Sidrun, the princess of Gordelath, abhorred those gatherings of girls on Mágol’s Terrace, also called the Terrace of Cascades. After her studies in the library and lessons in dance and courtly manners, all the highborn girls would gather on that terrace in their best dresses and would chatter away like blabbermouths in what she called "empty conversation balloons." She liked to imagine it that way. Her sarcastic remarks were like needles that popped those balloons.
-I think I'm going to buy this new dress. It goes better with my blue eyes," said Rebecca, a 16-year-old girl engaged to a second-rate nobleman but with a good income and a nice mansion on the banks of the Nel River.
-To hunt! - they all put their hands to their lips, as if they had a secret agreement to do so - Poor thing!
-Yes. And he makes me wear dresses. He says to me, "While I hunt I like to see my wife in her best dresses."
-Oh. That's why all your dresses look faded.
She nodded, with some sadness and resignation.
-That's why I need a lot of them- she turned to Sidrun, the princess, out of sheer obligation -What do you think, your highness?
They hated talking to her, but aristocratic convention forced them to address her at the end of every conversation.
-I think it might be best to go hunting naked. The skin doesn't fade.
-Oh, my! - fake laughter and more hands over the lips.
Then silence. A silence of restless glances, with a mixture of irritation and some hatred, that hatred of a dagger hidden under the sleeve of a dress.
Inside those globes of conversation there was nothing. Nothing substantial. And then, as you have observed, the girl was silent, not knowing what to say. Then she would redden and was about to hurl an expletive at her. But no one dared.
The princess was not to be insulted or cursed. But she wouldn't have minded. Now that she was 14 years old, she had resigned herself to having to go to those ridiculous meetings. For her it was already like that absurd grammar class at Knoll Language, with endless boring declensions and endless sentences. She had to grind through it for an hour and then she was free to do what she pleased. She learned to be pragmatic. To speak her mind without losing her composure.
The arguments with the maidens, who then ran to complain to the king and queen, were over. The running around the castle, too. She remembered the exact day she had opted for pragmatism. She didn't call it that. She called it "The Two Worlds."
When she was 11 years old, after a long argument with the person in charge of her education, which had ended in shouting and a loud slamming of the door, she sat at her desk and looked out the window across the great forest of Lérun. On days like that she used to go away, running through the fields, and the soldiers had to fetch her. That day she decided she would never do such a thing again. It was unbecoming of a lady of her stature. And unbecoming of a truly free soul.
She grabbed one of the parchments she used for those boring Knoll grammar lessons and spread it out on the table. Then, with her peacock quill, she split the parchment in half in a neat black line. On the left she wrote: The World of Sidrún. On the right: The World of Sudrún. Below Sidrún, she wrote these words, in much more careful spelling than usual, in cursive script: "Sidrún is not real, it is the mask that Sudrún wears in the castle. Sidrún never loses her composure. She is a proud and noble princess, but she knows her place. She is haughty and lonely, but polite and with great manners."
And so she went about creating a fictitious character in the castle. At first she did it with resignation, but little by little started to get the hang of it and added new features of that false personality, for her own amusement. "Today I'm going to be extremely polite to the guests. My parents are going to be blown away. I'm going to dazzle everyone." And, indeed, she was. When she set out to impress, she did. Although almost always with a frown and a sarcastic grimace that disfigured her face, she was objectively a very beautiful girl. From her father she had inherited large, clear blue eyes, and from her mother's side, curly blonde hair, which always seemed to be illuminated by an inner midday sun.
When she decided to play a role that dazzled them all, the other maidens hated her even more. "Without making any effort, she is more beautiful and more gallant than us. It is not fair" - they thought.
Aware of her beauty and how she attracted everyone's attention no matter what she did, she carried out an ambitious plan. It was called " Sudrun's Plan". Or also called: "To be myself I will need the best mask".
She wrote " Sudrun's Plan" on the top of another piece of parchment and, with great dedication, set about plotting it, with numerous drawings containing detailed notes under each one of them.
Like every evening, Sidrún, with a stealth replete with assurance, made her way to the lone tower that hung over the Hidden Valley behind the castle. It was the tower of the old wizard Modran. There she also met her only friend: Laria, the daughter of the chief cook of the castle. She was a short-haired girl, with coarse and masculine manners, but with a gentle and refined heart, a nobler heart than any of those blabbermouths that gathered in the palace.
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As always, Laria brought the wizard a small box of cookies from her mother's kitchen, left over from the midday snack. And Sidrún, a drawing. "Where are my drawing and my cookies?" the old wizard asked as he heard them climbing the spiral stairs of the Tower. The old wizard, a stooped man with long gray hair and a white beard, was reading something from a grimoire, with his magnifying glasses. He was always reading something. His eyes always needed to wander over words. But, since Sidrún had frequented the tower, he had also taken a liking to illustrations and drawings. Around the room, she had covered everything with Sidrún's watercolors and paintings.
