Clarity of Purpose, Chapter 20
Title: Clarity of Purpose, Chap. 20
Chapter Summary: Old friends are met, stories are told, and the Fellowship reaches Saynshar, capital of the East.
Relationship: Thorin/Bilbo
Characters: Bilbo Baggins, Thorin Oakenshield, Denethor, Gimli, Dis, Arwen, Aragorn, Legolas, Theoden
Fandom: Hobbit/Lord of the Rings. Begins in 2968, twenty-six years after the events of "Clarity of Vision" and fifty years before the canonical events of "Lord of the Rings." Thus, characters' ages and the geopolitical situation will be different than LoTR canon!
Warnings/Spoilers: None
Rating: PG
Word Count: 4000
Summary: Thorin Oakenshield and Bilbo Baggins have been parted for many years now, despite the love they bear each other. Now Thorin's research has uncovered a dire threat to Middle Earth--the Ring he carried a little while and then gave to Bilbo. Together with a group of companions composed of the different Free Peoples of Middle Earth, they must attempt to destroy the artifact before its Dark Lord can re-capture it.
“No,” said Bilbo. “No, no, no--no!”
Dís paused, an exasperated look on her face. “Bilbo, the--” She glanced around at the bustling Wainrider camp and grimaced before continuing, “The--people--that pursued us into Taur-nu-Eleni are not dead, merely defeated. They saw you. So you cannot be seen in public as a hobbit.”
Thorin tried not to look amused as Bilbo glared around the campfire at the rest of the party. The left side of his face was covered with a fake goat’s-hair beard, which lent him an air of lopsided, furry fury. The other members of the Fellowship were not doing as well as Thorin in hiding their amusement. Bachai was cackling out loud from her perch nearest the fire: “My old bones deserve the extra heat,” she had snapped when claiming it.
Bilbo met Thorin’s eyes, and Thorin gave him a wry and apologetic head-tilt. Bilbo’s shoulders slumped. “I guess there’s nothing for it. But do I really have to wear these?” He lifted his right foot, encased in a heavy boot.
“You’ll attract notice if you’re barefoot,” Dís said firmly, and went back to sticking the beard on his face.
“My feet are sweltering,” Bilbo huffed. “Besides, I’m too short to pass for a dwarf anyway.”
Dís rested her hands on his shoulders. “I don’t know about that,” she said consideringly. “You’ve definitely put on some height recently. You’re taller than Balin now.”
“What?” Bilbo looked startled. “That’s impossible, hobbits don’t get taller at my age. Besides, I can’t be taller, I still need to go on tiptoes to--”
He broke off and his cheeks beneath the fake beard went quite red.
“I believe Thorin has gotten taller recently as well,” said Arwen, looking up from her embroidery, “Which why you still need to stand on tiptoes.”
Bilbo’s blush deepened, and Thorin spoke up to deflect some of the attention away from him. “I thought my clothing had shrunk somehow after leaving the garden of the Ents,” he said. “But now that you mention it, perhaps I have grown somewhat.”
“That’s...very strange,” Bilbo said, looking at his own hands. “No one else has grown?”
“Not that I am aware of,” said Estel with a glint of humor in his dark eyes.
“Maybe it was that spring you and I drank from?” Bilbo said to Thorin. “Wandlimb’s spring?”
“Perhaps. But whatever the cause, it is fortunate for us, because it makes it easier for you to pass disguised.”
Bilbo looked down at his booted feet and sighed. “I don’t like it.”
“What’s wrong with looking like a dwarf, eh?” grumbled Gimli.
“I suggest you try frowning more, and stomping around gracelessly,” said a light, clear voice, and Legolas suddenly emerged from the shadows, his high cheekbones and merry smile catching the golden light of the fire. “And mutter imprecations about elves.”
“Legolas!” cried Estel and Arwen in unison as everyone jumped to their feet--except Gimli, who stayed seated and frowning, although Thorin could have sworn he caught a glimpse of relief on his face for just a moment when he heard Legolas’s voice. “You found us!”
“A caravan is hardly difficult to track,” noted Legolas.
“And something of a pleasant change after the unearthly sights we’ve seen while on your trail,” said Théoden from behind him. He sat down next to Denethor and three of Bachai’s cats immediately seemed to decide his was the best lap in the camp. “Haunted woods and talking trees--you’ve led us on a merry chase!”
“But where is Gandalf?” asked Bilbo with a worried expression on his face.
“After hearing from the Ents that you were making for Saynshar, he announced he would go directly there and await us.” Théoden shrugged. “We stayed on your trail--and here we find our beloved hobbit in mid-transformation! You make a handsome dwarf, Mr. Baggins.” One of the cats sat up and head-butted his chin vigorously, purring, and he scratched its chin.
Denethor rubbed at his reddened nose and cast a venomous glance at him. “I should have known you’d love cats,” he said.
“And I should have known you couldn’t stand them,” retorted Théoden. “For you never could abide someone with an independent will.”
“Gentlemen, please,” said Thorin, weary already. “Can we put off the bickering for just a little longer?”
“I think that’s how they say they’re happy to see each other,” Bilbo said with a mischievous glint in his eye as he stomped experimentally around the fire.
“It would lessen Minas Tirith if her ally lost its heir,” snapped Denethor, “So of course I am happy to see him safe, annoying as he is.”
“Speaking of lost heirs--” Théoden began, then caught Estel’s warning eye and subsided reluctantly.
