The King's Players RPG

[Nerwen]

Sereth, Asta noted, glancing up at the two girls chattering on the stairs, was looking distinctly peaky today. Unsurprising– the child seemed determined to spoil her looks and waste good candles by poring over the script at all hours.

Asta had still not quite sorted out how she felt about the events of the previous Day, or about Coldan himself, and so, although she had her own reasons for consulting Brinn, she hung back in the hall when she saw her sister hobbling out of the common room escorted by the prompter.

Fortunately Rollan, who would do just as well, had lingered over his meal.

Asta took a seat opposite her brother-in-law.

"Rollan, if I may ask your advice?"

Rollan's lips quirked, for some reason. "You too?"

Asta wondered what he meant by that, but decided not to ask. Rollan rarely passed up an opportunity to poke fun at her.

"I found this outside Lord Sador's door yesterday." Asta had to check an impulse to glance over her shoulder as she passed Rollan the crumpled scrap of paper. She knew the limping nobleman was gone, having watched him depart the Inn with those two ladies ("the drab one and the overdressed one", as she thought of them), but the situation still made her feel conspiratorial. "What do you make of it?"

[Mnemosyne]

Brinn listened patiently while Coldan explained as much as he cared. She decided that she'd been good not to press the issue last night, as today, at least he was reflecting on what had happened calmly.

"Well," she said, "I trust that you've learned your lesson: don't try to introduce any earth-shattering changes to the Players when the show's a week away. Not," she added, "that I think that is what you were trying to do. Best just to let it lie for now, though. But I don't think Aldarion means you any harm. I don't know what, if anything, is going on between him and Asta, but I assure you that if it is, it's nothing serious. And--lest you accuse him of treating her poorly as a consequence--I assure you that nothing anyone does with my sister happens without her consent."

She sighed. "She probably likes the attention, is all. I wish you luck, if you decide to continue your suit. Just please don't try to push things until the show is over."

[Mnemosyne]

Rollan only briefly felt regret that Asta had not given him the opportunity to play matchmaker again. He squinted at the note she had placed before him. "I--well, I can hardly read it! Is that... 'Aldarion'?"

"Yes," said Asta, "and 'third,' and 'tomorrow.' Whatever could it mean?"

"You said you found it yesterday?"

"Yes."

"Then I expect we can find out from Aldarion when he gets back, if he doesn't feel like being cagey." He nodded. "Lovely night last night, wasn't it? Care to tell me what went on?"

[Nerwen]

Asta had expected Rollan to be more impressed by the scrap, with its evidence of some scheme involving Aldarion, and was quite put out. Also, having keyed herself up for dramatic revelation, it took her a moment to adjust to this new and somewhat embarrassing subject.

True, there was a corner of Asta's mind that found it most gratifying that Coldan and Aldarion had been about to fight a duel over her– well, practically a duel, anyway. But she was not about to let Rollan guess this corner existed, and she knew he would, if she had to describe the fight in any detail. For all his easy-going ways, the comedian never missed much.

"Last night? Ah... you must mean what happened in the Common Room? I'm not sure. It seems Coldan and Aldarion had words... but you see it was all over by the time I got there. Of course," she added, as the manner of her own entrance was another thing she preferred to forget, "I don't know what other people may have been telling you. People do exaggerate so, don't they?"

[the phantom]

Aldarion was quite surprised to see the lady that emerged from the droshky. Sador was nowhere to be seen, and this lady was obviously no servant, and Aldarion certainly did not know her. Why of all people did Sador choose this particular lady to fetch me? What's his angle?

Aldarion had spent the previous few hours in talks with Bregolas, and as a result was much more wary of Sador than he had been initially. Aldarion had already received a letter from his good friend Amlach warning him to be on guard, and Bregolas confirmed this, adding to it that he had gotten a peek at some of the communications Sador was sending and that they had been less than complimentary about the King's Players. There was mischief afoot! But what precisely, Aldarion did not know.

"I believe," asked the lady, "that you must be Galador's son, sir, late of the Swan Players? If you are he, then my younger brother has desired me to guide you. I am Aerwen, Lady of Burlach."

So, Sador sent his sister. Perhaps it was an honest choice then, as a member of the host family had as good a claim to fetch guests as anyone.

Aldarion thought it unwise to show any open suspicion, and so, actor born and raised as he was, he kept his thoughts securely locked in the back of his mind. Aldarion looked Aerwen straight in the eyes, smiled slightly, and inclined his head. "Well met, Lady of Burlach. I am indeed Aldarion, son of Galador." Now walking forward, he continued. "I would say 'at your service' or something similar, but I am afraid my services are entirely overstretched at the moment, as you may have heard from your brother. It is most kind that your family has allowed me an opportunity to forget my cares for a little while and be your guest."

[Anguirel]

Aerwen nodded when the player pronounced his first name; she had left it unspoken initially quite on purpose, partly as a test, partly because the fellow was rather celebrated, and she didn't want to let any obvious realisation of this compromise her dignity. She approved of his response, though it might seem weary and strictly speaking not even very courteous. The man seemed as straightly forged as the sword at his belt, and that, too, was more reassuring, than what part of her mind had pictured; a fluent youth with a quip and a glance everything, perhaps, a handsomer version of her brother Sador; instead of which, the resemblance to her brother-in-law, Amlach, was particularly decided.

Without further conversation, she mounted the little jig again, beckoning Aldarion to come up with her. The small solidity of this carriage left a strange architectural effect, as if they were hiding in the stone alcove of some great hall in the citadel; and yet every ring and jolt of the droshsky bouncing on the cobbles reminded them of quite the reverse.

"I know something more of you," Aerwen began again with hesitant decision, "than you might expect, Master Aldarion, though I have never seen you play; I have purchased every script of the Swan Players' productions for a number of years, to read in my hours of leisure. Assuredly, alas, such scripts are pirated, partial, gravely defective, but they have always given me great satisfaction; especially 'The Golden King'. It is a shame our much-loved Amlach had to be away rehearsing, but I cannot deny that 'Tar-Ancalime' much excites me in prospect..."

Her speech trailed off into a note of tentative questioning, as they left the Third Circle and entered the main traffic of the Fourth.

[the phantom]

Aldarion considered Aerwen's apparent knowledge of his work and her positive attitude towards it, and wondered if it was spoken in good faith. After what he had learned from Bregolas, he had little trust in Sador's words of praise, and wondered if Aerwen was an extension of whatever scheme Sador was involved in.

Determined to, at the least, test Aerwen's true awareness of his career, Aldarion feigned surprised interest at her pronouncement and spoke. "Yes, 'Rise and Fall of the Golden King' was quite a masterful work. I believe Lord Imrazôr to be a writer and director equal to any that has ever lived, and I am immensely fortunate to have worked with him for so many years." Then looking straight at her, wishing to have a good look at her eyes as she answered his question, he asked, "What sections in particular did you find riveting?"

[Anguirel]

Slightly misinterpreting Aldarion's probe, Aerwen felt less pleased with him than before. Could this apparently proud and composed man really be fishing for compliments in this direct manner?

"I am aware," said she rather guardedly, repaying his frank gaze with a narrower one, "that your own performance, sir, was the most highly regarded by those who witnessed it. But all I can say is that reading is a rather different experience to viewing. The reader's power - be the script be ever so diluted - is more absolute; when I read a play I am its director, nay, almost its writer too.

"It is probably, then, unsurprising that I felt nearest to, and most thrilled by, the speeches of Miriel - especially her apostrophe to her father's spirit. I lost my mother when I was young, master player, and often whispered to her in a long, chilly night's mist."

She drew herself up a little, quite embarrassed by her own involuntary confidence in the stranger, paused, and spoke again in a quite different tone.

"I suppose she was played by your friend, my sister-in-law, Lady Gloredhel? No matter; it is all the same when it lives only in spilt ink. Do you like reading plays, sir, even when you are not working upon them? If you do not," she began to laugh with a sudden and surprising lightness, "I fear you may be in for a dull evening after all..."

[the phantom]

As Aldarion took in Aerwen's reply, he noted that she certainly seemed to know the play. If she is false then at least she has done the legwork to support her designs. I suppose I can respect that.

"Ah yes," he said aloud, "My performance did come off rather well, but since you have read the play for yourself I think we can agree that with Lord Imrazôr's writing I was bound to shine. And no- I do not find reading plays to be the least bit dull! I spend most of my time reading and writing plays, in fact. I'd be most miserable if I did not enjoy it."

Aldarion considered the question regarding Gloredhel's role, and wondered why Aerwen would not know whether or not her own sister-in-law had played the part she claimed to connect with so much. It was possible they had seen little of each other, or that Aerwen just did not care for actors much, content to direct the play in her head, as she spoke of previously. Or perhaps this was a sign that she was less than truthful...

Making a mental note of it, Aldarion continued as if nothing was wrong. "No, Gloredhel didn't play the part. That play was performed about three years ago, and at the time that the roles were being selected she had not yet secured her place as a true lead. She wasn't much more than a year removed from her teens, after all." Aldarion's mind swept him back to the day that he had been awarded the part, and he could not help but turn in his seat so that he could look away southward towards his home. "I wasn't expecting it," he said, gazing away down the Anduin valley, which was falling swiftly into shadows. "I thought I was going to be cast as Sauron, actually. It was a great part, and when Lord Imrazôr announced that Halcantar would be Sauron I was disappointed- and shocked, as I expected Halcantar to be Ar Pharazon. But Lord Imrazôr had a different idea...."

Aldarion's thoughts became a whirl of his old home, his family, his friends, the applause of huge crowds...

[Thinlómien]

"Elanor Gamgee?" Sereth had turned rather pale, and looked even more unhealthy. "Then I must speak to Brinn right now!"

"She just left the common room," Thiliel offered helpfully. "Are you sure you don't want something to eat?"

But Sereth was already running down the stairs and through the common room. Once she was out of the inn she didn't hesitate - she knew Brinn would be found in the cart if she was not in the common room. Sereth suspected Brinn liked to be findable by her players if they needed her, and Sereth definitely did need her right now.

Slightly out of breath, Sereth burst to the wagon just to hear Brinn say to Coldan in a rather resigned voice: "...the show is over."

"What?" Sereth shrieked, forgetting to try to sound as mature as possible. "Why? What happened?"

But it all made sense now, that was what Miss Elanor Gamgee had come to say, that their rendition of the War of the Ring was so disgraceful that Mister Samwise Gamgee and the King himself had decided not to have it performed at all. Horrified, she leaned against the wall of the cart.

"That's what she came to say, right? That her father and the King don't... want us?" she clarified, since Brinn and Coldan were still looking at her, looks of incomprehension on their faces. Sereth tried very hard not to cry. It was such a disaster.

[Anguirel]

Aerwen watched the player, who seemed to have fallen into something of a daze, with a curious look, of which concern was the main, but not the only, component. Certainly any credit he had lost with her earlier he had just recouped by the genuineness of his reverie.

She decided not to disturb him for a moment, instead giving quiet instructions to the coachman to turn aside, then pause. They were still in the Fourth Circle, but only just; the droshsky had spun into the avenue where the few most distinguished merchant-houses now stood. The cobbles were almost bare of feet and but sparcely interspersed with horses and carriages; few came to shop at the Course of the Old Steward's Lady, and of those who did, nearly all rode there. It was a silver street to look at, even by the greyly beautiful standards of the former Tower of the Guard; through Aerwen's open panel window heavy musk would strike the senses, heavy enough perhaps to disorder Aldarion's private thoughts, even if he had not already noticed that the little transport had come to a stop.

When she was quite certain she had Aldarion's attention, Aerwen spoke gently to him, "Just a little while ago, you described Lord Imrazôr to be a writer and director equal to any that has ever lived. It is an ambitious statement, but I think you were right about it. Were. We have some time yet, an hour, perhaps, I believe, before we will be missed at my elder brother's table; would you care to follow me into the bookshop hard by us here? If you wish, I shall try to show you a better playwright even than your old master."

[Pitchwife]

"I wish you luck, if you decide to continue your suit", Brinn said with a sigh. "Just please don't try to push things until the show is over."

Before Coldan had so much as a moment's time to digest these words, Sereth came bursting into the wagon and shrieked with a voice like a pubescent Nazgûl, "What? Why? What happened?"

Startled that Sereth, of all people, should get into such a seizure about the matter of him and Asta, he stared at her in incomprehension as she collapsed against the wall in what seemed like an unconscious imitation of her portrayal of the Ringbearer pierced by the Witch-King on Weathertop and went on: "That's what she came to say, right? That her father and the King don't... want us?"

Vait a moment", he said, suddenly realizing that Sereth had to be talking about something completely unrelated to their previous conversation. "Vat do you mean, zey don't want us? Who is she, and vat does she hev to do viz ze King?"

[Galadriel55]

Thiliel was very surprised at Sereth's reaction to Elanor's name. She was brought up to avoid naming the Dark Lord and his land, after the customs of parents and grandparents. She understood that. But a perian? Why does this name bring such worry to Sereth's face?

Judging by how fast Sereth ran outside to Celebrindal's wagon, something has gone seriously wrong. Thiliel followed her - though much more slowly - to see what was causing so much trouble that a girl has to go hungry.

She was half way there when she heard Sereth's voice, unnervingly shrill, coming from Celebrindal's wagon. Thiliel ran the rest of the way. She came in time to hear the foreign man, who she recognized as one of the quarrelers from the day before, say "Who is she, and what does she have to do with the King?"

Thiliel rushed in without knocking, forgetting that it is disrespectful. "What happened? Why?..." She cut herself off, noticing that the two adults, who were previously staring at Sereth, were now staring at her.

[Thinlómien]

Sereth burst in tears. Not out of grief, or shock, or even humiliation but sheer exasperation. Why were the adults always so difficult? They refused to believe she was all grown-up, that she could deal with the truth. Coldan here, his acting was less convincing than on stage. Sereth's hands curled into fists. She didn't waste time on Thiliel, who she now noticed had followed her, but fixed her blurry eyes at Coldan.

"I know you are just trying to shield me from the truth, but you don't have to, I know it already!" she declared in a quavering voice. "The play has been cancelled, hasn't it?" There. Now they couldn't avoid the topic any longer.

[Galadriel55]

The attention was turned back to Sereth when she suddenly burst out crying. Thiliel did not know why the tears rolled off the girl's cheeks in such abundance, nor could she do anything to calm them. Sereth looked hysterical.

"I know you are just trying to shield me from the truth, but you don't have to, I know it already!" Sereth choked in defiance between sobs, apparantly talking to the room at large. However, it seemed to Thiliel that the remark has been directed specifically at the man. "The play has been cancelled, hasn't it?" With this out of her mouth Sereth's sobs subsided abruptly. The entire room was very quiet, maybe in shock, or in disbelief, or perhaps some other unknown feeling. Sereth's eyes burned, looking from one person to another.

"But... surely not!" Thiliel cried, in an attempt to break the silence. She stepped towards Sereth and put a tentative arm around her shoulder. The girl didn't shake it off. "Surely they did not cancel it! All of Minas Anor yearns to see it!"

Thiliel felt empty inside. She has been looking forwrd to the play ever since she heard about it. She was proud to serve the very actors that would preform. And now... She almost cried herself from disappointment, but with a sniff held back the tears.

[Nerwen]

"Exaggerate? Why yes, they do, don't they?" Rollan was saying, when a treble wail from the courtyard made everyone in the Common Room jump.

"That was Sereth!" Asta whispered. "What can have happened now?"

Rollan briefly held his hand over his eyes. "I don't know, Asta, but I'm starting to think this play will be the death of me..." He sighed. "Come on, then, I suppose we'd better find out who's got into a mess this time, and how bad it is."

Master Ingold caught them in the doorway. "If I may make so bold as to speak to you, Master Rollan? This doesn't come easy, what with you customers of long-standing and never a breath of scandal before and always paying your bill on the hour– but I can't have much more of it. Brawling in my Common Room and my niece trailing after your actors all day and no mind for her work, and now–"

"Master Ingold," Asta cut in crisply, "what you just heard was merely one of our players rehearsing her part as a Ringwraith. I'll let her know it's having the desired effect."

She swept into the hall before the innkeeper had a chance to reply.

"Good thinking," was Rollan's only comment, but Asta could see he was impressed at her presence of mind. She could hardly blame him, as she was quite impressed with it herself.

Not that she had much time for self-congratulation, for as they hurried across the courtyard they could hear bitter sobbing coming from Brinn's waggon, broken by voices raised in anger or fright.

"The waggon must be on fire!" Asta gasped. "Or maybe Branor and Therian have really been arrested this time! That must be it, no-one's seen hide nor hair of them since last night. Or maybe..."

The scene that met their eyes in the cramped interior of the waggon was a dramatic one. Sereth was bawling her eyes out, held by the little maid, whatever her name was, who also looked to be on the brink of tears, while Coldan and Brinn were staring at them helplessly.

"Asta, they're... they're cancelling the plaaaay," Sereth sobbed. "Our lovely, lovely play that we've worked so hard on!"

"It's true," Ingold's niece confirmed, between sniffs. "She told me. Elanor the perian made them!"

"Why, I don't believe it! That scheming little– I wish I'd wrung her neck! Brinn–" Asta turned to her sister, who was opening and shutting her mouth, almost as if she were trying to speak, "how could you let this happen? Are you blind? Couldn't you see the scheming little monster was up to no good?" In her mind's eye the remembered face of Elanor acquired shifty eyes and a knowing smirk. Asta was sure, now, that she had never trusted the halfling for an instant.

[Pitchwife]

Coldan had never been good at handling children, and it was even worse with girls. If there was one kind of creature in Middle-earth he felt even more awkward around than Asta, it was young girls in the age between twelve and fifteen; it had been that way when he was in the same age, and it hadn't changed a bit in the ten years since. All he could do while Sereth worked herself into a downright nervous breakdown was stand there like a wooden post and wonder what in the name of the One Allmighty this was all about.

It didn't help when the other girl, Ingold's niece - what was her name? Thilwen or some such, if he had heard right - came crashing in on Sereth's heels and tried to comfort her friend, while Seri accused him of hiding the truth from her and blubbered something about the play being cancelled.

That took him completely aback. It couldn't be, could it? Had that Sador character, Lord Cirdacil's son and minion, gone so far in his machinations as to persuade the King to call the play off altogether? But Sereth had mentioned some female person. What had happened in his absence that Brinn hadn't told him? But Brinn seemed just as flabbergasted by Sereth's outburst as he was, and her last words to him made no sense if she had known anything about this.

He was still at a loss for words when the door was flung up again and Asta squeezed in, a concerned looking Rollan peeping over her shoulder because he couldn't fit into the cart's already overcrowded interior.

"Asta, they're... they're cancelling the plaaaay," Sereth blubbered, and her serving-maid friend, who was about to start crying herself, threw more fuel into the fire: ""It's true! She told me. Elanor the perian made them!"

"Why, I don't believe it!" Asta exclaimed and started to berate her sister for letting this happen.

This was enough for Coldan. He threw up his hands, narrowly avoiding by sheer luck to hit Asta in the face, and cried out: "Has everybody in zis company gone stark raving mad? Vill you all please stop zis and somebody tell me vat ze Udûn has happened here?"

At this outburst, Brinn finally awoke to life. "Please, Coldan, you're not helping", she sighed, pinching her nose, "and mind your language in front of the girls." She reached out to Sereth, who had now collapsed into a sobbing bundle, and drew the two girls to herself. "Seri, who told you this? Who said that the play was going to be cancelled?"

[Thinlómien]

First Asta had dashed in and screamed a list of insults which were unusually mean even for her, and now Coldan and Brinn were still acting as if nothing had happened. This much was what Sereth was able to gather even though she was sobbing very hard by now. Amidst all her suffering she still couldn't help feeling some satisfaction Brinn and Coldan were treating Asta just as stupidly as her.

"Seri, who told you this?" Brinn asked, wrapping her arm around the girl. "Who said that the play was going to be cancelled?"

Sereth wiped her face to her sleeve. She looked at Brinn with a mixed look of incomprehension and accusation. "This is a trick question, isn't it? You said it yourself, I heard you. You said to Coldan 'the show is over'."

