by Tom Leonard
FIRST SEVEN CHAPTERS
Chapter 8: A CHILD IS BORN
And there ahead of them went the star they had seen at its rising, until it stopped at the place where the child lay. When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. On entering the house, they saw the child with his mother, and they knelt down and paid him homage.Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
When Die Friedensstifterin landed at Edwards Space-Force Base, the apparently highly successful politicians Dirk Eradacus and Ket Martingale were greeted by a bevy of Icarian maidens bearing laurel leaves and garlands of flowers. Dirk, Ket, Pippa and Slim were promptly taken in the azure Holy Imperial Coach to the City of Trivoli, followed by a cavalcade of twenty shining golden limousines packed with well wishers.
Vast crowds were waiting in the Capitol Octagon to greet the four heroes, and the First Minister toasted them with champagne and presented Dirk and Ket with Qinsatoran Medals of Freedom, and Pippa and Slim with Courageous Youth Medallions. The heroes proceeded in triumph to the Cathedral of St. Basil of Confucia, where the frog-like Archbishop of Madron gave thanks to Yahweh before the High Altar for the recently achieved 'Peace and Reconciliation' with the despotic rulers of Ceres and Gallium.
Counts Balthazar, Melchior, and Caspar also participated in the Service of Thanksgiving by singing the two-millennia-old Kyrie Evangelis, that'd first been sung with the Baal-worshippers to celebrate the founding of Trivoli in AD 706. Then Caspar rushed off for a pee, and the two other old dodderers had to sit down because their legs were aching. So Balthazar never did have a chance to announce his latest earth-shattering prophecy.
And then on to the rip-off dungeon bar in the Royal Jorvik Hotel, next to the Interplanetary Meglev Train Museum, where the skimpy drinks cost three silver crowns each, but where a wonderful time was had by one and all. Apart from Pippa and Slim, who sat huddled together in a corner bemoaning all of the horrific cruelty that had been so evident during the excursions to Ceres and Gallium.
Pippa and Slim were glad to return to their studies at Alpha-Omega Academy on the Isle of Caleb, and they slowly recovered their sensibilities as the weeks rolled by. In the meantime, their transgender buddy Dreyfus Dreadnought became perplexed, and ever more perplexed since he seemed to be growing larger and larger. At the beginning of June, he wondered whether there might be some sort of biological explanation for the feelings of discomfort. The amazing truth finally dawned on him towards a couple of weeks later when he felt the pounding of tiny feet in his stomach, whereupon the teenage Apollo Unicorn nervously confided to Pippa and Slim that he was expecting a baby.
Dreyfus said that the father was doubtlessly the Grand Reincarnate of the Shiners, the golden-skinned Icarian Sir Alistair Sunkist, no less. Dreyfus had gatecrashed Sir Alistair's snobby reception on St. Crispin's Eve in the Hotel of the Pink Hapsburgs on the Isle of Mainau, only for his host's daughter Lady Jemima Sunkist to entice him upstairs. Thereupon, he'd been tied to a four-poster by two grinning ape swans, whereupon he was wantonly seduced, spread-eagled like a beleaguered scorpion-toad, by his sweaty, dog-faced host. But Dreyfus had given his prior consent, simply to get it over and done with.
Pippa was utterly appalled to hear about all of this. She'd cuddled a bit with Dreyfus the night before St. Crispus Eve, during the Shiner Ceilidh in the bubblecopter hangar on the Isle of Lismore, and then he'd taken her back to her room in the Hotel Las Fuentes for a quick snog. She was sad that such a nice Apollo Unicorn should have got into such a bad misadventure the following night. And with such alarming potential consequences!
Meantime, Slim remembered his own affair of the heart at the Hotel of the Pink Hapsburgs on St. Crispin's Eve, and blushed deep green, orange and purple.
In early July 2713, Dirk Eradacus decided to sent his indentured wife Tamzin away from Trivoli, to await the birth of their child (he was still unaware that she was expecting twins). He, very generously, handed her a brochure of all high class maternity homes on Qinsatorix, and she chose the Nestorian Convent of the Sacred Crown on the Isle of Caleb, so that she would be close to her friends Pippa and Slim. So Dirk sent Tamzin off down the Tiber on the Mississippi , and after a short voyage across Oceania with Dirk's insipid Apollo Lemon personal secretary, Tamzin found herself on the Isle of Caleb and in the loving care of the Sisters of the Sacred Crown and their kindly Apollo Lizard mother superior.
