Princess Aravo Part 1

15

"I want to find my real family."

The prince was silent for a moment.

"Are you sure that you will be able to find it? Do you have anything to help you in your search?"

"I have a medallion with which I was found."

"May I have a look?"

The girl wore it under her shirt. She gave a round wonderful piece of gold with very complicated patterns on it to the prince.

"Wow! Even Dilarita who is quite spoilt would fight for it," Tobro said.

"Who is it?" the girl asked.

"His favourite."

She nodded. It must have been that beautiful brown-haired young woman that sat in the throne room by the prince's side. The monarch was examining the medallion for some time.

"I know only one jeweller that could make such work. He deserted to Rielnast and died there a couple of years ago."

"I was said that I can find some clues there," Irbis said.

"Are going to set off for there?" the prince asked.

"I want to do it as soon as I get money."

The prince and Tobro looked at her in astonishment.

"You know, sometimes it really seems that you came out of a wild forest. Do you know that you have to carry out lots of procedures first?"

"I don't know anything about the procedures... And you see... I really came out of the wild forest," she said humbly.

The prince stared at her and Tobro only pronounced "oh..." and whistled.

"Explain everything," the prince ordered.

"You see, Your Highness... I and my father lived in a cave in the mountains. For all these years my world consisted only of it, the forest around it and my father's studying. He taught me everything he knew..."

"Do you know his name?" the prince suddenly asked.

"No... I called him "father" or "papa" and Zephy called him "master" or "scholar" and when he wasn't near "the fat old fogey" or "the big brain-beater". "The little brain-beater" she called me."

"Very informative..." the fool chuckled.

"Who is Zephy?" the prince asked.

"It was my nurse. She also did all chores in the cave. She died when I was 9."

"How old are you now?"

"When I was found I was a half-year-old baby. Now I must be about 18."

"So he taught you everything he knew. What exactly?"

"He said that I have a gift for languages, music and a bit for painting and drawing. But also he taught me to bases of mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, geography, history and astronomy. He had many such things in the cave that helped us to learn. He had a magic mirror with lots of books in it. Now it is in my bag. My father was such talented man..." Irbis said nostalgically...

"You should show it to me sometime," the prince said. "So what happened that your idyll ended?"

"One of our greatest passions was the nature. We hunted much to get food but we tried to live in harmony with nature. Once it so happened that in the locality near us appeared many bears. We made traps for them not to come too close to our cave. No, we were not going to kill them. As soon as one got into a trap we let it free. But one day into such trap got not a bear. It was a man with a horse. We promised to let him free if he would swear to behave well. He swore and we invited him to our cave. It was a nobleman as my father said. He introduced himself as Sir Armin."

"Sir Armin?" the prince asked. "I know that in Rielnast lives a gentleman Sir Armin Mideline by name."

"Mideline..." the girl repeated to herself quietly and remembered the man's last words. "It must be he... or have been..."

"What happened next?"

"We had meals and talked much. He saw my medallion and too asked to have a look. He said that I will be able to find some threads about my family in Rielnast and after consulting it was decided that we set off as soon as possible. I and my father kept a family of horses and Sir Armin had his. We set off at dawn. Our way went through the mountains. After some hours of riding in such locality we decided to have a rest in the clearing in the forest. But... (The painful part for her came.) Robbers attacked us... I alone managed to survive... I needed help and Tinalden was the closest place where people lived."

"Wait how did you manage to enter this city?" the prince inquired.

"Through the gates."

"The guardsmen should stop you and demand your documents first. Then they should bring you to a special house to your identity. And only then it would have been decided whether to let you enter the city or not."

"Nobody stopped me. And besides, how can be my identity checked? I am I. Of flesh and blood... Brought to this world and living in it..."

"The things are becoming more and more complicated," said Tobro.

"You see, miss... Your story is very incredible... too incredible... It is not known whether you tell the truth or lie."

"Once one man said: "Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't."

"There are absolutely no ways to argue, Dolly," Tobro said.

"And yet we don't know who you really are. You may be a run-away someone's daughter or wife or whoever else... You may be a mad woman or a thief... Or you may be a filthy spy," the prince emphasized the word "spy".

"What thief? What spy?"

"You may have stolen that medallion. Only very rich people are able to buy such things. Or... Do you know what relations we have with Rielnast?"

"I was told that they are strained. I swear that I don't have any bad intentions and just want to live and find my family."

"And how should we know it?"

"Forgive me, Your Highness, but..." Irbis was offended and was going to show her character but Tobro decided to take the situation under his control.