Chapter 42. Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

Tolly ate, surrounded by his relieved, laughing brothers, cozened by his doting wife. Meadowsweet was at times sharp with him, it must be admitted, but at this moment he might have tried to drink his tea standing on his head and she’d not have murmured a word against it or even given him one of her looks, of the kind usually reserved for erring young sons, but not unknown to her husband.

Tolly could have anything he asked for, that was in the pantry, and as much of it as he wanted. The Thain was paying all. Just the sight of the seal of the Thain had been enough to open every door, figuratively and literally. After all, the Thain had more gold than the King, or so the Shirefolk maintained. And as fast as he tried to spend it, somehow he managed to accumulate it even faster. The proprietor was wondering if, perhaps, he might earn enough with this one commission for the roof repairs due on the stables... And so not only did he fulfil every order, but he thought up and sent a great many delicacies and comforts, not only to Tolly’s room, but to the Thain and his mysterious guest in the stables.

Tolly, long lost in delirium, found himself ravenous upon awakening. His family pressed food upon him, and he happily obliged, and asked for more. At last he’d filled up every corner he possessed--he thumped his protruding stomach and proclaimed he’d burst with another mouthful, and then he yawned widely.

‘There now,’ Mardi said, still beaming with joy at this unexpected recovery. ‘I think you’ll do.’

‘That I will,’ Tolly said with another yawn.

‘Sleep now, love,’ Meadowsweet said, picking up the tray from his lap and handing it to Hilly. Mardi pulled out the extra pillows that had propped Tolly in a sitting position, for eating, and Meadowsweet pulled up the coverlet and settled on the bed beside him, putting her arms around him and snuggling her face into the crook between his neck and shoulder with a sigh.

‘Well then, I suppose we could all take a page out of that book,’ Mardi said, draping an extra blanket over Meadowsweet. ‘It has been a long and wearying journey.’

‘Long?’ Freddy said, who’d sensibly slept when he was tired, and so was much brighter than the others.

‘Long,’ Mardi said with decision. ‘I’m going to seek a little snooze, myself, and I’ll see you at the noontide meal.’ He made good on his words by moving to the adjacent bed and lying himself down, and from one moment to the next he was asleep. He was a healer after all, and healers learn the trick of falling asleep quickly, and wakening just as quicky when needed.

Freddy stared, and Hilly put down the tray on the little table by the door, and pulled at Freddy's arm. ‘Come, brother,’ he said. ‘I think they’re serving elevenses in the common room.’

‘Well, oughtn’t we to waken them, then, if they’re missing elevenses?’ Freddy said, disregarding the fact that Mardi had only just fallen asleep, and Meadowsweet was drowsing, not quite asleep, but not far from sleeping, either.

Hilly smiled and answered, keeping his voice low. ‘We’ve been eating from second breakfast until now, to keep Tolly company,’ he said. ‘I think they need sleep more than food, at the moment.’

Freddy shook his head in wonderment, but he allowed Hilly to escort him to the common room, sit him down, and order him a generous platter of sustenance.

Haldi came up then from a corner, where he’d been slowly emptying one pot of tea after another. ‘What’s the word on Tolly?’

Hilly slapped him on the shoulder with a chuckle. ‘That’s right,’ he said, ‘you didn’t know...’

‘I know that some outlandish fellow came in, brought by the Thain from who-knows-where,’ Haldi said, leading Hilly back to his table, and the half-emptied teapot waiting there under its warming cosy, ‘and that they called for boiling water, as if poor Tolibold were about to give birth or some such fantastic thing.’

Hilly stared at this, fatigue forgotten for the moment.

Haldi pulled out a chair for Hilly's convenience, sat down in his own, and went on, ‘and I brought the teakettle myself, only to have the door closed in my face... Did you not see me there, waiting, with the rest of you?’ He snorted. ‘No, of course you didn’t! You had eyes only for the door, ears only to listen for some hint of what was happening within... and then the Thain opened the door that the family might come in, and he slipped out with that mysterious giant...’

Haldi had never seen a giant, of course, but to him any Man or Elf would seem to be one.

Hilly sank into the chair, and now was nodding, being carried along by the narrative, but Haldi shocked him into wakefulness awith his next words.

‘I followed them to the stables...’

‘You followed them...!’

