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Once upon a time there was a tiny country called cornucopia which had been ruled for centuries by a long line of fair-haired kings, the king, at the time of which i write, was called king fred, the fearless he had announced the fearless bit himself on the morning Of his coronation, partly because it sounded nice with fred, but also because he’d once managed to catch and kill a wasp all by himself, if you didn’t count: five footman and the boot boy, king fred, the fearless came to the throne on a huge wave of popularity. He had lovely, yellow, curls, fine, sweeping mustaches and looked magnificent in the tight britches velvet, doublets and ruffled shirts that rich men wore at the time fred was said to be generous, smiled and waved whenever anyone caught sight of him and looked awfully handsome in the portraits That were distributed throughout the kingdom to be hung in town halls. The people of cornucopia were most happy with their new king and many thought he’d end up being even better at the job than his father richard the righteous whose teeth, though nobody had liked to mention it at the time, were rather crooked. King fred was secretly relieved to find out how easy it was to rule cornucopia. In fact, the country seemed to run itself.

Nearly everybody had lots of food. The merchants made pots of gold and fred’s advisors took care of any little problem that arose. All that was left for fred to do was beam at his subjects whenever he went out in his carriage and go hunting five times a week with his two best friends, lord spittleworth and lord flappoon spittleworth and flappoon had large estates of their own in the country, But they found it much cheaper and more amusing to live at the palace with the king eating his food hunting, his stags, and making sure that the king didn’t get too fond of any of the beautiful ladies at court. They had no wish to see fred married because a queen might spoil all their fun for a time. Fred had seemed to rather like lady eslander, who was as dark and beautiful as fred was fair and handsome, but spittleworth had persuaded fred that she was far too serious and bookish for the country to love her as queen.

Fred didn’t know that lord spittleworth had a grudge against lady eslander. He had once asked her to marry him, but she’d turned him down. Lord spittleworth was very thin. Cunning and clever. His friend flappoon was ruddy-faced and so enormous that it required six men to heave him onto his massive chestnut horse, though not as clever as spittleworth flappoon was still far sharper than the king.

Both lords were expert at flattery and pretending to be astonished by how good fred was at everything from riding to tiddlywinks. If spittleworth had a particular talent, it was persuading the king to do things that suited spittleworth and if flapoon had a gift, it was for convincing the king that nobody on earth was as loyal to the king as his two best friends. Once upon a time there was a tiny country called cornucopia which had been ruled for centuries by a long line of fair-haired kings, the king, at the time of which i write, was called king fred, the fearless he had announced the fearless bit himself on the morning Of his coronation, partly because it sounded nice with fred, but also because he’d once managed to catch and kill a wasp all by himself, if you didn’t count: five footman and the boot boy, king fred, the fearless came to the throne on a huge wave of popularity. He had lovely, yellow, curls, fine, sweeping mustaches and looked magnificent in the tight britches velvet, doublets and ruffled shirts that rich man wore at the time fred was said to be generous, smiled and waved whenever anyone caught

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