In the Shadow of the Star: Part 1

[piosenniel]

Supper was ready – Cook’s honeyed wheat bread sliced and waiting in small baskets; the salted butter in chilled crocks. Harvest stew tonight, thick with chunks of potato and vegetables from the garden. The mingled scents of onion, rosemary, and lemon thyme crept through the kitchen, sending beckoning fingers of savory scent into the Common Room to call the guests to eat. Several plump, sweet apple pies cooled on the sideboard, little puffs of cinnamon and sugared steam drifting up from them, a promise of delight to fill in the last empty corners.

Cook sat at the table, her job done, watching Ruby and Buttercup cart stacks of thick crockery bowls and plates out in readiness for the supper rush. Prim sat with her, polishing the last of the water spots from the spoons and knives. Buttercup paused by the large cauldron of stew and gave it a quick stir with the long wooden spoon. She peered in at it, and fished up a few spoons full, looking at it closely. ‘Cook, you’ve for gotten something I think.’

‘What would that be?’ Cook took a long swig of watered wine and put her tired feet up on the chair opposite her. ‘Meat!’ cried Buttercup, motioning Ruby over to confirm her find. ‘There’s not a speck of meat in it.’

‘And that’s exactly how it’s going to be served tonight,’ said Cook, ‘just the way Mistress Piosenniel would like it, had she been here to enjoy a bowl full.’ She looked over at Prim, her brows raised. ‘You going to tell him where she is?’ asked Cook. ‘I suppose I will if he asks me,’ returned Prim. 'She seems to like him well enough. And he does seem a good man at heart, if you catch my drift.’

‘Oh, aye, he’s a good’un in my estimation. Though I have to agree with Miz Amaranthas – he should never have let her come traipsing all the way here in her condition.’ Both of them chuckled at this statement, knowing he would have been hard put to keep her from doing what she wanted. Ruby and Buttercup, their chores done, sat down with them in that brief lull before the hungry guests demanded supper to listen to Cook and Prim discuss the Big Folk.

They were all eyes and ears as Cook leaned forward and spoke softly to Prim. ‘Ferdibrand was by today with a side of bacon from that big hog he got last year, and just butchered. Said he’d been to Bree-land recently looking for a breeder sow from one of the pig farmers there.’ Prim nodded, encouraging her to go on. ‘Said there was a lot of talk about certain Big Folk round about those parts who were grumbling and angry about how they’d been pushed about wrongly since the King’s Ban on them coming into the Shire. Crazy,mean talk about us cheating them out of their rightful due somehow.’ Ruby shuddered,her mind conjuring up visions of Men, seven feet tall with pointed yellow teeth, scraggly long, greasy hair, loud voices and mean expressions on their faces.

‘I wonder if Halfred knows about any of this,’ commented Prim. ‘Maybe he’d better see if he can find a few more volunteers to patrol round the Bounds. I can still remember old Sharkey’s men when they lorded it over us.’ She shuddered, recalling the misery and destruction visited on the families she knew in Hobbiton.

Their talk was cut short by one of the servers poking his head into the kitchen. ‘Got some hungry ones out here. Make up a tray and I’ll serve it round.’

The four of them swung into their well oiled routine, and soon had an army of steaming bowls set out on trays to carry into the Common Room. All talk of Men and their threats was put aside as bread and stew, and thick slices of apple pie with slices of crumbly cheddar were served up to the hungry mob.

[ March 15, 2003: Message edited by: piosenniel ]