Chapter Thirty Five: In Which More Exciting Things Happen, and then Everything Ends.

For a moment, time seemed to stand still. The two Prince Ruperts stared at each other, and everyone else stared at the Prince Ruperts. When they had only been able to see one, they had looked like the same man, if that made sense. Now both of the Prince Ruperts were in the same place, the differences were obvious.
The one who was flanked by Mad Pete, Ginger McSporran and Ethel was taller and thinner with longer hair, and a bigger scar. He also was dressed completely in black, but his black somehow seemed blacker if that was possible. On the other hand, the Prince Rupert who had run out of the castle keep in pursuit of Ralph the Timid and Lady Ann was slightly shorter and slightly stockier with shorter hair and a scar, which while still being very big, was smaller than that of his lookalike. His face was also covered in long red gashes and his shirt was hanging in ribbons from his encounter with Twinkle.
"Who are you?" he demanded angrily of the man facing him.
"Isn't it obvious?" said the other Prince Rupert, examining his fingernails casually. "I'm your evil twin."
Lady Ann and Ralph the Timid took their opportunity to slowly and subtly edge out of the way.
"How can you be my evil twin?" raged Prince Rupert. "I'M evil! I can't have an evil twin! And besides, HE'S my evil twin - come back here!" This last bit was directed at Ralph, who he grabbed by the arm and pulled away from Lady Ann.
"Ah ha ha ha." laughed the other Prince Rupert quietly. "I think you will find he is not. No, I am the evil Prince Clarence of Xanadu. I was abandoned by my parents in the mountains, but my kind hearted mother could not, in the end, abandon completely chartless - stupid woman! And so I grew up, knowing my destiny, and knowing that one day, I would return and claim my own!" He drew a piece of paper from his pocket and clutched it exultantly.
Mad Pete was looking horrified. His eyes were popping. He was mouthing something at Ralph that seemed to be something along the lines of "Oh - my bad! I'm really sorry!"
Ginger McSporran was just looking a bit resigned, and Ethel wasn't looking at anything in particular.
Ralph was watching this exchange with growing enjoyment. He wasn't evil after all! That was excellent news. Now he would be able to live happily ever after with Lady Ann...how lovely. Lady Ann....he looked over to where she was standing and discovered she wasn't there. Where had she gone? He tried to look for her while not being too obvious, while next to him the debate of the brothers Xanadu raged.
"Claim your own?" Prince Rupert was saying disgustedly. "Claim your own?"
"That's right, brother." said Prince Clarence, folding his piece of paper into small bits and then putting in back into his chest pocket. "I am here to claim my own. My share of the domain of Xanadu, its castles, its wealth. And then I shall build the most powerful regime of domination in all the land!" He looked up and shook his fist at the sky. There was a sudden crash and dazzle of thunder and lightning, even though it was broad daylight and the weather was completely fine. That's just how evil Prince Clarence was. It even made Prince Rupert take a step back so that he stood within the doorway of the keep, though he never lost his disdainful sneer.
"I don't think so," said Prince Rupert, dangerously, letting go of Ralph to put his hand on his sword."And what kind of a name is Clarence anyway? Very evil sounding! I don't think."
"I know you don't think, brother!" said Prince Clarence with an evil grin, and then drawing his own sword, swung his arm back and then flung it through the air. It flew with deadly aim, towards Prince Rupert and past him, into the darkness of the keep, where it could be heard clanging and banging as it rebounded off the walls..
"You missed!" cried Prince Rupert "Ah ha! Ah ha ha ha ha -" he was suddenly cut short as the portcullis descended rapidly, puncturing him in several places, its supporting ropes having been severed by Prince Clarence's boomeranging sword. There was a horrible gurgling sound as Prince Rupert struggled for breath. "Owwwww." said Prince Rupert, with great difficulty. "Could some - someone - someone please get this portcullis off me?"
Ralph the Timid stared in horror, as did Mad Pete and Ginger McSporran. Ethel was not very interested because she was a bird, Twinkle was somewhere else making friends with the palace cats, and Lady Ann was nowhere to be seen.
Prince Clarence, however, had no such empathy for his brother. He laughed, a deep full evil laugh that echoed around the stone walls of the castle. "Ah ha ha ha ha ha ah aha ha ha ha ha ha h ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ahah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha h aha ha haa ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ah ha ha h ah ha ha ha -" and then, he was suddenly cut short too. He made a funny "Oeoergh" noise, swayed a little at the knees, and then collapsed in a big heap of black clothing.
Lady Ann looked very pleased with herself and smiled at her bottle. "I knew this would come in handy eventually!" she said. "And I didn't even break it!"
"Great!" said Mad Pete, hopping forward to take a closer look."Brandy! Well, let's get us unchained and we can all have a drink to celebrate."
"We don't have a key, " said Ralph the Timid, without attempting to search Prince Clarence for one. He was only knocked out, after all.
"We don't need one," said Ginger McSporran. He flexed his arms, and with a loud snapping noise, his chains smashed. He walked over to Mad Pete and Ethel and broke their chains in turn. Mad Pete rubbed his arms and Ethel flapped her wings, and they both looked at Ginger McSporran in dignified silence.
There was a pause. "You mean you could have done that at any time?" asked Ralph the Timid.
"And easily overpowered Prince Clarence?" asked Lady Ann.
Ginger McSporran shrugged his shoulders. "Hey, it was your story, Ralphie baby. Now why don't you introduce us to your girlfriend, and we'll get this all cleaned up?"
And so Ralph the Timid introduced Lady Ann to Ginger McSporran, Mad Pete and Ethel, and then they got it all cleared up.
EPILOGUE
So, what happened in the end to everyone, and what is the moral of the story? That's what's really important, after all.
Well, Prince Clarence never really recovered from his bop on the head. He woke up believing he was an Unexpectedly Large Warbler with a flying impediment, so Ethel took him under her wing, so to speak, and only pecked him when he tried to do evil things to other Unexpectedly Large Warblers. She and Mad Pete looked after him back in Rangville, where Mad Pete decided it was probably time for him to do some more work, since retirement was really rather boring, and so he wrote a book about his experiences and mostly his failed experiment with preventing destinies ("The Snake Will Out: My Foray Into Preventing Evil Developing In Those Born In Inauspicious Years, by Boris P. Blockoff, available in all good retailers.)
Ginger McSporran went back to his caves, and took Twinkle with him, but only after doing a great deal of shopping and buying some new types of tea. He made his new friends promise to visit him at least once a year, because as he said, it was lonely work, being a cave beast.
Prince Rupert recovered from the injuries caused by the portcullis falling down on him, but he renounced being an evil villain and settled for just being a bit mischevious. So if you went to stay at Castle Xanadu, you were always sure of a warm welcome and would never wake up in a dark, rat infested cell or at the top of the tallest tower, but you might find yourself suddenly drenched by a bucket perched atop a door. All in all though, it was an improvement.
And as for Ralph the Timid and Lady Ann, well, they got married and lived happily ever after. Ralph the Timid never found his true birthdate, but after the scary possibilty of being Prince Rupert's evil twin had been discarded he decided he didn't really want to. This way he could still safely go and visit his family in the mountains and introduce his wife to his lovely baby sister.And Lady Ann decided she didn't want any more adventures, so they just made themselves at home in one of the Erd's many manors, and raised themselves a family. One which, Lady Ann made sure, would be prepared to rescue a family member if they saw them being carried off.
And the moral of the story is: Life is full of interesting things. What, you mean that's not a moral? Of course it is.
The End.

(Word Count:

Chapter Thirty Five: In Which Lots Of Very Exciting Things Happen.

