Disclaimer: I don’t own them, and I’ll put them back when I’m done. I don’t own the poem, either; it was written by A. S. Byatt for the romance “Possession”.

Author’s Note: This chapter contains my stand-alone fic “The Room of Tears”, which has been slightly altered to fit “Masquerade”. Readers were asking questions about future reactions and clamoring for a sequel when I wrote it several months ago, and so I thought that this would be a prime time to go into it. My thanks to Pipwise Brandygin for the beta.

Chapter Four: The Secret Room 

  “There’s some places, you know, that will never be fully rid of the Shadow.”

  Pippin came out of his thoughts with a start and looked around him. He had been taking his afternoon meal at the butteries with the guards, lost in thought about both the door that Eowyn had opened, and the portrait of Lady Finduilas that they had seen. He looked around the room curiously, searching for the scratchy old voice he had just heard.

  The speaker was an older soldier, retired now from fighting. Pippin looked sideways over at him, amazed by the scruffiness of the man. He had long gray hair and a scarred face, but he carried himself with a strange sort of dignity. He was leaning over some of the younger guards at the next table.

  “Why do you say that, Targon?” one of them asked him.

  “Well, why do you think that part of the Citadel is closed? The shadow lies heavy there. Not the Dark Lord’s shadow, before you ask, though perhaps that’s a part of it. I can’t rightly say,” Targon replied. He scratched his head thoughtfully, and Pippin edged a little closer. “There’s something over there, something not right. The Stewards knew about it, but the common folk didn’t. Lady Finduilas knew, and the knowledge aided in the killing of her.”

  Pippin’s insides flopped over. Aragorn’s words came back to him. “Know when to let things lie… I once knew a young woman who refused to do so, and she could not bear the knowledge of what she found.”  Had the young woman been Finduilas?

  “I thought she died of a fever,” the young guard said.

  “The Shadow in the East filled her with horror,” Targon replied sadly. “She was a free thing in a house of secrets, and she could not muster the strength to survive her illness. Mark my words, lads, something dark lives in the closed part of the Citadel. Ghosts of ages past.”

  His heart pounding, Pippin stared into his ale. This old soldier knew more than he was saying. Should he ask him to go on? Oh, he was curious! Pippin took a gulp of ale, and promptly choked. His coughing alerted the men to him, and Targon hastened to say, “Aye, but these are old tales. Nothing but tales. Nothing to talk about. We don’t want any trouble, now, do we?” And he swept out of the butteries.

  Pippin leapt off of his bench and rushed after him. Targon had moved quickly though, and by the time Pippin reached the door, the man had disappeared into the rain that had come out of the West that morning. 

  “Well that’s a bother,” Pippin muttered. “I’ll bet he ran off because he knows I’ve got friends in high places. Well, there’s only one thing for it.”

  He had finished doing his guard duty that morning, and the rest of his day was empty of duties. Moving quickly, Pippin left the butteries and returned to his own room. Wearing the surcoat of the Guard, he could go anywhere in Minas Tirith without question, but the mail shirt had to go. He undid the clasps and let the coat slide to the floor, flexing his shoulders in relief at the lightness of wearing only cloth. He did not know how Faramir and Eomer could have handled wearing such heavy armor for years on end. It was unbearable.

  Exploration called for several things; this Pippin knew from long experience of excavating the old rooms back at the Great Smials. He grabbed the new leather pack that Faramir had sent him in Ithilien, and stuffed candles, flint and steel, and a few apples into it. He knew that he could abscond with a lantern closer to the unlocked door. Now he only needed one more thing.

  “Frodo, have you seen Lady Eowyn?”

  Frodo looked up at his cousin from his seat in the armchair before the fire. There was a huge old book perched in his lap, and he had that look on his face, the one that always made Pippin flush guiltily, even when he was totally innocent.

  “And what do you want with the Lady Eowyn, Peregrin Took?” he demanded. “What are you up to?”

  “Up to?” Pippin yelped. “Frodo, you wound me. I’m looking for a great lady whose friendship I have been fortunate enough to win, and you ask what I’m up to. Where is the trust, Frodo?”