Around that time, Headmaster Alistair McCull told two of his stroppy prefects to bring his pupil Dreyfus Dreadnought to his antiquated office in Galton Tower, and when they frog-marched Dreyfus onto the crimson carpet he was shaking in his green-spotted trainers.
"I've been hearing all sorts of rumours about you, Dreadnought," griped McCull. "Out with it! Why do you remind me of the Wild Mare of Diddicombe Fair in labour?"
He's taking the rise about my second cousin from Drannoch Moor, realised Dreyfus. That's not very kind.
"That's because I am in labour, Sir," he replied, as politely as he could. "You know that I'm a transgender Apollo Unicorn man, and this is all something quite natural for us. We do indeed give birth to children from time to time, and I believe that this should be socially acceptable,"
McCull's eyes shrunk into their sockets. "The Shiners would certainly agree with that, as a moral principle at least, if not always in actual practice. But what breed is the father? Who the Hell is the frigging father?"
"I'm afraid I can't tell you that, Sir. To reveal his identity would be far too scandalous."
"Too scandalous!! I can only assume that you've co-habited with a degenerate species. Get out of here! Either back to your snotty parents in Angervast, or into a ditch, for all I care."
"Please let me stay here with my schoolmates, Sir. I suppose that I could tell you who the father is, but you'd have to promise not to let on to anyone else."
When Sunkist sighed, his chest rattled like an out-of-sink grass-snake. "I promise. But who, prithee, is the degenerate sleazebag?"
"It's--er-- the Grand Reincarnate Sir Alistair Sunkist, Sir. He screwed me senseless during the Spring Break while we were visiting the Isle of Mainau, with my consent of course. So I'm expecting his baby around the beginning of August."
McCull's golden face turned a deep silvery-green, and he looked as if he was about to have a hyperboloid fit. But he calmed himself down, and after fifteen seconds of terrifying silence, during which his face turned silvery-gold, he slowly said, "In that case, we must find a maternity home which is willing to look after you and take care of the baby. You may resume your studies here in September if all goes according to plan. Now go and have a shower. You smell like an aardvark."
The very next day, Dreyfus was sent to the Convent of the Sacred Crown, where the kindly nuns lodged him in a comfortable outhouse across the field from the maternity home. Pippa and Slim said they would visit him as often as they could. The convent was only a three mile trek from the Alpha-Omega Academy. Dreyfus enjoyed peering through the window and counting the sheep.
On the very last day of July 2013, the three elderly counts, Balthazar, Melchior, and Caspar sailed
into the Old Harbour on the Isle of Livermore on the medieval barque Saint Leviticus. Also on board were six abundantly cute Cnupian slave girls bearing garlands of flowers, baskets of fruit, and placards inscribed in purple paint with the message 'The Messiah is Coming'.
The Isles of Livermore and Los Alamos are connected by a granite causeway along which the Playful Giants of Moohaha were said to have once trod. The Saint Leviticus moored alongside the ornate jetty at the western end of the causeway during the students' lunch break. While most of the Coxbridge undergraduates were enjoying a square meal in Clinton Hall, a dozen or so snooty students were lounging on the harbour wall munching their smashed avocado Byron burgers (apart from an uncouth chav from Immingham-under-Lyme was sitting on the ground choking on his vomit).
When the skimpily dressed slave girls attempted to tie the sheets to the bollards, the rude fellows cracked obscene jokes and broke out into raucous laughter. To add insult to insult, a chav from Cheam-on-the-Tiber, long since addicted to Neck Lick, staggered onto the jetty and pinched one of the slave-girls au milieu de ses fesses. She wriggled in delight, and gave the saucy chav a bunch of bananas.
While the wise counts were disembarking, the slave girls ran eagerly forward with their baskets of fruit, and distributed apples, peaches, and pears to everybody on the quayside. Consequently, a huge throng of hungry students had gathered on that auspicious spot by the time the three counts mounted the Steps of the Empress Trimontia, waving their placards and in preparation to speak.
