Chapter 50. A Murderer's Lot

Ferdibrand brought Ulrich’s breakfast to the dungeon once more. ‘Feels odd,’ he said. ‘I’d got quite used to seeing you free.’ It grieved him to see Ulrich weighed down again by shackles. On the other hand, he wondered if shackles were enough to keep the Pilgrim from doing harm.

 ‘It won’t be for long,’ Ulrich said quietly. ‘Just the one more meal, as it were.’

In a nearby cell the Pilgrim grumbled and threw his own breakfast at the bars. ‘You have a Fox to bring you your meals!’ he shouted. ‘Why not a poor old Pilgrim? I’d show him proper gratitude, I would!’

 ‘Wring your neck, more likely than not, or tear you limb from limb,’ Ulrich said under his breath. ‘He grumbled and threatened all the night, what he’d do to you if he got his hands on you once more. He took great pleasure in describing his plans in detail.’ He shuddered. ‘He’s worse than the worst that Saruman ever set upon the unfortunates in the Lockholes.’

 ‘What did I ever do to him?’ Ferdi said, honestly puzzled.

 ‘You cheated the flames!’ the Pilgrim roared, brandishing his bandaged hand. ‘This is how they punished me, for letting you get away. Ah, the pain, the agony of burning...’ His voice trailed away into intermingled wails and guttural sounds.

A muted call sounded, and soon there was the sound of approaching booted feet. Bergil called a halt outside the Pilgrim’s cell. ‘The King commands that you appear before him, on trial for your deeds,’ he said.

 ‘Deeds? My deeds? What deeds have I, a poor Pilgrim?’ the madman said, rising from his seat to shake the bars containing him. He dropped his voice to an even tone. ‘Come, let us reason together,’ he said. ‘I have done no wrong. I’m just a poor old Man, unjustly accused of crimes I did not commit.’ His voice rose suddenly as he stiffened, pointing to Ferdibrand. ‘He’s the one! He’s the one you want! He’s the one who did it all! He set the fires!’

 ‘Come along now,’ Bergil said over the tumult. The guardsman with the keys unlocked the cell and Bergil’s four companions moved to take the madman between them, half dragging and half carrying him out of the cell.

Bergil moved to Ulrich’s cell. ‘Had a bad night?’ he asked.

 ‘It was better after they took off the ropes and locked the shackles on him,’ Ulrich said. ‘He stopped shrieking and screaming about Easterlings, then, and settled to muttering for the most part.’

Bergil nodded. ‘I’ll see if I can get you moved to another cell,’ he said. ‘At least you’ll sleep this night.’

 ‘You think so?’ Ulrich said ironically. ‘My last night, and you think I’d spend it sleeping?’

 ‘I would,’ Bergil said practically. ‘So oft the dreams are better than the waking.’ He nodded to the keeper, who unlocked Ulrich’s cell. ‘Come along, Ferdi, they’ll want to hear your testimony.’

 ‘Nell,’ Ferdi said.

 ‘She’s to meet you outside the Hall,’ Bergil said. ‘Pippin is with her, and Merry.’

This trial went much as the previous one the hobbits had seen, except that Elessar had no compunctions about ruling on this case. Elfwine offered evidence about the disappearance of his kinsman, whose bones were found later outside the hut where the Pilgrim had sheltered. Ferdi and Merry gave their testimony about the ordeal in the herdsmen’s shelter, and Nell told her part about that and about her own captivity.

She also tried to speak on Brant’s behalf, for as she’d anticipated, the Pilgrim held sway and did not allow Brant any expression of his own thoughts. The King nodded gravely; he’d known other Men whose minds had broken under such torture. There was no known remedy.

The end was about as everyone expected. The madman was found guilty of the crimes he’d been accused of perpetrating, even Elfalas’ death and that of the guardsman, the Southron, and the half-wit of Dindale, though he raged that there was no proof to tie him to those deaths. There was a short delay as Elessar was pronouncing his doom; Elfwine stepped forward to argue that King Eomer ought to have the right to try and execute the madman, but Elessar disagreed and proceeded to the sentencing: death by hanging at the next dawning.

 ‘At least Ulrich will have some company,’ Pippin muttered at Merry’s side.

 ‘He already had an offer of company,’ Ferdi protested softly. ‘I will stand by him, as I said, even though I must breathe the same air as that creature there.’ He nodded at the madman as the guards stepped forward to drag him back to the dungeons to await his doom.

 ‘He will not hang, not if I have anything to say about it,’ Merry said grimly. ‘Time is wasting.’ He turned on his heel and marched out, pushing his way through the crowd, back to the dusty records. Elfwine caught up to him when he was halfway to the door and the two exited together, the young prince bending to catch Merry’s words as he laid his plans for their last-ditch assault upon the parchments.

***

That evening Pippin accompanied Ferdi as he brought Ulrich’s last dinner. It was difficult to hold a conversation with the Pilgrim muttering near at hand. The madman grew more agitated at seeing the hobbits, and though the guardsmen escorting Pippin and Ferdi spoke sharply, the Pilgrim continued to disrupt the conversation.

 ‘Bergil had said he’d get Ulrich moved to another part of the dungeons,’ Pippin said to the guardsmen.

One of them nodded and answered, ‘I’ll check on it. Perhaps they thought it too much bother, what with...’ he hesitated. He’d been about to say what with the hanging coming so soon. The others heard the unspoken words, of course, for the hanging loomed ever closer.

