'It's a trap!' croaks Akbar. 'It's a trap!'
Casimir nods. 'Thank you, Admiral: an interesting summation of our maritime affairs. Quite similar to your last report, but there we go'.
Casimir eyes Akbar resignedly. It's fair to say that no one who was appointed an admiral in an entirely landlocked country like Zenta was likely to be especially marked by ambition, energy, and enterprise. If he could, Casimir had often thought that he'd like to especially mark him instead with a large mallet. Akbar, alas, was a favourite of his wife, the Hospodina Eudokia Asanina, and so, like his wife, there was great peril in touching him.
Casimir was absolute ruler over all he surveyed, a fact that his wife had argued meant that his authority did not extend over those parts of it that he couldn't survey, especially those bits that were under her clothes. This was a great disappointment to the hospodar, who was used to getting his way - several ways, usually. But Casimir had a great deal of respect for his wife. That didn't, of course, stop him from rogering anything that had two legs and compatible accoutrements, but it did mean that he valued her advice and tried to avoid making her angry. Since he was, by his own admission, a violent psychopath who delighted in cruelty, pain, and freestyle dental torture, Casimir has concluded that he should probably be respectful around someone who also knew that, but didn't seem to care.
It wasn't impossible that the admiral was his wife's lover. But then, as with any relationship between two males engaged in risky and potentially fatal activity, that just gave Casimir a slight feeling of comradeship towards Akbar - something that had led him to give him some actual ships, or rather pedalos, on the palace lake. As Admiral of the Fleet, Akbar spent much of his time conducting pretend maritime encounters between what he called 'the Rebellion' and 'the Empire', in which he was mostly occupied by getting ambushed and then sinking. The rest of the time, he gave little trips to palace children.
'Fine, fine!' says Casimir. 'Akbar, withdraw. But next time, check the depth of the lake. If there's one thing that ruins the atmosphere at a birthday party, it's the screams of drowning children'.
Akbar withdraws, bowing so low that it's possible he's moved to the floor below.
'Who's next?' sighs the hospodar. It's been a long morning.
'An envoy from the Empire of All the Fenwicks, sire'.
'The ambassador?' asks Casimir, his mood brightening. The hospodar has always had a creative relationship with foreign ambassadors, seeing it as one of his responsibilities to ensure that they find their role a stretching one. It's one of the reasons he kept a rack.
'Indeed, my lord. I suspect that he wishes us to take the field against the forces of Saukopf-Bachscuttel'.
'Hmmm, well, how is our army at the moment, Radu Pasha?'
'Worryingly up to strength again, Dread Lord'.
'What, already? I thought we suffered huge casualties amongst the irregulars in our glorious victory over the Margravate of Wurstburp?'
Radu gestures placatingly. 'The problem is that they breed like rabbits, sir', he says. 'Not least because they often breed with rabbits'.
'With rabbits?'
'Yes, sire. Apparently, if you grab them by the ears ...'
'No, no, no - this won't do!' cries the hospodar. 'We've got to get rid of more of our irregulars! Imagine the cost of maintaining them! Imagine the smell! Imagine the moral injury!'
'Well, my lord, let's hear what the ambassador has to say ...'
