A Slight Case of Magnificence

Summary: Just before one of the turning points in his life, Merry finds himself in an unexpected situation.  A Fourth Age tale.

Setting: Buckland, Late 1438.  Pippin is 48, Merry is 56, Sam is 58, Estella is 53, Faramir Took is 8.

A/N: I don’t know what to say about the wait for this chapter, as always.  Life just has a way of getting overwhelming sometimes.  Anyway, I hope you enjoy and I do promise that it will be finished someday, so long as that big outline stays plotted in my notebook, annoying me until I’ve brought every last plot twist into life.  Thank you to everybody who bothers to keep up with this; you make all the bits and pieces typed up on my lunch hour worthwhile.

Disclaimer: Characters and places do not belong to me

Chapter Eight: From Badness to Worseness

                Marner Goodbody drew a deep breath before he knocked upon the door jamb to the library.  The door was open but he felt he ought to let the Master know he was here first, so lost in his work did the great hobbit appear to be.

                Merry Brandybuck looked up slowly from the ledger.

                “Yes?”

                “I just wanted to let you know, Sir, that the last of the reinforcement work on the West side of the Hall has been completed.”

                “Tight as a drum then, is it?”

                “Oh, yes, Sir.  The lads have done quite a neat job of it.  I shouldn’t think we should have to be worrying about it for at least a few more seasons now.”

                “Grand.  Let’s have a look at it, shall we?”

                “Yes, Sir.”

                It was a winding journey through the network of tunnels but the two soon arrived outside at the farthest Western slope of Brandy Hall’s outer wall.  The workers there were just cleaning up the last of their tools and chatting jovially.  They quieted and straightened up when they saw the Master approach.

                He greeted them and began to inspect the work, quizzing them on various aspects.  Marner shivered as he listened, wishing he’d thought to bring his coat.  He noted that the Master did not seem at all uncomfortable in the bitter air, but, then, the Master rarely appeared uncomfortable in any way at all.

                “Right,” Merry finished with a nod, “That’s the last of the winter preparations.  Good job, lads.  You’ve done excellent work.  Let us all go to the parlor for a nip of Brandy to celebrate.”

                  Never was there a Master, Marner reflected, who knew better exactly the best thing to always say.  Taking up one of the spades and a bucket he grinned and followed the rest of the party back into The Hall.

~~~~

                Merry frowned and toyed with a pear while he waited for Cook to finish the trays for dinner.  He counted the days back in his head but there was no denying it—it had been over a week since Pippin had left to meet Sam, and Merry hadn’t heard a thing from either of them.  He surely would have expected something by now, a letter, a note, anything…

                But then, it had also been over a week since their blow-out, since Merry and Pippin had said such awful things to each other, Merry reminded himself.  Perhaps Pippin had no intention of letting Merry know what was going on from this point.  Or perhaps he had no intention of ever talking to him again, Merry thought sickly.  But no, he had said that when he came back they would sit down and talk things through, all this badness that had come between them.  He—

                “Sir?”

                Cook was looking hard at him, her faded blue eyes determined.

                “Yes?”

                “The dinner trays are ready, Sir.”

                “Oh.  Thank you.  I’ll just take them up then.”

                “There’s just one other thing, Sir, I beg your pardon, but I have to ask.”

                Merry felt his throat dry up.  “Yes, what is it?”

                “Well, it’s about the Yule party, the celebration this year.”

                “Mmm?”

                “Well, it’s just…the Mistress usually has all her plans made up and then  she gives me the lists and…well, it’s nearly time that we were sendin’ out the invitations and such but I just don’t know…”

                Relieved, Merry maneuvered the tea trolley with the dinner trays away from the counter, preparing to push it from the kitchen.  He smiled at Cook.

                “I’ll ask my wife after we eat if she has put thought to it at all but for now I would say that you should start planning for the banquet for at least everyone in the Hall—Yule will be happening with or without word from the Mistress, won’t it?  Certainly send out the usual invitations, count on all close relations from Buckland, or most, the East Farthing as well.  Tookland is out of the question, obviously,  what with the quarantine, and you’ll not get any mail through anyway.  I would say to go ahead and send out the normal invitations to the rest of the Shire, though.  Is that enough to go on for now?”

                “Oh, yes, thank you, Sir.  ‘Tis quite good”

                Merry could almost see the menu plans beginning to form in Cook’s mind.  He supposed it was probably a bit of a treat for her to get to make those decisions as usually Estella was very specific about deciding every tiny aspect herself.  And then Merry, of course, was forced to listen to her go on about it continually until several days after the great feast.  It was something he’d always had to fake a great interest in and, to be honest, Merry felt a little bit glad that she would be unable to take the control she usually did this year.  It gave him (and, he suspected, a good deal of the staff) a bit of a break.  One holiday off wasn’t such a bad thing at all.

                “Goodness,” he thought, as he pushed the trolley down the tunnel toward their apartments, “Yule is but a handful of weeks away.”  They had been told to expect the baby some time not long after.  At the time Marroc first said that it had seemed ages away.  Now it seemed almost frighteningly too soon.  He wasn’t ready.  Not now.  Not yet, anyway.

                A knot of worry immediately tightened in his gut and Merry realized it had become a familiar feeling of late.  He grimaced and made the turn into the last tunnel before their quarters.  He envied Estella, getting her time off from responsibility.  But it wasn’t the responsibility that tired him out, he reflected; it was the worry.  And he could never seem to arrange time off from that.

