The Horrid Tragedy of the Counts Berok: A Comedy Fantasy

by Galen Wolf

  When she awoke the fire had all but guttered out. At first she had no recollection of the hideous doings of the night but then in the blink of an eye it returned to her. The desperate urgency of her quest filled her mind and she ran out of the kitchen, shrieking, "Zamborg! Zamborg!" She ran in a daze not knowing whither she went. Then unknowing of how she came to be there, she found herself out on the balcony. The chill air made her catch her breath and pull her flimsy dress tighter round her heaving chest. The drop in temperature seemed to shock her fully awake and there in front of her on the marble path of the garden was the bloodied corpse of her husband - Zamborg the noble, sad Count Berok - her first and only love. She screamed, raising her hands to her head and pulling wildly at her beautiful golden hair: it had come to this.

  William, the doorman, hearing the row, dressed himself hastily in his threadbare dressing gown. To be awoken again so soon after he had let in the burly and evil looking knights surprised him. And as he dressed he wondered, not for the first time, on the nature of the universe. He ran out into the garden and looked up to the balcony where the screaming Countess Helena stood. He was unaware at first of the object of her horror. Then seeing the corpse in an expanding pool of blood he went over to it, tapped it lightly on the shoulder and said, "Sir, Count Berok, sir. I think your wife's callin' you." Then he shouted up to the Countess, "I think 'ee'd better go back to bed now mis'ress. Me and Mavis can clear up 'is Countship, ar!"

  "Well, William, that's very civil of you," said Helena. "I am quite done in with the stress of this murder (for that is what she believed it to be) I'll go and cut myself a round of sandwiches and retired to bed to recover from the horrifying ordeal." She turned in the direction of the kitchen and then a thought seemed to strike her. Her brow furrowed with concern, "Who'll tell Zventi he's the new Count?" He has a right to know, but I couldn't face telling him of his father's death." Then she thought again. "William, if you see that murdering devil Zildak please call the Imperial Police. It is he who is responsible for this - he!"

  "No, that baint true," said William. "'E didn't do it mis'ress. No baint 'im by Dad. Twas the evil Autocrat's knights."

  Helena did not hear - instead she wailed. "What shall I do without him? Without my sad beautiful Zamborg? Who will comfort me through the long dark years? I know he couldn't get it up, but despite that, we were like tuning forks humming together in chromatic harmony; we were like little blue birds building a nest in a clock. I have lost him through my own wickedness. Zildak took him from me, and with my irresistible bosoms and rosebud nipples I drove him to it."

  "No, mis'ress that baint it," said William compassionately. If he could have reached up to that balcony and smoothed her ruffled hair with his liver spotted hands, he would have. "I seed 'em come in. There was death in their eyes them knights - that there was."

  "It's very nice of you to try and protect Zildak. Your loyalty to the family is most touching, but think of the anguish I will suffer. Think of poor fatherless Zventibold. Think what awful effect this could have on the development of his character. And Zildak has said some spiteful things about your doddering walk and the tufts of ill cut hair in your ears."

  William's eyes narrowed.

  "Yes," she continued, "and all done behind your back. He's not man enough to tell it to your face."

  William brushed his hair thoughtfully, "Be that so?" was all he said.

  "No, William, despite all the pleasure Zildak has given me with his skill as a lady gardener; despite the roses he nurtured there to our mutual delight, I want him punished. Punished for what he has taken from me!"

  William stood holding his dressing gown tight around his emaciated body - one eyebrow raised quizzically, one hand scratching furtively as he was a martyr to prostatitis. Helena, in a shower of tears, turned and went to cut her sandwiches and William went to the shed to fetch the wheelbarrow, which for a while was to be the mobile home of Zamborg, the tragic Count of Berok.

