Note: This chapter is lovingly dedicated to my own maternal grandfather, the first Elf-friend in my line. Namárië, Papa.

Chapter XXXIV: The Hospitality of Lothlórien

They came at a run: Calmiel and two others with arrows notched and ready to fly, Aithron with his bright sword drawn. Together they swooped from out of the cover of the trees, forming a half-circle from which to join battle if the need was at hand. They faltered at the sight before them: Celeborn still serenely cross-legged beside his unkempt guest; the strange captive in the grass, still restrained. Celeborn smiled and raised a quieting palm.

'Peace,' he said. 'There is no danger here. Our guest was merely trying to see to his companion, and received little thanks for his pains.'

The weapons were lowered. Tucking her long arrow back in among its fellows Calmiel said; 'We are very nearly made ready, my lord. It is not the luxury you might have offered in the city, but I believe it will serve.'

Celeborn smiled and turned to the Man. 'Shall we follow?' he asked, rising gracefully to his feet. 'You can explain to my folk what is to be done about your clothing as we walk.'

He extended an arm in case Aragorn should have need of it, but he managed to stand without assistance despite the steady grinding ache still plaguing his knees. Gollum scowled up at him, but got his own feet under him swiftly enough and loped resentfully behind.

In truth it was Celeborn who gave most of the instructions, speaking with swift authority as they walked. One of the marchwardens relieved Aragorn of his pack while another confirmed that they did indeed have a supply of sewing implements.

'What of food?' asked Aithron. 'We have much to offer, but little that is suited to a long journey. More can be sent for, but it will not reach us before dawn.'

'Nuts and seeds will keep, and dried fruit if you have it,' Aragorn said. 'I would gladly take enough bread for five or six days if it can be spared. Beyond that… well, I have not starved yet, and though it is winter I walk now in living lands at least. I have good hope of game, and if you can give me twine or wire to make a snare that is all the better.'

'Will not hunting hinder your progress?' asked Celeborn. 'Perhaps the time you would spare yourself if you did not have to do it could be spent upon another day with us, awaiting proper provender from the city.'

Aragorn shook his head regretfully and glanced over his shoulder at his glowering shadow. 'I cannot,' he said. 'I am still too near the place where I crossed Anduin, and I know that I must have left signs of that passage at least. In any case it does not seem my captive is willing to partake of your food, and I will have to find other means to provide for him. What does for one will do for two.'

There was doubt in Celeborn's eyes, but he knew when he was faced with a will more unswerving than his own. He turned his attention on his captain. 'Do as he asks, and if you have not enough to supply him then we shall halt at another border-post on our northward path tomorrow.'

At the use of we Aragorn very nearly spoke again, but at that moment they came out from the close-grown trees into brilliant sunshine. Gollum quailed, flinging himself to earth and whimpering behind his gag as he tried to cover his head with his immobile hands. The Elves all gave him looks of startled concern, but Aragorn was too accustomed to such behaviour to heed it for long. The sun would not hurt Gollum however he disliked it, and the Ranger's attention was held by something else entirely.

The woods broke here at the edge of a little sandbar, beyond which flowed the bright waters of Celebrant. There was a cheerful fire burning within a ring of stones, and over it a large copper kettle was steaming. There was a broad wooden basin beside it, and a bathing sheet was spread out in the sand. Two more lay nearby, and with them a thick towel and a small stack of neatly folded linen. In a low basket sat a silver comb and a matching brush wrought with vines and flowers, a small shining knife, a little pair of shears, and a dish of the soft fragrant soap that the folk of Lórien made. A screen such as those used in a talan to cut the night wind had been rigged between two saplings so that all these accoutrements were in its lee.

The fifth of the border-guards, the one who has asked whether mortals ever bathe, was coming up from the river with a ewer in his hands. He poured the water from it into the vessel over the fire and then set it down in the basin before moving to stand among his comrades.

Aragorn's body was all ablaze with itches at the sight and he turned questioning eyes on Celeborn, who was watching with a knowing smile.

