Chapter 20: Flawed

“Husband?” Diamond asked, with a soft kiss to the curls against his forehead as Pippin bent still over the breakfast table in the Citadel, paying attention more to the food at the moment than to her. “Will you need anything else ere I depart with Estella?”

“Hmm?” Pippin looked up from his coddled eggs, his eyes lighting briefly on Denggold, the young Guardsman who escorted his own and his cousin’s wife, waiting impatiently in the archway, before coming to rest on Diamond.

“Nay,” he smiled at her. “Be off and have fun in the shops of cloth and such,” he laughed, waving a hand to encompass the “and such.”

He leaned over then in his chair to kiss her farewell, his feet curling around the rungs, even as Estella, from the doorway next the Guardsman, tapped her own foot impatiently, arms crossed across her chest, and insisted, “Come on, Diamond!”

Pippin seemed to ignore this, framing his wife’s face in his hands as he kissed her on the lips, but Diamond could see his eyes twinkle and hear him whisper, for her ears alone, “Dinna give her the satisfaction, yet, of knowing ‘tisn’t always displeasing to listen to her words,” he teased.

Diamond smiled in return as Pippin let go and she drew away, catching up with Estella at the archway. Diamond walked through, her skirts rustling as she turned to look over her shoulder into the room, and Estella and the Guardsman followed after her.

“Really, Merry,” Pippin said conversationally as he stood atop his chair to reach a buttered roll that had, indeed, rolled to the middle of the large table. “I dinna know why you chose a lass who’s so impatient!” he concluded, plopping back down to sit in his hobbit-sized chair and spread the roll with jam.

“Yes, cousin,” Merry said dryly, lifting his head from the parchment notes he’d been reading and reaching for his mug of tea. “I can’t imagine why,” he said quietly over the rim, watching as Pippin concentrated intently on the roll and the jam.


“Was Pippin angry, then?” Estella asked lightly as the hobbitesses walked through the first circle, the morning birdsong providing some comfort of the Shire against a City of stone. She giggled. “Or has he come at last to laugh at that story, as well?” she asked her friend, grinning toward her.

Diamond merely parted her lips in a serene smile and nodded toward the chambermaid sweeping the steps of one of the City’s homes as they passed. She would ignore Estella for a few moments, and it would drive Mistress Brandybuck to such distraction that it would be a fitting tease for hers of the day before, and an appropriate response to Pippin’s request of her this morning.

Diamond sidled her gray eyes over to glance at Estella as she waked beside her, and had to press her lips tightly together to prevent the escape of a giggle. Estella, indeed, was flustered, tossing her curls every few moments like a pony as she cast her own looks at Diamond and chattering on, all the while, as she did each day, about the weather and the shops, and their purchases, both planned and accomplished.

Diamond relented, a bit, at the uneasy glances and put her hand out to take Estella’s and grasp it softly. Estella relaxed at once and peered at Diamond’s face, which remained impassive as the younger hobbitess continued her silence, but the eyes were kind.

“Oh, no matter!” Estella laughed. “I guess he shan’t be too angry for long, anyway, if my young cousin remembers the tricks I used to play upon my brother Freddy,” she continued.

Her face grew earnest as she looked at Diamond again. “Oh, but that’s why I changed my mind about the scent bottle I first selected for you at Mistress Rachael’s shop, you know,” she said, and Diamond bit the insides of her pursed lips as Estella continued, “I used to use that same scent quite a bit when I was younger, and I gave it out for my birthday to Pervinca and all of my friends, until it made Freddy quite ill one day,” she said, her brow furrowed and her grip quite tight on Diamond’s hand. “I shouldn’t really want Pippin to be ill, you know,” she said.

Diamond smiled graciously. “Yes, I do know,” she said quietly and added, “thank you.” She then tucked Estella’s hand up beneath her arm and asked, “Now, hadn’t you said something about a shop with fine velvet?”

“Oh! Oh, yes!” Estella’s bright face alit, and she began explaining, in detail, what she had heard of the shop and its contents from one of the Lady Eowyn’s attendants, pulling Diamond along with her on their course.

Diamond now let her smile play about her face as she half listened and allowed herself to be pulled along.

