Strandpiel – interlude
The making of an Air Witch: Alexandra Mumorovka
v0.02 for the usual reasons
Trying hard to get back into it again.
There are two part-completed chapters in existence, each well advanced, but I simply cannot get properly into completing them. It's hard to pinpoint why: my head is full of ideas but when I get home from work I find I just don't have the energy or the interest to commit them to paper. It's a combination of lethargy, tiredness and quite possibly depression – the world's going to shit and nothing feels like it's going to make a difference. I want to try to get out of this void and do things again, so I'm shelving the two works seeking completion for now (the general story of "Strandpiel" and the "Ice-maiden in love" theme of "Price of Flight"), to do something related-but-different.
Noted I'm getting into a theme of providing back-stories for my Air Witches. Here's another – how did Shpaga become Shpaga...
Also, after a Microsoft update, Office 365 has ceased to be installed on my computer and I'm having to work via something called The Cloud, so till I can figure this out, things are going to be disrupted. I cannot, for instance, locate a spellchecker. But here goes... I suspect the mojo has returned.
Pokrovsky Barracks, Blondograd.
A military band, on horseback, played as the troops and squadrons of the cavalry regiment wheeled and trotted across the parade ground under the hot summer sun. Sabres and lance-tips gleamed in the sunlight as the men and horses of the Regiment formed up into review order, accompanied by the fast march Farewell To Slavianka.
Despite the heat, the men of the Kazachok Regiment were wearing their fur hats. This was important, they would say. How will people know we are Cossacks, otherwise?
From the parade grandstand, which at least had a roof and some shade, the dignitaries in pride of place watched the evolutions of eight hundred cavalrymen. They had front-row seats with more shade and access to servants who could bring refreshing drinks. In lesser order of importance, the wives and families of the Regiment's officers were seated around them, those of progressively lesser rank being furthest away. They had needed to bring their own refreshments.
The girl in the grandstand, who was almost seven years old, watched the spectacle with excitement, as she always did. She was craning her neck to see if she could glimpse Papa, who should be riding in front of the Baikal Squadron, its commanding officer and leader. Her oldest brother Ivan was somewhere out there too, a middle-ranking Lieutenant leading his troop.
Mama placed a kindly hand on her shoulder.
"Show composure." she said. "This year we are seated close to their Highnesses. If the Grand Duke or the Grand Duchess look around, I wish them to see a young lady with grace and composure."
She looked down to where she could see the large ornate hat three or four places in front of them. Apparently a Grand Duchess was in there somewhere, underneath the Hat. It was hard to tell. The girl sighed.
"Show decorum! Show deportment, so near to the Imperial Family!" Mama urged. "Alexandra, show some grace!"
The girl sighed and craned her neck for a better look at the riders. A child of a military family, she necessarily had an expert-level understanding of uniforms and ranks and distinctions. She had been born to it, and some things settle like snow on a barracks-rat. A barracks-rat who in this case was the only daughter of the senior Major, the Kazachok Regiment's second-in-command. Mama had thrilled at the promotion. It had promoted her too, in the parellel Army of officers' wives. Mama could now lord it over a lot more wives of officers more junior than Papa, while showing deference to a lesser number of wives of officers more senior than Papa.
She reflected on it being July. It was hot. The mainly women crowded into the grandstand were all in their best clothes, as befitted the occasion. It was getting uncomfortable. Alexandra tried not to let her nose wrinkle up and remembered what Mama had told her. Women did not sweat, Mama had said, indignantly. Women glowed.
Alexandra considered this. She noted the smell of quite a lot of glowing horses was wafting back towards her in unmistakable gusts. As well as the occasional equine accident dotted on the parade ground. (1) Nearly two hundred glowing women were standing a lot nearer, certainly. She decided the moment she got home she was going to bathe and get into more comfortable clothes, whatever Mama thought. She thought, longingly, of her gymnastiorka tunic and loose comfortable trousers, and dreamt of shedding the layers of formal dress clothing.
And then she heard Mama make a little delighted squeal, hastily cut off, as Papa proudly led the men of the Baikal Squadron, in their distinctive yellow coats, to their place in the review order. (2) She watched, enthralled, dreaming of being grown-up and part of a display like this. Then she pouted. Apparently it was perfectly acceptable for her brothers, and expected of them. But Mama had been appalled and said this was not open to girls.
Alexandra felt the injustice of this. Keenly.
When she returned home, she realised she could see the domevoy and the bannoks. But this was after Mama had been angry with her. The Domevoy offered his sympathy and asked what he could do to make her happier. She appreciated this. But before that...
"Why did you bow?" Mama asked, in a sort of nearly shrieking indignation. "Why did you show us up like that? We were being received by the Imperial Family! The Imperial Family, the House of Romanoff, the Heirs to the Tsarate! And of course, my daughter gets it wrong, and she bows! Your daughter, Ivan!"
Papa, in his full dress uniform still, sought to mollify and smooth it over.
Somewhat frightened and feeling the shame and humiliation of having been perceived to get it wrong, Alexandra heard a little voice in her head, a critical inner Alexandra, cooly remarking on how Mama looked like a fussy chicken, in her best Octeday clothing.
You were right. her inner voice said. Although you can't explain why. And Papa is feared and respected by two hundred and eighty men he commands. He is their Hetman. He shouts, they leap. But here, in the house, Mama rules over him.
"She realised, Viola." Papa said, soothingly. "She made it a formal curtsey to the Grand Duke and the Grand Duchess. The bow was only to Lady Olga, their daughter."
Bowing to Lady Olga was right,Alexandra thought, rebelliously.Although I cannot explain why. And Lady Olga looked at me as if she was searching my head. Reading me. And then she bowed back. And later she said to Mama that Alexandra Violavna showed the correct form of respect that was due to her, and Mama was not to get too angry. That no disrespect at all was intended.
"Besides, Lady Olga was in her own uniform, and she has command rank herself." Papa reminded Mama. "To be honest, I'm not entirely sure who is superior to who, but she saluted me first. I returned her salute, as good manners dictate. Between officers."
Mama snorted.
"Women in uniforms." she said, as if this was an Abomination against the Great God Epidity. Mama looked as if she was having a mighty struggle against herself, torn between the Abomination and expressing outright dissaproval of the Imperial and Royal Family, the ones at the top of Rodinia's social tree, looking down on all else.
Alexandra, showing outward submission to Mama, decided she wanted to find out lots more about Lady Olga Romanoff and the uniform she wore.
"I suspect we might meet again." Lady Olga had said, when she had graciously taken the little girl's hand in what was outwardly a gesture of magnanimous forgiveness for the social faux-pas.
She had added, in a low voice, her kindly and intelligent face closer to Alexandra's.
"When you're older. You'll come to understand more in the next few years. But that understanding is something you need to do for yourself."
It was white, with red trim and shoulderboards, and breast pockets picked out in black, and the rank badges of a Captain. But she had the eagle badge of a Cossack Hetman, of the Vulga Host, and the number 588, silver over black, on what looked like a medal ribbon...
