1. The Beacon Is Lit

Disclaimer: I do not own any of these characters, save for perhaps the OCs, and I don't even like one of them.

Note: This is movie-verse. As such, Denethor is craaaazy. I'm not mangling the lovely book!Denethor, just predicting how movie!Denethor might act.

March 10, 3019

A chill wind blew across the mountain-top and shuddered through the guardhouse. Tarannon shivered as the wind whistled through the gaps in his armor and clothing beneath. The icy breeze ran its fingers up and down his spine. He cursed the pointlessness of being up on the mountain-side and decided to move out into what little sun the Shadow had not covered, hoping to get warmer.

He was surprised to find it was indeed marginally warmer outside. He checked the supply of kindling by the side of the guardhouse; there was enough, he determined, and he lit a fire in the little grate that was sheltered from the wind by the protective wall. Once he had that going steadily, he seated himself on one of the stone benches built outside of the guardhouse and stared at the man-high pile of wood that was sheltered beneath a little roof. What a useless task. Guarding the beacon of Amon Din? The logical thing to do would have been to post guards at the bottom of the passageway leading up to the beacon- but no. Lord Denethor was not in a logical mindset. Instead, he had posted guards at the bottom, middle, and the top of the passage, and had just recently instituted hourly checks on each of the men guarding their various points. Tarannon suspected that Mithrandir’s arrival to Minas Tirith yesterday had something to do with it. Why Denethor didn’t want to call for Rohan was beyond him, and why so many guards were required was preposterous. If Mithrandir wished to light the beacon, Tarannon did not doubt that he could easily dispose of each of the guards, or use his wizardly powers to shoot a bolt of flame up from the seventh level.

Tarannon understood the necessity of guarding against young pranksters who would think it a great joke to falsely call for help when there was no need, but keeping the beacon from being lit when help was needed? Ridiculous.

He got up and paced towards the pile of wood and straw, then paced back and to the guardhouse. This was a route that he had walked many times before. Back and forth. Back and forth. This duty was where they put people who caused trouble. He had been assigned to guarding the highest point of the city as a punishment for getting into a fistfight with another guard by the name of Castamir while on duty two months ago. He was not at fault for that; Castamir was more than slightly inebriated and had started it. Unfortunately for him, Castamir was one of Denethor’s spies in the army, planted to listen for any subversive words towards himself. Castamir and Tarannon had hated each other ever since they were boys training to be soldiers together; Castamir had always been on the lookout for ways to get Tarannon in trouble. He told Denethor of the fight but had twisted it, making it sound as though Tarannon had been the one who had started it. Tarannon had been assigned to this position ever since. Eight-hour shifts, from morning to afternoon.

As he turned back towards the beacon, a flicker of motion caught his eye. There, along the rock wall! He wasn’t sure what he had seen- he thought it had been something grey slipping around the corner on to the opposite wall. He squinted; nothing there. He rubbed his eyes and sighed. He’d been up here too long. Perhaps his eyes were playing tricks on him…

The sound of footsteps on the stairs caused him to stop his inspection of the stone and turn. The guard assigned to the hourly check had come. Tarannon looked to see who it was today.

“Beregond!” he said happily. “What did you do to get put on this duty?” The guards of the hourly checks were only assigned to the task for a few days. Usually, the guards chosen had committed minor offenses and this was their punishment.

“I was late to report,” Beregond said. “Bergil was sick, and I had to find somebody to look after him for me and had trouble finding someone on time.”

“Is he better now?”

“Oh yes, it was only a short bout. It lasted for a few days, then he was right as rain.” Beregond handed him a bowl that was about a third full of grapes.

“Thank you, my friend,” Tarannon said, taking the bowl.

“I thought I would be a good friend and bring an entire bowlful to you, but I had to give some away to the other two guards as well,” Beregond said, grimacing. “I am sorry you don’t have more.”

“You only wish that you had more for me so you could take half without feeling guilty, don’t you?” Tarannon teased.

“Well… yes, you have me figured out very well. I must be spending too much time with you,” Beregond said, laughing and pulling out a chair from the guardhouse. As the two shared the grapes, a sudden crackle from the beacon startled them. The scent of smoke rose upon the air.

Tarannon turned towards the beacon with a feeling of dread. It was alight! He leapt up from his seat, the bowl flying from his fingers, and stared at the flames that were beginning to consume the wood pile, a sinking feeling in his stomach. There was nothing to douse the flame with high up here, and the fire was already roaring. Beregond stood beside him, his face pale. Tarannon turned to him sharply.

“Beregond. Go.”

“What? I-”

“Go now!” Tarannon shoved him towards the stairs, talking quickly. “Get to the guard in the middle of the pass, as fast as you can. Don’t act as though you’re in a hurry when you reach him. Act surprised when you hear the beacon is lit. If anybody asks, you didn’t see this. You left before anything happened. Just go!”

“But-”

“Think of Bergil!” Tarannon hissed, and gave him another shove. “You need to keep out of trouble- you have a family. I don’t. Go! If you don’t, I swear I’ll push you off of this precipice,” he added, trying to joke, though his face was tense. “I’ll be fine.”

Beregond gave him one last sad look and left, dashing down the stairs as quick as he could. Not thirty seconds later, when the fire was roaring, he heard a voice cry out from far below him, “The beacon! The beacon of Amon Din is lit!” Tarannon sighed. Beregond should have reached the middle guard by now. He would be safe from suspicion. Tarannon slumped onto the stone bench, waiting for the Tower Guards to come and arrest him.

How did this happen? Nobody had come up the stairs, as far as he knew, and there was absolutely no way anybody could have climbed the mountain- it was practically sheer, and the handholds and footholds that could be found were too small for any man to use. Mithrandir, if it had been him, could have used his powers and shot a bolt of fire or enchanted a bird to carry a torch to light the beacon, or something- but that seemed like a ludicrous idea. It was going to look as though Tarannon had lit the beacons himself. Or worse- that he had been fraternizing with Mithrandir and had done it at his bidding. He moaned and put his head in his hands.

He was doomed. Lord Denethor would have his head for this- perhaps literally. The best he could hope for was banishment or a lifelong prison sentence. Now all he could do was wait.

Three Guards arrived within half an hour, one bearing a proclamation from the Steward that he was under arrest and was to be brought before the Steward for questioning. Tarannon went quietly. What else could he do?

The Tower Guards dragged him into the throne room and threw him upon his knees before the Steward’s seat. He dared not look up into Denethor’s face until commanded, for fear of incurring a greater wrath than had already been set upon him. He studied the tiled floor carefully, keeping his head bowed. After a long time, Denethor spoke.

“Tarannon, son of Tarcil.” Each syllable was filled with cold fury.

“Yes, my Lord Steward?” he replied, desperately trying to keep any emotion out of his voice.

“Look at me.” Tarannon slowly raised his head and found himself looking into the black eyes of the Steward, which were glinting madly. His face did not match his eyes- it was a mask of terrible calm, like the sea before a great storm broke out. Tarannon held his gaze steadily- he knew that if he didn’t, Denethor would think him guilty. Then again, he would interpret anything as guilt. Or insolence. He was in trouble no matter what he did.

“The beacons are lit. The guards say that no-one ascended in the passage, save for the hourly guard, who came down before anything happened.” At this, Tarannon gave an inward sigh of relief. Beregond was safe. “How did the beacon come to be lit?”

Tarannon had been thinking of all of the things he might say that would not incriminate him. The list was depressingly short, for one gaping hole in his story remained: where did the fire come from? He had finally decided to tell the truth, omitting only the fact that Beregond had been with him at the time.

As he told Lord Denethor his story, the Steward’s face became even more frightening- if anything, his eyes grew wilder and his face as expressionless as a stone. When he finished, Denethor sat in silence. Tarannon felt his insides churning. He knew how absurd his story sounded. He had been sitting by the guardhouse when the pyre burst into flame. That did not help him in the slightest.

Finally, Denethor pronounced his judgment. “Take him to the traitor’s prison in the first level,” he said to the Tower Guards, black eyes blazing. “He is to be branded as a traitor to Gondor for directly disobeying my commands and deliberately lighting the beacons. He shall be held in prison for a fortnight before departing. None may communicate with him, and he may speak to no one, save for perhaps his jailer.” He turned to Tarannon, looking upon him as he would a piece of filth. “You no longer exist to this country. You are banished from the realm of Gondor forever.”

Tarannon stared at him in horror. Banishment and branding? Those marked as such were not permitted to speak to any citizen of Gondor ever again, nor were the citizens supposed to speak to him. Numbly, he felt himself being pulled to his feet by the Guards and led away to the traitor’s prison.

2. Branded

Tarannon looked around the cell he had been put in with disconnected distaste. The walls were dank and grayed with layers of grime. The floor was matted with years and years of filth and old, decaying straw. A slightly fresher pile of straw sat in the corner, presumably his bed. A tiny window was set in the middle of the back wall. Tarannon wouldn’t have stabled an animal here, but this was what he’d been given for the next two weeks. ‘Lord Denethor must have been truly furious,’ he thought distantly, and sat on the straw. He was in shock.

There was no way he could escape being branded- though this prison was one of the worst-maintained in the city, it was also one of the most secure. People didn’t take kindly to traitors, not when their pride for Gondor was so fierce. Once he was branded, he knew that he would have to go far to the North, perhaps even past Rohan, for no Man of the South would offer him any form of hospitality once he had been marked. Even if he reached the Northern Kingdom, he still might not be welcomed if the brand was recognized. He was doomed to live a lonely life indeed. His only hope now was that Beregond would find him before he was branded so he could say goodbye.

He was so lost in his despondency that the sound of footsteps in the hall did not disturb him, nor did the sound of the door unlocking. The booted foot that swung into his gut and caused him to double over, however, did.

“So nice to see you, Tarannon the Traitor.”

Tarannon looked up and his spirits sunk even lower. It was the last person in the world he wanted to see: the man who had landed him with the beacon-guard position in the first place. “Castamir!” he wheezed. This earned him another kick.

“No talking!” Castamir barked. The man grinned at him, showing crooked yellow teeth. “I have been assigned the duty of guarding the cell of the traitor. What a coincidence!” Tarannon scowled. Castamir had arranged this meeting, no doubt. “I am to ensure that nobody contacts you, and that you do not escape. I intend to do a good job of it. Who knows? Maybe I’ll do such a good job that I will be the one to brand you tonight.”

Tarannon spat at him from his kneeling position on the floor. Castamir kicked him again, this time in the head. Tarannon felt an explosion of pain and then fell to the floor, his sight blurring. Castamir’s laughter echoed in his throbbing head as the cell door clanged shut.

Tarannon lay on the floor for a while until the walls stopped spinning. He hauled himself onto the pile of straw and gingerly touched where Castamir’s boot had connected with his head; his fingers came away crimson with blood. He grimaced, and then heard his name being whispered from the window.

