Chapter 14. Elusive Thought

Paladin sank heavily onto the bed, next to Ferdibrand. A dark foreboding was on him, though if asked, he'd not have been able to tell why. Within moments two chairs had been brought in and placed in the space between the beds, but for some reason the farmer felt too drained to get up and resettle himself.

'G'night, then,' said the hired hobbit who'd brought the chairs. He was the last to enter the room, after the litter bearers had left.

'Good night, Nod, and rest well,' Paladin said. 'It was a good night's effort on everyone's part; tell the lads of my thankfulness for their help.'

'I'll do that,' Nod said, and turned to leave, nearly colliding with Pervinca, who came bearing a tray with a pitcher of cool water, drawn fresh from the well, and glasses for drinking.

'Off to bed wit' ye, now,' Paladin said, nodding his thanks as she poured out and handed him a brimming glass. He drank greedily, draining the glass with a sigh of satisfaction. 'Good, lass, my thanks. Leave the tray; we'll help ourselves.' When she hesitated, he said more firmly, 'Morning'll come early...' but Pervinca interrupted him.

'Never mind, Da, it's here already.' At his frown, she threw up her hands. 'I go, I go!' But as she took herself off, she could be heard to grumble, 'As if anyone could sleep after a night like this one...!'

Mardi, leaning over the other bed, pulled up the covers to Tolly's chin. 'There,' he said low, as if to himself. 'All warm, and settled for sleeping.'

'Sleeping it off?' Paladin said, and the healer turned to meet his steady gaze.

'Sleeping what off, I ask you?' Mardi said. 'I told you, this is not a matter of too much drink.'

Tolly stirred and echoed, 'Drink,' and both hobbits stared at him, waiting to see what else he might say.

At last, Mardi bent closer. 'Do you thirst, brother?' he said. 'Can I bring you some water? Brandy?'

'Brandy,' Paladin muttered, but then Pimpernel entered, her face eager, her energy apparently restored. Paladin gestured to the empty chair beside Ferdibrand's bed. 'Come, lovie, sit yourself down in the chair, here.'

She perched on the edge of the near chair, and Paladin moved a little down the bed so that Pimpernel could take up Ferdi's hand. 'Ferdi?' she whispered. 'Ferdi, do you hear me?'

'Dry,' Tolly murmured as if in response to Nell's voice. 'Dry as dust.' Yet when Mardi lifted his head, holding a glass to his lips, he turned his face aside with the faintest of frowns.

'Dust... blown away on the wind,' Ferdi moaned in apparent agreement, and startled, the three watchers looked from Tolly to him and back again.

'It's as if they share the same dream,' Pimpernel said.

'Or nightmare,' Mardi answered, but he only spoke what all were thinking.

'Ferdi?' Pimpernel said again, a little louder, perhaps hoping to jar her beloved loose from his dreaming.

Jar him, she did, evidently, for he bolted suddenly upright in the bed, looking wildly about. 'Frodo!' he cried. 'Frodo! They're after you!' His chest rose and fell in ragged gasps, and he added, breathless, 'Run! Hide!'

'Cannot hide,' Tolly whispered. 'They find you. They always do.' The words sent a chill through the three watchers.

'Run, Frodo!' Ferdi sobbed, but Paladin had his arm around the stricken hobbit's shoulders and both he and Nell were speaking in their most soothing tones. At last Paladin was able to ease Ferdi back down on the pillow, but the hobbit remained restless, his head turning from one side to the other as if he still sought after something, or someone.

Paladin rose abruptly, stopping only to rest his hand momentarily on Pimpernel's shoulder. 'Stay with him, Nell, don't leave him,' he said. 'I have a quick matter of business, but I'll be back as soon as I may.'

'Business?' Mardi said. 'At this time of the night? Can it not wait until the dawning?'

'I'll be back,' Paladin said. 'I have the feeling this business cannot wait.'

He left the room without a backward glance at the two sleeping hobbits, and the two staring watchers.

He strode to the kitchen, where he found Nod still awake, for the hired hobbit had come to bid Eglantine good night and ask if there were any other service he could do for the family before retiring. He'd found Eglantine banking the fire out of habit, as she always did at the end of the day, an awkward business with one hand bound up in a cloth, and he'd taken over the job, though if he'd given the matter any thought he'd have built the fire up, instead, ready for breakfast making.

'Ah, Nod,' Paladin said with a jerk of his chin. 'I'm glad to find you still up and about.'

'Master?' the hired hobbit said, standing to his feet and brushing ash from his hands.

'I want you to take Silverstar, he's the fastest pony we've got, and ride into Whitwell. Rouse a quickpost rider, and give him a message for Frodo Baggins at Crickhollow in Buckland.'

