Caution: This chapter contains some graphic material which might be unsettling.

Chapter 71. Of Endings and Beginnings

Pippin was awake before the dawning, when Denethor tapped lightly at his door. ‘Enter!’ he called.

The guardsman pushed the door open. ‘It’s time,’ he said.

 ‘Yes,’ Pippin answered, his usual smile missing.

Denethor’s glance went to the untouched breakfast tray. Pippin followed and his lips tightened. ‘I don’t know what they were thinking,’ he said. ‘To eat? At a time like this? A waste of good food, as I’m more than likely to lose it again in an hour or two.’

Denethor nodded without commenting. He’d lost the contents of his stomach, the first few hangings he’d seen as a boy. He imagined it must be worse for a hobbit, somehow, who had not been brought up with such justice. The Lord Denethor had enforced the Law without mercy, the last few years of his life, and the people of Minas Tirith had grown used to seeing bodies hanging at the Gate before the War, for by tradition hangings took place at the rising of the sun and the bodies were cut down at sun’s setting, a grim warning to would-be lawbreakers that justice in the White City was swift and deadly.

Pippin had added a fair amount of weight over the last weeks of summer, and though he was thinner than a hobbit ought to be, if one were to judge by Samwise and Meriadoc, he looked hale and hearty to the guardsman’s eye. There was colour in his face, and though the guardsman doubted he’d slept at all, his eyes were sharp and no tremor disturbed his fingers as had been the case only a few weeks previously. Denethor gave a private nod of satisfaction. Pippin was in better health than the hobbit the guardsman had first met at the Bridge in the Spring, and looked to be surviving, even thriving, for some time even if he did not accompany the King to Gondor.

 ‘Well then, what are we waiting for?’ Pippin said with a false briskness, rubbing his hands together as if assaulted by a sudden chill, though a fire burned brightly on the grate.

 ‘I’ll be your escort,’ Denethor said, ‘as well as fellow witness.’

 ‘Yes,’ Pippin said grimly. ‘All of Bill’s rights must be observed, after all. The witnesses whose testimony led to his death must watch their handiwork completed.’

 ‘The King has said...’ Denethor reminded, but the hobbit cut off his words with a sharp slashing gesture. Elessar had suggested that Denethor escort the Thain outside the City and some ways away, to await the King for the rest of the journey to the travellers’ camp, leaving before the Sun arose to mark the end of the ruffian’s life.

 ‘No,’ Pippin said, brooking no contradiction. ‘I’ve made his bed, and if he’s to lie in it, well then, there’s no use my avoiding my duty to tuck him up properly.’

Denethor caught his breath at this hobbity metaphor for such a grim business, but nodded. ‘Very well,’ he said gravely, and respectfully he held the door for the hobbit to pass before falling into step beside him.

The hanging was a grim affair, as hangings ought to be. In those days there was no air of festivity, no barkers selling wares to staring onlookers, no jokes nor coarse jests nor epithets flung at the condemned.

The ruffian did not go quietly to his death, but had to be dragged, whimpering and protesting, up the steps to the scaffolding. He sagged in the arms of the guardsmen and had to be held upright for the fitting of the noose.

Elessar stepped forward to ask, as tradition demanded, if the ruffian had any last words.

 ‘I—I—I—’ poor Man stammered, staring into the King’s face and then looking past him to the witnesses. ‘Please,’ he rasped, shuddering with sobs. ‘Please. I don’t want to die. Please!’

Perhaps he hoped the hobbit would call for clemency, peaceful folk that he came from, but Pippin stood like a stone. Indeed, the Thain was thinking, Neither did Denny want to die, but he nearly did. And Jack... For no trace of the wanderer had been found, though the other ruffian’s body had washed up ashore some miles downriver from the falls. Perhaps the Brandywine had carried Jack down past the peaceful Shire he’d loved, on down to the Sea, and final rest from his wanderings.

The King stepped back and nodded to the drummer, who began a thunderous roll. The ruffian’s lips moved again, his mouth opened wide in unheard screams, and he struggled in the guardsmen’s grasp, though he had to stand upright as they suddenly released him and stepped away. He had to keep his own feet then, or strangle prematurely...

Pippin watched through it all, even when the executioner worked the lever that caused the ruffian to fall, twitching and jerking at the end of his rope. The drumroll continued for another full moment, and stopped.

