In which our fish is forced to go swimming.
"In the absence of the representative of the King's law to hold trial on such matters, now we come to the hearing of cases of high justice," intones Thomas Blackthorn, father of the infamous Pim with the demonically possessed gastrointestinal system, Master Trader and Head of the Market and Council of Bree as he taps his gavel to quiet the voices of the Men of Bree gathered about the edges of the room.
It's a nice gavel, not your stereotypical wood hammer, or even one made of metal. Instead it looks kind of like a round, two-sided door handle sat on by a troll or something. It's lovely, engraved with the heraldry of some long documented, or maybe, with his money, "rediscovered" line of sire after sire back to some distant lord of whatever country this was before it became, well, whatever it is now. You don't know. Maybe you should ask someone sometime. It's cradled in its polished marble bed and fits in well with the nooks and oddly shaped rooms of wood and limewash and rippled glass on the second floor of Bree's market, the dark wood beams, glazed windows, and soft reflection of light on the wooden floors that creak anytime you put weight on it and everyone is there and the floor protests practically every time someone breathes and you could breathe too but that might take too much effort to pull in air that's being used by everyone else and someone is talking and all the eyes are on you why is everyone staring at you -
Oh god. That's you, isn't it.
Fuck!
You're feeling a little wobbly with all the grimdark George RR Martin bullshit running through your head about courts and the fact they're likely to literally go medieval on your ass, but you make it to your feet.
When you stand up, Master Blackthorn's eyes flick over to you from where he sits behind the heavy table with Master Reedy (fuck, the barber-surgeon-dentist all around cut-whatever-needs-cutting-off jack of all trades, him too, of course he's on Bree's Council).
The only friendly face on that side of the table is found in Mr. Butterbur, who, of course, looks deeply troubled and uncertain of his course. Besides the creaking of the floorboards, which, seriously, sound like a bass drum when anyone walks on them, they apparently haven't discovered things like putting joists close together and perpendicular to the subflooring, or, well, subflooring or insulation or any of those things and, damn, what must it be like to live on the first floor below something like that, no wonder the market and its stall for money lending and commerce and the meeting rooms of guild-masters are on the first floor, no one in their right mind would live below this for fuck's sake -
What were you saying?
Oh. Yeah.
Master Reedy's got his nose in this huge tome of a book with thick crinkling parchment, and is laboriously marking something down, dipping his stylus in a pot of ink with great care every few words. The only noise other than the pop and creak of the floorboards and random people noises inside and the murmur of voices, twitter of birds, and barking of the occasional dog outside in the square below, is the scritch scritch scritch of Master Reedy documenting your humiliation front of every notable citizen of Breeland, from every plegeholder of Bree who you had hoped to get in good with (god damn it!), to Harry Goatleaf warden of the West-gate lounging in his chair by the door tapping on his knee with his cudgel, and, fuck, Harvey Tunnelson and his crew leaning against the wall in the back of the crowd, and, of course, that dude from the south sitting hunched over on a bench with his head and eyes wrapped in strips of linen, playing his role to the hilt. He lets out a low moan when you look at him. Fucker. God you hope the photophobia is something awful and that the banging of the gavel makes his head ring.
The shitty cherry on top of this dungheap, the man of the hour himself, the tick with a dick, the asshat on your doormat, the buttwipe with a uni-stripe, (Master Bill Ferny!) who stands not two yards from you in the center of the empty space between the pledgeholders who make up the jury and the Council of Bree.
Fucker.
The only people missing are, of course, any hobbit who could have had a nice thing to say about you. Because apparently "the Big and Little Folk mind their own affairs in their own ways" and "should they have no direct knowledge of the events under question, they are welcome to await the trial's end at the bottom of the stairs as should any folk not involved in the doings of the Council," or so had said Master Harry Goatleaf when he refused Bob and his wife Poppy's entrance behind you.
You have no idea what everyone is waiting for, but fuck you wish they'd get it over with and quit staring at you.
"Very well, we shall proceed," says Master Blackthorn once Reedy lifts his head from his book and nods at him.
Master Reedy then rises and, peering down at the book through the spectacles perched at the tip of his nose, reads, "Master William Ferny, here present, complains of Fish," here he pauses to point first to Ferny and then you, as if there's anybody here who doesn't know exactly who you are, "who is here present before the Council of Bree, that as Master Ferny was going his way in a peaceful and amiable manner down the Great Road along whose safe conduct is afforded him and his guests by the Council of the village of Bree, on his way home two nights before this day, was he and his guest accosted by Fish in a felonious manner and assailed him and his guest with evil words which were undeserved, and taking up a staff did smite Master Ferny's guest about the head and cause him great pain and suffering…" Here Reedy pauses and takes a breath.
"... with no need or provocation, and did pursue Master Ferny and his guest with hot words, waking the good folk of Bree thereabout and disturbing the peace that is guaranteed them by this Council and the charter of the village of Bree and the King's law.
"This assault did the said Fish wrongfully, feloniously, and against reason and against the peace, to the damage of five pence, and shame of three pence to Master William Ferny and his guest."
