The Girl with No Name Ch. 26

When she approached the location where she and Isauria had attacked the loggers, the path finally veered north. It was apparent she would re-enter the Duchy through the abandoned logging camp before proceeding towards the villages. The Ancients had a final test for her before they would allow her to leave the Kingdom of the Moon. She'd have to walk right through the middle of a town, in broad daylight and in plain view of hundreds of foreigners.

When they saw a detached naked woman walking through their town, the locals lined up along the road to stare at the strange sight. They talked among themselves, speculating who she was. Was she a spirit? A ghost? Lilith? A refugee who had gone mad? She couldn't be a mortal in her right mind, because she did not react at all to the murmuring crowd. Only one man approached her, wanting to touch her to see if she was at least a real person. As he raised his hand, she turned around and silently glared at him. Frightened, he backed away.

The crowd followed Danka as she headed towards the border. They stopped when she passed through a ruined church the locals considered cursed. She crested a final hill and made her way towards the river, which was swollen with mountain runoff. She casually swam across and emerged on Danubian soil.

Danka was in no hurry for the trip to end, and it seemed the path accommodated that wish for a few more days. She bathed in cold streams and foraged in the woods, eating berries and mushrooms during the day. At night she slept in the open.

She reached the bone-covered meadow where the Defenders had defeated the Red Moon soldiers nearly a year before. Not even a year, but how long ago that seemed, as though it were a different lifetime. Maybe it was. During those final days Danka's view of herself and her way of thinking transformed. In some ways she went back to being who she had been at the very start of her travels. She certainly did not consider herself a nymph fighting for the Defenders' militia. Anyhow, she suspected the Defenders no longer existed. Even if some of them had been rescued by the Royal Army, the Grand Duke would have no reason to allow the defeated militia to continue its operations.

The path ended at the largest of the three villages. As she stood in the main plaza, the settlers stared at her, not only because she was naked, but because her hair was loose. She seemed disoriented. The villagers were intimidated to approach her, but even with her disheveled appearance, some of them recognized her. One man remembered Isauria was her apprentice and left to find the girl. A few minutes later Isauria showed up. Like everyone else, she was shocked at her mentor's wild look, but she knew what to do. She led Danka to the bathhouse, bathed her, helped her clean her teeth, and re-braided her hair.

Sitting in her bath, Danka returned to her senses as the surreal dreamy feeling of her journey receded. She found it hard to believe that she had just walked for three weeks, naked, through enemy territory without being caught. And yet, it really happened: she wouldn't be sitting in the bath with her former servant washing her hair had the trip been nothing but a dream. As the reality of the Realm of the Living intruded upon her thoughts, the details of those final horrid hours in Aksheriri Ris invaded her soul and completely pushed aside the pleasant bliss she had felt during her trip. She stared at the edge of her tub and muttered:

"I'm a widow. I'm a widow, Apprentice Isauria, and a dishonored one at that, because I didn't bury my husband."

She explained what happened to Ilmátarkt, how she left him in the infirmary, and how, after Dalibora pulled her away, the entire structure blew up. Not only was her husband killed, but the other doctors were killed, along with dozens of injured patients. They were blown to unrecognizable bits and buried under burning timbers. Isauria surprised Danka with her response, one that seemed to come from a much older person.

"You didn't bury your husband because you couldn't; there was nothing to bury. You can't feel guilty about something you had no control over. Your Path in Life was to remain in the Realm of the Living and his Path in Life was destined to end where it did. And since his Path in Life had to end, wasn't it better it ended with a quick explosion than any other way? Doctor Ilmátarkt died the way he would have wanted to die. When his soul separated from his body, he was serving those around him, he was with his crew and the people he cared about. He died instantly, without knowing he was dying. Would you have wanted to see him dying in horrible pain and then have to abandon his body? Would that have been better, Defender Danka?"

"No. It wouldn't have been."

"I'm saying that because I would give anything for my family to have died the way Doctor Ilmátarkt died. Anything."

After a long pause, Danka commented:

"Speaking of that, I might have passed through your village, Apprentice Isauria. On my way back."

