Sophinisba Solis (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sophinisba) wrote2007-08-07 11:28 am
sophinisba) wrote2007-08-07 11:28 am
Fic repost: If I Keep You Beside Me
Last night I got my assignment for the new ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
waymeet fic and art exchange! I'm really pleased because it goes along with something I've been meaning to write for a while but needed the motivation to get done (though I shall have to be careful to keep it within the Rules). Hooray for challenge communities and deadlines! Here is a repost of my fic for the previous Waymeet challenge.
Title: If I Keep You Beside Me
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sophinisba
Challenge: Written for thewaymeet Fabled Fellowship challenge.
Characters: Pippin. Also Boromir, Denethor, and Merry.
Rating: G
Words: 4341
Summary: Pippin, Boromir, and Denethor have different ways of keeping what they hold dear.
Notes: My fable, "The Labourer and the Nightingale", is told by Boromir in this story, borrowing some of the language from this version. The moral is Keep what you have.
Thanks todanachan for her help with this story (and all my Pippin fics).
Pippin thought if he were commanded to sing then he would have to do it, whether the song seemed fit for Denethor's hall or not. But being ordered to sing, oh, there was something very strange in that, and he thought that would make it even harder
Nightingales never sing in a cage, he thought, but then he put the thought out of his mind. It wasn't quite fair, was it? He'd offered himself for this service, after all. But he didn't think he was doing a very good job with it so far.
Now Frodo, who had spent all that time with Bilbo and had learned a lot of different kinds of poetry and song, if he were here he'd have a much better idea of how to satisfy the Steward.
Certainly it wasn't the first time he'd wished Frodo were still here. On the other hand, he couldn't very well wish that he were in Frodo's place and Frodo in his, since he had complete faith in Frodo to do what needed to be done in his journey through Mordor, whereas Pippin would be lost there, even more of a failure as Ring-bearer than he was as esquire to the Steward. Besides that, if they'd switched places, they'd still be apart.
But if they were here together, and if they had a chance to discuss things a bit, Frodo could help him choose a good song, maybe one of those old Elvish poems that Bilbo had translated into the common tongue and set to an easier tune. They would sing together then, and Pippin would sing louder, since he had the stronger voice, but Frodo would help him remember the words.
*
***
He remembered when he and Merry had told Boromir of their first night in Bree. They were on their way through the mines of Moria and doing their best to remember that they'd been through difficult and scary times before and had come out all right, had even managed to keep cheerful and singing through most of it.
Boromir hadn't believed them at first.
"On top of the table!" said Pippin
"Frodo, the terribly serious hobbit who's been walking with us since Rivendell?" With his head Boromir nodded toward where Frodo and Gandalf walked ahead of them, speaking low and close. "Frodo was singing about a cow and the moon?"
"And dancing!" Pippin insisted.
"Oh, I would give much to see such a thing."
"I was a bit sorry to have missed it myself," said Merry. "Unfortunately I was otherwise engaged at the time, and I don't believe he'll do it again, not until we've got the rest of this business sorted. But I am quite sure it's true. Sam confirms it and Sam wouldn't lie."
"Except when he's lying to Frodo for Frodo's own good," said Pippin, not bothering to complain that Merry apparently trusted Sam's word over his. Understandable, that, if you thought about it.
"But were you not aware of the importance of – "
"Secrecy, of course," said Merry. "But it took a while for all of that to sink in, and this was before we'd seen the Black Riders up close, you see. And we hobbits would rather have a good song and a meal and a smoke than cower quietly in the darkness."
Pippin smiled, watching the path ahead of him in the pale light of Gandalf's staff as they walked.
"Frodo's a fine singer," Merry continued, "a much better voice than mine, for sure, or than Sam. But Pippin's got the sweetest voice of all of us."
"Is that right?"
"Oh," said Pippin, who knew his blush couldn't be seen in the dark but felt hot and ridiculous anyway. "Er."
"Well, let's hear you then."
"I don't know." Normally he didn't mind showing off for Boromir, but this situation wasn't right, didn't make him feel like singing at all.
"Come on then, Pip," said Merry.
"Aren't we meant to be stealthy and secretive?" He glanced ahead of them at Gandalf, engaged in his conversation with Frodo, and behind at Aragorn, whose face was hidden in shadow and told him nothing.
"Oh, I hardly think a little song will bring the enemy down on our heads," said Merry. "Come, I'll sing with you."
And he did, and dropped out after the first few lines, as notes rose higher. Gimli, who'd been instructing Legolas and Sam on the skills of the dwarvish delvers, also fell silent to listen. And Frodo and Gandalf turned back to look at them, and Frodo smiled. Pippin didn't like the way his voice echoed in the black corridors, but if Gandalf had wanted them to be quiet he'd have said, so he sang louder and clearer and found he wasn't embarrassed anymore, just a little out of breath as they kept walking along, and Merry squeezed his hand. The four hobbits sang the last chorus together and Pippin thought Gandalf and Aragorn just might be humming along.
"It lightens my heart to hear your simple, bright song in this dark place," Boromir said when they were finished. "For all I questioned the wisdom bringing four Halflings along on this journey, I am glad now to have all of you here."
