Chapter 14. Healers' Care

 ‘There is something you must know,’ Queen Lothiriel said firmly as the hobbit mums exchanged glances amongst themselves.

 ‘Something you haven’t told us?’ Estella said at once. She shot Diamond and Rose a look that said, Why am I not surprised?

 ‘You have been under healers’ care since your arrival,’ the queen said. ‘You all were in such a state of cold and exhaustion, King Eomer sent at once to the Hall of Healing and they sent out to the rest of the city, to summon all healers who were free to attend you.’

 ‘All those attentive servants...’ Diamond said.

Lothiriel smiled. ‘Yes, quite a few of them,’ she agreed. ‘They saw to it that you were fed, warmed, and tucked into beds for a restorative period of sleep.’

 ‘Very kind, I’m sure,’ Rose murmured, but she did not lose her watchful look, and Estella was clearly exasperated.

 ‘They determined that it would have been harmful to allow worry to rob you of rest...’ Lothiriel continued.

 ‘And just what have we to worry about?’ Estella said, advancing on the queen, who crouched in the snow to see eye-to-eye with the irate hobbit.

 ‘Several riders had been lost in the storm,’ Lothiriel said candidly. Diamond caught her breath, and the queen nodded.

 ‘Pippin,’ Diamond whispered, ‘and Merry...’

 ‘Ferdibrand and Pimpernel,’ Rose put in. ‘She wouldn’t let him out of her sight, yesterday, do you remember? She said she’d ride all the way to Edoras pony-back if she had to.’

Estella said, ‘But they’re found, or we wouldn’t be called to the Healing Hall...’ She whirled to address Elfwine, who’d dismounted and was waiting nearby. The children, curious, were gathering, snow battles forgotten. ‘You!’ she said sternly, wagging a finger at the prince. ‘Tell me, are they all found?’

 ‘They are,’ he said.

 ‘But not all well, I take it,’ Diamond said, moving to Estella’s side. ‘Come, let us not waste time in chit-chat.’ Gathering skirts and children, the crowd of hobbits and Big Folk removed to the Halls of Healing.

***

 ‘Well that’s one problem settled,’ Goldilocks said. She made a face at her untouched plate and pushed it away, choosing to sip her tea instead.

 ‘Off your feed?’ Faramir said, instantly solicitous.

 ‘We ate so heartily last night,’ Goldi said, though the thought made her stomach flip-flop now in the morning light. ‘It was clever of you, to order a feast to celebrate conclusion of the harvest. I imagine the level of grumbling has dropped precipitously.’

 ‘And now I have them out planting the winter wheat and barley,’ Farry said, absently lifting a forkful of bacon from Goldi’s plate. ‘There’s grumbling, be assured of that.’ He sipped his own tea, rose to refill both their cups, but Goldi waved the teapot away. ‘What’s the rush?’ he said, imitating one of the chief farmers of Tuckborough, a hobbit of more mouth than brain. He didn’t deserve the land he’d inherited, in Farry’s opinion, but what could one do? Pippin had bribed the farmer to take a position at the Great Smials, leaving his competent younger brother to manage the land, but now Faramir was stuck with listening to reams of useless “advice”. ‘Why are we hurrying to finish planting the winter wheat? We have an entire month left in the season!’

 ‘Why are we hurrying?’ Goldi said, sitting back. It would be time soon to go down to the kitchens, to plan menus with the chief cook. The idea was less than appealing at the moment. ‘The weather is perfect! You’d never know it snowed a few days ago.’

 ‘The weather was perfect before it snowed,’ Farry said. ‘The hunters are worried; they say it’s going to be a bad winter from the signs.’

 ‘It seems I hear that every year,’ Goldi said. ‘Pip and Merry-lad enjoy coming back from the Dragon with tales of the old gaffers’ predictions of woe.’

 ‘Better safe than sorry,’ Farry said. ‘I want the Shire to still be here when my father returns.’

 ‘ “If he returns,” you mean,’ Goldi laughed. ‘He’s been talking of stepping down as Thain for all the time I’ve known him, and now he has you...’

 ‘Don’t even think it,’ Farry said with a shudder. ‘I’m not ready...’

 ‘You don’t feel ready to run the Shire,’ Goldi said with a smile, ‘but you’ll do it anyhow, because your father expects it of you or he’d never have left you in charge in the first place.’

 ‘Well,’ Farry said, ‘I’ll be glad when he returns...’

 ‘As long as he doesn’t decide to stay in the Southlands for good!’ Goldi teased.

 ‘Don’t borrow trouble,’ Farry said, ‘for all you’re so good at sweet-talking others out of what you want. And remember, on the morrow we’re off to Bridgefields, to meet with the Bolger and Berilac Brandybuck to discuss preparations for the winter.’

 ‘My saddlebags are already packed,’ Goldi said. ‘I have all I need.’

 ‘Saddlebags?’ Farry said.

 ‘You don’t think we’re going to haul a pack beast along, or ride in a carriage in this glorious weather!’ Goldi said. ‘What I cannot bring, I’ll borrow!’

***

Most of the visitors were shown to a large, pleasant room with fires at both ends, the floor deep in richly-hued carpets, the furnishings overstuffed and comfortable. Thick hangings graced the walls, depicting pleasant scenes. All was inviting—suitable for a prolonged wait, Estella noted warily. Thankfully, in all their visits to Edoras, this was her first glimpse of the insides of the Healing Hall.

 ‘If you will come with me,’ a healers’ assistant said quietly.

