Chapter Twenty-Two -- The Scavenger
The forest is an unforgiving mistress. Yes, the Ancients can bless those who live in the Realm of Nature by treating it with respect, but such blessings are only available to those who know where to seek them; and even for the wise, those blessings are usually fleeting. When one is in the forest, the goal is to eat before sunset and survive to see another sunrise. Perhaps it is possible to contemplate the future, but too much thought on the future and too little on the present is vanity.
Danka took her young slave into the mountains with those thoughts in mind. Strange to think, just a year before she had lived a pampered life in the Grand Duke's castle, and now she was about to embark on a life as a wanderer in the Duchy's wild country. She tried to remember all of the training she had received when she was a Follower. She would need every bit of that knowledge to make it through the rest of the summer and prepare for the upcoming winter.
Danka and Isauria spent the first week traveling east, ever deeper into the southern Danubian forest. The outcast was determined to get far away from Malénkta-Gordnáckta and anyone who had known her during her sojourn in that town. For the rest of her life she would harbor deep resentment against its inhabitants. She hated the men for willingly going out on slave-capturing raids, but she even more, she loathed the town's women. She had spent months teaching them everything she knew about collecting food in the forest, sharing much of the knowledge passed to her by Babáckt Yaga and the other Followers. However, along with distributing practical knowledge, Danka had made the mistake of trying to pass along the philosophical wisdom of the Cult of the Ancients. She subconsciously wanted to influence the beliefs of her neighbors and have them reward her by accepting her as their de facto spiritual leader. She failed to understand that attempting to appoint herself as a spiritual guide was an act of hubris, and the Ancients always punished hubris. Danka's self-appointed spiritual mission failed miserably and its only result was for the former cultist to be accused of being strange and then to be ignored, ridiculed, and ultimately ostracized. She felt betrayed by her female neighbors and resented the fact they had not accepted her as part of their community. So, she wanted nothing to do with the women of Malénkta-Gordnáckta and never wanted to see them again.
As soon as she was far enough from the town that it would be unlikely she'd run into any of its inhabitants, Danka had an important decision to make: which direction to continue her journey. The countryside immediately to the east and southeast was covered with thickly-forested low-lying hills, which contrasted with higher mountains that lay to the north. The mountains were part of a crescent-shaped chain that separated the southwest portion of the Duchy from the southeast part and at that time the highland region was completely unsettled. Beyond the northern mountains lay the Black Swamp of Misery, which was in reality a large marshland that fed into the Rika Chorna River. Either the mountains or the swamp would have been good places to hide, had Danka been a fugitive. However, she considered herself a traveler, not a fugitive, and had no desire to spend her remaining time in the Realm of the Living in a squalid cabin with an illiterate serving-girl in a lonely, isolated settlement. The only hope for either the woman or the girl to have a fulfilling Path in Life was to keep moving and see where the Ancients led them.
Danka decided to journey directly eastward and stay within a day's walk of the Duchy's southern border during the entire trip. At that time she had a vague idea of going to the Vice-Duchy of Rika Chorna and seeing if she could settle there. Danka did not know what to expect from the inhabitants of the Vice-Duchy, but it was away from western Danubia, which was what she wanted at the time. So, she and Isauria would continue working their way east, spend the summer in the forest, and eventually emerge into the Eastern Valley.
As was customary for Followers of the Ancients, whenever they were in the Realm of Nature and temperatures permitted, Danka and Isauria walked completely naked, wearing nothing but their boots. Isauria was not bothered by Danka's order that she carry her clothing in her traveling pack instead of on her body. She already was used to being nude: as a collared slave she had been denied the right to wear clothing at any time. So, the naked girl plodded behind her naked mistress, with the heavy supply pack cutting into her bare shoulders and Danka's uncovered bottom and thighs always in front of her.
Danka was not a sympathetic or patient teacher, because the Realm of Nature is not sympathetic or patient. Also, the former peasant had experienced very little sympathy in her life, so she did not know how to display it to anyone working under her. Danka was not kind to Isauria as we would understand kindness in modern times. She expected Isauria to carefully listen to everything she said and to follow her instructions exactly. On the few occasions when Isauria did not meet her expectations, she was harsh with her voice and as quick to use the switch as any other impatient slave-owner.
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Isauria's Path in Life would be to remain Danka's servant and companion throughout 1756. She continued to wear her slave collar, partly because Danka did not have the tools necessary to remove it, and partly because Danka knew it would be best for the girl to consider herself a slave until her mistress felt she was ready to face the harsh world on her own.
