Chapter 90 89. The One-Armed Killer

Once upon a time there was a stingy king who was so stingy that he locked his only daughter in a small attic, because he was afraid that someone would propose to her and he would have to accompany a dowry. One day, a murderer came to the city and lived in a hotel opposite the palace. He asked someone who lived opposite. "There lives a king," he was told, "who is so miserly that he locks his daughter in the garret." What happened to the killer?At night he climbed to the roof of the palace and opened the windows of the little attic.The princess was lying there, and when she saw the window being opened, and a man standing on the sill, she cried out, "Stop thief, catch thief!" The killer closed the window and fled over the roof.The servants came and saw that the window was closed, so they said: "Your Highness, you are dreaming, there is no one here."

The next day she begged her father to let her move out of the garret, but the king said to her, "You are dreaming, do you think, who will come to you?" That night, the killer opened the window of the small attic at that time. "Catch the thief! Catch the thief!" But this time he ran away again, and when he finally came, no one was willing to believe the princess' words. On the third night, the princess fastened the window with a thick chain, and kept watch there with a knife in her hand, her heart beating violently.The killer tried to open the window, but couldn't.He reached in with a hand, and the princess quickly swung the knife and chopped off his hand at the wrist. "Smelly girl, I will never spare you!" the killer shouted.Escaped along the roof.

The princess showed the severed hand to the king and ministers, and everyone believed her and praised her for her bravery.From that day on, she no longer slept in the attic. Shortly thereafter, a well-dressed, gloved foreign lad asked to see the king.He spoke very gracefully, and the king soon took a liking to him.They talk about everything.The young man said that he was a bachelor and wanted to marry a well-bred girl, even without a dowry, because he was rich himself.Hearing that he did not want a dowry, the king thought to himself: This man is just my daughter's bridegroom.So he sent for his daughter.The princess trembled at the sight of the foreigner, whom she thought she knew.When she was alone with her father, she said to him, "Father, I seem to know this man, and he is the thief whose hand I cut off."

"You are dreaming," answered the King, "and have you not seen his handsome gloved hands? He is a gentleman." Long story short, the foreigner proposed to the princess.In order to obey the will of her father and avoid being abused, the princess agreed.Because the bridegroom said he was going to do business and could not stay long, and the king didn't want to spend money, the wedding ceremony was very simple and hasty.As gifts, the king gave his daughter a walnut necklace and a well-worn fox fur coat.The newlyweds then drove away in a carriage. The carriage drove into a forest, but instead of taking the main road, it took dark paths where the trees were dense.When we got to a place, the groom said, "Honey, help me take off this glove."

She took off the gloves and found a stump. "Help!" she cried.She understood that she was marrying the thief whose hand she had cut off. "Now you're in my hand," said the man. "You know I'm a man of murder. You maimed me, and now I'm going to take revenge." The killer's house is on the edge of the forest, near the sea. "Here I hid many treasures, which I robbed from the people who were killed," said the killer, pointing to the house, "you stay here and let me look after the house." He chained her to a tree in front of the house and went away.The princess was there alone, chained like a dog.In front of her is the sea, and ships pass by from time to time on the sea.She tried to ask for help from a passing boat. The people on the boat spotted her with binoculars and approached to see what happened.The sailors went ashore, and the princess told them about her life.They broke the chains for her, put her on board, and carried all the killer's treasure on board.

This is a cotton ship.The cotton merchant thought it would be safer to hide the princess and the treasure under the cotton.The killer returns to find his wife has fled and the house is empty.I thought: She can only escape from the sea.He saw the boat sailing away.He got into one of his very fast schooners and overtook it. "Throw all the cotton overboard!" he ordered. "I must find my wife, she has escaped!" "Do you want us bankrupt?" the merchants said to him. "Why don't you run your sword through these cotton bales and see if there is anyone hiding in them?"

The killer began stabbing the cotton bale with his sword, and in one place he wounded the princess.But when he drew the sword, the cotton wiped all the blood away, so the drawn sword was clean. "I tell you," said the sailors, "we saw another boat come alongside, and the woman aboard." "I'll go and see right away," said the killer.He left the cotton ship, boarded his sailboat, and went straight to another ship. The girl just had a puncture on her arm.When they reached a safe port, they took her ashore, but she refused, saying, "Throw me into the sea! Throw me into the sea!"

