The king sat by the central fireplace, hunched up on a carven stool by the table.

Figures stood there at its head, carven with cunning in forms human and bestial, but all corrupt and loathsome.

In it were no tables, but a bright fire was burning in a great hearth between the carven pillars upon either side.

Pippin saw his carven face with its proud bones and skin like ivory, and the long curved nose between the dark deep eyes; and he was reminded not so much of Boromir as of Aragorn.

Now the strange thing was that whereas the boy might burst into weeping at a chance rebuke, he stood these beatings under the bamboo without a sound, his face carven and pale as an image.