The former King sat back in half a throne, Phrygian cap set jauntily on his grey hair. After the revolution he had dragged what remained of his chair into the sewers beneath the castle. Now, half-throne half-sunk into the thick sludge, he plotted revenge against those who had overthrown him.

‘Sir Robert the Quick,’ he said. ‘Lady Elshanor. Newly-knighted peasants! They forget the heat of criticism, the literary canons, the wizard’s spellings. They are no match for me, for I have cut the hoarse out from under a homophone night and severed the hyphen from a war-lord!’

‘And now they propose a peaceful tournament for the good of all. But they realise not that I remain, that I shall use the guise of the tournament to strike out and retake what is rightfully mine!’

‘I shall give constructive criticism the likes of which Ficland has never seen. Their will be so many corrections on they’re poorly-edited work, there not going to know what hit them!’