‘Aye,’ Haldi answered, his irritation plain. ‘I’m the Thain’s escort, am I not? And him going off with some overtall fellow who keeps his face hid... I don’t like the look of it, don’t like it at all! Now,’ he said, reaching across the table to seize Hilly’s shirt, ‘How is Tolly? He must be still in the world, or you’d be drowning your sorrows about now, rather than listening to me maunder on.’

‘He’s well,’ Hilly said, grabbing Haldi’s sleeve to pull his hand away.

‘Well?’ Haldi said suspiciously. ‘Not dead yet, in any event.’

‘Well!’ Hilly insisted, feeling giddy. ‘Fever’s broken, and he’s been eating since he wakened, and he wakened not long after we were called into the room...’

Haldi had been nodding through this recitation, but not taking it in, it seems, for his eyes widened at the last and he echoed, ‘Eating... wakened...’ His face broke into a broad grin, and he slopped some tea into his mug and started to gulp it down, but then slammed the mug onto the table and waved his arm to signal to the serving maid. ‘Well!’ he said. ‘This calls for something more than tea, I’d say!’

And when the server came to see what was the matter, with a timid “More tea, sir?” Haldi’s answer was to pick up the cosied pot and shove it into her hands. ‘Tea?’ he bellowed. ‘Tea? Why, we’re celebrating! Sit yourself down, Hilly! My dear,’ (this last to the server once more), ‘two of your best... finest... what ever you have going!’ he finished, not sure of the time of day, for he’d been sitting there, he didn’t know how long, after riding deep into the night. ‘And the best beer you have in the house!’ he called after her.

Turning back to Hilly, he said, ‘Tolly’s well! Eating, you say! That is good news!’

‘It is indeed,’ Hilly said, answering Haldi’s grin with one of his own. ‘And now, if you’ll just excuse me, cousin,’ he said.

‘Don’t want the food to get cold,’ Haldi warned.

‘I won’t,’ Hilly said. ‘I mean, I’ll be right back. I just want to look in on the Thain, you know. Escort, and all that.’

‘They’re in the last stall at the end of the row,’ Haldi said. ‘Quiet, and out of the way, and less likely to have hobbits coming in to gawk, if you take my meaning.’

Hilly nodded.

‘Strange place to have breakfast,’ Haldi said. ‘You sent a feast out to them, didn’t you? The Thain said so, anyhow, and then he sent me back here to wait, after the food arrived. Said he didn’t need any escorting at the moment, but if he thought of any messages to send, he wanted to know where to find me.’

‘Ah,’ Hilly said.

‘By then you were back in Tolly’s room, and the door was shut, and I couldn’t find anyone who’d tell me anything,’ Haldi grumbled. ‘And so I came here, and here I’ve remained, drinking a Sea of tea until I thought I might float away...!’

‘I’m sorry, cousin,’ Hilly said, ‘I wasn’t thinking at all of you, I’m afraid. I was so overjoyed...’

‘O’ course you were,’ Haldi said gruffly. ‘Think nothing of it.’ He stood and gave Hilly a little shove. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘if you’re not about to fall asleep on your feet, you were going out to the stables to look in on the Thain. Or would you rather mind the table here, until the food arrives, and I be the one to go out to the stables?’

‘No, no,’ Hilly said hastily. ‘I’ll go.’

‘Don’t let the food get cold,’ Haldi said in parting.

“If I’m overlong, you eat my portion for me, and I’ll just order more when I come back in,’ Hilly said. ‘The Thain told old Barlow that cost is no object.’ And he left Haldi muttering, That he did; bless his generous soul...

***

Hilly found the stable workers going about their business of cleaning stalls, working cheerily but without the usual hobbity chatter and song. He received nods, and hushing fingers laid to silent lips when he tried to ask a question. Shaking his head in wonderment, he made his way to the back of the stables, last stall at the end of the row, to find...

A sleeping Thain, cushioned on a pile of straw, and the mysterious tall figure sitting quietly nearby, as if on guard, pipe in his mouth.

Hilly started forward--a pipe, in a stable!--realising almost at once that there was no smell of smoke, that the pipe was empty and cold.

He’d chewed on the stem of his pipe often enough, while spying on encroaching ruffians during the Troubles, when the smell of pipe-weed would have given the presence of the watchers away. A sudden kindred feeling sprang up in his breast, a strange thing, perhaps, for one of his stature to feel for a King, but...

‘I came to see if you needed aught,’ he said softly.

All is well, the visitor whispered, taking the pipe from his mouth.

A smile crooked the corners of Hilly’s mouth. As if the disguise were needed, at this point in time... but the visitor was still playing the game that the Thain had set in motion. Hilly could play along, after a fashion.

