The Master Healer met them at the entrance, but did not admit the hobbits to the inner recesses of the House until Aragorn, hearing their clamor, came out to face a barrage of eager questions:
"We saw the Men bringing a body in. It's Frodo's, isn't it?"
"Is it him? Have they found Frodo?"
"Will you let us see him? We're his friends, his kin. We've got a right to see his body."
Aragorn put up one hand for silence. "Frodo's body?" he said once the hobbits were quiet. "Yes, it is Frodo. They've found him, but he isn't dead."
"You mean he's alive?" Pippin asked.
"Of course that's what he means, ninny!" said Merry. "Frodo's alive." He hugged his cousin and whooped with joy, "Frodo's alive! What happened to him, Strider? Where's he been all this time?"
"Is he all right?" Pippin followed immediately.
"He's not dead..." Sam's first feeling, like Merry's and Pippin's, was overwhelming relief and joy. It seemed almost too wonderful to be true. Frodo wasn't dead! Then his happiness turned to horror. "You mean, I left him lying there for the orcs to find when he was still alive!"
Aragorn didn't answer this, instead addressing Merry's questions first: "After Sauron was destroyed, his armies scattered. The orcs at Cirith Ungol must have fought amongst themselves, and those left alive abandoned the tower. They forgot their prisoner. I can only repeat what the men who found Frodo have told me. When they entered the tower, he was hiding in the gateyard amidst the slain bodies of hundreds of orcs." He answered Pippin next: "Frodo was half-starved and half-crazed when they found him. He has been badly mistreated--beaten, perhaps tortured. We can only guess at the agonies he has suffered. He has not told his story yet."
"Is he awake?" asked Pippin. "Can we see him?"
"He was awake when I left him, but very weak. I know he would be glad to see you all, but I will allow you only a few minutes today."
Merry and Pippin ran on ahead, but before Sam could follow, Ara-gorn put a hand on his shoulder to detain him.
"Sam," he said softly, "you couldn't have known."
As they went down the corridor after the others, Sam said to himself, "But I should have." He ought to have known all along in his heart that Frodo wasn't really dead. He should never have left him behind.
Sam stopped in the doorway of Frodo's room; the first sight of that ghostly pale creature lying in bed, with his friends gathered around, came as a great shock. Frodo was all bones over parchment skin. His hair was a dark, tangled mat. His eyes, in deep, purple-tinted hollows, were shut and he lay so still that, if it were not for the indistinct murmurs in res-ponse to Merry's and Pippin's remarks, and the thin fingers on the coverlet curving slightly when Gandalf took his hand, Sam would have thought him asleep... or worse. It brought fresh tears to his eyes to see that much-adored face so changed and ravaged, but Frodo was here, here and alive!
He gulped hard and stepped tentatively toward the foot of the bed. "Frodo."
At the sound of his voice, Frodo's eyes opened. "Sam..." Then he sat up and shrieked, "You took it! You stole my Ring, and left me to die!"
While the others in the room stood stunned at this outburst, Sam turned and fled. He raced blindly down the corridor until he found he had missed the way out of the house and instead run into a dead end. There, he hid his face in the corner, and stood sobbing with shame.
He heard soft footsteps pattering behind him, but did not look up until a hand touched his arm and Merry told him, "He didn't mean it, Sam. He couldn't. It's just that he's been through so much..."
Sam would have liked to believe that, if Frodo hadn't said so plainly what he'd already told himself.
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