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A Matter of Appearances  by Lindelea


Chapter 29. In which a Took contemplates the unthinkable

Meadowsweet was finally able to pry the children from Ferdi’s side, for it was clear to her mother’s eye that these young ones were all but hollow inside, and yet it would hardly be meet to force Nell from her husband's side. Nell urged them to go, though she retained the babe, and sat down upon the bed to nurse the little lass.

Ferdi woke briefly, stirred perhaps by an especially loud smack, for he smiled and murmured, ‘How I love that sound...’ and then fell silent once more. Nell watched, a little anxiously, until she saw his breast rise and fall. Yes. Her Ferdi was breathing, though the breaths were so shallow they were difficult to perceive, even in the now well-lighted bedroom.

When Little Lass was satisfied, Rosamunda bore her away, to have her nappie changed and to be laid down in a borrowed cradle—recently vacated by Meadowsweet’s youngest—for there was some work to be done at hand in Ferdi and Nell’s bedroom. Rosamunda returned shortly, Mardi with her, and between the two healers and Ferdi’s wife, they managed to strip Ferdi’s “fancy togs” away without disturbing his rest, and they wiped away the traces of earth that clung to him, that might itch or otherwise irritate him, and they clad him in a night-shirt and eased the bedcovers over him.

Nell ate the meal that Meadowsweet brought her, sitting next to Ferdi once more. ‘Do you think he ought to eat something?’ she said, rather anxiously, to Mardi, who was giving Rosamunda a series of instructions in a low voice.

‘He needs his rest, more,’ Mardi said. ‘Such a blow to the head... if he tried to eat, likely he’d just bring it up again. No, we’ll let his brains settle back into place for a few hours. If he wakens, complaining of head ache, give him a dose of willow-bark tea, and call for me in the morning, if not before. I’ll be stopping the night with Regi and Rosa, so I won’t be far off if I’m needed.’

Nell nodded, not quite reassured, but when she finished her meal, Rosamunda took her plate away and persuaded her to stretch out beside her husband for a little rest of her own. Nell snuggled close to Ferdi, and put her arms around him, and laid her head against him, for the first time wondering about the muster, and whether Pippin had yet tracked down the ruffians who had nearly taken her Ferdi for ever away.

‘Farry...’ Ferdi murmured, and looked as if he were trying to raise himself up, and failing.

‘He’s well, and safe,’ Nell said, raising her head to look into her beloved’s face, and soothing his brow with a gentle hand. ‘Sleep, now, my love.’

Ferdi seemed to settle lower in the pillows, and after watching him a few moments more, Nell laid her head down again and gave herself up to sleep.

***

‘Sir,’ Tolly said at Pippin’s elbow. ‘Do we follow his back trail, then, or...?’

‘From what he carried, we know that he was recently in Farry’s company,’ Pippin said between his teeth. ‘The blood was still red, and fresh. It must have been within the last hour or two, that...’

‘What shall we do with him?’ Merry said, his hand on his sword.

‘I’d like to tear out his tongue with my own hands,’ Pippin said, staring into the eyes of the kneeling ruffian. ‘And put out those eyes, slowly, ever so slowly, just as they most likely tormented my little lad... but I won’t.’

And seeing the brawny man relax, slightly, a wintry smile played across the Thain’s features. ‘Nay,’ he said, ‘not yet, anyhow.’

‘Not yet?’ Merry said, looking from the ruffian to Pippin.

‘I know how you work,’ Pippin said, his gaze boring straight into the ruffian’s eyes. ‘I know that dread and horrid anticipation are some of the coin your type deals in, and so I intend to pay you some of your due with your own wergeld.’

I don’t understand, thought the brawny man, but the hobbit’s smile chilled him to the bone.

‘You will,’ the Thain said, as if he’d heard the unspoken thought. ‘Your eyes we’ll leave to the last, that you may stand witness to your punishment, and your tongue, that you may cry your remorse, if you’re even capable of it... but all that can wait until we’ve reclaimed what’s left of my son. And on the way my kinfolk and I will discuss just what parts a man may live without... and when we’re finished with you, you’ll be no more than a husk, a shell, suited, perhaps, to beg at the King’s gate, living—if you can call it that—on the scraps that soft-hearted travellers fling in your direction.’

