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.Repatriated	By : keithcompany Category: Titles in the Public Domain > Gulliver's Travels Views: 3308 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: This is a work fiction, based on Gullivers Travels by Jonathan Swift.

Chapter List
- 2
- 3
- 4
It was a good party, by the standards of Lilliputian society. The King and Queen's sniping at each other broke out into four entertaining fights, one of them a shouting match across the fountain.
The Archbishop of Mildendo became drunk enough to proposition Ritchasska about three inches beneath Ted's nose.
Two of the Queen's ladies tried to sneak into Ted's pants, got lost, and were heard whining for help from inside one of his stockings. Hortesnaed led the search party for their recovery.
A baroness kept pushing for some special attention from the newly created Duke. He finally picked her up, stood, and showed her the view of the coast from the top of his reach.
When he asked if she was satisfied with the signal honor of the view, she propositioned him. Hort and Ritch stood up in his pocket as he considered the offer. They had terse suggestions.
Four men managed to get Ted's attention and offer some investment opportunities. He referred them to his secretaries.
Three expressed the general attitude that they found his humor tolerable but they really must discuss business some time. And not with women.
One went straight to Ritch and humbly asked for a moment of her time. They had a verbal contract inside of an hour and an appointment to sign contracts in three days.
A couple trying to find a moment of privacy in the hedge maze discovered the Archbishop wedged upside down in one of the hedges. He was stroking the hip of a marble statue of a nude woman and saying she was the best he'd ever had.
Ted noticed a teenaged noble's son trying to wedge a torch into the heel of the giant shoe. Other giggling, well-dressed teens urged him on from the bushes.
He picked the kid up and plucked the torch out of his hands. Pinching those in the fingers of one hand, he took off his shoe. He slid off the silken slippers the young man was wearing and placed them on the grass.
The entire court silenced, watching the exchange. Except for one marchioness that fainted...
"The secret to a hotfoot," Ted explained, "is that the closer you can get to the toes, the better the reaction." He demonstrated.
"See, now, when this burns down to the nub, I'm going to feel it right in my little toe." He twisted the empty shoe back and forth before the teen's wide, wide eyes.
"Of course, when I do feel it, I'm going to try to stamp the fire out." He suddenly swung the shoe and pounded it on the ground. It left a deep impression in the carefully tended grass. And it smashed the soft slippers into the dirt.
The young man gulped. His friends fled. "Now," Ted said conversationally, "do you really think you want to play tricks that have the potential for such violence?"
The teen swung his head silently in an emphatic 'no.' Ted set him down in the giant footprint. He glanced at the thread ruin of his footwear and went barefoot for the rest of the night. First he went to wake his mother and show her he wasn't dead.
Guards responding to a strange pounding and caterwauling on the roof-door of the Seagate Tower found a baroness had been trapped up there. The door hadn't been locked but her dress was caught on the spikes ringing the parapets.
The King made a few passes at women guests. The drunker he got, the louder the invitations. To a woman, they glanced in the direction of the fuming Queen and politely demurred.
He never got drunk enough to hit on Ritch or Hort, but he did accidentally proposition his wife. She coldly spurned him. He slurred something about not getting ANY tonight, then tipped over and fell asleep on the spiced lamb.
The Queen supervised his removal to the Royal apartments. The party started to break up about an hour after that.
"So, we don't have to go see him tonight?" Ted asked.
"Oh, no," Ritch said. "You have a Royal Command. We will attend him, even if it means waiting until he's sober."
"Or sober enough," Hort added
The King's secretary bid them follow him across the grounds. Ted collected his fiancés and followed with careful steps.
On the sea-side of the castle, but inside the beach fortifications, there was a slight opening in the cliff wall. Ted bent down and duckwalked sideways through it. Inside was a dry (enough) cavern. It was softly lit, and one wall had been carved into a seat on which a giant could recline.
Just as he sat down, the opening was curtained by a sudden waterfall.
"That's where the Mildendo river empties into the sea?" Hort asked.
"I thought we were some distance from the delta," Ritch said.
"Maybe they diverted it," Ted suggested.
"But for what?" Hort asked.
"Privacy," The King's voice said. They turned to look. Out of his formal dress, the King descended a wide staircase carved into the cave wall. His lounging robe looked remarkably comfortable to the still-formal man and women.
Far more remarkable, though, was his wife holding his elbow.
Her lounging robe matched the King's, and both of their expressions were relaxed.
Ted noted that both had literally let their hair down, and scrubbed off their makeup. The faces revealed, and framed by similar curly locks, were softer, rounder and far, far happier than he'd seen at Court.
There was a Lilliputian-sized conversation pit at the base of the stairs. Ted lowered Hort and Ritch to stand beside it. The Royals entered and invited their guests to sit with them.
The King opened a covered tray to reveal some treats. He offered some to the women, then fed one to his wife.
Ted looked up to see servants attempting to carry a whole roasted boar down the steps. He raised a hand and silently offered to relieve their burden. They thankfully allowed him to carry it off and ran out.
He placed it down by his knee and looked to his family.
They were dumbstruck.
The enmity between King and Queen was a by-word in the realm. Peelers broke up fights in pubs, asking the aggressors if they thought they were at a Royal family reunion.
Fighting siblings had their ears twisted, until they promised not to beat anyone they were related to unless it was with the Royal Scepter.
Political cartoonists had portrayed Blefuscu as a petite young woman, bruised and battered in a torn dress with a paper crown on her head. She stated that she didn't want the King to love her, but hoped he might treat her less like the Queen.
And when surplus male livestock were gelded, the process was increasingly referred to as a 'gangbangi-ing.'
Now they cuddled like newlyweds and made cooing sounds at each other, feeding tidbits and licking each other's fingers.
