"Children's Books - Game of Chess" - читать интересную книгу автора (Children's Books)

prince, he turned his way and that, searching for a way to escape, but his
heart failed at that moment and he fell dead to the ground.
High in the palace tower, the Queen had watched the battle with sorrow in
her heart, knowing full well that she was, at that moment, losing one of her
sons. But which one? It didn't matter. She loved them both equally. When she
saw that the dust had settled on the distant plain and the cries of battle had
died away, the Queen came down from the tower and rushed through the palace to
meet those returning from the field. She stopped in her tracks. Her son Gav,
his clothes in tatters and slashed with blood, staggered sadly towards her.
"Talend?" stammered the Queen. Gav shook his head,
"Oh, mother," he said, "my brother Talend is dead."
"Dead! Did you kill him?"
"Oh, no, mother!" exclaimed Gav. "I would never have done such a thing."
"But you ordered his death!" exclaimed the Queen. The young man then knelt
before her and, taking the hem of her dress in his hand, said,
"Mother, I swear nobody was responsible for my brother's death. He died, but
not violently."
"I shall never believe that is the truth," wept the Queen. But Gav said,
"I shal prove that it is." He then thought of a way to show his mother how
the battle had been fought. First of all, he asked a carpenter to make him a
board, as flat as the plain. Then to mark the positions and manoeuvres of the
two armies, the board was divided into white and black squares. A wood carver
made him a minature army of foot soldiers, a king, standard bearers, knights
and towers, to take the place of the elephants and their turrets. When
everything was ready, Gav called the Queen and, moving one piece at a time,
acted out the various stages of battle.
"You see, mother, my foot soldiers advanced like this, so Talend manoeuvred
his like that. Each time my brother was about to be killed, I had the men cry
out `watch out, King,' so that he could reach safety," said Gav.
"In the end, though, my Talend was no longer safe," murmured the Queen. Gav
sadly replied,
"That's true. He was surrounded. But I would never have had him killed,
mother. It was his heart that gave out. My brother realised he had lost, and so
he died." The Queen then said,
"I understand, son, and I forgive you. I feel you'll be a good king for our
country. But I wonder why, in a battle between two kings, one must win and the
other lose..."
The poor Queen kept asking herself the same question for a very long time.
She would sit all day long beside the little battlefield moving the pieces,
foot soldiers, standard bearers and towers, always trying to save the King. In
the end, she understood that, as in make-believe, so it is in real life, when
there is a fight to the last, one of the opponents must fall, just as her son
Talend had fallen.
One day, they found the poor Queen dead on what was, by then, known as the
chessboard. That is how chess originated. Nowadays it is a peaceful contest
that recalls a real-life battle. Today it is fun, but then it caused a poor
mother who saw her sons fight against each other, sadness and suffering...

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