Yawning

The queen in scarlet and blood-red gown stepped slowly up to her throne, her husband away. Guards dressed in solid black stood under every torch lit in this castle. Standing perfectly still, the guards seemed frozen or painted or too stiff to move. Still, the queen ordered one of them to fetch a servant. 

“Yes, Your Majesty!”            

The queen sat, lounging actually against her throne. When the guard came back and stood again at his post below the torch, he announced that the king wasn’t coming. The queen huffed and forced herself to go retrieve her “lazy, stubborn husband!”

“That fool is going to see what a woman hates about her man!”

Muttering to herself in her own native tongue, the woman threw aside the curtains to their chambers, demanding her husband to come to her at once! How dare she is ignored?

“You’ll never be content.”

The queen’s eyes snapped. “Why are you ignoring me?”

“You’ll never be content.”                                    

The queen, mouth puckered and face tight, glowered at the king, who was lying on his side of the bed, the covers on him. He was facing the stone wall in front of him. With a large ripple of her gown, the queen returned to her throne. Commanding the same guard to stand before her, she watched as he obeyed instantly. “Yes, Your Majesty!”

“You’re my husband’s most loyal guard, are you not?”

“Yes.” The guard nodded. “Yes, I am. I do service without fail. My wars and battles have been won every time. I do not fail when it comes to—”

“Obedience, yes. I get it.” The queen sighed, lounging against her stone-grey throne, hints of white crystal embedded within the gorgeous royal chair. “If you obey my husband so well, can you obey me?”

“Yes, Majesty.”

“Go to the forest beyond the hills of this kingdom, and get me an apple. It must have worms in it. Once you find it, you must bring it back. The worms are going to disturb my husband until he does what I say. When I say for you to go to the skulls and bones of the graveyard, you must go fetch me a raven. Then go to the sea and fetch me a—no. Not the sea. The forest again. Fetch me a unicorn. Then go to the rainforests beyond for a macaw. Then get for me a merman and a mermaid. Both from the sea. Go!”

The guard jerked a nod and was off in a jiffy. The other guards stood still perfectly, maybe awaiting orders. The queen told them nothing. She waited. Then she got up and told one of the guards to explain to her why her husband was so frustratingly, bitingly lazy.

“Not lazy, Your Majesty. Just in…different.” The guard swallowed heavily. He sweated, hoping he wouldn’t get sent to the chopping block for such so-called disrespect. The queen looked up at him—for his head was almost as tall as the high-set torch upon the stone wall—and then said, “Yes. Indifferent is a good word.”

The guards all shivered, but not simultaneously. Some of them muttered to each other, and the queen froze, listening. The guard from before had returned with the requested animals, putting them where they were needed to go. The queen ordered servants to care for them, and the queen told the guard he can stand back where he has been standing. The queen knew these guards had been standing at attention against the wall near her throne for hours and hours, never flinching an inch. Please know, reader, the windows had been opened, and it was stifling hot outside. The humidity caused one of the guards to collapse and other one to beg for air. The queen ordered someone to give him water, and told all of them to dress in lighter clothing.

No relief had come. One guard threatened to behead the queen right then and there when they were away on a knights’ expedition. The knight in charge nodded. But he advised the guard to watch her every move to see whether she’d slip into a trap or fall into a pit. Then maybe he could arrest her. And betray this insufferable woman!

The queen went again to her husband’s chambers, but the king sighed, shaking his head. “No. You’ll never be content.”

“Content with what?” The queen demanded. “How am I not?”

“You cause the guards to suffer in such extreme heat. You cause them to suffer in such extreme cold. Amputations all over the place! Frostbite should have eaten you up. But, no, you just need. How about you come on a little ride over to the pond with me?”

“No!” The queen disappeared, hands clenched and teeth bared. “How dare he throw me around like that? He knows nothing about me or my heart.” Telling every guard to ditch their posts, the queen stepped up to her throne, curling up on it and wishing she weren’t ruled over by a king. She were a single woman, a queen on her own. Then a smile lit up her face. Yes—I’ll ditch my husband. I’ll leave, tonight. Horse and carriage will be drawn for me. Then I’ll make my move. A new kingdom—complete with servants, horses, knights, guards and animals of every kind—will be the envy of the world!

The queen, grinning from ear to ear, did just as she had thought, a horse and carriage taking her far, far away from this kingdom. Her husband said, “You’ll never be content,” but the queen just shook her head, hoping for some respite from the constant submission she was forced to endure at being the king’s wife. The queen immediately gained new servants after months of her workers’ laborious efforts of building her new kingdom. When report came that her husband lamented her departure, the queen scoffed.

