Freyda sat back groaning on the pile of cushions stacked haphazardly upon the floor next to Dwalin. The bump wherein the baby was growing was getting ever larger, beginning to stretch the fine pale skin and leave angry little marks.
"See? Odd, are they not?" Freyda complained, but there was a self-deprecating smirk on the corner of her mouth. She pulled the plain front-laced blue kirtle back down over the rise of her stomach, drawers receding back under the shadow of the swell and bunching there. Freyda tugged warily at them, adjusting the waistband again, the manner so amusingly boorish Dwalin gave her a approving gander.
"I must say, it is new to me," Meisar answered. On the low table the queen had placed frosted cinnamon rolls and a few bottles of goat's milk sweetened with winter berries. Freyda was sagging over the cushions, tiredly. "Sorry I hadn't come ye today. Donna feel so well. Can't sleep."
"You really should rest up from now until the child is born," Meisar advised. She poured Freyda milk and gave her sweet bread on a plate.
"Startin' to feel a tad discomfited at this point a' time, don't even want to move half the time I feel so heavy already," she relented, tiredly. "Strange feelin', this. Sometimes he moves. Scares me right off me feet."
"Aye, got a strong kick, that one," Dwalin said proudly. "Only a few more months, lass."
Freyda waved off his reassurances sarcastically. "You try being in this condition. Can't even reach over the forge anymore if it makes ye happy," she grumbled back at Dwalin, tearing the cinnamon roll in half, sticky icing clinging to her fingertips. "But the cinnamon bread tastes so VERY good now. 'S'it true ye have a strange taste for things when the child's in ye? Strange foods or just wantin' the lot of everything to eat. Targ Durinul, I'll be a right pumpkin by the time this babe is here. Ye won't desire me no more I'll be so fattened from this."
"I'll always find ye lovely," Dwalin reached down from the chair and rubbed her head. She leaned on his huge inked hand and purred, sleepy eyes reconsidering Meisar again. Freyda's serenity regained its hold and crept over her face placidly once more. She rubbed her stomach languidly over her clothes.
"Oh Meisar, shouldn't complain of it. I'd give anything to see ye know the same. 'Tis a joyful thing, even if I'm right tired out and my back does hurt so."
"I thought I would come to bring you some company. This forced idleness can't be easy I know," Meisar swallowed her concurring.
"So Gandalf says he can help ye with that? How's that so?" Freyda inquired.
"Not sure really. Dis is onto something. He rarely ever leaves her side since he's been here. They say it concerns the same matter, but... I don't know."
"She's struck with grief, lass. No tellin' what she'll propose," Dwalin sighed.
"I suppose it is something only a mother will ever know," Meisar said. She winced as she saw Freyda wrap her arms around her great swell, green with worry.
.
The dwarrowdams were given leave in the afternoon. Midwinter brought fewer market days, fewer petitioners, at least from the outside. Meisar stepped into the warmth of the antechamber, dogs springing up from the fireside to greet her. The pig, called Burt now, acknowledged her with a small grunt. Placing marrow bones before the dogs, voices carried from the other side of the door in Thorin's antechamber.
"There is a means by which I may be able to help you. But you must trust in me without protest."
She listened on the other side of the door silently. Thorin's heavy feet pacing, a cane or staff thumping every few seconds in frustration.
"...You have trusted in me before and you must trust in me again, Thorin Oakenshield."
"For Mahal's sake, he wears bird droppings in his hair as we wear hair beads! I trust it not!" Thorin decried again.
"He is wise, Thorin. Wise to things you would not expect. There is no harm in your hospitality."
Thorin slunk outward into Meisar's chamber toward the outer doors to their quarter, when she stood stolidly to greet him. Gandalf ducked swiftly under the door-frame after him, seemingly ready to give chase. He bumped against Thorin's back instead, equally wearing his surprise at Meisar's presence there on his face.
"Were you two thinking of asking me what I thought?" Meisar inquired pointedly. "Of this peculiar character you speak of? Who is he? What does he want?"
"A fellow wizard," Gandalf answered. "And it is a question of what you want, my lady. He is whom I speak of, that may be of assistance to you in your quandry. And to myself, as well, similarly."
"To put it loosely, a wizard," Thorin grumbled.
Gandalf gave him a tired look out of the corner of one eye. "My lady, Radagast is close to nature. He dwells in the southern reaches of the Greenwood, and understands the cycles of the natural world intimately, learned in every herb, potion and cure you can consider."
