The Bear and the Nightingale

by Katherine Arden

  Vasya had let fall her cloak in her wild charge; now Alyosha slid off his horse and put his own about her. “Come on, fool,” he said, while she fastened his cloak gratefully. “Best get you out of view.”

  Vasya recalled her pride and lifted her chin a stubborn fraction. “I am not ashamed. Better to have done something than see Seryozha dead of a cracked skull.”

  Pyotr heard her. “Go with your brother,” he growled, rounding on her unexpectedly. “Now, Vasya.”

  Vasya stared at her father, and then, without a word, let Alyosha boost her into the saddle. Muttering swelled among their neighbors. They were all gazing avidly. Vasya clenched her fists, and refused to drop her eyes.

  But their neighbors did not have much time to gape. Alyosha swung on behind her, spurred his beast and galloped away. “Are you ashamed, Lyoshka?” asked Vasya, with heavy scorn. “Will you lock me in the cellar now? Better our nephew dead than I bring shame on the family?”

  “Don’t be an idiot,” said Alyosha shortly. “This will blow over faster if they don’t have your torn dress to stare at.”

  Vasya said nothing.

  More gently, her brother added, “I’m taking you to Dunya. You looked ready to fold up where you stood.”

  “I won’t deny it.” Her voice had softened.

  Alyosha hesitated. “Vasochka, what did you do? I knew you could ride, but…like that? On that mad red colt?”

  “The horses taught me,” Vasya said, after a pause. “I used to take them out of the pasture.”

  She didn’t elaborate. Her brother was silent a long time. “We would be bringing our nephew back dead or broken if you hadn’t rescued him,” he said, slowly. “I know it, and I am grateful for it. Father, too, surely.”

  “Thank you,” Vasya whispered.

  “But,” he added, in tones of light irony, “I fear you are for a hut in the woods, if you don’t want to take the veil or marry a farmer. Your warrior’s ways have quite put off our neighbor. Kyril was humiliated when you took his horse.”

  Vasya laughed, but there was a hard note in it. “I am glad,” she said. “I am saved from running away before my wedding. I’d have married a peasant before that Kyril Artamonovich. But Father is angry.”

  Just as the house came in sight, Pyotr rode up beside them. He looked grateful and exasperated and angry and something darker. It might have been worry. He cleared his throat. “You aren’t hurt, Vasochka?”

  Vasya hadn’t heard that endearment from him since she was small. “No,” she said. “But I am sorry to have shamed you, Father.”

  Pyotr shook his head, but did not speak. There was a long pause.

  “Thank you,” Pyotr said at last. “For my grandson.”

  Vasya smiled. “We should be grateful to Ogon,” she said, feeling more cheerful. “And that Seryozha had the presence of mind to hold on as long as he did.”

  They rode home in silence. Vasya quickly took herself off to hide in the bathhouse and steam her aching limbs.

  But Kyril went to Pyotr that evening at dinner. “I thought I was getting a well-bred maiden, not a wild creature.”

  “Vasya is a good girl,” said Pyotr. “Headstrong, but that can be—”

  Kyril snorted. “Black magic might have held that girl on my horse’s back, but no mortal art.”

  “Strength only, and wildness,” said Pyotr, a little desperately. “She will give you strong sons.”

  “At what price?” said Kyril Artamonovich, darkly. “I want a woman in my house, not a witch or a wood-sprite. Besides, she shamed me before all your company.”

  And though Pyotr tried to reason with him, he would not be swayed.

  Pyotr rarely beat his children. But when Kyril broke off his betrothal, he thrashed Vasya all the same, mostly to assuage his own fear for her. Can she not do as she’s told for once in her life?

  They only come for the wild maiden.

  Vasya bore it dry-eyed and gave him only a look of reproach before she walked stiffly away. He did not see her weeping afterward, curled between Mysh’s forefeet.

  But there was no wedding. At dawn, Kyril Artamonovich rode away.

  When Kyril had gone, Anna Ivanovna went again to her husband. Already the long nights hemmed in the autumn days; the household rose in the dark and supped by firelight. That night, Pyotr sat wakeful before the oven. His children had sought their beds, but sleep eluded him. The embers of the banked fire filled the room with red. Pyotr stared into the shimmering maw and thought of his daughter.

