An Explanation

I suppose I should explain why I didn't post an update yesterday.

It all began ten years ago in the country of my birth, Fälschungstania. My father, the King of Fälschungstania, had always ruled my birth land benevolently, though he had always missed his wife, my mother, who had been killed by a snake when I was very young.

However, my wicked Uncle, the Count Graf Sauerkraut, who coveted power dearly, despised my father and on that fateful day ten years ago he had him murdered. I would have followed soon after, but the quick-thinking of my ever-faithful nurse meant I was soon on a train to Switzerland. Sadly, poor Nursie was wounded by one of Sauerkraut's men, and she died soon after. I buried her the next day in Bern, and vowed that I would one day return and depose my wicked Uncle.

I made way to the United Kingdom, where many Fälschungstanians had moved to during the Great Depression. Two loyalists from the Asshill Estate adopted me, and six years later, at the age of sixteen, I left them to find work; I was a pauper.

I managed to find employment as the gardener for a certain Lord Pumblechook. He was an old and fat man, known for his excess in all things. His wife, a pretty young thing called Porphyria, was deeply unhappy with her marriage to him. She visited my cheerless gardener's cottage many times, and our relationship began to approach love - or so I thought.

But my Uncle's hand was everywhere! One of my few remaining sources told me that he had met Porphyria at a cheese and wine party, and employed her as one of his agents - promising to have Lord Pumblechook killed if she were to finish me off first. And when I say 'finish off' I mean 'kill'. Nothing sexual - that came before. Many times. Many, many times. Anyway.

I was lucky that my considerable charm had won over Porphyria considerably, not in mind but in body. We made love one last time, and as she reached for the revolver she kept in her left boot, I strangled her with her own hair. She felt no pain, I'm sure she felt no pain. Probably.

I knew that I could not skulk any more. I had loved Porphyria, even though I'd been forced to take her life. I would avenge her, and my father, and poor Nursie. I gathered food and clothes, my sword and my pistol. I was to return to Fälschungstania. Handing Lord Pumblechook my notice with a flourish, I ran for Portsmouth, and took a cruise ship to the continent.

But woe! Once again my Uncle had set a trap for me; he dispatched two heavies to dispose of me. But I dispatched them, with my sword; first class, with a windowseat. To hell. After I arrived in France I made my way by train to Fälschungstania. Nearing the border, I leapt from the train car's window and into the forest. As soon as I had landed, the car I had been in exploded. I was getting close.

Luckily, I found a partisan group of desperate men, who opposed the cruel rule of my cruel Uncle. He was very cruel to them, and his cruelty drove them to cruel measures. Cruel. However, there were only seven of them - barely one percent of Fälschungstania's population. They were content to sit in the forest and wait for my Uncle to die.

However, after an exciting knife-fight, and possibly some kicking, I convinced their leader I was the true heir to the throne. We began to make our plans.

We staged a daring attack on the citadel, the leader of the partisan group dying heroically in the attempt, along with the cowardly one and the big slow one with a heart of the gold. The wisecracking one, the grim one, the black one and the young one held the line as I scaled the indomitable walls of the castle. My Uncle was waiting for me in a room that was larger than the castle was wide... but I digress.

A stunning duel began, our blades flashing like salmon migrating up the River Fälschung. He knocked the sword from my hand, and pointed his own at my throat. "Now, you shall die," he said, "Nothing but a pauper." I drew Porphyria's revolver from my codpiece and shot him dead. He didn't see that coming! He fell before me, a thin trickle of blood making its way down his dead jaw. I hacked off his head with a nearby Swiss-Army knife, and held it aloft on the roof of the citadel, as is custom in Fälschungstania whenever a wicked Uncle who deposed the true king is defeated. It happens more often than you'd expect.

I had come into my inheritence! I was crowned king of Fälschungstania, the surviving partisans were reunited with their wives (except the young one, who managed to work out his issues with his father) and I married the faithful peasant woman who had aided the resistance, and had flawless skin and perfectly shampooed hair for some reason. Fälschungstania was free at last, and I had avenged all those who Sauerkraut had killed. Oh, except Nursie turned out to have survived somehow.

So that's why I didn't post an update yesterday. I'm sorry.