Chapter XLVIII: Kindly Lodgings

When the worst of it died away into a fearsome itch and the constant fiery prickling as if a thousand tiny thorns were being driven in and out of his flesh, Aragorn sagged back in Grimbeorn's chair and screwed his eyes tightly closed. He was panting shallowly and his upper arms burned with the mammoth effort of keeping his hands immersed in the water against their most insistent protests. His feet had mounted less of a struggle, largely because his legs were too weary and sore to lift them no matter how terrible the pain. He did not know how long he had struggled against the torment, fighting for mastery over his body as the agony of thawing tried to rob him of his will and to strip away his dignity, but he had come through to the other side at last and the effort left him feeble and utterly spent. There was as sound of falling water as someone tipped a little from the kettle into the tub that held his feet. This time there was no blinding flair of pain, no force within his mind begging him to jerk back out of the water, no jolt of terror as he began to doubt that the limbs were salvageable after all. When the same addition was made to the basin, it brought a small but discernable measure of relief to the aching joints of his hands.

A tender hand, wrinkled with age and skilled with long practice, blotted at his fevered brow with a soft, cool cloth. Beneath the cover of the blankets, which had been changed again for warm ones at some point early in the proceedings, he was perspiring – something he would have scarcely imagined possible that morning. The cloth moved to his cheekbones, smarting a little against the places where winter winds had burned the skin or fir-boughs had left their shallow stinging marks. Aragorn tried half-heartedly to open his eyes, but accepted his failure with quietude. Then he felt the same hand take hold of his right wrist and lift it gently from the water. His hand was eased onto another palm covered with a warm linen towel, and the lady Eira began to pat it gently dry with a corner of the cloth.

'Dry his feet, Una love,' she said. 'Dab lightly: don't rub. If you rub you're liable to take off a layer of skin.'

Aragorn fought to find his voice so that he might protest that he did not want an inexperienced young maid to be responsible for the health of his feet, but then she took a strong and steady hold of his ankle and his fears in that quarter dispersed. She worked as carefully and kindly as her grandmother, and soon his feet were dry, nesting in another clean, warm cloth that seemed almost to dance with the prickling of his awakened nerves. Eira was still at work on his hands, her thumb running over each finger in turn and pausing to press upon all the most painful spots.

At last Aragorn managed to lift his head and to open his eyes. The sight that met him was disheartening indeed. His hands were red and swollen, the skin cracked in fine webs over the backs. The burst chilblains were suppurating – and they had all burst now. Where the first layers of flesh had frozen, tight shiny blisters were already rising under Eira's careful touch. His left wrist had been stripped of most of its skin by the constant chafing of the orc-rope in the many days since crossing Gladden, and here and there the wound was weeping thick, dark blood. The nail of his left forefinger was purple and discoloured: he was likely to lose a good portion of it, and no doubt that too would be painful. Though eased at last out of their loose desperate fists, his fingers were still not straight and as he tried to extend them he was met with stony resistance and a faint dull ache. The sole comfort in the whole unhappy picture was that there was no sign of black rot. Only a small flap of loose skin on his right forearm had shrivelled and darkened, and it stood out from the tangled scars that had grown up to cover the ravages of Gollum's teeth.

The lady's hand moved there next, probing cautiously about the old wounds. She trapped the tag of dead flesh between thumb and fingernail and tugged slowly, looking up to study Aragorn's expression as she did so. 'I think we'd best just cut this off,' she said. 'It's only a little strip, and it must have been beyond saving even before it froze. What happened here?'

Aragorn shook his head helplessly. 'The creature I lead,' he whispered hoarsely, unable to bring any strength to his voice. 'When first I came upon him we struggled, and he bit me.'

A small horrified noise came from Una, who was sitting by the trestle of the table with her legs curled beside her. Aragorn tried to smile at her, but the flesh of his lips was brittle and strained sharply against the motion. 'It was not such a terrible hurt,' he assured her. 'I might have fared worse.'