  Anna had her mending on her lap, but she was not sewing. Pyotr never looked up, and so he did not see his wife’s face, hard and bloodless. “So Vasilisa will not marry,” she said.

  Pyotr started. His wife spoke with authority; she reminded him, for the first time, of her father. And her words echoed his thought.

  “No man of good birth will have her,” she continued. “Will you give her to a peasant?”

  Pyotr was silent. He had been turning the question over in his mind. It went against his pride, to give his daughter to a baseborn man. But ever in his ear rang Dunya’s warning: Better anything than a frost-demon.

  Marina, thought Pyotr. You left me this mad girl, and I love her well. She is braver and wilder than any of my sons. But what good is that in a woman? I swore I’d keep her safe, but how can I save her from herself?

  “She must go to a convent,” Anna said. “The sooner the better. What other choice is there? No man of decent birth will have her. She is possessed. She steals horses, she made a horse go mad, she risked her nephew’s life for sport.”

  Pyotr, staring in astonishment at his wife, found her almost beautiful in her steady purpose. “A convent?” said Pyotr. “Vasya?” He wondered, briefly, why he was so surprised. Unmarriageable daughters went to convents every day. But a more unlikely nun than Vasya he had never seen.

  Anna clenched her hands. Her eyes seized and held him. “A life among holy sisters might save her immortal soul.”

  Pyotr remembered again the face of the stranger in Moscow. Talisman or no, a frost-demon could not very well come for a girl vowed to God.

  But still he hesitated. Vasya would never go willingly.

  Father Konstantin sat in the shadows beside Anna. His face was drawn, his eyes dark as sloes.

  “What say you, Batyushka?” Pyotr said. “My daughter has frightened her suitors. Shall I send her to a convent?”

  “You have little choice, Pyotr Vladimirovich,” Konstantin said. His voice was slow and hoarse. “She will not fear God, and she will not listen to reason. The Ascension is a convent for highborn maidens within the walls of the Moscow kremlin. The sisters there would take her.”

  Anna’s mouth tightened. Once, long ago, she had dreamed of entering that convent.

  Pyotr hesitated.

  “The walls of the kremlin are strong,” added Konstantin. “She would be safe and she would not go hungry.”

  “Well, I will think on it,” said Pyotr, torn. She could go with the sledges, when he sent his tribute forth. But what man could he send to give warning of her coming? His daughter could not be delivered like an unwanted parcel, and it was late in the year for messengers.

  Olya, he could send her to Olya, and she would arrange it. But no…Vasya must be wed or behind convent walls before midwinter. At midwinter he will come for her.

  Vasya…Vasya in a convent? A veil over her black hair, a virgin until she died?

  But her soul—above all there was her soul. She would have peace and plenty. She would pray for her family. And she would be safe from demons.

  But she will not go willingly. It would grieve her so.

  Konstantin watched Pyotr struggle, and was silent. He knew that God was on his side. Pyotr would be persuaded and means would be found. And indeed the priest was right.

  Three nights later, Vasya brought home a wet and sneezing monk whom she had found lost in the woods.

  SHE DRAGGED HIM IN a little before sundown, in the midst of a downpour. Dunya w
as telling a story. “Their father fell sick with longing,” she said. “So Prince Aleksei and Prince Dmitrii set out to find the bright-winged firebird. Long they rode, over three times nine kingdoms, until they came to a place where the road split. Beside the way lay a stone carved with words.”

  The outer door thundered open and Vasya strode into the room, holding a big, young, bedraggled monk by the sleeve. “This is Brother Rodion,” she said. “He was lost in the forest. He is come from Moscow. Sasha sent him to us.”

  Instantly the startled house sprang into motion. The monk must be dried and fed, a new robe found, mead put in his hand. Dunya, in all the hurry, still had time to make a protesting Vasya change her wet clothes and sit near the fire to dry her sopping hair. All the while, the monk was pelted with questions: of the weather in Moscow, the jewels the court women wore to church, the horses of Tatar warlords. Above all they asked him about the Princess of Serpukhov and Brother Aleksandr. The questions flew so thick the monk could hardly answer.

