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Counterpoint, Movement XV
Cadenza: a passage to display performance skills of an individual instrumentalist or performer
* * *
Merry is a creature of duty. And so, when he began to understand that ‘Master of Buckland’ was, as far as his father was concerned, just a title and that his mother was always so exhausted and often fell asleep in her chair in the main parlour after supper because she had spent the entirety of her day wearing that title for her husband, Merry decided it was his duty to share that title. It would be his one day, after all, and it only seemed fair that he learn what it meant.
As with all things, Merry threw himself into the learning of it, heart and soul. The more he learned, the more humble it made him. He’d never really put much thought into the food that arrived at table, or the fuel that stocked the wood box, or even the very clothes he wore.
One spring spent turning the earth and planting seeds with his own hands had cured him of the first. Scarecrows were not just silly-looking patched-up suits filled with straw and buttons for eyes anymore – they were useful tools in keeping away the birds that would thieve the greens from his own table and the tables of all those hobbits who depended upon the success of Buckland’s bounty. The stars were not just pretty pictures in the sky, telling tales of Great Deeds long-forgotten – their dance meant something and each step of it was a new instruction in the slow, answering steps of the fields beneath them.
And when the temperatures had dropped sharply in mid-Thrimidge of the year Merry thought of as his first year as a Grownup, and threatened a late frost, not three days after the first tender shoots had broken through, Merry had looked upon the bounty of his home with new eyes and realised that things didn’t just happen. Backs were bent in the making of those things, necks were bowed and reddened and hands were callused rough with it all. Workers whose eyes had twinkled merrily at him only weeks before when he’d picked up a hoe and endured indulgent chuckles at the lad of fifteen summers who had eyes for making himself a grown hobbit before he was due, now looked back at him with shared worry for the harvest that was not at all the foregone conclusion he’d always thought it. An evening spent choking on the smoke of the smudge-pots and listening to worries spoken low in gravelly voices, having no time to even stop and shiver with the cold, and Merry now understood the spider-work of creases at the corners of the eyes of hobbits not yet past their thirtieth year, the bright glimmers of real fear in those eyes. And when the morning had dawned, warm and clear, and the smudge-pots were doused – but not yet stacked away in storage – those hobbits spared relieved smiles for him, clapped him on the back and wordlessly acknowledged him as one of their own. Merry wondered if it was because his eyes reflected their love of home and country back at them.
It was the first time Merry had seen Duty as a blessing as well as the curse it had proven to be for his mother. He accepted its burden with loving arms and capable hands, his quick wit and clever mind grasping the whys and wherefores of the routine of the Hall, always seeking a better way to complete one task or another, always ready to stop what he was doing to learn a better way from someone else.
Duty, honour, courage and… something else. Grey eyes glint hard with the sharp light of sun-soaked vengeance flickering from a flashing broadsword, drenched in black blood. Those eyes turn to Merry’s own and though the voice shouts, “Run!” the eyes speak…
Apology…?
His mother only slowly accepted the new place he’d made for himself, insisting for years that he was too young to be taking on such responsibilities, that he should be enjoying the benefits of being a Young Gentlehobbit of Good Standing for as long as possible. It was only when Merry had turned twenty-one and his mother had actually quarrelled with him over his decision to spend his birthday overseeing the implementation of the new irrigation system he’d had installed that he had pointed out – with no small amount of exasperation – that he hadn’t been the lay-about, spoiled fop she’d been trying to make him for years and he’d bloody well appreciate it if she’d just understand that he’d gone and grown up while she’d been busy cleaning up after his father. Her face had fallen, crumpled and…
Anyway, she’d recovered quickly, let the pride in her eyes take hold of his own and had dubbed him ‘The Hope of Buckland’ in a pleased, teary voice. Though Merry knew that the mother in her mourned over the time she’d not had to spend with the carefree child he never was and now could never be.
Merry still hasn’t got over the guilt for that one.
It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy a good holiday now and then. He took enough of them, after all – some to Hobbiton and some to Tuckborough and sometimes, when papers had to be couriered to Michel Delving, Merry took that task to himself, just for the few days away it gave him. And when he and Frodo began spending more and more time together, he was probably a little more quick to delegate than he’d been when he’d still been learning. But the hobbits who worked for the Hall were only those who could be trusted and the forehobbits seemed to agree with his mother that he should spend more time on drink and debauchery, so he saw no point in disagreeing with them when it suited him.
Fire at his brow, down his throat, and harsh, guttural laughter in his ears and Merry is no longer a creature of duty, for he no longer has any. It’s been stolen, as has he and as has Pippin, and home is but a small spark of long-distant memory.
