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In Green Fields
“The King! Where is the King?” the young esquire ran wildly through the
encampment. “He is most urgently needed!”
Aragorn heard the shrill cry as he sat wearily at his ease under the shelter of
one of the white silken tents, and sighed as he snuffed out his long pipe. “Ah,
laddie, they’d be after you again,” chuckled Gimli, as he and Legolas sat
companionably near the man, Gimli in a leather camp-chair, and Legolas
gracefully sprawled on the grass.
It had been but a few hours since the great cloud arose out of the East as the
Black Gate fell. The bulk of the Enemy’s forces had fled in despair and ruin,
and Aragorn had left the remaining tasks of the battlefield to the forces of
Gondor and the Rohirrim. He was weary, bone-weary, now that the immediate threat
had been vanquished. Along with his companions, the Elf and Dwarf, he had found
his way to a back corner of the encampment, there to eat a bit of hastily
prepared stew, and to gather up his strength and energy once more. But here came
a messenger, and Aragorn’s moment of peace was over.
“Lord Elfstone!” panted the youth as he burst past the guard outside, his black
leather tunic, with the white tree blazoned upon it, disheveled and bloodied.
“Let him pass,” Aragorn held up a restraining hand to the guard. Silently, he
waited for the squire to continue.
“Lord Gandalf,” the messenger gasped. “He most urgently bids you come. He sends
word that the Ringbearer has been found.”
“The Ringbearer?” Aragorn cried out in amazement, leaping to his feet. Suddenly,
he realized that he had not seen Gandalf since the arrival of the Eagles. But
there was no time to think. “Where, lad, where?” he cried out, unknowingly
grasping the boy’s shoulder.
“The tent of the healers,” was the quick answer, and Aragorn was gone.
Gandalf was bent over the low, wide pallet as Aragorn entered the tent of the
healers. The cot was laid with soft mattresses and covered with white scrubbed
linen. In the center were what appeared at first glance as a couple of bundles
of filthy rags and sticks. Gandalf turned then to him, and some dispassionate
corner of Aragorn’s mind registered the fact the there were the tracks of tears
on Gandalf’s furrowed cheeks. “We asked far too much of them,” he whispered,
looking slowly up to Aragorn. “And yet they gave it.”
With a shock, Aragorn realized that it was indeed Frodo and Sam that he looked
upon, on that wide snowy bed. They were blackened, charred, begrimed, with faces
that were gaunt and hollowed, and limbs that no longer showed the padding of
flesh. They were wrapped in remnants of only the foulest of rags, and as they
lay unconscious, Sam still clasped Frodo’s hands tightly in his, which were
covered in the deep red of yet fresh blood. But the expression on both of their
faces was untroubled and tranquil, beyond pain and torment.
“Are they yet…” breathed Aragorn, sinking to his knees beside the low bed.
“”There is yet life in them both,” Gandalf murmured, “but it fades quickly. All
your skill shall be needed, Aragorn, or they shall be lost to us.”
Long and far Aragorn called to the Ringbearer, until at last he found Frodo, and
the will of the hobbit slowly and reluctantly turned back to plea of the king.
“Come back, Frodo, there are many here who love you and your time is not yet
over.” And as Gandalf and the other healers watched, Frodo gasped in his deep
sleep, and his breathing steadied.
But when Aragorn turned to the Ringbearer’s companion, he could not be found.
And even as Aragorn frantically sought his life’s force, he felt Sam fading away
from him, even as his heartbeat, once so strong and sure, faltered and then
stopped. Grief-stricken, he withdrew from the emaciated hobbit and laid gentle
hands upon his forehead. “Farewell, most valiant of hobbits,” he whispered, his
voice desolate with pain.
“He never did leave him,” Gandalf murmured, as Aragorn reluctantly lifted his
head, tears flowing unheeded down his cheeks. Tenderly, the wizard‘s great hand
covered the two hobbits‘ yet tightly clasped hands. “He gave his life that Frodo
might complete his task. Never have I known a greater heart than that of Master
Samwise Gamgee.”
And even as the two watched, Frodo inhaled quickly, his chest fluttering, as he
gratefully inhaled the clear clean air of Cormallen, and slowly his eyes opened.
“Gandalf,” he whispered, his voice nearly a harsh croak, his eyes blinking as
though blinded by the light.
“Yes, my dear Frodo,” Gandalf answered tenderly, tightening his grip carefully.
“My dear hobbit, we are both back, you see.”
“And Sam?” Frodo breathed, continuing to gaze into Gandalf’s eyes.
Gandalf bowed his head, unable to continue. It was then Frodo looked down at his
hands, still held by Sam, and then into Sam’s face, tranquil and at peace, as he
lay beside him, utterly still.
Frodo slowly broke one hand from Sam’s grasp, and it was only then that the
onlookers saw the bloody stump, the maimed and shattered hand. Yet Frodo gave it
no thought as he slowly raised it to the side of Sam’s still face, and turned
towards him, as if there were no other in all the world, and nothing else that
had ever mattered. With infinite tenderness, he touched Sam and spoke words for
him alone, and all the rest withdrew, leaving the Ringbearer with his companion.
It was thus that Aragorn and Gandalf found them, an hour later , when they
returned. Frodo had fallen asleep once again, the one hand still in Sam’s clasp,
and the other, mutilated and bloodied, holding Sam tightly to him. And Sam lay
next to Frodo, his head nestled in the crook of Frodo’s neck, both hands still
wrapped around Frodo’s, his eyes closed, breathing deeply and steadily.
That evening, Aragorn stared into the fire that had been lit in his makeshift
quarters. Of all the sights that he had seen that day, there was one that
haunted him beyond all others. Gandalf sat at his side, sipping at his goblet of
wine, his own eyes gazing unseeingly at the tented walls.
“I felt his heart stop,” Aragorn finally broke the silence in a harsh whisper.
“I felt him leave me. Gandalf, he was dead.” He stopped at that, with a sort of
desperate check in his voice. “How can this be? What sort of power has Frodo
gained?”
“Frodo?” the old wizard stared at him sharply in the flickering light. “Frodo
has no power here.” Turning his gaze back to the regal, jewel-encrusted goblet,
he permitted himself a small smile. “Sauron underestimated the nature of
hobbits, to his ruin. Have you not learned by now, Aragorn, that there is very
little that can withstand the heart of a hobbit?” Slowly he rose to leave, but
turned at the tent’s entrance. Dark eyes stared piercingly back at Aragorn, as
the man sought to make sense of what Gandalf had just told him. “Sam came back
for him, of course.”
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