There had been nothing for it, and upon reaching the ground, Ralph the Timid had submitted to being taken prisoner with reasonably good grace. Oh, he'd struggled a little, so as to not look bad in front of Lady Ann - it was hard, he thought, with a name like Ralph the Timid. One had to demonstrate all the time that one was extra brave, instead of doing the sensible thing and submit peacefully so that they won't hit you, and then bravely escape later, maybe knocking one or two of the guards out in the process.
And so it was that they were now here, in Prince Rupert's throne room, and he was looking speculatively at Ralph. Ralph, however, was looking around the room and gawping open mouthed. He'd never been in a room so ornate. Lady Ann was similarly curious. She'd been in the room before, she was fairly certain, because she recognised the carpet from the glmpses she had had from under the blindfold when she had been led - supposedly unseeingly - to her tower top prison.
The room was phenomenally tastelessly decorated. It was large, with high ceilings, and beautiful, arched windows lined the walls on two sides. It could have been a beautiful room. But it was not. In the centre of the room, against the back wall, on a raised platform, was the throne. Leading up to it was a wide open space, then some steps. Corridors on either side of the throne were concealed, but visible behind thick curtains. The bones and basic set up of the room were fine, thought Lady Ann. It was just the mixture of colours and patterns and fabrics and ...and things, she thought, looking at a giant porcelain statue of a cat. The room was littered with sculptures of cats. Lifesize, minature, gigantic, the sizes ranged up and down the entire scope of scale. Some were porcelain, some bronze, some marble, some jade, some indeterminate materials that neither Lady Ann nor Ralph the Timid recognised. They were scattered haphazardly throughout the room. It was creepy, thought Ralph the Timid, although determined not to find it creepy, walking down a narrow passage lined by unblinking cats eyes.
In a strange paradox, for someone who professed to like cats as much as Prince Rupert did, the throne was covered in a large leopard skin. This clashed horribly with the stripy fabric covering the raised platform - orange and black like a tiger. The carpet on the floor was red and black, which could have been nice, had the pattern not looked as if some one who had dined only on tomatoes and coal for the last several months had been hugely sick on it. The curtains by the windows and corridors were the same, except they varied in fabric type from heavy velvet to light chiffon-y materials. They were all tied back with heavy golden tassel ties. Altogether the effect was ....ugly, more than anything else. Not particularly fear inducing, unless you counted the cats. It also SMELT like cats, which was interesting, because apart from the many statues of cats, there was not a cat to be seen.
Prince Rupert seated himself on the throne. "Leave us!" he casually ordered the guards.
The head guard paused. "Are - are you SURE, sir? Would you like us to tie them up first?"
"No, no, no!" said Prince Rupert, angrily. "Do you think I can't handle a little girl and a callow youth like this by myself? Leave us, I say!"
With a shrug of his shoulders, the head guard nodded to his men and they released Lady Ann and Ralph the Timid. Lady Ann ran to the side of her would be rescuer. "Are you all right?" she whispered into his ear, her arms around his neck.
"I'm fine!" whispered back Ralph. "I've got an idea! I'll make him angry and lure him over here, and you hit him over the head with your good luck bottle, okay?"
"Okay!" said Lady Ann, and began to feel around in the bundle made up of the dress and the bottle which was still tied to Ralph's shoulder.
As this was going on, they were too busy trying to look innocent and innocuous to notice what the head guard was saying to Prince Rupert. Ralph looked up just in time to catch the last words.
".....no one else there, your highness, but we found this sack!" he lifted the sack containing Twinkle up so Prince Rupert could look at it.
"I see..." said Prince Rupert slowly, taking in the struggling sack. "And what's in it? Anything useful?"
The head guard looked a little embarrassed. "Well, I don't really know sir. We were going to look, but it...well, it sounds a bit dangerous, sir."
Prince Rupert rolled his eyes. "You henchmen are always so stupid," he said, and snatched the bag off him. "Now get out of here before I get angry."
"Ye - As you wish, your highness," said the head guard politely, then turned to his cohorts. "Right you horrible lot, look smart, get moving, by the left -" he roared, and the rest of the guards snapped to attention, clicked their heels together, formed up into a line and marched out. "We'll return to our duties then sir," said the head guard and saluted, then followed his colleagues from the room.
Prince Rupert waited till the guards were gone and the sound of their feet could no longer be heard, then he got up, bearing the sack and walked towards Lady Ann and Ralph the Timid slowly but purposefully. He stopped a few feet away from them. Ralph the Timid gripped Lady Ann's hand tightly. She squeezed. She had got the bottle free and slipped it into her pocket, where she was holding it tightly by her other hand.
"I want to know what you meant when you said you were my brother," said Prince Rupert, menacingly. "I have no brother."
"You do." said Ralph the Timid. "You have a twin."
"A TWIN? Ah ha ha ha!" Prince Rupert laughed, but not for as long as he usually did. It was a mocking laugh, rather than a celebration of evil deeds. "Ah ha ha haaa. A twin indeed. We don't even look like each other. I suppose I'm the evil twin?" he said sarcastically.
"No, not at all," said Ralph, trying to keep him talking until he was close enough to hit. But he didn't seem to be coming any closer. "I'm the evil twin. I was abandoned in the mountains years ago, because my charts said I was destined to grow up to be super evil and bad. But I was raised by a humble woodcutter and his wife, so it hasn't materialised till now. My evillness and villainy, I mean."
Lady Ann was having great trouble supressing her laughter at this. Ralph the Timid, with his honest good looks, homespun clothes and manly physique looked so far from being evil or villainous that it was comical. And yet he seemed to believe it was true.
Prince Rupert was looking very sceptical. He said, with disbelief clear in his tone , "You expect me to believe a tale like that? Then why were you rescuing her? If you're so evil."
Ralph thought quickly. He said, imaginatively, "I wasn't rescuing her. I was - uh, I was stealing her! From you! Because I'm evil. Ah ha ha ha ha! Ah ha." He tried to imitate Prince Rupert's evil laugh, but failed.
Lady Ann gave him a look. It seemed to say 'That was pathetic, my darling. You are going to have to do better than that to get us out of here, sweetie pumpkin dearie pie.' Lady Ann was good at mixing criticism with loving endearments.
"That's ridiculous," said Prince Rupert, with a sardonic sneer. "Do you expect me to believe a ridiculous story like that?" he brandished the sack with Twinkle in it. "And what's this?"
Ralph thought quickly. "Don't open that!" he shouted. "Don't let it out! It will destroy us all."
Prince Rupert laughed, a full throated evil laugh. "Muwha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ah ahh! Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha h ah aha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ah ha ah ah ha! So you think you can fool me that easily, young man?"
"Don't call me young man!" Ralph the Timid snapped angrily. "You're the same age as me! We're twins! And don't open that sack!"
"Twins!" snorted Prince Rupert, "next thing you'll be telling me we're identical. What IS in this sack?" He started to untie the knot that held the sack closed. He peered into the sack ....and then everything seemed to happen all at once.
With a howl like five hundred banshees on All Hallows Eve, Twinkle shot out of the sack, clawed his way up the front of Prince Rupert, who didn't even have time to either say "nice kitty!" or look horrified, and clung to Prince Rupert's face and head with all his claws and teeth, hissing and spitting with the anger of a cat who has been kept in a sack for a journey across country for many days.
"Quick!" said Ralph, and seizing Lady Ann by the hand, dragged her towards the door. She picked up her skirts and, clutching the bottle in ehr pocket through the material so as not to drop it, she ran after him. They were through the door of the throne room and away before Prince Rupert could rip the hissing, spitting, yowling fiend from the sack off his face and throw it across the room.
"DAMN CAT!" yelled Prince Rupert, and ran after Ralph and Lady Ann, only to be tripped up by dozens of his pet cats who had come to investigate the noise. He hopped and tripped and leapt and skipped over them, and reached the door in time to see Ralph and Lady Ann disappearing around a corner at the end of a hallway. He gave chase.
Lady Ann gasped for breath as she ran - not just from the speed, but also because of the giggles that kept welling up inside her. The expression on Prince Rupert's face for the split second before it was covered by the raging form of the spitting ginger cat.
They burst out of the keep into the open air and, clutching each other, convulsed into laughter. "Did - did you see his face?" asked Lady Ann through her giggles. Ralph said nothing but nodded and laughed all the harder.
"It looks like something is very funny," said a voice in front of them. "Care to share the joke?"
Their laughter stopped abruptly as they looked up and saw the figure of Prince Rupert standing in front of them. Near him, but slightly behind were Mad Pete, Ginger McSporran and Ethel, all in chains.
"What?" said Ralph the Timid. "How?"
Just then, Prince Rupert dashed out of the castle behind them. "I've got you now!" he said triumphantly, and then looking at the rest of the people before him, he stopped dead. "What?" he asked, "how? what?"

(Word Count: 48666)

Chapter Thirty Four: In Which There Is Lots Of In-Tree-Fighting.

There was a cracking sound. A LOUD cracking sound. It was not omninous. It had gone beyond omnious. Omnious implies that there might be a break, at some point in the future, but that it hasn't happened yet, but will at some point in the future, but not yet.
That was not what happened when Prince Rupert launched himself from the windowsill. He could jump further than Lady Ann, so he ended up clinging to the branch at approximately the same point as her. That was also approximately the same point as Ralph, who had been wriggling forward to retrieve Lady Ann.
The branch broke under the combined weight of the three of them. Ralph waved his arms frantically in the air to remain upright on the piece of branch that was still attached to the tree, then had to dive forward to catch Lady Ann's upraised hand. Prince Rupert, with no one to catch him, fell.
He did not fall very far. There were sufficient branches from the natural spiral staircase around the trunk to stop his fall. It hurt, but it stopped him. "Ow." said Prince Rupert, as he shinned his way along the branch that had stopped his fall towards the trunk. "That really hurt." He looked up to see what was going on above him.
What was going on was still a large amount of danger. Lady Ann dangled from Ralph the Timid's arm, unable to be pulled to safety - there just wasn't enough branch left. His arm was hurting, but he wasn't going to let her go. Her legs kicked wildly. There was a branch for her to rest them on, but she couldn't find it. "To the left!" directed Ralph the Timid. "No, the other left!"Her toes kicked against the branch and then she got a foot to it. Then the other foot. Ralph let out a sigh of relief. "Great. Now, I'll wiggle backwards, and you wiggle backwards until you've got hold of the tree."
"Okay!" said Lady Ann with rapid agreement. Her heart was in her mouth. She hadn't noticed that, as per Prince Rupert's example, she was not likely to fall to her death. She would merely fall to some severe bruising. She inched along the branch, clinging to Ralph above her, until she could cling to the trunk like some sort of princess -flavoured tree lizard.
It was only then that they realised the dilemma they were now in. Prince Rupert was below Lady Ann on the tree, and he was between them and the ground (which makes sense really, since he was below her on the tree, and therefore nearer the ground).
Ralph the Timid clambered down to sit beside Lady Ann on her branch. "Are you all right?" he asked.
She nodded, breath coming too quickly to say anything. She swallowed hard a few times, then said "I'm fine but I don't know ..how can we get past him? We're trapped!"
Ralph the Timid shook his head. "We'll find a way."
Below them they could see Prince Rupert looking up at them. He was clearly trying to decide whether it would be better to try and climb up to get at them or to wait for them to come to him.
"Don't worry!" said Ralph the Timid, "We'll be fine as soon as we get to the ground. My friends are down there. He'll be outnumbered."
"Your friends are down there?" said Lady Ann looking down through the branches. "I saw them before - a big guy in black...he looked like he had wings? and a man in all sorts of different colours, like a ragbag exploded on him, right?"
"That's right," said Ralph proudly, "Ginger McSporran - he's a black beast of some caves up in the mountains, and Mad Pete - he's, well, he's mad, but he'll be helpful enough once we get down there."
"That's nice in theory," said Lady Ann, who had recovered her equilibrium somewhat, "but I don't see them down there now."
Ralph looked. He also could not see any sign of Ginger McSporran or Mad Pete. He couldn't even see Ethel. "No matter, " he said heroically. "I'll save you all by myself." He looked up to see if they could climb back into Lady Ann's tower and escape down the stairs. No, that avenue was definitely cut off, unless Lady Ann proved to be a much better jumper than she had been so far. And if he himself was part kangaroo. No, that was definitely out.
He looked down again. Prince Rupert was grinning evilly. "Well, let's go down, anyway." said Ralph the Timid with some resignation. "I bet they're just hiding around the corner or something."
He climbed around past Lady Ann, trying not to look to soppily at her as he did so - heroes, he was sure, did not look soppily at damsels in distress until they were properly, completely, totally rescued and the marriage and living happily ever after was about to begin. He began to help her downwards.
Prince Rupert, standing upright with one foot on each of two branches, began to speak, laughing and jeering at Ralph. "And what are you, my fine friend? Are you meant to be a hero? What kind of hero uses a tree? You're trapped now, whoever you are! Ah ah ah ha ha ha ah ah ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!" He threw his head back and his chest out, one hand upon the hilt of his sword which was still in its scabbard - just as well, as Ralph the Timid had no sword, merely a hunting knife, and that was somewhere with Ginger McSporran and Mad Pete, wherever they were. He looked particularly devillish in this pose, with his black puffy sleeved shirt and tight black pants and boots, with his black hair flowing in the breeze and his scar convulsing with every laugh. He was so caught up in the laughing he was not aware of Ralph the Timid scrambling towards him over the branches until it was too late.
"My name is Ralph the Timid, and I am your brother!" said Ralph the Timid, and gave him a hard push. "And there! I'm eviller than you!"
Prince Rupert's arms windmilled wildly as he tried to regain his balance, but he failed and fell backwards down the tree with a wild yelp.
Ralph the Timid smiled in satisfaction, but too soon. Another sturdy branch broke his foe's fall, and Prince Rupert, feeling battered but determined not to show it, grinned up at him.
"My brother? Eviller than me? Pah!" he spat in an exclamatory and derisive manner. "Well, we'll see about that! GUARDS!"
Ralph the Timid and Lady Ann watched in dismay as a formation of black coated guards raced towards the tree.
Another pair of eyes watched from a vantage point atop the castle walls. "Well, well, well," said a mysterious voice. "His brother? My word, that is interesting. Don't you think?"
The speaker turned to look at Mad Pete, Ginger McSporran and Ethel who all stood near him bound in coil upon coil of rope (or chain, in the case of Ginger McSporran). They returned the look with murderous glares. "Very interesting indeed," said the speaker, stroking his chin. "I think we'd better take a closer look at this."

