Chapter Two
-VI-
Mona was fourteen when she was orphaned. Her mother Emma died while giving birth to yet another child who followed her within minutes. Her father, who was depressed lately of an unknown reason, couldn’t stand the pain of this double loss and hanged himself a week later.
She was left alone with her sister, Roza. This youngling was six at that time, playing with her dolls and feeling proud with making eggs. It was the last thing her mother had taught her: boiling eggs and dressing it with butter and cumin.
The two had none but an uncle in Sval, the red city, the land of sparrows, the pearl of North, the city of lost, the house of Astra… Its titles given over almost three centuries by bards and poets would fill a modest book but the best was made by Elat, daughter of Tolon and the founder of the city, who came to settle under the oak tree that survived Warson’s torment and destruction: the city of peace. Mona wouldn’t agree, Mona couldn’t agree.
Desperate, the day last rites were read and her father hugged by our mother, Mona went to see her uncle who was missing at the funeral. She found him with pipe on his left hand and dragon’s tongue tea on the other, checking some numbers on the notebook in front of him. “Ah, come here girl” he said as he saw her walking towards him, quickly closed the notebook and his face changed to, as per Mona’s words, “that of a squirrel that hides a tree-full amount of nuts in its mouth, yet begs you for more”.
You know what they say: hope is like breath. Lose one and you’ll lose the other. “We have nowhere to go” Mona said hopelessly and directly with the courage born from having nothing to lose. “There’s some left with us but not much. Would you” she was going on but her uncle raised his hand, took the girl to his chest and hugged strongly. “I can hardly feed my family my little Mona” he said trying to cry: His jaw was moving but his eyes were bright as a summer sky. Then he let loose the girl, cleared the ashes from his pipe and refilled it. “At least her” Mona tried but couldn’t finish her sentence again. “What I make really isn’t enough for my family even. Not one, not even half of you… Sorry girl. Men die at war and women at birth. That’s how life is nowadays. It’s you two versus the world now”. Mona took a look at the table. The tea would cost three guls the least. With that she could feed herself and her sister for two days. She sighed, bid farewell to her uncle and left for home.
Fate had it that the soothsayer of Sval died the next evening. The custom was that the new one was to be a local motherless girl who didn’t have period yet. Mona? No, no. She missed the chance with a month – but there was yet another one sleeping on the bed next to her.
The monks spread around and collected all candidates, only four which included Roza. Something went on behind the closed doors of the monastery for two days. On third’s morning three girls were released and one was kept inside. She didn’t know that she wasn’t to leave the premises of the monastery ever again, not show her face to anyone, and see others only through a little hole with a veil on her face.
She was Roza.
Mona had mixed feelings. She was desperate after losing the last family. Still was happy for Roza, as she didn’t have any idea about the life of soothsayers: at least, she thought, she was to have a roof above her head and food in her stomach. Overall sadness overweighed happiness and it’d be unfair to expect otherwise. Maybe gods thought so too and presented her with an opportunity which changed her life forever.
-VII-
Magda was a friend of Emma. She was running her own bakery and making good coin. When she collected enough and a place for a second store, she found Mona at home crying. Her offer was a breath of life and that’s how Mona found another roof on her head, people that would care about, and income and a golden bracelet that would help her make a living later in her life.
Magda was a baker for the day and a midwife other time, from which she actually was making more. Two years had passed when she couldn’t find anyone better and took Mona with for a birth. Details unimportant, neither I desire to tell nor you, dear reader, would like to hear, Mona was astonished with what she saw. Between the legs of the woman came a thing, a miniature human which didn’t even resemble humans, that was alive. Alive, can you imagine? Good if you can for Mona couldn’t.
“This is a miracle” she said holding the baby as lightly as she could. “This is… It’s insane, it’s madness, it’s magnificent”!
“Indeed girl. Seeing that first breath is a joy I’d exchange for nothing” Magda said. Mona had found a reason to live. She had watched Magda closely and asked to join her each and every time she was to go for one.
