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Counterpoint, Movement XVII
Suite: a composition consisting of a series of varying movements or pieces.
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Merry feels in colours. He has discovered that memory has a taste and each taste has a different texture and each texture has a different colour and each colour reflects off the next, spins against the backs of his eyes, slithers down along the inside of his breastbone, settles in a cold, calm pool about his heart.
“I’d like to get a little more broth down them, if we can,” Strider says – Aragorn, Aragorn, why can’t I ever remember that? – and Merry feels rich brown-gold pull about him in a soft haze of ghost-steam, wafting up into his nose.
“Just a little more, Merry-lad,” Frodo tells him and he lifts the cup of broth to Merry’s lips once more, something that looks like it wants to be a smile hovering over his own. “A few more sips and I’ll leave off, I promise.”
“I can’t,” Merry whines, shifts his fever-damp limbs about and scowls at the low ache that has pooled and rests heavy at the bottom of his skin. “It tastes terrible and it makes me feel even more terrible and you’re terrible for making me drink it.”
That annoying smile at Frodo’s mouth grows and does he really think Merry is so miserable that he doesn’t notice? Likes having Merry at his mercy, more like, and Merry scowls again, hoping it’s dark and menacing and not pleading and pathetic as he rather suspects. His suspicion is more or less confirmed when Frodo tries to cover a snort with a very badly-faked cough/sneeze.
“It’s what you get when you decide it’s a good idea to ride nearly thirty leagues in an autumn rain and without an oiled cloak. Really, Merry, and you say I have no sense. Come, now, drink up.”
Merry pushes the cup away. “I was anxious to see you!”
“And now you see me,” Frodo tells him. “Isn’t this fun?”
That ridiculous smile quirks into a sardonic near-grin and Merry decides that there is going to be some severe come-uppance in Frodo’s near-future. Just as soon as Merry can move without black spots dancing before his eyes. And, of course, when his tongue stops feeling as though he fell asleep with someone’s hairy foot in his mouth.
“Not especially what I had in mind,” Merry mutters and takes a reluctant sip from the cup.
“Nor I,” says Frodo, “but what’s done is done and I suppose--”
“What is in this swill anyway?” Merry cuts in, squinching up his face then sticking out his tongue and wiping the cuff of his sleeve across it. “It tastes like you’ve soaked your wash in it and then poured in two pounds of salt.”
Frodo peers into the cup. Merry notices that Frodo very obviously does not inhale while the dubious broth hovers below his nose. He shakes his head, shrugs.
“I’m sure I don’t know but Sam swears by it. Says you’ll be up and about by tomorrow, if you drink it all. Bottoms up.”
Merry glares, rolls his eyes then snags the cup from Frodo’s hand with both of his own and downs the dregs. He sputters, gags, fights with the very present desire to toss up the entire meagre contents of his stomach along with the disgusting broth. He clenches his teeth, breathes deeply until he decides he will hold onto it all for now.
Frodo’s smile has gone away and he peers now at Merry with… Merry almost thinks that’s sadness, but what in the world has Frodo to be sad about? It’s not like anyone’s dying or anything.
“What possessed you, Merry?” Frodo asks him softly.
Merry shrugs. “Wanted to see you, of course.”
And now the smile’s back again, but it doesn’t look cheeky and knowing as it did before; only soft and touched by love. Frodo leans in, slips his fingers, cool and dry, into Merry’s damp hair, sweeps it back and out of his eyes, tucks it behind his ears.
“I wanted to see you, too, but you might have waited until the rain let up. No sense in making yourself sick, love. I’d’ve still been here, you know.”
“Would you, though?” Merry asks. “You’ll be leaving me one day, don’t pretend like you won’t, and how was I to know that this was not that day, or tomorrow, or…”
No, he hadn’t said that.
Merry shakes his head, slips his fingers, warm and sweated, into Frodo’s lank hair, sweeps it back and off of the small burn that runs along his hairline, just a fingernail’s breadth from the new silver strands at his temple and below the old thin scar that Merry could trace with his eyes closed.
Of course he’d not said any such thing. He may have thought it but, if he had, he thinks it was probably more a vague phantom-shape, tucked away in a corner of his heart, feeling like the brown-gold ghost of steam and tasting of thick salty tears.
“Would you like to do this, sir?” one of the healers asks. (There are six of them assigned to the Ring-bearers, in addition to Strider – Aragorn, blast it! – and Gandalf, but Merry has not had enough control over his thoughts in the past days to keep their names straight.) The healer offers Merry the small tin cup he holds, a straw jaunting up and leaning against its inside rim. Steam wafts from its lip, spirals up and out of the small ‘o’ at the end of the straw, and Merry wonders if that steam smells brown-gold.
He shakes his head, mute, and only watches as the healer plugs the tip of his finger to the end of the straw then slips it between Frodo’s teeth, lets the liquid pool at the back of his tongue before sliding his fingers gently along Frodo’s throat. Frodo swallows – the only movement Merry has seen from either him or Sam since he’d got here – and he couldn’t possibly say why it unnerves him so. ‘Like a sigh from a corpse,’ and Merry blinks that thought away before he even admits to himself he’s thought it.
“When was the last time someone changed these dressings?” Aragorn asks the healer (Ondoher, that’s his name!) as he pulls up the sheet covering Frodo’s legs.
“Just before you arrived, sir,” Ondoher answers and Aragorn nods, satisfied, but doesn’t replace the sheet just yet.
The calves are shiny-burnt and those bandages must be changed every other hour, Merry knows, the burns cleansed and salved and covered only lightly, and isn’t it funny the knowledge one acquires, even when one is not really listening? Trying not to listen? The gashes beneath the burns are troublesome and have caused more than one healer to shake his head in despair, but Aragorn is stern in his instructions for their care, blends the herbs himself, and he is satisfied that they are healing properly. The feet…
‘Sam is going to have someone’s head,’ and Merry has to smile a little, though anyone seeing that smile might find themselves hard-pressed not to flinch from the sight.
The hair has been close-cropped, for it had been matted and burnt into tight clumps of blackened, brittle kinks and beyond any hope of restoration. But the burns to the skin beneath it must be treated anyway and the salves wouldn’t have penetrated through the fur without a good struggle, so it was probably for the best anyway. The burns themselves are healing nicely and the hair is beginning to grow back already, so Merry hopes it will be enough to curb any real dismay when Frodo and Sam get their first look at their feet.
