The Breathing Sea II - Drowning

by E. P. Clark

  The stablehands, who were two boys of about twelve or thirteen summers, both with a strong resemblance to the waystation mistress, had just started feeding the horses. They gave Dasha looks that showed they thought her request to see the horse she would be borrowing to be peculiar and pointless, but they led her over to a narrow stall in the far corner, where a fleabitten gray mare stood placidly chewing hay.

  “That’s Pyatnyshki,” one of the boys told her. “Only these days we call her Slepaya, after she knocked her eye out.” The horse flicked her ears back at his voice, and returned to her hay. “She ain’t much,” he went on, his mouth twisted in disgust. “Mama always makes us ride her when we go places, but she won’t do much more’n a jog, no matter how much you beat her. Mama says we’ll have to slaughter her this winter, ‘cause all she does is waste good hay.”

  “How old is she?” Dasha asked, not sure whether to be glad or not that the early morning semi-darkness of the stable hid the horrified expression on her face.

  The boy shrugged in indifference. “Older’n me,” he said. “I gotta go now. The rest of ‘em need feeding. We don’t give her any oats, but we do some of the others. We’ll bring her ‘round for you when you’re ready. Only we don’t got any good saddles left. We sent ‘em all away with the group as left for Pristanogorod yesterday. You wanna ride bareback?”

  Dasha looked at Pyatnyshki’s back. It was broad, if swayed, and if it were a little more padded it would probably have been very comfortable to sit on bareback. As it was, it looked uncomfortably bony, for both her and Pyatnyshki. “Maybe with a saddlecloth of some sort?” she suggested.

  The boy shrugged. “As you like,” he said, and went off to the feed room at the other end of the stable, leaving Dasha to contemplate Pyatnyshki on her own.

  “Don’t worry,” Dasha told her. “I’ll get you out of here, and we’ll have a very pleasant journey, I promise.” Pyatnyshki flicked an ear at her, and then went back to stolidly eating her hay.

  When Dasha came wandering back into the main room, a few early travelers were already sitting at the tables, eating buckwheat porridge. Dasha sat down and tried to catch the waystation mistress’s eye when she came bustling through, but she—deliberately, Dasha thought—turned her head the other way as she went by. Dasha tried, and failed, not to imagine how embarrassed the woman would be if Dasha’s identity were to be revealed to her. Or would she just try to justify her rudeness even more loudly? How did girls with mothers like this manage to grow into women? They didn’t, that’s how. Or rather, they became just as horrid as their mothers, which was why there were so many horrid women filling up the length and breadth of Zem’. Dasha tried to think of what she could do about it when she became Tsarina, or even right now, while she was still Tsarinovna. She was the second-most important person in all of Zem’, and her mother was the most important! Surely between the two of them they could do something. But her mother hadn’t managed to do anything yet, and no matter how much she cudgeled her brains, Dasha couldn’t come up with a scheme that would solve this problem in one fell, elegant swoop. They waystation mistress came by again, and this time Dasha caught her eye before she could turn away.

  “Breakfast, please,” Dasha told her.

  The waystation mistress sniffed. “It’s buckwheat,” she said. “Buckwheat and nothing else.”

  “Buckwheat will be fine,” Dasha told her. “Is there tea?”

  “No,” said the waystation mistress, and rushed off before Dasha could point out that everyone else was drinking tea.

  “You can’t talk to her like that,” said a voice above her head, and Dasha looked up to see Arina standing in front of her.

  “How should I talk to her, then?” asked Dasha, nodding to the other bench.

  “You gotta talk to her like you’s a little bit afraid of her, like you’s asking her a favor, an’ then when she tells you no, you gotta argue with her.” Arina flopped down on the bench Dasha had indicated, and slumped over the table. “She thinks you’re too uppity, and a pushover, too.”

  “How can I be uppity and a pushover at the same time?” asked Dasha.

  Arina shrugged. “That’s how they is,” she said by way of explanation. “Your manners is all wrong, like you’s a noblewoman or something, only you’s traveling by yourself and you’s too nice and shy.”

  “Well…” said Dasha.

  “You is a noblewoman, ain’t you?” Arina asked, sitting up a fraction straighter.

  “Yes,” said Dasha. “Just like Aunty Daromila told Aunty Fevroniya.”

