Leena Likitalo: The Five Daughters of the Moon

“Are we ready now?” he asks. No doubt the other guards already await us on the platform. Belly and Beard smoke. Boots and Tabard jest. The guards are more relaxed now that we are far away from cities, the places where the revolution tore deep gashes. This far away no one cares. Whatever happens in the palaces, whoever leads the empire, nothing changes for people who live in the deep north.

We exit the train for what I hope is one last time. Just as I had expected, Belly and Beard smoke, Boots and Tabard huddle at the platform. There is no one waiting at the station, apart from a magpie, the bird black and white—and why would there be when the trains are scheduled to stop here only once a week? People here, they have learned that ignorance is bliss. As soon as they saw the train and the guards, they no doubt hurried inside, locked the doors, and shuttered the windows. They will not be peeping out before they hear the train depart.

The sun clings on the zenith, as high as it dares to climb during a winter day. It is freezing cold on the platform. The temperature sets against my ankles like icy chains. For surely it is that which weighs on my steps, and not guilt.

“Rafa and Mufu want to run around the station!” Merile announces. She is more cunning than I have given her credit for, it seems.

“Captain Janlav.” Elise links her arm with him as if he were still courting her. She asks cheerily, “Shall we go and see how fast they can run?”

He chuckles, though frost already forms on his beard and moustache. “I don’t see why not.”

But he studies me for a moment too long, as if there were something he was about to say, that no one else will say. What can it be? Has he learnt of our plan? He doesn’t say. He leaves with Elise, Merile, and Alina. The first part of the plan is set in motion.

I stroll down the length of the platform with Sibilia, the magpie hopping alongside us. Beard waddles behind us. I know it is him, though I can’t see him. His breath always smells of raw onions.

“My stomach cramps,” Sibilia says.

I hear Beard stumble, halt. He doesn’t want to hear a single thing more about Sibilia’s wretched days. She excels in describing them. She has had a lot of practice. This, too, is a routine we have carefully built up, a topic of conversation we know the guards don’t want to overhear.

We reach the end of the platform and the narrow plank stairs there. I barely dare to glance to my left, at the stables that should be there, for the person who should be waiting for us. For it is such a long time since I wrote the letters, since my hawks flew off. So many weeks separate us from that night. Is it really possible that a plan conceived in such a way could work?

“There’s someone waving at you,” Sibilia whispers, plump cheeks glowing red.

It is only then that I dare to look.

The man dressed in a wolf’s fur coat tends to the brown horses harnessed before a troika even as he waves at me. His collars are drawn up against his bearded cheeks, but his cap doesn’t quite hide his missing eye and the scarred face. It is my seed, General Monzanov, but I can’t afford to bask in joy even for one heartbeat.

“Why, is it really…” Sibilia’s voice trails off. She can’t quite believe what she is seeing either. She rubs her eyes, the movement already clumsy from the cold.

But as my sisters so often remind me, my mind is ever cold and rational. This isn’t as I planned. There is but one troika waiting for us, and the three horses munch hay contently as if they had been about it for hours already with no end in sight to their blessing. Where are the soldiers ready to escort my sisters and me to safety? There, by the stable, two astride chestnut horses, two on the ground, cigarettes jutting out from the corners of their mouth. They wear lamb fur coats and red gloves. Are they loyal to my seed or someone else?

General Monzanov waves again. Why is he drawing attention to himself? The smell of raw onions reveals Beard approaching Sibilia and me. What should I do? Ignore my seed or acknowledge him?

“What is General Monzanov doing here?” I wonder aloud as if I were puzzled to see him.

Beard strokes his chin, and I am not sure if he is doubting my performance or equally confused by the general’s presence. Eventually he says, “Your seed bears a message to you.”

This is the time I must remain calm so that the cogs and wheels of my mind can spin fast rather than be jammed by emotions of any sort. If Beard knows that General Monzanov bears a message to me, this means that one of the guards—Captain Janlav, no doubt—noticed him as soon as the train halted and has talked with him. This must be why it took the guards longer than usual to let us out. Was talking to the guards my seed’s idea, or has something gone terribly wrong? Why do I think it might be the latter? There is only one way to find out.

“Then I shall go and talk with him,” I say to Beard. I brush Sibilia’s arm as I pass her. “Wait here.”

I stride down the creaking plank stairs, sabots clacking.

As I wade through the snowy path, toward the stable, I catch a glimpse of Elise, Merile, and Alina. She still clings to Captain Janlav’s arm as if she had a hard time staying up on the icy street. The dogs dash from Alina to Merile, bringing back twigs that the girls toss at them. Elise veers to a halt as she notices me alone. I swing my right hand up as if I had slipped and needed to balance myself, a sign agreed on beforehand. She should delay on the street. She doesn’t yet know it, but we might need to soon part ways with each other.

For my seed has brought with him only one troika. It can’t fit the six of us. If it comes to choosing between some of us fleeing or all of us staying… During the five long weeks of solitude, I have considered every eventuality. I have already reached the decision that is by no means easy but the best of our available options.

If need be, I will remain behind. Elise and the girls shall go with my seed. Elise understands my people. Merile and Alina are the youngest. And there is the sad truth that I can but acknowledge. As the witch warned me, the price for bleeding away the gagargi’s seed is high. I may not be able to have other children, though only years may reveal the true state of matters.

I glance over my shoulder, though I know I shouldn’t. Sibilia shivers on the platform, gray blanket folded tight against her chest, with only the magpie as her company. My poor sister, she is still but a girl, and yet there is nothing I can do for her. To save Elise and the little girls, I will have to sacrifice Sibilia’s freedom. It isn’t fair of me to decide for her, but this isn’t something I could exactly have asked her opinion about either. If she knew, she would only hate me.

As I approach my seed, the wrongness intensifies. The reins of the brown horses are tied to a wooden rail. Why would someone preparing for a speedy departure do so? Closer still, I notice no belt cinches my seed’s coat, and I can’t see the telltale bulge of a sword either. No strap of a rifle runs across his chest. He is unarmed—why? To deceive the train guards into thinking that he is on the same side? Mother always said that hope isn’t something an empress can count on. It isn’t the wind that chills me, but recalling her sober tone.

“Celestia,” my seed greets me when I am a mere ten steps away. He spreads his arms wide, palms up. The movement is stiff, as if he were wounded. His smile betrays nothing, but his gray eyes reveal his pain.

“General Monzanov…” I can’t quite hold on to my composure. I dash to him, through the crunching, ice-crusted snow. For this is the man I have always been able to rely on. It is he who sided with the gagargi because that is what I asked of him. It is he who has now forsaken the same man, simply because I sent him a letter.