Chapter Eleven: Cut

Pippin turned his eyes toward his wife. She was doing it again. As soon as she caught him looking at her over the stem of his pipe, she glanced hastily back down to the knitting in her lap and pretended she hadn’t been staring.

It was getting unnerving, ‘twas. She’d been doing that a lot, ever since they returned from their trip to Buckland. And Pip didn’t feel he could say anything to her about it -- not when the lass was ill, with some sort of female complaint. Like as not, these odd stares were somehow related to that.

Not, of course, that Diamond herself had said anything on’t to him, Pippin mused as he blew out a ring of smoke. The stare of his green eyes fixed beyond its center, to where his hairy feet rested, stretched out before him in front of the hearth.

No, all he’d been left with was what little he’d gleaned from the old healer, who’d told him his wife had a problem and that some travels in the Shire might help it. Well, the travels had been all right, he supposed. She called him ‘Pippin’ now, on a time; that was something, and she seemed to have grown more comfortable in his presence.

Except for the staring. He risked another quick glance up: sure enough, she was doing it again, before she once more looked down to the yarn that trailed across the sofa. Pippin blew another smoke ring, this time leaning his head back to watch it lazily rise into the air.

Well, ‘twas Blotmath now, and there’d be no gallivantin’ about the Shire for new air for some time yet. The lass would just have to make do with what healing potions were here at the Smials.

And, despite the joy he found in seeing such good friends as Merry and Estella, and Sam and Rosie, the trip had had its way of being hard on Pippin. He sucked deep on his pipe, his cheeks hollowing, and released a great gust of smoke with nary a ring about it as he thought back to Sam’s newest lad, and the babes that had preceded him. No, indeed, ‘twouldn’t be a Pippin-lad soon, if ever, not if his wife were ill in that way.

Pippin looked askance at Diamond again, but this time she was truly busy counting out stitches and did not meet his gaze.

He supposed ‘twasn’t her fault, and he felt certain she’d not have married him if she’d known, but still...

He stood up suddenly, batting a hand at his eye in the movement, and tamped his pipe out with a clatter upon the dish that lay on the mantelpiece.

“I -- I think I’ll go see how Da’s reports are coming along, then,” he said abruptly, shoving his hands in his breeches pockets, and left the quarters.

“Fare thee well, Pip-- husband,” Diamond ended in a sigh as the door clicked shut on her words. She finished the row of stitching before putting the knitting aside and moving to the mantel to pick up the discarded pipe.

Captain Peregrin had been acting very oddly, ever since they’d returned from Buckland, she thought as she ran her thumb along the pipe stem, still damp from his saliva and nicked with small dents where he’d chewed upon it. Just when she was ready to appreciate being courted -- it seemed a fine thing, if the hobbitesses in the books could be believed -- he was suddenly spending evenings with the Thain, or with Everard, returning late and smelling of pipe smoke and ale. What was the attraction for hobbits of these things, anyway? Diamond carefully lifted the pipe stem to her mouth and inhaled, coughing as she let it fall back down to the dish.


“Och! Pip! This report -- ‘tis all wrong!”

Paladin threw the offending parchment across his desk and toward the chair where Pippin sat ramrod-straight in front of it.

“Dinna you pay attention when I brought you here with me beforetimes? And just what were you doin’ in Buckland all these years, I’d like to know!”

Paladin’s green eyes, beneath his salt and pepper curls, burned as cold as Pippin had ever seen them.

‘I was but a little lad when you brought me to do reports afore,’ he thought to himself. ‘’Twas play!’

And as for what he was doing in Buckland -- he’d been helping Merry run the farm on which the Crickhollow smial was located. ‘Twas Buckland land, so any reports of the harvest fell to Merry’s lot, and Pippin trusted his honest cousin to apportion him his fair share. And he’d been hosting and attending parties at all the liveliest smials, a different lass on his arm each time, more of them than not who would have been eager to kiss and hold him if he’d allowed it.

He hadn’t been, as ‘twas now, sitting about the Great Smials as the winter’s damp and dreariness pressed everyone close inside, wed to a hobbitess who wouldna give him an heir nor the joys of procuring one, and watching his previously gentle, jovial father turn harsh and demanding.

Out loud, Pippin said in formal, clipped tones, “I shall do the report again, then,” and picked it up with two fingers by its very edge. “Will that be all?”