'As Calmiel has said it is not half the comfort we might have offered you in Caras Galadhon,' he said; 'yet perhaps it will serve.'

'Indeed it will, lord, thank you,' Aragorn said. 'I have yearned to wash: this is most welcome.'

Calmiel and two of her compatriots moved off, disappearing back into the forest and carrying his pack with them. Aithron, the one who had filled the copper kettle, and Celeborn remained, evidently expecting something more.

'If you will give me your clothes, lord, we may see about laundering them as best we can,' Aithron said presently.

Aragorn looked down. In his eagerness to bathe he had all but forgotten his stinking clothing. 'Of course,' he said softly.

Aithron helped him off with his boots, which seemed stubbornly fused to his lower legs. Aragorn removed cloak and hose and stood barefoot, struggling one-handed to undo the knot of the orc-rope on his wrist.

'Allow me to help,' said Celeborn, and he drew his slender knife. Aragorn shook his head.

'I would not have it shortened, not even by a wrist-length,' he said grimly. 'The knot will give eventually.'

It did, but by then he could sense the growing impatience of the two lesser Galadhrim. At last he was able to shuck off his cote and hand it off to Aithron, who strode away. Wearily he reached out to take the end of Gollum's tether from Celeborn. The Lord of Lórien smiled.

'Let him bide a while with me,' he said. 'I will guard him well, I promise.'

Despite the temptation to cry Ai, then let him begone!, Aragorn shook his head. 'I cannot have him out of my sight, my lord. I do not say that you would willingly falter, nor that you are incapable of tending a prisoner, but he is swift and he is sly. If he finds but a moment's advantage he will press it, and it might take no more than that to undo all that has been done to find him.'

There was a silence as they stood eye to eye, Aragorn unyielding and Celeborn studying the Man before him as one might plumb a well that proved far deeper and colder than first imagined. The startled eyes of the border-guard were fixed upon them, and Aragorn knew that he must look a fool, standing filthy and naked as he questioned the competence of the lord of all these lands, but he did not waver.

Finally Celeborn's eyes grew soft. 'Then he shall not leave your sight,' he said. 'I will sit here while you bathe and I will tend him.' Before Aragorn could make any further protest he reached out to put his empty hand on one bare shoulder. 'Lay by your yoke but an hour, Dúnadan. The sky will not fall without you to hold it.'

Aragorn's lips parted as if to make their own protest, though he could not imagine what they wished to say. Then he bowed his head in quiet quiescence. 'Forgive me, lord, my doubts,' he murmured.

'There is nothing to forgive, for I confess your doubts are not unwarranted,' said Celeborn. 'It has been many long years since I have guarded a captive, and I should not like to bear that dread responsibility even for a day. But an hour I can manage if it will ease your burden a little. Wash, and do not be hasty for my sake. Hithfaer shall serve as your waterbearer.'

He smiled, and Aragorn was abashed. Was he so far gone in the manic certainty that Gollum would escape him again that he could not accept aid so graciously offered by one who had proved himself a kind host and a true friend in more painful straights than this? Humbly he thanked Celeborn and turned back towards the fire and the great kettle so enticingly filled with hot water.

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In the end it took far more than an hour. The grime of many weeks was ground deep into his skin, and the relief of at last laving it away was tempered a little by the hard labour required to affect the change. Beneath the dish of soap he found a scrubbing stone and put it to work with vigour, wetting and lathering, rubbing and rinsing. Time and again Hithfaer had to bear away the basin, choked as it was with black murky water, and bring it back clean. Always he maintained the level of water in the kettle. Aragorn wondered whether Celeborn had somehow become aware of the words that had passed between them on the cleanliness of Men and assigned him this task accordingly. It was the sort of fitting reprimand he would have meted out himself, had the situation been reversed and one of his Rangers guilty of such remarks to a welcome guest.