Balthazar held his hands aloft like the a prophet on the summit of Mount Sinus, and bellowed,"As many of you will be aware, the Eternal Messiah is currently cruising through the Quanta-Universe on the Space-Station Castellos with most of our other divine entities on board, including Jahweh, Asherah, and Hecate. Based on our soundings of the subliminal gravity waves and our studies of the ancient scriptures, we predict that His Magnificence is about to manifest himself as a humanoid child for the tenth time since Creation. We moreover predict that this, our beloved tenth Christ-child will be born on Qinsatorix during the forthcoming double eclipse. Jahweh has advised me in a dream that we should call the child Joshua."
"Wet dream, more likely," shrieked a pretty raven-head with pig-tails.
"You sound like my bloody-minded Stats professor," howled a shaggy-bearded student, who was leaning precariously against a lamp-post. "I've never heard such a collection of crass nonsense in my entire life."
"May Jahweh strike you down with thunderbolts from the Crimson Cube of Heaven!" roared Count Melchior, ponderously rising to his feet. "We have now seen silver shards in the Northern Lights on three successive evenings. The Silver Cometron of Lilith is coming to get you."
"I hope that Jonny heard that!" retorted the hairy student. "Beware the Apollo Crows, darling, or they'll slit your throat to the sinews, rip out your bulging thyroid, and grind your tonsils to mincemeat."
"More to the point," interjected the hundred-and-ten-year old-Count Caspar, trying hard not to wet his pants. "The Silver Cometron will lead us to the immaculately conceived Christ-child and his thrice blessed mother."
"Immaculately conceived?" chortled a maiden in a cotton dress. "I can tell you all about immaculately conceived. It takes a good shag to achieve an immaculate conception."
"Mothers of the Christ-child are invariably virgins at conception, since they would not otherwise give birth to the Christ-child," Count Caspar primly replied. "We predict that the tenth Christ-child will be born somewhere in the Archipelago of the Shiners, and we'll refine our spatio-temporal prediction during the days ahead."
"So what if the frigging brat is the Christ-child?" inquired a chav in a scruffy tracksuit, with a loud burp.
"He'll sort you wasters out, for a start," snarled Count Balthazar, "and he'll bring sweetness and light to the whole of this planet."
An uptight Professor of Moral Philosophy wearing a deerstalker threw his Sherlock pipe in the air in dismay."Presumably with the help of the licentious frog who's Archbishop of Madron?" he growled. "Your Messiah will take us back to the days of the creepy-crawly Roman Catholics with all their Sodoms, Gomorrahs, and evil Jerusalems. Begone with you! Get off this island or I'll bleep the Apollo Viper proctors and ask them to bring out the multi-fanged Vlad hounds!"
Jonny Mack, the leader of the exceedingly far right Scarlet Order, smiled grimly as the three old counts fled in utter disarray to their sailing barque.
"Go track 'em in the war canoe, Minion Alpha," commanded the homely Apollo Crow, "and take three further minions with you."
"Indubitably, Master," replied the servile Apollo Crow to his right (who was also a student of Anthropology). "I'll put the battle-axes in the bilge."
"And my knife!"
Pippa and Slim arrived at the Convent of the Sacred Crown on 1st. August 2713, planning to stay in the draughty guest dorm until the birth of Tamzin Eradacus's and Dreyfus Dreadnought's babies. Tamzin was staying in an expensive ground floor room with a lovely view of the River Foss. When Pippa and Slim visited Tamzin for the first time, the nuns brought Dreyfus , now great with child, in on a wheelchair. His quarters, in an annex close to the Foss that resembled a large stable, were much less palatial. The donkeys who poked their heads through the windows didn't help,
Tamzin was even greater with child, and she confided to her three chums that she was expecting twins. However, she expressed concern as to how long her husband would allow her to keep them. When Pippa asked her whether her husband knew there would be twins, she said that he didn't, but she seemed embarrassed when Pippa asked her why she hadn't told him. Slim looked more than a touch embarrassed too. So Pippa decided not to delve deeper.
