Tetheyeth
Tetheyeth (c. 612-640) was a prominent war-leader in what is today Abranoussa during the early spread of Siriash across northern Lestria. One of the very rare women in the region’s pre-Sirian culture to hold exalted rank in a male-dominated society, she led part of the resistance to Sirian proselytising zeal as its missionary armies pushed inland from the Median and Messenic coasts.
Origins
Although most sources refer to Tetheyeth by this name and suggest that it was a personal name, this is not conclusive; the word has been linked by modern scholars to modern Pilasite tatheoieith, “to preach”, and there is a possibility that tetheyeth is a title given to a religious leader. Too little is currently known about the faith of the pre-Sirian peoples of Abranoussa to confirm or deny the supposition.
Tetheyeth appears to have first come to prominence in 634, following the death of her predecessor Khaule; most texts suggest that the two were married, although some ambiguities of translation still exist on this point. In this year she is recorded as having rallied the armies led by her husband and directed them against the Sirian intruders, fighting them first to a standstill before forcing a retreat to the north. Nonetheless, she evidently acknowledged that the Sirians had superior strength and numbers available to them, in the future if not necessarily immediately; in several post-Sirian versions of her history this is claimed to be the result of a vision of the future which she had seen on the night following her victory, rather than through a pragmatic analysis of the battle.
Whether as a defensive measure or as a bid to prevent her vision from coming true, over the next five years Tetheyeth turned her small community into an armed camp. Every person capable of wielding a weapon was schooled in arms; even children as young as six years old were taught to handle smaller-scale weapons. However, her relentless implementation of these grand plans tipped over into tyranny, and a people pushed beyond their limits turned against her, driving her into the Tloule mountains, from where she purportedly vanished without trace.
Rehabilitation
It is perhaps ironic that it was the very Sirians whom Tetheyeth hated and feared who would drive her rehabilitation in later centuries. The widespread belief that she was possessed of supernormal abilities – she was widely thought to have had strength greater than two men and skin tough enough to turn aside blades, as well as the prophetic powers referred to previously – meshed neatly with the Sirian belief that humanity as a whole had had such abilities as part of their Asmedon birthright, but had been deprived of them untold millennia ago by the malevolence of the hated Sebanants. This suggestion that she somehow manifested the kind of talents of which all humans were theoretically capable made her in some way admirable to many Sirians, in the sense of being a “noble enemy”. Some fringe Lestrian Sirian groups even claimed her as an enlightened one, in the tradition of great Sirian leaders going back to Menrot.
Largely for this reason, Tetheyeth is today regarded by most Abranoussans as a heroine of the people, and statues in honour of her are quite common across the country. Her lustre has also been commandeered for use by the Tetheyeth Programme, a government-sponsored initiative under which talented children from poor families or in remote districts may receive scholarships to undertake higher-level education. The programme, an initiative of Eioul Elkhoub, currently Abranoussa’s ambassador to Siurskeyti, during her earlier spell in charge of education, is already showing evidence of improving Abranoussa’s scientific and technical skills base.