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To the good players and craftsmen of the Baron of Southernbrook’s company, and to the particular attention of Hamish Guardeton, director of the Baron of Southernbrook’s Players.
Dear sir,
His majesty King Maric of Ferelden and her majesty Queen Rowan request your services in the production of a five act play, to be presented in honor of our newly born Prince Cailan. The specifics are to your choosing, in so far as they fit the good mores of our kingdom. It must also naturally be fit for the sumptuary standards of the court, nothing extravagant if only a certain level of polish.
We propose a negotiable base remuneration of 30 sovereigns for the entire rehearsal period and the staging, and your company shall be provided for during your stay at Denerim. The gathering in the Crown Prince’s honor shall take place on the twentieth day of the month. Should there be any constraints on the feasibility of the voyage or troubles of any kind, please communicate them to the given address as fast as may be, that an arrangement may be reached.
Respectfully,
Genevieve Donham, revels officer and steward to the Denerim palace.
1st Eluviesta, 5th year of the Dragon Age
And there was the royal stamp, unmistakeable. Hamish Guardeton slammed the letter on his desk with a grunt loud enough to wake the infant in the next room. He was used to performing in the halls of lords and rich merchants, but a king? With only two weeks notice? It would be a catastrophe, he knew it. And yet…
He looked to the book still under his left hand, and the sheets of paper he’d stuffed between the pages. Madrigal, La Reina Atormentada. It was light reading that he’d only started translating as a pass time. He’d hardly put any effort into it, and the result was decidedly stilted. But if he was to make an impression on the court, a newly imported classic that had already proven itself abroad might be just the thing.
After a two day rush of translating to common and proofreading, he told his second and brother-in-law Samuel the following:
“We need a Madrigal! There’s no one in the company who fits the role. We’re playing to the king, Andrasté’s sake! What will he think if we take the first pale eyed peasant we find, dress her up and call her “Queen” with mud still under her nails?”
So Samuel dallied through the streets of Amaranthine, and grabbed hold of the first dark eyed peasant he could find.
Eileen Greusach was her name. Hamish looked her up and down when Samuel brought her back. Only nineteen, she still bore the ungrateful red marks of adolescence, along with filthy hair and an old woolen dress. She was tall, like you’d expect for a queen, though perhaps a little too strong looking. She claimed to be a little Antivan on her mother’s side. You could see it in her features, if you looked from a distance.
After half an hour reading, he decided she was a natural in the dramatic arts, young enough to play the child Madrigal, and good enough an actress to play the mother Madrigal as she pleaded for her son’s life. What’s more, in spite of a shy character, she had that very peasant-like characteristic of shouting every word she said. With some instruction, that could be disguised as a declamatory style. She recoiled under his every reprimand like the country mouse she was, but she learned fast.
Eileen went home to her parents, explaining that she would perform in front of the king in two weeks, and would return immediately after along with the rest of the troupe. When she returned for rehearsal, she did so white faced and red eyed, but allegedly with permission.
The Southern Players arrived in Denerim exactly two weeks after reception of the royal convocation. The steward Donham greeted them, a perpetually rushed woman with grey patching her temples, who bounced on her heels in the most irritating way. It was very much like the nobility to summon them and then act importuned by their presence, Guardeton thought. Donham showed them a cleared dining room within the palace for their rehearsing use, then guided them to the inn where their rooms were booked, because of course they wouldn’t let them sleep on the premises. That would be too practical. Guardeton was already preparing an opinionated letter in his head.
The two last rehearsals were a disaster. The painted canvases meant to suggest the setting were too small for the stage, dashing investigator Captain Aristide wasn’t very dashing at all, and he missed his cues, Eladio was forgetting his lines with the stress of the upcoming performance, Yavana’s costume made her look more like a lizard than a witch, and two out of five assassins were missing. What’s more, Madame Donham was suddenly requesting ballet interludes between acts. Ballet interludes! There were Orlesian dignitaries among the guests, she claimed. It is not done in the high court to perform without some measure of dance, she claimed. She could go out there herself and dance a jig to keep the crowd happy if she was so desperate. But all credit to her, she left immediately to hire a company of dancers who would perform some number on the changing of the seasons, or other such dull stuff.
The day came. Amidst all the noble fuss, Guardeton felt very underdressed and made sure to let his company know how much he was ashamed of them. The gold leaf he’d ordered to suggest use of magic didn’t arrive on time, so they were to make do with dead leaves and ripped paper. In the midst of therapeutical paper ripping, he felt a touch on his shoulder, and turned around to see a tiny brown elf girl.
She was lithe, her hands disproportionately large. She had her arms wrapped around some sort of rudimentary manuscript bound with string. Her body language suggested fear, but the look on her face was unyielding focus. She was dressed in handsome but untailored clothes, a servant no doubt. Her name was Istrella, she said, and she had just finished writing a play. She asked him if he’d like to stage it, handing the manuscript over. The cover read Dame Aveline; or A Tragedy of Honor. He shoved the book back into her arms and told her to go do her job, whatever that was.
He spotted the elf girl through the curtains during the play, fearing she might go somewhere she wasn’t welcome again. She didn’t though. She was content staring at the stage the whole time, forgetting herself, mouth agape. She filled King Maric’s cup during the entracte and spilled wine on his sleeve. He shrugged it off with a chuckle, and she retired with a face almost as red as the drink she was serving.
Eileen was acquitting herself remarkably well, perhaps a little flat at times and overdone at others, but excellent considering it was her first performance. When she rode onto the scene on horseback - a loan from the royal stables themselves - her posture was so graceful, her expression so dignified, that suddenly the peasant girl was gone and Guardeton saw Madrigal exactly as he’d imagined her.
The curtains closed after Captain Aristide’s final monologue upon freeing the last Crows, concluding that none may ever solve the mystery of the tormented queen Madrigal’s life, anymore than her death.
Then, three seconds of silence…
And the applause began. Guardeton breathed again. He joined the players on the stage to salute, bowing deep before king, queen, and crown prince. He felt very lightheaded suddenly. There was something deliciously sacrilegious in being placed higher than the king himself on the stage. He thought he might write an essay - anonymously, of course - on the subject.
They stepped forward one by one, and the audience roared no louder than when Queen Madrigal presented herself, rust water staining her gown. Her eyes were watering a little. How disappointing it would be for her to return home, to go back to picking her parent’s crops, or should she pursue acting, to the reality of provincial performance. A sad age to peak, nineteen years old.
The company was permitted to eat and drink from the banquet - at a separate table, but still, gift horses and what not - and though they dared not mingle with the upper crust, some came to mingle with them. Guardeton was accosted by a few potential employers, banns wanting to make themselves seem more important than they were with big festivities. He retorted that he would have to discuss matters with the baron first, but he drank with them none the less. He humoured them and laughed at their jokes, which seemed to be getting funnier and funnier with every sip of ale.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that damned elf girl again. She was ranting with great enthusiasm at Eileen, who was nodding along with a beatific smile and glowing cheeks. Amateurs with “ideas” were a plague of performance, and Eileen would learn soon enough how to deal with them.
Hamish Guardeton woke up in his inn room the following day with a nasty headache, and a determination to make his collaborators pay for it. He wrote up the inventory for the journey home and while directing people to set up the carts he realized something was missing.
“Where’s Eileen?”
Most witnesses indicated that she hadn’t returned to the inn that night. She’d been making lovey-dovey eyes at the elf girl the entire evening, listening to her go on about this big grand marvellous play she was making, and at some point between then and now, they’d both disappeared.
Maker, her parents were going to kill him.