In summary, the Prince, Percy, Red Riding Hood and their new acquaintance the Warlock had arrived in the Kingdom of the Evil Queen with plans to overthrow her and thwart her scheme to enslave the entire Realm. The Warlock had teleported himself and the Prince into the Evil Queen’s private quarters (not a euphemism) to take the Golden Goose and the Lamp containing the Genie. They had been successful until they were caught by the Castle guards and taken down to be confronted by the Evil Queen who already was interviewing Archie in the guise of the Tailor.
Archie, you see, had himself also been caught searching for the desired items. Unlike the Prince and the Warlock, he had haplessly missed spotting the Lamp perched on the Evil Queen’s dressing table and had instead taken to rummaging through her knicker drawer and, during his second attempt, her dirty linen basket. His rather tenuous defence was that he suffered from sleep walking.
Safe to say, Archie and the Prince were surprised to be reunited in the Evil Queen’s court.
“My dear Prince!” the Evil Queen cackled. “What were you doing in my private quarters?”
“Excuse me?”
“My private quarters! What were you doing in them?”
“My dear woman!” protested the Prince. “I don’t know what you are insinuating but I have never even so much as seen them and resent the allegation!”
“You were caught red handed?”
“Red handed?” the Prince was red faced.
“Just now!”
“Oh…your bedroom?”
“Yes, what did you think I was referring to?”
“Best not go there,” said the Prince. “Anyway, we were taking back what are not rightfully yours! The Golden Goose and the Genie in the Lamp!”
“This is true Your Majesty,” said the guard to the Prince’s left. “We found both items about his person.”
“Right!” she glared at the Prince before doing likewise to Archie. “Hang on? There seems to be a trend here!”
“A trend?” Archie stammered.
“First you go into my private quarters…”
“The filthy swine,” said the Prince.
“To go through the Royal knicker drawer! Claiming you are sleepwalking!” she eyed him suspiciously.
“Sleepwalking?” the Prince rolled his eyes at Archie. “Was that the best you could come up with?”
“Then, under the same pretence,” continued the Evil Queen. “You are found rummaging through my dirty linen basket?”
“You did what?” the Prince regarded Archie in disgust.
“Next, along you come,” the Evil Queen pointed at the Prince. “And you are targeting my private quarters!”
“I wouldn’t quite put it like that,” said the Prince.
“I would!” she spat. “You’ve given them quite the going over!”
“I must protest…”
“Giving me this ridiculous excuse that you were after the Golden Goose and the the Lamp with the Genie? Well I think we all know what is going on here!”
“Do we?”
“Yes!” the Evil Queen played with her hair. “Gentlemen, you should have just asked.”
“What?” exclaimed both Archie and the Prince.
“I realize that I have a powerful effect on the opposite sex,” she nodded. “A seductive almost hypnotic one. I don’t blame you for being susceptible, you are only human after all. I suppose you were nervous, in awe probably, hence this skulking about in my private quarters clearly trying to grab yourselves some souvenirs or mementos.”
“Oh sod this!” cried the Prince. “I’m not going to stand for being labelled as a creepy fan boy of yours! We were literally trying to take back the Golden Goose and the Genie in the Lamp. Full stop!”
“The boy doth protest too much,” the Evil Queen pouted.
“Listen to me you old haddock! We were here to steal the items and defeat you. Why he,” he pointed at Archie. “Was so preoccupied with your knicker drawer and dirty linen is a mystery…but he was searching them both with the same aim. To turn those magical items against you!”
“You fool!” she roared. “You could have been my husband but now you insult me!”
“Yep.”
“I see,” she said before focusing on the Warlock. “And who is this strange looking old man?”
“Be careful old chap,” the Prince murmured to him. “She tends to line up any man she encounters as husband material.”
“I am rather surprised she doesn’t recognize me?” the Warlock crossed his arms with a knowing look.
“Recognize you?” the Evil Queen squinted at him. “Why should I recognize you?”
“This is where promiscuity gets you,” remarked the Prince.
“You really don’t recognize me, do you?” the Warlock looked her up and down. “I look my age admittedly. An old man, past his best. You, meanwhile, seem to be trying to resist the ageing process?”
“Why, thank you!”
“I said ‘trying’. What’s wrong with you woman?” the Warlock cried. “Can’t you grow old gracefully like the rest of us?”
“How dare you!” the Evil Queen raged. “I am nowhere near as old as you, you wizened old fool!”
“Of course you are!” the Warlock snorted. “In fact you are older than me!”
