Chapter 10
A Counsel of Roberts’ (continued…)
Several days later the ship crossed into New Florinese waters.
“It’s time,” Westley said to Inigo as the others watched and the deckhands pretended to work while craning their necks to see.
Inigo crossed his arms and leaned his back against the mast, his downturned mustache emphasizing his frown.
“Darling, we’ve been through this,” Quidest said impatiently.
Inigo remained motionless.
“It gives me no pleasure either, I assure you,” Westley said, “but it’s really not worth the risk.”
“Come on now,” Archard said, nudging Inigo. “It’s really an insult to the Florinese, when you think about it.”
“Esplain to me how running that accursed Florinese flag up this beautiful mast is in any way an insult to them?”
Archard laughed. “Because it’s treasonous, for one.”
“It is?” Inigo asked, curious.
“Sure.” Archard winked at Westley. “Operating an oceangoing vessel under a false flag is akin to slapping Humperdink in the face.”
Inigo’s squinted. “I think you’re lying to make me feel better.”
“Whether it’s true or not, we simply must. We cannot venture into these waters and hope to avoid contact with Florinese warships as a ragtag assembly of former pirates, Westley especially. Humperdink established this very colony and dozens like it for the express purpose of capturing him.”
“I don’t want the flag,” Inigo pouted. “It’s your ship, you hoist it.”
“We must be united in this,” Westley said.
“How about this,” Quidest offered. “Once we’re done and Trajan has killed Roberts, we can take it down, strip it into fragments, and sew it into baby diapers to sell in the village.”
Inigo pondered the idea.
“And you can tell people all about how you sailed with it and Westley right under their stuffy Florinese noses,” she finished.
Westley handed Inigo the flag. Inigo sighed and took it from him with a yank and quickly fastened it to the rope, then shoved it aside as Trajan hoisted it. The assembled party watched it gently blowing in the breeze for a moment before peeling away to attend to other matters.
“Well,” Westley said to Trajan when they were alone. “Hopefully that will keep the Florinese navy at bay. Now all we have to do is find some pirates.”
The Daughter threw back her sheets, got out of bed, and went downstairs. She found her parents tidying up the kitchen.
“You should be in bed,” her father said.
“I was,” she said, taking a jug of milk out of the fridge and pouring a small glass.
“You should be asleep in bed,” he said, with a small smile.
The girl drank her milk and shrugged, “I was reading.”
“So you like the book?”
“So far.” She finished the glass and put it in the sink. “Where is New Florin?”
“It’s not a real place.”
“I mean in the story. Is it supposed to be near Florin and Guilder? It seems pretty far away.”
“It’s discussed in the appendices.”
“What’s that?”
“In the back of the book, there’s a section on Humperdink and the explorations and all that.”
“Huh,” she said, turning to go back upstairs.
“Turn off your light soon,” he called after her. Climbing back into bed, she picked up the book and opened it to her bookmark, then paused, went to the back cover, and flipped through the pages until she got to the appendices, noticing a heading:
Regarding King Humperdink and His Search for the Dread Pirate Roberts
Following the wedding of Prince Humperdink and the tragic kidnapping of Princess Buttercup that night, it was reported – by Humperdink, and no one dared question him – that she was murdered by mercenaries at the behest of the nation of Guilder. War was declared.
Modern historians as well as other scholars at the time agree that this act was hardly necessary since the nations of Florin and Guilder were, at that point in history, embroiled in frequent, highly popular wars against one another. In fact, the declarations of war on both sides were so frequent – and the cease-fire agreements ending them so unpopular – that the general consensus today is to regard the hundred or so little wars between Florin and Guilder as one big war, and the peaceful interludes between them as temporary armistices, or leap war years as they were called (this was after the Gregorian calendar, but before widespread literacy).
