The Breathing Sea II - Drowning

by E. P. Clark

  Just when Dasha was imagining a future in which she had constantly burning hands, and trying to quell the panic that vision engendered, there was a knock at the door. She whirled around and ran to the door, grabbing at the handle before she remembered that, first of all, her hands were on fire, and second of all, the door was locked from the outside anyway.

  “Come in!” she called, letting go of the door handle. She expected it to be scorched and smoking, but it looked the same as it had before, and when she looked down at her hands, there was not so much as a spark jumping from them. She backed away and sat down on the bed as the door was unbolted from the outside, and then pulled open, revealing a small, calm-looking woman, with Aunty Olga looming behind her.

  “This is her,” Aunty Olga informed the other woman, before telling Dasha, “This is her, the healer, Apraksiya Bozhenovna.”

  Dasha nodded cautiously at her from the bed. Apraksiya Bozhenovna didn’t look as if she had any evil designs towards Dasha, but the fact that she was here at Aunty Olga’s behest didn’t endear her to Dasha, either.

  “You may leave us now, Olga Vasilisovna,” Apraksiya Bozhenovna said, coming over to stand beside Dasha at the bed. Standing up she was barely taller than Dasha was sitting down. For a wild moment Dasha saw herself attempting to overpower her and make her escape. With that thought in mind, Dasha examined her carefully. She was wearing a plain gray sarafan and a plain shirt of undyed linen with the sleeves rolled up, revealing strong forearms and clean, capable-looking hands. Even short as she was, Dasha had a sense that she would be difficult to overpower. Her smooth light-brown hair was pulled tightly back in a long braid, and her eyes were large and blue, with just a hint of a slant. Just looking at them made Dasha feel a little better, and she put aside her plans of a violent escape for the moment.

  “I’m not leaving her,” Aunty Olga said. “Not till we know what’s wrong with her.”

  “The examination may go better if we are alone,” Apraksiya Bozhenovna said, looking at Dasha’s face.

  “Nonsense! Dasha has no reason to be shy around me!”

  “Nevertheless, it will be better in private,” said Apraksiya Bozhenovna, and to Dasha’s relief, Aunty Olga, after promising, or maybe threatening, that she would be just outside in the corridor, left.

  “Tell me about your fits, Tsarinovna,” said Apraksiya Bozhenovna, once they were alone. She sat down on the bed next to Dasha, her head barely reaching Dasha’s shoulder, and took one of Dasha’s hands in both of hers. Her touch felt warm and strong, without being confining, and Dasha could feel her pulse, which had been racing like a frightened rabbit, slow down.

  “They come most often when I’m upset,” said Dasha.

  Apraksiya Bozhenovna nodded encouragingly and continued to hold Dasha’s hand. “And how do they feel?” she asked.

  Dasha tried to describe the prickling and tingling, and the building desire to scream and rip off her skin, followed by the sudden jerk and the wonderful relief. Apraksiya Bozhenovna nodded encouragingly the whole time; what she really thought was unclear. Having someone listen so attentively to Dasha’s explanations was a relief, though, even if Dasha couldn’t find the right words to convey exactly what it was like, and kept muddling her sentences and repeating herself, and at one point almost breaking into tears. But Apraksiya Bozhenovna didn’t laugh at her, or tell her she was a hysterical halfwit, instead listening quietly until Dasha was finished.

  “And you say it comes when you are upset?” she asked, when Dasha had fallen silent.

  “Yes, or…I think it’s my gift. My magic, that isn’t proper magic. I can’t control it, and it’s doing this to me.”

  “Perhaps,” said Apraksiya Bozhenovna, stroking Dasha’s hand with her own. Dasha now felt very calm, with no need for a fit at all. Which only showed how on edge she had been, how she had been constantly on the verge of having a fit for days, or perhaps weeks or months, without even realizing it. “May I touch your head?” Apraksiya Bozhenovna asked.

