Once upon a time in a fairy tale Realm were several Kingdoms. One of which was ruled over by an Evil Queen…so should that be a Queendom? For the sake of equality? Nonetheless, this Evil Queen had abducted a Golden Goose from under the noses of Prince Charming and Red Riding Hood. The aforementioned bird (the Goose that is) laid valuable golden eggs so that whoever owned her could become extremely wealthy. The Evil Queen had accumulated vast riches to assemble an almighty army with which to invade other Kingdoms.
Unfortunately for the Evil Queen, she was rather lonely and had a questionable record in the romance department. This led her to being attracted to the Prince’s former manservant, the gullible and pompous Archie. Sensing that he might once again get to be in the limelight, he accepted her offer to be the General of her army. The reader won’t be surprised to learn that this had not gone well.
Archie was seated in a tent within his military camp just East of the Evil Queen’s Kingdom.
“General!” one of his infantry entered the tent. “The latest casualty numbers are just in!”
“Numbers?” Archie was taken aback. “I didn’t expect one let alone two.”
“They’re rather higher than that I am afraid sir.”
“Go on…”
“During our maiden campaign we have lost all but twenty of your troops.”
“Hang on!” Archie tried doing the maths but swiftly gave up. “There were hundreds!”
“Yes but they were all brutally killed following your decision to charge at that cannon fire in Baron Hardup’s Kingdom.”
“I can’t believe they didn’t overwhelm the enemy! Especially seeing as I ordered them to remove their armour and helmets to ensure they could run quicker.”
“They certainly ran quicker sir. Into a hail of musket bullets.”
“Well I suppose there were always going to be sacrifices. The Evil Queen will send more troops soon I am sure. So what territorial gains have we made?”
“Ah well sir,” the man hesitated sheepishly. “We’ve actually lost territory.”
“What?”
“Yes, we made some gains of Hardup’s Kingdom when we crossed the border because there was no patrol. But once we got about fifty yards in, we encountered the cannon and riflemen. They drove us back into the Evil Queen’s Kingdom.”
“So which Kingdom are we camped in?”
“The Queen’s.”
“What?” Archie spat out the wine he had been sipping. “You mean the Royal standard and flag we’ve been flying for the last day is on land already owned by the Queen?”
“Yep!” he nodded cheerfully.
“But I declared this land to be in her name! When it already was! So how have we lost territory?”
“Well you know when Hardup’s men wiped out our troops with their fire?”
“When I devised my new strategy?”
“Yes, to retreat,” the man agreed. “We retreated back inside the Evil Queen’s Kingdom so that Hardup’s men followed us in. They made a gain of about five miles. They are now flying their flag on the captured territory.”
“Oh my word!” Archie drank more wine. “But what about those prisoners of war we captured?”
“It turns out they were your own men sir. Which was a shame, because we could have done with them during the retreat for a counter offensive rather than them being in chains and manacles in our camp.”
“This is our darkest hour!” declared Archie. “Now you tell the troops…”
“All twenty of them…”
“Yes, that I will lead from the front by doing it at the back.”
“Like what you did today.”
“Listen to me!” cried Archie. “If I wasn’t here in the engine room making all the technical and tactical strategic calls…”
“Like ‘charge’…”
“Yes…”
“And ‘retreat!’”
“Yes, if I wasn’t doing that, where would we be?”
“On the edge of a Kingdom that was five miles larger?”
“But I will continue to lead the men, you can tell them…no,” Archie, who was slightly drunk now, arose to pace about inside the tent. “I shall address them myself, gather them together!”
The soldier went outside to whistle so that the twenty men grouped together within a few moments. Archie left the tent to face them.
“Now!” he began with a long bellow. “What we have here is a wonderful opportunity! For we have lured the enemy in thus making them vulnerable to a counter-attack.”
“I wouldn’t lure them in any further otherwise they’ll own the entire Kingdom!” exclaimed one of the last remaining riflemen.
“They probably think they’re in a strong position!” insisted Archie with a knowing air of smugness.
“That would be a reasonable assumption.”
