The Houses of Healing were a cluster of buildings just inside the gate to the sixth circle with treetops showing above the wall of its terrace garden. Pippin ran into a forecourt already filling with wounded from the streets below and spotted an unexpectedly familiar face. "Bergil!"
The boy turned from his horrified but unwillingly fascinated contemplation of a Man with crushed legs, and his eyes widened in recognition. "Master Peregrin! what are you doing here?"
"I need a healer for the Lord Faramir."
"But they said he was dead!" Bergil cried.
Pippin shook his head. "He's alive but badly wounded, and his father the Steward could use a healer too."
"I'll get my aunts." Bergil ran into the building, leaving Pippin standing rather uncomfortably in the court, trying not to look at the hurt folk being brought in or hear their cries.
The boy soon reappeared, two wooden boxes, piled one atop the other, in his arms, and followed by Beregond's twin sisters. What were their names again? Oh yes; Baradis and Berethil, though which was which was anyone's
guess. Both were dressed alike in grey gowns under darker surcoats with their hair covered by kerchief-like veils. They walked very fast with their long legs and Pippin had to trot to keep up.
"What can you tell me about the Lord Faramir's wounds?" one of the sisters asked.
"Not much I'm afraid." Pippin panted, trying to think. "He was still in his armor so I couldn't see much, but there were two arrows stuck in his harness, and one at least had gone through though I don't know how deep. His face was hot when I touched it, and he stirred a bit as if he felt it."
"Fever," the woman muttered to herself, "and far too soon to be natural."
They hurried across the Court of the Tree. One of the Fountain Guards turned his head to follow them and Pippin realized it must be Beregond. A gentleman in waiting met them at the door of the White Tower and showed them up a winding stair to the third floor. They passed through a large room with a chair under a canopy, into second chamber starkly decorated in black and white, and finally into a small, austere bedroom. The windows had been curtained against the lowering sky and it was lit by standards of candles and a lamp shaped like a tree.
Idril was standing alone beside the narrow, uncurtained bed where Faramir lay, undressed, washed and lightly covered by a linen sheet. "The physical wounds are none so grave," she told the healers as they bent over their patient, "but I fear the Black Breath."
"And rightly," One sister said bleakly and laid a white hand on the Man's flushed brow. "It takes him as a fever - he is fighting it."
"For all the good it will do him." was Idril's bleak answer.
The Healer gave her a sharp, almost chiding look. "You must not give up hope, my Lady. A few have managed to find their way back to life from under the Black Shadow. Lord Faramir has the strength and the will to be one of them. Someone must remain with him at all times, to give him a line and anchor whereby he may pull himself back to us." Idril nodded.
"Peregrin said the Steward was also in need of a healer?" the other sister said.
"He is in the next room."
This too was curtained and candlelit and furnished as a study with shelves of books and a writing desk. Denethor lay on a couch beneath the covered windows, still unconscious.
"He has been struck." the healer observed neutrally, feeling delicately around the purpling lump on the Man's temple.
"Yes." Pippin admitted uncomfortably, putting her box of medicines down on a nearby table. "He - he was distraught." the Woman's mouth twitched a little and Pippin realized she must have heard Denethor's shouted despair. "My Lord has
been worrying himself sick about Faramir for two days now," he said defensively. "And then to have his only son brought back to him apparently dead - what father wouldn't go a bit mad"
"That is true." she conceded. "The Lord Steward has been under a strain the rest of us can only imagine." She pried open one of Denethor's eyelids and seemed satisfied with what she found beneath it. "No great harm done, he is but stunned." She glanced at the gentleman in waiting standing by the door. "I need cold water."
When it was brought she took a vial of greenish glass from her box and poured its contents into the water. "Bathe his wound with this, it will bring down the swelling." she instructed Pippin. "He should come around very shortly. If he is not himself again by the time the hour stikes, send for me again."
She opened the door to the bedchamber and they heard her twin telling Idril: "There is nothing further to be done, my Lady. My sister or I would remain but there will be many others in need of a healer today."
"Indeed there will," the Lady agreed. "Go, Peregrin and I will deal well enough here."
Pippin went back to sit by his master, bathe his head with the medicated water, and think about his own parents. He'd remembered home and family often enough, and wished himself back any number of times, but never before had he considered what his long absence must be doing to those he'd left behind.
Mercifully Paladin and Eglantine had no idea where their only son was, or the peril he was in, but he'd been gone for so long now that they must be getting anxious. And how would they feel if he never came home at all?
