This is the landing page for A Gentle Soul, an occasional series that I will be posting. It rips off the Grimm Brothers (who actually appear in Part 2) and J.R.R. Tolkien, the master of all epic fantasy. If you've seen The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings movies, but not read the books, get yourself to a library or bookstore and read them. I liked the movies, but the books are glorious.
This story started to write itself after the second of my three eye surgeries. I filled it out a bit today, and feel the need to post it and get some feedback. It has not gone to my editor, so blame all the errors on my shoddy proofreading. Of course, let me know if it is something you want to see more of. It will not be worked on weekly, but I might be able to get a chapter up every month or two: Dawn.
“Jeremiah! Have you finished practicing your archery?”
“Yes father,” a thin voice replied from inside the house.
“Sword practice? Spear work?”
“Yes, sir.”
“How long did you practice?”
“Ummm, urr. None?” The voice almost dropped to a whisper as the big man strode into the hut.
“WHAT? Why did you say you are finished then?”
“Because I wasn’t planning to do any practice today. So technically I am finished.”
“Don’t you play your little word games with me, boy,” the big man raised his hand to strike the boy as he sat at the spit, rotating the meat.
“STOP! Don’t you dare hit the boy,” his mother screeched from the pot she was stirring. He is a gentle soul.”
The big man stopped in mid swing. Had he connected with full force, he could have knocked the boy clear across the room. The 10-year-old was less than half the size of the man, barely much taller than his seven-year-old brother. He was thin like his two older sisters, while all five of the other brothers were big men like their father or promised to be, like Michael, the seven-year-old.
“How am I to make the boy into a man,” the man whined at his wife, who stood holding her big spoon like a weapon. “He won’t be a farmer. Aron will get the land. He can’t be a priest, although that is what he seems best suited for, as he cannot read and write, or do his cyphers. If he can’t be a soldier for the King or Duke, what is to become of him?”
“He helps me,” he mother retorted. “He turns the spit for his meals, and he tends baby Mary better than his sisters do.” Miriam, the mother, wouldn’t admit it but Jeremiah was her favorite. All the others in the family had the brown hair that most people in the valley had, but Miriam and Jeremiah had jet black hair, though there were some streaks of gray in her hair. Her son wore his hair long: not as long as a girl, but just touching his shoulders, or a bit past. The prince wore his hair that way, apparently (not that any in the family had ever been within miles of the prince) so Moses, the father, was unable to complain about Jeremiah’s hair. Well, until it had edged a bit past the shoulders, as it had recently. Miriam just hated cutting the beautiful black locks, so much prettier than his sisters. His pale white complexion just magnified the pretty look: his brothers and sisters spent most of their hours outside in the hot sun, while Jeremiah was usually indoors with his mother and the baby.
Moses finally stalked out of the house, muttering about ‘the boy.’ As he reached the path at the edge of his holding, he saw mounted men approaching. There were five men, or more correctly, four men and a boy of about 16 years. The boy was clearly in charge, and Moses recognized him with a groan. It was the Squire to the Knight, and an Earl in his own right, and son of the Duke. He was spending his apprenticeship years with Sir John, one of the Duke’s best war knights, learning the art of warfare from the best in the kingdom, and learning leadership and estate management at the same time.
“My lord,” Moses said, bowing deeply.
“Rise Goodman,” the boy said. His voice was still high, and occasionally cracked, but he clearly showed his leadership skills. “You may not have heard, but the King is planning a war in the south again this year, and he has called on his nobles for support. The Duke, my father, has sent word out to the knights of the shires for support as well, and I am here to gather what I can from this valley.”
“We have no coin, sire,” Moses replied.
“We were not expecting coin from places such as this,” the young squire said. “You have a barn? Hay? Can you spare 10 bales?”
“Ten sire?” Moses calculated. “That will leave us with six. That should last us until first hay comes in.” He was actually relieved. In past years the assessor took everything, and left the people to starve. This young lord seems to know that his people have to live too.
“Grain? Five sack of oats and three of barley?” the boy asked.
“Yes,” Moses said, surprised at how light a hit was being made. “We could even do four of barley, if it will help.”
“It will. Meat? I suspect not?”
“We could spare our older ram, if it will be of use. The younger ram is old enough to service the flock.”
The young squire wrinkled his mouth. “Ugh, old mutton. Well, it will be good enough for the men, I suppose. Mark down one old ram,” he spoke to one of his men who was writing things down on a parchment.
“What about men, I would take that one,” he pointed out Aron.
“He is my heir,” Moses protested. He knew that the levies did not call landowners or heirs for foreign wars, although all must serve if the kingdom was attacked.
“Pity,” the squire said. “And those two look to be a year or two from being ready, he pointed at Joseph and Abram, the twins. What age?”
“Fourteen, sire,” Abram answered as elder by less than an hour.
“Work hard with your sword work, and archery,” the squire said, as though he were years older than them, and not just a few years. “There will be other wars. Our King has sights on the southern kingdom, and will continue to harass them. This year’s muster will not be strong enough to do more than a raid. There will be more battles for you to fight. Although I am not sure of you, he said to Michael. How many years have you?”
“Seven sire, but I can still fight,” the boy squeaked out in his young voice. “I beat my brother all the time.”
The squire and his men chuckled at the bravado of the pint-sized soldier. “What? You can best these lads?” the squire gestured at the older boys.
“Not them. Not yet, anyway,” Michael said. “But I can beat Jeremiah and make him cry. He is 10.”
“Another son,” the squire asked with a raised eyebrow. “All males must present to the muster.”
“He is only 10, sire,” Moses said. “And small for his age. But as I think about it, perhaps being in the levies would be a good thing for him. He is … reluctant … in matters of warfare. Perhaps a few years in service will set him on a good path.”
“I will see this boy,” the squire said.
“Jeremiah, present yourself,” Moses bellowed at the house.
The men on horseback roared with laughter when Jeremiah exited the house, and even the older brothers snickered, although they were constrained by the red, embarrassed look on their father’s face. Jeremiah had exited the house wearing one of his mother’s red aprons which, being too large for his thin frame, looked like a maiden’s dress.
“You jest, surely,” the squire chuckled. “Is this a boy?”
“Mostly,” Moses muttered, realizing that he was not solving his Jeremiah problem, but may have insulted the squire. “He is 10, but as his younger brother says, does not do well with sword or bow.”
“I can think of some hand-to-hand combat that he might do well at in camp,” one of the mounted men said, leering at the boy.
“Enough of that, Benson,” the squire said sharply. “I think we need a guard out on the road. Take that post.”
The chastised horseman realized that he had offended the squire, and quickly trotted out of sight, although not without another leer at the pretty boy at the doorway.
“He is too young, and too small,” the squire said. “But there is something about the boy that intrigues me. I will take him as well. A party will appear within a week. Have him, and the goods, ready for them. He need not bring the apron,” he added, gaining more chuckled from the others.
“NO,” came a scream from within the house. Miriam, not having been called out, had waited within, but at the door where she could hear everything. Now her patience was tested, and she broke out past Jeremiah, and strode up halfway to the squire. Moses gave her a look that said stop, but she didn’t heed it. “You cannot take Jeri from me,” she wailed. He is a gentle soul and the levy is not a proper place for him.” She fell to her knees.
The squire looked past her, and at the boy on the steps again, noticing the similarities, not just in the hair, but in the facial features as well. It was clear that he was his mother’s son. He looked at Moses, and the farmer immediately knew that he was dishonored by having his woman interfere in men’s business. Moses just looked to his sons, and the three elder ones immediately took their mother and dragged her into the house. At least she did not further dishonor him by resisting, although Moses could see that she wanted to.
The squire turned and led his men away, headed for the next holding along the path. Moses strode into the house, picking up a stick from the ground as he did. He measured it against his thumb, and saw that it was acceptable, and went into the house, ordering the boys and girls out and down to the stream. Jeremiah carried baby Mary, and was last in the party to leave. Thus he was still within range of the sound of the whipping, and the screams. He paused, wanting to go back and help his mother, but aware that the rage he had seen on his father’s face told him that there was nothing he would be able to do, except get a beating of his own. He hurried after his brothers and sisters instead.
They came back an hour later, and found their father sitting alone in his chair, with a dark face as he used a kitchen knife to slowly whittle the switch into shavings. His sisters tended to the fires, which had gone out, and made the meager dinner. Jeremiah put Mary in her cot, and then rushed into his parent’s room, finding his mother laying face-down on the bed, her dress a mass of red blood stains where the skin had broken. As gently as he could, he tore the tattered dress apart, revealing the many welts. Only a few were bloody. Moses was not an evil man, and had stifled his rage when he saw blood on his wife’s back. But by that time, there were a half dozen open sores, along with dozens that were merely welts and bruises.
One or two of the open wounds actually had bits of fabric from Miriam’s dress in it, and Jeremiah carefully washed the debris free before binding the sores with strips of fabric from the already ruined dress. Miriam moaned in pain the entire time, and when she was finished Jeremiah went to the main room of the house, and took a bowl, filling it with the remaining soup. She took it back into the bedroom, where she managed to spoon about 10 spoonsful into her mother, who was hampered by laying on her stomach. After Miriam refused to eat more, Jeremiah finished the rest, which was enough of a meal for him.
He returned his bowl to the wash station, and was surprised to see that his older sisters had done the washing up from the rest of the meal. Usually that was his job. So he washed up the remaining bowl and spoon, and then went to check on Mary. He found her sleeping and fed, and told Sarah to mind her. He didn’t look at his father, who still sat at the table, making little piles of wood shavings. Jeremiah went out into the barn, making a bed in the loose hay, and snuggling in for a somewhat scratchy night.
He didn’t sleep all that much. He lay in the hay and decided what to do. He was terrified of being forced into the levy. The leer of that one soldier was burned into his memory, and he knew that there would be many, many more like him in the army. He liked the squire, who had smiled at him in an entirely different and acceptable way. The boy would protect him, but it would be impossible for him to be near the squire at all times. It was the men he feared.
He hated his father for what he did to his mother, but even that hatred waned through the night. Moses was his father. He just didn’t understand Jeremiah. Only his mother did, and she was in pain. That thought made Jeremiah get up, pull on his pants, and hurry through the cold air to the house.
Father still sat in the same place, a bigger pile of shavings in front of him. It took a moment for Jeremiah to realize that he was asleep. Jeremiah took some water from near the fire, and went into the bedroom, where his mother was sleeping fitfully. She noticed his presence immediately. “Such a gentle soul,” she whispered as he started to remove the bandages.
“I hope I can be gentle, Momma, but this may hurt a bit.” Jeremiah unwrapped the bandages, and was glad that he had come in. The scars were starting to scab up a little, and had he waited until morning, removing the old bandages would have been very painful. When his mother’s back was open to the air, he washed it with the warm water, and then gently patted it dry. His mother purred a little as he washed her, so the pain must be lessening. He waited a full hour before reapplying the bandages, and when he did he could see that they were scabbing up. Hopefully by morning she might be able to move with bearable pain. He went out into the kitchen, and checked Mary. Her diaper was wet, but not soiled. He changed her without waking her, and then left.
Jeremiah tiptoed past his sleeping father, and headed back out to the barn. As he did, he realized that he must leave the farm one way or another, and it should be his own decision. Two or three days at most. He must wait until his mother was healed, but he didn’t want to wait too long. The squire had said ‘about a week’ for the men to come. He did not want to be here when they came.
The next morning Jeremiah was up before dawn. This time his father heard him come in, and jolted out of his sitting sleep.
“Make my breakfast, boy” Moses ordered.
“Make it yourself,” the boy snapped, taking a pitcher of warm water into the bedroom, not even looking back at his glaring father.
In the room his mother was awake, but moving slowly, still on her stomach. “Don’t anger him, darling,” she said softly as he started to remove the dressings.
“He has angered me,” Jeremiah said as he saw the welts and bruises clearly in the morning light. As he had hoped, the open sores were scabbing over, and only needed light bandaging so that they wouldn’t bleed anew when Miriam moved about. And she was insistent that she should move, in spite of Jeremiah’s protestations. She managed to smile as he helped her into her other dress. She only had two … one now, since the other one was in rags as bandages. “He’ll have to buy me a new dress, or at least the material for one. Will you help me sew it?”
“I wish I could,” Jeremiah said. “But I won’t be here, will I?”
“Oh, Jeri,” his mother said, reaching out to put her arms around him, but wincing at the pain her back caused her. “You are going with the levy, aren’t you?”
“No Momma, I am not,” the boy said.
“What?” Miriam said. “Where will you go? And when?”
“I can’t tell you that, Momma,” he said. “If I do, then they will beat you again when they find I am gone. If you don’t know, then they can’t hurt you.”
“Promise me you won’t go into Withywood Forest, Jeri. It is dangerous there, where the little people rule,” she said.
“The hobbits? Perhaps I should seek them out. I would be tall amongst the hobbits.”
“Jeri, don’t joke about the little people. They once ruled all this land, but they are not gone. They are still seen occasionally.”
“I cannot say where I will go, or how I will get there, Momma. But I promise I will let you know that I am safe as soon as I can.”
All that day and night Miriam kept a close watch on Jeremiah. She woke up several times during the night, to check if he was still sleeping on the floor next to Mary’s cot. He always was, and she went back to a fitful sleep until the next time she had to get up and check.
The next day Jeremiah decided that she was feeling better. They made bread that day, and Miriam made a larger batch than normal. Two loaves were put into a cupboard, not too high. They were within Jeremiah’s reach, and he knew why they were there.
That night he woke up in full starlight. There was a partial moon, so he could see to walk in the forest, but not so bright that searchers would be able to track him. He first checked on Mary, and found her diaper dry. He gave a kiss to the babe, wondering how old she would be when he next saw her. He went to the closet, and took one loaf of bread. He didn’t eat much, and the family was quite poor. He didn’t want to deprive them of food, and a second loaf might spoil while he ate the first. He stood to leave, and then saw his mother standing in her nightgown at the bedroom door.
“Is it to be now?” she asked.
“It must be,” he said. “I hoped I could do this while you slept.”
“I want one last hug from my sweet boy,” she said, opening her arms. She winced when he put his arms around her, but when he tried to pull back, she said: “It is not very sore now. And I need to feel you in my arms once more time before you go. Please.”
They hugged for a long time, and then he headed for the door.
“I won’t say anything until morning,” she promised.