Relieved, she was, both at her friend’s newfound enthusiasm and that she had fulfilled the requirement Pippin expected of her. She knew, of course, that he had been using her to continue the teasing of Estella begun when they were children, just as she knew, from Pippin’s descriptions in their rooms the night before of the memories Estella’s new bottle of scent had evoked, that she had, in turn, meant to tease him with it by suggesting that Diamond wear some upon their return to the Citadel.

Diamond was glad, though, that Estella had changed her mind and grown enough to be beyond the carrying out of such jokes. Although she knew that Freddy’s illness had been feigned, and had been laughing so hard she must hold her sides at Pippin’s imitations of his paroxysms; still, Diamond had no wish to displease her husband, whether through the scent she wore or in any other manner.

She remembered, with a ferocity she clung to, all she had learned of proper behavior before she wed, when she knew Pippin only as a hobbit to whom she owed her duty. Now, now that she loved him, she was even more determined to accomplish what was right.

She should be an ornament upon his arm, her lessons had said, and she studied now the fashions and the fabrics of Gondor, so that her wardrobe in the Shire should not be lacking. She was to have the running of the Great Smials some day, and had the duty already of planning certain meals, and she studied the foods available in the markets of Minas Tirith, and asked for the receipts of any dishes which seemed especially pleasing. Her husband must be happy, she knew both from her duties and her heart, and she looked for things within shops which would please him, whether they be given now or ordered for later delivery to the Shire. Diamond knew, for they were now embedded in her heart, her duties toward her husband.

She was falling, pitched forward by a sudden unevenness in the stone, her arm wrenched away from Estella’s. She heard the other hobbitess’s shout as the hard ground rushed up to meet her, and Diamond’s breath caught in a strangled cry as she stopped moving.

She looked, dazed, at the hand on her arm as the young Guardsman rocked her back onto her feet. Estella hovered, chattering anxiously near her, but Diamond could not distinguish the words through the roaring in her ears as she watched, with an odd detachment, the Guardsman reach toward her front to brush at any dirt upon her dress, his other hand still clinging to her arm.

“No!” she shouted suddenly in a panicked voice, louder than any Estella had yet heard her use, and wrenched away.

Diamond’s face was pale and her dark curls escaping their clasp. She held both hands before her to warn the Guardsman off as she backed away, crying, tears streaking her cheeks.

She said aloud, though in a hoarse and broken whisper, “Alas that I was born! I’ve lost my husband, Sir; I am left to shame!” Diamond placed her hands briefly over her face, but heard Denggold’s footsteps approach and lifted them away to stare at him with her stricken expression once more. Diamond turned then, and she fled.


“Yes, but...” Pippin stopped his conversation as he and the King walked in the courtyard of the Citadel, and frowned. He’d thought he’d heard something in the distance. He shook his head and continued. “Aye, but ‘tisn’t like that, you see--”

“Pippin!” Estella shouted again, clambering up the large stone steps to the courtyard on her hands and knees, she was in such a hurry. “Pippin!”

The hobbit turned his head and gasped when he saw her, then took off across the courtyard at a run, followed closely by the King.

With his longer legs, though, Aragorn was the first to reach the hobbitess. He had already asked if she was well, and received her breathless nods in return, when the hobbit came skidding to a stop before them, his eyes searching frantically for her companion.

“Diamond!” he shouted, half-aware of and mostly gratified at Estella’s answer to Strider’s questions, but consumed with worry over one who might still be unwell. “Diamond!” he shouted again and, grabbing Estella by the shoulders, he shook her and shouted into her face, “Where is she? Is she all right?”

“Sir Peregrin!” the King commanded, and forcibly but gently reached out to separate the two hobbits, keeping a calming hand upon each of their shoulders as he held them apart. “Estella cannot answer if you are shaking her,” he said to Pippin, “give her a chance to speak.”

Then, turning to Estella, he asked, himself, “Estella, is Diamond all right?”

“She -- she,” Estella panted, struggling to regain her breath, then looked away from the King’s face and toward the ground as she said, “She is not hurt.”

