dolls chased Vitriolica's mother and hapless assistant Lord Saveloy to a high turret, where they were locked away, never to be seen again.
The battle became even fiercer, the savage dolls destroying bedpan after bedpan, while the chomping mechanical pans wrenched off arms, legs and heads from the wretched attackers, causing widespread destruction. Orla, the queen's maid in waiting, stuck her head out of the door to see how things were going. In the heat of the action, it looked as if things were fairly evenly balanced.
"My lady! I fear that we require some back up, quickly!"
The queen looked around, and remembered her prized possession, the sinister clockwork robot that she had created to destroy her father. She found the ornate key that powered it, wound it up as far as it would go, and then released it into the pandemonium.
"Make them pay, my beauty! Make them pay!" she roared at the top of her voice.
The large automaton spun and whirred into the thick of the battle, sending springs and sections of bedpans twirling apart every which way. The grinding crunch of the spinning saw gouged into the copper chamberpots, repelling the oncoming troops and staving off the attack. Finally, the last of Leep's pre-programmed malignant bedpans lay motionless, one solitary wheel spinning out of control.
The attackers were defeated and the rebellion had been quelled. Lord Snydey of the Ghiws was restored as prime minister, for the time being, at least and Leep withdrew to the shadows to make further plans. He took out his aggression on the many servants that he maintained, orphans taken in from the street to serve him and do his bidding, which he claimed was an act of charity. What a nice man, when all's said and done. The queen maintained her position too, quite rightly, and became even more unbending in her iron will.
- § - § - § - § - § -
In 1840 there was a royal wedding, and everybody across the country cheered, as well as a few impertinent folk who also leered, but you always get that at those sort of occasions. It was an eminently enjoyable event for most; the Leepers made certain of that. If you weren't cheering, you'd be beaten with one of their retractable truncheonsticks.
The archbishop of the time, Milliaw Yowley, had written many treatises on etiquette and manners, which he imbued on Queen Vitriolica, and she herself enforced them on her people, with a little help from her new husband, Prince Trebla. It was slightly strange, as if you looked closely, some might say that Trebla's eyes were made of nothing but cold glass, and his skin had a soft, metallic sheen to it, but it was probably nothing.
Everyone had gone chamber potty, and there was more mechanical madness yet to come...
~ ~ ~
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