"It's all gone roundy-day," Ritch murmured. "Hasn't it? I... I... The Royals are in love. I'm going to marry a giant. I'm a duchess."
Her voice was rising. The others looked concerned. Hort stood to sit closer and take her into a hug. Ritch started to screech.
"Ecclesiasticals seduce at me, rather than ask me to convey their intentions to my boss! Businessmen ask ME to sign contracts! What happened to the world!?!?!"
"Ritchasska, dear," Hort said. Ritch focused on her.
"We died! We're roasting on the villager's spit! This is my dying hallucination!"
"No, dear," Hort insisted. She slapped Ritch on the cheek, trying to bring her back to sanity. The younger woman hardly noticed.
"We are going to be wives to the same man!!! SHARING! What will Mother say? How the hell do you sit three families in a church? Friend of the groom, the bride or the other bride? And how will the great galumping idiot fry our wedding egg!? By working up a sweat and holding it?"
Great galumping fingers wrapped around the two women and lifted them to the giant face. Hort held tightly to her friend, trusting the giant to keep them from falling.
Ritch gasped, then sat silent. She stared at Ted's face, panting heavily.
Ted stroked one fingertip over her hair, destroying the do in a few sharp reports as the stays snapped. But the strength was there, enough to protect her from anything, along with the restraint she trusted.
Then he picked up the entire boar and held it before the women. "Want a leg, Ritchie?"
She stared at the still-steaming form. The beast outweighed her, probably her and Hort together.
"A leg," she muttered. The entire household of her childhood estate couldn't have finished that thing in one meal. The haunch he was offering was enough for family and the indoor servants. But her beholden could take it in one bite if he tried. Two when he was being polite.
"A leg," she repeated. She finally waved it away. "I don't think so," she said. "We had that elephant yesterday, while you were napping. I'm good."
"Sure?" he asked.
"I'm sure." She nodded, then turned to kiss Hort on the cheek. "I'm back. All better now. Let's go back to the happy couple, shall we?"
The Queen herself stood to give Ritch a drink and settle her back down on a plush seat. Ritch started to apologize for her outburst.
"Nonsense," her Majesty said. "From what I hear, you were Hortesnaed's rock through her kidnapping, wrecking, cannibals, sharks, giant crabs, a dunking, a plunking and who knows what all else.
"It's only natural that you should totally lose your composure to see married people that love each other."
"She's probably terrified," his Highness offered, "that she'll have to love her future husband, too."
"No fear of that," Ted said. "She's much too fond of bossing me around." She stuck her tongue out at him. He stuck his back and made a face.
"Let's not start THAT again!" Hort ordered. "These two spent six hours doing that on one leg of the journey." She shook her head at the memory. Then she stood to get herself a few bites, pretending not to see Ritch and Ted making faces at the back of her head.
"If you're quite done," their liege said in a wry tone as she sat down again. The three passed looks and nodded.
"Yes, milord," Hort said. "I believe we're all done." He growled, just a bit.
"Dear!" his wife snapped. "They have their public rituals, so do we."
"About that?" Ritch asked.
"They pretend to hate each other," Ted said in a lecturing tone, "so the enemy of one tries to use the other as an ally, confiding their plans to one or another side of a conflict that is secretly an impenetrable partnership."
Everyone stared up at the giant. "No, I'm not THAT clever," he said. "But I have watched a lot of television."
"I thought you taught him Fuscan?" the Queen asked.
"We did," Ritch said. "He lapses into Englishman when there's a concept or a toy that won't translate."
"Teddavitchion seems to be a sort of religion," Hort explained. "Lots of passion plays and complicated parables."
"And sex," Ritch added. Ted sighed as one suffering homesickness.
"Well, it's true," his royality admitted. "But however you came to know that, you are a clever man."
"You're a clever group," her royalness corrected.
"And you required cleverness for some..." There was a pause, and Ted's accent changed to something Hort could almost identify. "You 'ave a clevah plan, milord."
"Quite," the King said. He took some more food, leaned back to get comfortable. His wife nibbled a snack and curled against his side.
"Your predecessor, Gulliver, trivialized some of the most dogmatic aspects of the two most powerful religions in the nations." He watched the clever giant carefully.
"Big end and little end of eggs? I remember something about breaking them in the middle from the movie."
"Moofee?" the Queen asked. Hort made a throwing-to-the-side gesture.
"Exactly. It's still church dogma, Big End or Little End. At least in the orthodox. But the most important contribution of Gulliver's was the very idea of religious tolerance. Finding a way to even countenance there being two or more religions among a populace."
"And you want us to champion something?" Ritch asked.
"I want the giant to liberate Blefuscu," the King said simply. "Without showing any disrespect to me or frightening the barons that hold economic power there."
"That's all?" Ted asked. He ripped off a haunch of boar and nibbled. "Do we have a week or the weekend, too?"
"Confident son of a whore, isn't he?" his Lordship snorted softly.
"He says," his wife shouted, "you're a mighty confident son of a whore!"
"I have been called worse, your Majesty." He sniffed. "What do you want me to do?"
"I have no idea," the King admitted. "I keep hearing tales of your tales of alien forms of government. I was hoping you had an idea."
"Well, what do you wish to accomplish, milord?" Hort asked. Ritch had found a chilled well with a cask of wine and was filling drinks for all. All the properly sized people, anyway. Ted tossed off what was left of the cask.
"We treat Blefuscu as a nation conquered in war," his Highness said.
"We... We did conquer Blefuscu in war," Hort said slowly.
"Yes. Three hundred years ago. No one here had anything to do in that victory. No one there had anything to do with the rebellion."
"So they rankle under conditions they didn't earn and don't think they deserve," Ritch nodded.