“Another elf,” said Bachai, watching them intently. “Interesting and more interesting!” She took a long drag from her paper tube and knocked the ashes off the end into the fire.
“Bachai is the owner of all these cats,” Denethor said, but she shook a bony finger at him.
“Not owner, oh no. Friend only. No one owns a cat. Does not the Tale of the Ten Cats of Gondor tell us so?”
“I don’t know that story, Bachai,” said Chechyegin, sitting at her feet. “Will you tell us?”
“Well,” said Bachai, “Once there was a Queen of the south, who wed a King of Gondor and came north to live. But she was a proud and solitary woman, and she misliked the city, and felt all were set against her, and she walked alone in the night clad in black and none trusted her.
“Then ten cats of Gondor felt pity in their hearts for her and her solitary ways, and her fierce spirit, and they swore fealty to her, and bound themselves to her. But alas, she proved unworthy of the loyalty of cats, for she used that bond to torture and to torment them, and make their wills subservient to hers. She denied them the joy of the hunt and the freedom of the moonlight, and forced them to spy upon the people of Gondor as if they were servants--as if they were dogs!” Bachai made an angry hissing noise, then sighed. “The whole tale--how despite their cruel enslavement they engineered the downfall of the Queen, and how they traveled south with her into exile, and how they won their freedom once more--is too long to tell this evening, but they serve as a reminder than no cat is ‘owned,’ though some do deign to live and work with us.” The mountain lion curled up at her side yawned and rolled over onto its back, and she stroked the dawn-colored fur of its stomach.
“That is not the tale they tell in Gondor of Queen Berúthiel and her cats,” said Denethor, his eyes narrowed.
“Is it not?” Bachai cackled briefly. “Well, this is the version the cats tell, and you of the city may tell your own!”
“If it is a night for stories,” said Estel, “I shall tell one of my own--about a dog, since the lady Bachai has seen fit to slander them,” he added with a smile.
She waved her hand at him indulgently. “Go on, go on, young puppy.”
“This is a part of the Lay of Leithian, or Release from Bondage, and is the story of Huan, the Hound of Valinor, and his faithful love for Beren and Lúthien.”
Estel’s voice was strong and resonant as he told of the adventures of Huan, and his love for the elf-princess Lúthien, and how when her love Beren had left them to assail Morgoth’s stronghold alone, Huan helped her find him once more. Bilbo shivered as Estel described the confrontation between Lúthien and the dread vampire Thuringwëthil, and how Lúthien stripped her of her bat-fell and sent her spirit unhoused away, and flew with the bat-wings of Thuringwëthil to find her love, and Huan ran at her side clad in the skin of the werewolf Drauglin.
“And Beren walked alone and recked his life little,” said Estel, “And sang as he walked of the beauty of Lúthien, for he thought to never see her again, in life or in death. But lo! She came to him unlooked-for, and his path and his life made sense once more when they embraced.”
And it seemed to Bilbo that he looked at Arwen as he said then, and she looked down at her embroidery and did not meet his eye, but Bilbo saw a smile curve her mouth before Estel continued his tale: how Huan helped Beren and Lúthien in all their troubles, but in the end died to kill the great wolf Carcharoth and save the kingdom of Doriath. “He died with Beren’s hand upon his head, bidding him farewell. So ends the tale of Huan the Faithful!” said Estel. “Greatest of friends to Beren and to Lúthien the Fair.”
“And much good his loyalty did him,” snapped Bachai, but Bilbo thought her eyes were over-bright and she sniffed a few times, almost angrily. “You gathered green wood for the fire, it smokes terribly,” she complained to Chechyegin, who patted her on the knee.
“It was a good story,” said Chechyegin to Estel. “Thank you for it. We still have a few days until we reach Nush Argi, I hope you will tell us more tales.”
“The bazaar will be bustling this time of year,” said Bachai as Estel bowed, “full of city-dwellers stocking up for their zhuni, their summer stay on the plains. Pfah! They come in their silken tents for a visit, then return to their walls and their ceilings. Easterlings and Wainriders are of the same blood, but their hearts are as different as dwarves and elves.”
“Ah,” said Legolas, looking up suddenly from the plate of food Estel had handed him, “That reminds me that I have news indeed from the outpost where we passed on word of the danger facing Erebor--news you will scarcely credit. It seems that an army of dwarves and elves together march on Isengard.”
Startled exclamations around the fire. “Is such a thing possible?” said Gimli, his eyes wide.
“It seems Saruman woke more than the Balrog,” said Théoden. Bachai had a sudden coughing fit and leaked smoke from her nose; Théoden paused to see if she was all right, but she waved at him impatiently to continue. “The dwarves of Khazad-dûm and the elves of Lothlórien ride together to seek vengeance for the deaths of their people.”
Thorin felt his fists clench as he remembered the crackle of fire, the sound of sobbing in the dark. “It is good that Balin would not let his brother go unavenged,” he said.
Arwen looked pale in the firelight. “My grandfather marching to war,” she murmured. “This world is changing indeed.” She tried to return to her needlework, but her fingers trembled and she folded it up and put it away.
“Such a waste,” grumbled Bachai, throwing the last bit of her pipeweed into the fire.
“Does it bother you?” Bilbo’s voice almost didn’t carry over the sound of the creaking wain as they continued to move east. “That you’re not leading the assault on Isengard, I mean? Dwalin was your kin as well.”
