After Fili fell asleep, Bilbo considered doing the same himself, for of course he had had an interrupted night, and indeed many such in the last little while. But the sun was up, if only barely, and it felt wrong to go to bed just when the day was starting, and so he went to make breakfast. Porridge, he decided, was the perfect thing: it was warm and comforting, it could be heated up for Fili when next he awoke, and if Kili's jangling nerves were upsetting his stomach then it would not be too hard on him. So it was that not so very many minutes later he was to be found bearing a steaming bowl of porridge, sweetened with a generous helping of honey, down to the dusty cellar where Kili still crouched in the shadows.
"Here, then, my lad," he said, drawing as close as he could before the tension in the little dwarf's shoulders became unacceptable and then laying the bowl down on the floor beside the cold cup of tea. "I have brought you breakfast." He shuffled a few feet back and waited hopefully, but Kili made no sign that he had understood or even that he had heard what Bilbo said. "Breakfast," Bilbo said again, pointing at the bowl. "Food! You must be hungry."
But whether Kili was hungry or not, he made no move towards the porridge, and after a minute or two Bilbo sighed.
"Well, I shall leave it here," he said. "After all, I'm sure you do not want me staring at you while you eat."
This, of course, brought no response, and Bilbo rose to his feet and took up his lamp, but then set it down again, for the thought of leaving his friend in the dark reminded him far too much of the elven dungeon. He stood a moment longer, watching Kili and worrying.
"You know that you are safe here," he said. "You must know that, Kili."
The distant sound of the doorbell interrupted the silence that followed this pronouncement, and Bilbo started a little in surprise. Of course, Hamfast had said that he would return in the morning, but it was still very early, and Bilbo - who was still in his dressing gown - had not expected him yet. Nevertheless, he hurried out of the cellar and up the winding hallway to the door, somewhat relieved at the prospect of having someone to talk to who was neither delirious nor completely uncommunicative. When he opened the door, however, it was not Hamfast who stood on the other side, but Begonia Took, with a basket over her arm and a look of great apprehension on her face.
"Hello, cousin Bilbo," she said, rather hesitantly. "I am sorry to call so early."
Bilbo gaped for a moment, and then managed to pull himself together. "Begonia!" he said, and then frowned, for his cousin's skirt was soaked to the knees with muddy water, and clung damply to her legs. "Why, did you fall in the river?" he asked.
"Oh," Begonia said, looking down at herself, "well, the bridge is not quite dry yet, you see. But I could not wait any longer, cousin Bilbo - I could not bear the thought that you might think me ungrateful!"
"Gracious me!" Bilbo cried, forgetting all his exhaustion and everything that had happened between himself and Begonia. "Well, we cannot have you standing out here soaking wet! You will fall ill, and there is quite enough of that going around already!" And he hustled Begonia into the hallway and thence to the living room, where he set the water to boil for tea and bade her draw her chair up close to the fire. Begonia, for her part, seemed unusually unsure of herself, and spoke little, but only followed instructions, clinging to her basket as if for support. At least, when Bilbo was satisfied that she was not going to become fatally ill in the next hour, he pulled up a chair himself and noted that Begonia was looking around herself as if she expected to see someone appear through one of the doors at any minute.
"Did you forget something?" Bilbo asked.
"I was-" Begonia said, and then threw a worried glance at Bilbo. "I was hoping I might speak to your dwarves. I have brought presents for them."
She uncovered her basket, and Bilbo saw that it contained three jars of honey and a little bag of pipeweed. He pondered for a moment how the news of what he had said to Hamfast could have made it to the other side of the river when the hobbits who carried it could not, but in truth, he was not in the least surprised. At any rate, perhaps the honey would help to tempt Kili from his corner behind the barrel.
"Well, that is very kind," he said. "I am afraid they are not feeling well at the moment."
"Oh," Begonia said, looking both disappointed and a little relieved. "But I had heard they were feeling better?"
Well, Bilbo reflected, at least the news networks of Hobbiton had not yet heard of events that no-one but Bilbo knew of - if that had not been the case, he would have had to start suspecting that there was magic afoot.
"They have had rather a bad night," he said. "But how is Esmeralda? She is not too much the worse for wear, I hope?"
At this, Begonia looked suddenly as though she might cry. "Oh, that child!" she said. "She will be the very death of me! She has already forgotten the whole thing, while every time I close my eyes-" She shook her head. "A Took through and through, cousin Bilbo! She will turn my hair white before I am fifty!"
