Note: Longest chapter yet! Be sure to comment, 'cause my handses are sore, precious. Chapter title from "The Houses of Healing", The Return of the King, J.R.R. Tolkien.

Chapter XLVII: A Beggar at the Door

The ferryman cut a crisp course that kept them safely away from the rapids that swirled by the western side of the Carrock. Soon it was looming above them, like a tableland carved of a single great stone. For all his hunger and his weariness and his trepidation about the path ahead, Aragorn could not help but wonder at the sight. Manifold were the marvels of Arda, yet surely the Carrock must be accounted high among them. Even the simple truth that it had stood here so many centuries, apparently impervious to the grinding incursions of Anduin, was something to inspire a man to awe.

Around the northwestern foot of the Carrock was another dam and another dock, this one set at the mouth of a small cave near the stones of the ford. Makan dug in his pole again and guided the ferry into its berth, where he and his brother tethered it swiftly. Their father shook hands bracingly with the other passenger, who gave him a handful of coins and an affable grin. He ascended the ladder to the docks, and the two young watermen handed him up his baggage.

Aragorn stood aside, understanding his place and waiting for his turn to disembark. He would have done so as soon as the way was clear, but suddenly there was a tug at his wrist and a quick, quiet splash, and Gollum was over the low edge of the ferry and into the water.

For a stark, startled second Aragorn had no idea what to do. Then he dropped to his knees on the deck and tried to catch the slippery wretch by one bony ankle. The motion, however, also brought his end of the rope nearer to the water, and Gollum dove out of reach so quickly that Aragorn's right hand went plunging into the still water before he could stop it. Below the clouded surface he could see the shape of his prisoner bobbing near the end of the rope. His arms were occupied with something, but Aragorn could not discern if he was working the knot of the halter or not. His cold-stiffened fingers fumbled to get a strong hold on his end of the rope, and he was just about to draw upon it with all his strength when Gollum resurfaced, feet flapping beneath him and nimble hands held out in triumph. Gripped between each finger and thumb he had a small silver fish, no longer than Aragorn's forefinger. They writhed and wriggled in their death throes, perishing either from the surfeit of air or the sudden terrible cold above the surface. The one in Gollum's teeth was certainly already dead: its eyes were goggling and its gills were punctured. Aragorn found his eyes shifting to the water again, where he could only just make out the small dark speckles where the rest of the shoal was dispersing.

All at once astonished and relieved and irritated, the Ranger sat back on his heels and gawked at his prisoner. Gollum's tongue was flicking against the spine of the fish in his mouth, but he seemed reluctant to swallow it whole. Doubtless he wanted to savour his small catch, and in his own famished state Aragorn could understand nothing better. Gollum took a pair of wide, whipping kicks that brought him bobbing almost against the side of the ferry, and with a low resigned sigh Aragorn reached down to fish his prisoner out of the river.

It proved more difficult than he had expected, for his near-frozen hands could not grasp and Gollum was slick and not especially cooperative. After two failed attempts to get a good hold Aragorn had to bow down right over the bulwarks and hook his arms right around the emaciated chest, drenching his sleeves almost to the shoulder and setting burning bands of gnawing cold about both limbs. He heaved, and Gollum came up in a shower of river-water with his feet still kicking. Aragorn dragged him onto the deck and dropped him there. At once Gollum let go of the fish in his right hand, and used those fingers to turn the one in his mouth. He bit down and then tugged, and the small shimmering body was ripped in half in a spray of pink-orange ichor.

Aragorn was shaking the water from his hands and trying to cease the pounding of his heart with repeated silent assurances that his prisoner had not escaped him, had not even been attempting to escape, in fact, when Makan came up suddenly behind him. Expecting harsh words, the Ranger closed his eyes and struggled to level out his breathing to form a meek apology. But the ferryman's son swooped down with a hard cupped hand and boxed his right ear.

Stiffening against the blow, Aragorn managed to keep his battle-instincts from getting the better of him. His right hand jerked but did not get near enough to his knife to alarm his assailant. He let it fall against his thigh instead and swallowed against the ringing in his head. Nearby the ferryman cried out in alarm, and the other son made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a shout.

'I warned you if there was any trouble…' Makan was saying, his voice filled with the menace of a bully who believes he has his chosen victim utterly in his power. Then he bent and closed his hand on Aragorn's arm.

