Arrivals

Note to readers: As noted at the beginning of the previous chapter, the events in this chapter take place after the companion stories Seeing the Forest for the Trees and A Took by any Other Name in which Orcs, seeking easier pickings, invade the Old Forest and menace Buckland.

47. Arrivals

'You shouldn't be out here, standing on the stones! You ought to have your feet up!'

'And who will greet the arriving Gamgees, I ask you?' Diamond retorted.

Taken aback, Pippin said, 'Why, I will! And Merry, of course! And I promise to conduct our honoured visitors directly to the parlour where you'll be sitting with your feet propped up on a stool where they belong!'

Diamond thought privately to herself that her beloved might've taken a page out of his own book, considering how recently old Ossilan had allowed him to return to a full schedule of work after the recent emergency. 

During the War of the Ring, Thranduil's Elves had driven the Orcs out of Mirkwood. The survivors had fled into the mountains, where they'd licked their wounds while barely subsisting on what they could catch and scavenge and, occasionally, steal from lowlanders while evading the Rangers who'd returned to guarding the Northlands. After a decade, the creatures had emerged once more and tried to regain a foothold in the forest, to take advantage of Thranduil's campaign against the giant spiders and other evils that had afflicted the region under the Dark Power. 

Half a hundred that had escaped from battles with Thranduil's Elves and the Northern Rangers had travelled West, looking for easier pickings and feebler foes. These had set up a camp deep in the Old Forest, from whence they began to venture past the High Hay into Buckland to raid isolated farms in the dark of night.

Pippin rode into the Forest with Brandy Hall's head forester to investigate the odd happenings, only to be captured by the invading Orcs. Merry had led the rescue party that had barely been in time to save the young Took from a horrifying fate. As it was, the younger cousin had nearly succumbed to his injuries after his rescue...

Had he not fought his way back from the Forest, from his injuries, from the dark memories, from the fever that descended upon him... our child would never have known its father, Diamond thought sombrely, resting her hand on the place where their soon-to-be-born child was currently quiet. Sleeping, she thought. But then, we danced all through the night, did we not? Or you did, at least, my precious little one.

'Diamond!'

Pippin's insistence brought Diamond back from the depths where her thoughts had taken her. 'Peregrin Took, I am fine! Even though I look as though I've swallowed a sack of grain, there is nothing the matter with me!'

Pippin took her hand and bowed over it, then turned her palm over and laid a kiss there. 'You make a very lovely sack of grain, my dear,' he murmured, and Diamond laughed as she pulled her hand free of his grasp. Her retort was interrupted by cheers from the arriving young Gamgees as their waggon pulled up in the yard.

'Welcome!' Esmeralda called. Small hobbits poured from the waggon to gather round her, and she put out her hands to hug as many as she could at once. 'Oh my loves, it has been too long!'

Samwise stepped down from the waggon and turned to help Rose down. 

As Rose joined the throng hugging Esmeralda, Saradoc took Mayor Samwise's hand in greeting. 'I'm afraid you're going to have to visit oftener than once a year,' he smiled. 'Otherwise my wife will be dragging me off to Hobbiton.'

Samwise grinned, 'Ah, well, we have all the comforts of home in Hobbiton.'

'It's not the home that worries me, it's the journey to get there.' He cocked an eye at Rosie. 'And the way your wife cooks, I might never want to go back to Buckland – and then what would the Brandybucks do for a Master?'

'They'd just press Merry into the position, and he wouldn't have time to lie about and go fishing anymore. 'Twould be good for him! And so you could come and live with us; my Rosie would wait on you hand and foot, you know.'

'It's a tempting offer... why don't we discuss it over tea in the parlour,' Saradoc chuckled.

***

Watching her scapegrace nephew seating his wife in a chair with as much care as if she were made of rare Elvish blown glass, Esmeralda smiled. The lad had been raw indeed, like the new brandy produced at the Hall each year, nearly undrinkable when young but improving with age.

The Took, ever impatient and slow to see any virtue in his son since he'd become Thain, had poured out the unfinished wine on the floor and thrown the bottle away. She sighed, and Pippin looked up with a smile, some of the old impishness showing in his eyes.

