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Sam’s heart could take no more of this. He couldn’t rightly say which hurt worse: that he had no real home to come home to…or that Mr. Frodo didn’t. Frodo was already so terribly changed by everything he’d been through, so broken by it all, and Sam had been hoping and hoping that coming home would finally set him to right. Help him find himself again.
It wasn’t until now, seeing that the Shire wasn’t home anymore, that he realized how fiercely he’d been holdin’ onto that hope.
All the despair he felt knotted into hot, hard fury in his heart at the sight of the rows of sheriffs standing bold as you please in front of their barricade in the bright morning sun. These hobbits were s’posed to be people folk could turn to for help—now they were going around taking advantage and making it so no one could question all these horrible changes.
There was Robin Smallburrow, and he at least had the decency to look contrite. But saying sorry couldn’t unsow seeds, as the Gaffer liked to say, and Sam wasn’t of a mind to wait for the sheriffs to change their own minds before he started changing things for them. And right now, he’d settle for just riding their ponies straight through the sheriffs.
But he’d follow Mr. Frodo’s lead, and Mr. Frodo did not seem about to ride his pony through anyone.
“Hold up, now!” the lead sheriff barked, adjusting his cap so no one could fail to miss that his cap sported two feathers. “You can’t go no farther!”
“What’s all this?” Frodo asked with a laugh in his voice.
A laugh? Sam shot Frodo a bewildered look.
The lead sheriff drew himself up importantly. “Mr. Frodo Baggins, you are hereby under arrest.”
Sam’s head went even hotter than before, blazing hot. No good food, no fires, no pipeweed, no songs, and a lot of rules was all bad enough. But arrest? Insulting Frodo after all he’d done for the whole world? It could not be borne. Sam nudged Bill forward with his hands curled into tight fists around the reigns.
But Frodo’s pleasant voice stopped him (and Bill) in his tracks. “No,” was all he said.
The sheriff froze for a second, mouth open, gawking. Then he rallied, in a way. “What d’you mean, no?”
“No,” Frodo repeated. “I don’t think I shall be arrested today. Not by you, at any rate.”
“But I’ve the warrant right here!” The leader shook a piece of paper. “An arrest warrant for one Frodo Baggins.”
“For whom?” Frodo inquired with the utmost politeness.
The sheriff blinked. “For—for you. Like I just said.”
“And why,” Frodo asked, “do you think I am Frodo Baggins? No arrest warrant may be lawfully executed unless the arresting officer can articulate his reasonable suspicion in believing the arrestee is in fact the person subject to the warrant.”
Most of the sheriffs looked taken aback, as if they hadn’t expected a gentlehobbit to know his rights of arrest so thoroughly. A few of the sheriffs even looked confused, as if they didn’t know these particular rights of arrest.
Sam’s fists relaxed somewhat. He held back, waiting to see what would happen next.
The lead sheriff’s eyes narrowed, but he knew better than to ignore the question. “We got a report, we did. Said Frodo Baggins and three companions were all headed this way from Buckland.”
Frodo tilted his head. It was a small gesture, perfectly polite, but it was accompanied by a gleam in his eyes that made Sam’s heart skip—he’d not seen it for a long time, had figured the odds were against him ever seeing it again.
“Am I to take this to mean,” Frodo began, “that you’ve waylaid every group of four you’ve seen traveling on this road from the east? But surely you know an anonymous report requires higher indicia of reliability confirmed by the totality of the circumstances prior to the actual moment of arrest.”
This was met with a moment of awkward silence while the sheriff appeared to work out what had just been said.
It was clear when he thought he understood, because he puffed out his chest. “And that we’ve got,” he argued. “The report said the four of you’d be traveling all in strange foreign clothes, and with gray cloaks that can’t hardly be seen.”
Not by unfriendly eyes, anyway, and it seemed these sheriffs were plenty unfriendly.
The sheriff puffed his chest out even more. “And besides, ’twasn’t an anonymous report. It was a report by the guards at the Brandywine.”
Sam couldn’t see what difference that made, but Frodo was nodding. “Very well,” he said. “And what is Frodo Baggins to be arrested for?”
