Defeat of Despair

            More than anything else, it was the smell:  Peregrin Took would never forget that smell. 

            No--it was not a single smell--it was a succession of smells.

            The room in which Faramir lay smelled of sickness, fever, old blood, and another smell that overlay all else.  But what it was at the time Pippin could not say.  It grew less when the Lord Steward went away; but when he came back it was even stronger.  Denethor’s face, so proud and strong, now appeared grey and shattered.  A veil covered his no longer clear gaze.  He sat not proudly but bent over, his shoulders slumped.

            The healer who would have washed Faramir’s wounds once more and seen them rebandaged was sent away.  Instead, as the morning approached Denethor dismissed Pippin from his service and summoned those of his servants and his personal guards whom he trusted most, and set them to carrying the bier upon which Faramir lay to the Silent Street.  And that scent, Pippin noted, was contagious.  As Denethor laid his hand upon each one’s shoulder, that one, too, would begin producing the same odor, a sour, rank scent that cloyed at the back of one’s nose.

            Three times in swift succession the Hobbit sneezed.  Denethor glared at him, then turned his attention away, back to his purpose.

            The porter who kept the door to the Rath Dínen bowed them within, locking the gate behind them, and they continued on until they came to an edifice that somehow reminded Pippin of a house in the Shire for all it was built of dressed stone, and it worried him that he could not say where the resemblance lay--until he realized that it was the dome.  Here was not a tall building of many stories, but one of a single story under a great dome, and that dome and the curved walls spoke to the Hobbit of home--of comfortable homes burrowed under the rolling hills of the Shire.  But when this door was opened it was not to reveal any place of comfort.  Pippin looked about the room at the succession of tables on which lay embalmed figures shrouded in ancient, rotting cloth, and at the tombs and plaques of memorial for those whose bodies had, in spite of all, begun to moulder, and he shuddered.  Here it smelled dry, musty, of ancient herbs and ointments and aging leather.  It was, he realized, the smell of ancient deaths and the foolish thought to somehow preserve the bodies of the dead as if somehow their spirits could, at some unforeseen time, be convinced to return and stride again through the levels of the city.

            “Bring wood and oil!”  At Denethor’s command his servants scurried to do their master’s bidding.  But where would they find such things?  Not, Pippin realized, within the cemetery itself.  Nay, they would have to return to the storehouses for the Citadel to find such things, which would take time.

            “By your leave, my lord,” Pippin said once he fully understood the Steward’s intent.  And with that he ran, ran seeking some aid for Faramir--some aid against that odor--that odor he now knew was despair.  While I live, he thought as he left Beregond, torn as to his duty, at the entrance to the Sixth Gate, while I live myself I will not allow a madman take the life of one who cannot choose for himself whether to live or die.  I will not leave Faramir to his father’s despair! 

            And with that thought in mind he raced as he’d never done before down through the city in search of Gandalf.

            Near the gate he found himself fighting again against that same miasma, and even more strongly, it seemed.  Yet here all were fighting it equally, he noted.  Faces might be white or grey with strain and fear, but the Men and their weapons held steady.  And before all, the only one not to emit that foul odor was Gandalf himself, who sat, uncloaked, a shining figure of white flame before the devouring darkness that surrounded the Nazgûl.  “You cannot enter here!” Gandalf said, and in the depths of his heart Pippin knew that he spoke truly.  Darkness such as dwelt about creatures like the Ring-wraiths cannot bear Light, and there was no question in the heart of any individual present that Gandalf was indeed the Servant of the Light.

            Even the chieftain of the Nazgûl paused, uncertain, in the face of that Light and that authority.  The odor of despair was giving way to something else--and in those by whom he stood Pippin recognized a new, bracing scent--hope to go with the determination.

            “You fool!”  And with his further taunts the wraith raised his fiery sword--black flames with blue edges, Pippin noted as for a moment the odor of despair fought to overwhelm them all again.

            But then the cock crowed.

            Such a simple sound, one Pippin had awakened to for so many years, there on the farm at Whitwell.  Oftentimes it came at anytime but dawn--his mum’s favorite rooster had been happy to shout his day-greetings at midnight as often as naught.  But now the young Hobbit knew that above the reek the day was rising, and somewhere out in the darkness, well behind the enemy, Frodo and Sam were finding a way into Mordor, finding their way to the Mountain.

            Just knowing something that foul thing did not know, something the Enemy in all his self-conceit could not appreciate, gave Pippin heart----

            ----And then all heard the horns, the horns answering the crow of a rooster who’d sought only to greet the dawn it could not see.

