Chapter 16. Sleepers Wake

A firm knock sounded upon the door, which was flung open immediately after, without waiting for anyone to rise and go to the door and open it, or even Paladin’s cheery, “Come in!”

A breathless Haldibold nearly fell into the kitchen, his youngest son Hilly holding his elbow as if the older hobbit needed the support. ‘Tolly!’ he said, eyes wide. ‘He’s here, they said… they found us in the marshes to say the lads had taken too much drink, and wandered from their course…’ A fluster of apologies followed, by which time Paladin had reached him and taken his other elbow, soothing as he might a fractious pony.

At last Hilly jerked at his father’s arm to still the flow of words. ‘Da!’ he said, and that was enough for Paladin’s words to interrupt the flow.

‘…not in their cups, not so far as Mardi can tell…’

‘not…’ Haldi echoed. ‘Rosebriar said she’d sent Tolly out into the dark with a splash of the second-best brandy, just to warm the lad in the chill of the misty morn – ah, but I shook my head at that, but mothers will go on with thinking their family will break with rough handling, and they must be cosseted and wrapped in cotton wool, they must, and…’

He looked to Eglantine in apology, ‘…and to hear he’d led Ferdi wrong, I’m that sorry, Missus! He’ll have an earful from me, you can be assured of that! Where is the young rascal? I hope his head is splitting!’

They’ll never live it down, Eglantine heard Pervinca whisper, and when she glanced at the lass, her youngest daughter was shaking her head. Ruefully, she thought, she has the right of it… but before she could speak, Paladin was tugging at Haldi’s arm and saying, ‘Come along—they’re still i' the bed, but…’

‘Abed!’ Haldi said in consternation. ‘Abed! I' the nooning! I should think you’d dunked them in the trough to sober them up, and set them about some good, hard work to begin to make amends for all the bother…’

‘They were not blind drunk, I tell you,’ Paladin insisted. ‘It’s somewhat else, I'm telling you, some mischief afoot…’

‘Mischief, aye,’ Haldi agreed, but he allowed himself to be led from the room.

Hilly had released his father to Paladin, for Pervinca was urging him to take an empty spot at table, and she bustled to lay a plate, bowl, and silver, and the thick, meaty soup was perfuming the room with welcome. He was just sitting down when Paladin said “some mischief afoot” and at this, he half-rose again. ‘Mischief?’ he said. ‘What mischief?’

‘Eat!’ Pervinca insisted, pushing him down. ‘Your brother’s asleep, and taken no ill, or so your other brother says, and in the meantime I can see you’re perishing of the hunger…!’ For Hilly was a tween, of about the same age as her little brother Pippin, and Pippin was everlastingly hungry, as tweens invariably are.

Hilly’s nose twitched at the good, rich smells surrounding him, and he took a muffin from the platter in spite of himself, only belatedly remembering to bow to Eglantine (as Paladin, the host of the home and meal, was by now out of the room with Haldi) and thank her for the food.

‘Yes, eat, Hilly!’ Eglantine said, and the tween needed no further urging. Pervinca filled his bowl more than once, and he stuffed himself with food, glad to recover from his long tramp of the marshes, searching for his missing brother. The hired hobbits happily regaled him with their tale of finding Tolly and Ferdi mysteriously asleep at the top of one of the great hills, wrapped well in their cloaks against the night’s chill, a bright fire warming them, and no sign of their ponies or how or why they’d made the ascent, except for a couple of arrows evidently dropped by Ferdi to mark their trail.

‘But why…?’ Hilly said for the eighth or ninth time, only to be urged to “have some more bread and butter, and would ye care for another bowl of soup?” as no one could answer the question. They’d seen the fire at the top of the hill and thought little enough of it, bent on reaching the marshes so soon as possible. But then someone had stumbled over the arrow on the pathway, and Paladin had recognised it by the fletching as one of Ferdi’s, and bending to illuminate the path with a lantern and a couple of torches they’d discerned a few ponies’ hoofmarks ascending, and thought they ought to investigate the hilltop before going further. Perhaps whoever it was, enjoying the fire at the top of the hill, hunters sleeping under the stars, perhaps, might have seen Ferdi and Tolly… only to discover Ferdi and Tolly themselves!

In the meantime, Haldi had just finished his examination of the sleeping hobbits in Pippin’s room. Perplexed, he shook his head and exchanged a glance with Mardi.

‘Well?’ Paladin said.

‘If it were drink, they’d be easy enough to awaken,’ Haldi said, ‘or if not, I'd smell the brandy on their breath, and even so, a good pinch of the ear ought to bring them round, at least enough to groan!’

‘Tried that on the hilltop,’ Mardi repeated, for he’d rapidly told his father all about the finding of the two, and his own efforts to rouse them, as Haldi was making his examination, ‘and again here, but they just keep sleeping.’