Dreyfus said that he was planning to take his baby to live with his parents in Angervast, but that he would return to Alpha-Omega at the beginning of the forthcoming academic year. He'd heard that Sir Alistair Sunkist wanted absolutely nothing to do with his love-child.
The four friends were relaxing over mugs of hot goats' milk and a platter of strawberry scones, when Pippa noticed Dreyfus looking lovingly in her direction. That reminded her of their enjoyable romp during the Spring Break in their hotel on the Isle of Mainau. And then a feeling of dread suddenly filled Pippa's psyche. What if ?---No that would be impossible!---We were only fooling around. I'm a girl! I'm a girl! I'm a girl when all's said and done! ---Those silly bits and pieces I was born with have absolutely nothing to do with it!
The teenagers were munching their toffee crunches, when the mother superior came in with a pretty Apollo Crow novice nun with a curved orange beak and a sadly deformed left claw.
"I'd like to introduce you to Jezebel, guys," announced the kindly Apollo Lizard. "She's just arrived from the Isle of Los Alamos, and she'll be changing the nappies when the babies are born."
"I'm delighted to make your acquaintance, Jezebel," responded Tamzin, somewhat condescendingly. "We will be feeding our babies with rarefied dolphins' milk."
"How sweet," replied Jezebel, with a giggle. "I'm sure they'll be as sturdy as Romulus and Premus."
But Premus died of suffocation when he was suckled by an Apollo Wolf, realised Slim. Who is this bizzom?
Nevertheless, Slim blinked and fluttered his eyelashes. "You're remarkably lovely for an Apollo Crow. Thank you for feathering our nest."
Pippa didn't like the shape of that creature's beak.
The next morning, Tamzin received a disconcerting surprise during breakfast when two grumpy Icarian women in matching tweed trouser suits marched officiously into her luxurious en-suite bedroom.
The woman with ivory tusks for breasts opened her cardboard folder. "We're Q.I.A. agents, Mrs. Eradacus. Your husband has sent us from Trivoli because there's a medium level alert on Social Media regarding possible covert activities by the Scarlet Order. Most of the Order's Twitter activity is focused around this Archipelago. They're an extremely fascist organisation who hate trumped up Messiahs because they think they're likely to ferment grass-roots revolutions against the Divine Plutarchs. There's an infinitesimal chance that the Scarlet Order might suspect that the baby you're expecting is the tenth Christ-child, would you believe? So we're here as part of a safety net of highly experienced security personnel which will endeavour to protect you against all possible eventualities."
Tamzin raised her eyebrows at that, "Infinitesimal chance? All possible eventualities? What on earth are you rambling on about.?"
The hard-nosed, flat-chested harridan of an agent from Tiberius fingered her six-shooter. "There's no need to fly off the handle like a Basin Street bizzom, Mrs. Eradacus. Indeed, there's absolutely nothing to be concerned about. At the first sign of trouble, we'll whisk you and your baby into the Salvation Crypt, and then along a secret passage to the Castle of Saint Angelo on the north-east headland, where you will both be placed under the highly secure protection of the Nestorian High Pontiff''s Ostrich Guards and his Marlin Spike platoon, both very efficient outfits indeed."
I wouldn't want to bump into this pair of on a hard and frosty night, thought Tamzin. Maybe it would be best to lap up to them.
"I am so grateful to my dear husband," she simpered, "and to the Q.I.A. for so courageously coming to my assistance, but will my love-chum Dreyfus Dreadnought and his wonderfully intersectional baby be placed under your protection too?"
"Dreyfus? Sounds like a bloke. Who's the mother of his child?"
"He's the mother. He's a trans man, or a transgender male Apollo Unicorn to be precise."
"Really? Is that the bloke in the outhouse? The one with the wonky horn who spends his time reading Beano comics?"
"Yes, though he's more into Flash Jordan magazines."
"I'm surprised he wasn't sterilized during the Pogrom of 2710. But I suppose we could give the daft fellow basic level protection, if we can spare a moment."
"Thanks a million. Would you care for one of my hard-boiled eggs?"
And the Archangel Gabriel appeared to Dreyfus in a psychedelics-induced fantasy, holding the Holy Sword Caliburn aloft in his hoof-like fist.
