Life and Times of a Priestess: Ch.8: Winter In The Occupied City (Part 1: Conversations of War and Love)

Note For Readers

The immediately previous sections of the Life and Times of a Priestess novel or series were previously posted to abctales in April 2007, under the name ‘Priestess Under Occupation’ Chapters 1 and 2, which can be found in the same set, and erotic category, written by myself Kurt Rellians. Please read these before continuing forward to Chapter 8 (Winter In The Occupied City). ‘Priestess Under Occupation’ Chapters 1 and 2 would have been Chapter 7 : Journey Home Across The Occupied City – if I had posted them under the title 'Life and Times of a Priestess' .

 

 

    She soon forgot the episode with Ravelleon.  The conversations she remembered, for they had told her much that she needed to know about the Vanmarian leadership and their attitudes towards Pirion, towards people, and towards sexual matters.  If she ever met him again she had learned not to expect sexual companionship, but his mind was interesting and he had a certain power which she could not forget.

 

 

       Chapter 8 : Winter In The Occupied City

Part 1 : Conversations of War and Love

 

    The days went by as before and she was able to find some fulfilment in the arms of strangers, in deeper conversations with Paul, with Sreela, and the other Priestesses. She finished ‘The Homecoming’.  Its uplifting conclusion, in which the returning soldier and his loyal wife find final happiness after years of loneliness, death and struggle,  gave her a sense of excitement which she had rarely found in novels of Pirion.  Although she pitied the characters for their unnecessary self inflicted sufferings, a sense of what Prancirians called romance appealed to her imagination and carried her away with it.  She talked at length with Paul about the book when she visited his rooms regularly.  As she neared its end she began to consider what she might read next and would look through the small collection of books he had had sent to him since his arrival.  One was history book about the first Empire of Chameleon, a century before when Prancir had tried to ‘liberate’ the whole of Vanmar and to dominate the Vanmandrians in particular.  The book appeared to speak in praiseworthy terms about the Emperor and his noble attempts to bring modern laws to the whole of Vanmar.  Paul regarded it as one of the most important stories which had ever happened in the history of his nation, and a guiding light for the soldiers in the present conflict.

 

    “I don’t understand,” said Danella, “Why do you say that story is relevant to your invasion of Pirion.  I thought Chameleon never invaded Pirion, nor carried any ambitions here.  Besides you are allied with Vanmandria despite your disagreements with them, but Chameleon sought to control them and to change their ways.  I don’t see any relation between Chameleon and this war.”

 

     Paul was silent for a minute considering her question in his own intelligent way. There were no flippant answers from him when she was being serious, which she liked about him.  He took her seriously, even though she was just a captive Priestess of a foreign culture which his nation sought to destroy.  At first he had wanted mainly sexual communication from her even though he had been prepared to talk and give her respect from the start.  Now he regarded her fully as a friend who gave him not only sexual companionship but the intellectual comradeship he was often starved of amongst ill educated soldiers and competitive officers.  They both benefited as sexual compatibility evolved into a deeper respect and friendship.

 

     “Chameleon wished to bring to the rest of the world the rule of modern national law and the freedom to trade without the barriers of the feudal past.  His hopes extended to Pirion I am sure,” said Paul.

 

      “I don’t know what you mean by the freedom to trade and the barriers of the feudal past, but I am sure that the system in the rest of Vanmar was quite different from the economy of Pirion.  Maybe he would have wished to change Pirion but in fact he never had any policy or dealings with Pirion.  If he wished to change Pirion why did he choose to attack Vanmandria instead.” She was getting used to having this kind of reasoned argument with Paul.  He would say something about Vanmarian history or culture or about Pirion and she would, for arguments sake, try to argue his point down with reasoned arguments. In this way she could learn about Vanmar quickly without the need to read all the books.  It gave her much to talk about with Paul, and involved both of them. 

