Ch 4

The men turned a deaf ear,

--Could no one give me an escort? --- asked the girl calmly.

For a moment the girl stood watching the wine dripping and the drunken women dancing frantically on the table, all shouting at the top of their lungs.

The young woman stopped next to the one who served as captain of arms. He was laughing and shouting non-stop. The young woman pulled out a dagger and mercilessly sliced the man's neck.

Silence fell as the men struggled to stand up from their heavy chairs.

The ugly, bald, bad-blooded man collapsed in a pool of blood.

--You are relieved. I am now very own captain of arms,"-- said the young woman addressing the other man who was trying to get up from the chair.

--Kiss my hand as a sign of obedience," --continued the young woman, placing her hand full of blood in front of the man's eyes, the other wielding the sharp dagger. There was no telling how she would act. Others said she was ambidextrous. With the other hand she could kill. She had already done so. She could certainly go on.

The man did so. The girl's cold stare dissuaded him from any move.

--Your life belongs to me. You will obey me. And so will everyone else,"-- said the girl.

The man remained kneeling. He feared the girl. He could not hide it.

--On your knees, gentlemen,"-- ordered the girl.

Each man did so. There was something in the expression of the fragile girl that made them tremble. When they finished the blood pact, the girl told them.

--I want to know my lands. My soldiers must give me an escort.

The girl looked at the women.

--They are not leaving. The whole place will be cleaned. I will check later...Cool whoever fails me," --said the girl, gesturing to the men, who silently followed her without a word. At that same hour of the night her land was to be known, they say that unchanging a shadow went behind her. The mother in the shadows, perhaps imprisoned with the same fear of all, the silent group went to accompany her.

It was a small fiefdom.2 days on horseback from east to west. 4 days on horseback from north to south.

In its very center was the crossroads of two royal roads, in a huge ditch that in order to cross it was necessary to cross the only stone bridge built by the Visigoths many years ago.

The girl silently contemplated her land, little water, stony land, not suitable for livestock, only very few plants typical of deserts, aloe, spurge, roses, trinitarias, cactus. He quickly understood that he would not need an escort for his raids. His vassals did not even bother to look up when the group of horsemen passed in front of them, contemplating their daily work in the fields. There was no chance of progress, no matter where he looked. He quickly came to the same conclusion as the lords of the desert, so insignificant were they that he would charge them so that they could remain free. Otherwise, they would invade them to enslave them and take away their riches, which would only be the air, the morning sun and sometimes the power to sing....

Days passed and the comment of the blood kiss was known in the region. It was a girl. Yes, but she was a girl of weapons to take. She devoted herself to singing and weaving with her servants and listening to the daily problems of her vassals. "She did not greet me when passing by", "His donkey got into my lands and all the stored straw was tasted". It was cases that the little girl gave solutions, some of them produced laughter, but with a logic impossible to refute.

The little girl had a beautiful voice, and everyone listened to her singing with rapt attention. And she started a strange new habit. Bathing like for parties and weddings. But it was strange. She did it every day. She also ordered the castle to be washed daily. He had his clothes and curtains customarily cleaned, and his starving horses had to be equally clean. They were free of fleas and ticks, and an exquisite aroma of roses began to emanate. It was the cleanliness of her body, of her clothes, that made everyone want to be with her.

She no longer needed to hide the fact that she was a night owl, she began to ride at night, and at some point her soldiers had the idea of killing her in her sleep. Very soon they realized that the girl did not sleep; invariably standing in the middle of the darkness, apart from everyone else, with her commanding sword in her hand, with wolves approaching and licking her hand, with snakes coiling around her foot, with the figure of Xu at her side....