Stories of Arda Home Page
About Us News Resources Login Become a member Help Search
swiss replica watches replica watches uk Replica Rolex DateJust Watches

One Who Sticks Closer than a Brother  by Lindelea


Chapter 20. Food for Thought

Ferdi could think of nothing better than to step over to Tolly’s, to let the head of escort know that his wayward brother had strayed into Ferdi’s apartments and seemed to be in some difficulty or distress.

It was easier said than done—or in Ferdi’s case, not easily said nor done, considering the reluctance of his traitor tongue these days. How he would make them understand, he was not sure. Perhaps he’d have to sing the news to them, undignified as it might be.

First, though, he had to move himself there... across the sitting room to the door, and then across the corridor and a little to the left, where Tolly’s door stood part way between Ferdi’s apartments and the Thain’s.

He gave Freddy another pat on the shoulder. ‘Sure you d-don’t...’ he managed, and took a deep breath, and added, ‘w-want t-to c-c-come...’

But Fredebold gave no sign of heeding, merely moaning into his hands. Ferdi remembered then, something from the dim past, when he’d found Freddy sobbing over a scraped knee, grown hobbit that he was... but then, it was unlikely Freddy ever would be a grown hobbit, now, was it? Though his body was grown, older than Ferdi in point of fact, he had only a childlike understanding. His brothers were protective of him, and exasperated with him, by turns.

Ferdi had lifted the sobbing hobbit up, shooing away the fascinated tots who’d gathered to stare, and helped him into the nearest public hole. He’d sat Freddy down, bought him a beer with some of his own precious coin, talked quietly of the birds and animals he’d been hunting that day, much as he’d talk to a small child (though he wouldn’t have bought beer for a child... sweetmeats, more likely, but they didn’t have sweetmeats handy in the Addled Fox...)

He tottered over to the sideboard and pulled the second drawer open, yes, there was the box where Nell kept boiled sweets for the little ones. A goodly handful, now... he forced the stiff fingers of his weaker hand to close upon the treat—he needed his strong hand for support, or to catch himself should he lose his balance.

He made it back to the table and laid the sweets down by Fredebold’s hand. Freddy had laid his arms down on the table by this point, and buried his face to weep. ‘Here you are,’ he said, pleased that it came out so clearly. He lifted Freddy’s hand, slid the sweets under.

Astonishingly, the hobbit took no notice. Ferdi patted the heaving shoulders once more, resolve strengthened. Something dreadful must have happened to the dull-witted fellow, and Tolly ought to be informed at once. Surely between them, Tolly and the eldest brother Mardibold ought to be able to take Freddy in hand.

At the very least, if Ferdi tried to leave the suite it seemed certain there’d be a healer hovering nearby, or somebody, who’d try to guide him back to his bed, and on the way he could point out the quivering mass of mournful hobbit occupying his sitting room.

He gave a cautious nod, so as not to jar his head. Yes, that’s what he’d do.

Unfortunately, when he opened his door he found the corridor empty. He snorted a little. Healers! Never there when wanted.

He’d have to make the journey then, and really, the way he was feeling it seemed as epic a journey as the one Pippin’d made down to the Sunlands, or Bilbo’s to the Lonely Mountain and back. But he had a duty to Tolly, to let him know his needy brother was in some sort of difficulty.

Speaking of difficulty, he’d never realised how far it was, to walk across the corridor, such wide corridors as they had here in the Smials, and he’d never noticed it until now! But at last he reached the far wall and leaned a long moment, trembling with weariness. How lovely it would be for Nell, or Healer Woodruff, or Healer Fennel, or Thain Pip himself or any number of hobbits to come along, scold him roundly, and bundle him back to his bed.

No such luck, however.

With a sigh, Ferdi moved along the wall toward Tolly’s door, which seemed to move away nearly as fast as his progress. He was blinking away sweat, now, and wobbling rather more than less, but after a century or so of creeping along he made it at last, and was fumbling at the knob in the centre of the door.

