The Princess and the Captain

by Anne-Laure Bondoux

  ‘Westwards?’

  Malva almost cried out aloud with the combined shock of fear and dismay. Philomena turned to her, hands on her hips.

  ‘It’s a matter of life and death, Malva. If the Amoyeds have found us again they’re not going to let us beat them so easily this time.’ And then, to soothe Malva, Philomena took her in her arms. ‘We have to trust Uzmir. He saved us once, he’ll save us again! And as soon as the danger’s over we’ll set off for Elgolia again, I promise you.’

  Feeling stunned, Malva gathered her things together, put on her oryak-skin jacket and boots, and then stepped out into the early morning air with Philomena. At once the icy cold paralysed them.

  The steppes stretched before them as far as the eye could see, flat and still, while a weak sun tried to rise above the horizon in the east. Malva cast a bitter glance in that direction. The promise of Elgolia was retreating, and with it a little of the hope that helped her to rise above the ordeals of the harsh nomadic life: the biting cold, the monotony of the high plateaux, the shattering exhaustion. She sighed. The Great Azizian Steppes set a boundless, hostile barrier between her and the country of Elgolia. Would she have the strength to face all this again if she had to turn her back on her dream now?

  While Philomena strapped their blankets under her horse’s belly, Uzmir came to offer Malva a cup of grey tea and a few paghul cakes. Then he turned to their tent, and took it down with the help of two other men.

  ‘Those horrible cakes again!’ wailed Philomena, when Malva handed her a share. ‘No thank you!’

  Malva put the cakes in the pocket of the jacket she still wore under her oryak-skin coat. She usually laughed at Philomena and her taste for luxury. ‘I’m the Princess!’ she used to point out. ‘I’m the one who ought to be complaining!’ But this morning she made no comment. The atmosphere weighing on the camp was heavy with anxiety, and no one felt like laughing.

  The women and children had gathered around the carts after piling them high with blankets, tentpegs, battered copper cauldrons, cooking utensils and chibuks. Malva saw at once that they were going to miss the stolen horses badly. Some of the old people were preparing to walk, even though they could hardly keep on their feet. She went to find Uzmir to indicate that she could walk herself. But Uzmir shook his head and pointed to her right leg. Malva was surprised. How did he know about her injury?

  ‘I told him all about it,’ admitted Philomena, seeing her look so taken aback.

  ‘What do you mean, all about it?’

  ‘Well … our shipwreck, that creature whose name we don’t know that bit you, the wise woman in Sperta …’

  Malva was annoyed. ‘What else? Did you tell him about our flight from Galnicia too, and the wedding I missed? We swore to keep all that a secret!’

  Philomena blushed slightly, but the Princess had no time to scold any more. The tents had all been taken down, the horses were pawing the ground, and there was a sense of urgency in the air.

  Malva resigned herself to mounting her horse, and the caravan immediately set off. The men led, the old people and children were in the middle, and the women brought up the rear.

  As the sun rose a cold, unpleasant wind got up too, sweeping over the short grass and stinging the riders’ lips. Malva hunched her head down between her shoulders and bent her back under its icy gusts. Philomena was walking beside her, holding the bridle of the horse Malva was riding. There was a smell of fear and disaster in the air; none of the horsemen said a word.

  After an hour, Malva began to feel the silence was oppressive. She needed to talk to drive her fears away.

  ‘What will be the first thing you do once we get there?’ she abruptly asked Philomena.

  The chambermaid looked up, frowning. ‘Oh, Malva, you’ve asked me that a hundred times already!’

  ‘Tell me again!’

  Philomena heaved a sigh of resignation. ‘There’, of course, meant Elgolia.

  ‘I’ll look for that lake the sailor talked about,’ she said obligingly. ‘The bubbling lake of warm water.’

  ‘Lake Barath-Thor,’ said Malva, feeling a little more cheerful.

  ‘Yes, that’s the one. I shall plunge into it and stay there for hours doing nothing at all, bathing my frozen feet and my poor tired back. And if I get ten years younger too, as the sailor said, well, why not?’

  ‘I won’t bathe in it!’ Malva laughed. ‘I’d risk ending up a little girl again!’

  Philomena nodded.