“Aye,” Paladin agreed curtly, and Pippin walked stiffly to the door. His hand was on the knob when Paladin called out to stop him.

“Pip!” he said, and the voice was no gentler than before, though the words seemed kind enough. “You dinna need to do that now. Let it wait for the morrow.”

“’Tis not a bother, Da,” Pippin said, his hand still holding the doorknob and his back to the room as he spoke.

“Peregrin!” Thain Paladin barked out. “Go on back to your quarters with you, now.”

“Aye, sir,” Pippin said and left without looking back.

Paladin closed his eyes tight and pinched his lips at the tremor that ran through his gut. He hated that he was losing control of his body -- and of his tongue, seemingly. Pad couldna hardly remember ever speaking in such a harsh tone to his beloved lad, Pad’s bright hope for the future.

Pad clenched his fist around his quill and gritted his teeth in determination. Blast all the healers, anyway! Pip knew what he was about when he’d said as much as a tween. “Nothing can be found to explain what’s wrong, sir, and there’s likely nothing can be done about it.” Blast! Pad would show them: he’d not give in without a fight.

Pip should be spending these years as carefree as may be, a-visitin’ friends and their new lads and lasses, and peopling the Smials with his own, as well as learning -- learning, mind you -- the ropes of being Thain. ‘Twasn’t time yet for Pad’s lad to take the office himself: he wouldna give him another such burden of responsibility to carry in the same year as had seen him wed.

Pippin returned to his quarters, as the Thain had requested, and sank down into the chair before the hearth, but did not pick up his pipe. He idly wondered where Diamond was as he stretched a hand behind him to rub at the muscles of his neck.

“Why, certainly, Nellie, I shall be glad to accommodate you and Aster,” Diamond was saying as she backed through the door. “I--” she broke off on catching sight of Pippin. “Excuse me,” she said serenely to the voices murmuring on the other side of the door, and closed it upon them.

“Pippin?” she asked as she crossed the room to stand before him. “Are you ill?”

“Nay,” Pippin said, rubbing now at his shoulder. Heartsore, mayhap, but nay ill... “’Twas mere a hard day. Wife,” he sighed wearily and closed his eyes in defeat.

Diamond could not help the small smile that played about her lips as she felt a surge of pride to hear him use that word. It had been what she had dreamed of, as a lass in Mother and Father’s smial: to hear that designation from a hobbit of her own. This hobbit. Of whom she had been proud before they even truly met and who, now that she had lived with him for over half a year, had awakened other feelings in her as well. Anyone could call her by name, but “wife” was his alone.

“Did you need something?” Pippin asked, his voice still weary, as he sensed her continuing to stand before him.

“No,” Diamond said softly, her hand reaching out to -- not quite -- touch a slumped shoulder beneath those closed eyes. “But I daresay you do.”

Pippin cracked his eyes open at that and stared at her bleakly. “What do you mean?”

“It is something I learned,” Diamond said as she walked behind his chair, now placing a hand lightly upon his shoulder. “Something for when my husband had had a hard day. If it is all right?” she asked, now with a hand lying still upon the other shoulder as well.

Pippin shrugged stiffly. “You are my wife,” he said in the same defeated tone. “You may touch me as you wish.”

Diamond nodded, though Pippin could not see it, and began to rub and knead her fingers along his shoulder blades and the back of his neck. A few moments passed, and she frowned in concentration as the knots did not seem to ease.

“Excuse me a moment,” Diamond said and withdrew her hands. Pippin did not stir as she ducked into the bed chamber and came back with a small glass jar that was cool to her touch. Diamond hesitated a moment after removing the lid so that the soft scent of lavender escaped atop an undercurrent of hazelnut oil.

“This -- this may be more effective if it were not applied through clothing,” she said quietly, picking hesitantly at the cloth of his shirt that stretched across his shoulders.

“Ha!” Pippin laughed as he stood, a gleam coming into the eyes of his suddenly animated face, above a smile. “You just want to get my shirt off!” he teased.

Diamond flushed bright red as a cherry and hung her face toward her feet as Pippin began unbuttoning. He was right, she suddenly knew, as soon as he said it: she did want to see him shirtless again. Yet she dared not answer so.

“’Tis all right,” Pippin said, his cheerfulness deflating again as he dropped the shirt and braces upon the hearth rug. “My wife may look upon me as well.” He sat in the chair again, crouched forward with his chin resting in his hands, his back exposed to Diamond.

