And Samuel told all the words of the Lord unto the people who asked him for a king.

I Samuel 8:10

          Another fictional story about what a king does, taken from the passage in I Samuel that warned the people about what happens when  power is placed into  human hands.

 

       The Great Collapse happened suddenly, some say, but others say it took many years.  Historians and political thinkers have filled many volumes arguing what the causes and blame for the great event.  The result was the Second Middle Ages, at least that is how we now call it in our times, the period after the fall of the great nation-states and the return to a feudal way of life.  When the great nations fell, a period of war followed, a time when a determined group tried to hold the old order together by instituting a world state and imposing it on the crumbling remains of the nation-states.  The effect was an explosion of nationalism, individualism, and pretty much all the evils that humans are infected with.  For twenty years wars, rebellions, revolutions, uprisings, riots, and other violence ran rampant throughout the world.  Many feared that humanity would wipe itself out, some even hoped for it.  A nuclear exchange between several parties basically ended the war, called the War of the Union of the Earth (the name chosen for the new world state) and a twenty-year period of total chaos reigned over the planet.

   The exchange had destroyed Brussels and Beijing, the two main seats of power in what was to have been the Union of the Earth, as Moscow and Washington were deemed too violent and unsecure area for the government to be seated.  The government had threatened to use nuclear weapons to end all violence and while the state bureaucracies were debating where and when, rebels of various colors seized several launch sites and used them on the Union. After that, all central control disappeared and thousands of tiny groups of people began to wander  all over the planet.  Historians call this time the Wandering Period, a ten-year time when humans returned basically to the prehistoric tribal state that existed before the advent of civilization.

     The end of the period is dated to the founding of several states and kingdoms, one of which encompassed most of South Florida from the Martin County line to the tip of the Everglades.  It had an undetermined border with the Seminole nation around Lake Okeechobee in the west and the Orange Federation in the North.  It was called the Empire of Palm Beach, while many scoffed at it being an empire, its army was professional and effective, thus few ever felt the need to challenge it.  It was founded when a young man, John Mark Cantrell, who like US Grant was a basic failure in all but war, organized an army and secured the area from the many bands of pirates and drug gangs that were ruling the area after the Collapse.  Allying with the Seminoles, Cantrell’s army conducted a brutal and bloody campaign thought all of South Florida and either killed ort executed all members of these gangs.  Nobody knows the number of dead on either side, but estimates are in the tens of thousands.    An excellent book on this is written by Dr. Zachary Martin, his history, The Founding of an Empire, gives the most detailed and accurate account of this time.

     Cantrell was crowned King John I and founded the Cantrell dynasty that still ruled the Palm Beach for the entire the Second Middle Ages.  Three hundred years had passed since his ancestor  founded this kingdom and King Edward II ruled over a land that was noted for being both intellectual and religious centers.  John I had kept the colleges in the area open and they soon became centers of learning in this new dark time.  While the Catholic Church in Rome had maintained itself as the leader of that church, Presbyterian and Jewish (in concert with the nation of Israel, who survived the Collapse and flourished in the shattered Middle Eastern area)leaders had made Palm Beach the leader of their individual churches.  Edward had come to power as a nine-year old boy, after his father, John V, died of cancer.  Edward’s father had been an extremely popular and powerful leader whose shadow spread over much of the Southern area.  Many even felt he may be the one to resurrect the old United State, that dream of so many idealist.  While being effective, Edward was not his father, and many saw him as basically an idiot.  This underestimating of him would cost many of his adversaries dearly.  While he could seem to be laid back and at times absent-minded, he had his father’s ruthless streak and when threatened, he could be a very formable opponent. 

    As a young man, many of those who had been on his council of regency sought to maintain their power by arranging a marriage between him and a princess of the Kingdom of Tampa.  He neither loved nor respected this girl and though the marriage produced two princes (his eldest, Thomas would succeed him as Thomas II and be credited with expanding this kingdom to encompass the whole of Florida) and a princess, it had become a lifeless and passionless match in which the couple rarely were  together.  Queen Ann, who protected her title with a bull-dog type tenacity, had estranged herself from court and her children, but not from the many who once ran the kingdom under the regency.  They wished for absolute rule, while Edward maintained the idea of constitutional and limited monarchy.  By this point in his life he had basically won the war as many of the old guard were dying off and few really wished to change anything in this tropical kingdom.

