Orc in Ithilien

Chapter 18: The go-between

Ludlow was cowering to Shagrat’s body – or possibly it was his corpse, because the Uruk hadn’t shown any signs of life for quite some time. The resident Orcs were ignoring him, being otherwise engaged in the heated argument that had been raging since he and Shagrat arrived.

“’Experience in command’ you say?” Azof was yelling. “But fucking Shaggers knows sweet fuck-all about that!”

“Dokuz was our boss,” Rukush repeated slowly.

Azof shook his head in disbelief. “What about Dokuz?” he snapped. “Dokuz was as bad as he is!”

Rukush didn’t bother to reply, because he was determined that the train of thought he was on – simple as it was - was not under any circumstances going to be derailed. “And before that,” he said deliberately, “Shagrat was Dokuz’s boss.”

Azof could easily see where this was heading. “But Dokuz and all of us wouldn’t of gotten inter this mess in the first place,” he protested, “if it hadn’t been on account of that bloody great wanker there pushin’ in and stealing our friggin’ booty!”

“No, but I reckon,” Rukush continued resolutely, “that has to mean Shagrat should be in charge. You did say we needed a new leader, Azof. Matter of fact you were just sayin’ that when they brung ‘im in here.”

“’Appen that means it’s a sign,” another of the Orcs from Dokuz’s gang put in, sniggering under his breath. “Gotta be, dunnit!”

“Stop stirring the shit!” Azof yelled back at him, appealing to Rukush to keep order. “Rukush, tell ‘im! Tell Nazhtuk, all right? Who asked you anyway, Nazhtuk? It’s got bleedin’ bugger-all to do with you!”

“Well ‘ee’s gettin’ right on my tits, in’ ‘ee!” Nazhtuk protested. “He’d do anyone’s head in. Azof!” he shouted back at him. “Oi! Azof! I reckon you’re the great steamin’ wanker, if anyone is!”

Rukush was sensibly ignoring this foolish exchange. “Still, out the lot of us, Shagrat has got – the most experience in command, and that, hasn’t he?” he persevered.

“Experience in command? Fucking fuckwitted Shagrat?” Azof screeched again. “All that useless tosser’s ever done keep his brains in his prick and lose everyone the plot! Put Shaggers back in charge? Never in this world! I’ll gut that miserable dick-headed twit myself, with my bare hands, if I have to!”

With this he leapt towards the injured Uruk, his back hunched over and his claws flexing threateningly.

As he ran at him, Ludlow knew without doubt that he was done for. By bracing one end against the ground, he’d justabout been succeeding in propping Faramir’s sword up in what he’d hoped was a good defensive stance. As Azof approached however, he realised that he’d no chance whatever of protecting himself, let alone an unconscious Shagrat from the furious, charging Uruk.

But Rukush stepped bodily into Azof’s path then, flexing his shoulder muscles in a way that all at once added a surprising amount of bulk to his silhouette, that it had not possessed before. He stopped his opponent with the palm of his hand placed flat in the centre of the smaller Uruk’s chest, and though Rukush himself didn’t move an inch when Azof ran into him, the force of Azof’s rebound very much suggested that he might just have met with a near-immovable object. Knowing when he was out-matched, Azof backed down immediately.

“It’s decided?” Rukush said to him. “Anyone else got their two-pennorth’ to put in?” he asked, calling over to the other Orcs and Uruks, who were hanging back as far from the entrance gate as possible. They shrugged and mumbled among themselves non-commitally.

“We’re none of us even arsed, Rukush,” one of them shouted back eventually.

“They’re saying you can do whatever you bloody well like!” Nazhtuk, the Orc who’d been arguing with Azof earlier added.

“And I was only saying,” Azof grumbled. “Can’t a body even speak his mind, these days?”

Rukush took no notice of him. He picked the still-trembling Ludlow, who kept on trying to point his sword, up off the ground and deposited him a short distance out of the way. “Maz!” he called, “Oi! Maz! Come and have a look at this!”

Maz was the smaller Orc who’d accompanied Dokuz and Azof when they’d been pursuing Shagrat and the Hobbit. He sidled towards them across the compound.

“Oh, is everyone from your gang here then?” Ludlow exclaimed in surprise.

“Near ‘nuff,” replied Rukush. “’Cept - except for poor old Dokuz,” he gulped, with something that sounded suspiciously like a sob.

“But – but how did you all get captured?”

“We was ambushed,” growled Azof quickly. “By townies. Almost a whole villageful, while we all was – was indisposed. It weren’t a fair fight.”

“’Indisposed’?” Nazhtuk scoffed. “That what you call it Azof? Pissed out our faces, more like it.”

“Well? What of it?” Azof snapped. “You got sommat against a feller’s ‘aving a drink of his own grog?”

“No, nuffink,” the other Orc commented, and then snidely - “but you was supposed to be keepin’ watch.”

“And I weren’t the only one!” Azof blustered.

Nazhtuk said nothing for a while, but then in quiet but distinctly audible voice muttered: “…..useless slacking Uruk fuckwits….”

Azof turned on him. “What did you call me?”