***
*
"Now that I have you here to myself," Denethor said at one point, even though there were in fact guards and other men present, "and since you seem so reluctant to sing me a song, I would have you tell me a story. Who are your people, master hobbit? Where do they come from, and do they know of the House of the Stewards in your country?"
*
***
"Let's have a story then," said Pippin, "an old-fashioned one, like we tell in the Shire," because the Elves of Lórien treated them well and sang beautifully, but that didn't stop his grief or his worry or his longing for home.
With time they had grown used to sitting on the flets high up in the trees. It still seemed strange to Pippin to be so high off the ground, and he and the other hobbits chose not to sit too close to the edge, but they were also able to think and talk of other things, and to appreciate the beauty of the place.
Today he and Merry were sitting with Boromir, as so often seemed to happen. In the early days after Rivendell Pippin had been quite delighted with this man and hadn't understood why Frodo chose to keep his distance. He'd encouraged Frodo and Sam to join in their conversations, their songs, their timid attempts to learn sword craft. But increasingly he'd come to dislike the way Boromir watched Frodo. He'd come to feel it was his and Merry's job to stand between them, protect their cousin. Oh, they'd be friendly about it – they'd keep on with the songs and the stories and the laughter, but they had a double purpose now. It made him feel good to be helping, but at the same time he felt rather dishonest.
"If you've got such a good idea of what kind of story you want," said Merry, "I think you should be the one to tell it."
"Very well then, let's have the story of the Took and the nightingale."
"Is this the story of the labourer who caught the nightingale?" said Boromir. "I heard that one when I was a boy."
"No, I don't think so," said Pippin. "It does talk of catching a nightingale, but it's the story of a Shire-hobbit, and it's true, so I can't think how it would have come to Gondor."
"These old family stories," Merry said quietly, "your aunt or your grandmother might have told you they're all true and she might believe it herself, but you find versions of them all over the place. Remember in Rivendell, when the Elves told that tale that sounded just like the tale of the stonecutter, only with more poetry and more fighting?"
"This is different," said Pippin, "this is my ancestor Bard the Took – who I wouldn't call a labourer, Boromir, although I'm sure he worked in his own fields like any good landowner."
"Let's hear it then," said Boromir. "And when you finish I'll tell you about my labourer and we can decide whose story sounds more true."
Pippin frowned. "Well, all right. I should say that this happened a very, very long time ago, before we Tooks had a Thain – "
"And before you gave yourselves such grand names," said Merry.
"That too. But Bard was set to become the head of the family when he got older, so he was still a very important hobbit."
"I don't understand," said Boromir. "What is a Thain? Is it the ruler of your people?"
"Oh, no," said Pippin, "we don't have rulers, you know."
"You don't..."
"Haven't had any need for them in all the time anyone can remember."
"But you could say that the Thain is the closest thing we have to a ruler," said Merry.
"You could, if you didn't understand hobbits at all."
"Pip." Merry gave him his disapproving face, the one with the narrowed eyebrows, as if Pippin were a lad again and had said something inappropriate to an aunt.
"Well, you don't want Boromir to think that we live in our own kingdom with a ruler who doesn't care about the King, do you?"
"Do you mean to say that the Thain is carrying out the King's wishes in your territory?" said Boromir.
"Well, not quite. The idea is, the King is our ruler and we are his subjects, but the King is also very far away –and possibly not even aware of us! The Thain can't carry out the King's wishes, as much as he might like to, because he doesn't know what they are."
"But none of that matters since you're telling an old tale from before there was any such thing," said Merry. "So get on with it, please!"
Pippin rolled his eyes. "I don't see that there's any hurry as long as we're here, but since you so enjoy ordering me around, I'll tell you: there was this young Took called Bard who went to see his friends in Buckland and after that kept on walking into the Old Forest. In those days the Shire-hobbits – and especially the Tooks, of course – had a lot more contact with people from outside our borders, and Bard had the idea was that he might look for a wife in Bree-land, and might do some exploring and adventuring on the way. He was travelling alone, and as he walked deeper into the forest the sun went down and it grew quite dark, and he started to lose his path."
"You should have told this story while we were trying to make our way through the Old Forest," said Merry. "If it ends happily, that is. If it ends badly I'm glad you didn't bring it up then."
"What kind of a Took are you, Merry? Don't you know this story?"
"I'm a Brandybuck, and I know there are a lot of different versions."
"Well, this is the one my aunt Adamanta told me, so it must be true."
"Of course."
"Right then. This young hobbit became terribly lost. He couldn't see the path or know where to go forward or to turn back, and he started hearing the noises of wild animals. But then he heard the sweet voice of a songbird, a nightingale. It was sitting right there in front of him on a tree branch, close enough for him to reach out and grab it."
"So it is in the story I know too!" said Boromir. "The labourer thought he'd catch the nightingale and have it to eat, since he'd been lost for so long and hadn't anything to eat!"
"Ah, but I told you," said Pippin, "this is not the same tale you know, for I am talking about a hobbit, who would never kill a songbird." He hoped he didn't sound too harsh, but really Boromir's idea was absurd and had given him a bad feeling. "Bard was just happy to have some company in this dark forest, and to hear a sound that didn't frighten him. At first it just sounded like music and he couldn't understand the meaning, but already the sound gave him hope because it was so lovely, so he walked toward where he heard it and sang along, for he had always liked a good walking tune."
