Light Fingers 11 - What Price Justice?
Nov. 22nd, 2008 03:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aearwenIvoreth sees debts paid, and hears news of Darin.
Chapter 11 – What Price Justice
Ivoreth sidled close to her foster-father’s leg as they came closer and closer to the City Gate and the humble bakery three doors away. In the doorway, as always, Garlain stood calling out his sales chant into the street: “Fresh bread, new today! Penny a loaf!. Fresh bread today!” A slightly ragged looking matron approached the door, and the baker escorted her inside with a fancy wave of his hand.
“Is that the place, Ivoreth?” Elladan asked just loudly enough to be heard over the noise of the street traffic. She nodded.
I can’t believe that I’m back here.
“Come along, then.” He tightened his hold on her hand and led the way right up to the bakery door. Ivoreth swallowed hard against the twisting of her stomach at the scent of new-baked bread. How often she’d found reason to lean against a nearby wall just to drool at the thought of tasting such wonderful food – and now, all she wanted to do was run away as fast as her feet would carry her.
Elladan pulled himself and Ivoreth back out of the way as the matron exited the shop with her linen bag bulging with what she’d bought, and then they stepped into the tiny shop. Garlain looked up from putting the coin from his last sale away, and his face smoothed into a surprised smile. Ivoreth knew very well that he didn’t get many fancy folk in his shop, so he was probably already counting the extra coin he might earn that day. “Yes, my lord, my little lady…” The baker’s eyes rested on her face longer than normal, and his eyes narrowed suddenly.
He remembers me. Merciful All-Father…
“How can my humble shop serve your lordship?” Ivoreth could see the baker had to work to focus back on the very tall Elf.
“It has come to my attention that my daughter has run up a debt with your shop,” Elladan stated in a voice that made the hairs on Ivoreth’s neck rise.
He’s never talked to me like that! Wait – daughter?
“I am here to settle that debt.”
The Elf-lord reached for Garlain’s hand, grey with flour dust, and dropped a small gold coin into the palm. “This should more than pay for any number of day-old loaves that have gone missing from your rack on her account.”
Garlain’s eyes widened in shock as he stared at the coin. Ivoreth stared too – she’d never seen coin like that before.
“Aye, my lord,” Garlain sputtered and closed his hand around the precious coin, “that should take care of it nicely – and thank ye.”
“And now, to another matter.” Elladan released his hold on Ivoreth’s hand and pointed to the day-old rack just beyond the door. “How much do you charge for the loaves there?”
“Day-old, my lord? Surely your house can afford…”
“Answer the question,” Elladan interrupted in a cold voice. “How much?”
Ivoreth could see that Elladan was frightening Garlain at least as much as he was frightening her at the moment. The baker’s face was almost as grey as his flour dusted hands. “Three… three loaves per copper,” Garlain answered after a heavy swallow.
Elladan nodded slowly and then drew out a coin pouch that clinked merrily with the movement. “I am going to give you another two gold to buy all of the day-old bread your shop might have from now until Loëndë – at which time my agent will come by to give you another six gold to buy all the day-old from then until Mettarë. You will receive six gold every half year from now on for this purpose.” He opened the pouch and withdrew the coins and held them out.
Garlain’s eyes were open so wide, Ivoreth thought they might fall out. “My… my lord?” He stammered, obviously confused as the two new gold coins sparkled warmly in his hand next to the first.
“I wish for you to take all the bread you have left over at the end of the day, divide each loaf in half, and then give one half-loaf each to any of the orphaned children I understand have been stealing from you of late.”
“Those sewer-rats?” Garlain’s expression soured. “My lord! They’re nothing but thieves, all of ‘em – a waste of your good coin, if you don’t mind me saying! If the Guards could get into those damned tunnels, we’d have been rid of the lot of them…” His sentence died a quick death as he saw the look of fury that had filled Elladan’s face.
Elladan’s voice had gone soft and deadly. “These are children of Gondor you speak of – less fortunate than you and yours, I’ll grant, but no less deserving of respect. You will give each orphan who comes to your shop one half loaf of day-old bread each day until the days’ supply is gone – and you will consider yourself well-paid to render this service to Gondor.”
