The Adventures of Frodo Gardner
Volume VIII From the Ashes a Fire Shall be Woken By Dolores J. Nurss
Chapter 25, Part 270 Homecoming February 30
Frodo saw the crowds on the docks some ways away, but of course they
hadn’t turned out for him. The ship sailed in to port; he tried to stay
out from under foot of all the tall men throwing out rope and shipping
the oars, furling the sails and opening the hatch. The hull shuddered
with a thump as it nudged its way into its berth. Frodo took a deep
breath. Home at last.
He watched, small and unnoticed, from the deck, as people swarmed
around the crates and barrels as fast as sailors could unload them. He
saw Aloe down there, setting aside such cargo as would have to travel
to recipients further inland, and he saw Hand O’ Plenty directing some
struggling apprentices on how to keep control of an angry sow without
her land-legs yet. Cork came for a package; he stopped to chat with
Leech a bit, before tucking the bundle under his arm and moving on.
They all looked careworn; these months had not gone by without some
trouble, Frodo could see that much. Yet none looked malnourished, and a
few of the womenfolk apparently enjoyed the liberty of sending out for
bright new bolts of fabric, judging by the hues that winked between the
slats of crates. Indeed, some folks already wore more colorful attire,
a weskit here, a kerchief there, a bit of bright red lace peeping from
beneath a dust-gray skirt. It made him smile.
“Ah, Seaside!” He sighed and said no more. He couldn’t put his feelings
into words, couldn’t sort them out enough to speak of, all of the dark
and bright emotions tangled up together, except to know that it added
up to love.
Somebody spotted him and pointed. More and more people began to stare
up at him, and the bustle died down a little. Some scowled, some shook
their heads, and a few tentatively smiled back at him; he expected no
better. People kept eyeing him with their heads close together to speak
quietly among themselves.
Then someone called out from the crowd, “Ey, Frodo, Welcome home,
laddie!” He didn’t recognize the voice and couldn’t tell where it came
from, but it didn’t matter when his heart swelled up with relief. More
voices took it up, and some hands waved. He grinned, self-conscious,
and waved back. Even the scowling faces showed more of a resigned
disappointment than anger, and most of the people looked on him with
some degree of pity and compassion. Mordor folk do not judge much, and
at that moment Frodo appreciated it with a gratitude bordering on tears.
He walked down the plank, arm in arm with Mattie. He seemed to shrink
with each step, now reaching eye-level with the Seaside people, now
passing below it. Hard hands clapped him on the back when he reached
the crowd, and he nodded and smiled at the murmured greetings, “Good to
have ya back among the living, Frodo.” “Ready for a lil’ work, now,
laddie?” “Gotta get some meat on them bones, though.” “Feelin’ better,
are ya?” “Better late than never, eh?” “Me too, Frodo–went through the
same filthy mess, meself, an’ not too long ago.” “That’s how ya do it,
Frodo–ya fall down, ya get back up.”
In a short while, though, most of the crowd went back to their
business. Just as well; Frodo found that he needed to take such
welcomes in small doses. However, one tall figure, blonde fuzz radiant
on his head, pushed through the crowds to reach him–and this one he
very much wanted to greet.
“Frodo!” Lanethil cried. “I feared never to lay eyes on you again! Then
I received Mattie’s letter, and knew you would return, though not
today, I did not expect to find you here at all today. How good it is
to see you!”
But then Pearl shouldered past him and whisked both hobbits up into a
bosom grown still more bountiful than Frodo had remembered, so that
their feet briefly left the ground. “Oh, ye poor little darlings!” She
set them down again, holding them at arm’s length. “How thin ye’ve both
become. And you...you!” Whack!
Frodo threw up his arms as Pearl commenced to swat him and swat him
again, tears running down her chubby cheeks, till Lanethil physically
restrained her.
“You must forgive my wife; her emotions can...”
