Evening, March 15, 3019

Miriel had been checking on the strange man regularly for most of the past twenty-four hours. She thought that he was getting better, or at least becoming more stable, so she asked Girion to come with her to make sure. Girion came, bearing a tray of various medical supplies. The two stood over his cot and looked at his various wounds carefully.

“He’s woken up a few times while I’ve been here.”

“He hasn’t said anything, has he?” Girion asked as he unwrapped the bandage on the hand to change it and to see if there was any infection left.

“No, he mostly moaned a bit and I gave him some water. The fever broke shortly after we put him in here.”

The man on the cot began to stir as Girion gently inspected the burn. His eyes fluttered open and he lifted his head to look at Girion. He stared at Girion with a puzzled look, and then saw the mark on his hand. Miriel watched his face as it passed through bewilderment, recognition, despair, and resignation within a few seconds. He slumped back into his pillow and turned his head towards the wall. Miriel couldn’t help but wonder what he was thinking and what he had done; he didn’t look like the criminal sort, she thought to herself for the umpteenth time. He was dark-haired with the beginnings of a beard and his eyes were an interesting hazel, now that she had seen his eyes. But then, it really didn’t matter what you looked like, did it? The point was that he’d done something and was now paying for it.

“What will we tell people about him? Beside the fact that he’s mute, of course.”

“Well,” Girion said as he re-bandaged the hand, “I talked to the Warden and the official story is that he was traumatized by the battle. He was hit on the head and has lost the capacity to speak.” Miriel could see the man was listening; just because he couldn’t talk to them didn’t mean that he couldn’t listen to a conversation between them. Girion seemed conscious of this fact as well, and continued to talk about the man’s situation to Miriel as he worked.

“While he’s here, we will keep him locked up with only one copy of the key, which only the two of us will have access to. When he’s healed, we will turn him over to the Guard so they can send him away.” The man’s face paled. As soon as Girion was finished tending to his hand, the man pulled away and gingerly turned on his side to face the wall. He brought the blankets up over his shoulder and didn’t move.

“We will leave a cup of willow bark tea on the table,” Girion said as he poured out a mug of hot tea. “It helps to relieve pain,” he commented to Miriel offhandedly for the benefit of the man as he gathered up the tray. Miriel opened the door for him and then shut it behind them, locking it securely and slipping the key in her pocket. Girion turned to her and smiled.

“You’ve done very well over the past few days.” Girion could see dark circles underneath her eyes. “When was the last time you slept?”

“A few hours last night, I think.”

“That’s all? I’ll tell the Warden I let you off duty. Take tomorrow to recover. You’ve earned it.”

Miriel smiled at him gratefully and then covered a yawn. “Thank you, Girion. I really need this. And I think that you’ll need this.” She fished out the key from her pocket and gave it to him. “I’ll see you later. Have a good night.”

Miriel collapsed gratefully onto a stone bench in the gardens in the Houses of Healing and sighed. The first thing she had done when Girion had told her that she was free to go was to scrub her skin free of all traces of blood. She felt so fresh and clean now, and was feeling herself begin to nod, but she had come out here to gather her thoughts for a moment before bed. The terrible dark cloud that had covered the sky was finally gone; she could see the stars again.

She stared at the sky absently, trying to suppress the echoes of battle and screams of pain that she could still hear. How many had died? How many were slowly dying now? How many were still on the Pelennor Fields at this very moment, feebly crying for help while trapped beneath piles of the dead?

Miriel shook her head. It would not do to allow her thoughts to stray to such gruesome things, not if she wanted to sleep at all tonight. Instead, she thought of pleasanter things: her family’s cottage by the sea, with climbing roses over the door and window-baskets full of blooming flowers; her parents, waving to her as she got on the ship to sail up the Anduin to train as a healer; her brother, Delmar. She missed him the most of all. He was only ten summers, far too young to fight, thankfully. He was her bright spark; he could make her laugh at any time and had inherited his mother’s laughing face. She had always thought him to be the fortunate one because of that, as she had her father’s pensive, brooding face. Delmar was always in and out of the sea, and his hair had been bleached to a fair blond while his skin had darkened. The only time she had seen him cry was when she had left.