(Word Count: 46747)

Chapter Thirty Three: In Which Still Further Progress Is Made

Mad Pete had been right. The tree was magic, and it did help. As soon as Ralph had started to wonder how he could possibly get up the tree, it began sprouting more and more branches lower down its trunk. They spiraled around the tree like a staircase, except not that close together. It actually proved to be quite a stretch from one branch to the next. Ralph was tall, but even so he had to jump a lot further that he felt comfortable with from time to time.
This was fine when he was low to the ground, but the higher he went, the more nervous he became. Even with Ethel flying around the tree for moral support he was a little nervous. He called down to Mad Pete and Ginger McSporran where they were waiting at the bottom of the tree. "Ginger! Don't you think you'd better do this? You're taller than me!"
Ginger McSporran bellowed back up to Ralph "I can't! I'm too heavy! I'll break the branches." The black beast of the caves looked around anxiously. The tree was handy for their purpose, but it was making them look very conspicious - a suddenly sprouting tree that is taller than the tallest building around with a huge trunk that pops up out of your courtyard unexpectedly will do that. "Hurry it up, will you?"
Ralph sighed, and looked up at the next branch. What are you waiting for? he asked himself. You're Ralph the Timid! You're not scared of a little tree climbing! You're not scared of anything! He tried not to think of how he might not be scared of a little tree climbing, but this mammoth plant was anything but a little tree.
On he went, upwards and onwards, branch by branch. As he neared the top the branches got a bit closer together and the going got a little easier. He scrambled up and there, at the end of one long strong bough, through a clump of leaves and twigs, he could see her.
She was even more beautiful than she had been in his dream. She looked lovely, and kind, and sensitive, and Ralph instantly knew, before he even knew her name, that this was the girl for him. Ralph was in love.
Lady Ann looked across the branch through the leaves at Ralph the Timid. Ah ha! This was her hero. Well, he certainly looked the part. And so Lady Ann, in accordance with all appropriate precepts of being a damsel in distress, duly fell in love with Ralph the Timid. It was now a simple matter of rescuing her so that they could escape the evil clutches of Prince Rupert, Ralph could renounce his destiny (though of course Lady Ann knew nothing of that, but Ralph did), and then they could marry and live happily ever after.
But first things first. Ralph said "Hello." And then he blushed because it wasn't a very sophiscated or suave thing to say. Why hadn't he said something dashing and heroic like, I'm here to save you! Or... I am your hero, come to my arms! No, that one was lame too. But something better than hello!
"Hello," said Lady Ann, and then she blushed too, because it was just one of those moments.
"I'm Ralph the Timid," said Ralph the Timid, beginning to inch along the bough towards her.
"I'm Lady Antoinetta Bernadetta Clarissa - Well, I'm Lady Ann of Erd, you can call me Lady Ann." said Lady Ann, deciding that time was probably of the essence adn that full introductions could wait for later. "Have you come to rescue me?"
Ralph blushed even more, if that was possible. Then he straightened up, holding on the tree as tightly as possible while trying to look completely nonchalant. "Why, yes I have. I have come to rescue you."
"Oh goody," said Lady Ann. "I'll just get my things, shall I?" she moved away from the window and rummaged around, getting her ripped dress and retrieving her bottle from the behind the tapestry.
Ralph inched closer to see into the room and to break off a few of the leaves at the end of the bough to make it a little easier for Lady Ann to climb out of the window. The branch sagged quite alarmingly under his weight and he found he had to lean forward to do it, almost lying along the branch.
"Are you ready?" he asked Lady Ann as she returned to the window. "Will you be able to get out here on your own? I can't get any closer without the branch bending too much to hold my weight."
Lady Ann looked dubious and tried not too look down. It was a long way, and there was nothing between her window and the tree branch to break her fall. "I suppose so," she said reluctantly.
"Great, " said Ralph the Timid with relief. "I'd come in and get you, but I think it will be easier this way. Pass me your things, if you like. Then you'll have both hands free."
Lady Ann duly wrapped up the bottle in the dress in a sort of knotted bundle and threw it gently to Ralph. She almost threw it too gently, and Ralph had to lunge to stop it from falling past him. He was sitting astride the bough and was holding on very tightly with his legs. No one could say that Ralph the Timid wasn't very brave, but he didn't like incredible heights more than the next man.
Neither was Lady Ann too fond of heights. She looked at the branch nervously as Ralph the Timid slung the dress around his shoulders, hanging it by its sleeve knotted to part of its skirt. "What have you got in here?" he asked, feeling the hard bottle wrapped up inside the soft fabric.
"It's my good luck bottle," said Lady Ann vaguely, feeling a bit faint. "Are - are you sure I can make it to the branch?" she said timidly. "You couldn't - you couldn't rescue me some other way?"
"I'm afraid not," said Ralph apologetically. "I would - but there's no way up to your tower from outside and if I go inside someone will sound the alarm."It had not occurred to him, as it had to Ginger McSporran, that possibly an extremely large tree was not the most subtle rescue technique.
"Oh, yes, I see that." said Lady Ann politely. She hitched up her skirts and started to climb onto the window sill. She could see as she did so the dizzying drop to the ground and it made her head spin. It was such a long way. "Are you sure?" she asked desperately.
"It's just a little jump," said Ralph the Timid reassuringly. "And I promise I will catch you."
Lady Ann looked very unsure about this. But then, just as she was hesitating some more, she heard something.
"Someone's coming up the stairs!" she said in alarm. "They're running up the stairs!"
"Jump!" urged Ralph again, holding out his arms. "I'll catch you!"
But Lady Ann still could not bring herself to throw herself from the relatively security of the windowsill. She listened in growing panic as the footsteps drew closer and stopped and then there was the scrape as the door bar was lifted out of the way.
With a terrified squeal she leapt from the sill and into the leafy bit of the branch just as the door burst open and Prince Rupert stormed into the room.The branch bent alarmingly as she struggled for a better grip, and there was an ominious cracking sound. Ralph, lying along the branch was holding out both his hands for her to grab, but could not reach her.
Prince Rupert ran to the window. "LADY ANN!" He roared.
Lady Ann struggled along the branch towards Ralph. Her feet kicked the air, looking for a footing. Her face was flushed with exertion. She did not reply to Prince Rupert.
"You shall not escape from me so easily!" roared her erstwhile captor again, climbing up onto the windowsill himself.
Ralph lunged for Lady Ann just as the villainous Prince Rupert launched himself into the air.

(Word Count: 45465)

Chapter Thirty Two: In Which The Magic Seeds Work Their Magic

Ralph the Timid, Ginger McSporran, Mad Pete and Twinkle in a sack stood behind the barrels and waited for Ethel to come back. No one said anything. Ralph looked up and down, scanned the tall towers for signs of giant warblers or other life, whistled casually. Ginger McSporran sat down and looked at his hands. Mad Pete just stared blankly in a disturbing way that made Ralph and Ginger think that maybe he was madder than he pretended to be.
Then "Warble! warble warble!" they heard in the distance, and Ethel came to rest on top of the barrels with admirable grace. Almost amazing grace, but that is reserved for the William Wilberforce Pigeon. No more graceful bird exists. Still, Ethel did pretty well. She leant down and whispered in Mad Pete's ear - well, whispered some warbles. Unexpectedly Large Warblers can't really whisper.
Then, message delivered, she began to preen and tweet and warble.
Mad Pete looked at the other two (not Twinkle, because he was in his sack). "She's found her! She's in - which tower, Ethel?" he asked the bird.
"Warble warble warble!" said Ethel, which clearly meant "that one there, the tall one on the left by the other two tall ones. "
"It's that one there, the tall one on the left by the other two tall ones." said Mad Pete, pointing.
"All right Ethel!" said Ginger McSporran who was highly impressed.
Ethel just warbled.
"All right," said Ralph the Timid slowly and thoughtfully. "We know what tower she's in. Now how do we get to her?"
Mad Pete and Ginger McSporran, the black beast of the caves, considered this problem for a moment.
"Well," said the black beast, at length" we could start by going over to the tower and having a look. Maybe there's a ladder or somehting?"
"Okay," said Mad Pete genially "Let's do that." Mad Pete was very pleased and proud of his friend the Unexpectedly Large Warbler, almost as pleased and proud as if he had flown up to find Lady Ann himself.
And so they walked, keeping a close eye on the tower so it didn't suddenly run away or blend in with the other towers, until they came to the base of it where it joined onto the body of the castle.
"It's pretty tall." said Ralph the Timid, looking at the tower stretching up up up up as far as he could see when he tilted his head back. "And there's no ladder. What do you think we should do, Ginger McSporran?" He asked Ginger McSporran as he trusted the black beast of the caves much more than Mad Pete. Mad Pete had, after all, tricked him into discovering his purpose and hidden a sandwich in a cave completely unnecessarily for over two years.
"Hmm." said Ginger McSporran, stroking his chin with one giant clawed hand. "Let me think."
so Ralph let him think. There was a pause while he thought.Then Ginger McSporran said "Could Ethel fly up and get her?"
"Warble." said Ethel, fluffing up her neck feathers.
"No," said Mad Pete, emphatically. "She can't. There's nothing to hold on to and the girl would fall off."
"She could wrap her arms around her neck?" suggested Ralph hopefully.
"What good would that do? She'd just strangle herself!" said Mad Pete scornfully.
"No, she could wrap her arms around Ethel's neck." replied Ralph with great patience.
"Oh." said Mad Pete, and looked at Ethel.
Ethel squawked and fluffed her feathers some more.
"No go," said Mad Pete turning back to the others. "Ethel says she's too big and she won't be able to fly properly."
Ralph was too preoccupied to be amazed that Mad Pete had got that much from a single squawk. He studied the stones that made up the tower. Could he climb up? But that would do no good, because then he would be locked in the tower too. He looked at the wall in front of him. It was as if the stones were omnipotent. There was no way he could get around it. He was defeated. He put his hands in his pockets in a gesture of despair and brushed the seeds that the gypsies had given him. He had forgotten about them momentarily in the excitement and rush of finding the tower. Maybe they would help? He pulled them out to look at them. What did they do? The gypsies hadn't said. Did you plant them? That was what you normally did with seeds. Ralph decided to try it with one.
Lady Ann leant out of the window of her tower room at an extremely dangerous angle. There were four figures standing at the base of her tower, looking a bit like large ants. One was the bird that had flown into her room. Lady Ann marvelled at this. Had it understood her? Had it gone to fetch help? Or was it just a random coincidence? She was no longer at all bored.One of the figures that wasn't the huge bird appeared to be dressed entirely from pieces from a very colourblind butterfly's rag bag, and another of the figures was so big it looked like...well, an exceptionally large ant. And it had - wings? That couldn't be right. She was just trying to make sense of this when all of a sudden, something happened. There was a rush of green and brown and then....with a popping noise, where nothing had been just a second ago there was a very big tree, right next to her window. Its branches seemed to unfold in the blinking of an eyelid, and Lady Ann had to jump back from the window again as a bough raced towards it, exploding into a flurry of leaves just before it hit the windowsill.
"That's all very well." said Ralph the Timid, looking up at the gigantic tree that he had brought to life. "But now I need to get up the tree..."
"It's all right," said Mad Pete. "It's a magic tree. That should help."
Somewhere in the castle, Prince Rupert was being informed of the sudden appearance of a giant tree in his castle grounds. He uttered an exclamatory phrase and began to run.