“Tarannon!”

He pulled himself up and walked over to the window. Beregond was there, standing in the cobblestone alley behind the jail.

“You should not be here! Castamir has been assigned to guard my cell- he has never liked you, either. You will be in trouble if you are found.”

Beregond looked at Tarannon’s pale face, worried. “You are bleeding.”

“Castamir,” he said by way of explanation. “Beregond, I am to be branded and banished.”

Beregond’s own face paled. “This cannot happen!”

“It has. I cannot escape it- Lord Denethor is too angry to forgive me, and this prison is too strong to break out of.”

“I am sorry, my friend.” A look of frustrated grief contorted his features. Tarannon knew he would be considered dead to everyone once branded. Death was preferable to this fate.

“I hoped that you would come so I could say farewell before…” he trailed off.

“When is it to happen?”

“Tonight, if Castamir has spoken true. Though,” he said, thinking aloud, “it is of little consequence. I will most likely stay in this city until I am dead.”

Beregond’s grieved look was replaced by one of suspicious concern. “What is that supposed to mean? You’re not going to kill-”

“No, I would not do that to myself." Tarannon smiled grimly. "I do not have the nerve. Mordor’s armies are coming to attack the city. If they breach the gate, and I am still in here with no weapon, then I do not think I will last.”

“But Rohan will come now,” said Beregond with a touch of irony in his voice.

Tarannon heard footsteps in the hall. “Someone is coming,” he said tersely. He found that he was holding back tears. “I will miss you.”

“We will see each other again, if not in this life, then beyond the circles of the world. Goodbye, my friend.” Beregond’s eyes were shining as well as he fled from the window. Tarannon flung himself on the pile of straw and pretended to be nursing his injured head as the jailor walked by on a patrol circuit.

As the day died, Tarannon’s fear grew. He had accepted that he was to be banished, but branding was perhaps one of the most painful ways to be marked. He was not certain what the brand looked like or where it would be placed, but knew that it would be obvious in meaning. He watched the sun set with dread.

Finally, he heard footsteps once more. There were two people by the sound of it, probably Castamir and the jailor. The cell door was unlocked and the two came in, each taking him by the arm. He pretended to be submissive and calm until they got out into the hall. Once outside his cell, he suddenly struggled against them and tried to run. Castamir gave a shout and two more guards bearing weapons appeared. Tarannon gave up on his escape plan as they pointed their unsheathed swords at his throat.

His escort of four led him to a room with no windows in the center of the prison. It was blazing hot inside; a fire was roaring on the hearth, and the iron brand was already heating up. There was a heavy wooden chair across the room, and leather straps were attached to the arms and legs. Castamir, the jailor, and the guards forced him into the chair, strapping him in tightly. Tarannon looked for the slightest bit of sympathy in the eyes of the jailor and the guards, but only found anger and loathing. Castamir gestured for the three of them to leave and locked the door behind them.

“They do not know what you did,” Castamir sneered. “They believe you to be some sort of terrible criminal. I do not know what it is you have done, and nor do I care. You are leaving the city, and that’s all that I care about. No-one else will care either, so get used to it- you will not be able to proclaim your tale of false innocence once you’ve been branded.” Castamir was met with a venom-filled glare from Tarannon.

Castamir forced Tarannon’s right hand palm-upwards and bound his fingers to the chair’s arm. So the brand was to be upon his palm. Castamir crossed the room and drew the now red-hot brand from the fire. It was in the shape of a T. ‘T for Tarannon the Traitor,’ Tarannon thought miserably as apprehension twisted in his stomach. He could feel the heat radiating off it as Castamir positioned it over his hand. Tarannon looked up and held Castamir’s face in his gaze and gritted his teeth in anticipation of the pain to come. Castamir plunged the brand downwards.

Tarannon gave a strangled yell as his hand seared with a white-hot pain. He could hear his flesh sizzling. It was agony. Castamir held the brand down until it seemed an age had passed, and then withdrew it. The acrid smell of his own burnt skin coupled with the pain caused him to lean over the side of the chair and retch. He hadn’t thought it would be so bad; his head reeled in pain, and he bit his tongue so hard that it bled.

Castamir cut the cords binding his fingers and then freed him from the chair. He unlocked the door and dragged Tarannon out of the room. Tarannon curled his hand into his chest and forced his legs to move, only wanting to lay down somewhere. His head was spinning, and he felt as though he was going to be sick again.

They finally reached the cell and Tarannon wobbled in, collapsing on the straw in giddy relief. Castamir locked the door and left him. It was only then that he allowed himself to whimper in pain and despair. He decided to see what the damage was and uncurled his fingers.

He felt nauseous at the sight of the burn. The lines were half an inch thick; a line ran vertically down the middle of his palm and intersected with a horizontal line at the base of it. If he was to extend his hand to someone, they would see a T on his hand and know him to be a traitor. He knew instinctively that he would never be able to use his hand properly again. The skin where the hot metal had touched was a livid, angry red. Large blisters were forming already, and a clear liquid was oozing from his palm. Tarannon groaned and tore a strip of his shirt off and loosely wrapped it around his hand.

So that was it. Now he was marked forever, and whoever he met would think that he had committed a terrible crime against Gondor. Curling himself about his maimed hand, he let tears of pain escape as he drifted off to a troubled sleep.

3. Escapes, Battles, and Healers

Apologies for the delay- RL got in the way.

Note: This chapter has medical procedures, probably not for the squeamish. I do not claim to have any medical knowledge whatsoever.

March 14, 3019

Four days later, the day of March fourteenth dawned to the far-off sound of a great army marching towards the city. Tarannon sat in his cell in the traitor’s prison, the tramp of thousands of feet stamping on the ground causing the floor to shake slightly, even from miles away. He was shaking as well, but could not tell whether it was from terror or from his various injuries.

His bruises on his ribs from Castamir’s kicking were healing, but he was still sore and stiff. The cut on his head was painful; it burned whenever he moved his head too quickly. He was afraid that some filth from Castamir’s boot had gotten inside, despite his best efforts to clean it before it had closed. He knew that infection was unavoidable, if that was the case. He tried to tend it, but his efforts were rather unsuccessful. He had received no help from the jailor or Castamir, unsurprisingly. Both gave him venomous glares whenever they brought him food, and he simply stared blankly after the first day. He was entirely fed up with trying to garner sympathy from the jailor without use of speech.

His hand was the worst injury. It was constantly lanced through with white pain, whether he moved it or not. He tried to change the bandage regularly, but there was only so much cloth on his shirt that he was willing to waste, as he received no bandages from any of those guarding the prison. The burn still leaked a clear liquid, and the skin was a painful, fierce scarlet. There were nasty blisters all over his hand, some broken open, some filled with an awful greenish liquid. He felt weak and nauseous all the time, and he couldn’t tell if that was a side-effect of the burn or from the onset of infection in his head. He knew that his hand was probably infected, but there was not a lot he could do about it in his present condition.

Denethor should have given me a death sentence, he thought dully. It would have been quicker and less painless. Although perhaps this is my death sentence, he mused morbidly.

He stared out the window apathetically. People rushed by in the dirty alley, carrying children and various possessions as they evacuated the first level, and he could smell orc-stench and smoke on the wind. His doomsday had come, it seemed, and he lay down to sleep until the hour came.

Tarannon was violently jerked awake from his doze by a whistle and a terrible crash. He hauled himself over to the window and saw a great stone flying through the air, destroying a building nearby. People were screaming, and he could see many that were crushed by the debris and bricks. He felt sick as he looked at the scene before him and retreated from the window. He curled back up on his straw bed in the corner, waiting to die, whether by catapult projectiles or the orcs themselves.

He heard footsteps in the hall. He looked out to see Castamir, running as fast as he could towards the exit. Coward, he thought. A moment later, a great stone crashed through the prison. Tarannon covered his head with his arms and pressed himself as far back in the corner as he could. He heard cries from various points in the prison, and the stones thundered down all around. Soon the terrible noise was replaced by the gentle clattering of smaller stones settling, and he dared to open his eyes to see what had happened. He couldn’t believe his eyes. Hope beyond hope, a large hole had been knocked in the far wall from the debris! Could he escape?

Hardly daring to breathe, Tarannon got up and crept over to the hole, peering through to make sure nobody was there, and then climbed through clumsily. He now stood in open air- this entire half of the prison was destroyed, and the other half, the half his cell had been in, was somehow unscathed. He silently thanked whatever god had been watching over him at that moment and stumbled away, picking his way through the stones amid the groans and wails of the injured.

As he neared where the entrance had been, he saw a figure lying where the hall had run. He carefully made his way towards the body and stopped at the prone form. It was Castamir. By the look of it, he had been hit on the head by a piece of the ceiling. Tarannon reached towards his fallen enemy’s neck with his left hand, his fingers trembling as he felt for a pulse. Nothing. He was dead. Tarannon forced himself not to sigh in relief.

He turned Castamir’s body over and unbuckled the belt that held his sword and, through trial and error, managed to one-handedly buckle it around his own waist, then shifted it around so the scabbard rested on his right hip so he could draw the sword with his left hand. Leaving the corpse behind, he left the ruins of the jail , picking his way among the stones.

Tarannon decided that he needed to get as far away from the first circle as he could, as he would eventually need to use a sword if he stayed here, but still remain close enough to help. He looked up at the walls towering above him and saw the trebuchets flinging their own stones back at the enemy. Perhaps I could be of use there… He made his way slowly towards the second level, hoping that his luck would hold until he reached the gate.

By the time he arrived to the nearest trebuchet on the wall of the second level, he was dizzy and faint. He noticed that there were runners for the healers stationed nearby, ready to carry any wounded to the Houses of Healing. Wonderful, he thought wearily. If I collapse, then there will be somebody to pick up my body so I will not trip anyone. He wordlessly began to assist in any way he could, helping to set the trigger by pulling on the rope one-handedly with a group of other men and spotting good pieces of fallen stonemasonry to be loaded. After nearly an hour of this, he felt very nauseous and knew that he would pass out soon if he wasn’t careful. He retreated from the trebuchet to stay out of the way until he recovered, standing on the other side of the street.

“Look out!”

A heavy stone whizzed overhead and buried itself in the building above him. A shower of brick and rock fell about him. He felt a large block hit his head, right where the cut from Castamir’s boot was, and he fell to the ground. He felt a sharp pain as the cut opened up and began to ooze infection. A second brick crushed his left leg and he fell unconscious as the pain overtook him.

Algar had his work cut out for him as a healer’s runner. He had been to the Houses more times than he could count, bearing many wounded men. Now, as he stood in the second circle and beheld the damage from the latest projectile of the enemy, he knew that there were many more that would need to be tended. He ran towards the rubble and picked out the first man he saw. The man looked especially terrible; he had a broken leg and was ashen-faced, a wound on his head oozing a poisonous fluid. Algar grimaced. He needed help to lift this one- it was a fully grown man, and he was only a lad of fourteen.

