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

...and now all is over. I am glad you are here with me. Here at the end of all things...
-- (Frodo to Sam, from the chapter entitled "Mount Doom").

Thanks to all for taking this journey with me, through scenes from the life of a character who has been a favourite of mine for quite awhile. How interesting it was, to let her say more than a healer usually gets to say in the context of a story. This is not necessarily the last chapter in Woodruff's life, but it is the last chapter of this story.

Thanks, especially to Marigold, who walked the whole way with me. Her beta comments made this a stronger, more cohesive piece, and Hetty and Hetty's family were her characters, graciously loaned to me for this story.

Chapter 51. Epilogue

We call the dreaded lung-fever "Old Gaffer's Friend" because it is a relatively gentle and painless end for an elderly hobbit, most often affecting those, young or old, who are weak, though often enough it carries off one who is young and strong, and so it is rightly to be feared.

But really, it is not so bad as some maladies I have treated, and if it were not for the distress of my loved ones I would be quite comfortable with things as they are. It is only that I am so very weary... so weary... I feel I could sleep for the rest of my days.

'A little water, Mum,' and I open my eyes, to smile at my daughter-in-love, wife of my eldest, who is holding a mug before me. Ah, Holly, but what a fine healer you have become, and your children after you. Seems but a day or two ago that little Thad, your youngest, was toddling about after Hetty, that time we visited her in the little healer's smial in Whitwell, and now he's her apprentice, and making good from all reports.

'Thaddie's in Whitwell, Mum, don't you remember?' Holly says, with that anxious look in  her eye that she has not quite been able to hide, the past day or two.

'I am not wandering in fever,' I say with a smile. 'I was only remembering. A body has the right to remember, at my age. There's so much of it to do...'

'What is there to do?' comes the voice of my beloved, and he enters, bringing a fresh basin of cold water. Holly lifts the cloth from my forehead and wrings it out in the basin; the cool against my brow is refreshing, and I sigh. 'Naught for you to do,' my Ted continues, 'but to gather your strength and be well again, Sweetie.'

'Of course,' I agree, and close my eyes again as he takes my hand, but there is a flurry at the door--the family are all gathered in the next room, it seems from the noises I've been hearing. Whispers from the grown-ups, and overloud exclamations from the little ones, who haven't yet learned how to speak softly.

Why... even Hetty is here, for I hear her halting step.

'Hetty?' I say, but really, my eyelids are so very heavy.

'Mistress,' comes the answer, and I smile as Holly's hand falls away and Hetty's takes its place. I know that hand, so skilled at healing it is, and imbued with a comfort that spreads into my fingers and up my arm somehow, just from her touch.

'You came all the way from Whitwell...?' I say.

Her hand squeezes mine in answer. I open my eyes, to see her cheeks wet with tears. She hastily wipes them away and gives me a watery smile, but neither of us is fooled by the other.

'Mardi sent word that you won't take his medicine,' she says, and swallows hard. 'He said I ought to come and bring a few of my own potions with me... and so Thad brought me safely along the track through the Green Hills.' And yes, there is my grandson, hovering in the doorway, waiting to catch my eye, to flash me a shadow of his usual grin, before he turns back into the outer room, to join the soft conversation there.

'Draughts are for sick folk!' I say stoutly, trying to draw myself up against the pillows. But really, it is too much effort, and I sink back again and close my eyes. 'I'm glad to see you, lovie. It's been too long, really...'

'Perhaps you won't be quite so glad...' Hetty says, and her hand leaves mine, and it is not long before I hear liquid pouring into a cup, and soon enough the cup is placed against my lower lip.

I open my mouth automatically; I swallow the draught, bitter stuff that honey cannot completely conceal; I gag, just a little, but from the tilt of the cup I've reached the end of the draught, and next will come the cup of plain water, sweet and refreshing.

'Yes, that's got it,' I say, after several thirsty swallows.

'That ought to set her right,' Hetty says, and I hear my Ted answer her under his breath.

'Please, may it be...'

I feel her hand grasp my shoulder, those strong fingers which seem to have healing in their very touch. Her breath tickles my cheek as her whisper reaches my ear. 'There now. That'll ease your breathing that you may go to sleep without worrying about whether you'll waken. There may be a little coughing soon, but that's all to the good; and when it has done its work we'll soothe the cough back to sleep again.'

My Ted's hand tightens on mine, and I feel his desperate hope in the gentle grasp.

Another stirring from the direction of the doorway: another arrival. I hear the seated hobbits rustle. They are standing to their feet. A hobbit of rank has entered, by the evidence of my ears.