“How could ye do this to yerself, Frodo?” she wailed over the elf’s arms. “How could ye leave us all–everbody who loves ye–to, to, to...” Red-faced, she gulped for air, then bawled, “How COULD ye?” Then she sobbed against Lanethil’s chest. “Oh, the poor, poor wee fools!”
“My wife loves you,” Lanethil said simply, stroking her hair. “She
always will, Frodo–even as I love you, myself.” As Pearl collected
herself, drying her eyes on a floury apron, Lanethil said, “I for my
part will never forget my gratitude to you–for leading me back into
companionship, for introducing me to my wife, and for saving my life
from that cursed crown–each thing, by itself, meriting eternal
thankfulness. So can you see how either of us might burn with anger
against anyone who would do you harm–even if it proves to be you
yourself?”
“Come, come,” Pearl said, forcing a smile. “To me shop, good hobbits.
There, there, fergive me fer tetchin’ at ye like that. Ya needs feedin’
more’n scoldin’ by the look o’ ye both. Oh, I knew ye wouldn’t be in
the primest shape, Frodo, but...Mattie! What did ye drag her into, that
she...”
“I...I will tell you later,” Mattie said. “Frodo had nothing to do with that.”
“What...whatever it might...oh ya poor dear!”
Some guess seemed to flash across her face. She swept them along with
stout arms that might have knocked over an interfering warrior.
“Clove-almond cheesecake,” she prescribed. “Me latest recipe. Rich
enough to comfert any heart. And after that ye can try the marmelade
turnovers, whilst I fix lunch.”
“Thank you,” Frodo gasped, trying to keep up with her prodding as she
steered them towards her bakery and her own little cottage attached to
it. “But where is Nibs?” His heart sank as he asked them, “Is he still
so angry that he will not greet his nephew at the dock?”
“Nibs has much to concern him,” Lanethil said, opening the bakery door,
releasing a warm air full of sweet spices into their face. “I am sure
that he has lost all track of the date and has not yet looked up from
his labors to notice sails upon the sea. Do not think too much of it.”
Frodo eyed him, as Pearl pushed them into chairs, noticing that the elf did not precisely say, “Think nothing of it.” And he had caught no glimpse of Bergil, or of Elenaril, Spring, Fishenchips, or any of his household.
“Here, this will start ye off proper,” Pearl said, plopping down huge
slices of cheesecake in front of them, then burying it all in fresh
whipped cream, and adding a sprinkling of date bits and slivered nuts
to finish it off. Before the hobbits could thank her she bustled off to
lean out the back door, shouting something about sending a fatted calf
off to Hand O’ Plenty. As she hastened back into the kitchen, calling
out orders to still others, Frodo had the leisure to see, away from the
crowds, that she had grown quite as round as a compendium of great
pearls indeed, at least as large as the cook who went before her, yet
somehow more pleasing in distribution, and certainly more kindly in the
face.
“We have many servants, now,” Lanethil explained, while Pearl sent a
chubby girl off to a spring for cold milk. “More than we can find work
for, betimes, until we invent new tasks. Yet Pearl will not send anyone
away hungry, and will hire whomever looks willing to labor for food,
and to split the profits as they come. Indeed, she has expanded her
business, bakery and dairy and livestock, to keep everyone busy. And I
take on apprentices and journeymen, as well, for metalwork and the
expanding trade in glass. The potters, at least, earn enough gold to
still buy our wares. And still more folk from other villages send for
biscuits, cheeses, and aught else that travels well.”
Frodo frowned. “Has Seaside seen hard...” but just then Pearl returned with the turnovers.