God damn, motherfucking, turd-teethed, fucking fucker.
Well. Shit.
You knew he would twist events to his favor, but this is just bald-faced lying. I mean, are you surprised? Really?
"Do you swear this to be a true and good account, Master Ferny?" asks Master Blackthorn.
Yes, of course Master Ferny swears it is a true and good account of the events in question. He wrote the damn thing, him and his motherfucking unibrow and hastily suppressed smirk.
"Aye, and should it please you, Master Blackthorn, and this Council, I would call Master Mugwort as witness," Ferny says, "as he heard the row even from within his own home and raised hue and cry against Fish as was proper when the noise rousted him from his bed and disturbed his sleep."
Fucker.
With that, Reedy picks up the parchment from which he had been copying the above screed and, stepping away from the table, holds it out to you.
Well. Fuck.
Your stomach sinks. There's nothing to do but take it.
God. Why you're looking at it you don't even know. It's an incomprehensible scribble of letters with dots and accents and flourishes. If you'd known you were going to be pulled up on written charges one day, you would have spent more of your time learning the local lettering system. You have to admit literacy had been the least of your worries over the past year or so.
Master Reedy gestures at you when you stare at him, as if encouraging you is going to make any difference. "Well, Fish, go on then," he says with a slight smile, the dick. "Then we'll have your response."
Fucker. He knows you can't read. And being the little pissant that he is, he's just waiting for a chance to humiliate you because you showed him up and the clients you stole from him like you better.
You clear your throat. Stepping up to him, you hand it back. "I got the gist of it, thanks."
Yeah, you're not fooling anybody. Doesn't help that you are so hot from the crown of your head to your chest that you're probably just an incandescent beacon of shame about now.
C'mon, c'mon, c'mon. First solve one problem, then the next. Each problem solved just reveals the levels of fucked-uppedness below it until you get through it. You can do this.
"Masters Blackthorn, Reedy, Butterbur," you say, nodding to each one. "I thank you for the chance to speak before you. I'm not from here, as you know. I think you know, too, that I am unfamiliar with how you dispense justice here and the levers of power that affect who it falls upon. But I don't need to know these things to be able to state unequivocally that Bill Ferny is a liar, a cheat, and a bully."
Well, that gets them going.
The crowd around you murmurs and stares and shuffles on their feet while Barliman's face grows even more troubled, Master Blackthorn's look sours, and Master Reedy blinks at you as if he can't believe you said that out loud before he withdraws and seats himself behind the table. You and Ferny are probably in a tie for persona non grata in Bree. They probably were as looking forward to this as a Carolina Reaper hot sauce colonic and hoped you would throw yourself on the dubious mercy of the court so they could receive your confession, issue a sentence, and wash their hands of the matter all in time for lunch.
Yeah, well, fuck them.
So, of course, that's when you double down.
"And there's not a single person here who does not know it!" you say, stabbing your finger at the floor and raising your voice over the noise. "If he hasn't lied to or attempted to cheat every single person in this room, he'd do it if he thought he could get away with it, and he's lying now."
"Now Fish-" begins Ferny, but you cut him off. Fucker.
"Master Reedy," you say, addressing the man in question. He stares at you, dumbfounded and more than a little offended that he would have anything to do with these proceedings. "Did you not, just two weeks ago, complain in the common room over beer with your friends that Master Ferny had found some way of rigging his scales so that you're sure you've been overpaying him for years?"
"Now that was none of your concern," says Master Reedy, shaking his finger at you and looking about him with some degree of apprehension. "You cannot hold me to somewhat I said in the heat of vexation. And even had you wished to call me as witness you needed to have given notice ere this Council was called."
"Sure. Okay. It's not like there's anybody here who doesn't know that he's a liar and a cheat. Why else would Master Butterbur refuse to extend him a line of credit?" you ask and Butterbur sighs, looking all the more concerned and, of course, uncertain as to how to respond.
Through all this, Master Blackthorn rests his hand on his gavel, watching you with a curiously bland expression on his face. If he was concerned about losing control of the room, you would have thought he would have been banging on it and calling for quiet by now.
And so you then turn to him, because, fuck it, why not, it's not like he doesn't know what's going on. Every single person in this room has got to know what's going on. Just because Ferny is useful to them does not mean you are going to let them take you down without a fight.
"Why then do you refuse his business, Master Blackthorn? You know it. He'd sell you out in a heart-beat if it gave him an advantage. Hasn't that ever made you wonder why Bill Ferny has so few oathmen, and those he has are men who appear before your council on charges again and again, if not because they're birds of a feather then because they're desperate to find a way out from under his thumb?"
A ripple runs through the crowd of shocked and grim looks and whispering. The floor squeaks and grumbles as they shift about. If they think that's the only thing you've got, they've got another thing coming.
"He only saves the truth for those who have no power over him," you say, jabbing an accusing finger at Ferny. Fucking fucker. Every single person in this room knows what he's like and what kinds of things he's done, even if it didn't affect them personally. And, fuck, you didn't think it would get to you like this, but it does.