“No,” he said. “Give me an hour, maybe two, but no more. I want them searching in the dark, when it isn’t easy to see.”
“And so they won’t think I helped.”
“You didn’t,” he said. “Two hours.”
“My gentle soul,” she whispered as he walked out the door.
-- -----
It was nearly dawn when Jeremiah reached the edge of the forest. His mother had said not to come to Withywood, and that was exactly where the boy headed. He knew that the searchers would not come into the black forest, well other than his father and brothers. It was the best place to hide. And if he could reach the Withywindle River then he might be able to make a raft or something to float downstream until he came to … somewhere else entirely?
The sun came up and got brighter, but at the same time the forest trees got closer together and more menacing, so it remained as dark as pre-dawn within the woods. Paths seemed to move to and fro, and steer him deeper and deeper into the wood. That was fine with Jeremiah. That was where he wanted to go anyway. Meanwhile, he got deeper and closer to the river.
Finally he reached a clearing. It was small, and to the south lay a great willow tree, with a trunk as big as his entire house had been. Just past it, he could hear the Withywindle flowing by. The clearing lit a space and a section of the great tree. By the sun, it must be nearly noon. He pulled off his pack and leaned against the tree, pulling out his loaf of bread. He sat down and ate some, drinking liberally from his water bottle secure in the knowledge that the river was close by to refill it.
He ate for a while, feeling drowsy. He had walked half the night, so a little nap would be appropriate. He glanced down and saw that half the loaf was gone. He was full, but without soup or anything else, he had eaten far more than he expected. He might only be able to eat once more. He really should get up and start making a raft or something. But. he. felt. so. drowsy.
There was a sudden crack, louder than any sound he had ever heard before. He fell backwards, into the tree. He was suddenly wide awake, and he saw a root from the tree jerk, throwing his pack into the tree after him. Then there was a second crack, and the opening into the tree closed. He found himself trapped within the tree. He stood up, and looked around. As he did, he felt the tree closing in around him until he was squeezed on all sides. In a few minutes, he knew, the squeezing would kill him.
“Over here. It was this way.” It was Aron’s voice. He was saved. He tried to call out, but found that the tree had him bound so tightly that he couldn’t breath, let alone speak.
“There were two cracks,” Moses said as he followed his son into the clearing. “Like a tree exploding when lightning strikes it.”
“He was here,” Aron said. “Look, there are his footprints, and breadcrumbs. He wasn’t here long, or birds would have cleared the crumbs.”
“If there are any birds or such in this place,” Moses muttered. He leaned a hand on the old tree.
Inside Jeremiah realized that he could see out of the tree, but they couldn’t see in. He even blinked when his father put his hand up to the tree, less than a foot from his nose. He tried mightily to yell, but couldn’t even produce a squeak.
Aron walked around the tree. “We can track him here, and we see the crumbs, but there are no other tracks. Where could he have gone?” He looked up. The tree was climbable, but not by Jeremiah. Men with ropes could climb it, but it was at least 40 feet up to the first branch. And Jeremiah was deathly afraid of heights.
“That boy didn’t go up,” Moses decided. “Down, maybe.”
“Down? How could he go down? There are no signs of digging.”
“Hobbits,” Moses said. “They got him. They are clever little diggers, and I’ll bet they come up through this tree.”
“How do we get him out?” Aron asked.
“We don’t,” Moses said. “Your mother can’t say that I didn’t look for him. Nor that squire fellow. Blow your horn and let your brothers know the search is over and we will head back.”
--- --- ---
Jeremiah watched his father and eldest brother walk away from the clearing, with Aron blowing five blasts on his horn as a signal to the others. They had work to do to get the consignment ready for the levy. It would be bad enough not to have the boy ready to go, but not to have the other more valuable goods would be worse.
Jeremiah stood in the tree. At least it was no longer squeezing him to death. An hour passed, then two more, and the sun disappeared from the clearing and the afternoon went on. Suddenly, Jeremiah heard the most wonderful sound ... like bells, but a voice. She happened to come down the same path that Aron and Moses left on, and he could see her clearly though the tree bark. She wore a gown made mostly of flowers, flowing around her and swirling above the forest floor, as if to avoid getting soiled. Her hair was long and blonde and entwined with flowers. She sang as she approached.
Now let the song begin! Let us sing together
Of sun, stars moon and mist, rain and cloudy weather
Light on the budding leaf, dew on the feather,
Wind on the open hill, bells on the heather,
Reeds by the shady pool, lilies on the water:
Old Tom Bombadil and the River-daughter!
Jeremiah recognized the song, or at least parts of it. Tom Bombadil was a fairy as old as all time and the River-daughter must be Goldberry, his mate. They were masters of their world, which was largely the forest of the Withywindle.
Goldberry approached the tree, stopping her song in mid verse. “What is this? Old Man Willow has captured another? Hobbits know not to pause near him. Is this one of the new people?” Goldberry put her hand on the tree, quite close to Jeremiah. It seemed as if she could see him inside, even though his father and brother had not.
Listen, Old Man Willow, this one is not your fellow
Loosen your grasp so tight, or Tom you will fight
Wait. There is work to be done under many a sun
Your task you know, Work it under the snow.
Then she sang to Jeremiah within the tree:
I feel your sensitive soul, my friend. Old Man Willow will help you mend.
When you are done, and ready for the sun, my Tom will see, and released you shall be.
With that she danced off into the distance on a path behind the boy’s line of sight. He could hear her singing for what seemed like hours though. There was no longer any constricting pain from the tree. He could feel it pressing in a bit on his waist and neck, but no longer on his hips or chest. He no longer felt hunger, or tired. He thought that he wanted to lay down and sleep, but realized that it was just habit, and found he could sleep perfectly well standing up.
And sleep he did. He spent weeks at a time asleep. He woke once and it was fall, with all the leaves lying about on the ground. The next time he woke there was a light snow on the ground, and the time after that there was snow several feet deep all though the forest, and the Withywindle no longer sang in the background. The final time he woke it was springtime again, and he heard another song, with a much deeper voice than Goldberry’s:
Hey dol! Merry dol! Ring a dong dillo!
Ring a dong! Hop along! fallal the willow!
Tom Bom, jolly Tom, Tom Bombadillo!
There appeared above the reeds an old battered hat with a tall crown, and a long blue feather stuck in the band. With great yellow boots on his thick legs with a blue coat and a long brown beard, eyes blue and bright and a face that was red like a ripe apple and creased into a hundred wrinkles of laughter. Walking alongside was beautiful Goldberry, carrying a bundle of white in her arms.
“Hey Tom, Ho Tom,” she sang. “Loose the sinews of Old Man Willow. For he has within his sinews a gentle soul that needs to feel the sun. But turn, turn as the Willow lets go, for what he releases, we do not know.”
Tom sang and danced about a bit, spry in spite of the seeming endless age of his face. Jeremiah felt the great tree weaken its hold on him and then with a mighty crack the tree opened again, and thrust him out into the clearing. A second later his pack followed, and then with another crack as large as the last, the tree sealed itself up.
He noticed himself naked after nearly a year in the tree, and Goldberry held out a nightshirt for him to slip into. The material was softer than anything he had ever felt before, and clung to his skin in an oddly comforting manner.
Tom spun around as soon as the garment hem stopped following:
Dilly Dee, Dilly Do, her face is white as snow
The River-daughter has found a daughter
As beautiful as herself, Dilly Dee, Dilly Do.
That was about the time that Jeremiah realized that he was no longer a he. Looking down, he saw breasts on his chest, with the new gown clinging tight to them. Between them she could see a thin waist, and nothing where his small boy parts had been. Her hips were slender, but womanly, and in fact she did look much like a younger Goldberry, although with jet black hair rather than blonde.
Goldberry led her to the river, and with a touch the Withywindle froze into a smooth liquid pool that allowed her to see new body. Her face was much like her mother’s, but her figure was much slimmer.
They walked through the woods, and through the sing-song voices of Tom and Goldberry, Jeremiah learned that her new name was Ruth, and she was being requested to spend three months in the wood until all the changes in her, and in the world, settled down. Less than one year had passed for the rest of the world, but she had gained an additional five years, and now was a 16-year-old. She was led to a small house, deep in the forest that was built into a mound, with a great round door at the front. Tom and Goldberry would not enter, but sang until the door opened. One short person, with large hairy feet (for he was unshod) peered out, and then a rush of other men of his type tumbled out nearly as one, in a manner than made Ruth giggle.
They were men, four had beards, two of which were of some length, although nowhere near as long as Tom’s. They were the height of small boys, but much wider, and had deep voices, and three were smoking pipes. Goldberry told her she would be safe with them, and that they had agreed to house and feed her for the next three months. With that, she and Tom danced off back up the forest trail.
“Oh my,” Ruth said as she looked at the seven hobbits. “I am Ruth now, I guess. Perhaps you can tell me your names?”
“No, no, no,” said one of the older hobbits. “We were told by Tom that you were Snow White, and that is the name we will use. I am Andwise, and my brother is Milo.” The other bearded hobbit bobbed his head.
“I am Bodo.” “And I am Drogo,” said two of the younger hobbits speaking in near unison. They were clearly twins, and Ruth knew she would have trouble telling them apart. Bodo had a brown vestcoat on, and Drogo had a red one. She hoped she could remember that … and that they didn’t switch.
“Shush,” said an older hobbit. “Kids today. Don’t mind them, they are only in their Tweens … not yet 30. They are nephews of mine, I am afraid. I am Berilac.”
“And I am Falco,” said one of the smokers. “And I am Griffo,” said the other smoker. I am fourth oldest, but this is my house, as it was my father’s, he said, puffing with importance.”
“Well, I am pleased to meet you all,” Ruth said. “I don’t have any bags, except this sack. There is a half loaf of bread in there, but it will be quite stale, as it was baked a year ago.”
“Seems fine to me,” Bodo said. He had opened the bag and was helping himself to a chunk of bread, while his brother Drogo snatched it away to take a piece. “It is wonderful,” he said. “Can you bake bread like this?”
“I helped bake it last year,” but it spent a year in Old Man Willow with me.
“That explains things,” Berilac said. All the hobbits were now munching on the bread. “Things do not age in Old Man Willow.”
“Except for me,” Ruth noted wryly, causing the hobbits to stop their munching and stare at her. “I went in as a 10-year-old, and came out at 16.”
“I see,” said Andwise. “That must have come as quite a shock to you.”
“You have no idea,” Ruth said. “But somehow, I feel better the way I am. Goldberry said I was fixed by the tree. I didn’t know I was broken, but I do feel better now.”
“Tom and Goldberry do that,” Griffo said. “Fix things, that is. World would be a better place if they could get out more and fix in a bigger area. When the humans came and started to crowd us out of the Shire they came up with the idea of us getting places here in the Withywindle valley. There aren’t nearly as many of us now as before, but we are getting by.”
“Isn’t it going to be odd?” Ruth asked. “One woman living with seven men?”
“Not at all,” Andwise answered. “First of all, you are human and we are hobbits, so no problems there. And we are all bachelor’s or widowers. The young ones still may find a she-hobbit, but they are rarer than men, so many of us live together. If one of the kids finds a mate, they will move out, and we will let another in. It just happened that we had an empty room big enough for a human, although you really aren’t that tall.”
Ruth had no idea how tall she was, in human terms. Her body had certainly made major changes in other ways. She knew that hobbits were small, and she had always thought of them as half the height of men. Weren’t they called halflings some times? She stood a bit more than a foot above these men, who were all within six inches of another in height. Would that mean she is only four feet tall? She was a half foot taller than that before she changed.
“Come, come,” Milo said, waving her into the house. “And there is no need for you to bake any more of that wonderful bread for us … unless you want to. We told Tom that we would look after you, and we will.”
“Does she mend?” asked Berilac. “None of us mend well. Fat fingers. If you can mend a bit, it would be a real help.”
“I certainly will help out where I can,” Ruth said as she entered the hobbit hole, finding it remarkable neat and tidy for a house of seven bachelors. The room she was shown into was a bit taller than the others, although she didn’t have to bend over in any rooms. Her head was nearly at the height of the doors, but not quite, so she felt she could live comfortably here for a few months. She opened the door to a wardrobe, to find a large selection of dresses and other clothes, which the hobbits said Goldberry had brought the day prior.
Suddenly she sat down on the bed, and started to cry uncontrollably. All seven hobbits crowded into the room, confused and upset. They were not used to dealing with women to start with, and especially human women. And a crying woman was just over the top. Gradually she stopped sobbing and noticed how upset they had become.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t know what has come over me. No, actually I do. I am in your lovely home, and it reminded me of my own home, and my brothers and sisters, and my parents, although I am still a bit cross at my father. No I’m not, I love him dearly, even though he did something terrible. But by now I know Momma will have forgiven him, and I should too.”
The hobbits seemed to have to work a bit to sort that all out, what with the statements and then the cancellation of them, and feelings. Hobbits, especially male hobbits, are not especially good with feelings.
“I’m sorry, you must think me a flighty woman,” the younger hobbits started to nod agreement, and were then slapped by the older ones. “You see, I miss my family dearly, and promised to tell them, at least Momma, that I was all right. And it has been a year for them, and they must all think I am dead and they have forgotten me.” She started to sob again.
“No, no, please,” begged Andwise. “You mustn’t cry. Perhaps we can send them a letter, telling that you are fine and thinking of them. We will deliver it for you. We cannot wait on an answer, but at least they will know. And in a few months you will be able to go back to them.”
Ruth looked up with teary eyes. “You would do that for me? Do you have pen and paper? Wait. I cannot read or write.” She started sobbing again.
“Are you sure?” Falco asked. “Here is a paper. Can you write your name? Sometimes Old Man Willow will teach you other things when you are ‘inside’.”
Ruth looked at the paper, and smoothed it out on the small table in her room, and started to write. Gripping the stubby pencil was the hardest part. R-U-T-H appeared in large block letters on the paper.
“That’s not how you spell ‘Snow White’,” Drogo complained. “Is that how you spell Snow White?”
Ruth picked up the pencil again, and printed out Snow White above the name Ruth, using smaller letters, and upper and lower case this time. “That’s right, that’s right,” Drogo said, going into a little dance with Bodo.
It was easier and easier to print, and then Ruth realized that she could write script as well. “I wonder if I can read as well?” she asked.