  “I thought so.” Arina slumped back down again. “I never met no noblewomen afore. ‘Cept Olga Vasilisovna, once, in Lesnogorod: I saw her at the market.” Arina eyed Dasha critically. “You looks a bit like her, you know.”

  “We are kin, as I’ve been trying to explain to people,” said Dasha.

  “Really?” Now Arina was sitting bolt upright. “You n’ Olga Vasilisovna? Kin? Really?”

  “Really,” Dasha told her. “And I’m trying to get to her, only no one seems to want to help me. Well, you helped me a bit, but then…”

  “I know. My mama shouldn’t’ve done that. But wolves…” Arina shuddered. “Was that really a wolf? Was he really after you?”

  “Well, he wasn’t after me,” said Dasha. “If he had been, I think he would have gotten me, don’t you? He was probably just checking on me, making sure that I was all right.”

  Arina gave her a strange stare. “Wolves doesn’t do that,” she said.

  “They do for me,” Dasha said firmly. “My family…” She was interrupted when the waystation mistress came over and banged down a cracked bowl half-full of buckwheat porridge in front of her.

  “Wait,” said Dasha, catching her hand as she made to turn away. “The horse. Pyatnyshki. How much is she? To buy, I mean.”

  “I ain’t selling you my best horse,” said the waystation mistress, shaking her hand free of Dasha’s grip.

  “I thought you wanted to slaughter her, once winter came,” Dasha said. “Because she wasn’t any good to you. I want to buy her. How much?”

  The waystation mistress pursed her mouth unhappily, avarice warring against her desire to deny Dasha anything she wanted. “She ain’t for sale,” she said, the latter desire winning out.

  “But you don’t want her,” Dasha objected. “I do! And I’m offering you money for her!”

  “She’s mine,” said the waystation mistress. “My property. To do with as I see fit. And I ain’t going to sell her to you, just ‘cause you think you can buy her from me!”

  “Inna Vlastislavovna,” Arina interjected. “We’d be ever so grateful if you’d think of selling her. I knows you love her, and she are your best horse, but Dasha here really want her, don’t you, Dasha? You’d be doing her such a favor, wouldn’t she, Dasha? An’ you ain’t likely to get a better price for her anywhere else. If you slaughters her, what’s you gonna get? Just some old hide an’ bones. But if you sells her to Dasha now, you could get a whole chervonets…”

  “Three chervontsa,” put in Inna Vlastislavovna quickly.

  “Two,” said Arina.

  Inna Vlastislavovna chewed at her cheeks for a moment, and then said, “Two. And another for her tack.”

  “She doesn’t have a saddle,” Dasha pointed out.

  “Bits and bridles is expensive! Three chervontsa for the horse and tack, or nothing!”

  “Very well,” said Dasha. She pulled out her purse and laid three chervontsa on the table, trying not to think about the fact that she now had less than a single chervonets to make it all the way to Lesnograd, and a horse to care for as well as herself. “Will you be providing feed as well?” she asked.

  Inna Vlastislavovna opened her mouth in what looked to be denial, but Arina slapped her hand down on the coins before she could scoop them up. “A saddlebag of oats,” she said. “An’ pies for the road. We’d be ever so grateful,” she added, looking up at Inna Vlastislavovna beseechingly.

  �
��Very well,” said Inna Vlastislavovna grudgingly. “I can’t let you starve from your own foolishness, can I?” She snatched up the coins and stomped, the floorboards shaking under her irritation, back towards the kitchen.

  “Thank you,” Dasha said. “You’re much better at this than I am.”

  Arina shrugged. “You can’t use sense on ‘em,” she said. “That just makes ‘em madder. You gotta make ‘em think they’s doing you a favor, an’ scare ‘em a bit at the same time, like I said. Ain’t you ever had to trade for something?”

  “No,” admitted Dasha.

  “What, you just asks for things, and people give ‘em to you?”

  “More or less,” said Dasha.

  “Don’t you ever gotta suck up to higher princesses, though, real nobles? Don’t they come by sometimes an’ make you bow an’ lick their boots? I’ve heard tales that’s what they like to do.”

  “Maybe,” said Dasha. “I mean, maybe it’s true that that’s what they like to do. But I’ve never had to.”

  Arina was looking at her round-eyed. “Who is you?” she demanded. “What’s your real name?”

