“Why wasn’t I informed?”
Oh merciful dark radiance of the heavens [etc. etc.; copy and paste the full greeting],
The unfortunate incidences were deemed too trivial a matter to trouble you with, and in accordance with the principles of your infinite wisdom (The Vast Red Book, volume DCXXIV, 27th authorised edition excluding apocrypha) we were guided to monitor the situation as it developed until such time as it warranted your peerless attention.
Naturally [of course? – think of something better!] we were sufficiently bathed in your munificent understanding to be cognisant that you, who knows all things, were aware of the former Most Gracious Lord High Admiral’s disposition towards more refined tastes in the manner of the Imperial Court [N.B. DO NOT use the phrases ‘unusual’, ‘perverted’ or ‘skullfucking babysplitters’]. We would not dream of presuming to bring such thing to your attention, or by doing so imply anything untoward where no such thing exists. [Grovel appropriately]
I was personally honoured myself to have His then Grace take a brief liking to my infant daughter, whose still-living torso he was kind enough to wear as underpants to your recent jubilee. It came as a great dismay to me when the true nature of his tastes came to light, and I was horrified at its devastating effect on your [insert honorific] majesty’s imperial fleet. It is quite rightly your own sacred task to declare treason and heresy, but may I have the great boon of saying that I prostrated myself at your shrine and wept openly when I discovered that he had betrayed you.
I was in fact in the process of bringing this information to you myself when the news of your great and terrible wrath broke, and I chastised myself greatly for not realising that you would of course have known all this yourself. It is to the eternal benefit of your great and undying empire that you discovered these plots yourself and took such swift and decisive action.
Your deepest servant [throw in something suitable grandiose],
Alyster Kamb’ell,
Imperial Intelligence
Smithers – tidy this up and send it off to the big-eared old fart before you go home tonight, will you? And for all our sakes make sure you burn this note; if any of those blood-drinking kiddyshaggers in the court get their hands on it we’re all screwed. I don’t want to end up buggered with a roasting spit and served up at banquet like the last head of intelligence. AK.