The cast:
Left to right: Christiaan Huygens (science advisor and real-life Dutch scientist), Maarten Tromp (military advisor and real-life Dutch admiral), Willem van Oranje (real-life Dutch Father of the Fatherland), and Ilse Huizinga (domestic and cultural advisor and real-life Dutch jazz singer).
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It is a clear, sunny day in Amsterdam. Willem is conversing with Maarten and Chris about the imminent invasion of Scythia when all three of them look up, cock their ears, and try to identify the source and substance of a strange sound.
“What’s that sound?” Willem asks Maarten and Christiaan.
“A nobleman’s daughter has discovered something delightful, sir,” Christiaan grins. “She spent a lot of time in her youth banging on different sizes of clamshells, and she has discovered music!”
“What’s music?” Maarten asks.
“Here she comes now! We should make ourselves presentable, sir!” Chris exclaims as he hurriedly combs his hair. Willem follows suit.
“What? What are you trying to say, that I’m not usually presentable?” Maarten snorts. “And only sissies carry combs around with them in their--wow, Chris, you carry a PURSE?” Maarten cackles.
As the doors to the royal throne room open to admit the noblewoman, though, Maarten stiffens. “Chris, my bald spot isn’t showing, right?” Maarten whispers.
“Not at all!” Chris lies, suppressing a giggle. The three men watch in awe as the beautiful woman with long golden hair and bright eyes approaches, wearing an elegant blue dress and making strange but pleasurable sounds with her voice.
“Your majesty, and honorable and kind sirs, I am humbled to be in your presence. My name is Ilse Huizinga, daughter of Duke Huizinga of Nijmegen.” As Ilse bows deeply, the men strain to get a good look at her cleavage and spring back as she rises again.
“Ah yes, I know your father,” Willem smiles. “Good man. I did not know his daughter was so lovely. He says you have a gift. You apparently pound clamshells well.”
Ilse blushes. “That is so, your highness. I do play the drum-clams. I also sing.”
“Sing?” Willem asks, puzzled. “Ah yes, sings. Sings. Um. Could you, ah, refresh my memory as to what that means,” he quickly adds awkwardly. “Because I already know, of course. I mean, what kind of king doesn’t know what a sing is? Not this one!”
Ilse smiles and enraptures her audience for several minutes with an a capella rendition of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, the most complex song of its time. Ilse bows and says, simply, "singing."
“Bravo, bravo!” Willem, Maarten, and Chris shout, clapping their hands.
“See, you can make music too, the music of clapping,” Ilse giggles.
“I say, this is extraordinary. I don’t know how this could have escaped me before,” Chris says, approaching Ilse. “After all, my mathematics would predict certain resonant frequencies and that--”
“Take it elsewhere, nerd-boy, Ilse doesn’t want to hear your nonsensical blubberings,” Maarten snorts as he elbows Chris out of the way. “Now, milady, would you be interested in swinging with me on my boat, after dinner tonight?”
“You weren’t even paying attention!” Chris snorts indignantly, hands on his hips. “It’s called ‘singing’ you violent ape, not ‘swinging.’”
“Now now, gentlemen, play nice,” Willem says. “Ilse, my dear, I apologize for these gentlemen’s behaviors. It’s just that in their professions, they do not often encounter someone of your beauty and grace.”
“Not true,” Maarten sniffs. “I meet women all time. Sissy, I mean, Chrissy, over there, might have a harder time meeting women since he LOOKS like a woman,” Maarten chortles. Chris's jaw drops.
“You're just jealous that I still have my hair, unlike some people,” Chris retorts indignantly. “And furthermore, the
Trompest in a Teapot is part of the navy, not your private pleasure craft!”
“Oh sure, I am so very jealous of an alleged man who has more hair than three normal women--combined!”
Willem ignores his comrades and continues, “Thank you, Ilse, for your beautiful gift of music. Such a lovely sound could only come from equally lovely lips. I would like for you and your family to dine with my royal court this weekend. How about it? Would you like to swing with me? I mean, um, sing, with me?”
Ilse blushes. “It would be an honor, milord.”
“Sometimes it’s good to be king and not an underling,” Chris mutters, rolling his eyes and smirking at Willem until Willem makes eye contact and raises an eyebrow. Chris takes an immediate and extreme interest in the color of a ceiling tile.
“Furthermore,” Willem says as he looks away from Chris and Maarten and back to Ilse’s bosom, “we might need to hire more help and to create a larger bureaucracy to administer our royal affairs, and I want you to be in it.”
“You want me to be in your affairs?” Ilse asks innocently.
