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Comely always worked hard at the Inn. She changed the bed linens in the morning and brought food to the guests in their rooms. She swept and took out refuse to the compost in the back of the inn. She did dishes at the end of the evening. On her own time, she checked her traps and dressed and skinned birds and small animals. Once in a while she’d have leave from her family to take the day and dress and prepare a buck, of which she would often shoot in the winter months to provide for her family. Sméagol had come to notice Comely’s strong work ethic, especially as he collected much of her scraps and lived off her goodwill these days.
The inn was not a bad place to hide out. It eliminated the need for violent altercation, and the girl hid him as long as he did what she said. He knew she liked to have a secret, and for the past months all had been… quiet. He didn’t wish to think about how different his life was now, or how things had been before. Or how they would be again, in the future, when he continued his hunt. He would not think about it, how he would have to drag himself from this oasis and begin his search again. He had done it before, hiding, listening, killing and eating whatever he could find to stay alive. All for … ah, the Precious. It made him ache to think of it, and he wanted to leave again now- but no! It was not time yet, he was still weak. This place was, yes, strategic, while he planned his next move. He heard much conversation from his hiding places here. And he had goaded the girl into asking questions for him. She seemed to wish to help him, while not understanding what it was he wanted so badly. He had explained it to her, one evening.
“Miss it….. miss our special, our precious thing.” He’d mumbled, making circles in the snow with a grey finger. She had been huddled in her coats, sitting next to him under the black trees whose branches made cracks in the starry sky.
“Something from…. before?” Her voice was soft, hushed by the snow. She sounded small, and Sméagol felt her eyes on him. She was always looking at him, and when he looked back she’d pause, try to look him in the face, and look away. He did not look at her now, and she did not look away.
“Before…. yess, before.”
A pause.
“From your village? A keepsake, to remind you of… family, or a friend?”
Sméagol choked out a fretful sound, a few times. The golluming was accompanied by his fingers spasming on the ground, and he picked up snow and threw it at a tree. Comely tensed up but did not move. Her voice was soft, but nervous.
“There, there… sorry to upset you. I just like you … telling me things. I don’t mean to pry.”
Sméagol looked at her. She was looking at him and smiling with her features rosy from cold. She sniffled and wiped her nose on her scarf, but kept looking at him with eyebrows raised. Her breath was puffing into the air. She seemed to expect something from him.
Sméagol gave a hissing sigh and balled his hands in the snow once more. He was cold, and wanted to go inside soon. But he had to press his advantage, she would help him, she wanted to help him.
“Yess….. reminds us.. of family, of friends. Precious thing to me, it is…. asssk, for us, of any… shinies, your people may have…. hissss…. heard tell.” Sméagol’s eyes shone from the bright half-moon above, glinting white as he looked at the girl.
“I will ask!” She seemed heartened, and her chest puffed up as she looked at him. She wrung her hands in their mittens for a moment, and then her tone turned gently imploring, like her heart was telling her to speak.
“Come…. you are shivering, please come inside, come by the fire. I am cold too.” She nodded, peering at him. Finally, he arose, and she followed, towards the warm fire and the rug before it.
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Sméagol laid stretched out on the rug before the fireplace now, in her room. Nobody entered Comely’s room during the day, and he would be alone with his thoughts for hours while she worked. The memories of that snowy night flickered in his mind. Yes, he had set her to work. The thought comforted him. And she was doing his bidding. It was common enough for a girl to ask to see pretty jewels on the guests, and she did enjoy her task. She loved to talk with the guests and hear their stories. Sometimes she would stay late, speaking with one guest or another.
Last night, she had stayed late in the sitting room. She’d told Sméagol the truth; she was talking to a man who had come from the faraway city of Minas Tirith, and had many fine stories to tell. Comely had fallen onto her bed and crawled under the covers , and fallen asleep right away, leaving Sméagol not to sleep a single wink overnight. He had been silent, keeping his mutterings low, as he did not wish to wake her. She had not commented on it the next morning, so he was sure he had been successful in not alerting her to his spiraling mental state.
