Chapter LXXI: The High Pass

For the ferryman’s son, it was a most uncomfortable crossing. Not only was he riding with one he had used so ill, now splendidly arrayed in ornate garments and very showy boots, but every time he glanced across the low deck he found Gandalf watching him with one of the blackest looks of which he was capable. Aragorn had seen the Istar’s eyes more gentle in battle than they were at present. Makan had little time to squirm, for they were fighting the mighty spring currents. The oarsmen were strong and the ferryman knew his path well, and they won through at last to the breakwater that formed the little haven by the western bank of Anduin.

Here the two younger men changed their oars for long poles and guided the vessel in towards a shallower landing where the horses might disembark. Aragorn led Moroch off, less out of need than out of a wish to be occupied. He had eased more tenuous situations than this, but at present he did not wish to be the mediator between the hapless Makan and an indignant wizard.

Happily Gandalf seemed to realize this, for he disembarked with a polite word to the ferryman and one last hard glare at his son. With the gelding now on dry land there was no reason to tarry. Aragorn mounted smoothly, in this moment thankful that it had been his right foot, not his left, that had fallen prey to Gollum’s treachery. A soft click of the tongue was all the invitation that Moroch needed. She began to walk daintily up the rocky slope.

‘Again, my thanks,’ Aragorn said, looking back at the ferryman. The man bowed respectfully, and Aragorn offered a gracious smile. Beside him Makan was fidgeting with something in his strong hands. He looked anxious to speak, but seemed unable to work up the resolve to do so. Deciding that it was no obligation of his to help the man find his words, Aragorn straightened in the saddle and let Moroch carry him up the narrow twining path that climbed the cliffs to the town.

Before, eyes long accustomed to empty vastness had seen the square as a burgeoning basin of human activity. Now Aragorn saw how truly sparse the traffic had been upon that cruelly cold afternoon. Now the streets that fed it were thick with walkers and beasts of burden. The square itself was positively overrun. There were market stalls set up on the cobbles and hawkers working the crowds. The doors of every shop were flung wide, and patrons came and went in colourful clutches, laughing and calling out to friends. Children ran about, merry in the gentle spring morning, and the sounds of their glee brought Aragorn no pain this time.

Even with the streets so crowded, folk stepped respectfully aside to let them pass. Gandalf was known here, and many recognized him. Others merely deferred to what they saw: two travellers on splendid horses, obviously travelling lords of some kind. Such visitors were common enough that they were not the objects of awe, but the prosperity of the Town at Carrock was built upon its passing trade and all were respectful.

They had no business in the Town, and so passed through by the most direct way they could find. Aragorn had no wish to be seen by the baker Kvigir. The encounter with Makan had been uncomfortable enough, and he was not walking this road for the purpose of opening unseeing eyes. He did not fling his cloak back from his shoulders again until they were out on the road winding west through the farmholdings, either, though he felt warm enough to do it. He was discomfited by the knowledge of how smugly vindicated the Elven tailor would have felt to know the impact his work had had on the ferryman’s son.

When they had been journeying about an hour through open country, Gandalf (who had been riding a couple of paces ahead) fell back so that the Lórien-horse was in step with Moroch.

‘Are you going to tell me,’ he said with ponderous insistence in his voice; ‘what passed between you and the oarsman when last you came this way?’

‘I think you have already guessed much of it,’ said Aragorn. ‘Without the ferryman’s good grace and generosity, I know not how I could have crossed the river. Even now such a swim would be foolhardy. On that day it would have been deadly.’

‘Hence the gold piece,’ Gandalf acknowledged. ‘But what of the rest? He struck you? I have known few men who would have dared that.’

‘I have known few moments in my life when I was brought so low in countenance and circumstance,’ Aragorn muttered uncomfortably. ‘He took me to be no threat at all, but only a nuisance and a pauper. Makan fancies himself a hard but fair man. What he is – or, I earnestly hope, was – is a bully, and an uncharitable one at that.’

Gandalf opened his mouth as if to say more, thought better of it, pursed his lips, frowned and then scowled. Then he shook his head irately and huffed; ‘While you are forgiving to a fault, and charitable where a lesser man would find no cause to be.’

‘I am fortunate to be in a position to be charitable,’ Aragorn said, looking up at the rolling blossoms of clouds high above. He leaned to pat Moroch’s neck without watching his hand. She nickered and picked up her pace a little, joyously. Gandalf’s mount kept neatly in step.

