Chapter 4. All Tied Up and Nowhere to Go

'My hands are tied in this matter,' Elessar said, raising his hands from where they had drooped, wearily, in the discussion, and bringing them together as if in truth as well as by word his wrists were bound together. 'The law leaves me no choice in the matter: death or exile, and to a man of such honour as Beregond has proven himself, death would be the quicker and more merciful end.' He let his hands fall to his lap, lax, strangely impotent, palms turned upward as if in silent entreaty, as if he wrestled with this very dilemma, sought some equitable answer, and not for the first time.

'Merciful!' was forced out of Sam, and, 'So you say, but I wonder what Captain Beregond would have to say about the matter. Would he not want to spare those who love him the pain of that parting--when they could just as well go with him, if he had to leave the City. Why, I'd follow my old gaffer anywhere he wanted to go...'

And Sam's mouth twisted in a wry and humourless grin, for that was a safe bet. Hamfast was as bound to home as his name implied. It would kill him to have to leave Number Three, Bagshot Row, where he'd brought his new bride, where his children had been born, where he'd held his wife's hand as illness took her, where he maintained her garden in loving memory...

For the first time, albeit unwillingly, he felt the stirrings of doubt.

'Beregond did indeed have something to say about the matter,' Elessar said, turning his empty palms downward and laying them gently upon his knees.

Sam nodded for him to go on.

However, the King hesitated. It was a private matter, closely held and only himself, Faramir, and Beregond in the knowing. Yet he divined that Samwise was here in great part on Frodo's behalf, Frodo, whose hand like Bilbo's before him had been stayed by pity. Yet Frodo also drew back from laying a burden of obligation upon the people of Gondor and their new King, understanding somehow the fine line that Aragorn must trace, the narrow path he must tread, to establish his rule over the land in the hearts of his people, and with posterity in mind.

But staring into the honest brown eyes before him, he said at last, 'While you and Frodo were under the Eye, as small insects beneath his notice though he could crush you with a shaft of thought, crawling ever closer, the Captains of the West determined that we should draw his attention out of his own land, in...'

'I know,' Samwise broke in. 'It was all in that song the minstrel sang. He told how you all marched to the Black Gate to gain us time, and some measure of safety.' The wry twist returned to his mouth briefly, to grace the final word.

'After the decision was made, and the day before the armies were to march, Faramir came to me.'

Sam blinked a little. He wasn't sure what all this had to do with Beregond.

'Faramir, you see, offered to hear Beregond's case himself, after the army marched away, when none would question his authority to do so, with myself out of the City. He was of a mind to save the man, understandably...'

Sam snorted softly at this, and the King smiled for a brief instant of time before falling sober once more.

'And I agreed that if Faramir was of a mind to do this thing, I would not censure him for it on my return... should I return. We knew not, of course, if there was any possibility of victory at that point. It was a last, desperate gamble in a game where the odds were heavily against us. But it was all we could do.' He sighed. 'In any event, Faramir offered Beregond the choice of exile, and to be allowed to take his family with him, something uncommon, I assure you.'

'Uncommon!' Sam said, startled into speech.

'Cast out of the City, to be a homeless wanderer ever after, with every man's hand against you,' Elessar intoned, and Sam had the feeling he was repeating words he'd heard in some distant past.

'You...' Sam said, a question in his voice.

'Long ago, under another name, I was in the crowd of onlookers,' Elessar said. 'It is a sentence that never shall I lightly administer, nor even consider, ever after.' Indeed, he had known the life of a homeless wanderer, with every man's hand against him, and yet he'd always had hope before him, unlike the wretch whose expelling from Minas Tirith he'd witnessed, all unwilling. Unlike Beregond, should he grant the man exile instead of swift and merciful death.

'So he could leave, and take his family with him, and begin again somewhere else,' Sam said eagerly. 'In the Northlands, perhaps; there's plenty of land waiting there, good land, just waiting for the plough...'

The King's mouth tightened, and the hobbit's voice trailed off uncertainly. There was a short silence.

At last, Elessar said, 'Beregond earnestly persuaded Faramir that he had no wish to drag his family down with him in disgrace. He wanted a chance for his sons to grow to adulthood with their honour intact...'

