Chapter three – Buffy in Huntaworde, part one

It was late May in Huntaworde, in the furthest field of the Westfold of Rohan. Huntaworde was a fairly large village, the last settlement of the Horsemen before the area of forest and border, commanding a fertile valley and the paths to the mountain pastures where horses and cattle were taken to feed; and so it had a surprisingly elaborate wooden wall defence and a regular night watch. Mostly it was quiet, and people went about their business in the fields and in the pasture lands without fear. But every now and then the walls and their defenders had to do their job against Wargs, Orcs, or human bandits. So the wall was kept in good repair, and the Huntaworde men did not neglect their turns of watch duty.

And it was early one morning in late May, with the watchmen about to get off for the day, that they saw a slight, small figure, looking at first like a lost child, making for the gate. She had clearly been out in the wild for a while. Her clothes were stained and damaged and showed the signs of unskilful washing, and her hair was matted and dirty.

"Is this Huntaworde?" she asked in Westron,

"It is, young mistress," answered the senior watchman. "And who might you be?" The young woman did not miss the firm grip of both watchmen on their bows, each with an arrow in his left hand, bracketing her, ready for trouble. She stood unmoving, trying not to rouse alarm or anger.

"My name is Buffy Summers. You may know me as the Lady Baffy" One of the men looked uninterested and unimpressed, but she saw the other's eyes grow large. (Buffy wondered inwardly at the power of Saruman's language magic, that allowed her to make such a complex sentence in a language that she had known nothing of until a few weeks ago.)

"You are the Lady Baffy?"

"Yes, my masters. And I am here to ask to be your guest."

"Well, my lady, we…" the uninterested guard began, and his comrade suddenly seized his elbow and started whispering to him furiously. Neither, of course, knew that Buffy could hear them perfectly well.

"What do you think you're doing, you idiot? If this is the Lady Baffy that our guys told us about, she could come in whether we want to or not!" "Whoever she is, she has no right!" "It's not about right, you fool!"

A few people had noticed something going on at the gate, and had drifted closer. Suddenly one man stepped forward, straight at her.

"Lady Baffy?" he said. "Do you remember me? We met in Isengard."

"Oh yes, you are… Hengi, is it? We were speaking about King Théoden."

"What about him?" said the unfriendly guard.

"Oh, I was just asking. Actually, what I remember is that Hengi loves the king and is very loyal." Hengi blushed.

"Did the Lord Saruman send you?" he asked, in a hopeful tone.

"No, I am on my own." A few of the older and more experienced men noticed her curt and unresponsive tone, and drew their own conclusions. "I am a stranger in this country, and Huntaworde is the only place where I know a few people. Like you and Goldhair."

The name of Goldhair went through them like a slight, but perceptible wind. "Goldhair?" asked one man. "Goldhair Swertisdaughter?" added another. Before she could answer, Helgi said, "Yes, they were great friends in Isengard. Surely you heard that?"

"Yes," said Buffy. "I regard her as a friend."

The chatter rose, as more people had something to say about Goldhair – who was apparently with her sisters in the paddock, helping with the horses – and her family. Eventually, it was decided to take the Lady Baffy to her.

Goldhair had not expected to meet her friend again when she left her in Isengard, departing the fortress when she and the other Rohirrim had been thrown out. And that had made her sad; she was not the least of the many things she would miss. Over those few weeks in which fate (and the Lord Saruman) had thrown them together, Goldhair had felt she had been making a friend. She was just happy being with the Lady; in spite of her terrible strength, and of her strange past, she had felt so much like she was with one of the village girls she had grown up with – one of the nice ones. They had chatted for hours, made jokes about boys, gone hunting together. And yet she was also strange, and exciting, and full of things that Goldhair didn't know, sometimes that she had never imagined.

Today she was in the family paddock, watching her sister Swerthair the Tall riding a freshly tamed yearling colt. She was surprised to see… people, then some more people, then still more… all coming in her direction, in a sort of ragged order. Something must have been happening, but…

"Lady Baffy!"

From the moment Buffy had declared herself to the watchmen, a cloud of unstated, indeed unrealized problems had held everyone back. Buffy did not realize that she could not ask to be a guest unless it was to a particular family, and on the other hand the locals did not want to say no to a stranger whose anger and power were already legendary. Also, many of them still had an unspoken hope that she might help reconcile the Lord Saruman. And at any rate you did not say no, or show bad manners, to a woman who had been the Lord's guest in Isengard.

All these questions swiftly faded when Buffy met Goldhair – and, without doubt or hesitation, embraced her before the whole village. Shortly after, as soon as Goldhair had understood that the Lady sought for hospitality, she offered her family's. Strictly speaking, this was not hers to offer; her father was the master of the house, and, according to Rohirrim custom, hospitality was his to give or refuse. "As the king is in Edoras, so is the father under his roof," said a Rohan proverb. But though Swerti was not with them in the paddock, and could not be asked, Goldhair had no doubt of her father's reaction. And the notion was too welcome to the other villagers for anyone to raise a doubt.

The only person who wondered whether her father would be so untroubledly hospitable was Swerthair the Tall, Goldhair's older sister. Like her, she loved their father, and knew him to be a generous and hospitable person at heart. But she also knew that he was irritable, did not like surprises, and had a farmer's distaste for unexpected extra expenses. And right now he was contemplating a major expenditure already. But as she thought of that, while they were waiting for Swerti, she had an idea.

