeks or so ago, the older cousin sucked in his breath. 'Hurts?' the young Thain asked.

'You're as bad as a healer,' Ferdi growled.

'O no, I can be much worse, I'm sure,' Pippin replied. 'How does it feel? How does it hurt, rather? Like a pull or a tear, or a twist or a break, perhaps a sprain or strain?'

'You have the right of it,' his cousin muttered.

'Which?' Pippin said.

'You're much worse,' Ferdi said.

Pippin didn't immediately take his meaning; he was too busy feeling the painful limb with careful fingers. 'I don't feel a break,' he said. 'Did you turn your ankle, or has it something to do with the teeth of the dog that tried to devour you...?' Belatedly realising his cousin's meaning, he added, 'I'm worse than a healer, you mean...'

'That's what I said!' Ferdi snapped.

Pippin reached out towards his cousin's forehead, stopping short of touching the skin. 'You'll have a lovely goose egg, into the bargain, I'm thinking,' he said. 'Do you feel sick or dizzy at all?'

'Really,' Ferdi said bad-temperedly, 'if this Thain business doesn't work out for you, I think you can find a place working under Woodruff, pestering Tooks abominably!'

Meanwhile, Pippin was silently worrying. Ferdi was sounding all too cousinly at the moment, and not at all formal – and there was no food in sight to explain his temperance. 'I want you to sit here until I come back,' the younger cousin said, pushing himself upright to stand on one foot. He tested his other foot and found he could rest his weight on it, though it protested such treatment. He didn't think the pony had broken a bone. 'That's a mercy,' he muttered.

'What is?' Ferdi demanded.

'Never you mind!' Pippin commanded. 'Just stay put, right there, until I come back!'

'But where d'you think you're going?' Ferdi said.

'You'll know as soon as I do,' Pippin said. To stave off any more outbursts from his cousin, he added, 'I'm just going to check on the ponies...'

And check on the ponies, he did. Sun-dancer and his partner, Silver-toe, had not stirred a single step to all appearances. A scattering of tracks in the dust showed that Ferdi's ponies had been restless but constrained by their tethers.

The sting of sweat, trickling into his eyes, surprised the young Thain. He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his brow. 'No shade here,' he said aloud. The sky was blue and clear above, and the Summer day was warming. The air would inexorably continue to grow hotter as the afternoon advanced, and the exposed ground where they were would undoubtedly heat up under the Sun's assault, adding to their discomfort – and even danger.

And then Pippin's eyes fell on the shadow ahead of them, the suggestion of an opening that he'd noticed just as Ferdi had seized his attention by tripping behind him. Shade? he asked himself. Is that too much to ask?

Well, Samwise had asked for light and water upon a time, and got it. You're hardly engaged in a world-saving endeavour, Pippin scolded himself. Still, he couldn't help thinking, My Lady, if it would not be too much to ask... and if you even were to happen to hear me...

He shook his head at himself. None of your nonsense, now, lad, he told himself firmly. He must already be feeling the heat, but it had crept up on him without his noticing until now.

Pippin patted the bay and grey ponies and then the chestnut and white-stockinged ponies' noses in passing as he limped past them, murmuring soothing nonsense. The patches of sweat he could see on their hides confirmed his impression that the day was rapidly warming. 'Shade all around!' he said, much as if he were ordering a round of drinks in the Spotted Duck in Tuckborough. 'I wish I were there this moment,' he muttered. 'A cool mug would be refreshing right about now.'

As if triggered by the thought, thirst struck immediately. 'All right, all right,' Pippin said to himself querulously, turning around and pulling two of their water flasks from their hooks.

He limped back to Ferdi and extended one of the flasks to his cousin. 'Here,' he said.

'You're back,' Ferdi said.

'There and back again, like a bad penny,' Pippin said.

'Or a mad Baggins,' Ferdi responded.

'However,' Pippin said, then pulled the stopper from his flask and took a few swallows.

'However what?' Ferdi wanted to know.

'Exactly,' Pippin answered. 'I'll be right back.'

'Didn't we just have this conversation?' Ferdi said, sounding exasperated.

'Not quite,' Pippin said truthfully. 'In any event, stay right there until I come back.'

'We did just have this conversation,' Ferdi grumbled.

'And we'll continue to have this conversation again and again, at least until we get it right,' Pippin said, affecting cheer. He actually was feeling better, likely from the water he'd just swallowed. On that note, he added, 'Drink some water.'

While Ferdi was so occupied, he limped quietly away.

