The Drought

King Augustin and His Great Royal Wife, Rhodesia, or Augustin the Desperate and Rhodesia the Withered as history insists they are remembered ruled during troubled times. The drought had been brutal, and this year rather than bringing an end, delivered the worst year to date with less than four inches of rainfall over the full of the rainy season.
Malnutrition had been at epidemic levels for close to four years and during the last two years of this famine, Augustus had struggled to control his subjects. He lived each day in trepidation, amidst the warnings from his Council that the masses were becoming increasingly disruptive and more likely to revolt unless the famine was eradicated. The council leader Caduceus, his confider warned of needs for more extreme measures.

Yet despite the dread of a revolution and the threat that this brought to his beloved wife Rhodesia, Augustin feared Council more and the main focal point of his suspicions was Caduceus.

The latest tales of severely ravaged villages overcome with infections echoed in Augustins ears as he took solitude in his private chamber during a break in the Council morning session. Another form signed condemning these poor villages to isolation lay in front of him, thus prohibiting any communication with it from all neighboring villages. Another form signed, another doubt planted.

Caduceus arguments in the morning session had made sense, of course it was important to focus on the macro picture and clearly tough decisions had to be made with immediate effect, however To Augustin, these ideas just seemed so extreme, so brutal, always ending with pain for the people was meant to be protecting.

As Augustin sat down on his green velvet covered seat, he looked up towards the roof, seeking answers or at least the clearness of mind that may allow him to form his own opinion rather than the jigsaw of surrounding views. This was beyond his minds capability and instead he let his mind drift towards his father, King Alacia II, knowing that his father would have been in complete control, would be driving the strategy and would not tolerate such pressures from his own council. He knew these were the tough decisions Alacia had tried to prepare him for during his reign when his son would succeed him on the throne. Even the term, succeeding made Augustin wince. Augutin contemplated the look on his fathers face staring up at him from his death bed as he had grabbed Augustins, the only time he had seen his father cry and knowing it was not the fear of death but the fear he had for his kingdom under his sons reign that was the source of the pain.

Augustin broke away from the memory, determined to try and work out the best response to Caduceuss latest strategy. He understood that to lead did not mean to be loved, but was he prepared to lead his subjects to their slaughter?

