Chapter 4: Lost And Found

When he was alone for too long (longer than a couple of minutes), Gollum still thought of the Precious.

Naturally. It had been part of him. It had left a void like the big bloody gaps that had been left in his mouth when his teeth fell out. He still didn't know why they had come out- oh, a few had come out because they were broken by rocks or bone, but most had not seemed to have anything wrong with them and most had come out without any pain. When he woke from sleep he still often touched each of the remaining six with his tongue to make sure they were still there, and they were, but the Precious was gone- and he knew why it had gone. O, the evil Baggins! If not for him, Gollum would surely still be undisturbed in his cave, with his Precious.

Alone.

Like we are now, he would think furiously, with NO Precious, and then he would weep stormily. Baggins had not even had the decency to come and visit again!

And so, as his strength returned, he had begun to take walks. Out the window, of course, clinging to the wall. Out the window because he wanted some fresh air and that was the quickest route, firstly, and secondly, it had not even occurred to him that the door to his room might not be locked, and he had not tried it. It had definitely not occurred to him that his minders would have taken him outside if he asked. It had occurred to him that as friendly as everyone was to him at the moment, it was quite likely that they did not want him wandering about on his own. Surely they did not trust him so much as that. He thought they would be very foolish to trust him that much, and yet he was also quite offended that they did not trust him, even though they had not outright said that they didn't; such was the stuff of his mind.

Tonight he pulled the shutters open, gently, gently! So far, so good! He climbed out, carefully, oh so carefully, one hand and one foot at a time, yes yes, for it was a long fall. He kept his eyes closed- he did not need to look because his ears and nose would tell him if anyone was near enough to see him. He did not want to see the drop, but perhaps moreso- he did not want to see the sheer enormity of this structure he was in, the might of Men; when he had first emerged from the window he had looked and retreated inside babbling with fright. He had seen large buildings before, of course, but they had usually been ruined and corrupted. This was whole, and massive, and something about it reeked of Elves.

Tonight he did not look.

The wind whipped around his body as he crawled along, wind with the scent of trees and water, and Sméagol almost laughed aloud- Sméagol who had been born in a flimsy dwelling that was just a partitioned-off part of the wild more than any real shelter from it, and then raised in a hole in the riverbank with the sound of the River never far from his ears and the bare earth always close enough to touch, Sméagol who had lived in caves and rivers and woodlands and never inside such a built-up dwelling unless it was a prison.

He crawled ever farther on these trips. He was trying to build up the strength to get down to the ground, where he could feel soil and grass under his hands, and perhaps re-learn how to catch prey while he had a chance to fumble the first few attempts without going hungry as a result. He had not made it so far yet, but tonight he crawled far enough that he heard voices from another window... he had done so before, but they were voices of Men, and he had not wanted to be discovered by such. These were small voices...

He pulled himself closer. Carefully, carefully! It would do him no good to break his neck. Here it was, a window on the floor below, with painful hot light spilling from it.

"I dare say," said a voice. "Might I have another scone, o Prince of Halflings?" Meriadoc, the hobbit with the sensible name.

"If you are going to call me that I am afraid I will have to forbid you your scone." Pippin Took, a hobbit with a ridiculous name. He was laughing as he spoke.

"Ah, well," said Merry- "I should just like to see you try it."

"Oh, don't torment Pippin for the strange ways of the Big People!" That was Master's voice! He, too, was laughing.

Gollum pawed at the shutter. He was driven not by thought or by reason but by a pure, gut-wrenching longing, which was not unfamiliar to him- and yet in a way this was different. I wants to see him, he thought. There is no reason why I should not. I'm not doing anyone any harm.

"What's that?" A gruff voice- Sam. Then that had certainly been Master's voice before, because for some reason Sam was always with him!

"Tree branches, I should think," said Pippin. "Although it is eerie, isn't it?"

"Particularly eerie," said Merry, "since there are no trees anywhere near this window."

"Oh," said Pippin. "But the War is over, can it be anything too dreadful?" He laughed awkwardly. "Perhaps it's an Ent saying hello."

Gollum tried to sound disarmingly friendly but he found that his voice shook. They could easily cast him down if they did not want him to come in. "It is only lonely old Sméagol, it is, it is; will the nice Master let him in?"

What if- what if Frodo did not want to see him? He quailed at the thought. It had never occurred to him before to wonder if perhaps Frodo did not really like him. Frodo had needed him before. Frodo didn't need him now.

"Sméagol?" Pippin said. "Surely that is not really him- we are three floors up!"

"Surely we're not letting him in," another voice muttered. Baggins.

"O let us in," said Gollum. "we are not doing anything wrong! Let us see Master!"

"We've got to!" That was Sam, of all people. "If we don't he'll catch his death out there, or fall to it."

"I fail to see the problem with that, my good hobbit," said Bilbo.

"Well, now," said Pippin. "He did destroy the Ring, and he hardly seems very monstrous these days. I don't think we ought to leave him in the window, if that's really him."

Sam spoke firmly. "We can't let him stay out there, but maybe you should slip out the door, sir."

"Yes, I think that is for the best," said Frodo. "But do let him in!"

The shutter opened, and it was Sam who pulled Gollum through. He took Gollum by the hands! Gollum had gotten used to tolerating the attentions of Men, and their pawings and pokings, but Sam was a person, not a Man! He had hobbit hands! And he was not content to only pull on Gollum's hands, but also put a steadying hand on his shoulder.

"Shame on you, Sméagol," Sam scolded, as Gollum drew himself away to crouch on the floor- "scurrying about like that on walls at your age, in your nightshirt and all! You've fell head over heels on cliffs not near so smooth! You'll frighten Master. And you're ice cold, at that. Here, sit down, you old fool."

Gollum found himself facing a collection of small bodies, blinking at them in torchlight that rendered him nearly blind. He found the Master mostly by scent, and pawed and snuffled at his knees. Frodo gently placed a hand on his head, so nicely, like petting a kitten. Gollum began to weep.

A low whistle came from one of the other hobbits.

"We shall have to put out at least some of the lights," said Frodo. He smelled so much healthier than he had before, and his voice was stronger too. "They hurt his eyes." Under his breath: "And for pity's sake- go! He's not seen you yet and I wouldn't test him!"

"Yes, yes!" Gollum cried. "The cruel lights, put them out!"

"Right, no one else is doing it so I suppose I shall," said Merry, and soon it was dim enough to see. There was a round table in the room with five chairs around it where the hobbits had been sitting. Bilbo must have heeded Frodo's words and taken the chance to scurry out while Gollum could not see, because he was no longer present, though a faint hint of his scent lingered.

"Good evening, Sméagol," Frodo said. He was the only one still sitting in one of the chairs. The other hobbits were standing.

Gollum chuckled and sat up with his hands on Frodo's knees. Frodo had let him in. Frodo must want to see him! Gollum was practically vibrating. "Good evening, good evening!" Frodo's hands smelled of hobbit-food, and his face looked rosier than it had, and nice and clean. There was food-smell around his mouth, too, so he must be eating well-

"Down, Sméagol," Frodo said, calmly but firmly. He put a hand on Gollum's shoulder, and gently pressed away and down. Gollum sat down. "I am pleased to see you up and about."

"Up and about! That is certainly one way to put it!" cried Pippin Took. "He was on the wall!"

Frodo nodded. "He does such things. Why have you come here, Sméagol?"

"To see our Master!" Was that not obvious? "And the other hobbits," Gollum amended, in case they should feel left out, although there was no reason to think they wanted his attention, really.

"You found me through the windows?"

"Sméagol found him, yes! We was out for a walk," said Gollum, wriggling, "and we hears voices- hobbitses voices, they are, so we comes to look and it is our dear Master! So we comes to see him, eh?"

"I see. You may sit at the table if you choose."

"O yes! Nice Master." Gollum curled up on the floor at the nice Master's feet.

"Or, I suppose that will do, if you prefer," said Frodo.

