~
As usual, my queen ran away the moment she saw my carriage rumble through the palace gates.
This time she made it all the way to the stables, evading her own guards and attendants all the way, but she was finally captured as she tried to get her horse out of its stall. One of her guards slung her over his shoulder and toted her back to my carriage like a sack of potatoes.
Her maids had already packed her bags, and one of them – the queen’s newest favorite – waited by the carriage, hands clasped together meekly. When she saw that we were transporting her queen in such an undignified way, her eyes grew wide. Obviously she hadn’t heard how things were done in the palace.
As my carriage rolled away again, the spreading news filled the palace with smiles and wry laughter.
Queen Latis had been kidnapped… Again.
“I’ll have you beheaded for this.”
Not counting the threats she’d shouted to the world in general, they were the first words she’d said to me directly. They were always the first words she’d say to me directly. They’d lost power since the first time she’d screamed them, years ago. Now they were more calm. Resigned.
She’d known that she wouldn’t be able to escape, though that hadn’t stopped her from punching one guard in the face trying to get away.
She sat on the carriage seat across from me, glaring as if I were some foul man who wished her harm. Nothing could’ve been further from the truth, and she knew it. I was perhaps the most loyal man in the kingdom.
And it was out of loyalty that I took the jobs no one else would.
The jobs that earned Queen Latis’ hatred… Among other things, finding her potential suitors (none of whom lasted long) and taking the queen on the vacations she so despised.
The maid sat in the corner of the carriage, still wide-eyed as she looked back and forth between the queen and I. I don’t think the poor thing had realized yet that this was a thing which happened rather regularly.
“How many times have you threatened to have me executed, your majesty?” I asked the queen. She just stared at me evenly, eyes hard. The stare of hatred a seventeen-year-old girl can give is formidable; even more so when that girl holds the throne of one of the most prosperous kingdoms in the region. Undaunted, I continued. “You haven’t made good on the threat yet, your majesty. Beg your pardon if I’m not exactly trembling in my boots.”
Her stare grew colder, but she directed it out of the window, perhaps attempting to scare the passing scenery, or perhaps trying to bolster the image her people had of her as a serious, fierce queen…
Or perhaps she was simply angry.
In any case, not another word was spoken until we passed into the parcel of land I own on the banks of Lake Latis – the lake our fair queen was named for. Her parents – rest their souls – stayed on its shores many a time before they came to their tragic end.
Mist laced the air, sticking to the leafy curtains of vines that hung from twisted, old trees lining the lakeshore. The light fog remained on all but the very warmest summer days, yet I never grew tired of it. Frogs chirruped. Ripples washed softly over round stones. Occasionally the splash of a jumping fish could be heard. It was as far from the bustling city streets as you could get… Away from the barking dogs and begging people and urgent merchants… Away from the noises and odors that cluttered up the area around the palace.
My queen despised it.
Not stopping to enjoy the view, she was out of the carriage before it came to a full stop. She stormed into my cabin on the shore – the slam of the door leaving little doubt that her plan was to remain there. Luckily, after last time, I’d taken great care to dismantle the latch on the door so that I couldn’t be locked out of my own home. I’d thought about fixing the latch to the other side, so that she could be locked in, but had then decided that she’d simply find a way to lock me into the house, steal my carriage, and take it back to the palace on her own.
I stooped to heft the queen’s bags onto my back and caught the maid looking at me with those wide, shocked eyes again.
“Don’t worry,” I told her. “She’ll be a beast the whole time she’s here, but once she’s back in the palace you’d swear she’s the kindest, most gentle woman you’ve ever met.” That said, I brought the luggage into the house, ducking smoothly to avoid the cooking pan my queen threw at my head.
A few days later, I found Queen Latis sitting on the shore with her bare feet resting in the lake water. Her hand built little piles in the sand around her. I was not fooled, however, by what anyone else might’ve taken as the careless work of idle fingers.
With one sweep of my foot, I destroyed the queen’s battle plans for the military patrols in the southern part of the kingdom. She was up in a flash, shouting in protest.
“There’ll be no war strategizing here on my watch, your majesty,” I told her firmly.
