LOVE’S RENDITION
Love’s Rendition was a portrait painted to depict a heated story of drama and passion from the Roman palace. Bernini Giliamo, the most reverenced painter in the town, brought out the story of love, sacrifice, and the sublime of love in his painting. The picture depicted two young women locked in their embrace. Both were seeming to have infinite love. The older woman was in remorse from the soon departure of her everlasting friend, who was to slip into the other world—each wearing different attires, with the younger woman weaning her younger baby dressed in simple attires. The older woman was dressed on royal attires with an air of sophistication wrapped around her. Time in the picture seemed to be still with the exquisite pain in their final adieus. The older woman kissed, the younger old while holding the child’s hand affectionately. The complementary colors in the portrait seemed to scream out the pain both felt, and time seemed to be stilled by their drowning sorrow. To Bernini, the painting was a roadmap to the untold story; you had to look deep inside to know the story and what it depicted. His paintings had a soul in each brushstroke and breathed with emotions in the lighting and darkness chosen. The picture was immortal.
Julian, the Queen of the Romans, was known for her numerous young lovers. But what could the king do! She was the center of attention in the palace. Her charisma and subtle tongue influenced the citizens to support the king at a time they were to organize a coop. With the exponential taxes that led many to be gleaners at the king’s palace and encouraged slavery, the citizens were beginning to be discontent with the king’s decisions and sought the help of the Spanish king, Brante Delgeses to dethrone the king. Luckily for the king, Brante was one of Julian’s lovers, and so he helped her in containing the discontentment.
The king didn’t love Julian. He married her for political reasons and to build his affiliations. Julian was born from the royal family in France, which was the most powerful at the time. Because the king’s emperor was getting weaker and was to be conquered by the neighbors, Caesar, the king’s next heir, was asked to marry Julian to strengthen the kingdom. Caesar had Queen Julian as his most portent arsenal. However, Julian’s marriage to Caesar had not been fruitfully blessed with a child. So the help of a surrogate mother was sought to bear a child, a child who would save the kingdom from extinction.
Grandiese, the king’s maid, was passably beautiful. A dark girl of eighteen years with skin as black as the pebbles, heat rashes from the scorching sun erupting all over her face, kinky hair which was held back and sensuous thick lips. The numerous sunburns further dulled her skin she acquired on her daily duties of inspecting the gleaners. Her hands were also proof of the long, tedious work she had done as a dishwasher before she was assigned to be Julia’s spy. Her legs were tattered with deep cracks that screamed of an earthquake’s visitation. They bleed often and had to be soothed with olive oil and rose water daily. But besides this, she always wore clean, well-kept clothes of the Roman ancestry. She brushed her hair backward in its curls and safeguarded it to make her look presentable. She had been bought as a slave from one of the African countries while still young. So she had no idea of her ancestry. She had been brought to the palace when three years and had been taught all the basics of house management in the king’s palace. She was Julian’s favorite pet, named Petsie by the Queen, and quite efficient in her duties. She, therefore, oversaw the responsibilities of other slaves and acted as Julian’s secret spy. On her turning eighteen years, Julian carefully calculated a plan to take her to the king’s chambers as his help. There, she would spy on the king and keep Julian abreast of his goings.
Pressure had been mounting in the king’s palace on who to be king after Caesar. Caesar’s older brother, David, owned a collection of male children from his wife and maids who could readily become kings. Each year, babies popped left right center, each seeking to inherit the throne He often boosted this collection which would soon be king. With the mounting pressure, Caesar had no option but to find a surrogate for his child. The king’s physician has previously given an endless list of nutrition and herbal medicines Julian was to use to conceive all to no avail. The countless number of times she had taken the bitter herbs and the king visited her mother’s chamber on specific dates proved futile. After ten years into marriage, Julian finally accepted the help of a surrogate to birth a prince. Hopefully, the silly physician’s recipes would work to make a male child and the foods to take to sustain the pregnancy to full terms.
Therefore, Julian chose Grandiese, her most trusted servant. After giving birth to a prince, the king was to be secretly poisoned for Julian to rule solely and increase her influence. Grandiese had faded beauty in her earthquake-stricken legs, her dull complexion, and her worn-out hands. Julian pitied the king, who had been given the duty of having his surrogate. Beauty to behold was what a man should see in a woman; her wits were what could keep him glued.
Six months had now passed that Grandiese had conceived. As usual, the physician put her on an insidious diet to help her carry the baby to full terms. She was also to wear the hamsa bought from India to keep off evil eyes from the baby. Six months and her heart’s space had also shifted, from considering herself as the king’s servant to the king’s woman. Space welled up inside her of surging and overpowering love for the king. She no longer treated the king as her servant but as a woman. The sparks of their love could be seen between then from a distance with the unseen magnet pulling them together and the radiant smile the king had whenever he saw her. This, of course, did not go well with Julian, whose plan to terminate the king was at stake. Jealously and conspiracy pervaded in the palace, with Grandiese always suspicious of Julian’s motives. Julian had to hatch a plan to terminate Grandiese before terminating Caesar.
