The Frost And The Flame

by Drusilla Campbell

  Madame Minin’s mouth became a hard, condemning line, and she shook her head firmly. “Sister Beatrix told me about you, Katiana Danova. She said you were more worldly than was decent in a young woman. If they kept the mirrors from you, it was for a good reason.” She brushed the crumbs from her drab widow’s garments and began to clear away the remains of their meal. She was grumbling. “They might at least have sent along a maid to help with the meals! It is hardly suitable for me…”

  “Do you have a looking glass?” Katia persisted.

  Her impudence seemed to startle the chaperone. “As it happens, I do. In that box. But I have my orders, and the sisters of Troitza told me you’d be willful. If you want to indulge your wicked vanity, you will just have to wait until we get to Three Rivers.” Madame Minin pulled a lever, and a leg rest swung out from beneath the seat. She settled herself comfortably amidst a pile of tapestries, pillows and down-filled comforters, and closed her eyes, sighing. “I will rest now, child. You would be wise to say your prayers and then do the same.”

  Prayers were far from Katia’s mind! It was not the matter of the looking glass that enraged her, although that was bad enough; it was knowing that the sisters of Troitza had the power to poison even her precious liberty with their lies.

  ‘Well, I don’t care,’ she told herself firmly. ‘I have a right to know what I look like just as I have a right to know whose child I am. No matter what they say, I will know these things!’

  That first day out from Troitza, Katia waited until Madame Minin’s wheezy breathing told her the woman slept. Then she knelt before the box containing the mirror and deftly untied the cord that held it closed. Hardly daring to breathe for fear of disturbing Madame Minin, Katia slipped her thumbs beneath the lid and gently eased it up and off. The box smelled of lavender and contained items of a personal nature—a faded oil miniature in a jewelled frame, a silky nightdress, some handkerchiefs. For an instant, Katia was ashamed and felt like a thief. But her shame was quickly overcome when, reaching toward the bottom of the box, her fingers closed on a square object which she somehow knew instantly to be the mirror she sought.

  For light, she drew back the heavy curtains that closed the hood of the sleigh.

  “Is there something the matter?” Katia let the curtain drop back as Madame Minin fluttered up out of sleep, her eyes still half closed.

  “It is nothing, Madame,” Katia soothed. “Nothing.” Madame Minin fell back with a heavy sigh, and Katia waited for a long time to be sure her sleep was real and deep this time. Then she opened the curtain enough to let in a thin line of grey light that only just illuminated the face she saw in the mirror. Blue eyes, their unexpected almondine shape accentuated by dark thick lashes and graceful arching brows like doves’ wings, stared back at her.

  ‘I am pretty,’ was her first thought. Almost instantly she was deeply shamed by her vanity. She crossed herself quickly. A girlish yet somehow sensual mouth smiled from the glass, and the sinful thought recurred. ‘I am beautiful.’

  Chapter Two

  Once Moscow was behind them, the trip lay through a land of vast snow ranges and flat white miles populated only by rooks that perched on stumps and barren trees and called accusingly after the sleigh. The plains of snow were intersected from time to time by dense sprawls of forest and swollen rivers which Katia’s party crossed by ferry. As they moved further south, the wooded areas became more prevalent, and sometimes the sleigh passed through peasant selos. At these villages they stopped regularly for water, provisions, and fresh horses. Though Katia would have liked to sit up front in the open portion of the sleigh and watch the life of the selos, this was so vociferously forbidden by Madame Minin that Katia felt—at least temporarily— cowed into a kind of sulky submission. Once, however, she did take a quick peek through the curtained opening of the sleigh, and her curiosity was rewarded with a momentary glimpse of the interior of a peasant izba. The rough dwelling was built of logs and roofed with a heavy layer of thatch secured by saplings laid across it horizontally. The building had no windows; but for a moment the door was open, and Katia looked inside. A family group of seven or eight was crowded at a plank table eating a meal. Beside a stone oven, a plump red-faced woman in a babushka was scolding three children who were crowded into the loft bed built directly on the oven top for warmth. Katia saw a baby in a bast cradle suspended from a crossbeam of the hut.

