The Winter of the Witch Read online

  “He is back.”

  “The witch’s brother.”

  “Aleksandr Peresvet.”

  “Who is that with him?”

  There was no chance of anyone seeing Vasya, Sasha thought grimly. They were all looking at him. More and more people were gathering. The guards looked now as though they didn’t know whether to turn inward to him, or outward, so as not to put their backs to the angry crowd. A lettuce came hurtling, rotten, from somewhere out of the crowd, burst at the feet of Sergei’s horse. The horses jolted into motion, beginning to climb the hill of the kremlin. More vegetables flew; then a stone. Sergei still sat unruffled on his horse, raised a hand and blessed the crowd. Sasha moved his horse up by his master, protecting Sergei with his body and Tuman’s. “This is madness,” he muttered. “Rodion—both of you—go to the Archangel. This might get worse. Father—please. I will send word.”

  “Very well,” said Sergei. “But be careful.” Sasha was glad when Rodion and his big horse plowed a way through the crowd, and were gone. The guards were hustling him up toward Dmitrii’s palace now; it was becoming a race to see if he would get there before the crowd grew too thick.

  But they did get there, and Sasha was glad to hear the gate shut behind him, to dismount in the dust of the dooryard. The Grand Prince was outside, watching a man put a three-year-old colt through his paces. He did not look well, that was Sasha’s first thought. He looked heavy and haggard, soft in the jaw, and in his face was a strange dull anger.

  The golden-haired priest was standing right behind Dmitrii and he looked lovelier than he ever had. His lips and hands were as delicate as a woman’s, his eyes impossibly blue. He was dressed as a bishop, his head raised listening to the clamor of the uneasy city. There was no triumph in his face, only a sureness of power that Sasha found infinitely worse.

  Dmitrii caught sight of Sasha and stiffened. There was no welcome in his face, only a new, strange tension.

  Sasha crossed the dooryard, keeping a wary eye on the priest. “Gosudar,” he said to Dmitrii, formal. He did not want to speak of Father Sergei, not with that cold-eyed man listening.

  “Come back now, Sasha?” Dmitrii burst out. “Now, when the city is full of sickness and unrest, and all the people need is an excuse?” He stopped to listen to the rising noise outside; they were thronging the gates.

  “Dmitrii Ivanovich—” Sasha began.

  “No,” said Dmitrii. “I will not hear you. You will be put under lock, and pray it is enough to quiet the crowd. Father—if you would tell them?”

  Konstantin said, with the perfect tone of courageous sorrow, “I will tell them.”

  Sasha, hating the man, said, “Cousin, I must speak with you.”

  Dmitrii’s eyes met his and Sasha could have sworn that there was something in them, a warning. Then Dmitrii’s expression iced over. “You will be put under key,” he said. “Until I consult with holy men and decide what to do with you.”

  * * *

  “EUDOKHIA IS PREGNANT AGAIN and afraid,” Olga said to Vasya. “She will be glad of any diversion. I can get you past the gate.”

  “It is a risk,” Vasya replied. “I had thought Varvara and I could go. Two servants with a message. Who will notice? Or I alone, even. Or you could give me a man you trust, to boost me over the wall.” She told them briefly about the capricious invisibility she had discovered in herself, the night of the burning.

  Olga crossed herself, and then, frowning, shook her head. “Whatever strange powers you have discovered, Dmitrii still has a large guard on the gate. And what will happen to the manservant if someone sees him? Moscow is half-wild. All are afraid of plague, and they are afraid of the dead, and of curses. Indeed, Moscow has been much afraid this summer. I am the Princess of Serpukhov; I can get through the gate most easily. Dressed as my servant, you will be little remarked if someone does see you.”

  “But you—”

  “Tell me it is not needful,” Olga retorted. “Tell me that to leave things as they are won’t put my children in danger, and my husband, and my city. Say that, and I will gladly stay home.”

  Vasya could not, in conscience, say anything of the kind.

