The Tragical Comedy of Rick and Romeo, Juliet and Kate

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: I do not own Castle but I do owe a debt to Will Shakestail, the Bard of Vorlag, for this. Rating: K Time: Shortly after the last season of Castle.

The firing range was some fifty yards deep and about as wide. At the end were a set of robots which moved in random sequences when needed.

"We've set the pulse pistols to stun, Your Highness, so that we don't destroy our robots. You'll be able to see how well we can shoot."

Rold took his position and at his nod, the robots started moving. Rold fired twelve shots and got ten hits."

"Sergeant Broddy will shoot next, as he's our best shot." Rold said. "The robots will be moving faster for him."

Broddy took his position, nodded and the robots began moving quite rapidly. In spite of their speed, Broddy fired fifteen timed and got thirteen hits.

"Very good, Broddy." Flavia said. "Do you mind if I try?"

"Sure. The pistols are set on stun, and we'll slow the robots down for you, Your Highness."

"Oh, no need for that. I'll shoot at them at the same speed Broddy used."

The members of the club weren't sure about this, but she was the heir to the throne.

Flavia took her position, nodded and the robots began moving. Flavia fired twenty times, getting twenty hits.

No one said a thing. Everyone, except Rick, kept looking back and forth between Flavia and the targets. Rick just looked at Flavia. Finally, Rold spoke.

"No one's ever done that before, Your Highness."

Flavia just shrugged.

"Mr. Castle, would you care to try?"

"Sure, why not, Your Highness."

Rick was a good shot and managed nineteen out of twenty, but slightly slower than Flavia's time.

"Anyone else?" Flavia asked, looking at the Vorlags.

"I'll try, Your Highness. The name is Smoke. I guess we'll leave the speed the same."

Smoke took his position, nodded and the robots began to move. Smoke drew two pulse pistols and fired, hitting twenty out of twenty in less time than Flavia had taken.

"Don Cheech has had us practicing a little bit, Your Highness." He said. "The Boss didn't want Don Vorleone to be disappointed in us. The rest of my associates aren't as good as I am, or even as good as you are, but they've shot at targets that shoot back before."

Flavia grinned.

"Mr. Castle, I'm appointing you as the head of my personal protective detail. You're now Captain Castle. Smoke, you're now a lieutenant in the Royal Guard and in charge of the Vorlags. Lieutenant Rold, you're in charge of the pistol club."

Flavia set about reorganizing the Royal Guards. Since they were all sons of the nobility they couldn't just be fired, Flavia told them to concentrate on their music, dancing, flower arranging or whatever they had been doing when not doing guard work. That pleased them.

A day after that, a page came to see Princess Flavia who was in the throne room, discussing things.

"Your Highness, Prince Mming is here and wishes and audience with you."

Flavia rolled her eyes.

'I suppose I'll have to talk with him sooner or later. Captain Castle, you stay here with me, and Lieutenant Smoke, get a few of your people. I don't trust Mming any further than I can throw him."

Smoke grinned, exposing his long, sharp fangs.

"If he needs throwing, I'm your Vorlag."

"Not yet but hold that thought."

When her guards had arrived, Flavia received Mming. He was not at all polite.

"Well, whoever you are, you arrived with a pack of players, so I suppose you're one of them as well. You're certainly not dear Flavia, although you are an improvement. Then again, that gigantic fur rug next to you would be an improvement."

"Skip the compliments, Mming. What do you want?"

"I've checked with my people and we still hold the real Flavia, so I'd suggest you just leave. I intend to expose you as a fraud, and I'll make sure that you're blamed for whatever happens to dear little Flavia. Any questions?"

"Yeah." Said Smoke. "How do you plan on getting out of the throne room alive?"

That stunned Mming.

"You wouldn't dare."

Smoke just smiled.

"While I appreciate the simplicity of Smoke's solution to our problem, I'll make you a counteroffer." Flavia said. "You leave and don't ever come back. Leave now, in any case."

Mming backed out of the throne room.

"We should have done him in, Your Highness." Smoke said.

"Not until we know where the real Flavia is and get her back." That gave her an idea. "I'll bet he called his people to check on Flavia. Can we get any info on that call?"

Smoke looked shocked.

"Your Highness, that would be a terrible breach of a Rurutarians' sacred right to privacy. It's unheard of."

"I see." Said Flavia, coldly.

"On the other paw, if someone were to accidentally send me some information, well, that could hardly be called my fault, could it?"

"You're a very wise Vorlag." Flavia said.

"Just let me go see if any accidents are about to happen, Your Highness." And Smoke left.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…Sorry. Wrong story.

Meanwhile, Martha was busy getting ready for the opening of Romeo and Juliet. She still thought that Rex Vorlag spent way too much time in front of a mirror and Lolita complained that her costume should be show more of her boobs, although they showed more than Martha thought was necessary as it was.

Then she saw Will Shakestail heading her way with a group of Vorlags.

"Dona Martha, I wish to introduce some friends of mine. This is…

Before Master Will had finished, one Vorlag stepped forward and bowed to her.

"Dona Martha, I am so pleased to meet you. I am Percy Bysshe Vorlag, a poet of some small renown."

Martha thought he was oddly dressed, even for a Vorlag. He wore knee breeches with silk stockings, a white shirt with a collar that rose above the back of his head and a double-breasted blue jacket.

