By the time they were up to the ninety-ninth kiss the King, having been informed of what was happening by one of his slimier royal informers pushed his way through the flock of royal servants in order to confront Ahsmith and his daughter in a flagrant act of lese majesty.
“What do you think you're doing?” grabbing them by the necks he dragged the pair towards the castle gates “I won't have it in my kingdom! A royal Princess does not consort with a swineherd!” with a practiced arm he pitched the swineherd the full length of the drawbridge14 “get out of my castle and my kingdom boy and take this floozy with you. She's nothing to me now!”
The Princess, well the ex-princess now, landed in the mud next to the swineherd, well the ex-swineherd now, began languishing on a level which approached Olympic levels of languishing
“Alas. I am discarded and cast out from the kingdom where I was born and would have ruled. If only I'd accepted the gifts of the Prince from the neighboring kingdom then none of this would ever have happened”
“It's funny you should mention that handsome fellow” Ahsmith smiled despite the throbbing pain in his royal rear “because if you wait right there then you'll get something of a surprise”
“My own father disowned me today and that was something of a surprise. I really doubt an exswineherd like you is going to be able to beat it”
After Ahsmith had retrieved his royal clothing, washed his royal face and dusted the royal bootprint out of his equally royal backside the Good Prince Andrew was finally revealed.15
“Do you recognize us now, highness?”
“I, I do” the disgraced Princess felt her spirits lifting and were this Disney then it would be time for a musical number however, rather than burst into song Good Prince Andrew stepped back as she moved to embrace him.
“Wait, just what do you think you're doing?”
“Well, you love me right?”
“You know what? I actual y thought I did and then you wouldn't accept the rose growing on my fathers grave or my pet songbird because they were natural. When I crafted the pot and rattle you were determined to buy them no matter the cost. Love is natural, it can't be bought or sold. What I discovered during my time as Ahsmith is that there is no room for natural love in your heart princess and because of that there's no room for you in my kingdom. You deserve to reap the consequences of your actions” 16
So it was that the Prince who went looking for a bride returned to his kingdom without one and was happy while the questionably royal Princess had a royal door slammed in her face for the second time that day and nobody knows whatever happened to her.
14 Unofficially setting a record for Prince tossing. A sport that has never been as popular as Dwarf tossing due to difficulties in obtaining princes willing to be tossed about.
15 To the princess I mean. Anyone reading this will have been clever enough to spot the subtle clues as to the true identity of the Swineherd.
16 The actual dialogue of his big speech changes depending on which version of the story you’re reading. The general theme of it is “You done messed this up but good”
EXCOGITATION
•
How long would this pantomime continue?
Leaving aside the fact royalty generally do what they want regardless of the justification it’s really a question of exactly how long he's prepared to keep his job as swineherd.17
At some point, realistically speaking, he’d sit down to a dinner of boiled turnip after working with the pigs all day and think
“Granted I’m wearing her down with all these gifts and certainly when I ultimately reveal myself as the prince she’ll doubtless fall into my arms. It’s just that I have been here for quite a while now and I do wonder how my own kingdom is suffering without me at the helm”
•
If the king is dead exactly how is he still a prince?
From what I can deduce he has a brother who isn't wasting his time on unobtainable princess's of questionable worth and has instead used the opportunity to sit on the throne rather than standing in the wings and plotting.
•
Why didn't the Princess have a quiet word with a trusted guard and let him deal with the procurement of the kettle and rattle?
Surely there’s some brave person in the kingdom who would happily thrash this disrespectful swineherd for the chance to get into her good books.18
However if this had happened I feel it would have changed the story from “The time the Princess learned a valuable lesson to “The time the Princess plunged us all into war”
•
Will he try to get the pigs back?
Spend enough time with even the ugliest of animals and you'll grow attached to them. Since pigs are far from the ugliest animals in the world I think we can safely assume the king might well receive a letter which includes an extremely fair price for his herd of swine who are then put out to stud, breed several litters of champions and live happily ever after.
17 A job he seemed to enjoy and be generally good at. Far be it from me to suggest any Prince should step down but it’s entirely possible he’s found his calling.
18 Or at least the opportunity to rifle through her pages.
RATIOCINATION
Those of us with keen intellects19 will have noticed there is a correlation between the gifts the Prince offers. The rose and cooking pot dealt with the sense of smell while the songbird and rattle deal with sound. The exact gifts change depending on the version you're reading although the general rule is if the first gift is natural then it's counterpart will be artificial.
You could easily make a case for this entire story being in the nature of an allegorical tale of humanities eternal fetish with the new and our collective turning away from the wonders of the natural world. So with this in mind, here's a question.