“They probably think they have all the aces! Sitting at our border…”
“Our new border.”
“Our new border…with their cannons trained on our camp, outnumbering us ten to one? But their gains will breed overconfidence! They are, in fact, sitting ducks!”
“How?”
“Because in the coming days, we will have more cannons assembled on our side. We shall move them within range at night while most of the enemy are asleep and unleash cannon fire on their camp. They will be slaughtered in their sleep. Once that is done, we will take the survivors prisoner and then progress into their Kingdom.”
“Our old Kingdom?”
“Yes that!”
A hum of bewilderment went about the troops, some of whom were rather horrified by Archie’s brazen cowardice.
Percy came to a halt as he spotted activity on the horizon.
“Sire, this looks like army manoeuvres.”
“Yes,” Snow White agreed. “They are flying the flag of my father, therefore that now belonging to the Evil Queen.”
“In their own Kingdom?” the Prince frowned. “Why have they set up camp in their own Kingdom?”
“I think I can see another army,” said Percy. “Just to the East of them. They must have reached an impasse.”
“We can’t go any further!” sighed the Prince. “We’ll be taken prisoner. But they’re blocking our path to the Evil Queen’s Castle!”
“I tell you what sire,” said Percy. “The other army are flying the flag of Hardup. They must have got involved so at least we don’t need to go and warn him any longer.”
“I’m confused by all of this!” remarked Snow White. “If the Queen’s army was planning an invasion, they have done the opposite. We are a significant way into her Kingdom so what they’re doing here is beyond me.”
“Yes, it’s strange,” agreed the Prince. “Maybe she or her generals know nothing about tactical warfare.”
“Sire,” began Percy. “May I suggest we seek shelter near here and wait until they’ve moved on. If we’re lucky, Hardup’s army will drive them back to the Evil Queen’s Castle and this can come to an end. But if they don’t, we need to get round them to carry out her assassination.”
They found a barn a few minutes away and settled down for the night.
“I wonder if Archie has reached the Palace?” said the Prince. “We could do with having the Genie here.”
He sat down on a pile of hay.
“Ouch!” came a voice from underneath him so that the Prince leapt up in shock. They all looked down as from the hay emerged a scruffy looking young woman. She got to her feet.
“You!” squealed Snow White.
“The Dirty Shepherdess?” Percy asked.
“How did you know?” asked the dishevelled woman with a torn dress and mud on her cheeks.
“Just a wild guess.”
“What are you doing here?” Snow White asked of her.
“After you kicked me out of your brothel, I was left to wander the Realm,” she explained in a surly manner.
“I suspect I will regret asking this,” the Prince said. “But why are you called the Dirty Shepherdess? I imagine it is something to do with a parable or there is a moral to your story? That one should not be judged on their looks? That real beauty is within?”
“No,” she shook her head defiantly. “I just like hanging round with sheep and sleeping in barns.”
“Oh.”
“Who doesn’t?” said Percy.
“So you are not the victim of a curse or a spell?” asked the Prince.
“No, why do you say that?”
“Well, without wanting to…err…your appearance is…erm…” he turned to Red Riding Hood for help.
“Rustic?” she offered.
“Yes rustic!” sighed the Prince with relief.
“I hang about in the countryside a lot,” she shrugged. “With animals.”
“So is it just sheep?” inquired Percy. “Or do you diversify to goats, pigs, hens?”
“Oh yes,” she nodded. “I like a good roll around in a pigsty.”
“This is why I had to dismiss her,” Snow White shook her head in disapproval. “You can’t have someone like this working in the sex industry. I know some actively encourage this type of behaviour but not in my establishment!”
“What are you doing here?” the Dirty Shepherdess glared at them all. “You’re not after my sheep are you?”
“No, no,” the Prince reassured her prior to looking around the barn. “Where are they anyway?”
“In the fields,” she looked at him as if he were stupid. “Anyway, answer my question?”
“We are just sheltering while waiting for the two armies nearby to move on.”
“Armies?” her eyes lit up.
“Yes,” the Prince smiled. “Like a man in uniform do you?”