Denethor found he was grasping Pippin’s shoulder. It was different, to watch a hanging and know that he was one who’d sent the Man to his death. It was much different from slaying a foe in the heat of battle. He swallowed hard, silently commanding his stomach to retain whatever it still held from last night’s meal. He hadn’t been able to face breakfast. He took his hand away again when the hobbit moved, and stood at attention as the King turned towards them.

 ‘Done,’ Elessar said quietly. ‘Will you eat before we go?’

 ‘No, Strider,’ the hobbit answered as quietly. ‘I find my appetite quite taken away.’

The King nodded. Certainly in an hour or two the natural requirements of Pippin’s body would reassert themselves, but he would not belabour the matter here and now, not with the ruffian’s body gently swaying, almost near enough to touch.

 ‘Denethor,’ the King said. ‘The Steward awaits you.’

The guardsman saluted. ‘Yes, my Lord King,’ he said. He was not well enough to continue in the King’s elite guard. Elessar had assigned him to the Steward, the King’s kinsman and a fair and upright Man. There were some benefits to staying in the North until the King’s return, not the least of which had a laughing smile and dancing eyes and the promise of a kiss left upon his lips as he hung between life and death in the House of Healing.

Elessar’s horse stood ready, a laden packhorse beside it, leading rein fastened to the King’s saddle. Pippin, after turning aside to bid Denethor farewell, was able to step from the platform into the saddle. The King mounted behind him, lifted his hand in farewell to the small body of guardsmen who’d attended the hanging, and turned away from the City, urging his horse to a ground-eating canter.

***

They rode through the day, catching up to the travellers in the late afternoon, for truly they had not travelled far—a slow march for guardsmen, an easy walk for hobbits. There was some speculation as to the nature of King’s and Thain’s errand, but Arwen turned a smiling face to all inquiries and Diamond truly did not know what took her husband back to the New City.

 ‘A laden packhorse!’ Merry exclaimed after proper greetings had been rendered. ‘How could you have forgotten such a thing!’

 ‘I’m very forgetful in my old age,’ Elessar said, affecting a quavering voice, while Arwen took his arm and gave it a fond squeeze.

 ‘Yes,’ Pippin said, ‘and he needed my help to remember all that he’d forgotten.’

 ‘You ought to have brought me along,’ Diamond said. ‘I’m very good at remembering what to bring on a journey!’

 ‘You are indeed, my dear,’ Pippin said, drawing her to his side for a kiss. ‘I don’t know how I ever managed without you. Likely we forgot half-a-dozen essentials, even with the two of us, King and Thain, working at the problem.’

When the packhorse was unloaded, preparatory to being turned out to graze, there were exclamations of wonder and delight from the hobbits. ‘Fireworks!’ Hilly said, his eyes glowing.

 ‘Yes, in commemoration of Bilbo’s and Frodo’s birthday,’ Pippin said. ‘It’s today!’

Though the others exclaimed in surprise, Merry nodded. It was one date he’d never allow to pass without noticing.

 ‘O but let us not keep this lovely treat to ourselves!’ Posey said impulsively, clasping her hands together.

At the King’s questioning look, she said, ‘The Gamgees are to meet us at the Bridge, are they not, to bid King and Queen farewell? Can we not have a belated birthday celebration? For the sake of all those little ones?’

 ‘Indeed,’ Arwen said, bending to address the hobbit. ‘I don’t know why I didn’t think of it myself.’

 ‘Merry?’ Pippin said softly, looking to his cousin.

Merry’s abstracted air vanished and he met Pippin’s gaze squarely. ‘It would be entirely appropriate,’ he said. ‘I’m sure both Bilbo and Frodo would heartily approve!’

***

And so it was that the Gamgees and a number of other hobbits beheld the wonder of the birthday fireworks, there at the Bridge on the first day of October.

All the Gamgees, save two, that is.

Rose, though she had insisted that Samwise and the rest of the children proceed to the Bridge for the planned farewell celebration, had remained at Bag End with the newest addition to the Gamgee family, born on the 22^nd of September in point of fact, and named “Bilbo” after an earlier resident of that smial, born in the same room on the same day, many years before.

And Bilbo and Frodo, surely, would have heartily approved.

Note to the Reader: So, what loose ends remain to be tied up, besides Jack and his boys? There is still an Epilogue to come. Comments welcome!