Warning: This chapter contains some rather graphic material. If you are squeamish, all you need to know is that the Steward redeems himself in the only way he knows how, at the moment.

Chapter 25. Consequences

Haldoron's voice was quiet, but clearly heard in the silence that followed the Steward's command to wait. 'Unbind them,' he said. 'Release them.'

The crowd held its collective breath as Balanurthon hooked the whip on his belt, lifted one guardsman's bound hands from the hook on the post, and pulled on the tail of the cord to free the man. As Hunethon belatedly was releasing his man, Balarnurthon helped his man to pull undertunic, hauberk and surcoat back over his head, settling the clothing into place, and then he bent to pick up the man's belt and handed it over. All then turned to give attention to the Steward.

Haleth held his breath. A few hours before dawn he had composed a succinct note to the Steward, leaving it on the man's desk that Haldoron might see it before coming out to the whipping ground, asking that his men be released from the punishment due them, for the fault was his. He'd had charge of the men; they'd followed his lead. He'd take his stripes. The fault was his alone.

The Steward met the sergeant's eye and gave a brief nod, and Haleth let out his pent-up breath in relief, though his stance of strict attention never wavered.

'You have heard the charges against these men,' Haldoron continued. 'To be found in dereliction of their duty in time of war would call for a sentence of death.'

The crowd waited, tense.

'But this is not time of war, I am happy to say,' the Steward went on, his voice mild, his tone reasonable. 'The penalty that I pronounced yester eve was mild by comparison: ten strokes for each guardsman, and fifty for the sergeant, reflecting his greater responsibility.'

A few grey heads nodded in the crowd, retired guardsmen, for the most part.

'However, I am grieved by the knowledge that a greater injustice has been done...' Haldoron said, and Haleth tensed again, wondering what this might mean. Greater injustice? Greater penalty?

Haldoron slowly drew from under his cloak a folded paper. The hobbits hidden in the crowd craned to see around the tall men in front of them. The Steward unfolded the paper, revealing its contents: torn strips of paper, one piece still bearing a wax seal as bright as a drop of blood.

'This is a death warrant,' the Steward said solemnly.

He had the crowd's full attention. Had Haleth been condemned for his dereliction? Why was the warrant torn?

'There are three names on this warrant,' Haldoron continued. 'Three who were condemned to hang, by the word of reliable witnesses. Haleth and his men escorted them to the gallows, and guarded them there, awaiting the executioner.'

A murmur rustled through the crowd like a sudden breeze, and then all were still again. Rumour had said that the youngest, a youth, had been spared, but now... had he been hanged as well?

'Three who, by the word of the same witnesses, ought to have been held for examination by the King. As it was, the King wrote out a pardon for the three condemned men, early this morning.'

'Great good it does them now,' one old soldier whispered to another.

'Haleth and his men were... distracted from their duty by the interference... intervention of those who knew that the condemned men had earned the pardon of the King, the remission of all penalty because of their courageous and selfless actions. While Haleth and his men were clearly in neglect of their duty, the fault does not lie with them. Had they done their duty, three upright citizens would lie dead this morning, their lives unjustly taken.'

Someone moved uneasily; such was the silence on the square that the scrape of his boot against the stones echoed clearly.

'As it is,' the Steward continued, 'two of them lie in the Houses of Healing, even now, and one of them near death. And all because your Steward would not listen to the witnesses, because he was neglecting his own duty... my own duty...' he amended, 'to see justice done.'

As the crowd watched in wonder, the Steward walked to the firepit and laid the torn-up death warrant upon the coals, where the paper caught quickly. The blood-red wax of the seal melted and ran, as if the paper bled, and then flared up, bright and brief its passing.

'And so,' the Steward said, 'I am here this morning to see justice done. It is my last official act as Steward to the North-kingdom.'

Elessar's hand tightened on Pippin's shoulder. Pippin himself was breathing shallowly, wondering what it all meant.

Haldoron turned to Balanurthon. 'I will pay their penalty; I will take their stripes,' he said.

One of the retired guardsmen standing near the hobbits muffled an oath. One hundred fifty lashes!

'Sir,' Balanurthon said unsteadily, but Haldoron was holding out his hands to be bound, and rather than to be found in neglect of his duty, Balanurthon found himself automatically binding the Steward's wrists.

Haldoron walked to one of the posts and lifted his hands, laying the binding cord over the hook, and bent his head. With a look from Balanurthon, Hunethon removed the Steward's cloak, folded it over his arm and laid it aside, removed the Steward's belt and lifted Haldoron's tunic over his head, to rest on his arms.

Pippin fought a sudden sickness and felt Merry take his hand. The King bent to murmur, 'You are not the only one whose cousin was taken by Orcs.' It did not matter which of the two hobbits he addressed. Sam bit his lip hard, and Ferdi and Hilly turned away from the scars revealed on the Steward's battered body.

'You cannot,' Pippin said, and the words were a nightmare echo from the previous day.

But, 'Wait,' was the King's answer.

Balanurthon took his stance to one side, nodding to his assistant to take up his own station. Samwise squeezed his eyes shut as the flogging began, but he jumped at every painful sound--each blow a reminder of Frodo in the tower--though the Steward himself made no outcry. The other hobbits watched in horror, and Ferdibrand grabbed at Pippin's arm. 'Can we not stop...?' he began, but a fierce glance from the Thain stifled the rest of his protest. They were not in the Shire. This was the justice of Men, if you could call it justice. As for the man in their midst, he stood, stiff and silent, as if he were a mere statue and not a man.

As the measured blows continued, Haleth's hands clenched to fists. He'd take his fifty whacks, he would, even if it meant countering a direct command of the Steward. What would the man do, after all, double the strokes due him?

The alternating lashes were drawing blood now, not merely leaving weals, and Balanurthon's lips were set in a thin line, his face like stone, when the Steward slumped under the punishment.

Immediately Hunethon straightened, his lash hanging at his side, and he looked a question at his superior. It hardly seemed meet to throw a bucket of cold water over the Steward, to revive him, that the flogging might continue.

Arthad moved in, conducted a brief examination, and looked up as the Steward stiffened under his gentle touch. 'He's awake,' he said, and stepped back. Though his instinct was to begin to treat the bleeding slashes at once, he knew he must wait until all was done and the man's hands unbound. Then they'd sit him down--or lie him--upon one of the stone blocks that waited nearby.

Hunethon and Balanurthon straightened and raised their arms once more, to resume the slow and dreadful count, and Haleth was about to call out, to demand his own due, when a man pushed to the front of the crowd, a small group of hobbits in his train.

'Stay your lashes,' he said, pulling back his hood and opening his cloak to reveal... mail-clad and girt in silver: the King! 'It is enough,' he said. 'Justice has been served.'

'But,' the Steward slurred, wagging his head weakly in protest.

'You have paid for your dereliction; it is enough--more than enough,' Elessar said, no room for contradiction in his tone. 'Let the healing begin.'