Lord Leville cleared his throat with a pompous flourish, holding the ring between thumb and forefinger as though it were a jewel plucked from the heavens.
"Your Majesty," he began in a booming voice, "you will never believe the ordeal I endured to bring this to your most exalted notice. It began at dawn, when I set out most piously to the temple… to pray, of course, for Your Majesty's long reign, for the prosperity of the Empire… and for my wife's cursed geese, who lay fewer eggs than stones in a riverbed."
A ripple of laughter passed through the hall. Leville beamed and carried on, arms waving like sails in a storm.
"As I ascended the temple steps, lo and behold! — A pigeon, fat as a minister at a royal feast, waddled before me. But this was no common pigeon, no, it was a creature touched by destiny, for clasped in its beak gleamed this very ring." He lifted it high, shaking it for effect. "Like dawn's light caught in gold!"
