Chapter 2. Mistress Lobelia Takes the Cake

’If that will be all, ma’am?’ the ruffian chief said, edging backwards. He’d seen how quick the old biddy could grab that umbrella, and he preferred to be out of reach.

’Not quite,’ Lobelia said regally. ‘That bed you have for me, has it a blanket?’

‘Yes’m, of course it does,’ the ruffian chief said. The hobbit was, after all, the Boss’s mother. Besides, the chief had a mother of his own, back home. He’d see to it that Mistress Lobelia was as comfortable as his restrictions allowed. Perhaps she was tiring of sitting on the cold floor, cradling that filthy, stinking rebel, and would retire to her own cell.

Sharkey’s orders or no Sharkey’s orders, the rebels ought to quietly disappear in the night, and things would settle down again. Even with half the prisoners suddenly deceased, there would be plenty of live hobbits—if you could call it living—in the Lockholes for the Chief to gloat over. The old biddy was probably senile, anyhow, and wouldn’t even miss the hobbit she was holding at the moment.

’I’m cold,’ Lobelia said pleasantly. ‘Bring my blanket to me here.’

’Wouldn’t you rather seek your bed, Mistress, where your blanket awaits you?’ the rebel chief said as ingratiatingly as he could. It was a mistake, he realised as his fingers instinctively sought to plug his ears.

’NO I WOULD NOT rather seek my BED, young MAN!’ she shrieked.

Before she could continue, he held out his hands. ‘Begging your pardon, Mistress,’ he said quckly. ‘I’ll fetch it myself, in this instant.’

’You do that, young Man,’ she said, satisfied, and looked down at the prisoner in pointed dismissal. Cursing himself for a coward and a fool, the ruffian chief strode down the corridor to the room they’d prepared when she’d arrived, snatched the blanket from the bed, and returned with it.

Mistress Lobelia accepted the blanket with a sniff, then told the Men they were free to go for the nonce. She’d call them when she needed them. Politeness seemed the prudent course, so they bowed respectfully and took their leave.

The “soup” had cooled somewhat, but was still warm to the touch. Lobelia tried to break the crust of bread that had been on the floor, but it was too old and hard, and she ended up poking it into the soup in the cup, to soften while she turned her attention to the fresher piece. This one she was able to break into small chunks, which she soaked in the second cup of warm swill, after sipping it to bring the level down enough to fit the bread in. She shuddered at the taste, but it was warm, and it was liquid, and it had evidently had some nodding acquaintance with potatoes, perhaps even a touch of onion, so she’d make do.

She got up and spread the blanket out over the sick hobbit, tucking it under him to protect his body from the chill of the stone floor. Next she dragged the bucket of water close; she’d want to be able to reach it easily. She piled the rags by the bucket, put the soup within reaching distance (even the rock-hard bread was beginning to soften), and sat down, easing her lap once again under the fevered hobbit’s head.

Lobelia took up a cloth and dipped it into the bucket of cool, fresh water, then began to gently wash the dirty face, a mixture of caked-on mud, dust, and dried blood. Her charge stirred, trying to lift a hand, but the blanket held him down. He began to struggle feebly, his eyes blinking in an attempt to see his surroundings. He was wasting precious energy, Lobelia decided.

 ‘There, there, it’s all right,’ she soothed. ‘No,’ she added firmly, ‘don’t throw the blanket off.’

She stroked his hair back from his forehead and muttered, ‘I ought to have a shears, you’re shaggier than a sheep in the springtime. Now we’ve washed the dirt away, let us have a look at your face.’

He shook his head weakly, trying again to push the blanket away, to push her away, she thought, but she soothed his forehead again with her fingers and murmured reassurance.

‘There lad,’ she said. ‘It’s all right.’ She soaked the cloth again, squeezed some of the water out, went over his features one more time, then took the cloth away to peer at his face in the shadowy light from the torches in the corridor. Were her eyes tricking her? She gasped.

 ‘A Took!’ she whispered, ‘but how do you come to be here? I thought they were hanging any Took they could get their hands on...’ Lobelia remembered hearing the Men sitting around at Bag End, joking with Lotho. Uncouth louts, she’d thought at the time, and their jokes were not funny at all. “The only good Took is a dead one,” was one of the things they’d said. She’d used a similar phrase herself, talking about garden snails. She did not find it at all amusing, applied to hobbits.

She looked more closely, then decided, ‘No, not all Took. There’s some Bolger in that face. Ah, lad, I can guess who you are. ‘Tis a wonder to find you alive at all.’ How had Fredegar Bolger escaped hanging? Of course, she’d heard it put about that he’d died in a raid, taken a ruffian arrow and been buried in a shallow, unmarked grave. She’d called on his parents to give them her condolences and to say “I told you so”, but the grand house was empty, the Bolgers gone away, and none could say where.

