PART TWENTY-FIVE:
A jewel of great price:
The local jeweler plopped the gem into the bowl of mixed liquid substance, then watched and waited. After a few minutes of observation, he picked it up out of the bowl and placed it on his working table. Wiping it dry with a piece of cloth, he held up the precious stone and peered closely at it.
“It has passed and surpassed every possible test I could subject it to. I have pounded and carved it, in addition to this corrosive test. It is precious indeed and second to none. Exquisite in its rareness and magnificent in its brilliance.”
Bronid shifted his weight on the seat, realizing that he had been sitting awkwardly the whole time. Then he turned to his brother, who was sitting right next to him and had also been watching the whole ‘test experiment’. After the siblings exchanged stunned looks. The older one cleared his throat and turned to address the now very impressed and pre-occupied jeweler.
“So what you are trying to say, is that it is priceless.” Bronid wanted to make sure that he understood the implications of what he had just heard. He needed to know what the magnitude of the revelation might be. “What I am definitely saying,” began the jeweler emphatically. “Is that you have got on your hands, a source of endless fortune. A very deep source indeed. What price could we possibly put on it?” He stopped speaking momentarily, to chuckle at the incredulity of it all. “It would be a great understatement,” he continued. “For me to say that I have never seen anything quite like it. And I can confidently say the same for anyone else around these parts. No one I believe has seen such a brilliant and precious stone.” The excited man appeared to be breathless after his statement.
“Do you have any advice or idea, about what we could or should do with it?” The younger healer’s question was serious. He had come here to appraise the mysterious stone left to him by the equally mysterious and comatose patient. He had waited this long, because he thought that it might have been an oversight. Maybe the patient had dropped it mistakenly. And if that was the case, he had been careful to give him an ample and reasonable retrieval time. The patient had been expected to come back for the special item. There of course had been no sign of him at all. After which his father suggested the inevitable. The jewel was meant for him, the older healer had queried. And the sooner he put it to use, the better.
“First let me ask you this, before I answer your question for advice.” The jeweler started, unknowingly interrupting the younger healer’s recollective reverie. “Where did you get this from or should I be asking from whom did you get it?” The man’s expression was intense and quizzical.
“I cannot really divulge all that information for now,” was Bronid’s candid and polite reply. “But tell me, why do you ask?”
“Well,” started the jeweler still staring at the precious stone. “Considering the worth and the impossible price tag or the lack there of. You would need a ‘heavy weight’, to liquidify it and take it off your shoulders.”
“First of all, I never said I wanted it off my shoulders,” Bronid began defensively. “And who or what is a ‘heavy weight’?
“You know, someone who can even begin to afford that gem and take it off your hands.” Replied the host with a twinkle in his eye.
“Do you know of any ‘heavy weight’, like you call it?”
“Well of course I do. The obvious ones for starters, would be the royals.”
“The royals? How in the world would I broach the royals with an unexplainable and untraceable piece of rarity? All the while expecting them to get it off my hands.”
The jeweler just looked at him with pursed lips and shrugged. Seemingly irritated by Bronid’s unexcited demeanor.
“I have an Idea.” Bronid’s bother who had been silent for the most part of the meeting suddenly spoke up.
“An idea?” The healer turned to his brother as the jeweler now leveled both of them with a steely gaze.
“I know of this man, who is a royal appraiser. Technically, he is a builder that I had worked for once in the past.”
“And how does a builder qualify as an appraiser of precious stones and rare gems?” Bronid wanted to know.
“I understood at the time, that his family had ties with the past royal kingdom. He had been known to handle and sell royal properties and acquisitions, by experience.”
“Ahaa….” Exclaimed the jeweler. "Sounds like we might be getting somewhere, real soon." But the healer who was deeply in his own thought, simply turned to stare at his brother.
An unfruitful fall out:
“Does that look like a basket of fruit, fit for the queen?” Ethia the queen mother scolded Tufad the fourth magistrate’s wife angrily.