"The nightingale led him back to the path?" said Merry.
"Not quite. Led him to another path, a smaller one that was harder to see by daylight but where the moonlight filtered in somehow. There were low plants along the path but they were soft under his feet. He knew this wasn't the main path that would take him out of the forest to Bree, but he'd been listening to the nightingale's voice all this time and he thought he was starting to understand words in it. What used to sound like simple birdsong" – and Pippin whistled three notes to demonstrate, the middle one higher and longer – "now sounded like, 'Believe me! Believe me!'"
Merry smiled. As much as he teased, he always did love to hear Pippin's stories.
But Boromir was caught up in what might happen next. "A trick," he guessed.
"Not at all!" said Pippin. "He kept going, and when the sun had gone completely and the moon was high in the sky the path opened up into a clearing in the wood."
"A fairie ring," said Merry
"Most certainly not," said Pippin. "Why, Merry, I never thought you were one to go repeating those ridiculous old – "
"Calm down, Pippin, it's only a story!"
"The Tooks do not have fairie blood. There is no such thing as fairies in all of – "
"But how do you know, love, if you'd never even seen an Elf or a Dwarf until a few weeks ago? There could plenty of other peoples in Middle-earth that we've never heard of. And if there were elves or fairies in your bloodline, that wouldn't be something to be ashamed of, would it?"
"It's sour old gossip," said Pippin.
"Just old stories," said Merry, "and I always thought the idea was charming, if a bit far-fetched. But I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you. Tell us, what did the nightingale lead him to?"
Pippin frowned.
"Be angry at me if you like," said Merry, "but tell us the end for Boromir's sake, would you?"
"A gathering of wood-elves," Pippin grumbled.
"Right, and what did they do?" Merry coaxed.
"Well, they treated him to a great feast, of course."
"So it was good he trusted the nightingale."
"Yes, for a little songbird is a poor meal, and a nightingale won't sing if you trap it in a cage, but if you let it fly free it will be fine company on the journey and will lead you to greater treasures."
"Is that the end?" said Merry.
"Yes," said Pippin. "I supposed it seemed more exciting when I heard it as a boy, back when I hadn't ever seen an Elf or eaten any of their food."
"Were you disappointed by the real thing?"
"Of course not! And I haven't been disappointed by their feasts either! It's just, well, it's all more familiar now, isn't it. It's part of real life."
"Well I think it's a fine story."
"Well, it ought to be, since it's true."
"All right, but I still think Bard the Took might have got up to more among the elves than eating their food." Merry grinned and Pippin might have pounced on him then if he hadn't still been a bit nervous about falling out of the tree.
Just then Sam came to fetch them, for it seemed there was a decision that had to be taken, and Aragorn thought they should all speak of it together. They had a tricky job getting from one flet to the other to reach their meeting place, but Pippin was glad to have his friends with him.
He noticed that Boromir hadn't said anything about the end of the story.
***
*
Such requests – for songs and tales – seemed to come out of nowhere after hours in which no words passed between them. Pippin stood straight and tall and still, hoping not to be noticed, which was an unfamiliar attitude for him. Captains, messengers, and advisors came and went. Gandalf was there most of the time, leaning close and trying to offer council, and Denethor seemed to make a show of ignoring him, speaking and listening to his other advisors instead. He could not truly ignore the wizard, of course, was plainly aware and resentful of his presence at every moment, but the disdain, the rudeness, had a rationale and Pippin feared it was working as Denethor wished – angering Gandalf to the point where he would storm away, speaking to the Steward less and less.
The way he ignored Pippin was less purposeful and more real. Easier too, Pippin thought, since he was small and meek and quiet (small as he'd never felt, even in the company of great men like Aragorn and Boromir, meek and quiet as he'd never acted in his life). For long periods he seemed to forget that Pippin was there, standing off in a corner or a few feet away from that great chair, which was still not quite a throne. The Steward gave all his attention to the other Men of Gondor. Several times, when the two of them were alone in the hall, he held in his lap the broken pieces of the horn that had belonged to Boromir, and he spoke out loud, words of bitterness and regret and pleas for forgiveness, things Pippin was sure he wasn't supposed to hear. At those times he was especially careful to hold very still, not to disturb the father whose grief might so easily turn to anger, as he had seen happen when Denethor spoke to Gandalf.
His shifts of mood were sudden and unpredictable, and so were his shifts of attention. At times he would focus all his curiosity or all his authority on his halfling esquire, asking him for tales of his homeland, customs of his people.
But after their first meeting he never asked about the quest, about Frodo and the Ring, or about Boromir and his death. He seemed quite certain of his own knowledge of what had happened, though he never said how he knew.
Pippin knew that the pieces of that horn had washed up on the shores of the Anduin, beneath the great Falls.
*
***
Merry had always disapproved of Pippin's irrationality on the subject of boats. If Frodo Baggins didn't mind rowing, he said, after everything that had happened to him, then Pippin, a Took who claimed to want adventures, had no business clinging to the land like some superstitious old Chubb.
Floating down the Anduin, with fast wide water on all sides and no control over where they went or how fast, filled Pippin with dread, and yet he recognized that they were safer in the water than on the land. He hated the strange noises coming from both shores. Even more he hated Boromir's sullen silence since they'd left Lórien. He shivered.
