Chapter 36. Late Supper

They changed ponies in Stock, for the last time, and turned to the north, to gallop towards the Bridge. Ten miles it was, an hour or a little more, perhaps, at a steady gallop, into the swirling snow blowing down from the Northlands. Soft as feathers, it fell, caressing their cheeks with brief, cold kisses. The ground was hard, near-frozen, and so the snow did not make for heavier going, though as the ponies tired, Pippin’s slipped and he thought for a breath-stopping moment that they’d go down, pony, Pippin and Farry.

But the lights of the Bridge were ahead. The Brandybucks had the gates up, what with the alarm over ruffians in the Shire, and at Merry’s hail a Shirriff came out, bundled up against the weather and with a lantern in his hand. ‘Who is it?’

‘Thain, and Master,’ Merry shouted.

The Shirriff threw open the gate on the Western side of the bridge without another word, and swung his lantern back and forth in signal. As they thundered across the Bridge, Merry and Pippin saw an answering signal flare up on the other side, and before they reached the Eastern bank that gate too had been pulled aside, to allow them passage, and when they pulled up before the North Gate of Buckland, just beyond the Bridge, tall figures waited to greet them.

‘Strider!’ Pippin gasped, as one of the tall Men stepped forward, arms outstretched to take Farry from his father’s cramping arms. Another of the Men steadied him as he slid from his saddle. ‘Bergil!’

‘At your service,’ Bergil said, turning Pippin towards the gatehouse. ‘Come, all is in readiness.’

And Merry was by Pippin’s other side, offering greetings to Bergil as they hurried to keep up with the King’s long strides.

Elessar carried the hobbit child into the gatehouse, ducking through the door, though it was oversized by hobbit standards, and he laid Farry upon the table in a little room just off the common room, made soft with many blankets.

There was a smell of good cooking on the air, and Pippin’s stomach rumbled, though he took no notice. His eyes were only for his son, and the Man hovering over him.

Elessar knelt upon the rush-strewn flagstones, bending close to Farry’s huddled figure. He drew the sheltering blankets away, and Farry shivered and hugged himself into as small a ball as he could manage, though his eyes remained squeezed shut and he made no sound.

The King’s lips tightened as he stroked back the lad’s golden-brown curls, seeing the deadly promise inked there, and his eyes fell to take in the markings on hands and shorn feet.

And then a serving-lass brought a basin, and a steaming teakettle. ‘Just come to a boil, Sir-my-lord,’ she said with a nervous bob, splashing a little water that narrowly missed her feet.

The King arose, bowed with grave courtesy, and took the kettle and basin with a word of thanks.

‘Strider?’

‘A moment, Peregrin.’ And at the formal address, Pippin fell silent, but he grasped the hand that Merry held out to him, as if he were a drowning hobbit in search of a saving hold.

Elessar laid the basin and kettle down, at a safe distance from the little lad, and then he placed a large, warm hand upon the little forehead, bending close as if to listen, although Farry remained silent, curled tightly in his defensive ball.

‘Faramir,’ the King called at last, and he called the lad’s name several times more, each time a little fainter, as if he were receding into a great distance, and Pippin was taken back in time to the Houses of Healing, to another Faramir, to the day when the healing hands of her King were made known to the White City.

Pippin waited, and Merry, scarcely breathing as they watched. And then the King took up the kettle, pouring the still-steaming water into the basin, and then he took up two leaves, wrapped in a cloth laid nearby, and breathed upon them, and crushed them in his hands, and cast them into the water. Immediately a fresh and living scent rose into the air, driving darkness, fear, even despair from Pippin’s thoughts, and a shadow seemed to lift from Merry’s soul, and Faramir breathed more deeply, and stirred.

‘Waken, Faramir Took,’ said Elessar. ‘Walk no more in blind and silent terror, but open your eyes to love and to light.’

Faramir took another deep breath, and uncurling, he sat up a little, and fisted his eyes as if rubbing sleep, even nightmare, away.

‘Farry?’ Pippin said, starting forward, and Faramir’s eyes popped open, almost as if beyond his control.

‘Da?’ he said. ‘It wasn’t a dream, then? Da?’

And Pippin stumbled forward, to envelop his son in his arms, and Merry laughed aloud, even as the tears poured down his cheeks, after all he had watched his beloved cousin suffer, and all he’d imagined during the long and anxious hours of following Farry’s abductors.

‘Farry,’ Pippin whispered, hugging his recovered son close, and then putting him away to feast on the sight of Farry's face, the wide, clear eyes, the unsullied little mouth opening in a yawn.

‘But,’ the lad said, blinking in confusion. ‘What is the King doing here, in the Shire?’

‘We are not quite in the Shire, lad,’ Elessar said.

Farry stiffened then. ‘We are...’ he said, ‘beyond the Bounds?’ He looked about the room, as if searching.

‘The ruffians are gone, Farry, taken by the muster,’ Pippin said, divining the source of his son’s renewed fear.

‘Red...’ Farry whispered. ‘He said...’

‘Taken,’ Elessar said, ‘firmly bound, and on his way to meet his doom.’ And he lifted the basin, and held it before the young hobbit’s face, urging Farry to breathe deeply of the steam.

And as the young hobbit breathed, his fear fell away, and he relaxed, and at last the cleansing tears came, and he held tightly to his father and sobbed until, limp and spent, he lay in Pippin’s arms, his head on his father’s breast, his breathing deep and even.

‘I saw, in the Palantir,’ Elessar said then. ‘I heard the fat man’s plans, I saw what he said to your son, what he did... when I saw what sort of Men they were, who struck down Ferdibrand and bound your son...’

