CHAPTER 11

The next day found Pippin cross and out of sorts. When the healers came in right after second breakfast he told them that it was time to try out his broken leg; needless to say, he found Mistress Lavender less than cooperative.

“But I was walking on my broken foot after only a few days!” he protested.

It didn’t help matters when Merry said “Not true, Pip! You were unconscious for several days before that. It was over a week after the battle before he let you stand on that foot, and then just briefly! You only thought it was a few days because that’s all you can remember!”

“Fine!” snapped Pippin. “Be that way.” He was stung by Merry’s lack of support.

“I will,” said Merry unrepentantly. He was feeling out of sorts himself.

Lavender took out her pendulum, and was dangling it as Diamond watched.

Pippin noticed that the pretty apprentice was looking at him as though he were a wayward child. He flushed. He couldn’t have that.

“I’m sorry, Merry,” he muttered.

Merry was not fooled by the reason for the apology, but decided to be gracious and accept it anyway. “It’s all right, Pip. I know it’s hard for you to be laid up.”

Pippin looked at him now with a sincere apology. “Thanks; I know you do.” He also knew that Merry was right. But he was *so* tired of this bed!

Lavender stepped back. “Mr. Peregrin, you do seem to be doing extremely well. The break *is* healing quickly, but it is not ready for you to be hobbling about on that leg. Another day or so in this bed, and we will see if you can perhaps spend part of your time on a settee in another room. Perhaps there is a wheeled chair in one of the mathom rooms we can find for you to use. I do know how difficult it can be for an active young hobbit to be confined to bed.”

Pippin shuddered at the thought of a wheeled chair. He didn’t think he would want one of those, not after what happened to old Lalia the Fat. But the idea of being in another room was appealing.

Lavender turned to Merry. “Mr. Meriadoc, I want you to go out of here and not come back until after luncheon. Go outside and get some exercise and fresh air. Diamond will stay here with Peregrin until some other relation can come in for a while.”

Merry opened his mouth to protest being thrown out of Pippin’s room, but he suddenly got a look at the appeal in his cousin’s eyes: a chance for Pip to be alone with the lovely Diamond. He shut his mouth and nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

“After lunch, Merry?” Pippin looked at him with such gratitude that it was worth it.

“All right, cousin, I’ll see you then.” He went out quickly, before he was tempted to argue again. After all, why should he worry? The lass was a healer after all, and should know just what to do in any emergency.

He went out and shut the door, ignoring the part of his mind that was reminding him that she was only an apprentice, and that healer or not, no one knew how Pip was feeling quite like he did.

Merry took himself to the stables. Since he was ordered to get fresh air and exercise, he might as well go for a ride. He had some thinking to do, and he thought better on ponyback than anywhere else. He decided to take Pippin’s Sable out first for a bit of exercise, and then come back for his Stybba, and a good long ride.

He could not understand why he was feeling so anxious and restless today. Pippin was, in fact healing just fine, and his crossness was a result of that. There was no reason for him to be worrying like this. Frodo was right. He had to face it, he *was* a mother hen! It was a wonder Pippin didn’t hate the very sight of him, but then that was the wonder that was Pippin. If it had been anyone else, they would have told him quite rudely by now to go away--and in language much less polite.

So now he knew that he had a problem, and that he had to stop this nonsense.

So, stop it already, he told himself.

It wasn’t working.

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Lavender left the room, leaving her apprentice behind, alone with the patient. She was not blind to the attraction there. This was a test. She wanted to know if Diamond could hold up to it. She had a lot of faith in her apprentice. Now she would see if it was justified.

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Diamond sat in the chair by Pippin’s bed. Her mind was in a state of turmoil. She was well aware of what the healer was up to, and knew she had to pass this test. But how? She turned to look at him. He was openly staring at her, smiling.

Oh dear! It wasn’t *fair* for him to have a smile like that.

Just to have something to say, she blurted out “Your cousin and his friend told us some of what happened to you while you were away.”