~~~~

                “How are we this morning, Sam?  Are you with us?”

                Pippin pulled Sam away from pillow a bit to get a proper look at his face.  It was still lost, however, in fever and heavy dream.  He laid him back gently and glanced at the clock.  It wasn’t really morning at all; were he at home they would be midway through the noon meal by now.  Pippin closed his eyes, imagining a fresh bit of pork, some Tookbank apples, boiled potatoes with butter and salt, slices of tomato and brown bread, some crackling baked beans…

                His stomach growled and Pippin jumped at the sound.  Then he smiled bitterly.  He was not at home; he was in Crickhollow and as little concern for the correct time as there was here, there was even less for proper meals.  He wasn’t quite certain how many days had passed since he’d found Sam down in the cellar—it felt like an age, the exhausting blur of it all, but there certainly hadn’t been six square meals for each of those days; it was more likely less than six between the whole of them.

                Standing up and stretching, he glanced back at Sam once more  leaving the room.  He looked a state and Pippin did not allow his eyes to linger.

                The kitchen was a mess.  Pots and pans and dishes lay on every surface, thick with a layer of grease and filth.  The food he’d set out from Brandy Hall with was long gone, the food he’d nicked from Fatty Bolger’s pantry just before he’d found Sam that first morning was nearly gone as well.  It would have disappeared more quickly in normal circumstances, but there was nothing normal in this farmhouse.  Pippin had made a bland, unseasoned vegetable soup that he’d managed to get Sam to take a tiny bit of over the past days.  The porridge had been less successful, the bread and meat completely untouched.  And Pippin himself seemed to have lost any appetite; too worried, too exhausted, too overwhelmed by this disgusting kitchen, growing more and more out of control by the day. 

                Then again, he sniffed, it could just be the growing mold that killed his desire to eat. In fact, the mold quite definitely had something to do with it.  He picked at the skin that had spread over the top of the milk pail and felt his stomach seize up.

                He grimaced and let it drop back, moving a few paces away from it all, deciding to ignore it as best as he could.  He went instead to a small cask he’d dragged up from the cellar a few days earlier.  Taking up a somewhat dirty but passable mug, he filled it with wine and sighed.  He took a deep sip and tasted Brandy Hall rolling over his tongue.  That was by far the best thing he’d accomplished the entire time here, hauling that barrel up the stairs.  It was tempting, given the situation, to drain it with his mug, escape into self-pity and apathy from this depressing, worrisome present, but he did not.  He took only the single mug full for the moment and returned to his station at Sam’s side.

                “I deserve this, I suppose,” he said not for the first time to Sam’s slumbering form, “You don’t and such is the pity, but I do.  Deserve worse, likely.”

                Sam turned, fluttered his eyelids briefly and groaned.  Pippin immediately forgot himself.

                “Here, here now.”  He picked up the cloth from the basin and began the process again of wiping down Sam’s brow, which had grown hot to the touch once more.  “That’s better, I think, mmm?”

                And Sam was gone again.

