Page:Peregrinaggio di tre giovani figliuoli del re di Serendippo.djvu/80

 Therefore, when after that time everyone was prepared, he, together with the Queen, and the whole court went on the road and the harshness of the journey was eased with sweets, and delightful conversation, and in a short time they had arrived in the region where the unicorns were. And after they had spent two days in one of those cities to rest and refresh themselves from the fatigue of the journey, the King ordered all of his people to set up tents, because it was not from inside the city but from the outside that they had to drive away the unicorns from the regions where they were staying.

The order was promptly carried out by everyone, and they all went into the fields, and as ordered by the King, various units on horseback killed a large number of unicorns with arrows.

Now it happened one day, that he and the Queen were in the fields and they saw a male and a female of these animals together, and because the young King was very cunning, he figured that this was the right moment to free himself from the obligation to have the name of his wife engraved on the coins of the kingdom. So, he turned to her and said, “Madam, I know that I lost when we shot the arrows in the basin, and I owe it to have your name engraved on the coins. But I have not been able to repay my debt up to the present because of the illness which I have now overcome and the sudden departure to this region.