Jewellight Express by herenortherenearnorfar

Bad Theater Starts Barfights

Read Bad Theater Starts Barfights

High King of the Noldor would be an excellent job if it didn’t require interacting with the Noldor. 

No, that was rude. Gil-Galad loved the people of Lindon, no matter their origin or what banner they fought under two thousand years ago. Donwen, the last of Caranthir’s crack team of accountants upon these eastern shores, was no less a valued member of his court than Faundril, the sister-in-law of Olwë. 

Ruling over such a diverse group meant lots of diplomacy, however. There was always a fracas brewing. Sometimes he thought Oropher intentionally sent delegations when the news from Mithlond got too quiet.

When he was called down to the dock side to deal with a fist fight, he was disappointed by not surprised. Tensions with Númenor had been high of late, since Tar-Atanamir took the sceptre. There had been more and more talk from travelling sailors that bordered on blasphemy, more strife with their cousins over matters of behavior and morality. Some of the ships carried people from Númenor’s colonies, workers whose maltreatment bordered on bondage. Those in Lindon who remembered the scourge of the Enemy prickled at seeing such injustice repeated. Gil-Galad had spent many hours reminding ships’ captains that as strong as Númenor may be, Lindon’s laws still prevailed in their port. 

To his surprise, the chaos wasn’t centered around the shipyard. Instead it seemed a fight had broken out inside one of the shorefront establishments. A little house that served wine and tea, offered collected publications from abroad, and gave respite to the weary. He’d listened to poetry from the east in their open-beamed hall, face hidden by a hood, neighbors politely pretending not to notice that the man next to Elrond Halfelven was their king. The regulars were a merry group, little given to conflict. Those travelers who stopped by tended to be literary and sensible. 

Merriment seemed far away as he stepped inside the shattered room. Tables were upended, teacups and flagons flung about. Two distinct camps of quarrelers were being separated by distraught friends. Elrond, visiting from Imladris, was already on the scene, listening intently as an elf made her case. In her hand was a slim folio, which she brandished like a flag.

“What happened?” Gil-Galad asked, addressing the question to the room in general but looking at Elrond. 

“My king, they’ve insulted our honor!” came a rising plea. 

“Your highness,” shouted a distinctly mannish voice, “they grew hysterical for no reason--”

“I think it’s a bold statement,” someone else said, which prompted a scream that could have shattered glass. 

“The Lady Varda made--”

“Hush.” Gil-Galad didn’t have to raise his voice to silence the room. He surveyed the assembled people once more, noting this time that most of the neutral parties were men or younger elves, those who tended to stay cool when their elders’ emotions ran high. A matter of history, then. 

“Elrond?”

His herald hastened to his side. “As you know, the public house tries to get new books and play from Númenor first. A ship came in today and brought Linsell some copies from the island. One of them seems to have been controversial, though I still haven’t determined why.”

Succinct and clear, as was to be expected from Elrond. His troubled brow suggested an unspoken distress, though, so Gil-Galad leaned in closer, so the rest of the room could not hear, and breathed, “Is there more to the matter?”

“Not that I can say for sure but the play seems to be... scandalous.”

Impropriety that could phase Elrond, raised among kinslayers and exiles, was improper indeed. He nodded and turned back to the room. 

“Who wants to voice their complaint first?”

A frazzled maiden with a face he knew from ancient war rooms pushed to the front of the crowd. “Ereinion, it’s awful!”

“Now Linsell,” Gil-Galad said. “I have never known you to be faint of heart.”

“A fight is one thing,” the offended maid threw the paper in her hand down to the floor. “But this shamelessness cannot stand.”

Upside down and across the room, Gil-Galad could see the words in Numenorean typeface; THE TALE OF THE SILMARILS AS NEVER SEEN BEFORE!

He went to pick it up and leafed through the first pages. One phrase near the front of the booklet caught his eye. 

... the Silmarils, being perʃonified as ENTHRALLING YOUTHS...

Gil-Galad shut his eyes and put the play face down on the nearby bar. Surely it couldn’t be that bad?

“I see. And this literature upset you?”

Linsell hadn’t looked half this pained when the medics of Valinor were cutting away her orc-poisoned flesh. “I read through the whole thing. It’s awful. Ereinion, it disrespects everything we fought for.”

A Númenorean sailor being held on the other side of the room by strong arms, bristled like a struck cat. “You lot liked the Lament of Nienor! Said you wanted more copies of that sort of thing!”

“That was a respectful look at the mind of a troubled woman, this is just garbage!”

“It did three runs at the Royal Theater. My posh mate in Armenelos said it had the royal court choking with laughter.”

“Then they’re scoundrels with no respect for their ancestors.” Linsell declared, as if those weren’t fighting words.

“I quite liked it,” said a younger elf in an undertone. Gil-Galad barely caught Linsell before she lunged for the boy’s throat. 