And so, despite the overwhelming pull of slumber, I open my eyes.

'Thain Peregrin,' I say with the best smile of welcome that I can muster. I am so very weary... but soon enough I shall sleep, either the healing sleep that Hetty has half-promised, or...

Perhaps I dozed indeed before he entered and so I missed the words he might have spoken, or perhaps some unspoken message passed from his eyes to the watchers, but in any event my Ted leans over me to lay a kiss upon my cheek, and Hetty squeezes my hand and releases it, and then Ted moves around the bed to take her arm and help her from the room. She can make her way without help, but accepts his arm with grace, having known my beloved all these years, and the loving heart that infuses all of his actions.

As the door closes behind them, the Thain sits himself down in one of the watchers' chairs and takes my hand between his two good, strong ones. 'Sweet Woodruff,' he says.

'None of your nonsense now, lad,' I say, in automatic response, and his smile brightens, but the pain remains in his eyes. I know that pain of old; many's the time...

'I came to bring you a mathom,' he says, 'and a piece of my birthday cake that Diamond set aside for you before they began to lay the tables in the great room, for you've never missed a piece of my cake, whenever I've passed a birthday in Tookland, and I wasn't going to let you start now, even if it meant cutting the cake before the candles were lit!' But then, he has never hesitated at setting aside convention if it made sense to him, so to do.

'And a very happy birthday to you indeed, young Pip,' I say, as I have said to him every birthday he has passed in Tookland, since the first.

Holding my hand in one of his, he digs in his pocket with the other, at last laying something cool and smooth and weighty in my hot palm.

'A stone?' I say, trying to lift my hand for a look. But it is so very heavy...

He closes my fingers around it. 'A stone, smooth and weighty, that could bring down a bird or squirrel for the pot, or sit in your pocket for a worry-stone, or set in a vase with other stones to hold flowers upright, or even set in a stream to see it turn from dull to shining black...' he says, and I remember, as if it were yesterday.

And I whisper, '...that he might grow to be solid and steady.'

'As he has,' the Thain says, though his voice is husky and he has to clear his throat. 'At least, I hope he has.'

'O aye,' I say, in my best Tookish manner, and his eyes crinkle in silent laughter. It has always been a jest between us, that I am Took only by adoption and marriage. He has always maintained that I never quite get the intonation completely correct. 'He has, at that.'

A tap comes at the door, and it swings open to admit Holly, bearing a tray. 'Tea,' she says rather breathlessly, 'per your order, Sir.'

'Thank you,' Pippin says, rising to meet her. As she sets the tray down he takes up the lovely thistle-graced teapot, setting it on the table beside the bed.

'Just call if you need anything,' Holly says, and pulls the door nearly to behind her.

Next the Thain adds milk to one cup and brings it and a second cup to the bedside, where he proceeds to fill both with hot, strongly brewed tea. I remember as if it were yesterday...

'Don't go casting that stone,' he warns as he pours. 'We wouldn't want to shatter the pot, after all. Bilbo must have taken all his Elf-glue with him when he left, for Frodo told me he couldn't find the glue-pot after the Party.'

And in truth I cannot tell if it is whimsy or not. Does it matter?

'I have a goodly grasp,' I say.

'I should say you do,' he answers.

He adds just the right amount of sugar to mine and stirs thoroughly, but when I would lift my hand he forestalls me. 'You rest, now,' he says. 'Let me...'

I'd smile, but then the tea might spill as he holds the cup to my lips, and so I sip instead, and wait to smile until the cup is pulled back. 'That's good,' I say.

He smiles and puts my cup down, to take a hearty swallow from his own cup, for he likes it strong and hot and will not drink it if it cools appreciably. 'Good tea,' he says. 'Holly's always had a special touch... though it might be the teapot that makes it so good.'

'Undoubtedly the teapot,' I say. 'A very special pot it is.'

And he puts down his cup, and lifts mine to my lips once more, and whether it is the fine tea, or the good company, or some magic in Hetty's potion, I know not. All I know is that the tea tastes better to me than anything has, these past few days, and I guzzle it greedily, and not at all politely, I fear.

'Nothing like a fine cup of tea to heal all ills,' he says briskly as he lays down the empty cup, an echo of something he'd heard me say to his mum over and again, years ago. But as quickly his eyes sober, and he adds, almost as an afterthought, 'Too bad it's not Ent-draught.'

I laugh, though I scarcely have the breath to do so. 'I'm that glad, I am, that you and Regi drank up all the stuff years back,' I say when I can talk again. 'A cure it might be, but my one sip was plenty for me!'