“Bugger damn, that bloody hurt!”
Merry catches hold of Pippin’s elbow, stills his flapping arm and leads him quickly down the hall and into the kitchen. He thrusts Pippin’s palm beneath the spigot then pumps until icy water spurts and runs over the burn then into the basin below. Pippin is too quiet while Merry does all of this and even when Merry guides his hand into the basin itself, lifts it from the washstand and carries it over to the table. Pippin simply follows, his hand still floating in the basin, and he sits, stares at his fingers, magnified and paled by the refraction of the water. Those fingers twitch a little and Pippin continues to watch as small bubbles form in the folds of his knuckles, knock loose and rise in tiny, silent explosions of air at the surface.
Merry feels the red-orange heat of licks of flame, smells the burnt-carob brown of the chestnuts Pippin had been roasting/cracking/eating as Merry had tried to crank up his nerve to tell him why he’d asked him to come. Merry really needs to work on his timing.
“You shouldn’t tell a person a thing like that when they’ve something hot as a coal hovering over their lap.”
Because Pippin had just been in the process of retrieving another chestnut from the grate when Merry had finally spilled his thoughts. Pippin had been so intent upon listening to Merry that he hadn’t been paying attention to the fact that the tongs had loosened in his absent grip and it is only because he had made a grab for the still-sizzling chestnut at the last possible second that he is sitting here with his hand in the basin and not something else that every male values even more than a good right hand.
“When?” Pippin asks.
Merry can only shake his head, shrug. “I’ve no idea. It could be tomorrow or months from now, I just don’t know.”
“Well, that just won’t do!” Pippin blurts and his eyes flash sharp with rebuke. “What in the world are you doing here, for pity’s sake? Why aren’t you watching him?”
“I’ll be riding back tomorrow, in fact, but I’ve got Sam keeping an eye and ear out for now, Pip, no worries. He’ll get word to me if Frodo shows signs of disappearing. And anyway, I had to tell you, didn’t I?”
“I should say so!” Pippin looks back to his hand beneath the water, stutters his fingers a little. His brow is creased in thought and Merry can almost hear his mind working in that smooth, non-sensical logic that somehow always seems to birth completely logical sense.
“We should stop him,” Pippin mutters and Merry knows better than to respond, for he knows full well that Pippin is only talking to himself and would be startled if anyone actually answered. “We should but he won’t let us, not that one. Probably thinks we’ll try and that’s why he won’t come to us.” Pippin stops, peers up at Merry. “You do realise he won’t come to us with this?”
Merry nods silently, looks away.
“It’s because he loves us, you know,” Pippin tells him. “He won’t want--”
“I know, Pip,” Merry says and Pippin stops, looks at Merry for a very long time before he goes back to working out in two minutes what it’s taken Merry nearly three weeks to work out for himself.
“All right, so he won’t come to us but he’s not keeping things from Sam so far, at least as far as Sam can tell…” Pippin looks to Merry for confirmation on this and when Merry nods, Pippin goes back to his study of his by now water-logged fingers. “So, Sam will be able to tell us when a decision’s been reached on the when.”
Pippin pauses, looks back to Merry again and blinks a few times. “Well, it appears that all we really have to worry about is whether we’re packed and ready by the time Sam gives us the go-ahead.”
And Merry smiles, almost feels a little like weeping because stars! this amazing Took is one of the most remarkable people he knows and Merry can’t help but marvel at the fact that he has just sat in the warm-dark of Brandy Hall’s kitchen and watched this same amazing person decide to profoundly and irrevocably change his life – risk it, even, because who knows what waits for them Out There? And all of it just like that – a few blinks of green-bright eyes and it’s done.
Merry stands, takes the few steps over to his cousin, and Pippin knows what’s coming; Merry can tell because Pippin rolls his eyes a little but lets himself be gathered into a powerful embrace – somewhat awkward, though it is, what with Merry standing and Pippin still sitting with his hand in cold water. Merry closes his eyes, buries his nose in curls smelling of smoky chestnuts, and he feels the slow-burning warmth of red-gold flame, kindled low and rolling steady in his heart.
He won’t tell this Pippin that the Merry he will become will fail him, that he will be whipped like a dog, snarled at by creatures not fit to utter even his name with their foul black tongues. He won’t tell this Pippin that the Merry he will be will betray him somewhere between Rohan and the White City, that he will end up buried beneath a behemoth, because this Merry, who holds to him so tight on this chill spring evening in a time before all of their small lives had become part of Something Bigger, will weep at his bedside and beg his forgiveness for the wounds The Merry He Will Be will inflict because of this same love that burns soft in his heart and smells of chestnuts.
The Merry Who Is wishes he could make The Merry Who Was say all of these things, warn this Pippin against himself, for that Merry was braver than this one, though that bravery sprang from the waters of a well untested and a heart a thousand shades lighter than the dark hole that sleeps behind his ribs now. But all he can do is wear a trench into the ground between two tents and beg forgiveness from those who wander in the blessed blank-dark of their Healing Sleep.
“And the hand?”
“Soaked in the mixture you brought this morning, sir.”
And Merry knew that, too, because he’d been here and watched as they’d unwrapped the criss-cross of white linen-strips, soaking the last layers in warm oil before removing it entirely from the new-formed scabs covering the empty space between the second and fourth fingers.
Aragorn had been especially attentive of this particular wound, murmuring every now and then about infection then glancing quickly to Merry and assuring him that there was none. And Merry realised after the first few times this happened that he was a little bit surprised by it each time. Who knows what sorts of vile things might have lurked in that creature’s mouth in his centuries of life? Why shouldn’t infection be a worry? But Aragorn seemed to have relaxed about that a few days ago, saying that if it were going to set in, it would have done so by then. Merry had tried to smile at him but he doesn’t think he managed it very well.
