Excerpt: The Mystery of The Ferrit's Tongue

Rupert of The Lord High Governor's Guard, considered himself well trained and adept in the skills of ignoring the blatant mockery being exhibited by ffipip of the Jesters, even down to the mashing of thighs against the irritation in the unmentionable region. He was also fully prepared for the next stage of antagonism when ffipip, in one graceful flip-flop, appeared in front of him, nose to nipple and peered upwards. Rupert allowed his gaze to drop, to finally view his distractor and was a little surprised to see eyes furtively peering back at him through slits cut in a narrow black muslin band circumscribing a head and tied in a rather flamboyant bow on one side. Rupert's expression wandered between surprise, disbelief and bewilderment. At least one would have assumed that is what was going on had one been observing the average man. In Rupert's case he might have equally been musing on how he would take his ox on the morrow, as the diminutive individual in the mask beneath him posed no discernible threat.

His training however had apparently not prepared him for the slight of gesture of ffipip's glance over his head and almost imperceptible nod. Rupert's thoughts of breakfast were distracted and he craned his head backward to discover what ffipip was looking at. As he tilted his head backward the soft velveteen cap he was obliged to wear, that looked for all the world like a small cushion, and was sometimes used as such by "that damn cat", was removed and set aside by Pluit of the Jesters, who was hanging upside down, spider like, from a golden chord above. Rupert barely had time to begin to interpret what he was looking at when he went blind from porridge tart of the northern variety, which was renown for it unforgiving tastelessness. ffipip had suggested that this was unnecessarily cruel but unfortunately no one had yet got around to inventing creme anglais and sweet short crust pastry. Pluit had argued that this particular recipe was reputed to be very good for the complexion. There are those however who would argue that this was all completely irrelevant when you consider that as Rupert lowered his head, scooped the porridge tart from his eye sockets and spat out the cold salty unpleasantness, a large chunk of masonry was dropped on his head.