Chapter 23. Midnight Conversation

Deep in the Citadel, the Steward looked up at the repetition of his name. 'Aragorn?' he said, and tried to shake the muzziness from his head.

'Haldoron,' came the quiet answer. The King walked over to the desk, picked up the bottle, and sniffed at the opening. 'Not even decent drink,' he said. 'If you must drown your sorrows, cousin, at least drink something palatable.' He took another glass from the tray, turned it over, poured it half full, and tossed it off with a shudder. 'Come out of this dark place; we'll open a bottle of what Meriadoc brought from Brandy Hall and talk this over.'

'The Hall's finest,' Haldoron said. 'I remember the look old Butterbur would give you, when you dared to ask for such fine stuff in his establishment. He would rather have served you... this.' He took a last gulp from his glass.

'The best a ruffian could hope for,' the King agreed, sitting down. He poured out into his glass and his cousin's once more, then, taking his glass in hand, leaned back in his chair and put his feet upon the Steward's desk.

'Even though we were as far from ruffians as...' Haldoron began, and stopped.

'As far from ruffians as those men you condemned, Haldoron,' Elessar said. 'How many innocents have you hanged in my absence?'

'Innocents!' Haldoron shouted, slamming his glass to the table such that the contents sloshed over his hand. 'A man, caught in the act of stabbing a sleeping drunkard! Three, who waylaid travellers along the road...!'

'Were they positively identified by witnesses?'

'Of course they were; what do you think of me--that I am such a fool as that? Why, then, did you ever trust me with the stewardship of the North-kingdom?' He gulped at his glass, and putting it down, wiped his splashed hand against his shirt.

'The three on that death warrant were positively identified by witnesses as well,' the King said, tapping the pile of torn pieces with a stern finger.

'What am I to do, my Lord?' Haldoron said bitterly. 'They were in clear violation of your Edict, banning Men from the Shire. To violate an edict of the King is death!'

Elessar, arrested in the act of lifting his glass to his mouth, put the glass down. 'Before you became Steward, when you were guarding the Bounds of the Shire, you exercised judgment,' he said in answer. 'You did not hang every Man who strayed into the Shire...'

'These were not hunters who strayed, nor herdsmen seeking lost animals,' Haldoron said. 'They were deep in the heart of the Shire, admittedly after the Thain's gold... ruffians, in other words, and a perfect fit for the term.'

'And while they were deep in the heart of the Shire, they saved the lives of the wife and child and kinsman of the most powerful hobbit in the land,' Elessar said. 'A perfect fit for the term?'

'Ruffians,' Haldoron said, 'Canny ruffians, not stupid ones. The old man had some knowledge of Shire-folk, and used that, rather than figuring he could triumph because hobbits were smaller and weaker as those Men might think who know nothing of hobbits. Once he realised his peril, he also knew that he had the perfect hostages to guarantee him safe passage.'

'The Thain's wife and son would have been enough,' Elessar said. 'He didn't need to risk his own son to rescue their escort from the bog.'

'Even canny ruffians make mistakes,' Haldoron said stubbornly, and leaning forward, he said, 'They were law-breakers, Aragorn! Deep in the Shire, without excuse, and admittedly after the Thain's gold!'

'And the only good ruffian is the one at the end of a rope,' the King said.

'Precisely!' Haldoron said, but he slurred the word slightly, and so he frowned and said it again, with more care. 'Precisely.'

'Just like the ones who shot down your son, and the other Messengers,' the King said.

'Exactly!' Haldoron agreed, tossing off the rest of his drink and slamming the glass so hard upon the desk that it cracked in his hand. 'Shot them down,' he added, 'shot them from cover, without mercy, just to gain their livery...' He raised his gaze to stare into the eyes of the King. 'To gain their livery...' he repeated. 'To gain entrance to the Shire, during the fever, when you lifted your Edict, at least in the case of your guardsmen, that they might enter the Shire to give aid and comfort to the Shire-folk.'

'But the Shire-folk themselves spoke for these men,' Elessar said. 'First Diamond, and then Pippin and Sam... and Hildibold would have as well, had Pippin not sent him to seek me.'

'And if Hildibold had spoken, had offered his life for Will's...'

'What, then? Would you have hanged the hobbit?'

'How could I, Aragorn? It would have stopped me in my tracks, to hear such an offer and to know that law and honour bound me to accept his life for the ruffian's.'

'Then it was Pippin's error, as well, that put Will at the end of a rope,' the King said, 'in sending his cousin away. But he did not trust you to see reason...'

