Mistress Gladioli was tall and handsome like her son, with long tresses of black hair kept braided with just a hint of grey at the temples.
Her house was sparsely furnished but she made up for that in her appearance. Her grooming was in the Grand Calormene style; long loose trousers cinched at the ankle, embroidered tunics and jackets, long ornate scarves wrapping her shoulders and often around her head, thick bracelets, gold and pearls at the ear and turquoise at her throat and bare arms when it was warm enough. At other times she swathed herself in long loose robes of finest homespun. In her middle years, she cut an outlandish, though not completely surprising figure in the streets and hills around Armouthe. She was not the only Calormene who had sought a life in a different land to their birth.
One of the benefits of living in Armouthe was that it was connected enough to the outer world, that the sight of a Calormene woman striding along the street wafting exotic perfumes and carrying her stock of wares was less shocking to many locals than it might have been in other places… such as Anvard.
To visitors from the Eastern islands and the Calormene provinces of the south, Gladioli was a positively ordinary person compared to some of the half-human beings and Talking Beasts whose ancestors of Narnian origin were trotting about. It had certainly been a shock to know that there were such beings abroad in the world and here they were in such profusion. She thought she had seen a lot of the world before she was 19 but this was different again. She came to realise that the more living beings were different, the more they were actually the same.
So after encountering the happy amiable ways of Narnia and to a lesser extent Armouthe, it had come as a devastating shock to come across stuffy old Anvard. A beautiful place at the top of the range with the full southern sun sweeping across the landscape, and views right across the desert to the distant tropical mountains of south-western Calormen, it could have been idyllic. But the local people who lived in nearby villages and who maintained the castle spick and span for the summer and autumn seasons of hunting parties and royal retreats, would not have surprised her if they had started to throw knives her way. Her dark complexion and obvious Calormene origin stood against her here. She had found that she had to cover her arms, encase her hair in nets and scarves, wear long heavy skirts, even rub white powder and oil into her skin and pretend to be mild and meek. She had been there only once. Once was enough.
Gladioli had also been surprised and challenged at the stories told about human history in these countries; that Narnia was where it all began; where all the races and beings were first created... except humans.
To hear that humans originally came from another world and that they were the source of both the greatest wisdom as well as being the source of greatest evil was a troubling thought. The way she understood it, this implied that they had to be the most responsible and take the greatest leadership. Hence Narnia and Archenland had Kings and Queens who were sons of Adam and daughters of Eve (whoever they were), instead of dwarves, fauns, centaurs, or dryads, or Talking Cats for that matter.
For her, the source of all beginnings had always been the sands of the great desert out of which spun the skirling winds and the sandstorms that brought the spirits of new life to women's wombs and new fertility to the soil. Or the great tropical mountains and volcanos of the far south with great rivers spilling across the savannahs which transformed the lands into a burgeoning floodplain awash with life.
But as she had left her own country in desperate straits, she found she had to contemplate the wisdom of other places. It had been while she had sojourned in Narnia in her early adult years that she discovered the living gods of the woods and streams, the perpetual flame of Lantern Waste, the cold and terrible Stone Table and the centaurs and their skill in interpreting the dance of the stars in the great lanes of the firmament.
It was these experiences which set her on a course to learn more about other tools and devices to help ordinary people see just a little further into the chances of their own lives. And in order to survive in Archenland, Gladioli had contemplated several options, from oyster farming to seamstress work, none of which appealed.
In the end she set herself up as a maker and purveyor of items she had been trained in; pessaries and poultices, astringents, lubricants, abortifacients, tonics made from herbs and strange sea-creatures, and interesting items made from sheep appendixes.
She had had to learn many of these skills earlier in her life and she came to believe after her many adventures and encounters with the Lion, that she had been intended to use this knowledge with Aslan's blessing.
Her skills in this area were real enough and formidable, for she rarely made mistakes that would earn her the enmity of her clients or their families. But her other skill as a caster of bones and reader of cards and hands were in these parts regarded as a shady trade and so it was that she adopted the slightly more respectable and much less arcane practices of the town medicine-woman as a cover.
