Chapter 5: Meetings in the Garden

"There were no tunnels there when we saw the place. There is one, farther down, closer to here, we thinks... urgh. Gollum!"

He must look quite green, but the Man looking over the map and taking notes had not shown that he'd noticed, and neither had Boromir sitting in the corner of the room. That was just as well because Gollum did not care to explain that he'd asked for cooked meat, which he had known full well would make him sick if he managed to get it down at all, and though it tasted vile he had managed to eat most of it and now he was indeed sick. Now he could tell the hobbits he'd tried it and he could tell them why he never planned to try it again. If he ever saw them again. They sure weren't in any hurry to visit him.

The Man made a careful dashed line on the map, near the spot he'd indicated. He had met Gollum for the first time today, and seemed unsure what to make of him. Perhaps he thought Gollum was supposed to be green. He looked surprised and offended nearly every time Gollum spoke, which was getting tiresome. And Eardwulf was not here today- in fact Gollum had not seen him at all today, someone whose name he didn't know who had rougher hands and colder eyes had led him here for the meeting and not chosen to remain.

"I would suggest posting guards in both locations if they can be spared," said Boromir. "Assuming you do find a tunnel where he indicated there was one."

"Yes, yes," Gollum agreed, turning to Boromir, who was always polite and- for a Man- seemed sensible about things like tunnels and orcs. "Go both places, they digs quick, orcses, there may be more tunnelses now than Sméagol has seen. Gollum, gollum! And put the Men at both ends, too."

"Naturally," said Boromir.

"Hide the Men that are at one end, eh?" Gollum suggested. "Make the others stand out in the open? Then orcs will all go out where you're hiding, thinking no one is there- squeeze them! Catch them by surprise! Gollum!"

Boromir did not give any indication of whether he was flattered or repulsed to be offered stratagems by Gollum. "And what are we to expect inside the orc-tunnels, Sméagol?" Boromir asked.

Surely he knew some of this. Likely he did. If the Men were wise- and they must be a bit wise, because they had built such incredible things, though Gollum suspected they thought themselves wiser than they were- they would be slipping in questions they knew the answers to here and there, when they could do so without being obvious. To see if he told the truth.

They think we are lying but we are not, he thought. We will show them, precious! "Orcses," he said first. "Yes, yes, how many, we do not know, there were hordes, hordes of them before, precious! Gollum! Gollum! Many have died, we hears many others ran away. But they may have gone there to hide. There may be soldiers, big bull-goblinses with wicked steel!" Without thinking, he ducked his head, pawing the thin hair away that covered the back of his neck, where there was a raised scar. Blood! Blood! a nasty goblin had cried under the tunnels of the Misty Mountains, so long ago. So the lake-shadow bleeds! But Gollum, who still wore the Precious then, had been behind him, and those were his last words. "Yes, yes, there may be, but praps not. All the soldiers may be gone, gone with- with Him, yes, and you may find only the cow-orcses and their little whelplings. Gollum." Thinking of food reminded him of his indigestion. "But, if you go into the burrowses they will be angry, o yes precious, they will be fierce in small rooms and tight dens where they may even corner little Sméagol, poor Sméagol." He pushed up his sleeve and began worrying at another scar on his forearm, in the shape of an orc's claw. Orc-mothers were not to be trifled with, particularly when discovering something in their burrows that stooped over the remnants of a goblin-pup, with blood on its fangs... "Gollum!" He put his hand to his mouth. "Ach! Sorry, sorry... there may be many orcs, or few, but they will be furious when you go in. You will be in tight corners. Difficult for big Men, we would think, even if not very many goblins are there."

"What of traps or pitfalls?"

"Sss..." There had been a few in Goblin-town. Tricksy things, but none of them accounted for an opponent who could climb walls (and ceilings, when he had to). "There were none, here," he said, tapping the spot where he had noted a tunnel. "But that was some time ago, wasn't it? Might be some now. Likely not many in new tunnels. Orcs builds tunnel straight through first, yes, then they makes a big room for eating and fighting- yes- then the burrows, and then when they have been there long they make trapses."

"They do not make their defenses a priority?" asked Boromir.