Sam blinked again, but nodded for the man to continue.

'Faramir came to me once more, to ask me to grant the man a boon, for the sake of the life he owed Beregond, and when I heard it I agreed to hear his plea.'

'His plea...' Sam echoed.

'Beregond asked to join the armies of the West, to go to the Black Gate. He knew how hopeless was the cause. He asked to stand in the front rank of the battle, where the fighting was sure to be most desperate, and he vowed to give a good accounting of himself before he was cut down.'

'Cut down...!' Sam said. 'I've never heard such foolishness in my life! In the thick of it...!'

'Yes,' Elessar said, holding the hobbit's gaze. 'By his request, "in the thick of it". He wished to march to the battle, so badly that he offered to carry a burden and walk amongst the pack beasts if he could not be a soldier.'

'But Gandalf had set him to serve Captain Faramir,' Sam said. 'Whichwise is what I thought was what he was aiming to do all along, saving his life as he did. Why would he choose to leave his Captain then, and march away to battle, if he expected to be cut down and...?' His voice faltered again, and his breath came shallowly as he read the truth in the King's eyes.

He'd thought of such himself, after all, when Frodo had lain still and cold in Shelob's lair, and it seemed all was lost and nothing mattered anymore. There had been steep drops, and cold steel in his hand, and Orcs not far away, any number of possibilities. But in the end he'd chosen to go on, and a good thing too, as it turned out. His selfish choice would have spelled disaster for all of Middle-earth.

'It was not a selfish choice for Beregond,' Elessar said quietly, as if he could read what was in the hobbit's heart. 'He thought only of those who loved him. He would not take them into exile, nor would he have them watch him cast out alone. He would not have them bear the shame of his execution. He chose what he thought was the best way for all concerned. It was a chance to redeem a part of his honour, and save that of his sons after him, if the Darkness should be defeated somehow. Even then he had a glimmer of hope for the future.'

Samwise swallowed hard, and blinked again, this time not in confusion, but because the tears came all unbidden to his eyes. 'But he didn’t die in battle as he'd--hoped,' he whispered. "Hope" seemed a strange word to use in that context and not at all fitting, and yet it fit, in some terrible way.

'No,' Elessar agreed. 'Gimli's "knowing a hobbit foot when he saw one" was a boon to Pippin, and a disaster to Beregond, leaving him once more with the sure knowledge of his family's disgrace, and his own certain fate.'

'But would you not offer him the same choice that Captain Faramir did?' Sam said huskily. 'Would you not show him the same mercy?'

'I would not do him such a disservice,' Elessar said.

'How do you know he wouldn't have changed his mind in the meantime?' Sam challenged. 'I mean,' he stammered, under Elessar's steady gaze, 'now that the peace is won, and the Shadow is gone, and he can go anywhere... why, he could go to Ithilien,' Samwise went on, holding to his point as a dog might hold to the end of a bone when you try to pull it away from him, 'where Captain Faramir is to be Prince.' But the King shook his head, and Sam, startled at this reaction, strove gamely for an alternative. 'He could go to Lossarnach,' he said, an edge of desperation in his voice, 'for he told Mr. Pippin that his people went there, after they were forced from Ithilien...'

The King's eyes darkened with sorrow. 'If only it were so simple a matter,' he said. 'You do not understand, truly, what exile means, Samwise. To wander homeless, with every man's hand against him by decree...'

'I know something of the feeling,' Sam muttered, against his will, for hadn't that been Frodo's lot for much of their journey? The flash of inspiration was fading, but there had been something...

As he nearly grasped it again there came an urgent knock at the door, disrupting his thoughts, and the King rose swiftly to his feet. 'Enter,' he said.

The door opened to reveal Anborn, standing at attention. 'There's an emergency, my Lord,' he said, 'the Lord Faramir sends word that a damaged inn has collapsed in the Second Circle, and several workmen are trapped within…'

Faramir! That was it!

But even as Samwise strove to collect his scattered thoughts from where they'd blown at the door's opening, the King had taken his hasty leave, and Sam's spluttering protest came too late.