. 03

Part 3: Winter Festival

Some weeks went by. The Prancirians enjoyed their winter festival. No soldiers came to visit the dormitory on the evening before the festival or the day of the festival itself. The soldiers were all stood off duty but they spent their time feasting and getting drunk, playing certain games with cards or dice or taking turns to answer questions of knowledge. The weather was cold but no snow had yet arrived in Dalos to brighten the greyness of the time of year. Danella and the Priestesses were granted the freedom of the town by Gerald but few of them knew what to do with it. What would they have done with their time in Pirion? Outside the city was barred to them and the weather was cold and they were not free. It was strange that Dalos no longer seemed to be a part of Pirion.

The city had changed when it had changed hands. The change had come to seem permanent in the months following the conquest. It was strange that a normality had seemed to descend on the Priestesses so soon after the upheavals of war. They had returned to the activities they knew and enjoyed the best and it had made them feel comfortable. While each and every one of them resented being a prisoner, they no longer felt like prisoners. While each and every one of them wished to return Dalos to the Empire of the Goddess, and despised the ruthlessness of the Prancirians, they had come to accept that the Prancirians were just men. Individually, and as 'customers' and even friends, they held little threat to the Priestesses. They could even be liked when the Priestesses came to know them better.

The attitudes of the Priestesses towards their new masters improved as they heard, after months of hardship, that many of the men of Dalos were to be allowed to return to Dalos for the festival and that they were being punished less and worked less by managers and overseers of the projects who seemed to realise that these men would work better if treated correctly. Nonetheless they were still prisoners, who laboured hard for their keep and for no money, where money was the Prancirian way with their own people, some of the men had been taken away from Dalos for projects required by the invaders. Danella heard they were being set to extend railway lines and roads in the occupied territories to facilitate the swift supply of their armies and to rebuild and repair damaged buildings and bridges. They were also being used to rebuild defensive positions around various 'forts' which the Prancirians wished to protect. Dalos was one most important city to the conquerors.

After Jumilos it was the largest of the cities and towns occupied by the invaders. Indeed only Jumilos and Dalos could be classed as cities. The other places were smaller towns. By all the accounts she had heard from Paul and other soldiers Jumilos could not be much of a city anymore. The racial philosophies of the Vanmandrians had encouraged them to slaughter at least a half of the population there, and there had been starvation in the siege. Even the Prancirian soldiers seemed to regard the Vanmandrians excesses with distaste, some more than others. While it seemed some could agree with the Vanmandrian theories that many of the Pirionites were of inferior race and should be treated as second class citizens, there were many who believed that in time all the Pirionites would be given the same rights and status as their colonial masters.

None among the Prancirians could be found who could condone such a scale of slaughter. One solder had said "Well when an army conquers a city they don't know who is going to follow orders and who is going to stab them from behind when they walk down alleyways. It is necessary to crush all resistance or the conquered will remain dangerous. Soldiers have to kill a few people when they capture a city because it is the only way to maintain order. I do not understand why the Vanmandrians killed so many though. It doesn't make much sense to me. They must be a little crazy!"

There seemed to be little respect amongst the Prancirian solders for the Vanmandrians with whom they had only recently fought a short war which had halted the combined advance into Pirion for a few months, allowing the Pirionite Generals, such as Polad, precious time to reorganise and train, to try to stem the advance. Without the dispute between the conquerors the invaders might have been much further into Pirion by now. Other armies were also in the alliance, all concerned to join this great crusade of the modern age to rid the world of the culture of the Goddess once and for all.

It was obvious to all the participants, the soldiers, Generals and Statesmen alike, that this was no mere crusade. It was chance which may come only once in history, to join the Vanmarian carve up of an outdated and old fashioned empire, turned soft by centuries of inactivity and peace. If any Vanmarian nation held back, as some did, they might miss their chance to take colonies in that huge exotic Empire to the south and west. Then the larger part of the world would belong to cruel Vanmandria and proud Prancir. Both nations already had extensive colonies in other areas of the world and both had long sought to take lands from the Empire of the Goddess but had reasoned that they could not tackle an Empire so large alone. Despite their ancient enmities they had made their agreement to be allies in this venture and to invite the other powers of Vanmar to join them. Pirion was too big for any one Vanmarian nation to conquer and hold all of it, but together they could all succeed. There would be enough territory for all. And so other nations jealous of the power of the great powers or wishing to maintain their own ancient powers by expansion as their rivals did, joined the crusade.

