Free Infinite Blue Heaven - A King and A Queen by Lazlo Ferran Page A

Boris had quickly run to grasp my legs but I shewed him away and we went into a back room to talk with Moddei.
    Looking anxious, as he closed the door, he asked “Trouble?”
    “Aye” said Geb, sitting at a narrow bench alongside a flat oak table, with some books, sheaves of paper and a candle on it.
    I sat beside him, Moddei opposite, and we each leaned forward, on the palms of our hands.
    “The same day I last saw you, a few miles west of here, we were ambushed.” Geb went on. He went onto more details and Moddei told us that some of the villagers had seen northern Tribesmen passing through, early one morning. One had stopped to ask for food.
    We stayed only long enough for Moddei to provide us with fresh water bags and meat wrapped in cloth.
     
    At the Palace, at first, all seemed serene. Our horses were stabled and I asked Geb to accompany me to our anti-chamber. There he sat, patting Bear’s great knobbly head while the Princess and I talked.
    “I knew you shouldn’t go!”
    A hearty fire breathed life into the room.
    I sat down and pulled off my boots as she paced the floor, the diaphanous blue silk of her robe hem swanned beside her as she turned, back and forth.
    “I have heard nothing of interest,” she finally said impatiently. “Bulya is his usual ‘bullish,’ dull self. He has made several curt remarks to me and several suggestive ones, as is his nature.”
    I had smiled at her pun.
    “What sort of remarks? Anything I can hang him for?”
    “He said I was thinning like a sapling becoming a fruit tree and that I was ready to bear fruit.”Oh, I see. Yes I have been meaning to talk to you about that. I think the time will be right for us when this campaign is over. Bulya will be at his weakest and I will be at my strongest, for some time at least.
    “Then we can marry?”
    “Yes, yes.”
    She grabbed my wrist and then stood up and did a little girlish polka around the room.
    “But will there be a problem? With Lord Bulya, I mean.” She had suddenly stopped, mid-step and looked at me seriously. Bulya was the only one who had any idea about the probable nature of our relationship to each other. His perception was based on hearsay and he had no proof. He knew it was wishful thinking on his part to assume he could mount an effective opposition to the marriage. He could inflict damage on the reputation of the Royal Family though. In later years this would gain in effect.
    “Quick, come with me.” She took my hand and we ran through a number of chambers and corridors into the less used part of the Palace, on the upper floors. Suddenly she turned and pressed her back against a huge pair of double doors, carved from single pieces of oak.
    “Close your eyes.”
    I did so and heard the doors slowly creak open.
    “Now, open them.”
    I did so and saw a delightful vision before me.
    A huge chamber, newly painted in white, was completely bedecked in flower petals. They were laid out in pathways but not randomly. They were grouped and patterned as if really flower beds and the whole had the effect of seeming a real garden.
    “Come, let us walk together.”
    It was then, as we walked the paths that I saw how cunningly the paths had been laid, to create a labyrinthine course from one side of the chamber to the other. It took us perhaps five minutes to cross to the double doors, twins of the first, on the far side of the chamber. The sweet smell, trapped, as it was, inside the Palace, was think and intense. It settled on the senses like a magical blanket and I felt we were become nymphs.
    This time, with a laugh at the top of her register, she swung open this second set of doors. The chamber beyond was even more of a delight. It had been sloped around the edges to the rim of a large, irregular pool. The banks were green grass and in the pool floated lilies and swam golden and green coloured fish.
    “Come here!” She showed me where to stop. Taking off her silk slippers, she stepped into the pool at the