Chapter 11 - Of Mushroom Stew and Wise Counsel

It was the goodnight song of a lark that pulled Aragorn back from the amorphous nowhere he had been struggling to escape. That and Halbarad’s soft voice whispering to Denlad that he really didn’t much care for Ferdinand’s mushroom stew.

Aragorn laughed.

"Look who’s awake!" Denlad cried.

Aragorn pried open his eyes, happy that they both complied, and squinted into the fire-lit shadows. Denlad grinned at him from a seat near the fire, and next to him sat Halbarad, his own face wreathed in smiles. On the other side of the fire, Ferdinand stood poking at what must be the mushroom stew. With his own glad cry, he raised his spoon in a salute. Aragorn suffered an unexpected pang as he realized how much, after this adventure ran its course, he would miss waking to find Ferdinand beside him, cooking something.

Halbarad stood with a grunt and came over to kneel beside him, Denlad right behind him and Ferdinand stretching his neck to see around Denlad, and Aragorn’s mood quickly deteriorated from fond affection to annoyance. Must they stare at him like some farmer’s prize melon being judged at a fair? But before he had chance to vent his ire, Halbarad asked, "How do you feel?"

Tired, sore, aching, irritated and vexed, but that was far too much bother to say. He simplified it to one hoarsely croaked word. "Thirsty."

Denlad hurried to fetch a cup and Halbarad lifted Aragorn’s head so gently that all of Aragorn’s irritation melted. As Halbarad held the cup for him, he drank long and quickly, afraid Halbarad would pull it away, but Halbarad let him drink until the cup was empty. "Thank you. " He squinted at the dark sky. The faintest rose still colored the lower western horizon, but overhead the first of the night’s stars glinted. He felt he should know the hour but he could not think of the season of the year, or the month, nor even the week. "What time is it?"

"The sun set about an hour ago," Halbarad supplied. "Or do you really mean what day is it?"

"How long have I slept?"

"It’s been about a day and a half."

He thought a moment. "‘tis summer." It came out almost a question. He felt completely out of his reckoning.

"Late June, to be exact." Halbarad’s voice was calm, but his eyes were dark with worry. Understandable, Aragorn thought. It wasn’t like him to lose track of the hour, let alone an entire season of the year. Halbarad felt Aragorn’s brow.

"Fever?"

"It seems better," Halbarad said, but his voice was uncertain.

As well as it ought after sleeping for a day and a half. But Aragorn still felt a bit off kilter, somehow. Hot but shivery, brain too muddled to sort out night from day. He had felt it before, too many times. It never grew easier, recovering from wounds.

Valar, how he hated fever.

"Do you think you can eat something?" Denlad asked. He gestured and Ferdinand scurried off and returned with a bowl.

"Is that mushroom stew?" Aragorn wasn’t sure he was up to something so rich, much as he enjoyed mushrooms.

"Just the broth," Ferdinand said. "I don’t think you best try anything solid yet."

"Help me sit up." It was difficult, but with Halbarad’s help he soon was leaning back against a log, alarmingly lightheaded, but sitting up. His side ached but it was tolerable, if one did not mind a warg gnawing on one’s ribs. And arm. And face. He resolutely forced his mind away from his injuries.

He was not very successful.

"Can you hold the bowl?" Halbarad asked.

Aragorn tried, but he couldn’t seem to keep a grasp on it.

"Don’t scowl so; you lost a bucketload of blood and even the mighty Strider can’t do with only half his blood in him. Besides, it’s not like I’ve never had to spoon feed you," Halbarad added as he deftly gave Aragorn a spoonful of broth.

"It doesn’t mean I have to like it," Aragorn mumbled after he swallowed. The broth tasted good but after only a few spoonfuls he felt his stomach do a slow roll. He shut his eyes and clamped his mouth shut.

"Feeling sick?" Denlad asked.

Aragorn nodded. Perhaps sitting up had not been the best idea. He tried breathing deeply through his nose but that didn’t seem to help. He groaned and tried to lean to the side. Halbarad quickly handed the bowl to Denlad and grabbed Aragorn just as everything he had swallowed came back up.

"I suppose I should not have let you drink that water so fast, nor let you eat so soon after," Halbarad said sheepishly as Aragorn sagged back in his arms.

"Not your fault," he gasped. His head buzzed as though a swarm of bees had set up a hive between his ears. "Should have... gone more slowly."

"You’re white as snow–too much blood lost for sitting up yet." Halbarad eased him to the ground again and tucked a blanket around him. "You’re right; we’ll take things a bit slower."

Aragorn saw no reason to argue with that. At the moment, all he wanted out of life was to lose himself in blessed sleep until everything healed and ceased paining him.

