CHAPTER 5
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In the forenoon, they were required to attend a meeting in a library at Caras Galadhon, where Aragorn and Celeborn pored over maps and discussed the state of the border guards and the security of the surrounding lands. Merry and Pippin stood on stools and asked questions (most of them sensible) of Gimli. Sam found it hard to summon up such interest, and he noticed that Frodo seemed listless as well. On the way back to camp, they were walking along a forest ride dappled with sunshine and shadow, and it was another beautiful day in Lothlorien, but Sam hardly noticed. Frodo was quiet, and Sam was beginning to realise that if the result of the alternative was this dispirited Frodo, whose unhappiness was like a cloud over Sam's head too, then he would almost rather that Frodo spent his entire nights with the ranger. Oh, this whole business was making him heartsick, and sad, and the *guilt*... he might be willing to make himself an accessory to his master's liaison, if it made Frodo happy, but how could that ever happen when he himself was guilty of such treacherous interference? Just then Frodo turned to him, and he quickly composed his face. 'Did you learn anything of use, Sam?' 'Aye, a thing or two,' Sam lied. 'But I hope others learned more, or we might never get out of here, if you take my meaning.' He managed a smile. 'Yes... although I doubt that there is anything Aragorn could learn about this land from a map. He is almost one of them - one of the Galadhrim...' Frodo glanced up at the others, some distance ahead, and Sam noticed that the ranger was no longer among them. He must have gone ahead, or else he had some separate errand to take care of. 'Aye,' Sam agreed, uncomfortably. It gave him an unexpected, lingering stab of pain to hear the man's name on Frodo's lips. 'Gandalf mentioned once that he used to live here... There must be many memories for him in these woods. That's why he has been spending so much time on his own, and so little with us.' 'You're probably right, Mr Frodo.' 'Although I don't think they are happy memories, somehow. He seems awfully... distant sometimes.' Sam stole a look at Frodo's face - he was looking down at the path - and what he saw made him hurt inside. 'Of course, he is the leader now, and that is a great responsibility. He has many important decisions to make. He can't be expected to pay attention to every little thing...' You are *not* a "little thing", Mr Frodo, never that, Sam thought, with a sting of anger and compassion, but out loud he said: 'I expect you're right, Mr Frodo.' Frodo frowned, his pale face tense and unhappy. 'I would have thought that he would find some rest here, where it is safe, but he is closer and less merry than ever. I don't think I have seen him smile for days.' Frodo bit his lip. 'Oh, Mr Frodo,' Sam said, in a near-whisper, without being able to help himself. His heart contracted painfully with pity and love and grief and he came to a halt, unable to take his eyes off Frodo's face. Frodo stopped and looked at him. 'What?' And Sam realised that the decision had been made, he must tell Frodo and he must tell him now and here, not because he had found unexpected courage or because the perfect opportunity had presented itself, but because *not* telling him was giving him more pain than he could bear. It was more than he was made for, to keep secrets from his master and to pretend that he couldn't see Frodo hurting. 'It's just that... I know, Mr Frodo.' 'What do you know?' Frodo looked disconcertingly normal as he said this, and Sam swallowed. 'I know why you're so upset. When we were in the mines... I heard you.' 'You heard what?' Frodo smiled a little, puzzled. Sam knew that he must know what Sam meant, but there was no sign of that, and it was almost enough to make the words on his tongue dissolve and disappear. He had never realised what a skilled dissembler his master was when he wanted to be. He took a deep breath. 'I heard you getting up. In the middle of the night.' Frodo looked blank, but Sam saw a glint of wary alertness in his eyes. 'So?' 'And I know where you went, begging your pardon, Mr Frodo.' Sam cut his eyes away, cheeks burning. Frodo's eyebrows went up. 'Indeed? And where did I go?' He wasn't smiling now, but he didn't sound very concerned. Sam searched his face. 'You... you went to him,' he whispered. Frodo looked indifferent, but Sam knew what that tension around the jaw meant. He stared at Sam, without saying anything, and Sam stared back, with bated breath, for several heartbeats until Frodo suddenly chuckled and turned away, walking on. 