Interlude: The Third Letter
My dear Frodo,
There is nobody to carry this letter to you. Why, then, am I writing it?
It's been six years since Gandalf last stopped off at Rivendell on the way to visiting you. I wonder what he's doing. The Dunadan drops hints sometimes, but even he seldom has time to visit now. They're hunting something, sometimes together but often apart. I don't know what it is.
Have I told you about Aragorn? Of course I haven't, because although I've started so many letters, you haven't received any of them. I don't suppose this one will be any different. Who can I find to carry it?
I should have sent you news with Gandalf that last time. He'd visited you quite a lot, you see. I didn't know he was going to stop. I thought I'd always have next year. I thought I'd have another chance.
Master Elrond drops dark hints about that Ring of mine, and Aragorn says even more. I think it would be safer here in Rivendell with me. I'm old, Frodo. You can't deny me another sight of it before the end.
Bilbo lowered his pen. There was no sound except for the crackling of the fire in the hearth. Rivendell was quieter than it once had been; far quieter than when he had visited with Thorin and the dwarves. Sometimes he looked out of his window and imagined that he was entirely alone, in a place inhabited only by memories.
Some of the elves have gone into the West, and there are few travellers now. They tell me that the roads to the east are now too dangerous. Aragorn still walks them, though. I wish he wouldn't. I'm finding it harder and harder to understand why anyone should want to travel.
I used to dream of places. I longed to see towers and rivers and mountains. Aragorn gave me those, and he gave me back the Shire. We still play that game when we can. But he's seldom here these days, and when he comes, he won't talk about where he's been. He walks in grim places now, I think. But he still visits the edge of the Shire when need takes him, and I think he might have set some of his people to catching pictures for me, so he can pass them on to me second hand. It's a pleasure for both of us, I think.
But it's the faces I dream of more and more. I used to long for places that were gone: for Gondolin and Nargothrond and the forests of Doriath; for Numenor and Annuminas and Fornost. Now I write songs about kings and heroes and lovers of old.
I wonder what Aragorn's doing now, and Gandalf.
And you, my dear Frodo. I think most often of you.
But there is no-one left to carry this home to you.