  “Dasha,” Dasha told her. “Just like I said.”

  “No, I mean, what’s your real name? Your full name?”

  “Darya Krasnoslavovna,” Dasha told her.

  “You got a family name? Real nobles got family names.”

  Dasha looked around the main room. No one appeared to be paying them any attention. She leaned forward so that her mouth was only a handspan from Arina’s ear. “Zerkalitsa,” she whispered.

  Arina pulled back and stared at her mutely, her mouth opening and closing but no sound coming out.

  “But don’t tell anyone,” Dasha told her. “Unless my father comes looking for me. It’s supposed to be a secret. But I wanted to let you know because you helped me.”

  “There ain’t that many Zerkalitsy,” Arina said hoarsely, finally regaining her power of speech. “What, is you second-sister to the Tsarinovna, or something?”

  Dasha looked around again, and then cursed herself for making herself look suspicious. But everyone still appeared to be ignoring them entirely: they were just a couple of girls gossiping over breakfast. “I am the Tsarinovna,” she told Arina. “Hush!” she added, as Arina let out an involuntary yelp.

  “No wonder you’s so noble,” Arina breathed. A grimace of fear contorted her face. “Shouldn’t I be bowing?” she asked. “Shouldn’t I be down on the floor, knocking my forehead on the ground an’ swearing my life to you, or something?”

  “Nonsense,” Dasha told her. “Don’t be silly.” Another grimace of fear crossed Arina’s face at what she perceived as Dasha’s reprimand. “I mean, we’re friends, aren’t we?” Dasha continued. “And friends don’t do that, do they?”

  “No-o, Ts-Tsarinovna,” stuttered Arina, looking down at the table.

  Dasha reached over and patted her hand. “I’m just a girl, just like you are,” she told Arina. “You don’t have to be afraid of me.”

  “But…but…” Arina looked back up at her. “We…we kicked you out! You asked for our help, an’ we turned you away! What’s you gonna do to us now?!”

  “Well…” Dasha chewed at her lip, thinking. She really was still very angry with Fevroniya, and the thought of making her suffer for her inhospitality was extremely tempting. “Nothing,” Dasha told Arina. “I’m not going to do anything to you. You did help me, after all, you especially. So I’m not going to do anything to your mother. Unless you want me to, of course.”

  Arina almost smiled, and Dasha could tell she was being tempted by some of the same visions of vengeance and retribution as Dasha, but then she said, “No, no, she’s my mama, even if she’s horrid sometimes. She ain’t horrid all the time.”

  “I’m sure,” said Dasha.

  “When I was sick last winter, she went out into the snow an’ found me a healer an’ half froze to death in the journey.”

  “That was kind of her,” said Dasha.

  “‘Bout the only kind thing she’s ever done for me, but if you came an’ got her, what then? She’d be dragged off to Krasnogorod in chains, or something?”

  “Probably not that bad,” said Dasha. “But she could be inconvenienced. Forbidden to trade, publicly shamed, things like that.”

  Arina shook her head. “Forbid her to trade an’ the rest of us go hungry. An’…I’ve seen what they do to people when they parade ‘em through the streets, flog ‘em, things like that. I ain’t denying I ain’t wanted to do it to her a time or two, or ten, but…when I thinks on it, really thinks on, my tummy goes all queer, an’…you wouldn’t do that to your mama, would you? Not really. No matter how horrid she were to you. An’…one day I’ll be somebody’s mama too. So I don’t wanna do something to my mama that I don’t want my own little daughter to do to me one day.”

  “Some people do terrible things to their mothers,” said Dasha.

  “Monsters.” Arina spat on the floor. “I ain’t a monster like that. So please—Tsarinovna—don’t let that happen to her. Punish me instead, if you gotta punish someone.”

  “I’m not going to punish anyone,” Dasha told her. “I’d offer you coin for your help, but I just spent all mine on a horse. So I’ll just have to say ‘thank you.’”

  “Well…you’s really the Tsarinovna?”

  “Really and truly, the one and only,” Dasha told her.

  “Then…then…one day I’ll have my own little daughter, an’ I’ll tell her this story, an’ that’ll be payment enough,” said Arina. “‘Course, she ain’t gonna believe me, but…”

  “Maybe you could come to Krasnograd someday,” Dasha told her. “With your daughter. And show her to me.”