“The beef’ll not be fit till dinner at the earliest,” she announced,
“or maybe even supper, but I’ll have some cold cuts carved up fer
sandwiches to tide ye over fer lunch–and ye shall see if I still make
the best cramsome bread east of the Anduin. Don’t’ee like me
cheesecake, sweeties?” So the hobbits couldn’t get a word out until
they had cleaned their plate several times over. Eventually, as
generously crammed with welcome-home hospitality as their skins would
allow for now, they recounted as much of their adventures as they could
before tea-time, by which hour they had found some more room for
Pearl’s next round of cossetting, while Lanethil sat chuckling softly
at the sight, smoking his pipe in the corner. By the time they had
worked through dinner (at a much more leisurely pace, talking
extensively between mouthfuls to give time for each bite to settle)
Mattie and Frodo had filled in their friends as far as Frodo’s
encounter with Yavanna in the Nurnen Marsh.
“You are a woman after my mother’s heart,” Frodo finally gasped,
loosening his belt for the third time. “If this continues much longer,
you shall have to butter me up along with the buns just to squeeze me
out the door!”
“While you can still fit,” Lanethil said with a smile, “I might
recommend a long, leisurely walk before supper.” He rose and offered
his hand to Frodo. Yet above the smile a serious look now creased his
brow, and Frodo recalled that he had meant to ask Lanethil something.
“I will stay here,” Mattie said, “For some things are best left spoken
only from one woman to another.” Pearl nodded solemnly, handing over
the dishes to a couple of young helpers, then waving them away as she
set down beside the hobbit.
Frodo could hardly wait to get out to fresh air. “My but Pearl has
become a force to reckon with!” he exclaimed. “How do you stay so lean,
Lanethil?”
“I have much work to do, as smith and glass-blower, and much dancing in
my spare time, and a will as firm as my wife’s when it comes to
determining the size of my own plate.” He laughed. “Not to mention that
she likes me as I am, though she will not admit it, even as I like her
to thrive as herself.” Yet the laughter did not remain long in him.
Frodo noticed how swept and tidy the streets looked, how well-repaired
and freshly painted stood every door and shutter, and each wall looked
well-maintained according to its kind, though the few flowers in the
planters looked pale and droopy. Whatever had happened had not capsized
the local morale. He said, “We don’t walk merely to shake down room for
more food, do we? Where are we going, Lanethil?”
“To the fields.” And as Lanethil spoke the words, a sudden homesickness
for the tilled soil of Seaside welled up in Frodo. “Did you know that
you have become one with this land?”
“In a sense, perhaps. I suppose that any hobbit does who plows and
plants. Or so my father told me when I left Bag End behind.”
“In perhaps a different sense than your esteemed sire might have meant,
great though his wisdom might be. For you have become deeply immersed
in what you might call a form of magic, a sort of antithesis to
Sauron’s tricks.” The road led upward now, past the higher village
houses, climbing towards the plateau above. “I cannot know for sure,
yet I suspect that your talisman has amplified perception far more than
its original design intended, what with the power of love that binds
it. And now I see that you have added still more power to it since last
we met; the effect can only increase.”
“But what does perception have to do with the land?”
“Everything. Especially perception amplified by love. The more you
perceive of a thing, loving it the while, the more you become one with
it. And you have bent your will towards this earth from the day that
you arrived, with a solicitous heart and a compassionate hand, till by
the time you had abandoned your post, your post could not abandon you.”
“Am I like the elves, then? Like you? But not as intensely as the elves, surely.”
“Not in the same way, yet do not be too certain about the intensity.
The land molds us more than the reverse. You mold the land. And you
have affected me profoundly, Frodo. Did you know that for months after
you left, I could not stomach a single sip of wine? For you have
drenched the country in your misery. Behold what is left of the fields
which you had cultivated!”
They had risen up past the last house now, and Frodo saw great gouges
in the plateau ahead, as though some monstrous cat had clawed it into
ribbons, leaving wounds so deep that a tall man could not see out of
them. New cliffs of moist red clay gaped raw beneath the sun, stinking
of the stagnant pools that fermented in each depth.
“Good heavens!” Frodo cried. “What happened?”
“You happened,” Lanethil said quietly.
|