Chapter 56: The Choices of Master Peregrin
_____________________________________________________________
Sam pushed through the gate with a palm, the feel of the weathered wood more a guide than his distorted sight. The image of Frodo’s wide eyes bolted upon him lingered in his memory – which, at present, was more a sense than his normal five. Frodo had seen him even as he wore the Ring, even as he was invisible to the world at large. Frodo must have sensed the Ring’s presence. It must have somehow become cleaved to him in these past weeks. Sam did not think this a particularly encouraging sign.
The Ring still sat cold and heavy upon his finger. The moment Sam had put it on; the world had gone vague, and hazy, as if a dark curtain had suddenly been drawn about him. Yet, Sam could still sense where he was. His hearing had grown keener just as his sight had diminished – hearing things he had no business being able to discern. Each sound stabbed into him, queerly sharp and sounding closer than it actually was. The Ring world was not a comfortable place and Sam hoped he could take the Thing off his finger at the first possible opportunity. But not now. Not yet. Sam needed to escape, and could not risk being seen by anyone, especially Merry. Invisible to the world, Sam raced up the road as fast as his little legs could carry him. He would dash out the Buckland gate unseen. And from there, to Bree, and perhaps, to help for his master. The stone wall and trees streamed by in a grey haze at the blurry edges of his vision as he ran. All the while, a voice echoed in his mind. For Frodo.
VVVVV
“Pippin!” Merry’s voice was raw and full of pain. Pippin did not move from his place near the door. “Pippin!” Merry stumbled out from the shadows of the corridor, one hand flung outward to keep his balance, the other pressed against his forehead. Rivulets of blood ran between his fingers, the ball having done him some damage. Merry reeled as if drunk, his gait gaining more steadiness as he came forward. His eyes flashed and were wild with wrath.
“Where is he, Pippin?” asked Merry savagely. “Where is Sam?”
Pippin stood mute by the door, not answering. Merry lunged past his cousin and swung it open with fumbling hands. A spark came to his eyes as Pippin stared a second too long at the gate.
“You have told me as clearly as if you had spoken!” cried Merry.
Merry tore back down the hall- his footsteps thumping toward Sam’s room, toward Frodo. Frodo still lay close-eyed upon Sam’s bed, peaceful. Merry rushed into his own room, and returned in moments. He held his knife and some spare rope from packing. Merry quickly bound up Frodo’s wrists, to which Frodo made no reaction, and closed his hand vice-like upon Frodo’s shirtfront.
“Up! We have very little time, love. Up!” Merry yanked him to his feet and Frodo’s eyes opened, blank and glassy as ever, but he stood. Merry pulled him stumbling from the room.
He had but one weapon left. Frodo’s pain was the one tonic that might draw his treasure out. He could see his life’s work slipping from his grasp with every moment of delay. Frodo did not deserve to suffer! But his suffering must come to save the world of hobbits.
Merry approached the door, tugging Frodo to his torment. He steeled his heart to what he must do. It was more important that he get the Ring back than any one of their lives. His own flesh was already bound to his task of protecting and elevating his people and if Frodo, Pippin, or Sam had to be sacrificed also, then so be it. Merry looked up and his feet ground to a halt. Standing in front of the door, immovable as an oak, was the very last thing that Merry had expected to find there. Pippin.
“Move or be moved!” Merry shouted.
Pippin shook his head, his eyes fearful but stern. His face was pallid; his brow glistening with beads of sweat, and his cheeks pinched with the sickly flush of fever. The lad looked awful. Yet, despite his manifest weakness, Pippin stood, a wisp of a hobbit with a will of stone. Pippin reached over, took Frodo’s bound hands in his own, and pulled him away from Merry.
“What are you doing?” he cried and flung his hand out to reclaim his prize. Pippin lifted his arm with obvious pain and held up a sturdy iron cook pan like a weapon. Pippin was trembling, but his eyes were stern and fixed on Merry. The elder hobbit was so stunned he could barely push out a reply. “He is mine!” roared Merry.
Pippin made no answer. He took one step forward, placing his own battered body between Frodo and his would-be tormentor. He raised his eyes and looked directly at his cousin. Merry gazed back and realized he had made a fatal miscalculation. His young cousin’s eyes were hard as rock and brimming with resolve. Merry could no longer doubt Pippin’s rebellion. And yet he could not move to discipline him. Pippin was no longer his.