The Buttercup War, as it was called in Florin (Guilder called it simply war #67) was brief. Prince Humperdink acquired a number of important trade seaports, and his uncharacteristic generosity toward Guilderian prisoners shocked many. One such prisoner wrote in his diary after surrendering his fort:
“We were surprised that Prince Humperdink was present on the field of battle and yet he said nothing, letting his general conduct the parley while he stared incessantly out to sea…He seemed to care nothing about the fort, the territorial acquisition, its stores, the prisoners, or anything else. Humperdink seemed to us as either the most stoic leader in history, or else a madman.”
In truth, we now know that Prince (later King) Humperdink was only ever concerned with hunting the Dread Pirate Roberts. From the night of his first wedding (he later remarried*) until the day of his death, Humperdink was, according to Florinese scribes, obsessed to the point of fury with the Dread Pirate Roberts.
Humperdink’s first attempt to capture Roberts’ pirate ship Revenge met with disaster, and a single Florinese sailor was spared to return to Florin with the following testimony:
“…Roberts and another man fought us with such elegant fury we were in equal measures amazed and terrified by their flashing swords. Many fled overboard to avoid a giant who could punch through shields. Most of those that fled to the sea drowned, the shrieking eels took the rest…”
His description of Roberts left Humperdink with no doubt of the truthfulness of his claim, along with a written message from Roberts the survivor carried to him:
To Prince Humperdink,
May your perfect ears ring with the sweet sounds of your failure, today and evermore.
R
P.S. Westley sends his regards.
Humperdink, one of the era’s most renowned hunters, was undeterred if not enraged by his eventually famous inability to capture the elusive pirate. Five separate expeditions met with hundreds of near encounters, each time with locals in those parts swearing Humperdink had “just missed” Roberts by days or sometimes hours. Seeing The Buttercup War as a distraction, he signed an immediate peace accord, granted all Guildarians in conquered lands Florinese citizenship if they pledged willingness to turn over Roberts if discovered, and set forth initiating the largest price on a fugitive’s head in world history.
Humperdink even went so far as to make ordinary Guildarians eligible for this reward, an act which proved to be the final nail in poor King Lotharon’s coffin, who, upon hearing the edict, died of a heart attack on the spot. It was a manner of death wholly consistent with every other Florinese king in memory. The men of the Florin royal family had historically weak hearts as they grew older, Humperdink included.
King Humperdink set out on an ambitious policy of world exploration, ostensibly in search of expanding his empire but really in search of the Dread Pirate Roberts. A number of royal colonies were established in Asia, around the horn of Africa, and in the vastness of the South Pacific, all areas historically traveled annually by Roberts, and crowded with people who’d met Roberts but never seemed to know where he was at any given time.
The years went by. Florin’s navy became the largest on earth and Roberts sailed right past them almost as a ghost. Taxes to fund the hopeless efforts flowed like wine and heaviest of all were those levied on New Florin, continuing until Humperdink’s death shortly after the cessation of the Printing Press War, or War #98 by Guilderian reckoning.
The rest of the tale of Humperdink’s relations with the Dread Pirate Roberts can be found in the Annals of the Later Kings of Guilder. No Florinese records exist.**
*Citizens of Florin long remembered the brief tenure of the Princess Buttercup, known to them as “the beautiful one.” Humperdink’s next princess, Flauta, was ever after known as “the ugly one.” According to many scholars, however, this description is unfair. She was quite pretty; the moniker being more generally ascribed to her personality and her treatment of average citizens, which was quite ugly indeed.
** The most comprehensive book on the subject has several pages torn out.
She turned the page back to her bookmark.
Come back next week as our heroes approach New Florin, and locate the pirate ship Revenge.
Please subscribe to receive the next installment as well as my other monthly posts in your inbox. The Dread Pirate Roberts is an original work of fan fiction.
<< Previous episode Next episode>>
Do you like what you’ve read so far? Feel free to leave a comment and let me know what you think. Nerds, check out The Nerd Cuts, where I take movies that fell flat for one reason or another and fix them with better endings, including Avengers: Endgame, La La Land, The Terminator franchise and more.
Follow me on Telegram, Substack, Truth Social, and Gab.