The leader consulted his paperwork. “Gate-Breaking, Tearing up of Rules, Assaulting Gate-Keepers, Trespassing, Sleeping in Shire-Buildings without Leave, and Bribing Guards with Food.”
“You forgot a few,” Sam grumbled, “like Calling your Chief Names, Wishing to—”
“Well!” Frodo interrupted. “Given that neither your esteemed self nor your companions witnessed any of the four of us allegedly perpetrating these crimes, I wonder by what probable cause you believe us to have committed them at all.”
“The report said it!”
“I see.” Frodo sat taller atop his pony. His head was high with a dignity Sam was both proud and relieved to observe, although there was a strange upward curve to the corner of his mouth like he privately thought the entire situation was an amusing joke. “So any hobbit can issue a report of criminal activity to the sheriffs, and the sheriffs, without any further investigation, will feel free to make an arrest? Then what’s to stop the sheriffs from becoming nothing more than a pawn in petty squabbles? Has your office sunk so low?”
The sheriffs either didn’t see or didn’t understand the curve of his mouth and seemed to take his question dead serious. Quite a few of them turned rather red.
“And surely such esteemed sheriffs as yourselves know,” Frodo went on, “that sheriffs may not arrest hobbits for misdemeanors committed—or allegedly committed—outside the presence of said sheriffs without a warrant. Yet every offense you named is a misdemeanor offense.”
The lead sheriff shook a piece of paper. “That’s just why we’ve got a warrant here!”
“Let me see the magistrate’s signature,” Frodo demanded.
Behind Sam, Pippin stifled a snort, though Sam wasn’t quite sure why. All this was more than a bit above his head.
But the lead sheriff also understood. He scowled—and did not hand over the paper. “There wasn’t time to see the Thain. We had to stop you from causing any more mischief.”
“Oh!” Frodo appeared to be biting the inside of his cheek to hold back a wicked smile. “Well, then, that explains everything. Since there’s no way for you to lawfully arrest us when you did not witness the commission of the alleged crime and you lack a warrant signed by a neutral and detached magistrate, I must have misheard you earlier when you said that we were under arrest.”
The sheriffs all exchanged worried looks. They clearly had not realized how difficult their assignment would be. Sam was almost tempted to feel a little bad for them.
“Fine,” the lead sheriff blustered. “You’re not under arrest, then. You’re being detained.”
Frodo nodded immediately. “Yes, that’s quite a different matter. You have certainly already articulated the basis of your reasonable suspicion that my friends and I were involved in criminal activity—well done on that point. But now time is of the essence: you may continue detaining us only long enough for due diligence to confirm or negate your suspicion.” He raised his eyebrows. “Go on, then.”
“Well—all this time you’ve spent arguing with us doesn’t count!”
“Doesn’t it?” Frodo asked mildly.
It was plain the lead sheriff did not actually know.
“Better get to it, then,” Merry said with a grin.
“Right, well,” the sheriff blustered. “Did you or did you not…erm…break down a gate?”
“What, by myself?” Frodo asked incredulously.
The sheriff peered up at him, apparently seeing past the foreign regal finery for the first time. Frodo looked alive, which was worlds better than how he’d looked back in March, but now Sam saw Frodo through the sheriff’s eyes. He’d always been slimmer than was right for a hobbit, but there used to be redness in his cheeks and brightness in his eyes and energy just in how he carried himself.
Compared to all that, he now looked downright sickly.
“Tearing up of Rules, then,” the sheriff said. “What have you got to say about that?”
“Yes, I suppose I could have managed that,” Frodo conceded. “Theoretically, at any rate. But—”
“Oh, that wasn’t him,” Pippin interrupted loudly. “That was me.”
Sam tensed. Now would the sheriffs turn their attention to Pippin instead?
But Frodo laughed again. “Master Sheriff, I hope you do realize that any confessions any of us might feel inclined to make right now would be inadmissible before a judge.”
The sheriff blinked. He did not, apparently, realize that.
“Why, you haven’t spared a breath to inform my companions or me of our legal rights.”
“You seem to know them well enough on your own,” grumbled one of the sheriffs towards the back of the group.
Frodo simply gazed innocently down at the lead sheriff.