The soup was cooling, and he seemed awake enough to swallow some of it, so she lifted his head, murmuring, ‘Here now, it’s not proper bread at all, and it is only soaked in that travesty they call “soup”, but it’s food of a sort, and you look as if you haven’t eaten in days. Come lad, take a little sustenance.’

She picked up some of the bread from the cup, warm and crumbly now, soft enough to swallow without chewing. Delicately, she eased her fingers past his lips, placing the food in his mouth, and was heartened to see him swallow. ‘There’s the lad,’ she encouraged. ‘Take some more, now.’

She continued to pick up tiny amounts of soaked bread and slip them into his mouth, much as she had fed her precious Lotho when he’d been a small lad, smitten with illness, too weak to feed himself, and unhobbitly disinterested in eating. They’d played the baby bird game, she recalled with a smile.

Lobelia slowly fed him all the bread and soup from both cups, though by the time they finished that meal it was no longer warm. Still, it was an accomplishment to have gotten the food into him, and a hopeful sign that he was not moribund. She laid him down with a pat on his shoulder. ‘There now, lad, you sleep a bit. I’m going to see who else is in this forsaken hole.’

She tucked the blanket securely around him and rose, picking up her umbrella. The cold ground beneath her had stiffened her old bones, and she tottered out into the corridor.

Seeing a ruffian, she said, ‘YOU, there, young Man...’

He had not heard the news, and tried to seize her by the arm. She soon set him right.

***

Lobelia walked the length of the corridor, peering into each cell in turn, seeing hobbit forms lying or crouching in the shadows. None answered her when she spoke to them. Reaching the end, she stared down into the blackness that hid the next level. A terrible stench arose from the hole, and she turned away. No torches were lit down there, evidently nothing alive was housed there. At least, she hoped that was the case.

She retraced her steps to the entrance of the Lockholes. Seeing the ruffian chief talking to the scribe, she beckoned.

’Yes, Mistress Lobelia?’ he asked politely.

’What’s the name of that lad I was sitting with? I didn’t know him,’ she said. She was curious; did they know they had Fredegar Bolger amongst their prisoners? It might explain why his condition was among the worst of the hobbits there, though several were nearly as bad off. She thought she could tell which were the rebels by the terrible condition they were in, the bruises telling of beatings, the terrible thinness of their bodies, the hopelessness in their eyes by the light of the flickering torchlight.

The chief beckoned to the scribe, who advanced with one wary eye on the umbrella. ‘His name is Sandy Riverbottom,’ he said, checking his sheet to be sure. He scratched his head. ‘That's odd, I never noticed that before: he’s the only Riverbottom there...’

‘Ah, most of the Riverbottoms live up away in North Farthing,’ Lobelia said smoothly. ‘He’s far from his kin.’

’Wonder how he got mixed in with a bunch of rebel...,’ the chief said. He’d been about to say “pigs”, but considering the company, ended with “hobbits”, instead.

‘That I cannot tell you,’ Lobelia snapped, her temper growing short again. She’d known very well what was on his tongue; she could read him like a book. Both ruffians stiffened. ‘What I CAN tell you,’ she continued tightly, ‘is that the conditions here are disGRACEful. Why do none of the prisoners have blankets?’

’We weren’t issued any...’ the chief began.

‘HAH!’ Lobelia shouted, and raised her umbrella threateningly. ‘I know for a FACT that you have STOREHOLES full of blankets here in Michel Delving, that you’ve “gathered for fair distribution”—‘ and here her voice dripped with irony, ‘—from the hobbits in the surrounding area. Well, I’d suggest you start distributing them, here and now, if you know what’s GOOD for you.’

‘Yes’m,’ the ruffian chief said quickly. His head was beginning to pound, it was nearly time to knock off for the day, and what he really wanted was some beer and quiet. He definitely did not want Mistress Lobelia to start shrieking again. He glared at the scribe. ‘See to it!’ he snapped.

‘But—‘ the scribe protested.

‘Now!’ the ruffian chief and Lobelia shouted in unison. Outmatched, the scribe turned tail and fled to carry out his orders.

’Will there be anything else, ma’am?’ the chief said, hoping there wasn’t. ‘Shall I show you to your room, now?’

‘That won’t be necessary,’ Lobelia said. ‘All I want is some dinner, and...’

‘Dinner?’ the chief said, puzzled. ‘But we served you your dinner, with that rebel, er, hobbit.’

‘That was his dinner,’ Lobelia said, her eye glinting dangerously. ‘Now I want mine.'

It wasn’t worth the argument. ‘Yes, Mistress,’ he said. ‘Wait here a moment and I’ll fetch it.’

 ‘Make sure it’s HOT!’ she shrieked after him.