Crushing a Rose

"Office" does not express clearly enough the grandeur of the room, but even though "throne-room" might have been more appropriate, this would have been an outright act of revolution. The Queen was guided to a chair facing Lady Justice Manyra’s seat. The King sat at her side, looking pale and confused. Rose looked wonderingly around her. Manyra’s seat was raised high, and surveyed the whole room. Intimidation tactics, she thought. Behind it hung a giant sparkling lightning bolt, symbolising justice, or more precisely, punishment. All around the vast chamber tiny grey rain-clouds watered the many plants and trees Lady Manyra had ordered be planted.

"Your Majesty," Lady Manyra began, her icy voice torn between hatred, scorn, disgust, sarcasm and triumph, "as a result of your unholy, unlawful and consensual adultery, you shall be stripped of your titles and exiled from the empire forever. Also, your marriage contract is immediately broken." Rose, no longer Queen, heaved a sigh of relief.

"Manyra… forgive me; Lady Justice Manyra – what will happen to Michael?" Rose asked anxiously. She was willing to endure any suffering to save the love of her life.

"Who is Michael? Oh yes, of course, your partner in crime. He is currently having every bone in his body broken one by one. If he survives, he shall be sealed in a box with an assortment of live snakes, cats, spiders and scarabs. If you hurry, you may be in time for his death." As she spoke, her normally dull, colourless eyes twinkled gleefully. The colour drained from Rose’s face, and she retched, feeling as though her heart and soul were leaving her now meaningless life through her mouth. Her glazed eyes fixed on her former husband, the man who had professed to love her, the man who was sitting quietly, letting this cruel injustice be done. Justice Manyra raised an elegant yet disdainful eyebrow. "Also, our worthy King has asked me to marry him, and I shall. You will watch the ceremony."

The High Court was in an uproar. The King was divorced, and was going to remarry within the week! Rose was no longer Queen, but everyone had an uneasy feeling that she would not get away without a proper punishment.

The guests at the wedding were the whole town. They crowded round the specially raised altar and gazed up in wonder. Next to it was a floating metal platform on top of which the shamed former Queen stood riveted, eyes forced open to see the ceremony. Everyone had to admit that her successor looked beautiful. Not breathtakingly lovely and heart-winning, as Rose had been at her wedding, but impressive, striking and grand. At the end of the ceremony, Manyra leaned forward and gently kissed the King on the lips. There was no cheering, but a deadly eerie silence. In that brief instant a bolt of lightning shot dazzlingly from the sky and struck down Rose, who fell into a pile of dust and blood. The new Queen smiled triumphantly, the King stood still, shocked to the core, and the citizens, after a period of disbelieving silence, started whispering to each other. The new Queen grabbed the Kings arm and yanked him down the stairs. She smiled benignly, and he whispered prayers to himself. The remains of Rose’s body stirred, and her dying curse realised itself. The ashes formed into a crown and flew to Manyra’s head, and the blood to her hands.