Chapter 55. A Choice to Consider

Pippin began pressing to get up out of the bed, of course, as soon as he wakened. Denethor, stopping in to see him on his way to check on Sam and Hilly, found him fully engaged in arguing with Diamond and Ceolwen. The exercise had brought colour to the hobbit’s cheeks and a sparkle to his eyes, and despite his shortened breath he affected vigour and health.

 ‘The King has given strict orders...’ Ceolwen was saying. 

 ‘And where is the King?’ Pippin demanded. ‘Why isn’t he here to speak for himself, instead of letting you do the dirty work?’

 ‘He was here earlier,’ Denethor said, crossing his arms and attempting to look stern. ‘You, slug-abed, were still asleep when he looked in on you. There’s a matter of a certain bag of herbs...’

 ‘Herbs?’ Diamond asked in confusion, though she was glad for the guardsman’s entrance. Young and merry of heart yet courageous and tested by battle, one of the King’s elite bodyguard, Denny had more influence with her husband than the strictest healer.

Ceolwen looked to the guardsman, an eyebrow raised. Any help was welcome, of course, but Denethor was known to have a penchant for practical jokes.

 ‘Herbs,’ the guardsman said firmly. He nodded to the simmering mixture, sending its pungency into the air, a smell that could clear the stuffiest head. ‘I saw the King measure out herbs into a bag, and he said you were not to leave this room until the entire contents of the bag had been simmered.’

 ‘Let’s just dump them all in and get it over with!’ Pippin said.

 ‘It is about time to renew the mixture, is it not?’ Diamond asked, with a restraining hand on her husband’s arm.

 ‘Yes,’ Ceolwen said. ‘I’ll send an assistant in.’

 ‘How much is left in the bag?’ Pippin called after her, but she did not stop to answer. He grumbled, settling back on the bed. ‘Measured herbs into a bag... no doubt the bag is a piece of your imagination, Denny, as are so many other...’

 ‘You doubt my word?’ Denny said, insulted. He stood straighter, unfolding his arms. ‘You watch yourself,’ he said, affecting a grim tone. ‘I’ll—’

 ‘You’ll—what?’ Pippin said with an interested look.

 ‘I’ll add more herbs to the bag when the healers aren’t looking,’ Denethor said. ‘They’ll keep you in bed a week longer!’

 ‘You wouldn’t!’

 ‘Just try me.’

Diamond spoiled things by laughing aloud, and Denethor relaxed with a chuckle. ‘Stay in the bed,’ he said. ‘Or I’ll sit on you myself!’

  ‘Where did you learn about sitting on Tooks?’ Diamond asked.

 ‘Bergil told me all about it,’ Denethor said. ‘Evidently Pippin had a bad spell in Minas Tirith after the Coronation, and it took both his cousins together to keep him abed as long as the King thought necessary.’

 ‘King, hah!’ Pippin said. ‘He might be King but he’s as bad as any other healer!’

 ‘And you’re worse than all the Tooks put together,’ Denethor returned, ‘or so your cousins Merry and Frodo told Bergil.’

Bag of herbs or no bag of herbs, Pippin was out of the bed well before the healers thought he ought to be, but that of course was nothing new. Hilly stalked alongside him when he deemed the Thain needed escorting, still stiff and more than a little sore, but glad to be out of his own bed.

A fair amount of time was spent at Sam’s bedside, bringing cheer, at least until the healers allowed that the leg had healed enough for him to be carried to the garden where he could sit and chat with the gardeners and observe his sons in their “duties”.

Soon the picnics and outings resumed as if there had never been an emergency, though all watched over Princess Liriel with much more care than heretofore. Indeed, as Pippin declared, they watched her more carefully than they did the little hobbits, and that was saying something!

During one of their outings, Merry walked by Pippin’s side as young Gamgees and a little Took swarmed into the low branches of apple and pear trees, planted fairly recently and still small enough for hobbits to climb, not like the ancient trees in Gondor, giants of trees that held their fruit inconveniently high, as far as a hobbit was concerned. There would be no fruit to eat for some weeks yet, for it was barely mid-Summer. The little hobbits knew better than to disturb the setting fruit, but perched on the sturdy branches and sang like curl-topped, wingless birds.

 ‘I’ve been talking with Strider,’ the older cousin said. 

 ‘Oh?’ Pippin responded politely. ‘I’m sure he’s gratified that you’re holding up your end of the conversation.’

 ‘He says the damp chill was a part of it—O the cold was the start, but the mist from the Falls was enough to push you over the edge.’

