Stories of Arda Home Page
About Us News Resources Login Become a member Help Search
swiss replica watches replica watches uk Replica Rolex DateJust Watches

A Healer's Tale  by Lindelea

Chapter 3. Just a Breath Away from Life

This was the Green Hill country, and the tween noticed now the swelling mounds, rising ever higher to the East. The largest hills in the Shire stood between Tookbank and Tuckborough, she’d heard. Coming from the flatlands of the South Farthing, she couldn’t imagine mountains being larger than the hills looming in the distance. Faintly-remembered tales of travel and adventure rose and were quickly brushed away in view of the more practical matter at hand.

Whittacres was a well-kept, prosperous-looking farm. Workers in the fields stopped long enough to wave and shout as the healer’s pony cantered by. The smial was set back from the Whitwell-Waymoot road, the farm lane running between stone walls. Sheep grazed to one side, cows on the other with a few ponies mixed in. Two of the younger ponies in the field threw up their heads and snorted, galloping to the fence to race alongside.

They pulled up before the smial, a sprawling affair, long and low, looking solid and cool under the smile of the Sun, just past her zenith. Bright flowers nodded in the windowboxes, and two hobbits stood where the wide roof had been extended to make a shady place to sit, a sheltered place to hang laundry of a rainy day.

One of the hobbits, a Took from the look of him, stepped forward to take the reins. ‘Well come, cousin!’ he said. ‘You’re in good time. Babe’s not born yet, from what we’ve heard.’

The other hobbit, a gentlehobbit by his clothing, gave the tween a hand down and then helped the old healer from the saddle. ‘Mr. Brandybuck,’ Sweetbriar said, making a courtesy which the tween immediately copied before the inevitable reprimand could be issued. Sometimes old Rosie had reprimanded her anyhow, just to show the important personage who was Mistress and who was not.

But Sweetbriar merely patted her new apprentice on the arm and said, ‘This is my assistant, sir... so anything she tells you, you may consider as coming from myself.’

 ‘Very well,’ the Brandybuck said with a bow and a smile, gesturing towards the smial.

The healer handed her bag to the tween as they entered the large, pleasant kitchen, the Brandybuck following. ‘You’ve put water on to heat already, that’s good,’ she said. ‘We’re going to need lots more.’

 ‘The fire is going here and in the summer kitchen as well,’ the gentlehobbit said.

 ‘Good. Now Sweetie, when the teakettle boils, I want you to take the yellow-flowered bag, two heaping palmfuls to a pint of water, let it steep covered...’

The tween nodded, pulling at the loop on the bag, but the healer stayed her hand.

 ‘Listen all the way through and your questions will be few,’ Sweetbriar said cheerily.

Flushing, the tween nodded and fixed her eyes on the healer’s face.

 ‘I want the biggest tub, standing ready before the fire,’ Sweetbriar said. ‘Fill it with nice, hot water.’

Though the tween was nodding, the gentlehobbit was the one who answered. ‘You’ll have it!’ he said. ‘Just as soon as the water’s hot enough. Steaming bath, I take it.’

 ‘And the blue bag,’ Sweetbriar said. ‘Take three of the muslin bags of herbs in the blue bag and steep them in the tub, will you dear?’ The tween listened attentively until the healer was done.

 ‘Some food?’ the gentlehobbit said when the healer finished cataloguing her instructions.

 ‘None for me,’ Sweetbriar said, ‘but my assistant would be all the better for some sustenance, I’m thinking.’ Turning to the tween, she said, ‘Now, tell it back to me.’

 ‘Yellow bag, two heaping palmfuls, pint of boiling water, steep covered,’ the tween recited. ‘Blue bag, biggest tub half-full of steaming water, three bags of herbs to steep.’

 ‘I didn’t say half-full,’ Sweetbriar said, ‘but I see you’ve done this before, my lass. Very well. If you need anything else, you ask this sorry hobbit here.’

The tween choked slightly at such disrespect, but then she’d heard the Tooks were outspoken, forthright to the point of rudeness. Still...

And in the next moment Sweetbriar was gone, and the teakettle was whistling, and the Brandybuck had left and returned again with a large tub, suitable for a week’s washing or a fairly comfortable bath, placing it before the kitchen hearth and kneeling to build up a fire there. ‘O but Sir!’ the tween said, and the Brandybuck smiled, not turning from the hearth.

 ‘You have your orders, lass,’ he said mildly. ‘Sweetbriar’s as sweet as her name, but she’s a Tookish temper on her as well, and I’d do as I was told, if I were you.’ He finished sweeping the ashes into the skip. ‘These hands will wash,’ he added. ‘They have every time up until now, anyhow.’