 At a look from Diamond, Forget-me-not, eldest daughter of the Thain, settled the little ones around her on the floor for a counting and clapping game.

The hobbit mums followed a healer’s assistant to another room much more sparsely furnished, with walls and floors of stone. Tall wooden tables dwarfed the three small figures that lay upon them as healers and their assistants worked. One held Merry as he retched miserably into a basin, another was treating the burns on Ferdibrand’s back, several others gathered around Pippin, manipulating his limbs and exchanging comments in low tones. Estella rushed to Merry’s side, Diamond to Pippin’s, while Rose stood uncertainly. Where was Samwise? She felt hands on her shoulders and looked up to see Arwen behind her.

An old man wrapped in a blanket was talking to Elessar by the bier where Pippin lay. His wrists were being gently tended, though the assistant at work was hampered by the fact that the old man kept pulling his hands away to gesture expressively.

 ‘The dogs were restless,’ he was saying. ‘As I was, listening to the wind howl as if the wolves had come down from the mountains again, or the spirits of those lost at the Fords of Isen were wandering... my father and two brothers fell there...’

 ‘The dogs were restless,’ Elessar prompted, and the old man returned to his story.

 ‘They kept getting up and lying down again. Restless they were, as I've said. They pawed at the door and whined though I scolded them well. I told them to lie down, but Ironjaw cocked his head, ran to the door and began to howl louder than the wind. “There is something out there,” I told my granddaughter.’

The healer’s assistant gently pulled his pointing hand down and began to re-wrap the bandage.

 ‘She said it was no more than the wind, but Ironjaw is not one to give up when he has his quarry. I thought he’d dig a hole through the door though it has withstood worse. I took the lantern and went out. You couldn’t see a hand before your face, but the dog, he darted out into the snow as if he had eyes to see through wind and storm! He came back, took my sleeve, pulled me into the yard...’

The healer’s assistant sighed and let go long enough for the old man to tug at his own sleeve to illustrate his words.

 ‘Straight out into the yard he brought me, to the trough, and the lantern showed me a dark bulk. It was a pony, head hanging. I said, “How came you to be here?” Ironjaw thrust forward, diving at the pony’s feet; I thought he’d drive the beast away, but that was not his intention. He was pulling at something.’ He pointed to Pippin. ‘This one’s cloak. When I touched him, he was alive and not frozen through as I expected! He’d been riding through the storm, trusting the pony to lead him to shelter, to my reckoning, but too stiff from the cold to dismount properly. He fell and hit his head, I think, on the stones or on the trough itself.’

 ‘Hit his head,’ a healer with a quiet air of authority said. ‘Yes, here.’ Elessar thanked the old man and turned to the table, to run his hands over Pippin’s head. Diamond was standing beside her husband. Standing on tiptoe, she could just see him. She was jostled from behind and half-turned to protest, but it was another assistant with a tall stool. She thanked him softly, climbing up, taking Pippin’s hand and gazing into his face.

 ‘Pippin?’ she said softly. ‘My love, I’m here. Pippin? Are you with us?’

He heard a familiar voice and opened his eyes, seeing a stone ceiling above him, curiously flat. Shapes moved at the periphery of his vision, and then suddenly a face was suspended over his. He knew this face; it was as familiar to him as the fur on his feet, though he could not put a name to it, nor to the feelings that welled in him. He smiled.

 ‘You see,’ the healer said to Elessar. ‘Only the left side responds.’ He bent over the hobbit, taking the small hands in his. ‘Can you squeeze my hands?’ he said. He gave a gentle squeeze of his own to encourage the hobbit, and felt a feeble response from one of the hands. Stepping back, he caught Elessar’s eye and shook his head. ‘Only the left side,’ he repeated. ‘And look at his eyes when I bring the lamp close. By your leave, Mistress,’ he said politely to Diamond.

The face was withdrawn and a bright light was shone in his eyes. He wanted to protest but there were no words left to him. When he tried to close his eyes, something held them open as the bright light advanced and retreated. Voices rumbled meaningless noises in his ears. When his eyes suddenly were allowed to close, a tear trickled down his cheek.

 ‘What is it?’ Diamond whispered. She knew Pippin had every confidence in Strider. She took up her husband’s left hand, the one the healer had said was still working, and held tight. The hands of the King... she thought desperately.

 ‘Diamond,’ Elessar said gravely, bending close. ‘Pippin is bleeding inside his head.’

 ‘I see no blood,’ she said, perplexed.

 ‘When a hobbit hits his head, and falls asleep, and does not waken,’ Elessar said, ‘you do not see the blood, but it is there.’

Diamond nodded. One of her father’s workers had died so. An icy hand gripped her heart. ‘He will die, then?’ she said. ‘Not even athelas can save him?’

 ‘Not athelas, not this time,’ Elessar said, ‘but there is something we can do.’

 ‘What?’ Diamond said, her eyes not leaving her husband’s face. If he opened his eyes again, she did not want to miss the moment.

 ‘We bore a hole, through the bone, to let the blood out,’ Elessar said.

 ‘A hole? In his head?’ Diamond said in horror.

Estella looked over from Merry’s side. Happily her husband had not heard Diamond, so involved was he in trying to bring up his insides.

 ‘It is his only chance,’ Elessar said.

 ‘No,’ Diamond half-sobbed. ‘I cannot let you do such a thing to him...’

 ‘Diamond,’ Elessar said. ‘If we do not do this thing, he will die, or worse, he will live on as you see him: a faint spark burning in a shell. He cannot move or speak. He is trapped, and he can never win his way free this side of death.’