  ‘Well?’ said Malva. ‘Ask me what I shall do first!’

  Philomena tightened her lips. These questions troubled her, but she always ended up doing as her mistress wanted. ‘Well, what will you do, then?’

  ‘I’ll climb the thousand-year-old tree growing on top of Mount Ur-Tha,’ replied Malva delightedly. ‘With a little luck I’ll be able to see all the way to Galnicia.’

  ‘If you do that you might want to go home,’ Philomena teased.

  ‘Not me! When I’m at the top of that tree I’ll put out my tongue at Galnicia, the Archont, the Coronada and the Coronador. Then I’ll come straight down again and build a house beside the sea, in that bay where a sweet wind blows. The Bay of Dao-Boa. I’ll live there for ever and write the story of our adventures!’

  In her imagination, the Princess had drawn a map of the entire geography of Elgolia, using the descriptions and names mentioned by old Bulo. She could see herself in the Bay of Dao-Boa, chopping wood, nailing planks together, building the framework of her future home.

  ‘It won’t be a big place, Philomena. There won’t be any towers, any Hall of Delicacies, any basins of water like the ones in the Citadel. But it will be my house. The house I built with my own hands.’

  Philomena wasn’t really listening. She knew these dreams by heart, and if the truth were told, she didn’t really believe that Elgolia existed. Galnician girls have their feet planted firmly on the ground and believe only what they can see. Malva was exactly the opposite: she needed to believe in what she couldn’t see.

  The caravan was making slow progress, stringing out as time went on. Malva looked up at the sky, and saw that the sun would soon be halfway through its daily course. She pulled at her horse’s bridle to make it stop.

  ‘Your turn to ride,’ she told Philomena, jumping down.

  The chambermaid didn’t have to be asked twice, and Malva began walking, limping slightly. Her feet were numb and her fingertips frozen. In front of her, the children in the carts had fallen asleep on their mothers’ knees. Further ahead, she saw the sturdy shapes of the men riding beside Uzmir. It all seemed like any other day, and there was nothing threatening on the horizon.

  ‘Uzmir may have been wrong,’ suggested Malva, as they went up a small rise in the ground where thornbushes grew. ‘Perhaps the horse-thieves weren’t Amoyeds after all …’

  She had hardly spoken these words when cries arose at the head of the caravan. The men had temporarily disappeared into a dip in the ground below. Malva and Philomena couldn’t see them, but the wind carried alarming sounds back to them.

  The carts stopped, and the horses pricked their ears nervously. Women stood in their stirrups, straining to see. Through the howling gusts of wind, Malva thought she heard the clash of weapons and the sound of men riding in haste.

  Suddenly one of the women kicked her horse’s flanks, dropped the reins, and set off to scout ahead. Philomena and Malva exchanged glances, but not a word passed their lips. Their mouths suddenly felt dry. Soon afterwards the woman came back at a gallop, shouting.

  ‘Amoyeds! Amoy—’

  Her cry was immediately stifled in her throat, and she collapsed over her horse’s mane: a crescent-shaped axe had just landed between her shoulder blades.

  Malva felt the blood in her veins turn to ice. Instantly, panic seized the caravan. Horses reared, women rode away at a gallop, carts overturned with a crash.

  ‘Take the horse!’ Philomena ordered. She scrambled off its back and pushed Malva towards it instead. Th
e Princess was petrified. Her legs would no longer obey her.

  ‘Quick!’ shouted Philomena. ‘Get up on that horse and save yourself!’

  ‘What about you?’ said Malva, distraught.

  Philomena stared at her, eyes wide with fear. ‘Never mind about me. Get up on the horse, I tell you!’

  Without knowing quite how, Malva suddenly found herself on the horse’s back. At the front of the column riders appeared, brandishing their silvery weapons. They wore the black hoods of Amoyed warriors.

  All around was chaos. The children were crying and running this way and that, dishevelled women were trying to escape, pricking their legs on the thorny bushes. Philomena tugged at the horse’s bridle and then hit its croup.

  ‘I’ll find you later!’ she called to Malva. ‘I must go and help Uzmir!’

