Firebird (Tales of Old Russia Book 2)

by Peter Morwood

  Tsar Aleksandr gazed at his son and smiled grimly at Ivan’s outrage. “More deaths than that of a single guard,” he said. “The destruction of the realm. If this thief and murderer was stealing jewels alone, it wouldn’t be so worrying. But if he – it – is taking only magical items, we have to wonder if the real target is the most magical thing in any kingdom: the Great Crown itself.”

  “God between us and harm!” Comprehension and the memory of words spoken long ago hit Ivan both together, with the force of a hammerblow. Like kings and tsars and princes all across Moist-Mother-Earth, his father had several crowns and caps of state, worn each for its appropriate ceremony. But there was only one Great Crown in any realm, and it was worn on only one occasion: the coronation. Even in the lands to the west, people spoke of ‘the Crown’ as they might speak of ‘the power of the king’; as if the two were one and indivisible.

  They were.

  It was small wonder that, rather than the debased circlets of European monarchs, all the Great Crowns of the Russias kept their old form. Once the trimmings of rich fur, the inlaid precious metals and the jewels were all stripped away, what remained was a helmet. It represented the power and protection by the Tsar of his lands and his people and, if that was stolen, the land and the people would perish.

  There were few thieves bold enough to contemplate such a crime, but there were creatures beyond the edges of the wide white world who would do it as thoughtlessly as a magpie stealing trinkets. Such creatures could bring a tsardom to ruin and not know they had done anything wrong. But they could be sent by someone else who had that very purpose in mind…

  The discussion rambled on for a half-hour more, or rather everyone else talked while Mar’ya Morevna gently prompted them with questions they had never considered. Finally she looked up and down the bare expanse of table-top and frowned a little.

  “Has anyone pen, ink and parchment?”

  “Here when required, noble Lady,” said Strel’tsin, producing them from the pouch at his belt like a conjurer performing a trick. The parchment was his own tablet of cut sheets clipped into a notebook by two metal rings, while the pen, ink and sandcaster came all together in a single travelling case of carved, age-darkened wood that he opened out and assembled with the ease of long, long practice.

  Ivan picked up the pen and twiddled it in his fingers, watching while Mar’ya Morevna stared into space and organized her thoughts. Once she was ready to speak them aloud, Ivan – whose writing made up for its untidiness by being quick – would scribble them down for future study. He had grown accustomed to this sharing of labour in the running of their own realm, since it gave him a way to be of some use during many weeks of learning how to be a Prince in more than title.

  “Item,” she said at length, “the unfortunate guard was killed by burning, or was burnt after his killing, but in either instance it happened so fast there was no outcry.

  “Item, the heat was great enough to melt his arm-guards, made of bronze, yet the candles on the wall remained undamaged. They should have sprayed boiling wax and black smoke all over the walls, yet there was no trace of any such thing. This heat was limited in its reach.

  “Item, First Minister Strel’tsin spoke of other candles, not found melted and therefore stolen. Nor were there signs of scorching in any of the other places where thefts took place, at least not obvious ones or someone would have mentioned them. Therefore this heat is occasional, not constant.

  “And item, though bronze armour was melted, iron mail remained unharmed. Iron needs greater heat than bronze before it melts, or so my father and my armourer told me, but there’s another reason. Sorcery can’t harm cold iron. Therefore this fire is not of nature, and I surmise,” Mar’ya Morevna paused briefly to massage her forehead with the tips of her fingers and Ivan took the opportunity to shake cramp out of his writing hand, “that my book Enciervanul Doamnisoar may well give us the name or at least the species of the murderer.”

  Only the First Minister gasped and crossed himself at the book’s title; the Tsar and Captain Akimov looked blank until Ivan, done at last with sanding ink-damp letters, looked up at them and smiled sadly at such comfortable innocence.

  “It means ‘On the Summoning of Demons’, and though I don’t know what Dmitriy Vasil’yevich was reading late into the night, I recommend that no one tries to do the same with this.”

