Anya and the Nightingale

by Sofiya Pasternack

  Not Papa.

  She slowed, the speed draining out of her legs. The man before her was familiar, but not the man she’d been desperate to see. It was Demyan Rybakov, Papa’s best friend and the old village magistrate, who had gone to the front with Papa.

  Demyan was back. Why wasn’t Papa?

  Anya stopped a few paces from Demyan. Her heart fell onto the road. When she looked at him, his mouth was pinched into a line behind his dirty beard. His eyes were red.

  “Where’s my papa?” she asked, trembling.

  Demyan clutched his bag and then dropped it. He stepped to her and hugged her, saying nothing.

  He hugged Anya for what seemed to her like the rest of her life. Her arms hung at her sides. She couldn’t put any thoughts into a coherent collection in her head.

  “I’m sorry,” Demyan said, voice hoarse.

  She wanted to know what he was sorry for, but she couldn’t ask. The possibilities of the answers were too grim.

  Ivan’s voice breached Anya’s silence: “Is everything okay, Anya?”

  Demyan let her go, and she turned. Ivan and all his remaining brothers were gathered behind her on the road, watching with matching expressions of concern. Ivan’s parents were past them, with Father Drozdov watching carefully from their side.

  Demyan cleared his throat. “My name is Demyan Rybakov. I’m your new magistrate.” He hesitated. “New-old magistrate. They said my replacement disappeared.”

  The Ivans blinked, silent. Semya said, “What did you do?”

  Shestka said, “Why would you make Anya cry?”

  Demyan said, “I didn’t mean to.”

  Anya still couldn’t say anything. Papa should have been with Demyan. Papa should have come back.

  “Demyan.” She grabbed onto his sleeve with a listless hand. “Where is he?”

  He opened his mouth to say something, then looked at the gathered Ivans and said, “Why don’t we go find your mama? So I can tell you both at once.”

  Anya’s stomach threatened to empty itself, and she was afraid to open her mouth. So she nodded and let Demyan take her hand and lead her home.

  * * *

  At Anya’s house, Demyan pulled off his shapka and clutched it in his hand. His curly brown hair was matted around the sides and back from weeks of being crammed under that hat, or perhaps a helmet. He took a deep breath before knocking on the door.

  Footsteps from inside. The door swung open and Mama stood there, hair messy under her kerchief. Her eyes widened and she smiled. “Demyan!”

  Mama jumped forward, hugging Demyan tightly. He let go of Anya so he could hug Mama back, tucking his face against her shoulder.

  It took Anya a moment to realize Demyan was crying.

  Mama realized it too. “Demyan?” She clung to him. “Why are—what happened?” And then, after several seconds of heavy silence: “Where is Miro?”

  Anya stared at the ground, concentrating on not crying, and thinking the same thought over and over: Not dead. Not dead. Not dead. She should have felt something if he died. She would know. It would be impossible for Papa to vanish from the earth without an explosion of grief from the air itself.

  Demyan stepped away from Mama and wiped his wet face. “He was already gone, Masha. I’m so sorry.”

  Mama’s face wasn’t as white as chamomile petals, but it was fast approaching that shade. “What do you mean, gone?”

  “To Rûm,” Demyan said, voice cracking. “The cavalry went first. He takes care of the horses, so he went, and I stayed behind. I was supposed to leave the day after, but some messengers arrived and said I was needed as magistrate again, and Miro had permission to come back.”

  Mama was shaking. “What does that mean?”

  “The messengers tried to catch them before they crossed into the Pecheneg territories, but the cavalry was too fast,” Demyan said. “Miro is . . . not coming home. There’s no way to get to him.”

  Mama’s face crumpled. The bravery she had managed to recover in the last year disintegrated, and she would have collapsed to the ground if Demyan hadn’t caught her. He helped her inside and sat her at the table. Anya shuffled after them, shutting the door softly.

  Papa wasn’t coming home.

  She swallowed the tears away.

  There was no way to get to him.

  A crawling numbness spread through her as she watched Mama sob at the table. Demyan slid into the chair next to her and clasped her hand in his. They sat in tearful silence.

