sandbox games

Chancellor Marchand watched anxiously as his king played with toy soldiers in a large sandbox. These were cheaper to acquire than mercenaries; apart from the Gards du Corps, there was no standing army. The Gards du Corps was a large, purely personal bodyguard force and offered no deterrent against planned military invasions. The Manacardi Line was manned by foreign mercenaries whose loyalty and fighting spirit depended directly on their pay.

“Sire, we should introduce universal conscription,” said the Chancellor. “And with all due respect – you shouldn’t delay choosing a wife for too long. The Duc de Laballe might take any lengthy deliberation on your part regarding his daughter’s attractiveness as an affront.”

The king flicked down two battalions of enemy toy soldiers in the sandbox and occupied their deserted fortifications with his own men, whom he lifted from their rear positions with a single movement. In real life, however, airborne troops had not yet been invented.

"Hm," said Le Roi, and with a swift flick of his right index and middle fingers, he inflicted further carnage on the enemy cavalry, who fell in droves into the sand. "What do you think of little Laballe? Pretty apples in the basket, sure, but I don't know..."

“Sire,” the Chancellor began again. “I would like to point out to Your Majesty that Mademoiselle de Laballe not only possesses considerable assets, but also has her father’s fist lurking behind her. Furthermore, I take the liberty of noting that, apart from the Gards du Corps as the Royal Bodyguard, Your Grace currently has no reliable troops at his disposal, as their salaries are outstanding. I have already spoken with our chief financier about this matter. He is stalling me.”

The king grumbled and set up a small masterpiece: a table cannon. When its fuse was lit, as he now did, it first spewed a shower of gold across the battlefield – a truly magnificent spectacle! – then gave a loud bang and sprouted a small flag from its barrel, bearing the inscription "Victoire!" in the royal colors.

“Sire,” Aristide Marchand tried again, “I fear that in reality we can rely on barely two dozen cannons, while it is rumored that the Duc de Laballe commands 200 of them, as well as 6,000 pikemen with six-meter-long lances, 4,000 infantrymen with arquebuses, and a cavalry also numbering in the thousands—exclusively skilled Tatar archers on Arabian stallions. It is said that they can shoot from the saddle in any position and simultaneously father their children in it.”

“Then they have mobile women,” the king said approvingly, finally glancing at his chancellor. “What about Alaba-sur-Mère? Hasn’t our intelligence service long reported to us that he maintains a large army? Shouldn’t he place it at the service of the empire?”

The Chancellor wrung his hands. "The Empire already owes the Comte an exorbitant sum for mercenaries. I fear he will insist on payment before fulfilling his feudal obligations."

"It is most regrettable that patriotism in this kingdom has been corrupted by base greed," sighed the king. "It's high time Manacardi finally delivered the gold. He's due to report on the condition of the fortifications anyway. Send for him!"

“Very well,” replied the Chancellor, backing away with a scratchy foot and crossing himself as soon as the door to the Royal Chambers closed behind him. He kicked a footman who hadn't released the door handle quickly enough and shouted at the top of his lungs: “Manacardi! Bring him! Now! And a smelling salts bottle for me!”

A mysterious beauty and a wonder weapon

Manacardi was not immediately found, his study deserted except for a few empty wine bottles. A footman with a head for heights finally found him in a pitiful state in his observatory, a precariously constructed shack perched on the highest tower pinnacle, from whose largest opening a telescope peered towards the heavens. The alchemist and court astrologer had devoted himself to stargazing at night in order to predict the future course of the royal destiny.

Until four o'clock in the morning, the best time for inventing and refilling glasses, Manacardi had previously been tinkering with an armored fighting vehicle with a cannon, which was intended to make cavalry completely superfluous in the future and could be useful against both popular uprisings and external enemies.

The fortress builder and military engineer had long sat at his map table amidst models of this wonder weapon and bizarre flying machines, pondering a perpetual motion machine as a power source for the war chariot. His pen had scratched across the parchment, sketching gears, drawbars, threads, and joints. They looked convincing at first glance, but in practical use, they proved utterly useless.

Manacardi hadn't been too drunk to realize this. He brusquely lifted the lid of the box on his desk. It contained the latest sample of Royal Excrement, which he was to analyze and transform into pure gold, as was his primary task. "Shit," the genius said, dropping the lid. "Goes to the archives tomorrow."

In his heart, in the deepest recesses of his sensitive soul, Manacardi was truly an artist, not a soldier. He cast a wistful glance at the easel by the window, where his masterpiece hung: the portrait of a beautiful woman with a mysterious smile and a silvery gaze. It was one of the mademoiselles from the disreputable house of Madame d'Izère, which the spry scholar frequented down in the city (very far down in the city).

