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new spring intoxicate me. In the summer I closed my eyes and listened to the silence and the rumblings of the steppes. Rain clouds clashed on the horizon and spread across the sky. The wind drove great emerald green waves over the plains. White cranes, frightened by the thunder, danced as if possessed. I sat at the entrance to my tent and watched the lightning throw its terrifying writing across the mauve vault of the sky. The autumn unfurled sapphire blue skies, and I lay in the grass watching butterflies with wings covered in tiny scales.
    The other girls made fun of my melancholy ways.
    Melancholy is the poetry of a carefree life.
     
***
     
    I, Tania, serving girl to the queen, do not know where I was born; I do not know my age or my birth name. Here, everyone calls me Tania, "the fragrance of butterflies."
    "Am I beautiful?" I asked my mother, the one who took me in and fed me on ewe's milk.
    "Beauty is a lake that exists within us," she replied. "Beauty is a reflection of the sparkling, transparent Siberian glacier. Beauty is the smile of God."
    We, the girls from that snow-covered mountain, we were not afraid of hunger, heat, cold, or invasion. Each of us had a tiny portion of the glacier. As guardians of its white flame, we lived solitary lives, far from cities and kings.
    The eagles were our friends: the queen knew how to call them, and they would come down from the skies to act as our guides. We tended our horses, bathing them, rubbing them, and grooming them adoringly. For horses were our faithful companions. The steppes did not have the riches of the mountain; there was very little fruit with soft juicy flesh; the rare red berries that we found made us skip for joy. We hunted with bow and arrow for hares, foxes, and wolves to give us the strength for our mounted expeditions, which could last several months.
    Once a year, when we had eaten well and drunk wine made from roots and berries, when our horses were well fed and groomed, we would launch ourselves into a headlong gallop, continuing for many moons without rest. Our bodies were gripped by such frenzy, our souls overcome by such a longing to fly, that we set off for the farthest limits of the steppes, following our queen to the point of exhaustion. We sustained ourselves on thin air, the rain, and the wind. We knew neither sorrow nor fear. We knew only the freedom that was ours and was the source of our pride. We were like migratory birds summoned by a mysterious force. We raced toward the place where the moon rose, heading for the great annual celebrations that drew together all the peoples of the steppes.
    Men and women jostled and barged on the banks of the river Iaxarte. Noblemen could be distinguished by their hats of leather or felt, decorated with feathers, flowers, and animal heads. Lowlier people competed in their techniques for tying turbans. Tribes gathered here to exchange weapons, tents, jewels, and women. Everyone spoke a language the nomads used for trading. The girls of our tribe knew a few words of it, but only the queen and I perfectly mastered this dialect of numbers, exclamations, and exaggerations.
    During that month of festivities, we exchanged our horses for leather pouches, painted pots, bead necklaces, and young girls. We gleaned information about the huge world beyond the steppe. That was how we learned that Persia, the vastest empire under the sun, had been brought down by an army from the west. Endless battles had sent the Persians fleeing eastward. Their sumptuous fabrics, elegant plates, and jewelry decorated with precious stones were everywhere in our markets and changed hands for almost nothing. Men and women from all tribes strutted and showed off their Persian tunics and carpets. I, Tania, watched this preening and excitement with a strange sense of foreboding.
     
***
     
    The amazons stopped, awestruck, before a display of toys. Then, laughing and crying out in delight, they rushed at the trinkets, reaching out for them: