These characters are the property of the Tolkien Estate.
Warning – This chapter contains violence and disturbing material unsuitable for children, and is maybe one of the darkest in the story. It was not easy to write so please only read if you are not easily disturbed.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones. Shakespeare - Julius Caeser 3.ii
The evil that men do
“On your feet, you lazy scoundrel!”
Faramir blinked as he slowly regained consciousness. His whole body throbbed with pain and the stench assailing his nostrils.
For a moment, he wondered where he was. Then he remembered. What had happened while he was unconscious? Panic seized him.
He looked around anxiously for his drunken assailant, but there was no sign of the man. Instead, Mahrod stood looking down at him, grinning at his obvious discomfort.
Faramir groaned and tried to sit up, but the pain in his chest and belly was too great. Even breathing was agony. The sweat poured from his face at the effort of trying to move.
“I told you to get up, you scum!” Mahrod snapped, tipping a bucket of cold and filthy water over the helpless Steward.
Faramir, with a supreme effort of will, managed to drag himself to a sitting position. He tried to stand but his many injuries made it impossible. Coughing and retching, when bile rose in his throat, he collapsed again in agony
“Time you were taught a long overdue lesson, Lord uppity Steward!” Mahrod sneered. He roughly dragged Faramir out through the door and along a narrow dark corridor. He flung open a door to reveal a small windowless room, dimly lit with oil lamps. The room was bare apart the manacles, which hung from the blood spattered walls.
“Strip!” Mahrod ordered, leering at Faramir, "We are going to have some fun together, you and I!”
“No!” Faramir protested in horror, clutching at his clothing with what little strength he had left. It seemed that the unspeakable was about to happen.
When Mahrod began to pull at his clothing, resisting his weak struggles, he lapsed into unconsciousness again.
**
Aragorn strode into the prison and demanded the keys from the startled head Jailor. Ignoring the man’s feeble protests, he marched through the corridors, unlocking each cell and glancing inside, hoping he could find Faramir before he was harmed. His expression became even sterner as he took in the grim conditions and wondered however his sensitive and gentle natured Steward was faring. He made a mental note to improve prison conditions in future. He had had no idea that things were so bad.
The head jailer, a short tubby man, ran after the King and his escort, catching up with them just as they were looking inside the final cell. A man who had obviously lost his wit occupied it. He was screaming that the walls were trying to eat him.
“Where is the Lord Steward?” Aragorn demanded.
“I don’t know, my liege!” the man stammered. “ I wasn’t here when he was brought in. He should be in one of the cells, though!”
Aragorn towered over him, his expression grim. “Well he is not. I have looked in them all and I demand to be taken to him, wherever he is!”
**
Mahrod stood up when a second, younger man entered the room, carrying a cat o’ nine tails.
Faramir, gradually regaining consciousness was writhing in agony and moaning softly.
“A hundred lashes for the traitor, Lamrung!” the older Jailor ordered, looking somewhat furtive. He appeared disappointed that the other had arrived.
Lamrung hesitated. ”I haven’t seen the order sentencing the Lord Steward yet. And the maximum allowed by the law is twenty-five. Less than forty can kill a man!”
“The order will come soon enough. The man is a traitor of the worse kind! He killed the King of Rohan, our chief ally!”
Faramir was hauled roughly to his feet.
“Traitors deserve punishment!” Mahrod said, a note of grim relish in his voice. He secured Faramir’s wrists in the manacles, so that the Steward was forced to stand with his arms painfully supporting his weight.
Faramir was unable to prevent himself crying out at this rough treatment metered out to his already severely wounded body. He felt nauseous and giddy with the pain. He struggled not to shame himself by losing his breakfast or fainting again, as it would appear to the bystanders to be from fear
His heart ached even more, as he remembered how Aragorn had promised him; he would never know ill treatment again. What he had done was bad enough to force even one as honourable as the King break his oath.
“I hope this hurts you as much as you deserve!” Mahrod sneered, greatly enjoying the prospect of seeing his former Captain treated in a far crueller fashion than he ever was. It was a perfect chance for revenge, for who would care what happened to a traitor in prison, Steward or not?
“I’m not flogging anyone without an official order,” Lamrung protested. “The King is meticulous about proper procedure being observed and the Steward is a good man. In any case, I can see he is wounded and regulations forbid flogging an injured man.”
Faramir felt a flash of unexpected joy. Aragorn had not ordered the flogging!
“And who heeds what some bleeding heart behind a desk comes up with? And since when were you a Healer?” Mahrod retorted, ”If we refused to flog them just because they appeared unwell, no one would get what’s coming to them. They’d just keep injuring themselves to avoid punishment! Get on with it, one hundred lashes!”
“I cannot, not without an order.” Lamrung said firmly, “And even if there were one, I would not touch a man in his condition. He needs a Healer!”
Mahrod grabbed the whip from the other’s hand and for a moment looked as if he might strike him. Then he laughed. “It’s not every day you get to give your former Captain a taste of his own medicine!” he roared, “Off with you then, I’d rather flog this one myself. I shall enjoy every stroke! Now we can see what he is made of!”
“You will find yourself in trouble, Mahrod,” Lamrung warned, “you cannot get away with this!”
“And what do I care if they do hang me?” Mahrod retorted, “My life was ruined by our oh so virtuous Steward! He had me thrown out of the army just for having a bit of fun! Not that anyone understood, as my wife left me and my parents disowned me because of it. The only way I could even earn a crust was to work at this place dealing with the scum of Arda! Now be off with you or I might practise on you first!”
Lamrung shuddered as the vengeful gleam in the other’s eyes and fled.
Mahrod grabbed Faramir’s collar and tried to tear open his tunic and shirt but the material, being of good quality, refused to yield. He took a knife from his belt and advanced upon the Steward.
Faramir felt cold steel against his back as his tunic and shirt were sliced open and roughly ripped apart. A piece of wood was then jammed into his mouth to bite on and stifle his cries. He tried vainly to brace himself as he heard the crack of the whip before it could bite into his flesh.
“One!” Mahrod called, lashing out with the whip.
Faramir would have screamed had the wood in his mouth not prevented it, when the cruel knotted strands came into contact with his bared back
Mahrod raised the whip again and struck Faramir with even greater force, this time drawing blood.
“Two, three, four, five!”
Faramir was now struggling to breathe. He felt as if he were choking. His whole body felt as if it were on fire now. The pain in his lungs was even worse than that in his back and he felt as if his insides would burst He could feel death approaching and welcomed it as an end to all the pain.
“Long live the King!” he tried to whisper with what he was certain would be his final conscious breath.
TBC