[Mnemosyne]

"Seri," said Brinn, "I said until the show is over, not just 'the show is over.' Why, if it were over now, we should be packing up and going, shouldn't we? Everything's still going as according to plan as could be expected"--given our tendency to bungle even the simplest plans--"and, if anything, Miss Elanor Gamgee has been an unexpected boon to us in all of this as now we have received a visit from one of the people we need most to reach. She has proven most willing to help out with the play, as can be seen from this." She held up a few scattered pages of notes. "Not only does she know what happened, she knows the people who did these very things, how they would act, and the like. In fact, Seri, she's quite interested in speaking with you about the Ring-bearer; she's quite... taken with him.

"Asta, please desist from wringing anyone's neck, here or elsewhere. I assure you that I sensed no evil intentions from Elanor, and even if she is scheming and conniving, we already have enough schemers to deal with who are a little more open with their intentions. I suggest we focus on them first." She blinked. Maybe that was not such a good thing to tell Asta.

"Who, Sador?" said Asta. "I found this most fascinating note last night--"

Unsure whether it was worse to have Asta give them all away to Sador, whatever he was up to (if anything!), or to have her in a dreadful state of paranoia all the way up to the show, Brinn decided on the response that would allow herself temporary safety."Anyone. I'd appreciate whatever information you could give me, in fact."

Rollan, from behind, nervously jerked his hand underneath his neck, in the traditional cutoff from their days in Dale when that particular year's Bard the Bowman had thought it a good idea to drink a yard of ale before coming on stage. Brinn gave him an exasperated shrug.

"But, just so everyone is utterly clear, the show is not cancelled, and we have not been run out of town, and Elanor has not, as of yet, proved herself to be evil. Any questions?"

[Galadriel55]

Thiliel almost jumped with joy when Celebrindal clarified that the play is still going on. She was also glad to hear that Elanor was helping; she was a very nice and polite maiden, - woman, Thiliel corrected herself, - and it would be a hard blow to Thiliel if she found out that she befriended and helped someone who caused so much damage.

The girl was very confused, but at least one thing was clear: the play is still happening. Unable to contain her emotions, she clapped her hands and jumpedon the spot. Thiliel noticed that the quite crowded adults did not appreciate this behaviour, and stopped.

"Hurray! The play is not cancelled!" She said in explanation to the questioning looks the actors gave her.

[Nerwen]

"But, just so everyone is utterly clear, the show is not cancelled, and we have not been run out of town, and Elanor has not, as of yet, proved herself to be evil. Any questions?"

"Yes! What do you think of this?" Asta was not about to lose this second chance at revealing the note, not when the first time had been so anticlimatic. She would have liked to be able to move around a bit more, and make some appropriate dramatic gestures, but the near-miss she had just received from Coldan (which she would not let him forget in a hurry) was a reminder of how close the quarters were.

"I found this outside Lord Sador's door– if he really is a lord– yesterday. It's mostly indecipherable– you'd think a real lord would write a fairer hand, wouldn't you?– but it most definitely says "Aldarion", "third" and "tomorrow"– which is to say, today. And you remember that business with the letters? There's something going on, that's for sure– in fact," she added, as a startling new thought occurred to her, "if you ask me they've kidnapped him!"

It all made sense now. She could not imagine why it had taken her so long to work it out.

[Anguirel]

None other than the fraudulent kidnapper of Asta's speculation, dapper little Sador of Burlach, was in fact by this time comfortably settled lengthways on a chaise-longue in the fine and fashionable mansion of his elder brother. A wide pair of Fornost windows had been cast open to let the breeze ventilate properly, which was quite necessary as both brothers, contrary to their father's habits and, had he been there, to his certain disapproval, were smoking pipes full of the herb of Eriador. They were not exactly each other's preferred company, and the presence of the three women was in truth a great relief; the silent Lady Ecsichil in her peculiar sectary full body gauze veil, lolling like her husband and brother-in-law but partaking neither of smoke nor speech; golden Circilie roaming about the room, making emendations and conversation; Gloredhel sitting straight and supple in a chair more aesthetic than comfortable, by her own preference.

"You sent Aerwen to go and catch this new player acquaintance of yours?" Ecsichil was asking, not for the first time. Unlike his wife, he did possess the apparent faculty of speech, though he avoided any topics of dangerous freshness. Sador sometimes, at moments such as this, found his brother surprisingly restful to be around after all. Ecsichil was an unsympathetic boor, and his existence, combined with his wife's predictable efficiency at producing straight, soldierly young sons, ensured that Sador would never inherit a scrap of land or a substantive rank; but, on the other hand, the elder son of Burlach did tend to emphasise by his style of 'thought' and behaviour the unusual wit and aptitude of the younger one.

"I didn't send her," Sador answered languidly, "father wouldn't like me arbitrarily to interrupt my elder sister's education on a whim about the theatre, would he now? But I told her my friend would be waiting, asked her if she was interested, and she expressed herself positively."

"Alright," Ecsichil said boredly, still following the old furrow for lack of anything else to say to Sador. "But is it all quite decent? This player, is he of at least presentable rank? Is there a chaperone?"

"A coachman, I think, Aerwen's usual one, but I mean, come on, brother dear. Aldarion is perfectly respectable, an old friend of Gloredhel's, no less." Sador looked automatically towards the object of his esteem and fear, but could not long maintain the gaze. "Anyway, we're talking about Aerwen here, one of the most famous scholars in the City and one of the shyest. I don't think she's going to conclude the ride pregnant with twins."

Circilie, a few months with child herself, and Ecsichil laughed at their brother's quip. No one saw Gloredhel's faintly narrowing glance except Lady Ecsichil through her veil, and she did not note it as any sign of emotion, a capacity, rather like speech, she had long since dropped, out of pure torpidity.

"Now then," Circilie remarked, bustling herself into the middle of the little party on a comfy chair by the Fornost window, "tell us about this play then, little Sador."

"That shambles? Why?"

"Oh, don't be so modest, kidling brother, I don't mean that funny affair being scraped out at the inn. I mean the play you want Master Aldarion and darling Gloredhel to help you read out after supper. And yes, I definitely want a part this time. Give me something funny."

Circilie's dimpled dollish looks were very good for moulding, and she made one of her famous silly faces, faces that had briefly amused even her husband, Amlach. Even Gloredhel laughed a little at this one, though it might have been, for all any of the rest of the family knew or cared, only the mirth of courtesy.

[the phantom]

"If you wish," said Aerwen to Aldarion, "I shall try to show you a better playwright even than your old master."

Not entirely certain how to respond, Aldarion shrugged and nodded. He was anxious to get to the party, but did not wish to be discourteous and rush Aerwen. He doubted very much that she would show him anything new anyway.

What's it going to be? A collection of those ridiculous Gondolin works? No action or intrigue whatsoever- just philosophy and praising the Valar. Or perhaps some obscure Numenorean playwright? Ha- I seriously doubt there is a single play ever written in Numenor that I have not come across in my studies. I've covered all the writers of Gondor and Arnor as well, and even the few Harad turned out. But I suppose I should humor her.

[Anguirel]

In which the star-cross'd passion of Rumillo and Írildë is first laid before a discerning, and limited, public (Aldarion by name)

"I have to move fast and visit regularly to catch the newest scripts here," Aerwen explained to her new acquaintance, as they passed through the threshold of the establishment, under a hanging sign depicting an ibis.

"If they fall to obscurity, a few copies are bought up by collectors - among whom I have sometimes myself bidded - and the rest tend to be burnt. But if they catch any attention - either noble patronage, or the esteem of some city scholar or poet, or even become performed by some touring company - they are in danger of suppression by the Revels office if they get too successful; and in any case, Lindir of the Ibis doesn't like books that get too popular; he thinks it prejudices the tone of his merchandise..."

The shop was a great deal more extensive, and less comfortable, than it had looked from the Course outside. It was impossible to get a straight or diagonal view in any direction, so contorted were the L-shapes of its dustily clustered shelves; Aerwen looked tentatively in one direction in particular whence they saw a cold, absorbed man with a shaven pate, presumably the Lindir Aerwen had mentioned. But she took Aldarion off down another path, wriggling through the impromptu corridors with all a bookworm's hunger and facility.

"Of course, many of the best scripts - the back catalogue of the Swan Players, for example - have been performed already, and this presents a lesser problem; they already have a reputation, and a market, and sponsors to back them; you find them handsomely bound in folios with gilded edges. What I'm going to show you is a bit odder; a playwright whom, ah, rumour has it has been performed somewhere; but no one knows under quite what circumstances; ah, yes..."

They were immediately under a silver plaque that informed them Theatricals, L. Aerwen impatiently shifted the initial volume, the anonymous and long Lamentable Trago-History of the Laiquendi, obviously looking for something not far off from the start, and last settled on a small, dark quarto, neatly but unspectacularly bound in a blue that was almost but not quite black. Silver impressions on the spine read Lameleg, Beren, Arvedui part 1.

"Right author," Aerwen was muttering, half to herself, "wrong plays; rough prentice pieces only..." Her long white hand with its bitten nails whipped out a volume only a little bit further along, identical in appearance except that it read Lameleg, Beren, The Tragedy of Romillo and Írildë. She passed it to Aldarion with a gentle smile, open at this Prologue:

Two shipholds, alike in antiquity,
In Vinyalondë, where we lay our scene
From ancient to first mate in mutiny
Have risen, spilling blood and rum unclean:
From forth the bilges, midst these fatal crews
A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their chance:
Whose misadventures and untimely news
Be interspersed with duelling and with dance.
The fearful passage of grim Anfalas
And the continuance of the boatswain's rage
Whom, but the vinous leaf, naught may relax,
Is now the bare hour's traffic in our page:
The which, if you (when wearied) yet forebear
To slumber on't, we'll venture good repair.

"Romance, pirates, and a fairly harmonious measure of versification," Aerwen murmured with an intonation between scepticism and admiration, "but my, the poetry has barely warmed up here...do flick on..."

[Nerwen]

"Kidnapped? For pity's sake, Asta, now you're just being absurd," Brinn told her with uncharacteristic sharpness, though she was still absently stroking Sereth's dark hair.

"Your zister zpeaks zense, Asta," said Coldan reluctantly. "I hardly zink Aldarion could be overpowered by Lord Zador, of all men."

"As if I hadn't thought of that! He'd have a gang, wouldn't he?" Ideas were springing up like weeds in the fertile soil of Asta's imagination. "These so-called guardsmen are probably in it, and that dreadful old man, and of course those two "ladies" who invaded the Common Room this morning.

'Besides, Sador can't be his real name– now that would be absurd." She had remembered, now, where it was that she had first encountered the name: attached to the maimed servant character in that deplorable, but supposedly factual, historical play Aldarion had tried to foist on them. "In fact, I'll tell you what, I don't believe there's anything the matter with his leg at all. I'm sure he's just pretending to be lame, to put us all off our guard– and– and make it easier for him to vanish once his schemes are complete. Why it's just's the sort of thing a master criminal would do."

[Pitchwife]

"Vait, you're losing me", Coldan interjected as soon as Asta paused to breathe. Apparently the morning had been anything but eventless at the inn, and he was getting more and more confused by all those references to things which had happened in his absence. "Vy are you talking about two ladies now? Vas zere another one besides zat perian woman - vat did you say her name vas? Elanor?" The name sounded much too grandiose for a halfling; if he had come across her as a character in a play, he would have thought her a fitting counterpiece to 'Mary the Elf'.

"Elanor Gamgee", Brinn repeated impatiently. "She's Lord Samwise's daughter. - Now listen, Asta - "

"Samvise Gamgee's daughter?" Coldan interrupted her. "You mean, the daughter of ze one I'm playing, ze one who didn't die on Veathertop after all, whom Branor and ze others met ze other day? And she's going to help us viz ze play?" This was more luck than they could ever have hoped for. "Zat's vonderful! Vat did she tell you, Brinn?" He couldn't wait to have a look at the notes she had just shown them.

"Oh stop it, Coldan!" Asta cried out, bumping against his ribs in an aborted gesture of exasperation. "We don't have time for this now! There won't be a play as long as our playwright is being held in some dungeon the Valar know where!"

Coldan almost made a sarcastic remark about her passionate concern for Aldarion's safety, but having learnt a lesson or two since yesterday, he bit on his tongue just in time.

"But vat reason would Sador hev to - ", he started to object, when something clicked in his mind and the pieces came together. There wouldn't be a play without Aldarion; much as he hated to admit it, Asta was right about that - and perhaps this was just the point.

"Actually", he corrected himself, "zis may not be as crazy as it sounds, Brinn. Zat Lord Cirdacil who left Sador here viz us isn't too fond of us, is he? Judging from vat Rollan told me, he'd be glad for any excuse to run us out of town vizout heving to pay us. Sador vas left viz us under ze pretense of working on ze script viz Aldarion and helping him iron out the mistakes ve hev made, but has anybody seen him doing anyzing of ze kind? To tell ze truth, I heven't trusted zat sweet-tongued clubfoot from ze moment I first saw him. Vat if his true orders are to sabotage our play - and vat better vay to achieve zis zan by kidnapping our playwright?"

[Galadriel55]

Things were finally beginning to come together. The grown-ups went on arguing, ignoring the girls' presense, and they've said enough for Thiliel to grasp the situation. Apparantly the Lord Sador who they were talking about was the handsome young man who was also staying at the inn. She couldn't believe it! Not him as well!

Thiliel made a small attempt at speaking up after Asta finished, but fer faint voice was interrupted by the man's. She told herself that it is a sign for her to keep her mouth shut and not stick her head in things where she is not wanted. But she couldn't, just couldn't keep silent! Not after what she had just heard.

"No!" the shout came out uncontrollably, "No, it cannot be true! They cannot all come down at the you like crows on dead meat, just because you are playing on Comrare. First Lady Elanor, now Lord Sador. Who will be next? King Elessar? Impossible! Why do they all stay in your way? You want no harm, you just want the people of Minas Anor to be happy."

Thiliel swallowed hard, hardly holding back the tears now. Looking directly at Ceebrindal, she said in a soft voice, hardly more than a whisper, "You will still preform the play, won't you?"

[the phantom]

Aldarion flipped quickly through the pages. There was no time to give it a proper look, but he thought he had the basic shape of things. Aware of the fact that Aerwen was hovering quite close, Aldarion allowed himself to mumble a few of his thoughts aloud so that she could hear.

"Not the form usually employed for dramas.... the adherence to rhyme and meter... I tend to find that sort of thing distracting in serious works... more common in comedies, and I don't care for many of those... though this does flow better than most... pleasing to the ear... yes- the writing is certainly a step up from other productions I've done in this style... and the subject of course is an excellent choice if this is THE Írildë, the descendant of Vardamir's youngest child I believe, and the aunt of Hallacar... I love plays set in Numenor... no time to judge the plot really, but I'm interested to see where it goes..."

[Mnemosyne]

"Thiliel," said Brinn, "let me remind you that Elanor means us no harm, and, so far, has done nothing to obstruct our play--in fact, she has been most helpful. Lord Sador, doubtless, has his own reasons for being with us in the first place, and since we do not know them, we cannot know if he means good or ill." Truth be told, she did suspect him, but she had been around people long enough to know that this wasn't the sort of thing you ought to make known, and if she told anyone except Rollan, Sador would probably find out. "It's impossible to make a full guarantee, Thiliel. But I assure you, I am going to do everything in my power to make sure that we perform this play, and that we perform it well, and so far, none of the accidental complications we have run into have proven enough to stop us. But, unfortunately, doing everything in our power means that we need to drop this idle speculation and get back to work."

"I'll tell you what, Asta," she said. "If Aldarion isn't back by tomorrow morning, you have my permission to conduct a full-scale investigation into the matter. For now, though, we wait--and more importantly, we figure out, with what information we have, how we're going to rework the casting for the play. Remember, we did write plays before Aldarion joined us." She drew out a sheet of paper, reworked from Elanor's notes, with the list of the Nine Walkers and an attempted sketch of their relative importance.

"We'll start with the Halflings, since they're now the folk I have the most reliable information on. I see no reason for Frodo to change at all, though we'll almost certainly have to change the way we write him. Sam, however, is going to have to be on stage the same time as Frodo, through the end. He's going to have to..." she peered at her notes "...slowly become more and more of a hero as Frodo continues to fade in the presence of the Ring." What exactly had they gotten themselves into?

"Merry and Pippin are very dear friends of one another, and both related to Frodo. Merry is the older one of the two and tends to plan things out more, while Pippin is more impulsive. They get split up, though, and Merry gets to help the Shield-Maiden defeat the Witch-King and Pippin saves the Steward Faramir's life."

Elanor had told her a good deal more, of course, but she wasn't entirely sure how to go about implementing it. Most worrisome was the lack of any firebreathing dragons... but they couldn't not put Smaug in!

[Pitchwife]

Coldan wasn't sure Brinn was taking this matter seriously enough. They had but three days left to get the play into shape and rehearse it thoroughly enough not to blunder too badly on Cormare. If they didn't begin investigating Aldarion's fate until tomorrow, another day would most likely be wasted. True, they had written plays without Aldarion before; and not so long ago he would have been zealous for a chance to take the Gondorian's place and confident he could deliver a better script anytime. But never before had the stakes been so high, the deadline so close; and knowing his own tendency to procrastination, Coldan had to admit to himself that he wouldn't be able to pull it off.

No, this would never do. As far as his personal feelings were concerned, he would blithely have left Aldarion to rot in whatever dungeon Cirdacil and Sador had thrown him in till Dagor Dagorath, but for the play's sake, the man would have to be found - if indeed he wanted to be found; Coldan was far from buying into Asta's kidnapping theory wholesale, and he wouldn't have been surprised to find out Aldarion had jumped ship and gone over to the enemy. He had been friendly enough with Sador at the common room last night, or so it had seemed. Sure, he had been quite passionate about his desire for the play to succeed and elevate him back to his former glory among the playwrights of Gondor - but what if the other side offered him an easier road to fulfilling his ambition? Either way, they would have to find out.

But it was clearly no use to pursue the matter further with Brinn, especially as she was now sharing what Elanor had told her about the halflings and he was eager to hear that. He gently nudged Asta in order to catch her attention and silently mouthed the word 'later', hoping thereby to appease her long enough to allow him to concentrate on what Brinn was saying.

"They get split up, though, and Merry gets to help the Shield-Maiden defeat the Witch-King and Pippin saves the Steward Faramir's life."

"But, Brinn", he hazarded to object, "if Sam remains alive all zrough ze play and even becomes a sort of hero figure, I can't play him and Gimli at ze same time. It's all vell once the Fellowship splits up, but between Rivendell and Parth Galen zey would hev to be on stage together. And who else is short enough for either part?" Casting these two characters had been one of the rare cases where his squat stature had worked to his advantage. "And did she tell you anyzing about Frodo's and Sam's adventures in Mordor? Like, you know, the part where zey fight ze great dragon?"

[Mnemosyne]

"That, Coldan, is precisely why we need to rework the casting," said Brinn. "In fact, unless we want to start pulling orphans off the street, height will be an issue for five out of the nine. I think, at this point, it is better to cast based on who will play the roles well than who will look the part." She paused. The distinct lack of dragon in Elanor's tale was not something that she particularly wanted to bring up at the moment...

"As for the adventures in Mordor, apparently there was little they could do at that point aside from 'starve,' but if we can do it well, I don't have as much of a problem with taking some artistic liberties."

"Zo," said Coldan, "Vhere does ze dragon come in?"

"Whenever the play begins to drag on?" said Rollan.

Brinn glared at him.

"Look," said Rollan, "if my dear wife is speaking correctly, I think she's trying to say that there is no dragon in Elanor's version of the story."

"Not precisely, no," said Brinn, glaring at him even more, "but there is a giant spider..."

She trailed off, seeing the looks on the other Players' faces. Asta was going to kill her.

[Anguirel]

Aerwen stood close to Aldarion as he mumbled his views in the gloom. It was more musty than cold, but if he had watching her, she would have appeared to be shivering a little. In fact, she was in large measure suppressing a peal of gentle laughter.

"So I take it, then, that you still prefer Lord Imrazôr," she whispered back with an unusually mischievous expression. "Indeed, I am not certain whether you are right, either in the reason that makes you hesitate, or the one that attracts you..."

For a moment Aldarion might wonder disconcertingly about the strange, scholarly maiden's words, context and meaning; she clarified herself only after a pause.