He glared down at the baker. “I will have my agent observe and make certain my order is being filled; and if I hear that you are withholding bread from these hungry children and selling it to others, I will take this custom elsewhere and make widely-know why I have done so. The King’s justice will not deal kindly with you in that case.” He bent and pushed his face down close to Garlain’s. “Am I clearly understood? You will not see my agent, and so not be able to hide your breaking the terms of this agreement from me in the end. You will choose now – six gold each half-year to give food to those who need it, or I take my custom elsewhere.”
Ivoreth could almost see the battle in the mind of the baker between his disdain for her former cistern-mates and his lust for her guardian’s rich coin. When he finally muttered, “Aye, my lord, I understand completely, and I accept your offer,” and closed his hand over the three golden coins, she knew Garlain’s greed had won out. “I still think you’re tossing good money after bad…”
Elladan pulled himself back up to his full height. He reached down and took a firm hold of Ivoreth’s hand. “That, good man, is my business and none of yours. Now, remove all the day-old bread from that rack at once and do as you have been paid to do.”
Swallowing her fear of the stern Elf that had suddenly appeared from nowhere wearing the face of her foster father, Ivoreth tugged on the hand to get his attention. “They won’t trust him,” she whispered with a wary eye on the baker. “He’s called the Guard on us so many times…”
“Leave that to me, sweetling,” Elladan told her softly and pulled her out of the shop into the warm afternoon sun. “Word of this will get around. I saw more than one small child in rags peeking around the edge of the doorway while we were talking. Besides, we will have agents watching all of the shops we’re contacting today to make certain that eventually your friends will know where they can trust to go and at least get one decent meal each day.”
“We?”
“Your family – myself, Elrohir, Arwen. Sometimes it is better and easier for individuals to do a thing than to ask the officials to do it at state expense.” He cupped her cheek. “And it is only right that we take on this task, now that you have shown us that a problem exists.”
“Why?” Ivoreth stared up at her foster father.
“Because children should be considered precious,” Elladan answered with a smile. “They are the future of any people, and should be handled with respect and care.”
“Even the orphans?”
“Especially the orphans, Ivoreth. And if they are too afraid to look for help at the orphanages, then we must bring the help as close to them as we can without frightening them further.” He stopped and moved to face her, bending down to her. “Tell me, though; Garlain called your friends ‘sewer-rats’ – is that where they are? In the drains?”
Ivoreth felt her knees grow weak.
He knows!
He evidently could read her expression. “Merciful Elbereth, but that must be a cold refuge!” Ivoreth felt the weight of his concern and worry all the way to the bottom of her soul. “Does it not flood during the rains?”
He already knew enough to guess the rest in time – and Ivoreth realized that there was no reason for her not to answer his question any longer. “Only the tunnels fill when it rains – and where we… they… sleep is far above the water. And yes, it’s cold, but it’s dry most of the time.” She pulled at his hand frantically. “Please, don’t tell anyone! They have nowhere else to go!”
“No one will betray your friends to the Guards, Ivoreth, I swear to you.” Elladan took hold of her other hand. “All we’re doing is removing the reasons that they are forced to steal to survive – with the hope that if they no longer have to steal, and so no longer need to fear the Guards, they can spend their time finding ways to earn themselves coin properly.” He swung her hands and smiled at her. “We’re going to help them, little one – and they’ll never have to know where the help came from.”
He loosed one of her hands and straightened. “Come now. Time to head home.”
As Ivoreth listened to him quietly give the password to the Guard blocking the Gate to the Second Circle, she realized with a hollow feeling in her stomach that Elladan hadn’t promised her not to tell what he’d discovered to anybody else after all.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
“My lord, there is a visitor.”
Ivoreth looked up over Raini’s head at her guardian sitting across from her, and then over to the young maid standing in the doorway of her bedroom. Raini continued talking to her doll about the drawings in the book that they had all been looking at together. Elladan frowned slightly as he turned. “Indeed?”
The young woman’s eyes were wide. “My lord, the King himself has come. He says he wants to speak to you – and to Mistress Ivoreth too.”
Ivoreth’s eyes widened. “The King?” She shifted Raini from her lap to a pool of sunlight on the floor next to where they’d all been sitting together and then rose to her feet. “What does he want?” she asked warily.