Willem grins, “I want you to be in my bureaucracy, dear. I would like you to take some of the burden off Chris so that he may devote more time to scientific pursuits. I would like you, Ilse of Nijmegen, to take care of cultural matters, and for you and Chris to share domestic advisor duties.”
“Score!” Chris yelps, elbowing Maarten, who rolls his eyes.
“Lastly,” Willem continues, ignoring Chris, “I want to erect a massive and obnoxiously cultural cathedral in your home town of Nijmegen, Ilse. We shall call it the Sistine Chapel. That ought to show those Incan heathens who is more cultured!”
“Did he just say the ‘sissy chapel’?” Maarten whispers to Chris.
“Sistine, you macho moron,” Chris whispers back. “And somehow I suspect that Willem intends to make more erections for Ilse later on.”
“What’s a Sistine?” Maarten whispers.
Chris opens his mouth, only to realize the he doesn’t know either. He looks at Maarten and shrugs. “Say, shouldn’t you be sending a scouting party to Long Island, that long island northeast of Amsterdam? Hop to it!”
***
The year is 520 AD.
Dutch sailors from Maastricht have found that local turtles and turtle eggs make good eating. Wang Xizhi, an immigrant from a faraway land, has started a calligraphy school in Amsterdam and triggered the first Dutch golden age. Nijmegen has almost started construction on the Sistine Chapel. Amsterdam engineers have nearly finished the Parthenon and are getting ready to speedily build the Great Library, assisted by the massive shipments of marble from The Hague, the local forges, local engineering legend Alexander Graham Bell (who long ago settled down in Amsterdam), organized and fanatic Hindu workers grateful to be living in an golden age, and the spare parts lying around as overflow from previous marble construction projects. Further organization and bureaucracy is on the horizon and will accelerate the already frantic economic activity in Amsterdam and throughout the Dutch kingdom.
Meanwhile, The Hague and Rotterdam are training grounds for a growing Dutch army packed with swordsmen, catapults, and axemen. The bulk of this army is massing near the isthmus of Scythia in preparation for a direct assault into the barbarian heartland.
100 years later, word breaks out across Colossia that Inca, the cradle of the Hindu religion that now permeates all of Dutch society, is also now home to the Hindu Apolostic Palace.
The goings-on in the Palace are secretive, and Willem is both curious and worried about what Huayna Capac and Sitting Bull will have to say as he dismounts and walks into the Palace...
“I’m glad you could join us,” Capac says warmly as Willem walks in. “Sitting Bull is already here. Please, make yourself comfortable.” Capac gestures to the massive bathhouse complex around them, and at the bath specifically.
“What am I even doing here?” Sitting Bull snorts as he relaxes in worshipper-funded opulence. “I have what, one city that has any significant Hindu population.”
“Yeah, what IS he doing here?” Willem asks as he disrobes and slips into the bath.
“Bull, you deserve a place at the table, as one Hindu city is one more than Wang Kon and Gilgamesh have.”
“So what do we do now?” Bull asks Capac.
“We vote. We vote on who shall lead the Hindu world, and he shall be resident of the Palace and set the agenda for our future meetings.” Capac gives his companions a writing-clam each.
“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” Sitting Bull says.
“If you do not follow the vote, your Hindu cities’ citizens shall be very upset with you,” Capac cautions. “Time to vote.”
“Why can’t I selectively whip all the Hindus out of my nation?” Bull grumbles.
Willem and Sitting Bull glumly scratch their votes onto clamshells and hand them to Capac.
Capac does a few tallies, furrowing his brow. Then he smiles and says, “I’m leader! Then again, I SHOULD be leader. The Hindu hordes of Inca give me, oh let’s see, 84 votes. 80 for you Willem, too bad my lad. 2 for BS there.”
“That’s SB, for Sitting Bull, not BS, you fool.”
“Did we each vote for ourselves then? This is totally rigged!” Willem sniffs.
“Actually Bull sat this one out and didn’t vote at all, he abstained. And proportional voting can hardly be called rigged.”
“Oh brother, how democratic is this? Maybe we Dutch should start encouraging overpopulation just to overtake you in votes.”
“Do your worst, Billy boy. And it IS democratic, literally.”
“Wait, what are we fighting for, Huayna? You are my Hindu soul-brother, after all.”
“And don’t you forget it, soul-brother Willem. Come over here, it’s Hindu Hug time!” Capac shouts with joy.
“Hey, wait, what are you Hindu heathens doing?” Bull asks. “Are you--ew. THAT’s the ‘Hindu Hug’? How revolting. Thank goodness I'm Jewish!”
Especially if you take out the barb city in the SE. More resources please.
