Chapter 11. What the Healer Ordered

The healer continued his examination, and the minutes stretched long. It was his only gift to these condemned men, the gift of a little more time, and he meant to make as much of it as he possibly could. As he probed he asked quiet questions, ascertaining that the old man's last meal had been at noontide the previous day. The Sun had moved past her zenith, and as the healer poked and muttered she continued her journey down the bowl of the sky.

'Unable to eat the daymeal yesterday eve, was he? He'd fallen ill?'

'No' Will answered shortly.

'I'd wager you ate little or nothing yourself, lad,' Pippin said. 'And Robin?'

'Robin was persuaded that there was nothing to fear,' the old man muttered. 'Though they'd have taken him along with us, and hanged him, had you not defended him. I owe you much for that.'

'I owe you much more,' Pippin said. 'When the King comes...'

'When the King comes,' Jack whispered. 'I remember, in the old days in the Shire, what that meant.'

'What that meant?' Tulerion asked, curious. 'What did it mean?'

'Never,' Jack said, opening his eyes to meet the healer's gaze for a brief moment, and then closing them again in defeat. 'They said that when they believed that never would a thing come to pass.'

The hopelessness of this situation tried to settle once more on the healer's shoulders, and he shook it off, continuing his delaying work, his hands going over some of the same territory they had already explored, the midriff, finding no indication of any food taken recently. 'And did he break his fast this morning?' Tulerion asked, looking to Will.

'No,' Will said. 'We were up all the night, walking the baby and arguing. He thought we ought to run... I told him to take Rob and go. How could I run? How could I leave Seledrith, and the babe? How could I take them with me, into a life of hiding? Either way...'

'And so you're lost to them in any event. I'm sorry, lad,' Jack said. Though he squeezed his eyes tight, a tear escaped.

Tulerion straightened and Pippin said immediately, 'Well?'

Healer regarded Thain thoughtfully, wondering what might happen next, once he made his pronouncement. There was precious little to be done, actually, considering the circumstances. However, he had the feeling that when hobbits were involved, quite any thing could happen.

'No sleep,' Tulerion said, 'and no food since this time yesterday. A forced march, I imagine, from his home to the gallows?'

Haleth nodded.

'No use dragging along, letting him stroll at an easy pace,' Tulerion said, the irony heavy in his voice. 'And so he collapsed, used up, and looks fit to die.'

Will took a shaking breath, and was steadied by his guards.

'Not much here that a good feeding, a fair amount of drink, a modicum of fresh air and a reasonable period of rest wouldn't set right,' Tulerion said. Not that he expected any such thing to be done about the matter.

He hadn't reckoned with hobbits, however. 'Very well!' Pippin said decisively and looked to his cousin. 'Merry, you heard the healer!'

'Your least wish is my greatest desire, as ever!' Merry answered with a sweeping bow, and then he turned and trotted away, circling around the gallows to enter the Quarry Gate, the guards there stiffening to attention at his approach and then standing more at ease after his passing, though they stared curiously at the gallows and the men and hobbits gathered there. One spoke to another, and the latter saluted and left the gateway, entering the City. Tulerion figured that he shadowed the hobbit, though there was little danger to the Halflings within the city walls.

The healer didn't notice that when the hobbit returned, quite some time later, no faithful "shadow" followed him. He had bent once more to his examination, as if there were more to be ascertained. It was a delaying tactic only, and how bitterly he knew its limitations. At any moment he expected interruption. Inch by inch he went over the old man, bone by bone, even hair by hair, nodding and shaking his head by turns. It was for certain the slowest and most thorough examination ever made by any healer, and yet no one asked him why he took so long at his task, though the minutes stretched ever longer, even as the shadows stretched as the Sun moved halfway down the sky.

When interruption came, it was not quite as he expected. Instead of the sergeant's hand on his shoulder, urging him away, instead of guardsmen lifting the prisoner upright that his hands might be bound behind him once more, instead of the two doomed men surmounting the steps to the platform, the ropes placed around their necks, their last words demanded... instead of these things, he heard a welcoming shout. 'Merry! At last! I thought we should perish of hunger!'

