Firebird (Tales of Old Russia Book 2)

by Peter Morwood

  Ivan digested that in silence, feeling all the emotions and sensations he should have felt and a few more besides. His ears were hot, and there was that unmistakable fluttering like a moth’s wings, one of the big, blundering, furry ones, in the pit of his stomach, all feelings that accompanied saying or doing something stupid – and the good God knew he’d had plenty of practice. Even though all those feelings came and went in the space of a few breaths, it didn’t make him feel any less of a fool.

  “Point taken,” he said at last, looking a little shame-faced. There was another uncomfortable moment which he realized Mar’ya Morevna was expecting him to add some sort of intelligent remark, and that low-level tension stretched like a bowstring when it became clear she wasn’t going to say anything until he did so.

  “So why are you studying a page about elementals in a book that’s so concerned with demons?” He spoke slowly, picking his words and doing his best not to watch his wife’s face to make sure those words were right. Fortunately, they were. Mar’ya Morevna pulled out one of the chairs at the table – not the one with the claw marks scored into it – and gestured Ivan to another.

  “Because what happened here was nothing to do with demons,” she said, and then, because it was too easy a target to ignore and also entirely justifiable, “as you would know if you’d read the damned grimoire, instead of just carrying it about and complaining that you don’t like the subject matter.”

  “Forgive me now, or blame me later.” He used the old formal phrase for courtesy’s sake. “But tell me what you mean.”

  “Heaven be praised! The light begins to dawn, and we’ll make an enchanter of you yet.”

  “Heaven forbid!” said Ivan, though he was relieved that Mar’ya Morevna’s quicksilver mood had gone back to being merry again. He loved her very dearly, but there were times when she could be a hard woman to live with. Much of that, he supposed, came as a result of his knowing so little of what played so large a part in her life: the three powers of sorcery, soldiery and politics. He had been trained in some of the second and third, and trained well; Guard-Captain Akimov and High Steward Strel’tsin knew their special subjects as well as any man. But as for the first, Ivan had long known only the small magics that any Rus was taught when first learning to speak. The rest, the High Magic, was quite literally a closed book.

  “What I mean is quite simple, if you know what I mean,” said Mar’ya Morevna, and smiled at her own crooked speech. “If a spell of fire had been cast here, or a demon of fire summoned into the room,” a sweep of one arm took in the oak door, the pine-panelled walls and the cedarwood ceiling, “there would be nothing left but bare stone.”

  “ ‘Elementals, on the other hand, can control the substance that is their nature,’ ” quoted Ivan, and drew a look of pleased surprise from his wife. He basked in her regard for a second or two before honesty got the better of him and he pointed at the open grimoire. “And Princes with an education can read book-hand even when it’s upside-down.”

  Mar’ya Morevna stared, then smiled, then grinned. Finally she laughed out loud and spun the book around so he could see better. “You should have kept that part quiet, and impressed me some more.”

  “It would only have lasted until you found out the truth, and then you wouldn’t have been impressed at all.” He read quickly through what Enciervanul Doamnisoar had to say on the subject of fire-elementals, and found the text to be mercifully less offensive and explicit than what it had to say on virtually every other subject.

  “These we can eliminate.” Ivan tapped the illustrations of horse and boar with one finger, quickly and warily because those bright highlights of gold leaf weren’t just decorative but represented flames, and he wouldn’t have been surprised to find they were hot. They were merely warm, but it was the same unsettling warmth of the entire book and not much comfort.

  “Why those two?”

  “Beloved, the average kremlin guard isn’t blessed with brains or he’d be doing something better paid for less effort, but I don’t think he’d be stupid enough to approach any horse or boar found in a tower after midnight. Also, neither of these could leave claw marks.”

  “And therefore…?”

  “A bird of some sort, obviously.”

  “Oh, of course obviously.”

  “And a bird capable of carrying away a book big enough and heavy enough that even a careful old man like Strel’tsin didn’t want to take it back to where it belonged.”

  “A copy of Liber Tenebrae,” said Mar’ya Morevna. “That’s the old Roman language. ‘The Book of Shadows’. I asked Dmitriy Vasil’yevich earlier today. It measured three-quarters by one-half arshiniy, and weighed almost half a pood.”

