2

“Is that stew nearly ready?”

“I’ll take another piece of cheese.”

“This milk is really good! Who pinched it?”

The voices softly swirled around in a ruined building that was tucked against the mountainside in the First Circle of the city. The First Circle had been the most damaged and these areas up against the mountain’s flank were not high on the list for repairs. They had contained mostly storerooms and it was felt to be more important to repair homes and businesses first. Storerooms could wait until nearer to harvest when the need for storage would be greater. Though roofless, a good deal of this large building remained standing, shielding the boys from prying eyes.

“You said you come from up north?”

Adalgrim nodded as he swallowed the bite of bread he had in his mouth. “Aye.”

The twins sat one on either side of the new boy.

“We’re from here,” said Faramund

“From the Fifth Circle,” added Garamund

There was a pause, then Faramund added, “Well we were before the War. Now we’re from nowhere, I guess.”

Adalgrim glanced at the boys. Sorrow marred their youthful faces. “Yer home got . . . damaged way up there?” he asked.

“No, it’s just there’s no one there anymore.” Garamund’s voice faded off.

“Our Mother died three years ago from a fever,” Faramund explained quietly. “And Father was a soldier of the city. He . . . fought on the Pelennor.”

The twins said no more for a few moments.

“I’m sorry,” Adalgrim muttered, keeping his eyes focused on the bread in his hands.

“They tried to put us in one of the orphanages, if you can imagine.” There was a bit of fire in Faramund’s voice. “In with the babes and children. And they treated us as if we were still little boys. Silly games to play and early bedtimes and naps during the day.”

“How old are ya?”

“We’re fourteen,” Garamund proudly said. “Nearly men of the city.”

Pippin held back the chuckle that threatened to rise in his throat. As he recalled, Bergil had told him that a lad had to be eighteen to join the army and twenty to be considered a grown man. The twins were a full six years from their majority. But, Pippin thought, they were definitely not children who had need of nap times. He remembered the visits he had made to one of the orphanages in the Sixth Circle, it was a pleasant enough place but lads this age would not have fit in well with what he had observed there.

“What about you?” Faramund asked. “Why are you here instead of . . . wherever it was you said you’re from?”

“Ma Ma died birthin’ me, and ma Pa was killed by orcs while I was . . .” Adalgrim’s voice failed him for a moment. “I was off with a friend fishin’ at a pond near ta his Pa’s farm. Nigh ta three miles from our place. I came here ‘cause I couldn’ work a farm alone and I had no other family. I thought I might find work here.”

The story had been worked out with Bergil’s help. Pippin was surprised at how easily he played his part, unaware that a great deal of it was the sorrow he felt for the twin’s losses.

“How old are you? You’re shorter than us, though your feet seem a good size. Why aren’t you wearing any boots?” Garamund nodded down at Adalgrim's dry, tough looking bare feet.

This had also been worked out with Bergil.

“I’m thirteen,” Adalgrim replied. “Just small fer ma age, ma Pa always said.” He looked down at his feet. “ ‘Cept fer ma feet and he said I’d grow inta them someday.”

The three boys looked at Adalgrim’s feet. Pippin hoped the hint of darkness from the remains of his foot hair didn’t show in the soft light of the ruined building. No boots had been found that he could tolerate wearing. It had been the hardest thing of all . . . letting Bergil cut then shave off his foot hair.

“Ma boots wore out an’ I’ve not found a pair to pinch that fit me,” Adalgrim explained.

“They’re not that much too big for you,” Garamund said.

“Stew’s ready!” Berthar called out loudly enough for all to hear him, but it wasn’t a shout.

“Stop staring at Grimy’s feet or there won’t be any stew left for you,” Malger said with a laugh as he passed them, using Cunrad’s name for the curly haired boy.

The twins and Adalgrim went to get their share, putting an end to their conversation. The boys all observed the standing silence, then the meal was eaten hurriedly. Each lad left as soon as he finished his meal and within fifteen minutes, the building was empty.

So it went for the next three days and nights. Pippin was Adalgrim, the barefooted boy with the calm demeanor and lightening quick hands. And all the while, he listened. The number of lads in the group at dinnertime changed each day, but he got to know the boys that were the core of the group. Each lad’s tale was similar, though not all were sons of Gondor’s soldiers.

Cunrad’s father had been a shopkeeper. Cunrad had been sent out of the city with the women and children to watch over his aunt who had lived with them. She died of a long standing illness while on the road to Lossarnach and Tumladen. Cunrad returned to Minas Tirith to find both the shop and his father gone. He was sixteen.

