Zobiana

A Brief Biography ~ Part 1 (Dragoon)

Born in Ireland, I know not for certain the year in the new calendar, but by our Irish calendar it was a year of the Hare and the month of Oak. I was chosen to read the way of the old ones by an old lady of the forest. She said she saw in me light. I did not know how those words would affect the rest of my life. I learnt my craft in the village of the White Hart for many years, sometimes fighting with, sometime against the priest from the tower near the shore. Love came, married and went, leaving me with child.

It was at this dark time that the old priest stumbled into the village, bleeding his life away, he had come to warn us, me, I will never know, the Moorish slavers had appeared again. It was too late, as he spluttered his bloodied warning, they came, they took, they killed all that they could not sell; I was taken. My fate was not the same as most of the young girls on the slave galley on the way to the markets of the warm sea. The Captain of the galley was in high fever from a blow from a cross inflicted by my old priest. It had opened his head, but word had spread of my ways via the slaves to the crew. I cut open his skull; I lessened the ill humors, and replaced the skull bone with a shell. He lived, so would I. I was held for the finest markets in the Eastern warm sea. The Vizier’s court found me out and took me from that captain; his skull was smashed beyond my care.

It was a time of darkness and light, my beloved son born to me, taken for the Janissaries. My skills increased due to new thoughts, new Arab ways. I learned to read their words, and understand their ways. I used my skills, all of them, of woman’s mind and body to obtain wealth and power. Soon I found my son, bribed his way to court so that we could know each other before our greatest adventure; escape!

I fled the Turkish empire by the way least expected, not by sea, but by land north through the Crimean Tatars to the peoples of my name, the Rom or Romany. With their help I had made it as far as Bohemia when the fates again took pleasure in turning my way. It was here that I met a certain Maksamyllyan von Schleuter. He had called out for a “wise woman” as he called it to mend his battered and cut body after a battle there. We came to trust each other, a rare thing, that. I was Hauweible, I Looked after his women of the train, his men, and more and more it came to pass that we looked after each other. At first it was business, then more, far more as we found in each other peace in a time of savage war.

My son, who kept his Janissary name, Asya, stayed by my side and fought in these wars as needed, but his heart yearned for the peace and green I had spoke of so much. He went on to see the land of his life stolen, Ireland.

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