For Dreamflower and Baylor for their birthdays, with love. 

The Time of Probing

I

            Sam saw his Master fall from the back of Glorfindel's horse, and all seemed to go black before his eyes. 

            "Frodo!" cried Merry, and the gardener could hear a splashing and then a grunt of distress from the Brandybuck.

            "No!"  Strider's voice was unusually shrill with alarm.  "We need to wait until the flood recedes, Merry, or we, too, will be washed away!  Trust Asfaloth to keep him safe!"

            "But Asfaloth is a horse!" Merry was objecting as Sam's vision began to return.

            Strider had Merry tightly by the shoulder, leaning far over to look directly into the Hobbit's eyes.  "Asfaloth is the steed of an Elf Lord.  He will do all that he can for Frodo's safety.  We can do nothing until the waters go down again, and you can believe that Elrond has already dispatched his people to Frodo's aid.  You will do him no good if he awakens to the news you were washed away alongside the Black Riders!"

            That seemed to convince Merry, and the tall Man let him go as he straightened, turning to peer across the turbulent waters.  The water was already subsiding, and both Merry and Pippin crowded as close to the shallows as they dared, one on either side of the Ranger's long legs.

            There was a touch on Sam's shoulder, and he half turned, looking up into the fair face of Glorfindel.  "Master Samwise, will you help to soothe your noble pony?  He is badly distressed by the fear we all have for Master Frodo."

            Sam took a ragged breath, and as he worked to reassure Bill his own anxiety became manageable.  By the time Strider indicated that it was safe to cross the ford Sam had the pony ready to go.  Still, he hesitated until the Elf laid his hand on the gardener's shoulder and gave him a heartening smile.  Again Sam breathed deeply and stepped into the water, glad to find it never reached his knees.

            Strider was straightening with Frodo in his arms as Sam led Bill up the bank, Frodo's cousins crowded close to him.  But it was Sam's gaze he sought.  "He is alive, but is unconscious.  We need to get him into Lord Elrond's care as soon as possible.  I will go ahead with him, although we are certain to be met soon by stretcher bearers and one or more of those trained in healing.  Then we will be able to go faster, for the stretcher bearers will be able to carry him smoothly even at a run."

            Again Glorfindel laid his hand reassuringly on Sam's shoulder, and the Hobbit nodded his understanding.  Strider turned and hurried down the way, Frodo held protectively to his chest.  Sam was certain the Ranger was singing that healing song of his as he went.  Asfaloth turned as if he would follow the Man until his master spoke to him, at which he moved to the Elf's side.  In seconds Merry and Pippin were lifted onto the back of the white horse, and with Glorfindel leading the way they, too, were on the path to the Last Homely House.

            They were joined by several other Elves, two of whom conversed with Glorfindel as they made their way down into the hidden valley.  One of the Elves spoke with Sam in the Common tongue, explaining, "Our Lady Arwen is beside the Dúnadan and Master Bilbo's kinsman.  They have him warmly wrapped in blankets, and are already well upon their way to the house.  All is in readiness for their arrival, and your fellow will soon be safe under our Lord's care.  Would you like for me to take your pony's bridle, Small Master?"

            Sam shook his head, not having the breath to speak and still keep up the pace set by the Elves.

            He was fair winded as they crossed the narrow, curbless bridge to approach the house itself.  Gandalf stood there awaiting them, and Sam felt relieved at the sight of his grey robes and long beard.  The Wizard first spoke with Pippin, reassuring him and at last sending him through the doors with Merry with an unknown Elf to guide them before turning to Sam.

            "It is quite safe to allow the grooms to take your pony, Samwise Gamgee, unless you had thought to take him with you into the Last Homely House itself, although I sincerely doubt he will be comfortable there.  No, my friend, you would do best to let him go to the stable with these, where I assure you he will be superbly taken care of.  And I myself shall see you to Frodo's side."

            Sam realized that a tall, fair Elf stood slightly behind him, seeking to lead Bill away but forestalled by the grip the Hobbit kept on the pony's lead rope.  "We shall bring your things to the rooms given to your use," he said soothingly.  "Go with Mithrandir, and allow us to see to the comfort of this great hearted creature.  Be at peace, Small Master.  You are all safe now, here in this house, and your Master can and will be saved here."

            Reluctantly, yet with relief, Sam released Bill to the Elf's care, and allowed Gandalf to bring him into the house.

II

            Frodo lay atop a high table, barely cushioned by a thin mattress, his shirt removed and the scar where he'd been stabbed now an ugly color.  His face was white, his lips blue-grey, a greenish tinge to the skin below his eyes. His eyes were not fully closed, but there was no question that he was anything but awake.

            "He yet breathes, and even now fights the effects of the shard from that cursed knife," Strider was saying to the dark-haired Elf who leaned down to examine that scar.  The hilt of the Morgul knife lay upon a wooden tray--the Elf had obviously examined it but briefly before shifting his attention to Mr. Frodo.  Gandalf now leaned over the tray, his bright, dark eyes taking in every detail to be discerned in the making of the abhorrent thing, his lips set with the concern he obviously felt.

            "There is no question as to the evil intent behind the use of this," pronounced the Wizard, indicating the hilt but plainly refusing to touch it.  "They clearly desired to bring him into their world, forcing him to surrender the Ring to them that they might deliver It to their Lord, and to see him tortured by knowing It now rested in Its proper place upon Sauron's finger."

            "Could they truly do that--draw him into their world, I mean?" asked Merry, his face nearly as pale as Frodo's own at the thought of it.  He stood nearby beside Pippin and another Hobbit, an Elf woman behind them, her hands resting on Pippin's shoulders.

            Elrond raised his eyes briefly.  "Yes, that could indeed happen.  We have seen it before."  He returned his attention to Frodo, and the other Hobbit gave a pain-filled gasp.

            Sam gave the other Hobbit a surprised look.  "Mr. Bilbo?  You're here?"

            Bilbo Baggins gave a stiff nod, his attention still focused on his younger kinsman.  "Yes--I have settled here.  I never dreamed that I could have left him in such danger, Sam.  If I had even imagined what ring it was...."  He couldn't finish.  The woman moved her right hand to the top of his head.

            Strider had his attention fixed on Elrond.  "We cannot allow the shard to take him, Ada.  Whatever I can do to aid you, you can be certain that I will."

            "You need to bathe and rest first.  You will be of no use while you go unrested, ion nín."

            "How am I to rest while he lies in danger, Ada?  The safety of all Middle Earth lies in his pocket!"  Then, as the Lord of Rivendell stood shaking his head, Strider continued, "I must help as I can.  You must needs understand--I have sworn myself to his protection!"

            Elrond went still with surprise and dismay.   "You keep binding yourself to others as if you were free to do so, Aragorn son of Arathorn, as if your life were merely your own."  Strider didn't answer, and at last Elrond sighed, his hand stroking Mr. Frodo's brow.  "And why I would expect you, of all people, to be considerate for your own safety I could not say.  Ever your thought is for others, even when it is anything but the best for yourself."  He looked down to examine Frodo's face.  "We can do nothing more until tomorrow.  He needs to know rest in comfort, and to take in as much in the way of fluids as is possible through tonight.  And I must determine how close to his heart the shard has come, and how best to fetch it out of him.  Go, bathe, eat, and rest.  We shall search the wound first at dawn.  And I shall not be surprised if it shall prove it must be searched more than once ere we find the cursed thing."

            Strider stayed where he was, and Sam was uncertain whether to describe his expression as determined or stubborn.  "Do you not intend to sing over him, and to bathe him?  I am not the only one who has known but quick washes as we camped by streams, Ada."

            Now Elrond appeared amused and exasperated in equal parts, and he turned his attention to the woman.  "Go, have Meliangiloreth prepare a child's bath for this one, and summon all capable of singing to his comfort.  What room is prepared for him?"

            "The one nearest this wing, Ada, with the image of Lady Estë on the headboard.  I thought it best."

            He smiled.  "An excellent choice, beloved.  Have all gather there--it should prove large enough.  We shall sing as he is bathed.  Go, then, sell nín."

            Soon all were gathered in a large chamber nearby where a huge bed lay warmly prepared and a cheerful fire shone on the hearth.  Two Elves bore in a copper bath and set it near the fireplace, and others brought in vessels filled with water both cold and still steaming from having come fresh off the boil.  Elrond supervised the preparation of the bath, at one point directing Strider to cast into it leaves from the kingsfoil plant.  Frodo, stripped of his filthy and damaged clothing, was carefully settled into the warm water, cushioned by folded toweling under him and behind his head from the unyielding metal.  Elrond gave Gandalf a look whose meaning Sam could not interpret, and together Elven Lord and the Wizard set their fingertips into the water, and the gathered Elves and Strider and Gandalf began to sing.  Strider indicated with a significant look that Sam should take his place on one side of the bath, and the Ranger knelt opposite him, and between them they saw Frodo Baggins cleansed.  Now and then now dirty water was dipped out and replaced with warm from a large kettle that was kept hanging over the fire, and once Strider lifted Frodo out altogether so that the water and toweling could be completely replaced.

            How thin and vulnerable Frodo seemed when at last he was lifted out again and wrapped in clean, warm towels and laid upon the bed.  Gandalf, Elrond, and Strider laid their right hands upon Frodo, Strider upon the Hobbit's belly, Elrond over his heart and chest, and the Wizard across Frodo's forehead as the singing continued.  One song was repeated several times, and the third time through Pippin, who was clever at such things, joined in.  By the fifth repetition Mr. Bilbo, Merry, and Sam were singing, too. 

            It was quite a mixed group singing over the unconscious Hobbit, Sam realized.  One Elf's hands and face were blackened with soot, and Sam judged him to be a smith.  A thin Elf woman's fingers were as stained with ink as Frodo's own tended to be when he'd been busy with his copying or translations, and there was a smear of vermillion across her cheek.  Another wore an apron covered with a fine dusting of flour, while Glorfindel stood so elegantly nearby, his right hand lying atop the grip of his sword as if he would draw it to Frodo's protection the instant it might be needed.  The woman who'd stood by Merry, Pippin, and old Bilbo was perhaps the most beautiful woman Sam had ever seen, and he noted with surprise that she had a threaded needle and a scattering of pins thrust through a fold of her upper sleeve, just as his mother had done when she must leave off her sewing to see to a more mundane but needful task before returning to her handwork.  The Elf who'd led Merry and Pippin into Elrond's home played upon a beautifully wrought harp, and the groom who'd taken charge of Bill stood near the doorway smelling of clean hay and healthy horseflesh.

            As they sang, Frodo began to relax into a proper sleep, his eyelids fluttering slightly before closing normally, and he turned his face slightly to the right in search of a more comfortable position.  Sam felt the knot in his stomach ease, and noted triumphant and pleased looks on the faces of all.  He saw Strider's expression relax, and now saw clearly the exhaustion the Man must feel.  Yes, he desperately needed that bath, meal, and rest Master Elrond had been urging on him!

            At last Elrond straightened, signaling the end of the singing.  He murmured soft words of thanks, and the Elves began to disperse.  Those who'd brought the bath had already tipped its contents off the balcony, and one of the women had gathered the used towels all into a basket and carried them away while another cleaned up the drips with one from the stack of clean ones left on the wash stand.

            Between them Elrond and Strider were drawing an oversized nightshirt over Frodo's head, conversing quietly in Elvish the while.  The towels that had been under Frodo were surrendered to the woman who'd cleaned up the drips, and she left with them and Frodo's soiled clothing.  Those soft, thick coverings were drawn up to Frodo's chin, and at last, at a word from Master Elrond, the woman with the pins on her sleeve drew Strider out of the room, hopefully to bathe, eat, and rest as he'd been directed.

            Bilbo Baggins sat in a large, comfortable chair near the bed, his feet resting upon a padded settle, and Gandalf stood now by his side, turning his unlit pipe between his hands, watching Elrond's face from under his bushy brows.  "We shall meet in the morning so that you can search the wound?" he asked.

            "Yes.  I shall have the table brought in along with my instruments just ere dawn."

            "What has become of the Ring?"

            Elrond shrugged dismissively.  "It lies upon the second tray in the examination room, swathed in silk to isolate and ward against Its evil influence.  I deem it advisable to shield him from It until the shard is removed from his body."

            The Wizard was already shaking his head.  "He may not be able to tolerate being separated from It," he cautioned.  "When I took It from him to test It in his parlor fire the distress he felt was far greater than I had anticipated.  It had already begun taking control of him, even though he assured me he had never used it even as Bilbo had to hide him from the Sackville-Bagginses."

            Elrond gave Gandalf a concerned glance, and led the Wizard back to the room where he'd examined Frodo.  Not certain why, Sam followed them.  An Elf whose hair appeared almost white sat on a gracefully carved stool near the door, his attention fixed warily on a cloth-covered tray sitting on a tall, narrow serving table against the far wall.  He looked up with relief as his Lord entered the room.  "You will set another to watch over this, Master?  I am glad!  I fear Its influence, for already I hear It speaking in my heart, tempting me.  I beg you, send me out of Its presence!"

            Sam realized then that even powerful Elf lords can blanch!

III

            Sam was pressed into carrying the tray on which reposed the Ring back to the room where Frodo slept.  He set it on a small chest near the hearth, and saw that in the brief time they'd been out of the room a low table had been brought in and covered with a meal for the four Hobbits who were wakeful.  While he, Mr. Bilbo, Merry, and Pippin ate, the four of them were made to recount to Gandalf and Elrond their personal experiences with the influence of the Ring.

            Bilbo at first denied that he'd noticed anything special about the Ring, but had to admit that since he'd left it behind at Bag End many of his worst urges no longer plagued him.  "I no longer grow impatient if things don't instantly go in accordance with my wishes," he said.  "And I no longer imagined doing horrible things to people like Lobelia, Otho, and Lotho as I'd begun doing on my return from my adventures.  And I didn't have those terrible dreams about being hunted by that Gollum and worse things anymore."   Sam had a feeling that the old fellow could have said more about his time with the Ring, but no one pressed him further on the subject.

            Merry, Sam, and Pippin could tell nothing about any assaults by the Ring.  "I don't think that Frodo has allowed the Ring to speak to others if he can stop It," Merry said. "I doubt that he even realizes he's been keeping the thing from affecting others, though.  But I'm certain It affects him.  Before he came of age he would--admire--the lasses the way all gentlehobbits do.  Since then, though, if he starts to watch a lass with admiration in his eyes, his face will suddenly change if he has--that--in his pocket.  Just for the tiniest bit his look will get----"  He seemed to be searching for the right word, one Hobbits rarely if ever needed to use whereas Men were all too often all too familiar with it.  At last he started over again.  "Well, his look will suddenly be ugly, but only for an instant, mind you.  Then he takes himself to task for thinking in a vulgar manner.  If he doesn't have It with him the admiring look will last just a bit longer, but then he'll appear regretful, and he'll still school it away anyway.

            "He used to leave--It--at home much of the time, locked in his desk drawer, and he'd be more lighthearted when he was out with other people or visiting somewhere.  But after a few years he started becoming restless--worried--if he'd left It home, usually after five or six days at first, and then sooner as time passed.  I'm not certain whether he just didn't feel right if he didn't have It with him, there in his pocket, or if it was more that he was worried what It might get up to with other people about with him not there to keep It in line.  The Sackville-Bagginses used to come round almost as much when he was gone from Bag End as when he was home, after all, and who knows what the—what It--might make one of them do if he wasn't there to stop It!"

            Pippin’s eyes were round with surprise and delight.  “You saw all that?  And you think it was the Ring making him think things that aren’t quite proper?  Now I understand why he wouldn’t agree to come visit if Cousin Jasmine was going to be there from Whitfurrow.  Jasmine is about the prettiest lass in the whole of the Shire,” he confided to Elrond.  “She married one of the Goodbodies and they settled in Whitfurrow in the East-farthing. But even though she’s married now, when Jasmine Took Goodbody enters a room all the gentlehobbits can’t help but watch her pass, even Frodo Baggins!  All they can do is follow after her with their eyes, swallow, and work at their collars with their fingers!  Why, she’s so very pretty that that they’ll even forget to eat!”

             Gandalf laughed aloud, his eyes twinkling.  “Now, she must be especially pretty to cause that reaction!”

            “She is,” Merry assured him.  “You’re right, Pip,” he added to his younger cousin.  “Frodo’s avoided Jasmine for several years, now that I think on it.”

            Pippin continued, “Frodo hasn’t seemed to notice most lasses as lasses, if you understand what I mean, for some time—that I’ve noticed, although I had no idea as to why until fairly lately, of course.  It’s only been the last few months that I was officially part of the Conspiracy, you see.”

            “Conspiracy?” asked Elrond.

            “Oh, yes, we formed a Conspiracy, first Merry, Sam, and Fatty—our Cousin Fredegar Bolger, that is, and then me, too.  They’d been spying on Frodo, sure that one day he’d try to sneak away after Bilbo, so I began spying on them, for I refused to stay behind if they left after Frodo!  Merry was angry that I’d found them out, for he thought I ought to stay at home.  But Fatty—Freddy, that is—well, he didn’t really want to come, too, so I insisted I should come instead!  And come I did.  I’ve known that something’s not been quite right with Frodo for some time, but I didn’t know quite what.  Once I joined the Conspiracy Merry explained about the Ring, so then I realized what’s been making it harder for Frodo.”

            “Hard for Frodo?” asked Gandalf.  “Hard in what way?”

            Pippin’s brow furrowed as he tried to think how to explain.  “Well, before, when Bilbo was still there at Bag End, Frodo was just about the most patient person I ever knew.  Now, you can use up his patience, but it’s not all that bad most of the time.  But if you are particularly dull or downright stupid or mean in what you’ve done, you get the Look.”

            “The Look?” asked Elrond.

            “Yes, the Look—the Old Took’s Look.  Cousin Ferumbras used to say that Frodo must have got it from the Old Took himself, not that that many people alive today have had the chance to see Great-great Grandda give it, of course.”  Seeing the confusion in Elrond’s face, he added, “But you must have seen it if Bilbo lives here—he’s quite good at it, too.  No, wait—I suppose you might not have seen it, as you’re all Elves here, and I doubt that he’d use it on an Elf.”

            Sam saw that Gandalf was stifling a grin.  Old Mr. Bilbo, however, was obviously getting exasperated.  “Peregrin Took!” he snapped.  “I must suppose there is a point to all of this discussion as to how severe Frodo, my grandfather, and I can appear?  There is?  Then get to it already!”

            Pippin gave the old Hobbit a wary sidelong glance, then paused and positively beamed.  “See?  There it is now!  I told you that Bilbo is good at it, too!”

            Gandalf was reduced to a choking guffaw while Bilbo spluttered with indignation.  Pippin continued, “Well, when they are really angry, both Bilbo and Frodo add in what Aunt Dora used to call a Few Well Chosen Words.  Except that with Bilbo it tends to be more than a few, usually, turning into a full lecture as often as not and then being followed by bitter muttering.”

            “I do not mutter!” grumbled Bilbo.  Elrond cast him a now amused glance.

            “But with Frodo it is indeed a Few Well Chosen Words, and they can truly bite, they’re usually that sharp.  I’ve found I can tell when he has the Ring on his person when those Few Well Chosen Words are particularly nasty and hurtful.  Otherwise they tend to be sharp but no more than is needful for correction, those times when he has It locked up in his desk or the box in his bedroom.  But when he doesn’t have It on him he tends to be nervous and even a bit fretful, just the way Merry described him.”

            “But why should he seek to set aside the Ring, even momentarily?” asked Elrond, looking between the Hobbits and the Wizard.

