The city of Degl, the capital of the kingdom of Aquilonia, made a great impression on the young Guilbert. And even not so much because the city itself was great - in Dark Earth, where the young knight was from, there were also such large cities, although not many. But Dagl differed from the dark cities of the world by the calm that Hilbert did not immediately catch: in the Dark Earth, where the knights barons and earls constantly fought with each other, and the lands between their possessions were full of monsters, they looked at any stranger as a potential enemy, and at any armed man (as was Hilbert) - as a source of possible danger. In Aquilonia, Hilbert felt this — the inhabitants felt safe under the protection of their queen, and in the queen's knights, people saw their protectors.

While Hilbert rode through the Aquilonian lands to the capital, he himself was often mistaken for the Queen's knight (even Gilbert's Dark-earth accent did not betray a stranger in him: Queen Ariella had many immigrants from the Dark-earth region in the service) and the peasants in the met villages offered him shelter and the departure was not because he was armed and could take away from the villagers what he needed with the power of his weapon, but out of respect for his queen, whose representative they saw in Gilbert. To tell the truth, the young knight felt uncomfortable when he was mistaken for a queen's knight — he was not yet him — but it was difficult to refuse the help offered to him: in Gilbert's wallet there was some money even when the young knight set off and by the end of the journey they were almost gone. But the young knight reassured himself with the thought that he was going to Degl precisely in order to truly become the knight of Queen Ariella.

Refreshed from the road in one of the city's taverns (after that, only a few coppers were left in Hilbert's wallet) and after asking the locals how to get to the royal palace, the young knight went in the indicated direction. The royal palace seemed to Gilbert luxurious - before the young man rarely seen such magnificent buildings, and indeed, as Hilbert heard, twenty years ago the kingdom of Aquilonia did not exist, and its capital was quite a small city ... A huge white building built by skilled architects, decorated sculptures of men and women with symbols of power and military weapons (Hilbert did not know ancient myths so well as to identify all these gods or heroes), with red and gold flying in front of the palace the flags of Aquilonia and the royal guardsmen guarding the palace are brightly clad, with lush plumes on steel helmets armed with halberds and arquebuses. (As Hilbert noted, the arquebus wicks were not ignited - the guards clearly did not expect any sudden attack). When the young knight on horseback, not immediately deciding to approach the royal palace, drove up to the guards cordoning off the building, one of them, apparently, the commander, loudly called out to the young man:

- Stop! Who goes?

- Gilbert von Grisswald from Grisswald! - coping with a second confusion, the young man replied (without being fully sure how to properly present in such cases). “I came here from Dark Earth, and I wish to join the ranks of the knights of Her Majesty, Queen Ariella.”

The commander of the guardsmen glanced at the young knight, turned to the gates of the palace and shouted:

“Another knight arrived to serve the queen!” - Guardsmen parted in front of Gilbert, and servants immediately rushed to him.Asking the guest to dismount, they took his horse, assured the young knight that they would take care of his steed well, and led the dark man through the corridors of the palace - Gilbert only had time to turn his head around, looking around the decoration of the royal palace. Soon he was brought to the waiting room, where the magnificently dressed court asked his name and purpose of the visit, and then told Gilbert to wait until her majesty would summon him.

In addition to the young dark-earth man, there were several courtiers and messengers with reports in the reception room, and even soon after Gilbert appeared, a tall woman in knightly clothes with a coat of arms quickly came out of the open doors and, for a second, stared at the unfamiliar young knight, quickly passed by. Nobody honored the young man with special attention, and Hilbert himself did not dare to speak to anyone and, sitting down on a carved wood bench, began to wonder what Queen Ariella, the founder and ruler of Aquilonia, now the most powerful of the Western Kingdoms, would be.

The stories about her, walking on the western lands, did not spare epithets, describing what a powerful warrior she was, a wise ruler and a beautiful woman (and since in this world rare legends about great heroes and heroines did without stories about the exploits committed in bed, then Queen Ariella was no exception - her loving ability and “tirelessness in bed” entered the legends, as well as her military exploits), they spoke about some of her completely improbable deeds, and that the gods themselves favored her. At some point, Hilbert even suddenly wondered if he was worthy to appear before the great queen in this form: a red-haired youngster with a freckled face, dressed in a lamellar carapace that served him as casual clothing, since Gilbert had some other clothes, not from a noble family who has not yet earned fame or wealth ... In the head of the young knight a thought flashed that he should go to the bathhouse before visiting the queen to appear at least clean before her - but he had enough money for that would be already difficult (and by the way, as Hilbert managed to find out, the knights of the queen had the right to free use of any public baths within her kingdom, than the young man used repeatedly when he was mistaken for a knight in the royal service) ...

“Sir Gilbert von Grisewald of Griswald!” - the loud voice of the herald, who announced his name, pulled the young knight out of his reverie. Hurried to his feet, Hilbert headed for the doors that had opened.

Behind the carved doors, the reception room was not a throne room, but rather a study — the queen was sitting on a high-backed throne-like chair, and in front of her was a writing desk with writing supplies and a sheet of paper with damp ink pressed down by a skilfully crafted paperweight. In addition to the queen, there were several servants and courtiers in the office, one of whom was sitting at another desk, obviously serving as a secretary to the queen, but all the attention of the young knight was riveted on queen Ariella. Before seeing her, he imagined her more youthful and beautiful, but in fact she was already more than forty years old, although she had not lost either beauty or strength. A tall woman with a mighty build of a warrior and golden hair shoulder-length, whose clothes were rather lush (Hilbert did not see this under the table, but was almost sure that the queen wears pants, not a skirt, like many women warriors), but at the same time she emphasized her female form and decorated with gold embroidery, in a gold crown on her head in a gold with precious stones, she studied the newly entered dark-earth.

Recognizing after a second that he was standing, looking at the queen, the young knight hurried to kneel and, no longer raising his eyes, spoke loudly:

- The mighty queen, the unifier of the northern lands, the glory of which ...- here Hilbert, who had invented this whole talked speech on the move, faltered, realizing with horror that all the words befitting the occasion had disappeared from his head somewhere. The queen, however, graciously answered him (although Hilbert did not look up at the queen, it seemed to him that she smiled):

“Speak simpler, Sir Hilbert,” she said in the language of Dark Earth. - And you can speak in your own language, if it will be easier for you.

“Your Majesty,” the young man, with some relief, switched to Dark Earth and decided to actually speak more simply: “The whole world knows about you, and I would be happy to serve so powerful and ...”