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A Healer's Tale  by Lindelea

Chapter 48. Interlude

It is so peaceful here, watching the Thain sleep. His face is smooth and untroubled; he smiles as he dreams. The cares of the Shire fall away; the deadly struggle is past.

Wakening from a doze, I start forward in alarm. He is so still, so calm and peaceful... is it, perhaps, that Fennel had the right of it, and the Thain has passed, dreaming, into darkness?

With trembling fingers I seize the near wrist, so perturbed that at first I cannot feel the heartbeat--but the flesh is warm and living, and soon I feel a flutter, nay, stronger than that, a steady pulse.

He stirs under my touch, his eyes open halfway, he murmurs, as if continuing a conversation, the start of which I cannot quite recall, 'Frodo was braver. Much braver than any hobbit I've ever known...' His eyes close and his voice trails off, but a frown has taken the place of the smile, and he sighs in his sleep.

Still the breaths continue steady, and unforced, and I can afford my own pent-up breath free release.

And I think back, to the Frodo I once knew.

A wild youth, a Baggins being raised in the wilds of Buckland, and quite wild in his own right, by reputation. There were scandalised whispers the first time he visited Whittacres after his adoption by old Bilbo Baggins, and Miss Pearl rode out with him on picnics. Though the two were only tweens, no, not even that! Frodo was barely into his tween years, and Pearl was still a teen, yet how the talk did fly! Grandmother Banks put a stop to it as soon as it came to her ears, that was for certain, and a good thing, too, before Pearl's reputation was forever ruined.

I do believe that is why they sent Pearl to serve Mistress Lalia, in truth. The local lads of Whitwell still looked at her with a certain speculation, and it was not likely that she'd win a fine husband with the little dowry her father could afford. Likely her parents hoped she'd catch the eye of one of the Great Smials Tooks, and far enough from home that besmirching rumour was not to hurt the lass.

I did have a fond wish that she might marry Mr. Frodo Baggins, heir of the richest hobbit in the Shire, and then richest in his own right when peculiar Mr. Bilbo took himself off, and so she could have laughed in the face of the gossips of Whitwell. They were so lovely together, him so tall and fair, and she, round and rosy, and the two of them always laughing gaily together, as if they shared a delightful secret as they walked through the marketplace, surrounded by cousins to keep them proper, though the damage had already been done years earlier.

But of course it could never be. She returned to the farm in disgrace, in the middle of family troubles--Paladin had offended Mistress Lalia, and the Mistress punished him for it, and while Pearl was attending her, Lalia's chair bumped over the threshold of the Great Door and tipped her down the stairs to her death, and it was whispered...

I take myself firmly in hand. Such is the Talk amongst the Tooks. Years ago it was, and years ago Pearl was safely married off to Isumbold, a fine and upright hobbit, well thought of for nearly giving his life to save Thain Ferumbras, and a hero of the Troubles as well, fighting to keep the ruffians out of Tookland though he barely had a leg to stand on.

I think sometimes that young Mr. Frodo took himself off, in the end, for reason of a broken heart, though of course the gossips would whisper and hint at darker reasons. He and Miss Pearl did look so fine, walking together...

'Frodo,' the sleeper murmurs, and turns over, away from me. And I remember...

'You look troubled, lad, and not at all happy to be visiting at home,' I said, taking his arm and turning towards my little smial, pulling him after me though to passers-by it would appear we are simply strolling companionably, arm-in-arm, two old friends. 'Come to tea, Pippin, and tell me all your troubles as you did in the old days.'

As we entered the front door my beloved greeted us with a smile. 'Tea's just on,' he said, and looking keenly into the tween's face for a moment, he added, 'The children are at their grands' and I was just about to go and fetch them home again. ...but don't wait for us! Go on and pour out; it is always a struggle to separate the littlest two from their gammer's lap.'

'Sit down, lad,' he directed, and so Pippin, not to be rude, sat, and I smiled as I poured out from my special pot, that still has pride of place at my table even now, years later, but he did not return the smile, nor did the worried look leave his eyes.

My beloved patted Pippin's shoulder, kissed my cheek and murmured something about being "back later".

'I'm sorry there's no seedcake; we didn't know to expect you,' I said, pushing the plate of scones toward him. Now tweens are invariably hungry, though not needing food nearly so much as growing teens, yet he paid no heed.

'What is it, Pip-lad?' I said, in as coaxing a tone as I knew how. 'Have you quarrelled with Pearl?' I chuckled and added, 'Certainly not with Isum! He hasn't a quarrelsome bone in his body!'

'No, not with Isum,' Pippin said.

'Your father then, the Thain? I know he's been strict with you, these past few years, but he's had to be, lad, what with the duty laid upon him...'

'Duty,' Pippin said, his tone bleak.