“Sure?”
“More than anything.”
There started a new life for her, one she wouldn’t even imagine. For six years she accompanied Magda day and night, learning everything she knew. A good and dedicated student, not only she got it all but also made inventions to take both arts to new heights. Magda had a talk with her when she turned twenty. “Nothing more is left for me to give. Go my girl. Go, find yourself” she said. Mona wasn’t willing to, but fate again directed her way. Not a week had past when her old home collapsed in the great quake. Her younger years were but pile of dust, half her memories were buried beneath it. Rather than staying for the reconstruction of the city, she told Magda that she was leaving for Iena. Magda blessed her and handed a pouch of coin. “Don’t refuse. It’s yours, just been collecting on your behalf for years. Someday we’ll be rivals I thought, but your future lies elsewhere”.
“How are you sure about it?” Mona asked with curiosity. Why didn’t she want her in Sval? Why asked to leave?
“You believe in prophecies?”
No, she didn’t. Maybe she would had she saw her sister even once for all these years but each time she tried, she was dismissed, even kicked out. She remained silent; Magda got her answer.
“I’m not to judge you. Gods have their own ways, we’re too small to understand them. This is, I don’t know how to tell… They are pure, the cleanest here is dirty on their level. The closest thing to that is the soothsayer. I don’t try to convince you, no. Just… Whatever. That’s what’s told to me. I went to ask for my future and listened yours. ‘She’ll retain your legacy and make your name last for many generations to come’ I was told. ‘But she should leave, for the setting sun travels south to rise again’. I don’t know what it means and I don’t care. What matters is you, your happiness. Mine is just some belief grounded on not what I heard but what I saw, not what I wish but what I experienced, what I realized, what I have deep in my heart. She’s a human like one of us. She eats, she sleeps. But is one raised for the gods, by the gods, to became one of them. And I believe that if you’re to be happy, that’s not going to be here. Why would she say so otherwise? And please don’t take me as a mad woman who wants her name to remain after I’ll be long gone. I’ll be elsewhere, maybe with gods or in hell, asking for their forgiveness in the deep, dark and endless abyss. Does it care if someone remembers me or not? I lived my life; don’t know how long I’ll walk on this beautiful earth. But you, you are different. Live your destiny, write your own. Maybe we’ll meet again and I’ll look at you like a proud mother, who knows?”
Mona was already lost halfway. All she got was that Magda asked the soothsayer and the soothsayer said that Mona would better leave. The rest were whims of this old woman who she held as her second mother, one that she loved, admired and respected deeply without knowing which of these was greater than the others. Love, probably. Love multiplies any feeling as does hate. Isn’t hate a form of love anyway?
She kissed Magda’s hand; Magda held and hugged her strongly. “Don’t mind me” she said as tears fell from her eyes. “You’re a daughter for me. If she’s wrong, if you won’t be happy elsewhere, if anything goes wrong, if anything, anything goes wrong remember that my door is always open to you. Okay”?
Mona cleared Magda’s eyes and the two hugged again. It’d be useless to refuse the coin and Mona took it. A caravan was leaving the next week for Iena. She asked to join, agreed to be their cook and watched the clear and beautiful sky on her last few nights in Sval.
-VIII-
Sval has two gates at the end of two roads – and that’s all that connects the city with the world. One road goes south to Leira, the border town, the fort if you dare belittling its size, or the castle if you’d ask Orion, self-proclaimed Lord of Leira and officially the Commander General of Svalian Forces, had you the chance to fast forward twenty years, and turns west, passes between Garamald Mountains and Black Forest to reach Iena. The other road goes north, all the way to the junction at the skirts of Lonely Mountain, the beautiful piece of nature sitting at the centre of the northern realm, which meanwhile is part of the border between Sval and Yargan whence most Svalians’ ancestors came from, turns west and reaches Mirrau, and goes south for Iena. The eastern part reaches Tomo through the mountains but long it wasn’t used for a steeper but shorter route was found totally accidentally, when a bunch of traders fled from bandits during the age of terror.
