Queen of the Rings

Chapter 3.1

The next leg of our journey was lost to me, as I spent it in shadow. I think that they placed me on Carfax, and the hobbits walked along with Beren. The lesser wraiths were all gone, and their master could pursue no faster than the feet of little folk. As long as they did not stop before daylight, we were as safe as we could be under the circumstances.

Whenever I opened my eyes, I saw the souls of my companions burning like fire in a glass. The hobbits were warm, small lights, like oil lanterns themselves; Frodo dimmed by the constricting influence of the Ring. Beren, he was a blaze of life, an immortal torch, as I was. As I should have been. But I was bleeding light.

The others could not see it, as they could not see the river in the sky that flowed from the west. Droplets of light dripped from me in a steady rain, absorbed wherever they touched the earth. I hoped they would beget life there when spring came. Even elves were not meant to wrestle with wraiths in so literal a fashion, or to wield their accursed blades.

I slept until we entered the forest and dawn brought with it a song.

"Trim grime triple fee
incorrigible calumny
him thyme, heave and ho
triple promise, pleasant go!"

"What is that?" Frodo asked. "A spirit?"'

"It is Tom Bombadil," Beren said. "These woods are his home."

Carfax perked up, and we followed a thin spring that ran to a cottage in a clearing. The spring disappeared under the stone step at the door of the house, and the overall structure was overrun with nature; leaves and vines and nesting birds. They twittered and whistled to the tune of Bombadil, which seemed to come from everywhere at once.

"Welcome to the house and home
sweet as nettles, dark as snow
nevermore to romp and roam
but me and River's daughter
but me and River's daughter..."

The voice broke at this last refrain, and the whole wood seemed to sob. The birds went silent, and covered their faces with their wings. Something was wrong here, but I was barely conscious. Beren brought us to a stop in the clearing before the cottage, careful not to step in the spring.

"Tom Bombadil!" He called. "Old Tom! My name is Beren the Abandoned. You knew my mother and my father, Belthil and Aldaron. They spoke highly of you and your wife." The silence stretched after his pronouncement. "We need your aid! Arwen Evenstar is here with me, and she is sorely wounded. We need your aid!"

The door to the cottage creaked open, and Beren brought me down to carry me inside. His arms felt like bands of fever, but I realized it was I who was cold. The hobbits followed cautiously, and Carfax nickered a goodbye before nibbling on nearby daffodils.

The inside of the cottage was larger than the outside, the living room as broad as a tavern, but with a wet, sagging roof and fists of grass punching up through the splintering floor. An old man was sitting beside a massive hearth and cauldron, but there was neither flame nor water. Not a single piece of iron was visible in the house, the cauldron and nearby tools being made of copper.

"Bombadil?" Beren's confidence was waning.

"And his river daughter..." The old man sang under his breath.

"Excuse me, sir," Sam piped up, "but could we trouble you for breakfast? We've been on our feet all night, running from ghosts and the like, and I am quite famished."

Beren looked at the hobbit incredulously, and even Frodo seemed embarrassed, but Bombadil sprung up, a new light in his eyes.

"Ho ho! Ha ha! They ask him for a meal,
what kind of host would he have been,
if he had missed the deal?"

The cottage came to life, chairs shifting, brooms sweeping, plates and cups and jugs clacking around to set a table. These objects were not moving on their own. The spirits of nature were nearly material in this house, and they all served at Tom's pleasure. The earth sputtered to life, so there was hot tea and what amounted to a green porridge. We had brought food from the Shire, and I still had travelling bread, but there would be no need of it. Fruit descended from vines on the walls, cherries and berries, dropping into the porridge. Sam was awed, and both hobbits thanked Tom profusely before tucking in.

I tried to speak, but my voice wouldn't come. Beren eyed me worriedly.

Bombadil was looking fondly on the hobbits, but he seemed to sense my distress, and came to look me over.

"Ah," he said.

"Ah?" Beren repeated.

"One foot in, and one foot out
you do them both together
and you shake them all about." The old man took me from Beren and laid me on a bed of moss that rose and thickened to accommodate me. Strangely, he was neither warm nor cold. I had a sense of being held by the earth itself.

"Can you help her?" Beren asked.

"A soul, a scroll, with nothing in it," he muttered. "To write anew, its hers to win it."

Beren sighed, and watched Bombadil place his hands over me, humming over my wounds both visible and invisible. I could feel the moment my heart regained its usual pace, and I gasped. My strange sight came and went, and in its last moment I saw Bombadil as he was, a vast being that ran far into rock and root and soil beneath us, the old man was no more than a blossom at the end of a branch. The vastness of him frightened me, for he was neither elf or man or even Maia, but something else, an elemental. And he was wounded.

