The Girl in the Tower Read online

  The lone bandit sat on a log with his back to her, throwing fir-cones into the fire. Vasya crept toward him.

  The eldest of the captives saw her. The girl’s eyes widened, but Vasya had her finger on her lips and the girl bit back her cry. Three more steps, two— Not giving herself time to think, Vasya plunged the razor-sharp blade into the hollow at the base of the sentry’s skull.

  Here, Morozko had said, putting an icy fingertip on her neck. Easier than cutting the throat, if you have a good blade.

  It was easy. Her dagger slipped in like a sigh. The raider jerked once and then crumpled, blood leaking from the hole in his neck. Vasya pulled her dagger free and let him fall, a hand pressed to her mouth. She trembled in every limb. It was easy, she thought. It was…

  For an instant a black-cloaked shadow seemed to pounce upon the corpse, but when she blinked it was gone, and there was only a body in the snow, and three terrified children gaping up at her. Her knife-hand was bloody; Vasya turned away and vomited, crouched in the trampled snow. She gave herself four breaths, then wiped her mouth and stood up, tasting bile. It was easy.

  “It’s all right,” Vasya told the children, hearing her own voice ragged. “I’ll take you home. Just a moment.”

  The men had left their bows by the fire. Vasya blessed her little ax, for it split their weapons like kindling. She spoiled everything she could see, then ripped their bundles open and flung the contents deep into the woods. Finally she threw snow on the fire and plunged the clearing into darkness.

  She knelt by the huddled children. The smallest girl was weeping. Vasya could only imagine what her own face looked like, hooded in the moonlight. The girls moaned when they saw Vasya’s bloody knife.

  “No,” said Vasya, trying not to frighten them. “I am going to use my knife to cut these ropes”—she reached for the tied hands of the oldest girl; the cord parted easily—“and then my horse and I are going to take you home. Are you Katya?” she added to the elder girl. “Your mother is waiting for you.”

  Katya hesitated. Then she said to the smallest, without taking her eyes from Vasya, “It’s all right, Anyushka. I think he means to help us.”

  The child said nothing, but she kept very still when Vasya cut the cord from her tiny wrists. Once they were all freed, Vasya stood up and sheathed her dagger.

  “Come on,” she said. “My horse is waiting.”

  Without a word, Katya picked up Anyushka. Vasya bent and scooped up the other child. They all slipped into the woods. The girls were clumsy with fatigue. From deeper in the forest came the sounds of the bandits shouting for their horses.

  The path to the yew tree was longer than Vasya remembered. They could not move fast in the heavy snow. Her nerves stretched thinner and thinner waiting for a man to burst out of the undergrowth or stumble back into camp and raise the alarm.

  The steps ticked by, the breaths and the heartbeats. Had they missed their way? Vasya’s arms ached. The moon dipped nearer the treetops, and monstrous shadows striped the snow.

  Suddenly they heard a crashing in the snow-crusted bracken. The girls huddled in the deepest dark they could find.

  Great, crunching steps. Now even Katya was gasping out sobs.

  “Hush,” said Vasya. “Be still.”

  When an enormous creature tore itself from the undergrowth, they all screamed.

  “No,” said Vasya, relieved. “No, that is my horse; that is Solovey.” She went at once to the stallion’s side, pulled off a mitten, and buried her shaking fingers in his mane.

  “He is the horse that came into camp,” said Katya slowly.

  “Yes,” said Vasya, stroking Solovey’s neck. “Our trick to win your freedom.” A little warmth crept back into her hands, buried beneath his mane.

  Tiny Anyushka, who stood barely higher than Solovey’s knee, teetered suddenly forward, though Katya tried to grab her back. “The magic horse is silver-gold,” Anyushka informed Vasya unexpectedly, hands on hips. She looked Solovey up and down. “This one can’t be a magic horse.”

  “No?” Vasya asked the child, gently.

  “No,” returned Anyushka. But then she stretched out a small, trembling hand.

  “Anyushka!” gasped Katya. “That beast will—”

  Solovey lowered his head, ears pricked in a friendly way.

  Anyushka sprang back, wide-eyed. Solovey’s head was nearly bigger than she was. Then, tentatively, when Solovey did not move again, she raised clumsy fingers to pat his velvet nose. “Look, Katya,” she whispered. “He likes me. Even if he isn’t a magic horse.”