Alexandra went through the ritual of apology to Mama for her fall from grace, and half-listened to the often-repeated litany about her being educated and trained and schooled so that when she was older, she could take her choice of bright young officers, men with a future in front of them, and marry a man destined to at least become a Colonel commanding his own regiment. As she had done with your papa...
Papa's a Major. That out-ranks a Captain. But he treated Lady Olga with great respect, as if she were a Colonel. Was it the Hetman's rank badge she wears? Where did she learn to become a Cossack? She wears the paired swords. And no Host wears pure white, as she does...
There was one thing Alexandra was sure of. Becoming an officer's wife, as Mama had done, depending on the reflected glory of his rank for her self-esteem, as if she had none of her own, would not be for her.
She wondered again what she would become. This worried her.
She was glad to get out of the house and to be with her friends, the sons and daughters of all ranks in the Regiment. The barracks-rats, the Cossack children, respected no formal ranks when they were together and the Colonel's sons were as one with the sons and daughters of the lowest enlisted trooper. This was understood, although Mama quietly deplored it.
A garrison school educated the children. Alexandra had noted that the children of officers tended not to stay after the age of eleven. It was understood that prestigious private schools and military academies elsewhere on the Disc took them. Only children of the lower ranks, and the odd leftover child of junior officers without private incomes or well-placed contacts, were seen in the older classrooms. Mama had been talking about somewhere called the Quirm Academy, for Alexandra. She would be in Quirm, Mama had pointed out. She would learn the language of cultured people, the universal language of the higher classes and the noble orders. Papa had grunted. He would be paying the school fees. Mama had then followed through with a barb about Papa showing some ambition, for the vacant Colonelcy that was soon to fall due. Command of a Regiment, Ivan.
This all sounded perfectly hideous to Alexandra. Her life was here, in Blondograd, the big city. Even though she had to do hideous things at school like Basic Morporkian and Basic Quirmian, two maddeningly foreign-sounding languages she thought she had no real feel for. Languages so outrageously foreign that they even had a different alphabet.
There were compensations. Master-At-Arms Dzershinsky and others taught the Cossack children what they needed to know concerning the shashka and the kjindal. It was Necessary. And Father had - rarely - stood up to Mama and said "No. Ours is a Cossack daughter. She learns the swords."
Mama had backed down. With bad grace and a sulk that lasted a week. But she had backed down. some things, with Papa, were not open to compromise.
Alexandra therefore threw herself into all aspects of the swords training as something she loved and found escape in. And the Cossack women, the wives and older daughters of the Kazachok, also passed on the other informal training of what it was to be a Cossack woman. Not all of it had to do with dealing with Cossack men.
And Mama had wept when for the first time, Alexandra was sent with her older brothers to spend a few weeks of the summer in the Baikal, as part of the Host. Her father had been firm here too.
"She is a Cossack, Viola. She goes."
It had taken a week to get there, even from Blondograd. But the forest and then the open steppe had been heaven to her. She and her brothers had even travelled on horseback, alongside a detachment from the Baikal Squadron composed of recently discharged soldiers returning Home, their enlistment period over, and men who would return in several weeks' time, on leave for now, who would escort a collection of new recruits to Blondograd.
Quite a few wives and families were travelling with them. On the way, the children sent to Summer Camp were quietly and without too much fuss assimilated into the Cossack way of life, spending almost the whole day in the saddle, participating in the camp chores, and sleeping either in the wagons or caravans, or out under the stars.
"Tell me again what happened here." the Ataman said, frowning through his beard.
The Sotnik placed in charge of schooling the children nodded, deferentially. Alexandra looked on, fascinated, as the highest-ranking Cossack, drawn by the sounds of the disturbance and the screaming and shouting, prepared to pass judgement on a dispute in the camp. At least the other adults present had the sense to remain silent and deferential.
"There was a dispute. Between the children. Errr..."
The sotnik looked, uncertainly, at the adults present.
"Carry on." said the Ataman. He looked, searchingly, at Alexandra and then at the boy involved. An older woman, a well-rounded, wrinkled and grey-haired babiuschka, looked at Alexandra, then grinned and winked.
"Piotr Mikhailovich Stepkin was not happy with the issue of the wooden training swords to the children. He saw the one issued to him was old and had been repaired. He saw that the one issued to Alexandra Violovna Mumorovka was newer and longer, and he perceived this as better."
He turned to glare at the older boy, of about ten or eleven, who had a heavily bandaged head. The Ataman followed his glance. He looked back to Alexandra.
"Piotr Mikhailovich argued that such a fine sword should not have been given to a mere girl, one barely out of nappies, who wouldn't know how to use it anyway. He tried to persuade her to exchange swords. He grew angry when she refused and then tried to take her sword by force."
"Did he." the Ataman said. He studied Piotr Mikhailovich, who could not hold his gaze. He looked at Alexandra, who proudly held his stare.
"We allow the children to resolve these differences among themselves." the training sotnik said. "It sorts them into their natural order. we only intervene if the argument becomes a lingering grievance with bad blood, or if there is a risk of damage. Errr..."
"The girl is not marked, I see." the Ataman commented. "But it still took three of you to prise her teeth from the boy's ear. She nearly bit it off, I'm told?
"Yes, Ataman. The vedma had to restore it with stitches."
He nodded to the old lady, who was grinning.
"He'll live, Dimitri." the old lady assured him. Alexandra noted the informality, and wondered. "And keep both ears. Provided he don't annoy the girl when she has a real live blade in her hand!"
She grinned at Alexandra.
"'Sides, she's Ivan Petrovich Mumorov's girl. That's got to count for something!"
The Ataman nodded appreciation at his Witch. Witches knew who was who and kept a better track of genealogy than the priests. They could also repair wounds, albeit, in this case, with what he suspected had been a none-too-sharp and slightly rusty needle.
"Ivan Mumorov's daughter. Well, well." said the Ataman. He looked thoughtful for a second and then almost smiled at Alexandra.
He turned to Piotr Mikhailovich and his parents.
"You." he said. "Idiot boy. You got all you deserve and what was overdue to you. You attacked a girl younger than yourself. You broke the unwritten rules of brotherhood. You tried to steal her sword. She defended her sword. You've got to do ten times better, boy, if you want your place in the Host."
He looked sternly at the assembled People.
"I rule that the girl Alexandra Violovna Mumorovka did what she did in self-defence, no blame attaches, and that on this display, she's going to grow up as a fine fighting Cossack." he said.
"And more..." the old Witch said, in a low voice. She made a slight bow to Alexandra. Who found herself bowing back.
"There will be no compensation paid by the Mumorov family to the Stepkin family, as I rule that the Stepkin boy brought this on his own damn fool head. Which, if he's lucky and if he learns to behave, will retain both ears. Now, anything else?"
He nodded to the Stepkins and then to Alexandra's aunt and uncle, who looked relieved.