"They do not expect to be found," said Gollum, "and usually, they are not, and when they are, the orcs themselfs are the 'defenseses', yes precious. Trapses are for fun, for fun! Not for defense. Ach! But..." He did not want to be thought of as a liar when he was not and he knew these Men didn't trust him, no. If he made a mistake at any point, they would probably think it was a lie. "There may be more traps, that we don't see," he hedged. "Too light to set them off, is Sméagol, he doesn't have to worry so much."

"You have been in these tunnels?" the Man with the map asked.

"Not this one," said Gollum, pointing to the map in the place where the Man had first told him there was a tunnel. "If it is there. Gollum. We did not see it."

"I meant these kinds of tunnels. Orc-tunnels," said the Man.

"O yes, yes yes."

"Know you not to whom you speak?" Boromir asked of the Man. "This is Sméagol of the banks of the Anduin, who led the Ring-bearer to Mount Doom. He has lived countless years under the Misty Mountains alongside orc-kind, and lived under their torment in Mordor as well, and he likely knows more of their ways than does anyone living among Men."

Gollum batted his scraggly hair over his face and gollumed in his throat. He was unused to having his private business aired before strangers. He had grown to consider any fact about his history to be private business, particularly his doings in Mordor, and whom he knew, and where he lived, and his name, and for that matter, what his face looked like. 

"I apologize if I was impertinent, sir," the Man said hastily.

Boromir said nothing, which made Gollum wonder if this fool had called him 'sir'. He did not know how to react to that.

He fell back on an old habit. "O yes we have seen orcses, precious, so many, so many, crawling like ratses in their nassty little warrens- but they have not seen us, my preciouss, no, never, gollum! Too clever, too quiet, too tricksy is precious, in the dark, gollum, gollum. And if they have seen us it was the lasst thing their nassty eyes ever did see, gollum!"

He muttered in this fashion until:

"Are you planning to scout the tunnels?" the Man asked.

"O, what is he asking, precious? Scout?"

Boromir sounded offended. "That has not been discussed."

"They wants us to go in and rissk our neck seeing if the orc-tunnels has orcses or not," said Gollum to himself.

"No, no," said the Man, with a strange mixture of eagerness and disdain, "merely how many, and if there are traps. You have just said you are too slight and small to trigger traps set for Men."

Gollum began to rock himself back and forth. Why, these Men were too big and clumsy to see anything in those tunnels without alerting the whole nest of goblins. Clever Sméagol could do it with his groping hands and searching eyes and quiet feet, yes. He did not crash around like a Man, and reek of tasty manflesh.

"But I do not want to," he cried, "I am frightened and I hates, I hates that place."

"We do not require you to go back!" said Boromir. "We only desire what information you may give. We will not make you go back."

Gollum whimpered. O yes- he said so now.

Gollum was little further use to the Men after that. He was distracted and kept muttering to himself instead of answering questions directly. Boromir soon said he might leave, and walked with him into the hall. The same person who led Gollum to the meeting-place after making sure he looked 'presentable' usually came back to fetch him when the meeting was over, if he did not stay to watch. But no one was here now- Gollum must have been allowed to leave earlier than usual. It didn't matter- he knew the way back by now.

"That suggestion was ill-thought and ill-said, for you to scout orc-tunnels," said Boromir. "I will not hear of it. You have done enough."

"Nice Man," Gollum said distractedly. Return to Mordor, to the orc-tunnels! Ach, this had been a bad day to try to eat cooked meat.

They had reached the stairs, and Gollum began to climb up- he soon realized that Boromir was not following. Boromir stood at the bottom with his cane. Perhaps he could not climb stairs- no, he must be able to, because he had entered Gollum's room once before; but perhaps he did not enjoy climbing stairs and avoided it if he did not have to.

"Good night," said Gollum politely.

"Good night, my friend."

Friend! Sméagol, a friend? That was ridiculous.

Gollum decided, for unrelated reasons of his own, that he would not go up the stairs. He turned back. "Wants outside."

"Outside?"

"Sméagol wants to go outside!"

"Very well. It is a fair night. Do you mind if I accompany you?"

"Boromir is so strong and fine and tall," said Gollum, "he does what he wishes."

"I would accompany you by your choice only, not because I am so much larger."

"He may if he wishes," said Gollum, uncertain which answer was desired. He sat hunched on the ground. "Gollum! Where is outside, where is it?"