'Your imagination runs away with you, Sam. I don't know what you're talking about. Come on, let's catch up with the others.' Sam hesitated a second, realising that if he wanted it, this was his chance to get out. But he wasn't going to let Frodo brush him and his secret off just like that, what good would that do? It had to be done, or there were no telling where either of them would wind up. 'I ain't imagining anything, Mr Frodo... I know. For sure.' Frodo hesitated. Alarm passed across his face, but it was gone before he faced Sam fully. 'What are you talking about?' 'In the mines, the night before poor Mr Gandalf went down. I was angry, and whatnot, and you were sleeping, Mr Frodo, so I went to have a word with him...' Sam faltered. 'And?' Frodo insisted. 'Only...' Sam's courage almost escaped him here, but he caught it by the tail. 'Only I didn't exactly talk to him, in the end, on account of, what with the darkness and all, he... he thought I was you, Mr Frodo. I'm sorry.' He had Frodo's attention now. He was watching Sam warily. 'What do you mean, Sam?' Sam couldn't meet his eyes anymore. He stared down at the grass without seeing, blood thundering in his ears, and somehow, with much hesitation and many pauses and creative evasions of plain speech, he got it out. The colour slowly drained from Frodo's face as he listened. 'Sam.' 'I'm sorry, Mr Frodo, so sorry. I didn't mean to.' Frodo shook his head, as if to clear it. His eyes were dark in his pale face. 'I'm not sure I can be hearing this... Why - He *touched* you? What do you mean?' 'Well, truth be told, it was more like t'other way around, if you take my meaning.' Sam cringed. Frodo was squeezing his eyes shut. 'You... him? *How*?' Sam couldn't stand it. 'Oh, you know what I mean, Mr Frodo, please don't make me say it! Please forgive me, please, Mr Frodo!' His eyes, his face, his whole body pleaded for forgiveness. Several seconds passed while Frodo was staring at him in disbelief. The revealed secret lay there between them, and Sam felt sick, imagining how it must look to his master, what pictures must be passing through his mind. 'What on earth made you do something like that?' Frodo said faintly. Sam shook his head. 'I don't know.' 'That's no answer.' Sam could hear the warning in Frodo's voice. There was a glint in his kind master's eye that made Sam's tongue stumble. 'Mr Frodo, please, listen to me, sir. I didn't mean to cause any harm, I was confused, I didn't know what I was doing. I'm so sorry, Mr Frodo, and I wish I'd never done it.' 'What do you think this is, some kind of game?' Frodo's mouth was tense and white. 'No, no, sir. I didn't mean to cause any trouble. I wasn't trying to...' 'It was none of your business!' Frodo exclaimed. 'I know, I know!' Sam said unhappily. 'It was a mistake, I know it was, Mr Frodo.' 'A mistake? Is that what you call it?' Frodo said hotly. His cheeks had coloured. Sam almost took a step back. 'I don't know what to call it, Mr Frodo, but I know it was wrong! I'm so sorry!' Frodo turned away, his mouth half open in disgusted amazement. 'Well, I can think of several other words for it,' he said in a low voice, throwing Sam a look that stung like a whiplash. 'I'm so sorry, Mr Frodo. Please forgive me.' He walked a few hesitant steps towards Frodo, but right then his master spun around, turning on Sam with narrowed eyes. 'Sam, you...! Who gave you the right to...?' Sam shook his head unhappily. 'How could you think that you... that you had the faintest idea what went on between me and Aragorn?' 'I'm sorry,' Sam whispered. 'So you should be! Oh, you have no idea what you have done.' Frodo looked away, and then back to Sam. 'And I trusted you!' But that was too much for Sam. It wasn't right what he had done, but, he hadn't done it just for a lark - he had been hurt and lost and left out, and that was somehow why it had happened. But it was as if Frodo was not himself at all, as if he could only see Sam when he was telling silly Shire stories and not when he was feeling angry and forsaken and betrayed. It wasn't how it had been once. Sam felt a surge of anger. 'Begging your pardon, Mr Frodo, but I don't see that you did.' Frodo stared at him. 'Well, if you trusted me so much, why'd you go sneaking off like that? And why'd you need to go running to him for? You know better than that, sir. Why didn't you...' He lost his momentum briefly, words breaking through and wanting to be said. Why didn't you come to me? Don't you know I want nothing else than to take care of you and keep you safe? But he swallowed them and continued, 'He's a man, that one, he's not a hobbit, and - ' 'I know what he is! What difference does it make? How would you know what Men are like?' Words to the effect that he knew now, didn't he, formed themselves in Sam's heated head but he stopped himself in time. What came out instead was rather vague, and fitted the wordless instinct he tried to express like one of his jackets would fit a troll. 