'It is a cave!' Pippin said, having reached the spot that had caught his attention just before Ferdi's mishap. He ventured into the shadowy space. 'Deeper than an animal's den,' he mused, 'but... the walls are too smooth to be a natural cavern, I think...' He ran his hands over the rocky surface. 'Delved? Must be...'

Had someone begun to delve a smial here and, perhaps finding the rock too stubborn, abandoned the effort? The floor was smooth and level underfoot, and the walls curved to form a rounded ceiling overhead, high enough that even one so tall as Pippin could stand comfortably. Better yet, he found a line of iron rings driven into the wall on one side of the cavern. 'A stables?' he wondered. 'Did the Dwarves who built the store-hole for a long-ago Thain first delve this shelter to keep their ponies safe from predators and inclement weather?' For storms could blow up without warning here in the Green Hill country – and often did.

In any event, this shelter might have been custom-made for their present circumstances.

He returned to check on Ferdi, who'd pulled his shirt over his head to protect his face and neck from the now-merciless Sun as he waited in obedience to Pippin's last order. 'What did we ever do to make her so angry?' the escort said. 'She was all smiles only a few hours ago...'

'We'll have a storm on the morrow, I've no doubt,' Pippin said. 'I've found some shelter,' he added. 'We can wait out the worst of her temper and head homewards when she's lower in the sky and not beating down upon us from directly overhead.'

'Good,' Ferdi said shortly, followed by, 'I can walk. Let's get the ponies under cover.'

Pippin extended a hand to help him up. As the two cousins limped to take up the ponies' lead ropes, he couldn't help laughing. 'We make quite a pair...' he said.

'Quite,' Ferdi acknowledged. 'Good idea, to tie the other two to Sunny to keep them from wandering.'

Upon reaching the cavern, the head of escort was frankly amazed as he entered behind Pippin and saw the line of rings. 'Like one of those stables without box stalls,' he said. 'But who...?'

'Dwarves, I think,' Pippin answered, 'to keep their ponies out of the weather as they engineered the store-hole above us. The entrance to the store-hole is of obvious Dwarf-make – it's beyond the capabilities of Hobbits, so far as I can tell...'

'Tie a pony to a ring, with a pile of hay and bucket of water at its head,' Ferdi said. 'And the rings are spaced far enough apart that you don't even need side walls to keep an ill-tempered pony from kicking his neighbour.'

'All the comforts of home,' Pippin said. 'But I wish I'd worn a hat... I could fill it with water from the spring and water the ponies...'

'It was cloudy this morning when we started,' Ferdi said, shrugging his shirt back into place. 'How were we to know that something or other would put the Sun into a temper and cause her to vent her anger upon the land?'

'Never mind,' Pippin said. 'But they've had rather more sun and heat, this past hour, than is good for them.' 

After some debate, the cousins worked out a solution of sorts. Pippin emptied one set of saddlebags and filled one of the bags from his water flask. 'Here, Sunny,' he said. 'Have a drink on me.' Over his shoulder, he told Ferdi, 'It's working! The bag is closely stitched; it's not leaking at all...'

'It ought to be,' Ferdi said. 'It's designed to keep documents dry in a downpour, after all, even if the Messenger should end up wet to the skin from the force of heavy rain.' He was all too familiar with carrying messages for the Thain. He struggled to his feet and picked up his flask. 'Here,' he said. 'Water Silver next, and then I'll refill the flasks...'

'I'll refill the flasks,' Pippin countermanded. 'You're still limping worse than I am.' The pain in his foot had subsided to a dull ache that would be gone in a day or two.

Ferdi hmphed but could hardly argue the point.

After all the ponies had been watered, the cousins sat down to another picnic, having nothing better to do while they waited. They also made good use of the time by making plans.

'Sunny and Silver are trained for riding,' Pippin said. 'Why don't we leave their bags of pebbles here...'

'Ride them and lead the others?' Ferdi said.

'Better than walking all the way back to the Smials with only two good legs between us,' Pippin affirmed.

'I can see why we made you Thain,' Ferdi said. 'Always coming up with new ideas, you are...'

'Tell that to the other Tooks,' Pippin replied.

'O but they know it already,' Ferdi said. 'Your problem lies in the fact that the Tooks loathe new ideas...'

'I suppose I'll have to try and come up with some old ideas, then,' Pippin said with a shake of his head.

Ferdi's answer brought a wry grin. 'Best o' luck to you in that, cousin.'

'Not the luck of the Tooks, I hope,' the young Thain said under his breath, but his older cousin heard him anyway.

'Anything but that,' Ferdi agreed.

***