Thorin considered the question. Of course he wished he could make Saruman suffer for the pain that he had caused Thorin’s people, for his violation of the sacred halls of Durin. On the other hand…
He looked at Bilbo, his face partly-obscured by the ridiculous false beard, his eyes warm and affectionate on Thorin’s. The star brooch was shining dimly on his breast, and Thorin took his hands in his.
“Remember how you told me, long ago on another road, that I must stop trying to send you away? Well, now I say to you that my place is by your side, Bilbo, from now on. I would be nowhere else.”
“Oh,” said Bilbo. Beneath the beard he was smiling as if he might just break into song. “All right then.”
The caravan moved slowly and steadily across the plains, and the days lengthened and warmed as they rode. Denethor and Théoden were given their own large wain to drive, for none could long abide the sound of their quarreling--although Bilbo privately thought that having Théoden back seemed to lessen Denethor’s gloom and keep him from brooding on his dislike of Estel. Chechyegin decided to teach Arwen and Dís how to drive one of the small, two-person chariots, and soon the pair were hunting game from it--Dís driving and Arwen wielding the bow, while Legolas and Gimli watched and agreed darkly that the world was coming to dire straits when elves and dwarves worked together. Bilbo started to adjust to his beard, although he still balked at the boots. And Thorin and Estel discussed, in quiet murmurs, their strategy when they finally reached Saynshar.
Three mornings into the journey, Thorin was sitting next to Tokujar at the front of his wain--Bilbo was sulking in the back, refusing to come out if he had to wear “those infernal boots,” he said. Tokujar clucked to the horses pulling the wain, and they pricked up their ears and trotted a little faster.
There was an ululating call, and Chechyegin shot by in her little wain, pulled by a sleek horse, her bow nocked and ready. She waved to her father and Thorin, then called to the horse and they galloped off in search of game.
“It was a relief to me indeed when the clan leaders decided we would not throw in our lot with Saynshar and send warriors to the aid of Mordor,” Tokujar said. “Chechyegin became old enough to ride to war just three moons ago, and she is one of our finest. It would have grieved me to part from her.”
“You send your daughters to battle?” Thorin asked. Of course dwarf women could fight, but there were so few that it was rare they were encouraged to.
Tokujar looked amused. “We are the Wainriders,” he said as if that explained everything. Then he relented at Thorin’s confused look. “Men fight on foot, but women fight from the small wains, in teams of two. Chechyegin and her blood sister are a team. She burns to prove herself against a foe, but she had no great desire to ride against the Lonely Mountain or Gondor.” His eyes went to Bachai’s wain, with Hatagi perched next to its wizened driver. “For this I owe Bachai a debt of gratitude.”
“Bachai?”
Tokujar grunted. “Bachai spoke long at the council of leaders, urging them against war. ‘Mordor seeks to bridle the wind to its bidding,’ she said. ‘Will you allow its Lord to put the bit between your childrens’ teeth and lead them to war?’ Chechyegin’s mother claims that speech turned the tide on that day.” Tokujar smiled at Thorin. “And so my arrows will ever be at her service.”
The bazaar at Nush Argi was an overwhelming vista of wains and tents, with flocks of goats and sheep placidly cropping the early-spring grass on the outskirts. Chechyegin led Bilbo and Thorin through the crowd, pointing out sights along the way: “The silken tents are city-dwellers’,” she said with disdain. “They have no need for felt or canvas if they spend only the summers on the plains.”
She stopped at a tent made of scarlet silk. “Chechyegin!” called the merchant at the door. “Has it been another year already? How you’ve grown.”
“Dayuu,” she said with a nod and a smile. “I assume you’ve been saving some of those iron arrowheads for my father?”
“Only the best for you,” said Dayuu. “And for your companions as well,” he added, casting a look at Thorin and Bilbo. Bilbo’s feet and face itched and resisted the urge to scratch at his makeshift beard. “We don’t see many dwarves on the plains,” Dayuu said.
“We are on our way to Saynshar,” said Thorin, picking up a pair of steel scissors from a display and admiring the workmanship.
“Are you now?” said Dayuu. “Then you’ll be wanting to buy a couple of these.” He picked up a small metal ornament, a steel triangle with an arrow etched into it, reaching toward the apex. “Mark of the Order of Life,” he said. “They’ll bring you luck--and less attention from the priests of the Order.”
“That’s not the symbol of the Order of Life,” Chechyegin said, and Dayuu’s eyes flickered left, then right before he smiled at her.
“It got changed,” he said. “Lots of things changing recently. Now, you want those arrowheads or not?”
Thorin put down a few coins. “I’ll take two of those marks,” he said.
Chechyegin was fuming as they pushed their way back toward the wains of the Borogin Clan. “The Order of Life’s sign is a circle,” she said angrily, pulling an amulet out of her robes to show them: a medallion on which a stylized hunter and cat were carved, the hunter shooting at the cat’s feet and the cat leaping at the hunter’s head in an endless loop. “I do not like this change,” she said. “I must go tell my father about it, so he can tell the clan-head.” With a hasty farewell, she pushed away through the crowd, still frowning.
Bilbo kicked at a rock on the trodden grass and missed with his clumsy, leather-encased feet. “Confound these boots,” he muttered, “I make a terrible dwarf.”
Thorin laughed and rested a hand on Bilbo’s shoulder for a moment. “Truly, Bilbo, I have no wish to make you a dwarf in anything more than an honorary sense. I think you are a much finer hobbit than dwarf.”
