Chapter 25
The knight from the kingdom of Darel begins his journey riding on a white horse. The only times he stops to rest is to water his horse, feed them both and relieve himself. At some point, he cools himself by swimming for a short period of time in any river or lake he sees, but he is always riding on his horse. The sun rises, the sun sets, the moon casts it dim light on him. The sun and the birds are his only companion by day and by night, the moon and stars are. After two days, he crosses the boundary between the two kingdoms and by dusk, he sits on his horse, standing at the gates of the black kingdom.
A man pops his head from the other side of the wall and says,
"Who are you and what do you have to do with us?"
The darellian replies and says, "I bring a letter from the king of Darel himself to the ruler of the black kingdom."
The man looking over the wall withdraws his head and after a few minutes, the gates are opened wide and the darellian rides in still on his horse.
As soon as he is inside the black kingdom, he is greeted by six foot soldiers and the guard who looked over the wall, he knows this by sound of his voice.
"You said that you bear a letter from the king of Darell himself?"
"Yes, I do?"
"Follow me. Your horse will be taken care of."
"I do not have much time, I was told to hand the letter and ride back quickly to Darell."
"And that you would do."
The darellian comes down from his horse and a little boy takes the horse from him. The darellian follows the seven men and they take him to another soldier who is sitting down behind a wooden table on a chair. The men all salute him by standing at ease and placing their right hand that has been rolled into a fist on their chest. The man speaks,
"Sir, this man claims he is from Darell and has news from their king."
The soldier whom he addresses as sir looks at him with a frown and says,
"Welcome darellian."
The darellian nods slightly and he takes out the invitation and hands it over to the soldier who receives it with two hands.
The darellian then says, "I'll take my leave now."
"You are not going to stay to refresh yourself and eat good food."
But the darellian replies and says,"I have overstayed already."
He then nods to the soldier sitting down and to the ones still in salute to the soldier and he walks off, as he does, the soldier sitting gives a sign to the man who spoke to him about the darellian, and the man bows slightly and escorts the darellian to the gate where he is handed back his horse. The darellian climbs his horse and rides out of the black kingdom beginning a new journey back to the kingdom of Darell.
*****
The soldier holds the invitation card in his two hands. He looks at it with scrutiny and drops it on the table. He takes a of bunch of three keys which are bronze, silver and gold. He uses the gold key and unlocks the drawer with the gold lock. The other two locks are silver and bronze with the silver being after the gold and the bronze being underneath the other two. As he unlocks, he puts his hand inside the drawer and brings out a gold snuff box which he places on the table, he uses the gold key and taps on it three times and the gold snuff box springs open, in it is a gold powder. He takes a pinch of it and sprinkles on the invitation letter and he does this again and again making it three times, after he does this, he says,
" Get me a foot guard".
One of the foot soldiers bows and says, "Yes sir."
The foot walks in the open space and through a narrow alley. As he advances, he sees the lights men lighting the lamps. He keeps going, his hand crutched at the sword dangling at his waist, a normal thing that all foot soldiers do. He eyes scan the area and he hears giggles and voices. He goes to the direction where the voices are coming from and he us able to make out the voice of a male and a female.
"Ohhh", the female giggles, "stop it."
"Believe me Mariam when I say I love you."
The foot soldier then hears the sounds of kissing, he knows this is true because he uses the time when he is relieved of his duties for a few days to visit the brothel.
"Such words coming from the mouth of a foot guard."
The ears of the foot soldier does not fail to hear this and he barges in on them immediately.
"Wonders! What would the Sirs say if they caught you fooling around on duty."
The foot soldier sees the foot guard eyes widen in terror as he struggles to explain. The female runs away and the foot soldier let's her leave. The foot soldier studies the foot guard before saying,
*You must come already, Sir told me to find a foot guard and you happened to be the first I could find Rufus. "
The foot guard stutters before saying," Okay superior"
The foot soldier turns to leave the alley and he us followed by Rufus. Together they walked out of the alley and finally got to Sir. Sir looks at Rufus and says,
"Take this to the palace and when you are being asked what news you bring, you must answer and sat that the darellian claims to have good news for the queen, us that understood? "
"Yes sir. "
Sir hands the invitation letter to the foot guard and the foot guard casting one last look at the soldier who caught him fooling around on duty, he walks away.
As he makes his way to the palace, he looks up to the skies and sees that darkness is fast taking over fir night and he decides to speed up as he promised Mariam to come to her home early. He quickens his pace and he comes across to paths that will lead him to the palace. One is the shortest path with trees by the side and another it's through the guards quarters but he chooses the other path.
As he goes along the path, he notices that everywhere is strangely quiet and as he passes, he is almost close to a tree whose branches have leaves that spread out to the path, as he passes under it, a drop of something drops on his head, he looks up and screams with pure terror and he drops on the floor, hus skin turns deathly white and he begins to foam at the mouth and jerk.
Farther off, some foot guards who are warming themselves with the fire from a barrel hear the scream, they look at the direction of the scream and then at themselves.