The king had refused to include the painting in his private gallery. "No whores are allowed in my house," he had told Manacardi during an audience on Mercredi de La Maitresse, "at least not such ugly ones." Manacardi knew that one day posterity would wonder what inspired this, his masterpiece, and whether the mysterious beauty had ever existed.

The genius scratched his crotch. The wine glass was empty again. Manacardi thought of home. Ah, home! Where the sun reliably shone on the green hills where the vines bore plump fruit! Where skillful hands picked the grapes at the right time, and strong feet with delicate ankles then treaded them into vats, from which flowed a blood-red stream that only his countrymen knew how to press to perfection!

Manacardi threw the wine glass against the wall. Several stains dried there, remnants of many previous evenings spent in the same mood. How he hated the North! The vinegary wine! The constant fog!

The scholar was one of the few foreigners tolerated in the kingdom. Besides him, only the maître d' was a welcome outsider, a lucrative one. Travelers were generally well-received, but after a few days, they were only seen from behind, once they had delivered their merchandise, paid their tab, and left their mark on Madame d'Izère's ladies. Further ethnic mixing was not desired.

Manacardi knew his value to the kingdom. The Manacardi Line, bordering the expanding lands of the ever-aggressive Duc de Laballe, was impregnable, and that was his work as a fortress builder, military engineer, and polymath. A truly priceless achievement.

Only the supposedly promising excrement of the king proved to be a problem. This was a major and steadily mounting issue. After all the meticulously documented distillations and fire tests, only one conclusion remained: the excrement of the illustrious king was simply shit, nothing more.

Shit, shit, shit, thought Manacardi. Maybe the stars could help. So, clutching the last bottle of his good red wine from home in one hand, he had climbed the ladder to the observatory, successfully completing his death-defying maneuver, but then succumbing to the weight of his own thoughts and the wine. The lackey could barely rouse him.

"Your Grace, His Majesty, is calling for you!"

As Manacardi tentatively approached his employer's sandpit, he immediately tried to convince the king of the advantages of a caterpillar-tracked war chariot with a cannon, capable of traversing even difficult terrain. Chancellor Marchand promptly put an end to these fantasies.

“Dear Doctor, we wish to discuss other, more pressing matters with you. What is the status of the fecal analysis? You recently” – Marchand pulled one of the numerous slips of paper from his pocket, which he always knew how to produce to support his statements – “Let’s see – ah yes, 25 additional Louis d'or, which you budgeted for laboratory equipment. What insights has this purchase yielded regarding the undoubtedly exquisite excretions of Our Majesty?”

The king lowered the toy cannon, which had jammed, and instead fired a butt-load from his anointed anus into the already poorly ventilated room, nodding approvingly.

Marchand gasped for breath, Manacardi crossed himself. He had needed the 25 gold pieces for the distillation apparatus, with which he intended to produce a halfway decent grappa from the inferior local grapes of these barbarians. But that was, of course, not the appropriate response.

The gears in the genius's brain whirred, just as they were intended for his numerous inventions on paper. Manacardi took the toy cannon from the king's hand. He held it out to Marchand.

“This,” he said, “is the past. Much ado about nothing. Quarter-pounders, grapeshot loads – all bygone centuries. We” – the genius now fixed his gaze firmly on the king – “we, Your Majesty, will conquer the next millennium!”

A good start. The king caught fire. But that was also because the fuse of the toy cannon, which had remained in his hand, was still glowing.

"Ouch!"

"Exactly, Your Majesty! I couldn't have said it better myself. Pain will pave your way. The pain of your enemies. I am ready. Are you? Behold this model of my war chariot and prepare for world domination!"

Manacardi retrieved a shallow box from the depths of his tunic and opened it. On its bottom lay a model of a small balsa wood cart, to which two now-dead cockroaches were strapped.

Marchand sighed. “Doctor, with your permission. If you would follow me for a moment.” The Chancellor turned apologetically to the King, seeking his consent, and pulled Manacardi into a corner of the room, while His Majesty shook the box back and forth, apparently hoping to revive the draft animals of his new wonder weapon.

The chancellor's grip around the scholar's tunic sleeve became a steel claw, as soon as Marchand had made sure that the king was otherwise occupied.

