Turtschaninoff Naondel

1. Auflage 2017
ISBN: 978-1-78269-134-1
Verlag: Pushkin Children's Books
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 448 Seiten

The founding story of the Red Abbey Chronicles, Naondel is a spellbinding tale of finding strength in friendship and never giving up hope, even in the darkest of times In the opulent palace of Ohaddin, women have one purpose - to obey. Some were brought here as girls, captured and enslaved; some as servants; some as wives. All of them must do what the Master tells them, for he wields a deadly and secret power. But the women have powers too. One is a healer. One can control dreams. One is a warrior. One can see everything that is coming. In their golden prison, the women wait. They plan. They write down their stories. They dream of a refuge, a safe place where girls can be free. And, finally, when the moon glows red, they will have their revenge. Maria Turtschaninoff was born in 1977 and has been writing fairy tales since she was five. She is the author of many books about magical worlds, has been awarded the Swedish YLE Literature Prize and has twice won the Society of Swedish Literature Prize. She has also been nominated for the 2017 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award and the 2017 CILIP Carnegie Medal. Naondel is part of the Red Abbey Chronicles which began with Maresi.

Maria Turtschaninoff was born in 1977 and has been writing fairy tales since she was five. She is the author of six novels about magical worlds, has been awarded the Finlandia Junior in 2014, the Swedish YLE Literature Prize, the Swedish Cultural Foundation in Finland Award and has twice won the Society of Swedish Literature Prize. She was also nominated for the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award in 2013 and 2017 and the 2017 CILIP Carnegie Medal.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Turtschaninoff, Maria

Weitere Mitwirkende

Prime, Annie

Leseproben

Garai

HE OTHER SLAVES IN THE HARRERA NIGHT camp gave me one piece of advice: “Scream and scratch him and you’ll only make it worse for yourself. Pretend to enjoy it and you’ll become his favourite. Then you might get special privileges. It’s the best the likes of us can hope for now.”

I am hoping for better. But I have followed their advice. It has already served me well.

I was afraid, of course. I have been afraid ever since my capture. I have not dared offer any resistance. Not even when the men came in the night to abduct me and my sisters while we were sleeping. They must have been tracking us for a long time. They struck when we had diverted our course from the clan for a few days, to gather healing herbs south of the Meirem Desert. No settler dares set foot in the desert itself. We would have been safe there. But we did not imagine any threat, and were not on our guard. I curse myself still. I am the eldest. I should have been more vigilant.

The men feared us. They believed we were powerful priestesses who could kill them with an utterance. They are the sort of folk who fear anything they do not understand. So they gagged our mouths and bound our hands. We were driven southward in haste, unchangingly southward, often under cover of night. Slave-trading is illegal in the northern lands. We were sold in a village to southern slave merchants with long hair and big beards. We came to a place—Harrera, I heard it called—a terrible place, stinking and foul. I was separated from my sisters. We did not cry. We had no tears left.

At the slave market I was tethered tight to a stake on a platform alongside other similarly young women. We all came from different lands, which was evident from our differing skin and hair. I was the only one with white hair and grey eyes. The men around the platform spoke to each other and pointed at me. From their gestures and glances I understood that I was valuable: their finest ware.

The auction began. I was saved until last. They wanted all eyes on me. The sun was merciless in Harrera—I had never experienced such heat before. My lips were dried and cracked. My kirtle clung to my body with sweat.

A man approached the platform. He was clothed in blue and white. Tall and slim, but with broad shoulders and thick, dark hair. His lips were very red. He was the only one who looked me in the eye. He did so for a long time. Then he called over one of my sellers.

“Is this how you take care of your treasures? You are ravaging her beauty with your damned sun.” He took out a purse. “Name your price. I will pay.” When the men stammered something about the auction he scoffed impatiently. “Name your price, I said, so that I may remove my property from the blazing heat before it is ruined.” He filled his hands with silver and gold, more than I knew existed in all the world. That was my price. That was how valuable I was. Then he gave orders, and a man hastened up to the platform and severed my bondage. I fell to my knees. The beautiful man extended a pitcher of cold water. I did not have the strength to raise it to my lips, so he held it to my mouth as I drank. Then he personally carried me away from the market. To shade. A stable, a stall. He let me rest there, and drink water, and somebody brought balm for my burnt skin. The next day he came to see me.

“You already look much better. Now I must find out whether I made a wise investment.” He untied his trousers. I immediately spread my legs.

He was careful not to hurt me, and I remembered the other slave girls’ advice. I had been with men before, clan men, who had done as much for my pleasure as for their own. This man did not do so. Why should he? I was not his equal: he owned me. It was soon over. Afterwards he seemed very pleased.

