by E. P. Clark
“I’m sorry,” she said. “That you were worried about me. I’m sorry that you were so worried about me.” She looked him up and down. “And that you had to come racing after me like that. I can see that you’ve been riding hard. Would you like some breakfast? Why don’t we all have some breakfast.”
Oleg shook his head, in confusion, not denial. “Dasha, I…” he began.
“Breakfast!” Dasha called, interrupting him before he could say something that would only make things worse. “Aunty Liza, could we have some breakfast? I’m sure everyone’s very hungry, and that wheat porridge will be fine. And I’m also sure they have the coin to pay for it,” she added, seeing Aunty Liza’s hesitation.
“It ain’t that,” said Aunty Liza. “Did you say…Tsarina?”
“It’s of no matter,” Dasha told her. “Don’t worry about it. Could we have some breakfast?”
“Yes, yes noblewoman, yes, right away,” said Aunty Liza, bowing, speaking, and trying to run to the kitchen all at once.
“Let’s sit here,” Dasha said, walking over to the table next to the one where she had previously been sitting with the girls. “Have the horses been taken care of?”
“Ah…” said Oleg.
“I’ll go take care of ‘em,” offered Alik quickly. He grinned at Dasha. “We’ve still got Poloska and Seryozha for you,” he told her. “They’ll be as glad to see you as the rest of us are, maybe more, I’ll wager.” He slipped out the door.
“Come,” said Dasha, sitting down at the table she had chosen. “Breakfast will be here shortly, I’m sure.”
Slowly and awkwardly, the others followed her over and sat down where she had indicated. “Dasha…” Oleg began again.
“How long have you been on the road?” Dasha asked, interrupting him before he could say whatever it was he thought, no doubt wrongly, he needed to say. “I’ve been on the road, what, three? No, four days now. Well, this is the start of my fourth day. It took me a day to reach the road, too. Everyone has been very kind to me. Well, more or less. Aunty Naina and Aunty Raisa took me in when I didn’t have any more money, didn’t you?” She turned to Aunty Naina and Aunty Raisa, who gulped at her sudden attention and nodded hastily.
“Only two days now,” Susanna volunteered. “We all looked and looked for you, especially after the domovaya came back and told us you had gone, and then Oleg Svetoslavovich got word somehow of where you were two days ago, and we set off immediately. We took some very strange roads, not real roads, through the woods, so that we did not have to go all the way on the real roads, which were not the straightest way, and then we came onto the main road yesterday, and we have been riding as fast as possible ever since. We rode all night! We thought you were traveling faster,” she added as an afterthought. “You have been traveling very slowly.”
“I bought a slow horse,” Dasha told her.
This roused Oleg out of his confusion. “You bought a horse?” he asked.
“I still had my purse,” Dasha told him. “I didn’t have a lot of money, but it was enough to pay for a couple of nights at waystations, and a very slow horse. I was supposed to ride with Aunty Fevroniya and her family—”
“Is that them?” Oleg interrupted, nodding towards Aunty Raisa and Aunty Naina.
“No, that’s Aunty Raisa and Aunty Naina and their daughters. They took me in afterwards. I rode one day with Aunty Fevroniya and her family, but they made me leave after Gray Wolf came up to us while we were on the road. So then I bought Pyatnyshki—the horse—and set off the next day by myself. That used up almost all my money, and I spent the rest on my next night in a waystation, but then Aunty Raisa and Aunty Naina offered to take me in in exchange for teaching their daughters their letters.”
Oleg looked over at Lisochka and Allochka. A hint of a smile threatened to break through on his face. “And did you?” he asked.
“They made some improvement,” Dasha said.
Now Oleg was genuinely smiling. “You are my daughter,” he said. “No one else would land on her feet like that.”
“Fortune seemed to be following me whichever way I turned,” Dasha told him, smiling back.
Oleg smiled even more. “Of course it was,” he said. “So tell me about this horse you bought. This must have been your first time buying a horse.”
