Disclaimer: I don’t own them, and I’ll put them back when I’m done!

Author’s Note: I tend to use pictures and paintings to help me get a character’s look, and I thought that it might interest my readers to see the painting that I based Finduilas’ portrait on. You can find it at jwwaterhouse.com/paintings. It is called “The Crystal Ball”. My thanks to Pipwise Brandygin for the beta.

Chapter Five: The Great Library

  They had gone through the entire pot of tea by the time Pippin finished telling Eowyn about Targon and his words about Lady Finduilas. Eowyn was holding the doll, absently stroking the faded velvet of its dress as she listened. When Pippin finished, they sat in silence for a time.

  Finally, Eowyn took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Should we tell anybody? Or should we try to find out more about Alatarial first?”

  Pippin shrugged. “I don’t know. Who could we ask? And what can we do about it?”

  “Well, nothing. The girl is dead,” Eowyn replied. “But we can at least find out what this has to do with Finduilas.”

  Pippin nodded, and reached for the doll. Eowyn handed it over, and he contemplated it for a moment. She needed a name, but whatever Alatarial had called her was probably lost to time forever. He bounced the doll on his knee; she was about the size of a hobbit bairn. Eowyn watched him with a tiny smile on her lips.

  “What’re you thinking?”

  “Just that she needs a name. We shouldn’t keep calling her ‘the doll’,” Pippin replied.

  Eowyn nodded, seeing the wisdom in that. “Give her a nice name, a simple hobbit name. What are hobbit girls’ names like, anyway?”

  Pippin regarded the doll seriously as he answered. “They’re named for flowers or jewels. This dolly is wearing red, and she has black hair, so I think we should name her Poppy.”

  “Poppy,” Eowyn repeated. “That’s a pretty name. But, oh!” She jumped up and started pacing before the fire, her ruby colored skirts rustling. “I can’t stop thinking about that little girl! In Rohan, she would hardly be of marrying age at all! Still just a child. Growing more mature, true, but a child nonetheless. What madness to kill her for not wanting to marry!”

  Pippin nodded in agreement. “We’d think of her as a baby in the Shire. Hobbits age differently to Men, though. I think a Mannish fifteen would be about my age, maybe younger, and I’m far too young to marry.” Eowyn sighed again and plucked the doll from Pippin’s hands. “Well, Poppy? Are you going to keep your secrets, or will you tell us what happened to Alatarial?”

  Poppy just stared at her with solemn, green glass eyes. Eowyn set her down on the table and turned back to Pippin. “Well, do we tell anybody what we found, or do we keep it to ourselves for now?”

  “I think we should keep it to ourselves until we find more out. But how can we find out more? I can’t imagine that there would be any record of it.”

  Eowyn was silent for a few moments, gazing at the floor in deep thought. Finally, she looked up. “I can. You cannot hide the death of a noble from the populace; they notice things and speculate. Belecthor would have had to come up with some sort of story for the death of his daughter, to settle any rumors.”

  “Where do we look then?”

  “In the annals of Gondorian history.”

*****

  The Great Library of Gondor was one of those places you could get lost in. It was almost always chilly and dim, lit only by several high windows and a few lanterns. Over the past decades, the library had fallen into disrepair as focus had been placed increasingly on maintaining Gondor’s future freedom, and knowledge of the past had dwindled. As a consequence, the high windows were fogged with dust, and many of the bookshelves were dusty. As Pippin and Eowyn stepped into the great room, they were reminded strongly of Alatarial’s locked up bedroom.

  They had left the Citadel wrapped in great cloaks against the wind and rain, but both were rather wet and cold by the time they gained the Library. Eowyn shut the heavy oak door behind them; it squealed on rusty hinges and shut with a crash like thunder. Pippin jumped a foot high, and Eowyn smiled sheepishly at him.

  “Sorry,” she murmured, than looked around. “I wonder if anyone is here. Hello?” she called out, raising her voice. It echoed dimly across the great walls of books, even as their whispers had. “Is anyone here?”

  There was a shuffling sound from a small room to their right, than a small man appeared, gazing at them quizzically. He bowed when he recognized them.

  “Good day, my lord and lady,” he said. “How may I be of service to you?”

  Pippin and Eowyn glanced at each other. Eowyn spoke. “We are looking for a history of the Stewards, sir. Are there any we could read?”

  The librarian nodded, beckoning them to follow him. “Yes, there are. Are you looking for any particular Steward?”

  “Belecthor the Second,” Pippin replied. Was it his imagination, or did the librarian glance at him sharply? It must have been. The man was looking away, striding towards the bookshelves at the back of the great room with a vigor that belied his age.

  They were led to the back of the library, to a long wooden table that gleamed with polish and sat before a huge marble fireplace. A fire roared cheerfully in the hearth and the lady and the hobbit both stretched their hands out thankfully. Nearby, the librarian was peering at a shelf of books. His fingers hovered, than he reached out and took a thick old tome off the shelf and brought it back to them at the table.

  “Here you are,” he said. “This contains the history of Gondor, and especially the City, in the time of Belecthor the Second. I hope you find what you are looking for. Please bring it back to me when you are finished with it.” He bowed and took himself away.

  “Thank you,” Eowyn called after him, but he was gone, lost in the shadows of the dusty shelves. She turned back to Pippin and sat down at the table. “Well, shall we begin?”

  Surprisingly, it was not difficult to find what they were looking for. As Eowyn had said, one could not hide the death of a noble from the populace, and in the year 2835 of the Third Age there was a record made of the death of the Lady Alatarial, daughter of the Steward.

  “ ‘This spring, our City was cast into mourning by the slow death of Alatarial, who passed beyond the mortal realm by means of a great fever, which took her slowly yet suddenly. A great funeral was held for the lady; she was buried in the Rath Dinen, the Silent Street. Her body was laid out in the great hall, dressed in fine clothes made of gold brocade. She appeared small and wasted, greatly diminished by the fever. There was great mourning for her in the City and the surrounding countryside.’ Well. What do you think of that?” Pippin lowered the book and gazed at Eowyn. The White Lady was toying with a pen, an indescribable look on her face.

  “I think…I want to know whom she refused to marry.”

  Pippin looked back at the book. “It says here that she was set to marry the Prince of Dol Amroth, a very old man who already had had three wives.”

  “Ugh! That’s horrid, no wonder she didn’t want to marry him!” Eowyn said, shuddering. “I wonder what happened to his other wives.”

  Pippin shrugged. “It doesn’t say. Anyway, now we know how they said she died. This all happened…” he paused,  “One hundred and eighty-four years ago. So. Is there anything else we ought to know?”

  Eowyn shook her head. “Not really, no. Let me copy this down.”

  She took a piece of parchment and ink from a nearby writing stand. The paper was dusty; she blew on it and a sheet of grey rose into the air. Luckily, the pen was not broken and the ink was fresh, so she was able to copy down the words exactly as Pippin had read them. She had a fine hand, her letters thin and spindly with slight loops at the top of some letters and small curls at the tails of others. The scratch of the pen across the parchment was loud in the quiet library. When she was done writing, Eowyn shook the paper gently to dry it.

  “Come on, it’s almost dinnertime,” she said. “We mustn’t let anybody think we’re up to something.”

  Pippin laughed softly at that, and followed her out of the library. From where he had been sitting on a small balcony above them, Gandalf shook his head and sighed.

TBC