Spinning Silver

by Naomi Novik

  After I said it out loud, we were both quiet over our bowls. It did not feel as though we had been in that house five days. But that was not because it felt as if we had just arrived. It felt as if we had always been here.

  Then Sergey said, “Maybe they have sent word on to Vysnia, about us.”

  I stopped eating and looked up at him. He meant, maybe we should not go ever. He meant we should stay here. “It would have been hard to send with all the snow,” I said slowly. I didn’t want to leave either. But also I was still afraid of this place where things came out of nowhere and someone did my spinning over for me and ate our porridge and burned our wood. And I did not see why it was all right for us to stay. It was all right for us to stay when we would freeze to death otherwise. We had to do that. And we had paid back for the food. We had fixed the chair and we would fix the bed. We had made the windows and doors tight. But that did not make it our house, that we could stay in forever. Someone had built this house and it was not us. We didn’t know who they were. We couldn’t ask them if we could stay, even if they would let us.

  “We cannot leave for three days anyway,” Sergey said. “Maybe the snow will melt by then.”

  “Let us see,” I said after a moment. “Maybe the knitting will not take me so long.”

  But after we cleared the table I went back to the shelf where I had left my knitting and it was not there. Instead on the shelf there was half a loaf of still-fresh bread, and underneath a beautiful fine napkin there was a small ham and a round of cheese and a lump of butter, with only a little bit cut off of each. There was a big box of tea and even a jar of cherries in syrup, like Miryem had bought to eat once at the market. There was even a basket big enough to hold all of it.

  I stood looking at the things so long that Sergey got worried and came to see also. We didn’t know what to do. It wasn’t something we could even make believe had happened in some real way. We could not pretend that we had just not seen all that food. We could not pretend someone had come into the house and put that food there and went away again. We had not been asleep.

  Of course we wanted to eat some of that beautiful food. My mouth remembered the taste of those cherries, the thick sweet syrup like the smell of summer. We were afraid, though, even more than we had been about the oats, and the honey. It was food that did not even pretend to go with the house. And we had just eaten, so we were not even really hungry.

  “We should save it for later,” I said after a moment. “We don’t need it now.”

  Sergey nodded. Then he took the axe. “I will go break up some logs,” he said, and went out into the yard, even though it was dark. We needed more wood. We had not put any wood on the fire all day, but the box was almost empty.

  I found the knitting lying on the cot. It felt different, and when I unfolded it, the piece was the same size as I had made, but it had all been done over from the beginning. It had a pattern in it now, a beautiful design like a raised vine with flowers that I could feel with my fingers. I had never seen anything like it except for sale in the market for money, and not so fine, either.

  I unraveled some of it to try and see how the picture was made, but each line was so different, the stitches changed so much from one to another, and I couldn’t see how to remember which one was next. Then I thought, of course, it was magic. I took a stick out of the fireplace with one end charred, and I used the magic that Miryem had taught me. I started at the beginning of the vine in the first row, and I counted how many of a stitch there was in a row, and I wrote down that number, and if it was a forward stitch, I put a mark above it, and if it was a backwards stitch, I put a mark below. I had to make some other marks too, when stitches were brought together, or added. I had to make my numbers small as if I were writing in Miryem’s book. There were thirty rows all different before I came back to the first one.

  But when I was done, I had the whole picture there on the floor, turned into numbers. It looked very different. I was not sure I believed it could really be the same thing. But I remembered how those little marks in Miryem’s book became silver and gold, and I took the knitting and I began to add on another row. I did not look back at the picture while I worked. I thought I had to trust the numbers. So I did, and I followed them, for all those thirty rows, and then I stopped and I looked at what I had done, and there were all the vines and leaves, just as beautiful, and I had made it. The magic had worked for me.

  Sergey came back in, stamping off his feet. There was a dusting of white across his shoulders. He put his big armful of wood into the box, but it only filled it halfway. “I must go get more,” he said. “It is snowing again.”

  *

  “Are you warm enough, Stepon?” Panova Mandelstam asked me. I said I was because however warm I was, that had to be warm enough, because there was nothing to do about it if I wasn’t. I was in the best place in the sleigh, huddled between Panov and Panova Mandelstam under the blankets and furs, but I was getting colder the whole time. At first I thought I was feeling so cold because Algis was there spying on us, but that wasn’t why. It got colder and colder all that afternoon, and overhead there were dark grey clouds getting thicker and thicker. We were not halfway to Vysnia when it finally began snowing. It was only a little bit at the beginning, but then it began to come faster and faster, until we could not see what was in front of the horses’ heads. After a while Panova Mandelstam said, “Perhaps we should stop at the next village for the rest of the night. It should not be far.”

  But we did not come to any houses, even though the sleigh kept going a long time. “Algis,” Panov Mandelstam said to the driver finally, “are you sure we are still on the road?”

  Algis hunched a little in his coats and darted a look back at us. He didn’t say anything, but his face was scared. So he knew he had lost the road. Sometime ago, when the road had turned, the horses had gone between two trees that were not on either side of the road, they were just far apart from each other. The snow was covering the road and the bushes, so Algis had not noticed. He had just kept going. Now we were lost in the forest. The forest was very big and there were not any houses in it away from the road and the river. The Staryk killed anyone who made a house away from the river.

