The Sad Tale Of Queen Amethyst - Part 1 (An old story I found in a box that I wrote when I was in secondary school, kind of far fetched)

I am sure that many of you are probably familiar with the old proverb, “She that lives in fear of poison will die of hunger” or that, if you have ever paid a visit to the capital, you have seen the elegantly carved tomb of the eleventeenth century Monarch, Queen Amethyst Manhilda the fist, picturing her upon its many engraved panels, first as a happy young peasant girl and then as a sad pale skeleton wearing a crown of briers upon her head.

 

Either way you may have wondered at the origin of the proverb or the meaning behind the pictures.

 

The carvings illustrate the tragic legend of Queen Amethyst, 31^st royal potentate of Illyria in the closing decades of the eleventeen hundreds who, as the proverb says, died from hunger.

 

What the proverb, most likely created by her enemies, the powerful Semanti dynasty who later succeeded her to the throne, does not say is that she had very good reason to be afraid of poison. Infact, according to the legend, her fate was caused by conspirators seeking to remove her from power. She was deceived by all around her and driven mad and to starvation until she died.

 

The legend began, as the carvings still show, with the Queen, just a young, happy, carefree peasant girl of 19 living with her parents who worked and struggled in the royal Fire plantations.

 

All who knew her would testify to her great gentleness, consideration for others, friendliness and good nature and she was much loved by her parents who called her Amy after a favourite Aunt who all said she much resembled in both looks and character.

 

Unfortunately, for young Amy, the fire-fields in which she worked alongside her parents were over looked by the palace of King Karnak the Oppressor and Karnak was a notorious lecher and, since his last wife had just been executed (he had famously been married 27 times but had had all of his wives beheaded for failing to bear him any children, their gristly heads still preserved within 27 jars of Aspic in the Royal museum of Illyria) when he saw Amy from his window and immediately desired her he decided that he would marry her.

 

He called for the chief of the Royal police force, Pietro Segundo and ordered that Amy and her parents be arrested and thrown in a dungeon and then proclaimed that the parents would be beheaded if Amy did not consent to marry him.

 

Of course her parents, like any decent parents would, told her that they would rather lose their heads than see their daughter forced into marriage but Amy could not bear the thought of her parents being killed and she said that she would willingly sacrifice herself if Karnak would spare their lives and set them free.

 

The wedding of King Karnak and his young bride Queen Amethyst (a name devised by the kings counsellors because they thought it sounded more regal that Amy) was itself a legendary affair. Thousands or ordinary peasants had been ordered to assemble, on pain or death, and cheer the ostentatious wedding procession and all along the Imperial mile was lined with onlookers, all waving blue banners bearing the crest of the Illyrian nobility.

 

The new queens wedding dress was, according to royal and local tradition, made entirely of gossamer spun by spiders fed on gold dust and pearls dissolved in vinegar. Her head dress was made of painstakingly carved ice crystals; she rode upon a white horse bearing the kings coat of arms, her wrists were pound in silk threads like the captive princess’s of old Empire days. Her wedding train was half a mile long and carried by over six hundred children in silver coloured uniforms with red sashes and over a thousand bronze trumpets sounded the Illyrian National Anthem, “Oh ye proud Nation of our fathers”, as the head of the procession approached the great Cathedral of the sixth sacrament in Mameluke Square.

 

The marriage of Queen Amethyst and King Karnak was of course a very unhappy one for her but, fortunately, it was only a period of months before the King, at the age of Eighty seven died of a failing heart. 

 

Some say he was poisoned but others point to an already failing health condition caused by the over consumption of strong alcohol, tobacco and opium.

 

And after a small private funeral attended only by the Queen and the kings most loyal courtiers, eyes turned to the young widow Queen and all wondered whether such a young and inexperienced girl could handle the duty of running a country.

 

Most suggested that she should remarry, that some trustworthy noble should be picked for her by her advisors and many young noblemen encouraged by their ambitious families stepped forward and offered themselves as suitors to the queen, even Princess from foreign lands as far away as Astruria and Gwendoland came to the palace bearing exotic gifts.

 

Others with rival claims to the throne, like the Duke of Semanti, related to the late king through their half brother Hestus, believed that she should be forced to abdicate and even fearing an uprising led by the nobility, Pietro Segundo signed an order to arrest the heads of noble families believed to be involved in a plot against the queen and many of the nobles were forced to either go into hiding or flee Illyria altogether.

 

And many attempts were made, over the following years to assassinate or kidnap Queen Amethyst but all of them failed either due to the intelligences of her secret police force or through incompetent planning.

 

In one famous event, two conspiracies collided, one with the intention to burn the royal palace and one to flood it. Thankfully for Queen Amethyst, the two assassination attempts were carried out simultaneously so the water meant to drown her put out the fire meant to incinerate her.

 

In fact Queen Amethyst survived a full seven years as a monarch and, refusing either to re-marry or to abdicate, became, through the tuition of her councillors quite a competent ruler.

 

Not to mention the common people of Illyria truly seemed to love her, in fact they would call her “Our Queen” and “Good Queen Amy”.

 

And she did not forget where her roots lay either. Under the serfdom act of eleventeen fourty two, indentured serfdom was abolished and Nobles were forced to pay their workers and not only that free hospitals, schools, orphanages and poor houses were set up across the Queendom with money for these reforms drawn from taxing the Nobility. Her parents too, who had been poor Fire growers, were made part of the aristocracy, given twelve hundred acres of farm land and the title Duke and Duchess of Percivale.

 

However, the Queens enemies never stopped plotting against her and, in the eighth year of her rule, the chief among her conspirators, the Duke of Semanti who had been hiding in the port town of Salero disguised as a silk merchant, came up with the most diabolical of all.

 

The Duke had tried and failed many times to poison the Queen but because the Queen employed a small regiment of food and wine tasters who tasted everything before she ate it, he had never been successful.

 

“The queen is cautious about being assassinated almost to the point of paranoia”, one courtier confided to him, “Before she eats or drinks her food is tasted; before she goes to sleep, soldiers search beneath her bed and she never goes out of the palace except in her armoured carriage accompanied by a hundred armed horsemen. In fact the security around the Queen is so great that I doubt any besides a ghost could slip through it”.

 

And so the Duke decided that some other method must be thought of to dispose of the Queen and he sent spies into the royal household disguised as servants and instructed them,

 

“Tell all the servants in the palace that the Duke of Semanti and all the heads of the exiled Noble families of Illyria will reward them if, every time a person is asked to taste the Queens food, they will pretend to die.

 

And not only that, the Duke went to all the Queens physicians and told them that they would be suitably rewarded as well if they would co-operate in his plan,

 

“Every time the Queen asks you to examine someone who has tasted her food and has dropped down unconscious, you must swear to her that they are dead and that the cause of their death is poison”.

 

The only person, in fact, who the Duke could not persuade to participate in his charade was the head of the Queens secret police force, Pietro Segundo but the Duke found another way of dealing with him for one day he and his men went to arrest a secret meeting of conspirators only to find that they had walked into a trap and their bodies were later found floating in great river Asper.

 

And it was not long after hearing of Segundo’s death that Queen Amethyst sat down to an enormous court banquet with all her courtiers and guests sitting around a large oval table.