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It wasn’t until a day or two (or three? It was so hard to tell) after they shed their orc gear that Sam noticed it. First because you just couldn’t see it through the orc gear, and then because Frodo still kept his shirt buttoned higher. But the buttons started comin’ undone.
Sam knew why, though he didn’t want to think on it.
Now they were findin’ refuge just for a minute or two by a pit of muddied water. Frodo sat hunched with his knees pulled up and his head restin’ between them. And with his shirt hangin’ open like that, Sam could see it.
The Ring’s chain had cut deep and rubbed his neck raw. There was blood on his skin, on the ragged collar of his shirt.
“Here.” Sam came closer, moved by pity. “Let me help.”
Frodo looked blankly at him and made no response.
Sam started to reach for his neck, then stopped himself fast. He might be a ninnyhammer, but he’d never forget the look on Frodo’s face in that orc tower when he demanded the Ring back, when he thought Sam would keep it from him.
Now Sam knew better than to scare him like that again.
“Your neck,” Sam said, speakin’ as clearly as he could while tryin’ to keep quiet. “It’s hurt.”
Frodo’s lips moved, but there was thunder in Sam’s ears—from the sky or from the Mountain, he didn’t know—and Sam couldn’t hear what he said. Then his hand drifted upwards, skimmed along the chain, stopped short of touchin’ the blood. He ran his fingers back and forth over four or five links of the chain. His eyes unfocused—or rather, focused on a thing Sam couldn’t see.
Sam pretended not to notice. “Just a moment,” he said, and got busy diggin’ in his pack for a spare bit of cloth. The piece he pulled out was tattered and thin. What it came from, he couldn’t say. A scrap from one of their shirts? From a blanket? He didn’t know. But maybe it would help. “I don’t like the thought of any of this oily water touchin’ you, seems that might just make things worse, so I won’t try an’ clean it, but maybe we could just put this ’round your neck as a bit of padding?”
Frodo’s head tilted in a questioning manner but his eyes were still far away.
And without him actually sayn’ aye, Sam wasn’t about to touch him. “Mr. Frodo?” he tried again, a little more forcefully this time. “How about somethin’ for your neck?”
“Hmm?” Frodo managed at last in a faint voice.
“Your neck,” Sam repeated.
“Oh.” Frodo’s fingers finally moved to touch his skin. The pads of his fingers came away red. “What about it?”
For a moment, Sam just gaped at him. “Well—doesn’t it hurt?”
“No,” Frodo answered in a strange tone. Dazed, dreamlike, he seemed.
Sam stared hard at him, tryin’ to figure out what he was up to. Was he just set on easing Sam’s worries? Well, he should know Sam wasn’t such a dolt as that. Or…did he really not feel it?
Or was there more goin’ on than Sam could see?
Sam tried a new approach. “There’s blood.” There, that was a fact, and one Frodo couldn’t deny even if he’d like to…though Sam couldn’t see why he would.
Frodo did not deny it. He didn’t say anything at all. He turned his head and set his cheek on his knees and squeezed his eyes shut.
Sam busied himself with foldin’ the scrap of cloth longways so’s it could pad as much of Frodo’s neck as possible. Once he was satisfied, he reached out and touched one of Frodo’s hands, his icy hands. Frodo twitched away, eyes open now. They flashed with fear and a warning.
“Easy, easy,” Sam said in the low voice he used to settle Bill when the old pony was spooked. He held out the cloth. “Put this ’round your neck, see?”
Frodo’s throat bobbed as he swallowed with effort. Then he rasped out just one word: “Why?”
They were goin’ in circles, sure as if they were back in the Emyn Muil, except Sam would rather be back there a hundred times over, strugglin’ to find a way to Morder, rather than here, strugglin’ to bridge the gap between him and his master.
It wasn’t frustration that sharpened Sam’s voice—it was fear that the gap was gettin’ worse. “The Ring, Mr. Frodo. It’s hurtin’ you bad!”
But Frodo’s voice, though still terribly weak, was strangely calm. “No, it isn’t.”
Sam gaped at him. “But you—”
Frodo wiped the blood on his trousers. “I’m not hurt.”
Bless him, he sounded like he meant it, like he couldn’t imagine the Ring doin’ aught to ever hurt him. “But it—”
Frodo pushed himself to his feet, but did not stand erect; he was bent, shoulders sloping under the Ring’s weight. “Come on, Sam. We must keep moving.”
As Sam watched, he set off again toward the Mountain. And as Sam watched, a bead of dark blood ran down the hanging chain and dropped to mark the ground with scarlet.