Chapter 45. Something to Remember Him By

The hobbits buzzed expectantly as they waited in the banqueting hall. At Merry’s entrance, flanked by Estella and Pippin, they rose with cheers and applause.

Though his arm was firmly bound to his side, Merry still managed a creditable bow. ‘Really, cousin, what has been going on while I’ve been sleeping? Easiest accolades I’ve ever earned, I think.’

 ‘Undoubtedly,’ Pippin replied. ‘We’ll have to put you to a great deal more trouble in future, to make up for it.’

All rose and bowed to the King, following with a broad smile on his face. He took his place beside Arwen, and all sat down again.

Arwen’s plans for this room had been ingenious, really. Steps led up to a platform that ran along one side of the high table, and another that ran along one side of one of the lower tables, so that hobbit-sized chairs could be used, to the comfort of guests. To keep an unwary hobbit from pushing his chair back and over the edge, sturdy railings ran round all the edges.

 ‘Well,’ Merry said, taking his seat opposite Arwen. ‘You must be expecting a great deal of hobbit company!’

 ‘I do hope you won’t disappoint us,’ Arwen said, smiling.

 ‘Your least wish is my greatest desire,’ Pippin said, rising from his chair to bow. Turning to Diamond, he said, ‘Do you hear, my dear? It is my duty, as Knight of Gondor in service to the King, to attend my lord when he is in residence at the Lake!’

 ‘Well, a good part of the time, anyhow,’ Diamond said. ‘If you stay away too long, Regi’s likely to send a party of Tooks to seize you by force and carry you home.’

 ‘But I had thought hobbits a peaceable lot,’ one of the nobles commented from further down the table.

 ‘As a whole we are,’ Merry answered. ‘The Tooks, however, pride themselves on confounding the expectations of others.’

 ‘They’re contrary, in other words,’ Pippin said in a satisfied tone. ‘Which is how they managed to keep Men out of Tookland without much killing, though the ruffians were larger and stronger and not bound by such niceties.’

 ‘Most hobbits are peaceable,’ Diamond said smoothly. ‘They live quiet lives, happy in their farms or shops, satisfied with the lot they’ve been given...’

 ‘Perishing dull,’ Pippin said. ‘But then, they make the Shire what it is. A haven of green and peace.’

 ‘Thanks in part to Samwise, here!’ Merry said, with a nod for the Mayor. ‘The Shire wasn’t very green at all when we got back from the Southlands... but he went all about, planting and blessing the seeds...’

 ‘Wasn’t all my doing,’ Sam said placidly. ‘The Lady's gift had a great deal to do with it, and when I ran out of dust... A little sun, a little rain, and seeds will do as they ought without much help on my part.’

It was a grand feast, all told, with course after course of carefully prepared food, not even marred by the fact that Estella cut up Merry’s meat for him. After all, she’d been doing such for months—and now had the hope that he’d be cutting his own soon enough.

After the final sweet course, while the servants were laying platters of cheese and sweet and savoury biscuits for “filling up the corners”, together with pouring out a suitable wine, Pippin turned to Elladan. ‘Well now,’ he said, ‘you’ve badgered us all with more questions than a curious hobbit might ask, and put off our own questions until we’re likely to burst from curiosity.’

 ‘And not from all you’ve et?’ the old soldier-turned-courtier said genially. Several of the other nobles at the table were scandalised, but the hobbits only laughed.

 ‘Never!’ Pippin said sturdily. ‘Why, this would be considered a light luncheon back home. Still, we’ll muddle through without too much trouble, if the cooks will kindly supply a proper tea in an hour or two, and then an eventide meal, and a following late supper, as they have done.’

 ‘And don’t neglect the bedtime tray of bits and nibbles,’ Arwen said, ‘for I arranged it most especially!’