“Of course you can,” Berilac said. “If you can write, you can read.” As he was saying this, another hobbit (Bodo?) thrust a book into her hands. The title page said “There and Back Again,” and she opened it to some momentary confusion, as the letters were in hobbit-script, which is a bit different from human script. But in a matter of minutes she was reading it aloud. “This is a very good book. May I borrow it for a while? I should like to read it.”
“Would you read it aloud to us?” Milo asked. “Reading aloud is one of the favorite pastimes of hobbits. We have all read it in school, it is required reading in tertiary school for young hobbits. But to have a woman read it to us would be special.”
And that is how Ruth, also know temporarily as Snow White, settled in with the seven hobbits. The first evening she wrote a long letter to her mother, hoping she would be able to find someone to read it to her. The hobbits delivered the letter the next evening, since they do not like being seen by the big people in daylight. She not only baked bread for them daily, it never lasting into a second day, but she cooked and cleaned house for them as well. She opened the door to the sewing room, and was almost knocked over by the pile of mending that was piled there. Even so, she managed to make a huge dent in the pile as she finished her first month with the hobbits.
One other skill she discovered that she had learned from Old Man Willow was healing. Several times one or another of the hobbits would come home from the gardens with a bruise or sprain, and she was able to heal it by simply putting her hands on the affected area. She would feel a great heat come from her hands and flow into the hobbit, and soon the hurt was gone. She also knew of herbs and roots that could ease pain and help healing.
She learned that in the forest winter comes early, and leaves early, and that it was still early April at home, two months after Tom had rescued her from the Willow. That was when Milo burst in late one evening, while she was reading about the adventures of Bilbo and the dwarves in There and Back to the others.
“You missed the start of reading time, Milo,” Andwise said.
“We will miss more than that,” Milo said in a hurry. “Everyone pack up immediately. We must go now. Snow White’s mother is ill. I saw Tom on the way home, and he said it was okay for her to go now, even though it is early.”
“Momma is ill? Ruth cried out. “I must go to her.” She got up and started to fling a few things into her bag. Only a small portion of her new clothes would fit. And when she was finished with her packing she saw that five of the hobbits were standing ready with packs laden.
“Bodo and Drogo will stay behind,” Milos announced. “They will pack the rest of your things, and some additional supplies on a pony and bring it behind. It will take an extra three days, and you will find the goods in your barn on the following morning. We six will hobbit-fly.”
“Hobbit-fly,” Ruth asked. “What is that?”
“It was Tom’s idea. It is how we got your letter to your house in one night. Hobbit-fly is a system of tunnels set up by Tom for the hobbits to get around quickly, and to escape detection by the big people. We should be able to get to your house in only a few hours. Before midnight at least.”
The tunnels the hobbits crawled through were a bit short for Ruth, and she had to travel the entire three hours hunched over. She didn’t really feel anything, other than concern for her mother, until the hobbits came out between two trees in a part of the forest that Ruth remembered from her boyhood.
She stood straight, feeling a slight pain in her back. She nearly darted off to the house, but then stopped and looked back at the five little men she had spent the last month with. “Will I ever see you again?”
“You are deemed a hobbit-friend,” Milo said. “Where other big people will never see signs of hobbits, you will. You may meet us again, or others of our kind. Be well, eat well, and hurry to your mother.”
That was all it took, with Ruth rushing towards her house, only minutes away now.
Moses sat on the porch of his small house, worrying about his wife. The healer had left two hours ago, and said nothing could be done. She would be back in the morning to lay out the body. The moonlight was full, and Moses could first hear, and then see, the girl rushing towards the house. At first he thought it was the Miriam of his youth, rushing back to him. He rubbed his eyes and saw the girl again, now closer. She was much younger, and thinner, but still incredibly attractive, perhaps prettier than Miriam had been in her prime. He stood as she approached, but she didn’t heed him at all, and just rushed into the house.
His last glimpse of her had shown him a great similarity of face between the young girl and his wife. Perhaps she was a sister? She certainly had no qualms about entering a strange house. Moses mused a bit. It was not uncommon for a widower to remarry a sister. This girl was young and ripe, and the man smiled a grin as he thought about her. He decided to let her visit her sister until Miriam passed, while he went down to the well to wash up and make himself more attractive.
Inside, Ruth was at her mother’s bedside. She was unconscious, and barely remaining on this side. She muttered ‘Jeri, Jeri, my gentle soul’ and sometimes just ‘Jeremiah.’ Ruth put her hands on her mother’s chest, and felt the warmth spread into her. There was so little left to save in there.
“I am here, Mother,” she said, and immediately felt her mother coming back, growing stronger. The warmth from her hands got stronger, and Ruth started to feel that she had a chance. She continued to pour warmth into her mother’s chest, and felt the blackness within shrink and wane.
“Jeremiah, that feels so good. You came back. I knew you would,” her mother said in her delirium. “We got a letter last month, and the vicar read it to us after church. It said you were well, and living with hobbits, and wouldn’t come, couldn’t come till midsummer.”
“Then I got sick. Just a nick with a knife I thought nothing of it, but it festered, and grew evil looking. The healer wanted to cut it off, the entire hand, but I said no. How can a woman do her work with only one hand? Then the hurt got deep into me, and left me like this. Oh, my dear, that feels so good. My hand hurts a bit now. It hasn’t hurt for the longest time.”
Ruth looked at her mother’s hands. The right one was healthy, but the left one was withered and evil-smelling. When Ruth put her hands onto the blackened flesh, it felt spongy and weak, and the girl recoiled a bit before steeling her nerves and sending heat into the hand. Soon the flesh felt firmer, and the smell lessened, and eventually went away.
It was about an hour later when Miriam awoke, to find a strange woman sitting on her bed, feeding warmth into her chest again. For a moment she was surprised, and then recognition hit. “Jeremiah? You are a girl now? And so grown now.”
“I am Ruth now, Momma,” the girl said. “And I will save my story for a later time, when all the family can hear it together. Do you feel you want something to eat? Some broth perhaps? I will get some.”
“No dear,” Miriam said, swinging her legs out of the bed. “I can do it now.” She looked surprisingly strong, perhaps more so than Ruth, who had expended a great deal of energy in healing her mother. Ruth helped her mother into a dress, looking carefully at her back to see if there were any more lash scars. She was amazed to feel that the skin on the woman’s back was smooth and flawless. After only a year, at the very least those five deep scars should still show, but there was no trace. Had Ruth healed those as well?
Moses was in the kitchen, sitting on his chair when the girl came out. “Is she gone,” he asked.
“I am right here, you old fool. And quit leering at Ruth. She is a guest,” Miriam said, stepping out of the bedroom behind her daughter. “We will make an early breakfast. We are both quite hungry. You might have some too. And why are you washed up so proper. I usually have to fight with you to clean up.”
Moses just stared in amazement at his wife, wondering if this was a ghost or real. It was only when she slapped him on the face to move him out of the way that he knew she was real. The young girl had restored his wife, and the old man was glad. He put away the thoughts he had earlier, and wondered perhaps about the girl and one of the boys? Aron was seeing the Stonechurch girl, and they had an understanding. But one of the younger ones? She looked about 16, the perfect age. But if she was Miriam’s sister, the relationship would be too close. Perhaps she is a niece? Miriam is past 40, surely she wouldn’t have a daughter so young. But the church would allow cousins to marry. Perhaps one of the boys?
Soon the women had made a breakfast, and even though it was pre-dawn the rest of the family woke to the smell of the food. The older children were expecting to arise to find their mother dead, and here she was in the kitchen, cooking with a strange, but beautiful young girl. The boys all rushed out to the well to wash up.
Even little Mary woke, and crawled out of her crib. A baby no more, she was now a toddler just learning to speak. Normally she was shy with strangers, but as soon as she saw Ruth she ran to her, and grasped onto the girl’s skirts. Ruth wiped her hands cleaning of the cooking soils, and reached down and picked her up, giving her a great kiss.
Miriam brought the food to the table. Everyone had questions, but Miriam ordered them held until after the meal. Mary sat on Ruth’s lap and chewed on a crust, occasionally opening her mouth to eat a small portion of eggs from the girl’s plate. She seemed happier than she had for months.
The older girls cleared the table, and the questioning began. First up, how had Miriam made such a miraculous recovery? Miriam handed that one to Ruth, who merely noted that “I have some talents for healing.”
“Who are you?” Moses asked. “I can see the resemblance between my wife and you. Are you a sister, or a niece?”
“You knew me as Jeremiah,” Ruth said, and heard gasps from all those around the table, except from Miriam and little Mary, who just gurgled in glee. “I ran away, as you know, to avoid going into the levy. Father, you and Aron found where I had breakfasted, and noted the crumbs. I had just been trapped inside that great willow tree minutes before you came. I spent nearly a year in there, and during that time I was changed to look like what you see now. I was also taught about healing, and given some powers. After nearly a year I was released from the tree by Tom Bombadil and Goldberry, and went to live with some hobbits for three months. But I only spent two months there, when hobbits learned that Mama was ill. The hobbits flew me here, and I arrived in time to help Mama.”
“Bombadil, Goldberry, hobbits, trapped in a Willow tree: it all sounds preposterous,” Moses said. “But what you say fits. You know of Jeremiah, and his disappearance, down right to the spot we saw the crumbs. But you were a tiny boy of 10, and now you are a full girl. I was thinking you could wed one of the twins?”
“My brothers?” Ruth giggled. “I don’t think the church would approve.”
“No, I rather guess not. So what is to come of you? Will you live here with us?”
“She will,” Miriam said insistently. “Although I wonder how the people around here will talk. She leaves a boy of 10, and comes back a mature girl? We don’t want a witchcraft scare starting up.”
“I … erm. Well, when the girl first came in I wondered if she was a sister or a niece to you, love,” Moses said. “You both look so alike, other than of the age.”
“Yes, we could say that you are my niece Ruth, a healer come to save me,” Miriam said. “When word gets around, there will be no shortage of people come through looking for a good healer.”
“Is Constance Longbridge not healer for the valley still?” Ruth asked.
Aron snorted. “You’re more like to get ill after she treats you,” he said. “She told us to prepare a box for mother, yet you healed her easily.”
“Not easily,” Ruth said. “And what I did was through the powers of the Withywindle, not normal healing. I don’t want to upset Constance. Perhaps we can divide up the healing for the valley between us, or I can act as her apprentice. She is getting up in years, and will soon be ready to retire. Perhaps we can work something out?”
“You will have your chance,” Abram said. “Here she comes.”
Constance was amazed to see Miriam up and serving breakfast. But not so amazed as to refuse to take her up on the offer to join in. She heard the sanitized version of the story, that Ruth was Miriam’s niece, and had come to try and help, and succeeded. She said she had some skills as a healer, and the older woman tested her. Ruth answered all her questions truthfully, and didn’t argue when Constance insisted on a certain herb or root being of a use that was not the correct one.
Eventually, they pieced together a plan. Constance would take Ruth on as an apprentice, but agreed to Miriam’s insistence that the girl live with the family, at least for a year. During that time, half of any earning that Ruth made as a healer would go to Constance, and the other half would go into the family income.
The next day it started, and there was a stream of visitors to the house with one ailment or another, and the healing hands of Ruth cured them all. There was a steady flow of coppers and the odd silver piece into the family pot from satisfied healed people. Constance was privately irate when her trade completely dried up, with no calls in over a week, but she was happy when Michael or Abram dropped off her share of Ruth’s earnings. She was making about three times as much in a week as she had before, without doing any work. She began referring patients to Ruth in the many cases where she felt uncertain she could heal someone, or in the more frequent cases where her treatments failed to help.
There was no levy that spring, and the little family thrived. The hut became Ruth’s clinic as Moses and the boys had enough cash to buy sufficient wood to build a proper house. It had four bedrooms, one for Moses and Miriam, one for Ruth and Mary, who insisted on being with her sister whenever possible. Another bedroom was for Aron and his new bride, Helen, while the fourth was for the boys. Eve, the eldest sister was also married that year, and had moved out, and Jessica, the other older sister bunked with Ruth and Mary, although Jessica was also seeing a boy regularly and hoped to soon marry and move out into the Tanner household. The most amazing part of the house was the small room at the back. It was one of the first houses in valley to have indoor facilities.
Thus, over the months the family grew more and more prosperous. Additional land was bought and added to the farm, making Moses and Aron among the larger holdings in the valley. Somehow Ruth became an integral part of the family decision-making team, which was only fair when it was considered that she was bringing in more than half the family income. More than a few young gentlemen callers came to woo the young healer, but few had much success. She was accompanied to the few social events in the valley by one of her brothers, or her father.
To be continued? My main story, River, holds the bulk of my attention, but I hope to get back to this tale in time.
I gently teased Erin the other day when she posted a new Bian chapter a year after the last. Then I realized that I have a series that had gone dormant. This one is my secondary series, and will only be updated at a monthly level (roughly). I hope you enjoy it. It was fun to write: Dawn.
A Gentle Soul 2 – The Entwives
Ruth spent the next two years tending her flock of patients, who started coming many miles to her little hut for treatment. The coppers and silvers started to see the odd gold, and the family became the most prosperous in the valley.
Moses often stepped in when his neighbors had bad harvests, or other problems, taking over farms rather than letting outside creditors get them. He would then allow the farmer to be a sharecropper on the land. But unlike many, he devised a payment schedule that allowed the sharecropper to regain full ownership of his land if he worked hard enough. Thus, Moses started to be called ‘squire’ by the people of the valley. It now seemed apparent that both Joseph and Abram would inherit land for farms of their own, and even little Michael when he was old enough.
Ruth sat in on all the family financial decisions, since she contributed over half of the family income. After a year ‘apprenticing’ Ruth as a healer, Constance Longbridge retired entirely, having made more money during that one year than she had in her entire life before. Ruth still paid her 10% of her earnings as a pension, and the old lady found she could easily live off that without touching her savings. To her surprise she found that older single men of the valley were now courting her instead of just claiming she was a witch.
She accepted the compliments they paid her, but never settled down on one, since she was not all that interested in men. But it was Constance who was important in the next part of the story. She stormed into Ruth’s hut one day, complaining virulently about goats. Apparently two young kids had escaped from the family herd one day and wandered all the way to her home, which had the south wall made up of straw bales stacked up. The goats had been caught merrily eating the straw walls of her house, until she chased them away.
Constance recognized the brand on the kids as being from the family, so took the goats back. Ruth paid her a silver for her trouble, and to repair any damages, and then went out to see the animals. “Hansel and Gretel, what will I do with you?” she said, instantly recognizing the kids.