‘Grimbeorn told me something of your visit to his home,’ said the wizard presently. Aragorn stiffened, fearing the course the conversation would now take. ‘He told me of Gollum and the babe. In my heart I questioned your wisdom in moving on in such haste. Now I understand: forgive me my doubts.’

Aragorn turned his gaze upon his friend, wishing that his eyes were hard but fearing they were anything but. ‘In a less needful hour, I should never have brought that wretch beneath a roof with children,’ he said tersely. Then he fixed his eyes upon the road again, and they rode on in silence.

They passed that night in the home of one of Grimbeorn’s foresters, Gandalf having no compunctions about requesting lodgings on the strength of his name. The forester and his wife were in their middle years, with two children yet at home. The elder was a boy of about Una’s age, who helped Aragorn to make the horses comfortable in the little cowshed behind the cottage. The younger was a girl of about twelve years, gangly and very shy, who spent most of the evening watching the guests with wide, wary eyes from the doorway of her parents’ bedchamber.

The forester was accustomed to housing travellers, and he had a straw mattress and bedding ready in the loft above the home’s main room. After pleasant conversation and a hearty meal of venison stew and oat bread, Aragorn and Gandalf retired quietly. Below they could hear the sounds of the family’s nightly rituals, and they moved as smoothly as they could considering how they were obliged to stoop beneath the slope of the roof. The position was not favourable to Aragorn’s lungs, and when he was slipping off his hose he was taken by a series of deep, wet coughs that were only eased when he gave up trying to stand.

Gandalf, who on the other side of the humble bed was unbuckling his sword-belt, looked sharply at the Ranger. ‘Are you taking ill?’ he asked.

Still breathless but now seated on the floor as he loosed the lace of his cote, Aragorn shook his head. ‘It seems stooping disagrees with me,’ he gasped as cheerfully as he could.

‘It has never done so in the past,’ Gandalf growled. He shed the outer layers of his robes unceremoniously and knelt down to crawl into bed. When he was beneath the covers he remained sitting, hands in his lap and hard eyes on the Ranger. ‘Did Thranduil’s healers agree that you were well enough to travel?’

Thranduil’s healers had not at any time known what to make of the famine-sickness their patient suffered, of which the fluid in his lungs was the last and most insidious sign. Yet both Lethril and Helegond had assented that his wounds were no longer worrisome and his stamina was much recovered. ‘They agreed,’ said Aragorn. ‘There is nothing to be done about the cough save to wait: it is not a sign of any particular illness and it will resolve itself in time. Each wholesome meal advances towards that aim.’

Gandalf grunted doubtfully, but lowered himself onto one elbow as Aragorn folded his cote neatly and ran a hand through his hair. ‘It is always amusing to watch you care for your clothes, Dúnadan, considering how hard you wear them,’ he said fondly as Aragorn slipped into his side of the bed.

‘It is because I know their value,’ Aragorn said. ‘After this journey, more deeply than ever before.’

‘How far did you travel in that light summer garb you were so reluctant to bring into a northern winter when last we parted?’ Gandalf asked. ‘It was your excuse, after all, for persisting in the hunt.’

‘As well I did,’ Aragorn said, turning onto his side. It was not his choicest position for sleep, but it put his back to the wizard and would discourage further talk. ‘It seems almost all of our questions have been answered at last.’

‘Yes…’ mused Gandalf. ‘Yes, they have, have they not?’

Both walked towards their dreams that night thinking not of the Ranger’s health, but of the great weight of knowledge now upon their hearts.

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They breakfasted with the forester and his wife, the children being still abed in the hour before dawn, and set out with the first indigo gleam of sunrise at their backs. The Elven horses liked starlight as well as they liked sunlight, and they cantered eagerly up the well-kept road. At midmorning they halted to take a little refreshment and to stretch their legs: Aragorn was still not quite accustomed to riding, and Gandalf had been doing rather too much of it of late. The travel-cakes of Baldbeorn’s skillful making made a very pleasant luncheon in the early afternoon, which they ate by a lively little stream made cold and exquisitely clean by mountain waters. They were amid the foothills now, and the rocky slopes rose high on either side of the road. The mountains themselves had gone from a craggy blue line a handspan above the horizon to towering snow-capped peaks that seemed almost to eclipse the sky. The way was winding, but still easy: the Beornings tended this road well.

