The Winter of the Witch Page 8

“I saw,” said Sasha, unwillingly.

  “They will riot if I kill him,” Dmitrii went on, “and I can afford no more riots. He can control the mob, and I can control him; that is the kind of man who wants gold and glory, despite all his pretension of piety. The news from the south changes everything; you know it does. I can either squeeze all my boyars, all my princes, and the wretched city fathers of Novgorod for silver, or I can undertake the far more difficult route of calling all the princes of Rus’—the ones that will come—and equipping an army. I will try the former, for my people’s sake, but I cannot afford to be at odds with my city over it. That man may be useful. I have decided, Sasha. Besides, his story is plausible. Perhaps he is telling the truth.”

  “Do you think I am lying then? What about my sister?”

  “She caused the fire,” said Dmitrii. His voice grew suddenly cold. “Maybe her death by fire was justice. You certainly didn’t tell me of it. It seems we are back where we started. Telling lies, and omitting truths.”

  “It was an accident.”

  “And yet,” said Dmitrii.

  They looked at each other. Sasha knew that the fragile, regained trust had eroded once more. There was a silence.

  Then— “There is something I want you to do,” said the Grand Prince. He let go the reins of his horse and drew Sasha aside. “Are we still kin, Brother?”

  * * *

  “I COULD NOT PERSUADE DMITRII,” said Sasha wearily to Olga. “The priest goes free. Dmitrii is going to raise silver, to placate the Tatars.”

  His sister was darning stockings, plain needles and swift hands incongruous in the magnificence of her embroidered lap. Only the jerky movements of her fingers revealed her feelings. “No justice then, for my sister, for my daughter, for my smashed gates?” she asked.

  Sasha shook his head slowly. “Not now. Not yet. But your husband has returned. You are safe now, at least.”

  “Yes,” Olga replied, in a voice dry as summer dust. “Vladimir has returned. He will come to me—today or tomorrow—after he has delivered all his news and made his plans and bathed and eaten and caroused with the Grand Prince. Then I may tell him that his hoped-for second son was a daughter, and she is dead. In the meantime, there is a demon loose and— Do you think there will be war?”

  Sasha hesitated, but Olga’s set face dared him to pity her, and in the end, he accepted the change of subject. “Not if Dmitrii pays. Mamai cannot really want a war; he has a rival south of Sarai. He only wants money.”

  “A great deal of money, I imagine,” Olga said, “if he is going to the trouble of mustering an army to extort it. There were bandits in Muscovy all winter, and Moscow in flames not long ago. Will Dmitrii be able to get his money?”

  “I don’t know,” Sasha admitted, then paused. “Olya, he has sent me away.”

  That broke through her composure. “Sent you—where?”

  “To the Lavra. To Father Sergei. The troubles of men and armies, Dmitrii understands. But with all the talk of wickedness, spoiling, and demons, he wants Father Sergei’s advice, and sent me to get him.” Sasha rose to pace, restless. “The city is against me now, because of Vasya.” The admission cost him. “He says it would be unwise for me to stay. For your sake and my own.”

  Olga’s narrowed eyes followed him as he swept back and forth. “Sasha, you cannot leave. Not when there is such wickedness loose. Marya has the same gifts as Vasya, and this priest who tried to kill our sister knows it.”

  Sasha paused in his pacing. “You will have men. I have spoken to Dmitrii and Vladimir about it. Vladimir is calling up men from Serpukhov. Marya will be safe in the terem.”

  “As safe as Vasya was?”

  “She left.”

  Olga sat very still, said nothing.

  Sasha went to kneel at her side. “Olya, I must. Father Sergei is the holiest man in Rus’. If there is a demon loose, then Sergei will know what to do. I do not.”

  Still his sister said nothing.

  Lower, Sasha said, “Dmitrii has asked it of me. As the price of his trust.”

  His sister’s hands closed on her needles, crumpling the stockings. “We are your family, vows or no, and we need you here.”

  Sasha bit his lip. “All of Rus’ is at stake, Olya.”

