Thursday 5 February 2009

The King Is Dead, Long Live The Squire – A Regal Romp (Part The Second)


Part The Second – A Deal Is Struck


"I need someone I can trust on this, brother," said the younger one. I looked him squarely in the eye.

"And yet you came to me?" My steely gaze bored into his own. The traditional sibling game of stare wrestling commenced, neither of us giving an unblinking inch. The ancient Kirkian art of battle staring is well-documented throughout the world and can lead to blindness, insanity and, in some cases, sartorial inelegance in a lesser mind. Fortunately, we had both been tutored from birth in the antediluvian ways of the glare and were eighth-level masters in lethal eye-balling. Eventually, though, as is always the way, seniority won through and the younger was forced to beat a visual retreat.

"Alright," conceded he, "if you want the truth, I have concrete proof of what happened between you, the nun, the toboggan and the bucket of soapy frogs and I'm not afraid to take it to a certain Inspector "Sleddy" Edgars if you don't help me."

Being of a generous nature and always ready to leap into action to further the bonds of familial closeness, I magnanimously agreed to lend my not inconsiderable intellect to his assistance.

"We're having a spot of bother with the Welsh," said The Younger, "and we need someone... sympathetic to go in and help sort it out for us. All on the hush hush, you understand, of course"

"What sort of bother? Shortage of new sheep for the locals? Sudden inexplicable growth spurt and lengthening of the face?", enquired I.

"Worse than that, old sock. The choral little blighters have declared themselves independent and set up themselves up as a separate sovereignty. Can't have that sort of thing obviously, bad for the Empire and all that guff. So, basically, we intend to go in on the quiet, gently assassinate their new king and set you up as a sort of puppet leader. You get to lord it about a bit – nice palace, hot and cold running girls, so on and so forth – and all you need to do is whatever we tell you to do every now and then. Couldn't be simpler." He sat back with an expectant expression upon his somewhat-less-noble face.

"So what you're proposing, oh brother mine, is that I simply swan in, get all the benefits of swaggering about like a king but you'll do all the actual work and I just have to give the orders?"

"In, as they say, a right royal nutshell," confirmed the more youthful sibling.

Well, what else could I do? With a smile on my face and a hand outstretched, I sealed the deal that was to be quite possibly one of the worst mistakes I would ever make...


To Be Expanded

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