"Exactly. And the barons have almost a monopoly on all Blefuscan business. I can't shift them out of the nation without economic or political consequences.
"And I can't suddenly become pro-Blefuscan without losing important Lilliput-first supporters in Parliament."
Ted shook his head. "I'm sympathetic, but I've never been all that good with politics." The royals eyes had been wide as he started to speak. Their entire bodies sagged, though, as he finished.
After a moment of chewing, Ted covered his mouth to spit out some bones. He lowered them to the floor. "Of course, you've probably already tried tax incentives."
Hort would never forget that moment of dawning comprehension. Moving as alike as puppets, both sat up straight, swung their feet down to the floor and leaned forwards. "Say what, now?" they asked in unison.
------
Finally released and allowed to return to home, Ted walked slowly on the highway. He was quiet but didn't seem tired to the women.
He brought them into the house, placed them on the table and knelt down. "Formally, and sincerely, I would like to request both of you do me the great pleasure of granting me your hands in marriage. I will endeavor to honor-"
"It's a done deal, Ted," Ritch pointed out.
"It was a gotcha," he said. "This is sincere and personal. Ahem. I will endeavor to-"
"Shut up and zucking kiss us," Hort ordered. He obeyed. They cuddled him, one to each cheek, and held hands across his nose.
"The only problem there ever was," Hort said, "was how to be fair to both of us. You solved that."
"Sneaky bastard," Ritch murmured admiringly into his skin.
"Now we just have to figure out the guest list."
"Lists."
"Well, friend of the groom will be short."
"It's the only short thing about him."
"His attention span," Hort pointed out. Ted could feel Ritch nodding, her chin sliding against his cheek.
"What about two weddings?" he asked. "Each of you gets to be the center of attention for your own ceremony."
"Who goes first?" Ritch fired back without pause.
"One of you gets married first, the other gets to spend more money on her reception."
"Ooooh," the women considered.
"It occurs to me," Ritch said, "that someone in this room has always held high hopes for a groom that would indulge her rather specific and grand plans for her wedding ceremony."
"And your mother has often made noises about how important she feels about the perfect reception," Hort observed. "One with rather staggering budgetary requirements."
"It seems an almost perfect division of attentions!"
"Quite!"
"Although, if we give my mother a blank check, we may have to loan Ted some money to pay for the reception. And the gifts. The entertainment. The commemorative frying pan. But he can eventually pay us back."
"I dunno," Hort murmured. "Can he manage the interest, you think?"
He put the women on the table and pinched at the hems of their dresses. "Let me show you what interest I can muster."
----------
The preparations for the wedding ceremonies had to wait for the engagement ceremonies which came after the declaration of intentions.
The Queen remained (publically) miffed about being tricked into sponsoring polygamy. At one function, she had sneeringly referred to the ceremonies as a grown man playing Wedding with lots of dolls.
Ted immediately started calling his home The Dollhouse. It stuck.
Ritchasska's mother, Testtiffie, the widowed Baronette of Copper Coast, moved into The Dollhouse with seventeen key members of her own household to help organize.
She rushed the introductions in order to set up her planning headquarters at one end of Ted's dining table. He was informed that his presence was neither desired nor required.
Ted nodded agreeably and went out to clear some land for his tenant farmers and cattlemen. Ritch chased after him, mounted a horse and caught up with him halfway down the front walk.
"Ritchie! What is it?"
"My," she panted. "Mom... I... Just... Oh, egg... Wanted... Apolo... Apolo... (swallow) GIZE!"
He cupped his hands and lifted her up. "No, no, no. No need. My dad always told me, there's only three things men have to do at weddings. Show up when we're told, wear what we're told and kiss who we're told.
"Your mom's the perfect choice to do the telling. No problem." Gentle lips brushed her hair. "I'm already good at all three, though the last needs practice."
"No, it does not," she protested.
"Oh. I was going to rehearse... But, well..." He lifted the horse and started to carry both of them back to the house.
"Oh, rehearse! Why didn’t you say rehearse?! C'mere, you." She waved with both hands. And, well, after kissing one fiancé, he couldn't very well go play farmer without balancing the kissing.
Testy, as Ted immediately started calling her, stamped her foot and bemoaned great, huge, high-ranking distractions.
"Yes, Baronette."
"Yes, Mother."
"Yes, Widow Testy." He blew all three of them a kiss and left, this time without snap-back.
Ritch was scandalized when she noticed that the third kiss had made her mother blush.
Various smaller tables were set up at the command post. Secretaries used the voluminous space available to centralize smaller command and control functions.
The departments included Church floorplans and seating, table layouts and seating, invitations, decorations (not including flowers), gift reception and display, flowers (not including bridal bouquets), menus, alternative plans in case of rain, bouquets, dresses, ring design, and two teams of lawyers to write up the intentions, the wedding contracts and the formal applications to the Crown for noble weddings.
The few times Ted was in the Dollhouse, he started referring to the two weddings as Omaha and Normandy. He called Testtiffie 'Ike' a few times, for reasons no one was ever able to learn.
For his part, Ted went on walking tours of Blefuscu and Lilliput. Once more, he was happy to greet everyone and anyone. And where he'd already established a reputation of not noticing rank or caste, he also clearly found the poverty-stricken neighborhoods of Blefuscu as delightful as downtown Mildendo, Creshtando or the resort city of Ssissiphall.
Another tactic to avoid The Allied Commander was to row his raft out 'for exercise.' He'd often invite nobles of the court to attend.
The Royal couple was always invited, though the Queen couldn't always attend. If Hort or Ritch, or both, were amongst the passengers, the Royal Tummy became upset at the thought of the wave actions ahead.
On one trip, the King and Ted discussed Ted's former profession. "I was wondering if you might have skills that could be used to improve the Lilliputian standard of living."
