In the Land of Dumpling

Kingly Rudolph the VII-1/2 was feeling peeked as he awaited his emissary's return. The throne room was crowded with people clothed in all manner of flounce and frippery he didn't like, the weather was sunny and warm, which bothered him no end, and his children wanted what he wanted. That was intolerable. It was just another day in the kingdom of Dumpling.

With a great blast from trumpeters, the short and elegant emissary, Cuckles Vin Snort, returned from a mission to the land of East North Westerly South, over there somewhere. Cuckles had a Vin Dyke beard, long ears, a short nose, and a fine belly. His favourite food was Coq-au-Vin, and he liked to say with a wink, “Sometimes I vin, and sometimes I lose.” He dressed in purple and favoured sticks and gloves. He carried a tiny, ribbon wrapped box, an enormous brown scroll, and advanced on Rudolph. His men pulled a box that screeched of loose bungs as it passed over the yellow brick floor.

“Where have you been?” Rudolph demanded.

Cuckles was lowered to one knee and the opposite elbow, as protocol required. It helped the people learn balance. Cuckles rose, after counting one second for each of Rudolph's titles, numbering thirty. Rudolph engendered high hope in all the people, who highly hoped he wouldn't add more titles. “Why, your most Beautiful Beauty, I've been to East North Westerly South. I return, bearing a gift from they to you.”

“Only one?”

“A special one, I'm assured.”

“Bring.”

Cuckles approached and whispered, “I told them of your Perfected Palette. They assured me, this is worthy of your Exalted Self.”

“My palette?” Rudolph loved all tastes and textures: the greasy, the smooth, the tart, the crunchy, loved them so much he declared bacon lard, the bluest bleu cheese, garlic, toads, and others fine foods for him alone. The people must not have them!

“Give it to me, give it to me, give it to me,” Rudolph exclaimed. His courtiers watched everything he did, and didn't do. Cuckles opened the box. He hid its contents from the courtiers, who were not allowed to see anything important. Rudolph's bejewelled hand reached into the box. His rings clinked and clanged as he searched through the tiny thing, people began to yawn, and then, he pulled out a bean. Rudolph was so caught off guard by the odd thing that he exposed the bean to everyone to see, except the shortest, who saw the usual bums and bellies.

“It's a bean,” Rudolph glared at Cuckles. “Execute him.” His executioner jerked with a start.

Cuckles said soothingly, “Dear Beautificent One, this scroll contains instructions on how to prepare the gift.”

“Don't execute him!” Rudolph commanded, then said, “Give it to me, give it to me, give it to me!” Cuckles did and helped unscroll the roll.

Rudolph looked at thirty-one and a half sets of eyes peering his way. “What!!!” he screamed, “Are you looking at?" Everyone from spittle cleaner to spire washer turned away their flounced and fruffled heads. But the courtiers were practised in looking slyly, and did, as Rudolph read the scroll. It was indecipherable. “What does it say?” he demanded, glaring at Cuckles.

Cuckles perused the scroll, muttering, pointing, coughing, and harrumphing. In awe he said, “It's,” and he lowered his voice to a whisper, “A recipe.”

The assembled drew in a sudden breath, for their eyes were turned, but their ears were not. They became sly, thinking, plotting, scheming...how do I get His Widest One to share the recipe...with me? Recipes were the rarest things in Dumpling, highly sought after, and hard to obtain. Why, Rudolph Himself wore the Crown of Lost Recipe Wars, its seven sides indicating seven, two day wars, fought to great glory, each lost, yet all a source of pride, for they had tried. Functionaries' crowns had progressively less sides, until the common folk wore hats with no sides at all, just tall points, and maybe a tassel on top.

Rudolph clapped his hands in glee; no one must know the recipe. “Everyone out, or it's execution for thee!” he bellowed. The executioner fumbled for his dull axe, happy to be needed. Such a scrambling as only seen in eggs occurred, and the great hall emptied, "Like," Cuckles murmured to Rudolph. “Coloured water circling a drain.”

Rudolph was not amused. “Make, the recipe,” he commanded.

The large box contained many beans, and soon Sniffles the Cook, the skinniest, hungriest man in the kingdom, worked, while Cuckles fed him instructions.

Sniffles fermented, dried, cleaned, and roasted the beans into nibs. Such a wonderful smell wafted from his kitchen that passers-by rolled their eyes. Sniffles embraced Joy. The process was an art. Joy went back to the dishes. Sniffles winnowed shells from nibs, crushed nibs to powder, conched them with milk and sugar, and tempered the mass. Being weak in math, he didn't understand the last; something about crystals and sizes, and then, Sniffles was done. When his tongue tasted a drop of what the scroll called, chocolate, he thought, oh my, and sighed with relief. He could not be executed for this!

From laundry miss to lawyer's assist, the people were drawn to the divine smell. No one knew its look, only imagined its taste, and all became restless in their imagination. Denied delicacies that only flowed one way - into the palace - and primed with tales of stolen bites of indescribably delicious sour apple, wedges of softening orange, drops of pink molasses, they erupted in a rage.

“We want a taste,” people roared in the streets.

“More than just smell,” others screamed from the roofs.

“Cuckles,” Rudolph cried, “The people mount expeditions to East North Westerly South to steal my beans! Close the borders!”

And it was done.

“Cuckles,” Rudolph roared, “The people seek to steal The Recipe. Lock it in The Tower. Guard it with your life! No one must see it.”

“Sniffles has seen it, your Beautificent Beauty,” Cuckles said.

