Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others. (Groucho Marx)
At long last, I've heard from my fellow feline Láréow! After a seemingly endless wait, I had a brief tete-a-tete with him, and he was able to tell me that he's happily settled into Caedmeron's sumptuous residence. The physical and mental scars from his minor surgery have passed, and he's getting used to life in the upper echelons of power. He said that the publicly-funded food is gorgeous - especially the beef. He gets a saucer of publicly-funded ale for his troubles as well. Well. I am surprised...
When I first asked him for some tasty goss from the inner sanctum, he was rather reticent at first; this was because he feared that he was subject to the Official Secrecy Law - but I assured him that only humans were bound to such silliness. After a few minutes he was in full flight.
It appears that the powers that be are in a tailspin because there's been a series of violent demonstrations against various Middle Eastern potentates. This new phenomenon started in Carthage; following some determined opposition from thousands of downtrodden merchants, artisans, goat and camel herders against their cruel and oppressive master, they succeeded in forcing him out of the country. He's now living in the lap of indecent luxury in Constantinople, mourning the lack of people to oppress. Sad, but true.
Since the Carthage incident, a number of other Middle Eastern Kingdoms are experiencing similar outbursts of popular revolt against greedy and tyrannical despots. It's been happening in the ancient land of Egypt, and even in Cyrene. Caedmeron is very worried about what's going on in these unstable regions.
I asked Láréow why this was of such concern to Caedmeron and the top brass. He told me that they were anxious because these cruel despots had all been very close friends of both himself and his psychotic predecessor Guthmund the Brown. It's always been official policy of Redistributionist and Tree/Liberationist governments to be buddy-pal with these creeps and to keep them sweet, so that they could bribe them to trade Anglo-Saxon junk for fine exotic silks and spices. Whatever. They're scared witless that they're going to look like unprincipled, duplicitous fools and idiots as sordid truths about these tyrants come to light. I've got news for them; they don't need to worry that they look unprincipled, duplicitous and idiotic: they already are. End of story.
And now it's coming to the notice of the politically aware Northumbrians that our great and glorious leaders aren't as honest or as scrupulous as they would like people to suppose - and they're not very fussy about the company they keep either. They're terribly relaxed about rubbing shoulders with all manner of pondlife like Chesney Mubarak O'Barmy, many of who are excessively predisposed to kill and maim people who dare to defy them.
I can't say I'm at all surprised - especially now these dear, dear friends of our Witangemot have suddenly become pariahs and the scum of the earth to our all-wise rulers.
I bet you're wondering about the rats, aren't you? I didn't forget to ask Láréow about his endeavours. He hasn't caught a single one - he never expected to - but he's had some interesting conversations with them. He has obligingly given Mrs Caedmeron a few scratches and gatecrashed some high-powered meetings, demanding food. And the mice are plentiful and delicious..
Lucky beggar! If only....
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