  After she had eaten her sandwiches, Helena walked down the corridor to the main stairs. She was still very upset and her bosom under her flimsy silken bodice moved in a way that would have made teenage boys and grown men take notice, and also perhaps some lesbians. She met Zventibold on the main stairway. He sat there in his thin cotton pajamas, shaking in the pale moonlight which flooded in through the high windows. The candles weren't lit but Helena knew there was something wrong with her pubescent son. When he heard her approach, he stood up. "What's wrong mother? I heard shouting?"

  "Sit down Zventi. I have tragic news for you." She tried to comfort him.

  "What is it mother? Is it father?"

  "Sit, sit, sit!!!" snapped the tearful Countess. It was obvious to Zventibold that she was upset about something. Zventibold always the dutiful son, sat on the cold marble of the steps, although his bottom was covered only by the thin cotton of his pajama bottoms. The Countess cleared her throat to speak but then her voice broke and she buried her face in her long fingered hands, diamonds on rings glittering in the light of the moon.

  "I know mother. I know! Don't bother yourself. You don't have to tell me anything!" He went over to her and put a comforting hand around her shoulder. "I know about daddy, and I've got two pieces of news for you too."

  "How do you know Zventi? How do you know?"

  "That's part of my news mum. Be quiet and listen to me."

  "Two pieces of news Zventi?"

  "Yes. One good and one bad."

  "One good and one bad?"

  "Yes."

  "I see."

  "Which do you want to hear first?"

  "I'll hear the good news first, for my part, I think Zventi."

  "Well, the good news is that I'm going to marry Mavis."

  Helena was aghast. "But Mavis is only a parlour maid Zventibold."

  "I knew you'd be thrilled. I'm afraid the bad news is that I killed Uncle Zildak with his own knife. He's in the rubbish bin. He was such a mess that I didn't want to leave him for Mavis to clear up and get blood over her dress."

  "You killed him!" The Countess removed her hands from her face which had been drained white by the shock. Her heart was as chill as ice. She felt sick.

  "He killed daddy mummy. Surely you know that? He came up to me with his dagger dripping in blood and he looked at me in a strange way…" Zventibold's forcefully spoken words ended. He paused while he wiped a sweat of fear from his brow, and then he began again. "He looked at me and he said, 'I've killed your father'. He sniggered and waved the dripping dagger under my nose and said, 'And now I am Count of Berok. Nothing now stands in the way of me and your mother's love - nothing!' I didn't like the way he smiled to himself while he said that and so I rushed at him. I threw teddy as him. It hit him in the face and he dropped the knife. As he wrestled with teddy, I picked up the knife and stabbed him. I stabbed him again and again…" The boy sobbed as he related the story, miming the action with his empty fist. Helena hugged him and said, "Zventibold, I'm afraid I've got a confession to make about me and Uncle Zildak. I feel somewhat responsible for what happened… I…"

  The boy looked at her with tears welling up in his huge brown eyes. "I know all about it mother. Don't you think I recognise those red marks on your neck? Mavis has long since initiated me into the ways of shagbites."

  Helena was dumbfounded. When she wasn't anymore she said, "But Zventibold, do you blame me?" she began. She already knew the answer. She said, "I know. I know, I shall go and become a Nun of the Order of Hector. I shall lock myself away forever. I have brought this tragedy upon myself."

  Zventibold stood and adjusted his pajama belt. He was torn between gladness and sadness, hope and despair, Mavis and his mother. Bitter were the choices for him. But then if his mother went, his 'Uncle' Turvius Sullius could move in and plot their revenge on the hated Autocrat and Zventibold was at that age when all youths desire vast limitless power - the power of the Autocrat of Piraktesh. "Yes mum," he said, "perhaps it would be for the best."

  9.

>   A New Life for Zventibold

  Helena spent the rest of that winter packing her worldly possessions and arranging a place for herself in the nunnery of the great god Hector in Lower Piraktesh. As she turned to finally leave, she regarded the magnificence of the Palace Berok - her home for so long. All that had seemed important to her was now worthless. Perhaps there was indeed no place in this cruel world for honour, truth, freedom and justice as her nanny had once warned her when she was still a little girl. Still, she had believed in Zamborg and his ideals - before she played her part in bringing them crashing down.

