Sentence The Fivehundredandfortysixth 

And in the Duke of Albany's Palace, Tavish outlined his plan; Tammy and Bernie listened intently, noting their parts in the drama which would unfold rapidly, once the ball had been set in motion; Lolly was excited that she would play a vital part, while Lady Griselda and Sister Evadne remained distant, aloof in some way, as though they considered him to be talking bushwa, while also intimating that they did not approve of Tavish's Gunpowder Plot but could think of no sound argument against it; now, by befriending a kitchen boy called Wullie, Tavish had been able to source charcoal, sulphur and saltpetre, gathered them together over several days and by acquiring a mortar and pestle left unattended by one of the stone masons working on a garden wall, ground them in approximately correct proportions and was at last in possession of several pounds of what he hoped would be a perfectly usable quantity of gunpowder, enough, he hoped, to meet his requirements; a small wooden

drum was just the right size for his bomb, together with a quantity of stones, nails and other sharp items his wandering hands had managed to purloin; his plan was to locate the keg somewhere it would kill the Duke, without harming any innocent persons and it took him a bit of surreptitious observation to come up with the best time and place – the Duke's Birthday Party! this was to be held in his chintzy Private Banqueting Chamber and Tavish had learned that after the majority of his guests had been dismissed, the Duke liked to engage in a further private celebration, with certain of his closest associates, who happened to make up the Ring of Gold. and so it came to be that Tavish

decided to bake and present to His Grace a Cake! complete with candles, one of which would be the fuse, and although he had no way of planning anything beyond achieving this one, small goal, at the back of his mind he secretly hoped that it might be followed by a jacquerie, a Peasant's Revolt, and in one fell swoop, the course of Scottish History be irrevocably changed – perhaps he wanted to be remembered as the apotheosis of political assassins, genuinely carrying out a diabolical act for the Greater Good, although in his lifetime of working for the Security Service he had come across countless examples of men – and not a few women – who could put their hand on heart and claim selfless motivation too, and how had he mocked and disparaged them? with all the self-righteousness of the apologist who denies to his last breath that the regime or Master he serves is corrupt and rotten all the way to it's very core; well, he reasoned, this was his chance to do something about it, even if it killed him!