Merry is also a bit selfish. He gives himself the proper credit, certainly. He isn’t so selfish that he would take a holiday during haying, or leave old Dobbs to hiring and scheduling the stable lads, since not a single soul liked to muck the stalls on a regular basis and tended to dislike the one who scheduled them to such tasks on that regular basis. Dobbs was certainly a hobbit to be reckoned with in his time and one who would sooner stick the business end of a pitchfork in places you’d rather he didn’t than take guff from some wet-behind-the-ears scrot who thought himself too good to get his toes acquainted with – horrors! – pony manure. But Dobbs’ time was well-past. He barely kept his old joints oiled enough to make it out to the stables for a full day and Merry simply didn’t have the heart to retire him. Instead, he just slipped himself into the daily business of the stables, slowly took over small tasks then larger ones, until he was satisfied that those left were ones old Dobbs wouldn’t have a stroke in trying to fulfil himself. Merry had no doubt that he would one day find Dobbs face-down in the hay with a bridle in one hand and a brush in the other and he further knew that that’s the way Dobbs would have it. But Merry certainly wouldn’t hasten it, if he could help it.
But he does have to admit to quite a bit of selfishness, nonetheless. He’d been rather put out the first time Frodo had refused to forego his regular visit to Tuckborough, as a good for-instance. Merry had only had a week to spend in Hobbiton and, as it turned out, Bilbo was to be away… well, somewhere the entire time. The whole burrow, all to themselves, and Merry still learning all of the wonderful things Frodo could do to a person and the things Merry was finding he could do to Frodo. It was still all so new and the possibility that he might spend the entire week talking Frodo out of his clothes and into bed and neither of them would have to worry about the noise-level… Merry had been ecstatic. Until, that is, Frodo had informed him that he would not postpone his Tuckborough trip. In truth, Merry hadn’t just been put out – he’d been downright hot.
He’d moped all the way to Tuckborough. Frodo had ignored him – a talent that Merry was finding his elder cousin was just entirely too good at. Merry could have just gone back to Buckland – had even threatened as much, to which Frodo had simply shrugged, gave him a placid little smile and told him that he’d certainly like to have him along but wouldn’t dream of making him do something he so obviously didn’t want to do. Merry came along anyway, secretly even more angry because he knew that Frodo wouldn’t try and talk him into it, which only made him more petulant.
It seemed Pippin wasn’t entirely pleased with the way things turned out, either. Apparently, he’d never had to share Frodo before and, on top of that, he’d actually seemed a little afraid of Merry at first. He’d clung to Frodo’s hand, peeked out at Merry from behind Frodo’s hip and, if hobbitlads had been gifted the ability to shoot fire from their eyes, the Smials would not have been lacking for a bonfire that night. As it was, Merry could almost feel a bruise forming between his eyes with every glare shot out from behind the cover of Frodo’s blue, corded trousers.
To this day Merry doesn’t know if Frodo really did need to use the privy that bad, or if he’d purposely left Pippin in Merry’s care on that excuse. He rather suspects the latter. Frodo had pointed up the tunnel to a small sitting room and asked Merry to take Pippin there until he got back. Merry rolled his eyes and headed down where he’d been directed, not really caring if the little wanker followed or not – in fact, he rather hoped he didn’t. Of course he did – wankers tend to do exactly what you wish they wouldn’t.
Merry sullenly dropped himself into a handy chair and Pippin had stared up at him suspiciously for a good few minutes and, though it was entirely too silly for words, those piercing eyes of his had Merry shifting uncomfortably in his seat entirely too quickly. A tiny thing, he was – all huge eyes, far too much hair for one small head and arms and legs everywhere. Still, he had Merry wishing for the safety of Frodo’s presence in mere seconds. It was when he began nervously cracking his knuckles that Pippin’s wary regard turned to curiosity and then wonder. Inspired, Merry had then shown the little demon the trick of ‘removing’ his finger and, when Pippin didn’t howl in horror, as most of the little ones tended to do, Merry went on to ‘steal’ Pippin’s nose.
Pippin was in the process of showing Merry how to turn his nose up like a pig’s and Merry was countering with ‘breaking an egg’ over Pippin’s head when Frodo finally returned, looking far too healthy for one who’d had to spend such a ridiculous length of time in the loo. Pippin had literally bounced – bounced – at Frodo’s return and he’d been so eager to show him all the tricks Merry’d just taught him that he’d botched them all – each and every one. But Frodo had been suitably amazed nonetheless and sat patiently while Pippin tried them all, over and over again, finally asking Merry’s help, until he got them all right. And then he’d beamed at Frodo’s applause, looking for all the world like a new tender bud, turning into the spring sun.
Merry had stopped being selfish right about there. He still didn’t quite know how to deal with Pippin but he knew the little sod loved Frodo like the petals loved the sun and it wasn’t Merry’s place to deny that to anyone. He knew that feeling, after all.
Pippin didn’t lose his shyness of Merry until a few years later, when Frodo had dragged the two of them out on a day far too cold and windy to teach Pippin archery, but one chose their battles with Frodo. He’d been appalled that his young cousin – a Took, for pity’s sake! – hadn’t yet been taught how to so much as string a bow and made it his business – and, by default, Merry’s business – to teach him. It was almost a mile to the first clearing where the hay bales were set with targets and Pippin had spent the walk in an activity Merry actually had to stifle snickers over: Pippin had been collecting late asters and weaving them into a wreath. A rather girlish thing, Merry had thought, until Pippin had completed it and, upon their arrival at the targets, tugged on Frodo’s coat and held it up to him.
