Sauron's Worst Nightmare by Uvatha the Horseman

Jailhouse Fever

Jailhouse Fever

The Prison Fortress of Mandos, Date Unknown

During the afternoon of the fourth day of his imprisonment, Sauron felt ill tempered and out of sorts, without being upset about anything in particular. By early evening, he had a headache and went to bed earlier than normal. He lay down without bothering to get undressed for the night, feeling unwell. 

He was restless during the night. In the morning, he woke up soaked in sweat and shaking with cold. He felt burning hot behind the eyes. He pulled up his knees to lessen the pain in his stomach. When the guard brought his breakfast tray, he said he didn’t want it, but could he have a cup of tea and an extra blanket instead, and something for nausea?

The guard told him, “If you’re going to be sick, do it in the drain hole, because I can’t get in there easily and clean up after you. Not without my guard captain’s say so, that’s for sure.” He left the room, taking the tray with him.

He came back later with tea and an extra blanket and put them through the pass-through. Sauron put his feet on the floor and started to stand up, but lay down again quickly when the room started to spin. He felt too weak to walk.

The guard came back some time later to check on him. He noticed that the tray and blanket were untouched, and left. After a while, he returned with three others including the guard captain, who was carrying a pair of irons. The guard captain directed Sauron to come over to the grating near the pass-through. Sauron didn’t think he could make it that far, so he crawled to the part of the grating that was closest instead. He lay on the floor, feeling wretched.

The guard captain told him to put his hands over his head through holes in the grating and snapped the irons on Sauron’s wrists. He reached through the grating to touch Sauron’s face to feel for fever, but yanked it back when another guard yelled, “Be careful, he bites!”, holding up his arm with a half-moon shaped bruise he got the day they tried to search him.

Sauron was known to be both strong and cunning, so his guards handled him with extreme caution. They also knew that feigning illness to lure a guard into the cell was an ancient ruse, so illness had to be looked upon with suspicion.

The guard captain believed his prisoner was ill. He had a high fever, which can’t be faked. But the captain also knew that a sick person can pretend to be more incapacitated than he really is, lulling their guards into a false sense of security. So while the captain was willing to let his prisoner be seen by a healer, he wasn’t willing to relax security procedures even though the others thought he was being overly strict. When they went in the cell to check on the prisoner, who appeared to have collapsed on the floor and was unable to get up, they used the same procedures they would have for a dangerous prisoner who was healthy and strong.

At a signal from the guard captain, the first two guards unlocked the grating door and pulled back the latches. The third one held the door open while they crawled in.

The two guards knelt beside the prisoner. They confirmed that he had a very high fever and was only semi-conscious. They had no doubt that he was seriously ill. They would have picked him up and carried him to bed, but the rules didn’t allow them to unchain him while they were in the cell with him, and the guard captain refused to make an exception. They had to leave him lying on the floor chained to the grating, but they covered him with the extra blanket he hadn’t been strong enough to get by himself, and they put the tea within easy reach.

They left through the grating hatch. The third guard let it drop closed. The guard captain removed the irons from Sauron’s wrists. Sauron pulled his arms back in through the grating and wrapped them around himself, but he didn’t get up.

They came back a few hours later with a healer, one of Estë’s people. Sauron was still lying on the floor where they’d left him, shivering and uncomfortable. The guard captain snapped the irons around his wrists. The grating door was opened, and the first two guards entered the inner cell, followed by the healer. The third guard closed the grating door behind them.

The healer knelt beside the patient. There were cases of Plague in the region where he had been captured and the healer felt pretty sure his patient was going to be one of them. He told him, “You’re not going to die, but you’re in for a rough time of it. I’m afraid it’s going to get worse before it gets better.” While he talked, he felt his patient’s forehead for fever, felt for swelling at the base of each limb, and pressed on his stomach with firm pressure. So firm that his patient pleaded, “No. Please stop. I’m going to be ...”  Too late.

After they cleaned him up, the healer gave him medicine. The patient tried to twist away from the phial of bitter liquid, but the healer knew a few tricks for getting medicine into unwilling patients. That done, he directed the guards to rearrange the furniture in the cell. They moved the bed from the back wall to the side wall, with the pillow against the grating.

The healer wanted to unchain his patient for just a moment in order to move him, but the guard captain wouldn’t hear of it. There was always the possibility that the prisoner’s weakness was a ruse. It was simply too dangerous. On the other hand, the healer refused to put a sleep spell on a patient who had just been sick. It just wasn’t safe. Finally the guard captain agreed that if the prisoner were bound hand and foot, he would remove the chains, but only for as long as it took them to move him.

That done, the two guards struggled to lift Sauron’s limp form onto the bed. The patient was still wearing day clothes, so once they had him settled into bed, they undressed him to make him more comfortable. By the time they finished, the medicine had started to work. The patient began to feel better and fell into an exhausted sleep. When the guard captain put the chains back on him, he didn’t stir.

The Healer covered him with the extra blanket. One of the guards put the chair beside the bed to make a nightstand, and put a basin and a cup of water on it. The other guard brought over everything else he might need, and arranged it within easy reach.

The two guards outside opened the grating hatch to let the three others out of the inner cell. The grating door was closed, and the guard captain unchained the prisoner’s wrists. All of the guards left the room, but the healer stayed behind to watch over his patient until he was sure he was out of danger.

Sauron was deeply grateful to the healer for thinking to position the head of his bed against the grating, and inwardly thanked him for his kindness. The next time the guards needed him to wear irons, when they came in to take care of him, all he had to do was reach his arms over his head across the pillow and put his wrists through the grating. He wouldn’t have to leave his bed and crawl across the floor. Or worse, try to crawl back to bed after they left, because he didn’t think he could.

Sauron had had the plague before. In the Second Age, plague swept through Gondor. It reached Mirkwood the year after. Sauron, who was living in Dol Guldur at the time, was one of its victims. It didn’t kill him, but he had a pretty good idea of what the healer meant by being in for a rough time of it.