4

Idle Hands

I

Thinking over what I've already told you about my brother Túrin, it strikes me I may have been unfair. He may not be lovable, but in his work he does nothing but good, and on one occasion, at least, he changed a man's whole life for the better. Not intentionally, perhaps, but still, he did it. The man's name was Beleg.

II

To explain about Beleg I have to go back a long way, long before I was born. I had the story from old Anborn, one day after archery practice, during those sweltering afternoon hours of Ithilien summer when members of the White Company who happened to be off duty would sit in the shade and, with minimal inducement, tell you yarns about the old days.

'Beleg?' said Anborn, loosening his belt and stretching his long legs out in front of him. 'That's a tale, now, and not a pleasant one. It happened many years back, when I first served under the Captain.'

By 'the Captain' Anborn meant my father. He had many titles; to the people of the City he was, of course, 'the Steward', to people in Ithilien always 'the Prince', and there were still a few old folk in Lebennin and Lossarnach who called him 'the young Lord', out of habit. (There were a few old women there who'd known him since he was a child and still called him 'dear lad', but he didn't like this to be generally known.) But the soldiers and ex-soldiers who had fought under my father during the War never called him anything but 'the Captain'. It was their mark, and woe betide any callow recruit who tried to imitate them.

'He wasn't very much older then than you are now, but he was already used to commanding men. When he first had a command they tell me his brother, the Captain General, privately promised the men that he'd knock the head off anyone who showed the Captain any insolence, but I don't think it was ever necessary. The Captain had a look, even then, that would freeze any man in his tracks.

'Where was I? Oh yes, Beleg. He came from a village in the Pelennor, near the River, a few miles south of the Great Bridge at Osgiliath – it was still in use then, of course. They'd been warned to look out for orc-raids, but there'd been a good many years without any and, as folk do, they got careless. One day we were on patrol a few miles up river when we got a message that someone had seen smoke coming from the direction of this village, so we headed for it as fast as we could ride. When we got there we found a lot of dead men and women and one woman who was still alive, but only just. She could barely speak, but we gathered that there'd been two orc bands: one had made an open attack on the village, drawing all the men out, while the other came in another way and took all the children. There wasn't one child left in the village, dead or alive.

'There weren't enough of us to pursue both orc bands, so of course the Captain said to go after the second party. It was obvious they must have crossed the Bridge, so we went after them, and after a bit we picked up the trail. It was easy enough to track them; they'd left … traces.

'We found the children all right. Maybe the orcs knew we were after them and wanted to lighten the load, or maybe they always intended to do what they did. The bodies were there, naked, in heaps. Twenty or thirty of them…'

Anborn paused and took a deep breath. 'I'll tell you this, lad, I've seen some nasty sights in my life, but that was the worst. If I'd ever asked myself, before that, what we were fighting for, I never did again.'

He shuddered, as if the blazing day had turned chill, and fell silent. I felt sick, but I still wanted to know.

'What did Father - the Captain – do?'

'He sat quite still on his horse and said nothing for a minute or two – it seemed a long time – but his eyes turned to flint. Then he said, "Are they all dead?"

'A couple of the men went forward and started turning over the bodies. I would have joined them, but I couldn't bring myself.

'The one we call Beleg was at the bottom of the heap. He was alive, of course, not a mark on him. Somehow they'd missed him. But when the men touched him he started to scream, like a trapped animal, on and on without stopping … The men didn't know what to do. In the end the Captain got off his horse and went up to the boy and slapped him, hard, about the face, and he went quiet. "Cover him," says the Captain, "and two of you, take him back to the City."

'Then he turned to the dead children and commended their spirits to Mandos. Some of us were crying – I was one, and I don't mind admitting it - but the Captain's eyes were still like flint and his voice was as steady as I'd ever heard it. He set a guard over the bodies, and told the rest of us to come with him. We followed the orc-spoor. All the time we rode the Captain never said a word and his face had no expression, and his eyes were the same, like flint. None of us dared say a word either.