“Ignore ‘em,” Rukush advised the Hobbit, who was watching the new and escalating argument anxiously. “Azof’s always trying to pick a fight with someone.” He bent down and began prodding curiously at Shagrat.

“Get your grubby mits out, Rukush!” Maz ordered, on joining them. “Last thing he bloody needs is you poking around in there.”

Rukush’s grubby mits were soon replaced by the – to Ludlow’s eye - equally filthy digits of the Orc Maz, who carried out a thorough though dreadfully unhygienic examination of Shagrat’s wound. As there was little else that could pass for entertainment in the stockade, and they were soon surrounded by a mixed crowd of Orcish and Uruk spectators.

“Blade’s nicked ‘is spleen, most prob’ly,” Maz concluded at length, “which’d explain all this shit –“ he gestured dismissively at the masses of clotted blood and gore - “but only a little bit, or he’d ‘av well pegged it long before now.” The other Orcs, all of whom had through hands-on experience an above-average understanding of basic physiology variously nodded in agreement.

“Ee’s lucky, actually,” Maz continued, “seein’ how it ‘as all bled out, look? Worse thing about this kind of blade-stick is if it goes under the skin, innit? When it can’t come out it sorta goes down into yer belly, dunnit? After a bit it swells up and blackens your guts and then you’ve ‘ad it.”

“Anything we oughter do for him?” Rukush wanted to know. “Stop him dying, I mean?”

“Best leave it,” Maz thought. “Could do more harm than good, if we was to start guddling about in ‘is insides. But ‘ee’s done ‘imself no favours, going walkabout on it the way he went, and if ‘ee comes a cropper, it’ll be that what’s caused it.”

“Shouldn’t we sear it off an’ seal it? Stuff like that?”

“That might ‘elp,” Maz replied mildly, thinking that if nothing else, the procedure Rukush was suggesting might prove to be a bit of a laugh. Getting up he went over to the meagre fire the Orcs had been feeding with splinters of excess brash gleaned from the walls of the stockade. “Oo’s got a bit a’ metal we can heat up on ‘em, then?”

*********

After leaving her husband engrossed with his latest Orc, Eowyn made her way to her counsellor Hrodgar’s quarters, where she and Faramir had arranged they would meet. Though the old man had managed to hide the full extent of his dismay when he heard that his protégée had imbibed a drugged draught intended for Faramir, he was terribly concerned for her and had been all day, and when she arrived alone to see him he seized the opportunity to assess her health. Hrodgar measured Eowyn’s pulse and tested her reflexes, and after smelling her breath and looking closely at the pupils of her eyes was able to conclude that she appeared to be in fine physical health. “You should notice no long-term effects,” he told the Lady. “But what possessed you to drink any of that medicine? It was intended for your husband, alone.”

Despite the unworried air he was affecting, Eowyn had not failed to notice Hrodgar’s anxiousness and was exasperated by his duplicity. “That was no ‘medicine’!” she cried. “More akin to a fast-acting poison! With what manner of preparation did you have me dose him?”

Hrodgar gave her a thoughtful look. He hadn’t quite appreciated Eowyn’s naievety in this matter. “If you recollect, you told me you wished to have him ‘stopped,’ and quickly,” he reminded her. “I did no more than was necessary to accomplish that.”

“But not at the expense of my husband’s health!” the Lady protested. “I tasted the smallest measure, and the effects are with me still.”

The old man waved Eowyn’s objections aside. “There is every chance he should probably, given time, make a full enough recovery.”

“Do you mean a recovery from his original malady? Or from the effects of the ‘treatment’ we applied in our pretence of curing it? For I see now that it has been no more than a deception, from that first day.”

Hrodgar pointed out that she, Eowyn, had been a willing enough accomplice, initially at least. “You must have noticed his symptoms worsening, as time progressed.”

“And neither would I count myself as blameless in this!” Eowyn cried. “I could not help but see how ill that brew – truly a sorceror’s potion! - was making him, yet I refused to recognize it. As well as poor Faramir, I have knowingly deceived myself.”

“If there was any deception it was wholly justified,” her advisor replied. “Since by his actions the ‘poor’ and ‘princely’ Faramir has qualified himself to expect nothing better from us than our ‘deceit.’” To hear his Lady berate herself over her husband’s sordid conduct was infuriating, and by now Hrodgar was trembling with indignation, keenly-felt on Eowyn’s behalf.

“You should not speak so, Hrodgar,” Eowyn said kindly. She was shocked by Hrodgar’s bitter tone and wanted to soothe the old man, but could not let his recent actions pass without comment. “Though I trusted that your fealty to me, at least, would keep you acting in good faith,” she said.

“As for faith, what is your husband to me!” Hrodgar retorted hotly. “In truth, did he not bring this on himself? That he could dishonour you in such a manner! Casting you aside for the foul embraces of that creature -”

Her face blotched red and white with embarrassment, Eowyn explained that she herself had been the instigator of any ‘casting aside’ that had gone on between her and her husband. “I left him, Hrodgar, with little explanation and after only a scant few months of marriage. And he did not take up with the – with his Orc, for some time until after I had already left.”

