Beregond's house stood in the fourth circle, in the shadow of the great crag that divided the City. It was built of white stone, as were all the houses in Minas Tirith, and backed right up against the circle wall. There was a shop on the ground floor with racks of jars and bottles and boxes spilling out onto the arcaded porch and a spicy jumble of delightful smells floating from from the open doors. Pippin sniffed appreciatively.
"My wife is an apothecary," Beregond explained, "a maker of medicines, perfumed essences and other concoctions."
They didn't go into the shop but instead climbed a flight of stone steps at the side of the house to a first floor door that opened onto a stair hall. The anteroom beyond it had two sets of double doors standing open; one pair leading to a porch overlooking the street and the other to a large, bright room full of tall, dark haired Big Folk. Beregond introduced his wife, Hiril, a green eyed lady with curly tendrils escaping from her tight braids. And her brother Iorlas, a young Man wearing a loose gown with a plaster covering half his face and leaning heavily on a stick. Then Beregond presented his own twin sisters Baradis and Berethil, as alike as two peas, and their mother, Anguirel, who was somewhat shorter than her children and had her dark hair laced with silver. Lastly he named his four children for Pippin: the very pretty but very serious girl in her early teens with a large book cradled in the crook of her arm was Beleth. The young boy almost a head taller than Pippin was called Bergil. There was also small girl with enormous blue eyes whose name was Bronwen, and the even tinier boy was Borlas. All four children stared at Pippin in open wonder.
"How old are you?" Bergil demanded, adding proudly; "I am ten years already and will soon be five feet."
"Bergil!" his father and mother chorused. But Pippin just grinned. "I am nearly twenty-nine, so I pass you there," he answered. "Though I am but four feet, and not likely to grow any more save sideways."
Bergil gave a low whistle of amazement; "Twenty-nine! Why you are quite old, as old as Uncle Iorlas."
"Thank you very much, nephew." Iorlas said dryly. "I don't feel quite ready to be classed among the greybeards yet, do you Master Peregrin?"
"No indeed." Pippin agreed. "In fact I'm still little more than a boy as my folk reckon such things and won't "come of age" as we say for another four
years yet."
"Bergil," said his father with resignation as well as reproof in his voice, "this is not the kind of courtesy I would have you show an honored guest."
"Oh I don't mind." Pippin said hastily as the boy's face fell. "Nothing wrong asking with an honest question I always say."
The Gondorim didn't seem to go in for dining rooms. A long table had been set up under the arched windows at the end of the parlor, as Pippin thought of it, and spread with what even a Hobbit would regard as a good dinner; jellied brawn and jellied beef, roasts of pork and mutton, and spitted fowl of all kinds from a large goose to a plate of dainty capons, hot and cold vegetable dishes, an apple custard and mince pastries.
The tensions swirling around his new master had robbed Pippin of all appetite while in Denethor's presence, but now it came back with a rush. His mouth watered and he set to with a will. The children stared in open astonishment as plateful after plateful vanished. Bergil opened his mouth to comment but closed it, words unsaid, at his mother's gimlet look.
"At table small men may do great deeds." Beregond observed lightly, an eye on his son. "And Peregrin has had hard duty today, waiting upon the Lord Steward."
"I remember the pair of Halflings we met in Ithilien ate enough for two Men apiece." Iorlas remarked.
Pippin turned to him eagerly. "You saw Frodo and Sam?"
The Man nodded. "Only from a distance, I fear. I can tell you no more than they looked well and were determined to continue their quest."
Pippin wondered if Iorlas had any idea what that quest was. Something in his eye and carefully neutral tone suggested that he did.
"I am one of Captain Faramir's Company of Rangers." he continued. "If not for these wounds of mine, got at Osgiliath, I would have ridden with him this morning.
"I am grateful you could not!" Hiril said firmly. "A foolish waste of Men's lives - what Lord Denethor was thinking to order it or Lord Faramir to agree to it I cannot imagine."
"They think it worth the sacrifice and we must trust their judgment." Beregond said firmly and changed the subject. "The reason for this early dinner, Peregrin, is that the Captains of the Outlands are expected at the usual dinner hour and we intend to go down to the Great Gate to watch them march in. You are welcome to join us."
"I'd love to." said Pippin. "But I have duty again the second hour of the evening."
"No doubt the Lord Denethor wishes you to attend him when he greets the Captains. You will have time and to spare."
"In that case I accept with pleasure." Pippin said politely.
"How are you faring in the Steward's service, Master Peregrin?" Hiril asked.
"Well enough," Pippin answered, perhaps a little doubtfully. "I'm getting used to my duties and Lord Denethor has been very kind." he sensed skepticism and added defensively on his master's behalf: "Of course he has a lot on his mind these days."
"He does indeed." Beregornd agreed grimly. "I am truly glad I do not have to bear such a burden." Iorlas nodded firm agreement. The Women seemed less convinced.
The ladies' dissent from their men's views reminded Pippin of another woman. "Lady Idril doesn't approve of this attack on Osgiliath either - or so Beregond
tells me. I couldn't see any sign of it myself."
"She wore the colors of the Telemmirioni to farwell the troops." the Man explained to his kin.
Everybody but Pippin seemed to understand what that meant. "Who are Telemmirioni please?"
"Descendants of Telemmaite who was one of those who claimed the crown after the death of Mardil, the first Steward." young Beleth piped up readily, "and the only one who refused to accept the decision of the Council and swear to Mardil's son Eradan."
"Idril is descended from that House on her mother's side." Beregond continued. "To wear their colors is accounted a challenge to the Steward's rule. But as the heiress of the House Idril is entitled to do so and has done from time to time to show her displeasure with father or brothers."