Alboran, a fertile northern island with its own power and foreign colonies to preserve was not a nation keen to fight. Its parliament needed justifications before they would fight and their monarch was not able to take such decisions without the sanction of his nation. They had traditionally fought Prancir many times over the centuries and the two were traditional rivals, although today they feared Vanmandria more, and were in part thankful that that great bully in the centre of Vanmar not only was separated from them by the sea but also had a project which would divert their attention for many years. It was at first difficult for the Alboranish to find a reason which would justify an invasion of Pirion, a country which had never done them any harm, except to refuse the access of their eager traders. However, the Alboranish were particularly good at finding reasons for doing things, even if they were a little liberal with the truth from time to time. They had acquired many of their other colonies in such a way. Usually the reasons for sending solders to those countries had been to protect their own citizens engaged in legal trading, even when the countries had not wanted foreign traders and had a perfect right to protect their own economies from these menaces.

Danella knew very little of the history of Alboran or any of the other Vanmarian states, but she had seen references in books Polad had lent to her and in the ones Paul now lent to her. The Prime Minister of Alboran had complained to Pirion that some of his subjects had gone missing on a trading expedition inland. This injury to 'free trade', a concept held dear by the citizens of Alboran, had caused outrage when the announcement in parliament was followed by excitable press reports in the newspapers of that free country. And so the people and their parliament had eventually clamoured for war. The people of Alboran were particularly reputed to be repressive in their attitude to sex. It was the firm belief of many of them that men should be 'faithful' to their wives.

Unlike the Prancirians who were believed to be liberal towards important men who kept mistresses, the Alboranish castigated their wayward men in their 'free' newspapers. A woman who committed the sin of adultery would be obliged to leave the area, where they lived in order to avoid the gossip which the local women would generate. And so the hints and clouded rumours which were spread around and which in typical Alboran fashion never stated anything in exact terms and often left the listener unclear whether he had heard what he thought he had heard, had their effect on the attitude of the nation. The implied sexual habits of the Pirionites of which even the most liberated citizen of Alboran would hardly have been able to comprehend the full extent of, led the citizens of that 'moral' country to call Pirionites savages, barbarians, monkeys and even rabbits.

Spalopia, that southern land which still had a King and a government who needed little sanction from their people had few of the scruples of right minded Alboran. If there was territory available to be conquered increasing the wealth of the rulers and their supporters they needed little persuasion to enter the expedition. Rumours of gold and riches to be foraged in the Empire of the Goddess encouraged them greatly to send their helmeted soldiers.

The other nation who had decided to join was Relgin that little low lying republic on the northern border of Prancir who shared a common language with Prancir. Tired of centuries of invasion and counter invasion by its larger neighbours they were keen to find colonies in which they might for a change seek to dominate and control their subjects, as well as make much money to drag back to their banks.

These three allies all now maintained their own little enclaves in the coastal regions of Pirion, smaller than the areas occupied by Vanmandria and Prancir. Alboran and Relgin held lands to the north and west of Dalos. The Spalopians towards the east where most of the Vanmandrians were. All three of them had sided with Prancir against the Vanmandrians after the excess of Jumilos and the attempts of the Vanmandrians to cheat Prancir of some of the territory it had already bought in lives. After some months of fighting each other and bickering between the allies of the Prancirian faction the Vanmandrians had agreed to respect their old allies and come to new terms with them. There was peace between the Vanmarians, but that had been bad news for Pirion. It had enabled the Prancirians to turn their attentions towards Pirion again. Dalos had fallen and the lives of its citizens had been changed. It seemed the change would be permanent. They had been conquered months before and still there was no sign of a Pirionite return. It looked as if Dalos would belong to Prancir for ever and the life of its citizens had been permanently altered.

Many of the Priestesses welcomed the coming of the Festival. It brought a break from the regular visits of the Prancirian soldiers. Some took the chance to go out into the city and wander. Others stayed in the dormitory chatting more openly with each other. Some took the opportunity to enter communion with each other.