  As Katia was staring into the izba, one of the men at the table turned and looked directly at her. Though they were some distance apart, Katia was pained by the hatred and distrust she saw clearly in his expression and the bullish way he thrust his chin out as he glared at her. She ducked inside the sleigh and did not look out again until the village was far behind.

  Though much of the ride was through flat uninhabited territory, Katia preferred the fresh air at the open end of the sleigh to Madame Minin’s sanctimonious chirruping within. She muffled herself in the cozy garments provided by the Troitza nuns; and when nothing in the landscape caught her fancy, she let her mind roam free.

  The incident with the peasant man bothered her a great deal. She was familiar through her history lessons with the institution of serfdom, and she had known some of the many vassals belonging to the convent. She had heard from one of her more worldly school friends, Mathilde, that serfs were bought and sold on the auction block along with livestock. At the time, the idea had repelled Katia; and she was never able to forget the blasé manner in which Mathilde accepted this dehumanizing situation. When she dared to mention that a serfs life must be terribly degrading, Mathilde was scandalized to hear of sympathy for peasants.

  “They’re hardly human. Not like you and me!” the girl had declared, dismissing Katia’s protests with a flurry of giggles.

  But the angry peasant in his izba had seemed all too human to Katia. Eyes so filled with fire had to be fueled by a tremendous agony of soul. Katia thought she could sympathize with the man’s resentment of his captivity and, by contrast, her freedom.

  But a short time ago, she had been a captive herself! Life in Troitza had been like a prison to her from the beginning. Oh, there were instances of laughter and warm feeling, but they were few. For the most part, she -had spent the years from 1812 to 1825 locked within the called convent without a true friend or confidant.

  The Troitza Convent in Moscow was noted for its discipline and rigid adherence to a strict code of behavior. Katia had been told that the Mother House in St. Petersburg was a more lenient residence though not at all concerned with scholarship as they were in Moscow. For Katia, deprived of love and even of knowing her true identity, books and lessons were the best escape. Without learning, her life would have been intolerable. Even the harshest nuns would admit she was an outstanding scholar.

  But Katia had, almost from the beginning of her confinement, refused to follow the Troitza rules; and for this she had been repeatedly and severely punished. It wasn’t that she never tried to be faithful and obedient; still, no matter how pious she tried to be, the repeated prayers—the predictable litany year after church year, season upon season—bored her to the point of madness. Her deportment would be perfect for weeks or even months and then something in her seemed to snap, like a breaking twig; and she had to find some way to escape the convent for a few hours even at the risk of punishment. Once her hands were switched a dozen times and marked with welts that stung for days. Another time, she was given only bread and water for a week and made to eat at the end of the table, isolated like a pariah whose unquenchable desire for freedom might contaminate the others in the school. Sometimes she believed it when the sisters told her she was “a bad one;” and these were the times she cried at night and longed for her mother.

  “I am not bad,” she would whisper to herself over and over when she should have been praying before bedtime. “I am not bad!” She wanted her mother to come and tell them all that she was really a good little girl, but she needed to run in the fields and see new things. She wasn’t meant for
life in the convent. When she was young Katia dreamed of a wonderful woman dressed all in white who would come and rescue her from Troitza. Long after prayers, she had lain awake on her mat, building a fanciful life with this rescuing mother-person. But as she grew older and no one ever came, she put away these dreams because, ultimately, they hurt too much. By the time she had been in Troitza for ten years, she knew her mother had abandoned her.

  This tragic resignation did not keep Katia from wanting to know her true identity, however. After a dozen punishments for “speaking out of turn” and “unseemly curiosity,” she learned to keep her questions unspoken; and, in time, the gentler nuns said in private that Katiana Danova had calmed down at last. But they could not know the way her curiosity was hardening to an iron intention to find out who she was no matter how long it took.

