Soul Bound

1        Soul Bound

1.2      Taking Control

1.2.6    An Assumed Role

1.2.6.11 Old habits and new ones

After Tomsk returned to work, they left Ketah with the sacks of plants being patiently carried by the mule drone, and few back up to the Roost. They landed next to the black square structure.

Nadine: “What is that? A greenhouse? A solar powered toilet?”

Heather: “It’s an egg. Enter orglife mode and watch.”

Heather walked up to it, and whispered softly: “Ladybird, Ladybird, fly away home.”

The crackling sound of a blazing wood fire emerged from the egg and grew louder as glowing red lines appeared and spread. Then the panels started to shift and the egg disassembled itself into five ponderous birds, whose bodies ended in human shaped shoulders and a female head with flowing hair, expressive eyebrows and an aquiline nose.

Each bird had a pair of wings and each wing was 6 meters in length when outstretched, but a pair of cunning joints in each wing allowed them to be held folded tight along the body in a sideways orientation. LEDs hidden among the solar cloth flickered orange and yellow, hinting at the outline of feathers, and the colour of body graduated from black near the wings, through deep purple, dark crimson, lambent orange and finally a pale gold that merged into the fair hair and tanned skin of the figurehead.

In the overlay, the figurehead slowly blinked then shook itself awake and gave a stately bow in her direction before turning to gossip with its neighbour.

Nadine: “She’s gorgeous. Did you design her? What’s she called?”

Heather: “The base design was a modular Helios wing. Once the five of them join up, wingtip to wingtip, they can stay aloft indefinitely on solar power alone, if the load is light enough. It’s very efficient, but I can’t take credit for it.”

Heather: “What I did do was the mythological styling. They need to be able to transport cargo long distances, so rather than tie it to one particular myth, I abstracted several underlying themes, with the expectation that different places will call them different things. They might be Stratim, Sirin, Zhar-Ptitsa, Rarog, Gamayun, Alkonost or a Gooney. The one I really like, though, is Phoenix - that’s what gave me the idea for the fire-themed egg that lets them hide cargo shuffling. It is scalable, so gatherings can contain any number of phoenixes, and it doesn’t depend upon them finding convenient trees or bridges to hide under.”

Nadine returned the bow. Despite their albatross like bobbing and waddling, they seemed to be trying to keep their dignity, and hopefully paying respect would result in a smoother flight.

Nadine: “Do they actually notice how people behave towards them?”

Heather nodded: “Absolutely. If you are offensively rude to them, it will be quite a while before they forgive you enough to carry anything for you, whereas if you build up a reputation as a good host who looks after them, they’ll more eagerly attend a summons you send out. I didn’t do the behaviour algorithms or routing logistics, just posted the suggestions and turned the MythOS group loose on the project. It will get more sophisticated with time and feedback from end users - we’ve retained the ability to send software patches.”

Still in beta? She wasn’t going to show cowardice twice, by asking Heather to list all the safety precautions she was taking; not again. She trusted Heather and, besides, the Phoenix looked strong and wise. Nadine wanted to fly on her.

Nadine: “You’ve been very mysterious, so far. What’s the plan? How are we going to avoid any recordings being made of me? There’s not much point holding launches around the world to avoid singling out Bosnia, if I turn up and a simple cross-check shows an individual linked to bots, singing and kafanas.”

Heather: “Nadine Sabanagic isn’t going. Instead the person turning up will be Sister Claire from the Third Order of Saint Francis of Assisi. She looks twenty years older than you do, speaks with an Italian accent and doesn’t sing. I’ll give you some off-the-shelf orglife goggles that will cover part of your face. Your own mother wouldn’t recognise you.”

Nadine couldn’t believe Heather’s effrontery: “A nun? You want to disguise me as a nun?? Absolutely not!”

And yet, quarter of an hour later, she found herself seated in a cargo pod inside the Phoenix, wearing a black wimple and a long habit made of grey unbleached wool, with careful lines drawn in makeup on her face by Heather to age and disguise her from biometric matching. The habit itself had padding in unexpected places to change her outline, and the platform boots she was wearing under them added 15 cm to her height.

She really needed to get a handle on this leadership thing. Maybe Lord Landi could give her some pointers, tomorrow? She immersed herself into orglife and started studying the background material Heather had provided for the ‘Sister Claire’ role.

At the start of the Bad Years, the Franciscans had been perfectly placed to weather out the plagues, secluded in the enclosed cloisters of monasteries and nunneries isolated in rural areas where they could harvest enough food from the attached lands to stay self-sufficient for years. Certainly many other orders had taken that route, offering up prayers but little tangible assistance.

