It was a Thursday, and the Land of Wheatbelly was in an uproar. Crowds roamed the streets, yelling and screaming and generally making much too much noise for such a peaceful land. The homes of officials were sacked, and somebody even stole the Magic Pelican that Excretes Silver, because why the heck not?
This was all because the daughter of King Uuulemath, Elizabeth, was kidnapped by Beef, the greatest and most purplest dragon in all the land. It was, of course, a terrible, terrible catastrophe, and the King and Queen were obviously incredibly saddened and shocked, but that was not a very good reason for all the peasants to go rioting in the streets. They were immensely annoying, especially for the poor officials whose homes were destroyed.
And not only this, but the king had stated in a very detailed law that riots were to happen only on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, because otherwise everyone would riot all at the same time and that would put such a dent in King Uuulemath’s sleep rythms that he would not be able to recover at all and then he would surely die of pneumonia poisoning.
The King was not a very intelligent man.
He was also very prone to using run-on sentences, which the Royal English Advisor tried countless times to knock out of his head, but to no avail. The King was truly a Grammar Nazi’s nightmare.
As the peasants rioted in the streets, on a Thursday, of all days, King Uuulemath sat in his tower and drank a glass of wine. He was thinking.
It was clear to him that he must get his daughter back. Not because he loved her especially much, because she was a little on the self centered and haughty side, but because she was vital to the peace of the Kingdom, and possibly the entire land. She was, after all, voted most beautiful princess in the Prince and Princess magazine, after which everybody fell in love with her. If she were to be kidnapped and no effort was made to get her back, the Kingdom would certainly fall into an irreparable civil war, which the King did not want at all.
He knew that her fame would fizzle out soon, though, so then she could get kidnapped by as many dragons as she wanted. Or they wanted. The king didn’t care.
He grunted and sipped his wine. He could also just leave her in the clutches of the dragon, and save himself some money on useless things like dresses and jewelry. Then he could spend it on horses and armor and castles.
He sipped again and nodded.
Yes. He liked that idea. He stood up and stretched, and as he did so he remembered that if he left his daughter at the mercy of a dragon, his good image might very well collapse.
He sat down and took another sip of wine.
How embarrassing would it be for him if all the other kings knew that his daughter had been kidnapped and that he wasn't man enough to send somebody to get her back? They would laugh at him and call him names.
That would be a nightmare.
After another glass of wine and a cup of beer, he came to a decision. He decided that in order to preserve his image, he had to save her. Personally.
So he got on his horse, prepared to gallop away, got off again because he had forgotten to put his armor on, got back on again, gallantly raised his sword and prepared to gallop off once again, but then had to wait because of course the guards had trouble lowering the drawbridge.
He promptly fired them all. It did nothing to help the problem, but it made him feel like a good boss. It didn’t matter if their families starved; they could deal. The king, on the other hand, could not. He could not deal in the slightest.
When he was finally off and away, it was beginning to get dark.
And did that deter the king? Did that make him quake in his shiny, almost impenetrable boots?
Yes! Of course it did!
He returned fifteen minutes later, and, much to the chagrin of his wife, Millicent, crawled into bed with full armor on. He wished to be off at sunrise, and so therefore could not even be bothered to take off his helm.
Millicent did not sleep very well that night.
Eleven hours later, the sun poked over the horizon. As you might remember, the king had intended to begin his journey at sunrise.
Alas, he continued to sleep deeply.
The rooster crowed, and the peasants and craftsmen and squires began to work, hammering and digging and delivering swords and other such productive things.
And still the king slept. Millicent, who had not had one moment of shuteye since the king had crawled into bed, stood up and began to get dressed. She went about her morning -- she took a luxurious bath, put on nice jewelry, and even practiced her cittern for awhile -- and still the king slept.
Hours passed. The sun rose and rose until it stood high in the sky, signaling the hour for the noontime meal.
Then and only then, did the King awake.
He was sitting on the edge of the bed, wondering why in the almighty heavens he had worn his best suit of armor to bed, when he suddenly remembered that he was on a quest to save his image.
He smacked himself on the helm. He was such a dunce.
Then he smacked his helmet again -- nobody speaks to the king like that. Nobody.
He tore open his bedroom door and ran down the stairs. Or, at least, he tried to. Suits of armor are notoriously hard to run in.
Nevertheless, he did manage to survive the stairs, although there were quite a few close calls. He ran out into the courtyard, where a poor horse and a poor stable hand had been dutifully waiting for the past four hours, and scrambled onto his horse, snapping his visor shut and galloping off without even pausing to eat breakfast.
"I'll regret that, later today", he said to himself, but he bravely rode on.
Now, we must remember that his helmet only had two small slits for him to see out of, so it is understandable that he ran into the drawbridge on his way out.
There was a loud clatter, a scream, and then a terrible, terrible silence.
Everybody dropped what they were doing and rushed over to where the king lay, his armor shining in the bright sun. Blood began to pool under him. There was a moment of shocked silence.
The hot sun beat down on the backs of peasants and noblemen alike. Flies buzzed, horses whinnied, and the wind sent a warm breeze to ruffle the leaves and hats and clothes of the gathered crowd.
And then Queen Millicent screamed, because the King had fallen onto his sword.
The tip stuck out of the back of his chest plate, dripping with blood. A squire was sent into the city to fetch an ambulance wagon. It took a while to arrive, during which everything was silent except for Millicent's desperate sobs. The ambulance finally arrived, and his prone figure was gingerly lifted up and rushed to the nearest physician.
Further inspection revealed that the king was, as you might expect, dead. The queen shrieked and fainted. Her maids caught her and dragged her back to her carriage, and she was rushed back to her bedchambers.
All this commotion drew the attention of Sir Horace McTodd, a young squire who had quite recently been knighted. He thought that being a knight was incredibly awesome, but he also thought that being a knight was incredibly boring, because he just sat around and didn't really do anything else than joust. Jousting was usually a very great deal of fun, but unfortunately, he was so good at it that no one wanted to joust with him anymore.
So when he heard that the king of Wheatbelly had died in the search for his beautiful daughter, he could not resist. A quest was just what he needed. He decided to offer his services to the mourning queen, because a knight is chivalrous and a knight is kind and a knight is generous.
At least, that's what he told himself. He was really doing it to alleviate his boredom, because nothing is more boring than being so good at something that nobody else wants to be your opponent.
Unfortunately, he soon discovered that every other knight in the land was also vying for the honor of being sent on a quest. He introduced himself to the queen, who, much to his delight, seemed to like what she saw. He thought he had it in the bag, and he boasted to all the other knights about it.
Then, much to his delight, the Queen announced that a great tournament would be held to test which three knights would be worthy enough to embark on the quest to save her daughter. There was a cheer, which quickly deteriorated into an awkward silence when everybody realized that she had said 'three'.
A knight usually embarked on a quest by himself. It was a tradition.
She then explained that since the country was so big, and that since Elizabeth was probably in the far reaches of some mountain range or in a tower somewhere, three knights would go and see if they could find her. He who succeeded would get a free castle and all the armor he wanted.
She was quick to point out that only one knight would get the reward since the Kingdom of Wheatbelly was rich but not that rich.
She then returned to her room to cry again. Sir Horace set up his tent, said goodnight to his horse, Oscar III, and fell into a fitful sleep, dreaming of his quest and Elizabeth and his mothers apple pie.
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