Chapter 28. Interlude

I have always been a light sleeper, but of late I have been running short enough on sleep that I am disoriented in the first second or two of wakening, when the hand seizes my shoulder and shakes me lightly, and the breathless voice entreats me to wake. I am sure the tree-draught has something to do with the odd feelings I am experiencing; my skin is warm and tingling from head to foot, a sensation so intense that it borders on pain, distracting me, making it difficult to collect my thoughts.

My beloved sleeps on, his snores soft and steady. I look up, blinking in the dim light of the watch-lamp, to see the nursemaid who watches over the twins when Diamond is otherwise occupied. 'What is it?' I blurt, and my first thought is that one of the little ones is ill.

'The Thain,' she whispers, her eyes wide with fear. She twists her nightgown between her hands in her perturbation.

I am out of bed and halfway to the Thain's bedroom before she has time to say more.

The Thain's room is dark and shadowy, lit only by the watch-lamp, but I see them on the bed: Diamond sitting up, her arms about her husband, and Pippin curled in a ball, his harsh breathing filling the room with agony.

'What do we have here?' I ask, maintaining my calm though my skin is crawling with flashes of fire. 'Thain Peregrin, can you hear me?'

His only answer, a wordless groan.

'Talk to me, Sir, tell me what is happening,' I say, moving to the bedside. Surely not all that difficult, for a Took. Indeed, I usually have to order my patients to silence, to get a word in edgewise, or to have a moment to think. A wordless Took, now that is something to worry over.

'Afire...' he says through gritted teeth. 'Feels as if I'm being roasted alive by orcs.' Sweat is beaded on his forehead. I turn up the lamp to full brightness and light a second lamp for good measure, before making my examination. It is difficult, for he is fighting me. He isn't resisting the healer so much as he is fighting the pain that seizes him in its merciless grasp. He gasps at my touch, wherever I touch him, and I nod in understanding. My body smarts as if I've fallen asleep, unclad, on a sunny day, and slept for hours under the sun's glow until my skin turned red in protest. I had only a sip of the draught, and he drank two tumblerfuls.  

Most worrisome is the leg, long without feeling and nearly unresponsive. We have kept the muscles built up through regular exercise, healers moving the leg for him, as he could not. The only movement he has had, since the coach half-crushed him, was a small twitch of his toes, though he could drag the leg, after a fashion, walking with a stick under one hand and a hobbit supporting his other side. Poor ruined lad, who once roamed the Green Hills. In my mind's eye I can still see him running through the meadows, laughing.

Now the leg is knotted and tightly contracted by muscle spasms, pulled up against his body, and he hugs it to himself in desperation. I cannot get him to straighten the leg.

'I sent for Merry and Sam,' Diamond says, and I nod absently, though my eyes never leave the Thain. I want to wince each time I touch him, and the tears stand in my eyes, for the moans of pain I elicit. My hands are meant to be hands of healing, not torment. 'Ought I...? Regi? And Ferdi?'

'Let them sleep,' I say as I rise from my examination. 'I don't know what they could do here. We'll send for them if...' I think of Pippin's half-jest, earlier, of his plea to be allowed to die in peace as any other hobbit would. What does it matter, if Regi and Ferdi are not here to witness this last agony, if it is his last? The seal of the Thain has already passed on. No. It is better to let them sleep, the more to be clear-headed when the morning light comes, ready to deal with the consequences of whatever comes to pass in the remainder of this night.

I am wracking my brain, turning over all I know of healing, all that Sweetbriar or Rosie might have told me, whether deliberate instruction or casual mention, even gossip. I am that desperate.

I push back the loose sleeve of my nightdress and stand a moment, my eyes closed, body tense.

'Woodruff?' Diamond gasps.

'A moment, Mistress,' I say. Yes, the painful tingling continues. I touch my arm lightly with my other hand, and then I grasp firmly, and then I let go. I lower my arm, allowing the sleeve to slide down once more. My eyes are still closed, I am scarcely breathing, and I am listening with all I have to what my body is trying to say.

At last I think I understand. I open my eyes and move back to the bedside.

I had wrapped the coverlet around the Thain, earlier, and now I pull it away. 'Take off his nightshirt,' I tell his wife, and together we disrobe him. We lay him back on the bed, still hugging his bad leg. 'Is that any better, Sir?' I ask loudly, trying to reach him in his misery.

'Better,' he gasps, but I am not sure if he answers the question, or questions my sanity.