  His hand moved and a book thudded onto the table, skidded slightly on the polished surface and lay there, seeming to squat like something alive. It had come apparently out of thin air, but in actuality from where he had been carrying it inside the cross-wrapped front of his furred travelling tunic, a garment already so well padded that the bulge made by the book had gone unnoticed. Enciervanul Doamnisoar wasn’t something left unattended for servants to find and talk about, for Ivan had a nasty feeling that even in uneducated hands it could create far more unpleasant things than gossip.

  Mar’ya Morevna reached out, but Ivan’s hand was already flat against the grimoire’s gem-encrusted metal cover, pressing down to hold it shut. She shot him a look more curious than annoyed, and he shook his head.

  “No, Mar’yushka. Not even you, so late at night in a place where ugliness happens after dark. This goes into Strel’tsin’s iron book-chest, because it would make an over-tasty morsel for whatever is visiting Khorlov.”

  “What are you thinking, my son?” said Tsar Aleksandr.

  “Two things,” said Ivan. “Either the thief is sent to look for magic objects and takes what it can find, or magic attracts it like a wasp to jam. If that’s the case, I’ll wager this book smells most damnably sweet.”

  “Sent?” There was sudden menace in the Tsar’s voice. “Who would dare send such a thing to Khorlov?”

  There was no need to list the possible suspects, since first in any list would be the rival lords of Novgorod and Kiev. Ivan twitched inwardly and bit his tongue at using so loaded a word, remembering too late the shortness of his father’s temper where interference with the Tsardom was concerned. It was bad enough that something might lurk in the shadows of the kremlin and steal magic baubles with as little motive as a rat might steal grain. A malicious enemy guiding its depredations was far worse. That way lay accusation, reprisal and ultimately, war.

  “Until we know what it is, Father,” Mar’ya Morevna said quickly, “guessing its source would be no more than that: a guess, and a poorly informed one. Vanya’s suggestion is better by far.” Ivan glanced sideways, wondering what words she was putting in his mouth this time. “We should store the book in a safe place, go to bed for whatever sleep the good God sends us, and continue this debate in the clean light of morning.”

  Ivan Aleksandrovich picked up the grimoire, disliking as always the way it seemed too warm in his hand. “I suggested all that?” he muttered in a voice that only Mar’ya Morevna could hear.

  “You suggested locking the book up for the night, and I agree. You implied we should leave all this until tomorrow, and I agree there, too.” Her own voice dropped to an intimate murmur. “And as for going to bed… Vanya, dear one, when did you ever not suggest that?”

  *

  Strel’tsin’s room in the tower was a more pleasant place by daylight than it had been the night before. It was icy cold because the narrow windows that overlooked the kremlin palace had been flung wide open, but the air smelt sweet and clean again, and there was no longer any ghastly bundle underneath a blanket in the middle of the floor. Prince Ivan acknowledged the salute of the guard at the door, then held it open for Mar’ya Morevna to go inside.

  She was carrying the book Enciervanul Doamnisoar under one arm, and Ivan’s scrawled notes from last night’s meeting in the fingers of that hand. Ivan carried nothing, but the Circassian dagger was back in its customary place behind the buckle of his belt, his favourite silver-mounted shashka sabre was hanging at his hip, and his tongue was primed with reasons, for those ignorant of the truth, as to why the Tsar’s son wore blades in his father’s kremlin
.

  So far no one had given the weapons a second glance. Mar’ya Morevna’s reputation as a warrior lady was so well established that it seemed only proper her husband should go armed. The shirt of mail beneath his kaftan and the iron skullcap under his furred hat might have caused more comment had they been on view, but Ivan made sure the armour was well covered before he and Mar’ya Morevna left their chambers.

  They examined the room more closely than Ivan would have believed possible, even to crawling on hands and knees with their noses bare inches from the Khazan rugs scattered over the tiled floor. Finally he straightened up, grunting slightly when the muscles of his back registered their complaint with a sharp twinge of pain, and sat on the floor with his shoulders braced against the wall and his legs stuck straight out in front of him. It looked most unprincely, but at least it was comfortable.

  Mar’ya Morevna looked at him and sat back on her heels. “Five minutes,” she said. “Just five minutes more and we’ll be done. Then you can rest.”

