Pim remained in the courtyard to offer sympathy and encouragement to the Trufoots, while Frodo and Pippin went inside. Mr. Butterbur had taken the Sarties into the common room and filled a tankard of beer for each brother to appease their tempers. The two dwarves from the troupe were also there, at a table at the other end of the room, talking over the remnants of their breakfast. The two young men at the bar regarded them with wariness and ill-concealed hostility, but after their tangle with the little girl and her dogs, they weren't so eager to get into a second quarrel with this sturdier and more formidable pair. The elder Sarty scowled at the hobbits when they came in.
After a few questions to Mr. Butterbur, Frodo learned that the other robbery victims had gone out, but hadn't removed their belongings from the inn; they were determined to stay on until their property had been recovered and, in any case, they had nowhere else to go in Bree. The innkeeper had agreed to let them stay on without charge to make up for the crime they'd suffered under his roof.
Frodo also asked after the other dwarves, and learned that they were having their breakfast in the private parlor. Rather than question them, and probably not get the answers he was after, he sent Pippin over to ask Fordis and Garfi about their fellow dwarves instead. Both knew Pippin and were fond of him, and Frodo hoped they would want to help their friends in the troupe.
Nikal Sarty continued to scowl at him. "You're friends with those circus folk, aren't you?" he asked after Mr. Butterbur had gone into the kitchens to find a servant to clear the tables. "You and your kinsmen are always among 'em. You take their part in this, for all you're supposed to be getting our stolen things back for us. Who's side are you on, little lad?"
"I'm after the truth, Mr. Sarty, wherever it falls," Frodo answered. "I believe Mr. Grimmold and his people have been wronged in this as much as you have. I mean to find the thief who took your things, and recover what was taken--every bit of it--if you'll tell me all you lost."
"What more can we tell you?" asked Torven.
"We've said all we mean to," his brother said tersely.
"I think you've already said more than you intended." Frodo turned to Torven, and repeated the words the young man had spoken to the troupe in the yard. "'Give it back', you said. Give what? Something else was taken, wasn't it, something more important than the handful of copper coins in your purse. What was it?"
Nikal refused to answer, but after a moment's hesitation, Torven said, "A box. A little box of carved wood, locked. The key is still in my brother's pocket."
"And what's inside?"
"We don't know," said Nikal grudgingly, "only that it's worth a great deal."
"Our mother gave it to us when we left to seek our fortune," Torven explained. "She said it was a special treasure that belonged to our father. We were to take good care of it, for it might help us if we were inclined to follow him. We'll do anything to get it back."
"Did you tell your fellow travelers or anyone else here at the inn about this treasure you carried?" asked Frodo.
"Of course not!" said Nikal. "We're not such fools as that. We told no one."
"But we talked of it between ourselves," his brother admitted. "Both on the road north and in this very room last night. We discussed when we were to open the box, and agreed to wait 'til we'd come here to Bree and had need of it."
"I see, thank you," said Frodo. It was then that Mr. Butterbur returned, and looked relieved to see there hadn't been another fight in his absence. Pippin left the dwarves and came over to tell Frodo what he'd learned.
Merry, meanwhile, had gone out for walk. After so many weeks in close company with Frodo and Pippin, he wanted to be by himself for a little while, to think things through one last time before he finally reached his home. Like Frodo, he felt how near they were to the Shire, but he was in no hurry to cover those last hundred miles.
He was normally a cheerful and sanguine hobbit, not given to gloomy moods, but during this long journey, he'd begun to feel just as he did last summer, when he'd fled to Minas Tirith--restless and short-tempered. He didn't like feeling this way.
These emotions had been blunted at first by grief and a horrible sense of guilt that his behavior had brought about his father's death at so early an age. But as time had passed, he'd come to realize that if he had it all to do over again, he wouldn't have done anything differently: he wouldn't have stopped loving Pippin, wouldn't have married Estella Bolger or any other girl picked out for him, and wouldn't have stayed in the Shire. It wasn't in his nature to do otherwise, no matter what his father had wished. He was only sorry that they hadn't had some sort of reconciliation before Saradoc had died. Now that grief had subsided, these other feelings crowded in on him.
He heartily wished he could have stayed in Minas Tirith. He'd been happy there this past year: he'd become an informal representative of the Shire, an aide to the King, and once Frodo arrived to hunt for the poisoner who'd been terrorizing the city, he'd found some excitement and adventure too... and the two of them had achieved another kind of happiness together.
As much as he would have liked to remain in the city indefinitely, he had little choice but to return home. Frodo had wanted to go and, with his father dead, Merry was needed in Buckland. He'd avoided his duties to his family for long enough. Already, he felt the burden of the responsibilities he would have to assume as Master of the Hall, and how unready he was for them.
And then there was Pippin, who was not the only one miserable about their current situation. Merry was just as miserable. Who would have thought he could be so unhappy in the company of the two people he loved best in all the world?
He and Frodo had been happy in Minas Tirith, but it was much more difficult with Pippin always nearby. All during this journey, he'd been pushing Pippin away as much as he could, when what he really wanted to do was pull him close, hug him hard, and say he was sorry for treating him so badly.
It would be so easy to go back to the way they'd been before if he let himself do it, but he knew that if they did, they'd only be exactly where they'd been last year when he'd gone away--and worse, for he couldn't go running about the Shire with Pippin as he used to when they were carefree boys. He was bound to Brandy Hall now, as Pippin was bound to Tuckborough and his family there. Merry told himself over and over again that it was for the best, for both Pippin and himself, that they part. At the same time, he was afraid he was being an incredible fool.
By this time, Merry had walked along the main road through Bree until he'd reached the southern end of the town. Just before the gate was a cluster of little shops. As he stopped to turn back, he caught a glimpse of a man through the windows of one shop, a locksmith's, speaking to the locksmith; it was a face he thought he recognized, but couldn't place.
As he went to the window to look more closely, the man brought out a little purse that he kept tied at his waist beneath his tunic, and gave the locksmith a couple of coins.
No, Merry decided he didn't know this man, not by name, but he thought it was someone he'd seen in the common room of the Pony last night. The room had been quite crowded with guests and residents of Bree. He turned away and headed back for the Inn, and didn't give the man another thought.
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