Chapter 23. At the End of the Day

26 September, teatime and after

The afternoon light glowed golden, a fine end to a beautiful day, and promise of more good weather on the morrow. Paladin shrugged weary shoulders as he led his hobbits into the yard, trying to work their watchfulness out of the kinks in his muscles. For watchful they were, and had been since he’d thanked his small escort for their service and sent them on their way, where ever it was that Jackdaw had ordered them, once they’d discharged their duty. He did not know if they returned to their uncle, or continued homeward, only that they’d saluted him sharply, strung bows and ponies’ reins in one hand, bringing their shooting fingers to their caps and down again, only to wheel their ponies and move off at a sharp pace, almost as if they’d practiced such.

He did not know what had passed between the tweens and his crew, whilst he was listening to Nod’s report on the haying, but something must have been said, for his hobbits had not been their usual relaxed, joking selves (though as usual working hard, raking and tossing and trampling the hay, sweating under the warm sun, singing to lighten their heavy tasks). No, they’d been unusually watchful, wary, even, though whenever Paladin’s eyes would meet a watching pair, the other hobbit would look away quite casually, as if it were merely a matter of crossing glances.

He’d had the feeling they were protecting him from some threat, though they had nothing greater than their hayforks for weapons.

Ah, but it would be good when this business was completely finished and they could go back to things as they had been, before Ferdi and Tolly’s mishap.

Eglantine met him with a bright face. ‘Tea’s on!’ she carolled.

He kissed her lightly on the cheek, but stepped back from her embrace. ‘I’m not fit for the cat to drag in,’ he said. ‘Just let me wash and change, and I’ll join you.’

‘Oh, you,’ she said, hugging him anyway. ‘As if a few travel stains would harm me! You wash and change, if it’ll make you sit down to tea in more comfort, but not on my account.’

This, from the wife who scolded any who did not wipe their feet before “tracking all over the clean floor!” Still, he smiled, his first real smile in how long? – he did not know – and chucked her under the chin. ‘You’ll thank me, when we sit ourselves down, not to be smelling of sweat and effort, instead of the good baking that’s in the air.’ And he raised his face and sniffed theatrically, and his grin brightened as he recognised the smells of seedcake and freshly baked apple tart.

Outside, the hired hobbits waited in line to splash their faces and hands, one by one, and enter, with a small bow of thanks for the Mistress, but Paladin wanted rather more than a quick splash. If he hurried himself, he wouldn’t keep the others waiting, and so with another quick kiss – this one for Eglantine’s lips – he strode to the bedroom, only to find (not surprisingly) she’d anticipated him. The ewer was full of fresh, cool water, and a clean change of clothing was laid out on the bed.

Ferdi was among the hobbits around the table to bow and acknowledge his entrance.

‘Good to see you in your place once more, Ferdi,’ he said, taking his own seat, and Ferdi answered with something of his old mischief, ‘Good to be here – though I don’t know where else I’d be, on such a fine day, and apple tart for tea!’

Paladin nodded, though he suppressed a shudder that surprised him, coming from no where to trouble him. He covered this by taking up his serviette and shaking it loose from its neat folds. ‘Tolly gone?’ he said, and so help him, he was compelled to add, ‘gone on home, I take it?’ Not gone as in dead, though Pervinca’s shocked exclamation arose in his thoughts for some reason. He firmly shoved down his lingering misgivings, and memory of the grisly sight of Ferdi’s ponies, only a blink away.

For from his wife’s and daughters’ relaxed and smiling – if somewhat weary, as if troubled nights and doubled work had told on them – faces, it was safe to assume no stricken hobbit lingered in a bed elsewhere in the smial.

‘Old Haldi took him home after the nooning,’ Ferdi said. ‘Asked the loan of a pony for Tolly to ride home, denying him the pleasure of a walk in the summer sun. Naught wrong with the hobbit, but healers being what they are, one can hardly refuse them anything, lest they remember later, and stir up an extra-bitter draught for your efforts…’

‘None of your nonsense, now, lad,’ Paladin said, shot through with a sudden gladness at the opportunity to say the words.

