IN THE SHIRE-RECKONING by Diane Finnis-Robb  

---

Part Three; Chapter One "Afterlithe"

Part III
The Time of Conclusion

-In Which many Accounts are Settled and, for Good and for Bad, the Future of the Shire is Shaped.

---

“We are finite creatures with absolute limitations upon the powers of our soul-body structure in either action or endurance. Moral failure can only be asserted, I think, when man’s effort or endurance falls short of his limits, and the blame decreases as that limit is closer approached.”

-Tolkien, Letter 246

 

chapter one

“afterlithe”

   The Shire Calendar, with its unique idiosyncrasies from the older calendars which some hobbits knew in the Bree-land, had become fairly well developed by the Twenty-Ninth Year of their settlement. “Lithe”, that celebration of midsummer (of which many hobbits in the new community could not quite remember where that word came from nor could they agree upon what it meant) was a three day event which divided the sixth and seventh month of older calendars used by Men in the west. Renamining these three days “the Summerdays” was a good hobbit-sense solution; take a thing which everyone seems to understand and put a word to it which is hard to argue against. So here were the Summerdays when the light of the Sun was the longest and the weather, for the most part, the brightest. They consisted of three days and three nights, but were generally observed (for the purposes of feasting rather than the correctness of calendars) from first sunset to sunrise after two nights following. There was a full lunar month before them and a lunar month which followed. Now the Bree-land calendar was much more complex and gave the months before and after these days much more exotic and deceptive names. “Lithe” came first (oddly before the Lithe Days themselves) and “Mede” was the lunar month after. Shire-hobbits, in their more sensible nature, simply called the month before the Summerdays “Fore-Lithe” and the month after them “After-Lithe” and this seemed a most agreeable plan which everyone could stick to.

   There were many important events to the conclusion of this story which happened in a complex order which may be difficult for readers to keep track of. They occurred in many different areas of the Shire but all come in the first week of After-lithe.

*****

   On the First day of After-lithe, as Youngbuck and his friends were coming to the site they would call Gormadoc’s hole, Leufred Took, the second son of Childebrand, came riding into Waymeet bearing an important letter from his father. Unlike his older brother Reginard, Leufred could not read and had no real idea of the letter’s content. If he had, or if his father had only trusted him enough to let him know of the letter’s importance, then perhaps Leufred would not have tarried so long and might have come to Waymeet three nights before. Perhaps. But the real truth, as most of his family knew it, was that Leufred had no real head for important business when there was good food, wine and pretty young does to take his attention. So he had tarried long over the Summerdays in Whitwell among such luxuries and now came to Waymeet in the morning, trying to look as if he had traveled all night.

   Reginard loved his little brother despite such flaws in his nature and was overjoyed to see him come riding into the little settlement all on his own. He was certainly concerned as to what might have made his father send this most unlikely of couriers. Welcoming Leufred quickly into his tent and offering him wine and food, Reginard took the letter and began to read it. The first thing which he noticed was the date, of course. It had been written five days before. Reginard cast a disapproving eye which his brother did not see, and read on.

   “My most Faithful and Resourceful son,” the letter read, “we have received unexpected and most complicating pressures at our border as of las tnight. A small band of horsemen...”

   Reginard thought about the consequences of these strangers on the Shire’s border and tried to read through his father’s words to better understand his intentions.

   “The horsemen watch the river but seem unconcerned with us who dwell on the other side. But this means that, for a time at least, our supplies from the east are cut off. Our partners there will not be pleased by this development and will, I am sure, take whatever measure they consider to be an appropriate response. But that may take many months and slow our goals of western expansion...”

   Reginard of course, had news of his own to share regarding the developments here in the west. He had already composed a letter to his father about the very fortunate appearance of Firebrand Bunce’s son in Waymeet and the plan which was set in motion to have the son of his father’s enemy draw the maps at the Shire’s western edge. He had spent much of the day before trying to decide which of these Waymeet lackeys he might spare (or trust) to deliver it back to Sarn Ford. So when his brother first rode into town Reginard thought this choice was solved and that Leufred could take it. Then he read further into his father’s letter:

   “I will need you to return to the Ford immediately, Reginard, and find out more about these Men. Our business in the west, important as ever, must wait until this unforeseen trouble is resolved and I have no one else who can handle this as you can. Bring Zelig and Amram with you, Reginard, for their talents and advice might prove useful in this unusual situation.

   “As for your brother who carries this message, I’ve determined that he needs a bit less luxury and quite a lot more seasoning if he is to live up to his potential. He knows his sums well enough (if not his letters) and should be able to manage the trade there in Waymeet for a time. There are little or no distractions for him to find in that place and, while he will hate it at first, maybe having a little bit of authority will make him step up to business. You remain my most Faithful and Resourceful son, Reginard, but family, fathers and sons and brothers alike, must take care of their own.”

   And so, with the untimely arrival of this letter, Reginard, the Young Took, put the command of the Waymeet trading post into the hands of his younger (and much less cunning) brother Leufred. He took some time, the next few hours in fact (something which he would later regret), carefully explaining to Leufred about the son of Firebrand Bunce and the deal that they had made. He explained that the two Men, Zelig and Amram, whom Leufred very rightly feared, held the contract with Bunce and would, within the next week or so, return with news of the deeds that would be filed by their cousins the Zaragambas.

   ‘The running of the frequent or daily trade between here and the Delvings is easy, brother. It’s a desperate kind of place for food and entertainment, nothing like you are used to, and I can offer you no greater comforts here than this war tent and the victuals I’ve collected. You’ll hate it here, but without distraction you will also excel at the job and have the opportunity to make father proud. He knows nothing of this latest ploy with the young Bunce and his friends, but let me convince you, that is your real business here; to collect those deeds. Once that happens all of our folk will be able to flood the western edge just as father has commanded.’

   And so, after some introductions to the other hobbits of Waymeet and a quick gathering of his own provisions, Reginard set out for the Ford along the old Broken Road. The ponies at his disposal in Waymeet were poor stock (Bunce’s son had indeed taken the best), so he took Leufred’s own beast. Though it was well past midday now Reginard knew the way very well and, if he did not waste time in Whitwell as Leufred had, he might make up for his beloved brother’s tardiness and perhaps arrive before dawn on the Third day of After-lithe. He did not know what these Men on the other side of the Ford could mean for their enterprise, but he was assured that when his father heard about the son of Horris Bunce he would be well pleased. Just as his father had taught him, Reginard Took had made excellent plans out of unexpected circumstances.

   But in his haste to do his father’s bidding he had foolishly left the Dragon-sword of his great grandfather Priamus the Walker in the hands of his inexperienced brother Leufred Took.

*****

   On that morning on the First of After-lithe, about the same time that Youngbuck and his friends were leaving Greenholm behind to return to the Far Downs, Euric Bophin came riding back to the Great Smials with bad news. He had delivered Twoody’s message to Clooty the Builder out in the Delvings as requested, but he had seen no sign of the four truants along the Road. Not knowing what else he might do, he had even waited through the following evening of the festival in case Youngbuck and his friends might indeed show up. But eventually, at sunset last evening, after admitting he had somehow failed in his mission, Euric rode back to tell Twoody and Alaura. This was a duty he did not look forward to performing.

   It was thirty miles from the Great Smials, as folk now called it, to the Delvings and Euric had walked it that first night in great haste and without success. He looked for his nephew Youngbuck and his friends at every quickstep along the way and had nothing to report. Now on his return, thanks to his brother-in-law Clooty’s gift of a good pony, the trip back was equally hasty but much easier on his tired feet and morale. But he still had nothing to report and no comfort to give to his family, Twoody and Alaura.

   When Euric reached the gate of the first big hill of the Great Smials he was surprised to see that Horris Bunce, the Chief Constable and twenty-five of the other Reeves were in the yard speaking with one another and Twoody and Alaura, owners of the property, were nowhere to be seen. All of the Reeves were armed with their short bows, handaxes and slings and, more significantly, Euric could see the four Staves of the Bounders, the originals themselves, collected on a table. Horris himself carried his own old fire-scorched axe.

   All of them hailed Euric as he dismounted from his pony and entered the yard, but it was Horris himself who came up to greet him most heartily.

   ‘Euric, my friend, you’ve come back to us in perfect time,’ he said, drawing the younger hobbit to his side. ‘But first, tell me, what news do you bring of the Youngbuck, my son and their friends?’

   ‘None that is good, Chief,’ Euric said. ‘They were not on the Road and while Clooty and I awaited their coming these past nights, no sign of them came into the Delvings for all the Summerdays. I left last evening to return with bad news.’

   ‘And other bad news has preceded you, I’m sorry to say,’ Horris confided, ‘and on many different fronts.’

   Euric, though tired from his ride, was curious what had occurred to cause such a gathering so early after the nights of feasting. He knew many of his fellow Reeves very well, but had seldom seen them all together in one place and so agitated. And the fact that they all were armed only made his concerns greater.

   ‘A band of the Big Folk, soldiers in arms and on horseback,’ Horris told him, ‘crossed the Stonebows early in the first evening of the Summerdays. King’s men they may be, or at least we’re told they knew many things about the King up in Norbury and respected our Nightswatch. That may be good news amongst the bad, or it may be simple wishfulness in want of a better explanation. What’s bad news from those Men is that wagon-trains out of the east have been running supplies to the southern Ford for months at the least, supplying the Swiftooks of the South-farthing. And not wagon-trains of hobbits, but of Men, Euric. It seems that our old adversary Landlord Swiftook has found himself in the company of criminals again, and that they’ve helped the South-farthing at a more alarming rate than we had ever expected. But there’s even worse news to top all of that,’ Horris said, drawing Euric into a more conspiratorial conversation so that the others around him might not hear.

   ‘Those Men who are supplying our southern neighbours,’ he whispered, ‘are said to come from Angmar.’

   ‘What!’ Euric said. ‘How can that be?’

   ‘Quiet, Euric,’ Horris said. ‘For I don’t want our other comrades to be concerned with something we’ve no certainty of. But certainty we’ll need. These soldiers went so far as to suggest that there may be a settlement of Men out of Angmar on our own lands!’

   ‘Stars above!’ Euric said. If he had been tired from his ride, or despondent over the news he himself brought, this call to action perked him up like cold water across his face and neck. ‘Well, I see you’ve assembled the whole team and all the old Symbols of Office, Chief? What’s the plan?’

   ‘We will march,’ Horris said. ‘And a long and open march it will be. We’ll go immediately south to Whitwell and then follow the Southron’s old Broken Road east and south to the Ford. This is all Tookland, of course, and there may be some who will see us as invaders or try to halt us; but if there are Men there we’ve cause to root them out, whatever others might say about it. We wait only for a few fresh pack animals, so you’ve come at just the hour. Are you rested enough for this?’

   ‘Take us past the Wisher’s Well in Buckland and let me throw cool water on my face and feet, Horris,’ Euric said, ‘and I will be beside you. What of Twoody and Alaura, though? Surely they both have much to say on such a dire development.’

