It was spring, the apple trees in the orchard were in full bloom and the air was full of their scent and blowing petals. Frodo sat reading in his favorite seat, a broad branch of the gnarled old grandfather tree, brushing windblown blossoms from the pages and laughing at Bilbo’s comic verse. He woke - still smiling in his sunlit room at Cair Andros.

*’I’m alive,’* he thought, *’I’m going to see Bilbo and the Shire again.’* and for a moment he was filled from crown to tingling toes with the same joyous relief as he’d felt when the Ring was destroyed. Then his trouble and pain came back to him - but seemed somehow the lighter and unable to kill the sudden hope in his heart. *’Maybe I will get better, maybe time will heal just as Aragorn said.’*

He made a real hearty Hobbit breakfast that morning, rather than just picking at his food as usual. Sam was delighted, and Pippin and Merry too. “I was afraid talking about the quest would make you worse,” the last told him, “but it seems to have done you nothing but good.”

“Maybe he needed to get it off his chest.” Pippin suggested.

“Maybe I did.” said Frodo.

Breakfast, as usual, was followed by a stroll through the fortress’s steep terraced gardens. The fruit trees there were in full flower as was every other plant. “I just don’t understand it.” said Sam. “It’s barely spring, most of these things shouldn’t be in bloom yet.”

“Maybe the seasons are different so far south.” Merry offered.

“Well, yes, I suppose they’re bound to be.” Sam conceded. “But I wouldn’t expect them to be this different!”

“It’s not the seasons,” Frodo said with certainty, “it’s magic, I can feel it. Somebody’s used power to make the land bloom.”

The three other Hobbits looked at him in surprise. “Like the Lady Galadriel maybe?” Sam asked after a moment.

“No.” Frodo answered slowly, “Not the Lady.” Galadriel’s Ring would have lost its power when the One was destroyed. “She’s part of the old order, the Elder World that is passing away. But there are new powers arising that belong to this New Age - one of them did this.”

The others were eyeing him oddly - even Sam - and Frodo didn’t blame them. How did he know all that? How could he? Yet somehow he did. He abruptly changed the subject: “What about those mushrooms Merry mentioned? Let’s have a look and see if they’re fit to eat.”

A long, leisurely mushroom hunt took up the rest of the morning. Afterwards Merry and Pippin carried the spoils down to the kitchens to make lunch. The two of them had taken over the cooking of all the Hobbit’s meals regardless of their dignity as knights or the objections - if any - of the kitchen staff.

“Good, solid Shire cooking is what the two of you need, not fancy foreign fare.” Merry had said.

“Right.” Pippin had agreed heartily. “They’re very fine folk here in the South but they don’t know the first thing about cookery!”

Frodo and Sam went back to their rooms for a wash and a change, then proceeded to the little herb court where they found Tal-argan waiting, Frodo was beginning to wonder if he ever left it. “You did give me good dreams last night,” he told the harpist. “how did you do it?”

“By bringing back pleasant memories you had forgotten.” he replied, and smiled. “There were many to chose from. You have had a happy life, Frodo Baggins.”

“Yes,” he agreed quietly, “I have, but I forgot it for a while.”

“Remember it.” Tal-argan said seriously. “And that you have much to live for; home and family and friends who love you.”

“I know.” Frodo whispered. Friends he had betrayed - but he wouldn’t say that in front of Sam. “I don’t remember going back to my bed.”

The harpist laughed. “I carried you there. I wasn’t about to wake you after going to the trouble of lulling you to sleep but Aragorn would have been very angry with me if I let you take a chill.”

Sam looked surprised at that. “How? I mean not being able to see and all...?”

“I am blind not helpless, Master Gamgee.” Tal-argan answered crisply, then smiled a little wryly. “And I know this fortress very well - I spent well over a hundred years here as a ‘guest’ of King Turambar and his son Atanatar.”

Frodo frowned. “You mean Kings of Gondor held you prisoner - why?”

“I didn’t like the way they governed their eastern lands and tried to do something about it.” He shrugged a little. “Luckily for me Siriondil proved more enlightened than his father and grandfather and let me go.”