"Oh, I designed parts for cars, Your Significance. You'd have to develop the tools to develop the tools to make the tools I would need to do my job again.
"But..." he said slowly. The entire court, standing precariously on two rowing benches, held their breath.
"Well, my passion was sailing. Our rigs were a bit different from yours. I could, maybe, design sailing ships?"
"My shipyards would be excited to make your ships, my duke," a courtier called.
Ted shook his head. "I've seen your drydocks, Marquham Fundeelsigo. They're all full. Business is booming, as it were."
He glanced over the channel in the direction of Blefuscu. "What I would like to do is get those shipyards to work on my designs."
"I think my wife owns a few of those," The King said. "She could be persuaded to sell them to you."
"Okay, okay, cool. And we could build pleasure craft, and some fishing craft, shipping-"
There were a few protests about fishing craft. Lilliputian ships had all the markets. But Ted pointed out very few Lilliput fishermen sold fish in Blefuscu. "And I spent several months walking across the ocean. I know there are lots of places where there are no fishermen fishing."
The King enumerated the various businesses Ted would have to recreate to get the shipyard productive.
Ted shrugged and started rowing back to Mildendo. "Well, would I get some tax incentives?"
The King expressed ignorance. Ted explained what he remembered from the newspapers when his home town was trying to seduce industry.
By the time they were unloading passengers, they had a verbal agreement.   Any new business on Blefuscu would be exempt from taxes for the first two years. After that, taxes started slow but quickly rose up to the national standard.
"Still, sort of gets me a head start on start-up costs," Ted smiled.
A further refinement allowed the tax breaks to be extended for any incorporated company with Blefuscans holding at least half of the administrative positions.
Between them, and weeks before the outing, the Royals and the Duchesses outlined the plan. The goal was to get Lilliput money to put Blefuscu back together. And to encourage the locals to end up running the businesses, hoping they'd be more interested in building up the economy than in pirating it.
Ted stayed for the public viewing of his Intentions, then took the Duchesses to Blefuscu to start creating various companies for the ship building business.
Testy made them swear to be back for the next dress fitting or she'd come drive them home with a switch. "And don't be thinking that being a mountain of a man'll protect your ankles from my wrath, young man!"
"No, Mom, I certainly won't make that mistake," he said with deadpan sincerity.
"Oh, get going, so you'll be back sooner, you troublemaker!" She snarled, but everyone saw the twinkle growing in her eyes.
------
Ritch and Hort were amazed at their reception in the conquered nation. Blefuscan workers were suspicious about any Lilliputian. But they trusted the giant and any enterprise he was going to be part of.
"First time we saw him, the natives thought that he was a demon," Hort said, shaking her head. "And that our sacrifice would save them from him."
"And now he's saving them from us," Ritch said. "From the collective us, anyway."
They had hired just about anyone with experience of floating things. Craftsmen who'd worked in Lilliputian yards, or were old enough to remember when Blefuscan yards were in operation. People who repaired rowboats, carved decoys or made one-man fishing trawlers.
Managers were given a lot of autonomy to hire, fire, retain and promote. "I just wanna make ships," Ted kept saying. His design efforts mostly consisted, at this point, of asking what everyone knew how to make.
Then commissioning it.
There was always something else that needed to happen for everything else to fall in place. They went out to buy some lumber mills and set them to work.
They bought tracts of land with forests untouched in decades. "And if you could stop slurring 'huge tracts of land,' please," Hort requested, "that'd be great."
Metal fitters, barrel assemblers, sail makers... "It's like taking a tour of Mystic, backwards," Ted said.
"Now, should we be creating a grocer's?" Ritch asked. "A big one to fit the needs of the workers being collected here?"
"No," Ted said. "That's a one-off. There are workers with money. The economy will form itself around them."
They were listening to people explain why they were the best choice for supplying ropes to the yards when a familiar face appeared.
Ted had set up a portable desk in an amphitheater near the docks. Hort was pretending to perform calculations on the numbers the men were supplying.
They'd long given up any sort of analysis, though, since Ted's opinion was to start businesses that wanted to be in business. If they weren't making a profit by the time the tax credit expired, he could abandon them or merge them with a better-run company.
So they just set up a front to make the men and women think hard before applying.
Ritch was running for more ink when someone stepped in front of her. She bounced off of his chest, more surprised than hurt.
The Blefuscans treated the two women like tax auditors, with respect, fear and distance. Mostly distance.
Two arms that she once would have thought as strong grabbed and helped steady her.
When she could, she looked up.
"Lieutenant Pitssbrellt!?!"
"Hello, Duchess," the young man said quickly. "I can't stay. The ship's already prepared to set sail, I've only got moments to get back."
"Then why-?"
"You guys should go home," he said. A bell tolled in the distance. He started edging his way out of the rows of seats to the stairs. "Go home. Quickly." And then he was off.
"What a strange, strange meeting," she mused. Then she turned around. "Oh, Ted!?"
-------
"It can't be an uprising," Hort mused as Ted pushed into the surf. "The lieutenant would have offered us the safety of his vessel."
"And they would have stayed," Ritch said. "I wonder if the King's sending a signal?"
"Wouldn't the Estanta have stayed as long as it needed to?" Ted asked. He pulled hard for the far shore and their usual landing.
"Probably," Hort judged. "How did he seem?"
"Lieutenanty."
"No, no, was it..." The duchess searched for the words.
"Did he seem like someone conspiring?" Ted asked. "Or someone committing mutiny?"
"Do you think the king told him NOT to tell us something?" Ritch gasped.
"I don't think kings talk to junior officers," Ted said. "But there may have been a General Order 66 or something about keeping quiet."
"Something specific?" Hort asked.
"Specific at home or specific about the giant?" Ritch speculated. They looked up at Ted.
