Chapter 37. Awakenings

When Ferdi reached the great room, he realised it was early indeed. The gathering hall of the Smials Tooks was so empty his pattering footsteps echoed on the stone floor. Stars shone through the high windows in the ceiling that curved far above his head, and no one had yet climbed the step-ladders to light the high lamps with a long wick-on-a-stick, as the hobbits called the lamplighters. The lamps would have been lowered on their chains, cleaned, filled, and the wicks trimmed after the last lingering diners left midnight supper behind, probably at the same time the tables were set for early breakfast.

A few watchlamps burned, little pools of light in the shadowy hall, but the shutters on one of the serving-hatches were folded back and bright, welcoming light spilled from the kitchens. Ferdi followed that beacon, calling through the hatch. ‘Halloo!’

A serving-lass looked up with a frown. ‘You’re too early by half!’ she said crossly through a mouthful of eggs. ‘Bread’s still in the ovens!’ The cooks and assistants and servers would be gobbling their own early meal, including the first trays of baking (it was their duty to be sure the baking turned out well before setting the main body of loaves to bake), ere the business of breakfast started in earnest.

 ‘Ah but something smells delightful,’ Ferdi said in his most charming manner. ‘Can you not spare a crumb for a poor starving hobbit?’

The lass sighed, but rose from her stool, and laying aside her plate she filled a generous plate with scrambled eggs, potatoes fried with onions and topped with chive-laced sour cream, little sausages perfectly browned, and several hunks of still-warm buttered bread. ‘Here you are,’ she said with a nod for the smiling hobbit in hunter’s clothes. Undoubtedly he’d been sent out to bag a few coneys for the Steward’s second breakfast. She could hardly let him go to his task hungry!

 ‘You’re new,’ Ferdi remarked, taking the plate with a smile.

 ‘I am,’ the lass said, not sure whether to bristle, but the hunter bowed gracefully.

 ‘I’m sure I’d have noticed such a pretty face,’ he said in a kindly manner. ‘Fresh from the country. You’ll have to beat off the lads with a stick. I do hope you’re getting on with the assistant chief cook. She can be a terror for the new lasses.’

The lass looked about, but the majority of the kitchen staff were in the back, laughing and talking. She’d been set to watch for early risers, eating her solitary breakfast in lonely silence. ‘I don’t think she likes me,’ she whispered.

 ‘That’s her way of showing favour,’ Ferdi whispered back. ‘The more she approves of you, the more sour her tone. She doesn’t want others to tease you about being a “pet”, you know.’

 ‘Do you really think so?’ the lass said, her chin coming up as she considered his words.

 ‘I know so,’ he said with a nod. ‘Now you go back to your breakfast before it goes completely cold!’ And turning, he took his plate and walked to the table where the hobbits of the escort, by custom, sat to their meals.

The serving lass drooped a little as she picked up her plate and resumed her seat. All but one of the hobbits of escort were married, and she knew the face of the unmarried one. No use setting her cap for this hunter, no matter how pleasant his manners.

In the meantime, quite an uproar was happening elsewhere in the Great Smials. Fennel had returned to find Nell alone in the bed. ‘Where’s Ferdi?’ he said to the air. Nell slumbered on.

Rather than wakening Pimpernel to the worry of no Ferdi in the bed, Fennel quickly looked through all the rooms in the suite, finding them empty of course, for the children were staying with Regi and Rosamunda for the duration. Next he went out into the corridor, to pound on Tolly’s door.

The head of escort opened the door, blinking. It was an hour before his usual early rising. ‘What is it?’ he asked sleepily. ‘Message to be run for the Thain?’

 ‘Ferdi’s missing,’ Fennel said tersely.

Tolly was awake at once. ‘Missing?’ he said sharply. 

 ‘Vanished, poof, as if we were in a children’s tale!’ Fennel said. He was not given to fancy, but he was feeling badly shaken at the moment. First the magical healing draught, pulling the Thain’s special assistant back from the brink of death, and then the long, unnatural sleep, and now... it seemed logical, somehow, that Ferdi would have melted to nothing when the watchers looked away.

 ‘You saw him vanish?’ Tolly said, dumbfounded. Had the draught been some wizard’s potion after all?

 ‘No, I... but Nell... and when I returned he was gone...’ Fennel said, stuttering in his consternation.

 ‘He cannot simply vanish,’ Tolly said, good sense returning. ‘You weren’t with him, and Nell...?’

 ‘Asleep,’ Fennel said, and Tolly calmed considerably at that.

