Who's Let Off?

After using his cranial faculties in the Witangemot alehouse to make a point (and his fists for additional emphasis), Eric the Joystring - that happy-go-lucky Redistributionist zealot and mountebank - has finally received notification of his sentence from the Moot today. All of the Northumbrian Kingdom has been waiting with bated breath for the outcome of his trial - or so we've been told by the soothsayers...

To gauge public opinion on this emotive issue, I went on a fact-finding walkabout, weaving in and out of the crowded Streonaeshalch market, and ambling along the quayside, where fishermen were gutting their catches for the merchants and mending their nets. The aroma of the fish was gloriously intoxicating, and I was delighted to be thrown scraps as I wandered by. Such is my popularity and charm; it's a cross I have to bear..

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that not one shopper, fisherman, fishwife or market trader made any mention of the issue of Eric the Joystring; they were far more concerned with the price of halibut, the latest Madcaster Untied result - or going out for a flagon of Friday night ale to celebrate the end of another working week. Similarly, the menfolk were fussing about their nails, clothes and their complexions - and honing their gossiping skills. One of them passed a rumbustious draft of colonic wind, resulting - a few seconds later - in an indignant chorus of "Who's let off?" and rapid dispersal from the changing atmosphere. I took evasive action.

Eric the Joystring - beater of heads, apologist-in-chief for the Redistributionist holy doctrine and renowned fisticuffs scholar - has been granted a suspended sentence of five minutes. Like that unpleasant colonic release earlier, Eric has been let off...