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A Family Way	By : kspence Category: Lord of the Rings Movies > Het - Male/Female Views: 5843 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own the Lord of the Rings book series and movie series, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

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3: A bad night out

“I have been told to see that you are provided with an evening meal,” the woman said. From her voice, this was the person who had been trying to dissuade Rashanka from her chosen course of action earlier in the evening and her name, if Shagrat remembered correctly, was ‘Sofina’ or ‘Safina’; something like that. Accompanying her was a fourth Haradrim, a bearded man dressed in tribesman’s robes much like the others,’ but without the head-dress they had been wearing. He had not been with the rest of the party earlier and would have been hard to miss because he was, frankly, massive: standing a shade taller than Shagrat, he was almost half across again as broad. From the size of him, this had to be the manservant Rashanka had been referring to earlier - ‘manservant’ in this case obviously being a euphemism for ‘strong-arm man’ or ‘enforcer’. The two Haradrim waited in the doorway (in the manservant’s case, practically filling it), and stared balefully across at Shagrat.

The Orc bit his lips. “Have you brought it then?” he asked.   “Any grub, I mean?”

“I did not journey here to wait upon you as a servant!” Safina spat, her voice shaking with anger. “You will come with us when we eat,” and then to her accomplice – “Omran! Fetch the unclean creature! We take it with us now!”

Omran scruffed Shagrat and half-carried the largely-unresisting Orc along with him.

“If you’re planning on trying the public bar, I doubt they’ll let you in,” Shagrat told them as he was borne downstairs, “not if I’m with you at any rate. People round these parts don’t much care for Orcs. Most likely lead to all sorts of fuss.” He glanced sidelong at Safina, who was keeping pace at Omran’s side. She met his gaze with such an unmistakeable look of malice that Shagrat found himself swallowing, apprehensively. The woman intended to make trouble for him, that was quite clear. They carried on down to the main part of the hostelry in silence.

At first luck was on the Orc’s side, because their arrival in the dining room caused little or no comment. Safina had picked a table close to the centre of the large room and as they waited to be served, Shagrat sat up straight in the chair Omran had deposited him in, staring fixedly into space. Actually he was keeping a covert eye on the door. A steady procession of visitors, cellar-men and other bar-staff had been going back and forth since they got there, and if the Orc’s plan to make a break for it had any chance of succeeding, he’d need a clear run to start with.

Since being press-ganged into the Barker’s service, Shagrat had been on the receiving end of mob-justice in brawls in bar-rooms just like this one many times before, but always with Chard or his employer standing by to ensure that the situation didn’t spiral entirely out of control. What would happen if trouble started in the absence of one or other of them was something Shagrat had no intention of hanging around to find out and the moment his escape route was free he leapt towards the exit, scrambling low on all fours and diving between the tables like a rat. But the Uruk had little stamina left and lacked agility, and after only a couple of bounds his bid for freedom was cut short when his momentum carried him barrelling into a newly arriving party of tavern guests. With an exclamation of surprise the man he’d collided with grabbed hold of him, but lunging up from floor-level, the Orc dealt the fellow a fierce head-butt between the eyes and he fell back, nose spurting blood copiously. Shagrat fought his way past only to be seized by the first man’s mate, who knocked him down and followed after, dragging him back into the inn.

“’Don’t want - n’y trouble –“ the Uruk gulped out as the man holding him slung him back onto the bar then shoved him headfirst down it, scattering bottles, plates and glasses far and wide. The hinged access hatch at the end of the bar was standing open and the Orc fell through it, crashing down along with the wreckage and broken crockery.

The chief Barkeeper bore down on Shagrat, swearing disgustedly about the damage caused as he kicked his way through the debris. He bent down to seize hold of one of the Orc’s wrists, then immediately twisted it behind his back and between his shoulder-blades in a well-practiced policeman’s grip, using the pressure to lever him up and up until he was wavering on the points of his toes.   Kicking backwards frantically the Uruk tried to break the Barman’s hold, but his bare foot made little impact on the man’s knee-booted shin, and worse still, the man responded by delivering a wrenching upwards yank to the wrist he was holding, using nearly enough force to pull the Orc’s left arm from its socket. The great mass of scarring caused by a previous injury had left Shagrat with a restricted range of movement and only limited feeling in that shoulder at the best of times, and though a certain variety of sensation was currently managing to scream its agonizing message along the damaged nerve fibres at him, he had no way yet of telling whether his arm had been permanently dislocated.   To avoid further injury he stopped struggling abruptly - but the Barman just seized this opportunity to push him forwards towards the Haradrims’ table, then slammed him down on it, jerking the Orc’s abused limb in the process and forcing him to stifle a sharp yell of anguish in his throat.

