Chapter 25. Too Little, Too Late

They bundled Tolly warmly against the icy fingers of wind that prowled the courtyard of the Great Smials, and carried him as gently as might be managed, through the corridors to one of the lesser doors, so as not to trouble the fevered hobbit with the stairs leading down from the Great Door.

Meadowsweet walked alongside her husband, holding his hand, and Mardi, as the eldest of Tolly’s brothers and a healer into the bargain, on the other, Woodruff walking beside him giving low-voiced orders and advice. Hilly followed, guiding Freddy along. The dull-witted Freddy was wide-eyed with wonder at the prospect of a journey to see a fabled King, and he seemed quite to have forgotten his grief over Tolly’s state.

Hilly’s wife Posey was shepherding Tolly’s and Meadowsweet’s children, and Pippin brought up the rear with Diamond on one side of him and Reginard, his steward, on the other. The Thain was giving quiet instructions regarding the journey to the Bridge, to meet the King and Queen and bless them on their way to the Southlands, a journey that was supposed to begin on the morrow. Diamond and Farry would be leaving the next day, as planned, in the Thain's second-best coach. Pippin planned to go now, with Tolly and Tolly's family, for he thought it best that he be the one to urge Elessar to use his healing arts on behalf of his cousin.

When they reached the outer door, the bearers stopped, by unspoken agreement, and lowered the litter; Posey urged the children forward, to gather around their father and mother. Meadowsweet kissed each one, with a few murmured instructions to “mind your auntie, now, and I’ll be back--we’ll be back, just as soon as may be.”

She surveyed her eldest son, who straightened under her scrutiny. ‘I’m counting on you, Gorbi,’ she said, and he nodded, and put out his arms to gather the younger ones under his wings.

Meadowsweet gulped and fought for control. She was going away from her little ones, further away than she’d ever imagined, and even though she was going with Tolly, there was no assurance that he’d be coming back again, at least not living and breathing. This might be her childers’ last sight of their father, as they knew him.

‘Coach is pulling up,’ Haldi reported, unnecessarily, for they could all see the dark form looming in the thick, round glass panes on either side of the doorframe.

On sudden impulse, Meadowsweet moved forward, to grasp Gorbi’s shoulder. ‘Kiss your da, now,’ she said. ‘Send your love along with him, your wishes...’ Her voice broke and she could say no more, but her wide-eyed eldest nodded, as if he understood; and he took up the youngest to lift her to pat her father’s face with soft little hands, to croon, ‘Nigh-night, Da. Nigh-night!’

‘I love you, Da,’ the next smallest said shyly, leaving a cool kiss on the fevered cheek.

Tolly struggled to open heavy eyelids, without success, and then he sighed and seemed to sleep again.

The two lads nearest in age to Gorbi bent over their father, blinking back tears, pecked their own kisses against cheek and forehead, and whispered something.

Haldi nodded to the bearers, and they lifted the litter. Meadowsweet tucked the blankets a little more securely around her husband as Haldi opened the door and held it for the travellers to pass through. Posey held the children back, out of the chill, and Hilly, escorting Freddy, nodded and looked his love at her. They’d shared a long embrace earlier, before the procession had been set in motion, and that would have to be enough to hold them until he returned.

Winter days are short, and the westering sun cast long shadows before them as the coach passed through Tuckborough and turned onto the Stock road. Two riders went before, both bearing lanterns, as yet unlit. They’d not be stopping at an inn as darkness fell, but would drive through the night and into the morning at the best pace they could manage without troubling the fevered hobbit.

Mardi, who almost never travelled far from the borders of the Tookland, sat at Tolly’s side, and Meadowsweet at her husband’s other side. The litter, stretched across the coach, took up two seats, supported at its head and foot. Hilly sat in one of the remaining seats, and Freddy in the other. If there was any way to bring Tolly to the healing hands of the King, his brothers would make the attempt. Pippin, too, was travelling with them, though his family were not scheduled to depart for the Bridge until the next day. The Thain insisted on taking a seat beside the driver, atop the coach, that Tolly’s brothers and wife might ride inside.

Mardi had lit the lamps inside the coach; their cheerful light under the red pleated shades cast a false glow on Tolly’s face, as of returning health and strength.

Freddy ran an appreciative hand over the velvet interior. ‘Posh,’ he said. ‘Quite the adventure, riding in the Thain’s best coach! Tolly ought to go to visit the King more often, don’t you think?’

Meadowsweet gulped back the sharp words she wanted to say; poor Freddy hadn’t the wit to understand the gravity of the situation. He’d wept earlier, thinking Tolly dead after overhearing something-or-other, but on finding that his brother was alive, and to be sent to the Brandywine Bridge, to meet the King, well... he’d forgotten his grief in childlike wonder and excitement. He had complete faith in the magic of the King’s hands, while to the others—save perhaps the Thain—the promise of healing seemed more a fairy tale than a real possibility.