And looking up, Tulerion saw first the looks of astonishment on the guardsmen's faces. Turning to see, he beheld Merry trotting at the head of a long file of serving men bearing trays and baskets, all rather startled at being led to the gallows, but evidently well-compensated for they followed the hobbit right up to the platform, where they proceeded to set out enough food to feed a small army and enough drink to float the Corsairs of Umbar, and they filled plates and handed them around to the bemused guardsmen while Haleth stood stunned.

Merry himself brought a plate to the sergeant. 'Eat up!' he said. 'By order of the Ernil i Pheriannath, who, as you know, outranks you.'

'I know,' Haleth murmured, his look as of one who has been struck by some spell of one of the mischievous faerie folk, walking in dream.

Sam brought plates to the gallows guards. 'Probably better than you had packed away in your bags,' he said. 'Hot food instead of cold, and all courtesy of the Master of Buckland.'

'They called his father "Scattergold", you know, but I think he's trying to outdo his father,' Pippin confided to Terulion and anyone else who might be listening. 'Here, help me sit Jack up, will you?'

They propped the old man against an upright, and Merry placed a plate in his lap. 'Should we feed you, or can you manage?' he said.

Jack wore a dazed look, akin to the sergeant's, but he took the fork Merry was holding before him and began to eat.

Will's guards had to release him to take the plates that were pressed upon them, and so he stood surrounded by men who were eating, and drinking from mugs that the servers deposited on their plates as soon as each plate had a clear place to hold a mug. He blinked, and swayed, thinking perhaps that he had fallen into a dream. Surely it must be a dream, that he stood alone, his hands bound behind him, while all around...

'But this will not do at all,' Pippin said from beside him, and as Will looked down, the hobbit tugged at his arm. 'Sit down!'

Will folded his legs, and steadied by the hobbit, lowered himself to the ground. 'That's better!' Pippin said, and then Merry laid a plate in Will's lap, and Will stared down at it. A dream, surely. As he reached for the fork that Merry held out, he realised his hands were unbound, and hesitated.

'Eat!' Pippin insisted. 'You've had nothing since noontide yesterday, and the afternoon is more than half-gone already!'

He ate.

He wondered, as he ate, though he hardly knew what to wonder. The time stretched out, and he ate slowly to enjoy the sensation. He suspended all thought, existing only in the moment, no future, no past, just this moment, now, each bite, the flavour bursting from the food as he slowly chewed, the texture, the sensation, the taste, the colours juxtaposed against the crisp white of the plate, green and deep red, brown and creamy-white, and the plate became his world, and nothing existed beyond, for if he were to look up... But he did not look up, to see the gallows before him, and he did not look to either side, to the guards that still flanked him, and he thought of nothing but the food... Rather hobbity, some part of his mind said, but he put that thought, too, away.

A mug was placed beside him, and he reached down and drank; ale it was, cool and smooth and satisfying.

He rather feared that the dream was ending when, despite his slow pace, his plate began to empty, but Pippin's voice came close, and hearty, and more food appeared on his plate, and he nodded thanks without looking up--for to look up was to see... but he put the thought away.

Pippin's voice stayed close by, and though he did not look up, Will heard him recounting--to his guards? To Haleth? Yes, he heard Haleth ask a question, and Pippin's laugh in reply, just as if this were a picnic on the green meadow outside a different gate of the city... Will heard him recounting the events that brought them to this place, here, and now. He wanted to shut out the sound but couldn't, and so he dug deeper into the creamy swirl of potato and tried not to listen, tried to think only of the warmth filling his belly and not the ache in his heart.

'...was escorting my wife and son to Pincup, a nice little community but rather inconveniently situated from Tuckborough. Hilly--the lay of the land, not the hobbit--hilly and heavily wooded, with tumbling streams and too few bridges. There are fords, but this was in the spring of the year, and most hobbits, if they were to travel at all, would elect to go the long way round though it took them a week or more. Good, solid roads all the way, and no fords!'

