A Fistful of Tannenbaum, Chapter 16: King of England and Everything

Editor’s Note: Jed Foster was expurgated back through time by the world’s biggest bomb even as he tried to disarm it. Foster, a well-read scholar and a machine in the sack, landed in the time of King Arthur. After talking his way out of witch-burning and befriending a knight of the round table, Foster has just met the guy whose time it is—King Arthur himself.

Chapter 16: King of England and Everything

"Rise, good sir," said King Arthur to Jed Foster, who had slipped and fallen on his well-sculpted ass. "Your humility is most welcome."

Jed stood and dusted himself off. "Don’t mistake me, your majesty," said Jed. "While I respect the way you have everybody in your pocket, I don’t recognize the authority of some self-appointed rich jackass who claims to have blue blood running through his veins. I merely tripped. Of course, I mean no offense, your majesty."

"No problem," said Arthur. "I get that all the time. Good Sir Punkrock here tells me you are a time-traveler from the future."

"Indeed I am," said Jed, because he liked to say pretentious things. "I understand if you are more than a little stunned by such a claim."

"Not at all. We get time-travelers here all the time." said the King. "After all, it’s the time of King-frickin’-Arthur. Everybody wants to get a piece of the King. Am I right, boys, or am I right?"

The entire court agreed, with the stately and shining knights of the roundtable appearing quite bored with their assent. Maybe, Jed thought, they are actually extremely familiar with time-travelers. It makes sense, if you believe Mark Twain and a hundred thousand bad sci-fi shows.

"I assume you’ll want the standard time-traveler treatment?" asked the King. He offered Jed a room to stay in and a place as counselor to the court, which had been vacated when their most recent time-traveler had accidentally erased his own existence from the timestream, not that anybody remembered that. I’m just telling you so you’ll know. So don’t start asking me how the position even existed, because I’m doing you the favor here.

The following day, the King invited Jed to choose the most nubile and slutty maiden in all of the kingdom to be his own, except for the 25-35 maidens the King already reserved for his own. Which made it a pretty short list of truly pretty maidens, yes, but it was still a pretty nice thing to offer. Jed had an elaborate pageant, complete with talent show and birthday suit competition, swimsuits having yet to be invented, and narrows his selection down to three choices.

It was then, as Jed was ready to crown Miss Yankshirefarthing as his own Foster’s Choice Maiden of the Year, that he noticed a quiet, beautiful girl standing in the back of the king’s court.

"Who is that?" Jed asked Miss Yankshirefarthing, who promptly informed him it was the king’s daughter Penny, and asked him to get on with the damn crowning already. "Princess Penny," thought Jed, saying it aloud unnecessarily. "What a pretty Penny indeed!"

It was a most inappropriate thing to say before pledging your love to another woman for the rest of your time-travel stay, and don’t think the King didn’t notice.

"That improper little shit," said the King to a nearby maiden fellating him. "Does he know how rude it is to remark on the beauty of the King’s daughter while the King is receiving head before the court?"

And right then, unbeknownst to Jed, because the King had wisdom enough to whisper, the King plotted Jed’s downfall.


Next Chapter: King’s Conspiracy

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