KYZ KULLE MAIDEN'S TOWER

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They say, that those days, when Sugdeya was inhabited by ancestors of the Crimean Tatars, the tower was already existed. The Archon's daughter, unapproachable beauty, one couldn’t meet in Crimea, used to live in it.

Even Diophantus, Mithridate’s best military chief, was vainly striving for her hand, and the local noble youth could not raise their eyes on her.

They didn’t know that she was in love. She loved the simple rustic shepherd, as he seemed on his clothes.

Once the Archon's daughter went to the grave of their maidservant, located under the rock in the forest. The maid, poor lovely girl, fell from a cliff and died. 

She was buried there according to the custom. Another custom used to make recess in her tombstone to collect the dew, and the birds, to quench their thirst, flew over her and sang the song of paradise.

Archon's daughter went to lure birds and saw the shepherd at the grave’s plate. The young man lost in thought; his noble face breathed the sadness, and his lush curls of hair were laughing towards the wind.

Archon's daughter asked who he was.

- As you can see, I don’t know about it even by myself. I vaguely remember some other wonderful country, tall columns and the temple. Was I there or not? – I don’t know.

And she smiled. She, too, like a dream, remembered the city with columns, temples and mausoleums, where she was brought in early childhood.

Talking through some time, they didn’t notice the sadness, that was gone and the joy came. The social differences between a shepherd and Archon’s daughter have gone away and their hearts started to beat in a single way.

Since only then, the Archon’s daughter started to live with the soul of excellent shepherd. The shepherd knew, he was the happiest person among gods and people.

That gravestone plate became the altar. The heavenly dew brought the couple closer to the mountain height and the birds’ singing seemed to them as the sacred hymn of love.

However, one day people saw them together and told to Archon. Archon became very angry and ordered to grab shepherd and throw him into a stone well under the Kyz Kulle tower.

It took a few days until the wind brought the grief groan of the prisoner to the distraught girl. She understood it all, and during the night, using the rope, she descended into the well and saved her love.

The shepherd was lying unconscious on the floor of a princess’s castle, when the door opened and Archon was entered. He raised a hand in anger, but then let it drop. He read the sign on the young boy’s breast, known only to him, and found out who was a shepherd.

The lightning flashed in his memory about the battle between the two cities, the imprisonment of his family and grief without borders, when his firstborn hasn’t returned from the capture.

The death paleness covered the brow of Archon. The horror seized him. He came back to his mind and ordered the doctor to rescue the dying.

- I don’t want to poison the good gust of my daughter’s sorrow. You have to save him.

And the boy was saved.

Soon the ship departed to Miletus.

Archon ordered to prepare recovering shepherd for the road – to take the governmet record.

- A year later, - he said quietly to his daughter - the ship would come back. If your lover wouldn’t change you, you’d see a white sign on the mast. I wouldn’t oppose to your happiness. But if you didn’t see this sign, you shouldn’t despair, because he was unworthy to take your hand. You must promise, without tears and objections, to give to merry Diophantus.

The ship was away with orders to come back in six months and with secret instructions given to captain, to leave the boy in Miletus for the next ship’s arrival.

The gray days dragged, crawling like a slow turtle.

The Archon's daughter was given the full freedom, but the freedom of loneliness – the most complete of all, at the same time and the most miserable.

She locked in the Maiden's Tower and only occasionally descended to the grave, where she first learned of the shepherd.

So the summer passed, the grape harvest’s month was over and passing to fall.

The God of Fog started more likely to visit the country. The princess saw it at night as the old man, whose white beard twine lock and sank somewhere in the sea, on the silvery glare of the moon. The fog was closing the distance and the girl’s gaze was in the fog of unconscious grief.

One day, when the sun was out and took the fog to the mountain gorges, the citizens of Sugdeya saw their ship at the quay, lowering the sails.

The Archon’s daughter saw the ship too, but there wasn’t the sign of blessing.

Pale, proud and beautiful as ever, she went to the maids and ordered to submit the best coat, robe and a diadem of opal and sapphire. The maidens, who dressed princess, were surprised by her beauty, originated from the earth.

- Call Diophantus, now!

The military chief of Mithridates, who was falling in love with her, ran in by the stairs of Kyz Kulle tower, and, fascinated, threw himself at the feet of the beauty.

- Diophantus, have you ever heard about the love of Greek girl? Say to Eupator, that you’ve discovered it by yourself.

The Archon’s daughter, gleaming on stranger with the pride and beauty, went quickly to the window’s arch and threw herself into the abyss.