"A last-ditch effort?" Meisar intoned with a melancholic sarcasm.
"No," answered Gandalf. "A notion I had in mind to begin with, for my own sake as well as yours."
"I trust it not," Thorin protested still. "Your sake has brought us much grief, and I am beginning to feel like some experiment of yours, and for what purpose you continually avoid telling me the whole nature of."
"My sake has led you here to be with your queen! Or should I have left you for dead in your tomb?!" Gandalf roared back in annoyance. Thorin stiffened visibly. He took Meisar to his side and under one arm as a bird would its young beneath a wing. Protecting her from what?
"Thorin, have let your stubbornness leave your queen ill-considered. If I am here for anyone, I am here for her," Gandalf went on, surly. "Bear with me, for her sake."
"The things I do for love," Thorin nodded in reluctant concession.
.
II
"It is the worst month to sit in this hall, truly," Thorin remarked upward toward Gandalf from the throne. February had settled in, dark and unforgiving, but the snows that had troubled the land, swooping down from the mountains and burying the valley several feet deep, had ceased, and the trading roads were trampled on by tenacious ponies and horses enough to be passable easily now. Inside Erebor, the great open spaces of Thror's Hall and other cavernous naves were little warmed by any hearth. The winds whistled in front beyond and through the maze of statuary, stairs and inner windows, bringing a cold so whipping they were all garbed several layers deep in furs and gloves indoors.
"We are expecting him soon. Have patience, Thorin," Gandalf pleaded.
"I have had much patience, more than I am used to offering you, Gandalf. But I like to see my queen so melancholy even less than entertaining your schemes," Thorin retorted with slow sarcasm.
"The wizard Radagast for their majesties," the steward called.
The yellow-toothed sage was dressed in tattered robes of brown, a raggedy hat upon which sat a quietly chirping sparrow. He ambled down the stone bridge carefully, every step considered, puzzled over. His walking staff made uneven clicks and thumps upon the stone every few feet. They waited patiently as he stopped, mumbled to himself, kept going. The sparrow flew from his hat and suspended itself in the air in front of him, seeming to urge him onward. Its wings had grown tired and it was back in his hat by the time Radagast reached the throne.
"Forgive him, my king," Gandalf whispered down to Thorin, already impatient. "He is unfamiliar with the mountain. The setting may bemuse him more than slightly."
"As I am unfamiliar with wearing old bird droppings upon my beard, Gandalf," Thorin replied through gritted teeth, caustically.
Radagast the Brown greeted king upon his throne and wife standing by his side with a jarred countenance, gazing up and about the high ceilings of the stone hall.
"Radagast?" Gandalf prodded. The brown wizard whirled around and gave a slight, flighty bow.
"Ah, Gandalf, and Thorin, is it? Oakenshield. Eh-herm, yes, my king. Well met, well met."
"Think of it as a forest, with a canopy of stone rather than wood," Thorin tried to console his nerves, knowingly. Radagast shifted his focus slowly and absent-mindedly toward Thorin.
"You dwarves live a peculiar lifestyle. It'll take some getting used to on my part," Radagast admitted. "Nonetheless, I give you my kindest salutations."
"As does the queen under the mountain. I am Thorin's wife," Meisar descended from the platform to greet him. Up close his smell was overpowering- the bird's dung acrid fresh and stale dry, piled on hair and shoulders, his robes unwashed, his feet shod in tattered boots wet with melted snow and moldy-smelling. Something about his countenance was comforting to her though.
"Welcome Radagast," Meisar smiled. She took his hands, which were fine-featured for a man's but calloused, caked in dirt under the nails and on the heels of his palms. He bowed cheerfully before the queen, only coming down to her level, and there his brown eyes seemed to regard her with genuine curiosity.
"I am accustomed to the company of animals you must know, dwarves not so much," the brown wizard confessed.
"We understand each other already then, far more than you can imagine, you and I," Meisar said. The cold wind blew toward them and with it a wafture of his scent. She held her breath with a practiced smile. "I think you will find Erebor a comfortable abode. It is warm under the mountain, food and ale aplenty and we like our pipe-weed strong. And have I told you of our hot spring baths!"
"Hot springs. Indeed?" Radagast seemed piqued.
"Come, you must have had a long and trying journey through the forests, and in this weather! Avail yourself, I beg you. It'll relax you right to your bones."
In their chambers at a suitable time when they had passed their pleasantries and retired from the cold upper halls, she hurried him subtly into the bath, which Radagast stepped into the steaming oasis of and grinned like a child. "A delight, a delight! Hot water! What a beautiful nature!"