“For being my very best friend,” Pippin had said then waited until Frodo bent down and allowed Pippin to drop the wreath over his head. Frodo’s eyes glimmered and his smile was pure, absolute love and joy. He wore the wreath around his neck the entire day and, Merry knew, later asked Pippin’s mother for a book to press it into, so it would survive the trip back to Hobbiton. For all Merry knew, Frodo still had that wreath tucked away somewhere – probably did, in fact, knowing Frodo. Merry himself had been caught between sentimental tears and a huge, goofy grin. He could count on one hand the number of people who would do as much for the one person who deserved it most and he didn’t know whether to be sad over the former or joyous over the latter. But when Pippin had accidentally let loose with his first shot – with a thankfully untipped arrow – and hit Frodo right on the arse as he was adjusting the target, Merry had whooped and laughed and picked Pippin up, spun him about until they were both dizzy then hugged the little wretch within an inch of his life. And then they both fell upon Frodo.
Anyone who could look upon Frodo with that kind of love plain on his open face and bring such an answering happiness to Frodo’s own was quite a bit of all right, as far as Merry was concerned. Merry doesn’t think he’s ever really thanked Frodo for making sure his life included that bright-hot spark of irreverent love and round-about wisdom that goes by the name of Peregrin Took but he is forever grateful and hopes Frodo knows it. Not that Merry would ever admit as much to Pippin, of course.
Merry supposes he’s never had so unselfish a thought as when he’d wished Pippin wings when he’d made his mad dash into the mist. He would have endured every torture their dull, malicious minds could invent, if only it meant that Pippin had got away and out of danger. Useless, of course – they’d caught him anyway. But for one small moment, the darkness that has settled over Merry’s heart had lifted and a bright spike of hope had shot through him. There and gone, that hope, but it had been blindingly beautiful while it lasted.
Merry is also a creature of purpose – that is, he discovers a problem then makes it his purpose to solve it. To wit: The Conspiracy. Merry discovered that Frodo was planning to leave home and go off into Danger with only Sam for protection (the problem), and then made it his purpose to make sure that didn’t happen (the solution) and The Conspiracy was born. It was all terribly simple, really. The only real problem had been keeping it secret from Frodo and that had been solved by Merry staying away from Hobbiton, though he’d been hard-pressed to admit it at the time.
Once The Conspiracy was revealed and Frodo agreed that they would go together, Merry’s purpose changed to a Purpose: to keep Frodo safe and alive and bring him back home as soon as possible. There had been changes right from the very beginning, of course, and the focus had shifted too often, but the actual Purpose had always remained the same. Until Rauros.
Merry had no choice in the matter then – his Purpose had been stolen from him, just as surely as he and Pippin had been stolen away from the others. His only comfort was the fact that Sam shared Merry’s Purpose right from the very beginning and possibly even before and, though Merry and Sam have not always seen eye-to-eye, Merry would trust him with his life, if it came down to it. Moreover, Merry would trust Sam with Frodo’s life, even at times when he might not trust himself and, if there is a statement to make Merry more deeply sad and joyously glad all at the same time, Merry doesn’t know of it.
So, Merry found himself running his legs until they were wobbly with fatigue, sucking in burning breaths through a mouth tasting of metal and acid and with his purpose gone. He hadn’t fulfilled it very well – in fact, had botched it several times over and quite roundly – but it was gone now and Merry felt a gaping hole in his spirit with its loss. Perhaps he and Pippin had come between the Orcs and Frodo and that would be something worthy to die for and perhaps that had been his Purpose all along, appointed by Someone Else, and that would be all right with Merry, as well. He rather wished it were only him and that Pippin hadn’t been dragged along, but knew he’d get nothing for that sentiment besides a clout upside his head from Pippin, to go along with all the other aches and pains screaming for attention.
It was Pippin who first accused Merry of being overly-protective and, though that accusation rather stuck, Merry still hotly denies it. ‘Protective,’ he will grudgingly agree to but what person who loves another would not want to protect that other? It’s the ‘overly’ part he takes issue with, especially when the one he’s being accused of being overly-protective of is Frodo. You can’t over-protect someone like Frodo, to Merry’s way of thinking, since Frodo’s only real method of self-preservation is to keep himself apart, guard himself and build up walls against any possible future heartbreak. So, when someone like Frodo lets a person through those walls, he bares his chest, hands that other a knife and trusts them not to use it. It’s that trust that’s the difficult thing to get hold of but, once you’ve got it, it’s yours forever until you break it and Merry can only count himself incredibly lucky that he’s one of the very few who bears it. It’s making sure that Frodo doesn’t hand it to the wrong person that’s the hard part and Merry doesn’t think there is such a thing as ‘over-protective’ when it comes to that. And if Frodo won’t do it for himself, Merry will just have to do it for him. Sometimes, Frodo lets him get away with it but most times, Merry gets his arse kicked for it and good. Not that he lets that stop him.
