Chapter 10. Cut to the Quick

Pippin looked away as Mardi used a sharp, short-bladed knife to tear away the fabric of Tolly’s breeches and then began to tie a constricting band around one of Tolly’s legs, that he might not bleed to death as things proceeded. Too well, Pippin remembered seeing Elladan cutting away the legs of a screaming soldier of Gondor who was trapped beneath a fallen Oliphaunt on the Pelennor. Sickened by the memory, he closed his eyes.

 ‘Pippin?’ Ferdi said, watching his cousin closely, though he maintained his hold on Tolly.

 ‘I am well,’ Pippin lied, opening his eyes again and forcing himself to look over. ‘He and his family will want for nothing, I promise it.’

 ‘Thain’s charity,’ Ferdi said bleakly, and Pippin shook his head.

 ‘It doesn’t have to be that way,’ he replied, using the words to anchor himself against the roiling of his innards. ‘There’s a great deal of work to be done that doesn’t require legs for the doing.’

Mardi had tightened the second constricting band to his satisfaction, had finished pouring strong spirits from a little flask over the bared skin and the blade of the saw, and now he set the teeth against the flesh of Tolly’s leg. Before he could begin, Tolly’s eyes flew open at the touch of cold, serrated steel, and with the strength of desperation he wrenched free of Hilly’s grasp. Pulling against Ferdi’s restraining hands and Eglantine's grasp, he sat up, grabbing at Mardi, and, ‘No!’ he cried. ‘No!’

Any indecision on Mardi’s part was severed by the rattle of rocks above them; they were pelted by a minor fall of dirt and stones, and he lifted the saw into the air, saying through gritted teeth, ‘Hold him!’

Hilly took hold once more, but Ferdi drew off one of his sturdy leather gloves and held it before Tolly’s mouth. ‘We’ve no choice,’ he said to his helpless friend. ‘We’ve got to get you and the Mistress out of here, and she won’t let you go. Bite down on this, now.’

 ‘Please, no,’ Tolly whispered, and then with a hopeless look he took the glove between his teeth and sank back in the grasp of brother and cousin.

 ‘Ready,’ Ferdi said, looking into Tolly’s eyes. Tolly squeezed his eyes shut, opened them again, and nodded.

Mardi had been waiting for this signal; setting his lips in a thin line, he once more brought the saw to bear.

Again he was interrupted, this time by Eglantine. She’d been roused by Tolly’s protest, and had lain, blinking, in Pippin’s embrace while she got her bearings. When she realised what she was seeing she pulled herself up by virtue of her grasp on Tolly’s arm, saying with all the imperiousness she could muster, ‘Stop! Stop at once, do you hear?’

 ‘Mum!’ Pippin cried, torn between joy and grief, but she had eyes only for Tolly. She’d promised! Deep in the night, when he’d begun to fret again... and from his gasping, it seemed to her that it would be best to humor him and calm him, promise anything to keep him quiet, to keep him fighting though each breath came at a higher cost. Deep in the night, as she had tried to dig out more of the dirt from under him, she’d given in to his hopeless whispered pleas, and promised, rather out of breath herself from the digging, that she wouldn't let ‘them’ take his legs.

 ‘Don’t you dare,’ she said in her iciest tone, and Mardi froze for a long moment.

At last, looking up, the healer said plaintively, ‘If you please, Mistress, we’ve got to get the two of you out of here. Another slide could come at any time, and...’

 ‘With all the time I imagine you wasted arguing before I wakened, you might have had the lad dug out from under that tree by now,’ Eglantine said. ‘You will not take his legs, not even if it means we're to die here. You can either leave us here on the slope until you figure something better to do, or you can begin digging him out!’

 ‘Mother,’ Pippin remonstrated, but she turned on him, as overbearing as old Lalia had ever been towards her son Ferumbras, in the days when he was Thain in name only and she ruled Tookland.

 ‘Do as I say!’ she snapped, but at the sight of his face her look softened, and she took one hand from Tolly’s arm to cup her son’s cheek. ‘Forgive me, Pippin, but I promised him he’d keep his legs, and I’ve never broken a promise so long as I’ve lived. And so long as breath remains to me, I never intend to go back on my word.’

Mother and son shared a long look and then Pippin said, ‘Dig, Mardi, Hilly. Dig, Ferdi, dig with all you’ve got. Let’s get off this cursed slope.’

Mardi stowed the saw and released the constricting bands, stowing them hastily as well, and shoving his healer’s bag to one side he joined the others in scooping away dirt from underneath his brother.

All the while Eglantine spoke encouragement, to Tolly, to the diggers, to her son who still cradled her. Stones and dirt showered down around them, but they dug as doggedly as a terrier when its quarry has gone to ground, and at last Eglantine released her hold and they were able to draw Tolly, with great care, out from under the bole of the tree. He gave a cry of pain as he was pulled free, but immediately after he was able to hand the muffling glove to Ferdi, saying, ‘Did you misplace this?’

 ‘Seemingly,’ Ferdi said, drawing it on again. He and Hilly lifted Tolly between them and they started across the treacherous slope to safety, where the watching hobbits’ gloom and grief had turned to wonder. A cheer arose as the rescuers reached the edge of the slide.

 ‘Come lad, it’s our turn,’ Mardi said, and he steadied Pippin as the Thain rose, still bearing his mother in his arms. They crept across the slide, pausing once as the ground moved beneath their feet, and then moving cautiously to the edge, where eager hands were waiting to pull them onto the solid ground.

Tolly had been laid on a blanket, and Mardi, after a fervent hug, bent much more cheerily to his examination. ‘Wrenched knee,’ he said, ‘broken ankle.’

 ‘I can live with that,’ Tolly said with a nod.

 ‘I’m sure you can, lad,’ Mardi said, tousling his brother’s curls as if he were once more the bright-eyed little hobbit that Mardi’d ridden on his back, playing “ponies” long ago in the sunny garden. ‘Come,’ he said, ‘bring hot drinks to the Mistress and her escort, and then let’s put them on litters and carry them home.’

 ‘Yes, let’s!’ Eglantine said. ‘I’m belated for my daughter’s birthday breakfast as it is!’

 ‘We cannot have that,’ Pippin said, laying a kiss against his mother’s forehead. ‘You have a lovely breakfast, and tell her I’ll hope to see her at teatime. We have a dam to dismantle.’

 ‘I’m sure you’ll do a fine job of it, dearie,’ Eglantine said. She took the steaming cup and sipped at it greedily. ‘Ah, that was just what was wanted,’ she said.

 ‘What did Bilbo say?’ Tolly said, after a gulp of his own satisfyingly hot tea.

Eglantine’s laughter rang out, and Pippin closed his eyes a moment to savour the sound that he thought he’d never hear again. ‘Ah, that’s right, we never did get to the end of that story, did we, lad?’

 ‘No, we didn’t,’ Tolly said.

 ‘Well now, let me think. Ah, yes, I remember. He said, “I trust, young Pip, that you made the biggest splash!”’

Pippin laughed. ‘I did, as a matter of fact, with my great stone and myself,’ he said, ‘but I think I’m about to better my record.’

And so he did.

***