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He was seated on the steps when we found him. A little, wizened creature, some might say. But not to me; to us, he was a dear son, lost and welcomed home again.
“Thank you, Ulmo, for seeing Samwise’s ship safely to shore.” Keeping Ossë restrained was difficult indeed! I envied Ulmo not. Thank Atar for Uinen…
“Think nothing of it, Yavanna.” The Lord of Waters was not there physically, but many leagues away in the depths; nonetheless, I heard him as clearly as if he were before me. It seemed I was not the only one – nor was my small handmaiden, whose face was suffused with joy at the sight of the Perian.
“Bless me!” Samwise turned round, staring. I could not help it – with a smile I descended the stone steps, covered with sea-spray as they were, for it was no hindrance.
“Welcome to Tol Eressëa, my son.”
***
My face got redder’n a tomato, it did! Speakin’ like that to one o’ the Powers, an’ all! What had come over me? But to see Her there – why, She was the most beautiful woman I’d seen since Queen Arwen, that was a fact. More so, I thought, then felt disloyal. My dear Rosie couldn’t hold a candle to the Lady, though Rosie had her own beauty, right up there ‘til the end – but there! I had started in again, self pityin’ like, and what would my old Gaffer say?
“Samwise, beloved,” She said, an’ Her voice, it was soft and rich, like new-tilled earth if you take my meanin’. Beloved, She called me! But I guess She didn’t mean in the way I felt for Rose. She’d called me Her son, as though I weren’t the son of Bell Goodchild Gamgee, an’ all. What could She mean? And who—
***
In hobbit-shape, as I had taken to walking since the arrival of Bilbo and Frodo, I approached Samwise myself. “Panthael,” I said; he met my gaze.
“Beggin’ your pardon, but – I didn’t know as any other hobbits lived here.” I tried not to laugh at him – my last, furthest-flung long-son.
“Yet I do. Adamanta, wife of Tuk that was; at your service. Bilbo and Frodo called me ‘Grandmother’. You may do the same.”
“Beggin’ your pardon, Missus Adamanta,” he said slowly. “But for all I’ve been Mayor, and father-in-law to the Thain, I ain’t gentry.”
“Is that so, Panthael, Lord of the Free Peoples of the West?” I teased lightly. “No, my son, do not try to deceive me. I know all about it. Truly, Samwise son of Hamfast, you, too bear my blood. Come with me; it will be four o’clock and I will tell you all over tea.”