“The Alitians are moving,” she informed me, red-faced with anger. “If we don’t prepare now-”
“You have advisors to take care of those things,” I said, “and you’ll excuse me if I say, I’m sure they’ll manage a few days without a seventeen-year-old girl planning their battles for them.” Queen Latis’ eyes flashed, and she launched into a speech about how much work she had to do, and how the kingdom could fall, all thanks to me, and several other often-heard arguments.
“What if the palace is attacked and I’m not there?” she finished angrily.
“Then you’ll have escaped assassination, and our kingdom will still have a queen.” That left her sputtering, and after a moment she stormed off again, furious with me as always.
Her maid had been watching from a distance while trying to act like she wasn’t – the way such maids do – and after my queen’s departure I again found myself the subject of that disbelieving gaze.
“Something to say?” I called over to her, and she started, caught. After a few seconds I was able to coax the girl over and get her to say what was on her mind.
“How could you speak to the queen that way?” was her first question.
“Simple,” I said. “I knew her parents. Grew up with them. To me they weren’t just the king and queen… They were my friends.” This visibly shook the girl, and I could read the questions in her eyes. The ones everyone asked in their heads, but never asked aloud.
Was he there when it happened? Does he know who did it? Was he the mysterious ‘friend’ who found them dead, their bodies cold and the murderer long since gone?
I never graced anyone with the answers to those questions, and this maid was no exception… so I continued. “Queen Latis is nothing more than the baby I rocked and the child I played silly games with, now grown up too fast and taking on responsibilities that should still belong to her parents.”
She’d been too young to take the throne when she had. Twelve years old is too, too young to have to rule a nation.
“Alright then…” The maid stared at her feet, shy. “Why do this? Why do any of it? When I heard that she was to be surprised with a vacation, I thought she’d be pleased. Instead, she’s furious. And she does have a point… If the kingdom needs her, and she’s here… Why force her to go away when she doesn’t want to?”
“If the kingdom needs her,” I said, “we’re less than a day’s travel from the palace. We have some of the swiftest messengers in the kingdom at our disposal. And as for why we take her away in the first place…”
I sighed, looking out across the lake. The surface shifted, so that you couldn’t tell which ripples were water and which ripples were swirling mist.
“Queen Latis takes her job seriously. And that’s good. But so much rests on her, and she’s so young. She’ll never admit it, and she’ll never try to abandon it, but she really hates her job. Every so often she’ll get so tired of it all… So sick of doing everything that she forgets to try to do it well. And since she won’t ask for a break herself, we give her one by force.”
“But what does it help?” the maid burst out, not yet understanding. “She isn’t relaxing, or resting… All she wants to do is go back to work!”
“Exactly.” I smiled. “She longs for a job she despises. Chores she once hated are now the activities she misses most. When she finally gets back to work, she’ll be ready for it. Eager. And that will makeeverything run smoother.”
The maid’s eyebrows knit together as she attempted to process this.
“And really, it’s for the best that she doesn’t enjoy these little breaks,” I went on, kneeling to find some good skipping stones. “After all, if she actually liked coming to the lake, what would she want to do every time the work gets hard?”
“Come to the lake, I suppose,” answered the maid, sounding surprised at the sense it made. I nodded with a grin.
“Her majesty hates these vacations, but she needs them. They’re what keeps her going, and working hard. They’re what keeps the kingdom running smoothly.”
The maid went off to think, leaving me alone to do the same. The queen sat stewing in my cabin, waiting for the time when we’d let her return to the palace. When she finally did return, she’d get more done in a week than she had in the last month…
And that’s why I insisted on taking Queen Latis on these vacations. I kidnap her out of loyalty to her and our kingdom. I know that she needs them… And I think perhaps she knows that she needs them, too.
Perhaps that’s why, despite all her threats, I have not been beheaded as of yet.
And yeah, I would like to 'futz' with it a little more, as you put it. XD And I'm not entirely happy with the ending myself. If I try to expand it into something, I'll fix it up a little more. The main reason why I ended it so quickly is because I wrote it as a thing for this writer's group my mom is starting, and we're supposed to read them out loud? So I was trying to make it short enough for that... As it is I'll be cutting it down a little I think. XD
