How far would you go to keep a promise? If you'd given your word to someone and pledged your undying loyalty and devotion; would you do anything to hold to it? Would you lie? Would you steal? Would you... murder?
Ludmilla is a young farmer's daughter living in southern Russia during the Russo Crimean Wars of the 16th century. Motherless since age three and with five older brothers constantly taunting her about her gender; Ludmilla eventually develops into a strapping, freakishly strong, and quite intelligent worker on her father's barley farm. Shedding her identity as a girl completely by age 13, she dresses like a man, walks like a man, and smells a lot like one too. But she has also out-worked out-thought and out-fought all of her older brothers until gradually, as they one by one run off to join the army, she becomes almost solely in charge of the entire farm. Father is growing older and more feeble every winter.
Then one day she goes into town and sees the most beautiful girl she's ever laid eyes upon. It is Tatyana actually... daughter to the local innkeeper and a quite dainty yet effervescent young teenager almost exactly Ludmilla's age. Tatyana has practically grown up working in the family's tavern, serving ale and Vodka to drunken men who have slowly but surely begun treating her like some common trollop when they've had too much to drink. Motherless since age ten; she never had time for friends growing up. Never had time for a boyfriend either. Eventually she has become inured to the fact she might just turn into an old maid some day running the business when her own father passes on.
Until one day, a handsome yet beardless young "man" enters her tavern; and what happens next will change both their lives forever. Ludmilla (though appearing to be a boyish-looking teenager), is suddenly everything Tatyana needs in her life. She is warm, she is caring, and she really listens to Tatyana. She is the best friend Tatyana never had growing up, and the "boyfriend" she thought she'd never find.
They fall in love; and as their love quickly blossoms into a full acceptance of each other's true identity and sexuality, tragedy is visited upon them when the Great Tatar Invasion of 1571 turns not just theirs but the lives of over 170,000 fellow Russians upside down. Captured and forced into slavery, Ludmilla becomes a common field hand working on a cotton plantation in northern Turkey. Tatyana becomes a concubine in the royal palace of the Grand Sultan in Istanbul. Yet before they are parted, Ludmilla (who prefers going by the male name "Lyev") makes a solemn vow to her lover.
"Stay alive. No matter what they do to you, just survive. Someday, whatever it takes, I will come for you...!"