   Our story opens on Edward’s great court, which once had been the Breakers Hotel, as the King scanned over the crowd several individuals stood out.  The Ambassadors of both the Kingdom of Texas and the Republic of Mexico stood near the front of the line.  Equally powerful and with a reputation of being highly aggressive, these two nations had carved out empires in the from the old Southwest US to the South American border. In Edward’s grandfather’s time they had pushed out to their present  boundaries and were considered highly dangerous to the peace in  the area.

  Like Edward’s state they had conducted brutal and genocidal wars against the many drug cartels that had tried to take advantage of the Great Collapse.  Unlike Edward’s, however,  ancestors they had imperial desires that extended far beyond their original borders.  A series of nasty and bloody border wars had occurred between the two had resulted in stalemate as neither army could produce victory over the other.  The last of them had the two nations moving west into the area of the which the Great California Earthquake had changed to our present geographical areas. .  The new Guadalupe Island  was seized by Mexico and to prevent them from flanking Texas, the Texan military had occupied the Southern California area from San Diego to the LA Peninsula.  It was during this time Edward’s grandfather began a series of very careful and many times dangerous diplomatic moves.

  Emphasizing the similarities between these two powerful and aggressive nations, the Palm Beach Empire had , over many years, gotten both to agree to a series of treaties and now there was an uneasy, but growing, peace between these two nations.  The most dangerous time was during Edward’s father’s reign, when both nations cruelly and with little mercy, put down rebellions in Central America and the California basin.  Under Edward, they had now reached many agreements and had grown closer to each other over the last few decades.  But for Edward, and many in the Florida and Southern area, the idea of a victorious Texan or Mexican army advancing east after conquering the other was still a constant fear.  Other concerns were for the Empire of Japan, who had taken advantage of China’s collapse to basically achieve the aims of their ancestors in World War II.  To the east was the British, who under King and Parliament had restored the old Avignon Empire and now had a kingdom much like the old Dutch, in trade and commerce.  Still many suspected them of keeping Europe and Russia in a feudal state to maintain their power.  Similar suspicions existed about the Japanese in Asia.

   Edward looked at the Japanese and British ambassadors as they stood together, eyeing the Texan and Mexican ones.  Many feared they would all one day untie in an effort to impose a world order, but that fear was always more myth than reality.   Edward’s attention turned to the people representing his neighbors.  The Kingdom of the Bahamas and Tampa stood near the door, conversing on something, but he could not determine what.  Also there was he good friends from the Commonwealth of Orange and of course, Cuba.  together they were known as the Nations of the Sun, and were very wealthy nations that many admired and were envious of.  Tampa’s  source of wealth was it port and banks, who could act as neutral holders od money in the area, many called them the Switzerland of America.  As for the other four, the source of much of their wealth was simple, what all called the crown of the Sun.  That would be Freeport, Orlando, Havana and Miami, those great tourist destinations that served the elite of the world during this time period. 

        Orlando, were the Disney corporation survived the Second Middle Ages, was the great family spot of the area, were one could spend time viewing movies, going on rides and of course Edward’s favorite, a trip through the history of film  (mostly Disney’s) .  Narrated by automaton robots that looked like Selena Gomez, Hilary Duff and Miranda Cosgrove, one could view the panorama of film and film stars that had graced the screen, both big and small, since the motion picture’s birth in the late 1800s.  Rumor had it that after hours the robots could, for the right price, perform other duties,  but that , like the old story that Walt Disney’s head had been unfrozen and hooked to a NASA super computer and now the old man ran the corporation again, is a story that although hotly denied, persist  to this day.

     For Freeport, Havana and Miami, the attraction was basically summed up in their slogans, Sun, Surf, Sand, and  Sex.   They were, and are, a place of casinos, grand hotels, great stages, and of course, brothels.  Rigidly controlled by the ruling elite of the four nations, they became a place were one could actually spend millions on whatever one wanted.  Miami was the biggest, extending from FT Lauderdale to the norther border of the Conch Republic, it was an opulent place of entertainment and fun.  The many ruling elites of the world came here and left huge amounts of cash in the coffers of the banks in all the area.  The Couch Republic, as many of the other smaller Caribbean nations, benefited from this draw and were able to make the entire area one of vast wealth and fame.   It also made them  tempting targets, thus the armies of these states were not only on constant alert, but well-trained and very deadly, as many had found out in abortive raids and probes from South America or Africa.   To Edward and his fellow rulers, security and order were as much a draw as the tropical climate and sunny shores.

