Chapter 40. Not long before dawn

The fresh snowy fields took on a ghostly glow as the Sun thought about throwing off the bedcovers and the sky began to brighten. 

The hour before sunrise found Tolly and Samwise well away from the Bounds, and on their way back to the Great Smials, though it would be after nooning when they arrived, even if they pushed their ponies and ate their meals in the saddle.

Tolly was just as happy at the need for haste. He did not look forward to sleeping, at least not in the near future. He could understand something of Ferdi’s troubles, a few years ago, when that hobbit had not been able to find rest, after seeing ruffians hanging in the trees outside the Bounds. He’d been awake for days, damaging his judgment in an emergency, and pulling down his constitution until he nearly died of lung fever.

He looked forward to talking the matter over with Ferdi, to finding out how his cousin had finally been able to achieve enough peace of mind to sleep once more... and then it hit him with a pang. Ferdi was no more. Of course. Tolly had been away with the muster, by yesterday’s dawning, and though he hadn’t thrown a fistful of earth onto the shroud, Meadowsweet would have dropped his portion along with her own, and likely a few tears on Tolly’s behalf as well.

And at this moment, they were preparing to honour the last of the ruffians at the burial ground of the Great Smials. The thought rankled, though assuredly the Thain had his reasons.

Bitterly he counted the losses. Ferdi, dead. Farry, unimaginably injured. While the lad had seemed intact, in body at least, Tolly’s sight of the child huddled in his father’s arms, unresponsive, haunted the head of escort. He was sworn to the protection of the Thain and the Thain's family, but things had gone terribly wrong. 

Sam, too, was unusually taciturn. As it turned out, he too was remembering Ferdibrand. He was sorry to have missed the burial. His children had, at the time Pippin became Thain, adopted Ferdibrand as a sort of honorary uncle, and a great deal of affection had grown between Ferdibrand and the Gamgees. Sam’s family would be subdued for some time, prone to tears, no doubt, and not in the mood for celebrations. He’d have to travel to various festivals by himself, the next few weeks, he’d wager. A lonely time stretched ahead, and it wasn’t made any easier by his grief on Pippin’s behalf, for the harm done his little son.

Though it seemed the sensible thing to rest, to travel at a reasonable pace, returning late that evening or even the next day, both hobbits by unspoken agreement were pushing the pace. At teatime this day, the Great Smials Tooks would celebrate... no, “celebrate” was too festive a word... they’d observe the Naming Day for Ferdi and Nell’s little lass.

Both planned to be there, for Pimpernel’s sake. And for Ferdi’s.

***

‘It’s time,’ Meadowsweet said, and Pimpernel jerked awake, seized by a terrible feeling of half-remembered loss.

She drew a shuddering breath, and immediately had the comfort of her husband’s arms encircling her, Ferdi’s breath on the back of her neck, his lips brushing a butterfly kiss on the sensitive place behind her ear.

‘Ferdi, my love?’ she said, turning in his arms, and then she threw her arms about his neck, clinging to him, weeping in relief.

‘What...?’ he whispered, patting her back, stroking and soothing. ‘N-n-n...’ He could not quite form her name. ‘M-m-m...’ My Nell.

But Pimpernel knew very well what he meant. ‘O Ferdi, my love,’ she repeated. ‘You’re here. You’re here.’

Ferdi looked helplessly to Meadowsweet, standing stricken in the doorway. Where else would I be?

Meadowsweet avoided the obvious answer. Ferdi, Rosa had told her, might well have no memory of ruffians or near-burial, and in his precarious state it would be unwise to upset him. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean to waken...’

Then why did you? Ferdi’s upraised eyebrow inquired.

‘Thain’s orders,’ Meadowsweet said, looking uncomfortable. ‘Of course, Ferdi, I didn’t mean to waken you, but I wanted to tell Nell that I’d be gone for a time... Her brother ordered out all the Tooks, to attend the burial.’

Ferdi sat straight upright. ‘What...?’ he demanded. Whose burial? It came back to him in a rush, that nagging concern for Faramir, and he had a sudden, terrible conviction that something had happened to the lad, and with it the pain struck his head as if a wall of bricks had fallen upon him.

‘The ruffian’s,’ Meadowsweet said hurriedly.

Not that it helped much, though it was a distraction. Ferdi’s worry about Faramir turned instantly to indignation. A ruffian? We’re burying a ruffian?

‘They’re about to carry him from the great room to the burial ground,’ Meadowsweet said, once Pimpernel had calmed her husband somewhat with soft-spoken entreaties. ‘I thought you ought to know, even if you could not leave your husband...’

Ferdi, however, was going to get to the bottom of this. He could not ask questions, obviously, and besides, if the procession was already starting, no one would have time for patient explanations, and in the meantime a ruffian would be disturbing the peace of those Tooks already laid to rest. He thought of the families, whose sons or husbands or fathers had fallen at Bywater, at the hands of ruffians, and what a slap in the face this must be.