"What is it?" said Merry, leaning forward and touching his shoulder. "Did you hear something?"
"No," said Pippin, "I felt something, I think."
"Don't fret," said Merry, reaching to touch his hand from where he sat behind him. "We'll be all right as long as we stay together."
Pippin did not say that this was precisely what worried him. All the time they'd been on this journey – and even before, all the time they'd been planning their Conspiracy – that had been the point, hadn't it? To stick together, to help each other. It had always seemed like a good idea, the most important thing. But now there were whispered arguments about which way to go, and Pippin knew that they could not all come to an agreement, that somehow they would have to separate. He hoped he might stay with Frodo and Sam and Merry, no matter what else happened, but he was afraid it could not be so. Apart from that, he worried that staying together was no longer the best for them, for Frodo. He had watched Boromir watching Frodo and the Ring all the time they'd travelled together, and he knew that Boromir's gaze had got hungrier, bolder, as time went on and discord grew among the Company.
Frodo, meanwhile, had withdrawn more into himself since Moria, and now there was mistrust and covetousness in his eyes whether he looked at Boromir or at Legolas or even Pippin.
"I'm sorry, Merry," said Pippin. "I don't mean put everyone on edge. Just these blasted boats I've never got used to."
"That's all right," said Merry, "only natural."
Pippin thought he must look a terrible fright if Merry wasn't willing to lecture him or even tease him.
"It's too quiet," Merry announced, "and you never did tell us your version of the story, Boromir."
"What?"
"The labourer and the nightingale. Surely the version you heard as a boy didn't end with a Took coming upon a gathering of Elves, or a fairie ring either."
Boromir laughed softly and without joy. "No, it did not. The nightingale was far too selfish for that."
"How did it go," said Merry, "tell us from the beginning." And he touched Pippin's arm, soothing him.
"It begins much the same way. A labourer went out walking in the woods. I do not know that he became lost, but he was journeying for a very long time, and when he came upon the nightingale he was both lonely and hungry. He caught the bird in his hand and he said, 'Now that I have you, I'll bring you home, and you shall always sing for me.' But the bird sang to him and said, 'We nightingales never sing in a cage.'"
"That's very true," said Pippin. "Free creatures like to sing of their freedom. It's the same way with hobbits, I think. That's why we have so many good travelling songs."
"What did the man think of that?" Merry asked.
"He was angry, for he thought the bird was stubborn. He said, 'If you won't sing for me, then I'll eat you.' And he grasped it tighter in his hand, ready to crush it."
Pippin was sitting at the front of the boat, and he daren't turn around for fear of upsetting their balance or upsetting the storyteller, but he was filled with tension and wanted to look at Boromir's face, to know just what he felt when he threatened to crush the helpless bird. Merry's hand that had been stroking Pippin's arm to calm it had grown tense and tight as well.
Boromir continued, "'If you kill me,' said the nightingale, 'you'll have a few bites to eat, not enough to satisfy your hunger. But let me go free, and I'll give you three gifts of far greater worth than my poor body.'" Boromir paused. "And perhaps he sang the same song as your ancestor's friend, "Believe me," and it was so lovely that the man did, and he let him go. Then the nightingale flew up to a branch of a tree, out of his reach, and he said, 'Now I shall give you three pieces of advice, each worth more than the flesh of a songbird: First, never believe a captive's promise. Second, keep what you have and don't let it out of your grasp. And third, sorrow not over what is lost forever.' Then the nightingale flew away."
"Lucky thing, that," said Pippin, breathing a sigh of relief.. "I'm glad the poor bird was clever enough to escape."
"Ah, but that is not the meaning we find in the story," said Boromir. "After all, the labourer went hungry."
"He deserved to go hungry," said Pippin, "if he could not appreciate good music."
"The moral, as my nurse told it, was just what the bird said: 'Keep what you have.' Don't let what's precious escape just because it offers you promises of something better down the road."
Merry was still stroking Pippin's arm and Pippin was grateful for that touch. He thought how horrible he should feel if he were to lose his Merry and his other friends, and he said, "I suppose there's something to that. But I do think there are better ways of keeping what you have."
"What do you mean?" said Boromir.
"Your labourer wanted to trap the bird in a cage or crush it in his fist. I don't think he could have kept his good company or his lovely song that way. He could instead have been a good friend, kept the bird's trust rather than its little body. And then he'd have had the nightingale's company and its song and whatever other treasures it might lead him to. It's not necessary to choose between one and another."
"I fear that sometimes it is," said Boromir.
Pippin turned around in the boat to see the look on his face, only to see that he was looking off to the side, toward the other small boat where Frodo sat with Aragorn and Sam. His gaze was narrow.
"It's no use," Pippin said when they reached the shore and Boromir had moved away from them. "It's the way he was brought up, we won't be able to change his way of thinking."
"Perhaps not," said Merry, "but that's no reason to stop trying."
***
*
"Well?" said Denethor, and Pippin hoped he would not be admonished for letting his own attention wander.
"Yes, my lord?"
"Is there some tale of your people that you would tell me?"