A moment later, to his surprise, the fresh aroma of athelas wafted on the air. Denlad knelt beside him, holding a cloth. "I’m going to lave your side with the athelas," he said. "That should help you feel a bit better. I hope you don’t mind that I pulled it out of your pack. I didn’t have any in mine."

"I don’t mind, no," Aragorn murmured, shutting his eyes. Athelas was good for soothing aches, and Valar knew, he had plenty of those. He felt Denlad peel back the blankets and lift his shirt. The water was warm and soothing, and the fragrance settled the buzzing in his head. He sighed very softly. Athelas or no, his cracked ribs still did not allow for deep breaths.

"Better?" Denlad asked.

Aragorn nodded.

"How’s your stomach? Better?"

It wasn’t, entirely, and ginger tea sounded good, but he still was unsure when he would be able to afford more, so he needed to marshal what was left of his supply, to save what was left for others who may need it more. "I am better," he simply said, skirting any real answer.

For a few moments, they sat quietly, enjoying the refreshing that the athelas brought. But eventually other matters crowded his mind, chief of which was that he was keeping his men pinned down tending him when they should be out patrolling. He looked at Halbarad and then Denlad. "You needn’t stay here with me. Get back to your patrols–"

"Hush," Denlad immediately said. "You need us, you and Ferdinand both. The patrols can handle themselves for a few days yet. And the camp in Chetwood will get by without us as well."

"Unless Gaerbond lets Galadh do the cooking," Halbarad said.

Denlad’s eyes widened. "Surely he wouldn’t–"

"He must, for who else could do it with you here? As bad as Galadh is, at least he knows the difference between salt and sugar, which is more than I can say for Gaerbond after that last attempt of his."

Aragorn laughed, then bit back a groan. "Pray do not make me laugh."

Halbarad snorted. "Easy for you to laugh; you and your confounded luck–you were off with Gandalf chasing after who knows what and missed that disaster Gaerbond tried to pass off as cake. Whoever heard of mistaking the salt for sugar!"

"That is one meal I am glad I missed." Aragorn shifted, trying to find a comfortable position, but he stopped as pain suddenly grabbed the muscles in his side. He waved off Denlad’s silent offer of more athelas and struggled to pull his shirt back in place. "So where was that luck when that bandit came to call?"

"It was a spy, I guess, and no bandit, although we never really eked any sort of straight answer out of the one we caught," Halbarad said, gently slapping away Aragorn’s hand as he pulled Aragorn’s shirt smooth, "and you must admit, your luck did hold you in good stead. You might easily have died, and there’s no arguing that. Now best you get some more sleep," Halbarad added with finality. He checked Aragorn’s blanket one more time, and with that, the three of them, evidently satisfied that Aragorn would not expire if they left his side, drifted back to their seats by the fire.

As he lay quietly in the dark, Aragorn’s stomach slowly settled down. But his neck started to ache. He had a thought to put his arms up to cradle his head but he couldn’t raise his left arm without it pulling his side, and he couldn’t lay his head on his right arm without paining the laceration there. He bent his legs and that helped, but what he really needed was a pillow. A nice fat feather pillow like the ones on his bed in Rivendell. He tried to stifle the longing. Rangers can survive perfectly well without any cosseting. Hadn’t he after all slept more nights on hard ground than in soft beds? He scowled at the stars and tried not to think about pillows. Or feather beds. Or soft linen sheets cool against his skin.

He shifted again to no noticeable improvement.

Halbarad tapped his shoulder. Aragorn jumped a bit. He had been so lost in his misery he hadn’t heard Halbarad approach. "Lift up," Halbarad said. He slid a rolled up cloak under Aragorn’s head.

All thoughts of feather pillows vanished. The cloak was as fine a bedding as any king could ask for. Certainly fine enough for this king, he thought with a wry smile. "How did you know–"

Halbarad just smiled and then walked back to the fire and spooned himself some more mushroom stew. He brought it back and sat down beside Aragorn. He leaned in and whispered, "Hobbits and their bloody love of mushrooms! I can hardly swallow the stuff, but it’s food." Then more loudly, "Tell me if you want some. Or if the smell of it sets your stomach off and you wish that I should move."

"It smells fine. What I truly wish is that I dared try some."

"How about one bite?"

He held out the spoon and Aragorn dutifully chewed then swallowed. "Good," he said.

"More?"

"In a bit, perhaps." He took a moment to study Halbarad’s face. "You have not told me of your own journey here."

Halbarad told him, his words so spare and clipped that Aragorn barely felt he’d been told anything. He frowned. "What have you left out?"