            It was Bilbo who answered him, surprisingly.  “Because carrying It always is wearying,” the old Hobbit said, his expression solemn.  “I found that, like Gollum, I couldn’t keep It on me all the time, so I’d leave It locked in the desk or, sometimes, lying in a bowl of water in my room.”

            Both the Wizard and the Peredhel straightened at that.  “In a bowl of water?” Gandalf asked, intrigued.

            “Well, Gollum apparently habitually left It on that little island of his in the midst of his lake,” Bilbo pointed out.  “I found I felt freest if the Ring was safe in a bowl of water.  I didn’t realize consciously that it was the Ring I was reacting to, of course, or that It was seeking to manipulate me.  I always thought it was just my sometimes absurd imagination that was getting the better of me.”

            Gandalf and Elrond gazed thoughtfully at one another.  “Water is antithetical to Its nature, after all,” Elrond murmured.

            The Wizard turned to fix a stare on Bilbo Baggins.  “And did It seek to raise lust in your breast also, my friend?” he asked.

            The elderly Hobbit first paled and then colored furiously.  “That,” he said tersely, “Is far too personal a question!”  With that he turned decidedly back to look down on his younger kinsman, whose pale face was nearly the same color as the pillow slip against which he lay.  “After all,” he commented more softly, “I never married, did I?”

            “And neither did he,” Gandalf pointed out.  “I saw how the Ring could affect his emotions when he saw a comely lady, you realize.  But he was far too decent to allow such thoughts to consume him or corrupt his behavior.”  His lips pursed briefly before he added, “As I believe is true of you as well, Bilbo.”

            Bilbo looked up briefly to meet the Wizard’s eyes from beneath his brows, then turned his attention back to Frodo’s sleeping face.  He gave the merest ghost of a shrug.

            Elrond turned his gaze to the gardener.  “And you, Master Gamgee—what have you noted of the effects of the Ring on Master Frodo here?”

            Sam shrugged uncomfortably.  “I’d wondered from time to time if’n there wasn’t somethin’ as made him restless as he’d sometimes be.  He’d of spent a good mornin’ on his translations or his copyin’ work, and suddenly have to leave it all off for a time, and he’d take to pacin’ through the gardens or would hurry off t’the marketplace for a measure of pipeweed when he had plenty in the jar on the mantel.  It could take several hours afore him could settle back to work again.  Once Mister Merry here told me of the Ring and what he suspected of Its nature, I begun noticin’ as him’d be rollin’ somethin’ in his pockets between his fingers, like, every time such restlessness would take him.  And if’n him should come face to face with one of the S-B’s at such a time it was certain t’lead to a nasty quarrel.”

            “Not that almost any meeting with either Lobelia or Lotho didn’t end with such a quarrel,” added Merry. 

            “True,” agreed Sam.  “But them would always be more likely t’be nasty if’n they thought as him was particularly restless.  It was as if the Ring was affectin’ them, too.”

            Gandalf rubbed at his chin consideringly.  “It is possible,” he admitted.  “They would be particularly responsive to the Ring’s influence, as selfish and self-centered and self-serving as they tend to be.”

            “And there’s the fact as there’s hardly no Bagginses of the name left in all of the Shire,” pointed out Sam.  “Once Mr. Bilbo come back from his adventures, the numbers of bairns born alive to the Bagginses dropped off alarmingly.  Mr. Bilbo’d always said as that Gollum cursed the Bagginses, and I wonder if’n the Ring didn’t take that curse literally.”

            It was definitely something to ponder.

            The Elf woman with the pins in her sleeve came back with a tray on which rested an invalid’s cup, and she gave it into Master Elrond’s hands.  Merry and Pippin were prevailed upon to go bathe and then retire to the rooms provided for them, but although Sam agreed to bathe, once he was attired in a clean nightshirt and a dressing gown perhaps just a trace too large for him, he returned to Frodo’s room and insisted that he’d not sleep elsewhere lest Frodo should want for attention during the night.

            At last a pallet bed was set up for him near the wall and a tray of fruit, cheese, and crackers was left on a low table for his refreshment.  Still he spent much of the night sitting sideways on the side of the bed where he’d hold Frodo’s cold left hand and seek to massage some life back into it.

            Near midnight Master Elrond carried a snoozing Bilbo away to his own chambers, and the woman came in and sat nearby, sewing while she watched over Frodo’s sleep.  Frodo had been made to drink a series of brews over the course of the last few hours, although he’d never been awakened by any of the ministrations offered to him, and twice she paused in her work to offer Frodo more sips of something from the invalid's cup, carefully sitting him up against her shoulder and murmuring softly in Elvish as she urged him to swallow, then laying him back again before returning to her chair and her sewing.

            At last Sam asked, “What are you making?”

            She smiled at him, and his heart turned a cartwheel inside his breast.  “Clothing for him to wear when he awakens.  What he had when he arrived cannot be properly repaired, I fear.”

            “He has a few more outfits in his pack—we brought extra clothes, all of us.”

            Her smile grew deeper.  “I am certain that you sought to be as prepared as possible, but will he not be glad of something new to wear that is not now too large for him?  For I can see that he has lost much weight since he first donned the garb in which he arrived.”

            He couldn’t help but smile in return.  “Of course, but you’re right about him losin’ weight, my lady.  We’ve all lost some, I’m sure.  But since they stabbed him at Weathertop he’s been barely able to eat.”

            “Then we shall see him dressed in accordance with his station.  Do you think he will like this shade of green, Master Samwise?”

            Sam found himself smiling in spite of his worries.  “Oh, I’d say as he’d like it fine, my lady,” he said.  “He’s mighty fond of greens, is my Mr. Frodo!  Wears’em by preference, he does.  But him looks good in most any color there is.”

            In minutes they were chatting as if they’d known one another for years, or at least Sam was chatting that way, and she was listening so attentively.  He told her of the hole in which he’d been born on Bagshot Row, and his two older brothers and his sisters, and his old dad, the Gaffer, and Rosie Cotton….

            “And you didn’t ask her to marry you ere you left home, in case you didn’t return?” she asked gently.

            He dropped his gaze to Frodo’s hand, which he was holding between his own.  “How could I do otherwise, my lady?” he asked softly.  “Wouldn’t of been honorable, to bind her to myself if’n there was a chance as I wouldn’t be able to come back.”  He looked back up at her more boldly.  “But I’ll not be waitin’ too long once we’re back in the Shire to ask her,” he assured her.  “Once I’m certain as my Master here is taken care of, I’ll be lookin’ t’take her as my bride, if’n she’ll have me, of course.”

            She searched his eyes for a moment, and her gaze grew distant momentarily.  Then she smiled as she again looked directly into his eyes.  “You need not fear for that, Master Samwise.  Any woman who loves you will be as constant as you have proved yourself to be.  She will rejoice to cleave to you—of that you may be certain.”

            “That’s supposin’ as I can come home whole again,” he said.

            Again she smiled in that way that made his heart turn within his chest.  “I suspect that she would have you even if you were to come home missing a leg or arm.  Do not doubt that she will honor you the more for those scars you might bear that you have come by honorably.  She already knows your worth, and will rejoice that you have risked yourself for the safety of all.”  So saying, she sat back in her chair and, still smiling, focused her attention again on her sewing.  Sam realized he was smiling as he looked down into his Master’s pale face, and was glad that she’d been able to distract him from his fears for Frodo’s safety.

IV

            Strider quietly opened the door and peered in, then came in once he realized who it was that watched over Frodo.  He gave the lady a courtly bow, murmuring, “My Lady Arwen.”

            “My Lord Aragorn,” she returned, her head cocked slightly to one side.  “And why are you not resting as you were ordered?”

            He shrugged.  “I find I cannot sleep.  Too long recently have I gone without proper rest, and I find that my mind and body are too sensitive.  Every least sound and I startle to full wakefulness again.  I finally decided that it would be best to come here to take my turn at watching over him, perhaps merely to assure myself that the breath of life still is within him.”

            “I assure you that all is as well with him as it can be.”

            Strider was eyeing Sam.  “And I see that I am not the only one who remains wakeful who perhaps should not,” he commented.  “Can you not rest either, Sam?”

            “It’s been rather hard,” Sam admitted.  “Although I’m findin’ myself yawnin’ perhaps more’n is strictly needful.”

            “Then lie down upon the pallet, and if there is any change I swear I shall call you awake immediately.  But I do not believe there will be anything of note this night.”

            The lady arose, gathering her sewing into the cloth bag she carried.  “I will leave you to your watch,” she said, “although I shall advise Ada that you are here rather than in your own bed.”

            “I would expect nothing less from you,” he responded as he gave another bow.  “May you sleep well, and may your dreams be pleasant ones, my lady.”

            He had settled in the chair in which Bilbo had been sitting before she had the door closed behind her.  For a moment he leaned over Frodo, searching his face, his hand to the Hobbit’s brow.  At last he sat back and relaxed slightly.  “Go, lie down and rest, Sam.  You know that I will not allow anything else to harm him.”

            As he pulled the blankets back so he could lie down, Sam commented, “You called Lord Elrond ‘Ada.’  And him called you his son as I understand it.”

            Aragorn gave a twisted smile.  “He has been as my father for most of my life, as my own died when I was little better than a babe in arms.  I was only two years of age when my father was slain by orcs, and my mother agreed to bring me here to keep me safe from our enemies.  The Dark Lord’s creatures have wished to slay all in my line for more years than you can imagine.”

            “And the one as just left, she’s Lord Elrond’s daughter?”

            “Yes.  He has three children, twin sons who are now scouring the lands round about to make certain that the Black Riders are indeed swept away, and the Lady Arwen.”

            “So you’ve known all along as how to come here.”

            “You didn’t believe that I did?”

            Sam sat up upon the mattress, his hands clasped about his upraised knees.  “I wasn’t certain as what to think,” he admitted.  “But if’n you grew up here I suppose as there’s no way as you’re an enemy.  The Elves wouldn’t raise no one as would grow up t’be an enemy, I suppose.”

            “Not even amongst the Elves have all be strictly honorable, Sam.”

            Sam shrugged.  “Perhaps not.  I suppose as you’d know that better than me.  But just who are you, really?  And why didn’t you tell us as you’re Lord Elrond’s foster son?”

            “You didn’t fully believe that I was Gandalf’s friend, did you?  Would you have believed I was a son of this house any better?  I rather doubt it.”

            Sam grinned.  “Yes, you’re right about that.  I’d of sooner believed as you was the heir to Arvedui Last-king!”

            “Which is what I am!”

            Sam’s eyes widened with surprise, and he stared at the Man for a moment before he lay back, staring at the ceiling without truly seeing it.  “If that don’t beat all!” he whispered.  He suddenly laughed.  “And t’think as I’d had you down as the worst villain ever!”

            “To which impression I am certain Barliman Butterbur added,” Strider responded dryly.  “How long has it been since Frodo was given anything to drink?”

            “Perhaps twenty minutes.”

            The Man rose and settled his hip upon the bed, carefully raised Frodo’s torso and coaxed him into taking a few swallows from the invalid’s cup.  He was in the process of settling Frodo down on one side with pillows and cushions to support him when Gandalf entered, a tankard in one hand and his staff and unlit pipe in the other.

            “A fine one you are, caring for him when you barely manage to care for yourself, Aragorn!” he grumbled.

            “And you look well yourself, thank you for asking,” Strider replied, carefully pulling the blankets over Frodo’s form.

            The stricken Hobbit muttered a few words, something about Tom Bombadil from what Sam could make out.

            Gandalf glanced Sam’s way.  “Then you did come through the Old Forest?”

            “Yes, for what good it did us,” Sam sighed.  “Old Tom’s a caution, and that’s a fact, but the rest of it—well, I’m glad as that’s behind us!  Between trees as resent those as can walk free and them wights, we didn’t have the most pleasant of visits.”

            Gandalf again went still.  “Wights?”

            “Mr. Frodo will have to tell you about it, as him was the only one truly awake for most of it.  We got lost in the fog and ended up in the barrow-downs, and next thing as we knew, we was wakin’ up on the ruins of a fallen mound with Mr. Frodo and Tom Bombadil lookin’ down on Mr. Merry, Pippin, and me.  And if’n that wight hadn’t of stole our clothes!”

            “Good heavens!”

            As Aragorn straightened the Man added, “Tom was just saying good-bye to the four of them when I first spied them, not far from the clearing where most people will stop to eat and stretch their legs.  I admit that I’ve not come to know him anywhere as well as you, Gandalf, but I’d say that he was relieved to see the four of them safe on the road and to note that I would be following them the rest of the way to Bree.”

            “The Old Forest isn’t the most hospitable of places, I admit.  Well, man, what are you going to do?  Go back to your own quarters and get the rest you so desperately need, or perhaps sit over there and at least put your feet up for a few hours?”

            “I can’t sleep!  I’ve had to be alert and aware for too long, and my body and mind just won’t let go of it, as I’m certain Arwen advised you.”

            “Then sit down over there, and if there’s anything else that needs doing, I’ll call upon you.”

            Once the Man was settled in the chair where the lady had sat and Gandalf had seen the padded settle placed to allow Strider to put his feet up, all went quiet for a time.  Sam was almost asleep himself when he heard the soft snore indicating that, in spite of himself, the Man had indeed managed to doze off.  He heard a soft chuckle from the Wizard, who stood, retrieved a light blanket that lay folded over the foot of the bed, and carefully laid it across the Ranger’s body before returning to the chair the other side of the bed. 

            “You should sleep also, Samwise Gamgee,” Gandalf said quietly.

            “He says as Lord Elrond cared for him the same as his dad when him was growin’ up,” Sam murmured.

            “Yes, he did.”

            “So, he thinks of the Lady Arwen as his sister?”

            Gandalf’s voice was carefully measured as he answered.  “There is no question that he thinks of Elladan and Elrohir, the Lady Arwen’s older brothers, as his own brothers.  But he did not know Arwen when he was a child, for she dwelt with her mother’s people for many years.  Elrond’s wife left Middle Earth, sailing for the Undying Lands, many lifetimes ago as measured by mortals.  The Enemy’s creatures captured her and treated her abominably, giving her a poisoned wound from which she could not properly recover here in the Mortal Lands.  Her sons found and rescued her, and her husband did all that he could to help restore her.  But sometimes wounds go too deep to heal properly, and the marring left by Morgoth is so close to the surface here in Ennor that she simply could not find any easing from her continuing pain, terror, and grief as long as she remained.

            “Her children have always spent time with their mother’s parents when they could, sometimes a few years at a time, sometimes nearly a century.  Arwen, since her mother left, has spent more time in her grandparents’ home than have her brothers.  Part of it is intended to help keep her love for her mother alive in her, and part of it is to help her heal from her mother’s departure.  Elladan and Elrohir have spent much of their time out of this valley upon errantry, and very much of that time seeking out the orcs of the Misty Mountains and wreaking vengeance upon them for the horrors their mother suffered under the hands of such creatures. 

            “So it was that Aragorn here never met Arwen until he was judged a Man grown.  Even since that day she has come and gone between here and her grandparents’ home several times.  Few Mortals have seen her in the past five hundred years, and it was quite by accident that they met at all when and how they did, or so I understand it.  They tend to behave particularly formally when they meet in company, or so I’ve found.  It’s all rather amusing.”

            Sam thought on this for a few moments while Gandalf again gave Frodo a few more sips from the invalid’s cup.  Once Frodo was again settled and covered up, he asked, “What they’re plannin’ for the mornin’, it’s dangerous, isn’t it?”

            “Yes.  And there is a fair chance that Elrond won’t be able to find the shard right away, and that it may need to be done again.”

            “Has anyone ever lived who’s been stabbed like this?”

            “Yes, one has.  He carried the shard in him for perhaps ten days.  But he was stabbed on the right arm, so the shard had a good deal further to travel than the one Frodo bears.  Elrond removed it.  But I warn you that he knew pain from the wound for the remainder of his life.”

            “My Master—he could be in pain from this for as long as he lives?”

            “It is possible, Sam.  I will not lie to you.  But all will be done to ward against that chance.  And Elrond has learned much since that time.”

            “Strider says as him’s the heir to the Last-king.”

            “Yes.”

            “Always wondered if’n there was an heir hidin’ out somewhere.  Glad to know as there has been.”  Sam yawned.  “So,” he managed through the yawn, “There is a chance as the King just might return after all.”

            He was drifting off as Gandalf, smiling fondly down on him, murmured, “Yes, my good Sam, there is a very good chance that the King just might return indeed.  And you may well have a hand in seeing it come to pass.  Would that please you?”

            But Sam was asleep, and after he awoke he had only the vaguest memories of that last exchange with the Wizard.

V

            “Where is It?”

            Frodo’s cry woke Sam instantly.  The gardener sat up, finding his heart racing.  “What’s wrong?” he demanded of the Wizard, who was leaning over his Master with concern in his eyes.  Strider was already on his feet, and was reaching to place a hand on the pulse point on Frodo’s throat.  As for Frodo himself, he was struggling to sit up, his hand scrabbling at his hip.  His eyes were open, but didn’t appear to be seeing what was in the room.

            “It’s lost!” he gasped, and there was a good deal of pain and fear in that utterance.

            “What’s lost?” asked Sam.

            Gandalf waved a hand at Sam distractedly.  “It is here, Frodo, but you are in a nightshirt and don’t have a pocket to keep It in.  It’s here on the table beside the fireplace.”

            Sam realized Frodo was searching for the Ring.  “Gandalf’s right, Master,” he called.  “It’s on the table here near me.”

            “I can’t find it!”

            “It’s on the table.”  Sam rose and went to the table, and fetched from it the tray on which the Ring sat amidst swaths of silk.  He moved the fabric aside and set the tray down beside his Master’s searching hand.  “Here It is, Mr. Frodo, sir,” he said, guiding the older Hobbit’s hand to touch the Ring.  “It’s stayin’ safe, right here by you.”

            Frodo went limp, and Sam saw traces of tears still visible on his face.  “It’s not lost?  Oh, but good!  Who knows what It might try were It left unwatched?”  His voice was barely a whisper.  He left his hand lying over the Ring, and closed his eyes.  “It’s tricksy,” he whispered, and Sam felt a chill at the change in Frodo’s voice.

            Gandalf and Strider were exchanging worried glances.  “That last sounded like…” began the Ranger.

            “Yes, I agree,” said the Wizard.  He shuddered.  “It would appear that the Ring wishes to remake Frodo as it did Gollum.”

            Now it was Sam’s turn to shudder.  Frodo, on the other hand, had apparently returned to a state of deep slumber.

VI

            Not long after, Elrond’s people brought the tall table on which Frodo had lain the previous day, and after clearing away Sam’s pallet set the table in its place.  A second small but high table with a metal top was set up nearby, its top cleansed, and was draped with a clean cloth.  Lamps were hung here and there about the table, and freshly ironed linens were set nearby for use.  Strider left the room briefly, and while he was gone a special washstand was brought in, on it a metal basin.  Elrond entered, and behind him the same Elves who’d been there the preceding day to sing over Frodo.  Tall mirrors were now brought in and positioned to focus the light down on the table top.  Lady Arwen entered with others carrying a number of basins that steamed, some of which smelled as if they were filled with solutions of vinegar and water, others as if various herbs had been steeped in them.

            Strider reentered, dressed now as was Elrond in a clean white robe whose sleeves did not fall quite to the elbows.  The Lady Arwen wrapped the lower faces of both the Man and her father with bandages to cover the mouth and nose.  “That,” Gandalf murmured into Sam’s ear, “is to limit the amount of their breath that might touch Frodo and the wound directly—they have learned that to breathe directly on a wound while it is open can increase the chance that it might become infected.”

