Denethor's gentlemen in waiting paid no more attention to Pippin's return than they had to his leaving. He lit one of the candles he was carrying from a stand near the door to the bedroom before going in.
It was pitch dark and dead silent save for Faramir's labored breathing. Grimly Pippin groped his way to the nearest candle stand, stuck in the new candles and lit them, then moved on to the next. Only after he'd made a complete circuit of the room did he turn to look at his master.
Faramir's face was red with the heat of his fever and glistened in the candlelight. But his father's, hanging over him, was cold and grey like the congealed candle wax dripping from the stands. There was nothing Pippin could say, nothing he could do but take up his station by the door and wait.
After what seemed a very long time the door opened to admit a breathless messenger. "My Lord," he said bowing to Denethor's back, "the first circle is on fire and Men are flying from the walls. What are your commands?"
Slowly the Steward straightened up then he turned to the messenger a face so bleak and terrible that the Man blanched and recoiled a step. "Why? Why do the fools fly?" Denethor demanded; "Better to burn sooner than late, for burn we must. Go back to your bonfire!" he came to his feet and his voice rose to a shout. "The West has failed. Go back and burn!" The Man turned and fled. Denethor looked after him and then back at his son with a glitter in his eye that Pippin didn't like at all.
"Send for my servants!"
Pippin went out the open door to the anteroom. "The Lord Steward calls for you." he said to the gentlemen in waiting. Then he went on through the presence chamber and down the stair to see for himself what was happening outside.
The first circle of the city was indeed afire, and the enemy was hurling great balls of flaming pitch over the wall to start more. Looking down from the embrasure at the tip of the great buttress Pippin saw a great battering ram tipped with an iron wolf's head, red fire in its jaws standing beore the Great Gate far below. Straining trolls pulled it back then released it to swing forward, crashing against the wood and metal of the gates.
"Oh no." Pippin whispered.
…..
The Great Gate quivered under a thunderous blow. The wounded in the square and the Women tending them stared at it apprehensively.
"Idril!" the Lady looked up at Mithrandir on the wall above. "Clear the square," he shouted. "Get the wounded and your Women out of there."
She waved to show she had heard and turned to obey. "Luinil, get the walking wounded up and moving, at least as far as the second circle. Annalind, Pharinzil, try to find me some Men to carry the litters of those who cannot walk."
"The gate won't break." Luinil said fiercely, denying her fear. "It can't!" The ancient timbers shuddered again under a second even greater blow.
"Get up to the second circle or higher if you can," was all Idril answered.
After seeing her field hospital in the square packed up and on its way she went down the lower avenue to collect the Women at the aid stations and start them and their charges upward as well. Then she climbed onto the wall to find Hirluin of Pinnath Gelin, who commanded the defenses north of the Gate.
"Get your Men out of here," she said flatly. He stared at her in disbelief, as well he might, and she explained. "The Gate is under attack, it will not hold, nor will our Men will be able to keep the enemy out when it breaks. If you don't go now you will be cut off and trapped."
He looked around at the Orc littered ramparts and finally nodded reluctantly. "You are right, Lady. We can do no more here."
…..
Far above them Pippin turned away from the embrasure. If the city was about to be breached its Steward should be told, not that he was likely to care. The Hobbit had just reached the fountain and the Tree when he saw Denethor descending the steps of the Tower. He was followed by six guardsmen bearing Faramir, now dressed in mail and asilver edged surcoat, upon a bier. They were followed in turn by the somber waiting gentlemen.
Pippin stopped in his tracks, eyes filling with tears. "Oh no." he whispered again. Faramir was dead.
He ran to join the little procession, trailing the gentlemen servants, as they walked slowly down the stair and through the tunnel to the sixth circle. Turning westward they went past the grand old mansions, some visibly decaying, watched from window and doorway by wide eyed Women and children. Finally the procession came to a door in the rearward wall guarded by a porter in the uniform of the Citadel. At Denethor's command he unlocked the door and they passed through. Pippin walking at the tail end of the procession heard the door close and re-lock behind him. He followed the others down a winding, descending road hemmed in on either side by high walls. Eventually it opened up into a narrow street with many side lanes snaking their way between massive buildings of black and white stone, grand with domes and spires and many statues looking down with empty eyes upon the intruders.
Pippin looked around him uneasily. He didn't like this place. Suddenly he realized where he was. These were the splendid tombs of the Lords of Gondor and they had brought Faramir here to bury him. Pippin stopped where he was in the middle of the street and let the funeral cortege go on without him. He didn't want to go into any of those grim, grand buildings or watch them lay Faramir away in cold stone. He'd just stay here and wait until Denethor and his attendants came out again. Some minutes passed then a pair of the gentlemen in waiting reappeared walking quickly up the street towards the long twisty passage and the door. Pippin looked after them in some bewilderment. Had they forgotten something?
