The Queen of the Night. Alexandra Okatova

the cook read the recipe aloud, the astrologer went cold and started sweating on his forehead. It was one thing to have candied chrysanthemums and quite another to have the heart of a roe deer in bat wings with a sauce made from the blood of new born rabbits, not to mention the phoenix egg. Yuck! Phoenix had long been entered in the Red Book. There were no doubts that the Queen was bewitched. She urgently needs to be rescued, the young man thought.

      The cook went to the basement where the necessary products were stored on ice and the young man rushed to help her.

* * *

      When they returned they saw that a royal valet was in the kitchen idling about. The valet brought the fairly rumpled letter the gatekeeper had received earlier and handed it to the cook. She looked at it attentively and disapprovingly said:

      «It’s totally awkward for me to prepare this broth. I already have so much to fuss over here, and you want me to start preparing a sleeping drink. Oh!» she said joyfully, «how nice that you happened to be here. Please prepare a medicine using this recipe!»

      The young astrologer was ready for anything, except a hunger strike, and gladly accepted. The only thing that worried him was how to push the cook to tell a story about the Queen.

      He defiantly approached a painting on the wall, which was so grimy and old that it wasn’t clear what was shown there: Jonah in a whale’s belly or a knight, saying goodbye to life after a fight.

      «I see you’re interested in history. This picture has been hanging here since long before I started working here», the cook replied. «I don’t know what’s drawn here. I think it’s a big wedding cake with sugar drawings of the bride and groom, but I can’t say for certain. To the housekeeper, the painting depicts a mahogany sideboard with an inlay and bronze handles, while the guards said that they see a shackled prisoner led to an execution site. The Queen’s servant should be asked because she’s so old that she’d know for certain».

      The cook said:

      «The Queen doesn’t change. After a dinner with another contender for her lily-like hand in marriage, at two o’clock at night, she’ll slowly pass across the balcony, admiring the stars and turning her face and shoulders to the moonlight as we do to the sun. When I was young, I often looked at her from behind a curtain in the living room while the sad, pale candle floated, barely touching the parquet with her legs, her eyes blazing like black diamonds, her hair fluttering and her waist such a thin sight it could easily ft in your joined palms. Sweetie, your hands are so big. Didn’t you grow up in the village?»

      The young man looked down and nodded modestly.

      «For the first year, I went to look at her every night. Every night, I was so frozen that, until morning, I couldn’t get warm enough. I then started going once a month, and later once a year. She never changed; the cold coming from her became stronger and stronger. The last five years, I didn’t go to look at her at all and I began to feel better. What am I even saying? It’s good that you’re mute and no one will cut off my head. You won’t be able to tell anyone and nobody will ask you to tell!»

* * *

      Our explorer knew he had found traces and was on the right track – the investigation moved on from a dead end and his idea that the Queen was bewitched was confirmed.

      He continued to work on the sleeping drink for the Queen. The work was in full swing and the cook forgot about conversation, and all that was needed was cooked, steamed, and cooled down.

      A Queen’s servant visited the kitchen.

      She was an ancient old woman with a wrinkled face, a pair of slanting small black eyes, and thin avaricious lips, densely painted with red lipstick. She had a hooked nose and was thin with what was called a widow’s hunchback, spidery hands with dull red nails and swollen joints, and her grey-streaked hair was coquettishly gathered in a crooked bunch, rusty hairpins protruding from it in different directions. Wrinkled like a gutted turkey, her neck was covered with torn but expensive and rare Venetian lace. Her large, curved foot seemed to prevent her from walking; she stumbled and dragged her bad foot. She stuck her nose into all the pots and pans, then glared at the nun and shouted:

      «Hurry up, you chook! The Queen doesn’t like waiting!»

      The cook bowed submissively:

      «Madam, everything will be ready right this moment. Madam, please take the sleeping tincture; this nun prepared it; what a sensible girl she is».

      The old woman took a vial of the dark mixture and hid it in her rags; apparently the poor old woman doesn’t sleep well, the astrologer thought.

      The old woman was gone.

      Both the cook and the ‘imaginary’ nun breathed a sigh of relief and began to serve the meal. Everything was ready in five minutes; the young nun took a tray of gold plates and cutlery to the Queen’s chambers. She wasn’t there.