38. Awake! Awake!
~ Brandy Hall at Yule, about 18 months later ~
The yuletide celebration at Brandy Hall was in full swing, music playing, dancers swirling, hobbits talking and laughing and eating. The great room was transformed into an enchanted forest, festooned everywhere with evergreens that sent their fragrance into the air. Wreaths were affixed to the lamps hanging from the ceiling, garlands hung above the diners and swags decorated the walls. Besides the lamps that always lit the room, candles brightened every corner, and on the hearth, the enormous Yule log promised to burn well into the next morning.
Despite the festive atmosphere and surroundings, Merry was restless. The residents of Brandy Hall had been cooped up indoors for nearly a week due to heavy snow and bitter temperatures. Worse, the inclement weather had prevented him from spending the time he was used to riding. Riding out and about in Buckland served a practical purpose besides providing the solace he sought in his solitary outings as he communed with Jewels. But now, having been confined to the Hall over the past few days, Merry worried he was missing important details that were vital to the smooth running of his homeland.
He stared at the dancers, seeing but not seeing them as they whirled and stepped in time to the lively music that filled the Hall's great room. At last, he pressed Estella's hand and then rose from the table.
'Did you want to dance, beloved?' Estella asked, half-rising from her chair. At the slight shake of Merry's head, she sank down again with a quizzical expression.
'I just need a breath of fresh air,' he answered, smiling down at her, then looked up and nodded to Pippin, Diamond, and the other hobbits at their table. 'Please,' he said. 'Don't let me interrupt your celebration. All is well.'
'I could come with you,' Estella said, reaching out to take Merry's hand.
He shook his head, lifted her hand to his lips, and kissed her fingertips before releasing her. 'No, my love; the temperatures are bitter this night.' He smiled and said to all and sundry, 'I won't be long.'
'He just needs to tuck Jewel in for the night,' Pippin said. 'Poor lad cannot get to sleep without his bedtime story.'
Estella winked at Merry. 'Give him a kiss for me,' she whispered saucily.
'I just might do that,' Merry grinned, 'except that I think he would prefer an apple.'
He picked up his cloak; although it was Rohan green, he'd chosen to fasten it at his throat with the Elven brooch from the Lady of Lórien rather than the horse-head clasp typically used by a Rider of Rohan. Nor was he wearing his mail; now that he and Pippin were no longer riding about the Shire, cadging meals and waving at pretty lasses, he'd left off dressing like a Knight of Rohan, finding ordinary hobbit attire much more practical and less distracting to other hobbits when he was conducting the Hall's business. All that said, the heavy cloak of Rohan made a fine barrier against the wind sweeping down from the North in the weather they'd been having lately.
'Don't catch your death!' Pippin called cheerily.
'Why would I want to do that?' Merry said logically as he settled the cloak over his shoulders and secured it with the leaf-shaped brooch. 'I'll be back before you miss me,' he promised, picking up an apple from the bowl on the table.
'But I miss you already!' Ilberic cried, batting his eyelashes like a lovesick lass, grabbing at Merry's hand and falling out of his chair in his earnestness, sparking laughter from all at their table and the surrounding tables.
'Bless you, child!' Merry said laughing with the rest even as he disengaged his hand from Ilberic's clasp, picked up his gloves, and tugged them over his fingers.
As he let himself out of the Hall, the frigid air stung his nostrils, but he relished the bright stars studding the night sky and the quiet of the courtyard. The stables would be quiet, too, save the sounds of ponies champing hay, the occasional stamp of a foot, a soft whicker. The workers would all be at the celebration, and there would be no need for him to make conversation with anyone. It would be almost as soothing as a solitary ride along the River, after the bright and noisy bustle inside the great room.
Although the heavy stable doors were closed against the bitter night, Merry thought he saw the flicker of a lantern against a window. He frowned. There should be no lanterns lit if no hobbits were in the barn. He set his shoulders and vowed that someone would get a stiff lecture for his carelessness as he closed the distance to the stables and reached for the handle to the side door.
***
Another dance was starting, and Pippin offered a hand to Estella. 'Would you like to dance, my almost-beloved?' he said gallantly.
She tilted her head to the side as if giving his offer serious consideration, then answered, 'No, I'm going to wait for Merry. He said he'd be back soon.'
'Soon is a relative term,' Pippin observed, and chuckled. 'If he got into a long, involved discussion with Jewel, and if the pony were winning...'
Estella's laugh was interrupted by the call of a silver horn which cut through the music and conversation, stunning everyone to silence.
Awake! Awake! Fear! Fire! Foes! Awake! Fire, Foes! Awake!
'The stables!' Pippin gasped, momentarily frozen in shock. Next thing, he was running for the door, followed by many of the other hobbits in the great room.
Saradoc turned to his wife. 'Empty the tables! We'll bring any injured from fighting the fire in here. And arrange for as many sheets and blankets as are available, along with bandages, brandy, water, and all the honey that's to be found in the kitchen and cellars.' He started to turn away but Esmeralda caught at his arm, her face pale with fear for him. Despite the need for haste, he patted her hand gently. 'I am not going to do anything to strain my heart,' he said in an attempt to reassure her. 'But I must know what is happening.'
