Stories by Sofia Hardy
The king who was not wise
There was once a king. He was extremely strong and powerful but the people around him were weak and liked better to sit in the court and discuss their fine clothes or an elegant line of verse than to help him rule or govern the king’s country. They loved leisure and entertainments and they felt the prestige of their position greatly
The king worried about his country but when he tried to pass a new law that might improve the lot his people, or to make his defences more secure against attack the court would put difficulties in his way. They would come to him with many arguments, and many floral phrases, as to why his law was not practicable, and sometimes they simply did not carry his orders through.
They were extremely vain and arrogant.
And so the country began to suffer from poor government. Sometimes the crops in the fields were not collected in time, because the aristocrats of the court had ordered that the available workers should help them organise a grand festival. Sometimes they kept the money allotted for the needy for themselves, and sometimes a project ordered by the king, for a new road or a new bridge would not be built because they had appropriated the money; and sometimes, if the bridge was built they used people who had offered them a bribe, and these people were not qualified to build a bridge and the workmanship and materials would be inferior.
“Is the bridge over the river in the north built yet?” The king would ask.
They would stand around him perfumed, exquisite in their sparkling finery.
“Not yet sire,” They said, in their soft voices.
“But why is it not built?” The king would ask, frowning on them.
“It is much more difficult than his majesty supposes” They would say. “The king, for all the wonderments of his intellect or the glory of his countenance, is not a bridge builder. He does not have a full grasp on these matters.”
They would flatter him; the king knew he was flattered but he also knew he had no expertise in bridge building, so he fell silent.
The courtiers had appropriated much of the money given out to the army, and so the kings army were ill equipped, and they put very bad men in the positions of captains, drunkards and cruel men; so that the soldiers deserted and went back to their homes, carrying with them tales of the cruelty of the king, who selected such captains.
“I will examine my army, now,” The king would say.
“It is not the right time, sire,” They would reply. “They are all out in the field, practising manoeuvres.”
Then, there was a revolution in the court. The king woke up one morning to find a hubbub going on, and his breakfast was not bought to him when he rang his bell. Going to see what was happening, the king found one of his servants lying injured on the ground. He tried to help, but the man ran away from him in fear.
“What is going on?” The king called out.
Some of his courtiers hurried to him to calm him.
“It is nothing, sire,” They said. “That man who has been your chief advisor has been misusing his position. When the judges came to arrest him, his servants fought them. But it is over now, and Okar has taken charge of the household”
“I did not appoint Okar,” Said the King, but he felt faint, and had to retire to his bed.
The King, while he was a very great man, had a fatal flaw. His flaw was this; that, while he had a very good and shrewd perception of people, he too readily overlooked their deficiencies and would not act on what he saw.
So Okar was put in charge. He was a short man, very wiry and strong, and he was extremely malevolent and evil, without the love of fine things or the arrogance of the courtiers. Okar loved power for itself, and he loved nothing else.
Soon, things went from bad to worse in the country and in the court.
The King knew something was terribly wrong, he sensed it; he knew also there were cruel punishments being dealt out to his people, punishments he had never ordered, and never would have ordered.
“Your Majesty is not well,” The courtiers trilled in their soft voices. “Lie still and rest.”
“I want to see this man Okar” Said the King. “I want to question him. I hear voices from beyond my court, screams of anguish, and I want to know what is going on.”
“Okar is too busy a man to come to your majesty,” Said the courtiers. They were less civil than they had been, and tended to treat the King like a foolish and fractious child. Though it was they who were poisoning him, they had begun to forget the fine man he truly was.
One day, the king called for his clothes and he got up and went for a walk. They did not try to stop him, as in his greatly weakened condition he could barely totter around his garden.
He went down to the river and lay beside it, watching the hurrying water. His sense of grief was very great.
“Why am I so weak?” He said to the water. “I know something is terribly wrong, why can I not put it right?”
A voice spoke to him. “You are weak because they poison you.” It said.
Surprised, he looked into the water. Had his reflection spoken? The reflected mouth quivered as if emotional or as if it might be speaking.
“It’s me,” He heard. Turning his head, he saw a little way away from him a small brown she otter. “I spoke,” she said.
“You speak,” Said the king, very surprised.
“Yes,” Said the otter. “I will tell you what you must do. You must arrange a feast, and tell everyone that you are going to choose for yourself a wife, at the feast.”
“I do not want a wife,” Said the king. “I am unable as I am to protect or support her properly. It would not be at all appropriate at the moment.”
“Nevertheless, this is what you must do.” Said the otter, and her fur flashed in the sunlight as she leapt into the stream and swam away, the sun gleaming on the dappled water, as she swam.
The king felt strangely heartened. “It is the only advice I have had for a long time that had any ring of truth about it, “ He argued with himself. “I will try it.”
So he called his courtiers and told them to arrange a feast, and he told them that at the feast he was going to choose for himself a wife. To his surprise, as he had become used to having his every request countermanded, they were eager to carry out his wishes. In fact, each thought they might marry one of their female relatives, or a friend, to the king, and therefore gain further influence in the court.
So they set about making arrangements for the feast.
The king had bought a flask of water with him from the river and he drank only the water from the flask, and secretly poured away all the exquisite beverages they bought him. He had a little dog brought to his room, he said, for company, but in fact, alone, he tested his food on the dog. A kind man, he gave the dog only a very little of everything, and he watched it with everything he tried; and when it appeared to become weak he stopped feeding it the poisoned food immediately, and waited for it to recover; and when his tests were over, the dog was fully recovered and he knew that only his bread was not poisoned.
So for the few days that he waited for the feast, in the midst of splendour and luxury and plenty, the king drank only the crystal clear water from the river in his garden, and he ate only the bread they bought him, and he cleverly concealed his ruse from his courtiers.