  Pyotr intervened at last; he pushed his children aside. “Peace, all of you,” he said. “Let him eat.”

  The kitchen slowly quieted. Dunya took up her distaff, Irina her needle. Brother Rodion applied himself single-mindedly to his supper. Vasya took up a mortar and pestle and began to pound dried herbs. Dunya resumed her story.

  “Beside the way lay a stone carved with words.

  “Who rides straight forward shall meet both hunger and cold.

  Who rides to the right shall live though his horse shall die.

  Who rides to the left shall die though his horse shall live.

  “None of these sounded at all pleasant. So the two brothers turned aside, pitched their tents in a green wood, and whiled away the time, forgetting why they had come.”

  Prince Ivan rode to the right, Vasya thought. She had heard the story a thousand times. The gray wolf killed his horse. He wept to see it slain. But the stories never say what awaited him had he gone straight. Or left.

  Pyotr sat in close conversation with Brother Rodion on the other side of the kitchen. Vasya wished she could hear what they were saying, but the rain still thudded on the roof.

  She had gone out foraging at first light. Anything, even a drenching, for a few hours in the clean air. The house oppressed her. Anna Ivanovna and Konstantin and even her father watched her with looks she could not read. The villagers muttered when she passed. No one had forgotten the incident with Kyril’s horse.

  She had found the young monk riding in circles on his strong white mule.

  Odd, Vasya thought, that she had found him alive. In her wandering, the girl had come across bones, but never a living man. The forest was perilous to travelers. The leshy would lead them in circles until they collapsed, or the vodianoy, peering with his cold fish-eyes, would pull them into the river. But this large, good-natured creature had blundered in, and yet he lived.

  The rusalka’s warning sprang to Vasya’s mind. What are the chyerti afraid of?

  “YOU ARE FORTUNATE THAT my foolhardy daughter went out foraging in such weather, and that she found you,” said Pyotr.

  Brother Rodion, his first hunger satisfied, risked a quick glance at the hearth. The daughter in question was grinding herbs; the firelight limned her slim body in gold. At first sight, he had thought her ugly, and even now he did not think her beautiful. But the more he looked, the harder it was to look away.

  “I am glad she did, Pyotr Vladimirovich,” Rodion said hastily, seeing Pyotr’s raised eyebrow. “I have a message from Brother Aleksandr.”

  “Sasha?” asked Pyotr, sharply. “What news?”

  “Brother Aleksandr is adviser to the Grand Prince,” returned the novice, with dignity. “He has earned fame for good deeds and defense of the small. He is renowned for his wisdom in judgment.”

  “As if I wished to hear of prowess Sasha might have put to better use as master of his own lands,” said Pyotr. But Rodion heard the pride in his voice. “Get to the point. Such tidings would not bring you here so late in the year.”

  Rodion looked Pyotr in the eye. “Has your tribute to the Khan gone forth yet, Pyotr Vladimirovich?”

  “It will go with the snow,” growled Pyotr. The harvest had been scanty, the game thin. Pyotr grudged every grain and every pelt. They would slaughter what sheep they might, and his sons wore themselves to shadows hunting. The women went out foraging in all weathers.

  “Pyotr Vladimirovich, what if you did not need to pay such tribute?” Rodion pursued.

  Pyotr did not like leading questions, and said so.

  “Very well,” said the young man steadily. “The prince and his councilors have asked themselves why we should pay tribute anymore, or bend the knee to a pagan king. The last Khan was murdered, and his heirs cannot sit a twelvemonth on their thrones before they, too, are slain. They are all in disarray. Why should they be masters of good Christians? Brother Aleksandr has gone to Sarai, to judge their quality, and he has sent me to ask your help, should the Grand Prince choose to fight.”

  Vasya saw her father’s face change and wondered what the young monk had said.

  “War,” said Pyotr.

  “Freedom,” Rodion rejoined.

  “We wear the yoke lightly, here in the north,” said Pyotr.

  “And yet you wear it.”

  “Better a yoke than the fist of the Golden Horde,” said Pyotr. “They need not meet us in open battle, only send men in the night. Ten fire-arrows would burn Moscow to the ground, and my house is also made of wood.”

