Chapter LXXVII: The Questions of Master Baggins

‘What I just can’t understand,’ said Bilbo with a sad little shake of the head; ‘is that if my little ring really is as important and powerful as Gandalf seems to think, why didn’t I ever realize it? I should have at least had an inkling, don’t you think? If all this is true, what’s the matter with me, that I never realized it?’

The uncertainty and brewing self-recrimination in the hobbit’s voice was painful to hear. Still grappling with his own like thoughts, Aragorn wished only to spare his friend such undeserved turmoil.

‘I do not believe you could have known, and never mind “should”,’ he said. ‘For one thing, your good nature kept you from wanting to use the Ring for any nefarious purpose. Had you tried to use it as Gollum did, to eavesdrop and to hurt, it surely would have gained a firmer hold upon you. Had you bent it to loftier goals, you would have doubtless found it had powers commensurate to them. Wisely, you did neither.’

Bilbo chuckled uneasily. ‘I suppose hiding from Sackville-Bagginses on a Saturday afternoon doesn’t quite count as nefarious, does it?’

‘I would call it a bit unwelcoming at the very worst,’ Aragorn assured him with an effortful smile. ‘From what I know of your relations, it sounds most like an act of self-preservation. Yet there may be another reason that you suspected nothing. Rings of Power have a will of their own – or if not a will, at least a purpose to be served. It did not serve the Ring’s purpose to reveal its scope to you. It was best for it to remain a trifle, quietly in your possession.’

‘Do you mean to say that the Ring wanted to be kept in Bag End in peaceful old Hobbiton?’ asked  Bilbo, incredulous but not disbelieving. His utter trust in Aragorn’s words was heartwarming even in such grave circumstances.

‘In a way,’ the Ranger said. ‘It seems perfectly apparent that it wished to be found, and so contrived to escape Gollum. It was a dark year, when you rode with Thorin Oakenshield to defeat the dragon. Sauron’s strength had grown great, and he was bending all his will and malice upon two ends alone. The greatest of these was the finding of his Ring.’

‘That’s just what Gandalf said,’ sighed Bilbo. He frowned. ‘But what was the other thing that could even cross his mind, if finding his Ring was so awfully important?’

Aragorn tilted his head to one side, almost quizzically. ‘Why, the hunt for the heir of he who had taken it, of course. After all, it would be natural to assume such a treasure would be passed down from generation to generation – and in any case there was the question of revenge.’

‘Revenge…’ Bilbo echoed. ‘Oh! On Isildur’s descendants, you mean, because he cut the One Ring from the Dark Lord’s hand when he was overthrown by the Last Alliance.’ He frowned. ‘But the Heir of Isildur was you, even back then! The Enemy was looking for you, wasn’t he? You were only a small boy!’

‘He had no means of knowing that,’ said Aragorn, smiling gently at Bilbo’s dismay. ‘He believed he was seeking for a great lord of Men, a fell warrior or at the very least a plump despot of a village mayor.’ Bilbo laughed a little at this notion, and Aragorn nodded in some satisfaction. ‘But I was well hidden from his sight, and he found me not. His calling to the Ring bore greater fruit, however. It could not hope to escape its underground prison so long as it sat in Gollum’s complacent hands, so it slipped away from him.’

Bilbo frowned deeply. ‘I wish I had never picked up the dratted thing in the first place!’ he groaned.

‘That might have proved disastrous,’ said Aragorn. ‘Imagine if it had been found by a goblin instead. How swiftly then would it have found its way back to Sauron’s hand? It might even have reached him ere he could have been cast out of Dol Guldur. Then the White Council and their armies would have ridden to slaughter.’

‘I didn’t think of that,’ Bilbo mumbled. ‘Do you suppose I did right, then? In taking it, that is.’

‘I believe it was fated,’ Aragorn said firmly. Bilbo should have no doubt of this, however others might later debate its philosophical implications. ‘You were meant to find the Ring, and not by any device of Sauron’s. Look what has come to pass because of that chance. Now we know where the One Ring abides, while the Enemy does not. We are in a position to take action, instead of being left to grope in the dark and await the fatal blow.’

‘What action?’ asked Bilbo. ‘What are you going to do? All of you, the Wise, I mean: not you especially, Dúnadan.’

‘No, I especially. Among others,’ said Aragorn, hoping that his voice was not as heavy as his heart. He might have resolved to prepare himself for the road ahead, but that did not mean he had yet achieved that readiness. ’But here we have reached the first “I don’t know”. Nothing has been decided. Indeed we have not even sat down to earnest debate. But I promise you this: when something is settled upon, I will make sure that it is not kept from you.’

