CHAPTER 31

Frodo, Saradoc and Paladin were in the front room, enjoying some wine and a leisurely pipe, as they discussed the morrow’s journey.

After a while, Paladin gave an ostentatious yawn, and stretching, said “I think I will retire early tonight. We have a very busy day tomorrow, and I need the rest.”

Frodo and Saradoc bid him good night, but Frodo raised a skeptical brow as he watched the Took leave the room. He turned to his cousin.

“All right, Uncle Sara. What is this all about? It’s obvious that everyone has plotted to get us alone together. It must be something fairly dire.”

Saradoc gave a wry chuckle. “You always were an intelligent lad.” He took out Eglantine’s letter, and passed it to the younger hobbit.

Frodo took it from him with a mixture of trepidation and curiosity; he unfolded it and began to read. As he did so, Saradoc watched the play of emotions across his face, from curious amusement, to dismay to anger to distress. The older hobbit sighed. He had been afraid that Frodo would take it this way.

Putting the letter aside, Frodo looked up, his face pale, his eyes brimming. “You can’t think to make me go through this!” he pleaded. “You don’t understand!”

Saradoc shook his head. “Frodo, no one will make you do this if you should refuse. You know that Esme and I would never allow you to be coerced into something that would hurt you in any way,” he said gently. “Tell me, my dear lad, why does the gratitude and respect of these Men pain you so?”

“Because I do not deserve it! Because I am not what they think I am! Because I failed!” Frodo took a shuddering breath. “I know Merry told you what happened!”

“Merry told me that when you reached the fire, you were attacked by the creature that used to have the Ring, and that he fell into the fire with it,” said Saradoc softly. “And that is *all* he told me.” He reached across and gently took his kinsman’s right hand in his own. Frodo flinched, but did not pull away. “But this--” he touched the stub of the missing finger, “tells me that the Ring was on your hand when it happened. He cut off your finger to get it--”

“Bit it off,” Frodo whispered. “So you see, I did fail. I claimed the Ring. Gandalf said I did not fail because I spared Gollum; but I should have been the one--” he stopped speaking abruptly, not willing to reveal more.

“The one to go into the fire? That was your intent, was it not?” Saradoc’s voice was gentle and sad. “To cast yourself into the fire with the Ring.”

Frodo’s face jerked up in shock. “How did you know that? I never told--not even Gandalf; though he may have read it in my thoughts. But he never said anything.”

“I know,” Saradoc answered, “because you are my dear lad whom I helped raise, and because it would not be the first time in your life that you thought of casting yourself away.”

He reached up and placed a finger under Frodo’s chin, and tilted up his face to look into the tear-filled blue eyes.

“Do you remember the first night we put you to bed without a sleeping draught, after you lost your parents?”

Frodo’s eyes widened, and he nodded. How could he forget slipping out of bed, out of Brandy Hall, and making his way to the riverbank, ready to join his mother and father in the dark waters of the Brandywine. But he heard Saradoc calling his name, and had pretended he had only come out for a bit of fresh air. “You followed me!” he said in wonder. “You knew what I wanted to do. That’s why you moved me to another room the next day.”

“Yes, an inner room with no window, and you had to come through our room to go out.”

Suddenly a great many things became crystal clear to Frodo. Privacy had been so hard to come by in Brandy Hall. Now he realized that it had been deliberate. That all that time, they had known of his dark thoughts, and protected him from them.

“We had to watch you so closely those first two years. And then--”

“And then Merry was born. He saved my life, Uncle Sara. He gave me something to hold onto.”

“I know.”

Frodo felt his kinsman’s solemn regard. He had always loved Saradoc and Esmeralda; he had also always been too aware that they were not his parents. He had known they loved him, but he never before realized how deeply, or how much care they had taken for him.

“I never really appreciated you properly, did I? But I have always been grateful.”

“You were young and grieving. And gratitude is a good thing, not to be lightly dismissed. Whether you wish to acknowledge it or not, you do deserve the gratitude and the honor that others wish to show you. And they deserve the chance to express it.”

“Do you really think all this--” he gestured with Eglantine’s letter, “will help?”

"Oh, yes, no question of that,” Saradoc nodded. “It will help Paladin and me; it will help your friend the King; and most of all, it will help Sam.”

“Very well,” Frodo said. He allowed himself a wry smile. “But when it comes to it, I cannot promise to like it. On the other hand, I must confess, it will be somewhat amusing to see some of their faces.”

Saradoc smiled too. He could imagine a few of them himself.

Frodo reached over and took both of Saradoc’s hands in his. “Thank you. I love you, Uncle Sara.”

“I know, son.”

_______________________________________________