 ‘Well then, he got up and no one was there to notice,’ he said with some asperity.

 ‘But where?’ Fennel said, and Tolly looked at him as if he’d lost his wits.

 ‘I don’t keep him in my pockets,’ the head of escort snapped. ‘We’ll have to mount a search, then, shan’t we?’

Fennel took out his pocket-handkerchief with a shaking hand and wiped at his face. Tolly caught his arm as he swayed. ‘Here now,’ he said less sharply, ‘none of that.’

 ‘Sorry,’ the healer murmured. ‘Don’t know quite what’s wrong with me.’

 ‘It might have something to do with the fact that you’ve taken no rest since you rode out with the Thain a fortnight or so ago,’ Tolly said. ‘Come along now, we’ll settle you in a chair and I’ll take on everything from there.’ Turning slightly, he called out, ‘Sweetie! A bit of help, my love!’

Fennel allowed himself to be escorted to a chair by a solicitous Meadowsweet; Tolly had already taken himself off after a few whispered words to his wife. ‘There now,’ Meadowsweet said. ‘A cup of tea ought to set you right, I’m thinking. I’ll just light the fire and put the kettle on...’

Tolly quickly called out the hobbits of the Thain’s escort to join the search, including Hilly, who’d been ordered by Regi not to leave for the Lake until they had some definite news about Ferdi to send to the Thain. Soon the search was spreading through the Great Smials as more servants and Tooks were awakened.

Tolly had roused Woodruff and sent her to Nell’s side. Nell did not waken at her soft call, and Woodruff made the difficult decision to let the exhausted hobbit sleep. After all, what would rousing her do but bring her more worry?

***

Diamond yawned sleepily, rolled over to snuggle closer to her husband, and sat up on the realisation that he wasn’t in the bed. ‘Pippin?’ she called softly, before seeing him standing before the window, outlined against the fading stars.

 ‘Diamond, love,’ he said, turning, and pulling one of the hobbit-sized blankets around her, Diamond padded to his side and stared out over the white towers, standing ghostly against the pre-dawn darkness and the faint promise of dawn in the eastern sky.

 ‘Today’s the day,’ she said. ‘And you still think you ought to stand by him?’

 ‘I asked him,’ Pippin said, his eyes returning to the sky, his arm firmly about Diamond, pulling her close. ‘I asked him what was the rush of it all. Why not wait a day or two, settle in, rest up from the journey, but you know Merry! He’s not one to let the grass grow under his feet. Still, I wish he’d give it some consideration before...’

 ‘I imagine he’s given it a great deal of consideration,’ Diamond said softly, laying her head against Pippin’s shoulder. ‘Estella says his pain grows ever more troubling.’

 ‘Pain?’ Pippin said sharply, pulling away to stare into her face. ‘He never said anything about...’

 ‘And would he?’ Diamond said simply. ‘Took that he is...’

 ‘Half-Took,’ Pippin said.

Unperturbed Diamond continued. ‘...he’d hardly be likely to admit such to you! Especially when you’re helpless to do anything about it. Why, he feared you’d take it into your head to ride off to Gondor to fetch the King and his healing hands!’

 ‘How do you know this?’ Pippin said, his eyes narrowing. Diamond had never kept any secrets from him. At least, he’d thought she’d always been true...

 ‘Estella told me last night, after you’d fallen asleep,’ Diamond said, squeezing him in a hug. ‘You were so very weary after the journey, you slept nearly before your head hit the pillow. I couldn’t sleep for some reason, and so after Farry dropped off I went in search of the kitchens, for a bit of warm milk, and found Estella there before me.’ She lifted his hand to her lips for a kiss. ‘I was going to tell you just as soon as you awakened, love...’

 ‘And so you have,’ Pippin said, his expression softening. He drew her close for a kiss, where after she guided him back to the hobbit-sized bed, installed in the special quarters designed by Queen Arwen herself, and offered the best comfort she could.

And so he fell asleep in the arms of his love as the dawn crept over the North-land, brightening the sky and turning the great Lake to a mirror of mithril. When a servant poked his head in the door, Diamond shook her head at him. He nodded and withdrew, laying the breakfast tray on the table in the outer room, creeping softly back into the bedroom to spark the fire laid ready, before bowing once more towards the watching hobbit, and the slumbering one, and slipping from the room. When he’d pulled the door to behind him, Diamond laid a gentle kiss on Pippin’s brow. He sighed and nestled deeper against her breast, and she softly stroked his curly head and watched him sleep.