Chapter 6- Peasant's Complaints Day

Peasant's Complaints Day was just one of the vast variety of "political improvements" Seth had forced Ephraim into implementing after they had come back from the War of the Stones. Apparently, running away with three of the nation's best knights and not telling anybody where you were going was perceived as "abandoning" by the people, and some changes had to be made if he wanted to win the next election.

These "improvements" included the Lax Uniform Conformity Bill, the Gay-Straight Non-Aggression Treaty, the Optional Taxation Bill, the abolition of sodomy laws, free spading for your cats and, of course, Peasant's Complaints Day.

The idea was that it would improve his PR if he showed himself every now and then to the people and used his magical powers to make all their problems go away. The problem, of course, was that if there is one thing the human race will never run out of it is complaints, and most of them are damn trivial. Watching uneducated farmers spew shit and verbal diarrhoea all over His Highness had become the sadist's favourite past time, and he had now managed to subject Innes to the ordeal as well.

And so when dawn broke next Friday, pews had been lined up against one wall of the throne room, and in them, holding popcorn, and, in the case of Vanessa, wearing 3D glasses, sat all the guards who were not on duty at that particular moment, and when it comes down to it, all the ones who were as well.

"Wow!" said Venessa. "So this is 3D?" she asked her sister.

"Yes!" she answered enthusiastically. "It looks like my fist is actually coming at you when I do this!" * smack *

"Durrhurr" laughed Vanessa intelligently, several brain cells fewer than before.

The large double doors at the other end of the hall opened wide and the first pair of complainers entered.

"Hello, peasants!" greeted Innes rather unstrategically from his throne. "And what seems to be the problem today?"

The problem, it turned out, was a chicken, a garden hedge and two very grumpy old men.

"Yes, sorry, Mr, ah, Grubblypail was it?" said Innes, some 20 minutes latter, massaging his temples, "Was the animal in question yours, or his?"

"Is 'is, sir, but that egg 'e laid was on my lawn, bet my last turnip if it wasn't," he said passionately.

"'Is my goddam chicken, 'is my goddam egg!" retorted Mr. Haysoffer.

"Oh, shut up!" Innes whined, not at the peasants but at his retainers, all of whom were rolling on the floor laughing and dyeing of mirth in the corner.

"Ya know what? Here's my solution to your problem: whomsoever does not get to keep the egg laid by said chicken gets tp keep another egg from the castle kitchens. There, does that make you happy?"

"Oh no, you can't do that! It's a matter of principle! You have to decided who's egg it really is." argued Seth.

"You want a matter of principle? How about the principle of not wasting my time and that of those who are still waiting to be seen with real problems to be attended to," snarled Innes, thoroughly unamused.

Vanessa gulped.

"Bwahahaha," chuckled Seth quietly as he walked to the door to fetch some more peasants, "if there's a single problem here worth attending to, I'll eat my boot."

Over the course of the day, Innes solved several more cases of proper neighbourly conduct, promised to fix a few particularly life-threatening potholes, pledged public funding to aid mail curriers injured in the line of duty, and soothed a group of hysterical aunts armed to the teeth with frying pans, hair pins and feather dusters.

It was around this point that Seth called a halt, not because Innes himself was on the brink of throwing himself out the window but because it was at this point that the laugher issuing from the corner suddenly stopped. It had not, in fact, stopped, but the guards had reached the point of hyperventilation and were no longer audible.

"Let them die," said Innes vehemently.

"Lunch first," said Vanessa matter-of-factly.

"Good point," he conceded.

"Wow!" exclaimed Franz excitedly as he ran to catch up his Seth. "We should sell tickets for back home! We'd make a killing."

"I think that would be just a tad too obvious dear," he replied, "and besides," he said smugly, "I already do make a killing."

"Oh, fuck off."

"Now now, that's not very nice." Seth caught him by the chin and turned his face towards his own. "You. Me. Your room in 20 minutes. Be there."

"Woot!"

-.- "We need to talk."

"Darn it."

20 minutes later, Seth entered Franz's room to find Franz snuggled deeply under the comforter wearing his favourite footie pyjamas and cradling a cup of hot chocolate in his hands as if it were the dead of winter. "I'm cold," he whimpered.

Seth got under the covers with him.

"So you've verified the locations like I asked? Really?" asked Seth skeptically.

Sweat beaded on Franz's forehead, though because of the interrogation or because of the sudden addition of even more heat to an already too-hot bed, it is as of yet unknown. "Ah . . . yup."

"Did you find any then?"

"Any what?"

"Dyeing purple aliens."

"What? No."

Seth rolled his eyes. "No, not aliens you dumbass. The plants, man, the plants!"

"The peonies are quite nice this time of year."

"You didn't do it, did you?"

"I did so! I know for a fact that everything on the map pertaining to the city and all it's taverns is completely correct." Franz sipped his drink and glared at Seth over the top of the mug.

Seth was unimpressed. "You do realize that you are a complete and utter failure and will never get anywhere in life, right?"

"Hey! That's not fair!"

"One day your age is going to catch up with you and you won't be able to charm your way through life."

"My age! I'm not even legal yet!"

At which point Seth swiped his hot chocolate and made a bee line for the door. "I'm getting you up early tomorrow and we're going to get this job over with. Good night."

And thus Franz was left to sit alone and brood over his predicament and ponder his future career options.

He realized belatedly that he already had a steady job and the only way life would be leaving him in the gutter was if Seth fired him. Then again he was unionized so he should be safe from random acts of poverty. Franz went to sleep peacefully, his dreams of sugar plums and fairies doing naughty things behind the bushes undisturbed.