OLD KING COLE'S INHERITANCE

Here I am at my age, writing stuff like this

The king, Cole by name and cold by temperament, sat in his bath inhaling great lungfuls of fragranced steam, and smiled to himself at the great good fortune that was his life even though he was as yet unmarried, and that diminutive chief adviser, Sir Thomas Thumb suggested he get a move on before it was too late..

It had to be like that, of course. The position of King was one of inheritance. Several centuries ago one of his ancestors had pronounced himself king of all the lands thereabouts, and so it had been ever since, King Cole after King Cole as the generations passed. There had even been a century during which King Coles (three of them) had married their own sisters (four of them) in order to ensure that Cole blood was as pure as it could be.

That incestuous in-breeding, of course, had its side effects and for quite a long time a few Coles had suffered from the consequences of genetic mutation that was reinforced by sets of faulty genes being replaced by sets of equally faulty genes, and one or two King Coles had reigned over the land, to put it bluntly, simple-minded monarchs. That had been kept away from the people of course, Kings never mixing with the proletariat, and when one King Cole chanced to marry a Precious Moriarty, an especially beautiful blond commoner, everything seemed to have been put right in that that particular King Cole fathered an almost normal baby Cole as well a couple of exceptionally attractive princesses Cole.

So this particular twenty-first century King Cole sat in his bath and carefully arranged bubbles of soap on his genitals until a butler (yes, he had servants because it is only expected for kings to have lessor mortals dependent on an income via the gift of near slavery) and one of a trio of fiddlers pushed his way into the bathroom.

“Sire, you’re wanted on the phone,” he said in his most pompous yet servile voice, and he held the King’s Gigantic Bathrobe for King Cole to drape himself in.

“Who is it, Smithers?” asked the grumpy monarch.

“Sire she says her name is Bo Peep. Princess Bo Peep, she called herself, and she asked for you personally because, and this is how she put it, her nursery is drying up. Whatever that might mean.”

“A very odd state of affairs,” grumbled the cold as ever king, “what do you suppose she expects me to do about it?”

“I did enquire, sire, and it seems it might have something to do with your royal trousers,” replied the servant, and he untucked his violin from its resting place adjacent to his armpit and quietly played a soulful melody about someone being a whiter shade of pale.

“Beautiful,” growled King Cole, meaning the opposite.

By the time he reached the phone the Princess Bo Peep had wearied of waiting for him and had ordered a taxi in order to call on him on person. So he almost jumped out of his slippers (furry and pink) when the palace’s huge front doorbell was rung and the musical servant replaced his violin under his armpit and rushed to answer it. At first he was smitten almost dumb by the extreme beauty of the princess Bo Peep, but she wasn’t fooled by him.

“I need old King Cole, and I need him while there’s still warmth and a welcome in the nursery,” she said, rather sweetly, and to make sure he understood she added “so put your skates on, you servile fool!”

He returned to the Morning Room where King Cole always greeted visitors and told him of the arrival of the Princess Bo Peep who, he added with a grin “is quite a corker.”

“A corker, eh?” responded the king, who had never had much to do with the common man and his fondness for common slang, “Then better bring a bottle or two of Prosecco, and her.”

“Yes, sire,” grinned the servant, grinning because he knew full well whqt the word corker had meant to the king, who still suffered from the sad reduction in his mental processing powers as remnants of historic genes fought inside him for supremacy

King Cole gasped when he saw the unblemished perfection of every wonderful inch of his visitor’s skin.

“Oh, my darling lady,” he bubbled, a soupçon of warmth entering the freezing depths of his voice, “I hear you have nursery problems. Is there some sort of leakage you want me to send a man round to inspect?”

“Certainly not!” she almost exploded. “Maybe you’re the wrong monarch for me to turn to for help, but I’m almost forty and my womb has, as yet, not been troubled by the patter of tiny feet.”

“Your room? Tiny feet?” he queried.

“Not room, idiot man! Womb! I said my womb has not yet been troubled by the patter of tiny feet, and if it isn’t soon then it never will be!”

“Oh dear,” he mumbled, “I will call Sir Thomas Thumb, my adviser, and we will see what he might suggest.”

“Then get a move on or it’ll be more than my nursery drying up, but your seed might do the same, and then where will the two of us be?”

“I have no idea,” he grunted, and he called for Sir Thomas Thumb to return and help him with a problem being posed by the Princess Bo Peep. And when Thomas Thumb arrived the Princess explained her problem to him.

Sir Thomas, nodded and muttered sympathetic little sounds that might or might not have been words. Then he grinned politely and turned to look King Cole straight in his eyes.

“The Princess is eager to spend as many nights in your bedchamber with you as it might take,” he said solemnly, “she is very keen to be put with child before it’s too late!”

King Cole’s eyes opened wider than they should have, and one of them popped out.

“You mean….” he stuttered.

“He means take me up your stairs and let’s have some fun,” grinned Princess Bo Peep

“Fun?” croaked the King, stuffing his eye back.

And Princess Bo Peep scowled at him, asked the good Thomas Thumb if the king was quite alright and declared that she was sorry to have disturbed him but maybe the head chef would be more able to help her, and fled from the Morning Room, and quite by accident found her way into the kitchen where the chef was going frantic because his recipe insisted he needed some lean and tender minced lamb for a shepherd’s pie fit for the king, and all he had was scraggy old mutton going green., and that would be totally unsuitable

“I might be able to help you there,” she old him, “maybe we can strike a bargain, just the two of us. Wait a moment and I’ll see what I can do.”

And that is how old King Cole failed o leave an heir when he passed away, but nobody noticed that the position in the land of King was never filled and there was a permanent grin on the head chef’s face, and a whole load of baby chefs raring to grow up and do a bit of inheriting of their own,

© Peter Rogerson, 11.11.24

xxx