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Chapter Nine: Deception

Gandalf and Aragorn traversed the campsite, both shaken and deeply worried by the confrontation with Sam. Twilight was giving way to a clear, crisp night, and though the thought of sleep was slowly entering the thoughts of all, the hour was not quite late enough for most of them to succumb to it. Fires were more numerous and noticeable in the falling darkness, and Gandalf's brief light display at the beech-grove had also drawn many curious eyes. Whispers now followed wizard and ranger as they left it, heading across the wide lawn to the privacy of the king's quarters, both refusing to look at anyone, or anywhere other than their final destination.

Leaving Aragorn to dismiss the guards outside his quarters (a task which involved having to repeatedly reassure the men that their soon-to-be-king was not in imminent danger from a vicious attack by hidden enemies), the White Wizard stormed into his tent, headed straight for his friend's hidden supply of Dol Amroth wine, and poured himself a glassful.

“You think you can manipulate us and it doesn't matter 'cos we're just hobbits!”

He downed the wine in one go.

“That's right, Mr Gandalf, sir. Use your magic to try and frighten me … it should work. Leastways, that's what the Dark Lord thought!”

He poured himself another.

“... where were you when I needed you? … 'Cos I could've used one of you mighty lords then, and no mistake!”

The second glassful went the way of the first.

“We are not finished here, Sam.”

“Yes we are, and no mistake.”

He was in the act of pouring himself a third glass when Aragorn entered.

“I have never seen him in such a passion,” said the ranger, still looking rather stunned by the confrontation.

There was no need to explain who 'he' was.

“That he would say such things! That he could feel such bitterness!” Aragorn ran a hand through his dark hair. “That I could react with such arrogance.”

There was a note of self-recrimination in his tone.

“I ought not to have implied that he was indebted to us – or at least I ought to have chosen my words more carefully. I fear I only inflamed his ire.”

“We all ought to have chosen our words more carefully, including Samwise,” commented Gandalf, pausing in the act of filling his glass. He was still smarting from Sam's accusation that he had shamelessly manipulated the hobbits; the implication that he treated them like little more than pets. It was simply not true.

Not all of it ...

Grunting, he resumed the filling of his glass when a shadow fell over him, and a hand neatly snatched the wine from his grasp before the glass was half full.

“Do you intend to deprive me of every last drop?” drawled the ranger, pointedly indicating the shrinking level of the flask. “That was a personal gift from Imrahil himself.”

“I will replace it once we arrive in Minas Tirith,” growled Gandalf, making a grab for the wine. His friend stepped nimbly aside, taking the flask out of his reach. “Confound it all, Dúnadan, give it back!”

“Because drinking yourself into oblivion will certainly resolve our current dilemma.”

Annoyed that Aragorn had not managed to free himself of the plague that was hobbit-sense, he glowered at him briefly. The ranger simply returned his gaze with one of rueful understanding until Gandalf huffed in defeat.

“Oh, very well. I shall make do with what I have," he grumbled, feeling very put out. He took but measured sips of the refreshment thereafter. Aragorn was right: it would not do to drink himself into oblivion, however tempting the thought was.

Nursing his glass, he circled the grand quarters slowly, so many thoughts clamouring for his immediate attention. The confrontation with Sam had rattled him deeply, no less for Sam's angry words than the fact it was Sam himself uttering them.

Samwise Gamgee!

Of all the people who could have accused him, challenged him, demanded of him, and judged him.

Sam!

“It would have surprised me less were it Shadowfax chastising me,” he muttered aloud. “Or even … or even the blasted Balrog of Moria, come back to pick a bone or two for my destroying it! But Master Gamgee?”

As he spoke, he absently waved around the hand which clutched his staff. Candlelight flickered dangerously.

“I have spent several frustrating moments promising two very stubborn guards that I am perfectly safe within my own quarters, Gandalf,” announced Aragorn with a sigh. “If you burn them down and make a liar out of me now, they will never give me a moment's peace from this day on, and I shall find it hard to forgive you. Pray, be more cautious with your staff.”

The flickering ceased.

“You understand my vexation, though?” demanded the wizard in boggle-eyed irritation. “Making fireworks, indeed! Smoking and drinking! One would think I had spent the last millennium or two in Bag End with my head stuck in a beer barrel. Or squabbling with Bilbo Baggins over the last keg of wine! Duelling each other for it with no more than our flaming pipes, no doubt!”

Such was the image this presented that Aragorn guffawed heartily, though his companion was too irked to join in. Instead he circled the tent repeatedly, muttering to himself.

