Chapter XXXV: Silent Sedition

Beyond the gentling influence of Galadriel, the air was sharp with the chill of winter. A west wind was blowing, and after perhaps an hour Aragorn was obliged to tug his hood up over his head. Despite the dull pain in his heels he kept a good pace: Gollum was struggling to keep up, and now and then the line between them tugged tautly at Aragorn's wrist. The day was grey, but at last the sun rose high enough that his captive began to tremble, whimpering beneath the wool still filling his mouth. Aragorn wished only to move onward as swiftly as he could, as if haste and distance could ease the bitter necessity of abandoning the simple comforts he had been granted on the eaves of Lothlórien for the want of the wilds. Yet it was clear that his prisoner was suffering, and impeding their progress into the bargain.

He halted, therefore, where a stand of hawthorns spread about the foot of a low hill. Gollum retreated as far into the shadows as the tether would allow. Aragorn took progressive handfuls of the rope as he moved to sit beside him. He reached for the knot behind the creature's heavy head, and worked it carefully free. Gollum hissed threateningly, deep in his throat, but did not so much as snap at the air as the gag came away. He cowered awkwardly against a scrub-bush and watched his jailor with wide, wary eyes.

Slipping careful fingers into his new pack, Aragorn brought out one of the bottles that the Galadhrim had given him and then quested deeper still until he found the little wooden cup that had somehow survived all his strange travels. He poured some water and held it out towards his prisoner. Gollum sniffed at it and then, sullenly, parted his lips so that the fluid might be tipped against them. He grimaced, but he drank, and when he had finished Aragorn slaked his own thirst with greater ease of mind than he had hoped.

'Are you hungry?' he asked. The answer was obvious, of course. Gollum had not eaten since the crossing of Limlight; he must be nearly mad with hunger. Aragorn knew better now than to try to offer Elven victuals, but something else had caught his eye as they had moved to sit. He got up onto one knee now, reaching over his captive's head. Gollum craned his neck in an attempt to see what he was about, but Aragorn was back on the ground almost too swiftly to see. In his right hand he held his prize: a clump of little oyster mushrooms plucked from their perch on the tree's wizened trunk.

He placed them on his palm, stretching back his fingers and tucking in his thumb as if holding a carrot for an unruly horse, and offered the food to Gollum. Glinting eyes narrowed and the sharp nostrils flared. Aragorn was favoured with one more long distrustful look, but he could see spittle frothing at the corners of his prisoner's mouth and he knew that there would be no refusal this time. Sure enough, Gollum hesitated only a moment longer before lunging forward. Harsh, ravenous sounds choked up around his sparse teeth, busy for once with something other than mischief. Aragorn kept his hand still despite the urge to jerk it back in revulsion when half-chewed chunks of the bluish fungus fell back upon his palm only to be slurped up again by a desperately questing tongue.

At last Gollum shrank back as far as Aragorn's hold on the rope would let him, smacking his lips greedily and watching the Man out of the corner of his eye. Aragorn wiped his hand on the ground, thoroughly but without showing his disgust. Then he tucked away the water bottle and sat, returning Gollum's glare with a mildly thoughtful expression.

He did not dare to hope that his prisoner was tamed: he would not make that mistake again. But certainly he seemed cowed at least at present. Unwillingly Aragorn's eyes fell upon the rags still wrapping the creature's fingers. The lingering sore spots on his neck protested against lenience, but reason told him that it was time to try again. At the very least Gollum would move more swiftly if he might lope along on all fours as he seemed fond of doing.

He released the rope from his fingers, waiting to see whether Gollum would take the opportunity to retreat to the end of the lead. The pale eyes followed the motion, but he did not move.

'Come,' said Aragorn firmly. 'I will loose your hands.'

Almost without hesitating Gollum hopped forward, still crouching low to the ground. He paused for a moment, and then extended his arms towards the Ranger. He shrank but did not retreat as Aragorn drew his knife from its new sheath and took a firm hold of one wrist. He slipped the blade carefully between Gollum's arms, undeterred by the whimper of terror that welled up in the creature's throat. His heart whispered uneasily that it sounded more like a whimper of pain, but he knew that he had not nicked the bony limbs with the blade and he set about carefully sawing through the bonds.

Gollum's hands came free with a snap, and he howled – half tormented, half triumphant. Swiftly Aragorn grabbed one palm and unwound the strips that wrapped each finger. The stink of shed flesh and old sweat was strong. He reached for the other hand, but Gollum pulled away, retreating at last to the end of his tether. There he scrabbled at the rest of the wool with his free hand and his teeth, and huddled, whining softly and licking at his fingers. The ropy muscles beneath skin like greyed vellum jumped and twitched and Aragorn, remembering the complaint of his own limbs after only a day so restrained, felt a weary prickle of remorse. Necessity was not without its price, exacted most often against the conscience.