“Alacar!” he called to his brother. “Alacar!”

His brother, two years younger than himself, hurried to help him. They both put an arm under the man’s knees and an arm behind his back and lifted, creating a chair for him. “Quickly,” Algar said to his brother, “this one does not look like he will last very long.” Alacar nodded in agreement. They quickened their pace.

Miriel had never seen such carnage in all her life. Men were being brought in to the Houses of Healing almost too fast for the staff to handle, even with the additional women who had stayed on to help. She had just finished wrapping a soldier’s ribs when two runners laid a man on an empty cot nearby.

“Some of the wall fell on him,” one boy called to her in explanation. She nodded.

Miriel checked the bandages once more before hastening over to the man on the cot. He looked terrible; one leg was broken, a foul-smelling mix of infection and blood leaked from his head, and his hand was covered with a strip of makeshift bandage. She gently probed the wounds to explore the extent of the damage and placed a hand on his forehead. He was burning up. It could be a side-effect of the infection in the head…

Miriel bit her lip as she thought for a moment. She was best trained in wounds obtained in battle. Infections weren’t her area. She needed help for this one. She looked about the room and spotted a more experienced healer who was nearly finished with his latest patient. “Girion!” she shouted over the din of other healers shouting orders and the roar of battle outside.

“What is it?” Girion asked as he approached the cot.

“This man has an infected head wound that was opened by a falling stone, I believe. I’d stitch it up, but I don’t know what to do with the infection.”

Girion looked at the man’s head carefully then nodded. “You set his leg and I will cleanse his head wound. Give him something to bite on; this will probably be painful. We have to be careful and make sure he does not go into shock.” Miriel nodded and gathered the supplies needed to splint the leg and disinfect the wound. When she returned, Girion had scrubbed his hands and was ready.

“Should we set his leg first or attend to the infection?” she asked.

“I think we should set the leg. The infection is not too bad- most of it has been drained due to the blow to the head. It does not look as though it was that bad to begin with. I don’t understand why he is running a fever so high.”

“Perhaps you should hold him down. I do not think I would be strong enough.” Miriel said. Girion nodded and positioned himself at the man’s shoulders. Miriel had carefully examined the wound before she had called Girion and had seen that it was a clean break. All that was required was a splint. She carefully rolled back the leg of his trousers and unbuckled the sword that was at his waist, leaning it against the wall.

“Ready?” Miriel asked. Girion pressed down on the man’s shoulders. Miriel took hold of the man’s foot and pulled in order to realign the bone. The man’s eyes fluttered open and he began to cry out incoherently. Girion slipped a roll of cloth in between the man’s teeth for him to bite on and held the man steady as he began to thrash in pain. There was a horrible grinding noise, and then the bone snapped into place. The man’s eyes rolled into the back of his head and he passed out. Miriel sighed.

“Thank you.”

“Make the splint for him. I’ll clean his head.”

Miriel began to fashion and set the splint in place as Girion bathed the man’s head wound in the disinfectant solution. “It is a blessing he is out for this,” Girion commented. “I think he was concussed when the stone hit him. We will have to look for brain damage later on, if he pulls through all right. I still do not understand why his fever is so high. This really is not that bad.” Girion began to probe the wound with a sterilized scalpel, searching for more pockets of infection. Finding none, he washed the man’s head clean and removed all traces of blood and infection, using gauze to soak up any of the malignant ooze. He placed the used gauze in a bowl to be burned later. Soon, he was satisfied that the wound was thoroughly cleaned and placed a cotton pad over the cut, wrapping the man’s head in a bandage.

Miriel finished binding the splint in place around the man’s leg and began to examine the rest of the man’s body for any further injuries. His right hand was loosely wrapped in a strip of cloth. She unwound the bandage and uncurled the fingers that covered the man’s hand and drew in a breath with a hiss. “Girion, come have a look at this.”

Girion finished wrapping the man’s hand and looked. An ugly burn was spread across the hand, forming a “T”. The hand was swollen, and the skin an ugly red. A few blisters were filled with a greenish fluid, and several were leaking pus. “He is a traitor. And,” he added, the healer in him taking over, “he is infected. That explains the fever.”

Miriel looked at him. “Will we get in trouble for tending to him?” She sounded worried and slightly scared. Girion sometimes forgot how young she was.

He frowned and gave the matter some thought. “No,” he said finally. “I do not think so. I do not recall anything in the law about denying medical treatment to a traitor who would die otherwise. It would be cruel to let him die from his wounds. Besides,” he added, “we have not had the chance to communicate with him, so we cannot get in trouble for that.”

Miriel studied the man’s face. “What do you think he did?”

“I don’t know. We must not tell anyone he is here, for the time being, and we should not notify the soldiers. I could not allow them to take a man who’s in this condition and throw him out, expecting him to leave Gondor on a broken leg and concussed head. Unless he commits some act of violence while under our keeping, I will ask the Warden to grant him amnesty for now, at least until he is well enough to leave the city. He will understand. I am sure.”

Miriel nodded gravely. “We’ll bind his hand so nobody can see for now. If anyone asks about him, we can say that he is a mute.”

“Good idea. But first, we must rid his hand of infection. If something is not done soon, we shall have to amputate.” Girion left the man to find clean gauze and a fresh scalpel, taking the bowl of infected gauze with him to burn it. Miriel set about examining the rest of the man’s injuries, carefully hiding his hand from the view of any other healers. There were bruises starting to form from being peppered by smaller stones, and two large bruises on his ribcage that appeared to be older; they were lighter, greeny-yellow, and beginning to fade.

In about five minutes, Girion returned with fresh gauze, bandages, a scalpel, and two bowls, one filled with a sharp-smelling disinfectant, the other empty and ready to receive soiled gauze. He set everything down and submerged the man’s hand in the solution. “It will take a little while for his hand to be properly soaked,” Girion said. “While I prepare for the surgery, secure a single room for him. One with a lock. We must not take chances. If you see the Warden, tell him about this.”

Miriel swept off down the rows of invalids and Healers tending to them. As she left the main ward, she stood aside for two boys bringing in a man with a long gash down his chest and then nearly crashed into the Warden, who was carrying a large tray of healing herbs and supplies. The Warden scowled at her and then passed by.

“Oh! I am sorry, sir,” Miriel gasped as she followed him. “I was sent to find you by Girion. We have a problem.” Miriel nearly had to run to keep up with the hurried pace of the Warden as he moved down the rows, stopping occasionally to replenish the stores at various stations.

“What is it?” The Warden didn’t look at her, hasty with the commotion of the Houses.

“Perhaps you had better see for yourself. Girion is just over there.” She could see that Girion had just begun the procedure to remove the infection.

The Warden thrust the tray at her. “Make yourself useful and keep going down the ward. I will talk to him in the meantime.” The Warden walked towards Girion briskly.

Miriel quickly emptied the Warden’s tray at each supply station and returned to the man’s cot. Girion and the Warden had just finished talking, and the man’s hand was neatly bandaged. The formerly empty basin now contained a small mountain of soiled gauze. Miriel wordlessly handed the tray back to the Warden, and he stood up.

“The room next to the storeroom has a lock on it, and it is furnished well enough to keep a man inside. You may use it.” He handed a key to Girion, who slipped it into a pocket in his tunic. “I suggest you check on this man hourly until he is in stable condition. We can notify the Guard when he is fully healed. I will also take this,” he said as he picked up the sword leaning against the wall, “and will put it in my office. We can’t have him having a weapon.” The Warden swept off with his tray and the sword.

Girion looked at Miriel. “I think he is stable enough to move.” Girion put one hand under the man’s knee, conscious of his broken leg, and one under the man’s arm. Miriel did the same and they lifted him up and bore him to the room next to the storeroom. The room was sparse: a cot was at one end, a small grate for a fire at the other, and a table for various medical supplies. They laid him upon the cot and covered him with the blanket that they found at the foot. Checking his wounds and his temperature once more, they left once they found his condition satisfactory, locking the door behind them.

“I will keep the key. He is less likely to try to make an escape with me than he is with you.” It was true; Girion was a strong, rather brawny man who didn’t look like someone to trifle with.

“But he is so weak right now. Let me take the key, and I will check on him hourly. Your skills are more needed now, during the battle.” Girion considered this, then agreed.

“We have wasted too much time. Here.” He handed her the key. “He is your responsibility for a few days. Not,” he said grimly, “that there is any hope that tomorrow will come.”

Evening, March 15, 3019

Miriel had been checking on the strange man regularly for most of the past twenty-four hours. She thought that he was getting better, or at least becoming more stable, so she asked Girion to come with her to make sure. Girion came, bearing a tray of various medical supplies. The two stood over his cot and looked at his various wounds carefully.

“He’s woken up a few times while I’ve been here.”

“He hasn’t said anything, has he?” Girion asked as he unwrapped the bandage on the hand to change it and to see if there was any infection left.

“No, he mostly moaned a bit and I gave him some water. The fever broke shortly after we put him in here.”

The man on the cot began to stir as Girion gently inspected the burn. His eyes fluttered open and he lifted his head to look at Girion. He stared at Girion with a puzzled look, and then saw the mark on his hand. Miriel watched his face as it passed through bewilderment, recognition, despair, and resignation within a few seconds. He slumped back into his pillow and turned his head towards the wall. Miriel couldn’t help but wonder what he was thinking and what he had done; he didn’t look like the criminal sort, she thought to herself for the umpteenth time. He was dark-haired with the beginnings of a beard and his eyes were an interesting hazel, now that she had seen his eyes. But then, it really didn’t matter what you looked like, did it? The point was that he’d done something and was now paying for it.

“What will we tell people about him? Beside the fact that he’s mute, of course.”

“Well,” Girion said as he re-bandaged the hand, “I talked to the Warden and the official story is that he was traumatized by the battle. He was hit on the head and has lost the capacity to speak.” Miriel could see the man was listening; just because he couldn’t talk to them didn’t mean that he couldn’t listen to a conversation between them. Girion seemed conscious of this fact as well, and continued to talk about the man’s situation to Miriel as he worked.

“While he’s here, we will keep him locked up with only one copy of the key, which only the two of us will have access to. When he’s healed, we will turn him over to the Guard so they can send him away.” The man’s face paled. As soon as Girion was finished tending to his hand, the man pulled away and gingerly turned on his side to face the wall. He brought the blankets up over his shoulder and didn’t move.

“We will leave a cup of willow bark tea on the table,” Girion said as he poured out a mug of hot tea. “It helps to relieve pain,” he commented to Miriel offhandedly for the benefit of the man as he gathered up the tray. Miriel opened the door for him and then shut it behind them, locking it securely and slipping the key in her pocket. Girion turned to her and smiled.

“You’ve done very well over the past few days.” Girion could see dark circles underneath her eyes. “When was the last time you slept?”

“A few hours last night, I think.”

“That’s all? I’ll tell the Warden I let you off duty. Take tomorrow to recover. You’ve earned it.”

Miriel smiled at him gratefully and then covered a yawn. “Thank you, Girion. I really need this. And I think that you’ll need this.” She fished out the key from her pocket and gave it to him. “I’ll see you later. Have a good night.”

Miriel collapsed gratefully onto a stone bench in the gardens in the Houses of Healing and sighed. The first thing she had done when Girion had told her that she was free to go was to scrub her skin free of all traces of blood. She felt so fresh and clean now, and was feeling herself begin to nod, but she had come out here to gather her thoughts for a moment before bed. The terrible dark cloud that had covered the sky was finally gone; she could see the stars again.

She stared at the sky absently, trying to suppress the echoes of battle and screams of pain that she could still hear. How many had died? How many were slowly dying now? How many were still on the Pelennor Fields at this very moment, feebly crying for help while trapped beneath piles of the dead?

Miriel shook her head. It would not do to allow her thoughts to stray to such gruesome things, not if she wanted to sleep at all tonight. Instead, she thought of pleasanter things: her family’s cottage by the sea, with climbing roses over the door and window-baskets full of blooming flowers; her parents, waving to her as she got on the ship to sail up the Anduin to train as a healer; her brother, Delmar. She missed him the most of all. He was only ten summers, far too young to fight, thankfully. He was her bright spark; he could make her laugh at any time and had inherited his mother’s laughing face. She had always thought him to be the fortunate one because of that, as she had her father’s pensive, brooding face. Delmar was always in and out of the sea, and his hair had been bleached to a fair blond while his skin had darkened. The only time she had seen him cry was when she had left.

Blinking back tears at the sudden wave of homesickness she felt, she got up and decided to head for her quarters. As she started forward, she heard a soft sniff behind her. She turned and saw a small figure on a bench farther down the path, swinging his legs aimlessly and staring at the ground. A boy, she assumed, perhaps one of the runners. What was he doing here? Did he have a relative that was injured? He didn’t look any older than Delmar…

A protective instinct took over her, something similar to what she felt for Delmar, and she turned around and quietly approached the boy.

“May I sit here?” she asked him. He nodded mutely and she lowered herself down beside him. They sat in silence for a few minutes, and then Miriel spoke up.

“Who do you know that’s in the Houses of Healing?”

The boy looked up at her, surprised. “How did you know about that?” he said in a peculiar accent.

“You learn to recognize the signs after a while. Do you want to tell me about him?” she said gently.

The boy thought for a moment, then began to speak. “It’s my fault, really, that Merry’s in there.”

“Merry?” What sort of a name was that?

“My cousin. He was with the Rohirrim, and he was all alone, and he shouldn’t have been. I should have been there, but I was stuck here instead because of my own foolishness.”

“Your cousin rode to battle with Rohan?” Miriel was rather confused- what was a man of Gondor doing with the Rohirrim?

“Yes. And he-” here the boy shuddered and took a deep breath- “he stabbed that Thing, the Witch-King, and now he has the Black Breath spreading up his arm. He shouldn’t have been alone. I found him on the battlefield underneath an orc. He asked me if I was going to leave him. I think he thought he was going to die.”

“He sounds like a brave warrior.” Stabbing the Witch-King! He must be strong and heroic!

“He is, but he shouldn’t have to be. We shouldn’t be here at all. We’re just hobbits!” the boy choked, sounding as though he were holding back tears.

“Hobbits?”

“You call us Halflings. But it doesn’t matter.”

Halfling! Was this the one that everybody had been talking about, the one that had sworn his service to the Steward and had ridden for three days with Gandalf the White? The one they were calling Ernil i Pheriannath? She studied him carefully. His feet were bare and had hair all over the tops, though she hadn’t been able to see that in the darkness. His ears were slightly pointed and hidden beneath curly hair. She couldn’t see much of his face, as he had bowed his head, but he looked as though he were trying very hard not to cry. Miriel found it hard to put him in an age group appropriate to his kind; to her, he looked as though he were only ten summers, about the age of Delmar. Her heart gave a pang as she looked at the Halfling.

Miriel reached out and put an arm around his shoulders. “It’s all right,” she said softly. The Halfling gave a sob and laid his head in her lap as his body trembled with muffled cries. “Everything will be fine,” she whispered. She gently stroked his hair and murmured comforting words as he sobbed until he calmed down.

The Halfling sat up and dried his eyes. “I’m sorry, I seem to have cried all over your dress.” Miriel looked down at the wet stain on her skirt. She laughed.

“That’s all right. It will dry.”

“I’m afraid I haven’t introduced myself. My name is Peregrin Took, but everybody calls me Pippin.”

“My name is Miriel. I work here as a healer.”

Pippin smiled at her in the starlight. “I’m very pleased to meet you, Miriel.”

Miriel raised her head to look at the glimmering stars once more and breathed a sigh of appreciation before turning to the Halfling beside her. “I was just heading back to my room for bed, but I want you to know that I think your cousin is a hero.”

Pippin gave a genuine grin at this. “Thank you. I know he is. Perhaps you could meet him someday?”

“Perhaps,” Miriel said. “Maybe tomorrow. I’ve been let off until the day after, though some of my friends here will think me mad to come here on my day off. It’s not as though there’s anywhere else to go. I wouldn’t feel right in spending an entire day doing nothing.”

Pippin nodded. “I can understand that.”

Miriel stood up. “I should go now. I will see you tomorrow, Peregrin.”

“Call me Pippin. Everyone else does.”

“Right then, Pippin. Good night.”

“Good night.”

March 16, 3019

“Miriel! What a pleasant surprise! Didn’t I give you the day off?”

“You did, yes.”

“Then are you sick? You’d have to be to come here on a free day,” Girion teased. Miriel made a face and grinned at him.

“No, the Perian asked me to meet his cousin.”

“That Perian Rider of Rohan is his cousin?” asked Girion, clearly impressed. “They say he helped destroy the Captain of the Nazgul! When did you meet Mithrandir’s companion?”

“Last night, in the gardens.” Miriel decided not to tell Girion of Peregrin’s breakdown; she knew that if it was her, she wouldn’t want anyone to know about it. “Do you know where I could find him?”

“His cousin is in one of the rooms closest to the gardens, just down the hall,” Girion directed. “They’re preparing to ride out in a few days, so I suggest you make your visit soon.”

Miriel frowned. “They’re riding out? Where?”

“To the Black Gate. The talk is that they’re going to challenge the Dark Lord,” Girion said, shaking his head. “A fool’s errand, if you ask me. We don’t have nearly enough men.”

“The Pheriannath are riding out as well?”

“Why shouldn’t they? They’re part of the army.”

“I thought one of them was injured from helping kill the Witch-King!”

“They’re a hardy folk, it seems.”

Miriel pictured Pippin’s face in her mind and thought for a moment. “Do you know how old they are? I can’t tell. I thought the Perian was a little boy last night, though I didn’t tell him that. They don’t look old enough to fight in a war like this.” She thought of her own brother and what it would be like for him to go off to war and shivered.

“They must be old enough to be involved. Mithrandir holds them in very high esteem.”

“Miriel!” a joyful voice called from down the hall. Pippin’s head was poking out of a doorway with a wide grin. “You came!”

“I will see you tomorrow,” Miriel said to Girion as she walked down the hall. Girion nodded in farewell and went about his work.

“Hello, Pippin,” Miriel said as the Perian held the large wooden door open for her. Miriel entered and found herself in a standard room for the Houses of Healing: a bed, a few chairs, a fireplace, a small dresser, a table- everything needed to make a patient comfortable. There were a few modifications, however; footstools had been placed at the bed and near one of the chairs closest to the bed to make it easier to climb up on the furniture. Clothing was strewn about and two packs were open and half-full. A sweet, pungent smell she couldn’t identify emanated from a bowl of steaming water on the bedside table. She felt her head clear as she inhaled.

“Merry,” Pippin said as he closed the door, “this is the healer I was telling you about, the one I met in the gardens last night. This is Miriel.”

Miriel found herself being looked up and down by a sandy-haired Halfling on the bed, propped up by pillows. His sharp glance took in everything. Miriel felt instinctively that this Halfling was the older one, the protector. She knew she was being sized up by this blue-eyed Halfling, being judged whether or not she was a good person.

All of this happened in an instant. Merry smiled at her, and she nearly sighed in relief, feeling as though she had passed some test. “Nice to meet you, Miriel.”

“Nice to meet you, Merry. Your cousin has said glowing things about you.”

“He has said the same about you.” Miriel found herself wondering if Pippin had told his cousin about his breakdown last night. “Please forgive the mess- Pippin’s been packing. I’m not of much use yet, but I’ve been told I should be all right in a day or two. Have a seat,” he said as he gestured towards one of the chairs.

“You really are going to the Black Gate, then?” Miriel asked as she sat down. “That’s what I’ve heard, at least.”

“Nothing stays quiet in this city for long, does it?” Pippin commented to Merry as he picked up a piece of his Gondorian armor and began to polish it.

“Yes, we’re going. We have our own reasons.” Merry’s tone sounded a bit wistful, a feeling she wouldn’t have normally associated with this strong-willed Halfling. Miriel hesitated for a moment, then asked the question that had been bothering her ever since she had met Pippin the night before.

“Forgive me for being forward, but how old are you? You look no older than my little brother.”

“I thought you would ask that question. Everyone does. I’m thirty-six.”

“I’m twenty-nine,” Pippin said cheerfully. “How old are you?”

“Eighteen,” Miriel said, astonished by how old they were. “I had never expected you to be so much older than myself!”

“How old is your brother? What’s he like?” Pippin asked.

Miriel smiled and began to describe him. They passed several hours like this, talking about family, home, and other such pleasantries. Miriel was especially intrigued by the complexity of their families, and listened to many humorous stories about the various exploits of their relations. Finally, Miriel looked out the window and saw how far the sun had set.

“I should be going.” Miriel stood up and headed to the door. Pippin followed her.

“Will you visit again?”

“I don’t know if I can. I have to work again tomorrow, and I don’t know when I will get another day off. I will try.”

“If not, we’ll visit you sometime,” said Pippin.

She knelt down and hugged Pippin, then went to Merry’s bedside and hugged him as well. The two hobbits had grown on her so much over the past few hours; she felt as though she’d known them all her life.

“I hope I’ll see you soon again,” she said, and then left, heading towards her quarters. She did not get a chance to see the hobbits again for nearly a month after that.

April 16, 3019

Peregrin Took awoke to the early morning sun pouring into his room and sighed, stretching. It was so nice to be in a real bed! He grinned to himself and decided to make a list of all the things that were nice about today. It was nice not to have to fight; it was nice that the sun was shining; it was nice to be back in the City; it was nice that he was alive, along with Merry, Frodo, and Sam; it was nice that the War was over! He turned his head, saw Merry in the bed next to him, and grinned again. He was still asleep.

Carefully, Pippin crept out of his bed and snuck to the dresser that had been provided for the two of them. He slid open the drawer, pulled a loose thread off of one of his shirts, and snuck to Merry’s bedside. He gently dangled the thread over Merry’s ear until it was barely brushing his skin. Merry grumbled and rolled over. Pippin bit back a laugh and tickled him again. Merry swiped at the air above his ear and snatched the thread from Pippin’s fingers.

“I’m not as asleep as you think I am, Pip,” came Merry’s muffled voice from the pillows. “That was a very juvenile trick, tickling me in the ear.”

“If you’re awake, then get up! It’s our day off!” Pippin pushed Merry good-naturedly. “We can have an early breakfast with Frodo and Sam if you’ll haul yourself out of bed.”

“Always thinking about food, aren’t you?” Merry teased as he pushed the blankets off and hopped out of bed.

“Not this time, Merry.”

Merry gave him a small smile as he pulled some clothes on. “I’m glad Frodo and Sam are awake too. So let’s go!”

“What are you doing today, Frodo?” Merry asked as he piled up the dishes on the tray by the door.

“Legolas and Gimli offered to give us a tour of the city. Would you like to come?” Frodo said from his position at the table. He still looked far too pale and thin in Merry’s opinion, and Sam was no better. In fact, Sam’s feet were still rather tender, having just healed from terrible burns and cuts. Both of them occasionally wore haunted looks and seemed startled by little things. They had not told them their stories yet, and Pippin and Merry hadn’t pestered them about it.

“I was thinking of talking to the Warden today. I haven’t had a chance yet. Besides, I’ve seen a lot of the city.”

“What about you, Pippin?”

Pippin frowned. On the one hand, he could go around the city on his day off with Frodo, Sam, Legolas, and Gimli; on the other, he could visit the Houses of Healing. The tour promised to be very entertaining if Legolas and Gimli were to be the guides, and it would be good to be with Frodo and Sam, but the going would probably be slow, as the two Ring-bearers (Pippin found it hard to think of them with that title) were not fully recovered. The Houses of Healing were calm and restful, but it would probably be boring for him. He thought about what there was to do, remembering his time there with Merry. The gardens had been nice, certainly, but he had been too worried about Merry to do very much of anything, although he had made friends with a healer. What was her name?

“Miriel!” he said aloud. Frodo and Sam looked at him, surprised, and Merry suddenly grinned.

“I remember her! I haven’t seen her since we left for the Black Gate. Have you?”

“No. I feel terrible about that I haven’t visited yet. I promised I would.”

“Who’s Miriel?” asked Frodo.

“She’s a healer we met. She’s really sweet- she’s a lot like Pervinca, actually. You know, friendly and laughs very easily. I like her. I’ll come with you, Merry, and visit her today.”

As Merry and Pippin made their way to the Houses of Healing, a man called out to them.

“Pippin!”

Pippin turned to see a man striding towards him. “Beregond!” he exclaimed, delighted. He had fought beside the man at the Black Gate, and was by now fast friends with him. “Do you have the day off as well?”

“Yes. Are you doing anything, or would you care to accompany me to the market?”

“I can’t, I’m visiting someone. I could meet you somewhere for lunch, though.”

Beregond smiled. “Where shall we eat? I must warn the poor tavern in question that their pantries are about to be emptied.”

“What about the Star and Stone? I have heard nothing but good things about their ale.”

“You have heard the truth. I will see you at the midday bell!”

The two of them arrived at the Houses shortly thereafter. Merry knew precisely where he had to go in order to meet the Warden, but Pippin had to search a little to find Miriel. After a quarter of an hour’s looking, he finally found her in one of the storerooms, preparing a tray.

“Hullo, Miriel!” he said cheerfully. Miriel jumped in surprise.

“Pippin!” Her face broke out into a wide smile. “I was wondering when you’d come back! I tried to visit you, but I couldn’t.”

“Why not?”

“Do you know how many people there are out there who are claiming to know one of you four Halflings? Hobbits, I mean,” she corrected herself. “They all want a piece of your glory. I saw you at a distance once in a while, though.”

“Did you ever see Frodo and Sam while they were here?” Pippin asked.

Miriel gave a wry smile. “Of course not. I wasn’t nearly important enough to attend to the Ringbearers, not when the King himself was watching over them!”

“You must meet them, Miriel. I’ll bring them here.”

“That would be wonderful. I can’t stop to talk long, though,” she said as she gestured towards the tray. “I have many patients to see to yet.”

“Can I help you?”

Miriel smiled. “Certainly. I’d be glad of the help.”

Pippin spent his morning helping Miriel attend to the sick and the last of the wounded from the War. He tried his best to make the patients smile, even if they had little to smile about. He usually left them feeling brighter than they had before. By the end of the morning, he was beginning to feel more than a little hungry. Noticing the diminishing supplies, he asked, “Are there many more people to see?”

“Just one. This one’s a special patient,” Miriel said as they approached the door next to the Warden’s office. “Not many people know he’s here, but I trust you. It might do this poor man good to see somebody aside from me and a few others. I should warn you, though: don’t talk to him.”

“Why not?”

“In the war, he was driven mad and lost his voice. He doesn’t like to hear people talking; it upsets him.” Something about Miriel’s tone didn’t sound quite right, as though she was hiding something; but Pippin let it pass.

“What’s his name?”

“We don’t know. He hasn’t spoken since he was brought here during the Siege.” Pippin noted with interest that the door to the room was locked. Miriel fished into her pocket and drew out the key. “Don’t speak to him at all,” she said as she turned the key and pushed the door open.

Pippin was hit by the stale smell of a room long lived in; smoke from the tapers and the small fire in the grate mingled with the unmistakable odor of medical herbs and drinks. The room was small, dark, and windowless with a heavy table and a cot. Sitting on the cot was a man, thin and sickly-looking. His leg was splinted and he cradled his bandage-swathed right hand in his left. He didn’t look up at the sound of the door opening or shutting, nor did he look up when Miriel gave a gasp of horror when she saw blood on the man’s right hand.

“Valar, has he done it again?” she whispered to herself as she rushed to his side and seized his wrist. Pippin, grotesquely intrigued, looked at the ragged gash on the back of the man’s wrist. There were splinters imbedded deep in the skin, which was rubbed raw around the cut.

“What happened?” The man looked up at Pippin’s voice. His face was sallow and his dark hair matted. The man’s eyes frightened Pippin, although he couldn’t say why; the hazel eyes were devoid of all hope. They seemed dull and dead.

Miriel examined the cut carefully. “I think he was rubbing his wrist against the side of the cot.” She checked the frame: there was blood drying on the wood.

“Why would he do a thing like that?” Pippin wasn’t certain, but he thought he saw a look of hesitation cross her face before she answered.

“I have no idea.” She pursed her lips and reached into her satchel, drawing out a pouch with various healing tools inside. Taking a pair of tweezers, she began to draw the splinters out of the man’s skin one by one. The man didn’t react, but kept staring at Pippin without any emotion whatsoever. Pippin couldn’t shake the feeling that the man was staring at him as though he was an inanimate object; only something to look at. Pippin shifted uncomfortably.

“How can I help?”

Miriel gestured towards her satchel. “Could you find new bandages? I need to bind this up.” Pippin rummaged around in the bag as Miriel began to dab the wound with some salve, then he handed her the white cloth.

“Thanks.” Miriel turned the man’s wrist over, trying to hide it from Pippin, but he caught a glimpse of an ugly, barely-healed scar on the underside of the wrist.

“This isn’t the first time he’s cut himself, is it?” Pippin said quietly.

Miriel looked at him. “No, it isn’t. About three weeks ago he stole a scalpel from Girion, my friend, while our backs were turned. When we came in an hour later to give him his meal, there was blood all over the sheets. We had to give him stitches. After that, we took everything sharp out of the room. I’ll have to ask them to sand down the frame of the cot, and the table edges, too.”

“Was he trying to-”

“Kill himself? No, I don’t think so,” Miriel said firmly.

“Then what was he doing?”

“I couldn’t say,” she said almost vaguely. She began to inspect his splinted leg in silence, leaving Pippin to think. How could Miriel know that he wasn’t trying to kill himself? Why was this man in a state to try something like that, anyway?

“Nearly good as new. He should be able to walk any time soon now.” The man looked at Miriel for the first time, his expression full of terror. Miriel gathered up her things and stopped at the door.

“Pippin, I need to find somebody to fix the furniture. If we leave him alone, he will try to hurt himself again. Could you stay here while I find someone? I won’t be long.”

“Don’t worry, I will.”

“I have full confidence in your guarding abilities,” Miriel said as she smiled. “After all, you’d have to be good at that.”

“You mean I’m not a Guard because of my dashing looks?” Pippin tried his best to look put out. Miriel laughed and shut the door behind her.

Pippin glanced at the man on the bed. He was disconcerted to see that the man was trembling like a leaf. His face was fearful. What was wrong? The man’s face grew paler. Pippin feared something was terribly wrong. He decided to throw caution to the winds and talk to the man, even if it might upset him.

“What’s wrong?” he said softly, moving towards the cot. The man stared at him, wide-eyed, and shrank back. Was the man scared of him? He couldn’t understand why. “I’m not going to hurt you. I promise.” The man stopped trembling, but stuck out his right hand towards Pippin as if it was a warning. “I don’t understand.”

The man looked at him as though Pippin was the mad one then pulled back his hand and began to pluck at the bandages. “Don’t do that,” Pippin said, reaching out to stop him, but the man paid him no mind as he began to unwind the bandage from his hand. When he finished, he held out his hand palm-up. Pippin nearly recoiled in disgust; there was a hideously deep burn on the palm in the shape of a T. The skin around the burn was red and still peeling, and the burn itself was the waxy white of deep scar tissue. His fingers didn’t seem to move properly; they were stiff and only twitched when the man made a visible effort to bend them. The man grimaced in pain and withdrew his hand.

Satisfied that Pippin had seen his injury, the man began to wind the bandage about his hand again. Pippin shook his head helplessly. The man truly must be mad if he thought showing a wound would explain his fear. The man tucked in the end of the bandage and looked at Pippin with fear and expectance. “I’m sorry, but I still don’t know why you’re so upset.” The man looked at him wearily and pressed a finger to his lips, signaling silence. Pippin complied, leaning against the far wall as he watched the man.