            The large table was cleansed and a clean sheet of sparkling white was draped over it.  Frodo was carefully stripped of the nightshirt, and he was lifted gently by Strider from the bed onto the table.  Both Man and Elf cleansed their hands and arms in the basin, and water in which kingsfoil had been steeped was poured over their hands and wrists.  Lady Arwen carefully wrapped loose bandaging over Frodo’s mouth and nose as she had with Strider and Elrond, and then draped a second clean white sheet over Frodo’s body.  A brazier was brought in, and pleasantly scented oil soon was set alight.  A tray of fine knives, tongs, tweezers, and other instruments was set upon the smaller table by the woman healer who’d been among the singers the preceding day, and Sam saw that her hair was drawn back under a muslin net, as was that of Lady Arwen, and that she also wore bandages about her face so that she could not breathe directly on the instruments she hovered over.

            Strider, whom Frodo knew and trusted, appeared to be there mostly to soothe Frodo into a deep sleep and to watch over his breathing and condition, while the woman healer presided over the instruments and saw them given into Elrond’s hands and cleansed with water and fire when he was finished with them.  The Lady Arwen directed the assembled Elves in the singing, the first song being the Invocation for Healing that Strider had sung so often over Frodo during their journey from Weathertop to Imladris.

            Sam found himself glad he was not tall enough to see what specifically was being done to his Master, but he saw enough to know that Frodo’s shoulder had been opened and that the Elf was doing his best to learn the path the shard was following.  Draped cloths would become bloodied and were lifted away by the Lady Arwen and replaced with new ones, and it seemed that Strider was constantly wiping away blood from Frodo’s shoulder.  Sam felt his belly tighten at the growing tension and the increasing scent of blood and the various herbal scents.  He was grateful that Gandalf sat by him on the edge of the bed, his arm about Sam’s shoulders.  Suddenly, however, the Wizard rose, advancing to stand behind Strider, who had begun to tremble.

            “I am sorry, Ada,” the Man whispered as he took a step backward—--

            ----and collapsed into Gandalf’s arms, crumpling as does a child who has been struck unexpectedly.

            Followed by the Lady Arwen, the Wizard bore Strider away, and the woman healer stepped forward immediately to take his place.

            Glorfindel had come to Sam’s side, and as the Elf lord did not display any great concern, Sam felt himself relax.  “Come,” Glorfindel murmured, “join us in the song, as I believe that you know it well enough by now.”

            Sam took a shuddering breath and closed his eyes briefly, and he began to sing also, his voice soon steadying as it joined the harmony sung by the others.

            Soon enough Frodo, his torso already wound with bandages, was redressed in a clean nightshirt and settled back into the bed, and the woman healer was gently coaxing him to swallow a draught from a new invalid’s cup.  Gandalf returned, assuring Elrond, “He could not maintain such alertness indefinitely.  He is now deeply asleep in his own bed, and should sleep until mid-afternoon at the soonest.”

            “I am not surprised,” Elrond said.  He was washing his arms again, and Sam saw that there was blood on the front of his robe.  “He feels responsible for Master Frodo’s safety, and wishes to see him healed.

            “But,” he added, looking down at the Hobbit, “although I could not remove the shard this time, at least I have found it, and have added my own strength to that Master Frodo himself exercises over it to keep it at bay.  We shall try again in two days, and I do believe that we shall be able to remove it then.  It was behind the major blood vessels—I could not have removed it now without risking him bleeding to death.  But it must come out into the open before it can achieve its goal, and at that time I shall have it.  And by then I am certain that Aragorn shall be able to assist as is needed.”

            Sam said, “Then it’s to be done all over again?”

            “I fear so, Master Gamgee.  But we are actually in a better position now to defeat its purpose than we were.  Now, tell me how it is that my fosterling ended up awake this morning when I had expected that he would sleep once he was settled by the side of Frodo Baggins?” 

            Gandalf related what had occurred when Frodo had begun seeking for the Ring as he slept.  “He never truly returned to consciousness, but there is no question that he felt the separation and feared as to what the Ring might be doing when It was away from his guard,” he concluded.

            Elrond considered the sleeping Hobbit with concern.  “I still hold that it would be best not to have the Ring anywhere near him as long as he bears the shard of the Morgul knife within his chest,” he repeated.  “Who knows how much the foul thing might do Its best to speed the shard’s journey?  At least he lies now quiescent.”

            “Perhaps,” Gandalf said, obviously not convinced.

            Sam was sent off to get himself a meal, and by the time he returned it was to find that Mr. Bilbo was there in the chair where he’d sat the day before, a plate of breakfast on a newly brought table beside him as he watched over Frodo’s sleeping form, with Gandalf settling the footstool under his feet.

            “He’s been still while you’ve been gone, Sam,” the Wizard assured him.

            Sam nodded, reporting, “I saw the others eatin’ second breakfast, and they intend to come as soon as they’re done to see as how my Master’s doing.  They was upset not to be allowed to come in earlier when the wound was being probed.”

            Merry and Pippin followed Master Elrond back into the chamber, and together they watched as he coaxed Frodo to drink a dark broth, then saw to his needs, afterwards cleansing him with warmed, damp cloths and seeing him dressed anew in another nightshirt.  Frodo appeared to have more color in his cheeks now, yet seemed to be in more pain.  Sam took Frodo’s left hand in his own, and found it if possible even colder than it had been.  Alarmed, he reported this to the Elf, who appeared even more concerned than before.  He ordered the nightshirt removed again, and warm compresses were brought and wrapped around Frodo’s left arm and shoulder, to be changed every five minutes or so until noon.

            Sam, Merry, and Pippin took turns changing the compresses, once Elrond was certain that they were competent to do so properly, and he left and brought back another invalid’s cup filled with a draught that he administered carefully to Frodo, stopping once when it went down the wrong way and Frodo started to strangle on it.  Afterward Frodo appeared to be fretful, and his head began to thrash upon the pillow.  He again began to scrabble at his side with his right hand, searching first for the trouser pocket and then the one in his waistcoat that were not there, murmuring, “Where is It?  Where is It?” over and over in a barely discernible whisper, growing increasingly upset with each repetition. 

            At last, with a nod of encouragement from Gandalf, Sam again fetched the tray with the silk-swathed Ring upon it from the other room to which it had been removed and set it down by Frodo’s side, and guided his Master’s hand to the place where the Ring lay under the fabric.  But the stricken Hobbit would not rest until his fingers touched the metal itself, clutching at It weakly before he succumbed to a far deeper slumber.

            Elrond’s concern grew visibly.

            An Elf brought the four wakeful Hobbits elevenses, and after they were done Merry and Pippin were convinced to return the trays to the kitchens and to take a walk out of doors for a time, although neither Sam nor Bilbo could be coaxed to leave Frodo’s side.  Soon afterward the Elf woman Meliangiloreth arrived with another broth that she fed to Frodo a sip at a time, although she soon began to cast uncomfortable glances at the tray on which the Ring lay.  Finally, at a whispered request from Gandalf, Sam removed the tray from the bed and the room itself, making certain that the silk lay doubled over the Ring.  Meliangiloreth appeared much relieved, but when she was done with feeding Frodo, he lay breathing in a labored manner for a time before again he was searching for the Ring.  Meliangiloreth appeared very alarmed, and Sam flew to fetch the tray back again.  Only when his fingers again touched the bared gold of the Ring did Frodo quieten, at which Meliangiloreth appeared confused.  When Lord Elrond returned to the room she told him, “I could hear It—the Ring, I mean—calling to me, as long as It lay there on Its tray by Master Frodo here, until Master Samwise bore It away.  But when Master Frodo became upset at Its absence and It was brought back to him, once the Hobbit’s fingers lay upon It I no longer heard Its voice seeking to tempt me!”

            The two Elves and Gandalf exchanged thoughtful looks.

            Gandalf had to command Sam to leave the room and take luncheon in the main dining hall for the place, and Bilbo agreed to return to his own rooms to rest for a time once Sam was finished with a meal and had taken a good bath.  Sam had to admit he felt much better for the time spent outside Frodo’s sickroom, and bade Mr. Bilbo to rest well as the old Hobbit was accompanied away by the Elf he’d learned was known as Lindir.  Gandalf left for a time, indicating he needed to go out and smoke a pipe of Old Toby and think deeply, and the Lady Arwen returned with her sewing and her invalid’s cup, giving Frodo sips at intervals of about twenty minutes.  Sam lay down upon his pallet for a time and felt much rested when he awoke after perhaps two hours.  Merry and Pippin had ham and pickled cucumbers between slices of bread ready for him to eat, with a mug of excellent ale beside it.  The Wizard had returned, and sat upon the chair where Bilbo had sat earlier in the day.

            Frodo lay with his hand upon the tray on which the Ring reposed, although he seemed content enough to have It covered by the silk, at least for the moment.  Strider came in, neatly dressed in clothing of a rich green embroidered with gold threads, his beard and hair neatly trimmed.  He was still rubbing sleep out of his eyes, but there was no question that he also looked much restored as he bowed formally to the Lady Arwen and then leaned over Frodo to check his condition. On hearing his voice, Frodo appeared to relax somewhat, and Sam thought he could perhaps see a trace of a smile. 

            Not long afterward, the company of Elves who had sung over Frodo before returned, but most appeared uncomfortable until Gandalf asked Merry to carry the tray with the Ring on it to the room in which Frodo had first been examined and remain with it until the Elves were finished.  Again they sang a number of songs while Strider and Elrond cleansed and redressed Frodo’s wound.  Again the three remaining Hobbits joined the Elves in the songs that were most familiar to them, and Gandalf appeared pleased when they did so.  How small Mr. Frodo looked when they were done, lying alone in that great bed, his face nearly the same color as the linens against which he lay. 

            Elrond quietly thanked the others, and they all left, including the Lady Arwen.  Elrond now did his best to see Frodo fed what appeared to be a rich broth, but halfway through again Frodo began to strangle upon a sip, and it was quite some time before he finished coughing and choking.

            “Is he going to be all right?” asked Pippin, concerned as Merry returned with the tray and set it again on the side table.

            “I believe so,” Elrond answered.  “However, we will have to watch that he not develop lung fever from accidentally inhaling anything into his lungs.”

            Frodo’s breathing appeared troubled, and he seemed to be swallowing frequently.  Before nightfall he was feverish and he was coughing almost constantly.  “The pale King!” he muttered at one point.  “Has a knife!”  Some time later he whimpered, “Why’d I dance on the table?” 

            A bowl of steaming water was brought, and into it Strider cast two leaves of kingsfoil after breathing upon them and rolling them between his hands, singing that invocation of his under his breath.

            “Where is It?” Frodo suddenly gasped out once more, scrabbling with his good arm at the places where his trouser and waistcoat pockets ought to have been, then reaching futilely across his body to search the missing pockets on the left side.  He appeared frantic!  Then he went into another spasm of coughing that left him breathless.  Gandalf swiftly signed to Sam, who again retrieved the tray and set it on Frodo’s good side, guiding his right hand to lie upon it.  At least Frodo’s face grew calmer as Aragorn lifted him into a sitting position and leaned him forward to pound against his back with the heal of his hand, hoping to jar whatever it was that caused Frodo to cough so out of his lungs.  At last Frodo managed to cough up a great wad of phlegm that had spots reminiscent of the broth administered earlier, and after that he lay back in exhaustion.  “On the table,” he whispered.  “Stupid thing!”  But with his hand resting on the Ring he soon drifted into a quieter if still feverish sleep, apparently reassured all was as well as it might be.

            It was another bout of warm compresses after that, and frequent sips of tea that appeared to be made with willow bark and other herbs intended to fight the fever and the possibility of infection.  Bilbo was ordered off to his own bed, and not long afterward the same happened with Merry and Pippin.  None of the Elves or half-Elven appeared able to abide being near to the Ring, so Sam had to remove It from time to time; but after being separated from It for more than a few minutes Frodo would become frantic until It was beside him once more.  Now and then Frodo would mutter about their misadventures along the way, often expressing worry as to how much danger he’d brought his friends into, and each time Gandalf would listen closely to what was said.  Sam lay upon his pallet during the night, listening to the little talk between Gandalf and Elrond, for Strider had again been sent off to sleep, and this time the Man did not demur, nor return.

            And when at last Sam slept, it was to see, over and over, the vision of Frodo suddenly reappearing from the emptiness into which he’d disappeared when he’d put the Ring upon his finger, his shirt rent and his shoulder bleeding in an alarmingly sluggish manner, gasping in his surprise at the pain of his wound. 

            It was a restful night for none of them.

VII

            “Frodo!”

            The voice was familiar, but at the same time had a level of authority to it that Sam did not recognize.  He startled fully awake, finding himself staring upwards at an absurdly high ceiling he wasn’t certain he’d paid attention to before.  He couldn’t place himself, and couldn’t place the voice, either.

            Rolling toward the voice, he realized that he was in the room given to Frodo in Elrond’s house, and that he was lying upon his pallet near the wall, facing the foot of the bed on which Frodo slept.  Strider—it was Strider’s voice he’d heard.  Strider stood on one side of the bed, and the Lady Arwen stood upon the other, and Elrond stood on the far side of Strider, one hand upon Frodo’s forehead while the Elf woman and the Man each had a hand lying on Frodo’s breast.  There was an unusual light to be seen under their fingers where they touched one another, a soft, pale white glow that somehow was reassuring, as if some balance were being restored.  Although he didn’t understand what it was he was seeing, Sam Gamgee was glad for it, for he sensed that if it made him feel reassured hopefully it was doing much the same for his Master.

            “Frodo!”  Strider leaned over the Hobbit’s body, staring intently into Frodo’s face, and it was as if he were somehow willing Frodo to return to them.  “Do not wander so in darkness!”

            There was a low muttering from the stricken Hobbit, and Sam heard the faintest rustle of the bedclothes as if his head were turning slightly.

            There was that fresh scent to the room that indicated to Sam that Strider had used the kingsfoil again—or at least someone had done so.  Elrond turned away from their patient to a bowl that lay upon the chest by the head of the bed, and drew from it a white cloth, with which he wiped Frodo’s forehead and then the rest of his face and then his hands.

            “I think that is enough, children,” he said to the Man and the maid.  “His spirit is no longer wandering, although the memories of what has happened to him still roil in his mind.”

            Strider straightened, slowly drawing his hand away from that of the Lady Arwen, sighing as he drew upright.  “It is good to know he is not likely to drift away from us now,” he said.  “I thank you, my Lady, for allowing me to touch your gem’s power.”

            “I believe that it worked the better for the both of us using it together,” Arwen answered, slipping a chain over her head and adjusting her hair that it not be caught by the pendant jewel she now wore again.  “There is now one more layer of protection between his spirit and the intent of the shard within his shoulder.”

            “But how long that layer might last we cannot be certain,” her father said as he returned the cloth to the bowl.  “We ought to be able to best remove the shard in another day, I think.  If you will bring with you the Evenstar gem then, sell nín, we will be able to use its power to help ward him from the worst of the memories that the shard will undoubtedly seek to leave in the depths of his heart.  Certainly it helped to buy time for your naneth when she was the one who had been stricken.”

            The lady indicated her agreement, and after gently drawing her hand across Frodo’s brow she withdrew, giving a gentle bow of her head to her father and the Man who stood by his side before she quitted the room.

            Gandalf entered before the door had a chance to quite swing shut, followed by Pippin, who held the tray on which the Ring lay.  “And it worked?” he asked.

            “Temporarily, at least,” Elrond told him.  “He responded well to the gem’s power.  I almost wish he could wear it for a time, although it does not respond anywhere as well as long as it is anywhere near to the Ring.  Thank you, Master Took, for taking It to the other room while we worked over him.”

            “Does the Ring make the gem stop working?” Pippin asked, setting the tray back on the bed by Frodo’s hand.

            “No—it is more that the power of the Ring tends to disturb the balance that the Evenstar gem seeks to settle.”

            “I never thought of gems being able to be used to do things with,” Pippin said as he leaned forward to search Frodo’s face.  “So that is a magic stone?”

            “Not so much magic as empowered by whichever smith wrought it,” Elrond said.  “Its power is to help restore balance between one’s Light of Being, breath, and the place one holds within the Song of Creation.”

            “I see,” Pippin said, although Sam wasn’t certain that Pippin understood what the Elf had said any better than he himself had.  The Took momentarily set his hand against Frodo’s cheek.  “At least he’s not feverish any more, not as he was last evening.  And his breathing is better.”

            “We should think on a manner in which he might carry the Ring, one in which he will be both able to reassure himself by touch that It has not escaped him, and that could somehow serve as a buffer so that he is not tormented by It constantly,” suggested the Wizard.

            “His device of securing It within his pockets with a fine chain was an excellent one,” noted Elrond, “but it is not a certain one.  Such chains as he used are fragile, and it was already much weakened by the constant touch of the Ring upon it, to the point that It almost was ready once more to escape.  Perhaps a locket such as Isildur used to carry it?”

            “I think that Bilbo was the one who started using something to bind it within his pocket,” Pippin noted.  “When I’d play at dress-up with his clothes when I was a child I found most of his trousers and waistcoats had the same types of loops in them as Frodo has in his.  Sam’s sisters thought it an odd affectation by the Bagginses, to fix such loops into their pockets, and they’d discuss it at times after they’d done Bilbo and Frodo’s laundry.”

            “Well, we’ve seen over the past few days how not wearing clothing that has pockets in them makes it harder to keep the Ring by him close enough to reassure him,” Gandalf said.  “Perhaps on a chain about his neck?  I doubt we have enough time to have such a locket as Isildur had made for It forged.”

            “I’ll speak with the smiths,” Elrond said.  “Boraënur may have some ideas.”  He sighed as he straightened and glanced down at Sam.  “You finally appear to have had some more proper rest, Master Gamgee.  Would you like to accompany young Master Took here to the rooms of refreshment and the bathing room, and then to the dining hall?  It would do you good to be out of this room for a time, and to have your spirit refreshed.  And from what those on duty in the stables tell me, your excellent pony would appreciate a visit from you.  He spends much time near the pasture fence watching toward the doors, looking for your coming forth.  He also needs reassurance that all is well with your Master and with you.”

            Sam realized he was glad to have a reason to leave the sickroom for a time, and found a good bath to be refreshing indeed.  When he went to put on his clothing, however, it was to find that it was not only Frodo Baggins for whom the seamstresses of Rivendell had prepared new clothing.  If it weren’t for the fact that each garment was truly new and that there was subtle embroidery quite different from Daisy’s work all about the hems and about the placket of the shirt, he would have taken them for his own clothing, made for him by his sister Daisy and her husband Moro, who between them ran a shop given to tailoring and embroidery there in Hobbiton.  Pippin was watching him with interest, and commented, “The fabric was woven there in the Shire, and I’ll swear that the wool for the trousers was from my own mother’s spindle and loom, Sam.  Bilbo was telling me yesterday that some of the sales we Tooks make to dealers in the far North-farthing go to agents for Strider’s people, and that then some of that comes here.  I understand that they believe that we in the Shire produce the finest woolens anywhere.  Can you imagine?  I’d never have guessed that the rest of the people of Eriador compete to purchase woolen cloth made right there in the Tooklands!”

            “Then you have new clothes, too?” Sam asked.

            Pippin nodded.  “We all do, it seems.  Of course, considering the state of what we were wearing when we got here and how we lost what we did in the Barrow-downs, you have to agree we needed some new clothes!  And since Bilbo lives here they’re used to making things that meet with Hobbit sensibilities and that wouldn’t be seen as outlandish there at home.  But even my sister Pearl would be hard pressed to do as fine a seam as I’ve found on these,” he added, displaying the side seam for the trousers he was now wearing.  “Merry’s dad has always said that we ought to be trading more outside the Shire, with Men, he supposed.  How surprised he might be to find out that we have been doing so all along!  And since it’s proved that Strider’s the Chieftain of the northern Dúnedain people, it seems I might be in a position to arrange good trading agreements between our people and his!”

