Mirkwood: A Novel About J.R.R. Tolkien

Chapter 8

THE POOL

The water here, like the light that seeped down to this deep, sub-street level, was a thin, greasy gray. Both found their way through the street grates to fall into the hairline cracks in the concrete. The resonant drip-blip, drip-blip had resumed its endless, lonely cadence.

Across the littered concrete floor pooled a great splatter of water, as if something bulky had heaved forth from hidden depths.

A darker shadow hovered now in the corner. So very still, but alert to its strange new surroundings.

This thing warped into the shape of a man, whose very breath was the moan of windswept crags, whose walk was the grass-rustle of treacherous heaths, whose voice was the crack of bones. This thing — this man named Barren — had come for Cadence.

The name New York City meant nothing to him, but he would learn. Fast. That was his talent.

BOOK II

“O see ye not yon narrow road

So thick beset wi’ thorns and briers?”

— “Thomas the Rhymer”, anonymous 17th century poet quoted by J.R.R. Tolkien in On Fairy Stories

It is not down in any map; true places never are.

— Herman Melville

The book sits still, waiting for my eye to glance away. There! Did it not shift ever so slightly? Does something sprout along its spine? A ripple runs now beneath the cobbled skin of its cover. Words have power. I dread it, but soon, in the day, I will pick up this tattered volume. I will read and another world will exist.

— The Scissor Sharpener (Journal)

Chapter 9 INKLINGS III

The discussions this Tuesday evening wandered from academic standards to gardening, and then faltered altogether, until the following exchange:

“Well, not to jump into politics this late, but what about the story in today’s Guardian?”

“Today’s what?”

The sound of a folded newspaper being opened and scuffled to fullness.

“Here, Ian, you troglodyte. Today, July 16, 1962, page one, ‘Government Unveils Cambridge Five As Spies. Great Damage Done’. It gets worse. ‘Kim Philby, a graduate of Cambridge’s Trinity College, revealed as double agent for Soviets.’”

“At least not an Oxford man.”

“Don’t be too proud, Clive, there are foxes in every henhouse.”

“My God, what’s happened to Queen and Country, and all that?”

“Tollers, you’re quiet. Why the down face? Jack, you tell us.”

“Well, as his friend, I know some of this, but its up to him.”

“Eh, Tollers?”

“Come along, we are your fellows here.”

“I worked with him.”

“Who?”

“Kim Philby.”

A long, questioning silence.

“All right, now that you’ve wilted the spinach, tell us. Enough of myths and old men’s tales for tonight. Come on.”

“Very well. Hardly Top Secret anymore, I suppose. Much of it is already declassified. Here it is — just before the last war, I was briefly an agent for the government, for her Majesty’s Secret Service.”

“You rascal! Another of your secret gates, Tollers.”

“As you know, I published The Hobbit in 1937. I had what I thought was a modest reputation for scholarly work with languages. I was recruited by S.I.S., as part of their code-breaking effort. I was assigned to Bletchley Park, the cypher school. Alan Turin, who finally broke the Enigma Code, was there. Hitler’s agents were scouring the world in search of a ‘living cipher’—an organic language that changes its apparent meanings on its own and is thus immune to code-breaking. He was understandably concerned with his security, and so wanted an impenetrable code to be used by his personal cadre of bodyguards.”

Someone takes a big slurp of ale, sets down his glass, and belches.

“Keep going, we’re on pins.”

“During that first month I was part of a team that followed reports of far-flung Nazi agents studying obscure tongues — Ket in Siberia, Na-Dene in Arizona, Vandalic in Prussia. I remember some jokester in our group passed around a compilation of Burrough’s language of the Great Apes, as spoken by Tarzan. Things soon got very serious, however, when I was unexpectedly approached, at my Oxford office, by two gentlemen. They claimed to be scholars of Norse mythology. They said they wished to explore the connections between Beowulf and older Norse legends. They spoke in particular of a collection of ancient documents that told of rings and elves and orcs. I told them such were staples of ancient Norse and Old English texts. They added that these documents displayed a ‘living language’.”

“At their urging, I looked briefly at one example, an apparently ancient document. It was fascinating but something told me not to let on. I told them I could not fathom its meaning. I reported the encounter to my superiors. One of the men that debriefed me was Philby, already a shadowy triple agent it seems, with known links to Von Ribbentrop and others in the Third Reich. He asked about their collection of documents. Sometime later, having completed my pending projects, I was relieved of duty without explanation. I didn’t ask questions, and happily returned to Oxford.”

“And then?”

“My life was very busy with teaching and writing. I didn’t think any more of my S.I.S. experience until recently … yes, Clive?”

“Sorry to interrupt, but Sarah tells us we are past our curfews.”

“Excellent, for there’s little else for me to tell.”

“Next Tuesday, then?”

“Ah, yes, Clive will be reading. We’ll no doubt forget where we were just now.”

“Goodnight all. Don’t forget your hat, Jack.”

Shuffling and packing up and goodbye sounds.

* * *