            He saw a smile just touching Gandalf’s eyes, even though he never took them from those of his opponent.  And he saw that fiery blade waver----

            He’s blinked! Pippin realized.  The Black Rider--he’s blinked--and he’s lost!  Gandalf didn’t have to do anything--just stare him down!  Now he’ll go and try to recoup his losses, but he’s lost it all already and just doesn’t know it yet!

            That scent of despair was gone now, and now the determination could be scented even better.  But as the wraith disappeared back through the gate Pippin remembered his errand and ran forward.  “Gandalf!”

 *

            The wood that had been brought from the storehouses behind the Citadel had been of a kind Pippin had never seen before, rich with its own oil, and well seasoned.  He was told later that the oil brought had been taken from the bodies of huge sea beasts known as whales, creatures that were cruelly slain that their oil and fat might be rendered for the use of Men.  Afterwards when he was brought to a house or inn within the White City where such oil was used in lamps Pippin found himself unable to remain within the building.  And anytime anyone burned a joint or a chop it would make him physically ill to smell it--ever; from that day, he ate his meat still at least pink in the middle.

            But the strongest scent within the House of the Stewards was still that odor of despair--until Gandalf thrust wide the doors, went within, and brought out Faramir, weak and unconscious, but still alive, that oil slicking down his hair, the scent of the wood on his coverings.

            Then the scent of despair gave way to something else--a sick pride and defiance.  “But in this, at least, thou shalt not defy my own will: to rule my own end!” Denethor cried.  “Come, if you are not all recreant!”  he shouted at his servants and guards, and at that Halargil, his face filled with shock at his own obedience, hurried forward enough to allow Denethor to take his torch.

            And they watched as if in the throes of a terrible dream as the Steward of Gondor, unable to give over his own despair and unwilling to take a lesser place to him who even now beat his way up the river against the current, set fire to his pyre and laid himself down to die.

 *

            Hours later Hope finally entered the city.  Minas Tirith smelled now of exhaustion, grief, smoke and fire, fallen stone, the coppery tang of blood spilt--too much blood spilt, weakness, wounded Men and horses, but ever more and more of relief.  Those within the city stayed back from the sight of the battlefield if they could, for even worse stench rested there, from the overwhelming reek of the fallen fell beast on which the Witch-king had ridden to the blood of countless Men, orcs, horses, mûmakil, trolls, wargs, and other as yet unnamed beasts as well as the bale-fire set in the trenches intended to deter the defenders of the city from successfully facing the Enemy’s forces.

            But the fires had guttered out sometime after the dawn, and now in one of the cleaner portions of the Pelennor Men were setting up ranks of tents to house those who’d come to the defense of Minas Tirith.  Folk from the Falas, from Langstrand and the Morthond Vale, from Dor-en-Ernil, from Lamedon and Lossarnach, from Pelargir and the other river towns were still pouring off the boats taken from the Corsairs of Umbar, were beginning already to sort through the chaos of the battlefield, finding those who were but wounded and sorting them from the dead and dying, finding ways to drag away the corpses of the great beasts from the south, seeing dying horses freed of their agony and setting their bodies in order, finding weapons and lost packs and cloaks....

            And up through the city strode one more heavily cloaked figure, accompanying the shining form of Mithrandir; and where flickering torches and lamps threw this one’s shadow Hope was rekindled in his wake.

            Standing with Beregond at the door to the room in which Faramir lay, perhaps yet to die, Peregrin Took smelled that Hope advancing through the halls of the Houses of Healing, even before athelas leaves were laid in the hands of the King.

 *******

             It was October, and Peregrin Took, considerably grown in body and mind and spirit from the feckless young tween who’d left the Shire thirteen months earlier, stood on the Bywater Road, again smelling that change taking place.  Here he’d smelled that cloying odor of despair from the moment they’d entered through Lotho’s gates.  But it was already giving way as Hobbits who’d thought themselves beaten and weak gave it over, accepting the Hope with which the four Travelers had been infected.

            There are few better things with which Strider might have infected us, Pippin thought as he announced, “But someone’s going to get in again, now.  I’m off to the Smials.  Anyone coming with me to Tuckborough?”

            And followed by a small group of likely Hobbits, he began the swift journey, fourteen miles across the fields, to fetch Took archers to the Scouring of the Shire.

            Never will I allow our own folk to suffer such an odor about them! he determined.

Found

              More than anything else, it was the smell:  Samwise Gamgee would never forget that smell. 

            That terrible great spider, far greater by half than them as old Mr. Bilbo’d gone on about from there in Mirkwood, had folded herself all small and crept back into a crack that seemed far too small to have contained her bulk.  But disappear she had, and somewhere in the darkness was lyin’ up, weak and wounded and sufferin’.  And Sam Gamgee was that glad!