He shrugged. "Haven't heard much about what was happening back home this week. Can't begin to figure out what the orders were if we don't know the information be suppressed."
He pulled some more in silence, then muttered in Englishman. "God, I miss CNN."
---------
The Dollhouse was a circus. The tents for the engagement ceremonies were erected for Ike's approval in the yard. Carriages for the bride's entrance were parked under the hammock, along with a few dozen horses. The beasts were being evaluated for tractability, beauty and paired for aesthetically pleasing symmetry.
Wedding gifts were piled here and there. Jewels glittered on every imaginable surface. Clothes and hunting weapons dominated, as tradition demanded, but there were also attempts to draw attention with ingenuity.
A shoulder holster for Ted to carry his wives in, a cherry picker for the girls to reach high places without his help, a pair of gloves with saddles on each wrist, a hat with a viewing balcony...
Ted came to a complete stop at the sight of a bird cage. It was built on his scale and contained what looked like a grizzly bear.
His wedding robes were stretched over the hammock. The riot of colors finally dragged his eyes from the grumbling beast. "And playing the part of the clowns will be the groom," he muttered.
"Darlings!" Testy was happier than Hort had ever seen her since hiring Ritch.
Ritch hadn't seen her smile like that since the fire. The social club that had rescinded her membership for being a widow burned in the night during a party Testy normally organized. The smile on her mother's face made Ritch imagine the smell of smoke...
Even as Testy walked across the table to where Ted was sitting down, her eyes were flickering over preparations and lists and exhausted aides.
Gestures spurred people to greater efforts, to less vulgar extravagance, to wake up the butler.
"Ike, you are definitely in your element," Ted judged. He smiled at the room around him, even the suit where taste went to die. "You have outdone yourself."
"Oh, you sweet talker," she smiled. He offered a finger hug and she didn't hesitate to hug him back.
He lowered his fiancés to her side and they hugged more firmly.
"So, home so early?" Testy asked. "Too bad that you missed most of the executions."
"The what?" all three said at once.
--------
Frantic ushers rearranged the populace at the military parade ground before the palace. Two units of the Royal Guard were pressed into labor to move a rank of bleachers, that the giant might attend.
As a duke, he needed to be closer to the King than anyone of lesser rank, save those that the Royal specifically invited into his box.
Considering the acreage that His Giant Lord's ass covered, the arch-usher muttered, that put the entire population under his elbow, downwind of his armpit.
"We can only hope he hasn't worked up a sweat," the man muttered.
His impertinence was reported to the proper authorities and the man was scrubbing toilets in Fort Gesstundare by nightfall. They determined it wasn't, quite, treason and allowed him to retain all four limbs and his head.
Ted's leisurely stroll through the city allowed them to note the festival mood of the populace. Signs of heavy partying were everywhere. The giant had to step carefully over piles of bottles, overturned wine wagons and people sleeping one off on the cobblestones.
He settled on the grass just long enough to ensure they'd made him enough room, then stood and awaited the King's arrival.
"What's going on?" he asked.
"It's the last of six executions," Hort said. "That's all I know."
"Everyone here's already fully aware of the story," Ritch reported. "They're suspicious about anyone claiming ignorance. And Mother never bothers much with the details of politics."
"She knew there were executions," Ted said softly.
"As long as they weren't killing one of her caterer's, darling, it had nothing to do with her plans."
"Good point," he acknowledged.
Horns sounded and the King walked onto his platform. He bid all be seated. They complied.
The yeoman shouted out the crimes of the condemned. The language used was a very formal one, full of references to precedents Ted knew nothing off.
Ritch turned to climb up his shirt and whisper in his ear.
"There was an assassination attempt upon the exchequer of funding for the royal courts," she translated.
"The assassins were discovered and apprehended. There were...let me see. Four actual weapon-bearing assassins. They were beheaded first.
"The fifth was the exchequer's official secretary, who revealed the man's movements to allow the attempt.
"Today's conspirator... Oh, I can't remember that story. Someone who helped a king escape or... No! Someone who coordinated the getaway! That was it.
"So this is the man that was going to help get the assassins away to safety."
He gave a slight nod. She slid down his shirt to the pocket.
There was a moment of silence, called for any sort of evidence to bring about the condemned man's pardon or prove his innocence. Of course, that would require arguing with the King's verdict and sentence, any debate could be read as treason.
The silence of the crowd was frightening to Ted. Any noise made here could get one executed.
"Very well," King said. "Warden, retrieve the condemned."
He leaned over the rail and remarked to Ted. "I'm surprised to see you here."
"Got homesick," Ted said. "And a little birdie told me that I should see the robes Ike's going to make me wear."
"Little birdie...?" the King repeated.
A formation of soldiers stepped onto the platform, lead by a hooded man holding a honking big axe.
The unit parted and revealed the condemned man.
Jussifer stepped slowly towards the chopping block.
Ritch gasped. Hort smiled. She hooked a thumb up towards their favorite bullship artist. "This should be good," she said softly.
His Royal Judge and Jury kept glancing up for Ted's reaction. The military units were, if not tense, at least alert. And considering who had warned them home, it was clear that their connection to the get-away woman was known.
Ted looked puzzled and leaned forward. Guardsmen clutched their usually-ceremonial weapons and shuffled their stances.
"She reminds me of someone," Ted said. He was thinking furiously. He couldn't admit to knowing a Blefuscan rebel. That would make the King a man who enobled a rebellion sympathizer.
And he couldn't plead for a pardon. Five men had been killed for the crime. If he got her freed, especially after spending time with the Blefuscans, they'd think he was a sympathizer. It might mean the end of their efforts with rebuilding.
But if he could jimmy up a good reason for her sentence to be commuted...
