IN THE SHIRE-RECKONING by Diane Finnis-Robb  

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Part Three; Chapter Three "Waymeet"

   It should be said that no hobbit who knew him ever spoke of Theudebald Swiftalk as rash nor demanding. Nor would they describe him as fiery, bold, proud nor quick to anger as was sometimes said of his friend Horris Bunce. Throughout his life Twoody was, by all the reports of his fellows, the most approachable, most genuinely caring of administrators in the growing community of Shirefolk. In the three decades since he had first negotiated the King’s Agreement Twoody had been the reasoned, level-headed and cautious voice at all of the Shire Councils and it was that quality of the hobbit (more than his obvious skills at the subtle art of bookkeeping) which endeared him to many of his friends and neighbours.

   But, after all the unexpected things that had happened to him since sunset on the First of the Summerdays of Year Twenty-nine, just eight sunsets past, it should also be said in defense of his level-headedness that Theudebald Swiftalk did not wish to confront his cousins the Swiftooks in anger.

   Anger is no more avoidable a reaction to adversity for hobbits than it is for any of us. They have a well-earned history of being a peace-loving people, certainly, but this does not exempt them from rage nor jealousy, frustration nor misunderstanding. These Shirefolk, living largely in open lands which are safe and free of strife- having no natural predators (as animals often do) nor nationalistic enemies (as many of us often tell ourselves we do)- are for the most part living out lives in which the spoons that go missing from a dinner party might qualify as a great and personal affrontery. It is not a very dangerous life and not one into which the trauma that might lead one to anger comes very often. But Hobbits, as weak in their self-assuredness and strong in their vanity as any of us, may likewise bear grudges against a perceived offense. Simply because they live in a land of relative peace and do not normally bear swords or other weapons is no reason to mistake the Shirefolk as being free from anger.

   And Twoody had been angry at his brother Childy for such a very long time. He had tried to ignore that anger after their father had died. He had made what he believed was a fair negotiation with his brother giving him control of vast holdings of unclaimed land in the South-farthing of the Shire and far away from Twoody and his own family. When Childy and his sons brought more hobbits with him into the south, Twoody, his anger still simmering, knew well enough to distrust his brother’s intentions but chose to do nothing about it. When that extended family of Swiftooks kept growing and pushed at the boundaries of their “Tookland”, Twoody still tried to ignore the potential threat to the peace of the Shire. He wanted nothing more to do with his brother, their family or his own anger. Twoody was content to live at his own home in the Buckland and leave Horris or the Council, or some hobbit other than himself, anyone less disappointed, angry and involved, to solve the trouble of their Tookish neighbours.

   Then, on the First of the Summerdays, Berty left and Gondo returned and everything in Twoody's life began to fall apart.

   He woke early in the morning on the Sixth day of After-lithe, fully prepared to confront his brother Childy if the need demanded it. He had heard rumours for many months about the settlement Childy and his folk had set up in Waymeet, and he also heard that Childy’s elder son, Reginard, had a great hand in its development. Then he heard from Gondo how Reginard had duped Berty and put his life in danger somehow and, while that danger had passed, Berty was still out there somewhere. He had met Reginard, and even the other younger son Leufred, fourteen years ago at the funeral of their grandfather Hincmar and had scrupulously avoided any contact with them since. Reginard would have been well into his tweens at the time and Leufred still just a fawn some ten years younger.

   A few years ago Twoody had heard rumours of Reginard and the way he had stood up to Horris and all of his reeves at the border of the Tookland. The “Young Took”, as he heard Reginard was now being called, was evidently as crafty as his father. But Twoody was ready to meet him, eager in fact for, as he felt his life currently spinning out and away from his expected future, Twoody welcomed the challenge of setting a hobbit like Reginard straight about just how things should be done in the Shire.

   But he knew that there may be other complications.

   Early in the morning on the Second Summerday young Odulf Bramblethorne had come to the door of the Great Smials. He had been on the Nightswatch at the Stonebows bridge and came to report that a dozen of the King’s soldiers had crossed during the previous night and were headed south to the ford. They had evidence that the hobbits there, the Swiftooks and most certainly Twoody’s brother Childy, were employing Men to build some kind of garrison at the ford. And what was worse, or so the young Bridge-warden reported, these were Men out of Angmar. Twoody knew as he walked alone toward Waymeet on the bright morning of the Sixth of After-lithe that he may face that challenge as well.

   So, in defense of his bravery, it should be noted that Twoody, despite his loss, was ready to confront his nephew Reginard or even his own blacksheep brother Childebrand as well as any of the dangerous folk in their employ so that he might hear more of what had happened to Berty, his friends and their whereabouts. He woke early from his roadside camp, ate a small breakfast and went forth to Waymeet within two hours after the dawn.

   If Waymeet was any example of a Took’s manner of living, it was a poor example of a town. Twoody thought that it looked somewhat like the area which had surrounded the Road near the Bridgefields in the first few months of the Shire’s opening; this was much smaller of course, but that had been the only settlement of hobbits which Twoody had ever seen that might compare with this place. The Bridgefields encampment had been only a temporary arrangement for the Shire’s first Pioneers until claims could be filed and, as new landholders, those hobbits could be on their way to the digging and building of their own homes. There had been no families in Bridgefields when Twoody first saw it; that had been in the month of Astron twenty-seven years ago when he had come to the Shire for the wedding of Gondo and Alaura. Afterwards the Shire became flooded with families and the old early encampments took on a homey look that this place at Waymeet had never seen. Thinking of this, Twoody searched the faces of the few hobbits he saw as he drew closer to the place. There were no does nor children here. Like the Bridgefields encampment there were only hard-working bucks to be seen and the meagerness of their comforts. He felt a kindred disappointment for these hobbits then and wondered why his brother, or his nephew, would wish for them to live in such a sorry state apart from their families.