“It was,” Dasha told him. “She’s very old, and swaybacked, and blind in one eye, and she can hardly trot.”
Oleg grinned. “Sounds about right for a first horse,” he said. “However much you paid for her, it was too much. Maybe we can pay someone to take her off our hands before we leave.”
“No!” protested Dasha. “She’s mine! I’ve promised her that I’ll take her to Lesnograd and find her a good home!”
“And she understood, of course,” said Oleg.
“She did! And even if she didn’t, I did.”
“Fair enough,” said Oleg. “The rest of the horses are so done in they probably can’t manage much more than a walk, anyway. We’ll just all amble on towards Lesnograd together, favoring our splints and spavins.” He was still smiling, but anxiousness was creeping into his face and words, as if he was worried—with reason—that Dasha was going to refuse to go with them.
“That sounds good,” Dasha told him. “Besides, I’m still sore, and Pyatnyshki doesn’t have a saddle. I couldn’t go fast even if I wanted to and had the horse for it.”
“Poloska’s going to be jealous,” Oleg told her, now grinning with relief.
“Maybe I’ll ride her, and Pyatnyshki can be a packhorse,” Dasha said. “Maybe if she only had a very light pack, she could go faster.”
“Or maybe she just needs to limp her way to Lesnograd as best she can, and then be put out to pasture,” Oleg told her. “Innkeeper! Do you have rooms? We’ll be spending the morning here to rest, and leaving in the afternoon.”
Aunty Liza came over, laden down with a tray full of bowls of wheat porridge. More guests were coming down the stairs, and the table and benches were filling up. “I will shortly,” she told him. “If you can wait till after breakfast, all my rooms’ll be empty, and you can have your pick.”
“Excellent!” said Oleg, and began digging into his porridge as if it actually tasted good, or like anything at all.
“Dashenka,” whispered Aunty Naina, leaning over from her own bench and speaking into Dasha’s ear, “what, you won’t be going with us, then?”
“I’ll be going with my father,” Dasha told her. “But I’m ever so grateful for the kindness you’ve shown me. It won’t be forgotten.”
“And all that business about the Tsarina…what was that about?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Dasha told her.
“It does,” said Oleg, coming up for air from his porridge. “People should know what they’ve done for you, Dasha: it’ll make them love you more. This is the Tsarinovna,” he told Aunty Naina. “You just helped the Tsarinovna. And it won’t be forgotten, just like she said.” He pulled the coin purse he had strung around his neck out from under his shirt, opened it, and spilled out a fistful of coins. “Here,” he said, shoving them into Aunty Naina’s hand. “Courtesy of the Tsarina, with her thanks for helping her daughter.”
“The Tsarinovna?” repeated Aunty Naina, staring at the coins as if she didn’t recognize them.
“The one and only,” Oleg told her, forcing the coins into Aunty Naina’s hand and closing her fingers around them. “I hope you found her company pleasant.”
“Oh…yes. Yes, of course!” said Aunty Naina breathlessly, her eyes flicking back and forth between Dasha’s face and the coins in her hand.
“Good. The Tsarina doesn’t forget kindnesses done to her daughter, and the Tsarinovna won’t forget either, will you, Dasha?” he said.
“No-o,” said Dasha. “I really am very grateful,” she told Aunty Naina and Aunty Raisa. “You didn’t have to take me in, but you did, and I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t. I really thought I was going to starve before I made
it to Lesnograd.”
“Oh, well…” said Aunty Naina, and then trailed off, apparently still too stunned by the revelation of Dasha’s identity to come up with anything else.
“Maybe Lisochka or Allochka should apprentice with Aunty Vera in my place,” Dasha went on. “Maybe they’d like that.”
Allochka brightened. “Yes, please!” she cried. “I love Aunty Vera! Please can I apprentice with her, please, please, please?”
Aunty Raisa chewed at her lip. “Well, you’re certainly not showing much of a gift for my business,” she said. “Maybe Aunty Vera can knock some sense into you, since I can’t.”