Tears pricked against his closed eyelids as he realized his wife would now have a clear view of what a ruined hobbit she’d married.

Diamond said nothing as she dipped her fingers into the fragrant oil and began again to run them over Pippin’s back. Small blotches and scars appeared here and there but, despite Pippin’s concern, Diamond did not find them to be flaws. She knew that Captain Peregrin had fought bravely in the Battle of Bywater and the Scouring of the Shire, and had come home some sort of hero even before that. She considered the scars badges of his honor, and was concerned only that they might pain him.

She carefully rubbed the oiled tip of her thumb gently along each mark, last of all tracing the long, thin weals which arced across his back. The flats of her hands pressed and squeezed, and she felt strong muscles rippling beneath them. At last, she felt that the knots were all loosened, and she leaned her head forward next to his face to speak, only to jump back in startlement at the snore that met her.

Diamond smiled and carefully leaned Captain Peregrin’s torso back in the chair, at which his head lolled to one side. She frowned slightly then and pulled a crocheted blanket from the back of the sofa to carefully tuck about him before going to the quarters’ door. Cautiously opening it, she peered down the corridor, then up, and smiled at catching sight of what she had hoped to see.

“Bert!” she called softly. “Could you come here, please? I have a task which requires assistance.”

“For certain, Mistress Diamond,” the servant said cheerfully as he hustled up to the door and ducked his head. “What is’t needs doin’?”

Diamond smiled and placed a finger to her lips as she opened the door wider and cocked her head toward where Pippin sat awkwardly asleep in the chair.

Bert grinned back at her, and they left the door to the quarters wide as the young servant gently lifted the Heir and his blanket and carried him to the bed Diamond had turned down.

“Thank you, Bert,” Diamond said, not bothering to turn around as she drew the bedclothes up over Pippin.

“You’re welcome, Mistress Diamond,” the hobbit answered just as softly, still grinning as he backed out of the chambers and closed the door behind him.


“Well, they were not on the list!” Diamond said in clear distress as Pippin paced the sitting room.

“Och! I know’t!” Pippin answered, putting a hand to his forehead and closing his eyes as he halted and grasped the back of a chair with his other hand. “And truly, ‘tis his brother with whom I dinna want to dine.” He opened his eyes to peer through his fingers at Diamond. “You’re sure she said ‘twould be just the lasses?”

“Yes!” Diamond answered from her seat at the table. “Well, Pimpernel said Everard’s sisters may have their husbands along for the visit, but she wanted leave for herself and Aster to entertain Mistresses...Mistressess...”

“Morning Glory? Moonflower? Four O’clock?” Pippin supplied, as his wife nodded at each name.

“She wanted leave to entertain them in the parlor, and I gave it freely,’ Diamond said, twisting her hands about a cloth napkin that still lay upon the table. “I did not know that they would then decide to bring the hobbits along, nor that we should be asked to accompany them!”

“No, I suppose you didn’t,” Pippin sighed, dropping the hand that covered his face. “And you meant well, to show a kindness to my sister. You are sure you don’t know if Everard’s brother Regi is invited as well? Nor any other hobbits?”

Diamond shook her head mutely no at each question. “The kitchen lasses are preparing the tables now, I believe,” she said to the tablecloth, “as they will have other duties to attend later in the day. They may have received further instructions from Pimpernel.”

“Yes. Yes, you’re right, of course,” Pippin said decisively and turned to depart the quarters. “Ask the servants, if you want to know what’s going on,” he muttered as he left.

Diamond continued staring at the tablecloth, Pippin’s “short list” of hobbits whose invitation to dine he did not wish to accept as clear now in her mind as when he had written it six months ago in Forelithe:

“Sackville-Bagginses.
Reginard Took.
Lily Goold. (Unless she’s not cooking, then it’s all right.”

Diamond shook her head. Her husband’s strange moods continued, and now it seemed she had unwittingly offended -- possibly even disobeyed! -- him. She drew a deep breath and rose from her chair to follow him to the parlor at the end of the corridor.

Pippin paused in the archway, hesitating as he watched Poplar and Holly distribute place settings upon the tables that had been set up in the room. How did one broach the subject of finding out whether one’s disliked cousin was invited to a dinner party without it becoming fodder for gossip among the servants? For that matter, what was he to say to tweenaged kitchen lasses if he were not asking them about food?

