The Bear and the Nightingale

by Katherine Arden

  A DAY LATER, WHEN Rodion knocked on Konstantin’s door, the priest was inspecting his paints by candlelight. The ends and dribbles of mixed color turned to mold in the damp. There was daylight outside, but the priest’s windows were small and the roar of the rain held back the sun. The room would have been dim if not for the candles. Too many candles, Rodion thought. A terrible waste.

  “Father, bless,” said Rodion.

  “God be with you,” said Konstantin. The room was cold; the priest had wrapped a blanket round his thin shoulders. He did not offer Rodion one.

  “Pyotr Vladimirovich and his sons have gone hunting,” said Rodion. “But they will not speak of their quarry. Said they nothing in your hearing?”

  “Not in my hearing, no,” replied Konstantin.

  The rain poured down without.

  Rodion frowned. “I cannot imagine what they would bring their boar-spears for, while leaving the dogs behind. And this is cruel weather for riding.”

  Konstantin said nothing.

  “Well, God grant them success, whatever it is,” Rodion persevered. “I must leave in two days, and I do not care to meet whatever put that look in Pyotr Vladimirovich’s eye.”

  “I will pray for your safety on the road,” said Konstantin curtly.

  “God keep you,” replied Rodion, ignoring the dismissal. “I know you do not like your reflections disturbed. But I would ask your counsel, Brother.”

  “Ask,” said Konstantin.

  “Pyotr Vladimirovich wishes his daughter to take vows,” said Rodion. “He has charged me, with words and money, that I might go to Moscow, to the Ascension, and prepare them for her coming. He says she will be sent with the tribute-goods, as soon as there is enough snow for sledges.”

  “A pious duty, Brother,” said Konstantin. But he had looked up from his paints. “What need of counsel?”

  “Because she is not a girl formed for convents,” said Rodion. “A blind man could see it.”

  Konstantin set his jaw, and Rodion saw with surprise the priest’s face ablaze with anger. “She cannot marry,” said Konstantin. “Only sin awaits her in this world; better she retire. She will pray for her father’s soul. Pyotr Vladimirovich is an old man, he will be glad of her prayers when he goes to God.”

  This was all very well. Nonetheless Rodion knew a pang of conscience. Pyotr’s second daughter reminded him of Brother Aleksandr. Though Sasha was a monk, he had never stayed long at the Lavra. He rode the breadth of Rus’ on his good war-horse, tricking and charming and fighting by turns. He wore a sword on his back and was adviser to princes. But such a life was not possible for a woman who took the veil.

  “Well, I will do it,” said Rodion reluctantly. “Pyotr Vladimirovich has been my host, and I can hardly do less. But, Brother, I wish you would change his mind. Someone surely can be persuaded to marry Vasilisa Petrovna. I do not think she will last long in a convent. Wild birds die in cages.”

  “And so?” snapped Konstantin. “Blessed are those who linger only a little in this mire of wickedness before going into the presence of God. I only hope her soul is prepared when the meeting comes. Now, Brother, I would like to pray.”

  Without a word, Rodion crossed himself and slipped out the door, blinking in the feeble daylight. Well, I am sorry for the girl, he thought.

  And then, uneasily, How thick the shadows lie in that room.

  PYOTR AND KOLYA TOOK their men hunting not once but several times before the snow. The rain would not cease, though it grew steadily colder, and their strength faltered in the long, wet days. But try as they might, they never found so much as a trace of the thing that had torn the buck to pieces. The men began to mutter, and at last to protest. Weariness vied with loyalty, and no one was sorry when the frost put an end to the hunting.

  But that was when the first dog disappeared.

  She was a tall bitch: a good whelper and fearless before the boar, but they found her near the palisade, headless and bloody in the snow. The only tracks near her frozen body were her own running paw prints.

  Folk took to going into the woods in twos, with axes in their belts.

  But then a pony disappeared, while it stood tied to a sled for hauling firewood. Its owner’s son, returning with an armful of logs, saw the empty traces and a great swath of scarlet splashed across the muddy earth. He dropped his logs, even his ax, and ran for the village.