Bilbo looked greatly relieved. ‘Oh, I am glad,’ he said. ‘I know that the great ones have too many cares to spare time for the worries of a foolish old hobbit, but it’s still very hard to wonder and fret all on your own.’

‘Be assured that Gandalf will always spare you the time, even if he is not free with his answers,’ said Aragorn. ‘What else would you have me tell you?’

The round, so often cheerful face crumpled into an anxious frown. ‘Frodo,’ Bilbo said softly. ‘He’s not… oh, dear. He’s not in danger, is he?’

Aragorn reached to offer his hand, and was reassured when Bilbo took it tightly. He fixed his eyes upon those of his friend. ‘Not at present,’ he vowed. ‘The Rangers are keeping watch on the Shire, and word shall soon be sent that they should double it. As soon as I am able I will join that patrol myself. I will do my utmost to protect your nephew, Bilbo. This I swear to you. Whatever is required of me to safeguard him, I will do it.’

Bilbo swallowed very hard, eyes brimming. ‘Oh, Dúnadan, you are so very good to me. I know I’m a silly goose for fretting about such things when the fate of the world is tied up in these affairs, but I can’t help it. We hobbits love best what we know best, and that lad’s very dear to me. It was harder to leave him than it was that ring, in the end. It’s him I miss most, anyhow.’

‘That is only natural, and a sign of the great capacity of your heart,’ said Aragorn gently. ‘Never be ashamed to love, whatever may be tied up around your dear ones.’

Bilbo nodded bracingly, swallowing a small sniffling noise and blinking rapidly to clear his eyes. ‘Those aren’t the only questions I have, you know!’ he announced when he was sure of his composure. ‘Gandalf was all dark hints and oblique remarks yesterday, and I don’t understand the half of what he said. How did you find Gollum in the end? Gandalf said you did it alone. That he left you to go into danger alone. I think he wishes he hadn’t done that.’

‘The dangers could not be helped, and he was right to leave me,’ said Aragorn. ‘He went to Minas Tirith, the great city of Gondor, in search of further proof. He makes light of it, but I believe it will be most important. It will certainly serve to silence any doubters, if what he found is so. I was stubborn: determined to persist in the hunt for another season at least. But it took me into dark and deadly places, and in the end I despaired of ever finding your slippery little rival.’

‘I never should have angered him,’ Bilbo bemoaned, shaking his head rapidly. ‘And I know I should never have told him my name. Gandalf said Gollum may have passed it on to the servants of the Enemy. Baggins and the Shire: they’ll find both in the end, won’t they?’

‘Perhaps,’ Aragorn allowed, unable to counterfeit reassurance where there was none to give. ‘But we have the advantage of knowledge and of time. We shall press both, and thwart Sauron however we may.’ Deciding that he could not allow Bilbo to dwell too long on such things, he pressed on with his tale. ‘I came upon Gollum as I made my way North, meaning to come home in disgrace. I found him in the Dead Marshes, and I had hard labour in his catching. We wrestled in the mud like a pair of mad cats, but in the end I had him, and I drove him North.’

‘You? Wrestle with Gollum?’ said Bilbo. ‘But you’re so much larger, and stronger: I should think you’d be able to pluck him up by the heel and sling him over your shoulder.’

‘I did not think to try that,’ Aragorn said, enjoying a flash of amusement at this image. It was another gift of Bilbo’s: to awaken mirth in the grimmest of recollections. ‘But he is stronger than he looks, and he was slippery. I should have had a tricky time keeping hold of him whatever the circumstances, but he was covered in slime, and that made it worse. I was lucky enough to have a bit of rope with me, and I fashioned a halter. For the first several days I had to deny him food and water, for he was defiant and dangerous. I am thankful that you never had occasion to join him in battle, for valiant though you are I fear you would have had the worst of it.’

‘I’ve always thought so,’ Bilbo said, wrinkling his nose. ‘Horrid stinking thing. You brought him to Mirkwood all alone?’

Aragorn nodded, not wanting to say more. Bilbo was looking at him wonderingly. ‘Gandalf said nine hundred miles in fifty days. How does he reckon that? I’ve never walked those lands, of course, but it seems to me that the Dead Marshes are just about due South of Mirkwood.’

‘I did not take the most direct path,’ said Aragorn. ‘I swam over Anduin and took a westerly route, far from the holdings of the Ringwraiths in the South of the forest. I suspected we were pursued by servants of the Enemy, either seeking to recapture Gollum or desiring to free him from my custody. I do not know which, but I fear he was sent from Mordor on some evil errand.’

