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A prompt response for ~ Inspiration Monday: Infernal Epistles
THE INFERNAL EPISTLES according to the BARD
by John Yeo
The Bard sat at his writing desk and began to write another play. This would be
the most fiendish, frightening, fantastic play he had ever put his name to.
Just as he had sharpened the nib on his favourite quill pen, there was an unruly din from the ground below. Someone was knocking vigorously on his door and shouting his name raucously. He recognised the familiar tones of his good friend and fellow playwright Kit. He opened the window quickly and shouted; “Hold fast Kit, I’ll come and join you!”
Leaping down the stairs two at a time the Bard opened the door gingerly, the busy muddy path was thronged with people going about their business. His good friend Kit stood way back from the rickety house grinning all over his face. “Greetings Bard, I come to tear you away from your dubious scribing. Let us retire to the nearest ale house and consume vast quantities of good sack.”
“An offer too good to refuse Kit, Let’s go!“
The two friends were soon in a popular local hostelry, quaffing flagons of sack together, toasting the success of the Bard’s last phenomenal production.
“What are you working on now Bard?” asked Kit
“The play is almost complete Kit, based on a number of scrolls that have come into my possession, this is the story of an evil scribe, the good lady Agatha. She will be ruthless, cold-hearted, cold-blooded with no morals whatsoever, harsh with her friends; her enemies would rapidly become terminated, one way or another.
Lady Agatha is a woman with ambition to dominate: Her power and her control over the life and death of victims will be absolute. Lady Agatha will be in a position to raise people up to the heights, then smash them back to earth. Without the slightest compunction whatsoever, Kit.” said the Bard excitedly.”
“Zounds! Where did these scrolls come from? How did you get hold of them?”
“The scrolls were recovered from a cellar beneath the infamous Bedlam asylum. They are so full of mysterious ritualistic killing and unhealthy feelings of murder and mayhem. They could become a blight on future generations, indeed they could become addictive and even popular. I obtained them on loan from a satanic priest who stole them from the archives. They are believed to be so dangerous that the Queen has ordered them to be burned. I have since learned that the thief has been hung drawn and quartered, and his head now resides on a pole above London Bridge.”
“Wow!” exclaimed Kit. “You must be in grave danger being in possession of these infernal epistles! You should be in hiding!”
At that precise moment, there was a commotion as a person whose face was obscured by his cloak lunged at the Bard with a knife. Kit turned and received a wound in the eye that killed him instantly. The Bard turned and made good his escape through the rear door of the hostelry before the constables arrived.
The Bard returned the epistles from whence they came.
History relates that the infernal epistles survived into the early twentieth century where they were updated and published by another famous Agatha, who became a well-known scribe. Controversy still rages over the content of the infernal epistles.
Copyright © Written by John Yeo ~ All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
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