(Word Count: 44089)

Chapter Thirty One: In Which Progress is Made Towards A Rescue.

Ralph the Timid tried not to look distinctive as he and his friends walked up to the castle gates. But it didn't really work. Well, it worked in so far as he himself was not distinctive, but anyone who travels with a) a mad chartmaker dressed in at least 18 different and extremely bright colours, b) a sack which keeps wriggling and yowling, c) a gigantic black cave beast with horns the size of a small cow and twice as pointy, and d) an Unexpectedly Large Warbler cannot seriously hope to not be noticed.
A lot of people stared as they approached. But no guards seemed interested in challenging them, and they went straight in. Prince Rupert relied on his reputation to keep unwanted visitors at bay. So the travellers went straight in, and besides a lot of stares and nudging of friends by those around them, no one said or did anything about it. They tried their best to look as if they knew where they were going until they found a quiet corner in which they could hide and figure out where exactly they WERE going.
At length they found a quiet corner - behind some barrels near the kitchens - and tucked themselves into it. "Well, Ralph the Timid!" said Mad Pete in an enthusiasticly loud whisper. "Which tower do you think she's in?"
Ralph the Timid looked up, scanning the forest of towers that sprouted from the bulk of the castle and keep. They all looked the same from this angle. Some maybe taller than others, but all much of a muchness. "Um," he said doubtfully. "It might be that one?"he pointed at one of the taller ones on the left. "But I'm not really sure."
Ginger McSporran tried to squish himself back into the wall by the barrels. He felt he was the most conspicious, and he was probably right. He was more than head and shoulders taller than the others, for starters, and that didn't take into account his horns, wings and altogether frightening appearance. "Can you think of any distinguishing features it might have had?" he whispered hoarsely and extremely quietly.
"Sorry, what was that?" asked Ralph, in an undertone. "I know we're whispering but I was completely unable to hear you."
"Yes, speak up, you big black beastie!" said Mad Pete, again quite loudly but with irritable good humour.
"Can you think of any distinguishing features the tower might have had?" asked Ginger McSporran, slightly louder, making him actually audible this time.
Ralph thought. His brow furrowed. He scratched his head. "It had a girl in it," he offered. "And it looked very tall."
Ginger McSporran sighed. "Anything else? They're all very tall and we can't see if there's a girl in any of them from here."
"Can you think of anything else, Ralph?" asked Mad Pete, relaying Ginger McSporran's words to Ralph as if he hadn't been able to hear them for himself. He looked at him with his head on one side like a curious bird.
Ralph sighed. "If only you could fly up and have a look, Ginger." he said, trying not to sound hopeful.
A note of hope must have crept in because Ginger McSporran glared at him. "Please don't pressure me, young Ralph," he said with as much dignity as he was able to muster. "I have explained why I cannot fly at present."
"I know, I'm sorry!" Ralph the Timid hurriedly apologised. "We'll just have to think of something else."
At that moment, Mad Pete gave out a whoop and leapt in the air, punching upwards.
"SSSSSHHHH!" said Ralph the Timid and Ginger McSporran as one man/beast.
"I've got it!" said Mad Pete only slightly more quietly. "Ethel can fly up and look, and then she can tell us."
Ralph raised one eyebrow. Ginger McSporran looked doubtful, but said. "Well, if you think she can do it."
Mad Pete looked scorn at his doubters. "What do you mean, THINK? Of course she can do it. Come here, Ethel!" he called to the Unexpectedly Large Warbler, completely abandoning all pretence of whispering.
He explained carefully to the bird what he wanted her to do. She seemed to listen, her head tilting from side to side as she did so. Then with a squawk, she lifted up into the air, circled once and then flew up to towards the towers. Ralph marvelled again that a bird of such massive bulk could fly with such grace. It was like watching a cow with wings behaving like a skylark.She flew neatly in and out the between the towers, circling each one looking for windows and signs of people within.
Lady Ann saw the large bulk of the Unexpectedly Large Warbler approaching from quite a distance, not very surprisingly. What was that? A large cow? A small dragon? A giant inflatable ...thing? She leant out to get a closer look, then drew back in hurriedly as the bird swooped past close to her head. With a warbling noise, the bird soared high in the air, then came towards the window, slowly dropping speed.
Lady Ann realised the bird's intention just in time to avoid collision. She threw herself to the floor and Ethel, unable to brake in time to land on the window sill, somersaulted into the tower room and stop just before hitting the wall."WarbARGK" squawked Ethel with extreme exclamatory fervour.She straightened herself and hopped up onto the end of Lady Ann's bed, where she began preening her ruffled feathers.
Lady Ann stared at the bird. She couldn't believe a bird could be that big. She couldn't believe a bird that big could fly. What did it want? Was it hungry? What did it - did it eat people? Was it tame? She slowly picked herself up from the floor, dusting off her dress as she did so and shaking out the ruffles. She looked at Ethel warily.
"Warble." said Ethel, looking back. "Waarble warble warble warble warble. Tweet. Tweeeet."
If Lady Ann had understood the language of the Unexpectedly Large Warblers, she would have known that she had been asked if she was Lady Antoinetta Bernadetta Clarissa Drusilla Eleanora Georgetta Henrietta Isabella Juanita Katherina Lolita Marguerita Nerissa Octavia Petunia Quintessa Roberta Suzetta Tabitha Ursula Venitia Wilhelmina Xenia Zelda of Erd, and whether she needed to be rescued. If she had understood that she could have replied "Warble warble" which, if said in the correct key, would mean "Yes I am, please help me."
Instead she said, with what she considered to be admirable calm, "Nice birdie. Please don't eat me."
"WARBLE!" said Ethel, shaking her head and beginning to emit a series of chuckling tweets "Ha-weet, ha-weet, ha-weet!" She was laughing, because although Lady Ann had not understood her, Ethel had spent so much time with Mad Pete that she understood Lady Ann perfectly.
The bird looked so comical that Lady Ann relaxed. Surely if it was going to eat her it would have done so by now. She leant against the table and wrapped her arms around herself. "I wish you could help me," she said aloud, whimsically. "I'm a prisoner here. I wish I could fly like you." she smiled at the bird.
"Warble, warble." said Ethel, which in this case meant "Don't worry, I'll fetch help." and hopped off the bed and made great leaps towards the window. She scrabbled and flapped a bit to get up on the windowsill, then turning her head to Lady Ann to make one last warble at her, launched herself out the window like an iron anvil trying to float. Lady Ann ran to the window in time to see the big birds wings extend and catch the air, so she swooped away from the castle rather than plummeting into the ground.
"Well, that was something different," said Lady Ann out loud as she watched her go.

(Word Count: 42995)

Chapter Thirty: In Which Lady Ann sends more darts, and people find them.

Lady Ann sat at her window and sighed. She had sent out dozens of darts, and now all she had to do was wait. But she was sick of waiting. It was so boring. She sighed again, more deeply. She played "I spy with my little eye" with herself, but that was no fun. She always knew and could get it in one guess.
She had run out of bricks to count. She had memorised everything on the horizon. She had spent a fruitless hour or so trying to spot if she could see where the darts had got to. She couldn't. She wished that Prince Rupert had thought to put a harp or a piano or something like that in the tower. She wasn't as talented a musician as some of her fellow princesses, but she could play reasonably well. And besides, she would by this stage be much better, she thought. She would have had ample time to practice.
She sighed for a third time. It was no use crying over split milk. And she was not going to agree to Prince Rupert's demands. She wasn't even going to write him a letter. She would not be bored into submission! She might not have a musical instrument, or anything to read, or sew, but she could exercise! Or she could sing!
It was a hot day, and Lady Ann was clad in a reasonably heavy brocade dress, so she very sensibly decided on singing instead. She sang everything single song she could think of, starting with the Alphabet Song (" A B C D E F G, H I J K L M N O P, Q R S, T U V, W, X, Y and Z, Now I know my A B C, next time won't you sing with me?") and going on through all the nursery rhymes she knew (about fifty or sixty, she was surprised to notice) and finally finishing up with the great Abletean epic "Maurice's Disappearing Bag", all six hundred verses of it. She did not actually KNOW all six hundred verses so she had to make some of them up, but it passed the day away. She didn't know what she would do the next day, but she would think about that tomorrow.
Little did she know she would not be a prisoner for very much longer. Help was on its way.
Ralph the Timid, Ginger McSporran (plus Twinkle in a bag), Mad Pete and Ethel had said goodbye to Maurice, Shadbolt, Abendigo and the other gypsies that morning and set off across the Wide Flat Plains. The Wide Flat Plains were quite narrow at this point and they could soon see the hills, misty and blue in the distance but getting ever larger. They soon hit a road that seemed to lead directly to the hills, and decided to follow that.
By light of day, the gypsies predictions regarding Ralph's dream seemed even more ridiculous, and Ralph had pushed them completely to the back of his mind. He still had the seeds in his pocket though, and he polished them automatically as he strolled along. Mad Pete was whistling, and Ethel warbling with him in some kind of man- bird duet. Ginger McSporran just walked. He wasn't the most talkative of black beasts of caves.
Eventually they saw the tall spires of the castle of Xanadu, first faintly, then getting very near. Ralph suddenly became very nervous. "What am I doing?" he said aloud. "If I am the son of the King and Queen of Xanadu, they won't want me back, they dumped me in the mountainside forests deliberately to get rid of me! And if my twin is there, and a practising bad guy, won't he try and get rid of me? This plan is seriously flawed! I'm stopping." And he suited action to the word, sitting down suddenly in a ditch.
This was actually an accident. He had meant to sit down somewhat less suddenly on the nice green grassy verge of the road, not noticing the ditch. He had thus put his foot in the ditch, resulting in his sudden descent.
"Ouch!" said Ralph the Timid, rubbing his posterior. "the world hates me."
"Come on now, " said Ginger McSporran, stopping to look at Ralph. "The world doesn't hate you. Just that ditch." He started to chortle his metal grating laugh but stopped when Ralph shot him a dirty look.
Ralph sighed and looked at his feet. And then he looked past his feet. There was something in the ditch - a bit battered by the weather, but it was something that looked like a paper dart, with writing all over it. He picked it up, curious to see what it was.
Mad Pete stared in horror. "Didn't your mother ever tell you not to pick up things you find in drains? You don't know where that's been?"
"Well I'm not going to eat it, Mad Pete!" said Ralph with some heat, and unfolded the dart.
It read (although crossed through with red ink):
"Dearest Lady Lady Antoinetta Bernadetta Clarissa Drusilla Eleanora Georgetta Henrietta Isabella Juanita Katherina Lolita Marguerita Nerissa Octavia Petunia Quintessa Roberta Suzetta Tabitha Ursula Venitia Wilhelmina Xenia Zelda of Erd,It is I, your humble servant Prince Rupert of Xanadu who writes in pursuit of that most dearest object - your hand and your heart. Those most dearest objects. I beg you will forgive my deed in abducting you thus and soften your feelings towards me! Be mine! I have written you this most touching and charming poem in the hopes that soon your feelings towards me will turn to love.Antoinetta, amazing and lovely,Bernadetta, beautiful and lovely, Clarissa, charming and lovely,Drusilla, darling and lovely, Eleanora, elegant and lovely,Georgetta, gorgeous and lovely,Henrietta, handsome and lovely, Isabella , incandescent and lovely,Juanita, jolly and lovely, Katherina, k(a scribble) and lovely, Lolita, lovely and lovely, Marguerita, magnificent and lovely,Nerissa, noble and lovely, Octavia, omnipotent and lovely, Petunia, perfect and lovely, Quintessa, quintessential and lovely, Roberta, romantic and lovely, Suzetta, smashing and lovely, Tabitha, touching and lovely, Ursula, unbeatable and lovely, Venitia, victorious and lovely, Wilhelmina, wonderful and lovely, Xenia, xtra gorgeous and lovely, Zelda, zesty and lovely, of Erd, be mine!"
Ralph whistled. "Well, I'm not surprised this got thrown away. What a terrible poem! He couldn't even think of anything to go with Katherina!"
Ginger McSporran said, sticking out a huge hand "Let me see that!"
Ralph stood up and passed him the unfolded dart. Ginger McSporran read it through slowly and let out a whistle of his own. "Well, well, well. Maybe those gypsies knew what they were talking about after all. Sounds like this Prince Rupert fella has this Lady Antoinetta Bernadetta Clarissa Drusilla Eleanora Georgetta Henrietta Isabella Juanita Katherina Lolita Marguerita Nerissa Octavia Petunia Quintessa Roberta Suzetta Tabitha Ursula Venitia Wilhelmina Xenia Zelda of Erd imprisoned in a tower all right. I wonder if it's that castle there?" he looked up at the castle now looming large in the near distance.
Mad Pete scoffed. "Well do you see any other castles around here? Of course it's that one. And Prince Rupert must be the Prince of Xanadu. Well, it says he is. It all fits! He is clearly evil. Wait, there's something on the other side." He snatched the paper from Ginger McSporran and turned it over to read Lady Ann's message.
"To whoever finds this:Please help me! I have been imprisoned in the tallest tower of Prince Rupert's very tall castle! He intends to keep me here until I marry him! Please rescue me!Lady Antoinetta B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z of Erd."
"Well, young Ralph the Timid," he said slowly. "I think we've got a way to prove you're not a bad guy and meet your brother at the same time."
"Well, young Ralph the Timid," he said slowly. "I think we've got a way to prove you're not a bad guy and meet your brother at the same time."
So Ralph the Timid, Ginger McSporran, Mad Pete (and not to forget Twinkle or Ethel) set off up towards the castle, taking the letter with them.
But they were not the only ones to find a dart that day. "A rescue plea?" said a mysterious voice somewhere near the castle. "We'll see about that. Aha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ah aha ha ha ha ah ah aha! Ah ha ha ha ah aha ha aha ha!"

