Soldier Undaunted -- Chapter 2.1

Two

Late in the afternoon two days earlier, six of the dragon’s men had entered the small town of Kinabra, where Arden was stopping for the afternoon. On the right breast of their black cloaks was embroidered the insignia of the red dragon who ruled this land. From the porch of the tavern he had seen them come riding down the street, a pair of mountain wolves trotting ahead of them, sniffing out whatever trouble they could make, running off the few dogs that had not taken to their heels the moment the scent of wolf first came down the wind. Seated in the deep shade at the back of the inn’s broad porch, Arden watched them, never lifting his head from the wall against which it rested. Argos, his head up and ears back, had his eyes on them, too, the wolves especially, as he lay on the top step of the porch.

Concealed by the low wooden wall that screened the porch from the street, Arden loosened his sword in its scabbard, leaned his war bow against the table, and slipped the quiver’s strap over his shoulder. The hound gathered his hind legs beneath him. Tethered to a rail in front of the inn, Arden’s horse, Night, tossed his head and snorted, not liking the sudden tension in the air, or the wolves. The sun was now right above the tavern’s roof. It would blind anyone looking up at him from the street.

“Good,” he thought. “Let it begin soon.”

The men of the dragon, four troopers, a lieutenant, and a captain, reined in outside a smithy about thirty yards up the street to his right. Their wolves came somewhat closer. When the captain and lieutenant dismounted, the others spread out slowly across the street, the two of them with bows turning to face back the way they had come. The troopers inspected the town with the eyes of men practiced at finding fault and dealing out punishment for the least breach of the dragon’s law. The few townsfolk still in the open averted their eyes and hurried by, searching for any shelter they could find. As the dragon captain led his horse towards the blacksmith’s, the lieutenant looped his horse’s reins over a rail and followed. He pretended not to be watching the Arden.

From his seat in the shade Arden studied them and waited. He could feel the trouble coming. He sipped the last of his water. To his left the tavern door opened, and the innkeeper peered out, taking in the scene on the dusty street. He and Arden exchanged looks. Arden nodded to him and slipped a half dozen old silver coins on the table. With a shrug and a frown the innkeeper pulled the door shut. Its bolt slid home. Arden could hear the innkeeper inside trying to hush his crowd of regular patrons. Better to attract no attention, was his idea. But the tavern was already under the eye of the dragon’s men, as the innkeeper and Arden both knew; and taverns were never quiet at the end of a long, hot day just before harvest time.

Someone in the town had alerted the dragon’s men to the arrival of a Ranger. Outlawed by the dragon along with all they stood for, the Rangers were all that remained of the old Republic. The wild lands and forests were their home, not the scattered towns or half-ruined cities they entered only at their peril. So many years had passed since the Republic fell that many people acted like they did not remember it, preferring a harsh survival to a cruel death, while others embraced the world of the dragon from fear, greed, or both. By now few enough were left who had truly seen the Republic, though in mockery of its traditions the dragon had retained the forms and names of its magistracies. In truth the Republic was nothing more than a ghost, and the Rangers its ghostly attendants. Yet the head of one of these servants on a pike brought in gold enough for an informer to live well for many, many years.

“Blacksmith, my horse has thrown a shoe,” the captain called out, but Arden could see that he had not.

Stepping from the forge within, the blacksmith answered, with a look of some hope on his face. For the captain had been born his brother.

“As you please, captain sir, but might I just finish repairing this scythe first? I’ve just got the fire hot enough.”

The heads of two of the mounted soldiers snapped around towards the shop. The others maintained their watch on the street, one looking each way. Halting a few feet from the smithy door, the captain addressed him.

“You presume too much, blacksmith, because we were once brothers,” he said coolly. “The dragon’s laws scorn all ties of blood. You should know that. You will comply.”

“Yes, captain,” muttered the smith, in a tone as disappointed and surly as the look in his eye, and took the reins of the captain’s horse.

“Fool,” the lieutenant growled, “I’ll teach you how to address the captain.”

Drawing his sword, he started forward, since the captain gave no sign to check him. He swept it up and back behind him to deliver a forehand stroke.

The thrum of the Ranger’s bowstring was heard only in the instant the arrow struck the lieutenant’s right shoulder, adding its impetus to the backward sweep of his arm. His sword slipped from his hand as he twisted round with a cry, his knees buckling. In that long moment before he spun to the ground, everyone began to move. The mounted troopers looking Arden’s way spurred their horses forward; the other two wheeled theirs and stood their ground, unslinging their bows. Argos leaped from the porch to meet the wolves as they sprang towards the inn. Already drawing his bow again, Arden crossed the porch to shelter behind the thick post which supported the corner of the roof. His bowstring sounded, and a second arrow found its mark in the side of the nearer wolf. It fell forward into the dust, choking on its own blood. The third arrow hit the other in the haunch just before Argos reached it. The long haired black hound, already a match for the wolf in size and speed, made short work of his injured opponent.

Two arrows from the stationary troopers stuck the wooden post in front of the Ranger. His reply struck the horse of the nearer one in the chest. It reared and fell over sideways, pinning its rider and breaking his leg. The first of the two charging riders had now reached the inn, but hesitated, fearing not only to climb the porch and be caught in his own bowman’s line of sight, but also to confront the Ranger alone if his bowman refrained from shooting. A costly doubt. The Ranger’s next arrow took him in the throat and toppled him from his horse.

The second rider knew no doubt and began to ride up the steps with sword drawn. But he forgot the dog in the street behind him until it struck him in the back. They fell to the ground together, but then the hound was on his chest, rending the trooper’s hands, arms, and face as he strove to fend the dog from his throat.

His cries and the dog’s snarling blended with the hoof beats of the last rider, who now charged straight down the street at Arden. Rising in the stirrups, he drew his bow. They loosed their arrows simultaneously. Arden’s nicked the ear of the rider’s horse as it passed, striking the rider himself in the groin; the trooper’s arrow hissed by, drawing blood from Arden’s left cheek and hitting the wall behind him. The rider fell backwards over his horse.

In all this the captain alone had made no movement. Thumbs hooked through his sword-belt, he stood silently observing. His brother, the blacksmith, stood near him dumbfounded. With the last rider down, Arden descended the front steps to the street. He called Argos off as he passed. The hound licked blood from his snout as he trotted over. The fallen rider was still alive, but badly mauled. Somehow he had kept Argos’ teeth from his throat, but the terror of them still worked on his mind. He held out his bloody hands and arms, warding off a threat that no longer existed. For now he was no danger.

Down the street, the captain patted the smith on the back and said something to him in a low voice. With a smile he pulled a bag of coins from his belt and tossed them at his brother’s feet. The blacksmith, startled, left the coins where they lay, and hurried back to his forge, casting an anxious look at Arden as he disappeared through the doors. True fear was on his face now. His brother had just betrayed him to the Ranger and to his neighbors, marking him for all his days as the dragon’s creature. The gold his brother had promised him for information was no kindness after all, but a trap set for his avarice. From now on the smith would stand alone. The other townsfolk would shun him now, most because they shrank from the servile reflection of themselves they saw in him, but a few – the old innkeeper for one – because they had not forgotten the world before the dragons came. And some day, or some night, another Ranger would come for him. The smith had never guessed the Ranger would survive the troopers’ first assault; or that his brother would play him so false.

The captain stood in the street, still unmoving. A cold smile almost lifted the corners of his mouth, as he saw the Ranger’s keen eyes take all this in before they shifted to meet his own. Arden walked slowly backwards the few paces to his horse, never glancing away from the dragon captain. His outstretched hand soothed and calmed his horse. Turning his back on the other man at last, he pulled the reins from the hitching rail and mounted. As he backed Night slowly away from the tavern, he looked once more at the captain, and urged his horse to a trot towards the northern end of the town. Argos briefly stared at the captain, then went running after his master.

As Arden rode on he considered those moments of action, few in reality though long in seeming. It struck him as odd that the captain had made no move, since he probably was the most formidable of the riders. Men did not become captains of the dragon through cowardice. This he knew well. Harsh, cruel, and treacherous they surely were, but they were also talented and brave. Nor were they fools. There was more yet to come. Of that Arden was now certain. For the captain had stood by and spent the lives of his men to discover the abilities of the Ranger. Had they killed him outright, as he no doubt hoped, so much the better. But if they did not, there had to be more men in reserve somewhere, to take him if flushed out, to storm any defensive position he might find. And when the outlaws they pursued were Rangers, the dragon’s men would know that they defended well any position they took and made their opponents pay dearly for their heads. So first came a test of strength and skill, then, if necessary, another squad or two would emerge to finish off the prey they had cornered or flushed.

“I would spring the trap just about now,” thought Arden when he approached the last building on the street, a storehouse of some size that could easily mask a squad of troopers. He spurred his horse to a run a second before the soldiers rode out from behind the building and turned to block the street. With a shout, he rode straight for the center of their line, surprising them. Arden had time for one arrow to find a man’s throat before he was upon them. Then grasping his bow with both hands he hit the man beside him hard across the face, and dashed between them. Now he was behind them and riding hard, his head down beside his horse’s neck, and the great hound running full out beside them.

