The Characters of the Garden at the Roof of the World

The Women
The women are the heroes.  They are the ones called to serve the unicorns in their time of need.  One a scholar, one a Lady of station, one a street rat,  one a prostitute, and one an ascetic.  All have been called by the first woman, Lilith, to save the life of the only creature to join her in her exile, the unicorn.  Each have chosen to risk their lives and souls in their attempt to return to Eden where it was hidden at the dawn of time.  There they hope to find the tree of life.​

Gwenaella

 | 

Forced to bargain with a sorceress to save the life of her brother, she sets out on a pilgrimage as perilous as any crusade. She has sworn on the sanctity of her soul to find Eden and return with fruit from the Tree of Life. Her innocence and faith may gain her admittance to Eden, but provides little protection from the dangers she must face as she seeks the hidden garden.

BEFORE THE STORY BEGINS

Gwenaella starts the story as a student in a convent in the city of Vannes in Bretonny.  She is not cut out for the cloth.  Her father intends that she should become well educated so that she might marry a wealthy merchant, and she is a good student.  She's become well versed in Latin, French and Greek, and knows how to balance her sums.Like many of the young women studying in the convent, she frequently climbs down an old vine which has grown along the walls to enter the city and enjoy the music, food and dance to be found in the festivals and daily life of Vannes.  It is at one of the city's many festivals that Gwenaella meets a young poet from Paris, Guillaume.  He is handsome and witty, she is beautiful and wise and they fall in love in the spring of the year.  Guillaume composes a poem for her which he gives her when he declares his love for her.

Lady Elisabeth du Chauvigny (Élise)

 | 

Élise wants nothing more from life than to marry the man she has chosen and be the object of devotion of many lovers.  However, her father has chosen a husband for her, the young prince of Armenia, whom she has reason to despise. She gladly shares the journey to Armenia with Gwenaella who is going that way, all the while scheming for some way to break her engagement.

BEFORE THE STORY BEGINS

Élise has spent many a joyful day with her Aunt Marie in Poitiers, learning music and the arts.  She loves to listen to her Aunt Marie tell her of the old days in the Court of Queen Aliénor.  She dreams that one day she will have lovers of her own, composing songs to her beauty and willing to undergo through trials and dangers to show her how much she was loved. Élise is an accomplished musician and poet, and well versed in religious drama and the romantic poetry of the south of France.

Adelie

 | 

Called to find and help a unicorn in its need, Adelie eagerly joins Gwenaella in her journey to the world’s center.  This journey brings meaning to a life that has known no purpose, and joy to a person who has only known pain and rejection.  She wants nothing from me, and hopes that traveling with a unicorn will help her find her place within the world.

BEFORE THE STORY BEGINS

Adelie has chosen to step outside society.  To those who have families and homes, this makes her dangerous even though she is no thief nor a whore.  However, though it is her choice that places her without a hearth, she feels that she has been harried into it by the Baron of Chauvigny, her father.  She is his unacknowledged bastard, and his soldiers have been trying to kill her since she was a girl.She can no longer live with her mother, as she will not lift her skirts to the owner of the Inn where her mother has a room.  She will not live again in the convent where they used to beat her to drive out from her what they called her mother's stain of sin.  Alone and without a place where she can fit into society, she longs to have a home, a family and to be valued more than the refuse she picks through for her food.Life on the streets with the baron’s soldiers in constant pursuit, Adelie has become quite proficient with defending herself with a sword.

Galiana

Galiana saw the truth of her empty life in the eyes of the unicorn and chose to end it.  When Gwenaella rescued her from the cold waters of the Danube, Galiana chose to help Gwenaella in her errand in the hope that she might do something good in the world.

BEFORE THE STORY BEGINS

Galiana dimly remembers fleeing the sack of Constantinople with her parents, but that is her last memory of them.  They died when their ship was attacked by pirates on the Black Sea.  Her treatment at the hands of the rough men despite her prayers and pleas convinced her that if there was a God, he had no love for her.  After being abandoned by the pirates in a small river port where the Danube meets the Black Sea, she has pulled a living from the pockets of lonely men.

Kavundi

 

 | 

Kavundi seeks to live out Bhakti yoga, with the ultimate goal of atmanivendana, or annihilation of self by letting one’s ego fade into god.  Thus it was a shock to her to have Laksmi herself request that she help Gwenaella in finding the roof of the world where the tree of life was hidden at the dawn of time.

BEFORE THE STORY BEGINS

Kavundi lives as a sannyasi, having renounced the world in her devotion to Lakshmi.   Still young, she sought out and was accepted by Madhva, an Acharya (teacher) who was teaching what he called Tattvavāda, where he sought to combine the Vedas with the emergence of Bhakti, a form of yoga.  She found it hard to be the only women amongst his students, especially since Madhva insisted that all his students become proficient wrestlers as well as well versed in the Vedas.  However, as he echoed Krshna's teachings that all who sought to follow could achieve the ultimate, Kavundi was welcomed.