Chapter Twenty – The Great Fire
Silvítya was worried that the Grand Duke might somehow find out about her conversation with Protector Buláshckt, given his talent for figuring out people's secrets. However, living two years in the castle had made her as talented at hiding her emotions and thoughts as the ruler was for discerning them. Besides, he was distracted by a secret project. He constantly wrote letters and studied mysterious architectural plans. At first she thought he was still worried about expanding the city wall, but that didn't explain his behavior, given the entire country knew about the wall project. So, whenever she had the chance, she glanced at the drawings any time she happened to be near a work-table or desk. The drawings had nothing to do with fortified defenses; instead they were pictures of strange beautiful buildings unlike anything she had seen in the Duchy, with columns and domes and elaborate stone carvings.
The training of the foreigners went extremely well. By the end of their first six weeks as concubines, they had a working knowledge of Danubian. Three of the girls were literate in their own language, so the spokeswoman trained them to read and write in Danubian, with the understanding they would teach their illiterate companions how to read and write in the Duchy's language. Silvítya also trained the new girls how to sexually satisfy their master, showing them the submissive postures they were expected to assume and how to massage the ruler to get him aroused after he had copulated with the first of his women for the night. Without directly saying it, she made the newcomers understand that the sooner the Duke became aroused, the sooner he would have sex with the remaining women, and the sooner they would be released for the night. Silvítya took it for granted the foreigners found dealing with the Danubian ruler unpleasant and wanted their time with him to end as quickly as possible.
During the late spring of 1755, the Grand Duke's behavior towards his favorite concubine changed. He actually started treating her decently and with limited respect. He did not force her to kneel while he fed her treats, he made love to her in a completely normal manner, he quit threatening to sodomize her, and most importantly, he quit fondling her scalp and running his fingers through her hair. He talked to her in a conversational tone, dropping a lot of the condescending phrases he used to address his concubines. Usually he referred to her as "Servant Silvítya", which was the name by which she was known around the castle. That was much better than being called "my favorite minx". Silvítya hated being called a "minx".
Another sign of the ruler's increasing respect for his servant manifested itself when he forced her to bring the foreigners to his bed-chamber. He was as rough and demanding with the newcomers as much as he was with any of his newly-acquired women, but he did not make his favorite participate in the group sex sessions. In fact, he never had sex with her at all if any of the other women were present. Not at any time during her two years in the castle had she ever heard of any concubine, even Magdala, not being forced to have sex with the ruler while the other women were present. Apart from forcing her to remain naked at all times, he quit doing anything to her that a normal Danubian woman would consider disrespectful or humiliating.
On the first day of June, the Grand Duke gave Silvítya a set of bracelets to match her necklace. The necklace was shocking enough, but now the former peasant girl was walking around with bracelets as well. The castle staff stared at her as she wandered around in her new jewelry. Never had anyone seen a concubine wearing such items, which were among the most expensive pieces of jewelry in the Royal Family's collection.
Silvítya forced herself to smile and act grateful, but to her the necklace felt like a criminal's collar and the bracelets felt like metal cuffs. She dreaded to think what the jewelry might mean; that possibly the Grand Duke was falling in love with her. He certainly enjoyed having her with him as much as possible, especially at night. He spent hours with her in the bath or in his bed, massaging her shoulders and talking about his various experiences while growing up.
There were a couple of memories he inadvertently shared that gave Silvítya some important insights into his character. He talked in a detached manner, as though trying to distance himself from whatever emotion he was feeling at the time, but the experiences were real and must have been traumatic when they happened. There was one incident in particular that stuck out in his mind. His father had been making him train with both a long bow and a crossbow throughout his childhood. At age 12, like every other Danubian child, the future Grand Duke passed the farewell-to-childhood ceremony at the Great Temple in a hugely public ceremony. When the ceremony was finished and everyone went home, the old Grand Duke gave his son a long lecture about what leaving childhood behind meant for a future ruler. He then celebrated by taking his son to the castle courtyard, where a prisoner had been tied to the execution post. The old Grand Duke handed his son a longbow and told him he had to pass his first test to prove he could become the next sovereign. The boy, at age 12, had to carry out an execution. The prisoner looked at his young executioner with a totally despondent expression, more like he felt sorry for the boy than anything else. The Royal heir, terrified of displeasing his father, did as he was told and shot five arrows into the prisoner. Unfortunately, the man was not quite dead after the fifth arrow, so the boy had to shoot him with five additional arrows. The heir was trembling and felt totally sick after the tenth arrow. His father commented:
"You shot that prisoner like you were a woman. You'll need to learn, boy. You'll learn to kill a man with your first shot, and if I have to bring every criminal in the country into this courtyard for the next decade, I will, until you learn archery like a man."
The heir had to kill over 20 prisoners before his father was satisfied with his performance with the longbow.
The Grand Duke treated the incident as a legitimate right of passage, but Silvítya wondered how much it really affected him, deep down. It was interesting that the Grand Duke, for all the women he had taken as concubines, had not yet married. He had as many illegitimate sons scattered around the country as daughters but, apart from sending their mothers a silver coin each month, he never interacted with them. The concubine vaguely wondered if subconsciously the ruler was afraid of having to raise a son and having to decide whether to repeat his father's harsh system of "tests of character" to for the heir to claim the right to assume the throne.
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At the beginning of June the Grand Duke decided to offer his favorite concubine a second wish. Since she couldn't expect release from her servitude, she pondered what she could ask for that would be useful in her life. She decided to ingratiate herself with her "sisters" by requesting that all of the concubines have access to the garden, if she escorted them. The ruler surprised her by granting that wish. For the rest of the summer the concubines could enjoy being outdoors, as long as their spokeswoman kept watch over them.
When Silvítya announced that she had obtained permission for all of the "sisters" to enjoy the garden, they were thrilled. However, their spokeswoman used the privilege to re-assert her authority over the others. Since she decided who could go out with her and who would have to stay behind, she re-instituted the regimen of reading and learning. The girls from the Kingdom of the Moon would have to participate as well, reading books with simpler texts and discussing them in Danubian.
In the garden, Silvítya established a regimen of exercise which included relay races and ball-catch games. The guards and male servants spent their afternoons watching the 12 naked young women as they ran around the garden, but the concubines were enjoying themselves too much to really worry about their audience. The Grand Duke noted with satisfaction that the girls had the chance to truly enjoy the summer and that their mood as a group had improved.
