The Decadent Queen by Scribe of Mirrormere

The Decadent Queen

“Your mother was…I hesitate to say she was a great woman, for that would be telling a lie.” Tar-Anducal leaned back and chuckled over his own joke in which his son did not join in. It was grossly improper, laughing at the woman whose death they were mourning tonight with the customary evening meal after the funeral and coronation.

By all means, Alcarin should not have been sitting where he was. His place was where his father now sat. The Sceptre was rightfully his as the son of the late Tar-Vanimeldë and the heir to the throne, but his father had usurped it right from the deceased queen’s hands shortly after death had been officially announced. Yet Alcarin spoke no word about this injustice. His father was old himself; if he wanted the Sceptre, let him have it. Kingship will not last long for him.

“Of course you yourself know I was always the acting ruler of Númenor,” Tar-Anducal continued after a few bites. “While she was out with her dancing and music, I tended to the important matters of this great land.”

‘Out with her dancing and music’ was a far less generous way of putting how Alcarin remembered the late Tar-Vanimeldë. Númenor enjoyed itself in relative peacetime, and for that Tar-Vanimeldë had found little reason to barricade herself away from her people. Culture and education were her top passions, and one could often find her mingling with the folks she ruled, passing on her knowledge and her love for dance and music. Their people’s histories were interwoven with each step and each intricate hand gesture, recalling years far back in another Age and another land. To forget their dances was to forget their past, and Tar-Vanimeldë would not have such fate befall her people. The tips of the star-shaped island began to represent in paintings hands reaching out to the many directions the Númenóreans had hailed from.

Under her rule, Númenor blossomed into a land of cheer and art. The duties her husband tended to were, ultimately, tiny mundane matters. Yet he oft spoke of them as if they were of utmost importance while she dilly-dallied as a lazy old sod. It did not matter if she still was the deciding head on the most important matters, or if she was actively trading with the elves, importing spices to further enrich her lands with foods ranging in spectrums of tastes.

“You should hear the gossip about her,” he went on after taking a sip from his wine glass.

Alcarin glanced away, recognizing the spice on his beef being one of those his mother had imported from lands overseas.

“I had to fight for her honor even as I was left with nothing to show as evidence to the contrary! A whore and a zealot, scandalous creature who stayed up all night in the company of other equally questionable women and men!”

Scandalous. Staying up all night with other women and men. Tar-Vanimeldë had done so with a tambura in her arms and playing a song while her students proudly demonstrated the dances she had taught them. The celebrations lasted well into the night, and she always played even as the illness had begun to settle and slowly consume her. Alcarin remembered watching her on that final night, playing and singing joyfully as her merry face freckled with sweat yet glowed as bright and pale and beautiful like the waning moon.

It was true she had her critics. Her methods of rule were, in truth, unconventional, even a bit alarming, to see one of such status mingling with the commoners on a daily basis. Artists often depicted her with a large drinking cup in her hand, a voluptuous woman with a fruity laugh and about to fall in line with the music. The Bearer of good food, good wine, and good music. Or a ghastly sight of an improper queen. Either way, Alcarin could not think of one ruler before her who had made so much of Númenor laugh and smile.

“And now disease has taken the decadent queen, and all that remains is just memories of embarrassment. No, I am afraid she must be erased from our records. After all, it was I who watched over your people as she partied with the lesser folk till they passed her one of their diseases.”

Alcarin’s hands balled into fists under the table, but he spoke not a word against his father and king.

*

“That is where you are wrong,” Tar-Alcarin finally spoke, many years later as he held the Sceptre in his hands. It had been a long twenty years, but at last he was crowned the next Ruler of Númenor. His late father rested in his tomb just a few feet away.

“It is not Tar-Vanimeldë who the people will forget in the line of kings, but yourself,” Tar-Alcarin said. “Though she had a few naysayers and was odd in her ways, she was loved, a legend among her people, and what is legendary will prove victorious in spite of history.”

His smile towards the tomb held no contempt. “And I am sorry, but you were unmemorable even alive and as king. And for trying to erase my mother’s name as Queen, you will not be counted as among the Rulers of Númenor. Farewell, Father.”