"Ah! Follow me."

Boromir's gait was slow. Definitely favoring the left leg, he was. If circumstances had been different, Gollum would have tried throwing his weight against that leg to knock the big Man over.

I don't want to think of such things, he thought dully. He is nice to me, very kind to poor little me, and I am thinking of how I would have killed him if...

"You seem distressed today," said Boromir.

"I, I do not want to go into the goblin-caves."

"You do not need to."

Gollum fell silent, his heart pounding. Sméagol promised to be very, very good. Perhaps it would have been better for him if he had only said one 'very'. "I will ask the Master," he said, "and the Master will tell me what to do, yes."

"Are you thinking of offering if Frodo says you should? That is impressive." They were walking through gardens now and the stench of the flowers was nearly unbearable.

They had reached a bench. Boromir sat down on it. Gollum flopped down in the grass.

"Are you well?" Boromir asked.

"O yes! Quite well," said Gollum, "we can move about now, yes, and have no burns anymore. Is Boromir well?" He pointed to the cane. "Praps he won't need this one day?"

"I am likely to need it forever."

"That is too bad, too bad." Plainly he should not have brought it up. Gollum closed his eyes and felt the night breeze on his face and said nothing more.

Boromir spoke next. "It is incredible that you have lived so long among orcs and you do not need anything of the kind."

"We hides, doesn't we?" Gollum wondered idly if Boromir knew he couldn't walk fully upright anymore- at least, not for long; it made his back hurt and he found it hard to keep his balance. Though that was not due to orcs, but due to having spent too much time stooped and crawling until it was the only way he could comfortably move... at any rate, he would indeed need a cane if he wanted to move like Men and Hobbits did.

"You may sit beside me," said Boromir, "if you wish."

"This suits us, it's nice for us," said Gollum, nosing about in the dirt. He had begun to crawl down to the grounds at night from his window, but hadn't explored this section of the garden. He avoided areas with flowers. Now was a good time to explore- nothing could possibly attack him with Boromir so close, and if guards saw him, they could say nothing about it. "How did the big strong Man hurt his leg? It must have taken some doing."

"Ah," said Boromir. "Now that is a question. I must ask you one first."

"O, yes?" Gollum asked, trying to sound very polite. "What is it?" And what was that he heard digging in the dirt down there, eh, was that a nice fat mole? It was a shame he had no appetite.

"I have wondered long how you managed to escape all who sought for you, for such a length of time as you did."

"Sméagol hides, he does. Hides, sniffs out ways no one else sees, that Big Peoples can't fit into, that orcses can't fits into."

"How simply put! Surely there is more than that. Aragorn almost could not find you and he is the most skilled tracker of our age."

A croaking laugh welled up in Gollum's throat. "Is he? There may be one better? Hmm? Who? It is a riddle, it may be." No one in His service had been able to find so much as hide nor hair of Sam or Frodo as they traveled straight to the heart of His country, but clever Sméagol had found them after he'd been separated from them, yes he had! Could Aragorn have done that? And could Aragorn rustle up a mouse any time he wanted one if there were any to be had? Gollum did not think so. And he did not care to hear any opinions to the contrary from those who knew Aragorn better than he did, so he continued: "Sméagol moves quickly, he is quiet, he stays in the secret dark places." It would not do to say very much more than that! Boromir was a friend today, but who knew what he might be in future? In the past he had not been a friend at all.

Gollum became aware of the way the tree branches moved against the walls of the nearby building, and the way the grasses and flowers swayed in the breeze, too neatly, too evenly, plants corralled by Men into geometric shapes not decided for them by their own rambling manner of growth. This was a place for tame things, pets. Toys of Men. Little fat hobbits that sat in the light and clucked and laughed and played cards.

This was a garden, then. Sam made places like this, was that was he did? Gollum would never understand.

Gollum lay on the ground with a sigh. His face was quite close to Boromir's boot, perhaps he was closer than he ought to be. He did not care to move.

Might kick me, he thought suddenly. No, surely Boromir would not kick him. Not at the moment, anyway.

"But you asked me a question," said Boromir.

Gollum had already forgotten all about this, so he must not have cared very much about that question. "We did ask, we did," he said, because it was easier to agree.

"I am lamed because I tried to take the Ring from Frodo."