The young goats seemed happy to stay near the hut, and Ruth made space for them in the old family barn, as a new one had been raised near the new house. They seemed content, and over time she trained them to pull a small wagon. Eventually she could be seen travelling around the valley to patients in the wagon, or occasionally walking beside it if it held a patient that she needed to bring back to the hut to tend to.
A few months later a small boy in a red tunic ran into the hut, claiming that his mother was deathly ill, and could Ruth help. She immediately pulled on her cloak and followed the boy, who was about 10. They walked through some of the darkest parts of the forest, and the boy admitted to having been afraid or wolves passing through on the way to Ruth’s hut. He pulled up the hood on his tunic.
Finally they came to a hovel that could barely be called a house, and Ruth hurried in, seeing the bed in the corner. When she got there, she was startled. “What a big nose you have, mother,” she said, as the sleeping form let out a loud, noxious, and deep belch.
“She is over here,” the boy said from a smaller pallet bed.
“Ah, Little Red Riding Hood,” Ruth said. “And who is in the big bed?”
“That would be father,” the boy said. “He must have found mother’s ‘medicines’.
Ruth put her hand on the old lady, and was instantly alarmed. “This is serious,” she said. “This is the wasting disease, and I can only cure it part of the time. Some who get it are beyond my help.” She fed energy into the woman, and finally smiled. “But this is within my powers. I can help, but it will take all day.”
Ruth spent the day feeding energy into the woman. In the early evening, the bulk on the bigger bed rose and went outside to piss. On returning he saw Ruth, and ordered her to make him dinner. She snapped back that she was busy, and asked him how he intended to pay for her healing services. The man stopped, stared for a few minutes, and then fled out the door.
Several hours later the woman was healed. Ruth had been extra careful, since she knew that if you didn’t clear all the traces of the wasting disease from the body, it would return, and could not be cured a second time. Thus by the time she was sure she had everything, the woman was feeling quite well, and insisted on making her a small meal before she left. As Ruth hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and had expended a great deal of energy during the day, she agreed, and sat down to eat supper with her patient and the son.
She saw the father as she left just before midnight. He politely tipped his hat to her, and then went into the house. The walk home was even scarier at night, especially alone when she heard the howl of a wolf not far away. But a minute or two later she glimpsed one of the little people in the trees, and no longer feared for her safety. The hobbits were ferocious fighters with their short swords, and no wolf would attack anyone under their protection.
Three days later she came to the small hut, and found a large load of freshly sawn wood piled next to her barn. She mentally thanked the woodsman, and later told her brothers to get the wood for projects around the farm.
A few months later Ruth was called to the house of a pregnant woman. The birth was not difficult, and in a few hours a little boy was born. The woman had luscious long brown hair down past her waist, and also had a daughter of about 16 whose hair had never been cut. It was longer than she was tall, and when she let it down each evening to be combed by her mother or grandmother, it was so long that she had to stand at the window, with the person combing standing outside to be able to comb all the long locks. The girl had the funny name of Rapunzel, which Ruth remembered.
Another name she remembered was that of a small man who worked a spinning wheel. He was a good-natured soul, and used to joke that he could spin wool into gold, since his nimble hands allowed him to spin much more efficiently than most people. His name was Rumpelstiltskin. Ruth also delivered his wife a fine son, which he paid for with a quilt of finest wool, gold in color.
One visit she made was most perplexing. A girl known as Little Briar Rose was found unconscious after falling on some rocks near the river. She was taken back to her mother’s house where she lay in a coma for two days before Ruth was sought. Getting there, Ruth spent several hours feeding energy into the pretty girl, and felt everything in her brain heal. But she didn’t wake up.
Then, while the mother was feeding Ruth, the beau of the girl arrived at the house, just having learned of the accident. He went in to see her, and cried out as he saw her sleeping there. He went over and kissed the sleeping form, and that, somehow, caused the girl to waken, to the relief of Ruth, the mother, and the beau. The sleeping beauty was completely cured.
These adventures made Ruth happy for her fate. She had never become bored as a healer. So it was with surprise that she saw Goldberry standing outside her hut one evening when she had been working long hours preparing a healing salve.
“Milady,” she said to the comely fairy. “What can I do for you?”
“I have a mission for you,” Goldberry sang in her melodious voice. “Will you undertake it? You may be gone for many months.”
“I will do anything you ask,” Ruth answered. “But what of my people? Who will heal them?”
“I will find you a replacement healer,” Goldberry said. “Be ready to travel in three days. Hobbits will come.”
With that Goldberry turned around twice and was gone. Ruth now had the unenvious task of telling her mother, and little Mary, that she had to leave them again.
“Oh no,” Miriam cried out. “You will leave us Ruthless. Must you go?”
“I must,” Ruth said, as Mary cried on her lap. The girl was nearly four now, and followed her sister about whenever they were together. “The lady Goldberry has given me much, and I must heed her call.”
“And what of the business?” her father asked. He was worried both for his daughter, and for the loss of her income.
“Goldberry says she will find a replacement,” Ruth said. Moses doubted that a replacement would provide a share of her earning to the family, though, but he did not say. The farm could easily survive without Ruth’s income: it just wouldn’t be able to grow as it had over the last few years.
While the family was discussing their futures, Goldberry and Tom were back at Old Man Willow near the Withywindle. Last year Tom had captured a man who was clear-cutting the forest at its north end, trying to carve out a farm. Twice Tom had told him to stop, and to go away, but the man just ignored the small elf-like creature. On the third time Tom waved his stick, and the man froze. He then was walked to the old willow, and made to lean against it. “Take your dinner, Old Man Willow,” Tom sang, and suddenly the man was snapped up.
That had been a full year ago, and now Goldberry was back with Tom, bearing a white shift. Tom again turned his back, and sang the captive out of the tree. A blonde girl stumbled forward. Goldberry helped her into the shift, and then called forth four hobbits.
“Your name is now Erin, for Eriador,” Goldberry told the new girl. “These good men will lead you to your new posting. You cannot use hobbit-flys, so it will take you a full two days to get there. The bemused girl followed the hobbits even as she felt her breasts and other new body parts in confusion.
Three days later Goldberry, the new girl, and Ruth met outside the old barn. The four hobbits lay in the hay while the women talked. Ruth recognized Bodo and Drogo from her time with the seven hobbits. Ruth took Erin inside to show her around the hut. Erin had also been taught healing by the willow, although she had not been as good a student at Ruth had been. But Ruth was confident that she knew enough to heal the local people, if not those who travelled from the cities to be healed.
She took Erin into the house to meet her family, and to make final preparations to leave. Her mother gave her a sack of food, including two loaves of bread, cheese and some dried meat. Ruth accepted. Her family no longer was short of food.
After tearful hugs and wailing, especially by little Mary, Ruth headed alone to the barn where Goldberry and the hobbits waited. Goldberry opened the bag and then tossed it to the hobbits, who quickly tore into the bread, making sandwiches that used up the meat and cheese as well. As they munched merrily on their surprise meal, Goldberry spoke.
“You know Bodo and Drogo,” she said. “The other taller two hobbits are Meridoc and Peregrin Gamgee, great grandsons of the famous Sam Gamgee who you may have read about in There and Back Again.”
“Hello,” Ruth offered, but the hobbits both had full mouths, and could only mumble a welcome.
“The hobbits are going on a quest. You read about Ents in the book?”
“I did.”
“Do you recall hearing about Entwives?” Goldberry asked.
Ruth thought. “Yes. The Ents lost them, didn’t they?”
“Exactly. Well, these hobbits are seeking them. Frodo Gamgee, their father, spent his entire life working on the mystery of the Entwives, and feels he may have solved the puzzle. He thinks that the southern hobbits, the ones that spawned Gollum in the old times, may have captured and enslaved the Entwives, and he has tasked his sons, and their friends, to try and find them.”
“Why do they need me?” Ruth asked.
“The old adventures were a combination of wizards, hobbits, elfs, dwarfs, and men. There are no more elfs and wizards, and the dwarfs no longer will deal with men. You have an elfish streak in you. You will have to find suitable men to complete the company as you travel. Make your numbers odd. The original company had nine. That, or seven, would make a good company for this new mission.”
“What are we to do? Where are we to go? Can’t you come with us? You could be our wizard.”
“I am no wizard,” Goldberry said with a laugh. “And I cannot travel far from Tom, and he from his lands. Even here I had to bring him, and he waits a few miles away, close enough to his lands, yet close enough that I can be here. This is the limit we can travel.”
“As to where and what, that will become clear as you travel,” she said. “All I can say is head south, towards Rohan. You may not need travel that far, but start that way. If you do find the Entwives, bring them back, and the hobbits will take them north, to where the Ents sleep in Fangorn. Hopefully the Entwives will be able to wake the Ents, and they might again enrich Middle Earth.”
When it was clear that Goldberry was ready to leave, she picked up the empty food sack and handed it to Ruth. The girl’s eyes widened when she discovered that the sack was full. “My final gift to you,” Goldberry said. “To make sure you never go hungry on your trip. A necessity when travelling with hobbits.”
As Goldberry spun about and disappeared, Ruth saw the hobbits hitching Hansel and Gretel up to their cart. She hopped on, taking the food sack with her, although the hobbits looked as though they would be more than willing to carry that. The cart creaked out of the barn. As she drove past the house, she saw her entire family, and Erin, watching and waving as she went. She noticed that none of the hobbits could be seen while they were in sight of the house, but once they crossed a little hill, all four appeared again.
“Do any of you know where we are going?” Ruth asked Bodo as he walked alongside the cart.
“We need to take this road to the main road, and then the road to South Farthing. From there we go to the Great South Road,” Drogo said.
“I’m glad someone knows where we are going,” Ruth said.
“Uhm, er, we don’t exactly know where we are going,” Bodo said. “We just know the direction we are to take. We need to find the southern Hobbits. We don’t exactly know where.”
“Well, that should make this an interesting journey. And along the way we have to find at least two people to join us on a trek to a place we don’t know, which will last for we don’t know how long. Are you four willing to be seen by these new people, when we meet them?”
“Unless they are hobbit-friends like you,” Drogo said, “then no we are not.”
“Ah, so when we meet people along the road, you four will just disappear?”
“Not exactly,” Peregrin said. “But we will protect you. You will appear to be travelling alone, but we will always be close by.”
“Peregrin, right?” Ruth said to the new hobbit.
“Yes, but call me Pippin.”
“And me Merry,” said the fourth hobbit.
“Well that will be easier,” Ruth said.
“Perhaps we should stop for a meal,” Pippin suggested.
“What?” Ruth said. “We have only been travelling for less than an hour, we can’t stop to eat yet. You four had a great meal back in the barn.”
“It was a great meal,” Pippin said, rubbing his stomach. “That is why I suggested another. You see, hobbits are well known for enjoying eating. Five meals a day, unless we can get more. Breakfast, second breakfast, lunch, tea, and supper. Snacks in between.”
“Goodness,” Ruth said. “It is a good thing that the lady gave me a sack that won’t empty. Although with you lot, I wonder if the magic will stretch that far.”
“It’s as good a time as any to find out,” Pippin said. “Just a quick meal. Shouldn’t take long. And then a little nap might be nice.”
“No,” Ruth said. “We are not stopping every hour to eat. In fact, if you need five meals a day, then two of them will have to be taken on the march, as the soldiers say.”
The hobbits grumbled a bit, particularly Pippin, but continued to walk alongside the cart. Ruth realized that she would have to give the goats a good hour’s rest at the lunch break. In fact, even riding could make one stiff, and a break would be good for her too.
But before they reached the lunchtime stop, the hobbits disappeared, and a second later a big man came rushing out of the ditch, waving a long knife as though it were a sword.
“Ah, what have we here?” the man said. “A pretty little girl, travelling all alone. I think I am going to have some fun, before I go to sell my new cart and goats.”
Ruth was afraid. The man was waving the knife dangerously, and her virginity had been threatened. Then she saw two of the hobbits, Pippin and Bodo, come up behind the man. They tackled into him, one to each leg. Being hobbits, they were not large enough to knock him over, but they staggered him, and he dropped his knife.
First he looked about to see what hit him, but the hobbits had jumped under the cart and hid behind it. He then reached down for his knife, which he had dropped when hit. He could not find it, although he searched around the entire cart. Ruth was rather amused at the way the two hobbits moved counter to him, to always keep concealed.
“That was a good knife,” the man said. “Are you a witch? Did you take it?”
“I am a simple healer,” Ruth said. “I didn’t take your knife.”
“Ah well, I don’t need it to deal with a tiny thing like you,” the man said. Just then Ruth saw Bodo behind him again, and a second later the man’s trousers dropped to the ground. The rope he had used to hold them up had been neatly sliced.
“Drive on,” Ruth heard Pippin’s voice, although she could not see him. So she flicked the reins and the little cart started moving forward. The man yelled at her to stop, but had to hold his pants up with both hands, and he tripped (or was pushed) as he tried to chase after, falling hard onto the road.
Ruth didn’t look back until she was at the top of a rise a mile down the road. He was standing in the road where he had fallen, looking perplexed at his failed abduction. As the cart moved over the top of the rise, the hobbits reappeared, looking jolly as if they had just had a great caper. Bodo was brandishing the man’s long knife as if it were a sword, which it was to his small stature. Suddenly he flicked the knife and it disappeared into his clothing somewhere.
“So you see, you were quite safe,” Drogo said. “Bodo was needing a sword anyway. The rest of us all have them, although we keep them hidden away when not needed. That was fun, but surely it is getting near time for lunch?”
“I thank you all for that,” Ruth said. “And if you can find a good safe spot to pull off, then we can have lunch. I need to let the goats graze for a while anyway, so perhaps we will rest for an hour.”
The hobbits feasted twice from the bag, and Ruth was a little less concerned about its magic running out. It was Goldberry magic, after all.
As the hobbits sat around, Ruth held a little meeting. “Goldberry said we needed two or four more on the quest. Should they be men or hobbits?”
“Men I think,” said Pippin. “We already have so many more hobbits.”
“And only two,” Merry added. “We want this to be a mostly hobbit quest. If we find four more, then the men will outnumber us. If you don’t mind me grouping you in with the men.”
“It will be a bit of a problem for the men to be on a quest with you, if they can’t see you, won’t it?” Ruth asked.
That statement perplexed the hobbits, and they argued amongst themselves as Ruth cleaned the camp, took back possession of the food sack, and got Hansel and Gretel hitched up.