  * * *

  OLGA AND VARVARA WERE EFFICIENT. With scarcely a word spoken, they found Vasya the dress of a servant. Olga bid her horses be harnessed in haste. Marya begged to be allowed to go, but Olga said, “Dear heart, the streets are full of sickness.”

  “But you’re going,” said Marya, rebellious.

  “Yes,” said Olga. “But you cannot be spared, my brave love.”

  “Take care of her,” said Vasya to Olga’s dvorovoi, and she hugged Marya tightly.

  The sisters left the palace of Serpukhov as twilight was thickening to dusk. The closed carriage was stuffy; the sun hovered red. From outside came the murmurs of unrest, the smell of putrefaction from the overcrowded city. Vasya, dressed as a serving-girl, felt more naked than she ever had in her boy’s clothes. “We must get back behind your walls before sunset,” she said to Olga, laboring to keep her voice even. The fear had begun to rise in her again, when they went back out into Moscow. “Olya, if I am delayed, you will go home without me.”

  “Of course I will,” said Olga. Not for her a grand and foolish sacrifice; Vasya knew she was already taking more of a risk than she wanted. They rode a few moments in silence. Then— “I do not know what to do for Marya,” Olga admitted abruptly. “I am doing my best to protect her, but she is too like you. She speaks to things I cannot see; she is growing more elusive every week.”

  “You cannot protect her from her own nature,” said Vasya. “She does not belong here.”

  “Perhaps she doesn’t,” Olga said. “But in Moscow I can at least protect her from those that mean her ill. What will happen if folk find out her secret?”

  Vasya said slowly, “There is a house by a lake, in a wild country. That is where I went, after the fires in Moscow. It is where our grandmother came from, and our great-grandmother. It is in our blood. I am going to go back, when this is over. I am going to build a place that is safe for men and chyerti. If Marya came with me, she would grow up free. She could ride horses, and if she wishes to marry, she may. Or not. Olya, she will wither here. All her life she would mourn something she did not know she’d lost.”

  The lines of worry deepened about Olga’s mouth and eyes. But she didn’t answer.

  A new silence fell between them. Then Olga spoke again, startling her. “Who was he, Vasya?”

  Vasya’s eyes flew up.

  “Credit me with a little perception at least,” said Olga, answering her look. “I have seen enough girls wed.”

  “He,” said Vasya, finding herself suddenly nervous again, in a different way. “He is—” She stumbled to a halt. “He is not a man,” she admitted. “He—is one of the unseen folk.”

  She expected Olga to be shocked. But Olga only frowned. Her eyes searched her sister’s face. “Were you willing?”

  Vasya did not know if Olga would be more horrified if Vasya had been willing or if she had not. But there was only truth. “I was,” she said. “He has saved my life. More than once.”

  “Are you wed?”

  Vasya said, “No. I do not—I do not know if we can be. What sacrament would bind him?”

  Olga looked sad. “Then you are living beyond the sight of God. I fear for your soul.”

  “I don’t,” said Vasya. “He”—she stumbled, finished—“he has been a joy to me.” And, drily, “Also a great source of frustration.”

  Olga smiled a little. Vasya remembered that years before, her sister had been a girl who had dreamed of love and raven-princes. Olga had laid aside the dream, as women must. Perhaps she did not regret it. For the raven-prince was strange and secret; he would draw you out into a dangerous world.

  “Would you like to meet him?” Vasya asked suddenly.
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  “I?” Olga asked, sounding shocked. Then her lips firmed. “Yes. Even a girl in love with a devil needs someone to negotiate for her.”

  Vasya bit her lips, not sure whether to be glad or worried.

  They were getting to Dmitrii’s gate now. The general noise of the city had heightened. A crowd clamored outside the gate. Her skin crawled.

  Then a single, musical voice rose above the shouting. It silenced the mob. Controlled it.

  A voice she knew. Vasya felt the greatest shock of fear she’d ever known. Her breath came short; her skin broke out in a clammy dew of sweat. Only Olga’s merciless hand on her arm recalled her.