'Do you think you could fill a generous plate for my wife, Aunt? She's eating for two, you know!'

'Only if you fill one just as generous for my husband!' Diamond broke in.

Pippin looked down in chagrin. 'It's the trial of my life,' he said, shaking his head. 'I must eat whenever my wife feels hunger!'

'Well, you don't show it!' Diamond retorted. 'I suspect you must be burying the food amongst the plants, for I see no sign that you've eaten as much as you say.'

'Ah, but don't the plants look fat and healthy, though...' Pippin smirked. He leaned down to whisper to his wife, 'Just don't look beneath the carpet...!'

'No, he just puts it on your plate when you're not looking,' Merry laughed.

Pippin looked indignant. 'Now don't be giving away my secrets, cousin!' he said sharply, then smiled down at Diamond. 'You don't believe him, now, do you, lass?'

'Oh, every word...' she pouted up at him. 'So that's why I look like a sack of grain and you hardly have any meat on you!'

Watching her nephew, Esmeralda thought of a long-ago conversation she'd overheard between her husband and her brother, when she and Saradoc had visited the Great Smials a year after Paladin had become Thain. Both Saradoc and Esmeralda had been shocked at the change in the hobbit. The formerly solid yet almost invariably cheerful farmer had seemed weighed down with invisible but heavy chains; Paladin's smiles were few, and he'd corrected Pippin in front of others for some high-spirited prank much more harshly than the mischief had seemed to warrant, at least in the visiting Brandybucks' eyes.

'Say you had an intelligent, but highly-strung pony to train,' Saradoc had said.

Paladin nodded. 'A difficult task, I know, from watching Ferdinand and his pony-training over the years. Such a pony makes a fine mount but is easy to spoil through wrong handling.'

Saradoc took a sip of ale. 'Aye. If he had a mind to dance a bit, you wouldn't jerk at the reins and then beat him about the ears when he threw up his head in protest!'

'Of course not – what kind of a fool would do such a thing? Such a pony needs a firm, steady hand. Jerk at his mouth, and you're likely to ruin him, make him hard-mouthed. He'd be good for nothing.'

'Aye,' Saradoc repeated, then raised his eyes to Paladin's. 'Just like you've been bringing up your son since the Tooks foisted off the Thainship on you.'

Paladin choked on his ale. 'What would a Brandybuck know about preparing Pip to be Thain after me?' he said. 'Why, the Tooks already blame Pip's wild ways on all the time he spent in the wilds of Buckland in his early years. "Wastrel", they call him, and worse! They're constantly nattering at me about how he needs a firm hand – that the Brandybucks have bridled him without even a bit in his mouth and, worse, have given him his head!'

Saradoc said calmly, 'I'm only telling you how it looks to me. And it seems that the bit the Tooks would force into his mouth is sharp and cruel, cutting his tongue to curb it until he bleeds...'

The Thain snorted. 'He's not a pony, he's a lad, and a rascal at that!'

'And the Tooks would have you beat it out of him...' Saradoc pressed.

Paladin shouted in outrage, 'I've never laid a hand on him! And the Tooks are not the monsters you paint them as!' Forcibly calming himself, he said, 'They may be tough, and hard as flint, but because of who and what they are, they helped to keep the goblins from overrunning the North Farthing in Bandobras's time! Can you say the same for Buckland?'

'No, of course I cannot.' Saradoc shook his head, fixed his gaze on the ale he held, and watched the bubbles rising while he mastered his temper. He would try one more time.

'Happily enough, such troubles are well behind us now.' He forced himself to chuckle as he added, 'You're right; my nephew is a rascal, a true rapscallion, and quite practised in making mischief.'

Paladin smiled grudgingly. 'He is at that.' He shook his head and admitted, 'He keeps the Smials in an uproar most of the time.'

Saradoc kept his voice light, as if he hardly cared about the matter. 'Why don't you send him to the Hall? There's plenty of relations there to keep an eye on him, and he could follow Meriadoc about, stir him up a bit. That lad spends too much time in books.'

'Books!' Paladin snorted. 'And you try to tell me how to raise a son.' He gulped at his ale and chortled. 'He would plague the life out of his cousin!'

