Once upon a time there was a wandering minstrel called
Jake von der Yate and he sang a song of how King Alan once had slain a dragon and
bathed in the blood that it shed, but a leaf from a rowan tree fell on his back,
which made this spot weak and vulnerable, while the rest of him could not be
touched.
Jake sang again of how Alan arrived at the court of Paul,
who was lonely because he desired a fierce warrior maiden called Nancy, but he
was scared because Nancy set each of her suitors a set of tasks and if Paul failed,
he would die.
But Alan had a cloak that made him invisible or change
into any shape he wanted, and he used it to pretend to be Paul when he defeated
Nancy in each of the tasks and he used it again when Paul found that he could
not subdue his warrior maiden on their wedding night and Alan had to take his
place.
There were two queens in the court now, Nancy and Alan’s
wife Mona. One day on the way to church after Alan had abdicated Nancy told
Mona to walk behind her because Alan was a vassal. Mona refused. She had been
queen when Nancy had been but a little girl.
Now that Nancy was queen Alan was no longer welcome at
court. Nancy removed him from her speed dial, but she was jealous not only
because the peasants loved Alan more than her, but because Mona had shown her the
ring and the belt that Alan had taken from Nancy when he pretended to be Paul
on their wedding night.
Nancy wanted revenge. She sends Ivan the Swine to find
out where Alan is vulnerable, and he tricked Mona into revealing the spot on
Alan’s back.
Jake continued to sing of how Ivan the Swine threw a spear
but despite ten witnesses telling Nancy that Alan was doomed and dead and
justly so because he hadn’t asked her permission, somehow Alan’s love of stroking
cats had turned him into a pussy and this was only the first of the lives that
he had lost.
Alan and Mona swore revenge but were sent into exile
to Albania and there just weren’t enough Albanians to challenge the power of
Queen Nancy and King Paul.
But Jake had become famous with his song and had
earned more than any other minstrel not only in this kingdom but in any other
kingdom. Jake was richer than Queen Nancy and in fact there was only one person
richer in the kingdom than Jake and that was Agnes Grey.
Agnes had seen that the various sacred wells in the kingdom
were distant from each other and when people had far to go, they needed
transport. They also needed protection from marauding blue skins with woad and
pictures on their skin. They had defeated legions, but they didn’t defeat Agnes
who coached her actors on the stage that the show must always go on and the
wells must be reached no matter how far to go.
Nancy began to have portraits painted where she resembled
various saints. She liked to think of herself as blessed even virginal despite
the loss of her ring and belt whether at the hands of Paul or Alan. It was
right and proper that she should be painted in front of a shape that resembled
a halo, after all she did have a halo. Hadn’t she saved the kingdom from the
plague of covetousness, even if she had sometimes coveted herself a litter with
slaves that would make a nice home when on the move, or some jewellery made by
Orcs costing a thousand ducats for one necklace, or a house in Lusitania that
was guaranteed not to sink no matter what because it was on dry land and had
been paid for by peasants.
But what Nancy really coveted was to turn water into
wine and so she decreed that Nancy could become Nathan and Paul could become
Paula and there was no need for a doctor to say anything about the transition,
because no doctor had said water couldn’t be turned into wine and if He could perform
miracles so could She.
But both Jake and Agnes could see the problem with
allowing Nancy to become a boy. If you went into Marx and Sverdlovsk to buy a
dress, you didn’t want to have Paul in the same changing room just because he
now said he was Paula. The Pen Is mightier than the sword, but it is still a
sword after all if not a spear if it is long enough.
There was something of a turf war. Jake had allowed
some young singers to sing his story called those who were nibbling lied. But
they had all turned against Jake and condemned him for standing on the same old
turf and not being willing to believe in miracles.
When Jake read about a “Pen Is mightier than the sword”
being allowed to mix with poor maidens held in the castle dungeon, he sang a
new song to Agnes. Nancy must be stopped.
Both Jake and Agnes decided to give a sum of ducats (quadrillions)
that was more than anyone in the kingdom could count to discover all that they
could about Nancy.
Nancy took revenge on Agnes by telling lies about her,
but it was too late, the investigation was beginning and with the ducats that
they had spent Jake and Agnes could hire Shylock at home, Hercules the Parrot
and Nancy drew the conclusion that it was time to abdicate.
Nancy thought that the Heddlu were all ruled by her
and anyway Ivan the Swine had hidden the treasure obtained by nibbling the peasants
in the Rhine. But he lied. He thought it wasn’t necessary to go so far and decided
there was nowhere as Bonnie as roaming in the gloaming with a lassie by his
side.
The Head Loo were able to flush Bonnie and guess what
they found in the Rhine.
Paul had singing lessons from the Head Loo and they being
from a nation of singers his singing improved so much that he began to sound
like a canary. But there was someone who could Beat even He. Ivan the Swine had
told the one who beat he who could not be beaten where the nibbling treasure
was hidden. He had ordered the treasure to be sunk so deep that even the Head
Loo could not flush it out.
But the Head Loo wasn’t merely a Head Loo it was from Cymru,
and bonnie banks were no challenge whatsoever for a flush that could put out
Brecon Beacons in a second.
“Should I stay or should I go now” sang Nancy.
“If I go there will be trouble
And if I stay it will be double”
She gathered her slaves and her mobile litter and set
off for Albania. She would plead for help from King Alan. After all wasn’t he
her first love.
King Alan was now a blue nose due to dipping it in woad.
At ill a moment as it is possible to imagine Ivan the Swine chose to steal Alan’s
child which both he and Mona had received unexpectedly at an unreasonably old
age. The Head Loo discover the child’s missing head just as they discovered the
nibbling treasure missing the treasure. It’s been converted into a solid gold
litter. It’s literally under her.
The Never Even Consulted along with Ivan the Swine and
Nancy retreat all under one banner to the hall of the Huns.
Jake von der Yate plays his fiddle as the hall is set
alight. Pieces of the ceiling come close to her and she asks King Hārūn to
shield her from the fiery debris, but he is as useless with his shield as he is
with his sword.
It’s over. It’s twilight of the Gods for Nancy and the
Never Even Consulted. It’s goats damn the rungs because they cannot climb the
ladder.
Jake plays a tune by Todd Siegfried Wagoner on his fiddle and Agnes coaches him to play still sweeter in their victory as the flames envelop Nancy and all she strove for turns to ashes.