He rode like the wind, and like the wind they followed. The sound of a great horn went up and echoed behind him. So there was at least one more squadron behind him, probably near the southern end of the town in case he had sought to escape that way. Of the troopers Arden had fought at the inn, all except the captain were dead or useless. They passed from his mind the moment he thought of them, but the terror of the trooper savaged by Argos stayed with him. Even as he rode the man’s face lingered in his mind, giving him a satisfaction he did not enjoy.

Again the horn sounded, and another, farther off, now answered its summons. An arrow hissed by him. Glancing back, Arden took stock. He had seventeen arrows left in his quiver; in his pack was enough food for three days, longer at need; and both Night and Argos were trained to run swiftly for many miles. Yet they could not do so forever. And the wolves, though not as swift, were relentless and strong. The dragon’s men had underestimated him at the inn, to be sure, but their captain would do not do so again. Arden had to make it to the forest, still two miles away on his left. Once there, the balance would shift.

Behind him gaps were appearing in the pursuit, as the faster riders outpaced the slower. The two closest to Arden were more than forty yards ahead of the next two, and the last of the five lagged even farther back than that. In all nearly a hundred yards separated the first of the horsemen from the last. Their captain never would have allowed that now that he had proven the quality of his foe. But the captain was not with them – he still trailed far behind, just emerging from Kinabra with the other squad of troopers. Arden was, and he meant to lessen the odds against him while the dragon’s men were still divided. For now at least the dragon’s men would answer to him for their errors.

Gradually Arden slowed down allowing the troopers to narrow the distance between them. Then he veered left towards the closest part of the forest, which brought the setting sun into their eyes. Pulling an arrow from his quiver, Arden rose in his stirrups, turned and shot at the nearest rider, who ducked and swerved away. But now his horse was broadside to the Ranger, whose second arrow pierced his thigh, pinning it to his horse. Both fell together.

Arden had only a glimpse of the second horseman’s bloody face before the man was upon him. It was the trooper he had struck in the face at the edge of town. Sword held high he rushed at Arden, who reined his horse hard to the right and let the rider shoot by him. His sword slashing the empty air beside the Ranger’s head. Arden spun immediately back to his left as the rider turned his own mount to meet him.

With his right hand Arden unsheathed his sword, while swinging his bow with his left. This time he struck the horse hard across the nose. The horse shied at the pain, disturbing his rider’s aim. Arden stabbed the man beneath his left arm. Spurring Night back to a full gallop, Arden could hear the agonized cries of the man and the neighing of the horse as he raced once more towards the forest, which was still over a mile away.

The others were much closer now. Hooves beat loudly on the turf, muffling the cries of the wounded men Arden had left behind him. The troopers’ arrows sang through the air around him, but with the sun glaring at them over the tree tops, the Ranger was little more than a swift shadow against the gloom of the forest. Again his horse gained ground. Four more times Arden stood in his saddle and turned, careful to wait for all of Night’s feet to be off the ground before loosing his arrows. Another trooper fell. One of the wolves yelped as he ran from a slight wound to his hind leg. Only two men remained when the Ranger reached the forest and plunged inside.

The sun had now set, and Arden quickly faded into the twilight beneath the trees. First the one rider, wounded slightly in the right arm, then the second, and slowest, rider halted at the edge. The wolves were already there, pacing impatiently along the line of trees, heads down and panting. The men looked at each other.

“Let’s wait out here for the captain and the others,” the first said. “The wolves can track him easily enough, and with two full squads we’ll run him to ground. The two of us alone are no match for him in there.”

“From what I saw, the six of us were no match for him out here either,” the second answered.

They stared at each other thoughtfully.

“Right, then,” said the first with a decisive nod. “We’ll send the wolves in after him. In you go, lads. Find him and that damned dog.”

The wolves vanished into the forest.

After several hundred yards Arden swung back to the northeast and began to weave in and out of the trees. Some miles ahead there lay a path, now narrow and overgrown, which was all that remained of the road which ran north from Kinabra. Once it had been broad and well tended, but the dragon and his minions neglected it, as they did all things but gold and power, and the wood had nearly reclaimed the road for its own. While there were still some merchants who traveled the roads, the old, regular traffic had withered away. Men found it safer to remain near home and mind their own business. Travelers were viewed with suspicion by the dragon’s men and the local people alike. Without a traveling pass, purchased for steep fees eked out with bribes, those whom the dragon’s men caught abroad found only trouble. The Rangers seldom used the roads. They kept to the still wilder paths of the forests, mountains, and empty lands. By the time Arden crossed this road, it would be fully dark.

For now the pursuit had cooled. The two surviving troopers had not followed him, though that would not keep their wolves from tracking him while they waited for the captain and the other squadron. Then they would follow the trail straight to him. About a mile into the forest, Arden stopped and dismounted. Directly in his path grew a strong, old oak, and to his left a dense thicket, impenetrable except near the ground. On its far side, he tethered Night, stroking his head gently to soothe and thank him. On his return he concealed Argos beneath the thicket’s lowest branches, and began climbing the tree. He settled into a fork between two large boughs about eight feet up.

In the failing twilight ten minutes later the wolves came, slow and stealthy. With their snouts pressed to the earth, they crossed and re-crossed the trail, but never strayed far from it. Between the oak and the thicket they stopped, as if sifting the thousand hints their senses brought them. Their heads swayed one way, then another, and their nostrils tested the air. This place was rich with the scent of man and horse and hound. They waited, knowing their prey was near.

After a few minutes one of them suddenly trotted some yards past the oak, but he returned immediately. There was something off about the trail. It led off around the thicket, then back again. The wolves began circling, reexamining every inch of ground, every bush and tree. Then the larger lifted his head as if he had found the answer he was looking for. Ears back, teeth bared, he lifted each foot with silent care and set it down again as he moved towards the thicket. The other sniffed among the roots of the oak again, and slowly looked up. A green glow lit his eyes from within as he sprang up at the man in the tree.

In the gloom Arden doubted his aim until that pale gaze met his own. An arrow flew from his bow. The wolf yelped in unexpected pain, and fell back. Arden leaped down after him, striking him with all his weight and knocking him to the ground. He tried to pin the wolf beneath him as he drew his dagger, but even wounded the beast was strong. Arden stabbed at the writhing, snapping, clawing shape until it lay still. Only when the wolf’s life ebbed away and Arden stood panting over him, did he hear the sounds of Argos’ battle with the other wolf.

He drew his sword and turned, but the night defeated his eyes. Two huge, indistinct shapes crashed through the bushes around them, rolling each other over and over, yelping, growling, snarling. Each sought a grip on the other’s throat. Arden did not know which was Argos. The two jumped apart, and crouched back, silently preparing to fight again. Even so Arden could not tell them apart, did not know which to strike at.

Then it was over. As the one lunged forward, the other sprang high in the air, twisting sideways, and came down next to him. His head darted in. His jaws snapped shut. One fell dead. The other stood over him briefly, making sure, then turned towards Arden, who gripped his sword more tightly and waited. After a moment he heard a low, guttural sound that was not quite a bark, a sound he knew. Arden lowered his sword, now realizing that he had been holding his breath. Argos trotted over, wagging his tail. Arden knelt and rubbed the wolfhound’s head and flanks. He found no serious wounds. Argos thrust his bloody snout up to Arden’s face.

“No, lad,” he said, laughing and gently pushing the hound away, “There’s enough blood on me already today. Let’s get moving.”

Together they walked around the thicket to his horse, and resumed their course to the northeast and the road, the ground rising as they made their way. Soon a shallow stream of cool, clear water crossed their path, running down to the lake that lay east of Kinabra. Here they paused, and after they had drunk their fill, Arden dipped his water skin beneath the surface to refill it. As he felt the current rush around his hand, he listened to the sweet music of the water coursing by in the darkness. Then he rose and mounted.

They splashed their way over to the far side, then headed southeast along the bank for several hundred yards before entering the stream once more and returning the way they had come, using the water to mask their trail and slow the pursuit. As they reached the spot where they had crossed the stream a few minutes earlier, a horn blew wild and dim in the far distance, then another, closer seemed to answer. Arden sped up, riding through the shallows until after about a half mile he came upon a stony shore, where he left the stream behind for good.

The meaning of the horns eluded him. Had the two troopers at the woods’ edge sounded their horn to guide the captain? But the wolves coming up with the captain had a plain trail strewn with bodies to follow. Or were the two men simply anxious that the Ranger they chased would return to kill them now that the sun was down? If so, silence would defend them better. Or were there even more soldiers they were trying to summon? And what of the desperate note the first horn had sounded? Had they encountered another Ranger by chance? Deer were abundant in these lands, and at times in the fall of the year Rangers came to hunt them for their winter’s food. That was why Arden was here now. He had entered Kinabra on an impulse. There were too many possibilities for Arden to sift. He spurred his horse.

When he arrived at the road an hour later, it seemed even more lonely than it had this morning. The moon still hung too low over the forest to shine down into the narrow gap between the trees on either side. Arden listened. Aside from the hiss of the wind through the turning leaves all he heard was a nightingale somewhere off to his right. For ten minutes there was no movement on the road. Finally he urged Night forward onto the road. A wolf howled.