“He probably just wants to apologize to you, Ivoreth,” Elladan told her as he led her by the hand toward the sitting room at the front of their apartment. “He wasn’t happy to find out how badly he’d frightened you the other day – and Arwen let him know that she wasn’t happy about it either.” Her guardian smirked, and Ivoreth wondered what else he knew that he wasn’t telling.
“But I made him mad,” Ivoreth complained, reluctant enough to go forward that she dragged back on her foster father’s hand. “Do you think he’s here to punish me now?”
“No, nethben,” Elladan soothed, “He wasn’t really angry with you – although I can see why you thought that. Give him a chance – he can be a very nice person when he’s on his good behavior.”
Ivoreth blinked. Good behavior?? “What?” she asked, confused.
Elladan shook his head with a smile. “Never you mind.” He halted just outside the sitting room door and loosed Ivoreth’s hand. “Come on, now. We don’t want to keep him waiting.” He moved behind her and nudged her forward with a gentle hand on each shoulder. “Good afternoon, Estel.”
Both the memory of the look on the King’s face the last time she’d seen him and nervousness about why he'd want to see her here, in what she was only starting to think of as her own house had her shaking inside. But Ivoreth wiped her clammy hands on her skirt with a deep breath to steady herself and walked slowly into the room. The King was sitting in the comfortable chair that Elladan often used in the evenings, when he would read to her and her sister from one of his many books. “King Elessar,” she said in a small voice and gave him her second, very awkward curtsey.
“Hello, Ivoreth.” The King smiled at her, rising. “Elladan,” he greeted the tall Elf. Turning back to Ivoreth, he put out a hand. “Come here, my dear. You’re the one I really came to see. We have a lot to talk about.”
Ivoreth shot a quick glance up and back at her foster father, who merely smiled and nudged her forward again. “Go on,” he urged in a whisper.
She walked forward slowly until she was just out of the King’s reach. “I’m sorry I made you mad the last time,” she said in a shaking voice. “I didn’t mean to…”
Elessar bent forward to catch Ivoreth’s hand and pull her closer to him. “I wasn’t mad at you, little one. I was mad at what you were telling me – and that’s why I’m here. First to tell you that I’m sorry for frightening you so. When I got back, Arwen was rather cross with me for ruining your appetite for lunch. Can you forgive me?”
Ivoreth nodded slowly, and Elessar’s smile grew. “Good – because I’d hate to think that I had my only niece too scared to even talk to me.”
Niece?
“Come here and sit with me.” He pulled her close enough to reach out and settle her on his lap when he sat down. “Now, do you remember what we were talking about the last time I saw you?”
Not again!
She cringed but nodded.
“Well, after I left you, I spent some time with the Steward, and I have read over the court records going back two weeks. I found out your little brother did go before a judge and was held responsible for stealing bread – and his three friends were judged equally guilty.”
Ivoreth stared at the King, horrified. “He’s dead?” she asked in a tiny voice. “They’re all dead?”
Elessar shook his head. “No, little one. The penalty for petty theft, which is what they call stealing a loaf of bread in the courts, isn’t death anymore.”
She looked up at Elladan. “But the Guards told me…”
Elladan shook his head as well. “I wouldn’t believe a word of what those Guards told you. They don’t even deserve to be thought of as Guards.”
Ivoreth turned back to the King. “Then what happens to thieves?”
“Not long ago, the law did call for death for all forms of stealing, but after I was crowned, I reinstated many of the old laws. And the old law about theft states that convicted thieves are to be offered a choice, Ivoreth – either they agree to serve time doing labor to pay for their crime, or they suffer some sort of physical punishment and then are freed. For the theft of valuables, for example, the physical penalty is loss of the right hand. For petty theft, however, the choice is between labor and a public flogging. In the case of a child who chooses the flogging, they must either be released to a parent, or they are turned over to an orphanage for care and supervision.”
When Ivoreth swayed with dizziness and nausea at the thought of what her own fate might have been, much less what Daren had to decide, Elessar pulled her to lean against him. “I know that sounds harsh – and it is. I’m expect I’ll be changing that law very soon, especially in regards to young children, but that was the sentence Daren received.”
Oh Daren!
“They would do such a thing to a child, Estel? That’s barbaric!” Elladan exclaimed.
“The laws of Gondor have never treated children any differently from adults,” Elessar shook his head. “You have to know I don’t like it any more than you do, brother, but it takes time…”
Elladan snapped something in his musical language. Ivoreth had never heard him sound so angry – not even when talking to Garlain.