"Where is your wife?" I asked. All who knew of Tom knew that he lived in the wood with a beautiful nymph, and the two of them were like king and queen. The cottage, and Tom himself, did not look as if he was cared for by a queen.

"Ah," Bombadil said. "But me and River's daughter..."

I tried to recall the woman's name, I should have known it, did know it, but the sound of it fled from my tongue.

Beren knelt beside me, "Are you alright?"

"I think so," I said. Something had changed inside me, there were canvas patches where there should have been solid wood, but the strain on my spirit was a concern for another moment. "It's Tom who needs our help."

I sat up. "What happened, Tom?"

"White wanderer," he muttered, "no longer wanders white."

"Mithrandir?" Beren asked.

I shook my head. "Mithrandir is Grey. Do you mean Saruman?"

The face of Tom Bombadil blackened like the sky above a conflagration, his eyes flashed with menace, and the floor of the cottage trembled.

"Saruman. He came to me, this Saruman. Cloak of white disguised the Shadow's arts. Pretty words and songs. We laughed and danced and drank and danced, told stories of times gone by. Sarumon. This Sarumon." Bombadil strode out of the cabin without explanation, slamming the door behind him.

Frodo and Sam were watching us with wide eyes and porridge on their lips.

"It's quite good," Sam said, and Frodo shrugged.

There wasn't much left but that we join them for breakfast. As soon as I stood I knew I would go no further that day. Bombadil had bandaged my soul, but I was far from healed. If we began the journey again, I would lose half my heart on the road. We would be safe in the house of Tom Bombadil, at least for a while, and we could discover what had happened to his wife.

The rest of the day was spent in that cottage waiting for its master's return. The hobbits were pleased to be there, even in its dilapidated state the cottage was comfortable and kind, welcoming and warm. There was a basin that seemed to draw from the stream running under the house, and the water it held was sweeter than any wine. It soothed my pains, and I dozed on the bed of moss while Beren minded the hobbits and checked after Carfax. The little folk are like children in more ways than their size. They seemed to forget their fear completely when the moment did not call for it, and they were curious of everything. Beren named all the flora of the household for them, and told stories quite impressively. They responded with tales of their own, humble tales of hobbit home, and I realized that neither of them understood that the Shire was gone. Surely, many hobbits had escaped after the Black Rider began his executions, but that place would never be the same. They were innocent, these hobbits. Perhaps that was why they could survive so close to the Ring without being consumed by it.

Sam liked to talk. He was very comfortable with Beren, though he would only call me Lady and not Arwen. Frodo was wary of me, no doubt remembering the moment when I had almost stolen his burden from him. He did not talk like Sam, but held himself apart, somehow fragile. Maybe the Ring had influenced him more than we thought.

I dozed, and when Tom returned, he was more bedraggled than before. We all shared the table and he broke us each a palm of honeycomb.

"Hundred year brandy!" Sam swore. "This is incredible!"

"Don't eat it all," Beren said, tasting his and squishing the comb closed around the remaining honey.

It had not been produced by normal bees. The golden gel melted over my tongue and tingled in my skin. Bombadil's magic was in this.

"The River's daughter, he sang her sweet words, and she forgot her name. The woods forgot her name. I went to see her father, but he forgot her name." His fingernails were like bark, and he held his hands out helplessly. "The worlds are changing, but nothing changes, for me and River's daughter." A thick sob escaped his chest like a startled bird.

"Saruman took her," I said.

Bombadil did not respond.

"Is there anything we can do to help you?"

"A broken wing, the mountain asks for help."

"We are taking these hobbits to Rivendell," I said. "But when that is done, maybe I can try to find your wife. It is the least I could do for what you have done for me."

"I will go as well," Beren said. "My parents told me stories of you both, and of this place. This theft is not something that can be left to stand. But why did he do it? Saruman is among the Wise."

Bombadil pointed at Frodo, whose hands went to his chest protectively.

"One Ring to rule them all, unwise to find them, one fool to claim them all, in ignorance, to wind them."

"Saruman has been corrupted," I said.

"Everything burns," this stark statement, from Bombadil's mouth, was all the starker.

"What's burning?" Beren asked.

"Everything," Bombadil said. "He digs up the old fires. Fires that should be sleeping. They dream dry days out of smoke and withered roots."

"This honey is amazing," Sam said quietly, and Frodo smiled sadly.

"Do you think this Saruman wants the Ring as well?"

"Yes," I said, "either for himself or for the Dark Lord. We don't know how far he has fallen."

"But why would he come for your wife, Mr. Tom?" Sam asked.

The ancient shifted in his seat, settling like loose rocks at the bottom of a hill.

"The raven is wanting a ring, a ring
the queen she is wanting a king
the king he is wanting to sing, to sing
dark tiding do both of them bring
dark tidings do both or them bring."