'Buckland, sir?' Nod gasped, though he knew very well that his master's cousin Frodo had recently removed to that wild place on the wrong side of the Brandywine. 'Frodo Baggins won't even be to Buckland yet! Didn't young master Pip say they were to go afoot, and make it a walking holiday?'

Paladin was stopped short by this reply. He stood a moment as if in deep thought, then drew a shaking hand across his brow, no longer sure of his course. The urgent idea that had sprung forth at Ferdi's frantic plea was suddenly hidden, as a heavy cloud might hide the moon, casting all things into shadow.

'Dinny?' Eglantine said, crossing to him, to lay one hand upon his shoulder while her other arm encircled him. 'What is it, Dinny?'

'I--' he said, meeting her anxious eyes with a puzzled look. 'I don't know. There was something...'

Eglantine exchanged glances with the hired hobbit, and then looked back to her husband. 'Come, Dinny,' she said in her most persuasive tone. 'You're done in, what with no sleep the night before this one, and up early with the chores, and haying all the day, and much of it under a hot Sun, and then tramping halfway across the Shire and back, until this past night was nearly spent...'

'I'm well,' Paladin said, and made as if to shake her off, but she winced, and he was instantly solicitous. 'Aggie, I'm sorry, did I...? Your hand...'

'A trifling matter,' Eglantine said, adding briskly, 'but it's you that I'm more concerned with.' The clock in the parlour chimed five times, and her eyes opened wide in dismay. 'The night is spent! Why, it's an hour past time for the milking!'

'Don't you stir yourself, Mistress, nor the lasses, either,' Nod said in a decisive tone. ' 'Tis true, the lads only lately sought their beds,' (and he had the right of it; the searchers had arrived some time between half past three and four o' the clock, and gone to their beds to lie themselves down fully dressed, with the morning so soon to come upon them), ' 'twon't be sleep for anyone, neighbours or hired hobbits, not this night at least, for this night's gone and there's the day's work to be done.'

Paladin sucked in his breath, ready to tell Nod to take the day, and pass the word to the other hirelings, but then he let his breath out again with a whoosh. 'Another fine day?' was all he said. Every fine day after mid-September was a gift, and not one to be spurned, when any hay was still in the fields. If they were given a fine day, the farmers reasoned, there was a reason for it. Every bit of every crop they could gather might well be needed if the coming winter proved long or harsh.

The hired hobbit nodded. 'I'm afraid so,' he said. 'I looked out just now, to see that the yard was quiet and all was well, and for a sniff of the air, and it smells like a fine day to come.' He shrugged. 'Is here, already, I ought to have said.'

Turning to Eglantine, he continued his earlier thought. 'We'll take care of the milking, and the egg-gathering,' he said. 'Miss Nell, now, she ought not to leave her Ferdi's side, what with him being under the weather as he is,' for he'd seen Ferdi's and Tolly's faces, and he'd watched Mardi trying to rouse the hobbits, and his private opinion was that they'd taken some sort of near-deathly hurt or ill, for they did not look at all to him like drunken hobbits ought to look. 'And Miss Vinca, she only just stumbled off to bed.'

Paladin nodded, 'And you, my dear,' he said. 'You're not completely well, and your hand, it won't be healing if you won't take some rest.'

'I'm not as delicate as all that,' Eglantine began, but her husband overrode her.

'Perhaps Mardi ought to take a look at your hand...'

'It's a trifle!' Eglantine protested. 'It's healing already!'

'I'd like to see you use it, then,' Paladin said, and then held up his hand. 'No, as a matter of fact, I wouldn't, I was only saying... Go to bed, my dearest, take an hour or three of rest while we manage the milking and other chores. There's bread and cheese and a barrel of new apples in the pantry, and I know how to put the kettle on, and even how to brew a proper pot of tea, as you might recall--the hired hobbits won't starve, nor I myself, and when you and Vinca have rested you can put a proper meal on the table.'

To Nod he said, 'I'll just see the mistress to bed...'

'Aye, and I'll be rousing the lads,' Nod said for his own part. 'The cows'll be wondering what's holding up the milking, and the eggs won't be gathering themselves, I warrant.'

'I expect you have the right of it,' Paladin said, and easing his arm around Eglantine's waist, he led her, still reluctant, from the kitchen.

They paused at the door of Pip's room, glancing in.

Mardi looked up, but Nell had eyes only for her Ferdi's face, which she was watching with a mixture of hope and dread.

'No change,' the healer whispered. 'I'll let you know...'

'You do that,' Paladin said. There was a thought nagging at the back of his mind, something he'd felt compelled to do, something important, critically important he thought, but for the life of him he could not remember it now. He resisted the urge to shake his head to clear it, for Eglantine would see and press him to take some rest himself, and there was no time for such nonsense. In a few moments his hobbits would be hard at their chores, despite their efforts this night, and the lack of rest, and how could he in good conscience do any less?