            “Chieftain of who?”

            “The name of his people is the Dúnedain, or so Bilbo told Merry and me yesterday.  It’s the proper name for the Rangers’ folk.”

            “And Strider’s their Chief?”  Sam remembered what both the Man and Gandalf had told him of Strider being the rightful heir to the Last-king, and felt his scalp ripple.  “Oh, yes—of course he’s their Chief!”  So saying, he shook his head in the wonder of it.  Pippin was already gathering up their damp towels and their used clothing and placing them in the basket to be washed.  With that he led the way to the dining hall, and they found themselves joining Merry and Bilbo for breakfast.

            Afterwards Pippin accompanied Sam out to the stables, the two of them laden with carrots, apples, and a sticky bun that Pippin insisted on bringing to share with Bill.  They found Bill in a field just north of the stables, another pony with a grey muzzle near him, both cropping the autumn grass slowly and steadily, Bill’s coat brushed clean of weeks’ worth of dirt and chaff, and already looking better fed than he’d been two days since.  His head lifted as he heard the voices of the two Hobbits, and a light came into his eyes.  As Sam reached the rail fence Bill was there to meet him, butting his nose into the gardener’s chest in greeting.

             “Now, if that ain’t the finest fellow!” Sam crooned, offering him one of the apples, which Bill accepted happily, turning his head to allow his ears to be fondled while he crunched on the offering. 

            The Elf who’d come to sing over Mister Frodo stood smiling down on them.  “He is indeed a gracious beast, and one who has given his fealty to you full willing,” he said.  “He recognizes those who are honorable and worthy of his love, and gives it readily.  He will grow stronger while you remain here, and will gladly go with you once you are ready to leave us for whatever destination it is your fate to pursue.”

            Bill accepted half of Pippin’s bun with great delicacy, appearing as glad of its sweetness as was the young Hobbit, and the rest of their offerings they gave into the stableman’s hands to see them bestowed judiciously over the length of the day that he not become glutted by too many good things received at once, and after assuring the good beast of their joy to see him and that Master Frodo had been well served by him, they at last returned to the Last Homely House, reassured that all was well with the one who’d so carefully carried Frodo over the last two weeks of their journey.

VIII

            Frodo appeared to be properly asleep when they returned to his room, but after luncheon he again appeared to be in distress, alternately rubbing at the bandages over his shoulder and searching for the Ring.  He muttered frequently, mostly apparently voicing fears he’d known during their journey.  Gandalf leaned over him each time he did so, while Bilbo greeted each utterance with growing distress, certain he was somehow to blame for the grief and pain that now troubled this son of his heart.

            The Elves and Hobbits again sang over Frodo in the afternoon while Elrond and Strider between them cleansed him with soft, damp cloths and rubbed his skin with herbal balms before wrapping the wound with clean bandages.  Once again he quieted, although there was an unaccustomed furrow to his brow as he slept.

            When the rest of the Elves dispersed, Elrond asked the smith to remain, and they spoke quietly near the door for a few minutes before the smith agreed to whatever idea had been presented to him, going out with what appeared to be Elvish assurances that he would do his best to achieve what the Master of the Valley had asked of him.

            Merry had carried the Ring away this time, leaving it in the examination room, outside which two Elves stood guard when Frodo’s cousin left it there to return to Frodo’s room to join in the singing as he could.  It was about an hour after the Elves had left before Frodo appeared to realize again that the Ring was not there, and he became highly agitated before It was brought back to him.  At Gandalf’s suggestion a bowl of water was brought and the Ring was tipped into it.  But this appeared to do little good, and Frodo kept groping for It until he managed to spill the bowl over his bedding, necessitating having all of the coverings changed, not to mention his nightshirt and bandages as well.  The Ring was returned to Its silken nest on the tray, and the tray was set on the table near the hearth.

            Afterwards he seemed to be in pain again, and he would groan if anyone brushed his shoulder.  As for his left hand—well, it was icy to the touch, and not all of the warm compresses in the world appeared to ease it or his arm in the least.

            His muttering was more formless and harder to understand as the day progressed to evening, and he appeared to be growing weaker.  After a time the fingers of his right hand twitched and he began to keen, softly at first, and then more painfully.

            “What is it?  What is happening?” demanded Pippin.

            Gandalf gave a sigh that was heavy with grief.  “Fetch the Ring, please, Pippin.  He realizes once more that It is gone from him.”

            Only when the Ring was restored to Its place beside him and his hand was placed over It did the keening stop.

            The crease between Frodo’s brows was more pronounced.  Not long after sunset Pippin began, “If the shard takes him—you say it will make him like them?  Like the Black Riders?”

            Gandalf had answered softly, “Yes, Pippin.”

            “And he will be a wraith then, and we most likely won’t be able to see him, any more than we could see the Black Riders’ faces, only the clothing they wore?”

            Gandalf had nodded reluctantly.  “Even so, in time.  They lost their fleshly reality long ago, and now it is only the garb that they wear that gives a shape to their nothingness.”

            “Is that why Frodo seems almost—almost ghostly now?”

            Sam had felt himself shuddering as Pippin put words to what he’d been refusing to acknowledge, that Frodo’s body was growing almost insubstantial in appearance.

            “You may be right, Peregrin Took.”

            “May we be here in the morning, when Lord Elrond tries to take it out?”

            “I strongly suggest that you not be here.  It will be a most distressing time.”

            “Because—because, if it doesn’t work, then----”  Pippin swallowed.  “If it doesn’t work,” he tried again, his voice now a whisper, “then he may need the mercy stroke?”

            “Yes.”

            Not long afterward, Strider had gone with Merry and Pippin to see them into their beds, while Elrond led Bilbo away.  Gandalf alone stayed by Frodo now, his own face grey with the strain of the last few days, although his expression appeared calm.  Sam warned, “I’ll not be leavin’ him, mind.  No one will make me leave, no matter how hard it may be.”

            “No, Sam, no one will make you leave.  I sometimes suspect it is only your presence that reminds him who he is in the world of Arda, and that reminds him that he is yet a Hobbit of the Shire.  He responds uniquely to you.  It is the only reason you’ve not been sent away with the others when things have been done that are distressing.  Your own courage in facing what is done to him helps him to bear it.”

            It was reassuring, even if it did not offer him the hope he’d wished, hope that he knew too well might prove vain.

            Frodo grew feverish, and he would not willingly accept any fluids they sought to offer him.  Sam was prevailed upon to help in the application of boluses intended to keep Frodo from becoming totally dehydrated and to allow some nutrition to be given him.

            “I’m glad as him’s not awake,” Sam said.  “He’d find it terrible embarrassing.”

            “I know,” agreed Strider, whose own forehead was furrowed in sympathy for the insult done to Sam’s Master.  “But what else are we to do when he cannot seem to accept fluids or sustenance in any other way?”

            What indeed?

            Afterward Frodo lay weakly, barely moving.  Elrond shook his head.  “The shard is moving more quickly now, and I believe that it is the shard’s closeness to its goal that is weakening him so.  I am amazed at his basic strength, actually.  He continues to fight its purpose, even as weak as he is bodily at the moment.  I doubt I have seen such strength of purpose in many in the over two Ages of the Sun I have lived.  I sense that he will continue to fight the shard’s influence and purpose to the last measure of his strength, and perhaps beyond.  Only because of that have I not suggested the mercy stroke.”

            Sam was certain he must have gone stark white.  Frodo himself remained mostly unresponsive as his position was changed that he not develop sores where he lay, as slight and weightless as he appeared, against the bed.

            Dread was growing in the hearts of those who loved him.

IX

            Sam slept fitfully, and was awakened after only a couple of hours when the Elves gathered again to sing.  This time they sang Aragorn’s invocation of healing, followed by a song he’d not heard before, one that was filled with a complex harmony that somehow reminded Sam of the intricate movement of blood within a body combined with the rhythms of simple breathing.  This was followed by a song offered by the woman whose fingers were stained with ink.  Some words he recognized—the name of Elbereth, and the name the Lady Arwen had given to the figure carved into the headboard of the bed on which Frodo slept, that of Estë, and of others—Nienna, Irmo, Yavanna and Aulë, Manwë, Nessa, Vána, Oromë, Tulkas, Vairë, Ulmo, Námo.  This song lulled Sam into sleep, and in it he saw that the Sun, Moon, and stars were being invoked to allow their combined Light to shower down upon the spirit of Frodo Baggins, to remind him that his own Light was a delight to the Creator, that he must not surrender it vainly to the powers of darkness.

            And when that song was done Glorfindel raised a song in defiance of the darkness, and Sam knew that the golden Elf had no fear of death at all, for he’d been through it and had come out again and knew fear of death to be foolish.  And briefly Sam slept more deeply, dreaming of Glorfindel and other Elves, some with hair dark as jet and others as silver as moonlight, ready to guard the world and all its children from the darkness that seeks to devour all.

            He awoke to again find the Lady Arwen watching over Frodo, sewing in hand.  This time, however, the fabric she was laboring over was black and silver rather than green, and it was not clothing from what the Hobbit could tell.

            “Hullo,” he said, sitting up for a better view.  “Done with the outfit for Mr. Frodo, then?”

            She smiled, and again he felt that now familiar twist in his heart.  “There was but a little of the hem of the jacket left to finish, and so one of the other maidens offered to finish it for me so that I might return to this.  It is felt by all that it will be needed soon.”

            “What is it?” he asked.

            She shifted the great rectangle of cloth in her lap.  “It is called a standard.”

            He didn’t recognize the word.  “What’s it to be used for?”

            She was fixing an embroidery hoop into place.  Somehow it seemed strange that it should look exactly like the one his sister used.  “Standards are used to declare the identity of a lord or commander to all who see it, whether it is seen from nearby or from afar.  Aboard a ship it will declare the identity of whichever great noble or captain is in charge of the vessel or the fleet that it leads.  In lands of nobility, the standard of the noble with the greatest rank present is displayed on the flagstaff for the city or its principle keep that newcomers will have an idea of whom they will need to honor first on entering the place.  When approaching the capitol of a land such as Gondor, one can tell whether or not the ruling Steward is within the city by looking to see whether or not the Steward’s standard is displayed.  If he is visiting elsewhere, the standard of whatever lord sees to the realm’s business in the Steward’s absence is displayed instead.  And in battle the standard indicates the location of each noble so that their men and their allies can tell at a glance who leads the fight in each portion of the battlefield.”

            Sam could immediately imagine the perils such a thing could pose.  “If’n the one’s friends can tell where him is, can’t his enemies do the same?” he asked.  “Seems as it’s much the same as wearin’ a target darin’ the rest t’knock him down, carryin’ about a great big cloth markin’ out where he is to all and sundry.”

            Her expression grew serious as she focused on her work, drawing a particularly shining needle out of needle case apparently carved of bone in the likeness of a fish and pulling out a length of black thread from a hank of embroidery floss to thread through its eye.  “You are right.  Which is why it is such a great honor for the standard bearer to carry it for his lord.”

            “Then the noble don’t carry it himself?”

            She shook her head.  “No, not if he’s to lead the charge and to strike his own blows against the foe.  Usually the standard bearer is one who volunteers, and so tends to be a kinsman who loves his lord more than he does life itself.  It is his job to keep pace if at all possible with his lord, even if it means that he must race toward the press of the enemy armed only with a spear or sword and no shield, with small recourse to a spare weapon if he loses the one he carries.  For he fights with but one hand, making certain that the standard is carried always upright for all to see, as much to strike terror into the hearts of the enemy as to cause rejoicing among the allies of his lord as he joins the fray.”

            “How is it carried?”

            She considered the question as she began her embroidery.  He realized that she was adding small beads into her work as she set the stitches of her pattern.  “There is a thin sleeve at the top of it, and a rod is pushed through it with a great finial on each side to keep it from sliding off either way.  The center of the sleeve is cut away and reinforced, and a ring is screwed into the back of the rod at the balance point, and that ring is attached to the staff to be carried by the standard bearer.  The standard bearer usually has a special loop through which the staff is thrust on the side of his saddle and a supporting flange added to his stirrup against which the butt of the staff rests while he rides.  He must hold it erect with his hand, so his off hand is encumbered as he begins.  Usually the horse he rides is trained to answer more to knees and shifting of weight rather than to reins that its master can protect himself and the standard at least some.  And you are right—those who bear their lord’s standard are often the particular target of their foes, for to see a standard fall and be trampled into the dirt of the battlefield is considered to be an omen of defeat.  Many armies will fight with full will as long as they see the standard carried aloft, only to lose heart if they see it fall, even if they were winning the battle to that point.  So it is that the standard bearer is often closely followed by his own best friends and closest kinsmen who will seek to protect him as well as they can, and they seek to grasp the standard from him and keep it aloft should he be struck down.”

            She stopped her agile stitches, leaving the needle loosely thrust through the fabric to keep from it losing itself before covering the black with white lawn, and set aside the tin filled with beads, snapping its top down that the beads not all be lost should it accidently be tipped.  She shifted herself to sit upon the bed by Frodo’s pillow, and gently drew him to sit upright, leaning against her arm.  “Not that the one destined to receive the standard is any more worthy of it than this one would be.  How strongly even now, in the height of his physical weakness, he fights the will of the shard!”  She lifted the invalid’s cup with her free hand.  “Now, my bonnie fighter, can you find it within you to swallow for me?  Here is one more way in which you can defy your enemy!”

            Frodo managed a single swallow before the liquid ran out of his mouth, and she leaned him over to allow it to drain away, wiping it with a cloth she had carried draped over her shoulder.  Still she appeared pleased.  “One less swallow that might need to be administered in another, far less comfortable manner,” she murmured.  One more swallow she managed from him ere the door opened and Strider paused in the entranceway, looking down on her with eager eyes.

            “My sweet lady,” he began, “you have spent much time in your daernaneth’s company.  Can you scry as does she?”

            Sam had no idea as to what Strider meant by that, nor why the question might have caused the lady to color as she did.  “I can do so, although perhaps not as readily as does she.  Do you require it of me?”

            “Gandalf and Lord Elrond have been discussing how best we might follow the progress of the shard that we cut no more than is needful and do so no sooner than the shard can be fetched away safely.  If perhaps you can watch it for us….”  He paused, and suggested, “I know that scrying does not always follow the will of the observer, but do you not think that perhaps it might be possible?  The pendulum can tell us the point under which it lies, but not necessarily how deep or how close to a vulnerable blood vessel.”

            “I will be willing to try,” she answered.

            “And you will bring the Evenstar gem?” he asked.

            She nodded.  “Adar had already asked that of me, after all.  Should you not be abed yourself if you would be in the best position to aid Ada in the morning, my Lord Aragorn?”

            He gave her a grateful smile.  “I am to bed once I have told your father and Gandalf that you have agreed to watch the shard for us.  If you will have what you will need brought to you about an hour ere dawn….  Good night, my Lady Arwen.”

            “Rest well and blessedly, my Lord Aragorn,” she responded, and he withdrew, closing the door softly.  She watched after him, a small smile on her lips.  “His love and caring are not idly given,” she remarked to Sam.  “The more do we all wish to see your Master restored, seeing how much Aragorn son of Arathorn cares for him.  Now, perhaps you, too, ought to rest, for the dawning will come all too soon in spite of the year drawing toward its turning as it does.  Sleep well, Master Samwise.  Sleep, and awaken refreshed.”

            She saw Frodo settled down in a new position on the sheepskin brought in earlier in the day, and sang what appeared to be a soft lullaby as she resumed her embroidery.

            Sam and Frodo both slept more comfortably and restfully.

X

            It was the sound of soft voices that woke Sam next.  Lady Arwen stood near the door, speaking with the smith Sam had noticed so many times.  “A hair of mine?  You will need three to make the most potent spell, will you not?”

            “I have been granted one by Lord Glorfindel already, and Master Meriadoc has given me one belonging to his mother that he has from a lock he carries to remember those he loves most closely.  He says that his mother is the closest to such Master Frodo knows, his own having died when he was yet a child.  Master Bilbo having directed me to Master Meriadoc, I believe that it will add to the potency of the spell to counter the will of the Ring most strongly.  And if you will add to the blessing and empowering of the spell when all is ready, drawing upon the power of either the Elessar or the Evenstar gem, that will help even more.  It has been deemed best not to invoke—other—tokens of power that might be more prone to twisting by the Ring.”

            She nodded, obviously appreciating what the smith meant.

            He added, “And have you any of the beads that came long ago from the Blessed Lands, my lady?  I understand you have received some of such things from your daeradar, ones he purchased in the days when ships still came and went freely between Aman and the hither lands.”

            She paused before answering, “Yes, and I have some with me here.  What purpose do you have for such things?”

            “To use on the new clasp that I am working on now, to keep the clasp from opening save when the bearer requires the Ring free to his hand.  Then we wish the clasp to open automatically, that he not waste time on a clasp that might have grown stiff or slick with sweat or when fingers would fumble in times of stress.”

            “One moment.”

            She returned to the chair where she’d sat sewing through the night, and as she worked a tress free from the net that bound her hair she looked down on the tin from which she’d taken the beads used in decorating the standard.  At last she had a strand separated from the rest, and she pulled it deliberately from her head, not cutting it as Sam had expected.  She then opened the tin, stirred it with a slender forefinger, and reached down to choose more than one bead.  She returned to the doorway and gave the items into the smith’s hands, then closed the door after him as he turned to leave, still uttering soft words of thanks in Elvish.

            Sam arose and left to use what the Elves called the room of refreshment, and returned to clear away his pallet as best he could.  Another Elf maiden, her hair silver gilt in the light of the one lamp that still lit the room, was setting a shallow bowl of a bright silver metal upon a small, round table set on the far side of the bed.  Lady Arwen was examining a crystal vessel sealed with a tapered stopper of ground glass that was mostly filled with what appeared to be pure water of surprising clarity.  “It should not take much,” she was saying to her companion.  “And there ought to be enough left for my own needs afterwards.”

            The other maid was solemn as she turned, having made certain that the bowl was placed just so upon the table.  “If it works to Sauron’s despite, that is all I ask, Mistress,” she said quietly.  “None here would see such evil take any kinsman of Master Bilbo, nor anyone from any of the Free Peoples of Middle Earth, and especially after what happened to my naneth—and yours.”

            “I know.  Le hannon, Celebfiniel.”

            The maid gave a most graceful curtsey and left the room, carrying away a bundle that Sam suspected held the standard the Lady had been working upon, as well as the tin of beads and the Lady’s sewing bag.

            “She doesn’t seem to like the Dark Lord much,” he said.

            “Nor does any individual of honor within the Mortal Lands,” she replied.  “But his creatures have done especial harm to those she loved.”

            She sighed as she looked down into the shallow bowl upon the table.  “You may have heard that my naneth does not dwell in the hither lands, and has not for many ennin.  She was traveling between the lands where her parents yet dwell and this valley, and against the suggestion of my adar she directed that they should cross over the mountains at what was the closest pass at the time, and travel northward west of the Misty Mountains.  Ada had warned against doing so as the mountain fastnesses there were known to be filled with yrch and other creatures of the Enemy.  But Naneth did not wish to travel the route east of the mountains, for there had been terrible droughts and forest fires in the valley of the great river for much of the previous seven years, and there was little that was green save along the banks of the river itself.  And across Anduin what had been Greenwood the Great was now shadowed and fearful, for the Necromancer had taken the southern reaches of the forest for his own, building his fortress of Dol Guldur on the ruins of Amon Lanc, and his influence could be seen everywhere.”