“So they set a wolf to watch the road?” he muttered, nodding to himself. “Well, they would have tracked us this way anyway.”

Argos glanced up at him in the darkness as the woods closed around them once more.

They kept moving. The wolf kept howling.

Even in the dark Arden’s knowledge of the forest and woodland paths allowed them to move rapidly. And, unlike the dragon’s men, he knew where he was heading. They were ignorant of the woods – the troopers seldom entered places where the Rangers were at home – and their need to track him along the wandering course he followed would slow them down. Yet their captain was a local man of about Arden’s age. The forest at night would not be as mysterious and frightening to him as it was to his men. The voice of the wolf kept calling to them. Arden’s lead would be shorter than he hoped.

The ground rose steadily as they moved north and east. Before long pines began to replace the oaks and maples of the lower forest. It would take several hours to reach the next path he sought, which came up from the south through the part of the forest that lay east of the town, and wound its way upward into the old, worn mountains to the east. At their summit was a gap beyond which the hills descended to another valley and a river.

Along that wandering switch-backed trail, which was quite wide in some places, the undergrowth of the broad-leafed forest yielded entirely to the pines and the needle covered ground of the heights. Up near the pass he could set an ambush and shoot down at the dragon’s men from above, since the winding road and the incline of the hills would allow him to be within bowshot but high above them. But he would not approach the pass until the hours before dawn. Then, having lessened the odds again, he could ride through the gap in the hills and down to the river. Once across he could make another stand and make them pay dearly for their crossing.

“Of course, we may not have any arrows left by then, eh, Argos?” he said.

The dog, trotting beside his horse, looked up at him briefly.

For hours they continued on and up, stopping every now and then to listen for any sound of pursuit, and to steal a few precious minutes of rest. Where the slopes were steeper, Arden dismounted and led Night by the reins. The moon restored a cold memory of twilight among the trees. Its light was no friend of his tonight. Even such faint illumination could reveal him to the enemy once they were close enough. Arden wished the moon away – he needed to vanish utterly – but it did not go.

Of one thing he was sure. The dragon’s men would press on no matter what. Only their need not to lose his trail would limit their zeal. For troopers received a far richer reward for a Ranger’s head than an informer did. Renown came with it, and promotion, the choice of coveted assignments, and a lifetime of gold. To win this prize they relied on numbers and a relentless chase; and they accepted that the Ranger’s life would not come cheap. For no matter who dealt the Ranger his death blow, they all gained by it; and the fewer who lived to share the reward, the larger each survivor’s share would be. So Arden knew the dragon’s men were still behind him somewhere.

Several hours later he struck the path. The going was now easier for him, as it would be for the soldiers when they arrived. So now he pressed on the harder, still stopping to listen, but rarely to rest, and always climbing and climbing. They could rest when they reached the top.

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Chapter 2.2

Soldier Undaunted -- Chapter 1

One

With his back pressed against the alder, Arden watched the full moon rise beyond the mountains. His hands rested behind him on the cool, smooth bark and at times he thought he could almost feel the tree’s long, slow life pulsing faint and distant beneath his fingers. Above him the withered alder leaves rattled against each other at the touch of the night breeze, and all along the brook the trees whispered in answer. Leaves drifted down to settle beside the many others he had already seen fall today. Autumn was at hand.

A few caught the moonlight as they sailed and fluttered on the air. Their brief, pale flash in the darkness reminded Arden of the fireflies in long ago summers, but in the dry, western lands of his exile no such creatures lived to delight young eyes in the evening. Arden had not seen a firefly for many a year. So he watched the moon rise and listened to the quiet, downhill murmur of the water. It was the never-ending voice of the wood, around which all the other sounds he heard, of beast or bird, of wind or tree, were woven. To Arden's ears the voice seemed fair and peaceful, but still it was not the sea.

The breeze brushed his face and hair. The great, black hound curled at his feet lifted his muzzle to it, his nostrils flaring to catch the least scent of pursuit. Arden watched the dog as closely as he could in the darkness beneath the trees, knowing he would be the first to know they were no longer alone. After a while the hound looked up at him, sighed as if to say “nothing yet,” and lowered his head. Though the wolfhound’s eyes were closed, Arden knew he did not sleep. He was waiting for the sound or smell that would tell him that their time of rest, such as it was, had ended.

“Aye, Argos," Arden whispered, “nothing yet.”

Time passed. Man and dog kept their silent vigil. Arden raised his eyes to the moon again as it climbed completely over the shoulder of the distant mountain, miles away across the broad valley. Bright now at its full, the moon chased the night’s shadows with its own, drawing shades of silver and gray out of the hitherto unvarying blackness. Through the trees he could discern again the shapes of standing groves and farm houses, hillocks and barns, in the valley beneath him, shapes that had left his sight as soon as the sun had gone.

Time passed. It would not be long now, he thought, before they overtook him again. He had lost them yesterday afternoon at the ford. He had lost them, and his horse, struck in the neck by an arrow just after they had crossed the deepest part of the swollen river. Somehow he and Argos had survived the violent passage downstream. His sword and dagger he still had; his bow, its last arrow spent, was lost along with his horse and food. They had scrambled up the bare ridge which rose from the swift river’s bank, slipping and stumbling on the loose stones that rattled downhill behind them. Once over the top they turned north and hastened all that night and the following morning until they came down the ridge to the hill where they now rested and watched, twenty five miles and more north of the ford.

Yet the enemy still had horses, though fewer horses than men, along with mountain wolves to track and kill their prey. And they would not rest. Time passed and time was on their side. Once across the river, a hard crossing by foot or by horse, even the wolves would have a task before them to pick up the trail again amid the bare stones of the ridge, but in time they would find it and the chase would begin once more. So, to gain a respite before they had to fight again, Arden and the hound had pressed on without stopping, using the time the wolves would need to find their trail to put as much distance between them as possible. Two nights and two days of haste, flight, and combat might overmatch even the hardiest. So now, their respite won, man and hound watched, moved little, and took what sleep they could, but it was the sleep of those waiting for something to happen. It was the best they could manage. It was all they could risk.

A sudden, distant clamor arose in the valley below them. The hound stirred, moving nothing but his head, attention trained on the sound. Arden slipped his hand from behind him and reached inside his green cloak, to rest it on the hilt of his sword. Dogs were barking, a man shouting, his words unintelligible, but his tone was clearly recognizable: a man annoyed, shouting at his dogs to be quiet, so he could have some peace after a long day in the fields. A door slammed. No doubt a farmer eager for his bed. But what were the dogs roused at? Arden wondered. He waited but heard nothing more. At last he withdrew his hand from his sword. Had the wolves and men been there, no effort of the farmer would have silenced the dogs; and more shouting would have followed as his pursuers questioned the farmer about their quarry. But there was only silence again, and the memory of sounds heard from afar at night, magnified by darkness and a careworn mind.

Again he returned to watching the moon, high enough now for the grain in the fields to be dimly visible. It waved in the night air like ghostly waves making their way to the shore. As Arden stood gazing out from beneath the shelter of the trees, he thought of his youth in the days of the Republic. He remembered the red, summer moons, which used to rise from the eastern ocean as he sat on the beach at night with his friends. Those moons glowed with all the heat of the hopes and passions he had known as a boy; and as they rose above the hot, summer air and slowly brightened to a shining white, they promised growth and change and a glittering life that would make the stars themselves grow dim, just as even the most brilliant stars faded before a full, white moon.

For himself and for his friends, Arden had dreamed, life would soar upward to a zenith of successful hopes, each as they wished and worked for them. But surely they would come, whichever path they chose, whatever passions and ambitions moved them. And only when this had all come to be would they sink from their peak to old age and darkness, like the moon to its setting in the west. Yet their friends and children would not forget them. Such were the first hopes of his youth.

Of late Arden had pondered his memories of his friends and their youth together differently. Were they true as he remembered them, or did he, as men often did in after years, vary the hue and tenor of these memories to suit his longing for better days? Didn’t people always do that and think that life had been better when they were green and young? Didn’t they forget the bitter depths of old disappointments when it suited them, so their memories could yield a harvest of comfort for the failed crops of later days? Had it been really so good? Did he remember true? True enough, Arden decided, when comfort was needed. And so it was.

His first friend had been Hedále. They had met when Arden was fourteen and Hedále twelve. Too tall and too thin, laughter always in his eyes, as if he saw humor in the world that the world did not yet see, even as a boy Hedále had been blessed with many talents. One night he had simply picked up an instrument and begun to play it as if he had done so all his life. But he had never before touched one. More than this he had all the talents of a friend. He could talk when needed or listen and tell no one. Anyone could trust him completely and rely on his kindness and loyalty. Hedále’s home and Arden’s were the closest to each other, scarcely a quarter mile apart across the fields, and so they had always walked home together at the day’s or night’s end.

Loran and Cal were sister and brother, clever, funny, and true, schooled and interested in the nature of things, blue eyed and covered in freckles, knowing the ridiculous when they saw it as only the young and bright can. They fought, too, as only brothers and sisters of that age can fight: Loran, the younger and more cautious, always threatening to tell their mother but never telling, always going along in the end, sometimes even instigating the most outrageous mischief, like the night they pasted a false beard on the statue of Stochas, Narinen’s last king and the founder of the Republic; Cal, older, more reckless and suggestible, ready for anything that was likely to end in laughter, then all the more ready with clever words and the not quite plausible explanations that brought a smirk of incredulity to his father’s face.