The King sighed deeply. “I can only change these things when they’re brought to my attention, Elladan. I had hoped that the old laws Denethor replaced with his blanket death sentence for everything would have been more merciful. As it was, it took Faramir and me almost two months to go through the archives to get as far as we did. Besides, we had no idea this kind of situation was developing. How were we to know that there were orphans unwilling to go to places specially designed to give them aid?”
“You should have known, Estel,” Elladan insisted coldly. “You should have known.”
Elessar quietly responded in the musical language, and what he said drew an angry snort from Elladan, but no more arguments.
“What did Daren choose?” Ivoreth asked in a whisper, almost too afraid to know the rest but unwilling to continue not knowing any longer.
The King took a deep breath and turned his attention back to Ivoreth. “He chose to work off his debt,” Elessar told her gently. “The records say that he stayed but a single night in the prison before being taken away with the others convicted with him. From what I have been able to discover, he has been placed with one of the farm holders on the Pelennor who has need of extra hands to bring in the crops, and will work there for two years before he can go free.”
Ivoreth looked up at her guardian, a tear running down her cheek. “I’ll never see him again, then, will I?”
“I’ve asked my men to locate all four of the boys taken into custody that day and return them to the City,” the King answered firmly. “You told me that you didn’t let Daren steal – is it possible that the other boys he was with did the stealing while he stood look-out, or that they talked him into stealing with them?”
“Maybe, I don’t know…” Ivoreth’s mind didn’t want to work.
Hard labor! Will he come back with scars on his back like Da’s – if he ever comes back? She sighed. At least he’s still alive. He’s not dead. I should be grateful…
“Daren knew I didn’t want him to – that I’d told him he could come with me next market day if he behaved himself.” She sniffed and wiped at her nose with the back of her hand. “He told me he just wanted to spend some time in the sunlight.”
I should never have let him go!
“Estel, I have seen and met this Garlain who called the Guards on those boys,” Elladan offered in a clipped tone, still very obviously angry. “He has nothing but disgust for the ‘sewer-rats’, as he calls them. I wouldn’t put it past him to have called the Guard without having lost a single loaf that day – but I cannot prove my suspicions as yet.”
The King nodded slowly. “We will just have to dig deeper to find the truth.” He cupped Ivoreth’s cheek and turned her head to look at him. “And I will find out the truth, I swear, Ivoreth. If I find that there is no proof that Daren did anything except the word of a man who cannot be trusted, then he doesn’t deserve to be sentenced to hard labor – and I will see him, and all the others convicted at the same time, freed. If I find proof the boys didn’t do anything, then this Garlain will take their place before the judge for filing false charges, I swear. If, however, I find that he did go against your word and stole the bread after all or participated in others doing the stealing…” He sighed. “Then I’m afraid he earned his fate. While I might change the terms of his punishment to something more fitting, he will still be a convicted thief. That much I cannot change, if the charge is true.”
At Ivoreth’s gasp and sudden push away from him, he continued, “Please understand, Ivoreth, this touches on the trust a land and her people must have in her King. I cannot just set aside the rule of law any time I feel like it. A King and his family cannot be completely above the law.”
“Estel…” Elladan growled.
“No, Elladan. I’m working to rebuild the honor that was once ours – and part of that honor lies in Kings being expected to bend to the rule of law in the same way their subjects do.” Elessar said firmly. “I will need to make the law flexible enough to allow for special circumstances, and that will be something I will begin working on immediately, but I cannot and will not set myself or any other person above that law.”
“What about Daren?” Ivoreth whimpered.
“I will do what I can for him, I promise.” He glanced up at Elladan. “Within reason.” Ivoreth watched the two stare at each other again for a brief moment before Elessar looked back down at her. “For as long as he remains in custody, I will take personal interest in Daren’s welfare. He will not be harmed – I will not have anyone pointing to him and claiming that Gondor does, indeed, allow slavery of a kind. And barring accident or illness, you will see your brother again – I just cannot promise when at the moment.” He smoothed the hair away her face. “I’m sorry my news isn’t better, little one.”
Elladan muttered darkly in his strange language, swooped down and pulled Ivoreth out of the King’s lap and held her close. “I will find a way to make this right, my daughter,” he murmured to her as she rested her head on his shoulder with a sigh. “I vow that I will find a way to make this right.”
