Sam rolled his eyes. "I don't think fate's in the business of handing out rashes, begging your pardon."
"My pardon doesn't require begging, my dear Sam." Frodo turned from the mirror to look at Sam sitting on the end of the bed and gave him a wry grin. "I'm mostly amused. Well, to be truthful I'm mostly itchy, but amused comes second on the list."
Cob Bracegirdle of Hardbottle was coming to stay, being a distant relation of Frodo's in need of a spell amongst the slightly more sedate flora of Hobbiton. It was Spring, which meant silky russet blooms and fat yellow pollen and eye-watering allergies. Nobody at Bag End had ever suffered this malady, through virtue of hardy noses and well-clipped gardens.
That is, nobody had until now.
"It's because you leave your hair without soaping until it gets greasy as Marigold's garlic chicken," Rosie said, hitting some bounce back into the pillows and tugging the coverlet straight. "Honestly, sometimes I wonder how you ever made it through your tweens without Mr Bilbo shaving you bald."
"Getting two insults in for the breath of one," Sam scolded. "You're both thrifty and cruel."
"And you're the ass stupid enough to marry me," replied Rosie with a sunny smile. "Do you want me to fill another bath with the herbs we were using last night, Frodo? They seemed to soothe you."
"No, no, it's all right." Frodo shook his head. "I should go down and wait for the cart at the lane."
"Delphinium and Hope are down there, they'll give us a bellow if he arrives," Sam said.
Frodo nodded, giving his reflection one last look. His cheeks, chin and forehead were covered in sore red blotches, some sections rubbed raw from frantic scratching with blunt fingernails. The lovely look of seasonal excema.
"It's fate, it must be fate. Cob would be old Lotho's second cousin, if I've got my family tree right. Merry and I used to make Lotho miserable with our teasing when we were young, we called him every cruel name we could think of or make up. Pimple, gravelface, goblin... and now, when I've finally got a chance to make amends for how I treated a clumsy fat little boy with a bad rash on his face by taking in his relation, I've come out in spots as bad as any Lotho ever had."
Frodo looked up at some arbitrary point on the curve of the ceiling.
"Are you haunting me then, Lotho? A spirit with a knack for itches? It wouldn't be unlike you to wait the years out for this oppurtunity."
Rosie and Sam laughed.
"They're heeeeeeeeeeeere!" Delphinium shouted from outside. Frodo covered his face with his hands and then sighed, walking to the door with the biggest smile he could muster.
Cob was a shy sort, or perhaps he was just conscious of the thick sniffle in his voice from the allergies and didn't speak much as a result. The Gardner brood tended to bring out the talkative side of people, but the boy seemed immune.
He asked if he might spend the time between dinner and supper in the study with Frodo and Hope, a request they were happy to oblige. It was hard to work up the will to write in such pleasant weather, and the scholars had spent the majority of their recent evenings making up fairy stories to amuse the children.
"I could tell you one, if you'd like," Cob offered, a blush rising to his cheeks and making him almost as red as Frodo.
"Please do, lad, that would be wonderful." Frodo smiled, settling into his chair.
"Mistress Lobelia used to tell it to the little ones in the year before she died, and we've kept it passing since. She had a knack with words, though few knew it," Cob explained, then began to weave the story.
"Once upon a time there was a Queen. She was quite old, and had a son whom she was very fond of. The prince fell in with bad company, though, and died before he'd grown wise enough to save himself. The Queen was heartbroken by this, and left her kingdom to return to the land she'd grown up in.
"In her place, other rulers took over the running of the land. Two Kings, and a new Queen with a bonny laugh and a sharp tongue. They were wise rulers, and good and kind, but the subjects in the country did not see how lucky they were. They spat at the Queen, and said cruel things to her, for it wasn't usually done for two Kings to rule at once with one Queen between them. The old Queen, watching from afar and still weeping for her lost son, saw that the new Queen was losing her fire and spirit. Word travels between lands and royalty, you see, and rarely can secrets be kept for long.
"So one day the old Queen came to the kingdom, and gritted her teeth and walked up the hill to the palace she had left in grief. It hurt her to do so, but she did it anyway. Queens are like that.
"And the old Queen greeted the new Queen, and they sat together and drank tea and talked of fairy tales. They shared a love of a story about a king who was very stupid, and believed a tailor was making him the finest suit in the land when really the king was naked as a jaybird. It's a long and rather funny story, but time prevents a full retelling now. They two Queens laughed together over it that day in the kitchen of the palace, though.
"And then the old Queen took the sad young Queen's hand and said softly 'there's a second moral to that story that few know, my girl. At the end, the fool spits at the king's feet and none can stop him. But the king is still the king, and the fool is still the fool. Never forget that'.
"The old Queen went away then, and died a week afterwards. The new Queen didn't tell anyone of the visit, or of the lesson she'd been given from the old woman. But she didn't forget it, either, and so in a way the old Queen lived on forever."
Cob sat back, then smiled at his audience.
"You can scratch your face now, sir, if it's itching you. I won't be offended," he said kindly.
~