The chairs were too far from Frodo and his lovely familiar scent, and also Gollum didn't feel comfortable sitting in chairs anyway, they hurt his back and his bony hips. The Men had tried to put him in chairs, when he was still sick enough to be fed by hand, and he had whimpered and reached for the ground until they gave it up and fed him in bed or on the floor.

"I'll sit in a chair, though," said Pippin.

"Do you want a scone?" Merry asked mildly. "If Pippin allows it, that is."

The hobbits had some food sitting out, bread and things. It all smelled awful. "O no," Gollum said, "Sméagol has eaten already."

"Does that matter?" Pippin asked in surprise.

"No, it does not matter," said Gollum, thinking that Pippin seemed like an unusually sensible hobbit, "but we cannot eat the hobbits' food, it is nassty to us, but they do not like it when we say so."

"It is alright to say that you do not like our food if you say so politely," said Frodo, "though I wish you could try to eat just a bit of something more wholesome than your usual fare. I think it would help you, even if you think you do not like it. I- I hope you trust me, by now."

"We does, we does," said Gollum, "but I doesn't want to be sick, either." And there was nothing unwholesome about nice fresh meat. Perhaps the hobbits were not quite wrong to take issue with things such as orcflesh, but what was the matter with a bit of raw chicken?

"Perhaps another time you might be willing to try it."

"O yes!" He could defer that indefinitely.

Sam was looking him over with a critical eye, which Gollum withered under. "I'd try him on cooked meat first," he said, "without seasonings-" though the thought plainly made him shudder- "start off with it rare, maybe sort of just sear the outside a bit, and then work him up to well-done, I'd say, since he's so set against even stewing a coney."

"It is nice when it is caught and eaten at once." Gollum did not care to have this argument again. Sam was so clearly in the wrong. "But the hobbits may do as they wish..." He sniffed at Merry's legs and found a faint scent of tree sap.

"This is Merry, and this is Pippin," said Frodo. "They tell me they saw you once already."

"They have, the nice hobbits!"

"They may not have told you they are my kinsmen."

"They are?" Ah, perhaps that was why they seemed so pleasant.

"Yes, actually," said Pippin, "I am Frodo's second cousin once removed."

"Of course!" said Gollum.

"I'm a first cousin," said Merry.

"I see, I see," said Gollum. "And who is Sam?"

"My very dear friend," said Frodo, with a hint of a warning in his voice although Gollum had asked a very reasonable question that followed naturally from the topic of conversation.

"Sam is Frodo's gardener," Pippin volunteered.

"Gardener," Gollum repeated. "What is that?" That didn't sound like a family role that he'd ever heard of, and Sméagol had had ever so much family. Too much family.

"He tends the lawn and the flowers and plants," said Pippin. "Do you know what that is? I know you've not been in civilized places for a while..."

"No, not civilized- plantses?" Gollum turned to look at Sam. He was understanding things less by the minute.

Sam snorted a little. "I plant food, and things that make the place nicer. I don't suppose you know about any of that."

"No. No, none of that," said Gollum. "We do not understand it." And he found the idea irritating, but the hobbits surely would not like him to say so. Instead he said: "The hobbits may show us what their places looks like, and then we will know it, if they want us to. Does the nice hobbits live nearby?"

"No," said Frodo. "We are only staying here to be with our good friends. Our home is the Shire, which is far from here. But I think you know that already, or you've guessed."

"No, we do not," said Gollum, a little bit firmly, as he did not like being accused of slippery dealings he had not (yet) done. "We don't know where we are at all, Master. I was asleep when they brought me here, and no one told me where Sméagol is, or why; no one tells me anything."

"It is a city in Gondor," said Frodo. "We're quite far from the Shire."

The hobbits did not live here. "The hobbits will leave?"

"Yes, when our business here is done," said Frodo, "but that will not be for some time."

Merry spoke: "We all came a long way together. Do you not recognize us? We're the hobbits that went with Frodo from Lothlorien. We were all on the river together. I hear you were following us then."