                Pippin finished up, wrung out the cloth and laid it out neatly on the side of the basin.  He re-tucked Sam’s covers then sat back in his chair to watch and wait some more.  He hadn’t any idea what else there was to do.

~~~~

                “Faramir?”

                “Yes?”  The boy looked up obediently at his cousin from where he was seated at the other side of the game table.

                “Are you feeling all right, love?”

                He nodded and moved his knight.

                “It’s just…you’ve been very quiet lately.  It seems.”

                He shrugged.

                “Are you upset about something?”

                “No.”

                “Are you certain?”

                “Yes.”

                He looked at her pointedly then and Estella felt her chest tighten.  “Yes?  What is it?”

                “It’s your move, Auntie.”

                “Oh.”  She blinked and forced her eyes back to the board.  “So it is.”

                She moved a pawn quickly, not really paying attention.  She realized immediately after having done it that it was a stupid  move, that she’d walked into a trap.  Faramir could easily take her knight now.

                He didn’t, however.  He merely gazed at the board for a few moments, set his jaw and then looked up at her wearily.

                “I don’t want to play anymore, if that’s all right.”

                She stopped herself from once more asking if he felt well.  She didn’t want to push him.  Instead she nodded and made her face cheerful.  “I should like to stop now, anyway.  I’m needing a bit of a rest.”

                He was up off his chair and quickly scooting the game table back to its place near the wall, careful not to disturb any of the pieces.  Then he turned back to her.  “Can I rest with you?”

                “May I.”

                “May I rest with you, then?”

                Estella settled herself back into the pillows, trying to find a comfortable way to suit her awkward body.  She was distracted by this dilemma and waved him off. 

                “Yes, of course you can.”

                “I may.”

                Oh, how every part of her ached!  Her feet, her arms, her back, her neck…Perhaps Merry would finish his work early and give her a good rub-down.  It seemed the only thing that helped these days.  A steaming bath might be nice as well, but Marroc had said that was out of the question.  No, no soothing heat from copper kettles for her—only lukewarm, damp rag-baths from Merry or from Dilly.  Humiliating, having to be cared for like that.  Nearly enough that she might rather just stay dirty for the trouble.

With a sigh, Estella found just the right angle at last and lowered herself down at the elbows gently.  Then she turned to Faramir, having just registered what he’d spoken.

                “You may what?”

                “I may rest with you.”

                “Didn’t we agree that you would?”

                “You said that I can.”

                “Yes, I said--”

                Faramir broke his innocent expression and started to giggle then.  Estella puzzled over him.  It was unnerving, the way he seemed to find amusement in situations when no one else did.  Slowly, however, she realized the joke and smirked.

                “Don’t be smart to your poor auntie.  I’m right tired.”

                “I’m sorry,” he laughed and crawled up beside her.

                “It’s all right,” she said and nearly told him that it was good to see him smiling, but changed her mind.  It would only spoil the pleasure by making him self-conscious.

                He curled his thin little body and placed his head beside her tummy.  The warmth of that, at least, felt nice, the finest little hot water bottle, precisely heated.

                When Faramir spoke again, it was almost directly into her tummy.  “Uncle Merry says that you are going to call him Théodoc.”

                Estella smiled to herself.  The lad had not lost one bit of enthusiasm for the baby, even after all these weeks of waiting.  It reminded her of Merry a bit, that dogged determination and ability to focus on one idea so fully. Perhaps he was not so singularly Tookish afterall, though had she asked him, Merry would have said it was rather actually one of the Tookish traits he himself had picked up from Esmeralda.  “We may still call her Astor.”

                “Could we call him Teddy for short, do you think?”

                “Teddy?”  Estella marveled over how the lad’s mind worked, that he came up with such things. There was no doubt that that was Tookish. “If he is a he, I suppose we might consider it.”

                He scooted up and nestled in the crook of her arm, a sleepy smile on his face. 

                “May I call him Teddy?”

                Estella brushed his caramel curls off his face, noting his exhaustion-ringed eyes without comment.

                “Yes.  You may.  As for what anyone else calls him, we’ll have to see.”

                “That makes me quite important, doesn’t it?”

                “Indeed.”

~~~~

                Estella woke up with a start.  The first thing she saw was Merry looking down at her with alarm.  It took her a moment to realize that it wasn’t his presence that had woken her—it was the death-grip around her arm.

                She followed Merry’s eyeline to the source, suppressing the instinct to pull away as the grip grew nearly numbing.  Faramir, fast asleep, was the culprit, his two small hands fastened like iron about her.

                Estella opened her mouth to make some sort of a plea but Merry had already beaten her to it.  She watched him gently lift the boy with one hand, using the other to pry loose the grip.

                Faramir let go slowly but did not wake.  He transferred his hold to a fold of Merry’s jacket and laid his face against his cousin’s tweed westkit.

                Merry glanced at Estella with a look she could not interpret, then turned his attention to the boy.

                “Farry,” he whispered, “Faragrin?  It’s time to eat, love.”

                Faramir blinked slowly.

                Merry bent and tilted slightly so that the trolley of food came into view.  “Are you hungry?”

                Half-lidded eyes peered out sleepily.  “Is it time for dinner?”

                “It is.  I’ve brought some lovely things.  Cook even snuck in one of those fancy little pastries you like.  I told her not to, said Estella and I had quite enough sweets, but I’m quite sure she sneaked it in there when I turned my back.”

                Faramir rubbed his face and squirmed down out of Merry’s grasp.  He immediately began to set out the trays and cutlery, as they did at every meal, taking care that Estella could reach everything from her awkward position.

                Merry glanced at her once more but said nothing.  He put his smile on quickly and helped Faramir with the last, most heavy bits.  “So, what have I been missing here all day?”

                “Auntie Estella says that I can call the baby Teddy when he comes.”

