Author's Note - I wanted to do this for a while. Though I love the indivudal chapters of this series and always thought it would work better in a single volume. I've reread, reworking and revising everything. Essentially this is the same story and it's all here (yes, even chapter 4 - be warned), but think of it as my director's cut. Thank you for all the feedback and support, the comments, and please enjoy the ride!
All characters in sexual situations are 18 or older.
The Prince's Potion
1
Queen Marzanna Velcin anxiously paced the royal bedchamber. She was all alone, the only other movement in the room was a roaring fire. Above the mantle hung the ancient green and gold Velcin banner depicting a snake eating its tail. Outside the castle, a wicked thunderstorm raged. It was well past midnight, and Ser Blant had taken her husband's corpse away less than an hour ago. The illness had been mercifully swift. The terrible pox which had ravaged her coastal kingdom of Trevilan for nearly three months had taken her husband's life. In his final days, the aged king's most trusted advisors swore the worst of the plague had passed, until one by one each of them succumbed to the welted disease.
Marzanna was no fool and she knew how strong the sickness indeed was. She knew how dire Trevilan's situation had become in such a short time. And she knew that without a king, her kingdom would be severely weakened.
Politically crippled and susceptible to attack both by sea and on land, Trevilan was in a difficult position. The uneasy peace shared with the neighboring kingdoms of Sar Sanrosan and Balmudia rested on the relationship her husband had forged with their rulers throughout his thirty-year rule. Would that peace transcend his death? Would they honor it under the rule of the new king?
Our borders will need strengthening; our people need to know their king will see them through this sickness,
Marzanna's thoughts raced as she tried to remain calm.
The plague might buy us time... to fortify the borders and secure the throne. How would that be perceived though?
She continued to pace about the massive room. Her son, Rodmond, was there to think about. Barely eighteen... Could he suddenly become king of a plague-torn country? Her only son... hardly a man, let alone a king! But such was his birthright...
Rodmond, or Roddy, as everyone called him, had been born sickly and weak, a common result of the Veclin penchant for incest and inbreeding. Marzanna's only boy spent most of his days bedridden in his tall tower. He was handsome and tall for his age, but quite thin and scrawny. Though he had survived childhood, and the royal blood was pure, he was slow-minded and meek.
Generations of royal Velcin blood ran through her veins and all three of her children. No one would ever contest Rodmond's ascendency. Royal inbreeding was common among all five kingdoms but none more than the Velcins of Trevilan. Marzanna's recently deceased husband, King Rodar Velcin, had been her birth father, twenty years her senior. When his first marriage to his sister failed to produce a male heir, he took Princess Marzanna as his next wife.
Could she make a king out of little Roddy in such dangerous times? Marzanna shook her head. The idea of her baby boy suddenly thrust into the royal spotlight.
He was so weak and tired all the time.
How would he know what to do? The boy had no mind for politics and statecraft. He had no way with words, to shape the minds of men; or had any skill with a sword for that matter. Would he know how to defend the kingdom should war come to Trevilan?
The kingdom knew Prince Rodmond would someday take up his father's sword, and wear his crown, but not so soon. Not yet, at such a young age...
Marzanna continued to pace back and forth. She could always remarry; she was only thirty-eight. She could still bear children; the Redeemer knew she had the body for it. Her husband had almost immediately taken to her, years ago, when she blossomed into a
very
full-bodied woman. After three children, she was far more buxom than she was comfortable with. She inspected her sensuously curvy form in the mirror. Her breasts were enormous, heavy teardrops hanging low and full on her chest, and it took a well-laced corset to create the expansive creamy cleavage she looked upon. Her wide hips, a big bubbly rear, seemed to be expanding every season. Though she knew these were not unappealing qualities to potential suitors. They could prove to be an asset...
Yes, she could take some noble Trevilan lord, from a lesser bloodline, but a secure one, as her new husband. She could be queen regent and groom Rodmond... given the time to have him adequately trained by a team of advisors, physicians, and knights.
Oh Redeemer, but this terrible plague
, she thought,
my husband's corpse is not yet cold, and I think of remarrying! No, I think of it only for the welfare of my kingdom, and my children...
The buxom queen also had two young daughters to think about. Both were nubile and ready to be wed and bred, if not for love, then politically. All in service to save the kingdom, of course, she told herself.
My sweet girls, Maymon and Gilly.
Gilly was Rodmond's twin sister. Beautiful little Gilly, with her adorable cherubic face and luscious long black hair, ruby red lips, and surprisingly big bottom... Marzanna knew the Velcin genes all too well and her girls had inherited them. Under normal circumstances, Gilly would be promised to Rodmond, to be his sister-queen and bear his pure-blood offspring. Would they follow through on that plan or would new alliances need to be formed through Gilly's hand in marriage? Raised as a lady of the court, Gilly would do anything for her mother, for the kingdom.
Then there was Maymon, her oldest. Two years older than the twins, Maymon was her feisty little sorceress-in-training. She was piercing and defiant, a gorgeous young woman, but headstrong, like her father. Radiant Maymon had a keen interest in the arcane and was apprenticed to Tustin, their court wizard,
that old rascal.
And where was he? Shouldn't he have come up with some cure to the pox?
Marzanna tutted. That horny old goat, who had served the Velcin Family for four generations, used his dark magic to ensure each of their inbred heirs was safely delivered.
Yes, the old wizard,
she suddenly thought.
He would know what to do!
Tustin was an ancient practitioner of the mysterious black arts which had for so long protected the Velcin's from the ravages of such repetitive inbreeding and had graciously accepted Maymon into his inner circle. His teachings would prepare her for her eventual training at the Academy in Gristult, should she pass the required tests.
Wheels began to turn in the fiery queen's mind.
Why... if the wizard could whip up some magical stamina spell, or a strength spell or something... even if only to make Roddy appear to be in a ruling state of body and mind...
Marzanna suddenly stopped, snapped her fingers, and turned to face the door. As if summoned, there was a knock.
'Enter,' she spat. It was the captain of the guard and two of his loyal dogs.
Ser Blant approached slowly and Marzanna took a moment to regard him. The captain was in his fifties; two years older than her husband and easily twice the size of him. Blant was a seasoned fighter, had trained every soldier in the castle, and even the king himself, sparring with him since they were boys. Still powerfully built, though showing his age, with flecks of white on either side of his black hair, Blant was a fixture of the castle.
He was a rock within its walls and a powerful weapon outside it.
She knew she would not be able to go on without him. He had such a friendly way with the children and had formed an especially close bond with Gilly.
'Majesty,' he knelt before her, as he had done a thousand times. 'The royal body is being prepared for the funeral rites, as ordered. What would you ask of me?'
Marzanna steeled herself against the tears, against breaking down again, and straightened, and cleared her throat. 'I must speak with the wizard. Take me to him, Ser Blant. Does he... yet know of the King's passing?'
'I know not, majesty,' the old knight said, still kneeling, 'but, to be sure, little escapes his grasp...'
***