“This got anything to do with you, does it?” the Barman accused the two Haradrim, and then under his breath he said: “I thought I said we’d turn a blind eye, but only so long as you were sure to keep - that – upstairs and well out of sight!”

Safina shook her head nonchalantly and in response to a muttered question from Omran told the aide: “He has already served - truly, his one and only useful - purpose.”

The Barman stopped short at that, obviously having been expecting a different answer, and loosed his hold on Shagrat. The Orc slipped awkwardly to the ground and found he could not rise: the last of his strength was gone and as he propped himself up as best he could, the patron whose nose he’d bloodied shouldered the Barman aside and punched him, knocking him back so that his head impacted with a sickening knock as it hit the flagstone floor. The man stepped in aggressively to stand over him and as he raised one foot high up over the Uruk’s face, Shagrat realized there was every likelihood that the fellow intended to trample him to death. And he felt next to nothing at the thought of that; no fear of pain, or anger, or even the least bit of regret - only faint anticipation and a vaguely sensed relief that at least this way, it would, most probably be quick. The Orc closed his eye and waited.

While all this was going on Rashanka had been resting upstairs. Alerted by the faint sounds of the disturbances ongoing in the dining-room she had quickly dressed herself, and was hurrying down to investigate when the scene of destruction set out before her brought her up short at the foot of the stairs. Her yell of horror was loud when she took in the sight of the Orc lying crumpled at the feet of a man who, as she watched, bent down and struck him, obviously intending to do more. For a frightening moment she believed him already dead, so prone and still was he - but then she saw the creature move slightly.

“Omran!” Rashanka shrieked. “Stop him!”

Her bodyguard obeyed at once, and in the moment when Shagrat’s aggressor turned his attention towards the wildly screaming Haradrim, Omran leapt up from his table, was gripping the man from behind, and had lifted him clean off his feet. Omran swung the customer deftly to the side, away from Rashanka’s (apparently) precious Orc and held him there in a polite yet unbreakably inflexible grip.

Rashanka hurried towards them. “A thousand pardons upon your person and your house,” she said, turning from the irate customer to the Barkeeper and back again. “What has happened is most regrettable. An unfortunate – a most unfortunate mistake, I think.” Her tone was conciliatory but there was a definite undercurrent of authority in both her words and bearing. The woman seemed to be managing the situation quite effortlessly and from her attitude it was clear that she was person accustomed to having her wishes obeyed, instantly.

Omran was no longer holding on to the complaining man, but had placed his solid bulk very deliberately so that the swollen-nosed fellow was on one side of him, with Rashanka and the Orc on the other. Though his manner was not obviously hostile, for some reason the physical fact of him was having a calming effect on the situation – in that the angry patron certainly seemed less inclined to air his grievances than he had before.

“I would not begin to insult you with the suggestion that any manner of gift,” Rashanka was saying, “however ample, or generously bestowed, would stand as recompense for the damage – the many damages - that this unruly creature -” and she waved dismissively at Shagrat, still down on the floor, “has inflicted. But – alas - I stand responsible for his actions, and the custom of my country demands I pay his debt to you as compensation from my person. I am honoured, if you agree that you will accept from me a token for your trouble.”

“What kind of token?” the customer Omran had been holding asked, speaking through the handkerchief he had pressed up against his bloody nose.

“A token,” Rashanka said, snapping her fingers imperiously at Omran, who passed her the large and substantial-looking leather pouch he was wearing on his belt, “of gold!” Unfastening the drawstrings on the bag she poured its contents onto the nearest table. A stream of variously-sized yellow coins glittered out.

The attention of Bar-man and customer was now successfully diverted all the way from Shagrat, and Rashanka, hissing under her breath, ordered her assistant to “take him back to our room!” – at which Omran heaved the prostrate Orc up, slinging him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and carried him out.