'We could see from the tracks that the two orc bands had joined forces and were travelling fast, faster even than they usually do, but they were on foot and we were mounted. We rode the horses till they were well-nigh foundering, and that wasn't like the Captain. I think he'd have gone on, if he'd had to, until we'd killed the horses under us and killed ourselves into the bargain.

'Well, we caught them. They outnumbered us and it was a hard fight, but we fought like … well, like men who'd just seen what we'd seen. There were ten of the brutes left alive when we'd finished, and the Captain had them beheaded. We always kept an axe handy on patrol, for that purpose among others. Belecthor did the job and I remember the Captain saying to him, even then, "And mind you do it clean." Belecthor wouldn't have bothered about that and neither would the rest of us, but that's the Captain for you.'

'And Beleg?' I prompted.

'Well, they took him back to the City, as I said, and took him to the Houses of Healing – not that he was hurt, but they couldn't think where else to take him – and as soon as the Captain got back he went to find how he was. He was asleep, I gather – they'd drugged him – but when the Captain came in Beleg started up, took one look at him and started to scream again, and this time nothing would stop him. I suppose he associated the Captain with what had been done to him. He must be the only man alive that the Captain could never get through to. The Captain tried again, several times, but always with the same result. It grieved the Captain, but there was nothing to be done.

'Even after the Captain stopped going to see Beleg, he asked after him quite often. Beleg isn't his real name, you realise; they called him that just so that he could have a name until he came to himself and told them his real one. But he never came to himself and he never spoke again, not one word. He's been like that ever since, in the Houses of Healing, doing nothing, just sitting and staring at the wall, and has to be fed and cleaned like an animal. To be honest, I think it would have been better for him if he'd been killed along with the rest of them.'

III

What Anborn had described was the Beleg I knew. I'd seen him a few times, but to be honest he frightened me; I knew I ought to be sorry for him, but I felt only repelled, and guilty because of it. After hearing Anborn's tale I truly did feel sorry for him, but there was nothing I or anybody else could do about it.

Or so we thought. Túrin saw things differently. Feeling sorry for people was not his strong point, and to see a man sitting idle when he, Túrin, had a use for him was more than Túrin could bear. He came across Beleg shortly after Túrin attached himself to the Healers; I've already told you about that. It was in their main hall that Túrin saw him, sitting hunched against the wall, and staring.

'What's he doing there?' says Túrin.

The Warden tries to explain. The tragic story leaves Túrin entirely unaffected.

'Just because he can't speak, there's no reason why he shouldn't make himself useful,' says Túrin. The Warden recoils from such heartlessness, but there's something about Túrin's voice – he has a very clear, penetrating voice, like Father's without the warmth in it – that gets through to Beleg. He raises his head and looks directly at Túrin, the first time anyone can remember that Beleg has looked anyone full in the face. Túrin looks back, and somehow his hard black gaze strikes a spark in Beleg's empty eyes.

'Get up,' says Túrin brusquely, and amazingly, Beleg totters to his feet, with his eyes glued to Túrin's face.

Túrin reaches behind him and grabs a broom that happens to be leaning by the wall. He holds it out to Beleg and says, 'Sweep!'

Beleg stares at him, uncomprehending, but his eyes are alive. Túrin demonstrates energetically with the broom, then thrusts it at Beleg and says again, 'Sweep!'

And Beleg makes a queer sound that might almost pass for a laugh, and says 'Swee'!', and takes the broom from Túrin and starts sweeping.

IV

If anyone thought that was the beginning of a complete cure for Beleg, they were being too optimistic. He never does say much, and he has never remembered his real name – or if he did he never told anybody else. But he follows Túrin wherever he goes, for as long as Túrin will let him, and whatever simple task Túrin orders him to do, he'll do it. I think, in his queer, maimed way, he's happy.

Father knew better than to congratulate Túrin for his remarkable achievement – Túrin would only have snarled – and Father still avoids Beleg, in case the sight of him upsets the fragile cure that Túrin brought about. But if I or anybody else start complaining about Túrin and his unlovable ways, Father always says, 'Remember Beleg.'