Chapter 16. Shining Through

May the First, in the wee hours of the morn

Pimpernel walked beneath the stars as she often had, but this night she walked alone.

 ‘How bright they are, my love,’ she whispered. ‘As bright as on our wedding night, when you gave them all to me.’ The shining points of light blurred and ran together as the tears filled her eyes at last. ‘Ferdi, my own,’ she said, and fell silent. Did he hear her? Or was he still buried in the bulk of the Hill beyond, waiting for release?

She heard the sound of sobbing not far off. Dashing the tears away she walked cautiously forward, stopping a few steps from a shadowy figure sitting in the grass. ‘Goldi?’ she said gently.

’Oh,’ Goldilocks was heard to say, along with the noises associated with gulping back tears and making oneself presentable. ‘Auntie Nell... did someone want me?’ Pimpernel would have become Goldi’s aunt this very day had things turned out differently.

 ‘We don’t know that they’re dead,’ Nell said, easing herself down. She’d be stiff, sitting in the cold grass, but nothing seemed to matter very much.

 ‘Legolas said...’ Goldi whispered.

 ‘Legolas saw no body, he heard an echo, he said, an echo, Goldi,’ Nell said firmly.

 ‘They expect to find the last of the bodies today,’ Goldi said brokenly.

 ‘Indeed, and they pulled someone living from the ruins less than half an hour ago,’ Nell said. ‘We don’t know who’ll be rescued next. There’s not as much damage as was feared, and that ought to give you hope, my dear.’ Instead of the slow painstaking digging through yards of fallen debris, the rescuers found large sections clear of falls, and the falls themselves were smaller in scope than originally thought. Construction of the Great Smials had begun a year or three after an earth shake, according to the old records that the engineers remembered studying, causing the builders to take extra precautions in excavating and bracing.

 ‘It’s so dark,’ Goldi said irrelevantly.

 ‘Look up, my dear,’ Pimpernel said, putting a hand under the girl’s chin to tilt her face to the sky. ‘Ferdi taught me to look up when my troubles seemed overwhelming. Look at the stars, forever faithful, fixed in their courses, no matter what happens to us.’

Goldi looked up in silence for a long while. ‘How will this bring Farry back to me?’ she said in a small voice.

 ‘O Goldi,’ Nell said, hugging the girl close. They sat together a long while, watching the sky.

***

Rose Gamgee startled her son-in-love by speaking as he bent over her by the dim light of a turned-down lantern. ‘What is it?’

 ‘Rose-Mum?’ Leotred said.

 ‘I wasn’t asleep,’ Rose said. Her legs burned. Aster Grubb’s soothing cream helped some, but not enough to sleep. ‘You’re back? What word from the Smials?’

 ‘I’ve come to fetch you,’ Leotred said, helping her sit up. ‘Today Goldi was to have wed Farry, but it looks as if she’ll be remembering him instead.’

 ‘They found him?’ Rose said sharply.

 ‘No,’ Leot said, his tone uncertain. ‘But they believe him dead, and his brothers with him, more than likely. They say the Thain is dying as well. I don’t know how they’d know about the boys, when there’s no bodies. But they expect to break through to the Thain’s quarters some time today; that’s in the deepest part of the Smials.’

 ‘Is Pippin really...?’ Rose said, searching Leot’s face in the shadowy light.

 ‘He’s beyond hobbit skill,’ he admitted. ‘The hands of the King, now...’

 ‘Is the King coming?’ Rose said, sitting up straighter.

 ‘It’s too far,’ Leot said, troubled. ‘Master Merry sent a message to the Lake right after the earthshake, and Mistress Diamond sent another when she was able to get to the Smials, but...’

 ‘Too far,’ Rose said softly, slumping again. ‘Ah my poor Samwise, it’ll be like watching his beloved Mr Frodo slip away, with the resemblance between the Thain and his cousin. Poor Goldi, to be thinking her Farry dead.’

 ‘She doesn’t think it’s so,’ Leot said. ‘She says she won’t accept his death until she sees it for herself.’

 ‘Well good for her!’ Rose said unexpectedly. At Leot’s surprised look she added, ‘I always said she had more sense than the Tooks. They’re much too fanciful. Imagine thinking someone dead when they haven’t even buried him!’

Leot didn’t answer. He remembered the stories of Bilbo’s return, unlooked-for, declared dead, his smial taken by the Sackville-Bagginses and all his possessions sold. It was easier to hope in the things you could see. Tooks weren’t the only ones ready to believe the worst.

 ‘Well then,’ Rose said. ‘What are we waiting for? If we leave now we ought to reach the Great Smials with the dawn.’

 ‘Bilbo and Robin are hitching up the waggon and padding the box with blankets and pillows,’ Leot said. ‘You and Prim will have a soft bed to lie in.’

 ‘Don’t forget about me,’ Rosie-lass said.

 ‘Rosie,’ Leot began but his wife interrupted.

 ‘The babe is not going to be born this day,’ she said, ‘no matter how jolting the waggon ride. You mark my words! I’m going too. The whole family is. Goldi needs us.’

 ‘Only if you ride in the coach rather than the waggon,’ Leot said wagging a stern finger.

 ‘Of course! Whatever you say, love,’ Rosie said coyly. She’d known she’d be able to talk him round. ‘You know your least wish is my dearest desire.’

***

Ferdi wakened as the rumbling of another aftershake died away. ‘Boys,’ he said. ‘Lads?’

 ‘Here,’ Merigrin said.

 ‘Here,’ the twins sounded together, and then Beregrin added, ‘Where else would we be?’

 ‘Farry?’ Ferdi said anxiously. He was stiff and cold. Good thing he was propped against a sturdy wall, and no one needed unburying. He didn’t think he could move even if he had to.

Merigrin answered, ‘He’s still breathing.’

 ‘Good,’ Ferdi said, relaxing again. ‘Good,’ he repeated. He was dizzy, light-headed, feeling hollow, empty, echoing inside but not hungry. A hobbit who goes without eating for too long forgets hunger, thus the old saying A hobbit who doesn’t eat is soon no hobbit at all. At least the gnawing hunger was gone. He felt at peace, free of care, light enough to float away.

As a matter of fact he did float away on the scrap of a song heard ever so faintly through the wall where his head rested. He did not hear the rhythmic thunk of the shovels that reached them at last, or the joyful cries of the lads as the lantern light shone through the rapidly widening hole.