'If it made you well...'

'Ah, yes, and it would be wasted, for all it would do would be to make me the healthiest hundred-year-old hobbit in the Shire!'

'We need you,' he says, putting down the cup and taking my hand. 'You have got to try, Woodruff.'

'I haven't turned my face to the wall yet, lad,' I say, 'and I've no intention of doing so.'

'But Mardi...'

'That one's an old fussbudget,' I say, and chuckle at remembering, for Pippin nearly always observes, when he hears that word, They don't budget their fusses at all, so why call them that?

But the worry does not leave his eyes. 'Mardi...'

'All's well, lad,' I say, rousing myself enough to lay down the smooth stone upon the coverlet so that I may pat his hand. 'Mardi's potions went down with difficulty and wouldn't stay down, in a manner of speaking. There was no point in taking more...'

'But...' he says, and it is all I can do to keep from laughing, this one pressing a healer over a draught!

'But Hetty's done something different to her draught, some herb or other,' I say, 'likely something she found in the woods or a weed growing in the corner of her garden, and she liked the way it smelt, and gave some to her pig to see if it would do any harm, and then tried it herself to see what it would do... she's brewed more new and wondrous potions than any other healer I know, that lass. Best thing I ever did...' And I suddenly come to the end of my rope, and cannot finish, ...was to take her on as my apprentice, all those years ago.

But he understands, and nods, and then fusses with my pillows, and truly, when he finishes propping me just so I feel as if I'm breathing easier. And he pours me another cup, fixing it just the way I like it, and helps me drink it, all the while telling of the preparations for the birthday supper, and how Diamond has invited so many Tooks to the celebration that they'll have to tuck their elbows in if they're all to fit.

Sitting up suddenly, and looking somehow like the young lad who always liked to be the first to bring me news, he said, 'But I bring not just birthday gift and cake, I bring as well a juicy piece of gossip, not yet released in the tunnels and corridors and halls, but soon to spread throughout the Great Smials and Tookland beyond, after the grand announcement that's to be made at supper. I thought you'd like to be the first to chew upon it.'

'Do I have to promise not to tell, at least until after supper?' I whisper. My eyelids are growing heavier as Hetty's potion does its work, not the weariness that made me want to sink down through the mattress earlier, but a good sort of sleepiness, as if I am floating on clouds. I force my eyes wide.

'Tell away!' he says gaily. 'It's good news; indeed, it is!' And he lowers his voice, and adds, 'I'm to have another daughter--what do you think of it?'

For the merest second I am confused--Diamond is well past the age of bearing--but then I grasp his meaning. 'Farry--and Goldi!' I rasp, and then a cough rises in me and invites all its fellows to join in the celebration, and I am quite breathless when the fit is over, dispelled by soothing syrup that Holly brings, and the Thain eases me back against the propping pillows once more.

Holly hesitates, but their eyes meet and with another look from the Thain she makes a courtesy and slips from the room.

'Aye,' he says, 'Faramir--and Goldilocks. They've set the date, and they wanted you to be among the first to know, that you might clear your schedule...'

'When, then?' I say, giving up the struggle to hold my eyelids open. 'Farry's not yet of age...'

'You guessed it,' the Thain says. I feel the warm cloth lifted from my forehead, there is the sound of trickling water and then it is replaced, cool and fresh. 'He'll never have an excuse to forget his wedding anniversary, for they're to be wed on the day he comes of age.'

'A goodly plan,' I say with a smile. His hand regains mine in a firm grip, and I give his fingers a little squeeze. 'But then, Farry has learnt a lot about planning, from his Uncle Merry.'

A chuckle answers me. Pippin has never been much of a planner, though he's learnt something of planning over the years. Still, the lad has good instincts, and they've stood him in good stead. He makes good decisions, including choosing hobbits who are good planners, to work under his direction.

'I'll check my diary,' I say, though the room is fading around me, and the only thing I can feel, really, is that hand that is holding mine. 'If I do not have a previous engagement, I'll be sure to be there...'

'I'll see you at the Feast,' he says softly, and I smile.

'Dear lad,' I say. Child of my heart. My voice is inaudible in my own ears, but I feel the squeeze of his hand as the world fades away. I am sorry to think I will sleep through the birthday supper and the grand announcement, but the wedding feast is some months away, and with time and care I ought to be dancing with the rest of them when the celebration starts.

*******

The End

*******





<< Back

Next >>

Leave Review
Home     Search     Chapter List