The King's Players RPG

[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?"