“Dottore,” Marchand hissed, after pulling Manacardi aside and out of earshot, “you’re practically useless, and you know it. You shouldn’t try to gain any more advantage from it. Your fortifications will soon be obsolete, because we can no longer man them as long as the pay is lacking. You keep clinging to the hope of a windfall from our monarch’s lofty backside, but it should be clear to me and to you, assuming you’re still sane, which I sometimes doubt: that hope is worthless. Don’t think I’ll tolerate your antics much longer. These are serious times. Our problems don’t call for slogans, but for solutions.”

“Fuck!”

"What?" Marchand tightened his vice-like grip as Manacardi whimpered. "I agree, sono d'accordo," the genius hastened to say. "So what do you propose, Cancelliere?"

"I am not suggesting, I am commanding you: Convince His Majesty, as their astrologer, that the stars are not only favorably aligned, but practically demand that the king marry. And if you value your own life, then ensure that our sovereign knows: There is only one auspicious constellation for this."

„Virgo?“

"Who cares? Her name is Claudine de Laballe. Remember that name. I've already made the necessary arrangements. Of course, we'll maintain decorum; there will be other contenders. They've all arrived already, and tomorrow is the bride selection day. But the King's choice can only fall on this one. The heavens have destined her for him. Do we understand each other?"

"Naturally."

"One more thing, Dottore: You will be getting a new assistant."

Brotherly love

Claudine de Laballe was outraged. Those backwoodsmen! That filthy town! That wretched castle! But worst of all: that idiotic king!

She had not yet met him face to face. But she had the worst fears. Like master, like man! And all she could say was that all the subjects of this king whom she had met so far were more than disgusting.

Those two filthy brothers on their way to the city gate, for example—dirty, stinking, a symbol of the entire rotten neighboring kingdom! That was just the beginning. And everywhere else, too: garbage and filth as far as the eye could see.

When Claudine looked down from her room onto the castle courtyard, her sense of beauty was violated by a huge pile of pigeon droppings on a pedestal from which a half-finished horse's carcass protruded. This shit-king had apparently commissioned a monument made of excrement.

The Duc de Laballe's only daughter found the wildest rumors circulating about her host confirmed. He was said to be obsessed with his own excrement, considering it a gift from God, and depending on the severity of his constipation or diarrhea, he regarded it as either the philosopher's stone or royal jelly.

Claudine shuddered. She turned away from the dreary view from her guest room window, held her smelling bottle to her delicate nose, scarred by smallpox, and surveyed her assigned room. Pathetic.

The gloomy hole barely offered enough space for her suitcases and hatboxes. There were no wig stands, only a rickety chest of drawers. On it sat a porcelain bowl, next to it a pitcher of water and a white piece of something; it wasn't sugar, it tasted utterly disgusting when you bit into it, and iridescent bubbles rose from your mouth. Outrageous! A poisoning attempt?

Water! The affront, the very thought! Claudine drank only wine. She sighed, crushed a louse with her fingertips that had dared to descend from her powdered wig to her temple, and surveyed the rest of the mess. Oh dear, the bed! Far too hard for a noblewoman of her grace and delicacy; only three mattresses and two mattress pads, three comforters and five pillows! Five! Were they going to treat her like a maid here?

Ah, unfortunately she knew what fate her father had predetermined for her at this court.

"Now shut up, sweetie, and don't start crying again," began the conversation, after which Papa had sent her, along with her knightly brother and entourage, to this backward farm. "You've had enough of mechanical nightingales, castrated Moors, court dwarfs, candied dates, and cotton candy. You're 16 years old, my only daughter, and perhaps for another five years or so attractive enough to be foisted off on someone. You're still a virgin, aren't you? Otherwise, God help you! So: We're going to marry you off. There's a need right now, in the neighborhood. Pack your things and have your brother escort you, as proof of our military might, so it's clear what will happen if you don't get married. Dowry, inheritance, all that jazz, will be sorted out then. Your future husband is a moron whose equally dim-witted sycophants worship his excrement as a gift from God. We'll take his kingdom for once without bloodshed—that's your job. Your brother will take care of the rest."

Her brother, the knight in silver armor. He was five years older than her and surpassed their father in cruelty, cunning, and envy. Her memories of her childhood with her brother were painful.

Claudine wept in her room in the foreign land. Her brother knocked, but did not wait for her to call him and entered immediately.

„Henri!“

„Claudine!“

He was, as always, in armor, in which he probably also slept, at least carrying his helmet under his arm, and pierced them with his poisonous green eyes.

“I don’t think you’re prepared,” he said, getting straight to the point.

“My brother…”, begann sie.

