After Beregond had left, Frodo sat on Merry's bed and told his cousin the end of the tale. Gandalf had also joined the hobbits and sat smoking his pipe on the empty bed that had once been Pippin's while he listened.
"I was closest to seeing the truth when I wondered if there'd been an old romance between Carathir and Bregilde, and the herbalist bore a grudge when he cast her off," Frodo concluded. "It was the right idea, but the wrong generation. Cirandil and Methilde were the ones I should've considered. It would have told me much of the story."
"You couldn't have guessed, Frodo," Merry said consolingly. "She seemed like such a nice, quiet girl, and not mad or vengeful at all."
"That's the horrible thing. I liked her," Frodo answered glumly. "I thought she was trying to help me find her aunt's murderer, but every word she said was a cold-blooded lie. She had no qualms about killing anyone who stood in the way of what she wanted, even me. She felt no remorse--except for her aunt, if we take her at her final word. I thought it was so kind of her to come and visit when I was ill, but she must've come that first time to look for ways to poison me. She always planned her murders carefully, and learned something of her victims' habits before she acted."
"And what about the second time?" asked Merry. "If she'd been hanging around outside the house for days, she must've been after something. That bottle of poison was already here."
"I think she hoped to get into the house unobserved and retrieve that bottle once she saw I wasn't going to take her 'medicine'. She couldn't even hope that I'd take it in mistake for the sleeping potion, since I'd stopped using that as well. As long as it sat here, it would be a danger to her. Once I learned that the Master Healer hadn't sent it, I'd soon figure out who had." He sighed. "Until then, I was blind and trusting. She made a fool of me from the first. She planned to mislead me even before I came here."
"How do you mean?" asked Gandalf.
"Her aunt's death," Frodo replied. "I've been thinking about it, and I'm sure Methilde killed her aunt because she'd heard that the King had summoned a Special Investigator to find the murderer. Perhaps Bregilde knew or suspected what she'd done, and Methilde ensured the old woman's silence before I arrived. But more than that--I think she did it so I would have someone to look for. As a skilled herbalist, and one who often went into the citadel on her business with the ladies, Bregilde would be a natural suspect. Methilde led me in that direction when I first met her--she was the one who suggested that her aunt had provided the poison that killed Carathir and his son, and then been killed herself. Not a word of it was true, but it sounded plausible and I came believe it. My theories were based upon it. As long as I was busy searching for the person who'd hired Bregilde, a person who didn't exist, I wouldn't consider other possibilities, or other herbalists.
"It might've ended there, with my investigation running to no end, if it hadn't been for Cirandil and Tharya. Methilde didn't know he was in love with another girl. I told her that. She kept insisting to me that Cirandil was innocent. She didn't want him to take the blame for the murders. Even when she realized that he'd scorned her, she didn't want to see him harmed. She stayed her hand rather than kill him as she did the others--I'm sure that's why she sent that note to frighten him away. It wasn't until he was brought back and we told her how worried he was for Tharya, she must've seen that driving them apart wouldn't do no good. And so the poison came out again--for Tharya, for Cirandil, and for me. Perhaps she already intended to poison the ladies' tea and bring Tharya to the Houses where she could give her something more deadly."
"Why do you think she wanted to kill you, Frodo?" Gandalf asked him. "You admit that you never suspected her, but she must've felt you were a threat--enough so that she risked coming here to deliver that bottle when she might be observed and remembered. It was, after all, her attempt to poison you that brought her to your attention."
"I don't know," Frodo admitted. "She might've done it before then. She had a chance, in the Houses of Healing, and didn't. Maybe she was afraid I was getting too close to discovering the truth and wanted to stop me." He brightened suddenly. "She saw her name in that list of suspects we made up, Merry! Remember? It was mostly a joke, but she must've poisoned her aunt just the way I said then. Bregilde had no mysterious visitor that night." He flopped onto the bed at his cousin's feet. "I feel like such a fool, and more people are dead because of me."
"Enough recriminations," Gandalf said, rising from his seat. "You did your best. Do you think this young woman would have stopped at two murders if you hadn't intervened? Having such power over the lives and deaths of others is a temptation too great for some to resist. Once she'd tasted that power, she would use it again and again whenever she had need. Once she learned of Tharya and Cirandil, as she must eventually, she would've done just as she did. Who knows how many more lives might have been taken? Everyone in the city will sleep more safely tonight, Frodo, because of you. And so you too must sleep."
As he headed for the door, he paused and turned back. "I suppose you'll want to stay in here with Merry tonight--but, Frodo, you are not to keep him up. He's had a tiring day too." This was spoken with an underlying meaning that the hobbits couldn't misinterpret, and Merry laughed after Gandalf had gone out.
"There, you see, Frodo? Wizards do know everything." He held back the blankets to invite Frodo in. "Come to bed. Gandalf's quite right: I'm not up for much tonight, after the day I've had, but I'd welcome someone to hold me tight. And so would you."
Frodo couldn't argue with that, and snuggled down beside his cousin.
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