Bilbo was about to answer when a sudden voice cut into their conversation: “Hey! You--dwarf!”
The hissed words came from a man with a scar across his nose and a bristling black mustache, who was glaring at Thorin almost angrily. He was holding a flask in his hand, and from his breath as he leaned close Bilbo could tell he was fairly drunk.
“Are you dwarves trying to cut us out of the deal, eh? You’ve got a lot of nerve!”
Thorin shook the man’s hand off his shoulder. “I have no idea what you’re speaking of.”
“Oh you don’t, eh? Don’t you lie to me, dwarf! You think I don’t recognize those pretty sigils on your armor? He sent you along to try and do the job so he wouldn’t have to pay us, didn’t he?”
Bilbo saw Thorin’s eyes flicker to the seals etched on his armor--the seal of the royal family of Durin. His eyes went to Bilbo’s for a moment, and Bilbo could read them easily: follow my lead. When he spoke again, his voice was full of rough bluster: “Well, you haven’t gotten the job done yet, have you?”
“Haven’t gotten--” The man sputtered indignantly. “The old bastard only hired us a week ago! Do you know how hard it is to find one person in Saynshar, especially if she don’t want to be found?”
Bilbo crossed his arms and glared up at the man, adding his voice: “I bet you don’t have the faintest idea where to even find her,” he growled, and was rewarded with a flicker of a smile from Thorin.
The man glared down at him, his eyes slightly crossed with drink and with fury. “She’s good, but she ain’t that good. He followed a lead here to Nush Argi and we found ourselves someone ready to sell us some information. Oh, we know where the Kestrel comes to roost--the Crooked Leech on Slate Street. Bet you didn’t even have that much information!”
Bilbo whistled, impressed. “You’re right there. That’s some good work.”
The man nodded vigorously. “You leave the job to professionals, like me and Gamil,” he said. “I guarantee you that within this moon--” He drew a finger across his throat with a grin and made a gruesome sound. “So don’t you think about cutting in on the action and thinking to get that bounty for yourself!”
“We wouldn’t dream of it,” said Thorin gravely, and the man gave them a last snarling glower before wobbling off through the crowd.
“Let’s go,” said Thorin, taking Bilbo by the elbow. “We need to break camp and head for Saynshar right away.”
“We do?”
Thorin dodged a juggler and looked down at Bilbo, his face grim. “I think it’s safe to say that anyone my father wants dead is someone we want to keep alive.”
Saynshar was a welter of azure-tiled roofs with strange curving eaves, shockingly crowded after the free and open plains. Bilbo gazed at the city as the fellowship walked toward it and was gripped by a strange sense of familiarity: “The mirror,” he whispered under his breath.
“Eh?” Bachai poked him with her walking stick. She had decided to join them after seeing the triangular Mark of the Order Thorin had shown her, leaving Chechyegin to mind her wain and her cats, except for one small black kitten who insisted on staying on her shoulder. Thorin had explained that they were going to be on foot and moving fast, but she had just laughed at him--and indeed, she had shown no sign of tiring despite her age. “Speak up, child.”
“I saw this city once in...in a mirror,” Bilbo faltered.
“My, my,” she chortled. “The Shire sounds like quite an interesting place. Long-distance mirrors!”
Saynshar was surrounded by a white wall, with a golden gate encrusted with blue lapis set into the western side. A steady stream of walkers and riders entered and exited the city; the bored-looking guards in black armor gave the Fellowship barely a look as they walked into the city.
Once they were within, Bilbo could see why. Saynshar teemed with people of all shapes and sizes: many had the same bronzed skin and wide faces of the Wainriders, but there were also dwarves with black hair left tangled and wild; tall slender humans with dark brown skin, their heads wrapped in elaborate silken headdresses; humans that looked Gondorian but with five or six earrings piercing their ears, some with metal collars locked around their necks. Thorin and Dís had covered the signs of Durin on their clothes, and Gimli had braided his beard in a more Eastern fashion, but they would hardly have stood out even if they hadn’t. Bilbo heard seven or eight languages spoken before the constant din became mere noise in his ears, leaving his head spinning at the sights and sounds and smells of the city.
He found his steps lagging and realized that the ring, still on its fob in his pocket, was strangely heavy and hot. He had hardly thought about it at all in the gardens of the Ents, or while roaming free on the plains, but now the cacophony of the crowd seemed almost to take on sinister undertones, whispering, and the walls pressed in on him until he yearned to slip away, to escape, to hide…
He shook his head, swallowing hard, and followed his friends through the crowd.
They stopped at last at the sign of the Crooked Leech, hanging over a door in a dim alley, and Estel pushed open the door and entered.
The inn was dark, the beams smoke-blackened and the floor uneven. Herbs hung from the ceiling in bunches, adding a pungent scent to the room. As Bilbo’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, he looked around and realized that no one had taken any note of their entrance except three people at a table in the far corner, a flickering candle lighting their faces. Bilbo didn’t know the first two people at the table, but the third--
With a happy cry, he began to step forward toward the gray-cloaked figure at the table, but he stopped at the sound of Bachai’s voice behind him:
“Olórin?” She stepped forward, waving her walking stick at Gandalf. “Olórin, you rascal, what are you doing in Saynshar? Why, I haven’t seen you in--” She cast her eyes up as if calculating.
“Four thousand, eight hundred and fourteen years, give or take a few decades,” said Gandalf, nodding. “You’re looking well, Alatar.”