The last of this group of friends was tall, her hair red gold, with skin tanned by the summer sun. Her eyes were green, the color of an ocean wave as it curls over and is illuminated from above by the sun in the moment of its breaking. The long years had not dimmed that color for Arden. Her thought was quick and lively, her heart wise for its years, both kind and strong. And Arden had loved her. She was the morning of summer. But she was also the promised of another, no matter what he might have seen or hoped he had seen in her glance. Hers was the first shadow to fall upon his heart.

Through discipline he had taught himself neither to speak nor think her name. Though he had not forgotten it, it lay interred in the crypt of his memory, sealed behind a door that must remain shut. For years afterward Arden had tried to tell himself that the love they had never declared was no more than friendship, no more than the exaltation of that age at which all friends are in love, but none who knew him, not even those who only saw her ghost in his eyes, ever believed him.

In the end neither could he. Their affection for each other was no indulgence of his fancy to be dismissed with a laugh or sigh, no half-willing misremembrance of a past that had never existed in fact. For his love of her hunted him down all the miles and decades of his life. In his heart he named her Sorrow, and she came to him unbidden in his dreams. Thus were all his falsehoods belied.

The last time they had all been together was the last day of the summer of Arden’s eighteenth year. As was their custom on that day, they met upon the shore before dawn to watch the sun rise, and there they remained until well after dark. Though they would see each other frequently throughout the year, they were together most often in the lazy summers along the eastern shore. Tomorrow would mark their childhood’s end. They would disperse across the wide Land of Narinen to begin their studies at different scholar’s towns, some quite far from the City and the sea which they loved.

The sun rose and blazed on through noon and on into the west. Long, reddish gray shadows stretched across the sands to touch the waves as they rolled in from the eastern ocean. All day they had baked in that sunlight and refreshed themselves in those cool waters, at times riding the curl of the breaking waves to the very edge of the sea. But mostly they talked and laughed, with serious subjects endlessly yielding to the absurd conversations of youth, and then, laughing again, they returned to speaking of serious matters.

In that late, last afternoon, that almost evening, as the sun rested for a moment on the western horizon and the land breeze came up to tousle the leaves on the trees beyond the sand, they lay there, still talking, still laughing, with the sunlight caught glistening in the beads of sea water on their tan skin. Today that moment lived for an hour, as if time itself had stopped the sun for their sake, so that youth and mirth and beauty might abide with them an hour longer. Their laughter rang across the empty beach and they looked at each other with a lifetime’s affection in their eyes. Arden turned his gaze to Sorrow and met hers, and there their eyes rested as if for another hour. Then the sun set and their moment ended. Twilight rose from the sea and they turned away.

“Where do you think they are now?” Loran asked abruptly, her voice full of concern as night came on.

“Our men, you mean,” Cal said. It was more a statement than a question. They all knew what she meant.

“Yes. Do I have to explain everything?”

“Well, you don’t make yourself very clear, Loran.”

“Even if they had a slow crossing, they would have sailed into Elashandra several weeks ago,” Arden replied, ignoring the budding argument between brother and sister. “By now, they could be hundreds of miles further east.”

“Has the battle with the dragons begun, do you think?” Sorrow said as she looked across the sea into the rising gloom.

“I don’t know. Perhaps,” said Arden. “But there’s no need to worry. The elves are strong, and with our men by their side they are stronger yet. The elves have defeated dragons before, you know.”

“Oh, those are just stories,” Loran interjected. “You can’t believe them.”

“Loran –” Cal warned.

“I believe them,” Arden interrupted. “Why shouldn’t I?”

“So do I,” said Hedále. “Arden’s right. Why shouldn’t we believe them?”

“But that was all over a thousand years ago,” Loran protested. “Elves and magic and dragons. They’re good stories. I love them, too, but that’s all they are.”

“Those stories have been handed down unchanged from singer to singer since before there was a Republic,” said Hedále, rather vehemently. His apprenticeship under Dorlas, one of the chief singers of Narinen, began the next day.

“But how do you know about the stories themselves? How do you know they haven’t changed? Have you ever seen a manuscript of the songs from a thousand years ago? And even if they are the same, that doesn’t mean they’re true. You can’t possibly believe they are!”

“But Loran, clearly there are elves and dragons,” said Cal. “And there are no manuscripts. You know that. The singers learn the songs by heart.”

“Yes, I know, Cal, but that doesn’t make the magic real, or the heroes that fought the dragons, or their victories against impossible odds. And without manuscripts we can’t know what the story was before. Tales grow in the telling, don’t you see? And magic is a lot of nonsense.”

“Our grandfather believes in it,” said Cal, who saw his grandfather as the font of all worldly and spiritual wisdom.

“I know that, Cal, but he’s old. Old men believe in myths. If that world ever existed, we don’t live in it any more.”

“Maybe there’s a good reason they believe,” said Hedále.

“Yes, maybe they know more than we do,” Sorrow said to Loran, “and do you two always have to quarrel?”

“Yes,” Cal answered, grinning.

“Oh, we do not,” Loran protested, but with a laugh quickly echoed by the others.

“What about our men across the sea?” Sorrow asked again after a moment.

The laughter ceased.

“I am sure all will be well,” Hedále said. “But I am worried about my father and brother. Even in the old songs not everyone came home.”

They grew quiet, thinking of the fathers, brothers, and friends they had watched sail off in the great fleet two months ago. Then they were all so certain of a swift victory and a glorious homecoming for their friends and family. Now, after nearly eight weeks without a word from the east, they were no longer so sure. Each dawn brought only the sunrise, and each sunrise only brought the day of conflict closer. Whatever the outcome, they knew, some would not return. And this made them anxious. For Hedále, Loran, Cal, and Sorrow had fathers and brothers with the army, and Arden a brother. His own father had been too old for the expedition. It embarrassed Arden that age kept his father safe while his friends’ fathers were all in peril, and at the same time denied him the deathless glory that would grace the victors the morning they sailed into Narinen.

“Yes, all will be well,” Arden muttered quietly, then began again more forcefully. “We will win. You’ll see. Magic or not. God will protect our men and we will win.”

“That’s right, “ said Hedále and Cal in near unison.

“I don’t know,” Sorrow said, looking at Arden. “God’s plans don’t always make sense to humans. I usually can’t even understand what my parents are thinking, let alone god.”

Arden looked down, trying to conceal his heart from her.

“I don’t think there is a god,” Loran added, almost desperately.

“Look at the beauty of the world, Loran, and the sea and the stars,” Arden protested. This was not the first time he had heard her say this. “How can there be such beauty without a god?”

“And how can there be this war and this evil and this suffering if there is? Even if we win, even if we destroy the dragons, thousands have already died, and more will die before the end. How could god allow that?”

“I don’t know,” said Hedále. “I just know that when I am playing and singing, it feels as if I could reach out and touch god. But then I see people suffer and I wonder.”

“Just because we don’t understand doesn’t prove anything,” Sorrow said.

“I know,” Hedále replied.

The twilight was ended now and more and more stars kindled into view. It was fully night, with the last lingering glow of sunset gone from the west. The sand grew cold. They quietly packed up and walked away from the sea that continued to wash the shore as if they had never been there. At the back of the beach, they climbed the long wooden stairs to the top of the bluff to the north, from which they could see the City of Narinen glowing softly in the darkness two miles away. There atop the bluff they made ready to part, reassuring each other with words and embraces, confident that despite their cares and the losses to come, all would be well in the end; and they would all meet here once again when the war was over and their first year of studies completed.

Sorrow and Loran and Cal walked ahead a little, while Arden and Hedále lingered a moment looking at the sea. Behind them Sorrow cast a long look back at Arden. She started to pause, to wait for him, but Loran put her arm around Sorrow’s shoulder and gently guided her onward and away from him. Cal pretended not to notice and began talking once more. Arden and Hedále were watching the moon rise blood red from the ocean as they had so many times before.

“I know that it is only the heat that makes the moon red,” Arden said in a low voice, “but tonight it bothers me. I am afraid Alairan, my brother, will never return. And I fear we will never stand here again.”

“It does seem redder than usual, and I don’t like the way the wind has suddenly come round out of the east,” Hedále answered. “That’s not normal. I feel as if the wind is bringing us something, ill news, or something, I don’t know what. And now there’s this moon, as red as blood. It scares me, too. I wonder where they are.”

“I imagine we’ll hear something soon,” Arden said, trying to sound confident, and together he and Hedále turned and followed the others, hurrying to overtake them for their last farewells.

Fallen leaves rustled in the woods nearby, though the wind had dropped to nothing. Arden opened his eyes, knowing now that he had been asleep, and dreaming rather than thinking. The hound was already up and moving stealthily towards this disturbance of the calm night. Silent as the hound, Arden shook his cloak back from his shoulders and followed. As he drew his sword and dagger, his thoughts strayed one last time to his friends, and he savored the warmth and even the pain which dreaming of that time brought to his heart.

But that was thirty years ago.

Before the dragons came.

They were all dead now.

