Chapter 46. Making Merry

The days grew longer and brighter, filled brim-ful from dawning—which came earlier each day—to bedtime. Bergil or young Denethor were assigned to watch over the little hobbits while their elders were occupied. The Travellers, after all, were also Counsellors to the King, and so much time was spent in discussion and planning, while Arwen consulted with the hobbit wives, ever refining her knowledge of creating comfort for Halfling visitors.

 ‘You’ll be getting as bad as those Rider-folk,’ Estella scolded as she relaxed over tea with Diamond and Arwen in her guest apartments. The hobbits sat at table, the Queen upon the floor, taking delicate sips from the small teacups. ‘Souls of hospitality, they are.’

 ‘Even one of the Fair Folk would grow old, staying as long as they urge you to stay,’ Arwen said with a smile. ‘This festival or that celebration...’

 ‘...or this race or that foal about to be born,’ Estella agreed, while Diamond laughed.

 ‘I suppose I ought to be grateful that my husband is a knight of Gondor and not of Rohan,’ she said. ‘At least the King and Queen of Gondor will dislodge us from our comfortable quarters and send us off home again when they tire of us!’

 ‘Not when we tire, my dear,’ Arwen said, accepting the re-filling of her cup. She much preferred to drink from a hobbit-sized cup, for then the half-dozen cupfuls that comprised a hobbity teatime were not so likely to make her feel as if she’d float away before all was drunk and done. ‘Why, we’d never tire, I fear, and should be tempted to keep you with us forever. Before he visits, however, Pippin always sends a letter to set out the dates of his visit, to ensure that we’ll pry him loose when it’s time to go.’

 ‘Clever husband of mine,’ Diamond said. ‘If he ever forgets to set a departure date, I fear he might never return from Gondor again!’

 ‘And the same with my husband, and Rohan!’ Estella agreed. ‘Why, they belong as much to the South as the North now!’

 ‘As does my husband,’ Arwen said, and they toasted with their teacups.

Samwise alone of the three remaining Travellers remained solidly entrenched in the North. King and Queen had not yet been able to persuade him to make the long trip to Gondor, not even with his family, though not for want of trying. The journey to the Lake had been a great concession.

Perhaps his caution was justified. After all, the first haying was underway in the Shire, and he’d made no preparations yet for leaving. Must’ve meant he’d stay until the second haying, Pippin muttered to Merry.

Either that or he’s become trapped in the same hospitable spiders’ webs as we, Merry replied under his breath.

Pippin smiled. He’d given Strider a firm date for his departure, and secure in this knowledge, he could throw himself into the work of discussion and planning, and the play of diversion and delight, without reservation.

***

Though they could have been waited on hand and foot, the Mayor and his wife were wise in the ways of raising young hobbits. They kept to a daily routine that was as close as possible to what they kept at home. No servants lit the fires, made the beds, swept the floors, beat the rugs, or dusted the furniture. The little Gamgees did all that with their mother. True, there were no chickens to feed, no cow to milk, no need to churn butter, no garden to weed... Sam soon made up for the latter difficulty by seeking out the head gardener. Not long after their arrival, Samwise and his sons spent a few hours each day in the palace gardens, pulling weeds, planting seeds, coaxing young plants that would bear glorious blooms later in the summer.

 ‘Though we won’t see them,’ Pip-lad muttered to Merry-lad. ‘Not if we leave at haying-time.’

Samwise, overhearing, said, ‘Sometimes the most meaningful work is for the reward we’ll never see.’

 ‘I don’t understand, Dad,’ Pip-lad said, screwing up his little face in puzzlement.

 ‘I think I do,’ Frodo-lad said low, and he tenderly brushed the dirt from the root ball of a plant started in the hot-house in a colder month, and now ready to transplant in the warming soil.

Sam smiled at Mister Frodo’s namesake and blinked away a tear. How he wished his master could see this grand new city, rising by the Lake, white marble and pink granite carved into majesty by the Dwarves, and gardens planted by Elves and humbler gardeners, and people, fine and noble, smiling and kind, the souls of hospitality.