  “Maybe, Tsarinovna,” said Arina, looking more overwhelmed by that possibility than grateful. Dasha wanted to press her invitation more strongly, but the arrival of Inna Vlastislavovna, who dropped a packet of fresh bread and warm pies down on the table in front of Dasha, prevented her from saying anything more.

  “Here you go,” announced Inna Vlastislavovna. “Cabbage an’ mushroom. Fresh from the oven. You should be grateful: it’s not everyone as gets fresh pies like this.”

  “Oh, I am,” said Dasha, standing and picking up the packet. “I’m ever so grateful for your hospitality, Inna Vlastislavovna.” She had tried to emulate Arina’s obsequious tone, but by the looks on both their faces, she had failed. Well, she didn’t want to be obsequious, anyway. Pretending to be something other than what she was had proven to be disastrous thus far, so perhaps she would be better off just being herself, even if it ruffled a few feathers along the way. “My thanks to you both,” she said, looking at Arina as she said it. “Perhaps I’ll see you again, under better circumstances. You will always be welcome. Is Pyatnyshki ready?” she asked Inna Vlastislavovna.

  “Go out to the stable and see for yourself,” was Inna Vlastislavovna’s answer, so Dasha, with a nod in Arina’s direction, did exactly that.

  Chapter Five

  Pyatnyshki was still in her stall when Dasha went into the stable, but after some prodding she got the younger of the two boys to show her where her bridle was, and to give her an elderly and rather smelly saddlecloth, stiff with dried sweat and with a large hole in one corner. Dasha eyed it dubiously when he handed it to her, but a glance at the other saddlecloths showed they were all in the same condition. There was a pile of dirty grooming equipment dumped into the corner; Dasha snatched up a brush that was missing half its bristles, and a rusty piece of iron she thought must be a hoof pick before scuttling off to ready Pyatnyshki for their journey herself.

  Her stall was so narrow Dasha could hardly squeeze in next to her. Fortunately, Pyatnyshki did nothing more than flick her ears at Dasha as she sidled past her, and then sniff at her with mild interest when she reached her head. Dasha backed her out of the stall and set up to groom her in the aisle, but the boys both shouted at her that she was in the way and she should go back into the stall.

 
; Dasha looked at the dirty stall, and then back at Pyatnyshki. “You’re not going to run anywhere, are you?” she asked. Pyatnyshki responded by swiveling a single ear at her, which Dasha took as a “yes,” so she led her out of the stable and around to the back, where it turned out there was a hitching post anyway. Dasha tied Pyatnyshki to it, discovering as she did so that it was half-rotted and useful more as an illusion of a hitching post than anything else, but Pyatnyshki stood there placidly, showing no inclination to go anywhere, so Dasha supposed it would do well enough.

  Cleaning her hooves revealed a nasty case of thrush, which was unsurprising given how dirty her stall had been, and brushing her down raised so much dust and dandruff that she appeared dirtier after Dasha had finished than before. Dasha ground her teeth and told herself that at least she was taking her away from all this. Which didn’t do much for any of the other horses in the stable. Dasha ground her teeth some more, but couldn’t come up with a solution to that problem, so she settled for promising herself she’d think about it on the road, and slipped the bridle onto Pyatnyshki’s head. The bridle was in no better shape than anything else coming out of the stable, and Dasha thought there was a good chance it would fall apart as she was riding along, but Pyatnyshki appeared unlikely to bolt off or throw her if that happened, so she would just have to hope for the best. She returned the nasty grooming equipment to the stable, threw the dirty blanket onto Pyatnyshki’s back, led her over to the mounting block, and stepped onto her.

  Even through her trousers Dasha could feel the dried sweat of the blanket, but it was better than nothing, so, with a look around to see if anyone wanted to wish her farewell—they didn’t—she urged Pyatnyshki forward, and set off.

  As warned, Pyatnyshki’s pace was not brisk. When pressed she would break into a shuffling jog that after half a verst or so would gradually slow back down to what seemed to be her natural amble. Dasha longed for Poloska, or even Seryozha, but on the other hand, it wasn’t Pyatnyshki’s fault that she was overworked, underfed, and blind in one eye, and when they stopped for a rest—after a mere five versts—she ate the piece of bread that Dasha offered her with pleasure, and lipped Dasha’s hand affectionately afterwards.