Dragonfly: Yeah, I thought it would be appropriate if Caranlass did a send-up of the male Elves' very own biases. When the Orcs fell for her little performance, I think Legolas and the others could see how ridiculous their own attitudes had been.

Salan: Wow! The other day you were at chapter 10; now you've reached Chapter 41! I'm going to have to write faster!

Andi-Black: Sorry you have the flu. I hope—um, I mean—I'm afraid there might be a few lines of dialogue in here that will make you laugh a little. Sorry if I cause you any pain!

Legosgurl: Cliffies are good! I think you should end your chapter with one.

Joee: Since they are half-goblins, you can bet that Saruman was behind their presence. It was yet another one of his attempts to encircle and spy upon the Shire.

Beta Reader: Dragonfly

Chapter 63: Tea for Three

Bilbo and Frodo were just sitting down to tea—although at any other household it would have been taken for the day meal—when they heard a tapping at the window.

"Oh ho!" exclaimed Bilbo. "I recognize that tap."

'Of course you do', thought Frodo wryly. 'How many wizards could there be in Middle-earth who announce their presence by tapping on windows?'

Frodo had often wondered about this peculiar habit of Gandalf. "Just one of those oddities of his that make him who he is, my boy," Bilbo always said, but Frodo was not convinced that that was all there was to it. He could remember a time when Gandalf would stride up openly to the door and rap smartly on it with his staff. When he pressed Bilbo about it, the old Hobbit allowed as how some residents in Hobbiton had grown leery of the wizard. "He is simply trying to avoid unfriendly eyes, Frodo, my lad." This Frodo could believe, but he suspected that not all the unfriendly eyes Gandalf was trying to avoid belonged to Hobbits. With the passage of every year, Gandalf seemed to grow edgier and edgier, always looking over his shoulder, as it were.

Bilbo set another place while Frodo went to the door. He opened it and peered out. No wizard in sight, but after a minute a gray shadow slipped past him and into the house. Frodo closed the door and bolted it. For some reason, Gandalf always insisted that the door be bolted for the duration of his visits. "And I do wish, Bilbo," the wizard would say, "that you would make a practice of bolting your door each and every night. You are much too trusting."

"Of course I am trusting, Gandalf," Bilbo would laugh. "This is the Shire, not the wild lands through which we journeyed so long ago."

"The Shire may not be proof against danger," Gandalf argued.

Bilbo only laughed.

"Oh, come now, Gandalf, what evil lurks in the hearts of Hobbits?"

"You would be surprised," said Gandalf darkly, "but it is not only Hobbits I am thinking of."

Bilbo laughed again.

"This is a small land inhabited by small people. No evil could be hidden here!"

"You would be surprised," Gandalf had muttered again.

When Frodo returned to the dining room, he found Gandalf and Bilbo engaged in just such a conversation.

"Are you quite sure nothing untoward has been noticed in the vicinity of the Shire?" Gandalf was asking.

"Oh, some peculiar folk have been spotted in Buckland, but, well, that's Buckland, isn't it. It's known for being a peculiar place."

"Hul-lo!" objected Frodo. "I was born in Buckland!"

"Ah, well, there you have it now, don't you!" retorted Bilbo.

Both Gandalf and Frodo had to laugh. The tension broken, the three fell to, and so plentiful was the food that Bilbo and Frodo were not deprived in the least by the addition of Gandalf to the table. Afterward Bilbo and Gandalf went into the garden to smoke—Gandalf refusing to sit on the front stoop because he might be seen.

Later that evening, after Bilbo had gone to bed, Gandalf and Frodo sat together before the fireplace.

"So, Frodo, how is your uncle getting on?"

"As you can see for yourself, he is doing quite well, amazingly so, really, when you consider his age."

"Hmmm, yes, I have been considering that. He scarcely looks any older than he did when we first parted at the conclusion of his adventure at the Lonely Mountain. Tell me, is he as happy as he is healthy?"

Frodo hesitated.

"He's a bit tetchy sometimes. Although," he added defensively, "the same could be said of you!"

Gandalf was unperturbed.

"I have good reason to be 'tetchy', as you call it. Bilbo, however, lives in the peaceable Shire, where, he claims, no evil dwells. What cause has he to be irritable?"

"The Sackville-Bagginses, for one. If you had them dogging your every step, your view of the world would be a pretty grim one, let me tell you!"

"Wish that's all I had dogging my footsteps," muttered the wizard. "Better to be dogged than warged."

"What's that you say, Gandalf?"

"Never you mind. So how does Bilbo deal with the depredations of the Sackville-Bagginses?"

"He tries to stay out of sight. Oh!"

Frodo suddenly realized that he had said more than he ought.

"Stays out of sight, eh?" said Gandalf shrewdly. "Pray tell, how does he manage that? He has considerable girth—for a Hobbit—so it can't be an easy matter."

"You know how he does it, Gandalf."

"Indeed I do. It was my understanding that he would not use it anymore. I am disappointed that he has not kept his promise."

"It is hard to keep such a promise when you are bedeviled by such relatives. Surely you can see that."

"I can not. If he didn't carry it about with him, he wouldn't be able to succumb to temptation so easily. Why doesn't he lock it in a strongbox?"

"He can't, Gandalf."

A troubled look passed over Gandalf's face, but he mastered himself quickly.

"He can't, you say," the wizard remarked calmly. "Curious. Why can't he?"