“A woman who knows her place, who does not fight back, or mutely grimace in disgust. And the most beautiful woman I have seen, besides. You will be a sensation in Areko. Yes, I should say that I made a good investment.” He wiped himself off on the hem of my kirtle. “I would have you bathe now, but we must leave this place. I have made a number of business arrangements here and it is wisest not to linger.”

“Yes, Master,” was my only response. I, Garai of the roaming folk, called him master. We who serve no master. We obey only the earth herself and her decrees. And so we roam, and honour our sacred sites, and keep our distance from the settlers. The ones who keep to their coins and houses, lords and laws. No human laws apply to us. The energy lines in the earth, her veins, lead us true on our treks. The ground bestows upon us the food and shelter we need. We carry our history with us in story and myth. Our cunning guards our spirits and bodies, and guides us through the storm. But now a new me is emerging. And this new self, this new Garai, has a master whom she bows to and spreads her legs for and obeys in all ways.

We left Harrera that same day. I was put farthest back in the caravan, on a pack mule with the rest of my master’s purchases. He had brought me shawls and hoods to shelter me from the hot sun, and I had plenty of water to drink, and was given a meal in the morning and another when we stopped for the night. I slept with my master in his personal tent. He never restrained me—because where could I run in this vast desert? I would be dead before I left their sight.

My master had his way with me every night. I continued to be compliant, gentle and placid. Unlike I had ever been before. But I knew I must push my old self down into the innermost recesses of my memory. My old ways must never re-emerge. Because though my master treated me well, and better and better the more I complied, I knew the truth. I saw the same thing in him as I had seen in the eyes of the men who stole me and my sisters that night, and in the eyes of the men who had sold me for silver and gold: to them I am a thing. Not a person with feelings or needs of her own. Just something for them to fear, or profit from, or use. The moment I become a burden they will do away with me. And I want to live. That is what the old Garai wants. She wants to return to the Meirem Desert, and hear her mother sing at sundown, and hold hands with her sisters. The new Garai does not believe any of this is possible. But the old Garai refuses to surrender.

Now we are in Areko, the capital city of the district of Renka, the land of my master. We arrived yesterday night, after a journey of many moons. I have bathed and been directed to a small room in my master’s residence. He told me that he only intends to stay here until his new palace in Ohaddin is ready. Then he will transfer the Sovereign Prince and his entire royal court to Ohaddin too. The Sovereign knows nothing of this yet. Tomorrow my master intends to present me for everybody to admire and adore. New clothes have been brought to my room, strange garments made of silk with brightly coloured embroidery. Ornamental combs to hold my hair up, bands for my arms and fingers—beautiful objects to show off my value. Everybody in this place is obsessed with objects. In the clan we had only what was needed, and that could be carried on our backs. Knives, rope, herbs, flint, food. Can a ring keep you warm at night? Can you eat an ornamental comb? Does an embroidered jacket heal a festering wound?

I have stolen paper and writing implements from my master’s purchases. Mother knows letters and the art of writing. It was one of the things she taught me as she was training me to become her successor and skillswoman of the clan. I have not often had reason to practise. There was never much reason to write anything down. All Mother’s knowledge is stored in her head, like seeds in a seed pod. Whatever I was curious about, she could pluck the necessary information from her memory and answer my questions. What need was there for writing? But she taught me the art simply because it was one of the skills she had acquired, and she wanted me to learn everything she knew.

Now for the first time in my life I have reason to write something down. My progress is slow. My hand lacks the facility that comes with practice. But I must struggle on. I find myself in a foreign land. Everybody around me speaks a foreign tongue. I understand some. In our clan we spoke Siddhi, the language of the roaming folk, but I know many others as well. One does when one is constantly on the move and encountering different peoples. I do not know how many languages Mother knows, certainly more than she has fingers. The language here in Areko is the same as one I learnt when we visited the sacred Mount Omone. It is much farther south than we usually roam and the language spoken in the provinces around the mountain was unlike anything I had heard before. Hard and angry, I thought it sounded, not at all like the many upland tongues. Here in Areko they speak a dialect with a slightly different accent, but most words are the same. I am relieved. It makes it easier for the new Garai. She cannot yet express much, but it is not expected of her. It is enough to understand.

There is comfort in having a language of my own to write in. I know that nobody can read what I have written. Through writing I can keep my native tongue alive. But the words seem lifeless on paper, as though their life seeps away when I bind them with my brush pen. There is so much more to a language than the letters. Melody, tone, rhythm, pauses—everything I have no way of capturing. Perhaps...