This was too much. Swiftly as a sparring swordsman Aragorn sprung onto his toes, whirling as he rose and drawing himself up to his full height despite the needles of protest in his tired spine. He tossed his head so that the matted and frost-stiffened hair was flung away from his face. He let something of the fire of his spirit, all but forgotten after weeks of toil and misery, blaze out from his glinting grey eyes. Makan, now finding himself forced to look up into the fearsome face of one he had taken for a mere wretched beggar, quailed visibly despite his efforts to keep his own expression hard and angry.

'Your father has been generous in my hour of great need,' Aragorn said. He did not now employ the easy vernacular that he had used on the western pier. He spoke as general calling out to the foe, as a great captain marshalling reluctant troops, as a lord of men revealed in his might before a hostile throng. 'In gratitude for that I will forgive your insolence, and I will forget that you struck me. Yet if you attempt to make good upon your threat to cast me overboard, be assured it is not I who will be swimming home this day!'

Makan's jaw slackened and his eyes grew very wide. His shoulders drooped and his knees trembled, and for a moment he looked likely to swoon. Then Aragorn shaded the light within him and eased back into his tired stoop beneath the dirty blanket, and he turned back to Gollum. The creature had finished with the first two fish and was sucking at the tail of the third, apparently unaware of what had transpired above him. When Aragorn twitched the rope he hopped onto his heels like a well-trained hound and shot a disdainful look at Makan.

The ferryman was staring at them, and Aragorn stopped beside him on his way across the deck. He extended his hand to the man and managed a tiny smile that made one of the fissures in his chapped lips crack. 'Thank you, good master, for consenting to bear me,' he said. 'When next I pass this way I hope I shall have coin enough to compensate you for your troubles.'

The ferryman gripped the Ranger's fingers so tightly that Aragorn could almost feel his grasp despite the bone-deep numbness. 'Who are you?' he whispered. 'Who are you?'

Aragorn shrugged his shoulders and took back his hand. 'Only a traveller,' he said. 'And one who did not fancy a ducking on a day when such a thing is like to kill a man. Teach your son to be charitable to those less fortunate than he. I thank you again for your kind aid, but I must be on my way.'

Then he strode to the ladder and climbed, watching with care where he placed his feet because they were all but useless on their own. Gollum clambered after him, bolting down the last of his impromptu meal as he reached the planks of the pier. Aragorn did not look back as he strode away, past the mouth of the cave and onto the path that wound down from the top of the Carrock high above to the broad, smooth stones of the ford. He heard the ferryman barking hoarse orders, and the creak of oars eased into the rowlocks, and the soft swish of the waters as the vessel began to move. Only when he was certain that he was out of sight of the ferry did he halt to wring what water he could from the sleeves of his cote and to blot his hands dry on a corner of his blanket. Deep, anguished tremors of cold were starting up again in his ribs and his viscera as the wet cloth chilled him.

Gollum was crouching by his boot, picking at his teeth with torn and filthy nails. He had a smug, self-satisfied look to him, but if there was aught to fear from that or from his sudden cooperation Aragorn had not the strength to fear it. Away to the east he could see the prosperous young man by whose grace he had ridden striding off the last of the ford-stones and onto the east bank of Anduin. He had his basket on his elbow, his bundle on his back, and the bolt of white wool slung over his shoulder again. He walked with the jaunty good cheer of one secure in his place in the world, untroubled even by the cold as he strolled homeward. Aragorn surmised that he had seen nothing of the exchange between Makan and himself. It only made sense: the waterman would not have dared to strike a passenger, paying or not, in the sight of one of his best customers.

As though his show of strength had drained away the last of his will Aragorn stood there for a time, swaying a little and feeling the meagre heat of his body draining away through his sodden arms. He wondered whether Gollum's actions warranted punishment, and decided wearily that they did not. The miserable wretch had for once meant no malice; no harm to anyone, unless it be the little fish. He was near enough to starving, and he had seen a chance of food and taken it.

'And so now must I,' Aragorn breathed, unaware that he spoke aloud. His own chance of food was not as good as Gollum's had been, for it relied upon the memory of a brief meeting many years ago, and it lay still some ten miles distant. Yet it was all he had to hope for, he knew as he surveyed the banks and saw only oak trees and hawthorn. Not a pine in sight, and with the cold sinking deeper by the hour he would find no game today. At last, though it took the last shreds of his will to do so, he raised one unfeeling foot and brought it down on the path before him. He descended to the first stone of the staggered causeway and began his careful crossing of the ford. The thin soles of his dying boots slipped and skidded on the icy rocks, but he managed somehow to keep his feet. He did not, after all, fancy a ducking on a day when such a thing was like to kill a man.