 

      She didn’t really understand everything she was saying but she was learning.  Of course this kind of lesson was only as good as the teacher, but she found Paul knowledgeable and sufficiently flexible.  “Vanmandria was on our borders and we could not reach Pirion until we had dealt with the rest of Vanmar.  Now of course, the Vanmandrians have instituted many of the reforms which Chameleon proposed, so we fight together to impose a superior system onto the Empire of Pirion.  History has a habit of continuing to develop.  Chameleon was defeated then by the other powers but his reforms lived on and they continue today.  Vanmandria has evolved along the Prancirian path in the end,” said Paul.

 

     “But you have just fought with the Vanmandrians again a year ago.  You don’t really believe in all this do you Paul?” she queried.  She queried him not because he sounded like he didn’t believe what he was saying.  He sounded convincing enough, but she knew him too well not to be convinced that he could believe in something so rigid, so judgmental.  She had had too many flexible discussions with him.  He understood the arguments she had put up.  They were not the first time he had thought about views other than the predictable government sponsored views.

 

     “All what?” he asked, cuddling up to her again.

 

     “Prancir spreading modern rational thought to the whole world, whether it was a hundred years ago or now?  At least surely it’s not an ideal worth dying for.  And the invasion of Pirion?  Surely you can’t believe there’s anything but the cruellest logic in that!”

 

     “I think Prancir had a good and fairly just system of government and of economics at the time of Chameleon, better than the other nations of Vanmar.  So I think there was some purpose in fighting them, but the war was taken too far.  We tried to achieve things which could be achieved, when with a little more time and patience change might have come about anyway.  The cost was not worth it in the end.  The price was too high.  Too many families lost their beloved sons.”

 

     “And the Empire of Pirion?  What do you think about this war? Does it have anymore meaning than the other one?”

 

     “What do you expect me to say, Danella.  I am a soldier.  I have to believe in what my commanders tell me to do.  I have to motivate the men I command.”

 

     “Are you worried about what I may say to the other soldiers or to the Priestesses.  I am your friend Paul. You have been good to me and I value your opinions.  If you wish I will promise to tell no one, not even my closest friends”. She could see that Paul hesitated, he wanted to speak out but he was like most officers, very much in control of himself.  Even when relaxed with a woman in whom he shared the secrets of his sexual desires, as well as deep conversations, he could not open all his feeling up to her. The officer training was too strong for him to admit his true views to someone who came from the enemy side.  There was too much risk that word might spread and his career would be damaged for it.   In the frontline of war, she imagined he might even be severely punished for it.  Could he even be executed by his own side for preaching the wrong thought? She did not know why the Vanmarians, were quite willing to be cruel for what they thought were the highest reasons.  Some ordinary soldiers had expressed dissatisfaction with the war for various reasons, and they had said it perhaps in humour or as they might make a petty complaint.  They had no great fear of reprimand.  If they said it in humour they could say anything. It seemed to be different for officers.

 

     “Danella I love you,” he looked straight in her eyes, his handsome face concentrated and serious.  He held her close in his strong soldier’s arms.  “If I was not already married I would ask you to marry me.  But I know that you are a prostitute and a Pirionite and this is not a place for marriage.  I cannot imagine that you should want to marry a foreign officer.  I know in Pirion you do not feel the need for the institution of marriage as we in Vanmar know it, but you must appreciate its importance to us. When a man says he would like to marry you, even if he cannot, it is a thing of very great importance.  I say this only because it is what I feel about you.  I have never met a woman with such generosity of spirit, and so concerned for the most important things.  I love you completely.”

 

     She leaned forward to kiss him and hold him more tightly.  She knew the gravity of what he told her and respected it. She had no words yet to reply to such a declaration.  A fond kiss was perhaps the only response she could make.  So this was Vanmarian true love.  She was experiencing some part of it at last.  She might now understand this phenomenon of the Vanmarians.  She supposed Paul had no easy alternative access to sexual friendship in Prancirian society except with his wife, and he had not expected to form a close relationship with a prostitute, as he called her, of the Empire of Pirion.  He had found that he could have a very close relationship with her. She felt close to him also but she had no need of a partner as she did not yet feel that she wanted children.  The uncertainty of the times and her remaining curiosity for the world and desire for travel ensured that she would not have children. She was still a Priestess and would probably always remain one.  But his sense of the word love, yes she could love him and did love him, for his mind and his body, but not exclusively. She thought of the guard who had roughly demanded sex and afterwards expected that he should have special privileges over all the other soldiers.  Now Paul too was laying his claim upon her.  She hoped he would not make the possessive demands upon her which she had gathered Vanmarian men expected of their wives and mistresses.  But she felt he understood the ways of Pirion more than most.  He loved her but he knew she could not be completely his. 