  “I’m resting already.” Ivan waved one hand at his outstretched legs. “You should do the same, and take some time to,” he leaned over and dabbed at her nose, “wipe the smuts from your face. This floor isn’t as clean as it might be.”

  Mar’ya Morevna muttered something she had probably overheard on campaign and rubbed with her sleeve until Ivan nodded approval of her renewed cleanliness. Then she too sat back, grinning. “All right. Make that five minutes’ rest. Then we’ll finish.”

  “Mar’yushka, would I sound very stupid if I asked you what the Hell we’re looking for?” He sounded so plaintive that she laughed out loud.

  “I thought I told you last night, before you went to sleep.” Mar’ya Morevna stared at her husband for an instant, then laughed again. “There was no ‘before’ about it, was there? You went out like a snuffed candle and you didn’t even snore.”

  “I was too tired to snore,” said Ivan grumpily. “And anyway, I don’t.”

  “You should listen to yourself sometime, loved. Or listen to those who know. Once more: since Dmitriy Vasil’yevich’s study is the only room where we can be certain the thief was seen by that poor young guard, God give him rest…” They signed themselves with the life-giving cross. “It’s the only room where we’ll find some trace of what that thief is; size, shape, that sort of thing. Only when I know what to look for will I start looking through Enciervanul Doamnisoar. As you said yourself, it’s not a book for idle browsing.”

  Ivan gave her a crooked smile. “And what was I doing with it, if not browsing?”

  “Learning,” said Mar’ya Morevna simply. “A different state of mind altogether. With one, you’re busy; with the other… well, demons can find work for idle brains as easily as idle hands. If I opened that book now, wanting to find something but with no more than an unformed notion of what it was, then rest assured I’d certainly find some Thing, but there’s no saying what it might be. Anything can be called into being by a simple yearning for knowledge.”

  Glancing sidelong at the grimoire’s ornate covers, Ivan suppressed a little shiver. “And yet you want me to go on reading it…?”

  “Later.”

  “Much later, if at all. I don’t much like the notion of claws reaching up out of the page and pulling my face off. That seems the least of… Are you listening?”

  “You said claws,” said Mar’ya Morevna. “I’m looking at them.”

  Going from sitting flat on the floor to standing upright in a fighting stance with a drawn blade in each hand was a feat for acrobats, but Ivan managed well enough. Mar’ya Morevna gazed up at him and quietly began to clap her hands.

  “That was most impressive, Vanya. But it tells me you’re more nervous about all this than you let me believe. Even in bed, where we’re supposed to have no secrets.”.

  “I thought you’d guessed that already,” said Ivan as he returned the sword and dagger to their scabbards. “And when you said you could see claws, what was I to do except…”

  “Except protect me.” She reached out and held his hand between her own. “Even though there was no need, thank you, beloved.” Then she tightened her grip and, ever practical, used that gesture of affection to haul herself upright. “I should have said I could see claw marks, but I didn’t think you – well, never mind.” She pointed at an intricately carved wooden chair. “Look there.”

  Ivan looked, and saw, and drew in his breath with a sharp little gasp. The two sets of incised parallel lines were almost part of the chair’s elaborate decorative pattern, and could have passed for such unless someone chanced to look at that particular part of the chair back from behind and below. Someone sitting on the floor, which wasn’t usual practice for anyone in the First Minister’s private study. Ivan traced the lines with one wary finger, and when he looked his fingertip was charcoal black.

  “Does this help?” he asked, holding the blackened finger out for Mar’ya Morevna’s inspection.

  “It does more than help, it makes me nearly sure.” She opened the book Enciervanul Doamnisoar. “And I think we can leave out that ‘nearly’ in just a moment. Elements, elements, elements,” she muttered as the pages flipped over, filling the air with a faint and deceptively pleasant aroma of some sort of spice. “Elements… Void, no, earth and air, no, water – perhaps later. But fire; ah yes, here we are. Ah-hah!”

