AN:

Well, here we are.

The fire upon Master Bachor's toft was the last chapter of the first draft that I posted back on July 8, 2007. Every chapter after that, including this one, has not been seen by anyone except me. It's been a long wait, for some of you. I can only thank you for your patience and willingness to give me a second try.

Crossing my fingers. Here we go!

~oOo~

~ Chapter 44 ~

“But Aragorn smiled. ‘It will serve,’ he said. ‘The worst is now over. Stay and be comforted!’ Then taking two leaves, he laid them on his hands and breathed on them, and then he crushed them, and straightway a living freshness filled the room, as if the air itself awoke and tingled, sparkling with joy. And then he cast the leaves into the bowls of steaming water that were brought to him, and at once all hearts were lightened. For the fragrance that came to each was like a memory of dewy mornings of unshadowed sun in some land of which the fair world in spring is itself but a fleeting memory.”

ROTK: The House of the Healing

~oOo~

~ TA 3017, 20^th of Nénimë:  Mistress Pelara begs the Angle’s aid.  Her stores of herbs and roots grows low.  She is in most need of those plants that grow well in bright sun, yarrow, comfrey, valerian, mandrake root, balm, horehound, mullein, and cropleek.

~oOo~

“I do not understand why you have not found some lad or lass for the purpose.”

“’Tis but one day of the week,” I protest and pat the pad of linen upon my arm.  It still stings.

Having bound up the bundle of dried comfrey from my garden in twine, Mistress Pelara reaches above her head to hang it upon the wooden peg protruding from the low beam, her voice straining with her efforts, “It is not as we lack in small but very willing hands to do the work.”

“And they would not know what to do should they find somewhat needed attending,” say I and dab at blood that trickles down from my wrist to the crook of my arm.  For, aye, in tending to the sheep of my lord’s dower where they were pastured, I had slipped upon the wet lichen-covered slab of stone upon which I had set my foot and torn a great bloody line of skin from my arm in my attempt to catch my fall.  “It would take more to train them than it takes to do the work myself.” 

“Not there, Pelara,” comes Mistress Nesta’s voice from the corner of her worktable.

The healer looks up from where she and my lord’s son bend their heads o’er his journal. 

There they have cleared a space of mortar and pestle and ewers and linen bags and a great pot with a long fall of a spout like the neck of a goose bent to feed, whose purpose I know not.   Bundles of dried flowers and leaves hang from the low rafters, and they fill the mistress’ workshop with their heady scent. 

When the weather warms and the sun beckons the herbs to rise from their beds, her shutters open upon great gardens that stretch from beneath her window to the path afore it and all about behind. Most oft we would hear the thud of spade and hoe upon her toft, but in the deep frost of winter, bright is the day without, but the garden is silent.  Within, here we are set snuggly between hearth and table and shelves of bowls and baskets of linens and tools of the mistress’ craft.  Her helpers attend upon their duties elsewhere or, as we had done, gather what can be spared from the butteries and pantries about the Angle to make up for what the mistress was unable to wheedle from a season of wet days and dim sun.  

Now he is fully lettered, Edainion has requested tutoring in the healer’s craft so he might surprise his father with his knowledge upon his return home.  He has taken to pressing flowers and leaves between the pages of his journal and learning their names and uses. The sun streams upon he and Mistress Nesta through the vent in the roof, where in its light they have taken to using my mishap to my lord’s son’s betterment. 

“Och!  What have I done, now?”  Pelara protests.  “Herbs hither and spices thither, aye?” she asks, gesturing loosely with the next bunch of dried flowers.

“’Tis not a kitchen, Pelara,” says Nesta.  “That for the relief of pain here, the relief of illness there, and the treating of wounds there.”  She gestures about the room in a dizzying swiftness that leaves I, too, at a loss.

“And how am I to tell which is which?”

“You would know, had you paid aught of attention to what I do.”

“’Tis not dried leaves dangling from your rafters I come to see when I visit,” mumbles Pelara and yanks the bundle of comfrey from its hook in a rustle of dried leaves. 

“Just set them down in your basket and we will have the young master sort them out.  Seems a good test of his efforts.  What say you, Master Edainion?”

“I do not think I know all of them yet, Mistress.”  He looks up of a sudden in alarm.

“No matter, I will help you through it,” she says, tapping a finger upon his open journal.  “Now, Master Edainion, which shall we use?  The yarrow or the comfrey?”