            But although he knew he didn’t have to worry so much about her, there were other things to be wary of as he crept back out to where Frodo’s body had been found by the orcs.  There might be other spiders--not, he realized, that there was a great chance of that.  As big as Shelob was, she’d most likely killed any others as tried to hide within her halls, whether they were rivals, suitors, or offspring.  After all, spiders of her sort didn’t usually brook others even of their own kind for any time more’n was strictly necessary.  And what with the reek of the spider all about the place, Sam worried he might not notice the scent of another enemy creeping up on him in the dark.  There were still orcs about, and mebbe some of them cave trolls such as had been sent against them in Moria.

            The lower way into the tower was closed.  Then he’d have to find another entrance even he had to climb the mountains themselves to get in!  ’Tweren’t like he’d not spent how many days just climbin’ up all them stairs, after all; and some of them had been as bad as climbing any mountain!

            At last he found the gate, and the Silent Watchers denied him entrance.  He trembled as he faced them.  “They know as someone’s here,” he murmured as he examined them.  “But how t’get past--that’s the question!”  He licked his lips and wondered if they could smell him.  He smelled rank even to himself, what with the spider’s ichor all over his front and days of sweat from the climb up the stairs and the fear of Shelob’s lair.

            Finally he thought of the Lady’s starglass and brought it out, and he felt them quail and their will break.  Able to spring inside the walls at last he closed his hands about the glass and thrust it, as had Frodo, inside his shirt, trusting to the waistband of his trousers to hold it from falling.  And if stone statues--even ones gifted with awareness and charged to guard the gates--could sweat, he reckoned as these must be doing so in concern for what had just got past then.  A bell clanged, and he felt a momentary pang of alarm; but his courage rose as he looked about and saw on all sides of him the bodies of the dead.

            He approached the door to the tower with concern.  “If’n they took him up to the top as they said, there’ll be more stairs,” he whispered, dismayed for the moment.  But again his courage rose.  “Well,” he told himself, “it’s not like I haven’t had more’n a body’s normal practice, the last few days!”  He took a deep breath to steady himself and entered the tower.

            His first meeting with a live orc terrified them both; but it appeared the orc facing him was even more afraid than he.  At least he could follow it to find the inner stair!  “Some luck!” he told himself as he began to climb at last.  “Got to find him, I do--livin’ or dead, I must find him!”

            He could smell the stench of the dead on the upper pavement before he quite reached it, and was not surprised to look out and see still more bodies here.  There were voices, also, to which he didn’t pay heed for the moment.  There were so many dead here, and how all reeked with their blood!  He had to fight to keep his gorge down, not that he had aught in his stomach to lose, he had to admit to himself.  But he figured that if he once started retching it would undoubtedly be a time before he finished, and he did not wish to start and be heard by those as was talking!

            It was as he was trying to puzzle out where his Master might have been imprisoned that one of the two speaking together raised his voice, and Sam recognized the voice of Captain Shagrat.  “You won’t go, you say?  Curse you, Snaga, you little maggot!”

            “I told you twice that Gorbag’s swine got to the gate first, and none of ours got out!”

            “Then you must go. ... News must get through to Lugbúrz, or we’ll both be for the Black Pits!”

            “I’m not going down those stairs again! ...But a nice mess you two captains made of things, fighting over the swag.”

            “I had my orders.  It was Gorbag that started it, trying to pinch that pretty shirt.”

            “...He had more sense than you.  He told you more than once that the most dangerous of these spies was still loose, and you wouldn’t listen.”

            Sam found himself having to scuttle to keep from being discovered as the larger orc, wounded as he was, began pursuing the smaller one, who would surely have joined the rest of the dead had the larger one not been hampered by his injuries.  The small one managed to dart past Sam and up further stairs into a side chamber off the top and slam and secure the door, at which time Shagrat retreated back onto the flat pavement of the roof of the tower, cursing fluently and retrieving a bundle there.  Except that as he leaned over the parapet calling below, apparently hoping another of his fellows might have survived the carnage in the lower courtyard, one of the bodies proved not to be dead after all.  Whatever orc it was was nearly dead from its wounds as it struggled to its feet, but its gasp of pain as it tried to stagger toward Shagrat with a broken spear in its hand alerted Shagrat to his danger.  Sam watched the ensuing revenge by Shagrat with disbelieving shock as the orc captain, having been unable to catch Snaga earlier, appeared to be taking out his doubled rage against the patrol leader from Minas Morgul.  The reek redoubled with this further violence and the freshly spilled blood--again Sam found he had to fight to keep from retching--until he realized that this time, as Shagrat himself headed for the stair downward and found himself face to face with the Hobbit there was no means of further concealing himself, and the need to protect himself drove the nausea out of Sam’s thoughts.