"Reminds you?" the King asked sourly. He'd raised his voice. So this was for public consumption. Ted assumed he had a little wiggle room here.
"Yeah, I had a girlfriend once. Rachel. Pretty girl. Very high maintenance."
"I won't expect you to stay and witness the execution if she reminds you of a loved one," his Justice shouted.
"Loved one? That bitch?" Ted replied. "She slept with my boss, my coworker, my maid and the doorman of my apartment building. And she tried to seduce my mother."
The crowd laughed. Out of the corner of his eye, Ted saw the King's face flicker in a brief smile. I just might get away with this, he thought.
Down in his pocket, the women held hands and concentrated on sending 'Don't embarrass the King' to the giant's brain. Juss sagged in her shackles and looked up at the giant in quiet desperation.
"That's... That's a lot of betrayal," King said when the laughter died down. "Why'd you put up with it so long?"
"I was out of town that day," Ted shrugged. There was a moment of silence as four thousand Mildendons thought that through. They exploded.
"So," King continued when he could be heard once more, "you don't mind if we justly execute this threat to our government, society and the persons of that society."
Staying on message, Ted thought. He reached over the heads of the viewers to stroke the hair of the prisoner. Just as the guards started to react he let the hand fall to the platform.
"It's just... Well, seeing her reminds me of Phoebe."
"Phoebe?"
"Rachel's pet. A songbird. About the size of this woman here." He looked up into the distance, staring at the clouds. When his fingers curled around her and picked her up, it almost seemed like an unconscious gesture.
She was up by his chest before anyone could stop him. He pet her with a finger and stared off towards where Tacoma might have been.
"I really liked Phoebe. She always sang a cheerful little song when I came in the apartment.
"If she was loose, she'd follow me around, even standing on my head when I went to the bathroom. I think she liked me more than my girlfriend.
He let his throat choke up a little bit. Squeezed a tear out of one eye. "I really, really miss that bird."
A significant portion of the city's population sighed.
"Can you sing, little woman?" he asked the prisoner. She immediately broke out into an aria from an opera. It was from “The Man Mountain and the Woman Hiker.”
A cultural icon, she sang the part of the noble woman accused of being Gulliver's lover in a scandal that rocked high society. The refrain was mostly about the mechanics. 'Tab A goes into what, now?'
Ted shook his head. "Repeat after me, tiny one. 'Fish heads, fish heads, grimy slimy fish heads.'" She did her best with the unfamiliar Englishman words. He sighed.
"You're saying she reminds you of a beautiful woman you hated, but also of the beautiful woman's pretty pet," the King summarized.
"I do know I dated Monica a lot longer than I should have, but that was to keep seeing Phoebe." His voice broke artfully on the bird's name.
"Who the hell is Monica?" the King asked.
Without missing a beat, Ted replied, "Monica's short for Rachel."
The Englishman's mania for short names, and short forms of those, was well known. Political cartoons portrayed him using only the first three letters of any word when he spoke.
The burden of conversation was on the finger puppets he wore named Rit and Hor.
Still, the chutzpah of this claim drove Hort, Juss and the King to bite their own lips for a moment. Ritch covered her face with both hands and sank down in the pocket.
"Well," the King said, "I'm sorry to intrude on your pleasant memory, but she was part of a murderous plot, a politically motivated one."
"Did she kill anyone?" Ted asked.
"No!" Juss insisted. "I was just transportation! They kept the details compartmentalized! I never knew they intended a death!"
"Her testimony does say that she knew they were intending to 'strike a blow for Blefuscan Freedom' and to 'make the oppressors take note.'"
Ted nodded. "I don't have a lot of experience with treason," he said. "But I do know that the various freedom fighters back home are fond of such rhetoric.
"They'll use 'strike a blow' to describe everything from mass murder to writing 'People called Romanes they go the house' a hundred times on the walls of the governor's privy."
He thought the privy was a nice touch. Shakespeare'd always remembered to throw in bawdy bits for the cheap seats.
The crowd was indeed eating this up. If they got the bloodshed at the end, this would easily be the greatest execution most of them would attend in their lives.
If she somehow escaped the chop, most of them would still consider it second only to Lady Her Grace C'hesscophat's death. She stripped to the nude so there wouldn't be blood on her funeral clothes.
The executioner was so distracted he cut off two of his own toes.
The King sighed loudly. "Still, she was a part of the plot, and justice demands she pay." Ted was silent, stroking the little cheek. "I SAID! Oi! I said she must pay!"
"You know," Ted said, "one of my wedding gifts is a bird cage." He held a hand over the platform to estimate the size. "Yea big. Strong enough to hold a grizzly. I could keep little Phoebe, here. Like a pet.
"I could teach her Englishman songs and-"
"Fish heads, fish heads!" Juss shouted.
"And maybe put a leash on her, clip her to my shoulder to hear her sing."
"You want to keep an assassin as a pet?" the King asked, hardly faking how scandalized he found the idea.
"I want to keep her locked up for the rest of her life," he said. He pinched at her prison shift. "Make her beg for food, entertain me for her life. Treat her just like a pet."
He tugged and the shift tore. "MAYBE play dress-up." She yelped a bit but tried to stay still. The crowd jumped and fought for the scraps of cloth he dropped below him.
Naked and shivering, the figure he placed down on the platform looked pitiful indeed. She crouched down, whimpering slightly.
A significant portion of the city's population sighed.
----------
Jussifer, or now Phoebe, finally relaxed as Ted stepped over the gates of his home.   He held her tightly in his fist. Not for security, but to protect her from a rather chilly day.
Once inside, he chased everyone out, even Testy. She started to protest, then saw her daughter making death threat gestures and rethought her priorities.
Ted set the women down on the table and fished the bear out of the cage and into a stewpot from his cooking gear.
