Heralded By Storms

C2: Rare As Lightning


A few hours past sunset found Saradoc at last entering Pincup. He skirted the music and light of the festival evening, making his way back to the inn where he had taken a room at the beginning of his hunt. Though they were no doubt reveling with the local lasses upon the beribboned green, he could tell from the gear strewn about the room that his brother and cousins had chosen to share the small chamber. Shoving off the assortment of clothes and such that lay upon the only bed, he fell into an exhausted slumber without another thought.

When he awoke to the babble of the morning crowd assembling in the nearby fair grounds, he saw that his inebriated kin were lying haphazardly upon the floor, still recovering from their night’s excesses upon whatever extra blankets they had scrounged. There were times that he dearly missed the freedom of his tweenage years, but the clear light of morning washing his face with pleasant warmth rather than stabbing pain was a welcome change. Taking pity on the overwrought, he drew the curtains closed and crept from the room with Jester and Roam at his heels. A quick survey of the stables reassured him that Esmeralda Took had indeed made it safely to her destination and Mischance had been well cared for in the meantime. Wandering the slowly rousing business end of the gathering with a fat pastry and an apple to break his fast, Saradoc made his way towards the judging tents, which he suspected was the destination the young hobbitess had been so desperate to reach. Entering the largest of them, he came upon the second of the two vicious menaces he had been dealing with this year, and once again, Miss Took appeared to be embroiled with their shared adversary. Sadly, a hard rap to the head would do nothing to solve his problems with Hortensia Twofoot, whether administered by him or by his chance acquaintance.

Miss Twofoot’s face, though always unnaturally flushed, was now a violent shade of scarlet, and her dark eyes flashed with ill-disguised malice, a sure sign that she had failed to wheedle, wring or argue a situation to her advantage. Just beyond the three elderly matrons he assumed must be the judges, Esmeralda stood, silently furious but restrained, arms crossed over her generous bosom.

“Just because you’re a Took doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be bound by the same rules as the rest of us!” Hortensia flung her accusation in barely civil tones, but to no avail.

“Miss Twofoot, please,” the roundest gammer pleaded. “Miss Took arrived in time to display her entry before sundown; very shortly before sundown, but in time nonetheless.”

Hortensia seemed to chew hard upon further recriminations, but she finally gave a dramatic sigh and pointed a sharp finger towards her rival with a darkening frown.

“You’ve just about run out of luck, Esmeralda Took. I wouldn’t count on too many more miracles, you mark my words,” she began spitefully, but Jester loosed a sharp bark that startled them all, and Hortensia stepped back, aggression spent by sudden fear.

“Jester! Down!” Saradoc called, setting a soothing hand on the hound’s dark head, as he stepped fully into the wide tent, which was just now coming ablaze with color as the sun climbed high enough to pour into the low-lying fair grounds.

Hortensia’s attitude changed immediately, displeasure and distemper disappearing beneath a simpering smile.

“Why, Master Saradoc, you do know how to make an entrance,” she said flirtatiously.

“Oh, Jester here is an excitable fellow, I’m just along for the ride,” he replied, giving her a tight smile.

Saradoc hated giving her even the slightest encouragement, knowing full well that any gesture of even common courtesy would be seen as an excuse for further visits from the female half of the Twofoot clan. Ever since he had come of age, Saradoc had felt rather like a prize hog on the auction block, and Hortensia happened to be the least appealing of the bidders.

He nodded his respects to the older ladies present and offered Esmeralda Took a wide grin. “I see you reached the fair without further incident,” he said warmly.

“Your Mischance is indeed wrongly named, Master Saradoc,” she replied.

Saradoc saw her eyes flick towards Hortensia and, with a barely concealed grin, she laid a long fingered hand upon his arm.

“You have all my possible gratitude,” she purred, drawing him further under the pavilion. “You must see what you helped to save.”

“Lovely idea,” he said lightly, catching a glimpse of Hortensia’s furious expression. He vaguely wondered if the incident would put her off the scent or simply heighten the stakes.

A few more steps took them among the many tapestries, dresses and other silken confections of needle and thread; Saradoc knew nothing of these arts, but he thought he might have been hard put to judge them against each other, as they were all full of brilliant colors and details either dizzyingly complex or stirringly simple. He looked to his fair companion, hoping for a hint in her expression of which was the work of her own hands, but he found only an air of wicked satisfaction he had to admit he shared.

“So, it is your habit to tangle with the crafty predators of this world, then?” he asked, and her sidelong glance told much of her response before she even spoke.

“I could say the same of you, Master Saradoc. Though it seems you are the prey rather than the hunter this time.”

“Is it that obvious?”

“Hortensia is less subtle than your dear hound would be on a scent,” she replied, patting Jester as he paced between them. “I can well imagine that she would find you a welcome addition to her purse.”

“I would rather take old Jester to wife than her any day!” he chuckled. “But what has set her animosity upon you, Miss Took?”

“Esmeralda, please,” she insisted with a smile. “She seems to think I had something to do with my brother’s marriage to my best friend. Those Twofoots would just love to wed their way into the family, even if it is through as poor and broken a branch as ours,” she finished softly and with no little bitterness. But she quickly pressed on with a proud smirk. “Still, we Tooks can tell a full barrel from an empty one. My brother is no fool, thank the stars.”

“From your mouth to my mother’s ears! I’m afraid she’s quite oblivious to all Hortensia’s schemes.”

“I suppose I must now be twice as black in Horstensia’s book.”

“And twice blessed in mine,” Saradoc affirmed.

“I think I could live with that,” she said and stopped before a wide tapestry. “Here it is… The only one to survive that soak in the mud.”

Saradoc took a step back to admire the piece, a life-size trellis of eglantine and morning glory whose green arch led into a sprawling garden.

“This is well worth a trek through night and rain, Miss Esmeralda… It is quite beautiful,” he murmured distractedly. “You could almost step right in.”

“Mind you don’t, you’ll like as not be trapped inside by whatever magic she used to create it,” a gruff voice warned mockingly behind them. “She’s an enchantress, our Esmeralda!”

The dark-haired hobbitess whirled round, eyes narrowed, and glared wordlessly at the newcomer. Otho Sackville-Baggins grinned at her, leering boldly despite the presence of a youngster too like him in features to be anything other than his son.

“All the Took sisters are,” he continued, but the insult in the flattering words was clear in his tone. “It’s what comes of trafficking with Elves and the like.”

“A little magic brightens the everyday, I find,” Saradoc replied, taken aback by the mishmash of innuendo and folk tale in the robust hobbit’s comments.

“I’d mind this jewel, boy,” Otho cautioned darkly. “The glint hides a cutting edge to take the fingers from your hand.”

He swept off with a last disdainful look at Esmeralda, the boy in tow.

Saradoc glanced over at his companion, whose gaze still bored twin holes into the older hobbit’s retreating back. Esmeralda Took was still as much of an enigma as the first moment he had sighted her.

“You have a rare number of enemies, Miss…”

“Rare as lightning in August*,” she said as she walked away, head high.



TBC

~~~~~~~~~~



*’Rare as lightning in August’: In those parts of the world I have lived, August, and the end of summer in general, sees many thunderstorms. Hence the implication that lightning is not rare in that month and neither are Esmeralda’s detractors, or so she believes.