"Yes, sir. Perhaps you've not heard the tale of the Took and the nightingale..."
waymeet fic and art exchange! I'm really pleased because it goes along with something I've been meaning to write for a while but needed the motivation to get done (though I shall have to be careful to keep it within the Rules). Hooray for challenge communities and deadlines! Here is a repost of my fic for the previous Waymeet challenge.Title: If I Keep You Beside Me
Author:
sophinisbaChallenge: Written for the
waymeet Fabled Fellowship challenge.Characters: Pippin. Also Boromir, Denethor, and Merry.
Rating: G
Words: 4341
Summary: Pippin, Boromir, and Denethor have different ways of keeping what they hold dear.
Notes: My fable, "The Labourer and the Nightingale", is told by Boromir in this story, borrowing some of the language from this version. The moral is Keep what you have.
Thanks to
danachan for her help with this story (and all my Pippin fics).- "What would you do in my service?"
"I thought, sir, that you would tell me my duties."
"I will, when I learn what you are fit for," said Denethor. "But that I shall learn soonest, maybe, if I keep you beside me. The esquire of my chamber has begged leave to go to the out-garrison, so you shall take his place for a while. You shall wait on me, bear errands, and talk to me, if war and council leave me any leisure. Can you sing?"
Pippin thought if he were commanded to sing then he would have to do it, whether the song seemed fit for Denethor's hall or not. But being ordered to sing, oh, there was something very strange in that, and he thought that would make it even harder
Nightingales never sing in a cage, he thought, but then he put the thought out of his mind. It wasn't quite fair, was it? He'd offered himself for this service, after all. But he didn't think he was doing a very good job with it so far.
Now Frodo, who had spent all that time with Bilbo and had learned a lot of different kinds of poetry and song, if he were here he'd have a much better idea of how to satisfy the Steward.
Certainly it wasn't the first time he'd wished Frodo were still here. On the other hand, he couldn't very well wish that he were in Frodo's place and Frodo in his, since he had complete faith in Frodo to do what needed to be done in his journey through Mordor, whereas Pippin would be lost there, even more of a failure as Ring-bearer than he was as esquire to the Steward. Besides that, if they'd switched places, they'd still be apart.
But if they were here together, and if they had a chance to discuss things a bit, Frodo could help him choose a good song, maybe one of those old Elvish poems that Bilbo had translated into the common tongue and set to an easier tune. They would sing together then, and Pippin would sing louder, since he had the stronger voice, but Frodo would help him remember the words.
*
***
He remembered when he and Merry had told Boromir of their first night in Bree. They were on their way through the mines of Moria and doing their best to remember that they'd been through difficult and scary times before and had come out all right, had even managed to keep cheerful and singing through most of it.
Boromir hadn't believed them at first.
"On top of the table!" said Pippin
"Frodo, the terribly serious hobbit who's been walking with us since Rivendell?" With his head Boromir nodded toward where Frodo and Gandalf walked ahead of them, speaking low and close. "Frodo was singing about a cow and the moon?"
"And dancing!" Pippin insisted.
"Oh, I would give much to see such a thing."
"I was a bit sorry to have missed it myself," said Merry. "Unfortunately I was otherwise engaged at the time, and I don't believe he'll do it again, not until we've got the rest of this business sorted. But I am quite sure it's true. Sam confirms it and Sam wouldn't lie."
"Except when he's lying to Frodo for Frodo's own good," said Pippin, not bothering to complain that Merry apparently trusted Sam's word over his. Understandable, that, if you thought about it.
"But were you not aware of the importance of – "
"Secrecy, of course," said Merry. "But it took a while for all of that to sink in, and this was before we'd seen the Black Riders up close, you see. And we hobbits would rather have a good song and a meal and a smoke than cower quietly in the darkness."
Pippin smiled, watching the path ahead of him in the pale light of Gandalf's staff as they walked.
"Frodo's a fine singer," Merry continued, "a much better voice than mine, for sure, or than Sam. But Pippin's got the sweetest voice of all of us."
"Is that right?"
"Oh," said Pippin, who knew his blush couldn't be seen in the dark but felt hot and ridiculous anyway. "Er."
"Well, let's hear you then."
"I don't know." Normally he didn't mind showing off for Boromir, but this situation wasn't right, didn't make him feel like singing at all.
"Come on then, Pip," said Merry.
"Aren't we meant to be stealthy and secretive?" He glanced ahead of them at Gandalf, engaged in his conversation with Frodo, and behind at Aragorn, whose face was hidden in shadow and told him nothing.
"Oh, I hardly think a little song will bring the enemy down on our heads," said Merry. "Come, I'll sing with you."
And he did, and dropped out after the first few lines, as notes rose higher. Gimli, who'd been instructing Legolas and Sam on the skills of the dwarvish delvers, also fell silent to listen. And Frodo and Gandalf turned back to look at them, and Frodo smiled. Pippin didn't like the way his voice echoed in the black corridors, but if Gandalf had wanted them to be quiet he'd have said, so he sang louder and clearer and found he wasn't embarrassed anymore, just a little out of breath as they kept walking along, and Merry squeezed his hand. The four hobbits sang the last chorus together and Pippin thought Gandalf and Aragorn just might be humming along.
"It lightens my heart to hear your simple, bright song in this dark place," Boromir said when they were finished. "For all I questioned the wisdom bringing four Halflings along on this journey, I am glad now to have all of you here."