“Then what ‘tis the matter, then?” Pippin cried out angrily and pulled against the King’s hand, whether to approach Estella again or to run off in search of Diamond, even he wasn’t certain.

The Dunedain was strong enough to restrain him, however, and Strider knelt now between the two hobbits, asking calmly, in his voice of wisdom, “Estella? Could you please tell us what happened?”

“It’s -- it’s, “ she gulped still for breath and then looked at the King, tears appearing in her eyes as she did so, “I’m sorry, sir, but it’s your Guardsman that you set to watch us. He’s -- he’s touched Diamond, sir,” she said in a rush. Looking at the King and not her cousin when she said it, Estella found, made things easier.

It didn’t, however, stop her from hearing the low growl that emitted from Pippin’s throat, or feeling the tug upon the King’s arm as he pulled forward again.

“What,” Aragorn said hastily, and shot a quelling look at the hobbit of his Guard, “do you mean?”

“Well,” Estella glanced only once at the grimly set face of the Took before turning back tot he King. “At first, she had tripped, you see, and he stopped her fall with just his hand upon her arm. I don’t suppose that would have been so bad,” she thought out loud, “although Diamond mightn’t agree, since she knows so well that no one unwed -- or no hobbits, at least, and Men, too, I suppose, though it shouldn’t apply if they are but children -- oh, but I understand a teen is nearly a Man -- and he is a Guardsman, at any rate -- well, none such as that are meant to touch her -- and I might have been able to convince her there was nothing untoward with Denggold’s hand upon her arm -- although I should have had to work at it, I’ll warrant! -- but then,” she lowered her eyes to the ground again, uncharacteristically shy, and nearly whispered, “he reached out and brushed her front.” Estella moved her own hand that was free across her dress, starting at the top of the bodice and ending at the middle of her skirt.

She looked up again, and this time she did look at Pippin as she said, “She thinks she’s brought you shame, and it’s upset her so. She’s run off, and I could not find her on my way back here.”

Pippin breathed heavily, twice, in the next moments, and emotions played with rapidity across his face. Then, with studied calm, he looked up beyond the end of his arm to the King who held it and asked, “Your Majesty. May I please be released to search for my wife?”

Aragorn looked hard back at him and slowly eased his grip on Pippin’s arm, saying as he did so, “Yes, Sir Peregrin, you may leave to accomplish this task.” He emphasized the last two words and added, with conviction, “I shall deal with my Guardsman.”

“Pippin nodded once, curtly, but his expression was unreadable as he stalked off.

“A King of so many lands,” Aragorn sighed as he watched the stiff black and silver clad back carefully descend the steps. “Would that their cultures were such as to prevent such misunderstandings.”

“Oh, but come now,” Estella gently teased from where he still gripped her arm. Her task complete now, her natural buoyancy was returning. “That would be boring indeed, wouldn’t it? Sire,” she hastily added as his eyes turned back to her.

Aragorn’s face mellowed then, and he gave a small laugh and a slight hug to Estella as he commented, “That is a problem I have not had yet with hobbits.”


“Diamond?” Pippin called softly from the entry to their rooms. He was relieved that Diamond had, in fact, arrived at the first place he thought to look, but wary of startling her in her motions.

Apparently, he had not been careful enough, for he winced as she jumped and dropped the cloth she held to her face, splashing more water from the washbasin as it fell upon the floor.

“Oh!” Diamond said as she whirled round to face him, standing still in the same spot.

Pippin drew a breath, squared his shoulders and crossed hurriedly to where she stood, bending to pick up the cloth.

“I seem to have startled you,” he said lightly as he crouched, just as Diamond’s shoulders heaved again and she covered her face with her hands to sob out behind them,

“Husband! I have shamed you!”

“What, with a little water upon the floor?” Pippin feigned surprise as he stood. “Why, ‘twill dry!” he added lightly.


He stood awkwardly before Diamond, her face still covered as she shook her head “no,” for a few moments.

He then sighed, dropped the cloth back into the washbasin, and said more seriously into the strained silence, “Estella told me what happened, then.”

Diamond drew her hands away from her face, and Pippin could see the ravaged expression upon it. He swallowed down his anger, the muscle tightening in his jaw as he clenched it.