Afterwards the old Witch grinned at Alexandra.
"You're too young yet." she said, mysteriously. "Your right guide and teacher's going to happen along, but it won't be for a year or two yet. Ain't going to be me, though. I've got my own girl to bring on and 'sides, you're here to learn the Cossacking. The other thing comes later."
She nodded, and walked off.
That night, Alexandra had a very odd dream. She had slipped out of the caravan where she and her brothers were staying with their aunt and uncle, and she had set up her bedroll and blanket underneath, preferring the space and the quiet and the solitude to be found here. She had awoken, or thought she had awoken, in a sudden start of realising she wasn't alone.
Sitting up in her blanket, she regarded her visitor. He was dressed oddly, in a way she recognised from picture books, like an old-fashioned knight, a boyar. Shining metal armour that looked like overlapping fish scales, red and yellow clothing underneath, and a helmet that swelled up to a point, like a fat cone. He bowed to her.
She acknowledged this, wondering why she felt no fear, and wondering why he was at once real and solid and somehow insubstantial, as if he didn't completely belong. She also wondered why the space underneath the wagon was suddenly enough to allow a six-foot tall warrior to stand upright without bumping his head on the floor above.
I salute you, Alexandra Violovna Mumorovka.
"Who are you, please?" she asked.
The knight contemplated this.
I may have lived once. I have forgotten. Or maybe I have lived many times. I remember Kulikovo, fighting the Rehigreedians. I remember Tannensalon, fighting the Prussicans. I remember the fighting at the fortresses of Bloodibostock, against the Agateans. I froze in the Winter War with the Swommi. I charged against the Klatchians, on the Vulga in Kazakhstan. I was at the Battle Of The Enclosed Woolen Head Covering, against the Morporkians.(3)
The figure looked thoughtful.
At all those battles, there were Mumorovs. Your oldest brother, for instance, is at this moment on the Kneck Front, where in service of Zlobenia he has fought the Borogravians. Although he was not aware, I stood with him.
The figure contemplated, still and silent, contemplating his spear.
I am the Vedegon of the Mumorov family. Where Mumorovs fight, there I am.
Alexandra remembered something from the tales that circulated around the camp-fires at night. The legends, the myths, of Rodinia. The Vedegon...
"You are a family spirit. My family has a long military history. Why have you come to me, and not to my papa?"
I do. I have. But he has not seen me. I fear he cannot see me. Nor can your brothers.
The figure paused again.
You were in a fight this afternoon. You have earned the right. I salute you, Alexandra. Know I will come when you call for me. I will lend strength and do what I can.
"But I can see you? I am aware of you?"
There was no answer. The connection seemed to break and Alexandra fell into true sleep again.
Scroll forward to a later summer, when Alexandra Mumorovka is approaching ten years old and is again with her people, the Cossacks of the Baikal.
She has grown and filled out from the younger girl who nearly bit Peter Stepkin's ear off in a fight. Her build is thin and wiry, but strong from constant swords-practice, exercise and horse-riding. Her face is not one that could be called beautiful - "characterful" probably defines her. Her face is a long thin oval, with possibly too large a nose, and a prominent pointy chin. She does have good hair, however: long, brown and impeccably plaited.
Her father had been promoted to Colonel and now commanded the whole of the Kazachok Guards Regiment of Cossacks. Mama had overseen the move to the larger and better-appointed Colonel's Residence with excited glee. Her daughter had been glad to go away for the summer. She loved Mama still, but something about her mother was chafing, hard to love, hard to respect. The sense of disloyalty was troubling.
She saw the magnificent flying white horse in the sky and fell in love. Alexandra now knew, in the depths of her soul, that was where she wanted to be. The sky was where she belonged. Nearly ten, she knew this with absolute certainty.
Camp life slowed and stopped as the beautiful white horse circled in the air and descended, its wings beating the air effortlessly. People on the ground, registering where it was going to land, cleared a space, but pressed as close as they dared to watch it come in to land. Only Iliana Mariovna, Witch and Shamaness, dared stand out from the crowd, advancing into the clear space, but very carefully standing clear of the horse and its rider as it came in to land, the hooves seeming to make the transition to earth with smooth grace as if fifteen hundred pounds of horse and rider dropping from the sky was nothing.
There was a collective noise from the crowd, combining admiration, envy and respect, as the horse cantered forward for a few steps, the long white wings folding back against its flanks, then stopped, a few paces from where Iliana waited. Alexandra, who had determinedly fought her way to the front of the throng, watched as the rider dismounted and took off her – her! - headgear, a sort of tight-fitting leather helmet with an unmistakable point, and shook out her long black hair. She was tall, athletic, and graceful, and in that moment was the most beautiful woman Alexandra had ever seen.
"She looks like Ear-biter. In the face."
Peter Stepkin's voice. She hated him for spoiling the moment, the perfect moment. Then she looked the woman full in the face as she turned and wondered do people really think I look like her?
She saw the long, lugubrious face, like an angular oval, with the prominent pointy chin and the depressingly large long nose. A face like that meant the woman could only be ever called "beautiful" by a confident liar.
The woman glanced over. Her eyes appeared to meet Alexandra's. Then she nodded, grinned and looked away.
She's still beautiful, Alexandra decided. Anyone who can ride a marvellous beautiful horse like that is beautiful herself.
She watched the stanitsa's Witch, Iliana, and the newcomer bow to each other, and wondered. Old Iliana tended to look appraisingly at Alexandra when they first met every summer, and then say mysterious things like "Nah, not old enough yet." and "Just wait, girl. See what happens next."
Then both of them looked, unmistakably, at Alexandra, for a long uncomfortable moment before turning away to bow to the Ataman, who was approaching. Grooms were called to attend to the winged horse.
Some time later, the woman who rode the marvellous horse came to the stanitsa children, leading her mount. She scowled at Peter Stepkin when he tried to get too close, and said
"I've got a couple of hours to kill while the Ataman and the Hetmans are discussing replies to Lord Ve.. to the communications."
She looked necessarily downwards at old Iliana, and they nodded to each other.
"I can take somebody up for a flight."
The woman turned her disconcertingly ugly face to Alexandra.
"Fancy it? I'm Serafima, by the way. People call me Vorona, which is shorter."
You don't mind?" Alexandra asked. Calling a woman with a face like that The Crow, or perhaps The Raven, sounded really cruel and nasty.
Serafima grinned. Somehow this made her face look softer and friendlier.
"Why shouldn't they? It fits the face. Which for me, makes both my jobs a great deal easier. People tend not to argue."
She steadied her Pegasus. People watching might have sworn that rider and mount had somehow communicated. The Pegasus turned a stately equine head and considered the girl, then whinnied. The pilot nodded to the pillion behind the main saddle.
"Up..."
Alexandra didn't stop to squeal with delight or to thank.
"...you get, I was about to say."
"Thank you." Alexandra said, sincerely, from the pillion. Serafima, or perhaps Vorona, made a brief appreciative nod. Then she vaulted into the pilot's saddle.