The door opened, finally, and Ferdi stumbled into Tolly’s entryway, opening onto a distressing scene taking place in the sitting room. Ferdi’s initial relief at seeing not one, but two healers turned to annoyance, as they stood with their backs to the door, arms about Meadowsweet, Tolly’s wife, who was weeping and protesting all in one.

‘But... I cannot leave him,’ she was sobbing. ‘I cannot... what if...?’

‘You must rest, my dear,’ Mardibold said, patting and stroking her back, his own voice perilously close to breaking, not at all the calm and competent healer Ferdi knew. ‘You must... it won’t do any good if the fever takes you now, and he...’ And for some reason, he seemed to have difficulty going on with whatever it was he meant to say.

And Woodruff, the other healer in that three-cornered embrace, said sadly, ‘I doubt he even knows if you’re there beside him, or not, lovie. Nothing seems to reach him in his... dark dream.’

Meadowsweet sobbed again at this, and Ferdi started forward, wanting to demand an explanation. Where was Tolly? Surely he ought to be informed of his wife’s distress, at the very least! And then there was Freddy, usurping Ferdi’s sitting room...

But his balance was not what it was before descent of the ruffian’s club, and the toes of his weaker leg caught in the edge of the rug, bringing him heavily to the floor.

That got the healers’ attention, at least, and in less time than it takes to tell, Meadowsweet, Mardi and Woodruff were kneeling all around Ferdi, and Woodruff was scolding, while Meadowsweet gulped back her tears to ask if Ferdi was all right.

‘No of course he’s not all right!’ Woodruff snapped. ‘And I’d like to know what you think you’re about, Master Ferdibrand, when I left you sleeping not an hour ago, and orders to stay abed until...’

‘Fer...’ Ferdi managed, and then, ‘Fred,’ but that was about all.

Mardi started. ‘Freddy!’ he said. ‘Freddy came to roust you from your bed?’

It wasn’t quite that way, but Ferdi didn’t have the words to say so. It didn’t matter much; Mardi at least was spurred to action by this news, false as it might be, and with a brief apology he was gone.

In the meantime, Woodruff and Meadowsweet helped Ferdi up and to an easy chair by the hearth.

The table was spread, he saw, with a variety of cold food: platters of sliced bread, meats, cheeses, various pickled vegetables, a bowl of fruit, the sort of thing that could wait some hours and serve people who were coming and going. There was no cake, no evidence of sweets: The spread was not festive, but practical, reminding Ferdi of a deathwatch, perhaps, or some other disaster—flood, or wildfire, when workers would be coming in for a bite of sustenance and going out again to fight whatever threatened.

Difficult to believe that Fredebold, with his hearty appetite, would have missed such an opportunity.

‘It’s all very well,’ Woodruff was saying in more soothing than sense, ‘and thoughtful of you, Ferdi, but you really ought not to have made the effort to come just now. There’s time yet, and at the moment we’re making him as comfortable as we possibly can...’

Ferdi glared, annoyed, for the healer was not making any sense at all. Ought not to have made the effort to come just now. What in all the Tookland did she mean?

There was a sharp cry, then, from one of the bedrooms, or so Ferdi gathered, for Meadowsweet started up and hurried away.

Woodruff would have, as well, but Ferdi got a good grasp on the healer. ‘What?’ he demanded. It was his best word; the first he’d been able to speak, when he came to himself, and so his most practiced utterance.

‘Ferdi, I...’ the healer said, trying to push him down onto his chair once more, trying to disengage her arm from his grip. ‘Sit yourself down now, lad, and let me go to my duty!’

‘What?!’ Ferdi insisted, turning toward the back hall of the suite. If Woodruff was going back there, well, she’d have to drag him along with her. Or perhaps he’d drag her. Or at the very least, he’d lean on her. It seemed a good plan.

‘Ferdi...!’ Woodruff said in exasperation, but meeting his eye she gave a sharp sigh and a nod. ‘O very well,’ she grumbled, as she eased her shoulder under his arm to support him, and her muttering continued as they made halting progress to the back hallway and down to the open door of the bedroom, where Meadowsweet could be heard pleading pitifully with someone. ‘If Fredebold has you worked up to this degree, you’ll never rest until you have the chance to see him yourself... But I’d hoped to spare you the grief of it all, with you only half-healed as you are... Still, perhaps it’s better for you to see him now, while he’s still in the world...’