"For this playwright can master plain-speaking too; and, what seems to me his noblest form, unrhymed but stately verse. Forgive me if I take the book back..." Aldarion handed it over with a frown. "Something like this," the Lady of Burlach continued as she opened at another section,

"It is the gull that sings so out of tune,
Straining harsh discords, luring off the elves.
Some say the gull makes navigation sweet;
This doth not so, for she divideth us:
Some say the gull and mermaids swap their song,
O, now I would they had changed faces too!
Since craft from craft that voice bids us now moor,
Hunting thee hence with hunt's-up to the shore,
O, now be gone; more land and land it grows...

"...but no doubt I am boring you, Master Aldarion. I fear, too, that you are wrong about the writer's historical intentions; this play seems to me to exist in a pure void, a world of art, with no reference to any goings on of the legends or the records. As for the name Írildë, well, what's in a name?

"I thought it best though to show you this, as I suspect you will be hearing more about this poet's work this evening. My dear brother seems to have, er, taken an interest in his work; perhaps their apparent common affliction moves him. Anyway, it has become quite common for him to read and act out scenes from these plays of Master Lameleg's, with picked guests, and I would be very surprised indeed if he did not ask you, and our well beloved Gloredhel, to join in tonight..."

Somewhere the distance was a sound of running water, and a chiming of a sort of gong. It seemed to alarm Aerwen sufficiently to break her meditation, and she replaced the book quite suddenly.

"Old Lindir's water clock! We really must be getting on; I do apologise, I had quite lost track of things. Master Lameleg remarks somewhere else that There is no clock i' the forest, an adage that accurately reflects my sense of time whenever I am near books..."

She gave Aldarion a mock-woeful grimace, and led him out in a fitful rush. Her instructions to the coachman were fierce and urgent, and he whirled them up the Fifth and Sixth Highways with extraordinary - indeed nauseous - zeal. Lady and player alike would look and feel quite dizzy as they alighted in front of the manor belonging to Ecsichil of Burlach, their destination fulfilled at last; the coachman, who was used to his trade and barely groggy at all, pre-empted them to step up and give a firm knock on the tall town-house door, with the ceremonial cane kept for just such contingencies.

There was a sound of activity beyond, and soon a number of people opened up, enough to make any less magnificent entrance look quite cramped; the host, Lord Ecsichil, wearing a rich jerkin of tawny orange and his favourite scarlet sash, his handsome but rather brutish face flushed from wine or perhaps waiting; his brother, the evening's master of ceremonies just as their father was the City's, hanging back with his usual confident smile, and...

"Aldarion, at last" the demurely dressed, darkly beautiful woman between them said first, uttering her first substantial words of the evening, "you have been too long, and too much missed among the players of the Swan..."

[Nerwen]

I'm going to kill her, thought Asta. Losing Mary had been bad enough, but this...!

There was a peculiar intensity to the silence, as if the company were holding its collective breath; but Asta was not about to treat them to an explosion this time.

"Oh, very good, Brinn," she replied, with icy precision. "I'd better get to work straight away, then, hadn't I? Of course, I don't have the spare parts to hand, but I'm sure I can manage to strip down Smaug, paint him black and add on a few extra legs."

"It was a very big spider, Asta," said Brinn weakly.

"I'm sure people will flock from far and wide to see it!" Asta turned and climbed down from the waggon. Behind her, clamour erupted, but she did not linger to hear.

Coldan found her in the props waggon a few minutes later, gazing at Smaug with her chin cupped in her hand.

"Asta? Your zister vanted me to–"

"I don't care what my sister wants!" Asta said fiercely. "It's quite clear now that she's taken leave of her senses; she must have struck her head in that fall. Throw out Smaug– the very idea! And Coldan, we have to rescue Aldarion! Without him, this play is headed for the Crack of Doom."

"Your zister said if he is not back by tomorrow..." the prompter reminded her slowly, but Asta saw she had him.

"Not tomorrow!" She sprang to her feet, just avoiding striking her own head on the low ceiling, and caught Coldan's wrist in a tight grip, trying to stare into both of his grey eyes at once. "Today! Remember, the play's the thing! Are you with me?

[Pitchwife]

Coldan felt his pulse hammering against Asta's grip around his wrist while she held his gaze as if trying to stare her will into him. Her eyes, usually the colour of a misty summer morning, were burning brightly with the fire of a fey spirit. Here she was again, the fierce, heroic shieldmaiden he loved more than any other side of her. Let her break his heart ever so often, he could refuse her nothing when she was like this.

"To Sammath Naur and back", he answered in a whisper.

[Nerwen]

Now this was more like it. Asta wondered that she could ever have compared Coldan to an Easterling. Not that she had more than a vague idea what an Easterling looked like, but she knew they were supposed to be ugly and brutish– and Coldan, with the lock of dark hair that fell so charmingly across his forehead, with his grey eyes shining...Coldan was anything but ugly.

"To Sammath Naur and back!" Asta repeated, in a whisper equally fervent.

On impulse, she leant forward, closed her eyes, and pressed her lips to his.

[Dimturiel]

During the heated discussions in the wagon, Harrenon had remained, as he usually did under such circumstances, as unobtrusive as possible, so much so that he had not even been really noticed. Then Asta left, presumably to the props wagon to take care of Smaug - which was now going to be a spider - and Coldan soon followed her. It was then that Harrenon remembered that he had not told Coldan yet about his morning with Sador – which, he thought, would be a shame if it remained unreported. If he had had to endure that romantic drivel Sador had sprouted all morning, then so did Coldan, especially since it had been on the latter’s orders that Harrenon had spent time with Sador in the first place. Therefore, he left to find Coldan. He knew where to look for him. Since Coldan usually gravitated around Asta quite a lot, then he was bound to be in the props wagon too.

And he did find both Coldan and Asta there, just as he had expected. What he had most certainly not anticipated, however, was to find the two locked in a passionate embrace, just as he had stomped into the wagon. If only he had moved more quietly, then perhaps he would have remained unnoticed and he would have managed to leave before the unexpected situation could become even more uncomfortable. But unfortunately he had made too much noise for that, and the couple became aware of his arrival.

“Oh, I’m…I’m dreadfully sorry!” Harrenon stammered turning around quickly as the two separated to see who had disturbed them. “I…I meant no…I mean, I didn't see anything, really. I was just looking for…well, never mind, I’ll leave now. You two can…well, carry on…”

[Pitchwife]

When the impossible happened and Asta kissed him in an instant that shattered his world and made it new, Coldan was for a mere fraction of a second too gobsmacked to react. But then his arms went around her, pressing her against his chest, and he returned the kiss with all the dammed up passion of three years of hopeless yearning -

- or rather, he would have, if Harrenon, whom he hadn't so much as noticed all the time, hadn't picked that very moment to interrupt them. Cursing under his breath, he turned to Harrenon, who prepared to make an awkward retreat as soon as he realized what had been going on, while Asta pulled away from him with a smoldering look in her eyes that presaged little good for the young Gondorian. His only consolation was seeing somebody else blush and stutter in embarrassment for a change.

"No, vait", he sighed, holding Harrenon back by his shirtsleeve. "I vas going to talk to you anyway. Asta, don't kill him yet - ve need him." He grabbed Harrenon's shoulders and brought the two of them face to face, willing him to overcome his befuddlement and concentrate. "Now, Harry, zink - ven vas ze last time you saw Aldarion? Any idea vere he vent zis morning? And did you do vat I asked you last night - you know, about Sador?"

[Galadriel55]

Smaug? I do not recall Smaug doing anything during the Siege of Gondor, thought Thiliel. She was calmer now, after Celebrindal truthfully told her all that she could tell about the future of the play, but she was not less confused. Asta, whom she did not like very much yesterday, seemed very upset about that. When Asta found out that Smaug is in fact a spider, she stormed out of the wagon, pushing everyone in the crowded wagon in the process. Coldan made a lame excuse and went out after her.

Celebrindal and the man who Thiliel understood to be her husband were heatedly discussing something else now. The girl listened for a minute or so, after which it suddenly struck her that her uncle might miss her and be looking all over the place, worrying unnecessarily. She quiety slipped away from Sereth, giving her a wink and a small smile, unnoticed by either of the adults.

Before returning to her uncle and her duties, she walked a little bit amongst the wagons, fascinated by the colourful displays, sometimes daring to look inside. She thought about the Smaug problem. She remembered hearing about a dreadful pass in the Mountains of Shadow, Cirith Ungol, the Spider Cleft, that up to this day no man of Gondor dared to cross. But she also heard that two periannath, came throgh unscathed. Or, at least, they were not devoured by the evil that dwelt there. This is where the spider would come in, she assumed. But none of the sroties that her elders ever told her spoke of a dragon.

Walking in a dream-like way, lost in her thoughts, Thiliel was startled when she heard a voice coming from a wagon just a few feet away. "Now, Harry, zink - ven vas ze last time you saw Aldarion? Any idea vere he vent zis morning?" This was Coldan's voice. More about Sador! It seems that Celebrindal hasn't told me all.

Thiliel once again reminded herself that she should be inside, where Ingold could keep an eye on her. But she decided to take a quick peek at what was going on, and then, she promised herself, she'd get on with her chores.

"And did you do vat I asked you last night - you know, about Sador?" Coldan asked a man, probably another actor, who he was holding by his shoulders. "I could tell you abot Lord Sador!" Thiliel said. Coldan and the other man turned to her. "His sister and sister-in-law came to the inn in the morning and took him away in a rich carriage that was decorated with swans."

[Nerwen]

It was truly remarkable, Asta thought, how someone as insignificant as Harrenon could at the same time show such talent for getting in the way. She contented herself with merely glaring at the young actor, as she was very curious to know what his task had been.

So Coldan had already been taking some kind of action about Sador! It was not like him to show so much initiative– but then he had certainly managed to surprise her over the last few days.

Then the aggravating little maid had to burst in, babbling about carriages and swans. Asta felt like slapping her.

"By King Bard's arrow, does this waggon look like a public thoroughfare to you? Of course they have a carriage with swans, they're rich folk (ill-gotten gains, I'm sure); anyway I saw it myself. As if anyone could miss a great thing like that!"

"A swan device, you say?" Harrenon spoke quietly, yet with a note in his voice that made Asta, for once, give him her full attention.

"Yes. Why, is it important?"

[Dimturiel]

"Yes. Why, is it important?"

Secretly, Harrenon was glad he could distract Asta from whatever murderous plans she had regarding him. The tone of her question showed that she had guessed that he thought something was not quite right.

“Well, it’s the Swan device,” he said quickly. “Don’t you know what that means?”

He looked from Coldan to Asta, waiting for the two to realise what he was talking about.

"Have you forgotten last year when we performed in Dol Amroth?" he asked. " We saw many such devices there. Well, the swan is the device of those of Dol Amroth. Don't you remember?”

Harrenon paused, and looked at the other three. He frowned.

“I don’t understand,” he said. “What link can there be between Sador and those of Dol Amroth?”

[Pitchwife]

Coldan slapped his forehead when Harrenon reminded them of the Swans of Dol Amroth. Of course! Dol Amroth - the Swan Players - Aldarion and his mysterious connection to a no less mysterious lady which Sador had hinted at - it all fit together, even if he wasn't yet sure precisely how; but it corroborated his suspicion that Aldarion's kidnapping wasn't entirely without this connivance.

“I don’t understand,” Harrenon said with a puzzled look. “What link can there be between Sador and those of Dol Amroth?”

"I don't know", Coldan admitted. "But I know of a link betveen Dol Amroth and Aldarion. Zat's vere he joined us, after all, leaving zat other group he vas viz at ze time - ze Svan Players; I'm sure you remember ze arrogant sods."

Last evening, though, Aldarion had spoken of his past career with the Dol Amroth company with positive nostalgia. The greatest company in the history of Gondor! I had it all, and by the Valar, I will rise again!

"Maybe zey vant him back, and Sador is vorking for zem; and zey probably von't vant us to succeed viz zis play and gain ze King's favour in zeir place. Or maybe - " He hesitated to broach this in Asta's presence, willing to spare whatever lingering feelings she might still have for the playwright after what had just happened; but they would find out the truth soon enough - better to spare her a nasty surprise.

"Or maybe Aldarion even consented to being kidnapped. Remember vat Sador told us last night? - No matter", he hastened to continue, "ve're going to find him and rescue him if he vants rescuing." And drag him back by the ears if he doesn't, he added silently.

"Vat say you, Harry? Are you viz us?"

[Nerwen]

"Wait," said Asta, "Harry, you mean only someone from Dol Amroth would use a swan emblem?"

Harrenon nodded. "What you describe would be the device of one of their noble houses."

"Why, that's it, then! That's how they did it! They made Aldarion think he was among friends! The poor fool probably hopped in, never suspecting a thing– until it was too late.

'Coldan, we're to have to be very careful– this so-called Lord Sador plans well ahead."

[Pitchwife]

"So it seems", said Coldan. "Anyvay, I zink finding him will lead us to Aldarion. It can't be too difficult to find out vich vay zis carriage vent - if it was such a pompous vehicle as you describe it, people vill hev noticed it." He looked at Harrenon again. "So vat about it, Harry? I'd be glad to hev a native Gondorian in zis rescue party; if ve run into trouble, you vould be better zan I am at talking us out of it, seeing how vell you handled zat situation in ze smithy yesterday; and if ve need to break Aldarion out of some kind of lockup, another pair of strong arms can't hurt."

"Well", Harrenon said after some pondering, "I guess somebody has to take care that you two don't go astray." That earned him a shriveling stare from Asta. "But do I understand right that you mean to keep this expedition hidden from Brinn?"

Coldan nodded. "She's got enough to vorry about already; better not burden her viz zis."

"What about the girl then?" Harrenon pointed at the serving maid. "Can we trust her?"

"We could bind and gag her and lock her in the wagon", Asta suggested. The girl paled, and her eyes widened.

Coldan shot an exasperated glance at Asta. He had noticed that she wasn't particularly fond of Ingold's niece, but that was no reason to scare the maid like that. "Don't be silly! Ingold vould kick us out of ze inn."

He turned to the girl. "Don't mind her, Thilwen - zat's your name, isn't it?"

"Thiliel, sir", she corrected him, still somewhat timidly.

"Right. Thiliel." Now how exactly did you talk to a fourteen year old girl? He tried his best to imitate Brinn's reassuring tone, but still the words came out a bit more brusquely than he meant them. "You vant us to get ze play ready in time for Cormare, don't you?"

Thiliel nodded.

"Zen ve must find Master Aldarion and bring him back. But Mistress Celebrindal still needs rest to recover from her injury, so she shouldn't hev to vorry about zis. If she - or anybody else - asks for us, tell her - tell her Asta and I hev gone looking for spare parts to change Smaug into a spider; and after zat ve vant to be alone viz each other for a vile. Or vatever you zink works best." That didn't cover Harrenon, but it probably wouldn't occur to Brinn to suspect him anyway. "But if we're not back by ze morning bells, it means ve're in trouble, and zen you should tell her ze truth, but not earlier. Can you do zat?"

[Galadriel55]

It was the weight and importance of Coldan's words that made Thiliel put herself together, although she was still under the impression of Asta's suggestion. She recovered from the fright just enough to understand the graveness of the matter.

"Can you do zat?" asked Coldan, making sure that she knew what she was putting herself up to.

"Yes, of course, sir," the girl replied. She became calmer, now that she knew for sure that no one really wants to tie her up and hide her in some corner of the mysterious wagons, which just a few minutes ago enchanted her and now made her shiver. "I really want to see the play. I am sure you worked very hard to put it together, and I don't want it to fall apart."

"Zat is very vell," Coldan told her, while Asta glared mistrustfully, "it vill help us a great deal if you do zis."

"You should return to the inn, or Ingold might think that we locked you up for real," the other man winked at Thiliel with a slight chuckle. The comment made the girl's heart leap and her breath catch again. She must have jumped, because that man - was his name Harry? - laughed. Still not very impressed, but appreciating the joke, Thiliel gave all three a nervous smile and dropped a curtsey before turning away and walking quickly towards the entrance of the inn, carefully avoiding the long shadows of the carts.

Thiliel wondered if Asta was always that scary, and why she was so cold towards her. Perhaps she didn't mean what she said, and didn't intend for it to sound so harsh and threatening. But it was still said. How does Sereth stand her? And how does Asta not kill everyone around her, if she has such a temper that she'd want to bind me in one of the wagons overnight. Overnight, because I doubt that anyone would find me in there before next morning... These thoughts made Thiliel recall Asta's interferance with the quarreling men the night before. What would she do with the metal tool if the room wasn't filled with people?...

She was quite sure by now that her uncle will be upset with her for the prolonged absense. She wanted to quietly slip inside, and pretend that she had a headache and was in her room the entire time. Thiliel was not sure that the excuse wold work. Maybe he checked her room already. But there was still a chance of escaping it...

However, that chance was taken away very soon by Ingold's figure standing in the entrance to the hall. Thiliel ran to him and flung her arms around him. For the first time during her stay in Minas Anor, he didn't hug back. He didn't say anything, but Thiliel could feel his anger, and, concealled under it, pain and worry. The silence was uncomfortable, unnatural. She felt it pressing on her from every side. She wanted to break it, to ease it somehow. Ingold always told her plainly what he did not like, and she always tried her hardest to fix it. It was never like this. This time, Thiliel felt, she has made a worse blunder than spilling milk all over the place or serving someone chicken instead of beef.

"Uncle, I'm sorry," she whispered when she couldn't hold it any longer, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean it. I did not mean to... to disappear like that..." Ingold looked into her eyes. There was question and accusation in his gaze. "I didn't go anywhere far, I was here in the yard," Thiliel's voice begun to crack, "I didn't do any trouble. I just forgot that... forgot about the time..."

"Forgot about the time? I haven't seen you around for almost an hour! The sun is almost setting!" Thiliel looked out the window, to see Anor low in the sky, still an hour or so from setting, but still lower than she thought. "You are almost grown up, and you have to act as such," Ingold continued, "You cannot go off for so long without telling me. You have to be more responsible. And what could be so interesting that it captured your attention for all this while?" This question made Thiliel squirm. She knew that he didn't approve of her spending so much time talking to the actors.

"I... Sereth showed me one of the carts. You know, Sereth, the actress." A semitruth though it was, it made the anger in Ingold's eyes melt. All that was left was a tired old man who had too much to worry about without his niece's games.

"Go clean yourself up, and then come back to the commn room," Ingold said, "the men are going to be coming in again soon. I will need your help delivering the food. Go, lass."

From the last words Thiliel could tell that she was forgiven, and the incident was past. Yet she couldn't stop thinking about it, and about her other misadventures this day. Her step lost its spring, and she went about her chores without her usual energy and eagerness.

[Mnemosyne]

“What were you thinking?” hissed Brinn.

“Sweetheart,” said Rollan, slowly, “what are you talking about?”

“You know perfectly well what I’m talking about! Your slow and stupid act might work fine on stage, but don’t even think about pulling it on your own wife!”

Rollan took a step forward and folded his arms. “I know what you’re trying to do, Brinn. You’re trying to save the show at all costs—even if it means misleading your own sister. That’s not the woman I married.”

“I wasn’t misleading her!”

“You were going to. And she has a right to know.”

“You don’t know that, Rollan. I was obviously going to have to tell her eventually, but… not here, not with so many people poking their heads in and Asta like to see an assassin in every shadow. And just because there wasn’t a dragon doesn’t mean there can’t be one in the play, no matter what Lady Elanor says. But since you stepped in and ruined everything—”

“I ruined nothing. Just as you said when we got here, the worst that happens to us is we get run out of the White City, and all that means…”

“Is Seri cries for weeks, and Aldarion and anyone else who has a dream of grandeur leaves us, and—”

“And we move on, and we make other people smile. This is hurting you, Brinn, and you can’t see it.”

“Really?” said Brinn, sticking her foot out.

“When, exactly, did this show become about you? It wasn’t last night. You weren’t cagey, trying to manipulate people; you were listening to them!”

“About me? I run this group. I keep all of us—crazy, drunk, flighty, headstrong—together. I got us out of the Swan Players mess. And in case you couldn’t tell, we’re dealing with politicians, and you can’t just listen to them; you have to—”

“You don’t have to become them. I know you won’t ask for my advice, but I’ll give it anyway. Leave. Cancel the show. We’re in over our heads; let someone else try to take on this mess. You’re not Bard the Bowman, so don’t get yourself fried fighting the dragon.”