Biting upon his lip, he peers at the notes he had made, considering his response.  ‘Tis the first chance he will have to attempt the craft of his father and, by the deep furrows sprung between his brow, I think him apprehensive for the effect it might have upon his mother.

“You two are of a pair,” Pelara says in the moment of silence, motioning between I and Nesta as she tosses the bundles to a basket at our feet and lowers herself to a stool beside me.  “Neither of you will accept another’s doing unless it done to your particulars.”

I take breath to protest, but Pelara is the quicker to speak. “Or you would have had Master Herdir train up some youth in your stead, my lady,” she insists. 

“Very well,” I say.  “I shall see to it.  At some point between begging Master Herdir to oversee the ploughing of our fields, the watering and harvesting of our crops, the safe storage and accounting of our grain, the upkeep of our ditches and dikes, the training of our oxen, the overwintering of our livestock, the culling of our herds, the fattening of our geese, the maintaining of our weirs, the ordering of men to glean what food we have been unable to raise ourselves from the forest hereabouts, and, lest we forget, now the selection and training of young men with thick arms and steady tempers to guard the seed we hope to put in the ground next month, I shall ask it of him.”

“Pay heed, Master Edainion,” Pelara says, and the boy raises his head from where he and Nesta have bent again to his journal.  She jabs a finger in my direction.  “Your lady mother is giving you a clear lesson in how not to govern a folk.”

“It seems I am not performing my responsibilities to your particulars,” say I.  “Mayhap you would rather do them yourself?” 

“I would not go tramping upon the meadows in all this wet and mud, not had I the choice, my lady.” 

“Mayhap, one day, then, you shall have the chance of making such decisions.”

“Me?  Sit at our lord’s table and order things to my liking, as were I the Lady of the Dúnedain or a member of the Council?” she exclaims.  “Ha!  Begging your pardon, my lady, but we shall see the king returned and the glory of his lands reunited ere that ever happens in the Angle.”

“Ammë could send Ranger Saer to look after the sheep. He would know what to do.  He knows everything,” says Edainion, startling us into laughing at the sly smile he turns upon his work.

I had not thought he had noticed, but it seems my dislike of the youth who dogs his mother’s steps had not passed him by.  For both my lord’s son and I greatly regret the departure of young Boradan, now full Ranger and learning his craft far from the Angle. 

I should not laugh and thus encourage Edainion, but this new youth is of a sullen temper.  Strictly adherent to all protocols and civilities he is and so I have little of which to complain of him to Halbarad.  But he is much given to making solemn pronouncements and reciting the duties given to him by his captain when e’er I ask somewhat of him. 

Oh, aye,” says Pelara.  “He is a piece of work.  As thick as a brick of ox dung and as pleasant a company, he is.” 

“Hush, now,” I say.  “They will return soon.” 

“I think we should use the yarrow,” says Edainion, looking up from his journal. “’Tis good to reduce swelling and stop bleeding, you said.” 

Nesta nods and drags the stone mortar into their cleared space.  “’Tis a good choice, young master.  Now see as you can find it.”

“Aye, ‘tis naught, Mistress.”  He peers into the rafters.  “Ammë grows some in our gardens and she keeps the dried stuff in the parlor.”

Upon sighting the flowers amidst the tangle of other herbs, he darts to it, pointing upward.  “There!”

“Aye, very good, young master.”  Nesta, having followed him, reaches above their heads and, with a smooth, practiced move, flips the bundle from its hook.  “Now yarrow we call it here, but ‘tis known by what other names?”

“’Tis harwaloth in the language of the elves.”

“Aye,” she says, nodding her head, “and in the common tongue spoken by the Men of Bree?”

Edainion’s face has twisted with his thoughts. He answers not but makes to turn to where his journal lies open upon the table.

The mistress catches him upon his back, bringing him about.  “No, no, do not go looking.  You should know this by now, Master Edainion.”

He scrunches up his nose in thought and takes the bundle as the mistress lifts a small brazier from its place on a shelf from a tangle of pots and linen bags.

“Woundwart?”

Nesta chuckles.  “A good guess, young master, as you are not far off. You might use it upon the wound of a wart should you have removed it from a body’s skin. Now, get ye a good handful of it and put it in that mortar there and start grinding, should it please thee.”

