Chapter 14)
"Ned!" Asrai hurried down the stairs. "Ned! Oooph!" She crashed right into him as he came backstage.
"Asrai, dear girl if you wish to throw yourself into my arms, you needn't hurl me to the floor to do it." Ned said dryly as he steadied her.
"The scene you wanted." She was undaunted by his teasing. "Look." Slender fingers stained with ink thrust the pages at him.
"You've a better hand than Tredorian." Ned observed and began to read. Asrai recited in a pleading sweet voice.
"Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet near day;" She began and he smiled.
""It was the lark, the herald of the morn." He read and looked up. "This is more real than anything he's written in ages."
"Thank you Ned." Tredorian said dryly. "But the praise goes rightly to Asrai, for it was she began it in my brain."
Asrai grinned at him. "I can't wait until we perform. Only two more days and then we're onstage!"
"And you won't be afraid?" Ned inquired with a bit of concern. "Stage fright is terrible at times."
She looked up at him and smiled. "Ned, I'm more afraid to go to Court as myself. As Juliet, I am armored and armed 'gainst hostile arrows." She frowned. "Speaking of armor, what are we doing for costumes?"
"Oh, Peter has a stock of them, enough for us all, red for the Capulets and blue for the Montagues." Tredorian said absently. "Why does armor make you think of costumes?"
"Because a lady's gown is her best armor." Asrai made a face at him. "And I'd best get one, better than this, for what Sam has been wearing will not fit me."
Ned groaned. "I didn't even think of that." He gestured to the door. "Get you gone, you are excused from rehearsal. We'll have Sam play Juliet while Tredorian rehearses."
A nail bitten hand closed around the five gold pieces and Sam looked up at Tilney angrily. "I want her to go away." He said fiercely. "She knows you're looking for her, and she hides from you. But I heard her say she took your purse."
"You did then." Tilney stroked his beard. "Why didn't you come to me sooner with this information?" Sam shrugged uncomfortably and Tilney's resulting smile didn't quite reach his eyes. "Well she shall be arrested soon enough." He said with satisfaction. "Where can I find her now?"
"She'll be at the Rose, rehearsing." Sam told him. "I don't know where she lives though."
"I'll find her at the Rose." Tilney told him. "Never fear, I shan't utter a word about your help in this matter."
"Good, then I can have my part back if you put her in jail." Sam said in satisfaction. He nodded jauntily to the captain and hurried back to rehearsals.
Tilney smiled again as he looked after him and his expression was chilling. "And I shall have the thief, and no more worries about those damned players."
"Asrai, where's the gown?" Tredorian called as he saw her enter.
"Its too pale to wear now, it will get dirty." She called back. "So I'll wear this for our dress rehearsal." She grinned. "Look what I did." She showed him a bundle of parchment.
"Asrai…" Tredorian took the sheaf and beckoned to Ned. "Look."
"There's one for everybody." She said anxiously. "Even Master Fenneyman."
"You had it written out?" Henslowe asked as he took his copy. "For all of us?"
Her violet eyes looked around the circle of players. "It's my first play…I wanted to be able to remember."
"Asrai, you'll be remembering this play forever, as your first but not your last." Ned smiled as he looked over his pages.
As if to deny his words the doors crashed open. "In the Name of His Royal Majesty King Amon!" The posturing captain was back. Asrai froze, praying Ned's tall form would hide her until she could get away.
Tredorian walked forward glumly. "Here I am, arrest me." He offered his hands for the manacles. Tilney looked at him as if he were a madman.
"Tredorian…exactly what is he supposed to arrest you for?" Ned asked delicately.
"For causing the death of Nicholas Tooley." Tredorian's morose reply had Ned and the rest of the cast shaking their heads.
"If you'd bothered to stay and hear how he died you wouldn't blame yourself." Ned strode forward, revealing Asrai amidst the group of actors. "Nicholas got thrown out of a tavern, too drunk to stand, and he fell in a horse trough and drowned."
"You're joking." Tredorian said incredulously and when Ned shook his head with a sardonic smile the playwright threw his arms around Tilney in exultation. "Praise be to Selena, I'm free of it!"
"If you don't mind!" Tilney's dignity could not endure the madcap embrace. "By the authority vested in me by His Majesty King Amon, I take that thieving girl into custody!" A full dozen guards entered the theatre and started towards the stage.
"Captain Tilney what is this?" Henslowe started forward and was roughly pushed aside.
"I order this theatre closed! For harboring a fugitive from the King's justice. For lewdness and indecency in exposing a female on the stage." Tilney thundered. "Hand her over!"
"Hand who over?" Ned turned and gestured. Asrai was gone.
