Chapter 26. In the Hands of a Healer

Ferdi walked slowly back to his room and sat down on the bed after seeing Pippin off and all who accompanied him. He sighed as he poured himself a cup of tea from the freshly warmed pot that had appeared in his absence. Despite the fire burning brightly on the hearth and the quantities of hot tea he’d downed earlier, there was a chill deep within that he was unable to dispel.

Fennel popped his head in at the doorway. ‘I told you I’d be right with you,’ he said cheerily.

 ‘No hurry,’ Ferdi said. ‘I thought we were supposed to depart, ourselves, after everyone finished admiring the flowers, but Starfire was still in his stall, last I looked, nose-deep in hay.’

 ‘Yes,’ Fennel said, seating himself on the chair and helping himself to one of the fresh-baked scones that had appeared alongside the cosied teapot. Applying cream and preserves with much the same precision as he might dress a wound, he said, ‘What do you say to one more day’s rest for the lad? You’ve ridden him fast and far, the past few days.’

 ‘There’s no rest for the weary, they say,’ Ferdi replied pleasantly, though it took an effort to speak so. The inn was comfortable enough, but it was not home, and more importantly, his Nell was not here. Before they’d left the Great Smials, he’d been resigned to travelling to the Bridge with Pippin, staying perhaps a week, and returning thereafter with well-earned joy to his beloved, but this... to be staying within a day’s ride of the Great Smials, staying, and not riding homewards, went against all that was in him. To add insult to injury, he had a healer for company, and if he put up a fuss, Fennel had all manner of compensation at his disposal: bitter draughts and threats of staying abed, to begin with, and somehow he didn't have the energy to fight the healer.

Fennel eyed Ferdi with well-concealed concern. For a Took to be so tractable was unusual, to say the least. Ferdi must be feeling worse than he was letting on. ‘Have a scone,’ was all he said. ‘Flaky and tender, and still warm!’

The last thing Ferdi wanted was more food, but he smiled and took up a scone and began to load it with cream and strawberry preserves. ‘Don’t mind if I do,’ he said. Wouldn’t want you to think I was off my feed!

To rid himself of Fennel’s constant attendance, he hid a yawn behind his hand after downing several scones, saying, ‘You know, what I really want at the moment is to close my eyes for a bit.’

As he expected, Fennel jumped upon the idea, standing up from his chair and saying with enthusiasm, ‘An excellent idea! I’ll just clear this away and come back with your supper... unless you’d like to eat in company?’

The cheer and noise of the common room did not suit Ferdi’s mood at all; he craved quiet and solitude, at least if he couldn’t snuggle together with his Nell and talk over the events of the past few days. But of course he put on a smile and said, ‘That would just suit! A few winks followed by supper and ale and a game of draughts by the fire... who could ask for more?’

 ‘Very well then,’ Fennel said, and loading the teapot, cups, plates and the rest onto the tray, he left the room.

The rest of the day was uneventful and proceeded much as one would expect, and Ferdi went early to bed, firmly closing the door after ordering Fennel to “get some sleep yourself—I never saw such a one for sitting up and losing sleep as a healer!” If he were to have a private room, by the order of the Thain, then it should be indeed private. He didn’t need a healer keeping constant watch! He was wearied from the long chase following... well, following the trouble he’d had over the King’s Edict, and he was recovering from a chill, and that was all!

Next day they lingered until after elevenses, before mounting their ponies and riding the northwards track at an easy pace. Ferdi was less than pleased, but not surprised when Fennel elected to stop over at the Crowing Cockerel. He refrained from shaking his head and said agreeably, ‘Best beer on the Stock Road!’

He thought he might possibly melt away at the prospect of yet another hot bath before the fire; like any other sensible hobbit he bathed once a week whether he needed to or not, and oftener only when circumstances dictated: returning from a muddy hunt, for instance, or an inadvertent soak while fishing an icy stream.

He had to admit, though, that the steaming water was soothing to his aching muscles, and even though he shivered as he snuggled deep under his bedcovers, the bath relaxed him enough that he quickly slept.

The next morning, Fennel went too far, in Ferdi’s opinion. Although, it seemed, he laid the blame completely at Pippin’s door. ‘A coach!’ Ferdi protested. ‘Ride back to the Great Smials shut up in a coach! And what am I to do about my pony?’

 ‘Tie him on behind,’ Fennel said smoothly. ‘You have him so beautifully trained by now, Ferdi, that he shouldn’t object to leading.’

Smooth, these healers were. Cut past bluster and bristle with a compliment, and how could one resist such? Ferdi was hardly about to protest that Starfire was not beautifully trained. ‘I am not a babe, that you need to swaddle me! I can easily ride to the Smials; why, it’s only a day’s journey, and high time we were leaving!’

