CHAPTER XXI
In Which
Talks Are Concluded, and Owl Gets Back His Sitting Room.
"It's not fair, Owl," complained Roo. "Mummy said that we would be able to see the F.B.A., and there are two of them in there with Rabbit right now, and it is ever so much more than past four o'clock, and Tigger and I have been quiet as mice."
"Mmm-MMF," said Tigger. He was eating his fourth Extract of Malt sandwich, but his meaning was quite unmistakable.
Certainly Owl, wisest animal in the Hundred Acre Wood, could not have mistaken it, and he responded with sagacious equanimity: "My dear fellows, you must understand these things take time. Why, in the First Boer War Sir Evelyn Wood signed the armistice to end the war on 6 March 1881 and the peace treaty wasn't signed until 23 March, seventeen days later. And the final peace treaty, the Pretoria Convention, wasn't signed until 3 August of that year, and then it still had to be ratified on 25 October by the Transvaal Volksraad. So you see, you cannot rush these things."
"Do you mean Rabbit and those Orcs have to stay in your sitting room until October?" squeaked Roo.
"Well…hopefully not that long," said Owl, looking worried all of a sudden.
Roo looked at Tigger with dismay. "It isn't fair!" he cried again. "Mummy is bound to make us go to bed before then."
"She'll make us go to bed at least three or four times," said Tigger, who had swallowed the last of his sandwich. "At Least."
"Can't we even peek out at them?" Roo asked Owl beseechingly.
"Quite out of the question, I am afraid," said Owl with Deep Regret. "I have it on your mother's authority that she considers peeking to be very rude indeed, so in her absence I am bound to respect her parental beliefs. But you can make more sandwiches if you like. To be perfectly frank, I don't think two platters will be enough to feed all of the animals who have gathered outside…"
He went into the other room to see how things were getting along between Rabbit and Captain Mauhúr, and to try and gage whether he would be getting his sitting room back some time before the end of the month, and Roo looked at Tigger with great determination on his small face.
"Tigger," he said, "I think we should sneak into the other room. Mummy is not here to stop us, and Owl has gone out of it now. If we sneak through the door very quiet and careful, no one will notice."
"Quiet and careful," announced Tigger with relish, "is what Tiggers do best."
-.-.-.-
They weren't at the peace treaty yet, but they had moved beyond sandwiches at any rate, so on those grounds Sir Evelyn would likely have called it a successful armistice. The plates stood empty of all but the tiniest crumbs, and the tea pot stood nearly empty, with the little tea remaining gone cold. Had Kanga been there to see she would have been immensely pleased, and then she would have chided Owl for not making another kettle. But Kanga was out feeding the troops, and Owl was silent, listening with Rabbit to Captain Mauhúr's tale. Mauhúr had begun the account of his travels at Rabbit's behest, for Rabbit badly wanted to understand the Orcs and their objectives, and he had started to realize that this was of a piece with where they came from and what was happening there.
Christopher Robin's old books of history and geography had talked about countries like Brazil and Africa and places like that, but Rabbit could not recall that they said anything about Orthanc or Isengard, or the Westemnet or Fangorn Wood or any of the other places that Mauhúr described. The people sounded strange too. Mauhúr spoke often of his master, who was called many names: The White Wizard, the Hand of Isengard, Sharkey, Saruman. Christopher Robin had told them many wonderful tales about Witches and Wizards, and so that at least was not wholly unprecedented, but there wasn't much else familiar about what Mauhúr was telling him.
In Orthanc Mauhúr and the other Uruk-hai had been given orders by their master to find Halflings: little people like Men, but much shorter, with curly hair on their heads and the tops of their feet. They carried something that their Master wanted, "for the war" as Warrung put it, and so Saruman had sent his fiercest servants to retrieve it for him.
What war? asked Rabbit.
War was brewing in Middle-earth. Great Powers were stirring, and the creatures who served those Powers were all in motion: the Men, the Elves, the Wizards, Trolls, and Orcs. There were many Orcs, of whom the greatest were the Uruk-hai in the service of Saruman, and there were other Orcs, who served the Dark Lord of Mordor, and of course the smallest Orcs, the goblins of the Misty Mountains and outlying forests, who served mostly their own petty interests.