“Get. Out.”

Rollan reached out towards her, but Brinn slapped his hand away. “Out,” she said. “And don’t come back until I tell you.”

Rollan opened his mouth, as if to say more, but shut it and left.

As soon as the door closed behind him, Brinn burst into tears.

[Mnemosyne]

Brinn stumped over to her bed and sat down heavily, grabbed the pillow, started dabbing at her eyes. No one to look in on her, but she would not look weak. She couldn't remember fighting with her husband this hard; he always took her side, always understood, always backed her up...

And oh, how she needed it! Even at the best of times, the King's Players were not exactly the picture of harmony; worse than most families, they bickered. She had to keep them together, but here, now, they were unraveling in her hands--three of them vanished, at least two barely restrained from upsetting the man who might happen to be their worst enemy, and now even Rollan turning against her...

All she'd wanted was to make this work, to see the smiles, tears, gasps of the audience. When did that become so difficult a task?

Since we set foot in this fool City, she thought. And now everything was going upside down and everyone in the Players but her was making it worse... And she restrained, chafing at her sprained foot, able to accomplish more than anyone else...

She blinked, more tears slipping from her eyes. When had she become so selfish?

Rollan had tried to tell her.

Rollan was right. When had she become so attached to the play, to putting it on with no thought to the Players who acted in it?

Elanor. She shook her head--she knew that the hobbit hadn't meant any harm, but she had been so charming, so eager to see the play...

She'd gotten into Brinn's heart. And wasn't that what the old tales about Halflings said? How they could smile, wink, leave a friendly word, and suddenly you found yourself falling over your feet to help them? She thought back to the start of the tale, the real start, with four weak, utterly stupid hobbits setting off on their own, and somehow magically attracting all these folk who were suddenly willing to help them, not just for the peril of their task but because they were so vulnerable and still so endearing?

...at least, they looked vulnerable. Actually could defend themselves in a pinch, obviously, but you wouldn't think it, looking at them, so you had to help them. And they probably didn't even realize they were doing it.

And there were three of them at the court, and one of them had managed to work her way into Brinn's heart in the space of two hours, and now she'd lost her sister and her fool husband, because she'd gotten so caught up in the play that she couldn't even listen...

It wasn't fair, she thought, but she cut it off.

No. No blaming things on anyone else, especially not a hobbit who didn't even realize what she was doing. This was her problem, her fault.

Brinn curled into a ball, and wept alone.

[Mnemosyne]

Rollan walked up to bar and ordered the strongest drink they had, ignoring the stares and the mutters. He didn't feel like apologizing for what he'd said--not yet--but he'd be lucky at this point if Brinn let him back in at all, and losing someone like that hurt.

Besides, she had a point--several, really. Asta looked about ready to burn the entire inn down, and this when their numbers were already so reduced, and, quite honestly, she was the only person with the patience and the will to keep them all together. More than any other member, the Players needed Brinn, and he'd just made her job that much harder, and on top of that, told her that she cared more about the play than any of them...

He stared at his empty glass. They'd tried for children for years, ever since they'd married, but none had ever come. He wanted a family with Brinn, but she ached for it, and the Players had had to become in spirit what they couldn't have in body.

Rollan the Fool, he thought. He was too good at playing the part if this was what he did off the stage.

Well. Nothing to be done for it now. Looking around for a familiar face, he saw Ingold's--daughter? niece?--wandering amidst the tables, a little less cheery than he'd been. He waved her over and slipped her a coin.

"I'm sorry, Miss--" Dash it all, Brinn was the one who remembered everyone's name, not him!

"Thiliel, sir."

"Thiliel, but if you could bring my wife some supper at the proper time I'd much appreciate it. As much as you can be spared her other duties, just--don't press her or anything, but let me know how she's doing. I expect I'll be here late tonight."

[Dimturiel]

Thiliel was gone now and Harrenon was very thankful that Asta’s suggestion of tying her up had been disregarded. Otherwise they would have most likely found themselves in a dungeon soon and all the commotion with their silly play would have been the least of their worries. It was strange, Harrenon mused, how Asta could see danger lurking everywhere but sometimes did not seem to anticipate the consequences of her own actions. Now that he thought better of it, the prospect of joining a rescue mission with the two did not seem too attractive.

He was glad that Coldan had told Thiliel to find a way to explain their absence for now – his and Asta’s, that was. If anyone was to look for Harrenon that evening, then he would be the one in hot water since he would not have a plausible explanation for not being around. But, after all, he had the habit of being inconspicuous until there was need of him and Harrenon doubted very much that anyone would have any need of him that evening. He turned to the two others and looked at them questioningly:

“Well, now that the girl’s gone, what do we do? How do we plan this rescue? I think I should tell you, though, that we should be careful. I’ve spent the morning with Sador, after all. He’s…well, he's a romantic fool, but I have to hand it to him: he does not seem to lack imagination. Such people are not easy to deal with.”

[Pitchwife]

Harrenon's question caught Coldan somewhat unawares, as he hadn't yet given much thought to planning the mission in detail. He wasn't perturbed for long, though. Asta's kiss, fleeting as it had been, had given his self-confidence a huge boost and filled him with a gush of inspiration he had rarely felt poring over The Fall of King Bladorthin. He had not the slightest doubt in their ability to pull this off.

"Doesn't lack imagination, does he? Vell, neither do ve. Ve're ze King's Players, by Aule's hammer! I bet ve can still teach zat lordling a zing or two about imagination. -

Zis is vat ve'll do." He began to tick off the steps of the plan by the fingers of his right hand. "First we follow ze trail of ze carriage by asking people in ze city about it. Ven ve arrive at its destination, ve reconnoitre ze place - stealthily, to be sure - and try to find out vere Aldarion is being held. If ve can't discover zat from ze outside, ve sneak in - ve'll hev to do zat eventually anyway. Once ve hev found him, ve free him - ve'll need suitable tools, of course, in case he's locked up - and leave viz him as quickly and quietly as we can."

Harrenon didn't seem convinced. "Sneak in? I don't expect that to be easy. Don't you think the place will be guarded?"

Coldan bit his lips. "It probably will", he conceded. "Ve'll hev to create a diversion to distract the guards - you know, like ze last battle at ze Morannon vere ze King engaged ze army of Mordor vile Frodo attacked ze Dark Lord at Barad-dûr."

"I know what diversion means", snapped Asta. "What do you have in mind?"

Coldan's brow furrowed in pondering, while his glance wandered aimlessly around the interior of the cart as if looking for an idea; when it alighted on the looming frame of the mechanical dragon, his face suddenly lit up, and he flashed a mischievous grin at Asta.

"Could you spare some of ze stuff you use to make Smaug breathe fire?"

[Galadriel55]

Thiliel was not in the mood for doing more favors for the Players. She could not wait to see the play, but it was because of them that she made her uncle worry. If they wouldn't be at the inn, she wouldn't have done anything wrong. Nor would I be able to meet the real actors, she thought.

But whatever her mood was, customers came first. She carefully listened to the man's request, and nodded when he finished speaking: it was not anything special or hard to do. "I will take a tray to Mistress Celebrindal after I finish serving to everybody inside. If you want, I can give her a message." Thiliel thought for a moment, and then added, "Why, is her ankle worse again?"

[Nerwen]

"Could you spare some of ze stuff you use to make Smaug breathe fire?"

"Coldan, that's a marvellous idea!" Asta beamed. "It would be worth it just to see the looks on their faces!" Despite Harrenon's presence, she very nearly kissed the prompter a second time. "And don't you worry about breaking in," she added, as she quickly selected a number of slender, oddly-shaped picks and wrenches from amongst the large variety of tools hanging on the walls, "I know a thing or two about locks and bolts, I can tell you– Father wasn't just a toymaker. Here, Harry, take this–"

She might have passed Harrenon a live snake, from the way he stared at the long chisel-tipped rod in his hand.

"What am I supposed to do with this?" he asked in a faint voice.

"Why, break the door open– if need be," Asta explained, not very patiently. Really, there were times when Harry seemed positively dense. "You will be careful with it, though, won't you?"

[Thinlómien]

Since she had discovered she had been fooled, Sereth had felt so stupid she had wished she could melt into the walls. Luckily, no one seemed to care - they were more interested in redistributing the roles and then, fighting about the dragon.

Asta stormed out - typical, if you asked Sereth - and was followed by Coldan, then Harrenon and finally Thiliel too. There was nobody but her and Brinn and Rollan in the wagon anymore, and maybe she had succeeded in beoming one with the wall, because the couple started arguing with each other as if she wasn't there. When Brinn started talking about cancelling the play and Seri herself crying for weeks, she couldn't help the tears that rose into her eyes. However, she would hide her grief this time.

One wouldn't have needed to have Sereth's skill in moving quietly to exit the wagon without notice - Brinn and Rollan were hardly concentrating on anything else than screaming at each other. Once she was out, Sereth found the darkest corner of the yard and sat there, crying.

Crying didn't make her feel so good though. She realised she had been agitated enough for a few days, she didn't want it anymore. And since all the adults seemed to be flipping out, maybe she should not go crazy too. Decisively, she wiped the tears and ignoring the fact that her eyes must be red she marched into the inn.

She didn't know what she actually wanted to do, but when she saw Rollan, she knew. She needed to make it better.

Rollan didn't look like he particularily wanted to talk to her or anybody else, though, but as Thiliel was already chatting with him, Sereth felt bold enough to join in.

"Rollan," she interrupted whatever discussion that was going on. "I know how we can solve this mess. We can replace the spider with a dragon, dragons are much scarier anyway."

She gave him a tentative smile.

[Galadriel55]

Sereth didn't look very well. Her eyes were red and swollen, as if she cried. But she as smiling.

"Rollan, I know how we can solve this mess. We can replace the spider with a dragon, dragons are much scarier anyway."

"But there was no dragon!" Thiliel objected, "Not in the Seige of Gondor! My uncle told me all about it; he was a solider then, you see. There was a huge ram, the size of... well..." Thiliel searched for an appropriate comparisson, "it would hardly fit in the yard if it was twice as big as it really is. And there were beasts. Fell beasts. The Fell Riders rode them. They were like dragons, but not dragons. They were black. And they didn't breathe fire.

I could ask my uncle to tell us all about it after most people leave - in the late evening. He knows everything about the war." This suggestion jerked Thiliel back to her gloomy situation, which she forgot while speaking with Sereth. There was something special about that girl - she could make Thiliel forget about everything.

Which is why I am in trouble. And it's none of her fault.

[Mnemosyne]

Rollan was relieved, actually, at the inadvertent rescue Sereth had given him. A dragon was a much easier problem to manage than the King's Players crumbling within his wife's--and his--grasp.

"Now, listen, both of you," he said, and he looked at them sharply--not cruelly, but the sort of "sit up and pay attention" look that, somehow, only he could get away with flashing to the audience. "What Brinn never managed to get out before Asta stormed off was that she'd at least think about keeping the dragon, or working it in some other way. I'm not familiar enough with this version of the tale to know how that'd work, but I do know we have to be careful about the 'Frodo' bits because one of our special guests was there."

He looked at Thiliel again. "But we were talking about the Black Land, not the Siege. And you say there were creatures like dragons there? Not, of course, that I'd want you to be more of a bother to your uncle than I'm sure a lass your age already is... but you might have given old Rollan an idea." He eyed her shrewdly. "You don't think folk here would take it badly if we made the siege a little more dramatic, do you?"

[Galadriel55]

"Not, of course, that I'd want you to be more of a bother to your uncle than I'm sure a lass your age already is..." Perhaps Rollan did not intend to, but he reminded Thiliel once again of her sins this day. I have to stop this chattering. I have work to do. I need to act my age.

"You don't think folk here would take it badly if we made the siege a little more dramatic, do you?"

Thiliel decided to end the talk with this question. "I suppose not. But many of the elder people still remember it how it was, and those who were born later or were too young to remember heard about it from their sires. You say that the dragon lives in the Black Land. I cannot tell you anything of that. I have not heard of any dragons there. But very few people dared to explore deep into the heart of the land. Who knows what may be still hiding there?"

Thiliel looked at the coin in her hand. She had another one, from Celebrindal, under her pillow. "I apologize, but I have to go now. I have lots of work still to do," she said, turnig around and putting the coin in her pocket.

[Anguirel]

Up at the Treasury


There was a good deal of disturbance going on in the offices of the Lord Warden. Clerks either dashed about or stayed preternaturally still, occasionally and mechanically practising their bowing. That horse, that calvacade, those guards had been spotted, inarguably, on their way in this direction. But he didn't typically visit the Treasury, his own Exchequer; in a manner of speaking, indeed, he wasn't supposed to; his half-forgotten predecessors had none done so since the Kin-Strife's bad old days, when need to secure the money purses had overriden princely decorum. The system was, for established and good reasons, designed to encumber any over-carefree initiative from its master...

"The King Elessar is on his...", a higher commissioner began to his superior, Lord Cirdacil, as that notable paced distractedly past him, his undermighty, compact shape juddering with impatience.

"Do be quiet, I know he is, and why he is, well, that's evidently beyond any of your wit..."

The Lord Warden concluded his response with one of the phglemy coughs that punctuated and plagued his utterances, aging in body but vigorous as ever in will.

"The King Elessar has passed..." another official, hurrying in the opposite direction, tried.

"Through the doorway?"

"Not yet, my lord."

"Then the matter is of no importance, except insofar as it seems to have disturbed you all from your proper business."

Some soldiers, the van of the guard royal, arrived with predictable lack of awareness of punctiliousness, but Cirdacil paid them back in their own coin, waved them dead silent as they came near him; they obeyed at once, for everyone accepted that the whitebeard tyrant of the taxes looked and sounded like a taskmaster to be reckoned with. As if more disdainful than pleased with their show of submission, Cirdacil strode past them without looking to either side of him, under handsome, serried arches of smartly presented ashen spears. He moved as effienctly as anyone had ever seen; and was at the main gate of his station of work to welcome his sovereign's arrival.

"Right glad meeting, your majesty," he got out quickly, extending his arm within. There, that was it. If the King chose to enter now it was at his Warden's invitation; the dangerous precedent had been scotched. King Elessar seemed to be interested in no such principled struggle after all, however. He paused, maddeningly, at Cirdacil's own level, half in and half out of the threshold, as if the Treasury's hallowed ground and the rarefied citadel dirt were all the same to him.

"Are you not over tired, Lord Cirdacil?" formed his greeting, delivered with very perfected concern.

"No more than usual, your Majesty."

"Than usual? Ha! I hate, my sprightly young playmate," (the King liked to chaff Cirdacil about his own greater age, which the Lord Warden always thought a little vulgar of him, under his special circumstances), "to be the cause of making your life always so onerous. Come," he added, putting his arm around the old Lord and steering them in together, thus undoing all Cirdacil's careful efforts to remain the driving impetus on the way into the offices.

"I gather from..., well, I gather, that you privately favour an alteration in the nature of the Cormare revels?" the King asked easily, hauling his old counsellor along in great joviality.

"The actors grow more intractably retrograde every day that passes, sire," Cirdacil replied with a sigh; he had suspected the King would pick this topic, but he didn't have to like it himself. "I thought the traditional bard might save us both - us all - a good quantity of money and time."

"Money and time," King Elessar mused. "Tell me, Lord Cirdacil, which do you prefer?"

Cirdacil recognised the pitfall in the question at once, nor did he have to lie in avoiding it. "That is no kind of choice, sire. We need money to make time endurable, yet gold is no end in itself."

"No end indeed," the King answered thoughtfully. "All that glisters...but forgive me, I am indulging in memory. I fear, Lord Cirdacil, that your joint office lies heavily upon your sense of duty?"

"It has been hard since your Majesty chose so to distinguish me," Cirdacil muttered without inflection, fighting back incipient relief. Was Elessar about to take the Players off him again? Had Hallas decided to come back? Had that absurd fellow in Dol Amroth, his daughter's father-in-law Erchirion, turned up the goods and agreed to be interested at last?

"I don't like the sound of your cough, Cirdacil," the King carried on equably, "and these Players seem to need undivided attention, relatively undemanding though they may be in principle. Tell me, who would you like best to succeed you at the Exchequer?"

It had been a conversation Cirdacil had prepared so thoroughly that he began his automatic reply without taking in its context: "Your Majesty will find my younger son, Lord Beren of Burlach, called...wait..."

Suddenly he realised fully what was going on, and enpurpled, with another sudden cough. This was certainly not supposed to happen, not yet.

"Your Majesty cannot think of removing the Exchequer from me now! I still have much service to offer you! And with every state of retrenching in a parlous and delicate..."

The King had taken a step back. He was watching Cirdacil intently. When the old man trailed his splutter off, he began to speak again, gently.

"Do you know why I gave you the Revels, my lord?"

"To try me, sire," the old lord responded hopefully, "so I could prove my view of these vagabonds' worthlessness..."

But he unstrung humself again. The King's calm expression had not changed, but it wore a strange smile, caught between mirth and sadness, but tender withal...

"Then you were joking," Cirdacil cried bitterly, "as I thought; and my son was wrong to tell me otherwise..."

"No," the King cut in, in his usual, forcefully kind tone, "he was not, my lord of Burlach. I did indeed mean to try you, not to tease you - not, at any rate, entirely. What you have just told me, when I asked you about time and money, assures me you are wise enough, if you follow your own advice, to pass my test. My lord, I can stay no longer."

And he embraced the - younger - man lightly in his strong, long arms, before turning quickly and leaving his Treasury's sanctum, and each of his guards and household with him. He left Cirdacil, Lord of Burlach, in the strange position of a man fighting to remember his own words, carelessly spoken as they had been...

[Pitchwife]

Harrenon handled the tool Asta had given him as cautiously as if it could bite him; his face betrayed some serious second thoughts about the mission he had been recruited to, but then he shrugged and tucked the thing inside his waistcoat, hiding it from casual view as best he could. Coldan did likewise with the long metal bar, its ends bent into opposite directions, he was handed, while Asta picked some smaller, more delicate looking implements to stow in her belt pouch, along with two or three tiny sachets of strange smelling powders.

The sun had sunk behind the darkened head of old Mindolluin, lending it an aureole of fading gold, when the three adventurers slunk out of the inn's courtyard as unconspicuously as they could manage and merged with the evening shadows. Most of the deep blue sky was clear, and in the east Eärendil had already launched his barque, but in the south the wind was bringing heavy clouds up from the Ethir and the sea.

[Inziladun]

Vëandur sat on his bed in the Second Circle billet he shared with three others of his ship. He was thankful none of them were there at the moment, especially that fool Darengen, with the incredibly foul odor that followed him like a pall.

Vëandur had tried to nap, mindful of his midnight rendezvous with his great-uncle, and the subsequent party that might carry on until the sun rose the next day, for all he knew. He was unable to banish the thoughts swirling in his head long enough to fall asleep. Why does he want us arriving so late, anyway? Vëandur thought. He'd always considered that nobles and high officials liked their parties to take place early in the evening, making a show of their fine clothing and elegant manners, then tottering off to bed with self-important satisfaction. Maybe that wasn't the case, at least not here. Vëandur wasn't looking forward to it much, but for the sake of his new-found kin, he would go. After all, the man had had no pressing reason to take notice of Vëandur at all, much less invite him to a gathering of his family. And it was better than what he would have otherwise been resigned to: drinking up his pay in the company of his crew, the same people he saw aboard ship for long weeks at a time.

Looking at the late afternoon sun slanting in through the windows, he thought he would take a meal at his leisure, then would have plenty of time to return and get ready. He wanted to leave about an hour before midnight, to give himself plenty of time to travel to the Sixth Circle. Did the carriages even run that late? He wasn't sure; there were enough inns and taverns near where they always stayed that the problem had not come up before.

He stretched, then stood up. Who knew? This night might be interesting, at least.

