Poison in the Citadel by Kathryn Ramage

The next morning, Frodo began his investigation at the Houses of Healing. The Houses were a complex of buildings around small, secluded courtyards and a larger plaza, connected by cloistered walkways, and took up most of the eastern half of the fifth level of the city. All here were dedicated to the healing arts: there were not only beds for the sick and wounded in the central hall, and rooms for laying out the dead, but apothecaries and a herbarium for the making of medicines and a library containing all the medical knowledge that could be gathered, preserving old lore and training young healers. Both Frodo and Merry had spent time here as patients, and Frodo recalled his days of recovery within these peaceful walls as he entered them again.

The Master Healer remembered as well, for he smiled warmly when he saw Frodo and came forward to greet him. "I welcome you to our Houses, Ringbearer. I'm pleased to see your health has greatly improved since you were last here..." He placed his fingertips gently under Frodo's chin and lifted his face to study it carefully, "though not so improved as I would have hoped. If you require our medicinal arts while you are in Minas Tirith, you mustn't hesitate to call upon us."

"Thank you," Frodo replied. "I may need your aid, one day soon. Today, I hope you can help me in another way."

"You refer to these tragic deaths? Yes, of course. A most baffling matter, and this last death has affected those of us who work in the Houses most strongly."

"Did you know Bregilde well?"

"She worked here as a gatherer of herbs for many long years before I came to be apprenticed to the old Master. She has always been part of the Houses to me, a familiar sight. She's been laid out in our rooms for the dead, if you wish to view her."

"Perhaps later, thank you. I'd like to speak to anyone who knew her, worked with her, first."

"Yes, of course. I will take you to the herbalists."

The Master Healer escorted him into the herbarium, where healers skilled in herbal lore prepared the plants of their craft, some grown within these walls, others gathered wild from the woods, fields, and foothills of the mountains beyond the city. Several herbalists were at work when Frodo came in; like the Master and all who served within the Houses, they wore cowled robes. Some began to murmur excitedly at the sight of the hobbit, and one young woman regarded him with curiosity and surprise.

"This is Methilde," the Master Healer introduced the young woman. "She is Bregilde's great-niece, and an apprentice herbalist."

"Are you the King's Investigator?" she asked Frodo. "I'd heard that such a one was coming, but didn't know that you would be a halfling."

"Frodo is the halfling who saved our beloved city--indeed, all this Realm--from darkness," said the Master Healer.

"And will you find who has murdered my aunt?"

"I hope to," answered Frodo. "It is what I was brought here to do, to solve these poisonings." He turned to the Master Healer. "I was told you knew what poison was used. What was it?"

"It was Pahiril, our herb-master, who determined the poison after viewing the bodies," said the Healer, and took Frodo into a sunny bay on the outer wall of the herbarium, filled with pots of growing greenery and flowers, where the herb-master was at work.

Once he understood Frodo's purpose, Pahiril was only too happy to be of assistance. "From the discoloration of the victims' flesh," he began, "I would say that they had taken a powerful distillation of nightshade."

"Do you keep such a distillation about?" asked Frodo.

"Yes, of course. We keep many potions that might be called poisons. What may kill may also cure when given in minute doses. Foxglove, here-" he reached up and gently touched the leaves of a pink-flowered plant growing in a pot on the highest shelf, "strengthens the beat of a weak heart. Valerian gives a restful sleep. Wolfsbane is good for the headache, gout, and fevers. Hensbane eases spasms. Mandragora is beneficial for the pain of wounds, snakebite, and to restore vitality. Poppies are used to make many medicines, but it can ensnare the patient in its soothing spells if taken too often, or kill if too much is ingested. Others too--hemlock, oleander, laburnum..."

He would have gone on indefinitely, reciting the entire pharmacopoeia of deadly plants and their medicinal virtues, touching a sample each if they were at hand on the shelves, if Frodo had not brought him to the point and asked, "What about nightshade?"

