Chapter 66. Laying Down the Fight

Freddy and Budgie planned to depart early in the morning on the third of October, make a slow, easy journey to Bywater, where they’d stay over the evening of the fifth of October, then arrive at Bag End just after noontide. Frodo would already be in his study, Freddy would plead exhaustion, Budgie would pop him into a bed and persuade Sam to take Rose and baby Elanor to the farm for the evening, to keep things as quiet as possible for Mr Freddy. Frodo had been fairly sure that soft-hearted Sam would accede to this request.

‘There’s only one problem with the plan,’ Freddy said as the coach slowly ascended the Hill.

‘What’s that?’ Budgie said. ‘D’you think we’ll have more trouble prying Sam away from Mr Baggins than he expected?’

‘No,’ Freddy said. ‘The way we’ve planned things leaves me no time to fawn over little Ellie.’

‘Ah, well, you’ll just have to survive this, then,’ Budgie said. ‘Think of what you have to look forward to.’

He spoke lightly though his heart was heavy. Mr Freddy was improving slowly, but was he strong enough for this? He added, ‘Perhaps, if your cousin has continued as well as he was after his rest at Midge Hall, he might even survive this spell.’

‘That would be a mercy,’ Freddy said. ‘His greatest ambition these days is to die quietly in bed.’

‘We’ll see if we cannot help him achieve that aim,’ Budgie answered soberly.

Arriving at Bag End, things went much as they’d been planned. Budgie helped Freddy from the coach and into the smial, where solicitous Sam showed them to the best guest room. Once Budgie had tucked Freddy up, he returned to the hallway for a whispered consultation with the Gamgees.

‘Welcome!’ Sam said. ‘Mr Frodo was that worried when you didn’t arrive yesterday as planned.’ ...or so he’d been informed. The announced date of the visit had been October the fifth, all part of the plan, of course.

‘Mr Freddy had a bad spell in the coach yesterday, just before we reached Bywater,’ Budgie said. ‘We stopped then and there, stayed over at the Green Dragon. I’m sorry, I ought to have sent a message up the Hill but I was beside myself. He’s a little better this day, and insisted on completing the journey.’

Frodo came from the study, fetched by Rose. He was pale, but Sam might attribute that to worry over his cousin. ‘How is he?’ he whispered.

‘Resting,’ Budgie said. ‘He needs absolute quiet for a day or two.’ Taking Frodo’s arm, he led the way to the kitchen, the Gamgees following. ‘I don’t want to leave him for long, but...’ he looked at Rose. ‘This is difficult,’ he said.

‘Please,’ she answered. ‘Say what you need to say.’

‘I hate to throw you out of your home,’ the healer said reluctantly. ‘But—would it be too much to ask you to take the babe and go to the farm for a day or two? Mr Freddy was dearly looking forward to seeing little Ellie, but I would prefer that he sleep, at least until the morrow.’

Just then, a cry came from Sam and Rosie’s bedroom, little Ellie herself, wakening from her nap. Budgie winced, and Rose hastened to pick up the little one. She quickly changed Ellie’s wet things and then nursed the little one immediately, silencing the cries. When she brought the dry, satisfied little one out to the kitchen, Budgie exclaimed softly. ‘How she’s grown!’

‘Indeed,’ Sam said proudly. ‘She’s nearly six months old, you know.’

‘Sam,’ Frodo said, as if struck by a sudden thought. ‘Why don’t you go off with your family, make it a proper holiday? I’ll sit with Freddy...’

‘I can cook well enough to keep body and soul together,’ Budgie said. ‘Neither your master nor mine starved, the last time you went to the farm.’

Sam was obviously reluctant, but Frodo and Budgie talked him round, and before he knew it, he and Rose and baby Ellie had packed up and Freddy’s coach was taking them down the Hill in style.

When they were well gone, Freddy emerged from his sickbed. ‘It’s a miracle!’ he said. ‘I’m well.’