"I will have some fresh robes and shoes brought for you, Radagast," Meisar offered. Griet and Bertha were wincing behind her, hurrying past with more towels and a whole uncut block of extra soap.
Thorin nudged Gandalf's hip when they had exited and left Radagast to refresh himself alone. "Ensure he stays in there awhile, will you? I shan't like him keeping our company in these chambers if he doesn't. It's not as if we can open a window for the ventilation," Thorin groused. He could hear Radagast practically singing on the other end of the door, the gradual slosh of water and the clink of soap dishes. Gandalf made a satisfied sigh.
"That, Thorin, I think we can agree on, if nothing else."
.
"I hope it is to your liking. We dwarves are little used to green... food." She looked down at the plate Griet had set in front of Radagast; it could have been mistaken for leaves from a tree had the trees not been bare of them at that point in the year. Cabbage, they called it, a "winter fruit." It smelled like wet socks, but Radagast ate eagerly, of the cabbage, the mushrooms and squash that had been curried up by the kitchen. The brown wizard did not partake of meat, it was known.
They took a simple supper in their chambers with their guests. Radagast sat contented upon the settee after several hours in the bath, dressed in a bedrobe of fine wool, his feet wriggling giddily inside a pair of fur-lined slippers. He took his tea and his bowl of greens in slow stride. Griet and Bertha had combed and oiled his mat of gray hair, washed clean of bird dung and burrs, carried off his clothes for washing in sacks that would be boiled and stirred in a hearty lye soap by the laundresses, whose pay would be padded that week, Meisar avowed.
The dogs curled up eagerly on the lap of Radagast, who petted and cosseted them joyfully. The sight was enough to give Meisar a sufficient assurance that in spite of his strange notions, his wretched presentation, there was a good soul to be found there, and in secret, she had started to trust him, for that quality alone. Even dare to hope.
"I hope the bath was to your liking. I cannot imagine the hassle of washing in the woodlands in winter. So cold."
"Brings fever and chill my lady, and diseases of the lungs," Radagast admonished. "Better to befriend your dirt. Alas," he smiled. "A hot bath is a treat I have not known!"
"Been awhile?" Thorin inquired with a slight jibe.
"A hot bath never! A cold bath many a year," Radagast answered and they all shuddered.
Next Griet brought dried rings of apple sprinkled in cinnamon. Radagast ate with aplomb and went about setting his wares upon the table before them. If the bowl of greens for his supper was least appetizing to a dwarven palate, these were less so. Poultices and herbs in bundles, jars filled with green. Seeds and resins carefully packaged and preserved, in strange shades.
"These, good lady, are potions and healing herbs said to aid in the fertility of some tall-folk. Now, I have not encountered the effects on dwarves nor do I profess any profound knowledge on how it may work but... here, you see, this one is taken with food," he held up the green-filled jar. Next he took a cake of soap from a linen wrap. It had a queer scent, not pleasant at all like her sandalwood or lemongrass but dank and with a strong almost pungent aroma.
"And this one is to be... imbrolicated, into the, erm... well... you see," Radagast gestured jumpily. "During a time of bathing, certain parts are to be lathered and-"
"The female parts?" Meisar finished for him.
"Well, yes, yes, my queen. Commendation, my king, for your wife. She is rather perceptive," Radagast offered even more nervously. He pressed the soap toward her. She wrapped it again, with a grateful look, determined it would be of use, when Griet and Bertha had thoroughly cleaned their chamber bath.
"That is why you are here," Thorin quipped. The smell of the soap, the green potions, the resins, made him place the back of his hand to his nose as subtly as he could manage. "Tell me then, how does a wizard who scarcely keeps the company of his own kind much less the female sex, know so much about fertility charms?" Thorin inquired.
"It is the nature of nature," Radagast answered, more eagerly. He gave Meisar a warm smile. "Life begets life. It is the purpose of each of us who are a part of this world, and our nature itself."
Unimpressed, Thorin crossed his arms and scooted closer to his queen. He eyed Gandalf tiredly. "I think your comrade unaware of how many dwarves do not marry nor bear children. But perhaps that is our nature, and difficult to comprehend I'm sure."
"Thorin, give him an opportunity, will you?" Meisar pleaded. "We are not so different from other races. Except where we choose to be."
"Respectfully," Thorin conceded. "What is it that you prescribe for this dilemma of ours, Radagast?"
"I rely on the advice of others in the forest depths, as well as my own," said Radagast.