'And why would he not trust me to see reason?' Haldoron demanded. He reached for the bottle and upended it over his cracked glass, but fortunately only a few drops resulted. 'Have I not ruled competently in your absence? Have you ever had cause, before, to question my decisions?'

Elessar stared at his cousin for a long and sober moment. At last he said quietly, 'Reports have reached me, that since the death of your son you have become hard, and cold, often abrupt and arbitrary in your judgments. Your punishments are harsh, and "justice" is not easily found in the North-kingdom, with the King away in Gondor. I went fishing with your brother, in order to discuss the reports, and what he said only confirmed...'

'Since the death of my son,' the Steward echoed bleakly, and it was as if he had heard nothing else. 'Two years ago, Aragorn, that band of ruffians murdered guardsmen for their uniforms, rode into the Shire, and very nearly murdered the Ernil himself. Had he not been wearing that coat of mithril silver a ruffian's sword would have pierced his heart. And the blow was struck with such force that the Halfling was badly injured, as it was. And false guardsmen--from that same band--intended to murder the Thain's kinsman as they continued to go after the shipment of gold. Deep in the Shire, they were, and after the Thain's gold! No different from...'

'A great deal of difference,' the King said quietly. 'These murdered no guardsmen, took no uniforms, took no lives at all. Rather, they saved lives...'

'Knowingly transgressed the edict,' the Steward said, but his heart wasn’t in it.

'And returned to the upright way, and trod it ever since. Gwill and his sons are highly respected in the marketplace... or were...'

The Steward's shoulders slumped. 'Or were,' he echoed.

'Why did you not listen to Diamond in the first place? You questioned her, you elicited the answers you were seeking, but you heard nothing else that she tried to say.'

'I'd seen it before... by all that is good, Aragorn, you've seen it before, when we were Rangers together, and we rescued those women from the ruffians who'd taken them from their families. They somehow lost their wits, grew sympathetic towards their captors...'

'I think, when hobbits are involved, it works rather the other way around,' the King said dryly. 'At least, in my experience.' He tapped the pile of torn paper again. 'And you are in violation of a direct order of the King, yourself. Shall I order your flogging?'

'Flogging,' Haldoron said heavily. 'I ordered Haleth and all the men under him to be flogged.'

The King nodded. 'So I was told,' he said. 'They must pay the consequences for allowing hobbits to distract them from doing their duty, but as the hobbits involved are likely to step in and demand to take the punishment on themselves...'

Haldoron sighed heavily. 'Interfering little...' he said, not finishing the sentiment for the King's eye was fixed on him, keen and bright.

'I do believe that justice is called for,' Elessar said. 'Dare I leave the matter in your hands?'

The Steward did not bristle, as he might have earlier, but instead favoured the King with a thoughtful look. 'I do not know,' he said slowly. 'Do you dare, indeed?'

Elessar rose and slapped Haldoron on the back. 'There was a reason why I chose you to be Steward to new-built Annuminas and the North-kingdom in my absence,' he said. 'Divided kingdom: whose idea was this monstrosity? I can hardly be in two places at once! That is why I chose the finest of the Northern Rangers to stand in for me, when I must be in the South.'

Haldoron sighed again. 'I do not know, Aragorn,' he said. 'I have failed your trust, and failed miserably. The people say that the King's justice is not to be found in the North-lands, while the King is in the South?'

Elessar said nothing, simply waited.

'And the Halflings,' Haldoron said. 'You were always saying there was more to them than they appeared. But that Bilbo fellow seemed simple enough, pleased to eat and drink and spout poetry...'

'You never took the time truly to talk to him,' Aragorn said, 'or to listen, for that matter. There were always ruffians and foes to be countered, and pressing ever closer to Bree, and to the Bounds of the Shire, and you were too eager to counter them, to sit staring into the campfire and listen to an elderly hobbit wandering from tale to tale...'

'I am not much for tales and fanciful talk,' Haldoron said, 'not like some of my kinsmen...'

The King laughed. 'What you need, my cousin, is a rest from your duties, I think, and more time for listening, and talk...'

'What do you mean?' Haldoron said, rising from his chair since the King showed no sign of sitting down again.

'I think that first of all, you ought to carry out the King's orders,' Elessar said with a nod to the torn-up death warrant. 'And next you ought to take yourself a long walk around the city, to clear the fumes from your head, and be sure that you reach the square before Balanurthon and his assistant, and Haleth and his men arrive in the dawning.'

'As you wish, my Lord,' Haldoron said with an unsteady bow, and taking up the torn pieces of paper he took his leave.