The pages are spotted here and there with tears, and the handwriting shakes in places.
Dear Ma, Pa, and dearest brother (who I hope knows I love 'im even as much as I teases 'im),
I am so sorry, Ma. I barely don't even know how to start. Oh Pa, you and him had been pals for so long. I am so sorry to have to write this.
Your friend, and my master, Nadvald of the Lonely Mountain, who escaped the dragon, is dead.
I were on a business trip -- I've been getting more than my usual share of responsibility, I can tell you that much for certain -- out to a nailed-together sort of place out on the Flatlands they call the Forsaken Inn. The ale is best to avoid. If you can drink somethin' they brought in from somewheres else, that's my advice, whatever it is from some elf-cordial of legend to some wine where you watched 'em stomp the grapes, have that instead.
Everything went normal. I rented a stable horse 'cause there weren't no sense making Oliver make the journey, so soon after we loaded the poor bugger with heavy tools and supplies from Thorin's place to Bree. And everything once I got back seemed usual, same folk in the same places. That customer Janet Horne, the one I told you 'bout lives near the Prancing Pony and orders silver-plate and gold-plate -- did you ever -- was chattin' to folk as usual, like about her eight dresses. Whippitydo.
And I gets home and the padlock's not on. It's just hangin' off the door handle like a stupid apple off a tree. So it's not like he went for a meal, but also it's too quiet. And he always brings that lock inside with him when we're gonna be on the inside. You can't lock yourself in from the outside... it don't work like that. So this whole thing is far beyond suspicious.
And I opens the door real slow, 'case there's someone inside as shouldn't be. Well, there was, only I showed up too late to put my own shiv in him first.
Master Nadvald was slumped over the table like he fell asleep. Only folk don't sleep too good with -- I can't even write it. It's too awful. Let's just say he were dead.
Well, I lost my calm right then, and I ain't proud of it. I ran to the Prancing Pony, screamin' and yellin' like the world were on fire. A Big Lady named Claery and a Man from Dale -- I can't remember his name right. It sounded like Noglond, but different. They followed me back to the shop and after she inspected the scene, Miss Claery were real calm and shelterin'-like, but this Norgolf guy, I didn't trust him as soon as he got past the threshold. He wanted to take the knife himself and not tell the Bree Watch, and go ask questions -- there's a ratty old hunting lodge out back of where they're rebuildin' Archet, and he said he'd go and investigate there.
Well, both me an' Claery stopped him takin' the knife away -- I made sure later the whole thing got in the hands of the Watch, although I allowed I didn't mind if she asked some real quiet inquiries with her friends, 'cause apparently she has a mighty bunch of 'em. But I also kept watchin' him as his eyes darted everywhere, lookin' for what might be valuable. I didn't tell the Big Folk about the fake you-know-what, nohow. The Birdsfoots ain't fools.
Except, oh, Ma, what if I'd come an hour before? That murdering eejit woulda been hamstrung and kneecapped 'fore he knew what was happening. But I say it wrong. He weren't a fool either, just didn't know about the concealed thingummy. He did get the most easy to use stuff in the shop: Master Nadvald's coin pouch and his real mithril ring.
I so wanted to show you it, Ma, 'cause I made it. He wanted a simple round band, but it had to be proper round an' smooth as butter. Even though it was one'a the first things I made under his watch, Master Nadvald loved it an' wore it... oh, Ma, someone musta seen it. The hardest part was meltin' it in the basket over those hot, hot forges they got up Thorin's way. But Pa, it's nothin' like plain silver or even the ancient kind you find when pieces of the ground move. It's slow and smooth when you pour it hot, sorta like syrup on pancakes 'cept you got to wait even longer. Then the way it shines... And they do get Dwarfs in the Prancing Pony. A Man might not know it, 'specially at a distance, but another Dwarf could tell the difference if they sat across a table from him.
