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One Who Sticks Closer than a Brother  by Lindelea


Chapter 29. While There’s Breath, There’s Life

As Pippin watched silently from the door, Elessar bent closer to Tolly, so still and pale, the colour once more gone from his cheeks. Pippin held his breath for a long moment, until he saw the slightest stir of the coverlet, to show that his cousin still breathed.

‘He is nearly spent,’ Elessar murmured, ‘but we are come in time, I think. It is not the Black Breath that we contend with here, though there is the mark of great evil upon his spirit, overlaid with weariness, and grief.’ He sighed, and shook his head. ‘We’ll make the best of the time before the athelas, that we can manage.’

‘A watched pot never boils,’ Pippin muttered incongruously.

Elessar’s lips tightened slightly as he lifted his head and turned to meet Pippin’s anxious look. ‘He is as stubborn a Took as any I’ve known,’ he said, and releasing Tolly’s hand he threw back his hood and turned back once more to bend to his work, softly calling Tolly’s name, one hand still overlapping the hobbit’s fevered brow.

***

Dark. Still. Cold.

Struggle had been useless, with the weight of earth pressing down on him, and at last, Tolly had ceased his efforts, rested his tormented muscles, and lay quiet, waiting for death to take him, wishing, almost, for the relief that release would bring.

He was exhausted, and now he realised that his eyes were wide and staring into the darkness, and so he closed his eyes. One last sleep, to waken at the Feast...

As he felt himself slipping away he felt the burden of weight become lighter, somehow, and he thought he heard his father’s voice calling to him...

Only to feel the urgent grasp of hands pulling at him, rolling him over—to his body’s protest, as they pressed upon scrapes and bruises fresh and raw and painful. It was not his father calling his name, but two boyish voices, low and filled with fear and grief.

Tolly!

He groaned and blinked, feeling trickles of dirt on his face, falling from his hair as they pulled at him to sit him upright in the hole they’d made, digging frantically without benefit of spade or shovel. He blinked... and saw the light of day, and faces, dim in his sight. ‘Tod—Toddy?’

And one of them clutched him close, burying his head against Tolly’s filthy shirt, sobbing, and the other patted his brother’s shoulder, awkward, but blinking back his own tears of relief. ‘Steady, Toddy, he’s all right. He’s all right.’

‘Teddy?’ Tolly managed. It was torture to bring his arms around the sobbing child, but he did.

‘We watched... we hid...’ young Ted whispered. ‘We saw...’

‘I thought—I thought they’d killed you!’ Toddy sobbed.

‘I thought they did, too,’ Tolly answered, but Ted spoke over him.

‘We waited until they’d gone, and then we had to get you out of there—we had to! We couldn’t leave you, buried with all the rubbish, as if you were no more than rubbish yourself!’

But Tolly wasn’t listening; he was thinking of the boys, and what the ruffians might do, to find them there. ‘We have to get away from here,’ he said. ‘We have to hide all traces you’ve been here, and get you away, lest they find you.’

The older boy nodded at once, though his concern was more for what they’d do to Tolly. He took firm hold of Toddy’s shoulder and shook him a little. ‘Come now, Toddy,’ he said, ‘no time for it now, unless you want to bury your head in Mam’s apron and leave the men to do the work!’

His words had their intended effect. The younger boy pulled away from Tolly, sniffling and protesting.

Tolly tried to raise himself and groaned. The boys took him from either side, dragging him from the hole, and further—into a patch of brambles to one side, and then on Teddy’s orders they went back to fill the hole again, to smooth over the dirt so that it looked as it did before they’d unearthed their friend.

Tolly must have slept again, or swooned, for they had a hard time rousing him when they’d finished. ‘You’re bleeding,’ the older boy said, gently touching Tolly’s head. He took a handkerchief from his pocket—his mother insisted that he carry a clean one, for some reason or other, and now he was glad of it!—and bound it about the hobbit’s brow.

‘They hit you,’ Toddy whispered, his eyes wide.

‘Twas a kindness,’ Tolly said lamely, ‘or so they thought, on their part, to spare me the agonies of stifling...’

‘Hardly kindness,’ Teddy said, his eyes flashing and his tone fierce. ‘I’d like to stifle them!’

‘Ted-lad!’ Tolly rebuked, in as stern a tone as he could manage, for though he felt much the same, it was hardly a proper sentiment to plant, water, and nurture in a tender soul.

The boy flushed and dropped his eyes, and after a steadying breath he looked up again to say, ‘Tolly, we’ve got to find you a better hiding than this...’

‘Allium’s smial!’ his younger brother said, excited, but remembering to keep his voice low.

