Chapter 7
Elrond and Celebrían brought the hobbits to a spacious bedroom whose windows looked out on Ingwë's tower, a sentinel of white watching over them with the aid of its silver lamp. The roads below were bejeweled with tiny diamond fragments that glimmered under the moonlight, as if the paths were not of solid ground but, rather, liquid glass reflecting the stars above. The pillows seemed scented with a touch of jasmine, and the sheets were as supple as cream under their fingers. On each of the two beds had been laid out a pair of crushed velvet nightclothes, one embroidered with an 'F' in gold threading on the upper left breast pocket, and the other with an 'S'. Frodo turned to his hosts as his heart leapt within his chest.
"You were expecting us," he said, and the two inclined their heads in acknowledgment. "Truly, there is no limit to the hospitality of Lord Elrond and the Lady Celebrían."
"Why, I feel as though I've come to the Last Homely House, or better!" Sam put in, fingering the satiny pajamas monogrammed with his initial.
"We are pleased that it will suit," Elrond responded smilingly. "And now we leave you to your rest. Sleep well, little masters, and may your dreams be blessed."
Frodo and Sam wished them a heartfelt good-night, and they withdrew into the dimness of the outer hall.
"Well how do you like that, Mr. Frodo? The Lord and the Lady going through all that trouble just to see to it that we were as comfortable as we could be. Oh, sir, this is a night I'll never forget so long as I live, even if I live to be as old as dear Mr. Bilbo!"
"Neither will I, Sam. It all seems almost as if it were too good to be true."
"But it's true enough, sir, or else the both of us are caught up in the same dream; that, or we've finally cracked at last!"
"No, I think not!" Frodo laughed. "If I were going to crack, as you so plainly put it, I daresay I should have done so a long time before now! And I am a good deal too tired to be asleep."
"Say no more then, sir, and let's to bed. Will you be all right by yourself, do you think?" he asked, eyeing their separate beds.
"Yes, Sam, I no longer have any fear for what the night may bring. And in any case, you shan't be far if I should need you. You enjoy sleeping in your own bed tonight."
"All right, sir, if you're sure. I'll be right here if you change your mind though, and don't think that it'd be any trouble to me. If there's anything you need, you just give me a holler."
Without further debate, the hobbits outfitted themselves in the sleepwear that had been so generously made for them, slipped under the covers and closed their eyes in near-perfect synchronicity.
"Good-night, Mr. Frodo."
"Good-night, Sam."
XXXXX
As Frodo lay sleeping, he seemed to see in his mind's eye a many-faceted white jewel falling, falling, end over end, a bright tear shed from heaven streaking the sky with a celestial afterglow. He reached out to it with open palms, his hands forming a shallow bowl, to salvage this gift from above. He would receive it, even as a basin receives water from the fountain, safely housing its liquid splendour. Its descent was slow as that of a feather, yet somehow he knew that its true weight would be greater than what it appeared to be. He raised his arms higher as it drew nearer, as though so small a reduction in distance would accelerate the moment of impact, and felt its stunning coldness strike his open hand.
He opened his eyes to a shadowy, unfamiliar room. It took him a moment to orient himself again as he rubbed his hands together, which felt as if they had been plunged into a river of ice water. His eyes gradually adjusted to the dark and he saw Sam's sleeping form just across from him, a cosy mound of twilight-grey coverlets giving him away. From somewhere outside his room, he fancied that he heard a rustle of cloth, some hushed stirring that might have only been a product of his imagination. His natural inquisitiveness overtaking him and sleep temporarily eluding him, he pulled back the covers and settled his feet into the plushy carpeting underneath him. No sooner than he had touched upon the ground, Sam was up in a twinkling.
"Mr. Frodo?" he mumbled groggily, lifting his head.
"It's all right, Sam, go back to sleep," Frodo quieted him.
"Where're you going?"
"Not far, just to get a glass of water," he responded. Apparently satisfied, Sam dropped his head back onto his pillow and said no more. With soundless footfalls, Frodo sallied forth to investigate the source of the noise and find refreshment.