Several bands of Orcs across these various party lines had come together to form a bigger party, which had captured two Halfling prisoners and carried them as far across the Westemnet as the edge of Fangorn Forest. But there had been a battle there with mounted Men, and many Orcs had died. Mauhúr, whose job was to reinforce the Uruk-hai returning to Isengard, had lost most of his best warriors in the battle, and when he saw that the fight was hopeless he had faded back toward Fangorn.
He and some of the other Orcs that escaped into Fangorn decided to go through the forest and return to Isengard with news of the disaster, but Fangorn Forest was profoundly inhospitable to Orcs and to all who entered there. More Orcs had been lost, slain by the hostile trees. Only Mauhúr and the seven Orcs who were with him now had survived, but as they fled from the rage of Fangorn, Something Happened, and they had found themselves in another place entirely. And everything since then, as Mauhúr said, Rabbit knew already.
There was a clicking sound and Rabbit glanced toward the door that led into Owl's little kitchen, but it was closed, and there was no one there.
"I'll just put these things away," said Owl, seeing Rabbit look, "and go and get more tea."
"Oh, very good, Owl," said Rabbit. "I would be glad of another cup." He was not sure that he wanted anything more to drink, really, but at least it would give him something to do with his paws. Pouring the tea. Adding cream and sugar. Offering Mauhúr and Warrung more tea as well. Rabbit would be very glad of those distractions at the moment. It felt like his head was spinning with all that Mauhúr had said.
As Owl went back into the kitchen, Rabbit looked at the Orc…Uruk…captain again. He knew that he might, at that moment, try playing at knowing more than he did. Rabbit liked being In The Know, and he liked for everyone else to think that he was In The Know as well. But he also knew that the stakes were high, both for himself and for Captain Mauhúr. Under the circumstances, honesty was the best, the only, policy.
"Everything that you have told me is very strange," he said. "As I think I've told you before, we don't know about any of the places you have mentioned, but there are books that we might try to consult. I don't know how much hope I can give you, but we can certainly try."
"You have Books of Lore?" asked Mauhúr.
"We have school books that used to belong to Christopher Robin, so… Yes, I think those should count," said Rabbit.
"I cannot read," said the Uruk, "and I do not know that any of those with me can either, beyond our own names or the image-sigils for them.
"We'll read them for you," said Rabbit. "At least, we might read them for you. Before that happens, we'll have to come to some arrangement of terms for you and your men – your Orcs," he corrected, seeing Mauhúr's face, "to abide by. You can't do the kinds of things you were doing before, not while you are staying here, however long or short a stay that may be. Even if it's only temporary, there are going to have to be some rules."
"Name these rules," said Mauhúr coldly.
"Well, no burning people would be good for starters," said Rabbit. "Or hurting or killing them," he added, thinking that No burning was perhaps a trifle limited in scope. "In fact, I think a general policy of minimal or no discomfort caused to others would be a sound one, for all parties concerned.
"Second, you must make your camp for the next few nights in a place of our choosing. We want to know your whereabouts, and we want you to be somewhere that it is easy for us to see. Frankly, the woods are more convenient for us." Rabbit also didn't want them spending another night in Christopher Robin's old house, but he decided it would be better not to touch on this point, or to try and explain the sensibilities that the Orcs had injured by staying there. The reasons he had given, he thought, were both sensible and self-explanatory.
Mauhúr glanced at Warrung, then nodded at Rabbit. "Go on."
"Thirdly…you must be prepared to accept that there will be more rules than this." Mauhúr growled a little, and Rabbit went on in his firmest voice: "Captain Mauhúr, you and I are only two people, and we cannot think that one talk over tea is going to cover everything. I am bound to think of other considerations after the fact, as are my friends, so it is only fair that I warn you. If they really are completely impossible for you – the rules, I mean – then we can talk about them. But you must at least be willing to have the conversation.
"And fourth… I ask for honesty, and transparency. The better I can understand you and your own needs, the better I can help you, and of course we will do our best to be open and honest with you in return."
"By honest do you mean we should expect more tricks like this afternoon?" asked Mauhúr.
"We didn't really trick you," said Rabbit. "We just misled you a bit." Shifting a little uncomfortably in place. "We are very truthful for the most part, really."
Mauhúr's smile showed a disconcerting number of teeth. "Clever Rabbit. I think you are more familiar with trickery and subterfuge than you let on."
Rabbit gave him a wary look, but Mauhúr did not seem angry. Perhaps this was an Orc's idea of praise.
"I want to know more about the place you spoke of," said Mauhúr. "Where we are to sleep. Have you chosen it already, or do you mean to discuss it with your small friends?"
