It had only just cut the cheese when Sir Broderick stirred that next day. He didn’t stir as much as he spat, though.

Sir Broderick had passed out face first in a pile of horse shit. As soon as his liver had processed enough alcohol for his mind to regain some standard of functioning he realized what had happened and retched up in disgrosst. This spooked the horse he’d fallen asleep next to, inspiring it to whinny and neigh and kick back its hind legs, which smacked Sir Broderick in the gut. He went soaring backwards into a tree with a thwump, crumpling and then laying on his side in a nauseous heap.

“I do say so sirrah, that was, that was quite unbecoming of you,” he muttered to the horse, or to himself, it wasn’t really clear.

Through a great effort, Sir Broderick forced his eyes to focus on something, anything. The something they focused on was two elderly teeth laying in the muck beside him.

“What the clucking hen! This behoofed fiend hath pulled my teeth!”

Sir Broderick, fueled by the impudent rage of a hungover knight with a saucepan for a helmet, pulled himself together and trudged up to the Belligerent Bar-D.

He jiggled the ratted doorknob. It was locked. He jiggled it some more. Nothing. He raised both his fists.

BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG

“Open the hen up! Open, I say!”

BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG

The door creaked open lightly, and Sir Broderick knew at once he had made a mistake.

It was the eyes of the woman who answered that made it clear to him what was happening. Her beady, souless eyes. Her pupils, surrounded in the bright blue seas of her irises, were black as something that was black. Blacker than green beans for sure. Blacker than Sir Broderick’s mustache, because though he hated to admit it he was starting to go grey.

“Hello there sir. You wouldn’t have happened to be here last night, would you?”

Yes, it was her eyes that made it clear to Sir Broderick who and what she was and why she was there, and not the brilliantly shining armor that put his assembled trash outfit to shame. It was not the long, metal skirt she wore from her hips to the bottoms of her ankles like a winsome yet prudish member of a church choir, and it was not her clipboard full of papertwerk. It was those cold, blue eyes, looking at him with piercing determination and a honed accuracy that made Sir Broderic feel absolutely naked before her if he focused on them too long.

“Oh. Excrete me missirrah, erhm, offic-her, I didn’t realize you were conducting an execution.”

“Investigation, sir. Can I get your name?”

“Indeed. I am Sir Broderick the Shitfaced.”

She took note of the horse shit on his face. “I see that. Now, can you remember anything about last night, Sir the Shitfaced?”

“You can call me Sir Broderick, missirrah.”

“No, I cannot. Government policy. No first names. Can you remember anything about last night, Sir the Shitfaced?”

“Well. I was doing a bit of drinking, as any knight is wont to do.”

She scribbled quickly. “Not any knight. Continue.”

“Well I was doing a bit of drinking and wouldn’t you know it—”

“I would not know it, that is why I am asking you.”

“It’s a figure of speech.”

“Noted.”

“So I was doing a bit of drinking—”

“You’ve mentioned that three times now.”

“Can you please stop interrupting me missirrah?”

She did not respond.

“Hello? Please? Missirrah?”

She blinked, writing notes down.

“Excrete me missirrah but I’m not sure what’s going on.”

“You asked me not to interrupt you. I was obliging. Would you rather I start interrupting you again?”

“I’d rather we have a normal conversation!”

“Lovely weather we’re having today.”

“Excrete me?”

“I said lovely weather we’re having today. Look at the suns rise,” she said, pointing to the twin suns rising over the whoreizon.

“I’m not sure what that has to do with the question you asked me.”

“It doesn’t at all. I was just having a normal conversation with you.”

“Look. Can we just try all this again?”

“Sure,” she said, jotting a final note and flipping over to a fresh sheet of paper. Then she produced a small bottle from a sack on her hip. “Not sure why you were using the royal we but here it is. It’s great for chainmail rash. If you wanted it for that.”

Sir Broderick looked at the bottle, befuddled. It read: ALL THIS AGAIN.

“Excrete me missirrah?”

“That’s ‘All This Again.’ It’s a designer level skin moisturizer specifically for the knight on the go. I always keep a spare bottle with me. For emergencies.”