The next thirty minutes or so were ones that Alexandra would consider the best of her life so far. She looked down at the dwindling faces of a lot of very envious people, resisting the temptation to make a triumphant face at the expense of the vile Peter Stepkin, who looked as if his face could have flavoured a lot of lemonade.
"People were saying I look a little like you." Alexandra ventured, as they flew higher.
The woman in the saddle shrugged.
"Why shouldn't they? It's possible you do. We both have two eyes, a nose, and a chin."
Alexandra touched her own far-too-pointy chin. Serafima looked round and grinned, sympathetically. It made her look far more human and approachable.
"It works for me." she said. "From what Iliana said, I suspect it'll start working for you, too. Trust me."
"Iliana the ved'ma?"
"The Witch, Same one. When I was growing up here, she trained me. Look, I'm from round here. I suspect I left before you were born, though."
"You are of the People."
"Da. Baikal Cossack. I became a Witch, I got to travel, I trained elsewhere, and ended up in Ankh-Morpork."
Serafima sighed, resignedly.
"That place draws people in. After I was Chosen, I became part of the Pegasus Service, that, and the other thing. This is my regular Run. Mouldavia and the Coastal States."
"Chosen?"
Serafima patted her mount's neck.
"Newborn foal. Chose me. So that defined where I was going to go next, after Lancre. Into the City Air Watch. Lots of Rodinians there, from all over. Maybe it's because we're good with horses, of all sorts. Or maybe it's because of Olga Anastacia. She's our commanding officer, by the way."
Alexandra, later, would kick herself for not making the realisation sooner. For now, it passed unremarked.
"She's from Zlobenia, in the Ronbas. So is Irena Yannesovna. Then there's Nadezhda Veranovna. From Si'berya. People are strange there. Also a few girls in training from various places. Vasilisa Danutovna, for instance, from Blondograd, like you."
Alexandra had a strange feeling, that she was somehow being tested, that the ghost of an offer was being made.
"First time flying? You've got a good head for heights."
"I like it up here." she replied, with complete honesty, looking down on her world from several hundred feet up.
"That's obvious." Serafima the Vorona replied. "Stands out a mile, in fact."
She paused and looked appraisingly back over her shoulder. Alexandra thought she was looking at a very intelligent raven.
"People learn to fly." she remarked, as if it were no small thing. "No clues, but it might be interesting for somebody like you to find out more. I hear the garrison school at Pokrovsky has a decent library. And when you run out of books there, well, Blondograd's a big city. I hear there's a public library on Dorky Prospekt."
Somebody like me, Alexandra wondered? And people fly?
It sounded incredible, even mad. But then she remembered she was currently flying. Albeit as a passenger. Maybe not so insane after all.
She felt a sense of disappointment as they came into land with the adventure over. She barely registered the conversation behind her, between the two Witches.
Iliana, you were right.
When am I not, girl? You should know that by now.
That girl's got it. I could feel it. She's got the Stuff.
She's bein' brung on. People are keepin' an Eye. When the moment's right, she'll go where you did.
It was puzzling. Perplexing. But Alexandra watched, from the ground now, as Serafima took another child up for a joyride, and envious people crowded round, wanting to know what it been like up there, to ride a horse into the sky.
And back home in Blondograd, she started to explore the School Library more diligently, looking for answers. A few useful scattered clues emerged. Then she petitioned Mama to take her to the public library on Dorky Prospekt. Much reading happened, although Mama deplored her choice of books. They compromised: Alexandra was allowed the books of folklore and fairy tales provided she earned them by reading the books chosen by Mama, on grace, and style, on deportment, and on good social manners and etiquette. Suitable, Mama insisted, for the future wife of a young officer with good promotion prospects. You are a reflection of your husband; what you do, how you present yourself, helps his career.
Alexandra studied her mother, and the thought rose in her mind. What does Mama see when she looks in a mirror? Does she cast a reflection, or does she just see Papa?
She wondered where the thought, critical judgement of her mother, had come from. It was like a second person inside her own head, watching, judging, evaluating. She heard the inner Alexandra again:
You will always love her. You are forced to. But that doesn't mean you can't think of her as a largely empty space, fussy, like some sort of aggressive squeaking mouse or a small fussy twittering preening bird, demanding, pushing Papa to a higher status so the reflection of him that she lives in grows bigger and brighter...
She pushed out the troubling thought of what Mama might become if it all ended tomorrow, if the Kazachok were sent out to war, and if Papa died, and she becomes the former Colonel's widow and not the Colonel's Lady, the First Wife of the Regiment...
Alexandra shuddered and wished her father a long happy life. Besides, if she'd worked it out correctly, the Noble and Imperial Families might between them pay for the upkeep of the Blondograd Guards Division. But none of them, not the Ignatieffs, nor the exalted Romanoffs, could command the Division to war.
The real power in the land was the Dark Lady Margalotta, in distant Bonk, who quietly and without any fuss ruled over Far Überwald, where Blondograd was. And she, along with the even more distant Lord Vetinari, quietly ruled and steered. And apart from the weeping sore of the Kneck Front, where it seemed beyond the control of anyone to force a ceasefire, there was and would be no war.
Alexandra frowned. She was only ten years old. Where were these thoughts coming from? Papa and the Regimental officers, at least the senior ones, discussed these things. Mama had chased her away saying it wasn't their place to listen to men's talk. We retire to the drawing room after dinner. The men remain and pass the port and smoke cigars.
She'd heard enough, anyway. Cossacks who had fought on the Kneck, with experience of war, came to enlist in the Kazachok. They were welcomed. Meanwhile some of the young men, barracks rats growing to maturity, chose a year or two fighting for Zlobenia. Officers could enlist where they chose; two of Alexandra's brothers had done terms of engagement for Zlobenia's army. They had come back to the Kazachok with fighting experience, and now commanded troops.
She shrugged and returned to the books, the interesting books. One was aimed at children a lot younger than she was. She had justified her choice by pointing out that it was written in Morporkian and she needed to get better in this language, and especially in the exotic and maddeningly inconsistent orthography used to pin it to the page. It was like to, but different from, the good honest and above all phonetic Cyrillic lettering, the alphabet that was right and intuitively made sense.
She could still struggle with Morporkian script.
She could also struggle with alien ideas and concepts. The book featured a young Witch in a bizarre foreign country called Lancre where Witches abounded. Astoundingly, this young Witch, when not saving the lives of dear little animals and episodically confounding her elders with her wisdom, could fly. Alexandra had been drawn to the pictures of her, in the sky, sitting astride an ordinary kitchen broomstick.
If it wasn't for the tales related in some of the other books, the ones on folklore and magic about the Disc, then Alexandra would have dismissed this as over-imaginative nonsense. Broomsticks didn't fly. The idea was ridiculous. Everybody who knew anything about magic would know you only got to fly if you lived long enough to become a Babayaga. Flight needed a mortar and pestle. Not a broomstick. Although, Alexandra conceded, pictures of the Babayaga in flight showed her sitting in the mortar, using a broomstick as a sort of oar, to drive and steer, as if she were in a boat...