"But why wasn't this Telemmaite made king?" Pippin asked.
"Because he had Northman ancestors," Beleth, a learned young lady who liked to show off her knowledge replied before her father could forestall her, "and so his blood was not pure."
That just didn't seem right. "I'm sorry." Pippin said. "But I don't understand why that should make such a difference. You're all Men aren't you?"
Beregond smiled a little bleakly. "We are indeed, Peregrin. And if we Dunedain have greater gifts than other Men it is purely by the grace of the Valar and the deeds of our forefathers. But pride, alas, is our abiding fault and we do hold
ourselves better than other Men, as we should not."
"Especially as there is, these days, little difference between us and those we call 'Lesser Men'." His wife agreed somberly. "The race of Numenor fails and Lady Idril, for all her mixed blood, is the last of the line of the Kings."
"Not quite the last." said Iorlas very drily.
"The last of noble rank at least." said Beregond, then explained to Pippin; "there are a few commoners with a thin strain of the Blood Royal but they are of
no account."
"I would that the Lord Steward agreed with you," said Mistress Anguirel from her end of the long table.
After they had eaten all save Iorlas, Dame Anguirel and little Borlas, walked down the circles of the city to join the throngs gathering in the square behind the Great Gate.
Beregond looked at the tightly packed backs between them and the open pavement and said: "Let us try outside the gate the crowd will be less there."
He was right or perhaps strung as they were along the roadway they just seemed less. Pippin and his companions worked their way to the front and waited. After a few minutes horns sounded in the distance, echoed by trumpets from the rampart above the gate.
The people began to cheer, calling "Forlong! Forlong!"
"What's that they're saying?" Pippin asked Bergil who stood beside him.
"Forlong has come." the boy explained, "Old Forlong the Fat, the Lord of Lossarnach. That is where my grandfather lives -" he broke off to shout; "Hurrah!
Here he is. Good old Forlong!"
Pippin saw am enormously fat old man encased in mail, with a long grey beard showing beneath his black helm. He was mounted upon a big, thick limbed horse with a scarlet and green banderole flying from the spear in his hand and he lead a dusty line of grim, swarthy Men, broad in the shoulders but shorter than the Dunedain, armed with great battle axes.
Over his head Pippin heard Hiril mutter; "So few! a mere two hundred or so."
Beregond answered; "We hoped for ten times that number. No doubt Forlong has heard the tidings from east and north and dares not strip Lossarnach of its defenders. Still every little is a gain."
Forlong was followed by a Lord Devorin of a place called the Ringlo Vale with a following of three hundred Men. Then came the Lord Duinhir of Morthond with his sons, Duilin and Derufin, and their company of five hundred archers. A very large, if ill equipped, force from Anfalas, far away on the western coast, was led by their Lord Golasgil. Then came a few score grim looking hillmen from Lamedon who didn't seem to have a leader any more than did the hundred or so Fisher-folk from the mouths of the Anduin. Finally there came another well appointed company of three hundred green clad men-at-arms led by a handsome golden haired lord riding beneath a green banner. They were followed by the largest and grandest of the forces consisting of both mounted knights and tall men-at-arms, about a thousand in all, under the golden banners of the Prince of Dol Amroth.
"Three thousand all told." Beregond said quietly. "Not enough, not nearly enough. But with the Black Fleet raiding at will can we blame them for putting the peril to their own homes and families first?"
By now the sun had vanished behind the mountain of Mindolluin and it was outlined in in fire, but the city below was drowned in shadow. Pippin shivered for it seemed an omen, and a dark one. The children ran ahead at the heels of the Men of Dol Amroth and he said quietly: "Wouldn't it be as well to get the little ones out of the city? and Mistress Anguirel and Iorlas too?"
"I agree." said Beregond drily. "But my good wife does not."
"Minas Tirith will not fall." Hiril said with calm confidence. "They are safer staying here at home than they would be as prey for raiders on the long road to Lossarnach."
Beregond shrugged and gave Pippin a half-smile. "You see? I can do nothing with her. Are Halfling women so stubborn?"
Pippin thought of his mother and sisters and aunts and cousins, and nodded. "Oh yes."
…..
They left Baradis and Berethil at their own little house in the second circle, and Hiril and her children stopped at home too, but Beregond continued up to the Citadel with Pippin to hear the news the new levies had brought.
"I'm more than a little nervous," Pippin admitted to his friend as they walked up the near empty road, lit by stone lamps on high posts, "I've done some fighting but I've never been in an actual battle before."
"Nor have I," Beregond admitted. Startled Pippin looked up at him and he smiled wryly. "I have been in the service of Gondor all my life but never yet lifted a
sword in her defense. I was chosen early for the Citadel Guard and never had the fortune, or misfortune, to be sent on campaign. So I am even less experienced than you, Peregrin, with your many adventures."
"That's very odd." Pippin said, trying to be tactful. In fact it struck him as very strange indeed given what Boromir had said about Gondor's danger. There couldn't be anything wrong with Beregond himself though, or he wouldn't have been chosen for the Fountain Guard.
"Oh there is a reason," the Man said, "a foolish one in my opinion, but not alas the Steward's."
His mother had said something like that too Pippin recalled, then he remembered in what connection and came to a full stop at the entrance to the tunnel leading up to the Citadel. "You're descended from the Kings too, aren't you?" he blurted, "and Denethor doesn't trust you because of it."
"Alas yes." Beregond answered, "and unnecessarily too. I know my place very
well and will keep to it," the Man laughed briefly. "Don't look so amazed, Peregrin, the blood is old and thin and means nothing."
'Maybe,' Pippin thought doubtfully. 'And maybe Beregond reminds Denethor of Aragorn too.'