That following his Lady’s desertion, Faramir might actually count as the injured party in all of this hadn’t occurred to Hrodgar and he was completely thrown when he heard it, but any further discussion between them was cut short because at that point the Prince himself arrived for their scheduled meeting. With a tentatively polite greeting, Eowyn tried to welcome him, but Faramir dismissed her, angrily demanding that Eoywn and her adviser should account to him for their recent behaviour instead.

“Though it’s more time than I can spare,” he told his wife, “I’ll give you five minutes to explain to me exactly what you and your right-hand Rohirrim henchman have been plotting around here.”

Hrodgar straightened his back, and Eowyn saw that the proud old man was preparing to step forward and accept blame for everything that had happened. And Faramir’s mood looked dangerous; he might even consider himself quite within his rights to begin extracting immediate and bloody retribution from her elderly assistant. Quickly she put herself between the two men. Wringing her hands in genuine distress, she gazed beseechingly up into her husband’s face.

“Faramir, I can’t begin to tell you how much in error we have been,” she said. “It’s all happened by the most dreadful, ghastly mistake.”

*********

Having little patience for listening to the two Rohirrims’ obviously prevaricated tales of ‘awful misunderstandings’ Faramir was back with the Orcs a short while after that, and following a briefly shouted altercation with the guardsmen at the gate, was admitted to their compound. The Orcish inmates had fallen back as he arrived and were keeping as well away from him as they had from the oversized sword Ludlow was carrying; they were all clearly at pains to avoid anything that could be misconstrued by their captors as an act of aggression.

Kneeling down beside the Hobbit, Faramir was demanding to know how Shagrat was faring. After concluding the interview with his wife he had positively run to join Ludlow at the injured Uruk’s side. His voice was shaking and the poor man seemed quite distraught, so feeling sorry for him, the Hobbit explained that Rukush and the others had been trying after a rather barbaric fashion – for the reek of singeing Uruk-flesh was still hanging heavily in the air - to treat Shagrat’s wound, which might just prove not to be a mortal one after all. Faramir’s joy and relief were so obvious when he heard this that Ludlow had even been thinking about revising his first impression, which was that the Prince seemed to be a decidedly cold fish, when the hood of Faramir’s cloak, which until then he had been wearing up over his head against the cold winter night, fell back. The yellowish strands of his fair hair glinted dully in the light of the lantern he was carrying.

The Hobbit jumped up in surprise and then staggered a step back, staring at him open-mouthed, completely dumbstruck.

“You’re Goldilocks!” Ludlow exclaimed, finding his voice at last. “It’s you! You’re Goldilocks, aren’t you?”

The Hobbits Faramir had known before were an aimiable, easy-going bunch; to a man generous and kind-hearted, open-minded, and above all tolerant. This one however, appeared to be far more than shocked – he was clearly appalled by him, and Faramir wondered what he could have done to deserve it. Inclining his head slightly, he affected a bored and drawling tone to cover his wounded feelings. “Shagrat did use to call me that sometimes, I’m afraid,” he said. Dreadfully over-familiar, but what else could you expect from a person of that sort? You’re - ” he stopped, searching for an appropriate word. He knew very well that the Uruk didn’t have friends. “You’re an associate of his, are you?”

“Yes. I am. I’ve grown very fond of him. And I have to tell you that because of it, I can’t say I entirely approve of this,” the Hobbit replied, just as stiffly.

“You don’t approve?” Faramir blurted out, his composure all but gone. “What don’t you approve of, exactly?”

“I don’t approve of you,” Ludlow said bluntly. “Prince or not, I think he could do better. I think he deserves someone who treats him better.”

Faramir gaped at him.

“He’s had a hard life, the Hobbit added. “Those terrible scars. I couldn’t even begin to think how a person could possibly get scars on their – well! I mean they’re everywhere. All over him. You must have seen.”

At this Faramir felt a quick and completely unreasonable pang of jealousy. Of course he had seen, because the marks that past violence had left on Shagrat were impossible to miss, but he wondered when and under what circumstances the Hobbit had had an opportunity to do so, since keeping himself completely and permanently covered with clothing was practically an obsession of Shagrat’s.

“He’s an Orc,” Faramir explained. “He served as a solider in the Black Army for longer than you, or I, or anyone we’re likely to know about could reasonably think of. I can’t pretend to know everything that happened to him in Mordor, but of course he’s had a hard life.”

Ludlow said tartly that he wasn’t talking about that.

“Well?” Faramir prompted.

“You can’t tell him!” the Hobbit cried agitatedly, “Because I’m sure he doesn’t know he’s doing it, and you know what he’s like. He’d be hopping mad if he thought anyone had heard. It isn’t all the time. Only once – or twice at most, in all the time I’ve known him! If he’s not been eating properly, or after he’s had the stuffing knocked out of him again. And I tried not to listen, honestly, but sometimes he’d be so loud I couldn’t help it.”

“Explain to me what you’re talking about?” Faramir asked, trying hard not to lose his temper.

