His Mother's Son

By Laura Schiller

Based on: The Hobbit

Copyright: JRR Tolkien's estate/New Line Cinema

"What are you doing?"

Bilbo jumped back from the desk as if the papers had burned him.

"Just, er, looking at some maps," he muttered.

His eye traced the faded lines of ink which had captured entire countries, rivers and mountain ranges in a few elegant brushstrokes. For a moment, just looking at them had been enough to call up an image of Belladonna, smiling over his shoulder, her honey-colored curls brushing the map, plotting wild and wonderful journeys for her son. Over there is Rivendell, home of the elves. I promise I will take you there one day.

His father's entrance ended the illusion.

"Let me see," said Bungo Baggins, abruptly crossing the room. He picked up the map, frowned at it, dropped it sharply inside its leather folder and slammed the folder shut.

"But Father – " Bilbo began to protest.

But that map was hers, he wanted to say. If you loved her, how can you treat her things like this?

One look at his father, however, silenced him. Bungo's salt-and-pepper hair had gone almost entirely gray overnight; his face, never young in his son's recollection, was pale and withered as a dead tree. Along with his wife, the light in his eyes had died as well.

"Let me hear no more about these mad schemes of travel," said Bungo, his quiet voice falling into the silence like a stone. "It's far too dangerous. After what happened to – to your mother, how can you even think of leaving the Shire?"

Bilbo remembered the grim-faced Rangers who had brought her body home, a shapeless bundle of blankets, tiny as a doll in their enormous cart. Attacked by bandits on the road to Bree, they'd said. In daytime, he tried so hard not to imagine the attack, but at night he could see it: his mother's face twisted with pain and fear, her blood scattered across the paving-stones.

"For the love of all that's holy," Bungo murmured, dragging his hand across his face as he stared out the window. "Why did she travel alone? Why couldn't she have listened to me for once and brought an escort?"

"She'd been there and back dozens of times alone," Bilbo replied, numbly repeating an argument that already felt old. "She believed it was safe."

Besides, they both knew that an escort of hobbits – even Shirriffs trained in archery – might not have prevailed against a company of Men.

"She was a Took." said Bungo, keeping his face to the view of their tidy front garden and his back to Bilbo. "You and I are Bagginses of Bag End. We have a duty to our clan, to our community. I need you here, my son, to help me uphold that duty."

Slowly, Bilbo padded across the hardwood floor to stand next to his father, who put an arm around his shoulders and drew him close. I need you to be safe, the gesture said. I cannot lose you too.

"I understand, Father," he said.