lar

The Sun was setting in a blaze of majesty behind him, and Aragorn shuffled onward. Since leaving the Carrock he had not dared to halt for more than the few moments it took to dig out his bottle and take one or two freezing swallows. Now, when the first stars were beginning to show themselves against the rich blue of twilight, he was beginning to believe that if he could not contrive to keep his leaden legs moving he would simply tumble into the soft drifts of snow that lay all about him and slip into the last frozen sleep before death. If he had ever before been so insensible with cold he could not now name the circumstances. The air itself was crisp and bitter, anguish to breathe and a torment to the few patches of his skin still capable of feeling, but that was not the whole of it. His tattered clothes, his weariness, the lingering damp of his sleeves, and the long weeks of frigid labour in these winter lands all conspired to render him little better than a bundle of frozen marrow-bones wrapped in a thin ice-covered layer of flesh. His hands were useless knots of misery, and only the occasional downward glance assured him that his feet were still attached to the rest of him. He could not feel his nose, and his ears had long ago ceased to trouble him. There was one spot near the very crown of his head where he still had something like normal sensation, but he knew that was only because it was through this channel that the last shreds of warmth from his innards were bleeding away.

Beside him Gollum struggled. He too was at last succumbing to the relentless incursions of the weather. He limped now, whimpering deep in his throat but too far gone to manage even a moan of 'Poor precious!'. There were small icicles dangling from his sparse eyebrows, and he kept rubbing at his nose in a way that told Aragorn he was not the only one with frost forming in his nostrils. Ten miles, such an easy distance when one was properly dressed, or adequately fed, or even moderately rested, seemed an impossible journey in their present state. By rights they ought to have come to the end of it by now, and yet on they toiled without reward.

In his addled state, when even his mind seemed cast in ice, Aragorn had feared he might lose the path. He had checked many times in the early hours of this pitiless trek, kicking aside the snow with a clumsy foot until he could find the borders of the well-worn way beneath. At some point he had realized that the other pair of tracks, the one he kept stumbling in, was set steadily upon the road he wanted, and now he followed those instead. If they had left the path then he was lost indeed, but he did not think that they had.

The urge to sleep grew deeper with every plodding step. He knew it was the voice of winter, wooing him to his death, but he was so very weary and the smallest motion was a torment. He thought he might grow warm again, if only he stopped. Yet the muffled but persistent voice of wisdom told him that such warmth was an illusion, and it was only the sparse heat created by his moving body that kept him from slipping away entirely. He had not quite lost the struggle to heed that voice when at last he saw a light.

It ignited as a small core of gold far off in the blue of the dusk, as feeble as the closely-guarded candle of hope within his frozen breast. But it grew until it was the size of a cherry, then an apple, then a fist. And there were other lights, too, set off to either side of the other in two neat rows and perfectly regular intervals. Lamps, he thought, finding the word at last. Lamps on a low stone wall.

The sight gave strength to his spirit, but there was none left to send to his limbs. He staggered onward at his stilted pace, vacantly grateful that Gollum came with him. Despite the wet sleeves he had long ago resumed his desperate clutching of the blanket to his ribs, and his arms could thus not swing to aid him as he came through the snow to the break in the wall. The beautifully carved wooden gate stood wide, and looked as though it had done so all winter, for the drifts were high against it and the hinges speckled with rust. Aragorn passed between the lighted posts and found himself suddenly surrounded by large shapes in the gloom: outbuildings and stables.

Growing more certain by the moment that he had found what he sought at last, he pressed on in a straight line, tripping and falling suddenly to his knees as the heavy drifts gave way to a path that someone had cleared to the cobblestones. Aragorn scarcely felt the pain of the impact in his knees, but his hips protested miserably and it was with some difficulty that he got himself back onto his feet. Without the snow to fight at every step he moved somewhat more quickly, though not quick enough by far for his liking. Nonetheless he soon found towering walls thrust up to his left and his right: he was in a courtyard surrounded on three sides by the house. He limped on until he reached the third wall and the great dark door within it. Then, reluctant to break the folds of the blanket and so expose his chest to the hateful winter air, he turned a little and thumped his right shoulder against the wood.

The noise was feeble, or his ears were choked with ice, and so he tried again – but with little better result. Shuddering, not with a chill he could no longer feel but with the tremendous effort of keeping faith with his fortunes, he straightened his body as much as he could and then let his whole weight fall against the door. This time the resulting crash was surely audible within the farthest recesses of the building. Somewhere a dog barked, not the harsh threatening tattoo of a watchdog nor the frantic yipping of a pampered pet, but a single clarion sound like a sentry calling out to his commander. Satisfied that his presence had at last been made known, Aragorn rolled back off of the door and leaned against the post to wait.