Bodo then approached her. “We have decided that if we are on a quest with men, then we will have to let them see us. If you find any men, we will watch them, and appear if we think they would be good on the quest.”
They rode on for another hour and a half, and then came across two dusty men walking the road. These men were polite, unlike the one who tried to accost Ruth, and she offered them seats on the wagon. They agreed, telling her that they were Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, brothers who were wandering the country looking for stories.
Ruth told them she knew of no stories, but chatted gaily as the wagon rolled on, with the hobbits keeping out of sight. Finally she told the story of Hansel and Gretel, the two goats who had been caught eating a house made of straw.
“That’s perfect,” Jacob said. “But not goats, children.”
“And not straw, but something better,” Wilhelm suggested.
“Chocolate.”
“But who lives in a house made of chocolate?”
“A witch.”
“A witch who traps and eats little children.”
“Except the children push her into an oven and are saved,” Jacob said.
“Perfect,” answered Wilhelm.
“Perfect,” agreed Jacob.
“You see Ruth, you did have a story.” And with that Wilhelm told the story that people now know of as Hansel and Gretel.
“That’s quite good,” Drogo said, popping into view.
“Very good,” Pippin added, “Although it would be better told over a lunch.”
“Or supper,” Drogo said. “It must be nearly supper time.”
“Or past it,” Merry said.
Jacob and Wilhelm shrieked a little at hobbits popping into view all around the wagon. Ruth had to calm them down, explaining that they were to protect her, and had remained hidden until they felt safe with the brothers. Or too hungry to wait in hiding any longer, as was the more likely case.
“Are there more of you?” Jacob asked Drogo.
“Many,” the hobbit said. “Although not nearly so many as in the old days. Men have squeezed us out of the shire, and we mostly live in the forest now.”
Ruth pulled the donkey cart over to a clearing near the road, and announced that there would be a dinner. As they ate Drogo told them of the time Ruth had lived with them. After that, the two went into their back-and-forth routine, until they could finally tell everyone the story of Snow White and the Seven Hobbits. (The Grimms wanted to use the word 'dwarfs', but the hobbits were highly offended by that word, dwarfs and hobbits being nothing alike. The brothers agreed to use the word hobbit, although they didn’t tell them that they would change it back to dwarfs when they were in other areas where hobbits were not known.)
“We are on a quest,” Ruth told the two men as the hobbits smoked. “We need to go somewhere south, and find something or somethings called Entwives, and bring them back to Fangorn Forest, which is somewhere in the north. We are going to South Farthing, and then down the Great South Road. It is all rather silly and confusing, and I don’t suppose you two would like to join us and fill out the company, would you?”
“Would we,” Jacob looked at his brother and saw the glint of excitement in his eye. “That sounds exactly like what we would want to do. A great adventure.”
“It might be dangerous,” Ruth said. “Apparently the Entwives were stolen by the southern hobbits, and they might not want to give them back.”
“Danger? Super. We are in,” Wilhelm said. “When do we start?”
“Well, we have actually started already, but if you two help hitch up the wagon, we can be off to Southfarthing.”
Ruth cleaned camp, and came back to discover that the brothers were completely inept at hitching a wagon, or pretty much anything useful. She showed them how to do it, hoping that next break she could let them handle it.
“How far is this Southfarthing place?” Ruth asked.
“Well, we will be in it tomorrow night,” Drogo said. “But it will take another two days to cross it. Then another three days down to the old south road, and I guess we will be a week or two on it.”
“How will we know when we get to the lands of the southern hobbits?” Ruth asked.
“We are hobbits. We can tell when others are around by their smell,” Merry said.
Ruth sighed sadly. Two weeks down, at least. And that meant two weeks back. If they were successful in rescuing the Entwives. And she had no clue how that was going to happen.
“It has been a wonderful adventure so far,” Jacob Grimm said gleefully. “Can you tell us another one of the stories that you don’t know?”
Ruth racked her brain. “Well I had to go through a forest to heal the mother of a little boy in a red riding habit. There were wolves on the way home.”
“A girl,” Jacob said.
“Little Red Riding Hood,” Wilhelm said.
“Her Grandmother,” Jacob said.
The quest was on.
I promised to take a month between stories after the last chapter, but that night I finished the tale (in my head). The chapter after this one is all there ready to get into the computer. This chapter took a bit more work. I will finish this story before getting back to Rachael and A Second Chance: Dawn.
Part of the way through Southfarthing, the party decided to stop for the evening meal. The brothers Grimm were upset that they hadn’t been able to write a story all day.
Ruth pulled food out of the magic bag, and to her surprise there was something new there. It was a piece of waxed paper, and it had the corners folded so the contents would not leak out. Ruth sniffed it, and found that it smelled like her mother’s stew. But it was a miserably small portion, barely enough for two men, or one hobbit. And how would she cook it?
Reaching into the bag again, she pulled out a tin pot. She shrugged her shoulders and started to pour the contents of the bag in, expecting it to cover the bottom of the pan. Instead more and more stew came out of the package, until the pot was full. Apparently the bag was bigger on the inside than the outside.
She put the packet in her scrap pile, and next got a lid out of the bag, and set the pot on a hot rock at the edge of the fire. It smelled better and better, and soon the fire was surrounded by four hungry hobbits and two men.
Up until now a hot meal for the group had been melted cheese on a bread roll. This feast seemed special. The hobbits had thought they were getting meat three days earlier, when Drogo speared a rabbit through the rear legs. He brought it to Ruth to kill and clean, and instead she healed the wound, with the rabbit hopping away to the disgust of all four hobbits.
Dinner tonight was served on trenchers, flat pieces of bread that sopped up the gravy, making the plate a part of the meal. Each man had two helpings, and the hobbits: well they just kept reaching into the bag, pulling out one trencher after another, and then scooping more stew onto it. Finally Bodo got the last trencher (so he said) and found the pot empty. Not to be put out, he folded up the trencher and wiped the inside of the pot to sop up the last of the gravy.
“Goldberry makes a fine stew,” Pippin said, as he laid back, his hobbit appetite sated for once (which means he was full to the nose, to use an old hobbit expression.)
It was still light, but the hobbits were all soon snoring in harmony as Ruth gathered up the cooking gear to take down to the river to wash. The two men just stared at her, apparently not even considering helping out. Then Jacob giggled.
“What?” Ruth asked.
“It’s just that you have … well, a smear of ash from the fire on your face here” (he showed by pointing to his own face) “and here, and a little more over here.”
“Ruth in the Cinders,” Wilhelm said, giving a title for a story of a girl who had to work hard in the kitchens. Ruth just walked away. She loved listening to them shoot ideas back and forth and see a story somehow came out at the end, but the pot was not going to wash itself. And she wanted to wash her face, too.
When she got back, Ruth had been renamed Ella and it was turned around too, to Cinderella. Jacob was just suggesting that the evil witch who made her cook and clean and sew should instead be a wicked-stepmother, with two particularly ugly daughters who dressed in silk, while Ella was in rags.
Ruth just listened in fascination as a pumpkin became a coach, mice became horses, and a rat became a coachman. For a while it was garden snakes that became the footmen, although that soon changed to lizards. There was a fairy godmother, and a beautiful dress with golden slippers. That last detail stayed in the story until it was finished and Will was reciting it to the hobbits, who had woken just as the sun was setting. He told Jacob later that a glass slipper just sounded better.
The next morning there was a breakfast. There were hobbits: of course there was a breakfast. After it was cleared up and packed away, Merry approached Ruth. “You know, we would be making much better time if you didn’t stop to heal everyone along the way.”
Ruth had gotten into the habit of stopping in at any farmhouse or hut where she detected illness, something her magic allowed her to do from a considerable distance. The brothers didn’t mind: there was usually a hot meal served by the grateful patients. But the hobbits couldn’t benefit from that, as they had to stay hidden.
A couple times Ruth would be eating her stew or gruel in a hut and would look up to see one of the hobbits taking a big spoonful from the pot while the hosts had their backs turned. So lately she told the superstitious rural folk that they had to put four bowls out on the stoop for her ‘magic’ to work. The bowls were always licked clean an hour after the meal.
But she agreed. Her healing was slowing them down to half the pace it should be. They weren’t even to the village of Tharbad, where they would join the Great Southern Road. But she just couldn’t allow herself to walk away when she saw people in pain, or dying of something she could cure. Sometimes the cures were easy and quick: just holding the gnarled hands of an old person in hers could wipe away 20 years of arthritis in a few seconds. Other times the wasting disease would mean a delay of a full day as Ruth cured the person, and then fell into a deep sleep herself to recover. And to make it worse, at those times the hobbits and the brothers had to look after themselves for meals.
“I can try to go faster,” Ruth told the hobbit, “but I don’t think I can just walk away from a sick person. You know, with a power comes a responsibility.”
“I guess,” Merry answered, “but maybe you could just not go looking for them.”
They made good time that day, with few farms, and none of them harboring an ill person. They stopped at a little civic camping place that had a finger-sign point south to Tharbad, followed by a 5.
“The five means five hours,” Jacob explained. “That is at walking speed for most people. I think our cart is moving just about that fast. We should be in the village by supper time. I wish we had money to go to an inn. I am dying for a cold beer.”
“I have money,” the girl said. “Many of the people I heal have given me a copper or a silver. You may each have one beer, along with a second one that you will not drink from, but wander outside to where the hobbits can split one. We will order food up to our rooms, so the hobbits can each enjoy good pub food. I don’t know how we can explain the need for seven bowls when there are just three of us, though.”
“No problem,” Jacob said. “We tell the servers that we have four big friends coming a bit late, and they want us to have the food ready for them. No one will suspect anything when the food is gone. All they care is that they get their coppers.”
With a plan in place, they made good time the next morning. It was the brothers who caused the delay this time. There was a young woman tending a flock of about 12 geese, herding them towards Tharbad. When the donkey cart pulled alongside, and they politely nodded to each other, the woman insisted that she was a princess, forced to work as a Goose Girl. She even twirled about as if she had a gown on as she drove her flock to the town market.
That resulted in the Goose Girl story that amused Ruth and the hobbits, who by now were forced to hide in crannies in the wagon, due to the busier traffic on the road. The Goose Girl of the story actually was a princess, who had been sent from the castle with her maid to marry a distant prince. The maid decided that she didn’t want to be a maid any longer. She forced the princess to switch clothes and horses with her, and is assumed to be the princess when they get to the distant land. It is then that the real princess is sent out to tend the geese. In the end the King learns of the plot, and orders his son to marry the real princess, the goose girl, and punishes the maid.
Ruth marveled at how a chance encounter with a slightly addled girl could be transformed into such an entertaining tale. The Grimm Brothers were a real treasure, and their stories made the travelling time seem to go faster.
When they got to Tharbad Ruth immediately knew she could not leave within a week. She could just feel so much sickness around her in the small village. They booked rooms for the week, depleting much of her cash, but the enterprising brothers finally proved their worth by convincing the tavern owner to let them tell their stories to the crowd.
They had a tips jar, and pennies flowed into it all night long. At the end of the second night they were told that their meals were ‘on the house’ because the pub was full of people wanting to hear the tales. They were even standing in the street, listening in at the window, and the enterprising barkeep made sure that his barmaids would take orders from out there as well.
Ruth, meanwhile, went out into town every day, and knocked on doors, asking if anyone needed a healer. Of course, with her powers, she knew they did, and got right to work healing them. In a very few cases the people were too poor to pay, but Ruth healed them anyway, telling them they could pay her when they had the money, even though she knew people of that social strata would never have money.
At the end of the week the three went to the owner and tallied up the fee. Ruth had made more money than ever from curing the paying sick people, and the brothers were not asked to pay anything, since the bar had done more business in that week than in the prior three months. The barkeep changed all the Grimm’s tips into silver, since they had amassed a huge number of coppers.
Then they were back on the road again. One of the regulars at the bar had been named (or nicknamed) Duck, and he was notoriously ugly. His face had been kicked in by a horse, and not set properly, so it was lopsided, and he always spoke with a sneer. The fact that he only had one front tooth, and a few at the back, also added to his look. He was balding in the front, and entirely on the left side of his head. The brothers were barely on the cart leaving town when they decided to write a story about him. Ugly Duck became the Ugly Duckling, and by the time the story ended it bore little relationship to Ugly Duck.
They rode south for two days, when Bodo popped his head up. I smell hobbit. And not us. There are other hobbits nearby. We should take this turn off, and then go towards that copse of forest.
In the forest the donkey cart rolled into a clearing, and a dozen or so hobbits there froze, to become invisible. And the ploy worked with the Grimms, but Ruth and the northern hobbits could see them. Ruth pulled the cart up to an older-looking hobbit near a sawing machine.
“Good day, kind sir,” Ruth said, looking him in the eyes. “I wonder if you might have some information. We are on a quest.”
“You can see me?” the hobbit said. “And you four boys. You aren’t from around here, are you?”
She was named a hobbit-friend by Tom Bombadil and Goldberry,” Drogo said.
“I don’t know of them,” the old hobbit said. “Ain’t natural people being able to see us when we is hidden. What is this quest?”
“We seek the Entwives,” Ruth thought the hobbit’s eyes narrowed as she told the mission, but only for a second. “Do you know of them, or have you heard of them being anywhere else.”
“We don’t know no ‘Entwives’,” the old hobbit said. “But I maybe heard of them further south. Many days south of here.”
“Okay,” Ruth said. “We shall have to seek them out there.”
“Any chance of getting second-breakfasts here with you,” Pippin asked.
“We don’t do no second breakfasts,” the old grump sneered. “And we don’t feeds them that don’t work.”
The northern hobbits were astonished. Partially by the refusal of the southern hobbits to provide simple courtesy in sharing a meal, but even more so by the news that these people did not know about second-breakfasts.
Ruth drove her cart away from the sawmill operation, and they headed towards the sideroad. When they reached that, she heard a small, squeaky voice: “We are the Entwives.”
She looked down, and there on the sideboard of the cart, was a small green woman, less than 10 inches tall. You could only see her from the waist up, with the rest of her embedded in the wood. She pulled her legs and finally they popped out of the wood. “Maple, not my favorite,” the tiny woman said. “I much prefer ash or poplar.” She was naked, although so small it didn’t seem odd.
“Did you say you were an Entwife?” Ruth asked. The Grimm brothers were crowding around her, looking closely at the fairy. Ruth wasn’t sure if it was because she was so small, or because she was so naked. She suspected the latter.