"Oh, my dear Begonia," Bilbo said. "But she is only a hobbitling, and no harm has come of it!" Which, of course, was not at all true, at least not from Bilbo's point of view, but he was a little alarmed with how his cousin's lips trembled with emotion.
"But to run out like that in a storm!" Begonia cried. "She has not an ounce of common sense in her. When I think what could have-" And here, apparently unable to complete her thought, she raised a hand to her mouth and stifled a sob. Now, if she had been speaking to anyone else who had just passed a night -and, indeed, a year - such as Bilbo had, perhaps they would have been unable to find yet more pity in their hearts; but our hobbit did not hesitate to jump to his feet and embrace his cousin, for he could not bear to see her so overcome.
"But it did not happen," he said. "It did not, and so there is no sense in worrying about it."
Begonia sniffled a little and clung tightly to Bilbo for a moment, but soon she regained control of herself and sat back, straightening her damp skirts.
"Only because of your Mr. Kili, my dear Bilbo," she said, and then seemed to gather herself, taking a deep breath and squaring her shoulders. "I must - I am so very sorry for how I have behaved," she said. "I should have known that you would never put little Esme in danger. And - and I would like to apologise to your dwarves, and thank them, too, when they are better. If you do not object."
She swallowed hard and looked at Bilbo apprehensively, her eyelashes still wet with tears.
"Well, it is all forgotten!" Bilbo said - for he was loath to see any creature suffer, and so he was remarkably quick to forgive, so long as it seemed that those who had wronged him were sorry for it. "After all, you were only trying to protect your daughter. Although there is no-one less likely to harm her than Kili," he felt compelled to add, and was not entirely sorry when Begonia's mouth twitched unhappily.
"Then I may speak to them, when they are better?" she asked. "I should very much like to meet Mr. Kili."
"Ah," Bilbo said, and for a moment he considered how to reply to this, but at last he decided that, after his conversation with Hamfast the night before, all Hobbiton would know by lunchtime, and so he took a deep breath and spread his hands on his knees. "There is something I must tell you about Kili, my dear Begonia."
"What is it?" Begonia asked, and Bilbo sighed.
"Well, he is rather young, for a dwarf," he said, "although much older than either of us in terms of years. He is perhaps around Hamfast Gamgee's age, I would estimate."
"Oh," Begonia said, "then he is just a boy!"
"Just a boy indeed," Bilbo said. "But when he was younger still - perhaps more Hallfred's age - he was taken from his family by a pack of orcs."
Begonia stared at him as if she had not quite understood. "Orcs?" she said. "But orcs are - well, they are monsters are they not? Like wraiths?"
"They are not much like wraiths, I don't think," Bilbo said. "But they are certainly monsters - and much more monstrous than any of our stories have it, I can tell you! And he was with them for more than twenty years - in fact, his brother and I found him again only last year. His family thought him dead, you see."
Begonia was gaping now, her eyes wide with horror. "But - but that is a dreadful thing!" she said, as if that alone was enough to prove that it could not have happened.
"Dreadful indeed!" Bilbo said, and for a moment, he was struck once again by the weight of it. "Dreadful indeed," he repeated, though this time more to himself. But Begonia was still staring, and he shook himself and continued. "But I am telling you this because he is not unaffected by it. He remembers very little of his life before he was taken, and so he behaves very strangely, even for a dwarf. I am telling you because you wish to speak to him, and he is very easily confused and not much less easily hurt. And I do not want him to be hurt any more." He fixed Begonia with a steady gaze at this, to see if she understood, and he saw that her eyes were glistening once more with tears.
"Oh," she said. "Oh, his poor mother. But she has seen him again? She has had him in her arms?"
Bilbo smiled, remembering how Dis had clutched Kili to her when first they were reunited. "She has," he said. "But she is now far away across the Misty Mountains, and she has left him in my care. And I mean to try and protect him, if I can." Of course, he reflected, he had not been very successful at this task thus far, though not for want of trying.
Begonia, though, was looking horrified again. "But that is why - the doll-" she said, and then put a hand once more to her mouth. "Oh, you must think me dreadfully cruel."
