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Chapter 2: A Fruitless Conversation
The next morning Mithrandir and Legolas set out upon their journey. To Legolas' chagrin, the wizard had insisted that they travel on foot.
"On horseback we would journey more swiftly," Legolas had argued over breakfast.
"Perhaps at the outset," Mithrandir had replied, "but the nearer we draw to Mordor, the more broken the land becomes. In the end, we will go faster afoot."
"We could leave the horses at liberty to graze when they can no longer bear us. Then, on the way back, we could retrieve them."
Mithrandir helped himself a generous slab of pie before answering. "Legolas, you know as well as I that south of Dunland the cover is poor. What if someone should spy the horses loitering about in the open?"
Legolas shrugged. "What of it? Our horses are clever; they would evade capture."
"I am sure they would, Legolas, but that is not the point. Horses mean riders. If our enemies should see our horses, they would suspect the presence of spies. We should go straightaway from being trackers to being tracked."
"Oh," Legolas said lamely. He suddenly felt very young and very foolish. The wizard smiled fondly at him. "Do not be troubled, Legolas," he said in a kind voice. "You cannot be expected to possess the wisdom of the ages when you are hardly of age yourself."
Legolas felt better at once. Ever since he had encountered Mithrandir in the woods outside Rivendell, the wizard had had this knack of putting the young Elf at ease. The Elf thought back to the very first breakfast they had shared, eaten in the wizard's makeshift camp. Mithrandir had spoken in a soft voice even though, as Legolas was later to learn, the Istar was perfectly capable of speaking in a commanding tone. The wizard's gestures had likewise been slow and careful, as if he understood that any sudden movement might send the elfling fleeing into the forest. His kindliness—plus the lure of food and warmth—had soon tamed the skittish little Elf, who from that point onward had been Mithrandir's follower and, when the time came, his defender.
After Mithrandir had gently corrected Legolas, the young Elf was cheerfully resigned to the notion that he would be walking all the long distance from Rivendell to Mordor. After breakfast, then, Legolas strode patiently beside Mithrandir as they set out from Rivendell. He walked by the side of the wizard for several days. The scouts, Elladan and Elrohir among them, had done their work well, and the Elf did not feel the need to take the point. And, indeed, for the first fortnight of their journey, they saw no sign of danger.
Once they passed from Eregion into Dunland, however, Legolas altered his behavior, insisting upon going ahead to scout out the territory through which they would pass. "If there is danger," he said to the wizard, "it is right that I should encounter it first."
There was one flaw in Legolas' plan, however. While he made sure that the way forward was free of foes, it was possible for enemies to creep up from behind them. One day, as Legolas studied a footprint, trying to decide how old it was, he suddenly heard Mithrandir let loose with a series of curses, some in languages that the Elf did not recognize. Abandoning the trail, Legolas raced back toward his companion. An arrow already fitted to his bow, Legolas burst through a stand of trees—and skidded to a halt, his face a mixture of amusement and amazement. For Mithrandir stood in the middle of a pile of windfall apples. Apple fragments festooned his hat and cloak, and apple juice dripped from his nose. From nearby bushes, Legolas heard giggles. He broke into a grin. Lowering his bow, he pulled a coin from his purse and held it up until it caught the sun. "We would rather eat apples than wear them," he called to the invisible voices. "This coin for a dozen of your finest."
The giggles ceased, the bushes briefly swayed, and silence reigned. "Come, Mithrandir," Legolas said to his friend. "There is a pond a few hundred feet from here. You can bathe whilst we await our fruit."
Grumbling into his sticky beard, Mithrandir followed Legolas to the promised pool. There he handed his hat and cloak to the young Elf with very ill grace. "As you did not head off the attack of your fruitful friends, you may make yourself useful by brushing my garments," he said gruffly.
Legolas was not bothered in the least by the wizard's irascible manner. He knew Mithrandir too well to take his grumbling seriously. Setting to work with a will, he labored cheerfully for a time, and then looked up to tell the wizard that his garments were as clean—or cleaner!—than they had been when they had set out from Imladris. Instead, he gasped. He had never seen Mithrandir without his tunic, for the wizard preferred to bathe in pools far from the ones frequented by the young Elves. As he always said to Elrond, he had no desire to clamber out of the water only to find his garments knotted—or worse, stolen! Now, for the first time, Legolas saw that Mithrandir bore upon his shoulder the same sign that the Elf bore upon the inside of his forearm: a red birthmark that looked very much like the elven word for 'nine'.
Mithrandir looked up at the sound of the gasp and realized at once what the Elf was staring at. "Interesting birthmark, is it not?" he said casually.
"Mithrandir, I have got one just like it!"
"Yes, I know," replied the wizard, still maintaining an air of nonchalance.
