IV. Touched
The moon has shifted half its cycle since I saw Frodo last. Skirmishes with orcs on our northern border have held my attention. Such diversions gratify me, for I harbor the evil of Middle-earth in my realm, imprinting itself on its bearer as it may do to me, the more I allow its shape in my mind.
Against this, I sought to restore the elemental clarity with which I was familiar. The company would soon depart and I had learned little enough about the likely success of the mission laid on the shoulders of my diminutive guest. The mission is the more precarious now that the halfling stands nearly alone without Mirthrandir – for Aragorn himself is uncertain of where to lead him. I wished to navigate the hobbit's careful reserve, that he might divulge his hopes and fears. With these I must be acquainted in order to help him. Perhaps too, the chance to reflect upon the Ring in proximity will help me resolve my quandary regarding its use.
I encountered Frodo but days after the company's arrival here but we spoke little before a message arrived from the border watch. At that time he walked solitary beneath an azure sky and I drew near. His face lit with pleasure and I asked how he fared. When he assured me that he was well refreshed, I ventured,
'Perhaps you would speak now of what could not be discussed when you had so soon arrived.'
A frown hovered on his brow as he said, 'I would not speak of it still… though I would not offend thee,' he said, choosing the ancient and more personal form of address.
Despite his hesitance, I recognized a desire for frankness. But he justly questioned my motives – were they in his best interest as Ring bearer, or even Middle-earth's? I would need to earn his trust and, until then, we might be like variable winds, eddying about one another. But I was called away then, forced to leave hurriedly, offering only a few words of reassurance.
So, one afternoon, as shadows stretched in long spires across the land, I set out deliberately to meet the Ring bearer alone. I found him lying fast asleep in his rustic travel clothes, beneath a coverlet of homespun. Even in repose, he appeared graceful as the filigree on our graven stone portals. Mounds of dry clover pillowed his compact body and above him the foliage of a small tree, scarlet berries dotting bright yellow leaves, made a light canopy.
The sight moved me and I longed to let him rest, to bestow upon him a simple blessing of peace. Aragorn, his friend and guide, had expressed concern that night-dreams troubled the hobbit's sleep, yet now he dozed sweetly. But I had not that luxury.
'Hail, Frodo of the Shire,' I whispered. As I passed, the hobbit woke, parted the branches, and followed me, over a small rise and down again to a shallow stream.
'Lady Galadriel?' he said, hoarse with sleep. I turned towards him and he bowed slightly.
'I thought you called. Forgive me if -'
'I am glad you heard.'
He stood patiently, folding his hands folded serenely before him. His eyes revealed an unguarded awe that was disarming.
'I go to gather bark and twigs for medicine. Will you come with me?' I said, beckoning him along the streamside, still green with trailing cresses and frost-dulled wild ginger.
'It would be a great pleasure, My Lady.' he said, and fell into step beside me. For a while I let silence and the chattering stream ease him.
Presently, I began. 'We seek a copse of trees. Their flowers are sprays of bright gold petals on bare branches, so we call the tree Glorgaladh. Does the like grow in the Shire?'
'Yes, I may know it,' said Frodo, 'though our name for it is simply Hazel and the flowers are rather sallow, catkins merely. My uncle and I kept its leaves in a jar. Mixed with an herb – Arnica – it helps heal cuts and bruises. We gather the leaves in summer, and in early spring children visit to watch the nuts fly from their shrinking husks. Perhaps this is the tree you speak of. Do you harvest in winter, then?'
'Only for these flower-bearing twigs, and for certain barks. You seem well acquainted with herb lore, Frodo. Do you make a study of it?'
'I am interested, yes, but all hobbits know such things – what to look for and to what purpose. At a young age, we learn when and how to reap what we need so as to sustain the supply. Many know more than I – Samwise, our gardener, for instance, who travels with us.' A light wind blew from the south and Frodo turned to face it, then added, 'I acquired some little knowledge of Elvish remedies from the healers in Rivendell, but I do not the recall the name you mentioned.'
I glanced at him but his expression showed no sign of shadow and I continued. 'Supplies dwindle slowly here, despite occasional casualties from skirmishes. Your company is the first of mortal kind to enter our realm in many seasons.'
'Your care is much appreciated, Madam. ' said Frodo, 'I am glad to help replenish your stores.'
'Do not fear! Our stores are not depleted! Typically, we would have finished gathering by this time. But this year, other concerns have demanded attention. The enemy has long assaulted our borders where we are not vigilant and where so few of us remain, but more often in recent days. For a new menace walks among us.' The hobbit stiffened beside me.
'Not you, Ring-bearer,' I said, laying a hand on his shoulder, 'but the wily imp who pursues you in secret and approached your flet the night you arrived. Your guards reported that you were alert to the stealthy intruder.'
'Gollum,' he murmured.
Yes, Gollum, I thought, the mutilated example of a former Ring bearer. To the hobbit I said, 'And orcs. For the first time in the all the years I have watched over this land, they have crossed the River Nimrodel and come so near the Anduin.'
