Chapter 27. For Old Times' Sake

When they reached the Houses of Healing, the litter-bearers halted while Haleth conferred with the healer's assistant who was stationed near the entrance to receive visitors and the like. Pippin took this opportunity to pull his cousin Ferdibrand aside. 'Ferdi,' he said. 'I want you to stay with him. He'll likely sleep...'

'Dratted healers and their draughts,' Ferdi muttered, and Pippin grinned and punched him on the arm.

'I'm sure you'll be able to avoid their wiles,' he said. 'Keep your wits about you. They can be tricksy.'

'You're telling me,' Ferdi grumbled.

'Send word when he wakens,' Pippin said. 'I want to have a talk with the Man.'

'Very well, cousin,' Ferdi said. 'And where will you be?'

'Catching up on old times with Gwill, of course,' Pippin said, 'or Jack, or Robin, or whatever name he wishes to go by. No matter how the name changes, it seems the man stays much the same.'

'I don't know about that,' Ferdi said. 'Robin was a wandering conjurer of cheap tricks, Jack was a ruffian, and Gwill...'

'Never you mind,' Pippin said. 'I'm sure you'll find him to be a fine and upright Man once you get to know him a little better.'

'Ruffians all,' Ferdi said under his breath.

'What was that, cousin?' Pippin said.

'Just clearing my throat,' Ferdi said. ' 'Tis still a bit damp out this morning, after all the rain we had last night.'

'Of course,' Pippin said. 'Well now, you have your orders,' he added.

Ferdi nodded, and as a newly summoned healer led the litter-bearers down a corridor to the left, he trotted after them.

Pippin and the other hobbits followed a different path, ending in the room where Gwill and Gwillam lay. Well, actually Gwill was sitting up, a tray of food on his lap, surrounded by hobbits: Diamond and Faramir (the littler Tooks were napping), Estella and the young Brandybucks, and Rose and a number of young Gamgees, all chattering at once.

The old man's eyes lit up further when Pippin entered.

'How are you faring?' the Thain said, moving to the bed and hauling himself up to sandwich Farry between himself and Diamond.

'Quite well,' Gwill said. 'I need only open my mouth to eat; my guests are doing all the talking.'

In the meantime, Sam and Merry moved to stand near Seledrith, who still sat beside her husband. Baby Robin, hidden under a shawl, was as occupied as his grandfather. Hilly hesitated in the doorway, looking from one bed to the other.

'How is your husband?' Sam said politely, but his eyes were filled with warmth and concern, and Seledrith relaxed slightly.

It was the other hobbits, two of those on old Gwill's bed and the one who remained in the doorway despite the greetings called to him by the others, who had been taken hostage, after all, as she'd gathered from the flow of talk that morning. Gwillam had not wronged the two standing here at her side.

She was bewildered at the cheerful conversation taking place on the other bed, quite as if Gwill and Gwillam had never been law-breakers.

But they had been identified, and by the hobbits, as law-breakers. And Seledrith knew what law-breakers were. She remembered the long journey from Gondor, a large group of farmers seeking land, and artisans needed for building, and even merchants with wains filled with their wares, for shops would be needed even before the first buildings were completely built and roofed. Yet despite the number of travellers, the King had sent guardsmen, for so rich a train would likely tempt ruffians... as it had.

She remembered cowering behind a wheel, under a wain, as battle raged, not just guardsmen fighting, but the farmers and merchants and craftsmen as well, defending their families against a well-organised onslaught. In the end the last of the ruffians had been killed or driven off, and the mothers emerged with their children, and Seledrith saw death, close at hand and terrifying. Not only dead ruffians lay in the road, but good upright men as well, guardsmen and others who had fallen, wounded or dying. Death wrought by law-breakers.

The able-bodied guardsmen had quickly dispatched the wounded ruffians by stringing them up from the branches of nearby trees. The dead were then buried: the law-breakers in one large grave, together, unmarked and unmourned, and the defenders laid to rest by friends and family and cairns of stones taken from a nearby riverbank piled over them to secure their rest.

There had been a day to rest, to bind up wounds, to mourn, and then they had to move on.

But Seledrith never forgot the lesson she had learned that day. She knew what law-breakers were.

Suddenly she realised that the hobbit was still standing there, looking at her. 'I beg your pardon?' she said.

'How is your husband?' Sam repeated. 'It sounds as if his breathing is better. Has he wakened at all this morning, while we were away?'

'He opened his eyes once or twice,' Seledrith found herself saying, 'but he didn't seem to see me.'

Sam nodded thoughtfully, and climbed up upon the bed for a closer look.

Merry climbed up beside him. 'He has quite the ruffianly look,' he said thoughtfully. 'Balanurthon's assistant blackened his eye for him, trying to bring him round.'

Hilly moved from the doorway at last, to the head of Gwillam's bed, to gaze at Gwillam's face on the pillow, his own countenance very sober.