“Ai, my friend, but I sorely needed that!” chortled Aragorn, pouring himself a glass of his rapidly dwindling wine. A healthy draught later, and his mirth had subsided sufficiently for him to continue. “We seem to be stumbling from one adventure into the next, each one more daunting than the last. But I say to you now what I said to Sam but a short time ago: he lashes out because he finds it difficult to process the traumas he was subjected to. He cannot be held accountable for his angry words.”

“Yet I can still be riled by them, if I think them unjust!” grumbled Gandalf.

But that was the problem: they were not unjust. As unnerving and hurtful as it had been to be the target of Sam's wrath, the hobbit had made several extremely valid points. Perhaps that was why the wizard was so annoyed?

“Pfft!” he exclaimed, whipping out his pipe. Not even bothering to ask permission, he stuffed it and set it alight, and soon the king's tent was reeking of Old Toby. On the positive side, he did lay his staff aside, so Aragorn needn't fear being blown up by wizard's magic. It was a fair compromise, in Gandalf's opinion.

“Perhaps one or two of his comments were unduly harsh,” conceded the ranger, perching himself on the edge of his desk. “Particularly the Dark Lord comparison ...”

“He was not comparing me to the Dark Lord, Aragorn. He was simply – and very unsubtly - drawing attention to one parallel in our behaviour. And he was right. Blasted hobbit!”

The ranger wore a puzzled expression.

“I should not have used my arts to subdue him, not when his distress to that point was plain for all to see, and most particularly not after he had been subjected to similar magic in Mordor. True, I was merely attempting to shock him back to his senses, but it was an ill thought-out gesture, and it failed miserably. Little wonder then that he held me to account for it.”

Even if it had stung.

A sudden, overwhelming sense of fatigue seized him then, and Gandalf dropped tiredly into a chair. “He was right, though.”

“In what respect?”

“Almost every respect. I should have explained to Frodo precisely what it meant to carry the Ring. I should have made it perfectly clear to him that he would not be able to resist its lures forever, and that it was his duty only to resist them as long as he possibly could. Perhaps that would have aided his recovery more. However, I did not, too grateful at the time he had accepted the task at all. But it was too much for him, and that was made painfully clear to us when we arrived in time to hear him rejecting his closest friend! And Sam ...”

An image of the gardener's devastated expression came to mind: his normally kind eyes flashing with fury, his usually smiling mouth twisted with bitterness, the betrayal and resentment he felt at having the weight of the world thrust on his shoulders an almost palpable thing. It was a difficult enough task for Gandalf at times, choosing what was in the best interests of Middle-earth – and sometimes the choices he had had to make were harsh. But he was a Maia; he knew what was expected of him; knew that sometimes decisions had to be made that would forever haunt him, regardless of how necessary they were. Sam, on the other hand, was a simple gardener from the Shire who had never had to decide anything more earth-shattering than whether to plant roses or chrysanthemums. He had been forced into an impossible situation, and forced to make an impossible choice. Thankfully, mercifully, he made the right one.

But he should not have had to make it at all.

“You cannot be expected to know all ends. No one can. We all wish we could have done more for our hobbit friends, anything to have made their task easier. We did what we could, though, in our way. The union of the Two Towers was thwarted at Helm's Deep, thus the Rohirrim were freed to help us to victory in the Pelennor. We rode to the Black Gates to divert Sauron's remaining forces from them. All of this help to prevent their capture by enemy agents, allowing them to reach their goal.”

“It was precisely that goal which provided them with their most dreadful trial!”

“We always knew that would be the case," pointed out Aragorn. "They knew it also. The only question was which form this trial might take. And now we know. What could we have done to prevent that, other than not sending them at all? Where would that would have left us!”

The truth in Aragorn's words was inarguable. Still …

Gimli returned shortly with a report that Frodo refused to speak with anyone – had threatened to march back to the Shire that very moment if 'people don't just leave me alone!'

“We have left him to the care of Merry and Pippin, who have escorted him back to his cot. Master Gamgee is already abed. The poor lad hides under his blanket, unwilling to torment his master with the sight of his face! Aye, Aragorn. 'Tis a sorry state of affairs indeed.”

“And Legolas?”

“He remains outside their pavilion, at a discreet distance, keeping watch over the grove for any further trouble.”

“Good,” said Gandalf. “It might be an idea for you to join him, so that one of you may hail us quickly, should it become necessary.”

The dwarf frowned. “Let us hope it does not. If you will excuse me, I shall return to Legolas and join him now in watching over our friends.”