Halbarad shrugged. "It is as I said. We trailed you; we fought off those spies; we found you. I only wish we had been faster. But there is nothing more to tell."

"Halbarad."

Halbarad set the bowl down. He plucked a small stick up and stared at it as he started breaking it into smaller and smaller pieces. He finally threw the last bit into the fire and sighed. "What should I say? Must I tell you of the worry and rampaging panic that is my lot every time you get yourself in a fix? The guilt I feel when I seem ever to arrive too late, after you’ve already been cut to ribbons or battered senseless or in this case, both? There. I’ve said it. Now you know the whole of it."

"Oh," Aragorn said. He thought for a moment of all the wise and compassionate words he could say, and rejected them all. "So it is nothing more than the usual panic and guilt that trouble you. Here my heart was worried it might be something far more dire."

Halbarad’s eyes darkened for a moment, but at Aragorn’s slow smile, he started to chuckle, then threw back his head and laughed.

"What of Denlad?" Aragorn said more quietly, after Halbarad’s mirth died. "How did he do?"

"Better than I did, frankly. He is a steady one, Denlad is, even when I see that same fear rising in his eyes that I feel in my heart. He had a few dark moments I had to chide him a bit over, but to be honest, most times, especially here in the last few days, it was his good counsel that kept my spirits from failing."

"I am sorry, you know. I never intend for these sorts of things to happen."

"And here I thought you regularly get yourself maimed simply to torment me."

"That is part of the appeal, yes. Every dark cloud must have its bit of mithril lining, after all."

"You will make a truly detestable king."

Aragorn grinned. "Thank you. May I have some more of that stew?" Halbarad obliged, helping adjust the rolled-up cloak so Aragorn was a bit more upright. Aragorn slowly chewed. The stew tasted good, and it seemed his stomach was finally inclined to agree.

"I wonder who their master was," Halbarad mused, giving Aragorn another spoonful.

Aragorn had a very clear idea of who it might be, but he dared not say. Gandalf had sworn him to secrecy, and while Aragorn hated having to keep anything from his faithful captain, he could hardly go against the wishes of a Maiar. Halbarad and the men knew nothing of what they likely guarded: the One Ring, tucked away among the mathoms of a hobbit hole on Bagshot Row, Bag End. "Treasure hunters on behalf of some potentate, most likely. Coming to snatch all that rumored dragon treasure from Bilbo Baggins."

"We cannot rule out Sauron, you know. Not after what happened along the Hoarwell."

"No." And please do not pursue that line of thought any further...

"It had to be the Dark Lord. It makes no sense for anyone else to have sent such men." He lowered his voice to a bare whisper. "I worry that he’s looking for you, that somehow he found out the Heir lives."

Aragorn stifled a sigh. Of course Halbarad would keep after the idea like a terrier after a rat. That was Halbarad’s best trait, after all: dogged determination. Time for a bit of misdirection. Aragorn hated it, but until he spoke with Gandalf about it, and speak to him he would at first opportunity before this subterfuge drove him mad, he could not reveal anything. "I have seen many agents of the Dark Lord in my travels. These four lacked a subtlety one would expect from Sauron’s minions."

"Perhaps they were hired by some intermediary who was less careful about the quality of his underlings."

"Is someone counting pennies, perhaps? Mercenaries cheaply bought are generally less than useless. Not that I’ve ever hired any, mind you."

"Cheaply bought, but these were far from useless. Two of them bested you, or nearly. They had to have some skill, after all, to nearly kill the best hunter and warrior in Middle-earth."

Aragorn grimaced. "Skill had less to do with it than dumb luck. My foot fell into a gopher hole just as I tried to lunge. His dagger found my side as I was falling."

"But still, you killed him. And you managed to kill the second one even as your life’s blood was pouring out of you. Dumb luck there, too? Perhaps, but I think it skill and nothing you say will convince me otherwise."

"Mmm."

"Well, whoever sent those miscreants, it’s merely idle speculation between two rather beaten up Rangers now. There’s nothing we can do to solve the problem this night, so unless you want more stew, I suggest you try to get some sleep."

"I have had enough, thank you. But what of you? How much sleep have you gotten these last few days?"

Halbarad yawned hugely. "Not enough. In fact, I am going to send Denlad off on first watch and stretch these weary bones out beside you. Can’t have creatures creeping in from the dark to gnaw on you while you’re indisposed, after all."

Again Aragorn’s conscience smote him. Would that he could share everything, to tell Halbarad his fears and gain his cousin’s wise counsel. But no, not yet. Not yet. "You’re a good man, Halbarad."

"I know," Halbarad tossed him a saucy grin.

"And one who has never been overly troubled by the burden of humility."

The grin only widened.