                Merry grinned.  “Teddy, eh?”

                “Yes.  It’s a lot better than Théodoc.”

                “And why is that?”

                “I don’t think someone named Théodoc would be much fun to play with.”

                “Well,” Merry tucked his napkin into his lap and began to spoon some gravy over his meat and that of Faramir’s, “I suppose it depends on what sort of a person he turns out to be.  That’s how your father got to be Peregrin, you know.”

                Faramir looked up from his greens with interest.  “What do you mean?”

                “He wasn’t originally to be named Peregrin, that’s what I mean.”

                “What was he to be named?”

                Merry had a mouthful of roast beef and had to swallow before he answered.  “Peregrim, with an ‘m.’”

                Faramir made a face.  “Why?”

                “Because he was to be a Took and Tooks are often ‘grims;’ Isengrim and the like.  A bit of a tradition, like the Brandybuck ‘docs’ that I told you about before.”

                The boy nodded , took another bite, swallowed, then asked “So how did he become ‘grin’ if he was supposed to be ‘grim’?  Did they spell it wrong?”

                Merry laughed.  “I wouldn’t put it past them to do such a thing, but, no, in this case it was your Granny.  Apparently your father was a very good baby, far less trouble than any of your aunties had been--imagine that--and your Granny Eg insisted that such a child should not be called ‘grim’ if he wasn’t so in any way.  Your Grandda wasn’t too happy but she put her foot down and he let her have her way the day of Pippin’s naming ceremony.  Turned out to suit him quite well, I think.”  Merry leaned in then and winked.  “Let that be a lesson for your future, Farry: no matter how mad they may be, always do what your wife tells you to.”

                Estella rolled her eyes and Merry raised his eyebrows at her over his cup.

                Faramir ate thoughtfully for a few moments, then looked up with curiosity.  “Was I a good baby?”

                “Quite good, yes.”

                “Are you certain?”

                “Of course you were.  Born in Buckland, after all, how could you not have been?”

                Faramir seemed to accept this as a logical enough answer.  He finished up his dinner, as well as a few stray bits from Merry and Estella’s plates, then excusing himself to read, pocketed his last pastry and headed off into the sitting room.

                “I never knew that about Eglantine and Pippin before,” Estella said after Faramir had left.

                “Mmm,” Merry nodded.  He poured both of them another cup of tea and kept his eyes busy on spooning in the sugar.

                “I suppose she was trying to be hopeful, wasn’t she?”

                “It’s likely, yes.  I was too young to remember much, but it was a very frightening time.”

                “Poor Auntie Eg.”

                Merry nodded and then dipped his head toward her arm. “So what do you think that was about earlier?  Nightmare of some sort?”

                “I don’t know. I don’t think he’s been sleeping well since Pippin left.  Did something happen, you think?”

                Merry cocked an eyebrow.  “Other than his father leaving without him?”

                “I think Faramir wanted him to, actually.”

                “No, I think you’re right.  I don’t know what else might have happened, though. Some sort of row, obviously.  Perhaps he’s feeling guilty, or still feeling angry.  Or perhaps it’s nothing.”

                “No, he definitely hasn’t been himself.”

                “How so?”

                “I’m not sure how to explain it.  I don’t know.  Maybe it is nothing,” she sighed, “Maybe I’ve become a great senseless worrier.”

                “I think you’re just becoming a mother.  I forgive you, of course.”

                “Yes, well, one should hope so.”

                Merry moved closer, put his arm about her just as she began to tremble.

                “I’m so frightened,” she whispered.

                “Shh, shh,” he kissed her forehead and smoothed her curls, kissed her again.  “You’re very strong and nothing bad is going to happen.”

                “Poor Eglantine—what if we…what if…”

                “Shh, there now.  Eggy got to keep her lad and he turned out to be just fine and grand.  So will our lad.”

                Estella sniffled.  “Or lass.”

                “Yes, or lass.”  He smiled and put his cheek to hers.  “And anyway, you’ve nothing to fear for I love you and will be right here for you at any moment.”

                “You can not keep everything bad away.”

                “No, but I can certainly try.”

                “Promise me that you won’t leave.”

                “Estella, really.  Where in the world do you think I might go?”

                “But your work?”

                “Is not taking me out of the Hall any time soon.  And I’ve finished what I had to do anyway this afternoon.”

                “Truly finished?  Completely?”

                “Yes.  I’ve no more reason to leave this apartment ‘til after Yule.  So you’ve nothing to fear.  Does that suit you, dear great senseless worrier?”

                “Now, there, don’t be smart.  I get enough of that from Faramir.”

