Katerina quickly realized that she had to work in the village to live.
She remembered the lessons of home economics at school, the most simple lessons of cutting and sewing. She sewed herself a long dress made of white canvas like a nightgown, expanded it with patterns. But this dress wanted to take the wife of the village rich man. She sold the dress for groceries. She took the bag and went through the mountains, down the valleys, and in the evening she returned home. So she began to walk on the Copper Mountains.
When Katerina’s food ended, she sewed a dress, gave it away for groceries, and again went to the mountains. They dragged her mountains indescribably. She found a large cave in the mountains. And as if the light in the cave was. But in the place where the light went, it could rain. She went to the dungeon, mica found. She fixed mica in places where the light penetrated into the cave. And the rain to her in the cave is no longer falling. The temperature in the cave was more constant than on the ground, which attracted the girl.
Katerina decorated the cave. She made herself a bed of a bag of straw, and the heat began to lie in her cave. The girl in the dungeon found sapphires, exchanged them for the bear’s skin from the hunters. So she began to live in a cave. He will find what is inside the mountains – he will exchange in the village for the necessary thing in her household. And Katerina herself was called the Lady of the Subsoil.
The girl increasingly learned the secrets of the mountains. She possessed vision like in cats and saw everything well in the dark. The mountains are used to her and she to them.
People in the villages that were located near the mountains were accustomed to the fact that the Lady of the Minerals lives in the mountains, who began to understand what the mountains are rich with, and kept people in touch with clever people about this.
She knew where the copper ore was, where the iron was, where the coal for the furnace could be found. She no longer wore firewood from the ground to the cave, but coal also burned hotter, and it was needed less than firewood. People themselves products she carried in exchange for copper or coal. Once a girl found shiny streaks in the rock, she found gems.
She began to sew beautiful clothes, to sheathe stones. People from the villages began to respect the lady of the Subsoil even more, they bowed to her in the belt, when they went with a request, or she was carried as a gift. Katerina tamed lizards to serve themselves, many of them at that time in the mountains ran around, she fed them. And then the lizards began to bring to her what she asked. People came to visit her, they all understood.
The cave Katerina adorned the palace, everything glistened and shone in her, shined with light through mica. The Lady of the Subsoil has reached the well-being of her labor and has become bored in a cave. She wanted people to appreciate the beauty of her and her home, or maybe she wanted human love.
The girl was growing up. Once a guy came, he seemed familiar to Catherine. She called herself Katerina. In his head like a lightning bolt passed and went out. And Katerina tried to remember how she knew a guy named Cyril, but she could not. At the desire of her as if by fairy-tale decree, this beautiful guy appeared in the cave opening.
Their eyes met with astonishment, love was born and lit up in gems on the clothes of the ladies of the Subsoil. The guy in sandals, in a long shirt, embroidered in the throat, and could not move from the spot. Cyril, and this was his own person, he stood and looked at Katerina, dressed in a dress dazzling with gems. He noticed the beauty of the cave palace. The guy turned out to be by nature the same as the Lady of the Hinterlands: he did not want to feed the cows, did not want to sow rye, did not want to catch fish and go hunting.
He stayed with the ladies bowels. They began to work together inside the mountains. Cyril got accustomed in the cave, as if he got home. Lizards recognized him. Revived the dungeon. Kirill improved the life of the Lady of the Subsurface by the fact that he himself made her household utensils and decorated them with gems. The presence of the young man did not irritate the Lady of the Subsoil for the time being, but one day she was bored with the bustle of Cyril, and she began to leave the underground palace more and more often.
For a long time, semi-precious, precious stones, dark blue sapphires were valued among women. At the time of the Brown-eyed Khan, many of those stones were found in the Copper Mountains. And those mountains from north to south stretched. Many people from his troops left in the mountains, became the indigenous people, tried to find all the gems for the Khan and their women.
People with gray eyes and brown-eyed people from the Khan’s army gradually intertwined. Over the five or six centuries, many black-faced people were born. In many families, the mother’s eyes are brown and his father’s gray.
And why did all this happen?
Gray-eyed people were brown-haired, but for three hundred years a brown-eyed yoke did not pass for nothing. There are few families left in the country in which there would be fair-haired, gray-eyed people in several generations. The Khan’s troops did not reach the city of ancient Novgorod, maybe gray-eyed and brown-haired people live in those places?
In the mountains, people from the Khan’s army excavated for a long time. In the mountains they searched for copper ore and docile ore, they almost believed it was gold, copper arrows were made of it, coins were minted and gem stones were found in the mountains.
Were in the army of Khan connoisseurs of semiprecious stones. Khan left his people in the mountains so that they looked for pebbles that please their eyes and protect their health. For a long time the people of the Khan worked in the mountains, with the best local craftsmen they kept the council.
They mined stones on two chests of all colors of the rainbow.
The pebbles are heavy, the pebbles are good, even on their cap, even on women’s jewelry. Those pebbles agreed with the good, and parted with malice.
The stones are all tricky, though inanimate, but there is an incomprehensible power in them. I found out about the brown-eyed khan chests, was delighted. And the stones learned about that and did not want to go to the khan.
People with chests in the mountains got lost. They dragged chests, they were tired, their legs were knocked down, their hands were covered with calluses from the handles, they began to fall from hunger, and they could not find a way out of the mountains, so their bones were twisted around the chests. Lizards ran alongside the chests, they saw the bones of the servants of the khan. They lifted the lid of the chest with gems, they were overjoyed, in the other chest they looked in and danced for joy, and well, they ran to the Lady of the Subsoil.
The lizards were those servants, to please the lady of the Subsoil – they were happy, but she loved them, and did not offend them, and did not confuse them with the roads in the mountains. The chests came to see the lady of Nedra herself, the lizards ran after her like a train. The lizards, headed by Katerina, everyone knew what was being done in the mountains, and Cyril reported everything to Kirill. The lady of the Minerals rejoiced when she saw a set of semi-precious stones, she felt an unprecedented power in them, she realized that they picked up stones with great intelligence, and their dark value was to ensure the health of the person whom they recognize as their master or mistress.
If we are really telling the truth, then these lizards on the orders of Prince Athanasius Afanasyevich were led astray by the servants of the khan. He knew about the work of finding the gems, but decided to give them the opportunity to create a complete collection of stones, and now the Lady of Minerals was the mistress of two chests, giving health and well-being to their master.
The greedy lady of the Subsoil was not, and she understood: to take too much is bad. So those who collected these gems died, their radiance was stronger than what was permitted. You can not collect more than one collection of stones. One collection helps, and from two collections die.
The lady of the