Chapter Two

“Careful there, sir!  Mind the jamb!” panted Sam, as Frodo struggled to keep his feet and turn the corner.  ‘He shouldn’t be up, yet,’ muttered Sam to himself.  ‘He’d be on the floor if I weren’t holding him.’

With Rosie supporting Frodo on his other side, Sam carefully maneuvered his master outside to the warm bench in the sun that was their objective.  Frodo had awoken just before midday, less disoriented than he had been in the morning but still very tired.  He had lain in the narrow bed quietly, looking at the sun on the scrubbed furniture, until he had alerted Sam of his rising by dressing and almost bashing his head against the washbasin when his legs gave out.  Sam had half-carried him to the kitchen table, where the Ringbearer sat stiffly, hands trembling under the table until he could regain control of them.  It had taken both of them to coax a breakfast of Mistress Cotton’s famous chicken soup and honey biscuits into him. 

Mistress Cotton followed them outside anxiously, her best quilt over her arm, wrapping it around Frodo as soon as they had him seated.  He leaned back against the warm wall behind him with poorly hidden relief.  “Thank you, Mistress Cotton.  This is very kind of you.”

“Not at all, Master Baggins.  It’s our honor, it is.  You sure I can’t make you something, sir?”

“No thank you, Mistress.  I think I’ll just sit here for a while and enjoy the fine day.  It’s going to be an excellent year for flowers, isn’t it?”  Frodo smiled at her with forced cheer, quite unaware that Mistress Cotton saw right through him.  Perspiration beaded his forehead and glistened on his face. 

The farmwife looked over his head to meet Sam’s grey eyes.  “Well, you let me know, sir, if there’s anything me Rosie or I can get you.  C’mon, Rosie-luv, we’ve a table ‘ta lay.”  Rosie followed her mother back to work, but not without a quick squeeze of Sam’s hand that made the stocky hobbit’s round face go red.

Frodo observed his friend’s discomfort with amusement sparkling in his so-blue eyes.  “Ah, Sam, I envy you.  Rosie’s a fine lass.”

Sam’s blush deepened.  “Thank you, sir.  I still don’t believe she waited for me.”

“Rosie knows a treasure when she sees one, Sam,” Frodo returned, pulling the edges of the quilt more closely about him.   Embarrassed, Sam grinned shyly at his master and ducked his head, casting about for a change of conversation.

“Are you feelin’ better now, Mr. Frodo?”

“Yes, Sam, thank you.”  The two were silent for a while, basking in the rays of the strengthless sun and watching the white clouds chase each other across the sky.  Sam could tell his master was thinking; he knew that distracted stare well.  At last Frodo sighed and turned to him.  “Every year, Gandalf said?”

“Yes, sir.  Every year.”

“Will it always be this bad?”

“I don’t know, Mr. Frodo.   Gandalf didn’t say.”  Sam saw Frodo close his eyes and shiver.  “It might get better, sir.”  Frodo looked at him silently.  “Well, it might.”

Frodo nodded and sagged back against the wall.  Watching him from the corner of his eye, Sam waited.  Five minutes.  Frodo began to list to the side, his breathing deepening.  Ten.  Sam wished he could lay his master’s head in his lap as he had done so many times towards the end of that dark journey, but he knew that Frodo would not admit to weakness or weariness now.  Fifteen minutes.  Eyes closing, his dark head falling on his breast, the hobbit slid down slightly on the bench, sleeping deeply.  Sam made sure that Frodo was secure and well covered, then rose quietly and padded into the farmhouse.

Rosie looked up from setting out the bread and rolls for the midday meal.  “He’s resting, then?”

“Aye, sound asleep.”

“He shouldn’t be out o’ bed, Sam.”

“I know, lass.  But what can I do?  Mr. Frodo’s got a stubborn streak a mile wide.”  Sam relieved Rosie of the heavy platter she was carrying up and placed it on the table, sniffing the aroma of sliced pork garnished with cinnamon-sprinkled apples.  “I think it’s all that got him through what he had ‘ta do,” he added softly, “there at the end.”