"I do have a place in mind," Rabbit admitted, "but the person I really need to clear it with is Owl. It isn't here," he said quickly, seeing the dubious looks that Mauhúr and Warrung were casting around them. "It only touches on Owl in a little way, really, and I don't think he is likely to object. But he is in the kitchen, so we will have to – "
"They're gone!" said Owl, coming through the kitchen door again. He looked very upset. "They're not there!"
"Who's gone?" asked Rabbit.
"Roo and Tigger," said Owl. "They're not in the kitchen: I looked everywhere. And they didn't go outside – I have already called around out the back."
"Outside is a very big place," said Rabbit sternly.
"But nobody has seen them, Rabbit! And if they aren't in the kitchen, and they didn't go outside, then…"
"Excuse me," said Rabbit to Mauhúr and Warrung, and he got up and went to Owl. "Does Kanga know that they are missing?" he asked quietly.
"She is looking around the kitchen. I told her that I already looked there, but she is doing it anyway."
"This is a problem. If they aren't there and they didn't go outside…" Rabbit turned and looked at the Uruk-hai. They were not looking at him but in the direction of Owl's antique hutch cabinet, which stood rather to the right of Owl's kitchen door. The bottom was too far off the ground for anyone hide under it, not without being seen, but one of the two front doors was slightly ajar, and the tip of something orange and black and stripey protruded from within.
Owl immediately opened the hutch to reveal the two Missing Persons blinking out at him.
"You said that quiet and careful is what Tiggers do best," Roo addressed Tigger reproachfully.
"They also like to breathe," Tigger informed him.
"Come out of there right now," huffed Owl, who had gone from worried to very cross indeed. "You have caused a great deal of trouble. What do you have to say for yourselves?"
"We wanted to see the Orcs," said Roo as he clambered forward out of the hutch. "Those are them, aren't they? Oo! They are very tall! I can jump VERY tall, but not so tall as that." He jumped perhaps a foot in the air to demonstrate, which, given Roo's size, was actually very impressive, and then he did it again for good measure. "I'll bet that even Tiggers can't bounce so high!"
"Can. But they don't want to just now," said Tigger.
"They probably can't jump very high themselves though, Orcs can't, on account of they're already so big. Elephants are big, and they can't jump. They have to have at least one foot on the ground all the time. That's what Christopher Robin said. Also giraffes don't make any sounds. And flamingos can only eat with their heads upside down!"
"I tried to do that once," said Tigger. "It doesn't work with soup."
"Go in the kitchen at once," Rabbit ordered. "Your mother is very worried!" Owl chivvied Roo through the door.
Tigger, not the sort of person who could be chivvied anywhere, followed behind at a nonchalant pace, tail swaying unconcernedly. He paused in the doorway, looking back at the Orcs. "Honeybees have hair on their eyes," he said, and sauntered through.
The kitchen door swung shut, hiding them from further sight.
"Right," said Rabbit. "Well, that's – " He paused, unable to remember what he had been saying before Owl came had come into the room. Mauhúr was no help. He only looked at Rabbit.
"Crows makes false nests to fool predators."
Rabbit and Mauhúr both looked at Warrung, who shrugged. "Took me a moment to remember," he said.
-.-.-.-
Piglet and Pooh were sitting and contentedly munching the sandwiches that Kanga had given them earlier, while she, Roo, Tigger and Eeyore sat or stood nearby in the grass. That is, except for Roo, who was sitting in her pocket and who was, it must be confessed, in a bit of a pet. Roo was very tired of his mother's pocket, but Kanga was being Firm with him. He had been terribly naughty, disobeying hers and Owl's instructions, and she was going to give him and Tigger both a stern talking-to when they got home. In the meantime, Tigger was to remain close by where she could see, and Roo was to stay right where she could be most certain of finding him.
"But Mummy, Owl said that they would be in there until October. Tigger and me just couldn't wait that long."
"'Tigger and I,' dear," she corrected him absently.
"They're going to be in there till when?" exclaimed Piglet, and even Eeyore, who had seemed in his Eeyorish way to not be paying much attention to anything at all, lifted his head with a look of surprise.
"October is a long way off, isn't it?" said Pooh, and he gave an uneasy look at the sharp Orkish swords and knives that he and Piglet were guarding. If he and Piglet were really going to have to guard them until October, it might be good to find some more volunteers to trade off with them. Lifting his head, he regarded the general mass of Rabbit's friends and relations thoughtfully.