Pippin is another one who needs rather a lot of protection. That first trick he pulled with the Orcs nearly got him beaten to death but Merry knows Pippin doesn’t regret it and, he supposes, he really can’t regret it much, either, though he’d have done it himself, had he thought of it. But Pippin always was quick and clever and Merry was not at all surprised when Pippin later told him why he’d made his mad dash. Neither had he been surprised that it had been Pippin to seize upon an opportunity to distract and delay Grishnákh and, though the Men of Rohan had been the ones to put an end to the hoary bugger, Merry had no doubt Pippin’s sharp wit would have eventually confounded him into running himself through, if given enough time.
Even so, for all the times Pippin has won through, it’s almost always by blind luck and circumstance – both of which tend to run out on a person and just when you happen to need it the most. So, Merry has got into the habit of extending his protective umbrella to encompass Pippin as well, which pleases Pippin nearly as much as it pleases Frodo -- that is to say, not in the least.
Merry has to admit that he’d gone about it all wrong at first, though you’d think he’d have learnt his lesson after so many rows with Frodo over the same thing. Still, sometimes he just couldn’t help himself and when, at that first Harvest Bonfire…
Oh, heavens, what a mess.
It had been the first to which Pippin had been allowed to travel to Buckland all by himself – him being a ‘big lad’ of seventeen, after all. After what Merry considered a few too many mugs of hard cider for his young cousin (and Merry thinks he should be given at least a little bit of slack on this, since Frodo wasn’t present and Merry was, by default, responsible for his young cousin), Pippin had made to join the other lads in jumping over the (now admittedly burnt-down) bonfire. An age-old tradition and one which the youngsters viewed as a bit of a rite of passage. Merry himself had done it countless times. Nonetheless, Merry had somehow found himself actually sprinting through the onlookers and tackling his young cousin, in order to prevent it all. He’d done it completely without thinking, though he still can’t honestly say whether he’d still have done it if he had actually been thinking. He rather suspects he might have.
Pippin had… Well, it’s probably safe to say that Merry is lucky he still has a set of stones to call his own and even more lucky that Pippin hadn’t set him on fire then done a jig over his ashes. And even more fortunate that Pippin never told Frodo about it all.
The funny thing is, for all of the glares Merry has received over the years for his propensity to bully others into safety and all of the swats in the head he’s received for his pains and all of the rows he’s been engaged in, none of those things has ever stopped him because Merry is also a creature of habit and, for the most part, it’s always worked. Pippin did not fall into a pit of burning cinder that night because Merry had stopped him. Frodo had never taken a fall during one of his wild rides and broken his fool neck because Merry always found a way to slow him down. Just his mere presence in his cousins’ ‘take no prisoners’ approaches to their individual lives had cut down the opportunities for disaster to strike and, though he certainly can’t be near them both at all times, he sticks close as often as he can and believes very firmly that he has at least a little bit to do with them both surviving as long as they have.
A scream in the night and Merry can no longer pretend that his protection is worth a damn and he has lost another Purpose in the patter-thump of hoofs to ground. Pippin is gone and the love of Merry’s life is walking into certain death, even as he stands and watches the glimmer of Gandalf’s white robes wink out in the darkness that swallows them up.
When had the person he had been succumbed to this new person that he is? Had he left himself behind in the Barrows? Had the Wights stolen the Merry he thought he was and replaced him with this… this failure? Or is this what he’s been all along and he’d only been fooling himself into believing he could be more?
Strong and capable, he’d once thought his hands – now they only look small and out of place against the fine-crafted hilt of a long-dead lieutenant’s dagger. Quick and clever, he’d once thought himself – now his mind feels dull and clouded and his grief is too profound to allow coherent thought.
Merry is duty-less, purpose-less… powerless.
Funny, how a person’s entire belief system can be razed to cinder and you don’t even know it until you’ve been living it for so long you can’t even remember when the match was struck.
Merry misses the ability to believe in things.
* * *
Failure – utter and profound and no use in pretending different. Perhaps his only real purpose had been in taking what might have been Frodo’s place with the Orcs but even the weak success that could be eked from that must be given to Pippin. Younger cousin, though he was, he’d taken the lead and all but dragged Merry from certain death and didn’t it just figure that Merry would repay him by almost throwing him into the very arms of the Dark Lord?
Merry lay bundled in his small tent, listening with half an ear to the low murmurs coming from the king’s. He was cold and more alone than he could ever recall feeling in all his life. He was exhausted but sleep seemed loath to grant him even a small respite. Not that he deserved any.
He ground his teeth, clamped his eyes closed. He should be used to this by now. Funny – he’d never considered himself a failure before he’d left home. In fact, he’d once fancied himself rather brave and capable. He’d formed The Conspiracy because he had honestly believed he could help Frodo, that he could, in fact, be instrumental in keeping him safe. He’d let Pippin in on it because he had truly believed that, not only could he keep Frodo safe, but that he could and would do the same for Pippin. He had imagined that they would all leave their homes and return safely after Frodo’s Errand was complete and all under the protective wing of Meriadoc Brandybuck.