'He's been calling you to your duty, I take it,' I said, patting his hand and pushing his cup closer. 'Drink that up now whilst it's hot, lad, it'll do you good, and I know you don't like cooling tea.'

He sipped at the tea, but I had the impression that it had as little taste to him as water might, in his state.

'Good tea,' I prompted.

He tried to smile.

'What is it, lad?' I said impulsively. 'I shall be vexed, if you visit me with a face as long as January, and tell me lies about how fine the weather and how blue the sky.'

'But the weather is fine,' he said guilelessly, in surprise, 'and the sky as blue as ever I've seen it. Perfect September weather.'

'It is that,' I allowed, but pressed again. 'Duty,' I said, and was rewarded to see him drop his eyes and stare into his cup, before he swallowed hard and looked up again to meet my gaze squarely. Naught of the coward in that lad.

'What is it, lad?' I said softer. 'Does the thought of duty rub so raw as all that?'

'Duty,' he whispered. 'It is not so much that I would leave my duty; I hope my da raised me to be better than that.'

'Then what?' I asked, pouring him more tea as if it was of no import. Sometimes it helps a body, a tween especially, not to be appearing to pay him any mind when he's wrestling with some dilemma.

'It's hard,' he said, so softly that I nearly didn't catch it. 'So hard to choose,' he said a little louder, and I looked up to meet his gaze. Earnest it was, and searching.

'Choose what is right,' I said matter-of-factly.

'Two choices,' he answered. 'Two choices lie before me, and how do I know where the greater duty lies?'

At the time I knew not that he spoke of his duty to his father, not just to his father but to the Tookland, even the Shire, balanced against his duty to follow his cousin Frodo into danger, for the sake of that same Shire. And even, if it is to be believed, for the sake of all of Middle-earth, not just the Shire but the wild and unknown Outlands into the bargain.

Even had I known, I most likely would have urged him to stay by his father's side, as a loyal son, for surely that is where his duty lay, and not to a mere cousin.

But I did not know, and so what I said was, 'You must choose the best, of course...' and at his puzzled look I chuckled at myself and tried again, 'No, I do not mean it as if you are selecting a teacake from a tray. Have you asked Paladin?'

He grimaced and shook his head ever so slightly. 'I know what he would say,' he answered.

'I think you might be doing your da a disservice,' I said gently, but Pippin remained stubbornly silent, about as tractable as a stone, and so I tried again. 'Have you asked Merry for his advice, or Frodo?'

He nodded at the first name, but hesitated at the second, for reasons I only discovered more than a year afterwards.

'And what did Merry say?' I ask.

'That it is my own decision to make,' he said slowly.

'And I am sure that he told you to weigh the consequences,' I said, and he nodded, 'and Frodo, should you ask him, would likely tell you to count the cost...' He nodded again and sipped at his tea with an inward look.

'So it is your own decision to make, and no one else's,' I muse aloud, 'well then, you must weigh both sides as honestly as you can...'

'And if they balance on the scale...?' he said, and from his gravity I sensed it was a momentous decision, indeed.

'Then you must listen to your heart, to tip the balance, and choose the course that seems the rightest. The "right" is always the best choice, even if it is not often the easiest or safest.'

He nodded, sipped again at his tea, and sighed. 'You have the right of it,' he said, looking up at me, and suddenly it was as if a great weight had fallen from his shoulders, and he smiled at me, that sweet smile I remembered from the little lad who was always bringing me handfuls of wildflowers, and stones, and interesting insects and such.

And I smiled back, and pressed scones upon him, and we talked and laughed over inconsequential things, and by the time my family spilled in through the doorway, both Pippin and the scones were gone.

It was not too long after that, I heard he'd been swallowed up by the Old Forest, along with Merry Brandybuck and Frodo Baggins and a gardener, of all people, and spoken by all as forever lost. And then the Troubles descended upon us, and there was not often time to think on those we mourned.

The Ruffians came with their thieving ways and their rules, and their cruelties. Thain Paladin invited all who would come, to join him in the fastness of the Great Smials, to venture out to keep the borders of Tookland free of vermin. My beloved was among those who rode out, who set traps, who risked his life for Thain and family.

And just when things were blackest, when rumour had it that the Ruffians were massing at the borders of the Tookland, to drive their way in past our defences, to slaughter and pillage and burn, to take the Thain and his family and make an example of them for the "benefit" of the Shire-folk... when my beloved and his brothers and all the free Tooks were sharpening their arrows, ready to fight to the death, to hold the Men off so long as might be...

Out of the darkness he came to us then, my wayward lad, grown taller and dressed as a knight out of an old book of tales, come out of fire and death to lead us once more to the light.

My wayward lad, child of my heart, come into this life as my old life was ending, born into the dawning of joy and promise, and claiming a piece of my heart ever after.






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