Allochka brightened even more, despite her mother’s lukewarm approbation. Maybe it was all the approval she had ever gotten from her. “Thank you!” she cried, jumping up and planting a kiss on Dasha’s cheek. “Thank you, thank you…”
“Allochka!” shouted her mother. “That’s the Tsarinovna you’re pestering! Get your hands off her!”
“She’s not bothering me,” Dasha said. “I hope your apprenticeship brings you much joy,” she told Allochka.
“It will!” declared Allochka, and soon she, Lisochka, and their mothers were setting off, Allochka chattering nonstop about what her apprenticeship with Aunty Vera and her life in Lesnograd would be like.
“That was a kind thing,” Oleg told Dasha. “And a clever thing. Like something your mother would have done. Running off was good for you, I can see.”
Dasha wanted to tell him “I told you so,” but she bit back the words and only smiled instead, and they all finished their gummy, tasteless wheat porridge and retired to the chambers that Aunty Liza gave to them without any further incidents or disagreement.
***
“Where did you go?” Susanna and Svetochka demanded together, as soon as they had all reached the chamber that Dasha had shared with Lisochka and Allochka the night before, and that she was now to share with Susanna and Svetochka this morning. “You just disappeared!” said Susanna, her eyes big with wonder, excitement, and a tinge of fear. “You just went into the shadows and disappeared!”
“The domoviye took me,” Dasha told them.
“But how?!” said Susanna, as Svetochka said, “Everyone was so scared!” Dasha couldn’t tell if she included herself in that number, or if the resentment on her face told the truer story.
“I’m sorry everyone was scared,” Dasha said. “I wasn’t in any danger. I don’t know how. I don’t know anything about the domoviye’s magic.”
“If you do not know, you do not know whether you were in any danger,” Susanna said severely.
“Yes, but…” Dasha couldn’t think of a convincing argument to counter that, and so chose to say nothing at all.
“An’ then a domovaya came,” Svetochka shuddered, “an’ said you’d run away again, an’ then…” She gulped.
“Oleg Svetoslavovich was very unhappy,” Susanna finished for her.
Svetochka nodded emphatically. The resentment that Dasha had quelled before came rising back up acridly into her throat, burning her mouth and making her want to stamp her feet and shout. What right did he have to be unhappy over anything she said or did, or anything that happened to her? None! Everything he had ever done for her had been entirely and only at his own convenience! He had never sacrificed anything for her good, never put her first, never worried—at least not enough to make any changes in his behavior—about what the effects of what he was doing might have on her. This sudden concern of his over her safety was the first time he had, to her knowledge, ever cared, really cared, in the slightest about her. And it was also the only time he had been able to do something for her that was easy for him. This whole journey with her was the first time he was doing something for her, and it was because it was easy for him! Riding around, chasing after her down the road—all that was easy for him. He might not think so, he might argue about the hardships and dangers of the road, but he didn’t really fear those things, did he, and with good reason! All they could do was mildly inconvenience him for a brief time, and then it would be over and he would off alone again, not having to worry about her and put her first any more. All he had ever given was what he thought he could spare her, not what she really needed, and all this, even his rage and terror over her disappearance, was just the same thing once again. It was what he thought he could give without losing anything he valued, not what she desperately needed from him, which was…what?
Maybe he did give me what I really needed, even if it wasn’t what I thought I needed from him, she thought. I’m glad he found me, but I could have made it to Lesnograd even without him. He never gave me what I thought I needed from him, and now I don’t need him to hold my hand and shadow me every step of the way. He only ever gave me what he thought he could give me, and it was enough because it wasn’t. And maybe it was all he could give me, after all. Just like Baba Sofroniya told me, a woman with only one coin in her purse can’t give you two, even if you’re starving. Maybe this is his one coin, and it’s all he’ll ever be able to give me, and all the begging and pleading and whining in the world won’t turn it into two. Only I can do that. Only I can take his one little coin and turn it into enough to feed us all.