Amazing cheek, as it had turned out. He’d failed Frodo at every turn and quite spectacularly, and then had gone on to fail Pippin and, if there was a more extravagant way to fail one you loved, Merry didn’t know of it.
“I should have told him.”
His teeth chattered and he hugged himself tighter.
Merry hadn’t got a good look at what that Wormtongue-creature had hurled their way but he’d known it immediately for what it was when Gandalf had snatched it up. ‘…those of Orthanc and the Tower Hills are believed to exist but their whereabouts are not known,’ Glorfindel had told him and there they were, in Orthanc itself. Merry would have to be completely daft indeed not to know that what Gandalf held so close was one of the missing Palantíri. And Merry thought that, considering the other things Glorfindel had told him, it was not so far-fetched to imagine the Dark Lord himself sitting at the other end of that baleful-looking thing.
Merry had seen the ways the tools of the Enemy could affect a person. Frodo’s fierce snarl then immediate look of grief, shame and horror – all wrapped up in raw repentance – still twisted at Merry’s heart and he shuddered to think what that evil Thing was even now doing to…
Shut it away, can’t think on it, not now.
He took a deep breath, choked down a sob.
Still, even knowing what he knew, when Pippin had come to him, all but twitching with his need to get another look at the thing, Merry had chastised him and told him to go to sleep. No fear in Pippin then, any more than there had been when he'd addressed Treebeard so boldly, questioned him and made Merry smile and wonder yet again at his audacity. But Merry had been afraid and plenty to see the greedy glint in Pippin's eye when he confessed his desire to get hold of the Stone once more. He’d been paralysed, actually – hadn’t really known what to do and had said the first thing that came to mind. He didn’t want Pippin near the thing, that was the only thing that he’d really been thinking and he’d been afraid to tell him why, fearing Pippin’s curiosity would only be further piqued. And so he’d brushed him off and told him to go to sleep then rolled over and pretended to sleep himself. Only it hadn’t ended with pretending.
He hadn’t meant to sleep, he really hadn’t. He’d planned to feign until he could be sure Pippin himself slept and only then let himself drop off. But he’d been exhausted and pretence all too soon turned to reality.
The scream that jarred him from his accidental slumber had near wrenched his soul, and no, it hadn't been a scream, had it? 'Scream' was far too gentle a word for it. Merry hadn’t heard such a sound in all his life. Even when Frodo had been stabbed, he hadn’t screamed like that. Frodo’s screams had been mostly of pain – profound and terrible, to be sure, but pain. Pippin’s had been… Merry shuddered.
Pippin’s screams had been horror put to voice, complete and absolute.
‘Tell Saruman this dainty is not for him. I will send for it at once.’
Rage, black and hateful, filled him, drove through bone to marrow. A ‘dainty’! As if Pippin were something to be dangled from a bracelet, passed from one evil hand to another. Now Merry fully understood without doubt why he and Pippin had been taken and what Saruman had planned to do with them. And he further understood that Pippin had been mistaken for Frodo.
By his silence, Merry had effectively traded Pippin for Frodo in the Enemy’s attentions. All it would have taken was a short explanation, a warning, and perhaps Pippin would have resisted the need to touch/take/see that had overwhelmed him. But Merry had chosen distraction for his method of ineffectual protection – even after he’d sworn to Pippin that he would never keep things from him again.
Now Frodo was staggering his way to Mordor with only Sam for protection, Pippin was trapped in a city that burned so bright Merry could see the flames from where he sat leagues away, and both of them were hunted by an Enemy whose methods of torture and retribution were too terrible to be imagined. And all of it, in one way or another, his fault.
Merry had driven Frodo away, trying to bully his way back into the trust that was once his without question. And worse, Merry knew that he would have tried to further bully him into choosing Minas Tirith as his road, had things not gone as they had at Rauros. Well, perhaps that trust that Merry had once held so carelessly and taken as his due now belonged to Sam and he found that he desperately hoped that was so. And he hoped just as desperately that Sam would prove a better bearer of it than Merry had.
Merry turned over onto his back, stared at the thick canvas of his small tent. He considered for a moment crawling out of the tent and lying on the ground beneath the stars but decided immediately against it. The stars had not been his friends, not ever, not really, and he could all too easily imagine them laughing at him now… or perhaps, sparing him not so much as a glance. He couldn’t decide which might be better.
And anyway, the stars somehow made him homesick.
He wondered what his mother would think of him now. She’d always been quick to recognise his better qualities, ignore those best ignored. He wondered if even she would be able to ignore the failure he’d so plainly shown himself to be. His father wouldn’t, that was for certain. For a hobbit whose only real asset was in knowing his shortcomings and taking to wife someone who would compensate for them, Scattergold Brandybuck was truly a master at pointing out the shortcomings of others and assigning blame for them. He couldn’t tell a debit column from a credit column but he could certainly roar his displeasure when Merry didn’t move fast enough to pay his debts for him. Merry could only guess at what he would have to say about all of this. He couldn’t imagine it would be worse than anything he’d already said to himself.