   There were some low-fenced animal pens with chickens and a few pigs. In one of them there was a team of goats tethered together and they made a racket which Twoody thought must wake the whole camp daily with their braying and their carrying on. There were cookfires about, but he could see no proper stoves nor even outdoor kitchens and of course nothing like a publichouse. In fact these hobbits did not have so much as a chair to sit on nor a proper bed to lie in; cut tree limbs surrounded the cookfires and matted straw under blankets lay under the shelter of trees. Twoody could see that no well had been built but knew from reports that there was a good clean stream nearby. Like the Bridgefields, it felt like every hobbit here was just waiting to be going elsewhere, and as soon as they may. There were a few hastily built shacks and shallow living holes, but along the main wagon path through the place was a market much like the one Childy had first set up for those Bridgefield vendors, yet not so fine nor permanent looking as that had been. These were small wooden shops or stands covered with tarps and sackcloth. Barrows and carts were scattered amid blankets and crates offering tools and seed and salted meats and greying produce. There were a few shabby and sad-eyed ponies who tried to catch Twoody’s attention and he thought that they looked hopeful of leaving this colourless place by the Road. Two that Twoody noticed, brighter in spirit than the others, were already saddled for riding.

   Further south down the drab little path, standing above the other buildings, Twoody saw a large tent, a pavilion really, somewhat like those he had seen outside the walls of Norbury when he and Gondo had visited the king. But this too seemed to fit with the market's drabness; no colourful banners flew there and the oilcloth of its canopy was dark and somber, wine-red in colour and trimmed with black borders. However Childy may have come by this thing Twoody knew that this had once been a travelling tent for a captain of Men, no place fit for a hobbit, and it chilled his heart to think of his brother or his nephew, or any hobbit for that matter, choosing to live there. But evidently one did. Beside the tent was the largest and best provisioned of the shops and it had a familiar blue sign, repainted, but one whose shape and bright colour Twoody knew well. The sign read: “SWIFTOOK Purchasers, Purveyors, Packagers, & Porters -Things Provided and Things Took”; as if his brother had no shame in the new name he had been given.

   The hobbits of the other stalls appeared busy with their morning tasks but looked sheepishly at Twoody as he went directly forth toward the Swiftook tent. Despite his darkened mood Twoody had dressed well for this confrontation, wearing his best yellow waistcoat, cream-coloured shirt and dark green travelers’ cloak. His walking stick, though he hadn’t carried it in many, many years, had been fashioned by Gondo of the strange black wood that the elves had called “lebethron” and even they had seemed impressed by its workmanship. Twoody may not have felt as colourful and impressive as his wardrobe suggested but he was not unaware of the usefulness of such finery in any negotiation. He was, despite what other troubles had befallen his house, one of the hobbits who had negotiated the King’s Agreement after all, and the first of his family to be called “Swiftalk” for his deeds. The other hobbits of Waymeet were unimportant to him in these new negotiations and his outfit (if not his confidence or the rise of his head) put them off from trying to catch his attention.

   But he certainly had caught theirs. Some few ran ahead of him toward the tent, presumably to tell their own “Townfather” of his arrival. ‘Good,’ Twoody thought to himself. ‘Let my brother or nephew know that some person of intelligence1 has arrived to treat with him.’

   And he hoped it would be his brother.

   Twoody, even after all that he had lost, after how uncertain his future now seemed, was ready to throw all of his bravery, his skills as a negotiator and his conviction of purpose into confronting his brother Childebrand, a hero and a model of his youth for whom he now held fourteen years worth of unspoken disappointment and scorn. Childy had tried to swindle his way into owning half of the Shire, something Twoody could never forgive. Now, on this rare and bright morning after the worst possible week of his life, Twoody very much wanted to see his older brother come forth from that dismal looking tent to hear just what he had to say.

   But what would he say? Had he come to speak about that anger or to find his Berty? Twoody had no set Plan or offer, no negotiation point to make the Swiftooks give up what they may know about Berty. He understood, despite all that had happened to him, that his anger toward Childy would not necessarily win his nephew back. He had heard from Gondo how the Swiftooks had sent Berty and his friends off into the west- accompanied by killers no less! -and his anger toward his brother had grown even greater. Gondo had claimed that Berty was now safe from these dangerous Men but that he had set off on an adventure all his own. Twoody then saw how Gondo and Alaura seemed to accept this in ways which he himself could not. With all that had happened, why would Berty still wish to go off on an adventure of all things? He meant to find Berty and the others and convince his nephew to come back home where he was needed. So now the betrayal and abandonment and the fear that Twoody felt had all boiled in the long-simmering pot of his anger at the Swiftooks. He had come to Waymeet to find Berty, yes, but also to confront those Swiftooks however he may. Not for some kind of understanding or acceptance. His recently suffered disappointments would not easily allow acceptance and also put his understanding to a hard task, but they had also made his desire for confrontation all the greater.

   Perhaps it would be Childy, “the Old Took” himself, hiding like a garden snake in that tall greasy tent. Then Twoody might finally say all of the things which his anger had made him feel over the past fourteen years.

