by E. P. Clark
“What kind of interesting tidings?” demanded Vladya, not sitting, even when Aunty Olga sat down and tugged at her sleeve.
“I will tell the whole story when everyone arrives, to save myself from telling it twice,” said Dasha’s mother, giving Vladya a level look. “But in short: their situation has changed drastically, as, thus, has ours.”
Vladya opened her mouth to demand more answers, but just then Susanna came in, at slightly less of a rush, followed by Princess Pristanogradskaya and then, moving in a statelier fashion, Princess Belova.
“Why the early summons?” demanded Princess Belova as she came into the Great Hall. “What has happened?”
“Sit down,” Dasha’s mother told all of them. She waited until they were all seated and fidgeting impatiently in their seats before continuing, “An emissary from the Southerners arrived this morning, before any of us were awake. He had been riding all day and all night to reach us, and he bore most interesting tidings. It seems,” and it seemed to Dasha that her mother was having trouble repressing a smile as she spoke, “that doubt has arisen as to the paternity of the leader of their forces fighting against the Rutsi.”
There was a moment of puzzled silence. “So?” said Vladya eventually.
“Inheritance,” Dasha’s mother reminded them all, “is reckoned through the male line amongst them. He is supposed to be his father’s heir. If he is not, he has no claim to the empire. He has had to abandon his campaign against the Rutsi in order to rush back to the Middle Sea to press his claim, or perhaps be executed for treason.”
There was a collective gasp, and then everyone started speaking at once. “Foolish Westerners,” seemed to be the general opinion, although Aunty Olga was muttering something about how the Southerners could no doubt find another commander if they wanted to, and they mustn’t think the threat was over just because of this piece of great good luck.
“Yes, yes, yes,” said Dasha’s mother eventually, holding up her hands to silence everyone. “They are very foolish indeed, no one can deny it. They have no one to blame for their problems but themselves. Not that I have any complaints. It would be wrong of me to take pleasure in a father’s misfortune,” she said, so gravely that Dasha knew she was dancing with glee inside, “but it does solve our problem most tidily. Is the mother still alive? Perhaps we should send her some kind of a gift, or offer her an alliance. She has done us a greater service than all our warriors combined could ever manage.”
There was a good deal of relieved laughter at these words, and several proposals for gifts of ever-increasing opulence, until the conversation turned serious again, and it was agreed that perhaps, in the future, Zem’ would offer to consider an alliance with the Middle Sea empire, providing they could produce a legitimate ruler with which to treat.
“It would be very wrong of us to take advantage of these troubled times by suggesting that they choose someone from the female line, I am sure,” said her mother. She smiled. “Nevertheless, I may do so anyway. They can at least send us a woman as an envoy, so that we may have some hope of forging an agreement for peace.” She smiled even more widely. “Perhaps the mother? Or should we insist that they choose her as their next ruler. After all—correct me if I’m wrong, my princesses—but is she not also of their ruling line? Isn’t she her own husband’s second-sister, or something of that nature? You know how foreigners are: never taking care to freshen the line properly, until they end up with children who can’t even dress themselves.” She sobered up. “It is wrong of me to mock them so,” she said, now sincerely. “But still…this is an opportunity we cannot pass by.”
“And what of the Rutsi?” demanded Vladya, once the jubilation had eased slightly. “What are we going to do about them?”
“Yes,” said Dasha’s mother. “I think it is time that we sent an envoy to them, don’t you think?”
“An envoy for what purpose?” asked Vladya.
“Why, to offer terms of an alliance,” said Dasha’s mother.
“There can be no alliance with the likes of them!” Princess Belova burst out.
Dasha’s mother gave her a cool look. “Some would have said that there can be no alliances with the steppe,” she said. “Or the North. Some would have said that there can be no alliances with the likes of my own foremothers. It is easy to say that there can be no alliance with this person or that person. But that does not end the fact that they are our neighbors. What are we going to do? Drive them out of their own lands? I think not. That way lies failure. Better to learn to live with them. And thanks to the foresight of the Tsarinovna, we have the perfect envoys on hand.” She turned to Dasha. “Send for Yuliya and Birgit,” she said.
“We can’t make those people our envoys!” protested Princess Belova.
“Why not?” Dasha’s mother asked, as Dasha froze in a half-crouch, waiting to hear the outcome of the argument before going in search of Yuliya and Birgit.
“For a start, because we can’t trust them at all! This Bir-git”—Princess Belova stumbled over the foreign name—“is a foreigner! She’s one of them! And this Yuliya is hardly better! She was married to one of them for years, you know! She even left her mother’s people to go live amongst them!”
“Then there is hardly anyone more suited, is there?” said Dasha’s mother with a smile.
“They won’t accept them,” warned Princess Belova. “They’ll think Yuliya is a foreigner, and Birgit is a traitor.”
“Do we have anyone to send whom they might be more likely to accept?” asked Dasha’s mother.
The princesses all looked back and forth at each other, before shaking their heads. “Treating with them is hopeless,” said Princess Belova. “Force is the only thing they respect.”