Merry wondered if, perhaps, he’d have done better, had he had a better example.
Théoden, now – there was a man a person could look up to. There was a man a person would follow into death, if he but asked, and even if he didn’t. Théoden was like nothing Merry had expected a king to be. Regal, certainly, with the stern bearing of a warrior, and a man of wisdom, a great love of kin and country. He alone – with the exception of Gandalf – had withstood Saruman’s Voice and had laughed merrily in the ruins of Isengard, talked strategy with Ents as though he'd been doing so all his life. This was a man who took counsel with Wizards and Elves and Wild Men alike and planned his last campaign from his seat on the ground before a small fire beside the road. His men loved him – Merry could see it burn bright in all their eyes and had no doubt whatsoever that Théoden deserved every bit of it, for Merry felt it himself at once.
Yet, this same man, tall of stature and noble in bearing, opened his heart to the strange ‘Holbytla’ who showed up in his lands and pretended at warrior. He listened to Merry’s tales of home with real interest in those sharp, grey eyes and more than once, Merry found himself thinking of Arveleg, wondering if they might be somehow kindred, as Aragorn seemed to be. It wouldn’t have surprised him in the least. They all seemed to share something, these Men of nobility. Merry supposed he’d have to be of the same blood to understand it completely but he didn’t really need to. They commanded respect simply by existing, demanded loyalty and received it without question, claimed a frighteningly intense love before you even knew you’d handed over your heart.
This was someone to fight for and fight Merry would. He wouldn’t be left, not this time. He had one more shot at redemption and he meant to take it. Perhaps that redemption would come in the form of a messy death on a foreign field of battle but there was not a soul walking Middle-earth at the moment who needed it more. This was his last chance, his only chance, and Merry would not be patted on the head and told to wait – not while Pippin was trapped behind the walls of a city afire, not while Frodo walked into the heart of Evil. He couldn’t help either of them and had failed in his past attempts to do so -- he could never make up for what he owed them both. But perhaps these were debts to be paid in blood.
A fire burned in his belly, kindled with the first strokes of his sword through the rough, nubbled flesh of the Orcs. He’d smiled as black blood spattered his cheeks and his heart had felt a fierce, dark joy each time his sword hit home, each time one of the wretched creatures screamed in the pain he had inflicted. It was wrong, he knew, and he’d burn for it eventually but, if the world was going to end, Merry intended to go down fighting and knee-deep in black blood.
Perhaps it was too late to help Frodo and perhaps it was too late to help Pippin. All he could do now was trust them to Sam and Gandalf, respectively, and perhaps it was better so. But every minion of the Enemy that lay dead on a battlefield was one less that might be spared to hunt for the ‘dainties’ that had caught the Dark Lord’s Eye. If Merry’s redemption came on wings dipped in blood, so be it.
He’d prepared himself long ago to die protecting his own – perhaps he still might. And perhaps the noble weapon at his belt still had a part to play.
When Dernhelm offered to ride Merry into battle, Merry imagined that his eyes glittered hard and his heart blackened just a little.
* * *
PART TWO
* * *
Odd, how a person can’t really know what they might do until the time comes. He’d said that to someone once, he thinks, but he can’t remember to whom. Perhaps it hadn’t been him that had said it, after all. He can’t tell for sure.
In the black wind, the stars shall die
That much he knows and the Black Wind comes, slips over his nape to drip in ice-blood runnellets down his spine. He is blind and terror runs jagged through his veins, he is deaf and hatred spikes sharp through his heart, he is paralysed and familiarity skitters malignant over his skin.
I know you.
Shadow, swift and heavy upon his shoulders, and he is pressed to the ground beneath it. A blooded moon hangs in a sky weighted with the screams of the dead and all of it behind his eyes. Breath comes harsh and cold and his throat seizes.
He has lived this before, lives it still, and Death only waits for him to play his part, turn himself over to Fate. So why then, does he struggle so?
He has done this before. Just make his feeble stand, a moment of pain and then a slow slide into forever. He can be done, finished, and all of his love, all of his pain, all of his failures will fade into eternity because none of it matters, not really. It’s all the same, everything is just the same and nothing he has done has changed any of it and he’s tried, he’s tried but he is small and he is afraid.
“’Tis the Witch, my King and I am afraid!”
I know you, I know you and oh… I don’t want to!
Once again, he is on his knees beside a fallen king, once again he is paralysed with fear and once again, terror and hatred fill his heart. And once again, the Witch has come bearing his fate at the tip of black-edged steel.
Is this how you would see it end, then?
Merry closes his eyes, grips tight the pommel of his sword.
Why do you come to me, now? If I die your death for you again, will you finally let me be?