___________________________

Chapter 2.1

Beyond This Be Elves! Sam and Story (II)

Sam Gamgee at the borders of Story

At about 44:00 minutes into Peter Jackson's The Fellowship of the Ring (Special Extended Edition), Frodo and Sam are crossing a cornfield.  Sam suddenly slows down, and starts to fall behind. He stops, looking thoughtfully at the earth before his feet. 

'This is it,' he says. 

'This is what?' Frodo stops to ask. 

'If I take one more step, it'll be the farthest away from home I've ever been.' 

Frodo walks back to him. 

'Come on, Sam,' he says, encouraging him. 

Sam looks down, and, with some trepidation, takes the step.  Frodo smiles and lays a hand upon his shoulder.  They go forward together.

'Remember what Bilbo used to say,' says Frodo, who pauses and then begins again, and as he does the voice of Bilbo quickly speaks over his: ' "It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door.  You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to." '

Let's take a look now at the original scene in the book:

...They were looking across the Woody End towards the Brandywine River.  The road wound before them like a piece of string.

'The road goes on for ever,' said Pippin; 'but I can't without a rest.  It is high time for lunch.'  He sat down on the bank at the side of the road and looked away east into the haze, beyond which lay the River, and the end of the Shire in which he had spent all his life.  Sam stood by him. His round eyes were wide open -- for he was looking across lands he had never seen to a new horizon.

'Do Elves live in those woods?' he asked.

'Not that I ever heard,' said Pippin.  Frodo was silent. He too was gazing eastward along the road, as if he had never seen it before. Suddenly he spoke, aloud but as if to himself, saying slowly:

The Road goes ever on and on

Down from the door where it began

Now far ahead the Road has gone,

And I must follow, if I can,

Pursuing it with weary feet,

Until it joins some larger way,

Where many paths and errands meet.

And whither then? I cannot say.

'That sounds like a bit of old Bilbo's rhyming,' said Pippin. 'Or is it one of your imitations?  It does not sound altogether encouraging.' 

'I don't know,' said Frodo. 'It came to me then, as if I was making it up; but I may have heard it long ago.  Certainly it reminds me of Bilbo in the last years, before he went away. He used often to say there was only one Road; that it was like a great river: its springs were at every doorstep, and every path was its tributary. "It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door," he used to say.  "You step into the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to.  Do you realize that this is the very path that goes through Mirkwood, and that if you let it, it might take you to the Lonely Mountain or even further and to worse places?"  He used to say that on the path outside the front door of Bag End, especially after he had been out for a long walk.'

'Well, the Road won't sweep me anywhere for an hour at least,' said Pippin, unslinging his pack.  The others followed his example, putting their packs against the bank and their legs out into the road.  After a rest they had a good lunch, and then more rest.

(FR 1.iii.73-74)

The purpose of setting these two scenes side by side is not to afford myself or anyone else an opportunity to bash the film for not being the book, but rather to allow us to see this scene in the book with eyes refreshed, perhaps, by the contrast. For myself, even though I am a mindful reader who has read the book many times, reading the one after watching the other was illuminating.  It gave me a better understanding of how the scene in the book fits into the larger Tale.

How is that so?  It's not just that there's so much more information conveyed, which of course there is.  It's the nature and emphasis of that information.  The film opts for the streamlined, and, with a gentle humor that we can share with his more worldly master, emphasizes the rustic parochialism of Sam as he takes his first step into a larger world.  It is a sweet scene, bolstered by the soundtrack and the avuncular voice-over of Bilbo.

In the book we have three hobbits looking at the country that lies ahead, but they do not all see it in the same way.  Pippin begins with a note that catches our attention, with what seems to the reader like an allusion to the song Bilbo sang right before he left the Shire seventeen years earlier (FR 1.i.35-36).¹ Yet Pippin is more concerned with lunch and rest, and when he looks down the road eastward all he sees is haze.  He knows that beyond that haze is the River and the boundaries of the Shire where 'he had spent all his life,' but does not seem to think beyond that fact.  As we've seen before, most hobbits give little thought to the world out there, to what lands and people wait in the empty white spaces that surround the Shire on hobbit maps.  So far, Pippin seems rather stolid for a Took.²  After all, they're supposed to be the adventurous ones.³

Yet beside him is Sam, who has an altogether different prospect in view.  As in the film he has reached the limits of his experience, but the book has already dealt with the question of how far from home Sam has been before.  In a scene on the previous night Sam had demonstrated how well he knew the land near Hobbiton, to which the narrator adds that 'twenty miles...was the limit of his geography' (FR 1.iii.71-72).  And while readers will surely remember this detail a page and a half later, and put it together with what we are reading now, the emphasis here is not on how far he has come, but on how far he is going.  Sam is not thinking of where one more step will take him in terms of geography.  That threshold he has already crossed in his mind.  For Sam is going with Mr. Frodo to see the Elves. This is his heart's desire, as he himself has already told us:

'Elves, sir! I would dearly love to see them. Couldn't you take me to see the Elves, sir, when you go?'....' Me, sir!' cried Sam, springing up like a dog invited for a walk. 'Me go and see Elves and all! Hooray!' he shouted, and then burst into tears.

(FR 1.ii.63-64; cf. ii.45)

What Sam is really asking now, with 'his round eyes wide open,' is whether he is standing at the borders of Faerie.  It is not merely a wider world, but another world entirely, the one for which he has yearned ever since Bilbo filled his head with 'stories of the old days' (FR 1.i.24), where Elves walk beneath the stars and dragons rise up on wings of wrath.  The world of Story.  And Sam's words here -- the only words he utters in the scene -- are central.  Not only do they occur very close to the middle of this passage, but they focus it on something more than geography and lunch (as important as such things no doubt remain). Indeed the entire scene can be said to pivot on them.

For while Pippin's reply is matter of fact and almost dismissive, Sam's question strikes a very deep chord with Frodo, who at first remains silent.  Not only does he see the road differently than either of his companions.  He also sees it differently than he himself would have done in the past: 'he too was gazing eastward along the road as if he had never seen it before;' when he breaks his silence, he speaks 'aloud but as if to himself;' and then he recites lines of poetry he doesn't know he knew, that 'just came to [him] then, as if [he] was making it up' (all italics mine). As with Sam, Frodo's past is relevant here. In the years after Bilbo left:

Frodo often went tramping over the Shire with [Merry and Pippin]; but more often he wandered by himself, and to the amazement of sensible folk he was sometimes seen far from home walking in the hills and woods under starlight.  Merry and Pippin suspected that he visited the Elves at times, as Bilbo had done.

(FR 1.ii.42-43)

But as he grew older, 'the regret that he had not gone with Bilbo was steadily growing,' and he told himself that one day he, too, would cross the river (FR 1.ii.43).  And as he came closer to the age at which 'adventure had suddenly befallen Bilbo' (FR 1.ii.43), 'Frodo began to feel restless, and the old paths seemed too well-trodden' (ii.43).  His friends became concerned that he would go off by himself (ii.43; v.103-04).  But with the revelation of the Ring, all that changes. Crossing the river becomes a darker and more complex proposition:

'I imagined [going away] as a kind of holiday, a series of adventures like Bilbo's or better, ending in peace.  But this would mean exile, a flight from danger into danger, drawing it after me.  And I suppose I must go alone, if I am to do that and save the Shire.  But I feel very small and very uprooted, and well -- desperate.  The Enemy is so strong and terrible.'

He did not tell Gandalf, but as he was speaking a great desire to follow Bilbo flamed up in his heart  -- to follow Bilbo, and even perhaps to find him again.  It was so strong that it overcame his fear: he could almost have run out there and then down the road without his hat, as Bilbo had done on a similar morning long ago. 

(FR 1.ii.62)

The desire to see Bilbo again gives Frodo the courage to face his fear and to try to save the Shire, but courage is not the same thing as hope.  He does not run out the door as Bilbo did, not now or anytime soon.  He discovers that leaving under these circumstances is harder than he thought.

'I have been so taken up with the thoughts of leaving Bag End, and of saying farewell, that I have never even considered the direction,' said Frodo. 'For where am I to go? And by what shall I steer?  What is to be my quest?  Bilbo went to find a treasure, there and back again; but I go to lose one, and not return, as far as I can see.'

(FR 1.iii.66)

Weeks of delay turn into months.  And, as we shall later learn from Merry, Frodo spends the spring and summer saying goodbye to the Shire, and has been 'constantly heard...muttering: "Shall I ever look down into that valley again, I wonder" ' (FR 1.v.103), almost the very words we heard him say the night before, in the scene where we also learned about Sam's geographical knowledge: 'I wonder if I shall ever look down into that valley again' (FR 1.iii.71-72).

Frodo's heart is looking backwards -- as Sam's is not, as Bilbo's was not -- at what he is leaving, at the Shire he feels sure he must lose.  Sam's question, now on the first morning of their journey, is as eager as Frodo's question of the night before was rueful.  Now, with this road of loss before his feet and Sam's words in his ears, it is no wonder that he feels disconnected from himself and his own words ('as if...as if...as if...'); and no wonder that the poem here seems to express Frodo's doubts and reluctance, but in Bilbo's mouth it had expressed his relief and happiness to be going.⁴ Seen in this way, Pippin's characterization of Frodo's recitation as 'not...altogether encouraging' is quite apt.  Not seen in this way -- that is, if we read it like Bilbo's -- Pippin's remark is harder to construe.