'Well, we could always send him back to you if he burns down the Hall,' Saradoc said easily.

'Done, then. Take him. And good riddance.'

'You don't mean that!' Esmeralda said, shocked. She had been following the conversation in bemusement, with the feeling that Saradoc was going to turn the Hall into a home for orphans. First young Frodo, and now this whirlwind nephew...

Sudden determination moved her to say, 'He's welcome at the Hall for as long as he wishes to stay.'

A knock at the parlour door interrupted her reverie, and the conversation. Merimas stuck his head in. Seeing Pippin, he said, 'I've finished gathering the information you said you wanted for the revised plan for sowing the rest of the spring barley.'

Pippin nodded. 'Leave a note on my desk. I'll get to it soon.'

'Right,' and Merimas was gone again.

Pippin focused on Samwise. 'Why don't you turn your hand to doing something about the weather?' he said, and one might have thought him serious from his tone, but for the twinkle in his eye. 'The Brandywine flooded last year and this, and though this year is promising to be a fine one for crops, now that the River has come back to its senses after this year's Spring flooding, there's no telling but that we might well have a drought next year, just for a little variety. Now there's a problem your honourable mayorship ought to be able to sink your teeth into!'

'At the moment I'm sinking my teeth into some very good cake,' Sam said equably.

'I want to say hello to Frodo, Dad!' young Frodo's voice broke in.

Samwise put down his plate to lift his son up to the portrait. 'Hello, Frodo,' the lad said. 'You're looking as well as ever.'

'That he is, son,' Sam said, putting him down again. 'Go and eat your cake now before the assistant to the Steward mistakes it for his own.'

'Hah,' Pippin said. 'No worries, Frodo-lad! That only happens with seedcake!'

***

The next day, when Esmeralda emerged from her usual early-morning consultation with the Chief overseeing the Hall's kitchens, a mug of brightly-coloured Spring wildflowers stood at her place at the head table. She smiled at Samwise, but he merely shook his head as he returned her smile. Perhaps Pippin...? But Pippin was not at breakfast this morning. Nor was Diamond, who had been feeling poorly the previous day. The child weighed ever more heavily on her, and Esmeralda remembered the feeling and sympathised.

Puzzled, the Mistress's eyes moved down the table until they came to rest on young Frodo's mischievous grin. O' course, she thought, and smiled at the lad. Flowers from Frodo... keeping up the tradition. Bless young Samwise for his remembering and his thoughtfulness. But then, the Mayor is the soul of thoughtfulness, or so my Merry said of him just the other day...

Pearl north-Took entered. 'Well, it looks like today will be the day.' But when Esmeralda half-rose from her chair, Diamond's mother waved her back to her seat. 'It won't be long now. She's already said she's tired and Peregrin can take over the work, and she's called him nearly every name I've heard before in her irritation, along with a few I hadn't heard before.'

Samwise chuckled. 'Oh, it won't be long, indeed.' He'd been through the same with Rose five times now.

Rose struck him on the arm. 'Go on with you!'

Pearl laughed. 'Well, I must get back. I'll let you know soon, Merry, whether you're to be an aunt or an uncle!' She exited, well pleased with herself, as laughter followed her from the room.

***

'Do you want to hold him?' Pearl whispered to her son in love.

Pippin lifted his gaze from the bundle in her arms, his eyes wide. 'He's so tiny...' he whispered. 'I'm afraid...' But then, Pearl reminded herself, he'd been born the youngest in his family and hadn't had the experience of getting used to holding a baby brother or sister.

She chuckled low in her throat, 'Oh, you can't break him as easily as all that. Here, hold your arms so...' and she deftly guided the babe into his father's arms.

'Look at him, Diamond, just look at him!' he breathed. 'Have you ever seen the like...?'

Spent from the hard work she'd so recently accomplished, but at the same time, now that it was over, feeling curiously energised, Diamond beamed back at her beloved. 'He's perfect!' she agreed.

'I'm sorry you won't be able to use the name you wanted,' Pippin said, looking up and then back at the babe. 'But I truly believe "Estella" would not fit this fine lad very well. Though if you should insist, you know already that I can refuse you nothing...'