Chapter 11 – What Price Justice
Ivoreth sidled close to her foster-father’s leg as they came closer and closer to the City Gate and the humble bakery three doors away. In the doorway, as always, Garlain stood calling out his sales chant into the street: “Fresh bread, new today! Penny a loaf!. Fresh bread today!” A slightly ragged looking matron approached the door, and the baker escorted her inside with a fancy wave of his hand.
“Is that the place, Ivoreth?” Elladan asked just loudly enough to be heard over the noise of the street traffic. She nodded.
I can’t believe that I’m back here.
“Come along, then.” He tightened his hold on her hand and led the way right up to the bakery door. Ivoreth swallowed hard against the twisting of her stomach at the scent of new-baked bread. How often she’d found reason to lean against a nearby wall just to drool at the thought of tasting such wonderful food – and now, all she wanted to do was run away as fast as her feet would carry her.
Elladan pulled himself and Ivoreth back out of the way as the matron exited the shop with her linen bag bulging with what she’d bought, and then they stepped into the tiny shop. Garlain looked up from putting the coin from his last sale away, and his face smoothed into a surprised smile. Ivoreth knew very well that he didn’t get many fancy folk in his shop, so he was probably already counting the extra coin he might earn that day. “Yes, my lord, my little lady…” The baker’s eyes rested on her face longer than normal, and his eyes narrowed suddenly.
He remembers me. Merciful All-Father…
“How can my humble shop serve your lordship?” Ivoreth could see the baker had to work to focus back on the very tall Elf.
“It has come to my attention that my daughter has run up a debt with your shop,” Elladan stated in a voice that made the hairs on Ivoreth’s neck rise.
He’s never talked to me like that! Wait – daughter?
“I am here to settle that debt.”
The Elf-lord reached for Garlain’s hand, grey with flour dust, and dropped a small gold coin into the palm. “This should more than pay for any number of day-old loaves that have gone missing from your rack on her account.”
Garlain’s eyes widened in shock as he stared at the coin. Ivoreth stared too – she’d never seen coin like that before.
“Aye, my lord,” Garlain sputtered and closed his hand around the precious coin, “that should take care of it nicely – and thank ye.”
“And now, to another matter.” Elladan released his hold on Ivoreth’s hand and pointed to the day-old rack just beyond the door. “How much do you charge for the loaves there?”
“Day-old, my lord? Surely your house can afford…”
“Answer the question,” Elladan interrupted in a cold voice. “How much?”
Ivoreth could see that Elladan was frightening Garlain at least as much as he was frightening her at the moment. The baker’s face was almost as grey as his flour dusted hands. “Three… three loaves per copper,” Garlain answered after a heavy swallow.
Elladan nodded slowly and then drew out a coin pouch that clinked merrily with the movement. “I am going to give you another two gold to buy all of the day-old bread your shop might have from now until Loëndë – at which time my agent will come by to give you another six gold to buy all the day-old from then until Mettarë. You will receive six gold every half year from now on for this purpose.” He opened the pouch and withdrew the coins and held them out.
Garlain’s eyes were open so wide, Ivoreth thought they might fall out. “My… my lord?” He stammered, obviously confused as the two new gold coins sparkled warmly in his hand next to the first.
“I wish for you to take all the bread you have left over at the end of the day, divide each loaf in half, and then give one half-loaf each to any of the orphaned children I understand have been stealing from you of late.”
“Those sewer-rats?” Garlain’s expression soured. “My lord! They’re nothing but thieves, all of ‘em – a waste of your good coin, if you don’t mind me saying! If the Guards could get into those damned tunnels, we’d have been rid of the lot of them…” His sentence died a quick death as he saw the look of fury that had filled Elladan’s face.
Elladan’s voice had gone soft and deadly. “These are children of Gondor you speak of – less fortunate than you and yours, I’ll grant, but no less deserving of respect. You will give each orphan who comes to your shop one half loaf of day-old bread each day until the days’ supply is gone – and you will consider yourself well-paid to render this service to Gondor.”