   Horris looked to the door of the Great Smials for a moment as if he was trying to look through it and find something to say. As the moment stretched on, he found that he could not.

   ‘As I’ve said, “bad news has preceded you and arrived on many fronts,”’ he said finally. ‘They have their own unexpected news to deal with and I wish that Youngbuck and my son Bovo had returned with you to help ease their minds. We cannot. All we can do is what we’re enlisted to do; protect the borders. Twoody and Alaura must deal with the more internal issues.’

*****

   On that same morning of the First of After-lithe, as Horris “the Firebrand” Bunce was assembling his comrades for what might very well be considered an invasion of the Tookland, Twoody was not in his home nor his frontyard where all the reeves had assembled. Taking up the Staves of the Bounders for the first time in over twenty years the reeves had all sought Twoody’s blessing of course, and so they had assembled right at his doorstep for just that thing. But Horris, the longtime friend of Twoody and Alaura, knew it was not forthcoming and that the current residents of the property were not at home.

   But Twoody was not ignorant of this latest development of Men crossing the Stonebows; he and Alaura had received the younger Bramblethorne brother Odulf at their door just two mornings before and, hearing the dire news he brought, were the first to seek the most reasonable solution. No word of their son, the Youngbuck, had come by that time, but the Delvings were far off and both of them knew that Berty was both stubborn and resourceful. It may indeed be days, or even weeks, before he and his friends might be collected and brought back home.

   So when the news that a company of soldiers, quite possibly King’s Men, had crossed the bridge and headed south looking for an illegal community of Men in the South-farthing both Twoody and Alaura had taken to their offices as Townfathers to distract themselves from their worry about their son Berty. They brought Horris in right away of course, and, despite Twoody’s earlier reticence to have any dealings with his older brother Childy, they all agreed that this problem should be met head on with an investigation.

   Twoody and Alaura both like the word investigation. To their minds it meant a simple and unobtrusive assessment of the problem. Horris Bunce, for all of his love of these two friends, knew better; you might only call a troop of soldiers “investigators” until someone else called the “invaders”. Then these two different names, as defined by their purpose, might well become a cause for conflict.

   Horris had spent that whole day and more assembling his reeves as Twoody and Alaura suggested. This wasn’t a very easy task, because it was the Summerdays after all, and the reeves were not anything like a standing army. But they were all contacted and all told to assemble in the early hours of the First of After-lithe, as they did, to be given the authority by Twoody to march forth into the Tookland.

   But, as we have said, Twoody was not there.

   On the night before, the last night of Summerdays feasting throughout the Shire, Twoody and Alaura’s lives had forever changed. Two hours after sunset, while the talk among them was high about what to do in the South-farthing and the worries among many of them still rested on the whereabouts of their children, Eumaeus Sandyman came breathlessly through their front gate to deliver a letter.

   We do not know who received the letter first. We do not know their immediate reactions for, if they were ever recorded, they have been lost to our current history. But the cover and the contents of the letter were written in the clear and recognizable hand of Gondolpho Oldbuck and what that script said was both baffling and terrifying.

   “To Master Theudebert Swiftook and his Bride,” the letter read. “I am tardy beyond all the intentions of my original purpose and have no excuses to make other than to say that to live amongst the Immortal Folk is to not understand tardiness in the same way which a good hobbit should. I think that we all three can agree that this might be an unforgivable misunderstanding on my own part for which such an excuse can never be an adequate apology. But the truth of it is all I can offer.

   “I have heard, and I have seen,” the letter continued, “much of what I have missed in my time away. The disappointment which I feel for those experiences which were lost to me because of my wanderings cannot be conveyed in so short a letter. I am not sure I can find words for them in simple writing. To know that I have a son is a surprise I was quite unprepared for but that he has been raised to a state of such integrity and brilliance by the two of you is no surprise at all but, again, a great disappointment; for I would have been there myself had things gone differently.

   “But I am returned now and, quite through chance, I believe that I have met that son. I do not think he will return to the Shire for sometime but, I can tell you this, if he is indeed the young hobbit I met, his life will be full and wonderful and I have only the two of you to thank for that.

   “But I am returned. Master Swiftook, I have missed you greatly in my long travels. And now I thank you for how you have helped to raise my son, and that comes before anything else which I might say.

   “Alaura, fair heart who has always been inside me, I am returned to you with all the love for you that I have ever had, all the regret for the time which my wanderings have made us miss, and all the sadness I can express for the choices I have put before you.

   “I will be at the Farthing Stone at noon on the day after you receive this letter. I hope you will both join me there so that we each might have a better understanding of our futures.

- Gondolpho the Wanderer”

   At this early hour after dawn, as Horris and his reeves were assembled and preparing to march into the south from the very front yard of the Great Smials, once called Sarehole and irrefutably Gondo’s old home, Twoody was not there. After he read the letter the night before he had departed for the small house which he still owned up in Hobbiton-by-the-Water. In the twenty-six years since he had commissioned its building he had never spent a night there, never furnished it nor rented it out. But he went there at the close of the Summerdays to await the coming of the next day and his meeting at the Farthing Stone.

   Where Alaura herself spent the night remains unknown.

*****

   By the fourth hour after the dawn on the First of After-lithe, as Youngbuck and his friends had returned to the Far Downs and established the best location for Gormadoc to build his home, Waltraub Thornburrow, “Troby”, was listening to the plans of the Commander.

   ‘Agreed,’ the tall soldier said to his men, ‘I make their number at only eight, and a poor looking lot of sell-swords they seem. No more than thugs. None should be allowed to escape, but we must also try to take many; for I would question them each.’

   Troby and the soldiers had arrived near the outskirts of the little town at the ford yesterday in the late evening. It had been three long days of riding, but all the soldiers seemed ready to complete their business and Troby himself was eager to see just what was happening here in the South-farthing. There were no roads nor paths to follow south from Longbottom, the last settlement of Shire-hobbits whom Troby knew before entering the Tookland, and so he and the party of soldiers had proceeded with caution but with little rest. The mounts of these horsemen took the long marches easily and Troby and his own pony Partner had done their best to keep up. Commander Ohtar himself had gone on ahead as scout some miles before, leaving his horse and the company of Men to follow slowly behind. This put another, much younger fellow, Vardamir, in charge. Troby liked Vardamir and was glad that, now that they had left Longbottom, he had been allowed to ride beside him and his tall roan horse whom he named Vëalalaith.

   Since they had left the Stonebows bridge three nights before Troby had found the Men to be companionable but not very forthcoming. He would ask them questions about the world beyond the Shire while riding together or stopping to rest their mounts, but it was clear that only Commander Ohtar or Vardamir should be allowed to answer. This was not normal behaviour among hobbits of course, but Troby assumed that soldiers, riding off into strange lands on dangerous missions, had to be a more tight-lipped people.

   Then yesterday, shortly after noon, the party of horsemen met up with Commander Ohtar near the foot of a low hill. From there he had led them on foot to the top of the rise from which the cookfires of the town could be seen. The Commander called it “Sarn Ford” and this is the name which stuck for Troby and all the Shire-hobbits after him (though they did not understand its origin). Troby could not see much from their position but the Commander described many low clustered buildings, disorganized and rather hastily placed leading more or less in a line from the river to what appeared to be an old road. The river they all could see, as it took a sudden turn here, and there was a great lot of commotion all around it. There was a wall of some kind being built there and many hobbits, many more than Troby had anticipated, were involved in the task. As Shire towns went, Troby didn’t think that this one was quite as big as Frogmorton, busier perhaps, and all packed together as they were, bustling with much more energy.

   The Commander had made the decision that they should camp on this far slope under the hill and that he and two others should go on ahead at nightfall to come as close to this encampment as they could and look for signs of Men among this community and how they were garrisoned. All three of the stalkers had then returned before the Sun and took some light rest. Now, four hours after the dawn, having gathered all the information they could, the Commander set the plans for attack.

   ‘The sell-swords do cluster away from the hobbits and keep mostly to themselves,’ young Vardamir offered. ‘They do not seem to care much for the other’s company. Perhaps if we waited for them to take their noonday meal we might catch all the ruffians together without too many hobbits caught between us.’

   ‘Agreed,’ Ohtar said. ‘And I’ve spotted a good path by which we might ride fairly close before being seen. But once we break cover we will have to ride fast, for certainly these eight will scatter rather than face the dozen of us on horseback.’

   ‘Aye, sir,’ one of the other soldiers said, ‘but with our own folk on the other side of the river they won’t have anywhere to go but into the wild. We can hunt them down if need be.’

   ‘What troubles me most is not these ruffians who guard the town,’ Commander Ohtar said, ‘but any other of their folk who might be installed here in the southern lands. As warden Thornburrow here tells us, these “Tookland” hobbits have been settled on this side of the river for at least eight years. They have been supplied for a very long time time then and there may still be a garrison of other Men nearby which remains undetected. It seems strange to me that the Enemy in Angmar would invest so much in supplying the hobbits without installing protections better than these sellswords. What we really need is to find this "Landlord" of theirs and get more answers from him.

   ‘Master Troby,’ the commander asked, ‘can you give us no further information about this character? Any clues of where we might come upon him?’

   Troby thought long and hard on this question, as he had done during the days since the Commander and his men had come to the Stonebows bridge. Proud as he was to be riding alongside these soldiers, he wished that the other Nightwatch warden, Harry Heathertoes, had come in his stead. Harry was much older and had been present at the Battle of the Bank. He would have been able to describe the Landlord much more clearly than Troby, who had no memory of ever setting eyes on the old villain.

   ‘No, sir, I cannot,’ Troby replied, looking downcast. ‘Certainly he is an older hobbit, for he would’ve been well in his thirties at the founding of the Shire, which was twenty-nine years past. But I have never seen him myself. He could be anywhere down in that little town, or nowhere there at all. I am sorry that I’ve no greater clue to offer.’

   ‘No need to apologize, little bridge-warden,’ the Commander said warmly. ‘You have led us to our quarry as promised and we are glad for all the assistance that you have given. Tell me, Troby, will you stay with us as we ride forward, or return now to your folk in the north?’

   ‘Well, I will stay if you’ll still have me, Commander,’ Troby said, looking back up to meet the tall man’s gaze. ‘I said from the start that I should see “that our neighbours are dealt with fairly and within our laws” and I would still hold to that promise if you’ll have me.’

    ‘You are most welcome, Warden Thornburrow,’ Ohtar said, smiling at the little hobbit’s bravery and sense of justice before what the Commander knew might very well turn into a battle. ‘When we ride out of cover I would suggest that you come slowly behind. I cannot promise how the folk of the town will react.’

   ‘Well, to that, Commander,’ Troby said, tugging on his earlobe and scratching his head at the very idea of offering strategy to the leader of these soldiers, ‘I’d like, if I may, to present another option.’

*****

   Also in that Fourth hour after dawn on the First of After-lithe Youngbuck was taking a well-deserved nap and Gormadoc Zaragamba was putting his first shovel-strokes into his new home and Bovo Bunce was going off to wander, explore and eventually discover the place he would live until the end of his days.

