The Bear and the Nightingale

by Katherine Arden

  “Wicked servant,” snarled the voice. “Why is the witch-girl free in the forest? When I told you she must be contained? That she must go to a convent? I am displeased, my servant. I am most displeased.”

  Konstantin fell to his knees, cowering. “We tried our best,” he pleaded. “She is a demon.”

  “That demon is with my brother, and if he has the wit to see her strength…”

  The candle guttered. The priest, huddled on the floor, went very still. “Your brother?” Konstantin whispered. “But you…” Then the candle went out, and there was only the breathing darkness. “Who are you?”

  A long, slow silence, and then the voice laughed. Konstantin wasn’t sure he heard it; he might only have seen it, in the quiver of the shadows on the wall.

  “The bringer of storms,” murmured the voice with a certain satisfaction. “For once you so summoned me. But long ago men called me the Bear—Medved.”

  “You are a devil!” whispered Konstantin, clenching his hands.

  All the shadows laughed. “As you like. But what difference is there between me and the one you call God? I too revel in deeds done in my name. I can give you glory, if you will do my bidding.”

  “You,” whispered Konstantin. “But I thought…” He had thought himself exalted, set apart. But he was only a poor dupe, and he had done a demon’s bidding. Vasya…His throat closed. Somewhere in his soul, there was a proud girl riding a horse in the summer daylight. Laughing with her brother on her stool by the oven. “She will die.” He pressed his fists to his eyes. “I did it in your service.” Even as he spoke, he was thinking, they must never know.

  “She ought to have gone to a convent. Or come to me,” said the voice matter-of-factly, with just a faint seething undercurrent of anger. “But now she is with my brother. With Death, but not dead.”

  “With Death?” whispered Konstantin. “Not dead?” He wanted her to be dead. He wanted her alive. He wished he were dead himself. He would go mad if the voice kept speaking.

  The silence stretched out, and when he could not stand it anymore, the voice came again. “What do you want above all, Konstantin Nikonovich?”

  “Nothing,” Konstantin said. “I want nothing. Go away.”

  “You are like a maid with the vapors,” said the voice sourly. And then it softened. “No matter; I know what you want.” And then, laughing, “would you have your soul cleansed, man of God? Would you have the innocent girl back? Well, know that I can take her from the hands of Death himself.”

  “Better she die and leave this world,” croaked Konstantin.

  “She will live in torment before she dies. I can save her, I alone.”

  “Prove it, then,” said Konstantin. “Bring her back.”

  The shadow snorted. “So hasty, man of God.”

  “What do you want?” Konstantin choked on the words.

  The shadow’s voice ripened. “Oh, Konstantin Nikonovich, it is such a fine thing, when the children of men ask me what I want.”

  “Then what is it?” snapped Konstantin. How can I be righteous with that voice in my ears? If he brings her back, I will be clean again.

  “A little thing,” said the voice. “Only a little thing. Life must pay for life. You want the little witch returned; I must have a witch for myself. Bring me one, and I give you yours. And then I will leave you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Bring a witch to the forest, to the border, to the oak-tree at dawn. You will know the place when you see it.”

  “And what will happen,” said Konstantin—little more than a breath—“to this—witch that I bring you?”

  “Well, she will not die,” said the voice, and laughed. “What good is a death to me? Death is my brother, whom I hate.”

  “But there are no witches save Vasya.”

  “Witches must see, man of God. Is it only the little maiden who sees?”

  Konstantin was silent. In his mind’s eye, he saw a plump, shapeless figure kneeling at the foot of the icon-screen, seizing his hand in her moist one. Her voice sounded in his ears. Batyushka, I see demons. Everywhere. All the time.

  “Think on it, Konstantin Nikonovich,” said the voice. “But I must have her before sunrise.”

  “And how will I find you?” The words were softer than snowfall; a mortal man would not have heard them. But the shadow heard.

  “Go into the woods,” hissed the shadow. “Look for snowdrops. Then you will know. Give me a witch and take yours; give me a witch and be free.”