‘My lord,’ the brawny man whispered, stricken with horror at this picture that he could see in his mind’s eye, all too clearly. Pippin, who had started to turn away, turned back, and the brawny man gathered his shreds of nerve. ‘It wasn’t I,’ he whispered.

‘You didn’t do this thing? ...but you were a part of it,’ Pippin said.

‘I—’ the brawny man said, but the Thain shook his head, threw his cloak over his shoulder, and turned away.

‘Pippin?’ Merry said, falling into step as his cousin stalked to where the ponies waited. ‘Would you—truly—do this thing?’ He was horrified, and yet...

‘If it were your son, Merry?’ Pippin said, not looking at him.

‘But... what it will do to your soul,’ Merry said, ‘to those who ride with us, who should witness such...’ He was breathing shallowly, and gulping down his nausea. ‘Frodo...’

‘Don’t you dare to speak of Frodo to me,’ Pippin flared, ‘for I fear only too well what he would say, what he’d do...’

‘That he’d let this ruffian go on, to cause more misery?’ Merry said.

‘As he did Saruman,’ Pippin said. ‘And those ruffians at Bywater, he let them go, and this man among them...’

Merry stopped, thunderstruck. ‘You recognise him?’ he said. ‘You know him, after all these years?’

Pippin lifted his head to the sky, rolling his shoulders back and taking a deep breath. ‘I remember him, among others,’ he said. ‘There is a brand on his hand, a mark of Gondor’s justice. I was on duty; I saw the man branded, a day or two after the Coronation—his was one of the first cases Strider judged. It made a great impression on me, and I remembered him, in the aftermath of the battle. Tolly was about to shoot him, though he was weaponless, and I shouted, but he didn’t hear me, and then Frodo was there, spoiling Tolly’s aim. And if I had not shouted, if Frodo had not acted as he did, I might still have a son...’

‘O Pip, no...’ Merry breathed. ‘Vengeance will destroy you along with your enemies; don’t you remember what Strider said, when he pardoned the Easterlings and the Haradrim? Seek after justice, certainly, but do not pursue vengeance... Frodo mulled over his words long after, and talked the matter over with me, when I came to him, to ask him what it meant. I think he truly did understand, for Saruman called him wise... but he also called him cruel...’

He gazed at Pippin, who stared stonily at the ground, and added, 'and justice came to Saruman, in any event. Frodo might have let him go, but he'd already laid the foundation for his death, in the things he goaded his follower, poor dreadful Grima, to do.'

‘What would you have me then do, Merry?’ Pippin hissed, frustrated.

‘If you insist upon this, then let mine be the hand to do the deed,’ Merry said. ‘I won’t stand by and watch you sow the seeds of your own destruction, cousin.’

Pippin stared at him, perplexed, but before he could answer several of the hunters were pointing, and looking, Merry and Pippin saw the top of one of the great hills shuddering, dissolving into a great black rolling cloud that climbed rapidly towards the heavens, and in the next seconds a mighty rushing wind blasted them from their feet, and their ears were deafened by a roar.

And then all was silence.

***

‘What was that?’ Jay gasped, raising his head from where he’d cast himself, full-length, on the ground. ‘A dragon?’

‘A thousand dragons, maybe,’ someone else said, awed.

‘I think perhaps the Thain’s engineers won’t be doing much delving at all, in the near future,’ Sam said. His group had rejoined Jay’s, not long ago, when the two trails had converged once more. ‘It appears that their entire store of black powder has just gone up in smoke.’

He shook his head as he got to his feet. They didn’t need to follow the ruffians’ tracks any longer, he thought. The trail led directly to the tortured mountain ahead of them, its top blown away by the violence of the blast, smoke still roiling upwards.

If Farry had been in the ruffians’ grasp, when all that powder went up, well, there probably wouldn’t be enough left of the lad to fill his mother’s thimble.





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