As I have told you at prolix length, for my talent is meagre, and with many a groan and tear of compunction, the Faction of the Right Bastards had taken control of the Palace of the Queen of the Angles, Saxons, Britons, Picts and Scots, under the leadership of Boris son of John. Their battle cry had been to ‘Get the Rebellion Done’ and so it had come to pass that the kingdom had broken away from the Western Empire. The rebellion itself, however, had originally been fomented by Count Nigellus the Fool, whose many ludicrous deeds have already been recounted in my narration. Now that the rebellion had succeeded, however, Nigellus found himself at a loose end, as they say, and so began to wander the land searching here and there for a new cause that would keep the chroniclers of the realm interested in his empty-headed opinions and pronouncements, for he was a man of limitless vanity and lust for gold.

At first, such was his desperation, that he enlisted himself in the service of a guild which bore the name of Cameo. This produced a certain alarm for there were those who for some reason believed that this portended the sight of Nigellus singing and dancing about in a codpiece of scarlet hue but by the grace of the Lord and, I imagine, the intervention of Saint Martin, this did not come to pass. Now, as the works of learned men will tell you, a cameo is a small portrait incorporated in some item or other of jewelry. I wondered why any man or woman would wish to bear about their person  the likeness of Count Nigellus who was abnormally wide of mouth and resembled nothing so much as a frog, although admittedly it is the Lord who has made us as we are. As it turned out, though, this Cameo was a service by which people could pay for a famous person to make a short oration to some other person of their choosing. Indeed, I later discovered that my foolish deacon Agiulf had paid three gold solidi to have Venantius Fortunatus read out one of his poems about prunes to Bishop Ragnemod of Paris, which he seemed to think was an enormous jape, but let that be enough of the frivolous deeds of deacons. Be that as it may, Nigellus appeared standing in a tree and spouting his usual nonsense. This seems not to have replenished the count’s coffers, which surprised none, but thus do the worldly schemes of men come to nothing.

The next thing Nigellus did was to go down to the beaches on the south coast of the kingdom of the Anglo-Saxons and Others. There he would chronicle the arrival of poor people who had fled the wars of the Levant and elsewhere and had bravely struggled across the sea in small boats to try to find safety in Britannia. Nigellus fumed and raged at these wretches and likened them to a great invasion of the realm although in truth there were barely a few hundred over the course of a year. This too failed to garner him the attention he craved and indeed if anything it merely made him the object of yet greater mockery. In the end, even the wickedness of his ideas was stolen from him by Pritigund, the Countess of Domestic Affairs, who surpassed everyone in cruelty. I shall say more of this in a later chapter. Once again, then, Nigellus found his hopes dashed and he went away gnashing his misshapen teeth. He even hired himself out to another guild like Cameo, this time called Horrores or as they chose to spell it in some barbarous fashion, Horrorez. Again, Nigellus could be paid to read out some foolish statement. Such was his lack of shame. Indeed if he made any money it was mostly through people getting him to say foolish or offensive things – without his understanding – and become an object of ridicule. At one point, without realising it, he was made to make statement to the men of Ulster in support of their mortal enemies, the Exercitus Hibernicus Republicanus, which caused scandal and mockery in equal measure. Such was the vanity of this man.

Now, as it happened, a new chronicle had been launched, called the Res Novae Magnae Britanniae, modelled on the Res Novae Vulpi of the North Aremoricans and aimed at the same audience of worthless sinners and good-for-nothings who supported Donald Dux and Boris son of John. This chronicle was launched by a wiry-haired Pict called Brillo, a chronicler of many years’ experience and some considerable notoriety. However, the Res Novae MB as it was called proved to be such a haunt of fools and ne’er-do-wells that even Brillo was shocked and left. For among its chroniclers Res Nova MB included another Pict called Oliver, formerly a Watcher of the Coast. Before that he had dug holes in old forts and battlefields and had found there objects related to armies and warriors, which he seemed to think was a great surprise. Now he had taken to wearing a Croatian Tie, or Cravat as it is called, and spewing forth nonsense about how the plague was a myth. Another chronicler was a puer [a young retainer – ed.] simply called The Grimy One. This one had been fined an enormous wergild for illegally raising money to support the rebellion, but had managed to avoid paying by arguing that he was too stupid to be able to understand the law. Yet now he thought people would be interested in his opinions and – such were the sins of the people – some were. Mostly though he was well-known for his disgusting and sinful habit of self-abuse in public places. Thus was the state of Res Novae MB and why Brillo left it and treated it thereafter with contumely.

As a result, the people who followed this chronicle dwindled in numbers to a small band of fools, not counting a larger number who followed it in order to laugh at the chroniclers. After the departure of Brillo the Pict, the men who ran the chronicle decided for some reason to employ Count Nigellus. In this way they hoped to increase the numbers who followed the chronicle, although as it turned out the numbers decreased even further. Nonetheless, Nigellus saw this as a great step towards restoring his dwindling fortunes.