U-WRITE-IT RESULTS

"But it was funny, mother." The princess, who favored the hansome young jester, said.

"She's right, you know." The jester said, not bothered at all by the Queen's proclaimation.

Okay, I lied. He was on his knees, pleading. That wasn't the best way to beg for his life, but he hadn't much practice.

"Oh please, my Queen! Spare me, for the joke's sake, spare me!"

"Save the jester, save the joke!" Yelled a lord at the back of the crowd. Everyone took up the chant, including the doomed jester and the princess.

"Okay, okay!" Howled the Queen."Don't shoot him. But if you put one more toe out of line-" She mimicked firing a gun at the jester's chest-"You're sleeping with the fishes. Understood?"

The jester nodded meekly. The princess made her decision. She was going to make a man out of this here yeller bellied jokester, for every joke, everywhere.

She jumped down off her throne and laid a sloppy wet one on him (Quite literally; she wasn't called the camel princess for nothing) and cried "Come on, baby, lets blow this popsicle stand!" And with that, the princess, the jester, and his assistant, rode off into the sunset, never to return.

"Your Majesty," began one of the soldiers in shocked disbelief, "Why did he do that?"

"I have no idea!" The Queen replied. "All I did was threaten to have him burned at the stake if he didn't learn this song in time for tonight's banquet. Or maybe he was thinking about that time that I hid his mandolin and he couldn't find it for days. No, I know, it was to pay me back for pushing him off the wall that one time into the moat teeming with pike because he twanged his out of tune mandolin right in my ear. But none of those things deserve this kind of treatment, do they?"

Her page tried to quiet her. "There there your majesty. Now what did the bad man do?"

"He stood in my presence! He stood right in my face as if he was worth something! As if I, the Queen, were a mere mortal!"

The page looked sheepishly at the bewildered jester applicant, but he reassured the Queen. "All right your Majesty, we'll take care of him."

The page brought in the next applicant, but as he sat down to play his harp, the Queen cried out again at his impertinance to sit before the Queen.

Several more jesters were brought in, the Queen finding fault with every one, some for not introducing themselves, others for having the audacity to tell her their names. Finally, the last one approached.

"You are the most pig headed woman I've ever seen." he said.

The Queen was so flabbergasted that her only conclusion was that he must be joking. He was hired immediately.

The guards reached seize the jester who snatched off his hat and face-mask. The tall lithe young man was very handsome. Recognizing him, the Queen gasped.

"YOU! But you... you are..." she stared and stuttered, fearing to voice his name.

"Yes I am. You wrote and asked me to visit you in disguise, sure that you would recognize royalty. Well, Marm, you do not know a real ring, or a real king. This ring holds a real diamond! I shall return to my kingdom and find a young maiden who would not be sad to marry a king who enjoys humor--I'm sure to find someone quite easily. I find you quite unworthy of THIS JESTER!!"

"But your Majesty," implored the Lord Chamberlain, "this will be the third Jester this month. The kingdom is running out of people with a sense of humor. We don't have any more applicants for the job."

"Listen to the joke," commanded the Queen.

"Knock. knock," said the Jester.

"Who's there?" asked the Chamberlain hopefully.

"The Queen?" answered the Jester.

"The Queen who?" asked the Chamberlain.

"The Queen Air Act has greatly reduced elocution."

"Shoot him," said the Chamberlain.

"Cut," The director yelled into his bull horn, "I have tried telling you a hundred times, Julia, you need to look at the jester and not the camera when saying your line."

Julia frowned.

"Remember this is only a commercial we are shooting here today, lets take it from the top and try to get it right this time. We are running over budget as it is." The director raised his horn announcing, "Take twenty-five."

Julia was beginning to feel humiliated, wasn't it enough that she was the leading character of the number one day time Soap, The Grass is Greener on the Other Side, where she played a sexy lawyer who could see into the future. She would need to talk with her agent before agreeing to any more TV commercials about losing weight.

Armand knew that it was not the jester's fault. Baldo had served the court perfectly during his 12 years as lead jester. He had surpassed even his father, the venerable Baldameer, as the greatest jester in this king's reign. He even had had a brief daliance with the queen herself when he was younger. No, it wasn't his fault. The queen had succumbed to the sickness, as had Armand. Armand suddenly pictured the land beyond the castle walls, littered with bodies given to the carrion crawlers and such. He remembered the smell of death that had grown so strong, it was not possible to endure even a moment without reactive retching. The three that breathed in this room were the last known to live in this kingdom, and Baldo was unaffected, and this was why he was to die. Armand felt a rumbling of uncontrolable hacking coming. As baldo came near, accepting his fate, Armand raised his sword. In an instant, he came down hard upon his own neck, cleaving it half away. Baldo started back, then grew calm. He glanced at the queen, who had faded from the world, and slowly took his leave.