Ferdi hadn’t the faintest idea what in the world the healer was on about as he grimly stalked alongside her. He was grateful for the support, and that she was helping and not hindering him, but he wished she’d stop nattering away at him so that he could think a coherent thought. There was something wrong about the situation; he couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but... There was something not quite right about walking into Tolly’s apartments and seeing Meadowsweet in tears, and then going back to the bedrooms, the most private of the rooms...

And then they reached the doorway, and there was Hilly, on one side of the bed, wrestling with a thrashing form, and Meadowsweet on the other, holding on and begging, ‘Stop, please stop, dearest! All’s well, truly it is!’

And it was a night-shirted Tolly, there, on the bed, struggling to free himself, muttering. Ruffians came to Ferdi’s ears, and a few other disjointed words.

‘Tolly!’ burst from Ferdi, to his own surprise at forming the word so quickly, without effort.

Tolly stilled on the bed, half-sobbing, ‘Ferdi?’ And then he shook his head, and muttered, something about “dead” and “no” and “cannot be”. But at least he lay still, panting shallowly for breath.

Ferdi looked to Woodruff. At the moment he thought he might be in better straits than Tolly, injured as he was.

Hilly was white and drawn, but he kept a firm grip on his now quietened brother. ‘Tried to throw himself out of the bed,’ he said between gritted teeth. ‘I thought he’d do himself an injury.’

‘Good, Hilly,’ Woodruff said. ‘Now, Ferdi, you’ve seen him, and now let us remove you from the room. We don’t want you to catch this fever that’s going round, not if we can help it.’

‘B-b-b...’ Ferdi said, and ground his teeth in irritation. But Woodruff was hauling away at his arm, and for such a short and elderly hobbit she had surprising strength of arm and will, and though Ferdi towered a head above her, being amongst the taller of the Tooks, she prevailed. It was not long before she had him back in the sitting room again, and had pushed him into an easy chair, shoved a low footstool in place and lifted his feet to rest there.

‘There,’ she panted. ‘We’ll just get you a plate of something to sustain you until I can have someone carry you back to your bed, and call your Nell to tuck you up, and...’

But Ferdi wasn’t listening. He’d stopped resisting halfway between bedroom and final resting place, and his gaze was turned inward as he turned over this whole bewildering situation in his aching brain. Tolly... Tolly was in the bed, out of his head, evidently.

Ferdi remembered dim, as if it were long ago and far away, that Tolly had been at the Naming Day celebration for their littlest, Ferdi’s and Nell’s. He wasn’t sure how long ago that had been, what with all the sleeping he’d been doing, but it had been shortly after he’d been rescued from the grave, he thought, not more than a few days after.

Tolly had been hale and hearty, had fallen upon Ferdi to shake his hand in glad welcome and congratulation, and afterward he’d made free with the brandy that the Thain provided for the celebration, Brandy Hall’s finest and a part of the Thain’s private stock of potables, a Yuletide gift of his illustrious cousin the Master of the Hall, and even with the generous quantities poured out that evening, there’d been “plenty more where that came from!”

Tolly had been lifting his glass with the rest of the jolly crowd and bellowing out the chorus of a song, at Ferdi’s last glimpse. Ferdi had been borne away from the celebration fairly early, considering his delicate state, and so far as he knew he’d slept the better part of two or three days after, without even benefit of brandy.

So what had happened to Tolly in the meantime?

And what was this talk, as if they’d given him up?

Woodruff, still talking, set a well-stocked plate in Ferdi’s lap.

Ferdi, still not listening, absently applied himself to the food, chewing slowly and considering what his next course ought to be.

Tolly was in trouble, no doubt about it. And it seemed the healers were doing precious little about the situation. Perhaps they felt they’d done all they could. But had they?

There was something nagging at the back of Ferdi’s brain... something...





<< Back

Next >>

Leave Review
Home     Search     Chapter List