Chapter eleven: The awful truth

As if I was a soldier in the Free Peoples Army myself, I reported back at their Town-hole’s office, Reconnaisance and Intelligence Gathering Division, one day later, exactly on the appointed hour.
First I had looked around the town of Michel Delving, met some nice people there and helped out a few of them. I even participated in a game of hide and seek and before I knew it, it was already time for my appointment.
I sat waiting on that same chair again, my eyes fixed on the portrait on the wall. This time, no one was spying on me and I felt a bit more relaxed. Finally, the door of the office was opened from the other side. It was a hobbit this time and he looked familiar. It was Mayor Whitfoot!
He beckoned me to come inside and there was that man I had met before also, behind the desk.
“I need my note back! And that newspaper.”, I demanded. “Sure, sure”, the mayor tried to appease me, “I am sure Master Strider will give them to you, when he’s done with them.” The man opened the folder that was, again, on the desk, the Bramblebury Gazette sticking out like a bookmark. Oh, I was so relieved when he gave me back that newspaper and the note that had been with me when I was delivered to Pa and Ma in Buckland, when I was a newly born baby. “Thank you, sir”, I said with a bow and an inward jump of joy, “I hope it has been useful to you?”.
The man nodded. “The handwriting corresponds to the samples we have of Yola Plumbossom’s writings. We are talking about the same person, Miss Rubellita Brandybuck.”
So that big file was about my mother! But soon I would wish it had not been.
The mayor and the man exchanged looks, as if silently discussing who would speak first.
“Miss Rubellita,.. Ruby,..”
“No, not Ruby, that’s not my name!” I sharply interrupted. The mayor made an apologetic bow and continued. “Miss Rubellita, this is hard for me.. us.. to explain. Your mother, well, she was .. very good at what she did. She has gathered invaluable information for our cause and she..”
“She was betrayed!”, the man intervened, “Betrayed and sold out to the enemy. Her mission compromised.” I could see the anger on his face. But my breath was taken from me, as I gasped “What do you mean? Where is she?” Mayor Whitfoot tried to calm me down, “I am sorry, Miss, let’s start at the beginning, shall we?” And he started to tell me about Yola, sometimes interrupted, censored even, by the man behind the desk.
Yola, they told me, was a burglar. Not the house-breaking, stealing kind, but someone who’s stealth skills were extremely well developed. She did all kinds of quests for the army involving sneaking into hostile territory and gathering information about the enemy. She mostly worked alone, sometimes in a team. It could make a huge difference, knowing the number of enemies and their locations before the armed forces made their attack, the man told me. Yola had always been a great asset and a valued burglar.
“But one day it all went terribly wrong. Yola’s reconnaissance unit was ambushed by orcs”, the man continued where the mayor had stopped. Relying on their stealth, they had only been lightly armed and were no match for heavily armoured and armed orc thugs. Only one of the group had survived by pretending to be killed and feigning death.
“That was Yola, right??”. My eyes were filling with tears as I knew that could not be the right answer. The man looked down and shook his head. “I am sorry, Miss, your mother did not make it back to camp.” Oh, dear Yola, I will never see you now, never meet you!! I was so sad!! I had come so close, but it was a path blocked now, impassable for the living soul..
I sat there crying for I do not know how long. The mayor was kind in his attempts to comfort me. The man, broad and strong as he was, also shed a small tear, which moved me very much.
When I had regained myself a bit, I wanted to know more. “You said, she was betrayed?”, I asked. The two nodded simultaneously. “Who would do that? Why?”
The man cleared his throat. “The one that had survived, turned out to be the traitor. He first led us to believe that his fellows, including Yola, had been captured. He volunteered to deliver ransom. But a demand for ransom was never received, so we questioned him. He confessed eventually. But also mentioned he did not operate alone. That is why we asked Yola’s brother to publish that story in his paper, to lead them astray.” It was all hard to conceive and understand for me. But Yola was lost to me, I would never see my real mother now. And the idea of conspirators to her death still on the loose made me very uncertain. The mayor tried again to comfort me and put my mind at ease “The rangers will take care of that, Miss Rubellita.”
I left the building, after thanking them for their time and effort. I was determined to go and help those rangers one day. I would make it my new purpose in life, now that I could never find Yola.
But I also had this uncle. Peppy was his name. I decided to look him up and maybe he could tell me more about my mother. Not to find her, but to know better who she was, no.. had been. My tears flowed freely again. And maybe he would also have a clue as to who could be my real father.. But I remembered the words from the hobbits in Stock. Peppy must have been away from Stock when I was born.

Next: Coming to Bramblebury.