"Oh, cut the crap," he snapped angrily, throwing his helmet onto her bed and sticking his iron-tipped index finger at her. "You've had plenty of time to freshen up. To look seductive. I see nothing of the sort. You're a whiny little rat with pale cheeks, which I'm going to give a good massage on."

He did at least take off his gauntlet beforehand. She ducked, which didn't do much to evade his blows.

"Stop crying, I say. And put your apples in the basket!"

Apples? A basket? She didn't understand, but didn't dare admit it, lest he hit her again. Instead, she wiped a thin stream of blood from the corner of her mouth.

Henri roughly grabbed her breasts. "This, you stupid turkey! This has to be exposed and presented as much as possible! So that it's just about decent, but also appetizing!"

He grinned at her. "Bride selection in ten minutes. In the audience chamber. You will prove yourself worthy of our family."

Bride search

The audience chamber was decorated for a state occasion. The royal colors – shit-brown and piss-yellow – adorned it on standards, garlands, and borders. The currently unoccupied royal throne, a dream of worn velvet and saggy springs, was illuminated.

An ingenious construction by Manacardi, made of polished metallic reflective surfaces (the scholar reserved the revolutionary introduction of Venetian glass mirrors at court for a more opportune moment), directed focused candlelight from an adjoining room onto the seat. And thus onto the sovereign's step, as became clear when His Majesty finally took his seat graciously and acknowledged those present with his gaze.

What the king saw did not please him. The usual courtiers and dignitaries crowded into the audience chamber. In the front row stood three suitors, surrounded by their ladies-in-waiting and standard-bearers. The king knew their coats of arms all too well: the two dragons of the dangerous Laballe; the three marsh lilies of the tributary Choque entre Deux Mères (whose two meager bodies of water were really just stinking pools); the laughably misplaced sun of gloomy Hieremont in the inhospitable north, where hardly a ray of light penetrated.

The thought of these rulers was bad enough for the king. But the sight of their daughters was even more disturbing.

Mademoiselle Fleuribal d'entre Deux Mères was of marriageable age, though the king estimated her to be no more than eleven. Her face, however, was a doughy expanse with few distinguishing features. Two small, piggish eyes peered out above a button nose, and the girl had droopy jowls. At least her teeth seemed to be all there.

Beneath the mountain of her prematurely developed bosom, the Mademoiselle's figure widened from what appeared to be her navel downwards to hips whose circumference could only charitably be assumed to be exaggerated by her crinoline. This mass of flesh continued into sturdy legs that might have served as the model for some of the stilt houses in the princess's marshy homeland. The Mademoiselle was sweating profusely, constantly fanning herself with the clumsy fingers of her left hand, and holding a lollipop in her right, which she was licking eagerly.

Well, yes. Charlotte sur Hieremont from the far north was the antithesis. Of extraordinarily refined pallor, certainly – and given the climate of her homeland, no wonder. But so frail that one would tear a splinter from her; and almost biblically old – 21.

Her greasy black hair, impossible to style with any hairdresser, hung in stringy strands on either side of her pointed shoulders. Her décolletage resembled a steppe landscape. Her hands and fingers were so narrow and thin that she had to tie the fine, long silk gloves she wore at the crook of her elbows, otherwise they would have fallen off.

The king recognized the bride selection for the farce it was. Given the threatening rise in power of the Duchy of Laballe, which coveted a royal title, Claudine de Laballe was the only logical choice. And the one clearly predetermined by the Royal Astrologer.

It was fortunate that Laballe's daughter was also the only halfway decent candidate. The two other contestants had been invited purely out of etiquette, so as not to make the smaller neighbors feel completely insignificant.

The king had seen portraits of the three young ladies beforehand, naturally idealized by the court painters of the participating kingdoms. He had liked Claudine de Laballe best, and so it was now. Of course, he could not see into Claudine's heart (he would have been horrified by the darkness within). But the young lady's outward appearance was appealing.

Okay, the smallpox scars – those could perhaps have been concealed better with a Manacardi tincture. But the little apples in the basket, so appetizingly presented, the proud, upright posture, the straight, arched back! But…

…the standard-bearer of the young Laballe gave Le Roi pause for thought. Those piercing, poisonous green eyes, the reputation that preceded the knight in silver armor!

Henri de Laballe was the only son of Duke Laballe. Even more than his despotic father, he was feared by his own subjects like the devil incarnate. He not only commanded the Duke's bodyguard but was also the chief tax collector.

