Caution: PG-13. This chapter comprises a conversation between Sam and Tolly, in the hearing of the doomed ruffians, where the hobbits consider a bloody, painful and prolonged death, as practiced by the Easterlings in dealing with child-stealers. And if you are sensitive, that's all you need to know.

Chapter 34. In which a Took considers justice

‘But getting back to child-stealing in the Southlands,’ Sam said, and Tolly blinked, remembering the start of this conversation.

‘Aye?’ he said politely. He really did not want to hear more, but the Mayor was in a talkative mood, it seemed, and in charge of this walking party in any event.

‘After I’d talked things over with the King, I talked with quite a few Men, there in the City, trying to understand. Mr. Frodo was a-working away at his writing, and I was something at loose ends, for I’m no good with words...’

Tolly thought privately that the Mayor was selling himself short, there. He’d heard a few of Sam’s speeches, and stories.

‘Anyhow, I learnt a great deal more about child-stealing than any other hobbit, I’ll warrant, than even the Thain, most likely, for I haven’t shared with him all that I harvested.’

‘You haven’t?’ Tolly said. ‘Not even with the threat to his son?’

‘Do you think I want him to lock Farry in the Smials and never let him out again?’ Sam said.

Tolly walked along in silence for a time, considering. ‘As bad as all that,’ he said, but he was thinking of recent events. ‘And worse...?’ he said slowly, looking from one ruffian to the other.

‘They have—or had, though they’ve been trying to stamp it out, from what I know—child-stealing in the Far East, and the Far South,’ Sam said, as if changing the subject, though the talk was the same. ‘The lords there are quite serious in their dealings, or they were. I don’t know if the King has got them to change their ways in that matter, at least.’

‘Change their ways?’ Tolly said, confused.

‘Do you know what the punishment is for child-stealing, in Far Harad?’ Sam said.

‘How would I know such a thing?’

Sam nodded, conceding the point. ‘The King believes in swift and sure justice,’ he said. ‘You know about hanging.’

‘I do,’ Tolly said, feeling a little queasy.

But Mayor Sam went on, his gaze going from one ruffian to the other as he talked. ‘Quick snap of the neck, and they don’t feel much.’

The red-headed ruffian twitched at this, but remained silent. The brawny man fought nausea at the image that rose before his eyes. But surely things couldn’t get any worse than they were.

‘Well, in Far Harad, they have quite savage punishments,’ Sam said. ‘Do you know, they cut off the right hand of a thief, the first time he’s caught?’

Tolly made a noise somewhere between dismay and disgust. ‘Barbaric!’ he said. ‘Why, and here I thought shunning for a year and a day to be a heavy penalty to bear—nearly unbearable, as a matter of fact! I never once was tempted to steal, after hearing...’

‘And in the land of the Easterlings,’ Sam said, ‘why, they cut a hand and both feet off and reduce the thief to begging.’

‘It’s supposed to make it more difficult for him to steal something and escape,’ the brawny man said. He might as well keep his mind off his troubles by joining the conversation.

‘King Elessar is much more practical,’ Sam agreed. ‘A brand on the hand, and if the thief is caught again, then the hand is cut off. But the thief has a chance to choose to do honest work, to change his life for the better.’

‘Do you really think so?’ the brawny man said bitterly. ‘Do you really think that a man who’s been branded as a thief can find honest work?’

‘He can,’ Sam said, ‘if he’s persistent, and if he’s determined to change his life. It is difficult, but I met a few Men in Minas Tirith who’d changed their lives, after marching to the Black Gate with other Men of the City.’

‘And so what do the Easterlings do to child-stealers?’ Tolly asked, playing right into Sam’s designs. ‘Cut off a hand, and both feet, like any other thief?’

‘No,’ Sam said. ‘It’s quite horrible, what they do, and yet after today I can almost understand.’

‘You can almost understand what?’ Tolly said.

‘I’m not sure I ought to tell you,’ Sam said. ‘Even the Thain doesn’t know. At least, I don’t think he does. I learnt it, you see, while sounding out Men in Minas Tirith. Some of them thought that child-stealers in the City got off much too soft, with a quick and easy hanging.’

‘Easy!’ the red-headed ruffian snorted, but then he pressed his lips together over his broken teeth and resumed his silence.

‘What do they do?’ Tolly said. ‘You cannot bake the cake, wave it under my nose, and expect me not to take a bite!’

‘It’s quite horrible,’ Sam repeated. ‘You see, they hang them up.’

‘Like the Men of Minas Tirith,’ Tolly said.

‘No, not quite,’ Sam said. ‘They strip them naked, first, and they tie their arms behind them, and they put a rope around their chests and haul them into the air.’

‘Sounds uncomfortable,’ Tolly said, ‘but I don’t see...’

‘...and they leave them there, Tolibold,’ Sam said. ‘They leave them.’