You are suddenly flooded with rage at the hopelessness of the situation, hot tears springing to your eyes at the fact that they close ranks every single fucking time. Just shuttle all the marginalized folk off to Ferny's care cuz no one else wants to be bothered with them and then tut over the lives ruined as a result.
"They're the ones he preys upon, because he knows they have no means of defending themselves, and you know it," you shout and suddenly the room is deathly quiet, every eye on Master Blackthorn as if waiting to see what he will do before they know how to respond.
Of course that's when Blackthorn starts pounding his gavel against it's marble bed.
"Why don't we ask Ruby the real reason why she quit work at The Prancing Pony and left Bree last spring?" you shout over the rising noise of metal on stone. "When's the last anyone spoke to her? Where did she end up? Does anyone know?" you go on, and a pained and confused expression flashes on Butterbur's face. His head turns as he takes in the room's reactions as if calculating who might have thoughts on the matter, but they're all focused on Blackthorn and his gavel. "Who else have you allowed him to bully into fleeing or god knows what else?"
"Quiet now!" shouts Harry, thumping the end of his cudgel against the floor in counterpoint to the gavel.
So that's when you shout. "As a great man from where I come from once said, a society should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but by how it treats its lowest. You have a choice. Either you let this go on or you put a stop to it!"
"You will quiet yourself or I'll see ye quieted!" shouts Harry, now on his feet and all but brandishing his cudgel.
Well, okay, fuck. You're done. Well, for now. At least you were able to get something on the record, so to speak.
Harry's eyes flick to Blackthorn, who jerks his chin in dismissal. Harry shakes his head, grumbling something under his breath and returns to his post by the door.
"Now, now, Fish," says Ferny in the resulting silence, speaking soothingly as if he were the model of forbearance and font of wisdom, the fucker, "I shall forgive ye for not knowing better, but best not to go assailing the men of the Council's good name-"
"We are here-" says Blackthorn in crisp tones. He overrides Ferny easily without even bothering to look at him. "- to hear the allegations and testimony related to the complaints brought to the attention of the Council, not decide the character of the complainant nor of the good folk of Bree."
Of course we're not. Cuz that's how Ferny operates. He knows the fine letter of the law and he moves freely about in the gaping holes in between that they refuse to plug. God damn! It's last year's harvest all over again.
"You," Blackthorn says, pinning you with a sharp look, "will keep your remarks to that subject or I shall place you under the custody of Master Goatleaf, constable of the watch and ward, who will gag and bind you so that we may proceed unhindered."
You catch a glimpse of Harry out of the corner of your eye as he makes an unnecessarily loud racket pulling chains and a god-awful looking metal collar with something attached to it that your brain absolutely refuses to let resolve into anything that makes sense from the box behind his chair and resting them across his knee as he sits. He looks like he just might hope you'll give him reason to put them to use.
Well. Shit. Seems there is some medieval in this medieval court after all.
"Now," Blackthorn says and leans back from the table, "do you confess to the facts of the complaint or not?"
"Not," you say.
"Indeed," says Blackthorn with a flat tone of voice. He picks up the parchment on which Ferny wrote his complaint as if he needs to refresh his memory of the specifics.
"Well, it matters not what you claim," says Reedy, who motions to Ferny's friend, who, of course, gives a low, pathetic moan right on cue, "someone gave this man's head quite the knock, and with somewhat blunt and hard enough to bruise his skin and rattle his wits. I treated him myself yestermorn. The bruises he bears were not more than half a day old then."
"Master Mugwort!" calls Blackthorn and the man in question jerks himself aloft from where he had been sitting on a bench to your right, clasping his wool cap tightly in his fingers.
"Come forward." Blackthorn waves him to the center of the room and Mugwort winds his way about his fellows until he stands on the far side of Ferny, turning his wool cap about and about around in his fingers and very carefully not looking in your direction.
"Master Ferny names you as witness. Did you indeed raise hue and cry against Fish two nights before as Master Ferny says?"
"Aye, well, may it please the Council, Master Blackthorn, I did hear raised voices out by the Road, see?" Mugwort halts with the fidgeting with his cap to grasp it and point out the window to your back toward the South-Gate and your house. "And, well, aye, there was Fish's voice clear amongst them, but, in truth, I could not hear what was said, so, aye, I raised a cry, but more begging for peace, you see, than hue and cry, as I knew not what was their argument, and as I'd not slept well and but hoped to return to my bed."
There's some whispering in the room and pointed looks at you that greets this. Around and around Master Mugwort's cap goes.
Do you get a chance to ask questions? Cuz you'd love to ask a question about now. I mean, you'd also like to not have to wear whatever contraption that is that Harry is jingling on his knee, because it looks like it has an honest-to-god fucking bit built right into it, but you'd also like to ask a couple questions about your plea for Master Mugwort to bring your plight to Harry's attention that night.
Master Blackthorn has tilted his head, considering you with a displeased frown, while Mugwort's eyes dart from Blackthorn to Ferny to Reedy to Barliman and back.
"Thank you, Master Mugwort," says Reedy when Master Blackthorn seems too absorbed in his study of you to move things along, and the man jerks his way through a bow. Once he's returned to his seat, Blackthorn taps the edge of the parchment against the table sharply before raising it as if you wouldn't be able to see it otherwise.
