Sorry, not sorry. I decided there needed to be more miscommunication and mystic happening and so the chapter flowed from there. I think we'll leave Helms Deep soon as well. It's a pretty grim place in this story.

Disclaimer: I do not own the Hobbit.

Chapter 8: Last Rites

'I'm sorry we have put you in such a situation,' Captain Eamon said somewhat apologetically, 'but considering your... occupation... and the fact you have survived this plague you, out of all the garrison, are the most equipped for this task.'

Jenny was hard pressed to keep her temper and looked down at the dirty cloth she had been given to cover her face and the pail of water so she could clean.

'Yes, I understand that,' she said crossly, 'but what you have given me to complete the task is woeful!'

'They only need be cleaned,' Eamon said persuasively as he tried to usher her towards to doorway, which had a newly painted red cross on it.

Jenny was not to be moved though.

'These men were my friends and deserve more than just "cleaning",' she said stomping her foot, 'give me the proper equipment and I'll use my professional skill to make sure they are completely presentable.'

Captain Eamon looked at her beseechingly. He clearly just wanted to task over a done with.

'They are to be burned anyway. There will be no viewing, no days of mourning and no last rites to be performed over the body. Not for blasphemic reasons but simply because we can't risk the blight from their bodies taking another soul.'

'No,' Jenny said with her lip aquiver, 'you said yourself that I am most suited for the job and I agree. Let me do this! I have done this before so please! Give me some type of rouge, fragrant spices and some lemon if you have it.'

Captain Eamon sighed wearily and that is when a voice piped up from where the speaker had been clearly eavesdropping from a nearby corridor

'Please Captain Eamon,' Kai said quietly but clearly, his face downcast, 'He was the only family I had left.'

Jenny tiled her head to the side and considered Kai from where he was half in shadow.

'Captain Kailen?' she asked curiously and somewhat tactlessly.

Kai looked up and showed his red-rimmed eyes before nodding and slipping his head back down.

'Ah lad...' Captain Eamon said wiping a hand down his face with a sigh, 'Fine. We'll prepare your Da for his final rites. The others too. Just be aware though, our priest refuses to near the bodies. So they will have to be done once the pyre is out.'

Jenny frowned.

'I'll do them then,' she said firmly.

'What?' Eamon asked confused.

'I'll do the rites properly. I've done them before,' Jenny lied with a blank face.

'Really?'

'Sure... There were loads of prayers and... rites to do at Tharbard. I'm pretty sure there was no priest there either so well. We made do.'

While what Jenny was said was true...somewhat, it was definitely not in context to what this conversation was about. Jenny was more than happy to let that slide though if she got her own way.

Eamon looked sceptical, 'You conducted rites and prayers? Forgive me but may I ask exactly what your role was at Tharbard? I seem to have some incorrect information. I have seen the scroll pertaining to your impending position at Minas Tirith and assumed it was the same at Tharbard? I have certainly heard of your reputation there at least.'

'Don't listen to those rumours,' Jenny said quickly as she was quite keen to get rid of some of the awful reputation she had gathered and here seemed an opportunity.

'I am and always will be a professional. I want you to know I always try my best to make the experience as painless as possible but well they wriggle and squirm and that's when accidents seem to happen.'

Captain Eamon didn't look too enthused with the direction of talk so Jenny hurried to answer his original question.

'As for my role at Tharbard I assume it is much the same as the one I will have at Minas Tirith just with a higher workload I'm sure. The clientele will be a little different as well...' she mused distracted.

Eamon frowned.

'You are a strange woman to talk of such things so freely and so apathetically.'

'Don't call the Lady strange,' Kai said defensively, 'she deserves your respect.'

Eamon raised an eyebrow at Kai who now looked like a small bristled ginger cat. Jenny was touched at the chivalry though as she was a little hurt with the Captains accusation. She was mature though and tried to move the conversation along.

'Getting back to our point though Captain,' Jenny redirected, 'Let me conduct the last rites. I will be there readying the bodies anyway. Let me give them the respect they deserve.'

Captain Eamon pursed his lips, 'For fear of sacrilege I will have a priest undertake the last rites once the pyre has burned out but...' he added before Jenny could interrupt, 'but, I will let you say your prayers for your companions. I'm sure you would have without my permission anyway,' he said wryly.