A stretch of duct tape secured the lid, with a spare clip keeping it open for air to circulate. He placed that outside the door for delivery to the Royal Zoological Garden, and the cage was set out for cleaning.
The Dollhouse wall was shut and they were finally alone. Phoebe collapsed into the arms of her friends.
Ted hung the robes up on the wall, then carried the women to the hammock. He lay back and cuddled them all to his chest.
A few minutes passed in predictable comments about 'never seen again' and 'nearly lost you forever' and 'never let you go.' The usual.
Phoebe did insist that she'd had no idea they were going to murder a defenseless bureaucrat, whatever his crimes. They accepted her claim. Then she burst into tears.
When the cage was ready, Ted used his own tools to hang it from a rafter near the head of the hammock.
As far as any of the staff could tell or would report, the prisoner was caged, and naked, every morning. Unless he took her out to wear on his shoulder, she stayed there until the wall was closed at night.
If they suspected anything changed between sundown and sunup, they were silent on the subject, even among themselves.
Papers on both sides of the channel made a great deal of the intervention.
Lilliputian editors seemed to think that Ted found the people of his new homeland equals, but Blefuscu was merely one big petting zoo, waiting to be exploited and maybe made to wear a goose costume on certain holidays.
Ted found those cartoons opaque, despite three fairly intelligent women trying to explain the goose to him.
But the viewpoint matched the average citizen's ideology, more or less, so they were not terribly indignant that one of six conspirators escaped full and appropriate justice.
Editors in the smaller Blefuscan papers made a bigger deal about saving a Blefuscan from the headsman's axe. He'd only saved one, true, but he'd only had the opportunity to save one.
They were certain he valued Blefuscu as much as he valued Lilliput. His statements about wanting to build a stronger Blefuscu gained credibility.
The King limited his comments to expressing solid trust in the actions, the intentions and the motivations of his newest court member. And implied that Lilliput could depend on the duchesses to rein in anti-social urges.
Testy wanted to know where she fit into the guest lists. Her 'pet' status meant she had to stay home so Testy was satisfied. The mathematicians and games theory students at the seating command centers could breathe again.
Ted just felt relieved that he'd probably never, ever be invited to another execution.
---------
Hortesnaed asked the Queen to stand in for her departed mother during the formal engagement ceremony. The offer touched her Majestic Personage so deeply she forgave Ted's whole household of any real or imagined slights.
Citizens wondered if the reconciliation was real or for public consumption, never realizing it was the enmity that had been faked.
The King threw a 'life is over' party for Ted with enough alcohol to float a frigate. Well, they tried. It relieved the tilt, but the keel wouldn't quite come completely off of the dock floor.
Still, the party of the barnacle-flavored grog was unmatched in written history. An entire cavalry unit was lost for three weeks, turning up as performers in a ballet company in Ssissiphall.
The entire complement of three brothels had been brought in to explore the critical matter of the mechanics of giant-Lilliputian sex.
Claims of the efficacy or failure of the many theoretical techniques varied according to the reporter. Ted claimed alcohol based amnesia to the day he died.
He'd worn Phoebe on his shoulder for the party, but she loyally maintained that if any sex had happened, it was after she lost the drinking contest. She'd been curled up under his collar the rest of the night, sleeping it off.
There were undeniable indications of his participation, though. For quite some time after the party, the hookers could stand in a line to show an Englishman Limerick written across their chests with a giant's marker, two to three letters per torso.
Unfortunately for posterity, the four women capable of translating the verse to Fuscan absolutely refused to do so. Only one of the three even made it to the end.
And the less said about the monastery the better.
Ted and the King showed up for the engagement ceremony late, disorderly and quite obviously still drunk. The Queen, Hort and Ritch bonded over the efforts to shout and slap sanity into their men. Pleas for pity had only spurred their efforts.
And here the city had feared that concord would limit the opportunities for satisfying entertainment.
Testy had not been taken into the inner secrets of the King/Queen conspiracy of disharmonious subterfuge. Her rancor was quite natural, unfeigned and strong enough to make the giant weep.
A month later, Ted sent her a gift. A cartoon from a paper had been reproduced at a gigantic scale and lovingly framed.
Ted was portrayed as tied down on the beach in the way Gulliver had been received. A vast army was hammering the stakes into the ground with empty containers of beer, wine and other 'lethal spirits.'
Testy wore the uniform of a very successful general and stood on his chest. She was telling him how very, very zucking disappointed she was, and threatening to cut off his head. Her butter spreading knife was held ominously over his throat.
She'd become rather emotional and retired to her rooms. She came out five minutes later to start redecorating the parlor to give the artwork a position of honor.
For now, Ted and the King's party were trying very hard to make it through the very formal speech the groom had to make. The King's suggestion to 'skip over the boring bits' almost got him whipped.
But they made it. He finished his offers and they were stonily accepted.
Out of respect for Testy's efforts, Ted made clear his intentions to Ritch before Hort.   Money changed hands in many gambling dens across the city.
Most of the losers were surprised because Hort had been a duchess for longer. Anyone familiar with the Baronette or her reputation was among the winners.
----
Ted lay face down in his hammock, his head near the edge, his bailing bucket strategically placed.
The women had stripped down to their shifts, except Phoebe, who put one on for the first time in days.
They sat on his shoulders and worked his neck muscles with their feet and legs. He kept thanking them, because he didn't want to pass out without expressing gratitude.
They hushed him and went on with the massage. His hangover throbbed a little less with every passing minute.
"So," Phoebe finally asked, "have you guys had sex, yet?"
"No," Hort said glumly.
"Define sex," Ritch replied.
"What?"
"Well, we've flirted. We've seen each other nude. We've...um...touched. And been touched. There was touching. We just haven't... Um..."