(Word Count: 41674)

Chapter Twenty Nine: In Which Ralph the Timid gets some magic seeds

The music played, the fires burned, the people sang and danced and whirled.It was a riot of colour and movement. It took Ralph a while to get his head around it all but soon he was stamping his feet and clicking his fingers and shouting in time with the rest of them.
Ginger McSporran was performing a complicated jig with an extraordinarily large woman - large both in height and build. Twinkle had peeped out from his sack, taken one look at the party and shot off under a caravan where he was crouched, quivering in fear and dislike.
Ethel was not so perturbed. Having finished eating the intestines she'd been given, she cleaned her beak, preened a little, and then attempted to join in the music, warbling to a rhythm of 'warble warble warble TWEET' with the tweet coming on every click of the fingers.
Mad Pete was eating. The gypsies had brought out giant stacks of food of all sorts of kinds - meat, roasted on the fire, piles of fruit and vegetables, breads, unspecified jelly looking things. Mad Pete was having the time of his life plowing through it all. He was trying to look involved in the dancing at the same time, tapping his foot and chewing in time with the music, and shouting out "Hooopah!" whenever everyone else did, spraying everyone around him with bits of partially chewed food. But he was having a nice time, and that is what mattered, as long as you weren't standing near him.
The party went on late into the night, but eventually the fires burned down and the gypsies faded into their caravans. Ralph the Timid, Ginger McSporran, Mad Pete, Maurice, Shadbolt and Abendigo all sat down around one fire, which was burning very low at this stage, and bathed the group in a red firey glow. Twinkle, now the music had stopped, crept carefully out from under the caravan and into Ginger McSporran's lap, one eye on Ethel.
Ethel looked amused at this fear on Twinkle's part. At least, Ralph thought she looked amused. It was a bit hard to tell with Unusually Large Warblers. She didn't do anything though, just stretched, flapped a bit, walked around in a circle from her perch atop the nearest caravan, tucked her head under her wing and went to sleep.
Twinkle appeared to relax visibily, enough to stretch out and snag Ralph with his claw. Ralph just brushed him aside because he was so interested in what Maurice, Shadbolt, and Abendigo were saying.
Maurice was explaining what the foot-reading gypsies did. "We travel around the Low Plains, and in our travels, we interpret things for people."
"things like what?" asked Ralph the Timid with avid curiousity.
Shadbolt took over the narrative. "Oh, the usual things, dreams, people's feet..."
"Really?" said Raph the Timid. It was a really of "wow, that's interesting" purpose, rather than a really of "i don't believe you at all" purpose.
"Got any dreams you'd like us to interpret, or any feet for us to read?" asked Abendigo. "We'll do it for free, because we're all friends here tonight!"
Ralph thought for a moment, and then remembered the dream he had had the first night he had been travelling with Mad Pete, Ethel, Ginger McSporran and Twinkle. The first dream had been odd, but not very memorable. But the second had been so real....He told them about the girl he had seen at the top of the very tall tower in the very tall castle. "She was very beautiful," he said. "And then I fell down."
The gypsies conferred among themselves, speaking a language incomprehensible to the others. "Ah ha!" said Maurice with delight."I have it!" said Shadbolt, with satisfaction."This is what your dream means," said Abendigo and he went on to explain. "This is what is called a TRUTH dream. That means that you are going to encounter a lovely princess in a tower and you are going to have to save her. But you won't be able to save her because the tower is too tall."
Ralph looked non-plussed. "But wouldn't Ginger McSporran be able to fly up and get her?"
Ginger McSporran clapped him on the back hard. "You'll notice I've been walking with you all this way, Ralphie baby. I'm afraid I had an injury awhile back and the doctor says I must not fly for at least another year or I will never be able to fly again. So - sorry to be selfish, but not even for a damsel in distress will I disobey my doctor. Besides, she's your damsel in distress! You'll have to think of something."
Ralph the Timid looked a bit bitter. "She's not MY damsel in distress! We don't even really know if there is one. It might be a metaphor. And besides, what would I do with a damsel in distress? Surely I'd just be as bad as whoever has her locked up. Hah! It's probably my twin." He picked some grass and started viciously ripping it up into tiny little pieces and throwing it back on the ground, trying not too look upset and failing miserably.
"What's this, what's this?" said Maurice looking curiously at him.
"Do you doubt our interpretations?" asked Shadbolt, raising his eyebrows and looking a bit effronted. They were like a tag team, thought Ralph.
"I'll tell you what, young Ralph, since you've had a hard day and I'm a nice man," said Abendigo, ignoring most of what Ralph had said,"I will give you some magic seeds to help you rescue your princess."He dug around in his pockets and pulled out a piece of folded paper. "Hold out your hands," he ordered Ralph the Timid.
Ralph the Timid did so. Abendigo unfolded the paper and tipped from it two sparkly acorns. They were slightly larger than normal acorns and decidedly shiny, but other than that much the same as usual. Ralph the Timid looked at them a bit doubtfully, but other than that made no reaction.
"Be careful with them," said Maurice. They were off on their three person tag team again.
"Use them wisely," said Shadbolt, grinning manically.
"They are very powerful," said Abendigo, who looked like he might burst into laughter at any moment. "Now, does anyone want their feet read?"
And so the group went on talking, late into the night.

(Word Count: 40251)

Chapter Twenty Eight: In Which Ralph and Company encounter gypsies.

