Girl of the North Country, 7

VII.

Three years later, Diamond sat outside the Thain’s bedroom with her in-laws and her son. Pervinca was weeping copiously. Pimpernel was fidgeting with her beltknife. Pearl sat quietly, her eyes gleaming but calm. Reginard, Steward of the Tookland, stood by the door like a sentinel. Only Eglantine seemed unaware, blissfully working a new pattern into a fresh square of cloth.

Faramir her son came to her. He held a cup of water. “Mama?” he asked. He was sober and thoughtful lad of five, wise beyond his years. “Is Dad…” He glanced at the door.

“Yes, dear,” she said. “Dad’s still with Grandpapa.”

He sat down next to her. “It’s so sad for Dad.”

“I suppose it is,” Diamond agreed.

The door opened and Pippin stepped out. His face was both grim and calm, belying the tracks of tears down his cheeks. “Mother,” he said in quiet urgency.

Eglantine’s hands fluttered. “Oh my,” she said, dropping her embroidery and hurrying into the room.

Pippin closed it and looked upon them all. He smiled a little. It always made him look young.

Pervinca burst into a new set of tears, and Pippin with gentle strength lifted up his sister and let her weep into his chest. Then Pimpernel rose too and he embraced her, and then Pearl too.

Diamond held back, watching her husband comfort his sisters. He was the youngest of them: forty-five, in the morning of his prime, with just the first touch of silver in his chestnut curls of hair. And yet as he held them, tall and lean and strong, he was clearly their pillar, their heart, the center and head of their vast and peculiar family.

He caught her looking at him, and his eyes, she saw, were still innocent, and still guileless: yet somehow now they shone with a deep wisdom that sometimes left her breathless.

Eglantine emerged. Her round, sweet face was streaked with tears, but she was smiling, and she nodded to everyone there.

“He’s better now,” she said, and Diamond hugged Faramir.

Then Eglantine lifted her hand, and Diamond saw in it she held the Thain’s signet ring. She watched as Eglantine went to Pippin. Pearl, Pimpernel, and Pervinca withdrew, swallowing their tears, watching their mother with Diamond. And Eglantine reached for Pippin’s left hand and raised it up and slowly, gently, solemnly, slipped the Thain’s ring upon the forefinger of her son, and then squeezed.

“Now,” she said, “you’re the Thain,” and she threw her arms around him and cried. Pearl, Pimpernel and Pervinca joined them, weeping openly once again.

“Mama?” Faramir asked Diamond, and Diamond nodded, and let him go. And he pushed through his aunts and grandmother and found his father’s leg to hug.

Diamond watched them for some time. She saw her husband looking at her, and for him she smiled. Then quietly she rose and withdrew from their company, knowing she was not needed.

The ceremony of accession involved a banquet, for which the common gentlehobbits invited were thankful; for if anything better represented the strange ways of the old Fallohide families, it was this bizarre ritual, half election, half Numenorean mimery, and streaked through with the memories of the ancient days when Harfoots were the small sensible breed and the Fallohide hunters the strange, pale, and wild.

Diamond sat next to Eglantine, who still held her seat at the table; she was The Took, as Paladin’s widow, until her death. Of course everyone knew she was only The Took in name; the real head of the family, and not a few thought this the biggest irony of the age, was Pippin, now Peregrin I, Thain of the Shire. Diamond was now Lady of the Shire, replacing her mother-in-law. And her parents were pleased.

She went to her husband’s side at his proclamation, outside the Smials on the landing of the Great Door, where hobbits from across the Four Farthings and Buckland, and some from Breeland as well, had come. The Mayor’s duty it was to declare to the common Shirefolk their new Thain and liege lord under the King. All meaningless terms, of course, to most hobbits, but it was a good excuse for a large party.

Samwise Gamgee was making a speech. Diamond waited with Pippin behind the Door. He was nervous, she could tell. His pulse was showing in a corner of his throat.

“You’ll be fine,” she told him.

He looked at her worriedly. “I think I’m going to throw up.”

“You’re too old and too honorable now to throw up.”

“Is that so, my lady?”

“It is so, milord.”

“As you wish, then.”

Diamond hesitated. She had something to say, and she had to say it sooner rather than later; but not now, she thought, not now.

The Great Door opened.

Pippin took her hand.

Diamond looked at him and nodded.

Mayor Samwise said, “Hobbits of the Shire, meet your Thain!” and Diamond followed Peregrin into the bright sunlight.

She heard his telltale knock on her door. She took a deep breath, looked around at the state of her affairs, and then said, “Come in.”

He poked her head through the door. “Are you decent?” Pippin asked. He strode in, still wearing his accession suit and mantle. “Well! That was quite a day. I don’t quite know how Father ever managed it. I suppose I’ll have to learn.”

“Don’t be silly, Peregrin,” Diamond said. “You learned how to lead years ago.”

“Lead, yes,” Pippin said. “Manage, no.”

