The Second Carpenter

XXXV

XXXV_I_Sanctus_Sumptus_-_Baptismus_Ignis

Royal Flush, the capital of Žanaria, was built upon the southwestern side of the Imperial Valley through which the river Roji ran from southeast to northwest connecting yet two other nations. While the other side of the valley was completely untouched by civilization save from the two roads that intersected in Royal Flush - one connecting the fertile Green Miles in the south to the Morning Woods in the north beyond which the war usually took place, one connecting the City of Westlight to Autumn Falls - The side of the valley on which the city was located was artificially divided into nine levels of almost flat ground upon each of which houses, establishments, streets and arenas were built, and one more level on the top which was occupied wholly by the castle. The outside walls of the castle were cladded with white marble which shone brilliantly in the morning light.

With the inhuman help that was provided by Suakasai and his men, the queen's army had won a very crucial battle in the north and reached peace. Without the Queen's presence in the battlefield, of course. The queen was too important to risk her life in the battlefield, and the majority of the people, if not all, agreed with that.

Suakasai was sitting on a wooden bench in an artistically narrow corridor, leaning to the left on a protrusion of an uneven wall. The inside walls were cladded with lime and silver glitters. There was a window right behind the bench. Since it was at the farthest southwestern part of the castle, there was no structure to see beyond it, save from the colonnade that led to the queen's personal quarters. Suakasai could see it from there. it felt so pleasantly detached. Being at the opposite side of the caslte and thus not opening to the valley, there was no human establishment miles and miles beyond that isolated chamber. Only wild, dense woods. It looked like an independent world. And it belonged to the queen.

Molto and Lagno were off to another place to receive their rewards. Suakasai had recently been knighted - his anointment had been his first time to see the queen - and, also having received numerous other rewards as special sword and a spectacular amount of gold, as well as the promise of support for his brother's revolution, was now awaiting farther rewards that were supposed to come.

From a branch of the corridor entered a black bear with a silver muzzle. Suakasai had left his weapons with the castle guards before entering; so, for a moment, he genuinely thought the queen had planned to kill him there in silence. But then a young lass emerged as well. She was half of Suakasai's height, and was clad in a marvelous blue dresss decorated with golden sequins with a fluffy skirt and sleeves reaching almost to the floor even though she held her hands elegantly up beneath her immature chest. Her wavy violet hair also reached almost to the floor, gradually fading into purple in at the length of her waist, depicting the colors of their nation.

Suakasai knew who she was. He had not seen her, but he knew. He quickly rose and kneeled. "Your highness."

"Good morning, my noble knight. You may rise. I am Princess Arshida Pranzgidara, first and so far last of Her Majesty. My dear mother wishes to see you. Will you be so kind as to follow me?"

"If your highness commands."

He followed the princess to the colonnade and then into the queen's chamber. It was large. Both horizontally and vertically. It was a single room, but with many levels of galleries, with the entirety of walls, save for the windows that opened to the view of the isolated world outside, were bookshelfs. Suakasai noticed that the room had no door to the other side - that made the isolated world even more pleasant. It was the equivalent of the feeling of watching a snowy night from behind the window of a warm chamber. But it was a crisp morning in late autumn now.

Unlike the rest of the castle, the inside walls of this room were panelled with wood. There was a howz in the very center of the room, and a disproportionately large canopy bed in the northern corner of the room, and another, much smaller bed on the eastern corner of the top-level gallery. The queen, wearing a dress of the same color as her daughter, albeit with fare more ornamentations and epaulettes, and also the same color of hair, although reaching only a bit below her shoulder, was elegantly sitting in an armchair facing a southeastern window, holding a book she was reading with her right hand and supporting her newborn boy she was breasfeeding with her left arm.