            She raised her eyes to meet those of Sam Gamgee.  “The Necromancer had been—active, as had his slaves.  He had secretly been sending even more evil creatures into the region of the pass, hoping to capture anyone who might seek to cross over the mountains there, knowing that it was used often by our people as well as those of my daeradar.  Men might avoid that pass if they can, but we of the Eldar have been more certain of our ability to deal with such enemies. 

            “Then as now the Nazgûl crafted Morgul blades and not only carried them themselves, but gave them into the hands of some of their most brutish captains among the fighting yrch and their Mannish allies.  Seeing a party emerging from the borders of my daeradar’s lands, a group of his people set up an ambush high above the path where it begins to descend on the western side of the mountains, and they waited with far more patience than such creatures usually show until Naneth’s party was directly below them.  Then they began by rolling and dropping boulders down upon the guards that accompanied her and her companions.

            “Curufil, father to Celebfiniel, was captain of her guards.  He was badly wounded.  Others were killed outright.  Naneth and the three ellith with her sought to protect themselves, and I am told that my mother herself slew at least four of the yrch and a Man who descended upon them.  But one struck her hard upon the temple, and she was stunned and taken prisoner.  One of her female companions died in the attack, and another was gravely injured.  Celestië, Celebfiniel’s naneth, was my nana’s especial friend and chief of her handmaidens.  She, like Naneth, was stunned and taken prisoner.  They were borne away to hidden caverns far to the north of the pass, away from the pass and the better known halls under the mountains that had once been a great city of the Dwarves but that had fallen to evil not that long since—or, not that long as we of the Eldar count it.

            “When Nana regained awareness they were held in near darkness.  Their captors included both Men and yrch, and a surprising mixture of the latter.  There were many of the great Uruks, those of their kind bred particularly as warriors, the duller delvers, and the vicious mountain goblins that swarm like foul insects within the dark of the mountain fastnesses.  Foul drink was forced upon their captives to hasten their recovery of awareness, after which the torture was begun.  Curufil was still alive, but he died in agony under their attentions, and my naneth was forced to watch his suffering to the last.  Then they turned their attentions on the few other guards who had survived to that point, and at last they began to torture the ellith.  They may not have divined fully my mother’s identity, but they knew enough to recognize her as a great lady among us, and they forced her to watch all they did to those who had sought only to serve and protect her.  What they did to the captives while they were yet alive was unspeakable; what they did to their senseless bodies once their fëar quitted them was, if possible, even worse.

            “They would stop in the midst of torturing the others to turn on my mother for a time.  What all they did to her I do not know.  I am not even certain that Adar learned all of the details, but he would not speak of any more than what was most obvious to my brothers or myself.  Not, of course, that my brothers did not see what state she was in when she was found and rescued, for they were the ones who finally found her, slew those who held her, and brought her forth from the evil of that place.

            “They appear to have—forced—all of the captives, males as well as females.  Not even my mother could protect herself from that, although she fought it with all of her power.  And they used various blades and instruments to inflict shallow stabs and cuts to all of them all over their bodies, including into their tongues and under their nails.  Celestië was forcibly blinded in one eye, and a narrow tool was forced into one ear to partially deafen her. 

            “The other maiden died even as they sought to defile her, and now only Naneth and Celestië were left.  They brought two blades into the room and set them before the two of them, telling them that each would be wounded with one of the blades, and it was up to them as to which would be wounded with which.  Celestië could see enough to recognize that one was filled with evil purpose, while the other was merely smeared with poison.  Celestië spoke up first, and chose the Morgul blade for herself.

            “They had removed all of the weapons that had been borne by the Elves, but they did not recognize my mother’s needle case for what it was.  When they had stabbed Celestië and left her with a shard in her right shoulder—they intended for the wound to take some time before it took her, delighting in her torment—and they had given my mother a deep gash to her thigh, they withdrew and left them to contemplation of their own futures.  My mother swore to forestall the eventual end to Celestië’s wound, although she knew that our people and those of her parents were searching for them and would eventually find where they were being kept, so she held her hand for as long as she could. 

            “Nana became feverish in time, and their tormenters kept returning, taking advantage of their weakness to force both of them repeatedly and to do them further injury as they could.  When she recognized that Celestië could hold out no longer, after they were left alone for a time Nana opened her needle case, took out her longest needle, and with Celestië’s agreement, thrust it into her friend’s heart, ending her agony before she lost herself completely to the shard’s spell.

            “After that the horror of what she had been forced to do left my mother so stricken that she lost herself.  When Elladan and Elrohir came to rescue her she did not recognize them or know herself.  It was some time before she woke to reason again.  But she could not throw off all of the horror of what she had known done to herself and her companions, and there seemed no way to heal her of the poison that had been administered to her.  So, she sailed to the Undying Lands, and we pray that at last she has come to know relief and healing.”

            Sam found himself shaking.  He indicated the door through which the maiden Celebfiniel had left.  “No wonder she hates the Dark Lord,” he whispered. 

            The Lady nodded.  “Her brother was so overwhelmed with grief and fury that he almost destroyed himself in the wake of their parents’ deaths.  He sailed in the end with Nana.  And now we look at another who was wounded even as was Celestië,” she said, “and we will not allow the evil magic to take him if at all possible.”

            “And you’re certain as it will cause Mr. Frodo to become—to become like them?” he asked.

            “Oh, yes.  Now and then we have found those who were wounded with such blades or even stabbed to the heart, and we have had to try to deal with them when they have been reduced to wraithdom.  Only the removal of the head appears to free their fëar from the spell.  It can be a terrible thing to look upon one who has always been a friend and companion, and to find him now one’s greatest enemy, a creature utterly different from what he was.  My adar has managed to remove the shard from the body of another, and he is certain that he can do so for your Master as well.  But he cannot do it until the shard shows itself, which apparently will not be until it is at the point of fulfilling its purpose.”

            She stood by the silver bowl, still looking down at it, the crystal bottle in her hands.  At last she took a deep breath and removed the stopper, and poured a measure into the bowl, murmuring soft words in Elvish as she did so.  Stoppering the bottle once more, she bent over the bowl and breathed upon the surface of the water.  At last she straightened as the door opened again.  Celebfiniel and Meliangiloreth had returned, carrying in stacks of clean cloths and toweling and the covered tray of instruments that had been used by Elrond the last time.  They were followed by others who carried in the high table.  Rapidly the room was being set up for the procedure to follow, and Sam retreated to sit as he’d often done over the past few days on the bed by Mr. Frodo’s pillow, clutching his cold, unresponsive left hand in his own as if in doing so he could keep Frodo’s spirit safe within the now wasted body.

XI

            Celebfiniel was carrying the crystal bottle away when Master Elrond and Gandalf arrived at the door.  She curtseyed with that special grace that was natural to the Elves and disappeared down the hallway, passing Strider as he approached the room.  Strider was closely followed by Bilbo, Merry, and Pippin.  Bilbo was doing his best not to weep, Merry appeared rebellious, and Pippin simply appeared overwhelmed.  Merry looked up to meet Elrond’s eye.  “We want to see him, before you try to get the shard out of him.  Just in case….”

            “We understand, Master Meriadoc,” Elrond said gently.  “And he will undoubtedly do the better being reminded that you love him.  It will help to tie him to this life.”

            Some of the stiffness in the Brandybuck’s posture relaxed at that.  Apparently he’d feared the three of them would be denied the chance to see Frodo at all, and the thought that they might not be able to assure him of their love had been driving him to distraction.  They came to stand by the bed and remained quiet for a moment, their faces all going paler as they realized how much weaker he appeared compared to just last night.  Merry at last got up his courage and stepped closer, reaching to grasp Frodo’s right hand.  “Well, older cousin, they think that this time they can get that thing out of there.  I so hope so!  Stay with us, dear Frodo.  Stay with us.  Mum will never forgive me if I try to come home without you, you know.”  At a sign from Elrond, he took up the tray with the Ring upon it and took it with him.

            Pippin couldn’t seem to find words for once.  He held Frodo’s hand in his turn, and his mouth worked.  At last he leaned over and kissed the hand he held, and stepped back hastily to allow Bilbo his turn.  

            “Well, lad, I wanted to let you know how very, very proud of you I am.  Don’t let go, Frodo, my dear boy.  Don’t let go!”  The older Hobbit’s voice was shaking with emotion, and he carefully rubbed his thumb over back of Frodo’s hand, tracing the blue of the blood vessels so easily seen through skin that appeared almost transparent.  He looked up to search Elrond’s eyes, obviously not fully reassured by the calm surety he saw there.  “You do your best by him, you hear me?” he asked.

            “We will, Bilbo,” Elrond answered.

            Bilbo leaned as far over as he could to kiss Frodo’s brow, tenderly brushed the younger Hobbit’s hair back, and finally let go of his hand, laying it gently down on the counterpane, and turned away, no longer trying to hide his tears or trembling lips.  Strider accompanied them out, his hands on Bilbo’s shoulders, and before the door closed behind them Sam could see the Ranger kneel down to draw the old Hobbit to him, where Bilbo wept silently against the Man’s shoulder.

            The high table with its thin mattress was in place, as were other tables holding instruments and basins of water and stacks of clean cloths.  Strider came in as Elrond saw to Mr. Frodo’s needs, and rolled leaves of kingsfoil between his fingers, breathing upon them with a soundless benediction before dropping them into a steaming bowl of water held by Meliangiloreth.  At last Frodo’s nightshirt was removed and he was lifted with great gentleness onto the table and his mouth and nose gently covered with gauze.  Meliangiloreth now wound bandages about the mouths and noses of Strider and Master Elrond both, while Arwen helped Sam to sit upon a high stool that had been brought in for his use.  Lights and mirrors were set into place and adjusted, and at last all was ready.

            Gandalf came quietly to stand by Sam, and set one of his clever hands upon the Hobbit’s shoulder.  “He’ll do well enough, Sam,” the Wizard murmured, as much, Sam surmised, to reassure himself as to do so for the gardener.

            “I hope as you’ve got the right of it,” Sam whispered back.

            Elrond suddenly gave the Wizard a piercing look.  “Do you know,” he asked, his voice barely muffled by the cloth over his lower face, “what has been twisted in order for the Morgul knives to do their work?”

            Gandalf looked surprised and puzzled by the question.  “No, I must say that I do not.  Why?”

            Elrond shrugged.  “We know that the Enemy cannot create anything new, but can only twist what was there already as part of the original Song of Creation.  There must be some other process that was twisted to cause the victim to become a wraith.  Also, from what realm was the wraith world wrested?”

            Strider glanced between his foster father and the Wizard, but said nothing.  He returned his attention to their patient, and cleansed the place where Frodo had been stabbed, using a cloth that had been dipped into the kingsfoil liquid. Gandalf held his staff close to his breast and closed his eyes, leaning his forehead against the flame-shaped knot of roots that topped it.  Elrond held out his hand for the slim knife he would use.  Arwen bent her head over the bowl. 

            “Do you see it, sell nín?” Elrond asked.

            “Not yet.  A moment.”

            They waited.  And waited.  “I see it!” she said suddenly.  “It is barely a hair’s breadth from the great artery, Ada!  Not free yet.  Not free yet.  Wait, my beloved Ada.  Wait.”

            Sam found it difficult to breathe.  Gandalf lifted his head, letting his staff to lean sideways now, and squeezed the Hobbit’s shoulder to hearten him.  He had a strange smile.  “Where does your thought take you, my friend, when you wield the power granted you?” he asked Elrond.  The Master of Rivendell gave the Wizard a surprised look, and suddenly his eyes gleamed with an understanding that Sam could not share.

            “Almost,” Arwen breathed softly, her own attention focused solely on whatever she saw within her bowl.  “Almost.  It hopes to evade you, I think.  It is as if it realizes that you await the one moment when it must move free of the great blood vessels, and hopes that you will wait that instant too long.  Ah, but it has begun to move now in earnest.  Now, Adar!”

            Elrond cut decisively while Aragorn held a device intended to spread apart the ribs just enough to allow the tool to reach where it must.  Meliangiloreth’s hands moved so swiftly Sam barely had time to realize that the healer had now a pair of fine tongs rather than the slim knife he’d used only the moment before.

            “No, more to your left, Ada.”

            Elrond adjusted the angle of the tongs, suddenly dipped them into the wound—

            --and brought out something that gleamed dully, dripping with red blood, in the light of the many lamps.

            A wooden plate covered with a thin square of silk was held out by someone, and Elrond moved to lay the shard there, only the shard twisted free from the tongs, trying its best to fall again onto Frodo’s chest!

            “No, you don’t!” the healer said decisively, and the plate was thrust directly under it so that it caught the shard as it fell.  Even Sam felt the wave of frustration given off ere the shard went quiescent.  Elrond began a song in a tongue that the gardener didn’t recognize, and first Glorfindel and then Gandalf joined in.  Sam could feel the hair on his toes standing up as well as the hair on the back of his neck—there was Power in that song he didn’t think he’d ever heard before.  He seemed to see Light focusing down on the form of Frodo Baggins, focusing upon him, and moving through his body as the song rose in joy and triumph—and finished!

            The shard no longer gleamed at all, instead lying dead and without purpose upon the wooden plate and the now stained silk.

            “I will take it out into the sunlight and see it melted fully,” Glorfindel said.  Sam was surprised to realize that the golden warrior had been there throughout, along with others who had sung over Frodo before.  “Mithrandir—come with me to witness its destruction!”

            Elrond’s fingers were already busy staunching the blood, reaching for a shining curved needle that appeared to be threaded with a strand of gossamer, making stitches within the wound, then carefully doing the same on the skin….

            As slowly as all had begun, yet it was finished with a swiftness that Sam could not quite believe.

XII

            Sam found himself lying across the foot of Frodo’s bed, a pillow under his head, and the lovely Lady Arwen looking down upon him with a mixture of concern and humor in her beautiful, star-filled grey eyes.  “Do you feel better, Master Samwise?” she asked.

            “What happened?  Was it but a dream?” he asked.  He was surprised at how raspy his voice sounded.

            “You fainted,” she informed him.  “As soon as you knew that all had been accomplished you started to slip right off of your stool.  I just barely caught you before you hit the floor!  Here, sit up and you shall have a sip of cordial to help you steady yourself.”

            She held a small cup in her hand for him to sip from, and he found that it was miruvor, the same drink that Glorfindel had given them while they were still approaching the valley.  He had to admit he felt better once he’d swallowed the sweet liquor.  Strider was giving him swift glances as he and Elrond saw Frodo properly bandaged, and Meliangiloreth was pouring out a second small cup of the miruvor as they worked.

            “Sit still for a few moments, Sam, so that you do not become dizzy once more,” Strider cautioned.

            “I feel a right fool, faintin’ when all’s over,” Sam said, rubbing at his head.

            Elrond was smiling.  “It is not that unusual a thing, Master Samwise.  Once it is known that the worst did not happen after all, it is only natural to feel such relief that one feels lightheaded.  Your Master does very well indeed, now that the shard is gone.  His heart is beating more strongly by the minute, I deem, and his breathing is improving as well.

            There was a knock at the door, and Gandalf and the smith came in with no further invitation.  The Wizard appeared greatly relieved.  “The shard melted straight away once sunlight fell upon it, and both the plate and the cloth have been burned.  At least that knife cannot be used on any other.”  He examined what he could see of Frodo’s face.  “Already there is more color to his skin, and he appears to have more substance to him.  We could not have afforded to wait yet another instant!”

            Elrond nodded absently, his attention on seeing the final knot tied properly even as Strider was holding out a cloth to cleanse around the bandaging.  A clean nightshirt lay nearby, ready for use.  Elrond commented, “I rejoice that Arwen was able to use scrying to observe the shard as she did.  Knowing when to cut and where, and where the shard was in relation to the tongs helped mightily.”  He straightened and accepted the cloth, and used it to cleanse away the last traces of blood from Frodo’s breast.  Then he was drawing the nightshirt over the Hobbit’s head and settling it over his body.  When Meliangiloreth held out the small cup to him he took it and held it to Frodo’s lips.  All breathed an additional sigh of relief as Frodo swallowed it properly right away.

            Frodo was settled back in the bed, supported in a nearly sitting position by a number of cushions and pillows.  Strider settled himself by Frodo and began feeding him sips of broth while the smith held out a box lined with silk.  “I hope, my lord,” he said, “that this will serve.  If you, Mithrandir, Lady Arwen, and Lord Aragorn will come together to empower this—and the Ringbearer’s companion as well—we will do our best to see this readied to carry the Ring so that all are best protected from Its direct influence.”

            Sam, who’d been sitting at the foot of the bed to this point, was aided by Lady Arwen to shift around onto his knees.  Strider set aside his bowl with a clean cloth over it to keep dust out of the broth and joined the others there near the foot of the bed, leaning his head with the rest over the box as the silk was pulled away to display what appeared to be a simple if strong silver chain with what appeared to be braided links, through which hairs had been woven.  “If you will rely on your native powers rather than what the Ring Itself might twist,” the smith cautioned them, “I believe it will be most appropriate.”

            Elrond and Gandalf exchanged glances Sam felt were somehow significant, and both nodded.  Gandalf held his staff close to himself and again his gaze went briefly distant, while the Lady Arwen brought out the Evenstar gem and held it out to Strider so that he might touch it, too.  At last Elrond gave the smith a nod indicating that he felt they were all ready.  The smith gave Sam a searching look.  “We will sing, and we ask only that you concentrate your will to the good.  If you feel moved to add to the song, do so and know that it is welcome, no matter how your own song may sound with those of the others.  Does this seem reasonable, Master Samwise?”

            Sam wasn’t too certain what was meant by all of this, but trusted that he couldn’t do any particular harm, so he indicated he was ready with the rest.

            The smith started the song, and he appeared to be singing of beauty beneath the light of shining stars reflected from the surface of pure water.  Elrond sang of the coming of Light to the joy of all creatures.  Gandalf sang of Power, of how it could be wielded and how it might be abused.  Strider sang of the transient nature of life, and how it might be changed in an instant.  Arwen sang of beauty and growth, and of the balance between Light, Breath, and Song.  And Sam found himself singing of simple things, good food, warmth and company, clean drink, a light heart, and of learning more and more over time.

            The songs joined, wove together in an intricate harmony, and all wound about the silver links and the strands of hair run through them, and Sam could see those three hairs braiding together—the Lady Arwen’s almost black, Glorfindel’s golden as the Sun, and that of Missus Esmeralda Took Brandybuck a warm brown much like that of Merry himself, far longer in truth than it at first appeared, as curly as it was.

            Glorfindel joined them, and he sang of the futility of those who believe that the ability to inflict death indicates they hold power, for Life is more than merely the life of the body.  The song swelled in its own power, and the gem held between the hands of Man and Elf maiden gleamed in light that entered through the curtains and was reflected by the mirrors used earlier to increase the light on Elrond’s cutting.  Meliangiloreth was singing now, too, of healing offered by time and the skilled caring of others.  The door opened again, and the harpist Lindir ushered in the three Hobbits who’d waited outside the room, Merry clutching the wooden tray holding the Ring close to him as he assured himself that Frodo yet lived and was recovering even as they sang.  Bilbo raised a children’s song about the alphabet and how letters weave together to form words, and how with words we can say anything we wish.  Pippin started singing a shepherd’s song about searching for and finding a lost sheep, and how glad the shepherd was to find the one out of a hundred who had wandered away and put itself into danger but was now safe once more.  And Merry was singing one of the songs sung in Buckland and the Marish about the River, and how it runs forever, rising and falling but never truly failing.  Lindir drew a small harp from his shoulder and began weaving its silver tones into the music, and again the power swelled about the chain, and the hairs wove themselves more tightly together.  Three crystal beads were worked into the clasp, Sam saw, and he realized that each was a gem in its own right.  When there was need they would allow the clasp to open readily; otherwise they would guard the chain’s integrity.  And he was glad, and sang more strongly of hearth and home, and gardens growing bright and full of color and scent beneath Sun and Moon….