   Edward’s eyes also cast upon the Kingdom  of Allegany ambassador, representing his King and one of Edward’s good friends, Alexander II, he represented the many nations, kingdoms, counties that made up the vast Appalachian area.  It covered from once was western Pennsylvania through the Appalachian chain down into what was once called the Black Belt in the old South. It ended in New Orleans and was an area of many tiny states that usually worked through the Allegany king, seated in Pittsburgh, for much of foreign affairs and to voice any of their concern to outside powers.  Of all the areas of the old US, these people feared an intrusion by Texas or Mexico most.  She stood next to the US ambassador, the old US was now reduced to the area of New England and the ares of once had been Eastern New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and the whole of Maryland.   The lady from this US would always, like all of her predecessors, have a message of hope, hope to reunite the old nation, Edward would give it a nice reception, but little would be made of it.  another group was the competing ambassadors from what they called the Confederacy, one from Atlanta and one from Charlestown, they were of little concern to anyone.

       Edward then turned to the man speaking, he represented the Peoples Republic of San Francisco, or was it the San Francisco Peoples Republic, it change names a lot.  Fact one of the jokes that permeated this period was what do you have if you find six people walking along the Pacific coast, answer: a California Peoples Republic.  It would go on that after a week you would have two of these republics.  Radically liberal and highly judgmental the ambassadors from any of these, and there were close to three hundred, would travel around lecturing all on how they should live.  They all had a special venom for all those who had destroyed the old drug cartels.   He pointed at Edward and all those in attendance and accused their ancestor s of great war crimes, and other crimes against humanity.  Pious and conceited, he droned on how it was such hypocrisy  that while the Sun countries made much money from homosexuals, they were persecuted in the Appalachian areas, an area in which the more fundamental Pentecostal and Evangelical churches were very strong.  He continued that these did not exist in the atheistic and communal world of whatever People’s Republic he was from.   This infuriated Edward and he rose and spoke for all.

      “Sir, usually we laugh at you and your peoples constant whining, but you have gone too far,”  Edward angrily began, “Do you wish to see the film of the actions of the old cartel lords, all over this and other areas.  School buses loaded with children were stopped and drug out and executed in the most perverted ways to satisfy the whims of these uncivilized,  animals that called themselves people.  The total annihilation and extermination of these parasites was no crime, but a service to all humanity,  we do not regret or fell any sympathy for any suffering or deaths or anything that was done to these subhuman creatures.  Actually we revel in it, it was our finest moment, to all that we here.  As for what happens north of us, I see no army threatening us from there, so I have no concern about it.”

    Edward sat down and the minister sulked out of the room, as the remaining people applauded him.  Some knew the last line was directed at them, but it was expected.  He did have some of his father in him, so they ignored what some might have called an insult.   Then Edward’s eye fell upon something much more pleasant.  Soon one of the players in a quiet controversy entered the room.  She was a servant, her name was Michelle Watson, bringing in drinks and food, many muttered when she passed.  Very beautiful, her face  was almost like a picture on an Egyptian tomb, while not model thin, she was very pleasant to look at.  Edward motioned to her and she came to where the king sat.  He then sat her next to him, and while she served him, some in the room burned in anger.

      Edward had little to no relations with his queen and could not, because her family was still powerful, but they would not be for much longer, afford an affair with someone who could replace her, but Michelle was different.  She was what was called a night-maid, one who usually worked the residences late at night doing all the things that needed to be done.  A palace never really shuts down and an entire staff works all night to insure that in the morning all would run smoothly.  Years ago, the work in the king’s room had been given to a set of three maids, many did have relations with the king, thus Edward continued this tradition.  Michelle, however was not the only one, but at twenty she was the oldest.  The next oldest was nineteen year old Carrie Mack, a short ,but very cute young lady that was full of fun and could be a jokester at times.  The youngest was sixteen year old Carla Micheals, a young, but slow minded girl who had many self-esteem issues.  They had once been almost debilitating, but through help from Edward, she was overcoming them. 

