Chapter 15. The Road Goes Ever On

Arwen’s hands tightened on Rose’s shoulders. When the hobbit looked up questioningly, Arwen softly said, ‘Come.’ Rose took the proffered hand and followed. Perhaps the queen would lead her to Samwise.

...which she did. In a small room nearby (small by Men’s standards, but large enough to be a sitting room for a large hobbit family), Samwise sat upon the floor, his back to the corner of the room. Pimpernel was cradled in his lap; he held her close and whispered gentle soothing comfort against her curls.

 ‘Sam?’ Rose asked. She saw her husband’s arms tighten about Ferdi’s wife, but his whispers didn’t stop.

 ‘There, you see,’ he was saying. ‘All is well, we’re amongst our own kind now, the danger is over...’ and more of the same.

 ‘Sam?’ Rose asked again, stepping forward to kneel beside Sam and Pimpernel, wrapping her arms around them both. Arwen followed, stopping when Pimpernel stiffened in Sam’s embrace.

 ‘You’re safe,’ Sam murmured, but Pimpernel shook her head.

 ‘Men,’ she hissed. ‘We’re among Men; how can we be safe?’

 ‘I may be mortal now, but I am Half-elven,’ Arwen said, stooping but not coming any nearer. ‘None of the Men here wish to harm you; they only seek to render aid.’

 ‘Aid,’ Pimpernel said bitterly. ‘Aid! He said he offered aid, but he meant death,’ she spat.

 ‘But the aid is now yours to give,’ Arwen said persuasively.

 ‘Why should I help them?’ Pimpernel said, and then added softly, ‘What can I do? They’re so Big...’

 ‘You can help your brother,’ Rose spoke up, and Pimpernel stared at her. She had retreated into dream after the old man’s bonds were cut, seeing nothing, saying nothing more as Sam led her pony through the streets of Edoras. Sam’s face was sober; he’d watched the Thain, lying unmoving in Bergil’s arms as they rode slowly the rest of the way into the city.
 
 ‘What help does he need?’ Pimpernel said now.

 ‘He’s injured, and Elessar can help him,’ Rose said, ‘but only if Diamond agrees.’

 ‘Diamond’s right to fight them!’ Pimpernel cried. ‘She has the right of it,’ she said, lower, and buried her face in her hands. ‘Ruffians all,’ she whispered. ‘Just as Ferdi said.’

 ‘Would you condemn your brother?’ Rose said.

 ‘He has a good chance if the healers are allowed to help him,’ Arwen said. ‘My father has saved several Elves in this manner, and a few Men as well.’

 ‘In what manner?’ Pimpernel said.

Rose hesitated, for the cure sounded barbaric and cruel. ‘He is bleeding inside his head,’ she said at last, ‘and they have to make a way to let the blood out, like you’d lance a boil.’ At least, she thought it was something like that.

 ‘How?’ Pimpernel pressed, her eyes going to Arwen.

 ‘They must bore a hole through the bone,’ Arwen said, her eyes steady on Pimpernel’s.

 ‘Ruffians!’ Pimpernel shouted. ‘And you would have me persuade Diamond to give her consent to let them torture my brother to death?’

 ‘Nell,’ Arwen began.

 ‘Don’t you “Nell” me!’ Pimpernel said furiously, but Arwen would not be denied.

 ‘I trust my husband implicitly,’ she said. ‘If he says it is the only way, then what he says is truth.’ Pimpernel shook her head furiously, but Arwen held her gaze. ‘Pimpernel,’ she said formally, ‘what if... what if I laid myself down, allowed my husband to bore a hole in my head, through my bone. Would that convince you? If I could prove it safe to you in that way...?’

Sam and Rose stared at the queen in amaze. She could not be serious!

 ‘Why would you do that?’ Pimpernel asked in a whisper.

 ‘My husband loves Peregrin dearly,’ Arwen said, ‘as do I. If it is the only way to save him from death, or worse, then I will offer myself.’

Pimpernel nodded. ‘Take me to Elessar,’ she said, stirring herself loose from Sam and Rose’s embrace and rising. Arwen extended her hand and Pimpernel took it, and together they walked from the room.

 ‘Do you think she’ll really...?’ Rose whispered.