                Merry laughed and breathed deep the scent of his wife’s hair.  She’d always smelt sweetly of baked things to him, even when she’d been far from a kitchen this long.  “The boy’s smart enough for all three of us, that’s for sure.”

~~~~

It was hard for Sam to open his eyes.  He felt so horribly weak and cloudy-headed, but he was also afraid that if he did open his eyes, the cinders and chaff from the mountainside would blow in them.  He could feel the heat against his skin—so hot it seemed to almost be coming from within his skin—and he was not eager to face it fully.

                But he must.  For something had happened to Frodo.

                “Mm—Mister Frodo?”

                He thought he’d said it, but suddenly he couldn’t be certain whether he’d only thought it.  His throat was so dry and his voice seemed lost beneath the weight of humid, heavy air that sat thick in his chest.  He had to sift deeply to find it.

                “Mister Frodo?”

                He managed to open his eyes finally but it was all blurry.  Even as they adjusted it was difficult to see for it was hazy and dim, wherever they were.  He couldn’t see the mountainside anymore.

                “I can’t have lost you…”

                Sam fell abruptly from the ledge he had not realized he was on.  It was a short fall, though, and he was shocked to hit the ground so quickly.  But it wasn’t the ground…it felt like laid flooring.  Wooden flooring, floor boards.  Were they back in the tower?  Had the tower had wooden floorboards?  He couldn’t remember.

                But dread took over from curiosity and Sam moaned in panic.  If they were back in the tower then they truly had fallen so much further back from the end.  All that ground must be covered again!  They would never make it.  Mister Frodo could not go through all that nightmare again.

                Where was Frodo?

                Whimpering, Sam began slowly to crawl.  He must find him.

~~~~

                Pippin sat on the floor of the kitchen holding his nose and sipping from his mug of wine.  He couldn’t be blamed for an extra mug, he told himself, for life at the present had gotten as bad as he supposed it could get.  And that he could be blamed for.  Depressingly, he began to tally in his head all the things that had gone wrong lately because of his own foolish actions.

Merry was angry and hurt and that was Pippin’s fault.  Pippin had betrayed Estella’s secret so he guessed that she was likely angry with him as well, for she must certainly have found out by now.  Faramir…well, Faramir’s father had bollixed things up pretty fantastically there.  And poor dear Sam Gamgee was sick, likely because Pippin had somehow carried the pox and handed it over to him.  It was the only explanation he could think of, which meant there was a good chance he had carried it on to Estella and the baby as well---if that were the case it would be a tragedy he would never be able to forgive himself.  And Sam continued to be very sick, likely because Pippin was such a terrible nurse and such a useless fool in these situations.

He sighed and put his head back, closed his eyes.  There was also the situation with Diamond.  In still moments these past few days, he kept finding his mind wandering back to her.  He’d sent her quite a few letters on the sly when he’d been at Brandy Hall and not a one had been answered, so far as he knew.  It wasn’t all that unusual for Diamond not to send word back to him, but he thought perhaps in this case she might.  Asking more about Faramir at least, he’d hoped, but as of the day he’d left, not one note had come down from the North Farthing.  Merry certainly did have a point, even if he was ignorant about a lot of other things…

Pippin startled as he heard a noise from very nearby within the silent house.  He set down his mug and crawled on all fours toward the hall, his heart pounding with trepidation.  He reached the corner and peered around.

“Sam?”

“Who’s there?”

“Sam, you’re awake!  How did you get all the way out here?”

“Back, you!  Hear me?  Back!”

Pippin blinked and laughed.  “Sam, you old fool, it’s me!”

“I know what you are, you orc filth.  What ‘ave you done with him?”

“Orc?  Is that really what you think of me?”  Pippin stopped a safe distance of a foot or two from his friend.  He sat back on his knees.  Gut instinct was always to make a joke of things, but he wasn’t sure if that was going to be the best way to play this.  He reached out and was surprised by the swiftness with which Sam reacted, slapping his arm away.

“Gollum, then!  I knew it!  Where is he?!”

“Gollum?”  Pippin cocked his head, “That distasteful fellow?  Really, Sam, can’t you see that it’s me?  Pippin Took.”

“I’d know those awful, gangly arms anywhere.  Stop playing games and tell me where he is or I’ll tear you limb to limb, I will.”

“Now, I am not that skinny, Sam, and you just stop it.  I’m not Gollum, I’m not an orc.  I’m not anybody but a stupid hobbit you used to know.”  Tears of frustration stung in Pippin’s eyes.  This was just too much. He had thought Sam lost in fever-sleep for days had been bad but Sam hissing with madness was far worse.  He didn’t know how to deal with this at all.  He wasn’t clever enough by far; much too stupid and useless.  Whyever had he thought he could solve anything?

“Where is Frodo?”

“He’s not here.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know.”
                “I want to see him right now, you.”

“I’d like to too, Sam, but I don’t think that’s possible.”