   But another part of him hoped it would be Reginard whom he would encounter. With Reginard, Twoody believed that he might be strong and indignant; for, relative or no, that was the hobbit who had sent Berty into a dangerous trap.

   There were no dangerous Men to be seen here in Waymeet now however. Just a dozen or so shock-eyed and grubby pioneers who watched Twoody anxiously as he approached the shop of the Swiftook and the big tent behind it. These hobbits of Waymeet looked cowed, as if they were somehow afraid of asking questions of the well-dressed stranger but also afraid of approaching the tent. But Twoody felt no such fear. He walked up to the big blue sign and noticed that there was an arrow stuck hard in the center of the name “SWIFTOOK”. Twoody, using the butt of his walking stick, wrapped on the sign three times with three hard and demanding knocks.

   But it was not Childebrand, Twoody’s brother, or even Reginard, Childy’s son, who came from the great red tent early in the morning on the Sixth day of After-lithe. It was, to Twoody’s great joy and beyond all his understanding, his beloved Berty. They both smiled and laughed loudly to see one another and then ran forward to embrace. It was only when Twoody saw the sword which Berty wore on his hip that he began to weep.

 

*****

   ‘Slow down, Youngbuck!’ Bovo called to his friend. ‘Your poor pony has been going hard all day and into the night. You are like to hurt her riding fast into the darkness. Slow down!’

   In all the time that they had known one another Bovo would never have accused Youngbuck of being fiery or rash or quick to anger. He was bold, yes, and had a quick mind to follow his own boldness. Bovo thought that Youngbuck could smell an adventure on the wind the way a deer could smell fresh water and, just like that deer, Youngbuck’s nose always led his feet in that direction. Now Bovo was following as best he could on his own borrowed pony and trying to remind his friend of the need for caution.

   ‘Youngbuck, for pity’s sake and my own, please slow down!’ he called again. And, eventually, without a look back or an argument, Youngbuck halted. He brought his pony Cinders to the crest of a little hill and quickly dismounted to look out over the east. The Sun had not yet risen, but the night was clear and filled with stars. They could see that they had entered the area of the Chalk hills again, south of Waymeet from what Bovo could guess and, having ridden hard, they were probably east and south of the Delvings. Bovo could not see any indication of that settlement north of them, but it was still hours before daybreak when all right-thinking hobbits- “Pioneers” or no- should be comfortably in their beds. As Bovo himself rode up and dismounted he could feel poor Gormadoc’s pony shiver and stretch himself with relief.

   ‘There we go, Travaldo,’ Bovo said, ‘I’m sorry, boy,’ rubbing the mane of the sweating pony and trying to comfort him. ‘Rest a bit while you may.’ He then approached his friend with the same comfort in his voice.

   ‘Youngbuck,’ Bovo said, ‘if you will not rest them and ourselves then we must walk them for a bit. And carefully, yes, for the soft rocks of these hills can be treacherous for ponies.’ He walked up beside Youngbuck, not yet examining his face, and also looked out to the east and their way forward. ‘I would put Waymeet another two to three hours ahead east and a little north,’ Bovo said pointing. ‘Walking most of that time. See that band of trees ahead, rolling its way on the southern side of that taller hill? See how it carries off south? I would bet my last bit of good Buckland jerky that there is a small creek feeding those trees. The ponies, and I daresay ourselves, need fresh water. Let us go that way first and we will come to Waymeet all the stronger.’

   Youngbuck did not look in the direction of the creek that Bovo suggested but kept his gaze focused towards the east. They had been riding hard for some time now and the white dust of the Chalk hills caked both the hobbits’ faces. But in the starlight Bovo could see the streaked lines on Youngbuck’s face where tears had washed some of that dust away.

   ‘As you say, Bovo,’ Youngbuck finally relented. ‘But we must come to Waymeet early in the morning. Then I will feed that Young Took his proper and deserved breakfast.’

 

   There had been many tears and arguments at the parting of Youngbuck and Bovo from their new friend Marcoul Zaragamba. ‘You cannot go back there!’ Marcoul had said. ‘Those soldiers the Young Took employs may have returned, or he may have others like them to do his work, master Youngbuck. Please, come back to Gormadoc’s Hole with me as we lay my brother’s body to rest. You honoured him so in life, master, come with me and do not throw yourself into further danger at his death.’

   ‘In my family,’ Youngbuck had said through his own tears, ‘it is customary to grieve and celebrate our dead for four days and bury them on the fifth.2 How is it with the Lausa-folk?’

   ‘The same when circumstance will allow it,’ Marcoul said, ‘but my brother is the first of my friends or relatives to die of anything but age since our coming to the Shire.’

   ‘The first of ours as well,’ Bovo had said. ‘Youngbuck, can you think of anyone other than your own illustrious father, who has passed on from anything other than age?’

   Berty knew that this had been true. His mother had recorded deaths in her book of the Shire families and his uncle Twoody had recorded the transfer of land claims when those rare deaths had happened. But other than those nine brave folk at the Battle of the Bank in Year Fifteen neither Berty nor Bovo had ever heard of a hobbit dying of mischance as a Gormadoc had done.

   This question seemed to hit Youngbuck all the harder, for his heart felt again the fate of this death.

   ‘Your brother Gormadoc was special, Marcoul,’ he said through his tears. ‘He, and all your family, are to be the pioneers of the west, as he had foreseen it in a dream. And while my heart tells me this is to be so, Gormadoc also seemed to know that some doom lay upon him.

