View Single Post
Old 03-10-2011, 06:04 AM   #15
Anguirel
Byronic Brand
 
Anguirel's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: The 1590s
Posts: 2,825
Anguirel is a guest of Tom Bombadil.
Unknown to any of the gallant troupe, their presence in the White City, and on this particular occasion of honour, too, had been long ordained at the very highest circles of the Court.

Some months earlier, it had all begun - as have begun other stories, both direr wars and higher romances than our own - with a jest, a coincidence, and a letter.

***

"Excellent news at last," the Lord Warden of the Exchequer, Cirdacil the Venerable, Lord of Burlach, expatiated to his close family as he mouthed his way through a prongful of excellent emulsified goldspinach.

For he was a man of precise, albeit frugal, taste.

Around his table sat a surprisingly young-looking and colourful company, when one considered the almost ostentatiously plain appearance of their host. Ecsichil, heir to the sloping city fief of Burlach, was a stolid gentleman with an evident weakness for scarlet drapery, in which he had enswathed his wife to the point of near total invisibility. On this taciturn lady's other side sat the second son, a bachelor, who always went by the by-name of Sador because of his unfortunate leg, born wizened; yet he was a handsome, dapper little man who seemed unable to restrain the gleam of manic intelligence in his every movement and word.

In between the two men in age were their sisters, graceful, tolerant and by some peculiarity, taller than their brothers; Aerwen, the elder, a diligent seeker after knowledge, was unmarried and likely to remain so, but Circilie, the whole family's favourite for the obviousness of her physical attractions and the calming nature of her conversation, was yet a new bride. This made her visit a rare occasion of family satisfaction, especially as she brought her new lord. Their union was already a success, as Circilie's figure was beginning to intimate; the man under question was the noblest and fairest in the room, Lord Amlach of Dol Amroth, an unlooked for catch for the new noble house of Burlach.

They were all delighted to see him; and he, though bored, was even more polite.

"What news, father?" Sador shot back. "The strife in Harondor?" Between them, the patriarch and his second son had done most of the talking so far.

"Closer, and more to my satisfaction, boy. I list little for your foreign adventures. No, it is this; the Master of the Revels, that wastrel Hallas, has resigned his responsibilities to spend more time hunting on his estate..."

Amlach, unnoticed, looked a little more interested. It always astonished him how little curiosity his father-in-law displayed about the humane arts; perhaps this new fascination was the signal of a sudden character change?

"...and I think I have persuaded our royal lord not to replace him. We are living in uncertain times," Cirdacil plodded on, oblivious to his son-in-law wincing at the sentiment and the cliche alike, "and, if the Reunited Kingdom is to be more than, let us say, a dream upon parchment, then, as I have always said, retrenchment must be the order of the day..."

Amlach watched the family's reaction, suppressing his disgust by running a hand through his wife's bright ringlets. Ecsichil was trying to catch a horsefly with his mouth, apparently. Amlach had never heard Lady Ecsichil express a view on anything. Sador was clever enough to be sychophantically attentive, Aerwen was above it all, and Circilie was playing with his own feet, in an admittedly rather adorable way. What a bunch of cultural Khandings he had on his hands here...

"If you reduce Gondor to a silent banking-house," he found himself shouting, "what remains to retrench?"

Before Circilie had laid down her palliative, soft hand on his arm, the old vulture had replied.

"Why, dividends, my boy."

***

"The man is a warrior, a prince and statesman! He should know better, much better, than a joke in such poor taste! If, indeed..."

Fragments of the Lord Cirdacil's white beard, efficiently if wildly rent, were filtering across his study. One got up Sador's sensitive nostrils, but he kept his cough quiet.

"I am certain His Majesty means no action not commensurate with the dignity and respect in which he holds you, honoured father..."

"...which is nothing! It can be none, no dignity, if he acts thus..."

The piece of paper uppermost on the desk looked surpassingly innocent. A centralised secretary hand and written with the utmost neatness,

To the Lord of Burlach,

The King Elessar, long esteeming your trusty and well beloved care of His Majesty's Exchequer, would like to confer upon you additional, signal and delightful favour.

Mindful of your lordship's long and proven role as an arbiter of taste, and of your late counsel given upon the setting forth from Court of the Lord Hallas, the King Elessar hereby raises you to the office of Master of the Revels with instant effect.


***

Sador had at last formulated the right soothing sentence.

"Father, you are right as always. The great conqueror of the Enemy, the heir of Elendil, would never trouble himself with a jest."

"But what, then, boy? What is the meaning..."

"The king says he is mindful of the counsel you gave him, father. He has appointed you to this post so that you may prove the rectitude of your view of it, once and for all."

Cirdacil was getting very old and he knew his second son was very clever, but he was instantly quick enough in the art of courtly administration to gather his son's meaning.

"You mean, my lad, that I, and not Lord Hallas, am to be the last Master of the Revels in Gondor? Through the...exceptional...quality of my offerings?"

"Precisely, beloved sire."

Cirdacil sat down, at last exhausted with the effort of shouting, at the desk which bore the hated missive, and picked it up.

"The letter avers that the next great Revel is to be a play - the very worst, morally, and the most extravagant kind among these fripperies - at Cormare, and in time for the visit of some obscure municipal dignitary, a halfling, no less, from furthest Eriador. By the Tree, for our state to be yoked to those penniless Arnorian maniacs and pint-size talking Druedain..."

"Father, father, be careful what you say!"

But Cirdacil's outburst was over. He had relaxed back into thought.

"Sador, were you following your brother-in-law's conversation at luncheon, when he began to rail regrettably on the deplorable subject of his provincial theatre?"

"I always follow conversation, father."

"What was the name of that rag-tag crew of mountebanks he mentioned that unfortunate friend has joined?"

"Apparently they have the affrontery to call themselves the King's players, father."

"See to it that they are hired!"

Cirdacil smiled, at last, with fully relished pleasure; but the moment was short, and his wrinkled face was tortured by worry as he glanced back at his departing son.

"...but whatever you do, don't pay the rascals in advance."

Last edited by Anguirel; 03-10-2011 at 06:25 AM.
Anguirel is offline