In-Cart Hands-Free Message Arrow Device

I must say it’s been very quiet at the castle these last few days. There isn’t a lot to report but the Prince has been almost pleasant so something dastardly must be on the horizon!

I have received further confirmation from my sources that the “The Artists and The Carts” posting appears to be basically true. Now that we have a crack in the formidable wall of red tape previously erected by the Kingdom’s Keeper of the Carts & Carriages let’s hope it widens somewhat and leads to improvements in all the wheeled machines across the Kingdom.

What say you to that dear King? If you do decree it so... then please…not just for the nobles again…think of your serfs and peasants I beg you. Perhaps an in-cart mandolin, oak wheels and real horsehair seats covers are small additions to you…but to us it would be sheer luxury!

I sometimes think that a in-cart hands-free message arrow device (ICHFMAD) would be nice….but…. even if I have a ICHFMAD fitted the King’s regulations say I can only use it when I am not in motion? But, if I am not in motion then I do not need a ICHFMAD…… as I can perfectly well draw the bow myself?

Is this not a puzzle indeed because logically one must ask the question… why does anyone need an ICHFMAD if they cannot use it without fear of the stocks? Surely there are considerable savings to be made across the Kingdom by not buying any more and thereby reducing all the MAD enabled freemen and nobles.

But I am not a Chancellor, I am only a lowly serf. So what do I know?

The Artists And The Carts

Has it been four years already? My horse and cart is up for renewal. It looks like I can have the same choice of horse and cart as I did before. I can have a choice of colour (black, grey, pinto, piebald) so that’s fine except………

Word has reached the castle that in another part of the realm far far away from our blighted land, the artists (a disreputable bunch in any castle - but fellow serfs none the less) are to have bigger carts and bigger horses. The artists have been saying that their easels have got bigger, their paint brushes longer, their palettes more numerous and that they need bigger carts to take the load.

The artists are sending out arrows to all parts of the kingdom with the message that their Prince is bountiful and loved by all….one might say that they are extracting the urine from their fellow serfs in other Princedoms…..boasting of their success and making merry at the expense of other artists who cannot have a bigger horse and cart due to their own Prince’s reduction in the feed and tack budget!

If one Princedom needs bigger carts for its artists should not all other artists in the kingdom be getting bigger carts, even if they sometimes have to share them? Are not their easels, paint brushes and palettes of equal size?

And….now that I come to think about it…within the last four years my quills have grown, I now carry a writing case and the legal books I need to avoid committing anything to paper of a libellous nature are numerous. It’s as good a case as the artists put forward so should I not also be given a bigger horse and cart??

Perhaps I should petition the King?

Back From The Crusades!

Would all serfs and interested nobles please forgive the delay since I last posted. I have been to the crusades on my hols and have now returned with sunburn and some very pretty souvenir Saracen heads.

As seems to be the way of this blog my post-box is full but the comments are scarce. So be it, my (slightly chicken hearted) fellow serfs and peasants.

Many of the mails I have received seem to follow the theme put forward by “Anonymous” in the comments section of my previous post. That is - have I got it wrong and was I originally right!!

Is the true power behind the throne not the King but actually the Prince? If this is so, what reason can there be for such a reversal of roles? Is the Prince a master of the dark arts? Does he conjure up spirits and devils to bend the King’s will? I must admit it is a possibility and would go some way to explaining the strange happenings at the castle and at the palace.

I will keep my ear to the ground for further information and I ask you to do the same. I ask the growing band of merrie men and women to please continue emailing - and to the brave ones - try commenting direct. It’s not as painful as it might appear.

PS

A late arrow has arrived with a message that the Prince may be in possession of WMDs (Words of Much Disorder) that could be deployed within 45 minutes.

Now where have I heard that before………...??

The Miller Responds

After reading the comment on the last post the Miller himself fired an arrow at his son's arse with the following message attached.

Hey! Son! For Christ’s sake get back inside this hovel. How many times have I told you about going out and irritating the fucking nobles? Here I am grinding me grains for all I’m worth just to provide a home for you and the other 15 brats and you go out trying to piss off the gentry.

I work dawn to dusk just pay for your private lessons on basic forelock touching and this all the thanks I get. Ungrateful sod! If you think I am going to pay for you to go to Nottingham Uni to get that BA in Grovelling and Servility you have another think coming! You would only be another typical bloody student anyway. Piss all your groats up against the wall and never do a day of work. Bit like the nobility really but without any class.

And while we are having a heart to heart - this bollocks you keep harping on about - this joining a band – it isn’t going to happen. What sort of crap name is Robin and the Merrie Men anyway????

Love Dad.

Witchcraft

I have bitten the bullet (actually that should probably be arrow) and visited the castle for the fair. True to his word, the King has blindfolded all the participating nobles who are all from foreign lands.

I still worry though. I answered all the questions my good lords asked me but when I reviewed my completed parchment I realised it was not as anonymous as it seemed.

If there was such a devil’s instrument in existence capable of taking all the parchments and reporting in such a way that one’s identity might be revealed by admission of age or sex or department I might be very worried.

But that’s all witchcraft and nonsense.

Isn’t it?

Well.

Isn’t it??

Wrong Prince!

That will teach me to use a freelance! I said get a picture of The Prince!!

Daydream

I was trolling through the leafy green of Sherwood yesterday when I felt the wind of an arrow as it passed close by my tanned peasant brow. I must admit that my first thought was “it’s that fucking Robin Hood shooting up again” but I was wrong.

Quivering in a tree trunk close by was an official arrow pinning a King’s message to the sturdy oak. Upon close inspection it was an invitation to a grand fair at the castle. This fair would give me the opportunity to comment freely on my noble masters, something that would normally send a shiver of fear across the land.

However, this problem had been addressed. I should fear no punishment as all the nobles involved in gathering this information would be from another land and they would be blindfolded. There would be no way to know if a lowly serf made derogatory remarks about his betters.

I went on my merry way in a much improved frame of mind. I was eager to join in all the fun of the fair. Oh Joy. I could soon voice all my concerns about the shit I have to take on a daily basis. I could complain about the way the Prince holds demonic sway over this part of the Kingdom. I could do something to rid this once green and pleasant land of the pestilence that covers it.

And the beauty was I could do all this in complete anonymity.

Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!

For fucks sake wake up! Robin Hood was a legend not a fairy story!!