We can pass over much of the first part of the journey to Xanadu.It was late afternoon when the intrepid travellers set out - I say they are intrepid because they are walking towards the location of a known evil villainous twin, and some of them are perhaps more intrepid than others, given that they are walking in the company of a suspected even more evil and villanous twin -and as the shadows were lengthening a lot faster than they could walk, they didn't get very far at all. In fact they had only been travelling for about an hour, maybe two if you were a very fast counter of the minutes, before the sun had sunk so low beyond the horizon that they had to stop and make camp before it got completely dark.They would probably have been just as well off staying at Mad Pete's house the night and leaving in the morning. But when you want to leave, you want to leave, and Ralph the Timid had not been able to wait another minute. And with Ginger McSporran on Ralph's side, there had not been much argument. Majority rules, and all that.
It was odd, Ralph the Timid had thought as he lay awake that first night, how someone could be so eager to get to some place, but also so reluctant to arrive. He was terrified by the thought of being evil. If it turned out that he was, how could he ever go home again? It did not occur to him that since he had not been evil up to now, maybe the omnipotent power of the birth dates was somewhat less omnipotent (in fact, not omnipotent at all, you can't be a bit omnipotent, after all) as it was supposed to be. Such was Ralph's faith in the system.
So that had been the first night, and then the next day they had walked for a long time, starting at the crack of dawn and going at a relatively quick pace as set by Ginger McSporran who had longer legs than the others. As the shadows were drawing in again and night was nearly upon them they crossed from the Low Plains to the Wide Flat Plains.
There really was no obvious difference between these two areas. Perhaps botanists could have pointed out some unique flora, and perhaps zoologists could have discoursed at length on some particular beetle or bird that was found only on the Low Plains, but to the layman - and certainly to Ralph the Timid and Ginger McSporran, who were not locals - there was no appreciable difference at all, and no good way of telling where one set of plains ended and the next began.
Except of course for the nice big wooden sign painted in bold red and green that suddenly loomed up in front of them bearing the words "You are now entering the Wide Flat Plains." That made it quite easy. The other side, Ralph noted looking back to read it as they walked past, said "You are now entering the Low Plains." Really made it very easy, he thought.
It was by this time getting dark, so the travelling companions put down their gear - Mad Pete with a long suffering sigh, as he had been walking much faster than he was accustomed to all day - and settled in to eat what they had - not much, as their trip had not been meticulously planned, talk desultorily, and eventually turn in, to sleep off the rigors of the day.
Ralph was just drifting off, listening to Ethel warble gently in the night. Warble warble warble tweet warble warble warble warble warble warble, she warbled. Tweet tweet warble warble warble warble warble warble warble warble tweet warble warble warble warb - she suddenly stopped short.
Ralph the Timid opened his eyes in blearily surprise. Why had Ethel stopped warbling so suddenly? He rubbed his eyes then let out a yell of surprise as he realised that he was staring up into the faces of three grinning men. They were all strangers to him, and each wore a brightly coloured bandana. They were all of swarthy complexion with a distinctly stubbly beard. One was missing teeth. Another was missing an eye, apparently, because he wore an eyepatch. The third was talking. "Hello, zhere." he said in heavily accented tones. "Ant how are vee totday?"
Ralph the Timid scrambled up to a sitting position and looked around for Ginger McSporran and Mad Pete, both of whom looked equally bemused. Ethel, he saw from the corner of his eye was happily eating something involving intestines. Well, that was a good way of shutting up an Unexpectedly Large Warbler - shove some food in her mouth. But - he returned to the problem at hand - who were this people? were they pirates after Mad Pete? But he thought they'd stopped going after thim. He decided to ask them.
"Who are you people?" he asked, his voice quivering only a very little. "Are you - are you pirates?"
"Ha haha ha ha ha!" laughed the man who was missing teeth."He hehe he he heee!" chuckled the man who was wearing an eye patch."Ho hoho ho ho ho!" chortled the man who had said hello.They seemed to think this was an immensely funny question.
"What's so funny?" asked Ralph defensively. He noticed that Mad Pete and Ginger McSporran were also laughing.
"Pi - pi - pirates!" sputtered the man with less than his normal complement of teeth.
The man with the eyepatch said nothing but just slapped his thigh and writhed in helpless laughter.
The man who had said hello gasped for air and finally managed to gasp out "Pirates! Young man! We are miles from the sea! How could we possibly be pirates? What would pirates be doing this far inland?"
Ralph the Timid clamped his lips down on the words 'kidnapping Mad Pete' suspecting, correctly, that a phrase like that would set the men off into further paroxysms of laughter. Instead he said, still more defensively, "Well, who are you then?"
The man who seemed to do all the talking bowed graciously, bending nearly in half, his head practically brushing his feet. "We are Maurice, Shadbolt and Abendigo," he said, indicating the sparsely toothed man, the one eyed man, and himself in turn. "And we are members of the tribe of the foot reading gypsies of the Wide Flat Plains. We bid you welcome to our domain."
He clapped his hands, and suddenly fires surrounding the group burst into flames flooding the area with light. Music poured from a nearby caravan that Ralph had not seen before, and there were people running everywhere and laughing and talking and squealing.
Abendigo put out his hand to Ralph the Timid. "Come and join us in our celebrations, lad!"
Ralph the Timid took his hand cautiously and got pulled to his feet.
"What are we celebrating?" he asked with curiousity.
Abendigo laughed, and so did Maurice and Shadbolt. "Our visitors, of course!"

(Word Count: 39184)

Chapter Twenty Seven: In Which Ralph the Timid Goes A-Travelling Once More.

Ralph the Timid, Ginger McSporran and Mad Pete all stared at the sandwich.
It was disgusting. It smelt disgusting. It smelt - Ralph couldn't think of any words to describe how bad it smelt. It smelt worse than anything he had ever smelt in his life. Ginger McSporran thought it smelt pretty bad too, right up there with the worst smelling things he had ever come across, and some pretty rank smelling things lived down in the deepest part of his caves. Like the Incredibly Flatulent Deepest Cave Dwelling Glowworm of Doom, which, fortunately, was extremely rare. It was not that hard to find though, because if you were in a very deep cave and you could smell something that seemed to be rotten cabbage mixed with sour yoghurt and manure, and then left in the back of the fridge for three months till it went even more off, you knew you were pretty close.
This sandwich smelt pretty close to that bad. It looked worse. At least the Incredibly Flatulent Deepest Cave Dwelling Glowworm of Doom looked pretty. Well, it looked pretty from a distance, all twinkly and sweet and star like in the darkness. Up close it was a fairly unprepossessing bug much like any other, but no one ever got up close because it smelt so bad. This sandwich, however, was very close to both the nose and the eyes of the three observers.
Twinkle was now soundly sleeping, eyes shut and snoring peacefully, but the eyes of Ralph the Timid, Ginger McSporran and Mad Pete were all watering from the smell of the sandwich, and Ralph's stomach - normally capable of ingesting anything without the hint of upset, even overly green wormy apples - was lurching in a dangerous way, like a tiny rowboat far out at sea in the midst of the worst hurricane in living history. He thought it was the sliminess of the sandwich that did it. It glistened in an oozy way, and bread in Ralph's experience was never shiny. Ever. It was wrong.
They stared at the sandwich a moment longer, then Ginger McSporran shook his head disgustedly. "Wrap it back up, Mad Pete, you daft potato," he said gruffly, moving even further away from the repellent foodstuff. Well, erstwhile foodstuff is probably more accurate. It seems unlikely anyone would want to eat that sandwich in a hurry. "So the parcel was a washout. Now what?"
Mad Pete quickly folded the wrappings back up around the sandwich. It helped a bit, but the smell was free now. It lingered in the air like an exceptionally persistant flying salesman. Ralph the Timid moved back to his windows and opened them all as wide as they could go. He leaned out of one to breathe the fresh air.
Ethel warbled happily. She was a bit bored out in the garden by herself.
"Just be glad you're not in here," said Ralph the Timid darkly. "It smells terrible."
Mad Pete moved to the library door holding the sandwich which was now rewrapped, saying "I'll be back in just a tick!" He nipped out, closing the door behind him. He was back in a trice, this time without the sandwich. "Thought I'd throw it away in the bin out there," he said in a confedential manner. "No sense in smelling the whole room in here out, is there?"
Ginger McSporran snorted in his typical black beast of the cave way but forebore to point out that the room they were in still smelt and now the rest of Mad Pete's house would smell as well. Come to think of it, perhaps it was deliberate. But there, that is an uncharitable thought. It is far more likely that he merely wanted to get things moving.
"Well, Mad Pete," he said as he stroked Twinkle who was still oblivious to any goings on, "Now what? How are we going to know if young Ralph here is the boy you were looking for? Though of course we know you're not, don't worry there Ralphie baby!" this last was directed at Ralph the Timid who was still leaning out the window sucking in deep breaths of clean fresh smelling air.Ralph the Timid ignored this, or maybe he just didn't hear.
"Not to worry," said Mad Pete. "I'll just look it up on my file!"
Ginger McSporran gave him a flat cold stony look as if to say "I really can't believe how completely and utterly annoying you are." but out loud merely said in an even expressionless tone. "Well that does seem like a good idea now doesn't it."
So Mad Pete went to another of his shelves that surrounded the room, rifled for a moment, then emerged with a sheaf of papers that he leafed through rapidly. "Ah, yes, here we are!" He pulled one free of the rest and scanned its contents. "Well, well, well. Xanadu, they were King and Queen of, " he said with more factual accuracy than grammatical soundness.
"Where's that?" asked Ralph, who did not know much geography beyond the mountains.
"It's a couple of days from here going cross country - you need to go from the Low Plains over the Wide Flat Plans, and then you get to Xanadu. It's just where the hill country starts."
"Well, I suppose i should go and meet my parents," said Ralph the Timid with a decided lack of enthusiam. "Found my purpose now, I guess. That was what I came to do, after all."
"Cheer up!" said Ginger McSporran, clambering up from the floor by Twinkle and lumbering over to clap Ralph encouragingly on the back with a hand the size of a small child. (Not a small child's hand, mark well, a whole small child.) Ralph nearly fell over, but did not seem cheered up.
"It might never happen!" said Ginger McSporran, encouragingly. "We won't know until you meet your parents - if they're actually your parents, I mean. And I don't think they are!" he added stoutly.
Mad Pete said something under his breath which was probably disagreement, though he did not choose to repeat it out loud.
"All right!" said the black beast of the cave, with false heartiness. "Let's get this show on the road! I'll get this cat back in the bag, and you, Mad Pete, fetch your birdie. We're going to Xanadu!"
And thus it was that Ralph the Timid charming adventurous youth seeking his purpose turned evil twin, Ginger McSporran the black beast of the caves, Mad Pete the once celebrated chartmaker known as Boris Blockoff, Twinkle an enraged cat, and Ethel, a chirpy Unexpectedly Large Warbler, set off over the plains to Xanadu.

(Word Count: 37998)

Chapter Twenty Six: In Which Lady Ann Writes A Letter.