   ‘I cannot ride with you,’ he continued, ‘and cannot grieve with you when there is such anger in my heart and so much work yet to be done about it. Reginard Swiftook, as I see it, has been the very architect of the misery we now face-’

   ‘Youngbuck,’ Bovo had said, ‘we escaped that snake’s clutches with the help of master Undundol as I recall it, and set our feet on a new course the very next morning without a worry of Reginard Swiftoo-’

   ‘But did we, Bovo?’ Youngbuck interrupted in return. ‘You and Gilley both had dreams of your future together after that night and our friend Gormadoc had them as well. He did not tell me much, but I could tell that he felt some fate had wrapped itself around him.’

   ‘And you blame Swiftook for that?’ Bovo asked.

   ‘No,’ Youngbuck replied, the tears welling again in his eyes. ‘I blame myself for unwisely leading Gormadoc into that fate.’

   ‘No, master,’ Marcoul said through tears of his own, ‘you must not! How could you be expected to foretell of my brother’s acciden-’

   ‘Because I should!’ Youngbuck said hotly. ‘I should have felt it too! When your brother told me that Reginard Swiftook held the Dragonsword in his own tent, my heart told me we should go back, that we should confront him about the harm he had tried to do to us and the trick he was trying to play.’

   ‘But, Youngbuck,’ Bovo had said, ‘you chose the kinder act of helping the Zaragamb-’

   ‘Was that a kindness, Bovo?’ Youngbuck replied. ‘Or was it just my own selfishness at wanting to come to Greenholm on the last of the Summerdays? Haven’t you yourself said from the beginning that this was always my Plan? And how has that Plan helped anyone?’

   Bovo and Marcoul were silent at this and did not know what to say to argue against their friend’s self-disappointment. The three hobbits were sitting astride their ponies then, an hour or so past middle night, having just heard of Gormadoc’s death from the hobbit Robin Floxflower. The older hobbit had brought them the ponies with the terrible news of how their friend had died and together the three of them immediately set out north to the Far Downs as expected. But then, in what Bovo thought was a very characteristic burst of inspiration, Youngbuck had halted their party to quite commandingly tell them that he intended to go on to Waymeet. Bovo saw how his friend’s hands gripped hard on the saddle the whole time that he spoke and how tightly clamped Youngbuck’s jaw seemed as he spoke, and it worried him greatly.

   ‘You could not have planned for this, Youngbuck,’ Bovo said. ‘Gormadoc’s death was an acciden-’

   ‘Was it?’ Youngbuck snapped back at his friend. ‘Was anything which has happened to us since we came on this journey a matter of accident?’

   He then turned his pony Cinders to the east as they talked, looking away there and not into the eyes of his companions. ‘Nonetheless,’ he said, ‘I cannot let it stand. Reginard Swiftook tried to use us every bit as much as his father tried to use your own, Bovo, and as he used my uncle Twoody and hundreds of other trusting Shire-hobbits nearly thirty years ago. Now look at the price of that usury as it pays out again. I will not let it stand.

   ‘Marcoul,’ he said, turning just a bit to look the hobbit in the eyes, ‘ride back and be with your brother and your family. I will join you on the fourth day to grieve with you and on the fifth day to bury him. But I must go to Waymeet first.’ And with this he nudged his little pony into a run and headed off east into the night.

   It was never discussed between them but Bovo, of course, rode right by his side.

 

   And the two ponies did reach Waymeet as the day was beginning to come over the trees in the hilly country on the Shire’s eastern edge. The sky was red away there and Berty wondered for a moment if he would have been able to see the Sun if he were back in Buckland and standing on the highest hill of Sarehole. Tired but loyal, Travaldo and Cinders ambled slowly down the path from the Road and Berty allowed them to set the pace. There had been a light rain about an hour ago and the hooves of the ponies were making little clopping noises in the mud which was the path into Waymeet. He could hear the noisy braying of goats and see that a small number of hobbits were awake and starting morning cookfires. Others that he could see still lay in their sorry beds dug into short holes or under scattered trees or overturned wagons. If some of the hobbits who were awake took notice of them as they came it did not matter to Berty; he was here to speak with one hobbit and one hobbit only.

   But he looked at these other hobbits differently than he had when he came to this place seven mornings ago. They may not be the most energetic hobbits he had ever known, and they certainly did not have much here in Waymeet to make them excited to greet a new morning, but Berty now knew that they were all Lausa-folk and he had learned a great respect for them in those seven days past. How many of them, he wondered, might even be relatives of Gormadoc and the other Zaragamba brothers? And then Berty was glad to have had that thought because it helped to alleviate some of his anger. ‘No matter what happens next,’ he said to himself, ‘no other hobbit shall die here today.’

   The ponies drew right up to the stall of the shop from which they had departed seven mornings ago. Berty dismounted under the big blue sign which read “SWIFTOOK P., P., P., & P.” and, taking his walking stick from the saddle, he let Cinders and his friend Travaldo go forth to rest or to graze or to find water as they may. Neither pony went far from his side. Some of the other hobbits who had seen him come into the encampment were beginning to gather at a safe distance. Berty wondered how he must look to them after his all night ride and his week of exploring but, more importantly, he wondered if any of them recognized him from the week before. ‘Here again comes Bovo Bunce,’ he said to himself smiling at his old ruse, ‘map-maker, son of the Old Took’s enemy and dupe of the Young Took. Now how is it he comes back to us so soon and so alone?’

