[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

Lord Earnur Etceteron, Laird of Dun Sóbrin, Master of the Dim Bar, Warden of the Oddly Shaped Disputed Bit and Knight of the Order of the Gilded Hedgehog, was engaged in vital affairs of state. At times such as this, with the soiled linen beneath his hands and the cold water of a virgin spring rippling over his manly laundry, he felt truly at one with nature, and free from the trammels of the habitually served.

In other words, Earnur was putting a brave face on the fact that, with his valet far off in the mists of distant Dun Sóbrin and quietly looting his wine cellar, he was having to clean Entish vomit from his own shirts. He had long ago ceased to feel his hands, and his spare outfit was becoming distinctly moist as he reflected on his good fortune in being born into a profligate and dissipated aristocracy; and just how little this high birth really meant to a man drenched in sap-soaked chippings in the middle of the picturesque Wild.

As he slapped a recalcitrant pair of britches one last time against a freezing block of granite, he sighed manfully, and not for the first time he longed for a warming draught of Strangereeks' Celebrated Pheasant, now proscribed for its tendency to make him impersonate Queen Badtüthiel and her Fabulous Flying Felines, whose brand of inept acrobatics had so dismally failed to enthral him as a boy. Perhaps, he reflected, this was not so great a trial as various dignitaries had suggested.

At this moment, as he was preparing to make a start on some stubborn resin stains to his doublet, he was roused from his reverie by a cheery voice, which fell upon his mood rather as an avian bowel movement falls on an unsuspecting bridal party.

'Morning, Squire. Luvly day fer it, if I may make so bold.'

The speaker was the sort of jovial peasant who is normally described as 'the salt of the earth', or in other words someone whose over-liberal presence ruins one's meals, and who is unconscionably bad for the heart. Earnur was preparing to greet him in kind when he noticed something interesting about the man's demeanour: he was leading by a halter a team of four horses, which were yoked to a conveniently large cart. The noble and manly Lord therefore changed tack very slightly.

'Good morrow, goodman Carter! And what brings you forth so early on this fine morning?'

If the haulier was at all surprised by this unwarranted good cheer he made no sign, although some might have noted that his eyebrows knit slightly from the healthy paranoia of the solid yeoman.

'Business, my Lord. A carter's work is never done, so they say.'

A look passed between the mighty steed Pinkjin and the carter's team that suggested otherwise, but it went unnoticed by their respective masters.

'Have you time to spare for some words and a little food? We are in need of news in our camp.'

The carter thought for a few moments, weighing the pressing business of overcharging farmers for his services against the obvious wealth and stupidity of his new acquaintance. The thought of a second breakfast swiftly won him over and he followed our noble hero back to the meadow in which the Neutership had made its weary camp on the previous evening.

Greeted fairly by the companions, and somehow persuaded against reason that Chrysophylax Dives, scourge of small businessmen, posed no immediate danger, the jolly countryman accepted a beaker full of the warm South (in the form of some 'rare herbal tea') and was soon conversing cheerfully about his love of games of chance. So it was that Kuruharan the Dwarf never finished brushing his beard, and that soon our valiant friends were under way once more, the mighty Thighs now lashed firmly to a sturdy wagon. Behind them, naked but for a shirt too filthy even to be sold as a herbal poultice, a simple country fellow sat and counted the jellyfish that sported between the roseate clouds of Dawn, lamenting the kindness of strangers in language only truly mastered by honest sons of the soil.

With constitutions as weak as ever the Thighs continued to emit clouds of sawdust and globs of resin, but in their cart-bound state these failed to bring about any further random acts of laundry. The company rode forth in triumph into a brave new Wold in a glorious dearth of epic verse.

[ October 03, 2003: Message edited by: The Squatter of Amon Rûdh ]