  Turvius Sullius soon moved into the West Wing of the palace where he set up his laboratory. Mavis and Zventibold were married on a cold day in March at a quiet ceremony performed by a blind priest of Hector.

  Soon life settled down into a routine and everyone seemed content. Zventibold decided he wanted no more servants as they tended to find things under his bed. He decided to keep William the Trusty Doorman in recognition for his long years of devoted service to the family but due to lack of space he had to insist that William sell his wife and small children to the slave trader. William consented to this though the loss of his family was a great blow to him.

  It was a time of sorrow to the poor people of Piraktesh also, as Helena no longer went out with the Soup Kitchen. Who knows what thoughts went through the minds of the poor? Were they upset at not seeing the lovely Countess Berok or was the greatest blow that they would soon starve to death?

  The new Countess of Berok - the busty Mavis - was totally different from Helena. She was not only vain but selfish, greedy and thoroughly unprincipled. She would ask for huge sums of money from her husband and wheedle gifts from him by the judicious use of her ample body. Very soon it became apparent that there was a conflict of authority over the youth Zventibold. Both Turvius and Mavis desired control of his mind and will to achieve their selfish ends. There was to be no easy answer.

  Zventibold enjoyed his sorcery lessons and soon Turvius promised him that he would teach him the secret that had always eluded the lad - the secret of reanimating the dead. Turvius chose to indulge Zventibold's hobby for he knew that somehow through this he would wreak revenge on Axtos III, his hated childhood adversary.

  It was a widely held belief amongst the neighbours of the Palace Berok that Zventibold had grown up rather too quickly from a strange and tormented youth into a twisted young man whose habits, they suspected, if known, would proved not to be too savoury. As Turvius' and Zventibold's night time trips with the rickety corpse wagon grew more frequent, many of them chose to leave the neighbourhood.

  One day, soon after he had been married, Zventibold stood up in the master bedroom of the Palace Berok and regarded his lady love, his wife, the lovely Mavis who sprawled spread-eagled on the rich silks of what had been his mother's bed. She was eating grapes and the juice ran down her chin and landed on the topmost part of her huge bosom. This vision of her enchanted him - her fine gown, soiled as it was with grape juice and the remains of her previous meal, could not have suited her better. Whatever her faults in the eyes of the world, to Zventibold she remained perfect. He walked over to her and began to gently pick the mince from her golden tresses from where she had trailed them in the gravy at supper time. Absentmindedly she swallowed a grape, blinked and said, "Zventi, dearest 'eart. When be you throwin' out your absentee father and twisted cockroach racer - Turvius Sullius?"

  "Mavis darling, but I can't throw him out. He is my father - returned to me after a long absence - all of which he assures me was spent questing and searching in the hope of finding me, his long lost son, once more. He is going to teach me great sorceries and one day make me god-king of Piraktesh."

  "Ar lad, it all be so uncomplicated, baint it?" She sneered sarcastically. "You be a simple fellow. Why I 'ave information that your 'long lost' father be a necrophiliac. Keep well clear of 'im and give up all this moonlight gibbet robbin'. It be bad for your 'ealth and don't you know I gets lonely?" She turned her lamp eyes on him. "Sometimes I aches for your body!" With that she thrust herself against him, her eyes red with the fires of lust. His head was jammed in between her huge breasts and the netting of blue veins upon them was making his head swim.

  "No, Mavis. I've told you it starts to hurt if you do it too much." Zventibold, although new to the delights of love, was obviously learning much from this buxom ex-parlourmaid, this mistress of the arts of the perfumed garden. She paid no attention to his feeble wailings and upon pinning him to the bed was about to force him to chew her toes, with no regard for the nasty fungal nail infection, when just at that moment the door burst open and there in the funereal glory of his second hand robe was Turvius Sullius - hunch backed dwarf and ladies' man.

  "Get your filthy hands off my son, you slut!" he shouted.