“You fool!” Merry cried. “Every moment of delay the future of the Shire retreats further beyond my reach! I don’t want to hurt him, Pip! You know I don’t! But I must!” Merry took a step toward them, expecting to seize Frodo from fearful but pliant hands, but he did not get his wish. Pippin stood his ground. “Have I taught you nothing!” roared Merry. “The easy thing, Pip, is not always the right thing! In fact, it almost never is!”
“I know,” answered Pippin in a low voice--as if the mere act of speaking exacerbated his wheals. He raised his pan and Merry could see he would have no qualms about striking his former mentor.
“Move!” screamed Merry. “We are running out of time!”
“No,” said Pippin, his voice louder and stronger now.
Merry pulled out his knife and stabbed at the air. Pippin maneuvered himself and Frodo back away from the door, his pan raised to block the blows. Merry lowered his knife, enraged and fuming, and threw Pippin a venomous glance, then he turned and shot through the door.
“Sam!” cried Merry holding his knife aloft and visible. “Sam! Come back or I will kill him! Bring It back! I’ll not let you destroy everything I’ve done! I’ll not let you make all of Frodo’s sufferings be in vain! You shall not murder the Shire! You shall not! If you don’t come back, the blood of Frodo and the whole of the Shire shall be on your hands! I’ll cut him to ribbons if that is what you wish! Bring It back!”
No one came. Merry jerked his head two and fro with desperate ferocity, each sound a possible victory. A breaking twig, a fluttering bird, a wayward squirrel--none of which was Sam. Merry jerked his head toward each noise, his eyes wide and fey, growing wider and feyer with each crushing disappointment. “Sam!” he screamed into the wind. “SAM!”
Nothing.
“So be it!” said Merry and dashed back into the smial.
VVVVV
Sam had only the vaguest sensation of his name being called, a sound like wind hissing through the trees and whistling its discontent into his ears. The Ring had amplified his hearing just as it had dimmed his sight but Sam was not convinced he heard anything. He had expected Merry to call after him. Perhaps his expectation had formed itself into words--a thought shaping itself into audible form. He did not wish to think about it. To think of Merry calling was to remind himself of what he still might do to draw him back. It was better to shut his mind and his ears and keep running.
VVVVV
Merry found Frodo and Pippin at the back of the smial. Pippin was pulling him along, making for the back door of the smial and escape. But he had not made it. Pippin’s gait was a pitiful shuffle and his wheals had begun bleeding anew through his shirt, the loss of blood seemingly weakening him further. The pan was no longer in his grip. Instead he held Frodo’s hands and urged his catatonic cousin to flee. Weak and unarmed, Pippin was no match for Merry.
The older hobbit flew at him, no longer hesitant, no longer even thinking of Pippin as one he could dominate and cow. Pippin had shown his hand and defied his Merry. After all Merry had done for him, Pippin had become the enemy, and an enemy Merry could not trifle with. Pippin saw Merry come on and dragged Frodo behind him again, shielding his beloved cousin with the only protection he had left; his own battered frame. Merry did not miss the implication of the action but he had no time to waste lamenting that Pippin had once shown him such selfless devotion. He raised his fist and easily knocked his cousin’s blocking arm away, slamming it hard and fast into the side of Pippin’s face. Pippin fell like a stone.
Frodo was left standing stupidly in the hallway. Without Pippin’s support, he seemed to list, as someone about to fall over. Merry strode over his fallen cousin and grasped Frodo by the tied hands. He felt the passing urge to kick Pippin’s unconscious form, but could not bring himself to do it. As frantic and outraged as he was, some part of him could not help a grudging respect for Pippin’s hopeless stand. It was a bitter draught to realize that he was seeing Pippin as more worthy after openly defying him than he ever had for Pippin’s adoring subservience.
He steadied Frodo on his feet, grasping him by his tied hands with desperate urgency, his face wild and lost. "Frodo," said Merry breathlessly, "you need to help me get back your Ring."
VVVVV
Sam had run for what seemed like miles, though he knew it only to be the better part of one. At the periphery of his hearing, a small thin Saaaamm lingered like the waking echo of a nightmare. He blotted this sound out, but there was a distant rumble ahead that could not to be ignored. He heard, or rather, felt, the resonance through the ground beneath his feet and skidded to a halt. Ponies? thought Sam. Or, …horses.
An unaccountable foreboding fell into his gut like a rock. He let his ears guide him. He thought he could pick up the murmur of loud voices too distant to make out their words. And…screams? Sam did not wish to think about it, though his shaking knees and thrumming heart had already come to dreadful conclusions of their own.
