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Where the Love-light Gleams  by Lindelea

Chapter 13. Putting a Foot Wrong

Nibs was standing stiff and still, staring in horror at the fork in his hands, the tines wet and dripping viscous, dark-red drops.

'What is it? What's happened?' A babble of voices greeted him, but Woodruff saw that the lad was not heeding, and she took him by the shoulders, avoiding the pitchfork, and gave him a gentle shake.

'Lad. Lad! What's happened?'

Slowly his eyes focused on hers, and he gave a sob. 'I've killed him,' he said. 'I'm as bad as one of those murthering ruffians.'

'Murdered him!' Pippin exclaimed, looking round the entryway. There was no sign of Ferdi. 'Where is he?'

Nibs nodded slowly at the haystack. 'He's in there,' he whispered, and then he dropped the fork and buried his face in his hands with a shudder.

His meaning was all too clear: Someone was in the haystack... the logical conclusion was that Ferdi, dizzied by his head injury, had fallen into the hay, or burrowed there if he were out of his head and hiding from imagined ruffians. The stable lad, forking the hay into the wheelbarrow, had...

Pimpernel gave a shriek and fell onto the haystack, pulling hay away as fast as she could manage, and Woodruff left off her hold of Nibs to do the same. Pippin pushed Sandy forward to help, leaning on Fennel, Woodruff's chief assistant, who with Sandy had helped him out to the stables in the first place. It was handy, having two experienced healers on the spot. He could only hope that Ferdi's wounds were not mortal, and that the healers would be able to do something for him and not stand helplessly by, watching him slip away. 'Hurry!' he said, as Tad belatedly joined the mad scramble to excavate the Thain's special assistant.

Tolly re-entered from his errand, stopped a moment in astonishment, and then seeing a protruding foot that had been freed from the haypile, joined the diggers.

I know the look of a hobbit's foot when I see one, Pippin thought inconsequentially, and his grip on Fennel tightened. He wished he could join the effort, but with only one good leg to stand on he'd be more of a hindrance than a help.

Nibs sank to his knees, the picture of hopeless dejection.

Woodruff's worst fears solidified at the flash of bright red beneath the hay, the feel of wet stickiness on her fingers--the buried hobbit was bleeding his life out before them, and so much blood... too much even to begin to staunch... and Nell, coming to the same conclusion, fell back and began to sob wildly.

Grimly the healer continued to pull hay away, but a sharp piece of haystalk spiked under one of her fingernails and she gave a cry, jerking her hand free of the hay and instinctively raising the offended finger to her mouth. Her eyes opened wide as she tasted cloying sweetness mixed with the saltiness of blood. Pulling her hand down, she stared... blood welled from her finger, a nasty jab it was indeed, and 'twould be sore and throbbing for some days, after the nature of such injuries, and she had better soak it in steaming water quickly to fend off the red swelling. But the sweetness...!

' 'Tis a muffler!' Sandy gasped. 'A muffler!' and Woodruff saw the truth of it, the crimson not of Ferdi's lifeblood, spilled by the fork, but a bright muffler, snuggled round his neck where the lifeblood pulsed, and tucked down into his jacket... the jacket that bore a row of holes, through which a thick, dark-reddish liquid seeped... but not the red of blood.

Not the red of blood, she heard herself whisper. She put out a trembling hand to touch the sticky wetness, brought her fingers back to her nose for a sniff, and fell to undoing the buttons of Ferdi's jacket while the others fell back in dismay.

Pippin looked to Fennel, who was shaking his head. 'How bad?' he whispered.

'Right into his breast,' the healer said softly. 'His heart, his...'

'Murther...' sobbed Nibs, having overheard.

But Woodruff had the jacket open, revealing the paper-wrapped parcel that had been struck through with the fork. She lifted it, dripping, away to reveal the fine white linen of Ferdi's shirt, soaked red.

'But that's...!' Tad said with a start.

Woodruff worked the buttons of the shirt free as the Thain spoke sharply. 'That's... what?'

'His prize,' Tad said. 'From the Green Dragon, it was. He could scarcely sit his pony, for the brandy was wearing off, and we stopped in at the inn, seeing the windows full of light. They threw the muffler round his neck and presented him with some sort of cordial.'

'Currant,' Woodruff muttered, her attention on the bared skin before her. 'A touch of beetroot juice for richer colour.' She was a fine cook in her own right, and a taste had been enough to confirm the identity of the copious "blood".

'He said he'd bring it home to his Nell,' Tad said, and Pimpernel gave a sob. 'No, no, that's not right, it was the wine he was bringing home to Nell, to ask her to mull it.'

'The wine?' Pippin and Tolly said together.

'O aye,' Tim said, 'that's right. He brought a sack, tied on the saddle.'

'Prize?' Pippin said.

'First-footing prize,' Tad said, bewildered at this whole situation.

'The tines barely broke the skin,' Woodruff said, looking up, her tone relieved. 'No more than a scratch, really.'

Tim went over to where Nibs knelt and put his hands on the stable lad's shoulders, giving him a little shake. 'Did ye hear that, ye daft coney? Ye're not a murderer, after all.'

'What about his head?' Pippin said, and Woodruff bent to further examine her patient, pulling a handkerchief from her pocket to wipe her hands.

Old Tom, seeing the gesture, abruptly left the scene, returning but a moment or two later with a bucket of clean water and a handful of rags, and Woodruff thanked him and scrubbed the stickiness from her fingers before returning to Ferdi. Pimpernel, in the meantime, had couched herself in the haypile beside her husband and now held his hand, crooning assurances and appeals for him to waken.

'First-footing prize?' Pippin said now, his brows beetled, watching Woodruff's hands carefully going over Ferdi's skull. 'He was First-footing at the Dragon?'

'O no!' Tad said hastily, turning to the Thain. 'I didn't mean to give the wrong impression... we were not First-footing, not at all! He came to our house afoot, after the pony threw him off, and we thought at first that he was First-footing, so we filled his sack with brandy and bread and pennies...'

'Don't forget the wine,' Tolly muttered, but no one heeded him.





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