The universal genius

“What smells so delicious here?” asked the appointed Superintendent of the Royal Secret Excrement Archives, Chevalier Aristide des Pommes Diarre, and with these ritually prescribed words, he gained entry into the labyrinthine depths of the royal tomb of excrement. The two guards turned away, gasping for breath, as he strode past them, carefully carrying the porcelain bowl he had received from the Duc d’Arome.

After 30 years of blessed reign and rectum of His Majesty the Anointed and Infallible King, the Secret Excrement Archive occupied by far the largest part of the catacombs beneath the castle. The entrance, next to the pigeon-droppings-covered foundation of the once-planned but never completed equestrian statue of the equinophobic ruler, was secured with a lead hatch that was constantly guarded.

Diarre descended into the main corridor. To the left and right, side passages branched off, each containing a tower of drawers. Their contents were arranged chronologically, reaching back to His Majesty's earliest excrement. Opening them required little courage: this excrement was petrified and odorless. More recent digestive products, however, looked and smelled quite different.

The Chevalier was unaffected. Like the Court Marshal, he was blessed with a deactivated sense of smell. Both benefited from the fact that their families knew how to secure high positions at court by having their sons' olfactory nerves severed. Since the procedure involved a life-threatening opening of the skull, these noble families needed a constant supply of heirs.

Diarre had survived, thus securing himself a brilliant, lifelong career. Although his social standing was outstanding, he and the Marshal of the Court were generally avoided at court. Their lack of a sense of smell affected their personal hygiene, as they couldn't stand the smell of themselves—or, incidentally, of each other, as they were constant rivals.

Although the entire court disliked using water and soap as much as physical labor, the king's boarders were accustomed to lavishly perfumed with violet water and other essences. Both the Duke and the Chevalier displayed a negligence in this regard that frequently resulted in spontaneous fainting spells among those present whenever one of these two high dignitaries entered a room.

In the catacombs, the Chevalier's own scent was negligible, especially since he encountered a person who had been exceptionally well prepared. Court alchemist Artobaldo Manacardi awaited him in the archive room, wearing a face mask; before him, a whole array of incense sticks glowed on the massive marble table behind which he sat.

The Chevalier eyed the southerner indignantly, of whom he held a rather low opinion. The fortress builder, inventor, and polymath looked, as usual, like a fool and wore a stained pink tunic. His long curls hung wildly in his face. His beard, reaching down to his navel, rested on the tabletop. Long neglected, his manly adornment had become a tangled mess that undoubtedly provided shelter and breeding grounds for some small creatures.

Manacardi played by candlelight with cockroaches, to which he had attached all sorts of miniature vehicles with thin wires; carriages and wagons made of balsa wood, even a gun carriage with a small cannon. Its barrel consisted of a cartridge case open at the front.

The alchemist repeatedly nudged the personnel of his fleet into what he deemed a suitable formation with a stick; apparently, it was meant to be a parade. Small flags bearing the royal coat of arms were also present, impaled on the wagons, and sometimes even in the abdomens of the draft animals – which reduced or even eliminated their performance.

Artobaldo Manacardi seemed to have been drinking again. He was undoubtedly completely mad and, in that respect, fit right in with the court. The hired genius started many things but finished few. An equestrian statue of the monarch, which he planned to be twelve meters high in the palace courtyard, had only progressed four meters above the foundation, which was now covered in pigeon droppings, in three years. This wasn't solely Manacardi's fault, as there was no model.

No one had ever managed to see the king on horseback. There was no shortage of muscular squires who could have heaved the portly ruler onto a horse. However, His Majesty categorically refused such feats of strength, because His Majesty was afraid of horses. And of cats, spiders, and revolutions, too.

The latter phobia was the only justified one. The country was in ruins. The nobility grumbled, the patricians complained. Everyone else had nothing to say, but would make themselves heard in due course when their gardens withered and their children starved. That time seemed near. All hopes rested more than ever on Manacardi, who had succeeded the local alchemists who had successfully convinced the king that gold could be made from his excrement.