Gladioli was not her original name. As the third girl and youngest in a family of five she had been sanctioned at the age of twelve by the priestesses of Tehishbaan to Zardeenah, Lady of the Night and the Star of Dusk and Dawn. She learned many secrets in the temple and devoted herself to the task with a thirst for knowledge and became a most apt student, surpassing her peers in most things.
However, whilst she knew her life would be spent in the service of women and girls, she wondered if in the end she had any real choice about whether she stayed or whether her family truly cared anymore. And she so hungered for adventure and freedom! Underneath her enthusiasm for learning and her sharp mind, she carried a simmering resentment, feeling betrayed by her family, who had sent her there without even asking.
This matter came to a head once her family had paid the temple the rest of her dowry (her only wealth) in a ceremony in which she had had her name taken away (she could not even remember it) and a vow of silence imposed. She was no longer a part of her own family.
She had finally run away from the temple when she turned 18 by hiding in a rolled up rawhide on a cart. She had lived the life of a wild thing; from hand to mouth for many months.
The temple leaders hunted for her high and low, right across the southern provinces and she had had to hide out and run even further away. She was a valuable commodity and they had thought to train her as a senior temple priestess.
So Gladioli dirtied her appearance, draped herself in grubby robes, (which is not hard when you haven't had a proper wash in weeks) and shuffled and hobbled about so as to appear maimed. In this way she remained unrecognised.
She blackened her tongue with ink, chewed her nails, deliberately ate a wayside herb which induced drooling and publicly picked her nose. In these ways she avoided being abused in back streets or drafted into the pleasure houses of the wealthy. She wordlessly accepted alms from people of all social strata. The vow of silence that had been imposed was still holding.
From this position she came to experience people at their very best and their very worst. She eventually stole a donkey and fled with it northwards towards Tashbaan. At that time Tashbaan was still a wooded island in the arms of the Great Northern River with a beautiful temple near the summit and a school of meditation which were devoted to the vulture headed god Tash, who came to claim the dead and take their souls to the afterlife.
In the trees of the island and the surrounding lands, many vultures did indeed live. Their habit of dining on carrion had been used by the Calormene people for convenient disposal of their dead for nearly 12 generations ever since their ancestors had sailed in boats around the peninsula and fled across the desert as outlaws, fleeing persecution.
Tashbaan regularly received corteges of pilgrims from many days away to the South, who came to perform the final rituals over their dead before committing their loved ones to the inexorable and irresistible arms of Tash.
Usually the bodies (of the richest people) were laid in state on top of an ornate barge at the end of the day, for a whole night chanting and music was performed. Just before dawn, the barges would all be towed out onto one of the arms of the river.
Then at dawn the vultures descended. After they had dined and probably squabble a little, they would fly home to roost. Finally the barges were lit and set adrift into the current which flowed towards the utter east.
It was then as the flames arose that all knew the dead had gone safely to the blessed land of Tash in the sky and the mourners would finally break their fast and partake of a light meal in memory of the one they had lost.
In this warm Southern climate, it was indeed vital to dispose of bodies quickly and neatly and the vultures did so as much as they were able. However, the numbers of offerings were sometimes far too great, so it was as well that the tradition of burning the dead on the river, downstream of Tashbaan, took place.
On the northern side of the river were a cluster of stone tombs, once used by the Calormene nobility. These were lined with tiers of stone shelves for the dead and open at the top for access by the vultures. They were now the places where the final remains of the poorer people were stacked; those whose families could not afford the luxury of a barge, the temple fees or a morning feast.
So whether you lived on the island or on the banks of the river, it had long become a local pass time to study the birds and make bets as to the vultures which looked the most like the famous statue covered in gold in the great temple.
It was on one of these mornings after the burning of several barges on the south bank that she had ventured to beg for a few morsels of food and in the grief and compassion that is common to most people who have lost someone dear, she was fed generously.
pHowever, one of the party had been a guard at the temple and she was recognised and he gave chase. Gladioli had had to run and duck for cover and a small search party of The Watch was set to locate her which they nearly /
In her desperation, she had to throw herself into the river and swum to one of the burning funeral pyres and clung on for dear life in the cold water to one of the logs of the barge.