“I’m sorry you all had to worry on my account,” Dasha told them. “But it all worked out for the best, didn’t it? And I’m sure you’re very tired now. Let’s rest.”
“You can’t be tired,” said Svetochka. “You weren’t riding all night!”
“My companions were very determined to prevent any of us from having a proper rest,” Dasha told her. Which did not seem to impress Svetochka, but she agreed to lie down and rest anyway, and fell asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow.
***
Oleg came and knocked on their door at midday, waking up Svetochka and Susanna and releasing Dasha from her captivity next to them. She had not been able to sleep, even tired as she was, but she hadn’t wanted to risk waking them by rustling around, and she couldn’t think of anything else to do anyway, so she had been lying there watching the shadows move across the chamber.
“I’ve been out to the stable and seen your new purchase,” Oleg told her as soon as she opened the door. “I think she’s even worse than my first horse, if such a thing is possible. We should leave her here. She’ll just slow us down on the road.”
“No!” said Dasha, slipping past him through the door and coming out into the corridor. “We’re not leaving Pyatnyshki!”
“It would be kinder to leave her behind.”
“Why?” asked Dasha. “How? What will happen to her if we leave her here that will be better than taking her with us?”
“It’s still a long road to Lesnograd…” began Oleg. Dasha could see that he didn’t want to take Pyatnyshki with them, and was looking for a reason not to, and had leapt on the argument that leaving her behind would be the kinder thing to do. It was an excellent excuse for doing all kinds of terrible things to defenseless creatures. It made so much sense! There were always good explanations for why it was right and true.
“And what will she do if she’s left here?” Dasha pressed him. “Live out the rest of her life in ease and comfort?”
“Well…”
“She’ll either be worked to death, or killed outright, won’t she?” said Dasha.
“Not necessarily…”
“But probably,” said Dasha. “We have to take her with us. Otherwise we’re just…liars.”
“How does not taking her with us make us liars?” asked Oleg, looking as if he were trying not to laugh at her, except that he was also annoyed with her, and quite possibly already regretting having found her.
“I don’t know,” said Dasha. “Yet,” she added, when he opened his mouth to argue with her, or laugh at her, about that. “I just know that it would. It would make us liars about who we claim to be. I just know. You told me to change the game instead of trying to win it, and this is how I need to do that, I know that, even if I don’t know why.”
Oleg looked as if he very much wanted to argue with her, or point out the folly of her words, or maybe storm off and never come back, but after clenching his jaw and swallowing hard, he said, calmly enough, “Very well. It’ll mean an extra day on the road, though. After we’ve already lost at least a week with all this…foolishness with Fedya and with…everything else. Fedya, well, you may’ve been right, we couldn’t leave him to his own devices, because the gods alone know what would’ve happened to him on his own—he almost left the sanctuary, you know, he almost left with us, but then changed his mind at the last moment and decided to stay, the little fool, and now, well, his fate’s in the hands of the gods, and…what was I trying to say? Why do you keep picking up these broken creatures, and trying to save them when they can’t be saved? It’ll drive you mad and break your heart, and for what? For them to bite your hands and slow you down? You may’ve saved Fedya from…whatever would’ve befallen him on the road, but he did nothing for you but drive you mad, and now he’s just got something else even worse ahead of him than whatever he would have had without you. And if you take Pyatnyshki with you, all you’ll do is wear her out even more than she’s already worn down, slow down the rest of us, and for what? So that her aching bones might have a few more days at pasture?”
“I know you think I’m stupid and crazy,” Dasha told him.
“I didn’t…”
“You did,” Dasha interrupted him. “Even if you didn’t realize that was what you were doing, you certainly thought it, and it came out in your words even if you didn’t mean for it to. I know you did. I could see it in your eyes. I could see it in my eyes. But I realized that you’re right. I do have to change the game, instead of just trying to win it. And the only way I think I can do it is by doing what the visions tell me, instead of what the people standing next to me tell me. Even if it doesn’t make sense. I’m sorry for any inconvenience it causes you, but you were right, you see. It’s something I have to do.”