Manacardi looked up and noticed the Chevalier. He beckoned him closer and said, "Ah, what have we here? Shit, I suppose?"

“Doctor, I presume you’ll accept the royal excrement?” the Chevalier replied, his voice fitting the odor, and gave the scholar a disapproving look. Diarre carefully placed the porcelain bowl in front of Manacardi. “I wish you success. It’s about time. Should your attempts again prove unsuccessful, I will archive the royal jelly. As usual. As I have for, uh, several years.”

The Chevalier didn't wait for an answer and departed quickly. He had no desire whatsoever to spend more time than necessary in the presence of an indisputable person far beneath him, as Manacardi undoubtedly was. Moreover, the Chevalier's presence in the King's chambers was required again, for after the morning's lever, another highlight of court life awaited him that day.

Teacher's Wednesday

Among the 6,543 members of the court—not counting servants such as junior cooks, gardeners, housemaids, cleaning ladies, roast-turners, and ever-replaceable food tasters—everyone constantly strove for a better position, closer to the king, higher in the rank. Only Jeanette de Courtesoir, born into the landed gentry, had been content with her role as court whip-cracker for years.

Jeanette was a simple-minded and unattractive thing. What she lacked in wit and beauty, she made up for in eloquence and perseverance. For generations, women of her lineage had served the reigning monarch. Literally.

Jeanette's role as court whip cracker required little intellect but great empathy, and, depending on the sovereign's virility, was one of refined delicacy. Blowing was in Jeanette's blood. Her clan descended from a family of enterprising glassblowers who had purchased a minor title of nobility. Her parents owned a meager piece of land far from the capital, from which the few farmers there eked out a living and paid their taxes.

The art of giving oral sex was passed down in Jeanette's family from her toothless aunt to the hollow-cheeked young woman, in order to secure the position of the male reproductive system at court. This is precisely what Jeanette de Courtesoir was doing now, after the monarch's morning leve. She had the honorable task of preparing the royal member for intercourse.

Jeanette devoted herself wholeheartedly to this calling. Her Majesty stood unclothed behind a screen that had a circular opening just below navel height. Through this opening peeked what Jeanette, with her eloquence, had to raise to triumphant stateliness.

Their Majesties were no longer young, had eaten a light breakfast – stuffed quail, capons with oysters – and were actually in need of rest. However, today was Mercredi de La Maitresse, the day of the weekly and public copulation with the ruler's concubine. The Royal Mistress, Marquise Marie Susette de Lamelle, was already propped up next door in the monarch's bedchamber.

Mademoiselle's upper body rested on a pile of pillows at the foot of the stately bed. Her back was exposed. Her crinolines parted on either side of her ample, powdered bottom like a theater curtain. The play had not yet begun. The prompter's work in the next room remained unfinished.

Jeanette, as always, gave it her all. The ruler's scepter acknowledged her efforts and rose hesitantly. The sounds behind the screen suggested increased royal well-being. The court whip-cracker allowed herself, as far as her tense facial muscles permitted, the hint of a smile. Old habits die hard. His Majesty was amused. Jeanette wasn't one for boasting, but now she was certainly making a lot of noise.

She felt a firm grip around her shoulder. The court copulation corporal, Chevalier Pierre sur Lubricant, who had meticulously observed and recorded her efforts, signaled to her to now withdraw from the royal genitals, lest His Majesty ejaculate prematurely. Jeanette released the royal staff with regret and a satisfying smacking sound from her lips, curtsied humbly, and left the chamber.

As the court whip-cracker closed the door behind her, His Majesty emerged in all his splendor from behind the screen. Now haste was required. The royal erections had recently proven rather unreliable. The corporal approached briskly. "Your Majesty, may I see you?"

