Staging a Battle by StarSpray

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Staging a Battle

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“Dad, I’m borrowing Bill this afternoon!” Frodo-lad’s voice floated over top the roses to where Sam knelt thinning the carrots.

“Why?” Sam called back, sitting back on his heels. No answer. Frodo had clearly not waited. “Frodo! Where are you going?” Sam got to his feet, but of course Frodo was nowhere to be seen. The stable was down by the lane—new to Bagshot Row, replacing one of the holes that had been too badly damaged to return to being a proper hobbit home. Sam was the only one in the neighborhood who used it much, being the only one doing any frequent traveling, though it was open to anyone and well-stocked with hay and feed. Bill shared it with Strider; these days Sam didn’t ride Bill, who had more than earned a comfortable retirement of begging treats from the neighborhood children and grazing in the Party Field. What Frodo-lad could want with him was anyone’s guess.

Most likely it had something to do with whatever Pippin was up to. He and Diamond were visiting, though Pippin had been disappearing every afternoon, and taking Frodo and Elanor and most other lads and lasses in the neighborhood with him—though why they couldn ’t use Pippin’s own pony, Sam couldn’t imagine.

“Do you know why Frodo-lad needed Bill today?” Sam asked a little while later, coming into the kitchen. Rosie was sitting at the table peeling potatoes, while Diamond had taken over kneading the bread. They were both expecting, but Rosie was much farther along, and this time around her ankles were giving trouble.

Rosie had no idea, though Diamond looked amused. “I can’t ruin the surprise,” she said when Sam turned the question to her, “though I admit I didn’t think they would be using real animals. No need to look so alarmed! No one ’s going to get hurt.”

“I’m not worried about Bill hurting anyone,” said Sam. “A gentler pony there never was. But I don’t want him run ragged. He’s too old for that, and been through quite enough.”

“Oh no, nothing like that,” Diamond assured him. “But really I shouldn’t say more. Pippin is so very excited about it.”

“When are we going to learn what this surprise is, then?” Rosie asked, setting the last potato into the bowl.

“At the Free Fair, I expect,” said Diamond.

That was still three weeks away. Elanor and Frodo-lad kept disappearing with Pippin in the afternoons. Bill often disappeared with them, but not always. Sam gave him a few extra apples over the next week or so, as a reward for putting up with whatever it was Pippin was doing. Sam tried asking Elanor about it, but she just giggled and shook her head.

“Can’t tell you yet, Dad!”

At last, it was time for the Free Fair. Rosie ’s mother came to stay with her while Sam and the older children went off with Diamond and Pippin. Elanor and Frodo exclaimed in disappointment at this news, though it wasn’t really a surprise. Rosie just laughed and kissed their cheeks. “You’ll just have to tell me all about your surprise when you get back. Don’t give your dad any trouble!”

The children rode in Pippin and Diamond ’s cart, and Sam rode Strider alongside. Bill trundled along with them; Frodo insisted that he hadn’t asked him to. “He wants to keep his role in our project,” Pippin said cheerfully. “Don’t send him back, Sam.”

“Of course not,” said Sam, who could never say no to old Bill. They’d been through too much together, and an outing to Michel Delving wouldn’t do him any harm. He was getting up in years, but he wasn’t so old as that.

Sam was quiet as they rode; it was an election year, and while he was confident he ’d win another term as mayor—there was always more he wanted to get done and none of it happened as quickly as he would have liked—it meant making at least two speeches, before and after the voting, and Sam could never summon whatever it was that had made old Mister Bilbo so easy with it; his palms got sweaty and more than half the time he stammered his way into the beginning. Plus there was the first and last feast of the fair over which the mayor presided, which also meant saying a few words. Those were easier, just a welcome and a thanks to the hard work of everyone involved.

At Michel Delving, Sam got through the feast and his speech the next morning concerning his plans for his next term and why he should be reelected, instead of being replaced by a young Chubb who didn ’t know the first thing about the borders, or that stubborn old Bracegirdle who’d been running every election since Sam could remember. He was wrinkled and wizened as Old Man Willow and about as well-tempered, and Sam suspected that he just liked getting up and insulting everyone else on stage. He always got a handful of votes, mostly from young hobbits who thought it would be funny for their first election.

After he endured ten minutes of caustic insults from old Mr Bracegirdle, Sam escaped into the fair, going to find Elanor and Frodo. They were not at any of the places he thought to look. He did, however, find a second cousin near what appeared to be a wool-spinning contest, which looked like it would be handily won by an ancient gammer with gnarled knuckles and a toothless smile. “Why, I’ve seen elven threads that weren’t as fine as that, mistress,” Sam informed her. She laughed at him, but he could tell she was very pleased by the compliment.

“Hullo, Sam!” his cousin said. “Your speech was good. You’ll win mayor again handily this year.”

“Thanks,” said Sam. “Have you seen my Elanor and Frodo, by chance? Or perhaps Pippin Took?”

“Oh, sure. They’re just yonder, setting up the stage.”

“Thanks.” Sam followed the direction his cousin pointed, and rounded a few tents and stalls, and found a stage set up in the middle of an open grassy space. Bill grazed contentedly beside it as a dozen children ran about setting up painted set pieces and organizing props. There seemed to be an awful lot of sticks involved—and a garishly painted paper orc head with green skin and bulging yellow eyes and a very red tongue lolling out from sharp teeth.