The two moved around the table, arranging on it the fine bounty of the farmwife’s art.  Rosie’s mother was reknown throughout the Shire for her cooking and Sam knew that she had taught her daughter well.  The thought of him and Rosie setting their own table someday made his face go red again, and Rosie looked into his eyes and laughed.

Mistress Cotton bustled through the kitchen door, her arms encircling an enormous bowl of mashed ‘taters.  She placed it at one end of the table, casting a quick glance out the door, which Sam had left open so he might hear if Frodo needed him.  The great wooden spoon slipped from her grasp and clattered to the floor.  “Don’t mind me,” she said with a wry grin, retrieving the spoon.  “I’ll just give this spoon a quick wash.  Mr. Cotton and the farmhands will be in soon.  You young people just keep on with your talkin’.”  For no clear reason he could give, Sam blushed clear to the roots of his sandy hair.

Frodo jerked into wakefulness at the unexpected sound, his heart hammering.  They’d been seen, they’d be found … no.  No.  No Black Riders, no Orcs, no wicked Men … not here.  Greening fields met his unfocused gaze, the smell of fresh-turned earth.  Flowers nodded their heads at him from Mistress Cotton’s garden, their fragrance mingling with the appetizing smells of luncheon. 

He was better, he realized.  He inhaled deeply of the sweet scents of the Shire, filling his lungs with the smell of flowers and sheep and pipe-weed and hay.  Filling the vast emptiness within him.  Yesterday was a blur, the days before it hazy and confusing.  His shoulder and side still ached but the pain was fading.  He had a vague memory of some foul-tasting tea that Sam had forced him to drink – courtesy of Elrond or Gandalf, no doubt.  It seemed he could not escape their tonics and “strengthening cordials” even now.

If he could just have enough time before the illness came again … time to complete the history he had promised Aragorn, time to finish Bilbo’s book.  For one who had never expected to live past his given task, it did not seem too much to ask.  He’d work day and night in his study until it was done.  And soon his beloved Bag End would be finished, cleaned and cleansed, ready for occupancy.  Frodo ached for his home with almost a physical pain.  Bless old Lobelia for returning it to him …

It might get better, the Ringbearer mused.  Didn’t all wounds heal with time?  Wounds of the heart and mind as well as the body?  Arwen Evenstar’s offer rose in his mind and his hand sought the white gem that hung about his throat.  A white gem to replace another thing that had once shackled him there…   His fingers traced the fine band of scarring at the back of his neck and sides of his throat, where the ever-increasing weight of the Ring had caused the silver chain to grind into his skin.  His touch lingered briefly over the small raised scars of the spider’s bite and a shock of pain lanced through him.  He dropped his hand and regarded the mutilation, the ugly gap and scarring that replaced the once-fine bones of his fingers.  Where the cave-troll’s spear had driven the links of his mithril coat into his chest did not hurt any longer, at least.

It seemed a small price to pay, when he could raise his eyes and see the whole Shire spread out before him, green and living and at peace.  The images he had seen in the Lady’s Mirror came back to him unbidden, and dispassionately, he could compare those horrendous visions to the serenity and tranquility his eyes drank in like spring rain after a parched winter.  So beautiful, the Shire.  And it was only a tiny corner of the greater world of Middle-earth. 

So why did he mourn what-might-have-been?  He would not regret – he would not.  Sudden tears threatened their way past his defenses and he closed his eyes and forced them back.  His small life mattered so little when such living reward spread before him.  Sam and Rosie would have a life, now.  And Merry and Pippin and the lasses they would someday take to wife.  The green fields would resound with the shouts of their children’s laughter, in time.

Time… 

“’Bout time you woke up, sir,” came Sam’s anchoring, much-loved voice.  “Ready for luncheon?”  Sam settled himself next to his master on the bench, relief at Frodo’s improved condition evident in his honest face.  “Mistress Cotton made you a cream-and-mushroom pie.  And the green bean an’ mushroom dish you like so much.”

“That sounds wonderful, Sam.”  Frodo rose, grateful for the steadying hand Sam slid under his elbow.  “It’s good to be home, isn’t it?”

“Aye, sir.  That it is.”

The End