It was about three o’clock when they rounded the foot of a squat tableland and came in sight of the last outpost of Grimbeorn’s people. There was a stone lodge, long and narrow, and a stone barn and a low stone guard-tower about thirty-five feet in height. It was manned with two archers above, and half a dozen men below. This was the dwelling of those who kept eastern side of the High Pass clear of goblins and other such perils. It was also the tollhouse.

‘We will halt there for the day,’ Gandalf said, reining in his horse and nodding ahead at the cluster of buildings. ‘One more night beneath a tight roof will do neither of us any harm.’

‘There are nearly five hours of daylight left to us,’ argued Aragorn. ‘We could be well up the shoulders of the mountain by nightfall.’

‘And there we may camp in the damp and the cold, without shelter or comfort,’ said Gandalf, his tone as dousing as a pail of chilled water.

‘We have blankets and oilskins, and we will be among the trees for a few days yet: we can easily fuel a fire,’ said Aragorn. ‘Have we ever before let comfort tempt us from our road?’

‘Sometimes, when it is most needed,’ Gandalf said grimly. He did not rake his eyes over the Ranger, but he did not need to.

‘If you think I am unfit for the road, say so now,’ Aragorn challenged.

Now Gandalf did look at him, eyes flashing. ‘If you think that you are fit, say so yourself!’

Aragorn felt a hot flush creeping up his neck. ‘I cannot swear to my fitness,’ he admitted, keeping his voice firm and determined. ‘I cannot promise that the crossing of the mountains will prove easy. It is a hard road even for a man at his full strength, which I am not. Yet even in my somewhat reduced circumstances I am the equal of many a traveller who has ventured this way, and more fit than many of them. Would you deem me less able to tread those heights than Thorin Oakenshield and his dwarves?’

‘Never,’ Gandalf pledged, his voice less hard now. ‘Yet I feared less for Thorin than I fear for you.’

Aragorn turned his mouth into a small smile. ‘Yes, that is the crux of it,’ he said softly. ‘We worry most where most we love, whether the worry is proportionate to the danger or no. If it eases your mind, I would rather forego a night’s shelter than delay by even five hours my return to Imladris.’

Gandalf sat for some moments in silent debate, reading Aragorn’s eyes and then his own heart, gauging the fitness of the horses and considering the road ahead. ‘Very well,’ he said at last. ‘But we shall avail ourselves of their fire, and eat and warm ourselves before we go onward.’

To this Aragorn agreed: compromise was essential in a joint venture, and Gandalf had yielded more than he. They came swiftly to the tollhouse and were greeted by the Beornings. Here both of them were known, and their welcome was warm. They sat among the men and ate of their meat and drank of their mead, but they tarried not even three-quarters of an hour. Then Gandalf took out the purse Thranduil had given him and paid their toll, and they rode on upward into the first leg of the mountain pass.

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Time and again on his unhappy road, Aragorn had dreamed of the moment he might start across the Hithaeglir towards the home of his heart. Now the moment had come at last, it was quiet and prosaic and neither joyful nor glum. The incline of the road was steep enough that the horses had to keep to a moderate trot, but not so steep as to cause any discomfort or excessive exertion. The way was rocky, but not rocky enough to make Moroch jar him even as much as a horse of Gondorian blood would have done on smooth land. His companion was quiet, but not quite silent: he brooded but he did not broil. The air was no colder than it had been among the foothills, and the pines and firs rose tall upon either side of the path, fading ahead to a mossy mass upon more distant slopes.

They found a reasonably level place to camp not long after dusk, and they laid a small fire. On the fallen needles of yesteryear they laid their blankets, and between his watches each slept in far more comfort than could usually be found in the Wild. Aragorn slept more readily here than he had in the forester’s cottage, for the air was sweet and open and there were no noises of strange folk stirring below.

The following day they made good progress. There was no question of covering thirty-six miles a day in such terrain: they would be swift indeed if they kept to twelve. The horses seemed tireless, however, and the riders did not need to dismount to rest them. From Grimbeorn’s storehouses they had fat sacks of grain to feed their mounts in the high lands ahead, but here there was still plentiful forage. Whenever they halted to rest, they picketed Moroch and the gelding and let them graze. That night was colder than the first, and Aragorn put on Eira’s woollen mittens when he sat his watches.

