Chapter 9. In the Deep of the Night

For a long moment time was frozen. Pimpernel stared at the tumbled pile before her, until the fire-ravaged pole collapsed and Merry cried out, galvanising her to action. With strength beyond her understanding, she rolled the ruffian off the pole-bound hobbits, grasped at Ferdi and Merry and hauled them away from the hearth. The polished surface of the ancient floorboards aided her efforts.

She grabbed up Merry’s fallen sword and cut the bonds.

 ‘Are you all right?’ she gasped.

She half-expected Merry to reply irritably, ‘No of course I’m not all right,’ just as in the time they’d been out riding on a sunny day long ago, in the fields of the farm that had been home until her father had become Thain and moved his family to the Great Smials. Ferdi had dared him to jump a stile; the pony had refused at the last minute, throwing Merry into the fence, and a broken arm had resulted.

His silence was more frightening than any answer could have been; he simply stared at her, eyes wide.

 ‘He said the poison wouldn’t kill you,’ she whispered, stroking a curl back from his sweating forehead.

She turned next to her husband, fearing what she’d find. He had not moved, he had not cried out when the collapsing pole dropped their feet into the fire.

 ‘Ferdi, my love?’ she said softly. His eyes were closed, his face slack, unresponsive to her feather-light caresses. She reached for his throat and gave a sob to find the pulse beating there. Truly she had thought she’d lost him... she might lose him still, if she did not take action. ‘Don’t go away,’ she whispered absurdly, with a final stroke, and rose. She’d need dressings, and bandages. There was a bucket of water nearby, and...

In the other sleeping room she found a kit of sorts with rolls of lint, dressings, ointments and such. She hurried with her find back to the main room.

Of a wonder Merry was stirring, fighting off the effects of the venom.

 ‘Merry?’ she said. He moved, and grimaced. ‘Steady now,’ she said, touching his shoulder before moving lower. ‘Your feet are a disaster.’ The tops of his feet were bleeding where the hair had been scraped away with the rough shave the madman had performed. The bottoms, now, were burned and blistering.

 ‘Mercy,’ Merry said through his teeth.

 ‘I have to tend them,’ Pimpernel soothed.

 ‘No,’ he said, ‘Pain... helps...’ and she realised he meant that it was a mercy that he was injured so, for it gave him something to cling to, a way to fight the paralysis.

 ‘Man... dead?’ he managed now, and Pimpernel shuddered.

 ‘I don’t know,’ she said. She hadn’t looked at him since rolling him away.

 ‘Must,’ Merry said, and she nodded.

Steeling herself she bent over the ruffian. She didn’t want to touch him, not at all, but she reached out to find the pulse, and found one. Absently she wiped the sticky blood from her fingers. He wasn’t dead, then. It was a pity. She couldn’t kill him, no, not in cold blood, but she did wish she’d managed earlier in the heat of the moment. ‘He lives,’ she said coldly.

 ‘Tie...’ Merry said, and she nodded. She didn’t want this monster coming to life again, unfettered.

Suppressing her distaste, she drew the Man’s hands behind him and tied them with her best knots, using some of the rope he’d brought out to bind the hobbits. She tied his feet together for good measure, humming a little tune as she did so. She noticed for the first time the blood on her dress. She hoped it would come out; she didn’t want that reminder... reminder... there was something she ought to remember but it eluded her at present.

Turning back, she settled between Merry and Ferdi, stroking her husband’s face once more. ‘Ferdi?’ she called softly. Perhaps he was only sleeping. Yes, that was it. He was asleep, and in the morning he’d waken and all would be well.

 ‘Burns,’ Merry gritted.

 ‘Yes, cousin,’ Pimpernel said lightly, still tracing Ferdi’s features. ‘I do need to dress your feet.’

 ‘Ferdi...’ Merry said. His mind was perfectly clear though his body would not respond to his will. He could see that Pimpernel was not right, somehow, not thinking as she ought, for there was a slight smile on her face, a faraway look. Merry moved one leg slightly, scraping one burned sole. The pain was refreshing and gave him a surge of energy.

 ‘You have to tend his burns!’ he snapped before a wave of weakness dragged him down again. Deliberately he summoned the will to move the leg again, to cause himself pain, to liberate his body from thrall. ‘Nell!’ he said sharply.

She jerked at his tone. ‘No need to scold,’ she pouted. She kissed Ferdi gently and laid his head down, then moving as one in a dream, she rolled him to his side. She caught her breath in a sob at the sight of her husband’s back.

Merry closed his eyes in relief. Nell had returned from wherever it was she’d gone. He let himself drift for the nonce, confident that Nell would deal with their injuries and not lose herself in a dream.

***
 
The ground was rising, Aragorn thought. He’d tied the lines to his saddle and now he slid to the ground, trudging through snow that reached his knees. Yes, the ground beneath them was rising. It was easier to tell on foot than from horseback. He peered into the darkness, wondering.

Arwen slid down to walk beside him, but she walked lightly, atop the snow, unhampered. ‘We are passing between the mounds of the kings,’ she said. ‘We are nearly there.’

Nearly there, Aragorn thought, his shoulders straightening, weariness and cold forgotten. They had led the caravan to safety. Soon there would be warmth, and food, shelter from the storm.

The thought niggled at the corner of his mind, but what of the hobbits? Where were they? Pippin, and Merry, Ferdibrand, and Pimpernel? Had they found shelter? He vowed to himself, and not for the first time, that as soon as this cursed snow ended he would be off in search, with all of his guardsmen. Knowing Eomer, all the Rohirrim currently in Edoras would join the hunt.