Chapter 41. Dawning

It took nearly twice as many hobbits to bear the young ruffian to the burial ground as it had Ferdi, even though many of the mustered hobbits had returned in the dawning and a number of these had been tapped for the duty. For one thing he was nearly twice as long as many a full-grown hobbit, though not much heavier, being young, short of stature as Men go, and relatively slight.

The murmuring Tooks following the shrouded body ought to have been either walking in silence or singing. Exchanging gossip was not the politest of occupations on the way to a burial.

It was a good thing that Diamond was at the head of the procession, taking Pippin’s place, Reginard at her side ready to put out a steadying hand should she slip on the light dusting of snow after they left the swept stones of the yard. She heard nothing of the gossip going on behind her back, as the returning archers filled in their stay-at-home relatives on recent events, and the expressions of shock in general, and pity directed at herself, were lost on her back.

Young Farry taken by ruffians! went the Talk. Borne away, senseless, by his father—by order of the King, no less! The King had sent a message direct to Hoard Hill, as if he had some way of seeing where the ruffians had been taken, where Farry had been rescued!

And worse news, spoken in an undertone, by some who’d been well back in the group that had hastened to Hoard Hill after the explosion. One of the ruffians had been bearing “tokens” and a note to the Thain when he’d been taken, wrapped in a bloody cloth—they’d seen with their own eyes—and Farry’s eyes had been bandaged when the archers had come upon the ruffians, his mouth bound up with a bloody cloth. What could it mean?

Had the lad been maimed? And though the Thain had carried him away to the healing hands of the King... was there anything to be done? It was enough to bring tears to the eyes of many of the Tooks and servants in that solemn procession as the news slowly spread through the crowd.

Diamond reached the grave, walking to the head with Regi, turning to stand there as the shrouded figure was brought, laid down on the boards, and the bearers took up the ropes to lower him down. She noted a number of weeping hobbits, and thought how soft-hearted some of them were, to weep for this homeless fellow, not much more than a boy, who’d fallen among evil companions.

The young ruffian was lowered gently into the grave and the ropes taken up again, and Reginard cleared his throat. He was rather at a loss, actually. The Man had been cared for as if he were one of the family, and Pippin had ordered that he be buried among the Tooks, though his message hadn’t said much more than that, only that the Man had done the Tooks a great service and thus deserved to rest in peace, with honour and respect.

‘We are gathered here together,’ Diamond said, as the quiet moment stretched out, raising her voice to be heard above the crowd, ‘to honour one who performed a great service for the Tooks, and for the Tookland. He stood alone, against his fellows, and in so doing he gave up his life...’ for that terrible wound, that the healers had stitched in their final ministrations, had come from no hobbit, but most likely from the hand of another Man. Diamond was rather grasping at something to say, as she knew no more than Regi did.

There was a murmuring in the crowd, and then the Tooks stilled and stared at her in silence.

It was time for the chief mourner to step forward, to pick up the first fistful of earth and cast it into the grave. The only trouble was, there was no chief mourner.

But then there was a ripple in the crowd, the silence broken by murmurs of surprise, and then the crowd parted, and Ferdibrand was there, looking ghastly, pale as the linen shrouding the corpse at the bottom of Ferdi’s former grave, staggering forward like a drunken hobbit. Pimpernel walked on one side of him and Meadowsweet on the other, hovering, hands outstretched, though they did not grasp at him. He’d already shaken them off, and more than once, using too much of his dwindling strength such that they feared they’d cause his collapse if they kept fighting him. So they resigned themselves to escort, at least until he faltered.

But he didn’t falter. He moved right to the head of the crowd, to confront Diamond and Regi, to point a shaking hand down at the shrouded figure in silent demand.

‘Ferdi, I...’ Diamond said, at a loss, but Regi was put out.

‘What are you doing out of bed?’ he demanded. ‘Have you taken leave of your senses?’

Ferdi lifted an upraised hand to the sky, as if to ask if all the Tooks had done the same. Had they all lost their wits, to be burying a ruffian here?

Rosamunda, at Regi's other side, was trying to take charge of Ferdi, but he wasn’t having any. He shook her off and stood swaying, his gaze going from Diamond, to Regi, and then he turned to sweep the crowd with a scathing glance, and he stiffened.

Diamond, following Ferdi’s glance, stood up on her tiptoes and gave a glad cry. ‘Pippin!’

The crowd turned, the shorter ones craning for a view. Yes, two riders were approaching, on lathered ponies... and those closest to the outside edge of the crowd could see that, yes, the Thain bore his son, well wrapped in a cloak, before him on the saddle.

Ferdi swayed, blinking, and might have fallen, even into the grave, had not Pimpernel and Meadowsweet been ready to catch him and pull him back. Regi lent his support, and Ferdi slumped in their combined grasp, momentarily senseless.

