Chapter 24. A Stitch in Time

There was a tap on the door to the corridor, and without waiting for acknowledgment Haldegrim opened the door and stepped in, followed by Isenard and two younger hobbits, recently appointed to the Thain's escort. Pippin was bent over Ferdi, patting and chafing his hand and calling his name. Pimpernel still embraced her husband, and Woodruff stood by, for there was really nothing to do, she deemed, short of getting the hobbit back to his bed to rest and recover from his recent exertions.

‘He’s fainted, I think,’ Pippin said.

‘I’m not surprised,’ Woodruff said. ‘Well no, I am surprised, that he was able to walk this far and still have enough left to try and talk. He belongs in his bed, healing in sleep, and awake only long enough to eat a little before sleeping again.’

‘We’re here to bring Ferdi home,’ Haldi said, looking from Pimpernel to Healer Woodruff.

Pippin looked up. ‘You’re in good time,’ he said, and stepped back to defer to the healers.

Woodruff took hold of Pimpernel, raising her up. ‘Come now, my dear, you may cozen him all you wish when he’s back in his bed...’

‘Take him, chair and all,’ Mardi directed the hobbits of the escort. ‘The less he’s troubled, the better. You can lift him from chair to bed when he’s home.’

Isenard moved to one side of Ferdi's chair, and Haldegrim to the other, and Pippin took a hand in the carrying, dismissing the rest of the escort, and Pimpernel hastened to open doors to speed their passing. It was not long before Ferdi was tucked up, his battered head laid on soft pillows, the coverlet drawn up and Nell settled beside him.

‘Thank you, Haldi,’ she said, ‘and you, Isen.’ The hobbits of the escort left with a murmured farewell and a bow of respect for Ferdibrand.

Pippin bent to kiss her cheek. ‘Sit on him, if you have to, Nelly-my lass,’ he said. ‘Up more than a week before the healers would’ve allowed, I swear.’

Pimpernel smiled faintly, but all she said was, ‘Don’t you “Nelly-my-lass me, Pip-lad!’

Pippin’s eyes crinkled in a smile. ‘Bless you, lass, I feel the years fall away when you call me that...’

‘You’re no older than Bilbo was, when he went on his adventure, or Frodo, for that matter!’

Pippin, still smiling, shook his head and sighed. With a little shrug he said, ‘I’ll tell you now, Nell, it’s days like this that make me feel as old as an Ent. But,’ he said, infusing his tone with as much encouragement as possible, ‘Ferdi is improving! Why, to have walked as far as he did, and still have the heart and nerve to sing... I wish I could take him to the King, or bring the King to the Smials, but I fear neither course can be accomplished, not as things stand.’

‘Stubborn King of yours,’ Pimpernel said, smoothing the coverlet over her sleeping husband. ‘You’re Thain! You could invite him into the Shire, you know; it’s your right, I should say!’

‘Aye, but knowing how raw the nerves of the Tooks are, even this many years after the Troubles ended, he’d likely be shot out of hand as he rode the Stock Road, King or no king!’ Pippin said. ‘The Tookland is not a healthy place for men, ruffians or no.’

‘At least you wouldn’t have to escort him to the Bounds,’ Pimpernel said, making a wry mouth.

‘Well I would,’ Pippin countered.

‘You know perfectly well what I mean, Pippin Took,’ Pimpernel said, not looking at him. She stared instead into her husband’s face and stroked a stray lock of hair from his forehead.

Pippin’s mouth tightened in a mirthless grin. ‘I do,’ he said shortly. ‘But what else would you have me do, Nell?’

‘Can’t exactly invite them to take up residence when they’re found within the Bounds,’ Nell said quietly. ‘But Tolly, one of your most loyal Tooks, couldn’t stomach what ought to have happened to the ruffians he took, a few weeks ago, and let them go... and the latest ruffians...’

