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Brokhelm lifted the weight of his left arm, placing it on the table before him. “I expect I should carry on before our sherbet melts or perhaps before full stomachs and deep sleep threaten to carry us way, for I would rather tell tales all evening than have our dreams here in Edoras haunted by denizens of Mordor! But we’ve come full circle, have we?” the man mused, lowering his eyes to the tabletop.
When Brokhelm looked up again, he caught Ruthven’s eye, and looked at her a moment in silence before beginning. Then turning to Falco, he nodded to the hobbit.
“’So we have come full circle, have we?’ Falco said shrewdly. ‘I see that you both ain’t what you would have me think - though these boys of Sharkey’s would like it far better if you were. But they’re none too bright now, those ruffians? Not so bright as you can’t put a good one over on them, pay them back so to speak?’ And as our friend here winked at him, an involuntary smile crept across Twiddle-twaddle’s face. ‘I thought as much,’ the Shirriff concluded nodding his head sharply, so that the long brown feather wagged in the air.”
“Blue feather,” Falco spoke up. “Shirriff’s now, they always wear a blue feather.”
“Ah, thank-you Master Falco. Mind you it was the tip of a blue feather then, that darted about our Shirriff’s head!” Brokhelm held up his forefinger to mark the adjustment in his story.
“’We’s just havin’ a bit o’ fun,’ Twid explained. ‘Just clownin’ like I said. No harm’s done, is there?’
“’Not so far, but a shirriff’s no more sherbet than you are, of that much I am sure. Just what are you lads up to? You’ve said you’re cooking up sherbet, but I don’t see a stove about. And you had best not be cooking up a shirriff, or you’ll both land yourselves in hot water!’
“Gob wondered if he should let this hobbit in on their plan of Sharkey’s and henchmen’s rapid eradication. He was a hobbit after all, and by the look of him, a shirriff from the days before trouble came to the Shire. In any case, it wouldn’t hurt to have a little pull on their side, if they could convince him to help.
“’You mean a bath?’ Twid was saying playfully. ‘I’m not over fond of baths, you know!”
“’Worse,’ Falco assured him. ‘Certainly, far worse.’”
With that Brokhelm ceased his storytelling, and reached for a piece of fruit that lay at the center of the table. “Perhaps someone else would care to continue, lest this stomach, with its unintelligible rumblings, attempt to carry on the tale!”
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