Malger, thirteen, stayed near to Cunrad, drawing comfort from the older boy. They had known one another somewhat, their fathers’ shops being near to each other. Malger’s family had lived in a small village in Lebennin until his mother was pulled from her husband’s arms and slain by orcs. Malger’s father barely survived the attack himself and they moved to the city as soon as he had recovered. His father was part of a group of shopkeepers who had some soldierly training and would leave their businesses to help with the fighting. He had died at the gates of Minas Tirith.

Berthar, at seventeen, was the eldest of the main group. His father had been a soldier, a Guard of the Citadel. Bergil recognized him while helping Pippin form his plans and for that reason Pippin had been forced into joining the group alone. Berthar’s story was the same as the twins, though his father had perished before the Black Gates. The prospect of being in the orphanage had been toughest for Berthar. When the war was over and news of his father’s death had come to him, he had only ten months before he would be old enough to join the army of Gondor. But until he turned eighteen, the oldest lad had nowhere he belonged.

The end of Pippin’s third full day of being with the street boys found him creeping silently into the house shared by the Companions of the Ring. He had decided he knew enough to bring the matter to Strider and so would not be going back to the market in the morning.

“Don’t bother lying down.”

Pippin nearly fell over from the start Merry’s voice gave him. He stumbled to his bed, sat down and put his hand to his chest. Merry went to the night stand and lit the lamp before pulling up a chair to sit across from his cousin.

“You’ve been gone a week and all the explanation we get is a hastily written note saying you have work you are doing for Strider and you’ll be back soon. Then today, while I’m taking a leisurely stroll through a market in the Third Circle, what do I see but my cousin, my cousin who is a knight of this realm mind you, out of uniform, in ragged clothes and stealing from a fruit vendor. Stealing, Peregrin Took!”

Merry leaned closer to the wide-eyed hobbit before him. The color had drained from Pippin’s face and he was certain the lad was trembling. “As he should be!” Merry grimly thought.

“What . . . ever . . . were . . . you . . . thinking . . . Pippin?” Merry accented each word with a stab of his forefinger into Pippin’s chest. “Do you know what they do to thieves here? Do you?”

Pippin speechlessly shook his head. Suddenly it seemed that he should have discussed that subject with Bergil.

“They lock them up in a prison for the rest of their life.” Merry paused to let that bit of information sink into Pippin’s brain. “But that is only for an everyday sort of thief. They do even better if he’s a soldier or a noble.” Merry’s voice was getting harsher and tighter with every word, and Pippin felt the look he was getting might set him on fire. “They expect better of soldiers and nobles, Pippin, so they give them a worse punishment. They make an example of them to the people of Gondor. Are you listening to me?” Merry once again poked his finger into his cousin’s chest.

Pippin nodded.

“They flog them. Do you know what a flogging is, Pippin?”

Pippin nodded.

“I thought you did. They flog them in a public square, before they hang them by their necks in a public square. Do you know what hanging does, Pippin?”

“Ki - kills th - them?”

“Yes! Kills them. Kills them . . . Peregrin . . . Took . . . Knight . . . of . . . Gondor!” Merry’s finger once more aided in making his point clear.

Pippin absently rubbed at the sore spot on his chest.

“I wouldn’t worry too much about that,” Merry said snidely as he dismissively waved his hand at Pippin’s gesture. “That won’t hurt at all compared to how your back will hurt from your flogging. Though naught to worry about that either. Your back won’t bother you at all once you’ve been hung.”

Pippin said nothing, he could only sit there and tremble.

“Did you know any of this, Pip?” Merry’s voice had softened. He swallowed hard before he continued. “Did you have any idea at all of what might befall you? Let alone the horrible shame of it all. The shame and humiliation this would bring down on those who have loved you and cared for you. Strider. Legolas and Gimli, Gandalf and Faramir. And us, Pippin. Did you even think what this would do to Frodo? To me, Pippin?”

“Did anyone . . . else,” Pippin choked a bit. He coughed a few times before he could continue. “Did anyone else see me?”

Merry slouched back into his chair, his left elbow rested on the chair’s arm and he rested his forehead in his hand. He shook his head. “I can only assume not, seeing as we are sitting here talking instead of in the prison, awaiting your flogging and execution.”

“I knew it would be . . . terrible if I were caught, Merry. I - I didn’t know they would do all that to me, but that wouldn’t be as bad as hurting all of you. Believe me, I did think of that.”