“Oh….” Started the shocked and confused woman, utterly taken aback. “I thought you never cared for her. Actually, I do know for a fact that you hate her. So what did I….”
“Of course I hate her,” interrupted Ethia. “She stands in the way of every device and wiles I must carry out. But that is not the point, if I must school you all over again. Did you really believe that you would be allowed in with that rowdy mess to see the queen? Really? After all these years.” The older woman shook her head in disgust and mock disbelief.
“But I don’t understand.” Complained the still confused and now shaken magistrate’s wife. “You asked me to bring a basket of fruit for our meeting with the queen today. And I have done exactly that. It’s not like we are discussing fruits and vegetables with her today, or are we?”
“Do you now query me, you impudent child? Who said anything about discussing fruits and vegetables? Sometimes I do wonder how and where Tufad found you. Have you been in the palace so long now and still not understand the existence and necessity of royal protocol. Are you still not aware that you need them to get around without being blocked out or held up?” The queen mother’s voice and face were filled with loathing.
The recipient of the verbal onslaught, dropped the basket of fruit she had been carrying on the floor. Then wiped teary eyes with the back of her hand as she sniffled. “Oh cut it out,” yelled Ethia with rising rage.
“What is this supposed to mean? Am I now to carry the basket for you? Have you now become queen over me too?” She hissed loudly and then continued. “You want that and you want this. You should have been here, there and everywhere else. Yet you can’t think and act right. You reach loftily, without the grace, sense nor the decorum to sustain such heights. I give you a simple assignment and it is never done right.”
“But, but….” Started the visibly distraught woman.
“Don’t but me! I am sick and tired of your foolishness and uselessness. Can’t think to save your life or get things right. I asked you to find a way to get a piece of letter from the king’s chambers. Instead you hold a press conference and start to interrogate the cleaning servants. Where did you think such a conversation would lead? Did that decision even appear normal to you?”
The woman was aghast at the turn of events and only stared at the queen mother as she ranted. She was shocked completely to silence.
They were supposed to be here, to tell the queen with Ethia’s insider influence. That she Tufad’s wife had a classmate who would make an excellent personal maid for her. She of course had no clue who the so called ‘classmate’ was. But it was all part of the larger scheme of a devious plan, to which she gladly played along. For once in her life, someone thought to involve her and it felt good. Even tricking Tufad to marrying her did not feel this exhilarating.
She was very much aware that she was no mastermind of this stratagem. She had never been master material for anything whatsoever. Nor did her mind tend to anything that was not mundane or mediocre. And that was where she had always comfortably dwelt.
However, this much intent put everyone involved in this ploy on the same level. This much intent did they have in common; to disrupt and destabilize the royal unit. After this possibly failed fruit presentation meeting. Dezen was supposed to bring the new maid to her, for the purposes of getting acquainted. After all, they were to have known each other for some time now. The ‘reunion’ would have taken a day or two at most. Then the new prepared maid, would be presented to the queen. With the instruction to report her findings and observations to them. And of course, most importantly seek out the king himself.
Now for some reasons unknown to her, here was this lunatic yelling at her on the top of her lungs. Taking out it appeared, some unidentified frustration on her.
“Did you hear what I said?!” Ethia’s shout broke through the woman’s abstraction.
“Huh? No your highness, I did not hear what you said.”
“Of course you did not. This is exactly what I mean about dealing with you. I said; you can take your sad and sorry fruits back home with you. This meeting is not happening today.”
“Why? I thought we were running out of time with the plan.”
“Yes we are. The time of tolerating you any longer.” Snapped Ethia, as she stalked away.
Tufad’s wife looked at the basket of fruits on the ground by her feet and looked up again. Just in time to see the queen and her entourage, heading to the main palace garden for a walk. On the queen’s face were an undeniable glow and an indescribable smile. Tufad’s wife kicked the basket hard and away.
.