 ‘Most hospitable,’ Pippin returned with another bow and a twinkle in his eye, but he would not be deflected from his questioning. ‘Now, Elladan, put us out of our misery.’ He turned to the other son of Elrond, sitting beside his brother. ‘Elrohir? You’ve been remarkably quiet through this fine meal!’

 ‘The better to appreciate the tastes and textures,’ Elrohir said, ‘as you hobbits are so fond of saying. Bilbo taught us never to ask him a question when he was in mid-bite, and he was usually careful to extend the same courtesy to us as well, for all his long years in Rivendell.’ He exchanged glances with Elladan, looked to Arwen and Elessar, received their nods, and looked back to meet the bright and curious eyes of the hobbits. ‘Very well,’ he said.

 ‘Very well... what?’ Pippin said.

 ‘All in good time,’ Elrohir said. ‘After all, a great deal of time is involved in the story of the flask.’

 ‘And more time in the telling, it seems,’ irrepressible Pippin said. Merry shot him a quelling look and he laughed. ‘Very well,’ he said, ‘I’ll be good as gold, if you’ll only begin the telling!’

Elrohir reached into a silken bag that hung from his belt, bringing out the mithril flask, still shining as bright as if it had been minted that day. He reached a long arm to set it on the table between Elessar and Arwen. ‘Here you see before you,’ he said, ‘an heirloom of my father’s house.’

A gasp arose from the hobbits, and Diamond whispered, ‘How ever did a wandering Man come to possess such?’

 ‘You’ll wonder more when you’ve heard the story,’ Elladan said gravely, and looked back to his brother.

 ‘Long years ago, long years,’ Elrohir said slowly, and his look grew far away as if the long years were not so very long, after all, but a breath away. ‘Many lifetimes of hobbits and Men, at least...’

Pippin opened his mouth, but Diamond nudged him and he closed it again, settling himself to listen without further interruption.

 ‘You know how the Dark Lord was vanquished at the last, thrown down, his Dark Tower destroyed,’ Elrohir continued, after a pause. He looked directly at Pippin. ‘You were there, of course.’

Pippin nodded. The courtier-soldier was nodding as well; he’d been there at the last stand before the Black Gate, not far from where Pippin and Beregond stood, and it went without saying that Elessar had been there, along with the sons of Elrond.

 ‘You know the tale of the Ring, from the start to the finish,’ Elrohir said, and the Travellers nodded, though Hilly and Posey weren’t completely sure what was being said. They’d heard bits and pieces from Pippin, and through the Talk of the Tooks, but an entire tale, from start to finish? It would be some years yet, before the Travellers resolved to set aside their private nightmares and tell the whole of the tale, that the Shire-folk might know all that had been suffered, all that had been sacrificed, on their behalf.

 ‘The army that you were a part of,’ Elrohir said, ‘that Army of the West was a mere echo of the vast army that marched out in a previous age. A great alliance of Elves and Men: the Last Alliance.’

He paused to take a sip of his wine, and Elladan took up the tale.

 ‘Names that are just fading marks in history books, now,’ he said. ‘Elendil, Isildur, Gil-galad.’ Sam straightened at the latter name, thinking of a night beneath the stone trolls, when he stayed steadfast at Frodo’s side and never imagined himself anywhere else.

 ‘Elrond,’ Arwen said softly.

 ‘He was Gil-galad’s Herald,’ Merry said. ‘I remember.’

 ‘At the end of a long siege, Sauron stood at bay upon the slopes of Orodruin,’ Elladan said. ‘Gil-galad and Elendil stood against him, while the rest quailed in the face of his terrible power and malice. Isildur fell to his knees at his father’s side while Elendil held his shield to cover them both from the Dark Lord’s gaze, and Elrond and Cirdan alone stood by the Elven-king as the others fell away... The Dark Lord reached out in his fury; Elendil could not stand against him, and Gil-galad...’ Eyes wide, he stared into some dark vision, his breath ragged and shallow.

