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Just Desserts  by Lindelea


Chapter 14. The Losing Toss

The guards picked Will up off the steps, turned him around, dragged him upwards. He'd have painful bruises on his shins later... if there were a later for him, which there would not be, to all appearances.

'You cannot do this!' Pippin cried again, pulling hard at the Steward's sleeve. 'You cannot!' Merry and Sam broke from the guardsmen that hemmed them in, and moved to flank Pippin, their expressions a mixture of defiance and despair.

The Steward looked down. 'I beg your pardon, sir,' he said. 'I do not understand your objection.' Now that it appeared that things were falling into place, he could afford some time to deal with the hobbits and their misapprehensions. They were known for their tender hearts, famous for their mercy (this reputation, of course, reflected men's knowledge of Bilbo and Frodo, the most famous of the Shire-folk, though the rest of the Travellers came in for their share of fame), and for the most part, woefully ignorant of the dangers of the world outside their Shire. Few knew of the patient efforts of the Watchers to keep them safe, over the years. These particular Halflings might know; they might have seen something of the larger world, but still they sprang from a simple folk. Never, it was said, had a Halfling taken another's life on purpose. How, then, could they truly understand the evil that was in the hearts of some Men?

'The King will pardon him, if only you are not so hasty in taking his life!' Pippin said, and Sam echoed him.

The Steward smiled and shook his head slightly. How did these Halflings think they knew better what the King would do, than this Man who had served him faithfully for years, yea, even while Aragorn laboured to safeguard the Shire, long years before he claimed the throne?

'The King may see fit to pardon the old man, certainly, as reward for his actions in saving the sons of two of his Counsellors,' he said. 'Certainly, it is not unheard of, to show mercy towards one who is old and infirm. There's little enough risk that he can do significant harm, even if he does not leave off his ruffian's ways.'

'Jack is not a ruffian,' Pippin said. 'He was never...'

'His son, on the other hand,' the Steward said ponderously, 'is a young man, four-and-twenty, is he not? To pardon him, to set him free once more... think of the potential harm, to set a law-breaker free, especially one so young and vigorous.'

'He scarcely looks vigorous at the moment,' Merry muttered resentfully. The guards were holding Will upright while the noose was fitted. Hunethon wiped his forehead with his sleeve, showing his perturbation, and bent to adjust the knot a second, and yet a third, time. He spoke to the guardsmen, and they loosened their hold, allowing Will to sag... and sag he did. With a sharp word from Hunethon, the guardsmen took Will's arms once more.

'Come along, you,' Hunethon said, frustration in his tone, and he straightened and struck Will full across the face. 'Do you want to feel the rope throttling you? Quick and clean, that's how it is supposed to be...!' This unresponsive prisoner was an affront to his professional sensibilities. Neither he, nor the Steward, nor the guardsmen, for that matter, could imagine that the poor man had been given a powerful draught, all unawares. It was not unheard of for a prisoner to pretend to be overcome, in an attempt to put off the moment of hanging. As for the hobbits, they knew only that something was very wrong. As it was, in any event.

'Cowardly...' one of Jack's guards muttered, and the old man stood suddenly stiff and straight.

'Never!' he said. 'Never was a word further from the truth of the matter!' And he stared, yearning, at his beloved son while his heart seemed to stutter within him.

With one prisoner securely restrained between his guards, and the other on the scaffold, the Steward saw fit to dismiss the errant guardsmen, who were marched away to their barracks at a slow pace, in disgrace, with their colours reversed.

Hunethon struck Will once more, and then stood before him, breathing hard, fists clenched at his sides. 'Very well,' he said. 'I don't suppose you have any last words? Now is the time to say them.'

But Will made no answer; he simply slumped between his guards. He did not tense at this question which signified the imminence of his death. He did not raise his head; he did not clench his fists or test his bonds.

'What if he is not merely being stubborn?' Sam said, plucking at the Steward's other sleeve. 'What if he's truly ill?'

'Then it is a mercy to him, if he's truly insensible, to do this thing now,' the man said quietly. 'Would you have me take him to the Houses of Healing, make him well, and hang him once he's fully aware?' He shook his head. 'If he is refusing to cooperate he will reap the bitterness of his sowing. And if he is ill, or taken with a fit, then it is a kindness to finish this before he rouses.' He signalled to Hunethon, and received a nod in return.

'Now when I say the word, release him,' Hunethon said to the guards, as he moved to take the lever in his hand, the lever that would drop the trapdoor away from under Will. 'Take your hands away at the same time, so close as you can together, that he might fall with enough force to finish him when he comes to the end of the rope.' He had allowed more slack than was usual, in hopes that the additional distance would do the trick, even if it meant Will would hang a bare handspan above the ground. 'Ready...' His hand tightened on the lever. He looked from one guard to the other, and as he pulled the lever, he said sharply, 'Now!'

Several things happened at once.

The trapdoor dropped, and Will with it as his guards released him, and Jack crumpled in the same moment, slumping in the grasp of his guards. Samwise's hands came up instinctively to cover his face, to shield himself from the horror before his eyes, and Pippin gasped and threw his arms around Merry, burying his face in his cousin's shoulder. The gamble was truly lost, and he knew not how he would face Diamond, and Farry, and Hilly for that matter, now that all was said and done.

TBC





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