  Frodo raised one eyebrow, a perfect arch over his stern eyes, and Pippin knew that he had to leave as soon as possible. It had been stupid to babble on.

  “I’ll just go look for her myself. Thank you, cousin,” he said quickly, and backed out of the room.

  He had forgotten that Frodo knew everything.

  Pippin strode across the Citadel, knocking on doors and asking if anyone had seen Eowyn. The answer was a unanimous no, but they would all be so grateful if he would take this letter to Aragorn, or this document to Faramir, or run this pretty potted rose to Arwen’s chambers. Pippin turned tail and fled when he saw Gimli advancing upon him with a dull axe in one hand. He did not think about the rudeness of such an act. He merely thought about preserving his freedom.

  If no one had seen Eowyn since breakfast, there was nothing to do but go on without her. Pippin did not particularly relish the thought of exploring the haunted Citadel by himself, but what were a few ghosts after Moria, and nearly being squashed by a cave troll? He could do this.

  Pippin found the portrait gallery with very little difficulty, re-tracing his steps from the night before. Everything looked different during the daytime, less shadowy and mysterious. That is, everything was normal until he reached the portrait gallery. The portrait gallery was just as shadowy as it had been last night, though dull light filtered through the crack in the drapes and lightened the gloom. Pippin hesitated before starting through the dim gallery.

  “They’re just paintings. They can’t hurt you,” he muttered. “Come on, Pippin, show that famous Took spirit.”

  He found the door shortly, and looked both ways before opening it and stepping through. There was no one to be seen, but the drapes at the far window were waving slightly, as though the window was open slightly. Pippin shivered and let himself through the door.

  If anything, it was colder in the unused part of the house. Pippin shivered, looking around him. He was standing at one end of a dusty corridor that was lined with windows. He could see no other rooms, so he began to walk.

  Fifteen minutes later, Pippin found himself at the top of a sweeping staircase. It was carpeted in red velvet, and led down to a magnificent ballroom, much grander than the ballroom where the masquerade parties were being held. Three chandeliers hung from the ceiling, draped in dusty ropes of cobwebs. The floor was thick with dust, as were the tall windows that lined one wall. Pippin felt very small and lonely as he walked down those stairs and started across the ballroom. He felt that if he listened hard enough, he would be able to hear the faint strains of music and murmurs of past balls. He did not want to listen hard.

  Fortunately, there was a door leading out of the room at the opposite end of the dance floor. Pippin turned the large knob and let himself into another dusty hallway. He felt rather ashamed at the nervousness that fluttered in his stomach, and resolved to begin opening doors soon. He just needed a moment to gather himself together. It was so quiet over here.

  It was still raining. Pippin stared glumly out of the window, annoyed at how tense he was feeling. The rain was not doing anything to aid his mood, if anything, it made him feel even more depressed. Maybe Targon had been right, and there really was a sort of Shadow over here. It certainly made sense. He wished that he had been able to find Eowyn. Maybe he would go back and wait until dinner, then ask her to accompany him tomorrow.

 Besides, he mused, there were things that he could do to keep himself occupied, even if his curiosity was not sated. He could stay with Frodo, who was busy reading all of the books in the Great Library, or help Sam and Legolas with their precious heated greenhouses. Even learning to speak Rohirric with Merry was preferable to being in this dark and lonely place all alone.

  “Yes, indeed I am a proper Took,” Pippin muttered, thumping the wall disgustedly with one small fist. “Scared of the dark like a teen.”

  All at once, he heard a loud crash and a shriek. Pippin jumped a foot high and whirled about, heart pounding like a Haradric drum. Strangely, it came from somewhere above him. But how could that be, Pippin wondered. As far as he knew, he was completely alone in this section of the Citadel. What was this, the ghost that Targon had mentioned?

  “Half a moment,” he muttered, glancing up as flakes of white plaster drifted down onto his shoulders. What he saw startled him greatly.

  A leg hung from the ceiling. It had not been there a moment ago, and it was moving, so Pippin realized that someone had probably been unfortunate enough to fall through the floor. But who? Who else was mad enough to go exploring alone?

