‘Yes?’, Princess Karina heard a metallic knock and quickly put her dress inside the linen bag of the same gray color that had her woolen coat.
‘I’m at your service, Princess.’ the knight came inside the chamber with a proud and anticipating smile.
‘You’re new here, right? What is your name?’
‘Zachary,’ the knight answered looking at the princess’s voluptuous figure and long blond hair lying softly on her full and firm breasts. If there was an epitome of a princess, Princess Karina was pretty close to it.
‘Zachary, dear boy, I want you to stay here for the whole night.’
The knight smiled.
‘I’m going out.’
‘Out?’ knight Zachary was surprised, ‘And me? What am I supposed to do here?’
‘Are you a child? Should I tell you what to do? Don’t you have your own brain?’
Knight Zachary was astonished. He was expecting to take part in a passionate love-making with a famous royal nymphomaniac, he waited for the most sophisticated and untamed appetite of a wild royal daughter. Instead, he was being told off.
‘You can dust.’ Princess Karina buttoned her coat and hung the bag on her shoulder.
‘Dust?’
‘Yes, the room seems to be a bit messy. It’s an order. You have to stay here all night and dust the room. When I come back, it has to be spotlessly clean. I should be back by breakfast.’
Princess Karina opened the window and disappeared behind it as if that was a normal thing for each and every princess and she had been doing it regularly since childhood. In fact, she had been doing this for over two years and found knights a beneficial part of her mischievous plan. She knew perfectly well that none of the knights would dare to tell his comrades that he was dusting the princess’ chamber instead of enjoying the carnal pleasures of her company. She knew that, once the knight was inside, she wouldn’t be bothered by anybody, especially other loyal knights or the father king. She also knew that her new reputation would discourage other potential royal candidates for her hand. Three years ago, the father wanted to marry her off to this Slovakian prince. A meter fifty tall, no front teeth, balding, and that acne. Over her dead body! The fact that he was of a royal background and was supposed to be in charge of the whole kingdom didn’t change her view on the matter at all.
Princess Karina fell in love a year after that unfortunate engagement suggestion but since then she was cautious about her father’s plans. When she heard that her father promised her to knight Gwidon, she took matters into her own hands. She couldn’t waste any more time.
‘David!’ she ran into her lover’s arms and gave him the bag, ‘Is everything ready?’
David was a miner’s son. He was delivering fruit to the castle’s kitchen when Karina noticed him, herself bored, throwing pebbles into the bucket of water, forced to watch the castle’s children playing in the courtyard. David was a tall, dark, beautiful boy with healthy teeth, nice hair, not even a drop of blue blood running in his veins, and no money of his own. As if that mattered! Karina for her pocket money bought a love potion from the witch and offered it casually to David, asking about the quality of fruit. She herself took a sip just after him. It tasted like unsweetened herbal tea. The two teenage lovers were instantly struck by the power of the mixture and they soon couldn’t live without each other. They saw each other every day in secret places: in the kitchen’s pantry, in the forest chapel, in the castle’s dungeon, in the princess’ chamber when the king and queen were visiting some foreign kingdom. Both besotted, in love, in madness over their young bodies. The mixture was supposed to work for a month, but once the effects wore off, Karina and David realized that it wasn’t just a magic-triggered romance, it all looked like true love, which in perspective left them both hopeless. A princess couldn’t be married to a simple, poor boy with even poorer family history. A princess should marry someone of significance. But still, David gave Princess Karina everything she needed, he was her friend, support, and provider or carnal pleasures no blue blood and no castle could guarantee.
‘I’m not going to obey my father! He’s an old hypocrite! He wants to sell me to this snobbish career-obsessed walking sack of muscles, Gwidon. I would die with him out of boredom. War, army, knights, duels, bla bla bla... He treats women like brainless chicken! I’m not going to wait for another father’s stupid idea. Is it arranged?’
David nodded and Karina’s certainty gave him the courage. Keeping this whole relationship secret was one thing. But getting secretly married to a princess was another matter. On one hand, he had his family at stake, the king’s wrath, the kingdom’s condemning looks, on the other, Princess Karina. He couldn’t picture his life without her. He calculated; in his situation death in the mine at the age of thirty or forty was the most probable. He could probably digest the painful death at the hands of the executioner given to him for lawlessly seducing the princess. Even though it was she who seduced him.
‘And if this love potion finally wears off and you realize that you have made a mistake?’
‘My mother made a mistake! And now she has an affair with the tax officer and eats onions and garlic before sleep just to make father leave her alone. I’m marrying for love. Love potion has nothing to do with it. Possibly, I had loved you before I even bought this thing. And you never know with these witches. I also bought a potion for whiter teeth as a birthday present for the father and what? They are still YELLOW!’
They arrived at the entrance to the mine. David lit the lantern, he changed his shirt for the clean one, Princess Karina put on her celebratory dress and let her hair down. She stuck flowers into her locks and followed David into the mine. David’s father arranged the underground chapel that was carved by the miners in the salt blocks. It was a beautiful spacious chamber with salt chandeliers, altar, and sculptures. There was no one in the chapel, and no one in the mine apart from the guard at the entrance door, who let them inside without problems. The priest was waiting for them. The ceremony was short but beautiful. Their only witnesses were the mine’s sculptures and underground lakes. The priest blessed them and left them to themselves, himself being unaware that one of the secret lovers, whom he blessed with the gift of a husband, was the daughter of the kingdom’s ruler.