"You are the Archangel of my dreams!" cried an ecstatic Voice.
"Thank you kindly, and a child will be born to you during the Double, or rather the Triple Eclipse, Blessed One," declared Gabriel, rubbing his crustaceous face. "He, the tenth and final humanoid manifestation of the Eternal Messiah,was conceived while you were a virgin. He will be born unto you in one of the multi-faceted images of the Creator God. His name will be Joshua. and he will be called wonderful. And you will go forth into the Universe as the Blessed Mother of the Christ-child, and you will seek to save all living beings from the wretched plutarchs, the confounded Shiners, and the insane ruling oligarchies that threaten humanoidkind, the birds, the animals, and nature itself."
"But how will I do that?" asked the Voice. "Show me the way."
"Go to the Inner Moon to escape the vipers and serpents that encircle you here. Recover from your ills in Angervast, and the single-breasted Battle Goddess Hippolyta will guide you further on behalf of Yahweh and Asherah, the two pansexual god-heads entwined in one."
"I hope that I prove worthy of the Living God, the group consciousness of all sentient beings." said the Voice.
"I'm sure you will. This Holy Sword, the thrice-blessed Caliburn, will be given unto you, to lead the fight. Now go in peace."
The Aton Sunstar rose in the mottled, bright maroon west at 6 a.m Trivoli mean-time on the 3rd. August 2713, as the green, brown, and red coloured, highly cultivated Inner Moon slowly traversed the sky from the north-west, and the smaller, whitish-yellow Outer Moon came limply from the south-west. By mid-morning the crowds were gathering in the streets, and partying in the town squares and on the hilltops, in anticipation of viewing the double eclipse of the moons and the Sunstar at precisely 12.34 p.m.
In Trivoli, the Capitol Octagon was absolutely teeming, and images of the Sunstar and moons from the Interstellar Space Station Miranda were projected onto an immense Qinview screen. The Qinview commentators were spewing their shit before the cock-a-doodle had a chance to crow thrice.
Such were the combined gravitational forces of the moons, that both Tamzin Eradacus and Dreyfus Dreadnought went into labour, on the Isle of Caleb, at precisely 7.14 a.m. The three homo erectus Sisters of Charity in the run-down outhouse where Dreyfus was staying had gone fishing in their coracles on the Foss, and when they returned with enough salvo-smout and wrasse for breakfast they heard Dreyfus moaning and groaning and promptly hurried to his bedside with an All Bran poultice and a gallon-size flagon of Guinness.
Meanwhile, Tamzin was well looked after in her plush room in the convent by two experienced Apollo Giraffe nuns. Jezebel, the shifty Apollo Crow novice nun who'd recently arrived from the Isle of Los Alamos, was also a member of her team. Pippa and Slim spent the morning criss-crossing the field between the convent and the outhouse to encourage their two pregnant friends, while dodging the sheep and the occasional goat. When a shepherd with long white whiskers told them to 'buzz off',Slim got angry and trod on his foot. Unfortunately, a passing goatherd got in the way and the elderly Neanderthal gave the silly Apollo Newt a thick, mushy green ear.
At back of eleven, the Qinview commentators went utterly ballistic. The magical space station Castellos had flashed momentarily onto their screen, as if out of a Professor What movie.
"I almost thought that the divinities were about to descend on us," spluttered Wimpy Wilbur.
"Now that would have been fascinating," enjoined Silky Sue, recovering her senses. "The central core is the size of a small moon and contains hundreds of Life-Creation labs, and the divinities live in the surrounding eight asteroid-sized capsules, which are connected to the core by titanium space corridors that also contain the living quarters of the thousands of quanta-scientists."
"Thank goodness the bloody thing is still in the Quanta-Universe," opined the Qinview resident eugenicist, the much celebrated Apollo Bear David Mount Batten-Burger, unruffling the shaggy hair on his abdomen. "They're always trying to invent crass new species."