She closed the picture book and thought for a while. Then slipped out of her bedroom, the new spacious and wonderful bedroom the Colonel's Daughter got, with the window overlooking the large garden that came with the huge manor house, as part of the deal.
She slipped downstairs. Good: Mama was Receiving Company. No doubt showing off her new position to other wives and getting quietly boastful about her new status. She would be preoccupied. And it was Cook's day off. She scanned the shelves and brought down the mortar and pestle Cook used to grind herbs. It was depressingly small and the white smooth stone was stained inside with the residue of decades of ground herbs. She focused.
If I was a witch. There would be a spell for making it large enough to sit comfortably inside. Maybe all the Babayaga has to do is command it and it will grow...
Alexandra played Witch for a few minutes, concentrating on the mortar, wondering what form such an enchantment would take, wondering if picturing her need inside her head would do it.
I want to fly. Like I did on the back of Serafima's Pegasus, but for myself, without somebody else directing and inviting me to be her passenger...
She remembered the glory of being in the sky, above everything else, above the envious and sour Peter Stepkin...
She wasn't surprised when there was a total absence of anything happening. Silly to think otherwise, really.
But I so want to fly...
A picture of the witch on the broomstick formed in her head. She had grown to dislike the simpering little girl in the picture book. She'd been blonde, for one thing.
She frowned as something bumped up against her right side, as if it was seeking her attention.
Where did that come from?
She could have sworn Cook's sweeping broom had been propped up against the wall, fifteen feet away. But here it was, leaning on her right arm...
She dutifully returned it to its corner. Then returned to visualising flight in the mortar. There was another insubstantial change in the room.
And, without it having been seen to move, the broomstick was in her right hand again. She sighed.
"If this is how it is." she said. Feeling like a complete idiot and, worse, like a simpering blonde child, Alexandra levelled the broomstick and then straddled it, feeling hampered by the long skirt Mama insisted she wore, hitching it up on both sides and not caring about exposed legs. (4) She settled into what felt like a natural position, the staff elevated a few degrees above the bristles. It felt correct.
She felt it then, and her head jerked back in surprise. She gripped the staff firmly with both hands, and the energy surged. It came out of nowhere. She made a muted little shriek as she felt it, filling the staff, filling the bristles, filling Alexandra Mumorovka.
Up...
She had the sense to urgently call "Stop!" inside her mind, just as the top of her head scraped the kitchen ceiling. The broom stopped there, hovering in place, almost as if it were awaiting her next command, like but unlike to a patient horse.
This is all very well and good. But if I ask it to go forward – whoa! Stop! - then I crash into the wall. I believe if I say down, it will return me – no, I will land safely – but I wish for descent to be slow. Not a drop by perhaps three metres. I like my bones to be unbroken.
She hovered there, pondering her next move, as the kitchen door opened.
Alexandra sighed, fatalistically. It just had to be Mama. And she wasn't alone. She recognised Barbara Borodinska, an older woman who had a sort of unique status among the parellel society of military wives and families. Nobody quite knew where she fitted in, but Barbara had Status. There was also Barbara's daughter Lidia, who Alexandra very definitely knew had a role and a status: she was wife to the Zauryad-Praporshik, the Regimental Sergeant-Major.
They've obviously been working it out. Even Mama knows the RSM's wife is important. Possibly more so than Mama is. Lidia Barbarovna has no doubt been explaining to the new Colonel's Lady how things are done...
Time slowed. Alexandra looked down, her inner voice remarking on how her mother looked more like a small fussy twittering bird than ever. And on how Lidia Barbarovna, taller, statelier, more solid, looked more like the First Wife of the Regiment than Mama could ever hope to be. And at Lidia Barbarovna's mother, who was grinning up at Alexandra as if she was not at all perturbed on seeing a ten-year old girl on a broomstick hanging in the air with the top of her head scraping on the kitchen ceiling. As if this was nothing out of the ordinary for her.
"Hadn't you better come down?" Lidia asked, in a calm everyday voice. She placed a reassuring hand on Mama's arm.
"Same way as you went up." Barbara said, cheerfully. She looked at Mama and grinned.
Alexandra focused. She thought of a leaf, floating down to the earth in Autumn. The broom responded. She frowned, wondering if something else was lending a hand, and her feet bounced gently on the kitchen floor.
"Now go and put the broom back where it belongs, devyushka." said Old Barbara, in the same pleasantly amused tones. She looked up to her daughter. Then she stepped across the floor and took the broom from Alexandra. She weighed it in her hand thoughtfully, and whistled. There was appreciation in the whistle.
"Could feel it from the doorway." she remarked, handing the broom back. "You left your mark on this, didn't you?"
They looked at Mama, who hadn't moved a centimetre, and who looked somehow frozen in place, her mouth beginning to hang open in surprise.
"Is she alright?" Alexandra asked, in genuine concern. The old lady grinned.
"Mother has certain skills, shall we say." Lidia offered. "Your mother's fine, Alexandra. When she wakes up, she will probably decide she couldn't possibly have seen you flying a broomstick indoors. If we behave as if we didn't see it, she'll decide she was mistaken. After all, flying Witches only exist in story books for children."
"Like them ones you've been readin'." Barbara agreed.
Alexandra made a deduction. As to why Barbara Borodinska could go anywhere she liked in the barracks, be welcome anywhere she went, and one day had just turned up to live in her son-in-law's married quarters.
"You're a Witch." she said. She added, less certainly
"Errr... you're both Witches?"
Lidia shook her head.
"Mother is. I'm not." she said. "But if you're brought up as a Witch's daughter, you get to understand a lot of things. Without actually being one. Maybe it'll come out in one of my daughters or a grand-daughter, who knows?"
"Anyroad." Barbara said. She nodded, decisively. "Viola's not goin' to stay under forever. We ain't got much time."
She drew herself up, and glowered at Alexandra.
"You, young lady. Be out in that back garden at eleven tonight. Bring the broom. I'll meet you there. You ain't goin' to want to stop flyin' now you've had a taster."
"Two tasters." Lidia reminded her mother. "I believe Serafima Dospanova took her up on the back of a Pegasus not long ago."
Alexandra didn't ask how the story had spread. She lived on an Army barracks, after all.
"Young Vorona." Barbara said. She managed to look both wistful and envious at once. "Ye Gods, wish I'd been given a face like hers. Face like that, you gets respect."
Alexandra looked into the handsome face of a woman in her sixties who had once been conventionally attractive, and who was carrying the remnants of this into older age.
"Serafima is also a Witch." she said. "Trained by old Iliana, out in the homeland. And the uglier a Witch..."
"...the more respect she commands." Lidia agreed. She looked into Alexandra's face, searchingly. Alexandra looked into hers and read tolerance, wisdom, understanding and an ability to read people. And even after reading people, to accept them for what they were. It was a change from Mama.