‘How nice,’ Frodo said, and shivered. Freddy was instantly at his side.

‘A chill, cousin?’

‘Yes, that is how it starts,’ Frodo answered. ‘Last year I was shut up in the study, and Sam didn’t see or know until the bad spell was nearly over.’

‘No need to shut yourself up and shiver,’ Budgie said, keeping his tone cheerful. ‘We’ll tuck you up in bed with hot bottles and hot drinks and pleasant company.’ He suited word to action, noting that Mr Baggins’ left hand and arm were icy cold to the touch, and his heart was beating faster than it ought.

The cousins chatted through the rest of the afternoon, sipping cups of warming tea. Budgie renewed the hot bottles and flannel-wrapped warmed bricks and the teapot at intervals, and brought in trays of food at teatime, which Freddy jollied Frodo into joining him in consuming.

As darkness fell outside, Budgie lit all the lamps he could find in the smial and brought quite a few into the bedroom. ‘Light, to chase away the dark,’ he said. ‘I have a lovely stew simmering away for supper, and bread about to go into the oven.’ He took up Frodo’s right hand. ‘How’s your cousin?’ he said. The weakened heart was beating much too fast for his comfort.

Frodo had fallen into a dream as darkness crept over the land, no longer answering when Freddy spoke to him. ‘He’s fighting, I hope,’ Freddy said. ‘He said he would, anyhow.’

‘He’s not breathing as well as I’d like,’ Budgie said. ‘Let us prop him up sitting.’ He pulled down the covers to check the feet, finding them swollen. ‘The dropsy again,’ he muttered. ‘I’ll brew some more herbs, if you think you can get him to drink it.’

Freddy squeezed Frodo’s icy left hand. ‘You’ll drink it, won’t you cousin?’ he said. He was encouraged when Frodo turned his head slightly in his direction. ‘That’s right.’ He squeezed the hand again. ‘Keep fighting, cousin. We’ll get through this, yet.’

Looking back to Budgie, he added, ‘Warm some more bricks, whilst you’re at it.’ Budgie nodded, carefully wrapped the right hand once again about Arwen’s jewel, and left the room.

Soon Freddy heard the whistle of the teakettle and the clatter of a lid. ‘Smell that stew,’ he said to Frodo. ‘That’ll hit the spot.’ Frodo smiled faintly, and the cousins sat in silence for a few moments.

Freddy blinked. The lantern-light was flickering, or he was getting sleepy. He felt, rather than saw, a shadow rise, and then Frodo stiffened beside him. Freddy opened his mouth to call out to Budgie, but no sound came forth as the shadow grew before his eyes. He thought he heard a faint hiss as of venomous breath and felt a thin chill that pierced the marrow of his bones, colder than the ice that was Frodo’s left hand.

Freddy felt a warning pounding in his own breast, but he had no thought for himself, only to shield his cousin from approaching menace. He staggered up from his chair and sank down on the bed beside Frodo, circling his cousin with his arms. ‘Fight, Frodo!’ he gasped, forcing out the words against the unreasoning terror that seized him. Frodo’s right hand released the jewel to grasp his arm in desperate hold.

At that moment everything became terribly clear. A tall figure in long robes of grey stood at the foot of the bed, keen and merciless eyes burned in a white face, upon his long and gleaming hair he wore a crowned helm of silver. In one hand he held a long sword, and in the other, gleaming palely, a knife whose blade was notched. ‘Come not between the Nazgul and his prey,’ a cold voice said, though the stern mouth never moved.

‘You cannot have him,’ Freddy shouted, but a mere whisper disturbed the stillness of the night air. ‘Fight, Frodo!’ he begged, and his cousin’s grip intensified, though Frodo’s breath came sharp and fast.

‘You have no more power, you were banished,’ Freddy gasped. A scrap of memory came to him, a voice bodiless and thin that died, and was swallowed up, and was never heard again in that age of this world.

So Frodo wrote, he thought. Was he wrong? And now the voice is heard once more, one last time?