And then, just as Batten-Burger was pigging into his proverbial pheasant sandwich, the Space Station Castellos flipped back into the Red Trojan Universe, several hundred miles immediately above the City of Lanterns. It spiralled down below cloud cover, spitting purple sparks of fire, and remained stationary for fully three minutes, emptying its sludge tanks, before spinning off into orbit. The crowds in the Capitol Octagon went frantic, and Silky Sue squealed like a Silesian Siren. The gravitational effects caused several dozen of the children to leap in the air, but fortunately nobody, apart from a stupid gremlin from Spitting Sodbury, broke their ankle.
The silver shards in the northern skies grew more intense, and the three wise counts sailed south, along the fairy-tale eastern coasts of Fantasia and Lismore. When they reached Tawi Sound, Melchior looked ahead through his telescope.
"I do believe that is where the Silver Cometron of Lilith will focus is rays," he pronounced. "It's known in post-modern times as the Isle of Caleb."
"Goody gumdrops", replied the ageless Caspar. "It's almost time for my tea."
At that very time, the Apollo Crow Jonny Mack and six other members of the far right Scarlet Order were toiling away in their canoe about ten miles south-east of Caleb. They were tracked for a while by a frigate out of the naval base in Drumkok and Mack received secret instructions from a corrupt Planetary Security Agency official who was on board
"We'll catch the dumb human broad in her bed," declared Mack, "and cut of her feckin Christ-child's silly head. I'll do it with my very own knife." His six chums sniggered at that. And nobody even made a joke about Smack the Knife.
At 12.15 p.m., the Apollo Lizard mother superior came into Tamzin's room, and read from the Holy Scriptures: "So humanoids were created in the image of the intersex God; in the image of God were all sentient beings created; of all genders and orientations did God create them, and they will thus be created until the Omega and judged at the Armageddon."
"And all sentient beings view their entire lives, as they happen, from the hereafter," continued the Apollo Crow novice nun Jezebel, with a flourish of her healthy right claw, "for the greater good of their future generations and of all humanoidkind."
"That's only in the Queen Theodora the Sixth version, Jezebel," reacted the mother superior, with a not-so-kindly smile.
At 12.20 p.m, Tamzin finally gave birth, to a tiny baby, who came head-first out of her mother's womb.
"It's a girl!" announced a hawk-eyed nun in a matronly apron, in glee.
"She's my daughter!" Slim proudly declared, rushing over.
"But it's got a pubie-shunter," interjected the slinky-eyed Jezebel, with a sly grin. "That makes it half-Icarian, So it can't be your daughter."
"I should hope not too," agreed the hawk-eyed nun, giving Slim a severe frown, and he felt suitably chastened. The two grumpy Q.I.A. agents also give Slim hard looks, and the flat-chested one split her eggnog down her tweed suit in sheer irritation.
By 12.30 p.m, the Outer Moon had rolled in front of the Aton Sunstar, leaving, for a brief moment, a circle of blazing golden light that illuminated the circumference of the intrusive moon like a crown of eternal glory. But the Inner Moon moved, in virtual synchronicity, across the entire face of the Outer Moon, and the whole of Trystonia and most of the Western Archipelagos immediately fell into darkness. Only the iconic red 'carrot-devils' atop of the Sunstar remained visible from behind the moons; some oddballs even wondered whether they were spiritual beings sending subliminal messages to Qinsatorix.
After an instant of spooky darkness, a truly monumental event occurred. The Space Station Castellos appeared from out of nowhere, flashing its amber silver lights, and positioned itself in front of the Inner Moon, where it remained stationary for several minutes. blocking even the view of the carrot-devils on the Sunstar. A Triple Eclipse had occurred, for only the second time in the history of Qinsatorix (the first time it happened, the noble, long-lamented Prince Crispus performed a quadruple orbit of the two moons, Castellos and Qinsatorix before meeting a tragic and grisly death while marching into Trivoli to confront the ruthless British colonialists. But that's another story!)
And then, the Silver Cometron of Lilith appeared in the northern skies, zooming downwards from the ionosphere in a hyperbolic arc. The crowds gasped in astonishment, and the priests and true believers wondered where the cometron was heading, and whether it would reveal where the Christ-child lay.
At that historical moment in time, the Apollo Unicorn Dreyfus gave birth to a perfectly delivered baby boy.
