3

King Elessar still found it amazing how someone could take what should be a simple issue and turn it into an hour long appointment. And this had actually gone beyond the hour. Mind, the gentleman’s complaint was valid, but he and the friend he brought as a witness had spent nearly half the hour praising their new King’s decisions and his interest in helping the merchants of Minas Tirith, and now they were making a good deal too much of the lads who were stealing from their shops and booths. They were making him late for the audience Merry and Pippin had requested. Pippin’s note mentioned that it dealt with the matter for which he had requested to be excused from duty, and Strider was interested in what had taken hold of his young knight’s attention.

Finally, the King gave the slightest of nods to the guards at the throne room doors. The only way to be rid of the merchant would be to simply bring his next appointment into the hall.

“And just this week, Your Majesty,” the merchant droned on, “they’ve a new boy with them. A slick hand he is and no mistake. If it hadn’t been for the halfling that is with the King of Rohan staring at the lad, I would never had noticed him at his thieving. I did get a good look at his face and I’m sure . . .”

Strider had been watching Merry and Pippin jauntily approaching in their uniforms. He had just breathed a sigh of relief knowing this would put an end to his current appointment when two things happened that caused the sigh to catch in his throat. The longwinded merchant mentioned Merry, and Pippin stopped in mid stride, nearly falling on his face, as he turned deathly pale.

Merry kept walking. The King started to rise. The merchant turned, saw the two hobbits, and shouted, “That’s him, my lord! That’s the lad who stole from me yesterday!”

Pippin slid to the floor in a graceful swoon. Merry stood gaping at Strider and the merchant.

“Thief! Thief!” the man shouted, pointing at the supine hobbit on the floor.

The guards came running and for awhile all was chaos.

A short while later a contrite Pippin sat in a chair, a reviving drink on a small table at his side. The merchant had been calmed, given a very brief explanation of the matter, paid for his stolen goods and sent on his way with assurances that the young knight would be dealt with. Merry looked a great deal like a ruffled bird. The King, after his initial shock at the revelation, rather enjoyed the bit of excitement that it brought to what had been a boring morning.

Pippin shakily raised his glass. “To Merry,” he said. “My deepest thanks for nearly getting me caught. You only spotted me because you taught me how to pinch things in the first place. You know what to look for.” He drank down a large amount of the liquid in one gulp, shivered, then put the glass back on the table. “What with flogging and hanging, you would have had a marvelous story to tell my family.”

Merry looked indignant, though his heart wasn’t really in it. It would have been horrible to have had his noticing Pippin’s actions be what led to his cousin being caught and executed. “You were still the fool who was doing the stealing, “ he said and raised his glass at his cousin before he also took too large a gulp of the drink. He closed his eyes, looked a bit ill for a moment, then slowly opened them again.

Strider laughed. “Do you two really think there is no recourse for an accused criminal in my land? Pippin would have had his chance to speak. As we just witnessed, the offended merchant himself was touched by the plight of those boys and would not have pressed his charge.”

“But you also told him you would deal with me. Which, by the way, is the very phrase that started this whole situation, or at least got me involved in the situation.”

“And I shall, Pippin. As soon as I can decide what to do with you, it shall be done.” The King grinned evilly at his child-height knight. “I should most likely just turn you over to Frodo, he seems rather good at handling errant Tooks.”

Pippin paled a bit, but quickly recovered. He had worked his way around his eldest cousin in the past.

“Now that we know what Pippin has been doing,” Strider cast a sidelong glance at Pippin to make sure the lad knew he wasn’t out of trouble yet, “what about your concerns, Merry? The note said you also had a matter to bring to my attention.”

“True. Mine is not as dramatic as Thief Took’s,” Merry nodded toward Pippin who waved off his comment but slumped a bit lower in his chair. “It was actually later in the day yesterday as I was walking off my anger . . .”

***********

Merry shoved hard at the library’s doors. He had been looking up Gondorian law concerning the punishment of thieves. The look on his face put off the few guardsmen and nobles of the court who otherwise would have greeted the hobbit. He stared straight ahead not really heeding where he was going as he strode across the Citadel grounds then out into the city.

“Fool! Idiot! Thoughtless, disrespectful, impudent . . . TOOK!” Merry muttered under his breath as he stomped along. “I know he said he’s been a bit bored, standing about at Strider’s side most of the day, everyday. But he also said it was an honor worth being bored. Now this! What if someone else saw him? One would think they would have cried out at once and had him arrested. But what if someone else noticed and they choose to take it to the King personally? It just won’t be possible. He can’t have been spared in all he’s been through to be lost to . . .”

Merry’s discourse on his cousin was halted when he tripped over something and fell flat on his face in the road. Well actually, it was more a path he realized as he started to push himself up. He had heedlessly wandered off the road and into a small park.