Gollum turned to him and sniffed at his tree-sap smell. "No," he said at length. "I don't remember you at all, I don't." He did not remember very much from that time, aside from a haze of madness and longing and Frodo standing apart from the others, sharply defined like lightning in the sky. The other hobbits had all seemed very much alike to each other. "Was the hobbits not so tall, back then?"

"Actually we weren't," said Pippin. And Sam shook his head wonderingly.

Gollum nodded. "That is why, we would have noticed very tall hobbits!" He glanced around the room, wondering if Bilbo had been there all along too, and he somehow hadn't noticed. Surely he would have noticed Bilbo. But how else had Bilbo gotten to be here, if he did not travel with the others? "Did the hobbits have another friend with them? Has he left? He needn't leave."

"There was someone else here," said Frodo, "and he did leave, but that is our affair and not yours. I am sure you have your secrets that you would rather keep. This is one of ours."

"Yes, Master. It is not our business, only his nice friends needn't be afraid of poor little Sméagol."

"That is not why he left. Don't think about it any longer."

Gollum nodded, and rested his chin on the nice Master's warm fluffy foot. "Very well, yes yes, not Sméagol's business," he said, with a sideways glance. Gollum didn't want to see Bilbo, either.

Pippin cleared his throat. "Do you not wonder how we got tall so fast?"

"They are young hobbits?" Gollum asked.

"Not so very young as that," said Merry.

"They seems young to us."

"I suppose we would."

"Young hobbits gets taller," said Gollum. 

"That's logic for you," Sam grunted. Gollum ignored him, but he did wonder how young Sam was, and if Sam would become tall too.

"I have heard," said Frodo, "that you've been talking to Boromir and some of his men and telling them helpful things."

"Yes, they fetches us and talks to us, precious, and Sméagol helps when he can."

"Good," said Frodo. "Those Men are my friends and I am glad you are helping them."

"That is good," said Gollum. "They said they were Master's friends." And they apparently had not lied.

"Do you like Boromir?" Pippin asked. "Merry and I think he's lovely."

"He is nice, nice enough, we do not understand Men but he is polite, yes," said Gollum. He tipped his head back to look up into Frodo's face. "We missed our Master, we did. He did not come see us. And he has not had us brought to him."

"I was advised not to, but I shall have to come and see you sometime," said Frodo. He sounded a bit strange. "I would like to see you more often. You have been saved, and when I look at you and think of what you once were I feel that anyone can be saved, and I shall see more of you in future."

"Yes, yes!" It was a sweet feeling he could not recall ever having before, to lie at the Master's feet, and be free of the little whispering voice telling him to attack, and to reject; and to not be hungry or thirsty or worn to death, and to have all the other nice little hobbits around- and none of them yelling or cringing or trying to kick him out of the room.

He began to whimper.

"Oh, don't cry, Sméagol," said Pippin in distress. Gollum could not remember the last time someone had been so distressed by his tears and that made him cry more.

"Don't mind him, he does that," Sam grunted.

"We have nowhere we must travel," said Frodo softly, "we don't need to urge him along."

Pippin started awkwardly eating a scone, and Sam sat in a chair next to the Master and joined him. Merry sat down too, on the other side of Frodo.

Gollum finished weeping and blotted his eyes on his sleeve. "Someone is outside the door," he said. It was a feeling, more than anything he could point to, but he was certain, yes- very certain someone was there, and listening, and he thought he knew who it was. Although such things usually did not bother him, he somehow resented the fact that the Baggins had likely heard him crying at Frodo's feet.

"Is that so?" Merry asked. He got up and went to the door. "Whoever is there," he said, "Sméagol is very aware that you're there, and we all have swords, you know. I really think you ought to leave."

A shadow moved under the door.

"That put paid to him," said Merry. Such a fine big hobbit, a powerful hobbit! Though of course Merry had spoken in tones of bluff, and not any real threat. He had really been saying 'we know you're still here when we agreed you should not be, and you ought to leave.'

Gollum was happy to play at their little game. He changed the subject. "Why does Merry and Pippin smell like trees?"