‘That certainly wouldn’t surprise me.’ Bilbo took a deep puff from his pipe, and let the smoke out all at once in a great, billowing cloud. ‘From all I’ve heard, he’s good for nothing but malice and mischief.’

‘That is not too far from the truth,’ Aragorn agreed. ‘Gandalf believes there may be some hope for him yet, and that perhaps he can find healing. I confess I am not so certain. We had little use for one another all our long road. But he is safe in the dungeons of Thranduil now, and without any clever burglar to help him escape.’

Bilbo flushed. ‘Another time I really oughtn’t have used the Ring, I suppose,’ he said. ‘Is it true that the oftener you use it, the deeper it grabs you?’

‘It may be so,’ said Aragorn, keeping his eyes gentle with reassurance. ‘But you did not use it all that often, now did you? I imagine there were times when two or three years might pass when you did not even give it a thought.’

‘Yes, there were,’ said Bilbo. ‘That’s what made it all so strange, when I felt I couldn’t leave it behind, whatever Gandalf said and whatever I had agreed. At least I did it in the end.’

‘You did,’ Aragorn agreed. ‘And it may be that your tenacity will make the great difference in the end, particularly to Frodo.’

‘What do you mean?’ the hobbit asked, puzzled.

‘The Ring came to you by chance. Not quite by thievery, as Gollum persists in claiming, but certainly by a turn of very strange luck,’ said Aragorn. ‘Moreover though you knew it not when you found the Ring, you were aware before you escaped from the tunnels that the thing had belonged to your withered opponent. You are not precisely guilty of any sin in its finding, but neither were you quite innocent. Would you not agree?’

‘I’m afraid I have to,’ said Bilbo. ‘I did realize it was his, and I tried to convince myself that I had won the riddle game and so it was mine by right. I don’t know what I ought to have done about that, exactly, but I do know that I didn’t come out of it smelling like a rose, as we say in the Shire.’

Aragorn smiled. ‘That’s an apt way to put it, particularly as I don’t think you are truly responsible for the way things turned out. Still, you were sullied in your finding of the Ring. Gollum himself got it by murder, and his friend Déagol in effect robbed a grave. Isildur seized it by might of arms and bloodlust. Only Frodo has come by it perfectly honestly, by right of gift from its previous owner. That sort of blamelessness has protected simple folk ere this. Now the One Ring, which seems to twist to evil any questionable act, can take no strength from the way in which Frodo came to hold it. He did not take it, did not coerce it from you; did not even know that it was coming to him until you had already made the gift. He alone of all those who have borne it is wholly untarnished in that respect.’

‘That’s a comfort,’ Bilbo said, giving the Man’s hand another squeeze before taking his own back. He smoothed the front of his silk waistcoat. ‘You do have a way of taking the terror right out of one’s heart, Aragorn. Do you know that?’

Aragorn smiled. ‘I strive to whenever I may,’ he said fondly. ‘The world is troubled enough without dwelling ever in fear.’

They were quiet for a time, both drawing on their pipes. The tightness in Aragorn’s chest did not ease, but the act of drawing in and letting out slow, controlled breaths was no doubt good for him. He was not sure he would have been able to lay aside that delightful implement even if it had been harmful, for the taste was so exquisite after his long abstention and the pensive comfort of the habit eased his heart.

‘Dúnadan?’ Bilbo said at length, quite quietly. He was looking down at his woolly feet with their stout soles turned to the fire. ‘Was it very bad for you, the journey with Gollum? Gandalf wouldn’t say much, but he made it plain that it was not easy. And… you’ll have to forgive me for saying it, for I’m an old chap now and sometimes clumsy with my words, but you do look dreadful: so thin and… and haggard. Not like your usual self at all.’

His worry was touching, but also distressing. Aragorn lowered his hand with its pleasant burden to his knee. ‘It was not easy,’ he confessed. ‘It was wearisome and bitter, and Gollum thwarted me at every step in great ways and in small. But it is over now, and I have achieved what I set out to do. That is all that truly matters.’

Bilbo nodded, swallowing laboriously again. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m so terribly, awfully sorry. If I had never angered him, or taken his awful Ring, or told him my name you never would have had to go after him or suffer through any of that. He’s horrid and hateful: I don’t know how you could have borne his company for fifty days.’

‘In truth,’ said Aragorn with the smallest of smiles; ‘you helped me tremendously.’

‘What?’ Bilbo lifted his gaze abruptly, mystified. ‘What ever do you mean by that?’