However, the distressing thought stuck with Sméagol, the image of Comely speaking long with the traveling man stayed within his mind. He could just hear her soft voice asking the man if he’d heard tell of any fine jewels or metalwork passing through. He could imagine the man telling of much jewelry he’d seen in the city, and the wench asking questions with interest. Sméagol imagined that while he awaited Comely in her own room, she was sitting and talking with the man until the fire grew low in the warmth of the common room. Perhaps they had sat next to each other on the large and comfortable couch. Perhaps there had been nobody else around, and the man had placed a hand on her shoulder. Sméagol imagined that Comely had let his touch linger, looking into the man’s face with that expression of wonder Sméagol had seen aimed at his own wretched visage time and again.
Sméagol tore at his sparse hairs and stalked around the room. He imagined Comely’s soft fingers running through a coarse beard unlike any Sméagol could grow, her mouth tickled by the whiskers as she leaned in and took her pleasure. Sméagol made a low sound in his chest, he hated such thoughts, and he was rocking against the wall. Images ran through his mind of rough hands pulling up her billowing skirt, pushing aside her apron to show the underclothes which he’d seen time and again, as she changed before him without a care, as if he did not have eyes to see. Sméagol could not take it anymore. He went to the window to try to breathe some air- and saw, to his horror- Comely speaking with a man.
He was bearded, and finely dressed. He was about half a head taller than her, and to Sméagol’s worst horror, he was young and smiling at Comely, who was smiling back. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, this was the man Comely had been speaking with until late last night. A black hatred filled Sméagol’s stomach. Then, his stomach jumped- she was looking up at the window, and he saw her eyes widen with alarm at Sméagol’s appearance in broad daylight. He ducked away from the window. He had been so close to being discovered. Perhaps he already was discovered. He could just imagine it now- Comely, afeared and weary of holding such a dark secret to her heart, tells the handsome young man that she is being held hostage in her own home by a dreadful monster. This eve, she comes up, pretending to be alone- perhaps she baits him, telling him to come up on her bed to speak with her awhile before she sleeps. He does so, of course, he must do so if she asks. And they speak awhile, and Comely begins to look tired and reclines, beckoning him closer- and he comes closer, and he feels so warm from being in her bed, and he will come to her now- but before he can make his move, a rough, vice-like grip on his neck! And then, woe, an icy pain in his chest. He looks down, around, blood all over Comely’s white linens as he is slain. And when Sméagol falls off the knife onto Comely’s bosom, to be close to her for the first time as he dies, he looks back- to see the young, bearded man. And then Comely pushes Sméagol roughly off her warm body and he falls onto the cold floor, and he watches as they embrace each other before him, while the life drains away from his body……..
Sméagol remained in place like that against the cold wall until a shiver wracked his body. He wanted to move- and it was now dark in the room. He knew what he had to do. He crawled out the window, placing the shutters back as if he’d never been there. Then, he scaled across the logs, easily climbing down- and perched like a gargoyle atop the back exit. Every guest exited through that door to reach the outhouse when they were visiting the common room. He would wait until his mark arrived. He had not killed before, at the Inn… but he would not have his position compromised in any way, especially not by some idiotic young human man.
His fingers clenched and unclenched upon the roof’s tiles. An hour passed, during which time he saw a woman and her child, an old man, and a few young men- but none like he’d seen before. The woman and child came again the next hour, and then Comely came through once, hiking up her skirts as she hurried to the outhouse. He did not speak to her, but simply watched her. She had not seen him, and all the better. She would have told him to go back to her room. He watched the old man come out again, and the assorted nondescript men again. Sméagol continued his stake out. Perhaps the man had left already, perhaps. He was colder than stone, now, and he would not move. But something in Sméagol was hardy, always had been. He would not move until he was made to- or until…..
Perhaps Sméagol had dozed, like a bird on a branch, with fingers clenched onto the tiles of the roof. But then he saw him- the back of a head, and he knew this was his mark. Yes, it would be so easy- he knew how to be silent, and then Sméagol would drag him far away- he leaped down onto the step, ready to follow- and felt a firm hand on his shoulder! Suddenly, he was the one being dragged- sideways, into the dark brush, for a distance that felt very long. He was thrown onto the ground, shaking and hissing- and looked into Comely’s face.
“What do you have to say for yourself!?” Her voice was like a whip, and Sméagol looked at the girl from his place in the snow. She was dressed as if she had been doing dishes, her hair in a scarf and her rag tucked into her apron pocket. She looked furious.