"I'm glad to meet you, Mr. Vorlag." Martha said, politely.

"I've recently been inspired to write a poem based on one of your human poets. It's called Ozzy Manned Us."

"Ozymandias?" Martha said, somewhat confused.

"No, Ozzy Manned Us. It's about your wonderful poet Ozzy Osborne. I understand he often bites the head off of something foul during the performance of his poems. That is just so deliciously anti-establishment. You don't suppose that you could incorporate something like that in this play."

Martha wasn't at all sure how the Vorlag actors or the Vorlag audience would take to, say, Juliet, biting the head off of a live chicken, but she knew she'd hate it.

"I'm not sure that there's anyplace that such a… performance would fit into Romeo and Juliet, but I'll keep it in mind. Don't call us, we'll call you."

The poet looked downcast for a moment, then brightened.

"Oh, allow me to introduce my dear wife, Mary Wollstonecraft Vorlag."

The lady curtsied to Martha.

"I'm so pleased to meet you, Dona Martha. I do a bit of writing myself, you know."

"I had no idea." Martha said, as if she hadn't figured that out already.

"I believe there's a play called Omelet…"

"Hamlet, dear. The play is called Hamlet."

"Hamlet? Well, I believe there's a ghost in the story, right?"

"Yes. The ghost of Hamlet's father."

"Well, ghosts are all well and good, in their place, but wouldn't it be… creepier to have a being made up of several dead people in the play?"

"What would that do? I mean a bunch of body parts on stage?" Martha had an idea where this was going but hated the idea.

"They'd be reanimated. The being would get up and move around and scare people." Mary said happily.

"How would they get reanimated?"

"I don't know. Use an anti-matter engine I suppose."

"They didn't have anti-matter engines in Medieval Denmark. It wouldn't work. Besides, Hamlet's father's ghost talks to Hamlet and tells him how he died. How could your reanimated being know anything about that?"

"Ooh! Problems." Mary said. She shook her head. "Major bummer."

"How are you doing, Dollface?" Another Vorlag said. He was poorly dressed and there was an aroma of alcohol about him. The again, thought Martha, there was an aroma of alcohol about so many Vorlags.

"Name's Dashiell Vorlag. About this dame, Juliet? She needs to be straightened out. I never met a dame yet that didn't understand a punch in the kisser or a slug from a .45."

"Thank you, but that's not exactly in keeping with the spirit of the play."

Dashiell Vorlag just shrugged.

"Here's looking at you, Kid."

The last Vorlag was an older fellow with white hair, wearing a white suit with a black string tie.

"Samuel Langhorne Vorlag, your servant, Dona Martha. Getting back to that Hamlet fellow. I mean having a ghost tell this Hamlet chap that he was done in by his wife and the new king? Sounds to me like Hamlet should do a little checking, you know. You're having this new king tried and found guilty without being able to defend himself." He shook his head sadly. "That's un-American. It's un-English. It's French."

Before the conversation could go any further, Martha saw Curly come in with his electric flugelhorn player.

"Oh, excuse me, but I really must go see my musical director." She said as she ran off.

"Curly, "she said, dragging the young Vorlag into a corner, "how are you doing with the Elizabethan music I found for you?"

"It's kind of dull, Dona Martha."

"It's traditional music. The kind they actually used in Elizabethan times."

"Um, who is this Elizabethan, anyway."

"Her name was Elizabeth and she was the Queen of England."

"Were you friends?"

Martha refrained from punching the young Vorlag.

"No, she lived many, many years before I was born."

"Oh."

"Now, please get busy with the musical accompaniment. It's very important, you know."

"I know, Dona Martha and thank you for giving my band, the Screaming Vorlags, a chance."

Martha looked around and saw that Rex Vorlag was parked in front of the mirror again and Lolita had pulled her top down way too low.

"I must go."

It took a few days for an accident to happen with Mming's communications. Smoke happily brought the news to Flavia.

"Your Highness, Mming and his minions, have been burning up the airwaves to a little joint called Zenda Castle. It'll be a bitch to get into. A moat, a drawbridge, a portcullis, high walls, and lots of guards."

"How far is it out of town?" Flavia asked.

"Twenty miles, give or take. It's in the middle of a forest, so getting close won't be a problem, but the last five or six hundred yards is open space. They'll spot an attack in a second."

"We need to go look at it. Tomorrow night. Do you have some people who are good at sneaking up on castles?"

"You bet."

Back in the royal bedroom, Rick put his arms around Flavia's waist.

"I'm good at sneaking up on Castles, too, you know. In fact, I'm sneaking up on my favorite Castle right now. Wanna fool around?"

"We can't, Rick. I'm Princess Flavia and you're just a guy who helped me out of a tight spot."

"Can't you help me into a tight spot?" He said, kissing her bare shoulder.

"Rick! Really. Be careful. These old palaces are always full of secret passages and…"

"And what?"

"I have a cunning plan." She said.

"As it happens, I'm a cunning linguist. Why don't I show you the many tongues I know?"

"Down, boy. There'll be time for that later."

"Jam yesterday, Jam tomorrow, but never jam today." He muttered.

"Curiouser and curiouser." Flavia laughed, giving Rick a quick kiss.

TBC