As soon as Saruman was well in the door, he got up and ascended the stairs quickly. Saruman muttered and fumed as he went.

"I have never been so humiliated!" He grumbled under his breath. "If I but had throttled him when he was my prisoner." He climbed more stairs, brooding and raving. "How did those filthy Halflings escape? Are my Uruk-Hai too weak as to be bested by two over-grown children?" He fumed as he walked up another staircase. "If I had my way they would be squealing for mercy!" He entered a chamber with a window facing out towards the wreck of Isengard. Wormtongue was huddled up in a corner. "Worm! Come hither!" Grima, miserable and scared, came to his master.

"What do you want?" He asked with a sneer.

"Move your worthless carcass and fetch me the Palantir." Saruman ordered.

"What?" Grima asked fearfully.

"The seeing-stone you worthless slave! Bring it here for I wish to see what that meddler is doing with that wretched horse-lord!" Grima looked at his feet and shifted nervously.

"Master, it’s not here." He admitted.

"What?" Saruman asked with his malicious voice.

"I... cast it out yonder window towards the meddler." Saruman was furious. He let out a cry that could be heard by all outside the tower.

"You worthless fool!!" He shouted. "I have payed you far too much for your stupidity! First you lost Theoden to the Stormcrow, but now you have given the Palantir into his cursed hands!" Saruman looked out the window. He saw the company leaving. He fumed at the sight of the Hobbits.

"Master," Wormtongue called out softly. "What do we do now?"

"We can do nothing but wait, you fool!" Saruman yelled. "When Morder finds that the accursed Company has the Palantir, He will send a messenger, and he will not be pleased!" He turned towards the window. "We cannot stay until Sauron tracks us down. We must go... but I have nothing! Nothing save my voice and a useless servant!"

"But master, what if we cannot leave?" He asked. Saruman turned towards him and yelled,

"Then I shall feed you to the Nazgul!" Wormtongue let out a cry and hid. Saruman kept looking out the window and muttered. "Treebeard has a soft core inside that hard bark of his, I simply need to girdle him."

Later that evening, Treebeard came to the courtyard.

"Saruman!" He called out. "I have brought food, should you want it." Saruman ordered Grima to go fetch it, then he turned out the window.

"Tell me, Ent, where did Gandalf go?"

"The end of the valley, as far as my knowledge goes."

"And I rot here in Orthanc." Saruman said, sounding hurt.

"You are there by your own hasty choices." Treebeard said.

"Be off, cruel one." Saruman said, "I hope you can protect what you hold dear through an old man’s suffering!" Treebeard walked back out, thinking over many matters