COPYRIGHT INFO The Sporadic Verses are copyright 1992, 1993 and 1994 by Jeff Berry and Ben Baron. They may be reproduced in any SCA publication so long as this copyright notice is retained, they are not sold for profit, and the authors receive a copy. If you want to sell them for profit, or buy the nice bound collected editions, contact Jeff Berry, nexus@panix.com END OF COPYRIGHT INFO - Date: 11/25/97 The Sporadic Verses - an epistle in n parts Being a Satire of nothing in particular wins friends and influences people! From the politically correct pens of Louis-Philippe Mitouard and Alexandre Lerot d'Avigne Episode the Sixth Chapter Eleven As Fatima O'Rourke walked down the narrow shadow-choked Obscurian street, she pulled her cloak closer to her head, covering the coronet which glinted there. It was all well and good to pretend to egalitarian sympathies when preaching to the rabble and she didn't want to blow it, but now she was off to speak to the Perennial Elitist League of Interventionists, Conspirators, Autocrats and Nonagenarians (P.E.L.I.C.A.N.), a secret society that some said ruled all the Kingdoms, nay the Imperium with a stern and vaguely oppressive hand. PELICANs existed at all levels of government. On the outside they seemed sturdy, hard workers, but they were always gathering, collating and reporting information to serve their shadowy ends. Brutal yet callous, the League's mysterious purpose and shocking emblem of a bleeding bird had cut a swath of terror across the realm. Halfway down the street, Fatima stopped outside a non-descript door. She had been contacted by a lower echelon member of the League and told that the Secret Council of Six, the rulers of the entire League, would give her audience. Such an invitation was never refused. Besides, with the PELICANs behind her, her campaign for Stewardess was a foregone conclusion. She knocked softly, and whispered in reply to the quiet challenge, "Fatima O'Rourke, here to see the Secret Council of Six." The door swung quietly inward and her guide, a weasely little man with ink-stained fingers gestured for her to follow. As they walked down the long hallway, Fatima and her guide passed a well-stocked kitchen with bustling cooks preparing food as fast as they could. At the door stood a scowling woman with a three- foot butcher knife chanting "There won't be enough food." The frantic cooks inside loaded tray after tray with steaming meat and vegetables and ran around the two as they took large carts out the door and down the hall. The narrow corridor finally opened into a large feast hall where at least one hundred men and women were dining. As she stepped in the room, the feasters paused. The one who seemed to be in charge, at least so she guessed by the large key he wore about his neck, called out, "Ah, the guest of honor! Be seated, ah, Your Excellency. We are the Secret Council of Six!" As he spoke, he stood with some hesitation -- not out of any impoliteness, but due to the weight of the key, which he hefted with a labored thrust of his neck upward and pained look. Fatima gazed about her, "All of you?" The man laughed, "Of course not. Only we ten here are the Secret Council of Six. Those five are the Sub-counselors, those there are the Deputy Counselors, two for each of us. That table seats the Auxiliary Counselors for External Affairs." The fifteen revelers at the far end of room nodded at Fatima. "This table seats the Tertiary Under-Counselors for Internal Affairs," the twelve harried looking people sitting at the table scowled at her, "and that is our in-house Psychiatric Staff, for use in case of the inevitable nervous breakdowns which accompany membership in our League." One of the thirty or so therapists rose and bowed. Fatima nodded to the assemblage, as the man continued, "I assume you are using your title?" He waved in the general direction of her coronet, "We have heard, of course, that you had pretensions to, shall we say, proletarian forms of address, but we assumed that was merely to sway the plebes. Now, please join us for feast. It may not be period but there sure is a lot of it!" At the end of the meal, Fatima stood at the front of the room, ready to address the assembled group. Their seneschal, still burdened by the weighty key around his neck, stood next to her. He signaled the crowd for quiet. "Time for Old Business," came a voice from out of the crowd. "No, I thought New Business came first," said another. "No, I'm sure it's Budget first, then Old Business, then New, after the reading of the Formal Reprimands," said yet another. The seneschal gave an even more weary look than he normally had. "This is the problem with having a secret agenda," he thought, then waded into the fray. After interminable hours of discussion, new business arrived. Another hour passed before the summoning of Countess O'Rourke was finally brought up, seconded and put on the table. The PELICAN Seneschal made some prefatory comments. "Your Excellency, you are probably wondering why we all gathered you here today. Our spies have discovered a plot of such magnitude that it threatens the very structure of the Imperium. Jocko the Twelfth will refuse to step down after Crown Tournament!" The hall erupted into chaos! Even the elderly couple in the corner ceased stabbing each other in the back for a moment. "Has your Excellency considered that forestalling such a crisis would move you well on your way towards the Stewardess' seat? We ask if you have a plan to deal with this situation, and though we are loath to use violence, we suggest violence. We will give you a short while to prepare a proposal, say the next three items of business, then you may make a presentation. Next item, new members?" When, after three new items and six hours had passed (new members alone taking four), her turn rolled around, Fatima stood up and explained her plan. She spoke at length, gesturing at a large chart which she had drawn, and which stood at the easel beside her. She had the rapt attention of at least the male PELICANs, since even in her austere khaki doublet and tights she was ravishingly beautiful. The black swagger stick set off the blond hair perfectly. She was the veriest of revolutionary fashion plates. She gestured emphatically at the easel. "Our plans hinge on the fact that Crown Tourney is a camping event. We will catch them at opening court on Saturday. Crown Tournament won't have begun yet. Our crack Revolutionary Guards will sweep past the opposing light infantry here." She pointed at the map. It was a representation of the tourney field for a large event. She indicated an area somewhere between the list ropes and the royal thrones. "Meanwhile, if