CHAPTER 1 - Strange dream
Spring 1770
Oscar Francois de Jarjayes woke up abruptly. She ran her hand over forehead, wet with sweat.
"What was that? - she thought disgustedly - A strange dream, nothing else" - she murmured, though she was not at all reassured.
She dreamed that she was sitting on the bank of the river. The same place she went a thousand times when she was angry or sad. Mostly angry. She was fifteen now and an wrathful girl. Rebellious, as her father usually said. Not that it was any problem, not for her and not for her father. Long time ago General had assigned her a position inconsistent with the gender roles in which she was born. His heir. A soldier. Her father's pride. Bright future. Her wrathful and rebellious nature smoothly fitted into these expectations. A soldier cannot be gentle and compliant. She never was.
Trained in horse riding, fencing and shooting from an early age, at the age of fifteen she was a real master in all of this. Her father thought about the following years with satisfaction and looked positively to the future. This son will bring him glory. Daughter. Anyway, it doesn't matter.
Oscar was recently appointed the commander of the Royal Guards. Her task was to protect Marie Antoinette, the fiancee of the dolphin and, God willing, the future queen of France. Oscar's father could not dream of the better start for his heir. Since she became a commander, she started to be a little more civilized, as the general was talking to himself with a smile. She stopped climbing on the trees and buildings, running through the woods like crazy and jerking the nerves of everybody in the manor. Exept her father who was always lenient to her madness. Perhaps Oscar has grown up gradually, or perhaps she was so occupied by her new role and thought about it so completely that she has ceased to feel like having crazy fun.
The role of commander she assumed without blinking an eye and without a word of objection. The desired role, a dream from an early age, fueled by General's stories. When, a few weeks earlier, her father had brought a white uniform to her room, her heart was beating as fast as ever. She wanted to start right away. Her boyish heart was struggling to play a new, responsible role. Girlish. Anyway, it doesn't matter. Command, shout orders, take risks, fight. She wanted nothing else.
Oscar knew she was not a boy. Of course not from the beginning. Nobody corrected her at first. She received a male education and wore boy clothes. She never wore ruffled dresses like her sisters. She also had no dolls. It never occurred to her that something was not quite as it should be. Nobody talked to her about it, nobody explained anything to her. Moreover, she had never seen any sister naked. Or anyone else. She had no way of finding out who she was, or rather who she wasn't. She lived like in a glass castle. Until one day two years before, when she started bleeding, the glass castle broke into a million pieces. Her world should collapse. But it didn't. She just stared curiously at the nanny who was explaining, patiently and embarrassedly, the whole situation. After listening, Oscar just nodded and said, "Got it." After a few days, she returned to the routine of everyday life, training and horse riding. And she never mentioned the whole thing again.
Therefore, the more this dream upset her. She was sitting on the river bank with someone, but she didn't see him very well. He was a boy, a friend. But he did not look like anyone she knew. Yet he was familiar. They sat and mostly kept quiet. They talked only a little. She couldn't remember exactly but it was about the difficult choice she had to make. Then she hit him and he hit her. They fought like two boys. Then she got on her horse with the intention of running away. Though she can't remember other words, one sentence echoed in her mind. She wasn't far enough yet to hear the boy screaming. Annoying words. Unwanted. A blade stuck right into her boyish heart.
- It's not too late to choose a woman's life! - the boy screamed
„Woman, woman, woman.." - the cry in her head wouldn't stop, even after she woke up.
„What the hell!" - Oscar thought, when, during breakfast, the image of the boy calling became more and more insistent
- Go to hell! - she screamed as she almost let Jerome beat her in the morning training when image of that boy distracted her like nothing before.
In Versailles, she was so furious that, after half an hour, the soldiers realized that this was one of those days when they should get out of her way. Girodelle, her deputy, tried to gently remind her of some of the responsibilities, but only heard a few curses in response.
Oscar was like a volcano before it erupted. NOBODY, NEVER had reminded her that she was a woman. Of course, except for her traitorous body, which showed her once a month that she was not born a boy. Why did this damn picture appear in her mind now?
A dream continued to haunt her all day. On her way back home, she stopped by the river. The same place she saw in that dream. She thought it might be a kind of exorcism, chasing away those unwanted thoughts and words. She sat down under a tree and calmed down a little. It was always a magic place that could calm her even from her worst anger. Like now.
„Good - she thought - I don't know what happened to me. After all, I AM a woman, I cannot fool myself. But that doesn't mean anything, at least not to me. I am a commander, I am a soldier. This is the only thing that interests me - she breathed a few times deeply and smiled maliciously - Poor Girodelle, he had a difficult day today" - she laughed, quite allright already.
She sat down a little longer, bathed in the river, and returned home.
Despite the fears, the dream didn't return. At least not right away.