Chapter 344: Sauron's Goodwill?
Faced with the ranger's question, Gollum hesitated, then ventured, "Then we… want meat?"
His voice was full of doubt and puzzlement.
Plainly, the ranger's behaviour had caught him off guard. He could not make sense of it.
Soon enough, it no longer mattered.
A short while later, the ranger came back with a neatly cut, fine-marbled steak and a fat salmon.
Both were raw.
Gollum flinched at once.
"Poison, is it?" he thought.
Then again, why would they bother?
Besides, that "Legend" had given his word…
In the end, hunger beat suspicion.
His big eyes rolled once, and when he had talked himself round, he could not wait any longer. He lunged in and began tearing and gulping the meat, like a starved ghost, almost choking himself.
"So tasty… cough, gollum…"
He had never eaten flesh so clean, so fresh.
The ranger watched him from the side and could only stare.
He did not dare leave, mostly out of fear that Gollum would work himself into such a frenzy that he really would choke to death.
A strange little creature, this one.
He clearly had wits. Lord Levi had said he had once been a Hobbit. Yet he was not like any Hobbit the ranger had met. He liked his meat raw and bloody.
Given a choice between cooked and uncooked, he had picked the latter.
Hobbits were famous for their table. None of them would bite into a slab of bloody meat straight from the knife.
Even that, though, could be understood.
Watching Gollum bolt his food, the ranger remembered what Levi had said.
Gollum had been gnawed at too long by a nameless darkness. The taint had sunk too deep, changing even the way he lived.
"Burp."
A sound came from the cell.
"Looks like you are full," the ranger said.
"Then we had best be going."
He opened the door and gestured for Gollum to come out.
"Going? Where are we going?" Gollum asked, eyes wide.
Even the ranger could feel the change in him.
Now that he had eaten, the wretch almost seemed another being. There was a clarity in his gaze.
"Somewhere safer," the ranger said.
So they went.
Before long, Levi led Gollum and a handful of rangers out of the outpost, west into Rohan, across the East-mark, and over the great bridge.
Quickly and cleanly, in less than ten days, they reached the fortress in the southern vales.
Here, Gollum was given a room of his own, so decent that he began to wonder whether he had stumbled into some blessing by mistake, or whether he was already dead.
"Is this some kind of paradise?" he asked.
"No. This is a prison," one of the guards answered.
"A prison? You mean this clean, tidy, bright room, that does not stink of anything foul, is a prison?"
Thinking of Mordor, Gollum simply could not believe it.
The guard only looked at him oddly.
It was a plain single cell.
If this was "good"…
Then the poor thing had truly never seen what good looked like.
"Time to eat," the guard said.
He had been properly trained. He had no plans to chat with Gollum. On the one hand, he did not wish to let anything slip by accident. On the other hand, he had no taste for talk.
He simply brought in clean food and watched Gollum tuck in as if nothing else in the world existed.
"Oh, to eat and drink and sleep like this. This life is too happy," Gollum sighed.
Something in him shifted.
That change meant that when Gandalf, arriving a little later than Levi, came to question him, Gollum was, unusually, almost honest. He did not try many of his old dodges. Most of what needed to be said, he said.
"There is a strange power at work here," Gandalf said at last.
Having finished his questioning and seeing how Gollum had changed, he could not help clicking his tongue in wonder.
If the creature stayed here long enough, perhaps he really might…
"Well? Did you get what you wanted?" Levi asked.
"Most of it, yes," Gandalf nodded.
"What will you do now?" Levi said.
"Frodo. I must go to him first, to make sure the Ring is safe."
As he spoke, Gandalf was already getting to his feet.
"And Aragorn. As it happens, he is on his way to visit an old friend in the Woodland Realm. I have a plan that needs him. He can help."
"And what about me?" Levi called after him.
What, was he invisible?
"You?"
Gandalf raised his brows and looked almost helpless.
"Levi, there are things you cannot take part in any more."
"What is that supposed to mean?" Levi said, bristling.
What did he mean, he could not take part?
Gandalf widened his eyes in innocent protest.
"No slight meant. I only mean that you are too strong and too bright a presence. You are no longer suited to quiet work."
"I do not want us to be two steps out of the Shire before the Enemy is already crying, 'Levi and his friends have come to the Shire,' or two steps into Bree before he is shouting, 'Levi and his friends have reached Bree.'"
"You see the problem, do you not?"
"Fine. I see," Levi said, shrugging, no less put out.
Banned.
He had just joined Glorfindel on the list.
The Elf who could bring down a Balrog with a dagger was likewise left out of most secret forays, for the same crime of being too noticeable.
"In that case," Levi said, "when you have settled matters with Frodo, come to Roadside Keep. I will be waiting there. We can make a proper plan then."
"That will be best," Gandalf said with a grave nod.
"With your help, it will be hard for anything to go too far wrong. At least… so one hopes."
After a few more words, he mounted and rode off under Levi's eye.
His work was beginning.
Once Gandalf was gone and Levi had turned his thoughts to his own tasks, something unexpected happened.
The fortress of the southern vales, where Gollum was held, received a most unusual guest.
A messenger.
"Honoured Legend, High Leader of the Free Cities, leader of the Men of the North, Lord of the North, Levi, I bring you greetings from my master, Lord Sauron," he said.
A messenger from Mordor.
"Well?" Levi asked coolly at the gate.
The man sat on a black horse and wore a black cloak. On the walls behind Levi, a line of armed guards watched him, ready for any trick.
Levi himself needed no guarding.
Their duty was to make sure the envoy could not harm the folk inside the walls.
"I come bearing my master's goodwill," the messenger said, bowing his head in humble respect.
"Lord Sauron wishes to speak with you of a friendly cooperation."