The Title of Temperance (The Adventures of Ichabod Temperance Book 8) (11 page)

“Well, if you ever need somebody to talk to, my windowless garret is always open.”

“My thanks, Ichabod.”

“Um, you know, I’m getting a little cramped, cooped up here in the castle. I thought I’d go on a little jaunt tomorrow.”

“Splendid idea boy! Nothing like getting out in the World! I shall see to it at once! You shall have a hundred heralds to proclaim thy path! Banner bearers! Flower girls! Dancing maidens and lots of hack minstrels!”

“Well, actually, I was wanting to go out by myself.”

“By thyself? Dost thou mean thou shalt travel without retainers?”

“Yessir. No armour, neither, just plain clothes.”

“Plain clothes? Baughtte how will anyone recognize who you are?”

“That’s the idea, sir, they won’t. I want to get away from being a big shot for a minute and just be a regular feller again.”

“You would go into the countryside as a common man, not under the protections of nobility? I have never considered doing such a thing. Why would you do this?

“Well sir, life at Court here in the castle ain’t like what it is for the rest of England, is it?”

“I should think naughtte!”

“Well, I think I want to stretch my legs and see what the real England is about. I have heard of famous people, and celebrities that will sometimes travel under a false name so that no one will know who they are.”

“An astounding concept my boy!”

“Yessir. I think when nobility or famous folks do it, it is called going ‘incognito’.”

“Fascinating! It’s settled, then!”

“Hunh, what’s settled?”

“King Arthur and Sir Ichabod shall visit England, ‘incognito’.”

“Okey dokey, Sire, nobody noticed you and me sneaking off and we done skooted several miles from the castle. Let’s go ahead and stop so that we can complete our disguises.”

“’Complete our disguises? Have I naughtte shed my kingly raiment in this escapade? I doff my fine armour, crown, herald, majestic helm and assorted entourage and I think a fine disguise this doth make, my wearing the clothes of a commoner.”

“Well, it ain’t the clothes so much as the man inside. I reckon it’s something along the lines of, ‘you can take the man out of the king, but you can’t take the king out of the man, er or something like that, anyways.”

“I taketh thy meaning.”

“You’re just so dang handsome, sir.”

“True, oh, so true.”

“I’m thinking we should knock a little shine off this apple. I’ve got a set of shears here and I think you need an inexpert trim of that royal beard and mussing of thy royal hair.”

“No, Ichabod, no! Naughtte my noble lockes! How I treasure my lovely hair!”

“Sire...”

“Oh, very well, I suppose the subterfuge must be complete.”

“Thank you, Sire.”

“Ha, actually, all this sneaking out of the castle in the middle of the night by secret passage and door that only I know about and this ‘incognito’ business have a taste of adventure to it all, don’t you think, Sir Ichabod?”

“Um, to tell the truth, Sire, I am actually starting to have second thoughts on the whole enterprise. Maybe we should go back...”

“Nonsense, Sir Ichabod! I am more enthused than ever! Besides...”

“Don’t say it!”

“...what could go wrong?”

“Ooooh, the icy clutch of a nameless dread just snatched up my heart in a cold ol’ grip of fear at those importunate words.”

“Ha, ha, looketh upon me my good man, for I art Arthur, but a simple man! Yes, I am a humble tradesman of some sort or another, ha, ha!”

“Uh, let’s just try to shy away from specifics if anybody asks. It might be better if we just say we are farmers and leave it at that.”

“Ha, ha! So shall it be! I, Arthur, farmer. Yes, it does have a ring of nobility about it, does it naughtte?”

“Uh, yessir, but that is what we are trying to avoid.”

“Of course! Ha, ha! There actually is something to all this peasant business, after all, eh?”

“Yessir, Sire. Um, you know, it ain’t just the clothes and the bad beard cut, it’s the aura you project.”

“I am King!”

“Sigh-yer...”

“Oh, right! The whole ‘incognito’ business!”

“Yessir. You are the physical embodiment of a robust leader. Your average peasant on the other hand is of a what you might call a ‘wretched’ bearing.”

“No great booming voice full of life, vigor and the gusto of a tenor that inspires men to gallop headlong into certain, gruesome death and never hesitate to do so?”

“Nossir, your speech and manner should reflect hundreds of years of suffering. You must feel the desperate toil of twenty generations of miserable, illiterate serfs, struggling away every day without a thing to live for besides the little grain hidden away from the assessor that barely is enough to subsist on. The weight of these many tribulations are piled up on your sad shoulders.”