Slowly he began to retain his health. His wits cleared, the poison he had been given had made it difficult for him to think clearly, and he began to see more perceptively what was happening around him.
“How could I have let this happen?” He berated himself. “I am the king. This is no-one’s fault but my own.”
Soon the feast was ready. Many very beautiful women had come from far and wide, called by their ambitious relatives to the king’s feast.
The king sat at his place at the head of the table. He smiled around at them. Deliberately he had kept his clothing a little awry, so that they should think him still incompetent, and he kept his answers vague and capricious.
“I do not want this food,” He said, pushing his loaded plate away. “Give me what he has,” and he pointed at Okar’s plate.
Okar’s eyes flashed. He had been in charge for a while now and had never met the king before this day. Okar felt he was the king, and he felt very keenly that a usurper wore the royal robes and sat in the king’s place, at the head of the king’s table.
He looked angrily at the king. “You cannot have my meal,” He said, brusquely.
There was an uneasy silence in the court.
“Nevertheless, this is what I shall have,” Said the king, holding Okar’s gaze.
Okar had a terrible temper, and it was beginning to rise, but one of his closest allies, a man with a beautiful sister who, all felt, stood a fair chance to be queen touched him lightly on the arm. “The king is the king,” He said, in his sweet tones. “He may have what he wishes.”
There was awkward laughter from the courtiers, and the food was exchanged, though Okar still looked thunderously angry.
“Popinjay,” He thought. “Weak fool. This is just a sham.” He had completely forgotten that he had no right to the throne, and felt that it was all his; and furthermore, he had the problem of appearing to eat without actually eating from the kings poisoned plate which had been passed to him.
As the feast drew on all watched the king, who seemed in good spirits, though thin and wasted; and his hair prematurely greying; but all watched him narrowly, like men who guard a lion, who are afraid of the lion, and afraid that they may have given the lion a little more freedom than was wise.
Looking around the whole company the king saw no face that he could marry. On each face there were the marks of some disability of character. One was spiteful, three gossiped and several were drunk as the meal progressed. One was much too proud, one ill tempered. None were women he could have been easy with, as a wife.
When the feasting was drawing to a close everybody looked expectantly towards the king, waiting for him to make his choice.
Just then there was a sound beyond the door; they all heard the raised voice of the guard outside the door.
“What is happening?” the king asked.
“Nothing, nothing sire,” They cooed. “It is nothing to disturb the king at his feast.”
“I want to know,” Said the king; and angrily they sent for the captain of the guard.
“It is a poor woman,” The captain said. “She says she wants to see the king.”
“The king must look everywhere for a suitable queen,” said the king, agreeably. “Send her in.”
They looked about to refuse him but he said, more firmly, “I said, send her in.”
And the courtier again touched Okar’s arm, and leaned towards him to whisper “It is just his sick, foolish fancy. We control all and he will marry who we say he will marry.”
So the woman was brought to the feast. She was wearing a brown coat; her eyes were large and lustrous. As she stood before the king she opened her coat, and took it off. Underneath the coat, she was wearing a white dress which sparkled as if all the stars of heaven had fallen on her.
The king nodded. “I will marry this woman,” he said.
The court was dismayed. “Sire, it is not fitting,” They said. “She has no family, no wealth.”
It was never said she should have family or wealth,” Said the king.
Okar was looking for his servants, to give the signal for them to raise their swords; but all the
important families had brought a prospective wife along, and while there was a general angry murmur against the king, all began to look darkly on each other, as all were enemies in this matter, and it had taken this moment to reveal their enmity.
The king took the woman’s hand. “We shall be married immediately, “He said, and the officials came and they were made man and wife there, at the feast.
The courtiers were furious, and began to murmur to each other, “We will kill the new queen, and put our daughter in her place,” said one powerful couple.
“No,” Said another. “We will kill the queen and put our sister in her place.”
They could not agree and they began to quarrel loudly and even to fight with each other. There was a great uproar and soon their fine clothes were disarrayed and torn, and their smooth faces had lost their looks of pride and content and had become dark and twisted with fury and jealousy; and all the concealed passions that raged within them were revealed.
The king and queen stood by and watched. Okar began to strike the table and to shout louder than the others, he was trying to say that all this was irrelevant, the king should be slain and he should be put in the kings place, and this would resolve the foolish matter of who should be queen; but no one regarded him and soon his voice was drowned in the general uproar.
The new queen made a small gesture with her right hand. In the distance there was a new sound, a murmur that developed into a tumultuous roar; but none of the quarrelling courtiers heard it.
“We have to make for higher ground,” Said the queen, hurriedly leading the king up, to the kings personal apartments.
Nearby, there were one or two servants who had remained loyal to the king no matter what, and they hurried after the king and queen, to help in any way they could. Together the group ran upstairs to the king’s apartment, and behind them, the struggling courtiers discovered to late the sound that was drowning out their racket was a huge wave of water coming straight for the feasting room.
The river had burst it’s banks. It entered the hall through every door and window and they could not escape, and all were drowned.
In the morning the king supervised the clean up. He turned to his wife; “You are as wise as you are beautiful,” He said. “I have not been wise but with you at my side I will rule well,” And he kissed his wife.
“And I love you dearly, “ She said and kissed him in return.
The king selected new captains and officers, and soon, he was seen about, in his country.
“Who is that?” All the people said.
“It is our new king, with his bride,” They said proudly. “ Come to take over from the old king, who was a tyrant, and we are all very glad to be rid of him.”
“What was the old king’s name?” They said.
“Okar,” Was the reply, and all agreed. The old king had been a very bad man called Okar, but he and his court had all been drowned, and the new king was a good and kind man and his queen was very wise,
They ruled for a long time; and the country became peaceful, happy, and wealthy.
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