Certain brutal Generals in the Kingdom of Skyth, the capital of the Pherron Realms on the Crescent Continent, long for the old days when people rebelled properly. The kind of days where angry people could run with nothing more than a pitchfork and a suit of torn peasant clothing straight at the well armoured, highly trained regiments of the King’s own private guard. The peasants would get killed horribly, the rest of the populace would grumble for a while, but the general feeling in the air would be that ‘Ok, we had a go, we’ve made our point, now to get back to the turnips’. What never occurred to the farmers was that fighting soldiers was never going to work – they had all the advantage. Challenging the King to a ‘who can shear the most sheep in an hour’ competition would have much more likely resulted in a victory to the “dung-covered”.
But nowadays the people of Skyth have come to live by the maxim of ‘Horses poo, so don’t be surprised to find poo on the ground.’ This means that when the Royal Poo gets passed around, via the process of a new tax, for example, the peasants are well trained enough to simply put a peg on their nose and reach for their impermeable shoes. This creates a problem for certain believers in the ‘good old days’, especially the Generals, because fighting against the enemy is all very well, but there’s a chance they’re as well trained and equipped as you are, which means that the unsporting sods might even win the damn fight. Far better simply to shoot at irate peasants, who do not possess the monetary resources required to purchase the necessary armour plating that tends to help when a shouting man hits you with a sword. Then you know where you, as a General, stand. As a rule, this is usually on top of a pile of body parts.
There’s always a shortage of basic things such as potatoes and ham after an uprising of this scale, during which those responsible for the merciless killing wonder if perhaps it was such a good idea to shoot all the farmers, but the general consensus is ‘what the bloody hell, things happen, and the survivors will end up having more than enough children to fill in the gaps in a few years when they reach the legal working age.’ (The legal working age being four. What are minors for, if not for, well, mining? It is for this sense of literalism that the children of the endangered Suicide Crab have the terrible choice of living up to their name or disappointing practically everyone by ensuring the continued survival of the species.)
But for once it’s not those who are covered in dung who are kicking up a fuss. It’s the people in the middle, the people who aren’t trained with a sword, but can purchase the necessary helmet to ensure that in their over eagerness, they don’t stick it through their eye. These people have a place within the city walls, unlike the peasants who live outside their protection, next to or in their fields, and are the traders and the masons and the blacksmiths and suchlike. By right, these groups of people have always had the opportunity to visit The Academy, run by charitable scholars and priests, who aim to educate the populace.
Naturally, it was not long before a King realised, centuries ago now, that there was a way of making money out of this. Since that time any person not of noble birth who wishes to learn to read and write to ‘Academy Level’ must pay an Enlightenment tax, as the King and his council of nobles like to keep a clear line drawn around these things.
They want to know that they can throw dung at a peasant, and not be able to tell the fresh from the week old encrusted on their clothing. They like to be assured that the traders who rank above the peasants have enough money to live, but will still have to enrol in the King’s army should Skyth ever go to war. And that they - those who generally favour silver moustaches and ladies who can afford to wear the kind of dead animals that tried to kill the tailor back - will buy themselves the privilege of not going to war and possibly turn up at the palace with a large ham and several fine horses for the King’s stable.
But now that tax has been raised further. It seems that in the eyes of the King, too much of the ‘riff-raff’ have been sneaking through the system and learning to read and write without actually needing it. The people who frequent The Academy have argued that, as the old saying goes ‘The man who doesn’t know how to read walks around for a month thinking he’s got a Elven protection spell written on his cheek, when really his friends are being instructed to throw tomatoes at his wife.’ Not a particularly succinct proverb, perhaps, but learning to read and write is rather like learning to speak – just because you can, doesn’t mean you’re any good at saying something.
It has become something of a disgrace that several notable scholars, previously thought to be of noble birth and breeding, actually spent their childhood and teenage years chasing pigs around a frozen field every winter and eating their sister for dinner before saving up enough money to pay the Enlightenment Tax and thus attend The Academy. The King proposes to triple this tax, meaning that even some of those for whom reading and writing was once a natural thing to aim to do when growing up will now have to think twice. Their options are to spend the rest of their lives carving bricks or making hammers, or go for it anyway and then spend the rest of their life paying off the massive debts accumulated. Many would even say that paying the tax for reading and writing in the first place was unfair, and that the applications of it have gone downhill since the Great Word Drought of 809, and that nowadays paying to read and write is like paying for a hammer and getting a nail.
And as has been mentioned, the generals are disappointed. Because rebellion is coming to Skyth, and it is very unlikely to be the bloody kind that they so relish. Rather than pitchforks, shouting and pillaging there will be picketing, slogans, and the inability to walk into a building that forms an important part of your daily routine without someone shouting abuse at you, conveniently formed into rhyming couplets.
- 10/11/10
No comments:
Post a Comment