“I—I don’t need to inform you of anything,” the lead sheriff protested, still rather red-faced.
Frodo shook his head in mock dismay. “Yet here you are, subjecting me to a custodial interrogation!”
“You’re not in custody,” the sheriff argued desperately. (Sam was beginning to think he didn’t actually know the rights he was supposed to be explaining.) “You said it yourself that you’re not under arrest!”
Frodo shrugged. “Not formally, no, but my freedom has certainly been deprived to a degree analogous to a formal arrest. That’s certainly how it would seem to any reasonable hobbit in my position, what with the lot of you putting up barricades, all but surrounding us, and insisting quite adamantly that we are, in fact, under arrest, as you did not moments ago. We are, therefore, in custody after all.”
This seemed to stump the sheriff. With a sudden snort, he reached out and grabbed the harness of Frodo’s pony. “All right, then. I don’t need your confessions. I’ll just keep you here until the witnesses arrive from Buckland. They’ll tell us who was breaking down gates and tearing up rules and assaulting guards and whatnot.”
“They could, perhaps, theoretically, point one or more of us out,” Frodo acknowledged, “but given that the misdemeanors weren’t committed in your presence, I am afraid you shall still need a warrant signed by a neutral and detached magistrate.”
“You!” The lead sheriff snapped at one of the other sheriffs and held out the warrant. “Get this to Tuckborough as fast as you can. Wake the Thain up, if you have to. Just get back here with a signature.”
The poor deputy took the paper, then seemed to realize how far it really was between here and Tuckborough. “Erm,” he said.
“Go!” the lead sheriff shouted.
The deputy set off at a slow but dutiful trot. It would be hours before he got back here, at that rate. Sam glanced up at the sun’s progress through the sky.
“Wonderful,” Frodo said. “Assuming your witnesses arrive to testify as you have predicted, and assuming your deputy returns shortly, that leaves us with only one remaining problem.”
New dread filled the sheriff’s eyes. “And what’s that?”
“You still,” Frodo explained in the slow, patient voice Sam might use with a small hobbit lad or lass who didn’t understand the difference between roots and sprouts, “have no proof that I am, in fact, Frodo Baggins.”
“But the witnesses—”
“Can say nothing more than, ‘That’s him, the scrawny one with dark hair.’ Which is hardly particular enough for a valid warrant.”
“My witnesses will say your companions referred to you as Frodo!”
“Hearsay,” Frodo dismissed. “In fact, that’s hearsay within hearsay. The judge will have to determine its reliability first before signing the warrant. Oh dear, but that will take time and much explanation. Do you think the deputy you sent off for the signature is up to the task?”
The sheriff blanched. If the deputy were here, he’d probably be insulted. “One of my witnesses will say you claimed to be Frodo Baggins. Or, well, you claimed to be a Baggins, anyway. You said something about the family setting the Chief to rights.”
“Lotho?” Frodo’s nose scrunched with distaste. “Really, my good sheriff, this claim only worsens your position, as I now have to question the credibility of all your witnesses. To think they would actually accuse me of willingly admitting to having any relationship whatsoever with Lotho Sackville-Baggins!” He shuddered delicately. “I would never. No reasonable hobbit would!”
A few of the sheriffs, including Robin Smallburrow, nodded in understanding.
The sheriff changed tactics. “I’ve lived in Hobbiton the last fifty years, and I say I recognize you.”
“Describe me, then,” Frodo said, now with a dangerous glint in his eyes.
The sheriff hesitated. There wasn’t no way to describe the Frodo who used to be the master of Bag End that would also fit the Frodo now staring coldly down at him from a pony. Dark hair and blue eyes wasn’t enough, but that was about all that was unchanged.
“But you are Frodo Baggins,” the sheriff growled.
“Yes, I understand you think so,” Frodo said.
“I know so! And so do all these other sheriffs!”
“Do they?” Frodo gazed calmly at the rows of sheriffs.
Sam couldn’t say what it was. Maybe somehow they actually didn’t recognize him, after all he’d changed. Or maybe, maybe, it was that they did…but some part of them knew this wasn’t right, so now they were holding back.
