Day Thirty Six : Acquiesce

Acquiesce

Definition

: to accept, comply, or submit tacitly or passively —often used with in or to

Acquiesce means essentially "to comply quietly," so it should not surprise you to learn that it is
ultimately derived from the Latin verb quiēscere, meaning "to be quiet." It arrived in English in the
early 1600s, via the French acquiescer, with the senses "to agree or comply" and "to rest satisfied"
(this latter sense is now obsolete).

The tomb was dark, the silence almost thick and deep and rich enough to wrap around her like a
velvet coat. 

They hadn’t left any lamps. That was alright. She didn’t need them. She had grown up playing in what
felt like the continually ongoing construction site that had eventually become this tomb. She
understood the layout like the back of her hand, perhaps better even as she had paid far more
attention to engineering and architecture than she ever had to her own body, much to her mother’s and
her attendant’s disgust. 

They had finally finished building the tomb the year before. Just in time.  

Gently and slowly, with the knowledge that somewhere far above her the newest batch of engineers,
the ones who hadn’t been buried alive for knowing the secrets of the king’s tomb, were elegantly and
professionally sealing shut the last doors to the sunlit world above, she made her way to her husband’s
grave.

She had met her husband, what seemed like many, many years ago. She had been assisting her
father, one of the chief engineers on the site, when his father had brought him along to survey the
progress.

All the special royal tombs began construction once the royal child in question had safely passed their
difficult first year.  It seemed rather macabre to her to start planning for their child’s death almost as
soon as they came into the world, but that was the royal family’s way after all.

Anyway, the young prince had been escorted to the building site and shown around. How much of it
he had understood was slightly in question, as he was only six at the time, but he seemed to have an
enjoyable time whilst being given a tour of his own grave. 

She, being only slightly older than the prince (but so much smarter she had suspected, or perhaps
less ignorant might have been more accurate. For all his status, the prince was shockingly naive and
unaware of some of the most basic of common sense -don’t poke snakes, don’t interrupt people whilst
they’re carrying heavy and delicately balanced loads, don’t walk under ladders, look where you’re
going etc. His reading and mathematical skills were also completely rudimentary. Perhaps that was
only to be expected for the sacrifice prince. Why bother wasting the man power to teach him when he
wasn’t going to be using it.) had been in charge of looking after him. He had not said a word to her the
entire time but, after he had nearly walked into the main road and gotten himself squashed by a cart,
she had taken him by the hand and firmly told him that he wasn’t to let go of her under any
circumstances. He hadn’t. 

In fact, he had attached himself to her so firmly that, when it was time for him to leave, he had refused
to let go of her. Baffled by what was clearly an out of the ordinary reaction from the normally easy
tempered child, his attendants had asked if she would accompany him back to the palace - just for a
little while. 

Seeing as neither her nor her father could disobey a royal command, she agreed.

Now, looking at her husband’s prone figure, lying motionless under the clear frozen glass of his coffin,
she wondered if she’d have been better off refusing that request so long ago. Life would have been
easier surely. 

But not better. Maybe. 

In any case, she had said yes and accompanied the young prince back to his palace. While perhaps it
was not as palatial as the other palaces in the royal compound, it was certainly better than what she
was used to.

That was the start of many visits and if at first she had been angry and resentful of the young prince,
who she knew would be the eventual cause of her father’s death (everyone knew that, even though
the royals swore that this time it would be different, all planners and engineers for the tomb would be
buried alive at the completion of the building to keep it’s construction techniques secret. But who could
refuse a royal command - even if it meant death? At least their families would be well provided for.)
She eventually forgave him for this, as it was not something he himself had decided or even had any
control over. Instead she made him promise to love as long as possible (to try and delay the inevitable)
and on many occasions had sneakily sabotaged the construction, just to delay its completion just a
little longer.

She stroked the surface of the tomb. And how the prince had strived to keep his promise. He had
outlived the usual predicted timeline of a sacrificial prince by years.

A sacrificial prince was the younger one of a pair of twins. As it was considered unlucky to have two
direct inheritors to the throne, the younger spare prince was used as a sacrifice whenever an important
vent or request came along  - or whenever they outlived their usefulness. Many sacrificial princes did
not live into double digits.

They had the fanciest tombs though, as if this was some sort of poor consolation prize. 

She smiled to herself, her husband’s was the fanciest of the lot - not that that stuck up royal family
knew that of course. 

As a result of the fact that they were going to be used as a sacrificial pawn, although they were treated
fairly well in terms of food and physical comfort, few and far between were given any sort of education
or had any dealings with the outside world. It was far easier for the royal family if they were to remain
ignorant and biddable. 

Meeting her changed all that for the prince. She taught him to read, write - brought him tutors when his
hunger to learn far outstripped her ability to teach him. He spent most days at the construction site,
following around the architects, engineers and builders, learning everything from bricklaying, to design
to mechanics. He absorbed everything like a sponge and then asked for more. 

He was well loved by everyone, despite being the cause of their death, and people were often
muttering under their breath that they wished he had been born first. 

The elder twin had no interest in his subjects - either taught or those he would eventually rule over.
This worked out well for her prince as, once his elder brother had chased them away with cruel words
and whips, he would find them, comfort them, and then they would teach him everything his brother
should have learned. 

Over time, the younger prince grew into a fine young man, one with a quiet and calm demeaning,
befitting of a sacrifice, but one that was often called upon to mediate disputes and offer opinions and
resolutions on various matters. He had indeed made himself ‘useful’ and his usefulness kept him safe. 