'Hand me the knife, love; you needn't watch,' said Eira. Her granddaughter rose and found a little steel blade nesting among tidy rolls of new white bandages, but she did not look away. Nor did Aragorn: he had every intention of supervising the procedure, and would have performed it if only he had been able to trust his hand with the task. 'Now, I don't suppose you'll feel much of this, and if you do it's not likely to be much to what you've just endured,' she said. Then she smiled at the girl. 'You'll find it doesn't usually go so easily, Una. Most men will groan and bellow; I've known many to weep. Why, when your grandfather and I were first wed he froze his feet chasing after Beorn one winter's night. Forgot, I suppose, that he hadn't a bear's hide himself. And when I set to thawing them—'

'Now, dearest, there's no need to go telling the child such tales,' Grimbeorn huffed, straightening from hauling away the washbasin and bristling a little. 'It wasn't as loud as all that.'

'You woke the cattle in the north barn!' his wife protested, laughing. 'I knew when I took him to husband that he'd never change into a beast like his father, but I didn't realize that he could still roar like one.'

Una smiled, and from their seats further down the side of the table Sigbeorn and Randbeorn chuckled softly behind their hands; reluctant, so it seemed, to laugh aloud at their mighty sire. The lord of the house squared his shoulders and crossed his arms, affecting a deeply indignant posture, but his dark eyes glittered with mirth. 'It's lucky I wed your grandmother, lass,' he said, smiling at Una and reaching to chuck her beneath the chin. 'She has plentiful good sense and more patience than I've deserved over the years. Are we just about finished?' He turned his gaze on his wife. 'The girls will be waiting to lay the table.'

'Near enough to finished, anyhow,' said Eira. She reached for a cloth and pressed it to Aragorn's arm where a small bright spot of blood was showing. She had cut away the dead flesh while his attention was engaged elsewhere. At his startled expression she laughed. 'You may have the will and the courage to sit still while I work, but I'm not sure I've the courage to do it while my patient is watching. Better this way.' Deftly she wrapped a length of bandage around his arm, and then reached across to begin dressing his opposite wrist. 'Can you move your fingers?'

Aragorn obliged. The riven skin grated and the blisters tugged, and blood began to show in the worst of the sores, but he had most of his dexterity – provided he did not try to stretch his fingers too straight. The piercing prickles redoubled with the motion, but he could bear it. His nurse nodded in satisfaction.

'Then what's say we wait to dress them until you've had something to eat?' she asked. She felt the bones of his elbow and her eyes were tender with pity. 'You look as though you could do with some fattening up.'

He wanted to protest that he was far too weary to eat, but then a side door opened and the wives of Baldbeorn and Randbeorn came in, followed by a boy and a girl each about twelve years of age, each of them carrying a tray laden with food. Sigbeorn and his brother got to their feet and relieved them of their burdens, only to have the ladies turn about and disappear again, returning forthwith bearing still more dishes. The fragrance of warmed bread reached the Ranger's nostrils and his stomach clenched wretchedly. He knew now that he would never manage to sleep, even enervated as he was, without taking at least a little nourishment.

'Is the way clear?' asked Urdbeorn, peering out from another door and seeking his grandmother's eye. 'I've a brood of curious ducklings all wanting a bite of cake and another glimpse at the wild man.'

'Tell them they may come in,' said Eira cheerfully; 'but there's to be no troubling the guest and the next one who calls him a wild man will be sleeping in the stables and taking their breakfast with the horses.'

The boy ducked back behind the threshold and relayed the instructions. There was a merry little giggle and a disbelieving snort, and then the door was flung open again and four children passed under Urdbeorn's arm. The oldest was a girl of nine; next was a boy only a little younger. And then one of each, both five years old and so, he supposed, twins. Urdbeorn vanished again, and then came back out with little Svala sprawled sleeping in his arms. He jiggled her expertly and settled her against his chest as he took one of the rush-bottomed chairs. Una was settling the children on stools made of hewn logs with beautiful carvings on their tops. Sigbeorn took his own chair and carried it down to the far side of the room, where his eldest brother had secured Gollum to one of the posts that flanked the hall. Baldbeorn thanked him and sat, carefully within arm's reach of the cowering prisoner. Aragorn felt his heart ease still further. Whether the man believed him dangerous or not, he seemed intent to guard the creature on the strength of his pledge.