The tween washed her own hands, pulled the kettle from the fire, found a mug—she knew her way around kitchens, she did!—and set the potion to brewing. Sweetbriar hadn’t told her what herbs would be used, but her nose and eyes and fingers told her what was in the mix, and she gave a little nod to herself. This healer knew her business.

Unpacking the healer’s bag upon the kitchen table, in search of the elusive “blue bag”, she found two voluminous aprons and immediately put one on. Made for a plump, elderly hobbit, it wrapped well around and rather neatly covered her dusty and dishevelled state. She opened each bag for a brief survey of the contents—yellow-flowered, red-flowered, blue-flowered, green vines, blue, ah there it was! ...and laid them in the order they’d be wanted.

The gentlehobbit was entering from the yard, a steaming bucket in each hand.

 ‘O Sir!’ the tween said, jumping forward.

He intercepted her intention with a shake of his head. ‘These’re hot,’ he warned. ‘Stand back.’

 ‘But you oughtn’t...’ she said.

 ‘No more than a young one like you,’ he retorted cheerily. ‘Imagine me, standing around with my hands in my pockets, letting a lass tote heavy buckets of boiling water! I’d be a sorry hobbit, I would!’

 ‘Pony’s put away, Sorry,’ the Took said, sticking his head in at the door. ‘How about a game of “shoes” whilst we’re waiting?’

 ‘Let us get this tub filled up—water’s boiling in the copper out in the summer kitchen,’ the Brandybuck said, ‘and you’re on!’

 ‘Right-ho!’ the Took said, ducking out again. The Brandybuck poured out his buckets and turned to the door and the tween gently laid the three muslin bags with their soothing herbs in the tub to steep, just as Sweetbriar appeared again in the hallway leading into the depths of the smial.

 ‘Nearly there?’ she said. ‘It’s time to make yourselves scarce until wanted.’

 ‘Just a few more buckets,’ the gentlehobbit said.

 ‘Good!’ Sweetbriar answered. Catching sight of her supplies, neatly laid out on the table, she gave an approving nod as she caught up the other apron. ‘Come along, lass!’

 ‘This-here’s my helper,’ she announced as the tween followed her into the bedroom, at the moment brightly lit. ‘Sweetie will get the bed ready, won’t you, dearie, whilst we take a turn about the place.’

Eglantine Took looked much too small to be carrying such a great burden. Her husband sat beside her on the bed, his arm about her, while two other hobbit mums hovered. Both of these wore the simple-but-elegant clothing of the truly well-to-do, those whose wealth is hardly a matter for a second thought, and so they’ve no need to be ostentatious about it. The tween wondered about this... gentlehobbits, here in a farmer’s smial!

Eglantine herself wore a simple linen shift of the sort common to childbirth. It covered all that needed covering but would not get in the way of the healer.

 ‘Come along, lovie, up we come!’ Sweetbriar said, moving to Eglantine’s other side.

 ‘Wait,’ Eglantine gasped, a hand to her bulging abdomen. They waited out the contraction, and then helped her to rise.

 ‘That’s it,’ Sweetbriar encouraged. ‘A little walking, that’s much better for you than tossing on the bed. Makes the babe come quicker, I warrant, and a nice hot bath...’

One of the gentlehobbits had begun to strip the sheets from the mattress, and the tween jumped to help. Soon the bed was freshly made up with sun-scented linens, covered with oil-cloth, and another soft layer over all. Through it all the gentlehobbits talked in low voices.

 ‘...didn’t sleep at all last night, I think.’

 ‘Well, you know how it is with our Aggie. False pangs... she probably thought it was just more false pangs. If Dinny hadn’t noticed her biting her lip, likely the healer wouldn’t be here now.’

 ‘Don’t want to be a bother! Don’t want to be a bother! I wish we could get it into her head that she’s no bother at all, except when she worries about being one!’

 ‘Hush now,’ the older of the two said, with a glance at the tween, and raising her voice she said pleasantly, ‘There now, lass, you may tell your Mistress that the bed’s all made up and ready.’

Seeing the birthing stool in the corner, waiting to be called into service, the tween nodded, sketched a courtesy, and slipped from the room.

Sweetbriar and the hobbit, “Dinny” as the tween surmised, were escorting Eglantine up and down the corridor, stopping when she stopped, supporting her as she bent and panted.

 ‘Bed made up?’ the healer said. ‘That’s fine. Now go and chase those hobbits from the kitchen, if they’re still there, and shut the door!’