“Yes, although we haven’t heard the word for years. The old hobbit keeps over 100 of us in his grove, where we have to tend his trees. We make them grow at triple the normal rate, so he can continually harvest wood from the copse. He calls us dryads.”
“We are on a quest to find the Entwives,” Ruth told her. “We want to take you back to Fangorn to bond with the Ents.”
“Fangorn,” the dryad whispered. “That is like heaven to us. A few of the oldest remember it, but the rest of us only know of it by their stories. My name is Borea. Could you take us back?”
“I want to, but I don’t know how,” Ruth said.
“Do you have money?” Borea said.
“Yes, quite a bit,” Ruth said.
“Well, for our people to move, we must move within wood. We die within hours if kept from trees … or Ents. So we need wood to travel. The old Hobbit has wood. Normally he doesn’t sell it except to other hobbits of his type. But he does have needs for man-money from time to time. He has a hobbit-friend of his own that will go into town and buy supplies.”
“Would he sell to us?” Ruth asked.
“If he needs money he will. And if you say the wood is for the northern hobbits, then he is more likely to. He will ask a quarter silver per board. How much silver do you have? He will not take coppers.”
“I only have four, so we could buy 16 boards, and take 16 of you away,” Ruth said.
“We have eight silver,” Jacob said. “So that is another 32 boards.”
“That is all your little cart will hold,” Borea said. “I’m afraid you will have to walk.”
They continued making a plan. Stealth was needed, as the old hobbit should not know that some of his sylphs were escaping. As the wood was being sawn for the order, Borea would dart from tree to tree in the copse, with her sisters leaving their tree and flying into the boards being loaded into the cart. Borea was going to stay in her place in the handle of the cart, and invite another younger Sylph for the other handle. The backboard of the cart was also large enough to take away someone. There could be as many as 51 Entwives fleeing.
“What about food for all of you?” Ruth asked.
“We are fed through our trees, or the wood we inhabit. You need not worry.”
The plan was put into motion, and Ruth again drove her donkey’s down the little lane. The old hobbit saw them coming, and stopped work on his mill again.
“What do you want,” he snarled. “I told you the Entwives are all far to the south.”
“Yes,” Drogo said. As the eldest hobbit in the group, he had been appointed spokesperson. “But when we were here last several of us noticed your fine hobbit wood. We have some man-silver, and would like to buy it. It is well known across the country that your wood is resistant to rot, and lasts a long time in hobbit holes.”
“That it does,” the old hobbit said. “I didn’t know that our fame had reached the north. How much wood do you need? Or more importantly, how much man-silver do you have? I am running short of man-silver, and could use a bit more.”
Bargaining took several more minutes, with Drogo getting the 4 per silver price, although he did have to feign turning around and leaving to get that price. The old hobbit started up the mill, and two of his helpers started loading wood into the wagon. As soon as they turned their backs, a sylph would appear and disappear into the wood. The old hobbit was too busy concentrating on his cuts to notice.
Within an hour the 48 pieces were cut, and the old hobbit scooped up the dozen coins from off the tree stump where Drogo had been told the leave them. “Now git,” he said. “And don’t come back looking for more. This man-silver will last me for years. I don’t plan to start trading again in the future.”
“When the cart was on the road, with hobbits and humans walking alongside, a curious humming could be heard from the wood. “My sisters are singing,” Borea said. “They are happy. We are returning to our Ents. You have to realize that we have been over 1000 years without male companionship.”
“How exactly do Ents and Entwives ‘do it’,” Jacob asked.
“Jacob! That might be a bit personal,” a shocked Ruth said.
“No, no. It is quite all right,” Borea said. “When we get to the Ents, one Entwife will leave her piece of wood here, and transfer to the Ent. We expect most of them will be asleep, probably pretty deeply. But as long as they have not become a tree, then we can still mate with them. Of all the creatures on the world, the Ent/Entwives have the greatest disparity in sizes. And as females we live in our Ents for the rest of our lives.”
“I won’t detail the union itself,” she continued, “but basically we have to go into a knot in the wood of the Ent. We ‘do the deed’ and then pull back and wait. Conception happens every time, and then there is a period of 60 years before the Entling is ready to be born.”
“You are pregnant for 60 years?” a shocked Ruth commented.
“Yes, but it is not really the Entwife who is pregnant, as the Entling develops in the Ent, and not our body. After the 60 years, it will drop off the Ent, and fall to the ground. We then move the Entling far enough away from the Ent so that it will receive light and water, and care for it for the next 200 years, at the end of which it will join with a new Entwife and mate with her. The Entwives simply clone themselves, although not from the mother, but a nearby Entwife.”
“It seems complicated. And time consuming,” Jacob said.
“Well, it is what we are used to. And time to an Ent is different from humans and hobbits with their short little lifespans. We live for eons. In fact we expect when we get back to Fangorn most of the Ents will be so deeply asleep that it will take them several pregnancies before they waken. Having young Ents around when they do will energize them. I don’t expect many Ents to be awake for the first 200 or 300 years. But we can mate with them while asleep, and once they bud an Entling, we will mate them again. We hope there will be three or four Entlings when the Ents finally awaken.”
“You can tend to that many Entlings at once?” Wilhelm asked.
“Oh yes. It can actually be quite boring tending just one. Human mothers tend several children at the same time, don’t they? Entwifes are the same. We like it when we have several Entlings at different stages.”
“What do you do to raise them,” Jacob asked.
“The most important thing is to transplant them if they need to be in a different area. They need sun in their leaves and water for their roots. In a dry year we bring water to them.”
“I can’t imagine that a creature your size can carry very much water,” Ruth said.
“Heavens no. Carrying water?” Borea giggled. “We don’t carry the water. We go underground and sing it to the roots of our Entlings.”
They proceeded in such a manner all the way back to Tharbad, where Ruth again noted a dire need for a healer. The Brothers were greeted warmly by the tavern owner, who immediately offered them free rooms, if they would tell their tales.
Ruth immediately went into the town and began visiting the ill and injured, slowly restoring her hoard of coin. The Entwives and wagon were put into the stables. They needed little tending, so long as the wood was dampened every other day, to prevent it from drying out and killing the Entwives. The hobbits, as might be expected, just disappeared, coming out for meals and to sleep in Ruth’s room. (She was used to sleeping near the little people, since her time in the forest.)
The next morning the healer woke with a pain in her back. She healed herself, and then investigated. There was a hobnail in the bed about the size of a pea that irritated her back as she slept.
The tavern owner was busy preparing for the fair coming up in a few days, and instead of fixing the problem just had seven more mattresses brought up and piled on Ruth’s bed. That night she again had trouble sleeping, even though she was much higher than before. A mattress in that inn was rather thin, about two inches, leaving Ruth floating 16 inches above the bed, which was less than comfortable.
For the rest of the day, a slight tapping could be heard in the room, but any maid entering would see nothing. As soon as she left, the hobbits would come out and start to work again, using their hammers to try and pound the nail into the wood. Two of them, Drogo and Bodo were miners, and they took turns hitting the nail. Merry and Pippin took over occasionally, but were less adept at driving the hobnail into the wood.
Just before dinner that innkeeper came into the room, with the biggest man Ruth had ever seen. He barely was able to get through the door, with his huge, muscled body. He carried a hammer.
“I need the extra mattresses,” the innkeeper said. “People are coming in for the fair, and we are going to set up a space above the stables. Most will sleep on the floor, but I can get a copper more if they want a mattress. Kon will fix the problem. He is the inn blacksmith.
Kon didn’t say much. Well, anything. Maids carried away the extra mattresses, and the man-mountain felt the hobnail, which had been driven half way into the wood by the hobbit hammering. He took his own hammer, bigger than any hobbit, and struck the nail once. When Ruth looked, she saw that his single blow had set the nail a good half inch into the wood.
“Thank you kind smith,” she said. Kon just nodded to her and then squeezed out through the door to the room. As soon as the smith and innkeeper left, hobbits started to appear.
“One blow did more work than all the swings we made,” an amazed Pippin said.
“Bah,” Drogo answered. “Given time we would have solved the problem. But this does mean the lady can sleep tonight.”
The Grimm brothers, who were doing both matinee and evening readings were thrilled to hear of the tale.
“The Healer and the Hobnail,” Jacob said. “A new story.”
He and his brother then rattled off ideas for the story, thrilling Ruth that she herself was going to be in a tale. After dinner the brothers went back to the inn for another show, and Ruth went out to make a few more healing calls. That night the exhausted healer came back to her bed and collapsed into it, not even realizing that the hobnail was gone.
It was two nights later when Ruth finally got a chance to listen to the Grimms in the crowded barroom. The owner allowed her to stand behind the bar: there just wasn’t anywhere else to stand. She was surprised to hear the story called The Princess and the Pea, which was a variation on her story. In it was a princess, and the hobnail had become a pea.
At breakfast the next day, she asked the brothers about it. “Yes, it is your story,” Wilhelm admitted. “But don’t think it isn’t you in it. We just felt a princess worked better for the story. Consider yourself a princess now.”
Ruth laughed: “I am just a poor farmgirl. I shall never be a princess.”
“You might be,” Jacob said. “And if you are, what a story it will make for us.”
“I think we will leave tomorrow,” Ruth said. “Let the barkeep know. I’m sure he will want to get these two rooms open for the rest of the fair.”
Ruth had only a few calls that day, and went to the fair. The hobbits accompanied her, knowing that it would be easy to be hidden in such large crowds. Ruth had again amassed quite a hoard of silvers and coppers, and she went into the fair with glee. She found some amazing cloth from the east, including something called velour, which had the feel of fur, but was much thinner. She bought two rolls in contrasting colors, wondering if she could make it into a dress.
Her other major purchase was at the inn itself. She bought a pony cart and a pony from Kon, who managed to conduct the entire sale without speaking a single word. It helped that she had run her hands over those muscular arms, healing little tears and breaks inside to ease the smith’s arms while at the same time removing the exhaustion he was feeling from all the work the fair had brought him.
That night hobbits moved the wood from the donkey cart to the pony cart while the stable boys slept. Early the next morning the Grimms got their coppers changed to silvers, with the innkeeper glad to have more of the small coins to use as change. The Grimms were leaving with a good collection of silver, while Ruth was nearly broke. But she could make some coin healing on the way home, while the brothers probably wouldn’t get a chance to perform again.
They were barely out of the town when Jacob leaned over to Ruth and asked. “When you were telling us all about the stories you didn’t know, you mentioned a weaver with a funny name.”
“Rumpelstiltskin,” Ruth said. “And he was a spinner, not a weaver. Why?”
“I just think he has to have a tale of his own,” Jacob said. “I was thinking of that old hobbit that sold us the wood. He would make an excellent model for the spinner, wouldn’t he.”
“Well, Rumpelstiltskin was a man, not a hobbit,” Ruth ventured. “But with that aside, then yes, there are many similarities.
And the quest continued homeward.
Here is the conclusion to the story. I apologize to those who liked the fairy tales in the story. The Grimm brothers do not play much of a role in this one: Dawn.
The company made its way into Southfarthing, where they broke up. The hobbits left for Fangorn with the pony cart containging the wood (and Entwives) while Ruth rode her little donkey cart pulled by Hansel and Gretel on towards her home.
Just prior to getting home, the Grimms bought a pair of horses with their pub earnings from a farmer Ruth recommended, and headed into the capital, where they hoped their stories would be as popular as they had been on the road. When she arrived home, Ruth quietly let her donkeys loose, knowing there were no straw houses in the area for them to molest.
The new house was much larger than the old hut, and Ruth went to the side door leading to the kitchen. The first to see her was little Mary, who screamed “Roof” and ran to her. Her mother looked up, and also ran from the stove to hug her Gentle Soul.
“Don’t let the soup burn,” Ruth chastised, and then noticed another woman in the kitchen. Her mother now had a maid, an older woman whose husband had died in a farming accident. Ruth’s father Moses was now an unofficial squire to the area, and the family was prospering due to income Ruth had acquired as a healer.
“Your father has a guest, but I think he would like to see you immediately,” Miriam said. “He is in the parlor.”
In the parlor Ruth tapped the door, then entered. Her father also ran to her and hugged her deeply, only relaxing when he realized that his guest might feel the actions were unsquirelike.
“My lord,” Moses said. “My daughter has just returned from a months-long quest. I apologize for my show of emotions.”
“Nonsense, man,” the visitor said, and Ruth got a good look at the tall, well-built young man. She recognized him instantly.
“I know you,” the Earl said. “You were here years ago when I was gleaning the area for men and supplies for a raid on the south. You looked different then. More like a boy, if I remember.”
Ruth smiled. “I remember. I hope that you did not think badly of my father when I ran away to avoid your army. He did try to find me, but I made it into the fairy woods, and … was changed, somewhat.”
“She came back a healer,” Moses bragged. “She is the source of my good fortune since that time.”
“And it is my excellent timing to meet you today,” the earl said. “We in the capital heard of a powerful healer in this area, and I sent for you. A replacement healer came first, but was unable to help, and was sent back. My mission was to find you, and take you with me to the castle. My father is very ill, and I hope to keep myself from becoming Duke for a few more years. Will you attend him?”
“Of course my lord. I suppose I must, since my father did offer you my services those years ago. This time I am ready to serve,” Ruth said. With that she got the Earl to describe the symptoms of the illness, which seemed very much like a familiar ailment.
“My Lord,” she said. “This sounds like the wasting disease.”
“That is what the castle healers said, and the blonde healer that attended. They claim there is no cure. But I have heard that you have been able to heal it.”
“I cannot make a promise,” Ruth said. “Sometimes I can heal it, other times I cannot. Your father seems to be in the latter stages. He should be fine for several more weeks, although in great pain. I would come at once, if you require it, but …”
“But you have been away from your family for months. If I give you a month, will you then come?”
“I think it should be a week,” Ruth said. “If we wait longer, we may be too late for a cure.”
“As you say,” the Earl said. “In that case you may arrive in time for the Prince’s gala. He seeks a bride, and has requested all the most beautiful young maidens of the land attend. You certainly qualify.”
Ruth blushed. “It is not for some vainglorious Prince that I come, it is to see if I can help your father.”