'No, no, my boy; I can take a stool,' said Sigbeorn, returning to the table to find the twelve-year-old offering his own chair. 'I'm the youngest in my generation, anyhow, and perhaps it will sweeten Mother's temper and help her to forgive me for walking straight past an honoured guest and leaving him to find his own way.'

The boy grinned and moved to sit, but the delicate little lady cleared her throat pointedly. 'Harlbeorn,' she said in a clearly instructive tone.

'You ought to take it, Uncle,' the boy said earnestly. 'For you are far older than I, and I have younger knees.'

There was laughter all around the table and Sigbeorn cuffed the child's arm playfully. 'Come to that, you're older than Ufrún,' he said. 'Though I suppose as she's a young lady you must be courteous to her as well.'

'She's worked harder than me tonight anyhow,' said Harlbeorn, taking the stool and settling between the two younger boys. He turned his eyes to the head of the table, where Aragorn realized uncomfortably he was sitting in his half-clad disarray – in the seat of the master of the house. 'She coddled the eggs for you, sir, and took up the cream.'

Aragorn wondered helplessly which one was Ufrún, but his discomfiture did not last long. The girl who was of an age with Harlbeorn was blushing brilliantly and looking down at the spoons she was laying. He still could not manage a smile with his lips, but he raised one in his eyes. 'Thank you, young mistress,' he said courteously. 'I am most grateful for your labours.'

Beside him Eira made a small approving sound and rose to her feet. She gathered up the wet towels into a knotted bundle and then whistled softly. From the kitchen-door a snowy ewe came trotting obediently. The burden was placed on her curly back and with a pat on the head and a soft word of thanks the lady sent her off again. The other cloths she whisked away, and then moved her chair around the corner of the table so that she could sit on Aragorn's right. Grimbeorn took the arm of the great dark chair and shifted it so that his guest was seated more squarely at the table, and then took the place at his left – likely where Baldbeorn habitually sat. The meal and the dishes had been laid out and the rest of the family found their seats: adults nearest the head, older children to the middle, and the little ones down at the foot on their beautiful stools. Svala's mother reached to take the baby, but Urdbeorn shook his head and smiled.

'She's no trouble, Auntie,' he assured her. 'I'll enjoy it while I can. No doubt my own little brother will be no end of trouble.'

'We might have a sister,' Una pointed out. She leaned forward in her chair to look up the table at Aragorn. 'What would you like best to eat, my lord?'

'Anything,' whispered Aragorn. He was beginning to feel quite ill as the rich scents made his innards ache. 'Anything at all.' Then he recalled himself and added; 'If you will spare some of your bounty for my prisoner, I think he might partake of the eggs.'

'I'll take them!' the next-to-youngest boy volunteered, leaping a little in his seat and hooking one woollen-shod foot beneath him. 'What sort of a beast is it, anyhow?'

His grandmother clicked her tongue. 'What did I say about troubling our guest?' she said. 'He has travelled far in the bitter cold and he is tired and he is surely half-starved by now, waiting so patiently for the cakes he was promised. No more questions.'

'In any case I shall take them,' said Randbeorn, who had been heaping a plate with an assortment of victuals and now took a little wooden bowl and spooned four of the soft-cooked eggs into it. 'I don't want any of you children going near that thing. Torbeorn—' This to the boy who had spoken. '—your father will tell you the same. Whatever it is, it must be dangerous or this good man would not have been obliged to drive it over the mountains on a rope. Stay well clear of it.' He broke off the end of a loaf of lofty white bread and planted it atop the eggs, then carried the two dishes down to the far end of the room. The plate he gave to his brother, and the bowl he set on the floor for Gollum.

