Chapter 3: Writing Lesson
"I am permitted to wear the One Ring: why cannot I see all the others and know the thoughts of those that wear them?" -Frodo, The Fellowship of the Ring
Frodo set his quill down and flexed his right hand. A dull ache had begun in his right hand, spreading across the knuckles and to the base of the missing forefinger. Sam looked up from his work. "Is your hand bothering you, Mr. Frodo?"
"Not overly so, Sam." Frodo said. He was reluctant to stop writing. The awkward movements he made with the quill had barely begun to flow smoothly, readably over the page. He needed additional practice if he was to improve.
"Let me see." Sam came over to kneel beside Frodo, inspecting his bandaged hand closely. "Beggin' your pardon, sir, but I think it's time you got that changed." He gently touched a red stain on the cloth. "See? And it's been a couple of days."
Frodo flexed his hand again, feeling a renewed ache in the muscles. He nodded reluctantly. Perhaps a respite would be best. "Very well. I will go now." He capped his inkbottle and wiped the quill, packing them and the book into the small chest.
"Just a moment, Mr. Frodo, and I'll walk with you," Sam said. He set his bowls inside the kitchen and then rinsed his hands.
Frodo looked at him in surprise, for he had thought that Sam would continue his repairs. Frodo knew he enjoyed working with his hands, restoring a small piece of the Shire he loved to its former state. That Sam would so readily put it aside to act as Frodo's escort saddened him.
"That is unnecessary, Sam," Frodo said quietly. "I am perfectly capable of walking to the Houses of Healing on my own."
Sam paused in the act of wiping his hands on a rag. "Of course you are, sir, but I wouldn't mind a breather; smelling this oil puts a bad taste in your mouth after a while."
"Ah. Well, come on then; I am always glad of your company."
They walked from the courtyard through the quiet house, seeing no one. Legolas often walked about the City, taking Gimli with him, and Merry had gone with Pippin to the Guard-house. Big Folk walked the streets outside, hurrying here and there on their own business.
Sam's stomach growled loudly, and Frodo glanced at him with a smile. "Are you sure you do not wish to stay, Sam?"
Sam patted his stomach. "Perhaps we could get a late luncheon at the--what is it they call it here? Public house? In the sixth circle."
"A late luncheon? I believe the correct term would be a second luncheon," Frodo said lightly, as they turned onto the main road, nimbly dodging the other passers-by. "I feared you would become so engrossed in your work that you might forget the need to eat."
"Me, sir? Not likely. We both have some catching up to do in that area." Sam surveyed Frodo critically. "Why what Mr. Bilbo would have to say to me if he saw you now, I don't know."
"I think that he would say that you have done better than anyone could, and thank you for it," Frodo said quietly. He resolved to eat more, if doing so would ease Sam's mind, and imagined returning to Rivendell enormously fat, like Bombur in Bilbo's stories. I see you didn't go hungry, lad, Bilbo would say acerbically. Oh, Bilbo, if only you knew!
At the Houses of Healing, Frodo sent Sam to the public house, with a promise to join him shortly. Frodo entered the Houses alone, as was his habit. It distressed Sam to see his master in pain, and Sam's distress increased Frodo's struggles to conceal it, burdening him further. The Warden had noted this early, and in his wisdom, advised them that companions were best left in the House's anteroom.
After greeting him, the Warden bid him sit. A carefully altered chair sat beneath the window, with shortened legs and armrests so that a hobbit could rest in comfort. The Warden took Frodo's hand between his own and examined it carefully.
"Ink?" he asked, looking at the black blotches on the second and third fingers. "You have been writing?"
"Yes."
"For how long?"
"Perhaps an hour's span of time," Frodo replied. He felt a stab of dismay. Had it been so long? And so little of the Notes accomplished!
The healer frowned. "Mr. Baggins, I beg you to remember that the healing area is fragile. You must not overexert. I do not believe you should write for any longer than an hour."
"Thank you for your advice and concern, Warden. I will be careful."
The healer looked at him sharply, experienced enough to realize that despite the fair words, Frodo had not promised to limit his writing. The healer was not overly dismayed. He would seek another route to his goal.
The Warden took up a thin sharp knife and slit the dressing expertly. Easing it apart, he shook his head, and concern was evident in his voice. "The unaccustomed exertion has caused bleeding in addition to the usual drainage."
The Warden fixed Frodo with a firm stare. "If you must write, then you must improve your technique, Master Perian. The stump must not touch the quill; at this stage of the healing, it cannot withstand that type of pressure. Hold the quill in this manner."
He plucked a quill from his desk and curled Frodo's three undamaged fingers about it, then brought the thumb up. "Brace the quill by curling the thumb over it, and not against the index finger as you are accustomed. Now, move your hand as if you are writing."
Frodo waved the quill in the air tentatively, and then with more confidence. The Warden was right; with the quill tucked next to his thumb there was little pain! "I am astounded by your erudition, Master Healer," he said. "This is extraordinary. I feel as if I could write a great deal more today."
The Warden's eyes twinkled but his voice was stern. "I insist that you do not, Master Frodo. I do not wish my labor thus far to have been in vain."
Frodo set the quill down. "Certainly." He could not resist adding: "I also do not wish that your labor should be in vain."
The Warden bustled off, returning a moment later with a bowl of fragrant water. "An infusion of athelas, which our King esteems so highly. Allow the hand to soak as you usually do, and we will re-wrap it."
Frodo settled back into his chair, with the warm bowl in his lap. From previous dressing changes, he knew it would take several minutes for the dried blood and fluids to soak free from the healing area. He stared down meditatively into the water, bending his head to breathe in the steam. The scent tingled in his nose, then throughout his body, rejuvenating and refreshing. Tension eased from his neck and back, as did the long-standing ache in his left shoulder. He swirled his right hand through the water, keeping it completely immersed.