[Dimturiel]

I shouldn’t be doing this. I shouldn’t be doing this. I shouldn’t…

The words were running through Harrenon’s mind like an obsessive refrain and however hard he tried to silence them, they were still there. Yes, perhaps it would have been better if he had stayed put and let Asta and Coldan handle it – whatever it was – by themselves. But it was far too late to turn back now, since they had already left the inn. He tried to imagine the look on Asta’s face if he suddenly announced that he had changed his mind and would like to go back. That was enough to make him want to take his chances with whoever had kidnapped Aldarion.

There were few people on the streets now and most were heading towards their homes, not having much time to spare for the three conspirators. Since Harrenon was actually Gondorian and so the least to rouse too many suspicions, he had been given the task of asking those they encountered about the carriage. A few were able give them an answer and so now at least they knew where they were going. Of course, he still was not too sure what would happen once they got there. He only hoped Coldan and Asta knew what they were doing.

[Nerwen]

Night had fallen by the time the trio found the place they sought, in the Sixth Circle, but the mansion was ablaze with light that spilled out across the road so that they had to watch from quite a distance as late-arriving carriages rattled up and their bejewelled and silk-clad occupants disembarked. No doubt most of these would take them for passers-by, stopped to gawp– but "Lord" Sador might be around, and others of his sinister crew who knew them by sight.

There were swarms of servants in swan-livery darting in and out, but it was the tall ones who kept the door who held Asta's attention. They were the ones she would have to draw away with her flaming powders– but not yet, not until all the guests were inside.

Nearer than the chatter of voices and the rumble of carriage-wheels, she could hear Harry muttering to himself, as he had been doing for half the journey, "I shouldn’t be doing this. I shouldn’t be doing this..." He did not even seem to realise he was speaking aloud. Asta shook her head sadly. Perhaps it had not been such a good idea to bring him after all.

She herself had a sense of elation. She felt like Lúthien Tinúviel, going forth to rescue Beren from the dungeons of Tol-in-Gaurhoth. The sandstone facade did not look much like the dread Sorcerer's tower as depicted on the backdrops the Players had used for that production, but if Sador were under its roof, it harboured an evildoer equally foul. (Well, almost equally. She did not want to start exaggerating, now.)

Suddenly, thinking of Lúthien's subsequent career, Asta had another of her brilliant inspirations. The original plan had a serious flaw, in that it had no provision for how they would escape notice once inside the mansion. She had vaguely hoped they might pass as guests, but now, watching all these finely-dressed aristocrats sweeping in, she had to concede that all three of them would stick out like sore thumbs. But Lúthien and Beren had faced the same problem, and they had worn–

"Disguises! That's it, as soon as we're inside, we'll grab three of the servants, strip them, bind them, stuff them in a closest, and wear their livery. I'm sure none of these lords and ladies will look twice at us!"

"Asta," Harrenon protested, "do all your schemes involve tying people up?"

[the phantom]

"Aldarion, at last. You have been too long, and too much missed among the players of the Swan."

The sound of Gloredhel's voice instantly transported Aldarion back to Dol Amroth, and it was all he could do to keep himself from rushing forward to greet her. Smiling slightly, Aldarion responded. "So, in other words, 'You're late and you shouldn't have left us!' Hardly the reception I was hoping for."

"Aldarion..." said Gloredhel, shaking her head and smiling in return, "What do you expect me to say, leaving me behind in Valinor like that?"

Aldarion swiftly noted that she had twice led off with his name- a signal that something was not right. Then she referenced being left in Valinor, and Aldarion picked up the thread without missing a beat. "It was too confined for a spirit such as mine, in such close quarters with those seeking to smother my flame."

Gloredhel answered, "But without restraints you will perish in your own fire."

Her answer left him no doubt that she was indeed pointing to a disagreement between Feanor and Nerdanel, a lover's spat, something that should be discussed privately rather than publicly. From that it was clear to Aldarion that Gloredhel needed to speak with him away from prying ears. He would be on the lookout for such an opportunity.

"What has it been... six years since we used that as an audition piece?" he asked Gloredhel.

Gloredhel nodded. "Lord Imrazôr thought it was an excellent choice, I recall."

"Though that red wig looked a bit ridiculous," laughed Aldarion.

[Pitchwife]

"Asta," Harrenon protested, "do all your schemes involve tying people up?"

So it seemed, as of late; this time, however, Coldan couldn't help admiring the ingenuity of the idea.

"No, Harry, she's right - ve fit among all zose posh Sixth Circle folk like hobbits in Mordor; short of elven cloaks, disguising ourselves as servants vill be ze best ve can do for secrecy. Even Frodo vent to Barad-dûr dressed as an orc, remember? - If you hev qualms about putting ze real servants out of action", he added, trying to appease his friend's conscience, "you can stand guard outside, just in case anyzing unforeseen happens."

That probably would be better anyway; on their way here, Harrenon had become more and more obviously nervous the closer they came to their destination, and Coldan doubted he would be able to keep a cool head in the moment of truth.

"We'll still have to find a way in first", Harrenon objected.

"Zat's right. As soon as all zis coming and going has stopped and it gets a little quieter out here, I'll try to get a look from all sides at zis fortress of criminal decadence and find out vether it has such a zing as a back door."

Silently they waited, pressed against a wall surrounding an adjacent estate, shadowed by a great plantain tree, while the river of newly arriving guests very gradually slowed down to a trickle. Through the open doors notes of music strayed out into the cooling night air.

"They're having a party in there!" Asta observed, gritting her teeth in outrage. "Sador celebrating the fruition of his foul plans, no doubt!"

"Don't vorry, dear", Coldan reassured her. "Ve'll frustrate his knavish tricks yet."

He wasn't quite sure himself what his confidence was founded on. Not entirely unlike Harrenon, he could hardly believe what he was doing here - and for Aldarion's sake, of all people! - , just like he still couldn't quite believe Asta had really kissed him. Cool reason and long experience with her mood swings told him not to hang his hopes too high - but all these doubts were washed away by the sheer excitement of sharing this adventure with her. He hadn't felt so good since they had come to this city, or indeed for a long, long time before, and cool reason be damned.

At long last, after maybe an hour or more, the great, heavy oaken doors were pulled shut from the inside, and the music was dimmed. Now. Coldan looked up at the sky, which was now completely overcast with low hanging clouds, so that the stars and the Moon were shut out and the only light illuminating the scene was that streaming out of the mansion's open windows. Good. He took Asta's hand and gave her a short squeeze.

"I'll be right back."

[Anguirel]

Beyond the little group huddled at the front atrium of Ecsichil's mansion, a throng of gaily garbed arrivals, somewhat over fifty in all, perhaps, neither an intimate nor an enormous gathering, lounged and conversed at their pleasure. Their hostess, Lady Ecsichil, was well known as the best-bred - that was to say, the silentest - in the city, and a knot of her closest friends emulated her excellent manners in identical torpor, moving their fans far more readily than their lips. For the majority of women, and all the men, who were not of this refined number, the real chatelaine tonight was Lady Circilie of Dol Amroth, whose laugh animated every conversation like a major note in an orchestra, as she scattered her attention about with immaculately fluid social acumen. Every man she exchanged a sentence with felt taller and braver, every woman as if taken into some special confidence; but she allotted more than this to no one.

Her elder brother, Ecsichil, the real if understated host, received Aerwen's and Aldarion's arrival with an air of equability and open boredom that did nothing to change his turgid aspect. As Aldarion and Gloredhel, it seemed, quoted lines from a career ago at each other with pointed specificity, Aerwen alone seemed to fully concentrate on them, frowning slightly, as if committing the poetry to memory, pondering its every implication, all at once, and judging it aesthetically also. Sador appeared genial but barely more absorbed than his brother.

This appearance was only partly deceptive, for in truth Sador thought Lord Imrazôr's verse so mannered and hackneyed that he indeed paid its content none of the respect of consideration. But his amateur interests had given him a keen interest and insight into the body's language, and he had a pretty clear idea that Gloredhel and Aldarion wanted to be alone. He had it in mind to let them be; it would be better if they talked now, probably harmlessly of the past, than later, when really controversial matters were in their minds.

"It is sweet always to see friends unsundered," he remarked in his light way, "and you, friend Aldarion, will have so much to remember with my sister in law, without interruption from our boorish family! For my own part, I would speak with you, sister," he added to Aerwen, "apart for a little; your company is so often claimed from me by your absurd course of study. Let's take a turn in the garden. Beautiful hedges as ever, by the way, Ecsichil. Now why don't you go and rejoin your guests?"

The middle-aged Burlach shambled off in his usual, imperturbable ennui. Sador and Aerwen for their part wove off to the garden gate beyond the Fornost window, leaving Aldarion and Gloredhel comparatively solitary in the front hall.

"Well?" the younger brother asked Aerwen, when they looked to be alone under a quiet eave.

"I showed him Rumillo," the lady-scholar replied cautiously, "and he offered it modest praise. But I think it was not to his taste."

"His taste! That matters not. In any case, it is quite another piece I intend to display tonight, the new tragicomedy, of Celebrindal."

"Is that entirely wise, brother?" Aerwen said with a surprisingly tough note entering her voice. "The...collaborator...had no part in that one...as I recall; the playwright alone is responsible for its content..."

"And I accept that responsibility. I don't need your approval any more, Aerwen, to be certain when a play is great or a scene exquisite. This one is perfect. It is calculated to make her feel sharp repugnance for him..."

"You are confident indeed in your art's power - "

"And then, afterwards, he will not refuse my offer. Think what I will extend, then. A triumphant place in his old company."

"He may prefer his duty to the new."

Sador laughed then, not his usual, fair if insubstantial mirth but a harder note of cruel celebration. "I have seen enough during my visit to be sure he shall not. The King's Players mean less than nothing to this man. He tried to flee when he thought they would be arrested; he trifled with the heart of their most adequate looking actress, and came to blows over her with another player, his rival; but when he was moved to strong emotion, his mind alighted on the company of the Swan; and I will wager my good leg it has stayed there."

He ignored, or did not notice, the pained expression of dissent his words appeared to provoke in his sister, as he summed up his conclusion, "Aldarion may have a true man's face, a fine man's leg, but his heart is only a shadow's - pumping a player's stream of petty pride..."

[the phantom]

Aldarion stared after Sador and Aerwen as they wove through the guests towards the garden. Sador had pointedly left him free to speak with Gloredhel, and Aldarion wondered whether this was intentional or merely an excuse to have his own private conversation with Aerwen. But either way, he was now free to discover what Gloredhel knew or suspected.

"You know this place much better than I, no doubt."

Gloredhel nodded and immediately turned to her right, followed closely by Aldarion. After walking the length of a hall she turned left and Aldarion found himself emerging from the front of the house. A swath of grass and a couple low hedges stood between them and the main entrance and the drive where several coaches sat unhorsed and unmanned. In the opposite direction towered a wing of the house, jutting out towards the wall surrounding the estate.

Gloredhel continued her stride along the side of the wing, and finally she turned right so as to place them on a narrow walk between the wall and the wing. The walk took them to the corner and then back away from the road again, this time on the wing's opposite side. Quite soon there loomed ahead a tall iron gate. It was unlocked, and Aldarion found himself entering a dimly lit garden.

Gloredhel stopped, glanced around, and then leaped at Aldarion arms flung wide. Aldarion laughed aloud and twirled her in circles as they embraced. "You're still freakishly strong," commented Aldarion as he set her back upon her feet and rubbed his neck. "My head nearly came off there."

"Poor you," said Gloredhel. "Do you realize how boring the theater has been for Amlach and I since you left? In order to stay sane we started bringing an imaginary Aldarion along with us each day." Gloredhel laughed. "You know Amlach- he's an excellent mimic. In rehearsals he's always changing his voice and saying the sorts of things you'd mumble to us."

A blur of amusing rehearsal moments flashed through Aldarion's mind and again he laughed. Only now that he was happy did he realize how long it had been since he had felt genuinely light-hearted. "Well, I suppose it's good to know that in some fashion I'm still involved in the Swan Players. Will Amlach be able to come and see me soon?"

"He'll try," answered Gloredhel. "If he does make it, I assume you'll want us to sneak out at night and fetch you, and we can get into some sort of mischief?" she asked mischeviously. "Minas Tirith is a large place."

"Remember at that inn where we kept replacing everyone's beer with tea, ha ha!"

"Or when you impersonated the Prince and those guards... ha ha... let you in and you... *cough* stole all of his pants, ha ha!"

Aldarion doubled over, remembering how they had barely maintained a straight face the following day upon hearing a messanger crying the official proclamation- "His highness's pants have been removed by parties unknown. Please inform a palace guard if you know anything of this outrageous crime."

As the two of them slowly controlled their breathing, Gloredhel sighed. "But I suppose you'll be too busy with your show to have any fun?"

This reality brought Aldarion's mood crashing down instantly. "Yes," he answered slowly. "I can't recall ever having so much to do in so little time, with such high stakes."

"No matter," said Gloredhel. "We'll celebrate after your play is a success!"

Aldarion nodded his head. "I hope so."

"They'll miss us inside soon, so I'd better hurry and say this," said Gloredhel, now speaking very quietly. "Amlach and I aren't entirely certain what is going on, but we have a suspicion that my father and members of Sador's family are trying to push Sador and I together, and that this is tied to gaining Father a position- perhaps master of revels. Also, Sador fancies himself a playwright, and I imagine he has some scheme or another to foist some work of his upon your troop, or perhaps the Swan Players in exchange for his father giving my father the royal title."

Aldarion opened his mouth to ask a question, but Gloredhel waved him aside and kept speaking. "Finally, I know that Sador wants you around for some reason or another, and so you need to be wary of his manipulation. And I can't really answer any questions, because this is all I know. Frankly, I'm not even certain if their ends are good or bad. All I can really say is to be on guard."

[Pitchwife]

The unmanned coaches parked on the drive between the street and the oaken doors gave Coldan good cover as he whisked through the main entrance in the outer wall surrounding the premises. Once in, he threw himself down on the ground behind a low hedge that shielded him from the house and crawled on his hands and knees towards the right-hand corner of the western wing. Rounding it, he found himself on a narrow walk between the outer wall and the mansion itself. Fortunately the windows were set high enough that he could avoid beeing seen by pressing himself closely against the house wall and ducking under the ledges.

Grateful for the music inside that drowned the crunching of gravel under his feet, he made his way along the wing. It wasn't long until he found what he was looking for: an unconspicuous, modest door near the end of the wing (probably for the use of servants and suppliers); further ahead a small gate in the far side of the outer wall opened on a lane parallel to the front street where Asta and Harrenon were waiting - the perfect way of escape when all was done.

Heart pounding, he grabbed the door knob and tried to turn it, but he wasn't surprised to find the door locked. Well, anything else would have been too much to ask; luckily they had come well prepared. Breaking the door open would make noise, but Asta's dragon fire would take care of that.

He might have stopped and gone back there, but having got so far, he decided to go all the way and explore the other sides of the house as well. Between the end of the western wing and the back gate, a man-high, ornamented lattice of cast iron closed off a broad space on the backside of the house - a garden, judging from the looming treetops. Climbing across was risky, because many windows looked out on the garden, but quickly done, and on the other side there were enough trees, bushes and hedges to provide ample cover.

Suddenly a gush of light, music and voices spilled out through a Fornost window on a portico-shadowed terrace protruding between the ends of the two wings, and two figures emerged - one male, one female. Coldan wouldn't have recognized the woman even if he had seen her before, but the man's identity was made evident even from a distance by an unmistakable limp.

Coldan's heartbeat quickened. No matter how high the risk, he couldn't pass by a chance to eavesdrop on Sador and maybe catch a hint about the villain's plans - maybe even a hint where to find Aldarion! Reminding himself to be careful, he got down on his belly and crawled as close to the terrace as he dared without being seen by the couple - close enough to hear Sador saying: "...make her feel sharp repugnance for him."

"You are confident indeed in your art's power - " That was the woman's voice.

" - not refuse my offer." Sador again. Silently Coldan cursed the music and chatter from inside that allowed him to understand only snippets of the conversation. Who were they talking about? Who was he, and who was she? " - triumphant place in his old company." Could that be Aldarion and the Swan Players? But still, who was she?

The woman's next words were lost again, but then the music stopped just long enough to let him hear clearly: "The King's Players mean less than nothing to this man." More wretched music. " - trifled with the heart - another player, his rival - strong emotion ... on the company of the Swan - only a shadow's ... pumping petty pride." If anything more was said before Sador and his companion returned inside, the music drowned it out completely.

Coldan ground his teeth in exasperation. He had heard enough, but yet not enough. Part of that had obviously been about Asta and himself, part about Aldarion's ambition and his yearning for the Swan Players, of that he was sure; but who was the female person Sador had referred to earlier? Asta again, or some other woman - maybe the mysterious lady of Dol Amroth? And most of all, was the man trying to blackmail Aldarion somehow, or counting on him to play along with his ignominous machinations willingly? There was only one way to find that out - get Aldarion out of there, the sooner the better.

Listening to Sador and his companion had cost precious time, and Coldan feared that Asta might do something rash if he took too long. Neglecting caution in favour of speed, he scurried towards the eastern end of the garden -

- and dropped behind a bush just in time to avoid running into another man and woman. Fortune favoured him tonight, because the two were too busy embracing enthusiastically to notice him. He froze with surprise when the man spoke and he recognized Aldarion's voice.

It took every bit of willpower he could muster to force himself to lie still while the couple reveled in fond memories and boasted of pranks that Rollan would have been proud of acting on stage, but he pricked his ears when their talk turned to the Cormare play, and when the woman began to talk about Sador's schemes, she had his full attention. It was plain by now that Aldarion was far from being a captive, but his companion at least obviously thought him innocent of complicity with the lameleg's plans and indeed saw fit to warn him: "All I can really say is to be on guard."

Having heard so much, Coldan could keep still no longer. He had to have a word with Aldarion himself - preferably alone. Groping around in the grass for something to throw, his hand found a fallen nut from a nearby tree; he picked it up and flung it at Aldarion's skull precisely and hard enough to make the playwright cry "Ouch!" and turn in indignation towards him.

[Galadriel55]

The common room was packed. Thiliel saw many familiar faces among the guests - many customers came every day, or almost every day. Rollan was sitting near the bar, looking grim. Sereth went by once or twice. Thiliel thought she saw another actor come in, but she could not remember his name.

It seems that everyone is served, Thiliel thought tiredly. She packed a supper tray for Celebrindal, like Rollan asked her to. Looking around for Ingold, she saw him coming out of the hallway. She came over to him.

"Uncle, I am going to the wagons for a short while, I need to bring Mistress Celebrindal her supper," she said.

"Go, then, lass," he replied. "But why? I thought she could walk with her crutches," he continued with a slight frown.

"I know not, but she did not come here, and Master Rollan - her husband - asked me to bring her some food."

"That is curious. But it is not one of my cares, and I shouldn't be prying. Go now. I just want you to be careful. One of the troop's men does not look good to me. The one who looks like an Easterling."

"He seems nice enough, uncle," Thiliel objected. She was greatful to that man for not tying her up in a wagon.

"He seems to be nice and goodwilling, lass, but that does not mean he is. Not all men are honest. Did you not see him yesterday with that other actor, the one with the blade? It was lucky that they did not come to using their weapons inside. I know those Easterlings," said Ingold, pointing to a battle scar on his forearm.

"As you say, Uncle. I'll be careful," Thiliel agreed, though half-heartedly. She took the tray from where she left it and went outside. She smiled slightly to herself, knowing that by this time Coldan would be gone to save the playwright from the double-faced Lord Sador, and that she has no one to be wary about.

Was Coldan double-faced as well? Was he trying to befriend, while secretly aiming at another purpose? Yet he was so sincere, so truthful, when Thiliel heard him talk. So was Lord Sador. He was as charming as one could be to all around him, but he is in a plot against the Players. But how can one speak so sincerely, and lie? He is an actor. He acts. He acts on stage, but he is like any other person the rest of the time. He is also an Easterling. No good can come from this people. But he only looks like one. Inside he is as good as any man of Gondor.

Thiliel was coming close to the carts. If it wasn't for Coldan, she would probably be lying in a dark corner of one of them, unable to move or make a sound. Wasn't Asta's solution the surest way to make her keep her ilence? She shivered. No, he is a friend. A true friend.

Thiliel only found her way because she has been to Celebrindal's wagon a few times before. Clouds, threatening to rain, blocked the stars and the moonlight. It was so dark that she could hardly see the outlines of the carts, forget about telling one from another. She knocked tentatively and said, "Mistress Celebrindal? It is Thiliel. I have supper for you."