Pa, we don't do nothin' crazy when we come to Bree. We don't bring the proper good stuff unless of an order, but the society types, or ones as wants to be, that make the bulk of our Bree business don't ever order, say, genuine beryl, or that natural pointy blue one, or his most amazin' weaved-together designs. It's always plate over pot metal, shine but not the real thing. It's what's the fashion that season, they says, an' we makes it for 'em at a tidy profit. It's the people as seeks out Nadvald in the Blue Mountains, the ones who want real art, they have all the taste, so most o' the superior stuff stays behind. It won't be no skin off our teeth if someone did happen to take the box o' polished agates.
'Cept they didn't. They took the most valuable thing in the shop, all right. They took my master while I wasn't lookin'.
The whole while these Big Folk looked around, or then when I brought the one fellow -- Bryner? Some such -- from the Bree Watch... he walked me all the way from the jail where they works out of, back to the shop again, an' said if I felt threatened, just to come a-runnin' and they'd put me up in their quarters. But everythin' they said, an' even some stuff Barliman at the Pony said offhand, it just reminded me of all the things Mister Nadvald won't ever get to do again. Have one'a Ma's pies. See the Lonely Mountain, even though some memories was sore. He won't ever tell me stories again on the long trip. For pretty obvious reasons, I can't even get 'im back to the Blue Mountains to bury.
By the time you get this, the Captain of the Watch has looked over 'im and then they said the best thing would be to burn 'im on a pyre, like the Horse-lords do. Some Dwarfs say it can release a spirit to go back to the arms of this fellow they figure made the first seven Dwarf-lords. So maybe it's the best I can do for 'im, do this terrible thing now but then be able to bring 'im back to Thorin's, after a fashion, and if any traveller happened to be goin' back by the Lonely Mountain that looked as I could trust, I'd pay 'em handsome to take the box there instead.
There's another thing, Ma, Pa. I was to inherit your shop, and I means to keep my obligation, but the will was right where he told me long ago I would find it -- with a copy back in the Blue Mountains, and registered official-like with the folk at Thorin's -- that notary fellow, Warr, he's real nice.
And this will, it leaves both shops and all within, down to the last tool an' bit o' copper, to yours truly. You guessed it. I am now the owner of Nadvald's Wonders.
The police fellow suggested I hire some help an' keep runnin' both shops, and then eventually yours, Pa. It's a fair enough idea, but where do I find someone I can really trust? How do I know? O, it's the strangest thing. Three days ago I was an apprentice with a master to guide me. Today I'm a businesswoman. (I'm sure Miss Lobelia would go red as a tomato if you told her. That Lotho don't do nothin' but put on clothes an' walk about.)
What do I do, Ma, Pa? Where do I go from here? I have to stay in Bree a couple days to see if they catch his murderer, an' not for nothin', but fulfill some custom orders before I go anywhere. Part of me wants to come home an' never set foot out of the Shire again. Part of me wants to go somewhere I ain't never been before, like find some farm north of Trestlebridge, real quiet like, an' offer to do chores for my keep, just to get my mind off the whole business. But Pa... a whole different part of me yet figures I can do it, supposing I get the right help.
I wish you all three was here, but at the same time I'm glad none o' you had to see this. I figure maybe someone saw his ring or just his fat coin purse (though most of the value was on me, since I was off buyin'), and followed 'im back to the shop for that, an' when Mister Nadvald got asked to give up the gold and jewels, he just snorted like he does when he thinks somethin' is real stupid... an' turned his back on the killer. O what a mistake, an' didn't he pay for it!
They asked me who he knew, who might be angry at him... most of the people we know in Bree are for business, 'cept the stablemaster knew I was gonna be gone for at least a day, an' his hired man even made a joke about how poor MIster Nadvald would be so bored. I wish, Ma, O I wish.
If I'd come home just a little faster... if I'd rid Oliver instead o' relyin' upon a stable-pony... if, if, if. My head is just a buzzing beehive. So I'd better stop wastin' paper and just tell you all that I love you for real an' true, an' whatever I decide, I ain't never gonna forget where I come from an' just believe I'm a real small Big Folk, the way some of they Staddle Hobbits seems to. I miss the Shire always, includin' our neighborhood. If folk asks after me, just tell 'em I miss 'em more than a crate o' strawberry-wine.
Your very own Corydalia
xxxxxoooo