‘How?’ Pippin said. ‘How is it, that you looked, when you did?’

Elessar smiled, though the smile was brief and did not reach his eyes. ‘It is nearly time for us to leave the North-kingdom, to ride to Minas Tirith,’ he said. ‘If we are to arrive in time for the New Year celebration. Unless something arises to prevent us,’ and by this, he referred to the sort of event that had kept him overlong in the South, in the past, when a minor lordling of Far Harad had thought to throw off Gondor’s benevolent yoke, ‘we’ll return after a year, as is our custom.’

‘But,’ Pippin said, and Merry smiled, remembering Gandalf’s oft-repeated, “Only one ‘but’ will I allow this evening...”

‘I looked into the Stone to see my friends,’ Elessar said, ‘to see if the time might be right, and I might send an invitation to my Counsellors to the North-kingdom, to meet our party at the Bridge, to raise a cup in farewell and feast together and sing songs until the dawning, that our journey might start off on the right foot.’

‘Safe journey, and swift return,’ Pippin murmured.

‘A royal send-off,’ Merry said, ‘fit for a King.’

Elessar smiled again, briefly, and then sobered. ‘And as I looked, I saw Faramir and Ferdibrand, walking amongst the rocks, and Men hiding in the shadows... and I knew at once that something was amiss, and called out my guard...’

Bergil, standing nearby, nodded. The King had bellowed from the high tower, and then his hasty step had been heard on the stairs as he hurled himself downward, and before his bodyguard quite knew what was happening they were mounted and riding as if Sauron himself were after them, at a killing pace, southwards, to the Shire.

And even as he rode, Elessar kept bending his head, to look down into that which he carried, which sometimes flared bright in the darkness, lighting the road before them as they galloped on their way, stopping only to change horses when they came to one of the guardposts of the Kingsmen who guarded the roads by order of the King.

‘I’m sorry about Ferdibrand,’ Elessar said then. ‘I saw his burial, or the start of it, at least, and then I turned my attention to Farry. I wanted to keep track of where he was, and not lose sight of his location; I was ready to gallop right over the Bounds with my guardsmen to confront the evil Men who had him. But then, when I saw that the young ruffian had taken Farry’s part, and that you and Samwise were on their trail, and would arrive long before I could, I stopped at the Bridge, obeying my own Edict with difficulty, I’ll admit, and sent a swift messenger to meet you.

‘And I hoped, with all that was in me, that you’d come in time...’

‘And we did,’ Merry said, embracing both Pippin and Faramir together. ‘And we did come in time, and by some good chance Farry was not in the storehole with the ruffians when they touched off the powder...’

‘But Red escaped the blast,’ Farry said, swimming again to the surface, returning once more to his fear, just as Red had kept coming back into Farry’s sphere, over and over again. As Farry feared he would return again, he’d come back and find Farry, and finish him as he’d promised, in fearful and prolonged torment.

‘No, Farry,’ the King said now, drawing Faramir from his father’s arms and hugging him close. ‘I promise you, I’ve seen the remaining ruffians, bound hand and foot and tied to pack-ponies, and being led to their doom. I’ve sent swift messengers onward, at speed, to the Rangers guarding the Bounds, and they are waiting, even now, to greet them.’

‘But,’ Farry said.

‘Only one “but” will I allow this night,’ Elessar said, in fair imitation of Gandalf, and Pippin laughed through his tears.

‘And he’s already answered that one,’ he said, taking Farry’s hand in his own.

Elessar, looking down at the gesture, frowned and took up the cloth that had wrapped the athelas leaves. ‘A moment, Faramir,’ he said. ‘Stay quite still, if you can. This won’t hurt at all, but it might tickle.’

He dipped the cloth in the warm athelas water and wiped gently at the ink that stained the small hand. And Farry sucked in his breath, as the marking faded, rubbed away with the King’s gentle ministrations.

‘They said it was permanent ink!’ he said in wonder.

‘It might well be,’ Elessar said, and he even chuckled a bit. ‘But this is athelas, and what’s more, it is athelas in the hands of the King.’

‘Strider, you’re a wonder,’ Pippin said, marvelling as ink on hands and feet and head, and last, with Farry's shirt pulled open to show the awful mark over his heart, last of all the deadly mark on the lad's breast was wiped away, leaving his skin fresh and cleansed of evil. ‘I begin to think you could cure even a rainy day.’

‘Well, we cannot send the lad back to his mother with ink all over him,’ Elessar said.

‘Will it grow his foot-hair back, as well?’ Pippin wanted to know.

‘No, I’m afraid that will have to take its course, in the natural way,’ the King said. ‘It might grow a little faster than usual, even a little thicker and curlier, but Ent-draught would do better.’

‘I’m not sure that it would,’ Merry said slowly. He swayed a little, and Bergil stepped forward to steady him.

‘But the hobbits are perishing of hunger,’ he said.

‘When did you last eat?’ Elessar wanted to know.

‘Well if you were watching us all that time, I’d expect you to know such a thing!’ Pippin countered, but he drew his hand across his eyes and admitted he could not remember his last meal.

‘Late supper is standing ready,’ Elessar said.

‘Well why didn’t you say so?’ Pippin demanded.

‘I beg your pardon, but I did say so, just now!’ the King said, sounding much like the Ranger of old.

‘So you did,’ Pippin said. ‘Well, Farry? What are we waiting for? You’re always begging to stay up to late supper, and now you have your wish.’