  Dread settled over the village: a clinging, muttering dread, tenacious as cobwebs.

  November roared in with black leaves and gray snow. On a morning like dirty glass, Father Konstantin stood beside his window, tracing with his brush the slim foreleg of Saint George’s white stallion. His work absorbed him, and all was still. But somehow the silence listened. Konstantin found himself straining to hear. Lord, will you not speak to me?

  When someone scratched at his door, Konstantin’s hand jerked and almost smeared the paint. “Come in,” he snarled, flinging his brush aside. Anna Ivanovna it was, surely, with baked milk and adoring, tedious eyes.

  But it was not Anna Ivanovna.

  “Father, bless,” said Agafya, the serving-girl.

  Konstantin made the sign of the cross. “God be with you.” But he was angry.

  “Do not take offense, Batyushka,” the girl whispered, wringing her work-hardened hands. She hovered at the doorway. “If I may have only a moment.”

  The priest pressed his lips together. Before him, Saint George bestrode the world on an oaken panel. His steed had only three legs. The fourth, as yet unpainted, would be raised in an elegant curve to trample a serpent’s head.

  “What do you wish to say to me?” Konstantin tried to make his voice gentle. He did not entirely succeed; she paled and shrank away. But she did not go.

  “We have been true Christians, Batyushka,” she stammered. “We take the sacrament and venerate the icons. But it has never gone so hard with us. Our gardens drowned in the summer rain; we will be hungry before the season turns.”

  She paused, and licked her lips.

  “I wondered—I cannot help but wonder—have we offended the old ones? Chernobog, perhaps, who loves blood? My grandmother always said it would come to disaster, if ever he turned against us. And I fear now for my son.” She looked at him in mute supplication.

  “Better to be afraid,” growled Konstantin. His fingers itched for his brush; he fought for patience. “It shows your true repentance. This is the time of trial, when God will know his loyal servants. You must hold fast, and you shall see kingdoms presently, the like of which you do not imagine. The things you speak of are false: illusions to tempt the unwary. Hold to truth and all will be well.”

  He turned away, reaching for his paints. But her voice came again.

  “But I don’t need a kingdom, Batyushka, just enough to feed my son through the winter. Marina Ivanovna kept the old ways and our children never starved.”

  Konstantin’s face assumed an expression not unlike that of the spear-wielding saint before him. Agafya stumbled against the doorframe. “And now God will have his reckoning,” he hissed. His voice flowed like black water with a rime of ice. “Think you that just because it was delayed two years, or ten, that God was not wroth at such blasphemy? The wheel grinds slowly.”

  Agafya quivered like a netted bird. “Please,” she whispered. She seized his hand, kissed the spattered fingers. “Will you beg forgiveness for us, then? Not for my own sake, but for my son.”

  “As I can,” he said more gently, putting a hand on her bowed head. “But you must first ask it yourself.”

  “Yes—yes, Batyushka,” she said, looking up with a face full of gratitude.

  When at last she hurried out into the gray afternoon and the door clicked shut behind her, the shadows on the wall seemed to stretch like waking cats.

  “Well done.” The voice echoed in Konstantin’s bones. The priest froze, every nerve alight. “Above all they must fear me, so that they can be saved.”

  Konstantin flung his brush aside and knelt. �
��I wish only to please you, Lord.”

  “I am pleased,” said the voice.

  “I have tried to set these people on the path of righteousness,” said Konstantin. “I would only ask, Lord…That is, I have wanted to ask…”

  The voice was infinitely gentle. “What would you ask?”

  “Please,” said Konstantin, “let me see my task here finished. I would carry your word to the ends of the earth, if only you asked it. But the forest is so small.”

  He bowed his head, waiting.

  But the voice laughed in loving delight, so that Konstantin thought his soul would flee his body in joy. “Of course you shall go,” it said. “One more winter. Only sacrifice and be faithful. Then you shall show the world my glory, and I will be with you forever.”

  “Only tell me what I must do,” said Konstantin. “I will be faithful.”

  “I desire you to invoke my presence when you speak,” said the voice. Another man would have heard the eagerness in it. “And when you pray. Call me with every breath and call me by name. I am the bringer of storms. I would be present among you, and give you grace.”