  “Don’t you dare faint,” said Olga. “You say you can make yourself unseen. Will he be able to see you? He is a holy man. And he wished you dead, once.”

  Vasya tried to think around the fear beating like wings in her skull. Konstantin wasn’t a holy man, but—he could see chyerti now. The Bear had given him that power. Could he see her? “I don’t know,” she admitted.

  They were rolling to a stop. Vasya thought she would choke if she could not get a breath of fresh air.

  Konstantin’s voice spoke again, cool and measured, just outside. She had to clench her teeth and her fists to keep from making a sound. Her whole body shook.

  Now there came the sounds of a crowd that was parting, grudgingly, to let them through. Olga sat still on her woolen cushion, seemingly unruffled. But her eye fell with some concern on Vasya, gray-faced and sweating.

  Vasya managed to speak between her clenched teeth. “I’m all right, Olya. Just—remembering.”

  “I know,” said Olga, and drew a deep breath. “All right,” she said firmly. “Follow my lead.” There was no time for more. The gate creaked, and then they were in the dooryard of the Grand Prince of Moscow.

  * * *

  THE EVENING SUN WAS SLANTING, and Olga was blinding in a jeweled headdress, her long hair plaited up with silk, hung with silver ornaments. She got out first. Vasya, holding on to her courage as hard as she could, stepped out in her wake. Olga at once seized her sister’s arm, ostensibly for support. But it was the Princess of Serpukhov in control; she was dragging Vasya toward the steps of the terem, holding her up when she faltered.

  “Don’t look back,” Olga muttered. “He will come back through the gate in a moment. But the terem is safe. Wait a little, then I will send you out on an errand; keep out of sight and you’ll be all right.”

  That sounded like sense. But a glance at the sun showed it slanting ever farther. They had an hour at most, and Vasya found her mind so crowded with fear and fearful memory that she could hardly think.

  There was the new stable, built over the ruin of the old. Now they were on the terem-steps, which Vasya had last climbed in darkness to rescue Marya. Somewhere at her back was Konstantin Nikonovich, who had nearly killed her in the cruelest way possible. And now he had the king of chaos for his ally.

  Where was Morozko now? Where were Sasha and Sergei? How—?

  Olga hurried them on, regal. They climbed the steps, were admitted. Vasya, fighting for self-control, felt relief for once when the terem-door was shut behind them. But now they were in the workroom that Kaschei had filled with illusions, where he had almost killed Marya and her—

  Vasya’s gulp of air was almost a sob, and Olga shot her a stern look—don’t you dare break now, sister—just as Eudokhia Dmitreeva, Grand Princess of Moscow, seized upon Olga with delight. Kept in their airless rooms, Eudokhia and her women were desperate for any diversion.

  Vasya crept off to stand against the wall with the other servants. She could barely draw a full breath around the grip of fear on her lungs. In a moment, Olga would judge it safe and…

  The door of the terem opened. Vasya froze.

  Konstantin’s golden hair gleamed in the dimness. His face was serene as ever, but his gaze was puzzled, wary.

  Vasya pressed herself into the shadows near the wall, just as Olga glanced up, caught sight of Konstantin, and at once swooned with perfect accuracy and startling skill. She fell directly onto a table of sweetmeats and wine, sending everything flying up in a great sticky wash.

  If Sasha’s theatrics at the gate had been a little stilted, everyone was taken in by Olga’s diversion. Immediately the women flocked; even Konstantin, at the doorway, took a few steps into the room. There was just enough room for Vasya to get around him.

  He can’t see you. Believe it, believe it…

  She ran for the door.

  But he could see her. She heard his indrawn breath, and turned her head.

  Their eyes met.

  A mingling of shock and horror and rage and fear crossed his face. Her legs shook, her stomach was full of acid. In an instant like a lightning-strike, they both stood frozen, staring at each other.

  Then she turned and ran. It wasn’t anything so noble as running to find the bridle, to put an end to all this. No, she was fleeing for her life.