   Bovo’s father Horris, and his twenty-six attendant reeves had by this time come to the outskirts of Whitwell, the first town (which they knew of) in the neighbouring Tookland. They carried their Staves of Office before them and all were armed with bows and slings and quivers besides. Clearly they looked like an armed party if any collection of hobbits ever had. None of the folk in Whitwell marshalled against them or even came out to speak but, as the company turned southeast from that place to follow the old Broken Road to the ford, they saw many youngsters running ahead down the road to alert their neighbours.

   Reginard Swiftook was traveling hard and fast over that same old and broken road but was still eight or nine hours west from Whitwell. He had planned to keep going as fast as possible through that little town and therefore make up some of the time his brother Leufred had squandered, but Whitwell would be a buzz of new interest by the time he would come there.

   Twoody, having no clean pair of pants at his mothballed home in Hobbiton-by-the-Water, did his best to brush up his feet and his attire before his meeting with Gondo at the Farthing-stone which was but two hours off.

   Where Alaura was or whatever she may have been doing still remains unknown.

   Hildegard Bramblethorne and Olo Zaragamba were still marching through the Chalk hills and bending south, but Gilley’s head was filled trying to sort out the memories she had of a future which she had yet to encounter.

   And in the Fourth hour after dawn on the First of After-lithe, Gondo the Oldbuck sat himself down in a shaded copse of silver birch trees, alone and protected from discovery, as he looked down upon the Farthing-stone to see if Twoody and Alaura would arrive together or, if not, who might arrive first.

*****

   The most pivotal development within this story to occur at Midday of the First of After-lithe cannot be fairly set down here. Gondo met with Alaura and Twoody then, as the tale goes, but what was said by the three friends and how they came to their decisions does not seem to have been recorded. At least not in the documents we have discovered. We know the outcome of this meeting, and we will be able to share some of the reflections each had as found in later letters, but of the things which were said or the ways in which they encountered one another after so long apart we know nothing. It would be unfair to dramatize such an important and personal event without further documentation and, as an author who wishes to be as fair as possible to her characters, I will avoid putting undue words in their mouths which would necessarily come wholly from my own imagination.

-D.F.R

   But equally dramatic events were unfolding in the south of the Shire at Midday as young Waltraub Thornburrow, alone and wearing the Blade of the Nightwatch strung across his back, came riding into the town at the ford.

   Troby thought that he counted no less than sixty buildings making up the town; a slew of sheds, three large stables, dozens of covered wagons for carting, a large stone well at the center and one building, bigger than all, having two stories which seemed intentionally large enough for the Big Folk. From what he had seen before breaking his cover, Troby (and the Commander) thought that this would be where the Men in the town took their rest. And where he was most likely to find Childebrand Swiftook, the Landlord.

   He was met by startled gazes from the start, for Troby was not riding in from the direction of the old broken road leading west but out of the trees from the north, just beyond a small field of carrots, beets, potatoes and other low crops. The Tooklanders could easily see him coming and recognized him as a stranger just as Troby had intended. The first few curious hobbits to come near him were children of course, but sensible parents rushed in and shooed them off while another hobbit, presumably the farmer who tended this very field for he had a long hoe held tightly in his hands, approached the stranger.

   ‘Hallo, to you,’ the farmer asked, ‘and who might you be to come across my field un-looked for?’

   The Southron farmer presented himself bruskly but graciously enough and so Troby replied in kind, while still trying to seem authoritative. ‘I apologize for any disturbance to your crops or yourself, but I have never traveled in the south before and have only now come upon your town,’ he said. ‘I am Waltraub Thornburrow, Troby to my friends if you will, and I am a Bridge-warden of the Shire.’

   ‘Well, this is still the Shire, master Thornburrow,’ the farmer said suspiciously, ‘but we’ve no bridges nor no wardens here, you see, and no need for them either. What brings you so far south away from your own business and into ours?’

   Troby could see now how other hobbits were starting to gather, some of them also carrying rakes or hoes, and up the dirt road to the large building near to the well, four of the Big Folk had appeared and were looking this way. He did his best to sit up straighter on his pony and said;

   ‘I am on the business of the Nightswatch, and as such am a representative of the Council of the Shire,’ he said, ‘and I have come to speak with our neighbour, Childebrand Swiftook and address many of his offenses.

   ‘Now tell me, neighbour, so that I can leave your field and your business to yourself, where might I find the Landlord?’

*****

   And so, shortly after this, as Youngbuck awoke from a nap to inspect the work Gormadoc, Poppy and Marcoul were doing on the new hole and as Bovo was hunting happily in the hills, Troby was led into the little square by the well near the haphazardly arranged town at the ford. ‘It’s not such a terrible place now that I see it closer,’ he thought to himself. ‘Just sort of, well, hurried-looking; as if they’ve spent ten years building a carriage-port rather than a home for themselves. All of these little houses and sheds and carts going to and fro, but not a single hole to be seen! After all those years are they here to stay or still just passing through?’

   This was a very astute assessment by the young hobbit, and something which had been troubling the Lausa-folk for some time; was this indeed the peaceable land in the Shire which the Old Took had promised? For years they had kept expanding out into the west and the ford, the first place they had come to had been made into just the kind of waypoint, or worse, a fortress, which Troby saw it as. He did not know it yet, but there were a few holes and settlements of Lausa farmers between here and Whitwell, perhaps a dozen new families with marriages and their own names just as all of them sought, but only that few. The rest of the Lausa-folk were continually stretched towards the west and, in the meantime, those who had remained here toiling by the river-crossing had built a place more comfortable for the Big Folk than for themselves. Troby hadn’t given it much thought yet, but the hobbits of the ford had been put to work on an outer wall on this side of the river; a defense which the Big Folk had pushed for but that most of the Lausa found worrisome. But the Old Took had ordered it to be so.

   As the Tooklanders escorted Troby to the townwell he had, under the advisement of Commander Ohtar, remained on his pony. Troby didn’t ride much, and Partner, Harry Heathertoes’ own mount that he had borrowed, was a bit tall for him. Troby had been in dire worry of falling off on the whole first night of his ride south with the soldiers; ‘dire’ not for his concern of injury but for his concern of embarrassment. Yet Partner had seemed to be both flattered and challenged by the company of so many tall and noble horses whom he had been bid to join, so that Troby barely had to touch the reins or to worry about the way forward. Together he and Partner now rode forward proudly to the well, just as the Commander had asked him to do, and the other hobbits who led him seemed more of an honour guard than a prisoner escort. None of the Tooklanders spoke anything more to him, but they all talked amongst themselves about who he might be, his attitude, his demeanor and the great Blade which was strung across his back.

   By the time he reached the well there were many other hobbits standing around watching what may happen next. They didn’t just stand and gape as they might have done back in Frogmorton, but most seemed to try to find ways to be near to the unfolding events while still acting busy. The only people who did stand still and wait while Troby approached were the Big Folk.

There were six of them now, all standing in front of the well, and each of them were armed. They carried clubs in their hands or short curved blades on their belts for the most part, but there was one, taller than the others, with a longsword, sheathed still, but held ready in his hand rather than strung to his waist. This is the one who spoke as Troby came closer.

   ‘Now who might this little trespasser be, I wonder,’ he said to his friends as he stepped in front of the others and their line barring Troby from the well. ‘For he looks like those unfriendly Halfling neighbours you little folk of the Tookland have to your north. Troublesome and unfriendly neighbours, I should say, and not the type to be welcomed nor associated with.’

   At this Troby saw the farmers and other hobbits who had accompanied him toward the square back off and the other hobbits in the square feigned to look away, tending to their business more directly, though none left the scene as they waited to see how this drama might unfold.

   ‘So, little trespasser,’ the man continued, walking forward a few steps and planting himself just two paces before Troby, his sheathed sword now in both hands held before him, ‘would you like to tell me your purpose here before I send you and your little pony riding north again and away from these lands where you have no business?’

  Now Troby, who we can happily report went on to many other accomplishments in his long and much less eventful life, was only eighteen at this particular time and, while we know next to nothing about this Man he talked to, it is clear that the ruffian was trying to intimidate Troby as well as all of those hobbits within listening distance. And it is true that in any other instance almost any other hobbit may well have blenched at such intimidation and none of his neighbours would find him at fault for doing so. But not Troby Thornburrow, and certainly not at that moment.

   Maybe this is because he had ridden with Commander Ohtar and his soldiers for three nights and a day and he knew that they waited, just at the edge of the tree line, to come riding in like a thunderstorm and sweep these thugs away. Certainly that brought him some comfort despite the threat. And maybe Troby, who couldn’t really remember seeing any of the Big Folk in his childhood, had learned in those three nights that some Men were very noble and that others were, like these ruffians, simply big. Perhaps the bigness of the Man who confronted him was not so terrifying because Troby could see it for what it was; a dangerous but simple swagger. Or maybe- and this seems most likely given his later contributions to the Shire- maybe Troby saw the effect that this fellow’s talk had on the other hobbits in the square around the well, and it made him angry. For Waltraub Thornburrow, even in his younger years, was a hobbit who truly and simply did not like bullies.

   So he did not dismount but rose taller in his saddle to look at this Man (who by his very nature was still taller than any hobbit on a pony) as evenly in the eye as he may.

   ‘The King’s Agreement gives this land to hobbits,’ Troby said in a clear and even voice, ‘and the Nightswatch are the fair and designated wardens of the King’s Agreement. I do not know who you are, master, but you are clearly not a hobbit and have clearly not “Heard Of The King”, as we say in the north.

   ‘If you would know my purpose,’ he continued, ‘it is to talk with the “Landlord”, Childebrand Swiftook, about such offenses as the hiring of you and your friends.

   ‘Bring him to me or let me pass.’

   For a few moments no one spoke. None of the Lausa of the ford had ever seen a hobbit stand up so directly to threats from one of the Big Folk before and it is certain that none of these Big Folk were expecting it either. Most of them stood with their mouths open wondering what just might come next. But Troby’s eyes and the leader’s eyes met in that silent moment and they each made deeper decisions.

   ‘He wants to kill me,’ Troby thought. ‘He thinks all hobbits to be weak and easily cowed and now worries that he has been wrong. He wants to kill me right now out of fear that other hobbits here might take my example. And he could do it easily, right now with that long sword of his, well before Commander Ohtar and his company might come to my aid. He could cut me down right here in the center of their town and no one may stop him; certainly not me.’

   But through all of this, Troby did not move nor quiver nor blink. ‘He hates that I am here in front of him,’ Troby thought and, more importantly, he found a kind of solace and power in this thought, ‘and I have no greater weapon against him than to stand my ground, whether he kills me or no. I wish bold Harry had come rather than myself, he may have been the better for this job, but I won’t look away when staring this bully down seems to be the best I can manage to do.’¹

   Eventually the other Big Folk began to laugh and the tension seemed to break. They all thought it impossible that this one stupid hobbit would dare to stand up to them and they began to taunt Troby as a way of showing their authority; ‘Hah! Don’t he sit tall on that little pony?’ one of them said. ‘Let’s pull him down and send him away on his own hairy feet. A pony like that is of more worth around here than any time wasted with some lordly little spy like this.’