‘The sooner the better,’ Ulrich murmured wearily. ‘Better than being locked up with only a madman for company.’

‘He goes by two names as well!’ Pilgrim said brightly. With an expressive gesture he said, ‘Give the Man a sword and let them fight it out! Let the best Man win!’ He cackled with laughter.

The madman’s face changed subtly and he said in Brant’s voice, ‘Sooner is better. I cannot escape him.’

‘Why would you want to escape me?’ Pilgrim shouted. ‘Many’s the time I helped you escape! Why, the Easterlings would have roasted you, were it not for old Pilgrim!’ He subsided into grumblings and chucklings while the hobbits looked on in horror and pity.

The guardsman shook his head and left them, promising to return as quickly as possible.

It was a long time before he returned, long enough for the gravy on Ulrich’s plate to begin to congeal, but when he did, he gestured to Ulrich after the keeper unlocked the cell. ‘You’re moving up in the world,’ he said. ‘We found you a new home, quite a valuable piece of land, actually, with a view.’

The hobbits accompanied Ulrich’s shuffling walk up the ramp to the next level, and then the next, and finally to the new cell which of a wonder had a window opening onto the sky. ‘Stars,’ Ulrich whispered.

 ‘It’s all I could do,’ the guardsman said quietly.

 ‘Thank you,’ Ulrich said, holding out a shackled hand.

The guardsman took his hand, gave it a squeeze, released it again. ‘I’ll be on duty when you take the last walk,’ he said, ‘or I’d walk with you. Grace go with you.’

 ‘And with you,’ Ulrich said. The guardsman nodded and turned away.

 ‘What about you?’ Ulrich said to the hobbits. ‘Oughtn’t you seek your rest?’

 ‘I will wait with you,’ Ferdi said. ‘I told you I’d go the whole last stretch, didn’t I?’ He turned a stern eye upon Pippin. ‘You, on the other hand, cousin, need your rest.’

 ‘I...’ Pippin said, but Ferdi would brook no contradiction.

 ‘If you don’t go back to the Houses of Healing by the time the moon rises, Diamond will send healers to carry you off, and how would that look? The Thain of the Shire being carried off to his bed as if he were no more than a wayward lad?’

 ‘Indeed,’ Pippin said dryly.

Ulrich held out his hand with a rattling of chain. ‘Thank you,’ he said.

Pippin took the hand. ‘You’re welcome,’ he said, ‘though I don’t know what cause you’d have to thank me.’

 ‘For the gift of friendship,’ Ulrich said.

Ferdi looked down, cleared his throat and shuffled his feet. ‘I certainly cannot offer him thanks,’ he said truculently. ‘Certainly, he caused me to look at you with new eyes, to become your friend. But now I’ve gained a friend, only to lose him. I’d have been better off without your interference, cousin.’

 ‘Indeed not,’ Pippin said, and turning on his heel he left before any more words could be said.

***

Late that night the three jurors met. ‘Anything?’ Rion said. Turamir leaned forward in his chair.

 ‘Nothing,’ Cuillon said in discouragement. ‘My assistants have gone over the laws and precedents in the records of Minas Tirith until they could recite them in their sleep...’

 ‘But found nothing to save Ulrich?’ Turamir said, his expression grieved.

 ‘Once sentence has been pronounced, it has been summarily carried out. We’ve found no case where a man was sentenced and then somehow escaped his doom,’ Cuillon said.

 ‘Beregond...’ Rion began.

 ‘Beregond’s hearing was delayed,’ Turamir said. ‘Not the sentence. He waited long for his case to be heard. Had the Lord Denethor not succumbed to madness, he’d have had Beregond executed on the spot for leaving his post and spilling blood in the Hallows, without even a trial.’ He grinned without humour. ‘Once the sentence was pronounced, it took effect immediately. He was at once raised to the position of Captain of the White Company. Had the King decided otherwise, he would have been as swiftly put to the sword.’

He had stood at attention in the Hall of Kings that day, with the rest of Beregond’s Company, ready to witness his death. He had watched Targon, Beregond’s oldest friend, draw his sword, ready to give the death stroke at the King’s command. He had stood stunned with all the rest when the King pronounced Beregond’s “doom”: life and honour instead of death and disgrace. He had shouted himself hoarse in the joyous aftermath, and nearly drunk himself into a stupor in the celebration afterwards... Now the old guardsman dragged his thoughts back to the present.

 ‘No hope,’ he gritted. ‘What good is law when it condemns an honourable Man?’

 ‘What good is law when it is set aside on a whim?’ Rion countered.

 ‘This is no whim,’ Turamir said hotly, but Cuillon held up restraining hands.

 ‘One Man cannot bend the law to his will,’ he said, ‘no more may three Men. The Council, perhaps...’

 ‘Given time to study the matter thoroughly, and chew it to death, and tear it to tatters in lengthy discussion,’ Rion said sourly. ‘It is a bad business,’ he added, the worst epithet he could employ.

 ‘A bad business,’ Cuillon agreed, shaking his head. ‘A bad business indeed.’ He sighed. ‘Who is the murderer in this?’

 ‘Not Brandir,’ Turamir said. ‘He executes by command only.’

 ‘Certainly not the executioner,’ Cuillon agreed. He thought to himself that it would be difficult, from this point on, to look at his image in the mirror. He surely felt like a murderer.