Chapter 11. In which a good night's sleep is interrupted

Persimmon Heddleshaft awoke to a familiar sensation – a sharp pinch on his arm, and a hiss. ‘Percy! Percy!’

‘What is it, Bell?’ he said sleepily, turning over.

‘Hsst! There’s something outside!’

‘A fox?’ he said with a yawn, and then, ‘Go back to sleep, old pet. Likely you just dreamed it.’

But the pinch was there again, sharper this time, and Bell was saying, ‘If there’s a fox amongst the chickens, there’ll be Sharkey to pay...’

There was nothing for it but to rise from the bed, pad into the kitchen and workroom beyond, skirting the large loom with its half-finished cloth of finely spun wool, and picking up the watch-lamp from the window he turned up the flame and opened the door to peer out into the night. The moon was lowering in the Western sky, fat and bloated, looking rather sleepy and glad to seek his rest. The stars were bright above, and the icy air was still.

Percy shivered, but he listened a moment longer, to hear if the chickens might be fussing in their sheltered coop. No sound greeted him, except perhaps a rustling on the hillside. If it were a fox, it was moving away.

He stepped forward, lifting the lamp higher, and nearly went sprawling!

There was a rock there, in the doorway, rather a large rock, one that hadn’t been there as the sun was setting and Percy had closed the door for the night, after seeing to the goats, the pig, and the chickens. How in the world had it got there?

He bent to lift the rock, to heave it away, lest his Bell should stumble over it in the morning on her way to feed the chickens and milk the nanny, and was more astonished to find a piece of folded paper pressed beneath it! Curiouser and curiouser, as his old gammer used to say.

He picked up the paper and carried it to the table, setting down the lamp. It appeared to be a part torn from a map, on the one side, but folded to the inside was writing, and a fair handful of soft, curling locks.

Well he couldn’t read the writing, now, could he? And it wasn’t worth waking Bell to read it. He had a fair idea of what the writing said, anyhow. Tam Shepherd had probably left it off, after the weaver and his wife had sought their pillow. Sheepherders were queer folk, and if they counted their sheep at the end of the day and came up short, they’d go out in the night to seek the lost.

Tam had promised a sample of wool from a new breed of sheep, one known for the fineness of its wool, for the weaver’s examination. If Percy liked the feel of the stuff, he could buy several fleeces (at a stiff price, mind) when shearing time came, to mingle with the wool of commoner sheep for cloth that would be softer and finer and would command higher prices at market.

Percy fingered the soft stuff with growing satisfaction. Silky, it was, and pleasant to the touch. Yes, it would make a fine mix with the coarser wool he was used to weaving. The colour was a bit dark, but perhaps it could be bleached and then dyed.

He wrapped the sample back up in the paper and stuck the whole into a pot on the mantel. Bell could read the note to him in the morning, over breakfast.

***

Meadowsweet, Tolly’s wife, was a practical hobbit, and she had things all ready when they brought Ferdi into his and Nell's parlour. The table had been cleared and an oilcloth spread thereon, and his bearers laid him gently down and left in silence, though each had a hug for Pimpernel before leaving.

All his bearers left, that is to say, save Tolly, however; he was there to lend his strength when lifting or turning might be needed.

The parlour was not brightly lit. There was only one lamp, and it was turned low, so as not to wake the children sleeping in the rooms down the short hallway.

Meadowsweet folded the blankets back and began to undo the jacket buttons, sniffing back tears, for they were no help in the task at hand. The little kettle was steaming on the hearth, and Tolly took it up and poured the water into the waiting basin, and then he eased the blankets out from under Ferdi, folded them neatly and placed them just outside the door to the apartment, for the launderers to fetch and wash.

When the jacket buttons were undone, Meadowsweet began to undo the shirt, but pulled her hands back when Pimpernel moved close and took over the task. It was Nell's beloved, her right, and her responsibility, and she would hold herself together for long enough to do him the honour of this last token of her love.

Tolly eased the clothing from the body as they loosened it. He folded each piece, and when he had the whole of it, he put the pile of clothing outside the apartment door, atop the blankets. It was probable that Nell would not want the clothes her husband had worn when he was murdered. They'd be washed, mended if need be, and given away to some hobbit in need.

The washing had begun, from forehead down to feet and back again, as was custom, when a healer’s assistant came in, sent by the Thain. It was her task to stitch up the injuries, and to wash the blood away from the poor wounded head.

Pimpernel winced with every bite of the needle, but Ferdi of course made no sign and that more than anything was enough to dispel her wish to think her husband merely deeply asleep. She tried to concentrate on the work of her own hands, moving slowly over her husband’s skin, losing herself in memories even as she sought to memorise him over again, every inch of flesh, every mark, every scar, smooth expanse of muscles and steadiness of bone, to be taken for ever away from her sight and touch with the dawning, until her own death came and she joined him in the grave.

She lingered long over the slim, elegant fingers, washing each with flannel and tears, remembering the feel of her hand in his when they danced, or walked under the stars, the love in the tingle his caresses left on her skin; she shivered, remembering the touch of his lips on her fingertips, her neck, that certain private place behind her ear that only Ferdi knew...

They clothed him in his finest, the suit he’d worn to be wed, as a matter of fact, the colours that were Pimpernel’s favourites because they suited her Ferdi so very well. His coat was a rich, dark green as mysterious as the forest in twilight, while the pale yellow silk of his waistcoat shone clear as a last shaft of sunlight, playing upon the clean white of his linen shirt. Pimpernel buttoned the fawn-coloured breeches while Meadowsweet brushed the fur on Ferdi’s feet until they gleamed.

While Pimpernel brushed Ferdi’s dark head with care, hiding the stitched wounds, Tolly went to the door, to summon those who waited outside. They lifted the body from the table, bearing it to the bedroom, and laid it on the shroud lying atop the bedsheet, for the covers were pulled back as if airing the bed or awaiting a sleeper. Meadowsweet folded the shroud over Ferdi and sewed it closed with neat stitches, as high as his chest, and then she fastened off the thread and pulled up the coverlet over him, not quite to his shoulders. The white of the shroud wherein he lay, blended with the white of the pillow and bed linens, and he might have slept (albeit, fully clothed).

It was nearly midnight when the baby lass cried, and Meadowsweet went at once to fetch her. She changed her, wrapped her up dry and warm, and brought her to Pimpernel, who sank down on the bed next to her husband to nurse their littlest daughter.

And then Rudivar their eldest was there, blinking, his head tousled. ‘Mum?’ he said sleepily, ‘Did Da come at last...?’ and then his eyes opened wide, to see his father fully clothed abed, and he gasped as the meaning struck home, and he might have fallen had Tolly not reached him, taken him in a fierce hug, and held on tight as the sobs began, interspersed with broken words. ‘No... Da... no...’