Gollum nodded absently, and then his body realized what he had heard a split second before he did, he recoiled before he realized why he was recoiling. "Sssss!" he replied.

Boromir ran his fingers through his hair. "Yes. It is my greatest shame. I attacked what I had sworn to protect. I broke the defenses of our group, in my failure. You see before you a leg shortened by the blow of an Orc."

The Man by the River who had tried to take the Precious had not been Aragorn, then! Gollum remembered that day well, because Frodo- not yet the Master then- had gone off by himself with Gollum nearby in the underbrush. Frodo had been distracted and it had been just the right moment to get the Precious back- Sun not withstanding!

And then Boromir had come. Gollum had watched from the shadows, and turned sick at heart because he thought Boromir would surely take the Ring and there was absolutely no chance of him overcoming the big Man to get his treasure back. Now he looked Boromir over- it was still likely that Gollum would come off worse in a fight.

The attack had of course also driven Frodo alone into the River, what luck, what luck- and then another hobbit had gone after him- worse luck, worse luck. If Frodo had only gone alone, it would have been so easy to take the Precious while he slept-

Take it! I mean take it the way I took it from Déagol, thought Gollum. O the Master's poor neck, the poor Master, horrid Sméagol! And then He would have had me. He would have had everything. He realized with dawning horror that Sam had saved him at least twice. With every passing day, the memories from that time seemed odder to him- clear and sharp, but following a strange path of thought, as if the memories had been made by someone else, someone who was not very nice, not nice at all. Someone who was persistently marching along to the beat of lies and half-truths that he could not even see, though to anyone a degree removed they were obvious.

"I was fighting to keep two of our company from being kidnapped," said Boromir, his voice rough. "But I failed! My sin was too great to be overcome. It was too late, and the outcome was the same as if I had not fought, as if I had not chosen a better path. I sought to take the Ring to save Gondor, to become great; and Gondor was won without me. Nothing would have changed had I died. I sought to become great and I became nothing."

The same as if he had not chosen, Gollum thought. Something in his chest twisted. He recalled Frodo lying on the ground still and silent after being stung by Her- Gollum had taken him through the safest way he knew. A little tunnel in the rock that led through the burrow he himself slept in, quite safe- but at the other end She had been waiting. She had heard them in the tunnel.

She had been told that food was being brought. 

Gollum would not tell that to Boromir. "Nothing?" he said instead, in surprise- "he is not nothing, he seems very great to us, precious. All the peoples bow and call him lord, and master, and they wash and dress Sméagol before he can even go near."

Boromir sighed deeply. "You did not take the Ring from Frodo."

"No, no," Gollum said, almost patronizingly. "Sam was there, eh, his Sam stopped us. And Master had a sword, we had nothing!" Surely this was obvious?

He realized too late that he had just as good as admitted that he would have taken the Precious early on if no one had stopped him. Well- Boromir had tried it too, so he ought to understand if anyone did!

But just to be safe: "Everyone wanted the Precious," Gollum said quickly. "All peoples, orcses, Men, hobbitses- Baggins took it away too, yes yes."

"Frodo is a peer to you, one weaker and less cunning in mischief, but like in size and shape. To my eyes he is as a child, and I..." Boromir covered his face with his hand.

Gollum scratched the underside of his chin and eyed the big Man. He was sad, obviously.

"And," Boromir said, "you felt it was yours, that you owned it, and you did not take it. I had no such claim."

"We did take it, in the... in the end," Gollum said hesitantly. 

"In the end! When it came time to cast it away. That is a different matter!" And he went quiet. A silence fell, but for the noises of night insects and frogs.

Say something, Gollum suggested to himself. He's sad.

Not our business, not our business if he's sad, he answered. If these Men choose to coddle me that is their doing, and anyway I still think it's because they expected me to work all along. I don't need to coddle them back, now, do I?

Although it was his own thought and he knew it well, the pettiness of it surprised him. But he has always been nice to me, he has, and no one forces him. He needn't be kind but he is.

It is useful to him to be nice to us, that is all.

Look at him, telling us such things! It's not useful to tell us this. He trusts me, I don't know why. I have been telling him secrets that I learned from spying on peoples and he trusts me with something that pains him! And it is because of the Master; it would betray the nice hobbit if I am cruel to his friend. And maybe I don't need a reason to be nice to people, eh? People doesn't need reasons to do things. Maybe I feel like it!