Since the first year of the drought when the food production was decimated, the King sat in on the council meetings, consisting of the key members of his royal staff, philosophers, prophets and alchemists and also some important village leaders representing his subjects. This way, Augustin could ensure that all parties understood his instruction to work with the village leaders to further educate them on the causes of hunger and to provide instructions on ways of working through what was going to be a tough year. This was back in the years when the representatives of the leaders attended quarterly sessions with members of the Kings council.
During the first years of the drought, stocks had still been plentiful, as the system for ensuring against drought had worked for many many centuries, however history now shows there was never a drought of such length since statistics were recorded, and certainly not so close to the recently draining Gastato Wars.
The more valiant village leaders, in particular Eustace and Gennaro, fervently argue that the drought was not the only causes and reminded the council that for several years they had voiced the opinion that the continued diversion of their land for non-productive use, non-agricultural use and ultimately for uses that only entertained or benefited the Royal Palace was having a minor impact on the amount of food available for distribution within the villages. They talked of the overfishing of the Royal boats and the lack of rights of the villages in a democracy. They had been pointing out for some time that the appearance and increased role of the black market, could not just be resolved by punishing the protagonists, they would be replaced and the black market was just a symptom of impoverishment and instead the cause should be addressed.
Gennaro in particular, who was ever present for just over a year, believed pushing villagers off the land so that wool could be raised for clothing, went against the villagers entitlement to share the income of the land and to protect against expropriation. Casedus counter-argued that where did Gennero think his meat came from for their festivals. Gennaro asked if a festival to mark the anniversary of the inevitable massive starvation. He argued for land ownership and produced pre-war land titles, and even pointed to barren land owned by the Royals whilst the people he represented remained in a state of virtual misery.
The councils key response to any suggested causes was that these points did not contribute substantially to the problem and instead the simple fact was that there are too many people in the villages, and overpopulation is the secondary cause of hunger after the drought which was out of their hands. Caduceus produced statistics showing concerning increase in births and at times of antagonism, threw insults to the leaders relating the unhealthy sexual compulsions. The powerful had looked at the causes but their gaze looked beyond their stomachs.
Numerous solutions were tabled, focus on more systematic crop rotations, but the drought was so severe that few crops were surviving, especially the critical first phases of seeding. All implemented solutions regarding population control, the most popular topic tabled by the philosophers only reaped partial rewards. Limiting marriages, more focus on sexual education and insistence on contraception, rewards for smaller families along with numerous schemes of various levels of complexity proved to be unsuccessful.
[No one disagreed that Cause of the hunger was population growth was unsustainable and contributing to the problem, it was more that the leaders argued only part responsible]
The Council had started to become exasperated at the lack of progress. The full meeting seemed to consist of their concerns on what appeared to be a clear forthcoming famine. They ignored discussion points on pesticide control, education programs, village games and the village leaders even dared to point out that the Royal carnival was of no interest when compared to depleting food stock piles.
The most tense moment was when Caduceus argued that all sick should be killed as this would eradicate the potential threat of an epidemic but also reduce numbers. The leaders had been outraged. Especially when Caduceus suggested that perhaps they may prefer to thus ask every family to kill one person from every family, vote on who should be killed. Even although he said it in jest, Augustin sense he was assessing the reaction and more worryingly, some of the fellow Council reacting with nods and smirks.
Sadly Augustin now questioned his ability to run the empire power more than he had questioned Caduceus why Eustace and Gennaro never represented the leaders any more.
In fact, it had been over half a year since any village had been represented in the Council meetings as his learned representatives had successfully voted to exclude them to allow decisions to be made both quicker but also to ensure that there was no leak into the masses, as had been expected. Augustin had voiced his fears that the decisions may not take the villagers into consideration but had backed down based on the counter-argument that to date they had not provided any constructive solutions and had a biased view towards ensuring they were regarded with heroic status within their villages. Caduceus had had enough and he eventually convinced Augustin that as the attendance of the village leaders was having a detrimental effect on resolving issues and instead decision should be made in their absence however that Caduceus would personally ensure that these decisions were acceptable by the village leaders by holding sessions in each village.
[Augustin was correct to be suspicious of Caduceus. Unbeknown to the King, caduceus was holding secret session with the intellectual elite of the palace, however the conclusions of the learned circles sessions where that the wealthy were not actually responsible for the plight of the poor, instead the combination of horrific drought coupled with an unhealthy attitude towards sexual prowess and the resultant substantial increase in the village population was the main driver and hence should be the focal point for resolving the situation.]
This morning though Caduceus had changed tact and had brought in a senior member of the guards were to the mornings Council session who reported in detail sporadic uprisings and the fact that it was gradually becoming increasingly difficult to control the masses which Caduceus used as a spring board to undertake a powerful speech on similarities to past uprisings as the village leaders would soon recognise this fact themselves and this would be the tipping point towards anarchy. He also pointed out that despite all village leaders being warned that any communication with the dammed, the cut-off disease ridden villages, would result in their own village being burned, there had been cases of this threat had been ignored. Village leaders had been arguing that the dammed village could easily of been their own and they must work together. To try help the sick, whilst they still had doctors of their own. Whilst they still had homes of their own, breath of their own. True, the villages had been burned as warned but some of the other elders in the Council agreed this indicate a new level of insubordination by the subjects towards their leaders.
As he contemplated the options, he now recalled Rhodesia mentioning on return from one of her trips into the villages mentioning several times a gradual transformation she was observing. Rhodesia, for reasons he could never comprehend, enjoyed excursions into the villages at times often accompanying her Serves on trips to purchase food for the Royal Banquets or for material for dresses, had been mentioning that the subjects seemed poorer, emaciated than before. Indeed he had also noticed a more skeletal appearance in some of the Serves, however his council had continually denied sharing this view. Why hadn’t he acted, he wondered as he rubbed his forearm to relieve himself of the pain of his fathers grip.
Augustin had already refused out right Caduceuss latest radical strategies for resolution of the horrendous hunger plague, that had caused such a chaos in the morning session. Caduceus wanted to kill everyone over 60 years old and it was clear that this time he had not been suggesting this in jest and had the backing of many of the council. He could almost touch the backing that Caduceus had amongst all the other learnered council. It was also clear to Augustin that this had not came as news to many of the Council and that he was right to have believed secret talks were being held a definite breaking of Palace rules. He had order the recess in the session for everyone to calm down and to come back in one hour at which point he would make some decisions on the next steps.
Now as he sat in his parlour he realised that he had to adopt a more severe approach, even if only to gratify the Council. If he accepted one of their less extreme ideas it will diffuse the pressure slightly and give him time to think, to work out how to deal and remove Caduceus before he made his inevitable move.
As he peered out from his study through his telescope he could see the masses, deficient from protein and could make out their gaunt, emaciated faces up against the main gates of the palace grounds. They were close enough for him to observe the dryness of their skin and dull brown in perplexion. His guards would move in soon and disperse the crowds and Augustin would lower his telescope to ensure he did not witness the extreme violence they would use to make example. Still Augustin was only too aware that the time between demonstrations was reducing and he understood that hunger overcomes fear in the end, pushing individuals to act as a more powerful group. His people were mentally apathetic and weak in body, but they were clearly rising up to ignore their sickness and pains to attack the cause; and he recognised the King, his palace, his guards, his golden robes, crown and rumours of banquets were the cause and most concerning of all Rhodesia would also be considered part of the cause. This he could not risk.
Augustin ordered a guard to inform that the session would commence in 30 minutes and he leaned back against the wall. His eye wandered to his desk, his writing material, recently amended constitution, maps of his empire, all his tools of power or the strings of a puppet? As he would later recall to Rhodesia, it was at this point whilst raising a glass of water to his lips, he felt a clear tightening grip on his arm and a moment of clarity as he stopped moving with the glass ten inches from his nose that the plan arrived.
It was not a complete solution but it would assist in achieving the macro-solutions, whilst satisfying the immediate goals of the Councils requests and showing who was in charge. Yes it would result in some deaths, but it was not in any way as destructive as the majority of his other plans. Most importantly he was sure it was a clear signal from his father.