“Well I’ll be hammed. Would you like me to tell you what I remember from last night now?”

“Please, Sir the Shitfaced. I’ve been waiting.”

“So I’d had a few. Hen. More than a few, if we’re toodling our whoopsies. And this great old lug from way back when saunters over to me and gives me the business about what what and wanting to swab my head in the old outhouse for old time’s sake. Of course, I was unwilling to oblige, which made him rather cross, so I took my leave to go for a gamble. Then, I sat upon this rather disappointing chair at a table of the nastiest looking mothers I’d probably ever seen. I mean these fellows were the grisle’s grisle if you know what I mean. That is to say even if you liked chewing on grisle, that is to say even if you were a right grisle connosuer this lot was far, far too gristly for you and you would have immediately spit them out all over the floor and demanded a discount on your meal.”

“Sirrah, were you eating a steak or were you gambling with a bunch of ugly pregnant women?”

“Pregnant women? Who said anything about pregnant women? And why on Gurth would they be ugly?”

The women referred to her notes. “It says here that you sat at a table with and I quote ‘the nastiest looking mothers’ you’d ever seen.”

“Ehrm, that’s a figure of speech, missirrah.”

“Come again?”

Sir Broderick smirked, unable to help himself. “No I’d rather not once is quite enough for me.”

“Excrete me, sirrah?”

“Just a joke.”

They squabbled back and forth not unlike a couple of chickens for the remainder of the sunrise, managing to not progress through Sir Broderick’s story at all, which was comforting to him as he had significant holes in his memory. Eventually, the conversation fizzled out, browning like butter in a skillet, and they said their hoodbyes.

“Well that does it for me missirrah. Hood luck catching the skyrates!”

An icy look, icier than the woman’s normal icy look, hen, a frostbitten look, pierced through Sir Broderick’s soul as he said the word ‘skyrates.’

“Skyrates? Who said anything about skyrates?”

“Surely that’s why you’re here, no?”

“I just checked my notes. Not once did I mention skyrates. Yet here you are, talking about them. You were not privy to any information mentioning skyrates. I did not divulge any such information to you. You must be involved.”

“Well if you would have just let me tell my squacking story then—” Sir Broderick gave pause, realizing that he did not remember the rest of his story, or even how he knew about the skyrates.

She stood at attention, pensive, sizing Sir Broderick up like he was but a feeble groundhog. He looked around for his donkey, to see if he could make an escape.

“Oh, cockhammit! They took my ass!” he cried in fury.

Cooly, the woman reached behind her back and produced a loaded crossbow.

“Woah now. Woah. What’s going on, missirrah?”

She attempted to refer to her notes with her left hand. “I have already taken note of the existence of your ass. It is from what I can tell fully intact, and attached to you in the correct region of your body. Surely you have cobbled together the flimsiest excuse you possibly could for knowing skyrates visited here last half passed-gas. Short of being a skyrate yourself, that is, which all circumstantial evidence points to.”

“Did you just say you took notes about my ass? Have you been checking me out? Let me see those notes!” Sir Broderick warbled, oblivious to her accusation. He reached uncoordinately for the notepad, almost falling forward as she snatched it away.

“That is classified information.”

“It’s my ass! You can’t classify my own ass from me!”

Sir Broderick took another slovenly lurch forward, this time managing to trip and push the woman onto her back. He grabbed the notepad with a loud squelch out of the mud and looked over her notes.

“Why in Gourd’s name…you’ve been standing here drawing me naked the whole time! Four pages of this shit there is! I don’t have that much body hair and I have significantly more moles than you’ve estimated! What are you doing?”

Even on her back in the mud, she remained fully composed, almost robotically so. “If you must know, I am a budding figure drawer. All the real notes are in my mind, but the figures help me call upon them. It’s been cleared by the knight academy long ago, if you’re worried about legality. I do things strictly by the book.”

“Clearly. I mean, do you seriously think I could pose like that?”

She stood back up, pointing the crossbow at Sir Broderick. “It’s beside the point. You’re coming with me, skyrate.”