“Sometimes he talks in his sleep,” the Hobbit said, “if you can call it talking. Screaming and – and pleading for help, more like it. ‘Help me, Goldilocks. Please don’t leave me like this, Goldilocks.’ What did you do to him? You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

Faramir was silent for a moment, considering the awful concept that his past conduct to Shagrat might have been bad enough to bring on habitual nightmares in an Orc.

“Bad dreams?” hooted Azof, who’d moved closer to listen in on them, at which Faramir started up in surprise. “Bollocks to that!” the Orc jeered. “That’s rubbish.”

“Take no notice,” Ludlow advised. “He’s a known troublemaker. He’s no idea what he’s talking about.”

Meanwhile, the various guards who were keeping watch outside had been eyeing Faramir’s antics with growing disapproval. “My Lord,” one of them called to him then. “At the boundary of our encampment - there is something we think you ought to see.”

“Can’t you deal with it yourselves?” Faramir snapped.

“But we cannot tell how it might comply with – your earlier orders, Sir. It may be another of – the enemy.”

Pulling the Hobbit after him, Faramir set off to investigate. Not far away, just at the outermost edge where the lights of the campground merged into the night, Shagrat’s Warg was pacing back and forth. It was being watched by an anxious group of Rohirrim guardsmen.

“This – mutt - is surely the beast that was accompanying the fugitive in Ithilien,” the guard who had fetched Faramir said.

Even at this distance Faramir could hear his company’s horses screaming and stamping agitatedly in their paddock. They had obviously caught scent of the wolfish creature from clear across the campground, and were already half-mad with fear from it. Seeing that the monstrous animal before them was no ordinary beast, Faramir gave his men the order to prepare to shoot.

“Wait! That’s Shagrat’s!” the Hobbit protested. “You can’t! It’s completely harmless!”

Unfortunately the Warg had turned to face the armed men, and at that point was snarling and slavering away like a good ‘un, effectively demonstrating Ludlow’s words to be utterly false.

“But usually it’s very well behaved!” the Hobbit protested. “I mean – before it’s always done whatever Shagrat tells it!”

“Does it attack when he tells it?” Faramir countered. “Half a dozen of my men would swear they’ve heard that happening for themselves.”

The Hobbit said that he didn’t know about that. “It comes to heel when it’s – attacking - if Shagrat tells it,” he said. Quickly qualifying this he added: “but that only happened the once, after someone was trying to – to ‘work him over.’ It’s never gone for anyone unless it’s been provoked. It seems to be quite protective of Shagrat.”

Faramir muttered under his breath that it clearly wasn’t the only one. “’work him over’?” he said.

“It was awful. Azof and Dokuz said they were going to ‘stove his head in,’” Ludlow explained. “Where is Dokuz, incidentally? He’s not indisposed as well is he?”

“’Indisposed’?” one of the men behind him scoffed. “More like - ‘beheaded!’”

Ludlow caught his breath in horror at that, as if realising for the first time the true seriousness of the Orcs’ situation. He had surreptitiously begun moving sideways while he was speaking, so as to place himself directly between Faramir’s men and the Warg. As if that was going to make any difference, Faramir thought, eyeing him sourly, and wondering whether he ought not just to have the annoying little blighter dispatched as well, two for the price of one. It could look like a dreadfully unfortunate accident easily enough.

Realising that everyone was watching at him, Ludlow began backing further away, trying to distract their attention, while at the same time shooing the Warg off. “It being protective of Shagrat is - a good thing.” he said and then -

“(Get lost!)” as he directed a quick, hissed instruction over his shoulder at the animal -

And back to Faramir again - “since he obviously needs someone to look out for him.”

Faramir and his men looked on in bafflement, as the Hobbit’s parenthesized dialogue continued:

“Because I’ve never known –“

“(Clear off, they’re going to shoot you).”

“- anyone for getting into such scrapes as he does.”

“(Go away, just go).”

“It’s quite remarkable. You know, practically everybody he meets – “

“(I mean it, please, leave!)”

“- seems to have it in for him for some reason.”

Eventually Ludlow ran out of steam and had to stop speaking. He’d given a diverting performance, but it represented the shortest stay of execution for the Warg at best.

“You’ve done what you can,” Faramir told the Hobbit, “and nobody would say it wasn’t a brave attempt, but you’ll have to stand aside now. I won’t be answerable for what happens otherwise.”

But Ludlow was having a brainwave. “Perhaps it doesn’t understand!” he pleaded. “Shagrat always talks to it the way that Orcs speak to each other! Maybe that’s it!”

Faramir looked undecided, and then decidedly uncomfortable. Not meeting the gaze of the guardsmen close to him he stepped forward after a moment and said something to the Warg, two or three words growled out in a consonant-heavy, harsh-sounding, snarling language, all delivered in an imperious tone that brooked no disagreement.

The Warg hesitated. Faramir, flinging his arm out in an obvious ‘go away’ gesture repeated what he’d said, and then to Ludlow’s amazement, the animal retreated a few skipping steps backwards, turned, then trotted away.