Very well; so then what does we say to him, if Sméagol is at such pains to be polite, hmm?

There was the trouble. He had no idea what was appropriate to say.

Tell him he was really taking it from me, not from Master, he thought, since after all it WAS mine, and no one minds stealing things from Sméagol.

Somehow that did not seem as if it would work.

Gollum tentatively pawed at Boromir's shin, since his knee was too high. 

Boromir looked down at him sorrowfully.

That didn't help him at all, precious, he doesn't want patses like dogs, stop it. We look foolish, silly. Gollum sat on his hands.

Boromir reached for his head. Gollum withdrew from sheer instinct, because a large object was coming towards his head, ever so much larger than the hand of a hobbit, and the hand was drawn back. Then Boromir heaved a sigh.

"It is late," he said. "I am tired."

"O yes, Men sleeps in dark. We will go back now, if he wishes." For Gollum, this was the equivalent of about noon, and normally he would be alert and restless, but his stomach felt like it was boiling and perhaps he would lie down for a while himself.

But the room was stuffy. Yes, stuffy! No amount of lying on top of the blankets and panting would alleviate the oppressive warmth. Summer must be coming. Cruel summer. Sméagol had been born in summer. (Or late spring. Or early fall... he remembered everything about that evil day except for the date.)

The heat drove Gollum out through the window. The White Face was brighter than he liked- he glared sullenly in its direction. But down on the ground were trees and bushes to hide away in. He began his descent.

It was better down on the ground with cool breezes, and grass and dirt to root through. Sometimes when he came out here he found an interesting rock and slipped it into his pockets, and he was creeping along looking for such things- or perhaps an insect carcass, or a dropped bit of trash, nice things like that to add to a collection he had started, lined up in neat rows underneath his bed- when he saw movement ahead.

Gollum dropped onto the ground, drawing himself up into a quivering mound like a cat preparing to pounce. Whatever was over there had the height of a child of the Men but was almost as quiet as Gollum was. A hobbit, a hobbit!

Which hobbit? The hobbit was upwind, and did not speak. So then, precious must get closer! Quiet, quick, tricksy, Gollum urged himself. He approached in a semicircle, trying to get downwind of the hobbit, hoping to catch a scent before there was any chance of the hobbit noticing him, to find out who it was. If this proved to be Sam, or Frodo, then his presence would be half-expected, easier to catch on to. Merry and Pippin he did not know as well, and more importantly they were less familiar with him and his stalking ways, but they seemed to be no slouches. And who knew what Baggins might think or try?

But, he asked himself, what will we do with the hobbit if we catch him? Have a bit of a chat, he supposed, that was all, and in that case there was no real reason to stalk and hunt. But there was also no reason not to stalk and hunt, no! Besides, if it turned out to be Sam, there was likely no point in talking to him, and Gollum could turn back without ever having been noticed. And if it were the others, well, they had been neglecting poor Sméagol, hadn't they? A little bit of a startle was not such a harsh punishment for that, was it?

If it was Baggins...

A voice rose up from the figure, then, small and quiet. "Dear me, it's a lovely garden but I don't know how much of it I thought I would be able to see by moonlight. As it turns out I can't see much at all."

It was Baggins. So he could not see in the dark, eh? He could yet be seen.

Baggins had once followed Gollum invisibly through goblin-tunnels until poor, misled Sméagol unwittingly showed him the way to the backdoor. How dare Bilbo look like an ordinary fat hobbit in the shivery spying moonlight? He was a thief and a cheat. And now it was his turn to be followed!

Bilbo did move with a stealth more practiced than just the usual hobbit quiet. He was certainly better at such things than Sam and Frodo had been even in desperate need, or at least he looked more confident about it. Bilbo had an air of the trickster about him, not like meek-but-wise Frodo, or forthright Sam- Sam whom Gollum had thought to be a fool, at first, but now he wondered very much about that.

For a moment of lunacy Gollum pondered what it would have been like to travel with Baggins instead, perhaps they would have asked each other riddles. Sam and Frodo had plainly had no interest in riddles and Sam had given him a nasty suspicious glare when he gently brought one up. But Baggins-

He was losing his mind. If he'd come upon Baggins alone, he would have murdered him on the spot, as a thief deserved. There would have been no travel!