   ‘Let’s take that old pole-axe of his too,’ said another. ‘Teach him not to be so full of himself carrying weapons too big for his tiny little hands.’

   ‘What do you say to that, little warden?’ another of the Big Folk asked. ‘Give us your pony and your blade and we’ll let you go running back to your holes in the north so you can tell all your rabbit-folk friends they’re not wanted here in the Tooklands. Decide quick now, or we will give you a scar or two to take back with your report.’

   The man with the longsword still stood in front of these other Men and said nothing. Young as he was Troby was wise enough to not waste time with the other Men’s taunts and spoke only to the leader.

   ‘I will say it again for those of you who didn’t understand me the first time,’ he replied, trying to keep his voice even and courageous. ‘I am here to see Childebrand Swiftook, who we in the Shire recognize as the master of these lands. Is this not so? For if you are telling me that the Landlord is not here and no longer in charge, that this land he was given is now run by thugs and cut-purses such as yourselves, then I will gladly leave and give this news to all the hobbits of the Shire. But if the Landlord is indeed still the master here then I will ask you again; bring him to me or let me pass that I may meet with him. The Shire is a free land of the King given to the protection of hobbits; I did not come here to bandy words with bullies and underlings.’

   Troby noticed how the eyes of the leader of these ruffians left his own and began to look about the square. There were six Men here, all armed, this was true, but all about there were at least two score of hobbits eagerly watching this confrontation. Troby could now tell that standing up to the Men, something that he and the Commander had planned together, had been the right choice.

   Everyone there could feel the tension shift.

   ‘You!’ the leader with the longsword said, calling to the nearest hobbit. ‘Go and tell the Old Took he has a visitor from the north; a warden of the Nightswatch say to him, who has come to parley.

   ‘Very well, little trespasser,’ he continued with some casualness, but there was no warmth in his voice, ‘your message has been sent and “the Landlord”, as you call him, will come. Would you like to wait in the ale house we’ve built just over there? You must have ridden far without such accommodations as we have here.’

   ‘I appreciate the offer for what it is,’ Troby said wisely, ‘but I find myself quite comfortable here; my pony still with me and my Blade still on my back.’

*****

   And so just and hour or two after midday on the First of After-lithe, as Horris and his party, still ten or more hours from the ford, reached yet another previously unknown settlement in the Tookland, as Gilley and Olo were seeing the end of the Chalk hills, and as Bovo was about to crest an unknown hilltop and find his own destiny, Waltraub Thornburrow met Childebrand Swiftook who was called “the Old Took” by some and “the Landlord” by others.

   Troby had done his best to ignore the taunts of the other Big Folk while he waited. Beneath him Partner the pony stood patiently while these Men offered to take him away for water and stabling. Troby refused these offers of course, and remained on the pony just as Commander Ohtar had suggested when their plan was laid. He could see that more and more hobbits were beginning to gather in the square. The six Big Folk scowled and sneered at all the hobbits, Troby included, but mostly they sat around the well at ease, a disorderly group awaiting further instructions. Only their leader stood on guard a pace from Troby and his pony; his hands never left his sword and his eyes never strayed from this “little trespasser from the north.”

   After a short time there came a stillness to the crowd around the square. Troby looked in the direction most eyes were facing, the tall, two-story building on the square’s southern side. Through the large Man-sized doors two more of the Big Folk had come, taller and wider than these few out at the well, and they were better armed. They carried small bronze-bound shields on their arms and great iron clubs in their hands. They had a kind of a stooped posture as they came through the doorway, their arms turned inward and in front of their bodies; creating a kind of a shuffling, bow-legged gait as they moved across the building's porch. Their armour was made of boiled leather from what Troby could see and they wore iron helms on their broad fat heads. They each wore bristling, shaggy beards on their faces and had sallow-skin and squinting eyes that blinked at the afternoon Sun.²

   Behind these two guardians came an old hobbit in a green coat and a bright yellow vest. He used a walking stick, for he seemed to have some bit of a limp, and he wore a broad-brimmed leather hat to keep the Sun from his eyes. The shadows of the hat shielded his face for the most part, but Troby could see that white curly hair peaked out from beneath the awning of the brim.

   This was indeed the hobbit they were looking for; this was the Landlord Childebrand Swiftook.

   Childebrand was, being seventy years of age, perhaps one of the oldest hobbits living in the Shire at this time. Seventy is not exceptionally old for a hobbit, even in those more dangerous days, but during the settlement it had been mostly younger people who had come to the land as pioneers and many of their elder grammers and gaffers remained back in the Bree-land seeking greater comforts. Some hobbits believed that Old Noakes, Poppy’s grandfather, was the eldest person in the Shire, but no one could say with any certainty which of them, Childy or Noakes, had truly been born first.³ We might imagine that Childy, if he ever had anyone whom he might admit things to, would say that he missed his childhood friendship with Old Noakes now that he had grown older; he doubted that anyone younger than they could fully understand the changes which he had been able to make happen in this land and certainly no one among this younger generation had any respect for Childy’s many accomplishments.

   But this would be nothing but speculation on our part, the attempts of the historian to understand the inner thoughts of a character who left little evidence of those thoughts behind. The truth of the matter is that Childebrand Swiftook remains an enigma within the history of the Shire. We know what happened with him on this day through the accounts of Waltraub “Troby” Thornburrow, but we have only the guesses and unsupported gossip of others about what may have happened to Childebrand after. The handful of letters written in his own hand which have been recovered do not give us a clear picture of his alliances, his motives, or his methods; but they do suggest that his agenda to supply the hobbits coming into this land was never one of genuine fairness. All students of Hobbit-lore (who were, for many generations, exclusively hobbits themselves) agree that Childy, the original “Old Took”, had been up to no good from the start. But there is too little documentation regarding his purposes, documents from his own hand, for us to fairly write about his character, his inner thoughts, or his designs as he came out to meet with Troby at the well on this day.

   ‘A warden of the Nightswatch,’ or so the Old Took may have thought, ‘riding alone, unlooked for and unexpected, might bear a message worth receiving.’ For the Nightswatch, as Childy would have known it, guarded the Stonebows bridge and, ‘maybe,’ or so he may have thought, ‘this one may then carry information about those Men who had taken up camp on the other side of Sarn Ford.’ If we could, despite our lack of evidence, imagine the Old Took’s thinking in this matter, we might assume that he felt this young and lone warden, in his naivety, might provide information that the wise old hobbit would know how to use. Or maybe he was curious about any hobbit who would ride so boldly through his own front gates at such a precarious time. Maybe the Old Took was simply interested to learn more.

   So the Old Took walked out of his house, something he did not do very often anymore, wearing his cleanest and brightest clothes and flanked by his guardians; hired bullies to be sure, but dangerous nonetheless. He put less need or emphasis on these guardians for this sort of a meeting (for how would one hobbit, Nightswatch or no, challenge the Landlord’s chosen soldiers) than he did on his fine clothes and his willingness to come out of his home: he had been brazenly called for and so he boldly answered. His left leg and right arm bothered him from old wounds and so the necessary walking stick which he used was well-carved and tipped with iron that may, he hoped, show more authority than weakness. For the authority of the Old Took would be the important question of the day.

   As the Old Took approached the well the other hobbits backed away a bit (while still doing their best to remain within earshot of the conversation). This meant there were now eight of the Big Folk, all of them armed and quite menacing, protecting the Old Took as he came walking right up to Troby and his pony. He looked up at Troby’s face and, for a moment, his eyes came out of the shade of his leather hat and glinted with appraisal.

   ‘Thornburrow is it?’ he asked. ‘But you’re a young one, aren’t you? Are you kin to Marmadas Thronburrow, then? Had that little bait and pole shop in Frogmorton?’

   ‘Yes, sir,’ Troby replied. ‘He is my father, sir.’

   ‘Hmmn,’ the old hobbit replied in turn. ‘I remember he had quite a few sons. You must be one of the younger ones, eh?’

   ‘Yes, sir. Waltraub by name. Master Swift-’

   ‘Waltraub?’ the Old Took asked. ‘I don’t propose to remember all my clients' families, but I do not recall many “Waltraubs” in the Shire in my day. “Thornburrows” certainly, but not many “Waltraubs”.’

   ‘Most of my family and friends call me Troby, sir. Master Swiftook, I’ve come from the Nigh-’

   ‘Your father owed me quite a lot of money, young Waltraub,’ the Old Took said, but in the kindest of voices. ‘He was a nice fellow as I remember it, well nice enough to do business with at first. He was convinced, don’t you know, that Frogmorton could be turned into a fishery every bit as successful as Stock. A foolish investment of course, for I’ve never known any hobbits to relish the taste of frogs as much as your father did. Hah! Foolish, yes, but a nice enough fellow to do business with at first.’

   Troby couldn’t quite understand what was going on here. The old hobbit was walking around him as he was speaking in his easy-going way and his guards, the Big Folk, were forming a kind of ring as he moved. Troby kept pivoting his pony to stay in sight of the Landlord but before long he found himself in the midst of this wider circle they had formed. He realized, too late, that there would be no way for him to bolt forward on Partner without being pulled out of the saddle by one of these Men.

   ‘But his debt,’ the Landlord said, ‘is old news, of course. And old news which brings no new usefulness is best left alone, I’d say. History with little purpose is but the poor excuse for a grudge. Your father and all the other Northerners of my past relationships think to have settled their debts for now and, for now, I’ve accepted that settlement. So tell me, young Waltraub,’ he said, halting in place and looking up at Troby, once again revealing his kind and wrinkled face and the glint in his dark eyes. ‘What brings a warden of the Nightswatch so far south into the “Tookland”, as you call it? Have you some more recent news rather than useless histories which has some better purpose?’

   The Big Folk who had been mocking Troby earlier all looked quite serious now as they surrounded him and awaited any call to action. Troby cast his eyes on the one who held the sword, who had seemed to be the captain in their earlier encounter. That same look was in this man’s eyes; he knew that this man, soldier or thug, wanted to kill Troby if only to demonstrate his authority over the other hobbits of the ford. But Troby did not waver. He recited the order just as commander Ohtar had told it to him:

   ‘“These Men, and any other of the Big Folk who may be in your employ, master Swiftook,”’ Troby said in an even, raised and determined voice, ‘“are unwanted, unwelcome and unlawful residents in any part of the Shire. They are commanded to leave this land at once and never return while you, master Swiftook, are to accompany us north to answer for your connection to these enemies of our people.”’

   Everyone heard him and everyone who did was, for a moment or two, completely silent.

   The other hobbits in the square, Lausa-folk all, had never seen anything like this bold act of defiance. Those who remained here at the ford had never had much contact with anyone from the north of the Shire; were they all like this bold soldier and, if so, how had they possibly survived such dangerous behaviour?