His suggestion was a complete ban on sex outside of the palace grounds for a period of eight months and this was readily accepted by the majority Council, only Caduceus remained silent with a smile across his face and a look of satisfaction at the number of members arguing that they had tried these things before, without results. Augustus stood firm and agreed to move on the more extreme measures for those who broke his command. Some of the council wanted an example made, the killing of the first one hundred woman that fell pregnant. However Augustus, remembering his moment of clarify, outlined the second part of his plan by suggesting that something be put into the water supply of the villages to be able to ensure they could identify. A few people had led the request to add to the campaign the abortion of all pregnancies but the King instructed that no further suggested amendments to the campaign would be entertained and instead motioned to move onto the delivery plan.


When it came to punishment, the Council became at its most vocal. Augustin feared this would cause a terrible view of his leadership and was exactly the sort of callousness that led to riots. Instead he wanted a way to identify when someone had had sexual intercourse, irrespective of whether they became pregnant, this way they could ensure that sex and abortions did not just get pushed underground.

In order to be able to track who was performing sexual intercourse the Council turned to the Alchemists. They proposed a creation of a potion that once drunk, would create a chemical reaction when sperm entered a vagina.

The decision was made that the reaction required would be for the culprits skin to age dramatically rather than kill them so that they could be easily identified and then still made an example of in public. It was requested that this chemical remain reactive for the next six months only.

Augustin did compromise on punishment and agreed an example would be made, that, the next ten woman who had sex would be brought to the centre of the square and hung.

All attendees of the Council meeting swore a pact to tell no other either outside or inside the palace and it was agreed that there would be a meeting with all leaders of non-outlawed villages and Augustin himself would inform them that there will be no sexual intercourse within the communities for a period of eight months, however there would obviously be no mention of the chemical in the water supply.


The powder was added on mass into the village water supply and the rest as they say is history. The entire country were informed that sex was now banned and those who broke this rule would be caught and punished by death.

Rumours circulated in the streets ranging from planted human eyes in the houses through to traitors being paid for reporting couples breaking the rules . Some even thought that male sperm was being tracked. Many disbelieved and said that it would not stop them, with acquaintances warning them to remember first thousand will be killed, however on the whole, most were cautious.

The bad came into place at 6pm on the Second day and although the houses were full of many conversations and even many jokes amongst villages, no-one expected the outcome of the morning that awaited them.

Almost collectively, screams were heard from several houses across the main village which in turn caused many locals to run out into the streets in search of the cause of the commotion. To begin most just spoke to one another and then began to gather outside two obvious sources of the screams. Stories still circulate of how the husband of one house came out passing the crowds without a word, clearly in shock. He was followed after a few minutes but a withered lady, much like a bat with no wings to wrap itself in the cold, according to some. Slowly other identical ladies appeared from different houses, some still screaming and some silent, their words stolen like their looks.

Two woman did not await their fate, as the horse men galloped into town to arrest the shrunken woman, one threw herself in front of the horses ending a life of sorrow right there. Another wasted lady was reported by several workers on route to work the fields, to have ran from an unknown house as early as 5am towards the forests never to be seen again.

In total, six hundred and twelve emaciated women were hung, with their wrinkled bodies fully exposed. There was no need for the thousand, it was never filled no one dared have sex the next day nor for the eight months ordered.

Legend has it that even beyond the eight months, the majority of people did not risk having sex for a great deal of time to come.

Despite the success, the palace also increased its extreme measures and killings were much more common than before. People put it down to the fact that Queen Rhodesia was never seen by her King again since implementing his plan.

At first he had his key horsemen search town, he accused others of kidnap, then he questioned whether the Queen had found out that he was behind the water pollution and showing her disapproval had used her connections to leave the kingdom.

Then after four days of searching at the cost of seventeen lives of the accused, the denying and those who simply wronged by not knowing enough, he called off his search.

As he rubbed away the pain of his fathers grip he realised he had no desire to bury her withered body.