'No man will ever know what it's like to be a hobbit! It's not right, he doesn't understand, Mr Frodo -' 'Understand what?' Frodo spat, furious. 'Understand you, Mr Frodo,' Sam said falteringly. Frodo's eyes narrowed. 'Really? And you do, I suppose?' Sam just looked at him. He would never say it, but his anger was all of a sudden replaced by something else, and he hoped that Frodo could see it, and see his answer, too. Frodo stared back, breathing heavily. 'You understand *nothing*, Sam, let me tell you that. Not the first thing.' 'I know. I wasn't trying to.' 'What *were* you trying to do, then?' Sam couldn't find any words, and he couldn't look at Frodo, because the look in Frodo's eyes was too raw. 'You were jealous, weren't you, Sam,' Frodo said finally, in a voice that he could barely keep under control. 'I see. You were jealous because you couldn't have me to yourself anymore.' Sam felt like wailing in despair, equally because Frodo didn't seem to see at all, and because Frodo had managed to hit so close to home. Was he that easy to read? He swallowed. It would have been handy to be able to deny that it was so without lying, but he couldn't. Sam had learned a thing or two about his own undreamed-of capacity for jealousy, and he wasn't proud of it. 'You were trying to make *me* jealous.' Sam could only shake his head mutely. 'You did it deliberately, didn't you. You set out to ruin everything in the nastiest way you could think of.' 'No, that wasn't what it was like! It weren't right, Mr Frodo!' Sam cried desperately. 'You're not listening! You've got your head so twisted round you can't tell what's what anymore, and you can't see when you're being made a fool and a plaything of, and I won't have it!' 'I am not a child or a half-wit, I can look after myself!' Frodo was shaking. 'You don't see it, do you? He's not here for you, Mr Frodo, begging your pardon, he's here for the sake of that foul piece o'gold! And he's taking you for granted like that, and me having come all that way, and him not caring who he -' 'What do you know about it?' Frodo spat. 'Well I can tell you that one thing he didn't say was "no"!' Frodo gaped. For a second Sam thought that he was about to hit him, or that he would burst into tears, and he immediately regretted his words. 'The very idea that you could have any idea what he thinks!' 'I *don't * know what he thinks,' Sam retorted desperately, with his last courage and his last anger, 'I don't know anything about this whole mess. But I know what I feel, and...Why can't you understand, see...' 'I see well enough, Sam. How dare you, you lying, treacherous...' he broke off with a sound in his throat almost like a sob. Sam felt his eyes beginning to sting. 'I'm sorry, Mr Frodo. I did wrong.' He wanted to say that Frodo didn't know what it had felt like to be him, to be Sam, and to be that lonely and angry and forlorn, but he knew it was no use. Frodo didn't seem to have any interest in what Sam felt anymore. 'You keep saying that, but you don't even know what you've done. I understand now, I see why he... How could you be so foolish and so hard-hearted, Sam?' There was almost a pleading note to Frodo's anger now. 'I'm not, Mr Frodo!' It was his last slim chance to make an impression on Frodo, to persuade him that he was not as bad as he seemed, and he grabbed at it like one drowning. 'I know now, I'm not going to stand... I don't mind. Never mind me.' It was almost a whisper, because Sam had underestimated how hard those words would be to say. Frodo glared at him. 'You don't *mind*?' he said. Sam said nothing. Frodo's voice was low and malevolent, full of incredulous contempt, and Sam understood that he wasn't even trying to hear what Sam was saying. He felt exhausted, and sadder and guiltier than he had thought it possible to feel. He could see that there were tears in Frodo's eyes too, but somehow he knew that they had nothing to do with him. 'I wish you had never come, Sam,' Frodo said, his voice cold as the breeze off the cliff tops. With that, Frodo turned and began walking towards the camp. Sam stood there, staring at the path beneath his feet as it began to blur and shift in a watery haze.
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