Jenny nodded and then touched her hand gently on Kai's head from where he had progressively moved closer during the conversation.

'Thank you Captain.'

'I will also send for the materials you need. Let yourself in and start the cleansing and we'll knock twice when they arrive for you to collect,' the Captain said and with a clink of his chainmail turned and started marching away, 'Come Kai let me show you where our armoury is!' he called as he went.

Kai looked up at Jenny, bit his lip but turned to follow the Captain.

'If you need anything call for me milady,' he said in parting and left leaving Jenny watching his back amused.

Milady, she thought and snorted softly.

Getting back to the task on hand though she raised the cloth to her mouth and tied a knot behind her head so the cloth pressed firmly over her nose and lips. She then lifted the bucket, turned the key in the door lock and stepped over the threshold into the gloomy room.

'Oprah, remember Oprah. Be a strong, independent woman like Oprah,' Jenny recited as she applied some rouge to Gwaithe's pale lips, 'Oprah did this too and she turned into a millionaire and America's sweetheart.'

Jenny pushed away any disgust for what she was doing and focused on making sure the men were prepared for the funeral pyre.

She had already cleaned the other riders and changed them into their more formal clothes... well their cleaner clothes as they didn't have much else. She had saved Gwaithe for last as he was the most rugged looking and she was ever the procrastinator. He now lay still with a trimmed beard, neatly pressed tunic and his eyebrows plucked so you could actually see the shape of his eyes. Jenny privately thought she made him look better dead than he'd been alive but also chided herself for her unkind thoughts.

'He was a good man.' she said aloud and sadly then suddenly remembered she'd intended to sneakily do their final rites over their bodies and thought she ought to say something now that they were clean.

It was a pity she didn't know how rites were spoken. She wasn't even sure what religion they were supposed to be done in.

She had attended a Catholic school though and figured prayers were something fairly universal and that would have to be close enough. So, she closed her eyes, folded her hands and prayed.

'Umm... Dear God, please let these men go to heaven... Amen,' Jenny spoke, winked one eye open and waited to see if anything would happen. The room remained dark, cold and very, very gloomy though.

Maybe I did it wrong? she wondered. She shrugged, closed her eyes again and gave it another go.

'Dear God... umm I know I'm not a priest or the proper person to do this.. Actually, I'm not really anything... but I am here and will speak for these men. They had families and didn't deserve to go this quickly like this but I guess stuff like this happens,' she paused and sighed and got serious, 'regardless, these were good men and I think they deserve to go to a good place. Please allow them to greet all their lost ones that have gone before them and give them rest. Amen,' she finished a little more strongly.

She certainly felt more at peace and hoped the dead riders did too. She opened her eyes slowly and fell back in surprise as the green ghostly body of Gwaithe hovered before her. She turned and the rest of the riders stood silently beside their own bodies.

The Captain hovered closer till he was an arm stretch away staring empty eyed at her before he nodded to her and the then flickered and blinked away. The other riders nodded to her as well before disappearing also. Gwaithe stayed the longest and tugged her one last toothless grin and then she was alone in the room once more.

Jenny stared unseeing the stone wall of the room before her waiting for her brain to reboot. Then, silently she tidied up the cleaning equipment she had used to clean the bodies and strode swiftly out of the room almost running into Kai who had obviously been hovering outside the door.

'Milady are you ok? Are you getting sick again' he asked worriedly.

Jenny stared down at him with a thousand eyed stare, 'Your fathers' spirit has moved on,' she intoned dully before continuing on her way to her room.

Kai stared after her and then glanced through the door to where his fathers body lay still. He gulped and went to go in but before he could enter the door blew itself shut with an unknown breeze. Chills ran down his spine and Kai went and hurried after his Lady.

'She must be a Priestess if she can call to the dead,' he wondered aloud as he scampered off.

The soldiers guarding that plague area of the keep from curious onlookers looked at each other shocked as they overhead. They had also seen the otherworldly look the pale face of the strange Lady Torturer had after she had been with the dead.

'A torturer and a priestess?' they whispered to themselves wholeheartedly believing it was possible.

And so, by the next morning the gossip network of the keep had all been informed of the development with their resident curiosity.

Meanwhile Jenny spent a sleepless night staring at the ceiling in the room she was given trying to come to terms with what had just happened. Finally in the end she came to a conclusion.

'I think... I think I don't like ghosts.'

xx