Miriel returned shortly after that, bringing her friend by the name of Girion with her. “He’ll fix the table,” she said as they left. “He wasn’t any trouble, was he?”

Pippin decided that he didn’t need to tell her that he had talked to him; Miriel had forbidden him to do so. Besides, she had been acting rather strangely about this particular patient, and he was curious. “He was fine. I was wondering, though: what’s wrong with his hand?” It was an innocent enough question; he could see if she was being secretive about this man, or whether it was just his imagination.

“He fell into a fire and burned it,” Miriel said almost automatically. Pippin thought that sounded suspicious. Fire did not burn people like that. Pippin thought about the man cutting his wrist with a scalpel and repressed a shudder. Had he been trying to cut his hand off entirely? The scar was bad, certainly, but why would you want to cut off your own hand?

The midday bells interrupted his thoughts. “Miriel, I promised a friend of mine I would have lunch with him. Would you like to join us?”

“I can’t,” she said, visibly disappointed. “I don’t leave for lunch for another hour yet. Come back and visit me soon, all right?”

“Next time I get a day off. I’ll bring Frodo and Sam to meet you, too. You’ll like them.”

“I’m sure I will. Good bye!”

As Pippin walked off, he thought about the strange man. He’d have to ask someone knowledgeable of Gondorian ways about why he acted like that. Perhaps he could talk to Beregond while the thought was still fresh in his mind.

An hour later, after a most excellent meal, Pippin sat in his too-big chair in the smoky tavern. His hunger satisfied and his mind ready for talking, he broached the subject of the strange man to Beregond.

“Beregond, what happens to people in this city who are disabled?”

Beregond gave that a little thought. “Usually, they live with their family. If they can’t walk, for example, the family will set aside a place in the home for that person to live.”

“What if they have no family?”

“A neighbor will look in on them, or if they’re rich enough they hire a caretaker.”

Pippin took this in. “Supposing it wasn’t a matter of mobility- what if it was a matter of the mind? I mean, what happens to people who have lost their wits?”

Beregond frowned. “That’s a good question. I suppose, if there is no family, they would live in the Houses of Healing, at least until they could find somebody who would take care of them. Why are you so curious about such things all of a sudden?”

“No reason. I was in the Houses today, as you remember, and I met a man who couldn’t speak. He acted very strangely, too. We weren’t supposed to talk to him because it upset him, but I did when there wasn’t anybody in the room and he seemed troubled; all he did was show me a gruesome burn and stare at me. I haven’t come across anyone quite like that before.”

Beregond jerked up in his seat, pale-faced. “He showed you a burn? What did it look like?”

Pippin wondered why Beregond would know that it had a shape. “It looked like the letter T,” he said. “It was on his right palm.”

A strange expression flitted across Beregond’s face, a mixture of joy and grief. “Did he have dark hair?”

“Yes. Why? Do you know him?” But Beregond wasn’t listening to Pippin anymore; he was muttering to himself, unaware of the hobbit’s keen ears.

“It couldn’t be… But nobody else would have a mark like that… I thought he was dead…”

“I could take you to him,” Pippin offered.

“Would you?” Beregond said, a slow smile breaking over his face. “I need to see this man. I believe he is a friend of mine.” He tossed a few coins on the table and got up, waiting for Pippin out of politeness; Pippin could see from the way Beregond was standing that he wanted nothing more than to run all the way to the Houses of Healing.

“Beregond, I don’t know if they’ll let you see him. They have him locked in a room, you see?”

Beregond’s face fell. “Of course they would,” he said bitterly. “Very well. I will have to talk to the Warden to see if he will let me see him. I can only think of one way he’d let me in, however, and it would be an abuse of my job as a soldier.”

Pippin didn’t entirely understand what Beregond was saying. “Why should you have to use your job? Couldn’t you ask about him as a friend?”

“I cannot ask about this man as a friend. His name is Tarannon, and though he has been one of my friends for years, I would be in severe trouble if I asked after him as a friend.” Beregond’s face hardened. “The reason he is locked away is because he was branded as a traitor.”

The two of them were silent as they walked to the sixth circle, each deep in their own thoughts. Pippin wondered what terrible crime Beregond’s friend had done to have been marked as a traitor. Was that what the burn on his hand meant? Pippin’s stomach churned at the thought. He had never heard of branding a person like cattle before. It sounded as though it was a vulgar practice, one he hoped was not common.

But if it was uncommon, then why was Beregond friends with such a man? If he had done something to merit a brand, then surely it was something bad. But why would Beregond be friends with him? Pippin chased these questions about in circles the entire time.

When the arrived at the Houses of Healing, Beregond took him aside. “Pippin,” he said quietly, “were you forbidden to speak of Tarannon?”

Pippin recalled Miriel saying that few people knew of the man, and how she trusted him. He felt his insides squirm with guilt. She shouldn’t have trusted him that much. “Well, not entirely. Miriel said that only a few people knew about him, and that made me think it was a secret. I don’t think I should have mentioned him to you.”

“No, no,” Beregond said urgently. “I looked for Tarannon after the Siege, but his prison had been crushed by a boulder. I thought he was dead. It’s important for me to see him. You did the right thing by telling me, even though you didn’t mean to. But if you don’t want your healer friend to know that you told me, stay out of sight while I talk to the Warden.”

Pippin nodded and followed Beregond inside, keeping his distance from the man and watching for any healers that knew him. Beregond approached the Warden’s office and rapped on the door with authority. Pippin crouched beneath a nearby table in the hall and listened with his keen ears. The of the Warden’s office opened and he heard the Warden speak to someone within: “Excuse me, Master Meriadoc, I will be but a moment.” The Warden closed the door softly.

“Good day,” he said in greeting. “How may I help you?”

“It is a matter of importance that brings me here,” Beregond said with an official tone that Pippin had never heard him use before. “It is my task within the Guard to find prisoners that have escaped during the Siege. I have run a full check of the lists of prisoners and compared them to the lists of the dead: there were a few runaways who have been apprehended and dealt with, but there are still a few missing. I am conducting a search to find the last of the refugees, and I thought some might have been injured in the battle and are taking sanctuary here. One of the notable names on my list is Tarannon, son of Tarcil. He was in the traitors’ prison and escaped during the Siege. Do you know of any man who has taken refuge here? He would have been favoring his right hand, keeping it covered at all times.”

The Warden’s voice, pleasant before, took on a more serious tone. “I think I know who you mean, sir. Have you come to take him away?”

“No: the laws of this city forbid the Guard to take someone who is injured and resting in the Houses unless they have caused trouble within these walls. I merely wish to see him, to confirm that he is indeed here, that we may take custody of him when he is fully healed.”

The Warden nodded solemnly and motioned towards the door of the room where Tarannon was. “He is in there. Here is the key: the healer responsible for him returned it to me when she left for her lunch. I must attend to my guest. Please return it when you are finished.” Beregond took the key and waited for the Warden to return to his office before unlocking the door.

“Come in,” he said. “There’s nobody coming.”

Pippin left his hiding place and entered Tarannon’s room. Tarannon was sleeping. Beregond shut the door behind them and stared at the gaunt, wasted figure on the bed. “Stars,” he breathed. “He looks awful.”

“Go on and wake him up,” Pippin said.

“I can’t. When someone has been branded as a traitor, communication is forbidden. He must not speak to us, and we may not speak to him, as we risk punishment if we do.”

“But I talked to him,” Pippin said, worried. “Does that mean I will be punished?”

Beregond thought about this for a moment. “No,” he said finally. “I believe that he is not permitted to speak to citizens of Gondor. You are not a citizen of Gondor, so you should be safe from those rules.”

“I can talk to him, then. Or if you want to say something, talk as though you were talking to me. He can listen, and that way you won’t be breaking the law by talking to him.”

“Clever,” Beregond said with a trace of sorrow in his voice. “It shouldn’t have come to this, you know. He should still be a soldier with me, living peacefully.”

“He was a soldier?”

“Yes, but that was before-” Beregond stopped as Tarannon began to stir at the sound of their voices. His bloodshot eyes opened slowly, and he drew in a breath sharply when he saw who stood before him. He opened his mouth to speak, but caught himself. Instead, he swung his legs over the bed and stood, wobbling from his attempt to keep the weight off his broken leg. Beregond went over quickly and steadied him, then wrapped Tarannon in a tight embrace. Tarannon wept, giving a harsh, choking sob as he returned the gesture. When they pulled apart, Pippin saw that Beregond had tears in his own eyes. Pippin was astounded by the amount of grief the two men had. What should have by rights been a happy reunion was instead more bitterly sorrowful than a funeral.

“Pippin,” Beregond said, “I thought he was dead. I looked for him, but his prison was destroyed. I thought he was dead.” Pippin knew this already, but he realized that Beregond was saying this for Tarannon’s benefit. Pippin looked at Tarannon and saw pain there, pain at the knowledge that he could not respond and that he had to be discussed as though he weren’t even there. He must feel as though he doesn’t exist, Pippin thought to himself. “I had given up any hope that I would see him again. Bergil misses him, as do I. And I’m so sorry.”

Beregond helped Tarannon sit down on the cot and spotted the bandages on his wrist. “What’s that?”

Pippin answered for Tarannon. “I think he was trying to cut his hand off, weren’t you?” he said directly to Tarannon. When Tarannon said nothing, Pippin told him, “I’m not a citizen of Gondor. You can talk to me.” But Tarannon kept silent.

“He fears reprisals,” Beregond stated. “He has already been branded and banished, though, so I don’t know what else they could do to him.”

“Banished?”

“Didn’t you know? That’s what happens to traitors.” Beregond’s mouth twisted in a grimace. “A just punishment for some, but not for him.”

Pippin became suddenly aware of how long they had been in there. “Beregond, don’t you think the Warden will wonder what’s taking you so long?”

“You’re right. We must leave.” Beregond looked at his friend with mingled emotions. “I do not wish to go, but we should not be here. I will miss him, and I will try to see him again.” Tarannon looked up at his friend with profound regret and grief as the man and the hobbit left.

Beregond returned the key and proceeded outside with Pippin. The two wandered in silence, not paying attention to where they were going, until Beregond spoke abruptly.

“He tried to cut his hand off?”

“That’s what I think. Miriel told me he stole a scalpel and had cut deeply into his wrist, but they caught him and stitched him up. He tried to do it again today, but it didn’t work.”

Beregond digested this information. “He would have been better off dead, you know. Banishment is a hard punishment, and being branded is painful. My poor friend.”

“What did he do? You never told me.”

Beregond scowled. “It wasn’t his fault. In fact, he saved me from the very same fate. I owe him my life, and I can’t even talk to him. I can’t help but wonder if it’s my fault sometimes. I distracted him, you see. Maybe if I hadn’t been there…”

“What happened?” Pippin prompted.

“Do you remember the day the beacon was lit?”