"Those rabbits of yours can talk too?"
His hand was slapped impatiently by Meisar's under the cover of a pillow and he groused in silence thereafter.
"Nay, but rabbits have a familiar way about them. In actuality, my queen, a very peculiar female, one not entirely unlike yourself, who dwells in the forest and has brought me wisdom where I am unfamiliar. She seemed to know you well enough by name even."
"I see. I met a woman in the forest when we passed through. She was of aid to our caravans," Meisar placed her cup down, feeling a flutter in her stomach. She could still see the elf's sad eyes and ragged boots. "Is the lady well?"
"Sailed off to the Grey Havens not a day before my own departure, indeed. It is sad when they fade, the elves," Radagast sighed. "She was of a good character if a troubled time. I will miss the occasional visit."
Thorin's mouth set in an annoyed line then softened when he found Meisar's face tight too, but with a more poignant dolor.
Radagast procured another bundle of herbs and unwrapped them on the tea table. "It is a final gift to a friend I think. Here, fertility potions come in several forms- teas, imbrication, and the burning of certain elements to infuse the air."
"I think my friend, I shall try all of them," Meisar said. She eyed the green jar and tried not to think about it. "I may very well have to." Out of the corner of her eye she could see Gandalf and Dis together again in the corner, just out of the brighter halo of the sconce light. "And we shall watch and wait."
.
Over the days she drank the bitter tea that Radagast had given her. She bathed in frothing, ungodly-smelling herbal soaps washing it over herself again and again, said to stimulate the workings of the womanly parts. And Thorin chewed the repulsive turnip and fenugreek roots at supper. Praying to Mahal it would hasten his virility as Radagast proposed it would, as if that were the problem.
March drew near to a close and there were several feast and fair days in Dale and in Erebor to finish the winter stores lest they waste away. At supper in the great hall, Dwalin pulled out the chair for Freyda when she managed at last to waddle in, and helped her to sit, her knees buckling with the heaviness of her belly. She looked like a cow in need of milking several months out still, but Dwalin looked upon her with his distinctive fondness, a look of concern too that he regularly reserved for Thorin alone. On the other side of the long table, Onar eyed his son in law approvingly. What would my father think, Thorin mused. Thrain would have been endeared by his queen's quiet rectitude; he would have loved her as he loved her. But Thror was far more practical. He would have married me to a noble blossom of a maid, a Firebeard of old, a maid like a ripe peach young and brawny and fertile.
His Meisar sat to his side, with Freyda heads pressed in communion to some notion (he could imagine which), that only females had true kinship in understanding. The life breathed back into me, my poor love. Poorer are we all for the sake of love.
.
Freyda's stomach jerked in one spot under the loose over-gown she wore that had parted to show the swell of her stomach in her high-waisted dress. She hiccuped and groaned from the kicks and flips inside her, and Dwalin and her father laughed and roared with pride. Freyda held her hand in solidarity while keeping with the joy on the outside for their sake.
Meisar's empty womb seemed to clench again in her, in agony. Gandalf's hand nudging hers jarred Meisar from her moment of staring out onto the hall, the low chatter of dwarves still waking up to the coming spring, like bears from hibernation.
"Try this, my queen. Hawthorn tea," he advised. The stewardess poured her hot water into a tankard and Gandalf sprinkled the herbs into it, mixing it with the tip of a knife. The scent was herbal with a hint of sweetness, not bitter and repugnant like Radagast's others, which had borne nothing of note at all, except a need to retch every time she prepared it.
"What is it?" she murmured, holding back tears.
"It is said to help with easing the pain of the chest," Gandalf added. Meisar eyed him guardedly.
"I know that you feel it. The expression on your face tells me exactly where it hurts. Under the ribs, here?" Gandalf gestured to his chest. "Like a screw."
Every time I look at Freyda. How much further away she must sit from a table, her ankles starting to get swollen. Yes, it hurts me right here. And everywhere.
She drank, resignedly. She could see Thorin looking to her, flat and fixed. Dis was studying all, close and calculated, exchanging looks with Gandalf that seemed at once confrontational, then slowly, from day to day and one 'afana then another, to resignation of a queer sort she could not even readily identify. Dis deflected all questions, avoided her.
Thorin was all she had now. Thorin and this odd wizard and perhaps not even Gandalf, engaged toward Dis as he was while she drank and soaped up and waited. Thorin. When she asked that she be excused to her chambers, he, for the first time in many months, did not hasten to follow.
And days turned into weeks.