"Do you still deny the acts contained herein?" Blackthorn asks you.
Well, damn, you suppose you're allowed to talk now.
"What I did was defend myself against Bill Ferny's attempts to break into my house," you say, which, god damn it, if he wasn't attempting to break in then what the hell was he doing testing how well your shutters were fastened? "He was well off the road, on my property and sneaking around my house, as he does, frequently, ever since Mistress Thistlewool died, once he's got enough alcohol in him."
"Is this true?" exclaims Barliman. You're not sure if he's more shocked at what he's hearing, or the fact that this is the first he's hearing about it.
You go on when it becomes apparent that Harry Goatleaf isn't going to be fucked to volunteer anything. "You can ask Master Goatleaf, if you don't believe me. I've brought it to his attention and begged for his help often enough."
"Och!" grunts Harry, scowling when all three men of the Council turn to him. "Bill Ferny has done naught more than make a nuisance of himself."
"What do you mean, 'a nuisance of himself?'" demands Barliman but Harry makes a loud, dismissive sound.
"Pah! He's not taken aught of Fish's nor laid hands upon what he should not."
Yeah, the fucker. Nothing illegal. He just spends his evenings terrorizing you as a nightcap to soothe himself before bed.
"And had he, then complaint would have been brought against Ferny right here at this council," Harry says, tapping at the floor beneath the council's table with the butt of his cudgel and setting the metal laying over his leg jangling. "Had Fish not brought complaint, I would have, but it has not." This rest he delivers to you. "But should Master Ferny do naught else but call upon ye and, as folk are free to do, invite ye to come out to greet him, I'll thank ye to stop with your plaguing me with your fancies and casting wild slanderings against your betters. There's naught for me to do for it. He's broke no laws nor disturbed the peace."
"He's definitely disturbed my peace, do I count?" you ask, which you know, yeah, you know isn't helping your case much, but, god damn it, there isn't any one of his equals who would put up with his crap or, failing that, be forced to.
"Ah, now, see." Ferny takes a step forward. "May it please the Council, my heart goes out to poor Fish, here, not knowing a thing about life amongst the folk of Bree. 'Twas not my intent to alarm or discomfort, but to invite Fish into the company of good folk."
You are not going to roll your eyes. You are not going to roll your eyes. God damn it!
"After midnight?" you demand, turning on him. "Peeking through my window while I'm asleep? Pulling at my door in attempt to open it while you're stumbling drunk on your way home from The Pony?"
Ferny pats the air with his hand in your direction in a placating gesture and you really really really really really really want to throttle the condescending fucker about now.
"Should I have been too fervent or untimely in my appeals," he says, and then lays a hand on his breast and bows to Master Blackthorn, "then I beg the Council's forgiveness."
"'Fervent in your appeals,'" you echo and blurt out a sound of disgust. "Right. Cuz, trying to peek beneath my shutter and into my window in the middle of the night is all about appealing to me.
"How do you let him keep getting away with crap like this?" you demand of the room. Anyone? Anyone? Is there anyone with enough fucking balls to confront Ferny? Or are they all just preoccupied with ensuring the status quo? God help them if they set a precedent in which a cotter's word is taken over one of their own.
"Who opened the door?"
This last comes from Master Blackthorn. It stills the restless shuffling of feet about the boundary of the room.
Well, shit. There it is.
"You implied that you were inside and Master Ferny and his guest were without, aye?" he says. "Who opened the door?"
"I did," you say and pointing at the man who has taken to rocking and holding his head behind Ferny, "but only after discovering that he was relieving his bladder on it."
Master Blackthorn sits back, twirling his stylus in his fingers. He's nodding to himself, just slightly, barely noticeable, just enough that you have a pretty good idea what's coming.
Well, fuck. He found it. The loophole.
"Then you need have done naught but what you had done before and waited until Master Ferny tired of his efforts and left of his own. Naught then would have come from it. You would have been unharmed, Master Ferny's guest uninjured, and your fellow citizen's peace undisturbed."
He sits up and pins you with a sharp look like he's the schoolmaster and you're the errant child who got caught huffing the ink-making supplies for the third time running. "And we, the Council and jury of your peers," he says and motions about the room with his stylus, "would not have had to endure your insufferable lecturing yet again."
Fuck him!
Master Blackthorn glances between Reedy and Barliman, who is looking decidedly unhappy, gesturing at you as if you standing there somehow explains his point. "How many times more shall you allow this?"
"What other times have there been?" demands Barliman. "I'll allow Fish has thoughts on many matters and expresses them oft and freely, but there is no harm in that. There has been no other complaint brought before the council, not in my time, nor any other when I have not been present, else the charter would require you to have informed me of it, as Fish is in my employ."
"You forget the events of last harvest, Barley. I counseled then we should bring charges of inciting disorder and riot but you would not allow it, and so here we are yet again." Blackthorn gestures loosely toward you and Ferny before he lets his fist fall to strike the table. Reedy had crossed his arms and leaned back against his chair, and now nods sagely in agreement.