‘Just sleep? Naught else?’ Haldi wanted to know.

‘Else?’ Paladin said. ‘What else would you mean?’

‘Not rousing at all,’ Haldi said. ‘Just sleeping, peacefully, like this, since you found them?’

‘No,’ Paladin said slowly, blinking a little, interrupting Mardi as the younger healer began to answer. ‘Not all peaceful. They seemed to wander in dreams at first…’

‘Nightmare,’ Mardi agreed, ‘why, Ferdi even sat up and shouted at one point…’

‘Shouted? But didn’t waken?’ Haldi wanted to know.

‘Shouted,’ Paladin affirmed, feeling once again a niggling in the back of his brain, something that he needed to do, if only he could remember what it was.

‘Very curious,’ Haldi said, sitting down in the chair between the beds that Mardi had vacated. He shook his head and repeated, ‘Very curious.’ He looked from one peaceful face to the other. ‘And you say they were very pale, with sunken eyes, when you first found them…?’

‘And when they were brought in,’ Pimpernel said, finding her tongue. She’d watched and listened eagerly, hoping that Haldi would have an idea for wakening her beloved to the world once more, but it appeared the old healer was as baffled as anyone. ‘Very pale, but their colour has returned as the morning goes on…’

‘It’s noontide,’ Paladin corrected absently, and then nearly everyone in the room was startled as Tolly abruptly sat up in the bed.

‘Noontide!’ he said. ‘I'm belated! Why, Mum wanted me to…’ his voice trailed off as he took in his surroundings. ‘But…’ he said in bewilderment. ‘Where…? How…?’

‘You’re at Whittacres, my son,’ Haldi said. He’d jumped to his feet at Tolly’s sudden move, and now he had an arm about Tolly’s shoulders and was restraining him. ‘Steady, lad; stay in the bed and let me have a look at you.’

‘In the bed!’ Tolly said in consternation, and then his gaze found Pimpernel among the surrounding hobbits and he flushed and pulled up the bedcovers to his chin. ‘In the bed! In what bed? At Whittacres? How ever did I come to be here?’

Mardi had quickly propped pillows behind Tolly, and now Haldi eased Tolly back against them, half sitting. ‘Steady, lad,’ the older healer said. ‘Steady, now, and try and tell us what you remember.’

‘Remember?’ Tolly echoed, his puzzlement plain. ‘Remember?’

‘What is the last thing you remember?’ Paladin said, crowding a little closer after a glance at Ferdi (who still slumbered on).

‘The last thing…’ Tolly said, and blinked, at last sinking back into the pillows’ support. ‘I'm at Whittacres?’ he asked after a pause.

‘You are,’ Paladin assured him.

‘But how did I come to be here?’ Tolly said.

‘Enough about that now,’ Paladin insisted. ‘What is the last thing you remember?’

Tolly muttered a few disjointed words, and finally said, ‘Remember… But I don’t remember…’

‘What is the last thing?’ Paladin said, not to be denied.

‘Tell us about the day,’ Haldi put in smoothly, sitting himself back down and taking Tolly by the hand. ‘Tell us what you’ve been doing. I returned from the Southlands, do you remember that?’

‘And you were sleeping,’ Tolly said slowly, ‘and Mum sent me out to bag a brace of fat ducks for elevenses…’

‘Aye!’ Haldi said, well pleased. ‘And you came here, to fetch Ferdi, to make it a hunting party…’

Tolly nodded, still seeming unsure. ‘I fetched Ferdi,’ he agreed. ‘And…’ His voice trailed off and he knitted his brows in puzzlement.

‘Tell me about the day,’ Haldi said again. ‘It was foggy when I awakened, a bright fog which the Sun burned away by late in the morning… Do you remember the fog?’

‘It was,’ Tolly agreed, ‘foggy, a cold fog…’ He pulled his hand from his father's grasp, hugged himself and shivered. ‘Cold,’ he said again, his voice trailing away. He seemed to peer into a mist of memory, blinking his eyes, but he said no more.

‘It was foggy,’ Haldi said, ‘…and…?’

Tolly awakened from his reverie. ‘How did I come to be here?’ he said again, abruptly.

‘We found you on the top of a hill, halfway to the marshes,’ Mardi answered. ‘You and Ferdi had built a fire, and were asleep beside it, for all the world as if you were on a walking holiday.’

‘What do you remember?’ Haldi said, with a frown for Mardi for breaking in to his attempt to help Tolly recollect the events of the previous day. He softened his voice once more. ‘It was foggy, a cold fog, you said…?’

But Tolly only shook his head. ‘I remember the mist,’ he said. ‘There were shapes in it. You know how it is, when the mist is shifting before you, and it confuses your eyes. A tree becomes a troll, a rock is a dwarf…’

Just then Pimpernel gave an exclamation, a hopeful, ‘Ferdi!’ as her beloved blinked his eyes, and his hand closed around hers, his grasp tightening as he wakened.