There is a trade-off in every choice. The southern road is shorter but more dangerous, for Leira controls only the eastern side of the pass divided by Brunna River, except when there’s an immediate danger and Ienan garrison doesn’t or can’t act on time, and Iena, preferring to keep the majority of its forces to the north and northeast, leaves the land practically undefended. The northern road takes twice as many days, but is safer – with the breath-taking landscape being a merry bonus.
The caravan left the city from the Victory Gate, hence took the road south. Fifth night they spent in Leira and on twenty-first day toward evening on that beautiful late April day she saw the walls, second only to the walls of Argenta in height and ahead of that in might, and turned her head up to the heavens. “Give me strength to endure” she prayed. “My heart desires to return, don’t set my feet behind”. She was yet to realize what a challenging quest she had ventured into.
A young girl away from her home is an easy prey while settling abroad is one of the hardest things. Combined, your life can easily become hell. Her first year was tumultuous, many nights she decided to return the next morning and rose and stood again for another fight by morning. Half the coin Magda had given was over when her chance turned again. Tamir, then King of Iena had a whopping six daughters but no sons, marking the end of his line. Mona spent a healthy sum to find a chance to talk to him face to face. “I can, my lord, aid your wife at birth and hopefully give you a boy” she said once present at his court.
“And who the hell are you?”
Such deeply thought and perfectly put question it was! Mona gave a brief answer, neither she could tell much. Tamir had better things to worry about and dismissed her but remembered that day two months later. Men found Mona and brought to the court. “What is it that you need for a boy” he asked.
“Nothing my king, except your blessings.”
She was granted all she needed and stayed at the palace till the big day. She prayed to gods for a boy all this time, probably more than the king and the queen, for the case was made crystal clear:
“You’ll be handed a home and a chest full of coin if it’ll be a boy. All your limbs will be cut and distributed to four corners of the kingdom if it’s another girl.”
How was she sure that it was to be a boy? Well, she wasn’t. The births she attended, they were mostly boys so far and that was all she relied upon. Gods smiled upon her and a tiny thing was swinging between the legs of the new-born. Not only she had a home and a modest fortune but also suddenly became famous in the city and beyond, many in need or desire of a boy started coming to her. Of course, many girls opened their eyes to this beautiful world in her hands but you know how it is: once you fancy someone, mistakes are easy to turn a blind eye to.
-IX-
Tamir had two more sons thanks to Mona and died peacefully in his bed when his firstborn Kara turned ten, when Mona was thirty and happy. Had a good life for a simple farmer’s daughter, even for the nobles of the south. No one is happy with that they have, everyone wants more and reach another level, or set it higher, and Mona was no exception. With Tamir’s passing she decided to move south and start a new chapter in her life. Still unmarried, hence free of burdens and obstacles, she thought to experience another life, one not lived by many. She found four men to accompany him on the road, found a caravan leaving for Sval, sold her home and the rest, and left Iena on a mild morning never to return.
Thoughts of her sister filled her mind in Leira. How was she? Should have turned twenty-two already. Was she happy too?
Heard of talks about the soothsayer at the kitchen. “This one is different, talks about the coming of a new age. New age my ass”. His ass or not, she wanted to hear her prophecies, preferably from her own self, and remained with the caravan than finding another leaving for Argenta.
She wasn’t amazed with what she saw at the city. Her memories were but scenes behind a thick cloud of smoke, she wasn’t even sure if these were her memories or not. She didn’t miss the city, neither she missed the people. Wanted to see her sister and take her with, what she had would be enough for the two to start life anew, albeit she also knew that it was impossible. Never did a soothsayer leave the premises of the temple, needless to add the city.
