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To See Justice Done  by Lindelea

Chapter 3. A Fate Worse than Death

Now that Sam had Strider where he wanted him, he was rather at a loss as to what to do with the man.

'Well then,' he said experimentally, wondering if more words would come. Sort of like the way the beans sprout, one time you look at them and there's nothing to see, and suddenly you notice a little bit o' green poking above the soil, and the next thing you know the bean plants is nigh on knee high and growing fast.

But his "well then" wasn't worth beans, so far as a conversation starter. And Strider was no help, sitting there looking polite, with that listening expression on his face.

'Be that as it may,' Sam added in explanation, but no more words came and the King's slightly puzzled expression didn't clear.

He tried again. 'But that's neither here nor there.'

'It certainly is not,' Strider agreed with him. 'What is this all about, Sam?'

Sam planted his hands on his hips once more and glowered at the thick-skulled man. 'That's what I'm tryin' to tell you, if you'd only not interrupt me just when I'm getting to the gist!'

'I beg your pardon,' the King said humbly, and waited.

'Begging your pardon, sir,' Sam echoed, and then he took his handkerchief from his pocket and mopped at his forehead. This was heavy going, and no mistake!

He straightened up. The dawning would be here soon, and doom, and it was his lot to try to set things right. 'It's not right,' he said, groping for the right words, '...not... fair,' and shook his head, for no, that wasn't the word he wanted. Life's not fair, he could hear old Hamfast say in the back of his mind, and if you're gonna sit around on your duff waiting for "fair" you'll gather more moss than a millpond!

It was one of those sayings of his father's that had never quite made sense to Sam, but he'd got the gist.

Gist...

'Not... just,' he said, finding the word he wanted with a sigh of relief.

'Not just what?' the King said reasonably.

Samwise lost his temper altogether. 'Not just to take a man's life for his saving a life!' he snapped, and then he rolled his eyes at himself and shook his head again, fool of a hobbit, but then the man was a King and oughter know better, he ought!

'Justice?' Elessar said, the light dawning.

Samwise suppressed a sigh of exasperation, as best he could. He must make allowances, he supposed, for the man's being too tired to see straight. 'Not just,' he agreed. 'Young Bergil's been waiting, and hoping, and... and waiting, if you must know, through all these hearings you've been having, and hearing how wise and fair your judgments, how just, and now the talk's gone about that you'll hear the last case tomorr--this day,' he corrected himself hastily, for the stars framed in the high window were dimming already. 'And that you'll take Captain Beregond's life, in punishment for saving Captain Faramir's! What sort of sense does that make?' This was an awfully long speech for the gardener to make, but the spectre of Bergil's stricken face rose before his eyes, and his voice grew stronger and more certain as he reached the awful conclusion.

'No,' the King said, and something like pity, mingled with regret, came into his eyes. 'Not in punishment.'

'Surely sounds like a punishment to me,' Sam said truculently, and he swallowed bile at the thoughts he was thinking. Nevertheless, he forced out the words. 'Hanging a man by the neck until he's dead, that's no walk amongst the roses!'

'He won't be hanged,' the King said, stiffening, and then forcing his muscles to relax once more. 'I've promised him a soldier's death, at least. He'll be put to the sword, a swift and honourable passing.'

'Whether you put his head in the noose or strike it off with a sword, it's all the same in the end,' Sam said, and right glad he was of his empty stomach, which was rather trying to tie itself into knots at the topic of conversation. 'What makes Men better than filthy Orcs?'

The King's lips tightened to a thin line, and his eyes flashed. 'There is a great deal of difference,' he said, gritting his teeth, 'as you, yourself, have found.'

'I don't know; I might be having a second thought about the matter,' Sam said, refusing to retreat. 'And maybe it's not such a good thing that the Stewards have given way; Captain Faramir showed his quality, he did, when he had us at his mercy in that waterfall place...' he stumbled over the name, 'Hen... Henneth Annun,' he said at last in triumph. 'And so I'd like to know, where's yours?'

'My quality?' the King said in astonishment.