Sam could make out only grey blurs in the distance pierced by knives of brilliant white where the sun shone. The Ring's distorted vision was making him dizzy, so he pulled the thing off to view the road with his own eyes. Nothing. He squinted, raising a sheltering palm above his eyes. Just beyond his line of sight, Sam could make out something that might have been a plume of dust.
He frowned. Something looked to be approaching, though if it was for good or ill, Sam could not tell. Suddenly a great weariness descended upon him and Sam felt that he must rest or fall where he stood. He backed himself against the thick hedge, finding a space between two larger trunks, and rested, panting. He could relax for a moment, and perhaps find out what manner of traveler was racing down the Buckland road while he recovered. If luck were with him, it would be someone who could help his master and Mr. Pippin, and if it was not,… Sam sank to the ground . If it was not…. He really didn’t know what he would do if it were not.
As his breath returned and Sam felt somewhat recovered, he listened for the sounds of someone approaching. He could hear well, even without the ring’s added enhancement and suddenly it occurred to him that even the birds had gone quiet. Something had scared them. Something big and immanent. Far away but drawing closer, the roar of clomping hooves began filling the void of sound. Horses, yes; these were too big and clumsy for the sure-footed breeds hobbits preferred. And…Sam held his breath to hear more clearly. The distant roar of hooves stopped and, after a pause, came the sound of raised voices. Demanding, insistent voices, frightened and angry voices, the slamming of doors, the bursting open of others, crying out and plain crying. Sam shuddered in empathy but the riders were still too distant for him to tell what the shouting was all about. It might have been Shirriffs, bring bad news to a family, or it could have been those black riders. An icy fear stabbed though his heart at the last thought, though even that could not motivate him to action.. His body still sagged with fatigue and he felt the intense desire to curl up in the leaves at the base of the hedge. The riders seemed to be coming his way. They would be near enough soon that Sam would be able to make out who they were, and then he could decide on a course of action. But meanwhile, he needed rest. Sam laid back in the leaves, the Ring balled up in a tight fist, and listened for the hoofbeats to resume .
VVVVV
Frodo stumbled forward as Merry pulled him out of the door and into the yard. He blinked his eyes against the bright sun, giving him a quizzical, almost annoyed kind of expression. An outside observer might have even thought he looked confused. There were, however, no outside observers, save the birds, the squirrels, and the wholly indifferent trees. Sam was far down the road, looking at other sights, and listening for different sounds. That Sam's mind was on Frodo as he hid far down the lane would do Frodo no good now.
Merry scanned the yard like a trapped animal, feeling the silence like a physical force.
"Sam!" screamed Merry. "I have him! Sam! SAM!"
There was no response. Merry pulled Frodo to the center of the front yard, several dozen feet from the door, and another several dozen from the gate - a spot Merry hoped would lend optimal visibility for those he felt must be hovering just outside its knotted planks. Merry pushed Frodo to his knees, not noticing the glassy eyes of his cousin, nor the drooping of his head. Merry drew out a short knife from his belt.
"Sam!" Merry called. The wind blew threw the birch leaves and Merry's cries blended with their rustling. "SAM! I have Frodo! We are here. I don't want to hurt him again! Sam! Bring It back to us!" Merry slid the blade back home in his belt, and turning his face down to Frodo, cried “Call to him, Frodo “Tell him! Get him to bring It back to us! Frodo?” Frodo stared though Merry. He made no indication that he was aware of Merry’s presence, or even his existence.
"Talk to me, Frodo! Please, Frodo! Tell me you will call to Sam! He will come to you, my love! But you must hurry! Before it is out of our reach!
Frodo blinked and stared at nothing. Merry grew more insistent. He placed his hand on either side of Frodo’s face. "Look at me, Frodo! You must call to him! Say something! Let me know you understand!" Merry shook Frodo as he spoke. “Talk to your Merry – Frodo! Don’t you know I never wanted to hurt you? I love you! I did this all for YOU! Please! I need you now! You know what you must do! Frodo! Frodo! Frodo!”
VVVVV
Sam remained crushed against the hedge. The sound of hoofs was drawing closer. Sam saw dark shapes above a cloud of dust. Closer and larger they became until at last he made them out. Not hobbits. Men! Big Folk! Three! And they were riding on their huge horses. Sam stuck his fists in his mouth to stop himself from crying out.