  Vasya awoke to the touch of sunlight on her face. She opened her eyes on a ceiling of thin blue—no, on a vault of open sky. Her senses blurred, and she could not remember—then she did. I am in the house in the fir-grove. A whiskery chin bumped hers. She opened her eyes, and found, once again, that she was nose to nose with the bay stallion.

  You sleep too much, said the horse.

  “I thought you were a dream,” said Vasya in some wonder. She had forgotten how big the dream-horse was, and the fiery look in his dark eyes. She pushed his nose away and sat up.

  I am not, usually, replied the horse.

  The previous night came back to Vasya in a rush. Snowdrops at midwinter, bread and apples, mead heavy on her tongue. Long white fingers on her face. Pain. She yanked her hand free of the blanket. There was a pale mark in the center of her palm. “That was not a dream, either,” she murmured.

  The horse was looking at her in some concern. Better to believe that everything is real, he said, as if to a lunatic. And I will tell you if you are dreaming.

  Vasya laughed. “Done,” she said. “I am awake now.” She slid out of bed—less painfully than before. Her head was clearing. The house was still as a noonday forest, save the crackle and pop of a good fire. A little pot nestled steaming on the hearth. Suddenly ravenous, Vasya made her way to the fire and found luxury: porridge and milk and honey. She ate while the stallion hovered.

  “What is your name?” she said to the horse, when she had done.

  The stallion was busy finishing her bowl. He slanted an ear at her before replying. I am called Solovey.

  Vasya smiled. “Nightingale. A little name for a great horse. How did you get it?”

  I was foaled at twilight, he said gravely. Or perhaps I was hatched; I cannot remember. It was long ago. Sometimes I run, and sometimes I remember to fly. And thus am I named.

  Vasya stared. “But you are not a bird.”

  You do not know what you are; can you know what I am? retorted the horse. I am called Nightingale, and does it matter why?

  Vasya had no answer. Solovey had finished her porridge and put his head up to look at her. He was the loveliest horse she had ever seen. Mysh, Buran, Ogon, they were all like sparrows to his falcon. “Last night,” Vasya said hesitantly, “last night, you said you would let me ride.”

  The stallion neighed. His hooves clattered on the floor. My dam said I should be patient, he said. But I am not, usually. Come and ride. I have never been ridden before.

  Vasya was suddenly dubious, but she replaited her tangled hair and put on her jacket and cloak, mittens and boots, which she found lying near the fire. She followed the horse into the blinding day. The snow lay thick underfoot. Vasya eyed the stallion’s tall bare back. She tried her limbs, and found them weak as water. The horse stood proudly and expectantly, a horse out of a fairy tale.

  “I think,” said Vasya, “that I am going to need a stump.”

  The pricked ears flattened. A stump?

  “A stump,” said Vasya firmly. She made her way to a convenient one, where a tree had cracked and fallen away. The horse poked along behind. He seemed to be reconsidering his choice of rider. But he stood alongside the stump, looking pained, and from there Vasya vaulted gently to his back.

  All of his muscles went rigid, and he threw his head up. Vasya, who had ridden young horses before, was expecting something of the sort, and she sat still.

  At last the great stallion blew out a breath. Very well, he said. At l
east you are small. But when he walked off, it was with a mincing, sideways gait. Every few seconds he turned his head to see the girl on his back.

  THEY RODE ALL THAT DAY.

  “No,” Vasya said for the tenth time. Her night in the snowy forest had left her weaker than she had realized, and it was making a hard task harder. “You must put your head down and use your back. Right now, riding you is like riding a log. A large, slippery log.”

  The stallion put his head round to glare. I know how to walk.

  “But not how to carry a person,” Vasya retorted. “It is different.”

  You feel strange, the horse complained.

  “I can only imagine,” said Vasya. “You need not carry me if you do not wish to.”

  The horse said nothing, shaking his black mane. Then—I will carry you. My dam says it grows easier in time. He sounded skeptical. Well, enough of this. Let us see what we can do. And he bolted. Vasya, taken by surprise, threw her weight forward and wrapped her legs around his belly. The stallion careened between the trees. Vasya found herself whooping aloud. He was graceful as a hunting-cat and made about as much noise. At speed, they were one. The horse ran like water and all the white world was theirs.

