Power is power; it is pure, cannot be corrupted, intentions can. It is up to the individual whenever or not they use their power to ascend to divinity or fall to hell -- Anon Guest
They say, Power corrupts. They say, Absolute power corrupts absolutely. What they fail to recognise is that those who grasp for power are already corrupt. There is a true difference, indeed, between those who grasp for power and those who have to accept it. It begins with those who have to accept power also knowing what responsibility looks like.
They called her the Bent Queen. A combination of Scoliosis and surviving infantile paralysis[1] left her with a crooked spine and a shrunken leg. Thanks to social pressure, her father the King had prevented her from being seen by the public, by the council of lords, by anyone but a select few devoted to her care.
As a child, Agatha crept into the council meetings, listening in to the voices above the ceiling of wood. Listening to the debates and absorbing wisdom by pure osmosis. Her lessons in history - applied with better supervision - let her predict the patterns. Her lessons in economics made her wonder if the voices above her head had ever paid attention to the same ones. She only ever made one mistake in that atmosphere, reciting the simplest of lessons, "Coin is best for the economy when it's flowing, you dummies. Don't dam it up in your vaults!" Her father the King found her in seconds. Caught her in seconds more.
King Jorryn did love his only child. He scooped Agatha up onto his lap and challenged everyone at the table with his eyes. If anyone had anything to say about the social shame of her deformity, then he was going to bring his wrath down on them. Now she could match the faces with the feet, including the cases of gout.
They were all staring at her and she knew it, so Agatha took the opportunity to dress a few key figures down. "Lord Triam, you would have less trouble with your feet if you ate like your peasants - and less budget trouble with it. The same for you, Lord Reinnis, Lord Berrip, and Lord Krossif."
Her father laughed and kissed her. "Out of the mouths of babes..."
At the time, Agatha had objected to being called a baby. She was seven, she was a big kid. They should have known then what kind of a monarch she was going to be. They evidently took in King Jorryn's speech on responsibility matching with power and then thrown it in the nearest hearth for kindling.
There were no other heirs to take her place. Agatha rose to the crown as her father, and proceeded to the throne and the crown with the help of a cane. The greedy and grasping made the mistake of correlating physical infirmity with vulnerability. Alas, the new Queen Agatha had spent a majority of her childhood learning to recognise a bloodthirsty egotistic flatterer from a standing start and at forty yards. She had learned from the best - her father - to orchestrate things so that the threats to her authority were caught with their hands in the metaphorical cookie jar.
Those who attempted to defame her by correlating her physical attributes with actual corruption were quickly foiled by her actual actions and policies. She had a responsibility to everyone she reigned over. From the lowest of the low to her immediate neighbours on the social scene. She had to see that all of them had their best needs seen to, with interests as a bonus score afterwards.
The current threat was the rash of shysters attempting to sell her cures to her physical conditions. Queen Agatha had a simple method of winnowing those who believed they had something from those who were just selling snake oil.
"What an interesting cure you say you have," she said, seeming interested. Having a crown on one's head necessitated a certain amount of theatre. "Are you amenable to a demonstration?"
A shyster might offer a collaborator who feigned needing a crutch. Bandaged leg optional.
Queen Agatha would not have it. "If you believe in your cure, you would volunteer to have your leg broken and then set wrong. Your cure would mend it, right in front of my eyes." It was at this point that she gestured for the guard, one of whom carried a mallet. "Shall we commence?"
The frauds declined and were subsequently sentenced for their theft from the public good. As for those with certain belief - the Kingdom would care for them following their honest mistake. They may walk with a limp, but they had their choice of walking assistance for free.
They called her the Bent Queen, but they knew she was only bent on the outside.
[1] In the modern era, known as polio. Vaccines prevent many nasty things.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / iqoncept]
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