   With a heavy-hearted laugh, the first he had managed in many long hours, Berty, using the butt of his walking stick, wrapped on the sign three times with three hard and demanding knocks.

   ‘Swiftook!’ he said loudly, quite hoping it might wake all of the hobbits of Waymeet, ‘Come forth! We have business to discuss, you and I, and my patience is quite at an end! Come forth, you scoundrel, and hear what your game of negotiations has brought you.’

   But of course it was not Reginard, the Swiftook who Berty had expected, who came from the tent squinting into the morning light. It was some other hobbit whom Berty had never seen before. And in his hand he carried, naked and gleaming, the Dragonsword of Priamus Swiftwalk.

 

   Six nights before this morning Berty had seen the three gifts spread before him; the cloak and the sword and that other strange device for measuring the stars. He had thought about all of the ideas and longings for adventure that master Undundol’s tales had put into his head; of all of the things he might see and the persons he might meet or himself become. And then, as he had done so many times before, Berty trusted to his own heart’s hasty decision to lead him on a path he could not predict.

   ‘Your answers do suit me, master,’ he had finally said in reply, ‘and I thank you for your offers, your graciousness and your courtesies. But, tell me more of our bargain, if you will,’ he said with a slow but very familiar smile breaking over his face. ‘What comes next?’

   And at this both the hobbits smiled and peace was in both their faces.

   ‘Well,’ the older hobbit had answered, ‘I deem that our Bargain is over and that you shall now choose any one of these three items and we strangers who have come together by chance will part as friends. Chance meetings may bring fresh futures, some say, and a bargain well struck may be a propitious thing.’

   And then Berty had looked long into master Undundol’s face as if he was seeking some answer there to a riddle which had never previously occurred to him.

   ‘Will you choose?’ master Undundol had asked.

   Berty was, from his youngest age, a hobbit who knew how to trust his own instincts. And he was still young and had a young hobbit’s boldness to those instincts. He very much wanted to take up the sword that was offered to him and go east to earn for himself the reputation of a warrior. His young heart was, as any of our own might be, drawn to adventure.

   If Berty had taken up that sword on that evening six nights before this morning he might well have met this unfamiliar hobbit who came from the Swiftook tent sword against sword, forcing him into submission, perhaps even killing him. Such was the rage he felt against Reginard Swiftook for his trickery and his unfair possession of the Dragonsword. It was not Reginard who carried the sword now though and that fact not only surprised Berty but also gave his mind a moment to think outside of the anger which had brought him back to Waymeet and to the Swiftook tent.

   ‘Chance meetings may bring fresh futures, some say, and a bargain well struck may be a propitious thing,’ master Undundol had told him and on the night of that meeting and Berty, in his memory, had heard his mother teach that very same lesson.

 

   ‘I have come for Reginard and to take that sword from him,’ Berty thought to himself, ‘but chance has given me this bold-handed sluggard to meet with instead. Is it by chance or luck that I have no sword of my own to meet him?’

   Because six nights before, in characteristic manner, Berty had trusted what his heart told him before his mind had worked it out.

   ‘I will choose this device, master,’ he had said, ‘which measures the stars. Maybe I will use it to walk South as you suggest, but maybe it will also serve me if I choose to walk far into the North or the East. For it seems that the choices you have left me with are that I fight or I hide or I discover. Can you blame me for choosing the latter no matter where my feet may lead me?’

 

*****

   Of the days that Leufred Swiftook had spent in the miserable mudhole of Waymeet the mornings were the worst part. Oh, the bed his brother had left behind was comfortable enough, indeed it was so comfortable that Leufred preferred not to leave it. After the first day he had grown bored of trying to make sense of the maps or bills of sale that Reginard had also left and spent much of his day lying in bed drinking. And the first barrel of wine that Reginard had left was indeed also excellent, but it was gone by the third day and the plonk3 that Leufred had been able to acquire in this place had only one useful quality; it was plentiful. So this too made mornings the very worst part of Leufred’s very miserable time spent in Waymeet. Now, on the fifth morning of his torment, at dawn of all times, after he had begun to become accustomed to the braying of those wretched goats, someone had come banging on his door and calling: “Swiftook! Come forth! We have business to discuss, you and I, and my patience is quite at an end! Come forth, you scoundrel, and hear what your game of negotiations has brought you.”

   Leufred, his face and ears not yet open for business, did not recognize the voice. It was certainly not one of these meek shopkeepers whom his brother had chosen to be the Waymeet’s sorry excuse for citizenry; they wouldn’t dare raise an eye or let go a fart in the presence of their betters, let alone come banging on his doorstep so rudely. He thought, still grumbling in the haziness of sleep, that it must be that snobbish pair from the Delvings who had come here three mornings past- that Pudifoot person and his hired hobbit hunter. Well, if they were still hunting errant hobbits Leufred had no more news to share than he did before and much less desire for their business. But he did have an answer for their rudeness.

   Splashing a bit of fresh water in his face from the bowl by the bedside, Leufred took up his sword and strode boldly to the front of the tent. Almost as instinct, more out of annoyance than out of anger, he drew the blade from its finely-tooled leather sheath and went out to give a stern greeting to any intruder; wealthy northerner or no. It was only in the early dawn light on the porch of the tent that Leufred noticed he was dressed only in his rumpled nightshirt and bedcap. Yet the sword still gleamed brightly in that light and Leufred knew he must have been enough of a fearsome figure for any grandee out of the Delvings to face.