  Vasya knelt beside the girl. “In the tale of Vasilisa the Beautiful, there is a magic black horse—night’s guardian—that serves Baba Yaga,” she said. “Perhaps mine is a magic horse, or perhaps not. Would you like to ride him?”

  Anyushka made no answer, but the other girls, emboldened, crept out into the moonlight. Vasya located her saddle and saddlebags and began rigging out Solovey.

  But now they heard another creature moving in the undergrowth, this one two-footed. No—more than one, and those were the sounds of horses. The hairs on the back of Vasya’s neck rose. It was very dark now, except for a little fitful moonlight. Hurry, Vasya, Solovey said.

  Vasya fumbled for the girth. The girls clustered around the horse, as though they could hide in his shadow. Vasya did up the girth not an instant too soon; the sounds of men shouting drew nearer and nearer.

  For an instant Vasya’s throat seized in panic, remembering her last desperate flight. With trembling hands, she boosted the two littlest up onto Solovey’s withers. Nearer the voices came. She sprang up behind the children and reached an arm down for Katya. “Get up behind me,” Vasya said. “Hurry! And hold on.”

  Katya took the proffered hand and half leaped, half scrambled up behind Vasya. Katya was still lying belly-down on the stallion’s haunch when the captain of the bandits loomed out of the dark, face gray in the moonlight, riding a tall mare bareback.

  Under other circumstances Vasya would have laughed at the shock and outrage on his face.

  The Tatar did not bother with words, but drove his mare forward, curved sword in one hand, teeth bared in startled rage. As he came, he shouted. Cries all around answered him. The captain’s sword caught the moonlight.

  Solovey spun like a snapping wolf and launched himself away, just missing the downstroke of the sword. Vasya had a death-grip on the children; she leaned forward and trusted the horse. A second man loomed up, but the horse ran him down without slowing. Then they raced away into the darkness.

  Vasya had often had cause to bless Solovey’s sure feet, but she had more cause than ever that night. The horse galloped into tree-filled darkness without swerve or hesitation. The sounds of pursuit fell behind. Vasya breathed again.

  She drew the horse to a walk for a moment, to let them all breathe. “Get beneath my cloak, Katyusha,” Vasya said to the eldest girl. “You mustn’t freeze.”

  Katya burrowed beneath Vasya’s wolfskin and clung, shivering.

  Where to go? Where to go? Vasya had no notion now which way the village lay. Clouds had rolled in, cutting off the stars, and their headlong flight in the thick dark had confused even her. She asked the girls, but none of them had ever been so far from home.

  “All right,” Vasya said. “We are going to have to go on—fast—for a few more hours, so that they can’t catch us. Then I will stop and build a fire. We’ll find your village tomorrow.”

  None of the children objected; their teeth were chattering. Vasya unrolled her bedroll, wrapped the two smaller girls in it, and held them upright against her body. It wasn’t comfortable, for her or for Solovey, but it might keep them from freezing.

  She gave them draughts of her precious honey-wine, a little bread, and some smoked fish. As they were eating, heavy hoofbeats sounded from the undergrowth, surprisingly near. “Solovey!” Vasya gasped.

  Before the stallion could move, a black horse came out of the trees, bearing a pale-haired, star-eyed
creature.

  “You,” said Vasya, too taken aback to be polite. “Now?”

  “Well met,” returned Midnight, as composedly as if they had met by chance at market. “This forest at midnight is no place for little girls. What have you been doing?”

  Katya’s arms shook around Vasya’s waist. “Who are you talking to?” she whispered.

  “Don’t be afraid,” Vasya murmured back, hoping she was telling the truth. “We are fleeing pursuit,” she added to Midnight, coldly. “Perhaps you noticed.”

  Midnight was smiling. “Has the world run dry of warriors?” she asked. “All out of brave lords? Are they sending out maidens these days to do the work of heroes?”

  “There were no heroes,” said Vasya between her teeth. “There was only me. And Solovey.” Her heart was beating like a rabbit’s; she strained to hear sounds of pursuit.

  “Well, you are brave enough at least,” said Midnight. Her starry eyes looked Vasya up and down, two lights in the shadow of her skin. “What do you mean to do now? They are cleverer riders than you think, the lord Chelubey’s people, and there are many of them.”

