The Kingdom of the Damned

by Mario Garrido Espinosa

  Once the oval container was full, she put her fine fingers in the water and found that it was to her liking. Satisfied with the result, she left the cubes she had used at the door of her room for a servant to take them away; then she locked.

  She always felt very happy in the early days of a good bath. Every two or three days —an exceptionally short time for the customs of that Kingdom— she devoted a couple of hours to her personal hygiene with great pleasure and this state of mind made her recite poems and sing old children's tunes that had perpetually settled in her memory. Thus, almost without being aware of it, she began the intonation of the first stanzas of a famous song:

  In an eastern kingdom,

  a dark, fatal day,

  very clear you could hear

  in a sumptuous palace

  with sinuous corridors

  that a princess cried.

  Her complexion pink

  She was not so beautiful anymore.

  Her tears escaped

  between colored rugs

  and after perfumes and vapors

  a princess cried.

  Of all the songs that Laura had learned, her favorite was "The Princess Tree". It was an old, innocent and long song that very few in the Gurracam Kingdom had not heard —even if it was only one of its more than three hundred and sixty verses— from some minstrel or occasional singer. Laura knew it all and was able to sing it from beginning to end or beginning with any of her stanzas. Reciting it always put her in a good mood; despite the undeniable sadness of the story, Laura was aware of her happy ending. She continued with the children's song:

  The palace saddened,

  everything was gray, without color.

  The king was worried:

  “The spoiled heiress

  what are you sorry for!”

  And the princess cried.

  They brought a thousand golden objects,

  but her crying did not stop.

  The Queen was worried:

  “What was happening

  That it seemed so sadly!”

  And the princess cried.

  Mario Toulon leaned out the window just as Laura Lopezosa began to gather her hair in a bun, unintentionally leaving a graceful strand of hair loose in the middle of her face. Without knowing that she was being spied on, she ordered a bar of green soap, brought from San Josafar, and a white towel with soft, spongy hair on one side of the makeshift bathtub. Mario took the chance to open a little bit one of the leaves of the window. That movement made more noise than expected so the thief interrupted his action leaving a crack. Laura was still singing outside the window where nothing should be out of the ordinary. Then Mario could hear it:

  The King, not to go worse,

  The two best doctors were brought.

  They were received when they arrived

  Nopal from Poland

  and Sipol de Palandya.

  And the princess cried.

  The doctors applied

  their science, which they demonstrated,

  but solution they did not find.

  They got failures

  and they left failed.

  And the princess cried.

  Laura began to take off her already few clothes. Mario Toulon could not help but be aroused by the simple fact of seeing the female way that was taking off her clothes the woman he spied on. She did it piece by piece, folding perfectly each garment and depositing it in one place. She seemed to be performing a kind of highly attractive ritual, with steps and movements that had been done in that way for a long time.

  The man thought to enter at that moment because his position, hanging from a treacherous plant, gave no security, but waited to see how she got rid of all her clothes, almost childish; and he enjoyed contemplating the majestic way in which she bent to leave her clothes or the mechanical gesture, constant and provocative to remove from her eyes that strand of hair that had not collected in her bun. When she began to get rid of the latest clothes, the thief changed his excitement by pure and simple admiration to the body of a woman who had the luck to contemplate to, moving with free naturalness.

  Laura, oblivious to everything, continued to sing with an increasingly high, harmonious and perfect tone:

  Beautiful and gentle came

  a thousand single princes.

  More said they loved her

  and on their knees they cheered her,

  but she rejected them.

  And the princess cried.

  A thousand jesters got to the Kingdom,

  the funniest of any place.

  With their jokes the attention they called.

  See the princess laugh they wanted

  but she did not even smile.

  And the princess cried.

  Thousand high magicians

  they came to hear the havoc

  and although they looked

  in their potion books

  They did not find solutions.

  And the princess cried.

  «Now she will go into the tub and soap herself all over her body», the man's sad mind deduced, just at the moment when Laura Lopezosa was totally naked and interrupted her singing to, little by little, go into the warm and perfumed water.

  Suddenly, the ivy creaked, warning that it did not want to support the weight of Mario Toulon. He, understanding that his position was no longer safe, decided to act.

  6

  Laura Lopezosa Quesada had almost got one foot in the water when she saw as stupefied as a man opened the single window of her room suddenly and then calmly passed by. His long hair was disheveled, dirty and wet with sweat. His ridiculous hat and wrinkled clothes seemed to have been soaked minutes before. His congested face was familiar to her —indeed, too much— but she did not remember who he was or the situation was conducive to thinking about it.

  “Holy God!” she shouted as she hurried to try to cover herself with the white-haired towel.

  “Do you not remember me?” the thief commented quietly. “I am Sir Mario Toulon, your most fervent servant...”

  “Get out of here!”

  “Do not panic. I would never hurt you.”

  “I'll call my father...!”