   The Big Folk, who had this upstart little hobbit on his tiny little pony rather completely surrounded, were slack-jawed by what they had heard. They were indeed mostly cutpurses and thugs; dangerous men who were accustomed (and particularly with hobbits) to getting their way through intimidation and the threat of violence. The idea of being threatened by one of these little people made them rather awestruck, and awe, whether stemming from surprise, incomprehension or newfound respect, is simply not something these type of men were very good at. Troby could see many wide eyes, open mouths and subtle dips of their heads to the right as they tried to adjust themselves to the idea of bravery in hobbits.

   Not so the Man with the sword, the captain who (Troby knew) wished to kill him from the start before his arrogance could spread. This Man leveled his gaze at Troby and, without awaiting orders, drew his sword from its sheath.

   But before he could strike the other Big Folk seemed to recover from their torpor and began to laugh.

   ‘Hah! I told you he sits too tall and proud on that pony, din’t I? Pull him down and be done with him. We can still use the pony, you know.’

   ‘Yeah, I still want my hands on his old poleaxe. There’s fine and ancient work there, I think.’

   ‘No, we should kill him now and kill him quick,’ the swordsman said, stepping forward without awaiting order from the Landlord.

   ‘No, wait!’ Childebrand said quickly. ‘Wait! Wait!

   ‘Warden Thornburrow,’ the Landlord asked, ‘whom did you mean when you said “us”?’

   Troby Thornburrow had indeed been brave. He had volunteered for one of the most dangerous missions in the early history of the Shire, had gone into dangerous circumstances with a bold face and, with a plan of his own devising, had drawn the enemy out of hiding. But in the later years of his life he would discount this rather important achievement by saying, ‘it is easy to be brave knowing that there are a dozen of the King’s knights at your back. It was dangerous, that is true, and I did come very close to dying, which is also true. But had I died, which would have been most disagreeable to be sure, I knew that I still would have succeeded in my mission; for from the moment that he had come out of his house and into the town square the Landlord was caught. Glory and bravery are fine in stories and all, but I didn’t go forward for glory or bravery. I did it to remove these bullies from the Shire and, well, because someone should ought to do.’

   ‘Yes, master Swiftook,’ Troby said. ‘“Us,” for I did not come here alone.’

   And, though it was not planned with this level of exactitude, Troby then heard the loud calling of hunting horns and muster behind him. Commander Ohtar, now knowing that they had all of the Men as well as the Landlord in sight and on open ground, seeing the blade of the one thugs drawn against his new friend the brave warden Thornburrow, led his mounted knights at full charge out of the cover of trees and they came thundering, crashing, forward towards the well.

   Everyone scattered before them. But the swordsman, the one Troby thought was a captain, leapt forward and grabbed Partner’s reins in one hand while tearing Troby from the saddle with the other. Troby had no time to reach for his Blade or offer any defense.

   ‘Oh, don’t squawk or struggle, brave little rabbit! You’re my way out of here, you little trespasser,’ he said, holding his face and his breath close to Troby’s. ‘Now don’t make me kill you while you are still useful.’

*****

   It was later in the afternoon of the first day of After-lithe, not long before Bovo found the cow he named Belle and while Troby was still being held at swordpoint, when Hildegund Bramblethorne and her new friend Olo Zaragamba crested the last low rise of the Chalk hills and saw distant homefires and a smattering of what looked to be clustered wagons and makeshift barns at the edge of their sight and away to the south.

   ‘That is the place we have called Nobottle,’ Olo said, ‘and we are fortunate to come to it now. If we had gone slower I think that finding it by night would have been much more difficult.’ As they began to approach the settlement Gilley asked Olo more about the hobbits who lived there.

   ‘Well,’ he said, seeming to be honoured for the opportunity to speak up, ‘my brothers and I were sent here first, nearly two years ago, to make things ready for westward development. Gordo and Marcoul you have met, but we have two other brothers, Vedast and Marachar, who also came. Marachar, little Merry, is the youngest and he has no goodwife or children yet, but Vedast is Marcoul’s twin and he has six children of his own.’

   ‘Oh, my,’ Gilley said. ‘There are a frightful load of you Lausa-folk in the South-farthing! No wonder you have built things up so quickly.’

   ‘It’s true,’ Olo said. ‘And it was never properly explained to any of us why we must come over the southern ford rather than the bridge or why we were to have so little interaction with your people in the north. I truly hope those days are over.

   ‘When Gordo, Marcoul and I left for Waymeet two months ago,’ he continued, ‘we were hoping to ask the Young Took if we might just lay down stakes in the land around here. We’ve made a decent start of things in Nobottle and many of us have grown tired of wandering. But for some reason which I cannot guess at, he insisted we push further into the west and was waiting for the proper time to do so.’

   Now Gilley did not understand the reason for this as well as Youngbuck did or she might have been able to make Olo see what was behind Reginard’s plan. The Lausa-hobbits in the south had, by this point, gone well beyond the boundaries of the 32,000 acres of land which were allotted to the Old Took in the Agreement of Year Sixteen. Whitwell, the little township they had built south of the Buckland was near to that allotment’s western edge and Waymeet, Nobottle and the proposed lands for the Zaragamba settlement along Road far exceed that contract; the Tooks were setting up communities in the open lands of the west. That meant deeds and titles would need to be filed properly with the Office of the Assayer in the northern part of the Shire and, lacking any map-makers among them to file such claims, the Lausa held the land sheerly through their presence. The Tooks didn’t wish that presence to be known just yet, but then Youngbuck, claiming to be a map-maker, fell into their service.

   ‘Nobottle isn’t even a town yet, you see,’ Olo continued, ‘just a place at which we set as the very ending of our travel into the west from the ford. The Broken Road that comes out from the ford seems to go no further. Some crops were planted two years ago, and it was our families, my brothers and mine, who went there to see them tended to. We were the very first wardens and gardeners in the land.

   ’There are a few other smaller families there now, not more than four or so, and while the land in that place is accommodating enough for farming, it's mostly flat. We’re hole-dwellers, you see, and prefer good hillsides for our warrens. We are spread too thin and have too few supplies to get any real building done in such a land. There is wood around Nobottle to be had, but no place to mill it and make proper houses. Two years living in tents and carts, even in such a peaceable place as the Shire, has some of us rather tapped out. That is why my brothers and I came to Waymeet; hoping for some better chance to build a burrow in the west. But there are many of the Lausa-folk who wait there in Nobottle as we did. Perhaps two hundred or so; our own families of the Zaragamba, from newborn to goodwife, being about sixty in number.’

   ‘And how do you think these other families will react to your leaving?’ Gilley asked.

   ‘Of that I couldn’t say, miss,’ Olo answered. ‘Maybe my brother Vedast will know better. Some will wish to come along I’d expect, but there’s others might go running off to the Young Took and let him know what’s happened. I expect then we’ll all see what’s what.’

   ‘Yes, I suppose we will,’ Gilley replied. ‘Either way it seems that Youngbuck’s plan to get your family to join as fast as possible was a shrewd one. Reginard Took, or even his hired thugs, will have a hard time telling sixty hobbits where they may or may not live.’

   Olo himself did not look as convinced as Gilley. ‘I don’t know about that, miss,’ he said. ‘For he’s been doing just that for some time now and you and your friends are the first hobbits I’ve seen to stand up to him.’ 

*****

   At five hours past midday on the first of After-lithe Bovo, returning to Gormadoc’s Hole with his new friend Belle behind him, was trying to figure out what he would say about this most uncommon occurrence to Youngbuck and the others. Gilley and Olo were drawing closer to Nobottle and she could see that there was indeed a rather large and clustered community of hobbits in this out-of-the-way place. Youngbuck, finding renewed energy after his long nap, was laying plans to explore the surrounding lands of the Far Downs as soon as possible. Poppy put aside his hammer and his carpentry work on building a fence for the livestock and started building a cookfire for their dinner. Reginard Took, having come a good number of leagues on a pony, decided to make an early camp for himself an hour or so outside of Whitwell. The pony was more tired than he was, but he did not want to lose time in the little town of Whitwell as his brother clearly had done. He would come to Whitwell in the early morning and switch ponies for the twelve leagues he would need to cover on the next day. Meanwhile Reginard’s brother Leufred, now in charge of the family's interests at Waymeet, had just finished a large and relatively satisfying meal and was settling into what he felt was a well-deserved afternoon nap. Horris Bunce and his Reeves, having passed through two very surprising and hitherto unknown settlements of Southron hobbits, found themselves in the open Green Hill Country and, with at least another six leagues to travel to the southern ford, likewise decided to camp for the night.

   But at the ford itself the work had been quickly done; when the dozen mounted soldiers, like a storm of force that no one was prepared for, came riding across the fields with swords in hand and their horns blowing, most everyone scattered. The hobbits, who had a long established and quite savvy history when it came to avoiding soldiers, quite sensibly dropped everything they were doing and bolted for the safety of the low buildings and sheds surrounding the well. The Big Folk, or most of them, looked to the Old Took for orders, but he was already making good speed for the two-story building he had just come from. Three of the wiser thugs followed him. Some of the others did not make it to this retreat alive. The horsemen came upon them with such suddenness that, in their ignorance, four of the thugs decided to make an unwise stand at the well. They died quickly.

   But this delay allowed Childebrand Swiftook and the three others to reach their hopeless refuge of the two-storied building. Commander Ohtar’s men surrounded this place quickly, and any hope of escape was immediately lost to those inside.

   But Troby Thornburrow and the captain of these cutthroats could not be seen; somehow during all of the commotion of the horsemen’s charge they had gotten away. Commander Ohtar had seen Troby pulled from his pony by this man, but had lost sight of them in the chaos as everyone scurried off.

   ‘Hold our quarry in that little house,’ Ohtar told his men as he leapt from his horse. ‘Do not treat with him or anyone inside until I return. If they have bows, which I doubt, they would be foolish indeed to use them.

   ‘Know that I will return to speak to you of grave matters, master Swiftook,’ he called in a louder voice toward the darkened entrance to the building, ‘and I grant you this time to consider well your responses.’ Then he and his second commander, Vardamir, went on foot in search of Troby Thornburrow and the man who had taken him. Their search did not take long.

   Just as Troby had seen earlier, the area of the town was largely a disorganized mess of sheds, workhouses, repurposed carts and wagons and a few small houses for the hobbits who were enlisted to do the chores of the makeshift community. Most hobbits, at the core of their nature, are inclined toward dwellings of comfort and orderliness and the town at the ford, at this time, was a singularly unlovely example of poor city planning. There were only two buildings there which showed more attention to usefulness; the two-storied house that the Old Took and his guards were currently trapped in, and the beginnings of an outer defensive wall on the banks of the river, down near the ford itself.

   Ohtar, who had travelled in these lands many times with his father long before he had become a father and a commander himself, had more than once crossed at this southern ford. The hobbits, or their benefactor, had added a rather ingenious ferry and pull line for cargo crossing, but Ohtar knew that here there was a narrow belt of shallow, slower-running water which horses might swim. Five days ago, when he and his regiment had gone to investigate these incursions into the land beyond the Branduin, he had seen that hobbits (hobbits of all people!) were building a guardwall for the defense of this ford. It was a tall structure, five ranga in height, extending from either side of the ford and, given the width of the river and the narrowness of the ford itself, a handful of bowmen on such a wall could prevent any attack from crossing.

