Alliance!

'Ah, ambassador!' says Vizier Radu Pasha. 'With your presence here you are really spoiling us!'

The Bachscuttel ambassador, Ritter von Dweeb  enters the hospodar's chambers tentatively. He looks warily from side to side, as if checking for ingeniously hidden, but strikingly painful, traps. It is really quite a good impression of checking for ingeniously hidden, but strikingly painful, traps, because he is actually checking quite hard for ingeniously hidden, but strikingly painful, traps.

'My lord!' he cries, bowing low. 'I come on behalf of the Palatinate of Saukopf-Bachscuttel, offering you an alliance with my Prince Rupprecht and all the benefits that would accrue from said co-joining of our forces!'

'Would there be more of those glittery chocolates?' asks Radu Pasha.

'Possibly', Dweeb says slowly, holding on hard to his hat. 'Possibly'.

'Well', says Radu Pasha, 'the distribution of such sweetmeats might help undermine the attractiveness of the arguments put forward by the representative from Fenwick'.

'I must protest, sire' continues Dweeb, 'though obviously with great respect to yourself, my lord, at the presence in your court of the Fenwickian envoy! Nothing good can come of listening to knaves such as he!'

'He seemed a nice enough fellow when I spoke to him earlier', says Casimir evenly.

'He is, alas, a pernicious war-monger!' replies the ambassador. 'What we need in Mittelheim is peace'.

'Peace?' says the hospodar thoughtfully. 'No, not really. I don't see any great benefits to peace at the moment. Tell me ambassador, have you ever been to Persia?'

'My lord, I cannot say that I have. Is it nice?'

'Is being hit around the head by a violin, whilst simultaneously having one's wedding tackle gnawed off by a badger, something that one would describe as "nice"?'

'Probably not', answers Dweeb cautiously, wondering where this conversation might be going, and whether a badger and/or some form of string instrument, might soon be making an unwelcome appearance. 'It isn't something that I, at least, would recommend to friends'.

'I would agree, ambassador. But as an activity it is still infinitely preferable to campaigning in Persia. So, I must instead find some way of campaigning in Mittelheim'.

Dweeb suddenly realises the import of Casimir's words. 'My lord! Surely it cannot be that you have manufactured this conflict in order to avoid taking an unwanted foreign trip? ' he asks appalled.

Radu Pasha shrugs on Casimir's behalf.

'Are you mad?' adds Dweeb.

Radu pasha winces and the chamber goes very, very quiet. As this modest publication has already noted, the hospodar is quite sensitive, given his family history, to charges that he might be short of a few marbles; or indeed that the marbles might have been replaced at some stage by rabid mongooses*. Radu has contemplated over the years whether or not Casimir is actually mad. His conclusion is that he isn't mad in the strictest sense of the word - if by 'strictest' one means actually quite mad indeed. Rather, the hospodar possessed in large measure those qualities required to survive as a ruler in Mittelheim: qualities that in other parts of the world might qualify one for an extended stay in the heavily padded room of one's choice.

'Ah, er, I use the word "mad" only in the most figurative of figurative senses', says Dweeb hastily, sensing the possible approach of a badger string quartet. 'Yes, ah, most figuratively. And respectfully. Very, very respectfully.

Casimir seems unfazed by Dweeb's outburst. He gestures towards Dweeb.

'Hmmm - do you think oil would heat that breastplate up most effectively; or should I go off piste with some garlic butter?'

As Dweeb is hauled off by the harem guards to reflect on his unwise words, news is sent to the Fenwickian ambassador that Zenta stands with King George in the coming war!

* Or Mongi.