For a moment, Bilbo considered agreeing with her. But in truth, although he had certainly had many unkind thoughts about his cousin at the time, they had long since been uprooted by the events that followed, and in any case, the look of shame on her face was enough to melt even the hardest of hearts (provided, of course, that heart belonged to a hobbit). "Well, I will not say I have not been angry with you," he said finally. "But I can hardly expect you to take into account things that I have not told you, now, can I?"
"It is a great relief to hear you say that, my dear cousin," Begonia said, and she embraced Bilbo again, and shed a few tears on his neck. "But that poor child," she said when they had parted. "And that wretched doll! I was wrong ever to ask for it back, but I have been made sorry for it indeed. That foolish daughter of mine went out in the storm to give it back to your Mr. Kili, and then she dropped it when she was on the bridge, and went after it, and that is how all this came to be in the first place. And so in fact, it is all my fault, if not for raising such a reckless child, then certainly for being so rude as to ask for a gift to be returned." She shook her head. "I hope your dwarves will forgive me as easily as you do."
"Kili will, I am sure," Bilbo said quickly. "Fili - well, he is rather protective. But you meant no harm, Begonia, and I am sure he will see that, in time."
"Certainly I meant no harm," Begonia said. "But harm has come of it anyway. I do hope your dwarves feel better soon my dear cousin. If there's anything I can do to help-?"
"Oh, well," Bilbo said, "in fact there is not much that can be done now except to wait and let them heal themselves. But thank you for the kind offer."
"Not so kind," Begonia said. "After all, it is my fault they are ill in the first place."
Bilbo did not disagree with this - which perhaps was rather unfair of him - but only sipped his tea, and after a few minutes more of conversation during which very little of import was said, Begonia rose to her feet, repeating once again her offer of help and embracing her cousin with great emotion before declaring that she must return home to assure herself that Esmeralda had not run off somewhere in the short time she had been gone. Once he had seen her to the door, Bilbo took up one of the jars of honey and a spoon and made once more for the cellar. Kili had not moved from his corner, and the porridge - no longer steaming now - appeared untouched. Bilbo tutted at it and sat down.
"That was my cousin Begonia," he said to Kili, who sat just as he had before, crouched and with his hair thick over his face. "Esmeralda's mother, you know. You remember Esmeralda, certainly. Your little hobbitling friend." He paused for a moment, but of course Kili did not reply, and so he pressed on. "Well, she - Begonia, I mean - is very grateful to you for saving her daughter's life, and she is sorry indeed for taking your doll away from you. She has brought you a present." He opened the jar of honey and pushed it forward a little. "It is honey," he said. "Would you like some?" He dipped the spoon into the honey and held it out towards Kili. "It is quite delicious."
Kili made no move to take the spoon, nor even raised his head, and Bilbo, after holding it out until his arm began to ache, sighed and placed it back into the jar. "Well, when you are feeling better, there are three whole jars for you to eat," he said. He sat for a moment, pondering what to do next, and then got to his feet.
"It is quite filthy down here," he said. "Are you sure you will not come to the living room, or one of the spare rooms? I can find you a lovely dark corner to sit in, with pillows and an excellent view of the door."
Kili did not seem inclined to take Bilbo up on this offer, and Bilbo found himself glaring at the shadowy, cobweb-filled corners. "Well, then," he said, "at least we can do something about all of this dirt." And he betook himself to his broom cupboard, and returned armed with a broom and a feather duster, and for the next hour he engaged vigorously in battling with the dust and the cobwebs, and shooing out a number of startled spiders, all the while keeping his distance from Kili as best he could, until the cellar was mostly clean but for a small circle of dirt that surrounded the silent little dwarf.
"I don't suppose you would allow me to sweep under you?" Bilbo asked, taking a cautious step closer. Kili did not appear to move, and yet somehow seemed to become smaller, and Bilbo sighed and stepped back, opening his mouth once again to offer the honey, the porridge, tea - anything at all that might tempt his friend out of his dark mood. But he was interrupted once more by the doorbell, and he shook his head and leaned his broom up against the wall, hurrying once more up into the light and air of the upper reaches of the hobbit hole.
This time, it was indeed Hamfast who stood at the door, and he smiled to see Bilbo and then frowned almost immediately afterwards.
"Why, Mr. Bilbo," he said. "What is the matter?"
"What do you mean?" Bilbo asked.
"You are all over cobwebs," Hamfast said. "And you look quite done in, begging your pardon. Has something happened?"