'So how did your cousin Hilly manage to blunder into a bog?' Haleth said.

'It had rained heavily, and the stream was running high. The trail rose abruptly out of the stream, and the bank was steep and muddy--too treacherous, Hilly decided, for my wife and little son, and so he led Diamond along the banks, looking for an easier way. At last they reached stretch where the bank dipped lower--as a matter of fact, the stream was over its banks there, but it looked to be easier going. He led them out of the stream and splashed through the water, turning towards the track they'd left, when suddenly--his pony half-reared and plunged, and Diamond's began to struggle, and they realised in that moment they were in a bog!'

Haleth made a wordless sound of dismay, and Will shuddered, for he couldn't help listening. He felt Pippin's hand on his shoulder, small but solid and reassuring, and he fell to eating once more.

'Hilly--as you'll remember, I told you that Diamond's pony balked, midstream, and Hilly took Farry on his saddle to bring him to the bank and then fetch Diamond, but her pony decided then to move...'

Will's rough-mannered guard rumbled an assent.

'Hilly's pony was sinking fast, and he knelt and then stood up on the saddle to throw little Faramir to Diamond, whose pony had floundered to safety.' Pippin's voice was tense; his throat had evidently tightened at retelling the peril to his son.

'What happened?' interjected the guardsman on Will's other side, when the Thain paused.

Pippin cleared his throat. 'His aim was true; Farry flew to safety, but the bog swallowed Hilly's pony, and threatened to take him as well. He managed to hook his bow on a branch, above, and held himself from sinking though the water reached his shoulders...'

'And so he waited for rescue,' Haleth said.

There was a short silence, and then Pippin said, more softly, ' 'Twas not so simple as that, my friend. The water was icy cold, and Hilly was frozen to the bone, immersed as he was... Diamond knew he could not hold out long enough for rescuers to find them.'

'What did they do?' the rough-voiced guardsman growled.

'Diamond dragged fallen branches to the edge of the bog and shoved them towards Hilly. She built a bridge, you see, for him to crawl to safety... but by the time the bridge was strong enough, he was too far gone from the deadly chill of the water and mud, and she was exhausted. She could not have risked herself, in any event, crawling over the branches to Hilly's side, to try to pull him free. She could not leave our little son alone at the edge of the bog...'

'And so...' Haleth said quietly.

'And so she sat herself down, to sing to Hilly until he was beyond hearing... but someone else heard.'

'Gwill--Jack, and his sons,' Haleth said.

'Aye,' the hobbit said. 'They came... Jack was too heavy to risk the branches, for they'd not only go down under the water under his weight, but into the voracious mud as well... But Will, here, he crawled into the bog as easily as a hobbit on an afternoon stroll and wrestled Hilly away from the bog, even though it tried to drown him, Will that is, into the bargain. Diamond said his head was under the water for too long a time, and she thought that both were lost, and little Rob was crying his brother's name when Will came up again, dragging Hilly after him.'

'You must not neglect yourself, cousin!' Merry broke in. He'd come up to them carrying two plates, one of which he shoved into Pippin's hands. 'I should say this is a better party than any we had at Crickhollow!' Beyond him Sam was eating, though that hobbit was keeping an eye on the soldiers' plates and mugs, and directing the servitors to replenish any that showed signs of emptying.

'Snowing food and raining drink, I'd say,' Pippin said, glancing about. The soldiers had been surprised into eating, used to following orders as they were, but surprised none the less. Likely they'd drop their plates if the prisoners showed any signs of getting up and walking away. Still, it was a good piece of work, serving the purpose of getting sustenance into Jack and Will and keeping the soldiers busy and safe from thinking, and perhaps determining to send to the Steward to clarify their orders, for Pippin, whether he held true rank in new-built Annuminas or not, had pulled rank on them, neatly stopping them in their tracks; but the Steward stood above all save the King. And from what Pippin had heard of the man, the Steward would not look kindly on having his orders countermanded.

As if conjured by the hobbit's thoughts, a new voice spoke up in tones of outrage and disbelief. 'What in the name of... What is going on here?'