  While some were upset at the king’s behavior, but most just dismissed it.  It was what it was, was the prevailing attitude.   The three girls were extremely loyal, much more than many in other areas and times had been.   The long list of  tell all books and open scandals in some nations stood in stark contrast to the total silence in Edward’s case.   The Queen herself just tolerated them, there was little she could do, and they were no threat to her power, after all a king could not elevate a servant to the throne, but some wondered.   The great Elizabeth I of England once said that the word must is not one to be used to prices and Thomas More had lamented his trouble came not from telling Henry what he could not do, but that Henry found out what he could do. Soon the queen would ignore the advice of the Tudor queen and would join the Tudor intellectual in the same lament.

     Edward was seen by many as a hope in that dark age of violence and strife, maybe that is why his scandals were largely overlooked.  He had been a student of history and philosophy and was very moved by the writings of Martin Luther King, the moral compass of the old America.  He had once said, “Somebody must have sense enough to dim the lights, and that is the trouble isn’t it?”  King was speaking of violence and how to respond to it, a problem the Sun Countries had struggled with from their inception soon after the Collapse.  Edward, when he was in his thirties, had said that we must be that one who dimmed the lights, and had conducted a very effective diplomatic push that had resulted in the North American land being the most peaceful of the world.  Many in the world admired this man and many today feel his policies effected the great reunification of North America in our grandfather’s time. (for an extensive argument on this read Frederick Benson and Baily Pickett’s The Glorious Unification, vol 4, “Polices of unification in Palm Beach and Appalachia.) 

  Edward’s relations with the night-maids was one that had grown over the years.  He would call them at various times and all three benefited from their liaisons with the King.  He was more open with Michelle and many times would be seen with her publicly, something many were shocked at.  Once a minister rebuked him by quoting the seventh commandment, and chastised him for his relations with these young girls.  The King listened quietly and smiled, “My friend, we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory, besides, if there was no sin, think of all the holy men who would be out of a job.”   The minister’s response is not recorded.

     For several years the King kept these up and only recently could anyone find any reason that nobody ever said anything during his life.  A story passed down in Carla’s Micheal family told how they found discretion as the best policy.  Seems there was another night-maid that the King had been involved with.  Her name was Greta Kingsbury, she was a tall slightly overweight young girl who had a temper that could erupt like a volcano.   She tried to use the King’s indiscretion to blackmail him into giving her more power and wealth than he had wished to hand out.   She demanded an audience with him and he agreed.   They walked along the great pier that had been constructed into the ocean behind the great palace on the beach.  While they walked the girl listed her demands and arrogantly made her threats.   While they walked , Edward listened carefully and then suddenly stopped.   Surprised by his actions, Greta snarled some threat or remark in his direction.  At that, two guards grabbed he arms and Michelle slipped out of the darkness and slit her throat with a fishing knife.  Suffocating in her own blood, she was cast of the pier were the currents carried her out to the waiting fish and sharks.  The King turned to Michelle and spoke the words that insured her, and the others,  total devotion and loyalty to him. 

   “Remember my dear Chelly,” Edward said, showing all he was his father’s son,” many can use these knives, and many will use them.”

He looked straight at her as he threw the knife into the sea, ” remember the lesson of Ecclesiastes, chapter 8, a King will do whatever he pleases.”

 

     This and many other stories can be found  Alan Kinnear’s 10 volume history of these times, Essays and Stories of the Second Middle Ages: From the Great Collapse to Reunification, vol. 6, “The Sun Countries.”  Other sources one can go to are:  For Disney: Alexandra Russo’s Medieval Mouse: Disney in the Second Middle Ages, for many of the myths of Disney see her other book, The Myths and Legends of the Medieval Mouse.  Elizabeth McGuire’s books on Mexico and Texas (The Rise of the Lone Star State, The Empire of Mexico)  gives a detailed overview of these states.  Zachary Martin’s  The Sun Nations: Sun, Sex, Surf, and  Sand gives the best history of the Florida nations and how they united under Palm Beach and moved into most of the was once Georgia and the Carolinas.  Randall Taylor’s four volume work, Appalachia,  details the rise of the Allegheny Kingdoms dominance the area from Pittsburgh to New Orleans.  Also by Alexandria Russo are two seminal biographies on Edward and his mistresses.  First is her great biography on the King, Good King Edward,  and her biography on his mistresses, Footsteps in the Night, the Life and Times of  Queen Michelle.