Still, what choice did they have? The fever went on, and on, burning Tolly’s life away, with no sign of ending. He’d burn out well before the fever did, the way things were looking. He’d not opened his eyes nor spoken again after that anguished appeal to the Thain; through all the preparations he’d lain quiet, the coverlet scarcely rising and falling to show that he still breathed.

They stopped at intervals, at inns, to change ponies, to replenish the warmers with fresh coals, to have hampers of food and drink handed in. Freddy was in raptures at one point, where the bread was so fresh out of the oven that it steamed when they lifted the cloth away, and he pronounced the chicken “delectable” and tucked in with enthusiasm, while the others pecked at their portions out of duty and Mardi’s urgings to keep their strength up, rather than appetite. Tolly, of course, neither ate nor drank. Even the aroma of fresh-baked bread and toothsome apple tarts could not rouse him.

Mardi held Tolly’s hand in his for much of the journey, his finger on the pulse point, his attention on the galloping heartbeats. At several points along the journey, he’d rap at the ceiling of the coach with his walking stick, for when they travelled along rougher stretches, he fancied that Tolly’s heart stumbled a bit in its frantic race.

‘Whoa,’ Pippin said to the driver, hearing yet another bout of tapping. ‘Steady the ponies, Ned,’ and Ned nodded, pulling his charges down to a walk. The Thain had a few choice words to say about the hobbits in charge of keeping this stretch of road repaired, and Ned was glad he wasn’t one of them. He wouldn’t want to be wearing one of their hats when the Thain got around to telling them their duty!

The lanterns held by the riders ahead of the coach cast a lonely light there under the trees. They’d left the open country well behind them, had passed the Crowing Cockerel just outside the bounds of Tookland and the Rock and a Hard Place an hour or two afterwards, followed by the Dancing Duckling and then the Black Pony Inn.

The road was rougher, now, rutted, washed by a heavy storm that had blown across the Shire some time earlier, and it was that dark hour between middle night and winter's dawning, when the knocking from within the coach sounded more urgently than ever. ‘Steady, Ned,’ Pippin said again, and began to climb down even before the ponies had been pulled to a stop.

He opened the door, to see Meadowsweet leaning over her husband, weeping and pleading. ‘Mardi?’ he said. Hilly gripped Tolly’s blanketed legs, his face stricken. Freddy, mercifully, was asleep, his head back against the seat, rich snores proceeding from his mouth.

The healer looked up, his face old and deeply carved with the knowledge of his calling. ‘He’s sinking fast,’ he whispered. ‘I doubt he’ll last an hour or two, at this rate. How far is the next inn? Can he at least die decently, in a bed?’

‘We’re nearly to the Goose,’ Pippin said as the news took him in the pit of his stomach. He’d known the situation was grave, but he’d hoped... ‘I’ll send Haldi ahead, to ready a room, and we’ll bring him there as gently as this dratted road will allow. Perhaps an hour, Mardi, can he manage that long?’

‘I don’t know,’ Mardi said, troubled, and then he straightened his shoulders. ‘Well, we’d best get on,’ he said. ‘No use sitting here.’

Hilly got up abruptly from his seat, nearly hitting his head in the process. ‘You ride inside, Thain,’ he said. ‘It’s been cold enough, I dare say, atop the coach, and no use your taking a chill. It was a good effort, even if it was a vain one, and I thank you for your courtesy.’

Pippin protested, but Hilly shouldered past him without apology, climbing up onto the box without another word, and sitting down next to the driver, stared stonily ahead.

The Thain had no reprimand for the hobbit. He knew very well what was the matter. Hilly idolised Tolly, and couldn’t bear to sit by helplessly, to watch his brother die.

Pippin waved to the lantern bearers, waiting a little ahead of them. Haldi pulled his pony around and moved to the coach. ‘Haldi,’ Pippin said. ‘Ride ahead to the Goose. We’ll be stopping over there.’

‘But I thought,’ the hobbit said, and then nodded as if in sudden understanding. ‘Very well, sir.’ He turned his pony’s head and dug his heels into its sides, sending it into the darkness at a smart pace. The light of his lantern diminished and soon was lost in the foggy gloom.

Pippin looked after him for a moment, gripping the door tightly in his perturbation. They’d come so close! Another two hours to the Ferry, at the slow pace they’d been managing, if he could persuade the Tooks to use the Ferry; or six to the Bridge... Another six hours, to bring Tolly to the King and his healing hands... might as well be six days, or six weeks, or months, for all the good the relative nearness did them. He took a deep breath, letting it out again in an explosive sigh. ‘Very well, Ned,’ he called softly to the driver. ‘Drive on, as gently as may be.’

Ned saluted with his whip, and as the Thain climbed into the coach and pulled the door shut behind him, he chirruped to the ponies and with the slightest of jerks, the coach eased into motion.