"We haven't yet capitalized on the promise," Ted moaned, "of mutually sharing joy and fulfillment in its most primitive form, pushing the boundaries of sensual pleasure and shoving our very souls into the place where Eternity knows no bounds."
The women stopped their neckrubs. "What the hell does that mean?" Hort asked.
Ted started to snore.
"We can ask him tomorrow," Phoebe said.
"If he remembers the whole thing tomorrow," Ritch laughed, "I'll be very surprised."
--------
Ted had the Blefuscan businesses tied into a cooperative network, all owned by a holding company he called Wayne Enterprises.
When anyone asked for a Fuscan translation, he smiled and snapped, "I'm Batman." If he was wearing Phoebe, she'd been trained to sing, "Na-na-na-na, na-na-na-na, NUH-NUH!"
No one knew why.
Profits were low at first, but no one cared, not really. Still, one or more Lilliputian duchesses, silently examining the books and noting numbers, they put the fear of the Maker into the administrators.
Each visit was followed by attempts to make the company better, leaner, more profitable. Then Ted would appear, ask a few questions and happily announce that things were better than he'd heard.
Ritch loved playing the Heavy, as Ted called it. Hort didn't enjoy it, but did see the practicality, and she did enjoy the results.
Other investment opportunities were brought to Ted's attention by his managers. The one-off businesses that would benefit the workers or their families and needed some money to launch.
It was Ted's habit to say they needed to convince 'the girls,' so the managers were soon doing all the homework for then.
Back home, planning had solidified into accomplishing. Hortesnaed kept the Queen as her Maid of Honor, reducing the Her Majesty to a giggling conspirator.
Ritchasska's mom was too busy behind the scenes to participate in the ceremony so the Queen offered the help of a lady in waiting.
The King was officiating, so Ted selected an entourage from the managers of his best performing business holdings.
He also tried to give his entire household the day off for both weddings, insisting that it was a holiday for the whole household. A panicked staff tried to work up the nerve to say thanks but no thanks.
Hort and Ritch whipped him with belts, pointing out that almost none of them had anything formal to wear to Ike's receptions.
Ted suggested a barbecue, then. There was a day between the two weddings. They'd have everyone out for an informal picnic and he'd cook something on his camp stove.
They paused in their attempts to thrash him enough to get an actual reaction. "There is a can of beans with bacon remaining," Ritch pointed out.
"That should be a wonderful treat!" Hort agreed. "A bean per guest!"
"Decadently prepared by a Duke," Ritch added. "They'll tell their great grandkids about that day."
A private celebration without having to scrounge up formal clothes, or in some cases shoes, suited the staff much more happily.
Especially when all the planning was accomplished without having to interrupt Ike's efforts.
For years later, that day was the one the whole Dollhouse celebrated as their anniversary, almost always as a duke-catered barbecue.
------
The Baronette did Hort's wedding up proud. The bride got everything she asked for and more. Singers, weepers, boasters and wavers were out in droves.
The horses had been rehearsed a lot, and drugged slightly, so they didn't stampede when Ted opened the carriage door on her arrival.
Her march up the aisle was scored by an entire orchestra and the pews were bursting with well wishers.
Testy and Ritch had the front most pew on the groom's side. They cheered as Hort passed. She paused to hug Testy in gratitude, causing the woman to burst into tears.
Ted knelt at and above the altar, best men in a semicircle around his knees.
The public smiled to see the Queen at the altar, smiling across at her smiling husband. If they were both happy, this was truly a blessed event.
There were no 'we'll laugh about this later' mistakes or accidents. Ted spoke his practiced lines as if he was a native speaker.
Hort saw herself from up on high, an out of body experience as she was saying her lines. To her spiritual eyes, they were both giants, two of the biggest people in the entire cathedral. The other two were Ritch, of course, and even Juss was there in spirit. All of a size, all shining with an ethereal light.
The reception was an intimate affair at the Dollhouse, a mere 134 people (Hort's lucky number). The guests sat on one side of the two huge tables, all facing Ted at his table.
Ritch's ceremony also took place in the Dollhouse. Her official guests numbered 127 (same reason), though the entire staff paused their work to crowd the Parlor and stare down at Master and Mistress sharing speeches on or at the long giant table.
The reception took place in five buildings downtown. A warehouse had been rented, cleared and cleaned for a dance hall. Two restaurants were booked for the entire day, as was the ballroom of a hotel.
A brothel, recently renamed Ma Nfr Omn An Tuc Ke Tw Ho Sed, was rented because it was the only other building on the block, and it had hallways connecting three of the other four businesses.
Ritch planted her new husband in the dance hall and told him not to wander. "If you want anything from the other buildings, I will either bring it to you or punish you for asking."
"Yes, dear," he said.
"Dearly punished," she underscored.
"I swear, Ritchie, I'd rather tell your mother the wine was bad than ask for a who-"
"As if you can tell a good wine from river mud," Ike said as she swept by.
"One makes me gag, the other's river mud?" he guessed. She ignored him.
The party raged for the night and into the day. Towards two a.m., Ted swept his mother in law up into the air. She'd found a wine steward with new and used glasses on the same tray.
It had been the last straw. Her assault on the hapless woman nearly drew blood. Ted snatched her away as Hort and Ritch took the servant out of sight for a lay down and some of the really good brandy.
Testy had a small nervous breakdown in the giant pocket, where Phoebe had been hiding all night.
The songbird held the crazy-pants woman through a sobbing hour, then made a short bed for her on the built-in sofa.
Ted looked in every so often, and lifted Ritch up to see that the women were alright. Phoebe always offered one of Ted's upthrust thumbings.
About noon, a horribly ashamed Baronette offered heartfelt apologies to the steward. They were graciously accepted and nothing more was said.
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