He washed his trunk and arms, mindful of the marks of Gollum's teeth upon the right. For the first time in many days he took the time to examine the wounds. Those at the wrist were healed: dull purplish marks that would in time vanish altogether. Where the skin had been torn and had festered so long, the scars were thick and tangled and the nearby flesh was still a glossy red. Probing gently with his fingertips he found a place where the muscle did not give beneath the pressure as it ought. He frowned a little, but left it for the moment: such ministrations were best left until he was clean.

There were places near each arm and along the strip where his makeshift pack-strap had rested where the skin of his chest and shoulder was chafed and tender: sore from the rasp of the dirt-stiffened wool of his cote. It was naught but a minor irritation, stinging a little against the soap, but he took care not to rub too enthusiastically. If Celeborn would indeed provide him with a shirt to wear beneath his tunic the abrasions would soon heal.

The mark of the spider-claw on his right thigh was nothing now but a long bright curl along the pale flesh that his washing uncovered. He tugged at either side of the scar with questing thumbs, satisfying himself that the wound was well closed and the muscle beneath still able to move as it ought. He would have no more trouble from that quarter at least, save perhaps the occasional sensation of tugging. The cramp that had torn so terribly through that limb had been no more than coincidentally on the right; the price of walking too long and lying too still, and not any sign of lingering harm from his wound.

Despite his most enthusiastic efforts with the stone he could not quite buff away the dirt ingrained into his knees, but the feeling of dead skin being scraped away as he scrubbed his calves was one of the most delicious sensations he had felt in an age. He cleaned his feet carefully. They were quite vile with the humours of his body and with muck that had somehow worked its way into his boots. He had lost the better part of another toenail and his heels were bruised, but there were no fresh blisters nor any serious hurts. He counted himself fortunate, marching mindlessly as he had in the last days before reaching this haven, that he had not done himself some more serious injury.

When he was satisfied that his body was for the most part hale, and well on its way to becoming fit to live with again, he turned his attention to his head. Courteously he asked Hithfaer to fill the basin with hot water from the cauldron, and he bent low over it to wet his hair. The muscles of his arms and back protested against the exertions, but he let them complain and went stolidly about his business. He took a handful of soap and began to work it deep into his scalp with his fingertips.

No lather was raised at all, so thick were the oils and the foul residue of all his long travels trapped therein. Even in Harondor, when last he had found the leisure to bathe on the day he parted from Gandalf, he had been without the luxury of soap. Then he had used sand for scrubbing, and though it had done away with the worst of it the result had been imperfect. Since that long-ago afternoon he had trodden hard paths, and as he worked he could not but think of the memories of his travels doubtless entrapped in his matted tresses. Orc blood and stinking spider-webs, the noxious vapours of the caverns beneath the Ephel Dúath, the poisonous pollens of Morgul Vale and the scum of the Dead Marshes, the debatable rains in the Emyn Muil, the dusts of Eastemnet, the dander of the pheasant he had caught in Fangorn's eaves, and doubtless a measure of whatever unspeakable filth coated his travelling companion. And most lately, he thought with less distaste as his labouring fingers plucked out a crisp golden stem and flicked it into the sand, the fallen mallorn-leaves amid which he had slept so long and so well.

When he sat up to ask for the ewer, he found that Hithfaer was ready with it. 'Bend and I will pour,' he said. 'Your hands have other work to do.'

Aragorn thanked him and bowed over the basin, scouring beneath the gentle stream of water. Then his attendant bore the bowl away to be emptied and Aragorn took another measure of soap that he might begin again. It took two more rinsings before he managed to produce a few sweet-smelling bubbles at the crown of his head, and four before he felt halfway to clean. While his hair was still sodden he fell at it with the comb and the little silver shears, raking deep against his scalp and cutting away great burs of hair when he could not drag the instrument through. He knew that he was not keeping an even length, but he did not care. That was something he might worry about later, if at all. What mattered now was ridding himself of the weight of tangles so that he could wash what remained again.

