The King's Players RPG

[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!"