  “More than a foot by almost two, and nearly twenty pounds in the Western measure.”

  “Don’t show off,” said Mar’ya Morevna dryly. “And that tells us what?”

  “A big book?”

  “And a big bird. I think you can ignore the golden-combed rooster. All these elementals have their limitations. They have to appear in the size proper to their chosen form, and there isn’t a rooster hatched able to lift that book.”

  “So how big is this golden pheasant?”

  “Tsk!” Mar’ya Morevna poked at the grimoire in another of those tiny teacherly flickers of impatience that made Ivan doubt they would need tutors for their children. “Where did it say ‘pheasant’?”

  Ivan looked again and then, in the tone perfected during Dmitriy Vasil’yevich Strel’tsin’s endless lessons on logic he said, “Ah.”

  “Ah indeed. That, Vanyushka, is a Firebird. It says so here.”

  “So how big is this golden Firebird?” Ivan’s voice hadn’t altered its tone by one iota since the last attempt at that question, and Mar’ya Morevna gave him a sharp look.

  “Big enough to fly away with the lost grimoire. Other than that, who knows?”

  “If it’s big enough to fly away with Strel’tsin’s book, then it’s big enough to fly away with my father’s crown, to the ruin of the realm. We need to find out what we can, before we do anything else. I could find out.”

  Mar’ya Morevna turned slowly, first her head and then her whole body, until all of her attention was focused on her husband. “I’d be grateful,” she said, “if you would explain that.”

  “This is a matter of duty, Mar’yushka. The crown will be mine one day. I should do something to defend it.”

  “We don’t even know there’s any threat.”

  “And never will, until it’s too late. Let me do this thing. Use our own grimoire as bait. For all we know, the Firebird – if it is a Firebird, and we aren’t even sure of that yet! – is sent here every night, and it leaves again at once if it can’t…smell anything magical, perhaps?”

  “Good enough until we know better. Go on.”

  “All right, if there’s nothing to attract it, then it goes back to wherever it came from. But, and I don’t know how discriminating they are as a breed, if this Firebird can be tempted by something as insignificant as the candles Dmitriy Vasil’yevich used for his little spells, then a book like Enciervanul Doamnisoar will be like a beacon. We could leave it somewhere accessible: here would be good enough. I’d wait to see what appeared, and—”

  “And you’d be roasted, just like the guard!”

  “No he won’t,” said a quiet voice from the doorway, “because I forbid him to do anything so foolish.”

  Ivan and Mar’ya Morevna scrambled hastily to their feet as Tsar Aleksandr stepped into the little room and closed the door behind him. Neither of them had heard it open, but then the old Tsar, despite the weight of sixty-seven years and a regal portliness, could still move like a cat when the mood was on him. “Apart from anything else, what could I tell your mother?”

  Strel’tsin could probably think of something meaningless and heroic, given time, thought Ivan, and then dismissed the thought unspoken as being unfair and unworthy. “I don’t intend to put myself at any risk, Father,” h
e said aloud.

  “I’m sure my dead guardsman thought the same,” said Tsar Aleksandr grimly. “Intention seems to provide little defence against this…this Firebird.”

  “But iron armour does!”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “I…That is, we – oh damn. Mar’yushka, you know more about the whys and wherefores than I do.”

  “Father,” said Mar’ya Morevna as the Tsar’s regard swung onto her like a siege-catapult taking aim, “from what I know of this creature and from what I saw last night, it can’t harm cold iron. It’s one of the most ancient laws of sorcery, and—”

  “And there are enough harnesses in the Armoury Tower so that I could put together something to cover me from head to foot with cold iron. If I used any of the full hoods of mail, all but my eyes would be…” Ivan faltered; if he’d hoped to carry his father on the wave of his own enthusiasm, that hope was dashed.

  “All but your eyes would be protected,” the Tsar finished for him, sitting down. “So you might live, but you would certainly do so without your sight. My son, your reasoning is somewhat at fault.”

