The Adventures of Frodo Gardner
Volume II Through Shadows to the Edge of Night By Dolores J. Nurss
Chapter 13, Part 43 Back to the Waking World (December 12, 1451)
Frodo had no idea how he
had gotten through that day. First he had politics to
face--so many hands to shake, so many strangers to talk
intelligibly to without reference to visionary dreams.
Then he had to meet with several bureaucrats in turn
before he could learn where to collect the back pay owed
him since the King first called him into service. After
that he took on the chaos of outfitting his expedition to
Mordor, tracking down all the different little shops he
needed in a vast and unfamiliar city, while trying to
figure out how the post worked in Minas Tirith so he
could get his letter sent home.
Frodo had hoped that Bergil might help him, but court
demanded the ranger's presence. Eventually pages summoned
Frodo, too, to testify regarding the assault against him on the access road; he had to relive in detail the
fear, the rage, the grief--and all the while the
aftermath of Valinor's light amplified his memory, so
that he smelled again the mingled scents of pine and
blood, he shivered in the distant snow, and Billie-Lass's
neighs of pain reverberated in his head. Then he stood
there and endured the brigand heaping counter-accusations
on him, until even by the fairest measure the King had
heard enough and judged the blonde man guilty anyway. But
before Frodo could reunite with his friend, the King
needed Bergil for some other errand, while the page
showed Frodo out into the streets again, after shaking
his head and telling the hobbit no, he had no idea where
in Minas Tirith one might buy blocks of eastern ink.
All this Frodo had to manage on a day when he found it
challenging even to button his waistcoat without
fingering the intensely textural wooden buttons as though
they had been talismans of power and import. He stumbled
through his tasks in the lingering intoxication of his
dream, intensely aware of every least detail of the
beauty all around him, yet hardly remembering what he
said to whom or how he finally obtained the supplies he
did. Had his duties permitted, he could have spent hours
contemplating dust motes glinting in the sunlight or the
mountainous ridges on a crumpled ball of paper tossed
aside.
Frodo could well understand why mortals could not last
long in the brilliance of the Undying Lands! But now he
also understood that it did not matter, that in that
country one lived years in seconds, ages in an hour, that
his namesake had lived a rich, full life no calendar
could measure, and in some sense his presence had
imprinted on the land that knows no stain and no real
time, and he had never really died. It could well be,
Frodo thought, that years from now a traveler might sail
to that shore and set foot into the exact same day that
the Bagginses had arrived, and find them both alive.
But that had nothing to do with haggling over the price
of flints and steel, or getting the rip in his weskit
stitched back up. He had a letter of requisition to take
up to the tower buttery for field rations, Sting to take
to the armory for attention to that loose bolt in the
sheath, and an apothecary to track down, on Strider's
advice, for a soap that could repel the biting gnats
of Mordor. And Frodo had a blur of forms to fill out, to
confirm his commission, to consent to all the details of
how he should be paid and what his care should be in
sickness or in injury, and how best to notify his next of
kin...
How do you pretend that an entire world--and more than
that, a whole new way to see--does not exist? How do you
go out and act like everybody else, as though life really
did revolve around lists and ledgers, as though boredom
made up the warp and woof of life and all else added up
to nothing more than pigment painted on the surface, an
illusion? How do you keep from shouting in the streets,
"Look! There is magic in these stones and wood, in
the glass and metal and clay, magic throbbing in the
living sap and blood, radiating in the sunlight and
lurking in the shadows! Listen! All of this is real!"
Dare you tell people that they are the ones out of touch
with reality, not you? Or do you force yourself to go
about your business like the rest, like nothing has
changed, frustrated and yet maddeningly in love with all
these flawed and homely persons most beautiful of all
that a whole new world of miracles has to offer--and not
even aware, themselves, of their own glory!
And Frodo had to wonder--how many others out there saw
what he did, blending in just like him, praying that the
blindness all around them would not infect them, too,
begging never to forget? Did Gandalf feel this way, when
he walked in Middle Earth? Did the blindness creep over
Saruman so slowly that he never knew it happened? How in
Middle Earth could such a vision happen to a hobbit?
Hardest of all had been Frodo's meeting with the Queen,
for he saw in her face the visage of the healer in his
dream. She had said little to him from her lips--courtly
words, appropriate to the occasion, not meaning much
beyond the assurance that proprieties had been kept, his
errand acknowledged, her blessing given. But other
communication flooded into him from her, of a kind he had
never experienced before, as though his sleeping journey
had endowed him with a sense till then unknown. Arwen's
thoughts seemed to enter his heart and radiate from
there. She told him that his mission mattered more than
anyone could put into words, that kings and queens,
warriors and masters of lore, existed so that gardeners
and farmers could ply their trade in peace, nurturing the
land and the people, and so that life, such as he served,
could prosper undisturbed.
Then she had motioned Frodo forward, dismissing all of
the ladies in waiting and the guards. She had bent to him
and laid her hand--her delicate, powerful hand--right
over his heart that had told him so much. And she felt
there what he now wore suspended on a cord about his
neck, and suddenly he understood. "It was well
given," she said audibly, and the words sang in his
head. "Carry it with you always, you who are beloved
of Good-Sprung-From-Evil. The Unloved shall love you, and
bear rich fruit for you, to the measure that you love
back--so you shall find in the land of Mordor, that all
men dread. And so you shall find elsewhere in your life,
as well."
Finally, much to his surprise, she straightened with
suddenly twinkling eyes and winked at him, saying,
"You may keep whatever secrets my husband bids you
leave unspoken--but I know all about little Luthie."
And with that she summoned back her handmaidens and shut
the doors.
He only dimly remembered returning to his quarters after
that. He had no idea how much time he'd spent simply
sitting on his bed--seeing, hearing, feeling the wool
beneath his hands, smelling the air come through the
window; everything rushed in on him again as it had that
morning. But gradually his perceptions quieted down to
something less than the splendors of Valinor; he settled
back into being Frodo Gardner, son of Samwise, hobbit of
the Shire, and felt content.
(Yet he did not forget...)
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