Their concerns were rendered moot as the front door of the venerable old beech tree opened, and Rabbit and Owl came out of it. Mauhúr and Warrung followed behind, rather more cautiously, as they stooped to avoid thumping their heads on the lintel. An anticipatory little murmur began like the quiet sussuration of wind in the trees, starting up gradually out of nowhere before dying again as everyone went quiet, listening. Rabbit began to speak.
Usually when Rabbit spoke to a crowd he would bring notes or other Aides To Memory so that he would be able to remember what he was talking about, but he must not have liked to take notes during his conversation with the two Orcs, because this time he wasn't carrying anything. Consequently, as he was speaking without looking down or bringing bits of paper up to his face after his usual practice, his voice carried clearly enough that everyone in the clearing could hear him.
"I am happy to tell you all that I have talked to Captain Mauhúr and we have arrived at a satisfactory agreement on the correct conduct for himself and the rest of the F.B.A., hereafter to be known and referred to as the Orcs while they are in our Wood. For the immediate future, they will be staying at Owl's old residence, the Chestnuts, where they will be supervised for as long as it is deemed necessary or for as long as they happen to stay here at all, whichever is shorter. These are the terms that we have come to over the course of our discussion…"
The news, Piglet decided as he listened, was good, but he looked around him at the others to see how they reacted. Kanga looked calm and politely interested, and Roo and Tigger's faces moved through the usual pattern of great eagerness yielding to declining interest and finally excessive boredom. Pooh certainly looked as though he was listening, but Pooh generally looked like he was listening when Rabbit was speaking, until you talked to him and found out that he had been thinking the whole time about something else. Piglet resolved to listen extra hard on Pooh's behalf as well as his own, because This Was Important.
But Eeyore? Eeyore's face showed nothing at all, and as Piglet looked at him he wondered what Eeyore was thinking and if he was glad, or mad, or sad about the Terms that Rabbit had just stated: if he felt that they were enough or if he felt that they were insufficient, or if he even felt anything at all.
"Does anyone have any questions?" asked Rabbit.
Surrounded by the company of Woodlanders guarding them, the Orcs had been listening very closely to everything that Rabbit had to say. This was no mean feat, because they didn't even know all of the words that he was using, and it was very easy to lose the thread of his meaning in and around the many parentheticals. They gave it their best: nonetheless, as Shagrub muttered, he hoped that Mauhúr would be able to translate what had been said in terms that the average fellow could understand.
When Rabbit enumerated his first term Jashit's ears perked up. Reznib and Shagrub noticed and looked at him curiously, but Jashit made an abortive movement with his hand that discouraged any whispered questions. After a few minutes the speechifying drifted to a close. When Rabbit asked if anyone had any questions, Jashit raised his hand.
"Yes?" called Rabbit, nodding to him.
"Who are we answerable to?" Jashit called. "That is to say, who do we take orders from? Do we go through Mauhúr or do we go through you?"
Rabbit, surprised by the question, nonetheless made a bid at answering it. "I…it makes sense that you would go through Captain Mauhúr, I think. After all – he is your captain."
"But then he takes his orders from you?"
"Not exactly. That is, if something is needful, he should petition me as a spokesman for the Woodlanders. But our authority is as a body, not as any one person."
"But you're the one he talks to, if something comes," said Jashit. "So they're your rules, right?"
"Yes," said Rabbit. "Subject to change but yes. These first rules have come from me, after some consultation with Owl."
(Actually Owl had been in the kitchen when Rabbit was promulgating them, but he had approved them immediately once Rabbit and he were able to discuss it. Then he had started making a long list of suggestions for rules five, six, and so forth, which Rabbit quickly curtailed by suggesting that he take them down as notes for when next they were able to convene with Pooh, Piglet, Kanga and so on. Rabbit had learned over time how Owl was best managed, and when he had to write his thoughts down he was much easier to hold in check.)
"All right," said Jashit, and he put his hand down.
"Was that your whole question?" Rabbit called, craning his head a little.
Jashit nodded, not realizing that it was harder for Rabbit to see this from where he was standing. Reznib gave him a quick nudge. "Yes, that was my question," said Jashit.
"Anyone else?" asked Rabbit.
This time it was one of the tall Uruk-hai who, following Jashit's example, raised his hand. "What are we going to do for food?" called Durzlip. "These sandwiches that you're giving us are all well and good, but what about when you lot get tired of feeding us?"