Pippin smiled inwardly. Of course he remembered it- after all, he was the one who had climbed so high to light it. “Yes.”

“Tarannon was on duty, guarding the beacon. I came to visit him. While we were talking, the beacon caught fire. I don’t know how it happened. Tarannon immediately commanded me to leave so I would not be a suspect. He took the full blame himself; Denethor thought he was the one who had lit it, and said he was a traitor for disobeying the Steward in so great a matter. He had him imprisoned within an hour. Pippin?”

Pippin had stopped in the middle of the road. He wore a twisted expression of deep horror and guilt. “Oh no,” he breathed.

“Pippin!” Beregond’s voice echoed behind him as he fled, but Pippin paid no heed. He instead concentrated on running back to the Houses of Healing as fast as he could. How could he have been so foolish? He knew Denethor would have been angry; why hadn’t he realized that bad things might have happened to innocent people as a result? He had even seen Beregond and Tarannon that day, though he hadn’t known that was who they were at the time. Guilt stabbed at him repeatedly.

Pippin skidded around a corner and bolted for the door to the Houses. He sped past many healers, apologizing as he passed, and came to the door of the Warden’s office, pounding loudly. The Warden opened the door, puzzled with the urgency of the knocking. “Yes, Master Peregrin?” he asked when he saw who his guest was.

“Please, sir, I need the key for the room next door. Please!” he exclaimed before the Warden could ask why. “It’s very important Guard business!”

“Pippin!” Merry called from his seat in the Warden’s office. He was rather annoyed with his cousin’s interruption, as they had been discussing the finer points of herb lore. “What in the Shire’s name are you doing?”

Pippin didn’t answer; he took the key from the Warden’s outstretched palm and unlocked Tarannon’s makeshift prison. Tarannon was sitting on the edge of the cot, head in his hands. Pippin closed the door and ran over to him, apologizing profusely.

“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! I’ll make it right again, I promise. I didn’t know!” Tarannon looked at the frantic hobbit before him, bewildered. “I didn’t know you were the beacon guard, Tarannon. I didn’t know what was going to happen to you.” Tarannon continued to stare at him blankly. “Tarannon, I lit the beacon.” Tarannon’s sickly face drained to a deathlike pallor. Anger flickered briefly in his eyes before he shook his head and turned aside, hiding his face from Pippin’s anxious gaze.

“I’m sorry,” Pippin whispered, his eyes filling with tears. “I can find a way for you to stay, I know I can.”

Pippin watched the Man’s shoulders shudder as he drew breath. “It doesn’t matter,” a rasping voice said, rusty with disuse. Pippin realized that it was Tarannon speaking, perhaps for the first time in a month. “It doesn’t matter,” he repeated laboriously, “if I should stay or if I should go. I care not. What happens to me will happen, whether I want it or not. Let it happen, I say.” The Man lapsed into silence once more.

“Tarannon, please, I want to help you.”

“Leave me,” the Man choked, his voice rough with neglect and emotion. “Do this one thing and give me peace. I wait for my doom, Halfling, and have resigned myself to it. All of my friends believe me to be dead; why should I change what they believe? It will be easier for me to take leave of this city knowing that they will not suffer the thought of me wandering in the wilderness.”

“But Tarannon-”

“Leave me.” There was finality about his tone, coarse though it was, and Pippin found himself obeying. He crept from the room, locking the door behind him, and found himself face-to-face with Merry. One look at Pippin’s ashen, tear-streaked face told him something was very wrong.

“Come on, Pip,” Merry said, putting an arm around Pippin’s shoulders. “Tell me what happened.” Merry took the key from Pippin’s limp fingers and popped his head into the Warden’s office.

“I must be going, sir, I’m sorry. Something has come up.” He handed the key to the Warden and bid him farewell. Merry led Pippin down the hall with a mind to make for their dwelling.

“Tell me as we walk,” Merry suggested, and Pippin began to tell him everything.

Tarannon stared at the wall in his cell, his mind slowly turning over the developments of the day. Many emotions had risen from deep within him- anger, grief, fear, and the slightest sliver of joy at seeing Beregond again. He felt as though he was going to be torn apart by these overwhelming forces, so he lay down on his cot and covered himself with his blanket, seeking the oblivion of sleep.

His imprisonment in the Houses of Healing had not been kind to him. True, his wounds had healed extremely well, but his strength had deteriorated from lack of use. He could not walk because of his leg, and he could not use his hands to keep himself occupied. The fingers on his right hand were hard to move, and his palm protested in pain whenever he tried to do more than curl his fingers. He found himself thinking more, for that was all he had to do. He thought of where he might go once he was released. He considered escape, though it was a passing whimsy on his part. He thought about his friends and what they might be doing. But mostly he pondered on the question that had sent his mind down a dark path: Why?

During his first week, he had been delirious with pain most of the time but had still thought about this. The first why that had set him thinking was, “Why will I not be accepted by the citizens of Gondor?” The answer was simple: the brand on his hand. In his delirium, he had thought of the perfect solution: cut off his hand, and the brand will be no more trouble. He had stolen a scalpel from one of his keepers then, using the sharp blade to slowly slice through his flesh. It would have worked had they not returned and found him nearly fainting in a pool of his own blood. They stitched him up and took away his ill-founded hope.

Tarannon’s link to the world was his healers, a man and a woman. He did not find out anything of the War as they did not speak to him. Therefore he could not know that Lord Denethor was dead and there was a King on the throne; he thought that the Steward still reigned and, for all he knew, the War still raged on. Of his keepers, Tarannon did not like the man at all: he was deft and heartless in his care when it came to attending to his wounds. The woman was kinder, though; she made sure that Tarannon was at least comfortable and gave him small smiles of encouragement. Tarannon had been determined not to like his jailors after his experience in the prison, but he found himself liking the woman in spite of that, and smiled back from time to time.

Even the small kindness of the woman had not stopped him from thinking so much that his thoughts came out in twisted knots. Whys filled his head until he could no longer bear it. Why did they even care enough to heal him if they were going to banish him? Why had he survived his injuries? One that plagued him greatly was how the beacon had come to be lit, which had started the whole terrible plunge in his life. He came up with his own answers, self-incriminating and hateful. The healers were only making sure he lived so Lord Denethor would have the satisfaction of throwing him out of the city. He was alive because he was being punished by some higher force. Fate had led him to be the one on guard that day. All of his answers pointed to one thing: he deserved this. He didn’t know why, but surely he must.

His thoughts became blacker, his temperament more resigned to his fate. He stopped responding to the woman’s kind gestures, preferring to sever his connections with anyone who knew he was in here. The knowledge that he would leave the Houses of Healing, comfortable despite his imprisonment, for a life that held no certainty, was hard to bear. He lived in a perpetual void of numb self-hate and resignation to his doom. It came to the point where he did not notice if somebody came in to tend to him. The male healer had brought him crutches after a few weeks, but Tarannon did not stir from his bed, so they were taken instead to someone who would use them. He ate little and slept for many hours. He only had his thoughts to keep him company, and soon he believed that dark, nasty voice that told him he deserved it, that he should stop caring. And he did.

Until, today, when that Halfling had come in and shaken things up. Tarannon had been absently chafing his wrist against his cot, pursuing that original thought that his hand was to blame. The woman had caught him out again and went to fetch the other healer. She had left the Halfling with him, and he was a Guard of the Citadel! Tarannon felt fear stirring deep in his heart: perhaps his day had come at last, and he was to be sent away. The Halfling, however, did not seem to know of his status, even when Tarannon had showed him the brand. It had been nice to hear a new voice, however strange it was, but he sank back into his numb state soon afterwards.

It was only an hour later, though, that the Halfling had re-opened a wound in his heart by bringing Beregond. Perhaps it set Beregond at ease to know of his friend’s survival, but Tarannon felt only grief: had the first parting not been sufficient? He was tormented by the knowledge that Beregond would know that he lived when he was sent away.

But now… now the Halfling had returned to tell him that he had lit the beacon! Rage coursed through his veins at the very thought, but Tarannon could not support his anger for long. He had no energy, and his anger at the Halfling was wasted. Anger would not fix what had happened, and he had lost his will to care. If the Halfling thought he could sway Lord Denethor to pardon him, that was his affair.

Somewhere deep inside, Tarannon knew that his old self, his self before he was arrested, would have been horrified to see himself as he was now. That old self kept trying to regain the upper hand, but Tarannon pushed it down continuously; he did not like thinking about Before, as he called it, and he loathed himself for his lethargy whenever his old self showed through. His old self would have welcomed the help, even if it was from the Halfling who had started all this, but it seemed hopeless now that he had sent away the one person that seemed to care and had the power to do something.

Tarannon wrapped his blanket tightly around his shoulders and drifted into the refuge that sleep offered, not noticing the tears that slid down his face and soaked the pillow.

“…And then he told me to leave,” Pippin finished. He and Merry were sitting at the table in their kitchen. “His words frightened me. He has lost all hope. He… he sounded like Lord Denethor did before he burned himself. He stopped caring.” Pippin stirred his tea that Merry had made to help him calm down. “Merry, this is all my fault.”

Merry sat pensively for a moment. “No, I can’t say that it is.” He looked Pippin squarely in the eye. “After all, it wasn’t your idea to light the beacon, was it?” he asked shrewdly.

“No, it was… Gandalf’s.” Pippin’s eyes widened. “You don’t think that he knew this would happen, did you?”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Merry said. “I think he suspected that the soldier in question would be punished, but I don’t think he expected that the punishment would be so bad.”

“What am I going to do?” Pippin asked, miserable with guilt. “He doesn’t want my help, but I want to fix this.”

Merry considered this. “I think the best thing to do would be to talk to Gandalf and Strider. They’ll know what to do. If we go now, we can catch them both before dinner and talk to them privately.”

“That’s a good idea.” Pippin set aside his tea mug and stood, hugging Merry. “Thank you for helping me,” he said into his cousin’s shoulder. “I don’t think straight when I’m upset.”

Merry laughed. “I know that well, Pip. Let’s go now, and see if we can find Gandalf and Strider.”

A/N: Because this is a movie-verse fic, Gandalf’s characterization may seem a bit off. I always found him to be… defeated, I suppose. I hope he’s not too unbelievable. I haven’t had much experience writing him before.

Aragorn, Gandalf, and Faramir were finishing a meeting with his advisors when Merry and Pippin found them. Once everyone had left and only the five of them remained, Tarannon’s tale spilled from Pippin, and he watched the looks of horror grow on their faces.

“I feel so terrible!” Pippin cried when he was finished. “I want to help him. I want to fix what I did.”

Silence descended as the three leaders fell into deep contemplation. “The banishment can be turned over by the authority of the King,” Faramir said finally, still shocked at his father’s actions.

“I will gladly overturn it,” Aragorn told Pippin, placing a comforting hand on the hobbit’s shoulder. Gandalf remained silent, his face unreadable as he stared ahead of him.