David took the hand of his wife and led her to another underground chamber where there were animal furs lying on the ground, substituting a bed. That was the last chamber built by the miners, small and unfinished, but big enough to grant them the privacy they needed. He undressed his wife and made love to her as passionately and desperately as he only could, being in love with her beauty, mind, and soul.
Having fallen asleep due to physical effort and outbursts of emotions, David and Princess Karina were woken up by strange sounds, as if metal was hitting metal somewhere far in the distance.
‘It comes from down below,’ Karina listened to the murmur.
‘It’s impossible, this is the last chamber. There is nothing below.’
‘Are you sure?’ Karina raised the lantern and looked at the walls of the chamber.
At one corner, there was a hole as if it was a small door leading to another cave. They both liked adventures, so without any discussion or hesitation, in their wedding celebratory gowns, they entered the hole and started their way down a steep and narrow staircase.
If the human creation of underground mines was worth people’s attention and considered beautiful, what they saw on the day of their wedding took their breath away. After half an hour of descending, they discovered an underground city, carved in the rock, marble, gold, silver, stone, and salt. It was dark as if everyone was asleep, but small lanterns were hung here and there to make the path visible. There were carved houses, trees, castles, and chapels. Before their eyes opened carved roads, ceilings, chandeliers, walls covered in sculptures and engravings, each ornament different from another and unique. The floors and ceilings were crossed by spiral staircases, connecting the city’s levels, which were so vast they comprised whole lakes and so high they reached the highest towers of the highest castles.
‘So it is true!’ Princess Karina gasped at the sight of it all. She knew that human architects wouldn’t be able to build such a city. It was a marvel! It was a wonder!
‘My great-grandmother told me about this in her stories! The underground cities of terrible creatures. Miles under our city! Carved for centuries by Goblins!’
‘Goblins?’
‘Yes, the mythical creatures. My great-grandmother told me that once they were small and greedy forest fairies. But they mixed with humans. They interbred. And they weren’t interested in ordinary humans. Little Goblins kidnapped people, they caught miners who got lost, women who strayed from their paths in the middle of the night, they dug prisoners from the dungeons. They created another race of men. But they still looked hideous, people at their sight became paranoid, they speared them, burned them like they did with the witches, dismembered them, impaled their heads and stuck them before houses to scare the enemy. For centuries, they stayed underground. And over the years, they perfected their craft and used magic to create something like this. I’ve never seen such a magnificent city. They are ugly and they make such beautiful things. And they hate people!’
David was still amazed at what he was seeing.
‘No wonder. We took from them the sun, we imprisoned them underground, we limited their freedom... Hush, someone is coming! Let’s hide!’
They quickly hid behind one of the carved trees. Its leaves rustled and when David looked up, he saw that they were thin leaves made of gold. They saw two Goblin men walking along the underground path. Both wore elegant clothes, but their ears, noses, and heads were monstrous. The color of their skin was greenish, their feet had only one or two toes and their teeth reminded Princess Karina of donkey’s or horse’s teeth instead of human’s.
‘When we finally take over the kingdom, everything will change. I want to take a human wife for myself. I want to have as many children as possible and buy as much land as possible.’
‘You are a romantic! I hope that we will simply kill all of them and take the land that rightly belongs to us! We can rape but marrying human women? This is too much of a sacrifice!’
They both laughed with a burst of nasty terrible laughter.
‘Since we are in possession of the king’s son it will all come true. He will sooner or later give us all the details about the king’s army and its weak points. We will attack when our blacksmiths finish hammering weapons. They have been working all night. The miners started suspecting something. I think it was the sound of iron that brought them here.’
‘I have heard about the accident. We killed over a dozen. We have to keep it a secret. Officials are afraid that someone might have revealed our position and intentions.’
‘Even if, would it change anything? The raid is a matter of weeks. Now that they are fighting with the Turks, their armies are spread all over the border. It’s a perfect moment for us to take what should be ours for centuries!’
‘Rightly so! I tell you, I will take the king’s daughter and rape her to have my royal babies spread all over the world!’
‘Dreamer! Princess Karina will be raped only by our prince. Vandarok told us in his speech that he intends to marry her and reign in the caste. There are hierarchies even you cannot fight with!’
Princess Karina looked at her husband with anger. Another hideous prince with a perverted sexual appetite. And this time a Goblin!
‘We have to inform the king!’, she whispered, her husband nodded. They waited for the two Goblins to disappear and began to retreat.
In the morning, the princess ran back to the castle and stormed into the king’s chamber.
‘Karina, I have been looking for you everywhere! Can you tell me what has a knight been doing in your chamber all night? I asked him the same thing and guess what was the answer? Apparently, he was dusting!’
Princess Karina looked innocent.
‘I suppose he was. You know, father, that I don’t like chores.’
‘And why are you wearing your best dress and look as if you had been up all night?’
‘Let’s stop this discussion, father, it doesn’t lead anywhere. I have to tell you something! Mines! The great-grandmother was telling the truth! Under mines, there are cities inhabited by Goblins! These Goblins are planning a raid! They want to take over the kingdom! They have Gustaw!’
The king looked at the pile of bones and intestines that was still lying in the center of his chamber. The pile began to stink, but there was no one who would clean it, obeying the king’s orders. Out of superstitions, his servants remained deaf when he even mentioned it. And they considered themselves Christian. But if Karina was right. The prophecy was coming true, now it was the time to take action.
No comments:
Post a Comment