“Ah!” she cries and, taking him about the shoulders, maneuvers his hands and the bundle of dried yarrow to the table, “O’er the mortar, young master.  ‘Tis very dry and we will lose much to the floor should you attempt it there.” 

She has found a small beaten copper pot with a short spout and handles when next she speaks.  “Woundwyrt ‘tis called. ‘Tis not particular about the soil but can be found growing best where there is good sun.  Put it in a poultice to still bleeding or ease tight muscles.  Make a tea of it to take down a fever or to tighten bowels.” 

My lord’s son sets to banging the pestle against the mortar. 

“Gently now, young Master. Else you might break the mortar in two should you hit it in just the right spot.” 

Pelara chuckles beside me.  It seems the quick look he sent to his mother gave him some relief, for he found naught of censure there and, with more care, returns to his work.  Round the bowl of the mortar the pestle goes with the grating noise of stone on stone.

Nesta has set coals from the hearth to belly of the brazier with a long set of iron tongs, when she draws water from a barrel by the hearth.   

“Ah, sweet tears of Nienna,” says Pelara low beside me, startling me into staring at her as she rises to her feet. 

“You have bled straight through that, my lady,” she says, passing behind me.  She points at the cloth I hold pressed to my arm. 

And indeed, blood trickles down my arm, mixed as it is with the water that has seeped from the cloth.  So entranced had I been watching my lord’s son at his lessons it had escaped my notice. 

“The bowls are over there,” says Nesta nodding at the shelf from where she ladles water into the copper pot. 

“I know where you put them.”  By dint of squeezing her eyes shut and blowing into it, Pelara clears a shallow bowl of dust or aught else might have lingered there. 

“See now?” she goes on, wagging the bowl at Nesta and then wiping at it with her apron.  “’Tis not as had I given no attention to what you do. I have just little left for aught else when it is you I come to see.” 

With that, aught Nesta might have said is lost in the smack of the lips Pelara lays upon her cheek.  For she has grabbed up the healer about her shoulders with one arm and pulled her to her.  “Now give me that,” Pelara commands, refusing to release her and nodding to the ladle. 

Nesta, though she had grown pink about her cheeks, will have none of it.  She shrugs her off the arm about her and yanks the ladle from Pelara’s reach.  “You and your flattery!” she grumbles.  For all her protests, she draws water with it and fills Pelara’s bowl. 

I choke on my laughter, for my lord’s son has ceased with all attempts at his task.  He looks on with the widened eyes and gaping mouth he most oft reserves for his sires when he happens upon them embracing or, one memorable time, awoke rather earlier than we had expected. 

“I warn ye, now,” Nesta says, shaking the ladle at Pelara ere she drops it to the cask of water.  “One of these days it will not be enough.  I am not one of you and our lady’s targets to be shot full of pretty words and promises.” 

“Come, my lady,” Pelara says, ignoring all threats and letting the bowl thud upon the table and gesturing to me.  “Let me have that and I will set it to rights.”  With this she plucks the linen from my fingers and wrings it out in the bowl and makes of it a folded pad.  With her strong grip, she has me about my wrist and presses it firmly up and down the wound.  Her touch is sure and steady, though she glances upon my face atimes.  I am uncertain as to what lingers in her look, but, soon, I am left with a clean pad of cloth to press to my arm and a pat upon my shoulder to reassure me ere she returns to her seat.

Nesta sets the small beaten copper pot atop the brazier and then goes to lean o’er Edainion’s shoulder.  “Let us see what you have there.” 

“Hmm. I think we shall add some of this.” Rummaging through linen sacks upon her shelves she plucks one out of the pile and unrolls its top.  “Gelirmall, she called it, which roughly translates to merry gold, I believe.  And gold it is.  Look here.”  She pulls a small handful of bright orange petals from within and stirs them in her palm with her forefinger.        

“I have a lass of the wanderers learning the craft you should soon meet. She it is, Lenniel.  She brought the seeds of it with her to the Angle and says it aids the healing.  A good bit older than you, but she knows much of the herbs and roots growing upon the Wild having traveled upon it with her father since she was an infant.  She has a touch of the old ways about her, as my mother would say.  She had a good touch of it, herself, my mother, and would know when a fever was nigh breaking or a poultice needed changing long ere it was apparent.  She just knew it in her bones, she would say.  Should Lenniel put her mind to her lessons, I doubt not the lass could come to teach e’en your father a thing or two in her day.”  She squeezes the petals in her hand, kneading them between fingerpads and the meat of her thumb. 

