A Burg’s Tale: Chapter Three

He greeted me as soon as he saw me and didn’t even mind that I had on my new mask. Halting his skipping around, Tom waved a hand – a whole arm, really – and called out, “Hoy now! Hey now! What’s all this fussing? We’ve not had so many guests since our wedding! There is time enough for bird-watching, but perhaps first a song or two, my hearty?”

Bird-watching? I thought as I came to rest before him. Does he already know what I’m here for? Of course he does, he’s Orald! What others is he talking about, though? The hobbits, perhaps? “Let your heart fly free and put aside your worries. You are in the house of Tom Bombadil!” he cheerily informed me.

“I wish it were that easy,” I began seriously, reaching for my mask to remove it in respect. I did have some, after all. Remembering Strider’s words, I then added, “Aragorn has sent me to you for your aid in finding some crebain in the Old Forest. They may tell the wrong people about something of great importance.” My face thus freed, the air of the forest rushed in with its clean scent of old trees and clear water, so unlike what I remembered of Lake-town. Bombadil’s clearing allowed for sunlight in golden shafts to pierce to the grassy knoll. Or perhaps it was Orald himself who allowed it to grow so green here. I could sense the peace of the glade through my twitching thoughts and anxiety and had to privately admit it felt soothing.

He spoke and at first, I didn’t know if he had even acknowledged my fears. “‘My Goldberry is away at her spring, and I was going lily-hunting! I’ve no time for chasing birds.” I opened my mouth to protest, but he continued on and I subsided. “But hoy now! Aragorn’s a name I know, and a friend of Old Tom’s! Hear then my offer: While Old Tom Bombadil looks for sour crows, you’ll gather lilies for my lovely. I saw some along the river, just a hop and a jump away. Just follow along until, ring a ding dillo, you find Old Man Willow!”

I let his request sink in and rocked back on my heels. “Gather lilies?” I echoed incredulously. “For your… wife, I take it?” I wondered how the first thing in creation might get married. Who would officiate that ceremony? What kind of ceremony might it have been? No traditions like those of Men and, I had heard, Elves, like exchanging rings or binding hands, had even been thought of, surely? Instead, I offered with finality, “Why are you so baffling?”

He didn’t answer me directly. “You watch that old Grey Willow-man. He’s a mighty singer. He’ll sing you down to sleep and drown you, if you don’t be careful.” He then skipped away merrily as I watched him, singing as he went. I didn’t know how he would find the crows being as loud as he was, but I had more pressing matters in front of me: whoever Old Man Willow was, he was apparently very dangerous. A wizard or forest spirit? I wondered with a deep frown as I settled the mask around my neck against my chest. Even the trees seemed intent on sending their roots after me all the way down the path I took, and a few had even up and walked around. One had decided to fight me. I still didn’t know how I felt about killing a tree by stabbing and slashing it repeatedly. All I did know was that I would need my full vision for this errand – no mask. It made sense to me that an aggressive sorcerer lived in the Old Forest, now. I wasn’t sure why Bombadil allowed him to survive, though. Surely, the presence of something so malevolent would stir him into action?

I swiveled slowly toward the sound of the Withywindle down the slope from me. I trekked down the path toward the bridge and turned to follow the shoreline before I reached the crossing. It didn’t take long before I found myself unable to really go any farther without entering the water itself. Beyond, on a small jut of land, rose a gigantic willow. In the water around it, floating amidst the tendrils draped over the surface of the slowly flowing stream, floated the lilies I needed. I didn’t see anyone else about. With a shrug and silent word of thanks for my luck, I set myself to getting wet and waded in after climbing over the rocks to a shallower area.

Seconds after the water touched my skin through my trousers, I felt myself growing slightly irritable. By the time it got to my knees, I could feel the beginnings of weariness settling through me. The closer I got to the willow, the heavier I felt. Even climbing back up onto land near the sallow didn’t seem to stop it. I squinted up at the large thing and grunted in heavy-eyed realization: Old Man Willow was the willow itself. This was no natural creeping exhaustion. He’ll sing you down to sleep and drown you, I recalled Tom saying. I made a rude gesture at the tree in defiance and turned to gather up the white-flowered lilies. If it hadn’t moved yet, I was probably not in any danger of a physical attack. I had to admit that those long tendrils would probably hurt like a…

