King Snorri: Letters from Ole in Croatia

[Ciaran]

Oh, this is fantastic, almost on leve with your introduction of Snorri the Magnificent to this forum

No one seems to know who this America fellow is

[Vladimir]

Amerigo Vespuchi, don't quote me on the spelling. I think he's an Italian chap. He may be the skipper on one of those boats near Sicily, the one with that madman who wants to sail off the edge of the Earth (stoopid heretic).

[miho]

Amerigo Vespuchi, don't quote me on the spelling. I think he's an Italian chap. He may be the skipper on one of those boats near Sicily, the one with that madman who wants to sail off the edge of the Earth (stoopid heretic).

He was an Italian sailor in the 16th century and he's the one America was named after. He discovered that America was a new continent, while Columbo thought he got to India.

[Grond]

My Liege:
Greetings to you and all our Danish kinsmen. I am told you’re considering building a nice summer castle on Roskilde, and then charging everyone admittance to the Baltic. This is, indeed, one of your more clever plans, because having been in the Baltic I can see no reason why anyone would want to sail there. Oh, you can sail to Stockholm, but once you’re in, you can’t get out. Perhaps we could get galleys to tow the sailing ships against the westerly winds? Perhaps we can move Stockholm. In the meantime, remember that as long as we extract the fees with a land based castle, it’s a fee, but if we do it with ships, it becomes piracy.

But the Swedes are a strange lot, my liege. This I’ve learned in my many years of suppressing the natural inclination of populations to rebel against the rulers God has set for them. Sometimes you have to burn a village or two for them to remember, “oh, yes, we love King Snorri, he is our Great Leader.”

To business! Ragnar and I left Sardinia, and arrived without any papers off the coast of Valencia. It seems that there was rebellious discord due to bad management by the Spanish. They can be as finicky as women, the Spanish, but so hot tempered! It was like Sardinia without the mustaches. Bribes to the local garrisons ensured that they repainted the roof of the stable with a white background and a badly drawn red chicken, to show their everlasting allegiance to King Snorri and Denmark 4Ever. I pointed out to them that no one could see it, as it was too large to make out on the ground, that it was on the roof where no one would go, and no one has been able to fly since Icarius. They spit on me, and told me that If you put a man in a trebuchet, that he would be able to see it for a slight moment before his body came back down and he died of bleeding and broken bones. I pointed out the problem with the death part -- how did they know if no one lived-- and they said they were working on it, but that they weren’t exactly training and they had plenty of beer, and a working trebuchet, and would I like to examine the trebuchet?

Luckily, I remembered the time that long ago, Boris the Tall once wanted me to grab his “trebuchet” and I knew what they really meant, so I respectfully declined, pointing out that trebuchets gave me the gout.

While the troops here are enthusiastic, I note that they don’t spend any time of their days in contemplation of you, and that perhaps if we had a few dozen portraits done, we could really jazz this place up a lot. I’ll bet we could encourage them to be a little more compliant with the Love Your Ruler campaign if I ran a few mock trials and executed a few generals. Not that I’ve got blood lust or enjoy the killing of traitors! Oh no, I feel immense sorrow whenever it is necessary. to send someone to justice for mocking the name of “Snorri” or refusing to wear an I (heart) Snorri badge on their sleeve.

The Chivalric Men at Arms-- recruited and trained in Sweden-- are quite cocky and march about the place as if they were terribly important, even though they have yet to see a single battle, and their shiny armor seems to weigh a lot. They sweat a lot, and when they’re not looking the locals point and laugh discretely. Magnus, who heads the garrison, is stout, loyal, and quite stupid.

Ragnar has fallen in with some Spanish Jinettes, and they’ve been learning something new, Gymkhana. Have you heard of it? They do amazing things with horses, and Ragnar has completely forgotten his former life as a holy man or a sailor and has become a new man. He has never been better than when he is mounting a horse. He is now a rough dwarf, given to swearing in Spanish and spitting and even sleeping with his horse all the time. I barely see him. He drinks Orxata night and day, and has become fat from eating too much paella. Poor Ragnar.