  Malva turned just in time to see her running and leaping over the wrecked carts. She was making straight for the Amoyeds! Malva wanted to call to her, to beg her to stay, but her terrified mind was floating in a kind of fog. The horse was galloping on, away from the battlefield. Behind Malva, other horses were pounding the earth with their hooves, trampling on tents now left in rags, abandoned utensils, crates of food that had broken open.

  Suddenly the horse shied. Malva’s leg collided with another horse’s flank, and she felt a terrible burning sensation on her skin. The next moment blood was flowing from her old wound. It had just reopened under the impact.

  The effect was electrifying. The fog in her mind cleared instantly, and she recovered her spirits. ‘Philomena!’ she yelled, suddenly realising that they had been separated for the first time since the beginning of their journey.

  She seized the reins and pulled with all her might. The horse almost reared and Malva lost her turban, but she managed to keep her balance. When she finally turned, what she saw stunned her. The caravan was only a shapeless heap: men, horses, carts all jumbled up together, a scene of confusion from which the steel of swords and the shining blades of axes flashed out now and then. Cries rose to the sky. The ground was nothing but mud and blood.

  ‘Come on!’ Malva shouted to her horse. She forced it forward with all her might. The pain in her leg made her breath come short, but she had to find Philomena. Without Philomena, she was lost. Nothing seemed possible without her!

  As she came closer, arrows whistled past her ears. She flattened herself on her horse’s neck as best she could.

  ‘Philomena!’ she shouted again.

  Suddenly the horse stumbled over a wrecked cart. Malva felt it falter. Whinnying, it threw her to the ground, but her foot caught in the stirrup, and she was dragged through the dust for a few moments, until her horse rolled over in the midst of the chaos. Malva uttered a cry of pain and distress.

  The last thing she saw was the moist muzzle of an enlil bending over her, and a row of human teeth dangling from a leather thong.

  12

  Philomena’s Decision

  The noise of fighting had died away, and cries had given way to groans and weeping. The little rise covered with thornbushes looked as if it had been ploughed up. But neither wheat nor barley had been sown there. Only the dead and wounded lay in the deep furrows, their weapons broken, their oryak-skin coats torn.

  The Amoyeds had ridden away, abandoning those Baighurs who were still alive to their fate. Not a single horse was left on its feet. And over in the dip in the ground, a man was on his knees in front of a new bonfire, with his face in his hands: Uzmir the Supreme Khansha, weeping and chanting over the disaster.

  Philomena came back to her senses when she heard those strange sounds. She had fallen down the slope, rolled into the thorns, and hit her head against a stone before fainting.

  ‘Uzmir …’ she murmured, trying to get up. ‘Holy Tranquillity – he’s alive!’

  Although it cost her an enormous effort, she managed to stand up. And then, seeing the dead all around her, she took in the magnitude of the catastrophe. Her head was spinning, and her blood suddenly drained towards her heart.

  ‘Malva,’ she said. ‘Where’s Malva?’

  She climbed the slope, ignoring the thorns that dug into her knees and the palms of her hands when she fell. Once at the top, she saw the upturned carts, the trampled crates and chibuks, the tents torn to shreds, and had a dreadful presentiment.

  ‘Malva!’ she shouted.

  Her voice was carried away by the gusts of wind from the steppes. In the midst of the chaos, a Baighur woman and her little girl were wandering about in tears, disorientated, their faces smeared with mud. Philomena went over to them. In the Baighur language, she asked if they had seen Malva.

  The dazed woman shook her head, but the little girl clinging to her skirt pointed to the way the Amoyeds had gone. She told Philomena that she had seen one of the warriors carry the Princess away on his enlil.

  ‘Are you sure?’ breathed Philomena, on the verge of fainting.

  The little girl nodded, and searched her pocket. She brought out the Archont’s medallion, which she had just picked up from the wreckage. Her mother looked despairingly at Philomena. Everyone who travelled the steppes knew that the Amoyeds sold young girls to the Emperor of Cispazia.

  ‘Cispazia …’ Philomena repeated. ‘Malva … sold!’

  She took the medallion and burst into tears.

  ‘By all the Divinities of the Known World!’ she cried. ‘If anything happens to my Princess, may the Archont die on the spot!’