He did not have to wait long at all, as it turned out, for there was a sound of scraping wood and a whisper of well-oiled hinges, and the door swung inward. Golden light spilled out in a widening trail from the bottom of the doorway, trapping Gollum in its welcoming river. There he crouched, one hand raised to his craven mouth, looking up in startled terror at the figure whose shadow swiftly fell over him.

Aragorn, pressed against the wall, was not at first seen by the tall and enormously muscled man who had come to the door. He frowned, a bemused hand stroking at his luxurious beard of black liberally frosted with age. Then a slow chuckle welled up in his throat.

'You're a mighty small thing to be making a great noise like that,' he said. His voice was deep and rich and melodious, and it sent Gollum quaking. 'Who and what are you and what do you want? It's a cold night to be out in nothing but a napkin.'

Gollum made a hoarse trilling shriek deep in his throat and scuttled out of the light, looping widely around to cower behind Aragorn's canted legs. Following him with dancing dark eyes, the broad-shouldered householder spied the Ranger at last.

'Oh, I see,' he said, though it was plain he was still puzzled. 'It wasn't the little one raising that racket after all. Well, I can see what you are, at any rate, or they're making Elves to a very strange pattern indeed nowadays, but who are you and what do you want?'

It took all of Aragorn's faculties to induce his vocal chords to move. When they did, the words sawed and shuddered out from lips that could scarcely bend to form the sounds. 'Grimbeorn son of Beorn,' he said.

The man grunted and plucked again at his beard. His other hand was now planted upon his hip in a gesture that, while strangely and most recently familiar, eluded Aragorn at present. 'No,' he said solemnly; 'that's me. Who are you and what do you… or were you answering the last question first?'

Aragorn tried to nod, but the bones of his neck gave an ominous creak and his chin drooped down towards his chest. 'Grimbeorn son of Beorn,' he repeated. Speaking took a tremendous effort, and choosing the words to say was nigh on as difficult. 'I cannot hope that you will remember me. I am…'

He halted, trying to recall it all himself. He had found himself in quite the debate with Gandalf, he remembered, when last he had walked the path that now lay behind him. Habitual caution on his part had been met with the wizard's vexed insistence.

'Of course you must tell him your right name!' he had declared at last, planting his hat back onto his head in a most decisive gesture. 'To begin, I assure you that he is worthy of your trust, and if you can't take my assurances then you've no business travelling with me at all. Furthermore, he will be most disgruntled and insulted if you are not forthright with him, and he is not the sort of a man you want to see disgruntled. And last of all, he's as much lord of his people as you are of yours, and that makes the two of you peers of a sort. As you've few enough of those, I would think you'd welcome the opportunity to befriend one!'

'I am Aragorn,' he breathed, the name coming out in a cloud of condensation that briefly obscured his view of the man before him. 'Aragorn son of Arathorn, Chieftain of the Men of the West and—'

'Yes, yes, of course: Gandalf's friend!' said Grimbeorn cheerfully. 'The quiet one with the dark hood.' He reached out a large hand thickly corded with strength and plucked at the edge of the Lórien-blanket where it was drawn up to shelter Aragorn's bare head. 'Though this isn't dark, nor much of a hood at that. Come in: you must be chilled to the bone, abroad in such weather. Coldest we've had all year, and just when spring ought to be starting to show, too. Here, come in, man, and bring that little naked fellow with you!'

Before Aragorn could wonder how he was going to force his overtaxed body to abandon the support of the post and right itself, Grimbeorn flung an arm around his shoulders and hauled him over the threshold and into the hall. His frozen flesh could not feel the warmth of the room, but his lungs could, and he dragged in the first proper breath he had had since his brief sojourn in the bakery in town.

Without relinquishing his hold on his guest, Grimbeorn closed the door and latched it. While Aragorn's eyes were still adjusting to the glow of many candles his host threw back his head and called out merrily; 'Come, my girls, and bring cakes and some of your finest mead: we've a guest!'