‘Thinking of you, and of your songs, and of your own great adventure sustained me,’ said Aragorn. ‘One day while I walked in grey exhaustion, unable to sleep for the need to watch my prisoner, I tried to soothe myself with a song. I was too weary to recall any lay of the Eldar or any ballad of Men, but your playful tune about the Man in the Moon came to me, and it helped me on. Gollum and I roosted one night in a windblown fir, and remembering how you once had done the same kept me hopeful, knowing my predicament was nothing to that.’

‘Oh, I don’t really…’ Bilbo mumbled, looking abashedly pleased but still doubtful.

‘I passed through Imlad Morgul,’ Aragorn whispered. He could not give the words any greater voice. ‘This was before I found Gollum, and that terrible night was one that weighed heavily in my decision to abandon the hunt. I was somewhat battered from my climb down out of the mountain passes, and I was very weary. Despair and desolation crept over my heart, and slowly I realized that it was more than just the spell of that dread place. Unclothed in the night, a Ringwraith was walking.’

Bilbo drew in a sharp breath. Aragorn wondered whether he had said too much; whether the burden of this tale outweighed its value. He decided it did not, provided he delved not too deep. Bilbo deserved to know what he had done, unwittingly and from so great a distance, to aid his friend in his travails.

‘Its mind touched mine, and I had to mask myself from its knowledge,’ said Aragorn, fixing his gaze upon the hobbit and swallowing the most wretched of the memories. ‘I gathered all that I am and I buried it deep within. Instead I filled my mind with a riddle: a little song filled with images of strength and secrecy. Do you know what that song was?’

The hobbit shook his head. He seemed unable to speak. Worry and dismay were on his face, but also a tenuous hope as he waited to hear the rest.

‘All that is gold does not glitter,’ recited Aragorn. ‘Not all those who wander are lost…’

Bilbo swallowed hard. ‘Truly?’ he chirped.

‘Truly,’ Aragorn declared. ‘It shielded my mind and it kept secure my knowledge of myself. The Ringwraith walked on, and I was left alone. It thought me beneath its notice: a lone man, injured and gabbling senselessly about winter woods and tarnished treasure.’

A small, sharp little laugh broke from Bilbo’s throat. ‘Why, who ever would have thought it?’ he said. ‘My little song, doing all that!’

‘All that and more,’ Aragorn told him earnestly. ‘You do not know how it uplifts my spirit to know of your hope for me, and your faith in my strength – falter though at times it may. I shall always be thankful for your friendship.’

Bilbo reached out, and the Man extended his hand again. The hobbit squeezed his fingers almost bruisingly. ‘You walk such dangerous roads, Dúnadan,’ he said. ‘And that one all because of me and my little ring!’

‘You cannot claim credit for that!’ said Aragorn, almost scoffing as he tried to sound as utterly dismissive of the idea as he was. Bilbo need not carry any guilt for this. His strange mischance had indeed proved more fortuitous than any of them could have imagined. The advantage of time and knowledge was nothing to be scorned. ‘I have walked Morgul Vale before this: many years ago, when I had never heard the name of Gollum nor given any thought to your Ring. I am in the habit, so Gandalf tells me, of laying deadly tests before myself. Thus far I have always managed to pass them, and that particular one I might never have passed without the aid of your verses. I thank you, Bilbo: I blame you for nothing.’

The time had come to lighten the atmosphere of the conversation, which had grown thick and oppressive with fear and regret. Aragorn took from his lap the article he had retrieved from his rooms.

‘I have brought you a gift,’ he said, trying to sound cheerful and nonchalant. He extended his hand, fist closed over the item and feeling its coolness and serpentine contours. ‘It comes from Lothlórien, and it was wrought by the goldsmiths of Caras Galadhon. I wore it for a time, and I would have you keep it and think of me.’

Bilbo put out his hand, and into it Aragorn placed the dainty bronze brooch that Aithron had given him to hold fast his ragged cloak and the woolen blanket that had served to replace it. It was all but untarnished, as such Elven work most often was, and the dainty vines and leaves twined about the ring glinted handsomely in the firelight. Bilbo looked at it in wonder, adjusting his hold on the pipe so that his forefinger could trace the meticulous work.

‘Why, it’s wonderful!’ he breathed. ‘All the way from Lórien, you say? And for me? Such a beautiful present, Dúnadan: thank you! Fancy thinking of something like that with all the rest you had to manage.’

Aragorn knew that he was grinning broadly, relishing Bilbo’s delight and the sudden change in his mood. It was as he had hoped: the gift had altered the hobbit’s perception of his journey. He had gleaned from Gandalf’s grimness that the Ranger had suffered much, though likely he could not imagine the particulars. But now it did not seem all that bad: no privation could have been too serious, after all, if the Man had been able to bring back a remembrance of his travels to gift to a friend!