***
*
"Now that I have you here to myself," Denethor said at one point, even though there were in fact guards and other men present, "and since you seem so reluctant to sing me a song, I would have you tell me a story. Who are your people, master hobbit? Where do they come from, and do they know of the House of the Stewards in your country?"
*
***
"Let's have a story then," said Pippin, "an old-fashioned one, like we tell in the Shire," because the Elves of Lórien treated them well and sang beautifully, but that didn't stop his grief or his worry or his longing for home.
With time they had grown used to sitting on the flets high up in the trees. It still seemed strange to Pippin to be so high off the ground, and he and the other hobbits chose not to sit too close to the edge, but they were also able to think and talk of other things, and to appreciate the beauty of the place.
Today he and Merry were sitting with Boromir, as so often seemed to happen. In the early days after Rivendell Pippin had been quite delighted with this man and hadn't understood why Frodo chose to keep his distance. He'd encouraged Frodo and Sam to join in their conversations, their songs, their timid attempts to learn sword craft. But increasingly he'd come to dislike the way Boromir watched Frodo. He'd come to feel it was his and Merry's job to stand between them, protect their cousin. Oh, they'd be friendly about it – they'd keep on with the songs and the stories and the laughter, but they had a double purpose now. It made him feel good to be helping, but at the same time he felt rather dishonest.
"If you've got such a good idea of what kind of story you want," said Merry, "I think you should be the one to tell it."
"Very well then, let's have the story of the Took and the nightingale."
"Is this the story of the labourer who caught the nightingale?" said Boromir. "I heard that one when I was a boy."
"No, I don't think so," said Pippin. "It does talk of catching a nightingale, but it's the story of a Shire-hobbit, and it's true, so I can't think how it would have come to Gondor."
"These old family stories," Merry said quietly, "your aunt or your grandmother might have told you they're all true and she might believe it herself, but you find versions of them all over the place. Remember in Rivendell, when the Elves told that tale that sounded just like the tale of the stonecutter, only with more poetry and more fighting?"
"This is different," said Pippin, "this is my ancestor Bard the Took – who I wouldn't call a labourer, Boromir, although I'm sure he worked in his own fields like any good landowner."
"Let's hear it then," said Boromir. "And when you finish I'll tell you about my labourer and we can decide whose story sounds more true."
Pippin frowned. "Well, all right. I should say that this happened a very, very long time ago, before we Tooks had a Thain – "
"And before you gave yourselves such grand names," said Merry.
"That too. But Bard was set to become the head of the family when he got older, so he was still a very important hobbit."
"I don't understand," said Boromir. "What is a Thain? Is it the ruler of your people?"
"Oh, no," said Pippin, "we don't have rulers, you know."
"You don't..."
"Haven't had any need for them in all the time anyone can remember."
"But you could say that the Thain is the closest thing we have to a ruler," said Merry.
"You could, if you didn't understand hobbits at all."
"Pip." Merry gave him his disapproving face, the one with the narrowed eyebrows, as if Pippin were a lad again and had said something inappropriate to an aunt.
"Well, you don't want Boromir to think that we live in our own kingdom with a ruler who doesn't care about the King, do you?"
"Do you mean to say that the Thain is carrying out the King's wishes in your territory?" said Boromir.
"Well, not quite. The idea is, the King is our ruler and we are his subjects, but the King is also very far away –and possibly not even aware of us! The Thain can't carry out the King's wishes, as much as he might like to, because he doesn't know what they are."
"But none of that matters since you're telling an old tale from before there was any such thing," said Merry. "So get on with it, please!"
Pippin rolled his eyes. "I don't see that there's any hurry as long as we're here, but since you so enjoy ordering me around, I'll tell you: there was this young Took called Bard who went to see his friends in Buckland and after that kept on walking into the Old Forest. In those days the Shire-hobbits – and especially the Tooks, of course – had a lot more contact with people from outside our borders, and Bard had the idea was that he might look for a wife in Bree-land, and might do some exploring and adventuring on the way. He was travelling alone, and as he walked deeper into the forest the sun went down and it grew quite dark, and he started to lose his path."
"You should have told this story while we were trying to make our way through the Old Forest," said Merry. "If it ends happily, that is. If it ends badly I'm glad you didn't bring it up then."
"What kind of a Took are you, Merry? Don't you know this story?"
"I'm a Brandybuck, and I know there are a lot of different versions."
"Well, this is the one my aunt Adamanta told me, so it must be true."
"Of course."
"Right then. This young hobbit became terribly lost. He couldn't see the path or know where to go forward or to turn back, and he started hearing the noises of wild animals. But then he heard the sweet voice of a songbird, a nightingale. It was sitting right there in front of him on a tree branch, close enough for him to reach out and grab it."
"So it is in the story I know too!" said Boromir. "The labourer thought he'd catch the nightingale and have it to eat, since he'd been lost for so long and hadn't anything to eat!"
"Ah, but I told you," said Pippin, "this is not the same tale you know, for I am talking about a hobbit, who would never kill a songbird." He hoped he didn't sound too harsh, but really Boromir's idea was absurd and had given him a bad feeling. "Bard was just happy to have some company in this dark forest, and to hear a sound that didn't frighten him. At first it just sounded like music and he couldn't understand the meaning, but already the sound gave him hope because it was so lovely, so he walked toward where he heard it and sang along, for he had always liked a good walking tune."