Merry knows that examination of the whip-weal is next and this is where he usually gets up, excuses himself and makes his way to Pippin’s tent. He doesn’t know quite why but the mark of the whip is what cuts him deepest. He has only seen it the once but he still feels the sharp-raw sting of it riding up his own hip and along the cage of his ribs. Perhaps it’s because, of all of the wounds Frodo bears, this is the one Merry has borne himself. Perhaps it’s because, just as he’d felt when he’d actually seen the whip used on Pippin, the black impotent rage climbs up from his belly and settles cold and thick about his heart because how dare they – how dare any of them and how dare He--
“…need to be re-dressed, I think. They must be loosely-bound…”
Loose, loose, yes, they must be loose, Merry knows, the bandages on burns must be loose and those over cuts and gashes must be more tightly-wound and each salved over but not the same salve, oh no, different sorts, but they all smell cold and wet and slightly mouldy to Merry and he wonders if the scent of despair will always bring this smell back to him now. Or maybe it will be that thick brown-gold of broths too salty and swilled with herbs that smell of bitterness and tears and slipped down slack throats with a long metal straw to feed starved bodies and prevent infection because who knows what might have lurked on those razor-teeth and oh! save him, save them--
What did It do to you in the end? How did It finally break you?
--that anyone, anyone, would dare lay hands on them – Pippin with his laughing eyes and fierce heart; Frodo with his love for all things greater than himself and his firm belief that somehow all things are greater than himself – and them, Him, with their black hearts and black hands and black whips soaked crimson, sullying the skins and souls of those brought low by the wicked, treacherous hands of a Fate that plies you with silken wine and velvet roses with one hand and snaps your neck with the other then laughs and weeps and tells your dying eyes that it’s the way it must be.
How much time does a person have to spend on his knees for his legs to look like that?
Oh, and he doesn’t want to know, doesn’t want to know, but he does and it would break him, this knowing, but he’d broken long ago already, so he just sits on the edge of Sam’s palette, holds the cup for the healer while broth is slipped down Sam’s throat and watches as Aragorn peels back the linen-strips covering Frodo’s legs, thinks, He was brought to his knees, brought to his knees and you weren’t there, you weren’t there! To stop it, pick him up, and what is it that you feel, now, Meriadoc, Knight of Rohan, Slayer of the Witch-king himself, Defier of Evil?
Pity? Shame?
And for whom?
Before he’d seen them that first day and saw for himself that their chests rose and fell with long, even breaths, he wouldn’t have believed that anyone could look the way the two of them did and actually be alive. They both looked like bundles of bones with skin stretched over – Sam as much as Frodo – and it didn’t take a genius to deduce how someone who had at least two stone and a half on Frodo when last Merry’d seen him had come to be a starved, scrawny husk almost equal to Frodo himself. The realisation had dawned on him before he’d even really formed the question in his head and Merry had felt the tears close then, bent and kissed Sam’s brow then his hand and whispered his thanks from the bottom of his soul.
All of it for Frodo, all of it – every last crumb Sam must have taken from his own stores and pushed on Frodo, every last drop of water. And Merry knew without even having to wait for them to wake so he could ask them that it had been just that way. And he further knew that Frodo must have been nearly undone through it all or he never would have stood for it. Imagining Frodo willingly allowing Sam to starve himself for Frodo’s own sake was akin to trying to imagine him donning a skirt and petticoats and entering himself in the Miss Free Faire Pageant – it just wouldn’t happen. Merry couldn’t imagine the kind of state Frodo must have been in, in order for him to have allowed it and not even noticed that it was happening.
“Tell me he was not bound!”
He remembers White and the scent of pipeweed and pine and he remembers hands upon him, pulling him from Frodo’s side as he keened and wept like a child. He remembers someone leading him out of the tent and away, and he tried to argue, tried to tell them that he needed to be beside Frodo, that Frodo needed him, but he doesn’t think his tongue formed words. He remembers white robes closing about him and a rumbling voice trying to soothe him, but he thinks – and things get a little bit hazy here – he think he remembers making accusations, assigning blame, and he might remember sad concurrence, but that part of it all still hides behind a misty white haze, so he can’t be entirely sure.
But he remembers that first look, won’t ever forget it, and he remembers thinking that no one, no one could look like that and live, no one. And he remembers trying desperately to make himself calm down so that they would let him back in and he could prove to himself that they really were alive.
He pulls Frodo’s hand to his cheek, lets the hazel-scented linen absorb the tears that leak quick and thin from his eyes. Someone stands behind him and he won’t turn, won’t take his eyes away, but he knows it’s Gandalf, for he can smell pipeweed and he can feel White move through him. He listens through the roar in his head and Gandalf tells him of ointments and healing sleep, and Merry should feel better knowing that this is all the best care possible and they will wake and be the better for their sleep but he can’t seem to stop weeping.
What state had It brought you to that you would put it on there, right beneath His Eye, right within His reach?
He knows, though, because, though they had tried to stop him, he had pulled the sheet back, seen the marks – all of them. Scabs and scars and burns and skin stretched thin over bones like gauze over wire. Starved and whipped – whipped! – and broken but still…
Merry bows his head, chokes.
Still, they had gone on – crawled when their legs failed them.
Merry only composes himself when the cup he holds dips a little and the healer grunts his displeasure. Aragorn’s eyes flick towards them and Merry strains to appear calm or he might find himself confined ‘for his own good’ and kept away from the healers’ tents. Or worse, inside one of his own with a guard to make sure he stayed there.
How much time does a person have to spend on his knees for his legs to look like that?
Raw where they aren’t scabbed, the knees themselves a mass of open and angry pink-over-red only now beginning to knit itself into new, tender skin.
“His feet are cold,” Aragorn murmurs then looks to the man who holds the washbasin beside him. “His limbs will need to be exercised to move the blood. Is it the same with Samwise?”
“We have been afraid to strain the new skin on the wounds, sir. The exercises you…”
“It is important that we keep moving. Huddle together for warmth but keep your limbs moving and flex your fingers and toes.”
Pippin stops the little jig he’s been doing, turns his face from the hands he’s curled at his mouth in an effort to warm them. He finds Merry’s eyes, rolls his own – Thank you, Strider, now tell us a trick we don’t know – and shakes his head. He sits, hunches in on himself, gets as close to the miserable little fire as he can and resumes blowing into his hands. Merry scoots a little closer and Pippin leans into him, shivering.
Merry peers through the flurry of never-ending snow, spots Frodo standing just within the small circle of wavering light thrown by the fire. He turns back to Pippin, who is too ensconced in his own misery to look too far outside it, then just past him to Sam, who huddles between Pippin and Gimli.
“What in the world is Frodo doing over there?” he asks – though it’s just below the level of a shout to be heard over the skirling moan of the wind.
Sam looks over to Frodo, shakes his head then turns back to Merry. Merry thinks there is a sort of sadness in Sam’s eyes, resignation almost.