  Behind her, she heard the terem-door slam open, heard his rich voice raised, shouting. But she’d already ducked into the nearest door, passed a room full of weavers like a wraith, gone back outside again, descending. All the quivering panic of the last hours had broken open; all she wanted to do was run.

  She slipped through another doorway, found the room empty, and with a wrench of desperate effort, paused and forced herself to think.

  The bridle. She must get the bridle. Before dusk. If she could only keep everyone safe until midnight, perhaps the Midnight-road could save them. Perhaps.

  Or perhaps she’d die, screaming.

  Voices sounded just outside the outer door. There was a second door, leading farther into Dmitrii’s palace; she fled through. The place was a warren. Low-ceilinged, dim rooms, many of them full of goods: skins and barrels of flour and silk-figured carpets. Other rooms housed workshops for weaving and carpentry, the souter, the bootmaker.

  Vasya, still running, came to a room full of bales of wool and hid herself behind the biggest. Kneeling, she drew her little belt-knife and, with shaking fingers, cut her hand, and turned her palm so that the drops pattered onto the floor.

  “Master,” she said to the air, in a voice that cracked, “will you help me? I mean this house no harm.”

  Below her, in the dooryard, Vasya heard curses, the shouts of men, the screams of women. A servant came running through the room of bales. “They are saying there is someone in the palace.”

  “A witch!”

  “A ghost!”

  Dmitrii’s faded domovoi stepped out from behind one of the bales of wool. He whispered, “You are in danger here. The priest will kill you for hatred, and the Bear to spite his brother.”

  “I don’t care what happens to me,” said Vasya, her bravado belied by her shallow-breathed voice, “so long as my sister and brother live. Where is the treasure-room?”

  “Follow me,” said the domovoi, and Vasya drew a deep breath and followed. She was grateful suddenly for every scrap of bread she’d ever given a household-spirit, for now all those homely tributes, bread and blood, quickened the domovoi’s feet, as he led her deep into the mad jumble of Dmitrii’s palace.

  Down, and down again, to an earth-smelling passage and a great, iron-bound door. Vasya thought of caves and traps. She was still breathing faster than the exertion called for.

  “Here,” said the domovoi. “Hurry.” Next moment, Vasya heard the sound of heavy feet, tramping. Shadows moved on the walls; she had only a moment.

  Seized again by terror, she forgot she could be invisible; she forgot to ask the domovoi to open the door. Instead she lurched forward, driven by the sound of feet above, and put a hand on the treasure-room door. Reality twisted; the door gave. With a gasp, she tumbled inside and scrambled into a corner behind some bronze-chased shields.

  Voices sounded in the corridor.

 
“I heard something.”

  “You imagined it.”

  A pause.

  “The door is ajar.”

  A creak as the door swung open. A heavy step. “There is no one here.”

  “What fool left the door unlocked?”

  “A thief?”

  “Search the room.”

  After all this? Were they to find her so, drag her up into Moscow, where Konstantin would be waiting?

  No. No they would not.

  A crack of thunder sounded suddenly outside, as though to give voice to her panic and her courage both. The palace shook. There came a sudden roar of rain.

  The men’s torches went out. She heard them swearing.

  Her hands trembled. The sounds of storm, the darkness all around, the great door opening at her touch, were like three pieces of a nightmare. Reality was shifting too fast to understand.

  The men’s shock at the noise and unexpected darkness had won her a reprieve, but that was all. They would relight their torches. They would search, and find her. Could she make herself invisible this time? When they were searching for her in this small room?

  She wasn’t sure. So instead Vasya clenched her fists and thought of Morozko. She thought of the sleep like death that the winter-king held in his hands. Sleep. The men would go to sleep. If she could only forget they were awake.

  She did. And they did. They crumpled to the packed-dirt floor of the treasure-room. Their cries died away.

  Morozko was there, between one blink and the next. She hadn’t put the men to sleep. He had. He was there, himself, real, in the treasure-room with her.

  Now the winter-king was turning pale eyes on her. She stared. It was really him. Pulled to her, somehow, as she remembered his power. As though drawing him to her was easier than calling down sleep herself.