"Was it just west of the crossroads that lead up to Malénkta-Gordnáckta?"

"Yes."

"And there were sheep pastures, and a manor house, and two grassy hills, and on the other side of one of the hills some stone houses?"

"Yes."

"That was my village."

"I saw what happened there. I guess... looking at it through your perspective... my husband was indeed lucky."

Danka and Isauria could think of nothing more to say at the moment, but the bond between them had strengthened. Each had a much deeper understanding of the other. No longer was Danka the "Mistress" for Isauria, no longer was Isauria the "Servant" for Danka.

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Danka dressed in a new nymph's skirt and borrowed boots to pay a visit to the village elders. She told them what they already suspected, that the Defenders had been defeated and their expedition had failed. She gave a very short summary of the battle, but commented she would write a detailed report that would provide additional information and could be given to whoever was keeping records of the Defenders' activities. She spent the next three days with Isauria preparing a meticulous account of what happened to the expedition, from the time the militia left their base in the Duchy until the day she escaped. She tried to remember the names and circumstances of everyone she had seen killed or suspected had been killed. The only significant detail she left out was her former squad leader's betrayal. She'd address the situation with Oana herself.

She delivered the completed report to the village elder. When one of his assistants expressed skepticism over her claim that she simply walked away, she responded:

"You can believe whatever you want to believe. It makes no difference to me. However, I did witness the battle and, I with the protection of the Ancients, I did manage to return. If you check what I've written against what other witnesses will have to say about the battle, you'll see that everything in the report is the truth."

The meeting ended and Danka was dismissed. Outside she overheard a couple of settlers talking about a column of Royal Guards who had been spotted in the hills to the west moving towards the villages. From what Danka could hear, the Guards were only a few hours away. Danka realized that if she wanted to retrieve her belongings from the Defenders' base camp in the mountains, she'd have to go there immediately. She took one of the Defenders' mules and departed with Isauria without telling anyone in the village where she was going.

Danka and Isauria returned to the base camp for the last time in their lives. There were very few people there, mostly the blacksmith and his assistants and a few workers who remained behind to repair the cabins and prepare them for following winter. The renegade priest was present as well. Danka decided to warn him about the Royal Guards and their pending takeover of the encampment. He called together the small group of Defenders, the paltry remnants of a formerly-impressive militia that had spent years making life miserable for the Kingdom of the Moon's soldiers. Danka summarized the battle and the destruction of the unit. She didn't know whether Commander Sáupeckt was still alive, but suspected he was not. She confirmed the deaths of many others, including the majority of the nymphs.

Danka's companions gathered up their belongings and fled the encampment. They didn't know how they would be treated by the Royal Guards, but did not want to take the risk of finding out. The Priest returned to his quarters. He calculated that if the Grand Duke's men were occupied talking to him, it would give the others more time to put distance between themselves and the encampment.

Danka entered the cave, lit two lanterns, and went to where she and her husband kept their belongings. She grabbed her bucket, Ilmátarkt's journals and research, and his stash of medicines and alchemy ingredients. She took off the borrowed boots and the nymph's skirt. She no longer was a nymph, so she had no right to wear the skirt. She put on the old boots from her bucket, the ones she had worn when she left Rika Héckt-nemát. When Isauria offered Danka a dress, she shook her head.

"I need to perform Public Penance. It's not my Path in Life to get dressed right now."

She told the teenager to take off her nymph's skirt and put on her trader's outfit. As the girl was changing, Danka put on her penance collar. She told Isauria to go to the armory and take a new crossbow and as many bolts as she could fit in her quiver. Their roles would be reversed: Danka would carry the supplies and Isauria would carry the weapon. When Isauria re-appeared with her new weapon, Danka took a look at her companion's dark hair. She realized it had grown out enough that it was long enough to braid. That gave Danka an idea, to see if Isauria could receive an official certificate from the Defenders' Priest, because a certificate would give her full social status in the Duchy as an adult woman.