Chapter Summary: Old friends are met, stories are told, and the Fellowship reaches Saynshar, capital of the East.
Relationship: Thorin/Bilbo
Characters: Bilbo Baggins, Thorin Oakenshield, Denethor, Gimli, Dis, Arwen, Aragorn, Legolas, Theoden
Fandom: Hobbit/Lord of the Rings. Begins in 2968, twenty-six years after the events of "Clarity of Vision" and fifty years before the canonical events of "Lord of the Rings." Thus, characters' ages and the geopolitical situation will be different than LoTR canon!
Warnings/Spoilers: None
Rating: PG
Word Count: 4000
Summary: Thorin Oakenshield and Bilbo Baggins have been parted for many years now, despite the love they bear each other. Now Thorin's research has uncovered a dire threat to Middle Earth--the Ring he carried a little while and then gave to Bilbo. Together with a group of companions composed of the different Free Peoples of Middle Earth, they must attempt to destroy the artifact before its Dark Lord can re-capture it.
“No,” said Bilbo. “No, no, no--no!”
Dís paused, an exasperated look on her face. “Bilbo, the--” She glanced around at the bustling Wainrider camp and grimaced before continuing, “The--people--that pursued us into Taur-nu-Eleni are not dead, merely defeated. They saw you. So you cannot be seen in public as a hobbit.”
Thorin tried not to look amused as Bilbo glared around the campfire at the rest of the party. The left side of his face was covered with a fake goat’s-hair beard, which lent him an air of lopsided, furry fury. The other members of the Fellowship were not doing as well as Thorin in hiding their amusement. Bachai was cackling out loud from her perch nearest the fire: “My old bones deserve the extra heat,” she had snapped when claiming it.
Bilbo met Thorin’s eyes, and Thorin gave him a wry and apologetic head-tilt. Bilbo’s shoulders slumped. “I guess there’s nothing for it. But do I really have to wear these?” He lifted his right foot, encased in a heavy boot.
“You’ll attract notice if you’re barefoot,” Dís said firmly, and went back to sticking the beard on his face.
“My feet are sweltering,” Bilbo huffed. “Besides, I’m too short to pass for a dwarf anyway.”
Dís rested her hands on his shoulders. “I don’t know about that,” she said consideringly. “You’ve definitely put on some height recently. You’re taller than Balin now.”
“What?” Bilbo looked startled. “That’s impossible, hobbits don’t get taller at my age. Besides, I can’t be taller, I still need to go on tiptoes to--”
He broke off and his cheeks beneath the fake beard went quite red.
“I believe Thorin has gotten taller recently as well,” said Arwen, looking up from her embroidery, “Which why you still need to stand on tiptoes.”
Bilbo’s blush deepened, and Thorin spoke up to deflect some of the attention away from him. “I thought my clothing had shrunk somehow after leaving the garden of the Ents,” he said. “But now that you mention it, perhaps I have grown somewhat.”
“That’s...very strange,” Bilbo said, looking at his own hands. “No one else has grown?”
“Not that I am aware of,” said Estel with a glint of humor in his dark eyes.
“Maybe it was that spring you and I drank from?” Bilbo said to Thorin. “Wandlimb’s spring?”
“Perhaps. But whatever the cause, it is fortunate for us, because it makes it easier for you to pass disguised.”
Bilbo looked down at his booted feet and sighed. “I don’t like it.”
“What’s wrong with looking like a dwarf, eh?” grumbled Gimli.
“I suggest you try frowning more, and stomping around gracelessly,” said a light, clear voice, and Legolas suddenly emerged from the shadows, his high cheekbones and merry smile catching the golden light of the fire. “And mutter imprecations about elves.”
“Legolas!” cried Estel and Arwen in unison as everyone jumped to their feet--except Gimli, who stayed seated and frowning, although Thorin could have sworn he caught a glimpse of relief on his face for just a moment when he heard Legolas’s voice. “You found us!”
“A caravan is hardly difficult to track,” noted Legolas.
“And something of a pleasant change after the unearthly sights we’ve seen while on your trail,” said Théoden from behind him. He sat down next to Denethor and three of Bachai’s cats immediately seemed to decide his was the best lap in the camp. “Haunted woods and talking trees--you’ve led us on a merry chase!”
“But where is Gandalf?” asked Bilbo with a worried expression on his face.
“After hearing from the Ents that you were making for Saynshar, he announced he would go directly there and await us.” Théoden shrugged. “We stayed on your trail--and here we find our beloved hobbit in mid-transformation! You make a handsome dwarf, Mr. Baggins.” One of the cats sat up and head-butted his chin vigorously, purring, and he scratched its chin.
Denethor rubbed at his reddened nose and cast a venomous glance at him. “I should have known you’d love cats,” he said.
“And I should have known you couldn’t stand them,” retorted Théoden. “For you never could abide someone with an independent will.”
“Gentlemen, please,” said Thorin, weary already. “Can we put off the bickering for just a little longer?”
“I think that’s how they say they’re happy to see each other,” Bilbo said with a mischievous glint in his eye as he stomped experimentally around the fire.
“It would lessen Minas Tirith if her ally lost its heir,” snapped Denethor, “So of course I am happy to see him safe, annoying as he is.”
“Speaking of lost heirs--” Théoden began, then caught Estel’s warning eye and subsided reluctantly.