He glared down at the baker. “I will have my agent observe and make certain my order is being filled; and if I hear that you are withholding bread from these hungry children and selling it to others, I will take this custom elsewhere and make widely-know why I have done so. The King’s justice will not deal kindly with you in that case.” He bent and pushed his face down close to Garlain’s. “Am I clearly understood? You will not see my agent, and so not be able to hide your breaking the terms of this agreement from me in the end. You will choose now – six gold each half-year to give food to those who need it, or I take my custom elsewhere.”
Ivoreth could almost see the battle in the mind of the baker between his disdain for her former cistern-mates and his lust for her guardian’s rich coin. When he finally muttered, “Aye, my lord, I understand completely, and I accept your offer,” and closed his hand over the three golden coins, she knew Garlain’s greed had won out. “I still think you’re tossing good money after bad…”
Elladan pulled himself back up to his full height. He reached down and took a firm hold of Ivoreth’s hand. “That, good man, is my business and none of yours. Now, remove all the day-old bread from that rack at once and do as you have been paid to do.”
Swallowing her fear of the stern Elf that had suddenly appeared from nowhere wearing the face of her foster father, Ivoreth tugged on the hand to get his attention. “They won’t trust him,” she whispered with a wary eye on the baker. “He’s called the Guard on us so many times…”
“Leave that to me, sweetling,” Elladan told her softly and pulled her out of the shop into the warm afternoon sun. “Word of this will get around. I saw more than one small child in rags peeking around the edge of the doorway while we were talking. Besides, we will have agents watching all of the shops we’re contacting today to make certain that eventually your friends will know where they can trust to go and at least get one decent meal each day.”
“We?”
“Your family – myself, Elrohir, Arwen. Sometimes it is better and easier for individuals to do a thing than to ask the officials to do it at state expense.” He cupped her cheek. “And it is only right that we take on this task, now that you have shown us that a problem exists.”
“Why?” Ivoreth stared up at her foster father.
“Because children should be considered precious,” Elladan answered with a smile. “They are the future of any people, and should be handled with respect and care.”
“Even the orphans?”
“Especially the orphans, Ivoreth. And if they are too afraid to look for help at the orphanages, then we must bring the help as close to them as we can without frightening them further.” He stopped and moved to face her, bending down to her. “Tell me, though; Garlain called your friends ‘sewer-rats’ – is that where they are? In the drains?”
Ivoreth felt her knees grow weak.
He knows!
He evidently could read her expression. “Merciful Elbereth, but that must be a cold refuge!” Ivoreth felt the weight of his concern and worry all the way to the bottom of her soul. “Does it not flood during the rains?”
He already knew enough to guess the rest in time – and Ivoreth realized that there was no reason for her not to answer his question any longer. “Only the tunnels fill when it rains – and where we… they… sleep is far above the water. And yes, it’s cold, but it’s dry most of the time.” She pulled at his hand frantically. “Please, don’t tell anyone! They have nowhere else to go!”
“No one will betray your friends to the Guards, Ivoreth, I swear to you.” Elladan took hold of her other hand. “All we’re doing is removing the reasons that they are forced to steal to survive – with the hope that if they no longer have to steal, and so no longer need to fear the Guards, they can spend their time finding ways to earn themselves coin properly.” He swung her hands and smiled at her. “We’re going to help them, little one – and they’ll never have to know where the help came from.”
He loosed one of her hands and straightened. “Come now. Time to head home.”
As Ivoreth listened to him quietly give the password to the Guard blocking the Gate to the Second Circle, she realized with a hollow feeling in her stomach that Elladan hadn’t promised her not to tell what he’d discovered to anybody else after all.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
“My lord, there is a visitor.”
Ivoreth looked up over Raini’s head at her guardian sitting across from her, and then over to the young maid standing in the doorway of her bedroom. Raini continued talking to her doll about the drawings in the book that they had all been looking at together. Elladan frowned slightly as he turned. “Indeed?”
The young woman’s eyes were wide. “My lord, the King himself has come. He says he wants to speak to you – and to Mistress Ivoreth too.”
Ivoreth’s eyes widened. “The King?” She shifted Raini from her lap to a pool of sunlight on the floor next to where they’d all been sitting together and then rose to her feet. “What does he want?” she asked warily.
“He probably just wants to apologize to you, Ivoreth,” Elladan told her as he led her by the hand toward the sitting room at the front of their apartment. “He wasn’t happy to find out how badly he’d frightened you the other day – and Arwen let him know that she wasn’t happy about it either.” Her guardian smirked, and Ivoreth wondered what else he knew that he wasn’t telling.