The silver cutlery in her hand clinked against a china plate as Holly happened to glance up and see Pippin standing in the doorway. Both lasses’ clear laughter and chattering ceased as they curtsied toward him, but their smiles remained.

“Er...hullo, there,” Pippin said awkwardly as he stepped into the room. He ran a hand through his curls so that a portion of them stood out from his head as he adopted a false brightness to ask, “Is everything going all right, then?”

It was Poplar who answered as the two lasses exchanged gleaming looks with each other. “Yes, sir,” she said. “Did Mistress Diamond require anything of us?”

“Er...er, no,” Pippin said, moving his hand to his hair again. “I had something myself to ask you...that is, I was wondering...,” he stopped as he swept his eyes over the place settings, trying to tally in his mind how many there were and whom they would be for. Blast! It was no use, he thought; he couldna know if the lasses were even finished with their work, let alone who else might have been invited to this soiree.

His attention thus diverted, Pippin did not see the matching glints in their eyes as Holly and Poplar looked at each other again.

‘Twas such a shame, the lasses had whispered to each other on many occasions, that such a handsome young hobbit as Mr. Pippin had been saddled with such a cold wife as Mistress Diamond. After the altercation Poplar had witnessed between them shortly before Mistress Pimpernel’s birthday in Forelithe, she and Holly had remembered his awkward approach that had decidedly not ended in a kiss the day after the wedding. They knew for a fact, from the lasses who served first breakfast in the other part of the Smials, that Thain Paladin pecked Mistress Eglantine on the lips each morn.

Come to think on’t, they had concluded, they had never seen Mr. Pippin and Mistress Diamond touch in such a way. They had begun watching. And, when the usually close-mouthed maid Trefoil proved not so well able to hold the wine they shared after receiving a flask as a gift on Holly’s brother’s birthday, they found that she hadna changed any soiled sheets since the weddin’ night. True, ‘twas, they were sometimes disarranged, but the furnishings of the sitting room seemed disturbed on those nights also. Such a shame...such a handsome hobbit to go to waste...

Pippin’s feet had followed his eyes as he tried to calculate the number of place settings and invited guests, and he found himself next to the corner which held the spinet as he turned back ‘round -- to discover the two kitchen lasses standing close together in front of him.

“Oh,” he said and jumped a little at their unexpected proximity. He raised his hand to his hair again. “I wondered if you knew,” he began, then swallowed as the lasses continued to stare avidly at him and, it seemed, to move forward. “If you could tell me...”

He was backed completely against the spinet now, his breath coming fast as he glanced from one lass to the other.

“We know a lot of things,” Poplar purred as she closed the small distance between them and placed her hand on the front of his shirt.

“Aye, sir,” Holly agreed with a soft giggle as she placed another predatory paw just above his hipbone.

“We could show you, if you like,” Poplar whispered as she tilted her head up to place her mouth against his neck.

“Aye, we could,” Holly chimed in as her hand began to move.

“No!” Pippin gasped out as his head fell back and his hands crashed behind him onto the keyboard of the spinet, producing a discordant sound of jangled notes. “I -- I -- dinna -- married!” he forced out between his lips as his hands now clutched the edge of the spinet. Partly, ‘twas to keep him from physically harming these lasses as he pushed them away, he told himself, and partly -- well, ‘twas to support him as his limbs trembled and his knees buckled under him. “No!” he choked out again, his green eyes wide, but could not force himself to move as Holly leaned her face forward toward his.

“Stop!” Diamond shouted from the archway. She crossed the room before Pippin could blink and had hauled Holly away by the neckline of her frock, slapping the lass hard across the face with her other hand.

Poplar backed up a step but protested indignantly, “Hoy! You canna strike her like that!”

“I may, and I shall,” Diamond shouted back, two bright spots of red burning high on her cheekbones, her hand raised in the air again as Holly sniffled and rubbed her cheek behind her and Pippin half-stood, frozen in position against the spinet. “Shall I treat you the same, for showing my husband such callous disrespect?”

Poplar settled her lips into a thin, grim line and answered coldly, “Nay, Mistress,” as she dropped a stiff curtsy. “We shall return to our work, then.”

“No, you shan’t,” Diamond answered in a voice like ice and steel and reached out with stunning quickness to grasp hard within each hand a wrist of one of the lasses. “I am escorting you right now to pack your things, and I shall see you both depart by the end of the day. You no longer work at the Great Smials.”

