The Girl with No Name Ch. 15

"Yes, I was a Follower."

Silvítya could see from Magdala's expression that a hoard of questions had crowded into her brain. It was too much to explain...to painful to have to re-tell. She didn't want to go into detail about her time as a Follower: she had just wanted Magdala to know she was a competent field doctor. She forestalled the pending barrage of questions by giving up another piece of information.

"I have a question for you, Sister Magdala. When the Followers marked you with the pox scar; who did it? Was it a young nobleman, or an older man?"

"The older man."

"The older man gave up his life, a few weeks after he marked you. I was close to him when it happened. And when he died, a lot of me died with him. My Path in Life never recovered." Silvítya paused, fighting off a sudden surge of emotion. "...and now I'm here. I'm just...here..."

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Magdala left the concubine group the very next day. The hairdresser braided her hair, handed her a maternity dress, and the young woman departed to lead a more normal existence in the maternity wing of the castle. Her Path in Life would return her to Dagurúckt-Tók, where she would have her own house and live on the Grand Duke's coin as compensation for raising his child. Silvítya could tell that she was happy to be leaving behind her life as a concubine. For a moment she was envious.

The Grand Duke called the nine remaining concubines into the throne room. Their naked bodies trembled in the cold, drafty chamber. Ignoring their discomfort, he ordered them to kneel in the traditional submissive posture, with the exception of Silvítya, who had to stand at attention in front of the others.

"Servant Silvítya, you are now the spokeswoman for your companions. You are responsible for ensuring compliance with my wishes. You will speak on behalf of the others. You will receive and relay my orders. Do you understand?"

"To hear is to obey, Your Majesty."

"Everyone else! I have made my decision concerning who speaks for you! Understood?"

"To hear is to obey, Your Majesty."

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Silvítya knew that she needed to start out leading the group in the same way Magdala had lead. Conformity with etiquette and protocol was important, disputes between the women needed to be avoided or settled as harmoniously as possible, and every member of the group had to look upon herself as a guardian of the well-being of the others. Silvítya did not care for the "sisters" title, but she decided to leave it in place out of deference to her predecessor.

Magdala never spoke badly of another concubine, nor did she tolerate criticism of any "sister" by any other "sister". For that reason, it was not until she left that Silvítya found out why the Grand Duke took away the position of favored concubine from Desislava. Through some comments from the other "sisters", Silvítya found out that Desislava had not been able to keep conflict within the group under control. One personality conflict became so bad that a girl who felt wronged actually went to a matron with a complaint. The older women quickly took advantage of the situation and used the disputes as justification to whip three concubines. The Grand Duke regretted his decision of appointing Desislava to lead the group and decided to remove her. Desislava continued to be his favorite woman in bed, but she was not suited to be a leader. So, he handed to position to Magdala, a girl who he liked considerably less than Desislava, but one who was smarter and better at handling others. He replaced Magdala with Silvítya as his favorite because of her intellect, but was not sure if she would be as good a leader.

Silvítya had no illusions that she could turn her companions into intellectuals and field doctors overnight. She suspected that the concubines were so set in their ways that encouraging them to alter their daily routine in any way would have to be handled with extreme tact. So, she would start out with having her companions read novels. The Royal library included a collection of light reading, which was mostly used by the matrons and some of the guards' wives. It had never occurred to anyone to make that reading available to the concubines.

She wanted to make sure the Grand Duke did not have any objections, so she openly asked if the library could provide the "sisters" with some novels and poetry. The sovereign responded that Silvítya, because she already had access, could sign-out novels just as easily as she could sign out the works she used to write her reports.

She figured that she'd start by making reading voluntary, then eventually apply group pressure to force any holdouts to start reading. Her plan was to have the concubines discuss and critique novels before eventually moving on to topics such as history and religion, and finally, to medicine.

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Two concubines, including a girl who had been in the group before Magdala arrived, became pregnant at the beginning of 1754. That brought the number of women down to seven, the lowest number of concubines in years. The ruler continued to moderate his sexual demands with his current favorite, which meant that only six women were available to satisfy his sexual cravings. The morale of the concubine group deteriorated due to not being able to take turns resting from his rough treatment and constant demands for sex.

