Chapter 10

Lord Chalfont and Warwick Hunt.

Golf originated on Uranus of that there is no doubt.

The Gods have researched this to a great extent. Horus and the Whore of Babylon spent many a lifetime looking into the origins of the game. It is played throughout the Known Universe and on some of the places hidden in the dark matter, but the two ignoble researchers are quite adamant that such a small ball hitting pastime could only originate amongst the Mythical Beings of Uranus. What other pastime allows for the possibility of losing your balls in water, getting dropped into sand or having to search for them in the rough. They even noted that Kipling painted his balls orange so he could find them if it was snowing.

But that´s another story.

Lord Chalfont loved to play golf which sort of sums him up really.

He was enjoying teaching his apprentice, Warwick Hunt, the finer points of the game. Warwick Hunt tried his best to please the Boss but became quite confused from the original concept of the game. He could handle a club, was good at driving, chipping, using a sand wedge and putting for a birdie. It gave him great delight whenever Chalfont told him he had a bogey. He just could not see the point of why anyone would want to do it. Lord Chalfont would give his little condescending smile when challenged on this point, then he would emphasise that useful as Warwick Hunt was, he just didn’t have the correct breeding to understand and empathise with the game.

“In fact it isn’t a game, it’s a way of life,” said the patronising flunky.

Warwick Hunt felt it was more a way of death by boredom; however he held his peace and had reduced his handicap to fifteen which is quite impressive for a creature that is half man, half lard.

So we return to this day of days with Lord Chalfont coming back to the Great Castle with his trusty half-being Warwick Hunt and tried to catch up on the news. Chalfont always liked to admire the Castle with its Great Walls and Ceilings and Great Big Fat King Innocent. The Lord Chalfont requested and was granted an audience with the Odious Monarch.

Innocent was fond of small talk, explaining when he could about the joys of buying new socks and undies, eating Fairy Cakes and Jam doughnuts. He also loved to talk about his feet and how many he had. Chalfont noted every day that the King had the allotted number of two feet but granted the Fat Fool the pleasure in pointing out he had two feet ‘and not just on my legs’ he would wink.

Innocent then asked about his golfing game and how was the mysterious Warwick Hunt getting along.

Yes he’d had a great time on the links, yes he’d beaten Warwick Hunt despite the vastly differing handicaps and yes he had partaken of a nerve calmer at the nineteenth.

But what had been going on in Setebos while he had been away?

Innocent looked innocent and said “Fecked if I know. I´ve been asleep and eating.”

It was then left for Chalfont to call in his spies from around the Castle and around the City. He learnt there were rumours of the Trolls trying for independence yet again and vowed to send Warwick Hunt on another mission of suppression; he heard of the exploits of a Pixy called Stanley who had inadvertently drunk far too much cherry brandy and had found himself astride a pretty young Pixy lady – he noted the name and kept it for future use; he found out about a deal between a couple of Gnomes to make a little bit of money on the side from selling Jam covered Pancakes to visitors – risky as the Jam could still be hot when eaten and the Orcs could find out about the Financial Scam and intervene fatally; he discovered a plot of land that could come up for sale soon and make him a quick profit if he made the right move right here right now; and he heard about the hairy arsed Pixy who had disappeared on a Quest into the wild, taking the gorgeous Fairy Hanny with him.

Chalfont was horrified.

Fairy Hanny gone from the Castle!

This was too much!

Lord Chalfont is a very respectable Fairy who comes from a very old family of Very Respectable Fairies. He could trace his ancestry back to a Time before Time, when few records were kept and cassettes had not been invented – which is quite an achievement if you don’t have internet access. The Chalfont’s had been part of court life since Time immemorial and the day before that too, always there to give advice and point the various Kings in the right direction. In fact the Chalfont family felt it was they who held the true power on Uranus. Without Chalfont’s, Uranus would be totally different place, though probably a much more relaxed Place in Space.

The present Lord Chalfont was Very Respectable, Right and Proper and Dead Good in his role, but he did have a little bit of a soft spot for Hanny. In fact there were times when he felt he had a hard spot for Hanny too, what with long legs and buxomness. He liked to think she was in the Palace as his Icon of Beauty, the loveliest and most beautiful and sexy Fairy in the Palace. Of course he could never mention this to lady Chalfont or the Old Trout would convert his scrotum into a night cap. Now he found she had gone from his presence with a tender arsed tart stealing Pixy, into the wilds and possibly to her death. This filled the good Lord with a rage that threatened to overflow into a bucket full of rhetoric.

“Warwick Hunt, come here!” commanded the angry Lord. “They’ve taken my baby away and I want my baby back!”

Warwick Hunt listened intently to the wailings of his love-struck Lord. He slowly pushed the ideas around his atrophied intellect, till coming to a conclusion.

“Goodness Gracious Lord Chalfont. You are a happily married Fairy. Why are you so enamoured of the buxom Hanny? You know you can never have her as long as you wish to keep your status within the community. Dallying outside of a monogamous relationship is frowned upon, all be it in a terribly hypocritical way. I know sometimes Philandering Politicians manage to get away with it but you are a Fairy at the top of the tree so if you were caught giving Hanny a good seeing to you name would be Mud, rather than Chalfont.”

Chalfont mulled it over. He could remember the odd politico who got caught with his hands in the cookie jar and his knob in the PR specialist and still seemed to survive; though not for long. Usually the aggrieved party knew which skeleton to bring out of the closet and where all the bodies were buried, so to speak.

“If I can’t have her then nobody else can either,” seethed the seething Chancellor. “Find out as much as you can about this Peter the Pixy. Find out how he nicked the tarts. Did he have an accomplice? And what about the Goblin? Is it fit to be walking the lands in the company of a Fairy? And as for the Guarding Gnome, I’ll have his family removed from the Guard forthwith and thrown out onto the streets. They can make money from good old-fashioned work such as fishing from toadstools or shifting empty wheelbarrows, instead of enjoying the cushy status of standing by the Great West Gate with nothing to do all day! I’ll show them not to mess about with my Fairy Hanny!”

The obedient Warwick Hunt set to work immediately.

He summoned his team of Brownies, small imp like creatures who gained their name from the colour of their noses. The Court Brownies are the spies to the Court who are seldom caught in Court. They are also very loyal to Lord Chalfont. Warwick Hunt managed to get his four most trusted Brownies together – Don, Rhys, Jo and Dave had done much in the past to keep Chalfont happy, and were never afraid to embellish a story if it could have a negative effect on the subject of their snitching.

Warwick Hunt owed his continued existence and livelihood to the benevolence of Lord Chalfont and vowed to serve him all his days. It was a mutually beneficial arrangement. Warwick Hunt had a position of responsibility and a status at the higher echelons of society due to his association with Lord Chalfont, despite being a half creature; the Chancellor got a Senior Henchman to do his dirty work plus an instant source of lard should he be short when preparing a Saturday Morning fry up.