[piosenniel]

It was all Gilly could do to keep herself and the babies secure on the horse. When Shifty’s horse stumbled in a small hole in the road, she nearly fell off as her own mount stopped abruptly. ‘Think, Gilly, think. You’ve got to get hold of yourself. The babies and Mistress Piosenniel are depending on you now.’

She draped the little ones in front of her on the broad back of her horse. Shifty had gotten off his horse and was checking out the leg of his mount. Stoatie had pulled back with a curse and grabbed her reins, giving her a glaring look, daring her almost to try something.

‘Don’t give him any reason to hurt you or the twins,’ she told herself, sitting as meekly as she could. Gilly pulled a shawl from the basket they’d strapped on behind her, and tied it like a sling across her shoulders, securing it around her waist. She picked the babies up gently, one by one, and placed them in the sling. They would be close to her, and protected from the night air, kept warm by the heat of her own body. And best of all, she would have both hands free to guide the horse.

‘I wish I hadn’t left my little knife in my room!’ She reached down hopefully into her skirt pocket, but no familiar little lump met her hand. Only a wadded up piece of cloth, jammed hastily in there at some point this past evening. ‘What’s this,’ she wondered, fingering the good-sized folded square.

No time to find out, though. Shifty had remounted, declaring his horse to be good enough to get them to Bree.

‘Git movin’, you little Shire rat,’ he hissed at her, whacking her horse soundly on the rump. ‘Stoatie’s already halfway down the road ahead of us. He’ll have my head if he looks back and you and the brats ain’t behind ‘im!’

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Child's post

By the time Cami and Maura cornered Frodo, he was already halfway down the path that led to the pond. Frodo saw the couple approaching from behind and halted uneasily under the beeches. His words of explanation were short and to the point: “I just couldn’t stand there doing nothing listening to everyone argue.”

Resisting her initial impulse to yank her friend back, Cami spluttered out her annoyance, “You shouldn’t have left without telling someone. It’s too dangerous! Ferny’s after you. Anyways, why did you come here?”

“You heard what Frodo-lad said. If I hand myself over, maybe Ferny’ll give us the children. Halfred's done nothing. Let me go now. I’ll do what needs to be done.”

Cami wrinkled her brow scowling, “No. Look what happened at my burrow. Ferny hates you. Anyways, how do we know he’ll do what he promised?”

She looked towards Maura and pleaded, “Please. Let’s leave....the three of us together. If we ride hard tonight, maybe we can pick up Pio’s track and help her free the twins.” Signs of worry showed clearly in Cami's eyes as she mulled over the prospect of Pio’s babies in the clutches of a lunatic like Stoatie.

Maura glanced first at his wife and then at Frodo choosing his words with care, “Cami’s right, Frodo. We can’t trust Ferny to stand by his word.”

“Then we can leave now?” Cami brightened.

Maura shook his head, “That won’t work. If Ferny doesn’t get what he came for, he’ll steal more children out of spite. All of Hobbiton will suffer.”

Maura looked grimly over, “You’re sure about what you said before? About Halfred coming through?”

Cami did not immediately respond; instead, she stood listening to the whistle of the late summer wind as it rustled through the overhanging foliage of the towering beeches. She’d come down this path and listened to these trees a thousand times before. The bleak silence of winter, the honeyed notes of springtime made by nesting birds, the gentle flutter of golden leaves floating down to earth on balmy autumn days…..she had seen and heard it all.

The first time had been when her parents had taken her on an outing by the pond. Much of Hobbiton had turned out that day. A hundred hobbits had spent the afternoon joking and chatting, bickering over this and that, wading in the shallows, and filling up their plates with goodies from platters and covered dishes that each family had provided. Not really too different from what had happened today at Bag-end. Whatever Halfred might think, a piece of her would always regard the Shire as home. She’d grown up here and knew these folk both for their good and bad.

She fixed her eyes on Maura and spoke with quiet assurance, “Yes, Halfred will come through. And he’ll bring a band with him.”

“And you Frodo? What do you say?”

Frodo did not answer for a moment as he stood remembering everything that had happened since his return to the Shire. Then he quietly added, “In all truthfulness, I don’t think folk have changed. They came through at the Scouring. They’ll come through again. Only,” and here he smiled wryly, “it may take Halfred a while to make up his mind.”

Maura nodded and grimaced, “Let’s just hope he doesn’t take too long. At least, this makes things easy. Halfred’s bound to come by the same road we did, since he can’t risk being seen by Ferny who's somewhere to the north. It will be easy to wait for him near the Inn.”

With that the three hobbits hurried back to the Dragon. When Halfred arrived just a few moments later, Cami hastily said goodbye to her husband and retreated to the common room, where she asked one of the lads to go out to the stables and saddle up her pony.

With rumors of recent events sweeping through town, half the guests at the Inn were wide awake and asking questions which Cami did her best to avoid. She quickly scurried down the hallway towards Pio’s room and stuffed the Elf’s healing herbs and potions into a satchel, slinging them onto her back. Sneaking inside the kitchen, she managed to weedle a few provisions out of Cook who was still up and about despite the late hour. When Cami told Cook she intended to go along to help rescue the twins, the older hobbit at first seemed surprised. But within a few moments she had changed her mind and come around full circle offering Cami a few words of encouragement, "You give those ruffians a hearty whack from me." Cook threw a few more muffins into a bag, propelling Cami out the door and extracting a firm promise from her to give the twins a one of Cook's special hugs as soon as the little ones were safely rescued.

[ July 01, 2003: Message edited by: piosenniel ]

[ July 11, 2003: Message edited by: Child of the 7th Age ]