"The nightingale led him back to the path?" said Merry.
"Not quite. Led him to another path, a smaller one that was harder to see by daylight but where the moonlight filtered in somehow. There were low plants along the path but they were soft under his feet. He knew this wasn't the main path that would take him out of the forest to Bree, but he'd been listening to the nightingale's voice all this time and he thought he was starting to understand words in it. What used to sound like simple birdsong" – and Pippin whistled three notes to demonstrate, the middle one higher and longer – "now sounded like, 'Believe me! Believe me!'"
Merry smiled. As much as he teased, he always did love to hear Pippin's stories.
But Boromir was caught up in what might happen next. "A trick," he guessed.
"Not at all!" said Pippin. "He kept going, and when the sun had gone completely and the moon was high in the sky the path opened up into a clearing in the wood."
"A fairie ring," said Merry
"Most certainly not," said Pippin. "Why, Merry, I never thought you were one to go repeating those ridiculous old – "
"Calm down, Pippin, it's only a story!"
"The Tooks do not have fairie blood. There is no such thing as fairies in all of – "
"But how do you know, love, if you'd never even seen an Elf or a Dwarf until a few weeks ago? There could plenty of other peoples in Middle-earth that we've never heard of. And if there were elves or fairies in your bloodline, that wouldn't be something to be ashamed of, would it?"
"It's sour old gossip," said Pippin.
"Just old stories," said Merry, "and I always thought the idea was charming, if a bit far-fetched. But I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you. Tell us, what did the nightingale lead him to?"
Pippin frowned.
"Be angry at me if you like," said Merry, "but tell us the end for Boromir's sake, would you?"
"A gathering of wood-elves," Pippin grumbled.
"Right, and what did they do?" Merry coaxed.
"Well, they treated him to a great feast, of course."
"So it was good he trusted the nightingale."
"Yes, for a little songbird is a poor meal, and a nightingale won't sing if you trap it in a cage, but if you let it fly free it will be fine company on the journey and will lead you to greater treasures."
"Is that the end?" said Merry.
"Yes," said Pippin. "I supposed it seemed more exciting when I heard it as a boy, back when I hadn't ever seen an Elf or eaten any of their food."
"Were you disappointed by the real thing?"
"Of course not! And I haven't been disappointed by their feasts either! It's just, well, it's all more familiar now, isn't it. It's part of real life."
"Well I think it's a fine story."
"Well, it ought to be, since it's true."
"All right, but I still think Bard the Took might have got up to more among the elves than eating their food." Merry grinned and Pippin might have pounced on him then if he hadn't still been a bit nervous about falling out of the tree.
Just then Sam came to fetch them, for it seemed there was a decision that had to be taken, and Aragorn thought they should all speak of it together. They had a tricky job getting from one flet to the other to reach their meeting place, but Pippin was glad to have his friends with him.
He noticed that Boromir hadn't said anything about the end of the story.
***
*
Such requests – for songs and tales – seemed to come out of nowhere after hours in which no words passed between them. Pippin stood straight and tall and still, hoping not to be noticed, which was an unfamiliar attitude for him. Captains, messengers, and advisors came and went. Gandalf was there most of the time, leaning close and trying to offer council, and Denethor seemed to make a show of ignoring him, speaking and listening to his other advisors instead. He could not truly ignore the wizard, of course, was plainly aware and resentful of his presence at every moment, but the disdain, the rudeness, had a rationale and Pippin feared it was working as Denethor wished – angering Gandalf to the point where he would storm away, speaking to the Steward less and less.
The way he ignored Pippin was less purposeful and more real. Easier too, Pippin thought, since he was small and meek and quiet (small as he'd never felt, even in the company of great men like Aragorn and Boromir, meek and quiet as he'd never acted in his life). For long periods he seemed to forget that Pippin was there, standing off in a corner or a few feet away from that great chair, which was still not quite a throne. The Steward gave all his attention to the other Men of Gondor. Several times, when the two of them were alone in the hall, he held in his lap the broken pieces of the horn that had belonged to Boromir, and he spoke out loud, words of bitterness and regret and pleas for forgiveness, things Pippin was sure he wasn't supposed to hear. At those times he was especially careful to hold very still, not to disturb the father whose grief might so easily turn to anger, as he had seen happen when Denethor spoke to Gandalf.
His shifts of mood were sudden and unpredictable, and so were his shifts of attention. At times he would focus all his curiosity or all his authority on his halfling esquire, asking him for tales of his homeland, customs of his people.
But after their first meeting he never asked about the quest, about Frodo and the Ring, or about Boromir and his death. He seemed quite certain of his own knowledge of what had happened, though he never said how he knew.
Pippin knew that the pieces of that horn had washed up on the shores of the Anduin, beneath the great Falls.
*
***
Merry had always disapproved of Pippin's irrationality on the subject of boats. If Frodo Baggins didn't mind rowing, he said, after everything that had happened to him, then Pippin, a Took who claimed to want adventures, had no business clinging to the land like some superstitious old Chubb.
Floating down the Anduin, with fast wide water on all sides and no control over where they went or how fast, filled Pippin with dread, and yet he recognized that they were safer in the water than on the land. He hated the strange noises coming from both shores. Even more he hated Boromir's sullen silence since they'd left Lórien. He shivered.