“What?”
“By about ten minutes,” the Warlock suddenly looked crafty.
“What?” the Evil Queen was trembling.
“I think that was the difference between us being delivered from our mother? Correct me if I am wrong?”
“What are you talking about you senile old git?”
“Now, now, that is no way to address your own twin brother.”
There was a loud gasp in the court. Well, there would have been if it had contained more people than just the Prince, the Evil Queen, Archie, the Warlock and two guards.
“What?”
“You see magic is in the blood,” explained the Warlock. “But it can be two types of magic. The sinister and damaging witchcraft that my sister practices or the spells which I have cast all my life, designed not to harm anyone unless they deserve it.”
“You are related?” the Prince looked at both, probably missing the resemblance due to the hefty amount of Botox and make-up the Evil Queen had employed.
“I had a brother,” nodded the Evil Queen. “But he died years ago!”
“No sister, I did not. I merely went into hiding. For, while you used your powers to obtain a Kingdom and try murdering Snow White, I realized how dangerous our gift could be.”
The Prince regarded the Warlock in surprise. This was certainly a very different fellow from the one who had got blind drunk and invited anyone nearby to have a ride on his dubious broomstick.
“You are a charlatan!” insisted the Evil Queen. “A liar! There’s no way you are my brother!”
“How did we get into your heavily guarded Castle?” he smiled as he produced his hip flask and took a big gulp of brandy.
“Either the guards must have been distracted or you disguised yourselves?”
“No,” he grinned, taking another sip of brandy. “You see your magic is okay I suppose. Mediocre at best. But my magic is far superior. We teleported in.”
“Teleported in?” the Evil Queen shivered in fear for a moment before suddenly becoming dismissive. “What ancient conjuring trick is this?”
“One you are incapable of,” the Warlock said proudly.
“So what?” the Evil Queen laughed to herself. “What are you going to do?”
The Warlock regrettably drank more from his hip flask.
“I will tell you what I am going to do!” he declared.
It had been going so well. Which was probably the first clue that things would descend into a fiasco somewhere along the line.
Yet now as the Prince, Archie and the Warlock sat in the dungeon of the Evil Queen’s Castle, morale was rather low.
“Why did you get drunk?” the Prince inquired of the Warlock. “You were really nailing it until then.”
“Yes, things rather went wrong didn’t they?”
“Too bleeding right they did. You got your magic but shrivelled and flaccid wand out and within minutes we’d been shut in here by her guards!”
“Yes, they were most objectionable!”
“Funny what indecent exposure brings about,” the Prince said before wincing as the Warlock drank more from his hip flask.
“Why can’t we do that thing you spoke about?” asked Archie. “The transpunting thing?”
“Do you mean teleporting?” the Prince asked.
“Oh yes that.”
“Warlock?”
“Oh no dear fellow,” he said before a hiccup. “I’m two sheets to the wind! No chance of that now!”
“Excellent.”
“Does this mean you can’t turn me back?” asked Archie hopefully.
“No!”
“Well every cloud…the Evil Queen would go spare if she saw who I really was!”
“So to sum up,” the Prince sighed. “We got into this Castle, had the Golden Goose and the Lamp containing the Genie and basically the Evil Queen at our mercy?”
“Yes,” said the Warlock.
“Whereby we discover the mad old bat is your sister and then you get drunk and we wind up captured?”
“That’s it!” the Warlock said cheerfully before sipping from his hip flask.
“No wonder the guards let you keep that,” the Prince tutted.
“So what are we going to do?” began Archie. “Why did you admit I was working with you? I had a fitting cover story to explain what I was doing in the Evil Queen’s private quarters!”
“Because I didn’t like her assumption that I was in some way sexually attracted to her!”
“There was no need to lump me in!” protested Archie. “Instead of being locked in here, I could still be working to take the Golden Goose and the Lamp! My cover story was flawless!”
“Yes,” the Prince turned to him. “Your cover story? I meant to speak to you about that!”
“Impressed aren’t you?”
“Not really no! Your cunning reason for being in the Evil Queen’s private quarters and rifling through her knicker drawer appears to have been based on you sleepwalking while having a preoccupation with her pants?”
“Yes!” he replied proudly. “Brilliant hey?”
“I’m surprised she didn’t already have you imprisoned for sexual deviancy! Really Archie, couldn’t you have come up with something less weird?”
Outside the Castle of the Evil Queen were Percy and Red Riding Hood, waiting nervously.