“That’s not quite true,” Dasha found herself saying. She was standing up straight, she realized. And she towered over everyone else there. Even if they were to stand up themselves, she would still tower over everyone else in the chamber. Even Aunty Olga. All these people whom she had thought were so big and tall were in fact smaller than her. She was big and strong, just as her father had told her, and it did matter. It was a gift, just like all her other gifts. So she should use it as such. Everyone’s eyes were upon her, but instead of making her want to shrink away, to apologize for taking up their attention, she found herself standing up even taller under their gaze. “They respect strength,” she said. “Which is different from force.”
Princess Belova laughed. “How so, Tsarinovna?” she said.
“I am not a forceful person,” said Dasha. “And when I was with them, I used no force. I never fought, either with them or against them. But I demonstrated my gifts, and I spoke to them as to equals. Those were signs of strength, and they respected that.” Some of them, anyway, she thought but did not say. “We should show them our strength,” she said. “Not our force, but our strength. The ones who matter will respect that. Send Birgit, send Yuliya, because they are the ones who have the knowledge we need, but send others as well. Send those whom they will respect.”
“And whom will we send?” demanded Princess Belova. “The Tsarina? You?”
“Yes,” said Dasha. “Send me.”
There was more outcry. Even her mother gasped, though she tried to hide it.
“Send me,” said Dasha, when the noise and confusion had died down enough for her to be heard again. “That is what the visions have been trying to tell me all along. Send me. They will respect me because of who I am. Not just because I am the Tsarinovna, but because in their eyes I am a sorceress. And who better than me? Who better to treat with foreigners than one who is one herself? For I am a foreigner too, you know. Not just to them but to my own people. And I always will be. I was born with only one foot in the world of women, and the other in the world of the gods, and for better or worse, that is how I will always stand. Half and half. Split in two. Neither this nor that. So let this foreigner be an envoy to the foreigners.”
“It is too dangerous, Tsarinovna,” objected
Princess Pristanogradskaya. “What you say may be true, but there is only one of you. We cannot afford to risk losing you.”
Dasha closed her eyes for a moment to concentrate on the visions. “Of course there is risk,” she said when she reopened them. “But no more than if I were to go back to Krasnograd and stay there, locked away in my chambers in the kremlin. Less, in fact. Because this is what I was meant to do. This is the purpose—one of the purposes—for which I was born. I can sense it. The visions say so. This is what must be.”
“And we’re just supposed to take that on faith?!” cried Princess Belova.
“Yes,” said Dasha.
Dasha’s mother jumped up and went over to the doors of the Great Hall, where she put her head out and ordered one of the guards standing there to go fetch Yuliya and Birgit. When she came back, she stood beside Dasha.
“I more than anyone don’t want to risk losing the Tsarinovna,” she said. “But there is wisdom in her words. I fear she may be right. We should at least consider it.”
The argument continued hard and furious for some time after that, and then, when Yuliya and Birgit arrived, it flared up anew and went on until midday. But in the end it was agreed, in part out of exhaustion, that they would put together a party to go into Rutsi to treat with the most important of the Rutsi leaders, and try to forge an alliance that would put an end to the raiding.
When they left the Great Hall, everyone was in a poor humor. Dasha stumbled out after them. Everything seemed to shimmer before her, and her head felt as if it were floating somewhere high above her body.
“I want to go for a swim,” she said. “To clear my head. I want to go for a swim in the sea.”
“Of course, my love,” said her mother. “Take your guards and go.”
With Alik and Seva trailing behind her, Dasha walked dazedly out of the kremlin and away. She left the arm of the bay behind and walked out onto the strand that opened up to the open sea. The sun was shining from right overhead as she stripped down to nothing but her shirt and began walking towards the water.
The sun glittered on it invitingly, and she dove into it, into the sea, her home, and felt it embrace her and take her down, even as it lifted her up. There was a thin layer of warmth right at the surface, with cold welling up bracingly from underneath. She swam out away from the shore until her feet could no longer touch the bottom. Then she turned onto her back and floated in the thin layer of warm water, the sun shining down on her face.
I had faith, she thought. I had faith, and it was justified. It turned out as it was supposed to, as I knew it must. I had faith, and my faith was rewarded. It turned out as it was supposed to. Because I made it turn out as it was supposed to. Was it my faith or my strength of will that won the day? Does it even matter? And now a new future rises in front of me.
She turned over onto her stomach and dove down under the water again, and began swimming farther away from shore. A few swift strokes, and then she felt cold welling up in front of her, a frigid cold that spoke of winter chill that could never be warmed by the sun. She peered ahead. Why was it so dark ahead? What was that…it was the abyss. The abyss she had seen in her dreams. The sea bottom dropped away in a sheer cliff face, down into an abyss whose bottom she could not fathom.
Is that my future? she thought.
—That is everybody’s future—
Vika! I thought you had been lost forever!
A misty form appeared in front of her, barely visible in the motion of the water.