Is that the fate you wish? To die beside your king?
It is the fate you have given me!
I have given you nothing – only shown you.
Who are you?! Tell me that much before I hand myself to your death!
You only ever needed to look.
And so he does.
He lifts his head, drags his eyes past black robes and webbed wings. It is Eäreneth, it is Dernhelm, it is every man who has stood before the Black Wind and died beneath its breath.
“Leave the dead in peace!” the voice cries and he hears a host of other voices within the call – old, young but all filled with defiant dread, all filled with Purpose.
“Come not between the Nazgûl and his prey…”
“But for your defiance, you shall see the one you love upon my sword.”
He covers his ears, tries to scream. It is on him, in him, its crawling intimacy skittering over his skin, and he wants to peel it from his bones, let the hot rush of his own blood wash away its unclean touch. He shrieks within himself and his voice joins the voices of those whose faces he cannot see, screaming into the blackness of a soul one sword-stroke short of redemption. A cacophony within his mind, shredding it to ribbons, and his soul is bleeding then:
“No living man may hinder me!”
And all is still.
He thinks he still breathes but he can’t tell for sure and perhaps time itself is now standing still, waiting, but it doesn’t matter. Because now… he knows.
He knows.
The chill of his skin seeps to his heart and he welcomes the cold, welcomes the darkness. He lets it take him, lets it become his world, and a small, ruthless part of him smiles. He is calm, his mind is his own and he has wrested Purpose from fear, torn Duty from words hissed sharp and malevolent.
Glorfindel sat back in his chair, said slowly, “I foresaw that his doom was not yet near and that it would not be dealt by the hand of man when it was.” He narrowed his eyes, stared down across the table and a mist seemed to cover his eyes.
Merry followed Glorfindel’s gaze to his own hand, absently flexed his fingers. He turned it over, examined the palm. He frowned, slid his eyes up to the elf’s in question.
Glorfindel merely nodded, peered at Merry closely. “You wield a mighty weapon.”
Is this what it’s to be, then? This is what it comes down to? He can stand beside his king, take his deathblow and try to keep his feet, try not to scream, die noble on the field of battle…
Or, he can bare his teeth, snarl out life in the face of death and find out whether Terror bleeds just as red as he does.
A screech, high and piercing, and black wings beat a foul, foetid draft across his brow. A bright scarlet runnellet trickles down a veined wingtip, hangs suspended. His eyes follow its progress, fascinated, keep watch over the space of an age as it hangs, hovers then breaks free to spatter small and insignificant to the trampled earth beneath clawed talons. And he knows that Redemption has come for him, its wings, as he’d known they would be, dipped in blood.
“But no living man am I!” cries the voice and it is Dernhelm, it is Eäreneth, it is Meriadoc, it is…
Éowyn.
Defiance in that voice and it sings a death-song ages old beneath the trembling trill of the kind of courage only the doomed can own. He peers into grey eyes, sparkling bold with their welcome of the death they beckon.
Will you go so gently?
And now, at last, he understands.
No. No, I will not go gently. I am not Eäreneth, I am not Éowyn.
Who are you?
I am Meriadoc and my hand wields a mighty weapon.
And what do you stand for?
I stand for Théoden, I stand for Éowyn. I stand for Frodo and Pippin and Sam. I fight for home and country.
And yes, I stand for Arveleg and I fight for Eäreneth and for every soul who has gone down in terror before the black face of Death. I fight for Good and I stand for Right.
Merry holds his sword with a hand that shakes, but his grip is solid, sure, and his Purpose is set. He crawls forward, his blood cool in his veins, and he lifts his arm, firms his hold.
I stand for Meriadoc.
And I will not fail at this.
He lifts his eyes to Éowyn, her arm hanging useless, her hair flying free about her pale face in shimmering waves of gold. She stands tall and beautiful in her pain -- terrible -- and her heart shines bright in her eyes. He knows these eyes, has looked through them, has lived the despair that twists and contorts and remakes itself into foolish bravery. He knows this need for Purpose and he recognises its desperate light as kindred.
Éowyn looks back at him, sees him, and he opens his own heart to hers, lets her look deep, lets her know.
Not by the hand of man, his heart whispers to her and her eyes widen, glimmer sharp and hard.
I am Meriadoc, his soul croons, low and harsh, and my hand is a mighty weapon.
She throws back her shoulders, nods. And we, she sings back in a legion of voices, are Vengeance!
Merry smiles a little, draws his arm back, snarls out life and sinks his weapon home.
* * *
The stars sing a name and he thinks he knows it, knew it once, but now he can’t be sure. The Sun hides them behind her skirts but he knows they’re there and he hears them whisper to him. He can almost see them through the red haze of the water beneath which he walks and he smiles a little as they sing him to his grave.
Frodo, he thinks and yes, he knows this name, has sung it himself times uncounted but the face… the face slips away from him. And his heart bleeds because he should remember but it’s all gone beneath the pain and the cold and he weeps because he has lost… something. Something treasured and too dear to lose but it’s gone and he walks alone beneath stars seen through a mist of blooded waters.