“He won’t come over,” Sam tells Merry. “Too close, he said.”
“Too close?” Merry is completely scunnered. “What in the world does that mean? How can anyone be too close in this cold?”
Sam shrugs, shakes his head again. “That’s what he said.”
He peers over at Merry with a look of defeat and Merry guesses that Sam had made to stay beside his master, even outside the small circle of warmth they’ve mottled together, and Frodo had sent him away. Merry can’t imagine what he could possibly be thinking but it seems this has become the normal thing these days – Frodo edging as far as he dares away from them all, closing himself in, closing himself off, closing himself away – from them, from him, and for what?
Merry leans back, shouts, “Frodo! You’ll freeze your arse off over there! Come by the fire!”
Frodo doesn’t look his way, seems not to have heard him, but Merry knows he has. The wind is loud but it isn’t that loud and Frodo isn’t that far away. Snow sits frozen-white in raven hair, dusts then crusts the shoulders of his cloak as the tails of it whip with the gusts that scream and shiver about him. Merry can see his eyes narrow against the cold and against the snowflakes that flare against eyes and skin as pebble-shot from a sling.
“Frodo!” Merry calls again. “Frodo, get your--”
“He won’t come.”
Merry looks at Sam and Sam looks back, eyes unwavering, but... Merry was right – he does look sad and worried and what the bloody blue blazes is going on here?
“Why?” he wants to know.
Sam slumps, stares at the fire. “I just don’t know.”
Merry turns again, notes the posture – stiff and erect, back straight but the neck is bent just the smallest bit, the shoulders pushed forward and slightly rounded. Suspicion creeps beneath Merry’s shuddering skin, for those hands that he’d thought held tight to his chest only to keep the meagre heat in, those hands don’t hold the folds of a billowing cloak, nor do they try to tame the flapping lapels that whip and flutter like broken wings made of fine, dark wool. Those hands hold to something else altogether and the jealous heat of a lover betrayed sears up Merry’s spine.
He knows it’s unreasonable, knows it’s its own sort of betrayal, but he can’t help the fury that settles in his chest, the confusion that fuels it all. Suspicion has a taste and it is white and cold and smells of snows conjured swift and fell by a Dark Magician.
‘Why do you hold to It, hasn’t It done enough already? Why do you shy away from my touch only to seek Its? What is It doing to you and why are you letting It?’
Merry’s eyes narrow, darken, and his lip curls. He hates It, has hated It, will always hate It and he can’t possibly be expected to just sit here in the snow and let It have what is his. His frozen fingers curl into his palms and he can hear his knuckles crack like icicles shattering in angry fists.
‘Turn around, turn away, turn to me, look at me!’
Merry makes to rise, intends to stalk over, take hold of Frodo’s arm, make him tear his grip from It, drag him back to this small circle of friends – kicking and screaming, if necessary--
“And that’s what you would have done, Master Meriadoc? Pushed him onto a course you knew he would not choose, disregarding his wishes?”
‘Shut up, shut up, I don’t know you, you don’t exist for me yet.’
--but Gandalf is suddenly at Frodo’s side and Merry only watches as Frodo pulls out from within himself, uncurls his fist. He flexes his fingers, brings them up to his face and blows on them, in mirror of his younger cousin, though he’d have to have actually noticed those around him to know it. Merry watches as Gandalf says something to Frodo, low and rumbling, and Merry can’t catch it but Frodo glances over to the fire, his gaze careening into Merry’s own and then scudding off just that quickly. Frodo shakes his head, turns back to his study of the falling snow. Gandalf places a hand to Frodo’s shoulder, pulls him close to himself, and Merry can at least be grateful that he will not be permitted to freeze himself to death. Slowly become enspelled to the little piece of Evil that hangs about his neck, yes, certainly, but stars forbid any harm should come to him before It’s well and truly got Its hooks in him.
‘Anything, tell me anything, lie to me, only, please…’
“Tell me he was not bound!”
‘Let him go, trust him, know that he will do as he must.’
And the Merry That Was couldn’t possibly and The Merry That Is looks to the void between long, slender fingers and thinks perhaps in this one failure, at least, he may have had a point.
It’s grown quiet and Merry realises he is holding an empty cup and the linens of both cots have been smoothed and tucked about their occupants. The healers are all gone and it is all too quiet and Merry can hear the silence -- the air itself is loud and the not-noise of it crashes through Merry’s skull, knocks up against the backs of his eyes. His mind buzzes, crackles, and each thought strikes beneath his brow as lightning through a thunderhead; each question blazes behind his eyes and writes itself across his heart, pierces it, makes it bleed in slow trickles behind his breastbone.
He takes Frodo’s hand in his, thick and white with close-wrapped bandages but for the empty space between the second and fourth fingers…
How close did you come to going into the Fire yourself?
…remembers lunging through a thick, red haze, whispers behind his eyes and a golden blade in his hand…
And, had I been there, would I have been the one to send you into it?
…wonders if he maybe would have seen what Frodo meant to do before the Ring went onto his finger, maybe he would have killed that wretched Gollum, where Frodo’s own kinder heart had spared him, maybe he could have found a better route and Cirith Ungol might never have happened, maybe…
How much time does a person have to spend on his knees for his legs to look like that?
…maybe he could have prevented it, all of it, if only he’d been there…
“Tell me he was not bound!”
…stares at Sam’s hand and wonders if Sam might have used that very one to separate his beloved master from that… Thing, had Gollum not done it for him. And he wonders if Sam’s heart bled as his does now as he’d lifted that hand to his breast and wept over his master, or whether it had sung through joyful tears to see them both finally rid of It…
What did It finally promise you? What was finally enough to break the unbreakable?
Aragorn approaches him, tells him that Frodo may be much changed when he wakes, perhaps long after. Merry wants to know how anyone could know what to expect, seeing as how no one has ever come back from the Black Land before and certainly no one has been face-to-face with the Dark Lord and wearing his own Ring, so how could anyone know how changed Frodo might be? He would appreciate it if they would just wait and see what might happen when Frodo wakes before they start assuming things, if it’s all the same to them, thank you very much. Don’t they know that Frodo is remarkable?