Bilbo opened his mouth to assure Hamfast that he was perfectly fine, but he found he could not, for he was suddenly overwhelmed by a great wave of exhaustion and hopelessness that had him sagging against the doorframe for support. Hamfast sprang forward with a look of alarm, taking Bilbo's arm and putting a sturdy arm around his shoulders.
"Oh, now, Mr. Bilbo," he said. "Now, don't you pass out! Let's get you sitting down."
And he led Bilbo to the living room and deposited him in a chair, and in a few moments there was a cup of tea and a bowl of warm porridge in front of him, and a worried-looking Hamfast seated opposite him.
"You aren't ill, I hope?" Hamfast said. "Your Mr. Fili is not contagious?"
Bilbo took a sip of the tea, and then a much larger mouthful, feeling himself settle a little as it warmed his stomach. After a moment's hesitation, he picked up the porridge bowl, for it was more than an hour since breakfast, and he had been very busy cleaning in that time, after all.
"I am not ill, no," he said. "But I am - I am at my wits' end, Hamfast. I begin to think I have made a great mistake."
Hamfast looked alarmed once more. "Well, will you tell me what has happened?" he said. "Mr. Fili is not dangerously ill, surely?"
"Well, that depends on what you mean by dangerous," Bilbo muttered, but of course Hamfast did not understand what he meant by this, and so he shook his head. "He is worse," he said. "His fever is very high. But that is not all. Last night he was delirious - he was seeing things that were not there. And he mistook his brother for an orc, and attacked him."
Hamfast's eyes grew round at this. "Is Mr. Kili all right?" he said.
"I don't know!" Bilbo said, throwing up his hands in frustration. "He will not allow me near him!"
Hamfast looked quite concerned, and Bilbo drew a deep breath. "He is not badly off physically, I think," he said. "But his state of mind - it has deteriorated a great deal. You see, although he may have seemed strange to you last night, it has taken him a long time to come to even such a level. And now I fear all of that work has come undone."
"But he will feel better soon, I am sure," Hamfast said. "He has had a shock, that's all."
Bilbo shook his head, feeling exhausted once again. "If he were a hobbit, I would say you were right. Food, warmth, good cheer - I would think that was enough. But he is not a hobbit, and I think perhaps I was wrong to bring him here. At least in the mountain he had his kin around him, but here there is only me. And what can I do? I am just one hobbit, and I do not understand dwarves at all."
"Oh, but it is not only you, Mr. Bilbo!" Hamfast said. "Why, there can hardly be a hobbit in Hobbiton who would not do whatever they could to help your dwarves after what they did, or at least to help you. And there is me, and Ma, and Uncle Holman, and Begonia Took of course, and Adalgrim, and - why, dozens of hobbits. And it seems to me that hobbits are probably much better for someone as has had a shock than dwarves are, kin or no kin. Rough folk, dwarves, from everything I've heard."
Bilbo smiled a little at this, for it seemed that even the most generous of hobbits could not be swayed from their conviction that all the world outside the Shire was nothing but rough folk and monsters. But for all that Hamfast's stout declaration lightened the burden in his heart a little, it still did nothing to solve the main problem, which was that Bilbo could not think of a way to help his friends, no matter how many willing hands there might be to carry it out.
"It is all well and good," he said, "but I cannot ask them to help because there is no helping. I have tried everything I can think of to make them happy, and it seems they only grow more miserable."
Hamfast fell silent, and Bilbo frowned down at his tea and wished heartily that he had never been foolish enough to appoint himself Kili's protector - or to accept the role when it was thrust upon him. But a moment later he repented of this, for of course he wanted his friend to be happy, or at least to be less unhappy. It was only that he felt that he was failing in his task, and he was so very tired.
"Begging your pardon, Mr. Bilbo," Hamfast said then, slowly, as if he was thinking something out, "but maybe the problem is that you are trying to make them happy at all."
Bilbo stared at him. "Well," he said after a moment, "I'm afraid I do not understand you."
Hamfast nodded. "Do you remember when my Aunt Ruby died?" he asked. "Three years gone now."
"I do," Bilbo said. Ruby Greenhand had been a good woman, and she had died suddenly of a severe illness, causing quite a shock to the comfortable little world of Hobbiton. "It was a terrible thing."
