The next afternoon, Frodo got out of bed, but he continued to rest in his room. Both Gandalf and Merry had gone out and had left him sitting before a well-built-up fire, dressed in a shirt and trousers and his dressing gown, looking over the notes Merry had written out for him the day before.
When the day-servant who'd been hired to do the laundry, sweep up, and cook dinners for the wizard and hobbits, brought in Frodo's tea on a tray, she told him, "Ye've a visitor, little master, if yer fit to see 'e. If ye an't fit, I'll tell 'e to come back later."
"No, I'm fine. Please, show him in." Frodo was expecting the King, for Aragorn had promised to come and look in on him while he was ill, and tell tales of his adventures during the quest for the Red Book. He doubted that this could be Aragorn, however; it would take a dauntless servant indeed to stand up to a King and send him off!
When the servant returned, the slight figure of a cowled and robed healer followed her.
"Methilde, hello!" Frodo said in surprise. "What brings you here?"
"The Master Healer wishes to know if you're feeling better today, or if you need aid," the young herbalist explained. "It is not my usual office to carry messages, but I wished to know too. Are you well, Frodo?"
"I am better, thank you. You may tell the Master that, unless he hears it elsewhere first. I've sent my cousin Merry on an errand to the Houses. If the Master asks, Merry will tell him all about my present state of health." Merry had gone to talk to Pahiril and arrange for Frodo to interview the other herbalists; he must certainly see the Master Healer, to gain permission, while he was there. "I expect him back at any minute. I thought he'd join me." Frodo gestured to the little table at his elbow, and the tray upon it crowded with teapot and cups and the sweets Merry had run down to the bakery this morning to purchase specially for him. "Sit down, please, and wait with me," he invited her. "Will you have a cup of tea?"
"Tea?" Methilde lifted the lid on the teapot to have a peek at the steaming brew inside. "What is the herb? What benefit do you take it for?"
"None," answered Frodo. "It's good, plain tea, simply to drink." He poured a cup out for her. "Don't you know of it?"
"Yes, of course. It's a shrub of the camellia family. Some brew the leaves to drink at breakfast. How odd to see it at this hour of the day! It stimulates the nerves to wakefulness, but it has no medicinal virtues."
Frodo smiled and offered her the cup. "Perhaps not, but hobbits couldn't live without a spot of afternoon tea. Merry's introduced it to the ladies of the court, so I'll suppose you'll be seeing more of it around the city once the fashion for it spreads."
As she sat down in the other chair to drink her tea, Methilde pushed back her cowl to fall behind her shoulders. Frodo saw her face fully for the first time. When he'd seen her in the Houses, and when she'd accompanied him to her aunt's room, he'd only had an impression of pale cheeks and chin, and dark, solemn eyes beneath a frame of cloth. He observed now that, like the barmaid Ilsethe, Methilde wore her hair neatly braided and looped into a coil at the nape of her neck. Her unadorned simplicity made a contrast to the court maidens with their long, flowing tresses and colorful finery, and she didn't giggle and fuss over him the way they did.
It was the first time that he'd thought of her as a girl, in the same way he thought of the court maidens and the barmaid, or the hobbit-misses at home. One tended to think of the robed healers who served in the Houses as sexless beings rather than ordinary males and females, which made it much easier to discuss extremely personal matters of health with them.
"I hope to be able to continue my investigation in another day or two, if they'll let me," Frodo told her. "I'm not allowed to go out until I'm well enough. King's orders."
"But you work at it even here, I see." She was looking at the little memorandum book, which lay on the arm of Frodo's chair, open to the page about Bregilde. "What have you done to find my aunt's murderer?"
"Quite a lot, actually. Ah- Merry and I have written up a list of suspects." Frodo wished he'd hidden the book before she'd seen it, but it was too late now. He tried to put his elbow casually over the page, but Methilde had already spotted her own name written beneath her aunt's in bold, black ink; she reached out to snatch up the book before Frodo could stop her.
Circles of dark red suffused her cheeks. "Do you suspect me, Frodo?"
He could only explain, and hope she would not be offended. "I'm sorry, but it is customary to consider everybody connected with the victims, no matter how far-fetched. Merry and I put down every name we could think of."
"But it's ridiculous..." Her eyes went over the rest of the page, reading the names of the other suspects listed for Bregilde, and to his relief, she laughed. "Oh, you're entirely wrong! Auntie had no enemies among the other healers. Everyone admired her skills. Master Pahiril? And the Master Healer! Surely you see how silly that is?"
"Very silly," Frodo agreed, recalling how he and Merry had laughed over the notion. "But a healer could easily poison anybody if he wished to."
"No healer I know would wish to! Why, if that were so, he might've put something into your sleeping potion..." She lowered the notebook, held up before her face, and asked him, "Do you take your sleeping draught, Frodo? You've slept well?"