Also he had tried to ask Bilbo a riddle the other day and he had rudely refused to answer.

He continued to follow Bilbo.

Bilbo began to mutter to himself. "This place is a lot eerier in the dark than I'd expect. The influence of that poor mad Steward, I suppose. I wonder if that old fellow will ever walk out here again. What a story! They'll make songs out of it. Let me tell you tell you a tale of the Third Age's last days/And how the Mad Steward Denethor went up in a blaze... It's a start. Er, maybe I'd better compose a little more quietly."

Gollum had thought by turns over the years that Bilbo was:
1) A masterclass thief and assassin, pretending to be an idiot. Gollum had barely escaped with his life.
2) An idiot. A lucky idiot. Gollum had barely missed what ought to have been an easy meal.
3) (in dark moments:) An idiot of normal luck. Sméagol was the one with abnormal luck. He was indeed cursed and crushed.
4) A fever dream brought on by eating a rancid orcling. The Precious was at the bottom of the lake somewhere. (He had never really believed this, but had told it to himself when he thought about how much he did not want to leave his cave to search.)
5) The ghost of Déagol, sent with a mission of vengeance! (He only believed this when he was having a particularly bad time on his journey.)

Bilbo continued to make his way through the gardens. He had begun to quietly sing under his breath. He came to the bench that Boromir had sat on just a few hours ago, and hauled himself up onto it, sitting with his feet dangling.

Bilbo wore no sword this night. He was soft and good-natured and chubby. He looked as if he ate a lot of cookies and scones and bread and he smelled like a pipeweed-smoker; ergo he would taste overly sweet with a bitter hint of nicotine and have rich, fatty flesh. If Gollum had eaten him back in the day he probably would have made himself sick.

But we would still have our Precious, he told himself. Yes, and he would still be in a hole in the ground, underneath a wasp-nest of orcs, sitting on a slimy rock in a glorified stagnant puddle. Alone. But he would have the Precious...

Back in evil days in a dark Elf-dungeon, Gandalf had told him: "Stay your tongue, cur! Squeeze him? Crush him? Bilbo had a sword to your neck, and he would have been well in his rights to put out your vile eyes and rid the world of your gnawing teeth! Pity stayed his hand! The mercy of Bilbo is the only reason you live today! And you speak of squeezing and crushing?"

But, he... he... he'd stolen.. the Precious... and yet that simple reasoning had not worked on Gandalf.

It was true that on that day, killing Gollum would have been easy for Bilbo, invisible as he was, and hobbit-quiet, and with a sword. He pictured Bilbo behind him, with his Elf-blade in his hands, and with a face like- like- but he could not imagine Bilbo's face. In his mind's eye he instead saw Frodo, saying:

Now that I see him I do pity him.

Gollum stepped out of the shadows, standing up to his full height. Bilbo saw him at once, and gave a little start before regaining his composure.

"Dear me," he said. "I didn't see you there. Good evening, out for a midnight stroll yourself, I suppose? I'm not sure what the etiquette is for walking around here at night, I hope this isn't considered rude. I'm Bilbo Baggins, by the way."

"I know."

Bilbo jumped straight up in the air, and ended by standing on top of the park bench. He reached to his hip to draw a sword that, unfortunately for him, he was not wearing.

"A midnight sstroll," Gollum chuckled, rocking forward into a more comfortable stance, with hands near the ground ready to prop his weight on. "Yes, precious! That is what we are about, Sméagol thought he was quite alone." He tilted his head, fixing Bilbo with a sidelong glance. "Is it rude, he asks us? Rude, yes, it may be, disturbing us, but we will not tell anyone."

"I'm not particularly bothered by being rude to you," Bilbo said hotly.

"No, no, we knows that," said Gollum, "he was loitering outside our sick-room some nights ago, and that is rude too, it is."

"What do you want?" Bilbo asked.

"Nothing, nothing, taking a walk."

"You're fond of flowers, are you?"

"Not at all, ach! They stinks."

"Then what are you doing here?"

"Sss, we are not fond of flowers," Gollum said to himself, "so there can be nothing outside we wants at all, gollum, of course."