“That’s terrible!”

“Yessir.”

“Hiding income from the assessor! Who else is not paying their share?!”

“But Sire, after the various state and church officials have all taken their cut, there ain’t nothing left for the poor farmer to live on! Who will pay his taxes if he done dropped out?”

“Good point. I see where your aeconomic reasoning says it is better to have the cheater alive to pay a portion of his illegal taxes, instead of a dead farmer that is starved to death for having sent all his grain to the assessor.”

“Yessir!”

“Baughtte it be cheating! It’s the principle of the thing! Is it not better to have an honest, but dead, farmer, than a living cheater?”

“Gee, there’s a lot of philosophy involved with being king, ain’t there?”

“Aye.”

“Well, maybe we could just get you to fake it as best you can. You just ain’t got the posture right at all. You stand so straight and proud. Your jaw is a defiant bulwark of indomitable pride. Your shoulders can bear any strife and thy chest is a bosom of strength.”

“Naturally, boy.”

“Yessir, well, it might be good if you could deflate your chest some. Unh hunh, and uh, lower your chin some. Good. No, everything just swelled back up again.”

“A tricky wicket, all this play, eh, Ichabod?”

“Yessir. Maybe you could try stooping your shoulders.”

“How is that?”

“No, I can’t tell any difference. They still appear able to bear the weight of a nation. Can you slouch?”

“I am slouching.”

“No you ain’t.”

“Blast it, I tell you I am! I shall strike thee down, lo, that I may braketh thine spine if thou canst see that I sloucheth!”

“
Hien! Hien! Hien!
Yessir! Sorry, my King! I beg your pardon, Sire, but if you will look down to notice, you are all puffed up bigger than life again.”

“Ah, yes, so I am. Deucedly difficult business all this peasantry, don’t you know?”

“Yessir. Um, Sire?”

“Sir Ichabod?”

“Um, you know, we can’t be using our real names. Remember my mentioning that we need to assume false identities?”

“How very odd, to naughtte be addressed by the noble name of ‘Arthur’. Nor ‘King’, nor ‘your Majesty’ or, ‘Sire’ either, for that matter! I say, this is amusing. Dost thou have any suggestions for an appropriate monikerfor me, thy Highness?”

“Hmm, how about, Bobby?”

“No.”

“Jimmy?”

“No.”

“Steve?”

“No.”

“Do you have any suggestions for me?”

“Felcher.”

“No.”

“Groutte.”

“No.”

“Doug.”

“No. What would you like to be called, Sire?”

“Rodney.”

“No.”

“Wolfgang.”

“No.”

“Bruce.”

“No.”

“What name wouldst thee give thyself, Sir Ichabod?”

“Theodore.”

“No.”

“Roger.”

“No.”

“Dwayne.”

“No.”

“Please, lemme be Dwayne.”

“No, but I want the other name.”

“Hunh?”

“I shall be, ‘Lemmy’.”

“With your hair all shaggy, and that funny mustache that runs into your sideburns, you kind of look like a ‘Lemmy’.”

“You are a natural bottom-feeder Ichabod. No offense, but there are times that you remind me of the prawn that inhabit our river’s floor.”

“You mean like a craw-daddy?”

“I suppose, but what to call you? Crawface? Prawnboy? No, something else, I should think. Ah, yes, you’re like one of those slippery little beasts one finds in the Thames. Oh, what is the thing called? It’s a baitfish.”

“Do you mean a squid?”

“Ha! Yes! That’s it, you remind me of a nasty little squid! I shall call thee Squiddley.”

“Hunh?”

“Let us go and converse with our fellow countrymen. Let them meet, Lemmy and Squiddley.”

“Gee, Lemmy, it sure is a long way through this forest. I hope we find a house soon, I’m getting some kind of hungry, I tell you what.”

“Verily, Squiddley, forsooth methinks our stomachs conspire against us. Harken to their famished speech as they call to each other in low rumbles. Would that we had a Camelot feast at our disposal, eh boy?”

“Yessir. Hey did you hear that? I mean, didst thou harken that? I heard me a rustlin’.”

“Aye, let us investigate this disturbance.”

“Oh, it’s a baby deer! It is tangled up in some vines and can’t get free.”