"Yes, wonderfully well, thank you."
Methilde twisted around in her chair to find the little colored glass bottle, stopped with a plug of cork and bearing the Healer's seal, sitting on the bedside table. "Is it a tincture of poppy?"
"I don't know, but it works most effectively." Frodo pursued the question, "Why don't you believe a healer would poison someone? I don't accuse the Master Healer or anyone specifically, but you told me yourself you thought your aunt had done so. You said that was why she'd been murdered herself."
"Yes... but she was made to do it."
"By whom?"
"I don't know. I hoped you would find out." Methilde had turned to look back through the previous pages of the memorandum book and was reading what Merry had written about the suspects for Carathir. "So, it's as I feared. You suspect Cirandil. That is the name I hear spoken most often since these poisonings began, but I'd hoped you would find out otherwise. It couldn't be him."
Frodo was surprised to hear both the name and the emotion with which she insisted on his innocence. "I didn't realize that you were acquainted with him."
"We met once," she answered. "He was wounded in the leg during the war, three years ago, and he lay abed for a long while in the Houses of Healing. Aunt Bregilde made a poultice to draw the bile from his wound, and thus saved the leg, which might've been cut off otherwise. She also made him a soothing potion for the pain--he was in great pain for long afterwards. I'd only begun my apprenticing then, but would attend him with her and I spoke with him while his wound healed. He seemed a Man of noble mien and honor. I don't believe he would kill his kinsmen to elevate himself, as you've written here."
Frodo thought that the handsome young guardsmen had made a strong impression on her, if not an entirely accurate one. It seemed that Cirandil had as much power to charm the girls of the city as his cousin Caradan had. He did not point out that, even though Methilde meant to defend Cirandil, this story of hers had just provided the connection between the young Man and her great-aunt and he'd long been looking for. Instead, Frodo said gently, "He may have had other reasons."
Methilde stared at him. "What do you mean?"
"I mean that Cirandil is in love with a young lady of the court, the same lady who was promised to wed his cousin Caradan."
"I've never heard such a thing!" she protested. "Which lady is it?"
"Her name is Tharya." Frodo wondered how familiar Methilde was with the people in the citadel. Had her aunt ever spoken of the families she tended? "She is a daughter of one of the councilors--the late Lord Carathir's friend Larengar, as a matter of fact--and a maid-in-waiting to Queen Arwen."
"Is she pretty?"
Frodo was not the best judge of feminine beauty and its charms, but he had some aesthetic taste. "I'd call her striking-looking--tall, black-haired. Pretty enough, if you like that sort."
"I didn't know of this, but I see you've written her name too." Methilde appeared agitated; the red had returned to her cheeks and she quickly gave the memorandum book back to Frodo as if she didn't want to read anymore. "Yes, you may be right, Frodo. That would make a difference."
She rose from her chair and was preparing to leave, when Merry returned. Aragorn was with him.
"Look who I found coming down the street to see us!" the hobbit announced gleefully, then looked contrite when he saw that Frodo was not alone. "I didn't realize you had company."
"You've sent for a healer, Frodo?" Aragorn asked with a note of grave concern.
"No, she only came to pay a call upon me," Frodo explained. "This is Methilde, the herbalist Bregilde's great-niece. We were just talking about the murders. Methilde, this is my cousin Merry Brandybuck, and of course you know the King."
Methilde had dropped into a deep curtsey at the sight of Aragorn. "My lord Elessar," she murmured. Frodo realized that to him and Merry, Aragorn was simply 'Strider,' an old and dear friend; to the apprentice healer, he was a long-awaited king out of legend and lord of the city. She had probably never been nearer to him than one of a crowd at a public ceremony.
Aragorn was courteous to her, as he was to all his subjects, but the young woman seemed very anxious to get away. She left after she promised Frodo she would call again.
"Merry, wait 'til you hear what she told me!" Frodo said eagerly after she'd gone. "But first, tell me--what did Pahiril say?"
"Frodo..." Aragorn was frowning sternly down at him. "You should be resting."
"I am resting, Strider," Frodo replied. "Don't scold."
"You are still investigating. Merry tells me you sent him to question the healers. You won't be well if you keep this up and push yourself beyond your strength."
"I haven't!" Frodo insisted. "I haven't left this room in two days, and I won't until I've been given leave to. I was only talking to the young woman. That's all I intend to do until I am well again--talk and think. If there's any more strenuous work to be done, Merry will do it for me. After all, you brought me here to find a murderer, Strider, and now I am here, I mean to see this through to the end. Will you let me? Please?"
"If you agree not to exert yourself, Frodo," Aragorn agreed. "I will be watching closely to ensure that you don't."
Frodo beamed up at him. "I'm sure you will, and others too. Under such careful guard, I couldn't over-tire myself if I tried!"
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