‘He didn’t let them go,’ Pippin said. ‘He stayed and witnessed their deaths, that he might bring the news back to the Smials.’

‘Aye,’ Pimpernel whispered. ‘As has proved too much for the hobbit... he wanders, as Ferdi said, in dark dream, burning with a desperate fever that will not abate... and how much of it came on because of this dark task you laid upon him, I ask?’

Pippin sighed, his shoulders slumped, and then he straightened them again. ‘It had to be done,’ he said. ‘Ferdi, I would fain have sent, but Ferdi was dead, or so I thought, and in any event even had I known he lived, he was in no state to escort prisoners to the Bounds. Someone had to witness their end, and Merry and I were summoned to bring Farry to the King at the Brandywine Bridge, for Elessar knew of the lad’s state when we reclaimed him from the ruffians, and of his need for healing.’

‘My Ferdi,’ Nell half-sobbed. ‘You’d do that to him...’

‘He’d’ve been the first to insist,’ Pippin maintained, standing a little straighter. ‘You know how he feels about Men in the Shire, nay, in the Tookland itself! He’d’ve insisted on being the one to escort the scoundrels to the Bounds, to deliver them into the Rangers’ hands, and to witness their end, making sure they were dead before he rode back again!’

Pimpernel looked back to her husband and nodded sadly. ‘Aye,’ she said again. ‘That he would’ve.’

‘In any event,’ Pippin said, ‘I go now to Tolly, to see how he is today. Surely this fever must break soon!’

‘Surely,’ Pimpernel said, her voice quavering a little.

‘But you’re tired,’ Pippin said, at once solicitous. ‘Lie yourself down, Nelly, do, and I will leave you and Ferdi to yourselves. Restore yourself with sleep, even as your beloved.’ And with a kiss for her forehead, he was gone.

Pimpernel laid herself down, twining one arm over her sleeping husband’s chest, but sleep eluded her.

***

Pippin moved quickly down the short hall and through the sitting room, absently plucking a boiled sweet from the table as he passed, secreting this in his pocket for young Faramir. He ducked across the corridor, through Tolly’s door, and at Mardi’s nod proceeded down to the bedroom where his head of escort lay.

Tolly lay as Pippin had seen him the previous day, his face pale and deathlike, his breast rising and falling in uneven gasps, and the hand Pippin took between his own burned with fever. He looked to Woodruff, on the other side of the bed, standing by an exhausted Hilly, who was slumped in a chair. ‘He’s no better,’ he said.

‘He is not,’ the healer nodded, and blinked away sorrow. ‘I’m sorry, Thain. We’ve done all we know. Even tepid baths have had no effect.’

‘I should think not, when even the icy Tuckbourne couldn’t bring his fever down for more than a few hours,’ Pippin said. He sank to the chair on this side of the bed, still holding Tolly’s hand, and the next words were for the fevered hobbit. ‘Fight, cousin,’ he said. ‘It’s not like you, to give over, to let yourself slip away this way. Fight!’

Tolly blinked and turned his head toward the Thain, and Pippin felt a moment’s hope as the glazed eyes sought him.

But there was no recognition in the burning gaze. The chest rose and fell again, erratically, while Tolly half-raised himself, and stared imploring into Pippin’s face. And then his eyelids fluttered; he fell back on the pillows with a gasp.

‘Steady, Tolly,’ Pippin said, but he was startled speechless by the hobbit’s next words.

‘You’re not going to bury me!’ Tolly said with a sobbing breath. ‘Please... are you going to bury me?’

Pippin was taken back to a narrow lane in Minas Tirith, another cousin who swayed and murmured as one in sleep, who’d asked of him the same question, who... who was saved only by...

‘The healing hands of the King!’ Pippin said in sudden realisation.

***

At Ferdi’s murmur, Pimpernel raised herself to look upon him. ‘Yes, love,’ she soothed. ‘All’s well. All’s well, dearest. Do not stir yourself.’

