Chapter 6. Interlude

A touch on my cheek rouses me; I come fully awake as a gentle kiss brushes my forehead. I jerk awake despite the tenderness of my beloved, shreds of dreams dissolving into the retreating mists of sleep. Yes, sleep. Even in the midst of grief and pending loss, I have learned over the years to snatch sleep where I may. But sleep snatched does not always confer the alertness I strive after... and one must be alert when one is dealing with Tooks.

 ‘Is Master Meriadoc come?’ I blurt.

 ‘Master Merry?’ he says in surprise.

I draw a shaky breath and swallow hard. I don’t know what to feel, actually, nearing the end of the long fight. So many sleepless watches, so inexorable the weakening of the body, as if the Thain’s life is water cupped in my hand, as desperate, I hold on, to keep it from slipping through my fingers. One might as well try to stop a river from flowing away to the Sea.

I know that once Master Merry comes, Pippin will let go with little more than a look and a sigh. He came to the end of his rope some time ago, has held on through sheer strength of will, and though he has cheated death on previous occasions, now I sense Death hovering nearby, ready to take him so soon as he lets go of his life. He lingers with us for a little while, yet. But once Master Merry comes...

And perhaps that strength of will shall not be sufficient to keep him, even so. I know not what to dread more: greeting Merry and bringing him to Pippin’s side, to watch their last parting; or greeting him with the news that he is come too late, and his cousin has already gone.

 ‘A dream,’ I say. ‘I must have dreamed about him. He’s not here, yet?’

 ‘Even if he rode through the night, he’d have come to Buckland only this morning,’ my beloved chides me. He turns away, and when he turns back to me he bears a steaming cup.

I sit up, swing my legs over, take the cup and sip, cautiously, for it is an herbal mixture, but at the taste I nod and down it as quickly as possible. A bitter taste for a bitter time, it will help me gather my wits for the last long haul.

 ‘Fennel?’ I say, and my beloved nods.

 ‘He sent word just now,’ he says. ‘It’s time.’

I rise from the bed and he tucks my shawl about my shoulders. The bedroom is chilly, the fire banked. He knows I sleep better in a cool room. I don’t remember him coming in to bank the fire, but sudden tears come to my eyes at this reminder of his care.

 ‘Thank you,’ I whisper.

 ‘I love you,’ he whispers in return and rises with me as I rise from my bed. ‘I will come,’ he adds.

 ‘You will?’ I say.

He nods. ‘Thain’s orders,’ he says, bringing me back in thought and memory to another time of grief and loss. Surely a healer will know more of these times than any other hobbit, but we do not grow calloused or unconcerned for all that. Truly we put on a face of calm, a serenity of manner, but that, too, comes from the head and not from the heart.

I remember... Faramir’s first brother, born too early to live. O the battle we fought, Diamond and I, the war we waged and yet in the end the babe came too early into the world. Seeing the battle turn against us in the waning of the night, the Thain sent for my beloved, to be summoned from his bed, from his sleep, to wait for me to stumble away from the defeat when I’d done all I could, and there was no more need for me to attend Diamond.

So I left them, grieving over a child born to die, and came to the sitting room, to be enfolded in the arms of my love. I gave myself up to weeping, too exhausted to do more, and he held me through it all, and led me back to our own little hole, tucking me up and singing me lullabies as if I were one of our grands...

So like that lad, to think of my comfort in his dying.

I strive for a light tone, though my heart feels as if it is shattering. ‘Who then am I, to gainsay the Thain’s orders?’

His arm around me squeezes tighter, and he nods. ‘Who indeed?’ he says lightly, and then in silence we make our way to the Thain’s apartments.