He strode up the length of the hall, bringing Aragorn with him. Not quite able to raise his head, Aragorn saw only the smooth, worn planks of the floor and a great sunken fireplace blazing with logs. He wanted to sink to the floor beside it, but Grimbeorn's grip and momentum held him thrall and he was dragged past in a stupor. Someone was moving very near them, and there was a scrape of shifting furniture. Then Grimbeorn let go and Aragorn sank down into a sturdy chair with a seat of woven rushes. Out of long habit he looked first for Gollum, who was cowering as far from their imposing host as possible, and kept shooting furtive anxious looks at the huge hearth behind him. A lean grey hound with intelligent, questioning eyes came to sniff Aragorn's boots. Apparently he thought well of what he smelled, for he curled up at the Ranger's feet and rested his head on his paws.

'You've missed your chance to sup with the family, but Sigbeorn will break bread with you and we'll all be happy to drink to your health,' Grimbeorn was saying. 'Nothing's the equal of a jar of steaming mead on a cold night. Better this way, anyhow. If the little ones knew we had company you'd never have a minute's peace.'

There were other people all around him now, it seemed. Aragorn could feel their eyes on his back and his bowed head, but he could not bestir himself to seek them out with his eyes. The exhaustion he had felt as he toiled against the endless snow was nothing to the stupor that was laid upon him now. He felt certain that he was going to slip from consciousness at any moment, and he would just have to trust to Grimbeorn to guard him and to keep his prisoner from effecting an escape.

The thought that Grimbeorn knew nothing of Gollum and would not think him dangerous roused him a little, but only enough to twitch one finger of his twisted left hand and mumble, 'Guard him… please, will you guard him?'

'There, there, you're both safe enough here,' said Grimbeorn, patting his shoulder heartily. 'You haven't come bringing wolves on your heels, have you? Or spiders out of Mirkwood? Or worse? Not that we won't fight them off for you if we have to, but it would be better to have the gates closed and the bows at the ready before they arrive.'

'No,' Aragorn whispered, unable to find the strength to shake his head. 'No, though I may well be hunted I do not think I have brought foes to your door tonight: I came from the Carrock, and if my passage has been marked I have seen no sign. There were wargs in the woods south of the Road, but they at least cannot have followed me across Anduin.'

'That's all right, then,' said Grimbeorn. He gestured at someone else in the room and made a noise of good-natured annoyance. 'Come, lad, don't be so solitary. Bring your cup and sit by our guest. You can have your supper together. You'll have to excuse my youngest, Aragorn,' he said in a confidential tone that lacked none of the volume of his other pronouncements. 'He's a mite spoiled and doesn't always like to be roused once he's settled.'

There was a chorus of laughter and a voice that Aragorn had heard before said; 'Now, Father, I've walked many miles today with a heavy burden, and I've earned a chance to sit in peace.' But footsteps drew near and the young man exclaimed; 'You again! Are you truly a man, or are you a wight that's taken a fancy to haunting me?'

At this Aragorn's curiosity accomplished what the wish to ensure his safety could not, and he raised his head a little. A youth with broad shoulders and his first beard was settling into a chair at the long table beside him, grinning affably. It was the boy from the market-square; the prosperous passenger from the ferry; and, so it seemed, the youngest son of Grimbeorn.

'We met in town,' he explained, looking first to his father and then off in two other directions. 'Asked me where he might find a bite to eat. Then this morning who should I see when I come down from the water-gate, but this same ragged fellow. And here he is again, lounging in my own father's chair like a dispossessed prince come into his own. It's a curious world, and no mistake.' He picked up a mug, without a handle but beautifully etched with geometric shapes, and took a long draught of it, settling back with his sturdy legs stretched before him.

'It's a shame you didn't ask him his business, or you might have had company on your long walk,' another man said, off behind Aragorn's right shoulder. 'Though what that thing he leads might be I can only guess. Some sort of a strange cur out of the far countries, maybe?'

'If it's a cur, the other dogs do not like it,' said yet another. Aragorn tried to look at Gollum again, and saw out of the corner of his eye a hound to match the one resting at his feet, standing some distance from his prisoner with ears pricked and hackles raised. Gollum was watching it warily.

There was a sound of a door swinging open and a woman's voice was heard, pleasant and hardy and every bit as resonant as any of the men's. 'Now, husband, what's this Ufrún tells me about a wild man come to visit?' she asked. 'You know you shouldn't be putting ideas into young girls' heads, or they'll start having ill dreams.'

Grimbeorn laughed. 'I told her no such thing: they're always fanciful at that age, and you know it. No, love, not a wild man: the Chief of the Men of the West, it seems, come over the mountains and across the River to bring his salutations. He's got a strange companion with him, too, though what it is and where it's come from I haven't been able to ask yet. Aragorn, no doubt you'll be remembering my wife Eira?'