‘Tolly,’ he muttered. ‘King.’

Pimpernel caught her breath in a gasp as she suddenly understood.

‘Tolly,’ he said again. ‘Best... cousin... best... friend...’

‘Yes, love,’ Nell soothed, stroking his forehead. ‘I understand. All’s well, truly it is...’

‘...hobbit... could... have...’ Ferdi said, the words widely spaced, but clear. Nell’s thoughts were spinning too fast to muse on how he could speak so clearly in sleep and not in waking, in singing but not in speech.

‘Shh, love,’ Nell soothed urgently. ‘Sleep, beloved, sleep, and I will tell the Thain.’

‘Tell... Thain...?’ Ferdi said, and then his eyes half-opened, to gaze dreamily into her face.

‘Yes, love, Pip will take care of it. He will,’ Pimpernel promised. ‘You sleep now.’

‘S-s-sleep,’ Ferdi agreed, closing his eyes again with a sigh, and within a breath or two he was snoring softly.

Pimpernel rose carefully from the bed, so as not to jar the sleeper into possible wakefulness, and hastened from the room.

***

‘Woodruff,’ Pippin barked, ‘Hilly!’

‘Sir,’ the healer said. ‘We’ve done all we...’

‘Not quite,’ Pippin said, decision in his tone. He stood to his feet and laid Tolly’s hand gently on the bed. ‘I want you to bundle him well, Woodruff, and prepare him for a journey—and you, Hilly, call for the best coach to be readied, with plenty of padding and cushions and warmers...’

Hilly, at once fully awake, jumped up from his chair. ‘Sir,’ he said, desperate hope lighting his countenance. ‘Cousin, I...’

Abandoning speech he darted from the room, exhaustion forgotten.

‘Thain Peregrin,’ Woodruff began. ‘I know that your heart is in the right place... This ill-considered scheme...’

‘Not at all, Woodruff,’ Pippin said, drawing himself to his full height and adopting his Thainliest air. ‘You’ve been saying, every day, that if he can just outlast the fever...’ He stopped, meeting her warning look with an earnest expression of his own. ‘Do you really think he can outlast the fever, now, in all honesty?’

Woodruff drew a deep breath, opened her mouth as if to speak, and after a long moment let the breath out again, shoulders slumping in defeat. ‘I cannot say,’ she admitted in a low voice, her eyes dropping to the figure on the bed.

‘Bundle him well, and we’ll carry him, bed and all, gently along,’ Pippin said, though a part of him was cold and still, as memory of another time stirred. He added under his breath, ‘At least we seek to heal him and not to give him to the flames.’

‘Sir?’ Woodruff said, startled, not sure she’d heard aright.

‘Bundle him well, Woodruff. I’ll see to the other details,’ Pippin said, and was gone.

***

In the corridor the two of them met, breathless sister and determined brother.

‘Wait, Pip!’ Pimpernel called.

‘I have no time...’ Pippin began.

‘But you must hear me!’ Nell insisted. ‘The King will be in Buckland, if he is not there already—you’re to meet him there day after the morrow, anyhow. Tolly’s dying—so says the Talk, I’ve heard it—and...’

‘Capital idea, Nell!’ Pippin said, seizing her by the hands and giving a good shake. ‘I’ll see to it immediately! You go back to your Ferdi, now, and if he wakes, tell him Tolly’s on his way to benefit from the healing hands of the King.’

And with a last squeeze of the hands he departed, to set his part of the preparations in motion.

Pimpernel stood blinking a moment, and then gave a decisive nod. Her brother was Thain, after all, and used to rendering quick decisions. She was impressed at his taking her counsel so quickly, without argument, and thought with satisfaction how reasonable her brother was these days, compared to his younger years.

With a lighter heart, she turned back to her own door, returned to the bed where Ferdibrand dozed. She lay down beside him, easing her arms around him, and whispered the hopeful news.