"My Lady Baffy," she said, approaching her in the formal Rohan way, with her head bowed and one hand before her breast, "may we ask for a boon?"

A bewildered Buffy said, yes, of course, anything I can – while Goldhair, for a second, looked at her sister dubiously. Then her eyes lit up. "You mean the dead oak?" Swerthair nodded, and the sisters started towards a far corner of the field next to the paddock, a curious Buffy following them, and all the villagers following Buffy. One by one, they were realizing what the sisters were about to ask, and the hope was spreading that today they would witness a feat out of legend.

The field's far boundary was by the stream that crossed the valley, naturally fringed by a range of trees. Closest to them, and farthest from the river, stood a massive, black stump, surrounded by gnarled black roots that spread in every direction.

"The tree died last year," said Swerthair, "and we cut it down. But the stump is here, and it just is in the way, We want to remove it, but father will have to borrow at least a dozen oxen to pull it out." "Apart from the expenditure," said Goldhair, "we have to find a day when all our neighbours can spare the oxen, which is not going to be easy." She had been the one who had taken her father's message to their neighbours and who knew the difficulty of finding a date when all six oxen teams were available at the same time.

"And that's not to think what we'd have to do if by any chance the oxen turned out not to be strong enough," said a large black-bearded, black-haired man who had just arrived. "You are the Lady Baffy, as I am told?"

"I am."

"I am Swerti Goodmouthsson, the father of these two scapegraces" – the big man gestured vaguely towards Goldhair and Swerthair. "I don't want to ask anything impossible or intolerable, but if you could help us remove this stump, you would save us a lot of effort and silver." He bowed, with one hand before his breast, as his daughter already had. "And you see, the roots spread everywhere. If we could remove them, it would increase the arable part of the field by a lot."

"Let me see," said Buffy. "I've never done anything like this before." She moved off towards the stump, bent down to examine it, felt it with her hands, and walked around it to get a good feel of its size and shape. Its diameter was longer than her height.

Then she bent, spread her arms around the mass of wood as far as they could go, and gripped hard.

Those closest to her gasped as they saw those slender fingers dig into the thick oakwood like teeth of steel. Buffy began to pull with all her strength.

She found that the worst problem was not the grip of the roots in the earth, nor the weight, but the wide spread of the root system. There was practically nowhere she could stand without her feet standing on roots, and pushing hard on them. At the same time as her arms were pulling the enormous, shapeless mass of wood upwards, her feet were pushing its roots downwards. She had to shift position several times, inconveniently and irritatingly. But at last she felt it: the whole mass of wood tearing itself free, upward and backward, on the pivot of her body. The earth groaned. Crashed, and almost exploded. Mud flew everywhere; and suddenly the enormous stump seemed to be floating in mid-air, with a thick, ugly crown of twisting roots still dripping dirt. Buffy was almost invisible beneath the bulk of the thing, but everyone could hear her voice as she asked: "Where do you want this?"

Nobody who was there ever forgot it. There was an explosion of applause and acclaim. Finally Swerti said: "My Lady, you have already done far too much… but if you could take it to my farm yard?"

Buffy had been glad of the opportunity; not only to do Goldhair and her family a favour, not only to present herself as a useful guest rather than just an extra mouth, but also because, without having to do anything that even hinted at violence or threats, she had discouraged any, shall we say, male instinct. Buffy knew all too well that her mix of graceful youth and slight, apparently helpless build, was like honey to most men, and that it tended inevitably to make a certain kind of trouble. She did not mind being admired, but did not want to have to deal with overbearing or immature men, especially in a country where she knew almost nothing of habits and customs. So impressing on the whole male half of Huntaworde that she was not just another wanderer was, really, pretty lucky. And if also, and at the same time, people started thinking of her as a friend and protector, so much the better.

Goldhair, for her part, was still feeling the delight that she had felt when she first saw the little woman among the crowd of neighbours and villagers. But along with that came a certain concern. She could see that the Lady Baffy was painfully thin, and her clothes looked in poor repair. Goldhair knew tailoring and sewing, and she could tell that Buffy had made attempts to repair and wash her clothes without knowing the least thing about it. She would have to teach her. Her hair (Goldhair remembered the care she took for it) was matted and dirty; and when she had had a little time to look at her friend with care, she also noticed that it was turning brown from the roots.

But first of all, she needed to eat. Her neighbours did not know Buffy, but to her, the girl looked like skin and bones. She needed to have a word with her father.

By the time Buffy unloaded the huge bulk of wood behind Swerti's farmhouse – taking care not to drop it and risk goodness knew what damage – it was late morning and time to begin to think about lunch. So Swerti, who had had a good chat with his daughter about the extraordinary guest they were about to welcome into their home, went to his wife and told her to prepare food for three people more: the Lady Baffy, said Goldhair, ate for three. And after what she had just done, it would be churlish to deny her anything. So, when Buffy sat down to lunch with Swerti and his family, she honestly laughed out loud when she saw an absolutely huge platter making its way to her. She rose, thanked Swerti's wife Brauna, and smiled at Goldhair, for she had a very good idea who had told her parents about her appetite.

NOTE: All the details of life in Huntaworde in this chapter and the following are my own invention. Tolkien said almost nothing about the peacetime lives of Rohan farmers.