'Your mercy!' Sam said. 'Do I have to say everything twice?' He began to understand some of his old gaffer's frustration at having to repeat himself when he'd given instructions and Sam's thoughts had been wandering down strange paths, seeking after Elves and other wonders.

'Mercy...' the King grated, and he lifted his hands and held them before the hobbit. 'You asked what makes us better than filthy Orcs.'

Sam nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

'Laws,' Elessar said at last. 'We have laws that bind us to our honour, laws that govern the way we live our lives, laws that establish order, yes, and fairness. Choices have consequences, and it is better if those consequences are set out by laws, that the King and Council be not capricious in their judgments. Orcs...'

Sam waited.

'Orcs have only might, and fear,' Elessar went on. 'They deal out death without any regard for life. The weaker obey the stronger, out of fear, their only aim to preserve their own miserable lives, and their only pleasure in destruction and pain--others' pain.'

Sam nodded. It seemed there was no need, at the moment, for him to contribute to the conversation.

'I take no pleasure in dealing out death,' Elessar continued quietly. 'Not even the deaths of such foul creatures as Orcs, for I remember what they once were. Beregond...'

And Samwise looked up at the apparent change of subject.

'Beregond knew the consequences of his actions,' Elessar said. His look grew far away, as if he were remembering something from years past. 'When love is not enough to keep a soldier at his post, when fear threatens to overwhelm him, then a greater fear may keep him, and turn the tide of battle.'

Sam, his eyes locked on the man's, shook his head slightly.

Elessar smiled, but it wasn't a smile, not really. 'Long has the law been established in Gondor,' he said softly, 'that it is death for a soldier to leave his assigned post, unless relieved or released. Beregond left his post, and his life is forfeit.'

'To save Captain Faramir,' Sam said stubbornly.

'His sword spilled blood in the Hallows, where that is forbidden, and of old, death was the penalty.'

'Of old...!' Sam protested. 'But Gondor's got a new King! Can't you...?'

Elessar was shaking his head. 'What if...' the man said. 'What if every time a new Mayor is elected in the Shire, he throws out all the tradition he doesn't like and tells everyone else how to live their lives? What would the Shire-folk do?'

'They'd throw him out on his ear, and rightly so!' Samwise said, and only then did the meaning of his words strike home to his heart. 'But this is not the same thing at all!'

'Is it not?' Elessar said.

'Is there no other way?' the hobbit cried desperately. Surely he was making things worse, rather than better, as if he were tying the rope around the doomed man's neck with his own hands. Or lifting Sting for the stroke... and then, at a flash of expression in the King's eyes, he grasped like a drowning hobbit at the slightest of hopes. 'What is it?' he said. 'There is another way?'

'There is,' the King said, slowly and reluctantly.

'Then you can save Captain Beregond!' Sam said. Beregond was not strictly a Captain. He'd been a plain man at arms, in the Guard, but after his "treason" he'd been barred from serving until his case was heard. Being a soldier, he'd been the logical choice to lead a company of men of the City to the battle that was Aragorn's last desperate attempt to draw the Dark Lord's attention from Frodo's near-hopeless journey.

The man had given up on his attempt to get Sam to call him by his name only, however, and submitted to the epithet with grace and not a little humour, grim though it might be.

'No,' the King said regretfully. 'No, it would not be a matter of saving him. More like going from the frying pan into the fire.'

'I don't follow you,' Sam said, sitting himself down with a sigh. At best he could envision keeping the King occupied in talk until the time of the hearing... perhaps if Elessar were to miss the appointed time, Beregond would be granted one more day of life before being torn from his family.

'Exile,' Elessar said shortly. 'Being publicly marched out of the City in disgrace, forced to kneel before the gates, a proclamation read over your head, declaring your banishment, while your family and all the people of the City look on.'

'Exile,' Sam echoed with a sinking heart. He tried to imagine himself leaving the Shire, never to return, and couldn't. Throughout this whole long and weary business, his heart had yearned ever homeward. Only his love for his master had kept him on course.

And that thought kindled a sudden dim light into the back of Sam's head, that flared suddenly brighter in understanding, and the beginning of hope.





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