Obviously Pippin was still away on the muster... (And a part of his mind blinked a bit, and stuttered. Muster? There had been something about a muster. He could not quite remember...) Someone had to do something about this. He wondered where Reginard was. Surely the steward wouldn’t let such a travesty take place, on some garbled order reputedly from an absent Pippin. Perhaps Regi had been called away as well, in the emergency. In that case, who was running things?

Ferdi sat up, fighting the nausea that arose as he did, and ignoring the rush of pain in his head he threw back the bedcoverings.

‘Ferdi-love, what are you doing?’ Nell said in alarm, and Meadowsweet hurried to his other side.

Clothes. He wanted clothes, but he could not for the life of him form the word.

‘Ferdi?’

Ah! He could see his fancy togs hung carelessly on a peg, as if hastily put by. He remembered tumbling into bed after a feast and dance, tossing the clothing over the back of a chair... was that last night? How did the clothes get hung up on the peg?

Had he had too much to drink, then? Sometimes the Tooks got carried away in their toasting, and though he tried to sip water instead when he felt the drink going to his head, there were times when he couldn’t get away with the substitution, such as when a great many Brandybucks were amongst the guests, and the Hall’s finest was served—a rare treat, and sweet and heady, and Ferdi could not quite pace himself as well as he could with the local ale and beer.

He remembered, rather fuzzily, getting fancied up for a feast, but it was mixed up with odd and scattered dreams of going fully-clad to bed.

That was, perhaps, the solution. He’d been dressed to the teeth for some feast or other, and had drunk too much brandy and been helped to his bed, cast upon it still fully dressed, and he or Nell had arisen in the night to hang up their clothes.

He stood up, scarcely heeding the protests around him, staggering drunkenly the few steps to the wall. He threw off his nightshirt and took down the clothes, though he nearly fell, trying to lift one foot enough to get the breeches on. All the while Nell’s and Sweetie’s voices were swirling in the air around him, flocks of pigeons too restless to roost.

Eventually he felt their hands begin to help rather than hinder, as if they’d sensed his outrage and resolve, and getting dressed became a matter of time instead of opinion.

***

‘Sun’ll be rising soon,’ Merry said, sipping at the hot drink steaming in his hands. It would be only a few moments before the fresh ponies were saddled, and they’d be off on the last stretch of road to Tuckborough. Another hour, perhaps, before their arrival.

‘We cannot come late!’ Farry said. ‘What if the Tooks won’t...?’

‘Regi knows how to follow orders,’ Pippin soothed his son. His eyes looked on some far-away scene. ‘We won’t come late, not this time.’

‘This time?’ Farry wanted to know, but “Uncle” Merry was also looking preoccupied, and he rubbed at the brown scar on his forehead with his gloved hand, as if it bothered him.

And then it came to Faramir, for he suddenly remembered the murmured words he’d overheard between King and Thain and Master, on their leave-taking, about Boromir...

‘You couldn’t be there to honour one ruffian-turned-to-the-good, so you’re determined to make good with this one!’ he blurted.

‘Eh?’ Pippin said. ‘What’s that?’

‘You couldn’t help to lay Boromir to his rest...’ Farry said, only to see his father’s brow clouding with anger.

But Merry stepped in before Pippin could speak. ‘Boromir was no ruffian,’ he said, his eyes glinting though he maintained a calm and even tone.

‘But...’ Farry said, confused. Perhaps he’d misunderstood?

Sorrow had replaced Pippin’s anger, and he gathered his little son closer. ‘You’ll understand when you’re older,’ he said. ‘Yes, he sounded like a ruffian, to Frodo, there at the end, for he was overcome. But Boromir was a proud and noble man, Farry, don’t ever forget that...’

‘And he gave his life to try and save you and Uncle Merry,’ Farry recited. How many times he’d heard the story... though he’d not heard the part about Boromir and Frodo until a few hours ago, while his father and Uncle Merry were taking their leave of the King.

This rush to the young ruffian’s burial had something to do with his father’s memories of Boromir. He wanted Farry to have some sort of peace that he himself had never found, in regard to the Man of Gondor.

‘Just as the young one gave his life to try and save you, Farry,’ Pippin agreed gravely. ‘It is meet and right for you to honour him, and though you might find times to grieve him, in future, you’ll know you at least did right by him in the end.’

Farry took his father’s hand, looking up into his face with an earnest expression. ‘I want to do right, Da.’

Pippin smiled, tousling his son’s head such that the lad’s hood fell back. Pippin quickly restored the hood, taking the muffler from his own neck to wrap it round Farry’s hood, head and neck for good measure. ‘Don’t want you to take a chill on the last leg!’

‘Mum’ll be so surprised,’ Farry said with a blush.

‘Well,’ Merry said, trying for a light tone. ‘You could always try and keep your hood on until it grows out again.’

‘The voice of experience,’ Pippin said with a chuckle. ‘Your mum didn’t let you do that, the time I gave you a haircut...’

‘No,’ Merry said with a chuckle of his own, and then the call came, that the ponies were ready, and he gulped down the rest of his hot drink, urged Pippin and Farry to finish theirs, and with thanks to the innkeeper at the Pleasant Pheasant they were off again at a gallop, racing to arrive before the sun.