  “Ah-hah?” echoed Ivan dubiously, manoeuvring to get a better view of the page. It was mostly text, which he didn’t mind; the text of this particular book was nothing like as horrible, at least to a first and casual glance, as some of the illustrations, but even the few drawings he could see here represented ordinary creatures: a boar and a horse, a farmyard rooster and an Oriental pheasant. Birds and beasts all had a little touch of gold about them, real gold leaf and thus both expensive and eye-catchingly unusual in what was not a coloured illumination but a simple pen-and-ink sketch.

  The boar’s bristles were gold, as was the horse’s mane; the rooster had a golden comb, and the pheasant had golden spurs. It all looked very handsome and not at all in keeping with the ugliness portrayed elsewhere in that particular grimoire, so much so that Ivan at once became suspicious of what the text said that the pictures did not – or dared not.

  “They’re all forms of fire-sprite,” said Mar’ya Morevna, tapping each drawing in turn. “Better to call them fire elementals, it’s more accurate – as well as more respectful.”

  “Respectful…” That gave Ivan Aleksandrovich a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach; or rather, it accelerated the rate of sink already there. “And is it disrespectful not to like the sound of that?”

  “Far from it.” Mar’ya Morevna smiled gently and patted Ivan on the arm. “Not liking something engenders caution, and you can never be too cautious when dealing with elemental forces.”

  “But these aren’t demons.” Ivan turned the book so that he could see a little better, and stared hard at the little pictures. The animals and the birds remained what they appeared: quite normal, except for that touch of gold. Probably too normal to be trusted. “At least they don’t look like demons.”

  “Of course they aren’t demons,” said Mar’ya Morevna, and if it came out sounding ever so slightly testy, that was only to be expected from someone who had been trying for six months to teach her husband enough about the Art Magic. “I told you, they’re elementals.”

  “But they can’t be,” said Ivan, ignoring Mar’ya Morevna’s exasperated groan. “You and I know that fire isn’t an element. Why aren’t there any, uh, iron elementals?”

  “Because the blacksmiths keep hitting them with hammers,” snapped Mar’ya Morevna in a tone of voice that suggested she was exactly balanced between amusement and genuine annoyance. “Vanya, the alchemical elements of sorcery aren’t the chemical elements of science. Aristotle the Greek knew that well enough, just as he knew well enough to say nothing else about it.”

  “I had Aristotle and Pliny and all their fellow philosophers rammed down
my throat until I choked on them,” said Ivan. “In this very room. And I know that their philosophy allowed only four elements; so what about the other one you mentioned? Void? Not Greek, surely?”

  “Now that’s a sensible question at last. And about time, too. The principal of Void, of nothing as a balance to everything, comes from the lands of the East. It seemed sensible enough; so it was adopted by sorcerers.”

  “Why? If void is nothingness, how do they know that it exists at all?”

  “How does a good Christian know that God exists? Faith, and trust in the writings of those who know more about it than we do. Understand this, Vanyushka: those who work with the Art Magic are a cautious lot. Until someone disproves the existence of the element we call Void – an awkward proposition since, as you point out, its very nature makes confirmation difficult – we’ll behave as if it really does exist. Safer that way.” She put her head on one side and studied Ivan quizzically. “Now what are you smirking about?”

  “I asked you a simple question, and you gave me a lecture on the meaning of preternatural philosophy. Just like Dmitriy Vasil’yevich. There must be some aura about this room of his—”

  “Other than whatever it was that burns unsuspecting guardsmen to cinders, you mean?”

  Ivan stopped smiling and looked shocked. “That was uncalled for.”

  “On the contrary, loved, it was very called for. You would rather think of anything, even tutoring in the doings of the old Greeks which you found so boring, than what we’re doing here. Because it frightens you? That’s nothing to be ashamed of.” Mar’ya Morevna took Ivan’s hand, gently at first and then gripping hard enough that it was almost painful; certainly enough that the pressure and the words that went with it couldn’t be ignored. “I told you before, I tell you again, and I’ll keep telling you until you understand all of what I’m saying. If you’re afraid, you’ll be careful. But if you’re careless, you’ll be dead. And I don’t want to be a widow again.”