“Do they have any livestock with them? You know, for food supplies?”
“Not that we noticed.”
Meanwhile at the battlefront, Baron Hardup’s soldiers mostly retired for the night leaving a couple of men on watch. In contrast, Archie had taken delivery of one cannon from the Evil Queen’s Castle.
“One?” he was exasperated. “Is that it?”
“There’s a bit of a tightening of the royal purse strings,” explained one of the troops who had towed it from the Castle. “The Golden Goose is refusing to lay eggs. Her feathers were plucked to pay for this.”
“This isn’t good enough!” protested General Archie. “I am a battle hardened, experienced campaigner. I can’t operate on a meagre budget like this!”
Nonetheless, he ordered his troops to tow the cannon along with the others they had within range of their enemy’s camp.
“Fire!” he hissed.
A volley of cannon balls were launched high into the air in the direction of Hardup’s sleeping soldiers. They watched as the camp exploded into flames thus creating havoc. A second round and then a third was fired until the camp was no more.
“Excellent!” Archie punched the air in jubilation prior to marching across the field to the burning remains of the camp. “See, we’ve regained our territory!”
“By murdering our enemies in their sleep,” added one of his followers. “And they say there’s no nobility in soldiering.”
Unsurprisingly, the Prince and the others had been stirred from the barn to see much of this.
“Excellent!” said the Prince. “This means they’ll move on and we can continue towards the Castle.”
“Err sire,” Percy was not quite as enthusiastic. “There is something very familiar about the walk of the figure leading the Evil Queen’s soldiers across the field to the camp on fire.”
“Yes Percy?”
“Yes sire…their gait is a mixture of a waddle and a swagger. Who does that remind you of?”
“Erm…”
“And who would attack an opposing army while they slept?”
“No.”
“I fear so sire.”
“Oh no, but how?”
“Remember sire, Archie left us to travel to the Palace but went off in completely the wrong direction. Is it possible he’s got caught up with the Evil Queen’s warmongering?”
“Surely not Percy,” replied the Prince. “Come on! Making Archie the villain of the piece once again after the events of the Civil War, the Referendum and the Pandemic? It would be really repetitive and tedious if that was a plot feature. Surely Archie has learned his lesson by now? Just how low is his self esteem? It would really be wringing his Napoleon complex personality trait dry…”
“Oh come on sire, you know it’s him,” said Percy. “This is hardly high brow literature now is it?”
“I thought things had improved, I liked the direction we were going in. Exploring the fairy tale world in more depth.”
“Yes sire, but ultimately it is all about fitting up Archie as the incompetent villain or associate of a villain because that is so easy to do. Along with making several nineteenth century literary characters look like depraved eccentrics.”
“Yeah I guess. Fate I suppose.”
“Well then sire, we have two options.”
“Yes Percy, pray tell?”
“We could go and talk him out of it?”
“After which we end up in chains and in a dungeon somewhere.”
“Sounds nice,” remarked the Dirty Shepherdess excitedly.
“Or,” said Percy. “We let him continue so that he is inevitably undone by his natural stupidity while we go after the Evil Queen?”
“I like option two,” the Prince immediately responded.
Archie’s modest army wrapped up their camp to head towards the border before crossing it into Baron Hardup’s Kingdom.
“Now!” declared Archie. “The next stage of my plan! Charge!”
Sadly, Archie was not all that knowledgable in regards to the geographical layout of this Kingdom.
In the darkness he and all his soldiers, their horses, cannons and equipment tumbled into a river.
In the Castle of the Evil Queen, she was busily consulting the Mirror.
“I’ve had enough of the Golden Goose!” she proclaimed. “The little bitch is refusing to lay eggs! If this carries on, I will chop her head off!”
“There’s a saying concerning this very problem, a proverb if you will,” replied the Mirror.
“Any port in a storm?”
“Not quite no.”
“Any hole is a goal?”
“Definitely not.”
“Don’t look at the mantlepiece while you are stoking the fire?”
“No!” the Mirror chided her. “Don’t kill the goose that lays the golden egg!”