The hobbit frowned. 'I – the Ring draws them – does it not?'
'Yes,' I replied cooly.
He drew an anxious breath and after a moment, said, 'You have been generous to us, Lady, and I fear that perhaps we have stayed overlong on account of it. Desperate travelers we are, yet you welcomed us. But we may have been presumptuous in our needs. In fleeing my enemies, I have led them to your gate, and, though I have brought a device of great evil into your realm, you ask for nothing - not even as wergild of my good intent.'
His remorse touched me but I said nothing and avoided his eye. To reassure him, however, I took his hand, and led him across an arching stone bridge into a small garden. How trusting his grip felt, strong, fine-boned fingers wrapped around mine.
'How do you fare, Frodo?' I asked, aiming the wide-open question for him to answer as he would.
'Much better, thank you, now that I walk beneath Lorien's golden eves. My old hurts cause little complaint.'
What exactly was done to him? Invaded he seemed, but by what? My communications from Imladris told me simply that the young hobbit had brought the One Ring to Lord Elrond, had been badly wounded, and recovered against all expectation. As we strolled among the old rose bushes, I studied their contorted shapes that their tenders endeavored to guide, and inquired further. 'Would you speak of the nature of these hurts?'
I waited for the hobbit to continue but he did not. The sun slanted across the path and into her rays, Frodo strayed, hitching his shoulders as the heat struck them.
'You have yet spoken of this to no one, so it is difficult,' I said.
He nodded, then said thickly, just above a whisper. 'I was attacked – some time ago.'
'Go on,' I coaxed.
He glanced at me doubtfully, then continued slowly. 'I - so foolishly put on the Ring I'm carrying. I fell into their world then - the wraith's world - invisible to others but we could see each other. One bore a crown, and it was he-' he faltered, shaking his head. We emerged from the garden into a field where oats were gathered into stooks and still the hobbit was silent.
'Wasn't it rather that you resisted the command to put on the One Ring and the Dark King did smite you?' I prompted.
'I'd like to sit for a moment, if you don't mind,' he said.
We sat upon a wind-smoothed table of rock in that fading light and, leaning back on his elbows, the hobbit tilted his head into the westering sun. I gazed at his lightly bronzed face as he watched the swifts among the top-most boughs through half-closed eyes. How remarkable that he should appear so unscathed!
'Was it not your resistance?' I repeated. Strangely, I found myself defending the one whose boasts I expected to be discarding. 'Perhaps if you start at the beginning, before you put on the Ring,' I suggested. 'I have heard your story only from Aragorn whom you know to be -' I sought the proper translation, '- brief. You and your friends stood alone upon Amon Sul when the enemy's servants surrounded you...'
He nodded. Then, at length he began. 'I put on the Ring,' his hands went to his temples, 'I fought not to put on the Ring. I put on, I put it on -' the words tumbled out, jostling re-iterated fragments, ending in a choked sob.
This is the Ring's doing, I thought bitterly, resisting the instinct to stroke his cheek, lest soothing should unnerve… After a time, he composed himself.
'I knew what was happening to me, what happened before, how I resisted at the barrow - of the wights that haunt the Withywindle valley west of Bree. I remembered Tom Bombadil and his lady, and all that Gandalf warned me of. But I couldn't, I could not, in the end, stop … When I finally recalled what had occurred with others, with me, I held hard to those images, but I was not strong enough and such gifts - drifted away. Because, you see, the black horsemen were pulling me inward, inside myself. Deep in my chest, in my head, such pressure as I've never known… And then, as I said, I put on the One Ring of Evil.'
Oddly, I rarely thought of it that way. He was correct, of course - the One Ring was evil, as intended. Yet, most of us forgot that when it suited. Frodo did not forget - but still, eventually, fell to its persuasive voice it seemed.
'And then?'
'I was done for!' he said with a grim laugh.
I stared at him and saw more of that stand in the darkness at the ruined watch tower than he knew.
'Did you not even try to fend off this being who threatened you, your kin, and all you treasure?' I demanded.
'Yes! In desperation, I cried out to Elbereth, I know not why. I had not the right, but it gave me strength -'
'You had the right to call,' I interrupted, 'as do any who know her name.'
'I - did - try to strike that evil one, but did not of course slay him. I was the one driven through, in my left side, by the knife he brandished all along.' He stared so wide-eyed at the lowering sun, as if trying to penetrate the pitch of darkness, that I feared for his sight.
'I tried then- finally - to pull off the Ring, but -'
'Surely you had not the power, especially after the fell wounding?'
'After, yes, there was pain… but I - I took it off and -'
I bent closer to him now, for his words were barely audible. Noticing, he strained for volume, but failed, his voice rough with effort, as if his story did not want to be told.
'Quietly, Frodo - you need not speak if you prefer not to, though doing so will help free you of the terror.' I hesitated before laying a hand on his shoulder. Frodo cleared his throat and went on.