Of course, Sam wasn’t one for idealism. Not about hobbits, anyway. Most likely they recognized him plain as day, and weren’t giving a thought to right or wrong, but were just confused as to how they were even supposed to handle a situation where a hobbit stood up to their leader.
“Hey!” the leader barked, turning around. “You lot! Which of yous recognize Frodo Baggins?”
The sheriffs shuffled their feet and glanced at each other and finally one of them stepped forward and opened his mouth.
But Merry beat him to it. “Maybe I can clear this up,” he announced, “since I am Frodo Baggins.”
The leader gaped, staring up at Merry with wide eyes. He looked like he thought he might be dreaming—or like he’d been struck over the head with a pole.
“Don’t be silly!” Pippin cried. “I am Frodo Baggins!”
Sam grinned. “No, I am!”
Bill neigh’d his agreement.
The lead sheriff went purple. “You can’t all be Frodo Baggins! That’s it—I’m arresting all four of you for giving false information about your identities!”
“What false information are you accusing me of giving?” Frodo asked with grave confusion. “I never said I was Frodo Baggins.”
The sheriff’s face contorted. “And resisting and obstructing! I should’ve charged the lot of you with that from the start!”
“Very good,” Frodo said encouragingly. “Mind, just be sure to write your complaint carefully so as to avoid putting any of us in double jeopardy.”
The sheriff’s eyes bugged out of his head. He looked more than a bit like that old spider, actually, only a good deal smaller. And to his credit, he didn’t smell quite as horrendous.
The other sheriffs exchanged worried glances. They didn’t seem quite sure what double jeopardy was, but they seemed to know it was bad. At least twice as bad as regular jeopardy.
“So, which will it be?” Frodo asked pleasantly. “You’ll have to pick only one charge for each of us. But I’m rather at a loss as to how I’ve resisted or obstructed you, since I haven’t failed to comply with a single order—”
The sheriff opened his mouth.
“A single lawful order,” Frodo stressed. “I’m similarly at a loss as to the basis of your belief that each of my companions individually must not be Frodo Baggins. Really…” Now he sat taller than ever, and his eyes flashed, and his voice rose, “it seems instead that you’re simply frustrated, and no doubt embarrassed by your own ignorance, and perhaps more than a little frightened of what shall happen to you if you fail to arrest us, and those three emotions will now inspire you to make four decidedly unlawful arrests. If such corruption were aimed only at my companions and me, perhaps we could tolerate it. But given that such corruption appears to be only a faint reflection of the corruption presently running rampant across the Shire, I am not finding myself inclined to overlook anything. If you attempt these unlawful arrests, I will have no choice but to soundly defeat you in every legal battle yet to come—very public legal battles, might I add, which will end in your being stripped of your two sheriff’s feathers and sent away in abject disgrace.”
This was met with silence. In most of the sheriff’s eyes, Sam could see shame and amazement. In the lead sheriff’s eyes, Sam saw plain horror.
He himself stared at his master with an emotion he couldn’t exactly put into words. This wasn’t the sweet master from their years together in the Shire, but nor was it the weak, frightened hobbit he’d known for most of the last few months, but nor was it the fierce lord who spoke from a ring of fire. This was someone new.
Frodo held the leader’s gaze. “Thank you,” he said. “Now, my friends and I have business to attend to at Bag End. You’re welcome to accompany us, but I would rather suggest you return to your smials to think about what slow decay of values led you to this state, and consider altering your life’s current trajectory. Be well.”
With that pronouncement, he rode his pony forward. The sheriffs parted like grass blown back by a storm. Sam, Merry, and Pippin followed in his wake.
They’d just past the last row of sheriffs when the lead sheriff’s voice followed them: “You!”
Sam twisted in his saddle to look backwards.
The sheriff was pale and shaking. “You’re breaking arrest, that’s what you’re doing!” he shouted after them. “And don’t you forget it!”
“I won’t,” Frodo answered calmly. “Never. But…” And now the bright light in his eyes faded, replaced by something softer and somewhat sad and more familiar to the look he used to wear on the long road with Sméagol. “I may forgive you.”
Without waiting even a moment for the sheriff’s response, Frodo turned and rode calmly on, and Sam was left still in awe, still without words except to think:
He’s grown, he has. He’s grown.