Diamond looked anxiously from Ferdi to the new arrivals, but Regi reassured her. ‘I’ve got him,’ he said, ‘and we’ll send for a litter, and soon have him back in his bed where he belongs.’

Thain and Master pulled up their ponies, and a hobbit stepped up to take the reins as they dismounted. Pippin lifted Farry down and the travellers made their way to the graveside.

‘Farry!’ Diamond said, and her lad ran ahead to catch her in a tight hug. ‘How I missed you, my love,’ and laughing, she added, ‘and it seems that you missed me, just a little?’

‘O Mum,’ Farry said, his voice muffled against Diamond’s cloak. He was well-bundled-up, his mother was glad to see, cloaked and hooded and muffled against the winter chill, but when she put him back from herself his bright eyes glimmered at her from the depths of the hood, and she was touched to see him so close to tears. He was still her little lad...

In the meantime, the nearest hobbits had heard the lad speak, and he had run, full of youthful health and vigor, and he hadn’t had to be led, his eyes bandaged, so what was all this grim talk the archers had brought back with them...?

Not a few quiet tongue lashings began, there in the crowd, and were broken off, considering the circumstances, to be taken up at a later time.

‘My dearest,’ Pippin said, reaching Diamond and taking her and Farry into a fervent hug. ‘Forgive me for not sending news ahead of us, but we travelled on the wings of the dawning, and outsped any messengers we might have sent.’

‘What news?’

‘Forgive me,’ Pippin said again, and ‘Are you and the babe well? Or ought I to send you back to our apartments, and I’ll fill up your corners with all the details just as soon as we’ve done this fellow justice.’

Diamond stood a little stiffer. ‘I’m well,’ she said, wondering, but her eyes flashed and Pippin knew he was in for severe questioning, and soon, perhaps even scolding if his wife was unsatisfied with the answers to her questions.

‘I will bear a clean breast, I promise,’ he said, holding up his hand in pledge.

Diamond nodded, hugging Farry again, and then pulled the lad to her side, under her wing once more. Pippin moved to Farry’s other side, and raised his hand again for silence.

A light breeze played over the burial ground, chilling the hobbits there, but none thought of seeking the warmth of the Great Smials. The breeze was reviving to Ferdi, blinking in Regi’s arms, and he sat up a little, looking up at the Thain, who hadn’t noticed him and Reginard yet, and he saw to his relief that Farry was well and whole, nestled between his parents. That gnawing feeling of something amiss was set at rest, and some of Ferdi’s head pain abated in his relief.

‘Tooks and Tooklanders,’ Pippin said, pitching his voice to reach the edge of the crowd. ‘We come together to honour an hero of Tookland.’

Ferdi blinked. He’d have stood to his feet and demanded an explanation, but for the weakness of his body that denied him aught but to lie there, supported by Regi, and the reluctance of his traitor tongue, which seemed tied in his mouth. Hero?

‘On their way to the Great Smials from my family’s farm,’ Pippin went on, ‘Ferdibrand and my son, Faramir, were waylaid by a group of ruffians, Men in the Shire in violation of the King’s Edict, and up to no good.’

He stopped, overcome by a wave of sorrow that washed suddenly over him. He’d not had time, in the press of events, truly to grieve Ferdibrand until now. He’d even missed Ferdi’s burial, having to settle for a short remembrance on a hillside as the sun rose, the previous morning.

Fighting to keep his voice from breaking, he continued. ‘Ferdibrand offered his life, in defence of my son, but the ruffians clubbed him to the ground, leaving him to die in his blood in the cold of night...’

Ferdi blinked again, astonished at the news. They had? Why had no one told him about this? Wouldn’t you think he’d be the first to know?

‘And the ruffians would have taken Farry's life as well, leaving no witnesses to their intrusion—to their attempt to steal the gold of the Tooks—but by chance they discovered that they held the son of the Thain...’

Diamond gasped, pulling Farry more tightly against her.

‘All’s well, Mum,’ Farry said earnestly, and his piping voice was loud enough for most of the Tooks gathered there to hear, and the last of their grief and anxiety for the lad trickled away though consternation remained.

‘And this youth,’ Pippin said, gesturing toward the grave, ‘this youth stopped them, he defied the others, scheming to keep my son safe and whole, when they would have done unspeakable things in order to move the Tooks to their will.’

A murmur as of distant thunder passed through the crowd, as they put together the archers’ rumours with the Thain’s words, and any lurking ruffian would have taken to his heels at the doom-filled sound, and run all the way to the Bounds to escape the wrath of the Tooks.

‘At great risk to his own life,’ Pippin said, his voice threatening to break once more, for of course he thought of Ferdi, ‘nay, at cost of his life, he defended my son against the others, and so we honour him this day, with our poor best.’