            Perhaps had Shagrat not been carrying his bundle in his one good hand he might have prevailed against Sam.  After all, a curved blade clutched between one’s teeth is not easily wielded when the usable hand is too encumbered to hold it!  Sam barely registered the color of the bundle and certainly failed at the moment to realize what it must contain; had he done so perhaps he would have taken more thought to killing the large orc.  As it was, he felt relief that Shagrat appeared so frightened he merely deflected Sam’s attempted blow using the bundle and fled down the stair, after which his attention was focused only on finding Frodo Baggins.

            Apparently only two living orcs remained of all those who’d inhabited the tower earlier.  But where was Frodo?  The scent of blood began to go stale, and the dry wind sweeping over the tower dispersed the further smells of sweat and fear and fury and revenge.  Sam reentered the turret at the top of stair he’d climbed, and climbed the last stair that led up toward the actual top of the tower.  But once he got to what appeared to be the top of the turret, he found himself stymied, for it appeared there was no place in which Frodo Baggins might be imprisoned.

            “Where are you, Master?” Sam asked from between gritted teeth as he searched for some sign of a further stair or other chamber beyond the one in which the orc that Shagrat had addressed as Snaga was holed up.  Was Frodo locked in there with the orc?  The thought made him shiver in horror! 

            His own body smelled of the cooled terror and the long, dogged climb as well as the residual reek of Shelob’s lair he’d known earlier.  Now he barely registered a new scent--the frustration he was feeling was giving way to near despair!  And what it was that caused him to sink down on the stair some steps below the last landing and begin singing he could not afterward say.

            “In western lands beneath the sun

            the flowers may bloom in spring....”

            And then he heard the answer--and at the same time heard the door to the chamber where Snaga had concealed himself being unbarred.

            “You up there, you dunghill rat!  Stop your squeaking, or I’ll come up there and deal with you.  D’you hear? ... All right.  But I’ll come and have a look at you all the same and see what you’re up to.”

            There was a glimmer of torchlight at the top of the stair, and an odd shuffling.  And it hit Samwise Gamgee--above the stairhead there must be one last room, there at the very top of the tower, under the roof; and it must be reached by means of a ladder rather than a proper stair.  He peeked over the top of the stair just in time to see the smaller orc setting a ladder in place, then rapidly climbing it to push open a trap door.  As the orc’s legs disappeared through the door Sam crept to the ladder’s foot, listening hard.

            “You lie quiet, or you’ll pay for it! ...If you don’t want the fun to begin right now, keep your trap shut, see?  There’s a reminder for you!”

            At the crack of a whip Sam swarmed up the ladder, somehow drawing Sting as he did so; and found Snaga lifting his whip a second time.  With a wordless cry Sam ran forward, and as the surprised orc turned toward him, its whip still raised, Sam struck out with Sting.  Hand and whip went thudding dully to the floor.  Still the orc reached out with his remaining hand to try to grasp the intruder.  Sam gave a push at the creature, and it somersaulted over him, knocking the Hobbit to the floor as the orc tripped over the lip of the trap and fell with a sickening crack to the floor below.

            A fresh whip weal marred the side of Frodo Baggins, and there was a line of blood across the flesh.  However, it was obvious that this was not the first blow administered to Sam’s Master, for there were blackened scabs on his back and shoulders, and a reddened area where apparently the spider had bitten and poisoned him.  Frodo twisted to stare disbelieving at his savior, and Sam dropped the Elven blade to fall to his knees by the older Hobbit’s side. 

            “Frodo!  Mr. Frodo, my dear!  It’s Sam, I’ve come!”

            He gathered his Master and friend into his arms, reassured to feel Frodo’s thin body within them at last. 

            “Am I still dreaming?  But the other dreams were horrible!”  Frodo smelled of blood, pain, bewilderment, and fading terror.  And in spite of the sweat and blood and filth, there was that indefinable scent to him that was simply that of Frodo Baggins of the Shire.

            Trembling with relief, Sam held him as close as he dared.  “It’s real, Master.  It’s me.  I’ve come. ... I’d given up hope, almost.  I couldn’t find you.”

            Frodo gave a soft laugh, giddy with relief.  “Well, you have now, Sam, dear Sam.”

            And as Frodo Baggins relaxed in relief in Sam’s arms, the gardener felt happier still as his Master’s scent reflected the trust he felt and renewed hope, even as the Ringbearer slipped into near unconsciousness.  Sam, too, felt hope rise in him anew as he held Frodo cradled in his arms.  He’d been right, he now knew, to turn back.  This was indeed where he belonged, at the side of Frodo Baggins.