We have a whiny Toulousian servant named Pierre. I enjoy having him immensely, as I can beat him night and day, whenever I am angry. Ragnar says I should keep my anger in check, that rage is a deadly sin, but I believe it focuses me to be a better spy for you.

And spy I have! For the first few months, I know you wanted me to make sure the population of this fine country remembered that you were their sovereign, and this was an important fact to them. Very important. All I hear from them is “El Cid” and “Compeador.” You’d think the guy had been a good ruler and Valencia was worthy of being a separate kingdom. And I have to tell them, well, it’s not. It’s a crappy kingdom, it should be sucked into the great glory of Daneland 4ever, they’ve succumbed to a bunch of wild-eyed Vikings for a lousy 1000 florins, and El Cid has been DEAD FOR 100 YEARS, so get over it or I’ll remove their eyeball with a spoon or dunk them in the River Turia, headfirst. Since the river serves as the sewage system, it seems very effective as a threat.

Do you know, I’ve never had to do the spoon thing once? I think it’s my power of elocution. These people purport to be proud, but get them into a room with some lamp cords and a battery, and they’re like putty. Maybe El Cid’s son should come and save them. Maybe he doesn’t have a 1000 florins to pay off the red chicken troops. As they say, true greatness means being called to serve the winning side. Besides, who’d want to be a rebel? It’s so unappealing, they don’t even have uniforms or decent troops.

I would like to respectfully request that we spies be permitted to change our attire from the these money green robes we’re forced to wear. It turns out that no one else wears this color, and for good reason! It gives us all ghastly looking complexions and while this is good for trial, it’s much too easy for us to be identified as we are the only ones wearing such. “Hey, espía extranjero del scumbag,” the locals greet me with. While I wouldn’t want to anger the assassin’s guild (local 43rd) -- those bosses in Syria have a lot of bargaining clout-- a nice shade of brown might blend in quite nicely.

I was thinking, my liege, in between interrogating the population about how much they love you, perhaps we could make Copenhagen more interesting if we put in a few monuments for the foreigners to gawk at. Maybe a half fish half woman statue in the harbor, or we could have a huge park we charge a quarter florin for entrance to which would have rides like “Get your kids trampled by the Oliphant,” and “Cat in the Bag,” and maybe something where we can twirl someone on a wheel till they’re sick. We could call it Tivoli Gardens, or maybe Disneyland. People seem to like these things, if they’re not the victim, when we’re doing our loyalty campaigns. We like to pick a person at random and “check” them for loyalty, as you know, and these are just a few tricks we use to “encourage” people to be honest. Just your friendly neighborhood spy, that’s me.

No more time to write, my liege, the magistrate’s wife has agreed to come testify privately on behalf of her traitorous husband, and for some strange reason these private sessions almost always turn into assignations of some kind. I would I were a stronger man to resist such temptations, but alack, I cannot. I told her that if she would play a game of “Lady Godiva” with me, I’d lower taxes, but she probably has no idea at all that I have no power to change taxes.

Enough of this, I’ve written a practical mini-polymicrochromicon and you’ve got to deal with the issues of Livornia, I’m sure. I hope you don’t need a spy for that region, as I think I’m getting some good results here in Valencia, but if I left too soon things might be all undone. Besides, Livornia probably needs a good inquisition more than a spy with my excellent talents.

Congratulations on the birth of your fourteenth daughter! Now, some people say that an unnatural birth such as happened with Ingrid might be punishment from God, but they simply haven’t learned to love and accept a girl with a hand sprouting from the middle of her forehead. I say, chin up! Remember, she’ll be helpful because she’s always got an extra helping hand. Hahahahahah! Either that, or she’ll be a “real handful!” Bwahahahahah I kill myself, my liege, I do. Or you will. A bit of unnatural birth humor there, sir, please don’t have me sent to Ireland. I’ve noticed it’s strange that you have only one son and fourteen daughters. And, my liege, don’t listen to anyone if they claim Eric is a bit too womanly for us Danes; he’ll come about soon, perhaps when his beard starts to come in. Give it time, he’s only a lad of 25.

I pray for your continued health and remain
your favorite spy,
Ole