  “It shall be done,” said Konstantin fervently. “Just as you say, it shall be done. Only never leave me again.”

  All the candles wavered with something very like a long sigh of satisfaction. “Obey me always,” returned the voice. “And I will never leave you.”

  THE NEXT DAY THE SUN drowned in sodden clouds and cast ghostly light over a world stripped of color. It began to snow at daybreak. Pyotr’s household went shivering to the little church and huddled together inside. The church was dark except for the candles. Almost, thought Vasya, she could hear the snow outside, burying them until spring. It shut off the light, but the candles lit the priest. The bones of his face cast elegant shadows. He wore a look more remote than his icons, and he had never been so beautiful.

  The icon-screen was finished. The risen Christ, the final icon, was enthroned above the door. He sat in judgment above a stormy earth with an expression that Vasya could not read. “I invoke Thee,” said Konstantin, low and clear. “God who has called me up to be his servant. The voice out of darkness, lover of storms. Be Thou present among us.”

  And then, louder, he began the service. “Blessed be God,” Konstantin said. His eyes were great dark hollows, but his voice seemed to flicker with fire. The service went on and on. When he spoke, the people forgot the icy damp and the grinning specter of starvation. Earthly troubles were as nothing when that voice touched them. The Christ above the doors seemed to raise his hand in benediction.

  “Listen,” said Konstantin. His voice dropped so that they had to strain to hear. “There is evil among us.” The congregation looked at each other. “It creeps into our souls in the night, in the silence. It is waiting for the unwary.” Irina crept closer to Vasya, and Vasya put an arm around her.

  “Only faith,” Konstantin continued, “only prayer, only God, can save you.” His voice rose on each word. “Fear God, and repent. It is your only escape from damnation. Otherwise you will burn—you will burn!”

  Anna screamed. Her scream echoed the length of the little church; her eyes bulged beneath the bluish lids. “No!” she screamed. “Oh, God, not here! Not here!”

  Her voice seemed to split the walls and multiply so that there were a hundred women shrieking.

  In the instant before the room fell into chaos, Vasya followed her stepmother’s pointing finger. The risen Christ over the door was smiling at them now, when before he had been solemn. His two dog-teeth dented his lower lip. But instead of his two eyes, he had only one. The other side of his face was seamed with blue scars, and the eye was a socket, crudely sewn.

  Somewhere, Vasya thought, fighting the fear that closed her throat, she had seen that face before.

  But she had no time to think. The folk on either side of her clapped their hands to their ears, flung themselves facedown, or shoved their way toward the safety of the narthex. Anna was left standing alone. She laughed and wept, clawing the air. No one would touch her. Her screams echoed off the walls. Konstantin shoved his way to her side and struck her across the face. She subsided, choking, but the noise seemed to echo on and on, as though the icons themselves were screaming.

  Vasya seized Irina in the first moil of chaos, to keep her from being swept off her feet. An instant later, Alyosha appeared and wrapped strong arms around Dunya, who was small as a child, fragile as November leaves. The four clung together. The people milled and shouted. “I must go to Mother,” said Irina, squirming.

  “Wait, little bird,” said Vasya. “You would only be trampled.”

  “Mother of God,” Alyosha said. “If anyone learns Irina’s mother takes such fits, no one will ever marry her.”

  “No one will know,” snapped Vasya. Her sister had turned very pale. She glared at her brother as the crowd pushed them against the wall. She and Alyosha shielded Dunya and Irina with their bodies.

  Vasya looked again at the iconostasis. Now it was as it had always been. Christ sat in his throne above the world, his hand raised to bless. Had she imagined the other face? But if she had, why had Anna screamed?

  “Silence!”

  Konstantin’s voice rang like a dozen bells. Everyone froze. He stood before the iconostasis and raised a hand, a living echo of the image of Christ above his head. “Fools!” he thundered. “Are you children to be afraid of a woman screaming? Get up, all of you. Be silent. God will protect us.”