No! Please! No! thought Sam. He pressed himself further into the hedgerow than he thought possible, breathing hard. His mind spun in ever-tighter circles, out of control – landing on no solution real or imagined. Sam slipped on the Ring and did not move.
Still they came on.
VVVVV
The leaves rustled. The door creaked open and closed in time with the breeze. There was no sign of Sam. Merry raised up his knife to the sky. "I shall cut him, Sam! I shall make him bleed!" Merry marched around Frodo, circling, rounding, waving his knife like a madman, but never closing in. Frodo stared empty-eyed at the grass below.
"I don’t want to hurt him, SAM! Why do you do this to him, to me? But I will! You know I will! You've seen it! Now come back! Bring it back!"
The door blew open, then closed again. A small animal skittered away under some crackling leaves. The gate stayed resolutely shut. Merry snapped his attention to and fro, moved his head in arches under and over and around the gate, as if Sam were just outside, peeping into a knothole.
"I know you can see us, Sam!" cried Merry. "I know you can. Stay this madness! What hope do you think you have? Will you forsake your dear master? Come back!"
Merry's voice became more ragged and torn and desperate as he yelled and waited, and yelled more. “Don’t believe me Sam?” called Merry. He grasped Frodo’s bound hands and cut the cord from his left hand. The bracelet of rope fell to the ground. Merry lifted Frodo’s hand, palm toward the gate. "Here is your proof!"
Merry, hand shaking wildly, pressed his knife against Frodo's white palm. Frodo's hand remained as still as if it had been carved in that position.
“Sam! Sam! Is this what you really want?" cried Merry, unsure now where to look, where Sam might be lurking. He gave one final scouring of the yard to see if Sam was moving toward him. Sam did not emerge.
“Count of three and I mark him!” cried Merry, knuckles white around the blade. "One. Two." Merry hesitated, his desperation reaching a fever pitch. Sam was being heartless and cruel, and foolish. Merry realized that he had shown Sam his own weakness, his own inability to harm his beloved, defenseless cousin, too many times for the gardener to believe his threat. He would have to also show Sam the depth of his devotion to the Shire and that he would do anything to protect it
"Three."
VVVVV
The men stopped suddenly. They turned into a break in a gate Sam could not see. He heard it then. Crashing, yelling of hobbits in anger and fear. Threatening voices. Violence. With his heightened hearing, Sam listened in horror.
“We don’t know no Brandybuck!” yelled a voice that sounded both urgent and frightened. “And certainly not the master! We are lowly folk! Please! Leave us be!”
Sam heard laughing–not full of mirth, but vicious. Crashing sounds. Screams.
“And we’ll break a lot more if we come and find you weren’t truthful! So if you see him, tell him he’s an appointment to keep! That is if you like your home not on fire.”
More malicious laughter. The whinny of horses. Weeping. And then pounding hooves heading in Sam’s direction.
VVVVV
Merry clamped his eyes shut, his expression in disarray, as if anticipating the pain himself. He then pushed the knife-point into Frodo's palm.
Frodo made no sound or indication that he felt anything. He stared into space, making no attempt to draw his hand away as the knife slid across the soft, white skin leaving bright red rivulets in its wake.
"ARE YOU HAPPY NOW, SAM?!" Merry screamed.
The cut was neither deep nor damaging, but Frodo’s blood flowed freely, dripping down into the soft earth. With a cry of agony, Merry let the knife drop. His head dipped into his hands and he wept. “Why did you make me hurt him, Sam?"
Silence.
But Merry wasn't listening for Sam anymore. He lifted his head and stared at his cousin's bleeding hand like it was a thing of grand, sublime beauty, a precious object worthy of devotion. He grabbed it, holding it tightly until the blood ran down his own forearm, his voice changing into something foreign and fearsome.
"Will you have me kill him, Sam?" Merry tilted his head and spoke in a soft tone that could not be heard outside the gate. "Will you?” He stared into Frodo's eyes, his own almost as transparent and distant, like he was seeing a sacred vision, a revelation even. Still his voice dropped lower. "Maybe you will…"
“SAM!” Merry suddenly screeched like a lunatic. “Sam! Why are you doing this to us? Bring It back!” Merry fell to his knees in front of Frodo, now weeping piteously. Ignoring the diminishing trickle of blood, he grasped Frodo’s hands in his own and kissed them all over with pathetic devotion, as if, for a time, love had won over duty.
Far from any love of his own, Frodo sat passively and unaware.