Lady Ann had to wait quite some considerable time for her ink. This was not all that surprising, as Prince Rupert had to go all the way down the stairs from the tall, tall tower, and then he had to find some ink, and then he had to go all the way back up the tall, tall tower and give it to her. It says something for the energy that being the villain of the piece gives you to say that Prince Rupert could make it up and down those stairs twice in one day, in fact he could do it twice in one afternoon. His servants always arranged with each other that they would only have to do it once a day, and even then it took them so long to get up the stairs and back down again that whoever had taken the breakfast tray up to Lady Ann would more often that not meet the person who was responsible for lunch halfway up (or down) the stairs, and then a complicated process of manoeuvering around each other without spilling everything all over the narrow staircase would ensue.
Prince Rupert was clearly made of sterner stuff that his servants, although even his energetic bounds became rapidly less energetic the higher up the stairs he went. Never mind, though, it was very good for his leg muscles and cardiovascular health. Always forward thinking, he brought Lady Ann a selection of inks in different colours, not wanting to have to do the stair climb again in a hurry. He opened the door without knocking, startling Lady Ann who was sitting near the window looking out, came into the room and placed the inks on the table.
"There you are, my lady, " he said as he put them down.
"Well yes, where else would I be?" snapped Lady Ann, not getting up.
Prince Rupert looked at her blankly, not understanding her sarcasm "Your inks. " he said slowly in explanation. Perhaps, he thought, Lady Antoinetta of Erd was not so sensible as she had been supposed by him to be. She didn't seem to understand a simple statement.
Lady Ann looked away and rolled her eyes. Then she looked back. "And what am i supposed to write this letter with?" she asked, trying to sound scathing and disdainful and altogether bitchy, when all she really wanted to do was make Prince Rupert run up and down the stairs again. Which was rather bitchy, really. There were a lot of stairs, after all. Not the most hard hearted of bad guys deserved to run up and down them three times a day, and Prince Rupert was hardly the worst and blackest of all villains. He liked kittens!
Prince Rupert, however, did not see her hidden motive in asking this. He looked at the inks on the table. He looked at the table. Not only did he not see her motive, but he also did not see a quill or a pen of any sort. He said something exclamatory under his breath that sounded rather a lot like "Damn it all to [expletive deleted]!"
"I beg your pardon, Prince Rupert?" said Lady Ann, sweetly, hearing him perfectly. "I didn't quite catch that. Could you repeat it please?"
"I said I'll get you a quill." said Prince Rupert tersely, swinging out of the room and slamming the door shut behind him. Lady Ann heard him muttering to himself as he lifted the big piece of wood that locked the door into place. He did not sound happy. She stifled a giggle. His footsteps disappeared, and as they did so, it occurred to Lady Ann that perhaps making your captor angry was not the best of plans. He could so easily make her stay here much more unpleasant. He could stop sending her food or water, or he could move her - though anywhere else might be better, because she'd be lower to the ground, and therefore able to look down from her window without feeling sick. Looking out across the walls and over the plains was all right, but looking straight down still made her feel decidedly queasy. The castle seemed to sway in the wind.
She bit her lip, thinking of this. No food...if he did that, how long before she would be forced to cave to his demand for her hand? Maybe she COULD parachute out of here? Or maybe he wouldn't be SO bad as a husband? He was fond of kittens, after all. And then Lady Ann remembered just how fond of kittens Prince Rupert was, and how many cats he had, and shut down that train of thought smartly.
After what seemed to be a reasonable interval she began listening for the sound of Prince Ruperts feet on the stairs, bringing her the quill. She heard nothing. The wait seemed interminable. She thought of how omnipotent Prince Rupert was in his dealings towards her. She was foolish to think she could escape with just some ink. And she had no quill.
She could always dip her finger in the ink and write it that way...She had just about decided Prince Rupert was not coming back and she would have to write with her finger when she heard footsteps on the stairs.Prince Rupert was back. He burst into the room, again without knocking, and placed the quill on the table beside the inks. He glared at Lady Ann, who had maintained her place by the window.
She looked at the quill, then at Prince Rupert, who was flushed and panting. She raised an eyebrow. "Paper?" she asked quizzically. "Or am I to write on air?" Maybe getting him riled wasn't such a bad idea. At least it was entertaining.
Prince Rupert's glare became a darker, more ferocious scowl. His breathing was slowly coming back to normal but his face if anything was getting redder.He fumed silently for a few moments, then turned towards the door as if to go.
Then, as if struck by a brilliant thought, he stopped. He turned back. He said, "You can write on the back of my letters! You shouldn't need much room just to say "YES!"" He put his hand on the door handle, leaned back, and threw himself into the longest evil cackle Lady Ann had heard so far. "Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ah ha ha ha ah aha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!" She wondered how he had the breath for it after all those stairs. But he wasn't done! He kept laughing. "Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ah ah ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha hah aha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!"
He opened the door, went through, closed it behind him with a thud. The bar of the door was swung into place with a resounding crash, and all the while he still laughed. Lady Ann could hear him as he went down the stair - "Muwha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha haa - ha ha - ha - ha h ah!" - getting fainter and fainter as he got further away.
She marvelled at how he managed to keep his footing while laughing so hard. She wondered why he was laughing so hard. Nothing was funny.
"I think he's insane." she said out loud. No one disagreed with her - not that there was any other person present to disagree with her - so it must have been true.
She moved to the table, checked the sharpness of the quill - it was good - and sat down to write.
She started by drawing a neat line through Prince Rupert's love letter plus highly excellent poem in red ink. Then, upon going to turn the page over to write on the other side, realised that the wet ink would make a mark on the table. Not wanting to destroy such a lovely table - for the table was lovely, polished, immensely old oak, with elaborate carved legs, and of great antiquity, and didn't deserve to be ruined just because its owner had seen fit to become evil - she decided instead to wait for the ink to dry, and filled in time by scribbling out all of Prince Rupert's messages.
She wasn't going to send that many darts, of course. Too much chance that Prince Rupert or someone affliated with him would find them. But it gave her so much satisfaction to scribble out his words, and it gave her something to do. And there was lots of ink, so no danger of running out!
At length the ink was dry on the first sheet. She turned the page over and wrote:
"To whoever finds this:
Please help me! I have been imprisoned in the tallest tower of Prince Rupert's very tall castle! He intends to keep me here until I marry him! Please rescue me!
Lady Antoinetta B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z of Erd"
She looked at the message. Did it cover all the relevant points? She thought so. Maybe she hadn't need to put ALL her initials....but they might have got her confused with another Lady Antoinetta of Erd? She was sure at least one of her cousins had the same first name.
Never mind. It was written. She waited for it to dry, impatiently waving it around in the hopes the air would dry it faster that way. Then she folded the letter up into what she had decided was the most effective dart shape (her message on the inside to keep it safe from rain, which might make the ink run), leaned as far out the window as she dared, and launched the dart into the late afternoon air.
She watched it as it flew. It flew well. It flew straight and true, out over the walls, slowly losing height. Soon it was out of sight, but it had gone far enough, she thought.
But what if no one found it? Perhaps she should send another, just in case.She sat down to write again.

(Word Count: 36881)

Chapter Twenty Five: In Which Lady Ann's Virtue Is Affronted.

At this point we must travel away from the intrepid journeymen and their stinky several years old slimy salami sandwich adn turn again to our heroine, the lovely Lady Antoinetta Bernadetta Clarissa Drusilla Eleanora Georgetta Henrietta Isabella Juanita Katherina Lolita Marguerita Nerissa Octavia Petunia Quintessa Roberta Suzetta Tabitha Ursula Venitia Wilhelmina Xenia Zelda of Erd. There she stands, in the centre of her tower room, staring at the door. She is still, as if she is part of a video which had just been paused.
It is time to press play.
Prince Rupert rapped again on the door, more loudly. "Knock, knock!" he called, trying to sound simultaneously manly and gallant and cute and appealing with faint traces of evil. He thought that Lady Ann would surely recognise his voice and probably swoon in a romantic manner.
Lady Ann did not recognise the voice. She called back, sounding puzzled, "Who is it?" She darted a glance across the room to where the bottle lay hidden behind a particularly low flying ornately embroided tapestry that hung from the roof to the floor. Could she get to it before the door opened?
"It is I, Prince Rupert, your captor." said Prince Rupert in the same attempt at a voice that was simultaneously manly and gallant and cute and appealing and just the right amount of menacing. "May I come in?" he added, just to be polite. Just because you were an evil abducting dastardly bad guy who kidnapped unsuspecting princesses to force them into matrimony didn't mean you should forget you manners. And to be fair to Prince Rupert, he didn't abduct princessES - just Lady Ann.
"Oh." said Lady Ann rather flatly. She moved toward the tapestry. "What do you want?"
"To come in," said Prince Rupert rather impatiently, abandoning the voice, which did not seem to be having the desired effect. "Open this door!" he demanded, rather more rudely.
Lady Ann sighed and leaned against the tapestry coloured wall. "If I could open that door, Prince Rupert," she said, her voice tinged with an over sweet note, "I would not still be in this - this- this -" words failed her, though she usually had quite a way with them "this - ROOM!" The last word burst from her in a most exclamatory way.
Prince Rupert was silent. She was right, of course. He'd gotten all carried away with his politeness. With some care - and to give himself time to recover his slightly bruised dignity, for Prince Rupert did not care to be seen doing or thinking anything stupid - he lifted the bar that kept Lady Ann's door locked from the outside. It made a scraping sound as it lifted. Lady Ann hurriedly groped for her whacking bottle. Blast! It was at the other end of the tapestry. Did she have time to move?
But then the door swung open and Prince Rupert strode into the room in what he considered to be a swashbuckling swagger, but came across rather more like a sumo wrestler with a limp trying to wade through knee high quicksand.He saw Lady Ann standing against the tapestry in her blue dress, her blond locks brushed neatly back from her face, her chin up. She looked at him defiantly. She was certainly determined not to be one of those wet damsels in distress who fainted all the time and cried all the rest of the time.
Prince Rupert, wanting to exert his authority, stopped in the centre of the room, placed his hands on his hips, threw back his head and let loose his by now traditional evil laugh. "Ah ha ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ah he ahe eha ha ha ha ha ha ha haaaa!" He had to stop then because he had run out of breath and his stomach muscles were tired from so much laughing. His scar twitched as he tried to keep his laughter under control. He glared at Lady Ann from under shaggy black eyebrows.
"So, Lady Antoinetta. You have been my prisoner these several days now. What say you now on the matter of marriage?" said Prince Rupert, pronouncing each word with a flourish and a toss of his hair.
Lady Ann struggled not to roll her eyes. It was all so overdone. "I say nothing will convince me to ever marry you! And there is no way to compell me to do so!" she replied with as much defiance as she could muster, her eyes flashing brilliantly.
She made a lovely picture there, standing against the largely purple tapestry. It would have made a wonderful painting, had some artist been there to capture the moment. Unfortunately there was no artist, just Lady Ann and Prince Rupert, both of whom were indifferently talented in this respect.