Frodo hesitated again, and longer this time.

"He, he says it has a grip on him."

"A grip on him?"

"Yes, well, it demands to be taken care of, is all. It is, you must concede, quite precious."

"What's that you say?" Gandalf demanded sharply.

"It is a valuable object, Gandalf. It is necessary that it be looked after."

"Why can't it look after itself, that's what I want to know!"

"What nonsense, Gandalf! A ring can't look after itself!"

"Some have been known to," the wizard muttered direly. "And I suspect this is one of them."

"Gandalf, you were always an irascible old coot, but tonight you outdo yourself!"

Gandalf gave him a sharp look from underneath his bristly eyebrows.

"An irascible old coot, eh. Is that any way to speak to your uncle's old friend!"

"Oh," said Frodo cheerfully, "it is because you are my uncle's old friend that I speak so familiarly. I dare to presume on your years of intimacy with Hobbits, knowing that you wouldn't have kept coming back repeatedly if you didn't enjoy our tom-foolery."

The Hobbit grinned mischievously. He leaned back with his arms locked behind his head and propped his feet upon the fireplace fender. As he did so, Gandalf got a good look at the birthmark on his ankle, one that was all too familiar to the Istar, having as he did an identical one upon his shoulder. Like Frodo's, his birthmark took the shape of the elven word for 'nine'.

Gandalf had first seen the birthmark upon Frodo's ankle when the Hobbit had been rescued as an infant from the Brandywine River after the tragic drowning of his parents. Legolas had been with the wizard, but Gandalf had been careful not to allow the young Elf to catch sight of the birthmark. He knew that Legolas had such a mark on the inside of his forearm, but did not think it was yet time for him to know that he shared that sign with the Hobbit. Nor had the wizard ever revealed his own birthmark to the Elf. Legolas was puzzled enough by the fact that Aragorn had the selfsame mark. In former years the sign on the human had been largely obscured by dirt, but inevitably, given the time that Aragorn and Legolas spent in one another's company, the Elf had come to know of it.

Legolas was also not aware of the fact that there was a Dwarf in Erebor marked by the sign. This Dwarf was a son of Glóin, one of the Dwarves with whom Bilbo had journeyed to the Lonely Mountain so long ago. Gandalf had kept in touch with those of that band who had survived the Battle of Five Armies. So it was that he had learned of the birth of Gimli. He had traveled to Erebor to congratulate Glóin, who had proudly shown off the infant, whose only flaw, in the eyes of the father, was a curious birthmark that resembled elvish lettering. Gandalf had not told Glóin that those letters spelled out the word 'nine' or that there were others in Middle-earth who bore that sign.

'One wizard, an Elf, a Dwarf, a human, and a Hobbit', Gandalf mused. 'Whatever could it signify? And are we the only ones, I wonder?'

Suddenly in his head Gandalf heard a voice that intimated that he would learn the answers to these questions all too soon.

In exasperation, the wizard sent a quick message back.

'Galadriel!' he protested silently, 'unless you are going to be a little less enigmatic, I'll thank you to stay out of my head tonight!'

"Gandalf, are you alright?"

"Eh? Oh, yes. Well, my lad, I do believe I'll turn in for the night. You will bolt the door, won't you?"

Frodo laughed.

"I already have, but I must say that I agree with Bilbo that your concern is excessive. This is, after all, the Shire."

"Frodo, you should have spent less time on birds-nesting and more on learning the history of your little land. Even the Shire—yes, the commonplace Shire!—has come under attack on occasion. Have you never heard of the Battle of Green Fields, at which Bandobras Took repulsed Orcs who tried to invade from the north?"

"Yes, but that event took place long ago. No one has any cause to attack us now."

Gandalf looked hard at the Hobbit.

"Frodo, only a little while ago you told me that the ring is valuable."

"Yes—precious."

Gandalf flinched but continued doggedly.

"As it is valuable, do you think it past belief that someone would want to steal it?"

"No-oo, I suppose not."

"Well, then," said Gandalf briskly. "Bolt the doors! And do try to convince your uncle to make as little use of the ring as possible. I suppose it is too much to hope that he'll lock the ring in a strongbox, but the less he uses it, the less likely it is that he'll draw attention to himself by trying to not draw attention to himself."

With that, the wizard arose and turned to depart the room, but his progress was abruptly checked.

"Owww!"

"Gandalf," laughed Frodo, "will you never learn to duck? I think you have struck your head against each and every ceiling beam at Bag End!"

"I think you are right," admitted Gandalf, looking a bit mortified. "Well, well, I have much on my mind, and so I may be forgiven if I overlook the locations of ceiling beams."

"Oh, I forgive you," grinned Frodo. "Bang into them as often as you like!"

"Insufferable scamp," growled Gandalf, but he was grinning as well. For a little while at least, the growing weight that pressed down upon the wizard seemed to lessen, and, though he carefully stooped as he made his way to his room, his spirits at least were uplifted. It was simply impossible, he thought to himself, to remain gloomy whilst within the cozy confines of a Hobbit hole. And with that consoling thought, the weary wizard cast aside both his robes and his cares. The bed was, as usual, too short, but the hearts of his Hobbit hosts were large, and for Gandalf, that fact more than made up for any deficiencies in the sleeping arrangements. And on that note, let us leave him slumber in peace for the space of that one night at least.