   ‘I don’t yet know what this Landlord had in mind,’ he told Vardamir, ‘but he has these hobbits of his building defenses for war. That is where we will find our quarry and his hostage.’

   And he was correct in this, for before the two soldiers drew much closer they heard a threatening call:

   ‘Come no closer!’ the man cried from the top of the wall. You’ve two swords to my one, I’ll grant you, but I’ve the higher ground and a little trespassing hostage who I think you’ll want. Am I wrong in this?’

   Ohtar saw the man standing at the top of the wall, his sword drawn and master Troby, hands bound tightly behind him, on his knees and at this sword’s point. Ohtar saw also the ladders, more than one, that these working hobbits had left in place, and knew that he and Vardamir could be up them quickly and, if they did, that the kidnapper had no chance of survival. But neither did his captive. Should they attack in this way the hostage, their new friend Troby, would most certainly be dead before they reached the top.

   ‘Escape from your crimes, whether as prisoner or no, is unlikely,’ Ohtar informed the man calmly.

   ‘I’ll take your fastest horse, two hours head start, or I’ll take his life,’ the kidnapper said. ‘I’ll leave this land of rabbit-folk and tediousness and go wherever I wish to. And you’ll let me. Oh, I know you fine gentlemen and your service and I want none of you. But you feel some obligation towards this little trespasser I’d guess, the weakling you’ve taken into your fellowship. Well, if I go freely on, then you can have him.’

   Ohtar paused for a moment, sheathed his sword, and looked at the younger Vardamir for agreement; or something else which was more subtle.

   ‘I say again that escape from your crimes remains unlikely,‘ Ohtar replied. ‘And I believe that you should leave this land in the fastest way possible. If you surrender your hostage we will put you across the ford, on foot or with any mount of your own, and my people on the other side will be instructed to let you go freely where you will and unto your fate. Will you take this offer?’

   ‘No,’ the kidnapper said. ‘I have no horse and want to be away from this stinking job faster than my own two legs can carry me. I know of you and your Princess,³ captain. I know your code and I know your honour. Show me a fast horse, keep your promise, and you’ll get this little trespasser back.’

   ‘If my counsel you will not take then so be it,’ Ohtar said. ‘Only you may find the course that you’ve set to be unwise. I agree that you will be given our fastest horse, for all the good she may do you, should you promise to leave this land and give us your hostage intact. I agree that we will not pursue you for two hours; more even. I shall never pursue you nor shall we ever meet again in this fate you have chosen. Does this suit your conditions?’

   ‘It does,’ the kidnapper replied. ‘As long as it happens quickly.’

   ‘Go,’ Ohtar said to Vardamir and the young soldier ran back to their horses.

   Nothing else was said by either the kidnapper or the commander. They did not have long to wait.

   Within ten minutes Troby could see that Vardamir had returned with his own roan mare in reign. Troby had heard the mare’s name before, and knew that this was a very special gift to be made, a leader among the other horses of Ohtar’s riders.

   ‘Here is Vëalalaith,’ Vardamir said unhappily to the kidnapper. ‘Or you might call her “Wind-laughter”; she is my own horse and fastest among those in our conroi. She will not like you, but she will bear you on my command. I have raised her since she was a foal and ask of you only one thing; if she should bear you across the Stonebows bridge leave her there so that she and I might be rejoined.’

   ‘Oh, I’ll agree to no such thing,’ the kidnapper replied from his protected place on the wall. ‘If she’s fast as you say I’ll ride far with her; indeed far away from you and from my former masters in the east. I don’t think you quite understand this arrangement, boy. I give you your little hero here-’ at which he gave Troby a swift kick in the side, ‘-and you give me a horse for safe transport. I don’t want this little tresspasser from the north back, but you shall never see that handsome mare again. We trade and we are done, you and I.’

   ‘We will meet with these conditions, kidnapper,’ Ohtar said, ‘though I have warned you already that escape from your crimes seems unlikely. I do not speak lightly when I make such a forecast. So come you down and receive the deal you have bartered. Take the fastest horse as you have asked for. Give us our friend in health and go on your way to what your future shall bring.’

   The kidnapper paused for a moment. He had gotten everything he had asked for but still worried about the things that this captain of the old Sea-kings was saying. Here was a fast horse, anyone who knew anything about horses could see that. But as Troby looked up at the villain he could see that there was indecision in his eyes; it was as if some deep part in him knew to fear the captain’s prediction. The man then looked down at Troby and his face hardened all over again.

   ‘See, little trespasser,’ he said with a snarl and another kick, ‘we have made some use of you yet.

   ‘Alright then,’ he said to the captain, ‘I’m coming down. But this bold little friend of yours will stay up here until I am well away. Agreed?’

‘We have already agreed to allow you passage,’ Ohtar said. ‘I see no need to repeat myself. Go, now! Your fate lies ahead just as you have chosen it and I have more pressing matters before me than to speak further with you.’ And at this he turned his back upon the man while Vardamir came a few steps forward with the horse.

   ‘I ask you again,’ Vardamir said as the kidnapper came down the ladder and toward the horse, ‘do not let the theft of this horse be added to the list of your crimes. She will, on my command, carry you across the Stonebows bridge as you have bargained for and we will not pursue you. Leave Vëalalaith there and go freely wherever you will. That is your best hope in this situation.’

   The mercenary, his sword still unsheathed while Vardamir and Ohtar had put up their own, walked boldly toward the horse and its master.

   ‘Oh, that is a fine beast, to be sure! She will carry me far and bring me a good price. You should learn, boy,’ he said with arrogance and cruelty, ‘that is how a good negotiation works. Learn to accept it as your captain does. With a stiff back and eye to the next order of business!’

   At this the horse let out a long neighing and a great stamping of her mighty hooves which frightened the kidnapper and made him draw back a pace or two.

   ‘Here now!’ he said, ‘command that beast to obey me as you agreed!’

   Troby watched as Vardamir looked long at the kidnapper with a final appraising eye.

   ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘It will be as you have negotiated.’

   He then turned to the mare and took his head in his hands. The tall horse responded immediately to her master who, scratching under its chin, softly kissed the lowered head on its brow.

   ‘Hatas, Vëalalaith, yá anyanyes iant,’ he said gently, ‘Noro lim a minno dê.’⁵

   And then, with the horse now calmed, Vardamir gave the leads to the kidnapper.

   ‘She will carry you now as we have agreed,’ he said and Troby, even at the distance between them, could see that there was great sadness in the young soldier’s eyes.

   The kidnapper took the reins and, after determining the newfound calmness of the horse, climbed quickly into the saddle.

   ‘Have a nice walk back to the bridge, boy,’ he said, ‘and don’t bother looking to find me, or your “Laughing Horse” there!’ And with this he charged off along the banks of the wall and then into the woods which would lead him north.

 

*****

   At seven hours past midday on the first of After-lithe, with dusk not far off, while Bovo was trying to explain the queer circumstance of discovering a milkcow at the edge of the Shire and Gilley was meeting many of the members of the Zaragamba family that resided in Nobottle, Horris “Firebrand” Bunce and his Reeves set their camp in the Green Hill Country. The company of twenty-seven brave Reeves had not seen any activity on the road before them in more than two hours and so they had since traveled in silence and an increased feeling of dread. Now, with the sun dipping low behind them, they had perhaps two hours of light left in the day.

   ‘It’s certain that they know we are coming, Horris,’ Euric Bophin said, as the reeves and their commander came into conference. ‘If we set out early and come to the town’s border tomorrow before nightfall, they will be prepared and defended.’

   ‘Indeed,’ another older hobbit said. ‘We’ll be but twenty-seven torches in the dark and not the two hundred we were last time we tangled with Landlord Swiftook. And who knows how many Tooks are in that town? Not a one of us does, that’s certain.’

   ‘We might knock on the door of one of these farmhouses we’ve passed,’ suggested another one of the younger reeves, ‘see if there are any respectable hobbits there who might answer some of our questions or perhaps give us some lodging.’

   ‘And then we might very well find ourselves snoring away inside some barn while Swiftook and these Southrons surround us,’ another old veteran replied. ‘I don’t much like the outcome of that circumstance, I’ll tell you.’

   ‘Making camp here in secret and away from the road is all well and good,’ offered another, ‘but shouldn’t we send a few of us ahead, small scouting pairs perhaps, to do some good reconnaissance in tomorrow's daylight?’

   ‘But can twenty-seven of us, reconnaissance or no,’ another of the older hobbits asked, ‘walk brazenly into a town which might hold one hundred or more? We’ve already learned that there are many more Tooks in the Tookland than twenty-seven such as ourselves should be prepared to face. We have learned much and there is more to learn, I will grant you; but should we not return home for reinforcements considering what we’ve already learned?’

   ‘Lawks,’ another of the younger hobbits said, ‘do you mean to bring an army? Are we at war then?’

   ‘But as Euric says, they are sure to know we’re coming,’ said another. ‘Sure to know our number and to know we are armed. Why have we heard nothing? Why has no hobbit of the Tookland come out to meet us? Would we, any of us in the Shire, allow such folk to come into our own little towns armed and with night coming on? Why has there been no one sent to meet us, whether as neighbours or foes?’

   ‘So do you suggest that we hide in the woods tonight and to sneak our way in tomorrow? And to you that seems a more neighbourly approach?’ asked another.

   ‘I do not think, armed as we are, we come dressed in a neighbourly fashion,’ said another glumly.

   ‘True, we are prepared for trouble, but the trouble has been growing beyond where we can see it, has it not?’ another hobbit said.

   ‘Has it?’ another younger voice replied. ‘The Southrons, from what I’ve heard, mostly stick to their own. I’ll grant you that I am surprised as we have all been to see so many of them here and that I can find no explanation for it myself. But I can't see what their own farms and their wells and their towns and their buildings have to do with us and our own. Yes, there are many, many more Tooks in this Tookland than I or any of us had expected. But it is their land after all. Our marching here might look to be a cause for open warfare. Why would we want to do such a thing as to provoke that?’

   ‘Horris,’ Euric said, ‘we have come far and I believe you should now tell them all the more that you know.’

   In their march south Euric had learned more of what Horris had told the Reeves when he’d called them all to muster. It seems that he had told them that there was rumour of Big Folk supplying the Landlord down at the ford with weapons and goods. That hundreds of hobbits of the Tookland, indeed hundreds more than they knew to have existed, were again working with the kind of corrupt Men whom the Shirefolk had fought with at the Battle of the Bank fourteen years before. But Horris had left out any mention of the party of the King’s men who had crossed the Stonebow’s bridge three nights ago. He did not speak of the fact that the Nightswatch had allowed these same King’s men to go forth and investigate. And more importantly, or so Euric thought, he had left out the terrible rumour which brought these soldiers into the Shire; that the Big Folk in Childebrand Swiftook’s employ had come from Angmar.

