Red Queen

The King was in His Counting House

"Where is it?" shouted the king.

The guard stared at the floor. He was struggling to keep his trembling in check and managed to only have his teeth betray him. They chattered within his tightly closed mind, sounding like a troupe of dancers making their way on stage, legs kicking and shoes tapping against the wooden boards. He had no idea what the king was talking about, but that wasn't unusual. Often, His Majesty would emerge from his chambers and bellow a question at whomever was unlucky enough to be passing. The query would almost always be random and ambiguous, as if he were testing his subject, expecting an erroneous answer so he could exact some bizarre punishment.

The guard had no way of knowing what 'it' the king referred to.

"It's in the kitchen, Majesty."

"Well, what's it doing there? I can't wear it in the kitchen, can I?"

His voice, already loud, increased in volume with each word, making the guard wince. He could feel the spray of the king's spit against his cheek and could smell the fetid breath.

"I'll go get it."

"Do that. I want my crown here on my head!"

The crown! Of course. The guard scampered off. If he'd been a dog, which was how he felt, his tail would be in between his legs. He knew the crown wasn't in the kitchen, of course. The King of Spades would never reduce himself to entering a room filled with so many of the hired help. He could only just tolerate the servants and guards who served him and that was only because he, usually, had to associate with one or two at a time.

The king was quite insane. He would admit as much himself. His crown, he'd say, would never sit quite straight. Rather than getting any help, however, he revelled in his madness, behaving like a child in a bath at times - surrounded by bubbles and playing with his duck and his toy warship until the water went cold and he had to execute somebody.

The bath was allegorical. The execution, not so much. For little more than coughing at the wrong moment or breathing just too heavily, guards had been dragged off to the dungeons by the hair - the king carrying out the person's removal himself. The dungeon was merely a series of stone cells, mostly empty. Those still occupied had individuals awaiting their demise, something carried out swiftly and inventively.

There were three executioners. Each was called Edward, though none of them really were. His majesty didn't worry himself over trivialities such as names and identified everyone as he felt at that particular time. The trio of Edwards felt quite lucky in that their name had yet to have been changed to something more random.

But, they did their very best to please the king. They had one task. Well, two, really. The main one was to kill those who angered him. They realised the reasons behind this were flagrantly nonsense much of the time, but they didn't want to end up on the wrong end of one of their own weapons. The second task, which was equally as important to them as the first, was to come up with new methods of death. The king refused to witness two consecutive deaths carried out in the same manner. The Edwards had to think of a large variety of techniques to ensure this didn't happen.

Once, they had to kill, by Royal Command, so it was acceptable, twenty men. They were not allowed to use the same process twice in that entire score of individuals.

The Edwards kept very extensive records of whom, when and how. They wanted to live. They used to feel bad about taking lives, but their own were far more important. It became commonplace. Normal. Just a thing they did.

The guard knew the Edwards well. They socialised at the tavern in town. Shared horror stories about their employer, though they made sure no-one was listening. He didn't want to be more intimate with them than he already was so he hurried to find the crown. He already had an idea where it was.