On the third day their progress was slower, for they stopped frequently in areas of deadfall to gather fuel. On the heights they would have the greatest need of fire, and the least means of procuring it. Gandalf insisted that they each bear a bundle on their own backs as well as strapping one to each horse. To Aragorn it looked like wood enough for a signal-fire, but he said no word in argument and hoped that such a thought was nowhere near the wizard’s mind.

They were well up into the mountains now, and when by chance a clear line of sight opened behind them they could see the foothills and the farmland of the Beornings like a child’s sculpted mounds and valleys in a bed of sand. Once Aragorn turned and found that he could see Anduin, far away like a twist of fine silken cord laid upon the darker velvet of the land. Although perhaps he should have wondered at its smallness from this vantage, when its great breadth had proved such a barrier to him on two recent and most memorable occasions, he found himself thinking instead of the handwork of his beloved.

Then, he realized, he dared at last to think of the Lady herself: Arwen Undómiel, most beautiful and best-beloved. All through his labours he had shied from thoughts of her, skirting them with care even beneath the eaves of fair Lothlórien. On that bitter journey he had not dared to let himself taste too deeply of his longing for she whom he loved, lest the temptation prove too much in some moment of utter misery. But now, with his quest fulfilled and his captive secure in the hands of others, with his handsomely-booted feet upon the narrow homeward road at last, he dared. He dared, and his mind was filled now with the image of her beauty, the brilliance of her eyes, the glory of her laugh, and the crisp keenness of her wit. She would enjoy the tale of the tailor and his handiwork, he knew – and the tale of the two children of the Mark, which Gandalf had not troubled to pursue.

He was unsure what more of his journey he could find the strength to tell her, but perhaps he would not need to say more. Since the breaking of those first few awkward days in Caras Galadhon long years ago, there had always been a nearness between them that oft times transcended the need for speech. So often she knew what was in his heart without having to ask, or even to search there. It was perhaps the most priceless and most intimate gift of love.

‘She will doubtless be equally eager to see you,’ Gandalf said, breaking the spell of Aragorn’s fond imaginings and bringing him back to the cool air of the mountain trail.

‘What?’ he said, caught unawares and not quite listening. ‘How did you…’

‘Because you look like a child dreaming of sugar-plums,’ said Gandalf in gentle amusement. ‘All wistful eyes and tremulous smiles. Is that the real reason you are so anxious to be home, Aragorn? Because you know that she is waiting?’

‘In sooth, I had scarcely thought of it before this,’ Aragorn admitted, quite truthful. ‘There are few thoughts more perilous upon a hard road than those of the one enticement that might make a traveller turn from it.’ He shrugged his shoulders and pulled the warm cloak more snugly around his body before finding the reins again. ‘I may be a lovelorn fool, but I am not so reckless as that.’

‘Take your joys where you may find them,’ Gandalf advised. ‘There is little enough on such roads.’

Though he did not part his lips to give it voice, Aragorn’s heart was singing. 

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By noon on the fourth day, the air was so cold that the travellers had to halt to arrange their garments. Aragorn had the cap and muffler provided him by Grimbeorn’s household, and from his own baggage Gandalf produced a long scarf and a pair of fleece-lined leather gloves. They took the time to give the horses a thorough currying, though with only the one brush it was a lengthy endeavour, for it would excite the blood to their skin and help to warm them as they walked. The way was steeper now, and because they did not want their mounts to sweat a trot was out of the question. Besides, the path curled up the side of a mountain now, and below there was nothing but rocky gorge and a few scrub pine. It was a little dizzying to look over that edge when one’s horse drew too near it.

Moroch was not unfamiliar with high places, if not quite so high, for she had been bred amid the little mountains of Mirkwood. The gelding, however, had never had occasion to climb like this, and he was restive. Gandalf kept him calm with low Elvish words and the strength of his will, but it made for an uneasy day’s travel. The rumbles of the spring thaw were all about them: the distant drumming of a landslide, the echo of a tumbling boulder loosed from the breaking snowpack, and the constant riotous music of rills and springs in every direction. More than a few of these crossed the path, and there was never a want of clear, fresh water. Remembering the days of desperate thirst in the Ephel Dûath, Aragorn was profoundly grateful for these snowy heights.