Suddenly the smile was gone, like a candle snuffed. A glint perilously close to anger gleamed in the green eyes.

“Frodo and Sam?” His voice was soft and wary.

“Yes,” she answered, wondering what she had said wrong.

“And they just offered up this information freely, out of the blue, did they?”

Uh-oh. “Mistress Lavender was asking them about how you came by some of your old injuries.”

“I see,” he said flatly. “And she didn’t see fit to ask me?”

“Well--” Diamond shrugged. Actually she had wondered a bit about that herself.

He pursed his lips. “Frodo and Sam are *not* to be pestered. Especially Frodo. If I know healers, she was just as curious about him as about me. It’s a good thing they went home.”

Diamond flushed. “I’m sorry.”

“I daresay it’s not *your* fault. But I’m having a word with her myself. Frodo does not need anymore painful reminders of something he already has to live with every day. She’d better hope that Merry doesn’t find out that she was interrogating Frodo and Sam.”

He turned away and looked at the ceiling.

Diamond fought down the urge to apologize once more. She supposed she ought to be glad that he wasn’t using that smile on her again. But she missed it.

There was silence for a few minutes.

“Why did you go?” she finally asked.

He remained silent. She thought perhaps he was still angry, but when he spoke finally there was no trace of it in his voice.

“Frodo *had* to go. Whether he stayed or whether he left, he was in peril of his life. But if he stayed he would have drawn all that peril down on the Shire, and he knew it. The wickedness of the ruffians would have seemed like nought more than annoying pranks compared to the true evil that *could* have come here. Someday, I might tell you the whole of it, but not today.” He stopped for a moment, and Diamond thought she might have seen tears.

“There was no way Merry would have allowed Frodo to go without him, and there is no way I could have borne it to stay behind in the Shire with *both* of them gone.” Now she knew she saw tears. He blinked. Then he gave a rather forced chuckle. “They needed *someone* of intelligence in the party. And I‘ll never be sorry I went. I was able to help. And not all of it was so terrible. I made some wonderful friends.” He sighed, and fell quiet once more. She could tell he was wearying.

“I think your leg is paining you again.” She prepared another cup of the willow-bark draught, and he took it without complaining, though he made a face as he swallowed it down.

“Thank you,” he said. He lay his head back again, and soon began to drift off.

She watched his sleeping face, and marveled at how young he looked--like a little lad of no more than seven. Having heard his story, she thought that now, perhaps, she understood.

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She had only just been apprenticed to Mistress Lavender a few weeks when they brought Fredegar Bolger home from the Lockholes. Physically, he was in sad shape: starved to the point of emaciation, beaten and abused. But there was something else there that Diamond could not understand, something darker, something deeper. She had watched her mistress’s pendulum in puzzlement, as Lavender had made the assessment. The healer noticed her apprentice’s confusion.

“What do you see, my dear?”

“It’s--it’s like he is not all there?” Diamond was not sure if this explained what she saw in the patterns, but it was the best she could come up with.

Lavender nodded.

“I still don’t understand.”

“Did you hear about Folco Boffin?”

Diamond shuddered. Everyone in the Shire had heard about poor Folco, and how he had been brutally murdered by Lotho Pimple’s Big Men.

“Folco was Fredegar’s best friend. There was a very deep bond between them. The breaking of that bond is the cause of melancholy.” The healer shook her head sadly as she explained. “When a babe is born, it forms a bond with its parents, that goes both ways. To a lesser extent, a bond is also formed with siblings and other family members, though these are not usually so deep. In the normal course of events, as the babe grows up and forms its own family bonds, the parents grow old, and time is taken to grieve and plan for the breaking of the bond. But if the bond is broken abruptly, by sudden death, before the normal span of life, then a melancholy takes root in the broken place; it’s as though a part of that child is missing.”

Diamond nodded, absorbing this new information.