[the phantom]

Aldarion grabbed the back of his head. "Ouch!" he said quietly yet fiercely as he turned round, prepared to scold whatever youth it was that had thought it appropriate to hurl things at his head. But to his surprise, straight in front of him on the other side of a bush stood Coldan, his face clear in the light streaming through the nearest window.

"Get down!" hissed Aldarion immediately, gesturing emphatically with one hand while finding Gloredhel's shoulder with the other. Swiftly Aldarion drew her forward to his side and pulled her with him over to the bush behind which Coldan was now crouching somewhat, but still plainly visible.

"I said get down, Coldan!" whispered Aldarion, but rather than looking at his fellow player he instead turned towards Gloredhel as he spoke. Having already understood his intentions, Gloredhel also turned towards Aldarion and grasped his hand for good measure. To an outside observer, it looked every bit as if Aldarion and Gloredhel were deep in private conversation.

"Stay hidden and speak softly," murmured Aldarion as he smiled at Gloredhel. "Sador mustn't discover you're here. Now- why are you here, and how many of you came?"

[Nerwen]

Asta paused in her relentless pacing.

"What can be keeping him? Harry, there's something wrong!" She glared at the mansion, lair of villainy that it was. "I believe– I believe those fiends have captured him too!"

She should never have let Coldan go into danger alone. It was not as if he had any common sense– no-one in the Company did, save herself, of course. And now Sador and his crew of miscreants had him! Perhaps they had started to torture him even now. A hand of ice seemed to be tightening its grip around her heart.

"Now, Asta," said Harrenon uneasily, "you're not going to do anything... rash, are you? Please?"

[Pitchwife]

Coldan had had to get up in order to hit Aldarion's head with the nut, but it wouldn't have taken the playwright's urgent hiss to make him drop down again behind his bush as soon as he was sure he had Aldarion's attention. He wasn't quite as daft as Aldarion seemed to think, and although it irked him to talk to the man while grovelling on the ground, he could put up with it for the sake of secrecy.

At least Aldarion's reaction had made it clear that whatever he was doing here, he wasn't in league with Sador, which was a great relief. He also obviously thought the woman with him - the lady from Dol Amroth? - could be trusted, and from the way she had spoken about Sador earlier, Coldan was inclined to agree with his judgement (not that he had much of another choice).

"Harry and Asta are vaiting for me in ze street", he whispered in answer to Aldarion's question. "Ve hev come to rescue you, zinking you had been kidnapped, but apparently ve hev been mistaken. Ze others don't know ve're here, zey're still down at ze inn - at least Brinn and Rollan, Amdír and Sereth; I heven't seen Branor today, or Therian either." He couldn't quite keep an edge of sarcastic reproach out of his voice as he continued: "I might as vell ask you vat you are doing here, amusing yourself at a party in ze Sixth Circle vile our time is running out and ze troupe is falling to pieces. Sador zinks you care less zan a straw about us, and I'm beginning to zink he may be right."

[Anguirel]

"So," Aerwen murmured, eager to steer her brother away from the rather disagreeable subject of Aldarion's moral qualities, as well as to dismiss the uncomfortable thought that had imposed itself upon her vision, "what parts are you planning to apportion for this new Celebrindal of yours? And...to whom?"

"I'm surprised you have to ask," Sador replied dismissively. "The title character, the immaculate princess, Idril of ancient Gondoline, will be played by..."

"...the dainty and perfect Lady Gloredhel," Aerwen filled in, rolling her eyes a bit. "And then of her two suitors, obviously, the sly and insinuating high born noble, her kinsman, and the great-hearted, upstanding outsider, a hero of Men, will be played by yourself and Aldarion..."

"Well, yes..."

"Respectively..."

"No!" Sador cut in cheerfully. "That is my presence of mind, you see; not respectively, at all. For this evening, sister, my golden locks shall eclipse my...unreliable...gait. I shall make the player take Maeglin," he explained with satisfaction, "After all, he first made his name with a villainous part, and he can continue that way...while I show my quality as the valiant..."

"Yes, yes, very well, I understand. And Circilie? Didn't she say she wanted a comic role?"

"Conveniently enough, I have just such a one...Salgant of the Harps, a part I've swelled specially with bawdy songs and low wit..."

"And," Aerwen muttered, lowering her voice and blushing more strongly than the night could let on, "myself?"

"Don't trouble yourself at all, sister. I know how shy you are in company, and I have made no arrangements to further disturb your evening. Ah, that will be the dinner gong."

One of Lady Ecsichil's strongest - perhaps only? - beliefs was in the virtues of punctuality; and her predominant skill was in the orchestration of eating on a grand scale. These two qualities combined to make the sounding of her dinner gong an affair both impressive and precise; an enormous embossed iron shield, wholly impractical for use in war, was struck by a hammer that required two able bodied servants. The echo resonated with mighty efficiency, only gaining strength as it ricocheted around the branches and hedges of the garden. Sador nodded quickly at the sound of it, and said "Let's get into place. I've arranged for you to be on Aldarion's table, so I hope you aren't bored of him yet." Then he hauled himself awkwardly back over and through the Fornost window.

Aerwen followed him a couple of paces behind. She was smarting at her brother's insensitivity in failing to know her better, to offer her an artistic as well as mechanical role in the evening. But she was also, against her better judgement, a little frightened. The more she tried to dismiss it, the more she was certain the squat, furtive shadow in the corner of her eye had been a man - and she would swear, too, he had been no servant to Dol Amroth or Burlach.

[the phantom]

"Harry and Asta are vaiting for me in ze street", whispered Coldan in answer to Aldarion's question. "Ve hev come to rescue you, zinking you had been kidnapped, but apparently ve hev been mistaken."

Aldarion was taken aback by this- how had they discovered he was here, and why on earth would Coldan of all people be keen to rescue him? Perhaps his wrath with Aldarion had not mastered him completely?

"Ze others don't know ve're here, zey're still down at ze inn." Aldarion smiled and nodded at Gloredhel as she moved her lips, pretending to speak whenever Coldan did. "At least Brinn and Rollan, Amdír and Sereth; I heven't seen Branor today, or Therian either."

Aldarion sighed in relief upon hearing Branor wasn't present. With the spying notions he'd taken to lately he would be disasterous to have around.

"I might as vell ask you vat you are doing here," continued Coldan, "amusing yourself at a party in ze Sixth Circle vile our time is running out and ze troupe is falling to pieces. Sador zinks you care less zan a straw about us, and I'm beginning to zink he may be right."

Had Coldan said this sort of thing before Aldarion's meeting with Gloredhel, he likely would've snapped at him. But Aldarion was in better spirits now, and he also recalled that Coldan was here to rescue him after all.

"I'm here by invitation of Sador, and he specifically asked that I tell no one in my company," explained Aldarion. "I have no idea why, nor am I certain of what consequences there would be for us or our troop if you were caught here, but until I find out more I deem it unwise to go against the wishes of a man whose family wields great power over our business here in Minas Tirith."

[Pitchwife]

Coldan reluctantly had to admit there was some sense in Aldarion's words.

"Fair enough", he murmured. "But your lady here is right, you know - you should be very vary of zat man. I happened to overhear him speaking to some voman of ze house just now. He has a rather low opinion of you, and he means no good to you or ze Players, so much is certain."

He hesitated to tell Aldarion what he had learned, still not feeling sure of the playwright's loyalty, but made up his mind that, having come so far, he might as well err on the side of trust this time.

"I don't see ze whole picture yet, but apparently he's planning to alienate you and your lady somehow, zough vat he has to gain from zat or how it ties in viz our company is beyond me." Seeing the couple together had convinced him that Aldarion's female companion had to be the she Sador had referred to. "He also seems to zink you vill do anyzing to return to ze Svan Players, and he's going to offer to reinstall you viz zem if you do vat he vants. I hope he's wrong about zat, for if you do any such zing before our play is done I svear I'll kill you, if Asta doesn't."

He could tell Aldarion had a sharp answer on his lips, but Coldan cut him short. "No time to discuss. Vat do you vant us to do? You may not need rescuing now, but vat about later? I hev to get back in a hurry, or zere's no telling vat Asta vill do if I'm avay too long; you know how she is, and I'm not sure Harry vill be able to restrain her." Despite the need for haste, he couldn't stop himself adding, "I'm sure she'd be delighted to meet your new girlfriend."

Suddenly, as if to underline the urgency of his words, a deafening metallic clang filled the garden like the battering-ram of Mordor banging against the gates of Minas Tirith.

[Mnemosyne]

Brinn heard a tap at the door--far too furtive to be Rollan, she thought with a sigh of relief. She still desperately needed to be alone.

But she heard Thiliel's voice on the other side of the door, and knew that it would be a shame to turn away a girl who had nothing to do with any of this mess, and meant no harm anyhow. And supper, too! Her stomach rumbled in spite of itself.

"Come in, Thiliel," she said, and if she did not sound cheery, at least she didn't sound maudlin.

Thiliel set the tray before her. "Thank you, dear," said Brinn, hoping it would suit as a dismissal. But Thiliel lingered, just long enough for Brinn to feel that there was something she wanted to say.

"Is there something the matter?" said Brinn, not unkindly.

[Dimturiel]

Of course, begging Asta not to do anything rash involved a battle Harrenon was sure he could not win. The entire business from start to finish was rash, anyway. Trying to get Asta to renounce another part of her absurdly daring plan would lead him nowhere. By the way Asta was looking at him after his weak attempt to dissuade her, Harrenon could guess that the only thing he had succeeded was to irritate her further. Of course, he had known from the start that by begging Asta not to do something he would only annoy her, but he could not help it if she was always intimidating him.

“I won’t be the only one doing something rash,” Asta told him ominously. “You’ll be doing exactly what I tell you to do!”

“Asta, you really can’t expect us to try and force our way in there without knowing what is going on! I mean, it would be almost as bad as trying to barge into the Citadel itself! Please, can’t we just…well, wait for Coldan a while longer? Let’s give him at least five more minutes.”

But of course Asta would have none of that and Harrenon was promptly informed of all the gruesome torments Coldan and Aldarion could be put to in the span of five minutes that Harrenon needed to “pluck up the courage he did not have in the first place”(Asta’s words, and Harrenon did not even bother to correct her, since he could not honestly tell her she was wrong at that point). He was then told that he had a faithless character and that he surely possessed no conscience at all if he could so heartlessly abandon his friends instead of doing everything that was in his power to rescue them. It was when Asta told him that if anything happened to Coldan and to Aldarion, he would be mostly to blame that Harrenon could not stand it any futher and raised his hands in a gesture of surrender.

“All right, all right!” he said. “I’ll do whatever you ask. I’ll break down the door for you, if that’s what you want. Just tell me what to do and I’ll be right behind you.”

[the phantom]

So, Coldan overheard Sador, thought Aldarion, and says he speaks ill of both me and the company. If that's true, I can't imagine that his secret plans would result in anything but harm. But then why would he offer to place me back with the Swan Players? And how would he have the power to do such a thing anyway? That surely means that Amlach and Gloredhel's father was involved somehow.

A loud metal ringing filled the garden, and Aldarion knew their time was up.

"Go back to Harry and Asta, and tell them whatever you need to tell them to stop them bursting in," said Aldarion as the bell faded away. "We'll talk about this tomorrow before lunch. Right now I need to get inside and see if any pieces of this puzzle are revealed to me."

Aldarion turned and took a step, but stopped and added, "And don't worry about mounting a rescue tonight. Just get some sleep. My friend Amlach knows I'm here, as does Captain Bregolas of the Tower Guard and Lord Borondir. If Sador has half a brain he wouldn't consider for a moment kidnapping or anything similar."

[Galadriel55]

Thiliel placed the supper tray next to Celebrindal, thinking of how she should aproach her. Rollan asked her to bring the food, but there was more. "Let me know how she's doing," he asked. Not a difficult thing to do, if you know what happened. But Thiliel did not know, and she had to find out. Whatever it is, there is more than one downcast person tonight...

She heitated in a moment of indecision, whether she should leave, or talk of something - but what? Celebrindal noticed that and asked, "Is there something the matter?"

The true answer was that Thiliel needed to bring Rollan some news, but that would hardly do. "Not exactly," she began, thinking furitively of how to get the woman to speak a little more, "I wanted to apologize for..." aha! "...for running into yor wagon earlier today as if the inn was on fire, and causing you trouble. I didn't mean to do anything like that, but I wasn't thinking. 'Tis just something I had to say." The last bit was more for Thiliel's benefit than Celebrindal's. "Not all men are honest" was what Ingold said. She would be honest, when possible. And she did need to ask forgiveness.

[Anguirel]

The Lord Warden returned to his duties as if nothing had happened as soon as the King had departed; but something had happened, and the revolving of his thoughts, nay, the very twitching of his quill, was fevered and fretful.

The King had issued what would, in any lesser man, have been a threat - the prospect of Cirdacil being deprived of the Exchequer, the office that game him regular, grinding satisfaction. Yet somehow - such was the insubstantial grace of that strange, elven-wise, uncanny man, the King Elessar - he had contrived to make his speech sound loving, even generous.

What was unpleasantly clear was that the King would not allow him to treat this matter of the Players with the triviality he believed with every policy in his bones that it deserved. No, he had insisted on binding everything up in the round, so now the play appeared to bleed into the Exchequer, Cirdacil's clever son's plotting coalescing with his dull son's banqueting.

For there was some enormous drawback to come tonight, Cirdacil was beginning to feel sure. The Dol Amroth girl was in the city, and sometimes the Lord of Burlach faintly regretted that marriage which had yoked his children to that family. They were high-born, and they were rich, the family of Erchirion; and neither of those things seemed to matter to them. Each of them had other cares, quite separate to his own; quite separate sources of desire, and of pride. Had it been wise to knot them into his own practical blood?

So many unsettling things had happened today, and Lord Cirdacil laid down his pen now, or dropped it more precisely, not caring where it fell. He could toil no longer today in this grim, beloved, safe land of honest work - a land that might be debarred from him, quite soon, for reasons beyond his ken.

The King wanted him to show a wisdom he was not certain he possessed. All he knew, for his part, was that this strangest of days had brought an outweighing positive. He felt an overwhelming urge for the counsel, witting or not, of the elder brother's blood. Let the accounts stew as they did on every lazier public servant's watch! He would find his nephew, and reunite his family, and then, perhaps, matters would stand clearer in general.

So foreign was his abandonment of his diurnal work to his habits that not one clerk suspected him of leaving. He was mounted, on a placid, slow-tiring brown palfrey, before anyone marked it; headed first to the Office of Naval Ordinance, to find if he would where the ship's crew was berthed that counted amongst it Vëandur, son of Falastur, of the Fleets...

[Inziladun]

The last light had faded from the sky as Vëandur walked back to his quarters. He had taken a light meal, a loaf of bread, with cheese and dried meat at the Water Horse, an inn he'd chosen because his shipmates routinely shunned it as being full of "city rats". He didn't feel like talking to any of them tonight. It was a shame they felt that way, really. The mead there was quite good, he'd found.
As he walked he felt the breeze stirring his hair. A South wind. Vëandur smiled, thinking of the places it had recently been. He saw clouds born upon it, slowly covering the high starts. Storm clouds, he thought.

He walked up to the iron fence that marked the entrance to Ship's Row, the place set aside for those of the Fleets in the City on business. There was a heavy gate, but it was always left open in these times of peace. A man sat on a stool there. A guard he was in name, but really he was nothing more than a glorified nanny, there to keep watch on the reprobate sailors for the safety of the City. That caused Vëandur to smile wryly. The man saw him coming and stood. There was no need to give his name, for the same man had been there when Vëandur had set out. The guard saluted, and Vëandur returned it absently.

He walked through the gate and arrived at his "house", which, from the gate, was the third on the left of a row of long, low spartan buildings. The others surely weren't here. He walked inside. They were not. Good.
Vëandur walked to his bed and opened a trunk at its foot. He pulled out various items, then removed his best cloak, reserved for formal occasions. It was colored a very dark blue, the shade of the sky in the heat of a clear Summer day. He took off the dun-colored "duty" cloak he'd been wearing, and put in in the trunk, along with everything he'd taken out. Before he put on the other cloak, he went to a long wooden locker standing against the wall beside his bed. All the beds had similar lockers by them, for the stowing of valuable possessions. Taking a key from his pocket, he unlocked it. His sword-belt was there, his sheathed sword on it. Since he was attending a function at the invitation of a City official, he thought he should wear it. He girt himself, then put on the cloak. He wished he had a glass to view himself, but the one in the house was broken. He turned to sit down on his bed and consider again the night before him. Before he could do so, there was a soft knock at the door.

[Nerwen]

Asta was not about to walk blindly into a trap as Aldarion and Coldan had done, and she had led Harrenon down a side-alley and into the lane that ran past the back of the mansion. As she had hoped, there was a gate in the wall here, fastened only with the kind of simple padlock that had been her father's stock-in-trade when the toy-business was slow. Asta, choosing a curiously-shaped pick, went swiftly to work. Out of practice though she was, it was still only a short time before the lock sprang open with a snap– which was immediately followed by a resounding metallic clang from somewhere within the grounds.

"Asta, do you suppose they've– they've seen us?" Harrenon's face had taken on a greenish hue, and the whites of his eyes glittered. Asta could see he was going to freeze on her at any second.

"Hurry!" She tugged at Harrenon's sleeve, and he came to life again and followed after her as she darted inside, though as the echoes died away she became aware of an odd chattering sound that she presently realised was being made by the actor's teeth.

There was no sign of Coldan in the narrow passage in which they found themselves– she had hardly dared to expect there would be– but instead there was a rather promising-looking door. This one had a complex lock that resisted her initial efforts, but Asta was not dismayed in the least. She had been longing for a chance to try out Coldan's scheme.

"What are you doing?" Harrenon whispered, watching Asta as she tipped out the pungently-scented powders on the doorstep and stirred them together, biting her lip with concentration. She was using vastly greater quantities than she normally did, and could only guess if she had the amount and proportions right.

"What does it look like?" said Asta. "Now quiet! This has to be exact!" From a small phial, she poured out a few drops of the final ingredient, a liquid that set the mixture to fizzing and bubbling.

"What now?" asked Harry in what was almost a squeak.

"Run!" Asta told him.

Harrenon needed no encouragement.

They had barely time to take cover behind the gate when the mixture went up in a fountain of multicoloured fire and a boom like a thousand dragons roaring at once. Even with her fingers jammed into her ears, Asta was half-deafened for a moment, but she got unsteadily to her feet in time to see, through the drifting clouds of smoke, the shattered door swaying back and forth before it fell outwards with a crash.

Asta could not stop her face from breaking into a rapturous grin. It had been everything she had hoped for, and more!

[Pitchwife]

Coldan waited quietly until Aldarion and his lady had retreated into the house and the great Fornost window had closed behind them. Tell them whatever you need to tell them to stop them bursting in. Indeed. Aldarion might as well have said, Stop Asta catching me with another woman and embarrassing me in front of the local haute-volée; although he had pointedly ignored Coldan's final snide remark, his meaning was clear as Entdraught - and much as Coldan would have relished the sight of Aldarion being the victim of Asta's temper for a change, he had to agree that this was hardly an ideal setting for it. She would have to learn the truth eventually, but not this way.

If only she had had the patience to wait for his return, or Harrenon could prevent her from jumping the gun and taking any desperate measures in the meantime. For a moment he had feared that she had already done something to cause the clanging noise he had just heard, but apparently that had just been these peoples' overdone version of a dinner gong.

Hastily, he crept to the gate at the eastern end of the garden where Aldarion and his companion had entered and breathed a sigh of relief on finding that they had neglected to lock it behind them. He darted through and sprinted along the eastern wing back towards the main entrance and the street. He had almost reached it when he heard a crashing boom from the other side of the grounds.

So much for hope. If Asta had at least lit her dragon-fire far enough away from the back door to distract from the breaking-in! But although the noise was muffled a bit by the shielding mass of the building, it sounded much too close.