Merry shifted his head to look at his cousin, his cheek now resting on his knuckles. “Is that supposed to comfort me, Pip? Everything is fine now because, well, you *had* thought about it?” Merry sounded tired, and amazingly like Pippin’s father. Pippin glumly thought, “Why not? He’s heard that tone enough over the years. Why shouldn’t he just use it himself?”

“I had a good reason, Merry. It was the only way I could find out . . .”

“Oh, no!” Merry cut him off and once again leaned forward to glare into Pippin’s eyes. “Oh, no. This wasn’t just to satisfy some curious notion of yours, was it? Because if it was, Peregrin Took, *I’ll* flog you myself. And I’m sure Frodo and Sam, Strider and Gandalf will all want a turn at you as well. Maybe even Legolas and Gimli.”

“No. Well, yes, but . . .”

“Pippin!” Merry fell back against the chair once more, this time both hands covered his face.

“Merry, listen. Please! It was not for me, it really wasn’t. I mean . . . I wanted to know but only so I could help them. They aren’t bad sorts at all. I knew they weren’t. They just don’t know what else to do, Merry.”

Pippin was on his knees clutching at his older cousin’s hands, trying to pull them from Merry’s face. Merry fought the effort for a few moments then let his hands be pulled away. He’d seen Pippin’s pleading looks before, but never quite like this. The lad looked truly desperate.

“They think they’ve no choice. They’re too old to be coddled like faunts, but they’re not old enough to be on their own. They’re good lads, Merry, really they are.”

Merry’s brows drew together and his right one rose. “Who, Pippin? You’re not making any sense, as usual. Start at the beginning, would you, and try to put things in their proper order.”

Pippin shifted his legs out from under himself to sit cross-legged on the floor. He nodded eagerly at Merry. “Well, Merry, I’d been at the pastry shop in the market of the Second Circle a few days in a row and I’d kept noticing some boys . . .”

The tale unfolded in a rather orderly fashion, for Pippin, with Merry only interrupting a few times. Pippin told him every detail he could think of, all about the lads he had become most aquatinted with and how they were doing the best they could with what they had.

“I’ve some ideas on what could be done to help. I came home tonight to get a good sleep, as I’ve not had a good sleep in several days, what with sleeping in doorways and once in a chicken house. Then planned to tell you, Frodo and Sam about all of this and my ideas how to help the lads at first breakfast so you could help me put it all in good form to present to Strider.”

Merry didn’t say anything for a few moments. He had let his eyes wander a bit as Pippin talked, ending up looking downwards. Looking at Pippin sitting cross legged. Looking at his cousin’s feet.

“This is important to you, isn’t it Pip?” Merry softly asked.

That wasn’t exactly what Pippin expected. “Well . . . yes. Yes it is, Merry. Bergil could have easily been one of those lads. The boys I met that first day I was here, all of his friends, it has happened to some of them. Bergil recognized Berthar and he said there are three other boys he hasn’t seen in weeks. That’s why I did all this alone. The plan at first had been Bergil and I together with me being his younger brother, but Berthar knows Bergil.”

“So you pretended to be a Man-child.”

“Yes, I told you that. I told you the story we made up for me.”

Merry finally looked up. It was a strange look Pippin saw in those dark grey-blue eyes he knew so well. Hurt, pride, sorrow, concern and love all flitted through them.

“You shaved your foot hair off.” The same emotions filled Merry’s voice.

Pippin looked down at his Mannish looking feet. “Yes. We couldn’t find any boots we could easily borrow that fit me. They all hurt me. I had to look like a boy.” He sounded as though he was leaving things unsaid as he caressed his hairless right foot with his left finger tips. “It will grow back,” he sighed.

“Well,” Merry said as he sat up. He stuck his hand under Pippin’s chin to make his cousin look up. “You were absolutely, positively, totally daft to go stealing from the merchants. You took the most terrible chance doing that. But,” Merry smiled, “I don’t really see how else you could have learned what you did about those lads. Trying to simply talk to them in the markets and such wouldn’t have worked.”

Merry reached over to rumple Pippin’s hair. “You were doing this to help others and I’m proud of you, Sir Peregrin Took.” He got up, stretched then began to pace a bit. “Interestingly enough, I’ve a situation of my own that I was wondering what I could do to remedy, and your situation may hold the answer.” Merry stopped his pacing to offer a hand-up to Pippin. “I suggest we go to the kitchen, fix ourselves a lovely late night snack, then you can tell me what you have thought of to help the lads and I’ll tell you about the situation I’m concerned with. I think we’re going to find they dovetail nicely.”

“You’re not going to flog me, then?” Pippin asked as they headed out of his bedroom.

“Not yet. But you had better be on your best behavior for a good long time.”