“I should understand if you wished to put me away,” Diamond said, looking not at him but at the floor.

Pippin laughed once, without mirth, a harsh and surprising sound coming from him, and Diamond looked up in astonishment.

“’Twouldn’t be very honorable, would it?” he asked bitterly and strode to the door he’d entered to slam it shut.

“But,” Diamond said slowly, perplexed, watching his back as he remained facing the closed door. “I have disobeyed.”

Pippin laughed oddly again, and a strange look was upon his face as he turned to face her and to ask, with a slight smile hovering under sad eyes, “When you have ever willingly disobeyed me, Diamond?”

“I--,” she chewed her lip then, and hugged herself in shame as she once more lowered her eyes. “I allowed another, a lad unwed, to touch me when I mustn’t,” she nearly whispered her confession, and tears dropped from her eyes to mingle with the water upon the floor.

“Ach!” Pippin said with a toss of his head, and crossed the room in quick strides to sit down heavily upon the edge of the bed. “I know the rules, Diamond,” he said, “for they’re my rules as well, lest you dinna remember.

“’Tisn’t of my making that such rules are,” he continued, looking down now, himself, at the coverlet, and beginning to pick at it. “I wouldna have had you promise to obey, you know, if my Da had asked me,” he said low, and then glanced up to gauge Diamond’s reaction before quickly turning his attention back to the coverlet.

He timed wrong and missed Diamond’s furtive glance upward, and her furrowed brow, before she returned to her study of the floor.

“’Twas quite enough to promise to love and to honor, as I had done,” he said as his voice became thick, and then shook with the next sentence. “Or as I have tried. I fear I have dishonored you first, Diamond,” he said with a quaver.

“What?” her head snapped up with a gasp. “What do you mean?” she asked in bafflement.

Pippin’s cheeks flamed and he drew up one knee to rest his chin upon it as he continued picking at the coverlet. “Last -- last Yule,” he said hesitantly, “with the kitchen lasses...I am so sorry...”

The last was said nearly into his knee and Diamond, surprised so at his words that they goaded her into action, moved to kneel before him, placing one hand gently yet tentatively upon his arm.

“Why -- why, that was not your fault!” she said clearly.

Pippin rolled his face away from his knee to look into her eyes. “Then you are nae angry?” he whispered.

“No!” Diamond answered in shock, her hand unconsciously tightening upon his arm. “Not with you!” she added honestly, then lowered her head once more as she continued, “I saw what happened that day, and I know you did not wish it so, my husband,” she whispered.

Pippin smiled a thin and watery smile and reached out two fingers to gently tilt her chin up toward his face once more.

“And I didna see what happ’d today, yet I know you didna wish it either,” he said simply. He clutched a bit tighter when Diamond would have moved her head again and whispered, “I trust you, Diamond. ‘Tis a form of honor, I think.”

Pippin unfolded himself and lifted Diamond beneath the arms until she was lying on the bed next to him so that he could hold her and stroke her curls as she sobbed.

“Aye,” he said, looking unfocused at the air beyond her as his fingers were caught up in her curls. “We both must do our duties, as needs be,” he said with a sigh.

And then he wiggled slightly so that his face was even with Diamond’s, and his other hand clasped hers fiercely. “’Tis nae a hardship, Diamond,” he said as their noses touched, “to fulfill my duty to love you.”

Diamond looked solemnly back at him and replied in whisper, “Nor for I to love you.”


“All is well, then?” Merry asked his wife from the edge of the street market.

“Aye, so it would seem,” Estella answered, her head resting upon his shoulder as the two of them watched Pippin and Diamond walk ahead.

Pippin approached a stall and came away from it holding upon a stick an apple coated in candy and nuts. He took a bite from one side, then, grinning, tipped the stick slightly toward Diamond. Estella nudged Merry when she saw that they were not the only ones watching the scene as Diamond’s enraptured face reached toward the apple, her eyes locked only on Pippin.

“Aye, I see it,” Merry responded, and looked up to assure himself that their other companion had, indeed, noticed the artist doing a hasty charcoal sketch of the scene.

The King smiled back down at the hobbit. Yes, he had seen.