"I don't want to even look at him." declared Dreyfus. "He's Alistair Sunkist's bastard son, and he'll behave as badly as that evil Devil Incarnate."
"But he doesn't even have an orchadeus!" exclaimed a cherubic homo erectus nun in a chequered dress.
"Neither do I, darling!"
"But just look at that funny little thing! He must be half-human."
"In that case, I am the proud, transgender intersex father," declared Pippa, utterly besides herself in delight. "It must have been all that rolling around we did together, Dreyfus, on the Isle of Mainau."
"We Sisters call it tumbling," said the cherubic nun, with a seductive smile. "A mother superior in the Northern Territories once became great with child after tumbling in the loft with a novice nun who'd been snogging with a lad in a haystack. She was, of course, ceremoniously defrocked."
The baby finally opened his eyes. They were bright blue, just like Pippa's. Dreyfus hugged his new born son to his chest, and beamed the broad smiles of his childhood in his unadulterated ecstasy.
And Dreyfus's room was filled with holy white light as the Silver Cometron of Lilith focused its rays on the Convent of the Sacred Crown and the gardens and fields around it.
Guided by the cometron, the three wise counts had turned up the Foss at Fulford. On seeing that the rays of holy light were focusing on the convent they disembarked at a jetty close to the outhouse where Dreyfus and his love-child lay, but proceeded across the field, between the cowering sheep, to the main building, where seven Vestal Virgins greeted them and invited them inside,
In the meantime, Tamzin gave birth to a second baby daughter, which came, feet first and with an almighty struggle, out of her mother's womb.
"It's a girl!" announced the mother superior. "But, lo and behold! She's totally human. A female homo sapiens, just like her mother."
"That's because I'm the father!" declared Slim Quick puffing his chest.
"That makes you an adulterer!" shrieked the Q.I.A. agent with ivory tusks for breasts. "As the mother is well-married, that's a criminal offence, and it's punishable by death!"
"We'll throw you into the Tollbooth!" screeched the flat-chested agent. "Then they'll take you in a coffin to Trivoli and burn you in the Grassmarket like a horned witch."
The agents seized hold Slim, and were about to cuff him, when the three wise counts walked in, carrying bags of gold, frankincense and myrrh.
"We come to greet the Holy Christ-child," announced Balthazar, "and to anoint the mother and father of the child with the Holy Oil of St. Clotilde of Constanta."
A conveniently-timed distraction that enabled Slim to escape into the woods---
"I'm the father!" shrieked Slim, breaking free from his captors.
"But there are two babies," observed Melchior, looking mighty confused, as Slim vanished through the quarter-pane window. "Which of them is the Christ-child?"
"Heaven knows!" replied Balthazar, looking perplexed. "What do you think, Caspar?"
"I don't have a clue," replied the inane old dodderer.
"Neither of them, you idiots," declared the mother superior. "They're both girls. The Christ-child, if humanoid, is always a boy. Christ-otters and Christ-penguins can of course be any gender under the Sun."
"Whoops!" said Balthazar. "I'm really sorry, folk. We seem to have come to the wrong place."
Jezebel laughed out loud. "Why don't you try the cabin down by the Foss? A clumsy Apollo Unicorn bloke is trying to give birth to a bairn there. It'll probably look like a horned donkey."
"Thank you," replied Balthazar, regaining some of his dignity. "We'll drop by there on our way back to our sailing barque."
"Hold your horses, guys!" interjected senile old Caspar. "The holy light from the cometron also accords divine status to these baby girls. According to ancient statute, they should be called Holy Magdalenes. It is incumbent upon us to anoint them as such."
Melchior scratched the mole on the top of his bald head. "Too true, Caspar. You're not completely useless. Now the last Holy Magdalene was called Naomi. So the first born of these babies will be called Martha and the second born will be called Mary."
And Mary and Martha Magdalene were consequently anointed with Frankincense and bathed in Bubbly Bubbly oil.
When the three wise men arrived at the outhouse by the river, the cherubic nun let them in. And there they discovered Dreyfus's new-born horned son lying in a Moses basket, under the admiring gaze of two squirrels and a chipmunk, not to forget his Apollo Unicorn mother, and his human father Pippa. Caspar pressed a button on his waist-mobile, and a golden halo suddenly miraculously appeared, hovering over the child's head.