My handwriting will be awkward until I become accustomed to this new technique--if I ever can. I wonder if Bilbo would recognize it? And after all that practice to develop a fair hand.
He straightened the bowl with his left hand, and noticed the water no longer reflected the blue sky visible from the window, now showing the shape of the hand clearly. He glanced away but his eyes were drawn inexorably back. Gollum had bitten the finger off almost evenly with his hand, leaving a very small stump just above the knuckle.
The silhouette was now so odd, so intrinsically wrong. If he closed his eyes and concentrated, he could feel a finger there still, could he not? It itched sometimes, and more than once he had absentmindedly reached to scratch it, startled all over again when he encountered its absence. One night, it pained him so fiercely he was unable to sleep, and he wondered how to explain that his missing finger hurt. How long until I stop expecting to see a whole hand? Months? Years?
He felt the cloth loosen and wiggled his thumb experimentally under the slit edge. The pain made him grimace; it was as if the cloth pulled the barely healing skin off with it. Traces of what looked like reddish smoke spiraled lazily up through the water. He gritted his teeth, for while this was not the worst pain he'd ever endured, the slow release of cloth from the wound, throbbing and ripping, and the ghostly tingling of the missing finger were nauseating in their intensity.
The bandage came free abruptly with a rising crescendo of torment. He closed his eyes, knowing from experience that the waves of pain would slowly recede to a level he could tolerate. As it began to ease, he sighed. How expert I have become at gauging pain. Analyzing the peaks and valleys, when one can only blindly endure and when it can be pushed aside.
When the worst had passed (only for today, whispered a voice in the back of his mind), he opened his eyes to examine the wound, remembering another wound as he did so.
For on a day not long ago, Frodo had witnessed a young soldier brought to the House. Frodo had been sitting then just as he was now, sitting and soaking. The soldier was supported between two friends, and nearly unable to walk. A fetid stench hung about him. The Warden had placed him in the room next to the one where Frodo sat, and Frodo had been able to hear their speech.
The high, frightened voice of the soldier stammered about how he'd not thought his small foot wound serious. Binding it tightly, he forced his boot on and marched back from the Field of Cormallen. The Warden's voice was grave as he directed the attendants to cut the boot off, and seconds later, a powerful odor redolent of decay permeated the entire ground floor.
A young attendant burst through the connecting door and vomited noisily into a basin. Through the open door, Frodo had seen the foot, it was blackened and peeling as if badly burned. The Warden jerked his head around; looking annoyed and caught sight of Frodo.
A minute later, the eldest assistant, Ioreth came to close the door and air the room, trying to keep up her usual chatter as she re-wrapped his bandage, but with a pale face and sorrowful eyes. Frodo had seen the young soldier once more, this time sporting a bandage on his foot that resembled Frodo's own. At least three toes, perhaps more were absent. Perhaps they fell off. Frodo shuddered slightly, and looked at his hand again, searching intently for any signs of the deadly black color.
The skin at the end of the stump was ragged and torn, an unhealthy tan color that would have worried him if not for the barely visible pink rim of new skin growing under it. Eventually the new skin would grow over the entire stump, so he had been told. The center of the wound had slowly begun to fill in with bright red meaty-looking flesh with yellow blobs and threads in it.
The Warden had explained that this tissue grew as a replacement for what the body had lost, making a solid base for the new skin. Like smoothing plaster into a chink in the wall. Until recently, he had seen the tip of white bone when the dressing was changed. This new flesh oozed yellow and pink drainage that dried on the bandages and made a hard crust. The crust would slow his healing if allowed to form unchecked, thus necessitating frequent visits to the House for soaking and re-dressing.
There was no black visible anywhere, he saw at once with relief, just reds and pinks, tans and yellows. He turned his hand in the water, watching the ragged edges of skin flutter, where his senses yet still insisted a finger existed. How appropriate is this wound given me by Sméagol. Paradoxical, both absent and present, as was Sméagol himself. Sam would not see it so, of course. He credited me with such kindness to Sméagol, but I knew better. I did pity him, but there was something more when I accepted his oath in the Emyn Muil...
/
/
/TBC
/
/
/
/
/
/
/
/
/
/
Author's Note:
In this fic, readers will notice that Frodo's injury is apparently to his right index finger, a contradiction to Tolkien's explicit "the third finger was missing." In LOTR the movie, Frodo always wears the Ring on the left forefinger. In the text, only twice are we given any indication as to which finger Frodo is using to wear the Ring.
At Weathertop, the left forefinger ...and at Orodruin, the right third finger. I like the book's use of the right hand because that hand is the 'hand of power' in mysticism and philosophy. But I have always disliked the imprecise imagery of 'the third finger'. In my readings of early civilizations, it was very rare to wear rings on something other than one of the index fingers---ESPECIALLY rings that connoted rank, be it royal, religious or military. And it seems odd that after Frodo wore the Ring on the forefinger, it should suddenly shrink to fit the third finger. So in this fic, I have used the right index finger. You could consider this a tiny instance of AU, if you like--Lurea-verse.
The soldier's foot is afflicted with wet-gangrene--a terrible and often fatal wound infection. The smell of a gangrenous limb is the most horrible stench imaginable--like B.O, rotten eggs, and decaying corpses put together. In the ones I've attended the smell constantly permeated an entire hospital ward (with modern ventilation and everything)--for as long as the patient was in residence. And when I took the patient's dressing off... Well, it was bad enough to make me glad I hadn't eaten that day.