He let Gollum rest for two hours, most of which he spent biting at his fingernails and muttering blackly to himself. When the sun was well past its zenith in the overcast sky, Aragorn got to his feet and set about exploring the little grove with his prisoner crawling resentfully after him. He was looking, of course, for more of the mushrooms, and his efforts were rewarded. He found half a dozen other patches, and he helped himself to a share of each.

He packed this little harvest away in his burgeoning bag. He carried enough of the food of the Galadhrim to last for ten lean days: more than that he could not carry without weighing himself down or abandoning the second blanket. The mushrooms would do well for Gollum, who seemed in his own strange way to enjoy them, and that would save him the trouble of foraging further at least for a little while. He was anxious to move swiftly through this country. He had not only to make up the two days' rest he had taken under Celeborn's care; he was also anxious to get this leg of the journey behind him as quickly as possible. For they walked now near to Dimrill Dale, the valley basin onto which the East Gate of Moria opened.

A shiver ran up Aragorn's back and out across his shoulders. It was nothing to the cold hand that gripped his heart at the thought of Dol Guldur, nothing to the blind despair that he had felt before the Morannon, nothing to the soul-chilling savour of death that surrounded the very name of Minas Morgul… but it was enough. Once, only once had he ventured into that last and darkest road through the Misty Mountains. He had escaped in the end with his life and his limbs and the greater measure of his sanity, but that had been a near thing. Rationally he knew that his peril then had been nothing when measured against others he had faced, in the long errantries of his young-manhood, in his decades of safeguarding Eriador, and even in the last bitter weeks of this hunt. Yet in his heart there was a dread of Moria that the rational mind could not explain. As he had sensed ancient insight and deep, drowsing curiosity in Fangorn Forest, so he had felt something in Moria. Evil, deeper than the deeps of the earth that the Dwarf-lords had plundered; hot and timeless in the blackness. A brooding malice greater than any he had felt in all his long travels, save only in that dread hour long ago when he had stood in sight of Barad-dûr itself. Yet where the wrath of Sauron had been blatant, cast out in the Shadow across the sky, the hatred hidden beneath the glittering halls of Khazad-dûm had been insidious, almost intangible – certainly without reasonable explanation.

Yet he feared Moria, and would not willingly walk there again.

He did not even wish to wander near it, though his senseless foreboding was not the only reason. Orcs had been known to frequent Dimrill Dale, and it was not so long ago that they had hunted in the pass above. Although he was much the better for his rest in Lórien, and his hurts were all but healed, he did not relish the prospect of stumbling across a band of wandering goblins. There was another thing that worried him, too. Gollum had dwelt for years uncounted beneath the Hithaeglir, thriving after a fashion in caverns far from the light of day. If he sensed or suspected the nearness of such a place, and its relatively easy access through the great Dwarven doors, it might drive him to attempt an escape. Although he might expect it and even prepare for it, Aragorn did not want to run the risk of some random mischance allowing Gollum to elude him and slip beyond that gate. Even if it might have been possible to find him again in the shafts and chasms and tunnels of Moria, Aragorn was not at all certain that he could find the will to follow.

So when he set out again he bent to the northeast. The hills rolled onward, but though they rose and fell Aragorn knew with the instinct of a practiced traveller that his progress was overall into higher lands. When he felt them begin to fall away again he stopped his eastward cant and strode on to true north. So with the Vale of Anduin away to his right, and Dimrill Dale far off to his left, he made steady progress into the evening and on through the night.

He walked until the sun grew high the following day, and then found shelter. He ate, and offered Gollum some of the mushrooms, and sat for a while with his back to an obliging boulder and the blanket he wore as a cloak gathered snugly around him. His breath frothed frostily from his nostrils, and he watched it with quiet interest for a while before allowing his mind to wander off in restful memory.

He thought this time of his boyhood, and his first crossing of the mountains at seventeen. They had strode the High Pass, sons of Elrond by blood and by choice, and Elrohir had taught him how to track a falcon by the winds. He wondered if the Peredhil had imagined then what prey he might come to chase in time, for much less reward than watching a proud bird circle down to rejoin her young. He thought not.

That afternoon the rain began to fall; a steady, oppressive and bitterly cold shower that first rolled off his shoulders, then dampened his blanket and what remained of his cloak, and finally seeped through his cote and the shirt he had been given to chill his very bones. Gollum seemed all but unaffected by this unpleasant turn of the weather, for he scrabbled after the long, level footfalls of the Ranger's boots without a sound. Now and again he would halt for a moment, long fingers scrabbling in the mud, and then he would scuttle onward almost nonchalantly, as if he truly thought that his captor could not hear him chewing on whatever he had found.

