No Man's Child - Chapter 13

‘Nay, cousin! they are not boys,’ said Ioreth to her kinswoman from Imloth Melui, who stood beside her. ‘Those are Periain, out of the far country of the Halflings, where they are princes of great fame, it is said. I should know, for I had one to tend in the Houses. They are small, but they are valiant. Why, cousin, one of them went with only his esquire into the Black Country and fought with the Dark Lord all by himself, and set fire to his Tower, if you can believe it. At least that is the tale in the City.

ROTK: The Steward and the King

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"Aye, the sun shines bright and rain falls from the sky. This is news?"

Elder Maurus' voice rises in an angry quaver into the tall rafters of my lord's hall and the Angle's Elders fall silent. Where once men argued and leaned across the table as if their words were held back simply by the edge of the wood against which they pressed, now they look away. They forget their disagreements in faces that hide their impatience out of an old respect for the man.
( Continued here )