"Mithrandir, it can hardly be a coincidence that we are both marked in the selfsame manner!"
"You think not?" Mithrandir said cheerfully, as if it were an everyday matter for two folk, unrelated by blood, to share such an unlikely mark.
"Well, well," spluttered Legolas, "it must mean something! Oh!' he added suddenly. "Aragorn has got one, too!"
Legolas had known about Aragorn's birthmark for years, but when the Elf had first noticed it he had been very young, and with the innocence of youth, he had accepted matter-of-factly all sorts of extraordinary events, including the remarkable coincidence of the shared mark. Since then he had forgotten about it, as one tends to do when one has become accustomed to someone or something. Now, however, he would never look upon his and Aragorn's shared birthmark with the same complacency. Two folk sharing such a mark was amazing; three folk, well, that defied all laws of logic and arithmetic. Suddenly he had a notion: the laws of probability having already been broken, was it possible that there were other folk who bore this mark upon their bodies?
"Mithrandir," he asked excitedly, "are there any others who are marked in this fashion?"
"Ye-es," said Mithrandir, a little reluctant to share what he knew. He feared lest the Elf reach premature conclusions about matters that were best left for the future. "I think that two, possibly three, folk may bear this mark—but it is a matter of little import."
"Little import!? Mithrandir, I possess this birthmark, and so do you and Aragorn. You say two or three others may as well. That makes five or perhaps six, all bearing the same mark. How could such an extraordinary coincidence be of little import?"
"As you say, Legolas, it is a coincidence. And a coincidence, as I am sure Erestor has taught you, is nothing but a chance concatenation of two otherwise unrelated events or objects."
"You can't know that it is a coincidence."
"My dear boy, there are a great many things I do not know. Yet consider: I may not know that it is a coincidence, but you do not know that it is not."
While Legolas was puzzling over how to reply to this last statement, he and Mithrandir heard the sounds of approaching children. Mithrandir, who was now on the bank toweling himself with his cloak, hastily pulled on his breeches while Legolas strode toward the sounds, which suddenly stopped when the Elf drew too near to the shy Dunlending youngsters. "You needn't show yourselves if you do not wish," he called to reassure them. "Push the apples into the open, and I will leave the coin where you may retrieve it after we are gone."
In reply, someone used a stick to push a basket out from behind a bush. In it lay a dozen unblemished apples. Legolas carried the basket to his pack and tucked the apples within. Then he put a coin in the bottom of the basket and placed it back beside the bush. As he walked away, he heard a rustling sound. When he looked back, the basket was gone.
By now, Mithrandir was fully dressed, and he insisted that they walk on. He refused all efforts to draw him out on the subject of birthmarks. In his own mind, however, he ruminated upon the subject.
'I imagine', he said to himself, 'that when all is said and done, nine folk in all will sport this mark—else why should it delineate that number? Whether all the others destined to be so marked have yet been born, I cannot guess. I did not altogether lie to my young friend just now when I said that I did not know all! This much I do know, however: I, an Istar, bear this mark, as does one Ranger, one Elf, a Dwarf, and a Hobbit. I know that one of Denethor's sons bears the mark as well. Pity I did not get a better look, for I could not make out whether it was Boromir or Faramir who was being bathed by that nursemaid. I should like to think it was Faramir, but it is not up to me to select the chosen ones. That leaves three whose identities I cannot guess at. But no doubt in the fullness of time I shall come to know the others—as well as the reason for our having been marked in the first place. Still, I cannot help but suspect that it will have something to do with Frodo and the ring he inherited from Bilbo. Else it would be incomprehensible that a plain-living Perian should share a mark with wizard and warrior'.
Mithrandir ran over in his mind all he knew about each of the folk who he knew or suspected to have been marked by the number nine. He smiled a little as he thought of the Dwarf. 'How horrified Legolas will be', he chortled to himself, 'when he learns that he has something in common with a Dwarf!' Mithrandir smiled even more broadly as he imagined the dismay that would cross the Elf's face, the shudder that would rack his body. "A Dwarf?" he could hear the Elf cry. "Not a Dwarf!"
"What about a Dwarf, Mithrandir?" came the voice of Legolas. Mithrandir realized with a start that he had been speaking aloud.
"I was merely thinking, Legolas," the wizard said hastily, "that it is past time that I pay a visit to Erebor, to see how King Dain is getting on. Would you like to accompany me?" he added slyly, knowing full well what the answer would be.
"I should say not!" exclaimed Legolas indignantly. Mithrandir smiled and said no more. 'Very well, Laiqua', he thought to himself. 'But doubtless the time will come when you find yourself in the company of a Dwarf, namely, one Gimli son of Glóin. If you don't, then I am a Hobbit!' And amusing himself with such thoughts, Mithrandir cheerfully strode on by the side of his young friend.