Chapter 10. A Sip at Midnight  

In spite of his resolve to go quietly in order to hasten his death, Pippin could not help fighting as the fire’s heat rose around him. He felt himself seized from all sides, heard the jeers of the Orcs; he cried out as they wired him to the spit.

 ‘It’s too hot, is it?’ the chief cook growled in his face. ‘A little sauce for the goose, I think! The roast is burning!’

Cool moistness against his skin that was somehow agony in itself; he tried to shrink away from the horror of being basted like a joint of beef as the world spun around him. His struggles were to no avail, and his voice was hoarse, now, as he cried out. Voices faded in and out of his hearing, taunting him and then to make things worse, the Orcs raised a song, much as hobbits might while waiting for supper to cook...

 ‘I don’t know how much longer he’ll last,’ one Orc snarled. ‘His heart...’ Pippin desperately hoped this was true. If only he could will himself to die!

Into the nightmare came cool and gentle hands, strong for all their softness, that took his cheeks prisoner while a feminine voice spoke in dulcet tones, no less demanding than the Orcs’, yet somehow more compelling. ‘Pippin! Peregrin Took! Hear me!’

 ‘What are you doing here?’ one of the Orcs said in outrage. ‘You oughtn’t...’

 ‘Diamond, no,’ Pippin begged. ‘They’ve not taken you as well? Please, no!’

 ‘Shhh, Pippin-love, waken now. Walk no more in dark dream, my love.’ Though the voice wowed louder and then softer in his tortured ears, it compelled him to still his struggles, to lie quiet in his bonds.

 ‘Diamond,’ he whispered.

 ‘Waken, Pippin,’ the voice commanded, and then a soft kiss was laid upon his lips.

He opened his eyes, gasping in the same breath as Merry, who was one of several hobbits holding him on the bed, ‘Estella!’

 ‘That’s better,’ Estella said in satisfaction, keeping her face close to Pippin’s, her cool hands soothing his face. ‘That’s better, cousin. Diamond couldn’t be here, herself, so she told me what to do.’

 ‘Estella...’ Merry began again, but his wife had a Tookish tongue from her mother’s side, and when a Took is in a full rolling boil it is difficult to toss more than an occasional word into the pot.

 ‘They won’t let her risk the fever, and rightly so, being so very close to her time, you know...’

 ‘My love,’ Merry said, but he might as well have been casting petals on a breeze.

 ‘And so she asked me to take her part, beloved, for she knows just how to calm her husband when the fit takes him...’

 ‘Fit!’ –that from Merry and Pippin, both.

 ‘It’s a—’ Pippin began, intending to defend his honour with the explanation that this was a dream, no more, and if everyone would simply leave him to sleep in peace and quiet... It was no doubt all the jostling bodies crowded round the bed, and the grasping hands that held him that had set things off.

 ‘Love, you—’ Merry said at the same time, but Estella blithely paid no heed to either husband or cousin.

 ‘I know all about it, you see,’ she said, an intensity in her voice that made Merry’s grip on Pippin’s arm loosen as his face lost all colour.

 ‘All about it,’ he echoed in a whisper. ‘Estella, how?’

 ‘Leave us,’ she answered crisply, speaking to the Brandybuck cousins and servants who, only a moment ago, had been struggling to keep Pippin from throwing himself out of the bed.

 ‘Yes’m,’ came in a mumble from more than one of the watchers, and they quickly filed from the room, leaving Merry and Estella—gazes still locked—and Pippin, who wished he could get up from the bed and make his own escape.

 ‘Everything,’ Estella said firmly, ‘so there’s no use trying to wrap me in cotton wool and keep me “safe”, Merry Brandybuck.’

 ‘Estella, I...’ Merry said, sinking down into the chair beside the bed. Pippin, though he was as shocked and surprised as his cousin, made good of this opportunity to pull his arm free from Merry’s grip.

Estella laid a gentle kiss upon his forehead and released him, taking up the dampened cloth someone had abandoned, wringing it out afresh and sponging Pippin’s bared torso. ‘You’re burning up with fever,’ she said briskly. ‘It’s no wonder you have delusions of roasting over hot coals.’

Old Ossilan entered on the heels of this remark, bearing a covered cup. ‘Here now,’ he said. ‘What’s all this? Mistress, you—’

 ‘Just following orders,’ Estella said, continuing her basting. Pippin shivered as cool air assailed his dampened skin.

 ‘I’m freezing,’ he protested.

 ‘Good,’ Estella said. ‘Perhaps you’ll dream of Caradhras. That ought to be an improvement.’

 ‘Estella—’ Merry tried again, and his wife smiled brightly, though she kept her eyes on Pippin’s.

 ‘There now,’ she cooed. ‘I do love the way he speaks my name, almost a caress, it is...’

 ‘My love—’ Merry said, but when she turned her gaze on him he stopped, at a complete loss.

 ‘Come now, Master Steward,’ Ossilan said, stepping closer. ‘I’ve a draught for the drinking, cool and refreshing.’

Merry jumped to help Pippin sit up a little straighter, but when Pippin tried to raise his hands to guide the cup the sick hobbit could not suppress a groan as his tormented muscles resisted him.