Ludlow stared at him. It wasn’t a subject he was inclined to give much thought to, but he supposed the Prince, despite the abrupt and off-hand manners he’d been demonstrating that night might be said to be a attractive enough prospect - as far as social position and a fadingly handsome face went, at least. But up until that point the Hobbit had really been struggling to tell what on earth Shagrat could possibly see in him.

The guardsmen however, far from being impressed by Faramir’s actions were exclaiming angrily amongst themselves. “What did you say to it, my Lord?” demanded one of them, asking what guarantee there was to stop the animal returning.

“I wouldn’t attempt to hazard a literal translation,” Faramir replied. “But I should think the creature’s got the message. I’d be surprised if we haven’t seen the last of it.”

A fresh round of muttering and whispering between the guards commenced.

“Well?” Faramir said. “Spit it out. Is there something you wish to discuss with me?”

“It’s just there’s been - talk,” the first guardsman replied.

“What kind of talk?” asked Faramir, as if he couldn’t guess what – or rather, who, they’d all been talking about.

“About you, Sir and – well, them,” the man continued, nodding over in the direction of the Orcs. “And after what we all heard just now - some of us’d like to know how is it that your Lordship’s come to be so well acquainted with that dreadful language.”

“He was using that black speech of theirs like a native, and it’s not right,” one of the Rohirrim men stated angrily. “I say his Highness’s under some dark enchantment – just like they say he was last time, at the end of the War.”

Faramir shut his eyes. He’d been wondering how long it would take someone to make that rather obvious connection, and had been dreading it. His treatment of Shagrat earlier that evening, though partly borne of panic had also been a last-ditch effort to throw the others off the scent. Faramir knew there was little chance now of reconciling his company to the fact that in their eyes, he treatment of the Orcs was far more lenient than it should’ve been.

Unfortunately the assembled guardsmen seemed quite willing to accept the preposterous idea that the Prince was not in full possession of himself, and their mutinous grumblings immediately increased. “Yes,” Faramir heard more than one of them agreeing, and: “not as if this hasn’t happened to him before.”

“He’s been sleepin’ the best of the day away,” the first Rohirrim continued, his voice getting noticeably louder as he stirred up the other troops. “And we’ve seen narry hide nor hair of him, since his Highness’s only been venturing out at night!” This was quite true; Faramir’s altered pattern of wakefulness was a side-effect of the drug-dose-regieme Eowyn had been following. “It’s claimed he was taken ill but what if everyone was covering up for him instead? This is wizard’s work, if ever I’ve seen it.”

The situation might have been about to turn ugly, but just then Faramir received assistance from a most unexpected quarter. The Warg-startled horses had brought all the Rohirrim, including Eowyn and her counsellor out to investigate. On their way back from ensuring that their panicking animals were in no immediate danger, the pair of them had noticed Faramir, apparently in the middle of trying to single-handedly quell what had every appearance of being some kind of armed uprising.

Rightly or wrongly Hrodgar still didn’t care much for his Highness the Prince, but he counted Eowyn’s reputation as quite a different matter. Hrodgar had distinctly heard some loud-mouthed person impugning his mistress by doubting her word and absolutely refused to stand for it. For an elderly gentleman he could move with a formidable turn of speed and he crossed the short distance over to the troops and was cuffing the Rohirrim who’d been speaking heavily round the head before most of the men there had even registered his presence.

“’Everyone covering up,’ say you?” the old man bellowed. “So, you’d think of censuring ’everyone’? I remember you, Rrof-sig Silgmunn-son. Rrof-sig the empty-headed loud-mouth, the despair of your good father. I see the years have not yet taught you when best to hold your tongue!” He seized Rrof-sig by the ear and twisted it, catching the rabble-rouser by surprise and causing him to wail out in protest. “Spreading lies and gossip about your elders and your betters!” the old man continued, yanking viciousy at the Rohirrim’s ear-lobe. “For shame! Apologize to the Lady Eowyn at once!”

“And to my husband,” Eowyn murmured -

“Also apologize to me, myself!” Hrodgar added.

“Beg pardon, Milady, and Sirs,‘meant no disrespect I’m sure,” Rrof-sig grovelled. Despite his being almost twice the size of the decrepit counsellor who had seized him, it didn’t occur to him to resist. Hrodgar was well-respected by his countrymen and had instructed most of the Rohirrim men present at some time during their youth. His treatment of the burly guardsman - exactly like a naughty school-boy caught in some trivial bit of mischief – took them all back to the time they’d spent under his tutelage in the classroom, and though the bulk of an average Rohirrim’s education took place out of doors, Hrodgar was always remembered by anyone who’d been his pupil as the strictest of disciplinarians. He dropped hold of Rrof-sig, and clicked his tongue theatrically. It was exactly the type of irreverent gesture needed to defuse the stand-off, and the tension that had been hanging over the group disappated at once.

“Sir?” prompted the first guardsman, looking directly to Faramir – for the first time in days - for his orders.

“That’ll be quite enough for tonight,” Faramir replied, and told the men to go about their business.

Eowyn, her husband and her counsellor waited together until the other men departed, then began a slow walk back to camp.

“Well, Faramir,” she said at last, “perhaps now, at least, you can be happy.”