"Aye, terrible," Hamfast said, pausing a moment with a sad expression. "Uncle Holman took it very hard. Locked himself up in his house, he did, and none of us saw him for days on end, and when we did, he was that thin and pale that we were afraid he'd follow her into the grave."
"Yes," Bilbo said. "I remember." He had been worried about Holman himself, although after a while the poor hobbit had seemed to recover himself.
"Well, we did everything we could think of to cheer him up," Hamfast said. "I used to take pipeweed round his door, only he wouldn't open it. And nothing worked, you see, nothing made him feel any better, and maybe some of it made him feel worse. And then eventually, Ma, she said to my old Dad, Now, Hobson, she said, maybe we just need to leave him be and let him come around by himself. And so that's what we did. Not that we just abandoned him, you understand, but we let him know that we were there when he wanted to see us and left it at that." He shrugged. "He didn't come, not for weeks. And then one day he did. Sat in corner like death itself, all gloom and long face, so that we were scared to even speak to him. And then next time he came, he was a little better. And after a while he was almost like he had been, only a little sadder. My ma, she said Well, there we are. He only needed to be unhappy for a while before he could be happy again." He paused, looking contemplative. "Now, I don't know very much about dwarves, Mr. Bilbo," he said, "but it seems to me that maybe they aren't so very different from hobbits, after all. And my ma, she does know an awful lot about hobbits."
Bilbo, quite surprised by this long speech from Hamfast, who was not generally given to such things, found himself smiling warmly, and indeed, oddly reassured. "She is a very wise woman, your mother," he said.
"She is that," Hamfast said. "Although she'd have me over her knee for saying so." He nodded to himself and then looked solicitously at Bilbo. "But I do think you should get some sleep, Mr. Bilbo, if you don't mind my saying," he said. "Everything always seems much harder when you haven't had enough sleep, that's what my ma always says."
"It is the middle of the day," Bilbo pointed out. "And what if one of the dwarves should need me?"
"Well, they will wake you if they need you, I'm sure," Hamfast said. "Meaning no offence, Mr. Bilbo, but you look like you might fall down if someone looks at you the wrong way."
Bilbo found himself laughing at this turn of phrase, and at last, after some reflection, he nodded. "Your mother has the right of it, as usual," he said. "But you must wake me in two hours, my dear Hamfast, so that I can give Fili his medicine."
Hamfast agreed to this, and cheerfully declared that he would finish weeding Bilbo's flowerbeds in the meantime, although since he had spent the entire day this task the day before, there could hardly be anything left to do. Bilbo finished his tea, changed out of his filthy clothes, and took himself to the narrow bed in the spare room, where Fili now slept deeply, though he still shivered and his skin gleamed with sweat. Bilbo contemplated him for a moment, but the allure of his bed was too great for much more than that, and he slipped under the blankets and fell immediately asleep.
When Bilbo woke, he knew immediately from the slant of sunlight through the window that it was early afternoon, and that he had slept for many more than two hours. He sat up sharply, mindful of how much Fili's condition had deteriorated the last time he had not taken his medicine on time, and very surprised that Hamfast should not have done as he promised. But when he arrived at Fili's bedside, he saw a little note propped up against the bottle - now almost empty. I av given im it, the note read, the letters large and laboriously formed, and I think e is gettin beter. There was no name, but of course it could be from no-one other than Hamfast, and Bilbo smiled in relief.
"Good lad," he murmured, and reached over to lay his hand on Fili's forehead. The young dwarf murmured something and shivered a little, but his skin was not as hot as it had been, and Bilbo felt a little of the worry in his heart dissolve. "You will stay in bed until you are properly better this time," he said, rather severely, though of course Fili paid him not the slightest heed.
Of course, even if Fili was getting better, he was not the only poorly dwarf that Bilbo had in his hobbit hole, and, once he had washed and dressed himself, Bilbo squared his shoulders and marched down to Kili's cellar. Here, nothing seemed to have changed at all, except that the lamp had burned itself out; the jar of honey was still open, but untouched, the porridge likewise sat uneaten beside the cup of cold tea, and Kili still crouched in his corner, surrounded by a little circle of dusty floor like a shield.
"You will have to come out from there eventually," Bilbo said to him. "Or at least eat something." Kili was silent, and Bilbo knelt down at the edge of the dust circle and gave him a pleading look. "Come now, my dear lad," he said. "Please will you at least eat something? You are making me very worried."
