The Girl with No Name Ch. 21

They walked in silence in the darkness as the quiet girl struggled to keep up. Danka had not yet explained anything, but Isauria realized that she had been sold and her new mistress was taking her away from Malénkta-Gordnáckta. More importantly, she was being taken away from those horrid children who had spent the past eight months tormenting her. She was very happy at the thought of never seeing them again. She had no idea where her new mistress and her Path in Life would lead her, but just escaping from the Buláshckt children was good enough for the moment.

At daybreak Danka entered the woods and looked for a place to set up camp. She found a spot near a stream. Isauria was tired, but there would be no rest until the two travelers had gathered enough food to sustain them over the next couple of days. Danka taught her servant how to find berries and edible forest plants and how to prepare them. The weather was sunny, so she was able to use a magnifying lens to start a fire. The woman and her servant stripped off their clothing and waded into the stream so Danka could teach her ward how to catch a fish.

As they ate, Danka looked at her purchase and wondered what to do with her. She had no desire to keep Isauria, but realized finding a safe place to leave her would be difficult. The girl's cropped hair presented a problem because it made her look like a boy. It would take at least two years for it to grow back to a length that would be considered acceptable in Danubia for a young woman. In the meantime Danka would either have to keep Isauria in the woods or keep her head covered if they went into a settled area. She wished she could just take the girl to the border and let her go home, but there was no home for her to go to. Her village was burnt, her family was dead, and her country was being destroyed by conflict. The civil war and the ongoing atrocities were the main reason the enslaved foreign women in southern Danubia stayed put, even most could have reached the border just by walking a few hours. Servitude was their reality in the Duchy, but rape and impalement hooks were the reality that awaited them to the south.

Danka thought that a logical place to leave Isauria might be with the Danubian Church. However, Isauria was an illiterate slave from the Kingdom of the Moon who barely spoke any Danubian. What use would she be to the Clergy? Especially with a shaved head?

There was the option of her former lover Káloyankt. There was no question he could take in the girl and probably would. If she could somehow make it to Sevérckt nad Gorádki and contact Káloyankt, that would be the best option for Isauria, but it would not be the best option for Danka. She still felt guilty about the way she treated him and was humiliated from having been a concubine for two years. She didn't know how much her fellow cultists knew about her fate when she left the university and did not want to find out. Taking Isauria to Sevérckt nad Gorádki would have been the best alternative for safely disposing of her, but Danka couldn't bring herself to do it.

Danka decided it was early enough in the year to put off making any decision concerning where she should go or what she should do with Isauria. So, she would simply take the girl further into the wild country and teach her everything necessary to live off the land. There would be some time to teach her to speak proper Danubian and how to read and write.

Danka looked around her. She felt the presence of the Old World, the forest as it had been when the Ancients decided to depart the Realm of the Living and leave humans to sort out their own fate. She wanted to believe the Ancients were all around her. Maybe it was time to take a break from the civilized world of the Christians and try to re-connect with the world that had preceded them. She had tried to teach her fellow women from Malénkta-Gordnáckta to appreciate the wisdom of the Old World, in an effort that failed miserably. However, she would be able to teach some things to Isauria. Along with learning how to live alone in the forest, Danka would have time to make her appreciate the Ancients and instruct her in the ways of the Realm of Nature.

Danka still wanted to eventually get rid of Isauria, but increasingly she understood that by purchasing her, she had taken on an important responsibility. Before they parted ways, she had to ensure the girl could take care of herself and have the skills necessary to successfully pursue her Path in Life in the Duchy.

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Alexándrekt Buláshckt's soul gradually changed after Danka left his household. He had always liked her, so the circumstances of her departure greatly upset him. At first he felt betrayed, but as he thought over the situation, he understood why she had become so disgusted with him and his family. Yes, it was true that the family had treated the house slaves in a completely dishonorable manner. It was true that the Young Slave would be much better off with Danka than with his nephew. And when Stepkakta had her baby and recovered, he would have to ensure she would not return to beating the Kitchen Slave.

Nowáckt was livid when he found out that his uncle had sold his servant. He was determined to go after Danka and recover his property, but Alexándrekt told him that the sale was legal and final, and that he had good reason to sell Isauria. He had bought the girl to teach Nowáckt to learn responsibility and how to wisely exercise authority over others. By mistreating his servant, defacing her appearance, and reducing her value, he had failed the test of character that Alexándrekt had given him. (The explanation was not entirely true: the original reason for purchasing Isauria was to keep Nowáckt from getting into trouble by chasing after neighbor girls. However, it was true that Alexándrekt became deeply disappointed with how his nephew had treated her.)

Malénkta-Gordnáckta prospered over the summer of 1756 and more Danubian settlers moved in. All of the land around the town was taken, but the farms south of the border in the Kingdom of the Moon were vacant. The inhabitants had been massacred or driven off by the Lord of the Blue Moon's army and the fighting had since moved elsewhere. It was risky, but several families of Danubians took over properties on the southern shore of the river and Alexándrekt Buláshckt's authority expanded into an area that was not officially part of the Duchy.

The mayor of Malénkta-Gordnáckta did not lead any more slave raids against foreign refugees. They had stopped coming into that part of the Duchy anyway, so the town would have to live by more honest means. Over time Alexándrekt regretted his behavior and knew that he would have a lot to answer for when he held up his mirror before the Creator. Perhaps he could justify his actions as a Royal Guard under the Grand Duke as following orders, but the slave raids had been entirely his responsibility.

Alexándrekt wrote extensively about his former friend and the moral dilemmas she had presented him. He wasn't sure whether to refer to her as Silvítya or Danka. Like others before him, he simply omitted her name altogether.

Nowáckt also wrote about Danka, making up stories about a pretty witch sent by the Destroyer to seduce and steal from from young boys and destroy their dreams. As he grew older, he shared some of his tales as campfire songs with his friends. The other teenagers started making up their own stories and the Girl with No Name became an increasingly loathsome and cruel temptress in the minds and songs of young men on the Duchy's southern border.

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Note: During the eighteenth century women in Europe generally could not buy, sell, or own property. However, the Grand Duchy of Upper Danubia was an important exception, due to the country's history. The tradition of women owning property started in 1534 when King Vladik's successor faced the dilemma of defending the Duchy after most of its men had been killed in combat. He solved the crisis by recruiting unmarried village girls to organize into squads of guerilla archers to fight for the Duchy. The teenagers were called Nymphs and the reward for three years of service was title to a piece of property. After a generation the Duchy's population recovered and women lost many of the temporary privileges they had enjoyed during the mid 1500s, but a woman's right to own property remained part of Danubian law and tradition.

- Maritza Ortskt-Dukovna -