The quiet girl clearly was not ready to fend for herself when Danka purchased her. Yes, she had endured several traumatic events during her short life, but trauma does not necessarily prepare a person to face the world. Isauria's only practical knowledge consisted of looking after sheep (from the days before she was taken captive) and housework (from her year living in Alexándrekt Buláshckt's household). As for fending for herself in the forest, she was still a child, as naive as any guild-master's daughter.
So, it was Danka's Path in Life to teach her ward how to survive in the Realm of Nature. She trained the girl how to find anything that was edible, how to hide among the trees and find shelter, how to anticipate changes in the weather, how to identify animal tracks, and how to pack supplies and move about undetected. Within days Isauria knew how to forage for roots, mushrooms, and fruit. She knew how to set campfires and prepare a campsite, while Danka was hunting or looking for promising trails. Her daily routine was grueling, but she became invaluable to her mistress.
During her first months in the woods Danka would teach Isauria how to set traps, tie knots, and make snares. She showed her the basics of fishing, which the girl picked up with ease. Isauria was fascinated with everything having to do with fish and became much more adept at catching fish than her mistress. Other skills learned by Isauria over the summer included searching for springs, collecting rainwater, making and reading maps, compass-reading, land navigation, using the stars to navigate at night, and moving about in total silence. The girl learned quickly and became competent at living outside. By the end of the summer Danka knew that if anything happened to her, Isauria would be able to survive on her own, at least for a while, and continue traveling.
In spite of her willingness to use the switch, by the standards of slave owners in eighteenth-century Danubia, Danka was a good mistress and most foreign captives would have been happy to exchange places with Isauria. She never struck from anger or frustration, nor was she spiteful or condescending. She never did anything to humiliate her ward, which was a huge improvement in the girl's life over the treatment she had received from Alexándrekt Buláshckt and his nephew. Instead, Danka's treatment directly reflected on how well the girl performed her duties. As long as Isauria followed instructions, she had nothing to fear. If she didn't understand something, her owner encouraged her to request clarification. It was important that Isauria understood her responsibilities and why she needed to perform each duty in a certain way, so the only stupid questions were the ones she neglected to ask.
The social distance that normally would distinguish an owner from a slave was absent in Danka's relationship with Isauria. Danka used the lower-class form of "you" when addressing the servant and told Isauria to use the same form when responding. Danka's speech reverted to her peasant background, with Isauria expected to address her mistress in the same way a guild apprentice would address a mentor. Whatever food was available she shared in equal portions. She cared for the girl's medical needs and allowed her to rest when she was sick. As for the travelers' sleeping arrangements, Danka had with her a single sleeping roll, which she shared with her servant. Peasants were used to sharing beds, so Danka shared the sleeping roll with her ward in the same way she had shared her bed with her sister while growing up.
There were other ways Danka let Isauria know that she did not consider her mere property. She began to teach the servant to write during the rare occasions they weren't occupied with wandering, hunting, scavenging, or gathering food. Isauria recognized the importance of writing, so on her own she practiced tracing letters in the dust whenever she had to opportunity, to the great satisfaction of her mentor. When Danka prayed to the Ancients, she insisted the girl accompany her. Over the summer Isauria learned about Danka's religious beliefs, to include singing some of the ancient hymns and speaking a few words in archaic Danubian.
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Danka had never been as experienced at hunting or tracking animals as she was gathering edible plants. She had some basic information about forest animals from her year in Babáckt Yaga's settlement, but even among the Followers hunting was a task mostly carried out by the men. Out of necessity, her hunting skills greatly improved over the summer of 1756. She snared her first rabbit the day after she punished Isauria. A week later she killed her first deer, a partially grown fawn. Over the month of June there were a few more rabbits and another deer. The dead animals were both a blessing and a hindrance. The hunts meant a better diet and a supply of animal skins, but also considerably slowed down the journey. Every time she killed an animal, she and her servant had to spend time at camp preparing smoked meat, preparing tanning solution with the animals' own brains, and scraping, stretching, and tanning the hides.
Along with basic survival skills and reading, Danka felt that her servant needed to know the basics of combat. She was concerned about being a woman alone in the forest and wanted the assurance that if she were attacked, Isauria could come to her assistance. Using the second dead deer's carcass for practice, she taught Isauria several maneuvers with her dagger, making sure Isauria knew how to stab deeply and cut muscles and arteries, in spite of her small size and relative lack of strength. Using sticks, she taught her servant the basics of fencing and sword fighting. The sword-fighting was the hardest skill Danka passed along to her servant, because every time she did anything having to do with sword fighting, she had to struggle against the flash-backs of her final moments in Babáckt Yaga's settlement.