Sam was quiet then.  Very slowly he shuddered and laid down on the floor.  “What ‘ave you done to me,” he whispered, “I don’t feel right at all.”

Pippin gazed at him miserably.  “I don’t know what I’ve done.  I really am so very sorry.”

Sam did not reply and after a while, Pippin reached out again, tentatively.

“Asleep again, then?  Well, all right.  Perhaps that is better for both of us.”

He waited a while and steeled himself before pulling Sam up and dragging him to the bedroom.  Sam seemed lighter and easier to carry than he had days ago down in the cellar.  The thought didn’t comfort Pippin in the slightest.  He wondered if he did manage to get Sam through this awful pox business whether there’d be anything left of him at all.

~~~~

                Faramir laid on his belly near the hearth and tried to remain interested in playing with his soldiers.  This was hard work, however, as they were nothing more than some left-over corks he’d found in Uncle Merry’s study.  They were a poor substitute for the fine set of hand-carved hobbit archers he had at home, a birthday gift from his Da, and the handsome dragon his mum had stitched up from the scraps of Faramir’s green velvet yule suit; it had real glass eyes and all the other children at the Great Smials were jealous of it.  He’d left the dragon at Auntie Pervinca’s home in Whitwell.  He wondered if her daughters were all playing with it now that he wasn’t there, if they were playing roughly with it, and ruining it.  He bet they were.

                He rearranged the ranks and set up a plan of attack on the yellow yarn ball and the knitting needle, which made rather a fearsome-looking pair of enemies, but then gave up before the actual battle and rolled onto his back.  He held one of the corks, a short stubby one, at arm’s length and squinted at it.  He turned it around, noting the way the firelight made it half-shadowed in any position.  His Da had once shown him how to dip a cork into the fire to make it into a sort of crayon of soot that you could draw on all sorts of things with, including your face.  Faramir considered trying this himself but then decided against it, as it would leave an uneven number in his ranks.

“Still up, lad, are ye?”

                Faramir turned his head slowly to view the maidservant who had entered into the main room of the apartment.  “Hallo, Dilly.”

                “Hallo, sir.”  She closed the apartment door quietly behind her and turned to him with a curious but proprietary smile.  “Beggin’ your pardon, young master, but do they allow you to stay up all hours of the night at your home?”

                Faramir frowned.  “Why wouldn’t they?  I’m the one who has to be tired in the morning when I must get up and, anyway, I don’t bother anyone else or keep them up.  I’m very quiet.”

                “Aye, that ye are.”  Dilly settled into an arm chair beside the fire and took up the work basket she had brought with her.  She began sorting through various bits and scraps of things in a leisurely manner.

                Faramir pretended to be lining up his ranks again, but he was really watching her.

                “Dilly?”

                “Mmm?”

                “Haven’t you your own apartment in the Hall?”

                “I’ve a room with my mother in the far Eastern wing, yes.”

                “Then why are you here right now?  Why aren’t you with your mum?”

                “Well, to be indelicate about it, she snores.”

                Faramir giggled.  Dilly looked at first embarrassed, but then she smiled lightly.  “Well, some nights ere worse than others and some times if I feels like I’m not sleep’n anyways, I come here an I do a little extra work for the Mistress an the Master.  I don’t think they mind.”

                “I don’t think they even know you come.”

                “I don’t think so either.”

                They were quiet for a bit, then, only the crackling fire keeping up a steady murmur.  Faramir feigned play for a bit with his cork-soldiers, then gathered them all up into his shirt and took a seat on the low table across from the maid.

                “Dilly?”

                “Yes?”

                “Are you sure you haven’t got a letter back from my mum yet?”

                She looked up and it frightened Faramir because she looked like she was angry.

                “D’ye think I would keep your personal mail from ye?  D’ye think that I would do that?”

                “No.”  He felt bad because he realized that what he’d said had been rude, or had seemed so, anyway.  He didn’t want to be like that.  He liked Dilly.  She was nice.  At the same time, though, Faramir found that he really wished that she had said yes; that there were loads of letters his mum had written, one for every letter that he’d written her all the weeks that they’d been here. 

                He took a deep breath and tried to think of something grown-up to say, but he couldn’t--he was just so mad.  When he did speak, his voice sounded all squeaky.

                “But why hasn’t she written?”

                Dilly glanced up from her mending.  “Ah, who’s te say, young master?  Perhaps she’s very busy.”

                “But I told her it was important.”

                “I’m sure ye did, but, well, maybe she’s got other things to do that are important too, takin’ care of her family up there and such.”

                “She doesn’t take care of her family up there,” Faramir picked up one of the corks and began squeezing it tight in his fist, wanting to see if he could squish it, “They have servants to take care of them, just like at the Smials.”

                Dilly peered at him curiously.  “What does yer mum do up there, then?”

                “I don’t know.”

                “Well,”  she hesitated then set down the mended bit and picked up her knitting, “certain it’s something very important and when she’s done, first thing she’ll do is sit down an write ye a nice long letter.”

                “Maybe,”  Faramir gave up.  He’d received very few letters from his mum in his life, but for some reason he didn’t want to tell that to anyone, even Dilly.  They wouldn’t understand, and they might even think that he was lying, or exaggerating, even though he wasn’t.

He yawned and felt now too tired to be angry.  He took up all his cork soldiers in his hands and plopped them into a bowl on the tea table.  Then he curled up on the couch and settled in to watch the fire.  The click-clack sound of Dilly’s knitting needles was soothing and reminded him of nights at home when Mum would stay up crocheting in her parlor and Da would be working steadily away in his office.  Faramir hadn’t realized then how easily that could go away and how much that he would miss it.  It all seemed very long ago now.