Danka and Isauria found the Priest in his study, writing some final entries in a journal. He was shocked to see her wearing a Public Penance collar, but she responded simply by telling him the truth, the collar was a disguise so she could travel safely. She asked about a certificate for Isauria.

"Has the girl passed her fifteenth birthday?"

"No. I was planning to serve as her guardian until she was old enough to have her hair braided but, as you can see, that'll be impossible. No one will be around to attest she has the right to be a full citizen when she turns fifteen. So, I'm asking you to do that right now. I need her to accompany me, and she needs to travel as an adult, not a child."

"As you wish. Braid her hair, and I'll prepare the certificate."

Usually the hair-braiding ceremony is a momentous event in a young woman's life, second only to marriage. It is a special time, accompanied by celebration and ceremonies. For Isauria, there would be none of that. Like Danka's marriage, Isauria's hair-braiding would be done out of necessity and in a hurry, without any fanfare or celebration. Danka arranged Isauria's hair, taking her time in an effort to make it look as good as possible. If Isauria couldn't have a ceremony, at least she could have nice braids. When the priest handed her the paper, she became a Danubian citizen. Also, she aged a year, because her date of birth had to be moved back for the document to be valid.

The priest asked about documentation concerning Danka's collar. Would she like to have an updated Public Penance certificate? Danka hadn't thought about that, but realized a new certificate would be important. She also realized she had the opportunity to assume a new identity. The priest smiled mischievously.

"Excellent, because I have just what you need, a certificate for a woman in Rika Chorna called Vesna Rogúskt. Very fancy and official-looking."

"And... what happened to the real Vesna Rogúskt?"

"She was the wife of a Defender. Died two years ago in childbirth, just a few days before you showed up. But now he's dead too, and I kept the paper in case someone else needed it. So... it's yours, along with the name."

The two women knelt while the Priest issued a final goodbye blessing. They quietly wondered about the wisdom of being blessed by a man who spent his life "honoring" the Destroyer. Seeing the doubt on their faces, the Priest commented:

"Everyone seems to misunderstand the Destroyer. The Realm of the Living needs the Destroyer every bit as much as the Realm of the Living needs the Creator. Both of you are farm-girls, correct? Well, every year you plant a seed and give life to a plant. Then, a few months later, you pull the plant out of the ground and take its life away. Then you put in another seed and start another life. The point is, you can't start the second life until the first one has ended. The Destroyer is cruel, because death is cruel. But that does not make the Destroyer evil, any more than pulling plants out of the ground makes a farmer evil. There is a difference between cruel and evil."

"So... you're not leaving with everyone else?"

"No. I will be executed, undoubtedly, as a heretic and a corrupting influence, but from the beginning I knew that was my Path in Life. I would not have it any other way. And when I hold up my mirror, I will finally have the chance to explain why I did all the things that I did. In the end, I will see the ultimate truth and understand myself. I'm looking forward to that. I'm not scared at all."

Minutes later, the women left the encampment, traveling along a trail that would bypass the villages and the likely route of the approaching Royal Guards. Isauria rode on the mule along with their belongings, while Danka (now to be known to the world as Vesna Rogúskt from Rika Chorna) walked ahead leading the animal by the reins. Ironically, Isauria's social status was way above that of her former mentor. Although they were both adults, Vesna was collared and Isauria was not. Had she wanted to, Isauria could have made Vesna kneel whenever they spoke to each other.

The path forked, one way going west and the other going east. As much as she would have liked to go east, Vesna knew that she had to return to the western valley. She had to settle Isauria's situation and then find Oana, assuming Oana was still alive.

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The same day that Defender Danka departed with Apprentice Isauria and the mule, the Danubian Royal Army took control of the garrison near the villages. The village elder gave Danka's notes to the commander of the Royal Guards. The Royal commander was impressed with the document's descriptive detail and organization of facts and events. It would make a valuable contribution to the Grand Duke's archive about the militia's failed assault on Aksheriri Ris. Knowing that the settlers could not possibly have written such a document, the Guards inquired about the author. The settlers described a nymph, incredibly beautiful, who had sought the Destroyer's protection after the battle so she could return. When the Royal Guards asked where she was, no one could find her. She had disappeared without a trace. The villagers neglected to mention anything about Isauria and the apprentice was completely forgotten.