In fact it took much less of a payment than Rashanka had been expecting to pacify the two men and once she was certain that they, and then afterwards her own comrades (who had also retreated upstairs) were sufficiently calmed down, she set off to deal with the troublesome Uruk itself. When she arrived at his chamber the creature was still slumped on the floor against the wall in much the same position as Omran must have left him. She stared down at the Orc’s battered face, listening for a moment to his laboured breathing.

“Are you badly injured?” Rashanka asked him. “You made mention earlier of some manner of damage you had sustained –“

“It’s nothing,” the Orc wheezed, interrupting her. “At least,” he added sourly, hugging his bruised ribs, “not in any place you’d be worried about.”

The woman looked a little uncomfortable. “Perhaps I ought to beg your pardon,” she began, stiffly. “I should perhaps also – apologize, on Safina’s behalf. She should not have acted as she did. For myself, I intended no such misfortune to fall upon you.”

“Sorted it out all right in the end though, didn’t you?” the Uruk replied. “Paying them off’s a good trick if you can manage it.” His good eye narrowed and he added: “I take it money’s no object for you lot, is it?”

“Funds,” the woman conceded, “are not particularly a problem.”

“You could make it up to me easily enough in that case,” the Orc said swiftly. “Even another day or two ought to do it. Pay Chard whatever he wants to keep me here a bit longer, and we’ll call it quits.”

“What difference would that make to you?”

The Orc told her that the man Rashanka had been dealing with wasn’t the one who was actually in charge of the Barker’s travelling show. “Chard’s been left to run things,” he explained, “but that fellow doesn’t know his own strength. The way he’s been going I won’t see the week out. He’ll finish me off long before that.”

Rashanka snorted in derision. “Your fear of death is so very great?”

“No,” the Uruk replied, “I can’t say it is – not any more, at any rate. Just the way it’ll come about if Chard has anything to do with it.” He broke off, gulping down a quick swallow of breath and cleared his throat. “Thing is he’d never be bothered finishing it properly, and I don’t want end up gasping my last, dying by inches mired in the muck. Beause we don’t die easily, our lot, and something like that’s always a miserable, drawn-out kind of finish for – for someone of our sort.”

“This is all?”

“Yes,” he said simply, “and,” he continued when Rashanka made no reply, “it wouldn’t hurt your plans either, would it? You haven’t gotten up the duff, now, have you? If I was here another day or two – well, that would definitely give you time for a good few more tries.”

Though Rashanka could hear the desperation in the Uruk’s voice, the over-riding emotion she experienced at that point was nothing more than irritation: partly because of the complications he was introducing into what might otherwise have been a straightforward arrangement, but much more strongly than that, irritation directed straight at the Orc - for having allowed himself to fall into such a predicament in the first place. After all, the brute’s current difficulties were, as Rashanka tried to justify it to herself, entirely of his own making.

It was also the first time he had presumed to refer – however obliquely - to the subject of their common Orcish origins, and to Rashanka the issue of her parentage had always been particularly vexed. She supposed she took a sort of pride in her part-Orcish heritage on one hand as a feature that defined or set her apart. But on the other, she had lived as (or passed for) a human throughout the time of the War of the Ring and though her countrymen had been counted as allies of Mordor, she was by now well aware of the intense abhorrence for Orcs that was felt by the free peoples of Middle Earth.

Perhaps it was her background then, that made it impossible for Rashanka to reconcile the abject reality of Shagrat with her – admittedly rather idealized - notions of the proper way an Uruk-hai should conduct itself and the upshot was that rightly or wrongly, she resented him for it.

“Your proposition is unacceptable,” Rashanka said. “Whatever difficulties you face are none of my concern – and may only even exist in your imagining. After all, you say you have lived under the control of your Mr Chard, and his ‘Barker’ for some time already, and yet you are still here! It seems to me that your acceptance of captivity in their hands is something to which you have, perhaps, too readily allowed yourself to adapt. Particularly since it seems clear that you have never made the slightest effort at attempting,” she added, as a spiteful afterthought, “any proper form of escape.”

The Orc clearly hadn’t been expecting such a reproof, but it was to his credit that his composure slipped only for a moment as he stared at her in obvious dismay. From the way he looked in that single unguarded instant however, the woman knew that for the second time that night, she might as well have struck him in the face.

TBC.
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A Family Way