"It's there." she said, mysteriously. Barbara nodded agreement. Alexandra gathered this was not about Witchcraft, but what it concerned remained a mystery, for now.
"It'll do her good." old Barbara agreed. "As she grows up."
She turned.
"Nearly forgot". she said. She waved a hand in front of Mama's face. Mama blinked twice, then looked at Alexandra. Who tried to look innocent and unreadable.
"Alex.... oh."
Mama blinked again.
"Viola Raisanovna. Your daughter was playing, as children of her age do. Play-acting at being a Witch on a broomstick, out of the story books." Lidia said, with smooth confidence.
"She ain't even eleven." Barbara said. "And it had to be playin' at it. Sit one leg each side of the staff and jump up and down a bit, pretend you're flyin? Reckon that was it, Alexandra, love?"
Alexandra nodded. Strictly speaking it was a lie, but it was fooling Mama and sparing her a sharp reprimand.
"Anyway. We came in here to find a samovar, so as to make tea?" Lidia said, prompting the others. "And for you to show off the kitchen, Viola Raisanova. I understand you haven't been in residence long, so you and Colonel Mumurov are yet to find a full staff of reliable servants..."
Alexandra took the opportunity to dismiss herself.
At eleven, dressed in black, she was waiting in the back garden with the kitchen broom. She sat, reflecting that an Army barracks, especially one large enough to contain thousands of people, is never quiet at any time. She heard cavalry patrols coming and going, the hooves muffled so as not to disturb people. The creak of late-moving wagon wheels. From a great distance, the laughter of soldiers returning after a night spent in the bars of Blondograd.
It was interesting, she decided, just to sit and listen to the sounds of the night. Here, Mama insisted on early bedtimes. In summer, she had the sounds of the Baikal Steppe at night. She closed her eyes, making believe she was back out there, on the shores of Baikal. She could almost hear the sound of the waves on the shore of the great inland sea... the calling of the ducks...
"Don't fall asleep, devyuschka. Work to do. Now let's see how you take off."
Her first flying lessons had begun.
Alexandra was now living a double life. In the day she was at the Garrison School, where the daughter of a commanding Colonel was treated like any other pupil. She appreciated this. Being anonymous suited her.
Twice a week she went out flying with Barbara, never much past midnight, and never for more than an hour.
"The reason bein', you still have school in the mornin', and you still needs your sleep, girl." Barbara pointed out.
Alexandra would fly back directly to her bedroom window, where the house Domevoy would be watching and would open the window for her. This saved her having to sneak in through the door downstairs, with a risk of discovery. She appreciated this.
She also realised she was the only one who could see the Domevoy, who took the form of a small fussy little man, gnome-like in appearance, about a foot tall. He was the sort of patron spirit of the house, who took pride in it being neat and tidy and orderly, who was there in theory to serve all the family, but who had a special regard for Alexandra, the only one who could actually see him.
Mama deplored this and exasperatedly asked if her daughter was not too old for imaginary friends.
Alexandra accepted her mother's rebuke submissively, then went back to her room where she appreciated her shoes and boots being polished so well that they gleamed, and her clothing being beautifully folded and creased in the right places, where creases were called for.
She also appreciated the bannoks, the spirits of the bath-house, who kept the water wonderfully clean and hot. If nobody else was around, she would chat to the bannok-spirits and they would reply. She discovered they were a specialised form of urban nymph, whose ancestors had asked why the Hells they had to bathe in cold riverwater full of frogs and weeds and tadpoles and things. And in a Rodinian winter where you had to break the ice first... ugggh. "No wonder people went to the bad and turned into rusalkas." In return for access to warm clean water, they looked after the banya and kept it clean and tidy for their human hosts.
It weas an arrangement that worked. Alexandra, the only member of the household who could see and interact with the house-spirits, was treated with greater respect and friendship by them. She always found there was hot clean water and a neatly folded set of towels in the banya, for instance. Papa always approved of the fact her clothes were impeccable and her footwear gleamed in a way that not even the RSM could find fault with.
Then he looked puzzled.
"Never actually seen you cleaning and polishing your boots." he remarked. "But your bedroom, your space. I'd only go there if there was a need and I'd knock on your door first."
"Thank you, Papa." she said, politely. Her father and her brothers respected her privacy. Mama could burst in unannounced at any time. Alexandra wondered how she could fix this.
"Things to remember." Barbara told her pupil, as they flew side-by-side in the pre-midnight darkness.
"Your mother ain't a bad woman. Not at all. You don't see the half of what she does. Yes, she's like a plain glass vase what needs fillin'. Sort of empty till she's been filled up, and what she fills up on is bein' the Colonel's Lady. But you don't get to be that, 'less you're good at it. And your mother's good at it. And she's good. Lidia knows that. Lidia's lookin' after her, guidin' her, makin' sure."
Alexandra guessed that the respective wives of the Colonel and the RSM had to work together. Or something indefinable about the Regiment would start to fail. She thought on.
"Just as Papa and your son must work together, in the Regiment?"
Barbara grinned. It was the sort of grin that demanded she continue. Alexandra thought, furiously.
"Papa commands the whole Regiment. But he needs the Regimental Sergeant-Major to command the troopers, as he is nearer to them. Your son is..." she struggled for words. "Key. Papa knows this."
Barbara grinned.
"Oh, you're bright. You see things. I like that. Anyroad. Watch your mother. If a young officer's got bother he don't want the Colonel to know about, 'least, not just yet, who do you think he goes to? There's the chaplain."
Barbara snorted.
"And there's me. Divisional Witch, see? General Smirnoff said so. In as many words."
She paused.
"There's also your mum. Shut her up and stop her fussin', she listens. And she can give good advice. Also, have you noticed? She knows practically everybody by name. And their wives' names. And the childrens' names. Give her a moment and she knows their birthdays and where they go to school. That's the Colonel's Lady. It's her duty. Your mum can do it. Respect to her. But my Lidia does it better. That's why they should work together. Do your mum some good, too. And what are you up to, you little bugger?"
Alexandra jumped, then realised this hadn't been said to her. She loved flying with her hair largely unbound, streaming in the wind behind her. The wind in her hair had felt like the caress of fingers...
So pretty.
She heard the voice like a whisper in the night, from near to. She cautiously turned her head, and saw the face. It was human-shaped, but it belonged to something that was not human. It had hair that was somehow slicked back, into a rising point. The body the head was attached to was long and slender. Although it was nearly naked, clad in gauzy filmy robes of some sort, it was hard for her to make out if it was male or female or neither. And the whole was filmy and insubstantial, moving and drifting and changing all the time, as if blown by an inner wind.
The thing in the sky placed its face close to Alexandra's and grinned. It raised an insubstantial hand as if to stroke her face. She scowled back and slapped the hand away. Her fingers went right through it. But the hand withdrew. The face contorted in surprise.
She can see me, old witch?