   But he did not see the hobbit that he had expected nor was he in any way prepared for what came next.

 

*****

   ‘And who might you be, to come banging on my door at dawn and calling me a scoundrel?’ Leufred asked.

   ‘I am Theudebert Youngbuck,’ Berty replied, surprised by this unexpected hobbit but eyeing the naked sword he carried, ‘and if you are indeed a Swiftook I do name you as from a family of scoundrels while, if that is the sword I think that it is, then I would name you thief as well.’

   In point of fact Berty had never seen the Dragonsword of Priamus the Walker. Oh, it was a legend in his uncle Twoody’s family and in the Bree-land to be sure and Berty had heard that legend of Priamus at his uncle’s knee growing up. In the tale the sword was always described and Berty had imagined it just as he saw it now; slightly curved, its blade of shining steel and the intricately carved handle which, as everyone knew, was made of dragon bone.

   Priamus, and his father Laudamus before him, had carried this sword out of the far East, leading the greatest single migration of hobbits ever heard of in all the known world. They had come through the Darkening Forest and over the Great River and through barren mountains populated by goblins, giants and trolls. That whole journey the Dragonsword went before them, with Priamus leading his people into the peaceful West and eventually settling in the Bree-land one hundred years ago, a community of hobbits forty-score strong.

   After old Priamus died the Dragonsword and its legend passed on to his son Hincmar Swiftwalk. Hincmar had settled himself nicely into the Bree-land and purchased the Inn of the Four Greenfields, a house of hospitality for hobbits and the Big Folk alike. For a few years the sword hung above the mantelpiece in the common room of that publichouse, a symbol of pride for Hincmar and any other descendants of those hobbits who had made the long and dangerous journey. But Hincmar rightly knew that the pride which an innkeeper may take in his own history might seem an exclusiveness to old friends (among the hobbits) and off-putting to new customers (among the Big Folk). So while the legend remained of Priamus Swiftwalk and was passed down from one generation of the family to another the Dragonsword itself had long since been taken down and put away.

   Hobbits, who very much enjoy their comforts just as any of us do, are not a greedy people. They often give away gifts of things which they have in abundance or items which they no longer need. But items that contain a sentimental value or represent a family history are often sacred to them long past their usefulness. All of these kinds of items are called mathom in the dialect of hobbits; and mathom is mostly shared among them but sometimes and in special cases very reverently hoarded.

   What had happened to the Dragonsword since old Hincmar took it down from the mantelpiece was unknown to Berty or even to his uncle Twoody. They had always assumed that it sat in some back room of his house or his offices at the inn but never much cared about the thing itself as much as they did its legend. When Berty had heard five mornings ago that it lay in the tent of Reginard Swiftook he was filled not so much with anger (as he most certainly was now) but with a sense of purpose; for this is something that he believed should not be in the hands of his blacksheep cousin.

   This was the Dragonsword of Priamus Swiftwalk, leader of hobbits, grandfather of Berty’s uncle Theudebald Swiftalk, founding father of the Shire, and his other uncle Childebrand Swiftook, Landlord and Shire-enemy. It did not belong in Reginald’s hand nor in the hand of this other unknown and slovenly hobbit- with his dirty and wine-stained nightshirt and his oversized bedcap- who stood before Berty on this bright morning in After-lithe.

   Berty was angered and frustrated by so many things on this morning and Reginard and the perceived theft of the Dragonsword were meant to be the fairly deserving recipients of those feelings. He did not know who this hobbit was, but the look of him, and the idea that he came forth brandishing that weapon, made Berty all the more angry.

 

*****

   ‘How dare you!’ Leufred replied , ‘This is the sword of my father and you stand on my own doorstep calling me thief!’

   ‘That is the Dragonsword of Priamus the Walker,’ Berty said in an even and curt tone. ‘If your father is a Swiftook then I say that you and he have no rightful claim to it, no more than you have claim nor title to this land where you have placed your doorstep. Give that sword to me and I will allow you to pack up this miserable tent and be on your way.’

   To be fair, Leufred had no recollection of the names "Youngbuck" or even "Priamus the Walker," their history nor their relationship to his family. He cared less for history than he did for maps or letters. Now, stunned into wakefulness by the arrogance of this unrecognized hobbit, he cared about such names and histories even less.

   He knew that this was the Dragonsword of course, any fool of a Took knew that, for it was widely discussed among the Lausa as the very symbol of his father’s authority. To Leufred’s way of thinking, even before this upstart intruder showed up this morning, it was now a symbol of his own authority in this region of the Shire. Surely his father had given it to his brother Reginard for that reason and Leufred was likewise certain that Reginard had left it for him with that same purpose in mind.

   Now this Youngbuck, alone and dusty from the Road, dared to challenge that authority. This truly was the worst morning Leufred had spent in this mudhole yet and now it seemed that this Youngbuck should be made to pay for it.

 

*****

   ‘You will allow me?’ Leufred replied hotly. ‘You arrogant little buck, let me show you my allowance!’ And at this he raised the sword high and advanced as if he meant to strike this unarmed intruder who had dared to show and challenge him at his very own door.

   It was then that a single arrow struck the bright blue sign above them both, right in the center of the “SWIFTOOK” name emblazoned there. Inexperienced as he was, the arrow frightened Leufred, pausing his attack and drawing away his attention.

   Things happened pretty quickly after that.

 

*****

   Bovo had waited long enough. Their Plan- and it was Bovo’s Plan this time and not Youngbuck’s- had worked out just fine at first. But when this unexpected hobbit wielding a naked sword came out of the tent they needed to be ready for anything.