When at last that was finished he turned his attention to his beard. It was not his wont to shave in winter, for bare cheeks stung in the cold wind and a wet face was an invitation to a chill, but the day was balmy here beneath the loving hand of the Lady Galadriel, and there was nigh as much grime in his beard as there had been on his head. He trimmed the hairs short and then rubbed soap into his cheeks and chin and neck and set to work with the knife. Hithfaer, who had for the most part tended to his tasks and kept his eyes politely averted with all the discretion of a practiced attendant, watched this process with fascination. When his progress over his face allowed it, Aragorn curled his lip wryly. His upstretched throat bobbed as he spoke.

'I have little enough of a beard even at its most unkempt,' he said. 'My kinsmen in the North outstrip me by far. I have a cousin who by winter's end can plait the hairs of his chin, much to the delight of his little granddaughter.'

At last his face was bare and he washed the smooth skin. There was no mirror at hand, but he did not need to know that now he had a rather piebald look about him: the brown, weathered flesh of his brow and nose against the paler stuff long guarded from nature's ravages by its prickly pelt. Nevertheless it was a delicious feeling to run his hand over his jaw and feel only clean flesh.

While he had the knife to hand he pared his nails with care; fingers first and then toes. In the places where they were cracked or torn he could not make perfect cuts, but still the sensation when he was finished was one of cool good health. He washed his body once more, and shyly Hithfaer offered to scrub his back. To this Aragorn gladly agreed, and when the last of the soap was rinsed away he stood bare upon the wet and stained bathing sheet feeling like a man reborn.

His helper brought a clean sheet to wrap his naked body, now shivering a little despite the gentle air. With the towel Aragorn rubbed his hair and face and ears, and then carefully dried his feet. Brisk rubbing with the cloth about him saw to the rest of his body. The sheet below his feet was bundled away and the third one laid out, and he sat to let his hair dry in the sun.

'May I have the basin again?' he asked, reaching for the little knife. 'And water hot as the fire will allow.'

Hithfaer agreed and crouched back on his heels, curious as to what more they had left unfinished. Aragorn glanced over to where the little pile of linen sat. 'Are there bandages there?' he asked.

The Elf nodded. 'We did not know whether you would have hurts in need of tending.'

'I have one at least,' said Aragorn. 'Bring them to me, I pray.'

There were two rolls: narrow cloth edged with the tiniest of stitches. Aragorn cut a piece a little less than the length of his arm and folded it thrice over. Then he took the knife and dipped it quickly into the water, which was all but scalding. Holding it with a healer's care in his left hand, he planted the side of his thumb with care. His smallest finger provided the counterbalance and he lowered the blade smoothly into his right forearm where the flesh was tight and immobile.

A bright burst of blood was followed swiftly by an outflowing of thin pus that ran down his arm and dripped upon the sheet where it wrapped his knee. He cut a little deeper until he felt the resistance of healthy flesh below his blade. Setting the knife aside he worked with thumb and forefinger, carefully draining the abscess first from one side, then another. Blood came again, thick and curdled with infection. He took the blade up and made another cut, this one perpendicular to the first. Again, drawing his fingertips with slow deep pressure, he milked the liquid from the wound until dark blood showed, the proper consistency at last. Then setting his teeth he plunged his arm into the hot water and felt it sting deep into the empty place beneath his skin where there had been a globe of rot.

He covered the wound with the pad he had made and wrapped his arm snugly with the clean Elf-made bandage, tucking it at his wrist and knotting it below his elbow. He waited to see whether a blossom of blood would show through the neat layers, but it did not. Satisfied he picked up the knife, gripping the blade between finger and thumb so that Hithfaer could take it by the hilt.

'Put that in the kettle and let it boil,' he said. 'Then we shall clear all this away.'

'Not you,' said Celeborn, who had been sitting silent by the water's edge all this time, the coarse rope wrapped around his hand and Gollum at the very end of it, vituperative but unresisting. 'You are our guest, Dúnadan. Behave accordingly.'

Aragorn smiled, the first true smile he had managed since his encounter with young Osbehrt. 'Very well,' he said. 'I shall be a burden on your folk and on your good graces while I may.'