  When she was sixteen, she was told that in two years time she would have her liberty and be returned to the home of her aunt in Three Rivers. From that time on, Katia learned a quietly studious outward behavior that concealed from everyone but herself the impatient leaping of her heart whenever she thought of freedom.

  ‘No one should have to belong to another person or place. Not even a serf,’ she thought as the sleigh skimmed over the icy pack. But she was too happy to dwell for long on such a sorrowful subject. She, at least, had her freedom. Even the rush of cold air on her face was enough to thrill her and set her young heart beating with the thought of adventures to come.

  It was midafternoon a week out from Moscow when the sleek hooded sleigh crossed onto Romanov lands.

  Madame Minin had told her, “Prince Oleg Romanov is one of the richest men in all of Russia and one of the most important too. Your aunt’s village lies on free land at the western border of His Highness’ estate.” Prince Oleg Romanov permitted sleighs a right-of-way through his property. “It shortens our trip by days,” said Madame Minin. “Be grateful for His Highness’ generosity, Katia, and remember him in your prayers.”

  But Katia did not want the trip made shorter. She was still much too excited to be exhausted or put out by the rough sleeping and eating conditions encountered on the road. Despite her chaperone’s protests, she had continued to sit near the front of the sleigh whenever weather permitted.

  As soon as the sleigh had crossed the ice-bound river onto Romanov lands, the yantchik spurred the team forward fast. The normally smooth riding vehicle jerked and swung precariously along the narrow track between walls of dense forest. She had to grip the handrail to keep from slipping off the seat.

  ‘He wants to reach some village before dusk,’ Katia surmised, chafing her hands together in her muff. She tried to remember when they had last stopped to change horses, and it seemed a long time back. She knew the poor animals could not go much further at the speed the yantchik was pushing them now! Katia heard a whip crack and shuddered at the necessity.

  But the time until dark was short; and if they reached a village one moment too late, Katia knew all the doors and windows would be closed against them, barred until the dawn. The folk of the region were of a primitive and superstitious nature. To guard against the evil spirits of the night, they brought their farm animals into their huts; but their dogs were left out all day and night. In the winter, the animals were near starving; and in the dark they would attack anything that moved. Katia could understand why the villagers felt safer with the protection of their vicious half-wild dogs. She also understood why the yantchik drove the team so hard.

  They sped through a region of tall ancient trees. Black-barked and bare of leaves, they were all Katia could see in any direction. In the summertime, she knew the woods would be green and sweet-smelling; but now there was something ominous about them. She wrapped the grey cloak more closely about her, but she felt no warmer. An uneasy chill had moved into her, displacing the excitement she had felt just moments before. Silently, she urged the tired horses: ’Faster! Faster!’

  They reached an apparently prosperous village called Yoisha just in time. On its fringes, the sleigh was met by a large pack of mean dogs; but the outriders scattered them easily with their cracking whips. From her vantage point, Katia saw that the village consisted of twenty or so dwellings half buried in snow so that only their chimneys and doors were visible. The sleigh stopped in the middle of the track at the far end of town.

  “What is happening?” cried Madame Minin in alarm, poking her face through the curtains. “Why have we stopped?”

  “The horses must be changed, Madame.” The younger of two yantchiki appeared beside the sleigh. He tipped his sealskin cap respectfully to both women. “The hosteler says his wife will give you soup and fresh bread if you care to enter her kitchen. There seems to be some problem with the horses, and I think you’ll be warmer inside if the wait here is long.”

  As he helped Katia and Madame Minin to alight from the sleigh, the rosy-cheeked young driver assured them, “I’ve checked the place and it appears rough but clean and decent. The men will be drinking in the next room, and you may hear them if they grow boistrous. But you’ll be safe enough.”

  Katia took Madame Minin’s elbow and helped her through the snow to the low doorway of the izba. Inside, the yantchik seated them at a rough wood table and gave quick orders for good service. Then he said, “The horses are stabled in a house across the road. I will see to them and then return for you.” Hat in hand, he bowed with awkward respect and departed.