Gnashing curses between his teeth and barely remembering to duck his head, he dashed across the front of the mansion and was greeted by a sulphurous stench wafting from behind the west wing; the narrow path between the wing and the outer wall was filled with thick clouds of pungent smoke. When it cleared, he saw the back door torn to splinters, Asta standing before it with a triumphant grin splitting her face, Harrenon a few steps behind her and looking like he might pass out any moment.

Unable to stop himself in time, Coldan collided with Asta, pushing her away from the door and bringing the two of them down in a heap.

"Do you call zis a diversion?" he hissed, his face just a hand above hers. "Zat vas supposed to draw attention avay from us, not tell ze whole house Hullo, here ve come! And didn't I say to vait for me? - Drat you, Harry, vy didn't you stop her? I vas relying on you!"

[Nerwen]

"Coldan!" Asta gasped. "We thought they'd captured you!" She briefly considered kissing the prompter again, but was not sure he was in the right mood– even if the rapidly nearing commotion of footsteps and excited voices from within the building had not suggested to her that this was hardly the best time for dalliance.

Harry coughed, doubtless from the smoke. "Actually, Asta thought they'd captured you–"

Asta did not let him finish. "Anyway," she went on in a more severe tone, as they both got to their feet, "I'll thank you not to talk to me like that, Coldan. It turned out they had a very good lock on this door, so blasting it in was clearly the only thing to do. –Quickly now," she added, dusting off her skirts. "Inside! We can't let them find us here!"

[Pitchwife]

"Quickly now! Inside! We can't let them find us here!"

Asta was right, they had no time to lose. Coldan could already hear the sound of hastily approaching feet - but from within the house, behind the blasted door, not from the street front or the garden side. If they went in that way, they would run straight into the arms of Sador's henchmen looking for the source of the explosion.

"Vait!" he implored her, pulling her away from the door towards the back gate. "Ve can't go in zere now or ve'll get caught. And ve're not going anyvay."

Asta jerked loose from him, her eyes clouding in bewilderment. "What do you mean? We can't leave Aldarion- "

"I've seen him", Coldan interrupted her, catching her in his arms and struggling on to drag her away from the door. "I spoke to him just a minute ago. He's safe, Asta! He's a guest here, not a prisoner. He's trying to figure out Sador's plans, and he zinks he can handle zis by himself. He doesn't vant us here! And anyvay," he finished, his tongue outrunning his consideration, "he's not alone."

[Galadriel55]

Belegon did not blink when he heard the gong, too loud according to some and ear-splitting to others. It was too much a part of his daily routine for him to react differently. When he hears the gong, he should head to the dining hall, to stand there like a pillar of stone unless his Lord and Lady need him. There he went. On his way, he curtly greeted other servants, whose duty did not involve standing by the doors of the dining hall every evening.

“Good evening, Belegon!”

“Evening it is, Galadelen, good or not.” Down the hall. Up the stairs. To the right. Through a small chamber. Past a marble statue.

“Good evening, Belegon, and well met! Are you to the dining hall?”

“Evening, evening, Earendur. Dining hall, as always.”

“Look out for Lord Sador, he is in a strange mood today.” A quick nod. Straight till the end of the hallway. Then left. Down a short flight of stairs. Through a maze of rooms. Quicken the pace: dinner will start soon.

BOOM! Suddenly the house was filled with noise again, and this time it was not the gong. A few more crashes. Someone in the next room screamed. A young maid almost ran into to Belegon. She looked a mess. Evidently, the noise – whatever it was – frightened her much more than it did him.

“O, Belegon, I’m so glad you’re here! That terrible -… what was it? It did not sound like thunder! You will go and make sure everything is all right, won’t you?”

“My place is at the dining hall. Others can give heed to whatever worries there are.”

“But, Belegon, someone has to go! The Ladies are scared. We all are. And Galadelen said that she saw smoke from the window. What if there’s a fire?”

“I am off to the dining hall. Do not make me late. Lord Ecsichil wants me to be there.”

“Lord Ecsichil wants the Ladies to be safe! He wants his house to be safe!” Curt nod. Ecsichil wants me to check on that noise.

“Where was the sound coming from?” he asked the maiden.

“I think it came from the West Wing. And Galadelen said she saw smoke there too, lots of it. The window was open, and -” Another nod. Turn around. Stride away quickly, but with dignity, to show that silly young girl how to behave in Ecsichil’s house. Back through the labyrinth of little rooms and storages. Turn here, turn there. Finally in the West Wing. Walking down the hall. Some smoke is drifting along. It is coming from the direction of the back door. Find out what was the problem, if there was lightning, if there is a fire, calm everyone down.

It was very queer. At Ecsichil’s house, the most that could happen was an overly-spirited banquet. Or an overly-spirited play. Never crashes, bangs, and booms that scared the ladies as if it was Grond, beating against the gates of Minas Tirith. Even queerer were the voices that came out of the smoke, which was so thick that Belegon could hardly see in front of him. And they were not the voices of children who played a petty jest on the entire household. If it were so, some servant would show them what it means to dare such a thing, especially on a night like that. Nay, they were voices of a man and a woman.

[Pitchwife]

Surprised, Asta ceased for a moment to resist Coldan's pull. "You spoke to him? How - "

She was interrupted by a marked "Harrumph!" In the door-frame stood a liveried figure with a long, stolid face under a mop of white locks. A pair of small, expressionless eyes surveyed them with the detached curiosity of a scientist studying some specimens of exotic beetle.

"Ah. A band of burglars, it would seem, breaking in to steal my lord's silverware." The lustreless eyes wandered over the remains of the door, assessing the damage. A brow rose when they came to rest on the battered lock. "This will cost you dearly. This lock was not cheap." Without changing his tone, the man went on: "Under my powers as a citizen catching a criminal in the act of breaking the law, I hereby arrest you in the name of the King on charges of trespassing, damaging my lord's property and attempted burglary. Follow me to the cellar where you will be detained until you can be handed over to a Guard of the Citadel."

"This isn't what it looks like, sir," Harrenon desparately but valiantly tried to explain. "It was all an unfortunate accident. We intended no harm to your door."

"Give up, Harry," said Asta. "We're caught red-handed, it's futile to deny our guilt." She turned to the servant and put on her meekest expression (a rare sight, even on stage). "We can make this short, sir. I think I saw a Guardsman passing down yonder street just a moment ago. We'll come quietly."

The servant gave her a curt nod. "Excellent. Wait right here and do not budge." Moving as stiffly as if he had swallowed a rod, he strode off towards the street, waving a hand and calling, "Ho there! Guard!"

As soon as his back was turned to them, Asta gestured frantically to Coldan, pointing at the crowbar that had fallen from his waistcoat when they had tumbled down. Acting without thinking, Coldan snatched it up, ran after the servant and hit him over the head with the tool. The man stood still for a moment, then collapsed like a felled oak.

Coldan knelt down to feel his pulse and was immensely relieved to find he had not killed the man; apparently the mass of thick white hair had muffled the blow somewhat. What was strange, though, was that the white locks had come off in the fall, revealing short, dark hair underneath. The malice and treachery of these people must be unfathomable if their very servants were obliged to disguise themselves in their master's own house! A quick examination told Coldan that the skull was undamaged, but the servant would wake up with a huge lump and the mother of all headaches.

Coldan turned to look up at Asta. "Do you realize vat ve hev just done? Ve'll be in deep vater ven zis comes to light. Vill you please be reasonable now and call zis mad enterprise off before ve make zings even vorse?"

[Dimturiel]

“Coldan’s right,” Harrenon put in quickly. “We’ll be in big trouble soon. The most sensible thing we can do now – assuming you know what sensible means, Asta – is to get out of here as soon as possible.”

His tone had come out sharper than he had intended – and indeed than he would have dared to use under normal circumstances. But he could not help it. He was terrified and he was tired of being dragged all over the place following some mad scheme. He was an actor after all. The only adventures he had had so far had been on the stage and he had very much preferred it that way.

“After all,” he went on, “If Coldan says Aldarion can handle Sador – and that he is not even a prisoner there, but a guest – then maybe we should go. We’ll cause trouble if we stay any longer – not that we haven’t already. Now let’s get out of here before the guard wakes up. I don’t know about you two, but I for one have had enough mayhem for one evening.”

[Nerwen]

"Nonsense!" said Asta. "This is the perfect opportunity! Harry, he's nearest in size to you, so you'd better be the one."

"The one to what?" Harrenon had a stunned expression, as if still dazed from the explosion.

"Change clothes with him, of course– don't you pay attention to anything I say? First, we'll need to hide him somewhere–" she took hold of the unconscious man's arms, but he was a dead weight and she could barely drag him. After a moment she looked up, panting. "Well? Coldan, is it the custom of Dorwinion to let the women do all the heavy work? Or of Gondor, Harry?"

[Pitchwife]

That stung Coldan's male pride just a tad too much.

"No, it's not," he replied brusquely, glowering at Asta, "and if you insist on following zrough viz zis foolhardy plan, I'll be viz you, as you might know full vell. But you're ze one who's not paying attention. I told you Aldarion doesn't vant us here, and trust me, Asta, you don't vant to go in zere."

"Nonsense!" snorted Asta. "Why wouldn't I?"

Coldan drew a deep breath. He had meant to spare her this, but if she was going to persist in her obstinacy, he would have to be blunt.

"Because he already has a voman viz him to take care of him, zat's vy. Remember vat Sador said about Aldarion and some lady of Dol Amroth? Vell, it's true. She vas viz him ven I spoke to him. I even zink she may be on our side against Sador, and ze last zing anybody needs is you picking a catfight viz her or telling Aldarion off for double-dealing viz you in front of ze whole nobility of Gondor.

Now step aside and let me move zis hapless fool; ve can't just leave him lying here either vay. Harry, take his feet, please."

[Anguirel]

Echsichil's villa, interior

Both of the conspiratorial pairs of conversationalists in the garden had, just about, managed to obey the stern dictat of their hostess's gong. Neither were prepared for the ricocheting, incomparably, majestically more sonorous report that followed it; with a blast, too, from somewhere behind the house and to its west, that looked like the legendary dragonfire that had once strafed Erebor.

One of Lady Ecsichil's closest, most sympathetic and submissive friends, the young wife of a respectable old merchant, contributed an echo of her own, as her fainting form hit the marble with a light clunk. Reacting as much on fashion as instinct, the ladies around the hostess began to sink down likewise, as serving-men in variegated liveries scurried about to distribute salt and scents.

Aldarion and Sador, with Gloredhel and Aerwen closely following each respectively, had entered at opposite corners of the great ball-room, but each was a keen-sighted man, and at this moment some preternatural suspicion enabled each of their pairs of eyes to find the other. Both men simultaneously displayed, and concealed. I know your paltry players are behind this, Sador thought and consciously tried not to show. But Aldarion would be sharp enough to know he knew now; this Sador knew in turn, despite his delusive pride, as their glances parted.

On one of the rare occasions allotted to him by fate to take charge of the situation in his own house, it was now Lord Ecsichil who captured and reshaped the spirit of the moment. His eyes and mouth had popped open; his jaws were rising and falling, like a fish's, as was his consistent habit at moments of consternation. As he watched his wife's circle imitate ninepins - though the lady herself stayed as placid as ever - Ecsichil could contain his feelings no longer.

He burst into a rich, and long-unexercised vein of appreciative laughter.

"Sador!" he cried out heartily. "Why, you wag! This is your doing, isn't it, you and your player friend, no doubt," he chuckled, nodding courteously in Aldarion's direction, really as if he were seeing the younger man for the first time. "Come over here at once and tell me how you did it, you...you pair of egregious knaves!"

The frantic pallor with which Sador greeted his brother's first exclamation gave way to a rapid frown, a quicker yet blush, and then absolute and apparently automatic composure.

"I thought a surprise would serve us best this evening, dear brother," he appeared to admit, even having the gall to look sheepish. "The execution of the plan was all Aldarion's. He is a skilful fellow."

"So I can see," Ecsichil replied sagely. "Fella has a clever nose, saw that at once. Calm down, ladies! It's only a dragon! Ha, ha, ha..."

Ecsichil's laughter, while genuine, was always oddly phonetically precise. In his mirth as in his other attributes, he was a literal kind of man.

"Your brother may think it funny," his wife spoke up, unwittingly and automatically surrendering the serenity which had assured her high place in Minas Anor society, "but the alarm his little joke has caused our servants has quite ruined our preparations for dinner."

"Do you feel like dinner immediately after such an exciting starter?" Circilie rejoined.

"Quite right, Sissy," the elder brother agreed with equal spirit. "Let the supper be damned. Get your play going, Sador! If that's the start of the performance, I'd like the rest of it to tickle my empty stomach, not overturn a full one. Ha, ha!"

He did not often make jokes, and treasured those he produced accordingly.

"Very well," Sador answered evenly. "Sissy - Aldarion - Lady Gloredhel - would you come aside into the music room with me for a minute?"

***

The Second Circle

Vëandur was looking into the wild eyes and distraught face of his uncharacteristically ruffled looking great uncle, who seemed to have recently ridden rather faster than was good for him.

"I've acquired a spare steed," he rasped out, quicker than the mariner had ever heard the old man talk before. "I've gathered you have troubles you did not see fit to mention to me - and I, too, have cares that only now do I feel I must tell to you. Come with me to Ecsichil's, to my eldest boy's, right now. Don't bother to change. All that matters is talk, no, speed, yes, fast talk."

And with that the old lord whirled his untamed beard around, and hurtled down the creaking stares that spined that cheap lodging's length...at his own pace, but only just.

[Inziladun]

"I've acquired a spare steed," he rasped out, quicker than the mariner had ever heard the old man talk before. "I've gathered you have troubles you did not see fit to mention to me - and I, too, have cares that only now do I feel I must tell to you. Come with me to Ecsichil's, to my eldest boy's, right now. Don't bother to change. All that matters is talk, no, speed, yes, fast talk."

Vëandur hurried after the old man, slamming the door shut behind him. He usually moved pretty quickly himself, but keeping up with Cirdacil was surprisingly difficult.

"I do have troubles on my mind," said Vëandur as they strode along. "But I don't think now is the time for them. It seems greater matters are afoot." They were already approaching the gate, where the guard sprang to his feet.

Vêandur opened his mouth to hail the man and state his destination, as procedure ordered. The old man was too quick.

"Worry not, my good fellow! If you seek Vëandur of the Fleets he will be with me."

"I already told him who I was," explained Cirdacil as they passed the gate. "Good enough for the likes of him."

"You are in great distress, my uncle," said Vëandur as they reached two tied horses. "If you will share your burden with me, I shall do all I can to help you."

[Mnemosyne]

"Oh, pay that no mind, Thiliel," said Brinn, patting her on the hand. "It was all one big misunderstanding, after all, and I quite understand your alarm." She began to tuck into her food.

"Would you mind sitting with me a while and telling me about yourself? I don't mean to trouble you," she added, seeing Thiliel's hesitation. "If your duties are interfering, you should do those, of course. But, if you have the time, I wouldn't mind the company."

[Galadriel55]

Thiliel couldn't believe her ears. That was just what she needed! To sit down for a few minutes and talk about something with Celebrindal. Maybe then she would open up and say what was troubling her. I shall do most of the telling... yet it may be that she will also speak.

She looked around for a place to sit down, and noticed a small wooden bench in the opposite corner of the wagon. "May I?" she looked questioningly at the woman, pointing to the seat. Celebrindal nodded. "I have no duties that need to be done instantly, but a few that need to be finished tonight. I have time to spare." Thiliel shifted on her chair a bit before continuing. "You want to know about me. There is plenty that I could tell. My family is in Lebennin. I do not remember myself living anywhere else but there and in this inn. My mother tells me that she grew up in Lamedon. She says it is very different there. The mountains are whiter, and the air is clearer. She wanted to return there again, but she is afraid. Her home was changed much during the War. She does not want to see it other than she remembers. My father - he was a soldier. His childhood he spent in Lebennin, though much farther south from where my home stands. He came to Minas Tirith before the Great Siege, but was heavily wounded early and did not take part in the famous deeds. My Uncle –his brother – also fought. He is much older than my father, and was a soldier of Minas Tirith for longer. He guarded the passes of Anorien before the Siege. If it weren’t for him, my father would not have survived. He found him in the First Level that was in flames and carried him to safety when he retreated. They were some of the last soldiers that left the First Level.

“But why am I going on like that? I have told you naught of myself. There really isn’t anything worthy of telling about me. Not after all the tales that my parents and their parents have lived through.”

[Mnemosyne]

"Don't be silly," said Brinn. "You do know that all that dashing about with swords and fire was done so that we could enjoy peace and plenty, don't you? I know they doesn't look half as good on stage," she added, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, "but personally, I think all of our tales are just as fascinating as the Great ones. Do you think my friends and I got up this company because we wished that life were still as dangerous as it was during the War? No!" Well, Branor might, if he was able to do something relatively effortless that would win him great renown, but the King's Players hadn't been his idea, had it? "We did it--I did it, at least--to make other people happy, and to make ourselves happy, too, travelling about the countryside. I know we may not look our best right now, but I can tell you that none of us would want to do anything other than this. And, well, we shouldn't have been able to do that if the roads weren't safe enough to travel!"

She smiled and patted Thiliel on the arm. "I don't think anyone in this Middle-earth leads a dull life, least of all you. And if you think you do, what's stopping you from making it a little more interesting yourself?"

[the phantom]

Sador was suspicious of the bang- Aldarion could certainly see that. But he was uncertain as to what he guessed about the circumstances of the disturbance. The fact that he took the blame for it was interesting. It seemed that Sador was content for others not to get to the bottom of it. Was he protecting the other players, protecting Aldarion, or merely trying to simplify matters for everyone else to keep them out of the way and thus be one of the few with true knowledge?

But Aldarion pushed his thoughts aside, for Sador had just invited him into the music room. Perhaps some of the many questions surrounding Sador and his family would soon be answered...

[Nerwen]

"I knew it!" said Asta, as she followed after the two men with their unconscious burden. Furious as she was with Aldarion, there was a certain satisfaction in having her worst suspicions confirmed. "One of those hussies from Sador's gang, luring the poor fool here! Oh, yes, anyone with half an eye could see the sort they were!"

Coldan sighed, lifted his eyes to the clouded heavens, and muttered, "Zat is it, I give up! All right, I suppose we'd better find somevhere to hide him..."

Under his directions, they lugged the servant around to the front of the house and deposited him under a hedge. Crouching beside it, the three of them were also screened from the mansion's front windows, giving Coldan and Harrenon time to catch their breath.

"What now?" Harrenon asked. "We can't just leave him here."

"Of course not. Harry, change clothes with him, and be quick about it– then you can march us in and say you captured us– it's all right, I'll look away." Harrenon, Asta knew, had a stubborn streak of personal modesty which so far had survived even the close quarters of an acting troupe.

"But–"

"Just do it!"

"No."

"No?"

"No! This is Gondor, you crazy Northerner! We have– we have laws in Gondor!"

Asta drew in her breath at "crazy Northerner"– so this was how Coldan felt when people called him an "Easterling"– yet, something about the way Harry looked, with folded arms, hair standing out at all angles, and brown eyes flashing, told her that it would be a waste of precious time to get into an argument with him just then.

"Coldan!" She turned to the prompter, who had been looking on helplessly. "It's up to you, then! You can see it's too late to back out now, can't you? I know you won't just sit here, waiting for these ruffians to catch us!"

[Anguirel]

Riding through the city

Distress was not quite the right word for Cirdacil's apparent state. Mania might have been closer. There seemed an uncontrolled slant to his words and actions, which in such a normally ordered man had an undeniably comic aspect. Vëandur, on the other hand, might not have recognised this piquancy, as his great-uncle had first entered this disturbed state on recognising him, and had never since entirely shaken it off.

"I asked after you at the King's Admiralty," the old fellow began to mutter now, "and the name the surveyor gave me for your vessel, and your captain, could not but give my some dismay; to my surprise, my own creatures at the Treasury have had to become familiar with your ship's affairs; and I caught the familiar ring. There is embezzlement from the King's own Excise going on aboard her...though whether captain, officers or crew drive it, none of my men have traced...needless to say, I hold you innocent in this, boy, and I shall speak for you if it be needed. Yet you are right; it is not of this matter I came to bandy words with you..."