'I'll just have to see that I do.' he told himself and went on tending his master. Through the open door he could hear an occasional moan from Faramir, and his voice calling plaintively for his father. It seemed a very long time, but in reality it was only a few minutes, before Denethor opened his eyes to look dazedly about.
"My Lord?" the eyes focused on Pippin, seemed to recognize him. "My Lord, I am glad you are awake. The Lord Faramir calls for you."
A hint of color crept back into the Steward's grey face. "But...he is dead." he whispered, not daring to believe.
"No, my Lord, he lives yet, though sorely wounded," Pippin answered firmly. "And he wants his father. He's just next door."
Denethor pulled himself off the couch and, leaning heavily on Pippin's shoulder, staggered into the next room. Idril was sitting by the bed, her brother's hand in hers. She looked up as they came in. "Your son calls for you, Father."
The Steward collapsed onto the chair Pippin hastily set for him and took Faramir's other hand.
Idril left shortly after that, and Denethor sat alone by his son save only for Pippin, standing by the door, unwilling to leave yet unable to help.
But his master knew he was there. Suddenly he said: "Come, Peregrin, take my son's hand for a few moments, for I would not have him think himself forsaken and I have an errand elsewhere." Denethor left the room walking slowly and leaning heavily upon a short staff. He was away only a brief time but when he returned his face was so grey and haggard that Pippin was frightened for him.
He took his place again beside his son. Pippin hesitated, uncertain whether to return to his post by the door or stay where he was. He looked at his master for a hint, and saw tears running down his face. "Do not weep, Lord," he stammered. "The healer said he might get well. Perhaps we should get Gandalf?"
"Comfort me not with wizards!" said Denethor. "The fool's hope has failed. The power of the Enemy waxes and all we do will end in ruin.
"I sent my son forth, unblessed, into needless peril, and here he lies with poison in his veins. Even the House of the Stewards has failed. Mean folk shall rule the last remnant of the Kings of Men, lurking in the hills until all are hounded out."
For a moment Pippin felt himself sinking into the black pit alongside his master, but then something inside of him - sheer Hobbit obstinacy no doubt - rebelled against despair.
Frodo lived, and as long as he did there was hope. Even the fall of this great city would not be the end. Aragorn's folk had fought from hiding for nigh on a thousand years. His kin in the South could do the same. And Hobbits too if it came to that! The Shadow would not win, they wouldn't let it.
Lady Idril came in, dressed so differently from her normal custom that Pippin almost failed to recognize her. Her gown was bright scarlet with kilted skirts and the flowing sleeves knotted up out of her way. She wore neither veil nor any jewels save for her great 'B' brooch.
"The people cry out for the Lord of the City." She told her father. "Not all are willing to follow Mithrandir, or even Hurin. They want you, their Lord and Steward. Will you not go down to them?"
"No." Denethor's voice was flat, indifferent. "I must stay beside my son. Let them follow who they will, even the Grey Fool, though his hope has failed."
The candlelight quivered on the gold and rubies of the Lady's brooch and Pippin realized she was shaking with a barely contained passion that was certainly not fear. "Hope fails but hate remains," she said fiercely, "and defiance! Will you sit here and do nothing while the White City burns about your ears? Boromir would be ashamed of his father!"
Denethor's head lifted and for a moment Pippin thought her goading had succeeded - but no. "Here I stay." he told his daughter.
"Very well!" she blazed. "But I am going down into the city to do what little I might to make the Enemy's victory come harder! Good-bye, Father."
She whirled to leave but was halted in her tracks by Pippin's cry: "No!" Father and daughter both looked at him in astonishment but he wasn't going to make the same mistake twice; "Please, you musn't part like this. Not now when you might never see each other again."
There was a tense silence. Then Denethor rose from his seat. He detached the long sheathed dagger on his left hip and offered it to Idril. "Take this, daughter," he said huskily. "I trust you to know when to use it," his voice broke slightly. "Believe
me, child, if there were any way I could save you I would. But I cannot.
Tears glistened in Idril's eyes as she took the blade. "I know, Father. Don't worry I will not live to be Sauron's slave." She stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek then bent to place another on Faramir's brow. "Farwell, dear Brother." she said softly, and
went out.
Denethor sank back into his chair and picked up his son's hand. Pippin subsided onto his own stool, shaking with relief - and remorse. If only he'd spoken up so when Denethor was quarreling with Faramir! Then maybe they wouldn't be sitting here waiting for the son to die while his father aged before Pippin's eyes, heart and
will both broken.