The king nodded graciously. The marshal's silk-gloved hands slipped a sheep intestine condom over the national erection and tied it with a silk thread over the base of the regent's penis. Then a small procession set off for the bedchamber: The king strode ahead with his scepter majestically swaying, followed by the corporal, the court painter Caspère Davide, and two burly footmen who, with combined assistance, had to help the crowned head onto his mistress's backside.

Mademoiselle was warmed and lubricated. Select dignitaries had taken their seats around the bed. These were without exception the highest nobility and clergy, who on this occasion were permitted to sit in the monarch's presence, albeit only on tabourets, upholstered stools without armrests or backrests, which made prolonged sitting more of an ordeal than a comfort.

Fortunately, based on past experience, the royal copulation spectacle was a one-act play of manageable length. In the monarch's combative youth, things had been quite different, and bouts of lumbago in the audience had been commonplace.

The Majesty ascended to the sounds of "ahs" and "ohs" from those present and moved as much as possible – the sovereign's ample girth was restrictive and caused slapping noises on the equally ample backside of the Mademoiselle.

The mistress herself, it was difficult to interpret, sounded, as she moved towards the restrained hip rhythm of her ruler, like a high but rusty organ pipe, perhaps also like a small songbird in winter that discovers a grain under the snow, trills happily, swallows it hungrily, but almost chokes on it.

The court painter made sketches of the scene. The rest happened quickly. Thunderous applause erupted as His Majesty deigned to approach and slumped in the arms of the footmen. Mademoiselle shook her graciously attended backside for the audience—unseeming coquettishness, which the court marshal immediately put a stop to. Mademoiselle grumbled. Clearly, she had expected more from the king.

The Master

In the front row, one of the court's most important financiers, known in the capital simply as "Le Maitre," dutifully applauded. No one spoke of Le Maitre; they whispered about him. His legendary wealth was common knowledge throughout the city. He regularly lent the king money. It seemed unlikely that his fortune stemmed solely from the royal privilege granted to him for collecting and processing the capital's excrement. His staff was known by many names. The most foul of these was: the shits.

The maître d' was not a local. He had taken up residence in the city shortly after the king's accession, having had to spend considerable sums to do so. He came from no established family and clearly had no intention of founding a new one. He surrounded himself merely with a gang of ragged street children, the scumbags who slopped excrement and to whom he had given a home.

The maître d' was never seen in the company of a woman, if indeed he was ever seen at all. When he left his house to plead his case at court, he hurried through the city in a carriage with the curtains drawn, pulled by two black horses – strong, fiery steeds from whose nostrils breath seemed to escape even in summer; horses with veins as thick as twigs protruding from their necks, the likes of which no one in the kingdom bred and which probably no native rider or coachman could ever have tamed.

On the driver's seat of the maître d's carriage, a figure always held the reins in his bony fingers, driving with his hood pulled low. Some in the city who nevertheless caught sight of the coachman's eyes swore they burned like glowing coals. But people talk a lot, and most of the time it's nonsense.

The maître d' was never seen at church services. However, the cardinal always expressed his gratitude to him when he celebrated Mass on high holy days. The maître d' was a generous benefactor. The orphanage, the hospital, the monastery, the town fountain, the town hall – all would have fallen into ruin had the maître not generously funded their upkeep.

The king was chronically short of money. And he didn't care about the state of his capital. All that mattered to him was the upkeep and lavish decoration of his court. Few candles were lit for the monarch in the cathedral of his capital. Many orphans, the sick, monks, citizens, and city councilors, however, included the maître d' in their prayers.

The slums proliferated. Even the patricians were impoverished. Trade and crafts stagnated. The city was poorly managed, the kingdom in decline. The nobility and clergy didn't care as long as the king kept devising new amusements for them. Recently, he had raised taxes for the second time this year—for a multi-day fireworks display. Chinese pyrotechnicians had been hired to give the monarch's 40th birthday a fitting setting. For three nights, the city glowed in the blaze of hours-long volleys of rockets.

