The Houses of Healing were the finest houses for the sick south of Rivendell. The leechcraft of Gondor was not what it had been an age ago, but all the hurts suffered by men save old age and what they called the Black Shadow, were tended for with great skill and care. When Gandalf brought Merry in to the house, several ladies swooped down on him and took the injured hobbit into their care.

     “Stay with him until he has a bed, Pippin, my lad,” Gandalf instructed. “I must see to the others. I want you to go back to guarding Faramir with Beregond when Merry is asleep.”

     “Yes, of course, Gandalf,” Pippin said, distractedly, as he watched the women filling a small tub with warm water. “Will he be all right?”

    Gandalf put his gnarled hand on the hobbit’s head and didn’t answer. Pippin watched, a frown on his face, as the wizard left the room, then turned his attention back to Merry.

     The women took Merry’s armor off of the limp hobbit and set it gently in a pile in a corner of the room. Then they eased him into the warm bath and cleaned the grime and filth of battle from him.

     “His arm is so cold,” one of the younger healers murmured.

     “He and the Lady of Rohan slew the Ringwraith, so the Riders of Rohan say. They have the Black Shadow, now here, scrub his hair.”

      Pippin stood near the door, trying not to get into their way, watching as they expertly scrubbed his cousin and dressed him a warm woolen nightshirt. Merry murmured incoherently, lost in some dark dream, and there was nothing that they could do for him. At last, the healer women laid him in a soft bed and covered him with a warm blanket emblazoned with the white tree of Gondor. Pippin went to him and bent over to whisper in his ear.

     “Merry,” he whispered. “I have to go guard Faramir now; Gandalf said so. I’ll come back, Merry, I promise. Please be here when I do!”  

     Merry’s brows drew together, and Pippin took that to mean that he would try. Merry was not the kind to give up easily. Pippin squeezed his hand and left the room.

*****

     “How is your friend?”

     Pippin started and looked up. He had walked all the way back to Faramir’s door without realizing it, so caught up was he in thoughts of Merry’s illness. Beregond and the young Rider who had set out to help him look for Merry, Caelin, stood there, looking at him expectantly.

     Pippin took a shuddering breath. “He is not well, not well at all,” he replied. “I-I’m afraid for him, and I don’t want to leave him, but Gandalf told me to come back here.”

    Beregond reached out and squeezed the young hobbit’s shoulder. “I’m sure that Mithrandir will be able to help him somehow.”

    “Indeed, the White Wizard has proved helpful in all of his advice thus far, Master Holbytla,” Caelin said. “Do not doubt him now.”

   “I won’t,” Pippin replied. “I just wish that he would hurry.”

   “He will come,” replied the Rider. “But now I must return to my own post outside the door of Lady Eowyn. Fare thee well, friends, and may we meet again soon.”

    Beregond and Pippin watched him stride away, back upstairs, then turned back to their own duty, neither talking much. Pippin wondered where Gandalf had gotten to, and if he would be back in time to save Merry. When he posed the question to Beregond, the guard shrugged.

     “He left soon after Ioreth, one of the healers, told him that the sick were in need of a king’s hands. ‘The hands of the king are the hands of a healer’ were her precise words, and Mithrandir strode out several moments later. That was close to an hour ago.”

     Pippin nodded and opened his mouth to reply, but at that moment, the front door to the Houses opened, and a group of men came through the door. Pippin gave a cry of surprise and joy. The man in the lead was Aragorn. The King.

TBC