            The smith gave Sam a significant look, and the gardener moved aside the silk on the tray to reveal the Ring, and he lifted It up, allowing the smith to drop the chain through Its circle and to engage the clasp.  The smith surrendered the chain to Strider, who took a deep breath, and after a moment the Man carefully slipped it over Frodo’s head, allowing the Ring to lie against Frodo’s breast.

            Frodo took a long, shuddering breath, and his fingers lifted of their own volition to gently touch the metal.  The furrow between his brows smoothed, and his expression became more solemn, almost sad.  But he turned his head and relaxed into a deeper, truer sleep as the songs began to fade away until only Bilbo’s voice could still be heard, singing the names of the letters in turn.

XIII

            Gandalf ushered the Hobbits out of Frodo’s room this time and down to the dining hall.  “Eat!” he directed.  “And then afterwards go outside for a time!  Go take that pony of yours some great treat, for he needs both the surety of your company and your assurance that all now goes well with Frodo.  And take an extra apple or two for my horse.  I am told he has been staying close by your pony and Bilbo’s as well.  You will know him easily enough—he is a great silver creature of especial lordliness.  His name is Shadowfax, and he is from Rohan, where he was the lord of the horse herds of the Rohirrim.  Tell him that I will come to see him when I am able.  You will do that?  Good!”  And with that he hurried back toward the room in which Frodo slept.

            All was a-bustle when they quitted the dining hall, the pockets of Sam, Merry, and Pippin filled with apples and carrots to share with all beasts of burden they might come across.  Bilbo left them as they entered the main hall.  “I think that I will go back and sit by Frodo for a time.  You three go along now—I will see to it he remains well.”

            They agreed, and he disappeared back toward the living quarters.  Sam watched after him thoughtfully.  “Old Mr. Bilbo’s aged some since he left the Shire,” he noted, “although I swear as him still don’t look that much over eighty.”

            Pippin was nodding his agreement.  “If, as Gandalf tells us, that it’s the Ring that’s kept him appearing young all this time, but he’s finally beginning to tire as older folk do, I wonder what would happen if the Ring were to be destroyed.”  He gave his cousin and Sam a troubled look.  “Do you think that that Ring can be destroyed?  How could it be done, do you think?”

            Sam shrugged, remembering Gandalf telling Frodo that his own parlor fire wouldn’t be anywhere near hot enough to do any harm to the Ring, and Frodo’s surprise to find It was still cool when the Wizard dropped it into his hand from the fire-tongs.  “Don’t know as I could even guess,” he answered.  “But I certainly hope as these great ones can get that done!  The world’ll be far better served with It out of the way for good and all, if I can say so as perhaps shouldn’t.”

            Lindir was hurrying across the entrance hall as they approached the door, but paused at Merry’s hail.  “I may not stay to talk,” he explained.  “Already visitors approach from down the High Pass—Elves, Men, and Dwarves, apparently.  I must so advise Lord Elrond, for each company, I am told, is filled with dread and purpose.  And other parties arrived but last night from Mithlond and Lindon and the Breelands.  If you go out, be careful of the Men and Dwarves, for I fear that they will be much distracted and they may not heed you.  If you will pardon me….”  And he continued upon his way, sped on by the need to impart his message.

            A party of five Dwarves was crossing the bridge once they came out into the forecourt, and they heard one of the Elves identifying them to another of his kind as coming from above Fornost and from the Blue Mountains, which Sam knew to lie somewhere west of the Shire.  It was where Thorin Oakenshield and the other Dwarves who’d gone with Bilbo had dwelt during their exile from the Lonely Mountain, as he remembered the tale.  But Fornost—where was that?  Somewhere north, maybe?  The Elf who’d asked about the Dwarves was not one he’d seen before in his brief explorations of the Last Homely House, so perhaps he was one of those Lindir had indicated had arrived the previous evening.  Two Men were coming from the stables as they approached it, and they were speaking so between themselves they did not appear to note the Hobbits until they were almost past them, casting curious glances behind them but not stopping to do more.

            Bill was out in the pasture again, and looked up as they approached, obviously pleased to see them and coming to the fence to greet them, as did the old pony Sam now knew to be Bilbo’s own steed.  There were several horses in the pasture, most of whom didn’t bother to give the Hobbits any attention, although Asfaloth and a great silver-grey horse did pause in their grazing and drifted their way.

            “Is that Gandalf’s horse?” Merry asked.  “He’s a true beauty, whomsoever he might consider his master.”

            Sam gladly gave his treats to Bill, seeing to it that his companion and the two horses also got at least an apple and carrot each.  “Mr. Frodo’s doin’ well now, they say.  They finally managed to fetch that foul shard out of him, and he should waken soon, tomorrow by the latest, I’d think.  We want to thank you both, Bill and Asfaloth, for carryin’ him so true.  There’s no question as him wouldn’t be still with us if’n it hadn’t of been for the two of you.  And if’n you’re Mr. Gandalf’s horse, he asked us t’tell you as him’ll be out when he can to see you.  Right now he’s sittin’ by my Master, I do believe.  Here—would you like another apple?”

            If a horse could be said to appear amused, Sam could have sworn that was true of the great grey, although it accepted its tribute with gentle dignity before moving away to eat the apple with some semblance of privacy.  Bill and the other pony both accepted a good deal of rubbing of ears, and the older beast reached out to steal an apple out of Pippin’s hand just as the young Took was preparing to take a bite.

            “Hey!” Pippin objected as the old pony triumphantly crunched its prize.

            The three Hobbits drifted back to the house and found a sunny terrace where they could smoke in peace, quietly expressing their relief that the shard had finally been bested.  Sam described the operation as briefly as he could, and the others listened avidly. 

            Merry shook his head.  “I suppose that it’s best I wasn’t there to see,” he said, “as I’d probably have fainted dead away once Lord Elrond put that knife to Frodo’s shoulder.”

            “Well, I did faint away,” Sam told him, “but not till it was all over.”

            “At least Frodo wasn’t alone in there,” Pippin said, lying back on a bench in the sunshine.  “It’s definitely getting cooler now.  I think we’re seeing about the last of the sunny days that we’ll get.  No question that fall is well under way.”

            “Considerin’ how many Elves as was in there, I’d not say as Mr. Frodo was anywhere near alone,” Sam said.

            “You know what I mean—he wasn’t the only Hobbit there.  You’d help him not feel so alone with all those strange people around, even if he wasn’t properly awake.”

            Sam had to agree, even if he didn’t say so aloud.

            As he turned toward the building, he saw a new Elf, one dressed for riding, walking by, led by Lindir.  He wondered who this golden haired Elf with the magnificent longbow on his shoulder might be and where he might have come from.  When they went to the dining hall to get something to take with them back to Frodo’s room they found a group of Dwarves were already there, crystal mugs of ale in hand, plates on which lay bread rolls filled with sliced pork in front of them, and Sam was certain that he recognized the oldest one as one of those who’d stayed at Bag End during the Party.  As they left with their platters of provender on a great tray, Sam noted that they were being watched by a well dressed younger Man who’d stopped in the midst of a discussion with an Elf on one side and a Dwarf on the other, his eyes large with surprise to see the three of them.

            It would appear that the Last Homely House west of the mountains and east of the Sea was rapidly filling up with a wide selection of all of the Free Peoples of Middle Earth, and Sam found himself wondering what this gathering of guests to Lord Elrond’s home portended.

            Sam took the tray of food they’d amassed and headed for the room allotted to Frodo, for Merry and Pippin wished to leave their pipes in the quarters the two were sharing that they not be tempted to light them up in the sickroom.  He had been given a room of his own right next door to Frodo’s, not that he’d even bothered to examine it as yet, while the two cousins slept further down the hallway.   Strider stood holding Frodo’s right wrist to count his pulse, and appeared pleased, while Gandalf sat on the far side of the room, watching all with interest.

            After putting the tray on the table near the chair where Bilbo sat, Sam settled himself as he’d done so often on the bed beside Frodo’s pillow, holding his Master’s left hand.  “It’s cold, but not like ice,” he observed softly, gently running his fingertips over the cool skin.

            Gandalf nodded, giving a slight smile as he examined Frodo’s face.  “Life is returning to it, but it may take time before it is as it was before,” he said thoughtfully.  “There is color returning to his cheeks, and the green tinge has receded.  And,” he added, “he’s swallowing normally now, and attempting to roll independently.”

            Sam looked questioningly at the Wizard’s face.  “That’s all to the good, ain’t it?” he asked.

            “Certainly.”

            “Will he wake up today?”

            Strider answered, shaking his head, “I doubt it.  Indeed, Master Elrond told me that he would most likely not awaken until sometime tomorrow morning.  For the moment he still lies deep in a healing sleep, but he should transition to a more normal slumber during the night.”

            “Will he need more of them boluses?”

            “No,” the Ranger responded.  “Now that he is able to swallow properly we will resume the frequent drinks of draughts and broths.”

            Gandalf added, “He even was able to relieve himself properly not long ago.”

            Sam felt a good deal of relief.

            Merry and Pippin arrived, Pippin with a handful of late chrysanthemums and sprays of red and gold leaves in a crystal holder.  “Meliangiloreth helped me find a vase for these,” he said, setting them on the table near the hearth.  “They should make the room cheerful.”

            They were heartening to see, Sam had to admit.

            Once Strider coaxed Frodo to drink a cup of tea and was assured that Frodo was resting peacefully, he left, telling the Hobbits that he would return in time.  The four Hobbits ate and talked quietly, Gandalf listening but saying little.  Somehow it was enough to merely be there, knowing that the great danger was past, and that Frodo was merely sleeping now, and that they could all hear him breathing regularly.  After a pause in their talk Pippin began to sing a lullaby that most Hobbit mothers sang to their children, and the others joined in.

            There was no question—Frodo was definitely smiling in his sleep, and Sam felt his heart lighten at the sight.

XIV

            Lord Elrond came in and examined Frodo fully, and announced that Frodo’s heart and lungs were now functioning normally and that his strength was returning to him.  “From what I can tell, he ought to make nearly a full recovery, although it is likely he will continue to know pain in his shoulder for some time, and particularly when the weather is beginning to change or when it is very cold, or when he is under deep stress.  Deep wounds involving the muscles can take years to recover, if they ever do.  There is now some color to his left arm, and it is warming, if slowly.  It will take perhaps another day or two before it returns to normal, and he will need to exercise the arm and hand before he will be able to use them fully.  We will probably give him a sling to wear for a few days, at least for those times when the shoulder causes him noticeable pain.  I must say again that I am impressed with how quickly he recovers.  Were he a Man, or even an Elf, it would be highly unlikely that he would have recovered anywhere as well as he has.  Hobbits are indeed most amazing creatures, as Mithrandir has repeated so often to me.”

            “He’s a Baggins,” Bilbo stated, as if that were all the explanation required.  “He’s a most persistent and proper Baggins, and fully aware of his responsibilities.”

            Elrond gave the old Hobbit an indulgent smile.  “I will remind you now to return to your own bed to sleep tonight.  He will recover the better once he wakens if he finds that you are well and strong and not fretting over him.”

            Merry asked, “Will he remember what’s happened to him—the boluses and the weakness and all?”

            The Peredhel shook his head.  “It is unlikely to happen.  Although he may remember some of what was said around him while he was unconscious.  We have always been amazed at what the person who has been in a coma or prolonged sleep may have heard and understood while we were certain he was unaware.  What is distressing is what was heard that was not fully understood or only heard in part, for sometimes that has led to misunderstandings that can be difficult for the patient.”

            Pippin looked down on his cousin.  “At least he is recovering and returning to us.  It couldn’t have been expected, I understand, anywhere but here.”

            “Not within Middle Earth, at least,” agreed Elrond.  “I rejoice that he was so strong that you were able to arrive in time.  Now I must go, for there are others who need my care now within the valley or approaching it.  But for now….” 

            Elrond leaned over Frodo once more, resting his hand against the side of the Hobbit’s throat, noting the strength of the pulse.  At last he straightened.  “I am yet amazed at how quickly he is returning to health,” he said with a gentle smile.  “If all who came through these halls were Hobbits, how far more pleasant it could be, I think.”  He gave a slight bow of respect toward the sleeping form of Frodo Baggins, and withdrew.

            Strider looked briefly at Gandalf.  “I must go, for one of those from the Breelands has come with word for me.  You will send for me if he shows any signs of distress or of waking?  I do not believe he will waken before tomorrow, but stranger things have happened.”

            “I promise, Aragorn.  Go and see to your news, and get some rest.  He will do well, now that he feels all is put aright in his world once more.”

            Shortly before the dinner gong was due to sound those who had sung over Frodo before gathered one more time.  The first song they sang was the invocation for healing with which the Hobbits were already so well familiar, and the second, sung again by the woman who appeared to be a scribe of some sort, appeared to be a hymn of thanksgiving.  The smith leaned over Frodo and laid his hand over the chain, and gave a nod of satisfaction.  “The chain appears to be containing the influence of the Ring well,” he commented to Gandalf, who shared his appreciation for the effectiveness of his work.

            The Lady Arwen came to sit with Frodo while the others went off to eat, and Gandalf accompanied them as far as the dining hall.  “Eat heartily, my friends, for I must speak with Elrond and those newly come from Lindon.”  So saying, he grasped his staff and headed down a passageway that Sam suspected led to the living quarters for the Master of Rivendell and his family. 

            Not even Pippin wished to linger over his supper that evening, and soon the four Hobbits returned to sit by Frodo’s side, all desiring to be there when he finally awoke.  They were largely quiet now, all watching the sleeping Hobbit closely, each hoping to be the first to notice when Frodo’s eyes might begin to flutter.  Not long after midnight they began to falter.  Bilbo dozed in his chair with his feet upon the footstool.  Pippin at last sprawled across the foot of Frodo’s bed, sleeping in spite of himself.  Merry now sat in Sam’s accustomed place beside Frodo’s pillow, holding Frodo’s hand between his own, although his head lolled to the side and it appeared he was snoring softly.  Sam sat upright on his pallet, his arms wrapped about his knees, doing his best to stay awake.  Lady Arwen sat in the far chair with her embroidery, and from time to time she would look over the collection of drowsing Hobbits and would give Sam a fond and reassuring smile.

            “I assure you, Master Samwise,” she murmured, “that all is well with him, and that he is unlikely to rouse until some hours after dawn.”

            Still Sam persisted in the vigil, although he roused several times to find he, too, had begun to drowse with his head against his upraised knees.

            The last time this happened, the Lady was folding up her embroidery and stowing it within her sewing bag, then snapping shut the container from which she took her beads and adding it to the bag as well.  She rose and set her hand on Frodo’s brow, leaning carefully across Merry that she not rouse him unnecessarily.  “He is in a true sleep now,” she said softly, “and his current dream is one that comforts him.”  She straightened, and examined Frodo’s face thoughtfully.  “He is remarkably fair,” she commented.  “If I did not know better I might take him for one of our own children.  Not,” she added, “that I have seen such a child for many lifetimes of mortals.  We of the Eldar rarely choose to conceive children when times are uncertain.”

            “Have you any children, my lady?” Sam asked.

            She gave a soft laugh and shook her head.  “I have not married.  Only one has ever managed to stir my heart, but a doom has been laid upon him not to take any wife until peace is established within Middle Earth.  And who knows when that day might come?  Although,” she added, her face growing more distant, “the time approaches when, if it is to be, that goal might—just might—be met.”  She turned her head to meet Sam’s gaze.  “Shall we strive together toward that goal, think you, Master Samwise?”

            He felt flustered and breathless, and ducked his head self-consciously.  He gazed at the draped window.  “Wonder what time it is?” he said aloud.

            “Perhaps an hour before dawn,” she answered him.  “I wonder you are as awake as you are, considering that none save Master Frodo here is lying comfortably.”

            Sam’s stomach rumbled, and he shrugged as he rose from the pallet.  “We’d all do with some food, and perhaps a good cup of tea to set the mind a-workin’ straight,” he said.  “I think as I’ll go to the kitchens and see if’n I can find those for us.”

            After straightening his clothing as best he might, he gave her a bow and left, going first to the room of refreshment and then off to fetch back first breakfast for himself and his companions.

            As he was returning, the doorway to the room on the near side of that assigned to himself opened, and Strider emerged, although he paused, halfway out, to speak to someone within.  “He appears to be recovering fairly well, but he has been under the Shadow for some time.  Encourage him to rest, Faradir, and send word to Elianen that he will return home perhaps within a week’s time.”  With that, the Man emerged into the hallway, closing the door softly after him.

            “Someone you know in there?” Sam asked.

            Strider examined the laden tray, his eyes widening at the amount of food upon it.  “You do not intend to stint yourself, then?” he responded, although the smile of amusement took away any hint of criticism.

            “The others’ll be wakin’ up in a minute or two.”  Sam gave a meaningful glance again at the door.

            The Man shrugged.  “Some of my own men arrived last night from the patrol they were conducting around the borders of the Shire.  They could not come as quickly as we did, even, for they, too, brought away with them one who had received a Morgul wound similar to that inflicted upon Frodo, and another two who suffered from the Black Breath.  One of those two is the only one of the three who survived to arrive here, and he was weak and fading before they reached the valley.  They stayed two weeks in a safe house we hold in Bree.  Had I known that they were there I could have perhaps succored them there that night we stayed at the Prancing Pony.  But I cannot know all, I fear!  I am alarmed, for our ability to communicate with one another is anything but good, it appears.  I am needed on so many fronts at once, yet I am but one Man!”

            “Is him goin’ to recover?”

            The Ranger nodded.  “They arrived in time.  He had begun to recover, it appeared, but on the day when we reached the Ford his mind began to wander, and he began to suffer from bouts of memories of the Black Riders attacking them as they sought to enter the Shire.  He began to rave, and it was all they could do to soothe him and to coax him to come further.  Three days ago he failed to rouse when they went to break their camp, and they have had to stop frequently to warm him.  He did not accept any food for over a day and a half, and he almost strangled when they tried to get him to drink.”

            Remembering how Frodo had been the evening before the shard was removed, Sam shivered.  “More of your folk are lost, then,” he observed.

            “Yes.”  There was a world of grief in that one small word.  “Our numbers had begun to increase at long last, but now again they wane once more.  How we are to reestablish our people I cannot say at this point.  The final doom, for good or ill, approaches.  Come—let us see how Frodo is doing.”

            When they entered the room Merry sat on the chair the Lady had vacated, scrubbing at his eyes with the backs of his hands, while Arwen sat in his stead beside the pillow, coaxing a drowsing Frodo to drink from an invalid’s cup, Frodo still quite obviously not awake.  Bilbo was watching him avidly, while Pippin, obviously still drowsy and bemused himself, sat upright at the foot of the bed stretching, one arm over his head and the other scratching at the opposite shoulder under his braces strap, yawning hugely.

            Strider looked around the room, shaking his head in dismay.  “A sorry looking lot the four of you make,” he said.  “It is obvious that not one of you has had a decent night’s sleep.  What is Frodo going to think when he comes properly awake and sees you all exhausted?”

            “What indeed?” asked Elrond from the doorway as he paused on entering, surveying them all with a severe expression.  “You were told that he will most likely not properly awaken until later this morning, yet you stayed by him all night as if he might do so at any moment?”