  Dasha nodded. She was unsure what to expect, but Apraksiya Bozhenovna placed one hand on each side of her head, over her temples, and closed her eyes. Dasha thought she might try to squeeze her head, or press on it, or shake it, or something unpleasant, but she simply sat there with her eyes closed for a long time. Her hands felt warm and comforting, and Dasha could feel the threat of a headache, which had been hanging over her, forever it seemed, dissipate like clouds before the sun.

  Eventually Apraksiya Bozhenovna dropped her hands and sat back, opening her eyes. “I cannot say,” she said. “You may have the falling sickness, but then again, you may not.” She frowned. “It could be your gift, as you say. Or it could be both. There’s too much of a muddle in there,” she smiled at Dasha, “to be sure.”

  “How can you tell?” Dasha asked her.

  “I have the gift of healing,” Apraksiya Bozhenovna told her. “The true gift of healing. I can lay my hands on your body, and feel the energy, the life force, flowing through it, and use it to heal you. When people have the falling sickness, the life force in their head doesn’t flow as it should. It’s like a stream that’s had a big tree fall in it, making the water swirl and splash and break its banks.”

  “Can you fix it?” Dasha asked.

  “Sometimes.” Apraksiya Bozhenovna gazed at her steadily. “Just as sometimes you can pull the tree out of the stream. Only sometimes it leaves trenches and holes, or the banks are forever changed where the stream broke them. It’s a tricky thing. And in your case…in your case the life force flowing through your head is swirling and raging, threatening to break free, it’s true, but I cannot tell what is causing it. If you have a gift that you cannot control, it could cause the same thing. Or, as I said, it could be both, or your gift may have brought on the falling sickness, and even once you learn to control the gift, you will still have the falling sickness. I cannot heal you right now,” she told Dasha, stroking her forehead. “Not without endangering your gift. All that force that’s threatening to break the banks of your mind—that is power, and if I smooth it out and syphon it away, you may stop having fits, but you may lose your gift as well. Or you may lose your gift and still have the fits. We wouldn’t know until we tried. So I would advise you to study your gift, learn to control your gift, and if the fits are still troubling you, then we could perhaps attempt to heal you.”

  “I’ve studied and studied, but I haven’t learned how to control my gift yet,” Dasha told her. “Nothing I try seems to work! None of my tutors have been able to help me.”

  “Then perhaps you need new teachers,” said Apraksiya Bozhenovna with a smile. “We have them here in Lesnograd as well. I will speak with Olga Vasilisovna on this matter.” She rose, bringing her head level with Dasha’s. “Be well, Tsarinovna,” she said, giving Dasha’s head one final stroke before leaving her, taking with her much of Dasha’s fear and rage.

  Dasha thought Aunty Olga would come bursting back in as soon as Apraksiya Bozhenovna had left, but in fact there was a long wait, punctuated by the sound of loud voices out in the corridor. Dasha couldn’t make out the words, but it seemed that Apraksiya Bozhenovna and Aunty Olga were arguing. Then there was a long period of silence, before Aunty Olga finally reappeared, her face wearing a false smile that reignited much of the rage that Apraksiya Bozhenovna’s presence had dissipated.

  “Well,” said Aunty Olga. “Apraksiya Bozhenovna says she doesn’t think you’re in any immediate danger.”

  “I told you so!” cried Dasha.

  “But she thinks you could have the…you know, so you should be kept under watch.”

  “That’s not what she told me,” Dasha argued. “She told me I should try to learn to control my gift.”

  “Yes, of course, of course, but under supervision, you know, under supervision. To make sure…well, you know. Where you can always have help on hand if…you know. So you should stay here for a while. Just as you originally planned. And we’ll summon our best sorceresses to train you.”<
br />
  “How long is ‘a while’?” Dasha asked.

  “Oh, you know, probably not too long. A few months, maybe. Just as you’d planned.”

  “No it’s not!” Dasha protested. “We were going to go on to Pristanograd, and maybe even Naberezhnoye! We were going to have a whole grand adventure!”