  The horses were not going very fast anymore. They were tired and they plodded. Their big feet were digging into the new snow and they had to pull them up again each step. Soon they would stop. “What do we do?” I asked.

  Algis had turned around again and was just sitting hunched over the reins. Panov Mandelstam looked at his back, and then he said, “It is all right, Stepon. We will stop somewhere there is not too much wind and get the horses under blankets and give them their grain and any grass we can find. We will stay between them and under blankets and keep warm until it is light. Once the sun comes up we can tell where we are. I am sure you can find someplace good, Algis.”

  Algis did not say anything, but in a little while he turned the horses’ heads and stopped near a very big tree. If we did not know we were in the forest before, we knew then, because there were no trees so big anywhere near the road. Someone would have cut it down to use it if it was close enough to get it out of the forest. It was as big across as one of the horses almost, and there was a rotting hole on one side of the tree that made a little sheltered hollow.

  Panova Mandelstam and I held the reins of the horses while Panov Mandelstam and Algis stamped down the snow next to the tree and made a wall of snow around an open place. Horses are much bigger than goats. I was a little scared of them, but I had to help hold them, and they only stayed still and did not jump like goats did, and I could tell they were very tired. Finally we led the horses in the open place and then we took all the blankets from the sleigh and covered them with the blankets. Panov Mandelstam took the bags out of the sleigh and put them in the little hollow, and then he helped Panova Mandelstam climb down from the sleigh and over the snow to sit on them.

  Then he straightened up and looked at Algis. Algis was standing next to the bac
k of the sleigh. His head was hanging. He said, low, “I didn’t fill the bucket.” He meant the grain bucket. So there was no food for the horses.

  Panov Mandelstam didn’t say anything for a minute. The silence felt very long. Finally he said, “It is lucky this is a late snow. There will still be some fresh growth under. We must dig and get them some grass and whatever else we can find for them to eat.”

  He was still kind, but I thought that he had not felt kind, and that was why he had been quiet. I thought that meant he must be very worried. So then I was very worried. I did my best to help to dig. Because Panova Mandelstam had given me the boots, I could kick away snow and get down to the ground. But it was mostly dry pine needles here under the big old tree.

  We all went in different directions. “Do not go so far that you cannot see the big tree,” Panov Mandelstam told me. “The snow will cover your steps and you will not find the way back. Every ten steps turn around and look.”

  The big tree was so big that I could see it for a long way. I counted and looked every ten steps until I came to a place that was open to the sky. There was a big dead tree under the snow making a lump. It had been here and then it had fallen over. Now there was an open place. I dug under the snow with my boots and a broken branch and I found some grass. It was dying because of the snow, but it was not all the way dead, and also there was old dry grass under it. I pulled up as much of it as I could get to. It did not seem like a lot, but even a little bit of food is very good when you are very hungry. I thought maybe it was the same for horses as people. When I had an armful I carried it back. Panova Mandelstam had stayed with the horses. She was petting their heads and singing to them softly. Their heads were hanging low. She had given them water at least. I didn’t know where she had found water that wasn’t snow, but then I saw she was shivering and then I knew. She had put snow into the water bucket and wrapped herself around it so it would melt for them.

  I gave them each half of the grass I had found. They did not start to eat it right away, but Panova Mandelstam took it and gave it to them by hand. Then they ate, and they ate it all up very fast. Panov Mandelstam and Algis came back too. They had not found any grass, but Algis had brought some wood to try to make a fire with. It was wet and I didn’t think it would work to start a fire, though.

  “There was more grass where I got this,” I said.

  “I will go with him,” Algis said to Panov Mandelstam. He still did not look up. I think he was ashamed he had gotten lost and had not filled the grain bucket, and now he was trying to say he was sorry. I did not really want to listen to him saying sorry, but I couldn’t say I didn’t want him to come with me so we went back to the clearing. Algis spread his topcoat out on the snow, and we dug up more grass until we made a big heap on top of the coat, and then Algis took the heap back while I kept finding more grass until he came back to help again.

  It was easier with Algis than if I was alone, because he was taller and stronger than me. But I wished Sergey and Wanda were with us instead. They were both taller than Algis and stronger than him, and they would get more grass, and also they would not forget to fill the grain bucket in the first place. Maybe they would not fill the grain bucket, but that would only be if there was no grain to put into it, they would not just forget. Also they would not be spies on us.

  I was not feeling kind at all. I thought maybe we would all die of cold. I thought maybe if we did not die of cold, but the horses died of being worked so hard without enough food, and we were in the forest with no horses and not traveling, then it would be like we were making a house. Then maybe the Staryk would come after us. I did not like to think about what the Staryk had done to Sergey, but I could not help thinking about it sometimes at night. I was thinking about it now.

