The Lofty Elves were, of all the elf tribes ever to skim the surface of Intermediate Earth, the fairest, the oldest, the wisest, and the most jaded. They had seen it all and been it all and after they were through, they complained about it all at some length, in verse, accompanied by the tinkle-ploing-dingle that passed for elfin music. (That effete doodle-oodle-hey-lally-lally-moo was what came from an orchestrative tradition relying on altogether too many harps and not enough bagpipes.)
And so, when His Awesome and Devastating Unspeakableness, Lord Belg of Castle Bonecrack, decided to stop torturing puppies and start conquering as much of Intermediate Earth’s prime real estate as he could get his scaly paws on, it was an occurrence greeted with a loud shout of outrage but also with covert mutterings of delighted anticipation by the bored-out-of-their-pretty-skulls-till-now Lofty Elves.
Prince Lorimel had one such pretty skull, but at the moment the odds did not favor his continued ownership thereof. No sooner had word of Lord Belg’s evil schemes reached him in his father’s forest palace, than he had sworn a mighty oath to sally forth and defeat the Evil One single-handed. He then promptly conscripted Gudge to accompany him as his squire, valet, dogsbody, and drudge-of-all-work, because single-handed was a romantic concept in theory, but in practice it meant wash your own socks.
There was a delectable irony behind the fact that Prince Lorimel and Gudge had been captured by one of Lord Belg’s troll patrols while the prince was excoriating his servant for doing such a piss-poor job of washing said socks.
Now, socks were the fourth furthest thing from the elf prince’s mind. His thoughts had turned to matters of far graver import, matters that well might determine the fate of worlds!
“My hair,” he whined. “My beautiful, beautiful hair!”
The dungeon door screeched and groaned on its hinges as the troll who served as Lord Belg’s chief turnkey entered. He chuckled with foul glee when he saw the mare’s nest that Prince Lorimel’s struggles had made of his gorgeous tresses.
“Awwww, diddums elfy-welfy gettums purty hair all snarly-warlied?” he asked in a voice like treacle and carpet tacks. (His penchant for taunting Lord Belg’s prisoners with baby talk was why the Evil One had not needed to employ a full-time torture-master nor, in some cases, an executioner.) “Izzums elfy-poo gonna cwy now his hair’s gotta go all snippy-snip bye-bye?”
“Here, now!” Shackled as he was, Gudge lunged at the troll. “Doan’ ’ee be sayin’ such vicious cruel things t’ me Master, nay! We been through worse’n this, him ’n’ me, an’ let me tell ’ee, just gimme a bucket o’ water, a fistful o’ soapwort, an’ a light cream-rinse afore ye goes talkin’ ’bout cuttin’ off his Worship’s hair, aye!”
The troll guard blinked, taken aback by his first confrontation with someone who had a more annoying speech pattern than himself.
“Hunh!” he snorted. “Save yer breath; ’tain’t up t’ me if yer precious master gets shorn or not. Lord Belg’s daughter’s heard tell that there’s a pointy-eared princeling locked up in Daddy’s dungeon and now ’tis but a matter o’ time before she comes down here to… take care of him. Heh, heh, heh.”
Up until this point, Prince Lorimel had been doing his best to ignore the cumbersomely picturesque conversation between Gudge and the guard. Now, however, he perked up the aforementioned pointy ears and took a keen and sudden interest it what had just been said.
“A daughter?” He tensed like a well-bred bird dog in an aviary. “Did I hear you say that Lord Belg has a daughter?”
The troll turnkey smirked and gave the elf prince the once-over before replying, “An’ what’s it to ye if’n he do, Snoogums? Or do the very thought o’ His Aweseome an’ Appalling Vileness doin’ the Goblin Twist-an’-Tickle put ye off yer feed?”
“Doin’ the what?” Gudge wanted to know.
Prince Lorimel made an impatient sound. “The carnal act of which yon odious troll speaks is that which we Lofty Elves more delicately refer to as ‘making the bogle with two backs.’ ”
“Nah, thass not what I mean.” The troll shook his head. “ ’Cos Lord Belg did make a bogle wi’ two backs once, only the poor thing di’n’t know was he comin’ or goin’ an’ so we had to-”
“Ohhhh!” Light dawned on Gudge of Willowstone-Thickly, albeit a foggy, heavily overcast light. “I gets it now. You mean Lord Belg was doin’ the Haystack Ramble; the Weasel Bounce; the Three Apples in a Gunnysack Shimmy; the Naked Morris Dancers-”
“Gudge, shut up!” Prince Lorimel shouted so loudly that pale green veins stood out in high relief from his alabaster skin. “Or do we have to have another little talk about oversharing?”
“Scoop me hollow fer a pun’kin pie, nay,” Gudge replied in haste. “I ain’t got th’ bruises healed up from th’ last ‘little talk’ we had, bless yer gracious Grace’s strong right arm.”
“Y’know, if ye two blatherboxes don’t care no more ’bout Lord Belg’s daughter, why don’ I just be on me way?” The troll guard was miffed at being ignored by his prisoners.
“Nay, good lump of loathsomeness, stay!” Prince Lorimel exclaimed. “Speak more to me of Lord Belg’s daughter. We of the Lofty Elves had no idea that the Evil One was a father as well as the slaughterer of untold thousands of our kin. It gives him an unexpected air of domesticity.”
“Oh, he’s a father, right enough,” the troll replied, licking his lips in a lascivious manner. “An’ no wonder, as many times as he’s taken purty young wenches as captives t’ slake his unnatural appetites. I’m only s’prised as His Direness don’t have more kids’n what he’s got.”
“I ain’t,” Gudge piped up. “A feller spends as much time as that’n does in th’ saddle, ridin’ all over th’ land on evil conquest bent, that’ll be causin’ a certain amount o’ damage to his-”
“Gudge!” This time the elf lord yelled at his attendant so loudly that the sound waves rived the rust from the manacles securing them both. Prince Lorimel’s entangled hair was freed and immediately fell back into place in a gleaming flaxen flood.
Gudge gave his master a sidelong, sulky look. “I’m only sayin’ what yer thinkin’,” he grumped.
“Trust me, Gudge, the day I spend one wink of time thinking about Lord Belg’s, er, connubial apparatus will be the day I eat a badger sandwich. A live badger sandwich,” Prince Lorimel clarified.
“Ahuh,” said the guard. He took a grimy pad of paper and a pencil stub out of his belt pouch and made a note. “So I takes it ye’ll be wantin’ the vegetarian option fer yer dinner t’night instead?”
The elf prince rolled his eyes expressively. “Are you sure you two aren’t related?” he asked Gudge.
Gudge declined to comment.
“Listen, my good troll,” Prince Lorimel said to the turnkey. “Forget about my dinner-”
“Oh, I intend to.” The troll grinned affably.
“-and tell me more about Lord Belg’s daughter. You said that she knows I’m here and wishes to, as you put it, take care of me herself, is that right?”
The troll’s ugly head bobbed like a cabbage in a boiling stewpot. “Aye, that’s true. She’s allus the one as takes care o’ our prisoners. She’d’ve been here sooner, ’cept she just heard ’bout you bein’ here over breakfas’. That’d be ’cos Himself’s a selfish ol’ bastard as likes t’ keep his playthings fer his own use, exclusive. But now that the lass knows…” The troll’s voice trailed off suggestively.