  Mama hadn’t cried in almost eight months.

  Anya’s sadness gave way to anger. At Dobrynya for not acting fast enough. At Demyan for leaving Papa behind. At the magistrate who had sent Papa. At the tsar for starting this war in the first place.

  The house was suddenly stifling. She backed to the door, slipped out while Mama cried, and let her feet take her up the road, away from her house, toward the ravine where Håkon lived.

  Chapter Seven

  At Håkon’s house, the dragon was nowhere to be found. She searched the empty house and riverbank, hoping he’d pop out of the water so she could tell him about Papa. But he wasn’t there, and neither was Kin, Håkon’s human father. The house and riverside property were empty.

  Well, not entirely empty. Alsvindr nickered at her from his lean-to barn as she passed it. He had been Sigurd’s warhorse, but Kin had adopted him after Sigurd was gone. She paused by him long enough to rub his nose.

  “Where’s Håkon?” she asked him.

  He rubbed the side of his face against the barn wall and stamped a hoof.

  “Do you want to go ride?”

  He didn’t answer, but Alsvindr was always ready for a run somewhere. She’d take him, but first she needed something out of the house.

  Inside, Anya went straight to where her bow and quiver of arrows hung on the wall. She didn’t want Mama knowing about the weapons, or about the way she still thought about Sigurd all the time, so she kept them at Kin’s. Mama knew a little about what had happened because Dobrynya had told her all those months ago. But even Dobrynya didn’t really know the truth. Kin didn’t either, and he was puzzled when Anya had been reluctant to use the sword he’d made for her. She didn’t like the feel of it in her hands. It reminded her of Sigurd, and Håkon, and the way it had felt to stab each of them. So Kin had turned her sword into a bushel of magic arrows and a magic bow, and had taught her everything he’d learned from the Varangians about archery.

  Outside, Alsvindr stamped his hooves as he waited for her. Anya didn’t know if horses could have a favorite person, but she felt that Alsvindr liked her better than he did other people. He bumped her shoulder with his velvety nose as she threw his saddle pad over his back.

  The old saddle Sigurd had used was still there. She had been uncomfortable using it for a long time, because every time she saw it, she remembered him in it, riding into her barn, right before he took Håkon and set the barn on fire. But then Kin reworked it and added an embedded iron design: a little goat on the right side. It was too nice a saddle not to use, made especially for the warhorse. The front and back rose up high, holding Anya in place. It had been strange at first, but when she started firing arrows from Alsvindr’s back, she understood.

  She fastened the saddle to the horse, looping the chest piece around his front. Alsvindr was huge for a horse—much taller than either of the Ivanov family’s horses—and since he had belonged to such a rotten man, everyone expected him to be rotten too. In Anya’s experience, he wasn’t rotten at all. He would steal apples from people, but other than that, he was as good a horse as she could hope for.

  Anya jumped into the saddle, hiking up her dress and tucking the front beneath her. Alsvindr started walking before she got settled. She was expecting it, though. He always did. She clicked her tongue and he sped into a trot, crossing over the little bridge near the house, heading south to the archery grounds.

  * * *

  Since the fire last year, Babulya had spoken more openly about her past: A
nya’s family. Babulya told her often about Ötemish, Anya’s other grandfather. Saba was the word he would have used, Babulya said. Saba, then, was what Anya thought of him as. Khazaria, Babulya said, had been a great kingdom at its end, but its people had begun as steppe warriors. They were nomads, living on horseback, traveling to graze their herds, defeating anyone who tried to move into their cold, high territories. Saba had been a trader, but first he had been a great horseman.

  Maybe that’s why Alsvindr liked Anya so much. Because he knew.

  The archery grounds were actually a wide field where Dyedka took the goats to graze during the warmer months, after they exhausted all the grazing nearer to their house. Anya had fashioned targets out of straw and old blankets. The targets had once looked like straw men but now looked more like straw lumps.

  They would still work, though.

  She brought Alsvindr to a stop at the edge of the field and pulled out her bow. She maneuvered the quiver to a good position, where she could reach her meager handful of arrows easily. Her goal was to get six in the first target and six in the second, in one pass. She had done it once, though usually she’d miss the second target by a lot.

