The Pathetic Husband

Writing prompt: You asked your wife, the queen, why she chose you out of all the suitors. She replied, “When does a female ruler ever find such a pathetic husband?”

“When does a female ruler ever find such a pathetic husband?” echoed in my mind as I watched her continue walking through the gardens of her palace.

I had finally gotten up the courage to ask this question which had been in the back of my mind ever since I was selected by her as her husband when I fell at her feet by pure accident last year.

Our Queen had been on a walk through the city to get the feel of the people and I just so happened to have been drinking at my local tavern and was walking outside a bit unsteady, to see what all the fuss outside was all about.

And it just so happened that as I did so, I tripped over a guardsman’s foot and landed on the ground right in front of the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. Of course my half-drunk brain made my blurt that out as I looked up at her when the guards came rushing up to grab me and it was only her order that prevented me from spending the night in a cell.

I was jerked to my feet in front of her and I could not stop looking at the beauty in front of me and she ordered I be brought to the palace.

The next six months was a blur and not because of alcohol but because I couldn’t understand why I suddenly found myself as the fiancé then bridegroom and eventually husband to the Queen.

It’s been a whirlwind ever since then and I have been wondering, ‘Why me?’ ever since I fell at her feet.

She sensed that I had stopped following her and turned to me to see I was still looking at her with an expression of bewildered hurt.

“Oh my dear husband. Think about it. Your family is nothing in the eyes of the court, thus a non-threat. You are not a threat to their machinations because they believe you to be no one. You are seen as pathetic by all my enemies thus of no consequence and ignored. There is no one who looks at the king-consort as anything of significance except the Queen herself.”

As I heard this speech from the Queen, I was taken aback by these truths. And then her final statement hit me.

“You look at me as significant my Queen?”

“Of course. Who else could tell me his most inner thoughts so blatantly and mean them and not be constrained by everything around me? You didn’t see the Queen that day, you just saw a beautiful woman and that is more important than anything anyone else could give me. You are a pathetic husband but you are my husband, who loves me for who I am, not what I am.”

I then understood what my drunken blurting had done. It had given me a loving wife and I was her husband. Kings and Queens didn’t matter between us. I was simply her pathetic husband and she loved me for loving her.