The cows in the surrounding farms stopped giving milk because the noise frightened them. The king wasn't bothered. Unlike his subjects, he never needed milk, only champagne.

When the maître d' prepared for a visit to court, he always cast a long, scrutinizing glance into his life-size mirror, a treasure from Venice that only he possessed for miles around, not even the king. The king had to make do with polished metal to catch a blurry glimpse of his own, already rather unattractive, indistinct figure in the halls of his palace and in his dressing room.

The maître d' looked in the mirror and saw the face of an old man; old enough to be the king's father. His hairline was receding, his temples already gray. His black eyes beneath bushy brows were compelling.

His posture was still ramrod straight. The walking stick with its ivory knob in the shape of a globe served to reinforce his authority, not his gait. The knob was useful for keeping highwaymen at bay in the city's dark alleys. It could shatter a scoundrel's skull with a single blow.

Le Maitre often frequented the darker parts of the city, where his authority might be needed, always on the lookout for new subordinates. They had to be hungry, dirty, and desperate. And not too old, so they could still be molded and bent, made compliant.

On his forays through the slums, the maître d' didn't rely solely on his walking stick. Roman, the gypsy, was skilled with a knife and never left his master's side on such excursions. The ragged crowds usually parted respectfully before the pair. Only a few foreign pickpockets occasionally tried their luck, albeit unsuccessfully and bloodily.

The master actually hated violence. He knew, however, that it always went hand in hand with power. And power was his calling. He never struck his pupils, who generally obeyed his every word. There were other ways to bring them to their senses. If they proved capable and eager to learn, he invested in them. He would soon have the one they called "the handsome one" taught to read and write. He saw potential in the young man. He already knew what for. He always had.

During his obligatory applause after the royal marriage, the maître d' glanced furtively around. To his right sat Count Francois de Alaba sur Mere, another of the king's financiers and officially his vassal.

The Count owned extensive lands, the value of which had recently increased significantly due to gold discoveries. His territory did not belong to the kingdom, but was bound to it by a pact of friendship and support, and provided the king with many mercenaries.

Alaba-sur-Mère was a man the maître d' had to reckon with. As his spies had informed him, the count was investing almost all of his newfound wealth in building his own army. And the kingdom was chronically behind on paying its mercenaries.

Sur Mere, a middle-aged man sitting upright with a sharp profile and an aquiline nose, moved his hands only tentatively, like the maître d'; a disdainful twitch played around the corners of his mouth. The courtly spectacle seemed to repel him.

Quite different was the mistress of the maître d' to the left. Abbess Canard Latroisse was thrilled. She never saw anything like the Mercredi de la Maitresse in her convent – or so she thought. Mainly because she didn't know what really went on in the nuns' cells. The abbess's cheeks were flushed, her right hand surreptitiously in her lap.

The abbess also owed the maître d' money, a great deal of money. He let it go and never pressed for payment. It was enough for him to know she was constantly worried. Fear, the maître d' knew, was a reliable ally. Fear was power.

The result of the Royal Climax was passed around in the opened sheep intestine for the pleasing inspection of the selected eyewitnesses. Again, appreciative "ahs" and "ohs" arose. The maître d', however, did not fail to notice that the contraceptive device was barely moistened with milk.

The monarch had shaken off his attendants. They hastened to cover his flaccid genitals with a silk scarf. His Majesty, exhausted, now resigned himself to rest. Everyone else rose. The court corporal received the much-admired royal inspiration in a sheep's intestine from the last row of spectators and carefully tied the condom. He disappeared with his precious cargo through a wallpapered door. Nobility and clergy turned to the right, where the double doors to the reception hall were open, and refreshments were being served. Hot milk and cocoa were offered.

