Chapter Twenty: In Which We Examine the Various Natures of Villainy.

It would be reasonable to expect at this moment that you would be able to guess what this chapter was going to be about. Even looking at the chapter heading, one would suppose that in this chapter, there would be discourse on the nature of villainy as it related to Mad Pete or Boris Blockoff or whatever his name was now, and his lying to people. And so it may. You might think, however, that "In Which We Examine the Various Natures of Villainy" would mean that on the way through this chapter, we would pick up where the last one left off. That is to say, Mad Boris Petrov Blockoff would explain why exactly he was wandering around in the mountain forests with an oversized songbird telling people he was a mad man and asking them to retrieve mysterious packages for him which weren't actually for him, but then turned out to be actually for him.
You might even think that we would actually, finally, at last discover what was actually in the package. Was it a jewel of preciousness beyond imagination? Was it a letter from an old friend? Was it a -by now very stale - sandwich? We might even get to know how the package got there, and what it was doing there. Did Mad Pete put it there? Was it just visiting some friends? Or was it checking out the glowworms? Or was it just sitting there, as packages so often do? There are so many questions that could be answered in this chapter. But they won't be.
Another reasonable hypothesis is, since Ralph the Timid, Ginger McSporran, Twinkle and Mad Pete are sitting in a library, that a sudden scholarly fever might seize them. They might find themselves suddenly drawn into a mighty argument over when villainy could be construed as evil, and when it might actually be somewhat less villainous that first supposed. They could have an argument that goes something like this:
Mad Pete could say something like "Well, it wasn't that villainous of me to decieve you. I had my reasons."
And then Ginger McSporran could reply "Nonsense, there is no excuse! As the Great Master of Wisdom Oliver Rackham Spicer always said, there is no such thing as a lessening of villainy just because it is a means to an end."
And then Ralph the Timid, still rubbing his ankle, could chip in with "or as the soothsayer in my village is so fond of quoting 'some are born evil, some become evil, and some have evillness thrust upon them.'"
And then Mad Pete and Ginger McSporran could look at him strangely because he wasn't making enough sense for them, and then Twinkle could bite him again.
And then Mad Pete could use Twinkle as example of villainy that wasn't intentional, and then Ginger could cuddle Twinkle and order Ralph and Mad Pete to stop being so mean to his cat.
And then the discussion could continue apace. It would be quite reasonable to assume that in a chapter discussing the nature of villainy there would be a conversation such as this. However, one would assume wrongly. Excluding the given example, of course, but since it was only an example it does not count.
No, in this chapter we shall being going back to Lady Ann of Erd, imprisoned in her room at the top of a very tall tower in a very tall castle belonging to Prince Rupert of Xanadu. For her situation is very useful to illustrate the degrees and nature of villains.
Lady Ann, locked into a room which was at once pleasantly spacious and mind crampingly small and claustrophobic making (at least once one had been locked inside it with nothing to do for more than a few hours, might consider that Prince Rupert was one of the most vile dastardly individuals to walk the earth - or crawl on his belly across the great land of Ablet, if she was at the moment feeling particularly angry and/ or poetic.
However, a man trapped in an iron cage which had bits of glass or other sharp things to poke into him whenever he moved and fed only once a week, instead of several times a day, as Lady Ann was, would have considered Prince Rupert of Xanadu a relatively beneficient captor. Providing, of course, that Prince Rupert was equally fondly disposed to said man as he was to Lady Ann, which seems unlikely.
So the point we have here as that villainy is relative. Torture by boredom is perhaps less villainous than torture by pain or random acts of cruelty, though this is of course subjective. Well, no, it's not really all that subjective, but without having suffered through physical torture Lady Ann had no benchmark of comparision, so we can leave with the conclusion that although Prince Rupert might not be a baby eating blood letting ogre of a villain, he was still being rather significantly less than gentlemanly to her.
There is also the nature of villainy to look at. The omnipotent law which governs people's purposes in life -at least in Ablet - no doubt contributes to this. There are the accidental-on-purpose villains, for example parents who expose their babies on the hillside a la Oedipus in order to avoid a child who, due to being born on a moonless night in winter in the year of the snake, would be destined to grow up and murder lots of people, or similar. If the child survives (again a la Oedipus), are they still villanous for having done so?
There are those who do bad things for simple enjoyment - such as the child who was born on a moonless night in winter in the year of the snake.
And there are those who do bad things because they mistakenly think they are coming across as dashing and heroic in doing so, such as Prince Rupert.
Prince Rupert, as bad guys went, was not terrifically bad. He did not abuse his servants, or kick his animals, and everyone and everything in his castle was well fed with a nice place to sleep. He gave all his old retainers pensions when they retired after years of faithful service, and he had a big estate somewhere in the Low Plains where he sent all his horses once they were past their prime. He liked to think of them there, frolicking merrily in the long lush grass on the rolling meadows. He was not to know of his estate managers perfidious contract with the local butcher (and there again we have another kind of villainy! It's everywhere).
Prince Rupert had one particular failing though, and that was that he had read too many stories. He was good at telling them, and loved to hear them. And the more he heard, the more he realised that the hero was always a wet wimp, a goody two shoes, a paragon of virtues too boring for words. This opinion, coupled with the truth the mirror told him - that there was no way his countenance was going to let him be a good guy, he seemed to have been born with a sinister scar and a permanent five o clock shadow - made up his mind for him. He had had some hesitations, but then he remembered his birthdate. Yes, it all made sense. He would be a bad guy, and then he not only induldge his passion for his favourite colour - black, but he would also be able to grow his hair long and flick it about dashingly, which always sounded fun. And best of all, he would be able to throw his head back and laugh the hearty laugh of a bad guy. "Muw ahha ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ah ah ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!"
And then, if he grew to be a really good bad guy (if you'll pardon the expression) some thunder would roll at that point, and the sky would grow dark, and lightning would flash, and maybe there would be bats or perhaps a wolf howling.
Prince Rupert was a rather naive villain. But anything he did he did properly, and whenever he saw something he wanted -like, say, Lady Ann to be his wife - he did everything in his power to get it. First by being dastardly abductive, and then by being dastardly charming. As he was now - he was at this very moment mounting the stairs to Lady Ann's tower room (which she may have called a tower prison, but he liked to think of as my lady's chamber) in order to visit her in person.
On he went up the stairs, up and up and up and up and up. He was fitter than Lady Ann had been, and without her to slow him down, he went very quickly. Up, up, up, up, up, around and around and around the spiral staircase he went. He was a very athletic villain. One has to be when one imprisons one's lady friends up so high. He was excited about the visit though. He wanted to see what she had thought of his letters and the poem! Surely he must be winning her over by now. Up and up and up and up and up and up and up he went, until at last, he was there. He paused a moment to catch his breath before knocking on the door. Even the worst of bad guys would not present himself out of breath. It puts him at such a disadvantage.
Normal breathing pattern regained, he knocked.
"Who is it?" said Lady Ann in an exclamatory way. She was not expecting him.

(Word Count: 26784)