“Well she’s bloody not laying any eggs at the moment!”
“She will…eventually. Mother nature will take over.”
“I cannot wait that long! Not for this constipation to end!”
“I’m not quite sure you understand how the process works but anyway,” the Mirror replied before changing the subject. “How is your little army getting on?”
“Very well, I think…they’ve left the Kingdom at least. But I must finance them further which I cannot do without that damn goose!”
“They’ve left the Kingdom?” the Mirror was puzzled.
“Yes, apparently there was some resistance to them getting out but now they are gradually edging into Hardup’s Kingdom.”
“Gradually edging?” the Mirror scoffed. “This hardly sounds like an army obliterating all before it? What are they going to do next? Gently wander across Hardup’s whole Kingdom? Tip toe carefully up to his Palace?”
“I am sure that my General has it all in hand!” insisted the Evil Queen. “He’s a world class military man you know!”
“Is he?” the Mirror chuckled scornfully. “He seemed like a bumbling egotist to me! Anyway, how are things going on the romantic front?”
“He doesn’t seem to have time for that,” sighed the Evil Queen. “Although I will suggest we seal our union when he returns from the front.”
“You’re going to marry?”
“No, not that kind of sealing of a union. I want an heir.”
“Him as your heir?” the Mirror was dumbfounded.
“No, no, he will father my heir.”
“What? Like a surrogate?”
“What?”
“You know, so you’ll get him to father the heir with another, younger woman…”
“No, I will be having the child!” the Evil Queen cried.
“That’s…hopeful,” the Mirror tutted.
“What do you mean?”
“What I mean is that you are not exactly in the first flush of youth, are you?”
“How dare you?” she tapped the glass. “I am at the peak of womanhood!”
Archie’s army were making their way across Baron Hardup’s Kingdom with the strategic genius making his next plan. It had taken a few hours to get dry and retrieve their equipment from the river.
“Sir?” one of his troops began. “I must say that you are a highly unusual type of General.”
“Glad to hear it! Why do you say that?”
“I fought in the Civil War and for my Kingdom against the Zombies plus a few local skirmishes and all my leaders were the same. On the battlefield they always took their maps, paid close attention to what the weather was going to be like and the terrain. They would deploy men to go ahead for reconnaissance purposes and constantly review all their weapons and equipment. They would make notes in their diaries about the locations they visited and details about their adversaries.”
“Sounds like a lot of work to me!” replied Archie. “I’m surprised any of them ever made it to a battle! Anyway, I do make notes!”
“You do sir?” the troop asked hopefully.
“Yes!” Archie produced a small leather bound diary which he handed to the troop.
“Excellent!” the troop thumbed his way through it before stopping on one page. “’Monday…dry cleaning reminder…Tuesday…blank…Wednesday…I wonder what Goldilocks looks like in purple lingerie?’…”
“Have you seen her?” Archie winked at him.
“’Thursday…reminder to make appointment with physician about strange growth…Friday…go to pharmacy…’ sir,” the troop handed back the diary. “I don’t see anything about warfare?”
“It’s all up here!” Archie tapped his temple.
“I am impressed,” said another troop who had been listening. “That you have an innate knowledge of the Realm. You seem to know your directions as if you had a map in your head!”
Five minutes later they were marching across sand. Archie felt fairly sure they’d reach a Palace or Castle they could attack soon.
“The ground is really unfirm,” remarked one troop as he struggled to pick his feet up from the sticky, bog like floor.
“Oh, it’ll be fine!” insisted Archie.
Within another minute, the whole group were in a quagmire, stationary and knee deep in quicksand and gradually descending into it.
“I can’t get out!” one troop tried grabbing hold of another as he disappeared into the sand.
Archie and a couple of others managed to kick themselves clear and dashed away to more permanent ground nearby. Sadly, the same could not be said for the vast majority of the group.
“Oh dear,” Archie regarded the other two ruefully. “That was unfortunate.”
“Unfortunate?” one cried. “Most of our men and equipment…all gone!”
“Yes,” Archie surveyed the quicksand with a worried expression. “Do you know what men?”