"That is something I couldn't tell you," said Merry, putting his hands in his pockets with a shrug. "I don't know when I started smelling like a tree so I couldn't tell you why. Us hobbits can't tell those things. I can guess, but it's a guess that would be hard to explain."

"You know," said Pippin, turning to his friend. "I found a leaf in my hair the other day."

"It fell from above," said Frodo.

"Did you see it fall?" Pippin asked.

"No, but I'm sure there's a natural explanation!"

Sam got up and started pouring fresh tea for everyone. Gollum found a more comfortable position to lie in.

Pippin leaned under the table to peer at him. Gollum avoided his gaze, and Pippin withdrew after a moment, asking: "Why do you have such a good sense of smell? I have heard you were once an ordinary hobbit, but ordinary hobbits can't climb on walls and sniff things out the way you can. Could you always do those things?"

Gollum lay propped up on one forearm that was tucked under his chest. This pinned his arm where he could not have quickly gotten to it if need arose, and- although he did not reason all of this out- this choice of position meant that he trusted the hobbits quite a bit, for all they were so big and had swords. "Pippin asks lots of questions, doesn't he?"

"I'm afraid so," Pippin asked.

"I may not answer," said Gollum. "How else will you find out, then, eh?"

"I suppose... if you don't want to tell me I had better leave it alone," said Pippin, self-effacing.

"No, no!" Gollum cried. "Silly hobbit, then you will never find out. But no one tells his secrets jusst because he's asked. You will need other ways to find out things, won't you?"

Frodo leaned down close to him. "Sméagol," he said quietly, "I believe you are trying to be a bad influence on Pippin."

Gollum looked up at him. "Bad? No, there is no harm in it, just from knowing things, is there?" He ducked his head submissively. "What is done with it may not be nice. But it's no harm to know things. It was useful to Master that Sméagol knows so many things, eh?"

Merry cleared his throat. "Why won't you answer his question, then?"

"Too easy," Gollum said in surprise.

Pippin scuffled his feet. "I suppose I can ask Gandalf."

"Yes, yes, clever Pippin," said Gollum, "Sméagol's secrets have been forced out of him already, there's no need to do it again." And he added- because he had the unsettling feeling that the hobbits might be upset with him- "I lived in the dark a long, long time, and it made my nose cleverer than before, because I needed it. I was always good at climbing and I have had a lot of practice, that is all... that is all it is." He rested his chin on the back of his wrist.

"I see!" said Pippin. "Thanks for answering. Maybe I'll try to use my own nose a little more often."

An awkward silence fell.

"I was telling a story before, wasn't I?" said Merry.

"It were about ol' Sandyman," said Sam.

"Oh, yes. I walked into the Green Dragon one day and I saw him playing cards and clearly he was winning. I know he's never been a very good hand at cards, so I just thought I'd walk over and see what he was doing. He never noticed me, so I saw how he was cheating. I went and grabbed Pip, and we joined the next round and used his method against him to win the whole pot. We spent it on buying rounds of ale for everyone, of course, so no one resented us for it."

Déagol would have gotten in on a scheme like that. Ah! Poor Déagol!

"What were they doing?" Frodo asked.

"Oh," said Pippin, "I have some cards here somewhere, I can show you."

"Can you?" Sam asked, in a faintly warning tone.

"Well, we won't bet, of course..."

A knock came on the door. Gollum jumped.

"Hush, Sméagol, that is not an enemy," said Frodo. "Someone see who it is, please."

"It is Gandalf," came a voice from the door, and it opened. The wizard stood there tall and terrible. The light of the Sun seemed to be in him, searing.

"We are not doing anything," Gollum cried. He covered his eyes.

"No," said Gandalf, "I can see that you are not." He cast an eye over Gollum, who felt exposed, though Gandalf had seen him in more unpleasant situations, and wearing less- exposed as if he had been flayed to the bone with his pulsing organs on display for the choosing.

"He really wasn't doing anything," Pippin ventured. "He's just been sitting there."

Gandalf did not look impressed. "Long I searched for you, Sméagol, when you were desperately needed to make an account of yourself, and you were nowhere to be found, so, perhaps, I should not be surprised that you have now developed a habit of landing at my feet when you are not needed and I have no particular desire to see you. I would however like to know why, and how, you came to be here."