Her laughter rippled around him. 'No. But Faramir is an equally fine name.' Pippin gently laid his son in his wife's arms and bent to encircle them both in his embrace.

***

Late one night, with the young Gamgees asleep and Rose nursing wee Pippin, Sam was restless. His feet took him down to the quiet parlour, and he found himself standing before Frodo's portrait. By the light of the low-turned lamp, the eyes seemed to stare into his. The mouth of the painted figure quirked in an achingly familiar way, making Sam feel as if Frodo were standing before him and was about to launch into one of his comical stories.

At a step behind him, Sam turned to see Merry. The Brandybuck smiled and laid a hand on Sam's shoulder as he joined his old friend in contemplating the portrait. 

The two of them gazed at Frodo's face together for uncounted minutes in silence, which Merry finally broke. 'I often come down here, when all is quiet, for a little chat with my cousin.'

'What do you suppose it's like, there in Elvenhome...?'

'I don't know,' Merry said slowly and thoughtfully. 'Beautiful, probably. It would have to be. Like Rivendell in the morning, or Lothlórien in the Spring.'

'We never saw Lothlórien in springtime,' Sam mused.

'No,' Merry said, his smile wistful. 'I can only imagine how it looked.'

Sam drew a deep breath and sighed it out again. 'Do you suppose he's ever lonely in that beautiful place?'

'Oh,' Merry whispered, 'I'd imagine he misses us, even as we're missing him.' He looked into Frodo's painted eyes. 'What I wouldn't give for another chat, a hug, a hike through midge-infested marshes, even...' From the corner of his eye, Sam saw Merry blink away tears. And after clearing his throat, the Brandybuck added, 'It seems as if all I need to do is ride over to Hobbiton, and he'll be there at the door to greet me.' He shook his head. 'But of course I'll never see him again.'

The words struck Sam a bitter blow, and he bowed his head. Merry's hand on his shoulder tightened, and Sam looked up to meet his fellow Traveller's gaze.

'But you'll see him again someday,' Merry said softly. 

At Sam's questioning look, he continued. 'You were a Ring-bearer yourself, if only for a time. When nothing ties you here anymore, you can sail to where he's waiting.' 

Sam pondered the idea. When nothing ties you here anymore. Frodo had said, in parting, Your time may come. Sam had not really understood, caught up in the grief of the moment, the sudden realisation on hearing old Master Bilbo talk about going on another journey with the Elves, that his beloved master and friend, whom he'd followed to the end of all things and back again, was leaving for ever, sailing away, and Sam would never see him again.

Frodo had also talked about so many things as they rode together to the Grey Havens, he'd made Sam's head spin, reeling off predictions of Sam's future as if he'd been sitting in a booth at the Free Faire in Michel Delving in a soothsayer's cap and gown. But instead of offering vague promises, such as "You'll meet a short, fair-haired stranger", he'd named a host of unborn children, Elanor's little brothers and sisters to come. Though strictly speaking, Goldilocks was yet to appear; instead, Pippin had followed on the heels of Merry.

And yet, thought Samwise, isn't that the way things have always been with the two hobbits those sons of ours are named for?

Frodo had also spoken about things that he predicted would keep Sam as busy and happy as anyone can be – how clearly he remembered the words, and when he closed his eyes, it was as if Frodo stood before him even now, repeating them over. For Sam had engraved the words on his heart as he'd listened, knowing he was receiving Frodo's final instructions, and determined to carry them out to the letter.

Your hands and your wits will be needed everywhere. You will be the Mayor, of course, as long as you want to be, and the most famous gardener in history; and you will read things out of the Red Book, and keep alive the memory of the age that is gone, so that people will remember the Great Danger and so love their beloved land all the more. 

Sam had been astonished at the very idea of being the Mayor. Nevertheless, Mister Frodo mentioned that as one of the tasks he was expecting of Sam, and so when Mr Fredregar Bolger had first asked him to consider running for Mayor after old Will Flourdumpling announced he was stepping down, Sam hadn't dismissed the suggestion out of hand but had said he'd take the idea under consideration. Which he had, six years after Frodo sailed with the Elves. And here he was, in his third year as the Mayor of Michel Delving.