The gladness was short-lived, however, for Ferdi’s next words were, ‘And my ponies? Did you find hide, or perhaps hair of them?’

It was too close to the truth, and Paladin had to swallow down sickness. To cover his feelings, he stirred his tea with great concentration before taking a sip, meeting Eglantine’s concerned look as he lifted his cup to his lips. ‘No business at tea,’ he said shortly. ‘We can talk about it after.’

‘Ah,’ Ferdi said, puzzled, and it seemed he expected no ill report. Nothing worse than, “We haven’t found them yet,” at least, for he filled his plate and ate heartily of the steaming steak and kidney pie, cheeses, bread and butter, pickled vegetables, and cakes, bantering back and forth with the hired hobbits and teasing Nell and Vinca with elaborate compliments on their cookery. ‘Must’ve gone to the Elves for the cakes, true fairy cakes they are…’

‘Oh, Ferdi!’ Nell said, blushing in response, and a merry tea it was, and Paladin could almost forget the unpleasantness of the day, and the unsettling feeling that hovered since they’d found the poor, pitiful remains.

Eglantine rose to light the lamps as Pimpernel freshened the teapots. The day was beginning to dim outside, and soon it would be milking time, and time to shut up the chickens, give all the ponies a thorough grooming and their evening supply of hay (those that had pulled the haywaggon as well as those Ferdi was training to sell at the autumn sales), check on the pigs and ducks and other animals, and all the little myriad details of tucking up the farm for the night’s sleep.

Oddly enough, Ferdi’s face seemed to lose colour at the same rate as the dimming sky – his cheeks were no longer rosy, nor his smile so bright, and his teacup rattled on the saucer as he put it down, empty, after his final cup. ‘So,’ he said. ‘What about my ponies? Haven’t they been found yet?’

‘I –‘ Paladin answered, unaccountably at a loss for words. It seemed as if everyone paused to hear his answer, Eglantine, Nell and Vinca in clearing the table, the hired hobbits in dabbing at their mouths and rising from their places. ‘Come into the parlour, my lad. We’ll discuss our findings there, be out from underfoot…’

But Ferdi swayed as he rose from his place, and might have fallen, had Nod not been on the spot, as it were, standing next to him, having already stood to his feet. The head worker caught the blanching hobbit, steadied him, and eased him back down. ‘But you’re not well, Ferdi,’ he said in protest. ‘Not as well as you’d like us to think, at least.’

Nell put down the teapot she held and hurried to her beloved’s side. ‘Ferdi?’ she said, frowning in concern.

‘I am well,’ Ferdi said, raising a shaking hand to his brow. ‘It’s just… I don’t understand. I was felling perfectly well just a little ago.’

‘And Haldi gone off to Tuckborough,’ Eglantine said under her breath, though it had seemed perfectly right at the time.

‘Come, let’s to your bed once more,’ Nod said, nodding to Tam on Ferdi’s other side.

‘But my ponies…’ Ferdi said, pushing at the helping hands that were trying to raise him from his seat.

Deliberately misunderstanding (though he could have no direct knowledge of Paladin’s findings, unless the young escort had told the hired hobbits, and some time following the news had been passed on to the head worker from one or more of the hirelings – which, come to think of it, would not be surprising, considering the Tooks and their propensity for the Talk), Nod answered, ‘We’ll groom the beasts and tuck them up for the night, have no worries on their account, Ferdi.’

‘You brought them back with you, then?’ Ferdi said to Paladin. ‘They’re in their stalls already? Why did you not say so earlier?’ His eyes widened, and he pushed himself to his feet, though he seemed to need the supporting hands on either side to remain upright. ‘Are they injured?’

‘You’re not well, Ferdi,’ Paladin said, in echo of Nod’s earlier statement. ‘We’ll talk about it in the morning.’

‘Talk about what?’ Ferdi demanded. ‘What’s the matter? I ought to have gone with you… I ought to have…’ He stopped in confusion, blinked a few times, and slumped in Nod’s and Tam’s grasp.

