Chapter 20. Interlude

Not quite sleeping, the drooping eyes open for a last look, the thin hand gropes across the bedcovers to find Merry’s; Merry, who kneels there as still as a sun-struck troll turned to stone. No, not quite, for his lips form his cousin’s name, a whisper of sound, and Pippin smiles. It is as I thought it would be: a look, a smile, a sigh... and the weary eyes close, the frail frame settles into the propping pillows... but instead of silence and stillness, as would only be natural to expect, the breaths continue. And not the painful gasps, either, but slow and measured breaths of sleep.

But Merry himself sags, and Regi is only just in time to catch him, to keep him from fainting onto the bed and possibly wakening the Thain from the first restful sleep the hobbit has known in days.

I go to the doorway to call Ferdi back, and he comes, eagerly enough, his hand in his pocket, but seeing the sleeping Thain he pauses almost imperceptibly. Even as he moves to help Regi lift Merry away from the bed, I see his eyes on Pippin, know that he is watching the breaths.

 ‘Bed?’ Regi whispers.

I shake my head. ‘He’s taken nothing for some days now,’ I say, ‘at least, not that I’ve seen. Food, first. Get something into him, some custard, at the very least, or lightly buttered toast and scrambled eggs. Then a bath, I think, and then bed.’ The laundresses would thank us for the saving of the linens, but my main concern is for the Master, having gone without rest and food in his anxiety for his cousin. Surely he’d rest better, scrubbed clean, than mud-caked and rumpled.

And yet... he’ll rest. I want to laugh, and weep, and sing and shout, all to relieve my pent-up feelings. It was all too much as I was anticipating it to be: their last shared look, Pippin’s eyes closing a last time, and Merry’s collapse. Truth be told, I believed both Thain and Master would be laid to rest in the earth on the same day. But the measured, unforced breaths continue...

With the tightest of reins on my composure, I escort them to the door of the bedroom and motion to the nurse who watches over the twins when Diamond is otherwise occupied. She moves to take little Merigrin from me, but I shake my head. ‘Go and take Ruby,’ I say. ‘Little Merry’s in the middle of a fine dream... let us not waken him.’

We carry the twins past the silent, bewildered hobbits in the little sitting room--so much has happened in so short a span of time!--to their bed in the next room, where they curl together. Merigrin, smiling, stirs but doesn’t waken as I lay him down; Ruby pillows her cheek against her brother’s mop of curls, twines her fingers through his hair, and sucks contentedly on her thumb. So, I imagine, they slept upon a time inside their mother, where a new little brother or sister is now growing to greet them in a few months’ time.

I return to the bedroom, to check over Pippin again, and look to Faramir, who still embraces his father as if afraid to let go. ‘Master Farry,’ I say. ‘Come, eat, rest.’

He shakes his head at me. ‘I am well,’ he says stubbornly.

 ‘Go, love,’ Diamond says to her son with one of her smiles, of the sort that will light a darkened room. Her smiles have been all too rare of late, and now my throat aches with joyful tears to see her face. Hearing the smile in her voice, her husband smiles in his sleep, and she rests her head against his and her smile brightens. ‘Go,’ she says. ‘All is well.’

And this time I know that she believes she speaks the truth. It is not the time to speak caution; my healer’s training tells me that while the potion bought him time, the Thain is still on the knife’s edge. Thin and wasted, taking half breaths for all they remain steady and regular, half breaths that tell of the lungs ruined by injury and illness, he will indeed remain with us through another night if I am reading the signs correctly. But as to what the morrow will bring...

 ‘Come, Master Farry,’ I say. ‘Eat, and then take some rest. You won’t do your da any good, making yourself unwell.’

He lays his head against his father, to listen for a moment to Pippin’s breathing, and then he rises from the bed. I place an arm about his shoulders and we walk out of the room together, leaving Diamond and Pippin alone.

Though the others, cousins, nieces and nephews, who had gathered to sing the Thain on his way have left the little sitting room, Pippin’s sisters remain, with Meliloc and Isumbold, and Regi’s Rosamunda, all standing uncertainly (save Isum, who sits on the edge of his chair, as off-balance as the rest). Pearl advances on me. ‘Well?’ she says breathlessly, and though she tries to put on a good face for Farry’s sake, her eyes are dark with emotion.

 ‘He is sleeping peacefully,’ I say.

 ‘Resting comfortably?’ Isum says with a wry twist to his mouth. He has had more to do with healers than any Took would wish on his worst enemy.

 ‘Sleeping...’ I say, slowly and clearly, ‘peacefully.’ I sweep the room with my sternest look. ‘There’s a feast in the receiving room,’ (Mistress Lalia’s grand name for the larger sitting room you enter when you knock on the door to the Thain’s private apartments), ‘and it would be a shame to let it go to waste.’

 ‘A funeral feast,’ Pervinca says, and giggles. She is too tightly wound, her eyes staring from dark hollows, belying the silly grin on her face.

Meliloc draws her closer to himself and steadies her with a few whispered words, and together they turn away, to lead the procession down the corridor.

 ‘Lend me your shoulder, Nephew,’ Isum says to Faramir, and the lad moves to oblige him. With difficulty he rises from the chair, and with Pearl on one side, and leaning heavily upon Farry on the other, he follows Meliloc and Pervinca. Pimpernel and Rosamunda bring up the tail, arm in arm.

I turn back for a last look, and Diamond’s smile continues to shine in the semi-darkness. ‘We’ll be fine here,’ she murmurs, and somehow, I am sure that they will be.