“Another elf,” said Bachai, watching them intently. “Interesting and more interesting!” She took a long drag from her paper tube and knocked the ashes off the end into the fire.
“Bachai is the owner of all these cats,” Denethor said, but she shook a bony finger at him.
“Not owner, oh no. Friend only. No one owns a cat. Does not the Tale of the Ten Cats of Gondor tell us so?”
“I don’t know that story, Bachai,” said Chechyegin, sitting at her feet. “Will you tell us?”
“Well,” said Bachai, “Once there was a Queen of the south, who wed a King of Gondor and came north to live. But she was a proud and solitary woman, and she misliked the city, and felt all were set against her, and she walked alone in the night clad in black and none trusted her.
“Then ten cats of Gondor felt pity in their hearts for her and her solitary ways, and her fierce spirit, and they swore fealty to her, and bound themselves to her. But alas, she proved unworthy of the loyalty of cats, for she used that bond to torture and to torment them, and make their wills subservient to hers. She denied them the joy of the hunt and the freedom of the moonlight, and forced them to spy upon the people of Gondor as if they were servants--as if they were dogs!” Bachai made an angry hissing noise, then sighed. “The whole tale--how despite their cruel enslavement they engineered the downfall of the Queen, and how they traveled south with her into exile, and how they won their freedom once more--is too long to tell this evening, but they serve as a reminder than no cat is ‘owned,’ though some do deign to live and work with us.” The mountain lion curled up at her side yawned and rolled over onto its back, and she stroked the dawn-colored fur of its stomach.
“That is not the tale they tell in Gondor of Queen Berúthiel and her cats,” said Denethor, his eyes narrowed.
“Is it not?” Bachai cackled briefly. “Well, this is the version the cats tell, and you of the city may tell your own!”
“If it is a night for stories,” said Estel, “I shall tell one of my own--about a dog, since the lady Bachai has seen fit to slander them,” he added with a smile.
She waved her hand at him indulgently. “Go on, go on, young puppy.”
“This is a part of the Lay of Leithian, or Release from Bondage, and is the story of Huan, the Hound of Valinor, and his faithful love for Beren and Lúthien.”
Estel’s voice was strong and resonant as he told of the adventures of Huan, and his love for the elf-princess Lúthien, and how when her love Beren had left them to assail Morgoth’s stronghold alone, Huan helped her find him once more. Bilbo shivered as Estel described the confrontation between Lúthien and the dread vampire Thuringwëthil, and how Lúthien stripped her of her bat-fell and sent her spirit unhoused away, and flew with the bat-wings of Thuringwëthil to find her love, and Huan ran at her side clad in the skin of the werewolf Drauglin.
“And Beren walked alone and recked his life little,” said Estel, “And sang as he walked of the beauty of Lúthien, for he thought to never see her again, in life or in death. But lo! She came to him unlooked-for, and his path and his life made sense once more when they embraced.”
And it seemed to Bilbo that he looked at Arwen as he said then, and she looked down at her embroidery and did not meet his eye, but Bilbo saw a smile curve her mouth before Estel continued his tale: how Huan helped Beren and Lúthien in all their troubles, but in the end died to kill the great wolf Carcharoth and save the kingdom of Doriath. “He died with Beren’s hand upon his head, bidding him farewell. So ends the tale of Huan the Faithful!” said Estel. “Greatest of friends to Beren and to Lúthien the Fair.”
“And much good his loyalty did him,” snapped Bachai, but Bilbo thought her eyes were over-bright and she sniffed a few times, almost angrily. “You gathered green wood for the fire, it smokes terribly,” she complained to Chechyegin, who patted her on the knee.
“It was a good story,” said Chechyegin to Estel. “Thank you for it. We still have a few days until we reach Nush Argi, I hope you will tell us more tales.”
“The bazaar will be bustling this time of year,” said Bachai as Estel bowed, “full of city-dwellers stocking up for their zhuni, their summer stay on the plains. Pfah! They come in their silken tents for a visit, then return to their walls and their ceilings. Easterlings and Wainriders are of the same blood, but their hearts are as different as dwarves and elves.”
“Ah,” said Legolas, looking up suddenly from the plate of food Estel had handed him, “That reminds me that I have news indeed from the outpost where we passed on word of the danger facing Erebor--news you will scarcely credit. It seems that an army of dwarves and elves together march on Isengard.”
Startled exclamations around the fire. “Is such a thing possible?” said Gimli, his eyes wide.
“It seems Saruman woke more than the Balrog,” said Théoden. Bachai had a sudden coughing fit and leaked smoke from her nose; Théoden paused to see if she was all right, but she waved at him impatiently to continue. “The dwarves of Khazad-dûm and the elves of Lothlórien ride together to seek vengeance for the deaths of their people.”
Thorin felt his fists clench as he remembered the crackle of fire, the sound of sobbing in the dark. “It is good that Balin would not let his brother go unavenged,” he said.
Arwen looked pale in the firelight. “My grandfather marching to war,” she murmured. “This world is changing indeed.” She tried to return to her needlework, but her fingers trembled and she folded it up and put it away.
“Such a waste,” grumbled Bachai, throwing the last bit of her pipeweed into the fire.
“Does it bother you?” Bilbo’s voice almost didn’t carry over the sound of the creaking wain as they continued to move east. “That you’re not leading the assault on Isengard, I mean? Dwalin was your kin as well.”