  "It's not my 'ands as is touchin' 'im," said Mavis with a wry smile which soon left her face when, with deft fingers and by dint of his sorcery, turned her left breast into a cauliflower.

  "You old devil!" shrieked Mavis and leapt at him. Her nails long and varnished in red went for his eyes. She had not however taken account of the fact that he was a hunchbacked dwarf and her fingers clawed at empty space. In an instant, Turvius had turned them into ten wiggling worms. Mavis admitted defeat and in a flood of tears, collapsed into one of the nearer chairs.

  Zventibold had been watching all of this in silence. He was aghast that such hatred existed between these two wonderful people. He was torn between them but in the end it was Mavis his heart went out to. He could not stand by and see her ill-treated in such an abominable fashion. In the end he said in measured tones, "Turvius - restore her beauty!"

  At this, Turvius began to cackle. He fell onto the floor doubled up by his mirth. He rolled around and around until finally he managed to answer. "Restore her beauty? You don't need me for that - you need a gardener!" He dried the tears that ran down the corrugations in his hideous cheek. From his festering eyes to his scabby toes he knew that his only chance to gain revenge on the Autocrat was if he stayed on the right side of Zventibold; he did not want to be reduced to making wart remover again, and so, with a twiddle of his right hand, he restored Mavis to normal. She sat there snarling at him. He did not say a word until Zventibold had gone over to her and started stroking her. They both ignored him and soon they were lost in a confusion of baby names and whimpers. Turvius did not think it was the right time to ask Zventibold whether he had completed his magic homework.

  "I'll be off then," he said. "I'll go back down to the West Wing. There's where I'll be if you want to see me Zventibold."

  "I don't think Zventi will be wantin' to see you for a while. He's got more interestin' things to do," said Mavis, smiling all the while as Zventibold nuzzled her neck.

  Turvius Sullius knew he had to get rid of this scheming parlour maid once and for all. Mouthing obscenities, he walked out through the door.

  10. Trouble for Axtos III

  The Autocrat sat huge and insultable (in private whispers at least) on the crystalline magnificence of the Diamond Throne of all the realms of Piraktesh. A warm odour wafted up past his nostrils and reminded him to change his socks. Normally this was done by servants but he had the last valet executed for sniggering at the portrait of Axtos in his nappy.

  Captain Vardo, head of his secret police stood in front of him in the huge throne room. He noticed that Axtos was perturbed. Axtos had been overjoyed at news of the death of Zamborg Berok - the goody-goody who had defied him too long. He had been mystified however when he learned that it was not the three evil knights dispatched by himself who had done the dirty deed. This only lessened his joy slightly. Then he heard that the new Count Berok was a callow and inexperienced youth and he had cheered up some.

  He had sent Captain Vardo around with a bunch of drugged grapes to try and woo the lad but Vardo had been refused entry by a mysterious wizard in a grimy cloak. A wizard with dark shifting eyes. This had for some reason caused Axtos to have a cold pain in
his chest, as if his blood had run ice. A ghost of a shadow of a memory darkened his heart: Turvius Sullius returned? No, surely it could not be he, seeking revenge after all these years, but it could be couldn't it? Then he had seen this Zventibold Berok and his hooded wizard friend at some of the public dismemberings collecting the remains in wheelbarrows. He then knew that it was Turvius Sullius using the wealth and resources of the family Berok to plot his, Axtos III, downfall At first Axtos had wept with fear then he had laughed with joy. He didn't want to die, but he measured himself against the power of Turvius Sullius, and found the balance pleasing. He began to plot. " We cannot act openly in this Vardo. It would perhaps bring out the common folk in revolt if we were seen to kill the son of their favourite. If we kill this Zventibold Berok then Turvius Sullius will have no money and protector. He will once again be a minor wart curer on the seedy streets of down town Piraktesh," he said to Captain Vardo who sat now at his feet; more obedient and slightly less intelligent than the table he rested his hat on. The good Captain looked up. He had not followed his fat master's train of thought.