Vorzheva

Vorzheva Thrithings-woman

Daughter of Fikolmij. Mistress and later wife of Prince Josua, and mother of his twins Derra and Deornoth. Member of Clan Mehrdon.

Appearance
Vorzheva is a woman in her mid-30ties (at the start of TDBC). She is tall and slender yet not weak or frail. She has dark, uptilted eyes; raven-black, curly hair and pale, ivory skin. She values grace in her appearance, wearing rustling robes, painting her lips and her eyes, but ultimately does not care too much about these things. Her mannerism is more due to her trying to proof others of her worth and her right to be the lady of a Prince and of Naglimund.

Character
She is a willful, intelligent women, though she has problems understanding the "Stonedwellers" around her and their ways. Often her quick temper gets into her way and drowns out her patience, especially in regard towards the man she loves. For Prince Josua she left her Clan, her people and everything she knew, following him even into war and staying by his side, though she often argues with him and doubts he is making the best joices for the both of them.

Growing up in a world in which women have little meaning and are regarded as property, she is constantly straining to have her say and to convince men that women have to play a part in the decisions for the world’s future as well, while at the same time she – probably unconsicously – keeps defining her own worth by Josua’s love and affection towards her.

Early life
Her father Fikolmij, Thane of Clan Mehrdon, was helped by King Prester John to gain power in an attempt to put some Erkynlandish control over the Thrithing-men. Later he beame March-Thane of all the High Thithings, making him one of the three leaders of all the Thrithing-folk.

Fikolmij was not close to his daughter and planned to marry her off for 13 good horses to a Thrithing-man named Utvart, who was known to be a rapist and a brute. When Prince Josua visited Clan Mehrdon as an envoy sent by his father, High King Prester John, Vorzheva followed him out of camp the day he left. She begged Josua to take her with him and he agreed, thus costing her father the 13 horses.

At Naglimund she became Josua’s mistress and the first lady at court, yet as they never married, she was treated poorly by the noble women around her, who called her a "Thrithings whore".

Memory, Sorrow and Thorn
While Josua visits Erchester for his father’s last days of life and burial, for Elias’ crowning, and for the tourney days a year later, Vorzheva remains in Naglimund.

She is there, when Josua returns home after having been freed by Simon and Doctor Morgenes, when Simon, Binabik and Miriamele are brought to Naglimund and when Josua meets with his allies to decide on their further plans regarding Elias’ rule, Pryrates’ scheming and the threat of the Storm King.

Feeling that Josua is turning a blind eye to the suffering of Princess Miriamele, Vorzheva falls for Miriamele’s pretense that she is feeling lonesome and wants to see her family in Nabban when in fact Miriamele wants to convince her Nabbanai uncle Leobardis to join Josua’s course. Swayed by the princess, Vorzheva pays the monk Cadrach to take Miriamele to Nabban – a scheme quickly discovered by Josua and Isgrimnur, yet not rapid enough to stop Miriamele from managing to get away.

For a while this puts a heavy strain on the relationship of Vorzheva and Josua which is in any case a complicated one as he never married her and is reluctant to commit to her in front of the eyes of others.

When Naglimund is overrun, Vorzheva is one of the survivors following Josua out of the fortress and throught the forest Aldheorte. After her company is taken prisoner by her father she reveals that she is pregnant with Josua’s child. Thus she keeps her lover from being killed by Fikolmij in cold blood and grants him the chance to fight for her as the Thrithing’s people regard a child as a form of betrothal, meaning that Josua and Vorzheva are bound to each other ,and that Utvard — the man her father had promised her to and who still wants her — has to fight for the right to marry her. After Josua won the duel for their lives, Vorzheva and him are wed in the eyes of her Clan and the little group of survivors by Father Strangyeard.

They then flee to Sesuad'ra, where they gather allies for many months. There Vorzheva becomes friends with the Sitha Aditu, who finds out that Vorzheva is pregnant with twins.

After the forces of Josua and his allies have managed to defeat the assault of Duke Fengbald and the Erkynguard, Vorzheva tries to persuade her husband to stay on the mountain until their child is born, but Josua can't wait: Their time to fight the Storm King and his brother is running out. Hence they make their way towards Nabban.

There, in a monastery overlooking the valley in which her husband is figthing the forces of Duke Benigaris and his younger brother Varellan, Aditu, Father Stangyeard and Duchess Gutrun deliver the twins — a girl namend Derra (which is the Thrithing’s word for "star") and a boy, named after Josua’s late best friend, the knight Sir Deornoth.

As Josua won the battle, Vorzheva, the children and Duchess Gutrun are taken to the Nabbanai court and stay there, waiting for the ultimate end of the bottle, which comes after the siege of the Hayholt and the collapse of Green Angel Tower, in which Josua is supposed to have died by common knowledge. In the following weeks, Vorzheva and the twins are smuggled out of Nabban by help of Count Streáwe of Perdruin, who had been visited by a very alive Prince Josua, and thus they disappear into lore and mystery to everyone who is not informed of the secrets.

The Last King of Osten Ard
In fact Josua and his family resettle to Kwanitupul, where Josua buys the inn "Pelippa’s Bowl", which one belonged to the Scrollbearer Xorastra. In the following years, he becomes a member of the League of the Scroll himself, thus joining Father Stangyeard, Tiamak and Binabik. He also becomes godfather of Prince John Josua, the only child of High King Simon and High Queen Miriamele.

Vorzheva, though still loyal to her husband, is not happy of her life in Kwanitpul nor of they lodgings in the run down inn with its low-profile, shady reputation. Her mood does not increase when Josua offers membership to the League of the Scroll to Lady Faiera of Perdruin. When all the members of the League come to visit the inn for a gathering, Vorzheva makes sure to stick close to her husband at all times, causing Lady Faiera, who had fallen for Prince Josua herself, to resent her immensely.

A while after, that Josua leaves for Perdruin to consult Lady Faiera on matters concerning his great-nephew and things the boy started to interest himself in. Vorzheva is not happy about him visiting that woman, but has no means of stopping him. Yet from that journey, he does not return. When after months her husband has not come home, Vorzheva feels herself forced to sell Pelippa’s Bowl. She tells her children that she plans to go north with them – a goal as of yet not explained in more details – yet they are set upon somewhere between Kwanitupul and Erkynland and are brought to her father.

Fikolmij sends her son, Deornoth, away to live with another clan, with which he assumes the name Sanver, later Unver, and ultimately comes back to search for his parents about twenty years later. In the chaos of her sons return, Vorzheva kills her father, who had kept her as a slave for all those years (more than 20) and who scared his grandchild Derra to run away long ago.

Reunited with her son, Vorzheva is seeking revenge on the Stonedwellers, of whom she thinks that they took her husband away from her. She blames all his old friends, but most of all Lady Faiera, of whom she thinks that she ensared or bewitched Josua. For all those years, Vorzheva kept Josua’s sword Naidel, telling her son that Josua would never have left the sword behind, if he had gone of his free will, and thus using this as proof that her husband was taken from her and his children by the scheming of others.

In one moment of turmoil, when Count Eolair escapes his captivity from Unver’s allies, Vorzheva accidently stabs her sister Hyara, trying to defend herself from being forced to come with the Stonedwellers. Yet her lie, that Eolair had stabbed Hyara instead of her, puts Unver into a frency calling war upon the forces of High King Simon.

(... the rest will be discovered from "Into the Narrowdark" and "The Navigator’s Children" which are not published yet.)