“What does he want to do with me?”

“He would like to let you know that if he doesn’t know your heart, how is it he cares so much for you? He does say, ‘You’ll never be content’. How is it he doesn’t love you?”

Rage had filled the queen, but she didn’t release it. Instead, she pursed her lips. Silent, the queen retreated to her throne room, commanding everyone to depart. Servants and guards all left immediately. Ruling alone was refreshing and exciting, the queen had said to herself as she inhaled the salty air from the wind-brushing waves of the ocean. Years later, the queen looked down, and, admittedly put a hand to her…

What, reader, she did with her hand—whether she clasped the beautiful grey necklace and cried she needed her husband again—or something else, we’ll never know. But we do know she ordered a servant to retrieve a letter from her husband. It better not say what a guard has reported as “You’ll never be content.”

When the servant handed a scroll to the sick queen, a guard ripped the red wax seal and unrolled it. Announcing that the king was coming to get her, the guard asked the queen whether she’d like to sail the seven seas to hide from him. Laughter that ended in a hoarse cough and a shaking body, the queen rasped that she’d rather lie in bed, sick. The guard said he’d tell the king she wanted nothing to do with him.

“Do as you know to!”

“Yes, Majesty!”

Out on a hunting expedition, the guard having read the scroll said that he was sick of her. Not afraid of her, or fed up with her. But just tired of her unending stubbornness to cause others suffering because she wanted to rule alone. Not the one to accept a king’s rule, the queen would do anything to be the monarch. At least she wasn’t a murderess. The knights and guards all nodded. “Yes,” quipped one. “At least she lets us keep our heads!”

“I’d rather die than serve her.”

“I’d rather leave this kingdom to serve the king.”

“I’d rather…” The knight dug a stick in the ground, and a horse whinnied. “What is it, Thorn?”

“The queen must be obeyed. But we can always convince her otherwise by suggesting other ways to rule.”

The knights and guards all turned to each other, staring. Then they looked back at Thorn. He spoke. The horses these knights rode talked? What the queen would say! The men all discussed keeping this discovery a secret. But when there was a missing guard among the many, many others, one of the servants—a small boy about twelve or thirteen years old—said she had murdered him in his sleep. The guards and knights immediately watched around every corner, keeping an eye on the youngest servants. The little girls who played by the talking horses were under constant vigilance. Please know, reader, the boy’s words were a rumor. The queen had done no such thing. Soon, the guards and knights felt it unnecessary to keep such a truth from the queen.

“Get all the animals to me. Are they all talking animals? What about the ones Risk fetched for me? Who are they?”

Horses upon horses were brought to the queen’s stalls. But no horses talked. The knights and guards all ensured every animal was normal; only Thorn and the others horses with him talked; no other horse did so. However, the knights and guards talked with every animal; finding they were silly for doing so, the guards and knights discussed privately whether they’d be doing stupid things like this forever.

“Better not be.”

“Yeah—I’ll leave.”

The queen stood still. Leave? The guard would leave this kingdom? Who else would? How? The walls were massive, rising so high and extending very long. The queen looked out her chamber window every day, hoping nothing was going to happen this way. She listened very hard to the guards’ and knights’ talk. Hearing no other animal other than Risk’s Thorn talking, the queen accepted it, shocking such men. The servant boy spied on the queen. One day, the queen saw the boy lurking around the kingdom walls. She had him come before her in her chambers, kneeling down on the hard stone floor.

“Majesty, I believe you had murdered a man in his sleep for keeping a secret hidden from you.” The boy’s head was bent, and his beige belt hung from his scrawny figure. The queen said for him to keep his mouth shut unless it was to speak in good terms. Any more of this nonsense, and the boy would be put in the horse stalls at night, the stench of poop rising up his nostrils and entering his clothes.

“Yes, Majesty!”

But the boy encouraged all the knights and guards to flee the castle. Telling them the queen doesn’t like those who don’t give in to her every demand, the boy urged the queen’s kingdom to be an empty one.

The queen, who was looking down from her chamber window, heard every word.

She turned back to her throne, and sat silent. Curling up, she looked blankly at the stone wall in front of her. Ordering every guard to be near her as much as possible, she started obsessing over whether the guards and knights and servants will all leave her. Wringing her hands and biting her lip and waffling between sleep and wakefulness were her daily habits. The queen became so nervous she ordered the boy to appear at once in her chambers.

“You stupid, stupid boy! Go to my husband. Tell him to stop telling me to stop being content. That must be why you’re telling me to leave—to go to my husband, serve him and live with him. Yes, that’s it! You must be spying on me for my husband!”