Thorin considered the question. Of course he wished he could make Saruman suffer for the pain that he had caused Thorin’s people, for his violation of the sacred halls of Durin. On the other hand…
He looked at Bilbo, his face partly-obscured by the ridiculous false beard, his eyes warm and affectionate on Thorin’s. The star brooch was shining dimly on his breast, and Thorin took his hands in his.
“Remember how you told me, long ago on another road, that I must stop trying to send you away? Well, now I say to you that my place is by your side, Bilbo, from now on. I would be nowhere else.”
“Oh,” said Bilbo. Beneath the beard he was smiling as if he might just break into song. “All right then.”
The caravan moved slowly and steadily across the plains, and the days lengthened and warmed as they rode. Denethor and Théoden were given their own large wain to drive, for none could long abide the sound of their quarreling--although Bilbo privately thought that having Théoden back seemed to lessen Denethor’s gloom and keep him from brooding on his dislike of Estel. Chechyegin decided to teach Arwen and Dís how to drive one of the small, two-person chariots, and soon the pair were hunting game from it--Dís driving and Arwen wielding the bow, while Legolas and Gimli watched and agreed darkly that the world was coming to dire straits when elves and dwarves worked together. Bilbo started to adjust to his beard, although he still balked at the boots. And Thorin and Estel discussed, in quiet murmurs, their strategy when they finally reached Saynshar.
Three mornings into the journey, Thorin was sitting next to Tokujar at the front of his wain--Bilbo was sulking in the back, refusing to come out if he had to wear “those infernal boots,” he said. Tokujar clucked to the horses pulling the wain, and they pricked up their ears and trotted a little faster.
There was an ululating call, and Chechyegin shot by in her little wain, pulled by a sleek horse, her bow nocked and ready. She waved to her father and Thorin, then called to the horse and they galloped off in search of game.
“It was a relief to me indeed when the clan leaders decided we would not throw in our lot with Saynshar and send warriors to the aid of Mordor,” Tokujar said. “Chechyegin became old enough to ride to war just three moons ago, and she is one of our finest. It would have grieved me to part from her.”
“You send your daughters to battle?” Thorin asked. Of course dwarf women could fight, but there were so few that it was rare they were encouraged to.
Tokujar looked amused. “We are the Wainriders,” he said as if that explained everything. Then he relented at Thorin’s confused look. “Men fight on foot, but women fight from the small wains, in teams of two. Chechyegin and her blood sister are a team. She burns to prove herself against a foe, but she had no great desire to ride against the Lonely Mountain or Gondor.” His eyes went to Bachai’s wain, with Hatagi perched next to its wizened driver. “For this I owe Bachai a debt of gratitude.”
“Bachai?”
Tokujar grunted. “Bachai spoke long at the council of leaders, urging them against war. ‘Mordor seeks to bridle the wind to its bidding,’ she said. ‘Will you allow its Lord to put the bit between your childrens’ teeth and lead them to war?’ Chechyegin’s mother claims that speech turned the tide on that day.” Tokujar smiled at Thorin. “And so my arrows will ever be at her service.”
The bazaar at Nush Argi was an overwhelming vista of wains and tents, with flocks of goats and sheep placidly cropping the early-spring grass on the outskirts. Chechyegin led Bilbo and Thorin through the crowd, pointing out sights along the way: “The silken tents are city-dwellers’,” she said with disdain. “They have no need for felt or canvas if they spend only the summers on the plains.”
She stopped at a tent made of scarlet silk. “Chechyegin!” called the merchant at the door. “Has it been another year already? How you’ve grown.”
“Dayuu,” she said with a nod and a smile. “I assume you’ve been saving some of those iron arrowheads for my father?”
“Only the best for you,” said Dayuu. “And for your companions as well,” he added, casting a look at Thorin and Bilbo. Bilbo’s feet and face itched and resisted the urge to scratch at his makeshift beard. “We don’t see many dwarves on the plains,” Dayuu said.
“We are on our way to Saynshar,” said Thorin, picking up a pair of steel scissors from a display and admiring the workmanship.
“Are you now?” said Dayuu. “Then you’ll be wanting to buy a couple of these.” He picked up a small metal ornament, a steel triangle with an arrow etched into it, reaching toward the apex. “Mark of the Order of Life,” he said. “They’ll bring you luck--and less attention from the priests of the Order.”
“That’s not the symbol of the Order of Life,” Chechyegin said, and Dayuu’s eyes flickered left, then right before he smiled at her.
“It got changed,” he said. “Lots of things changing recently. Now, you want those arrowheads or not?”
Thorin put down a few coins. “I’ll take two of those marks,” he said.
Chechyegin was fuming as they pushed their way back toward the wains of the Borogin Clan. “The Order of Life’s sign is a circle,” she said angrily, pulling an amulet out of her robes to show them: a medallion on which a stylized hunter and cat were carved, the hunter shooting at the cat’s feet and the cat leaping at the hunter’s head in an endless loop. “I do not like this change,” she said. “I must go tell my father about it, so he can tell the clan-head.” With a hasty farewell, she pushed away through the crowd, still frowning.
Bilbo kicked at a rock on the trodden grass and missed with his clumsy, leather-encased feet. “Confound these boots,” he muttered, “I make a terrible dwarf.”
Thorin laughed and rested a hand on Bilbo’s shoulder for a moment. “Truly, Bilbo, I have no wish to make you a dwarf in anything more than an honorary sense. I think you are a much finer hobbit than dwarf.”