"Search the theatre! Find her! Find that thieving wench!" Captain Tilney roared.
Tredorian picked up the copies of the play Asrai had given them and looked at Ned. "I'm sorry Ned." He said quietly as the guards began rummaging through everything in sight. Smoke from the torches grew thicker and he coughed.
Ned shook his head in resignation. "Where do you suppose she's hiding this time?" He scanned the rafters and absently waved smoke out of his face.
Tredorian coughed again. "For her sake I hope someplace effective." He uttered the words and turned. "Henslowe, why did you buy such cheap torches, they're smoking worse than ever."
Henslowe turned towards him. "I didn't." His eyes grew huge and terrified. "Fire!"
Tredorian looked to where Henslowe was staring and uttered an awful curse. One of the guards had flung the curtain over a torch and ignited it.
Ned fortunately had the presence of mind to leap to the stage and shout with all the projective ability at his command. "Fire! Get out of the theatre! Fire! Fire!"
"Ned come on!" Edward grabbed him and Lambert collared Tredorian just as the writer would have run past them, forcing them both to leave the theatre.
"Tredorian are you mad!" Peter automatically took the armful of parchment Tredorian shoved at him. "You can't go back in there!"
"Asrai…" Tredorian shook his head. "Asrai must be in there still." He turned to Ned. "She's hiding in there Ned!"
The actor's swarthy face went deathly white. "Night's Tears." He began to move towards the theatre, not understanding why he couldn't move and cursing as Lambert and Fenneyman held him. Similarly Henslowe and Edward prevented Tredorian from returning to the theatre.
"Oh my poor Rose." Henslowe whispered sadly.
The Rose was destroyed, utterly and completely. Thanks to the efficiency of the fire brigade the blaze had not spread to the surrounding buildings but that was small consolation to the Admiral's Men. Ned and Tredorian had collapsed on a bench, finally too tired to protest the prevention of their attempted rescue.
Asrai wept, silently, hands grimy with dust and tar streaking her face as she tried to wipe away her tears. "Oh I'm so sorry Master Henslowe." She whispered. "I'm so sorry."
"Don't cry babe." A sultry voice said from behind her. "It will all turn out well."
Asrai turned and saw the dark haired girl from the brothel on the roof behind her. "How will it?" She sniffled as the girl came closer and slid an arm around her waist.
"I don't know, it's a mystery." Dark eyes smiled into hers.
"Its hopeless." Asrai looked down at the troupe of actors. "They think I died in there." She looked up at the girl. "They don't know about the window in the attic above Tredorian's loft. They don't know I got out onto the roof and to the next building before it went up in flames."
"Then you'd better find a way to let them know otherwise," Came the tart reply.
Asrai nodded absently and took a deep breath. 'Hear my words, whisper in your ear, know the truth.' She thought forcefully. Blowing cool air over her hand as if to blow a kiss she looked down at Ned and Tredorian.
"Do not mourn…I live my friends." Tredorian nearly jumped off the bench in shock at Asrai's voice in his ear. Beside him Ned stared in amazement, looking around the street.
"Where is she?" The actor muttered and Tredorian shook his head in confusion.
"The roof above…the roof next to the Rose." The whisper told them. "I escaped. I live. Do not mourn me."
Henslowe stopped in front of them, Fenneyman nearly draped across his shoulders. "Come, we've a funeral to plan." The owner of the deceased Rose said hollowly.
"Yes." Tredorian murmured, looking at Tilney who was commanding the crowd to disperse. "Gather up the Men. I've news of Asrai."
Fenneyman stared at him and Henslowe blinked. "What?"
"Quietly, quietly." Ned hissed. "She lives, but is in hiding. So there was only the death of the Rose. For that we will mourn."
"Aye." Henslowe agreed.
Peter silently handed Tredorian and Ned their copies of the play, the gifts Tredorian had unthinkingly rescued. "Keepsakes." He said solemnly. "The greatest play unperformed."
"I would have been good." Fenneyman declared to Ralph. "I would have been great."
"We both would." Ralph agreed in dolorous tones. He looked around at the rest of the company. In spite of the good news that Asrai was alive, the Rose was still ash and they were without a theatre for the play. Sam was drinking like he was trying to drown in ale and Henslowe was almost weeping into his mug.
The door behind Ralph opened and Henslowe groaned. "It wanted only this." He looked up at Burbage who had come to stand at the head of the table. "Come to gloat have you?"
"Lambert!" Fenneyman shouted in drunkenly slurred tones. "Kill 'im."