The tax burden in the Duchy of Laballes was enormous. It included levies on the size of a house's windows, as well as on the number of children (the fewer children, the higher the taxes, because the duke needed soldiers) and girth (semi-annual abdominal measurements of male subjects revealed how much they had consumed and withheld from their sovereign).

The result was a population of slender, large families crammed into windowless cubicles, in constant fear of the excise officers who roamed the country incessantly snooping, because of course there was also a coffee tax to be paid.

Henri de Laballe insisted on personally leading his investigators and inspecting houses, estates, and farms on a regular basis. His disappointment was great when he found no violations, but his joy was diabolical when a tax evader was caught and brought to justice. For this purpose, Laballe always carried a bullwhip with him.

Even now, it dangled from his hip. The king examined de Laballe more closely, but then preferred to look away again. The giant's right hand, in its iron gauntlet, rested on the sword's pommel. It was a mighty sword, thigh-length. The whole man probably measured around 2.10 meters. His most striking feature was his silver armor. It bore skulls as finely chiseled ornaments.

The king gestured to the three marriage candidates to rise from their curtsey, saying: "The, uh, grace and high-ranking position of the ladies gathered here, as well as respect and propriety, forbid that so much beauty and noble blood should no longer remain in the dust."

A murmur went through the assembled court. Such a long and elaborately formulated sentence had not been heard in the audience hall for a long time, the last time being on the occasion of the beheading of Edward the Talkative, who once again wasted far too many words in front of his head.

The king also lost something: the speech note he had been reading from, which he had concealed in the palm of his hand. The paper drifted with agonizing slowness to his right foot, which he hastily placed upon it.

“Now.” He glanced helplessly at Master of Ceremonies Aristide de Petète to his left. De Petète stepped forward and struck his staff on the cracked parquet floor. The wood splintered. With aplomb, the Master of Ceremonies ignored the new gap in the flooring and solemnly declared, “Your Majesty now deigns to receive the demonstrations of the Mademoiselles’ skills.” At the same time, de Petète presented the King with a golden apple.

Le Roi stared at the artificial fruit. "Where did we suddenly get so much gold?" he asked, bewildered. "A loan from the maître," Petète whispered in his ear. "For the judgment of Paris." "Judgment? Paris?" The sovereign was unprepared. And this wasn't Troy. Or was it?

The plump Fleuribal was the first aspirant to step forward. Once again, she attempted a curtsy that nearly threw her off balance. Then she began to… make noises, that much is certain.

The origin and intended meaning of the performance remain unclear in the kingdom to this day. Some say Fleuribal wanted to sing. Others consider a sudden, excited reflux more likely, rising hot in her throat and making itself heard.

Some sentences were understandable. “Now I’m here… uhhh, I’m beseeching you, tiriiiiliii, I belong here, I beg you, knuffpuffhöhöhö…” The virgin sounded like a trampled bellows.

Then her corset burst.

Courtiers rushed forward, covering the considerable nakedness of the plump Mademoiselle with their hastily removed vests and jackets. Tears, a retreat to the second row, whispers, head-shaking.

The beanpole-like, thin-limbed Charlotte from the north now stepped forward. Her chosen profession was ballet. A cruel game many children in the kingdom played was to tear one or two of the spider-like limbs off long-legged harvestmen, then watch with rapt attention as the creatures broke into a swaying, rhythmic gait. The desired result, much applauded in the children's game, looked much like the princess's audition.

Astonishment filled the audience hall. But above all, silence. Not a hand rose to applaud. Charlotte, who had fallen to the floor in a remarkably bent split, carefully readjusted her limbs to an upright position, as if one were adjusting the poles of a tent as needed.

The narrow-breasted Mademoiselle was undoubtedly unique in restoring her upright anatomy after her starvation edema. Even the king, who habitually missed a great deal, noticed this.

And now: Claudine's entrance. After a shy glance at her brother, she stepped forward. Henri de Laballe stroked his bullwhip and gave his sister an encouraging nod. She fumbled a folded, embroidered silk handkerchief from her cleavage. Apparently, she intended to present it to the king as a demonstration of her needlework skills.

Le Roi graciously accepted the silk scarf and unfolded it. As he did so, the golden apple fell from his grasp and rolled to the feet of the only promising suitor. She immediately picked up the fruit and pressed it to her bosom, clearly determined never to let it go.

The king stared at the handkerchief. It was indeed decorated, but not with flowers, birds, or other frippery. Rather, the following was written on the piece of fabric in fine stitching:

"Sire! Choose my daughter or war. Anticipating it, Duc de Laballe."

The king winked.

At that moment the bomb exploded.