“Hiss…. wasn’t going to do anything, Precious, wanted a walk, Precious, yes…!” He wheedled, pawing the ground and nodding in an ingratiating way.
“Oh, you wanted a walk, did you? Don’t think I didn’t hear you hissing to yourself all night last night, kept me up half the evening, though I don’t like to pry. ‘Rough, bad man?’, I heard. And, what else? ‘Don’t touch her? Don’t touches my Comely, we kills you, kill, kill, kill,’ is what I heard. I’m not your anything, so don’t get any silly ideas, you ridiculous creature. And you’re not killing anyone at my inn, so you had better get a grip on yourself if you’d like to stay here for much longer.” She scolded the wretched halfling, who was grinding his burning face into the snow.
Sméagol heard a crunch as the snow was pressed down beside him, and looked at Comely who was kneeling beside him.
“Come on, come here, stop crying.” Her tone was still stern, but what was this…? Her arms were open, and there was her lap. Sméagol hissed through his full sinuses and pushed himself towards her, crying all the more onto her apron. His own sharp tooth had also cut his mouth, making his lip bleed, and he bled onto her apron as he looked up at the woman.
“Oh, there, there.” She sounded stern, but worried and a bit softer. She mopped at his face with the rag. There was a pause, and Sméagol drew back.
“Mess, we made, of Comely’s apron.” Sméagol spoke low, still sniffling and looking at the girl who in his fantasies was so cruel. Yet, here she was, real and looking at him with a very human expression of anger, sadness, and that maddeningly obvious affection she seemed to hold for him.
“That’s what it’s there for.” Her face was pink, Sméagol could see. Had he embarrassed her, too? Indignity after indignity.
Sméagol whined, squirming in the snow with barely suppressed hatred for his entire life that had led up to this point. Comely coughed and waved her rag at him, making Sméagol pause to look at Comely from his position with his bare belly-up, his back melting the snow beneath him. Comely was so red that snow might have steamed had it touched her face.
“Now…. come on, stop your wiggling around and get up. I’m going to bed soon. You should… please come up, too. I…. won’t be able to fall asleep without you safe on my rug before the fire, I’m afraid.” She spoke quickly, and gave a strained laugh after she’d finished.
…
Sméagol watched until Comely’s overclothes came off, and then he looked away.
“You can look again, now.” Came the soft words from across the room. He looked at Comely, who was in her nightgown and swathed in the quilts which were piled upon her bed. Her brown hair fell across her shoulders, and she was smiling down at him. She yawned.
“Come a little closer, I want to talk to you…” she hesitated, then patted the bed. She watched as Sméagol approached, and then he climbed onto the bed. He perched awkwardly on the end of the bed, trying not to fall into the center. He held onto the footboard and looked warily at the girl.
“You were going to try to kill that boy.” Came the serious words. Sméagol’s breath caught- but Comely’s face was unreadable. She did not seem upset. This always puzzled Sméagol- and unnerved him. She should have condemned him for his actions many a time, but she seemed to just make a note of them. She would scold him for other things, like making a mess or being impolite or loud. But even now, as she was accusing him of plotting the ultimate sin, her tone was impassive.
“Hisss…. Comely doesn’t know, We does not wish to say.” Sméagol spoke slowly. Comely nodded.
“So be it. But…. why?” She looked at Sméagol, and Sméagol knew in his soul, hoped beyond hope, that she knew exactly why. Because she was looking at him with those glimmering eyes, everything was dark and orange in the firelight and so warm, and she knew why he’d kill. And she was not upset.
“Hisss….. not killing, not here.” He shook his head- then looked into comely’s eyes once more, then looked away. There was a pause.
“Damned right.” She grunted, reclining. There was another pause as she looked at Sméagol, and her mouth opened again. She shut it, then spoke.
“I’m going to sleep.”
Sméagol climbed down from Comely’s bed, feeling cold, but better. The fire had warmed the rug, but it was different from the big four-post bed in the centre of the room where another source of delicious heat lay. He heard her shuffling about and peered back- she was hugging a pillow, pushing her face into it, as she did every night to sleep. Sméagol curled on the carpet and slept immediately. When the fire died down he awoke and crept beneath her bed, huddling in her old clothes to stay warm until the morning.