Aragorn only looks away, shakes his head a little then drapes an arm across Merry’s shoulders. They sit in silence for several minutes before Aragorn looks to first Frodo then Merry and Merry’s eyes are drawn to the man’s. They speak not a word but Merry can feel the sorrow wind about him, slither down his throat and into his chest, wrap about his heart. And just like that, he knows that yes, Frodo will be much changed, is much changed, and there will be no going back. Something happened, something dreadful and something he would have to have been there to understand, and he wasn’t, he wasn’t and there are just too many things Merry won’t ever forgive himself for but the worst of them all has to be--
‘Can’t say it, can’t think it, it isn’t fair,’ and he wants to throw himself at Frodo’s feet and beg his forgiveness for the unforgivable but then he’d have to actually say the awful thing that’s been lurking in the darkest corner of his heart since he’d seen that hand, heard the tale. And he would have no choice but to acknowledge that, as low as he’s been brought himself, he’d never really believed…
“He cannot be blamed for failing at the impossible,” Aragorn says softly and Merry feels the bile rise to the back of his throat, choke him, and it would serve him right if he strangled on it, wouldn’t it, because how dare he think such things and how dare he flinch when his thoughts are spoken aloud, negated in the same breath. Aragorn peers closely at Merry, furthers, “I hope you will help him to understand this.”
‘And who will help me to understand it?’
Merry tries to voice the question, tries to explain it, say it out loud, for surely the saying of it will take away the horror of having thought it? But all he can do is stare blankly at Aragorn, whisper, “He should not have been brought to his knees, not him, not ever.”
Aragorn does not answer, only closes his eyes as if in silent prayer, breathes deeply. He squeezes Merry’s shoulder then stands, looks down at him for a long moment.
“I shall wake Pippin in three days’ time,” he tells Merry, “and these two the day after, I think. I assume you will want to be present?”
Merry can only nod and wonder if hope will always now smell of hazel and athelas and taste bitter as bile.
* * *
PART TWO
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He was nervous. Ridiculous, but there it was. His heart was thudding, his mouth was dry and he’d not been able to choke down even so much as half a scone at breakfast, even though the captain who ran the mess tent had made cinnamon especially for Pippin in celebration of his waking the day before. Somehow it didn’t surprise Merry that Pippin had a camp full of seasoned, grizzled warriors jumping to his merest wish less than twenty-four hours after he’d woke. And he hadn’t even asked for cinnamon! He’d simply waxed rhapsodic about the cinnamon scones his Aunt Periwinkle used to make and word spread like wildfire, resulting in their dramatic presentation to him this morning, along with good, strong tea and cranberry juice. Merry decided not to tell anyone that Pippin didn’t actually have an Aunt Periwinkle. Let him enjoy his cinnamon scones – he’d certainly earned them, after all, and Pippin always had enjoyed the manipulation part of getting something he wanted, rather than the out-and-out asking, which would always garner the same results anyway but somehow wasn’t nearly as satisfying. Let him have his fun.
Frodo’s eyes rolled beneath their closed lids, his brow creased briefly and he turned his head on the pillow. Merry held his breath, waited…
Not yet. Just another step towards the surface, it seemed, but not quite awake. Closer but not yet.
Gandalf resumed his pacing behind Merry, grumbling a little, and by turns jamming his unlit pipe between his teeth and removing it to fiddle between gnarled fingers. Aragorn had come, mumbled his spells and then left them to it and it had taken Merry nearly the entirety of the first half-hour after they’d settled in to wait this morning to realise that Gandalf – Gandalf! – was just as nervous as Merry was himself. Twitchy, even. Merry couldn’t quite ken it, decided not to push his luck by saying anything that might get him booted from the tent by a temperamental wizard, and so kept his lip buttoned. But he did have to wonder at it all. This was someone who had been through death and back, great battles and the birth of a New Age in his many centuries of life – why was he nervous about this, Frodo’s imminent waking, of all things?
Merry supposed he couldn’t very well judge, since he wasn’t exactly sitting cool and collected his own self. One thumbnail was gone and he’d already begun chewing on the other. And Gandalf had stopped his pacing at least four times now to glare at Merry until he’d noticed then stopped the compulsive juddering of his right leg.
Frodo sighed a little, let loose with a bit of a groan then stilled again. Merry didn’t realise he’d bent himself forward until he’d stared closely at Frodo for a good few minutes, decided he was maybe a little closer to waking but still not there quite yet, then sank back into the field-chair he was sitting in and bumped into Gandalf’s chin. The wizard had also apparently been leaning in, gazing intently, when Merry disturbed his scrutiny by accidentally knocking their heads together. Gandalf mumbled a gruff apology then resumed his quiet pacing yet again.
This was ridiculous. Why were they so jittery? Were they afraid that Frodo’s ordeal had somehow granted him the power to shoot fire from his eyes and they’d be incinerated upon his waking? One glance and they’d be dust and how idiotic was that anyway and what in bloody perdition was wrong with him?
Much changed, much changed, he will be much changed and nothing is as it was, nothing will be as it should have been, everything you knew is gone and he might as well burn you alive with his glance because it’s all gone anyway and it doesn’t matter, does it, because you’ve betrayed him, them, all of them and he’ll know just by looking at you, maybe knew as he stood inside the Mountain and looked down to a laughing band of gold about the finger that would soon meet its fiery end along with the filthy, treacherous piece of malevolence that snaked triumphant around it and how could he and how could He and how can you, you’ve no right to judge and weep your regrets when just the thought of It turned you coward, turned your heart to cold ash and you weren’t there, you weren’t there and how dare you and…
…oh, stars, I’m so sorry, so sorry, just please, please wake up and love me/need me/forgive me and I will forgive you anything, everything.
He was going to rip himself to pieces from the inside-out if he didn’t pull himself together. He shifted in his chair, reached out and took up Frodo’s left hand – cold, still cold and shouldn’t it be warm now, isn’t he cured? – ran the tips of his fingers over Frodo’s knuckles with feather-soft strokes. Frodo’s fingers twitched – reflex, Merry told himself – then relaxed in Merry’s palm. Merry squeezed a little, closed his eyes.
I will make this all right, I will make this all right, it was all too impossible and yes, you would blame yourself if the grass stopped growing and you will blame yourself for not having the strength when the strength was ripped away from you and I will make you see it all because--
“Do you know how I knew to send Pippin after you?”
Merry jumped. It had been so quiet for so long that Gandalf’s voice sounded over-loud in the soft green silence.
