The bad spell that came in March hadn't taken Frodo completely by surprise. He'd had a similar spell of darkness and pain on the same date the year before, on the first anniversary of the Ring's destruction. He'd been dreading the recurrence, but he thought he was braced for it. After all, he'd been in reasonably good health for several months, since his last dark day in October. He'd even hoped that, as time passed, the force of the spell would diminish.
He was wrong. This year was worse. The day itself was a nightmare of memories that he could not escape by waking. He'd lain in his bed all day curled into a ball beneath his blankets, weeping and moaning as if he'd taken a mortal wound--for that was exactly what it felt like. That little ache that was always at the core of his being now grew to overwhelm him. He felt just as he had at the moment the Ring had gone into the fire, almost as if his heart had been torn beating from his breast, and yet he lived... although he nearly wished he did not.
Sam sat by his bedside for most of the day, holding his hand and patting his fevered brow with cool, damp cloths, but Frodo found no comfort in his friend's ministrations. He could only endure, and hope that the end of this terrible day would bring surcease. At last, at dusk, he finally fell into an exhausted and mercifully dreamless sleep.
But even after the worst was over and the black spell had passed, Frodo was laid low throughout the days that followed, and felt quite weak and dazed.
Sam insisted on keeping him abed. "I want you well again as soon as possible," he explained on the second day after Frodo's bad spell. "If I'm to marry Rosie in two weeks, you've got to be fit to stand by me at the ceremony. I don't want to worry about you while I'm away on my honeymoon."
In spite of his weariness and the lingering remnants of gloom that cast shadows over his mind, Frodo had to smile at this. "Of course you'll worry, Sam," he teased. "You can't help it."
"Maybe," Sam conceded, "but I don't want to come running back from Waymoot over it."
As his gift to the about-to-be married couple, Frodo had rented the cottage outside Waymoot where his cousin Angelica used to meet her lover, Lad Whitfoot, in secret. It was a perfect, private, little love-nest, and now that Angelica and Lad had married and their baby had been born, they'd moved into a larger home in Michel Delving, leaving the place vacant.
"So you stay in that bed and rest," Sam concluded firmly as he plumped the pillows and tucked Frodo in against the spring chill. "Mind you don't set a foot on the floor 'til I say so."
"Yes, Sam." Frodo made no protest to these dictates. He had no desire to get up, so it was no imposition to obey Sam's orders.
"Is there anything I can bring you?" Sam asked him.
"My notes on my book, please," Frodo requested. "If I'm going to be abed for awhile, perhaps I can do a little work."
"Not too much work!"
"Not too much," Frodo agreed. "What about something to read? That ought to occupy my mind and keep me from feeling too depressed. I don't see how a book could tire me."
Sam didn't see how either, and went into Frodo's study. He returned a few minutes later, bringing the Red Book, with Frodo's notes tucked in between the pages, and a collection of smaller books stacked on top.
"Here's some of Mr. Bilbo's old books," he said as he deposited the stack on the nightstand.
"Thank you, Sam." Frodo took the books from the pile one by one, looked over the title on each spine, and opened a few to look at the neat, familiar writing that crowded the pages within. "Uncle Bilbo translated so many of the old, Elvish legends. I haven't read these in years--I used to enjoy them so much as a boy. Remember, Sam? Before we'd ever been away from the Shire..."
"And saw the Elves," said Sam wistfully.
"It might be a good idea to refresh my memory, and perhaps include a few notes in my book. There are a quite a lot of references to Elvish history in our tale that can benefit from a more detailed explanation." He had come to the last book in the pile, a thin volume titled "The Tragedy of The White Lady of Gondolin." The title was unfamiliar; Frodo couldn't recall seeing it before. "I think I'll start with this one."
With the freshly plumped pillows behind his back, Frodo drew up his knees and set the book across his lap. As Sam left him and went to make supper, he began to read.
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None Now Live Who Remember... by Kathryn Ramage
Story notes: No dead hobbits. Some long-dead Elves.
The inspiration for this story came while I was watching the DVD of the Inspector Morse mystery, "The Wench is Dead," in which the bedridden inspector solves an Oxford murder that happened over 150 years before. The story is an homage to a classic mystery story, Josephine Tey's "The Daughter of Time," in which another bedridden detective solves the mystery of what happened to the little Princes in the Tower.
As I was watching, I thought, "*I* have a semi-invalid detective! I could write a mystery like this." And so I have.
This story takes place in the spring of 1421 (S.R.), and begins just after the second anniversary of the Ring's destruction.
"The Tragedy of The White Lady of Gondolin" is based on the story of Aredhel and Eol in the Silmarillion (although some details have been changed).
December 2005
The Frodo Investigates! series