"Now Fish, here," says Barliman, pointing at you, "has worked under my roof for more than a year and I have had no complaint from either my folk nor my customers. I've had naught but hard work and biddable temper, no matter what you say." He nods as if this ends the matter of the discussion of your character. He goes on, turning a sour look on Reedy, "And just because there are those of us who'd not like to look like a bird has nested upon their head does not mean there has been violation of Bree's laws nor custom."
Master Reedy scowls in return. "Hi now! There's no call -"
"I doubt not Fish does your bidding, Barley, as you hold the power of your coin over your folk," Blackthorn says and makes a quick motion to someone in the back of the crowd, urging them to come forward, "but I hear of many complaints."
There's much turning of heads and craning of necks but even you can't figure out who he signaled to. Sitting right next to Blackthorn, however, Butterbur had no problem seeing. Whoever it is does not sit well with him.
"Aye now, Thomas," says Barliman, his tone rising in annoyance, "That business was concluded to my satisfaction."
"Mayhap," Blackthorn says and shrugs, "and be at peace, I see no reason to bring judgment upon it here, but it does not then follow that the events have no bearing on what occurred soon after on that same night."
And that's when Harvey Tunnelson eases his way through the crowd.
Ah, fuck.
God damn it.
Harvey, of course, makes a show of putting Ferny between you when he walks up to the empty spot on the floor before the table, his eyes darting toward you as if he better keep those hands of yours in view, cuz they're dangerous weapons, that they are, don't you know.
Fucker. Damn right they are, and he better keep that in mind the next time the two of you cross paths.
"Master Tunnelson," says Blackthorn, "please show the Council what you showed me."
Harvey tugs at his sleeves to expose his wrists and the backs of his hands and then thrusts them in the air, turning about so everyone is sure to get a wonderful view of the purple fading to a lovely shade of green on his skin.
Damn. You got him good. You'd be proud of yourself, but maybe in another setting when it doesn't have bearing on whether or not Hannibal Goatleaf over there gets to experiment with his equipment on you.
Blackthorn points his stylus at the hands in question. "Did you not tell me you received those bruises at Fish's hands on the very night in question?"
"Aye," says Harvey, hands down now, tugging his vest and belt back into place. He nods and looks about the room for confirmation of his self-satisfied righteousness. "And did naught to deserve it, neither."
On second thought, you could give him some more bruises to show off. You'd be happy to. How about right now?
"Don't think I don't know your tricks, Tunnelson," says Barliman, folding his arms across his chest. "I've caught you with your hands on my folk as shouldn't be."
"I never!" protests Harvey, looking appropriately shocked. He then shrugs, grinning and looking about the crowd with no less than a leer. "Not that there weren't those that asked for it."
"Thank you, Master Tunnelson," comes Blackthorn's voice in clear dismissal, but Harvey's grinning and practically looking around for high fives, annoying pledgeholders by jostling them with his elbows until he's back within his mates, who greet him with a slap on the shoulder.
Barliman scowls, his brows practically bristling. "The Pony is a quality establishment and I'll not tolerate the abuse of my folk nor my patrons. They're good, decent folk," he says as the man turns his back to him.
"Come now," soothes Blackthorn. "Aye, 'tis your right to run your business as you see fit, and you had the right to lay your hands upon Tunnelson should you have complaint of how he treats your staff and your customers beneath your own roof. None here fault your greatness of heart, but we must consider the good of all of the folk of Bree-land in this matter." When Barliman grumbles something you cannot hear, he goes on, "Now Barley, the concern here is the nature of Fish's response, not whether or not there was provocation."
Blackthorn motions to you as if you were some dumb animal, unable to think or speak for yourself. "Should this be how Fish responds to insult, I must wonder should those with complaint be reluctant to bring them to the fore where you might hear of them. Should the little folk of Bree be unable to settle it between themselves, it is on us to do what must be done. We should thank Master Ferny for his courage in bringing this to our attention where we might give correction."
Fuckers. All of them. Every single fucking one of them.
"Should it please the Council," comes Ferny's voice.
God damn it. Brief moment of goodwill from the Council and of course he's going to run with it. What the fuck now?
"Now Fish here needs a strong hand, that is the truth of the matter," Ferny says when Blackthorn nods at him. "Ye not heard a whisper of complaint or nonsense when that Ranger fellow was here, did ye? And he's a hard fellow that Strider is, as is well known hereabouts and they were always in each other's company. I don't wonder he kept Fish in hand. But he's gone now, strode off without word as to his return, as is his wont, and he is free to do so. But here we are." He spreads his hands, taking in the room as a whole as if he were speaking for everyone there.
"Now I don't argue that Fish is all bad," he goes on, quite reasonable and logical and generous to a fault, "that I don't, but there are times when judgment fails and, now that Stick-at-naught's gone, there's none to restrain Fish when the moment comes.
"That's the rub? Aye?" he asks when it seems the Council is closely considering what he has said, Reedy sitting back with his arms crossed, Barliman frowning at him, and Blackthorn sitting watching attentively with his chin cupped in his hands as he leans his elbows on the table.