‘Yes, Toddy, just the thing!’ Ted said, slapping Tod’s shoulder in approval, and immediately the boys seized Tolly between them, dragging him out from under the brambles. He suppressed his groans as best he could as they helped him along to the little play-place their sisters had constructed—a hollow log from what had been a tall and stately tree, made homely with a carpet of leaves, and dishes made from flat pieces of bark, and cups made of hollowed halves of nutshells.

They made him comfortable, or as comfortable as could be, concealing the opening with a drift of fallen leaves, and promising to return so soon as they might, with food.

He warned them to be careful, not to tell their mother or father or uncle, or sisters or older brother, for that matter. It was a good thing that Allium and her younger sisters were too busy helping their mother with preparations for the winter, to have time for play. The lads had been out in the woods, gathering nuts and berries for the larder, and had come back to the sight of Tolly dragging the blanket of sticks to the hole he’d dug, with whip- and club-wielding ruffians attending him. They’d secreted their harvest and hidden themselves to watch, and a good thing for Tolly it had been, too.

It was not long before Teddy was back, with a cloth full of bread and cheese, and Toddy behind him carrying a handkerchief gently tied up with berries inside. ‘We gave the sackful to our mum,’ Teddy said, ‘but saved out some for you, and she gave us leave to play until eventides.’

Tolly hungrily devoured the food, stopping to offer some to the boys, and though boys are invariably hungry they declined, sitting at their ease and conversing in whispers while watching the hobbit stuff himself. ‘O my,’ Teddy said, for he’d been thinking the food would be enough to carry Tolly back to the Great Smials. But then, he hadn’t thought of the effects of the work the hobbit had done, digging that great hole and then having to fill it in again.

When Tolly finished, all he was lacking was a draught of water, though the berries had helped somewhat to slake his thirst. His eyes were closing of themselves, and Teddy hushed his younger brother in the middle of a long story. ‘But you need to sleep, and heal,’ he said, and cocking his head he added, ‘And I hear Mum calling to us! We’ll be back so soon as we can, with more food, and water if we can manage it.’

‘Don’t let the ruffians catch you at it,’ Tolly wakened enough to say.

Young Ted shook his head earnestly. ‘We’ll be ever so careful,’ he promised, and if the boys were thinking of the danger to Tolly, and Tolly was thinking of the danger to the boys, well, they were in full agreement in any event.

They returned as promised, the next day, with more bread and cheese, and apples, and a skin of water of the sort their father and uncle carried into the woods filled with refreshing drink. The water had an odd taste to Tolly’s tongue, but he was thirsty enough that it didn’t matter. He slept most of that day, and when he wasn’t sleeping he was cautiously exercising his arms and legs, easing the stiffness from his muscles, getting ready for the long trek.

The boys came early the next day, when they were supposed to be hunting eggs from the hens that scratched about their yard, for it was a day of grey and rain and it was likely they wouldn’t be sent out to hunt berries this day. Once again they brought a sack of bread and cheese, only it was in much greater quantity than they’d been able to coax out of their mother the previous two days. ‘She knows something, I think,’ Teddy whispered as he handed the sack to Tolly. ‘She didn’t say anything, but when Dad’s back was turned she stuffed the sack full.’

‘Bless her,’ Tolly said, bowing first to the boys before he took up a handful of cheese sandwich.

He offered it to Teddy, but the boy declined, saying they’d breakfasted before being sent out to gather eggs. ‘And gather eggs, we must,’ Teddy added, rising from his sitting position to his knees, having to bend slightly to remain upright beneath the curving roof. ‘We don’t want to be gone too long, with three ruffians at home, toasting their heels at our hearth and grumbling of the rain.’

‘No, they might begin to wonder,’ Toddy said, too solemn for a boy of his age. He threw his arms around Tolly then, to the hobbit’s surprise, and sat back after a fervent hug, with a grave look.

‘What is it, laddie?’ Tolly said gently.

‘We’re friends again, are we not?’ Toddy said, a quaver in his voice. ‘I mean, I know you shouted at us, and everything, but...’

‘O Toddy,’ the hobbit said, grieved, and he reached to hug the boy once more. ‘We were never not friends, laddie-mine. That was my poor attempt to protect you, to protect your mum, your family...’

I knew it,’ the older boy said staunchly, and as his younger brother sat back again he held out a hand to Tolly, who took it, and the boy gave the hobbit’s hand a firm shake. ‘We’ll always be friends, shan’t we, Tolly?’

‘Always,’ the hobbit whispered, a lump in his throat. ‘Though surely I don’t deserve such friendship.’

‘Always!’ Toddy insisted, holding out his own hand for a shake. ‘Always and forever!’

‘Aye,’ Tolly affirmed, blinking a little, and then nodding with a grin. ‘For ever and a day, and a fortnight more than that, into the bargain!’

***

When the boys returned the next day, the hobbit was gone.

***

A/N: Some turns of phrase borrowed from “The Houses of Healing” in The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien.





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