"So long as you are here, we will continue to feed you," said Rabbit. "That is enough for now. If you want to reciprocate by doing some helpful thing for us in return, then that speaks to your own good character and is to be commended."
"What about meat?" demanded Noglash, not bothering to raise his hand. His eyes flashed as he looked at Rabbit and then around him at the surrounding animals. "We are the fighting Uruk-hai! We eat flesh!"
"You are not fighting now," said Rabbit flatly. "You will have to expand your palates."
"I have a jar of pickled herring at home," volunteered Kanga. "And there is always more paté."
Noglash looked like he was going to say something rude, but catching a look from Mauhúr, he subsided.
("You did like that liverwurst and onion," Durzlip reminded him.
"Not the ******* point," snapped Noglash.)
"Is there anything else?" asked Rabbit. When none were forthcoming, he said, "I'm sure that many of you have more questions even so, but you can ask me them later whenever you like. Now, though, it is getting on to dusk, so we will take advantage of what light is left to us."
It was time for them to adjourn to the Chestnuts.
-.-.-.-
Owl's old house was still much as it had been left on the day Owl, vacating the premises with his sundry belongings, took up residence in Piglet's former home instead. Although there were those animals who might have moved into the Chestnuts in his absence or used bits of it to form new homes of their own, they had all been too polite to do so, and the structure of the actual house portion remained vacant and comparatively intact (so long as people watched out for the splintery bits) between the same boughs that had once borne it aloft. This rough shelter was quickly claimed by the three smallest Orcs, with no contest from the Uruk-hai, who were all too big to enter.
As for the Uruk-hai, they were rigging up a makeshift tent for themselves with some tarp and line that had been given to them, using the trunk and projecting limbs of the fallen tree to form a support wall and beams. They mostly ignored the many animals that sat or sprawled in the grass or perched in the neighboring trees to watch them, although from time to time Noglash made a flourishing gesture with one of his fingers in apparent acknowledgment.
"I say," said Owl, who was proud to have contributed real estate to the venture. "They are making capital use of the materials given them."
"I'm worried, Owl," said Rabbit quietly as he watched the efficiency of the Uruk-hai. They were standing some distance away, where there was no danger of being overheard. "You were there for most of what Captain Mauhúr told me, I think, about where the Orcs came from and about what they were doing when they were there. Fighting and kidnapping and weapons and war… These are a very hardened people, and not very nice. Is it right to help them, do you think? I mean: is it right? For us to help them find their way home, where they were doing all of those not-good things, only so they can go right back to doing them?"
This was a halting and uncharacteristic speech for Rabbit, who did not like to show his doubts before others. Owl, sensible that he was receiving a private confidence and humbled, decided to err on the side of open-minded optimism. "We don't really know everything about where they came from, Rabbit, or what it all means. It is likely there are dynamics at work that we simply don't understand. Certainly the Captain does not paint a very flattering or romantic picture of their activities – but that may also come of having a military mind, and a disinterest in self-flattery."
"I don't like the sound of their wizard," said Rabbit, almost to himself, "or this Dark Lord Sauron, that they mentioned. And even forgetting all of that for a moment, and for all that they have yielded, they are so very fierce…"
"They are soldiers. Intimidation is a desirable trait in arenas of combat," said Owl. "Consider the battle cry of the Gurkhas, or the Maori Haka… And you see that, for all his fierceness, the Captain seems open to reason. He never shouted at you during your conference with him, and he agreed to all of the terms that you gave him."
"That's true."
"You did wisely by having him and his men here, Rabbit, where we can better watch them and where they have some opportunity to prove themselves better than they have been. It has placed them on a parole of sorts. Effectively, you are giving them another chance. By their deeds shall we know them."
"We've seen some of those deeds already," muttered Rabbit. "But you're right, Owl. This is a fresh start we're giving them. I need to remember that."
"In any event, certainly it is in our own interests to help them, just as it is in their best interests to let us help them," said Owl. "After all. They can't stay here forever."
-.-.-.-
Disclaimer: Tolkien's works, characters and concepts are copyright J.R.R. Tolkien. Milne's works, characters and concepts are copyright A.A. Milne.
Fangorn Wood and all original characters therein are copyright The Lauderdale (cartoon6 at hotmail dot com). "Chapter XXI" published July 16, 2017.