Michael Fortescue
Words are escaping from the flagship project of the prestigious House of Words. Something must be done fast to get them back before a rival company is brought in to take over the project. But the lexicographers below deck are not being cooperative. Treated as slaves they use their time when not supervised to play word games, facing the threat of the overseer’s whip if discovered. The management suspects that they may be aiding the leakage and their ringleader is clapped in irons. Emissaries are sent to negotiate with the words now living in riotous anarchy in the wild woods, but with little success. The words have certain demands if they are to return. An ultimatum is relayed to the irascible editor-in-chief, who cannot allow this undermining of editorial policy. His aging boss, the publisher, who is himself having difficulty remembering words, is only interested in cost-efficiency. A solution of a surprising kind is finally brokered by a humble female servitor sympathetic to the lexicographers’ cause.