“Surely they should be back by now?” wondered Red Riding Hood. “I mean all it took was for them to teleport to the right place, find the items and then teleport back here? They’ve been gone hours!”
“Yes,” agreed Percy. “Although I would have expected, if there was any trouble, the Warlock could have got them out of it and they would be back here with or without the Golden Goose and the Lamp.”
“What do you think might have happened?”
“Well…” Percy stamped his front hooves in the turf. “You see Red Riding Hood, there are two factors that could well have scuppered their mission.”
“Like?”
“I say factors, I mean men. Firstly, the Warlock.”
“Oh, but he seemed to get the teleporting right, eventually?”
“Yes but if our time with him on the road was anything to go by, he’s not the most reliable chap.”
“Is he dishonest?”
“Dishonest might be harsh. I was thinking more ‘a loose cannon on deck’.”
“Oh,” she frowned. “And who was the other problem?”
“Archie.”
“Really?”
“You see,” explained Percy. “You don’t know Archie as well as I do and therefore have been fortunate enough not to be exposed to his full stupidity, treachery or cowardice. I fear them not returning might be down to him. Or just the pair of them. Either way, the Prince could well be held captive or worse. Therefore we need to come up with a plan for getting in there.”
“It was a shame you had to chuck the Tailor in a cell,” the Mirror said to the Evil Queen as she sat on the throne in her court. “Which reminds me?”
“What?”
“I thought the Tailor was meant to be some ferocious strongman and warrior?”
“Yes?”
“Well as the guards took him away to the cell with the other two, I didn’t see any signs of that? Did you?”
“I suppose not,” the Evil Queen said thoughtfully.
“No. Not unless most fearsome fighters usually start weeping and wet themselves in the face of adversity?”
“No, now you come to mention it, that was strange,” agreed the Evil Queen. “The story I was told included him scaring a Giant with his strength. Therefore, he should have been able to overcome a couple of my guards?”
“And why was he working in league with the Prince?”
“I know what it is!” declared the Evil Queen. “As I said, they have obviously colluded to try wooing me!”
“Really?”
“Yes!” she insisted. “There can be no other explanation!”
“Clearly not.”
“I always manage to underestimate the effect I have on the opposite sex,” she rolled her eyes. “The poor fellows are beside themselves.”
“I would really like to spend a day in your head,” said the Mirror. “I’m sure there would be space.”
“You see!” the Evil Queen rambled on. “That’s why the Tailor didn’t resist! He was clearly obsessed with me…”
“And the contents of your dirty linen basket…”
“No, now you come to mention it, that was strange,” agreed the Evil Queen. “The story I was told included him scaring a Giant with his strength. Therefore, he should have been able to overcome a couple of my guards?”
“And why was he working in league with the Prince?”
“I know what it is!” declared the Evil Queen. “As I said, they have obviously colluded to try wooing me!”
“Really?”
“Yes!” she insisted. “There can be no other explanation!”
“Clearly not.”
“I always manage to underestimate the effect I have on the opposite sex,” she rolled her eyes. “The poor fellows are beside themselves.”
“I would really like to spend a day in your head,” said the Mirror. “I’m sure there would be space.”
“You see!” the Evil Queen rambled on. “That’s why the Tailor didn’t resist! He was clearly obsessed with me…”
“And the contents of your dirty linen basket…”
“Maybe I should consider one of them for my husband?” wondered the Evil Queen. “I’ve not had adequate male companionship since the Giant was living here. Although I barely got any sleep.”
“Neither did the servants.”
“What were they doing?” she exclaimed.
“Being traumatized.”
“Whatever…”
“Anyway, you said you were thinking of one of your prisoners as a husband?” the Mirror said in exasperation. “I thought you were lining up Dick?”
“I was…”
“Well, technically you still are.”
“I’m not so sure about him anymore,” she said with a look of disdain. “I need a real man. Not an adolescent who keeps reminiscing about his pussy.”
“I think the cat double entendre has run its course,” said the Mirror.
Whether it has or hasn’t, it didn’t prevent Dick Whittington from entering the court at precisely that moment.
“Hello,” the Evil Queen looked at him tiresomely.
“Hello,” he replied sullenly. “I thought you were going to get that Tailor fellow to provide me with a new wardrobe?”
“Good luck with that!” remarked the Mirror.
“Yes, well,” the Evil Queen stammered. “We’ve run into a bit of trouble on that front.”
“What?”
“Yes, it would appear that, and I find this rather embarrassing, some of the men in this Kingdom find me irresistible.”
