Innocent mistakes451Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSA9pTFuKhw
The radiance of the sun had faded to grey moonlight yet the King remained sitting in his throne. Every corners of the hall were in darkness but he sent away the servants tasked to light the room for him. He felt as if the shadows were consuming him and he adhered. Memories of the distant past hunted him like it just happened before his eyes.
The King and the Queen together with their young son, Prince Lazmet, mounted in an enclosed carriage drawn by eight horses. Its exterior was gilded and painted with sea creatures. Even its four wheels were shimmering with intricate gold.
Rich gilded sculptures of cirein croin were in the four corners which represented the royal power. The body of the coach was slung by braces covered with leather and decorated with gilt buckles. Meanwhile, the interior was lined with velvet and satin. Its window was carved open.
The Royal Family travelled out of the palace going to the most squalor village of the province. The Queen herself organized a feast for the commoners to commemorate her birth day.
As soon as the family felt the excessive shaking and abrupt bumps in their seats, they knew they had arrived in the place. The stinking smell immediately lingered in the air and they groaned.
“Do we really have to do this?” The King spoke to the Queen while covering his nose with a piece of cloth.
“The last uprising brought not just catastrophe but famine as well. We shall show our generosity in a time like this,” she said and removed the cloth she used in covering her nose. She plastered a smile in her face and raised her brows and looked intently to her husband and son.
The King and the Prince sighed and removed the cloth from their faces too.
“Now, lift thy lips,” she said and the two forcefully moved their lips into a smile. “Excellent,” she remarked and went out the carriage first.
“I hate this people. Can’t they be gone?” The King murmured in his self.
But the young prince heard it. “You want them gone, Father?” He asked.
“Aye. They were part of the uprising against the palace. If they are starving now, they brought it to themselves. Why do we have to take responsibility and feed them?” The King groaned but heed out the carriage with a smile on his face.
The rabbles were crowding like a circle when the family dismounted their carriage.
The Royal Family greeted them as warm as they could albeit their filthy skins and rugged tunics, but instead of being greeted back, the people glared at them as if they were stabbing them with daggers. Regardless, the Queen carried on and announced her intention to the people.
“We need not help from thou,” a fully bearded man with swollen eyes uttered. His top was uncovered revealing his toned and heavy muscles as if it was as hard as a rock. “Leave,” added the man.
The Queen was about to open her mouth again when more man like him showed up in the front of the people. They held their head high and stared at them as if they were ready to strike. The Queen flinched and the King clenched his fist.
“We are here to aid thy sufferings despite thy revolt against us. Accept this generosity and blood shall not be spilled,” the King said with deep and serious tone.
Yet the people revealed their shovels, axes, and any other tools. They held it as if they were going to hit the family.
“Didn’t thou hear what I said?” The man with big built spoke again. “Leave!” He reiterated with raised voice.
And the people started hissing at them. They began taking steps closer to the family. “Trump! Liar! Fopdoodle! Gadzooks! Zounds!” The people clamoured while raising their tools. They kept swearing more words as their eyes kept glaring the family, hungry for blood.
Oman, the Kingsguard, ordered the palace guards to hinder the people from getting any closer. The soldiers lined up between the people and the family. They draw their swords from its scabbards and pointed to the people.
But it did not stop the people as they kept walking closer to the family and chanting swears words to them.
Though enraged, the family mounted up the carriage and let the palace guards protect them against the retaliation of the rabbles. Stones began to fly over the hood of the carriage and the horses started to neigh. The family felt its shaking as the people tried to climb up to them.
Desperate, the King commanded the footman to take them away from the squalor. But the people were blocking the path and the footman was hit with some stones. The Kingsguard, then, went to the front of the carriage and swayed his sword to scare the people. Some soldiers followed and started clearing the path for the carriage.
The people squeaked and screamed but they refused to end their revolt.
The carriage, at last, began moving away from the place. The King shouted the footman to go faster while the Queen took the young prince in an embrace. Prince Lazmet turned his face and saw the people shouting while hitting some soldiers. When the carriage was far enough, the Kingsguard ordered the soldiers to withdraw and follow after the royal family.