  “So you care more for children unknown than for mine?” The strains of the past days were catching both of them.

  “That is why I became a monk,” he retorted. “That I might care for all the world together and not be tied to a little corner of it. What has it all been for, if I cannot protect all of Rus’ instead of just a patchwork of fiefdoms, a few people among the many?”

  “You are as bad as Vasya was,” Olga said. “Thinking that you can just shake off your family like a horse slipping its traces. Look where it got her. You are not responsible for Rus’. But you can help keep your niece and nephew safe. Do not go.”

  “It is your husband’s task—” began Sasha.

  “He will be here a day or a week, then gone again, on the prince’s work. Just as always,” said Olga furiously, with a catch in her voice. “I cannot tell him about Marya; what do you think he would do with a daughter so afflicted? Arrange at once, with generosity and foresight, to have her sent to a nunnery. Brother, please.”

  Olga ran her household with a steady grip, but the last days had shown her limits; when the world moved outside her walls, there was very little she could do. Now she was reduced to pleading: a princess without power enough to keep her family safe.

  “Olya,” Sasha said. “Your husband will see that there are men at your gate; you will be safe. I cannot—I cannot refuse the Grand Prince. I’ll come back as soon as I can, with Father Sergei. He will know what to do. About the demon—and Konstantin Nikonovich.”

  While he spoke, she controlled her rage; she was the immaculate Princess of Serpukhov once more. “Go then,” she said with disgust. “I do not need you.”

  He went to the door, hesitated at the threshold. “God be with you,” he said.

  She made no reply, though as he went out into the dripping gray of early spring, he heard her breath catch once, as if she fought to control her weeping.

  * * *

  IT WAS NIGHT AGAIN in Moscow, and nothing moved but beggars, trying to keep warm in the spring damp, and the faint house-spirits, walking, stirring, whispering. For there was change in the air, in the water beneath the ice, in the damp wind. Chyerti murmured rumors to one another, much as folk did in the city all around.

  The Bear walked softly through the streets, a cold rain on his face, and the lesser chyerti shrank away. He did not heed them. He reveled in the sounds and the scents, the moving air, the fruit of his cleverness taking shape. The news of the Tatar army had been a lucky stroke, and he meant to use it to full advantage.

  He must succeed. He must. Better to unmake the world—better to be unmade himself—than go back to the grim clearing at the edge of winter, dreaming the years away. But it would not come to that. His brother was far away, and so deeply imprisoned that he would never come out again.

  The Bear smiled at the indifferent stars. Come spring, come summer, and let me make an end to this place, let me silence the bells. Each time they rang the monastic hours of worship, he flinched a little. But men were men, whatever gods they followed—hadn’t he tempted a servant of the newer God into his service?

  Hoofbeats sounded in the darkness ahead, and a woman on a black horse rode out of the shadows.

  The Bear greeted her with a lifted head, looking unsurprised. “News, Polunochnitsa?” he said, a hint of arid humor in his voice.

  “She did not die in my realm,” said the midnight-demon, her voice quite expressionless.

  The Bear’s eye sharpened. “Did you help her?”

  “No.”

  “Yet you watched her. Why?”

  The midnight-demon
shrugged. “We are all watching. All the chyerti. She has refused both of you, Morozko and Medved, and so made herself a power in her own right in your great war. The chyerti are choosing sides once more.”

  The Bear laughed, but the gray eye was intent. “Choose her over me? She is a child.”

  “She defeated you before.”

  “With my brother’s help and her father’s sacrifice.”

  “She has passed three fires, and she is not a child anymore.”

  “Why tell me?”

  Midnight shrugged again. “Because I have not chosen a side either, Medved.”

  The Bear, smiling, said, “You will regret your indecision, before the end.”

  Midnight’s black horse shied, and gave the Bear a wild-eyed look. Midnight smoothed a hand through his mane. “Perhaps” was all she said. “But you see, now I have helped you too. You will have the whole spring to do as you please. If you cannot secure your position, then perhaps the chyerti will be right to look instead to the powers of a half-grown girl.”