VVVVV
Sam turned his eyes toward the approaching horsemen, now turning into the last smial before Crickhollow. That secluded home would be next. Sam cursed his foolishness. What had he been thinking? His place was by his master’s side, not running free along the road when Frodo was endangered. He must save Frodo! He turned on his heel and hurdled back toward the smial. Perhaps he would not be too late.
VVVVV
Frodo made no move, no sign. Merry wrapped his hands around Frodo’s neck and continued to weep. His carefully contrived plan was unraveling before his eyes and the only one who had any hope of saving it was as lost to him as Pippin had become. Now he wanted Frodo back, his pity, his revulsion, his anything. He wanted Frodo to be aware of him. To Merry, Frodo was the Ring. Only Frodo could get It back.
“Answer me, Frodo! I love you! Answer me!” Merry screamed into Frodo’s unhearing ear.
Then Merry stopped. A sound. Not Sam. Horses. They had finally come for him and he did not have the Ring.
“It is over,” Merry mumbled as if in a dream. “They shall take their due and all shall come to darkness. It is over. I have failed.”
Merry pulled Frodo to his feet, moaning to himself and weeping with pity. “Sam has killed you,” Merry sobbed. “He has killed both of us. He has doomed our race to torment for eternity and yet he will forever think he was trying to save you.” Merry scoffed bitterly. “’Samwise, he most certainly has been ‘half-wise’ in this!” His face hardened with desperate anger at Sam’s betrayal. “But he shall see,” muttered Merry. “By my life, he shall know the truth of what he did!”
Merry dragged Frodo, stumbling but unresisting, the several dozen yards to the gate. He set his charge down and flung open the defenses to revealed their smial at Crickhollow to the world. Then Merry raised his voice.
“Sam--you shall see this!” Merry yelled to his imagined audience. “You shall see this last act in our tragedy! This defeat! This doom belongs to you as much as to anyone!”
VVVVV
Sam ran, fast as his legs would carry him. The gate in the distance swung open into the road and a river of dread coursed through him. He squinted hard, trying to see. What could this mean?
And still he ran. Two figures, small, still in the distance, took shape. Two blurs upon the horizon dimmed in his altered vision and the sound of horses echoed behind him at a fateful clip.
VVVVV
Merry dragged Frodo to the side of the road, and forced his cousin to kneel in the grass and knelt behind him with the grave air of a ritual borne from the days of the heathen kings. Merry sighed as he slowly looked up. His face had taken on an expression of portentous calm, sadly accepting but chillingly resolved.
“Do you hear the horses?” Merry called out for the benefit of his unseen audience. Sam heard and knew instinctively that this question was intended for him. “They will be upon us soon, Sam!" Merry's face changed, losing its former peace for a minute. "It is over! All is lost! All is lost! It is the end of all hope! The end of all hobbits! The end of everything! And it’s all your doing, Samwise Gamgee!”
Merry drew out his knife from his belt again, his voice mumbling softly to himself. “Can’t do it! Don’t want! Must do! Don’t want! For pity. For Frodo! The easy thing is not the right thing. No, no--this is too hard. But I must. For Frodo…and for Merry!” Sam was filled up with a sudden and ghastly dread.
"I could not hurt him deeply, Sam!" You guessed it, I think, or you would have come back. But now the men have come for me, Sam.! Now it's too late, too late to save the Shire. It's all ruined!" Merry stared down at his knife for a long moment, his face twisted with something close to despair. But when he looked up, he wore an expression of calm determination. "But there is one thing I can do still." Merry said, quietly. "One last thing I can do for Frodo, since I can no longer help him fulfill his destiny. I can save him from the dark and horrible world to come!"
Sam sprinted forward, his lungs burning, his chest heaving, his legs moving past all hope and endurance. He was gaining but his feet felt like lead, his mind in a blur. Something horrible was about to happen and he would be powerless to stop it. Closer now, his master was well in sight. Behind Sam, the sound of horses came on at a steady trot.
He watched helplessly as Merry opened Frodo's shirt and then his own. Standing, he held Frodo's bleeding hand to his chest and kissed him tenderly on his head. Then he looked up, tears making his cheeks glimmer against the sun. Into his expression flowed the most complete look of peace, the most beauteous smile Sam had ever seen gracing Meriadoc’s face.
Merry then placed Frodo's injured hand over his cousin’s chest, marking the center with a small stain of blood to match the one now on his own skin. He put Frodo’s other arm across it and tilted his cousin's head so that unseeing eyes stared up to face him. He pushed an errant curl from Frodo's temple with hands that no longer shook.