…..
Idril chivied her various charges through fire and ruin up the great avenue to the second gate. They were overtaken by a surge of shaken and battered Men and Mithrandir on his white horse.
"The city is breached!" he shouted. "Fall back to the second level." then he saw her; "Get the Women and children out, get them out!" he cried and galloped on.
She glared after him. What did he think she was doing? But she feared the second level would prove no safe refuge. She knew very well that the inner walls had been hopelessly compromised over the centuries by windows, balconies and postern doors if Mithrandir did not. Unfortunately she proved right. Even before the second gate had closed behind them the circle had been breached in a dozen places. Orcs, Trolls and even Wargs roamed the side streets and narrow alleys hunting for prey. The retreat soon disintegrated into a score of desperate rearguard actions as soldiers tried to cover the flight of the Women, unarmed Men and wounded to the
higher levels.
Idril stood sheltered in the lea of a half shattered tower with Pharinzil and Annalind huddled behind her. Women ran past them up a flight of steps winding steeply between tall buildings. One or two made the mistake of looking back over their shoulders and screamed at the sight of massive black Orcs all to close behind. Idril looked frantically around for something, anything to stop them and her eye was caught by the jagged wall looming over her.
She grabbed at a couple of the Women running by, "Help me!" the five of them got behind the shattered fragment of wall and pushed with all their strength, it gave but only a little. Other Women at the tail of the group saw what they were trying to do and stopped to help. Their combined weight finally overbalanced the ruin and it
gave way giant stones cascaded down the stair crushing and sweeping away the Uruks.
"Well done!" Idril panted to her companions. "Now go on, keep moving." obediently the Women scampered up the steps. Before following she looked one last time down at the wreckage and saw that one Orc was still barely alive, half buried, mewling in pain.
Idril hesitated, torn between hatred and disgust and an unexpected pity. Finally she drew the dagger her father had given her and picking her way down through the tumbled stones drove it into the creature's eye, ending its agony. She wiped the black blood from the blade and turned to follow the other Women telling herself there was no justification for needless cruelty, even against such as Orcs.
….
Pippin sat disconsolately on the steps of a splendid tomb adorned with gilded statues of black stone. Denethor's gentlemen finally reappeared, walking more slowly and followed by liveried servants carrying bundles of wood and vessels of oil like the one he'd spilled over the beacon pyre. He watched them pass in bewilderment. Then after a few moments later saw the serving Men hurry back looking pale and shaken.
Pippin came to his feet. "What is it? What are they doing in there?"
"Something I have no stomach for." one of the Men answered him bleakly.
And another said; "If you are wise Little Master you'll come back with us. Leave the Dead to the Dead."
They hastened on up the road. Pippin, really frightened now, went the other way - after Denethor. Peering cautiously through the open door of the great tomb house of the Stewards he saw guards and gentlemen in waiting piling wood onto a wide stone dais. When they lifted Faramir from his litter to lay him atop the pile he moaned a weak protest.
Pippin gasped. Faramir wasn't dead at all! Why then had Denethor brought him here?
The Steward climbed up on the heaped wood to cradle his son's head in his lap. "The house of his spirit crumbles." he mourned. "He is burning, already burning."
Suddenly Pippin realized with horror what Denethor meant to do. Abandoning his hiding place he ran to the pyre and tried to pull down the bundles of wood. "No! He's not dead! He's not dead!" And iron hand gripped him by the back of the neck, dragging him away from the pyre. It was Denethor himself. He pulled Pippin all the way to the door, disregarding his struggles and pleas, and threw him outside.
"Hear now, Peregrin, son of Paladin," he said in an awful voice. "I release you from my service. Go now and die in what way seems best to you." And then he slammed the doors shut in the Hobbit's face. Pippin heard him cry "Pour oil on the wood!"
He turned and ran all the way back to the winding road to the locked door and pounded on it, nearly bowled over the porter when he finally opened to him. Pippin raced through the sixth circle and up the tunnel to the Citadel. Help, he had to get help for Faramir but who and where? Then he remembered one of the four guards
standing round the Tree was Beregond and ran to him.
"Beregond, Beregond, you must help. Faramir isn't dead but his father is going to burn him alive and himself too I think! Please do something." He saw the Man's eyes glint above the black silk mask as they looked down on him and then away.
Pippin remembered suddenly what he'd been told the very first day they met: Fountain Guards couldn't speak or take notice of anything while on duty.
A sob of frustration broke from him. "Curse this mad city and its mad laws!" Abandoning Beregond he ran back to the stair. Gandalf, Gandalf could help. If
only he could find him in time.