Chapter 70. Interlude and curious happenings

We want four good Men for this next part! Four good Men...! Half-a-dozen would be better! The Master's voice – the innkeeper's, that is – intrudes upon an uneasy dream where I am looking for something, yearning and searching, following ...after someone? I am not certain. ...desperately stumbling along in growing darkness that seeks to swallow me whole. Breathless, I try to fill my lungs, but a nearly unbearable stench hangs in the very air I breathe.

My head bows low – it feels as if a great weight hangs from my neck. Yet some urgent purpose drives me onwards, away... away from...

Clear in my mind is the Master's face – our dear Master, that is, Sam's and mine, such that if I should lift my head and turn my neck to look behind me, I am certain I would see him. His eyes are closed, as if he is sleeping (though somehow I know it is something other than mere sleep), and his pale face shimmers with Elvish beauty, as of one who has long passed the shadows.

I do not know where that thought comes from. Is it the Voices? But why am I dreaming of the Master?

And why am I dreaming of leaving the Master behind? My Sam would never...

My Sam walks before me, and I am following him. Cliffs loom to either side of the long but rapidly narrowing trough we are doomed to tread, as menacing as the path that took us up the side of the terrible Mountain, belying the deceptively gentle incline leading to the Cleft that seems to be our destination. The path ends in a long flight of broad shallow steps, almost lost in the dark shadow of the tower rising right above us. A single light glows high in its face, making me almost glad for the shadows that hide us.

Unlike those steep stairs in the dark passage under the cliff where I parted from my Companions, these stairs look broad and shallow enough for a pony to climb, I think. And so when my Sam begins again, I follow him to the top of the steps, until we reach the Cleft at last.

But something is amiss, for I hear my hobbit mutter, Have I got it wrong? What ought I to have done?

I nudge his near arm with my nose, but he pays me no heed; instead, he turns and looks back the way we have come.

Take care! the innkeeper shouts, his voice dim and far away. All together now! Lift him up from the waggon's bed! ...and... step together... jostle him as little as possible... Bob...?

That's it, the inn's sometimes-ostler says. Gently now. Step together...

I am floating again, somehow floating in the air, I know not how. Below me I can see a group of Men surrounding a dirt-encrusted pony who otherwise bears a close resemblance to my dam. Mum? I whicker, but the sound is muffled, I know not why.

And then I chuckle, deep in my throat, for instead of the pony carrying a rider, the Men are carrying the pony between them on a large, sturdy cloth – a heavy blanket, perhaps, large enough to cover a Man or even two of them.

The healer's wife covered poor Tom with just such a blanket, as I recall, as Bert and I stood witness. 

At a sudden movement, my attention is drawn to a youthful hobbit just outside the circle of Men, but pressing forwards as if in response to my call. Bill! he sobs. Poppet!

This-Bob walks alongside, half-supporting the tween. Steady, Bert, he says. We'll soon have him home.

The tween lifts a grubby hand to his face and wipes at his tears, leaving smears of mud on his cheeks.

Gently now! the innkeeper echoes. Through here to the stables... 

We've bedded his box deep with fresh straw, this-Bob is telling the tween at about the same time. He'll be as comfortable as can be managed...! And we'll bathe him in liniment, for all practical purposes...

Steady now, the innkeeper cries as the group reaches the stable door.

The Men, flanked by eager-seeming stable hobbits who are hovering all round though just outside the huddle of larger bodies, bring the pony to my box stall. It's a tricky business for them to carry the pony through the opening, but the innkeeper issues a steady stream of orders and cautions and instructions, and they manage somehow.

This-Bob steps closer and takes charge; at his command, the Men lay the pony, blanket and all, upon the straw.

Then, Get him up on his feet! says the ostler. Fold the cloth; make a sling, he adds, and lift his middle – Bert, take his head!

As I watch from somewhere above them, they lift the pony to its feet and hold him in place. This-Bob moves to Bert's side and strokes the pony's face, murmuring softly. I seem to hear his voice in my ear. There now, lad. Stand for me now? Stand steady, my good fellow.

Without thinking, I stiffen my legs – and suffer an immediate onslaught of pain, dimly remembered from some earlier time but scarcely felt so long as I was able to float – and only now do I wonder how I managed such a feat, being a pony and not a bird of any sort. I am not even like the brown one who could transform himself into a great brown bird at will. How was it that I was able to float in the air?

There now, this-Bob repeats. We'll sit with him by turns, Master, and watch with him...

There's a good night's work, the innkeeper overrides the hobbit's words; he is speaking to the Men, still standing to either side of me and holding the sides of the large cloth that droops now beneath my belly. Come now, pull it out from under...

Before I can quite grasp what is happening, Master Butterbur is standing a little to one side and expertly shaking out and folding the large blanket, which he drapes over one arm as he speaks further. Very good, Bob, he says in answer to the ostler's earlier remark. I'll want you to sleep at the inn tonight when you're not watching o'er him, within easy recall should he need your aid.

The stable-master replies with a simple nod. The innkeeper seems to take his meaning, for he turns away and, next thing, directs the group of Men to leave the loose box. 

But the ostler does not follow the departing crowd. Instead, he stands before me and strokes my lowered nose, and I whuffle at his fingers. 

This-Bob's resulting chuckle falls almost like a sob upon my ear. I must have been mistaken, however, for quite suddenly he turns to Bert and says briskly, And now for a bath, lad, and some supper... You're almost transparent with hunger! ...and the only reason you are visible at all is due to the layer of dirt you've managed to accumulate this day.

When the tween would protest, his uncle insists. Ham will take first watch, he says, while you rest. Sleep if you can. I'll take second watch, and then Pepper. And if you heed me now, as you ought, and if you truly sleep, then you may watch with him when Pepper tires. We'll not leave our Bill alone until he recovers a bit of his strength.

At the same time, Master Butterbur is standing at the entrance door to the stables, ushering the other Men out and repeating, A good night's work! Drinks on the house, and food with the drinks, seeing as how you marched all the way to Archet, escorting young Tom Pickthorn safely there, and then took no rest but marched all the way back here with our groom and his pony to see them home again as quickly as might be managed...

But I only have ears for my Sam, who is whispering, as if to himself, or just maybe for my ears as well, If only I could have my wish, my one wish, to go back and find him!

Behind us is darkness. Before us, a dark road beckons. In this moment, I remember hearing the Old Pet singing: The road goes ever on and on...

...and we must follow if we can...

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Author's note: Some phrasing and dialogue in this chapter comes from 'The Choices of Samwise' in The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien.

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