Cold laughter answered him. ‘I left a deed unfinished in the old age,’ the chilling voice mocked, ‘and a new age is dawning... he is mine! I need only end what I started, and I may rest.’ The notched knife glinted with otherworldly light.

Elbereth! Freddy thought, but he could not get the word out. The point of the sword was at his heart, he felt the prick of cold steel, and the wraith smiled cruelly. He would take Frodo, Freddy realised with horror. In spite of all their plans, he would take Frodo and drag him down into the darkness.

At that moment, Samwise burst into the room, shouting, ‘Hold on, Mr Frodo! I’m coming!’ He raced to the chest and flung it open, seizing something within that flared out in a light so brilliant that Freddy gasped and looked away.

Gilthoniel A Elbereth! Sam cried. The pale king quailed before the brightness shining from his hand, falling back as the star-glass drove all shadows from the room.

Freddy found his own voice again. ‘Back!’ he cried. ‘Back to the nameless place whence you came! You have no power here!’

The pale king snarled and Freddy felt the sword bite deeper, but Sam advanced on the fell figure, holding the star-glass before him, crying out.

A Elbereth Gilthoniel
o menel palan-diriel,
le nallon si di’nguruthos!
A tiro nin, Fanuilos!

The wraith fell away, fading before the light, which flared once more in blinding power, then dimmed.

‘O Sam,’ Frodo breathed, his grip on Freddy loosening, his hand falling away.

‘He’s gone, Mr Frodo,’ Sam said, falling to his knees beside the bed. ‘He’s gone.’

‘Sam,’ Frodo said again, and sighed. The light left his eyes, but peace settled upon his countenance. His eyes slowly closed, and he looked as if he were asleep, content and unafraid. Freddy fancied that a pale glimmer came from his cousin, an echo of the light from the fading star-glass, perhaps. The hand with the missing finger rested lightly upon the white jewel.

‘Mr Frodo?’ Sam said, tears spilling from his eyes. ‘Mr Frodo?’

‘He’s won the battle, Sam,’ Freddy said softly. ‘The Shadow did not take him after all.’ His arms tightened about his cousin, and he laid his face upon Frodo’s shoulder and wept.

‘Freddy?’ Budgie’s voice came to him, a tinge of anxiety colouring his usual cheery tone. ‘Mr Freddy?’ A hand took his shoulder in a gentle grasp. ‘Freddy, the day’s arrived.’

Freddy lifted his head, to find himself embracing his pillow, bedcovers tangled about his legs and feet. ‘Budgie?’ he said, confused. Blinking, he formed another question. ‘What—what day?’

‘October the third,’ Budgie said, regarding him intently. The healer circled his fingers around Freddy's wrist. ‘Breakfast is ready, the coach is before the door, and we can set off as soon as you please.’

Freddy moved slowly, stiff and sore, still feeling somehow the lingering chill in his breast from the sword of nightmare. ‘Are you well, Freddy? Are you well enough to do this?’ Budgie said, helping him to sit up with one strong hand while the other continued to hold the wrist in a light but firm grip.

‘I have to do this thing,’ Freddy said. ‘If I had any doubt before, I’ve absolutely no doubts at all, now. And Budgie,’ he added, looking up, raising a hand to rub at the back of his neck.

‘Yes, Freddy?’ Budgie said, relaxing as his seeking fingers found a strong, steady pulse in the wrist he held.

‘I don’t know quite how to manage it, but Samwise... he’s got to be there,’ Freddy said.

‘I thought all this was about sparing him the pain of—’ Budgie began, but Freddy shook his head.

‘No,’ he said decisively. ‘No matter what Frodo says... even if we have to conspire with Sam, make Frodo think he’s gone to the farm... Sam must be there.’

Budgie shook his head. ‘You and your “conspiracies”, Mr Freddy,’ he said. ‘If you’re quite sure...’

‘Quite sure,’ Freddy said.

(10/24/2004)