'They wanted everything from me - not just the Ring, or my body even, but my thoughts, my feelings. And they were taking these things. All the while we traveled toward Imladris - thoughts, memories were leaving me…' he raised his eyes to the distant flowing stream, following its course.
I took this opportunity to lead him the short distance to the trees I sought.
'Lord Elrond saved my life,' he said. 'Yet, sometimes the darkness returns…'
Seeking the implication of his words, I said delicately, 'Elrond healed you. Frodo, do you know how he did this?'
'He removed the knife point,' he replied shortly.
In that brief answer, a scene flashed in my head - the pallid body of the hobbit suspended in darkness, his face taut and grey beyond recognition as he fought against the plundering of his body and mind, against the Ring, against the Dark Lord.
My heart went to him, this child of the West who knew but little of the woes of Middle-earth, yet accepted this burden that pitched him into their midst, making him the target of a deadly force.
He reached to snap a flowering twig from a sturdy branch. Then, contemplating it, he said, 'Each time he – the darkness - pushes me back inside myself, away from the others, away from the world, I realize how the real danger lies in me, in not being able to reach beyond, outside…'
'Frodo! You expect much of yourself – admirable, but in excess this will plunge you into a well of despair as fathomless as the enemy himself.' He raised his eyes to my mine, searching. He seemed not to mind that I had no reassurance for him. But perhaps he sought my acceptance, which I have been so loath to give.
'What do you use them for?' he asked suddenly.
'To staunch bleeding,' I replied after a moment, stunned at his ability to so quickly return to the present.
He nodded, then resumed. 'I will, as I once told Gandalf, Mithrandir, do whatever I can to save the Shire, a peaceful land and my home. I believe Mithrandir accepted this rather rustic wish of mine in place of any grander goal. And yet the Ring, the Enemy, works even upon that.
'The view from the window at Bag End, where I lived was…' he paused, groping for words. 'I cannot seem to recall-' he finished worriedly, for he saw before I did, with dismay, this new tactic of the Ring.
'Let us go,' I said, and put out my hand for him to take. 'Your touch is cold as winter wind!' I exclaimed, only just stopping from pulling back at the sudden chill. His own arm recoliled, but I held him. Truly, mortals respond quickly to the airs about us, yet this reaction seemed extreme. I ceased our stroll and took up his left hand in both of mine.
I sank my gaze into the blue pools of his eyes that met mine dark with grim knowledge. The chain around his neck was not visible but I longed for the gold orb at his throat to slither out from his garments. All my attention was upon the image of it, docile at first, it would be - pale against paler skin - and I knelt before its guardian. So near! Its beauty filled my mind, outshining all else and I felt the tender throb of vitality within it, like a breath. How could my enemy, malicious and fell, have created this? Yet it was before me! The culmination of an age of longing - I felt it upon my forefinger and tried to fondle it there –.
Distractedly, my mind groped at his. 'Would you not use it to guard the fate of your friends? I do not say to save your own life, for that you gave to us twice over.' I saw a question emerge in the pained depths of his eyes:
'Why do you tempt me, Lady?'
'Why to try your strength, young hobbit!' But my thought was shapeless and did not reach him - the secret truth deprived it of substance. For - though I shun to admit - I sought to break him, and I pried at his thoughts with a brazen question to which I have ever had an answer ready, but for which he may not.
'Owned? That may never be. But if I were – owned by it, surely I would do much evil.' So I read his reply.
The hobbit's hand stirred in my palms. I closed my eyes and memories assailed me from ages past, when I cupped a fledgling blue bird, fallen from its roost in the ice meadows of the North, and from a fell winter not so long ago when the little folk of the West - Frodo's people perhaps - struggled against fatal gales of snow and ice... The Ring's enchantment left me then and I breathed upon the hand that I held.
His response startled me.
'I am fortunate,' he said, and I felt the icy fingers clasp my warm ones.
I surveyed him, questioning.
'I meant, Lady, that I am fortunate in meeting with kindness as often as I have- for the warmth of your hand… Gandalf said it might be so.' His smile melted all distress, his and mine.
After returning Frodo to his friends, I reflected upon our meeting. I begin now to understand how Frodo resists the Ring's seduction. The Ring seizes upon two preoccupations - one's self and the Ring itself. Frodo avoids both.
It is not he who identifies with the Ring but those about him who unite the two in their minds. I recall my first meeting with Frodo at our talan, when he suspected that I deemed him inseparable from the Ring and its evil. How Frodo feared this, having been so victimized from the beginning! According to Aragorn, Frodo's uncle Bilbo, who bequeathed the Ring to his nephew at his coming-of-age, departed at that time and sent no further word. I now realize that Bilbo could not even correspond with his nephew without pursuing the Ring to re-possess it - a chance neither he nor his advisors in the House of Elrond could hazard.
Frodo struggles himself against union with the Ring, by indulging neither it nor himself. But he cannot do this for others.
