Jadis, Mistress of the British Empire

celestialhost

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A alt-universe Chronicles of Narnia fic.

In The Magician's Nephew Jadis came to London and tried to set herself up as queen. This story imagines what Britain under her rule might have been like.




Buckingham Palace, 1906

Charles Renfield, Earl of Breeshire and Chancellor of the Exchequer was gathered with the other courtiers in the queen's throne room.

Renfield glanced at the figure sat upon the throne. Queen Jadis was an enormous woman. Her huge frame seemed to almost dwarf the throne. Upon her head she wore not the old crown of England, but a strange circlet with nine wicked spikes. She was clad in a red gown that left her arms and shoulders bare, as well as exposing a good deal of her long leg. Her huge feet were naked. She wore gold anklets on her large, but shapely ankles. To the chancellor, Jadis looked nothing at all like a queen, but more like a gypsy fortune teller or an oriental whore.

Since Jadis had seized the throne of England, the women of the country had begun to adopt the queen's scandalous manner of dress. Renfield might have expected it of flower sellers or the daughters of miners, but even respectable ladies had adopted her shocking style. All of the ladies of court before him wore the same sleeveless dresses and some were even barefoot and wore the ridiculous ankle jewelery that Jadis favoured. Renfield had never approved of bare arms, but noblewomen going barefoot in public was unbelievable. How could this country sink so low?

Most people said that Jadis was the most beautiful woman in the world, but looking at her Renfield did not thing she was so attractive. In fact, there was something about her countenance that was ugly in a way he found impossible to describe. It was Jadis' famed beauty that had helped to bewitch the people of England. When Queen Victoria had been a young girl, she had been pretty and elegant. She had restored the British love for the monarchy. In her old age, Victoria had put on her mourning dress and retired from the public view. Jadis, the strange sorceress from another world was something totally different. Not only was she beautiful, but she was exotic and enchanting. She was like a goddess, a queen from the ancient world or some mysterious oriental priestess. She offered the British people glamour in a way that Victoria could never do.

Jadis had stirred up the rabble of London and formed them into a vast mob army She seemed to have an almost hypnotic effect on the crowds. The house of parliament had been burned to the ground. The aged Queen Victoria had been deposed and her head placed on the spikes outside Buckingham Palace. Jadis had seized the throne for herself and begun turning the world upside down.

England had been a Christian country, yet how quickly her people forgot their old faith! The Church of England had been abolished and the worship of Jadis' dark and sinister gods given official sanction by the Crown. It was shocking how quickly the supposedly Christian population had embraced the sinister new pantheon. Perhaps a good deal of the attraction was the public orgies that their worship involved. Jadis' religion gave the people freedom to do things that had once been immoral. Jadis herself was a woman of loose morals. She seemed to change her lovers every week, though a lot of the luckless fools seemed to end up getting their heads on spikes. When she was not sharing her bed with a lover, Jadis slept with her ladies in waiting. It was perfectly normal for women to be passionate about their lady friends, but Renfield thought there was something peculiarly suspect about the extremity of Jadis' intimacy with her maidservants and female courtiers.

Jadis had lost something of her popularity when she banned Christmas. Her hostility to the festival was puzzling, but after Oliver Cromwell, she was not the first British ruler to ban Christmas. The new queen had offered some compensation to the fickle public with her new feast day, the Day of Darkness, celebrated on the longest day in December. It allowed the people to decorate trees, stuff themselves with food and give gifts and they did not seem to mind that all mention of Jesus Christ was forbidden.

The monstrous queen had been impressed by Britain's industrial strength. Apparently, Jadis' own world had not progressed as much as this one in its level of technology. Jadis seemed obsessed with increasing the nation's industrial output. She pushed for the construction of ever more factories, ships, bridges, trains as well as the newly invented automobiles and aircraft. Even those who resisted the rule of Jadis had not been wasted for the most part. They had been herded into vast slave labour camps to produce more materials for the country's frenzied industrial growth.

Jadis was a tyrant, but for all that Renfield despised her, the loathsome creature was making the British empire greater than it had ever been before. The public had been able to obtain all manner of luxury goods from foreign parts. Her armies were winning wars across the world. More and more of the map was turning pink. The army and navy of Great Britain was driven by fear of Jadis and fought to the death. They had another strength too; they had terrible and dangerous allies.

Renfield glanced at the dark figure lurking in the corner of the throne room. It was like a huge serpent, but with a torso like a human being with scaled skin. It was a Naga, a serpent-person from India. Its people lived in underground cities on the subcontinent. Renfield had no idea how a creature from another world like Jadis had known about the Naga, but she had summoned many of such forgotten races to her side. Creatures that lurked in dark places and loved the darkness. Not just the Nagas, but goblins, gnomes, dwarves Mi-Go, mer-people, lizardmen, ogres and Gorgons.

How long could Renfield continue to serve in Jadis' government? It had never been out of choice. Jadis had asked him personally and refusal would have meant execution. Not that he was safe in his current position; sooner or later he expected he would offend the tyrant and she would have his head. Perhaps the time had come to form a conspiracy to overthrow Jadis. He knew others in high places who resented Jadis misrule. It had only taken a conspiracy of noble Romans to remove Julius Caesar. Jadis could fall just as easily.
 
Did you select the surname Renfield from the book Dracula?

>> Jadis had lost something of her popularity when she banned
>> Christmas. Her hostility to the festival was puzzling, but after
>> Oliver Cromwell, she was not the first British ruler to ban Christmas.


Of course, Cromwell was only banning the celebration; Jadis would seek to ban Christ Himself. But as you seem also to be maintaining, Jadis' magic would not be nearly as strong on Earth as on the Narnian quasi-planet. So it may be that all it would take here would be one good marksman with a telescopic-sighted rifle. Will you bring in the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen?
 
Yes, Renfield is a Dracula ref. I think this was more influenced by Kim Newman's Anno Dracula than League of Extraordinart Gentleman, but it has that same Victorian trope-heavy feel.

I don't plan on writing a sequel. This is more about imagining the unthinkable than coming up with a new story.

As you say, Jadis has less or no magical power in our world, so I avoided any mention of people being turned to stone.
 
I think I suggested when you did the Lone Islands story that you concentrate your short works on one topic thread, so they don't fall off the queue too soon.
 
You might be right. On the other hand, looking at it from my own point of view, I can't see myself looking at an old story thread, even if I saw it at the top.
 
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