‘What?’ Tolly said, confused. ‘For how long?’

‘They leave them,’ Sam said again, and then the Tookish archer understood, and paled, and swore under his breath.

‘That’s right,’ Sam said. ‘It takes a Man three days or more to die, without drinking, but the thirst is hardly any torment, compared...’

‘What?’ Tolly asked, breathless. It sounded awful enough to him, already, stripped naked and hung up and left until one died, days later.

‘The carrion crows,’ Sam said regretfully. He could see that both ruffians were tense and listening. ‘They’re intelligent birds, you know, and cruel. Why, if a little lamb is left alone and defenceless, they’ll swoop down and pluck out its eyes, with no mam or shepherd to drive them away.’

Tolly shuddered, and so did the ruffians draped over the pack ponies.

‘And so, seeing Men hanging helpless, of course...’ Sam said, trailing off to let the awful image sink into his listeners’ minds.

Tolly made a noise of distress, choking, bending, and Sam stopped to steady him. The pack-ponies stopped, too, and the hobbits escorting them called questions and concerns, which Tolly waved away. ‘I’m sorry,’ the Mayor said, thinking twice about his strategy, which seemed to be working too well. ‘I shouldn’t have...’

‘Nay,’ the Tookish archer gasped, white-faced. He retched, but soon controlled himself. ‘It’s just that... I was trapped, upon a time, in a slide, and the crows were coming after me... if the Mistress hadn’t driven them away, they’d’ve had my eyes...’

‘I’m sorry,’ Sam said again, but Tolly straightened in his grasp, looking from one ruffian to the other, understanding somehow, that this was a part of a plan, to punish the ruffians for their evil doings, not just with young Farry but on behalf of all the others they’d maimed and murdered.

‘No, don’t be ridiculous,’ Tolly said. ‘It was but a momentary weakness. It’s passed now, and really, you cannot leave the tale half-told.’

‘Half told?’ Sam said.

‘Aye,’ Tolly said stoutly. ‘Half-told! I imagine the first thing the ruffians lose is their eyes...’

‘Yes,’ Sam said, returning to his course as they began to walk once more. He waved the other hobbits to their posts again, riding before and after them. He didn’t want anyone else to overhear this conversation, after all. Tolly, who knew about child-stealing, and who’d let two Men, trespassers, go free before this, was enough of a witness, and Sam was sure the archer would tell Pippin what the ruffians had suffered, in their last journey.

‘Yes,’ he repeated, ‘the birds delight in going after the eyes. And any other soft parts—they have a banquet to choose from, after all, and all the time in the world to dine.’

‘Aye,’ Tolly said softly.

‘It’s fitting, I suppose,’ Sam said.

‘Fitting?’ Tolly asked.

‘The birds delight in eyes, of course, but as the condemned Men grow thirsty, their tongues swell, and protrude, and that too is a great delicacy in the birds’ opinion, or so it appears.’

‘Eyes and tongues,’ Tolly said, suppressing a shudder. ‘Very apt.’

‘Although if the Easterling lord who has condemned the child-stealers is very cruel, he will have the condemned Men given water, to sustain them,’ Sam said. ‘They might live a week or more, providing sustenance to the birds.’

‘Horrible,’ Tolly said. ‘But apt.’

‘And so, I thought to ask your advice,’ Sam said.

‘Mine?’

‘Yes,’ Sam said. ‘I thought to tell the Rangers about the Easterlings’ treatment of child-stealers. Do you think they’d be interested?’

‘They might be,’ Tolly said. ‘They might well know all about it, already.’

‘Do you suppose that they might try out the Easterlings’ methods on these ruffians, in accordance with the wishes of the Thain of the Shire, and the other Counsellors of the North-kingdom?’ Sam said.

He knew, of course, that the Rangers were too honourable to inflict such torture on any Man, no matter what his crime might be. No, they’d hang these ruffians. At best they’d hope for a bungled hanging, where the ruffians’ necks did not snap at reaching the rope’s end, allowing for a slow and painful strangling. But they wouldn’t necessarily go out of their way to arrange such a death.

‘Have mercy!’ the brawny man exclaimed, driven to speak out.

‘Our carrion crows are just as hungry as those in the South-lands, after all,’ Sam said, as if the Man hadn’t spoken.

Tolly took the hint. ‘Do you think they’d give them water, to stretch out the dying?’ he said.

‘They might,’ Sam said, as if truly pondering the idea. ‘But of course, it might be more just if they were to grow thirsty, allowing their tongues to protrude...’

The ruffians were the ones choking, now. Tolly, while still queasy, had hardened his heart, thinking of young Farry’s terror, remembering the bold black lines inked on the child’s skin, the dreadful “tokens” that, but for a young ruffian’s change of heart, would have been torn from Pippin’s son. ‘I think that would be just right,’ he said. ‘Justice, indeed.’