‘Nell?’ he breathed. ‘My Nell?’

‘Ferdi!’ Paladin said, moving quickly to his side. ‘How glad we are to have you back with us, and safe!’

But Ferdi paid him no heed. He had eyes only for Pimpernel, drinking her in, seizing her hand in both of his and holding to her as a drowning hobbit might grasp at a branch or rope. ‘Nell,’ he said. ‘You’re here!’

‘Of course I'm here, silly hobbit,’ Pimpernel said, laughter bubbling forth but quickly fading under the intensity of Ferdi’s gaze. ‘Of course I'm here,’ she said again, but faltered.

‘I thought… they said…’ Ferdi said, and, tensing, drew a deep breath. ‘But then,’ he said, relaxing once more, ‘it was only a dream. It must have been.’

‘A dream?’ Pimpernel said in confusion.

‘Who said, laddie?’ Paladin pressed, seizing on Ferdi’s earlier words. ‘Who said, and what did they say?’

‘The voices,’ Ferdi responded, but then he shook his head. ‘No…’ he said, ‘but it’s gone now. It was just a dream. It must have been.’

‘What do you remember?’ Paladin asked him, and everyone held their breath, even Tolly, to hear the answer.

‘Remember?’ Ferdi said, but he did not loose his desperate grasp on Pimpernel’s hand. ‘I—I don’t…’

‘It was foggy,’ Haldi said. ‘A cold fog, Tolly said, the kind of mist that shifts before your eyes, and seems to show shapes…’

‘A tree becomes a troll,’ Mardi said, remembering, with a nudge for Tolly’s shoulder. ‘And a rock…’

‘There was a Big Man,’ Ferdi said.

‘You thought you saw a Big Man?’ Haldi said. ‘A large rock, or a tall shrub… in the mist…?’

‘He spoke,’ Ferdi said slowly, and took one hand from his grasp of Nell’s, and rubbed at his brow. ‘Or… two of them, perhaps?’

‘Two Big Men? I' truth?’ Paladin said, leaning forward.

‘I—I don’t remember,’ Ferdi said.

Just as he had with Tolly, Haldi tried to lead him in memory, from his wakening the previous day, through Tolly’s arrival, their departure together (such mundane details as drinking tea, going out to the barn, saddling the ponies seemed to steady the hobbit and help the memories flow), the foggy ride, begun in darkness but brightening as the sun rose.

Tolly put in a few details of his own, more of them early on in the remembering, but as they rode (as a manner of speaking) further into the fog, the memories became fewer, until both hobbits again fell silent.

It was evident that they remembered nothing about dropping or placing any arrows, nor climbing the hillside. The whereabouts of the ponies remained a mystery. Ferdi would have thrown off the bedcovers to go in search, but was forestalled. Paladin assured him that he and the hired hobbits would go out in search after the day’s haying was done; they’d enlist the local Shirriff to help them trace and track the animals.

‘And speaking of the haying,’ Paladin said, looking to Haldi. ‘If you’d like to carry your son home again…’

‘Carry me!’ Tolly interrupted. ‘Why, I'm fit as…’

Haldi hushed him. ‘Very kind, I'm sure,’ he said to Paladin. ‘But I think we’ll keep him abed, if it’s no trouble, at least until the morning.’

‘Abed!’ Tolly protested, and Haldi hushed him again.

‘If I might borrow a pony to bring him home on the morrow…’

‘I'm perfectly well!’ Tolly said, but he might as well have saved his breath.

Ferdi, in the meantime, had fallen asleep once more, still firmly holding Pimpernel’s hand.

Haldi left the room for a moment with Mardi, and then returned. ‘I've sent him off home,’ he said, ‘to deal with any calls for a healer, and I'll stay with the lads, watch over them, see if there’s any more for them to be remembering…’

‘Fine,’ Paladin said. ‘I'll send some soup in to you… I daresay Hilly’s eaten his fill by now.’

Haldi snorted. ‘No filling that one up,’ he said. ‘Rather like your Pip, I'd imagine.’ He gave a dry chuckle. ‘I'd heard you sent him off with that Frodo Baggins for a week or two, to give your larder a chance to recover…’

Paladin chuckled in turn, and with a word or two for Pimpernel, and a look to Ferdi and then Tolly (who was in his turn once more subsiding into sleep), he took himself to the kitchen, to finish his interrupted meal, and on to the afternoon’s haying.

But in the back of his mind, something was niggling… And a Big Man, or two, involved in this somehow? He tucked that thought away for future consideration, but soon all his concentration was on the job at hand, and as he worked the afternoon away, making hay under the bright sun burned away the lingering mists of doubt and darkness.