The Horse Thief

They stopped for the night in an abandoned village. Merry and Pippin hung on the peredhel's arms begging for another story as Sam began to cook supper.

"Here's a story I would like to hear," Boromir said darkly. "Who are you?" The camp went silent suddenly as all turned to listen. Of the Fellowship only Gandalf knew the about the drover.

"My name is Falenor," he said at last. "That's all you need to know."

"On the contrary," the Gondorian argued. "If we are going to Mount Doom together I think we have a right to know more than that!" Falenor merely snorted in response and tossed his head so that his hair flopped out of his eyes.

"I don't think that Falenor believes we will make it to Mount Doom," Gandalf said, filling his pipe with tobacco.

"Not all together and not all in one piece," Falenor said.

"And who are you to know of such things?" Boromir pressed.

"Falenor is a horse thief," Gandalf said, lighting his pipe. The entire Fellowship save for the wizard turned disbelieving eyes on Falenor.

"A horse thief?" Boromir said, shocked. "Lord Elrond goes to such lengths to get a horse thief into the Fellowship?"

"Yes, Lord Elrond did!" Legolas said, leaping to Falenor's defense.

"He is more likely to steal our swords from our scabbards than to use that dagger in our aid!" Boromir insisted. Frodo's hand flew to check the Ring, but he found it safe on its chain.

"Horse thief," Falenor said quietly. "Not sword thief. Horse thief. And don't worry about Bill, I only steal full-bloods."

"Full-blooded what?" Merry asked.

"Rhaw Nur," Falenor answered. "The wild breed descended from Uricon the Merka Fea. Bill is a half-breed."

"What's Uricon?" Pippin inquired.

"That is an even longer story than the Wind Ponies," Falenor said. "Ask me some other time. Boromir wants to accuse me of something right now."

"I ask only for what is necessary to defend my people," the Gondorian captain insisted.

"So do I." Silence hung thick in the air as Boromir and Falenor regarded each other. Finally the captain inclined his head slightly to Falenor as they reached some unspoken understanding.

"Well, stealing's not so bad," Pippin piped up from where he sat. "Merry and I have stolen loads of times!"

"Pippin!" Merry groaned as he elbowed his cousin's side.

"What do you steal?" Falenor asked, turning to look at the hobbits with his crooked smile tugging at his lips.

"Well, Farmer Maggot's crops mostly," Pippin said lifting his hand and counting off. "Carrots, cabbages, mushrooms, and something else..."

"Potatoes," Frodo offered with a smile, recalling that day.

"Do you steal, too, Master Frodo?" Falenor said with a smile. Frodo blushed deeply and tried to babble out a negative.

"Mister Frodo'd never steal a thing!" Sam rushed to his defense. "He's a good respectable hobbit!"

"Well, I don't really classify what I do as stealing, either," Falenor said. "The Rhaw Nur belong with me. I merely make a profit off this fact."

"You could try not selling them," Gandalf offered. "Rather than letting unsuspecting people buy ponies that are trained to break out of their stalls and return to you." Falenor shrugged as Merry and Pippin looked at him in awe. The drover's eyes met Aragorn's and stayed there.

"Well?" Falenor asked.

"Well what?" Aragorn replied, confused.

"Aren't you going to arrest me?"

"What for?"

"Stealing." Aragorn considered for a moment. It was not a ranger's business to arrest thieves, though most would. He remembered almost ten years ago when Halbarad had picked up a horse thief...

"That was you father, wasn't it?" Aragorn asked, remembering the jet black hair and blue eyes of the thief so many years ago. Falenor looked almost exactly like him, just a little slimmer and without the scruffy beard.

"He died in prison," Falenor said. "Being rusva, broken, killed him." The camp was silent again, but by now Sam had lit a fire and its crackling filled the air.

"If people are stupid enough to let the same man swindle them over and over again," Aragorn said at last. "Then they deserve to be cheated." At this Merry and Pippin cheered and Gimli breathed a sigh of relief.

"Are you happy, Master Dwarf?" Legolas asked.

"It would make things very awkward if we went around arresting each other," Gimli said, and the entire Fellowship laughed, even Falenor.

When night had truly fallen and supper had ended, Gandalf sat up taking the first watch. Falenor was also awake, and he stoked the fire with a stick.

"Didn't I sell you a pony?" the drover asked at last. The wizard nodded and his eyes twinkled. "A bay, thirteen hands, sock on left hind foot, white blaze," Falenor recited, remembering. "Where is he now?"

"I'm afraid I had to trade him."

"Was there something wrong with him?" Falenor asked, less a businessman concerned about his product than as a father worried about his son.

"No, but I needed a horse," Gandalf assured him. This answer seemed to satisfy Falenor and he gave the embers one last stir before he looked up again.

"How did you know I was a horse thief?"

"When you have lived three hundred years," the wizard chuckled. "You begin to recognize these things. As soon as you knew I was a wizard, you directed me away from a perfectly good horse and urged me to buy another."

"I don't want my more intelligent customers calling for my blood," Falenor admitted. "Usually I'm well away by the third night, which is when the ponies are trained to escaped, but someone might come along someday and figure me out. The pony you were looking at first, Merilin, was trained to escaped and return to me. The pony I sold you, Ferling, was just a normal pony."

"Very clever," Gandalf complimented.

"My father designed it, not me," Falenor said with a shrug. "Although the recent string of thefts in Bree and the surrounding countryside was all me. I only took the purebred Rhaw Nur."

"A little obsessed with breeding, are we?"

"I love all horses," Falenor said softly. "But to coax the pure line of the Merka Fea back into flame from the ashes," he shrugged. "I needed ones with at least three-quarters pure blood."