  “Um, hello?” he called up to the leg. “What’s going on?”

  “Pippin?” yelled a faint, distinctly harried voice. A female voice.

  Pippin started. “Eowyn?!”

  There was a sound of scrabbling, and the leg kicked wildly. “Yes! Can you get up here and help me?”

  Well, that was where she had been, then. Exploring without him. Pippin looked around; there didn’t seem to be any way to get up to the next floor.
  “Yes, but how? The nearest stairs are halfway across the Citadel.”

  “Are you by the window, the one that looks out over the garden? Yes? All right, go to the room on the left side of the corridor, which has blue walls. There is a hole in the ceiling, and below it, a table with a chair on it. Come through there, and you’ll see me,” Eowyn instructed.

  Pippin hesitated, then set out. Curiosity killed the Took, he thought resignedly, and perhaps the Lady Eowyn.

  The blue room was easy enough to find, and Pippin was soon climbing onto the table, and hauling himself up through the hole in the ceiling. It was a tight squeeze, and he was very glad that he was not wearing his chain mail under his livery. Once he was in the room above, he looked around.

  “Hullo,” Eowyn said, sounding both petulant and relieved. A fallen lantern lay nearby. “Good to see you.”

  Pippin grinned at her, crawling carefully over to her. “Hullo, Eowyn. What are you doing up here? Exploring without me?”

  “You were on duty, and I got bored of waiting,” Eowyn said, “ I expected you to turn up eventually. I walked most of the first level, but I wanted to see what the rooms on this floor were like. There was no way up, though. It looked like a staircase had been removed. I came in here to look around, and there was a very convenient hole in the ceiling, so I climbed up. I’d just made it up here, but the floor gave and my leg went through. Can you help me?”

  “I can try,” Pippin replied, setting her lantern upright. “What is this place?”

  They were in a large room, one with several windows, the drapes of which were shut tightly. A massive stone fireplace dominated one wall, a wide blue rug in front of it, and a slender bed with a dusty white canopy was set kitty-cornered to it. There was a desk and a chair across the room, and a large, glass-fronted cabinet on the other side of the fireplace. Paintings and sketches decorated the walls, and there was a stack of much-loved books next to the hearth. Decades worth of dust covered every surface.

  “I don’t know,” Eowyn said softly. “It’s very grim in here. It’s cold.”

  Pippin shivered. “I’d noticed. Come on, let’s get you out of there.”

  Gripping Eowyn under her arms, Pippin inched backwards. Slowly, her leg came free of the hole, and she was able to stand and put her red dress to rights.

  “Thank you, Pip,” she said. “Careful of the floor, now. Walk lightly. I want to see the rest of this room.”

  Stringing Pippin’s long belt between them as a link in case the floor gave again, the lady and the hobbit went to a window and drew the heavy velvet drapes back. Weak light illuminated the room, and they were able to see more clearly, though not clearly enough, for there was much still lying hidden in the shadows. Holding the lantern high, the two of them began to explore.

  It had been a girl’s room, Eowyn thought. The paintings on the walls were of rolling green hills, and a great expanse of water that could only be the sea. The tattered books on the floor were all in Elvish, so neither she nor Pippin could read them, but the illustrations inside were stunningly beautiful. Inside the top book was a painting of a lovely Elvish lady dancing under the trees, and a man watching her.

  “Beren and Luthien,” Pippin murmured. “We heard that lay sung at Rivendell. It’s beautiful.”

  “Look in the front cover,” Eowyn replied. “Maybe she wrote her name inside.”

  Pippin looked in all of the books, but there was nothing. He sighed, and Eowyn stood and looked around again.

  “Oh, there’s something on the bed. In the bed, I should say,” she said.

  Pippin stood up and seized her hand. “You don’t think…” he began.

  Eowyn hesitated, then gasped, grasping his meaning. “No! No, there couldn’t be…no, we’d have had some sort of feeling…”

  “I feel sad,” Pippin whispered. “It’s sad in here, Eowyn.”

