Note to the Reader:
You are fortunate to be getting a bunch of chapters just as fast as I can type them in from the written draft, the next few days. I'm going on vacation and really don't want to leave this story hanging... will do my best to get to the end quickly. Since the chapters are very rough drafts, not even seen by my editor, your comments would be very welcome in smoothing out the rough bits. If you notice any contradictions (someone in two places at once, for example) please let me know.

Chapter 39. Rag, Tag and Barrel

Ulrich looked up at the rattle of key in lock, expecting to see Ferdibrand with his covered plate. But no, it was a pair of grim-faced guardsmen.

 ‘Come along,’ one of them said to him, opening the door wide.

Ulrich blinked. ‘It cannot be time already,’ he said. Ferdi had turned away when the verdict was read. Had he refused to bring Ulrich his last supper, as some sort of protest? Was it dawn already?

 ‘Come along,’ the guard repeated through his teeth. Ulrich looked from one to the other. Their jaws were set, their eyes flashed with suppressed fury. Had they heard the testimony? Did they hate him that much? Was it not enough that he was about to pay with his life?

Ulrich shuffled between them at the best pace his chains would allow. He didn’t want to hurry, of course, but with a guard holding each arm in an iron grip he didn’t have much choice in the matter.

What had been an interminably long walk, down, down into the depths, with gates clanging shut behind him, until he felt he’d been buried alive, seemed much shorter, as each step brought him closer to the end. The guards didn’t speak, and Ulrich was silent as well. He’d be asked for his last words when they reached the gallows, after all, and for the life of him he didn’t know what he wanted to say. It bothered him that he’d only have the one chance. What if he didn’t find the right words in time?

Instead of the dusky softness of predawn they emerged into bright afternoon sunshine, though the lengthening shadows portended the approach of day’s end.

 ‘What is this?’ Ulrich said in confusion. He’d never expected to see daylight again, once they’d taken him back to his cell after the trial concluded. O he’d see the light in the sky as the Sun threw her promise into the air before arising, but by the time she peeped over her coverlet, as Ferdi was so fond of saying, Ulrich would no longer be able to see or care.

 ‘Come along,’ his guard gritted. They marched out of the Citadel and down through the gateway to the sixth level of the City. They were taking him to his hanging now? The custom was to march through the dark, torch-lit streets to the funeral beat of a solitary drum.

They marched no further than the sixth level, however. As they reached the Houses of Healing, his guard steered him towards the entrance. Impatiently they shoved him along, barely giving him time to negotiate the broad steps.

The King met them at the entrance.

 ‘What is this?’ Ulrich asked as his guard detail halted and stood at attention.

 ‘Dismissed,’ the King said to the guardsmen. They looked as if they wanted to protest, but saluted and marched down the stairs again.

 ‘Elessar?’ Ulrich said. He was still in shackles, and his old friend looked grim, so he was pretty sure this was not some sort of reprieve.

 ‘Ferdibrand came to me immediately after the trial,’ Elessar said. ‘He asked if he could stand by you at your hanging.’

 ‘He would,’ Ulrich said. ‘It’s the sort of thing he’d do.’

 ‘He didn’t want you to go into the darkness alone,’ the King said low, and Ulrich looked at him in astonishment. Elessar’s voice was husky with grief. Surely not grief for Ulrich...

Without another word, Elessar took Ulrich’s arm and turned into the Houses of Healing. Ulrich shuffled along at his best pace, wondering, until they came to a room where a small occupant lay dwarfed by the large bed.

 ‘Ferdi?’ Ulrich gasped, stumbling forward.

The other booted hobbit was sitting on the bed, holding Ferdi’s hand. He looked up. ‘Go on, Merry,’ Elessar said.

Merry shook his head. ‘How?’ he said helplessly. ‘If I go, I’ll have to face Pippin, and Diamond. Have you told them yet?’

 ‘No,’ the King said. ‘I fear what the news will do to Pippin, in his weakened state. And to tell Diamond...’ Merry nodded. Pippin would know quickly after Diamond was told that her youngest daughters were missing.

 ‘What is it? What’s happened?’ Ulrich whispered.

Merry measured him with a glance. ‘The madman—the real ruffian—has taken Ferdi’s Nell, and Lapis and Lassie,’ he said. ‘Only mercy knows what he intends.’

 ‘Ferdi did not want you to walk alone into darkness,’ Elessar said. ‘I thought you’d like to extend him the same courtesy.’

 ‘He’s dying?’ Ulrich said, stunned, as he sank onto the bed.

 ‘I’ve tried to call him back,’ Elessar said. ‘The injury is survivable. But he’s sinking... he might rally if his Nell were by his side, but she’s missing.’

 ‘I’ll stay with him,’ Ulrich said, ‘for as long as I can.’

 ‘If he lingers past dawn, there will be no hanging on the morrow,’ Elessar said grimly. ‘You may stay with him for as long as need be.’

***

The guardsmen had torn the market to pieces to no avail. Near the entrance to the alley they’d taken apart the broken boxes and pulled the barrels to pieces. They’d scouted further into the twisting alley, but found no sign.

Now as the Sun sank in the west, the dusky alley became dark and silent. There was no sound from the barrel where the little hobbits slept.

***

 ‘It’s nearly suppertime, and they’re not back from the market yet?’ Diamond said.

 ‘Perhaps Nell and Ferdi took them to supper,’ Pippin suggested.

 ‘And they didn’t come by here beforehand, to show off their purchases?’ Diamond said.

 ‘I’m sure there’s a grand surprise in the making,’ Pippin reassured her. It was rather puzzling that no hobbits at all had come to see him for some hours... perhaps Cuillon had made good his threat to place the Thain’s room under quarantine.