   Euric understood why Horris had chosen to leave out this information; for, brave though these comrades of theirs were, what hobbit would go willingly forth into lands which were not their own in search of such foes? So together Euric and Horris had kept them moving all day knowing that this time must eventually come when they should tell their comrades of the potential peril.

   ‘Indeed, Euric,’ Horris said. He walked over to where there was a large fallen and hollowed-out tree and, climbing carefully atop it, sat himself down and bid the others to sit before him. Horris had a way of doing things like that, holding people's attention with his pauses and his movements. Euric watched as the hobbits- and he himself- stopped all of their questioning and discussion to come forward and sit at Horris’ feet and hear what he had to say.

   Horris’ own grandson Clovis Bunce’s book, The Bunces Between the Bridge and the Borderlands, presents this speech in a fairly flowery manner. Despite its style and its disputed accuracy it remains worthwhile of study; for it was an account of bravery in the face of danger which many Shire-hobbits, particularly those adventurous friends of Frodo Baggins some fourteen hundred years later, knew quite well. From the diaries and stories told by those reeves who were assembled on that day (documents which were discovered only recently) we can offer a new reading of this speech. It appears here mostly as Clovis told it with some alterations (my own) based on further study:⁶

   Seated in sombre majesty upon his raised platform, the Firebrand laid his blackened axe— token of his victories —across his lap, and with a steady gaze awaited the hush of the assembly. Only when every hobbit was still did he rise to speak, the flickering light casting strange shadows upon his face.

   “Friends,” he began, his voice low but carrying to every ear, “friends and brothers all, you judge truly: we find ourselves in a place of new discovery and noble peril, to which I have led you. Should we fall, brave companions, ask yourselves—are we, these twenty-seven, enough to bring the Shire to sorrow by our loss? Each of us has long served as a custodian of our land, yet never before have we stood together to face such perils as this next day brings. Some among us may wish to return to their homes and duties, believing themselves more needed there than here amid these trials. Perhaps a few would say that I, the old Firebrand, hungry for honour, have drawn you into danger and drawn you away from tasks of greater import.”

   He paused, his eyes searching the faces before him. “It is true: I have led us all into great jeopardy. Yet let me proclaim this now—whoever has no stomach for what lies ahead, let him depart. We would not go forward, nor would we die, in the company of a friend who fears to die beside us. If we fall, twenty-seven or even fewer, then our deaths will be counted to our country’s grief. But I wish for no more than we already are; if I am covetous of honour, let that fault be found not in how much I desire it, but in how sparingly I choose to share it.”

   His voice grew in strength. “But if we live, O, then the fewer who share this honour, the greater each share shall be! Ask not, in fear or longing for kin, that more should stand with us in this hour, my friends and brothers. Let we few suffice, for we shall win honours enough.”

   The Firebrand raised his hand, and the assembly stilled even further. “This day, now fading, marks the first of After-lithe. It is no Summerday, nor do we grace it with feasting. In the Shire this day stands for the work to come — the close of summer, the reaping of fields, and the unknowns of winter. We do not celebrate on this day, for we, in the peace we have won, know what labour yet lies before us, and to that labour we must turn.”

   He looked out upon his followers, his wounds evident but his bearing unbowed. “Those of us who survive this day, who return once more to our homes, will, when After-lithe comes again, stand a little taller. In old age, from Summerday to Summerday, those old grey hobbits with us will feast with their neighbors and say: today is Summerday, but tomorrow is After-lithe. Then will he roll up his sleeve, show his scars, and say: This was won on After-lithe.

   “Gaffers and gammers forget much — labours and luxuries, feasts and starvings, sunlit rambles and sorrow’s drudgery, the sweetness of strawberries and the bitterness of disappointment. All may pass from memory of the old hobbit save this — this After-lithe shall remain, bright in their fading mind.”

   Here the Firebrand stood, and the company watched him—his wounds known to all, yet his honour shining all the brighter for it.

   “Then our names,” he declared, “despite the ruin of memory, will be as household words in every gaffer’s mouth: Bophin and Bolger, Bunce and Bramblethorn, Roundwort and Rumblebelly, Harfoot and Heathertoes, Oakbottom and Goodbody, Maggot and Cotton and Noakesburrow and Sandheaver and Longhole and Stumbletoe—each will be remembered in the rising of our fellow's cups.

   “This tale the old gaffer will teach his sons,” the Firebrand vowed, standing tall before the Reeves, balanced upon his blackened axe. “And After-lithe to After-lithe shall never pass but our names shall be recalled:

   “We few,” he said.

   “We brothers.

   “And others, safe tonight in their holes,”—here he paused, letting the truth ring out—”will find their Summerdays less sweet, their glories dimmed, their feasting tasteless as sand in their mouths, for they did not stand, as we did, upon After-lithe.”

   What may have really been said and however long this speech may have taken remains a matter of dispute interesting to some scholars. But two points regarding its effect are irrefutable; none of the hobbits abandoned their purpose in that late afternoon and all went proudly forward to Sarn Ford, following Horris Bunce along the Broken Road on the next day.

   And there they were met by a great surprise at the town’s edge.

*****

   Dusk seemed to fall more sharply in the western end of the Shire on the first day of After-lithe than it did in the east.

   Below Gormadoc’s hill the mists clinging about the Elf-lands seemed to grow heavier as the Sun dipped below the far-off mountains. Youngbuck stood apart from his friends and carefully watched Her⁷ setting and saw the flash of pearl-white lighting up the tips of the three Elf-towers as the grey green haze below them swallowed the whole valley. There, in that instant, he saw and recognized how the setting sun delineated the jagged edge of the earth as he had seen in it his father’s drawings. He felt strongly the calling to walk through those shrouded lament-ridden lands, to come to that line which ended the world, and to look out at the beyond. He felt the stirring in his blood and looked long upon its calling. But, through faith and promise, he resisted this call and went to rejoin his friends.

   At dusk Gilley, down in Nobottle, walked away from the great assemblage of the Zaragambas, out of the smoke of their cookfires and apart from the din of their arguments to also look out to the far-off mountains. She saw some of what Youngbuck was seeing, the last light of the Sun painting a bright line across the edge of the world, but the land here between Nobottle and those mountains was one of rolling hills and deep forests. She saw no white towers as he did. But the land and the sight of it was new and vast and it took Gilley some few moments to collect herself. She had come away from the other hobbits whom she had just met and their confused questions about what to do next; she hoped to put all of the noise behind her and find some peace. She listened for some animal or bird call, some noise out of the west which might reveal to her the mystery of her current adventure. She wondered just what she was doing here (though she thought that just yesterday morning she knew that answer very well indeed). Standing still and quieting her temper she watched (just as Youngbuck did many miles to the north) the Sun slowly setting somewhere beyond the mountains. She could hear nothing from those empty lands over the noises of Nobottle. Despite all of these kindly hobbits and their sincere questions and concerns, Gilley felt herself to now be on the sharp and jagged edge of the Shire, in a place she had never heard of helping new friends make difficult decisions in haste. Gilley was good with making plans on short notice, all her friends and family knew that and trusted her for it, but she was not the leader that Youngbuck was; she was too impatient with those who would talk or argue when she could very certainly see the way forward. She had few answers for these Zaragambas or for herself and Gilley, through all her days, was a hobbit who preferred to have answers rather than mysteries. The setting of the Sun showed her the far-off edge of the world but revealed little about where she was or what stood between here and there. There was something comforting in the light of the Sun going down over the mountains, something which she did not see in her dream two nights ago but nonetheless felt as true as that dream itself did. She hoped that the sound of birds or animals or even the wind in trees might tell her more about where she stood and how to move forward. But she heard nothing come to her out of the west as she watched the Sun setting. Instead, beyond the bewildered voices of her new friends, Gilley still heard the soft clang-clanging of silver cowbells and clung to it like a dear memory.

   At dusk in the Delvings, some miles to the northeast of Nobottle, Clothair Pudifoot sat on a bench near the well which they had built to attract travelers into the town. The well was a thing of great beauty, mostly due to the excellent stonework done by others Clooty believed, but he was very proud of all he had done in its design. He had been there on this bench all day, conducting business as he could while all the time keeping one eye fixed on the Road as it came near to the city’s gate. Only this place afforded him with the opportunity to do that and still continue his work. He wanted to appear at ease to all of his friends and his colleagues and his customers; as if things in the West-farthing at the end of the Summerdays in Year Twenty-Nine were as promising as any pioneering hobbit might hope for. But he was not at ease; for his nephew, along with three of his nephew’s friends, had gone missing, lost now for three days.

   Euric Bophin, Clooty’s brother-in-law, had brought him this news the day before last. It had been shortly after dawn when Euric came rushing into the Delvings after having traveled all night from Buckland. He told Clooty how Youngbuck and his friends, Horris’ eldest son and the Bramblethorn doe and Noakes’ game-legged son, had left the Shire with the intention to go into the wild. They were coming here first, or so their letters told their parents, and Euric and Clooty were to dissuade them from this nonsense. But Euric, travelling as quickly over the Road as he could, had not encountered them and so, for the next two days they both awaited the arrival of these truants. But they did not come to the Delvings and Clooty became increasingly concerned.

   Euric had brought with him a letter from Twoody, Clooty’s other brother-in-law and very great friend. While the letter was spare and quite likely to have been written in haste, Clooty had read it very carefully:

Clooty, my dear brother,

   It is true; our little hare has bolted from the warren, just as you and I always worried he may. It seems that he indeed has more of his father’s inquisitiveness and his mother’s bull-headedness in him than the common sense which we uncles hoped to provide.

   I do believe that he is coming to you and that you can, or so I hope, waylay him for a time. He’s bringing young Poppy Noakesburrow to you for employment, a kind and honest act, and I do not believe that he would forego making that arrangement to satisfy his own wanderlust. If he comes to you he’ll want ponies and provisions and the like. Whatever you may do, do not tell him no! It will only make him the more resolute and cause him to slip off the faster. I hope you will keep him there for some days on one pretense or another so that his mother and I might come and collect him. I am sorry to say, Clooty, that you will not be able to talk him out of his decision. I have some hope that I might manage it but, O, we both know and have seen this stubbornness before; he is his father’s son.

   Should he not arrive in the Delvings, and O, Clooty, this worries me most, he will have gone through Waymeet to deal with my dishonourable relatives there. Perhaps he will find some clever way to provision himself at Waymeet but if the Swiftooks learn who he is then he might be in great danger. I do not know what relationship your folk in the Delving have with Waymeet, but if he goes through there we must hear of it.

   He will go west, Clooty, I am sure of it. He will go to Greenholm and look out from there to where his father departed. I do not know what he will do next, but I know our Berty enough to know that he believes his own path forward comes from looking at his father’s adventurous and tragic past. Whether there in the Delvings or at Greenholm, halt him if you can and send word to his mother and I as soon as you have it.

