The Dagger

The heat of the sun could not be felt through the cold autumn wind. It was possible to hear the leaves crackling beneath her feet. Until, after a blow to the side of her stomach, she threw herself to the ground:

“I died.”

“No, soldier, you have not died yet. You fell, but I have not yet drawn the sword across your neck, so there is still time.”

“No, I really died. Look.” She stretched out on the grass like a star, feet and hands fully extended, looking up at the blue sky and squinting because of the sun. She was visibly exhausted; dying was easier.

“No, soldier, you have not died yet. Remember, you are a warrior.”

She looked attentively at her father:

“What is a warrior?” The word caught her attention; she knew soldier, but she did not remember warrior. She opened her eyes and sat on the grass, leaving the small wooden sword fallen beside her.

“It is someone who fights to the end, who persists in their mission, who never gives up. They fight until victory or death; no matter how tired or wounded they are, they go to the end, whatever that end may be. A warrior fights for good, for justice, protects the weakest. You are a warrior. No matter how many times you fall, get up and win the battle!” He said it like an order.

She got to her feet, wiped her sweaty forehead with her forearm, and raised the sword, but only to shield her face from the sun that bothered her. She hesitated and made a funny face because of the direct light on her face.

Her father insisted:

“On guard, soldier!”

Then she went back to fighting, resigned, her movements already slow and her body weak.

The mother watched from the window, seven months pregnant. It was the fifth time she had become pregnant since the birth of her firstborn. She hoped that this time the child might be born alive and, perhaps, be a boy.

Father and daughter continued training in the garden, making supposed battle sounds, indifferent to the observation - and disapproval -in her gaze. He did not truly mind having a daughter, but the mother did not seem quite as pleased with the warrior they were creating. She wanted a little girl for herself and, for that reason, hoped a boy would be born, so that she could have her little girl back.

The father had always wanted a son; yet they had not been able to have one. They had lost some children before Agnes, so when she was born alive, he cared little about the child’s sex. He was not a young man, and he had waited for that child for a long time; he knew that the days ahead of him were dwindling. They would preserve their plans for her, adapting them if necessary, whether she was a boy or not.

Anna looked out from the window, caressing her belly with hope as she watched her six-year-old daughter sweat and roll on the ground like a boy. Barefoot most days and, prematurely in her opinion, learning to ride in order to keep up with her father. She spent the entire day with him, being educated by him: being trained, in truth. Her father was a three-star general, the only one the nation had had for quite some time. He had won three battles with the previous king, while still very young, and two with the current one. Though he was theoretically retired, he was always summoned when necessary. He was considered the best strategist in the kingdom.

Shortly after Agnes was born, following the plans he and the king had laid out, he withdrew in order to train his daughter, whose existence had become a priority for the kingdom. Thus, from an early age, the child grew up learning about national economics, politics, administration, how to fight, with or without a sword, how to ride, persist, endure, give orders, play chess, war strategies, and everything her father deemed relevant.

While the mother, throughout all those six years, merely waited for the son who was not born to replace the daughter in the path the father had planned for her. “As long as the mission is ours, no one will come to replace us,” the father answered every time the mother raised the subject. “Apparently, that mission belongs to Agnes.”

The expected boy was not born that time either. Agnes watched the birth of her stillborn brother and her mother’s death from hemorrhage. In her childhood imagination, she saw her mother’s entire bed turn into blood and swallow her. She let herself fall onto the icy slate floor, surrounded by the waves of her white dress. Her mother courageously dressed her in white and in dresses, despite the adventures she pursued with her father. Perhaps it was a futile way of reminding the father that his daughter was a girl. But she took care to put trousers beneath the dress, and always complained about how stained her clothes became.

The child’s dress skirt was soaked by the salty loss from her childish face and stained crimson by drops that fell from her mother’s bed. The midwife mournfully chanted a prayer in a strange language. The curtains swayed in the constant wind, the sun at the window, the green lawn stretching into infinity beneath it, indifferent. The midwife entered and left the room several times, carrying basins and bloodied cloths with her, and her prayerful crying in a murmur.

The father entered the room and lowered his hand toward the child.

“You are a warrior, soldier. We don’t have time for this.”

She looked at her father, blinked twice, and could not identify a single emotion on his face that might shelter her. She looked down at the floor again, tears streaming in a row. For a moment, she considered her options, as though deciding whether or not she was a warrior, whether or not she was a soldier, whether or not she was dead upon the cold stone.

She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and stood without taking her father’s outstretched hand.

She was a warrior.

She left the room, carrying firm steps toward her future, and at the door she dropped the only doll she had, which she had held against her chest throughout the birth. The doll had died too, she decided.

The Queen of her people was born.