“Sam!” Merry appeared at his side. “Good speech. Sorry about old Bracegirdle, though. He didn’t need to go so far as to insult your garden, really.”

“I think he’s running out of ideas,” said Sam. “What’s all this, then?”

“Pippin wrote a play,” Merry said, “about the Battle of Greenfields. That’s Golfimbul’s head, there.”

“Ah.” That explained a lot.

“Come on. Fatty and Estella are saving us seats, and they’ve got some of old Widow Tunnelly’s scones.”

Not long after Sam settled in with a blueberry scone, the other benches began to fill up. It didn ’t take long, and others came to stand or to sit in the grass. Theater was not unheard of in the Shire, but it wasn’t common either. Sam couldn’t remember the last time he’d sat down and watched a play. He leaned over to Merry. “What made Pippin want to write a play, anyhow?”

“Well, he wants to turn some of the old stories into plays,” Merry replied. “But he was afraid that would be too shocking, so he thought he’d start with a story everyone knows and likes.”

“But why plays?”

“Oh, that came from a letter from Gimli. The folk of Dale are very fond of plays, apparently. They did one last summer about the Quest for Erebor, and had a little lad play the part of Bilbo. Gimli thought it was very funny the way he sneaked around the stage.”

“So Pippin decided to have all young lads and lasses for his actors?”

“He couldn’t convince any grownups to do it,” Diamond said, coming to join them. She sat down beside Estella and happily accepted a blueberry scone. “Mmm, Widow Tunnelly’s? Bless her. I hope she taught her daughters all her secrets.”

“Who’s Elanor and Frodo playing, then?” Sam asked Merry.

“That,” said Merry, as Pippin sprang onto the stage to quiet the audience, “is a surprise.”

Pippin gave a very short speech, thanking them for coming and announcing the play ’s subject. Then he hopped down, and after a short pause in which Sam heard a bit of scuffling behind the stage, the first scene began. All of the actors were very enthusiastic about their rolls—particularly Frodo-lad, who had been cast as Bandobras Took. A very funny choice, since he was the smallest of the bunch, even though everyone talked and acted as though he were the tallest. Bill’s roll became clear when Frodo as Bandobras led him onto the stage and then scrambled atop his back so he could give a very rousing speech to his hobbit army before the battle proper. Sam suspected that the real speech—if there had been a speech—had been quite different, and that Bandobras hadn’t sounded quite so much like Théoden King—or what Sam had heard and read of Théoden King, anyway. But it was quite rousing, and the subsequent battle (for which Bill was removed from the stage) was a chaotic clash of children, half with green smears of paint on their faces to mark them as goblins. Then Bill was brought back onto the stage so that Frodo could be properly mounted when Golfimbul entered, carrying the great big painted head on a stick—and played by none other than Elanor, who delivered her own speech with snarling relish, and charged at her brother with not so much a cry as a great roar (Bill’s ear twitched). With an answering cry, Frodo swung his wooden stick and with a great thwack! sent the head sailing away off the stage. Half the audience rose to their feet to see where it landed: in a barrel of apples, much to the surprise of the apple seller, who stood blinking at it, and to the person who had been looking into the barrel at the time, and who now stood several feet away with her hands clutched to her chest, looking quite shocked.

The death of Golfimbul was the end of the play, and after all of the actors had gotten back onto the stage to take a bow, and the audience dispersed, laughing about the head in the apple barrel, Frodo and Elanor came bounding over to Sam. “What did you think, Dad?” Elanor asked. “Wasn’t it grand?”

“You made a very scary orc,” Sam said, “and Frodo, I never knew you could make such speeches.” Frodo beamed.

“That went well, I think!” Pippin said, coming over to join them. “We should make a tradition of it. Not just for the Free Fair, but something every summer perhaps. What do you think, Mayor Gamgee?”

“Ask me again after the votes tomorrow,” said Sam. But he liked the idea. It would give the children something to do and keep them out of trouble. “What are you going to write a play for next, then?”

“I’m halfway done with Beren and Lúthien,” said Pippin.

“I want to play Felagund! Oh please, Uncle Pippin, can I play Felagund?” cried Frodo. “I want to slay a werewolf!”

“I want to be Thuringwethil!” added Elanor.

“What, not Lúthien?” Pippin asked, laughing.

Elanor wrinkled her nose. “But Lúthien will have to kiss Beren! I don ’t want to kiss anyone . ”

“Not even Fastred?” asked Frodo. Elanor swung at him and he yelped, ducking out of the way and taking off through the crowds, Elanor at his heels.

“Who’s Fastred?” asked Diamond.

“Young lad from Greenholm,” said Sam. “He and his family are staying in the next room to us at the Yellow Duckling. He’s about Elanor’s age, I think.” A handsome boy, with fair hair and a cheerful face. The children had all been friendly over supper the evening before, but Sam supposed a brother would find anything to tease a sister about. He certainly had, at that age. “I would like to see a proper hobbit version of one of the great tales though, Pippin. If you want to look at Frodo’s old books, you only have to ask.”

“I might, at that,” said Pippin.