Aragorn tried to push himself straighter in the chair, but though his hands moved his arms had no strength. He managed to track Grimbeorn's gaze with his eyes to a sturdy and curvaceous woman of perhaps sixty-five years, silver hair twisted into a coronet around her head. She was dressed in the fashion of the Beornings: woollen kirtle and short overdress clasped at each clavicle with intricate gold brooches. He exerted all his will and managed to bend his head and shoulders a little in an awkward approximation of a bow.

'Verily I remember you, my lady,' he murmured. 'I rested here once with… with…'

'With Gandalf the Grey, yes, of course you did,' said Eira wife of Grimbeorn. She was near now, and she pushed past her husband in order to round the chair occupied by her youngest son. 'You've come a long way just to bring salutations – what's wrong with him?' Her eyes narrowed and she rounded on her husband. Though she was at least a head shorter than he, she seemed to tower before him.

'Now, love, he's only weary. Took the ferry with Sigbeorn, it seems, and—'

With a scornful snort the lady whirled back upon the Ranger and reached out to grab his wrist. Her other hand slapped firmly down upon his forehead as if to check for fever, but she drew it back almost at once, pressing it next to his cheeks and his temples, and finally pushing aside the brooch that held the blanket that she might touch her fingers to the side of his neck. Then she clasped his right hand in both her own and she blanched.

'Why, Grimbeorn, he's frozen!' she cried in indignant dismay. 'How long have you let him sit here in these frosted clothes? Harlbeorn! Get into that kitchen and tell your mother to never mind about the mead! Bid her brew up some tea instead and make it thick with honey, and send Una up to fetch the warmest blankets and get them heating in the oven. Urdbeorn, you go and fill my biggest kettle with snow and start it boiling; your father can help you. Randbeorn and Sigbeorn, build up the fire! Don't you argue with me, young man!' she said, before Sigbeorn could protest. 'If he took the ferry with you, why didn't you see he was in such a state and bring him home at once, hmm, tell me that! There, now, dear,' she added, her tone abruptly gentle and far quieter as she patted a hand that could not feel her touch; 'we'll have you thawed in no time; never fear.'

Then she was unfastening Aithron's brass brooch and pushing back the blanket – now heavy with melting frost. 'Grimbeorn, see to his boots!' she exclaimed.

Aragorn tried to protest, but the aged lord was already getting down onto his knees and planting a firm hand on his left ankle. Dragging off the frozen and brittle leather was no small chore, and although he could not feel it in his feet or calves or knees Aragorn's hips ground agonizingly in their sockets and he had to clench his jaw against the cry of torment that wanted to break free just before the right one finally yielded. By that time the lady had unlaced his cote and his hose, and was easing his arms out of the sleeves of his shirt. As she rolled it up over his shoulders and off past his head there was a patter of lithe footsteps.

'Here you are, Grandmother,' a young woman said. 'I've got four more heating, but I thought perhaps you'd want one at once. I got it off the girls' bed, so it's warm enough, and—blustering bumblebees!'

'Now, don't go acting the fool when you've just been so sensible, Una,' scolded Eira. She flung Aragorn's shirt after the rest of his clothes and took the thick woollen blanket from the arms of a girl of no more than seventeen summers with dark wild curls tied back beneath a scarf. Her eyes were wide with astonishment, and there was a flush on her cheeks as she looked at Aragorn. He supposed he ought to be ashamed to be sitting there before her unclad save for the linen around his loins, but he could not muster the presence of mind to do it. Her grandmother was shaking out the blanket and she turned to her husband.

'Lift him up, Grimbeorn, so I can wrap him,' she said. 'Not for your benefit, Mistress Dainty, but because the poor man's near dead of the cold: he's not even started shivering yet!'

Una's expression hardened out of its drooping surprise into the lines of pragmatic common sense. 'What else shall I do?' she asked.

Eira proceeded to give a string of brisk instructions, but Grimbeorn had his hands under each of Aragorn's arms now and as he lifted a wave of terrible dizziness swallowed the Ranger's senses. He was dimly aware of the sound of the lady's voice, coming from far away in indistinct syllables, and he could feel the blanket as it was spread over his spine and tucked about his thighs. The useless weight of his body was lowered into the chair again and he braced his flank against its side and tried to fight off the swoon that threatened him. When the worst of the spots had cleared from his vision the girl was gone and Eira was at his side. One arm laid over his chest in something like a motherly embrace, while the other hand traced firm, consoling circles into his spine. On the other side, Grimbeorn was crouching over Gollum, who was cowering under Aragorn's chair and whimpering in terror.