His responsibility satisfied, Aragorn was able to focus solely on his plate as Una passed it to her mother, who gave it to Grimbeorn, who set it before his guest. The young lady had apparently taken anything to mean everything, for there appeared to be a helping of each dish laid out for the Ranger. There was bread and soft new butter, a small round cake drizzled with honey, two eggs, slices of dried roasted apple covered in clotted cream, a heap of berry compote mixed generously with chopped beechnuts, parsnips stewed with savoury herbs, and a slice of seed tart also richly baked with honey. Even in Lothlórien he had not been offered such an abundant variety of wholesome provender, and for a moment he could do nothing more than stare in quiet awe.

Only for a moment, however, because if this was a dream he wanted to eat as swiftly as he could before he wakened, and if it was real then he did not want to take the chance of his hosts changing their minds. He reached for the spoon that had been laid for him, mouth aching with spittle, but his thawed fingers fumbled and he could not quite grasp it. When at last he contrived to take a proper hold, his hand trembled so violently that he could not manage to negotiate it into the food.

Nimble fingers plucked the utensil away, and he looked sidelong to find Eira smiling pleasantly at him. 'Just use your hand, dear,' she said quietly. 'No one will notice.'

At another time he might have striven harder for careful manners, but by now he was lightheaded with hunger and it seemed as if his whole body was crying out to be fed. He fumbled with the honey-cake and managed to break off a piece and to raise it to his mouth. His tongue curled protectively around the morsel as its impossible sweetness made his eyes water. The cake itself was light and rich and nourishing, and fresh enough that it must have been baked that very morning. Somehow he managed to swallow. The roof of his mouth was tender, scraped by pine bark and wearied by cold air, but the wholesome food of the Beornings brought nothing but pleasure as he took another bite.

Around him Grimbeorn's family was tucking in to their midnight meal as if this were an everyday occurrence. The little ones were chattering quietly but happily as they munched on their honey-cakes or spread cream on their bread. The older children managed between their own mouthfuls to keep their siblings' plates full. At one point Una rose and went to fill Baldbeorn's plate for him again, and soon after that Sigbeorn came out of the kitchen with one pitcher of mead and another of hot milk sweetened with honey and spiced with nutmeg and cloves. He began to fill squat round mugs, which were passed from hand to hand until each person had a libation befitting his or her age. Ufrún and Harlbeorn were offered a choice between the two, and both chose milk.

Grimbeorn chuckled. 'They've only just taken their chairs, those two,' he explained to Aragorn, who was taking a small and cautious nibble of the bread. 'Old enough to sit up with us of an evening; old enough to train a colt of their own come spring. But the head for mead? That they need to learn.'

Aragorn looked at his own cup and wondered whether he could find his own head for mead. He had had no more than half a dozen mouthfuls of food, but his stomach was churning uneasily and a faint nausea was settling in the back of his throat. After so long subsisting on the barest gifts of the land his stomach seemed unable to cope with such rich fare. His eyelids felt weighted with millstones, and the chair was doing almost all the work of keeping him upright. At the far end of the table, the littlest girl was nodding sleepily over her milk, and he found himself inclined to drift after her towards the land of slumber.

Someone plucked the bread from his fingers, and his chair was dragged back from the table. He was dimly aware of skirts swirling past on both sides, and of swift orchestrated motions behind him. He felt Eira's hands on his, wrapping narrow strips of soft ribbon about each finger, his palms, and his thumbs to shield his ravaged hands. Then a strong grip took hold under his arm, and Grimbeorn was helping him to his feet.