As soon as they arrived within the palace, the King stormed out of the carriage and went straight to his chamber. The Queen went to the throne hall and summoned few officials. The young prince was escorted by his handmaiden going to his bedroom.
The brows of the King furrowed and his breathing was heavy. His eyes landed in cirein croin statue beside his door. He shouted as he pushed it. He threw everything that his eyes laid upon in the room.
Moments later, he was crouching in the ground along with the broken things as he let the blood drip from his wounded hands. He was panting and his nostrils flared. His forehead had droplets of sweat on it.
The door swung open.
“Goodness gracious! What happened here?” The Queen gasped as she entered the room. She turned her head sideways and saw the King.
“I’ll kill those wretches! I’ll kill them all!” The King said as he grabbed a broken golden cubozoa beside him and threw it in the wall across him.
The Queen squeaked. “Enough of this, Emir!” She shouted. “Lazmet is missing!” added her.
King Emir stood up as if he was slapped back to reality. “What?” He uttered.
“I cannot find him anywhere!” She shouted again.
And the King hurriedly walked outside. He summoned the soldiers and ordered them to find the prince in and out of the palace.
He was sitting in his throne while shouting to the soldiers that were lined up in the hall. Beside him, the Queen was standing as her hands trembled. She was also giving orders as to where and how to find her son.
Suddenly, a soldier entered from the door. He was carrying a little boy.
The Queen immediately spotted them. “Lazmet!” She shouted and ran fast to him.
The King stood up and ran as well.
The soldier dropped the boy in front of them and the royal highnesses pulled him into an embrace.
“Where have thou gone?” The Queen worried.
The soldier genuflected. “I found the young prince back in squalor, Your Majesty.” He said.
“In the squalor? Why were thou there, son?” The king asked, frowning.
The prince broke the hug. “I gave them the food intended for them,” he responded.
“They attacked us!” The King scowled.
“I know. That’s why I mixed foxgloves in there,” Prince Lazmet said.
“A what?” The Queen asked.
“Poison, Mother,” he answered. “I slaughtered them all!” He uttered and laughed as if he won a price.
The eyes of the King and Queen widened and their mouths parted.
“Y-you d-did what?” The Queen mumbled with quivering lips.
“Are thou proud of me, Father? Thou wanted them gone. Now they are gone,” he said and clapped his hands while grinning to the king.
He was pulled back in the present when he heard the voice of the Queen.
“Thou seem to be in deep thought, My King,” she said. She was standing in the doorway of the throne hall. As the King laid his eyes on her, she walked inside.
He could not make her image in the dark but as she approached nearer to him, he saw the pair of her eyes that mirrored his along with a vivid memory.
“He killed hundred people, Emir! By his own hands!” the Queen scowled to him.
They were arguing in her chambers the morrow after the incident in squalor.
“The soldiers heard what he had done! We barely managed to stop the last uprising. If people knew about what he did, they’ll revolt once again!” She shouted while motioning her hands in the air. Her face was in a grimace.
The King held her shoulders and slightly shook her. “Thou need not worry, My Queen. I handled the matter,” he said in a soft tone.
“How?” She shouted again.
The King inhaled deeply. “I…I…I declared it as a plague. I ordered physicians around the village to say it as such. No one will dare to come near that village again. I’ll have the soldiers set them on fire in two days. I’ll make it look like they not died at once,” he said.
“Suppose the soldiers spread the truth? What then?” she asked having her voice toned down a little.
King Emir sighed. “Lazmet is to be king after me,” he said. “A king is innocent albeit what he has done, My Queen,” he uttered.
The Queen, then, had stepped up the stairs to his throne. “I was told thou haven’t eaten since daylight,” she uttered as she stepped the last stair. She walked beside the throne and was about to touch his shoulders.
“Don’t,” the King mumbled and he looked away from her.
The hand of the Queen stopped midway. She took it back and glared at him.
“What brought thou here?” He asked.
“I told thee—“
“Why,” he said and shifted back his gaze at her. “Are thou here?” He finished.
