Books by Ian Rogers
Books by Ian Rogers
By Ian Rogers
Good King Slabadad, in his palace in the capital, had heard of the Alcaldé of Parcival and about how well the town was prospering under his guidance.
“He sounds like a good fellow,” the King said to his advisers. “Let’s enrole him on the Privy Council.”
A proclamation had been issued and the Alcalde had travelled the winding mountain roads on his new white horse, and then on the highways and main roads, all the way to the Palace.
“I liked the King,” John thought. “I didn’t just suck up to him - though maybe I did flatter him a bit and I did let him win at draughts! I was quite tempted to sit on the Privy Council but I liked Parcival, too, and I could manage my business interests better there than from the capital. And I definitely didn’t want to be supervised by the Chief Civil Servant. He couldn’t keep his nose out of anything and those dubious but profitable little schemes might have been discovered. So I explained to the King how much the little town needed me, and that I had wonderful extra plans for more development.
Good old King!” John thought, affectionately. “He kindly said I could go on living in Parcival provided I visited the Palace regularly, so that’s what I did. The King and I got on really well. We ate posh meals together, played draughts, and chatted about the important issues of the time.”
“That was probably the happiest time of my life,” John thought. He looked around the mountain valley and at the shabby little hut where he now lived. “I had a lovely big house in those days,” he thought. “I dressed well and ate well - too well, probably.” He chuckled. “I was modest too!” he thought, ironically. “I had that big, stone tablet set into Parcival’s town wall with the names of all the past alcaldés cut into it - and my own name - John Weaverson ‑ was last and largest of all and it had ‘Privy Councillor’ carved after it.”
“Then (John grimaced at the young goat) things began to get a bit complicated. People who shared in the devious little schemes wanted a bigger share of the profits, and I had to pay them more to keep quiet. Secrets became harder to keep and it was harder to make ends meet. And then, finally, the crunch came. I remember the book-keeper telling me that if all the people who needed paying demanded to be paid at the same time, then the money wouldn’t go round.”
“Of course,” John told the young goat, “I could have economised. I could have sold the white horse (you won’t remember him, he died a few years ago). I hardly rode him; or I could have put off renewing the ceremonial robes that year. There was plenty of wear left in the previous year’s. But I was in the habit of eating well, dressing well, riding well and spending freely. A change might have raise doubts in people’s minds. They might have thought all was not well. They might even have looked into certain little affairs that had nearly come to light and that had only just been covered up. Besides,” John spoke out loud and made a grandiose sweep of his arm, startling the kid, “economising is boring and uncomfortable. No! What I needed was a really good, sure fire method of making even more money. How could I do it?”
“That,” he told the kid, “was when I had my GREAT IDEA! I told the townspeople that we needed re-development. The town had spread outside the old town wall a long time ago, and the drawbridges to the south, east and west were always choked with traffic because they were so small and narrow. You don’t even know what traffic is, do you?” he asked the goat - who continued to chew cud peacefully.
“We’ll have a public works campaign,” I told everyone. “We’ll pull down some parts of the old wall, widen some roads, and make a one‑way system to confuse strangers. Then we’ll use the stones from the wall to build a wide, fixed bridge. Of course, it would have cost a lot of money, so I said, very generously, that I would donate the first thousand pounds. All other donations were welcome, and anyone giving more than a hundred pounds would have had their name carved on a stone of the new bridge.
”Actually,” John told the kid, “it really wasn’t a bad idea and the money poured in. Everyone wanted the new roads and the new bridge, and lots of people wanted to see their name carved on one of its stones. I collected the money in a special bank account in my own name so I didn’t lose a thousand pounds after all! I paid some men to pull down sections of the old wall, and to lay the foundations of the new bridge. No-one questioned how much I spent. Everything looked rosy until things suddenly went wrong.”
“The blessed bookkeeper rushed round to my house late one night. ‘Disaster,’ he shouted. ‘Fly!Flee!’ ” “ ‘I can’t fly and I haven’t got fleas,’ I said. I had just put my nightshirt on, ready for bed. ‘Come inside and calm down. Whatever’s wrong, we don’t want everyone to know about it.’ I took Scrimshaw (did I tell you his name before?) to an inner room and pushed him onto a seat. ‘Now,’ I said, ‘Tell me what’s wrong.’ ”
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