“Ah, it is a fortunate thing.”

“Oh no, please, Sire, I mean, please, Mr. Lemmy, sir, don’t kill this child of the forest!”

“Naughtte to worry, Squiddley, though I am hungry enough to consume this entire animal, it t’would be poor form should I do so. I prefer to free the animal. Let him grow into a large stag. May he sire many more proud deer to fill my forests before I slay him to supp my table. Then he will be a worthy meal for a king.”

“Wow.”

“Rise little fawn. Let my royal tear refresh thee. Your King has set thee free.”

“Gee.”

“I am King to all England. The people, the animals, and the land itself are all my subjects and I love them all.”

“Gosh.”

“Which is why the penalty for poaching is death.”

“Oh. Hey, looks like we may be approaching a dirty little village. Let’s see if we can find one of them there, what you call, ‘public’ houses.”

“Splendid, Sir Ichabod!”

“Sire! Oops! I mean, Lemmy, be careful! My name is Squiddley, remember?”

“Hm? Oh, yes, the Lemmy and Squiddley incognito nonsense, eh? I know, I know. Ah, here we are, this looks to be the spot. Let us step within.”

“Slouch, Lemmy! Keep your eyes down!”

“What’s this? Why do you all sit? I didn’t know people sat!”

“Howdy, y’all, I mean, prithee, no, I mean, merry, we are but two simple traveling farmers looking for simple refreshments.”

“I shall sit
here!
”

“Okay, good.”

“Odd’s bodkins, what are you doing, Squiddley?!”

“I was going to sit down.”

“With
me?
”

“Yessir.”

“Oh, very well.”

“Thanks, Lemmy. Excuse me, may we have some food of whatever y’all got and a couple of tankards of whatever it is y’all are swilling down? Thanks, Ma’am.”

“This is a miserable lot of people to be sure, Squiddley.”

“Maybe not, Lemmy, here come a couple of nice, friendly, ladies.”

“Evening, gents, are you lads looking for entertainment?”

“Of course! I was growing quite bored! Let us go a’wenching!”

“Hey, Lucy, you want the little one, or do you want me to take big and wooly over here?”

“You take the little one please, Effyl, I can’t stands the look of him.”

“Roight.”

“Okay, big boy, you know I’ll have to charge extra as you are so unattractive.”

“What?
Me?
Unattractive?
Charge
me? You would charge
me
for the privilege of...”

“Hey, thanks, girls but I think we’re gonna take a pass on y’all’s services.”

“Bah, you’re no fun, Squiddley.”

“Nossir. I thought we were here to get a closer understanding of the common man.”

“I would have settled for a better understanding of the common woman.”

“Maybe we can engage some of these sullen and morose individuals in cheerful conversation.”

“Right! Ha! Good thing it is to be an Englishman, eh, what? Jolly good life it is, putting in a full day’s work on one’s farm or trade, or what have you, toiling away at some sort of nonsense or another, eh, what, eh? Eh?
Eh?
What dost trouble thee all? Didst the cat, thinking thy tongue to be a mouse, snatch it from thy gaping maw? Verily, to a man, thine eyes grow as large as saucers with unbridled terror. Do horns sprout from mine head? Answer me you peasants, er, I mean, my fellow countrymen, do you naughtte love your King and country?!”

“Oh!” “Aye!” “Yes!” “Oh, aye, sure we do!” “Yes!” “Aye!”

“That’s better! I, Lemmy, who art a simple farmer of all the Britains, do hereby say,
God Save the King!
”

“
Eek!
” “Aye!” Oh!” “Yes!”

“God save us! Oops, I mean, God Save the King!”

“There, that’s better! No silly nonsense about having to tithe too much here, or tax too much there, or, gratuitous arbitrary confiscational tribute there, in this merry pub, eh? Some might think such talk traitorous, eh what?”

“No!” “No!” “Please spare us, no!” “No, we love to pay exorbitant fines and penalties thus forcing us to starve and live in squalor!” “God Save the King, say we, don’t we?” Aye!, let’s all say it together!”

“God Save the King!”

“Have mercy on us.”

“Good, and as we are all free men here, each at his ease to speak his mind with no worry of recrimination, dost anyone present have any grievance weighing on his soul that he may unburden his unhappy heart by sharing his troubles with his common mates? Come now, speak up! If anyone has anything to say against this country, by thunder, I would hear it spoken now!”