  “Where will I find her?”

  “Summer, of course. Beside the water.” Midnight looked down on him, from her horse’s back. “We will be watching.”

  “I have time then,” said the Bear, and looked again up at the wild stars.

  9.

  To Travel by Midnight

  VASYA WOKE TO A DARKNESS so deep, she thought she had been struck blind. She lifted her head. Nothing. Her body had chilled and stiffened; moving sent a cascade of pain through neck and back. She wondered vaguely why she was not dead, wondered also why she was lying on bracken instead of snow. It was quiet, except for the faint creaking of branches overhead. Gingerly, she put a trembling hand to her eyes. One was swollen shut. The other seemed all right, except the lashes were gummed together. Gingerly, she pried it open.

  It was still dark, but now she could see. A faint sickle moon cast wavering light over a strange forest. Snow lay only in patches; mist veiled the trees, luminous in the moonlight. Vasya smelled cold, wet earth. She stumbled to her feet, turning in a circle. Darkness all around. She tried to remember the last hours, but there was only a vague memory of terror and flight. What had she done? Where was she?

  “Well,” said a voice, “you are not dead after all.”

  The voice had come from above. Vasya wrenched instinctively back, even as she searched for the speaker, her good eye watering. Finally, on a limb overhead, she caught sight of star-pale hair and bright eyes. As her own eyes adjusted, Vasya began vaguely to make out the shape of the midnight-demon, perched on the branch of an oak-tree and leaning against the trunk.

  A deeper patch of black stirred in the shadows below the tree. Vasya, squinting, could just make out a marvelous black horse, grazing by moonlight. He lifted his head to look at her. Vasya’s heart thumped once, loud in her ears, and memory came rushing back: blood sticky on her hands, Father Konstantin’s face, fire…

  She stood perfectly still. If she moved, if she made a sound, she would flee, scream, go mad with memory, or the impossibility of this darkness, with Moscow nowhere in sight. What was real? This? Her horse dead, her life saved by magic? She shuddered, fell to her knees, pressing her hands into the icy, wet earth. Trying to understand was like grasping at rain. For a long time, all she could do was breathe, and feel her hands on the ground.

  Then, with a terrible effort, she raised her head. The words came slowly. “Where am I?”

  The demon let out a little sigh. “And in your right mind, too.” She sounded faintly surprised. “This is my realm. The country called Midnight.” The curve of her mouth was cold. “I bid you welcome.”

  Vasya tried to slow her breathing. “Where is Moscow?”

  “Who knows?” said Polunochnitsa. She slid from the limb of her tree, fell lightly to earth. “Not nearby. My realm is not made up of days or seasons, but of midnights. You can cross the world in an instant, so long as it is midnight where you are going. Or, more likely, you can die trying, or go mad.”

  “I was told,” Vasya said thickly, remembering, “that I must find a lake. With an oak-tree growing on the shore.”

  Polunochnitsa lifted a pale brow. “Which lake? My realm contains enough lakes to keep you searching for a thousand lives of men.”

  Search? Vasya could barely stand. “Will you help me?”

  The black horse flicked his ears.

  “Help you?” answered Midnight. “I did help you. I have made you free of my realm. I even kept you here just now while you lay insensible. Must I do more?” Polunochnitsa’s hair fell like cold rain over the darkness of her skin. “You were discourteous at our last meeting.”

  “Please,” said Vasya.

  Midnight half-smiled and came closer still, whispered her answer as though it were a secret. “No,” she said. “Find it yourself. Or die here, die now. I will tell the old woman. She might even mourn, though I doubt it.”

  “Old woman?” said Vasya. The darkness seemed to press around her, horribly. “Please,” she said again.

  “I do not forget insults, Vasilisa Petrovna,” said Lady Midnight, and turned away, laid a hand on the withers of the black horse. Then she was astride, wheeling, gone into the trees without a backward glance.

  Vasya was alone in the darkness.