He didn't think much about trying to become the most famous gardener in history; that wasn't up to him, after all. No, but what he'd taken from Mr Frodo's final orders was to keep on doing his best and applying himself with all his heart and strength and mind and courage, and so he had. And so he continued to do now as Mayor. The main difference now was that his garden had expanded from the garden beds and Old Orchard at Bag End to encompass the entirety of the Shire, starting with his efforts to restore the land to its former verdant abundance.

And as for keeping alive the memory of the age that was gone, he had to admit he hadn't lived up to expectations there, or so he judged his efforts. He did read a little out of the Red Book to Rosie and baby Elanor every evening, that much was true. But as for helping people remember the Great Danger, so that they would love their beloved land all the more... Sam not only did not know where to start, but he felt all alone, as if all the others had abandoned him, leaving him an enormous task that felt as if it was beyond his strength and his wit. The hobbit standing beside him now, Meriadoc the Magnificent, seemed more interested in not talking about the Quest, in general, and his part in it, in particular. And young Pippin, though no longer a tween, still seemed to follow his older cousin's lead as much as he always had.

And that will keep you as busy and as happy as anyone can be, as long as your part of the Story goes on.

Sam had always taken the last part of Frodo's instructions to mean "and I expect you to keep working at these things for the rest of your life" – wasn't that what as long as your part of the Story goes on meant?

Merry's simple observation a moment ago had been like the flare of a striker, and Sam's subsequent realisation had been like lighting a lamp and turning up the wick to glaring brightness, illuminating possibilities that had never really occurred to Sam until this moment. O he'd had his wishes, but he'd always dismissed them and scolded himself for entertaining such impractical thoughts, even briefly.

But what if "Your time will come" meant that Sam would see Frodo again, perhaps when it was truly the end of all things for them? For surely he would have to be on his deathbed, ready to embrace the Feast for nothing to tie him to the Shire anymore. Or perhaps it was as simple as when he was nearing the end of his life? He could not imagine leaving his Rosie, but what if she were to leave him first...? And what about their children? And their children, should they be so blessed? 

It was a new thought to him, and it would require some serious contemplation, he deemed, to work out the hows and whys and wherefores of the matter.

And suddenly, Sam remembered that he'd been conversing with Merry, and Merry had spoken and was waiting for a response, and here Sam was standing here like a ninny, gathering wool. 'See him again...?' he echoed, stumbling over the words.

But Merry smiled as if it were not at all a new idea to him. 'When you see him, give him my love, and a big hug from all of us.' 

And then Merry squeezed Sam's shoulder again, and left the parlour.

*** 

Author's notes: 

Some words and phrases that appear in this chapter were drawn from "The Grey Havens" in The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien.

Paladin has been softened in this revision from a totally unreasonable, harsh and demanding, critical father to bring him more in line with the character as he is written in Pearl of Great Price and Thain. He might be better described in terms of the harried Thain, driven by the demands of the Tooks surrounding him and wanting the best for his son but having no idea how to properly prepare Pippin to follow in his footsteps as Thain since he received no such preparation himself. Thus, he is closer to the contented farmer in The Farmer's Son and less like Denethor as Pippin encountered him which, in hindsight, affected my characterisation of Pippin's father. (Along similar lines, I suspect the kindly Théoden affected how I characterised Merry's relationship with his father. It's interesting how small hints can grow into large gapfillers...) And for all I know, I got the relationships and characterisations wrong and Tolkien had a completely different idea of who these barely-mentioned characters should be.

When Jewels reached 53 chapters, I started writing additional material as stand-alone stories. Somehow it seemed kinder to my beta readers to do it that way... Otherwise, they'd think they were finished with a section, only to have me go back and say, "Well, there's a new chapter 46, and so you need to renumber all the chapters that follow... again..."

All that to say, one of those stand-alone stories, set during Pippin's "Young Steward" years, which takes place about a month before the events in this chapter and is briefly summarised at the start of this chapter, is Seeing the Forest for the Trees, as mentioned above, detailing how the Shire-folk dealt with an incursion of Orcs who had taken refuge in the Old Forest.

***