The Better Queen

In a town in a faraway land there is a beggar man, but no one throws him scraps or coins.  They throw rocks instead, rocks not large enough to kill, rocks just large enough to hurt.

A visitor asks: Who is that man?

The answer: He used to be the King of Cline.

That man?  That man in rags with wild and dirty hair?

Aye.

How could this be?

Let me tell you.

He was born the second of three sons.  As is the way in Cline, the old King gave to his sons a challenge to determine who would become King after him.  This challenge was to find the best woman to be his queen.  And so all three sons set out to find a better woman than his brother.

There is a legend of a race of people who live deep in the forest, a race of ancient and powerful people.  They commune with the animals and shun modern ways of living.  The second prince travelled deep into the forest to find these people, for he believed a daughter of such people would far surpass any ordinary mortal raised in the decadence of Cline.

He returned with a beautiful, mysterious woman with an unlined face and old eyes.  She was clothed in a dress of woven leaves, and her hair hung loose and free.  He said her name was Velya, which meant Life Breath in the tongue of her people.  He said she had agreed to leave the forest and become his Queen.

The old King was pleased with his second son, and made him heir.

After a span of some years, the old King died.  In this time the prince and his wife had one child,  a daughter they named Maxou.  Velya learnt the language of Cline and confirmed the story the second had told when he first brought her home.  She was known as a wise and kind woman, but very peculiar in her ways.  While she was Princess, and then Queen, the halls of the palace were filled with all kinds of beasts.  Fierce predators and meek prey congregated in harmony, and all seemed to love and bow before both Velya and Maxou.

When the second prince became King, things changed in Cline.  People became poor and unhappy, and grumbled against the King, who lived in splendor despite his choice of a simple Queen.  In his hubris he conspired to march against our neighbors, claiming their lands.  He forced young men of Cline into his army and nearly an entire generation was lost in bloodshed on foreign soil.

People of Cline gathered together to fight against the King and those under his control.  Many soldiers deserted and joined the other side.  There was long and bloody civil war.  And still the King had only one daughter — it was rumored Velya left the palace, taking the princess and all her animals with her.

Even with the desertions, the King prevailed against the rebels on countless occasions.  And the resistance only made him stronger in his will to rule.  Poverty and desperation ruled the land.

Then, one day, a multitude stormed the palace and drove the King out.  It was not a multitude of rebels, of people, but of animals instead.  The King was dragged out into the streets by a pack of lions, and though he became bloodied and bruised, they did not kill him.  They left him to the people.

And though the people of Cline wanted to kill the King, they held their wrath.  For a wise woman spoke, saying that surely the long absent Queen Velya sent the animals, but instructed the lions to show mercy, and though they were beasts, they showed more humanity than the beastly King.  Surely, she said, the people of Cline who had so long fought against the tyrant, should emulate the nobel lions rather than the less-than-man they had defeated.

The people agreed, and did not kill the King.  But none will give him shelter, or food, or money, or power.

And so to this day he roams the streets, alone and despised, but unharmed.

No one has ever seen Velya or Maxou in a very long time.  It is said they went back to the forest people, back to the home of the simple and wise.  Now the other two sons of the old King rule the land, in conjunction, careful to leave our neighbors in peace and to not incur the wrath of the nation.  For they fear that if they overstep their bounds, Velya will send her animals to destroy them and set Maxou, the true heiress and rightful Queen, in their place.

This is the end of my story.

The visitor listens with rapt attention, and after a thoughtful silence says: I wonder.

What do you wonder?

I wonder if Maxou is more like her mother, or her father, at heart.

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