The tragic, bizarre story behind the naked nymph's return from the Defenders' heroic battle became a favorite topic for discussion and speculation throughout the region. The settlers told each other fantastic tales about her escape and exaggerated her physical beauty. The Royal Guards adopted the villagers' stories and came up with some campfire songs to alleviate their boredom in that wretched, isolated garrison. Within a few months there were many versions floating around both sides of the eastern border about the alluring wanderer's adventures. Men imposed their own fantasies on her and some, including the village elder, claimed to have had sex with her.

By the following year, no one remembered the vanished nymph as Danka, the wife of Doctor Ilmátarkt and a member of Dalibora's squad. Instead, she became a woman of incredible beauty and mystery, a cursed deliverer of tragedy to the Realm of the Living.

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Note01: During the 1970s, a group of revisionist historians more closely examined the relationship between the Grand Duke and Commander Sáupeckt to look for clues indicating whether the Sovereign somehow betrayed the militia leader. Questions asked by the revisionists included: 1) Why did the Grand Duke allow an independent militia to guard the southeastern region in the first place, instead of using Royal Guards? 2) Why did the Grand Duke allow Commander Sáupeckt to assault Sumy Ris, if he was convinced the expedition was likely to fail? Would it not have been better to convince the militia leader to not press forward with the project, or try to replace him with a more cautious leader and thus save lives? 3) Is it possible Commander Sáupeckt could have taken Sumy Ris, if he had direct support from the Crown? 4) How much talent did Commander Sáupeckt really have as a military commander? 5) What were the Grand Duke's personal feelings about Commander Sáupeckt and the Defenders?

Let's examine these questions, keeping in mind that communications during the 1750s were unreliable and the Grand Duke did not always have timely and accurate intelligence concerning the situation along the eastern section of the border.

1) Between 1754 and 1764, the Grand Duke's most important priority, far more than anything else, was to permanently secure Hórkustk Ris province and make sure that is was so well protected that neither faction from the rival Kingdom would attempt to invade or launch cross-border raids. Absolutely nothing could be allowed to disrupt the incoming settlers and their new farms, so the Grand Duke stationed every available soldier he could spare to protect the peace of the region. The increased security of Hórkustk Ris province came at the expense of other areas such as the eastern border and the Vice Duchy of Rika Chorna. Given his lack of resources, the Grand Duke was more than happy to allow armed civilians to organize and secure a part of the border his troops could not adequately protect.

2) Our sources indicate that Commander Sáupeckt's rise to power over the Defenders' entire militia caught the the Grand Duke by surprise. Because of poor communications, the Royal House was not aware until the spring of 1758 that the guerrilla units had coalesced around a single leader. He was genuinely concerned when he learned about the plan to assault Sumy Ris, but, because of issues of tradition and protocol, was not in a position to convince Commander Sáupeckt to abort the mission. Instead, he provided information and maps to make sure the militia leader knew that Sumy Ris was indefensible. The Royal Army's intelligence, along with Defender Danka's updated map, did not make the militia leader change his mind, but it did make him change his target: to first capture Aksheriri Ris to later use as a base of operations against Sumy Ris.

From what my colleagues and I have seen of contemporary writings and the Grand Duke's memoirs, any deliberate act of deception or betrayal by the Grand Duke over Sumy Ris seems extremely unlikely. The ruler certainly would not have passed up the opportunity to capture the former Danubian capitol, if he were convinced it could be defended without straining the resources of the Royal Army in other parts of the Duchy. When the Grand Duke understood the Defenders' operation was destined to proceed, he provided as much support as he could, short of committing troops. Even if the militia troops were defeated, he wanted them to do as much damage as possible to the Kingdom of the Moon factions and further weaken them as a threat against the Royal Army and Hórkustk Ris province. In addition to providing supplies, during the expedition Royal Guards entered the Kingdom of the Moon on three occasions to evacuate wounded and dead Defenders prior to the final evacuation from Aksheriri Ris.