Saga Of The European King

If Princess Princess could have looked out of the window or somehow have punched a hole through the wall of the Tower Of Super-Chastity, she would have seen a lot of people making an awful lot of fuss over her out there.

But since she could neither see nor hear all those people outside while they fought and shouted and killed and died, she called for Eunuchtos, the chief eunuch, for it was nearly lunchtime and she needed to put in her order for lunch. Eunuchtos appeared at her door, ridiculous and swaddled in puppy fat, almost as soon as she had pulled the rope that summoned him. Eunichides and Eunuchoples stood at either shoulder. They were eunuchs too, you know, but they weren't as good at being eunuchs as Eunuchtos, so they would never be a chief eunuch. They were fine with this. They didn't care that they were lesser eunuchs or that they would probably work in this dark, windowless tower for their entire lives. They ate well, they slept long hours, they gossiped and they groomed each other and watched lots of TV and had long baths and drank many cups of warm tea, though lately they had been made to spend more and more time participating in one of Princess Princess' increasingly elaborate and exhausting games. They were fine with that too, really. They liked being told what to do and the games were fun even if they were also repetitive and difficult to understand.

And so, Princess Princess told Eunuchtos what it was she wanted for lunch. She ordered exactly what was on the set menu for the day, which was fortunate because that was the only food that the eunuchs were allowed to give her – not that she ever did order anything that wasn't on the set menu. That would have been futile.
The order given, they left the Princess once again alone in her room. It was big enough to run across and you could, too, because she always kept it so tidy. You could even take a running jump onto the swing she'd made that hung down from the small skylight. Lord knows how she'd manage to get all the way up there to attach it, but she was ever so resourceful when she had an idea in mind. If the swing didn't grab you, you could simply say 'how-do-you-do' to the man-sized doll she'd built out of firewood, sacking and rope that she kept in the corner, or just hang around from one of the many pairs of leather straps that she'd bolted to the walls. The fourth eunuch, Eunuchephene, was doing just that. With face flush against the wall, he hung suspended by his arms and kept in place by belts wrapped around his legs. He was asleep, but since he had a large, ragged hole cut out of his pantaloons, she could wake him up any time she liked in any number of alarming ways that she'd devised. Eunuchephene was fine with this. He got let down for regular stretches and had every second day off to do whatever he liked and the Princess really did seem to like the best. He didn't understand what it was that the Princess was doing to him most of the time, but it was all good.

Eunuchtos, Eunichides and Eunuchopheles returned to the room. They had Princess Princess' lunch with them. Even though the Princess was locked in a tower with four eunuchs and had been there since she was fourteen years old, she was still a princess and she most certainly ate like one. Her lunch that day was a ball of nutmeg coated in a paprika shell and frosted with saffron. It was the size of a big fist. Spices were a huge deal in Medieval days because the food was awful and often cooked wrong. A chunk of spice that size would have cost you the same as seventy slaves if you'd bought it in the shops. She coquettishly grabbed the ball from Eunuchtos' platter and bit into it like an apple. She ate it noisily while skipping around the room, as was her custom. Her many skirts and her ash-white hair billowed about her as she did so and she stole many glances over to the eunuchs as she ran steadily out of breath. The eunuchs stuck around. The routine was that Princess would get herself all psyched up with the spices and the prancing about and then it would be time for a game. This day was no different. She didn't even bother to finish her lunch, she just tossed the spiceball into the corner, half-eaten, then grabbed Eunuchophles by the large carrot she often made him wear strapped to his hips, who let out a weak yelp and dropped Princess' drinking bowl full of lemonade before she yelled out the name of the game she wished to play:
“Ricey Ricey!”

Eunuchtos and Eunuchides dutifully rushed to their positions by the chest-high urns that stood by Princess' bed as she grappled the unresisting Eunuchophles to the ground, hitched up her many skirts and sat on his broad, squishy back, pinning him to the ground under her bulk while his jelly-like arms scrambled about for some leverage. They grabbed fistfuls of rice from the urns and fitfully tossed them at Princess and the gasping Eunuchophles while they chanted “Marry him! Marry him!” in their shrill, tumultuous voices. Bombarded with rice, Princess grabbed the back of Eunuchophles' soft head and ground her hips into the point of his shoulderblade again and again and made a commotion for quite some time until she made a funny sort of yawn, whereupon she rolled him over, declared herself the winner of the game and devoured his carrot in three vicious gnashes. She stood up so she could smile at her eunuchs and put in her order for dinner but her eunuchs were gaping like snakes and pointing with their heads like hunting dogs, towards the door. Princess, still chewing, with Eunuchoples lying in a puddle of lemonade by her feet, turned to look at the door behind her and was so surprised by what she saw that she spat carrot all over the King, her father, who had seen everything. There was one long, silent moment that walked slowly around the room, touched everything at least twice and then the King started wailing. He wailed and he howled and he clawed at his ennobled head with his remaining hand and his protestations did shake the Tower Of Super-Chastity. He didn't know what was happening, he didn't know what he had just seen his daughter do to that eunuch and he was lost and afraid. Princess Princess called out to him. She wanted to know how he was doing and where he'd been for so, so long, but he bolted down the stairs all the way out the front door and out onto the battlefield outside, where the terrible cacophony of war had turned into the soft babble of a few thousand men shooting the breeze, getting to know each other and generally killing time. He ran straight into the Angel Cowboy, who had wondered where he'd gone.
“Whoa there! Where's the fire, hold your horses, etcetera.” he said to the thrashing King. “What's got you spooked, Your Highness? You don't strike a fella as the skittish type.”
“It's horrible! I don't know I don't know. She got carrot on me!” howled the King. The Angel Cowboy pulled the King close and hugged him tight. That's what a good cowboy does to a steer to calm it down. He shushed and stroked the King while he cried and sniffled.
“Got yourself a bottled-up firecracker on your hands, Your Highness?” The King nodded into the Angel Cowboy's shoulder. “Aw, that's always a difficult thing to see, but let's see if I can't maybe make another little problem go away today.” He released the King, who had fallen calm and quiet, gripped his shoulder for half a second, patted down his pockets to check if what he thought was there was still there and then jogged up the stairs to Princess Princess' bedchamber.
Then he looked right into the camera, right at us, winked and said, “My, doesn't it just seem that I'm everywhere at once these days?”

End Of Chapter 89