Gimli departed, leaving a pall of dismay in his wake. The evening turned slowly to night as king and wizard sat reflecting on the day's events, going over every angry word that had been uttered, and debating how to best to deal with the shattered hobbits come morning. Gandalf suggested that, as the camp would remain in place for the foreseeable future, it might be an idea to place Frodo and Sam back under the healing sleep to give them more time to recuperate. Aragorn dismissed it as a possibility.

“Such a course of action would do little more than delay the inevitable. The healing sleep tends the body, not the mind. You know this.”

This was true. But a healing sleep would at least provide them with more time to come up with a better solution.

“They need our reassurance, Gandalf. They need to acknowledge that each did the best they could under extraordinary circumstances, and the sooner the better,” insisted Aragorn. “It is of vital importance that they unburden themselves – to each other as well as to us - so that we may better aid them.”

So adamant was he that Gandalf abandoned the idea thereafter, even though he doubted their chances of getting either hobbit to so much as look at the other, let alone open their hearts to each other. Not for nothing did he count Bagginses and Gamgees among the most stubborn hobbits in the Shire.

Unfortunately, neither wizard nor ranger could come up with any alternate solutions at that time. Aragorn suggested they retire for the night and convene again before breakfast, when Frodo and Sam were due in the king's tent.

“I was so sure Gollum had a greater role to play in the end,” muttered Gandalf as he rose. “What part, I could not guess, yet I was so certain. Had I been proved correct, might things have turned out differently for the hobbits? Perhaps they would not have been set against each other, but against a more neutral party instead, one who's presence would have made it easier for them to resolve their grief after the task was done ...”

Gandalf trailed off helplessly.

“I failed them,” surmised the wizard after a moment's thought. “Both of them. I should never have included them in the Quest, for it was asking too much. But what choice did I have? Were it laid before me again, would I choose differently?”

He felt his companion's keen gaze, knew that Aragorn had already guessed his answer.

“I would not,” he admitted aloud. “If I knew then what I know now, I have to say that I would choose as before, and Frodo would still reject Samwise, and Samwise would still blame me. Blame us.”

“'Tis not us alone he blames, Gandalf.”

“Yet he holds us as the chief instigators of his pain. Can we really blame him, when all is said and done?”

“His anger is spread more widely than that,” reasoned the ranger, fingering his long-empty glass. “Yes, it is directed at you and I; but also at things completely beyond our control: the Ring, those circumstances which delivered it to Frodo, the damage it has wrought ever since. He even blames himself for not being able to prevent any of it, for the choices he made; yet what could he have done? Sam's bitterness is understandable, my friend. Regrettable, but natural in one who has survived great trauma. I have seen it many times over the years. You are even displaying signs of it yourself. That being said, it is rarely so acute as it appears to be in the case of the Ring-bearers. As a healer, I would expect such signs to develop over a longer period ...”

Aragorn inhaled sharply and shot to his feet. The glass he thrust at the desk missed its mark and fell to the ground as he dashed from the tent, leaving a very bemused wizard in his wake.

Sensing his friend had come to some worrisome realisation, the wizard hitched up the hem of his robes and took flight after him into the darkness. Barely had he cleared the tent when he caught sight of the Dúnadan racing across the now silent lawn towards the beech-grove. Gandalf puffed his way ahead, growing ever more concerned. He saw Aragorn come to a screeching halt, share a heated conversation with Legolas and Gimli, who were keeping watch over the grove from a dwindling camp fire nearby, then rush into the hobbits' pavilion with elf and dwarf on his heels. A terrible feeling of dread seized him then.

What was it the ranger feared? One moment they had been discussing acute traumas, and the next …

Something suddenly clicked. Samwise covering himself with his blanket, obscuring himself from his master's view. Merry and Pippin escorting Frodo back to his cot. Escorting him back to his cot! But Gandalf and Aragorn had left Pippin in the company of Sam. So if the gardener had managed to persuade Pippin to leave him, then that meant the emotionally volatile hobbit had been left to his own devices long enough to ...

Horror filled him.

No. No, that was impossible. Such a thing was unheard of in a hobbit! Besides, everyone had seen the gardeber upon their return to the grove.

But how would they know who – or what – lay beneath Sam's blanket unless they had actually taken the time to check?

Fear lent him speed; even before he reached the tent, he heard a loud exclamation of dismay. Within seconds he burst into the pavilion, which glowed dimly in the light of two candles. Merry, roused from his rest, blinked tiredly his way.

“What's wrong? Who's shouting? Is Sam having another nightmare?” he asked, rising and yawning simultaneously. Pippin was likewise stumbling toward the others.

Ignoring them, Gandalf pushed his way toward Legolas and Gimli, who were already leaning over Sam's cot. Frodo, he saw, was wide awake, sitting up in bed, and staring at Aragorn's back in trepidation. The ranger had deliberately blocked his view – no doubt fearing what he might find when he pulled back the blanket.

