Chapter 3. Entering the Grove

However, the dwarf did not take Merry to his cousins, but to Aragorn. The latter rose to greet Merry gravely, then looked sharply at Gimli. 'You told him?' he asked.

The Dwarf, usually so outspoken, cleared his throat; but it was Merry who answered.

'He didn't have to tell me.' He calmly measured the Man, nearly twice his height, with his steady gaze. 'Had my cousins known I was coming, as Gimli obviously did, they would have met every ship coming into the quay until I arrived. Had they been able. Obviously they are not.'

Merry waited, but Aragorn said nothing, though the Man’s lips tightened into a thin line as he met Merry’s gaze. 'How bad is it?' the hobbit asked at last. 'If they were dead already, you'd have told me.'

'Yes, I would have,' Aragorn answered, but he said no more. Despite his growing anxiety, or perhaps because it sharpened his senses, Merry saw for the first time the deep lines etched around the Man’s eyes by weariness and long hours of watching. Aragorn was not so much evading him, he realised, as he was fighting fatigue... and worry for Merry was in that quiet grey regard, not quite disguised.

'So they're not dead, and they're not lightly injured, or they'd have met the ship,' Merry thought aloud. 'You're afraid I'll exhaust myself hoping against hope...' he said softly. 'They're alive, but you hold out no hope,' he concluded.

Aragorn smiled grimly, going to his knee to see the hobbit eye to eye. 'I wouldn't say there's no hope at all,' he said gently.

'While there's breath, there's hope,' Merry quoted, meeting Gimli's eye, and turning back to Aragorn, who nodded, but not encouragingly.

'Very well, I've been warned. Where are they?'

Aragorn reached out to take Merry's right hand. Merry suppressed the impulse to jerk it back, suffering the large hand to enclose his.

'It's cold,' Aragorn said. 'How are you feeling?'

'Cold hands, warm heart,' Merry said. At Aragorn's puzzled look, he added, 'That's what my Aunt Poppy used to say. She'd the coldest hands of anybody I knew.'

Aragorn smiled and rose, letting go Merry's hand. 'Sounds as if you're holding your own,' he said. 'But I trust you will let me know if your pain returns.'

'I'm fine,' Merry insisted.

Aragorn's smile faded. 'Let's keep you that way,' he said. 'Come, whom do you want to see first.'

'Who's worst off?' Merry asked.

'That would be hard to say,' Aragorn answered. 'I've done all I can for them,' at Merry's gasp he put a large, warm, reassuring hand on the cold shoulder, 'and all that can be done is being done. But the rest is up to them.' He gazed earnestly into Merry's eyes. 'I just don't know if they have the strength for the fight that's been set before them.'

'So my task is to sit a deathwatch?' Merry said grimly. 'To be there to say goodbye as they slip away?' He squared his shoulders. 'I will hold out hope, Strider, enough for the both of us, but if hope fails, I'm ready to do my part.'

'Very well, then; let us go to Pippin,' said Aragorn, and Merry followed him from the tent.

On the way, Aragorn told him about Pippin's valour, stabbing the troll that was about to slay Beregond. 'And the troll fell upon him,' he concluded. Merry had a flash of memory, the stone trolls on the way from Weathertop to Rivendell, and he imagined one of those great bodies falling atop his cousin, crushing him into the ground. He staggered, and Aragorn caught him. 'Merry?'

'I'm all right,' he said, 'I just stubbed my toe. Happens to people who go barefoot a lot, you know.'

'The most desperately wounded are not in tents,' Aragorn went on to say. 'We have them in the open air, hoping that the green freshness of Ithilien will give them some comfort, and that they can breathe as much of the wholesome air as possible.'

They entered a small grove where a guardsman sat next to a bed placed upon the grass. On the bed was a small, propped up figure, which Merry could recognize, with a stretch of his imagination, as his cousin Pippin. Half the face was bruised and discolored, as were the arms showing above the blankets. His head was thrown back, his mouth gaped. The only sign of life was the unsteady rise and fall of the blankets on his chest.

'Has he shown any sign of hearing you, Targon?' Aragorn asked.

The guardsman shook his head. 'No, Sir, I've been talking to him pretty steady. I tried to get him to take some water but...'

'Very well. If you would fetch fresh water, please?' Aragorn answered in patent dismissal.

The guardsman got stiffly to his feet and sketched a salute to Aragorn, then dipped his head at Merry. He picked up the battered basin that stood on a camp table beside the bed, cloths soaking in its cooling contents, ready to soothe a fevered forehead, and limped out of the grove.

Merry stumbled to the bed and climbed upon the chair, taking Pippin's limp hand in his. 'Pippin?' he said. 'Pippin, it's Merry, I'm here. Do you know me?' There was no sign from the crushed hobbit. Merry looked from Aragorn's pitying gaze back to the bed. He raised the hand to his lips, then laid it down again, saying, 'Pippin? I'll be right back, I just want to check on Frodo and Sam.' He smiled through his tears. 'Don't go anywhere, cousin, d'you hear me?'

Aragorn's warm hand steadied him as he slid off the chair. They exited the grove, to find the guardsman waiting just outside, basin in hand; he nodded and muttered some sort of acknowledgement, then returned to the chair next to the bed. As Merry looked back, he saw Targon take up the limp hand in his own huge paw and bend closer to speak to the silent figure in the bed.

They walked towards another grove, Aragorn looking down with concern. 'Are you sure you have the strength to do this?' he asked.

'I have to do this, Strider,' Merry answered. 'The not knowing would be worse, much worse.'

Aragorn understood. 'Wait here,' he said, before they entered. He went in, and Merry heard him telling the healers and attendants to give them a moment alone. He received curious looks from the Big People who exited, but he had eyes only for the patients they had been tending.

Two beds were set close together on the grass, dwarfing the two tiny figures they held. Merry entered, Aragorn close behind him, and walked to the foot of the nearest bed, staring in wonder.

At the look on the hobbit's face, Aragorn thought again how incredible it was, what these two had accomplished.

Then Merry spoke, and his words brought sudden tears to the Ranger's eyes.

'Which one is Frodo?' he whispered.

'This one,' Aragorn answered, indicating the nearest bed. The easiest way to tell was by the heavily bandaged right hand.

Merry moved between the beds, to take up the left hand lying limp upon the coverlet. 'Frodo,' he said softly. 'I heard what you did. You followed Bilbo's road, the one that goes ever on, to the bitter end. You finished the Quest.' He stood silently, tears falling upon the hand he held. 'Don't give up, yet,' he added. 'Not when the celebrations are just about to start.'

The figure behind him stirred slightly, weakly reaching out a questing hand. Merry intercepted it, understanding somehow the need by which it was driven, and guided the hand to Frodo's, where it came to rest, peacefully clasping its quarry. 'Hold on to him, Sam,' Merry whispered. 'Don't you lose him.'

He rose, returning to Aragorn. 'I want to go back to Pippin now,' he said.

'I think you need to rest,' Aragorn said gently.

Merry shook his head firmly. 'No,' he said. 'Frodo and Sam have each other; Pippin has nobody, no proper hobbit hand to be holding his whilst he's walking in the dark.' Aragorn started to speak, but Merry interrupted him. 'Please, Strider,' he said. 'I don't think it will be for much longer. I can rest then.'

Aragorn gave in, walked with him to the little grove, and saw that he was settled in the chair by the bed. Merry took Pippin's hand again. 'See, cousin?' he said. 'That didn't take too long, now did it?'