Is there a moral in the tale? Maybe, maybe not. In this case it seems this is more a story of here are some things which happened once upon a time, on the other hand perhaps the lesson we should take away from the story is something along the lines of
“Graciousness in all things”
After all, if the Princess had been good enough to receive the prince, even if it was to tell him her royal swineherd had more chance than he did it's possible this entire fiasco might have been avoided.Mysterioso
19 You, for reading it and me for writing it
THE THREE ARMY SURGEONS
In which medical misconduct, the consequences of same and attempts to fix the
situation are shown.
Surgery. It’s an undeniable fact that those of us who would wander down the pathways of medicine must first invest a great deal of time learning the craft1 since, for a variety of increasingly bizarre reasons, people tend to frown on the medical attentions of gifted amateurs. In point of fact, even after they’ve flung their graduation caps into the air those freshly minted doctors, nurses and surgeons are expected to continually refine their equally freshly minted skills2.
Why else would we call what they do 'practice'?
This story is one that, despite the presence of cute furry animals and despite said animals playing a major role in the story, was never really meant for the children to hear3.
t once happened that there were three people who happened to be something of a sutured incision above the rest due to the fact each of them were surgeons. Of course to simply label them as surgeons and leave it at that is something of a foul calumny because these three had Imanaged to live through the latest war to end all wars and there were many soldiers who were alive due to their ministrations.
Eventually the stresses of the job began to get to the three and each prescribed the other a holiday although not, as the popular military parlance would have it, to go and see the elephant because they'd not only already seen the elephant but had also seen several of their elephants encounter several enemy elephants and were subsequently called on to sew several elephants of both sides back together in order to allow everyone to return to the start o
f this somewhat pachydermaly tortured metaphor and try again.
It was shortly after the sun had gone down that the three of them arrived at a narrativly convenient town in which was located an equally narrativly convenient tavern.
“Isn't this a stroke of luck. He's got rooms and we want 'em”
“Well said corporal, we should make certain they do a continental breakfast” the lieutenant agreed
“Not to mention a late check out time” the captain concluded “because if there's one thing the army can't stand it’s people who are allowed to sleep in and if there's one thing I feel like doing it's breaking regulations”
“Whence came you?” the landlord, being a talkative and friendly kind of fellow4 was curious about his newest customers “and whither are you going?”
“You 'aving a laugh mate?” the corporal challenged
“Ooh look at him and his posh voice” remarked the lieutenant
“Knock it off you guys” their captain admonished “can't you see that our host is merely playing the part of a person who is nothing more than a simple innkeeper?”
“’Cor is that right mister?”
1
Exactly how much of the time is spent teaching medical students incomprehensible handwriting is something of a trade secret.
2
Although now we're allowed to do things to the trainee cadavers as our clients are fondly referred to.
3
Considering how saccharine stories in this particular genre becomes over time one can only wonder at how gruesome the original tale was.
4
Who had, incidentally, been paid a considerable amount of money to get the plot moving
“It might be” the thespianic innkeeper, confused by this sudden outbreak of fourth wall breaking, lowered his voice “as a matter of fact by the time that this book is published I’ll be appearing in the latest James Bond movie”
Everyone present congratulated him for achieving the coveted role of man-in-background-reading-newspaper and then quickly got back to the story because the director was stamping on his megaphone.
“So you were asking where we were from? The corporal asked quickly
“and where we were going” the lieutenant added.
“As it happens” the captain said smoothly “we three are on leave from the army”
“More or less” the corporal stepped forward “I'm not bragging when I say that we are, in point of fact, the finest surgeons in the world”
“That's quite a claim”
“You see I thought that at first but then I talked to my fellow professionals here and we were in agreement”
“Sorry but how does that prove you're the best surgeons in the world?”
“Look mate, if you visit a doctor and that doctor brought in two other doctors to consult on your case then you'd trust the final diagnoses right?”
“Yeah, obviously”
“There you go then. We consulted each other, come to the conclusion that we were the fines surgeons in the world, billed the army for our time and prescribed each other a vacation”
“If you lot are so good then lets see what you can do”
“Uh, we do surgery. It's an operating theater, not dinner theater”
“The operative word in there is theater and since my minstrel just canceled on me you'd really be doing me a favor mate”
Swayed by this unquestionable logic the three surgeons agreed and took to the inns small stage to polite applause in order to demonstrate the latest in medical treatments.
“You will observe that there is nothing up my sleeve” the corporal produced a bone saw from his pack and quickly chopped off his hand “not even this!” the tone of the applause changed from polite to slightly ironic
The lieutenant, not wanting to be upstaged by one of the lower ranks, plucked out his eyes and spent an entertaining few minutes groping for the plate where the severed hand was still twitching5.
