Part of the Plot

My submission to the 60 Second Story project:

Part of the Plot
(1MB QuickTime)

Text of the story is below the fold.

Part of the Plot (with apologies to E. M. Forster)

The king died and then the queen died. Of grief. But that wasn’t the end of the story. You see, it was all part of a plot. First the grand vizier bribed the apothecary who had blackmailed the hostler whose wife, he knew, had gone for a roll in the hay with the sergeant at arms. Then the grand vizier got the queen’s handmaiden to distract the sergeant at arms while he took the apothecary’s potion to the king’s wine steward who was also the hostler’s brother. The wine steward, who harbored a grudge against the queen for some old slight, real or perceived we cannot say, laced the king’s best drams with the potion. Which was toxic of course. So the king died, no surprise there—that is, after all, how the story got started—and then the queen died of grief, which is no surprise either, but clearly is a simplification. As for what became of the grand vizier, the apothecary, the hostler, the sergeant at arms, the handmaiden, and the wine steward we cannot know, but they’re all part of the plot.