 ‘High time indeed,’ Fennel agreed. ‘If you’ll just step into the coach, then...’ He clinched his argument by the news that Pippin had sent to the Smials particularly for Ferdi’s comfort. Ferdi snorted; comfort indeed! Pippin had done all he could to make it clear that Ferdi’s exclusion from the Bridge meeting was not punishment for his falling asleep on guard. He rather wished it was.

 ‘O very well,’ Ferdi said with bad grace, and stepped into the coach. He refused to engage the healer in conversation, staring stubbornly out the window at the passing woods, and Fennel left him alone, immersed in a book he took from his sack, likely to be receipts for evil-tasting concoctions to force down reluctant patients.

Before the woods gave way to fields being ploughed for the spring planting, Ferdi had dropped off to sleep. He didn’t waken when Fennel softly covered him with a thick woollen blanket, tucking it carefully all round, and placed the foot-warmer with its glowing coals squarely under Ferdi’s feet.

As the coach turned into the yard at the Great Smials, the blanket resumed its folds without Ferdi any the wiser. He jerked his chin and blinked as the coach slowed. ‘What...? Er...? Eh...?’

 ‘Home at last,’ Fennel said.

 ‘At last...?’ Ferdi said fuzzily. From his point of view they’d barely departed the Cockerel.

 ‘And there’s your missus on the steps,’ Fennel said with a grin, opening the window to lean out with a wave. ‘I sent a message to tell her to expect us about this time!’

 ‘What time?’ Ferdi said, rubbing at his face with his hands. He’d slept the journey through, not even wakening for a meal or a drink. What was the matter with Fennel, letting him sleep like that?

 ‘Teatime, of course,’ Fennel said. ‘I told her we’d be back in time for tea.’

***

After the banquet, the guests retired to the local inns, or to their homes, or to pallets laid ready in pavilions. There would be a time of quiet and resting, to aid in proper digestion of the meal, and then the soldiers of the King would put on a demonstration of skill for the hobbits’ benefit, and then there would be a festive dinner, and then as darkness fell there would be an exhibition of fireworks, and all to celebrate the events of March the Twenty-fifth, a date that had some significance for the Travellers and their families, and the visiting Big Folk, but meant little to the Shire-folk whose fellows were being so honoured. After all, the events being remembered were far away and had little to do with goings-on in the Shire. The second of November, now, when the Battle of Bywater marked the end of the ruffians’ sway...

In the King’s pavilion, Pippin watched closely as Elessar probed gently at Merry’s shoulder. The healer-king had asked a number of questions, lifted the arm and manipulated it, found just which movements produced pain and reproduced them a number of times more than Pippin thought necessary, though Merry did not complain.

 ‘You’ve kept the arm from withering away,’ the King said now.

 ‘Yes, I have helpers who work the muscles daily,’ Merry said. ‘I learned that much in the Houses of Healing; that if there’s to be any hope of restoration you must put in the work, or have someone do it for you.’ He sighed. ‘But there’s been no sign of restoration; the arm’s as dead as ever, since the shaft buried itself in my shoulder.’

 ‘The arm went dead when struck?’ Elessar said sharply.

 ‘No-o-o,’ Merry responded. ‘Not quite. It was when the ruffian was after Estella, and I tried to beat his head in with a flaming brand... he grabbed the shaft and twisted it in the wound. That’s when the arm went dead.’

Pippin shuddered at the picture that rose before his eyes: the ruffian, twice Estella’s size, forcing himself upon her while Merry lay wounded nearby; Merry, staggering to his feet, snatching up a stick from the fire to defend his wife, all odds against him. Had the Rangers not appeared in time to rescue them, Pippin’s beloved cousins would have died terrible deaths.

Hilly poured out a glass of brandy and extended it silently to Pippin, who took the glass with a nod of thanks and tossed it off quickly. ‘Have one yourself,’ he said, handing it back.

Hilly gave a grimace of a smile and set the glass beside the decanter. He could imagine all too well what might have happened to Diamond, and little Farry, had Jack been a ruffian in truth. He was beginning to admit to himself that the old man and the boys had shown more good than ill towards the hobbits in their power.

Elessar sat down tailor-fashion on the pallet by Merry, gesturing to Pippin to sit as well. He drew a pipe from a bag round his neck and began to tamp pipe-weed into the bowl. ‘Well then,’ he said, as the hobbits waited.

Hilly wanted to protest, knowing the state of Pippin’s lungs, but the King did not light the pipe, merely placed it in his mouth and sucked at the stem thoughtfully.

 ‘Yes?’ Pippin asked helpfully. ‘Just what do you have to do to set Merry’s arm right?’

Elessar sighed as he looked at the young Thain. ‘If it were only so simple,’ he said.

 ‘So do I let the healers have their way?’ Merry said. ‘Have it off, and good riddance to a bad nuisance?’