By nightfall the air was cold enough that the rain began to freeze as it fell, stinging Aragorn's cheeks and the backs of his hands. He wrapped the wet blanket tighter and bowed his head so that his dripping hood could shield his face. When he stopped in the shelter of a pine to eat a little, he began to shiver almost at once. After that he walked on, and the ground grew harder beneath his heels as the northward miles slipped by.

It was on the fourth day out of Lothlórien that he came upon the first straggling strands of snow clinging to the low places or lying in the shadows. By then he had either outlasted or outpaced the rain, but though his cloak was dry his linen was still damp and cold against his skin. Gollum's only concession to the pale harbingers of things to come was to scoop up the occasional handful of snow as he walked and suck noisily upon it. He began to shun the water from the vessels of the Galadhrim, though he still seemed inclined to take the mushrooms when they were offered.

On the fifth day Aragorn ate the last of his bread. He slept for a little better than an hour that noontime, binding Gollum's feet and wrists and lying as he had lain in the Emyn Muil, with one leg across those of his captive so that he would know at once if he tried to move or flee. The earth was frozen here, and frost had lingered on the dead grasses well into the morning. Though he kept a vigilant eye for signs of game, Aragorn saw nothing.

Just before dawn of the sixth day, the wind rose.

All morning Aragorn walked with one wary eye to the west. Dark clouds loomed low over the distant blue ghosts of the mountains, spreading out great tumbling tentacles across the empty land towards the two travellers. They had been walking through shallow snows for hours, and Aragorn's boots were glossy to the ankle with wetness. Happily his feet remained dry enough within, but the air was bitter and his fingers were beginning to ache with the cold. He tucked a hand beneath each arm, despite the uncomfortable tugging of the rope about his wrist, and he kept his uneasy watch on the skies.

The first snowflakes fell like petals cast from the basket of some maiden in the sky: their delicate loveliness a strange and pleasant surprise. Like a child greeting winter as an old friend, Aragorn put out his hand to catch one. It lay inviolate on his upturned palm for a moment, and then shifted into grey shapelessness as it melted away. Gollum paused in his four-limbed shambling to look up at the sky. Apparently immune to the quiet wonder of the moment, he shook his head blackly and waited for his jailor to move on.

This Aragorn did soon enough, for despite his brief delight he was weighted with the knowledge of the trouble snow would make for them through all the leagues ahead. A light dusting was one thing, but as the clouds rolled onward and the snowflakes thickened he began to struggle to see more than half a mile ahead. This shortened soon enough to a quarter-mile, and then a hundred yards. By this time the snow was coming in thick swarms that settled over his hood and the rags that straggled from his shoulders, where it clung in stubborn wet clumps until he grew weary enough to reach and brush it off. Gollum did not seem to have this problem, for he was constantly wagging his head to and fro, getting up on his legs to stamp his feet and cursing blackly under his breath.

The day grew colder and the sky ever darker. Blinking against the slivers of ice forming on his eyelashes, Aragorn could not pick out their path more than a few feet ahead. The snow was drifting now, swirling about his legs and settling into contoured heaps over the slumbering earth. It took a heavy wind to do this, for it was thick and it was wet, and breaking a path became a labour instead of an incidental consequence of walking. He knew that he was not imagining this when Gollum suddenly shifted from moving beside him to hopping in his tracks. He shortened his stride a little, almost without thinking.

Night fell and the snow let up a little, sifting down from a heavy ceiling that hid the light of the moon. Aragorn walked on cautiously through the dark, placing each step with care and listening under the wind for any untoward sound.

Gollum made a petulant snivelling noise and tugged on the rope that joined them, and Aragorn halted to look at him, his sharp eyes just picking out the faint outline of his prisoner against the marginally paler black of the snow.

'What is it?' he asked impatiently. Then his conscience tugged at him. He had not considered it, for his captive had proved so hardy through rain and wind and even the icy depths of Anduin, but Gollum was all but naked. If this weather chilled his own hands and left his nose stinging, how much worse must it be for his captive? Swiftly he pulled his hood and the remains of his cloak up over his head, shaking them out and checking that the makeshift wire staple that still held the neck closed was in place. Then he bent and wrapped the ragged garment around the emaciated body beside him. He gripped one bony shoulder for a moment, surprised that the creature was not shaking with cold. Then he stood.

'There,' he said, far less harshly now. 'We will walk on: it will only be worse if we stop moving.'

He started off again, awkwardly hitching up the blanket pinned about his shoulders so that it provided at least some shelter for his ears. He folded it about his arms and tucked his hands back against his body. Gollum was back in his tracks again. They walked on.