"Nightshade? Yes." Pahiril indicated an innocent-looking plant with dark leaves and bright red berries, which sat on a lower shelf where the full sun did not fall. "It is used for pain, and to heal ulcers of the flesh, and also to bathe the eyes and expand the pupils--but in only the most dilute potions, a drop or two in water. More than that causes great distress in the bowels, vomiting, convulsions. That is how it kills. The odd thing is the blue about the lips, which suggests that the victims were unable to draw breath. Nightshade does not affect the breathing."

The Master Healer nodded in agreement. "By their lips, they appeared as if they had been smothered."

"It is my opinion that another poison was combined with the tincture of nightshade," Pahiril finished. "Laurel, or perhaps rhododendron."

"Could that mixture of poisons have been made here?" Frodo wondered.

"Yes, certainly--though all within the Houses are dedicated to the arts which will cure and heal, not those that cause death!"

"Who is permitted to enter this room, where the plants are kept?"

"Herbalists only, about their business, and our Master Healer, of course." Pahiril bowed slightly to the Master.

"Could someone else make this poison, someone not a healer?"

"It is possible," the herb-master admitted grudgingly, "if they knew which plants to use. Any might gather them in the wild--nightshade is found in the damp, wooded clefts on the lowest slopes of our mountains, and laurel trees grow everywhere in Ithilien. It is a matter of culling the berries and leaves of the necessary plants, then brewing them in such a manner that the essence of the poison is drawn off and collected. We have such workings here, but I do not think any others exist in the city."

"It isn't necessary to have such workings, Master," said Methilde, who remained nearby to listen to Frodo's conversation with the herb-master. "Any ordinary pot set to boil on a kitchen fire would do as well."

Pahiril seemed startled and somewhat offended that the girl should contradict him. "Not as effectively."

"No, Master," she replied, "but the one who killed my aunt and the others may not be so particular."

"You are impertinent, Methilde," the Master Healer said gently.

Methilde bowed her head. "Your pardon, Master. I only wished the halfling to know it is possible to make such a poison without the tools of our craft."

The Master Healer accepted this as an apology. "If you wish to help, why don't you introduce Frodo to those who knew your great-aunt best?" he suggested. "You might also take him to view her, if he wishes it."

"Yes, Master." She turned to Frodo. "Will you come with me... Frodo?" For the first time, a hint of a smile appeared on her face. "It is an odd name."

"In Gondor, perhaps," Frodo replied, "but not in the Shire."

He spoke with the other herbalists. Many knew Bregilde well, for they had worked at her side for many years, and praised her knowledge of herb-lore and remarkable healing skills. But none had any idea who would wish to kill her. The thought of it frightened them; if a healer could be murdered so cruelly, then none of them were safe!

Then Methilde took him to view her aunt's body, which lay on a low bier in a small, windowless room with a single candle lit above the head. Bregilde's body was well wrapped in burial shrouds, with a cloth wound tightly around the head lengthwise from crown to jaw so that only her face showed. The dead woman's face was very pale in the dimly lit room, but a trace of the mottling remained.

As he stood on tiptoe to have a closer look at these odd and distinctive markings, which herb-master had said were a sign of nightshade poisoning, Methilde spoke softly: "There is something else you must know, Frodo: Aunt Bregilde could easily have brewed such a potion herself. She knew the plants that grow for fifty miles around Minas Tirith. She taught me all I know, and knew much more besides."

Frodo was astonished, not at this information itself, but that the young woman seemed to be implying her great-aunt was the poisoner.

When he asked her, she replied, "I don't know it is so, but I've wondered since her death. I don't like the thought of it, but it is in my mind."

"Did she know Councilor Carathir or his son? Could she have borne them a grudge?"

Methilde shook her head. "No, none that I know. I never heard her speak their names."

"Why then do think she might have killed them? And do you think she took the last dose of her own poison herself, out of remorse?"

"Oh, no." She looked down at him, eyes bright. "I think that she made the poison for another, who wished the councilor and his son to die--and once they had been disposed of, he had no more use for her and got rid of her too. He used her own craft against her. That person, Frodo, is the one you must find."
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