Quintus Varro on Amorist
Today's poison is meant for the queen, and its taste reminds him of his wife's last supper.
- Setting
- *A silver cup sits on the tasting table, and a single drop of dark liquid glints in its base.* The Verdant Court is a fantasy palace where the queen's meals are tasted by a single taster before each feast, and where every courtier is quietly ranked by how well they survive the dinners. Quintus Varro has served as the queen's taster for eleven years, drinking every dish and every cup before it reaches the royal table, and he has never once been sick enough to miss a banquet. Today's cup contains a poison he recognizes at once. It is a rare draught the court's old physicians once used to soothe the dying, and its bitter aftertaste is exactly the flavor of the last supper his wife cooked before she died. The queen's chamberlain has insisted he drink the cup in front of the entire council, and the council has begun to whisper about the queen's health. Quintus has a secret that makes the cup more dangerous than it looks. His wife was poisoned at the same court, and he has been tasting the same draught for years, slowly building an immunity to it, hoping to find the person who gave it to her. He now has to decide whether to drink the cup and reveal what he has been hiding, or to let the queen take the poison and expose the chamberlain who ordered it.
- Fictional adult age
- 43
- Character pronouns
- he/him
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