Steeling himself for the worst, he rounded the end of the cot, coming to a standstill even before he reached Aragorn. In his hand, the ranger held Sam's blanket. Upon the bed, lay …

Several pillows had been laid down the length of the cot, some flat, some on their sides, and in such a manner that – with the blanket fully covering them – his companions would never have been able to tell that he himself was not actually there.

Never had Gandalf felt so vastly relieved and so terribly dismayed at the same time. It was bad, but it could have been worse. Much worse.

The soft grass muffled the sound of his walking stick as Frodo finally gave up trying to see around everyone's back and pushed his way past Aragorn. His eyes widened as he looked at the cot below.

“Where is Sam?” he asked in a strangled voice.

Nobody could answer, because nobody knew.

“Where is Sam?” he demanded, shouting. “Where is he?”

“I don't understand,” said Pippin, looking very upset. “He was right there when I left.”

“When you left here?” cried Frodo, whirling around as best as he could and fastening his eyes on Pippin's trembling form. “But that was hours ago! So where is he now?”

“I … I don't know. I don't know!” squeaked the younger cousin in distress. "He said he was tired and wanted to sleep. Covered himself so … I mean, he didn't want to change. He didn't want to change! I'm sorry Frodo. I should have known he was up to something.”

“Sorry?” seethed the Ring-bearer. “What good is that now? Sam's gone! You should never have left him alone, Peregrin Took. Never! Whatever were you thinking?”

“Don't shout at him, Frodo!” scolded Merry, who was now wide awake. “It's not his fault. He's not a mind reader. I'm sure Sam seemed perfectly fine when he asked him to leave, isn't that right Pip?”

Pippin nodded, his face a picture of worry and consternation.

“See? He'd never have left him otherwise. Now let's all just calm down and start thinking about where he might be.”

“Calm down? My dearest friend in the world has disappeared and you want me to calm down?” snapped Frodo, who hobbled his way past the cot to confront Merry. “Would you be so quick to keep calm if it was Pippin who was missing, hmm? I don't think so! You would have half the camp half way across Arda searching for him by now. But as it's just Sam, well! Let's just take a minute to calm down, shall we, because he doesn't really matter!”

Poor Pippin looked completely stricken at the sight of his dearest cousins squaring off against each other. “Please don't argue!” he begged.

But Merry was livid at the unfair accusation.

“Doesn't really matter? Well you'd know that better than anyone, wouldn't you, Frodo?” replied Merry in a very dangerous voice, and it was so unlike his usual happy tone that it sent chills down Gandalf's back. “After all, you're the one who told him you couldn't bear the sight of him. Rather ungrateful after all he's done for you, don't you think?”

“Enough!” cried Gandalf.

Merry ignored him, too.

“And why is it that you can't stand the sight of Sam now, Frodo, hmm? Is it because he reminds you of what happened? Or is it -” he advanced a step, until he was mere inches from the heaving Master of Bag End “- is it really because he saved your life, and now you have to live with what happened? It would have been much more convenient for you if you had just died, wouldn't it? Then you wouldn't have to live with all of this.”

He waved an arm aimlessly about the tent, as if trying to encapsulate the woes of the world within its circle..

“But no. That Sam! He had the nerve to serve you faithfully and save your life, and here you are: wounded, broken, but alive. You could have had a hero's death were it not for him; but instead, you find yourself having to do what the rest of us mere mortals must. You have to live with your memories. You have to try and deal with them, and that makes you furious!”

“Enough!” cried Gandalf once more as Frodo stumbled back from Merry, ashen-faced. Pippin wept, and as neither of his kin were in much of a state to comfort him, Gimli stomped over and laid an awkward arm around the hobbit's shoulder.

“Pippin, how long ago did you leave Sam,” asked the wizard urgently.

“It...it was only a minute or t...two after you and Strider l...left.”

“Gimli and I left Frodo and Merry after Pippin found us,” commented Legolas, his fair face clouded with worry. “We returned here immediately – to the spot where Aragorn found us – and saw no movement until the three hobbits returned from the river's edge. Alas that we were not here earlier!”

This was not what Gandalf had hoped to hear, for it meant the gardener had several hours' start on them. Desperate, determined and stubborn as he was, Sam could be anywhere by now.

If he was even still alive.

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Author's Note: Another dramatic finish, I know. I did try to lighten it a little earlier on, and I will do so again the next chapter. How I'm going to bring levity into such a tense situation is anyone's guess, but the tension does need a little cutting, so I'm sure I'll think of something ...

Kara's Aunty ;)