"But why does wizard want to know?" Gollum asked. "We are not bothering anybody, and we did not bother anybody by getting here, and the hobbits let us in, gollum! And we did not ask for wizard, no, we did not land at his feet, precious- he has tramped in with his feet close to Sméagol, Sméagol did not go to him."

"Gandalf has done you a great service, whether or not you understand it," Frodo said. "Treat him politely, if you can."

Gollum did not see what he had said that was any more impolite than what Gandalf had said. But very well, very well! He was weary of arguments.

Sam cleared his throat. "He were climbing on the wall, Mr. Gandalf, he came through the window."

"That is very nice," Gollum cried, sitting up, "now they will lock it!"

"You could break your fool neck going about like that," Sam retorted. "Ask somebody to take you someplace if you want to leave your room."

"They won't take us," Gollum snapped. He wondered if Sam was really concerned about him getting hurt, and if so, why. 

"You have not asked," said Gandalf. "Sam is quite correct. If you wish to go someplace or see someone, you may ask, although people have their own duties and may not always be able to see you anytime you wish. As for locking your window, I think it very foolish for you to climb walls, but I am not your master, nor the master of this house, and such decisions are not mine to make."

Frodo's hand landed on Gollum's shoulder- he startled.

"They are trying to help you," said Frodo. "These are my friends. You can trust them as you trust me."

Perhaps. Gollum did not have to like their tone.   

"But," said Frodo, turning to the others. "perhaps you could be gentler with him, I am afraid he has lived a harsh life, and he cannot always tell when anger is meant kindly."

"O yes, kind Master! Make them be nice to poor Sméagol."

"Gandalf yells at me the same way, Sméagol," Pippin offered.

"At you!" Gollum blinked. "He would not dare, would he? Such a big hobbit, a hobbit-prince?" Gandalf had been angry with Bilbo the other night, but that was Bilbo. And Bilbo had been sneaking about.

"Oh my," said Frodo, "he would dare. He's been very angry at Pippin. I think he's been much angrier with Pippin than he's been with you... even the way you were before."

"It is a compliment to be yelled at by Gandalf," said Pippin, "in a way, I think. It's a compliment if he calls you a fool, anyway. I would like to think so, anyway, and... I am not a prince..."

Gollum turned and peered at Gandalf. "And is it a compliment when Sam twits us?"

"It is if he's worried about you breaking your neck," said Merry. "I should think."

"Master'd be awful upset if you cork it now after all that," Sam muttered.

Gollum flopped down on the ground. All of this was confusing to him and he found it tiring. And Gandalf had in some strange way began to bring to mind memories of his grandmother, and that was tiring too, and upsetting. "We only wanted to see our nice Master, and Baggins scurries off and fetches wizard," he whined. "As if we was an orc, precious!"

"Baggins?" Frodo asked.

Gollum rolled onto his side and looked sideways up at him. "Yes, although it is very nice of Master to chase him away so Sméagol needn't see him, it is."

"Ah well-" That was Merry. "I don't know how we expected to get away with that, when Bilbo was still in the room when he came in. He even whistled."

Gandalf was peering at Gollum from under his large owl-eyebrows, and Gollum suddenly wished he was not lying sprawled on the floor with his belly exposed, though Gandalf was unlikely to suddenly decide to plunge a knife into his guts. He rolled over and curled into a more defensive position.

"You knew Bilbo was here," said the wizard, "and you were content to let him leave?"

"We doesn't want to talk to him, he was nothing to say."

"Nothing at all?"

"Except that he cheated," Sméagol admitted, in a surly tone, "he cheats at riddles and that is very nasty of him."

"And that is it? Happily, I am not your master," said Gandalf, "it is no longer my worry whether you are being truthful or not, and there is nothing going on here that requires my services. I will entertain Bilbo elsewhere, rather, and more to the point, he will entertain me, and your loss will be my gain."

With that he left.