He spoke as he cantered, displaying a more ingenious and manouvreable grasp of the reins than seemed usual - even appropriate - to his age, and station. Vëandur would only now notice that his uncle was not merely a short man by the City's lights, but a bow-legged one too. Lacking such routine fluency, the younger man began to struggle to weave beside the elder as they left the Third Circle behind them. No courtesy troubled Cirdacil now, and he barked his odd form of 'conversation' back.

"You're a polite boy, and a wise one too, I think, and when you remarked that you would be interested to know of my cares at the Exchequer - aye, and the Revels, too - I took you quite at your word."

They now passed under the white gate to the Fourth, spangled with new copper hinging and bolting; the Guards of the evening faltering back as they had done on each occasion before.

"Ha, you had days in the City on leave before I interrupted you, young Berenson; perhaps you can tell me some things frankly. Did you hear of the King's Players? And what did you hear?"

[Pitchwife]

Coldan was at the end of his wits. Asta seemed to have entered into a state of mind resembling a berserker's battle fury which rendered her impenetrable to arguments and reason. If there was no stopping her, the best he could do would be to stick with her and try to see her through this venture with as little damage done as he could manage - both to and by her; he wasn't sure himself which worried him more.

"No, I von't," he grumbled and began to disrobe their unconscious victim. "But zese clothes von't fit me, he's too zin; and I vill look most credible as a captured villain to zese Gondorians, unvashed Easterling zat I am in zeir eyes. If Harry von't do it, you'd best play ze servant yourself, Asta; it von't be your first male role either."

Mumbling something that sounded like "...about time you came to your senses," Asta caught the garments he tossed to her, then quickly stripped down to her shift and donned the servant's livery. It wasn't the first time Coldan saw her changing costumes - over the years, the forced intimacy of cramped backstage spaces had given him a good idea of what he was missing - , so he wouldn't have bothered to look the other way if Harrenon hadn't grabbed him by the shoulder and turned him around.

"You can't just go along with her, Coldan!" Harrenon insisted frantically. "We'll all end up in jail if you're caught!"

Coldan shrugged wearily. "I must, Harry, since I can't dissuade her. I hev given Asta my vord I vould stand by her, and to a man of Dorvinion, such a pledge given to a voman is as binding as ze Oath of Fëanor. Zis vas my plan as much as hers, and I can't let her valk into danger alone now. You're under no such obligation, and I can't blame you for backing out - it's ze most sensible zing to do. If ve're not back by ze morning bells, find one Captain Bregolas of ze Tower Guard and tell him vat happened - he's a friend of Aldarion's and should know vat to do."

"Are you done talking?" Asta interrupted them, gathering her long hair into a knot and hiding it under the powdered wig. "We've got to hurry." If not for the false white hair, she would have looked like a young page who still had to grow into his blue uniform with lots of lace and little black and white lions all over the front and marching up the sleeves. She ripped a few strips of cloth off the seams of her skirts and handed the ribbons to Coldan, who tied the senseless lackey's hands and feet with them and stuffed his handkerchief into the man's mouth, while Asta hid her bundled clothes under the hedge next to him. When all was done, he stood up and nodded to her.

"Let's get going!"

"Then come, you scoundrel, and don't you try no tricks!" Asta took him by the arm and marched him back to the demolished door, followed by a desperate Harrenon. Somehow Coldan got the impression that this distribution of roles didn't displease her at all - she rather seemed to be enjoying herself. He wasn't sure he liked that.

On the threshold of the door gaping before them like the entrance to the Cracks of Doom he briefly turned back to Harrenon. "Remember, Harry - Captain Bregolas of ze Tower Guard. And tell Brinn I'm sorry."

To Sammath Naur and back, he reminded himself, drawing a deep breath. Then he resigned himself to whatever fate might lurk behind that door and let Asta drag him into Sador's den.

[Inziladun]

"Ha, you had days in the City on leave before I interrupted you, young Berenson; perhaps you can tell me some things frankly. Did you hear of the King's Players? And what did you hear?"

Vëandur heard the last questions the old man had asked, but his mind for the moment was still fixed on what had been said just before.

The Exchequer's office was investigating his ship? If one or others were involved in something illegal, that might at least explain all the late drama aboard that had become by degrees harder and harder to ignore. It could also be the reason for the captain's strange behaviour. Vëandur would not allow himself to yet believe the captain was guilty, at least not without evidence, but worry over the matter could have eating at the man's mind.

As those thoughts ran through his head, Vëandur knew Cirdacil was waiting for answers. Time enough for the rest later. Their steeds raced through the sleeping city streets. The dark sky revealed no stars, and now lightning began to flicker in the direction of the mountains to the east, though no sound of thunder was yet heard.

"The King's Players?" he asked. " I know little: merely that they are a traveling group of actors portraying the events of the War of the Ring. I did happen to meet one of them, though. A fellow who named himself 'Aldarion'. I thought him at first a noble soldier by his looks and speech, and was in truth disappointed to find myself mistaken."

Puzzled, Vëandur asked the question that rose to his mind.

"What trouble have these Players caused, my lord? I said I would aid you if I could, and that word I shall keep."

[Galadriel55]

"I don't think anyone in this Middle-earth leads a dull life, least of all you. And if you think you do, what's stopping you from making it a little more interesting yourself?"

Thiliel looked down, sighing slightly. Ingold's words rang in her ears: You are almost grown up, and you have to act as such. What is stopping her? You have to act like you are expected to, like your sires want you to. Are they the ones who always cut short the wings of glory, risk, excitement, - adventure? Have to. But are they? Do they not want every child to live a tale worth telling?

What tale? All the Great Tales are of the past. Would I that I have lived then! No, I do not wish for War to come again upon us, but rather to have a part in that War. Peace is for those who have done their work in battle - they truly enjoy the rightful peace. But for others, those like me, who only heard an echo of the War, and who have only seen its reflection in the eyes of the older and on the unused swords? If I was a part of that echo - as small as it would have been! How could Celebrindal think that something done now - today - this minute - could possibly compare with the deeds of the past?

Celebrindal. She was leaning forward, looking intently at Thiliel, her supper forgotten. Her eyes shone. A lock of hair fell on her check. She looked like a lass herself. No one told her to act her age… She travels with the troop, free from everything.

“Mistress Celebrindal, may I also journey with you and the others?” the question came out unexpectedly, but was not unwanted. Thiliel’s chest swelled with exhilaration at the idea, although reason told her what the answer will be.

[Anguirel]

Sador and Circilie led their sister-by-law, and their player guest, into a lower, but long room off the ball-room, Sador falling back as Aldarion and Gloredhel moved past him to swing the door to.

"There, good," he mumured, all off-hand, "for the moment I wanted to be certain of discretion."

The chamber might be less grand in its capacity, but there was still an impression of ornate, recently implemented luxury in Ecsichil's* Music Room. Walls and ceiling alike were festooned with airily gorgeous frescoes in gentle, light colours, illustrating birds, trees, and fantastical architectural caprices; interspersed everywhere with scenes of minstrelsy. In Dol Amroth the visitors would have seen purist, classical portraiture and sculpture on such themes, illustrating particular episodes; Maglor singing the Noldor's fall by the sea, or Daeron in his final flight. These images had no such ambition of conception; they were gaudily done lads and lasses, playing at lutes and zithers, yellow-haired as Circilie for the most part, and as carefree, too.

The room was actually rather sparing on musical instruments themselves; there was a harp, that looked too prettily and heavily decorated to be played with any harmony; there was a kind of Eastern drum that proved on closer inspection to be an exotic form of table; a flute hung on one wall beside several swords, but none looked very given to practicality, whether in battle or song. The Music Room's name was a conceit as insubstantial as music's own charm. Sador conceded no attention to any of it, moving swiftly into the middle of the room and securing his three companions' attention with several swift, eager glances.

"Right. Master Lameleg's latest drama is a tragicomedy - you are of course all aware of the genre..."

"It is not generally allowed as a genre at all, at Dol Amroth," Aldarion interposed in a quietly stern tone.

"Well, I shall hope my, ah, direction can seduce you from your early training, then, friend. The play I wish to set before this gathering, Celebrindal, is set in Gondolin - ancient Gondoline the piece generally calls it, for ease of melody - long before her fall. The argument concerns the marriage of Princess Idril the Silverfoot, always referred to in the text as Celebrindal...like the leader of your fine troupe, Aldarion; a happy coincidence. Celebrindal loves and is loved by Tuor the Adan, but Maeglin, her cousin, also by untimely fate desires her. He tries to seduce her and present proof of her infidelity to Tuor; he initially succeeds, with the help of his rascally minstrel friend Salgant, but is uncovered as a liar in the resolution. We shall play only two extracts; the attempted seduction, and the gulling and grief of Tuor. Here are your parts. Read them well; ."

He handed screeds of parchment to each of them, keeping one himself. Gloredhel's read Celebrindal of old Gondoline, Circilie's Salgant of the Harp, Sador's own Tuor the Adan, and Aldarion's, Prince Maeglin of the Sharp Glance.

"A chance for our errant swan to unstretch his feathers," Sador joshed as he handed out this last part. "And it is he who shall begin our first reading..."

The top of Aldarion's part was a short enough speech:

Change you, cousin?
The worthy mortal Tuor is in safety,
And greets your highness dearly.**

Sador mouthed it as if he knew it by...more than heart, but soon swallowed back his too enthusiastic disposition...


*City records of the early Fourth Age refer to the minor noble Cirdacil Cirdacilion as both Ecsichil and Echsicil; this was a lesser title he held by marriage, by which he was generally called to distinguish him from his father, the more famous Cirdacil, Lord Warden of the Exchequer and briefly Master of the Revels.

**Seventh Age scholars might wish to compare this scene to Cymbeline, Act I scene 5, by Edward de Vere Earl of Oxford.

[the phantom]

"Right. Master Lameleg's latest drama is a tragicomedy - you are of course all aware of the genre..." said Sador.

"It is not generally allowed as a genre at all, at Dol Amroth," Aldarion interposed in a quietly stern tone.

Gloredhel shot Aldarion a puzzled glance as Sador went on to explain the setting. Why is he taking this angle? Since when has he had such a dislike for tragecomedies?

Gloredhel smiled politely as she was handed her part. She was actually a bit disappointed to be Idril, as she expected that roll to offer the least in the way of humor, and assumed her character would be that of a standard beautiful elf princess.

She looked sideways at Aldarion's part and was surprised to see that he had received the part of Maeglin rather than Tuor, assuming that his look and bearing would have spurred Sador to follow that route. But this change was probably to Aldarion's liking, as he had always enjoyed being a villain. She and Amlach had always joked that Aldarion was a bit too comfortable in such roles.

But Aldarion was already reading! Gloredhel scrambled to find her bearings. He had not even bothered to question Sador as to the specifics of the situations and the character overall within this particular work. Plus he wasn't bothering with a Noldorin accent, which was extremely strange, as Aldarion simply loved to disguise his voice.

"Change you, cousin?
The worthy mortal Tuor is in safety,
And greets your highness dearly...."

[Anguirel]

Sador seemed as surprised as Gloredhel by Aldarion's blunt, unadorned approach, and not a little dissatisfied, too.

"Hang on, friends, let's pause here, I feel that wasn't quite right. Do it again, Aldarion. Bring out the expression that made your Ar-Pharazon infamous, sir! You are the most notorious turncoat of the Elder Days now, and one of the slyest speakers. You are delivering an apparently innocuous greeting, but some of its words carry deeper meanings. Stress them:

"Cousin. Your knowledge of an incestuous draw burns at your heart day and night. Mortal. You know your rival is doomed to wither and die. Dearly. More dearly that the upstart can afford. These words drive you mad, and reveal your soul to each spectator...if not to Idril herself. Like this...if you'll allow me?"

And Sador, who seemed to be acting under a quite extra-rational impulse, took Aldarion's first leaf and read out the snatch of blank verse again. Like the player, he scorned to attempt any Quenyan lilt. This was no stylised imitation of an Elf from legend, but the heartfelt cry a man in pain. He was playing himself, intensified, simplified, purified. Most striking of all, he had slipped into addressing not the whole room, but one other, facing Gloredhel in the most naturalistic manner.

And he absolutely had not intended to. As he reached the third line he reddened in abashment. "Of course, I lack your experience, Master Aldarion, and you must forgive the liberty I have taken. Your Maeglin must be your own, not mine, and...I shall be interested to see it." He passed back the sheet of vellum with a slight but palpable shudder...

[the phantom]

Aldarion received his script back wordlessly. Sador obviously wished to truly enjoy this reading, and cared about the artistry of everyone's performance. Aldarion almost felt a bit badly about his lack of effort, but then remembered that Sador was a schemer that had spoken ill of him and his companions, and felt a little rush of pleasure in having made things difficult for the man.

And even as he thought this, Gloredhel rapped him upon the head with her rolled up script. "Do not worry about this one, sir!" she said to Sador. "I expect he's merely getting into character," she continued. "Years ago he played the part of Daeron in The Greatest King, and he would not cease his singing!"

Aldarion grinned despite himself, recalling how he had annoyed his family during the month of performance. "He even sang at the table, when simply requesting the salt!" Gloredhel laughed.

And then she turned to Aldarion, half grinning half glaring. "I expect he's being an *** now simply because Maeglin was an ***."

Now this was quite false but Aldarion was not certain if Gloredhel believed it or not. As he considered the possibility that it was true from her perspective, a sinister grin began to creep over his features. He did love playing villains, and he did enjoy getting into character....

"Change you, cousin?
The worthy mortal Tuor is in safety,
And greets your highness dearly"

The change in Aldarion's voice and posture was striking. He leaned towards Gloredhel and stared at her as a starving wolf would look upon a securely fenced lamb, and his accent was, to anyone who recognized, nearly indistinguishable from a born and bred Noldorin Elf.

Gloredhel smiled. But not her usual smile- for it was Celebrindal, not Gloredhel, that occupied her chair.

"You are as welcome, cousin dear, as I
Have words to bid you; and shall find it so
In all that I can do."

As she spoke, occasionally glancing at him with an unfamiliarity that further cemented his sense of character, a deep and true sense of enjoyment trickled through him, and older traits were awakened from slumber. He was going to act out a failed seduction, and he found the thought extremely amusing. How they would laugh later! No doubt Gloredhel would point out that Maeglin was far more charming than Aldarion.

And quite suddenly Aldarion was back- the old one, who didn't mind comedy so much, and lived to entertain by any means available. And just as swiftly he became Maeglin- really Maeglin this time. His mind clicked into place effortlessly, for he had been Maeglin twice before with the Swan Players. His eyes not only changed their shape slightly, but somehow they nearly shined in a way that shouted the meaning of his name- "sharp glance". He also abandoned his classic Noldorin, and instead added a flavor of Sindarin which testified to Maeglin's upbringing in the forest of Nan Elmoth before his flight to Gondolin.

"Thanks, fairest lady.
What, are men mad? Hath nature given them eyes
To see this vaulted arch, and the rich crop
Of mountained land, which can distinguish 'twixt
The fiery orbs above and the twinn'd stones
Upon the number'd beach, and can we not
Partition make with spectacles so precious
'Twixt fair and foul?"

[Anguirel]

Cirdacil

"What trouble have these Players caused, my lord? I said I would aid you if I could, and that word I shall keep."

"The suspicion that has driven me from my desk," the old man muttered, "is that the cause of the trouble...was I myself."

As the sailor and the treasurer wound up the City's high road together, great-uncle imparted the whole story, as quickly as possible, to great-nephew.

Cirdacil began with his original, unlooked for and inexplicable, appointment as Master of the Revels; he explained that his younger son, Sador, had proposed the matter was an intentional test of his mettle and sincerity; detailed the process of engaging as chaotic a company as could be found, his tearaway son-in-law's runagate friend's bravos; ran through the first misadventures of the King's Player's, and the stern measures he had begun to take against them...and at last came to the troubling visit, so recent, of King Elessar himself.

"So it would appear," he finished, "that Sador was wrong in detail, if not in drift; the King was trusting me to make a success of the play, not a failure, after all; and it seems likely he may relieve me of the Treasury if the performance misfires! The Treasury, where I could still be of so much use to him!

"What must I do, nevvy," he gasped out, the Pelargir twang reasserting itself emotionally. "Do I truly have a duty to help this nonsensical operation come to fruition? And if so...Sador's latest report portrayed the troupe as in total disarray. What in Arda can I do to turn this fiasco round...?"

Their hastened journey had whirled them now into the merchant manses; the longest, largest, and yellowest stone among them lay some way further down the cobbles; pillars of smoke seemed to furl behind it, disturbingly, almost as if it was, or had just been on fire...

[Inziladun]

As Vëandur listened to his great-uncle's rapid discourse on his troubles as Master of Revels, he couldn't help thinking that the old man was right: much of the problem did lay upon his own shoulders.

Why would he assume the King wanted the actors to fail? If the King didn't want them, Vëandur mused, why would they have been allowed to come? And had he really thought dismissing the old carpenter was fair, or helpful?

Vëandur was quickly coming to the conclusion that his newly found kinsman was a man who lived for his office, for prestige, and for order, and that he thought those Players were somehow a threat to all those things. Why? At the end of the day a job was a job, and one had to take the bitter with the sweet. Vëandur had certainly had occasion to learn that truth.

The smoky plumes ahead of them grew as they rode swiftly toward them. What in the name of Ossë was going on now? Vëandur had not considered before that seafaring was a peaceful life, but this madness he had stumbled upon in the Capital gave him a new appreciation of the pleasure of being at Sea, away from these political intrigues and fancies of the highborn.

"Well, my uncle, I would say this: I see not why the tide cannot be turned. Could you not take back the carpenter into your employ? It may gain you some trust with the Players, and I think you must have that first."

Vëandur paused, as Cirdacil slowed his steed. They must be nearly there.

"Then," he went on, "it seems these Players need a place where they can practice their art in peace, and yet be under your guidance. Could they be housed in some other place, where the perils of drink and distraction may be checked? Maybe you could take them into your own house, lord. I know it seems a horrible intrusion, but I think it could help, and the King might look upon it as a token of your earnestness to see his will in this matter carried out."

[Galadriel55]

“Mistress Celebrindal, may I also journey with you and the others?” the question came out unexpectedly, but was not unwanted. Thiliel’s chest swelled with exhilaration at the idea, although reason told her what the answer will be.

Brinn smiled and patted Thiliel's arm--so young she looked! "Are you sure that would be entirely wise?" she said. "The King's Players--all of us--do this for the love of the work we do, not because we hate what else life has to offer. Tell me, did you even entertain such thoughts before we arrived?"

"But, Mistress Celebrindal," the girl insisted, "I love to act! I always played games where I would make up that I am a different person. And I want to travel and see the world. I don't hate what life has been offering me; it is just, well, plain..." She thought of her homein Lebennin. It was... the same. Nothing ever changed when Thiliel was there. She climbed all the trees in the area, knew all the rocks. She discovered them, and she befriended them. And there was nothing new left to discover. Same old streams, same old rocks, same old trees. It was always the same. What adventures could one possibly have when they know everything around them?

Minas Anor was different. It was new. Thiliel didn't have much time yet to have an adventure here, but she knew that she will. And that is just one city! Celebrindal and the others travel all around, and see so many different cities. Thiliel would like to see other cities and towns. If she was part of the troop, she would be allowed to have a part in the others' adventures.

She remembered the three actors that left into the night, clearly doing something they were not supposed to do. Coldan, Asta and - what was the last one's name? Harry? They are having a real adventure. And all she gets for knowing about it is to keep their secret until morrow. If she was part of the troop, she was sure that they'd let her come with them.

Celebrindal gave her a sad look and shook her head slightly. "Please, Mistress Celebrindal..." Thiliel put on the most pleading expression she could muster, "please let me come."

"I will not say 'no, not ever,'" said Brinn. "But such a decision is life-changing and should not be made on a whim. Rollan, Branor, and I were all involved in the theater long before we decided to travel, so we knew what we were getting into. Besides, you have your obligations here, to your uncle. Unless our performance here goes ill indeed, we shall return to Minas Anor for many years. When you come of age, if you still wish to join us, talk to me then."

"Come of age! But I won't come of age for a long time! And, see, Sereth is not of age yet, and she gets to play Frodo the Halfling!"

[piosenniel]

~*~ Moving this thread to Elvenhome ~*~

Today is 5/29/2015 - last post to this thread was 08-30-2011.