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A Took by Any Other Name  by Lindelea

Chapter 1. The Morning After

No tap came at the door; instead it opened silently, but instead of a peeping servant Diamond saw Pippin’s aunt hesitating on the threshold. She put her finger to her lips, and Esmeralda nodded, gliding into the room, two servants following with laden trays. When these had laid down their burdens, the Mistress dismissed them with a wordless glance, and they crept from the room.

Pippin awakened with a jerk, however, at the gentle sound of tea being poured out. ‘What?’ he said wildly, ‘Where...?’

Diamond could feel him trembling as she cautiously tightened her embrace. ‘All is well, my love,’ she said. ‘We’re in the Hall, remember? Merry brought you back from the Forest last night, after they killed all the Orcs.’ His trembling stopped; he was still, worrisomely so, for Pippin was never still. ‘Do you hear, my love? The Orcs are all gone, dead.’

 ‘The Forest,’ he whispered, and slumped against her, closing his eyes once more. ‘Forest brought me back.’

Esmeralda brought two cups of tea to the bedside. ‘Come now,’ she said, ‘drink up whilst it’s hot.’

Diamond took her cup and gulped the sweet, milky tea, then took the second cup and held it to her husband’s lips. ‘Here, love,’ she said. ‘Strong and hot, just as you like it.’

Meekly he sipped, without opening his eyes, and she exchanged a worried glance with Pippin’s aunt.

Esmeralda brushed the back of her hand across Pippin’s forehead and he flinched away, spilling the tea. ‘No matter,’ she said cheerily, hurrying for a serviette and dabbing at the damp spots. ‘I’ll just pour you another cup, my dear, and you make sure to drink the whole of it this time! And we’ve breakfast as well...’ Meeting Diamond’s eyes she mouthed the word fever, and Diamond nodded.

 ‘Well then,’ Esmeralda said, moving to the door and easing it open a crack for a brief murmur to whomever hovered outside. Next she went to the table where the trays resided, quickly spooning eggs from a covered serving dish onto a plate, adding bacon and buttered toast and potatoes fried crispy with savoury bits of onion. ‘Here you are, my dear,’ she said, bringing the plate to Diamond.

It was awkward, eating with Pippin dozing upon her breast, but she managed with Esmeralda holding the plate conveniently near. When she was nearly finished, the door opened to admit the old healer.

 ‘Ah good,’ he said, eying the plate. ‘Glad to see you’re not neglecting the babe.’

 ‘He’s hungry,’ Diamond answered, ‘after dancing the night through. Or at least I am.’

Ossilan nodded, already busy examining his patient. Through it all, Pippin continued to sleep, but the healer did not seem concerned by that fact. Esmeralda laid Diamond’s plate aside and returned to the bedside.
 
‘Fever,’ the old healer muttered, ‘but it’s to be expected. I only hope...’ Gently he eased the dressing from the forearm wound, sighing with relief at what he found. ‘No red swelling,’ he said, ‘and it doesn’t appear that the blade was poisoned or smeared with filth.’ 

 ‘Pippin said it was a skinning knife,’ Diamond said steadily, though her breakfast sat uneasily at the thought. ‘They would hardly taint their supper meat, using a dirty blade.’

Esmeralda gasped, hand at her heart.

 ‘I’m sorry, Aunt,’ Diamond said, immediately contrite.

 ‘No... no, lass. My nephew has always been one for plain speaking,’ Esmeralda said, and smiling faintly she added, ‘You ought to have heard some of the observations he’d come out with, as a little lad. Such consternation as he caused my brother and his wife!’

 ‘Have you sent word...?’ Diamond said delicately.

 ‘Swift messengers have been sent throughout the Shire,’ Esmeralda replied.

 ‘Will he come?’ Diamond persisted. Ossilan was carefully going over the bruising on Pippin’s torso, clucking softly to himself.

Esmeralda sighed and shook her head. ‘Paladin did not come after the stable fire that nearly took his son’s life,’ she said. ‘I doubt that he’d come now, when there is no danger of Pippin’s life.’ She touched the healer’s arm. ‘There is no danger,’ she repeated, spacing her words, ‘is there?’

Ossilan snorted softly.

 ‘I know,’ Esmeralda said ruefully. ‘I ought to know better... but... is there?’

Diamond held back a laugh. Pippin was not the only one to ask a question over and over again until he heard an answer that satisfied him.

 ‘So far as I can determine, at this early date, no,’ Ossilan said grudgingly.

Esmeralda nodded, a single jerk of her chin, and again Diamond was reminded of her husband... and his father, the Thain.

 ‘You’d think...’ she said softly, though she knew better. She was the cause of division between father and son, after all.

 ‘O my dear,’ Esmeralda whispered, reaching out to cup her cheek. ‘ ‘Tis the curse of the Tooks, their stubbornness. Why my brother refuses to see...’ She sighed. ‘But of course, he’s had his eye on the Bolgers’ daughter and the gold she'd bring to a wedding since Pip was just a little lad. I don’t know why, with all the gold in the Thain’s hoard at his fingertips, he should always be looking for more...’