'About as far from a ruffian as they come,' Sam said, settling himself. 'Diamond told Rose all about how he held her in his lap as if she were a doll, or a babe; how gently he coaxed hot broth into her when she was feeling frozen nearly to the bone, how softly he laid her down upon a bed o' ferns, as careful as a mother with her own little one.'

Seledrith sat like a stone, staring at her husband's face. Her husband. A stranger. Law-breaker.

'Not to mention how he crawled along the branches into the bog,' Merry said. He shivered. 'Brandybuck or no, I'm not sure I'd've had the courage to do what he did.'

Seledrith seemed to waken from a dream then. 'What he did?' she said in a puzzled tone.

'Saved my life, he did,' Hilly said. 'Did he never tell you?'

Seledrith flushed and looked down, twining the fingers of her free hand in the shawl.

'Of course he didn't,' Hilly said before Merry could rebuke him for his thoughtlessness. 'He'd've been protecting his father and brother, o' course. Not thinking of the danger to himself, I don't wonder, but rather fearing the consequences for them... poor lad. He never knew that the Thain forgave all, and pardoned all, when he learned how Will and Jack saved the lives of his wife and son, and myself.'

'Saved your life?' Seledrith echoed. She had not really been listening to the talk that had been proceeding around old Gwill's bed, sunk too deep in her own despairing reflections.

'Of course he did!' Hilly said. 'Why let me tell you...' and he began to spin the tale, in as fine a manner as any Tookish storyteller, such that Gwillam's wife was drawn in, scarcely feeling when tiny Robin's lips stopped their suckling and merely quivered against her, as the baby dropped off to sleep under the shawl.

She felt the chill of the air, heard the splashing of the ponies through the high-running rivers that crossed their muddy trail, knew some of Diamond's fear when her pony balked, mid-stream. Hilly brought his pony alongside, took her little son from her, intending to bring him safe to the bank and then come back for her. A floating branch came swiftly, and her pony jumped as the current drove it against his hindquarters... and then the beast decided that it might, indeed, be better to move along than to stand.

But the bank was too steep and slippery, too treacherous, and so they turned the ponies' heads to ride downstream, looking for an easier way. The bank fell sharply, too sharp to climb, and beyond the stream had drowned the land, moving inward and over the bank, lying still and quiet amongst the trees.

So quiet, the water there, as opposed to the swift current behind them, so still as to show the reflection of the treetops above them. The feet of their ponies made spreading ripples as they forged towards the dry land ahead of them. Not far, now...

And suddenly her pony was plunging, and struggling, and the fear she'd known in the stream was nothing compared to the terror of the bog that tried to swallow them whole...

The room was silent now; the hobbits on the other bed scarcely breathing as they listened. Diamond pulled Farry a little closer, great teen that he was, and Pippin's arms instinctively rose to encompass wife and son together.

Diamond's pony struggled onto firmer ground, but Hilly's sank as if there were no bottom beneath him. Diamond screamed the names of son and cousin, and Hilly kicked his feet free of the stirrups, raised himself up on the saddle, used his pony as a sort of step-stool, and with a mighty thrust that sent himself and his pony deeper, he threw little Farry towards his mother's yearning arms.

Diamond moved a step or two into the quaking mud to catch her son by one arm and, falling backwards, dragged him to safety. But for Hilly there was no safety, as the icy waters overlaying the mud closed over his struggling pony's head, and he continued to sink, even as he stood upon the submerged saddle. Desperately he strung his bow and cast at the branches above his head, and just as it seemed all hope was lost, the bow caught on a thumb-like protrusion. The branch bowed under his weight. Clinging to the bow, he continued to sink to his shoulders while Diamond watched in horror.

Seledrith's free hand was clenched convulsively in the shawl and she shivered.

There was no rope in Diamond's saddlebags. The mud of the bog was cold, the water colder, and the air grew ever more chilly as the sun sank in the sky. Soaked to the skin, nevertheless Diamond knew she must not stop there, not if Hilly was to have any chance at all. Together she and her little son dragged branches to the edge of the bog and shoved them towards Hilly, building a bridge of sorts, that he might pull himself to safety.

But by the time the makeshift bridge was sturdy enough, the cold had taken its toll. Hilly's strength, sapped by the chill of the icy water, was not enough for him to pull himself free of the mud's embrace. He barely had the will to keep his face above the surface of the water, and that will was rapidly weakening.

Diamond vowed to crawl out to him, but somehow Hilly retained enough wit to halt her at the water's edge. She could not leave her little son, alone in the forest, at the edge of a bog. It was too late. Too late.

Tears came to Seledrith's eyes, and she swallowed hard, blinking.

'What did you do then?' Eliniel asked softly.

'I sang,' Diamond said, for Hilly had fallen silent, just as he had on that terrible day, ten years before, when the bog sought to claim him. 'It was all I could do for him; to sing him out of the world, to sing for so long as his ears could hear. To sing him to sleep...' Her arms tightened on Farry, and her eyes looked into the far distance. 'It was all I could do,' she said. 'And then...'