  Lord—? “Ride fast until moonset, find shelter, build a fire, wait until morning, and double back toward their village,” said Vasya. “Do you have any better ideas? And why are you here, truly?”

  Midnight’s smile took on a hard edge. “I was sent, as I said, and I am bound to obey.” A wicked gleam came into her eyes. “But, against my orders, I will give you some advice. Ride straight until dawn, always into the west—” She pointed. “There you will find succor.”

  Vasya considered the wide smile. The chyert tossed back hair like clouds that cross the moon, and bore the regard easily.

  “Can I trust you?” Vasya asked.

  “Not really,” said Midnight. “But I do not see you getting better counsel.” She said that rather loudly, a hint of malice in her voice, as though she were expecting the forest to answer.

  All was quiet except for the girls’ frightened breaths.

  Vasya gathered her manners and bowed, a little perfunctorily. “Then I thank you.”

  “Ride fast,” said Midnight. “Don’t look back.”

  She and the black horse were gone, and the four girls were alone.

  “What was that?” Katya whispered. “Why were you speaking to the night?”

  “I don’t know,” said Vasya with grim honesty.

  SO ON THEY RODE, west by the stars, as Midnight had bidden them, and Vasya prayed it was not all folly. Dunya’s tales had little good to say of the midnight-demon.

  The night wore on, cruelly cold, despite the clouds rolling in. Vasya found herself shouting at the children, to keep them talking, moving, kicking, anything to keep them from freezing to death there on Solovey’s back.

  She was sure the day would never come. I should have built a fire, she thought. I should have—

  Dawn broke when she had almost given it up: a paling sky, snow-filled, but it brought, impossibly, the sound of hoofbeats. One young immortal horse, carrying four, it appeared, was not quite a match for skilled men who had ridden all night. Solovey leaped forward when he heard the hooves, ears against his head, but even he was beginning to tire. Vasya held the girls in a death-grip, and urged the horse on, but she almost despaired.

  The tops of the black trees showed sharply against the dawn-lit sky, and suddenly Solovey said, I smell smoke.

  Another burnt village, Vasya thought first. Or perhaps…A tidy gray spiral, almost invisible against the sky—that was not the black and reeking stuff of destruction. Sanctuary? Maybe. Katya lolled against her shoulder, beyond cold. Vasya knew that she must take the chance.

  “That way,” she said to the horse.

  Solovey lengthened his stride. Was that a bell-tower, over the trees? The little girls slumped in her grip. Vasya felt Katya behind her beginning to slip.

  “Hold on,” she told them. They came to the edge of the trees. A bell-tower indeed, and a great bell tolling to shatter the winter morning. A walled monastery, with guards over the gate. Vasya hesitated, with the shadow of the forest falling on her back. But one of the children whimpered, like a kitten in the cold, and that decided her. She closed her legs about Solovey and the horse sprang forward.

  “The gate! Let us in! They are coming!” she cried.

  “Who are you, stranger?” returned a hooded head, poking over the monastery wall.

  “Never mind that now!” Vasya shouted. “I went into their camp and brought these away”—she pointed at the girls—“and now they are behind me in a boiling fury. If you will not let me in, at least take these girls. Or are you not men of God?”

  A second head, this one fair-haired, with no tonsure, poked up beside the first. “Let them in,” this man said, after a pause.

  The gate-hinges wailed; Vasya gathered her courage and set her horse at the gap. She found herself in a wide-open space, with a chapel on her right, a scattering of outbuildings, and a great many people.

  Solovey skidded to a halt. Vasya handed the girls down and then slid down the horse’s shoulder. “The children are freezing,” she said urgently. “They are frightened. They must be taken to the bathhouse at once—or the oven. They must be fed.”

  “Never mind that,” said a new monk, striding forward. “Have you seen these bandits? Where—”

  But then he stopped as though he’d walked into a wall. Next moment, Vasya felt the light coming to her face, and a jolt of pure joy. “Sasha!” she cried, but he interrupted.

  “Mother of God, Vasya,” he said in tones of horror that brought her up short. “What are you doing here?”

  10.

