would think if she could see him standing in this clearing, in the company of two dead bodies and one unconscious prisoner. Yes, Mama, you were right, he thought, very bad things happen in the dark.
II
Elga had the whores all gathered around her in her cell; there were five of them now, three having been brought in during the night. She was regaling them with secrets, tips, and easy tricks, what herbs and teas to drink to avoid diseases, what to scrub yourself with, the subtle ways to spot the crooked policeman who could be bought or seduced, along with simple recipes for lavender perfumes to bring the right kind of customer. She explained the pulls of the night, how understanding the lunar cycles could help them navigate customers’ moods (men paid more on the half-moon, fucked longer on the new moon, fell for any flattery on a quarter moon, and could cut you on a full moon). She told them which birds to watch for omens, how to use menstrual blood for curses, and made them laugh and chortle with her stories about the tiny-cocked corporal and the prudish cardinal who shit his bed. She told them about Catherine the Great’s sumptuous bedroom and all the proud noblemen the queen had bled dead in return for their affection. She let them know how bergamot oil could clear away pimples, how turnips made skin boils recede, and how to kill boot fungus with long soaks of cider vinegar.
“I’ll tell you one important thing,” she said. “If you ever marry a man, don’t take his name. Tell him you’re untraditional, make a scene, have a fight, but”—she shook her finger in their faces—“always keep that one precious thing. Men want to swallow you down, take all of you, even your name, like a big fish gulps down minnows. I tell you, your name is the piece they cannot have. I have been chased by the law and I have been forced into hiding, but I have always used my own name, in every country where I have ever been, even if the police know it, it’s no matter. Your name is the only important word there is. If you lose your name, you lose your strength, and here amid the beasts you need all the strength you can get.”
She asked which of them wanted a husband. Three of the women, blushing, raised their hands. Elga nodded. “See? That’s good,” she said, pointing at the giggling ones. “That’s the way you get a husband, through laughter and tears, back and forth, all the time, like one of those metronomes sitting on top of a fancy fat parlor piano. Tick tock, tick tock, tears and laughter, play it well and you will confuse and bewilder him and he can be yours. He will try to outthink you, outflank you, calm you down, but you can always dance around him with your weeping and your mirth, ha ha ha, until he is pulled under the same way a great whale drags the massive whalers deep to the bottom of the sea. Of course,” she shrugged, “it won’t work on the smart ones, but luckily, ha ha ha, the world has no shortage of stupid men.”
At this, an awkward silence fell over the group. “What?” asked Elga. “Why so quiet?”
One of the girls spoke up. “But what if I want to be with a man I can love and honor, not a big dumb oaf?”
“Ah, um, I see, so you want a trick for that new kind of love you see all over your matinees and musicals? Boy meets girl and they hold hands, ha, you want that shit?” Elga spat on the floor. “Bah. Those tricks exist, yes. There is a spell for every hunger, every need, mmmn, yes, but, mmn…” She shook her head. “Only fools go there.” She was quiet for a few moments, stewing in her thoughts. Finally she noticed they were still watching. “Get away, leave me, go!” she shrieked. They huddled off to the far side of the cell while Elga sat on her thin pallet and brooded.
These modern girls were too soft, she thought, even the tough ones wanted to be spoiled and pampered. None of them were warriors. Her mind wandered back to the beginning, when she traveled with the ancient trains of archer and spear. The leader of that first group, Oba, who had allowed Elga into their camp, now showed her the way. The other women welcomed her warily; one, named Temra, loaned her bedding and shared her ration. Another, named Rasha, gave her some torn rags along with a needle to sew her own clothes. They were following a chanyu’s army whose name Elga had since forgotten. She did recall how, after many months in the field, this ruler had drunkenly quarreled with Oba over their lot of plunder, and how that night, hours after the victory banquet, Elga was awoken by Rasha and told to quietly gather her things. One by one, the women followed Oba, stepping over the soldiers who lay, unmoving, on the banquet floor. Climbing high up the dry hills above the valley, Elga looked back at the silent camp. “I thank the stars no one awoke to catch us,” she said to Rasha.
