“Thank you,” Bradley said. He was always very appreciative when people explained difficult words. “But I don’t think that it’s a very good idea, Mother. There’s nothing in any of the prophecies about me pretending to be overthrown.”
This was, if not the verystupidestthing that Gretsella had ever heard, certainly a contender for some sort of participation ribbon in the category. “That’s a very good point, Bradley,” she said. “I’ll think about it. Maybe there’s something else we could do to improve things.”
Bradley gave her a big, affectionate hug at this, which she withstood admirably. Then she wriggled free, made her excuses, left, and immediately sent messages to Bradley’s entire advisory council demanding their presence at a secret meeting without him.
“Thank you for meeting withme,” she said after they’d all assembled in the secret former torture room next tothe cheese cellar in the basement. The flickering torchlight lent a welcome conspiratorial touch to the proceedings. “I’ve called you all here tonight so that we can discuss how best to overthrow the king.”
Uproar ensued. Sir George leapt out of his chair and, in doing so, displayed a number of virulent mustard stains all down his front: the unfortunate result of his having accompanied Bradley to meet a foreign dignitary earlier in the day. Mr. Kedge, from what she could see of him underneath his enormous cerulean tricorn hat, looked deeply scandalized. Janet looked intrigued. Lady Cordelia and Herman busied themselves calming everyone else down, then looked back to Gretsella. Herman spoke first. “Could you explain, ma’am? Only we all thought you just said that you want to overthrow the king.”
“I do,” Gretsella said. “Not in anastyway. For his own good. The boy needs nothing more than a good overthrowing. It will solve all of his problems almost immediately. And anyway, if we don’t overthrow him, someone else will just do it for us. He’s annoyed all of his knights, and half of them start getting fidgety when the government stays stable for longer than about fifteen minutes. Better to be peaceably replaced after an elaborate faux revolution cooked up by a council of your friends than to be violently overthrown in a military coup orchestrated by a junta of your enemies, that’s whatIalways say.”
“You always say that?” Sir George asked with uncharacteristic sarcasm. “How often does this particular scenario come up?”
“Does King Bradleywantto be overthrown?” asked Janet, who was jotting down notes in a small notepad. “I don’t see why weshouldn’toverthrow him, if it’s consensual. Does he have someone in mind for his successor?”
“I think that hedoeswant to be overthrown,” Gretsella said. “He just doesn’twantto want to be overthrown.”
“In other words,” Sir George said, “he doesn’t want to be overthrown.”
“Definewant,” Gretsella said.
“We’re talking in circles,” Lady Cordelia said. “And wasting time. I’d planned on going over the weekly produce order this afternoon, and now my schedule has been completely disrupted. All those in favor of overthrowing the king, raise your hand.”
Gretsella raised her hand. No one else did. Sir George actuallysaton his hands, which struck Gretsella as unnecessarily dramatic. “Well,fine,” she said. “I suppose that Bradley’s poor, sweet, defenseless old mother will have to orchestrate a coup without any help from anyone.”
“Oh, Gretsella,” Lady Cordelia said, “don’t sell yourself so short. You certainly aren’t poor or defenseless.”
“Or sweet,” Sir George muttered.
Gretsella waited for someone to say that she wasn’t old. No one did. She cleared her throat. “Andold?”
“Younger than some,” Herman said after a moment.
“Thank you, Herman,” Gretsella said with more genuine appreciation than she usually felt for anyone. There was something pleasant about a man coming so close to lying for you. Then she stood. “I’ll remember every bit of this conversation,”she told the assembled sandbaggers. Then she swept out of the room. She magically blew out the torches as she left, just to show them all how seriously she was taking this. They’d all stub their toes and scrape their shins trying to get out of there in the dark, and it wouldserve them right.
After such a disappointing meeting, there was nothing left to do but stop by the kitchen for a nice piece of cake, chase it down with a nice glass of whiskey, and tuck herself straight into bed.
She was woken at anhour of the morning that was far too late to be appropriately dark and cold and witchy but much too early for any reasonable person to want to put their shoes on. She squinted out at the space around her bed. A number of armed men squinted back, flanking her extremely unhappy-looking son. “I’m really awfully sorry, Mother,” Bradley said, “but I’m having you thrown in the dungeon for a few days.”
She yawned, rubbed her eyes, and then glared at him. “What in the world would you want to dothatfor, you ridiculous child?” He didn’t really mean it, obviously. Her Bradley wouldneverthrow his mother in a dungeon.
“I’ve been told by a very reliable source that you’ve been plotting to overthrow me,” Bradley said.
“George,” Gretsella muttered. Of course it was George. “I curse you, George!”
Bradley ignored the cursing. “I can’t just have my own mother running around talking about how she wants to have meoverthrown and not do anything about it,” he said, in a very reasonable tone of voice. “No one will be able to take me seriously.”
“Is that really all you care about?” Gretsella asked. “Whether or not you’re taken seriously? You’d put that above the well-being of your ownmother?”
“I do have to take it alittleseriously,” Bradley said. “It’s hard to command people to do things when your own mother thinks that you should be overthrown.” This, admittedly, made perfect sense, and he said it as if he had reallythought it through. This was absolutely terrible. No mother should have to endure anything half so dreadful as her own son developing the ability to formulate independent thoughts. “And anyway, it’s only a few days in the east wing of the dungeon, the one with the nice suites with private baths. Just to show everyone that I’m not just letting you get away with anything, you know. There’s no need to betoodramatic about it.”
“I amnotbeing dramatic!!!” Gretsella said, with exactly three perfectly audible exclamation points.
“Guards, please gently seize her,” Bradley said.
“I curse you, Bradley!” Gretsella hissed as the guards gently carried her away.
Gretsella sulked in her (admittedlyfairly pleasant) dungeon suite for the rest of the day, feeling extremely wounded and aggrieved and generally put-upon. There was a very limited selection of reading material in the suite, and the sitting room was drafty. She would probably catch some sortof dangerous wasting dungeon disease and die, and Bradley would feelverysorry. She could, of course, easily escape from her prison, but that was beside the point. It would be a terrible waste of having been grievously wronged not to suffer very ostentatiously and make her betrayer feel as guilty as possible for his enormous and unwarranted cruelty to a helpless old lady.