We had even been allowed to marry - as long as I had understood that by marrying him, I was
condemning myself to share the same fate as him. 

Of course, this happy time could not last and a year before the completion of his tomb, the assassination
attempts had begun. 

His brother was a jealous man. And even he could not have failed to hear the dissatisfied rumblings of a
court that wished the birth order had been swapped. 

Many times my husband found himself on the brink of death. Many times I sat by him in the night,
holding his hand as he fought against the poison and thought about how this could be the last night for
him, myself and my father.

I especially thought about how, even though the court obviously knew who was behind these attacks and
knew that it had been their own discontent with the perpetrator that had lead to my gentle husband
being attacked, no one did anything. 

Well, my husband may have been gentle but I was not. I was not going to take the murder of my nearest
and dearests lying down. 

It had taken years of convincing, from practically the moment I understood that daddy’s work was going
to get him killed. It was only when the prince himself and had joined in (he said he had fallen in love with
me from the second I’d grabbed his hand and told him what an idiot he was for nearly getting himself
killed when he was six years old - and when he figured out that if he wanted to marry me, it would mean
I’d die with him, well, he’d just have to work on changing the system then. Despite his generally gentle
and easy going nature, when he wanted something he stopped at nothing until he got it. It took him
nearly ten years to convince me to marry him after all.)  - and had proven himself to be the first royal
we’d ever met that we thought actually might be worth following, that they finally agreed to my crazy
plan.

Well, it wasn’t completely crazy. Creative maybe, a bit out of left field but not crazy.

Definitely treasonous though.

But I, who had dedicated my entire life to discovering a way to save first my father and then later, when he
became unbearably dear to me, my husband, knew that I could pull this off. That we, the entire
construction team, could do this. 

A year ago the tomb had been completed - my father and all his companions sealed inside to await their
death and their spirits to guard it for eternity. 

Two days ago I had walked into our bedroom to find my husband dead in our bed. 

Today I was sealed into the tomb my father had spent my life creating.

I tapped on the glass lid thoughtfully. I had been allowed to attend the funeral at least. Quite a classy
affair. I smirked at the memory of the look on the first prince’s face. Complete bewilderment. 

After all, he hadn’t been the one to kill his brother. 

I had. 

My father walked into the grave room, wiping oil off of his hands. 

“Are you going to wake him up then? Or just stare at his pretty face all day?” He grinned at me. 

I made a face at him “Daaaad.”

He shrugged, unrepentant. “Come on, let’s get this party on the road.”

The thing about sealing people inside the very building they created whilst knowing that they were going
to get sealed in, is that - they built it. So of course, even though the royal inspectors would have gone
through the plans and the building itself with a fine toothed comb, there were plenty of secrets they could
layer in without the inspector being any the wiser. Escape routes, hidden storerooms, entire dormitories,
everything you could need to survive being trapped for a year. 

My father told me that he would need complete secrecy in order to finish the outrageous redesign we
had planned. And what easier way to carry out such a task then to have everyone believe you are dead. 

He said they would need a year to complete the task and so a year we gave them. It had been tough at
times, the elder brother had been so very determined to see my husband dead, but we managed to
keep everything on schedule. 

I looked down at my husband fondly and began the release code on his cryogenic coffin ( it was known
to all, despite the embarrassment it caused me, to be a very loving and devoted wife - so no one had
blinked an eye when I requested a cryogenic chamber for my husband’s corpse so that I could keep his
beauty with me forever as I died by his side. I was also a funeral engineer’s daughter so I of course I
was going to have weird ideas about death.) 

The lid popped up with a rush of cold air. My husband’s eyes snapped open. 

“Hello love.” I said with a goofy grin. “Nice nap?”

“Not bad.” He returned the grin. 

My father coughed. “Well, if you two lovebirds are quite ready. Shall we go up to the helm? The lads
have got the engines up and running” as if on cue the smooth floors began vibrating and a distant
rumbling could be heard. “So we’ll begin reconfiguration to a mobile form shortly.”

We walked up the path. Now that we were all safely ensconced within, the hidden strip lighting came on,
gently illuminating the path.

We walked onto the bridge, various crew members standing by, ready to take action. My father gestured
to the captain’s chair.

“Your highness.” He said with a smile. 

As my husband took the chair, I looked around me with a smile. I smiled especially widely at the sight of
the city out the viewscreen, becoming smaller and more doll like as it fell further and further below and
the tomb stretched, reshuffled and unfolded into something quite unexpected. 

It had taken years of study, surreptitious recruitment, some mind bending new engineering concepts and
a vast amount of luck but we had done it.  

My husband reached for my hand and held it. As it had done all those years ago and in every moment
since. 

“My genius wife.” he said softly. “Where on earth would I be without you?”

“Probably dead.” I said candidly. The boy had literally walked straight into traffic the first time I met him. 

He chuckled. “Probably right.” He looked about himself. “I still can’t imagine how you ever came up with
this idea - I doubt anyone could.”

I shrugged. “I wanted to win - and this seemed to me the most logical way to do so.”

And to me it still did, regardless of whether anyone had told me it was impossible or insane or a fool’s
errand. Ever since I had learned of the technology when I was but a child (even if it had been in a fairy
tale) I just knew this was the way I could save the men I love and deal out some harsh punishment to
the people who had treated us like tools to be used and thrown away. 

It was time for them to feel small. 

After all, few people could win an argument against a giant robot.