  “We must go back,” said Vasya at length, flushed and panting and laughing. Solovey slowed to a trot, his head up, his nostrils showing red. He bucked with sheer high spirits, and Vasya, clinging, hoped he would not have her off. “I am tired.”

  The horse pointed an ear at her in a dissatisfied way. He was hardly winded. But he heaved a sigh and turned. In a surprisingly short time, the fir-grove lay before them. Vasya slid to the ground. Her feet struck the earth with a great jolt of pain, and she sank, gasping, to the snow. Her healed toes were numb, and some hours’ ride had not improved her weakness. “But where is the house?” she said, gritting her teeth and heaving herself to her feet. All she saw was fir-trees. Day’s end mantled the wood in starry violet.

  It cannot be found by searching, said Solovey. You must look away just a little. Vasya did, and there, in a quick flash at the edge of her vision, was the hut among the trees. The horse walked beside her, and she was a little ashamed that she needed the support of his warm shoulder. He nudged her through the door.

  Morozko had not come back. But there was food on the blazing hearth, laid by invisible hands, and something hot and spicy to drink. She dried Solovey with cloths, brushed his bay coat, and combed the long mane. He had never been groomed before, either.

  Foolishness, said the horse, when she began. You are tired. It makes not the slightest difference whether I am brushed or not. But he looked vastly pleased with himself regardless, when she took extra care over his tail. He nuzzled her cheek when she had done, and he spent the whole meal inspecting her hair and face and dinner, as if suspecting she’d kept something back.

  “Where do you come from?” Vasya asked, when she could hold no more and was feeding the insatiable horse bits of bread. “Where were you foaled?” Solovey did not reply. He stretched his neck out and crunched an apple in his yellow teeth. “Who is your sire?” Vasya persisted. Still Solovey said nothing. He stole the remainder of her bread and ambled away, chewing. Vasya sighed and gave up.

  VASYA AND SOLOVEY WENT out riding together every day for three days. Each day, the horse bore her more easily, and, slowly, Vasya’s strength returned.

  When they returned to the house on the third night, Morozko and the white mare were waiting for them. Vasya limped across the threshold, pleased that she could manage it on her own two feet, and stopped short, seeing them.

  The mare stood by the fire, licking idly at a chunk of salt. Morozko sat on the other side of the blaze. Vasya slipped off her cloak and approached the oven. Solovey went to his accustomed place and stood expectantly. For a horse that had never been groomed, he adapted very fast.

  “Good evening, Vasilisa Petrovna,” said Morozko.

  “Good evening,” said Vasya. To her surprise, the frost-demon was holding a knife, whittling a block of fine-grained wood. Something like a wooden flower was taking shape under his deft fingers. He laid his knife aside, and the blue eyes touched her here and there. She wondered what he saw.

  “Have my servants been kind to you?” said Morozko.

  “Yes,” said Vasya. “Very. I thank you for your hospitality.”

  “You are welcome.”

  He was silent while she groomed Solovey, though she felt him watching. She rubbed the horse down and combed the snarls from his mane. When she had washed her face and the table was laid, she tore into the food like a young wolf. The table groaned with good things: strange fruits and spiky nuts, cheese and bread and curds. When at last Vasya sat up and slowed down, she caught Morozko’s sardonic look. “I was hungry,” she said apologetically. “We do not eat so well at home.”

  “I can well believe it,” came the reply. “You looked like a wraith at midwinter.”

  “Did I?” said Vasya, disgruntled.

  “More or less.”

  Vasya was silent. The fire fell in on its core and the light in the room went from gold to red. “Where do you go when you are not here?” she asked.

  “Where I like,” he said. “It is winter in the world of men.”

  “Do you sleep?”

  He shook his head. “Not as you would think of it, no.”

  Vasya glanced involuntarily at the great bed, with its black frame and blankets heaped like a snowdrift. She bit back the question, but Morozko caught her thought. He raised a delicate eyebrow.