  They crept together like chastened children. What Pyotr’s bellowing had not accomplished, the voice of the priest did. They swayed nearer him. Anna stood shuddering, weeping, ashen as the sky at dawn. The only face paler in that church belonged to the priest himself. The candlelight filled the nave with strange shadows. There—again—one flung across the iconostasis that was not the shadow of a man.

  God, thought Vasya, when the service haltingly renewed. Here? Chyerti cannot come into churches; they are creatures of this world, and church is for the next.

  Yet she had seen the shadow.

  PYOTR LED HIS WIFE home as soon as could be managed. Her daughter undressed her and put her to bed. But Anna cried and retched and cried, and would not stop.

  At last, Irina, desperate, went back to the church. She found Father Konstantin kneeling alone before the icon-screen. After the service that day, the people had kissed his hand and begged him to save them. He looked at peace then. Even triumphant. But now Irina thought he looked like the loneliest person in the world.

  “Will you come to my mother?” she whispered.

  Konstantin jerked to his knees, looked around.

  “She is weeping,” said Irina. “She will not stop.”

  Konstantin did not speak; he was straining all his senses. After the people left the church, God had come to him in the smoke of extinguished candles.

  “Beautiful.” The whisper sent the smoke curling in little eddies along the floor. “They were so frightened.” The voice sounded almost gleeful. Konstantin was silent. For an instant he wondered if he was a madman and the voice had come crawling out of his own heart. But—no, of course not. It is only your wickedness that doubts, Konstantin Nikonovich.

  “I am glad you came among us,” murmured Konstantin under his breath. “To lead your people in righteousness.”

  But the voice had not answered, and now the church was still.

  Louder, Konstantin said to Irina, “Yes, I will come.”

  “HERE IS FATHER KONSTANTIN,” said Irina, drawing the priest into her mother’s room. “He will comfort you. I will get supper; Vasya is burning the milk already.” She ran out.

  “The church, Batyushka?” sobbed Anna Ivanovna when the two were alone. She lay in her bed, wrapped in furs. “The church—never the church.”

  “What foolishness you talk,” said Konstantin. “The church is protected by God. God alone makes his dwelling in the church, and his saints and his angels.”

  “But I saw—”

  “You saw not
hing!” Konstantin laid a hand on her cheek. She shivered. His voice dropped lower, hypnotic. He touched her lips with a forefinger. “You saw nothing, Anna Ivanovna.”

  She raised one trembling hand and touched his. “I will see nothing, if you tell me so, Batyushka.” She blushed like a girl. Her hair was dark with sweat.

  “Then see nothing,” Konstantin said. He pulled his hand away.

  “I see you,” she said. It was barely a breath. “You are all I see, sometimes. In this horrible place, with the cold and the monsters and the starving. You are a light to me.” She caught at his hand again; she propped herself on one elbow. Her eyes swam with tears. “Please, Batyushka,” she said. “I want only to be close.”

  “You are mad,” he said. He pushed her hands down and drew away. She was soft and old, rotted with fear and disappointed hopes. “You are married. I have given myself to God.”

  “Not that!” she cried in despair. “Never that. I want you to see me.” Her throat worked, and she stammered. “To see me. You see my stepdaughter. You watch her. As I have watched you—I watch you. Why not me? Why not me?” Her voice rose to a wail.

  “Hush.” He laid a hand on the door. “I see you. But, Anna Ivanovna, there is little to see.”

  The door was heavy. When closed, it muffled the sound of her weeping.

  THAT DAY THE PEOPLE stayed near their ovens while the snow flurried down. But Vasya slipped away to see to the horses. He is coming, said Mysh, rolling a wild eye.

  Vasya went to her father.

  “We must bring the horses inside the palisade,” she said. “Tonight, before dusk.”

  “Why are you here to burden us, Vasya?” snapped Pyotr. The snow was falling thickly, catching on their hats and shoulders. “You ought to have been gone. Long gone and safe. But you frightened your suitor and now you are here and it is winter.”

  Vasya did not reply. Indeed she could not, for she saw suddenly and clearly that her father was afraid. She had never known her father afraid. She wanted to hide in the oven like a child. “Forgive me, Father,” she said, mastering herself. “This winter will pass, as others have passed. But I think that now, at night, we should bring the horses in.”