“Do they?” Dick Whittington failed to hide the surprise in his voice.
“Yes,” piped up the Mirror. “Do they? Really?”
“I think the facts speak for themselves,” said the Evil Queen. “Both the Prince and the Tailor have sought to get into this Palace to be near me and…my…”
“Under garments?” said the Mirror.
“They what?” Dick seemed confused by this. “Why do they want to be close to your knickers? Yuck!”
“You might understand when you grow up,” said the Evil Queen.
“Or not,” added the Mirror.
“Are you sure this will work?” Red Riding Hood wondered as she and Percy waited outside the carpenter’s workshop in the village near the Evil Queen’s Castle.
“Fairly,” he nodded as the sound of a hammer driving nails into wood could be heard inside. “She has a weakness. Vanity. She is obsessed with her looks from what I can tell. And furthermore, obsessed by male suitors. She is bound to fall for our subterfuge. Once inside the Castle, we can strike.”
The carpenter appeared from his workshop, wiping his sweaty forehead.
“Well, the boys and I have followed your design to the letter,” he addressed Red Riding Hood. “It’s nearly finished. We’ve never turned a bit of work round this quickly before!”
“You will be handsomely rewarded,” said Percy.
“Jolly good,” the carpenter froze. “Did that horse just speak?”
“Yes,” nodded Percy casually. “Never mind that. Will it be finished by nightfall?”
“Yes,” the carpenter said after a frown.
Half an hour later, the carpenter and his workmen wheeled out a most strange object from the workshop. It was a ten foot high phallic shaped one, constructed using wood and various nails and bolts. Around the back of it was a large door so that both Percy and Red Riding Hood tested that they could enter it together and stand inside. Once they were satisfied they could, Red Riding Hood paid the carpenter and they thanked them before going on their way, towing the structure along on its wheels using a rope.
“What are you calling this thing again?” asked a bemused Red Riding Hood.
“A Trojan penis,” said Percy without hesitation.
Half an hour later, they neared the Evil Queen’s Castle. Red Riding Hood went inside the object while Percy walked behind it, pushing it towards the Castle gates. As the guards were alerted to its presence, out of their sight, Percy hurriedly leaped inside the object and Red Riding Hood closed the back door.
“What the heck is that?” one of the guards cried.
They surrounded the wooden object.
“Hang on,” another one said. “There’s a note attached to it.”
“Your Majesty!” a guard appeared in the court of the Evil Queen.
“Yes?” she scowled.
“Something has been delivered for you at the gates.”
“Something? Flowers? Chocolates?”
“From your army of admirers I suppose,” the Mirror sighed.
“No, Your Majesty,” the guard replied. “A most strange item with a note addressed to yourself?”
“Read it!”
“Yes,” he cleared his throat before unrolling the parchment they’d found with the mysterious present. “’To Your Majesty the Evil Queen. I am not known to you but I am a handsome Prince from a Kingdom south of you. I have long admired your beauty and pay homage to it with this gift which I send to your Castle. In our Kingdom, this is a tribute which symbolizes fertility, beauty and stamina. If you will gracefully accept this humble token of my love, I hope you might meet with me in the same spirit’.”
“Oh my goodness,” the Evil Queen squealed. “A handsome stranger!”
“He must be very strange,” said the Mirror. “Unhinged.”
“Bring in the gift!” gushed the Evil Queen.
The other guards towed in the ten foot high phallic shaped construction before leaving it in the middle of the court. The Evil Queen regarded it in wonderment.
“What the hell is that?” remarked the Mirror. “It’s a monstrosity!”
“I think it is beautiful,” insisted the Evil Queen. “A fine work of art. Quite, quite breathtaking!”
“This Prince seems to be a pervert.”
“No! He just knows a lady when he sees her!”
“Really? Are you not worried about his preoccupation with…well…this?”
“I am flattered,” she twiddled her hair between her finger and thumb. “Leave it here so I can admire it.”
“I hope that’s all you’re going to do with it,” the Mirror winced.
“I must discover who this secret admirer is!” she enthused.
After strolling around the object for several minutes, the Evil Queen abruptly opted to head to her private quarters for the night and the royal court was emptied with just the object left inside.
A few minutes passed before Percy and Red Riding Hood spoke.
“I think it’s all clear,” she said.
“Yes.”
Red Riding Hood opened the door at the back of the wooden structure so that the pair of them strolled out into the dimly lit hall.
“What now?” whispered Red Riding Hood.