  Vasya blushed scarlet and took a great draught to hide her burning face. When she looked back at him, he was laughing.

  “You need not make that prim face at me, Vasilisa Petrovna,” he said. “That bed was made for you by my servants.”

  “And you—” Vasya began. She blushed harder. “You never…”

  He had taken up his carving again. He flicked another chip off the wooden flower. “Often, when the world was young,” he said mildly. “They would leave me maidens in the snow.” Vasya shuddered. “Sometimes they died,” he said. “Sometimes they were stubborn, or brave, and—they did not.”

  “What happened to them?” said Vasya.

  “They went home with a king’s ransom,” said Morozko, drily. “Have you not heard the tales?”

  Vasya, still blushing, opened her mouth and closed it again. Several dozen things she might say rushed through her brain.

  “Why?” she managed. “Why did you save my life?”

  “It amused me,” said Morozko, though he did not look up from his carving. The flower was crudely finished; he laid aside his knife, picked up a bit of glass—or ice—and began to smooth it.

  Vasya’s hand stole up to her face where the frostbite had been. “Did it?”

  He said nothing, but his eyes met hers beyond the fire. She swallowed.

  “Why did you save my life and then try to kill me?”

  “The brave live,” replied Morozko. “The cowards die in the snow. I did not know which you were.” He put down the flower and reached out a hand. His long fingers brushed the place where the wound had been, on her cheek and jaw. When his thumb found her mouth, the breath shivered in her throat. “Blood is one thing. The sight is another. But courage—that is rarest of all, Vasilisa Petrovna.”

  The blood flung itself out to Vasya’s skin until she could feel every stirring in the air.

  “You ask too many questions,” said Morozko abruptly, and his hand dropped.

  Vasya stared at him, huge-eyed in the firelight. “It was cruel,” she said.

  “You will walk a long road,” said Morozko. “If you have not the courage to meet it, better—far better—for you to die quiet in the snow. Perhaps I meant you a kindness.”

  “Not quiet,” said Vasya. “And not kind. You hurt me.”

  He shook his head. He had taken up the carving again. “That is because you fought,” he said. “It does not have to hurt.”

  She turned away, leaning against Solovey. There wa
s a long silence.

  Then he said, very low, “Forgive me, Vasya. Do not be afraid.”

  She met his eyes squarely. “I am not.”

  ON THE FIFTH DAY, Vasya said to Solovey, “Tonight I am going to plait your mane.”

  The stallion did not exactly freeze, but she felt all his muscles go rigid. It does not need plaiting, he said, tossing the mane in question. The heavy black curtain waved like a woman’s hair, and fell well past his neck. It was impractical and ridiculously beautiful.

  “But you’ll like it,” Vasya coaxed. “Won’t you like not having it in your eyes?”

  No, said Solovey, very definitely.

  The girl tried again. “You will look the prince of all horses. Your neck is so fine, it should not be hidden.”

  Solovey tossed his head at this question of looks. But he was a little vain; all stallions are. She felt him waver. She sighed and drooped on his back. “Please.”

  Oh, very well, said the horse.

  That night, as soon as the horse was clean and combed, Vasya appropriated a stool and began to plait his mane. With a qualm for the stallion’s outraged sensibilities, she abandoned plans for looping braids, curls, or fretworks. Instead she gathered his long mane into one great feathery plait along his crest, so that his neck seemed to arch more mightily than ever. She was delighted. Surreptitiously, she tried to take a few of the snowdrops that still stood, unwithered, on the table and braid them in. The stallion pinned his ears. What are you doing?

  “Adding flowers,” said Vasya, guiltily.

  Solovey stamped. No flowers.

  Vasya, after a struggle with herself, laid them aside with a sigh.

  Tying off the last trailing end, she paused and stepped back. The braid emphasized the proud arch of the dark neck and the graceful bones of his head. Encouraged, Vasya hauled her stool around to start on the tail.

  The horse heaved a forlorn sigh. My tail, too?

  “You will look the lord of horses when I’m finished,” Vasya promised.