  Not today.

  Alsvindr gnawed on his bit impatiently, and Anya said, “Hang on,” as she pulled her bracer from where it was fastened to her quiver strap. It was leather and kind of crude, but it did the job. She put the bracer on her left forearm, positioning it to keep her sleeve from interfering with her quick draw, but also to cover the tender inside. Her bowstring had snapped against her arm once, and the long bruise that formed didn’t go away for more than a week. She had blamed it on Zvezda when Mama asked what happened.

  “Okay,” she whispered to Alsvindr, who was dancing beneath her. She let go of his reins, draping them over the high front of the saddle, and clicked her tongue.

  When the horse felt the pressure let up on his snout and heard Anya’s encouragement to go, he sprang forward, hooves ripping up the grass and throwing clods of dirt behind him. He tossed his head. He ran.

  Anya couldn’t wait. She used the high saddle and robust stirrups to hold herself steady. Alsvindr himself, a horse bred for war, ran smooth and fast, all four hooves off the ground at the same time. Without taking her eyes off the first target, Anya pulled an arrow out of her quiver, nocked it against the bowstring, and breathed deeply through her nose.

  She held her breath, imagining Saba doing this same thing in Khazaria, and Papa doing it in Rûm, and Kin doing it in the North.

  She let her breath trickle out of her and felt for the thump-thump-thump-thump of Alsvindr’s hooves on the ground. In the next breath, they would all be off, and he would fly impossibly smooth for just a second. She felt it then: him gliding through the air like a bird, and she let the arrow go. It flew true—there were only twelve arrows, but they were good arrows—and hit the target where its lumpy arm should have been.

  She could do better than that.

  Anya drew another arrow as soon as she let the first one go. Six seconds between shots was another goal. She counted eight.

  The arrow whistled, its fletching catching a breeze, and it hit the target in its straw belly.

  Another arrow drawn. Ten seconds. Ugh. She could do better.

  She let go and drew another. And another. Five arrows hit the first target. One clipped the side and tumbled into the grass.

  Now it was time for the second target. She did the same thing, but she was too close, and the last two arrows missed.

  Alsvindr would have run forever if not for the trees. He turned a sharp left and cantered around the perimeter of the field, snorting with annoyance at the trees blocking his path. Anya pulled his reins to slow him and muttered, “We should just cut all the trees down, right? Make a path for ourselves.”

  The horse snorted and tossed his head, and Anya reined him to a stop. She slid off him, and he lipped at her kerchief, impatient.

  Anya grabbed her kerchief and pushed his nose away. “I need to get my arrows.”

  The arrows stuck in the straw men came out easily enough, but it took her a minute to find the ones in the grass. She examined each of them for damage, like Kin had taught her to. They were magic arrows, but the shafts were still regular wood, and breakable. All of them looked and felt fine.

  She stood in the grass for a few minutes, staring at the arrow in her hand but not really seeing it. Papa was in Rûm, beyond where any messengers would go to retrieve him. Last year, she had convinced a bogatyr to help her get him. But Dobrynya was gone now, and Anya didn’t know any other knights. Who else could she ask?

  Bitterly, she thought of Dvoyka and Troyka. Maybe they could have gone to get him. That was their job as fools, right? But they would probably just end up getting lost and stumbling upon a hoard of treasure or something. Very lucky for them. Not so lucky for Papa.

  Anya got on Alsvindr again and took him back to the edge of the field. She did three more passes at the targets. Her fingers were numb and red, but even so, she made contact with all her arrows on the second and third passes.

  She climbed off Alsvindr and smacked him lightly on the flank. He trotted away, then galloped around the field on his own while Anya sat down next to one of her lumpy straw men. She put her arrows carefully into the quiver, running her fingers along the shafts and fletching.

  Anya pulled an arrow out and stared at its sharp point, thinking of Papa again. In his letters, he talked about learning more than just the care of the horses: the other soldiers taught him how to use a sword and a bow, how to ride, how to drill. All of that should have made Anya feel better, but it didn’t. Saba knew all that too, and he still died. If a powerful-enough force went up against Papa, he would lose. And Anya would never see him again.