As the Tooks stood, considering these astonishing facts in silence, Ferdi pushed against Regi’s hold, indicating that he wished to stand, and Regi, dumbfounded and taken aback at Pippin’s speech, at the deadly peril that Farry had survived, helped him.

Pippin’s eye was drawn by the movement, and at once his eyes opened wide, and he gave a glad cry and stumbled forward. ‘Ferdi! How can it be! Fennel said...!’

Farry gave an exclamation of joy and would have moved to embrace Ferdi, but for his mother’s fierce grip, for Diamond stood transfixed by all that might have been lost... but was not.

Ferdibrand met Pippin’s hug with a feebler embrace of his own. Indeed, he slumped in Pippin’s grasp, and Regi hastily stepped forward to help support the injured hobbit.

‘He’s not well,’ Regi said. ‘Ought to be in his bed, even now, for some days yet, and...’

‘Why does that not surprise me?’ Pippin said, torn between laughter and joyful tears. ‘Come, Ferdi, we’ll bear you to your bed, and I’ll tuck you up with mine own hands, and send the choicest bits of the feast to you and Nell, as she sits by your bedside...’

But Ferdi pushed at the supporting hands, his gaze so fierce that Pippin and Regi let him go in surprise.

Standing without support, though unsteady, he reached down to take up a handful of wet, snowy earth, stopping while still stooped, requiring aid to stand upright again, though he shook off the helping hands just as soon as he was able to stand.

He looked to Farry, then swept the crowd of Tooks, though his eyes were beginning to glaze; he was obviously hanging on by the slightest of threads of determination. He held the handful of dirt out, over the grave, took a deep breath, and dropped it, blessing the shrouded figure below with Tookish soil.

And he stood, looking down at the grave, while Farry stepped forward to add his handful, and then Diamond, and Pippin, and Ferdi’s Nell, and Regi, and Rosa... and the line of Tooks began to shuffle by, adding handfuls from the two large piles of earth standing by the grave.

Regi moved to take Ferdi’s arm. ‘Don’t watch this,’ he said. He did not know what Ferdi remembered of the previous day, but it gave him a chill to see the hobbit stand there, staring at the clods of falling dirt. Already the shroud was well-spotted, and it would not be long before the white of the shroud no longer shone at the bottom of the hole.

Rosa came to pluck at Nell’s cloak. ‘Litter’s here,’ she said. ‘Let us not stand out in the cold; you’ll catch your death.’ She meant Ferdi, in his weakened state, more than Pimpernel, but there’s more than one way to skim cream from the milking.

As she’d hoped, Ferdi heard, and understood much more than he was capable of speaking at the moment, and turned to Nell, concern plain on his countenance.

And Nell allowed herself to be fussed over, if it would get Ferdi out of this place and back into bed where he could rest and heal.

Ferdi seemed to think that the litter was for Pimpernel, but Pippin took a hand, and it was not long before Ferdi was being borne along, with his beloved Nell holding his hand, away from the grave, for the second time in as many days.

‘Will he be at the Naming, do you think?’ Hilly muttered to his wife as they awaited their turn.

‘You jest! It’s his Little Lass who’s to have a name this day!’ Posey hissed back at him. ‘Why, if he cannot walk, he’ll likely have them carry the bed to the great room!’

‘But how’s he going to name her, if he cannot talk?’ Hilly said.

He felt Posey’s shoulders shake with silent laughter under his arm (for who would be so coarse as to laugh at a burying?), but she only shook her head. ‘Wives have ways,’ she said. ‘We do, indeed.’

***

And miles away, in the gatehouse on the border of Buckland, the King sat back with a sigh, drawing a cloth over the round stone he held in his hand, and easing the whole into a sturdy leather bag. He pulled the drawstring tight and fastened the Palantir securely within his saddle bag.

Getting up, he crossed the little room, silent as a cat, and nudged the sleeping guardsman. 'Up,' he said. 'We've miles to go, to return to Fornost in time for packing up! My wife will not want to do all the work herself.'

Bergil scrambled to his feet. 'I'll waken the detail, my Lord,' he said.

'Make sure they have a good breakfast before we set out,' Elessar ordered, with a hint of a smile playing about his lips. When in Buckland, do as the hobbits do...

A Buckland breakfast is something to write home about, and it was a good hour before the guardsmen and King were ready to mount their horses. But there was no need for haste, now, and they could make a pleasant journey, riding to the north through the fresh-fallen snow. The landscape looked pure to the eye, fresh and innocent as if new-created, and the icy air was a blessing on the lungs.

At the King's nod, Bergil raised his hand high, and let it fall, and the tall horses moved out, while the hobbits, clustered at the Gate in response to news of the coming of the King, raised a journey-song to sing them on their way.