“None-the-less, it would be best if you arrive in time for the gala. If you showed up a day or two later, while the Prince is still visiting, he may feel I was hiding you away. Your appearance at the gala, even if only for an hour or so, will prevent bad feelings. The prince and the duchy are at odds over several things, not the least the agreement my grandfather made with his that made the duchy self governing and independent of his father, the King.”
“A gown will be required,” the young Earl said. “Do you require funds to pay for such?”
“No my lord. My father is prominent in the district, and we have done well, unless things have changed while I was away. We can provide a gown.”
Two or three times Ruth tried to excuse herself from the meeting between the men, but the Earl seemed reluctant to let her leave. Finally he announced: “I feel you want to get back to the rest of your family. There was a secondary reason for my visit. Word is that your father has become a leader in this area, and I have decided to name him Squire of the county. An official ceremony will be held in the castle in the spring, where my father will confirm the title. If things go well. I guess it will be my honor otherwise.”
The Earl left, with his several men who had stayed in the background. One was a scribe, and he left Moses with an elaborate parchment that the Earl signed, naming him Squire. Of course Moses could not read, but Ruth read it to him that night at supper, to the pleasure of the entire family.
That night was glorious to Ruth. Mary insisted on sitting on her lap the entire time, other than dinner. Ruth’s father summed up the families financial position, and Ruth added the money she had earned on her trip home to the pot.
The next morning dressmaking was the focus. Ruth showed her mother the velour fabric from the south, amazing the older woman. Such a fine material was unknown in this area, even in the capital, and the women were more than a little afraid of cutting the soft material to make a dress.
Miriam had made many dresses in her life, but never a gown. Ruth described what she wanted, and the new Squire’s wife sketched out the pieces with a soft white stone on the fabric. The dress would be floor length at the back, but in the front the hem would rise up about eight inches. Miriam was scandalized, but did as her daughter asked. The bell sleeves and a sash were in the contrasting color, and even though the sleeves ended above the elbow, freestanding cuffs in the contrasting color were cut.
The latter were to give little Mary a hand in the production. Nearly five now, she begged to help, and Miriam cut out the cuffs, and hemmed them, then passed them over to the little girl who took a needle and thread and sewed on the buttons, with her tongue stuck out of her mouth the entire time.
After the material had been cut and fitted, Miriam took to sewing pieces together. Ruth helped, but then took her donkey cart into town to see the shoemaker. She had a daring idea, and although he resisted, he finally gave in when he learned that she was going to wear the shoes before the Prince at a gala.
It was back to the house for more sewing, and more fitting. Little Mary appeared with her cuffs, and Miriam shook her head glumly when she saw them. The girl had sewn and sewn and there was a ball of thread bigger than the button on each cuff. Miriam sent Mary off to the kitchen for something.
“I can cut out a new pair tomorrow. It won’t take long.”
“You will not,” Ruth insisted. “These were made by my little sister with all the love she has for me. I will wear them with pride, and every time I see those little globs of thread I will think of her, and smile.”
The gown was perfect. One of the boys took the donkey cart into town and picked up the shoes. Miriam gasped when she saw them. They were low peasant shoes, but the shoemaker had found a gold-color leather for them. Ruth had taken the idea from an early version of Cinderella, before the shoes were changed to glass slippers. Miriam could now see why the front hem was higher. It allowed continual glimpses of the little gold shoes as she walked.
On the day of the gala, a carriage appeared from the capital at dawn, and Ruth went off to the celebration. Due to poor weather over the last week, the carriage was slow, and as a result Ruth was one of the last attendees to arrive. She got out of the muddy carriage, thanked the driver, to his surprise, and went up the steps to the castle, where she was required to give her name to the footman there.
“Miss Ruth Miriamdottir,” the man announced, and she walked into the gala. The first thing she noticed was that there was a three or four to one ratio of women to men. Of course, since this was a place for the Prince to meet women, that made some sense. It did make it hard for Ruth to find the Earl, however.
As she walked through the great hall, looking left and right, she could hear catty remarks from the women standing around in clusters, mainly about how out-of-style her dress was.
“And look at the cuffs,” said one buxom blonde. “They look like they were made by a child.”
“They were made by a child,” Ruth retorted to that particular comment. “A very special child who I love very much. Your gown is beautiful, but I suspect it was made by a tailor working for money. My gown was made by myself, with my mother and little sister helping. It was made with love, not money.”
The women just tittered and referred to her as ‘the farmer’s daughter.’ The fact that Ruth was a farmer’s daughter, and proud of it, made the barb sharper.
Finally Ruth had enough, she noticed a doorway out of the hall, and started towards it, walking faster and faster and finally running. She was in tears as she burst out into a garden and ran into a man.
“Sorry,” she sobbed, her eyes filled with tears. Then she wiped her eyes on one of the cuffs, and saw that it was the Earl, and he was holding her gently.
“My Lord, I am so sorry. These affairs are not to my liking. I shouldn’t have come. I don’t even have proper clothes.”
“Nonsense,” the handsome Earl said. “There is nothing wrong with your dress. Let me guess: some of the girls were teasing you about it.”
Ruth nodded.
“Well, mark my words, half of those who teased you will be wearing something similar at the next great ball.”
Ruth felt comfortable and safe with the Earl’s arms around her. The fact that he also seemed to enjoy it made it even more wonderful.
“Ascuse me, mithtress,” a voice from near the door said. “I thaw you looth your thoe.” The woman held out Ruth’s right shoe, which had come off in her mad dash to the garden. The woman had a terribly cleft palate, making her speech difficult and marring what otherwise would be a pretty face. She kneeled down in front of Ruth and slid the shoe back on.
“That ith a bootiful dreth,” she said. “Tho it ith not for one like me to thay.”
“Come,” Ruth said and as the girl stood close Ruth placed her hands on the girls face. For a moment it seemed that nothing was happening, then the girl’s eyes went wide in surprise. A minute later Ruth pulled her hands away, and the girl’s mouth was healed with no trace of the former injury.
“My Lady,” the girl said with no trace of a lisp. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
“What is your name, girl?” the Earl said.
“Elizabeth, my lord,” the servant said, bowing.
“And what is your job in the castle?”
“Normally I turn the spit in the kitchen,” she said. “But the chamberlain wanted me to come here in case any of the gentlemen had too much to drink and soiled the garden. I was to clean up any messes. He will be so angry. I was not to allow any guests to see me in my rags.”
“Your dress is fine,” Ruth said. “Not appropriate for dancing at a ball, of course, but very good clothes from where I come from.”
“You are too kind, my lady,” Elizabeth said. “What did you do to me? My mouth feels so funny. Did you fix me?”
“I am a healer,” Ruth said. “I do what I can to help people.”
“But I cannot pay you,” she said. “I could never pay for what you have done for me.”
“Be my friend,” Ruth said. “Other than the two of you, I have not found many friends here at this party.
“And you need not worry about the Chamberlain,” the Earl said. “I will inform him that from this time forth you will be one of the maids in my room. A day maid.” He added the last so that Ruth would know that he did not intend to besmirch the girl’s honor. “And tonight you shall be our chaperone, since it is my wish to speak more of the lady and spare her the agonies of the gala.”
Ruth and the earl sat on a bench. No amount of urging could get Ruth to have the girl sit as well. Instead she stood behind them, ready to serve should it be needed. In spite of her kitchen-smeared dress, Elizabeth had a smile a mile wide at her new status: a smile she had never before been able to show.
Ruth told the Earl and the girl the story of Cinderella. Elizabeth was so much like Ella in the early parts of the story, and Ruth loosing a shoe mirrored the later part. She was near the end, where the handsome prince was going through the land to find out who fit into the glass slipper when a noise was heard at the entrance to the hall.
“Who is the handsome prince?” a deep voice said. “Me, I hope.”
Ruth looked up, and saw the Prince standing there, surrounded by three footmen and a gaggle of young women wishing to be close to him. More were flowing out for the door by the minute, and soon the garden was packed.
“Sean, my cousin,” the Prince said. “You are holding out on me. Who is this vision of beauty?”
“She is not for you,” the Earl said sternly.
“I would let her say so,” the prince said. “You are but a lowly Earl, soon to be a Duke I note, but still far below me. I am a prince. One day to be King. Surely she would prefer my company to yours.”
There was a gasp from the assembled women. None of them had heard anything so positive in their chasing after the Prince.
“Well then,” Ruth said slowly. “I have no vows to the Earl, but merely come to him as a healer. But I find him so far superior a man to yourself that I cannot contend. I therefore respectfully decline your offer, if that is what it is.”
Fire flashed in the Prince’s eyes. “You defy me?” he shouted. “I am the Prince of all the land. I can order the girl to attend me.”
“You cannot,” the Earl said with as much steel in his voice. “The Duchy is independent of the kingdom, thanks to the boon of your grandfather to mine, when our troops turned a decisive battle in our favor. The boon is that the Duchy is independent for all time.”
“A boon given can be a boon taken away,” the Prince growled. “Do you wish war with the Kingdom. I will crush you and then take what I wish.”
“I see my first impressions were right,” Ruth said. “It seems that you will take a woman against her will. We have a word for that in the Duchy, and severe penalties for those who do it.”
The Prince was livid. “I am the Prince. I am above the law. Mark my words, cousin-no-more. I shall attack this land and take what is my due.”
He then turned and pointed out 10 girls from the crowd who attended him. “Bring these and fix the wagons and carriages. I will leave this place until I can return at the head of the greatest army this piddling castle has ever seen.” He then strode out of the garden, taking his men and his harem with him.
Ruth noticed an official remained behind, staring at Elizabeth. “Chamberlain, attend,” the Earl said. “I would have the gala ended now that the guest of honor,” he nearly spat those words, “has left. It is my duty to my guests to say the closing remarks, but this young healer is here to tend to my father, and I would take her to him immediately. Please give the farewell, and my apologies. I feel none of my guests will take offense to my seeing to the needs of the Duke over them. And this girl,” he motioned to Elizabeth, is now one of my day maids. Make sure she is given suitable quarters, and suitable clothing.”
With that Ruth, Elizabeth, and the Earl hurried through the garden to another exit into the castle. After going through a warren of halls, they came to the sick room of the Duke. There were three doctors there, and more nurses. The Duke was in a great bed, breathing with a rattling rale. Ruth approached immediately, and put her hands on his chest. The sounds stopped, and his breathing eased immediately.
The doctors immediately started to ply her with questions, and Ruth had to ask them to leave, with only two of the nurses, the Earl, and Elizabeth allowed to remain.
It took all night, all the next day, and past midnight on a second evening before Ruth fell to the floor in a faint. The Earl carried her away to a bed, and as they left Sean heard his father say: “Who was that girl? I feel so … well.”
Ruth gained consciousness around noon, and Elizabeth fed her a half bowl of broth before she fell asleep again. When she awoke again it was past midnight, and Ruth said she was hungry. Elizabeth put a nurse next to her, and ran herself to the kitchens she knew so well, and started warming some soup and leftover stew.
The noise in the kitchen alerted several of the staff, including the cook, who stared at the girl’s beautiful face. “What happened to you?” the cook asked.
“I was healed by a lady,” Elizabeth said. “The Earl has promoted me to work upstairs. The lady has been ill, after healing the Duke, who is now well. I must take these to her, so that she can get well.”
This time Ruth finished both the stew and the soup. “Have you eaten, my dear?” she asked Elizabeth.
“Only the half bowl of soup you couldn’t finish last night,” Elizabeth said.
“Oh dear, and this time I have left nothing for you. Go you down to the kitchens and feed yourself. I am well now. I will have a little sleep, and when morning comes you must lead me through this place to where I need to be. I hope I can see the Earl again.”
Elizabeth again went down to the kitchen, where there were more questions as she ate a meal the cook had made for her. She told those assembled how Ruth had healed her with only her hands, and then healed the Duke, who the doctors said was dying. She mentioned Ruth’s kindness to her, and how it seemed to rub off on the Earl, who had also treated her as a person, and not just a functionary.
When morning came, Ruth awoke to find Elizabeth opening the curtains to her room. The girl was in a clean and new-looking uniform. “How did I come to be here?” the healer asked.
“The Earl himself carried you here. It is one of the best rooms in the castle.”
“Oh yes, I remember feeling safe and secure after I collapsed. The wasting disease is very taxing on a healer, and the Duke’s case was the worst I have ever faced.”
“We are wanted to breakfast in an hour,” Elizabeth said. “The Earl has named me your personal maid while you remain with us. I have ordered a bath, and there have been some clothes brought as well. I assume you will not want to wear your gown from the gala again.”
“No, certainly not,” Ruth said. “And a bath sounds wonderful.”
It was the first time Ruth had ever had a bath in a wooden tub. On the farm she had bathed in the river with her mother and sisters, but this tub of nearly hot water was just what she needed. Having Elizabeth standing beside the tub to scrub her back and hand her towels was a luxury for the young healer.
“This breakfast gown will do,” the maid said.
“It is a bit ornate,” Ruth noted.
“Yes, but you will be eating with the Duke and the Earl. Some degree of opulence is needed.”
When they were dressed, the maid led Ruth through another different maze of tunnels, finally coming out on a balcony. As they entered, an older woman rushed over and put her arms around Ruth, gushing: “You have restored the love of my life. I can never repay you.” Ruth guessed, correctly, that this was the Duchess, and Sean’s mother.
An elderly man then rose, looking hale and healthy. “I too thank you,” the Duke said. “Ask anything of the kingdom and it is yours.”
“You are looking much better than the last time I saw you,” Ruth said. “Are there any pains? Tingles in the limbs? A cough, perhaps?”
“No, none,” the Duke said. “I feel better than I have felt since Sean was born, and that is getting close to a quarter century. Will you stay and be my personal physician?”
“I will stay. For a while,” she said. “But not to be your personal physician. There are many ill people in the city. I can feel it. I will help them. And if you or any of the castle fall ill I will help them. But I need to keep using my talents for the people or the lady Goldberry may take them away.”
“First we dine. I see you have a new maid. She will serve you?”
“No, Elizabeth is my friend. She will eat as I do.” There was a gasp, from the three ducal rulers, and even larger gasp from Elizabeth. But the largest gasp was from the other four servants in the room plating food and setting it out. They had never heard of a servant being asked to eat with the Duke.
“I cannot deny the one who saved my life,” the Duke said. “Your maid will sit with us.”
Elizabeth protested, and Ruth relented when she saw how embarrassed the situation was making the girl. She compromised, saying that Elizabeth should sit at a smaller table in the room. Then she added that the other four servants would join her once their duties were completed. This brought forth a new chorus of gasps.