Frodo-lad looked up then, squinting against the bright morning light. ‘What did you say, Dad?’ he asked.

 ‘Nothing,’ Sam said, ‘Er, I meant to say, you’re doing a fine job there, lad.’

 ‘Ah,’ Frodo said with a pleased blush, looking at once to the next plant that awaited his gentle touch.

***

While her brothers gardened, Elanor attended the Queen. It was not arduous duty; indeed, it often seemed more play than work, for much of her duty involved listening to the Queen’s stories until she could repeat them back, word-for-word. There was also sewing, and singing, and playing with the little princess and sometimes young Faramir, when both his parents were occupied, none of these arduous tasks.

Not that the young Gamgees worked all the day long, for “all work and no play”, as the proverb goes, even amongst the Shire-folk, means that the day ought to be balanced between productive endeavour and rest.

There were picnics and pony rides, fishing at the shore, dancing in the sunshine, lying upon the grass to tell stories about the cloud-pictures, tea with the Queen, excursions to the old ruins with the King, all manner of activity, too much, really, to recount without filling a score of books!

Always there were Big Folk with the hobbits, until they grew so used to having Bergil or Denny or other guardsmen with them that they wondered how it would be, in the Shire, to be amongst only hobbit-sized folk once more. The sight of a Man no longer gave them pause, and the tiniest Gamgee would often seek out a Large lap when troubled or weary, resting comfortably against a fine surcoat woven of softest black-dyed wool, tracing with wondering little fingers the White Tree broidered there.

Merry even went out with the King in a boat, far out onto the Lake, farther, even, than Pippin was willing to go. In the mists of the early morning, they’d sit talking. Merry would bait the hook, for it was good exercise for his fingers, and Strider would cast the line out and move the hook-and-worm through the still waters in a series of jerks, until a fish would strike the line and he’d bring it in. Merry would be ready with the net, and then it would be time to bait the hook again. ‘Fried fish for breakfast!’ he’d whisper with a grin, and the King would give an answering grin.

Sometimes there were other boats upon the water. Several times they came close to one, the lone occupant raising a hand in silent salute, answered by the King in similar manner.

 ‘Who is he?’ Merry asked.

 ‘A soldier of Gondor,’ Strider said. ‘A hermit—he lives alone, and likes it that way. He catches fish, smokes them, and occasionally brings them to the City to trade for anything he cannot raise in his garden or catch in the woods.’

 ‘He looks half-mad,’ Merry said with a shiver, looking at the long, tangled locks.

 ‘He’s not, really,’ Strider said, sitting back and laying down his line to take up the oars. ‘No fish in this spot, it seems.’ He stroked the boat smoothly away from the hermit. ‘We’ve talked a few times. His eyes are shadowed with the knowledge of the past, and he came to the Lake when the land was still wild and empty, to find healing. I’ve given him leave to hunt and fish.’

 ‘You ought to introduce us some time,’ Merry said. ‘I don’t think one can find healing in solitude. What about love? What about song and laughter?’

 ‘He could use a few hobbits in his life,’ Strider agreed, ‘and perhaps some day he’ll be ready for such a meeting. When last we talked, however, he warned me off of bringing my “son” to visit him...’

 ‘Your son?’ Merry asked in astonishment. ‘You don’t have a son!’

 ‘He meant you, I’m sure,’ the King said. ‘Seeing you in the morning mist, fishing with me...’

 Merry’s laughter was tempered with sorrow. ‘Son or not, he won’t allow you to bring another to meet him?’ He was struck by another thought, crowding upon the last. ‘And... everyone knows the King has no son, not yet anyhow, but a little daughter. ...He doesn’t know you’re King?’

 ‘It doesn’t seem to matter,’ Strider said with a shrug. ‘I wander into his clearing, we sit in the dust together, he offers me a haunch of whatever is roasting over his fire. We might talk of the Lake, or the weather, or more often, just sit in silence together. It’s healing.’

 ‘I’m sure it is,’ Merry said. ‘Rather like getting away. No one making demands on you, no disputes to settle, no decisions to make.’