 ‘Funny, that! I thought I lost my footing,’ Pippin said. ‘You say it was the mist, pushed me over? How inhospitable!’

 ‘Pippin!’ Merry said in annoyance, but the younger cousin only laughed. Merry tried again. ‘It seems the cool and damp that makes the Shire so green is a part of what’s killing you,’ he said, setting aside light talk in light of his fear for his cousin.

 ‘Killing me!’ Pippin said, affecting astonishment. ‘Merry, I do think you’re exagger—’

 ‘I thought you were dying there, in my arms!’ Merry said, his voice rising in his perturbation. He looked about himself, at the youngsters in the trees, and lowered his voice. ‘You said goodbye...’

 ‘I never said any such thing!’ Pippin retorted.

 ‘You hadn’t the breath to say it,’ Merry allowed. ‘You looked it, rather, and then you closed your eyes and gave up the fight.’

 ‘Gave up the fight,’ Pippin mimicked. ‘Honestly, Merry, the way you—’

Merry stopped, placing a heavy hand on his cousin’s shoulder. ‘Honestly, Pippin,’ he said, staring straight into his cousin’s eyes.

Pippin’s bright smile faded. ‘No matter how I struggled, I could not seem to get any air,’ he admitted. ‘I was trying, Merry, honestly I was, but there simply was no air to be had.’ He took a few shallow breaths and determinedly found his smile once more. ‘Be that as it may, it is past and done and I did not die in your arms after all! As I have no intention of doing! I’m going to die in my bed, just as any proper hobbit!’ He started to walk again, pulling away from Merry's restraining hand, and Merry was forced to follow.

 ‘As if you’ve ever been proper,’ Merry said. ‘Is that why you avoid your bed like the plague? Getting up a full week before the healers said they were going to let you up!’

 ‘Beds are for sick folk,’ Pippin maintained, ‘and other—ahem!—pursuits. But you won’t catch a Took lying about in bed, doing nothing. It’s inviting Death to come and have a look in, and we cannot have that!’

 ‘No of course not,’ Merry said, his voice rich with irony, ‘but...’

Pippin stopped walking and turned to look his cousin full in the face. ‘What is it, Merry?’ he demanded. ‘You’ve been dancing about the subject for days now. Have out with it!’

 ‘I think you ought to go to Gondor with the King when he goes South,’ Merry blurted. It was not like him to blurt things out; he usually liked to think a matter through and present a considered opinion. But Pippin so often unsettled him...

 ‘What, after spending the summer at the Lake? The Tooks barely tolerated this long a desertion, on my part! They might not welcome me back into the Tookland, should I stay away much longer!’

 ‘I mean, go back to Gondor, to live,’ Merry said, ploughing ahead.

Pippin laughed. ‘To live!’ he said, incredulous. ‘Merry, I do believe you’ve had too much sun!’

 ‘The air is warmer and drier,’ Merry said stubbornly. ‘They don’t have the cool damp of the Northlands.’

 ‘Cool sunlight and green grass,’ Pippin murmured incongruously.

 ‘There’s green grass a-plenty on the fields of the Pelennor,’ Merry said, misunderstanding.

 ‘You want me to leave the Shire?’ Pippin said.

 ‘No,’ Merry said, ‘I don’t want you to. But I do want you to live, Pippin.’ He swallowed the lump in his throat. ‘Strider says—’

 ‘Strider said his short-cut would get us to Rivendell sooner than later,’ Pippin said, ‘and as I recall we ended up on the Road notwithstanding.’

 ‘Pippin!’ Merry said, louder than he intended. The laughter of the young Gamgees faded.

 ‘Da?’ Faramir said from his perch, not far away.

 ‘All’s well, Farry,’ Pippin called. ‘Your Uncle Merry is dismayed to find he must spend Yule at the Great Smials this year, instead of us going to Buckland as usual. But I had to give in to Regi’s insistence, to get him to agree we could come to the Lake for the entire Summer!’

Faramir nodded, and went back to the song-game that the young hobbits had been playing.

 ‘Pippin!’ Merry said, under his breath this time, but with no less intensity.

 ‘I’ll think on it, Merry,’ Pippin said. ‘This sort of thing requires a great deal of thought, I fear. You’re asking me to shirk my responsibilities...’

 ‘I’m asking you to save your life,’ Merry said softly. ‘Please, Pippin...’

 ‘I’ll give it all the thought it’s due, and more,’ Pippin said, ‘but only if you promise not to badger me about it in the meantime. At Summer’s end you’ll know my decision.’