‘I know it is a trifle larger than any adornment you are wont to wear,’ Aragorn said with the fervently humble voice common to so many givers of earnest gifts. ‘Still I think it would look well clasping a warm winter cloak, don’t you?’

‘A winter cloak? Nonsense! I shall wear it right now!’ Bilbo declared. He took a pinch of his shirt right at the place where the two front pieces of his waistcoat lapped for the top button, and drove the tine of the brooch through it. He positioned it carefully and smiled. ‘Don’t I look fine! My, but the smiths of Lothlórien do pretty work. How do they make it form such fine little details? It’s copper, is it?’

‘Bronze,’ said Aragorn. He grinned good-humouredly. ‘I am sorry it could not be some finer metal, but my selection was somewhat limited.’

Bilbo was preening just a little, clearly delighted with his new treasure. A scholar of Elven ways, he was doubtless thrilled to possess an artifact of such a distant and ancient realm. ‘It’s quite perfect!’ he said. ‘Just the thing for a hobbit! Silver and gold are all very well for great lords and beautiful ladies, but for plain old Master Baggins of Bag End, bronze is just the thing.’ He looked up at Aragorn with soulful eyes. ‘Thank you, Dúnadan: I mean it. To know you were thinking of me on your long journey makes me feel, well, quite special indeed.’

‘So you are,’ Aragorn assured him. ‘I am privileged to know you.’

The contents of his borrowed pipe had burned down to ash. He pushed back his right sleeves: the long, hanging silk pendant of the bilaut, and the simple tube of the linen shirt beneath. With the dangling cloth drawn safely away from the flames, he was able to rap the upturned pipe against the inner side of the fireplace. Pipeweed ash rained down into the embers, sending up one last fragrant little whiff of Longbottom leaf.

‘I am sure one of the smiths could tell you how the work differs from that wrought by the Noldor,’ he said, crossing his arms over his high-bent knees and smiling. ‘I have not made a study of such crafts myself, at least not to such a degree as that. I can shoe a horse, but my skill with fine wire is—’

He found his words tapering to nothing, for the smile was gone from Bilbo’s face. He was staring fixedly, but not at the Ranger’s face. He was staring at his knees. No, Aragorn realized: at his folded arms. At the right arm, in truth, still bared almost to the elbow. The webs and ridges and hard knots of luridly red scar tissue stood out angrily against the Ranger’s pale skin.

‘What happened? Oh, what happened?’ Bilbo breathed in horror, leaning forward and letting his feet slap down upon the hearthrug. ‘Oh, Dúnadan…’

‘It is nothing,’ Aragorn said hurriedly, too flummoxed to think of covering the marks. ‘It is an old hurt; months old now, and it…’

‘He bit you! He bit you, didn’t he? Oh, that hateful, spiteful, foul little wretch!’ Bilbo cried. ‘Those are teeth marks: don’t try to deny it. How could he, the filthy, wicked beast!’

Then before Aragorn could demur or speak any words of consolation, Bilbo took hold of his hand with both his own, drawing out his arm. He bowed his curly head, and did something Aragorn would never have expected. He kissed the hideous marks, swiftly and earnestly. There was a hot splatter upon the marred flesh as a tear fell from Bilbo’s eyes.

‘What you must have gone through, all for the sake of me and mine!’ exclaimed the hobbit, looking up at the Man’s careworn face and petting his mangled forearm with a tender palm. ‘Dear Aragorn! I’m so very sorry. And so very grateful, though I never would have wished it on you. You do know that, don’t you? I never would have wished any of this on you.’

‘Of course not,’ Aragorn said, finding to his amazement that his voice was calm and soothing. He felt like weeping himself, beholding his dear friend’s distress, but his eyes were dry. He reached with his left hand to cup the side of Bilbo’s face, fingers curling along plump cheek and jaw. ‘You did not wish it, and you did not ask it. I did it freely, and now it is done: let us both forget and move forward. I shall strive to do it if you will try the same.’

Bilbo’s lower lip quivered for a moment, and he ducked his head one more time to kiss the scars a little nearer to the Ranger’s wrist. There was a strange ghosting sensation in the ugly, tangled skin, but Aragorn could also feel his friend’s warmth and kindly pity and vehement affection. Then Bilbo looked up and nodded his head, unsteadily at first and then firmly.