   ‘I see it this way, Youngbuck,’ Bovo had said half an hour before as they were both leading their tired ponies toward Waymeet from the Road, ‘Swiftook is a snake to be sure. But if you scare him out of the grass he is only the one snake, Dragonsword for a fang or no.’

   ‘I will not be frightened away by a sword,’ Youngbuck had said sternly, and Bovo could see that the rage over Gormadoc’s death still had his friend in its control. ‘I hope he brings it; for it is my intention to take the Dragonsword from him for good.’

   ‘Yes. I can see that,’ Bovo had replied. ‘But what if he’s got any of those Big Folk at his call. What shall we do then?’

   Youngbuck had stopped at this and turned to look Bovo squarely in the face.

   ‘Bovo, don’t you understand?’ He had said. ‘The Swiftooks are criminals and should be driven from the Shire. Not just for the theft of the Dragonsword or the harm they planned to do us but for the very fact that they have hired those thugs. We should have done something about this five days ago and things would have- should have- gone differently. I cannot turn from it now that things have gone so wrong as they have.’

   ‘I understand how you feel, Youngbuck, and I would not tell you differently,’ Bovo had said. ‘Our friendship is too important to suffer arguments over one another’s impetuousness,’ he had offered, trying to lighten the mood, 'for that is a competition in which we are too evenly matched. But I see nothing wrong with a little moment spent developing a Plan.’

   And so Bovo had split off from Youngbuck and their ponies to come quietly stalking through the woods and take up his position in good sight of the doorstep to the tent. Should any of the Big Folk come forth to assail Youngbuck, an unexpected warning shot from out of the trees might make them think twice. So Bovo had hidden himself and waited patiently for his friend to come boldly to the Swiftook shop. He had never shot an arrow at a person before, Big Folk or hobbit, and while this worried him terribly it did not diminish his resolve; he was not about to let anyone put his friend Youngbuck into further danger. He did not have the anger against Reginard Swiftook that Youngbuck did and, in fact, he did not quite understand where that anger had come from, but Bovo knew that he would, without hesitation, drop anyone who threatened the life of his friend.

   When the slovenly, sleepy-eyed hobbit came forth brandishing a sword Bovo did not quite know what to do and stayed his hand. But when that hobbit raised his arm and made to attack Youngbuck, Bovo let his first arrow fly.

 

*****

   When the arrow hit the sign and the hobbit was distracted Berty moved swiftly and confidently. He side-stepped and struck the arm of his opponent sharply on the elbow with his walking stick with a blow so hard it forced him to drop the sword. Then he swung the stick around to his off hand and hit this stranger so hard in the head that it knocked the ill-fitting bed cap to the ground. With the hobbit bent and reeling from the two quick blows it was an easy matter for Berty to push him off his feet and retrieve the naked sword for himself.

   ‘That you should not have done,’ Berty said, standing over the injured hobbit with sword in one hand and walking stick in the other. ‘I came here today to find Reginard Swiftook, to take this sword from him, and to run him back into the Tookland where he belongs. Who are you and where is he?’

   ‘I am Leufred, Reginard’s brother,’ the prone and bleeding hobbit said, ‘and this is our market and that our father’s sword-’

   ‘It is not,’ Berty said, ‘and we seemed to have just solved that argument. Where is your brother?’

   Leufred looked up at Youngbuck with hatred in his eyes. ‘He has gone to Sarn Ford to see my father and left me in charge here-’

   ‘You are in charge no longer,’ Berty said. ‘I would have let you change your clothes and pack up this wretched tent, Leufred, but you raised my uncle’s sword at me in violence and we will not allow that here in the Shire.’

   As he spoke Youngbuck could see Bovo coming cautiously forward through the little shops, his bow nocked and his eyes darting about looking for any further sign of resistance. Around him there were other hobbits starting to come forth, amazement on their faces, but no sign of the Big Folk or anyone else who might defend the younger Swiftook. As Bovo drew in closer, Youngbuck addressed the others.

   ‘Good day to you, masters, and all the shopkeepers of Waymeet,’ he called to the closest of the hobbits. ‘I am sorry to intrude upon your morning, but we have come to clear the Swiftook’s out of this settlement for crimes they have committed against us as well as other people of the Shire. But we mean no harm to any of you Lausa-folk here and we would welcome you to stay and, with the encouragement and help of the hobbits of West-farthing, build a home for yourselves here.’

   Bovo could see the hobbits looking at one another and then back at the younger son of the Took who lay helplessly on the ground, still wrathful and belligerent. In the five days of his tenure here in Waymeet Leufred had not done anything to gain the favour of these folk nor help them in their meager livelihood.

   ‘My father will not allow it!’ Leufred said. ‘He and my brother and I will come marching back here with an army, and with Big Folk too, and we will take all of this wretched place back and raze-’

   ‘Very well,’ Youngbuck said, walking back to face the prone hobbit, ‘then you had best be on your way.’ And with that he gave Leufred a push with his foot, knocking him from the doorstep of the tent and into the mud, much to the enjoyment of the other hobbits of Waymeet. ‘Masters,’ he called to them, ‘will one of you please bring a good-sized skin of fresh water for our messenger here. It is a long walk to the southern ford, as I hear it.’ Youngbuck then put the naked sword into his own belt and drew from his pocket a neatly folded piece of paper and a writing chalk. He unfolded it and began to write, speaking to all assembled;

   ‘This is the bill of sale from your brother Reginard Swiftook,’ he said. ‘I will give it to you now that you may return it to him with my message: “I, Theudebert Youngbuck whom you once took for Bovidine Bunce, take the removal of the Swiftooks from Waymeet as part of your restitution for the harm you have inflicted on the Shire. Those Lausa-folk who live and work here are now free to file their claims for this land and become part of the West-farthing. Just as you had wished (and I expect very much not to your liking) honest maps will be drawn and all honest hobbits will be welcomed.”’