“I am glad you are here with me,” said Merry in a low and broken voice. “Here at the end of all things, Frodo.”
Merry's eyes squinted as he stared down the road, his expression nearly as haunted as his captive's, and again he called out to Sam.
“I shall not be parted from him, Sam!” he cried. “I thought that we might live happily together, all of us. But it is not to be.”
Sam understood now, but – oh--too late!
“Beyond the circles of the world we shall go together. Frodo and Merry. Merry shall not hurt Frodo – but together, together we shall die! Farewell.”
Merry raised his knife high over his head--the blade glinting in the sun, pointed directly at the bright red circle above the crossed arms in the center of Frodo's chest.
Sam leapt up and ran faster than he thought he could force his inexplicably weary body to move - screeching out a hollow “Noooooooo!” as he tried to close the distance between them. Now he could see the whites of Merry’s eyes, but it was too far and too late!
The knife began its descent to Frodo’s chest. Too late! I'm too late! Sam let out a blood-curdling cry, but to Sam's astonishment, the knife did not plunge into Frodo’s offered chest. It dropped from his grip and Merry’s eyes, just a moment ago, clear as water, rolled up in his head. He tottered, dropped back to his knees and keeled over into the grass beside his intended sacrifice.
Pippin’s hunched form was revealed as Merry fell, holding his pan, eyes wide, hands trembling, and pale as a ghost. He dropped the pan, muttering. “The right thing…"
Sam seized off the Ring, nearly drunk with relief, and closed the last dozen yards to the horrifying tableau. He forgot Pippin's wounds for a moment and gathered the other hobbit in his arms, squeezing him with all the emotion he could muster.
“I did the right thing, Sam,” Pippin said in a low voice. “I didn’t want to hurt him, Sam. But I had to. I had to.” Pippin’s voice was strangely distant and Sam realized that he was on the edge of consciousness.
“Course you did, Pippin,” said Sam, his own voice less than steady. “Now get into the smial. Go now. Those riders’ll be on us and we’ve not got a moment to lose.”
Pippin nodded, his eyes unfocusing and refocusing as he apparently struggled to remain lucid. “You’ll take care of them, Sam?” said Pippin as he stumbled back to the smial. “I can’t help… You’ll get Merry back where it's safe?”
“Yes,” said Sam darkly. “I’ll put Mr. Merry right where he belongs.”
VVVVV
Sam pulled, nearly carried Frodo into the smial, sat him on a chair, and gave Pippin rushed instructions not to move under any circumstances. Pippin nodded weakly. Sam then flew out the door muttering that he would “handle things” so that they all would be safe but Pippin was too weak to ask questions. He pulled himself over to Frodo’s chair and placed a hand heavily on Frodo’s shoulder. He had done it. Though it had used the very last measure of his strength, he had saved his dear cousin’s life. Then Pippin crumpled to the floor in a dead faint.
Sam put on the Ring again, and rushed back out toward the gate. The gate must be closed to hide the smial, as well as could be. And Merry must be outside of that gate when it closed.
It was an unconscionable thought for a hobbit to have, but Sam saw it as his best, his only hope of protecting them all. The men were coming. They wanted Merry. They wanted Merry and he must protect Frodo. If the men wanted Merry, by Eru, he would give them what they wanted. It was hard, cruel but it had to be done to protect his master. Merry might be hurt, might be tormented to his death, but after the outrages he had committed on Frodo, Pippin, and he himself, Sam felt little compunction against delivering him to his fate.
For Frodo.
It was cruelty in the service of his master. It wasn’t about anger, it wasn’t about revenge, it was not to appease Sam’s fury – so Sam told himself. It was for Frodo. The men would not need to venture further if they found their prize. Then, with Merry gone, perhaps beyond all hope he could take Frodo with him - get him safely to Rivendell where he could get the healing he needed. Sam would have to apologize, of course, for what had happened to Merry, but he was sure Mr. Frodo would understand.
I had to do it! No choice! I had to close that gate. And I could not carry poor Merry inside in time. We would have all been lost. The men would have found you! I did it for you, Frodo!
Sam took one last look at Merry lying prone in the middle of the road, and eased the gate closed –not all the way, so that Sam might push back through in a hurry if need be. Even with the Ring, his shadow might be seen, so he stood a short ways down the road behind a hedge to watch the proceedings. He needed to make sure the men took Merry away and didn’t come round to the house looking for any other hobbits.