~~~~

                Pippin awoke with a start as he heard a cock crowing far off somewhere.  ‘Must be at Fatty’s place,’ he thought slowly as he opened his eyes and adjusted to the streaky bit of daylight poking through the curtains.  His head was pounding and he felt like he had barely slept at all.  He couldn’t remember what time it had been when Sam had at last returned to sleep.  Had it been nearly morning then?  Evening?  The dead hours of night?  He really could not recall.

                At least Sam was still asleep.  That was the important, merciful thing.  He didn’t know whether Sam was better off lost in fever dreams or awake in nightmares, but Pippin certainly felt the former was easier to deal with.  Some of the things Sam had said, after all…he shuddered just remembering it.

                Pippin quickly shook the thoughts away and set about getting some (reasonably) clean things together for his friend.  The sheets would need to be changed again, fresh water should be fetched from the pump in the yard, and something must be made to get down Sam’s throat.  The poor hobbit was not looking at all like himself anymore and Pippin feared that could be the most damaging---he could sleep away a fever and sickness but he couldn’t exactly sleep away starvation, now could he?

                “No, Peregrin Took, he can’t.”  Pippin nearly laughed to hear his own voice out loud.  “I do think I’m going mad.”  He smiled at no one and stepped out to the kitchen.  It was still early enough that he needed to take a candle, but by the short time he returned with a bowl of soupy day-old porridge and a pitcher of ice cold groundwater, the daylight was almost too bright in the room.  He peered over at Sam, but he showed no signs of waking.

                Pippin sighed and set the bowl on the nightstand.  He shivered and switched the cold metal pitcher to his other hand.  It had been sharply chilly outside and he didn’t relish going back but he had remembered while he was at the pump that the ponies had not been tended to in quite a while.  He would need to go back out and see to their stalls, see that they were adequately fed and watered for a bit.  Since Sam was still out so heavily, he supposed he might as well take care of that now.

                He moved to set the pitcher on the dressing table and froze, met with his own reflection. Exhausted eyes took in the ugly redness streaked harshly across his cheeks.

                ‘Oh,’ he thought calmly, ‘I am sick now too.’

                “Well. Nothing to be done for it.”

                Setting the pitcher down near the basin, he turned away quickly from the looking glass and headed out to see to the ponies.

~~~~

                “Merry!”

                “Mmmm.”

                “Merry, please wake up.  It’s very important.”

                Merry bolted up from his pillow and reached out for his wife.  “What is it?”

                “The invitations.”

                “What?”

                “For Yule.  We’ve forgotten all about the invitations.”

                Merry frowned and laid back on his pillow heavily.  His heart was still pounding in his ears.  “You woke me for that?”

                “I don’t know how we managed to forget.”

                “Perhaps because there are more important matters at hand, the sort that might warrant a rude awakening in the middle of the night.”

                Estella seemed to notice his annoyance at last and sighed.  “I frightened you, didn’t I?  I am sorry.”

                Merry shrugged.

                “It’s just that I honestly feel as though I must be going mad when such a great big thing slips by me.”

                “It’s hardly a great big thing at the moment.”

                “Perhaps not to you, but you are not the Mistress.”

                “For which I thank my stars.”

                “People are counting on me.  Yule can’t just pass by unnoticed because Estella Bolger’s been distracted.”

                “Estella Brandybuck.  Will you never think of yourself as that?”

                “I’m sorry, it’s just old habit.”

                “Well it’s about time that you broke it.  The Bolgers had you long enough.”  Merry squinted at the sunlight breaking beneath the drapes and scowled.  “Seems to be morning, actually.”

                “Yes, I suppose.  So hard to tell these days when I am always stuck useless in here.”

                He grunted and began peeling back his blankets.  “Anyway, you needn’t worry.  The invitations have already been taken care of.”

                “What do you mean?”

                “I mean, Cook asked me about them yesterday and I told her to just go ahead and do whatever she thought was best.”

                “Merry!”

                “What?  You can’t control everything, love.”  Merry smiled at her sardonically but the smile quickly faded under the steely glare he received in return.