 ‘I’ll just go and see,’ Diamond said, brushing a kiss over his forehead. ‘You’re cooler than you were, at least.’

 ‘Ah yes,’ Pippin said. ‘I might die of boredom, but the lack of excitement is helping the fever go down, at least.’

 ‘O you!’ Diamond chuckled. ‘I’ll return anon.’

She did not keep her word. Indeed, a placid old nurse entered the room instead, a woman who reminded Pippin somewhat of his grandmother, only much larger, of course.

 ‘Here now, we’ve sent your missus off to rest,’ she said briskly in answer to his query. ‘She’s not left your side since you were taken ill, and Cuillon decided that she needed to sup and nap a bit lest she fall ill herself.’

 ‘Where is everyone?’ Pippin said, sitting up on his pillows. ‘This place is quiet as a tomb!’

 ‘Master Cuillon sent all the hobbits away, all those that might make noise, anyhow,’ the nurse said, seeing another question forming on Pippin’s brow. ‘Your cousin, the one with the heart trouble, is asleep, of course.’

 ‘Did they send his wife off?’ Pippin wanted to know.

 ‘No, she’s holding his hand, last I looked.’ The old woman twinkled at him from under her prodigious eyebrows. ‘Do you want me to do the same for you?’

 ‘No, many thanks; that won’t be necessary,’ Pippin said hastily. ‘It’s the sort of thing we only require of relatives and relations.’

 ‘Ah,’ the nurse said with a nod. She’d got a slightly different impression, looking in on the ruffian in his shackles, holding the hand of the injured hobbit and talking softly to him. 'Would you like me to sing to you, then?'

 'That won't be necessary,' Pippin said, shutting his eyes and slumping down on his pillows, just as she'd intended.

When he cracked one eyelid open, she was still watching him closely. He shut the eye again and sighed. It wasn't long, however, before he was truly asleep, to the old nurse's satisfaction. She pulled her knitting from her bag and settled down to a long watch.

***

After the initial hysterics Diamond had settled to soft, hopeless weeping. ‘He has my babies,’ she said over and over again, rocking back and forth as tears poured down her cheeks. ‘He has my babes.’

 ‘Eregeth is sitting with the Ernil i Pheriannath,’ Cuillon said, entering quietly.

Elessar nodded. He held Diamond’s hand in one of his, patting it with the other. ‘We’ll find them,’ he said. ‘We’ll bring them back to you, I swear it.’

 ‘How?’ Diamond said, raising her ravaged face to meet his. She shook her head and was again bowed down by the weight of her grief. ‘My babies,’ she whispered. ‘He has my babes.’

 ‘We will tear the City apart, stone by stone,’ Elessar said grimly. ‘Both above the market level, and below. No one gets out of the City, no one at all. Guardsmen and Men of the City will go to search in pairs. Evict the occupants of every house; search every wardrobe, trunk and corner. Slit open the mattresses if you have to, and look in every cupboard, every cellar, every box and barrel in every alley.’

 ‘Evict the occupants...’ Bergil said carefully.

 ‘Not even an old granny in wrapped in her shawl is immune,’ the King snapped. ‘Carry her out, rocking chair and all, and be sure to search underneath the shawl!’

 ‘Yes, sir!’ Bergil said sharply, and saluting he turned on his heel and hurried out.

***

The Sun was gone from the land, and lamplight shone from windows as the people of Gondor sat down to their suppers, all, of course, except for those who were evicted from their homes as the search widened.

In a darkened alley leading from the deserted market square, a whimpering sound came from one of the barrels that had been somehow overlooked in the earlier hasty search. Of course, it was several twists and turns away from the market; that might have had something to do with it... undoubtedly the guardsmen would have returned to it in the course of the greater search, but then, they thought this part of the City had been covered already.

The whimper came again. ‘What was that?’ old Grendil, a rag-picker said, straightening to ease a back that had been bent too long.

 ‘Puppy?’ said his grandson in a bright, hopeful voice. He was always hoping to find one, had found several as a matter of fact, but all had been claimed by owners and he had yet to have a dog of his own.

 ‘People ought to be more careful of their pets,’ Grendil grumbled. ‘You get a dog to kill rats, you oughtn’t let it wander when it’s too young to go off in the dark.’

 ‘The last pup I found, the owner gave me a reward,’ the grandson said hopefully. ‘And if we don’t find this one’s master, I can keep’m, I can!’

 ‘How’re we going to feed a dog?’ old Grendil grumbled. ‘We have hardly enough to feed ourselves!’

 ‘He’ll catch rats and eat them,’ the grandson said practically. His eyes were shining. Perhaps this would finally be his very own pup!

The shadowy figure of a guardsman entered the other end of the alley, not far from where the pup was whimpering. ‘Here now!’ he said sharply!’ What are you doing?’

 ‘Picking rags,’ Grendil said unperturbed. ‘As I always do, after market closes.’

 ‘Well do your rag-picking somewhere else,’ the guardsman snapped.

 ‘Can’t,’ Grendil said practically. ‘They’re searching the City, turned everyone out.’

 ‘Searching...’ the guardsman grated, his voice bleak. Grendil couldn’t see his face under the helm, not even by the light of the torch he held. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Pick your rags and get out of here.’

 ‘Yes, my lord,’ Grendil said. It was prudent to be over-polite to guardsmen. He didn’t want to spend the night in the dungeon. What would his grandson do?

The Pilgrim spun away and marched off down the alley. He’d have to come back when the beggars were gone. His thoughts turned to what the old Man had said. Searching the City? He didn’t like the sound of that. He’d told Brant to stay and watch the hobbit-mum, but he’d better go back to see if the half-wit had followed orders...