“Don’t thank the stars,” Rasha said with a wry smile, “thank poison.”
That was when Elga realized how foolish it was to fear an army.
Over the years, they found countless other khans, nizams, rajes, and princes to serve. Each time, victory followed their hire as they traced the armies’ paths across the fields, hills, ridges, and steppes, east to west and back again, laying the charms for victory, nursing the wounded, burning the dead, and taking their share of the bounty. The pattern was as constant as the North Star: after every battlefield success, their host’s pride would grow and swell until finally the vain and foolish victor wholly believed that it was only his strategic foresight and sharp-eyed skills that had forged all his good fortune. He would grow impatient with the imperious Oba and her crafty tribe, who were, after all, no more than superstitious wenches—skilled with the healing arts, yes, but too ugly to look at. Then requests would be refused and lines would be drawn.
Some died from wild blue lightning fire searing their camps, some found their tents coursing thick with plague rats, some tasted polluted wine; and then there were the fortunate ones whom Oba benevolently indulged, allowing a more glorious end as their heads were sliced off in a clean flash by their enemies’ bright, shining steel. But in every case, arrogance and hubris turned once proud armies into simple carrion, lying plenty for a murder of crows, as the women marched on.
With every day, Elga learned more. Her christening bath had been in a pool by the Belaya River. Her dream had been of a snake wrapped around a white marble egg. Oba could not tell her what the egg signified, but the marble meant a long life and the snake, she said, was a very good spirit to have on your side. She taught Elga how to grind up the serpents’ sloughed-off skin and inhale it, which brought visions of all varieties: some came as prophecies and predictions; others tore the fabric of reality away, giving her fractured glimpses with meanings far greater than she could comprehend; and others merely widened her perspective and control, letting her chart the paths of her enemies’ approach.
She gained other virtues as well, wisdom, strength, and, most important of all, time. The serpents’ smoke entwined with the eternity of death, slowing the effect of her years to a mountain’s crawl, so that men’s sons were born as babes, grew to men, withered ancient, and were buried in the time it took a wrinkle to even hint its presence at the corner of her eye. But age she did, along with all her sisters, centuries slow, but sure, as they passed back and forth between the comforts of the court and rougher life with the army in the field, tending to the healing tents and bargaining for fates as imperial borders wandered and kingdoms dissolved into dust.
From almost the very first, Temra was her closest friend. Elga had no idea how old she was, only that she had served Oba for eons and could sense from a glance or a footfall the old woman’s many moods. Temra cautioned when to stay out of Oba’s path and, alternatively, when it was timely to ask for favor. Over the years, she also provided wise guidance on how to master this range of new powers. “You are a different animal now, but you are not evil. Like the serpent who guides you, you can be an ally to many,” Temra told her. Elga could not think of any beast allied with the serpent, but she did not contradict her friend. She merely worked her days and lay through the nights as the years fell around them like drops of rain.
Elga stayed with Oba, Temra, and the rest of the tribe for what would have been the span of four lives, studying, listening, watching. To memorize the spells, she mimicked Temra by the firelight and then turned them backward, spinning them into riddle songs that she repeated as she followed the dusty long trains of mules and camels.
Finally, in the end, she was forced to flee, once again alone and frightened. Oba’s mind had slowly blackened with a seething paranoia that wrapped around her thoughts like a choking ivy. Obsessive, secretive, and certain that those around her were trying to hurt and betray her, she sulked and brooded and kept to her tent. Then, one by one, the other women of the tribe began taking ill, some mortally stricken with fever, others dying from bloody cramps. Plague pyres burned and suspicions grew. Finally, one night, Oba sent a message for Elga to come to her side. When Elga found her, Oba whispered that she needed help taking the conspirators down, and that the worst of the plotters was Temra. Elga begged to leave, Temra was a sister, friend, and lover to her, but Oba firmly insisted. Elga asked why she could not do it herself, why she needed her help, and that was when she
