Chapter Nine

Frodo was still sleeping when Boromir woke again. Bilbo clutched at his heartson a little tighter as he looked at the man suspiciously.

Boromir turned his head to see Bilbo with his arms protectively around Frodo and staring at him with mistrust.

The man licked dry lips. He felt stronger than before but was still weak. He also felt strangely small in the presence of someone only half his height. He realized the latter was more from the shame he felt than from the physical lack of strength that still lingered in his body. “You need not fear me,” he said. “I’m very sorry for what I tried to do.”

“You threatened one who you were there to protect.”

“Yes, your first and second cousin, once removed on either side.”

Bilbo looked at him silently, surprised.

“I spent a lot of time with Pippin and Merry. They...taught me much about hobbit families and precisely how you two were related, and...how they were connected to you, Frodo, each other, and a host of other hobbits. They repeated it to me...until I could say it by rote. They pestered Legolas and Gimli the same way. They said it would be...best if we knew all about those we were to protect. Gandalf and Aragorn only smiled as we stumbled through their very tangled trees. It was either say it back to them to their satisfaction...or go mad. I worried more than once that it would be latter but at last they smiled.... and congratulated us on our success. Sam made us a special dish that night, for Gandalf said, if anyone who was not a hobbit could repeat such a convoluted history, it was....to be celebrated. I was...I am...very fond of them.”

Bilbo felt all of this was to disarm him, but he also heard the genuine affection in Boromir’s voice. “Fond enough to give your life.”

“Yes. It was all I could do. I could not discharge my debt....for such disgrace otherwise. Frodo had gone. I begged him to come back, but he did not.”

The grief and shame from Boromir tempted Bilbo to let go of his suspicions. He did not wish to let down his guard too soon though.

“Frodo is far more than my cousin. He is the beloved child of my heart. I would do...and I shall do...anything I can to protect him. You came to Rivendell too late to know how very close we all came to losing him to the evil fate of succumbing to a Morgul-knife wound. I will not be so helpless again as I was then. You have no idea what it cost to watch him leave later on that cold day and to know that he had already come through deadly peril and was going deeper into it with each step he took. Out of all my fears for him, I had no idea that danger would come to him within those he trusted.”

“I did not know either until the madness that had been growing on me consumed me at the last. I have tainted my own honor, that of my father’s house, and that of Gondor by such terrible action. It is a wonder to me that Frodo forgave me so great a betrayal.”

Boromir’s sincere contrition and continuing shame broke down another barrier between Bilbo and the man.

“The Ring brought madness to all of us,” the ancient hobbit said. “He probably never told you that I also tried to do the very thing you did and before you. We have both betrayed him, yet he forgave me also.”

“You...”

“Yes.”

Bilbo looked tenderly down at his sleeping lad, so beautiful, so wounded. “I never married and neither did he. Perhaps the Powers that rule the world knew of our fate and that we would only have each other to be with in the end and have to part from all else.”

Bilbo stroked Frodo’s curls. “I have lived long enough among Elves to know something about the Powers. It is a cruel thing, and a blessed thing, to have their pity. My lad misses his home and those he loves that he had leave behind. It is a wretched thing to do to one who had already given everything. I left a long time ago and I was ready to leave. But he did not make the same happy choice I did. We both needed to leave, but I was the only one that truly wanted to. He still carries heavy burdens that I wonder that he isn’t utterly crushed by them. Sometimes I think he is but then I’ll see a flash of who he was before and who I wish more than anything he will become again: the lad I have loved since the day I saw him and held him, five days after he was born.”

Bilbo kissed Frodo’s head. Boromir rested again and this time so did Bilbo. The poison of the Ring had threatened to tear the three of them asunder, but the same experiences of that and the forgiveness of the wounds caused by it would also bring them together and it would be through the one who forgave Bilbo and Boromir both.