"'Tis only just then that the remedy fit the problem, aye?" Ferny asks and settles into a relaxed stance. "So, should it please the Council, I shall withdraw my complaint should the Council see fit to require Fish take the oath under my pledge."
Holy shit.
Oh god. This? This is what he had been angling for all along?
What the every loving fuck?
It seems everyone else is just about as stunned as you are. If the eyes aren't on Ferny they're on Blackthorn to see what he'll make of it, and not a word or complaint of the floorboards to be heard.
"No!" bursts out of you, drawing breath and breaking the silence that greets this, or you would have, you were just about to, but Barliman gets there first.
"No," he says again, looking a little panicky now that he's got everyone's attention. "No, no, I'll not allow it," he says with greater certainty. "We have naught in the charter that permits it."
"I appreciate your concern, Barley," says Blackthorn, "but 'tis a good and correct remedy. Fish has been shunned long enough for the events of last harvest and it shall bring the black sheep back in amongst good folk who can temper whatever excitable impulses might arise and give cause for a disturbance."
"Aye, that may be," Barliman says and shakes his head. He's got that stubborn look on his face, the one that means he's dug in. He's found at least something in this mess that is his line in the sand. "But the Men of Bree are free men and allowed association with whom they choose, and I'll not sanction somewhat that amends that."
Blackthorn considers him, rubbing at the line of his lower lip for a moment. You're not sure what he's considering, but Barliman refuses to look at him and Blackthorn's weighing his options.
"Very well, Barley," he says at last. "I'll deny it this time, but should there be complaint brought again, we must revisit the possibility," he says and turns away once Barliman's head jerks in a sharp nod.
It's really kind of over at that point.
Blackthorn denies the motion. He then calls for the vote from the jury of pledgeholders, which they call out one at a time. The "aye"'s have it, clearly, there's little contest. Well, there are a some dissenters, people you recognize as having a particular grievance against Ferny. You make note of them. So does Master Blackthorn, his lips thinning ever so imperceptibly at each one.
Ferny, himself, is deeply unhappy about the results, even though he's attempting to hide it, scowling and pursing his lips into something sour before his face becomes a blank slate of 'I'll accept the results of the Council's deliberation as it pleases them.'
That should give you pause, but well, it was kinda hard to not see that coming.
What does give you pause, however, what freezes your guts and throws a grey blanket of panic over your thoughts is Thomas Blackthorn, Master Trader, husband to the only moneyed woman of Bree who gives you work, and Head of the Market and Bree's Council. It's after the vote is called and when silence falls so that Master Reedy can record the trial's finding that Thomas Blackthorn, Richest Asshole in Bree, deigns to make eye contact with you. There's this barest twinkle of pleasure in his eyes and a small twist to his lips that he doesn't take any pains to hide. He makes sure you see it.
Jesus!
Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.
God, it's like someone dropped a bucket of ice water on your head. Your ears buzz and your stomach clenches hard and you have to breathe through your nose to keep from emptying it on the lovely, burnished wood floor. That would be a kicker to the day, wouldn't it?
Oh god. It had all been a charade from the beginning.
A two-fer, with the two biggest assholes of Bree playing off each other to get exactly what they wanted. Two big dogs, teeth clamped tight and forelegs planted, snarling and wrenching something between them, and you're the chewtoy.
Fuck, just like his wife, the pair of them. You're not sure which Blackthorn took worse, the injury to his pride that someone of your status forced his hand last fall in your little collective bargaining stunt, or that your actions continue to take money out of his pockets in ways he hasn't found a method of subverting yet.
Well. Fuck. Patient snake that he is, Blackthorn didn't come straight at you. No. He bided his time and waited for someone else to lay the trap. He knew it was just a matter of time. Didn't matter what the pledgeholders thought of Ferny, they'd throw you and every cotter under the bus in order to keep Blackthorn off their backs. All your appeals did was make them resent the pinch between the rock of their conscience and the hard place of Blackthorn's scorched earth approach to anyone who pissed him off.
Fuck! And Ferny knew all this, didn't he. And you played right into their hands.
You are so fucked.
You have no fucking clue why Ferny wants you under his oath. I mean, he loves to try to make you squirm, but he's been doing that fairly effectively already.
Why? What the fuck?
You don't really remember much of the sentencing; Barliman arguing for clemency, Blackthorn sitting back and letting Harry argue for branding the meat of your thumb with your crime as a warning to others of your incorrigibility, something about where exactly the parade of the wagon followed by you stripped and dragged behind it followed by Harry and his whip should actually start, though clearly it should end with a night or two in the stocks found just downstairs in the market square, Blackthorn putting a halt to the discussion when Barliman's voice becomes increasingly strident, and Barliman pledging your bond when it's obvious you don't have a pledgholder or fellow oathmen to hold you to the sentence.
Fuck. You need to get it together. Quit dissociating in the middle of events that have a direct bearing on just what kind of life you're going to be living, or, fuck, if you're going to have a life to live for very long.