Yet we may also see that within Frodo's words -- the poem and the quotation of Bilbo -- lies an answer to the meaning of Sam's question. Having reached the limits of his own world of dull and incurious hobbits, Sam wants to know if this is where the world of Story begins.⁵  It begins, he is told, with the Road that begins at your doorstep.  Since the path leads to Mirkwood, and Erebor, and 'even further and to worse places,' the Road and the Story are inextricably linked.  Step into the one, and you step into the other.

How fully Sam may realize this now is impossible to say.  The text remains silent. He may still be staring across the valley at the woods, as he was when we last saw him, or he may have turned to look at Frodo when he began speaking, which is not an unreasonable inference.  But Sam is aware that the borders of the Shire are not impermeable, either to 'queer tales' or 'queer folk' (FR 1.ii.44-45), and that Elves, the very embodiment of Story, were moving westward to the Grey Havens and had been seen in the Shire, even by Sam himself, or so he believed (ii.45). And he of course knows that the world of Story showed up at Bilbo's front door. Very soon he will come to see that he is already inside a Tale.  For the hobbits will quickly find, once they enter those woods, that that other world, the world of Story, is no respecter of the attempts of the Shire-folk to fence it out.

But that all comes later, after a rest, and a good lunch, and more rest.  These are hobbits after all.

_____________________________________

¹ Pippin's later reaction to Frodo's reciting The Road Goes Ever On indicates that he is not here alluding to the poem. He doesn't seem to know it at all, which suggests that 'the road goes on for ever' was something of a proverbial expression upon which Bilbo built.
² It's not until Pippin finds himself a captive of the Orcs, who are soon to be attacked by the Rohirrim, that he begins to grasp the utility of knowing some geography (TT 3.iii.543):

He wondered very much what kind of folk [the Rohirrim] were.  He wished now that he had learned more in Rivendell, and looked at more maps and things, but in those days the plans for the journey seemed to be in more competent hands, and he had never reckoned with being cut off from Gandalf, or from Strider, and even from Frodo.  All that he could remember about Rohan was that Gandalf's horse, Shadowfax, had come from that land.  That sounded hopeful, as far as it went.

³ On Tookishness see Corey Olsen, Exploring J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, 17-26, and passim thereafter.
⁴ Compare Bilbo's words to Gandalf immediately before he sings the poem and leaves:

'Take care! I don't care.  Don't you worry about me!  I am as happy now as I have ever been, and that's saying a great deal.  But the time has come. I am being swept off my feet at last....'

(FR 1.i.35)

Verbally, the two instances of the poem differ in one word only. Where Bilbo says 'pursuing it with eager feet' (FR 1.i.35), Frodo says 'pursuing it with weary feet.' This is entirely consonant with the portrayals of Bilbo, who can't wait to leave and used his party as a stage for a grand and shocking exit, and Frodo, who is loath to go no matter how long he has dallied with the idea of following Bilbo. It will be worthwhile to study their departures from Bag End.  Tbe idea of 'pursuing' the road is an intriguing enough notion on its own, but the juxtaposition of this idea of intentional effort with Bilbo's statement that the Road can sweep you away to no one knows where also opens the door to what could prove an interesting examination of free will.

⁵ For Sam's experience of this, look here. Frodo, too, has also felt the rub of being surrounded by those with willfully narrow perspectives: "I should like to save the Shire, if I could -- though there have been times when I thought the inhabitants too stupid and dull for words, and have felt that an earthquake or an invasion of dragons might be good for them.' (FR 1.ii.62) One brief point here (yes, brief): an invasion of dragons would entail an invasion of the prosaic world of the Shire by the fantastic world of Story.

The Naming of Sméagol

In The Taming of Sméagol a newly captured Gollum asks the hobbits about their destination:

'And where are they going in these cold hard lands, we wonders, yes we wonders?' He looked up at them, and a faint light of cunning and eagerness flickered for a second in his pale blinking eyes.

 ....  

Frodo looked straight into Gollum's eyes which flinched and twisted away.  'You know that, or you guess well enough, Sméagol,' he said quietly and sternly. 'We are going to Mordor, of course.  And you know the way there, I believe.' 

'Ach! sss!' said Gollum, covering his ears with his hands, as if such frankness, and the open speaking of the names, hurt him.

(TT 4.i.616)

Those last words -- 'as if such frankness, and the open speaking of the names, hurt him' --  bear special notice.  The names -- plural and definite, including both Mordor and Sméagol  --  assert a sureness about the truth of this explanation that makes the words 'as if' seem a courtesy paid in passing.  In a legendarium born from a single name such an emphasis on names and their power is never to be ignored. And so, when I noticed not long ago that the narrator, while speaking in his own voice, rarely calls Gollum Sméagol, it led me to investigate the use of this name. Let's look at The Two Towers since that is where it occurs most often by far.

For starters, the name Sméagol is used there 145 times, all of them, unsurprisingly, in Book Four.  Of these instances ninety-five are Gollum referring to or addressing himself.  That's 65 percent of the total.  How fascinating that after being seemingly hurt by hearing his name openly spoken Gollum then proceeds to use it with such tiresome frequency (even more tiresome if you're counting).  It suggests that Frodo's calling Gollum by his true name has opened a door within him that had long been shut.  Now back in The Shadow of the Past Gandalf had said of Gollum that:

'There was a little corner of his mind that was still his own, and light came through it, as through a chink in the dark: a light out of the past. It was actually pleasant, I think, to hear a kindly voice again, bringing up memories of wind, and trees, and sun on the grass, and such forgotten things.'

(FR 1.ii.55)  

It was also in this very conversation with Gandalf that Frodo learned Gollum's real name, which Gandalf, there can be little doubt, had learned directly from Gollum.¹ It is further true that Gandalf calls him Sméagol only in telling the story of how he came by the Ring five hundred years earlier; in speaking of the 'present' he always calls him Gollum.  So even quite early in the Tale we can see a connection established in Frodo's presence between Sméagol and the other 'forgotten things' of Gollum's past. We also see, later in the same conversation, Gandalf express the admittedly wan hope that 'Gollum can be cured before he dies' (FR 1.ii.59).

Thus, by addressing Gollum as Sméagol, Frodo evokes (and perhaps seeks to evoke), the memory of these things, just as Gandalf implies Bilbo had done.  Yet the portrait of Gollum is too complex and cunning for evocation to lead simply to reformation, even if it opens the door to the hope of a cure. The signals from Gollum remain mixed throughout, just like Sméagol and Gollum themselves.  (I almost feel I should say 'himselves'.)

And how could it be otherwise when the first two times Gollum uses his own name he equates Sméagol with the Ring itself: 'Don't ask Sméagol.  Poor, poor Sméagol, he went away long ago.  They took his Precious, and he's lost now' (TT 4.i.616)?  No Precious, no Sméagol.  The implication of this is clear. Gollum also sees a distinction between himself and the lost Sméagol, though it is not the same distinction as Gandalf saw.  For in Gollum's mind Sméagol was lost not with the murder of Déagol centuries before, but with the loss of the Ring to Bilbo.

The complexity of this portrait is also clear in the first thing Gollum does after he is called Sméagol.  Once Sam and Frodo pretend to trust him and feign sleep, he tries to escape (4.i.617), making no attempt to recover the Ring he has sought since the desire of it drove him from the darkness beneath the Misty Mountains 75 years earlier (FR 1.ii.57; RK B 1089).  The hobbits  --  'The thieves, the thieves, the filthy little thieves.  Where are they with my Precious? Curse them. We hates them,' (TT 4.i.613)  --   seem to be asleep, all at his mercy now, and his Precious is right at hand.  And Gollum runs (TT 4.i.617).

Nor does the picture grow less complicated after Frodo compels him to swear by the Ring in the next scene and 'the new Gollum, the Sméagol' begins to emerge.  For this Gollum, too, is problematic and conflicted.  Despite 'the Sméagol's' usefulness and friendliness, Sam dislikes and mistrusts him even more 'if possible' than the old Gollum (TT 4.i.619), and Frodo trusts him only provisionally (TT 4.i.624, iii. 640, iv.649).

And there are few things that demonstrate Frodo's much underestimated caution towards Gollum more than the fact that Frodo calls him Sméagol only when addressing him directly. The sole exception is when Frodo, in a highly formal context, responds to Faramir's asking him whether he takes 'this creature, this Sméagol under [his] protection.' (TT 4.vi.690).  In addition to still addressing him as Gollum at times (TT 4.i.614, 615; iii.640), Frodo also still thinks of him as Gollum (4.i.615; iii.643; vi.686-87), which he continues to do in The Return of the King (RK 6.i.914; ii.929; iii.947).