Celeborn laughed and Gollum cringed. He made a suppurating whimper deep in his throat and clawed at the earth with one long foot. Aragorn looked down at his left wrist, where a band of flesh red and chafed marked where the rope had been. Well, he had had his rest and it was time now to take back his yoke. He got to his feet again.

At once Hithfaer was at his side, his arms again filled with linen. This time it was a shirt and braies, both showing signs of gentle wear and frequent laundering, but sweet-smelling and whole. Aragorn donned them gratefully, resisting the urge to squirm like a delighted child at the feeling of clean cloth against his skin. His smile this time was for the marchwarden.

'My thanks, friend,' he said. 'Seldom have I had such gracious assistance, and never have I been so glad of it.'

Then, astonishingly, Hithfaer bowed. 'It was my honour, my lord,' he said. Then he looked up in anxious apology. 'Forgive me,' he murmured. 'Had I known of your labours and your birth, and of she whose favour you have, I would never have spoken as I did.'

'That I know well,' Aragorn said, reaching to grip the slender muscled arm and nodding his head. 'If you have learned a little of the deceit of appearances then the words were not wasted.'

Then he walked across the sandbar and held out his hand to Celeborn. The Elf-lord offered up the rope and Aragorn knotted it securely about his wrist once more. Gollum ceased his writhing and looked up, eyes narrowed in distrust and perplexity.

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With Celeborn he walked back to the clearing where they had broken their fast. As the Elves had no shoes on hand to fit his feet he went unshod, but that was no hardship in this land. The golden leaves crackled beneath his toes though beside him the Lord of Lórien moved in silence. Behind them Gollum followed, whinging and now and then tugging at the rope as he arched his neck.

They came out of the trees upon a hive of activity. Aithron and his three subordinates were busy with the task of preparing Aragorn's goods for travel. His garments were spread over hedges and branches, drying in the sunlight. There was a sturdy pack of finely tooled leather in the grass, and beside it half a dozen folded blankets of softest grey wool – too many by far for one man to carry on his back. Aithron was hulling hazelnuts, and the two other male Galadhrim were sorting through an enormous basket of dried apricots. Off by herself in the shade of a tree, Calmiel sat with Aragorn's short knife on the grass before her. She was working with a cobbler's knife and a slender awl, fashioning a sheath that she stitched a fletcher's deft fingers. For thread she was using lengths of split bowstring.

Celeborn surveyed all of this and then moved to crouch by the place where Aragorn's old pack lay empty, its sparse contents in the grass.

'Fresh tinder, you said?' he asked as Aragorn drew near him. 'Twine and wire for snares. Is there nothing else we can offer you?'

Aragorn looked about him again, his eyes falling on his boots where they lay nearby. They had been carefully wiped and oiled, and someone had even thought to stuff the toes with rags so they would not lose their shape as they sat. 'Sleep and a bath, food, respite and blankets?' he said. 'Have you not done enough?'

The timeless wise eyes glittered. 'All that you might have had for love of he that raised you,' he said. 'Twice that I would give if I could for Arwen's sake alone. Is there nothing you would ask for yourself?'

The breath caught in Aragorn's throat, and his limbs grew cold. In his breast his heart hammered out a fierce tattoo and he could feel the colour rising in his cheeks. All day it had been the unspoken name between them; she who was their only bond to one another, she who had been for him the very light of this land when last his road had borne him hither. He had known – of course he had known – that the sight of him would be as sure to bring her to Celeborn's mind as the sight of this land had brought her to his. Yet to hear her name spoken, she who was his heart, his love, the very flame of his courage, was a different matter altogether. Seldom did he dare to think of her in his travels; more seldom still on such a dark road as this had been.

'Nothing,' he said breathlessly, though he could not think why the word came to his lips. 'Nothing more than this.'

Suddenly the Elf-lord was on his feet, one hand upon each of the Ranger's shoulders. He was smiling and his eyes were tender. 'Nothing save a treasure beyond my scope to give, perhaps,' he murmured.