Nell gasped. ‘Ferdi!’

‘It’s but a swoon,’ Eglantine said briskly, tugging at Nod’s sleeve. ‘And no wonder, for he was up only for the first time today, after…’ and she stopped herself, before she could add such alarming words as “his deadly hurt.”

‘Yes, Nell,’ Vinca said firmly, taking a tight hold on her sister’s arm, lest Nell should show signs of fainting and hitting her head as she had earlier. ‘He’s been up some hours now. By rights he ought to have taken a nap after elevenses, as Tolly did before his father took him home, but no, he insisted on going out to see his ponies turned out into the field for the day, since Haldi told him he should do no training for a day or two, and even at that the old hobbit had to follow him out to the field to make sure he continued to heed healer’s advice…’

‘Why does that not surprise me?’ Paladin muttered, shaking his head. He raised his voice then, to direct Nod and Tam to bear Ferdi back to his bed, and Tam to sit with the hobbit there, if he wouldn’t mind watching Ferdi until bedtime, just to make sure the hobbit had not overdone himself after being so recently prostrated and ill in bed.

‘And you, Nell, stop borrowing worries,’ Eglantine said, her tone still brisk. ‘He’s well, he said so himself, and he’ll be most put out if you make yourself ill, fretting over him. Sleep is what he needs, not anxious watching!’ She watched Pimpernel narrowly as she added, ‘Now let us finish this washing up, that we may begin our preparations for eventides. And then it’ll be time to bank the fire, and wash up the few plates and mugs,’ (for eventides on the farm was a light repast, after the last of the day’s heavy chores and just before bedtime), ‘and sweep the floor, so that we’re not working into the wee hours. I can hear my pillow calling – can you?’

Nell reluctantly allowed herself to be persuaded, to Paladin’s relief. He did not want his middle daughter making herself sick with worry, sitting up hour after hour with Ferdi. The hobbit most likely was simply weary, having overdone after being ill in bed, and all he needed was to sleep himself out. He wasn’t so ill as to need watchers by the bedside. Tolly, after all, had been deemed well enough to return home, albeit on ponyback. Haldi was, no doubt, being over cautious; healers tended to one extreme or the other, either wrapping their family in cotton wool (so to speak) or neglecting them altogether, which is why they often traded favours with other healers, when family members were involved.

Ferdi is well, Paladin told himself. Of course he is. Haldi wouldn’t have let him out of the bed, if he weren’t.

But meeting Eglantine’s gaze, he saw his own doubt reflected, and quickly hidden.

‘Well, now,’ he said, matching his wife’s briskness. ‘Those cows won’t milk themselves.’ And he led his hired hobbits from the smial, and if they hovered rather close, and one or two of them stayed at his elbow as he moved about his own tasks, well, he resolved to say nothing about the matter, at least, for the time being.

When he returned to the smial, eventides were on the table. He looked in on Ferdi, lying quietly in the bed, face pale and strained. Tam shrugged. ‘Sound asleep,’ the hired hobbit said. ‘Hasn’t moved, not even to turn over.’

‘Like the rock in the garden bed,’ Paladin said lightly, though the shadows were back beneath Ferdi’s eyes. Vinca’s, He looks… dead echoed in his thoughts. Firmly he pushed them down again. ‘Healing can be a wearying business, and they were out in the cold night air for too long before we found them.’

Tam did not see fit to mention the brightly burning fire and warm cloaks that had wrapped the still figures when they’d been found. He merely nodded.

‘A good night’s sleep, and we’ll see how things look in the morning,’ Paladin said. ‘You go on and take your eventides at table, lad. I’ll bide here a bit.’

‘Yessir,’ Tam said, fingering his forelock before he turned to leave the room.

Paladin frowned, remembering the archers’ salute, but it was really nothing of consequence. He was being too sensitive, he thought. He was just a farmer, after all, not a King needing escorting, as in a book of old tales, and he’d misread the salute as a Musterish thing, rather than the customary sign of respect, to touch one’s cap in greeting or farewell.