‘Very well,’ he said, as steadfast and determined as ever a hobbit could be. ‘I’ll move forward. But I shan’t forget it, Aragorn, and I shan’t forget to be thankful, either. You’ve fought on through terrible things just to put right a mess I left behind, and I don’t know what I can do to repay you for it.’

‘I have been repaid already,’ said Aragorn, and he truly felt it. ‘But you must remember that it was not your mess alone. My forefather played his part in it, as have many through the years. Yet first and foremost it is Sauron who is to blame, and it is he who shall have to atone for it in the fullness of time.’

‘Do you truly believe that’s so?’ asked Bilbo. ‘That he can be made to atone, I mean.’

‘I do not know,’ said Aragorn truthfully. ‘But if I am able, I shall help to bring about his downfall. Let atonement then come if it will: mine is not the judgment of the Valar, to be meted out at will.’

‘No,’ said Bilbo. ‘But crownless or not, a king is still a judge of sorts. If you judge me pardoned, perhaps you’ll join me for my elevenses? It’s nearly time, and I’m fairly famished. Someone should be by with the tray in a little while, and you can tell me of your stay with Grimbeorn and his family! I passed that way on my visit to Dale, you know. Gandalf says the house is fairly overflowing with children now. Is that so?’

The shadow of mourning was gone, and Aragorn’s own heart rested more easily in his chest. He could tell of each member of Grimbeorn’s lively household, and he need not say anything of frozen hands or muddled wits or leaking boots. He would not say much of Freya, either, for she would not want her struggles to be made into a tale to be told in distant lands. But he could certainly tell of Sigbeorn and his sauciness, and proud, fearless Una, and the little ones and their love of stories. This was an account well suited to a hobbit, lovers of genealogy that they were, and it could so easily be made free from any mention of darkness or suffering. Settling more comfortably upon his stool, Aragorn began.

lar

When he departed at last from Bilbo’s chamber, Aragorn was left in the unusual position of having nothing much to do. He was expected nowhere in particular, and had little to trouble his mind. He was sated from joining Bilbo in his forenoon repast, and so had no desire to join the household for the midday meal, over which Arwen would be presiding. The time of day made it improper to seek out the artisans he had to visit to arrange for boots and travel raiment. The latter was best left for the present, anyhow, until he had filled out some of the hollows in his bones. And although he felt better today than he had in weeks untold, he was certainly not ready to go down to the armoury and sparring yard for any vigorous exercise. What he craved most of all at the moment, he realized, was serenity, sunshine and solitude. He went out into the gardens.

The sweetness of spring was all about him, and everywhere he looked young flowers were in bloom. He moved lazily through the cultivated paths and away to the swaths of free-growing grasses where wildflowers danced newly-opened in the gentle breeze. He passed into the apple orchard, and there left the path. There was a certain place, out of sight of the house near a bend in the Bruinen, where Aragorn had often come in his youth. A large, gently sloping stone overlooked the water. It made a fine bench on a wet day, and an excellent brace for one’s back on a dry one. He used it as the latter now, easing himself down into the sweet-smelling grass and allowing himself a little grimace at the aches still plaguing his joints and his flesh. At least he knew the cause of the misery in his hips now, and that was a comfort despite the uncomfortable way in which the bruising had come to light. He stretched his right leg and drew up his left, crossing his arms loosely upon his knee and leaning his head back so that his face was bathed in sunlight. Eyes closed, he sat thus and listened to the music of the rushing water below.

Aragorn let his sense of time slip away and lost himself in the peace and pleasant purity of the spring day. He did not let himself think of labours to come, nor of toils behind, nor of his healing body, nor his looming duties, nor the hard choices that awaited him in the far too immediate future. He did not let his heart trouble over Bilbo’s dismay at his hurts, nor over the undeserved cares he had brought on all those he loved. He did not try to work out how he would explain himself to Halbarad when they met and the new scars and his thinness could not be concealed. He did not even trouble himself over the question of what he ought to wear tomorrow. He simply was.

The faintest rustle of soft shoes in the grass announced the intruder, and Aragorn was familiar enough with each to know the sound was deliberate and very much for his benefit. His careworn mouth lifted into a small smile, though his eyes remained closed. ‘Atarinya,’ he murmured.

‘I thought I might find you here,’ said Elrond, drawing near. There was a rustle of sumptuous silks as he too sat down in the grass, left shoulder just brushing Aragorn’s right. ‘A place of quiet contemplation never loses its allure, however the years may pass.’

‘I did not come to contemplate today, but to forget,’ Aragorn admitted, lowering his chin and turning his head so that the first thing he saw upon opening his eyes was his foster-father’s patient countenance. ‘I had need of that, at least for a little while.’