The horses trotted to a stop at the entrance of the lane. “Hoy!” a man's voice called out. “Here’s another one of them houses. And” he snorted with sadistic delight. “What-do-we-have-here? Another rat! Piss drunk--I bet! Sleeping through all the fun!” The man was a burly fellow, huge to Sam, and with deep-set-rodent like eyes and a thick slab of a jaw. He dismounted and gave Merry a nudge with his boot. “Hoy, there, runtling! Hoy! Wake up! Wake up or get a second breakfast you’ll not soon forget!” Merry groaned at the jostling. “Wake up!”
A second man, shorter, thinner, but twice as ugly, dismounted his horse, his sinister grin revealing a crooked row of yellow-black teeth. He lifted the groggy hobbit by the collar and dropped him unceremoniously on his bottom. Then he took a skin from his shoulder and poured the contents over Merry’s head. Merry spluttered to life. The men laughed, a hard, cold laugh that gave Sam chills.
“Nice of you to join us, young sir!” said the yellow-teeth with a mocking bow. “So could you tell me some weary travelers where the master of Buckland can be found? We’d very much like to have a chat with him!”
Merry, in pain and obviously disoriented, looked up upon hearing the title, ‘master of Buckland’. “I am he,” he mumbled. “I am the master of Buckland.
The third man urged his mount forward now, his long shadow cast over Merry like a storm cloud. He was dressed in black with strange markings upon his breastplate that matched those on his horse’s harness. Sam concluded from his livery and his mien of authority that he was looking at their leader. He did not seem to be a kind man or one much capable of pity or mercy. He threw down a coil of rope that landed with a dull thud upon the road and barked out his order in a calm, hard voice that made Sam shudder.
“Bind him!”
Merry’s head snapped up as if the words had suddenly made him aware of his folly. He started to struggle. A beefy hand reached down toward Merry’s throat.
“You have missed an appointment with some people that don’t take well to missed appointments, Master,” laughed one of the men. “You’re to come with us now.”
Merry’s clumsy hands reached inside his belt for his knife but it was gone. The hand came closer and Merry grasped it, pulled it into his mouth and bit down hard. The man shrieked in pain. Merry stumbled to his feet and ran toward the gate, which creaked open with the wind.
No! thought Sam. It wasn’t supposed to work that way! Merry was supposed to be taken! Sam’s mind replayed all the torments Merry had inflicted upon his master--each humiliation.
For Frodo
This distant echo sounded through his mind. But it was weak, drowned out by his own unquenchable rage. Merry must be taken!
Sam – forsaking all justification and self-doubt, leapt before the gate’s opening and stuck out his foot to trip his foe. Merry fell. The men came on but not fast enough. Merry sprang up again, looking wildly about for his unseen attacker and Sam punched him down.
Merry’s eyes filled with rage, for he knew Sam, the thief of his Treasure, was within reach. He stood again, grasping wildly at anything that might be there and attached to Sam. If he could get to It, he still might prevail over the men, over the world. The sturdy oaken gate swung wide, revealing the smial’s wide green yard but screening the two madly fighting hobbits behind it from the onlooking men. Merry managed to find Sam’s invisible hand and was frantically searching for the Ring upon one of its fingers. Sam fought but was taken aback by Merry’s strength.
“Give It back!” snarled Merry and grasped Sam by the hair. Sam punched Merry and Merry keeled back to sprawl in the dust in view of the men again. This time he did not immediately rise. Sam should have left him then, pushed the gate to and hidden behind it, but he did not. An evil will fed by his indignation and hate compelled Sam to kick Merry hard in the side and to keep kicking until a second before the Men came forward and plucked the other hobbit, bleeding from the nose and barely conscious, off the ground.
“Must’ve fallen,” laughed an ugly voice.
Sam gloated unseen as the men bound Merry’s wrists and ankles. He had done it! Now the men would leave them! He had saved Frodo.
The men laughed at their prize, and shook him like a doll before throwing him face down across the pommel of one of the horse’s saddles, just as Merry had done to Frodo in the Old Forest. Good riddance! thought Sam, still invisible, still standing in a wide-open gate, his eyes fixed on Merry. A gust of wind blew, and behind Sam, a low creak sounded.
“What about my hand?” asked the burly one. “Li’l rat sunk his teeth into me!”
“Payment is only put off, Broga!” said the thin one. “Not to worry!”
Sam waited impatiently, wondering why the men lingered. You have him, just go!