After five years of swelling contention between Petsie and Julia, Petsie having birthed three children, the contention couldn’t have grown any better. Petsie had given birth to two princes, prince Tika and prince Diodrus, and latter a beautiful princess. Although the Queen disliked Petsie for her disloyalty, she could not hold back from loving the three lovely brats. She had grown fond of them for the energetic and animated spirit they brought to the palace, the cacophony they brought with their constant fights, and complaints against each other. Their father had to be an arbitrator between the two boys. Julian had just turned twenty-four years, and the grandeur she carried around her demanded a party, and so a party was organized.
David and Brante had hatched a plan to exterminate Julian. Her rising popularity had grown with time thanks to her charisma and her witty words to the people. She was most efficient in turning out strife that rose. The Roman kingdom had grown to be one of the most influential empires in the world. Grandiese was involved in the plan to poison Julian in her party to make her the king’s sole woman. The love between Julian and the king was unclear, but it could also grow over time. Grandiese, as the primary master planner, was to send the older prince to serve the Queen with poisoned wine. After that, the cook could be blamed for the murder and banished from the kingdom.
Julian’s party started in splendor and color. They were inviting all the nobles and the highly respected women. Women who had been jaded by their husbands were known to excite their old husbands beyond the doctor’s recommendation, which led to their early death. They simulated every nerve in them with their seduction and beauty, taking long and tedious rides the older men could not hand at their age. The pain was swoon in delightful delight, which made them quench for more pain. For young husbands, a spy was used to seduce the husbands and creatively kill him. Most women were turning to be single- desolated women as they called themselves. But they were never really desolated in the watches of the night with their toy boys around them. They chose from the finest men with rippling muscles and skin glimmering with sweat from their exercise.
Julian’s table was set before her guests high, where her beauty could be admired. Known as the goddess of beauty in the Roman empire, most young men flocked to the occasions to admire her beauty and taste of its sensuous seduction from far—Caesar beside him and Grandiese a few meters away from them. Grandiese had earlier met the two master minders to perfect the plan. The cook served wine, and it was produced to Julian and the king. Diodrus went to her lovely mother to bring her wine after Julian was too drunk against her better judgment. Julian delightfully sipped from the wine with the two men leaving on the preface of attending to their families.
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Grandiese lay on the kitchen floor, unconscious writhing in the most exquisite pain. Tossing and speaking gibberish, asking for the Queen. The king and Queen quickly dashed to her attention and carried her to her chamber. Her body seemed faint and sapped of all energy, grabbed of her gaiety. Grandiese began to speak half in a trance and gibberish from the unbearable pain, “my king, I am soon to depart to the other world. A plan was hatched to get rid of the highness to weaken your kingdom. Julian was to divorce you after the plan to poison you failed, but she was reluctant. Brante feeling betrayed and bitter wanted to kill you to weaken the kingdom and reward David for his participation. But how could I let my lady die under my watch? I knew you would never, believe me, it I told you of the plan hatched by Brate, so I had to take the poison on your behalf. I choose to depart with a strong love of you, my Queen, rather than hanging around in the weak love of insecurity we both have at times about the king. We have had our share battles, but I choose to fall into the safe space of love no matter the weather that may be between us. The unique brushstrokes of the sublime, the awe and splendor of our affection, the tempestuous and the becalmed sea, the pastel colors and the bright colors have all developed our affection. You are a warrior, a warrior who wrestles using her beauty and timely words. I need you to learn how to fight for your emperor in the sublime. I need you to stick by him under the intense sun and in her happy moments. You two have always loved each other. His majesty had a lot of chances to get rid of you, but love held him back, a love that has crept in him with time. I need you to rule together and create a dynasty with the king as your emperor—an emperor of your kingdom and of your heart. I was love’s rendition in your story, to remind you of your love for your king when you had forgotten. When you both said you couldn’t stand each other but did innocuous deeds that watered your love.”
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Grandiese was buried in the palaces tombs. David was found poisoned by Brante to seal the secret, and the Brante later went into exile after the failed plan. Julian ordered the court painter to paint a portrait of her Petsie to be a sacred memory of true love’s sacrifice. Bernini’s picture depicted Grandiese weaning the young princess while drifting off to her ancestor’s world after the poisoning. With the political discontention between Spain and Rome being depicted. Julian grew to love her young stepchildren and revived the love between her and her king. She grew fond of the young princess and called her Petsie after her late mother always walking hand in hand. And yes, there was discontention in the palace now and then between the two love birds, but the love sprang back from the devotion they both had. It built on sacrifice between them and dedication. Everyone in the country learned from Grandiese, the Queen and the king; the difference between an ardent love and divine love, the difference between kindness and goodness in love, and the difference between love’s rendition and the immortal love that transcended death.