Burbage shook his head and miraculously Lambert held off. "Time enough for that later." He said seriously. Something in the solemnity of his voice captured the attention of the melancholy company and they looked at him. "All the nobility despises us as vagrants, tinkers and peddlers of bombast. But the Royal family has long given support to the theatre, understanding that we draw from poets the literature of the age. We must let the rest of Cormyr know, we are men of parts. We are a brotherhood and will be a profession. Tredorian has a play. I have a theatre. The Curtain is yours."
Henslowe could be seen wiping a tear from his eye. The actors sat dumbfounded, their faces a study of pleased shock. Slowly here and there smiles grew upon the faces of the Admiral's Men. All was not lost after all.
"This is where you're living babe?" Asrai turned at her new friends exclamation. "It's hardly big enough to turn around in." After trailing the Admiral's men to the tavern and hearing of Burbage's offer, the princess had led her friend to her room.
Asrai shrugged. "I know. But I was hardly here at all. I just needed a safe place to sleep." She reached under the bed and pulled out her backpack. "By the way, what is your name?"
"Faith." She absently tugged at the laces of her cannons. "Ask you a question babe?"
"Uh huh?" Asrai was digging in her pack, ignoring the lovely white and gold dress hanging on the back of her door.
"How much kissing have you done?" Faith flopped onto her stomach across Asrai's narrow bed.
Asrai blushed looking up at her. "If you don't count stage kisses." She looked down again, "Just you."
"So you're a virgin?"
Asrai turned even pinker. "I haven't had much choice, and the thought of…well of a man touching me…" She shrugged.
"You don't like it?" Faith asked curiously.
"I don't know. It makes me nervous." Asrai admitted. "Tredorian kissed me onstage." She said candidly. "I liked that a lot, but…"
"But?"
"I didn't really feel like I wanted more than kisses." The princess blurted out. "I've overheard my brothers and sisters talking and I know there's more to it, more feelings at least. Maybe something's wrong with me, but I didn't feel what they were talking about when Tredorian kissed me."
"Did you with me?" Faith reached out and touched Asrai's hair.
"When you kissed me it felt as if my knees would buckle and I thought my stomach was on fire." Asrai told her wryly. "But you kissed me more than Tredorian did."
"Well I could tell you were pretty young yet." Faith smiled. "How old are you?"
"Thirteen." Asrai made a face. "What about you?"
"Fourteen." Faith shrugged. "But I'm mostly human. You've got elf blood so that makes a difference doesn't it?"
"Momma says so. But when she was fourteen she was…" Asrai shook her head. "Momma is special." She smiled and shrugged, unwilling to share her mother's past with Faith, new friend or not.
"So why don't you come and cuddle with me and we'll kiss a bit and you can tell me all about your play." Faith suggested.
Asrai's face crumpled into tears. "I'm not even going to be in it now." She sobbed.
Faith's face grew alarmed and she tugged the girl up next to her. "Oh now don't cry babe." She coaxed. "We can at least go and see it."
"I guess so." Asrai sniffled. "I just really want to be an actress and that was my only chance."
"Why?" Faith asked. "Why not just wait for the next play? Or go to Waterdeep or New Beregost to one of their theatres?" Her father would kill her if he heard what she was saying Faith thought wryly, but she didn't think Asrai really wanted to leave Cormyr or she would have already.
"I really miss my family." Asrai sniffled now, suddenly overwhelmingly homesick. "I was only going to hide until I was in the play, and could show them I could act. I don't want to hide from them forever. They'll be worried. I mean, I know they can tell I'm all right, safe I mean, but they don't know where I am and Momma and Poppa are really protective of me."
"Why do you think they know you're safe?" Faith asked curiously, her hand absently stroking the gold curls.
"I don't know. I can just feel it. I think they're worried but I don't feel them frantic, panicking worried." Asrai frowned trying to put it into words. "I really miss them. Momma and I would have breakfast in the morning and she'd ask what I was going to do that day. Poppa would come and practice swordplay with me. I'd study and do my chores." She shrugged. "And I miss my older brothers and sisters." She sighed.
Faith looked at her. "Well then after the play go home. Why be unhappy?"
Asrai shrugged. "I may as well. I'll have to convince them I can act some other way. Either that or just…I don't know, give up and marry whoever they pick out for me."
"At thirteen?" Faith snorted. "Right."
Asrai grimaced. "All right so I'm exaggerating, but that's what it feels like sometimes. " She flopped back onto the bed. "The play won't start until the fourth bell after noon tomorrow."
Faith grinned, "Whatever shall we do to pass the time?" To her delight Asrai blushed and Faith lay down beside her, and snuggled Asrai in close. "Don't worry baby, we're just going to kiss and cuddle and sleep." She kissed the tip of Asrai's nose and was rewarded with a giggle.