The ruler's guards looked around the Duchy for possible candidates to resupply the concubine pool. They found four new girls: an indebted guildsman's daughter, a peasant girl who was spotted taking a pair of sheep to market, the illegitimate daughter of a True Believer priest, and a girl seen traveling with her family among a group of refugees. The Grand Duke's men paid silver for the guildsman's daughter and the peasant girl. The True Believer Priest simply handed over his daughter as a way to prevent a scandal within his church. The guards took the refugee girl in exchange allowing her family and their companions to stay in the squalid camp outside the capitol.

The matrons processed the four new concubines during the last week of January. They were delighted to have the opportunity to bully and humiliate the young women, especially the peasant girl. Silvítya and Antonia stood shivering on the balcony that overlooked the castle courtyard, watching the matrons yell at and switch the newcomers. Silvítya noted the older women seemed to have become rougher and crueler in their treatment of the new recruits.

Silvítya took advantage of the Grand Duke's absence and the arrival of four new women to implement changes in the concubine group. She realized that having four new girls entering the same week gave her the opportunity to change the dynamics of the "sisters" and the small world in which they lived. She decided to keep Magdala's "sister" for addressing the others, even though she found it annoying. However, the idle afternoons sitting in the bath and playing chess were about to end. The spokeswoman was determined that her companions could talk about outside topics, partly because she was hideously bored with the daily routine. The concubines' Path in Life was to sit around and wait to become pregnant, but that didn't mean they couldn't use their time trying to improve their minds. Three of the new girls were literate, so their spokeswoman showed them a stack of novels, told them to select one, and to be ready to discuss it with the group within two weeks. A couple of the other concubines already had started reading fiction, so their leader's plan to start a literature discussion group was about to implemented.

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The new peasant girl didn't know how to read, so it would be up to the other women to correct that deficiency. When the others argued they didn't have any experience teaching, Silvítya handed them some children's literacy manuals borrowed from the Grand Duke's library. She tasked Antonia with teaching the peasant girl how to eat with proper etiquette.

The guildsman's daughter was the most "typical" newcomer to the concubine group, so she fit in with no problem. She was from Starívktaki Móskt, so Silvítya was able to receive an update on the news from that city. The Senior Priest had become too sick to work and the Temple had to replace him. The scandal over what happened to his son Bagatúrckt had not died down at all. The entire province had immortalized the saga of the sophisticated but flawed young man, a man who had fallen in love with a beautiful temptress and was handed over to the Destroyer. The tragic tale and outlandish descriptions of the beauty of the seductress had become a popular topic of tavern songs and campfire poems.

Silvítya thought to herself: well, I guess I won't be returning to Starívktaki Móskt anytime soon...

The priest's daughter brought news from Sevérckt nad Gorádki. The True Believers in that city were in crisis. A group of elite families, lead by a young nobleman called Káloyankt, had publicly re-affirmed allegiance to the Grand Duke. They took their oath from a Priest and Priestess from the Great Temple in Danúbikt Móskt, which meant they had officially declared themselves Old Believers. It turned out the True Believers faction of the Danubian Church was about to lose its influence in the entire western half of the Duchy. They had been chased out of Nagorónkti-Serífkti, several leading citizens of Sevérckt nad Gorádki had defected, and no one had any news from the True Believers' other stronghold, Rika Héckt-nemát.

Silvítya sat quietly in the bath, staring at the water and lost in thought. Antonia was occupied trying to teach the peasant girl proper table manners, and thus not with her. She was glad to be alone and have the opportunity to reflect on her memories of the Cult of the Ancients and her lovers Káloyankt and Ermin. They had been so different from each other, and her relationship with each was so different. She loved them both...in different ways and for different reasons. She missed them. Ermin was dead, and as far as she was concerned, Káloyankt also was dead. The Káloyankt she had known and shared a winter with no longer existed. He was gone, nothing more than a memory.

Silvítya thought about her former lover and pondered how he must have changed over the past 18 months. From the way the priest's daughter had described him, it seemed he had become a leading voice among the town's aristocracy. So...he had indeed found his Path in Life. She tried to imagine Káloyankt, standing in his best clothing, speaking with confidence in the city hall or from a platform in the main plaza, discussing the most important issues of the day and persuading others to follow his decisions.

How different he must be from when I knew him. How different. So...Babáckt Yaga was right. It was not my Path in Life to stay with him. I would have prevented him from fulfilling his destiny.

I wonder how often he thinks of me...what he remembers...

I won't ever see him again. I want Káloyankt to always remember me as I was when I wore my Follower's dress and carried my staff. I don't want him to think about me in any other way. I can be grateful...I guess...that he can't see me now...I certainly wouldn't want him to see me like this...as a concubine...

