"MB," said Frodo, flipping over the corner of the handkerchief in his hand to examine the initials embroidered in the corner. "Merry Brandybuck. Marly Brandybuck. Milo Burrows, Mosco Burrows, Moro Burrows."
"I don't think it's Mosco's nor Moro's," said Sam. "If those lads remember to carry a hanky at all, it's sure to be dirtier'n that one. That looks like it's fresh out o' the laundry, and hot-ironed."
"True," Frodo agreed. "But it's more peculiar if it belongs to someone like Merry or Marly or Milo. It's not a lady's delicate lace handkerchief, but a pony-fancying type of woman might have one like it. Myrtle Broombindle? I've seen her here today with her mother, and a girl of four-and-twenty is more likely to have a handkerchief with her than a boy not yet twenty. I don't know Mrs. Broombindle's first name."
"Myra," Sam supplied.
"Another MB! I never realized how many hobbits I know with those initials, Sam. There's plenty more. Half the Brandybuck family, male and female! It wouldn't be so very odd if it were Moro's, Mosco's, or even Miss Myrtle's. At least, they're still of an age to climb trees. What reason would a grown hobbit have to be up there?"
Frodo and Sam both lifted their eyes. Above them spread the clustered leaves and sturdy boughs of a tall oak tree, from which the monogrammed handkerchief had just fallen. The handkerchief was clean, unused, and neatly folded into a compact square. In such a condition, it couldn't possibly have been blown up onto the tree by the wind. Nor could it have been tossed at them from someone on the ground around the grassy dell where they were sitting. It could only have fallen out of a hobbit's pocket while he was up in the oak tree.
"D'you suppose he's still up there?" Sam wondered.
"It is possible," Frodo admitted. Were they being spied on? If so, he felt they'd done nothing to be ashamed of, though they might've had some reason to feel embarrassed a few minutes from now if they hadn't been interrupted.
While pony-racing enthusiasts were gathering on the nearby Bridgefields to look at the ponies and place wagers, the first race wouldn't be until noon. Frodo--who was never very enthusiastic about the races--had grown bored with these preliminaries and decided to seek his own entertainment. Taking Sam by the hand, he'd suggested that they pass the time before the first race in a more pleasant manner, then led his friend away from the crowds in search of some place more private. This dell, tucked down amid the cover of bushes and trees, appeared to be wonderfully secluded. They'd made themselves comfortable on the grass and were about to kiss, when this folded linen square had dropped down upon them.
"Hello!" he called upwards, and received only silence in reply.
"I'll go see." Sam rose and went over to the trunk of the oak to clamber up. He disappeared into the thick covering of leaves, and reappeared a few minutes later, inching his way out onto a bough that passed directly over the place where they'd been sitting. Frodo watched with apprehension as Sam made his way out onto this branch as far as he dared; he didn't call up to Sam, for fear of startling him and making him lose his balance, but held his breath until Sam had had a look around, then came back down.
"Nobody's up there now," Sam reported once he'd safely regained the ground.
"He couldn't have come down too long ago," said Frodo. "Even if this dropped out of his pocket onto the branch, it wasn't sitting there for more than a few minutes. It couldn't be. If it wasn't to spy on us, then what was MB doing up in that tree? What did you see from up there, Sam?"
"Mostly other trees, and the river over that way." Sam waved in a generally eastward direction. Then he had an idea. "You can't see it from down here, Frodo, but once I was about thirty feet up, I could look over that fence that's at the top o' the hill and see down into the pony pen on the other side."
Frodo saw his friend's point. "So MB perhaps wasn't spying on us. Was he was spying on the ponies and their owners?"
They'd come to the Bridgefields for the last races of the season. Not all pony-fanciers had the resources to breed or keep fast ponies specifically for racing; most needed their best ponies for farm work during the crucial periods of haymaking and harvest. The Bridgefields were miles of flat water-meadows that ran along the western bank of the Brandywine river; they were often flooded during the winter, but in the summer they provided a perfect place to race ponies for long, straight stretches.
Frodo and Sam had ridden up with Merry and Merry's distant cousin and local land-agent, Marleduc Brandybuck, the night before and taken rooms at the Buckshead Inn, just beyond the Bridge on the Buckland side of the river. Frodo's cousin Milo Burrows and his two eldest sons, who were bringing their new pony to race, were staying with Milo's mother in nearby Budgeford; Frodo proposed to return with them to visit his aunt after the races were done. The two parties had met on the Bridgefields that morning, then almost immediately parted company.
While the pursuit of a monogrammed handkerchief's owner wasn't the way he'd hoped to pass the rest of the morning, Frodo felt he had to take up the task.
"I'm sorry, my dear Sam," he apologized to his companion as he scrambled up the steep slope of the dell. "If this MB intends some mischief or dishonest dealings, I can't simply sit by and let him when I might've prevented it. I'd feel horrible about it, almost as if I'd aided him. We must try to find out which MB that handkerchief belongs to before the races begin."
Sam would also have preferred a cuddle to an investigation, but he didn't complain. In the first place, he knew that Frodo wouldn't be able to rest or relax while this problem was on his mind. In the second place, he knew how seriously pony fanciers took these races.
"Now... Where are all of our MBs?" Frodo paused just outside the entrance to the pony-yard, at the southern end of the racing field, and scanned the crowds. "I don't see Merry, nor Marly. Milo and his sons are surely in there--" he indicated the fenced-in area. "Did you see them when you were up in that tree?"
Sam shook his head. "There was near as many folk in there as out here, and the ponies too."
"A pity. If they have been there since we left them, they couldn't possibly have been climbing trees at the same time. But let's begin with them."
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MB: A Monogrammed Mystery by Kathryn Ramage
Story notes: This story takes place in the late summer of 1426.