  “Calm down my dear Laura. Let me remind you beforehand who I am” Mario Toulon said, who had noticed with great pleasure the enormous temperature difference that was enjoyed in the room compared to that of the street. The mansion seemed to have properties similar to those of a cave. Maybe that was why the window was closed. In addition, the soft smell of roses in the room turned out to be the most delicious that his poorly trained smell had been able to detect throughout his life.

  Laura Lopezosa, in a state of nervousness, ran towards the door, turning a deaf ear to what that man could say, who kept spitting words out of all reason. Mario Toulon was faster and prevented her from reaching the exit, taking a flying squirrel jump and miraculously grabbing her by one of her fine ankles. In spite of everything, the girl could reach the handle of the door, but since it was locked, she could not open it. Desperate, she began, without neglecting the towel, to shake and pull her leg, but the man's big hand did not release her delicate ankle.

  “You’re hurting me!” she protested scared.

  “Do not try to run away from me” the thief pleaded, as he laid on the ground clutching the girl's ankle. Then there was a moment of silence. It was barely a moment but the two of them stood still in their ridiculous positions and Mario, more versed in these conflicts, took advantage of the bewilderment and kissed the toes he was holding. After that, he looked up, looking for the girl's beautiful big eyes.

  “You can see that my intentions are good...”

  Laura looked at the man with clearly surprise.

  “Let me go then...”

  “No, until you calm down.”

  Seeing that she would not get anything with words, Laura flexed her legs and with both hands tried to open the claw that immobilized her ankle. It was a big mistake, because Mario Toulon took the opportunity to
take her from her soft right wrist.

  “Let me go!” she insisted irked.

  “Come on! I can not believe you do not know who I am.”

  Mario pulled Laura's arm and stood with his back to the door. She, who could barely control the towel with the hand that was free, began to feel a great shame.

  “Yesterday, in the Great Square” the thief said without raising his voice. “Remember?”

  The girl thought about what had happened the previous day and immediately knew, with a certain terror and disgust, who that man was. It was curious how that subject had disappeared from her mind despite everything that had happened in the Great Square a few tens of hours before. Then, she stumbled when she saw that a hand came threatening to her left breast. The towel that covered part of the body had fallen down that side, revealing a virginal round breast, in which protruded a small nipple of a very dark brown color, which contrasted with the pinkish whiteness of the rest of her skin. With her free hand she hit a blow with the hand, accompanied by a nervous shriek, managing to deflect the trajectory of Mario Toulon's trusting hand. This reddened after the impact because the girl was wearing on her index finger a fat and heavy gold ring in which was attached a blue stone that, perhaps without being, could go through a turquoise. With half of what that gem was worth, Mario Toulon could have lived like a king for many months.

  “Don't be rude. Do not have this attitude with me” Mario Toulon begged while gazing at Laura Lopezosa’s thin body, who was now completely naked, almost helpless, since by taking the thief’s hand off, the towel that partially covered her had fallen down. “Set free your conscience once and for all. Deep down I know what you want and it matches what I want,” he added, rubbing the hand that had been hit by Laura's ring and in which he then felt intense pain. “It is foolish to delay something that we both strongly desire.”

  Having said that, the man released Laura Lopezosa and, without moving from the place, prepared to remove his clothes and weapons.

  “What are you doing?! Get dress and leave! I do not want anything with you!” Laura said desperately, as she retrieved the towel.

  “Of course you want something. Yesterday you told me with your face, with your gestures and with that smile and that beautiful look you gave me,” he said when he was completely naked, revealing a body that was not of exactly an exceptional beauty. “Maybe you think I'm so foolish that I do not know how to understand the meaning of that last look of yours.”

  Laura Lopezosa did not remember giving any specific type of look. At the most she must have shown a happy face when she got rid of him. Immediately and out of pure instinct, she fixed her eyes on Mario Toulon’s body and her face betrayed her: she had never seen a naked man. Mario realized this and was happy inside. Certainly he must be the first and, therefore, she would have to be a virgin. Before he left his stupid self-absorption he left her without the towel with a single tug. She wanted to scream but she could not, absorbed in the contemplation of that hanging thing she had remarkably heard of about, especially her sister —who even made her drawings of dubious taste— but she had never seen in the raw. She was confused. She did not know if that was really the case or her sister had cheated on her, describing things not belonging to this world. Laura did not know it yet, but her feeling at that moment was of pure disappointment at what the assailant showed there. The girl imagined it as something much more spectacular, but in that man there was only a piece of ugly, haggard and seemingly feeble flesh, struggling to stand out from a bunch of black hair, tangled and dirty.

  7

  A person spied, listening with the right ear pressed to the wall, from the moment that Laura Lopezosa issued her first scream. That person seemed to wait with astonishing patience for the right moment to intervene. From time to time this laughed quietly or plucked and ate a grape from a huge cluster that rested on a silver tray, just above the oak table next to the dividing wall of the two rooms.

  “Come here!” Mario Toulon ordered, unaware that someone else heard his voice.

