Once upon a time Queen Nancy decided to abdicate. She
wanted to have a more private life. She was sick of all the completely untrue
rumours about 600,000 ducats and the Gaulish ambassador Saffatrix. There were
other rumours that had not as far as she was aware reached her subjects, but
she would make sure that these rumours were never rumoured about by appointing
loyal Prince Hārūn to the throne.
A little while later King Paul also decided to
abdicate. But it had nothing to do with the abdication of Queen Nancy. Despite
living in the same castle Queen Nancy never knew anything about what King Paul
said or did and he knew even less. Of course, rumours that they were not a
happily married couple were obviously false like all of the other rumours in
the kingdom. Happily married couples did not have to talk to each other after
all and might go for weeks without even meeting.
King Paul apparently resigned after it became clear
that there were rather less voters in the contest to be next King or Queen than
he had supposed. You see King Paul knew that it didn’t matter how many voters
there would be as he and Nancy had already decided that Hārūn was going to win.
After all, Hārūn’s loyalty would be necessary to keep a lid on all those
rumours that were not true and to make sure that Nancy had as much anonymity as
possible.
King Paul’s resignation had absolutely nothing to do
with the 600,000 ducats that the peasant subjects had donated so that the
Kingdom could escape the vile clutches of Sasainn. But neither Nancy nor Paul intended
to actually cease to be vassals of Sasainn because if it wasn’t for the net
cast over the bar in Sasainn they knew that they would not have 6 ducats to rub
together let alone 600,000.
But the peasants hated Sasainn and the Sasainners and
couldn’t bear the idea that people they hated gave them lots of money. So, Nancy
and Paul carefully pretended that they were on the verge of leaving, but never
actually left because they didn’t want to.
This was why Prince Hārūn had to win. He would keep
the kingdom poor enough to always deserve the Sasainn ducats. Princess Cordelia
actually intended to make the peasants work and to cut spending. That would
never do because then the kingdom actually could leave Sasainn. While foolish
Princess Regan thought the kingdom could leave and not notice the loss of the
ducats.
King Hārūn was duly elected by Paul and Nancy making some
phone calls to the company they employed to count the votes, which was in fact
a subsidiary of piscis enterprises a wholly owned subsidiary of Paul and Nancy.
King Hārūn didn’t know why Queen Nancy had abdicated. He
did not know why King Paul had abdicated and none of them knew anything about
the 600,000 ducats, which had nothing to do with anything as they were a
figment of the imagination of the peasants who had donated them, for a cause
that was illusory that would lead to nothing ever happening anyway. The ducats were
mere rumours, that had been more usefully spent on golden bidets which made the
experience of ablutions more pleasant for Nancy and Paul however they were
identifying on any particular day.
Although neither Paul nor Nancy knew anything about
the investigations into the ducats, the topic had cropped up in conversation
with Agnes Grey and Barry Simmonds who used to like Paul and Nancy and even Hārūn
but had found Nancy less than generous with the heddlu (head loo) which was
connected to the bidets.
Paul and Nancy used the heddlus to dispose of quite a
lot of paper some of which did not dissolve easily. They also took advantage of
a barbecue to burn whichever parts of their waste remained after observing it
in the palace cess pool and septic tank. Some of the neighbours thought the
smell emanating from the palace resembled Nancy, others thought it resembled
Paul and others still thought it resembled Hārūn, but Nancy always blamed
either Iar ministear or else said it was due to some rotten salmon that they
could smell but not locate.
But the heddlu arrived and searched in the head loos
and they searched in the barbecue, and they searched in the castle grounds.
King Hārūn thought it was a bad day, but didn’t know
anything, but former Queen Nancy thought if he hadn’t spent so much time demonstrating
how virtuous he was by praying and if he had shown a bit more hunger for
keeping the lid on things rather than not eating all day then the heddlu may
never have come to the castle at all, which rather defeated the purpose of his
being elected/appointed.
Meanwhile former King Alan was writing to his friends,
Romans and countrymen.
"Folk
should be asking the heddlu questions"
"Good time to be pressurising them.”"
"The more fronts he is having to firefight on the
better."
Someone described it as being “Hoist with his own
petard” but no one quite knew what a petard was. Some kind of bomb, but how did
you hoist it?
Fortunately, former King Paul was soon back at home.
The heddlu still worked fine and the golden bidets were untouched. What an
excellent hiding place thought Paul. No one would believe that they were really
gold. That would be too vulgar.
But why was former King Alan so intent to reuse some
words that had once been used about him? After all they had always been such friends
when they had been a sort of threesome and occasionally a twosome. Where had it
all gone wrong in the Butter Palace, so that such close friends had fallen out
and had each done their best to destroy the other? Something had gone wrong with
the lubrication of somewhere or other.
But you missed said King Alan.
And you will strike the very first blow
and strike it like a man
I will strike the very
next blow and I'll kill you if I can
So Paul struck the very
first blow and he hurt King Alan sore
King Alan struck the very
next blow and Paulie struck no more