 ‘I wouldn’t put it past her,’ Sam said, shaking his head in wonder. He wrapped his arms around Rose and hugged her tightly. ‘O my Rosie-Rose.’

 ‘O my Sam,’ she said in return, snuggling into his embrace.

***

Evidently Arwen would not need to submit to her husband’s healing hands, for when Sam and Rose returned to the big room, Diamond was weeping, holding Pippin’s hand, and nodding as Elessar explained something in a low voice. Merry had stopped retching and lay on his side, staring at Pippin while the burns on his feet were freshly tended.

 ‘You’ll be walking in a week, Master Holdwine,’ King Eomer said, forcing a smile.

 ‘So they tell me,’ Merry said. He grimaced. ‘If I live that long,’ he added.

 ‘Merry?’ Estella said, worried.

 ‘I feel as if my insides have been turned to the outside and I’ve been beaten with sticks and clubs from head to toe,’ he said, too miserable to be less than candid. He caught sight of Estella’s face and forced a smile. ‘Other than that I’m well, my love,’ he added.

Estella hiccoughed, caught between laughter and tears, feeling dangerously close to hysteria, but she fought for control, not wanting to add to the distress her husband was feeling. ‘So glad to hear it,’ she managed at last.

 ‘When?’ Diamond said now.

 ‘The sooner the better,’ Elessar replied. ‘The longer we wait, the poorer his chances.’ Diamond did not understand, he saw, but hopefully she would understand soon, and have cause to rejoice.

 ‘Leave us, then,’ Diamond said. ‘Give us a moment, just family.’ Elessar nodded, gesturing to the healers to accompany him. Diamond caught Rose’s eye and the latter nodded, slipping from the room.

 ‘What is it? What’s happening?’ Merry said, wakening from the misery that ruled him.

 ‘It’s Pippin,’ Estella whispered, blinking back her tears. ‘They seek to ease his passing, I think. Diamond tried to argue that it is not our way, but Nell took their side, for some reason. In any event, Diamond’s given in.’

Merry nodded, his own eyes brimming. To think they’d escaped the madman’s clutches, only to bid his dearest cousin farewell... Estella hugged him gently. ‘O my love,’ she said, and they held each other, watching Diamond sitting atop Pippin’s bier, softly stroking his face. Nell had climbed up a stool pushed close to Ferdi’s resting place and had taken her husband’s head in her lap, both turned to see Pippin.

Diamond kissed her husband’s forehead, swallowing hard. ‘I release you from your promise,’ she said. ‘It was vanity on my part, for who among us knows his end? Forgive my foolishness, beloved.’

Pimpernel’s arms tightened on Ferdibrand. She knew of the vow Diamond had won from her husband, half in jest—but only half—that he would not leave her to mourn alone. After all these years, I think I’ve finally made him see/ that a widow I’d not care to be, she’d said, quoting the absurd old ditty about the hobbit who had so many adventures he drove his wife to tie him in a chair to keep him at home.

Now Diamond softly kissed her husband’s lips, but like a stranger’s they were to her, half-unresponding. As she rose from the kiss his eyes opened again, unfocused now. She stroked the hair back from his forehead, saying, ‘Go in peace, my love.’

Hobbits, summoned by Rose, were filing into the room. Pippin’s older children helped the little ones onto the bier and climbed up themselves to take their leave of their father. The others settled against the far wall, larger ones taking small children on their laps to shield them from the cold of the stone floor.

 ‘It’s Farry’s place,’ Merigrin, next-oldest to Faramir Took, said. ‘But I’ll do my best.’ He laid a kiss upon his father’s forehead.

 ‘He’ll hear you,’ Diamond said, meaning Pippin and not Farry, of course, hundreds of leagues away in the Shire. She wished that all of them had stayed there.

The Big People re-entered, the healers' eyebrows rising at the sight of all the Holbytlan now in the room. ‘Go now, children,’ Diamond said, and her family climbed down to join the waiting watchers.

 ‘Strider,’ Merry said, reaching out. Elessar stopped by the table that held him. ‘Do not do this thing. It is not our way; let him go in peace.’

 ‘It is the only way, Merry,’ the King said gently. Merry shook his head but was too weak to argue. When they would have borne him away, he protested.