'There, now; just a few steps and you can rest,' the man said, his deep voice reverberating through his broad chest as Aragorn leaned helplessly against him. Those few short steps sent bolts of fiery tingling torment up from his bare feet, but he was too weary to care. He stumbled as the blanket that had covered his lap puddled about his ankles, but someone – Una, he thought – bent swiftly to pick it up. Then, blessedly, the pilgrimage was over and Grimbeorn was lowering him onto a thick soft mattress crackling with straw and smelling faintly of dried lavender and rue. The blanket laid upon it was oven-warm, and the one around his shoulders was drawn gently away so that he could be tucked under another that had been heated for him. The pillow beneath his head was stuffed plump with clean wool, and his heavy head sunk deep into its inviting embrace. More blankets were heaped over him, tucked snugly under the corners of the mattress. Through the slits that were all he could manage to shape when he tried to open his eyes he could see the glow of a bed of carefully-banked embers: he was lying on his side close by the great hearth, which was nearly as long as he was tall. He would sleep warm and safe indeed this night.

Far, far away there were murmured voices and the shuffling footfalls of drowsy children being herded off to their beds. The glow beyond his lids began to fade as candles were snuffed and lamps shaded. He felt a questing hand upon his brow, and he heard Eira's gentle voice floating above him.

'You've a touch of fever, lad,' she said. 'Likely nothing but weariness and cold, but we'll keep a sharp watch.' She clicked her tongue and then said; 'You two keep him warm, and fetch me if he takes a turn.' Of someone else, farther off, she asked; 'Are you coming to bed?' There was a pause long enough for the shake of a head. 'Well, then, you can fetch him something if he wakes thirsty, and help him if he needs aught else. But if he takes a turn, send them to fetch me.'

There was a murmured reply and Aragorn heard her move off. Something long and living and warm settled against his spine, and another similar mass curled behind his legs. One of them huffed quietly and sneezed, and he felt his body relax: the lady Eira had set two of the dogs to watch over him. The soothing heat of their bodies comforted him, and he settled deeper into the chrysalis of sweet-smelling bedding. His weariness had all but overcome him, and he was just slipping away into blessed floating slumber when he remembered with sudden horror that he was not travelling alone. He tried to sit up, but weary muscles and the snugly tucked blankets hampered him and he managed only a little feeble thrashing that exhausted him utterly. As he was trying to marshal his strength for another attempt, a low deep voice sounded from somewhere past his head.

'Peace, Chief of the West,' said Baldbeorn gravely. 'Your companion is here, and he is secured, and he has eaten. Whether he shall sleep I do not know, but I promise that I will not. I will not fail in my charge, whether I understand it or no. Rest now, and do not let your dreams be troubled.'

Aragorn wanted more than anything to give voice to his gratitude, but he found such a task utterly beyond his strength. The warmth and the soft bed and the slow, steady breathing of the hounds at his back were enticing him away, and their promises – unlike the sibilant song of the snow – were truthful. He slept.

lar

It seemed he awoke once in the early morning, or else he trod very lightly in dreams of the world around him. For he heard low murmured voices and detected the soft sounds and scents of a very quiet breakfast, and it seemed that two husky shadows built up the fire before him into a cheery blaze. But he did not linger long so near to wakefulness, forsaking it for the deep wellspring of slumber so long denied him.

When he woke at last it was to the stirrings of an empty stomach and the noises of Grimbeorn's daughters by marriage laying the table for nuncheon. He rolled onto his back, and the dog who had been resting there shifted docilely out of his way without even troubling to rise. His eyes were crusted with heavy sleep, and he rubbed at them with a bandaged thumb, then stared in wonder at his hands in their careful dressings. For a moment he could not quite remember where he was or how he had come to be so cared-for in a strange hall with a high smoke-stained roof through which the sun sparkled by way of a vent-hole almost directly above him. Then he recalled what had come to pass the night before, and he let himself burrow again beneath the welcome weight of the bedclothes. He lay there for a while, content to let his turbulent thoughts do battle far beneath the surface of his mind, until he heard two whispered voices close at hand.

'Do you suppose he wakes?' the first voice said. It was a girl, and young enough that she still had the lisp of babyhood about the ends of her words.