"I didn't say anything of that sort, I only asked you what you want," Bilbo fumed. "If you don't want anything awful, you can go ahead and say so, instead of letting me come up with my own ideas- if that bothers you so much. If you're wondering if I think you're out hobbit-hunting, all I can say is that you've hunted up a hobbit and I don't see you doing anything else."

 "No, no, you did not see me at all until a second ago!" Gollum answered. "And why should we hunt hobbitses outside? It is night, all the little hobbits are in their rooms. But for us, it is hot inside, it is stuffy, it is close. Gollum! Dry, dry air. Is it awful for a poor old creature to want nicer air?"

Bilbo peered at him. "I would say no, normally," he said. "Coming from you, I cannot help but feel it is a trick question somehow."

"What trick? What trick?"

"If I knew, it wouldn't be a trick," Bilbo retorted hotly.

That made so much sense that Gollum was starting to get angry. "If it wants a riddle we can ask it a proper one," he snarled, pacing back and forth.

"I should ask one first," said Bilbo, "you've already asked me one."

"But it did not answer. And I assked to play," Gollum snapped. "You doesn't even want to play, and now you wants to go first."

"That's called a compromise."

"A compromise, a compromise, that's when both of us are not pleased," Gollum muttered.

Bilbo looked him over warily. He glanced briefly at the building behind them. Gollum was between Bilbo and the door, something he had not intentionally brought about.

If he stayed where he was, he would seem to present more of a threat than he wanted, but if he moved, Bilbo might leave. Decisions, decisions...

"Very well," Gollum said, choosing to not move and to try to distract Bilbo from the fact that he had not moved. "Baggins starts. Ask us."

Bilbo's hands had the faintest tremor. Most would not haven noticed, but Gollum could see so keenly in the dark- the moon had kindly gone behind the clouds- and he was particularly good at noticing motion, at that. "How many... how many people have you eaten? Not Orcs."

Gollum blinked, wondering if he'd heard correctly. "That isn't a riddle." Did he just do this every time someone asked him for a game? Ask questions that weren't riddles? What a nuisance he must be!

"I heard that you broke into houses in Mirkwood. Not to burgle them." Bilbo looked pale and frightened. An old, rusted gear in Gollum's mind lurched forward a clumsy notch. Bilbo had spared Gollum's life... Bilbo had taken Gollum's ring... Gollum had left his cave because Bilbo had taken Gollum's ring and not killed Gollum...

Bilbo felt responsible for the bad things Gollum had done since leaving his cave!

"That is not its business," Gollum said quickly. He felt a strange, strong pulse of discomfort. "He doesn't need to know what we've been doing. He did not tell us to do any of it, no!"

"I would still like to know," said Bilbo.

"He does not need to know!"

"I want to know," Bilbo insisted. "Don't you dare tell me you need three guesses for this one!"

Right then, the answer was obvious, since none of this was Bilbo's business anyway. He would lie. "We did not kill any Men," he said. "No!"

"No?" Bilbo squeaked. "They told me you went through windows."

Gollum did a quick pros-and-cons evaluation in his head and decided a little bit of truth would make him seem overall more trustworthy. "Stealing," he said. "Sméagol is cold, he is hungry, and he steals, steals clothing, steals blankets, steals food. If he finds a dead Man, then- sometimes he is very hungry, yes, hungry, the River has frozen, there are no fishes, it is cold, he is hungry."

The horror in Bilbo's eyes was unmistakable. Gollum growled, and moved sideways to create a very obvious clear path back inside.

"How do you live with yourself?" Bilbo asked.

Gollum watched Bilbo until Bilbo began to squirm, and then he laughed abashedly. "Staring, staring!" he said. "Not nice, not nice, is it? Be gentle with poor little Sméagol, he does not always remember his manners." He averted his eyes.

"I should say he doesn't," Bilbo squeaked.

Gollum scuffled in the dirt. "The sky is becoming light, too light, for Sméagol, and if he stays here he will miss his dinner."

"That would be a shame."

"Yes, such a shame! I will go, back into the dark, and you may stay, or go, or do what you wish, or look at your flowers and rhyme your nonssense. You will know where I can be found." What had possessed him to utter that last bit, he did not know, but he left.

He crawled away into the bushes.

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