"The council finds you guilty of felonious assault and fines you ten pence to be paid to this council and eight pence reparation to Master Ferny and his guest," says Master Blackthorn. "You are then sentenced to service with the nightmen for the next seven days, but should you fail to complete your sentence or should you appear before this Council again in the next six months you shall be flogged and placed in the stocks for no less than two full days. So rules the Council of Bree on this matter. Under the charter of the village of Bree you have the right to appeal this ruling with the representative of the King of the Northlands when the king returns and next his representative attends to matters of high justice in Bree."
And with that Master Blackthorn taps his gavel and the room erupts into movement and murmuring voices. "We are adjourned."
Fuck. Yeah, when the king returns.
Fuck. There go your pennies. Nice root cellar you got there. Shame you won't have anything to fill it with. Shit. Well, at least you've made some headway in storing up beans and grains already. You'll just have to fish, and lay traps, and dig up about all the burdock root you can get your hands on, then.
Fuck. Ferny's going to grind and grind and grind until you buckle. And there's not going to be a damn thing you can do about it.
It's really no surprise when Hazel shows up at your door later that afternoon to reclaim the family Blackthorn's mending. You had gotten a good start on it, but there's no mention of paying you for what you'd gotten done. Hazel almost looked sorry for you.
And now here you are, seven days later. You are absolutely filthy. Your head hurts. You've been breathing in the smell of ripened urine and shit all night and you think you might be a little high on the fumes trapped in the cesspits.
In case you were wondering: worst high ever.
They'd laughed, the nightmen, when you'd retched at the smell, adding the contents of your stomach to the swamp of filth in which you waded and scooped up into buckets. Eventually, the nausea faded, but the fumes never lost their sting.
There are three roles played by the nightmen in their work. One stands by the wagon and dumps the bucket into the barrel. The ropeman throws the bucket down the hole, hopefully missing your head and keeping a good grip on the rope. The holeman climbs down into the cesspit, wading in a soup of shit up to your ankles or knees or waist depending on the last time the homeowner paid for their services, and scoops up the contents of the cesspit into the bucket. Guess which one you were.
You learned pretty quickly not to fill the bucket too full.
You've had a walk of shame a time or two in your life, that thing where you get up at the crack of dawn and walk down the street wearing your clothes from whatever event or dinner or coffee or drinks thing you had chosen your outfit for the night before and everyone kinda has a pretty good idea just what you've been up to.
Here? Here the good folk of Bree could probably smell you coming from a block away.
Fuck.
But it's done. One more problem down. So much more fuck-upped-ness left to go. A lost week of wages and work to make up somehow. He'll get the twenty pence he put down as bond now that you've completed your sentence, but you still owe Butterbur the eighteen pence he shelled out to cover your fines. At least you've got enough to pay him back, though you'll have to make that up eventually, too. You're not exactly sure how.
Man, even with what you've hoarded so far, the winter is so going to suck.
Fuck. Maybe you can sell some of your wood and not burn so much of it.
You'll have to think about it when you're not so tired.
It's that soft time of morning, when the sky lightens in the east behind Bree-hill, the mist drifts in the valleys with the cooling of the nights as the summer wanes, and the rocks and pebbles of the Road stand out stark before your feet. A dog barks as you walk through the shadows thrown by the tall hedges past the gate. It's not that bad. At least this time the nightmen dumped their night's work in the fields to the northwest of Bree, there waiting to be raked over the furrows once the harvest is done. Harry at the West-Gate was unpleasant enough, fingering his belt loop where his whip sometimes hangs and pausing as if he were not entirely sure about letting you in. But at least it wasn't Ferny, who, every other morning, waited with the dawn for you to pass by after returning by the South-Gate, leaning on his fence and smirking at you around his pipe.
You're not sure what you're going to do once he starts his midnight visits again. But that's a problem for another day.
Soon, the birds will awaken and sing up the dawn. Soon, when you get close enough, you'll catch the warm flickering of light from behind the dark line of your wattle fence about your garden. And then the shadow in front of your door will resolve itself into a form that comes to her feet and reveals itself to be Poppy, and you'll know two things. One, that Poppy has heated water, and a bath awaits you in your garden and hot food lies carefully wrapped in a towel on your bench inside. She's already laid out clean things for you and will take your clothes when you strip down and bundle them up. When she leaves, she will wish you a good rest and take the bundle with her. And two, you will also know that the tears you're fighting off are both of gratitude for her kindness, and of relief that Estel didn't reappear over the night.
Today, however, there's no flickering of light and no bath, though there are shadows about your door and the light of a lantern coming from within. Voices echo against the hedges and houses near about in the chill air.
A shadow does indeed resolve itself in the gathering light behind Bree-hill and it is Poppy, but she's standing at your gate, her hands clenching the wood and watching for you, and behind her men-folk of the hobbits of Bree move in and out of your door, dark against the lantern-light within, bearing burdens that they lay down in your garden.
Oh god.
You break into a run.
"Now Fish," pleads Poppy, propping open your gate and holding up her hands once you're close enough to hear her. "Don't ye worry about a thing."