  Sigurd’s cruel, cold eyes forced themselves into her mind. The Varangian had come to Zmeyreka in pursuit of Håkon. He had wanted to drain the little dragon’s blood to make himself stronger. The memory of him made her shudder, and no matter what she did to try to banish him, he wouldn’t go.

  In her mind, she saw his death again: blood leaking from his eyes, his nose, his ears. Then he fell, dead before he hit the ground. She squeezed her eyes shut to force away the memory. It just spun around and around in her head, along with Håkon’s own stabbing at Sigurd’s hands, and Ivan’s near-drowning in the river.

  Then Babulya’s voice interrupted the terrible images in her head, speaking from the table where she knitted a lumpy scarf: Pray, Annushka. Pray with your feet.

  Anya looked back at the arrow’s tip. Pray with her feet. Ask God for help while she took action to solve her own problems.

  Shaking, Anya stood and clicked her tongue for Alsvindr. He trotted over to her, breath whooshing from his big nostrils, and bumped his nose into her hard enough to nearly send her to the ground.

  “Hey!” She grabbed his reins to keep from falling back. Then, after checking that his saddle was still secured snugly, she climbed back up onto him.

  Papa was coming home. Anya was going to make sure of it.

  Chapter Eight

  Anya returned Alsvindr to his little barn and brushed him down quietly as she let the idea of bringing Papa back swirl through her mind. She went into the house to return her bow and arrows to their spots on the wall, glad Håkon and Kin were still gone, because she didn’t want to get distracted. She let her feet take her home while her mind was busy mulling over the logistics of going to Rûm. She needed to leave as soon as possible. Before anything delayed her.

  In a special spot in the barn, their hawk, Germogen, slumbered on his perch. They had been using him for over a year to send messages to Papa. When he wasn’t ferrying those messages back and forth, he stayed with Anya’s family. According to Dyedka, Germogen liked them.

  The hawk opened one eye as Anya neared him, then the other. He made his hawk-squeak sound and ruffled his feathers.

  “Be quiet,” Anya whispered. She grabbed one of the little scrolls of paper they kept near the hawk’s per
ch, along with the charcoal pencil. She wrote carefully on the paper: I’m going to find you. Then, after a pause, Love, Anya.

  She rolled up the scroll and slid it into the tube that the hawk wore like a pack, settled on his back between his wings. He was always amicable when Dyedka slipped it on him, but she hadn’t ever tried to do it herself.

  “Okay, Germogen.” Anya eyeballed him. “I need you to take this to Papa. He’s not going to be where he usually is. Papa says you use magic to find him. So use it. Okay?”

  Germogen blinked and ruffled his feathers again.

  Anya pressed her lips together and reached out to put the backpack over Germogen’s wings and clip it around his chest. When her hand got near to him, he cocked his head and watched her fingers.

  “Don’t you dare bite me,” she mumbled. If he did, he’d probably take her entire finger off. She reached for him again and touched her fingers against his soft feathers. He made his squeak and lifted his wings out.

  Anya leaped back, ready for the hawk to jump and claw at her. But he didn’t. He just stood there, wings out, and she realized he was making it easier for her to put the backpack on. She carefully slid the straps over his wings, smoothing his feathers down when she snapped the chest strap. Germogen shook his wings and nestled them back against his body carefully.

  She put on the thick glove that protected her arm from his talons, then held her arm out. He stepped onto her carefully, his weight taking her by surprise. She struggled to keep her arm up as she walked him around to the back of the barn. She didn’t want anyone to see her.

  Next to the sukkah, Anya risked a stroke along the hawk’s neck. He shut his eyes and leaned against her fingers.

  “Find my papa,” Anya whispered to him. “Please.”

  She didn’t know what to expect. She didn’t have animal magic. Would Germogen listen to her? Would he fly to Papa? Would he fly at all?

  Germogen opened his big eyes and looked up at the sky. He crouched down for just a second, then exploded off her arm. One wing smacked her in the face. The force of his flight buffeted her back, and she watched him climb into the sky, over the trees, and then he was gone into the cooling day.