“But I made him mad,” Ivoreth complained, reluctant enough to go forward that she dragged back on her foster father’s hand. “Do you think he’s here to punish me now?”
“No, nethben,” Elladan soothed, “He wasn’t really angry with you – although I can see why you thought that. Give him a chance – he can be a very nice person when he’s on his good behavior.”
Ivoreth blinked. Good behavior?? “What?” she asked, confused.
Elladan shook his head with a smile. “Never you mind.” He halted just outside the sitting room door and loosed Ivoreth’s hand. “Come on, now. We don’t want to keep him waiting.” He moved behind her and nudged her forward with a gentle hand on each shoulder. “Good afternoon, Estel.”
Both the memory of the look on the King’s face the last time she’d seen him and nervousness about why he'd want to see her here, in what she was only starting to think of as her own house had her shaking inside. But Ivoreth wiped her clammy hands on her skirt with a deep breath to steady herself and walked slowly into the room. The King was sitting in the comfortable chair that Elladan often used in the evenings, when he would read to her and her sister from one of his many books. “King Elessar,” she said in a small voice and gave him her second, very awkward curtsey.
“Hello, Ivoreth.” The King smiled at her, rising. “Elladan,” he greeted the tall Elf. Turning back to Ivoreth, he put out a hand. “Come here, my dear. You’re the one I really came to see. We have a lot to talk about.”
Ivoreth shot a quick glance up and back at her foster father, who merely smiled and nudged her forward again. “Go on,” he urged in a whisper.
She walked forward slowly until she was just out of the King’s reach. “I’m sorry I made you mad the last time,” she said in a shaking voice. “I didn’t mean to…”
Elessar bent forward to catch Ivoreth’s hand and pull her closer to him. “I wasn’t mad at you, little one. I was mad at what you were telling me – and that’s why I’m here. First to tell you that I’m sorry for frightening you so. When I got back, Arwen was rather cross with me for ruining your appetite for lunch. Can you forgive me?”
Ivoreth nodded slowly, and Elessar’s smile grew. “Good – because I’d hate to think that I had my only niece too scared to even talk to me.”
Niece?
“Come here and sit with me.” He pulled her close enough to reach out and settle her on his lap when he sat down. “Now, do you remember what we were talking about the last time I saw you?”
Not again!
She cringed but nodded.
“Well, after I left you, I spent some time with the Steward, and I have read over the court records going back two weeks. I found out your little brother did go before a judge and was held responsible for stealing bread – and his three friends were judged equally guilty.”
Ivoreth stared at the King, horrified. “He’s dead?” she asked in a tiny voice. “They’re all dead?”
Elessar shook his head. “No, little one. The penalty for petty theft, which is what they call stealing a loaf of bread in the courts, isn’t death anymore.”
She looked up at Elladan. “But the Guards told me…”
Elladan shook his head as well. “I wouldn’t believe a word of what those Guards told you. They don’t even deserve to be thought of as Guards.”
Ivoreth turned back to the King. “Then what happens to thieves?”
“Not long ago, the law did call for death for all forms of stealing, but after I was crowned, I reinstated many of the old laws. And the old law about theft states that convicted thieves are to be offered a choice, Ivoreth – either they agree to serve time doing labor to pay for their crime, or they suffer some sort of physical punishment and then are freed. For the theft of valuables, for example, the physical penalty is loss of the right hand. For petty theft, however, the choice is between labor and a public flogging. In the case of a child who chooses the flogging, they must either be released to a parent, or they are turned over to an orphanage for care and supervision.”
When Ivoreth swayed with dizziness and nausea at the thought of what her own fate might have been, much less what Daren had to decide, Elessar pulled her to lean against him. “I know that sounds harsh – and it is. I’m expect I’ll be changing that law very soon, especially in regards to young children, but that was the sentence Daren received.”
Oh Daren!
“They would do such a thing to a child, Estel? That’s barbaric!” Elladan exclaimed.
“The laws of Gondor have never treated children any differently from adults,” Elessar shook his head. “You have to know I don’t like it any more than you do, brother, but it takes time…”
Elladan snapped something in his musical language. Ivoreth had never heard him sound so angry – not even when talking to Garlain.