Diamond looked at herself in her mirror. “That’s what Reginard is for.”

“I suppose you’re right, as usual,” Pippin said. She waited for him to notice. Finally he did: her packed trunk, her bare rooms.

“Di?” he said quietly, and the false childishness was gone from his voice and manner. “Where are you going, my lady?”

Diamond closed her eyes, and then turned and went to him.

“Home, Peregrin. I’m going home. To the Northfarthing. To Long Cleeve. I’ve stayed here long enough.”

He didn’t protest. He didn’t try to argue. He didn’t say, “But this is your home,” or, “What can I do to make you stay?” or even “Why?” He knew the answers to all those questions. All their questions had been answered long ago.

All he said was, “Will you take Fledge?” That was what he called Faramir.

She shook her head. “For summers, if you’ll let me,” she suggested. “But for the rest of the year, no. He should stay with you. A boy should learn from his father. Especially someone like Faramir. Like Fledge.”

He nodded. “Agreed,” he said. “Thank you.” He found a seat on her dressing table. He seemed to be lost in thought. She waited for him to return from wherever he went in those moments.

“Somehow I thought this wouldn’t hurt so much,” he finally said.

She felt a tear coming. She let it go. “That’s one reason why I’m leaving,” she told him. “I only hurt you, Peregrin. You know that. We were never suited to each other. And I don’t want to hurt you.” Diamond looked down. “I never really intended to hurt you.”

“Love hurts,” was his reply, and for a moment she thought to stay for the thrill of his heedless defiance.

Instead she reached for his hand and squeezed it, and before she knew it he had wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close to him. She did not flinch now. Rather she let herself linger against his skin, breathing in his scent, of pipeweed and cider and distance.

“Where did we go wrong, Di?” he murmured against her pale silken hair.

“We were wrong from the beginning, Peregrin,” was her answer. She pulled away just enough to caress his cheek and look deep into his eyes. “What’s amazing is where we went right.”

“Fledge, for one,” he said with a little laugh.

“Fledge, indeed,” she agreed.

They held each other for a long time. Then together they released each other and stood.

“I’ll arrange to escort you to Long Cleeve myself,” Pippin said. “Do me good to rub your father’s nose in my new signet ring, hey?”

Diamond laughed. “You rascal.”

“At your service, my lady,” Pippin replied. He grew serious. “Shall we tell Fledge?”

Diamond nodded. “Let’s do it together.”

The news resounded in gossip and hearsay throughout the Families and the folk at large. The Thain and his Lady, living separately from each other? The Thain in Tuckborough in the south, and his Lady in Long Cleeve in the north? It was unheard of! It was scandalous! Those impossible Tooks!

Diamond paid the talk no heed. Neither did her husband. He did as he promised, riding escort for her carriage, on the leisurely ride from the verdant Green Hills to the rocky, windswept moors of the north country. Faramir—Fledge—spent part of the trip in the carriage with Diamond, and part on his father’s steed Tempest with Pippin.

He had accepted the news with his typical understanding. “Will I still see you both?” he had asked, and they said yes. “Will you fight less now?” They said yes also. “Good,” said the lad. “I like it when you don’t fight.” He then smiled hopefully. “Do I get two rooms one in each home?”

On the way they stopped by Bindbole Wood and Pippin laid out a picnic. They ate to their content, and then Diamond relaxed and watched her husband at play with their son. He was swinging Fledge from wrist in ankle, making the lad feel like he could fly. “Higher, Dad! Higher!” squealed Fledge.

Diamond found herself smiling. More importantly, she was finding herself at peace. She felt the sting of the air of the Northfarthing and the murmur of the trees of Bindbole Wood.

The trees. A thought came to her. “Peregrin,” she called.

“Yes, milady?” Pippin answered, coming to her holding their son upside down by one ankle. Fledge was giggling uncontrollably.

“Put him down properly,” Diamond said, “and let me ask you something. What was that story you tell about the tree-shepherds? The Ents?”

“The Ents, yes,” Pippin said. “What story in particular?”

“The one about their wives.”

Pippin lay Fledge down on the picnic blanket and knelt on one knee. “The Entwives,” he said. “The Ents loved the Entwives, and tried to win them with their wild ways. But the Entwives turned from them, preferring their own lands and their own wills. Long ago they left, and the Ents have ever sought them since.”

They were silent for a time, both realizing what the story meant for their own tale. “There were no Entings,” Pippin added.

Diamond inclined her head. “At least we don’t have that problem, thank heaven.”

“Thank heaven,” Pippin agreed. Then he frowned, and he asked curiously, “What made you think of the Entwives now, my lady?”

Diamond felt herself smile as if she were a girl again, a girl of the north country with a tale to tell. “I think,” she said, breathless and excited, “I think they live in Bindbole Wood!”

Together they looked into the Wood, and so did their son. And then they turned to each other.

“Do we?” Diamond asked.

Pippin grinned. “Let’s do.”

And off they went.

THE END