Your friend and brother, -Theudebald

   Clooty had waited two and now three days for any sign of Youngbuck and his friends, but none had come. It was decided last night that Euric should return to Buckland with the news and look for further instructions. Clooty gave Euric his fastest pony so that he should have arrived this morning by dawn on the first day of After-lithe. And for the rest of that day Clooty had stayed here by the well, meeting with his customers and his workers, listening to their plans or approving their designs and trying to keep the business of building and delving moving forward in the post-Summerday pace. He hoped that some word would come to him from Buckland; that Berty and the others had been found, that it was all just an elaborate joke of some kind or, even better, that the four truants, now rather tired of their silly attempts and adventure would come into town for a soft bed and good hot meal. But in his heart, Clooty knew better; for just like Twoody, he saw all too well the father in the son as he looked at his nephew Berty.

   As dusk came down on the first day of After-lithe Clooty knew that he would wait tonight, but tomorrow he would need to set out in search of his nephew before dawn.

   As that same dusk came to Waymeet some miles to the east, Leufred Swiftook was looking over a rather stubborn trip of goats that had come into his possession. They were penned up and, for the most part, they seemed content with that arrangement; but they would not let any of the hobbits of Waymeet come near them. They took the food that they were offered, most certainly, but any effort the hobbits made to rope or drive them out of their enclosure was met with a calamity of snapping jaws, bucking hooves and violent headbutts. In the whole long and tedious first day that Leufred had spent in the mudhole of Waymeet no other visitor, customer nor stranger had wandered in for him to do business with. These dozen goats, and it seemed uncertain who their previous owner was, had become Leufred’s boringly biggest problem.

   And, making matters worse, while Leufred was stuck in this backwater of overturned carts and tents dealing with obstinate goats his brother Reginard had gone riding off like a conqueror to meet with their fearsome father. Reginard, or so he had boasted, cinched some very important deal which would give their father what he always wanted; deeds to the farthest west of the Shire. In the meanwhile Leufred had, or so he saw the matter, been left to courier messages and clean up goat guano in one of the furthest outposts of the Tookland. Musing on his abysmal fortune amid the braying and prancing of these scrawny goats made him feel even more disgruntled and so he retired to his father’s war tent for a second supper and more of the excellent wine that his brother had left behind.

   ‘Left behind indeed,’ Leufred thought. ‘Reginard goes to council and I go to manage the goats.’ At this he turned away from the tent’s large folding door and shouted out to the other hobbits in his employ:

   ‘I swear, if those goats aren’t driven out of that paddock and onto the market in the Delvings by mid-day tomorrow,’ he said, ‘I will dine on kid for a month while the rest of you get little more than root and barley!’ And at this he spun harshly around to enter his father’s war tent (and nearly losing his balance, for he had already been at Reginard’s “left behind” winebarrel often that day).

   Drawing another large cup of wine Leufred sat himself down again at the great map-table. The map was still there of course; Reginard never stopped looking at the thing and Leufred, who was not very lettered nor had any understanding of how maps worked, had left it lying there like a trapping of his office. Maps, he had decided, whether one knew how to read them or not, made one look important and Leufred, now in his first position of command (no matter how meagre it seemed) wished very much to look important.

   It was an hour or more, and two more cups of wine, before Leufred’s drowsy eyes left the unintelligible map and his inner turmoil about inhospitable goats. It’s true that he had been there in Waymeet for the whole of the day, that he had taken a quick nap in this tent, eaten four good-sized meals here, and drank quite a good quantity of wine in front of this map table envious of his brother. But then, not more than an hour or so past sunset on the first day of After-lithe, Leufred Swiftook’s eyes finally fell on the Dragonsword which his conqueror-brother had foolishly left behind. And suddenly Leufred knew how to feel and to look very important indeed.

   East from Waymeet into the Buckland Oldbuck’s original home, once called Sarehole, is a long day's walk over rolling hills, only lightly forested, and mostly open and unsettled lands. There were few folk in those days who chose to take up residence on Sarehole’s western side for Oldbuck had been the Original Pioneer after all and it was he that had chosen that commanding view of the west and there were few, even among the Bucklanders, more intrepid than he. But in Year Twenty-Nine of the Shire, under Twoody’s direction, a good western road was being laid beyond Sarehole (which they had renamed the Great Smials) and it headed off for the purpose of developing those western lands. In five to ten years' time should any hobbit go up to the top of Sarehole and face themselves west, as Oldbuck and Alaura had often done in their youth, they would see the gradual development of farms and communities in those fertile valleys and the road extending out to many newer villages in the west. Under the new guidelines of western expansion (as Twoody and many of his friends saw it) Sarehole’s door had ceased to be an outpost and would become a gateway.

   There, at dusk on the first day of After-lithe, where the edge of the world was not so immediately in view as it was to her son, Alaura Fairheart returned to the hole she had lived in for twenty-eight years to see some (though not all) of the children she had borne in that great home under the first of this chain of those seven hills. If she had taken a moment (as Berty and Gilley were doing at that same time of day so many miles to the west) to look at the last light of this her most terrible day, we do not know. We only know that she went bravely inside to find comfort in the children she loved.

   Twoody was also in the Buckland at dusk on that most terrible day of his own life, but not at his former home of the Great Smials. He would never sleep under those seven hills again and would live out the remainder of his days either in the little house up in Hobbiton-by-the-Water or here in the office of the Assayer. As dusk fell over the Shire Twoody barely noticed it; for he had been hard at work in his office for the past three hours putting accounts to right and settling any questions of ownership or guardianship which might arise now that Gondo had returned and Berty had gone off. ‘More of a banker indeed,’ Twoody said to himself humourlessly as he lit a lantern against the failing light.

   Twoody did not know that Alaura had gone to speak with the children and Alaura did not know that Twoody had gone to manage the business of their family on that day. Indeed, if any other contacts happened between them after Gondo’s return there is no evidence.

   But we know one thing: both of them believed, through whatever Gondo told them, that Berty had set off on his own. They knew their boy like they knew his father and, because of this, they believed that there was nothing that they or anyone else may do to change the Youngbuck's mind.

*****

   And so, but an hour or two after sunset on the first day of After-lithe, many important and potentially dangerous events in the Shire had, for a time, come to their close: the Youngbuck and some of his friends had put their shovels into lands at the far western border, staking what would be the first of many claims; Gilley had met with the Zaragamba clan south in Nobottle and convinced them to come with her and build on those claims; in the Delvings Youngbuck’s uncle Clooty, alerted to the danger of his missing nephew, would go to search for him and make discoveries of his own; in Waymeet Leufred Swiftook, feeling passed over by his father and his brother, had decided to seize authority in his own way; in the Buckland Twoody and Alaura were reunited with their lost friend Gondo at the Farthing-stone and there bitter but peaceful arrangements were made between them; in Sarn Ford Commander Ohtar and his men, with the brave and dedicated assistance of Waltraub Thornburrow, had taken the Landlord Childebrand Swiftook into custody with a minimum of violence and no injury to any hobbit; those Big Folk under the Landlord’s employ, with the exception of one hapless and horse-thieving kidnapper, had been killed or captured and forcibly removed from the Shire; Horris Bunce and his Reeves had not yet come to Sarn Ford and the possibility for open warfare between the north and the south of the Shire had been, for now, avoided.

   A potential powderkeg of a day had ended more or less peacefully; for this was the Shire and here, even in these early years under its management by hobbits, dramas might indeed happen while violence was all together a very different and very un-hobbitlike thing.

end chapter one

---

Chapter End Notes

Notes 1/7/2026

1)  I found myself rewriting this section on January 28th, 2026, just four days after the murder of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. I felt it was important to recognize the courageousness of protest against an armed government.

2)  There is language in this section which is meant to ape Tolkien’s descriptions of Orcs and the Half-orc people who had come up the Greenway in Fellowship of the Ring. But these are neither Orcs nor Half-orcs, it is far too early for that stuff. What I mean to suggest is a kind of military party who has lived and worked alongside orcs and has adapted some of their manners. Like Zelig and Amram in previous chapters, these folk may actually come from the former kingdom of Dunland.

3)  These few sentences about age, which seems unnecessary, are included here for the sole purpose of solving a common Tolkien misunderstanding. “Gaffer”, according to the Professor, simply means “old man” and not “grandfather” as many mistake it. So, Hamfast Gamgee is not Sam’s grandfather but simply his “old man” and, as we’re told elsewhere, his father. Grandfathers may be gaffers in Shire talk, but gaffers are not necessarily grandfathers. I don’t know that the Professor ever extended this idea to include elderly female hobbits, but “grammers” seems to me the logical choice.

4)  So the assumption that many hobbits (and a few of my advance readers) have made is that Ohtar and his men are in service to Argeleb II, the same king of whom Gondo and Twoody met with and who granted the land of the Shire to hobbits. Nope. Ohtar works for another party, a mysterious “Princess”, who is the subject of my own work in The Fall of Arnor. Just another piece of textual ruin to ponder.

5)  Normally I suggest that readers examine these citations during their reading for the many Easter Eggs or Word-nerdery they have grown from. I’m going to follow through with that here, though it may mean that a plot spoiler is in the offing. Part of me, as I write this, wants to leave this little discovery unresolved; like some element of the story which readers might not discover without reading the notes. That does seem particularly Tolkienian. But here it is: “Hatas, Vëalalaith, yá anyanes iant,” is a Quenya (as best as I can put together) for “Throw him, Wind-laughter, when you reach the bridge.” While the more familiar “Noro lim a minno dê” is Sindarin for “run fast and return to me.” The usage of both Quenya and Sindarin is, I feel, important for showing how the Nùmenóreans are connected to their horses and to the language of Middle-earth; some commands are in the formal ancient language and some are familiar, but in the “protected” language of “the Faithful”. Putting this bit right here about the fate of this mercenary, revealed in further and deeper reading of Tolkien, may mean that I will not write a scene which adequately describes his fate. But he is certainly doomed to be thrown from this horse and die just as Ohtar predicts.

6)  What you are about to read is pretty silly and an example of one of the great joys that an author of fanfic is uniquely allowed to indulge themselves in; the obvious outside reference or “Easter Egg” which in most literary endeavors would seem shallow and amateurish. It’s the “Crispian’s Day”speech from Henry V rendered into the situation and the circumstance of my story. Now let me say this in my own defense; every modern rousing tale and movie has some version of this speech lurking in its make-up. Any time people in a work of fiction are drawn together to fight a greater trouble this speech is often, ironically or directly, the frame and the format and the pattern of that scene. I had never expected to add it here, but the situations that the story has set up have made it impossible for me to ignore. In fanfic we can indulge ourselves with these little diversions because we know, as readers and as authors, the writing done here is simply for the pleasure of the writing. Anywhere else it might seem derivative or, worse yet, a waste of the reader's time. But I mostly write fanfic for myself and for my friends who choose to read it. I think that they will take the pleasure in reading it from knowing the pleasure I had in writing it.

7) This sentence may feel cumbersome to some people, so I put this note here to remind you that Elves and Hobbits refer to the sun as “Her”.