  Finally Algis and I had gotten to all the grass we could find. Now when we kicked away the snow we only found places where we had already pulled up all the grass. We went back. The horses ate up all the grass, but their heads were hanging afterwards, and they were still hungry. They were cold too because there was no fire. Panov Mandelstam had tried, but the wood and kindling was too wet to make a spark. There was some food for us, because Panova Mandelstam had packed the basket. She would not forget to fill a grain bucket either. But she shared the food with Algis anyway, and she even gave him as big a portion as she gave to Panov Mandelstam.

  After we finished eating one of the horses gave a very big sigh and slowly got down on the ground. It was very cold on the ground, but it was too tired to get up again even though Panov Mandelstam and Algis both tried to get it back up. Panova Mandelstam was holding the other one and trying to coax it to stay up, but after a little while it got down, too. Their heads were even lower. I thought maybe they would die. And then even if we did not die, in the morning we would be alone deep in the woods. Like Sergey and Wanda had been, but we were not as strong as Sergey and Wanda. They had left me behind because they could go for a long time in the woods and I could not. Unless maybe they had not gone on. Maybe they had stopped in the woods and died in the snow like we were going to.

  There was nothing I could do. I was not even tall enough to pull up on the horses’ reins. When the others gave up, Panova Mandelstam had me sit down next to her up against the side of one horse, and we covered ourselves with a blanket and a fur cape. The horse’s body blocked the wind, and the tree blocked it some too. It was still cold, but that was all we could do. Panov Mandelstam and Algis sat next to the other horse the same way. I put my hands in my pockets and huddled next to Panova Mandelstam. The nut was still in my pocket and I wrapped my fingers around it and held it tight.

  *

  After the Staryk king left me, I got up and went back to the big storeroom to see how the work was going. I didn’t have enormous hope—there was so much silver. It was just a little better than no hope, and also had the benefit of being an annoyance to my husband, even if he disposed of me, too.

  But Tsop and Flek and Shofer had done more than I’d expected. It certainly went quicker to throw money away than to make it, and Staryk strength made light of the work: they’d already opened a large circle in the middle of the room, and the sledge was half full again. They’d gotten almost all the sacks out, and only loose coin was left. There was a great deal of loose coin, however. They all straightened up when I came in; magical strength or not, they looked tired, too. I didn’t feel badly for throwing away my lord’s silver, but I was making them slave away to do it, and to have any chance at all I’d need them to keep at it for me to the very end. All through this night and the coming day, and then another night and day after, every last hour I could eke out before the dancing had ended. Luckily Basia’s wedding wouldn’t begin until late, since she was a city girl. Without sleep or rest, for them as much as me, except I’d gotten myself into the mess, and why should they care?

  “I need something to eat and drink,” I said. “Bring something for yourselves, too. And if I’m alive at the end of this,” I added, “you’ll bring me all the silver you own yourselves, or can borrow, and I’ll make it gold for you in thanks for the work you’re doing.”

  They all three went perfectly silent and still. After a moment, they looked at one another—making certain I’d said it?—and then Tsop burst out, “We are servants.”

  “I’d rather you had a better reason than that to help me,” I said, warily. It didn’t help. They still looked as uneasy as if I’d invited them to walk through a room full of snakes. Flek had her hands twisting together before her, staring down at them.

  Then Shofer abruptly said to me, “Open-Handed,” saying it like a name, “though you know not what you do, I accept your promise, and will return myself for it as fair measure, if you will accept the exchange.” He clenched his fist to his collarbone, and bowed to me. Tsop swallowed and said, “And I too,” and bowed as well. She looked at Flek, whose face was wrenched and unhappy. After a moment, Flek whispered, barely audible, “I will as well,” and clasping both her hands against her chest b
owed, too.

  Well, Shofer wasn’t wrong, I didn’t know what I’d done, but I’d certainly done something, and it had been worth doing. “Yes,” I said at once, and Flek ran out of the room to go and bring us food, and in the meantime Tsop and Shofer began to hurl the last sacks into the sleigh as if their own lives depended on it now, and not just mine. Perhaps they did, for all I knew. It didn’t seem that gold would be enough of a reward for that, but if they thought it was, I wasn’t going to complain.

  “I must change the deer,” Shofer told me when Flek came back, and I joined them in the big storeroom to eat. I nodded. We all wolfed down a few bites, and I took a drink of the cold water and went back to work in the second storeroom alone.

  I think I did fall asleep once or twice during that night, but not for long; I only drowsed off drooping as I sat, and jerked back awake a little bit later when I heard the clattering of hooves in the room beyond, another load being taken away to dump into the tunnel. My eyes were burning and tired, my back and my shoulders ached, and I finished sweeping my hand over the coins on the cloth, and spilled them away again.

  The hours dragged away at once too slowly and too quickly. It was an agony that I only wanted to be over, except when the line of sunrise appeared in the mirror, my heart started pounding. I’d gotten quicker once I’d mastered the trick of doing them two deep: I was a good way into the third rack. But there were three more left: I’d have to keep working this fast all the way to the end, to manage it. I had to stop and eat: Tsop brought me some food on a plate and a cup of water, and my hands shook so that the water nearly slopped up over the sides. I swallowed everything she’d brought me without tasting it, and went back to the endless grinding terrible work.