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In the deepest blackness of the night Aragorn had to stop at last, lest he should stride right into a tree or fall upon a pit among the hills. Not relishing the thought of sitting down in the snow he stood, resting one foot and then the other by planting his toes on the opposite boot and tucking the sole against his calf. He ate a little dried fruit while he stood, and gave Gollum the next-to-last portion of the mushrooms. When morning came he would endeavour to hunt: there was nothing like fresh tracks in new snow to take the guesswork out of finding game. He was still too near Moria, and indeed the river, to risk a fire, but he doubted very much that Gollum would mind and in this cold meat would keep for several days.

He stretched his fingers slowly and then cupped his hands over his mouth to warm them with his breath. He should have asked Celeborn for a pair of gloves. What he really wanted were mittens of thick fulled wool such as the ladies of the Dúnedain produced in great quantities for their winter-wandering men, but he doubted many of the Galadhrim had even seen a mitten, much less carried one out on sentry duty. Yet even a pair of thin riding gloves would have been better than nothing, which was what he was left with now. He buried a hand in each armpit again, shuddering a little as the cold of them seeped through to his ribs. He had missed the worst of last winter travelling southward with Gandalf; he was not acclimatized to nights such as this.

Dawn came at last, painting the world in indistinct greys that brightened a little as Aragorn set out again. Behind him Gollum plodded on, jerking on the rope now and again as he turned or hesitated. The Ranger paid little mind to him: he was sharp on the lookout for spoor. Most of the game in this land would be tucked away to sleep until spring, but there were winter hares that roamed even in the snow, and birds from Forodwaith for whom this was the balmy south. He might even see a hart, though he had neither the means to bring one down nor the leisure to dress it nor, truth be told, the means to carry off any more than a haunch. A hare would be perfect, he thought as he walked; and he might even be able to stretch the hide and in another week fashion himself a pair of raw but furry mitts.

Good fortune was not with him, however, and he saw no signs of game. The snow was still sprinkling down, only lightly now although the clouds were still thick and dark enough that Gollum was not complaining of the sunlight. Indeed, Gollum had been extraordinarily well-behaved all since the middle-night. At once suspicious, Aragorn turned to look at his captive.

He was crouched there, one hand in the snow and the other raking at his ear, his halter untouched and a look of studied innocence upon his face. It was this alien expression that quickened Aragorn's pulse and sent a wary hand reaching for his knife. So accustomed had he become to the appearance of his strange companion that he did not immediately notice what was amiss. Then it came to him; the same thought he had had the previous night, and with the same abrupt dismay. Gollum was all but naked.

His first unworthy urge was to kick the creature. There he squatted, within easy reach of an angry boot. But though rage rose from his viscera into his eyes Aragorn resisted the impulse. Gollum squirmed a little under his gaze, but that same look of calculated virtue remained upon his face. I? that face asked wonderingly. What wrong have I possibly done?

It was that expression that told the Ranger it had been a deliberate act. True, Gollum might have lost hold of the tattered cloak as he loped on through the night. He might have been frightened to halt or to give any sign of what had happened. But then, surely, he would have been afraid when his captor turned on him with fire in his eyes. Afraid or ashamed, not cannily blameless. He had cast it away willfully, though it had been offered to ease his suffering on a cold night.

Suddenly Aragorn thought of the water that Gollum had flung in the dust when first they had emerged from out of the Dead Marshes, when he had had too little even to clean his wounds and no hope of more for many miles. Wanton waste of resources that could not be replenished was sedition at its worst. The loss of the water had been the harder blow, but this was still the same streak of defiance. The cloak had been torn almost to nothing, but it had still been enough to cover the twisted grey body, and it had been enough to shelter Aragorn's head and shoulders against the snow before that. Gollum had cast it away out of spite. Aragorn had, in the wake of his own gentle treatment even as a prisoner, resolved to be kind. He had been repaid with nothing but malice.

In that long, furious minute as he glared at Gollum and Gollum stared back with rehearsed stupidity, he considered his options. He could strike the creature, as had been his first wish, but that crossed the line from harsh discipline to cruelty. He could upbraid him, but that would only serve to make him look foolish in the eyes of his prisoner. He could walk on wordlessly, as if there had never been a cloak to cast away. The one thing he could not do was mend what had been done, doubling back to look for the thing and losing a day's journey for a bit of woollen rag.

He hardened his eyes still more and at last Gollum shrank, pressing his shrivelled body low into the snow and making a noise somewhere between a sob and a growl in his phlegmy throat.

'I offered what comfort I could,' he said, his voice like the very breath of the winter wind around him; 'and you wasted it for spite. Next time I will have nothing to give you.'

Then he turned as sharply as a soldier on parade and set off again at the greatest pace his long legs could make through the snow.