Frodo’s frown deepened. “Does Aragorn know all that?”

“Of course.” Tal-argan said serenely.

Frodo was prevented from asking any more questions by the noisy arrival of Merry and Pippin, followed by a couple of kitchen boys, all four loaded down with large, heavily burdened trays. They laid the dishes out on one of the benches near the fountain, and put the plates and cups and the rest of the table ware on the other. Then the boys departed with the trays and Merry began to uncover the dishes.

“I thought a good hot lunch today, since Frodo’s finally hungry again.” he said. “We’ve got chops and bird on toast and a nice beefsteak with asparagus and peas for greens and of course mushrooms!”

“And strawberry tarts, treacle pudding and jellies for desert.” put in Pippin pouring red wine into the pewter cups - he’d explained the Southern beer wasn’t fit to drink.

“Sounds delicious.” Frodo said sincerely.

“Now then,” said Pippin after all four Hobbits has served themselves with generous helpings and Tal-argan accepted a bit of bird and a few stalks of asparagus to keep them company, “where were we?”

“Cirith Ungol, Shelob’d just stung me.” Frodo answered. “But what happened after that is more Sam’s story than mine.” and he turned expectantly to his friend who, predictably, blushed bright red.

“Well, Sam?” Tal-argan prompted after a moment.

The red ebbed away leaving poor Samwise pale with remembered grief and fear. “I thought Mr. Frodo was dead,” he began slowly, “he was white as paper and his eyes were open and staring and he didn’t seem to be breathing....I thought he was dead,” he swallowed hard, “I’d been sent along to look after him and I’d failed.”

“It wasn’t your fault, Sam, but mine.” Frodo interrupted firmly. “I sent you away.”

“Because that Gollum tricked you into it.” Sam answered with a touch of venom, then went on. “I just huddled there crying over you, Frodo, and then I heard somebody coming and Sting started glowing blue so I knew it was Orcs.” he stopped, swallowed again. “So - I took the Ring from around Mr. Frodo’s neck and hid, leaving him there for the Orcs to find.”

“Exactly the right thing to do.” Frodo told him. “There was no way you could have known I was alive - and the Ring had to be kept out of enemy hands.”

“That’s what I thought too.” Sam agreed, a little color coming back into his face. “I guess it was an honest enough mistake, but I felt a right fool and pretty near desperate when I heard that there Orc say you were still alive and they carried you off!” he shrugged a little helplessly. “I didn’t know what to do - there was way to many of them for me to tackle so I followed and saw them carry Mr. Frodo into a nasty old stone tower full of Orcs. I really was desperate then, hovering outside, trying to think of a way in - then I remembered about the Ring....”

“Oh, Sam,” Merry breathed, “don’t tell me you put it on!”

“I’m afraid I did, Mr. Merry. It was like I’d clean forgot everything I knew about it - except the bit about making you invisible.” he stared over their heads, brow slightly knit, as he remembered. “It was like a fog had come up and swallowed me, the world went all grey and hazy, and I could feel him - Sauron - looking for me but he couldn’t see me through the fog. And I could hear - everything! Shelob bubbling and moaning somewhere in her caves, the Orcs snarling and snapping at each other inside the tower.” he swallowed again. “And I heard the Ring talking to me.”

“Talking to you?” Pippin echoed astonished.

“Well not talking exactly, but it said things to me without any words showed me things, made promises...”

“What kind of promises?” Pippin asked, puzzled.

Slowly the color mounted in Sam’s face. “Crazy things; swords, kingdoms, the sun the moon and all the stars besides!” he took a deep breath. “I won’t say I wasn’t tempted - but only for a moment! I mean me, Sam Gamgee, a great warrior and king? Even if the Ring’d meant it I couldn’t have done it - and anyway it was all a trick and a cheat.” he hesitated a moment then added. “And besides - I don’t want crowns and castles and the like, just a nice little hole and bit of garden and - and -”

“And Rosie Cotton to share it.” said Frodo with a smile.

