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Eodwine passed Saeryn on her way to her room. "A rest will do you good, m'dear. May your dreams be filled with good things, and may nightmares of Mordor be far from you."
"Somehow," Saeryn replied, trying not to allow her speech to slur, "I don't think that will work very well."
"Well then, rest easy and be refreshed."
He grinned a knowing grin, having eavesdropped on the story as it had progressed under the care of Saeryn and Brokhelm. They needn't know.
Falco bid Saeryn good night and picked up on Brokhelm's kindly hint as he saw Eodwine re-enter the common room, giving him a nod and a wink.
"Maybe you've never set eyes on the Shire, Brokhelm, sir, but your tale is well told. I've seen the Shire from end to end and top to bottom, but I can only hope to tell my tale half as well.
"I was a shirriff since before ol' Sharkey. The ruffians swelled our ranks, and I didn't like it. Not that the new boys wasn't any good, mind you. But they was all green. They needed to be trained.
"You might wonder what training it takes to gather old toby, casks of ale, and grain for bread from poor Shire folk as needs it and shouldn't be forced to part with it. Well, new rules was coming in as fast as new shirriffs, and there was no learning the new shirriffs their craft and keeping all the new rules straight at once. So the new boys stayed green and under the thumb of the Sharkey boys while us old scabs got ornery ... at everybody, I'm sorry to say, but so it was.
"Well, one day I'm ordered up from Michel Delving by old Will Whitfoot hisself, that is afore he got jailed up by Sharkey's boys. He ordered me up to Hobbiton to help out with the Sharkey changes. Seems they was having some trouble up that-a-way. Up I go, and I don't like what I see. Who likes seeing dug up roads that have served for years beyond count? Who likes gathering food, backy and drink from folks what came by it honest? I knew what Sharkey's boys said, that it was for fair distribution. Fancy word that. What it meant was Sharkey's boys got it and we didn't.
"So I gets to Hobbiton and see ruffians digging out hobbit holes and hauling bricks and mortar from who knows where. And then I see these two shifty looking men. Well, all the ruffians looked shifty, but these two was shifting a different way, like they was on the outs with Sharkey's plans. Takin' too long carryin' out orders and really only just lookin' like they was workin'.
"So I kept my eye on 'em and saw them make excuses around the ruffians, and friendly talk with hobbits. So I got to thinkin', mebbe there's something could be done with these two. I went up and said hullo and who are you, makin' sure they could see the shirriff feather in my cap.
"And now it's time for me to drink a bit and listen to Eodwine or someone else pick up the tale."
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