“Thank you,” said Pippin. “Now, I have a few ideas…”

After talking together for nearly an hour, the five friends parted. Pippin tarried behind, waiting for Gandalf to leave so he could talk to him. The white wizard finally came through the door and Pippin fell into step behind him.

“Gandalf? What’s wrong?”

Gandalf looked at him with a small smile. “It’s nothing. Only that I did not foresee this. I had thought that the guard on duty would be punished, but I did not investigate as well as I should have.”

“That’s what Merry thought,” said Pippin. “I mean, not that you didn’t do all that you could have, because I’m sure you did, under the circumstances, but only that you didn’t know what Denethor would do, and so none of it was our fault, really.”

Gandalf smiled a real smile that time. “Thank you for that, Pippin.”

“Thank Merry. He’s the one who helped me after I found out. Will you be joining us for dinner tonight, by the way?”

“Not tonight, I’m afraid. I have some business to attend to. I shall see you tomorrow.” With that, Gandalf swept down the hall, his white cloak billowing behind him as he walked towards the Houses of Healing.

The tapers were burning down in his room, and Tarannon was deep in sleep. The sound of door opening woke him up and he sat up, sleepy-eyed, as he squinted at the white-clad figure that stood before him. To his great surprise, the figure formed into Mithrandir. His brow furrowed as he stared at the wizard. Mithrandir looked at him with something he hadn’t seen for a long time: compassion. Despite this, Tarannon felt fury flurry up within him. How dare that wizard come here when his Halfling friend had put him here! Mithrandir seemed to be looking within him, and Tarannon felt rather uncomfortable. He looked away.

“Your thoughts are in a dark tangle,” Mithrandir said, and Tarannon felt his cheeks grow hot. So Mithrandir knew what he was thinking.

“Come with me. I have a few things to explain to you.” Tarannon didn’t protest, despite his anger, for he was eager to leave his room. Mithrandir offered his arm as support as Tarannon staggered up, weak-kneed and stepping on his near-healed leg gingerly. Mithrandir lead him through the halls of the Houses of Healing and Tarannon found himself looking at everything, drinking in sights of the outside before he had to return to his prison. He listened to the stirring of other patients and the occasional snatches of conversation and felt a mixture of joy and sorrow as he did so. It was wonderful to be out, but he was sure that the pleasure of hearing other voices would soon be taken away.

Finally, the two arrived outside in the gardens. Tarannon breathed in the night air with relish, feeling some of his bad thoughts wash away with the freshness and beauty of the stars. Mithrandir offered him a place on a stone bench, but Tarannon declined, lowering himself onto the grass instead. He ran the blades between his fingers, feeling the smoothness and nearly weeping at the texture. To think that he had spent a month without feeling grass! An entire month without seeing the night sky! Tarannon lay back in the grass and closed his eyes, forgetting Mithrandir’s presence, and tried to sink into the plant matter entirely, to become a green plant with no worries.

He was nearly asleep when Mithrandir began to talk softly.

“I advised Lord Denethor to light the beacons, and naturally he refused for several reasons, many of them foolish. I must admit, I myself was stubborn. I did not feel reasoning with him would have been productive. I decided to take matters into my own hands.

“I had told King Théoden of Rohan to be ready for the signal of the beacons, so I did what I had to: I instructed Pippin to climb to the beacon and light it. He did so, as you very well know.” There was no pity in Mithrandir’s voice, which Tarannon was glad of; he didn’t think he could take pity at this point. He only heard the voice of a storyteller tinged with sorrow.

“I knew that those on duty would be punished, but I did not think to what extent. I checked the prison records and the list of those on duty at the time, but I could find no correlation between the two. Your name had been struck from the record- you were no longer considered a citizen of Gondor, though I did not know that at the time- and I had no time to question any of the other soldiers. I was planning and giving counsel, and did not think further of what might have happened to you.

“There are two reasons I came here tonight. The first reason is to beg your forgiveness of my negligence and to offer an apology. I should have investigated further, but at the time I found myself enmeshed in preparations for the battle. I am sorry, Tarannon, for the pain that I have caused you.

“The second reason I came here is to inform you of what is to happen in the next few days. When you have been pronounced healed, you will be summoned to Court and pardoned with a full apology.” Tarannon felt his heart fill with hope. A pardon? That was something he had not dared to hope for, not even when the Halfling Peregrin had told him he could fix things! He opened his eyes and sat up, staring at the wizard above him.

“A pardon? The Lord Denethor would do that?” he asked hoarsely, unsure if he should have spoken. Mithrandir gave him a puzzled look.

“Lord Denethor? What have those healers been telling you?” he asked, his voice bordering stormy. For one irrational moment, Tarannon thought Mithrandir was angry with him.

“Nothing,” he answered truthfully.

Understanding lit in Mithrandir’s eyes. “Yes, of course. There are some things you need to know. Lord Denethor is dead.”

Dead? Then who- of course. Why hadn’t he thought of it before? “Please convey my thanks to Lord Faramir for my pardon, sir,” Tarannon rasped, brimming with gratitude.

“Faramir? No, he is not the one who commanded this to be done, although he is horrified at the actions of his father and advocated for your release. The King of Gondor has pardoned you. Yes, there is a King once more. You will meet him when you go to Court. Now I suggest that we return.” Mithrandir rose and offered a hand to Tarannon. He took it reluctantly, not wishing to leave the outdoors.

The wizard began to lead him in the opposite direction from his room. “Where are we going?”

“You don’t think that we were going to let you stay in that room when it was little more than a storage closet? We have secured a room for you with finer furnishings. And a window,” Mithrandir added. Tarannon’s sickly face seemed to glow with happiness. This was far more than he had even dared to imagine, back when he still had hope.

“Thank you.”

“It is not me that you should thank,” said Mithrandir. “It is Pippin who thought of this. He wanted to make things right.”

“Tell him that I am sorry for what I said to him today. I meant what I said then, but I regret it now.”

“You can tell him yourself. The King has granted Pippin a few more days off duty. He wishes to come and ease the passage of the next few days by giving you company that you may speak with. Here we are.” Mithrandir pushed open the door they’d stopped in front of and Tarannon nearly gasped in delight. There was a bed, some chairs, a dresser, a table, a fireplace- even a window! Tarannon seized a chair and laboriously dragged it over to the window, sinking into it gratefully and staring at the sky again. Such a stark contrast to his old room!

“It’s wonderful,” he found himself saying.

“It was recommended by the hobbits. Meriadoc, Pippin’s cousin, stayed in this room. They thought it would be better suited to you.”

“It is. I haven’t had anything this fine since I was arrested.”

“I will leave you to rest. The healers will be in to tend to you tomorrow, and they have been informed that you are allowed to go into the gardens whenever you like.” Mithrandir hesitated at the door. “Do not be angry at Pippin when he comes. This injustice was not of his making.”

“I am not angry, Mithrandir. I am grateful.”

Mithrandir looked into Tarannon’s eyes searchingly and smiled. “I know.”

Tarannon spent a few more minutes at the window, breathing in the sweet outside air as the bad thoughts inside him melted away, slowly being replaced by thoughts of what he would do when he was free. A smile tugged at his lips for the first time in what seemed like ages. He got up and limped over to the bed, slipping between the sheets without any hesitation. A real mattress, clean sheets, and a soft pillow- the world never had anything better than that. He closed his eyes and had the first good night of sleep he’d had in a long time.

The next morning as he was acquainting himself with the room there was a soft knock on his door. He carefully limped over to the door, using pieces of furniture as support, and opened it. The Halfling stood outside, a nervous look on his face.

“Hello,” he said, watching Tarannon apprehensively. Clearly, he feared that the Man would be angry with him and send him away. Tarannon gave him a reassuring smile that banished all of his fears.

“Hello, Master…?”

“Peregrin Took, at your service,” the Halfling said, relief evident in his voice as he bowed.

“No need to bow, Master Took. Please, come in.” Tarannon moved aside so Pippin could enter. “In fact, it is I that should be bowing to you; Gandalf told me that you have not only secured my release, but you have also given me this fine room!”

“I couldn’t very well do nothing, now could I?” Pippin said, almost fierce in his tone. “I had to fix it.” He looked at Tarannon standing by the door on one leg. “I should get you a crutch, too,” he said, then offered the Man his shoulder for support and steered him towards a chair.

“Thank you, Master Took,” Tarannon said as he lowered himself into the chair.

“Just Pippin, please. It’s what everyone calls me.”

“Then, Pippin, might I ask how you are faring in Minas Tirith? I have heard very little of the outside world, and I am very curious to know what has happened in the last month.”

It was like the bursting of a dam; Pippin began to talk about anything and everything concerning the last month. For perhaps the first hour of the conversation Tarannon was very reserved: even though he had told Gandalf that he wasn’t angry, he still was unsure how he really felt, and so he held himself back. Soon, however, Tarannon found himself more animated and enjoying Pippin’s company. There was something about the Halfling- or hobbit, as he insisted- that made him impossible not to like. Tarannon began to talk just as much, the rust and creaking in his voice being worked out more and more until it was nearly back to normal.

Miriel had been told by the Warden that the strange man had been moved, and she couldn’t help but feel confused when she heard where he was now- one of the finest rooms in all of the Houses! If he was a traitor, then how did he end up there?

As she approached the door, she heard Pippin’s voice talking amiably, his tone mirthful. She opened the door to find the man and Pippin sitting opposite one another in the sunlight-flooded room. The man’s head was thrown back in laughter. The care and weariness that had settled around his face over the past month had been lifted away, and Miriel found herself thinking that he looked as though he was free; his face nearly glowed, saturated in happiness. This man who she had watched while he descended into darkness seemed full of light. She had never seen anything quite so wonderful as that.

“Miriel!” Pippin exclaimed with a grin when he saw her. “I told you I’d be back. Sorry I didn’t bring Frodo and Sam like I said I would, but I wanted to talk to Tarannon on my own first. Have you heard? He’s to be pardoned!” He turned to the man. “I suppose you have Miriel to thank, really, because I wouldn’t have met you if it hadn’t been for her.” Tarannon inclined his head towards her in thanks, giving her a real smile. She smiled back and turned to Pippin.

“I just thought I’d look in. I’ve been told to bring a large tray for lunch for the both of you, so I should be back around noon.”

“Could you bring the lunch to the garden instead and bring a crutch here so Tarannon can walk out there? He was just telling me how much he’s missed the outdoors. I mean, if it won’t be any trouble to you, that is.”

“It’s no problem.”

“Wonderful! Thank you,” Pippin said as Miriel left. Miriel walked down the hall, her mind buzzing. Who was this man and why was he being pardoned? She would have to have her own talk with Pippin when he had a moment just to sort out exactly what happened.