Prologue
“Everything was strange!
No one objected to me going out. Matter of fact, no one was even present on my way out…
I wanted to go to the forest but unlike other times, neither Mom nor my nurse paid any attention, so I did it and what happened was exactly the thing my parents were always afraid of happening to me! I got caught in a leg-hold trap, one of those built to catch animals like foxes and bears, and there I was, my right foot clasped between the two iron jaws, their spikes tearing the flesh, and my small hands unable to overcome the strong locking mechanism!
My father had tried hard to convince local hunters to dispense with this cruel way of hunting in which the animal would remain with a broken or severely wounded limb for hours before the hunter coming back and finishing. Matter of fact he had tried to stop all kinds of cruelty toward animals other than simple butchery for food – and well, it wasn’t his first or last failure as a governor…
This was the first time in my life that I began to think about escaping from the earth; the earth itself and not soil or dirt or mud, and the thought remained with me, growing stronger and stronger in the coming years…
Before that, if I had ever wished to fly, just like everyone, it was to be able to move faster or to see better.There and in the agony of pain, all I could think about was escaping, not only from the trap, but also from what had held the trap.
I was all alone, feeling utterly so, my tears dried, as was the blood on my foot, and I could see it swelling more and more which meant the razor-like iron clasps digging deeper in the wound…
It was then that I made the first vow in my life – not to eat meat ever again!
What a strange day it was! I made my second and the most enduring vow in the same day, but at that moment I was quite unaware about that or the horrors, awaiting back at home. Trapped in the forest, all I could think about was how to free myself and I could see no way out. I was powerless, helpless and hopeless when I heard a bell!
It took only a few moments to see the source of the sound and then I was stunned, frightened to death! A cloaked and hooded figure had emerged from between the trees! A veiled man, with a long old shabby robe and a cowl pulled over his head, just like a ghost!
I screamed, so loudly that any bird in the vicinity flew away. The man was a leper! The bell was an alarm tied to his foot to announce his presence whenever approaching people, as was mandatory in the province, but what use it was to me, when I couldn’t run away?
I screamed again! This time there was no bird left and so the loneliness was so overwhelming and the fear so unbearable that I kept screaming until I felt something like blood in my throat! Only then I stopped and then, the veiled man said I could fly like the birds, if I could buy and free a thousand one of them.
I was dumbfounded, speechless and feeling dizzy, unable to understand what he had said, just feeling that I wasn’t caught in earth anymore…
He had opened the trap!
I lifted my injured foot and put it on the ground. It gave way, because I couldn’t stand on a foot with so much pain. I put my other foot on the ground, not to stumble, but it was as if I had put it on a cushion of air and it gave way too, because this foot was numb after a long time of immobility!
The man took me by my collar, holding me above the ground, and he said – before I could scream again –that I could burn my clothes afterwards so I wouldn‘t catch the disease!
I said nothing and I was so ashamed that until getting near the village, I didn’t let him go and remained attached to his robe, though I had no other choice really; I couldn’t walk without his help. During the walk, whenever I had the intention of asking about what he had said about a thousand birds or how it would lead to flying, I was either ashamed or my painful foot was in the way, forcing me to concentrate on the pain and how to walk rather than being curious about what nonsense he had bragged about!
Then all of a sudden, a bird came flying from nowhere, hitting my forehead!
Opening my eyes, I saw it fallen on the ground and it wasn’t a bird, but a piece of dirt, and it wasn’t alone! A bunch of children, a few young adults too, had aimed us with dirt and stone!
I thought that not everyone had to escape a leper. Some prefered to keep their place and push the leper away. The leprous man was either accustomed to this kind of treatment or knew there was another reason behind the attack, so he wasn’t shocked or taken unaware and he shielded me by his body, taking me behind a wall.
Maybe it was the pain, or exhaustion, flaming my anger toward him again, and either way I began to say there wouldn’t be any stone if he wasn‘t there, and no protection needed if he wasn‘t near, but he cut me short, saying that we could reach the palace from another direction.
This time I was going to protest that we didn’t live in a palace, just a big house, the official center of government in that province, adding that as long as he accompanied me, there was no guaranty as to the matter of stones, but I remembered that I had still many questions about what he had said earlier about flying, nonsense or not, and so I asked him and while going to our house on a deserted path, he said that it was just an old tale, maybe to encourage people to free birds, and even if true, finding the valley of everlasting flight was not enough. The ultimate step, of course if you had complete faith in the story, was being able to begin your flight by leaping from one of the mountains around the valley into thin air!
With the throbbing pain in my forehead as well as my foot, I was so short-tempered that I was going to let fly at him why he had told such a cock-and-bull story then, if he had not enough faith in it, but the pain was severe and with each step I wished more and more to be able to fly, not to stand on my feet, and so, against all my reasoning, I liked to believe in the story and I knew that I shouldn’t make him angry and I kept asking him about the whereabouts of the valley.
“You think I would be here if I knew that?”
He was right of course! Exasperated, I asked if there was any clue in the tale?
“It just says that you’d find it if you free a thousand birds. It’s kind of a vow.”
“Then why don’t you do that yourself?”
“The birds, if free, don’t need me. If not, their owners don’t let me get even near the cages to buy any bird with the money that I don’t have! You are different, though not here, where you are damned by the command, condemned to go away!“
I don’t know what it was, his incoherent speech or the incomprehensible things he was saying about me, or the sight of our lonely house without the servants or guards…Anyway, I didn’t ask anything else. I just got inside, without even saying farewell to him…
I was bewildered! He had been right. Not only it had seemed like a palace to him, a man without any place, it seemed so now even to me! I had a strange kind of feeling, kind of alienation, unable to distinguish between our vast but not luxurious place and a real palace anymore…
We didn’t have any real retinue. Father had decreased the number, as far as it could be managed without leaving those men and women jobless, but now, without anyone around, the house looked so big in its emptiness…
It was too much for me – or less!
Now I could see why it had been so easy for me to go out in the morning. The house might have been deserted even then and I could see it now because I needed help and so I had to find someone rather than avoid other people…
I got into the central hall…
Father, alone, was sitting in front of a big bowl full of what looked like red ink, his hands in the liquid, up to his elbows…
No! Mom was there too. She ran toward me from a dark corner and grabbed me by the elbow, pulling me aside, as if she had not seen my limping blood- soaked foot!
I stumbled and hit the floor. Father rose to help. The ink was flowing, spouting on the floor, just like the jet of blood that I had once seen spouting from the neck of a slaughtered cow, and it had made me not eat beef for a year…Father was going to stand on his feet, but he stumbled and fell forward. Mom had to choose whom to help. Father saw that I had seen it and told her let me remain, and then two guards came out of another dark corner of the hall, their faces unfamiliar, their clothes not, because I could recognize the special uniforms of the royal guards, the central authority, the empire...
The men stepped in front of my father, blocking his way, which was an unnecessary step as he was too weak to walk...
His eyes were dark and there wasn’t much blood left in his body…
It wasn’t fast enough though! He was still alive, so one of the guards tried to speed it with his spear! It passed parallel to my chest!
The second hit, sinking in Mom’s throat that was in the way!
Blood flew out…
And watching the jet of blood from her neck, I was so stunned that all I could think about was whether I had to stop eating human meat, like what I had done about beef, or not…”
