[Child of the 7th Age]

Andreth and Lilac:

Locking the common room and outside gate and then bidding good evening to the live-in maids who were scurrying off towards their bedchambers, Andreth pocketed the great iron key in her nightdress and hastily retreated to the family's private parlor. The Innkeeper sat huddled on a bench underneath the window listening to the wild winds and rain that now lashed unceasingly against the outer walls of the Pony. Gradually willing herself to relax, she turned her attention to the immediate task at hand, combing out her bobbing red curls and tying them back with a ribbon in preparation for retiring to bed.

As she did so, her mind drifted restlessly over the happenings of the past few days. Much had been accomplished. The burgeoning friendship between the two groups of children was evident both in the small dame school that she had founded and Berilac's project to rebuild the damaged hedge. Even Edmund was coming around. The hobbit ranger had explained how, that very afternoon, her own son and Kali had at least begun talking and seemed to share a certain fondness for animals.

Yet there was still much to be done. The task of gathering in the bounty from the farms had barely gotten under way. She hadn't been able to speak with Mayor Harald but Griffo and Tom had brought disturbing news earlier that evening. Some of the mannish farmers whose cots lay north of Bree not far from Staddle were reluctant to cooperate with the hobbits. One or two had even chased Griffo and his companions off their property with a string of invective and curses. Rumors circulating in the streets suggested that Tom Farroweed was responsible for this, speaking openly to anyone who would listen with the intention of arousing resentment against any plans calling for cooperative effort between the Big and Little Folk. Someone would have to devise a plan to counter this malicious gossip.

Andreth stood up and snuffed out the candle, pacing through the corridor to her own bedchamber when, much to her surprise, she heard a clanging noise from the front stoop where someone was pulling down insistently on the bell chain. Andreth glanced up puzzled since the great gates of Bree, now sturdily reinforced and carefully guarded, had already been secured for the night. Few would be out in weather like this unless some great necessity tugged at their sleeve. Suddenly, an insistent thumping was heard at the front of the Inn as if someone was whacking the door with a hearty stick.

Clutching a heavy candelabra overhead in her right hand, she hurried to the front gate. Bandits or not, she was Innkeeper of the Pony; the Inn would not turn anyone away in the midst of a storm. She peered out the front window into the inky blackness of the night and was just able to make out the hazy form of Lilac Greenhedge battering against the door with her sturdy cane. Andreth ran over and unlatched the gate, pulling an exhausted and bedraggled Lilac inside and immediately setting her in a chair close to the hearth to help drive the chill away. Then she ran over to the stables and, waking Ban, asked him to bed Lilac's horse in one of the stalls and pull the cart under the roof overhang where it would at least be sheltered from the worst of the downpour.

********************************************

The two women sat side-by-side sipping steaming cups of apple cider that Andreth had warmed in a pot over the hearth in her own bedchamber. The Innkeeper gazed at Lilac and vigorously shook her head, "I'll have no such talk. Of course, you're staying here. We have plenty of beds and warm food. Hopefully, by morning, things will calm down. Then, you can go home."

While the women conversed, there were omenous rumblings from outside the Inn, as thunderclouds boomed out their warning and the sky gleemed with periodic bursts of light. "I'd rather be home now," Lilac protested. "My cat will be hungry and hiding under the bed with all this nasty weather. But I suppose you're right. It's no time to be outside battling a storm."

"Certainly not!" Andreth heartily agreed and then peered intently at the older woman. No one knew when Lilac had been born but she was still hail and hearty and very stubborn, going her own way most of the time and asking for help from few. Still, what was Lilac doing out on a night as grim as this?

"If you don't mind me asking...."

"I do mind!" came the sharp retort. "But I suppose I may as well tell you. I hitched up Strawberry and drove out this morning into the Chetwood hoping to find that encampment to see if there was anything I could do to help."

Andreth's mouth fell open as she took in the meaning of her friend's words. "Lilac Greenhedge, have you lost your mind? What if you had actually found those men? You would have been robbed or maybe skewered in two."

"Robbed?" the old woman chuckled. "The only thing I have worth stealing is Strawberry. And she would run home at the first chance she had. Anyways, I aimed to bring them a piece of good news..."

"And what good news would that be?"

Lilac's answer came in a hesitent, gentle voice, "That they don't have to be afraid of us. That we can live together. There's enough room on the hills around Bree for them to come and settle here and help us build the town."

Andreth's face went taut and white as she listened to Lilac's words. "How could you ever say that? They're bandits. The same kind of people who killed my husband. Why would we ever want folk like that?"

"You're so sure, Andreth Woolthistle! Well, I've lived a few years longer than you, and I'm not so sure. Maybe all these folks want is a place to settle down. From what I understand, they lost their homes to maruaders in the mountains. Everyone is so busy fixing hedges and strengthening gates and preparing for battle that no one can even take one minute to go sit down with them and talk."

"You're talking nonsense," Andreth objected. "If you came within a mile of these folk, they'd shoot you through with arrows. That is, after they stole everything you had."

"Maybe it is nonsense," Lilac sighed. "The Mayor thought so too when I spoke with him." The woman sounded wistful. "Maybe it is just the whisperings of a sad heart that has lived too long and seen too many folk suffer. But, mark my words, this will come at a price! There will be folk hurt and dying on both sides. From what I hear, these aren't just men; they are a small band preparing the way for a larger group with women and children. How would you feel seeing a child die?"

Lilac glared intently at Andreth, her eyes shaded in grief as she pled her cause. "We still have a chance to stop this, Andreth...you and I. If someone spoke up and made the others listen.... One last chance before things get so far out of control that there'll be no going back."

Andreth stopped for a moment and listened to the beating of the rain. She stared out into the blackness of the night and shook her head, "Maybe you are right. I don't know. And it would tear my heart to see a little one die. But things have gone too far for me to turn back, and the others feel that way as well. I must defend my home and child, or I will end up the one without a place to call my own. Even the hobbits feel that way."

Lilac turned away and lowered her head, staring at the golden embers that still smouldered in the bottom of the grate. One more instant and the embers had crumbled, turning into dull grey ash. The chance had slipped away.

For a single instant, Andreth lingered and lovingly placed her hand on top of Lilac's tousled silver curls; then, she slipped out the door into the corridor, leaving the older woman to her own bed and room. For some reason, once she stepped into the grey shadows of the hallway, her eyes began to fill with tears. She whispered fiercely to herself, "I'm sorry, Lilac. For me, there is no other way. Yet that mother who lost her home and village.....perhaps, she feels that way too....."

She forcibly pushed the thought out of her mind and went alone to her study where she kept a bedroll for such emergencies, all the while grieving for the soft warmth and comfort that her husband Bergil had once brought into her home.

[ November 21, 2003: Message edited by: Child of the 7th Age ]