  Family

  Snow fell lightly, fracturing the winter morning. Dmitrii was shouting up at the sentry on the ladder behind the wall. “Do you see them? Anything?” The Grand Prince’s men hastily smothered their fires and began mustering arms. A crowd gathered around the newcomers: a few women hurried forward, crying questions. Their men followed, staring.

  Sasha was only half-aware. The pale, smudged creature before him could not be his younger sister.

  Absolutely not. His sister Vasilisa must by now be married to one of her father’s sober, earnest neighbors. She was a matron, with a babe in arms. She was certainly not riding the roads of Rus’ with bandits at her back. No. This was some boy who resembled her, and not Vasya at all. His young sister could never have grown tall and gaunt as a wolfhound, nor learned to carry herself with such disturbing grace. And how could her face bear such a stamp of grief and steady courage?

  Sasha met the newcomer’s stare, and he knew—Mother of God, he knew that he was not mistaken. He could never—not in a thousand years—forget his sister’s eyes.

  Horror replaced shock. Had she run away with a man? What in God’s name had happened at Lesnaya Zemlya, that she would come here?

  Interested villagers crept nearer, wondering why the famous monk gaped at a ragged slip of a boy and called him Vasya.

  “Vasya—” Sasha began again, forgetful of their surroundings.

  Dmitrii’s bellow cut him off. The Grand Prince had come down from the wall in time to intercept Sergei, hurrying toward the commotion. “Back off, all of you, in the name of Christ. Here is your holy hegumen.”

  The people made way. Dmitrii was still snarled from sleep, half-armored and loud, but he supported the old monk tenderly on one arm.

  “Cousin, who is this?” the Grand Prince demanded, when he had parted the crowd. “The sentry sees nothing from the wall-top, are you sure—?” He broke off, looked more slowly from Sasha to Vasilisa and back again. “God have mercy,” said the Grand Prince. “Take off your beard, Brother Aleksandr, and this boy would be the image of you.”

  Sasha, not usually at a loss for words, could not think what to say. Sergei was looking, frowning, from Sasha to his sister.

  Vasya spoke up first. “These girls have been riding all night,” she said. “They are very cold. They must have baths at once, and soup.” />
  Dmitrii blinked; he had not noticed the three pallid scarecrows clinging to the intriguing boy’s cloak.

  “Indeed they must,” said holy Sergei. He gave Sasha a lingering look, then said, “God be with you, my daughters. Come with me at once. This way.”

  The girls clung to their rescuer tighter than ever, until Vasya said, “Here, Katya, you must be first. Lead them away; you cannot stay outdoors.”

  The eldest girl nodded, slowly. The little girls were weeping with pure exhaustion, but at length they allowed themselves to be led away, to food and baths and beds.

  Dmitrii folded his arms. “Well, cousin?” he said to Sasha. “Who is this?”

  Some of the dispossessed villagers had gone about their business, but a few still listened unabashedly. Half a dozen idle monks had also drifted closer. “Well?” Dmitrii said again.

  What can I say? Sasha wondered. Dmitrii Ivanovich, let me present my mad sister Vasilisa, who has come where no woman should be, is dressed like a man in defiance of all decency, has flouted her father and very likely run off with a lover. Here is the brave little frog, the sister that I loved.

  Before he could speak, it was she, once more, who spoke first.

  “I am called Vasilii Petrovich,” Vasya said clearly. “I am Sasha’s younger brother—or was, before he gave himself to God. I have not seen him in many years.” She shot Sasha a hard look, as though daring him to contradict. Her voice was low for a woman. A long dagger hung sheathed at her hip, and she wore her boy’s clothes without embarrassment. How long had she been wearing them?

  Sasha shut his lips. Vasya as a boy solved the immediate problem of instant, appalling scandal, and the real danger for his sister among Dmitrii’s men. But it is wrong—indecent. And Olga will be furious.

  “Forgive my silence,” Sasha said to Dmitrii Ivanovich, matching his sister glare for glare. “I was surprised to see my brother here.”

  Vasya’s shoulders relaxed. As a child, Sasha had always known her to be clever. Now this woman said calmly, “No more than I, brother.” She turned brilliant, curious eyes upon Dmitrii. “Gosudar,” she said, “you call my brother ‘cousin.’ Are you then Dmitrii Ivanovich, the Grand Prince of Moscow?”