 ‘Merry!’ Pippin said, shocked, but Merry quelled him with a look.

 ‘I know, the “hands of the King are healer’s hands”, or so the saying goes,’ Merry went on quietly. ‘But if you could truly heal all ills, well, there’d be no ills in the world at all, would there?’

 ‘Or he’d be too busy healing folk to be King,’ Pippin said, ‘in which case his hands wouldn’t be healing hands because he wouldn’t be King anymore.’

Neither Regi nor Ferdi was there to chide Pippin with None of your nonsense, now! and Hilly certainly was in no position to say it, so he contented himself with rolling his eyes and suppressing a sigh.

Elessar merely smiled at his young friend’s leap of logic and said, ‘Too true, Pippin. Being King takes a great deal of time; nearly as much as being Thain, I’d imagine.’

 ‘Possibly,’ Pippin said dismissively. ‘Of course, hobbits are a deal more sensible than Big Folk, which makes my job all the less onerous than yours.’

 ‘What do you think ought to be done?’ Merry said.

 ‘I cannot do anything here,’ Elessar said. ‘A new House of Healing has been built by the Lake, in the new city arising near the ruins of Annuminas.’

 ‘The Houses of Healing in Minas Tirith were a wonder,’ Merry said, nodding. ‘What is it you can do there, that you cannot manage here?’

The King hesitated. ‘A hobbit healer would be horrified,’ he said. ‘Our methods are not quite...’

 ‘The injuries your healers have dealt with over the centuries are not at all the same,’ Pippin broke in. ‘Our healers bring babes into the world, true, and set bones, and stitch gashes, and...’

 ‘They do not deliberately inflict wounds for the sake of healing,’ Elessar said obliquely.

Hilly gasped at the thought, but quickly suppressed it for fear of being dismissed.

 ‘They lance boils,’ Pippin argued. For a Took he seemed to have a fair knowledge of Shire healers’ practices.

 ‘Peace, cousin,’ Merry said, raising his left hand. ‘What exactly do you have in mind, Strider?’

 ‘We will give you a sleeping draught, one that will keep you asleep while we open the shoulder and do what we can to properly re-align the inside structures as they should be.’

Hilly was breathing shallowly, gulping back nausea at the mental picture that presented itself, and he missed the rest of the King’s explanation. Of a wonder, Thain and Master listened soberly, without apparent perturbation, nodding their understanding. At last Hilly was able to focus again, just in time for the King’s answer to Merry’s next question.

 ‘You’ll sleep for some days after, of course; it’ll be a healing sleep. You’ll feel much less discomfort when you waken, that way, and the worst of the pain will be behind you.’

Merry pursed his lips to give the matter some thought, then nodded. ‘Very well,’ he said at last. ‘I’ll put my trust in the King’s healing hands once more.’

 ‘It’s all a ploy to get us to come to that precious Lake of yours,’ Pippin grumbled, and Hilly could see that the Thain was not so comfortable with the ordeal proposed for Merry as he’d seemed.

 ‘You know me all too well,’ the King said with a smile.

 ‘Not nearly well enough, considering what you’re about to do to my cousin,’ Pippin said with a stern look. He looked to Merry. ‘Is this truly what you want, Merry?’

 ‘Let him dig around in my shoulder? It didn’t kill Frodo...’

Hilly suppressed a desire to be ill. Merry and Pippin had seen such torture performed on a hobbit before this?

Pippin took a shaky breath. ‘And I suppose I’ll have to watch this time as well, just to make sure he gets it right the first time,’ he said.

 ‘More than once?’ Hilly said faintly. He wasn’t aware he’d spoken aloud until the eyes of the others turned on him.

Merry rose abruptly from his seat. ‘Come Hilly,’ he said kindly. ‘I find myself in need of a breath of fresh air...’ Placing his good arm over the escort’s shoulders, he urged Hilly from the pavilion.

When some colour had returned to Hilly’s countenance, Merry said, ‘Better, cousin?’

 ‘Aye,’ Hilly said in a whisper, and then, ‘You’re really going to let him do that to you?’

 ‘I trust him implicitly,’ Merry said.

 ‘With your life?’ Hilly said.

 ‘With more than that,’ Merry said. ‘Go off and get yourself something to eat, Hilly. Pippin’s not going to need any escorting for the moment.’ As he turned away, Hilly called to him, hesitating, not knowing quite what to say but wanting to say something. ‘Yes, cousin?’

 ‘Just mind those sleeping draughts,’ Hilly muttered, after a pause. 'I had a bare mouthful, and it sent me off to sleep for two days!'

Merry laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. ‘I will, Hilly! Indeed I will! Now take yourself off.’

Hilly took himself off, and was intercepted by a tall guardsman who seemed to know Pippin well, and knew just what a Took might require in the way of restorative food when he’d been overcome by recent events.