“There now,” she says offering her closed hand to Edainion.  “Give it a smell.”

He dutifully leaves off with his grinding and lowers his noses to her hand and gives it a cautious sniff. 

He shakes his head.  “Should I remember it?”

“I would not think so,” Nesta says and drops her handful of crushed petals to the mortar.  “Will take several years ere you can know a plant by smell in each of its seasons.” 

Edainion takes up the pestle in his fist and mashes the petals into the mess of ground leaves and flowers with the end of it.

“She it was that said to add the rockfoil to that horehound tea I gave you for that cough and sore throat of yours.  Do you recall it?”

“You said it would taste good,” Edainion says flatly. 

Mistress Nesta snorts.  “Aye, well, true it is, I lied.  I am afraid we have little honey to sweeten it, these days.  So, the taste may have been a trifle strong.”

“‘Twas horrible!”  Edainion shakes his head sharply, his mouth widened and tongue protruding in his remembered disgust.

“Onya,” I say, my voice sharpening.  I raise my head from where I fuss with the cloth upon my arm to find my lord’s son’s mutinous look. 

“It was, Ammë.  You said so, yourself.”

“I said no such thing,” I protest, but this, and my tut of vexation, just set Pelara and Nesta to laughing.

“I was merely begging your forbearance for the lack of sweetening,” I go on.  “Shall I not warn you, next you must drink of Mistress Nesta’s draughts?”

Edainion makes a wry face at the thought.  “I would rather not have to drink them at all.” 

“Nay my lady, he keeps good company,” says Pelara when it seems I shall scold my son for his disrespect. 

“Were they good tasting, Master Edainion, I would have the harder time keeping up my stocks,” says Nesta.  “I am hard pressed to compete with our folks’ bellies as it is.”

“Natheless,” she goes on, urging him back to his work.  “You and I shall have to go searching for it come this next summer and find a spot of shade in my gardens for it.  Her folk call it gondcrist, for it splits rock clean through with its roots.  Here we call it rockfoil.  I know not all it does, but she said ‘tis good for raising the phlegm from the lungs.  For naught else, ‘tis very hot and brings warmth to the throat to ease it when drunk.”

The sun bursts in through the open door and a chill wind rifles rustling through the herbs above our heads.

Burdened as she is by both the bundle that is my infant daughter and flat-bottomed basket piled with dried herbs and roots, Elesinda must use both foot and hip to enter.

When the door bangs to a close behind her, and we can see again in the dimness, it is to find a sour look upon her face as she sets her basket at our feet. 

“Could he not even open the door for thee?”  I rise from my stool, for Elenir’s eyes have chanced upon her brother where he is lit by sun and hearth.  She leans precariously against the nursing blanket binding her to Elesinda’s breast o’er her coat, reaching for him.

Pelara puts a hand upon my shoulder, pressing me to my seat.  “Nay, my lady, you stay there and tend to your wound.  I have her.”

“I beg thy pardon, my lady,” Elesinda hisses low as she unwinds the nursing blanket from about her, her face a delicate pink with her exertions and the chill, “but how much longer must we endure the company of that self-inflated cox-comb?”

I sigh and resettle. “What has he done now?”

Elenir quickly starts to keening her impatience and nigh climbs into Pelara’s arms.  For now, at the sound of my voice, she has caught sight of her mother.  Her little face brightens within her woolen hood and cap and she babbles, “Am-am-am-am.”

“Aye!  So many of your favored folk in one place.  Whatever shall you do?” croons Pelara as she struggles to settle my bouncing daughter against her hip. 

“Ne’er did he lift a hand to help me,” says Elesinda from about Pelara.  “Though I have been from the southern to most northern tip of the Angle, but trailed along behind me with naught to say but advice I did not request of him on who might best have the herbs Mistress Nesta wished, which I most assuredly did not need.” 

“I have spoken to Halbarad,” I say.  ‘Tis not as had the youth shirked any specific duty named to him by his captain, but it is hard to say just what weight he gave to his lord’s lady and those of his House.  And for it, it does not appear he interpreted my directive to aid Elesinda in a manner at all in which I had intended. 