The searing pain of a root whipping the backs of my thighs through my trousers had me cursing. I’d already felt that sort of thing plenty of times on the way down the river; why I wasn’t already one big welt was beyond me. Both of my knives flashed out to hack at the offending thing. The fight wasn’t long, but by the time it ended, I wanted to curl up somewhere for a long nap. Sheathing my weapons, I hurriedly harvested four white lilies from the nearby water and struggled through it to the rocks. I almost didn’t make it back across to shore before my legs gave out. I wavered while on my knees, on dry land, but the feeling of intense exhaustion faded from me. It took a few minutes for my eyes to feel like they could stay open and my legs to push me to my feet once more. With a relieved exhale, I made the walk back up to Bombadil’s cottage.

I wasn’t sure how much time it had taken me to get there and get back, but I knew it couldn’t have been terribly long. Not long enough for even the great Orald to find the crows and return here, on foot, I knew. I sank down on the steps of the porch, lilies in hand, and settled them onto my damp stomach after I had laid back with my legs down the steps. At this point, a bear could wander in and eat me from the feet up and I wouldn’t stop it. “Water lilies,” I grumbled to myself and threw an arm over my face. “The whole world is in danger and you have to pick water lilies for a madman.” When I thought about it, though, it had been what I should’ve expected given everything that had happened thus far. Running around Archet without a horse, fighting giant spiders when a dwarf specializing in them ignored them, Rangers turned evil by a scratch from a Black Rider, attacking crows and roots… why not go pick lilies near a murderous tree that wanted to eat me? Tomorrow, I’ll probably be fighting Sauron himself, I groused.

I wasn’t sure how long I laid there before I drowsed, but it was still light when I heard Tom’s singing growing louder from somewhere nearby. I moved the lilies from my stomach to my lap along my thighs so that I could sit up properly. By the time I did, Tom had arrived and come to a halt from his skipping. As I lifted one of the water lilies up for him with both hands, he took it with a look of delight. “Lilies white for the River-daughter! Stronger than hobbit-folk are you if you outsang Willow-man! Not a lily crushed, nor leaf bent!”

“I’m pretty sure hobbits aren’t as strong as Men struggling to get away from killer foliage,” I replied as I handed him the rest of the flowers. Then it struck me: the hobbits had come this way. Had they come into contact with Old Man Willow? I blinked and looked at Orald to ask him, but he had already moved to the next bit of the conversation.

“Old Tom’s a merry fellow, but he knows when it’s time for dancing or to go a-wighting,” Tom proclaimed. “He’s found your birds and none too soon. If you seek them out, then seek them now, unless you wish to sleep beneath green grass!”

He’s… speaking of himself as if he’s not himself? I couldn’t continue the thought. It was on my mind as I replied, however, so that I began, “He…” I made a face. “You found them?” Why are you this way? I wanted to ask, but figured he’d either ignore me or respond as if talking about someone else instead of himself.

He went on about black birds coming to rest “where the restless walk,” and I could feel a headache threatening me already. He couldn’t be straightforward, could he? He then said words that, even thinking before about how things were going, still surprised me: “Beware the old barrows, they stir when they should be a-sleeping!”

I held up my hands. “Wait one moment, sir,” I tried to interject, but he would have none of it. “‘Go north up the path and follow the Old Barrows Road,” he explained as he settled the water lilies into a nearby bucket full of water that I hadn’t noticed before, “then south within the barrows wall along the forest eaves. Hey dol! Merry dol! And there you’ll find them! Watch for the lady dreary.”

“Now, see here,” I tried again, wondering why he hadn’t actually taken care of the wights if he knew when it was time to go a-wighting and time for dancing. He had yet to stop the latter, as far as I’d seen. “The barrows? And the dead are walking in them, awake now? I can’t—”

“Now hop along, my hearty! Tom’s a-going leaping!” He said this as he began to, once more, skip with great vigor, as if trying to fly by doing so. I stood watching him, mouth slightly agape, before I shut it and snatched up my mask from where it hung on my chest.

“Lady dreary,” I sighed to myself. “I wonder if that’s like Old Man Willow? Lady Dreary is probably a ravenous cairn stone who’ll crush my bones to make her bread.” I slid the mask back on as I walked, securing it firmly.