Blinking back tears at the sudden wave of homesickness she felt, she got up and decided to head for her quarters. As she started forward, she heard a soft sniff behind her. She turned and saw a small figure on a bench farther down the path, swinging his legs aimlessly and staring at the ground. A boy, she assumed, perhaps one of the runners. What was he doing here? Did he have a relative that was injured? He didn’t look any older than Delmar…

A protective instinct took over her, something similar to what she felt for Delmar, and she turned around and quietly approached the boy.

“May I sit here?” she asked him. He nodded mutely and she lowered herself down beside him. They sat in silence for a few minutes, and then Miriel spoke up.

“Who do you know that’s in the Houses of Healing?”

The boy looked up at her, surprised. “How did you know about that?” he said in a peculiar accent.

“You learn to recognize the signs after a while. Do you want to tell me about him?” she said gently.

The boy thought for a moment, then began to speak. “It’s my fault, really, that Merry’s in there.”

“Merry?” What sort of a name was that?

“My cousin. He was with the Rohirrim, and he was all alone, and he shouldn’t have been. I should have been there, but I was stuck here instead because of my own foolishness.”

“Your cousin rode to battle with Rohan?” Miriel was rather confused- what was a man of Gondor doing with the Rohirrim?

“Yes. And he-” here the boy shuddered and took a deep breath- “he stabbed that Thing, the Witch-King, and now he has the Black Breath spreading up his arm. He shouldn’t have been alone. I found him on the battlefield underneath an orc. He asked me if I was going to leave him. I think he thought he was going to die.”

“He sounds like a brave warrior.” Stabbing the Witch-King! He must be strong and heroic!

“He is, but he shouldn’t have to be. We shouldn’t be here at all. We’re just hobbits!” the boy choked, sounding as though he were holding back tears.

“Hobbits?”

“You call us Halflings. But it doesn’t matter.”

Halfling! Was this the one that everybody had been talking about, the one that had sworn his service to the Steward and had ridden for three days with Gandalf the White? The one they were calling Ernil i Pheriannath? She studied him carefully. His feet were bare and had hair all over the tops, though she hadn’t been able to see that in the darkness. His ears were slightly pointed and hidden beneath curly hair. She couldn’t see much of his face, as he had bowed his head, but he looked as though he were trying very hard not to cry. Miriel found it hard to put him in an age group appropriate to his kind; to her, he looked as though he were only ten summers, about the age of Delmar. Her heart gave a pang as she looked at the Halfling.

Miriel reached out and put an arm around his shoulders. “It’s all right,” she said softly. The Halfling gave a sob and laid his head in her lap as his body trembled with muffled cries. “Everything will be fine,” she whispered. She gently stroked his hair and murmured comforting words as he sobbed until he calmed down.

The Halfling sat up and dried his eyes. “I’m sorry, I seem to have cried all over your dress.” Miriel looked down at the wet stain on her skirt. She laughed.

“That’s all right. It will dry.”

“I’m afraid I haven’t introduced myself. My name is Peregrin Took, but everybody calls me Pippin.”

“My name is Miriel. I work here as a healer.”

Pippin smiled at her in the starlight. “I’m very pleased to meet you, Miriel.”

Miriel raised her head to look at the glimmering stars once more and breathed a sigh of appreciation before turning to the Halfling beside her. “I was just heading back to my room for bed, but I want you to know that I think your cousin is a hero.”

Pippin gave a genuine grin at this. “Thank you. I know he is. Perhaps you could meet him someday?”

“Perhaps,” Miriel said. “Maybe tomorrow. I’ve been let off until the day after, though some of my friends here will think me mad to come here on my day off. It’s not as though there’s anywhere else to go. I wouldn’t feel right in spending an entire day doing nothing.”

Pippin nodded. “I can understand that.”

Miriel stood up. “I should go now. I will see you tomorrow, Peregrin.”

“Call me Pippin. Everyone else does.”

“Right then, Pippin. Good night.”

“Good night.”