One day she had asked him, with some fear in her voice:
"What if someone comes and sees those drawings? There will be questions. Too many. And maybe they'll know it's me coming here."
-Don't worry, my child - he said, still reading - No one comes here to visit me, except you and...other creatures who have no eyes for art.
-Other creatures...
Modran, as he did every evening, invited them into the room next to the tower workshop. On the logs of a fireplace in the center, a cauldron boiled with a bluish-colored liquid that glowed in the semi-darkness. On the other side of the room was a large tub resting on ivory legs shaped like griffin claws. From the cauldron to the bathtub there was a metal conduit connecting them and ending at the bathtub faucet.
-What, did you think I'd forgotten? Old Modran can do many things at the same time. Read, prepare cauldrons, weave spells... If you could see what he was capable of when he was younger... Oh! But let's not waste time - he indicated the bathtub with both hands - You know what you have to do.
They both shook hands, as always, with great joy.
-Yes!" they both answered at the same time.
The old wizard smiled, as a kindly grandfather smiles when he sees his granddaughters playing, and left, closing the door gently. When the two girls were left alone, they undressed and got into the bathtub.
-Today it's your turn - Sudrun said to her friend.
-Come on!
Laria turned the hand of the faucet and a warm stream of bluish water came out of it. When it was full, they both relaxed and let the enchanted water penetrate every pore of their skin. There was nothing more relaxing in the world than the warm blue water. Both of them, sitting at both ends of the bathtub, their feet touching, let their hair float and turn into waves of a sea. As always, after a while, they felt as if the bathtub was getting bigger to the point that they visualized a large lake cut out by large mountains.
It was at that moment that they both began to recite the incantation.
I let my mind and my body flow in your waters.
I am no longer my body, I am ether, free of ties.
I travel across the timeless lake
and lock myself in the castle of the Other
until the dawn caresses my face.
The door opened and they both entered the main room of the Tower. Modran, now seated at his desk and with a sort of microscope extending from his eye, was engaged in carving a small stone amulet with a small knife.
An almost invisible amulet.
-It is an amulet for one of my little friends - he said - Go carefully. Especially you, Sudrun. Good night!
-Good evening, Grandpa Modran!
They both went out and, as was also their custom, looked at each other in the large mirror in the tower's foyer, which stood just to the right of the opening leading to the stairs.
Sudrun patted her now short hair and blinked her brown eyes. Proud demeanor, adventurous, her hands on her hips. Laria, for her part, pulled out the comb she always carried with her and, with great satisfaction, combed her now long, wavy blonde hair.
-What lotion do you use for your hair? It's getting silkier and silkier.
Sudrun shrugged her shoulders.
-Nothing. I think it's the potion water. Yours is also very soft.
-No comparison to yours -she sighed -Anyways. It's only ten minutes to dinner and we'd do well to separate as soon as possible.
-Yes. Let's go!
--
Sudrun felt very comfortable in Lania's body. A graceful but smooth body, with more masculine features. Thanks to that it was not difficult for her to pass herself off as a boy. Now she rode swiftly through the forest, along the Lespar Way, her cloak billowing behind her and feeling the flower on her chest open towards the Moon. The flower of freedom.
Or rather a spiral?
For both friends that theater was an exciting and hilarious game. She was preparing the dinner with her supposed mother, between the stoves, and, from time to time, she would take a look at the banquet. There was Laria, with her body, showing off her best manners, being the center of attention. She shone like a star. Laria had been born to be an aristocrat, to entertain and weave the embroidery of palace intrigues. Her parents, the kings, without at any time thinking of the possibility of a spell, believed that Sidrun had a split personality problem. By day she was irritable and cold, while at night she was sociable and gallant.
From time to time, both girls would cross glances and smile with a shadow of mischief in their eyes.
After dinner, Laria enjoyed the luxuries of the palace, while Sudrun pretended to go to the humble room that she shared with the other girls of the service to sleep. But, when everyone was already asleep, she would get up, slip through the palace corridors and out one of the back doors. And she would go into the forest. No one had ever noticed her. Service girls are invisible for better or worse, in all situations. Once in the woods she pulled out the little whistle Modran had carved for her and whistled. She heard nothing. It was a whistle that was made for ears other than human.
From the darkness of the oak and hawthorn forest came the sound of a trot, of hooves against the grass. A mare appeared with her saddle, bit, and reins. She knew it was never the same mare, because they always had somewhat different colors and their character changed. But she always called them all by the same name: Sanna.