SUENIK RELOADED
CHAPTER 54 - WHAT'S A YERSHIG?
(1281 - 1283)
The pain I'm feeling is excruciating, and sleep does not come easily.
Finally though, I start to drop off...
...only to be woken by Patriarch Sevag running around my room, whacking a chamber pot with a wooden spoon and yelling in a language that isn't Armenian.
I fix him a stare which I hope conveys my extreme displeasure, to which he drops the pot and spoon, before rushing over to my bedside with a demented grin on his face.
He kneels and pinches both my cheeks, before ruffling my hair and guffawing.
I narrow my eyes and ask what is so funny.
"Great news, sire!" he screeches. "My prayers were heard! You don't have the plague!"
He leaps to his feet and makes jazz hands in my direction, before running in circles on the spot and making little whooping sounds.
I rub the back of my neck and allow myself a little smile.
First I beat consumption, now I avoid the plague.
It's like I'm untouchable.
I start to laugh, then to cry and, before I know it, my tears are coming in great, gasping sobs. Sevag suddenly stops his strange dance, rushes over to my side and holds a finger to my lips and shakes his head.
I put my arms around him and hug him tightly. He pats my back and whispers something in my ear...
I look at him incredulously, the tear burning on my cheeks.
Suddenly the pain under my arms is incredible - unbearable almost - and I cry out in agony.
Sensing the mood, he quickly explains his treatment plan.
My eyes narrow and I look him up and down...
Yes - I very much need a new physician. This clown has wasted too much of my time.
Unfortunately, as I wait for my new physician, the need for a second opinion becomes completely moot.
As I'm lying in my stinking bed chamber, slowly rotting away, a herald comes in bearing something that he assures me is good news. The timing, as always, is perfectly Suenikian.
Oh well,
at least I'll have the swankiest burial any Suenikian monarch has ever had...
*THUD*
Wow - can someone open some windows in this place?
It smells like England in here.
Hi, I'm QUEEN Gadar - recently queen consort of England, and can I tell you this, when I heard I was going back to the motherland my first thought was "Brilliant - some decent weather" and my second thought was "No more hiding out in draughty, wet castles trying to avoid the plague."
And yet, I turn up to this shit show.
Urgh.
It's disgusting.
The first thing I do (other than screaming at all the ladies in waiting to assert my dominance) is to relocate to another part of a castle. Making a bedroom that was previously a teenage boy's your own is bad enough in the first place, but it's doubly bad when the little sod has basically died in an explosion of blood, pus and diarrhea!
I order everything in his room to be burnt and for the chambers to be repurposed as sleeping quarters for visiting English dignitaries.
Anyway, England...
Urgh.
That was a drag.
So, my idiot brother - may he rest in peace - marries me off to the King of that dank, wet little island. Being the mountain of fertility that I am, I pop out an heir in no time at all. Which was fortunate, because my pathetic, weak husband chose that moment to inconveniently DIE OF THE PLAGUE.
So my tiny, tiny daughter is now Queen of England, and I was resigned to an existence as some kind of pathetic old dowager - alone in my castle, wearing black, and trying to content myself with the awful excuses for food and drink they have over there. Seriously - never go there. The food is all stodgy and flavourless, and they don't have any wine. Apparently even grapes are put off by the climate.
Anyway, all of a sudden - BOOM! - I'm Queen of Suenik, and heading back home; but unfortunately, my daughter is also heir to MY throne.
Not happy about that.
I'm also not happy that I'm betrothed to some rando relative of my late husband. This means that top of Gadar's
Big Old List of Things to Do (right next to "Not dying of the plague") is getting myself a proper husband. If I wait for this mewling brat to grow up I'll be a grey haired old crone by the time he comes of age.
Thankfully, China does an excellent job of reminding me where my next husband should come from.
It helps that Suenik has been a pathetic shilll for the Middle Kingdom for the past hundred years or so, because we've got grace to burn with the Emperor.