“But ‘tis raining, and like to turn to snow!” protested Holly, casting beseeching eyes back toward Pippin as she was dragged along.

“Is it?” Diamond said indifferently as she hauled her captives from the room.

Pippin exhaled a sob and staggered forward from the spinet, passing a hand over his face before he ran from the room.

He weaved through the corridors, not hearing comments behind him, nor Bert’s shouts of “Mr. Pippin! Hoy, sir! Mr. Peregrin! Hoy, Captain, what’s amiss?” as the hobbitservant followed his headlong rush out the door.

It was impossible to tell, when Bert caught up with him in the stables, whether the water which streamed down Pippin’s face was completely from the rain, or whether it mixed with tears.

“Sir!” Bert panted, and Pippin threw a wild glance at him as he saddled Sorrel and said agitatedly, “Well, come if you’re coming!”

Bert took one look at him and threw a saddle onto another nearby pony, mounting quickly to ride behind him as they galloped, coatless, away from the Smials.

It was at the Grub ‘n Grog in Tuckborough that they finally pulled up, a place that was more pub than inn, though it did have some rooms to let.

Bert nursed his mug of ale as he sat near the crackling fire and watched Pippin, across from him, down several. This process was somewhat slowed by Pippin weeping into the mugs, crying out snatches of sentences which made no sense to Bert.

“Promised...swore an oath...honor her...dinna...to break a promise...she canna...willna...but still, I swore! I must! What kind of hobbit...how can I hope to lead the Shire?...Useless baggage!”

These cries and mutterings would be followed by long draughts of ale, so that Bert was not surprised, when Pippin removed the latest upended mug from his face, to see that the Heir’s nose and eartips were flushed a bright red. “Here, sir,” he said, reaching for the empty mug Pippin had set with a clatter upon the table, misestimating its distance from his mouth. Bert tugged the mug from his fingers and slid it to join the other empties as Pippin blinked owlishly and swayed slightly.

“I think ‘tis time to go, as you’re in your cups, sir,” Bert said as he walked to the other side of the table and reached under Pippin’s arms to lift him from the chair. He glanced at the table strewn with mugs, then at the bartender and finally, hesitantly, down to Pippin’s pockets. As he looked back up from his charge, now on his feet but still swaying, the bartender acknowledged him with a wave and a nod to Pippin. Bert nodded back gratefully.

As they rode their ponies back through the rain and the cutting wind to the Great Smials, Bert reached over to turn a straying Sorrel back onto the path. In doing so, his hand encountered Pippin’s, icy-cold upon the reins.

He half carried him through the dimmed hallways of the Smials to knock upon the quarters’ doors, which Diamond opened immediately, still fully dressed.

“Carry him to bed,” she said upon seeing Bert’s burden. “I shall call a healer.”

Pippin drifted in and out for the next few days, aware sometimes of the headache, or the fever he’d acquired, plus, each time he awoke, the presence of a wife who did not offer him the reproach he felt he deserved. Sometimes, he thought as he blinked his eyes open and then slowly closed them against the sight of her wringing out a fresh cloth to place upon his forehead, ‘twas easier to sleep than to face her.

Diamond smoothed the curls from Captain Peregrin’s forehead with one hand while she held the cloth in place with the other. His father should not come near him for some reason, the healers had said, and his mother had held a whispered consultation with Diamond in the hallway outside her quarters early in the illness.

“I shouldna spend much time with him either,” Eglantine had said, “lest I carry the sickness to Pad. I know you’ll take good care of our lad.” She looked Diamond squarely in the eyes.

To which Diamond looked boldly back and replied, “Yes, ma’am, I shall.”

Mistress Eglantine’s lad, she thought as she pressed the cloth against the fevered brow. Her hobbit.

She felt a fierce possessiveness toward him, kindled anew by the thoughts of how the kitchen lasses had presumed to touch him. How dare they treat her Pippin so! She raged inwardly, her fingers tightening unconsciously in his curls so that he winced.

Yet ‘twas a small price to pay, and no more than he deserved, Pippin thought from beneath closed eyelids.

Diamond had reached the archway that day in time to hear her husband say no, and to see the lasses ignore his protestations. Stunned at first into immobility by their presumptuousness, she had found her feet and her tongue again when it became apparent that Holly meant to kiss Captain Peregrin. If any hobbitess were ever to kiss Diamond’s husband, it was going to be her!