~~~~

                Faramir jolted upright on the settee at the sight of Merry with his cloak on. “Where are you going?!”

                Merry ignored the urge to laugh at the lad’s sleep-sculpted hair.  “My wife is sending me to Buckleberry to pick up card stock for  proper Yule invitations.  And since we are asking questions, then tell me why you were sleeping in the sitting room and not in the bed where I left you last night?”

                Faramir blinked and looked profoundly confused.  “Because I wasn’t sleepy.”

                “You certainly seem sleepy now, though.”

                “I was up late.”

                “You may be allowed to stay up all hours of the night at Great Smials, Farry, but I won’t allow that here.  You will go to bed when I tell you.”

                Faramir rubbed his face and nodded in a way that his cousin suspected was merely patronizing.  Merry would have been annoyed had it not seemed so funny coming from such a young boy.  He opened his mouth to speak but was interrupted by Faramir, who seemed at last to be fully awake.

                “I don’t think you should go.”

                “But I have to.  It won’t take long.”

                “May I come with?”

                “No, love.”

                “I’ll stay hidden.  No one will see me.”

                Merry shook his head but watched Faramir carefully.  He had no idea why it would be, but he was certain the lad was on the verge of tears.  “What is the matter, Faragrin?”

                “Nothing.”

                “Something is the matter.”

                “I don’t want you to go.”

                “Why not?  It’s only a short errand.  I’ll be back before dinner.”

                “What if you’re not, though?”

                “Then I’ll stop for a bite to eat in Buckleberry, I assume.”

                “But what if you don’t come back?”

                “Of course I’ll come back.”

                “Da hasn’t.”

                Merry missed a beat at that but managed a quick smile to cover it up.  “But he will be back.”

                “Did he write and tell you?”

                “Not as of yet, but I’m certain he will if he’s to be delayed any longer.  Likely it’s just business talk that he’s gotten caught up in.”

                “It’s my fault.”  Faramir sat down hard on the settee and turned away.

                Merry hesitated then sat down gingerly beside him. He reached to Faramir’s shoulder and turned him to face him.  Faramir’s jaw was quivering and heavy gray ringed his eyes.  Estella had been right.  Of course she had.

                “What is your fault, Farry?  What has gotten you upset so?”

                But Faramir didn’t answer.  He tightened his face and shook the question away.  Then he looked at Merry with renewed determination.  “Please don’t go.”

                Merry sighed.  He had a defeated understanding that he would get no further today.

                “I have to.  If I do not go, Estella will not forgive me and that’s a state we cannot have for much longer.”

                “Is she angry?”   

                “Yes.  I would advise you to find your own entertainment this morning.”

                Here Faramir sighed, seeming to understand that he too would get no further.  “All right.”

                “Perhaps you should take a nap.  By the time you wake up, I’ll be back.”

                “All right.”

                Merry stood and lifted Faramir’s chin with a smile. “No more worries, then?”

                “Yes, no more worries.”

                How Merry would have liked to believe him.  He hesitated for a moment, pulled on his leather gloves and buttoned them snugly at the wrists.  “You know that it is all right to cry sometimes, Farry?”  He kept his eyes purposefully low, pretending to examine his gloves, “If you really feel the need to, it can sometimes be a useful thing.”

                “No,” Faramir shook his head firmly, “I won’t ever cry.”

                “Whyever not?”

                Faramir only shook his head again.  It looked for anything to Merry that the lad physically could not bring himself to answer.  Instead, he closed his eyes and seemed to shake away whatever thought had been causing the trouble.  When he brought his eyes back to Merry, they were glittering but fierce and paired with a false smile that brought a chill to his cousin’s bones.  “Uncle Merry?”

                “Yes?”

                “Will you buy a treat when you are in Buckleberry?  For my Da when he gets back?  I will pay for it.”  He produced then from his trouser pocket a handful of silver coins, enough to buy a suck-pig or pounds and pounds of sweets, and put them into Merry’s gloved hand.

                Merry had a brief flash memory of his father, old Scattergold, but then it was gone.  He cleared his throat and accepted the coins casually.  “What did you have in mind?”

                “He always buys a rum cake when we go through, in the bakery in the town square.  It’s dark brown and has gold icing on the top.”

                “This is a bit too much for just a rum cake.”

                The boy shrugged.  “Buy two then.  You can have one.”

                “You’re a generous lad.  I’m sure your father will appreciate the surprise when he returns.”

                “You’ll be back soon, though?”

                Merry smiled then and pulled up his hood.  “Before you wake.”