  “Papa, all your children married sorcerers, but only one of those sorcerers, my wife, is in Khorlov. If you don’t want to use her wisdom, the only alternative is waiting until whatever letter you sent out finds one of your sons-in-law. And if you mean to wait, then why did you ask for our help at all?”

  “Now your manners are also at fault, Ivan. Yes, I asked for help; not that you put your life at risk. I forbid this foolishness.”

  “Because of what we know, it’s less foolish than risking another guard. Would you give the life of another father’s son to protect the life of your own?”

  “When my son is the sole heir to my Tsardom, yes.” said his father tranquilly. “That’s why Tsars and Princes employ soldiers to die on their behalf.”

  Ivan closed his eyes for an interval too long to be called an ordinary blink, and his voice dropped until he was talking almost to himself. “And if I disobeyed you anyway?”

  “You wouldn’t dare…” the Tsar began to say. Then he hesitated, staring for a long time at his truculent son, and at last began to smile. Although he was bearded and Ivan was clean-shaven, what was visible of their smiles was each a mirror-image of the other. “Or perhaps you would. You’ve grown, Vanya my son. Grown considerably. And other than locking you in this room until you come to your senses, which would be lacking in any kind of dignity, or asking your good wife to change your mind on my behalf—”

  “Which is also lacking in dignity,” said Mar’ya Morevna. “I wouldn’t do it. And probably couldn’t, anyway.”

  “Then I’m forced to change my mind and give you my blessing.”

  Ivan didn’t cheer at his small victory, even though it was greater than it seemed. His palms and forehead were both chilly damp and there was a knot in the pit of his stomach that made breathing difficult. For all he knew he had just successfully condemned himself to an unpleasant death, and the half-proud, half-shocked look on Mar’ya Morevna’s face did little to reassure him.

  “There are conditions, of course,” said Tsar Aleksandr Andreyevich, sitting back in his chair in exactly the same posture Ivan had seen him adopt during trade and treaty wrangling. This was when so many who thought they’d beaten the Tsar of Khorlov found that the victory was a hollow one.

  “At your command,” he said, and waited.

  “First this: I’m proud, very proud, of your courage – and I’m aghast beyond measure at your rashness. Every father wants his son to be brave, but with no other son to inherit his domain, this father could almost wish his brave son was a coward. No, not a coward, just less foolhardy. So my conditions are this: do nothing except watch; don’t stay near this book of yours if you’re threatened; lose the book rather than take hurt; and if you have to run, then run. Understand me, Vanya, nothing you do throughout this enterprise will detract from your valour in undertaking it. So survive it.”

  “Father,” said Mar’ya Morevna, “I can lay spells of warding that—”

  “Do it.” Tsar Aleksandr heaved himself out of his seat, and for just an instant he looked far older than his years, and afraid. “Do whatever is required. And if any of the priests object, even the Metropolitan Archbishop himself – refer them to me.” He crossed himself carefully. “Not even God can object to a father protecting his son.”

  *

  Despite the charcoal brazier, it was cold in Strel’tsin’s study, and darker than seemed reasonable in a room lit by so many candles. The grimoire Enciervanul Doamnisoar lay at the geometrical centre of the table, soaking up more than its fair share of what light there was. Prince Ivan looked at it for the hundredth time before his gaze flinched away for the hundredth time. He shifted uncomfortably in his chair near the door, feeling chilly and itchy; itchy inside his armour, and itchy inside his skin.

  Mar’ya Morevna had cautioned him about this side-effect of her shield-spell, but advance warnings of discomfort seldom did much to alleviate that discomfort when it arrived. It was like the time he had over-drawn an arrow so its point spiked him through the web of the thumb. The puncture needed stitching shut, and one of the kremlin’s surgeons had told him, in all kindness, that it would hurt. Ivan had already known that needles hurt, and being reminded of it had never stopped him yelping yet. But at least the discomfort of ordinary needles went away eventually. The pins-and-needles pricking at him now seemed only to be getting worse.

  He resisted the need to scratch, as he had resisted the need to stamp his feet or slap his arms around himself or blow on his fingers in an attempt to drive away the cold, and for the same reason every time. To do any of those things effectively he would have to take off his armour, and to do them with it still in place would be noisy enough to scare away all but the deafest thief. Ivan doubted that a Firebird could be that conveniently hard of hearing.

