The Queen of the Night. Alexandra Okatova

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      To provide a place where the Queen’s potential suitors could stay, a huge hotel complex spanning almost the entire Kingdom had to be built.

      The Kingdom itself was very small and there wasn’t much money in the treasury. Thus, the hotel had to be built with individual contributions instead of public money. The wealthy could invest their thalers into the construction, hoping to receive future dividends. Many were willing to contribute as everyone wanted to benefit in one way or another from shares of the hotel, which was tentatively called «The Queen of the Night Shelter», Queen of the Night being a brand of the Kingdom.

      The Queen was the most beautiful queen in the whole world. She was only shown to her potential suitors for two hours a day – from midnight to two o’clock. Except for the only maid in the house, nobody would see her again until the next midnight.

      No one else was allowed in the Queen’s chambers, but all day, the maid scurried through the palace, coming and going with viands. She prepared dresses for the Queen, sniffed and scrutinized everything. Every conversation with the Queen was in written form, maintained by the same old woman, the Queen’s servant. Such had been the arrangement since time immemorial.

      A young and inquisitive astrologer once tried (in vain) to find out the extent of time immemorial; everything had been forgotten and the Queen of the Night had become an urban legend.

      This persistent young man then visited and explored all of the libraries in the Kingdom. There were only three libraries: one in the capital at the Queen’s palace, the second one at the Carmelite Monastery, and the third was at the prison. He had no luck at the palace library – manuscripts there were carefully checked and selected to ensure that anything that might tarnish the Queen’s dignity and honour was carefully cleaned out. Thus, the inquisitive man could find nothing but glittering praises for the Queen.

      The prison library was more helpful. There were innumerable volumes with endless lists of potential suitors for the Queen of the Night. The lists contained only the name and clan of the applicant (for example, «Hardy-Strong-Boozer» or «Chamber-pot-Aethelbeald»), as well as their date of death. A page contained a hundred names; the death dates were aligned in a row, and deaths occurred every day. Thanks to this list alone, the young astrologer was able to establish the historical origins for the Queen of the Night.

      There were eighteen volumes altogether. It turned out that the story of the Queen of the Night originated somewhere in the middle of the sixteenth century. Since then, about two hundred thousand people had disappeared. It’s good that these were mainly foreigners that came to ask for the Queen’s hand in marriage. Had the suitors come from within the Kingdom, then nobody would have been left, the young scholar thought. He wasn’t able to obtain any other details from the prison library.

      Within the books of the royal library, the Queen of the Night was described as a virgin of divine beauty, with the whitest skin, hair like ebony, and juicy, perfectly-shaped lips, rosy cheeks, and passionate black eyes.

      The young astrologer wondered how the Queen was able to remain so beautiful and young for centuries. It had probably been her descendants, beautiful maidens like her. But in both the royal library and at the prison, there were no details about the weddings of any of the Queens of the Night. So, it was indeed the same girl, which was very strange.

      The young astrologer was twenty years old, but he could not remember the Queen of the Night ever choosing someone amongst her suitors. However, urban legends stubbornly insisted that the Queen of the Night was a beautiful girl with a slightly grim appearance. She would speak with each potential suitor for two hours a day – or rather, a night. Perhaps each of the candidates had intentionally or unknowingly committed a crime against the Queen and had been executed. Or maybe executing a candidate was part of the Queen’s ritual. As you’ll recall, the prison records only had a list.

      The young astrologer, unlike the others, took a fresh look at the problem and was completely confused. It was quite possible that the whole thing was just a black PR campaign to maintain a continuous influx of suitors, men who were lured from around the world by powerful advertising, which would ensure that the hotel was always full of guests and that the suitors would bring money to help the kingdom prosper.

      There remained only one place where the young astrologer hoped to find out something more about the Queen of the Night: the monastery of the discalced Carmelites. There, wearing shoes was a sign of sin, from which stemmed vile behaviour. This was a place where virgins, widows, Beguines, and Mantellates lived faithfully, fulfilling vows of obedience, chastity, abstinence, and self-denial, despising seductive shoes by walking barefoot.

      The library was located in a dilapidated wing of the monastery. Angry old nuns didn’t want to let the young astrologer into the monastery. After much wrangling, he was finally taken to the abbess, Teresa of Avila. She looked at the astrologer skeptically:

      «Are you sure you aren’t looking for a bride here at the monastery?» she inquired.

      The young man told her he simply wanted to find documentation supporting the story of the Queen of the Night. The old abbess became lively and interested in his research:

      «So, does this mean that you’re doubting that she’s been alive for five centuries?» «Don’t you doubt that too? I want to verify this story. Help me», he requested.

      «Please allow me to see your library; I’m sure I’ll find an answer to all these questions. I was unable to find anything at the palace and prison libraries. It means the answer is here». In his youth, he was sure that СКАЧАТЬ