Shivering and hiding herself in the smoke and the wrack until nightfall amongst the stench had nearly overwhelmed her. But by and by, the flames burned low and miraculously enough timber had become damp and remained unburned enough that she was able to climb like a wet cat onto the blackened mass of logs.
She lay there aching with cold, just soaking up a little warmth from the remaining coals only a few inches away. It was whilst gazing into these that she had had a vision.
It was a lion's head that was picked out in the last coals and flames and it spoke to her.
"Keep your heart and strength daughter, this moment will pass. Take courage. Follow the stars of the north and you will find your hope".
Then the warmth in the coals seemed to seep out of the barge and into her body and heart and she fell into a deep sleep.
In the night she must have drifted in the current far down the Great Northern River and in the morning she awoke refreshed, but with parched mouth and blackened clothes and skin. She found that the burnt hulk had held together and drifted into the north bank of the estuary only about one mile from the edge of the Great Eastern Ocean. The words and vision she had had echoed dimly in her mind but as she looked north up the coast, she remembered the words and felt sure that she saw another lion in the clouds, "courage daughter" she seemed to hear in a windy whisper through the reed beds. So she began her stumbling path through the silt and mud and slowly gained higher ground.
Gladioli eventually reached a grassy place with drier and harder white and grey ground. It was with enormous relief that she had got away from the wet mud which caked her legs but she realised with fright that she could not see any water course ahead and behind was only salt.
A few hundred yards ahead, however, she spied a dense thicket of grey-green fine foliaged tamarisk trees that formed a bay of shelter from the wind and sun. As she came closer Gladioli could see a pleasant place with grass and a few hardy flowering plants growing beneath and around about on the salty ground. So she threw herself down on the coarse grass trembling with fear and exhaustion in a patch of sun out of the wind and listened to the lonely keening of the wind in the needly boughs.
The self-pity that truly can come from a life that has been turned inside out and upside down began to overtake her and she wept bitterly for the first time in many months. It was sometime into this bout of misery that she thought she felt the warmth of a great body against her back.
She froze in fear, but nothing happened. After a while the warmth behind her seemed to flow into her body and take away all her pain, all her cold and stiffness and all her terror. She felt as if she were floating in the balmy heat of a hot spring which she had once visited as a child with her parents in happier days. She drifted off to sleep and had no dreams.
When she awoke it was mid-afternoon. She rubbed sleep from her eyes and looked around blearily. There was no sign of anyone or anything. Out to the east, great clouds were massing over the sea and she thought about all that water that she could not drink. But then she looked close by and she saw a miraculous thing.
In the hardened mud only a few yards away was a deep huge paw-print. At least fifteen inches across. While she looked at it in wonder and fear, wondering if gigantic lions lived in this thicket, the paw-print began to fill up with clear fresh water, welling up from the ground and spilling over a little.
She knelt down and sniffed it and then had a little taste on her fingers. It was the most refreshing thing she had ever tasted and it coursed through her restoring hope, strength and her sense of dignity. So she bent down further and drank her fill directly with her lips and waited for a short while before drinking again. When she had finished, she sat quietly, thankful and in awe, wondering what wondrous being had visited her and brought her such a blessing.
It was then that she found the moment to break her vow of silence and she spoke aloud, saying "Thank you".
Moments later, as she joyfully received back the gift of speech, she noticed a small green shoot rapidly rising from the damp ground next to the paw-print. To her wonder it grew into a tall plant in a matter of minutes with a sheaf of long leaves and to her endless joy, a truss of flower buds opened from the tip, revealing their magenta, green, and white blooms to the delight of her eyes. It was a Gladioli. It was then that she heard the distant roar of a lion to the north and she picked herself up and headed in that direction. She realised she had been called.
That was not her last encounter with the Lion but it was the most vital. Her journey was long and hard and circuitous and she found many people and other beings along the way who helped her. The Hermit of the Southern March was one; an ancient and gentle soul. It was he who had told her that as a star in the sky on the day of creation, he himself had indeed witnessed the birth of all the animals in Narnia and the growth of the first trees from far above, and he even told her a little about the Lion.
This had piqued her curiosity about the fabulous land of creation and so she had journeyed there in search of wonders. It was from there that the new course of her life had begun.