With which he strangled
Her-oh sorrow!”
The ‘oh sorrow’ declamation was intended to be echoed by the enraptured audience, and would mark the closure of each stanza. Alas, no one was in a ready state to participate, and isn’t it curious how laughter and weeping could be so easily confused? Savagely, Brash Phluster plucked a string and pressed on.
“But was the daughter truly dead?
What terrible secret did King Gling
Her father possess
There in his tower
At the very heart
Of the world’s greatest kingdom?
But no, he was a king
Without any terrible secrets,
For his daughter had been
Stolen, and lovely she was,
The princess whose name was…
Missingla
And this is her tale known to all
As Missingla’s Tale
Beloved daughter of King Gling and
Queen Longhair,
A princess in her own right
Was Missingla of the shapely shoulders
Royal her eye lashes
A jeweled crown her sweet lips”
Oh dear, I just added those two lines. I could not help it, and so I do urge their disregard.
“Was Missingla of the shapely shoulders
Stolen by the king in the kingdom
Beyond the mountains between the lake
In the Desert of Death
Where almost nothing lived
Or could hope to live
Even should we live in hope”
Ah, and again.
“and this king his name was…Lope
Who bore a sword twice as tall as he
And the armour of an ogre made of stone
And cruel was his face, evil his eyes,
As he swam the lake at night
To scale the tower to steal her away
Missingla-oh sorrow!”
The Entourage cried, “Oh sorrow!” and even Purse Snippet smiled over her secretive cup of tea.
But she was waiting oh yes, for
Cruel and evil as he was, so too rich
Beyond all measure ruling the world’s
Richest kingdom beyond the mountains
And so not stolen at all, sweet daughter
No! Missingla Lope they swam away!
In the chaos that ensued, Brash thrashed at the strings of the lyre until one broke, the taut gut snapping up to catch him in the left eye. Steck’s crossbow, cursed with a nervous trigger, accidentally released, driving the quarrel through the hunter’s right foot, pinning it to the ground. Purse sprayed a startlingly flammable mouthful of tea into the fire, and in the flare-up Apto flung himself backward with singed eyebrows, rolling off the stone he’d been perched on and slamming his head into a cactus. The host’s hands waved frantically since he could no longer breathe. The Entourage was in a groping tangle and somewhere beneath it was Nifty Gum. Tulgord Vise and Arpo Relent were scowling and frowning respectively. Of Tiny Chanter, only the soles of his boots were visible. Midge suddenly stood and said to Flea, “I pissed myself.”
By this extraordinary performance Brash Phluster survived the twenty-third night and so would live through the twenty-fourth night and the following day. And as he opened his mouth to announce that he wasn’t yet finished, why, I did clamp my hand over the offending utterance, stifling it in the rabbit hole. Mercy knows a thousand guises, say you not?
Madness, you say? That I should so boldly aver Brash Phluster’s suicidal desire to further skin himself? But while confidence is a strange creature, it is no stranger to me. I know well its pluck and princeps. It bears no stretch of perception to note my certain flair in the proceeding of this tale, for here I am, ancient of ways, and yet still alive. Ah, but perhaps I deceive you all with this retroactive posture of assuredness. A fair point, were it not for the fact of its error in every regard. To explain, I possessed even then the quiet man’s stake, a banner embedded deep in solid rock, the pennants ever calm no matter how savage the raging storms of worldly straits. It is this impervious nature that has served me so well. That and my natural brevity with respect to modesty.