‘Let him stay,’ Elessar said unexpectedly. ‘And the others,’ he added, indicating the hobbits watching from the side of the room.

 ‘Let me see him,’ Merry said as Elessar turned away. The King nodded, taking the hobbit in his arms. He carried Merry to Pippin’s side and laid him down. Merry looked for a long moment into Pippin’s face, bent to whisper something in his cousin’s ear, rose and nodded. Elessar returned him to the other table.

Ferdi sat up now in Nell’s embrace, both watchful, both stiffening when the King approached them. ‘Let us be,’ Nell warned. ‘You won’t make us leave him. We’ll not stir from this spot.’ Elessar heard the iron will behind the words, that will he knew so well in his friends, and he nodded, touching his hand to his forehead in a graceful salute.

 ‘We must begin,’ the head healer said. Diamond nodded. She had not asked his name; she did not want to know it. She held her husband a bit more tightly.

 ‘Let her stay,’ Elessar said again. She looked up, surprised, but the head healer was nodding. They positioned her on the side away from where they’d work, laid a thick cloth over her skirts, and then gently rested Pippin’s head in her lap. His eyes were closed now, his breathing slow.

 ‘His heart is slowing,’ an assistant warned.

 ‘We must begin,’ Elessar said. Diamond took a deep breath to steady herself and then nodded, keeping her eyes locked on her husband’s face.

 ‘Hold him as still as you can,’ the healer whispered, and she nodded. She stroked the curls back from her husband’s forehead as an assistant washed the left side of Pippin’s face. From the corner of her eye Diamond saw Elessar and several others of the Big People scrubbing their hands under the flow of water that issued from a fountain on the far wall. She took firm hold as they returned to surround the table. 

Pippin didn’t fight her. He might have been asleep. She hoped he was; she hoped he wouldn’t feel any of this. How could she have agreed to it?

Elessar picked up a bright, sharp blade and brought it close. Diamond looked away, catching Merigrin’s eye. The tween sat straighter and lifted up his voice.

The Road has seemed to go ever on and on,
Down from the place where I had my beginning...

One by one other voices joined his, until the soft voices of the hobbits filled the room with song.

Now from the sky, the Sun is gone;
The Man in the Moon from his starry bed is grinning...

 ‘Don’t stop,’ Elessar said softly in the language of Eorlingas to the healer drilling through the bone, as he retracted the skin.

 ‘I’ve never worked to music before,’ the healer muttered, his eyes on his work. He was through the dense outer layer and into the spongy middle layer of the skull. An assistant reached in to wipe away a trickle of blood.

 ‘They think we’re murdering him,’ Elessar said. ‘It is their custom to sing the dying out of the world.’

Diamond listened to the incomprehensible talk, watching in horror as the drill bit deeper. Pippin’s eyes were open again, but empty now, no awareness in them at all. She hoped he didn’t know...

 ‘Steady,’ Elessar said.

The healer was scarcely breathing as he drilled through the hard inner layer, going slowly now, slowly and carefully. Suddenly he stopped. ‘I’m through,’ he said.

An assistant took the retractor from Elessar, and the King wiped away the trickling blood to take a closer look at the wound they were making. ‘It’s under the membrane,’ he said to Diamond. ‘This blood comes from the bone itself.’

She nodded, uncomprehending. She was sick with grief as she saw him select another sharp blade from the cloth holding instruments of healing, instruments of torture, of life, of death... She forced herself to watch as the blade bit. A rush of dark blood resulted, sponged up by the assistant, that tapered off to a slow flow, and then, as she watched, became a trickle.

She heard a soft sigh from the King and realised that he’d been holding his breath. A little dizzy, she told herself to breathe. She had kept one hand on Pippin’s throat through the entire ordeal, feeling for life for as long as it would flutter under her fingertips. To her surprise the pulse quickened, seeming to grow stronger. She wondered just when it would stop.

The song ended. Merigrin watched his mother, waiting for a sign. Should they begin another, or was his father already gone?

Pippin blinked, awareness returning. He swallowed, tried to clear his throat. All must be well, for there was Diamond’s face above his, looking down at him. Had he fallen asleep with his head in her lap?

He cleared his throat again and spoke. ‘I’m hungry. What is the time?’

***
Thanks to Lyllyn of HASA for patiently answering my questions on medical details.