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The fourth new concubine's name was Crysánkta. She was a nervous and jumpy girl, who looked around whenever she heard shouting or loud noises. Crysánkta's family originally lived in the southernmost province of the Duchy, to the southeast of the regional capitol Hórkustk Ris and very close to the Duchy's southern border.

Crysánkta brought news from the outside, but it was news of the Duchy's future, not of Silvítya's past. From her reading, Silvítya was aware that the southern province of the Duchy was different from the central and eastern regions because it was not inhabited entirely by ethnic Danubians. Hórkustk Ris was a Danubian city, but the villages to the east and south were a mixture of Danubians and people who had entered from the Ottoman Empire and more recently from the Kingdom of the Moon. Danubian writers generally agreed there was likely to be a crisis in the region and that it was possible the Duchy could lose the province if nothing was done to address the rising number of foreigners. However, until late 1753, talk of a crisis was nothing more than speculation.

During the 1740s and 1750s, the Duchy did not share a border with the Ottoman Empire. A Christian rebellion in the northern Ottoman territories of the Balkan Peninsula resulted in the independence of new nation called the Kingdom of the Moon. The Grand Duke's father had welcomed the new Kingdom and even offered to send some troops to help secure its independence. However, the Kingdom's current ruler, the Lord of the Red Moon, had not been friendly to the Duchy. When the old Grand Duke died, the neighboring ruler demanded that the new Danubian Grand Duke swear subservience to the Kingdom, pay tribute, and cede some territory. When the Grand Duke refused to cede territory, the Lord of the Red Moon quickly turned hostile. If the Danubians wouldn't cede the territory he wanted, he'd simply take it.

During late 1753, the Kingdom of the Moon sent troops into Hórkustk Ris province to seize villages and drive out ethnic Danubians. Crysánkta's village was invaded at the beginning of December and nearly half of the Danubian civilians living in the area were massacred. The survivors fled, first to Hórkustk Ris, but then Crysánkta's uncle decided to take the surviving members of her family to the capitol.

The Grand Duke took an interest in Crysánkta and the information she provided concerning the loss of her village and the deteriorating military situation along the border. He angrily confronted his commanders for not telling him how dire things were the south. Finally, when they failed to convince him things were not as bad as he thought, the ruler decided to see for himself what was going on around Hórkustk Ris. He ordered one of his generals and two Royal Guards to disguise themselves as messengers and accompany him on a scouting trip. The Grand Duke burned with resentment that he had to ride disguised through territory he supposedly controlled. He was gone for a month, which gave the concubines a welcome break from his maniacal sex drive.

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Silvítya decided to take initiative with the concubines' duty of posing for portraits. She requested an audience with the castle's two painters to suggest they produce as many pictures as possible while the Grand Duke was absent. She hoped that if the pictures were already painted before the ruler returned, posing for portraits would be one less duty for her and her companions to worry about in the future. Silvítya took it for granted the painters knew the ruler's preferences for art and would create paintings that pleased him. The artists agreed the idea was a good one and were happy to create works according to their own criteria and without worrying about the Grand Duke impatiently awaiting their completion.

One of the paintings created that month later became the most famous piece from the Grand Duke's collection. It was a simple image of Silvítya posing with Antonia, in which the artist captured the intimacy between the two women through their expressions. The image remained in the Grand Duke's private study and out of public view throughout his life. It was made known to the public only after his death. While popular among foreign art fans, the picture's portrayal of the concubines' attachment to each other has remained controversial within Danubia.

When they were not posing for portraits, the concubines spent their month-long break locked in their assigned area of the castle. Silvítya took advantage of their boredom and seclusion to implement the changes she wanted for the group. Everyone started reading and discussing novels. It was an activity the women enjoyed, so their spokeswoman decided to make them draft written reports to present to the others. It was a chance for the women to place their thoughts on paper and talk about them to a sympathetic audience. Even Antonia, who by then was sufficiently fluent in Danubian to participate, was able to give presentations to her "sisters".

Silvítya also began teaching introductory medicine, starting with the basics of childbirth and caring for common illnesses. She was pleasantly surprised when most of her companions displayed interest in what she wanted to teach. She went to the library and brought back the illustrated medical guides that were not locked away with the Followers' books. As she led and instructed, her confidence in herself returned. She could see herself as more than the Grand Duke's sex servant; she was actually training and guiding others.