This practice of Frodo the character is supported by the custom of Frodo the narrator, who refers to him as Gollum 251 times in Book Four, but calls him Sméagol a total of seven times in only three places.²  The first is in the title of the initial chapter of Book Four, The Taming of Sméagol, a title for which I believe the text suggests a 'tricksy' meaning  --  namely, that it is not Gollum, but Sméagol, who is tamed.  However that may be, it is nevertheless a chapter title, and so more of a comment upon the narrative from the editorial heights than a part of the narrative itself.  On the second occasion the narrator uses 'Sméagol' five times, in the famous scene, witnessed by Sam, in which the two different 'thoughts' that are Gollum argue with each other  (TT 4.ii.632-34). Here the narrator's use of Sméagol helps to differentiate clearly between these 'thoughts,' separating the more threatening Gollum from the less threatening Sméagol.³

In the third instance the narrator adopts a high mythic style to trace the history of 'Shelob the Great, last child of Ungoliant to trouble the unhappy world,' and explain Gollum's knowledge of her:

Already, years before, Gollum had beheld her, Sméagol who pried into all dark holes, and in past days he had bowed and worshipped her, and the darkness of her evil will walked through all the ways of his weariness beside him, cutting him off from light and from regret.  

 (TT 4.ix.723)

Note how the very syntax of 'Sméagol' here, in apposition and logically subordinate to the grammatical subject 'Gollum,' mirrors the reality it describes.  'Sméagol' is parallel but secondary, intimately linked yet adjectival, a rhetorical alternative to the repetition of the subject.  Sméagol modifies Gollum, and yet his role as the one 'who pried into all dark holes' must have been crucial to finding her.

This passage, moreover, is like a bookend or a counterbalance to the passage in The Shadow of the Past quoted above (FR 1.ii.55), in which Gandalf speaks of the pleasant memories Bilbo's kindly voice stirred in Gollum, and of the bit of light that still reached him out of the past.  Whatever slender hope that passage seemed to offer, this seems to take away, and conclusively so since it comes after Gollum's betrayal of the hobbits and the missed opportunity to repent upon the stairs (TT 4.viii.714).⁴ Indeed the grimness of that final coordinate clause ('and the darkness...regret.') makes Gollum's failure to repent, the necessary precursor to a cure, feel almost predictable, as if we should have known.⁵ That is not the case, as I believe the larger context of the Tale in Book Four demonstrates, but it adds further complexity. Gollum's being cut off from light and regret both makes repentance more difficult for him, and shows clearly how strong the urge to repent must have been for him to get as close to it as he does.

If we turn to Sam's uses of Sméagol, it is clear that he, too, becomes increasingly aware of the complications that the very notion of a Sméagol poses for dealing with Gollum.  Aside from trusting 'the new Gollum, the Sméagol' less than the old (4.i.619), he's at first fairly sure the distinction won't make a difference in practice: 'Sméagol or Gollum, he won't change his habits in a hurry, I'll warrant' (4.ii.622-23). But maintaining that attitude soon proves challenging:

Sam frowned.  If he could have bored holes in Gollum with his eyes, he would have done.  His mind was full of doubt.  To all appearances Gollum was genuinely distressed and anxious to help Frodo.  But Sam, remembering the overheard debate, found it hard to believe that the long submerged Sméagol had come out on top: that voice at any rate had not had the last word in the debate.  Sam's guess was that the Sméagol and Gollum halves (or what in his own mind he called Slinker and Stinker) had made a truce and a temporary alliance: neither wanted the Enemy to get the Ring; both wished to keep Frodo from capture, and under their eye, as long as possible  -- at any rate as long as Stinker still had a chance of laying hands on his 'Precious'.  Whether there really was another way into Mordor Sam doubted.

(TT 4.iii.638-39)

Yet alongside his doubts and suspicions Sam also arrives at moments here and there where he displays something I can only call 'not-unkindliness' towards Gollum.  In Ithilien, for example, when Gollum brings Sam the rabbits he requests, Sam offers to cook for Sméagol in some surprising future that no one could have expected Sam ever to envision:

'But be good Sméagol and fetch me the herbs, and I'll think better of you.  What's more, if you turn over a new leaf, and keep it turned, I'll cook you some taters one of these days. I will: fried fish and chips served by S. Gamgee.'

(TT 4.iv.654)

I want to emphasize here --  since I don't think I had ever noticed this before now, and had to consult six different editions dating back to the 1960s to be fairly sure there was no typo --  that the correct reading of the text clearly seems to be what I have reproduced above: 'But be good Sméagol and....' That is, while Sam is indeed addressing Gollum directly here, he is not calling him by name (which would be 'But be good, Sméagol, and....').  He is telling him to be 'good Sméagol' rather than 'bad Sméagol,' namely Gollum. It's a subtle difference, but it suggests an awareness on Sam's part that a real change in Gollum may be possible, even if not inevitable or, for that matter, at all likely.

This fits in both with the banter that goes on between Sam and Gollum in the passage, especially Sam's mockery of Gollum's manner of speech just two paragraphs above, and Sam's telling Frodo when he wakes up that the rabbits are 'a present from Sméagol...though I fancy Gollum's regretting them now' (TT 4.iv.655). But neither has Sam, in asking Sméagol to hunt for them and in speaking to him not unkindly, forgotten who they are dealing with.  For just that very morning Sam had come across in the woods the remnants of a 'dreadful feast and slaughter....he said nothing: the bones were best left in peace and not pawed and routed by Gollum' (TT 4.iv.651).

And not only that: as they are eating the stewed rabbit a little later Sam warns Frodo that they should not both fall asleep together: 'I don't feel too sure of [Gollum], There's a good deal of Stinker -- the bad Gollum, if you understand me -- in him still, and it's getting stronger again' (TT 4.iv.655-56).  Sam has not forgotten the overheard conversation between Slinker and Stinker, in which Gollum had had the last word, a word that had dismayed even Sméagol: 'She might help.  She might, yes' (TT 4.ii.633).

Sméagol/Gollum is a complex, tormented soul.  Gandalf felt that a cure for him was not beyond all hope, and Frodo thought that he was 'not altogether wicked' (TT 4.vi.691) but Faramir's assessment that 'malice eats [this creature] like a canker, and the evil is growing' (4.vi.691) is also correct.  Even Sam, as hostile and suspicious as he usually is of Sméagol/Gollum, is well aware of the straining, shifting currents of good and evil within him.  The one thing that this examination of the use of 'Sméagol' has told us is that there is no hard and fast, black and white, split between the two 'thoughts' or, as Sam sees it, 'halves' that are Sméagol and Gollum.  He is as trackless and treacherous as the Dead Marshes themselves.

The two characters who know him best, Frodo and Sam, are ambivalent about him in different degrees.  Frodo does not trust him, and is not fooled by him.  He knows he's dangerous, and that even the promise made on the Ring itself will only hold him for so long.  But Frodo's experience with the Ring since The Shadows of the Past has changed him.  (And not just what he has suffered himself, but what he has seen others suffer because of the Ring, specifically Boromir, who tried to take the Ring from him by force mere days before he meets Gollum and shows him mercy.) For him calling Gollum Sméagol is an attempt to reach the 'little corner of his mind that,' as Gandalf said 'was still his own,' Frodo does so out of Pity, not self-interest.  That he still calls him Gollum sometimes and thought and later wrote of him as Gollum probably reflects his understanding of how meager the hope of curing him was, and perhaps also the reality of how the Tale turned out.  In the end he proved to be Gollum, and so he was called, but it was a very near run thing.

Sam, ever protective and fearful for his Master, has not yet learned Pity.  His experience of the Ring and his seeming failure of Frodo lie before him yet.  He has also heard the Sméagol/Gollum debate and seen Gollum's hands grasping for a sleeping Frodo's throat.  So, while he can be not unkindly to Sméagol and can allow a glimmer of hope for him, he cannot forget the growing danger Gollum poses.  And it's true that Gollum merits his suspicions, even at the moment of his near repentance,⁶ but as Bilbo, Gandalf, and Frodo saw, and as Sam will see (RK 6.iii.944), Sméagol deserves his Pity.

In so narrow a view as I have taken here, it is all too easy to mistake, to misunderstand, to misrepesent, unwillingly, uniwttingly, the complex joint portrait of all three of the main characters of Book Four.  What is really needed is an in depth, page by page exploration at length of the rich web woven here.

______________________________________________________

¹While it is nowhere explicitly stated that Gandalf learned the name Sméagol from Gollum himself, there really is no other possibility. Note how in telling Frodo the story of Sméagol and Déagol Gandalf witholds the information that Sméagol and Gollum are one until the very end. It may be that he's trying to set Frodo up to feel pity for Gollum when he reveals their identity.  If so, he fails, for the moment.  Later, when Faramir reaches Minas Tirith with the news that he had seen Frodo and Sam with Gollum, Gandalf says: '...my heart guessed that Frodo and Gollum would meet before the end' (RK 5.iv.815).  It is tempting to read this presentiment back into his conversation with Frodo at Bag End, but it may not be justified.

²'Gollum' occurs 305 times in Book Four. Fifty-four times it is used in direct address or direct speech by a character or in 'the gollum noise.' The other 251 times belong to the narrator.  Gollum actually never calls himself 'Gollum' as far as I have been able to find.  I am not counting the noise he makes in his throat as a form of self-address, even if others derived a name for him from it.  The text uses capitalization and italics to make clear the distinction between the 'gollum noise' and Gollum used as a name. Sam's 'Gollum! I'll give him gollum in his throat, if I ever get my hands on his neck' (TT 4.i.604) is the perfect illustration.  For further examples, see TT 3.iii.455-56; 4.i.613, 614, 615, 616.  Oddly enough, at least as far back as the 1960s American editions of The Lord of the Rings, but not of The Hobbit, were italicizing the 'gollum noise.'