'Well, this one's shivering at any rate,' said Grimbeorn, hefting himself back onto his feet. 'Here, man, what are we to do with this thing of yours? It won't let me touch it.'

'Him,' mumbled Aragorn thickly. He was lost in a fog that only seemed to deepen as the chill began to retreat a little from the very centre of his chest. 'He… he does not seem to suffer much from the cold. Offer him a blanket if you have one to spare him, but I think… think… think…' He could not think.

'Hush, hush,' soothed Eira, reaching to stroke his hair and catching her fingers amid the tangles. She gathered it into an untidy bundle instead and lifted the chilled, dripping mass off of his neck. A fold of the blanket was tucked over in its place and she lowered his hair onto that. 'Give it, or him, Sigbeorn's cloak, husband. And you two go and see how that water's coming on. We'll need two basins and the big washtub as well.'

Shapes that surely belonged to the men who had been stoking the fire moved past at the blurred border of Aragorn's sight, which had shortened alarmingly so that even Grimbeorn's features were softened and indistinct. He heard footsteps again, and Una's voice said; 'She didn't know how many helpings you'd want, but if six isn't enough I can go and fix more. Svala's awake and she went to nurse her.'

'Yes, yes; six is plenty,' Eira said. 'Put one down for the other guest, but don't get too near. He looks like the sort to bite if he's startled.'

The desire to laugh tugged at Aragorn's consciousness. Wise was the wife of Grimbeorn! But it was easier just to float here, helpless and unfeeling, in this place where at last his belaboured limbs and beleaguered mind could rest a little.

Something struck against his lip, and he recognized the warm textured surface of a glazed mug. His head wobbled and a firm hand cupped itself around the nape of his neck. The vessel tipped, and a tiny wave of fluid broke against his riven lips. Somehow they parted and a sip of something hot and very sweet slipped over his teeth. He swallowed, his throat tightening painfully, and felt the trickle of warmth as it migrated past his tonsils and through his gullet and all the way down to the shrunken knot of his stomach. Off in the half-forgotten world beyond his own weary thoughts he could hear someone murmuring encouragements, and the jar was tipped again. He drank, and it seemed as if he could taste a winter night in Rivendell: crackling logs in the Hall of Fire, Elven voices singing, the scent of rich carmine wine in silver goblets. He was too young for wine so late at night, but a goblet he had, and his mother kept it filled for him; sweet and wholesome and soothing. Chamomile tea.

The third time he drank greedily. There was honey in it, and the taste seemed to overpower his tongue, but he cared most of all for the warmth. He could feel it spreading now, thawing one rib after another and bringing him slowly back to life. The hand behind his head shifted a little, gently, and he was allowed to drink again.

Then the first tremor struck him, starting in his diaphragm and rippling outwards, up into his chest and down towards his legs. It died before it reached a limb, but the second one came close upon its heels and spread well into his shoulders. There was a brief moment's respite before the third one struck, and then he was wracked with a series of concussive jolts that left him breathless. He could feel the cold of his arms and his legs leaching in towards his heart as the frozen blood began to move, and when an attempt to master himself brought a white bolt of pain that shot to the very crown of his head he abandoned his struggle and gave himself over to the shivering.

He shook so violently that his head bobbed and the chair beneath him creaked. Gollum darted out from under it, leaving behind the cloak he had been given, and two of the dogs barked their alarm at this sudden movement. A third, the one who had rested at the Ranger's boots, began to whine his sympathy as the quaking deepened. All but insensate, Aragorn was scarcely aware of any of this. He felt strong hands on his shoulders, and he knew that Grimbeorn was bracing him, no doubt hoping to prevent him from sliding down onto the floor. He bowed his body over his lap, arms quivering helplessly where they crossed over his abdomen, and leaned into the support of the other man's grasp. His bare feet slipped and skittered against the velvety wood of the floor, but he could not feel them. He thought he heard someone say; 'Good, that's good; he's warming!', but he could not be certain. His teeth were rattling in his head and the muscles of his neck and shoulders jerked and twitched and danced of their own accord. He spared a moment to hope that he would not bite his tongue.

Then the worst of it seemed to pass, and he subsisted into shallow shaking that rippled only occasionally into the marrow of his bones. Someone hoisted him up into a half-standing position again, and the blanket was taken away and replaced with one that was so deliciously hot that he wanted to weep for gratitude at the feel of it against his skin. As he was settled back into the chair another one was laid over his lap and tucked snug about his legs. Then the cup was raised to his lips again. He tried to drink, but his teeth were still chattering and his lips trembled, and most of it spilled down over his chin. A gentle hand with a linen napkin wiped the tea away, and patient fingers made another attempt. This time he managed to swallow a little, and he found himself coming slowly back to his senses.

