Chp 7
The servants witnessed the enthronement of the most beautiful girl that no one had ever seen. Dressed simply as a novice, with a belt of rosewood sockets around her frail waist, she received an iron ring with no inscriptions, an ancient shield with her heraldry, a soldier's sword and a simple gold headband as a symbol of her land ownership and rule of the fief.
Her poor fief was not enough for more... Who was talking about a bastard? If the whole town was a witness of her nobility, who was talking about a witch? If the ceremony to the holy sages lasted a morning and a half. The people without distinction participated inside the castle, in the immense parade ground, where their mistress showed herself without distance or arrogance. Humble as they were. They would give their lives more than once if she asked for it.... They were cheers and no one would ever forget it. Solemn was the moment in truth....
Afterwards everyone in their homes felt a kind of painful pride. They must all have been mad. She was a bastard and they swore allegiance to her. She was a bastard, and as a child she sat in her lord's old armchair and from there she sent them a blessing as if she were an older woman.
In the morning the old fief's flag flew from the north tower of the rickety castle.
Mad?. Mad was the girl indeed.
Crazier were her 22 soldiers who dawned practicing swords and attacks; starving old men, sick and weak. They began to disguise themselves as soldiers. It was the girl at dawn gave them every last coin of their old pay. They did not feel like mercenaries. They were soldiers of their young lady. To her they owed allegiance. Now, however, a major problem lay ahead. The emissary of the green and blue Dragon warrior, with his silken banner, had not left, had been patient and required that all with equal patience would have to listen to him,
Chapter II
The Great Lord of the Knights of the Cold Desert made his prayers. With satisfaction he had meditated upon the sacred words revealed to the prophet by the Most High.
Soon he was to be married, a marriage of state. The princess was very young, perhaps other arms of love had pretended to her. Yet there was agreement in the designs hidden from the eyes of men;
He was in the law of God, For at random he read and found the sacred sentence... "Blessed are the believers who practice good, For they shall obtain gardens under which rivers flow.Whenever they are graced with some of their fruits they will say: "This is the same as was granted to us before", but it will be so only in appearance.There they will have immaculate wives and there they will dwell eternally....
He was right then. She had been given to him by the Most High and so he would receive her, a wife here, a wife in Eden....
Satisfied he finished his duties on a luxurious carpet facing the dawn sun, when he could enjoy the morning wind, before the desert turned into a skin-breaking cold. He loved the desert, he felt comfortable in it. When he was in any of its palaces he felt drowned, though he was still called by the pleasures of the flesh and his innumerable mistresses, brides wives, brought from Cordoba, from Tumerkistan, from the hot river, from where they were slant-eyed and ardent in their sexuality, also came dark Nubian wide-hipped and weeping Mediterranean girls. They all satisfied him... However, he soon became jaded, and it was in the wide and lonely desert that he felt at ease. It was where happiness really was.
He got up from his carpet and contemplated the sunrise in all its power. He could say that in his lands the sun did not set. At the moment 3 rebellions were developing in the vastness of his lands, but they did not put in danger his power and to give them importance elevated the category of his rivals...They were interested in maintaining them and even to rise...That demonstrated that he was a human...He did not want to be compared with the gods of his vassals...It was an insult to his religiosity...And that would be intolerable.... He was a pious man, more political than military...
His family, for the east. The powerful Lim lords were eager to expand and decree an independent state. They wanted to go beyond Coimbra, they wanted to advance to distant Marseilles. ...without his blessing and the contribution of his caravans. It remained to be seen how much longer they could hold out...
I smiled at the sight of their white double-humped camels.
He did not UNDERSTAND WHY HIS FAMILIARS did not understand why HE DID NOT EXTEND TO OTHER LANDS.... HE DID NOT CARE AT ALL WHAT HAPPENED TO THE PEOPLES beyond the steppes and forests.STUPID,IGNORANT,PEST-ridden,BRUTAL AND COWARDLY..THEY DESERVED ALL THEIR DISRESPECT..EXCEPT THE SOFT SKIN OF THEIR WOMEN..They were good for nothing else at all....