“Now,” said the leader. “Where is the other one? His captive?”
Sam felt as if he had been stabbed, so great was his horror. The other one? This could not be!
“Ain’t that him?” The thin man pointed, or seemed to point at Sam. Sam shuddered, feeling naked and revealed despite his invisibility, and turned to slink quietly behind the gate…
And found himself staring directly into the blue eyes of his master. Frodo was now making his way from the smial to the gate and from the gate to Sam. Frodo could see Sam even with the Ring on. Especially with the Ring on. Frodo walked toward Sam now, his eyes strange but focused upon the keeper of his treasure, the stealer of his solace. The thief. He was drawn to Sam, and paid no mind to the danger about him, to Merry, or to the big men with the horses, the sharp swords. Frodo was walking to Sam. Sam motioned to Frodo with desperate futility. No! Frodo! Go back! Run! No Frodo! NO!
“Looks like him, sure enough,” said big man. “Hands is tied – or were.” The ruffian indicated the rope around Frodo’s wrist. “Must be coming to see how well we’re treating his little friend here!”
“Ask the master,” ordered the leader.
The big man slapped Merry savagely across the face and bellowed in his ears. “Is that him?”
The man drew up a knife to Merry’s throat. “I asked you a question, runt!” cried the man. “Is that him?”
Merry nodded weakly.
Bastard! Thought Sam. Sam’s fury at Merry was only equaled by his disgust at himself. How could he have stood here and gloated over Merry when he should have been tending to Frodo? Why did he have to be on this side of the gate – so that he couldn’t lock it shut? Now Frodo was walking nice as you please toward the gate toward Sam, and Sam had not even seen him leave the house! Sam’s anger had betrayed both him and his master! But how to make it right? Sam stared at the men now, then back at Frodo, then at the men. Sam had no plan, no weapon. Panic surged through his mind, washing away any rational thought, but he caught the glint of steel on the ground near one of the horses. Merry’s knife! Sam would stab the men if they tried to take Frodo!
He bounded towards it, just as one of the horse’s gigantic hooves came down on the slim blade and pinned it fast. The horse sensed him, snorted and spun its hindquarters towards the invisible hobbit. Undaunted, Sam sidestepped the animal and grasped the knife’s handle, shoving his shoulder against its leg to urge it off the blade. It worked. The horse, unnerved by the touch he could feel but not see, jumped and Sam leapt back, blade in hand. Just that moment, Sam felt a soft touch upon his other hand, the one that wore the Ring. Frodo had followed him to within inches of the men. Sam wanted to scream.
Do something, you ninny!!!
Sam raised his small knife, aiming to do damage to these human filth, but the men were too fast. Before his knife met with flesh, the big man reached down, plucked Frodo up onto the horse, and wheeled his steed beyond Sam’s reach. Frodo turned his head toward his friend, his expression a combination between confusion and anger. For a moment the two hobbits stared at each other. A sliver of pure agony lanced Sam’s heart as the weight of his failure sunk in. He lifted his knife again, screamed out Frodo’s name and careened toward his captors.
No one heeded him. His scream was drowned out by the sound of galloping hoofs dashing away like a whirlwind. Sam shot out after them, but to no avail. On his short and exhausted legs, he would never catch up with the rushing steeds. The last thing he saw before collapsing in the middle of the road was the shrinking form of his master’s captors fading into the distance behind a cloud of dust.
Frodo was alive but taken by the enemy.
END OF PART ONE. Stay Tuned for Part Two - THE REDEMPTION OF MERIADOC
Thank you for reading! I will be posting part 2 : “The Redemption of Meriadoc” soon. If you don’t want to wait, you can find what I have of it at fanfiction.net linked to my author page: http://www.fanfiction.net/~aelfgifu
No character death, I promise, but Merry will be redeemed and Frodo brought back in the most unlikely circumstances. Also Sam and Pip will have their own journeys to make.
Also Illustrations and alternate chapters can be found on the official story website:
http://www.geocities.com/aelfgifuemma/RATM.html
Finally- feel free to friend me. And I will friend you back. http://www.livejournal.com/users/aelfgifu
Big thanks to my betas throughout the tale, Aratlithiel, whose stories can be found on West of the Moon, Ariel, whose wonderful stories can be found right here, and CelandineG whose Alternate chapters are on the website. Also big thanks to Eykar!
Reviews make us cry with joy. If you’ve made it this far, then admit it- even if you hate this thing, you’ve read a lot of it!