            Merry flushed.  “You can’t blame us for it, can you, my lord?  He’s been ill for so very long, you know.”

            Elrond entered, followed by Gandalf, who carried a large earthenware mug between his hands.  “And you will do him no good by becoming ill yourselves!  I see that Master Samwise has brought you all a decent looking first breakfast.  Eat it, and that goes for you, also, Aragorn, and then see to it that you all repair to your own rooms to sleep.  And that that goes for you as well, Master Samwise.  You do have a room of your own that has been prepared for your use all during your stay—go to it.  He is in no more danger, and will only worry if he awakens to find you still sitting by him as if he might need nursing at any moment.  Let him find you rested and confident, and he will find himself feeling rested and confident as well.”  He looked into Arwen’s lovely face, and his own face softened.  “He has drunk the draught, sell nín?”

            “Yes, Ada, and I doubt that he will need more.  I do not believe that I have seen anyone recover so rapidly from such a surgery.”

            She gently resettled Frodo’s head upon his pillow, and stood up, allowing her father to take her place.  He felt the Hobbit’s forehead, and then checked the pulse and heartbeat, allowing his hand to remain rested on Frodo’s breast to feel the steady rise and fall of it as the Baggins breathed.  He smiled, apparently fully satisfied with Frodo’s condition.  “He does very well indeed.  He won’t sleep much longer, but it will be yet a few hours.”  He straightened and managed to look both kindly and stern at the same time.  “You have heard my orders for the rest of you.  Mithrandir has agreed to stay by Master Frodo until he wakens—the rest of you are to eat and then to repair to your own quarters.  Do you understand?”

            Reluctantly, the four Hobbits agreed, and with a final nod to confirm he expected his orders to be followed exactly, Elrond accompanied his daughter out of the room, his arm about her shoulders with a display of affection that Sam watched with pleased surprise.

            Strider looked about at his companions and gave a wry smile.  “You have heard him, gentlemen,” he said.  “Sam, did you bring any of the bacon?  And is there enough tea for me to join you?”

            While they ate, two maidens arrived to see the room cleaned, and they left carrying away Sam’s pallet and blankets.  After they’d finished eating, Strider beckoned Sam, Merry, and Pippin out into the hallway, indicating that Pippin should bring out the tray on which Sam had brought their meal.

            “Before you ask, I will say yes, I agree with Master Elrond that he will most likely awaken today, and perhaps within a couple of hours.  But none of us will do him any good hanging over his bed until his eyes open.  All of you require rest, as does Bilbo as well.  The old fellow has barely left his side since we arrived, you know.  Sam, I rely on you to get Bilbo to his rooms and make certain he lies down.  He’s weaving just sitting there in a chair!  And then, once he is asleep, you are to return to the chamber given you and do the same.  Now,” he said, allowing the others no time to argue, “that is what you are to do.  Go, get something to set out for yourselves to eat when you waken, and get some rest yourselves.  Gandalf can watch over him.”

            “And what about you?” demanded Sam.

            Aragorn gave a tired laugh.  “Do you think I have not received similar orders?  A wise individual knows when to accept orders when they are for the best for everyone.  Now, off with you!”

            Merry and Pippin conferred briefly, then set off for the dining hall to return the tray and their used dishes and perhaps bring back some fruit or a roll or two for later, while Strider directed Sam to reenter the room to fetch Bilbo out.  All paused briefly to examine the Elf who was approaching them, the newcomer that Sam had seen twice the day before with Lindir.  Sam thought he somehow looked considerably younger than most of those Elves he’d seen so far, with a smooth face and regal bearing.  He looked over his shoulder briefly as Strider gave him a push inside, and saw that the Man was already turning to speak with the Elf, giving a respectful bow of the head that the Elf was returning in kind.

            “And what is it, Samwise Gamgee?” Gandalf asked as he helped Bilbo to his feet.

            “One of them Elves as come yesterday’s in the hallway, speakin’ with old Strider,” Sam explained.  “I didn’t know as some Elves can seem so much younger than others.”

            “Not all Elves are the same age, after all, Sam.  What did you expect?”

            Sam shrugged.  “I’m to see Mr. Bilbo here to his rooms and into his own bed afore I go to my own,” he said.

            Bilbo’s mouth closed in a straight line.  “I am hardly a faunt to need someone to serve as my nursemaid, Samwise Gamgee!” he objected.

            The Wizard laughed.  “No one thinks anything of the kind, my very old friend.  But if I know you, you would merely linger in the Hall of Fire until you were certain no one was watching any more, and then slip back, being thrice as exhausted once Frodo here awakens than you are now!  Besides, you deserve some coddling yourself, Bilbo.  Let Sam feel that he’s doing good for someone, and he will rest the better himself.  He looks as if he didn’t sleep even as much as you did last night!”

            Bilbo was inclined to argue for a time longer, but it was obvious that his sleep in the chair had not been restful for him, and at last, still rebellious, he allowed Sam to shepherd him out the door.  “You heard Master Elrond and Mr. Gandalf and Strider here, Mr. Bilbo—we’re all to rest that we not be too anxious when Mr. Frodo wakes up again.  Now, I’m charged to see you to your own rooms afore I go off to mine.  Tell you what—you can give me a cup o’ tea, see?”

            Bilbo growled, “But I feel so guilty, knowing that if I’d not left that for him to deal with he’d not have been so wounded!  Oh, all right, Samwise Gamgee.  Although I never thought I would see the day I was taking orders from the gardener!”  He nodded up at Aragorn.  “And if I’m to rest, you’d best do so as well, lad.  You’ve been as attentive as the rest of us, and with less sleep!” 

            He caught sight of the Elf at that moment, and stopped, his attention arrested.  “My word,” he whispered.  “You’re here!  All the way from Mirkwood!  And do you still like honeycakes, my Prince?  If so, I will see to it some are sent to your rooms with my compliments, as I remember I took one or two from your plate on occasion.  Welcome, welcome to Rivendell, and I so hope to see more of you before you must away again!”  With that he suffered Sam to lead him away, his face alight.  “And that,” he confided, “is one of the Princes of Mirkwood, Sam my lad!  Who would expect to see him here in Master Elrond’s house?”

            “I’m not certain as why you’re surprised, Mr. Bilbo, sir,” Sam answered.  “Seems as a good number of folk is come here the last few days.  There’s Elves, Men, and Dwarves here from all over Middle Earth, it seems like.  Now, which way is your rooms?  Doesn’t seem to be near here.”

            “Oh, my rooms are down that way,” Bilbo said, indicating the direction to take.  “I’m not too far from the rooms given to the Dúnadan, really, although not precisely along the same hallway.”

            It took some time to see the old fellow settled into his bed, and they both forgot about the tea in the end.  By the time Sam found his way back to Frodo’s room again he was exhausted, but he still slipped into Frodo’s room and eased himself into his usual place by Frodo’s pillow, and took his left hand into his own once more.  “It’s still cool, but it’s definitely warmer,” he murmured softly.

            “Indeed,” Gandalf said.  “And why are you not in your own bed?  There will be a feast tonight, followed by music in the Hall of Fire.  You do not wish to be too sleepy to attend.”

            Sam merely shook his head.  “I just want to sit by him, and make certain as him’s all right.  It’s good to see some color in his lips, especially as pale as he was yesterday morning.”

            The Wizard shook his head, but said no more, and the two of them sat quietly, awaiting the waking of Frodo Baggins.  Sam’s head would grow heavy from time to time until he jerked himself awake once more, and each time Gandalf would sigh but hold his tongue.

            Meliangiloreth paused as she entered Frodo’s room.  “I regret to say, small Master, that I have been directed to see to it that you sleep this time in your own quarters.  Here—let me show you.  You will find your room quite comfortable, and you will sleep the better for knowing peace about you.”

            Gandalf gave him a reassuring smile.  “Go and rest, Sam.  You have done so well by him, and you may be certain that I will tell him so.  Go with Meliangiloreth, and be at peace, even as he is.”

            The room prepared for him was much like Frodo’s, and seemed uncomfortably large for Sam all by himself.  The headboard of the bed was carved, much as was Frodo’s; but the lady whose countenance was depicted upon it was quite different.  She carried a basket filled with flowers and fruits and walked amongst trees, and there was a border of vines, leaves, and nuts all about the edges of it.  He felt that she was familiar somehow, and he noted with approval that her feet, although bare of a Hobbit’s curls, were still unshod, blessing the grass across which she walked under the overarching boughs.

            On the clothes press lay the outfit he’d worn between Bree and here, all clean and repaired, smelling of sweet air with a faint, comforting hint of woodsmoke.  His cloak, also refreshed, hung over the back of a low chair near the fireplace, and his pack rested on a settle.  He felt an unexpected lightening to his heart, realizing that all his things were here, and safe.  A new set of brushes lay on the low washstand alongside the basin and ewer, in which the water was warm; and a stepstool stood by the bed to give him easier access to it.  He gave the hair on his head and feet a quick brush, used one of the thick face flannels to wash his face and neck, and pulled off his clothing, setting the garments neatly on the bench at the foot of the bed.  One of the nightshirts he’d worn since his arrival lay over one end of the bench, and he drew it on.  It smelled faintly of violets, and he smiled—how like home that was!  At last he climbed up onto that great bed and laid himself down, pulled the bedding over him, and settled back against the pillows.  A modest fire burned upon the hearth, not too hot, and just bright enough to be cheerful.  He watched it burning for a time, and failed to notice how swiftly a deep, comfortable sleep gathered him into its arms.

            In his dreams he and Frodo strolled through the marketplace in Hobbiton, laughing together, until he saw his Rosie coming toward him, a basket of sweet breads from the baker on her arm, her eyes fixed on him, and her smile warm as sunlight.  And how pleased his Master appeared to be, knowing how happy they were, he and Rosie Cotton.

XV

            When he awoke a meal awaited him, light by Hobbit standards but still filling.  He ate and dressed, and went out intending to visit the room of refreshment.  Merry and Pippin were in the hallway, however, facing Gandalf and Lord Elrond, and it was plain that the Brandybuck and the Took were not happy.

            “And why can’t we see him now?” Merry was demanding.

            “Because he has returned to sleep.”

            Pippin’s voice was insistent as he argued, “But he’s done nothing but sleep for days!  Just how much more sleep does he need?”

            The Master of Rivendell gave one of those shrugs that no mortal could ever properly imitate.  “His body has undergone a number of shocks over the past few weeks, and it will not mend in a day.  We only removed the shard yesterday----”

            Merry jumped in, “But you said he should awaken today!”

            “And so he did.”

            “But no one sent for us!”

            “He was not yet ready to deal with excitement.  He will be allowed to come to the feast tonight, but it is still likely that he will find himself feeling overwhelmed, even though the meal shall be fairly formal and peaceful by the standards of mortals.  And if it appears that he is beginning to flag or grow stressed he will be encouraged to return to his room to sleep again. 

            “Know this—we in this house are able to encourage healing and more rapid recovery from most illnesses and wounds, but there is a limit to how swiftly the body can rebuild that which was damaged.  As a Hobbit, he can be expected to heal already more rapidly than would a Man or a Dwarf, and I suspect that the Ring Itself has played a part in the fact he is reported to have been seldom ill since It came to him.  It may also seek to lend Its power to his recovery now, for It undoubtedly wishes him stronger that It might lead him where It would go or to those It can influence to take It from him and speed It on Its way back to Its Master.  There is little enough that It can do while inside this valley, for Its Master has never had power here.  In spite of that, however, It has still sought to capture the attention of several of my people, although not since It was placed upon the chain from which It now hangs.  So, Its best strategy at this point would be to bring him back to health and strength as rapidly as possible so that he can be encouraged to leave our boundaries.  But such apparent rapid healing can be illusory.  If he can be encouraged to believe he is stronger than he actually is and more capable than what he can actually do, that works to Its advantage.  He already spoke with Gandalf more than was wise, and his sleep as a result is deeper yet less restful than I wish to see in him so early in his recovery.  The faster his wounds heal, the more energy it drains from him.  Between what we have done to see the cut flesh knit and what the Ring might be doing to him, he will need a good deal of rest and good food.  And there will be the council tomorrow to which he must come.  We do not wish the draining of his energy involved in his healing to impair his ability to reason or to speak in a politic manner.”

            “What council?” asked Merry.

            Elrond indicated the whole of his house about them.  “Many have come from throughout the northern lands, and from both sides of the Hithaeglir.  What little we have learned so far indicates that Mordor’s messengers have come to many doors demanding information on Halflings and Baggins.  We must learn what it is that they seek, and why they want word of where lies the Shire.”

            “They already found that.”  Merry’s voice was flat, and Sam realized that this news frightened the Master’s son and heir.

            “We know.” 

            The three Hobbits and the peredhil lord remained quiet for a time, all of them thinking on the implications of what Elrond had just told them.  The door to the room opened and Bilbo came out to join them, his quick intelligence noting the tension that those gathered here showed.  At last Gandalf spoke.  “He will most likely sleep now until late afternoon, after which I shall be encouraging him to rise and go outside into the open air some before the feast.  Too long has he been confined to a single room and a bed.  He needs now to be up and doing—some.  From what I remember of Lord Boromir after the shard of a similar knife was removed from his shoulder, he was somewhat disoriented once he awoke, and it took three days before he was fully himself again.  Frodo appears to be perfectly aware, but still you can see that even as you speak with him his eyes will go somewhat unfocused.  I saw no indication that his ability to follow a conversation is badly affected, but still he is not yet fully oriented to his surroundings.  To be reintroduced to full involvement with life too rapidly may prove as stressful as the possible draining effect of rapid healing upon his body, whether induced by the inhabitants of this valley or by the Ring.”

            Now he spoke directly to Merry and Pippin.  “So, my friends, I suggest that you two go out upon one of the balconies nearby and wait.  I have promised Elrond here that I shall not smoke around Frodo unless he is fully awake.  However, once that happens I intend to remind him of what he knows to be comfortable by smoking in his presence.  If there is one thing that I have realized in my life of dealing with peoples of all races, those memories associated with certain odors can provoke emotions and reactions that can work to both the good and the ill.  And one’s thoughts affect one’s ability to heal.  The odor of pipe weed reminds him that he is a Hobbit of the Shire and that he has known comfort and relative safety all through his life.  Elrond has agreed that, in the hopes of more easily drawing him back to full awareness once more, we shall seek to use the scent of pipe smoke and good food to inspire him to emotional as well as physical recovery.  So, keep an eye on the window, and when you see the smoke of my pipe be ready to greet him as you ordinarily would on his rousing from a nap.  And, Sam, go with them, and when you see the smoke, go to the kitchens to fetch the tray they will have ready.  He will need a light repast to sustain him until he is brought to the feast.”

            “Will you join them, mellon nín?” Elrond asked Bilbo.

            But the old Hobbit shook his head.  “No—it’s becoming too cold for these old bones.  Let the young ones go outside so late in the season—I am thinking of going into the Hall of Fire.  Lindir has challenged me to finish that lay I began so precipitously at Midsummer and perhaps present it to the company after the feast.  And I will be honest—I find I do not enjoy feasts as much as I once did.  Just fairly plain food, and plenty of it, is enough for me.  Oh, that is with a measure of good wine, of course.  If the Prince of Mirkwood was sufficiently thoughtful to bring you as a gift a few bottles of Dorwinion wine, I will admit that that would be quite the treat.  It was very good, as I recall it.  By the way, did those in the kitchens send him an extra plate of honey buns as I requested?  I do feel that I owe him those.  I will admit that when I was caught inside his father’s fortress I became far too cheeky and would steal them right off of his plate.”  Then, turning toward the others, “And when you see him, do not tell Frodo that I am here.  Let me be a pleasant surprise!  It shall be my way of paying him back for the days of worry and waiting he has cost all of us.  After us waiting by his bedside most of the night, for him to wake up and speak for a time with Gandalf and then right back off to sleep again?  Now, that is just too bad—too bad indeed!”  And off he went, muttering, “I suspect I shall need to call upon the Dúnadan to help me, of course.  He is always clever at bettering my rhymes.”

            Elrond watched after him, and commented softly, “I do not believe the good weather we have known will hold that much longer, not if he is deciding not to attend a feast.  His leg tends to ache when it is about to change.  But we should be well entertained this evening.  His poetry is quite good, you must understand, although he never believes us when we tell him that.”  He smiled down at the others.  “Mithrandir’s is a good plan, small Masters.  Now, if you will excuse me—I promised to look in at Estel’s Ranger.  To remain so long under the Black Breath and yet survive is unusual.”  He gave them a graceful inclination of his head, and turned toward the door beyond Sam’s, where he knocked and went in.

            They went to the dining hall to fetch away some cold meats, a platter of vegetable strips with a mayonnaise to dip them in, and quartered apples and pears drizzled with a light syrup to refresh themselves with.  Pippin managed to obtain a pitcher of light ale and a few mugs for them to share, and they found their way out to a balcony from which they could watch Frodo’s windows to wait.  Perhaps the weather was due to change in a day or two, but for now it was fair, they were in the most comfortable and hospitable house in all of Eriador, and Frodo would awaken soon.

            Sam nibbled at a quartered apple and sipped from his mug and watched the window.  Soon his Master should awaken, this time properly, and they would be treated to a fine meal tonight, with Mr. Frodo as the guest of honor.  He closed his eyes and let the slanted sunshine bathe his face.  Now it should be the adventure they had all hoped for, and soon, he thought, they would be able to go home again.  Home, and to be reunited with Rosie Cotton once more.  He’d not wait long, he decided.  No, he’d not wait long at all, not once they were back in the Shire—or at least in Buckland.  She ought to like the Crickhollow house.  They could settle there with Mr. Frodo, and the two of them would do for him.  And perhaps his Master would now feel free at long last to court Miss Narcissa as had loved Mr. Frodo for so very long, now that he would soon be shut of the Ring.  And he smiled as he imagined Narcissa Boffin, now Missus Narcissa Baggins, with a group of proper Baggins children about her skirts, sitting in the dooryard with Rosie, both of them shelling peas and laughing together, Rosie with a babe in a basket at her feet….

            But somewhere in the back of his mind he realized that just perhaps it wouldn’t be that easy.  That Ring had took his Master—took him firmly, It had.  And it was very likely that it wouldn’t be easy to find someone else suitable to see to the end of the foul thing.  If that should prove to be true, what would he do?

            That’s easy enough, he thought.  Until his Master was certain that the plans for the Ring were right enough that he could give It over easily to someone else, he would stay right by Mr. Frodo’s side.  That, after all, was what he’d always wanted to do, where he’d wanted to be.  No, until Mr. Frodo was ready to go home, unfortunately Rosie Cotton and their plans for the future would have to wait.  And they would—they would.

Author’s Notes

            Another small nuzgul with ears on this proved to be, and again a very persistent one.  I found it sitting beside the dryer looking quite pathetic and winsome.  Some of the smaller nuzguls will persist on disguising themselves as simple plotbunnies, and instead of writing a chapter or two I’ll find myself going off into a minor novella instead!

            We know from the Master that it took four days and two tries to get the shard of the Morgul blade out of Frodo’s shoulder, and that they were unable to successfully remove it until the very last possible moment.  Yet Frodo made an amazing recovery—the day after the shard was removed he awoke at ten o’clock in the morning to find Gandalf sitting by him and talked with him at length, then fell back asleep until late afternoon, dressed, joined his friends out on a terrace or balcony, and together were taken to a feast to celebrate the fact that Frodo had recovered.  A bit easier to believe, I suppose, than that after two weeks of induced healing coma he and Sam were taken out to be acclaimed by the Army of the West and the three greatest Lords among Men present after but a small breaking of their long fast, and then were allowed to dress in accordance to their new stations and brought to an outdoor feast.