'I do not suppose he will ever wake,' said the second, a boy no older than she. 'Mayhap he has died and will lie here until spring, when we may bury him and build a cairn like the one that houses Beorn.'

'He has not died: he rolled over and he moved his hands,' the girl insisted.

'Well then he is awake!' the boy said eagerly. 'Let us ask him where he comes from and whether there are still dragons over the mountains!'

'He may still sleep,' argued the girl. 'Halla rolls about when she sleeps, and she moves her hands. She kicks, too. And she sings.'

The boy giggled. 'Sings? Does she truly?'

'You mustn't tease her, or she'll know I told you,' said the girl. Then she sighed wistfully. 'Mayhap when Svala is older and the new baby is born we can each share a bed with our own sister and I can sleep in peace!'

'Mayhap the new baby will be a boy,' said the boy wisely. 'Then Torbeorn and I will share with him, and you will be caught with Halla on one side and Svala on the other!'

'I do not think that likely,' said the girl, rather sulkily. There was a shifting of soft shoes and she said; 'I wish he would wake.'

Aragorn supposed it was time to oblige his little hostess, and so he turned his head to the left in the direction of the voices. He was met with a mound of blanket-ends, and worked his hand out into the air again to paw them down out of his line of sight. On the opposite rim of the fire-pit with their feet in the hot sand below sat the two youngest children; the five-year-olds he had taken for twins. Now he saw that he was mistaken: the girl had pale blue eyes, and the boy's were rich green. Grimbeorn and all his sons had deep brown eyes, and Eira's were a pale hazel, so these they must each have inherited from their mothers. Both pairs of eyes were tremendously wide now, as the children realized that the guest was indeed awake.

He wanted to wish them a cheerful good morning, but his throat had closed up in the night and all that he could manage was a croak and a heady cough. It was enough, it seemed, to make the little boy jolt like a startled rabbit and the little girl clap her hands delightedly.

'He is awake!' she cried. Then she clapped both hands over her mouth and looked furtively towards the long table somewhere beyond Aragorn's feet.

The damage had been done, it seemed, for light footsteps approached. 'Awake, is he?' the strong, fair voice of young Una asked. 'You'd best hope it was not the pair of you that wakened him, or Grandmother will be cross. Go on: run and wash your faces and maybe Sigbeorn will tell you a tale before we eat.'

The children sprang to their feet like dancers mirroring one another's steps and scampered away. A moment later Aragorn found the young lady looking down at him with a smile upon her face and an appraising glint in her eyes.

'A merry morning to you, my lord,' she said, folding her skirts neatly as she knelt beside him. 'Or a merry noontide would be nearer the mark. I hope you have slept well?'

'Very well,' said Aragorn. His voice was hoarse but at least he was able to form the words. 'I thank you. There was no need to drive the children away.'

'There was every need, for their sakes if not for your own,' said Una with a grin. 'They have been told seventeen times in the last two hours alone that they are not to trouble you, nor to ply you with questions, and how do I find them? Doing the first, and warming up to the second. If Grandmother or one of the mothers had caught them, they'd each get a swat on the rump with a wooden spoon and no cream with their apples at supper!'

She reached over the dozing dog beside him and planted her palm on Aragorn's brow. He stirred beneath her touch, wanting to assure her it was not necessary, but she shot him a sharp look. 'They're not the only ones who have had strict orders from Grandmother,' she said. 'I may be young, but I'm the eldest of two very busy broods and I know what a fever feels like! Let me check you and give my honest report, for I am quite partial to cream with my apples.'

'There is no fever,' Aragorn said. He was looking again at his wrapped hands and wondering whether the damage beneath the linen would look better or worse in daylight. For that matter, he wondered how his feet were faring. He had not managed to examine them at all before losing himself to the balm of sleep.

