A Beautiful Poison by Idrils Scribe

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The Crown Prince

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    Rich men, trust not in wealth,

    Gold cannot buy you health;

    Physic itself must fade.

    All things to end are made,

    The plague full swift goes by;

    I am sick, I must die.

      Lord, have mercy on us!

 

Thomas Nashe. "A Litany in Time of Plague" from Summer's Last Will and Testament (1592).

 

Within the mansion lay another world. No corpse-smells in here, no sweetish odour of refuse rotting in the unswept streets, no wailing of the bereaved. 

A fountain sang in the garden courtyard, pouring clean, cold water into its marble basin. The summer sun dappled down through the leaves of orange trees in fragrant blossom. The trimmed lawn was soft and springy beneath Elrond’s feet as he approached his host.  

His Royal Highness Prince Tarlanc, heir apparent to the throne of Gondor, rose from a high-backed chair to greet Elrond with formal courtesy, as if such things still mattered. The prince’s robes were Númenórean purple, richly draped and topped with a carcanet of emeralds from Harad. Liveried servants clustered around their prince, bearing fans and umbrellas and cups of sharp-smelling draughts, but he waved them away with a sharp, irritated gesture. Tarlanc was a proud man.  

From some hidden reserve, Elrond drew forth a stiff little smile fit for court. 

“Hail Tarlanc, Crown Prince of Gondor!”

Elrond bowed with formal grace, but a hair’s breadth less deep than he would for Tarlanc’s father, the king, who still lived - be it barely. Elrond tried not to recall the sight of mighty King Telemnar of Gondor weeping with terror as he slowly suffocated in his silk and feather bed. Soon, a courier clad in black and silver would bear the winged Crown of Elendil from the King’s House to Tarlanc’s residence. Soon, but not yet. 

Only then did Tarlanc break protocol. He did not step forward to greet Elrond, but sank back into his chair instead. A ripple passed through the cluster of servants, and they produced a cup, coaxing him to drink from it. He gurgled and spluttered.

Ai Valar, have mercy! 

Elrond could not hide a wince. The welded doors were not enough. 

Beneath his draped silk and samite, the lymph nodes in Tarlanc’s neck were swollen. His breath wheezed precariously past the abscesses pressing against his windpipe. The prince’s breath did smell of expensive tooth powder - cloves and hyssop - but it bore that wet, tell-tale rattle of pneumonia. 

This particular diagnosis took no master healer. Any apprentice might read the signs: the Plague in both its bubonic and pneumonic forms, second stage edging into third. 

Before Elrond even straightened from his bow of greeting, he knew with complete and devastating certainty that this man would die, and die soon.

It took much to keep the pain off his face. King Telemnar was a broken man when he begged Elrond with his last wheezing breaths, after losing the queen and all of their children, to come here, to this welded-up villa, and save the last scion of his house. 

No, not the last. The king had a brother, Minastan. Minastan, too, had succumbed to the Plague, but his son Tarondor still lived. Tarondor remained in his country estate far from Osgiliath lest he, too, be stricken. Gondor would have a king.

One of the footmen placed a chair by Tarlanc’s, and Elrond took it, with profuse thanks. In Gondor’s formal court, it was a singular honour to be allowed a seat beside the prince. 

Tarlanc’s eyes were a deep blue-grey, like Elros’. He would die like Elros, too, and suddenly it was all Elrond could do not to burst into tears. 

“Welcome, Lord Elrond, to my home.” Tarlanc paused for a moment to draw breath. It wheezed past his swollen throat, but he soldiered on, a consummate ruler. “I am honoured by your visit. It saddens me that the circumstances should be so grave.”

“I am honoured by your House’s trust in me, sire. The circumstances are grave indeed.”

Tarlanc smiled, and the expression was wholly Elros’. “Let us be frank with each other. I am a dead man walking, and it shall be a miracle indeed if I draw breath much longer.” Tarlanc captured Elrond’s gaze. “Are you one for miracles, lord?”  

“I make no promises, sire,” Elrond said. “We can but try.”

“So you shall administer me your Elvish medicine?” Eagerness burned in Tarlanc’s eyes. “I am told it kills the Plague.”

Elvish medicine. Hah!

Elvish healers may have retained the art of isolating penicillin when it would have sunken with Numenor, but the drug only served Mortals, who are so vulnerable to infection. And the stuff was devilishly difficult to make: the mould was temperamental as a thoroughbred, the yields were low, the isolation murder, the purification invited disaster.

Every apothecary in Imladris had been working tirelessly for weeks, but the precious vials Elrond carried were barely enough for an adult of Tarlanc’s stature. 

Even if there were more … 

Elrond shuddered. He tried antibiotics before, early in the pandemic, but Sauron the Torturer had foreseen this pass. The drug could not penetrate the abscesses, and from there the bacteria emerged victorious, seeding a rapid scatter of infections to every tissue in the body: brain and heart and skin. To die of strangles was horrid, but the other deaths had been more horrific still. 

Even so, a handful of patients had been cured. A mere handful, but to the desperate every straw was worth grasping.

“Lord, we take a risk... ” Elrond began.

“Say no more. All must be risked, for life .” Tarlanc said the word like a prayer.

Elrond did not answer as they rose. In silence, he followed the prince with Elros’ eyes and his attendants to the bedroom, where he would draw up the precious medicine and inject it into Tarlanc’s dying body. 

Birds sang in the orange trees as the summer day turned to a golden evening, and Elrond could not help but wonder if the boy on the doorstep had reached the river yet. 

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Chapter End Notes

Welcome back everyone!

Today's chapter gives a bit more insight in the state of Elvish microbiology. I'm well aware that with the level of technology Gondor possesses in LoTR it'd be thoroughly impossible for them to have any knowledge of the germ theory of disease, let alone develop antibiotics. However, I imagine microbiology is common knowledge in Valinor (seems like Yavanna's department). From there, the knowledge could've reached Men at least twice: once from the Noldor in Beleriand, and a second time when the Elves brought it to Numenor. 

Elendil and his fellow refugees must've carried fragments of it with them to their new kingdoms in Middle-earth. Poor Tarlanc knew perfectly well what was killing him, but by then his people had lost the technological capability to do anything about it. 

Elrond's thoughts about the difficulties of making penicillin are inspired by an actual quote from John Smith, a 1940's Pfizer executive struggling to supply the US army:  “The mold is as temperamental as an opera singer, the yields are low, the isolation murder, the purification invites disaster.”

As always, a comment with your thoughts on this chapter would make my day. 

See you tomorrow,

Idrils Scribe