 ‘Yes’m,’ the tween murmured, slipping by them. The kitchen was empty, the fire bright on the hearth, the tub half-full of steaming water and the copper by the stove was full, the flames keeping the contents near the boil peeping through the grating. Someone had left the door propped open to let out some of the heat from the fires, and Woodruff closed it.

Sweetbriar entered shortly after with her charge, and while she clucked like an old hen, lifting away the linen shift, Dinny eased his wife into the tub. ‘There now, all comfy!’ the healer said. ‘Sweetie, you know what to do...?’

The tween took up a dipper, and as she saw Eglantine’s face change—another contraction starting—she dipped up warm water from the tub and trickled it onto the distended abdomen.

 ‘Tha—that’s better!’ the labouring hobbit gasped. Her husband settled to his knees beside her, tenderly brushing her curls away from her face.

She wasn’t close, not at all, the tween mused. She would scarcely be greeting her husband’s attentions with a smile if she were. More likely she’d be scowling at him and offering insults...

Eglantine laboured in the tub until the water cooled, and then they helped her out of the water, robed her, began the walking again. The tween dipped one bucket of water out of the tub, then another, and hauled them to the door to the yard. When the door opened, the two hobbits looked up from their pipes and jumped to their feet. ‘Here now,’ the Brandybuck said. ‘You ought to have called us... we’ll empty the tub! ...and fill it fresh, as well. No need for you to be carrying heavy buckets and scalding yourself into the bargain!’

Walking, alternated with baths, took up the next few hours, with the occasional “check” by the healer to report on progress. The first time she checked, the tween heard her say cheerily, ‘That’s just fine! Head’s down, and babe’s heart sounds bonnie and strong!’

The next time the healer seemed to take a little longer about her business, but kept the smile on her face and said only, ‘My, this is a lively one! Seems to be moving all about! A wanderer, this one is!’

With each examination, Sweetbriar reported “good progress” and a “lively babe”.

At one point, she eased Eglantine into the rocking chair while they were awaiting more hot water, encouraging her to sip at yet another mug of brewed herbs, whereupon she knelt to take one of the expectant mother’s feet.

Seeing this, the tween at once knelt to take the other foot, rubbing as she’d been taught, digging her thumbs in at one place, gently stroking, watching Eglantine’s face to time the contractions. They were coming oftener, she thought, and harder.

At last the tub was filled and the hobbits gone back to their post outside the kitchen door. They eased Eglantine into the tub once more. She’d started cheerful enough, though unable to mask her underlying anxiety, but now she was growing restless and fretful. The contractions seized her at ever-diminishing intervals until it seemed that one scarcely ended before another began.

Through it all, Sweetbriar murmured comfort, and the husband did all he could to ease his wife, though he couldn’t keep the worry from his own face, when he stood behind her, rubbing her shoulders.

Three born alive, and four still-born, echoed in the tween’s thoughts.

The well-dressed hobbit mums were in and out, doing what needed doing, even cooking up meals—the late nooning, which they took outside in the yard with their husbands, a sort of picnic, and then tea. There was some discussion as to what to do when the children returned from their picnic. It seemed the Brandybuck and Took “uncles” would escort them to neighbouring relatives to spend the night, if need be.

But no, that wouldn’t be needed after all, it seemed. Eglantine gave a sudden wordless exclamation and Sweetbriar dove her hands under the water, making an examination by feel right then and there. The tween, watching closely, saw the healer’s face change.

What is it? she wanted to ask, but knew better.

 ‘Well now,’ Sweetbriar said, rising. ‘Let us get her out of the tub, and quickly, too. Lift her up, now, Dinny.’

They lifted Eglantine from the tub, but the healer was saying, ‘Don’t bear down, now, Aggie... not quite time yet, lovie; don’t bear down, now...’

She snatched up one towel, draping it over Eglantine’s shoulders. ‘Good thing it’s so warm in here,’ she said, impatiently wiping away the sweat on her own brow. She snatched up another towel, handing it to the tween. ‘Be ready,’ she said crisply.

 ‘Ready?’ the tween said, dumbfounded. Sweetbriar pushed her down before Eglantine, and she automatically took her position.

 ‘Aye,’ the healer nodded, and to the husband, ‘Hold her up, Dinny.’ Her voice sharpened. ‘Upright, I said.’ She stood behind Eglantine, hands coming around the distended abdomen as if she would push the babe downwards.

Reaching upwards, the tween understood the healer’s sudden crispness. A tiny foot was protruding—a footling breech! One of the worst things that could happen, in her experience...

 ‘We’re ready now, Aggie,’ the healer said. ‘Bear down, love, softly now.’

 ‘Softly!’ Eglantine gasped. ‘I’d like to see you try “softly”!’

 ‘Now love,’ the husband remonstrated gently, but his wife turned on him.