“Your Majesty, once again quite excellent and deliciously virile today, isn’t he?” Cardinal François-Magot Susduperieuan addressed the maître d’ as they both entered the hall. The cardinal was a notorious pederast in the city, to whom impoverished patrician families eagerly brought their children to secure their social standing. He held his handkerchief to his made-up mouth and waved away a footman who was offering him cocoa in a thin-walled porcelain cup.

“Indeed, indeed,” replied the maître d' appreciatively, gratefully reaching for a silver spoonful of caviar, not without smelling it before eating. The cardinal, who smelled so much like the fish roe, was quite clearly a sodomitic idiot, but potentially dangerous. Like all those who had access to court and nothing but the improvement of their position on their minds.

The maître d', acting out of a basic human need, left the effeminate cardinal standing there. He pushed his way through the crowd, looking for Marchand.

Chancellor Aristide Marchand was the truly dominant figure at court. At his behest, careers began or heads rolled. It was an open secret that the chancellor conducted affairs of state according to his own whims, while the king preferred to play with his toy soldiers.

It was thanks to Marchand that the kingdom was still able to hold its own against its enemies. In the west, the rising Grand Duchy of Laballe had recently annexed several smaller surrounding principalities. The Duc de Laballe was known for his greed for land and for his torture chambers.

The Chancellor had only one trump card: Artobaldo Manacardi. The alchemist may have failed at the task of turning filth into gold, but as a brilliant fortress builder and polymath, he had secured the threatened borders of the empire with an ingenious system of watchtowers, redoubts, and garrisons – the Manacardi Line. Unfortunately, he also repeatedly invented wonder weapons, whose costly prototypes mostly exploded uselessly.

It was also becoming increasingly difficult to find assistants for Manacardi, whom he occasionally needed. Word had spread through the city that he had his assistants test completely unsuitable flying machines from the battlements of the castle tower. The results could be seen as corpses in the castle moat and had left behind several widows and dams. The latter dammed the water in the wrong places and stank terribly.

Manacardi's laboratory in the castle's south tower was also a foul-smelling and smoky place, posing a constant fire hazard. The king didn't care. His modest intellectual gifts had long been limited to expecting his alchemist and his equally failed predecessors to produce the miraculous metabolism, for whose gilding his own metabolism would provide the starting material.

This was what he was promised: gold from the ass.

For a long time, the king's parents had worried whether they would ever be blessed with a male heir. A foreign itinerant preacher and miracle healer had managed to gain the trust of the queen mother and, at the same time, access to her boudoir. He offered his blessings and herbal potions with the promise that the longed-for royal child would stand alone among the anointed heads, and above all, would possess a blessed anus from which gold would gush forth. Just like in the fairy tale where gold coins roll out of the donkey's rear end. This nonsense worked at court, where any cloven-hoofed animal would have ruled better than the staff carrying it out.

The exact wording of the prophecy was disputed; foreigners, after all, speak a foreign language. Ras al-Putin, the name of the healer from the far east, recorded only phonetically, acquired only a limited knowledge of the kingdom's language throughout his life. He was like the majority of the native population in this respect, but he gained considerably more influence than they did, including over the queen's hormonal balance and fertility.

The miracle worker withdrew from both the queen's trust and her womb for good shortly after the birth of the long-awaited prince. There was much speculation about a possible bastard prince, but the heir to the throne was accepted by the king as his own.

The core of Ras al-Putin's promise regarding the destiny and mission of this child—on this point the scholars of the specially founded Royal Academy "L'Art pour L'Anus" (Art for the Anus) for deepening their knowledge of "exquisite excrement" were and remained united, if only to secure their endowments—meaned that the heir to the throne's excrement was absolutely worth preserving and utilizing. Therefore, the size of the Royal Excrement Archive far exceeded Manacardi's success in fulfilling his associated task.