"I suppose," said Frodo, "he means it falls to me to decide whether you are truthful. I can't see what's in your heart, Sméagol, but I want you to know that Bilbo is a very dear member of my family, he is my uncle, who raised me, and I hope you can forgive him."

"O, we will, then, yes, good Sméagol." Talk was cheap, fortunately. But he no longer wanted anything to do with hurting Bilbo, that was true... it was because he was tired of all of it, and not because he was more kindly disposed to anyone, and he knew Frodo would not like that reasoning so he did not say anything about it.

He stayed there while they chatted into the night, dozing off and on because the room was comfortable and he didn't really understand everything the hobbits were talking about. Eventually the hobbits grew awkwardly silent. It was about midnight.

"We're getting a bit tired, Sméagol," said Frodo.

"They may sleeps, we don't mind," said Gollum with some surprise. Surely they did not need his permission to go to sleep.

"We do not actually sleep in this house," said Frodo, "we only came here for a meeting-place, and now we need to go back to our own quarters and so must you. And surely by now you'd like something to eat, and we have no food for you. At least, not the kind you prefer."

"Ach." Frodo was correct in that. "Then we will go, yes, see hobbits later." He got up, somewhat sluggishly, and made for the window.

"Oh no!" Sam stood by the door. "Not that way, Sméagol. I'm going to take you back by the door, come here."

"We can find our way easier from the window," said Gollum, but Sam shook his head emphatically.

"I do not want you to fall," Frodo said calmly. "Go with Sam, please, as he is kind enough to take you back."

Very well, then. Gollum muttered a little, but he went to Sam.

"Good night, Sméagol," Pippin said politely.

"Good night, hobbits..."

Out in the hall, Sam asked: "Where's your room anyway, Sméagol?"

"Four windows left, yes, yes, one up," he grunted.

"Right, so inside, that'd be... two rooms down from the stairs, on the floor up from here. Come on, then."

Gollum dropped to heel like a dog, following Sam through the hall. About halfway down he noted a shadowy figure lurking, and stopped.

"What's there, then?" Sam asked.

The person huddled by the wall was plainly Baggins. Gollum sniffed in his direction, then turned aside. "A rat!" he said. "A big nassty rat it is, precious!"

"Well, leave it alone. There's always big rats in Man places." Sam shuddered. "If you'd like to eat 'em, the Men'll probably thank you for it but I don't care to watch."

"Eat them, yes," Gollum chuckled. Baggins shifted about irritably. "It is nice of Sam to tell us we may."

It was strange to be behind Sam instead of showing him the way somewhere, particularly when they climbed the stair. Gollum was accustomed to finding his own way and knowing his surroundings better than anyone nearby. He muttered to himself and paused frequently to sniff about.

There was a guard on the landing. Gollum checked.

"He's sleepin'," Sam whispered. "Don't mind him." And indeed they both stole past without being noticed.

When they reached his door Gollum said: "But it will be locked."

Sam tried it. "It's not locked." He opened the door. Gollum slunk inside, half-expecting to find someone else inside- but no, this was his room, it had his scent faintly lingering in it (particularly on and near the bed where he spent most of his time), and the window was open.

Sam went to the window and closed the shutter.

Why, thought Gollum, that is very foolish of him, for his back is turned to me and I could easily go to him and heave him out of the window, and tell everyone that he fell when he was trying to shut it. Perhaps no one would believe me, but if I really wanted him dead I would try it, yes, and surely he knows I would! Does he trust me so much? That is not wise. I do not want to hurt him, of course- it would grieve the Master and I will not do it, but surely he cannot know that, so still it is foolish and silly.

The window was now closed, and Sam walked for the door. There was assurance and steady confidence in his stride. Sam was well-loved by the Sun, tanned and freckled, a creature of daylight. Sméagol had always been fair of skin and never one to tan to an appreciable degree even after long summer afternoons on the River. And now, of course...

Sam met his eye. "Like what you see?" he growled.

"Yes, yes," said Gollum, as he knew this answer was neither expected nor desired.

Sam looked at him for a minute, and then left the room.

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