[Elora]

Tunnels through walls in buildings! Vanwe, suitably bewildered by the mysterious panel Aman had pulled aside, and the entirely dissatisfied mood of the Mathom sale attendees that rippled like a stormy sea, mutely followed Aman through to the mathom room. The announcement that the sale would begin in five minutes meant there was no time for explanations, questions or indeed anything other than hard work.

The mob had moved inside, to get a reckoning of the larrikin who had announced a fictious mathom sale. Aman and Vanwe frantically set out the mathoms that had been saved from the pyre. The stableyard started to fill with a strange array of oddities and curiosities. Meanwhile, inside, hobbits muttered fitfully about pranksters and what happened to people who cried wolf.

"There haven't been wolves here since the Fell Winter of 2911," some said with a great air of knowledge. Debate soon ensued over who had seen a wolf, where and why anyone who lived near the Brandywine River was by definition mad. It took longer than five minutes to set the mathoms out on the trestles that had been arranged in the stableyard, but that was well and good as there was more than one Took descendant who felt impelled to explain why they were not mad and the rest of the Shire plainly was.

In the stableyard, Aman and Vanwe gathered their breath.

"I think that's all of it," Vanwe said.
"There's always more to be found," Aman said ruefully. This was one sale that would not end swiftly. Mathoms had the unusual ability to profligate as soon as one's back was turned. The trouble now was how to get them back out into the stableyards.

"I can open the door and announce the sale has begun if you like. Cook will not take a second delay to lunch," Vanwe observed. Aman saw to retracing their steps back to the mathom room, and the tunnel. What would happen should a curious hobbit find a secret tunnel to a mathom room did not bear considering, and there were a number of Tooks in the immediate vicinity.

Vanwe opened the front doors to the commonroom and conversation stumbled to a halt. She'd never been faced with so many people, faces turned to her in expectation. It was daunting, not least because there was not telling who in that crowd watched.

"The mathom sale has begun in the stable yard, ladies and gentlemen," Vanwe said as loudly as she could. Cook waved her broom and the mob was again on the move. Vanwe raced aside to the thunder of feet and then cries of triumph.

"They're here!"
"Will you look at that!"
"That looks familiar!"

High hobbit voices filled the afternoon and soon the business had begun. There was trading to be done, and Vanwe found herself surrounded by a ring of hobbits, all clutching something and demanding sale. Nothing had prices marked, but despite this the bargaining was already begun before Vanwe could hope to say anything.

"Three coppers!"
"No, ignore her. I'll give you 5!"
"You've already got one. Six coppers"

Around her the bargaining circled, mathoms changing hands, coppers being thrust at her. Vanwe struggled to watch the mathoms that were still being inspected. Two Elves stood in obvious delight as they watched hobbits snap up objects that had no discernable use unless they were a shipwright, a Dwarven smith, a Corsair or some such other remote profession of distant lands. None of this dampened enthusiasm. Be it a plough disk, or a ship's navigational divides, mathoms were mathoms and highly sought after.

Vanwe did as best as she could, coppers soon besting the small pocket she had in her dress. A kindly hobbit doffed his hat as she noticed her struggle with the coins and offered her it.

"Take it," he said as he nodded to a fine seeming mathom, "you'll need it and I need that." Vanwe did not argue, she did need it, and what possible use he had for a very old packet of unidentified seeds she did have the time to wonder about. Around her the bargaining went on. Organised chaos the likes of which she had never seen, not even in the markets of Umbar, and so many copper coins that she could scarcely contemplate how much food, shoes, dresses, nice warm baths or even a horse to spare one's feet could be bought with such wealth.

She let the coins fall into the hat in a seemingly ceaseless stream.

[ June 19, 2003: Message edited by: Elora ]