He falls in with the funeral procession and wonders if it is he who is dead. He has to laugh a little because it really is quite funny – a ghost attending to his own corpse – but it seems to him that the laugh comes out more a watery moan, so he closes his mouth tight. And yes, he’s cold, so very cold, and he can’t imagine that a person can be this cold and not be dead. And he’s really rather put out because he’d always been led to believe that death brings a release from pain but he hurts, he hurts and it seems altogether unfair.
“Théoden,” they sing and, “Death!” and he turns his eyes to the body of the King. Or perhaps it is Arveleg, he can’t tell. It seems right that Eäreneth should follow his king to his tomb, for surely that’s where they’re going? But no, it’s Éowyn, and Merry shakes his head because it doesn’t matter, not anymore. It’s all the same, everything’s the same – they are dead, he is dead and the stars warble out their death-song and it splinters through him, fractures through his heart, and he cries out with the pain that pulses cold and sharp through limbs that drag him through the lonely routine of dying.
No one hears him, no one sees him, no one speaks to him and he supposes that must be the way of things for a ghost, and he drifts along to a dirge sung low as the heavens open up and weep down upon him. And he wants to weep with them for he is alone, utterly alone, with not even his sword to carry to his grave, and how will they know to bury him as a warrior if he has no weapon to prove that he’d been one? And he worries because perhaps they won’t bury him at all and he will be doomed to wander this field of battle long after his abandoned bones are dust.
He follows the torches over rough stone and they gutter in the rain, the oily smoke cloying, clinging, and he steps over the ruins of too many bodies as he watches Amon Sûl burn.
Smooth, pale stone juts up from the palisades, winding up and up until it scrapes the sky itself. Thousands of years, it has stood shining bright as new snow in mid-winter, its crenulated ramparts standing tall against the ages and offering safety to any who stand behind them.
The Hill of Winds and ghosts walk restless just outside his ken and that makes no sense because he is the ghost. He feels compelled to ask Strider if there is a barrow nearby, for he feels haunted and strange, and his vision tilts, blurs, and Sam’s recitation of Gil-galad’s fall rings echoes within his mind.
Gil-galad was an Elven-king Of him the harpers sadly sing…
But Sam stops and Merry has to keep himself from grabbing his companion by his coat, shaking him and demanding that he finish it, finish it, pull the rest of the rhyme out of his blasted faulty memory and finish it, just finish it and right now! It dances right at the tip of his tongue and he knows the words, the tune, and it’s right there but not and if someone would just speak one word, hum one note, he’ll have it and he can stop bashing himself against the bulwark of his own mind and just… think again.
Gil-galad was an Elven-king…
No. That doesn’t seem right.
Across the valley, O’er the river wild…
The sun had been low when the horns had blown their ominous song, calling the men to scramble to muster. He had run up, turned and stood right… there, seen the Road dense and black with the forces of Angmar and Rhudaur in formations that seemed to stretch all the way to the Hoarwell.
His men were forming in their companies already and closing the gates to the lower walls, even as he barrelled his way through. He raced through the draw of the keep, shouting out commands for the archers to take their stations on the ramparts and to lower the portcullises of the gatehouses.
“The enemy is here!” and it takes him several seconds longer than it should to understand that the voice is Strider’s, and then the Witch bends over Frodo, strikes, and Frodo screams, and Pippin dashes into the mist, and Eäreneth kneels beside his king’s body and weeps as he watches the stars fade in dull, grey eyes, and he offers up his heart to the razor-tip of a black spear. And he slides into the water, takes his last look upon the stars, and he whispers a name that he can no longer remember, and faces float before his eyes, but he closes them away because it hurts to look, it hurts to know and it hurts to be and he only wants to lay himself down and be done!
“Thank goodness I have found you!”
Pippin’s voice and light breaks through, and he thinks he speaks, thinks he knows this touch, these eyes, but the mist falls heavy upon him and he reels. He turns his eyes slowly, peers through misty red waters to the face of Glorfindel above him, a bright, golden silhouette lit from within, and Merry smiles sadly, asks, “Are you going to bury me?”
And Eäreneth smiles back, kisses Merry’s cheek. Peace, now, Meriadoc, he says and Merry closes his eyes.
I did not go gently, he thinks he says and he must have spoken aloud because Eäreneth answers with another kiss – this one to his brow – and Merry has to ask, has to finally know: Who are you?
And Merry is lying in sunlight, his head in Pippin’s lap. He wants to tell Pippin that he didn’t fail this time but he thinks maybe Pippin already knows.
It no longer matters, Gandalf tells him, and Merry thinks that makes a strange sort of sense, and he lets go, falls into forever.
* * *
A/N - A couple of people were not happy with me when I told them I would not be writing Merry's awakening in the HoH and so Dana has written an addendum to this movement, 'Accompaniment' and ConnieMarie has written this lovely ficlet. Please be generous with your feedback to these lovely ladies.
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