"All hail to Joshua, Messiah of Qinsatorix!" cried Balthazar, falling to his knees.
"All hail to the Christ-child. Son of the living God, conceived by a virgin!" cried Melchior, collapsing to the floor.
"Here's the loot!" cried Caspar, handing Dreyfus the bags of gold, frankincense and myrrh,
And the shepherds and goat-herds came in from the fields, and the fishermen came from the river. And the homo erectus nuns served free eggnog for one and all.
The three wise counts were long gone, and having some fun with a big woolly sheep in a meadow. But the less said about that misadventure the better.
.
When the Apollo Crow Jonny Mack and his six Scarlet Order colleagues moored at the Sacred Crown jetty, they headed straight for the Convent, seized two Vestal Virgins, and, with knives at their throats, demanded to know where the Christ-child lay. Pippa was returning from the outhouse to the convent at that very moment. She rushed straight in through the French windows and warned Tamzin to depart with her babies in haste. This Tamzin immediately did, with the help of the two tough-minded Q.1.A. agents, and within a few minutes they were all safe and secure in the Castle of Saint Angelo, under the protection of the Nestorian High Pontiff himself, and closely guarded by his Apollo Ostriches..
But the spiteful Apollo Crow novice nun Jezebel rushed out of Tamzin's room through the French windows to snitch to Jonny Mack in the entrance-way of the convent,
"The Christ-child is in that outhouse," shrieked Jezebel, pointing the way with her deformed left claw. "He's the little horned devil with the dumb unicorn for a mother."
Pippa heard what the turncoat nun said, and sprinted towards the outhouse to warn Dreyfus. But Jonny Mack caught up with Pippa and knocked her unconscious with a single blow to the head from the flat blade of his battle axe.
Moments later, Dreyfus heard a terrifying banging on the door of his log-cabin.
"Bring out the Christ-child and his scumbag of a mother!" roared Jonny Mack.
"Death to the Christ-child," howled Mack's six comrades-in-arms, in ghoulish unison."Death to all first-born males! Death to the Holy Virgin Mother! Death! Death! Death!"
The cherubic nun Fortuna seized Joshua and hurried through the back door, with the tiny baby in her arms, while five other Sisters of the Sacred Crown ran to Dreyfus's defence. But when Jonny Mack burst in, he chased after Fortuna and Joshua, while his companions hacked the courageous nuns to pieces with their recently sharpened axes.
When Fortuna reached the shore of the Foss she threw Joshua into her fishing coracle, and was about to jump in too, when she saw Mack coming. She therefore jumped into the water and pushed the coracle as hard as she could into the fast flowing current. But Mack leapt in to the Foss after her. When Fortuna punched him in the face, he decapitated her with a single swing of his mighty battle axe, and her head flew up into the air and down into the sludge.
Mack lost his balance during the struggle, and by the time he'd saved himself from going under, Joshua had escaped way downstream in the coracle. By divine providence, Joshua was saved just west of Fulford, by a perceptive blacksmith out fishing for trout. The blacksmith took the Christ-child home with his catch, and took care of the baby for a while with the help of his shrewish wife.
Jonny Mack was in a sour mood indeed when he returned, semi-conscious, to the cabin, and he and his evil colleagues turned on poor Dreyfus Dreadnought in spite. Mack blinded Dreyfus's right eye with a thrust of his knife, and cut off his left ear with an Apollo Potato buddy's curved sword, whereupon two Apollo Griffins from Petraeus severed Dreyfus's arms with blows from their axes, and pierced his chest with a steel lance.
"Fuck you, bitch!" howled Mack, while he and the six other terrorists were departing with the gold and frankincense, leaving the myrrh for Dreyfus. The Holy Virgin Mother was left writhing in bewildered agony on the concrete floor, heading for Purgatory.
The other Vestal Virgins came out of the convent, and strangled the turncoat crow Jezebel to death. She spewed venom while she choked.
Please click here for
CHAPTER 9: LIFE AT COXBRIDGE AND LOS ALAMOS
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