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| Source: Wikimedia Commons |
“I shall bow before him on bended knee,
My fealty to give as long as I live,
Or ’till reign ends, as the gods may
decree.”
The crowd finished singing the Hymn of Fealty, and the king
screeched with hysterical joy, clapping his hands with delight at the thought
of this entire assembly singing in his honour. King Samuel of Tix’chan had been
crowned ruler of Trinist only a week ago, and still drew great pleasure from
hearing vast auditoriums of people singing his honour. Throwing his head back
on the ancient throne of the Tix’chan family, built from the bones of an
ancient creature dug from the mountains centuries ago, Samuel laughed at the
vaulted ceiling.
Suddenly, his throat snapped closed and he glared at an
elderly, venerable steel merchantess in the front row.
“You, Burnt One!” he screamed insanely, “your voice trailed
off before the end of the hymn: are you trying to insult me?”
The crowd murmured in nervous horror as the king pronounced
this racial slur; the hoary woman’s back snapped straight and her tanned skin
flushed even darker with the embarrassment of the king’s unwarranted attack. Open
discrimination against minorities had been outlawed over the reign of Queen
Alexia centuries ago, and the thinking of the times was that all creatures were
born equal in the eyes of the gods.
Samuel simpered on the throne; his eyes cleared momentarily
and he became vaguely aware that he had transgressed a social more and that the
consequences of harming such a powerful woman as Dame Gracet could be terrible.
However, the mist descended over his eyes again and the king lost all reason.
Straightening the crown on his head, Samuel pointed his sceptre at Gracet and
shouted:
“Guards! Put this woman in irons; she is to be held in the
dungeons, until a trial for the crime of treason can be arranged.”
The guards, in the red and black livery of the Tix’chan
house, moved forward hesitantly; Dame Gracet had been a stalwart of the royal
court since the conferral of her damehood a decade ago, and there wasn’t a soul
in the palace that wasn’t fond of her, her gentle manner or her intelligent
advice.
Gracet, however, dealt graciously with the issue: stepping
forward, she held out her wrists willingly. The guards, thankful, put the irons
around her wrists and led her away. The crowd began to whisper as Dame Gracet
made her exit: the monarchs of Trinist were granted a highly limited suite of
powers by virtue of a codified constitution; their powers were mainly
ceremonial, and they ruled by popular consent. Their reach certainly did not
encompass arresting members of society, or accusing private citizens of a
crime.
However, these revolutionary changes had occurred a mere one
hundred years previously and, as such, there were many in the realm—the current
monarch included—who were fighting for the restoration of an absolute monarchy,
with full executive powers conferred by divine mandate. To compound problems,
King Samuel (nicknamed Samuel the Insane by the more brash members of the
court) was of questionable mental capacity, and was unlikely to be able to navigate
the choppy waters of Trinistian political life without causing outright civil
strife and overseeing a fresh outbreak of violence between the royalist and
constitutionalist factions.
The constitutional monarchy, being so freshly formed in the
landmark referendum a century ago, was still in a fledgling state. The exact
legal state of the monarch and the extent of his or her executive powers were
still nebulous, and factions on both sides were competing to have the legal
form of the ruler solidified or debased, according to their views.
King Samuel’s move, in the context of such a tumultuous
state, would be viewed as a direct attack on the legislature, and an indication
that he, as head of state, had designs to reinstate an absolute monarchical
regime. Of course, Samuel had no such intentions—his fevered brain was barely
capable of thinking past the next meal—but there were enough paranoid observers
on both sides of the debate to guarantee that this latest development would
spark controversy. Furthermore, without the calming influence of the rational
Dame Gracet, those sparks could quickly turn into flames.
A hush descended over the auditorium as Samuel sat back on
his throne; he was shivering with the exertion, and tears were leaking down his
face as the confusion of the day’s events overwhelmed him. Brother Arxan,
advisor to the throne, stepped forward; taking Samuel’s hand in his, he
whispered soothingly in his ear and convinced him to put an end to the
audience. Samuel, at first suspicious of this man approaching his throne,
gradually recognised Arxan through the mist and nodded meekly at his
suggestions. Rising from the throne, he placed his crown jewels in the hands of
the keeper and exited the stage.
The noblemen and –women, as well as various other members of
the court, began to exit, talking among themselves. Groups began to form as
members of the opposing factions met up in the aisles and whispered amongst
themselves, plotting their next move.
Alongside the division of the crowd into royalist and
constitutional factions, another group was also forming: nobles of various
racial minorities congregated in a corner and spoke in hushed tones; the king’s
racial slur—forgotten in the midst of Samuel’s transgression of his powers—had
sparked off worries which had been niggling for some time at their minds.
Although the popular opinion of the time was for equality among all people, a
racist countermovement had taken root in the upper echelons of the Trinistian
nobility; among these families, who had ruled in Trinist since time immemorial,
the opinion was growing that all of Trinist’s woes could be traced directly
back to Queen Alexia’s seminal ruling. This movement held as a core belief that
the gods were punishing Trinist for allowing racial minorities to corrupt the
bloodline of the nobility, and that the only path to the restitution of
Trinist’s previous good fortunes was through the cleansing of the
houses—through whatever means necessary.
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