The Tattooed Princess

A Taste of Freedom

            With the first snow of fall already lightly covering the great steppe lands, a delegation from the Slavic tribes to the west rode into the Pazyryk territory accompanied by twenty of their own armed guards. While promises earlier by their leaders had been to rage a counterattack in vengeance, the envoy  now had a different message. Following Sharvur's last incursion into their lands for plunder, cooler minds by now had prevailed. The leaders of these gentler, agricultural communities sought to invite the violent and unpredictable Sharvur with his nomad counselors to their lands to discuss some form of truce between their peoples.

            For Sharvur, a Scythian king, dependent upon yearly raiding parties for their sustenance—mainly foodstuffs grown from crops, crafted goods and domesticated animals as the Slavs had learned to keep—any form of agreement to not attack in the future was a futile proposition. Yet this delegation made their formal appeal, and Sharvur, seeing perhaps some opportunity of gains, was willing to go and hear what was offered to him. Zaria, learning of Sharvur's immediate departure for at least ten days, was delighted, as it would allow her time to do certain things she had only dreamed of doing of late.

            As Sharvur would take the vigilant Krido with him for advice and strategy at the meeting, Zaria knew these days would be free from the oppression and control over her every movement which she had lived under within the palace for so long. To this end she had Mila, her faithful friend and confidant now, deliver a message to Tsudros that she wanted to flee the palace and be with him temporarily during this time of relaxed surveillance. As Sharvur made ready for his trip and enlisted Murka and several other generals, along with thirty warriors for security, Mila returned the following evening with the answer from Tsudros that he was willing and ready to embark with her on this temporary flight of freedom into the wilderness.

            Sharvur, knowing that Branka was attending to the healing Svetlana and at the same time monitoring Moshtok's final days of recovery in his home, he assumed Zaria would be content looking out for her friends. He believed she might otherwise enjoy the quiet days in the palace alone in his absence. Little did he know that such enjoyment would involve meeting under no anxious oppression the man she now dreamed of each night alone in her stone chamber.

            As Sharvur prepared to leave, he told Zaria that she would be attended by Mila and was expected to stay under the highest degree of protection within the palace at all times. Whether or not he would agree to any truce with her people, the Slavs, at this celebrated enclave involving future invasions, he still held her powers of protection confidently. He saw in her very being the highest validity of something supernatural and a secret force he truly believed in. As a final admonition, the king reminded her of the restrictive, albeit cruel terms of her conditions within his court.

            Taking no stock in this mythical idea about her virginity and preservation of innocence, especially now that her close friends themselves had moved into young womanhood, Zaria was not sure what she would do if given the opportunity to break the spell while with Tsudros. Nevertheless, she also knew Sharvur was a man who would go to any  lengths to maintain her status and would no doubt inspect her body at any whim if he suspected she had been corrupted. Such an inspection which did not meet with is satisfaction surely meant a termination of her life and the man who molested her as well. And it was with this knowledge and her defiance of Sharvur that she looked forward to her and Tsudros's few days of dangerous freedom in the wilds.

            Once Sharvur, his advisors and soldiers rode out in tandem with the Slavic warriors to meet at a central village—at least a four day journey to the west, Mila returned from Tsudros' humble tent, reporting to her that he had packed a smaller more portable tent for their protection from the cold, some days food, and would have two horses ready for her as she was brought to him in disguise. The plan was to have her appear as a simple village girl, her head  covered in the typical wrap women wore from the fall throughout the sever winter months in the region.