“Execute him!”

The executioner stirred.

“Then who will prepare your chocolate?”

“Don't execute him! But he hasn't brought me anything yet! Execute him!”

The executioner blinked.

“I believe he has something now,” Cuckles said quickly.

“Don't execute him!”

The executioner sighed.

“What does he have?” Rudolph asked.

“A cake, Sire.”

“A cake.” Rudolph frowned. “A...good cake?”

“I don't know.” But Cuckles did know. He'd had a bite of a cake, made in a cup, and prepared as a trial before Rudolph's. The taste made him weak in the knees.

“I'll have my cake, and eat it too!” Rudolph roared. “Bring it hence!”

Cuckles went out the doors, to reappear rolling a great cake towards Rudolph. “Better big than small,” he'd counselled Sniffles.

The Beautificent One stared at the dark brown mound. His large nose twitched sniff, his large mouth drooled drip, his large eyes watered drop, and his large stomach growled gurgle. Rudolph took up a fork, put a tiny napkin over his vast embroidered shirt, and dabbed at a bit of grease. Cuckles sliced a sliver, and gave it to His Wideness.

Tan frosting dripped off Rudolph's fork as he put a piece of cake in his mouth. Cuckles watched, wondering how to fend off execution, should the cake fail. The Magnificent One slumped in his throne as though dead. He groaned. Cuckles groaned. Rudolph opened one eye. The executioner prepared. Yet Rudolph had never been happier. His was the ecstasy of the virgin chocoholic.

Nothing tasted like this: neither papaya meringue, beef sherbet, or pineapple right-side-up. Rudolph tore into the cake and gulped it down with great glasses of slightly curdled milk. “Sour whipping cream.” he demanded and some was brought. The cake was better. “Spoiled cherries,” he cried and the taste was good. “Powdery pumpernickel, wormy walnuts, off oranges, brittle peanuts, bruised apples, pork, peaches, old mushrooms!” Whatever he added, the cake was good. “Cuckles,” Rudolph said, “Make a proclamation: No one can eat this cake, but I.” He rattled off his thirty titles and added a thirty-first, “Of the Chocolate,” and he finished with, “Only He.”

“He?”

“Me!”

“Of course! But, is that wise Your Beautificence? The people are restless. They want a taste.”

“Never! It's too good for them. If they get unruly, you have my permission to perform executions.”

The executioner flexed.

“They're unruly already,” Cuckles responded. The sound of an upset crowd was heard beyond the palace windows. “They're asking...” and a loud boom was heard and they sniffed smoke, “...or perhaps they're demanding, a taste of chocolate.”

“Never!” Rudolph ran a gnarly hand through his dirt-grey hair. “They would then, be like me, and there's only one me! Would they look so good?” Dressed in seven layers of flounce and frip, he stood before a tall mirror and admired knobby knees, bony elbows, distended belly, and his wrinkly face, while delicately holding a plate of cake. “Imagine how beautiful I'll be,” he said, “When I'm in my prime!” A great blast blasted. Cuckles flinched. Rudolph ate cake.

“Shouldn't we do something?” Cuckles asked. Rudolph cocked a thick, tangled eyebrow at Cuckles. “Perhaps, flee?” Cuckles suggested. Rudolph waved Cuckles away, his attention on cake. There was nothing else, his eyes were fixed; it was everything. Rudolph was under the spell of chocolate.

With a loud crash the thick doors to the throne room flew open. People boiled in, “Like coloured water going backwards,” Cuckles murmured to Rudolph.

“Guards,” Rudolph screamed, woken from his trance, but his guards were leading the townsfolk in, and all sniffing, slathering, and breathing heavy. They would have it!

“You can't have it,” Rudolph cried, “It's mine, mine, mine. Back to your places!”

Olaf the Small One scowled at Rudolph. Olaf had bluffed his way to a crown with one side. He wanted two. “We wants our share,” he said, and behind his small back, he showed a giant club.

“Wait,” Cuckles cried, and whispered to Rudolph, “Tell them we'll go to war to claim the land of East North Westerly South, and make all its beans, ours.”

“Excellent,” Rudolph said, and told them just so, and the people were happy, and went to war. It was exhausting.

They suffered total defeat on the first day, and retreated to their lands. Rudolph added another corner to his hat. Everyone made friends with the chocolate people, who could see Rudolph the VII-1/2 , was a Serious Monarch.

The war had been civilized, with but a few injuries on Rudolph's side from accidents having to do with drink, and could be celebrated as a great defeat that Rudolph, in His Upending Slyness, turned into an opportunity. This is how you won wars! So The Grand Trade in chocolate began. Thus it is written.

The victors were severe, intent on humiliating Rudolph, and demanded all the people must have chocolate. Rudolph agreed, just this once mind. Cuckles assured Rudolph it was trivial, beneath Rudolph's feet. The people were served cake, and it was good.

Cuckles sat in his simple room, for he was a simple man, and smiled. He held a small, brown, and secret scroll in hand; an agreement with East North Westerly South that said, “When Dumpling & East North Westerly South agree to open the border to trade in chocolate, Cuckles is granted two percent of all chocolate profits, one percent of which will be shared with needy groups in both kingdoms.” It would be plenty of coin indeed. Cuckles then formed the DUMPEN Chocolate Trading Union, he at its head, and members paid in chocolate.

Cuckles placed the scroll in an iron box concealed in the base of a brass brazier burning smelly woods brought from afar, and turned his attention to Rudolph. It was the beginning of just another day in Dumpling.