The Days and Hours of the Once and Future King

by David Gordy
From the Immortal Chronicles #2 (Winter 1998)

The King lay asleep in the royal bed, a massive contrivance with sturdy polished mahogany posts a veritable twenty feet tall, draped with curtains trimmed with ermine, possessed of sheets which were the labor of hundreds of thousands of silkworms. Yet the King was often restless, the weighty matters of state troubling his thoughts. He woke often in the night, crying to his servants for nectar or to massage the royal belly.

As the gamekeeper's rooster, the fierce black one with red coxcomb, crowed, King Matthew awoke and summoned his trusted servants, Ma and Da, with a great bellow, a sound so fearsome, that the animals in the fields, the birds of the air and the serfs in the serf system took notice. He saw his servants came and it was good. Ma and Da loved the young King, and were entirely devoted to his health and welfare. As always, they had eagerly rushed from their own beds to meet the kingly call.

Said the King, "Fetch me my royal nectar," and with that they rushed to the cookery, where a great cauldron, fires eternally stoked, warmed the King's food. Ma served the nectar to His Majesty in a wondrous glass goblet, where the heavenly liquid flowed through the thinnest of membranes so as not to irritate the royal mouth. He drank lustily of the goblet's contents, as Da placed a cloth of finest brocade placed over the King's shoulders to protect the royal garments. Any misplaced drop staining the royal breastplate would cause a very regal tantrum.

The goblet was drained in less time than the beat of a dragonfly's wing. "We are sated" the King announced, and accompanied his proclamation with a belch loud enough to be heard in seven counties and across the wide ocean. Nectar ran down his chin. Da dabbed at it lightly with a damask handkerchief. The King moved the royal lip to accommodate. Then as if out of the very gates of Hell, a sulfurous odor permeated the room, foul enough to fell every mighty oak in the forest.

Da and Ma stood rigidly at attention, understanding all too well the next task at hand.

"We must be changed and dressed, and our toiletries attended to." As did Hercules clean the rank stables of Augeus, so Ma and Da labored mightily each and every day, for the King's excretions were many and fragrant, and his water fast and frequent. His undergarments, of finest silk, were carefully removed with silver tongs and placed into a specially designed urn, decorated with images of the four winds, and representations of the seasons. The urn was taken to the laundresses Dreft and Tide, who labored night and day until the undergarments were as white as the driven snow, and as soft as the King's posterior.

It should be known that, from time to time, the King would have great pain from gastric distress, and would cry a cry so loud that the trees themselves shook free their leaves. On such occasions Ma and Da and ten loyal retainers would have to take hold of the royal legs, push them back and forth, working free great gales of regal wind, enough to flatten farmhouses yon seven leagues off. Then as quickly as the pain would arrive, it would depart, and the King would breathe a kingly sigh, and smile a relieved smile, and the royal head would fall back in sleep against the back of the throne, for a short but necessary respite.

As this day was blessedly free of such kingly explosions, the King was wholeheartedly ready for his exercise, and in the royal gymnasium, his muscles were flexed, and manipulated by trainers, the strongest brutes in the kingdom. He threw golden medicine balls, and pulled springs, and performed push-ups and sit-ups and various and sundry other maneuvers designed to keep the royal muscles firm and supple.

Ma and Da then bathed the King, immersing him in rosewater, garnished with petals of jasmine. His face and body shone as they were burnished with costly oils and perfumes, precious unguents and emollients from lands across the Eastern Ocean. His Majesty was dressed anew in fresh clothes, raiments of gold cloth, threaded with silver, rich with velvet and lace. He was shod with the finest calfskin, lined with sable to cushion the royal toes.

Then, at the noontime, King Matthew toured the kingdom in the royal chariot, a magnificent coach decorated with fine filigree, possessed of four matched snow-white horses, driven by liveried coachmen. Da and Ma walked alongside should the King have need of them.

The Young Monarch took little interest in the particulars of his realm. He sat on pillows stuffed with finest eiderdown, and greeted passing subjects with a bored royal wave or perhaps merely a glance in their direction. Subjects prostrated themselves at even the slightest reception of the royal presence.

King Matthew wore a cap of finest embroidery for his skin was fair and delicate and subject to the depredations of the sun. He regarded himself in a polished silver mirror given to him by Da, and smiled at what he did see, for he was a handsome king, though perhaps too proud and vain of appearance, possessed as he was of a goodly amount of fine brown hair, large hazel eyes, long dark lashes, and full, almost womanly, lips, which he pursed with contentment.

Upon his return to the palace, the King called upon his court jesters to amuse him, who played upon magical instruments that produce sweet music at the merest touch, and acted in dumbshows of great wit and playful aspect, and then Da told tales of comic exaggeration and adventuresome derring-do, which provided His Majesty much amusement. All the while, a great pet lion of considerable mane, which the King was wont to lead around by a silver leash and an emerald studded collar, purred a loud purr, licked His Majesty's face, and curled up at his feet.

In the afternoon, it was the King's custom to receive visitors of state from all the neighboring realms, including his majestic peers, the fair Princesses Emily and Susannah of Culveria, and Jeremy and Johnetta, joint rulers of the Long Beach. He would discuss particular matters of statecraft, novel branches of learning, and current modes of entertainment with the notables of all the near lands, among them Count Robert the Sparky, Sultan Randi and Sultana Sadina of Koman, Grand High Sergeant Johnthomas and Lady Stephanie of Olde Parker Centre, Baron Brick of Rigel Seven, Earl Homer of the wide Glen Dale, Marquis Triant and Marquess Donna of Bongo, the Darks of Luton-up-the-Hill, and His Pedantic Personage Raymond of Champaign and Urbana, Ph.D., B.A., G.E.D., L.L. Bean, B.A.C.K. in the U.S.S.R.

Finally, when the day fell to a close, the King's musicians were summoned, all manner of melodious sounds emanating from their instruments, to accompany Ma as she sang, for she possessed the finest voice in the kingdom. It was the nightly ritual for Ma to chant pure, soothing songs that escorted the king into sleep's soft arms. But on this evening, a wondrous thing did happen. The King, just before sleep enfolded him, gave Ma and Da a royal smile and said in the most genuine way, "You are our favorite people. If it were not for you, we would be very sad indeed." Ma and Da were made richer than any merchant in the kingdom by this kingly largesse. They smiled and wept and kissed the King on the cheek, and bade him a good night. And Ma and Da and King Matthew lived happily ever after, or at least until the King began to grow the royal teeth.

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