  * * *

  SHE COULD LIE DOWN in the leaf-litter and wait for dawn. But how could there be dawn in a country made of midnights? She could walk, though her legs shook when she stood. But where was she to go? She wore only Varvara’s cloak and the bloody, reeking remains of her shift. Her feet were bare and torn. It hurt to draw breath, and she was shivering. This night was a little warmer than the night near Moscow, but not much.

  Had she come through fire, defied the Bear, escaped Moscow by magic only to die in the darkness? Go to the lake, Varvara had said. You will be safe there. The lake with an oak-tree growing at its shore.

  Well, if Varvara had thought she could find it, then perhaps she had a chance. Probably Varvara had thought Midnight would help her, as Vasya had no idea of direction. But at least she would die on her feet, in search of sanctuary. Gathering the last of her strength, Vasya walked into the darkness.

  * * *

  SHE DID NOT KNOW how long she walked. Beyond the uttermost end of her strength, yet still she stumbled on. The light never changed; the sun never rose. Vasya began to be desperate for light. Her feet left bloody footprints.

  Polunochnitsa had spoken true. This was a country made of midnights. Vasya could not discern a pattern among them. One moment, she was walking on cold dead grass, with a half-moon overhead. Then she passed into tree-shadow and found with a cold shock that the moon had disappeared and muddy earth squelched under her feet. It was always early spring, more or less, but the place changed every few steps: a mad, patchwork country.

  I am still here, Vasya told herself, over and over. I am still myself. I am still alive. Gripping hard to that thought, she walked on. Wolves cried in the distance, and she lifted her head to hear them; then the wind struck like icy water on her face. She saw new lights—firelights—on a hill in the distance, hurried toward them, only to have them vanish. Then she was walking under pale birch trees, white as dead fingers, beneath a scarlet moon.

  It was like walking through a nightmare; she could not orient herself, did not know north from south. On she stumbled, gritting her teeth, but now the earth was sucking at her feet and she found that she had fallen into a bog. Mud everywhere; she could not muster the strength to break its grip. Tears of purest exhaustion leaked from her eyes.

  Let go, she thought. Enough; let go. At least here there will be no mob laughing when I go to God.

  The black, sucking mud of the bog seemed to agree, gurgling. There were wicked eyes, like green lamps, watching her from beneath the water. They belonged to a bolotnik, swamp-dweller, breathing out stinking plumes of marsh-gas. He could k
ill her quickly, if she let him. He could pull her down into the frigid dark and she wouldn’t have to walk again on her torn feet, or breathe against her broken ribs, or remember the last two days.

  But Marya, Vasya thought dimly. Marya is in Moscow, and my brother and sister, defenseless against the Bear.

  And so? What could she do? Sasha and the Grand Prince could…

  Could they? They could not see. They did not understand.

  My brother has traded his freedom for your life, the Bear had said. The carved nightingale was in the sleeve of her shift. Her filthy, groping hand closed tight around the wooden creature and it seemed a little warmth crept into her chilled limbs.

  Winter-king, why would you do such a terrible thing?

  He had a reason. Morozko was no fool. Shouldn’t she find out why, rather than allow his bargain to go for nothing? But she was so tired.

  Solovey would have said she was being foolish; he would have made her get on his back and carried her along steadily to wherever they were going, ears flicking cheerfully back and forth.

  Hot tears spilled from her eyes. On a surge of rage she yanked herself from the mud, scrambled up the bank. In desperation she put a hand into the water, and spoke in her choked, smoke-damaged voice. “Grandfather,” she said to the lurking swamp-demon, “I am looking for a lake, with an oak-tree growing on the shore. Can you tell me where it is?”

  The bolotnik’s eyes had just breached the water; she could make out his scaly limbs churning below the surface. He looked almost surprised. “Alive still?” he whispered. His voice was the sucking sound of the swamp, his breath the smell of decay.

  “Please,” said Vasya. With her fingers, she split one of the clotted cuts on her arm, and let her blood fall on the water.

  The bolotnik’s tongue flicked, tasting, and his eyes glowed suddenly bright. “Well, you are a courteous maiden,” he said, licking his chops. “Look then.”