Chapter 16. Interlude

In the sitting room some sort of argument is going on. I catch my breath to see Merry Brandybuck there, mud-spattered, his hair wild and wind-blown. Or perhaps I catch my breath at the two hobbits with him: strangers to my eyes, travel-stained and in need of a bath. Merry, I can understand. Master of Buckland, pulled away by news that his steward was mortally injured; his love for one cousin of needs put aside for his duty, though I know he was very close to the other cousin, his steward, as well. Still, he and Peregrin have been closer than brothers from the younger cousin’s birth. How it must have grieved him to leave Pippin’s side; how tempted he must have been, to shirk duty, honour and responsibility. Though he wouldn’t, of course. He would not.

He must have travelled to Buckland without stopping, seen to his steward-cousin, and turned around and travelled back, though he must have used the post ponies, in relay, to travel so quickly. He is swaying with weariness and as dirty as a worker coming in from ploughing or digging, though he doesn’t hold a candle to the other two. How dare they come in here, to disrupt this solemn moment?

My own weariness forgotten, I stride forward, crackling with anger, seizing the dirty stranger who is arguing with Master Merry; I swing him around. ‘You—’ I begin in my indignation. The rest of the words die on my lips as the trembling of my indignation turns to that of shock. ‘Mayor Samwise,’ I breathe. I look to the other mud-stained and rather odiferous traveller, brown as a nut, curls streaked with stronger sun than ours. ‘Mistress Rose?’

She smiles, though tear tracks mark her cheeks. ‘Healer Woodruff,’ she says. ‘We’re back.’

There is no time for welcome or nicety. I move to grasp Merry, to pull him into the bedroom. ‘You’ve barely come in time,’ I say. ‘It is the end, for certain. You might be too late, as it is, if you hesitate now.’

 ‘He has passed on the seal of the Thain,’ Regi affirms, taking Merry’s other arm to add his pull to mine. But the Brandybuck pulls back.

 ‘No,’ he says.

 ‘Merry,’ I say in exasperation. ‘He promised to wait for you, true, but holding back now will not prolong his life, or even prolong his dying. He’s on his last gasp!’

 ‘Sam,’ he says incomprehensibly. ‘You see? You must go in to him, you must, before he hears my voice and lets go his grasp, if he’s even capable of hearing...’ His voice breaks, and yet he pulls his hand from my urgent grasp, to dash away the tears. ‘You must...’

Ferdibrand is scandalised. ‘He’s not even family,’ he snaps. ‘Have you lost your wits, Merry?’

But Reginard...

And we say the steward has no imagination. He turns to the Mayor. ‘You went South, to find a remedy,’ he remembers aloud, scarcely breathing.

I find it hard to catch my breath for the hope that rises in me, swiftly crushed by despair. Samwise is come too late. No remedy could help at this juncture.

 ‘Did the King...’ Ferdi says, pressing forward eagerly. He has little use for Men in general, but he knows something of the healing hands of the King, and of wonders in stoppered flasks that come from the Outlands.

 ‘The Ents,’ Sam says dismissively. He is weary, and his eyes are on the door to the bedroom, his body taut with eagerness. It seems the only thing holding him back is his determination that Merry ought to enter first, ought not to be denied what may be Pippin’s final moment.

And I’ve said myself that the steward has no imagination. While Ferdi rears up, insulted, snorting of nursery tales, Regi leaves hold of Merry to seize Samwise by the arms. ‘The tree folk?’ he whispers.

 ‘Walking trees...’ Ferdi grumbles.

 ‘I don’t care if they are walking bushes or talking rocks,’ I say. ‘He’s breathing his last, even as we speak!’ I seize the Mayor as well, stink forgotten, and between us Reginard and I haul him into the bedroom.

I think the odour of unwashed bodies rouses Diamond from her embrace before anything else does. She rises, turns, her eyes widening. ‘Samwise?’ she gasps. ‘Rose?’ For the Mayor’s wife is behind us, hovering in the doorway; the tiny hobbit she carries before her—Tolman, their last letter said, or so I overheard as Diamond re-read the missive aloud to her husband to distract his mind from his miseries—the little one coos, the joyful sound falling strangely on my ears in this atmosphere of hovering death.