To celebrate the royal wedding, I send my steward forth to collect tribute from those peasants that are still alive. It's here that I get my first taste of Suenik in all its glory.
On one hand, the peasants love their new queen and eagerly pay the wedding tax...
...and on the other hand they've got some fairly colourful ideas about what is causing the plague.
No, it's not cats this time...
Unlike my predecessors who indulged this sort of nonsense I just ignore them. The bleating of the unwashed masses is not something a queen need heed.
Instead, I apply some SCIENCE to the problem, and try to fight this epidemic the best way I know how - by throwing cash at it.
Naturally, this peasants respond to this show of concern in the way that only peasants from Suenik can.
Ungrateful wretches.
I send my armies out to butcher them, and lock myself in the royal pantry to comfort eat until I am contented and numb. Armenian food is SOOOOO good. Damn, I've missed this...
After a few hours, there is a knock at the door and that skinny wretch that I married is standing there looking worried. He informs me - in his terrible, halting Armenian - that perhaps I shouldn't be eating so much.
I hurl a flat bread at him and slam the door in his face.
I'm queen! I'll eat what I want.
That evening I have a brace of pheasant for dinner and wash it down with a gallon of wine.
After a few weeks of this, I have some special gowns made for me. Now nobody can deny my royal presence as I sweep into rooms and take command of situations! I truly am a magnificent figure of womanhood!
That night in bed, Khagati tells me meekly that some of my ladies in waiting have been referring to me as "The Royal Battle Barge". I laugh loudly - cake crumbs spraying from my mouth all over the sheets as I do - and tell him I'll wear that as a badge of honour. I make a mental note to have a special sash made saying "ROYAL BATTLE BARGE" picked out in gold leaf.
A few weeks later Sevag - my Patriarch - comes bounding into the Royal Audience chamber. For some reason he's wearing a hat made of fruit. He tells me that he has a request for me, but that he can only tell me it in the form of a riddle. I sigh, roll my eyes, cram another slice of yershig into my mouth and hold up my hand for silence. With my other hand I grab my goblet of pomegranate wine and messily chug it down. As my serving boy faithful refills it, I wipe my mouth on the sleeve of my dress, jab the remains of my yershig in Sevag's direction and ask him if this is, perchance, a request for money.
He nods so hard I think his head is going to fall off. I flick my fingers towards the door and tell him that he can have his money, but that he should be gone as I'm busy. As he's leaving, he looks imploringly at the half-eaten sausage that I'm holding. Absentmindedly, I toss it in his direction and he leaps to catch it in his mouth like a dog going after a treat. Chuckling, I take another yershig from the basket next to me and carry on munching.
Time passes, and then some good news.
I order a celebration. The filthy rebels have been crushed by the might of Gadar the Magnificent! My council suggest that I should maybe hold fire on the banquet I've ordered, until rebel sentiment across the country has cooled. After all, they explain, inviting the nobility to a sumptuous feast whilst hundreds are dying in poverty is hardly a tactful move, and could be the spark that turns an otherwise volatile situation into a raging inferno.
I'm puzzled, and I point out that I haven't ordered any banquet. My steward speaks up and indicates that the royal kitchens have been working overtime, and that the Great Hall is filled with tables that are creaking under the weight of all the rich dishes that have been prepared.
I laugh, and point out that what he's seen isn't some lavish banquet for the great and the good of the land.
It's lunch.
For me.
What a silly sausage he is.
Mmm.
Sausage...
I hope they have prepared more yershig.
After a couple of hours feasting, I summon my husband to the royal bed chambers and indulge in my second favourite hobby.
Inheritance problem?
Pah.
Nailed it.
Will the inheritance problem be solved? Will Gadar eat Suenik into a famine? Are the peasants still angry? Find out on the next exciting episode of Suenik Reloaded!
That could be seen coming as a small dot on the horizon, approaching rapidly. And also, “stood by my father to make sure he passed away” 