“Really?” he muttered. 

“There’s an entire aria at the end where the Silmaril sings about lost beauty and the flames of war with Maedhros Feanorion screaming acappella in the background.” Out of the corner of his eye, Gil-Galad saw Elrond wince. 

“At one point the stage directions call for a Silmaril to ‘look at Luthien lustily’” another one of the combatants added. “I didn’t like that they used that word!”

“They make a laughing stock out of us.” complained an elf who Gil-Galad knew had lost almost everything at Sirion. “Pratfalls and innuendo; what cruelty. Have these men forgotten so quickly how we were butchered? Man and elf alike!”

“It’s been two thousand years,” the Númenorean provacateur spoke boldly for a man with a bare throat. “Lighten up a bit.”

There was a long moment when Gil-Galad wondered if he could let Linsell take a bite out of him. It was a foolish instinct for a king, but he was not just a king. He was a cousin too. 

It was not the fault of men that they had short memories. For them this was a matter of history books. Even the long lived westerners had crowned twenty kings since the War of Wrath. The people of Lindon, on the other hand, still remembered the empty halls of Angband, the noxious fumes of the sinking continent, the Silmaril light on the desperate faces of exile princes as they ran.

“Out,” Elrond ordered. “Everyone not of this kingdom, get out. Return to your ships or lodgings and make no more trouble.”

It was good to have him home. 

Grumbling, the handful of Númenoreans and other men filed away, leaving only harried elves. Linsell shook herself free of Gil-Galad’s arms and retreated, pride injured, to a corner. A few of the bystanders were now flipping through available copies of the offending play. 

“Why is there a musical number here?” one whispered as another quietly asked, “Did you see Morgoth’s introduction? The Master of Lies is a curious prize--”

Gil-Galad clapped Elrond on the back. “Another fine export from your young relations.” 

“There’s no need to get sharp, your highness. I was here first,” his vice-regent smiled thinly. “Before you came in they were shouting about Feanor’s catchphrase.”

He wracked his brain for possibilities and came up blank. “Ah. Was it--”

“’The flames are my future.’ Which I don’t recall from any of Penlodh’s histories.”

“Elbereth help us. I suppose outright censorship would be ill-advised?”

“Probably. Not my call to make though. I head back to Imladris next week.” There was a reassurance to the squeeze he gave Gil-Galad’s arm but it was undermined by the fact that he would be gone again so soon. 

Gil-Galad wished he was heading back to Imladris, which was rural and quiet with no seaports. Instead he turned back to the tense room-- Linsell in a heated argument with a youngster about artistic integrity, a friend hovering over them preventing the spat from coming to blows, Orondor of Sirion being physically prevented from throwing the stack of folios on the counter into the flames, a member of the city guard frowning at the offending play, Mŷleth the proprietress of the establishment starting to put tables to rights. 

With a gesture he called everyone to attention. “I have made a judgement.” Most of the eyes in the room fixed on him, though a few people remained engrossed in reading. “Everyone involved in the original fight will make restitution for the damages. I’ll rely on Lord Elrond and those city officials first on the scene to determine guilt. As for the play,” He waved down the outcry before it could bubble over again. 

“Public sales and performances will be provisionally banned for the sake of peace.” There would be blood in the bookshops otherwise. “I trust each of my citizens to make their own reading choices at home. To prevent bloodshed, everyone who still has a strong opinion...” This was his least favorite part. “Is invited to submit a comment in a public forum.”

This would make the three hour town hall about whether the Noldolantë was culturally insensitive look amateurish by comparison, he could already sense it. 

“When?” asked Orondor suspiciously. 

“As soon as possible.” Gil-Galad said. “To clear the air. In fact, if we held it by Ormenel, Lord Elrond could attend.”

This seemed to satisfy even the most malcontented art critics. As the long work of tidying began, Elrond drew Gil-Galad away. 

“Am I being punished for the crimes of my kin?” he asked, though with enough mirth that Gil-Galad knew it was in jest. They’d had long conversations about the problem of Númenor, whose people Elrond still loved and whose behavior grew more outrageous by the day. There was never any blame in those talks. 

“You are not being punished at all.” Gil-Galad said, resting against the wall. “I need moral support in this time of trial.”

“It's just a play." If anyone had justification to be offended, it was Elrond. Half his relatives were featured. Instead he seemed entertained. Maybe you had to develop a thick skin when your family was the subject of myth and legend. Not for the first time, Gil-Galad appreciated that no one could pin down who his family was. 

Gil-Galad looked long at his people, proud, ancient warriors who were tussling over cheap paper. “You know as well as I do that they’re going to read excerpts.”

“Frightening! I’ll give you my all.”

 

(Ten years later the playwright behind Jewellight Express published Tinúviel and Tevildo, an epic romance with no less than three secret twin reveals. All copies in the port of Lindon were mysterious dropped off the side of a ship.)