The corridors at this early hour were a setting in greyscale, thought the candlelit sconces mounted at intervals along the walls emitted little haloes of mellow orange here and there and helped to ease Frodo's passage in these unknown halls. He came at last to a large room with high, vaulted ceilings and a fireplace against the further wall wherein a guttering flame flickered drowsily. Drawn up beside the fire was a cushioned chaise longue in which a woman reclined, her eyes fixed upon the smouldering tongues of flame. She tilted her head presciently at Frodo's tentative approach and greeted him with unconcealed surprise.
"Frodo, I did not expect to see you out of bed at so young an hour! Did you find your rooms incommodious, that you should be stirred from sleep thus?"
"Not at all, Lady Celebrían – perish the thought! – for truly, there is no comfort that your house lacks. It was no more than a dream that roused me, and a strange one at that, and then I thought that I heard movement outside and well, here I am now. But, if I may, what finds you awake, Lady, or do the Elves not have need of sleep with the glory of the Valar to occupy their waking days?"
"It is true that the Elves do not take rest the way that you of mortal descent are wont to do, though all living things must find respite at times between the gradual progression of days unnumbered. Yet, respite is more easily gained by some than it is for others, as I think you well understand," she answered, with a hint of suggestion.
"Yes…I believe I do understand you, though I confess, I find your words rather troubling," Frodo answered slowly, his eyebrows knitted together in a look of enquiry. "Are you hard-pressed to find rest, as your words would seem to hint?"
Celebrían gazed down at her hands folded neatly in her lap, and Frodo was moved to pity to see one so high in a posture of such obvious vulnerability.
"Would you wonder at that, Frodo," she said after a pause, meeting his eyes again. "You who have looked upon that which I hold dearest to my heart?"
It was Frodo's turn to avert his gaze as he considered the Lady's position. He had not given thought to the fact that he had come to the shores of Valinor in Arwen's stead when he had entered the home her parents kept. Until now, he had not taken into account how his presence might strike an unpleasant chord with his host and hostess, they being who they were, how the very sight of him might rankle the hearts of those who had lost their greatest treasure and serve as a dismal reminder of the enormity of that loss. He suddenly felt very embarrassed and impertinent and sorely misplaced, and he rather wished he had stayed put in his bed so that he had not caused Celebrían any further distress.
"No, Lady, I suppose not, but it grieves me to hear you confirm it. I wish that I had fitting words to comfort you. I can only say that you could not have yielded her to a worthier man, or one who held her in higher esteem."
"So it has been said, though it pains me that I shall not have the chance to judge for myself. And so it is with heavy heart that I trust to the judgment of Elrond, for I do not doubt his wisdom, hard as the consequences may be. I have accepted Arwen's decision, but there is nothing that can allay a mother's grief at being forever sundered from her child." Her eyes strayed unseeingly toward the fire as the last fading flames threw alternating shades of lightness and dark on her face – Arwen's face – and tinted her golden hair in hues of reddish-orange and dusky black. "But it is discourteous of me to speak so freely of such things and to lay my own grievances at your feet. You have your own wounds to tend to and your own losses to endure. If I am more open with you than I ought, it is only because I feel a certain kinship with you, though it may surprise you to hear it."
Frodo was surprised to hear it, having only been vaguely acquainted with Elrond's spouse and knowing very little of her personal history. He wished now that he had had more opportunities to know her better.
"I am flattered that you should feel so, though it is a compliment I am little deserving of, I fear, for the Lady Celebrían is so immeasurably high, and I am after all, rather small and quite ordinary by comparison," Frodo rejoined.
"Small? Ordinary? Nay, Frodo, your deeds stand higher and mightier than any among us, and I would not that one so praiseworthy should stand humbly before one such as I. But though I may never match you in courage, I believe I understand a little of what it is you have suffered. For I too have been pierced by instruments of the Enemy," she said and absently ran a finger across the exposed skin of her collarbone. The diminishing light of the fire revealed a small, jagged scar, white and translucent, that he would not have noticed had she not drawn attention to it. "It was orc-blade envenomed and black art of torture that brought me to these Western shores, for the pain of my injuries were a torment to me, though my Lord put forth all of his power to draw the poison from my body."