“’Happy’?” he replied irritably, still affected by the stressful after-effects of the recent confrontation. “Why would I have I reason to feel so, Eowyn?”

“Since the Orc that arrived tonight is the one you have been searching for.”

Feeling foolish, Faramir said he didn’t think she’d noticed.

“I still have eyes in my head, Faramir,” Eowyn said quietly. “And even if had I not recognized him for myself, I would still have known from seeing your look what that creature was to you.”

“Now you have the Orc you wanted,” Hrodgar broke in, not even attempting to conceal his continuing disapproval, “would it be safe to assume we may begin dispatching the others in the morning? Assuming of course that the remainder are surplus to your Highness’ – special requirements.”

“Hold on a minute,” Ludlow squeaked, “that’s hardly going to be fair on everyone else, is it?” He was so indignant that he even forgot to be embarrassed for barging in on a conversation that strictly speaking, had little to do with him.

“The Hobbit’s right,” Faramir agreed quickly. “Those Orcs can’t be charged with any specific crime. We don’t even know for certain that they were planning to engage in mischief.”

“I’m not accustomed to asking Orcs for an account of their future intentions!” Hrodgar replied. “It’s safest to assume they intend nothing but harm, and to pre-empt it wherever possible – which is what I am suggesting.”

Eowyn was also unconvinced. “All we know of their kind is that they exist with but one purpose, and that is to enact the most savage acts of violence.”

Though he had seen enough of Orcish private life to realize there was some truth in this, Ludlow didn’t entirely agree with what Eowyn had said. He wondered how he could possibly phrase his objection in a way that would be acceptable to the senior Rohirrim. “It isn’t as if all they’re interested in is – well, the messier sides of life anymore.”

Hrodgar snorted condescendingly at him. “By ‘messier sides of life’ I presume you must mean ‘rampaging bloodily about and causing widespread carnage’?” he said. “Rest assured that in our homeland we have been subject to Orcish depredations for surpassingly many years. We know that they delight in nothing but causing but pain, suffering and lasting destruction.”

“But they’ve picked up all sorts of personal interests and hobbies and everything now!”

“Such as?”

The Hobbit hurried over to the side of the Orcs’ stockade and calling one of the smaller inmates nearer, repeated Hrodgar’s question. It was Maz who came up to the bars.

“I likes cookery, meself,” the Orc volunteered. “Although - I gotta say that does ‘av, well, elements of what you might call the ol’ guttin,’ rendin’ and killin’. Though I ‘preciate it’s best if you don’t go about it in that order, not n’y more. Not ‘fit’s going ter be fit for the table. Seein’ as it def’n’tly ‘ffects the flavour dunnit?”

“Meat goes all squishy,”* Azof added. Eager to be included in any action that was going on he had followed uninvited, close on Maz’s heels.

“ And, before I were learning off this ‘un,” (Maz gestured at the Hobbit) “to do cookin’ wiv more’n one ingredient and everythink.”

“Doin’ fancy metal-work’s good as well,” was Azof’s contribution to the discussion. “That nose-ring they heated up fer stickin’ in the ‘ole in Shaggers’ side. All very well, but did anyone notice the filigree scroll-work what was all over it?” (As it happens, Maz had; it had stuck to the edges of the wound, and made a nasty mess.) “That were one of mine.”

Eowyn was looking shocked, either by the radical concept that it was indeed possible (although admittedly in this case, not especially enlightening) to engage in dialogue with Orcs, or perhaps she was just reacting to the grisly details being vouchsafed by them.

“That isn’t the most pertinent issue at hand,” Hrodgar retorted with impatience, feeling that somehow, they were becoming dangerously side-tracked.

“If we agree that we can’t lawfully, or in good conscience dispatch these – fellows,” Faramir said, “then what issue would you see as being most important?”

“One salient problem is that nobody is going to want a band of Orcs camping out on their doorstep.” Hrodgar replied. “Even if – for the sake of the argument - we were to consider letting them go free as his Highness seems to be suggesting, it would be unreasonable to inflict such a number of – of their sort – on any one area of the countryside. Undoubtedly we would expect to run up against objections wherever we attempted to re-home them. Where, then, could they possibly go?”

If Hrodgar thought that the practical issues he had raised would be enough to stall Faramir’s proposed Orc translocation project he was soon to be disappointed.

“I think I know of a place,” Ludlow piped up. “It’s quite far-off. Orcs seem to like it, and it’s awfully remote.” He gave them a whistle-stop description of his and Shagrat’s land-holding up in the mountains, wisely omitting to mention the Uruk’s involvement.

“Perhaps if they were truly willing to depart - and could be trusted to co-operate,” Eowyn began hesitantly. She couldn’t have cared less about what happened to the Orcish contingent, but was dutifully trying her best to side with Faramir.

“Oh, but we’ll bugger right off. You can count on that.” Azof nodded.

“And go as far as you like.” Maz agreed. “Honest, guv.’”

Following Eowyn’s lead, Hrodgar uneasily agreed to the idea in principle; and as it was getting late they all arranged to thrash the details of the arrangement out the following morning.