—I told you I always wanted to see the sea, Tsarinovna. You don’t think I would pass on this opportunity? Most of me was lost in the fire. But I held back a little portion, just enough to make it this far. But now I really must go, all of me—
I don’t want to lose you.
—We always lose everyone, Tsarinovna. Except that we don’t lose them at all. I must go to my home now. But it is your home too—
Wait! Dasha cried, but the misty form that was all that remained of Vika was already swimming away, towards the abyss. Another moment, and she was gone.
I’ve lost her! Dasha thought in despair. She’s gone into the abyss! She almost went after her, even taking a stroke in that direction, before stopping herself. No. It was not yet her time. One day the abyss would call to her, one day the abyss would be her home too, but not yet. One day it would call to her and she would answer that call without fear, but not yet. There were still things she had left to do before she could answer that call. She turned away from the abyss. For an instant she felt it sucking her into it, but a few strong strokes and then she rose to the surface. The tide was coming in and she let the waves take her to the shore. For a moment the water pulled her back into its embrace as she tried to climb back up onto dry land, but then the air and the earth, which were also her native elements, took her as their own, and she was sitting on the sand, feeling the sun warm her as the water drained out of her hair and clothes.
“You went so far out, Tsarinovna!” cried Alik, running over to her. He was carrying his boots in his hands. “I was all set to go swimming out after you! Why did you go so far out? We could have lost you!”
“No,” said Dasha. “You won’t lose me yet. The sea is my home.”
“That’s hardly comforting,” he grumbled. “The sea is home to the drowned.”
“True,” she said. “But it can be home to those of us who are still breathing, as well. It is the home of life as well as death.”
“Just don’t go scaring us again like that, Tsarinovna!”
“Very well,” she said. She stood. “I’m all sandy,” she said. “And there is still much to be done. Do you have my sarafan? I should return to my chambers.”
“You should go to the bathhouse first, Tsarinovna,” Alik told her sternly. “And I’ll have the maids bring you fresh clothes. You’re in no fit state to be seen by anyone like this.”
“Very well,” she agreed. “The bathhouse first.” She took her sarafan from him, but then stood there looking out at the sea instead of dressing herself. The waves were blue-green up by the strand, but she could see a long line of darkness where the beach dropped away into the abyss. So close to the shore! The abyss and the beach were separated by no more than a few paces.
“What are you looking at, Tsarinovna?” asked Alik.
“My future,” she told him.
He grinned uncertainly. “I hope you only see good things,” he told her.
“No one will only see good things if they look their future square in the face,” she told him. “There will always be suffering, and terror, and all those things we seek to hide from. But there is wonder as well. The world is so full of wonder! And we are part of it! We are part of that wonder too! We just have to have faith in it!”
“That we do, Tsarinovna,” said Alik. “Now let’s get you back before Boleslav Vlasiyevich sends out a search party for you.”
Dasha slipped her sarafan over her damp, sandy skin and followed Alik back towards the bay and the kremlin. The air moved over her skin and the sun shone down on her, drying her. No matter. The sea was still with her. Even if she were to wash off the salt and the sand completely, it would still be with her, flowing through her with every pulse of her blood.
Alik was giving her a strange look. “What is it?” she asked.
He shook his head. “It’s nothing, Tsarinovna,” he told her. “It’s just…for a moment there, I thought I saw something in your eyes. A golden light, like sun glancing off water.”
“No doubt,” said Dasha. “The sun and the water are always with me.”
“And the night and the moon?”
“Them too,” said Dasha. “Everything is always with me. Dark and light, sun and sea—they are always with me, and I with them. We are one. The world is one, and we are one with it.”
Alik laughed uneasily. “That sounds frightening, Tsarinovna.”
Dasha turned to look at him. She did not need him to tell her that her eyes were glowing with the light of magic
, the light of sun shining on the water. “And wonderful,” she said. “And wonderful too.”
THE END
The story continues with the next generation in The Dreaming Land!
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Discussion Questions
1) The Breathing Sea is set in a matrilineal, matriarchal world. What are gender relations and gender roles like? Would you call it “female dominated”? How do women treat men in it, and is it a parallel to how men treat women in our own male-dominated society?
2) Dasha’s story is meant on one level to parallel that of the Buddha. How does that play out in the text?
3) The subtitle of this book is Drowning. How does the concept, theme, or motif of water appear throughout the text? How does the end of Book II circle back to the beginning of Book I?
4) How is the myth of the vampire worked into the story of Snezhenka and the water maidens? If you have read The Dreaming Land, how does that parallel with the healing magic there?
5) Were there moments that made you uncomfortable or challenged your notions of morality or reality? What were they, and why? What is the benefit to reading something that challenges you?
6) How does twinning or doubling appear in the text, and why?
7) How do magic and religion figure in the text? How does faith figure in the text, and what kind of faith is it?
8) What about truth? What kinds of discussions about truth appear in the text, and when? How does that connect with the overall themes of the story?
9) How does Dasha’s supposed infirmity appear in the text? What does she object to the most in other people’s treatment of her when they think she is ill or infirm?