“Sorry, what?”
Gandalf slipped his pipe into a fold of his robe, sat himself in the field-chair opposite Merry’s. He turned his sharp grey eyes on Merry.
“Do you know how I knew to send Pippin after you?”
Merry shook his head. “When? What are you talking about?”
“Upon your arrival at the Gates of the City. Did you not wonder how it was that Pippin found you wandering the streets?”
“No,” Merry replied slowly. “I suppose I hadn’t. That was your doing?”
Gandalf nodded, smiled a little and the smile was kind, though a little sad. “It was.”
Merry frowned. “It hadn’t occurred to me, really. You knew I was there?” Gandalf only peered steadily at Merry. Merry tilted his head, asked, “How?”
“I sent out my thoughts, listened for the Song and there was yours, shrouded in shadows, but still gold and pulsing with the beat of the earth’s heart.” Merry’s frown deepened, an eyebrow lifted sceptically and Gandalf’s smile grew. “You glowed, young Merry. Though his shadow was still heavy upon you, your song refused to end, mixed with chords of wrath, red as blood, though it was. You may have acquired notes of darkness, but your song still remains bright and gold like the Sun, perhaps even brighter than it was before, only with a wisp or two of dark mist before it now.”
Merry looked down at Frodo. “He always calls me his golden…” He trailed off and his frown deepened yet further, turned to a scowl. “You’ve been mucking about inside my head again,” he accused.
“No,” Gandalf answered and chuckled a little. “I have simply been listening to the Music.”
And Merry only half-believed him because hadn’t he only a few days ago been thinking along lines all too similar? He looked down into his lap.
“Does it…” He paused, chewed his lip. “Does it have a smell?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Nothing, never mind,” and Merry flushed, mentally kicked himself. Stupid question – he didn’t even believe in all this anyway. Still… He peered up at Gandalf, curious now. “What colour is Pippin, then?”
“Ah, blue-green, that one, though he’s got notes of gold as well and the green has deepened, become richer.” His brow creased thoughtfully. “I would have thought that the Stone might have slipped his song into darkness – or worse, nothing at all – but he only deepened in pitch and hue, as though he incorporated the knowledge and experience into his song but not the blackness of it.” He shook his head. “Remarkable, really.”
“And Sam?”
“A bit like yours, actually.” Gandalf turned a gimlet eye on him. Merry didn’t know if he was expecting some sort of adverse reaction from him but, even if he’d felt one (which he didn’t), he certainly wasn’t going to let on. “Gold and rich, though many more chords of green and brown than yours, not so much harsh clashing of red, though that seems to change more often than most, depending upon…”
He trailed off, slipped into thought. Merry only looked back to Frodo, itching to ask but refusing to give in to the urge.
You don’t really want to know and you’ve known all along.
Frodo’s fingers curled in Merry’s palm again and Merry squeezed gently. Frodo sighed, stretched his neck a little. He was close, Merry knew – how many times had he watched this very process, after all, though that seemed like another world altogether. He supposed it was.
“Too many themes and colours to count,” Gandalf answered softly to the question Merry would not ask and Merry flicked his eyes up, though Gandalf wasn’t looking at him, instead gazing down on Frodo’s face. “Belonging to the earth and the air and the stars and to night and day both but never belonging to any – only to the Music itself.” He paused, glanced to Merry then back again to Frodo. “Not even to you, who loves him ‘most and best’,” he furthered and his voice was soft, musical, almost a song itself, and Merry felt a small shudder ripple through his heart.
“I don’t believe in any of this,” Merry whispered, though he couldn’t be sure if it was true or if the saying of it would help him make it true.
Gandalf seemed not to have heard. “I could not hear him, once he entered Mordor, and the absence of that song was like a black silence in my heart. I hadn’t realised how often I listened for it, how much a part of my own song it had become until it was gone.” He turned his eyes to Merry’s. “You think I did not blink at sending him to his death but that is not so. It is not an easy thing – letting go of one you love for a Purpose, even when that person’s fate and that of the World rest upon that letting go.”
He stared at Merry with those razor-sharp eyes until Merry flushed again and dropped his gaze. He clenched his teeth, felt a cold trickle of fear down his spine. He didn’t want to hear it, didn’t want to know it, didn’t believe it, he didn’t believe any of it. Let Wizards and Elves and Men have their beliefs and their songs and their wars to defend those beliefs and kill each other while preaching how killing is wrong unless it’s for their cause, their beliefs, their Purpose. And he will thank them all to keep it all in the South and the East where it belongs and leave him to take his friends home where they belong. And don’t think he wasn’t going to put more Bounders on the borders, first thing when he got there, too. He didn’t have to know about any of this, not anymore, and he didn’t have to hear, didn’t have to believe, didn’t have to know--
“He cried out inside the Mountain, you know,” and Merry gasped, squeezed his eyes shut. I don’t want to know this, I don’t want to hear it, please… “His song burnt bright-white and darkest black all at once and for a moment, they both lived within him in equal measure, pummelling his heart and his spirit, and I felt his song overwhelmed. It shrieked through my soul and I could not pull away, only stood and listened as it drowned us both in absolute colour, supreme rhapsody and perfect torment, slipped its dissonance and harmony of reds and golds behind our eyes, slithered its blues and greens of concord and discord down our throats and choked us both until It…”
Gandalf put a hand to his eyes, bowed his head.
Please don’t say anymore, don’t make me know this, I can’t know this, I can’t--
“It took his song and made it Its own, bent it and throttled it and took the colours for Itself, rent the chords and consumed the notes and…”
I will make it better, I will fix it all, I will fix him, I will take him home and love him and I will fix this!
“…he let It, let It take him, let It have everything It demanded…”
Let It, he let It and I don’t want to know any of this and oh, who am I to judge because I wasn’t there, I should have been there and it will be all right because I will fix this, too late, too little and it was impossible, impossible and yes, I believe that, I don’t believe any of this but I believe it was all impossible and how could they, how could they do this, and to him with his song of colours?
“…because it was the only way. And even as I stood paralysed on the field of battle, I knew too that it was the only way and I at once wept and rejoiced because there, in that moment, as his song was torn away from him, he had found a way to fulfil his Task.”
Merry’s throat was tight, burning, and his blood thrummed fast and painful behind his eyes. He swallowed, shook his head.
“He didn’t.”