 

      His declaration of love meant much to her.  Anyone whom she liked and respected could be her friend.  She needed friends right now when her world had changed so much and she had them in Sreela and the other Priestesses, but it had been a long while since she had enjoyed a close friendship with any of the males she made love with.  General Polad had been the last.  In Shanla there had been some Priests and some of the men she had visited regularly.  She had been no stranger to men who had sought her as a partner even while she was a Priestess.  But she had not felt the desire, so strong in so many women, to have her own children yet.  Other young Priestesses such as Carel had for a time been her ‘children’ on whom she could place something approaching motherly affection.  In occupied Dalos the Prancirian solders whom she served were like her children, but she was not able to develop a ‘mothers’ relationship with irregular visitors.  But she wanted to have some men with whom she could do more than share worship of the Goddess. 

 

     “You are right Danella” said Paul, “I must trust you on this.  You could have the power to ruin me if you decided to use what I say against me, but I know you would never do anything like that.  A Prancirian woman, whether she was a wealthy lady or the poorest prostitute might use it against me if they saw any purpose.  It is impossible to trust anyone completely.  But you are the enemy, and a prostitute at that, and I find to my surprise I can trust you, better even than my own people.”

 

     “Surely the women of Prancir are not so bad,” she said.  She was sorry for him now and sympathetic.  She knew he was a sensitive and deep feeling individual.  She wanted to help him to overcome his fears or at least to express them and thereby be able to soothe him in some further way.

 

     “I do not know what you’re about to say yet, but if it is something you think I should not hear I will not pry.  Or if there is something you want to say which you dearly wish to express but are afraid of the consequences say it without fear.  I would not betray you”.  She guessed that it must be something to do with his part or perhaps concerning what they had talked of earlier, his views of the war.

 

     “You were asking me about the present war,” he said ponderously.  “Yes?” she wanted him to say what he had to say. She did not know what he was about to say but she wanted him to say it.  It could surely not be as important to him as his declaration of love earlier.

 

    “When we started this war, it was two years ago.  I believed in it for all the reasons we are taught.  The Empire of the Goddess is portrayed in Prancir as a backward place without good government, in fact without much government and organisation at all.  Your citizens are lazy and badly trained.  You practice your ceremonies of superstition to propitiate your gods, bending the path of honest true love and loyalty in the selfish and sordid practices of lust masked as religious ceremony.  Of course I have found since in my dealings with your citizens and mainly with yourself that you do not have superstitious gods.  The other gods were a part of your history before the cult of the Goddess.  You have only one god now and that is the Goddess, more an act of worship towards yourselves as human beings than an actual belief in the existence of a goddess as you have told me yourself.”

 

     “There are many who would say the Goddess is real,” she interjected.

 

     “So you have said, but you don’t believe that as you have told me and many of your people do not.  It is much like our gods.  They disappeared many centuries ago, replaced by one god but very few of us believe in him now.  Our new god is the god of progress, of wealth, of business expansion and conquest, but he is not a god.  He is a shifting set of principles which we believe to be rational.”

 

     “So you believe in this god of the rational who kills the people of Pirion and soldiers of Prancir for no reason.  Why does he wish to kill the Goddess?” she said.

 

     “Our god is greed.  You were wise to see that.  I can see that now.  I thought progress and conquest went hand in hand, that justice came with change.  But I have seen war and bloodshed.  I have seen the misery of death and enslavement.  I have seen that your people are kind and without greed, merely wishing to live in peace and enjoy existence.  Our people delay existence.  We search for it but our work is never done because our masters always find more for us to do.  We try desperately to live but we find contentment only in small pieces and only if we are lucky.  We hide in the spirit, accepting suffering without complaint, loyal to our masters who wish to use us only to serve their progress.  We deny our living flesh”.