  Katia looked around her. The only other person in the hut was an elderly black-dressed woman standing near the fire, her arms folded across her chest. Two crusty loaves of bread were on the hearth beside her. The dirt floor of the room was covered with straw, and each of the sod and timber walls was ornamented with roughly designed wood and iron icons.

  The old woman glared at Katia and made no effort to serve the promised soup and bread.

  “Why were we invited inside if she does not intend to feed us?” Katia asked Madame Minin when they had waited several minutes.

  “Lord knows, child.” Madame Minin patted her damp brow with a lace-edged handkerchief and looked around nervously. “Country folk are so unpredictable these days. I suppose we might have to do without food altogether now.”

  Katia was too hungry to consider that possibility. Without thinking of propriety, she ordered the old woman to serve them. While Madame Minin gasped that such behavior was unseemly for a child, Katia marveled at how quickly the elderly dame, hunched like an old troll, obeyed, and how comfortable she felt administering orders.

  The rye bread was warm, and though coarsely textured, it had a hearty flavour. They ate it with slices of hard aromatic cheese and bowls of an oily soup that consisted mainly of cabbage and onions. The women spoke little during their meal. Madame Minin was obviously put out with Katia for the bold way in which she had taken control of ordering the meal.

  “You must not draw attention to yourself,” the chaperone said. “It isn’t fitting.” She seemed about to say more but stopped herself. She was listening.

  Next door, men were arguing as they drank; and though it was impossible to make sense of their argument, Katia was frightened by voices she heard. Suddenly, she wanted to be in the sleigh, speeding away from the village of Yoisha as quickly as possible.

  “Let us return to the sleigh, Madame,” she suggested abruptly, pushing her chair back and standing.

  “We must wait here for the yantchik." Madame Minin’s cheeks had the pallor of watered milk. She pushed away her bowl of half-eaten soup.

  “Our driver has been gone nearly an hour. Perhaps he has taken the sleigh and left without us.” A dozen lurid possibilities fed Katia’s ripe imagination. “I believe we must go just as far as the entrance to look for him.”

  Madame Minin argued against this idea for only a few moments. It was easy to be swept along by Katia’s decisive manner. Katia felt the peasant woman eyeing her as she walked to the kitchen door. It was oak and closed with a wide iron bar that she strained to lift. The village crone watched, he
r black-bead eyes fiercely narrowed as the girl laboured. When she was at last able to pull the door open, Katia’s heart was hammering hard. The night outside was full of angry masculine voices, and an instinct Katia had not known she possessed told her that she and Madame Minin were in danger.

  It was almost dark. From the snow shrouded doorway, Katia could just see the sleigh with the team of exhausted horses still hitched to it; but the yantchiki were nowhere in sight. And what had become of the outriders hired to assure the sleigh’s safety? Katia was further alarmed when she saw that some of them had become part of the angry crowd emerging from the inn to join the group outside. At the center of this group was a man—a fat fellow with gross features—holding a huge-headed wolfhound on a leather lead. The animal was cruelly emaciated, and its eyes glowed bloody in the near dark. Katia shrank back into the kitchen doorway, but the dog had seen her and began to whimper and bark. Suddenly, a clawlike hand seized Katia’s shoulder, and shoved her forward onto her knees in the snow before the kitchen door. Madame Minin stepped forward to help her, and the door thudded shut behind them. The iron bar slammed down.

  As Katia struggled to her feet, she heard Madame Minin pounding on the door behind her. She demanded entry, then she begged; but no one cared to hear her pleas through the crone’s evil laughter from inside and the frenzied barking of the wolfhound. As Katia watched, the huge beast strained at its lead. It dragged its ugly master toward her until she could smell its stinking breath and see the hot saliva dripping from its steaming mouth.

  “Kiska smell strange meat,” said the dog’s keeper, tightening back on the lead. Katia shrank against the snowy wall of the hut, but the sickled claws were inches from her face, cutting the air. “Kiska don’t like strangers comin’ to his village. Bring bad luck.”