Chapter 30. Waiting with a Spider's Patience

Before departing to retrieve the Messenger's horse, Haldoron had paused long enough to study the rope that stretched across the East Road, posing a severe hazard to anyone on horseback who might travel that stretch of road. 'At the least we'll dismantle this particular death-trap!' he'd said, drawing his keen-edged sword.

But the rope did not break under the heavy blow he directed at it; three times he had tried, striking with all his force. Three times the rope gave a little under the blow but then sprang back like a plucked bowstring, turning the blade and tossing up both sword and arm. 'As you said, Chancellor, this is no ordinary rope; for even a length of elven rope would have yielded by now!' he had said at last, stepping back and staring. 'I cannot break it.'

As a consequence, he had told Ferdi and the younger hobbits to hide themselves in the event of the possible return of those who'd set this trap, '...at least until I return. But when you hear me coming on the Messenger's horse, stand up! ...if you please. I'll be bent low over his neck, but I'd rather pull him to a stop short of this trap than take my chances in passing underneath it at a gallop...'

Waiting and watching for trouble was tedious, young Faramir decided. He wondered if the archers who had guarded Tookland's borders had felt the same? No doubt, he thought. How did they manage it for days on end? Perhaps they even came to wish for ruffians to test Tookland's defences, if only to relieve the tedium!

The stories he'd heard from those who'd lived through the Troubles had never mentioned the tiresomeness of watching and waiting. He was finding it increasingly difficult to keep still. But he must! Calendil's life might depend on him not giving away their hiding place to encroaching ruffians who might be creeping up on them even now!

Faramir shaded his eyes against the westering Sun and scrutinised the Road that unwound over and around the surrounding hills like a ribbon stretching towards the distance Sea. A fitful wind occasionally rustled the vegetation around him, though not enough to relieve the heat that had built throughout that summer afternoon. Still no sign of Haldoron. As his gaze returned to the Messenger's pale visage, he saw Calendil's eyelids flutter.

'Cal?' he whispered.

The young guardsman's eyes remained closed, though his forehead wrinkled briefly, and he strove to speak.

'Cal,' Farry repeated, gripping the Man's shoulder. 'Hush... you're safe.' ...which might not be entirely accurate, the teen thought to himself. 'All will be well.' That's not much better.

Pip-lad scooted closer. 'Cal?' he whispered, and added his own reassurance. 'We're here. We've got you.'

'Got me?' the guardsman muttered, seeming puzzled. Then, 'Ho—,' the Man murmured. 

Horse? Farry wondered. 

'Hoofs...' murmured the injured Man. As if the effort to speak had been too much for him, his forehead relaxed as his face went slack, and his body settled deeper into the folded blankets they'd used to try and cushion him while waiting for Haldoron.

'Cal?' Farry and Pip-lad said together, unconsciously raising their voices and thus drawing warning hisses from both Robin Bolger, slightly higher on the slope behind them, and Ferdibrand across the way.

Farry reached a trembling hand to the pulse-point he'd been taught and rested his fingers there a long moment. In his perturbation, he could not at first find a heartbeat, and gulped back a sob.

'Is he...?' Pip-lad said in the barest whisper.

But... no! ...there... Feeling dizzy, Farry repositioned his fingers – and, at last, felt a flutter under the pale skin. He took a gasping breath. His sudden dizziness subsided just as suddenly, and he belatedly realised he'd forgotten about his own body's need to breathe after the young guardsman had swooned.

Meeting Pip-lad's anxious gaze, the young Took nodded and tried to smile, then took his fingers away from Calendil's throat. 'Still with us,' he whispered.

Though Pip hardly seemed reassured, he scooted back to his previous position, a little higher on the slope, and settled into place, picking up his bow from the ground where he'd laid it a few moments earlier.

Farry took up his own bow – he'd slung it over his arm when Calendil had shown signs of wakening – and fitted an arrow loosely in place, ready to draw and loose at an instant's notice. Why, as things stood, the trap-setters might return at any moment! What if they had some way of determining that their trap had been sprung? After all, spiders did!

As Faramir had observed during a lesson with his tutor, a spider could sit absolutely still at the centre of its web. A light breeze could set the gossamer strands a-tremble without the creature seeming to take notice. A more vigorous puff of wind could send the web rocking, with no observable effect on the arachnid, except perhaps to cling all the more tightly to the strands. Nor would the creature move if a hobbit touched the edge of the web with a twig. Only when an insect blundered into the web did the spider respond...

A sudden cramp in his bow hand took the teen by surprise. He tried to flex and relax the hand but ended up having to lay down his weapons to knead the cramp away. So much for the stillness of the hunter that Farry admired in his uncle Ferdi and the hobbits who served on the Thain's escort. 

While he wouldn't expect to detect any movement from the groundcover where Ferdi had hid himself, he found himself rather irritated that his young Gamgee friend seemed equal to the current task of keeping absolutely still – or as still as possible. Why, though he too was a teen, and only a year older than Faramir, Pippin Gamgee was managing to stay as silent and still as a hunting spider waiting at the centre of its web. How does Pip-lad do it? Faramir wondered. Surely a Took can do just as well as a Gamgee in a pinch!

He took the risk of moving his head and glancing over at the other teen, only to find Pip-lad asleep to all appearances!

Sssst! he hissed.

Pip-lad's eyes opened, displaying no signs of sleepiness. In turn, he hushed Faramir!

Farry glared.

Pip-lad raised a cautious hand to his lips and whispered so low, no sound came to Farry's ears. But from the young Gamgee's lips, the young Took read, Do you hear it?

Hear what? he mouthed back, annoyance gone as quickly as it had arisen.

Listen! Pip-lad mouthed, slowly moving his hand to his ear for emphasis.

Farry listened. At first he heard nothing (How can his hearing be sharper than mine?!), but then the fickle wind brought to his ears the tappety-tap of galloping hoofs.

Pip-lad nodded emphatically, silently communicating, Yes! That's what I'd thought I'd heard!

Farry echoed the nod. I hear it too!

The only problem was that the rider was coming from the opposite direction – from the East, from the direction of Imladris, rather than from the part of the Road they had already travelled.

Could it be the trap-setter?

Or was someone else in danger of being unhorsed and injured or possibly killed by the giant spider-trap?

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Author's note: Some phrasing in this chapter comes from 'Shelob's Lair' in The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien.

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