'And I heard a fair lilting, a-wafting on the breeze,' Gwill said, his look faraway. 'As if one of the faerie folk were fluting a lullaby. We crept forward, the lads and I did, scarcely daring to breathe, and then peering through the trees we saw them... a little mother, cradling her child and singing. Wet and chilled they looked, huddled on the cold ground without even a fire to warm them, and the pony was lame.'

'Aye,' Pippin breathed, and he buried his face in Diamond's hair as he pulled her and Farry closer.

'And then Will... Gwillam,' Gwill said, looking to Seledrith. 'He shouted! I scolded him for it, I did. Yes, we were in the Shire when we ought not to have been. I knew it well, he knew it perhaps, and little Rob knew it not at all, for to a little lad it was merely a game of hide-and-seek. I was trying to win the trust of the little mother and her son... and he goes a-shouting...'

'You pulled a coin from my ear,' Farry said, remembering. 'You said, "Hasn't your mother taught you to keep your coins in your pocket?" '

Pippin relaxed slightly, even managed a chuckle, and looking to the old man he said, 'Those were your first words to me, as I recall, all those years ago, when I was about the same age as Farry was when he was at the edge of the bog.'

'I was remembering you as I said them,' Gwill said. 'I saw you, the little Shire-lad I'd known upon a time, in the face of your son... and I knew at once who he was, and his mother with him.'

'Gwillam shouted,' Turambor said, returning to the thread of the story. 'And you were deep in the Shire, and not wanting the Shire-folk to know.'

'Sharp are the wits of the Tooks,' Gwill said reflectively, 'and sharper the tips of their arrows. I knew them well upon a time. Perhaps I was out of my wits, to consider sneaking into the Shire to scoop up a few handfuls of gold that lay in piles, uncounted, in a dark hole in the ground...'

'Gwillam shouted,' Turambor insisted. 'And then...?'

' "Keep your voice down!" I scolded,' Gwill said, 'as if the lad had no sense to speak of, him, who had more sense than me, most likely, for I'd had to argue with him long to persuade him to enter the Shire in the first place. And then I looked where he was pointing, and I saw a bow in the branches of a tree in the bog, and that bow was pointing down...'

Hilly shuddered but did not speak.

'And I saw a hobbit in the bog, head drooping, face nearly in the water,' Gwill said softly. 'He clung to the branches that had been shoved out toward him, but it was all too evident that the chill had robbed him of strength and the water would soon rob him of life. I thought perhaps he was drowning in the water, unable to swim, but as I moved to wade out to him, the little mother shouted a warning. "It's a bog!" she shrieked, and my heart sank, for I saw no way to save him. But then... I thought of the rope in my pack. If I could get the rope to the drowning hobbit somehow... but how? I was too heavy to risk the branches, myself. And the lads...'

The old man swallowed hard and looked at Gwillam's bruised and swollen face, so still on the pillow. 'Will stood firm,' he said. 'It came to me to send him across the branches. I told him what was in my mind, and he hesitated not a wink. He shed his coat, his shirt, his cloak and boots and tied the rope round his waist, even as little Rob clung to him and begged him not to risk himself. "I cannot lose you too," he wept, poor little lad, bereft of mother and father and grandmother, all he knew and loved save one. But Will...'

And the old man's tone was suffused with quiet pride. 'Gwillam, he said, "I've no choice, Rob. Would you have that little fellow there lose his own father, as we've lost ours?" And as I could not see the face of the hobbit in the bog, I thought it as likely to be yourself, Master Pippin, as anyone. And I remembered how you saved me, on a summer day long ago in the Shire, when fever had taken me and I nearly drowned, lying with my face in the stream that ran through Whittacres Farm...'

'You saved him from drowning?' Diamond said to her husband. 'You never told me that.'

'I was only eight at the time,' Pippin said. 'It was a year or so after we'd first met, when he'd found me wandering and carried me to Bag End. My mother was happy to nurse him back to health, to return the favour, and though my father never liked Men to speak of, he found Jack--Robin a tolerable fellow.'

'It was not your first time in the Shire?' Turambor said in consternation.

Gwill chuckled gently. 'Ah,' he said, wagging a finger. 'There was no King's edict in those days. The Shire was my home, from early spring until the leaves were falling. I was a bird, returning at nesting time and staying until it was time to fly to a warm place to pass the winter months.'

'A robin, or perhaps a jackdaw,' Merry said slyly, and the hobbits laughed.

'And so Gwillam saved the drowning hobbit,' Turambor said.

'It was easier said than done,' the old man answered. 'He crawled into the bog, over the branches, and they sank under his weight until it looked as if he were swimming rather than crawling. And when he got to Hilly, what a contest of "tug" it was for him to win the hobbit free of the mud! His head went under the water, and for so long I thought perhaps the mud had caught him and was pulling him down, head-first, into darkness.'

'I was so frightened,' Robin said softly, his fists clenched in remembered terror. 'I was certain I'd lost him.' He drew a shuddering breath then, looking at his brother, for it seemed to him that he might well lose him yet.