You've Nailed Him to His Perch!

'As you requested, my lord Casimir: behold! The Rotenburg ambassador!' cries Radu Pasha, gesturing.
There is a moment of silence as the assembled court look at the contents of the floor in front of them.

'Hmmm' says Hospodar Casimir finally. 'He doesn't look very well'.

'Has he lost some weight?' asks Sihirbaz Agha, the Sanjak's Chief (and to be honest, only) Scientist. 'He looks a bit peaky'.

 'He's dead', says the Hospodina Eudokia Asanina. 'He is, to use the English vernacular, "brown bread". Indeed, given how very dead he looks, one might say that he is "seven-seed multi-grain bread"'.

'Are we sure?' asks Sihirbaz. 'Because I had a long conversation with him yesterday in the gardens'.

'He's dead', says Radu Pasha sighing.

'No, he's just resting ...' replies Sihirbaz vehemently.

Radu snorts. 'Look, I know what a dead ambassador looks like; and I'm looking at one right now!'

'No, he's not dead: he's definitely resting!'

'Well, if he's resting, then we should wake him him up!' says Radu. 'Wake up mister ambassador, I've got a lovely cuttlefish for you!'

'There!' cries Sihirbaz. 'He moved!

'No he didn't!' says Radu. 'That was you poking his head with your foot!'

'He's resting!' insists Sihirbaz.

'Wake up! Wake up! See?' replies Radu, thrashing the ambassador with his stick.

'I think he was just waking up when you stunned him with your cane' insists Sihirbaz.

'No!' cries Radu. 'This ambassador is demised!'

'He could just be pining ...'

'He's not pining! He has passed on!'

'Pining for ... some fjords'.

Radu gesticulates. 'He's not pining for some fjords! This ambassador is dead! He's a stiff! He is an ex-ambassador!'

The hospodina raises an eyebrow. 'Cease this! Look at him: he's shrunken, naked, skeletal, and also, and this should be a reasonably strong clue, he's not breathing'.

'He could be breathing softly', says Sihirbaz, unwisely persevering.

'I doubt it', say Eudokia, 'because he hasn't got a nose'.

Sihirbaz sighs. 'He's dead: and I thought that he was just a good listener'.

'This is inconvenient', snaps the hospodar. The assembled courtiers, minus the hospodina, shift nervously. Whilst the phrase "this is inconvenient" doesn't sound much like the phrase "I am unhappy, and I intend to manifest this mood by skinning all here assembled alive, before then dipping them in a pot of chilli salt", in Casimir's court the two sentences were functionally identical. 'I wished to inform him of my intention to massacre the Rotenberg mercenaries currently stationed in my territory', continues the hospodar. 'But now I can't'.

As has been noted in an earlier edition of this modest publication, it had been the case that Rotenburgers had been employed to aid the Sanjak in its search for technically sophisticated weapons. This had never delivered much of use. The equipment produced by the Rotenburgers was indeed technically sophisticated; as opposed, that is, to being actually sophisticated. The northerners had seemed incapable of producing anything that didn't either spontaneously combust or result, on construction, with a product in which several small, but as it would transpire, quite important, unidentified parts were inexplicably left over. Flat-pack wooden artillery did indeed reduce many of the challenges of military logistics; but the weight and roundness that caused such problems in transportation it turned out also made quite an important contribution to their ability to project large metal cannonballs. The Rotenburg artificers simply declared this discovery to be 'some inevitable bumps in the road' before going back to playing cards and drinking port. Even after some of them were subjected to a few inevitable bumps on the head with some wooden clubs (none of which were flat-pack) it was difficult to induce in them any real sense of urgency or, indeed, competence.

'Goodness, husband!' says the hospodina tartly. 'It cannot make a jot of difference if one declares one's intentions before the ambassador or not. I'm sure it will be quite as much fun to surprise the Rotenburgers and massacre them in their beds. We are, after all, at war with Landgrave Choldwig!'

'Hmmm', replies the hospodar, mulling this over. 'I suppose it increases the chances of capturing some prisoners. And entertaining them would pass the time whilst we waited for the Vulgarians to besiege another town. Where are they heading?'

'By all accounts, they are moving their forces by river to Bachscuttel'.

'Excellent! I really don't like Prince Rupprecht: and it doesn't help that there is so much of him to dislike'. Casimir looks at the remains of the ambassador. 'You know' he says philosophically, 'I think I prefer the ambassador like this. He's much less argumentative'. He peers forward. 'Is that a hole in the back of his head?'

Radu pasha also leans forward. 'I think it is indeed my lord'.

Casimir nods. 'And what do you know - he's also much more open-minded'.