******

Faramir had more or less lived at Shagrat’s side after that, and stayed with him all through the night and for most of the next day, but when the Orc began to show signs of improvement, and as soon as he’d begun definitely reviving, the Prince had bolted. Ludlow bided his time, assuming that Faramir would be bound to pay a call on his Uruk sooner or later, but when another day, as well as two nights had passed with no sign of him, the Hobbit set out to track him down. On being admitted to the Prince’s quarters Ludlow found Faramir dressed in travelling clothes; his tent was almost empty and his belongings neatly packed and stacked.

The Hobbit didn’t stand on ceremony. “Where are you off to?” he asked in surprise.

The Prince had business to attend to in a nearby district. It was the tradition in Gondor at that time of year for Heads of State, or in this case Faramir acting as royal envoy, to tour outlying districts of the country in a series of formal visits. “For the mid-winter celebration,” he told Ludlow, feeling uncomfortably as if he owed the Hobbit at least a few words of explanation. “They’re expecting well – someone from Court, at least. The arrangement was made some time ago, and it isn’t a duty I would easily be able to set aside. I’m acting as stand-in for the King himself, you see.” In this as in so many other matters, he thought tiredly, wondering whether the townspeople he was due to visit would be able to hide their dissatisfaction in him any better, or worse, than anybody else when he arrived. Faramir knew he ought to have been well enough used to this sort of thing by his stage in life, but no matter how many times it happened, it was still wearying to have to think of oneself as a perpetual disappointment.

Considering everyone he’d striven, and evidently failed to impress, Faramir’s hopes for his Uruk had in an odd way been higher than anything else, perhaps because he had always known on some basic level that with the slightest effort on his part, Shagrat would’ve been the safest of bets; he was certain that at one point the Uruk would have said, gone and done anything for him, if only he’d asked. He couldn’t bring himself to accept that even though the Orc’s affections had been wide-open for the taking and after he’d tried so desperately hard to win him over, he’d still been unable to convince Shagrat that he was sincere in his feelings for him. To Faramir this counted as much more than just the latest in a life-long series of bungled charm-offensives; his failure to secure Shagrat was making him doubt himself, and wonder whether perhaps Eowyn had been right when they’d been quarrelling after all – when she suggested that his choice of partner had less to do with ‘true love’ than a deep-seated belief on Faramir’s part that he was unworthy of being loved by any ‘normal’ person. He wondered if he could possibly have been so blind as to not to see this and was heart-sick at the very thought of it.

The Hobbit watched as he stared for a moment into space. The Prince looked hard-hit; far more than Ludlow would’ve thought to give him credit for. “What about Shagrat?” he prompted gently.

“Has he – has he asked for me as yet?” Faramir replied. He was trying hard but didn’t manage to sound completely nonchalant.

“Not…as such,” Ludlow admitted. “But if you don’t visit him before you go I’m sure he’ll be terribly upset.”

“In that case I can guarantee that I’m the very last person he’d want to see,” Faramir retorted bitterly, thinking about the vicious, barbed remarks and ugly home truths Shagrat had hurled at him so effectively during their last meeting. “After everything that’s been said – well. He’s far beyond being merely ‘upset’ with me. He’s made himself perfectly clear.”

“Have you had a fight?”

“Yes,” said Faramir. “The subject of which will be remaining strictly between Shagrat and myself. It’s not something I wish to – ever – discuss again.” Remembering the things the Uruk had accused him of, and the painful revelation of how he really felt about him quickly extinguished any residual doubts Faramir might have had about leaving without facing him again. Their situation was, as Shagrat himself had said, a sordid mess, and at that moment Faramir resolved that he was going to try and put it behind him.

“I wasn’t asking!” the Hobbit protested. He thought he had already guessed at, and being a liberal-minded fellow easily accepted the nature of the relationship between the Prince and the Uruk - some time ago in fact, but unless he’d been gravely mistaken about it, something had gone badly wrong between them. In Ludlow’s estimation both parties seemed far too hard-headed to sort the situation out for themselves, and though he hated the thought of interfering he realized that they needed someone to give them a nudge, or perhaps even jolly good shove, to get them talking again.

But Faramir was steering him by his shoulders, deftly moving him towards the exit. “I think you must almost be as stubborn as he is!” Ludlow cried, as he was practically thrown out through the door. “Maybe even more so! Someone has to make the first move!”

That person wasn’t going to be his Highness the Prince, apparently, and so Ludlow tried a different tack.

Partly on account of his close association with Faramir, but mostly because nobody took him seriously enough to regard him as any kind of legitimate threat, Ludlow had unofficial dispensation to come and go at will, in and out of the Orcs’ stockade. By the time he arrived back with them Shagrat was already standing up, more-or-less. Away from the others, he was leaning against the wall of the barricade, where he was watching the activity in the outer camp with riveted attention. It was clear that he had been looking out for Faramir, and was at that point watching him leave.