 ‘Rather like getting away from the Hall for a summer of rest and recovering, I’d imagine,’ the King said.

 ‘Indeed,’ Merry said. ‘Why, I haven’t found anything to worry about in a week, or even longer!’

 ‘Perhaps you ought to stay,’ Strider said with a chuckle.

Merry shook a finger at him, and to his satisfaction he felt only the merest twinge in his shoulder. ‘Don’t you go taking any pages out of Eomer’s book!’ he warned. ‘But it has been good to have a long holiday, and even Pippin’s looking so much better.’

 ‘Quite wearing for him, being Thain,’ Strider said, a question in his voice. ‘And I see his old wounds still trouble him.’

Merry was silent a moment, weighing, perhaps, a promise made to one against the honest concern of another. ‘They do,’ he said at last.

 ‘We’ll let it stand there for the nonce,’ Strider said after the silence stretched out for several more moments. ‘But I’m nearly as good at finding things out as that cousin of yours, Merry.’

 ‘I’m sure you are,’ Merry said, and then, ‘Are we going to fish, or are you going to row us all the way round the Lake and back again?’

***

At last Hilly was able to persuade Posey to undergo examination by the healers amongst the Big Folk. He held her hand through it all, and with great difficulty held his tongue as they poked and pried where, truth be told, they really oughtn’t, at least in his opinion. Posey was brave through it all, though her breath came short and at one point she bit her lip until it bled. This was so very different from the midwife she trusted, and the hobbit healers of the Great Smials!

An overlarge hand gently dabbed at the hobbit’s bleeding lip, and Hilly’s breath came short, now, as Elladan bent over Posey, but the son of Elrond had eyes only for the trembling hobbit mum. Looking into his eyes as Elladan crooned a song in a tongue the hobbits did not know, Posey calmed, and her expression grew dreamy. Her desperate grip on Hilly’s hand eased, and she sighed.

 ‘There now, lass,’ Hilly said, and he kept his eyes fixed on her face for the remainder of the ordeal. At last the healers were finished, a blanket was drawn up, Elladan’s song changed and Hilly felt his head jerk. He shook his head, blinking, and saw that Posey’s eyes were closed now, and she slept.

At last Elladan’s song ended, and he said, ‘It might have been better for her to sleep through it all, though we needed the answers she gave us to our questions...’

 ‘Then it was better she was awake,’ Hilly said, and with an effort he forced himself to meet Elladan’s eyes. They were filled with sympathy, and was that understanding? He dropped his eyes again, unnerved by Elladan’s regard. ‘You have all you need?’

 ‘We have all we need,’ the son of Elrond said gently. ‘Why don’t you stretch out beside Posey and have a rest yourself? It’s late.’

Hilly nodded, but he didn’t move until the son of Elrond rose and went to the doorway.

Elrohir found his brother some time later, sitting in a darkened corner of the Great Hall, well on his way through a bottle of strong spirits.

He sat down, regarding Elladan with a frown. ‘What is the occasion?’ he said.

 ‘ ‘Tis a short life, so let’s make it a Merry one,’ Elladan said, raising his glass. ‘So I’ve heard Pippin say, toasting his cousin.’

 ‘And Merry always laughs,’ Elrohir said. ‘Though I must admit the point evades me.’

 ‘And some lives are shorter than others,’ Elladan said with a sigh. ‘He knows.’

 ‘You told him?’ Elrohir said.

 ‘I didn’t have to tell him,’ Elladan said. ‘Haven’t you seen how it is? When he’s not called upon to attend Pippin, he’s always by her side. They’re always touching, did you notice? When they walk, they hold hands. When they sit at a feast, she leans against him, or his arm is about her. I wish...’ He did not finish the sentiment, but drained his glass and picked up the bottle to pour out again.

 ‘Pour me one of those, will you, brother?’ Elrohir said, pulling another chair up to the table.

Elladan obliged, and they brought their glasses together with a soft clink.

 ‘May it be a Merry one,’ Elrohir said. Elladan nodded, and the brothers drank.