“Occasionally a child is born whose capacity for love is wider and deeper than most. This child may form early bonds of friendship every bit as strong, sometimes even stronger, than those formed with the parents. A sudden breaking of that bond is just as devastating. To have it broken by such violence is unthinkable. Fredegar and Folco had such a bond, and now he feels as though a part of him has died as well.”

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Having observed the interaction between Pippin, his two cousins and their friend Sam, she believed that there were such bonds between them. Possibly the strongest she had ever observed since she first became aware of the possibility. It would explain a great deal. And it would certainly explain why he could not let Frodo and Merry leave the Shire without him.

She had a lot to think about.

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Merry had stabled both ponies, and now headed back into the Smials in search of elevenses. He was still thoughtful, and no closer to solving his dilemma. In fact, he felt even more anxious than he had before, in spite of realizing that he was being ridiculous.

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Sam and Rose came into Frodo’s study, where he sat at his desk working on old Bilbo’s book.

“Mr. Frodo, are you sure you don’t need nothing before we leave?”

“I’ll be fine, Sam, I’m sure. You go on down and spend the day with the Gaffer, and I will see you again after supper.” For Sam’s sister May was visiting with her children, and this was a chance for him to spend some time with the family. He and Rose had not seen May since the wedding.

“After all, you are just going down the Hill.”

“Well--”

“Go, Sam, and do not worry about me!” Frodo’s tone was bordering on sharp. So Sam and Rose took their leave.

But as they left the smial, Sam could not help but worry that something was wrong. He just couldn’t put his finger on it.

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Elevenses arrived, and Pippin awakened from his nap, refreshed. Along with the food came his brother-in-law Milo, who at first merely stuck his head in the door.

“Are you up to having more company?” he asked.

Pippin raised a brow. “As long as they don’t come full of flowery speeches of gratitude.”

Milo entered the room. He had little Alyssum by the hand. “Unca Pip!” she started to dart over to him, but her father kept tight hold. She did not need to go bounce on her uncle’s broken leg.

“Hullo, Lyssa,” said her uncle. “Did you come to see me?”

She nodded, and looked up at her father, who let go. “Be soft with your uncle, sweetheart. He has a hurt leg.” The fauntling toddled over to Pippin’s bed, holding up to him the toy she had brought with her.

Diamond smiled at the little one. She had spent a good deal of time with her after Pimpernel’s twins had been born. “What did you bring with you, Alyssum?”

“Unca Pip’s o’phant!” She thrust the toy at her uncle, and presented her face for a kiss. He couldn’t reach her, so Milo came and lifted her up. Pippin bestowed a kiss on her brow, and she gave him a sloppy wet one on his cheek. Her father put her back on the floor. Pippin wound the key in the toy, and handed it back to her. She crowed with laughter to watch it walking across the floor.

“We thought we might come join you for elevenses,” said Milo.

“Sounds jolly to me,” said Pippin, smiling as he watched his little niece playing with the toy he had given her from his travels.

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By the time Merry arrived after luncheon, Milo and Alyssum had been replaced by Pippin’s cousins Amethyst and Garnet. But he was surprised to note that Diamond was still there as well. Pippin, he thought, must be gratified.

However, his return put an end to the party. Diamond decreed that it was time for Pippin’s medication again. Afterward, she shooed everyone but Merry out, and left herself.

Merry sat down by Pippin and took out his book, but he did not read. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes.

“Merry, is something wrong?”

“Not really, Pippin, I’m just feeling unsettled today.” He turned to his cousin. “I am sorry for the way I hover over you all the time.”

Pippin gave him a sweet smile. “You don’t have to apologize for that. You’ve done it all my life. I’m used to it.”

“Frodo seems to think I overdo it a bit. And you are not a faunt anymore.”

“Well--” Pippin chuckled. “Let’s just say that you can be a bit single minded about some things.”

“I will try to do better, I really will.”

“I know you will, my dear old goose. Why don‘t you see if you can pilfer the draughts board from the sitting room, and we can pass the time with a game?”

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