The King sighed deeply. “I can only change these things when they’re brought to my attention, Elladan. I had hoped that the old laws Denethor replaced with his blanket death sentence for everything would have been more merciful. As it was, it took Faramir and me almost two months to go through the archives to get as far as we did. Besides, we had no idea this kind of situation was developing. How were we to know that there were orphans unwilling to go to places specially designed to give them aid?”
“You should have known, Estel,” Elladan insisted coldly. “You should have known.”
Elessar quietly responded in the musical language, and what he said drew an angry snort from Elladan, but no more arguments.
“What did Daren choose?” Ivoreth asked in a whisper, almost too afraid to know the rest but unwilling to continue not knowing any longer.
The King took a deep breath and turned his attention back to Ivoreth. “He chose to work off his debt,” Elessar told her gently. “The records say that he stayed but a single night in the prison before being taken away with the others convicted with him. From what I have been able to discover, he has been placed with one of the farm holders on the Pelennor who has need of extra hands to bring in the crops, and will work there for two years before he can go free.”
Ivoreth looked up at her guardian, a tear running down her cheek. “I’ll never see him again, then, will I?”
“I’ve asked my men to locate all four of the boys taken into custody that day and return them to the City,” the King answered firmly. “You told me that you didn’t let Daren steal – is it possible that the other boys he was with did the stealing while he stood look-out, or that they talked him into stealing with them?”
“Maybe, I don’t know…” Ivoreth’s mind didn’t want to work.
Hard labor! Will he come back with scars on his back like Da’s – if he ever comes back? She sighed. At least he’s still alive. He’s not dead. I should be grateful…
“Daren knew I didn’t want him to – that I’d told him he could come with me next market day if he behaved himself.” She sniffed and wiped at her nose with the back of her hand. “He told me he just wanted to spend some time in the sunlight.”
I should never have let him go!
“Estel, I have seen and met this Garlain who called the Guards on those boys,” Elladan offered in a clipped tone, still very obviously angry. “He has nothing but disgust for the ‘sewer-rats’, as he calls them. I wouldn’t put it past him to have called the Guard without having lost a single loaf that day – but I cannot prove my suspicions as yet.”
The King nodded slowly. “We will just have to dig deeper to find the truth.” He cupped Ivoreth’s cheek and turned her head to look at him. “And I will find out the truth, I swear, Ivoreth. If I find that there is no proof that Daren did anything except the word of a man who cannot be trusted, then he doesn’t deserve to be sentenced to hard labor – and I will see him, and all the others convicted at the same time, freed. If I find proof the boys didn’t do anything, then this Garlain will take their place before the judge for filing false charges, I swear. If, however, I find that he did go against your word and stole the bread after all or participated in others doing the stealing…” He sighed. “Then I’m afraid he earned his fate. While I might change the terms of his punishment to something more fitting, he will still be a convicted thief. That much I cannot change, if the charge is true.”
At Ivoreth’s gasp and sudden push away from him, he continued, “Please understand, Ivoreth, this touches on the trust a land and her people must have in her King. I cannot just set aside the rule of law any time I feel like it. A King and his family cannot be completely above the law.”
“Estel…” Elladan growled.
“No, Elladan. I’m working to rebuild the honor that was once ours – and part of that honor lies in Kings being expected to bend to the rule of law in the same way their subjects do.” Elessar said firmly. “I will need to make the law flexible enough to allow for special circumstances, and that will be something I will begin working on immediately, but I cannot and will not set myself or any other person above that law.”
“What about Daren?” Ivoreth whimpered.
“I will do what I can for him, I promise.” He glanced up at Elladan. “Within reason.” Ivoreth watched the two stare at each other again for a brief moment before Elessar looked back down at her. “For as long as he remains in custody, I will take personal interest in Daren’s welfare. He will not be harmed – I will not have anyone pointing to him and claiming that Gondor does, indeed, allow slavery of a kind. And barring accident or illness, you will see your brother again – I just cannot promise when at the moment.” He smoothed the hair away her face. “I’m sorry my news isn’t better, little one.”
Elladan muttered darkly in his strange language, swooped down and pulled Ivoreth out of the King’s lap and held her close. “I will find a way to make this right, my daughter,” he murmured to her as she rested her head on his shoulder with a sigh. “I vow that I will find a way to make this right.”