"Of course I can see you." Alexandra snapped, irritated. Barbara laughed.
"Course she can see you! She's up here. Flyin'. On a broomstick. What does that make her?"
The creature considered this.
An old witch. And a young witch.
"Good. You got it. Now. Bugger off." (5)
The spirit suddenly looked offended.
"My mother would be shocked...." it began.
Barbara scowled.
"Be surprised if you had a mother." she replied, evenly.
Careful, old woman. I could throw you from the sky.
"You can't." said Barbara. "You're only a little wind. Most you can do is buffet us about a bit. You ain't got the power and I can't see any of the big names comin' down to help you out. Wrong time of year, for one thing. Weather's wrong."
The spirit's face suddenly became sharper and more petulant. Alexandra watched as it floated on the breeze, its shape and outline flowing, swirling and ever-changing. She thought it put her in mind of an older teenage girl getting brattish around her parents. She held that thought, and watched.
"I never goes above two hundred metres." Barbara remarked. "No call, else. The really big siege cannon among your people never usually comes that near the ground. Now and again, in a really bad storm. But they stays up, where Witches don't go. Only ones as does, on a normal day, are your sort. The young ones. And we knows how to deal."
You cannot command me, old woman.
There it was again, Alexandra thought, the brattish teenager.
Barbara shrugged.
"Not tryin' to command you. Save to tell you to bugger off. Nobody commands the wind."
Good. The spirit crossed insubstantial arms, defiantly. I remain here.
The Inner Alexandra popped up and prompted her with a memory. It was of one of the library books, a big thick tome that had been a bulky struggle to bring home, but which the kindly Miss Davidova, the Librarian, had tacitly accepted would be on long-term loan to the little girl with a lot more about her than there seemed to be at first. (6)
She could see it, on her bedroom desktop.
A Gazeteer Of The Spirits, Supernatural Entities And The Folklore Of Far Überwald And The Rodinian Countries, By Stripfettle And Oblamov.
Alexandra forced her mind's eye to read on from the title page that announced the Rodinian translation had been by Doctor I.S. Oblamov (followed by lots of letters) and that publication had been licenced to the College of Wizardry and Magic in Blondograd by the Unseen University Press.
Her mind's eye moved past the imprimatur that solemnly warranted there was no actual magic in the pages, it was a book deemed safe for the layman about magical phenomena and it was therefore safe to read, provided nobody voiced the Name represented in the text as {-} out loud without touching iron.
She remembered. She'd spent a long time in the B's,(7) unsure of the actual spelling of the word, trying to find out more about the Vedegon. Or perhaps the Vodegon, her family's guardian warrior spirit.
On the way, she'd read about the...
She turned and glared at the spirit.
"You." she said. "You are a Vekhor."
The wind-spirit turned and smiled at her, maliciously.
"That only defines my family." it said. "I bet you aren't clever enough to tell me my name, little girl with the big nose and the pointy chin and the beautiful hair. You have good hair."
Alexandra glared back. Her inner self found the memory and started to turn the pages. She read, intently.
The God of the Winds, Flatulus Maximus, is said to inhabit a palace, an unguessable distance above the Discworld, higher even than Dunmanifestin. According to those few who may have seen it, it follows the same principles of architectural grace and style...
She skipped on for a few lines.
Flatulus holds court in his Palace, at the nexus where the four winds meet, presiding over the four Great Winds, each of whom has their own Court, with a progressively diminishing heirarchy of lesser Spirits...
"You came from behind me. From the Turnwise." she said to the spirit. It hung in the air and looked back at her, ethereal arms folded.
"At this time of year, pleasant gentle winds of no great force come from the Turnwise."
She remembered the Book again, and hoped Oblamov and Stripfettle had been right. Or at least, accurate.
"You are therefore of the Court of the Turnwise Wind. The ruler here is Zephyros, God of Gentle Breezes."
She saw the spirit flinch, as if it had not anticipated this. She smiled slightly.
"Zephyros, and his consort the Goddess Zephyra, have children and followers in their Court."
She paused here. The spirit shrugged.
You have named my home, and my clan, and my kindred. I am of the family of the Turnwise Wind and in the line of great Zephyra, yes. But that does not name me.
Alexandra paused. She remembered what she had read.
It is said that if a magic user, a Wizard (or in some circumstances a Witch, as we have to hold that possibility open), encounters a Sylph, a spirit of the wind, and divines its true name, then that Sylph is bound to that magic user as a familial spirit. It may come at their call and while it may not be bidden, the magic user can ask for favours.
"You are a Sylph. A spirit of the air."
True. But again, you define what I am. Not what my name is. Third attempt, little Witch.
She smiled again, and went for broke.
"You have a little of a God in you but you are not a God. The God may be your grandparent, or your great-grandparent, or still further back. The God stuff dilutes with every step. You are of the line of Zephyros but you are a small wind, a little breeze, and you are not much older than I am."
She paused.
"Your name is Zephoschka. A tiny, little, breeze."
The face of the wind-spirit contorted in sudden frustrated angry rage, and Alexandra found her broom buffetted in an angry howling wind that blew out of nowhere. She fought to keep level and steady as Zephoschka the sylph stormed through the sky, visible as an incandescent white light, venting his – or her – anger in violent speed. Old Barbara sat her broom opposite, grinning.
She braced herself as the sylph flew straight back at her. Zephoschka. here, a howling wind building up around it.
But it came to a halt a few feet away. Alexandra wondered if it was panting with exertion, like a blown horse after a gallop.
I am of the kin of the God Zephyros. I am a Sylph of the air. My true name is Zephoschka."
The spirit made a sigh that was like a slight rustling of leaves in a breeze.
"Little witch. It appears that I am now bound to you. If you call me and I am near enough to hear you, I will come to you. If you are in trouble and ask for me, I will try to help you."
It sighed again.
Tied to a human. What is your name, little human witch?"
"Alexandra Violovna Mumorovka. You may call me Alexandra."
Too long. I think I shall call you... Lexi."
Old Barbara grinned.
"You ain't tied to her. Don't be so dramatic. All it means is, right, you can still go your own way and fly where you will, but if she calls for you, there'll be a reason, so you'd best get a shift on. Age-old compact, is that. She worked out your name. That confers privileges, does that. You walked right into it."
The sprite considered this. Then it cheered up.
Lexi, please may I fly with you now? I really love your hair. I like making it fly behind you in the sky.
Alexandra indicated she was agreeable.
"Only as far as home." Barbra said. "You got school in the mornin', young Lexi."
The three flew back together. Alexandra finally got into bed, wondering what other surprises life would throw at her as Witchcraft took a hold. She also wondered how to get it past Mama when she found out. Behind her, the window rattled in a light breeze, then went silent.
Barbara Borodinska did not go to bed. Understanding, Lidia had left a window unlatched for her mother to return after the flying lessons. She flew in, closed the window behind her, and replaced the broom in its place.
She sat down in deep thought for a while, then lit a lamp and looked for pen and paper. After a while she began writing, choosing a salutation which she knew would make the recipient wince.