‘It is, indeed,’ he murmured. ‘But I think he might grow chilled, even if there are healing hands nearby... so if you’ll excuse me...’

The hooded head inclined slightly in assent, and perhaps tacit recognition of Hilly’s perceptiveness.

The hobbit left the stall and took hold of the nearest hobbit--a young lad who looked like a younger copy of the innkeeper. ‘Blankets?’ he said, keeping his voice low. ‘The... guests in the furthest stall are weary, and as there is no room in the inn for such...’

The lad looked at him, wide-eyed, before nodding and responding, ‘We’ll have to fetch a double-armful then, for the tall one, he’ll take twice as many just to cover him once over!’

‘Go, then, lad,’ Hilly said with a smile, and the lad hurried off.

Hilly went back to the stall and waited by the door. When the hooded head moved upward, he made a staying gesture. ‘Blankets coming,’ he said, with a gesture at Pippin. ‘Wouldn’t want him to take cold.’

Certainly not, the visitor whispered.

Hilly, who was used to talk, and lots of it, somehow managed to stand in silence until the blankets arrived. He thanked the lad and gave him a coin for his troubles, and then he brought the blankets into the stall and proceeded to tuck a couple around Pippin without disturbing his rest.

‘Poor fellow,’ Hilly said. ‘Absolutely exhausted.’

‘It has been a difficult time,’ the visitor murmured. ‘His son taken by ruffians, a close cousin all but slain, and then the fever descending upon the Tookland... He’s had much to worry him.’

‘I hope that the athelas you brewed for Tolly will do Pip some good as well,’ Hilly said. He had the feeling that the hidden eyes were boring into him, measuring his words, and he hid a grin.

But the visitor only said, ‘He held the basin and breathed the steam, was still breathing the steam when I left the room.’

‘That athelas is marvellous stuff,’ Hilly said, sitting himself down on a convenient pile of straw in one of the vacant corners. He yawned and stretched. ‘Too bad that run-of-the-mill healers cannot tap its essence so well as the healing hands can.’

‘It is a pity,’ the visitor agreed. His tone, low-voiced as it was, might have reflected a wry smile.

Hilly stifled another yawn and apologised. ‘I cannot thank you enough,’ he said, and for some reason he was struggling to keep his eyes open. He’d just rest here a moment, and then he’d go back to the common room, for surely the food would be arriving at Haldi’s table at any moment...

‘No thanks needed.’

‘No,’ Hilly insisted. ‘For I am sure it would have been a very different morning, if Pip had not fetched you here from the Outlands...’ He blinked, and now it was not only hovering sleep but tears of remembered fear and grief that hampered his vision. ‘Tolly... he... he would have...’ He could not speak the dreadful word.

The visitor held up a staying hand. ‘All is well,’ he said again.

‘I cannot thank you enough,’ Hilly whispered, wiping furtively at his eyes.

‘I am well-thanked,’ the visitor said, and Hilly could almost picture the smile on the noble face that he had come to know during his summer at the Lake. How could he ever have thought all Men to be such clumsy, ungainly, unlovely fellows?

He yawned again and slid down a little in the straw. ‘I take it you’re waiting for cover of darkness, to slip out of the Shire again,’ he said, and had to stop again to make way for another yawn.

The visitor did not answer, simply returned the cold pipe to his mouth and began to hum a quiet tune. Hilly’s head was nodding, but it didn’t seem to matter. The tune was pleasant to hear, one he’d heard the children of Elrond sing often at the Lake. Pippin had liked to joke that the Elves of Rivendell sang it in the evenings to lull Bilbo to sleep, when they thought the old hobbit needed the rest.

Pippin smiled in his sleep, and Hilly slumped a little lower against the wall. He’d just listen to the end of the tune, and then...

***

When Haldi came in search, some time later, he found the visitor sitting quietly, as if on guard. Pippin lay in one corner of the vacant stall, sound asleep, and Hilly in another corner, his soft snores blending gently with those of the Thain. Both were warmly covered with blankets.

‘Ah,’ Haldi said. ‘I see.’

All is well, the cloaked figure whispered.

Haldi nodded. ‘No doubt about it,’ he said. ‘My thanks to you, stranger, for saving the life of my good friend.’

The visitor nodded, and Haldi, finding no more words needing to be said, withdrew once more, to take up his assigned post at the table in the common room, until the Thain should tell him otherwise.