“Oh dear! Let me help you up, lad.”

“What? Eh, no. That is, I’m fine. Truly.”

A woman was helping him to sit up. She was neither young nor old, with a pleasant voice and a motherly way about her.

“But really, my lad . . . Oh, my!” she said, suddenly taking in his Rohirric uniform and his furry, unshod feet. “You’re no lad. You are one of the noble halflings.”

“We’re not nobles, good lady,” he hurriedly said, forgetting that as knights he and Pippin were, indeed, nobles. “But what’s this?” Merry asked as he stood and got a closer look at her face. “You are crying! Did I hurt you? Did I fall on you, or was it you I tripped upon? You must be hurt. Here,” he said guiding her to sit on the stone bench she had been sitting on before. “Here. Sit down. I’m terribly sorry.”

“No, it isn’t your fault, Sir Knight. I was . . .” she looked at the handkerchief wadded in her hands. “The tears have naught to do with you, good Sir.”

Merry sat beside her. “Are you hurt or ill, mistress?”

“Hurt of heart , perhaps. Truly, things are not as bad as they might be. I have my dress shop to occupy my days, and sometimes my evenings. But it is after the shop has closed that I miss them most.” She blew her nose into the handkerchief then continued. “My daughter, sweet blessed child she was, I lost seven years ago to an accident. A load on a cart came untied and . . . she was crushed, Sir.”

“You have my deepest sympathies, mistress. Loss is never easy.” Merry said softly. His thoughts strayed a moment to someone else who had been crushed, but survived. He kept moving his hand as though to pat her arm, but wasn’t sure if it was a proper thing to do, so he kept lowering it again.

“My dear husband did not come back from Osgiliath . . .” She gazed out of the small park toward where the old ruined city lay. She gave herself a bit of a shake then looked at the hobbit beside her. “It is the evenings that are hardest, good Sir. When there is no one else about and the house is still. A friend of mine suggested that I go to one of the orphanages and see about taking in a child, but I’m not accustomed to the ways of a babe or small child. I need my days to tend to my shop, to earn my way in this world. It would be a comfort, though, to have someone home in the evening, to share a bit of supper, some conversation or a game of cards. Then to know, even though the world isn’t quite as dangerous a place as it was before the war, it would be such a comfort to know I’m not there alone in the night . . . “

*********

“I spoke with her a while.” Merry took a sip of his drink now that his story was drawing to a close. “She invited me to supper and I accepted, though I did not stay long as I needed to be home to catch a thief.”

“Yes, yes,” Pippin sighed, dismissing Merry’s comment with a roll of his eyes. “Get on with things. You’re getting to the important part now.”

“After finding out what this scoundrel had really been doing, and when he mentioned ideas he had to help the lads, I had an idea of my own.”

“Yes, so we’ve combined them, Strider,” Pippin put in quickly. He sat up now and leaned toward his friend and king. “There are lads in this city that don’t need to be watched all day like faunts, I mean like wee children, but have no home or support. We’re sure there are others in the city like Merry’s widow . . .”

“Erelieva,” Merry interjected.

“Yes,” Pippin said then hurried on. “The lads need jobs to do, my lord.” Aragorn started a bit at Pippin’s formal address, but did not interrupt. He took it, correctly, as reflecting how important this was to his friend. “Some are near the age to join the army and wish to do so as their fathers were soldiers. They can’t join yet, but might they apprentice to the army’s smithies, harness makers, cooks and others? That way they are sort of in the army just not yet soldiers.”

“And could the other lads just be apprenticed in some occupation?” Merry spoke up. “They could work during the day and go home to be with a widow or widower for their evening meal and night’s lodging.”

“Or lodge with their teacher, as is oft the arrangement with apprentices,” Pippin added.

“This would help the boys to not need to steal,” Merry said. “As they could be paid a small stipend.”

“And would help those alone in empty homes to not be so lonely,” finished Pippin.

Strider sat a few moments considering the ideas he had been presented. “Yes,” he said slowly. “And there are many tradesmen who are lacking enough workers to get things tended to quickly. Even though the lads would need to be under an experienced worker at first, the work would soon go quicker.”

“And younger lads, say thirteen year olds, could be put to work doing cleaning up for now, until they are old enough to do a harder job,” Pippin added.

King Elessar nodded. He waved over his adjutant. “First, Ricimer, see to luncheon being brought in. Then you are to join us at table during which time we will put all of this into the form of a decree to help some of the citizens of Minas Tirith.”

The aid bowed and turned to see about the meal when the King stopped him.

“And Ricimer.”

“My lord?”

“See if there is a cell available to lock up a thief.”

“Strider!” Pippin cried out, while the King heartily laughed.

*****************
FINIS