            But what were those five days like for the four Hobbits who we are told spent much of their time watching by the side of an unconscious Frodo Baggins?  If Frodo was indeed at the point of joining the wraith-world with the Black Riders, I would think that all were in states of great anxiety. 

            For Merry and Pippin, the cousin who was like a much older brother to the two of them was on the point of being lost to them.  They obviously loved him dearly, and had conceived of that conspiracy to make certain he never slipped off out of the Shire alone.  They’d convinced Sam to join in the conspiracy and to spy on Frodo for them, and undoubtedly had browbeaten him into teaching them how to spy on him also when they were present in Hobbiton.  They’d hied off out of the Shire by his side, insisting that he needed them to survive the adventure he’d taken on.  And they did all of this secretly, with their parents, four of the most prominent and important of Hobbits in Shire society, ignorant of their plans.

            Bilbo must have felt unutterable guilt at realizing that he’d passed on such a terrible burden to this one who’d become the son of his heart.  To learn that Frodo had been pursued and wounded to the point of worse than death must have torn at him terribly.  We are told that he stayed at Frodo’s side through much of the time the younger Baggins was unconscious, but at the last moment decided to spend the time of the feast in the Hall of Fire instead, finishing up the Lay of Eärendil with a plate and bottle at his side. 

            And there was Sam—dear, not-so-simple-after-all Samwise Gamgee, who interrupted his courting of the fair Rose Cotton to leave the Shire at Frodo’s side, and who ended up spending better than half a year supporting his Master east and south into Mordor itself, tearing at his pretensions of  rustic ignorance and innocence, and going from confusing the sight of Caradhras for the Fiery Mountain he could barely understand to figuring out how to escape from a troop of orcs running to their dooms across the Morannon.  From a simple Hobbit gardener he rose to become Mayor of the Shire, the Master of Bag End and the Hill, Mr. Frodo’s heir and successor, an advisor to the High King, and a Prince of the West in his own right.  How did this transformation start?  Did most of it not begin there in Frodo’s sickroom?

            There aren’t a lot of stories out there of the removal of the shard from Frodo’s chest.  My favorite to date was the one by either Shirebound or Dreamflower in which they found they had to wait until the wraithing process was so far advanced that he’d begun to go invisible, making the shard visible to Elrond so that he at last knew precisely where to operate to excise it.  [Edited to add:  the aforementioned story is "By Chance or Purpose" by Shirebound.]  Not wishing to repeat such a theme, and not certain that the new wraith would immediately become invisible and shapeless, I had to imagine some other reason why the shard could not be removed the first time Elrond probed the nearly healed wound in search of it, and how they’d find it so precisely the second time.

            Some of the themes included in this tale I’ve been thinking on for quite some time, imagining some of them ever since the first time I picked up a copy of The Fellowship of the Ring in the late autumn of 1963, or the late winter months when I was first reading the Appendices to The Return of the King, not quite certain what all of this information about Celebrimbor and Númenor meant.  It was the third time rereading The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen in the summer of 1964 that I began to realize that perhaps Arwen had been part of the watch on Frodo while he was still unconscious. 

            It was Lindelea, of course, who inspired me to begin writing fanfiction for myself, and from whose work I borrowed so shamelessly—or at least at first.  But it was discussions on TheOneRing.net that caused me to begin analyzing Sam’s character.  The Master himself indicated that Sam had been a student of Bilbo’s from early on, perhaps from before the day Frodo arrived from Buckland to become old Mr. Bilbo’s ward.  Would such an individual be able to be totally innocent and untutored about Elvish history?  No, quite the opposite:  from the Master’s own writing we know he was familiar with the tales of Beren and Lúthien retrieving the Silmaril from Morgoth’s crown, of Eärendil and Elwing, and of the fall of Gil-galad.  No, obviously his rustic speech hid a far more educated and discerning mind than anyone had imagined—except, perhaps, for Frodo and Bilbo and Gandalf.  And there was some reason why, when he crashed the Council of Elrond, he was allowed to stay.  I would guess, then, that Elrond had already realized that not only could he not easily be separated from the Master he worshipped so, but that he had already proved himself integral to Frodo’s ability to survive the insults to his person and soul he’d already endured.

            In his own writing Tolkien basically ignored the practical and medical truths regarding comas.  Once the shard was removed, Frodo slept on that day and much of the following one, and then was apparently fully recovered, save for a growing ache where he’d been stabbed and an awareness that his hearing was now more sensitive than it had been.  Once the Ring was destroyed and Frodo and Sam rescued from the ruins of Orodruin, a magic healing sleep was put upon them for two weeks and when they awoke—acclimation and a big feast in that order!  But we know so much more detail of what happens in coma states, and how physically challenging it is to keep a person who is comatose from aspirating fluids into one’s lungs and either dying of it or developing pneumonia as a result.  Atrophy and pressure sores are also great dangers, as the muscles waste and every pressure point between the bed and one’s skeletal structure can become a sore that can ulcerate and perhaps become infected. 

            Elrond had been a healer for well over six thousand years at that point; he’d know of the dangers of merely allowing a body to rest unmoving and with no form of sustenance for such a period of time!  Without fluids Frodo would have been dead in a matter of days.  They had to have done something to keep at least fluids and necessary nutrients going into him, and to have dealt also with urination and excretions in their turn.  They had to have bathed him frequently, changed his position regularly, and watched over him for any sign that he was failing or that the shard was moving in for the wraithing at last.  And I strongly suspect that it was at this time that Elrond began recognizing that Sam was necessary for Frodo’s well being, whether or not Frodo Baggins was conscious.

            The PTSD doesn’t appear to have truly manifested itself until Frodo was back in the Shire and had given the duties of deputy Mayor over and had returned to private life.  Even then things are merely hinted at.  Supposedly Sam was largely unconscious of Frodo’s decline until he indicated he was leaving the Shire.  Yet Sam, who’d refused to allow Frodo to leave alone on what was assumed originally to be most likely nothing much more than a simple adventure, another tale of there and back again, is now willing to allow Frodo to give over Bag End to him and Rosie and see Frodo off to Rivendell, where he imagines Frodo intends to retire alongside Mr. Bilbo?  I’d say that for Sam to be willing to do such a thing, he had to realize that the situation was a good deal more serious than Frodo was willing to let on.  He had to recognize that the PTSD was causing Frodo to fade, either physically, spiritually, or both. 

            No, I cannot accept Sam to be a mere bystander in Frodo’s treatment in Elrond’s house—I’d imagine that he was involved in the process all along, and that he’d be encouraged to stay by Frodo’s side until it was determined that Frodo at last was recovering rapidly, at which time care would be exercised now to protect the health of what had been proved to be Frodo’s main pillar of support.

            Nor can I imagine that once the shard was removed that Frodo was totally back to normal almost immediately.  Indeed, the Master indicates that Frodo appears almost transparent, and particularly about the left hand where the effects of the shard were made manifest most strongly.  Gandalf is trying to appreciate how Frodo will continue to change, for he foresees that Frodo will possibly become as a vessel filled with light as with water, for eyes to see that can.  In other words, whatever process had been appropriated by Sauron to change Men to wraiths is not halted in Frodo; but instead of turning to Sauron’s evil purposes, Frodo instead will become something blessed, a creature of Light rather than Shadow.

            In the book Frodo merely sees Arwen sitting at the feast to celebrate his recovery, then in the Hall of Fire, sitting beside her father, and later still with Aragorn standing beside her in antique Elven armor.  Yet when he realizes that Aragorn is Bilbo’s Mannish friend who helps him with his poetry, he doesn’t notice any such armor.  Why would Aragorn leave the Hall at that point, slip off and put on such armor and return?  What would be the point of such fancy dress?  No, I’d imagine that Frodo was still feeling some of the now healing effects of the shard’s influence, magnified perhaps by sitting for some time under the spell of Elven music and in the direct presence of Gandalf and Elrond’s rings while wearing the One Ring on a chain about his neck.  So, in Realizations of Vision in my Through the Eyes of Maia and Wizard collection I have Gandalf seeing that in spite of his apparent recovery Frodo is still at least partially entranced, and is seeing not with the wraith’s sight given by the Ring, but with True Sight that sees behind the masquerades we take on in our current lives.  It is perhaps a foreshadowing of what Frodo can expect to know as commonplace once he has lived on Tol Eressëa for some time.  It is for this reason I have imagined from when I first began writing fanfiction that Frodo was going through some form of Becoming, metamorphosing into the creature of Light that Sam finds in my-verse when he comes to join his Master so many decades later in my stories, something that is still corporeal but is readying itself to shed the chrysalis of his body so as to become what he was intended from his creation to be in the end.

            I also rejoiced to examine Arwen’s nature, and enjoyed hinting at her relationship with Aragorn while not allowing any of the Hobbits to fully appreciate that in truth the pair were an item.  I intimated that at this point the standard she wrought for her betrothed was more of an open secret, and that at least some of her maidens were aware of it and conspired to give her time to work on it.  Some of her confidences with Sam are part of where I have Stirring Rings heading soon, as the reader can imagine.

            The Master tells us that the Elessar stone was given by Celebrimbor to Galadriel, by Galadriel to Celebrían, and by Celebrían to her daughter Arwen, who ended up entrusting it again to her grandmother to deliver to her beloved when he should come through Lórien once more.  The Elessar stone was one empowered particularly to healing and renewal.  The white gem that Arwen wore and in time gave to Frodo for his comfort and that has come to be called by many the Evenstar gem is unnamed by the Master, and its precise purpose is not stated.  However, considering that Frodo would hold it when he was under stress or appeared to be in pain or discomfort indicates that it, too, was most likely a gem intended to augment healing in some manner.  Elrond and his brother’s progeny were known to hold a particular gift for healing, and after the battle of the Pelennor Aragorn called upon Elladan and Elrohir to go with him as he went about Minas Tirith offering what aid he could to those who had been wounded or suffered from the Black Breath as being at least as skilled in healing as himself, having received the gift of healing through their heritage even as he had and undoubtedly having worked by their father’s side in the infirmary of Imladris.  Therefore it is likely that Arwen, also, had undergone training in healing, particularly as she was gifted with at least two gems that were associated with healing and/or comforting those who were in distress.  And so I have her sharing in the duties of attending on Frodo while he was in a comatose state, making her available to share some confidences with Sam and giving him knowledge that in time will prove important to him as he grows into his future roles.

            Another aspect of Arwen that is seldom explored is the manner in which her personal foresight might have been expressed.  We know that foresight was experienced by Elrond and by Elros’s descendants among the Dúnedain.  Aragorn is described as knowing a degree of foresight, as is true of both his maternal grandparents, Dírhael having foreseen that Arathorn would most likely die young and Ivorwen that it was therefore more imperative that he should marry Gilraen as soon as possible that his lineage not be lost, and that it was from a union between Arathorn and Gilraen that the hope for the Dúnedain should emerge.

            If the mortal descendants of Eärendil experienced this gift even as was known to happen with Elrond, who’d chosen Elven immortality, then to assume that his daughter would not also share this gift would most likely be wrong, and especially so considering she was also the granddaughter of Galadriel.  Galadriel appears to have used scrying, looking at the reflections offered by liquids, as the primary means of seeing afar into the past, present, and possible future(s).  And in doing so she used water from a natural spring fountain in her personal garden poured into a silver basin as her primary medium for the process.

            Tolkien tells us that Arwen watched over her beloved from afar; that she should turn to scrying in order to do so, particularly considering how long she must have lived in her grandparents’ realm, is therefore very likely, as she must have observed her grandmother doing this countless times and probably received instruction from Galadriel on how to follow the procedures.  So I imagine her keeping a more discrete silver or mithril bowl in her quarters and a large bottle of water from her grandmother’s fountain to fill it from for her personal use in keeping an eye on Aragorn on a fairly regular basis or when she realized he might be in personal trouble due to their assumed psychic link.  That she didn’t speak openly of her possible voyeurism by this means or easily admit to the fact she, too, was one who used scrying on a regular basis I think probable, and if questioned by Aragorn she was likely to feel somewhat embarrassed, being unwilling to let him think she was possibly spying on him.  I doubt he would be personally concerned that she was observing him by such a means, and may have even felt gratification at the thought she was doing so, particularly as he knew he never intended to do anything he’d be ashamed for her to see.  But suspecting she was skilled at the art, he’d very likely think to invoke that assumed skill in the necessity to find out just where and when her father should make the incision that would allow him to remove the shard.

            In my-verse Frodo is neither homosexual nor asexual.  He is a fairly normal heterosexual male who is as drawn to a pretty lass as any other male.  And in my-verse he has had his share of infatuations.  He’d thought to marry Pippin’s oldest sister, Pearl, who had purposely set out to draw his interest and hopefully marry him, beginning her campaign when she was still in her teens.  But just as Frodo is ready to go down on his knee to her, she has a run-in with Lobelia Sackville-Baggins, who tells her that as she understands it, Frodo has inherited the Boffin tendency to have heart conditions, and that it’s likely that it was this tendency that had led to the miscarriages that in my-verse were suffered by Frodo’s mother both before and after Frodo’s birth.  In my-verse Frodo himself had been premature and as a result suffered as a child from a mild heart murmur that he’d grown out of eventually.  From these two bits of information Pearl decides not to marry Frodo after all, having seen how devastated her mother had been due to a miscarriage suffered between the births of Pervinca and Pippin; and she realizes that she was more in love with the idea of being the wife to Frodo Baggins than she was with him as an individual. 

            Pearl’s rejection throws him into a confusion that lasts for some time before he finally realizes that he’s over her.  Suddenly he has the pick of the lasses—and a few widows and perhaps even a handful of unsatisfied wives as well—of the Shire.  Narcissa Boffin, first cousin to Folco Boffin, has loved Frodo quite as long as Pearl ever did, and Frodo begins at the Party to respond to her obvious love for him, only to find that once the Ring is in his pocket rather than Bilbo’s that he has totally ugly urges to force intimacy with almost any pretty Hobbitess who catches his eyes.  Thinking that there is a core of depravity at the center of his being, Frodo does his best to suppress his normal sexual responses and even awareness of pretty lasses as possible partners in physical intimacy.  When the Ring adds in ugly urges when he’s around attractive lads and even repulsive lasses as well, Frodo is even more distressed.  In time his deliberate attempts to distance himself from such urges becomes automatic, and no one can understand why Frodo, who as a child and youth had always talked of the day when as an adult that he would marry and have a family of his own to replace the family he lost when his parents died, is now apparently totally failing to respond to any lass he comes across as if she were a woman.

            Yet he finds himself drawn first by Goldberry, who he knows is the beloved of Tom Bombadil, so he suppresses his response to her.  Then the beauty and grace of the Lady Arwen is able to breach his defenses without raising such urges, although he realizes that there is no hope of ever knowing any sort of intimate relationship with her, considering her race, status, and family ties.  Also, he unconsciously recognizes she, too, is already committed to another.  Later, once the Ring is destroyed, in Minas Tirith he finds himself responding similarly with several other beautiful women, including Éowyn of Rohan, the young daughter of a craftsman who runs her father’s market stall in the Fourth Circle’s marketplace, and a former courtesan from Khand, each of whom has already given her heart to another.  By the time he returns to the Shire he first has too much responsibility to deal with to respond to Narcissa’s constant desire for him, and later he realizes that he has been so scoured by what he endured while carrying the Ring that even his health is fragile as a result, so he continues to hold her off, even though he recognizes that he is as attracted to her as she is to him.  By the time he realizes he’s only made matters worse for himself and that she would have made him deliriously happy had he only accepted what she offered for what time was left to him, it is too late.

            So Frodo remains a totally frustrated male virgin for the entire time he lives within Middle Earth.

            I know now that in his correspondence Tolkien indicated that ill health had no part in Frodo’s decision to take ship with the other Ringbearers, but when I first read Lindelea’s A Small and Passing Thing and found myself inspired to respond with For Eyes to See as Can, neither she nor I had read Letters.  I’d read a fair number of reports on the long-term effects of the starvation and stress suffered by Holocaust and other concentration camp survivors, and it is totally reasonable to think that the scars suffered by Frodo considering his physical, emotional, and spiritual wounds suffered during the quest went very deep indeed, leaving long-term physical damage likely to lead to deteriorating health as well as post-traumatic stress disorder in their wake.  I find once again that Tolkien’s own decision to ignore the probability of such potential for progressive physical deterioration to be unrealistic.  Therefore I will not apologize for continuing to allow this theme to run through my-verse.  Further reports on the long-term effects of the bites from certain ticks and many venomous spiders have only served to reinforce my own views that Frodo most likely was in a highly fragile physical state by the time he made the decision to leave Middle Earth, and that therefore his knowledge of his possible impending demise contributed to his decision to leave when he did.

            My Frodo has lived up to the meaning of his name indicating he is one who gains wisdom as a result of experience, but he is still not yet wise in all subjects.  He is still subject to the Baggins urge to appear to remain responsible and proper in the eyes of others, and part of the reason he fades from society is that he cannot easily admit that his health is decidedly failing.  He suffers from severe digestive problems from the combined effects of the period of starvation he endured, exposure to tainted water from the orc cisterns in Mordor, swallowing gases and ash from the volcano while traveling through Mordor, and sheer stress as well as from the long-term effects of Shelob’s venom.  All of these causes also contribute to heart disease, leading to increasing bouts of angina and congestive heart failure.  I do not have him developing chronic obstructive pulmonary disease as well, although that, too, could be an expected result of his experiences.  I hint that he is suffering musculo-skeletal problems, however.

            That all of these experiences could contribute to long-term progressive physical conditions such as I’ve ascribed to Frodo Baggins is attested to by medical authorities of many kinds.  And part of the reason Frodo fails to follow through on his growing attraction to Narcissa Boffin is due to his own vanity.  He does not wish to allow anyone he cares for to see his physical scars, much less his psychological ones.  He does not wish to admit that his stamina has been impaired, and fears that he may prove physically impotent should he attempt sexual congress.  And he doesn’t wish to leave anyone he loves a grieving widow after what he fears will prove a very short and possibly unsatisfactory period as a wife.

            My vision of Frodo Baggins is still that of a normal mortal, one who is not and cannot be as perfect as he wishes to be perceived.  So he does his best still to appear unresponsive to the very women who capture his attention and stir his heart. 

            One minor error in this story has been brought to my attention--I have Shadowfax present in the field the second time Sam and others go out to see Bill, while in the original Gandalf parted from the great silver steed before entering the vale of Rivendell.  I apologize, but don't think I will bother to correct this, as it is such a minor point.  Merry and Pippin appear to have been aware that Gandalf had a horse that had come from Rohan, that being all they seemed to know about Rohan, in fact, before they actually arrived in that land.  So, I choose to imagine that Shadowfax accepted his dismissal from Gandalf's company after the removal of the shard rather than prior to it.  After all, the Master himself indicated that Pippin's father farmed land near Whitwell and later described the same person as the Thain of the Shire, so I think I can indulge in my own small discrepancies, may I not?  Heh!

            I apologize for allowing this nuzgul to distract me from other writing, but hope that it has managed both to entertain and to inspire thought and consideration of what life might have been like at this critical point in the progression of The Lord of the Rings.  I love helping to fill in the many gaps in the Master’s epic, and hope that this helps others to feel that the story is perhaps more complete than it was, or that it inspires others to consider just how else the situation might have happened in those periods that the Master has left to our imaginations.

Bonnie L. Sherrell

July 29, 2013

For those who have gone before.  B.L.S. (aka Larner)