She still created the chance to talk to her. Wrote a letter and managed to hand it to Roza secretly when she went to ask of her future. She didn’t have much hope but Roza understood what the letter meant, and told her to come later that night, and every night thereafter till the two had the chance, unseen by any other, even by the walls as the walls had eyes and ears, and talk, for a minute or hour, the much fate had decided.
-X-
Two weeks Mona was at the third gate of the temple. In the end Roza appeared with a veil on her face, the colour of her dress, both of which darker than the night, and took Mona to her room.
Mona expected to see her sister but found a different girl. Roza was so different that she hardly resembled the girl Mona knew. Two third of her life had passed behind the walls, being taught what she was supposed to be. Expecting otherwise wouldn’t make much sense. But why did she dare to talk to her, then? The price of such transgression was death for both. Why so?
“I saw you in many a dream and wanted to see with my two eyes once and for all.”
Their time was limited. Mona told Roza of the past and half decade, with the much detail their circumstance allowed. “Now I see why” Roza said. “Gods desired this to be”.
Roza hadn’t much to speak. She refused what Mona offered all three times. She was destined to be what she was and had no desire whatsoever to be another person, a mere mortal, a simple and humble being. She didn’t sound happy, no, neither she was unhappy. She had just accepted what life had brought. Isn’t this the case anyway? The indifferent are harder to change than the happy?
“Listen to me sister” Roza said, not knowing if this word meant the same thing for both. “There’s this long-forgotten poem few know of. I read it few years back and still can’t forget”.
“It’s of no importance if even these men of cloth don’t know it” Mona replied not caring about what it could be, hence with an unexcited voice unlike her sister. Still, Roza was to say what she had to say.
“That’s not for you to decide, neither for me. It’s Stephen’s prophecy. The last one he made burning at the stake, written by a monk there. Few copies of it were distributed around and as years passed, most if not all are lost. It is… He says that he’ll return. I feel that the time is about to come, gods sent you to me for a reason. It’ll be in your hands.”
“Come with me and it’ll be in ours, then?”
“Told you, I can’t. I’ll be here till the end, be it bitter or sweet. But you, you are different” Roza said, her face still hidden under her veil changed and read a verse from memory.
Man will turn into ashes and dust,
Man will die in the hands of men.
Man will wait and come the last,
Holding his sign in the rising sun.
“What should this mean?”
“I don’t know. There’s more to that” she said and spoke on.
Hidden blood’s bitterly revealed,
Three of ‘em, neither healed,
And the poison in the yield,
For him, he’s the innocent one.
Fire, fire! It is ablaze!
It all gets shorter within your gaze,
Falling the hill in the morning haze,
And rising to top with the endless run.
Shields will splinter, walls will fall,
Raising meads in the mighty hall,
He will stand, the rest will crawl,
And what’s started shall be done.
Roza’s voice got stronger and stronger as she spoke and was a cry in the last line. She, breathing heavily, fell from her seat. Mona hardly managed to raise her when she heard footsteps. “Quickly” Roza showed a closet and Mona hid inside. Nuns were used to such scenes, saw that the soothsayer was doing fine and left. Roza took Mona out, gave her a robe and told to follow few steps behind after few minutes when the halls sounded empty. The two walked in shadows and the time for the last farewell came. “Go, be merry sister” Roza said taking the robe from Mona’s back. “Gods are with you. Use your power wisely”.
Mona had many questions of which the answers were never to be given by Roza. “Can I” she asked showing the veil on her sister’s face.
“That’s a sin enough to burn you in hell forever.”
“Let gods decide when the time comes.”
“I’ll pray for you today and forever” Roza said and removed the veil. Oh my, what a beautiful girl she had become! Her blue eyes shone like the moon in the dark of the night and her skin got so pale that it was whiter than the purest milk. Mona looked mediocre at best, gods had taken her share of beauty and gave to her sister. “Go now” Roza said putting the veil back on quickly. “We needn’t be seen by unauthorized eyes”. She closed the door without waiting for Mona to say a last word and the two sisters were separated by a tiny wall bigger and stronger than Garamald Mountains.