Finally, the captain made certain to show there was nothing up his sleeve by taking his shirt off and then removed his own heart with a bloody flourish “Ladies and gentlemen this is why we're the finest surgeons in the world. These body parts of ours will be passed around for verification and just to prove that we can attach them at our leisure part two of this performance will be held tomorrow morning”
While the three went upstairs to their rooms a passing servant circulated through the appreciative crowd with the plate of things and stowed them in the pantry. This particular passing servant was named Joy6 for reasons best known to her parents and was in a sort of relationship with one of the local soldiers. This is important to know because once the crowd had gone home and the boss had retired to his room to catch up on his account books Joy prepared a romantic repast for herself and her soldier who addressed the large meal with gusto.
“If you keep up with meals like this my girl I'll soon be too large to invade anyone”
“That's the idea. I'm stopping war one soldier at a time” Joy smiled “although speaking of soldiers we've actually got three surgeons from your army staying here tonight”
“Really? We've had reports of a trio of army doctors going missing. I wonder if they're the same ones”
5
After having first put them into the large jar of pickled onions to the delight of the gathered audience.
6
We note in passing.
“Don't turn them in please, they were so down on their luck that they had to perform surgery for the crowd in exchange for a roof over their heads”
“Surgery as entertainment? That boss of yours does have some strange ideas”
“You know how it is with the arthouse crowd. If it's not three women fighting over a duck wearing a hat while a man dressed as a cow plays piano then they don't want to know”
“Has, has that happened?”
“They're booked to play next week. Spoiler alert, it all turns out that this is a semi-ironic statement on the political direction of the country”
“It's a sad comment on the world when even doctors are forced into the entertainment business.
Although now I think about it I do have a niece with a birthday on the horizon. Were these guys any good?”
“They didn't sing or dance but on the plus side they didn't deliver a ten minute speech about what it all meant either so that's a win in my book. They've actually left their things in the pantry until tomorrow.
“That doesn't sound very hygienic to me”
As with everything in this inn the pantry was large and well stocked, or at least it had been a few hours ago. Thanks to a delivery door which hadn't been locked properly it was now empty of everything save for the single plate of the doctors things which had, presumably, being left there ironically the entire concept of which was lost on an arrogant trio of cats who jumped onto the table and made off with the heart, hand and eyes.
“You know what?” Joy asked as the last of the cats disappeared through the open door “you know what? I've told that man about those delivery people so many times. This whole thing is his fault”
“That as may be but what are you going to do about the doctors things? If they're not returned tomorrow then I'd say you're out of a job”
“You're right and that's why you're going to help me. Slippery Dan got caught thieving last night and he's still hanging out of the gallows. So what we do is we take a knife and harvest his hand, eyes and heart”
“Wait, what?”
“It's not like he's using them”
“But he's been dead for a day and his heart and eyes have probably started to spoil by now”
“Fine, just bring me his hand and we'll figure out the rest” Joy picked up a meat cleaver and made her way to the stables where the innkeepers prize pig watched her with suspicion “sorry about this Bacon Sandwich. Really I am”
With the fresh and bloody pig heart in her hand Joy returned to the pantry where the soldier was waiting with a new hand and a pair of eyes �
��The cat came back” he explained “it had eaten the doctors eyes so I thought that this would be fitting, you think they'll notice the difference between their stuff and ours?”
“I think that we can only wait and hope”
The three surgeons woke early that morning. Partly this was due to the military practice of early mornings being somewhat ingrained into them but mostly it was due to all the guests of the inn being awoken by the lamentations of the landlord discovering that his pantries had been raided by persons unknown who had then gone on to butcher Bacon Sandwich.
“What's happening?”
“You guys better get out of here quick. Someone’s killed his pet pig and broken into our pantry. He's not going to have time for entertainers tonight
“We're not actually entertainers” the outstanding surgeons quickly paid the outstanding bill “is it safe for us to get our things?”
“I've already got them here for you”
“Oh yes. I didn't see them there” the doctor quickly inserted the cats eyes and blinked several times “a touch of humor on this dark day”
“Talking of a touch of the humors I'll take my heart back and hoopla, as I believe the fairy godmothers say”
“You two are incorrigible. Now please observe once again that there's nothing up my sleeve at least not until I put my hand back”
“I don't know you guys” the lieutenant said when they arrived at the next village long after the sun had gone down “this place looks a little sketchy”
“Wow” the latest innkeeper looked darkly at his newest guests “right to my face?”
“We'd have more of a choice if someone hadn't slowed us down by wallowing in every single puddle of mud” the corporal ignored their hosts attempts to get their attention.
“For the last time I wasn't wallowing, I tripped” the captain looked up from wringing the mud out of his clothing “but don't forget Squinty Mcgee over there. All we've heard from him today is that the sun is too bright and he can't see where he's going”
Cynical Tales for Cynical Children Page 25