Ossilan cleared his throat, though he did not look up from his examination.

 ‘So if my father held more wealth than The Bolger he’d have reconciled himself to the marriage?’ Diamond whispered bitterly. Her arms tightened on Pippin, just a little, for she did not want to cause him pain from his bruises. As if the son of the Thain were merely one of his ponies, to be traded for gain.

 ‘He was a different hobbit, before he became Thain,’ Esmeralda said apologetically. She wiped a tear from the corner of one eye.

Ossilan cleared his throat again as he arose from his examination of Pippin’s feet and legs, and Esmeralda and Diamond exchanged glances. They almost never spoke of the strained relations between Brandy Hall and the Great Smials, but in light of the recent horror and the manner of Pippin’s near-passing, social constraints seemed less pressing, at least in Diamond’s eyes, and Esmeralda seemed to be in the same mood despite the old healer’s subtle protests.

 ‘Then perhaps I ought to be grateful to him, sparing my husband the same fate,’ Diamond said recklessly. Paladin had disowned his son upon their handfasting, and even though he’d attended the wedding two years after, he’d not owned his son again. He continued to insist that Pippin return to the Great Smials, to take up his duties in preparation to inheriting the office of Thain some day, and Pippin stubbornly remained at Brandy Hall, as steward to the Master of Buckland. So long as Pippin remained disinherited there appeared to be no danger of his becoming Thain.

Ossilan cleared his throat a third time.

 ‘Dear Ossilan, I do hope you’re not sickening with anything,’ Esmeralda said solicitously. The glance she shot Diamond said, We’ll take this up another time.

The healer was carefully fingering Pippin’s jaw and throat. Pippin, oblivious to the examination, was snoring lightly. ‘Light foods, and soft,’ he said. ‘I’d even say liquids only to start, but... He wasn’t sick in the night, was he?’

 ‘No,’ Diamond said. ‘He kept all he managed to swallow last night.’ Though his jaw was not broken, Pippin was so bruised and battered that any movement, even sipping and swallowing, had been purchased at no little cost.

 ‘Soft foods,’ Ossilan repeated.

 ‘There’s porridge in the serving dish,’ Esmeralda said, moving restlessly to the tray. She lit the warming candle under the covered dish. She met Diamond’s surprised glance with a tight smile. ‘O I know,’ she added. ‘The lad hates porridge. But it’s soft, and it’s nourishing, and if you lace it with cream and jam...’

 ‘Anything but honey,’ Ossilan muttered. Too bad he couldn’t sweeten draughts with jam. Pippin’s distaste for honey made the healer’s business all the more difficult, added to the fact that he was a stubborn Took.

 ‘Anything but honey,’ Diamond said, laying a whisper of a kiss on her husband’s bruised forehead.

Esmeralda smiled and brushed a kiss of her own upon Pippin’s forehead, and then Diamond’s. ‘Do you want me to watch with him whilst you bathe and see to your needs?’ she said.

 ‘Thank you,’ Diamond said.

Pippin’s breathing quickened as she eased herself from the bed, but Esmeralda sat herself down immediately, drawing her nephew’s head to her ample bosom and murmuring comfort. Soon the soft snoring resumed, and Diamond slipped out, beckoning to Ossilan to follow. She determined to question him thoroughly before seeking her bath.

Instead it was the old healer asking the questions. He had very little to say to Diamond about Pippin, not even when Diamond pressed him.

 ‘If you’re trying to avoid upsetting me because of my delicate condition...’ she said, hands on her hips.

 ‘I’ve never seen a hobbit so bruised and battered,’ Ossilan said honestly. ‘Not even the ones we pulled out when the ceiling fell in on the south tunnel at the lowest level, some years back. And knowing how he came to be...’ He met her eyes squarely for the first time. ‘I’ve no idea of the damage done.’

 ‘No idea?’ Diamond said. ‘But surely... you examined him last night, and again this morning, and very thoroughly too...’

 ‘I’ve no idea what damage was done to his spirit, or his mind,’ Ossilan said, dropping his voice. ‘What healing is needed remains to be seen.’

Diamond started to answer, only to remember the nightmares of the previous night.

The old healer nodded, his eyes still meeting hers with a keen and questioning look. ‘As I thought,’ he said. ‘I cannot imagine living through what he did.’

Nor could Diamond. ‘He’s strong,’ she said stoutly. ‘He’s lived through worse, from what I know.’

 ‘He told you?’ Ossilan said, patently surprised.

Diamond nodded firmly. In a manner of speaking he had, for he’d talked in his sleep ever since their first night together. ‘He did,’ she said.

 ‘Well, we can hope,’ the old healer said. ‘Now, my dear, take care of your own needs so that you can be by his side when he wakens.’





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