Bilbo was about to answer when a sudden voice cut into their conversation: “Hey! You--dwarf!”
The hissed words came from a man with a scar across his nose and a bristling black mustache, who was glaring at Thorin almost angrily. He was holding a flask in his hand, and from his breath as he leaned close Bilbo could tell he was fairly drunk.
“Are you dwarves trying to cut us out of the deal, eh? You’ve got a lot of nerve!”
Thorin shook the man’s hand off his shoulder. “I have no idea what you’re speaking of.”
“Oh you don’t, eh? Don’t you lie to me, dwarf! You think I don’t recognize those pretty sigils on your armor? He sent you along to try and do the job so he wouldn’t have to pay us, didn’t he?”
Bilbo saw Thorin’s eyes flicker to the seals etched on his armor--the seal of the royal family of Durin. His eyes went to Bilbo’s for a moment, and Bilbo could read them easily: follow my lead. When he spoke again, his voice was full of rough bluster: “Well, you haven’t gotten the job done yet, have you?”
“Haven’t gotten--” The man sputtered indignantly. “The old bastard only hired us a week ago! Do you know how hard it is to find one person in Saynshar, especially if she don’t want to be found?”
Bilbo crossed his arms and glared up at the man, adding his voice: “I bet you don’t have the faintest idea where to even find her,” he growled, and was rewarded with a flicker of a smile from Thorin.
The man glared down at him, his eyes slightly crossed with drink and with fury. “She’s good, but she ain’t that good. He followed a lead here to Nush Argi and we found ourselves someone ready to sell us some information. Oh, we know where the Kestrel comes to roost--the Crooked Leech on Slate Street. Bet you didn’t even have that much information!”
Bilbo whistled, impressed. “You’re right there. That’s some good work.”
The man nodded vigorously. “You leave the job to professionals, like me and Gamil,” he said. “I guarantee you that within this moon--” He drew a finger across his throat with a grin and made a gruesome sound. “So don’t you think about cutting in on the action and thinking to get that bounty for yourself!”
“We wouldn’t dream of it,” said Thorin gravely, and the man gave them a last snarling glower before wobbling off through the crowd.
“Let’s go,” said Thorin, taking Bilbo by the elbow. “We need to break camp and head for Saynshar right away.”
“We do?”
Thorin dodged a juggler and looked down at Bilbo, his face grim. “I think it’s safe to say that anyone my father wants dead is someone we want to keep alive.”
Saynshar was a welter of azure-tiled roofs with strange curving eaves, shockingly crowded after the free and open plains. Bilbo gazed at the city as the fellowship walked toward it and was gripped by a strange sense of familiarity: “The mirror,” he whispered under his breath.
“Eh?” Bachai poked him with her walking stick. She had decided to join them after seeing the triangular Mark of the Order Thorin had shown her, leaving Chechyegin to mind her wain and her cats, except for one small black kitten who insisted on staying on her shoulder. Thorin had explained that they were going to be on foot and moving fast, but she had just laughed at him--and indeed, she had shown no sign of tiring despite her age. “Speak up, child.”
“I saw this city once in...in a mirror,” Bilbo faltered.
“My, my,” she chortled. “The Shire sounds like quite an interesting place. Long-distance mirrors!”
Saynshar was surrounded by a white wall, with a golden gate encrusted with blue lapis set into the western side. A steady stream of walkers and riders entered and exited the city; the bored-looking guards in black armor gave the Fellowship barely a look as they walked into the city.
Once they were within, Bilbo could see why. Saynshar teemed with people of all shapes and sizes: many had the same bronzed skin and wide faces of the Wainriders, but there were also dwarves with black hair left tangled and wild; tall slender humans with dark brown skin, their heads wrapped in elaborate silken headdresses; humans that looked Gondorian but with five or six earrings piercing their ears, some with metal collars locked around their necks. Thorin and Dís had covered the signs of Durin on their clothes, and Gimli had braided his beard in a more Eastern fashion, but they would hardly have stood out even if they hadn’t. Bilbo heard seven or eight languages spoken before the constant din became mere noise in his ears, leaving his head spinning at the sights and sounds and smells of the city.
He found his steps lagging and realized that the ring, still on its fob in his pocket, was strangely heavy and hot. He had hardly thought about it at all in the gardens of the Ents, or while roaming free on the plains, but now the cacophony of the crowd seemed almost to take on sinister undertones, whispering, and the walls pressed in on him until he yearned to slip away, to escape, to hide…
He shook his head, swallowing hard, and followed his friends through the crowd.
They stopped at last at the sign of the Crooked Leech, hanging over a door in a dim alley, and Estel pushed open the door and entered.
The inn was dark, the beams smoke-blackened and the floor uneven. Herbs hung from the ceiling in bunches, adding a pungent scent to the room. As Bilbo’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, he looked around and realized that no one had taken any note of their entrance except three people at a table in the far corner, a flickering candle lighting their faces. Bilbo didn’t know the first two people at the table, but the third--
With a happy cry, he began to step forward toward the gray-cloaked figure at the table, but he stopped at the sound of Bachai’s voice behind him:
“Olórin?” She stepped forward, waving her walking stick at Gandalf. “Olórin, you rascal, what are you doing in Saynshar? Why, I haven’t seen you in--” She cast her eyes up as if calculating.
“Four thousand, eight hundred and fourteen years, give or take a few decades,” said Gandalf, nodding. “You’re looking well, Alatar.”