And balm it was, he knew as he managed to dig his elbows against the mattress and lever himself up into a sitting position. His body still ached and his chest was tight, and the merciless itch in his feet was equalled only by the raw prickling pain in his hands, but his mind was clear for the first time in many weeks, so it seemed, and the worst of his headache was gone.

'No,' said Una, dusting her palms together and rocking back onto the balls of her feet. 'No, I don't believe there is. Grandmother will want to see to your hands, but if you've tired of lying there I can help you to the chair.'

Aragorn looked down the long hall. The table had been laid with dishes and baskets of small round bread-loaves, but the women had disappeared again, and it seemed that he was alone with the granddaughter of Grimbeorn. He looked doubtfully at her. She was a tall maid, and sturdy of bone, but she was slender and she was only seventeen. He would have towered two heads above her at his full height, and his lean body was despite long deprivation still hard with dense muscle. His feet might not hold him, and if he stumbled he might hurt her.

She seemed to know what he was thinking, for she winked at him. 'I'm strong as a wild pony, I promise you!' she said. 'My great-grandfather was the mighty skin-changer himself, you know, and there's a bit of the bear in my blood.' She got up into a firm squat and offered her fisted forearm. 'Stand, Chief of the Men of the West: I challenge you!'

Before her untrammeled spirit Aragorn felt his spirits rising. His feet would just have to hold him, then, for he would answer her challenge and he did not intend to fall. He raised his left knee and set his foot against the straw of the mattress, and laid his bandaged hand upon her arm.

It was then that he realized that he had been put to bed as he had sat beneath the blankets while he thawed: bare-legged, bare-chested, with only his nether-linen to cover him. He withdrew his hand and shrank back, hastily gathering up the lowest blanket to hide his unclothed body. He managed to get one corner flung over his left shoulder and he clutched the rest of it to him as best he could without the use of his fingers.

Una gawped at him for a moment, and then laughed the wild laugh of her grandsire. She planted her fists on her hips and got to her feet, shaking her head. 'Oh, very well,' she said. 'Cover yourself if it pleases you, as if I have not two brothers, two he-cousins, two uncles, a father and a grandfather, all of whom think nothing of whipping off their tunics at the least excuse and wrestling half-naked in the dooryard. Though I do admit,' she added with a playful toss of her head as she turned to leave him; 'that for all the dirt and the ragged hair you're better-looking than the lot of them.'

Then she took flight and sprinted away as swiftly as the two children had done.

From behind Aragorn came a rumbling chuckle. He twisted to see Randbeorn sitting where his brother had been the night before, an insensible Gollum curled up on the floor at his feet in a nest made of a brown woollen cloak.

'Fear not,' he said. 'I'll tell neither her father nor mine what she said. You want to watch out for Una: she's coming up on marriageable age, and if there was ever a girl wanted marrying it's that one! She'll have a brood of bonny babes before Freya's finished with her own nest.'

'Freya is her mother?' Aragorn asked. It had been many long years since he had been the object, even in jest, of such a young girl's attentions. The last memorable occasion had been during his sojourn in the court of Ecthelion. He found that despite himself he was rather embarrassed by it.

Randbeorn nodded. 'Freya wife of Baldbeorn. Una's her eldest, then Urdbeorn who herds the young children as skilfully as he herds his beloved cows. Ufrún next, who was so pleased when you remarked upon her eggs last night. Then Halla, who's a handful, and little Delbeorn who supposed we might bury you up by my grandsire's cairn. They'll have another in the brood before the snow all melts away, if the weather doesn't take a turn soon.'

'I see,' said Aragorn, trying to tie all the names together in his mind. He recalled the little girl had said Halla kicked in her sleep, but he could not place the girl's face. One of the middle children who had not yet 'taken her chair', he supposed.

'My wife's Clothilde; Harlbeorn's our eldest. Then Torbeorn, who has been hankering to ask if you're a great warrior and if you have a sword; then little Otkala who runs about with Delbeorn, and Svala's our baby.' Randbeorn stroked his beard thoughtfully. 'Grimbeorn and my mother, of course, and Sigbeorn the Spoilt. That's all of the family you're likely to meet if you're headed east. My sister Heidra keeps a bakeshop in the town with her husband.'