“Did he make you carry that all the way hither?” asks Pelara, nodding to Elesinda’s basket.

“Aye, Mistress,” says Elesinda, struggling to divest herself of her coat now she is unburdened.

“She just said so,” says Nesta, leaning upon her table and watching.  “Do you not understand the Sindar tongue?”

“Oh, aye.”  Pelara shrugs.  “But not when is it spoken with such heat and dispatch as that.”

“Oh, my pardon, Mistress,” says Elesinda, caught in the act of hanging up her coat, she falters.

Pelara waves her on to the hearth ere she returns to her seat.  “I got the gist, girl.  ‘Twas not difficult to discern it, given your vexed look.  No need repeating it.  Go warm thyself.”

Edainion has abandoned his work in favor of skipping about the table.  Here he leans upon my arm where he may greet his sister.  For Pelara had surrendered her to me ere the child might tumble from her arms in her eagerness for the kisses that awaited her.  Once they are dispensed upon her cheek, Elenir giggles and clutches to her brother’s hand and my chin so she might thrust herself up from my lap upon her unsteady legs.  There she croons at her brother and pulls at his grip so she might grab at his curls.  Of late, she has learned to pinch and become fascinated with them and aught else she might grab between fingers and thumb.  

“E-dai-ni-on,” my lord’s son articulates clearly, attempting to catch her eye, for he is determined that his sister shall master his name first of all of her kin.  “No, Elenir.  Listen.  Edainion.”

When she does not answer, he repeats it.  “Edainion.  Say it,” he commands, to which his sister happily buzzes her lips at him and smiles her wet, toothy grin beneath her woolen cap ere she plops to sitting upon the edge of the table. 

“Does she hunger?” I ask Elesinda.  Elenir stares intently at somewhat upon my breast and her brother gives up his attempts to make her speak.  He leans his cheek against my arm and watches as his sister takes finger and thumb to my dress.  Her little face frowns and her mouth works with her efforts as she plucks at the knots of woolen thread adorning the fabric about my neck. 

“Not yet, I think, my lady,” she says.  “My mother had some sweet pottage and she ate some of it not long ago.” 

“I brought a bit of fine bread should she like,” says Pelara.

“Nay, she will need to nurse soon and she should be hungry, else she will not settle to it.”

“Elesinda has been spending much time with a family of the wandering folk,” says Nesta.  “’Tis Torald, aye?  And his little girls?”

“Aye,” says Elesinda, crossing behind her to the hearth where she rubs her hands vigorously and holds them above the flames.  “He and my father have found their proximity much to each’s advantage.  As have my little sisters, as they are fond of my brothers, but are happy to find more willing playmates so close.”

I know not the significance of this.  It must show upon my face, for Nesta takes up the explanation.

“Most oft do the wandering folk speak the language of the elves amongst themselves, though the accent is somewhat strange.  There are words I do not recognize atimes and ‘tis said there are names they will not speak to those who are not kin amixed within.”

“Aye, Ammë, Dammon speaks it too,” says Edainion, referring to one of the boys of his playmates of late.  “He could understand little of the common tongue at first, though when he learned enough of it, he hid it so he could play a trick on us.”

“Oh,” I say. 

I have naught else to say on the matter, as I had not known of it.  The knowledge of it stings, and though I try my best to hide it and return to watching my daughter.  Her frown deepens. She wags her arms mightily and gives a frustrated shriek ere her fingers play upon the fabric again.  Her little nails bite deep about a knot and she tugs upon it, grunting with her effort.

“It is not going to come off, Elenir,” says Edainion, but she spares him little more than a glance ere she blinks and refocuses upon her goal.

“She’s a determined one, that one is,” says Pelara, shaking her head and, when this catches Elenir’s attention, leans in to her.  “Aye, that you are, little one.  Are you not?” she says, smiling. 

Elenir blinks and gapes at her ere Pelara bumps a kiss upon the child’s brow. 

“Make us some tea, would you Elesinda?” Nesta pushes off the table from where she had been leaning upon it and takes up a square of linen from the table to dampen it.  “I have some chamomile we can use o’er in the cupboard and I have saved up the very last of the honey. Seems a good day for it, eh?”

“Aye, Mistress.” 

“Come, Master Edainion,” Nesta says, folding the cloth upon itself.  “The water is hot and ready for us to continue.”