Marchand watched the folly unfold because he knew that Manacardi's skills as a fortress builder were a lifeline for the kingdom. Without hesitation, the king, believing in mountains of gold made of excrement, approved each year the substantial budget item labeled "Manacardi." In reality, this encompassed the entire defense budget, with which Marchand ensured that not only toy soldiers secured his monarch's rectum and kingdom, but at least a loyal Gard du Corps.

Marchand, too. A clever fellow. Why he was so loyal to his feeble-minded king was a mystery to the maître d'. He intended to solve it. The maître d' spotted Marchand in a group of courtiers and joined them.

“Ah, Maître,” the much higher-ranking Chancellor immediately turned to him, a gesture of goodwill. Marchand knew very well how much the state owed the Maître, a man without rank or status, a stranger moreover. “What a pleasure! How are you?” The Maître returned the Chancellor’s businesslike smile with equal coldness. “Not too bad, mon Chancelier, almost excellent. Et vous?”

Marchand shooed the courtiers away, approached the maître d', took him by the elbow, and steered him to a quieter corner of the reception hall. "Let's leave it at that. You know our situation. The next installment will have to wait."

The maître d' looked into icy gray eyes. Marchand managed to keep his gaze fixed on him while simultaneously keeping a watchful eye on the proceedings in the reception hall. The chancellor's right hand rested on his ornamental dagger. The maître d' was convinced that, despite its euphemistic name, it was razor-sharp. Just like the chancellor's tongue.

“Indeed,” he said, “we need more money. Much more.” The maître d' made an indefinite gesture. “Well, mon chancellier, you know me as a friend of the court—but not as a court jester.” Le maître d' produced a slip of paper from the inside pocket of his coat and unfolded it to a considerable size. It was a list of the royal debts.

Marchand waved his hand dismissively and also took a slip of paper from his spotless vest. "I'm familiar with this; we'll take care of it. However, this takes precedence." The maître d' took a deep breath as he read the figures on the chancellor's paper. "I see the king has a major purchase planned. May I ask what it is?"

"One may. For something very costly: a woman. The farce of the Mercerdi de la Maitresse must come to a swift end. The realm needs a mother figure, but above all, an heir to the throne. His Majesty will marry, and wisely at that. She must come from the right house. From a lineage with which we can forge a strong alliance, so that we are prepared for the future. May I count on you as a patriot?"

“My Chancellor, there are many farces and notes. How could I be a patriot, being a stranger in this country – dependent only on your hospitality?”

"I see. You want citizenship. What else? A title? An estate?"

The maître d' appreciated people who got straight to the point and didn't waste his dwindling time. He gave a slight bow. "Just a small favor, mon Chancelier. Accept one of my protégés at court."

The Chancellor's right eyebrow rose. "That can certainly be arranged. Come, my friend, let's discuss the details." A door in the wallpaper opened before them, and they stepped through it, seemingly engaged in conversation about trivial matters. The maître d' was stroking the ivory ball on his walking stick.

In the secret room behind the wallpapered door, Chancellor Marchand invited the maître d' to a chaise longue, choosing for himself a considerably more uncomfortable wooden chair, leaning forward on its edge while his guest surveyed the room. "Don't worry, we're alone, esteemed maître d', or may I say—yes, what may I say, exactly? For so many years you have been a pillar of society here, yet no one knows your name." A watchful undertone had crept into the Chancellor's courtesies.

"Dear Chancellor, I have borne many names in my life, none of which did me justice. Let us leave it at Le Chancelier and Le Maitre, that says enough."

"As you wish. To return to the nature of the currently pressing state business..."

“This nature, mon cher Chancelier, is always the same. There is the state, and there are businesses. One should consider oneself fortunate if the two can be reconciled.”

Marchand frowned. "Indeed, indeed. May I ask if you intend to align your business dealings with the good of the state in the manner I have indicated?"

"Certainly."

"That means?"

"You may ask questions."

"Maitre, please. What is your price?"

"If he follows my instructions, which I have no doubt he will, he is currently walking through the lower city collecting shit and piss."