Suddenly Aragorn remembered a sturdy little girl perhaps a year older than the two who had been sitting watch over him, her hands on her hips in precisely the manner of Grimbeorn himself. 'That would be Kvigir,' he said. 'And they have two girls: Dryffa and…'

'And Katrín; that's right! So you know them?' asked Randbeorn with the eager grin of a man who enjoys gossip and genealogy in equal measure, and preferably as often as possible.

'Not well,' said Aragorn carefully. His encounter with the man's brother-in-law had after all been less than pleasant, and he was not eager to discuss it. 'Your brother was kind enough to direct me to the shop when I asked where I might come by something to eat. I met Kvigir, and I saw his daughters.'

'Pretty little lasses, aren't they?' Randbeorn said proudly. 'All the girls of our family are. There never was a man with such a charming daughter, nor such beautiful brother-daughters and sister-daughters as I. When they're grown there'll be broken hearts a plenty from the east ridge of the Vale to the foot of the mountains. It's as well for the young men that only Una's even close to that age.' Beside him Gollum shifted in his uneasy sleep, and the man frowned. 'But what is this thing? No friend of yours, you said. He is not your own child, I hope?'

It was said half in jest, but there was a note of doubt to the question as well. Aragorn shook his head. 'He is a creature I have sought for many years. Since last I enjoyed the hospitality of your home, in fact. Gandalf the Grey has hunted him with me, and I have found him at last. He is my prisoner and I am leading him to a place he can be secured.'

'And his crime?' asked the man. 'From the look of him, he's capable of any number of horrors.'

'That he certainly is,' muttered Aragorn, and for a moment he almost thought that he could feel the scrabbling hands against his wrist as he sunk in Gladden's freezing depths. 'Forgive me; I can say no more, and in sooth I would rather lay by those worries today if I might.'

'That you certainly may do,' said Randbeorn; 'and I think it prudent that you should. You have the look of a man who has carried his cares over-hard. But tell me this. I remember that when you last graced our halls Gandalf put you forward as a great traveller. A huntsman unrivalled, he said, and the lord and leader of the wandering guardians of the western lands. If that is true, why have you come over the High Pass in the dead of winter dressed for hard labour in the heat of July? It's no wonder you were frozen through, wearing those rags without a cloak to your back or a hat for your head or even a pair of gloves.'

Aragorn considered dissembling, but he found that he could not. These folk had shown him nothing but the utmost trust and kindness: he owed them at least as much of the truth as he dared to share. 'I did not cross the mountains on my road to the Carrock,' he said. 'I have come from the far south, where I had thought to pass the winter, such as it is in those temperate climes, in search of he that now rests beside you. After so long seeking fruitlessly I had scarcely thought to find him, but when I did it seemed prudent to come north with all haste, ill-clad or no. My cloak I lost ere I came to the River Gladden. The rest I did not think to carry with me when I left my home on a southward road long months ago.'

Randbeorn made a sound that might have been a grunt of assent or a hum of puzzlement, but at that moment Una returned. In her arms she carried Aragorn's ragged cote and his shirt and belt, but his hose and his boots and the Lórien-blanket were missing. Instead she handed him a pair of soft felted shoes. These surely belonged to Grimbeorn, for they were nearly long enough for Aragorn's feet and rather too wide. He could not deny that, for indoor use at least, they would be kinder on his tender feet than old cracked leather.

'Hurry and dress,' the girl said merrily. 'We'll be bringing in the midday meal soon, and you will surely want to join us. While I'm not opposed to seeing a man's strength traced in lines down his arms, I don't think we're meant to be able to count your ribs.'

She whisked away before Aragorn could think of anything even remotely like a dignified reply. Raucously but without spite, Randbeorn laughed.