But not the Franciscans. They had thrown themselves into nursing the ones abandoned by the overwhelmed hospitals of the nations, knowing in advance the risks they took but staying true to values laid down by their founder of peace, compassion, living simply and helping the poor; witnessing for their faith not by their words but by their actions.

They had died in their thousands.

But the ones who’d survived had been granted enormous respect. Nadine checked the fake biography Heather had devised. Or, more likely, had asked Tink to devise. If it had been left to Heather, she might have picked the Colettines who went around in bare feet and spent much of their time fasting. Though, hang on, hadn’t David mentioned a Franciscan monastery near their destination, something about a collection of old documents?

Ah, yes, there it was, in the town of Fojnica. Their most prized document seemed to be something written nearly 600 years ago by Mehmed II, the Ottoman sultan who conquered the Byzantines. She skimmed the translation:

The Ahdname of Milodraž

I, the Sultan Khan the Conqueror, hereby declare to the whole world that the Bosnian Franciscans granted with this sultanate ferman are under my protection. And I command that:

No one shall disturb or give harm to these people and their churches! They shall live in peace in my state. These people who have become emigrants, shall have security and liberty. They may return to their monasteries which are located in the borders of my state.

No one from my empire notable, viziers, clerks or my maids will break their honour or give any harm to them!

No one shall insult, put in danger or attack these lives, properties, and churches of these people! Also, all things and followers these people have brought from their own countries have the same rights...

By declaring this ferman, I swear by a great oath; by the Creator (Allah), Who has created the Heavens and the Earth and Who feeds all of his creatures, by seven of his Holy Books, Allah's Great Prophet Mohammed and 124,000 former prophets, and by my sword that no one from my citizens will react or behave the opposite of this ferman!

No wonder the monks had prized it. But why on Earth had the Sultan been so impressed by the Franciscans, that he offered them such protection? There must be a story behind it.

She looked more closely at the downloaded material. It seemed monks were the ones who stayed rooted in monasteries, while the more nomadic members of the order were called mendicant Friars, required to wear “humble garments” and forbidden even to touch money or keep more provisions than needed for a few days travel. Apparently Saint Francis hadn’t thought much of the gold-bedecked halls of the Vatican, and had wanted to make sure that his own followers avoided becoming too concerned about hoarding material wealth.

That didn’t answer her question. She had a look at the Sultan. Just before issuing the treaty with the Franciscans he’d invaded Bosnia. King Stephen of Bosnia had sent out requests for help to all his fellow Christians, as far afield as Venice and Rome, but the Franciscans, who were the herbalists of their time, had stayed neutral and insisted upon healing the wounded no matter which side of the conflict they were on.

After the Christian armies had been defeated and Stephen’s head had been lopped off, the head of the local Franciscans, Friar Anđeo, realised that all the politicians and other leaders were dead, leaving nobody to speak on behalf of the civilians and stop them being massacred. So he set off alone and on foot, without a guarantee of his own safety, to the victor’s camp that was filled with celebrating warriors, their armour still red with blood. He humbly asked to speak with the Sultan and the two of them held a private discussion long into the night. By the time the new day dawned, Anđeo had so impressed the Sultan with the sincerity of his concern for the poor of all faiths, that the Sultan issued the Ahdname.

Another advantage of simple living, Nadine guessed. Hard to convince people that you’re doing all you can to help the poor, when you’re wearing a fortune in gold. What would it take, she wondered, to convince the Hexoikos to order their subordinates to leave the Wombles alone? Given the toes that might be trodden on if they opposed coercive uses of tiaras, being granted the protection of an Ahdname from one of the more benign dynasties would be invaluable.

She shook her head, and kept studying until she felt she could pull off the role, then opened a channel to Heather, aging her voice a little, putting an Italian lilt into it and subtly altering her vowel sounds.

Nadine: {How are we doing? I can’t see a thing in here.}

Heather: {Nadine? That’s you?}

Nadine: {Bless you, child, no. I am Sister Claire.}

Heather: {Well, Sister, please talk out loud addressing the Phoenix, and request access to the view outside.}

Nadine did so, and received a connection offer on her arlife goggles which she accepted. She could alter the transparency balance and there were several modes available, including one that imitated the vision of a creature with eyes on either side of its head, rather than both straight forwards. It took her a minute or two to get used to it, but having high magnification of the direction she looked at while also having awareness of everything else, even directly behind her, was too interesting to pass up.

After that, the trip became much more enjoyable as the two of them chatted, Nadine taking the opportunity to practise being in role while answering Heather’s questions about the mountains and wooded valleys they crossed over. She noticed that Heather had picked a route that avoided towns, and sometimes they flew not much higher than the tree tops, just to stay out of the line of sight of some camera or other.

After about an hour, they arrived at Blidinje Nature Park, and landed carefully in a grassy alpine meadow about five kilometers away from the central lake, next to several other phoenixes.