The servants took turns eating with Elizabeth, with two eating as two others served the family and Ruth, then switching. During the meal, talk turned to the Prince, and his hasty retreat. Apparently the Duke’s spies were reporting that the Prince was raising levies, and planned to attack the Duchy.
“A battle on two fronts can never by won,” the Duke lamented.
“Only one front, my lord and father,” Sean said. “We have not attacked the south for several years, and while you were ill, I made trade overtures to them. They were well received. I cannot imagine that they will ally with us when the Prince attacks, but they will not interfere.”
“Bah, what good comes from the south,” the Duke disparaged.
“There are many good things from the south,” Ruth said. “I was at a fair in Tharbad not a month ago, and the array of goods was astonishing. Elizabeth, would you please run and get my gown from the gala? I think the Duchess would like to see it.”
The girl ran off immediately, and then Sean spoke. “Ruth, you healed Elizabeth so effortlessly, yet curing father took all of your powers. The doctors said you would never revive. Why is this?”
“Healed the girl?” the Duke interrupted.
“Oh my,” the Duchess added in awe. “She is the poor girl in the kitchens with the ruined face. I thought I recognized her. She is beautiful now.”
“Yes,” Ruth steered the conversation back to Sean’s question. “I can cure many in a short time. It is only the wasting disease that takes so much energy from me.”
“What I was wondering,” the Earl said, “was if you could heal war injuries. Arrow wounds, sword slashes, the like. How many could you cure in a few hours?”
“Arrows and slashes are relatively easy. Stop the blood flow, heal the wound. Most men with injuries of that type could fight again the next day.”
The Duke gasped. “Right now we send physicians to the front, but they generally amputate a limb, if they can save the man at all. To have the wounded back in the battle the next day …”
“ … would turn the tide of a war,” Sean answered. “In most battles there are 400 wounded and 100 killed on each side, per 1000 troops. If we could put 900 of those into battle against the remaining 500 of the enemy on the following day, we would win continually. Let the Prince come.”
While Ruth and the men were talking, Elizabeth returned with the robe, and placed it on the lap of the Duchess.
“I want this,” she said firmly. She turned to her son. “Make this trade thing happen.”
---- ------ ----
Ruth spent the next four weeks wandering through the city, although this time there was a castle guard of four accompanying her at each stop. She worked her charm on the soldiers, buying them food and drink through the day, and treating them civilly. Word got around in the barracks, and healer-guard became the favored duty of all, even above guarding the great room when the Duke was in attendance.
The people of the city also grew to love her, with those who were wealthy happy to pay for the healing of themselves and their loved ones. But the poor of the city were most taken with the pretty healer. She healed them without any payment expected or given. What’s more, she treated them as equals, claiming only to be a poor country girl who was blessed with healing powers.
During that month Sean had sent emissaries to the south, and announced a great fair in the city for the fall. Traders all over the south responded, since there was a gap in the fair schedule that would allow them to come north, and return home before winter hit.
The Duke’s spies reported that the Prince had been irate on hearing of the fair. He considered that by that time he would have cleaned up the Duke’s ragtag army. He decided that he would merely seize all the trade goods and kill the traders, profiting to defray the costs of the war. The balance of the cost would be taxed out of the Duchy.
These same spies reported that the Prince planned to bring 10,000 men to the Duchy, the vast majority of the Kingdom’s army. The Earl gathered 5000 levies, and thought it might be enough, with Ruth’s aid.
At the border the Prince sent a force of 3000 though the pass between the lands, and Sean was waiting with half his force, 2500. Sean won the battle, but the cost was enormous, with him losing 250 men. The Prince lost 300, and 1200 wounded, most of whom where left on the battlefield. The Prince expected to win a war of attrition.
But yhen he sent another force of 3000 out, again to lose by the same edge, all of Sean’s injured were ready for battle, although left in reserve while the other half of the Ducal army fought.
On the third day, the Prince rode at the front of his army, expecting only a thousand or so troops left in the Ducal forces. To his surprise, there were over 5000 men facing him, outnumbering him.
Ruth had cured all of the Ducal injured, and then had moved on to the enemy troops that had been left on the battlefield. They expected the Duke’s men sent out to clear the field to slit their throats, but instead they were gently piled onto wagons and brought back to the camp. Once Ruth had cured her own people, she started on the enemy wounded, and the men were astonished to be healed, when the best they could have hoped for was to lose an arm or leg. The Prince was not loved by his men, and many switched sides immediately. Thus the entire left flank facing him was of his own former soldiers.
The battle went poorly for the Prince, who fled the battle early when it was clear that his troops were being slaughtered. When he was seen running, his troops waved a white flag, and to their surprise it was honored. They were even more surprised to see how the Duke treated their wounded, and the honorable burial he provided their dead, when the normal practice of the time was to build a cairn and burn the enemy dead in a pile.
Thus it was that Sean marched over the pass unopposed and had an army of nearly 12,000 troops surrounding the King’s palace two weeks later. Those troops who had joined the Ducal army were allowed leave to visit their loved ones, and the result of this was an increasing level of desertions from the dwindling royal army.
Finally, the King sent out an embassy, who were well treated. In return an embassy went to the palace. Ruth insisted on accompanying Sean.
Finally they were in the throne room, with an aged looking King slumping on the throne. “So you have defeated my idiot son,” the King said. “Apparently his great battle prowess was not enough to win even with 2 to one odds in his favor.”
“We only seek peace between our lands,” the Earl said. “Our grandparents knew that we would each grow stronger as friends than enemies. We should honor their wisdom.”
“Honor this,” the Prince yelled from the back of the room. He had grabbed a crossbow from a guard, and let fly, with the bolt crashing through the ceremonial breastplate the Earl wore and imbedded itself in his chest. “And she will be mine.”
The King gasped. An Embassy in his palace had been breached, and by his own son. He had enough. “Disarm that fool and take him to the tower,” the old man ordered. The Prince was bound and carried away, cursing at the men who held them, vowing that he would have their heads when he became King.
When Sean slumped to the floor, Ruth caught him and eased him down. She ordered the largest of the guard with them to pull out the bolt, and had another take the armor off. Meanwhile she had her hands inside his clothing, and soon found the wound. A week of dealing with battle wounds had left her adept at healing this type of injury, and in a moment the Earl was moaning, to the amazement of all the King’s attendants who thought they had just witnessed a murder. Another moment later and he cautiously got to his feet, a bit unsteady, but standing.
“The Duchy does not blame you for this,” he told the King. “I still seek peace between our lands.”
“You are a good man,” the King said. “I feared that your men would be ravaging my city in revenge before the night ended, and instead you still offer peace. At the least my son will be banished from the Kingdom, but I am old and ill and my only other son lies near death. The Prince will return when I die, and will again hold the power of the Kingdom.”
Ruth heard the King say the word “ill” and perked up. She walked up to the King. A guard stepped in front of her, but she just stared at him until he backed off. She put her hands on the head of the King and concentrated.
“You have been poisoned,” she said. “There, it is gone.”
“Treason,” the word flitted about the room. Several troops were sent to the kitchen to bring forth all the staff there for an investigation. Meanwhile, Ruth had moved to the Queen and cured her of the same poisoning. She then followed the woman to the sick room of her six-year-old son, who was very near death. It took a full 15 minutes to heal him, but when she left he was a normal young boy, bouncing around and eager to find out what had happened.
Ruth returned to the throne room in time to find that two servants had admitted to poisoning the royal family on the orders of the Prince, who was anxious to take the throne for himself. “You know this is treason,” the King said gravely. “I sentence you both …”
“Please, your highness,” Ruth begged. “Ask them why they did such a vile thing?”
“As you wish,” the King said. “Speak.”
The taller of the two servants fell to his knees, not expecting to be able to plead for his life. “I admit that we did it, and it was wrong. And we knew it was wrong. We were dead men the moment the Prince proposed his plot. But he told us that if we didn’t do his bidding, then he would kill our families, down to the cousins. We had no choice.”
The other man nodded in agreement. “I see. I sentence you to … banishment from the Kingdom for all time. I leave you two weeks to wrap up your affairs here, and to leave.”
“That is about the time that our army is due to leave,” Sean said. “They will accompany us, and live in the Duchy. Not as castle staff, but small farms will be found for them.”
“I wish that you were my son,” the King said. “My younger son is only six. Would you take him with you, so that he can learn royal duties properly? And be his regent should I die before he is of age?”
“I will. And I know that a mother never wishes to loose a son, so once a year he will spend two weeks vacationing here in the palace, where he can meet with his people and his army.”
“The army is another matter. You have taken most of my men. I am left defenseless should any other army attack,” the King lamented.
“Your men hate the Prince, not you or Raoul,” the Earl said. “If the Prince is gone, they will return to your army, most of them. They have family here, and love their country. I will allow you to take any that wish to come back, so long as you allow the ones who choose to stay with me to bring their families back to the Duchy.”
“Now it is time to deal with the traitor,” the King said. “Send a guard to the tower to bring him here.”
“If we might, your highness,” Ruth suggested. “The Earl and I would like to be part of that guard.”
The King smiled. “Excellent. Let those who he offended most bring him back. With a guard of eight.”
In the tower the door opened into the most sumptuous jail cell Ruth could imagine. Carpets covered the floors, and tapestries the walls. The furnishings were suitable for a noble detainee. Lounging on a sofa was the Prince. He smiled when he saw her, and swung his feet to the floor, starting to get up.
“So, with your little Earl gone you have changed your mind? You seek the Prince after all. I knew you would.”
Then Sean stepped into the room behind her, and the Prince stumbled backwards flopping onto the sofa. “But you … I … How …” he mumbled.
“Your plans did not work,” Sean said. “The King orders you to return to the throne room to hear his judgment.”
“Bah, he is weak,” the Prince boasted. “I shall be King is a few weeks, and then you will feel the wrath of the entire kingdom.”
“Yes, I know. We are suffering greatly from your wrath right now,” Sean said sarcastically. “With all my soldiers, and many of yours surrounding the city.”
“My soldiers joined you? Traitors.”
“That might not be the best word for you to use right now,” Ruth suggested.
Back in the Throne room the Prince was surprised to see a fit and able King sitting on the throne, and his little brother playing on the floor in front of his father’s feet. His mother also looked healthy. For the first time, the Prince saw his plans falling to pieces, and he sagged a bit. But only for a second.
“You were a prince, and a son of mine,” the King intoned. “Now you are neither, just a subject awaiting his doom from the King. On the first count, you betrayed the trust of embassy by attacking another in this very room.”
“But he stands here unharmed,” the Prince said, thinking he might be able to talk his way out of this. “Embassy protects embassadors from being harmed. He is not harmed. I am innocent of this.”
“Perhaps, but the second count is that you committed treason, by inciting poisoning of the royal person, his consort, and his youngest … his only son,” the King said. “How plead you?”
“Innocent, of course,” the Prince said smugly. “I know nothing of any poison. I cannot prove that there was none. You look much better today than yesterday, but it is not of my hand if there was poison. What evidence is there?”
“These two men have testified that they did the poisoning,” the King said.
“Then there is your treason, hang them. Kill them.” He attempted to grab another crossbow to do the deed himself (and to silence their voices), but this time the guard held it firmly.
“These men testified that their families were in danger if they disobeyed you,” the King said.
“Then they and all their people are dead,” the Prince shouted in rage, and then stopped dead, realizing he had just implicated himself.
“They are not. And should some in the room feel that their Prince has given them a command, I will tell them that he is no longer a Prince, and can no longer protect them. If any of these men’s families are harmed in any way, the court will find out by whose hand. And that person or persons will not merely die, they will be sent to the dungeon. Torture has not been used in this Palace for 30 years, but in this case of treason it will be.”
“Now my … subject. By your own admission you were involved in this treason, and your fate is thus. Tomorrow morning, at first light, you will be taken to the tower and your head will be removed from your body. Although I would rather you hang by the neck and become raven’s food, I will grant you a royal death since you were once my son.”
----- - -- ----- -
Two weeks later the armies split up. Nearly 1000 men opted to move to the Duchy, where they were to be given land and allowed to build homes. The other soldiers rejoined their families, ready for the next call of their liege. The troops were inspected by their King, and the new Crown Prince, a young boy who was much beloved by his people.
The old Crown Prince rested in a cage atop the tower, with his head several feet away, silently watching the ravens feast on his body.
There were cheers for all those who were present at the departure. The Earl was cheered as having liberating the people from an oppressive overlord. Word had gotten out that it was he who had urged the King to cut the heavy tax load in half, to compensate to the onerous taxes that the Prince had levied. It was actually Ruth who had first made the suggestion, that taxes be abolished for two years. The palace Chamberlain protested, saying the Kingdom could not exist without revenues. It was Sean who suggested the compromise: halving taxes for two years, then adjusting them as necessary.
There was a massive cheer for the Crown Prince. The little boy was beloved by all his subjects and when he promised to learn from the Earl how to be a wise and fair ruler, cheers rang out five times before they calmed down.
But even that did not compare to the cheers that came Ruth’s way when she waved to the crowd. She was beloved, no exalted, by the poor people of the city. She did not speak, but screams of joy rang out when Sean announced that she would return with the princeling when he came back each year for vacation.
Finally the party left and a week later were back at the castle. Ruth was thrilled to find her entire family there. The confirmation of her father as Squire had happened a week before, and when word of the return of the army was announced, they were allowed to stay to see them come home.
The Earl and the Squire met in a small room that first night, while Elizabeth and Ruth were taking Mary through the entire castle, from kitchens to armory, all to the delight of the little girl. There was another in the party as well. Raoul, the crown prince, had fallen in love with Ruth, and didn’t want to let her out of his sight, particularly in this old castle that was strange and different from the palace he had grown up in.
At one point, the children were lagging behind and Ruth turned and saw that her sister was walking hand-in-hand with the Crown Prince. I shall never be a queen, thank goodness, Ruth thought. But perhaps Mary might. Their father would have to be raised again, to knight, to make this possible, but if young Raoul sought it, she felt it could happen.
The secret of the meeting between Earl and Squire was revealed that evening at dinner, when Sean stood and told those assembled that he had asked for permission to wed Ruth. He got down on knee, and proposed, offering the girl a ruby ring.
“I accept,” Ruth said. “You are the only man I would ever marry.” Her little speech was ended abruptly when he kissed her deeply.
And they lived happily ever after.