-XI-
Mona returned to the inn in thoughts. She was worried for her sister, the girl had accepted what life had brought but was so much, what was it, indifferent? No, it was something else. Accepted. Yeah, it sounded better. She wouldn’t care about anything, be it good or bad, happy or sad, joyful or painful. “Maybe it’s better” Mona thought realizing how powerless she actually was. Life is beautiful because of uncertainty, because nothing is taken for granted and it matters only if you expect. Roza had no expectations, she took it all as they came. It was no life and Mona had nothing to drag her out but at least Roza wouldn’t know sadness or pain.
She had thought to stay in Sval for a while after reuniting with her sister but with what went on, she took off at the earliest chance to the heart of Wanda: Argenta.
Argenta is the capital of Wanda, the biggest empire both in history and the moment, and it was the biggest city on earth for centuries. More than one and half million people were living in and beyond its walls and there sat the biggest garrison as well. All colors danced in the city: white, red, yellow, blue, green, brown, black… Not only buildings and tools and clothes and shoes but also the people were of all colors, making it a huge mess with its own unique harmony. The square where once the monastery stood had statues and monuments plated in gold and the view mesmerized even them Damarians. Mona thought that she found her home in the end.
They say that nothing moves faster than light, yet it isn’t comparable to the speed of rumor and fame. Mona’s name had arrived in Argenta long before herself and thanks to having studied Wandan back in Iena, she directly was at work the next day she arrived in the city.
Years passed with her travels around the south, from the places to castles, and barns to ruinous dwellings, and countless children of all colors, sexes and social classes were born in her hands. With each she remembered the prophecy Roza had told her. Hearing once was enough for it to be written in stone and never left her mind – even when she was laying sick, tired, or asleep. Not taking it much seriously in the beginning, later she gave in and started looking for the prophesied child. She was more than happy seeing the children being no less and more than ordinary. She wasn’t ready for poisons and fires and what not. “Better after me if such thing will happen, if it will at all” she was thinking. “No need to see the end of the world, it’s much beautiful to vanish”.
As she was turning thirty-five, she thought to get married and have a family of her own but found no good candidate. She was happy to have a man when she wanted and not other times, and her wealth had grown much enough to be considered rich by many only except the royalty, the blue bloods and some merchants. Why would she share it with someone else other than the poor? Yeah, she was keeping half the income from the rich to herself and giving away the other half to the poor.
Her heart was set to move again when she turned forty. She had seen Damaria couple of times, even spent one winter there when snow closed the roads. She found the envoy in Argenta and asked for John’s permission to settle, which was granted swiftly. She thought to retire from work and live the rest of her days in peace, Damaria was the best place to do that. She tried but failed. Having mastered her art, people didn’t leave her alone however much she refused. That’s when her school was founded: she raised midwives, taught women all she knew about anatomy and chemistry and the mechanics of birth and especially what needed to be done the first month the baby was born. Her earlier fame with boys had changed to her losing almost no mother and child under her watch. She was blessed folk thought; gods were present with her. It of course wasn’t the case. She had just learned how to soothe women, how to pull the baby and treat them, and above and beyond that the importance of hygiene and cleanliness. She didn’t need to tell this to everyone though. Why become ordinary after becoming a myth, eh?
Mona was forty-five the night Anna had called her. She was enjoying a perfect mulled wine and writing her book in her cozy home. “Not now damn it” she had thought when her door was knocked but “I’m coming” she said while thinking otherwise. Gods should have had something in mind, hence she took two boarded girls from the school and left soon after. The night was crazy, they could hardly see few meters away and Mona was to return home sending the girls alone. She saw fire from a window and a little child, again born in her hands playing with her parents. “It’s my last job” she swore to herself. “Morrow I’m retired even if it costs my head”.
Anna hardly managed to open the door to them. Mona felt like it was warmer outside than inside. How the hell was it possible? Told the girls what to do and she got into position, and her last job started. You know the rest for the night.