  Laura Lopezosa uttered an inaudible "no" and leaned back with short steps, while trying to hide everything she could with her hands and arms. But in reality, when she covered one part of her body, she neglected another, and in this situation Mario could not prevent his heated imagination from forming even more ideal dimensions of beauty and his excitement, naturally, was increasing. His member, consequently, began to take an unmanageable volume, before the face of fright of Laura, who at times was running out of faculty to be able to articulate words. The poor girl seemed to be immersed in a disgusting nightmare. But it was not a dream. Everything was very real and that's why she kept wondering with astonishment how it was possible that something like this could happen to her in her own home.

  The thief, finally, threw himself at the girl like a bloodthirsty lion, but without calculating his own impulse —as had happened so many times in his life—, so Laura knew how to get away in time with a graceful and fast movement of her perfect body, and Mario's imperfect body collapsed in the tub full of water. The thief could not help but utter an exclamation of displeasure when he noticed the horrible sensation of the temperature change between his burning body and the fresh water with perfume of roses. Then he found with annoyance that what was beginning to take a different size than normal, suddenly returned to its original sad state.

  The person who was spying in the next room decided to act. Just now was the time to enter Laura's room.

  Chapter 2

  Sir Higinio’s past

  1

  S

  ir Higinio Lopezosa Quesada was an immensely rich man. He did not know exactly the volume of his fortune, but he was not a happy person, since in another time, despite having much less wealth, he had known a happiness that he never felt again in his life. Not all that money —a quantity not less than nine hundred and fifty thousand Alexandrians of gold— his lands and his luxuries could provide him with the happiness that his wife, the beautiful Scholastic Eugenie Ortega, once gave him sincerely.

  He was a military man, holding an important position since he was very young, but abandoned it when his wife died three months after Laura's birth, suffering from a frightful and persistent fever. He had been a widower, therefore, all the years that Laura had and his malicious nature had worsened since that unfortunate day when his beloved stopped breathing.

  Scholastic Eugenie's illness was caused by an inexplicable food infection, which seized her for two and a half weeks of suffering and relapse, and the expensive and prestigious doctors that Sir Higinio hired, among the best of all St. Josafar, did not know contain. Even the King Bartholomew III the Magnificent´s —nicknamed not so for his deeds, but for his love of a strong wine from the north of the country that received this name— royal ears got the news of the suffering of Sir Higinio’s beautiful wife. He sent his personal doctor to go to the house where the sick woman was in pain, but when the doctor came to offer his services, it was too late.

  After this terrible event, Sir Higinio moved to live, in a voluntary exile, to La Alpurria del Campo; and there, putting a distance greater than seventy-five leagues between his memories in the capital of the Kingdom and him, he tried to forget his beloved... But it was impossible.

  He was still a young military man, with more than four years of service, when he met the imposing Scholastic Eugenie. It happened in the most massive Mayan festival that was remembered in St. Josafar. It was a May 4 that was celebrated, as in the following days, the invention of the Holy Cross and all neighborhoods had installed one of these symbols, which neighbors adorned in direct proportion to their economic level, devotion and detachment

  At the time of choosing the Queen of May everything was a rumor of doubt. Before, twenty precious, unmarried and aspiring young women had paraded through the platform, who, according to the posters announcing the event, were under the influence and protection of Camael, angel of beauty. Finally, Mayor Juan de la Cuadra named Scholastic as Maya, and although it was chance,
the winner turned out to be the fair one, even though the mayor of the city was a good friend —of those who owe favors, great ones— the beautiful aspirant’s parents.

  Immediately after solving the dilemma, the new Queen of May was dressed elegantly, enthroned with all the honors and surrounded by baskets of flowers that exalted even more her indisputable beauty and style. By Scholastic Eugenie’s side were passing all the personalities that were lent to this game, making the corresponding real bow. When the hearing ended, she went on to lead a procession of other girls, who would dedicate themselves to asking for money, as was the custom, for those attending the party. More than one thought, while giving some Alexandrian, how nice it would be to take to bed such a woman, but fortunately only became thoughts.

  Sir Higinio did not fail to pay his respects to the new Queen of May, but he did it when the pantomime was over. He wore his thick mustache with perfectly waxed tips and covered himself with his impeccable military dress of which hung some unimportant medals and honors, if we compare them with those that would come in the following years. So marvelous he was with that girl who decided would be his and no one else's. And, like so many other things in his life, she was his and no one else's; as simple as that.

  The next day, Sir Higinio Lopezosa had him shaved and cut his hair in the best barbershop in all of St. Josafar. At home, he groomed himself slowly and conscientiously, and when he understood that he could not get more out of his appearance, he went resolutely to the Ortega Villa de la Guindalera lords’ house, Dukes of Sotopontoso and Luciergapo. His intention was to congratulate them formally on their daughter Scholastic Eugenie new reign. The bearing, the shine of the medals, and the fine education of the young and promising military man fascinated the dukes. Gained the trust of the parents, the act of asking for the daughter's hand soon proved to be very easy —especially since the marquises’ spoiled daughter could not help but fall in love with the young and handsome military man on the third day that turned out to be feted with flowers, compliments and promises, which in no way were to be unfulfilled—; and so, in less than five months, the wedding day arrived.