but in order to win you have to walk over corpses and wade through unthinkable muck, again and again – a vicious circle. And the most horrid job is still ahead of you; that you’ll be doing it with another’s hands – those of Baron Grager – makes no difference. What was it Tangorn had said back then? “An honest division of labor: clean hands for the mastermind, clean conscience for the executor.” Like hell…
(Tangorn ran a grand rehearsal of the key scene before he left for Umbar and concluded dispassionately: “This won’t work. You give yourself away by every look and the very tone of your voice. One can tell that you’re lying from a mile away without being an Elf, who are a lot more perceptive than we are. Forgive me – I should’ve realized right away that you’re incapable of doing this. Even if they swallow my bait in Umbar you won’t be able to angle the fish here.”
“I will – I have to.” “No. Please don’t argue, I won’t be able to do it, either. It’s not enough to have nerves of steel to play this part convincingly knowing the full background; one has to be not even a bastard, but completely inhuman.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Not at all, sir. Maybe you can become inhuman in time, but we have no time. The only solution is to use a cutout.”
“Use a what?”
“It’s our jargon. We need to involve an agent in the dark… sorry. In other words, the agent – an intermediary – has to believe that he’s telling the truth. Given who we’re dealing with, he has to be a top-notch professional.”
“You mean Baron Grager?”
“Hmm… As your sergeant would say: you get it, doc.”
“Under what pretext can we involve him?”
“The pretext is that we’re afraid that during negotiations the Elves will break into your brains with their magic or whatnot and turn the exchange into a robbery. Which is totally true, by the way. Plus it will be a little easier for you if you share this crock of shit with the baron. As the famous Su Vey Go used to say: ‘An honest division of labor: clean hands for the mastermind, clean conscience for the executor.’”
“Who was this Su Vey Go?”
“A spy, who else?”)
…The fish bit by the end of the eighty-third day of the hundred he had been allotted. The last rays of the setting sun pierced the echoing space of the Knights Hall, empty at this hour, casting orange spots on its far wall; the spots looked live and warm, seemingly trying to jump off the wall onto the face and hands of a slender girl in dusty man’s clothes, who chose to sit in Faramir’s armchair. She does look like a girl, Grager thought, although by human standards she looks about thirty, whereas it’s scary to even think about her real age. To say that she’s beautiful is to say nothing; one can describe great Alvendi’s
“Milady Eornis, on behalf of the Prince of Ithilien I welcome you to Emyn Arnen. I’m Baron Grager; perhaps you’ve heard of me?”
“Oh yes.” “Did Elandar send you Baron Tangorn’s message?” Eornis nodded, took out a simple silver ring covered with scuffed Elvish runes from some secret pocket and put it on the table before Grager.
“This was one of the rings in the seals of your package. It belonged to my son Eloar, who’s missing in action. You know something about his fate… did I understand your message correctly, Baron?”
Chapter 59
“Yes, milady, you did understand correctly. Let me dot the ‘i’s first: like my dead friend, I’m only an intermediary. There may be ways to search my brains with Elvish magic, but you won’t find anything there beyond what I’m about to tell you.”
“You all exaggerate Elvish powers…”
“So much the better. Anyway, your son is alive and in captivity. He will be returned to you once we agree on the price.”
“Oh, anything, anything at all – precious gems, Gondolin weapons, magic scrolls…”
“Alas, milady, his captors are not hostage-trading southern
Her expression did not change, but her thin fingers went white in their grip on the armchair: “I will not betray my people for my son’s life!”
“Don’t you even want to know how little you’d have to do?”
After an eternity that lasted a couple of seconds she answered “I do,” and Grager, the veteran of a hundred recruitments, knew that the game was his – all that was left was the endgame, with an extra piece.
“Some preliminary explanations first. Eloar separated from his squad and got lost in the desert. He was dying of thirst when he was discovered, so the Mordorian insurgents saved his life first…”
“Saved his life? Those monsters?”
“Please, milady – all these stories about smoked human meat might impress the Shire yokels, but not me. I’ve fought the Orcs for four years and know the score: these guys have always admired brave foes and treated prisoners well – that’s a fact. The problem is that they’ve found out that your Eloar had participated in so-called mop-ups – that’s a euphemism for mass murders of civilians.”
“But that’s a lie!” “Unfortunately, it’s an honest truth,” Grager sighed tiredly. “It so happened that my late friend Baron Tangorn observed the work of Eloar’s Easterlings. I will spare your maternal feelings by not describing what he witnessed.”
“It’s some horrible mistake, I swear! My boy… Wait, did you just say ‘Easterlings?’ Perhaps he simply couldn’t restrain those savages…”
“Milady Eornis, a commander is as responsible for the actions of his subordinates as for his own. That’s how it is with Men, don’t know about Elves. Anyway, I’m only telling you this so that you understand that should we fail to agree on the price of his release, your son can’t place his hopes in the Convention on prisoners of war. He’ll be simply turned over to those whose relatives got ‘mopped up.’”
“What…” she swallowed convulsively, “what do I have to do?”
“First I’d like to clarify your position in Lorien’s hierarchy.”
“Don’t they know it?”
“They do, but only from Eloar, who may have been simply trying to impress them with his hostage value. They need to know how powerful you are:
