Asean in Love

"Follow her", ordered the King of Singhasari to one of his faithful warriors who immediately obeyed and ran to catch up with Queen Bali.

How is his majesty asked the queen in Balinese dialect.The queen was surprised as she realized that this warrior was speaking one of the languages of the Bali Kingdom."My mother is from the island of Bali, and my father is from Java, they met young and fell in love"" - the girl began her story.The queen got an idea in a moment.You ask about the king's health, you must be in love with the king, right?"

The girl blushed in the cheeks.

"So, it's true because you blushed."

In fact the girl was in the king's personal guard, in charge of informing him about the queen of Bali, so she pretended to be in love and nodded.

"The queen must be coming up with a plan", she thought to herself, which was true.

"What is your name?"

"I'm Rina, or nicknamed Ina."

"Good Rina, the king has recovered."

"And where have you gone now, queen, wait for the king to assign you a cabin, you won't be sleeping on the deck of the ship, will you?"

"Really", thought the queen," well I'm on his ship and her past cabin was locked."

"The king must be laughing at her now", Rina thought as she returned to the king's office.

The Queen of Bali stood on the deck to clear her head, and the king of Singhasari procrastinated by leaving her on the deck for an hour, so she noticed some sacks and a large barrel at the bottom of the deck and decided to hide from the king. She went down to the barrel with steps and opened it, there was some rum inside which she spilled into the sea and crawled into the barrel through the opening, covering herself with a board that was slightly open so she could breathe.

The Queen heard Rina calling her on the deck, but the queen decided not to answer and fell asleep, curled up in the barrel.Somewhere before dawn, she woke up and they were just passing by the island of Bali, in the distance she saw the anchored ship of her father Subadar.

She got out of the big barrel and jumped into the sea, there was no one on the deck, "I guess the guards also fell asleep from drinking too much."

"She was really lucky no one noticed her", the queen thought as she swam to her father's ship.

Of course a pair of eyes watched her until she boarded her father's ship.

"Really, what a brave woman, " the king thought to himself and breathed a sigh of relief.

As soon as she reached her father's ship, the queen was noticed by the sailors who started cleaning the ship because the boss Subadar wanted to start early to look for her today because no one knew what happened to her for a week.

He ran out of the cabin still in his pajamas and wrapped only in a warm navy coat.

"My daughter, where have you been all these days, we were looking for you, and you seem to have disappeared without a trace."

"Long story, father, " she said, already exhausted and passed out from fatigue.

Her father covered her with his coat and carried her to her cabin.

He asked the ship's staff to bring dry towels and warm blankets to keep her warm.

Later, he came to her cabin with hot green tea that he had made for her himself.

The queen regained consciousness when she was examined by the ship's doctor.

"She is fine, she has a little cold, I will leave her medicine, " said the doctor to Subadar.

"Why do you smell like rum?" asked the father.

He knew that his daughter was intolerant of alcohol, so it was strange to him.

"That's because I slept in a barrel of rum, " said the queen.

"You slept in a barrel, so is the King of Singhasari so cruel that he put you in a barrel", he still wondered. In fact Subadar and the King of Singhasari knew each other very well and did business in the exchange of goods, they even played a game of chess together sometimes.

"He didn't put me in the barrel, but I ran away so I wouldn't be his trophy, and hid so he wouldn't find me, " said the queen.

"Run away from the king!

Okay, we'll talk about everything later, now the most important thing is that you got out alive.

After breakfast, you should drink the medicine that the doctor prescribed for you and rest on the ship today", he said and left her cabin.

It wasn't until a little before noon that the king of Singhasari appeared with his ship.

The Subadar received him on ship.

"Your majesty, what can I do for you?" asked the Subadar in a polite manner.

"I'm sorry Mr. Subadar, Your daughter is..."

"Yes, she's resting right now, the doctor prescribed her medicine so she can't see you today, but the two of us can play a game of chess", Sumandar was trying to break the ice and the conversion gap.

"As far as I know you both, something happened between you", was direct Subadar playing chess at the same time.

"What did you tell her that she ran away from you?"

"Offer marriage. And today I came to ask for your daughter's hand in marriage", the King of Singhasari was open.

"Everything is clear to me now, one wrong step and you lose the queen.

She is no longer a child that I can influence, and she asked me not to give her hand to anyone after the death of her husband King of Bali. I gave her a promise, but , personally I am not against your marriage, you will have to talk to her about it, I think it would be good for these two kingdoms, but she sees it as a defeat, you need to give her time to accept, until then be partners in fight against the Yuan Dynasty.

We were planning a trip to Venice and she was looking forward to it because Marco Polo invited us to the wedding and asked us to bring him peach seedlings that are not available in Venecia.

Would you allow her to visit Venice, it would mean a lot to her, besides we want to develop overseas trade and export products from the island of Bali to Venice."

Subadar looked into the king's eyes and saw that he was sad.

"It's not like you're afraid for my daughter, haven't you fallen in love with her?", he was open.

"Yes". The king was honest," I offered her marriage and that I would adopt her son", but she refused.

"She's like that, proud and won't be the trophy you won, that's what she told me.But if you adopt my grandson, that is her son, she will be grateful to you, because then she will travel to Venice more carefree."

The Subadar moved the chess pieces asking himself whether to reveal to the king that his daughter had the goal of discovering the fastest sea silk route to Europe to facilitate maritime trade.

"We'll be back sooner than you think, if that worries you, you must have noticed that my daughter is unusually resourceful."

"Yes, it looks like I will have to send her on a long trip to visit Venice with you because she wants it so much, but I will miss you both, " said the king.