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'Sire! My, uh, groin!'

'Mm. ‘Tis nothing.'

I squint into his indifference.

'I beg your pardon, milord, but ‘tis at the very least something.'

'Lookest your vaunted groin, peasant! Still sayest you ‘tis something?'

I look to the axe that split my pubis vertically and find it curiously absent, though present enough is the pain, an agony as paralytic as it is, it would seem, physically insubstantial. Hunched over, I summon the courage to grasp at the spectre of the embedded weapon in my groin but succeed only in simulating a masturbatorial pantomime that would force the King’s eyes to take leave of my performance were they not already otherwise engaged in a duel with yonder horizon.

'My liege,' I groan, unaware of what next would escape my lips. A pair of blank eyes greets me, as though ‘twas our first encounter, and my gaze falls against the King’s belt like a hapless drunkard upon a sixpence wench: heavily, in a stupor of fatigue…

Gasp!

'The Axe of Whispers Many,' I murmur, staring into the lone empty belt-loop at his waist. Forcing my eyes upwards, I see the King’s woodplank-teeth propping up an obliging smile, a mercilessly ingenuous look that speaks to obliviousness, for I, to him now, was a stranger.

'It is with no small amount of trepidation, sire,' I say, straightening as best I am able, 'that I should on you call shenanigans.'

'Shenanigans?' the King repeats, his retreating grin catching against his teeth. 'On me?'

'Again, it grieves me to do so—'

'SHENANIGANS!' he thunders, his meek amiability vanishing like whores upon the morn. 'You dare speakest to me of shenanigans? You, who art hunkered in the thrall of invisible pain, a beggar with less sense in his head than pence in his cup?'

'Forgive my obstinate nature , milord,' —and here I gesture vigorously at my crotch— 'but the Axe of Whispers Many? It is quite likely that I would prove an excellent answerer of queries were you to see to its departure from my groin.'

'Forsooth—'

'Hastily,' I add with an imploring grimace. 'Oh so hastily.'

'’Tis not obstinacy but impudence that casts a shadow on your plight, meagre peasant! Lo, the—'

'Fair enough.'

I bow my head in the King’s stunned silence.

'Apologies, my great King. I misspoke as to shenanigans, particularly in my liege’s vicinity. A thousand pardons, sire.'

I wait with head bowed until the stunned silence becomes heavy with self-satisfaction and steal a glimpse of the King again staring off yonder before I settle into a backwards-leaning crouch.

'Sire?' I ask, pitifully. 'Mayhap your kindness extends to a poor soul unable to right himself?'

The King, taken aback by my reprisal of the role of stranger, eventually smiles broadly with those horse-hoof teeth and reaches a bejewelled hand forthwith; I catch my elbow-guard on my belt and whine.

'I’m afraid my arm suffers from frailty of spirit, milord,' I say. 'Have you the strength to come closer?'

An impatient divot furrows his brow, but with barn-door teeth clenched the King lunges forward with a clambering hand; my 'frail' arm swings to the ground behind me for support and I thrust pelvically into his grasp, the Axe of Whispers Many pulling loose in his grip. We, as a pair, fall in unison to our backsides.

'How had you my axe,' asks the King, in genuine shock, 'in your groin, no less?'

'I had but asked if your extraordinary oratory was available on papyrus, milord,' I say, crudely feeling about my nether-region for enduring damage. 'For singular consumption, of course, as I had hoped to enjoy your rhetoric from the comfort of my own abode. Then, pain.'

'’Tis not available,' barks the King, his face reddening, 'to you nor any of your ilk!'

'No, I know. You said that already, in very clear language - I get it. However, my liege, when I inquired further as to your future speaking engagements, I was cut short - or cut down, if you will - by that which you currently hold in your kingly hands...'

But his attention yet again dissipates. Staring out into the distance on crossed legs, clutching the Axe of Whispers Many to his breast, the King rocks gently to and fro on the hard, tamped earth of his courtyard. I study his face, rosy in the setting sun, and watch as the creases of age seem to deepen in his pained visage with every tilt forward. Dusting myself off, I rise and take leave of the man who, despite the prestige of being King of all he surveys, owns nothing but his own rhetoric.