Someone had drawn up a chair for Eira as close to his own as possible, and it was she who had her hand behind his neck and the mug of tea in her capable fingers. Grimbeorn was standing nearby, carefully offset so that he did not block the glow of the hearth, which had been stacked with enough wood for a bonfire and was heating the hall with the strength of a forge. A matched pair of men both drawing on to forty years stood behind him, arms crossed over broad chests and bearded faces grave. Young Sigbeorn was sitting again, but he was leaning forward with his arms on his knees, watching Aragorn with dismayed concern. The girl, Una, stood nearby with her arms heaped high with towels. Beside her was a boy about a year her junior. He wore an avidly curious expression tempered only a little by the embarrassment of one who knew he should not be staring. And there were two women, one small and dainty with a six-month infant slumbering on her shoulder; the other tall and great with child. Behind him he could hear small voices whispering: children, he guessed, marvelling at the strange spectacle that had overtaken their home.

Aragorn found his gaze shifting back to his host, who was wearing a sympathetic smile. 'Well, Aragorn,' he said; 'it seems you've roused the whole family after all. Apart from little Svala, there. When her belly is full it would take a horde of goblin drummers to wake her.'

He tried to speak, but his throat was tight and his exhaustion seemed to rob him of the capacity to form words with his mouth. He felt Eira's hand upon his arm, but then it moved down to his fingers and only his eyes told him it was still there. 'You're a brave man indeed,' she said; 'and I'm sorry to say it will take a good deal of courage for what comes next. You see, when a body gets as cold as you've been—'

'You m-must th-thaw my hands and f-feet,' he croaked. It seemed he could speak after all, when the need pressed him. 'I can b-bear it. I have no wish to lose them.'

'Oh, there's no fear of that,' Eira laughed, and he blessed her for the sincerity in her voice. 'They're cold enough to chill cream, and you've a few patches of the nip on your fingers, but I think we'll put them right. Still, it's bound to be painful and I'm sorry for that. And we have to do off with that rope. Should we tether your friend off to a post, if he's best kept bound?'

'He is n-n-no friend of mine,' Aragorn muttered. He looked down at his wrist, at the broken and bloodied skin where the orc-rope had chafed him raw and the purpled palm and his blue frozen fingers curled like the legs of a dead spider. Then he turned his gaze on Grimbeorn's two elder sons. 'W-Will you guard him for me?' he implored. 'He is swift and sl-ly. Even bound…'

'We will guard him,' the oldest one said solemnly. He came forward and took the knife from his belt, cutting the knot at Aragorn's wrist before the Ranger could protest. At his startled expression, the man said; 'I am Baldbeorn heir of Grimbeorn son of Beorn, and I give you my word that I will guard him.'

Aragorn bowed his head. 'My thanks,' he whispered, glad that for that brief span at least his voice did not quake.

Gollum squealed as he was led away to the far side of the hall, but the grandson of the great skin-changer appeared impervious to his cries.

'Now that's settled,' said Eira, turning to her daughters-in-law; 'perhaps the two of you could see about feeding this crowd? When all's done I think we shall all be glad of a little food in our bellies, and our two ferry-travellers haven't eaten at all yet,' she added with a smile at her youngest son. 'Urdbeorn—' This was addressed to the sixteen-year-old. '—you take the children upstairs and see about getting them dressed. If they're going to be abroad all night they'll be better off out of their nightclothes, and the poor man certainly doesn't need them watching this. You put those cloths down, Una, and you can help me. Time you learned how to do this anyhow. Grimbeorn, you and that spoilt young son of yours can pour the water.'

Sigbeorn dragged up a large coopered washtub, and his father drew Aragorn's chair nearer to the table, where a large basin sat waiting. Steaming water was poured from an enormous copper kettle, and cool water added from a waiting bucket. Eira felt the temperature in each vessel and bade Una do the same. Aragorn would have liked to have done so himself, but short of dipping his face into them he did not know how he might get an accurate feel. Instead he chided the healer's voice within him and bade it be still, reminding himself that surely he could trust to the capability of his gracious hostess. Then at Eira's gentle prompting he lifted his feet over the rim of the tub and lowered his hands into the bowl. And after that, for a long while, he knew only anguish.