There was no response to this, and Bilbo sat back on his heels. "It is all very well Hamfast saying that I should just let you be unhappy," he said, "but it will not do much good if you starve yourself to death."
After a moment's pause, Bilbo sighed and gathered up the porridge and the tea. "Well, I will bring you something hot," he said, and stood, making his way out of the cellar and up towards the kitchen. As he came up the hallway, though, he heard the sound of voices at the door, and when he came round the corner he found that Hamfast was engaged in stacking several jars of honey on top of a large wooden box, while an unfamiliar hobbit of perhaps Bilbo's age stood in the doorway.
"Mr. Bilbo!" Hamfast said when he caught sight of him. "I hope we didn't wake you?"
"No, you did not," Bilbo said. "But what is this?"
"Mr. Bilbo Baggins?" the unfamiliar hobbit asked, taking half a step forward.
"Indeed I am," Bilbo said frowning at him, for on closer inspection it seemed to him that he had seen this hobbit somewhere before. "I'm sorry, have we met before?"
"Not as I know of," the hobbit said. "I have a stall in the market sometimes."
"Ah!" Bilbo said. "Of course, I must have seen you there. But what can I do for you?"
"Oh, well," the hobbit said, "I was passing through the village and I heard you had a dwarf staying with you. A fair one, with fine clothes?"
"Yes, indeed," Bilbo said. "Although I'm afraid he is rather poorly at the moment and not receiving visitors. But you know him?"
"He came by and asked me for this last week at the market in Bywater," the hobbit said, gesturing at the box. "I wouldn't have thought anything of it when he did not come this week to collect it, only I had to order it special from Bree, you see. I suppose it was because he was poorly, though, which I am sorry to hear. At any rate, when I heard you had a dwarf staying with you, I thought I should come and see if it was the same one - and it must be, because who ever heard of dwarves in the Shire? Surely there can be no others."
"Well, yes, I'm sure it is the same dwarf," Bilbo said. "He did go to the market at Bywater last week, certainly. Well, I will give it to him when he is better, and it is very good of you to bring it all the way here. But how much does he owe you?"
"Oh," the hobbit said, waving a hand, "when they heard down by the river that it was for your dwarf, they couldn't get the coins out of their purses fast enough. It seems he is very popular, even if he is a dwarf."
Bilbo felt a pleased little glow at this. "How very kind," he said. "But will you not take something for your trouble? A cup of tea, or a piece of cake?"
"I must be getting on," the hobbit said. "But there is another thing." He dug into the pocket of his leather apron, and drew out a rather dirty-looking envelope. "When my boy in Bree heard as I was going to see a dwarf, he gave this to me. He said a dwarf gave it to him and said it was for the Shire, but wouldn't read the address out because of something about secret writing. I was hoping your dwarf might be able to tell who it was for."
He handed the envelope over, and Bilbo saw that it was inscribed with dwarvish runes, and the language was Khuzdul. Fili and Kili, it read, in a bold hand that Bilbo recognised as Thorin's, by means of Bilbo Baggins, the Shire.
"Well!" Bilbo said, torn between irritation and amusement that Thorin should go to all the trouble of sending a letter but not think to write the address in a way that any other than a dwarf might be able to read. "In fact, it is addressed to my dwarves, and so that solves that problem! Thank you for bringing it. I will give it to them when they are better."
"You're welcome, I'm sure," the hobbit said, and he took his leave, leaving Bilbo and Hamfast contemplating the box, which was now half buried by jars of honey.
"I wonder what it is?" Hamfast said.
"I suppose we shall have to wait for Fili to wake up before we find out," Bilbo said. "But where did all this honey come from? Begonia brought only three jars."
"She is certainly not the only visitor you've had today," Hamfast said, with a rather rueful smile. "I do think you might have to open a market stall of your own, at this rate."
Bilbo shook his head, but he was staring now at the letter in his hand, for an idea had come to him.
"If you'll excuse me," he said, and without waiting for an answer, he hastened back down the hallway towards the cellar. Once there, he sat down quickly at the edge of Kili's circle of dust and smiled at the little dwarf.
"Your uncle has sent you a letter," he said, holding it out so that Kili would be able to see it, if he should care to look. "He has sent it to you and your brother. Your Uncle Thorin." He added this last with a strong emphasis, for he had not forgotten Kili's memory lapse of a few days before.