 ‘Gil-galad fell, mortally wounded,’ Elrohir breathed, ‘and Elrond fell to his knees beside him, a cry of grief on his lips. He had no thought but to fumble for his flask, the healing elixir he carried, but there was no remedy to stay the High-king’s departure...’ His eyes were dark with grief.

 ‘And then Isildur, with a cry, snatched his father’s shattered sword from the ground...’ Elessar said quietly. ‘He struck the Dark Lord, cut the Ring from his hand, and victory was within his grasp.’

 ‘Cirdan pulled at our father, seeing that Gil-galad was past all healing, and seeing the Ring in Isildur’s hand,’ Elladan said. ‘Father rose, forgetting the elixir, to join Cirdan in arguing with Isildur. He must destroy the Ring, put an end to it there! ...but you know the rest.’

 ‘He dropped the flask,’ Estella breathed, her eyes going to the shining thing. ‘But how...?’

 'How do you know it's the same flask?' Merry asked curiously.

 'He had another made, when he returned to Imladris, in the image of this one,' Elrohir answered.

Arwen picked up the flask and pointed to a part of the elvish writing. 'This is his name,' she said quietly. Her fingers caressed the runes before she put the flask down again, with as much care as if it were of blown glass.

 'But how would it come from the slopes of Orodruin to a Man wandering in the North-lands?' Pippin said.

 ‘I doubt even Jack could tell us,’ Diamond said quietly. ‘All those lifetimes ago. Perhaps a soldier picked it up, as they bore the wounded and dead from the field.’

Hilly shot her an astonished look. What did she know about such things?

Pippin squeezed his wife’s hand, and said, ‘Aye, picked it up, covered with mud or ash, not knowing what he had, perhaps intending to return it to Elrond, even, but then in the bustle...’

 ‘We’ll never know, most likely,’ Arwen said.

 ‘It probably passed from hand to hand, over the years, whether honourably or dishonourably,’ Elessar said.

 ‘Jack was a gambler,’ Diamond said. ‘He told me he’d won the rope on a throw of the dice.’ The others nodded, remembering the elven-rope of her story. Hilly unconsciously rubbed one wrist. ‘Likely he won the flask the same way. Someone had fashioned a cover of leather for it, along the way, and no one knew its value anymore.’

She looked to Hilly. ‘He knew it only as a sleeping draught,’ she said. ‘He told me a tiny sip would bring a deep and healing sleep. He kept it in case of injury, a broken bone needing to be set or something of that sort, but he told me he’d only used it once before in all the time he’d carried it.’

 ‘It is a wondrous draught,’ Hilly said, forgetting his shyness of the Fair Folk. ‘It healed Ferdibrand, when he was near death!’

 ‘The same draught healed Frodo and Samwise, in Cormallen,’ Elrohir said, ‘and it is the same as you had, yourself, Merry.’

 ‘Woodruff would like to put in a good supply of the stuff,’ Hilly said with an emphatic nod, and then suddenly recalling whom he addressed, he flushed and fixed his eyes on his plate once more.

 ‘I would that we could oblige her,’ Elladan said, ‘but the elixir is not that plentiful, I fear. It is made from the nectar of a flower that grows only in the Hidden Valley of Imladris, and it takes more than the lifetime of a hobbit to fill such a small flask as the one you see here.’

Hilly looked up at this, gasping at the thought of the years that must have gone into the small swallow he’d had. ‘And Jack never knew what he carried...’ he whispered.

Merry, too, looked unusually sober. ‘And you spent a reckless amount of the stuff on me,’ he said. ‘My thanks, Strider.’

 ‘And thanks to you, Hilly, for returning this treasure,’ Arwen said, taking up the flask. ‘I wish my father were here to see it... but somehow, it’s like having a piece of him, here.’ She fumbled for the words she desired, but tears filled her eyes and she who always had the right words did not know quite what to say.

 ‘Something to remember him by,’ Sam said quietly, and Merry and Pippin nodded in complete understanding, thinking of a white sail disappearing over the horizon.