Aragorn could say naught in answer. He was lost in the memory of hair like the deep shadows of twilight, grey eyes dancing with laughter, lissom limbs beneath the silver of the moon. They had stood, arms entwined, upon Cerin Amroth, and there they had plighted their troth beneath the mellyrn ablaze with the splendour of midsummer. She was waiting for him now in Rivendell, wondering, perhaps, where he would bide tonight and sending forth her love across the long miles. She would not think to find him here, he supposed, but neither would she think of him as he had been only this morning, foul and ragged and bound. Shame at the thought of the state he had allowed himself to sink to filled him, and despite his clean body and fresh linen he felt once more besmirched.

Celeborn was watching him keenly. 'I will never tell her how you came to us, Dúnadan, but do not think it would sway her love or the esteem in which she holds you. She knows that your labours are bitter and your path at times near enough to unbearable. That you bear it even so gives her pride, however you come out of it.'

Wordless thanks filled the Ranger's eyes, and Celeborn smiled once more. 'Remember me kindly to her when next you come to Imladris,' he said. 'It was my one regret when the passage of the mountains was at last made safe that she need no longer bide solely in this land.'

This too they shared, Aragorn realized in that moment: they each in their own way were bereft without her, whom each loved so dearly. 'I shall,' he pledged. 'And may I soon pass this way again to bring you word of her.'

Celeborn raised an eyebrow. 'Not too soon, I hope, my son,' he said. 'Or else I hope that when next you come hither it is not on the heels of some calamity again.'

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None of the Elves at the border station had much skill with a needle, and so Aragorn sat down with their thread and their tools and set about mending his own hose. He cut the patches from the ragged edge of his cloak. It would not be much more than a hood and a collar after this, but with one of the blankets about his shoulders it would serve him well enough. Wool was not much used for garments by the Galadhrim, for they cultivated silk and other fabrics of a sort now made nowhere else in Arda. These cloths were woven by Galadriel herself, and by her maidens – Arwen was the most gifted of weavers and had put her hand often to its making – but as Celeborn had said they were not in his gift. Aragorn did not mind in the least. Faced with the winter snows ahead he preferred to place his trust in the familiar, and sturdy sheep's cloth had never yet failed him.

The afternoon stretched on into a golden evening, and he grew cool in his borrowed linen. His cote was not yet dry, but Celeborn did off with his own embroidered mantle and laid it over the Ranger's shoulders as he worked. They had been speaking together, Aragorn sharing what tidings he had from Eriador – long outdated though they were – and a brief account of his journey south with Gandalf.

'Word must be sent to him,' he said, curling the soft silken folds into his lap and then resuming his stitching. 'He should be informed that I have found Gollum and will be driving him with all haste to Thranduil.'

Celeborn wrinkled his nose in an expression that was remarkably comical on his ordinarily tranquil face. 'Gollum?' he echoed. 'Is that what the creature is called? By the Endless Ice, why?'

Aragorn gestured vaguely with the hand that held the needle. 'It is a noise that he makes in his throat when he speaks,' he said. 'Bilbo Baggins was the one who taught it to me, and I cannot deny that it is fitting, though I confess when first I heard the tale from him I did not imagine how truly unpleasant the sound could be.'

Through what must have sounded otherwise like a melodious river of gibberish Gollum had caught the name of his old adversary. He was up on his feet in a moment, glaring at Aragorn with eyes that glowed with malice. The Ranger went on stitching as though he had not noticed, but in truth he was watching his captive intently out of the corner of his eye. He had been incautious to speak Bilbo's name; nearly as incautious as he had been on the day he had spoken the riddle aloud. He still had no sense of what passed through Gollum's mind at such moments, and that was dangerous.

Celeborn shook his head. 'I remember the story of Mithrandir's burglar and the dragon,' he said; 'but I do not understand how this creature fits into it. He seemed unable to tell me.'