  Getting into the bastard suit of pieces borrowed from half a dozen other harnesses, mail and scale, lamellar and plate, had taken him a good ten minutes even with help from Guard-Captain Akimov, and without assistance that same operation might take twice as long. Ivan had no wish to be halfway in or out of his armour if the Firebird put in an appearance. He stretched out to where a jug of mulled wine sat steaming above the charcoal, poured and drank some, and tried to convince himself that he felt warmer.

  It had been High Steward Strel’tsin’s idea to leave the window of his study open, and even though Ivan had pointed out that the Firebird had needed no such access last time, Strel’tsin refused to be swayed.

  “You will be sitting by the door, Highness,” the old man had said. “If it should come in that way, you might come to harm.”

  Like a roast left too long on the fire comes to harm, Ivan had thought at the time, but in his mother and father’s worried presence had kept his mouth shut. The Tsaritsa Ludmyla had seen him go from the kremlin on the great adventure that had won him a wife, but never waved him farewell as he rode to a battle that might take him away forever. Now, watching him embark on a dangerous venture within the walls of that same kremlin – the kremlin that had been and still was his home – the threat of such a loss plainly struck her to the heart. After her attempts to dissuade him had failed, she had fallen silent, staring at him as though fixing his face in her memory in case that was all some misfortune might leave her.

  Mar’ya Morevna had fastened the gauntlet on his right hand, but Ludmyla Tsaritsa had claimed a mother’s privilege and helped him put on the left. The iron gloves weren’t a pair, so while Mar’ya Morevna simply secured the buckled strap that ran around his wrist between hand and cuff, the Tsaritsa had to lace a heavy leather cord though loops for that purpose between the smaller rings of mail. She had tied it in a bow and neither Ivan nor Mar’ya Morevna, both knowing full well how easily such a knot could come undone, had the heart to correct her mistake.

  There was little point, since in Ivan’s view the whole harness was a mistake. He was accustomed t
o his armour – when he wore it at all – being a great deal lighter: a helmet, vambraces for his forearms and a shirt of plated mail, the plates handsomely engraved or embossed to look much finer than those worn by the common soldiers. What he was wearing now made him look as clumsy in its own way as the bulky travelling furs, and with much less style.

  Mar’ya Morevna had spent a quarter hour talking to Guard-Captain Akimov, explaining what Ivan was to be protected against, and then the pair of them had gone off to ransack the kremlin’s Armoury Tower. They had come back at the head of a train of servants, all carrying some form of armour or other, and had instructed Ivan without so much as a by-your-leave that he was to put it on.

  After that things became rather confused. None of the harnesses had been made for him, some were too large while others, more awkwardly, were too small, and unlike tight cloth garments which could at least stretch, these ill-fitting metal garments pinched abominably. Abdominally as well, if it came to hard fact. Mother Wolf had been right about him putting on weight. Every hard-won breath suggested that since his marriage Ivan had been indulging in the pleasures of the table and the couch far more than he should, and the armour nipped without mercy at every bit of surplus Prince it could find.

  By the time everyone was satisfied, there were pieces of rejected metal strewn all over the floor, hammer-formed plates for chest and head and arms and legs like the pieces of a broken metal man, and small, deceptively heavy grey lumps where discarded mail had collapsed together and lay in wait to stub unwary toes. Finally, Mar’ya Morevna and Captain Akimov walked around him with their arms folded, studying what they had built with all the satisfaction of sculptors eyeing their latest statue.

  Mar’ya Morevna had told Ivan the origin and provenance of each piece of armour as it was fitted into place, and now he stood encased in half a thousand years of history. The hauberk that reached below his knees had come to the Rus lands long ago with a Viking, one of the old North people who were Ivan’s ancestors. The chausses, stockings of mail, were those of a Frankish crusader knight; the iron shoes and the vambraces and greaves, long splints of iron riveted to fine mail, had once belonged to a kataphractos of Byzantium; and the helmet with its visor hammered into the shape of a moustached face had been looted from a Kipchaq warrior by Captain Akimov himself.