The Queen held her stares against him for a moment. She smiled before opened her mouth to speak. “Lazmet shall be thy heir,” she said.
The King lightly shook his head. “No,” he uttered.
“O, I was not asking,” she said keeping her lips in curve. “The viziers share the same aspiration as I and it shall be done,” added the Queen.
“Thou won’t have thy way,” he said and plastered a smirk in his face.
“He is thy only son left. Thou shall yield from forsaking him,” she said. “If not him, who shall inherit that throne of thine when thou pass away?” she said further.
“I am not to die yet. And even if I am, the throne will not be his. Rather, I shall enthrone the son of my sister,” he responded.
The smile of the Queen faded. “He is three,” she said. “Suppose thou pass away, who shall rule in his stead?” she uttered.
The King widened his smile. “My sister,” he answered.
The Queen gripped his skirt and it crumpled. Her lips were quivering as she tried to lift it into a smile again but failed. Her glare intensified and she held her head higher. “Lazmet shall be thy heir,” she reiterated but stressed each word slowly as her brow arched.
She turned her back from him and she took her leave. The sound of her shoes echoed in the four corners of the hall.
King Emir waited for the sound of her footsteps to fade before he stood up from his seat and began paving his way out of the palace. He ordered his servant to prepare the carriage. Under the full moon shining above them, he travelled to the synagogue having only the coachman of the carriage with him.
As the carriage moved, he glanced at the ocean waves hitting the big stones. It devoured the stones but the stones remained as they were unaffected. The breezing wind was cold and damp. It tasted salt in his lips. His sight dropped on the moon’s reflection in the water. A memory flashed in his mind as if he was watching it by the ocean.
Lazmet was nine seasons old. He gifted him a small dagger with golden cubozoa crest in its handle. The prince giggled in excitement and the King laughed while patting his son’s head. It was bliss. He even brought his son in the arena and taught him how to throw it. He remembered feeling so proud when Lazmet hit the bullseye after only three trials.
But, he did not anticipate the things that came after.
The morrow after that, he saw the same dagger pierced into his mother’s chest. Prince Lazmet was sobbing in the corner soaked with blood while the Queen Dowager at that time was lying in the cold floor of his chamber covered with blood and broken glass of mug. His bed was drenched with blood of his dead handmaiden and two more maids lying near the door had their throats cut.
“What have thou done?” He asked the young Lazmet.
“I…I…I,” he uttered while his whole body was trembling. “I was playing. But Grandmother wanted me to… to study. I said I do not want to. But she took the knife. She said she will never give it to me again. And then, and then, and then,” he cried.
The King grabbed his son and glared him. “Thou killed her!” He shouted.
“Thou gave it to me! I cannot let her take it!” Lazmet exclaimed.
King Emir dropped the young prince and hit the wall in his back with his fist and screamed. His chest was pounding and he fell to his knees and his body bent down. Crystalline droplets began pouring from his eyes and he whipped.
“Grandmother had brought it to herself. If she had not taken it, then,” Prince Lazmet spoke.
The King felt as if his blood had boiled and without thinking he slapped his son. “Thou not regret it?” He groaned.
Lazmet had fallen to the ground. His lips and nose bled while his cheek bruised. Yet, he stood up and faced his father. “A king is innocent albeit what he has done,” he uttered. “You said that, father,” he said holding his head high while looking straight to the King’s eyes.
King Emir’s eyes widened and his lips slightly parted. Unconsciously, his feet stepped backwards. He could not recognize his own son. His eyes were not of a child but of a murderer.
“Thou art no king. And thou shall never be,” he mumbled to his son.
“Father—“
“No! Do not call me that!” he hissed and stormed out of the room hazily.
He had been cold to Lazmet ever since. And when the clairvoyant told him the divination of the prince, he lost any affection left for him.
Footnotes:451Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRJmefvpcuE
451Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡq6iehPw0IN
Season - year451Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTkiom2pIu4
451Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIius7knDWN
Cubozoa - jellyfish451Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3aPOETnZ8p
451Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYfaIgMOrG8
Cirein croin - sea monster