'Unwilling, I'm afraid,' said Aragorn. 'As am I. The truth is that even what we know may not be half of what there is to learn, and there is so much at stake that we cannot risk saying too much. Someday I hope I may tell you all, but on this night I cannot.' He buried his last two stitches and cut off his thread, surveying his handiwork with a critical eye. 'These shall serve, I think.'

'Far better than I could manage,' said Celeborn. 'My granddaughter did not inherit her skill in that art from me.'

The others were nearly finished with their own tasks, and soon they were sitting down to a wonderful supper. Aragorn ate, but slowly. His weariness was mounting and sleep was calling to him. That night he lay upon one of his new blankets with the other atop him, warm and comfortable despite his bare feet and his state of half dress. Above in the night he could hear the Galadhrim singing.

When at last he slept, he dreamt of midsummer.

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In the dark before dawn Aragorn arose. He folded one blanket thrice, rolling it tightly before strapping it to the pack that he had been given. Everything else was bundled carefully away already. He put on his clothing, pointing his darned hose with fresh laces, easing his cote over shoulders that still ached dully after his long trek. His belt was now hung once more with his knife, safe in the sheath that Calmiel had made. She had also lent him her awl that he might punch fresh holes in the leather strap. He buckled it to the first of these new ones, for in the last of the old it had hung loose upon him when he came. Even after the wholesome food of the Galadhrim it was not too tight.

Aithron had found him a brass brooch like a ring, and with it he fastened his second blanket about his shoulders as he would have a cloak. He pulled what remained of his own over his head. He would be glad of the hood as he moved northward, but now he let it dangled down his back. Though the Elves had washed it the wool still held some unpleasant odours deep in its fibres, and he wanted to enjoy his clean hair while he could. His boots he tugged on while sitting in the grass, Gollum watching him all the time with an inscrutable cast to his eyes. His feet, still tender, protested a little but soon enough settled into the comfort of familiarity.

The Galadhrim were abroad already, and they had laid out a generous breakfast. He ate for the last time with his hosts, and rose to take his leave as the first blush of morning touched the sky. Then Celeborn stood with him, and Calmiel also.

'We two will travel with you, at least until the forest thins,' Celeborn said. 'You will walk leagues enough alone with your curious cargo. It need not begin quite yet.'

Aragorn was glad of the company, for without it he thought he would have walked too far in memory. The others came with them only as far as Celebrant, where they strung ropes to bridge the river. Celeborn and Calmiel flew across on fleet feet without the aid of a second cord, but Aragorn, Gollum slung over his back and unbalancing him, would not have managed otherwise. After that the journey was quiet but most pleasant. Calmiel went blithely, and Celeborn's calm presence was a force to soothe the most unquiet of hearts.

Yet they came at last to a place where the woods began to grow sparse, and at length Aragorn could see between the trees the broad stretch of brown land that rolled on into the North. The improbable quartet halted, and Celeborn offered a sad smile.

'Here we must part, Aragorn son of Arathorn,' he said. 'May your journey be swift and your feet set upon the homeward road ere the season grows old.'

'Farewell Celeborn of Lothlórien,' said Aragorn in reply. 'I and my kindred thank you for the grace shown to me. Long may your realm prosper.'

Their formal leave-taking done as befit two great lords, for all one reigned his land unchallenged and the other walked in exile, Celeborn stepped forward and drew Aragorn into a loving embrace.

'Take care, child,' he said softly. 'Remember to sleep when you may.'

'I shall,' said Aragorn. Tears were smarting in his eyes, but he did not let them fall. 'Please give my love and thanks to your gracious Lady. When next we meet I hope I shall be able to do so myself.'

Then he turned his face northward and strode away, Gollum scampering awkwardly after him. He did not intend to look back, but he did, once, after he had gone perhaps a mile. The Golden Wood was a distant sea of silver beneath the sun that filtered through pale clouds above. His keen eyes picked out two shapes amid the trees that might have been Celeborn and his archer watching him go, but he could not be certain. Resolutely he swivelled on his heel, forsaking comfort and companionship to face the long road that still lay ahead.