Most radiant, exalted, illustrious and noble Excellency.
I write concerning the girl Alexandra Violovna Mumorovka, the one we are informally keeping an Eye on with regard to her emerging talent and what might be decided concerning her future direction.
You will know since our last communication that she has learnt to fly. Nobody taught her this. She worked it out for herself. Against my better inclinations, I have taken her up so as to demonstrate to her how to fly safely. I have also been, incidentally, giving her a few useful pointers and practical sessions in what a Witch is, what a Witch does, and how a Witch should present herself in public.
And that, I fear, is as far as I can go with her.
This is important: you know she can see the Domevoy and the Bannoks in her home. She interacts with them. Since then, I have discovered, she has encountered the Vodegon of her family, who has pledged his aid if she is in trouble.
And tonight she bested a Vekhor of the air who is now pledged to her as a friend and one she can call on if in need.
This young girl has power. I do not think she will mis-use it, but she now urgently needs the care of a better Witch than I am, or at least one who thinks differently.
I ask you, on your next visit, to come and look her over again and see what you think. Or to send one of your people here: I know she gets on well with Serafima Dospanova, to whom, I believe, she is distantly related. Iliana out in the Baikal will know the details. All I know is that once, a Mumorov married a Dospanov, and some things cross between families.
With respect to your noble and illustrious Person
Barbara Borodinska (Witch).
Barbara sighed deeply, sealed the letter into an envelope, and addressed the outside. It was to go to a destination in faraway Ankh-Morpork. She wondered if one of the Pegasus Service girls might soon be here. They had a knack of turning up where they were needed. If one did, it would spare a stamp.
Eventually she went to bed.
For Alexandra, life continued as usual. She would go to the Steppe again for a few weeks in spring, and come back in time for the Annual Review.
She would also meet Cousin Bella, when everything would change.
To be continued!
There will be a Chapter Two.
Sorry it took so long to get back into it...
(1)No cavalry army, ever, has cracked this problem. Any military parade involving horses will, afterwards, require Men With Buckets And Shovels. The accepted etiquette is to pretend it hasn't happened.
(2)Some explanation: in the old Imperial Russian Army, its Cossack cavalry regiments were each pretty much exclusively drawn from a distinct and separate region and Host. This was held to be wise, in much the same way the British Army recognised its Scottish Highland regiments should be a continuation of distinct and separate clan traditions. (In which the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders were drawn from clans that had an ancestral issue with the clans that made up, for instance, the Gordon Highlanders). It was also not held to be a good idea to have them all in the same place, in case the natives got ideas about getting together and re-enacting 1745.
Imperial Russia therefore drew its formally militarised Cossacks as cavalry regiments from their own home areas and dressed them as distinctively as they could so as to tell them apart. Don Cossacks in red, Volga Cossacks in dark blue or black, and Siberian Cossacks from the Lake Baikal region in yellow. (among others).
Here, the Imperial Guards Division based in Blondograd, the last echo of the mighty Imperial Rodinian Army, has one Cossack cavalry regiment, the Kazachok. Possibly because Lady Margalotta will not countenance its expansion into a full brigade.(2:1) Each of its squadrons is drawn from a distict Discworld Cossack tradition, and recuits locally: Alexandra's family roots are in Baikal, known to the rest of the Disc as Lake Mouldavia. Other squadrons wear the red coats of the Ronbas, now largely in Zlobenia, and the dark blue of the Vulga, in Kazakhstan, with their respective Host distinctions incorporated into the formal military uniforms.
(2:1)And as we will see, the Romanoff Family and their rivals, the House of Ignatieff, may be rich but do not have bottomless pockets.
(3) It had been a confused affair in a largely featureless landscape which had led to military diarists trying to find something, some distinguishing feature, to identify the battle for posterity. It had, after all, to be the Battle of Somewhere. The only thing of note in the area had been a small cottage occupied by an old lady who was knitting woolly hats for her grandsons.
"Blowed if I know what you call them." she had said, confronted by Regimental Diarists from both sides who had pens and pads at the ready. They had called a truce, so as to get this vital detail sorted out. "Covers the whole head, see? Just leaves a sort of window open in front, for the eyes and the nose, and you can pull it up over the mouth, works in the sort of winters you get round here..."
(4)Mama deplored this. It was wanton. Alexandra wondered what Agatean food had to do with showing your legs in company. Her legs were not shaped like small steamed pastry dumplings, for instance.
(5) Some explanation: "Bugger off!" in Russian, or one vocalisation of the phrase, ends "-your mother." Russian is notorious for this: swearing in Russian is called "mat" - "mother" - for this reason.
(6) Because Librarians know.
(7) This is a sort of Russia, don't forget. It's "B", as in Bodka.
NOTES DUMP
Vedegon: a patron spirit that comes down the generations with a family and acts as a guide and a guardian; tend to associate with families who have a military or fighting tradition.
Vikhor: according to one source, an elemental Russian spirit of the air, a sylph, who if it likes you as a human friend, will calm or agitate the air at your request. A Witch who has an air spirit as a friend is potentially very powerful.
Did I ever add this to any footnote or notes dump anywhere? I forget.
A brief note, written for Quora, on how I got into fanfic in the prehistoric days of no Internet and no desktop PC, way back around 1989...
ep… I was writing fanfic, slowly and painfully, on an old electric typewriter many years ago, trying to do a comedy pastiche of The Lord of the Rings/The Silmarillion, aware I'd never be able to profit from it and it was only for fun. I was trying to answer questions that were nagging at me, like "Who built the sewers under Gondolin and Rivendell? Elves ate food. Therefore they would have digestive systems. Therefore there MUST have been elven plumbers and drainage/sewerage people. for the bits on top to glow and be beautiful, there must have been infrastructure below. So what sort of outlook on life would a high elven plumber and lavatory repair man have had?"
I ran with this - the idea of The Lowest Of The High Elves - for a year or two. An elf who would think the high elves above him were a snotty stuck-up bunch of entitled bastards who wouldn't recognise a ball-cock if they got hit on the head by one, a Low Elf who would, in fact, recognise fundamental things about Orcs that Tolkein hinted at but did not follow through logically (if they were bred from debased elves, some of them, it follows on, would be more elf than Orc. and if the potential exists in Elves to become Orcs, then there'd be some strolling about Rivendell who would be Elf on the outside and orcish on the inside).
I ran with this until I discovered a published author called Terry Pratchett. Then I realised, with a sinking "you bastard, Pratchett…" sort of feeling that this guy was writing EXACTLY the sort of fantasy-parody-comedy stories that I wanted to write.
Only - better.
I gave up for a few years, but bought every Pratchett tale as they came out. I gave away the electric typewriter to a friend as I wasn't using it. I lived in the Discworld. I bought the Companions for further detail.
Then word-processing and Microsoft word coincided with my getting maybe as far as the tenth Discworld novel and thinking… what if….