Meanwhile, walking across the cobblestones of Hampton Court quadrangle, Rodney Broadshoulders, a young man of intense strength and depth of chest, read a letter, his brow knitted and his lips visibly moving as he deciphered each word.
“My dear son.” Rodney paused to ruminate. “Hmm, he must mean me. I fear I am on my deathbed. “ He spun around, looking with distraught eyes to the heavens. “On his deathbed!?” He stopped as he remembered. “Oh. That’s right. Father died.” He returned his concentration to the letter. “I must tell you something dreadful which must be conveyed to the queen. A spy is in the court. A spy!?” His large dull brown eyes widened. “This traitor is working with the Spanish. The Spanish!?” His large, rough, muscular hands tighten around the letter. “To prepare for an invasion. An invasion!?”
Rodney could not contain himself any longer. He tore the letter apart as he threw back his head, bellowing like an enraged bull. “Treachery!!”
The bottom part—the part he had not read yet—slipped from his hand and blew across the courtyard.
“Uh oh.” That took the wind out of his indignation.
He tiptoed over to the torn paper, as though to catch it unawares, but another gust of wind lifted it up.
“I must learn the traitor’s name!” he muttered as he stumbled along, watching the paper’s path.
It finally alit on the base of a statue to King Henry VIII, who, by the way, many years ago retained Rodney’s equally large and dense father as his personal guard. Before Rodney could reach the statue, however, a pigeon landed on the paper.
“Shoo! In the name of the queen!” Rodney spoke in a humble tone, realizing pigeons are mere small creatures and easily scared.
This particular pigeon, it seemed, held no such timid attitudes and therefore looked Rodney straight in the eye and dropped a large wad of poo right on the last sentence of the letter. This was very disconcerting because that was the very sentence which revealed the name of the traitor.
“How disrespectful!”
After the pigeon flew away, Rodney, with a dreadful grimace on his tanned handsome face, reached for the paper. Right when he thought he had it in his clutches, the letter was caught up in another huge breeze which carried it so high it was over the wall and halfway to the Thames.
Rodney watched it disappear. With a great deal of consternation he sighed, “The queen will be so displeased.”