  Eowyn took a deep breath and straightened her spine. “There can’t be a body in the bed, Pippin. There can’t be. I’m going to take a look.”

  Pippin nodded, but he neither said anything nor released her hand as they went to the bed. It was a single person’s bed, covered with a white quilt and white curtains over the canopy. There was a slight bulge in the covers near the pillow, as if something small were hidden there. Eowyn and Pippin traded a glance, then Eowyn reached out and flipped the covers back.

  “Oh,” they breathed in unison.

  It was a doll. A porcelain doll dressed in a dress of faded red velvet, her hair a soft, silky black. Her glass eyes were green, and stared up at them, unseeing. She had obviously been lying there, hidden, for years.

  The silence was so thick that Pippin felt that he could have reached out and touched it. He looked up at Eowyn; she was staring at the doll as though entranced. After a moment, she spoke, her voice a soft, deep, rhythmic murmur,

“Dolly keeps a Secret
Safer than a Friend
Dolly's Silent Sympathy
Lasts without end.
Friends may betray us
Love may Decay
Dolly's Discretion
Outlasts our Day.”

  “Eowyn?” Pippin whispered, squeezing the White Lady’s hand, and finding it suddenly cold. “What was that?”

  Eowyn shook her head, frowning. “I heard it in a tale once, when I was very small. I can’t imagine why it came to my head now. Unless…”

  She let go off Pippin’s hand and reached for the doll. Lifting it up, Eowyn raised its gown, revealing delicately sewn underclothes. The lifted shift showed a porcelain body…and the corner of a piece of paper, sticking out from the embroidered drawers. Eowyn gently pulled it out and handed the doll to Pippin, to rearrange. Pippin, however, just clutched the doll to his chest and gazed up at her apprehensively.

  “What does it say?” he asked.

  Eowyn unfolded the small square of paper slowly. It was brittle with age, and yellowed at the edges, but other than that, it was in good condition. “It’s written in Westron,” she began. “It says ‘I am locked away here in my chamber, under the orders of my father. None may serve me, not even for the slightest thing. I have only one pitcher of water, and one basket of food. My room is heavily guarded; none may leave or enter. And so, I await my death. Perchance, the Overheaven will look kinder on me. Perchance there, I will not be condemned to death for the treason of not wanting to marry an old man. If any should find this after my death, I want them to know that I died here, in my bed, in the year 2848, at the age of fifteen. My name until the day of my death is Alatarial, daughter of Belecthor the Second, Steward of Gondor.”

  Eowyn lowered the paper and met Pippin’s gaze. The hobbit’s green eyes were huge, and he clasped the doll tightly.

  “Fifteen, Eowyn,” he whispered, tears starting in his eyes. “She was fifteen.”

  Eowyn nodded and put a hand on his shoulder. She looked around the room again, and this time, saw two things that made her already hammering heart rise to her throat. The first was the empty, dusty pitcher and basket sitting on the desk. The second were the marks on the door, the door that she knew would be locked, if they tried it. The marks of someone desperately trying to escape from the room, scrabbling at the door, beating and kicking it as though life depended on it. As it had.

  “We must leave this place,” Eowyn whispered to Pippin. “Come. Leave the doll.”

  Pippin nodded at her, but kept the doll, hugging it closely. “I want to keep this,” he murmured, his voice low and thick with unshed tears. “She deserves her freedom, after being in here for so long, and seeing her lady die. She was this girl’s only friend, she deserves to escape even if Alatarial couldn’t…” he trailed off and looked up at her, his low voice growing clearer. “Yes, let’s go. I want Merry and Frodo and Sam. And I want a hot drink.”

  Eowyn nodded, and together, they climbed from the dusty room and hurried back to the inhabited section of the Citadel. Pippin led Eowyn to the Company’s house, and sat her down in front of the fire in the parlor. There was a pot of tea and a plate of biscuits on the table in the kitchen. Pippin didn’t care who had made them, or for what, and so took them back to the parlor with him. He and Eowyn had more need of tea than anyone else did.

  “I think I need to tell you a few things,” he said. “They may be important.”

TBC