our Bunny Fur middle eastern dance guild and infiltration squad has done its work, the bulk of their force will be quite incapacitated with hangovers from the night before. We surround their force here," she pointed to an area at the top of the map, near the feast hall, "and then with a quick pincer movement, we turn south. If all goes well, we can have King Jocko tied up and gone before the chivalry know what hit them. Then we declare the revolutionary people's government. The disaffected Obscurian People's Revolutionary Front, still huddling in the shells of their burned houses stand ready to do my bidding. We will fight them in the feast hall, on the tourney field, in the bed chambers, we will prevail," she said with vigor. A man at the back of the room waved his hand politely "You realize, of course, that the initial attack will take you within ten feet of the royal presence at court. You will need to have royal permission to do that." Obviously a herald. Fatima waved her swagger stick negligently, "not if we prove that his coronation was invalid." "But how will you do that?" the persistent herald asked. "Easy, we'll forge a few documents, threaten a few witnesses, bribe a couple of scribes, the usual." The herald subsided. During the speech, the seneschal crooked his finger to his chief under-counsellor, who, seeing the call, rose and scurried over next to his master's chair. He bent down to listen as the seneschal spoke into his deputy's ear. "Surely Her Excellency is not so far gone in her fantasies that she really thinks we wish to install a peoples government, or worse, a democracy!" he whispered. "Besides, such things are explicitly forbidden in the Articles of Imperialization." "Of course," replied the under-counsellor, "but it would help to get the people on our side for once. We must pretend that it is so. Then, once we have the power, we install a parliamentary system, with such strict requirements that only we have the vote." "Hmm, could work, might just work ..." the seneschal replied. The seneschal rose, more easily this time since, during Fatima's speech, he had exchanged the short chain from which his key was dependent for a 4 foot one, and the key now rested prosaically on a cutting board on the table. "Your Excellency, we find your plan of much merit ..." "Point of order! No motion of acceptance was made!" piped up a thin woman. "Or we shall find it of much merit after the appropriate debate and vote," he continued, "and we shall, after a vote, appoint a committee to draw up a document stating our demands and the format of the new revolutionary government." During this exchange and unnoticed by all, the same hunched cleric who had been so recently beaten by Lancelot slipped away from his place at the therapists' table and down a corridor. Making his way through the maze that was the PELICAN's nest, he mumbled darkly to himself about government by the people. He ducked down little used corridor, covered with fowl debris, hawked and spat, sparrowed a fleeting glance over his shoulder and cursed himself for a loon. His voice rang out, a stork contrast to the silence of the corridor. "I should have known the PELICANs would be be robin her, too. After the kidnapping, she'll be condor killed. But toucan play that game! The Secret Council of Six will have trouble dealing with that raven lunatic, Soloflex!" he crowed. His somewhat forced monologue complete, he pushed against a certain stone, and revealed a hidden chamber. He crossed quickly to his desk, and pushed aside his unfinished manifesto, "Das Imperial" by Bishop Marx. Taking pen in hand he scribbled a few lines on a scrap of parchment. He loaded this into a small tube, and within moments, a red pigeon was on the wing bearing his literary burden. Chapter Twelve, Prologue Swiftly a silent figure moved from shadow to shadow across the darkened Pedantian streets. Furtively, it walked up to the large statue of King Jocko in the center of the square. At the base of the statue it stopped. There it reached up to the codpiece of the figure, felt carefully for a certain stone, and finding it, turned it. The statue's base opened to reveal a hidden stairway. The figure descended the stairway into the city sewers. It followed the caverns as they wound about until it came finally to a wooden door. The figure reached out to the door, and rapped out a complicated passage from the drum part of "The Liberation or Death Madrigal". Chapter Twelve John and Cyrano were blotto. Aside from the press, there were also a number of wine casks in the basement, and they had been imbibing freely, trading tales of corruption and chaos. Jasper, a veteran alcoholic, was merely buzzed. John was stuttering about music, "But I love Madrigals! I like the drum parts! They go like ..." as if on cue, a a complicated passage from the drum part of "The Liberation or Death Madrigal" sounded in the room. Unfazed, John continued, "... like that! Just like that!" Jasper cast a furtive glance at a particularly large cask labeled "Old Toothe Rot", and rose. "Well, lads, I think it's time to pack it in, upstairs you go. I've arranged for a couple of ladies from "Tailes of Great Ulysses" to drop by and tuck you in." At this the conspirators ears perked up and they almost killed each other rushing up the ladder. After his guests were safely upstairs, Jasper crossed to the cask and worked a concealed hinge, a lithe man in a ninja suit rolled into the room, twin katanas drawn. Jasper sighed, then barked, "Minivano, this better be important!" "Oh, it is," replied the little man, pulling off his hood and shaking out his flaming red hair. "I've just got word from Bishop Marx in Obscuria where he just attended a PELICAN meeting. Jocko the Twelfth will refuse to yield the throne!" "What? The idiot, he can't do that!" "But wait, there's more! The guest of honor was Fatima O'Rourke. Countess Fatima O'Rourke -uh- former Countess O'Rourke. She seems to be trying to use her County to influence them." "Yes, PELICANs are very vulnerable to that, never being able to attain the higher nobility on their own." "She is hatching some scheme to kidnap King Jocko, at Crown Tournament but the PELICANs were crowing about double crossing her." Minivano held out the bit of parchment. "But we can stop her! You see, the worker controls the means of production ..." "Interesting," Jasper replied. "I like her initiative. Not a month ago she was just a brainless bimbo. I wonder what changed her? No matter. Her plan must continue -- Jocko must be stopped. Otherwise, it could be the ruin of us all." He cast a ruminative eye upward, "and I wish I knew what John and Cyrano were planning."