The sailors discussed it together, and an old sailor among them, whose wife had no children, proposed to take the girl home with some of the killer's treasure.The old sailor's wife was a good old lady, and she loved the girl. "Poor child, I will treat you like my daughter." "It's very kind of you," said the girl, "that's all I ask of you, keep me shut up at home all the time, and don't let any man see me." "Don't worry, poor boy, no one will ever come to our house." The old sailor sold some jewelry and bought silk and satin for embroidery, so the girl lived at home doing embroidery.She embroidered a beautiful tablecloth with colorful patterns.The old lady took the tablecloth to a nearby king's house to sell.

"Who embroidered such a beautiful handicraft?" asked the king. "One of my daughters, Your Majesty," replied the old lady. "How is that possible! It does not seem to be the work of a sailor's daughter," said the king, and bought the tablecloth. The old lady bought more silk and satin with the money, and the girl embroidered them into a beautiful screen, which the old lady took to the king again. "Is this really your daughter's work?" said the king.He didn't believe the old lady's answer, so he followed her quietly. Just as the old lady was about to close the door, the king came, and a foot had already stepped into the door, and the old lady cried out in surprise.The girl heard this cry in her room, and because it was the killer who came to her, she fainted from fright.The old lady and the king went into the house and tried to wake her up.The girl opened her eyes and realized that the person in front of her was not a killer, so she woke up.

"Why are you so frightened of all who come to your door?" asked the king, fascinated by this pretty girl. "I only blame my fate," she said, without saying anything else. In this way, the king began to go to the old lady's house every day to accompany the girl and watch her embroider, so the king fell in love with her, and finally decided to propose to her.One can imagine how surprised this old couple was! "Your Majesty, we are poor people," they said. "It doesn't matter, I love this girl." "I will," said the girl, "on one condition."

"What conditions?" "I don't see any men but you and my father (as she called the old sailor). Would neither see them nor be seen by them." The king accepted the condition.Because he was very jealous, the girl said she didn't want to see any man, which was exactly what he wanted. So they married without anyone noticing, so that no other man would see her.The subjects were not happy about their secret marriage: when ever was the king married without the queen being allowed to appear in public?All kinds of strange rumors spread: "He married a monkey!" "He married a hunchback!" "He married a witch!" Talk about it.The king had no choice but to say to his wife: "You must appear in public for an hour to quell those rumors." The poor princess had to obey. "Well, tomorrow between eleven o'clock and noon, I will appear on the balcony." At eleven o'clock the next day, the square was full of people. I had never seen so many people coming from all directions, even people from the most remote villages.The bride stepped onto the balcony, and there were clicks of admiration from the crowd.They had never seen such a beautiful queen.The queen looked around the crowd anxiously.Sure enough, in the crowd, she saw the face of a man in a black cloak, who put his hand to his mouth, bit his finger in a menacing gesture, and then raised his other arm so that she could see that it was A stump.The queen fainted from fright and fell to the ground. People immediately carried her into the house, and the old lady complained repeatedly: "You want her to be seen! It's you, but she doesn't want to! Now look, something has happened!" The queen was laid to bed, and all the doctors were called, but they did not know what ailed her.She asked to be locked up in a room, seeing no one, and shivering constantly. These days a rich foreign gentleman came to see the king.The man was very talkative and flattered the king.The king invited him to stay for dinner.This foreigner is none other than the killer.He accepted the invitation politely, and ordered enough wine for all the people in the palace to drink.Barrels, cans, and altars of wine were immediately transported to the palace, and anesthetics were put in the wine.That night, guards, servants, and ministers drank desperately.They were all very drunk and snoring during the night, and the king was the first to snore. The killer walked around the palace, convinced that there were only people sleeping on their backs on all the stairs, corridors and rooms, so he sneaked into the queen's bedroom and found her curled up in the corner of the bed, wide open. Big eyes, as if expecting him to come. "It's time for me to take revenge," the killer said through gritted teeth. "Get out of bed and bring a basin of water so that I can wash off the blood on your hands after I kill you." The queen ran across the room to her husband. "Wake up! For God's sake, wake up!" But he was still asleep.Everyone in the palace was fast asleep, and there was no way to wake them up.She brought a basin of water and went back to the room. "Get another bar of soap," said the killer, sharpening his knife. She went out again, and tried again to wake her husband, but it was no use.She had to come back with the soap. "Where are the towels?" the killer asked. She walked out of the room, unloaded the pistol from her sleeping husband, and wrapped it in a towel.Then, pretending to hand the killer a towel, she shot him close to the heart. Hearing the gunshot, the drunk people woke up with a start.Under the leadership of the king, they ran into the queen's bedroom and found that the killer was dead.The queen was finally free from terror. (Florence area)