Elrond nodded gently. ‘That is natural. After all you have suffered, you have earned some measure of forgetfulness. I understand that you have been to see Bilbo.’

‘He had questions,’ said Aragorn. ‘I do not doubt there will be more as this business proceeds, but there was little enough I could tell him. For my lungs?’ He nodded down at a phial of ruby glass curled in Elrond’s far hand. He had a small glass cuvette curled in his last two fingers.

‘You know me well,’ said Elrond. He plucked the stopper from the phial and took the small cup in his left hand so that he might pour. The dark amber fluid ascended precisely to the level of the second-last etching upon the side of the vessel before the steady hand upon the bottle stayed its viscous stream. Elrond presented it with a cupbearer’s courtly flourish.

‘My thanks,’ said Aragorn, taking the dose with finger and thumb and holding it up to the light. ‘Are you going to question me as to its constituents?’

That had been a game between them once: the earliest of his lessons in herb-lore. When as a child he was given any such tincture, elixir or medicinal brew, Aragorn had been called upon to identify its ingredients by taste. It had proved a valuable skill, and not merely for a healer. Several times it had saved him from an unwitted drugging, not always unkindly meant, and on two very memorable occasions he had escaped poisoning by detecting the hazardous compounds upon their first contact with his tongue.

‘Not this time,’ said Elrond. He stoppered the phial and set it carefully in the grass, balanced so that it would not tip. He reached within his outer robe and produced a prettily-carved wooden jar with a snugly fitted lid. ‘Take it, and let me see to your arm.’

Aragorn knocked back the medicine swiftly. It had been sweetened with honey from the bees that hived in the high clover-field, and flavoured with bergamot. Still it was bitter and seemed to shrivel his gums upon contact. He rolled his tongue about his mouth, inviting a flow of spittle to wash the taste away. Then he set the measuring glass aside and bared his forearm. Elrond held it from below with his left palm, while with his right hand he took up a small quantity of thick ointment to spread over the scars.

‘Gandalf spoke to me of your halt in the house of Grimbeorn,’ Elrond said as he began to work. First he spread the unguent liberally, and then he began digging deep into the marred flesh with firm, skillful fingers. Aragorn felt the uncomfortable rolling of a long tendon as it was pushed out of the way to allow access to deeper adhesions.

‘Our halt together?’ Aragorn clarified, not without a note of wariness. He did not wish to recount how he had first come to that glad place.

‘Of course. That is, after all, a part of his tale as well as your own. He told me that you were able to do a kindness for the family, and that you may have found yourself a young apprentice.’

Aragorn smiled at this. ‘She is not my apprentice: Una daughter of Balbeorn has a skilled craftsmistress in her grandmother. I merely offered what aid I could in a difficult time.’

‘Hmm.’ Elrond’s gaze was fixed upon the arm, where his thumbs were leaving pale marks that filled swiftly back to angry reddish-purple as the pressure was relieved. ‘It is a teacher’s pleasure to hear of his student’s triumphs,’ he said. ‘Perhaps one day word will come to you of a life this girl has saved by virtue of your instruction, and you will know of what I speak.’

Aragorn looked at the Peredhel in mild surprise. He had not considered that facet of the tale: that Elrond, as the one who had trained him in the arts physic, might relish to hear how they had been plied in the sparing of Freya’s life. ‘I did not mean to be evasive,’ he said softly. ‘The lady in question… it is not a custom of the Beornings for men to have any part in the birthing. It was a matter of great delicacy, and required much trust on the part of my patient for me to treat her. I do not think it is a tale to be borne far abroad.’

A proud smile touched Elrond’s lips. ‘Dear Estel, always so prudent with the confidences placed in him,’ he said softly. ‘Do not tense, if you are able to refrain. I fear this will pain you.’

Given only time enough to brace himself with none left over to lavish in dreaded anticipation, Aragorn neither stiffened nor made any sound as Elrond’s dexterous thumbs sank in between the bones of his forearm with a sensation of deep crackling. The pain was brief and brilliant, but it was the eerie feeling of tissues breaking and giving way that was the more unpleasant sensation. Aragorn exhaled from his nostrils in a searing puff of distaste. Elrond’s lips were parting in words of gentle encouragement when the Man’s lungs seized high in his chest and he was taken all at once by a series of rattling, agonized coughs.

Lost in a vain attempt to cling to his dignity and draw air at the same time, Aragorn curled forward over his lap. His left foot slid down beside his right, and his arms curled instinctively against his lower ribs, bracing the muscles tormented from within. The hands that had been upon his forearm now moved to shoulder and back, steadying him and offering what comfort they could. Between the crackling spasms Aragorn could hear Elrond’s quiet reassurances.