³'Thought' is the word used in that scene to describe the two different aspects of Gollum that are speaking.  We would be quite naturally inclined to call them 'personalities,' but not Tolkien of course.  Aside from the fact that 'personality' as we mean it here is a coinage of only the late 18th century (OED s.v. 2), he probably would have disliked it for all of the freight of Psychology that it carried with it.  But in any event the word would have been ill suited stylistically for The Lord of the Rings.  On the other hand, however, 'thought' used in this sense seems unparalleled in recent centuries, though not entirely new.  The OED s.v. 1b shows an early meaning (two citations from the Lindisfarne Gospels, ca 950) which clearly appears to have the sense 'mind.'

⁴I am currently preparing a paper on the scene of Gollum's near repentance for presentation at Mythmoot III in January 2015. I will of course also post that paper here, but likely not for some time yet.

⁵This clause has always sounded to me like a dim and dark echo of the final verse of the 23rd psalm: 'Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.'

⁶A point I owe to Corey Olsen.  See The Two Towers, Class 08: Doom and Great Deeds from about 25:00 onwards.

_______________________________

The tabulation below presents the uses of 'Sméagol' in the order in which they occur, separated by chapter (starting in The Two Towers, since the bulk of the uses occur there and since the story there is our focus), and annotated with  speaker and form of speech.  Having to count, over and over, the number of times Gollum calls himself 'Sméagol' gives one a new and better understanding of why Strider gagged Gollum while he marched him to the halls of Thranduil.


FrDA = Frodo, the Character, in Direct Address to Gollum
FrDS  = Frodo, the Character, in Direct Speech about Gollum
GS     = Gollum, addressing or referring to himself
FrN    = Frodo the Narrator.
SDA  = Sam, in Direct Address to Gollum
SDS   = Sam, in Direct Speech about Gollum
ST      = Sam's Thoughts as reported by the narrator.
FaDA = Faramir, in Direct Address to Gollum
FaDS  = Faramir, in Direct Speech about Gollum
GaDS = Gandalf, in Direct Speech about Gollum

Sméagol in The Two Towers:

The Taming of Sméagol:

01. 4.i.603 Title of Chapter = FrN
02. 4.i.616 FrDA
03. 4.i.616 FrDA
04. 4.i.616 GS
05. 4.i.616 GS
06. 4.i.618 GS
07. 4.i.618 GS
08. 4.i.618 FrDA
09. 4.i.618 GS
10. 4.i.618 GS
11. 4.i.618 FrDA
12. 4.i.618 GS
13. 4.i.619 ST
14. 4.i.619 GS
15. 4.i.619 GS
16. 4.i.619 GS

The Passage of the Marshes

17. 4.ii.620 GS
18. 4.ii.621 GS
19. 4.ii.621 GS
20. 4.ii.622 FrDA
21. 4.ii.622 GS
22. 4.ii.622 GS
23. 4.ii.622 GS
24. 4.ii.622 GS
25. 4.ii.622 GS
26  4.ii.622 SDS
27. 4.ii.623 GS
28. 4.ii.624 GS
29. 4.ii.625 FrDA
30. 4.ii.625 GS
31. 4.ii.625 GS
32. 4.ii.625 GS
33. 4.ii.625 GS
33. 4.ii.628 GS
35. 4.ii.628 GS
36. 4.ii.628 ST
37. 4.ii.628 GS
38. 4.ii.629 GS
39. 4.ii.629 GS
40. 4.ii.629 GS
41. 4.ii.632 FrN
42. 4.ii.632 GS
43. 4.ii.633 GS
44. 4.ii.633 GS
45. 4.ii.633 GS
46. 4.ii.633 FrN
47. 4.ii.633 GS
48. 4.ii.633 FrN
49. 4.ii.633 FrN
50. 4.ii.634 FrN
51. 4.ii.634 GS
52. 4.ii.634 GS

The Black Gate Is Closed

53. 4.iii.637 GS
54. 4.iii.637 GS
55. 4.iii.637 GS
56. 4.iii.637 GS
57. 4.iii.637 GS
58. 4.iii.637 GS (quoted back, inaccurately, at  # 73)
59. 4.iii.637 GS
60. 4.iii.638 GS
61. 4.iii.638 GS
62. 4.iii.638 GS
63. 4.iii.638 GS
64. 4.iii.638 GS
65. 4.iii.638 GS
66. 4.iii.638 GS
67. 4.iii.638 GS
68. 4.iii.638 GS
69. 4.iii.638 ST
70. 4.iii.638 ST
71. 4.iii.640 FrDA
72. 4.iii.640 FrDA
73. 4.iii.640 GS
74. 4.iii.640 FrDA (quoting, inaccurately, # 57)
75. 4.iii.640 FrDA
76. 4.iii.640 FrDA
77. 4.iii.640 FrDA
78. 4.iii.641 GS (as quoted by FrN)
79. 4.iii.641 GS
80. 4.iii.642 GS
81. 4.iii.643 GS
82. 4.iii.643 GS
83. 4.iii.643 GS
84. 4.iii.643 GS
85. 4.iii.643 FrDA
86. 4.iii.646 GS
87. 4.iii.646 GS
88. 4.iii.647 GS
89. 4.iii.647 GS
90. 4.iii.647 GS
91. 4.iii.647 GS
92. 4.iii.647 FrDA

Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit

93. 4.iv.648 GS
94. 4.iv.652 GS
95. 4.iv.653 GS
96. 4.iv.653 GS
97. 4.iv.653 GS
98. 4.iv.654 GS
99. 4.iv.654 GS
100. 4.iv.654 GS
101. 4.iv.654 GS
102. 4.iv.654 GS
103. 4.iv.654 SDA
104. 4.iv.654 GS
105. 4.iv.654 GS
106. 4.iv.654 SDA
107. 4.iv.655 SDS

The Window on the West

none

The Forbidden Pool

108. 4.vi.686 GS
109. 4.vi.687 FrDA
110. 4.vi.687 FrDA
111. 4.vi.687 FrDA
112. 4.vi.687 FrDA
113. 4.vi.687 FrDA
114. 4.vi.687 GS
115. 4.vi.687 GS
116. 4.vi.687 FrDA
117. 4.vi.687 GS
118. 4.vi.687 GS
119. 4.vi.688 FrDA
120. 4.vi.689 FrDA
121. 4.vi.690 GS
122. 4.vi.690 FaDS
123. 4.vi.690 FrDS
124. 4.vi.691 FaDA
125. 4.vi.693 FaDS
126. 4.vi.693 FaDS

Faramir uses 'Sméagol' three times when speaking of him to Frodo, each time with evident distrust and loathing; and once he addresses him directly.  But Faramir knows of no other name for him than Sméagol.  Neither Frodo nor Sam call him Gollum in front of Faramir. Neither Sam nor, it would appear, Frodo had any intention of mentioning him if they didn't need to do so (TT 4.v.672; vi.685).

Journey to the Crossroads

127. 4.vii.695 GS
128. 4.vii.696 FrDS
129. 4.vii.696 FrDS

The Stairs of Cirith Ungol

130. 4.viii.713 SDS
131  4.viii.715 GS
132. 4.viii.715 GS
133, 4.viii.715  FrDA
134. 4.viii.715 GS
135. 4.viii.715 FrDA
136. 4.viii.715 GS
137. 4.viii.716 FrDA
138. 4.viii.716 GS

Shelob's Lair

139. 4.ix.717 FrDA
140, 4.ix.717 GS
141. 4.ix.719 FrDA
142. 4.ix.719 FrDA
143. 4.ix.723 FrN
144. 4.ix.724 GS
145. 4.ix.726 GS

GS = 94/145 = 64.82%

FrDA/S = 31/145 = 21.37%

FrN = 7/145 = 4.82%

ST/SDS/SDA = 9/145 = 6.2%

FaDA/FaDS = 4/145 = 2.75%


Sméagol in The Fellowship of the Ring

The Shadow of the Past

01. 1.ii.53 GaDS
02. 1.ii.53 GaDS
03. 1.ii.53 GaDS
04. 1.ii.53 GaDS
05. 1.ii.53 GaDS
06. 1.ii.53 GaDS
07. 1.ii.53 GaDS
08. 1.ii.53 GaDS
09  1.ii.56 GaDS

The Council of Elrond

10. 2.ii.255 Legolas says: 'Sméagol, who is now called Gollum.'


Sméagol in The Return of the King

Mount Doom

01. 6.iii.943 GS
02. 6.iii.943 GS

Appendix B in The Return of the King shows a noteworthy progression in the uses of both names.  He is 'Sméagol' when he kills Déagol (1087, under the year 2463), 'Sméagol-Gollum' for as long as he is under the Misty Mountains (1087, under the year 2470; 1089, under the year 2941), and 'Gollum' alone once he leaves the mountains to hunt for the Ring (1089, under the year 2944).