Although Scary Mary didn’t know it, there is a bed and breakfast in Scarborough called The Mayfair Hotel. It’s in Trafalgar Square near the cricket ground and, at that exact moment, there was a cat being sick in the garden while a seagull was dropping a little present on the landlady’s hat as she trod on a hairy caterpillar on her garden path as she stepped out to go shopping for a packet of ‘Toad’ brand washing powder.

It is hardly surprising therefore that Scary Mary should end up sitting on the roof of the said Mayfair Hotel, Bed and Breakfast, RAC and AA, No Vacancies. She looked around and saw, over to the south west of her, what at first she thought was a swarm of bees. When she realised it was a swarm of arrows, she quickly did her cloud spell, whizzed over to the battlefield and immediately muttered a few more choice magic words.

The arrows did a synchronised loop-the-loop one and a half times, and sped whence they came. None of the Nosepipe archers was killed but every single one of them was fixed to the ground by an arrow which went completely through his right boot, between his toes, and deep into the ground.

Scary Mary thought this was terribly funny and nearly fell out of her cloud laughing. King Nicky Tams and Tracy had the sun in their eyes and couldn’t see the tiny little black splodge in the sky. They thought they might have heard an oh-so-familiar dirty laugh, but no, it wasn’t possible.

The Ang Gonnasec soldiers were much encouraged by the way things had turned out and, with totally unheard-of bravery and impulsiveness, drew their swords and shouted “Chaaaaarge!”. Down the hillside they ran, cheering and singing “One King Canoe. There’s only one King Canoe-hoo. One King Canoe-hoo, there’s only one King Canoe-hoo.”

The Nosepipe archers were all bending over trying to pull their arrows out of the ground and so were in no fit state to receive a lot of cold steel. Scary Mary, wiping the tears of laughter from her eyes, did a spell of Doggy Poo. The Ang Gonnaseckians stopped charging and began wiping the sides of their pink plastic sandals on the grass. Most did this with one hand on another’s shoulder for support, and almost all actually turned around to do it, leaving them with their backs to the Nosepipians.

Tracy rapped out some orders, sharpish.

“Archerrrrrrrs……kneel! Air pistoleeeeeers….forward! Opeeeen….tins! Extraaaaaact…..slugs! Load! Aim! FIRE!”

The Ang Gonnaseckians felt red-hot and very unpleasant sensations in their fleshy parts. They leapt in the air, put their hands on their hot spots and, forgetting the dog poo, ran and ran and kept on running. So that was it. Battle over.

Queen Scary Mary had to have another little laugh at the thought of her nitwit of a son being a conquering king, and then she slipped away on her cloud for a bit of a holiday. She needed it, she thought, after the jail and the magic.