I had left my horse in Buckland to keep it safe. Had I owned the animal, rather than borrowed it, I would have ridden it through the Old Forest and out once again. It would take far more time for me to get back to Buckland and ride around than to follow Bombadil’s directions on foot. Far easier to sneak around the wights and dead things without a horse, too, I reminded myself. I would’ve liked to take my horse to the Old Barrows Road and ride, I began to think and paused in sudden amusement. You know, there might be a song in that, were I minstrel.

I heard a soft voice that sounded familiar before I’d left the grounds. Feminine and sweet, yet powerful. I turned with my mask on and discovered, standing by the house, the same exquisite woman from the fresh springs I had to fetch water from for Adso. I found myself once again dumbstruck. It took me another moment of gawking to realize that she had called my name. “You… you’re Orald’s wife?” I stammered stupidly. Ever the charming gentleman, I berated myself silently.

“I said to you that my Tom was the Master of the forest when we first met,” she reminded me with good humor and grace. “How soon Men forget.”

I kicked myself mentally for not making the connection sooner. “Beg your pardon, Missus,” I said with a little bow for her, “but I’ve had a great deal on my mind and—”

Goldberry laughed like silver bells and waterfalls. “Pay it no mind. I’m not offended, and neither is my Tom.” She smiled fondly as she looked off in the direction that the man had skipped. “I know he must seem strange to you and yours, but he… is Tom.” She turned her warm smile to me. “You’re on a dangerous road, Morchandir, and I don’t just mean the Old Barrows.”

I sobered even though her smile made me want to do so in return, mask or not. “On foot, no less,” I offered in return as lightly as possible. “I’ll have to be particularly sneaky, I suppose. Though I’ve never tried to steal up to a wight, nor do I think it has anything worth pickpocketing.” I paused. “Mostly because it has no pockets.”

She laughed again. I could see why Tom had married her. She left things blooming around her, including inside people whose insides were long thought dead. “Use care. The Barrows have ever been dangerous, but now they are almost lethal. Something stirs there, and though I might wish for my Tom to face it so the taint on the land subsides, I know that it isn’t in his nature unless absolutely necessary. He seeks ever to soothe the hatred and evil in the hearts of others before turning to other means. When he deems the trouble is too great, I know he will act.”

Something in her tone soothed me but also worried me at the same time, somehow. I realized what it was soon after she stopped speaking. “You hope he doesn’t have to get involved.”

“No,” she countered with a little shake of her head. “I’m hoping that you will help calm the Barrows so that Tom may continue to be Tom. Our cares are not of your world, or have not been for many days, at least. I am, unlike some of my sisters, somewhat closer to Men and the other races – enough to see and hear and know that the threat you and the hobbits wish to stop is a threat that will come for Tom in time.” She grew sad. “If it isn’t stopped, at least. I have faith in the Shire-folk and I have faith in you, burglar, for I must have that faith. I will not be alive to see Tom fall, otherwise. He was the First, and if the Ring is not destroyed, he will be the Last as well.”

I wasn’t sure what to say in response. “I would have thought you and your sisters and Tom and… others like you would be too powerful for Sauron,” I finally said.

She smiled brightly again. “Burglar you are, but your silver tongue is no match for a hobbit’s, and my heart is not for stealing!” she teased me. “Ancient we may be, my sisters and I, but our mother is older still, and Tom the Oldest of all things! The Wise know not much about us, but the power of the Maiar rivals our own, and Sauron has become stronger still.” She trailed off and shook her head. “But no more. You have your path and I shan’t keep you from it. I dare not. Perhaps if you find yourself here again someday, you can stay an evening for supper and rest when this is done.”

I could do nothing more than bow to Goldberry again. All thoughts of turning and fleeing or simply stopping the crebain and their master and returning to a normal life had no meaning for the moment. I had no idea what to think, in all honesty, nor how to feel. “I will do what I can, lady Goldberry.” It was all that I could say before I forced myself to walk away from her down the path to the Old Barrows Road. The silvery elf queen from my dream came unbidden to my mind in memory, speaking once again of my having a part to play in the destiny of Middle Earth. I’m no hero, I told myself firmly. No getting delusions. Who’s to say everything you experienced in the Blackwold camp and Archet brought on a simple dream?

Yet, a voice in my head that was still my own countered, Who’s to say it was?