She nodded and released him, then turned and raised her voice, directing orders at specific hobbits, all the better to organise the hobbits remaining in the great room.
Those emerging from the Hall were greeted by the sight of ponies, whipped to a frenzy by wind-driven sparks, racing aimlessly around the courtyard in a panic against the backdrop of flames rising high into the air from the roof of the stables. Pippin reached the stable doors and heard a sharp crack above the sound of the flames roaring in the hayloft and crackling at the uprights that held up the loft. Squinting to see through the heavy, swirling smoke that filled the interior of the building, he realized that Merry was using a whip to drive panicked ponies down the corridor towards the broad opening left by the thrown-back double doors. His cousin was just visible far down the right-hand corridor, as Merry opened a stall door, pulled a resisting pony out of the stall, and brought the whip down upon its rump to head it towards the yawning doors at the front of the building. At that moment, Pippin became aware of other dark shapes, moving, half-concealed in the smoke. Suddenly, a ghostly form loomed in front of him. A strangely detached part of his mind wondered idly how a dapple grey pony could show so much better through the smoke than the other beasts he'd only half-glimpsed, even as he stepped forward to grab Socks's halter to lead the stallion out of the inferno and away from the doorway.
The fickle wind gusted from another quarter, making smoke billow from the door just as Pippin released Socks and turned back to the stables. He caught a lungful of smoke-saturated air and doubled over, for it seemed in that instant that there was no more air to be found in the world. Someone grabbed at him to pull him back, away from the fire and smoke, and he ended up halfway between Hall and stables, suspended between two cousins, helpless to do anything other than fight to draw some kind of breath. Any breath at all.
As Pippin coughed violently, eyes watering, lungs feeling as if they were on fire, he was vaguely aware of other hobbits running past him into the stables to try to save as many ponies as could be. Seeing that Merry had extricated most of the ponies from the stalls lining the sides of the right-hand corridor, the rescuers ran to the left to begin opening stall doors and trying to get the ponies out. Some of the beasts, panicked, fought their saviours, not wanting to leave what they perceived as the safety of their stalls. Others nearly ran down the hobbits in the corridor in their rush for the door.
In the courtyard, Carodoc was organizing a bucket brigade to run from the well to the stables, for all the good it would do.
A steady stream of hobbits emerged from the blazing building, leading ponies. Many of the stable lads and other rescuers had the presence of mind to tie their shirts around the animals' eyes to lead them out, and one of those that had run into the flames had grabbed a whip from the wall and was following Merry's example to drive out ponies from stalls in the left-hand corridor.
Pippin heard Berilac shout, 'Merry! It's too late! Save yourself!'
Merry's whip cracked again and a small group of ponies ran out, Jewel among them, one squealing as a burning brand fell across its rump near the doorway.
'Get out!' someone else screamed. 'It's coming down!'
Somehow, Pippin pulled loose from the hands that held him upright. He rubbed his sleeve over his streaming eyes as he staggered towards the conflagration. His vision momentarily cleared, revealing the sight of hobbits running out of the inferno that had once been the pride of the Brandybucks, more than one of the figures themselves aflame. These desperate escapees dove or rolled into a snowbank in the yard, while other hobbits ran forward and threw blankets over them, trying to make sure that all the flames were extinguished.
Pippin had only eyes for Merry, having caught a nightmare glimpse of his beloved cousin moving towards the door. But then he saw Merry look up and instinctively throw up his arms to shield his head. Pippin's last sight of him was burned into his mind and memory: Merry falling back as one side of a beam broke loose and crashed to the floor, and then with a terrible thunder, barely heard above the roar of the hungry flames shooting from the rooftop, half of the loft fell in, sending sparks and flame to the heavens. Terrible shrieks arose from the ponies still trapped within.
Pippin averted his eyes from the firestorm and stood frozen, staring at the silver horn that lay just outside the stable door.
Another shriek, as terrible as the doomed ponies' death-cries, sounded behind him. 'Merry!'
He was barely in time to stop Estella Bolger from rushing past him, into the disaster. She fought him mindlessly, but he clung to her ever more tightly, dragged her to the ground with him as his legs failed him, somehow managed to fall on top of her, pinning her to the stones. The little breath allowed to him failed as he wept for her loss, and his own. He couldn't save Merry; no one could, now. All Pippin could do for his cousin in this moment was to save Estella from plunging to her death in her unthinking grief and horror.
'Pip! It's all right!' Someone was shouting in his ear. It was not all right. But hands were lifting him, pulling at him, and others were trying to pry him loose from his death-grip on Estella.
Nothing would ever be all right again.
'Pip! Leave hold! She's fainted – we've got her!'
For some reason that hovered now out of reach beyond his failing senses and thoughts, he must not let go. Grimly, Pippin hung on, even as he welcomed the fading of the world around him, until blessed darkness claimed him at last.
***