   The other hobbits of Waymeet applauded this reading and some began to jeer at the Old Took’s son Leufred. Berty did not speak this aloud, but he signed the note; “-awaiting our next negotiations, your cousin Youngbuck.”

   ‘There,’ he said, handing the letter to Leufred. ‘Take that to your brother and your father and your Big Folk. See if they remember the fortitude of Shirefolk and dare to stand against it.’

 

*****

   All of this happened the Sixth morning of After-lithe some an hour or so before Theudebald Swiftalk came into Waymeet hoping to get word of his nephew Berty. Leufred had been turned out on the old Broken road in his nightclothes to deliver his message. Youngbuck made sure he was given a good sack of fresh water but no other comforts for his travels. A few of the hobbits from Waymeet suggested he should be given a goat to ride in disgrace, but as no owner for the goats came forward this idea was rejected. Youngbuck and Bovo, after meeting a few of the other hobbits and turning their tired ponies over to them for care, went into the tent to explore what the Swiftooks had left behind. Berty found the sword’s old leather scabbard and belt just inside the door and fastened it to his waste.

   So it was that after such an eventful morning in their little settlement the Waymeet hobbits were likewise startled to see yet another stranger walk into the town and straight up to the Swiftook tent. It is no surprise that after such a ruckus so shortly before these Waymeet hobbits kept their watchful distance, but all were relieved to see Youngbuck and the stranger meet with embraces and tears of joy.

   ‘Berty, my boy!’ Twoody cried with delight. ‘Here beyond all my hope! Don’t tell me you come all this way to sleep in this vile looking tent.’

   ‘No, uncle,’ Berty said laughing. ‘We’ve only just arrived this morning to run a rascal Swiftook out of it. But there are some comforts, and some discoveries, inside. Come! Let us show you!’

   Twoody saw that inside the tent there were a few freshly lit lanterns and a few flaps had been opened by Berty and Bovo to let in the morning air. It was a large open space and a four-poster bed lay near the rear of it, the sheets on it still rumpled and unmade. There was also a larder to the rear of the tent and Bovo went there immediately to search out three clean mugs and fresh water. But in the front of the tent there was a small table and two chairs, quite hobbit-sized, and spread out on the table Twoody could see an old map. It was as finely drawn and written and, while he could not make out the writing any better here, Twoody knew it to be as fine as anything he had seen in the King’s salon up in Norbury. He looked at his nephew in surprise and went directly to the table to examine the map.

   Along one edge (Twoody could not determine at first if it was east or west without understanding the letters) there was a winding river which seemed to turn and flow up to a vast lake shaped, or so Twoody thought it, much like a butterfly. To the left of the lake there were symbols that Twoody took to be a series of tall buildings with round turrets and crenelled walls as of a kind he had seen in Norbury. If this was a city as Norbury was then Twoody had thought it must have been incredibly large.

   Above this city there were flat and open lands that came to an abrupt edge. Twoody’s eyes followed this edge over the top of the map and down its left side. There was nothing beyond it but a series of long lines endlessly wavering as they went out and off to the pages end. Between this river and the lake and the imposing city in the north there was the indication of mountains and low hills, of smaller rivers and perhaps even roads which seemed to cut through forests. Twoody looked at it carefully and for a very long time until he discovered a bridge over the great river on the right and following the road from that bridge back to the left side saw it pass under three impossibly tall towers. He let out a low gasp at this, the first sound spoken in the tent since the three hobbits had entered, and Bovo offered him a cup of water.

   ‘Yes,’ Bovo said in his characteristically calm manner. ‘Youngbuck here thinks it is a map containing the Shire from the time when the Sea-kings drew such things. See here, this, according to his theory, seems to be our own Stonebows bridge and here to the far west, if west it is, are the three Elf-towers. But how the Swiftooks should come by such a thing is something he has not been able to puzzle out.’

   ‘You have been to the Elf-towers then?’ Twoody asked, casting an eye at his nephew.

   ‘No, uncle,’ Berty said, ‘for I had promised against that long ago. But we have been to what I believe is the very western edge of the Shire and I have mapped some of those lands and the towers are quite visible from there.’

   Twoody looked at Berty, the nephew he had raised as his very own son and in that moment, not for the first time and certainly not for the last, saw nothing of himself there.

   ‘Well, my boy,’ he said, addressing him in a way which he no longer meant, ‘it seems we both have things to say to one another.’

 

end chapter three

Chapter End Notes

Notes (07/28/2026)

1)  “A person of intelligence” is probably not the way Twoody would have thought of himself on this sad morning of his new life, but I could not resist dropping in the Peter Jackson quote.

2)  I’ve made that up of course, but it happens to be the amount of time between Hincmar Swiftwalk’s death and burial that I covered earlier. This is how customs get created in fan fic.

3)  ”Plonk” is a South African slang term for terrible wine. I don’t know if it had been used in Tolkien’s own time, but it seems appropriate here.

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