Sam turned bright red but he nodded. “I pulled the Ring off as fast as I could and put it in my pocket. But even with it off I could hear shouting from inside the tower and a clattering, clashing sound as if folk were fighting.”

“I could hear it too.” Frodo said quietly. “I was awake by then, lying bound and helpless on the floor at the top of the tower. It started with two Orcs, the commander and an officer I think, fighting over my mithril coat then spread through the whole garrison.”

Tal-argan nodded. “It’s not difficult to stir up dissension among Orcs. Rather the trouble lies in preventing it.”

“I believe you.” said Sam. “I decided to sneak up to the gate and see what was going on.” a look of bewildered distaste passed over his face. “They were all dead, lying in heaps. They’d killed each other - well most of them. I did meet three or four on the stair but I took care of them right enough. I wasn’t about to let anybody or anything come between me and Mr. Frodo.”

“Sam got to me just in the knick of time,” Frodo continued, “just before the one surviving Orc could kill me. I was so glad to see him - and in despair too. You see I thought the Orcs had taken the Ring but Sam told me he had it, and showed it to me. I ordered him to give it back - but for a moment there I was afraid he wouldn’t obey.”

“I’m sorry about that, Frodo,” Sam said earnestly, “it was like I was two people; the real me who wanted to give it back just as you’d asked, and a part under the Ring’s spell that didn’t want to give it up.”

“And the real Sam won.” Frodo smiled at his friend, then it faded. “It wasn’t that I didn’t trust you, Sam, but the Ring had already done its worst to me - there wasn’t any point in putting you through all that too. Besides I doubt we’d have made it to the Mountain if we’d both been in as poor shape as I was by then.”

Sam nodded. “It was your burden just as you said, Frodo. My job was to help you along.”

“And you did, magnificently.” he turned to Tal-argan. “Be sure to say in your song that Frodo Ninefinger wouldn’t have gotten far without the help of Samwise the Strong.”

“Oh, Mr. Frodo!” said Sam, red faced but pleased in spite of himself.

When they’d finished lunch Sam, Merry and Pippin carried the emptied dishes and soiled plates back down to the kitchens leaving Frodo alone with the harpist. “Was it Turambar or Atanatar who put out your eyes?” he asked bluntly.

Tal-argan looked shocked. “Of course not! While they may have been, at times, less than generous and just to Men of other kinds the Anarioni were of the blood of Elendil and descendants of Luthien the Fair, they did not do such things!”

“Sorry.” Frodo said, a little chastened. “But I couldn’t help wondering...you did say they’d held you prisoner.”

“For what seemed to them to be good reason.” said the harpist. “But I have, from time to time, found myself in less merciful hands.”

“Sauron’s?” Frodo asked.

Tal-argan hesitated a moment then nodded. “Yes.”

“In - in Barad-dur?”

“No!” the harpist shuddered. “Or I would not be speaking to you now - no one escaped from the Dark Tower.”

“Have you been inside Mordor? Do you know what it’s like?”

A strange, wistful expression came over Tal-argan’s lined face. “I passed through those lands once, very long ago, before Sauron took them for his seat and kingdom. I remember the plain of Gorgoroth as green and fruitful, and the Mountain of Doom when it was but a small cone belching occasional gusts of grey smoke that floated across the blue sky like clouds.”

Frodo tried to imagine the Black Land he remembered as anything but desolation and failed. “Sauron is fallen but Mordor will never be green and fruitful again.”

Tal-argan turned his head sharply and the darkened eyes fixed on Frodo almost as if they could see him. “Never? Never is too long a word for any mortal - or even an Elf to speak. Gorgoroth will be fair green Riognach again someday - though the healing will be slow and perhaps too long even for me to see the end of it.”

Frodo shook his head. “You do not know how the land has been tormented.”

“No.” the harpist agreed. “But I believe that life is stronger than unlife. The power of Yavanna works slowly but it is very great, in the end she will prevail.”

“I hope you’re right.” Frodo said softly, doubting but wanting to believe. For if the barren land of Mordor could be healed - then so could he.