Gandalf, oh Gandalf. How I despise you! If not for that stupid Ent I might have died in that prison of a tower. Treebeard. Ha! He fell for my trick, my last trick. With a pathetic image and a persuasive voice I convinced him to let me go. Heh, the fool. I will never forget that day…August 15th, when I crawled out of Orthanc, more dead than alive, no thanks to you, Gandalf.
"On your feet!" I commanded Wormtongue, who followed me pathetically out of Orthanc. We set out on the road, leaving Isengard for the last time. Good riddance. Oh, the bumbling grumbling idiot!! I didn't want to put up with him, but he followed my orders so I'll keep him for a while longer, I suppose.
Those Halflings destroyed me. Vengeance is mine! Oh, if there were only a way to bring a sorrow of sorrows upon them!! But wait… perhaps there is a way. Hm… It might work.
"Come along Grima," I said.
The Scouring of the Shire: Saruman's revenge
There is more to Saruman than meets the eye. What happened after Treebeard released him from Isengard. This is The Scouring of the Shire according to Saruman. Please R&R!
Chapter 1: The Company on the Road
I had been on the road for almost two weeks, starving and ragged. I looked like a beggar, wearing rags of grey and white. I used to be Saruman of many colors, now I was merely a grey pilgrim. Wormtongue looked worse, I suppose. I had nearly killed him when I found out that he had thrown my Palantir out the window. The LAST thing I wanted was for Gandalf to be in charge of that. Although I suppose shouldn't worry about him…he was probably not smart enough to use it. What I should be worrying about is Aragorn.
But I had made a plan, and that counted for something. Those two Halflings had destroyed all of my work and progress, my machinery and my power. But I wasn't going to let them get away with it, no. I will destroy their only home…their beloved Shire, or at least, Hobbiton. No home; no hope. I can take away their gardens, friends, families, homes, houses, farms, trees, carts, and ponies. Or perhaps, instead of destroying Hobbiton, I could change it… from a happy place into a melancholy town full of desolate workers. It would be a place that would not recognize and welcome them. Oh, yes that would be much worse.
"Hurry, up, you idiot!" I shouted over my shoulder. Wormtongue crawled along behind me, gathering dust from the road. "Poor old Grima!" he whined. "Poor old Grima! Always beaten and cursed." I rolled my eyes.
Suddenly, a great company on horseback was heard in the distance. "Hurry up, you fool, unless you want to be killed," I warned him. "Get on the side of the road." He hurried over and stood behind me, cowering and whining some more. Before long, the assembly of riders had overtaken us and had now come to a halt.
"Well, Saruman! Where are you going?"
I looked up. The figure speaking was all robed in white splendor. He sat upon a white horse of noble nature. "What's it to you, Gandalf? Will you still order my goings and are you not content with my ruin?" I answered bitterly.
Then he gave me a sickening speech of mercy from the King of Gondor. I wanted none of it. I wanted revenge. "Go! I did not spend long study on these matters for naught. You have doomed yourselves, and you know it. And it will afford me some comfort as I wander to think that you pulled down your own house when you destroyed mine," I said. "And now, what ship will bear you back across so wide a sea? It will be a grey ship, and full of ghosts." I laughed, mockingly.
"Get up you idiot!" I said to Wormtongue, striking him with my staff. "If these fine folk are going our way then we will take another." He merely whimpered again, following behind me as we began to walk again, this time toward where the company had come from.
"Poor old Grima!" The wretch complained. "How I hate him! I wish I could leave him!"
"Then leave him!" Gandalf persuaded. But he had not my voice, and Grima's terror-stricken face looked back at him for a moment and then he hurried along behind me. Fool. As we came to the rear of the company, all eyes followed us. At the back were the four hobbits, two of which I owed my vengeance. I glared at them and accused them of gloating upon my ruin and stealing my pipe weed.
"One good thief deserves another," I claimed. "It will serve you right when you come home, if you find things less good in the Southfarthing than you would like. Long may your land be short of leaf!" And with that Wormtongue and I departed. After we left and the passing company was out of sight I told Grima to turn around. "We are going to Hobbiton," I said. "And we will get there before those Halflings if it is the last thing I do!"
"It may be," he complained. I struck him once again with my staff. And we retraced our steps, on the path to Hobbiton.