And so it was that no one painted a picture of it. Lady Ann just stood her ground, and Prince Rupert stood his. His eyes roamed around the room. He caught sight of the pile of letters on the table, and the kitten pictures sorted into order of cutest to least cute.
"Ah ha!" he said, striding with what was meant to be bombastic fervour over to the table. "I see you like your presents of pictures! Aren't kittens sweet?" He looked fondly at the pictures, his eyes becoming soft and nearly filling with tears. He did so like cats. Blinking rapidly to clear his vision, he turned back to Lady Ann. "You know, my lady, that were you to surrender to my wishes, you would be in a most fortunate position, you who clearly loves cats as much as I myself do. For you would not only become the Princess of Xanadu, a much esteemed region of Ablet with great power and influence, and have me for your husband, " he stroked his hand through his hair as if to display how glossy and black it was, "but you would also become the mistress of all these kittens! And more besides!"
Lady Ann stared at him. "Do I understand you correctly, sir? Are you - do you - do you own ALL these kittens?" She said incredulously. There was a huge stack of pictures on the table. She had been given at least one with every meal.
"And more besides! Many, many more! They all have names and they all have special chefs!" said Prince Rupert, reverting to his debonair yet evil voice. "And they all sleep on my bed, with me!" He wiggled his eyebrows up and down in way that completely failed to be seductive or appealing in any way at all.
Lady Ann inwardly cringed. She liked cats as well as the next person, but there was a limit to the number of cats that were acceptable at one time. Was it not bad enough that her captor was an evil abductor with designs on her hand in marriage, but he was also a crazy cat man? Why was life so cruel to her? Outwardly she raised her eyebrows slightly but said nothing. She did not wish to provoke him. She wished she had the bottle in her hand.
Prince Rupert did not seem to notice she was not saying anything. He swung back to the table and was looking at the letters. "Have you read my letters?" he inquired with avid curiousity. He picked one up and examined it. "Ah! I see that you have been reading them intently. This one is all creased in odd ways." He gently smoothed out the folds of Lady Ann's latest dart attempt while she breathed a sigh of relief at his inability to see what seemed to her to be obvious. "Did you like my poem?" There was a hint of pride in his voice.
If she had known Prince Rupert better, she would have recognised that as more than a hint of pride. Prince Rupert considered his poetry writing skills to be beyond comparision with the skills of any other poet. He was, in simple terms, the greatest poet in Xanadu. No, the greatest poet in Ablet. No, he was the greatest poet in all the world!
"Um." said Lady Ann. She had no wish to offend the Prince - who knew what he might do? but she had also been brought up to be honest. She sought to answer in a way that would distract the prince from his question. "I um..ah...um....ahem."
"What's that?" said Prince Rupert, leaving the poem and advancing on her again. "Couldn't quite make out what you said there. Did you like the poem?"
Lady Ann edged sideways, trying to put more distance between them. "Um. Well. Er. It was..it used a lot of repetition!" she said desperately.
Prince Rupert smiled happily. He seemed to take this as a compliment. "Yes, that's one of my favourite poetic devices. I think it really emphasises whatever point I'm trying to make. In this case, of course, it was your lovely loveliness." He smiled more broadly, if that was possible, and moved closer.Lady Ann tried to push herself further into the wall. It of course did not work, seeing as the wall behind her was made of solid stone.
"Don't you think it worked?" said Prince Rupert, moving to stand now very close.
"Um. Well. Hem." said Lady Ann, ducking past him and moving swiftly to the other side of the room.
"Playing hard to get, are we?" said Prince Rupert, moving after her.
"Ah - ah - " Lady Ann tried to think of something to distract him. "I - I - ah, I couldn't quite read one of the lines of the poem. What was um...what was the line for K?"
That stopped Prince Rupert dead in his tracks. He thought. He thought long. He thought hard. He thought long and hard. "I wrote...I wrote..." He racked his brain for an adjective that started with the letter K, but all he could think of was khaki. He was pausing too long, he thought desperately. Sweat beaded on his forehead. He was losing his edge as a dark evil guy with a soft sensitive side who wrote poetry if he couldn't even think of an adjective that rhymed with K. "I wrote KISSABLE!" he yelled suddenly as the word came to him, and advancing on Lady Ann, took her in his arms and tried to kiss her.
Lady Ann shrieked loudly and headbutted him in the nose. He let go of her immediately, dropping her to the floor. She scuttled away without standing up, crawling to the tapestry. She stood up and drew herself up very tall. "HOW DARE YOU?!" she shrieked, channelling the screams of all the times she had unexpectedly encountered spiders. "Was it not enough that you abduct me and imprison me here in this tiny room after jouncing me here in the MOST uncomfortable manner, but now you attempt to lay your hands on me too!" She looked outraged.
Prince Rupert clutched his nose and groaned in a most undastardly manner. "OW!" he said once and very loudly.
"If you leave me some ink, Prince Rupert, you shall get your answer in writing," said Lady Ann, her voice dripping with icy scorn. Although possibly that would be with icicles of scorn hanging from her words, as icy things do not tend drip very much.
Prince Rupert shot her a dirty look and slunk out of the room, slamming it behind them.
Lady Ann slid down the wall and sat on the floor by the tapestry. She was flummoxed by how easy it had been to get Prince Rupert to agree to giving her ink. Now she just had to wait for it to be brought to her and she could implement her plan....

(Word Count: 35104)

Chapter Twenty Four: In Which Mad Pete resumes his explanations.

There was silence in the library.
"Well," said Mad Pete at last, looking at Ralph then Ginger McSporran, then back at Ralph. "What do you think?"
Ralph shook his head slowly as if trying to clear it. It was as if Mad Pete's words had crawled inside his ears like spiders and spun web after web so he couldn't think clearly - not that spiders crawled into ears to spin their webs, not usually anyway, but that was what it felt like. "Are ... Am. ... What..." he struggled to engage the gears of his mind, like an old manual car stopped for traffic lights on a steep hill struggles to engage first gear. He stopped, looked over the sentence in his mind, and started again. "Why are you telling me this, Mad Pete?" He got up and walked over to the window on the far side of the room.
Ethel was still warbling happily in the garden. It seemed like nothing had happened out there. No time had passed. But yet for Ralph, everything had changed. He turned back to the others still seated by the empty fireplace. The light streamed in behind him, giving him an eerie backlit glow. "You know my story, Mad Pete," he said, slowly and clearly, as if the words were being dragged out of him. "Are you telling me that this is the answer to my quest? That I am the twin - the eviller of the twins - the boy who was abandoned in the mountains?"
Ginger McSporran gave a snort like a tractor engine starting up. It was such a snort that only a black beast of the caves could give. "Don't think that for a minute, young Ralph," he said disdainfully. "He's just telling a story, the old fool." He then turned to Mad Pete and looked at him omniously. "You still haven't answered my question, you foolish man. What is in the parcel? Why was it in my cave? Who put it there?"
Mad Pete, as the vestiges of his happy reverie of the days now long gone when he had been the master of all chartmakers slowly evaporated like dew in the sunshine, forebore to point out that Ginger McSporran had in fact just asked three questions, not one. He also didn't point out that the black beast of the caves was being a bit selfish. Surely Ralph's crisis of identity was far more important that some package? But one did not tend to point out such things to a being capable of ripping your arms off without even trying very hard. So he did not. Instead, he said. "I'm coming to that."
"To what?" said Ginger McSporran and Ralph the Timid at the same time, and then "to my quest?" and "to the parcel?" also at the same time, so it came out sounding like "to mhe quarstcel?"
Mad Pete looked a little blank.
"You go first." Ralph the Timid said to Ginger McSporran politely. His foster parents had raised him well, whatever his chart might say.
"No, you go first," said Ginger McSporran with equal politeness. His parents may have been cave beasts, but no one could say they were lacking in standards of ettiquette.
"No, no, I insist, " said Ralph, who had learnt the hard way that elders and betters should go before youth.
"No, I insist, " said Ginger McSporran, who always held doors for old ladies, even if they always ran away screaming rather than walk through them.
This continued for some minutes. It would have continued longer, had not Mad Pete suddenly got to his feet. "All right!" he said in a most exclamatory way, holding his hands over his ears. "Stop it! My mind is not omnipotent but it can handle most things. But it cannot handle such tedious arguments as this one! I will tell you what is in the package and it will answer all your questions."
He sat back down, and Ginger McSporran resettled himself on his hearthrug, and Twinkle climbed on his mighty lap and started purring and kneading his legs. "Ow!" muttered Ginger McSporran, trying to shift the cat "How many times must I tell you not to do that?" He looked over to Ralph, who was still lurking on the other side of the room, dramatically backlit by the sunshine pouring in through the windows. "Are you coming back to listen, Ralph?"
Ralph stood as upright and straight as a statue of a sentry by the window. "I can hear from here." he said shortly. The truth was he was scared he might get upset and do something terrible like start crying, and Ralph the Timid disdained tears. They were for babies and fraidycats and girls and wimpy people like that.
Mad Pete shook his head gravely and then launched into his narrative again. "So, where was I? Ah yes, I had sent the King and Queen away, having advised them to abandon the child in the mountains. And then, as I began to realise what I had done, how I had betrayed my calling, I grew more and more dissatisfied with the world and the lifestyle of chartmaking, and I gave it up to become a mad man. It wasn't easy. It was hard letting go of the fame and the money, and every now and then pirates would still try to kidnap me, so I had to make the occasional chart just to make them let me go. But now it's been ....oh, just a few years less than twenty" (here a stifled cry from Ralph the Timid was heard. More and more of the pieces matched the puzzle that was his life.) "and I haven't been kidnapped by pirates for a good five years at least. They got a bit tired of me, I think, " he said confidentially, idly stroking one multicoloured arm. "I always acted extra mad when they carried me off."
Ginger McSporran stroked Twinkle, who purred. Ralph stood as if he were carved from stone. Neither said anything, but it was clear that they both wanted Mad Pete to stop digressing and just get on with the damn story.
Mad Pete hurriedly raced into speech again. "So. I thought after a year that I had made a mistake. I had done this as an experiment - to see if not knowing his true path would divert the eviller twin from a destiny no child deserves. But I had forgotten one thing - how would I know? The only way I would know for sure would be if I heard, when the twin had grown up, of some spectacularly dastardly evil man roaming the land and causing havoc all up and down the length and breadth of Ablet, and then i saw him and managed to recognise him as the young boy from all those years ago. Now I may not be the most sensible of men, " he held up an admonishing hand to check Ginger's derisive cough/ snort/ comment on the complete lack of sensibleness that Mad Pete had ever demonstrated " you don't need to say anything, Ginger McSporran, I may not be the most sensible of men but I can recognise my own shortcomings. Now, AS I WAS SAYING, I may not be the most sensible of men, but I didn't think that was the most likely scenario. If not for any other reason than I didn't fancy getting close enough to such a fiend to ask him for his baby picture. So I came up with an alternative plan.
"I collected up all the information I had about the baby and his parents, and I made a parcel. I wrapped it up in brown paper and I tied it with string, and I addressed it to myself. Then I waited. My plan was to take it up to the mountains, put it in some isolated spot, and wait for a chartless adventurer to come questing down the mountain. Then I would send them in to get it, and if they were honest, they would bring it out to me and I would know that the plan had worked. And if they were dishonest, well then they wouldn't, but they would at least be able to find out the truth about their birth and I wouldn't have to feel so decietful all these years.
"So that was my plan. But I had to wait an awfully long time to implement it, because for years after my retirement I couldn't go out walking - even around the Low Plains, forget the mountains! - I couldn't walk anywhere without being abducted by pirates. And as the years wore on I began to be afraid that I wouldn't get there in time.
"But about five years ago the pirates finally gave it up, and so I was able to go up into the mountains to find a place to hide the package. It took me quite some time to find those caves of yours, Ginger, but at last I did, just over two years ago, and I left the parcel there.
"I was surprised by how many adventurers went in there and never came out, I really was. But then Ethel found out for me what you were doing, Ginger McSporran, and how you were tricking them into forgetting the parcel. I guessed that any adventurer who would forget the parcel couldn't possibly be the right one. So I continued to go up into the forests and torment young men on quests into getting me my parcel.
"And now you've got it for me, Ralph the Timid. " Mad Pete produced the parcel and held it up. Ralph gazed at the brown paper wrapped object in the chartmakers hands. It was so small to hold so much potential for destroying his life as he knew it - if he was evil he could never go home. It would hurt his family's feelings so much!
"Well," said Ginger McSporran, slowly and gruffly. "I guess we'd better open it then."
Ralph the Timid peeled himself away from the window and came closer to look over Mad Pete's shoulder as he unwrapped the parcel. Ginger McSporran leaned in, nose close to the parcel, watching intently.
Mad Pete, with some difficulty, unknotted the knots in the string that had been tied so long ago. He unwound the string from the parcel and put it aside.Then he slowly unfolded the brown paper.
A terrible smell filled the air. It smelled like an ancient pepporoni, cheese and tomato sandwich which has been left somewhere damp for far too long and is now practically alive.
Which is curious, because that is exactly what was inside the parcel.
Ginger McSporran drew his nose back hurriedly. Ralph similarly recoiled. "Ugh!" he said. "What is it? How does that tell us anything?"
Mad Pete smiled, a sweet, sad, foolish smile. "I think, my friends," he said slowly, "this tells us we have the wrong parcel."


(Word Count: 32850)