"What is it?" said Merry, leaning forward and touching his shoulder. "Did you hear something?"
"No," said Pippin, "I felt something, I think."
"Don't fret," said Merry, reaching to touch his hand from where he sat behind him. "We'll be all right as long as we stay together."
Pippin did not say that this was precisely what worried him. All the time they'd been on this journey – and even before, all the time they'd been planning their Conspiracy – that had been the point, hadn't it? To stick together, to help each other. It had always seemed like a good idea, the most important thing. But now there were whispered arguments about which way to go, and Pippin knew that they could not all come to an agreement, that somehow they would have to separate. He hoped he might stay with Frodo and Sam and Merry, no matter what else happened, but he was afraid it could not be so. Apart from that, he worried that staying together was no longer the best for them, for Frodo. He had watched Boromir watching Frodo and the Ring all the time they'd travelled together, and he knew that Boromir's gaze had got hungrier, bolder, as time went on and discord grew among the Company.
Frodo, meanwhile, had withdrawn more into himself since Moria, and now there was mistrust and covetousness in his eyes whether he looked at Boromir or at Legolas or even Pippin.
"I'm sorry, Merry," said Pippin. "I don't mean put everyone on edge. Just these blasted boats I've never got used to."
"That's all right," said Merry, "only natural."
Pippin thought he must look a terrible fright if Merry wasn't willing to lecture him or even tease him.
"It's too quiet," Merry announced, "and you never did tell us your version of the story, Boromir."
"What?"
"The labourer and the nightingale. Surely the version you heard as a boy didn't end with a Took coming upon a gathering of Elves, or a fairie ring either."
Boromir laughed softly and without joy. "No, it did not. The nightingale was far too selfish for that."
"How did it go," said Merry, "tell us from the beginning." And he touched Pippin's arm, soothing him.
"It begins much the same way. A labourer went out walking in the woods. I do not know that he became lost, but he was journeying for a very long time, and when he came upon the nightingale he was both lonely and hungry. He caught the bird in his hand and he said, 'Now that I have you, I'll bring you home, and you shall always sing for me.' But the bird sang to him and said, 'We nightingales never sing in a cage.'"
"That's very true," said Pippin. "Free creatures like to sing of their freedom. It's the same way with hobbits, I think. That's why we have so many good travelling songs."
"What did the man think of that?" Merry asked.
"He was angry, for he thought the bird was stubborn. He said, 'If you won't sing for me, then I'll eat you.' And he grasped it tighter in his hand, ready to crush it."
Pippin was sitting at the front of the boat, and he daren't turn around for fear of upsetting their balance or upsetting the storyteller, but he was filled with tension and wanted to look at Boromir's face, to know just what he felt when he threatened to crush the helpless bird. Merry's hand that had been stroking Pippin's arm to calm it had grown tense and tight as well.
Boromir continued, "'If you kill me,' said the nightingale, 'you'll have a few bites to eat, not enough to satisfy your hunger. But let me go free, and I'll give you three gifts of far greater worth than my poor body.'" Boromir paused. "And perhaps he sang the same song as your ancestor's friend, "Believe me," and it was so lovely that the man did, and he let him go. Then the nightingale flew up to a branch of a tree, out of his reach, and he said, 'Now I shall give you three pieces of advice, each worth more than the flesh of a songbird: First, never believe a captive's promise. Second, keep what you have and don't let it out of your grasp. And third, sorrow not over what is lost forever.' Then the nightingale flew away."
"Lucky thing, that," said Pippin, breathing a sigh of relief.. "I'm glad the poor bird was clever enough to escape."
"Ah, but that is not the meaning we find in the story," said Boromir. "After all, the labourer went hungry."
"He deserved to go hungry," said Pippin, "if he could not appreciate good music."
"The moral, as my nurse told it, was just what the bird said: 'Keep what you have.' Don't let what's precious escape just because it offers you promises of something better down the road."
Merry was still stroking Pippin's arm and Pippin was grateful for that touch. He thought how horrible he should feel if he were to lose his Merry and his other friends, and he said, "I suppose there's something to that. But I do think there are better ways of keeping what you have."
"What do you mean?" said Boromir.
"Your labourer wanted to trap the bird in a cage or crush it in his fist. I don't think he could have kept his good company or his lovely song that way. He could instead have been a good friend, kept the bird's trust rather than its little body. And then he'd have had the nightingale's company and its song and whatever other treasures it might lead him to. It's not necessary to choose between one and another."
"I fear that sometimes it is," said Boromir.
Pippin turned around in the boat to see the look on his face, only to see that he was looking off to the side, toward the other small boat where Frodo sat with Aragorn and Sam. His gaze was narrow.
"It's no use," Pippin said when they reached the shore and Boromir had moved away from them. "It's the way he was brought up, we won't be able to change his way of thinking."
"Perhaps not," said Merry, "but that's no reason to stop trying."
***
*
"Well?" said Denethor, and Pippin hoped he would not be admonished for letting his own attention wander.
"Yes, my lord?"
"Is there some tale of your people that you would tell me?"
"Yes, sir. Perhaps you've not heard the tale of the Took and the nightingale..."
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