Written in Stone

Seven signatures. Seven. In red ink.

Dwarves, he couldn’t help thinking, wouldn’t have required anything as ridiculously pretentious.

Yet there they were. It was official, then. For a moment he wondered why the thought didn’t make him happy. Official.

I’ll give them official. They’d still dispute it if they could. Probably will, at some stage. When I’m dead at the latest. Well, let them – they’ll have a tough time of it.

He’d altered his will too while he was at it; no point in leaving jobs half-done (now there was one the Gaffer would agree on). Another document, another set of signatures. On paper. Surely the most likely material to withstand time, to perpetuate an act of such… momentousness. Paper, and then seven signatures. Absurd.

Well, if that was what it took. He swallowed the wry smile he felt etching itself into the corners of his mouth; he wasn’t ready yet to smile. If that was all it took they were welcome to it. He would have given more. They didn’t know that – but he would have parted with his pride and dignity, and begged, and sworn to mend his ways. And mended them. That’s what he had come to.

It had taken years off him. The years he had spent looking, anyway. He was ninety-nine, too old for such foolishness. Too old to lose his heart like that. He’d really only looked around among his many relatives because it was time – high time. The money would have to go somewhere when he died. Somewhere deserving would be nice, he’d thought. But when it came to doing something – picking the one who would inherit all his wealth, and Bag End on the Hill to boot – something in him had stalled. And stalled.

The money wasn’t it. It was the thought of leaving all he had been to one who wouldn’t know. Or want to know. It would be as if he hadn’t been.

He had put it off because he didn’t like the thought. Oh, almost any heir would please him better than Otho Sackville-Baggins and that sullen, loutish brat of his. But none of them pleased him. Not the way he’d wish for. Not the way he’d somehow hoped. And it had been a bitter day when he had finally admitted to himself that what he wanted was something closer to his heart than all those lads. Something that would be his in spirit too. Something that would respond…

The son he’d never had, perhaps. The son he’d never thought he wanted. A little late in the day, Baggins, he’d told himself in bitter, furious scorn. You’d better make the best of what you’ve got. Pick one that will at least be careful with the books when you’re gone…

He had been ninety-three at the time. And he had gone on doing nothing. If anything, he had stopped looking.

What did it matter, after all? He was a stranger. He had been a stranger now for many years. And if it had taken this to make him see it – well, about time that he got down from his high horse. There was no use for him; why would he want another of his kind? And then he wondered why time should pass him by. Him of all people.

The fools, he’d seethed sometimes. The blind, blockheaded dullards. The world’s so wide and terrible and wonderful, and I have seen it. Why don’t you ask me? Everything I know will die with me, and you – you just don’t want to hear it…

What am I doing here, he had asked himself in his blacker moods. They don’t want me. I don’t want them. I’m writing books no-one will ever read. And the wide world is waiting, just down that road. But he was old now – he didn’t look it, didn’t feel it often, but he was old and felt he ought to feel it. And some friends he still had, if he had a mind to be honest, and some who depended on him. And perhaps, just perhaps he should let it rest, and spend what was left of his days in peace, and stop thinking of the open road and the wind in his face.

Tell his tales to the children and be content – for they would listen and believe, and some of them would even catch that note of yearning, and tell him earnestly that one day they would be having adventures of their own. He knew they wouldn’t, but for the moment it almost reconciled him to their parents.

That’s how he had met him, though. Older than most of those who liked to flock around him, but younger far than all those others he’d been considering – his grandson, easily, rather than a son. Oh, he knew of him. He’d seen him at the funeral, a pale, quiet child, submerged in a host of relatives, but that was years ago. He hadn’t recognized him.

But there was something in the way he came and listened, hovering just outside the circle of his audience and taking off again, the way he would suddenly ask him sometimes – and they were questions he’d rarely heard before, no is it trues but what was it like, and then no, what was it LIKE – and when he asked him in return he got nothing but a quickly shuttered look, and sometimes scared him clear away. But something told him he’d be back, moth to the flame, and that one didn’t seem easily scared off for good. Will-o’-the-wisp, he’d thought, amused. That’s how it started.

He’d learned not to be flippant in his answers. Not to mock or scathe or take refuge in some clever turn of phrase. He’s just a child, he had told himself. Don’t take it out on him. Even so, the look of bewildered hurt had brought him up short on more than one occasion. He’d cringed, and vowed to make amends. And told another story, or brought a gift, or took him for a walk. What had he been thinking?

I didn’t find you. You found me. He had almost ruined it he knew, by not believing. Not daring to believe, even as he was feeling young again. He had been so used to thinking as he did – He will grow up. Just wait and see, he’ll grow up to be another dullard, lose that light and break your heart to boot if ever you let him see too much of it… What had he done, then, to make that child open his heart to him? You’re stronger than I, my sweet. I didn’t have the courage. Face a dragon, yes. Face this…

Having his life reshaped as late as this, and everything upturned – his truths, his expectations. The world looked as it hadn’t looked in ages. So fresh, so different. How odd, to see how people smiled at him. And all roads open once again. And even as that small irrepressible voice from inside had commented, drily: Just as well you’re still around, then… he had almost missed his cue.

But then some day, some visit, he had come upon the lad at unawares, and upon something else as well – not much perhaps, as these things go, some hurt, some brief misunderstanding – and then the boy had seen him, and broken away and flung himself into his arms. His heart had lurched, and still lurched sometimes when he remembered. You sought refuge with me, and all I knew was that I had found it. I never thought – I never saw a thing but what you gave me. Taking this gift and counting myself lucky, and grateful too – I was so selfish…

Until then. Until that sudden understanding, that fierce protectiveness – Come. You can belong to me. I’ll keep you safe. Still selfish, he would admit that much. Oh, yes. As if he could have borne to give this up, this wondrous thing, this unexpected, undeserved… light that had remade his world. And him. Everything I have, I’ll leave to you. Everything I am. It’s yours already – what would I be without you?

Of course they’d had their say there too. He wasn’t fit to be entrusted with a child. He was too old, too odd, too contrary. Who knew what he would teach that lad. And if he died before the boy came of age, as he was bound to do – the mess that would create.

They would have taken that child away from him. He hadn’t even known he still had that much fight in him. He had flattered and argued and plotted and called in favors. Enlisted everybody’s aid and been the Master of Bag End for all he was worth. And at the end of it, the seven signatures. Quite a collection, eccentric as he was himself – but he had chosen them with care.

The Master of the Hall’s, broad and firm and decisive, as wide as that river of his. The Took’s, a feeble scrawl – Ferumbras, many years his junior and friend of many years, was failing. Alongside and more graceful, Paladin’s. The Mayor’s Haldo Banks, heavy with office. Mad Alric of Long Cleeve’s, a wavy, negligent line. The Master Burrows’ – a lawyer’s flourish marking a job well done. And Hamfast Gamgee’s cross, painstakingly drawn and crooked even so.

The Shire’s best, of his own choosing. And yes, it pleased him that he could still call in such favors. But this was not about his vanity – not this time. He wanted this done right. He wanted it written in stone – as dwarves would, he thought. I want you to be safe. From them, from everything. And if that was what it took –

If that was all it took I got you cheap. Dwarvish, that thought. But he alone knew what he had. And what he might have lost. And now at last he knew that he was smiling.

It’s done. You can come home now. Tell me what you’ve been up to today, and I will tell you it’s official. I’ll keep you safe long after I am gone. And you’ll keep me.

There’d always been a Baggins living at Bag End. And now there’d always be.

finis