A pause then: “That is your darkness singing, there,” Gandalf replied quietly. “Always, you have let the beguiling canticle of the red over-ride the hum of gold and it slips your song into discord too often. You must not let your harsh judgments of yourself colour your views of the deeds of others. We do not all sit as judge and jury of our own hearts as you do.”
Merry clenched his teeth. “But he didn’t throw It in! I don’t judge him for that – couldn’t possibly – but he will judge himself. He may well be much changed but he won’t have changed that much. And how am I to argue when you have already told me the truth of it all?”
Gandalf’s eyebrows lifted. “Truth? I only told you the course of events. Whose truth is that, then? Yours – that he failed in his last extremity? My, aren’t you kind and generous to forgive him that?”
“You’re twisting things! I never said-- Who am I to forgive, after all? I wouldn’t presume--”
“Ah, but you have. You made up your mind long ago that he would succeed and with your help, and now you have made up your mind that he has failed because you were not at his side. Quite a trick, there, blaming him for failing and blaming yourself for not helping him succeed.”
“I don’t blame him! How could anyone blame him? It was an impossible task, I know that, I understand that, so how in the world--”
“Yes, it was indeed an impossible task and yet somehow it was accomplished. Did he have something to do with fulfilling that Task or did he not? Did he just happen to be there, do you think? Stood witness while greatness took place around him?”
Gandalf paused, leaned forward in his chair, asked, “What if I were to tell you, young Meriadoc, that Frodo’s chosen course was interrupted? That he had other plans for the Ring and himself and never intended to leave the Mountain at all? If he’d died a hero’s death, would that have been better for you, do you think?”
Merry was silent for a moment, stunned. “Is…” He swallowed, looked down at Frodo. “Is that what he would have done, then?”
You know it is because that’s what you were afraid of all along and now that it hasn’t happened, you’re… what?
Gandalf shrugged, sat back. “Who is to say?”
“You didn’t see it?” Merry looked up, met Gandalf’s gaze evenly. “You didn’t See?”
“If I did, it would not be mine to tell.”
Merry narrowed his eyes. “That’s never stopped you before, has it? You were plenty free with what was going on inside my head back in Rivendell.”
“Was I, then?”
“Well, you…” He paused. Now that he thought about it, there wasn’t really anything the others had learned that he hadn’t said out loud to Aragorn that night outside Frodo’s room, was there? “I need to know if he failed,” Merry whispered. “Aragorn has asked me to help him to understand and I can’t do that unless I know it myself, can I?”
“It was not Aragorn’s place to burden you with such a task and I release you from it now.”
“I don’t want to be released from it and it isn’t your place either! Just tell me!”
“Would you love him less if I said that he failed?”
“No! How could I possibly?”
“Just think less of him, then, I suppose.”
“You’re not being fair!” Merry cried, realised he was nearly shouting and lowered his voice. “You are assuming things and couching accusations in some ridiculous songs made of reds and greens and golds but none of this is how I feel!”
“I think the question of failure rather depends upon how you do feel and what failure means to you,” Gandalf told him. “Would it be less of a failure to you if you knew that – even at the last – he would have crawled to the very maw of the Fire and pitched himself in? Is that not exactly what you feared all along? Or did you rather fear that he would not, after all, accomplish the impossible and so shatter your own illusions about what makes a hero? Would knowing that even the mightiest among us all would have broken at that moment and in that place – in fact, long before – would that be enough for you?”
Merry looked down at Frodo, closed his eyes.
My greatest wish and darkest fear have all come true and I can’t tell which is which! Do I love you despite your weaknesses or because of them? And if it’s the former… is that love at all?
“What I don’t know, Master Meriadoc, is how all of that is somehow about you.”
“It isn’t about me,” he whispered then looked to Gandalf, cleared his throat, repeated, “It isn’t about me or what’s enough for me. He will blame himself – whether he failed or not, he did not throw It in and he will blame himself. He will not listen to reason and he will not hear that it was impossible – he will only hear his own accusations unless I have a solid argument against it all. Will you give me that argument?”
“But I already have.”
“You…” Merry shook his head. “Well, what was it?”
Gandalf looked him over thoroughly, thoughtfully. “I think it rather depends on how many harsh notes you allow into your ‘ridiculous’ song. And what sort of faith you have.” He paused, looked down at Frodo again. “And in whom,” he murmured more quietly. “Success or failure matters only to one who measures such things in absolutes. There are too many colours between black and white and too many notes that run counterpoint to one’s own song.” Gandalf reached down, brushed rough fingertips lightly over Frodo’s brow. He smiled, looked thoughtfully at the sleeping face. “I think I would choose to rejoice in the gift of more time, rather than mourn over your own assumptions about an event that played out only as it had to.”
Merry followed Gandalf’s gaze, saw Frodo shift, saw his lashes flutter, and knew it would be any moment now. Five minutes ago he’d sat on the edge of his chair, willing Frodo to wake right now, five seconds ago, even. Now he needed more time, more time, and answers to more questions than he could possibly put words to. Yet right now, right at this moment, only one seemed really important.
“What…” He looked up, swallowed, cleared his throat. “What colour?” he asked softly.
Gandalf was silent for a long moment, then: “White,” he answered.
Merry closed his eyes, bit back a dry sob. “So… no colours, then. His song is gone.” He turned to Gandalf, pleaded, “What does that mean?”
Gandalf surprised Merry by chuckling again. “Black is the absence of colour, young hobbit,” he said. “White is all colours and almost its own state of grace.” He sat back in his chair again, kept his eyes on Frodo while he mused softly, “Every colour there is and all in one song.” He shook his head, smiled. “Remarkable,” he whispered.
“…mark... able…” Frodo slurred hoarsely, then: "Shh!" and Merry jolted, almost loosed a surprised snort.
A smile spread across his face and his heart swelled nigh to painfully in his chest.
Because of them and yes, that is love. Your greatest weaknesses are your strength – the pity for which I have always thought you a little foolish and that saved you in the end; the will that I have dashed myself to pieces against too many times; the generous heart that Sam thought would one day be the end of you… All of these things and so much more have made you the one person in the world who would crawl on bleeding knees to your own death to save something so precious to you that you were willing to give away your own song for that saving.
Not things of horror or shame or pity, those knees or that finger. Every bruise, every burn, every gash, bite, cut and yes, even the mark of the whip – badges of honour, every one of them.