“My bet is that they’re in the dungeon most probably,” murmured Percy. “Likely been taken prisoner hence not returning to us. We will need strength in numbers if we want to defend ourselves and seek the Lamp and the Golden Goose and so on. Therefore, we should rescue them first.”
Red Riding Hood eventually found a stairwell to the dungeon where the guard outside the cell holding the Warlock, Archie and the Prince was fast asleep. She quickly took the keys to the cell door and got it open, in the process waking the three of them who looked at her in shock.
“How did you get in?” the Prince gasped.
“Long story,” she said as she led the way out of the cell and up the stone steps from the dungeon.
They reached Percy who had wisely remained in the royal court where the phallic shaped wooden object also stood.
“Percy?” the Prince gawped as he looked up at the structure. “What the heck is this?”
“It looks like a massive…” the Warlock said before hesitating.
“Never mind that sire,” Percy replied. “Now we need to go to the Evil Queens private quarters and retrieve what doesn’t belong to her!”
“I’ll go!” volunteered Archie immediately.
“Oh no!” the Prince rounded on him.
“What?”
“I know your game! You’ll go rifling through her knicker drawer all over again!”
“I will go,” said Red Riding Hood, grasping her crossbow.
“Oh alright,” sighed Archie. “Well you’ll find them in the dressing table. Third drawer down if I remember right.”
“The Lamp with the Genie and all that?” Red Riding Hood checked.
“No, the knicker drawer and the dirty linen basket is…”
“I don’t care about any of that!” she hissed. “What have you lot been getting up to in here?”
“Don’t listen to any gossip,” the Prince told her.
Red Riding Hood raced up to the private quarters of the Evil Queen while the others all just stood idly by.
“I sometimes wonder how we get ourselves into these situations?” remarked Archie.
Everyone looked at him with disdain.
“We need to get out of here,” the Warlock urged them. “My twin sister is a proper bitch and, despite the outward appearance that she is easy to flirt with and manipulate, she is ruthless.”
“My twin brother is correct!” from the shadows emerged the Evil Queen in some rather inappropriate lingerie holding a flaming torch and flanked by two of her guards. “Never judge me from my outward appearance!”
“I never do,” said the Prince after recovering from the surprise. “From a distance you look like a beautiful woman in your thirties…”
“Thirties? How dare you!”
“But on closer inspection you are clearly a saggy old bat in her seventies…”
“Nonsense!” she produced her compact to consult her Mirror. “I might exude sensual beauty that makes men weak at the knees but behind that is the beating heart of a powerful ruler.”
“How did you know we’d be here?” asked Archie.
“I am a Sorceress remember?”
“She had tummy troubles,” spoke up the Mirror. “Got up in the night and overheard you all.”
“And so now I have discovered your plot!” the Evil Queen looked at them all with a cackle. “Nice try but it takes a lot more than flattery to fool me you know!”
“May I say Your Highness,” began Archie. “You really do look wonderful in that lingerie.”
“Why thank you!” she blushed while smoothing down her stockings.
“You look decades younger!”
“Decades?” she raised an eyebrow.
“Yes, for a woman of your advancing years, you nearly pull this look off! And I say fair play! Some might say that it’s mutton dressing as lamb…ouch!”
Somewhere from the shadows, a foot had made contact with Archie’s shin so that he was doubled over as the Prince rolled his eyes at the others.
“How dare you insult me!” the Evil Queen fumed.
Suddenly Red Riding Hood scuttled into the royal court holding the Golden Goose in one hand and the Lamp in the other. They all turned to regard her.
“What’s going on?” Red Riding Hood cried.
“My Lamp! My goose!” the Evil Queen shrieked.
“Run!” cried the Prince.
All the trespassers in the Castle fled towards the gates and managed to escape the place entirely as the Evil Queen’s guards struggled to keep up.
“You’ve lost your power base!” the Mirror told the Evil Queen back in her royal court. “Without the Golden Goose, how can you keep up your invasion of the Realm? All is lost!”
“Who would have thought my own brother would have contributed towards this temporary blip?” the Evil Queen said. “But all is not lost! I will come again.”
“I sincerely hope not.”
“And let us look on the bright side. Prince Charming and his little band of friends might have stolen the Golden Goose and the Genie in the Lamp yet look what they left us in the process.”
The Mirror felt slightly sick as the Evil Queen regarded the phallic shaped object made of wood with a lustful expression on her Botox bothered face.
To be continued in ‘Prince Charming & The Emperor’s New Clothes’…
Athon 