The queen locked herself up in her own chambers, pacing the floor. Telling every guard to guard every door and archway and pathway and even fire pit, the queen couldn’t eat or sleep. Suddenly, the queen burst out with a violent fist, hitting and beating the youngest servants and sending them away with their older siblings and parents who fled to the king. He ordered her back in his chambers. The queen refused.

The king decreed that an invitation to a ship ride would be given to the queen. There, they’d be together, she listening to his loving words. She decried this suggestion, and the king ordered her servants and knights and guards be beheaded should she refuse again. She pursed her lips, and then said the king could bring her on a ship ride.

The sea was full of mermaids and mermen, waving and grinning innocently. Their turquoise tails and golden curls all mixed perfectly with the cobalt blueness of the ocean. Sailing refreshed the queen, but not because she was with her husband.

That night, the queen, back in her chambers, had a bottle of poison with her. Sitting on her throne, she looked at the black vial of ugliness. Studying its mushy, blobby self, the queen put it down beside her, and curled up. Looking at the wall in front of her, she asked whether the guards and knights were there, just as they had been when she was living with her husband. They were, they said. Every one of them.

“But you are all going to leave me!”

The queen grabbed the tonic, but someone barged into the chambers, throwing himself onto the throne, begging her not to take it. “Get back, you rat!”

“No, please!” The servant boy begged her not to commit suicide, and then grabbed a scroll from an approaching guard, ripped open the seal and read that the king was going to commit suicide with her should she swallow such poison. The queen’s hand stayed right before her lips. Her eyes were wide, and her ears drank in every word. The king left it with “You’ll never be content.”

“He—he will die. You will not have us. We will flee.” The boy boldly stated.

The queen turned to the boy, and told him to put the poison somewhere. The queen was watched, the boy saw, through the window one night. Torches lit the room, as before, in the king’s castle. The queen was heading for the poison. The boy bit his lip. The queen’s hand was extended, and fingers curled around the poison. The boy’s eyes went wide, and his bottom lip hurt from the bite of the tooth upon it. Once the queen turned her back on the boy, the boy shifted so he could see her. But no, the queen’s face was too dark. No matter—the boy could see the silhouette of the woman as she stood there, the poison in her hand.

The boy studied this scene until way early in the morning. When daylight broke upon the kingdom, the boy sat in his bunk in the cottage over yonder. Tending to some sheep one day, the boy went about his chores with a heavy heart. That night, he visited Thorn. The horse told him he thought the queen had drank the vial of poison. The boy’s heart hammered within him. The horse whinnied, but the boy comforted him. The horse bobbed his head.

The next night, the queen’s hand let go of the vial.     

It smashed to pieces, glass everywhere and poison in a puddle at her feet. The queen ordered a guard to clean up the mess, went to her chambers, dismissed everyone and changed into something else. Once she had appeared in another dress, the queen told the guard who had cleaned up the mess to tell her husband she would like him to come here. Where she can rule her kingdom. Whether he would rule was his decision.

“Yes, Majesty. But—”

“Don’t question me. Just follow orders!” She demanded.

“Yes—”

The knight blew a breath through his cheeks as Thorn carried him to the king’s castle. Entering his castle, the knight announced that the queen would like him to come here. A loud laughter echoed throughout the hallway. The knight bowed, beat his chest and took off, telling the queen the king wouldn’t come even if she was dying in bed.

“Not a response he liked, Majesty.”

“Well, he’ll just have to stay home, then.”

Please know, reader, this queen returned to her throne, silent. Curling up, she gave the wall beside her a long, long look of silence. One day, she sat down at a desk, unrolling a piece of parchment, writing a letter to her husband.

Dear King,

Please be informed I am going to come to your castle. My guards and knights are sick of me. They are too tired to carry on with my affairs. They don’t need to live under such a selfish, ignorant woman such as I. I am coming to you.

Dearest wife,

The queen

Standing before her husband in just her robe, the queen told the robed king that he needed to hear something. Coming to her and placing his hands on her, the king said for her to speak. She said he always said “You’ll never be content.”

The queen looked at the king full in the face. “No. It’s not what I ever…”

“Ever what?”

“Ever…” The queen shook her head. “Let’s just be together—”

“Ever what?” The king demanded.

“Ever,” the queen went up to the king, kissed him and said, “Ever be. I’ll never be content without you.”

The king nodded.

The next night, the servant boy saw the queen through her window. Smiling, the boy ran to tell the guards and knights he had seen the queen dance with the king. The guards and knights’ hearts filled with joy.

The servant boy’s heart rose with relief.

And fell with happiness.