‘It will pass. Do not resist. Cough, and clear it.’ His left hand moved from supporting Aragorn’s far arm to spreading broadly across the back of his ribs. ‘Cough. It will pass. It will pass.’

Aragorn obeyed. He could not have disobeyed. He rode each wave of tormented hacking like a mariner upon a violent sea, sawing in small swallows of air when he could. The blinding pain from deep within his lungs threatened to swallow him, but he leaned into the anchoring hold of his father and focused his mind upon the bubbling wetness beneath his breastbone. He could no longer make sense of the murmured words of comfort, but all at once he felt a radiating warmth spreading from beneath Elrond’s hand. It did not ease his wind, but at once the pain began to withdraw from tortured to tolerable. By the time the paroxysms died to shallow little outbursts followed by deep, desperate breaths, clenching anguish was reduced to an effete ache.

‘Thank you,’ Aragorn gasped, his voice sawing heavily across a strained windpipe. He let his head rest briefly against the strong, slender shoulder, utterly exhausted, and then forced himself to sit up under his own power. He was still curled forward, shoulders slumped, but each breath came more easily and he could feel the fluid settling down into the nether reaches of his lungs. He forced a stinging swallow. ‘Thank you,’ he huffed again.

Elrond had a handkerchief in hand, and offered it. Aragorn gripped it like a half-drowned man who seizes at last the lifeline cast from a friendly ship, and wiped the froth of spittle from his mouth. Reflexively he looked down at the blotch of wetness in the fine cambric, noting with clinical detachment that it was blessedly colourless. His hammering heart slowed its acrobatics still further.

‘It seems I am not yet healed,’ he said dryly. No one had intimated that he was; not even the most hopeful or arrogant parts of his own mind.

A soft chuckle sounded in the Elf-lord’s throat. ‘Not yet,’ he agreed. ‘But soon enough. I confess I cannot be too sorry that you are in need of care, for I fear once you are hale again you will be quick to leave us.’

‘I must,’ Aragorn said swiftly. Unable to find the strength to raise his head, he turned it instead so that he might find Elrond’s eyes. ‘There is much to be done.’

This received a tight nod of acknowledgement. ‘Aye, there is much to be done,’ sighed Elrond. He tried to ease his expression into lightness and did not quite succeed. ‘Gandalf does not believe there is cause for too much haste.’

‘For haste, no,’ Aragorn agreed. He drew his first truly deep, steady breath and eased his spine back against the support of the rock. ‘For speed, I fear there may be. At the least we must decide our course before the Enemy closes the gap and decides it for us.’

‘Now you wait upon the indecision of a scholar instead of the obduracy of a spy,’ said Elrond, amusement and self-deprecation in equal parts. ‘Your patience must be as enduring as your strength.’

‘Pray it is not,’ muttered Aragorn, his shifting mood now wobbling sourly. ‘For I have learned the limits of that.’

Elrond took his hand and held it, fingers twined. ‘That is no disadvantage: not to a man, nor to a warrior, nor to a great lord,’ he said. ‘You know now where the border lies, for you have walked within its sight. Now you have the measure of what you may endure, and you will not trespass it in a moment of peril. From your ordeal you have taken this: that you know now not only the limits of your strength, but the vast scope of your determination that has kept you on a path to which no other would have held. The limits of your will you have not yet found, but you know now how sorely it can be tested and yet withstand. I forebode a time is coming when you shall be called upon to try it further, and upon that day you can look back to this road and find courage in the knowledge that your strength of purpose – and indeed your stubbornness – proved more than equal to the challenges laid before it.’

Aragorn looked it him, quiet in word and in heart. This he had not considered: that the barest scraping achievement in the trial of the body had been a clear triumph in the trial of resolve. He thought of those bitter days high in the mountains, when his shattered endurance had been scarce enough to sustain him even with Gandalf to aid him and Moroch to bear him. Even then, his determination had not faltered. Even then, he had pressed on with resolve of adamant, fixed upon his aim. He had found the border of his might, only to discover that it fell far short of the border of his will. In the trials to come, would that not prove more crucial even than might of arms? One man alone could not counter the strength of Mordor, but one man’s will could hold many more fast upon a course both deadly and necessary.

He looked into Elrond’s eyes and saw all this reflected there, but filtered of any question or doubt. Aragorn’s faith in himself might shudder at times, but the faith held in him had not. From that he could take heart, take strength, and take the courage to press onward.