Kili made no move to look at the letter, and indeed his hair was still so thick over his face that Bilbo could not tell which direction he was looking in at all. Bilbo began to open the envelope. "Well, I will read it to you," he said. "I am sure you want to hear all the news from Erebor, do you not?"
Whether Kili did or not, Bilbo was determined to tell him, if only to remind him of his kinfolk and his connection to the world of dwarves. But when he unfolded the letter, which was comprised of several sheets all folded together, he found that he could not. For the first word was unfamiliar to him, and although at first he thought it was merely a consequence of his limited Khuzdul vocabulary, he found, too, that the second word, and the third, and indeed all the words on the page were completely unknown, and seemed quite possibly not to be Khuzdul words at all, for some of the letter combinations were quite unexpected.
"Well!" Bilbo said, turning over the paper to find that the back was likewise unintelligible. "It seems your uncle has written this in a language so secret that I did not even know it existed." He frowned. "That is quite typical." Feeling rather exasperated, he turned to the second sheet, to find that it was written in a different hand, and yet nonetheless was incomprehensible from start to finish. Bilbo could not even make out Fili and Kili's names, and he sighed in irritation.
"But they have gone to a lot of trouble to send this to you," he said, trying to salvage a little of the good he had hoped would come from reading Kili the letter. "It has passed through many hands and travelled many leagues. That is because they care for you a great deal. Because you are a dwarf, and their kin."
Kili was silent and still, and Bilbo ground his teeth in frustration and turned to the last sheet, hoping against hope that at least one of those ridiculous secretive dwarves might have thought to write something in a secret language that Bilbo was actually familiar with. But when he saw what this last sheet was, he paused and stared, and then a slow smile spread across his face.
"Well," he said. "Well, Kili, it seems someone else has sent you something, too." Carefully, he turned the sheet around and laid it on the floor so that Kili would be able to see it. "Ori has drawn you a new picture."
And what a picture it was! It depicted the scene from the previous year, a few days after the Battle of the Four Armies, when the dwarves, in their extraordinary ceremony, had removed the iron shackles from Kili's neck and wrists. Kili stood at the centre of the composition, reaching a hand up to touch the bare skin of his neck, his eyes wide with wonder. Bilbo and Fili stood on either side of him, and Thorin a little further away, and then all the other dwarves, smiling and bright-eyed. On the floor, the shackles lay, broken and discarded.
"Do you remember this?" Bilbo asked. "This is you." He pointed at the depiction of Kili, feeling a warmth in his belly at the memory of the scene. "This is you, and here am I, and your brother, and your uncle. And here is Ori, and all your other friends. Do you remember?"
Kili made no reply, but it seemed to Bilbo - although perhaps it was merely wishful thinking on his part - that he had grown even stiller than before. Bilbo pointed insistently to the picture.
"This is when we took those foul bands from you," he said. "The orcs have no power over you any more, my lad. You are a dwarf, and you have many friends who love you, and your brother cares for you more than anything. He did not mean to hurt you. He did not know what he was doing."
This drew no response from Kili, but in fact, Bilbo had not really expected one. He rose to his feet.
"Well, I will leave this here so that you can look at it," he said. "And I will bring you some more pictures to look at. You must be getting very bored, down here all on your own."
And he left the cellar and marched noisily halfway up the passageway, and then returned on soft feet, as silent as only a hobbit can be, and peeped around the edge of the cellar door.
Kili crouched, silent as before in his corner. But, after long enough that Bilbo was almost ready to give up, he made a sudden, short movement, as if reaching for the picture and then stopping himself. Bilbo's heart lurched within him, and he held his breath, and after a few minutes more he was rewarded indeed for his patience. For, with agonizing slowness, Kili reached out a shaking hand and touched his fingertips to his own face in the picture. He did not speak, nor did he pull the picture towards himself, but one by one, he touched each of the other faces, and then held his hand hovering over the picture for a moment before withdrawing it. And Bilbo, almost light-headed with relief, slipped away and stood leaning against the wall in the hallway, closing his eyes and shedding a tear or two in his giddiness.
"Oh, bless you Ori," he murmured. "Bless you, my dear friend."
He stood there for a long time, thinking of very little, but only enjoying how light he felt now that some at least of the trouble in his heart had been lifted. And then, at last, his stomach growled, and he went to see about lunch.