Frodo blanched in horror at the tale, his remorse at having been unfamiliar with her sufferings compounded twofold. He remembered the Morgul blade and the sickness that had ravaged him on Middle-earth on the anniversary of the day he had received his wound on Weathertop.
"And so, like you, Frodo, I know what it is to leave behind those that you love, though your heart cries in protest and your entire soul laments at the bitterness of the choice. I know what it is to watch all that you held dear recede and pass away until it is no more than a memory, unattainable and out of reach. I know the effort that goes into rebuilding a new life from the ashes of the old, of laying aside the person you were to make way for the person you will become. But one never really forgets," she said abstractedly, touching her shoulder and staring at a point somewhere past Frodo. Then, she remembered herself, and relaxed noticeably in her chair.
"Alas, I fear that I have upset you with these gloomy words, and that is not as it should be. You should be at rest while the night still persists, and at peace."
"If I could be of any assistance to you, my Lady, I would offer it most willingly. But you know, it has been my experience in this great country that when things seem at their darkest, the will of Eru has a way of intervening and giving us redress for our hurts."
"That is well said, Frodo, and I do not think you are wrong. It is hard though, sometimes, being bound to this world for as long as it should last, knowing that I may not move beyond its constraints even if only to glimpse my fair daughter one last time. For where her spirit will fly, I may not go. Do you believe, Frodo, that you will meet Bilbo and all of your old friends again once you have left the circles of this life?"
"Yes, I believe I will. I do not know in what form or in what manner, but I believe it as strongly as I have ever believed anything."
She was quiet for a moment, as though weighing some notion that had entered her mind, debating to herself if she should uncage it. Then, she spoke.
"You offered me your assistance, and so I will make but one request of you: if you meet Arwen in the next life, tell her that her mother loves her, and that she too would have relinquished immortality to be with her again."
Frodo nodded cursorily, blinking back tears.
"Thank you. You do me a greater service than you know. You have reminded me that Arwen's sacrifice was not in vain; for not only did she gain the love of a King among men, she delivered to her mother a friend in her time of need and healing to you who have deserved it more than most. Now then, let me help you find your way back to your rooms," she offered, rising from her seat.
She led him through the wide passageways, the dark of night now thinning to pale grey, and parted ways with him at the door. In the pre-dawn light, Frodo saw Sam huddled under his covers, his curly head sunk luxuriously in the feather pillows. He tried to imagine what it would be if he had never met his Sam again after boarding the ship that took him out of Middle-earth, he thought of what it would be to never look upon Bilbo or Merry or Pippin or Rose another time or to meet his friends' children or their children's children – but he could not imagine it, did not want to imagine it. How did Celebrían face that dreadful certainty day after day? How did she resign herself to the fact that for her, there would be no reunion, no meeting of ways, no collapsing into the arms of the one for whom her heart yearned? As these questions coursed through his mind, Sam turned over in his sleep toward Frodo and opened his heavy lids.
"Frodo?" he murmured.
"Sam," Frodo said, that single syllable so rife with meaning. He dissolved at last into tears as he stumbled toward him, half-blind, and took him into his arms. Sam sat up in surprise, immediately responsive to his master's cry but maintaining a look of outward composure as his nurturing instincts took over. He enfolded him in his embrace, giving of his warmth, and stroked his head calmingly as Frodo wept into his shoulder.
"Sam, don't leave me. Don't leave me," Frodo said in a whisper.
"Never, Mr. Frodo. I'm right here. I've got you," he said softly, kissing the top of his master's head. It was not long before Frodo was still again, and drawing the covers around the two of them, Sam reclined back with Frodo's head settled on his breast. They slept without further interruption, locked in each other's arms as they were, until the new morning rose, phoenix-like, gilding the world in a sweeping masterstroke, evidencing the changeable beauty of Eternity.