"Poppy?" you ask, staring at her kind face, marred as it is with concern and, oh god, fear, and then falter. A hobbit you know only distantly stares as he passes by on his way deeper into your garden. He's carrying your large basket of clothes and linens even though it's nearly half his size. It's stained dark and he's holding it away from himself as if he's reluctant to get himself soiled.
"Fish!" cries Poppy. You think maybe she'd been calling your name before this, you're not sure, but then you've already leapt past her.
"Bob!" Poppy calls, picking up her skirts and running after you, hard on your heels.
You brush past another hobbit standing in the stream of light coming from your door and burst through it, straight into Bob's hold. He's got a wiry strength that belies his size and he clutches you about your middle. Good thing, too, cuz you're not feeling so good right now.
Oh god.
Now you smell it. If you hadn't been carrying the scent on your own clothes you probably would have caught on even before you entered your gate, but here, here where the walls close in about you and contain the air, you can't mistake it. The fumes sting your eyes.
The shelves catch your eye first, dangling from the wall by one corner, their contents scattered about. Your pots and cups and bowl lie in shards on the floor. Every braid of onion and line of smoked fish gone from the rafters. Your staff lies broken in two, fallen in the corner between your cot and the wall where it was tossed. The lid of your bin of grain is flung open. And the final finish, every bucket that you kept out back in the garden in preparation for laundering lie where they were dropped. The bundles of reeds and the walls and the bin of grain are wet and darkened with their contents.
Motherfucker!
You don't need to ask who did this.
That's it. That's it. You're done. Damn it all to hell! Fuck it. Motherfucker!
Your throat hurts and your ears ring and everything's gone all blurred. "I'm going to kill him," you choke out, shaking your head. You twist about in Bob's hold and stumble, shocked at the resistance and pulling against him. "I'm going to fucking kill him."
"Fish!" Bob's voice rises and he grapples with you. "Fish! Oi! Marroc! Robin! Grab a hold, there!"
Suddenly there are other hands that grab onto you. Fuck!
"God damn it! Let me go!" You thrash about, blind with rage and tears, but they cling to you and down you go in a heap on the path to your door, your cheek striking the ground hard, rattling your head.
"Hold on now, Fish," commands Bob, but that blow to your head did very little to shake any sense into you. There's something else, there's someone else, there's hands on your face and someone speaking, there's something, "Hush now," comes a voice, someone, someone, god you're going to vomit all over them, god, Estel? Fuck. Estel? What the fuck?
"Oh, dear Fish, don't. Please don't," comes a trembling voice and hands cradle your face.
"Poppy?" you ask, blinking up at her. God damn it. Fuck. You're full out sobbing in a pile of hobbits.
"Oh, Fish, they'll thrash you bloody if you go after Ferny. I don't think I could take it," she says. She's crying and looking at you like you're breaking her heart.
Oh god. You've frightened Poppy out of her wits.
"There you are. There you are," she says, stroking your face. "You can let Fish go, lads. Oh, Fish, you're back with us."
"I'm sorry, Poppy," you say, your eyes filling with tears. And god, you are sorry. What kind of person would do that to her? There's not a mean bone in her body and she's been nothing but kind to you.
"Hush now," she says and settles next to you on the path. "I don't wonder you're worn through and through and had quite a shock."
Bob shuffles about and lands on his backside next to you with a soft, "oof," after he pulls his arm from around where you were squashing it beneath you.
"Give us some room, lads, aye?" he asks, wiping at his brow, and soon you are alone, the other hobbits offering to sort through more of your things and seeing what can be salvaged.
"Och, Fish!" he complains. "You're stronger than ye look."
"So are you, too, man. Jesus!" You take in a shaky breath and try to find a clean patch on your free arm to wipe at your eyes. "How are you little fuckers so strong?" you ask and he chuckles.
Poppy clicks her tongue in reproof. "Now Fish, you've gone and forgot your manners."
Bob snorts but Poppy just pats at your hand. "Now don't ye worry about a thing, Fish. Bob and I have it all arranged. We'll get this cleaned up and sorted and ask about for what folk can spare to replace what's been lost, as much as can be done."
God. You close your eyes. Nope. You're not going to start crying again. Fuck. You're so fucking tired. The enormity of everything hits you all at once and you choke. Fuck. What the fuck is going on here? What have you stumbled into the middle of?
God, should you really let Bob and Poppy drag themselves into the middle of it with you?
"I can't-" you start but stumble to a stop and open your eyes when Poppy squeezes your hand.
"Enough of that talk, Fish," she says, rising to her feet and brushing at her skirts. "Come now, I've got hot water ready, but should we wait much longer it will have boiled away and gone to waste. Come come. Up you go."
"Best ye go with her, Fish," Bob says and winks at you.
"Yeah, okay," you say after a moment, bowing to the inevitable. No use trying to resist her when she takes that tone. You'll just end up feeling even more like a dick.
You roll over and, with Bob's help, get your feet beneath you and let Poppy take your hand and lead you into the back by the far wall of your house where they'd strung up a line and hung a sheet to give you a little privacy.
Fucking hobbits and their practicality and love of all things of comfort. Where the fuck would you be without them?