Autumn (2nd cont)

Autumn (2nd cont)

The room was small by comparison with others in the palace. Unfortunately, this made the lurid ostentation of the gilded, rococo furniture, the ornate frames of the erotic paintings, and the excessive folds of burgundy drapes even more overly lush. King Ludwig set his goblet (the stem being a statue of an orgastic dancer from some vile Greek rite) down on the small round of bluestone within the ropes of gilded ornamentation of the table and asked, “Andrew Kern? The order is sure?”
A portly courtier whose face hid behind bushy cheek beards and mustache grinned. “The last witness to our little escapades in the hunting lodge, Sire.”
“He’s an, ah, irritation,” the king continued, “and must be scratched. But why should we be concerned with Prince Allbrick? He’s illegitimate, disowned, and apostate. We can’t even use him ourselves.”
A tall courtier in riding clothes responded. “He was the eldest, Sire; and there’s a rumor that Stanken plans to acknowledge him and give him an auto-de-fe reconversion. That’d put another cavalry genius and skilled plotter in place as Prince Regent should the Hurtshog not recover from his unfortunate wound.”
“That’s another irritation!” the King snapped. “How could Herr Badspielman miss? We’d gotten him placed right beside that bloated bum as an aide!”
“It seems that the swollen sausage is very agile and slippery when riding into a charge, Sire. We’re lucky that the Frankszonians didn’t realize that it wasn’t just a battle wound.”
“Too bad about Badspielman, though,” the portly courtier shook his head. “Why did he let himself get carried so close to an infantry formation?”
“He didn’t,” the rider responded. “That’s just where his body was recovered afterwards.”
A moment of silence followed as the two courtiers thought that a bullet could have been fired by more than just the public combatants. The king returned to his complaint, “Why must we risk an agent against this greasy Frankfurter? We’ve already lost an entire team in our last attempt on the Kerns.”
“His return of the things he took with him into exile is perhaps more important than his person,” the portly councilor commented. “A seal, a ring or two, and a very small scepter.”

(A computer crash erased the interesting byplay as Pederastein, the Portly Courtier, and King Ludwig continued their plotting. Alas, too ill to recreate it, but here’s a synopsis)

They will infiltrate Stagonian troops into the area around the hideout. After all, the Stagonians are already uniformed like Gallians and their attack would trigger a general Frankszonian uprising and destroy the Fhartzen standing with the Gallians, and thus remove them from rule. Such deceitful tactics were deemed vile enough.
This attack, however, is a cover for another plot. Originally, they’d planned to kidnap and kill the Urpprinz and frame Allbrick and Andrew Kern for the deed. This was altered, though, when they realized that it might be too vile ... and arouse an horrible coalition against them if exposed ... which would create the kind of political community of minor princes which Frankszonia had been advocating as a response to the pressure of the greater powers. Therefore, they decided to make the attack on the Urpprinz a cover for an attempt to steal the Urpprinz’s treasure box. There was information that the items brought back by Allbrick were kept there under the guard of two large black Turkish warriors.
Thus they will vilely deceive the Fhartzen and Kerns into destroying themselves!