'This is no fun', says Cheese, morosely. 'How will I send souls to the Other Place when all I've got is a spoon?'
'You can have a scythe again', says Death evenly, 'when Lady Luck has recovered and when you've shown that you can be trusted'.
'All I had was some port', says Cheese defensively. 'A small port'.
'A small barrel of port' replies Death.
'It was the celery that tipped me over the edge'. Cheese continues swatting. 'Anyway', he continues, 'I don't think I said anything especially rude and upsetting. Isn't she just being a bit precious?'
'Perhaps it wasn't what you said, my strange apprentice, but rather how you said it?'
'Oh. Did I try my Welsh accent?'
'No.' Death stands slowly. 'No, what you said, you said whilst being stark buttocked naked'.
Cheese looks alarmed. 'Oh dear'.
Death nods. 'Yes, it wouldn't have been quite so bad if you had been standing still'.
'I was running?'
'No - you were jumping up and down in front of Lady Luck, inviting her to touch the shaft of your scythe'.
Cheese winces. 'Oh dear. That really isn't good'.
'Indeed, because you weren't actually carrying a scythe at the time. Then, you told her that, since she was such a cracker, perhaps she'd like some cheese on top of .....
'Stop! Stop!' says Cheese. 'Fine, fine. No scythe, yet. I'll apologise. But it does all seem to have been blown out of proportion. I've done worse'.
'Really?' asks Death raising an eyebrow sceptically. This would a lot to the untrained observer like him not raising an eyebrow, given that he has no actual eyebrows.
Cheese pauses, before exhaling. 'No. Probably not'.
On the topic of 'being blown out of proportion', the battle of Wuppenhas finally commences, and it begins with a preliminary imperial artillery bombardment. All of their batteries target the Bachscuttel Milchfrau Lieb-Garde, large numbers of whom are reduced in proportion by being blown out of their boots. In accordance with Marshal Cavandish's plan, the bombardment continues until his army has acquired, with the passage of time, a number of useful stratagems. Helped by their excellent training, the Fenwickian crews are exceedingly accurate. General Barry-Eylund is forced immediately to spend his time rallying.
The imperial bombardment continues until suddenly, but entirely predictably, the Fenwickians discover something that wasn't on their map (above): a squishy, watery marsh that sits in the line of fire. This reduces the effects of the Imperial bombardment by ruining the bounce in the Fenwickian balls: but no one in Fenwick, of course, could actually say that.
Now that the Imperial Chief of Staff, Giovanni di Tripodi, has a splendid collection of tactics and jolly wheezes up his elaborately laced Italian sleeves, he sends off a courier, ordering Sir Thomas Burgess to advance the cavalry. Needing to ensure that the cavalry maintain adequate contact with headquarters, this means that General Cavandish's bed must be moved into the marsh. Tripodi gives the orders and then watches some Fenwickian soldiers trying to move the bed without waking the general. As the men make a giant potato and cabbage hash of things, jostling Cavandish and terrifying some local frogs, the Chief of Staff briefly considers trying to help. But he then comes to his senses. He has been in Mittelheim long enough to know that merely trying to help will probably be pointless. Give a Mittelheimer a fish and he'll feed himself for a day, before drinking heavily in the evening and depositing the fish on the steps of the local tavern. Give him a rod, and he'll poke his eye out with it; blame his neighbour; start a fight; burn his house down; invent a new form of pie; lose the pie; get invaded; and give up fishing. In short, don't give a Mittelhemer a fish or a rod. Tie him to a chair with the string from the rod and then hit him with the fish. That'll learn him. With a sigh, Tripodi calls Burgess, dismisses the men, and the two move the bed themselves.
Burgess helps move the bed and then climbs back onto his horse (above). He then surveys the state of his force. Incredibly, his cavalry regiments are still in perfect order, despite the difficult terrain. Burgess' mastery of botanical obstacles derives from his previous career in England as a landscape gardener. Fleeing England in the wake of a scandal, Burgess travelled to the Leech Coast which he had heard to be a land of opportunity. His experiences there illustrated that these were opportunities primarily to sweat a great deal into his wig, and to acquire some or all of a wide selection of unpleasant medical conditions. Employed by the Sultan of the Loofah Caliphate in his wars against local tribes, Burgess didn't shine, combat gardening being something of a niche activity. The Sultan and Burgess agreed to part company by mutual consent, an agreement manifested mainly in the Sultan's attempts to have Burgess hunted down, captured, and then drowned in hippo dung. Burgess escaped and fled to Mittelheim, a place in which he has certainly sweated less, but in which the selection of possible medical emergencies is equally expansive.
(Above) The Imperial cavalry have been advanced, but Tripodi is careful not to commit them too early, so they remain halted for the moment in the cover of the trees and marsh. Now, the infantry advances and the right-most of his columns is redeployed. Whilst the mercenaries remain in front of the marsh, the other two regiments are moved in order to join the rear of the remaining columns, making them four deep.
(Below, top left) Barry-Eylund begins to refuse his right flank in the face of possible envelopment by the enemy cavalry. The general surveys through his telescope the advance of the enemy cavalry. He begins to consider moving his own horsed regiments in order to seal off this side of the battlefield.
'We must block up Burgess' passage, Bohner' says the general..
Bohner nods. 'A good sized cork should do the trick, my lord'.
'No - his movements; we need to block his movements', says the general.
Bohner shrugs. 'With a cork in his passage, I think we can assume there will be no movements'.
The general frowns. 'Does everything with you have to be scatological, major?'
'I couldn't say, sir' says Bohner, apologetically. 'I know nothing about the science of cats'.
Death listens intently, as the sounds of crashing flora and panicked fauna signal the close presence of the Imperial cavalry under Burgess.
Cheese looks at Death, and then says slyly, 'Have you lost a bit of weight?'
Death looks surprised but then pleased. 'Well, yes: I've been trying to work out a little: you know, a bit of floor work with my scythe'.
'Well', says Cheese, 'you are looking trim. They'll have to start calling you the Slim Reaper'.
'Hmm', says Death, and then, metaphysically narrows his eyes. Sockets. Whatever. 'Such compliments still won't get you a scythe, my strange smelling apprentice. Still, I suppose it would be fair to let you know that your antics with Lady Luck weren't quite as bad as you might think'.
'Really? I was completely naked'.
'Yes, but being lady Luck, fortuitously, pieces of dried fruit kept getting in the way of her direct view of your ... scythe'.
'Dried fruit?' says Cheese, impressed. 'And what about nuts?'
Death nods. 'Fortuitously covered by some celery'.
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