As Ludlow approached Shagrat turned and slumped down, giving him a watery smile. The Uruk looked terrible. Since a personal visit from the Prince had not been forthcoming, Ludlow had as a substitute demanded, and got, unrestricted access to the camp’s stores. Over the last day or so he had been filling his time by making a series of nourishing meals for Shagrat (and by default, for all the other Orcs too): light soups, broths and stews, all prepared with the aim of rebuilding the Uruk’s strength. And either because Shagrat was basically tough as old boots or because Ludlow’s programme had been working he was making remarkable progress; but now the Orc had, for a reason that the Hobbit could easily guess at, suffered a relapse. A morale-boost was definitely in order and so:

“He really likes you,” Ludlow told Shagrat.

“Who’s that then,” the convalescing Orc answered gruffly.

“Prince Faramir of Ithilien,” the Hobbit replied. “Really, Shagrat, I’m not entirely dense. It was obvious it was him you were trying to forget about before. You’ve been going around practically ‘by Royal Appointment’ this entire time. The Ithilien Crest is even emblazoned on your walking-stick. All your belongings have got it on – see? It’s woven into your cloak and everything.”

“Is that what that is,” Shagrat sighed gloomily, picking at one of the textured patches on the wool with his thumbnail. “Not that it makes much difference now. Not now I’ve been and gone and blown that.”

Ludlow said he thought that that was taking things a bit too seriously.

“He didn’t even come and see how I was when I was injured!” Shagrat hissed urgently. “Just went away and left me! He’s always doing that.”

Azof, who had moved nearer to sit close by, the better to listen in on their conversation, crowed out derisively when he heard this. “Are you talking about that Head-Tark what was hanging around like a bad smell before?” he said. “Dozy-looking tosser, with floppy hair and a pasty face? Cos he was only here making calf-eyes at your ugly mug the whole time you were out of it. Bleedin’ hearts and flowers, it was enough to make anyone vomit! He must want his head seeing to, your fancy piece. Who else’d ever rate you as anything special, eh, Shaggers?”

Shagrat gave him a dirty look.

“Ignore him,” the Hobbit advised.

“And another thing,” Shagrat remembered, “if he thinks so much of me, what’s he doing arresting all this lot and holding ‘em like this? Can’t be all that keen on my sort then, can he?”

“About that Shagrat, I’m quite sure you got hold of entirely the wrong end of the stick.”

“Don’t see how,” Shagrat grumbled.

“Well, you went rushing off, that night. You didn’t listen to the rest of it,” Ludlow insisted, handing Shagrat the folded reward notice he’d been keeping. “It says the money’s payable only if the Orc he’s looking for, and he’s referring here to a very specific, particular Orc, is delivered unharmed. It’s very strongly worded. See for yourself. Oh, can you -”

“I know my letters,” Shagrat growled back tetchily, “most of ‘em, at any rate.” He took the paper and held it at arms’ length, lips moving slightly as he read it.

“Doesn’t mention me by name though, does it?” he said eventually.

“Oh for goodness’ sake,” said Ludlow. “Look at the description, it’s you to the life.”
(“Only much better looking,” honesty forced him to add, though in deference to Shagrat’s feelings, he muttered it under his breath.) “It’s practically,” he went on, blushing pink to his ears at the thought of it, “to all intents and purposes, if you read between the lines a – a love-letter he’s written you there. Did you see where it said all that about the exceptionally high regard you’re held in. I told you he really likes you.”

“Maybe he did for a bit, at that,” Shagrat said doubtfully, “but you don’t know him the way I do. He blows hot and cold the whole time. Changes his mind at the drop of a hat.”

“Oh!” Ludlow yelped, jumping to his feet in agitation. “The two of you need to have your heads banged together, you really do! Maybe that would knock some sense into the pair of you!”

TBC.

Author’s inappropriately band-wagon-jumping note: *this is a real phenomenon, known in the livestock industry as “PSE (Pale Soft Exudative) meat,” which basically boils down to: stressed pigs=rubbish quality pork. At last, a practical reason for thinking animal welfare is a good thing....

Author’s slightly more relevant note: Apologies for the outbreak of silly Rohirrim names in this chapter, what do I know about Nordic types (demonstrably little). More apologies for Eowyn still being such a pain in the neck, and for Faramir’s continuing irritatingness - he’s pretty out-of-character for much of this here. And, even more apologies to anyone who’s been trying to follow this story, for the length of time it’s taken for me to update this latest bit of it. And many, many thanks to everyone who’s reviewed – that’s always very encouraging. Only maybe one more chapter and an epilogue to go, honest...

More specifically:

The Lauderdale – I said it before but that’s quite a review. I’ve tried to address some of the Eowyn / Faramir issues you mentioned here – probably without much success.

AntiDolorifico – you’ve heard my feeble excuses for failing to update already so thank you, as always for all the support!

Cimmer – poor old Eowyn – I didn’t mean her to be so bad really(!)

TK421 – thank you so much for praising the Shagrat stories & the others - it’s great to know you liked them. But good grief, you read the whole thing in one sitting? You have more staying-power than me...I haven’t even been able to get through the latest chapter all in one go lately.

Catherine – very glad you like it. Hopefully will wrap this one with the concluding chapters up soon.