Soon, Elesinda has set a pot to boil upon the mistress’ grate and cups afore us all.  With a bit of cloth, Nesta takes up the copper pot and pours water through its spout.  Steam arises bright in the light of the streaming sun and alights upon Edainion’s brow where he peers into the mortar and stirs its contents. 

“A bit of clay to make it stick and there you have it, young master,” says Nesta to Edainion’s pleased smile.

“I saw Elder Bachor, my lady,” says Elesinda from where she scrapes at the bottom of the honeypot. 

“Aye?  And how is the Elder?” I ask, for I have not seen him since the Council and chiefs of the pledge met upon my lord’s toft.  It is not a pleasant remembrance.  I have not spoken of it, though I doubt I have little need to.

“Well, I think, though he will take a good time more to heal.  He said to tell you he was going to the barrows after the midday meal and wishes to meet you there.”   This last she says with some hesitance, her eyes darting to Pelara’s ere she adds hot water to the pot and scrapes the corners to get the very last of the honey.

A quiet falls upon us at this.  They watch me closely and it seems I cannot return their gaze. Mayhap I would have more to say, were not my children’s ears within its hearing.

With the kisses I buzz upon her cheek and neck, Elenir has given up on her pinching in favor of squealing and tucking her head in close.  Once I relent, she wraps her arm about mine and now settles her head to my breast.  Soon, there, she breathes noisily and sucks on her fingers.  I pluck the cap from her head now she has warmed and release the soft cloud of her dark curls.  Her hairs crackle and cling to my fingers.  Ai!  I have been too spare with the oil for her head, though we have so little left of it.

“Are you still resolved to go?” Pelara asks.  She has taken up a bit of dried stem of somewhat and, for what of aught else to do in the quiet, strips it with her fingernails. 

“I must, I think.” 

“Well, my lady, should you insist,” says Nesta. 

She leans with her knuckles upon the table, supervising my lord’s son’s efforts to spread the poultice upon the pad she prepared.  His look is intent upon his work, but I doubt not he hears every word we speak. 

“But, I beg you, shun the southwestern slope.  Do not go near it and stay upwind an you must.” 

“Aye, I will stay away.” 

Pelara rubs fingers and thumb upon her brow and cheek, and turns away.  I cannot see her face.  But then, of a sudden, she slaps the tabletop and points her finger across the table at Nesta.  “And I will have a word with that fool of a young Ranger ere she goes.  I have not shared hearth with and buried three of our lord’s men, grandsire, husband, and son, to have him sully their name.”

‘Tis then I see my lord’s son’s face, for he had fallen still and now looks upon me gravely.  His eyes fall to my neck and I know them fixed upon the cut upon the skin there.  ‘Tis mostly healed and no longer pains me.  I had told him what I could of what had transpired upon Master Bachor’s toft but knew the tales and rumors I could not prevent would soon reach his ears.  The whole Angle spoke of it, with good cause.  For today, with the break in the weather, had I released Master Sereg’s body to be buried. 

“Come,” I say. “Have you finished?”

He nods.  

There they crowd about me while my daughter lies heavily upon my breast and looks on. 

“Now do as we have practiced.”  Nesta takes up strips of linen and pulls them through her fingers to straighten them.  “Always tell your patient what to expect and look to gain their consent ere you start.”

Edainion holds up the pad on which he has spread the healing poultice he had prepared for his mother, where it steams gently. 

“It will but sting for a little, Ammë.  Can you bear it?” he asks and regards me earnestly. 

His are not the only eyes upon me, watching solemnly.  For even Elesinda watches me closely as she pours a pale, yellow tea to our cups and the mistresses watch not my lord’s son, but keep a close eye upon me. It comes to me, then, ever since the fire and flight to the palisades, I have spent very little time alone. 

No matter my amusement at Elesinda’s lingering in the Angle’s market upon her errands and urging that she take advantage of the time as her own, or assurance I can manage the accounting of what we have left in our stores without Pelara’s aid, or walk to sheds or barns without the company of my lord’s son, I have not been allowed it of late.  For, should he hear my footsteps linger overlong in the buttery or approach the great door, sure it is I shall see my child’s eyes peering closely at me as he lingers and leans upon the frame of the door. 

Aye, onya.” I smile upon him, though I know it is weak, and do what I can to forestall the tears that burn my eyes.  “I will bear it.”

~oOo~