Even twelve daily miles were not achievable now, for they moved so slowly and rested so frequently. The flora was growing sparse, and at their mid-afternoon halt they gave the horses each a measure of grain. Their own appetites were much whetted by the invigorating cold and the lofty way, but they ate sparingly. Rather, Gandalf ate sparingly and Aragorn took only just enough to satisfy the wizard that he was not about to lapse back into a starved stupour. The care that his friend was taking for his health was endearing, but it was also irksome.

They could not find a level place that night, nor even an especially wide place. They had to settle for a convex curl of the path where they could put their backs securely to the rock wall. It was hardest on the horses, for they bore the worst of the wind: a place that was leeward at dusk was buffeted from every side in turn long before dawn. For his part, Aragorn found himself hard-pressed to keep from coughing, knowing it would surely wake Gandalf and rouse him to anxious imprecations. The next morning the travellers rose stiff, sore, and sour, and continued on their way.

It was later that day that they passed the treeline. The towering pillars of the foothills had given way slowly to firs that would have been well-suited to a dooryard windbreak, and they to trees of a comely proportion for a hobbit’s garden. Last of all were little scraggly things hardly knee-high upon the tall Ranger. To the untrained eye these stunted pines looked pitiful, but they were the mountains’ hardiest survivors. They clung to life even here, where the air was thin and the soil stony and the cold unremitting even in high summer. It was at once encouraging and troubling when they left the last of these matted shrubs behind and went on into bare brown country where the springs cut dark rivulets in the rock.

The cough he had successfully held back that night now plagued Aragorn. It stirred deeply in his chest and for a time he could fight it. Then it would burst forth in a series of barking flurries that unsettled Moroch and earned him stern backward glances from Gandalf. The way was narrow here, and they could not go abreast. Aragorn knew the pass well, but it was one of those few places that Gandalf had travelled more frequently: he had many centuries’ experience in crossing these mountains. They had not taken a false step or a wrong turn yet.

It was still the cold that was the most worrisome, for there was no broad place to lay a fire. When evening came they sought out a leeward niche as they had before, and built their little hearth in the middle of the path with Gandalf two paces above it and Aragorn two paces below. They brought their horses as near as they dared, and the two brave steeds stood stolidly through the windy hours of darkness. Neither wizard nor Ranger slept much that night.

The sixth day brought them mercifully to a canyon between the cloven peaks of a great nameless mountain. It was a relief to move on with solid rock to either side, even if the way was rough and undulating. Here at last they had to dismount a while, for the horses were labouring heavily and had to be spared. At first this was easy and even pleasant: stretching legs and resting thighs and back weary of the saddle. Soon enough Aragorn’s healing ankle ached and his heels protested the unfamiliar slant of the riding boots. He endured both quietly, reminding himself that he could take ten miles in such footwear without imperilling his legs. Still he was glad when Gandalf proposed they mount again.

They were still climbing: well was the High Pass named. At these heights the Great Eagles flew, but few other birds. They had seen neither goat nor marmot all day, and the air was very dry. When Aragorn felt a hot tickling touch upon his lip he knew what had happened even before he tugged off a mitten to touch his face. His nose was bleeding again. He blotted at it with one of Una’s handkerchiefs, and rode on. Brave young Moroch kept her determined hooves upon the path, and nodded her head as if to cheer her rider whenever he reached to stroke her neck. Ahead, the Lórien-horse trudged with stooped neck bowed against the wind.

The rocks fell more frequently here, and they were high enough that patches of snow still clung to the crevices of the mountainside. Once a great boulder bounded down the path just short of Gandalf’s horse. Away in the distance came a deep, resonant roar like the thundering of the sea in a rocky cove: the sound of an avalanche on some other peak. The High Pass was less susceptible to such cataclysmic stirrings of the mountains, but it was not immune to them. There was always the chance of being swept off the cliff face – or worse, buried alive – by the rolling sheets of snow and debris.

The Valar smiled upon them that night, for about an hour before dark they found a cave large enough to accommodate two lean travellers and their bowed horses. It was not the most pleasant of positions for Moroch and her companion but they tucked their heads gladly, as grateful as their riders to be out of the wind. Gandalf laid a fire at once, for its light as much as its warmth, and the horses drew as near to it as they dared.