 ‘There now,’ Ossilan soothed absently. ‘I’ve driven many a cup in my day—you just keep your ponies in the stable now, and let me manage the reins...’

Pippin sipped obediently. Cool and fresh, the drink was, some sort of herbal mixture brewed and chilled, sweetened with the squeezings of fruits, and he drank greedily despite the slightly bitter tang.

 ‘Good,’ Ossilan said. ‘Very good, lad. There’s custard coming right behind me, and...’

 ‘You train your custard well, here at the Hall,’ Pippin observed, sinking back against his cushions, freshly plumped by a smiling Estella. ‘I’m afraid in the Wilds of Tookland the custard is much more wayward and difficult to subdue.’

Merry had recovered from his dazed state and was making good use of the healer’s presence. ‘She should not be here,’ he said, speaking pointedly to Ossilan. ‘The fever—’

 ‘—is going round the Shire,’ Ossilan said, exchanging glances with Estella and then turning back to Merry with a mild look. ‘She might catch it in the market as well as here in the Hall.’

Merry bristled.

 ‘You won’t rid yourself of me that easily, dearest hedgehog,’ Estella said. ‘I intend to stay here just as long as you do!’

 ‘I can see rapid improvement is called for, if only in the interest of domestic harmony,’ Pippin observed to Ossilan.

 ‘You stay out of this!’ Merry said, rounding on him, and turning back to Estella tried for a sweet and reasonable tone. ‘My love.’

 ‘Yes, beloved,’ Estella said. ‘Love.’ Tears sprang suddenly to her eyes in one of her lightning changes of mood. ‘How I do love you, and that is why I will not leave you now...’

 ‘But—’ Merry said.

 ‘Save your breath,’ Pippin said quietly. ‘She’s more difficult than an hundred Orcs once she sets her mind to something.’

 ‘You’re telling me,’ Merry said wryly.

***

It was good to be back in their own smial again, as Rose observed to Samwise. Crowded into the meeting hall in Hobbiton for a festive occasion during the winter months was one thing, but crowded together for hours on end, sleeping on blankets on the floor, singing away the hours while grim-faced farmers stood guard just inside the doors (in case the ones standing guard outside were overwhelmed)... well, it was not the most pleasant way to pass the time.

 ‘No muster?’ she said, after tucking up the little ones in their beds and returning to the kitchen for a cup of tea, happily brewed over their own fire.

Sting lay on the table between them. She caressed the shining blade as Sam turned to the table, teapot in hand, and proceeded to pour out.

 ‘No muster,’ Sam said. ‘The Tooks brought word from the Thain, and that’s all. If any livestock or hobbits have gone missing we’re to sound the alarm and send messengers; otherwise be on our guard, go on with all that needs doing while groups of armed hobbits scour the woodlands and deserted places.’

 ‘Go on?’ Rose said.

 ‘We’re in the middle of spring planting, Rosie,’ Sam said. ‘If we cower in our holes the children won’t eat come harvest-time.’

 ‘But—’ Rose said, thinking of one of her brothers out in the field, following the plough, with no other hobbits nearby, or another brother walking along, reaching into his bag and broadcasting the seed, eyes intent on his work, not seeing the dark forms emerging from the nearby wood...

 ‘Go on,’ Sam said firmly. ‘Of course we’ll take precautions. The work will go slower, with some guarding whilst others plant, but it will go. We cannot let ourselves be ruled by fear, Rosie... it would be as if the Orcs had the victory, should we do such a thing.’

 ‘Of course,’ Rose said, caressing the smooth blade one last time before taking up her cup. Sting shone with care and polishing, but not with the blue fire that indicated the nearness of foes. Sam would buckle on the sword and continue his duties as if all were as it should be.

 ‘As it is,’ Sam said, taking her hand in his, and she realised she’d spoken aloud.

 ‘As it is,’ Rose echoed. She squeezed Sam’s hand in response and then let go to lift her mug to her lips. ‘Good tea,’ she said in an everyday voice.

 ‘Good tea,’ Sam agreed. Placidly they sipped, exchanging news of the day just as they always did over a last cup before seeking the pillow.

***

Pippin wakened some time later to a Tookish song of sun on the daisies. Opening his eyes, he pushed the cool, damp cloth aside from his eyes to see Merry slumped in the chair beside the bed. Estella stood behind her husband, her hands soothing his shoulders as she crooned.

She smiled to see Pippin’s eyes open, and putting a finger to her lips skirted the chair to pour a cup of water which she held to Pippin’s lips.

 ‘He’s asleep,’ she breathed. Pippin nodded. From the triumph in Estella’s whisper, no doubt this was the first sleep Merry had found since the battle with the Orcs in the Forest. He sipped and sighed.

 ‘Is there anything you want?’ Estella said softly.

 ‘A little more of that song, if you please,’ Pippin responded, and yawned.

 ‘Happy to oblige,’ Estella murmured. She lifted the cloth from Pippin’s forehead, wrung it out in the basin, and applied it, cool and refreshing, and firmly over his eyes as she took up the song once more.

Smiling, Pippin drifted off to sleep.