  She collapsed in the mud. All the hard times they had known together went through her mind. The Archont’s medallion burned like a hot coal in her hand. A memento of his villainy, Malva had called it. Philomena raised her eyes to the vast sky of the steppes. Who in the world could help her save Malva now? It would take an army to snatch her from the hands of the Amoyeds or this Emperor. The Baighurs were decimated. Where could Philomena turn?

  She pounded the ground with her fist. If only the Coronador and the Coronada had felt a little compassion for their daughter! If only they hadn’t been so cruel, so set in their ways! If they’d listened to their child none of this would have happened!

  Philomena sobbed for some time. She thought that back in Galnicia, everyone must believe them dead. She imagined the country plunged, as it surely was, into mourning. The Galnician people had always loved Malva. They would be lamenting the loss of their Princess. In the face of this tragedy, perhaps the Coronador was beginning to realise that he had done the wrong thing? Perhaps he felt remorseful? Perhaps, after all, he’d be glad and relieved to know that Malva was alive? Suppose he knew how the Archont had worked on his young pupil’s mind until she made her rash bid to escape?

  Perhaps, yes … and anyway, what other choice did she, Philomena, have?

  ‘Holy Harmony!’ she murmured. ‘Forgive me, Malva … forgive me, my all-but-sister.’

  Before she lost consciousness again, she knew exactly what she must now do.

  13

  The Mysterious Messenger

  Orpheus was woken by a ray of sunlight tickling his nose, and voices coming in from outside. Surprised, he opened his eyes. He saw a scrap of blue sky through his bedroom window, and smiled with pleasure. It was months since he had seen the sun!

  He went to open his window, and saw an extraordinary sight outside: the washerwomen were back. Taking advantage of the good weather, they were spreading their sheets and tablecloths on the rooftops opposite. Their voices answered each other in the old familiar way, rising in the fragrant morning air.

  ‘It must be wrong,’ said one woman. ‘Just a rumour, that’s all it is!’

  ‘Not at all!’ said the eldest washerwoman huffily. ‘I heard it from my sister. She’s a cook in the Citadel, and if you call her a liar again I’m denouncing you to the patrol!’

  The first woman raised her fist threateningly. ‘And what, may I ask, would you be denouncing me for?’

  ‘For infringing the sixty-fourth edict, that’s what!’ retorted the other woman, pouting. ‘I heard you th
e other day! You were singing in your kitchen!’

  Under the amused eyes of Orpheus, the other women soon joined in the argument. Some of them ventured to say in an undertone that the Archont’s edicts were unjust, and anyone had the right to sing in her kitchen, while other, more timid souls said that the law was the law.

  But they stopped squabbling when the youngest cried, ‘Oh, do look! There’s our shy friend at his window!’

  Orpheus started in alarm. He’d been caught at it again. But this time he made himself stand his ground. He wasn’t going to be humiliated by these washerwomen again. And anyway, the air was so mild this morning. He felt himself reviving a little, like a bear coming out of hibernation.

  ‘Good morning!’ he called to them.

  ‘Well, fancy that! He has a voice!’ mocked the first washerwoman.

  ‘And blue eyes … very, very blue,’ the youngest added.

  Orpheus blushed slightly but decided to keep cool. ‘What rumour were you talking about?’ he asked.

  The oldest washerwoman came to lean against the parapet of her rooftop. ‘You know, Master Shrinking Violet, eavesdropping on other people’s conversations is not very polite!’ she teased him. ‘But if you really want to know, it seems that a horseman arrived at the Citadel yesterday evening. My sister saw him. He’s a very strange fellow, with slanting eyes and dark skin, and he doesn’t speak our language, but he was bringing the Coronador a letter. That’s what I was just telling my neighbours.’

  The youngest washerwoman put her laundry basket down and came to lean on the parapet too. ‘According to her it’s a letter from Philomena, the Princess’s chambermaid. You remember her – she disappeared at the same time as the Princess herself.’

  ‘I see,’ said Orpheus, more and more interested. ‘So this chambermaid isn’t dead after all?’

  ‘Well, no,’ replied the oldest washerwoman. ‘And if she’s not dead, and if she wrote to the Coronador, I think all sorts of things may happen!’