  “Pyotr Vladimirovich, Brother Aleksandr bid me say—”

  “Forgive me,” said Pyotr, rising abruptly, “but I have heard enough. I hope you will forgive me.”

  Rodion had perforce to nod, and turn his attention to his mead.

  “WHY SHOULD WE NOT FIGHT, FATHER?” Kolya demanded. Two dead rabbits dangled by the ears from his fist. Father and son were taking advantage of a break in the downpour to walk a trapline.

  “Because I foresee little good in it, and much harm,” Pyotr replied, not for the first time. Neither of his sons had given him any peace since the monk had turned their heads with stories of their brother’s renown. “Your sister lives in Moscow; would you have her caught in a city under siege? When the Tatars invest a city, they do not leave survivors.”

  Kolya dismissed the possibility with a wave, the rabbits jerking grotesquely at the end of his arm. “Of course we would meet them in battle well before the gates of Moscow.”

  Pyotr bent to check the next snare, which was empty.

  “And think, Father,” Kolya went on, warming to his theme, “we might send goods south in trade, not tribute. My cousin would kneel to no one: a prince in truth. Your great-grandchildren might be Grand Princes themselves.”

  “I’d rather my sons living, and my daughters safe, than a chance at glory for unborn descendants.” Seeing his son’s mouth open on another protest, Pyotr added, more gently, “Synok, you know that Sasha left sorely against my will. I will not stoop to tying my own son to the door-post; if you wish to fight, you may go as well, but I will not bless a fool’s war, and no scrap of cloth or silver or horseflesh will I give you. Sasha, you remember, might be rich in renown, but he must beg his bread and tend the herbs in his own garden.”

  Whatever Kolya might have replied was drowned by an exclamation of satisfaction, for yet another rabbit hung in a snare, its mottled autumn coat streaked with dirt. While his son bent to extricate it, Pyotr raised his head and went suddenly still. The air smelled of new death. Pyos, Pyotr’s boarhound, shrank against his master’s shins, whining like a puppy.

  “Kolya,” said Pyotr. Something in his father’s tone sent the young man to his feet, a flash in his black eyes.

  “I smell it,” he said, after a moment’s pause. “What ails the dog?” For Pyos whined and trembled and looked eagerly back toward the village. Pyotr shook his head; he was casting from side to side, almost like a scenthound himself.

  He said no word, but poin
ted: a splash of blood in the leaf-litter around their feet, not the rabbit’s. Pyotr gestured peremptorily at the dog; the boarhound whined and slunk forward. Kolya hung a little to the left, owl-silent as his father. They came cautiously round a stand of trees, into a small, scrubby clearing, grim with decaying leaves.

  It had been a buck. A haunch lay almost at Pyotr’s feet, trailing blood and tendon. The main part of the carcass lay a little way off, the entrails burst and spreading, stinking even in the cold.

  The gore gave neither man pause, though the buck’s horned head lolled near their feet, tongue dangling. But they exchanged a speaking glance, for nothing in those woods could so mutilate a creature. And what beast would kill a fat autumn buck but leave the meat?

  Pyotr squatted in the mud, eyes skimming the ground.

  “The buck ran and the hunter gave chase; the buck had been running hard, and was favoring a foreleg. He bounded into the clearing—here.” Pyotr was moving as he spoke, half-crouched, “One leap, two—and then a blow from the side struck him down.” Pyotr paused. Pyos crouched on his belly at the very edge of the clearing, never taking his eyes off his master.

  “But what struck the blow?” he muttered.

  Kolya had read a similar tale in the mud. “No tracks,” he said. His long knife hissed as it slid free of its scabbard. “None. Nor any signs that someone tried to sweep them away.”

  “Look to the dog,” said Pyotr. Pyos had risen from his crouch and was staring at a gap between the trees. Every hair on his rough-coated spine stood on end, and he was growling low between bared teeth. As one, both men spun, Pyotr’s knife in his hand almost before he willed it. Briefly he thought he saw movement, a darker shadow in the gloom, but then it was gone. Pyos barked once, high and sharp: a sound of fearful defiance.

  Pyotr snapped his fingers at his dog. Kolya turned with him. They crossed the blood-smeared leaf-mold and made for the village without a word.