|
While Linnéa discussed the merits of various rooms with Bethberry, Brokhelm found himself losing track of the conversation soon after he had stated that any rooms away from Garreth’s and Harreld’s would be preferable, so they too be staying there. His attention, persistently drifting, shifted in part to the emerging story of Gob and Twiddle and in part the familiar voice of his sister asking if any rooms were to be had nearer to their horses. But his eyes rested on Falco, watching his expressions and ways, as Eodwine told his story.
Brokhelm had not seen many hobbits, as they called themselves. This one was the third, if an exact reckoning was required of him, and the last he saw some time ago, the day his friend Anwyl died.
As if reading his mind, Eodwine began a second tale that took his subjects into the very land of the halflings, the Shire, a place that Brokhelm had heard of, but didn’t know. He wondered if the hobbit might take up the story from there, and he might then learn more of his far off homeland. But at the mention of Sharkey, he saw the hobbit frown. Growing curious Brokhelm asked who this Sharkey was, for he had heard that the name was used once in Isengard.
“An old neighbor of yours,” the hobbit answered him. “The Riddermark wasn’t the only land old Saruman worked his mischief in.”
“Ah, then I don’t think that Sharkey will find much use in Gob or Twiddle, though he might like to think himself the master of them. Let us hope they cause the treacherous old man’s foot to slip and not the reverse. My apologies for interrupting your tale, master story teller, do go on.”
|