All of his agonising and slipping back and forth from betrayer to betrayed – none of it mattered, not now, and all his questions of only a moment ago no longer needed answers. He was not mourning a hero’s death and success was counted only within the bounds of one’s own heart. And Merry’s heart told him that, no matter what might have gone through Frodo’s own heart in those last few seconds within the Mountain, what had been in that same heart all his life and even during his long, torturous journey into darkness, was the only thing that really mattered. In the end, Frodo’s song came through the symphonic crucible of the notes and colours of a violent, chaotic opus that was not his own, that he should never have borne, and all that really mattered was that he had come through.
Much changed, yes, Merry had no doubt, and who among them wasn’t? And Frodo would blame himself, there was no doubt of that, either. But there would be time to make him see reason, to explain the differences between the different sorts of ‘failure’ and how success could be found in all of them – even Merry’s own. And it would begin now.
Merry had a new Purpose and he smiled wider at the rightness of it all.
“Call to him,” Gandalf said. “I think he will hear you now.”
Merry got up from his chair, moved to the cot and sat beside his cousin. “Frodo,” he called softly and ran a fingertip down the straight line of Frodo’s nose. As Merry knew it would, Frodo’s nose wrinkled, twitched, and he tossed his head, growled a little. Merry grinned. “Come now, lazy sod,” he prodded. “Time for all good hobbits to wake and face the day.”
Merry watched as Frodo’s eyelids twitched, slowly lifted. He squinted up at Merry blankly for almost a full minute then a slow, sleepy smile slipped over his face. Merry felt almost giddy and found it necessary to throttle it all so as not to let loose with a wild storm of foolish laughter.
Merry wanted to sob but instead he grinned, eyes burning hot. “Hullo, love,” he answered and his voice was thick and shaky.
Frodo closed his eyes again. “It’s very white here,” he mused. “And green. It’s… strange. Hurts…”
His brow creased and he coughed a little, cleared his throat. “I thought you’d be Sam,” he told Merry and his voice was just as hoarse and throaty as it had been the first time. His eyes opened and he frowned, lifted a hand to his throat.
“That will be from the smoke,” Gandalf said softly and Frodo’s eyes darted over to the wizard. His frown deepened.
“Not to worry,” Merry told him and slipped his fingers into Frodo’s hair, stroked. “There are plenty of juices and teas. Anything you want – all you have to do is ask, as Pippin has already learnt and rather too well.”
A harsh intake of breath and Frodo’s expression… changed, though Merry couldn’t quite put his finger on what to make of it.
“Pippin?”
“He’s here, Frodo, and well,” Merry assured him. “He’s already got everyone jumping at his every whim and enjoying it far too much, if you ask me.”
“Pippin,” Frodo whispered and turned his head, said, “I thought... I’m sorry.”
Merry frowned over to Gandalf. Gandalf did not look back, only peered at Frodo with a new concern writ clear on his lined face.
“Nothing to be sorry for, Frodo,” Merry said softly and put on another smile, though it was a little wobbly this time, for Merry now felt a splinter of foreboding slither into his heart. “Everything will be all right, now, you know. I promise.”
Frodo swallowed and the effort was visible; he smiled a little, turned back to Merry. “Lovely Merry-lad,” he rasped and Merry watched as his eyes drifted into focus, took him in thoughtfully. The gaze slipped up and over Merry’s own eyes, centred on the brown scar at his brow. Frodo frowned again, lifted his hand to reach toward it… stopped.
The bandage had been removed yesterday, as had most of the others; only a small bit of linen wound about the knees yet remained. But the skin was knitting over the stump of the finger nicely and Aragorn had decided that the healing process would move yet more quickly if the wound itself were exposed to open air as much as possible. It still looked red and swollen but the sight of it no longer made Merry’s stomach flip. He gently took hold of Frodo’s hand, laid it to his own cheek.
“No infection, love,” he told him. “Nothing to worry over at all, except the fur on your feet is a bit ragged-looking, but there’s perhaps only a small patch or two where it won’t grow back.” Merry squeezed the hand as tight as he dared, smiled. “You’re all right, Frodo. You made it through and you’ll be all right now.”
“…through…” Frodo repeated faintly then closed his eyes, tugged at his hand until Merry let go. He started to turn away then stopped; his eyes flew open. “Sam.”
“Right beside you, as ever,” Gandalf put in then pointed to where Sam still slept deeply in the next cot.
Frodo turned his head, tried to lift himself to an elbow, wobbled. Merry slid himself closer, slipped his arm behind Frodo’s shoulders and helped him to sit. Frodo clutched to Merry’s shirt, his fingers hard and grasping but his grip weak and shaky.
“It’s all right, love,” Merry soothed. “He’s all right. Aragorn says he’ll wake soon, too, though he’s not stirred yet.”
“Aragorn,” Frodo echoed but his eyes remained fixed on Sam’s still form.
“And Legolas and Gimli as well,” Merry finished. “Everyone is here and safe, Frodo, honestly – everyone is fine, no need to worry yourself.”
And Merry would have thought those assurances would have soothed Frodo but he juddered now against Merry’s chest, breathing hard. Merry threw a worried glance towards Gandalf but the wizard was staring at Frodo with his own concern. Merry rubbed a hand firmly up and down Frodo’s arm, tried to pull him closer, but Frodo only twisted a little, pulled himself away. He closed his eyes, bowed his head and breathed deeply. When he’d calmed himself, he looked up, met Merry’s gaze with a flat one of his own.
“I would like to speak with Gandalf, please,” he said in a quiet voice then shot a look Merry couldn’t begin to put a name to across to Gandalf, furthered, “Alone.”
Merry eyed them both, one after the other, but neither turned their glance on him, only continued to regard each other in silence. Gandalf looked sad, resigned, while Frodo looked… Merry couldn’t tell. Frodo’s face was expressionless and devoid of any emotion, and Merry didn’t think he’d ever seen eyes so flat. He slowly pulled his arm from about Frodo’s shoulders, held him steady for a moment while it felt as though he might topple, then let go as soon as Frodo felt solid enough. He leaned in, placed a warm kiss to Frodo’s temple.
“Of course,” he said. “I’ll be nearby. Just call when you want me.”
Frodo did not answer, only closed his eyes briefly, gave a slight, jerky nod. Merry stood, looked between Frodo and Gandalf once more and reluctantly quit the tent.
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