Two men, Alex and Gregor, sit in full Shakespearean costume at a daycare center.
Alex : What hadst thou done this day?
In all my time I’ve never seen hauteur
as this! Defiled thy face and countryside.
No rhyme, no reason? Why? The king will weep…
You’ll pay, boy. Crimes as these must not pass by.
Gregor: Halt! Methinks the villain must defend!
Alex: What say you?
Baby plays with the remnants of a sandwich and looks over.
Alex: Such hubris this one shows!
Gregor: Young soldier! Thou must surely see thy plight!
If thou wouldst let us, we can help you! Please!
Baby turns and crawls away. Gregor sifts helplessly through the wreckage of a lunch.
Alex: (in dark bemusement) What now?
Gregor: Our heads are forfeit!
Alex: Indeed they are.
Gregor: Yon soldier laughs!
Baby laughs at a book that makes sounds.
Alex: His evil flows as milk from Godly nips!
Gregor: The time for talk has worn away, ‘tis gone.
To action!
Alex: Stop our fate?
Gregor: Perhaps we can.
Alex: …A ploy! To cover up the way we’ve erred!
The king will never know our wrongs, for we,
the Clever Knaves, shall fix a new King’s Feast!
Alex and Gregor clean up the lunch; Baby gets in the way.
Alex (no longer poetic): Stop it, baby!
Gregor: The lunch now cleansed, a feast we must prepare.
Alex: The bread I shall procure. To you I charge
the meat, pre-cut and cured.
I’ll the mayo.
You’ll the lettuce.
Together we shall make this sandwich mighty.
Trumpets are heard.
Gregor: The king draws near!
Alex: You’d best be quiet, boy!
The king enters on the backs of four courtiers, with a tape recorder playing a fanfare.
King: Greeting, subjects!
Yea, I trust my lunch be wholly fine?
Gregor: Such haste from one so calm…and just arrived!
King: Flatter not a hungry king! To lunch!
Alex: …There be’est not a lunch of royal purpose…here…
King: Disregarding thy depart from pentametric discourse,
I would like to know:
Which of you has wronged me? Tell me, knaves!
Alex, Gregor, and Baby are sheepish and mute.
King: Alex?
Gregor?
Soldier! Dearest friend and trusted ally! [King kneels in front of Baby]
Tell me what has happened; spare me not.
King picks up Baby and Baby looks toward Alex.
King: Alexander! Thou shalt burn for this!
Gregor: No!
King: Temper thy temper!
Gregor: If wronged you he has done, then send
him not to death but to another land.
King: You shall share his fate in trait’rous exile!
The king points to the corner of the room, and Alex and Gregor retreat.
Gregor: The court needs not such foolish knaves as we.
Alex: We must return.
Gregor: To show the soldier’s colors!
They set their props aside and storm back to the King, who has set the baby at his right hand.
Gregor: My king! It pains my heart to say, but he,
your trusted counterpart – he lies, my lord.
King: Heads will roll for groundless allegations!
Alex: Look! Inspect his visage, grinning guilty!
King: Heresy! His face be clean as – Lo!
The King finds mustard on Baby’s face.
King: Deceived thy King thou hadst! A fool you’ve made
of me! The sleep of Satan’s nigh for thee!
As he talks, the King lifts the baby away from him in disgust and sets him down for a nap.
King: Apologies, kind knaves, for you have done
a service to your king. Can you forgive?
Alex: Forgive we shall, for though you may have wronged us,
‘twas we who fought for Soldier’s treas’nous cause;
you had some root for skeptic condemnation
as he’d your trust won fully over, too.
Gregor: Gods be praised; the clever knaves are back!
And yon soldier?
King: He be weary; we shall deal at morrow’s dawn.
Present situation begs a fete.
Gregor: A modest fete, homage to absent meals.
They prepare cupcakes and apple juice, etc.
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