Fiction (Fantasy-ish) - Mad Men

So it's been a while since my creative juices have broken their banks and flowed into new territory. After my successful NaNoWriMo in November, I felt full of vim and eager to get back to my long neglected novelette, but now my enthusiasm is running low again and I need a new distraction. Cue cheese-eating before bed, and lie-ins in the mornings. With the right stimulus, I was bound to have a dream surreal enough to turn into a new story.
It took a week before any of my dreams became interesting/memorable enough to build anything from, but last night was a doozy. A man with bolt-on legs, knights figting with haematite swords, and a servant defending himself with a plastic spoon. I'll probably leave out the anachronistic plastic spoon, but I'm looking forward to figuring out why the man needs a spanner to put his feet up. That'll take a while, though, so for now here's the opening act. Are you ready, boys and girls? Then I'll begin...

Mad Men

The Marquess of Kirlegrove, Lord Quinton Upright Gentin, was a mad man. His father, the Duke of Hersdale, Lord Winstanleigh Worthy Gentin, was a mad man. His father, and Lord Quinton's grandfather, had been a mad man until the ripe old age of fifty-seven, which was considered quite young by the standards of everyday people, but was agreed to be quite a feat for a man as mad as he was. In fact, Lord Quinton was descended from a long line of mad men, and was proud to have been born to one of the noblest families of mad men in the world.

Lord Quinton had always been very certain about what his future held. One day, when his father died, he would become the Duke of Hersdale, owner of nearly two hundred square miles of land, advisor to the King, wearer of many hats. He would inherit the family sash, and would gaze admiringly at it as it hung in the display cabinet in the entrance hall of Gentin Manor. He would glow with pride at the sight of all the medals pinned to the sash, rewards for all the heroic deeds performed by his ancestors. He wouldn't wear the sash, partly because he had yet to earn any of the shining accolades hanging from it, but mostly because his notable ancestors had never believed in keeping a spare sash in case, for example, the first got extremely old and threatened to crumble to dust if looked at in the wrong way. The family conservator was certain that the medals were the only things holding the material together now, and there had certainly been a tense moment a number of years ago when his father had added his Hermetic Star of Loyalty. Quinton hadn't dared to walk through the entrance hall for days afterwards, certain the sash would disintegrate with the vibrations of his footsteps.

Lord Quinton knew, in a vague sort of way, that his future would require more than staring at his family's sash and pacing the floors in his family home. He was a mad man, and that came with responsibilities. Not many, to be sure, since no one expected a mad man to be responsible for much, but there were a few. Serving the King, being... something-or-other for the good of the Kingdom, holding... no, not holding. Catching? Embezzling? Embracing! Embracing change and tradition and squeezing them together until you got something that was a bit of both. Something like that, anyway. The traditional duties of a mad man were written in quite flowery prose, and Quinton had always disliked reading anything that he had to concentrate on to make sense of.

Whether or not he knew his duties word for word, Lord Quinton understood their meaning. Obey those above him, be fair to those below him, and protect the Kingdom at all times, at all cost. Family honour depended on adhering to those three rules. Family wealth and titles depended on it, too, for the Duchy of Herlsdale could only be held by a mad man. And one day, hopefully a long time in the future, that mad man would be him. All that needed to happen between now and then was for his father to die an honourable, mad, man, at that was pretty much guaranteed. After all, no Gentin had ever strayed from the path before.

[Part 2]