 ‘This is all your doing!’ she snapped. ‘You know so much about it, you have the babe!’

 ‘Softly,’ the healer chanted, pushing along with the contraction. ‘Softly, dearie.’

The tween knew better than to pull at the foot; she merely took gentle hold of the appendage, guiding, ready...

 ‘It’s a boy!’ she gasped.

Dinny laughed, an incongruous sound in the tension. ‘A lad, you hear, Aggie?’ he said joyously. ‘So many lasses, and a lad to bring up the tail!’

But the babe dangled in the tween’s grasp, only half-born, for long and frustrating moments whilst Sweetbriar plied all the tricks of her trade, and then some.

Eglantine was moaning, and the healer’s nerves were fraying. ‘Bear down, Aggie,’ she said. ‘Push, love, push like you’ve never pushed before in your life! You’ve got to get his head and shoulders out, just do that much and you’re done, I promise!’

Beyond words, the beleaguered hobbit strained, then slumped in her husband’s grasp. ‘Aggie!’ he cried, his face white.

 ‘We’ll lose them both at this rate,’ Sweetbriar whispered. ‘Hold her, now, Dinny; I’m going to try...’

The tween didn’t see what the healer tried, for in the next moment the rest of the babe emerged with an issue of blood and water. She caught him, praying that she wouldn’t drop him on his head or anything else. Meanwhile, Sweetbriar had left Eglantine in her husband’s grasp and was attempting to deal with a worrisome amount of bleeding on the new mother’s part.

Still kneeling between Eglantine's knees, the tween cleaned out the tiny mouth, and when the babe took no first breath, she struck him sharply as she’d been taught. To no avail. ‘Not breathing!’ she gasped.

Sweetbriar looked over her shoulder, her hands never leaving off their business. ‘Turn him over your arm,’ she said. ‘Hang him downside-up, give him a gentle rap between his shoulders.’

 ‘Done that,’ the tween said, doing it again for good measure.

The father’s face was a terrible study of grief and fear... his son, born dead to all appearances, and his wife bleeding out her life in his arms, there upon the kitchen floor. The two gentlehobbit mums hovered in the door, one wringing her hands whilst the other whispered calm to her, keeping her from jumping into the fray, into the healers' way.

 ‘Then,’ Sweetbriar said, her eyes on Eglantine, ‘puff a very tiny breath into him, as if you’re blowing up a pig’s bladder. We have got to get the air into him somehow.’

The tween had never heard of such a thing. A babe born dead was dead, and no remedy for it. But the intensity in the healer’s tone moved her from her frantic-frozen state, and she cradled the babe in her arms, breathed a tiny puff of air into him, and another, and suddenly...

 ‘He’s breathing!’ she cried, tears coming to her eyes even as she laughed in wonder. ‘He’s breathing, he’s moving, he’s—’

A thin wail arose, growing stronger, settling into a steady rhythm. The hobbit father held his wife tighter. ‘Hear that, Aggie,’ he gasped. ‘Hear that! ‘Tis our son, my love. Our son...!’ The hand-twisting gentlehobbit gave a cry and began to weep, the other embraced her, tears of joy and relief running down her own face.

 ‘Hold fast, Aggie,’ the healer said. ‘Don’t you be slipping away on me now.’ At her directions, the tween laid the babe on his mother’s breast, and after a moment Eglantine’s eyes opened and she gazed down, dazed at first, and then in growing wonder and joy.

 ‘Son,’ she whispered.

 ‘So,’ Sweetbriar said, once the afterbirth had been safely delivered, the cord tied and cut, and the mother's bleeding slowed to her satisfaction. The tween, in the meantime, had brewed a restorative pot of tea for everyone in the meantime, and a mug of the healer’s herbs for Eglantine. ‘What’ll you be naming this one, Dinny? “Primrose” or "Periwinkle" might’ve seemed a good fit at one time, but...’

 ‘You said more than once that this one was restless, a wanderer,’ the father said, not taking his eyes from the wife he cradled, now wrapped in blankets and nearly ready to carry back to her bed, and the wide-eyed son in her arms.

 ‘That I did,’ the old healer said, straightening with a sigh and rubbing at her back. ‘Started out head-down, he did, as he ought, but would he stay that way? I ask you...? No, he wandered all about, dancing and turning as his mother was about her serious business.’

 ‘My little love,’ Eglantine whispered, scarcely attending to the conversation.

 ‘Peregrin, then, for "wanderer",’ the proud father said, with a squeeze for his wife. ‘I think that "Peregrin" will fit him just fine.’





<< Back

Next >>

Leave Review
Home     Search     Chapter List