Here Aragorn had to stoop much as he had in the forester’s hut one week before, and it proved worse than ever for his chest. He had scarcely begun his careful inspection of their shelter when he was taken by a fit of paroxysmal coughing that brought him to his knees and left him with black spots swimming in his vision. Gandalf was crouching before him, gripping both bony shoulders and staring worriedly into his eyes. When Aragorn was able to meet them with some measure of clarity in his own, the wizard released his left shoulder so that he could tug off his glove with his teeth. He pressed the back of his hand to Aragorn’s brow and frowned.

‘No fever,’ he said.

‘It is no infection,’ panted Aragorn, hoarse and scarcely able to draw breath. ‘Give me the water.’

Gandalf obeyed, opening the bottle as well and guiding it to Aragorn’s lips when he took it in an unsteady had. ‘What is it, then, if not an infection?’ he demanded.

‘I have water in the lungs,’ said Aragorn, too tired and dizzy to dissemble. His head ached, too, and Gandalf’s questioning never helped that sort of malady. ‘It is a natural consequence of undernourishment, and it will resolve itself with time.’

‘It does not sound as if it is resolving itself,’ Gandalf argued, brows knit darkly. ‘It is worse now than it was before.’

‘Walking bent double does not help,’ Aragorn huffed. He took another long draught of the cold water, no longer quite so grateful for its chill purity. He would have liked a mug of hot tea far better. ‘And the air is dry, which aggravates my nose and throat.’

‘I can see that,’ muttered the wizard. ‘There is a dark crust in your nostril: why did you not tell me it was bleeding?’

‘Because it scarcely matters,’ Aragorn said. ‘That too is a result of want, and it has been happening at intervals ever since my crossing of Gladden. It happened on the day you broke Gollum’s resolve to be silent: did you not notice?’

‘No.’ Gandalf’s tone was now equal parts indignation and bewilderment. ‘No, I did not. And you say all this is natural? It does not seem so to me.’

‘I assure you it is,’ sighed the Ranger. He got his feet out from under his thighs and leaned back against the wall of the cave. ‘If you wish to tend my needs, finish the search of our shelter. We do not need to tumble into dark places in the middle of the night.’

Gandalf laughed once, a hard, barking sound that made Moroch raise her head as far as she could. Deciding the wizard was neither a threat nor in need of her aid, she bent down again to nibble at her helping of grain. ‘The lessons learned from childhood’s pet tales always linger longest,’ the wizard said as he went about thumping the walls with the butt of his knife.

‘At least we have not had thunder,’ Aragorn said, regretting the words the moment they left his lips. Gandalf shook his head ruefully, but knew better than to tempt fate with further remark. ‘How far do you think we are from the apex of the path?’

‘As the Eagle flies? No more than seven leagues. As the path is measured in miles? Perhaps thirty-five. As weary feet must climb it? Too far for comfort,’ Gandalf answered. He had come around to the mouth of the cave again, and he scratched the gelding’s withers vigorously. ‘The way grows steeper ahead. We may not often be able to ride.’

‘We knew that point would come,’ Aragorn said, because he could say no more and be neither disheartening nor foresworn. His chest was tight from the coughing fit, and the long sinews of his legs and arms burned as though he had run a long, swift race instead of plodding a slow trail. He took off one mitten and spread his cold hand over his brow. It was soothing to the throbbing ache in his skull. ‘Shall we toast our honey-cakes?’ he asked, trying to sound cheerful. ‘A hot supper may mend many ills.’

‘Yes,’ Gandalf said, tossing the packet of sweet waybread to Aragorn. He frowned as the Man’s hands fumbled and he succeeded only in batting the parcel into his lap. ‘Many, but not all. I will keep the watch alone tonight: you must have uninterrupted sleep.’ Aragorn opened his mouth to protest the unfairness of such an arrangement, but Gandalf held up his hand in a stern command for silence. ‘I am no healer, and I am no child of the line of Lúthien, but I can see the need for this treatment well enough. If you will not sleep, I shall compel you.’

‘Compel me?’ Aragorn laughed thinly.

Gandalf nodded stoutly. ‘A good clout to the back of the head ought to do it,’ he said, making a fist and rocking it ominously. Then he too grinned. ‘However hard the road, it is more pleasant than many a gentler path for being shared with you.’

Aragorn nodded his agreement with this, but did not trust himself to speak. The longings of the lonely road were stirring in his memory again. He unwrapped two of Baldbeorn’s twice-baked cakes and set them near the new embers to warm. Outside the mouth of their small cave, the wind wailed with a thousand mournful voices. They did his pounding head no favours.