Her fingers clenched again, and Pippin could not still his movement.

“Pippin?” Diamond whispered as she leaned toward him. “Husband?”

He blinked groggy green eyes open at her, and Diamond smiled to see them. She released both the cloth and his curls to reach for a mug which sat on the nightstand, a coaster on its top to keep in as much heat as might be.

“I asked the healers about this, and they said it should do no harm, and I think it may do some good,” she smiled as she held the mug toward him.

“’Tis apple bark steeped for a tea,” she encouraged as she held the mug to his lips. “It should help to reduce your fever.”

Pippin glanced up briefly to her gray eyes, but saw no accusation there; certainly none as great as that which he felt within himself. He obediently sipped the tea.


“Pervinca, it really isn’t a good idea,” Pimpernel tried.

“Posh!” her younger sister replied. “Pip’s ill, Da’s ill; I mayn’t disturb them. Has this family lost all its hobbits to hide behind skirts?”

“Diamond doesn’t want--” Pimpernel began again, but Pervinca talked right over her.

“I shall listen to Mama, of course, but I don’t get to visit the Smials often, and if I want to see the Piglet, I shall!”

“Diamond willna like--”

“Diamond,” sniffed Pervinca haughtily, as she raised a hand to knock on Pippin and Diamond’s door, “is nay the daughter of the Thain!”

“Yes?” Diamond asked with quiet confidence as she opened the door to glance from one tall hobbitess to the other.

“I’m sorry,” Pimpernel mouthed to her from behind the darker-haired sister, and Diamond gave a slight nod of acknowledgment as Pervinca stated in a demanding tone,

“I am Mistress Pervinca Took Proudfoot. I am here to see my brother.”

“I see,” Diamond responded in turn, and the two hobbitesses stared each other down until Diamond turned abruptly to enter the bed chamber, leaving Pimpernel and Pervinca standing at the door. Pimpernel had just about decided it was a dismissal and was reaching to pull her sister away when Diamond just as abruptly returned.

“He is awake,” she informed the sisters. “You may have a few minutes to visit, lest he tires too much.”

“Thank you, Diamond,” Pimpernel said gratefully as Pervinca swept ahead of them into the bed chamber.

“You’re welcome, Nellie,” Diamond smiled back.

Pervinca had perched herself on the end of the bed, which Diamond frowned to see but refrained from commenting upon. Pimpernel sat in a chair drawn to the bedside, and Diamond nodded once again to her before withdrawing to leave the siblings on their own.

Pervinca chattered away about many topics of conversation: the farm she lived upon, the quality of the canning she’d done and was eating from this winter, her children, plans for the Yule celebration -- to which Pippin responded listlessly and Pimpernel added occasional interjections.

Pervinca was dismayed to see her brother so worn down, but she hardened her heart against it. ‘He’s a Took,’ she told herself, ‘and we Tooks must be tough if we are to survive.’

More so, she found herself distressed at his unwillingness to initiate conversation. She had told herself before this year’s Yule visit that Pippin’s new status as a married hobbit, and the circumstances of that marriage, would give her an ally in the isolation she felt from her own situation. She was surprised, then, to discover how little his seeming unhappiness pleased her. The both of them had striven mightily to be loyal to the Tooks, she thought, but she added to the thought with a sinking despair, for them both again, it seemed ‘twas now too late for happiness to arrive.

Diamond cleared her throat in the doorway. “I think it is time for you to leave,” she said graciously to the sisters, nodding to where Pippin’s eyes were drooping.

Pervinca stared at this hobbitess, this young North Farthing upstart who had taken from one of the Shire’s finest hobbits all the chances at life he should have had.

“Humph,” she snorted at Diamond’s request, and turned to jostle Pippin’s arm as he began to doze. “Hoy! Piglet!” she called out. “What say you?”

Pippin peeled his eyes open again and glanced from his wife to his sisters before responding softly, “Whatever Diamond says.”

Diamond’s lips and eyes had narrowed at Pervinca as she addressed her brother, and she said now, with a subtle emphasis on the name and title, “Captain Peregrin needs his rest.”

“Humph,” Pervinca snorted again, and the bed creaked as she rose and rapped a quick knuckle on Pippin’s forehead. “Sleep well, baby brother.”

‘Henpecked!’ Pervinca thought as she withdrew from the room. ‘And she doesna know how lucky she is, to have such a gentlehobbit as this!’