Eglantine brought him eventides on a tray, and when she’d deposited the food, she stooped to the bed, to pull up the covers to Ferdi’s chin and tuck them securely. ‘He looks cold,’ she murmured, brushing his forehead with the back of her hand. ‘No fever,’ she said, and sighed.

‘There’s a mercy,’ Paladin said in reply, and applied himself to his food. ‘Good bread,’ he said with his mouth full. ‘Nell’s baking?’

‘Vinca’s,’ his wife answered. ‘She’s coming along in her cookery.’

They talked of inconsequential things while he ate, and then Eglantine took up the tray once more. ‘I’ll just bear this back to the kitchen, that the lasses might finish the washing up,’ she said. ‘Are you coming to bed soon?’

‘I’ll be along by and by.’

‘Do you think he still bears watching? Shall I, or one of the girls…?’

‘He’ll be well,’ Paladin said, more in wish than confidence. ‘A good night’s sleep, and…’

‘A good night’s sleep would be a fine thing, for all of us, I’m thinking,’ Eglantine said, raising her eyebrows for emphasis.

Paladin had to chuckle at that, and at the cheerful sound, Ferdi drew a deep breath and seemed to relax somewhat, some subtle tension leaving his face. Pale he was, and eyes shadowed, but his breathing was causing the bedcovers to rise and fall in a steady, perceptible manner, a reassuring sign of life that had not been so obvious only a moment ago.

‘A good night’s sleep,’ Paladin repeated. ‘Aggie,’ he said, ‘I think I’ll bide here a while yet, and I’ll waken Nod or Dobbin to take my place when middle night strikes. I don’t like to leave him by himself, somehow, in case the bad dreams return.’

‘You think bad dreams might set him back?’ Eglantine said, blinking a little at the thought. Dreams were dreams, after all, with no power to harm. Even Paladin’s dreams had only the power of foretelling, somehow, which was different from being able to do any real or present harm.

‘If they return, I want to hear what he has to say,’ Paladin said. He shook his head at himself. ‘I know there’s no sense in it,’ he said. ‘They’re only dreams, after all. Only dreams…’

Eglantine was not convinced. ‘Only dreams,’ she echoed. Neither one of them mentioned the power of Paladin’s own dreaming, but it was in their minds all the same.

‘Just be sure you do waken Nod or Dobbin,’ was all Eglantine could find to say. ‘Half a night’s sleep is better than none, and you’ve been shorting yourself…’

‘Half a night’s sleep,’ Paladin agreed, and couldn’t help a sigh. ‘A little quiet can go a long way. I’ve some thinking and considering to do, my love, and now seems like as good a time as any to do it.’

At her questioning look, he said, ‘I’ll tell you about it in the morning, if I’m able to form any conclusions on the matter.’

‘And if not?’

He shrugged. ‘Well, then, I won’t,’ he said. With finality in his tone, he added, ‘Good night.’

‘I’ll look in once more, after the washing up is finished and the fire’s banked, on my way to bed,’ Eglantine said, ‘just to see if he needs anything. A bite to eat? A cup of tea? It’ll be no trouble to stir up the fire long enough for a final pot.’

‘I doubt he’ll wake,’ Paladin said. ‘He’s sleeping like…’ he almost said one dead, but changed the thought as he spoke it, with a deliberate effort, ‘like a rock in the garden bed, one of the big ones that you can scarcely dig out of its place.’

Eglantine nodded, hardly looking reassured, as if she’d heard the unspoken words. ‘Good night, then,’ she said, a little uncertainly, and then more firmly she added, ‘Well then, I’ll look in, if only to have my good-night kiss, for I can see no good reason to pass it by.’

Paladin affected horror. ‘No good reason indeed!’ he said. ‘Never a good reason to neglect a kiss, my dear, especially one of your kisses!’

They both laughed at this, and at the sound of laughter, Ferdi sighed once more and turned over in the bed, seemingly eased by the pleasant sound.

Subtly reassured, Eglantine took herself off to finish readying the smial for the long and sleepy hours to come, until it would be time to begin the business of a new day.