“Yes?”
“We are going to have to return to the Castle for reinforcements.”
“You do surprise me!”
“Come on let’s go!” Archie marched back over the ground where the quick sand was.
“Sir, not that way!”
“Sire?” Percy asked the Prince as they stopped by a small pond where the horse could have a drink of water. “Did we really have to bring that strange woman along with us?”
“What?” the Prince lowered his voice although they were out of ear shot of the damsels who were sat on the other side of the pond. “You mean the Dirty Shepherdess?”
“Yes! Firstly I am now carrying four of you so the going is slow and secondly, she could do with a bath!”
“Yes, luckily she’s not behind me and we put her at the back so we wouldn’t be downwind.”
“I noticed that.”
“And I didn’t want the flies buzzing round me.”
After this break, they continued on their journey to the Evil Queen’s Castle.
“You didn’t fancy washing in the pond ladies?” asked Percy. “It was quite safe and we would have given you privacy.”
“It’s a bit cold,” replied Red Riding Hood.
“Fair point. I do realize that we don’t have the company of ladies on the road all that often do we sire?”
“No Percy.”
“Therefore we are aware that you might be in need of certain home comforts and we will do our best to help you. The Prince has some beauty products in his saddle bags if you wish to use them? Cosmetics, hair products, scent…”
“I could do with a comb?” said Snow White.
“Oh yes, he’s got one of them,” nodded Percy. “And what else has he got in there? Oh yes…soap…scented soap, cologne, unisex perfume, scented soap, cologne…”
“Okay okay!” the Dirty Shepherdess said from the back. “I get the point you are making!”
“What do you mean?”
“That I smell of barn.”
“I was thinking farm but okay.”
“Right!” she sighed. “Listen the whole thing is a ruse! It’s a disguise…sort of!”
“I must say,” Percy felt compelled to say. “You’ve really committed to it.”
“I am actually a Princess,” she explained. “But my father wanted to marry me off to, in his mind, the most suitable Prince going. Turns out, said Prince was a vain and entitled idiot. I challenged my father, telling him that there is more to a person than mere looks. He laughed at me so, the next day, I went to what was meant to be my engagement party with some of my hair hacked off, wearing this dress with manure on my cheeks. He assumed I was having a mental breakdown but was also humiliated in front of the entire court as nobody recognised me as the Princess until I told them. He ordered me to leave his Kingdom and so here I am. I want to meet a Prince who values me for who I am. Once that is the case, I shall return to my Royal gowns and have a bath. Only then.”
“That’s quite extreme,” said Percy. “Couldn’t you just have had a bad hair day?”
“Since then I have wandered around the Realm hoping to meet the one.”
“But you came to work in my brothel?” Snow White frowned.
“A girl has to eat you know!”
Later that day they sighted the Evil Queen’s Castle on the horizon. There were no patrols nearby so they continued to head that way.
“What do you think we should do Percy?” the Prince asked.
“Red Riding Hood is the crossbow expert sire.”
“Well,” began the lady herself thoughtfully. “I must get in range. The landscape here has plenty of woodland. I should be able to climb up a tree and take aim from there. I will need some sort of signal from Snow White to confirm it is the Evil Queen who comes forward.”
“Then there is my job,” admitted the Prince. “I will need to play to her vanity so that she comes to see me either from one of her towers or the castle walls.”
“What can I do to help?” the Dirty Shepherdess asked.
“Stay downwind,” suggested Percy.
Suddenly Percy halted.
“What is it?” the Prince asked.
“Sire, I think I have seen a certain someone. Amongst two other people approaching the Castle.”
“Someone?”
“Archie.”
“Oh no!”
Indeed, the Evil Queen’s General had finally got back to the Castle with his two surviving soldiers.
He was given entry with rather a lot of explaining to do.
“My love?” the Evil Queen met him in her banqueting hall. “You must be doing ever so well in the battlefield that you can pop back here to see me?”
“Err yes,” he nodded hurriedly. “They’re all back there at the front, following orders and doing their bit!”
To be continued…
Athon 