  “And you can’t have a grand adventure here?” Aunty Olga asked, smiling even more falsely than before. “No, it will be very jolly! You and Vladya can spend so much time together, just like you used to!”

  “What about you?” Dasha asked. “Will you be here, too?”

  “Well, you know…” Aunty Olga looked uncomfortable. “Some of the time, of course. But I’ve got places I need to go to, places I need to visit. And Svetochka needs training! But don’t you worry, you’ll be as snug as a chick under her mother’s wing here, you won’t want for anything while you’re here, and think how much better you’ll feel when you go back home to Krasnograd! And trained up by our Lesnograd sorceresses, no less. What a thing to brag about back home! Now you just stay here and get some rest, and I’ll go write to your mother directly.”

  “I’m not tired,” said Dasha.

  “You were tired enough this morning! You just stay here and get some rest, and I’ll go let the others know what’s happening.”

  “Can I at least go down to the Great Hall and sit with Vladya?” Dasha asked.

  Aunty Olga hemmed and hawed over that, obviously wanting to keep Dasha locked in her bedchamber for the rest of the day, and probably for the rest of her stay in Lesnograd, but Dasha argued that being locked in her bedchamber would actually be more dangerous for her, since there would be no one around her if she should suddenly have a fit, whereas if she were down in the Great Hall with Vladya, she would be surrounded by helpers if she were to suddenly be taken ill, and after several rounds of this, Aunty Olga relented, and escorted her down to the Great Hall, making her promise several times on the way that she wouldn’t attempt to leave the kremlin, or go anywhere by herself.

  Vladya was sitting in the same seat she had been the day before, with a group of people gathered in front of her, just as on the day before. But instead of yesterday’s arrogant certainty, today her face was filled with an expression that Dasha at first couldn’t read, but which, as she settled down beside her, she interpreted as exhaustion and a touch of—not that Vladya would ever admit it—worry.

  “The Tsarinovna,” Vladya announced with a wave of her hand, as Dasha took a seat at her side. There was some surprised shuffling and murmuring in the group of petitioners, followed by deep bows that made Dasha’s back ache just to watch them. “So you decided to drop by and favor us with your wisdom,” Vladya said out of the corner of her mouth. “What do your visions tell you today?”

  “I don’t know,” Dasha told her. She wanted to pour out the whole story, about the bear and the fits and Aunty Olga’s strange behavior, and how it seemed that Dasha might actually be ill, really ill, with little hope of a cure, and would maybe end up spending months, or perhaps the rest of her life, locked up for her own good, but the petitioners were watching her with great interest, while Vladya had turned away from her with no interest at all, so instead she said, “I wished to observe your wisdom and your judgments, sister, and lend you my support if it could aid you.”

  Vladya only sniffed at that, but the petitioners all brightened, and turned to Dasha with even more interest, and the first faint glimmerings of hope, which showed just how hopeless they had been, something Dasha hadn’t even noticed before. To her shame. She smiled at all of them, and was rewarded with a couple of nervous smiles in return.

  “So tell me what you saw, Fanya,” Vladya commanded. “We think Westerners might be raiding,” she said to Dasha.

  “Oh yes? As I told you before, Princess Belova…”

  “Yes-yes, I know, Princess Belova. Right now I need to hear Fanya’s report. So report, Fanya.”

  “Well, it were like I were saying, Vladislava Vasilisovna,” said the oldest person in the group, a short round woman with a plain cap sitting on her gray hair, and cheeks that would have been lined with wrinkles if they hadn’t been filled out from years of good food. “A group of ‘em came in the middle of the night. How they stank! Only men, not a woman to be seen, not even to lead ‘em, an’ wearing nothing but winter furs, though it were already spring. None of ‘em had seen a bathhouse in a month, nor a haircut in a year, I’d reckon, an’ they was half animals. Worse.” She shivered. “Wolves an’ bears, you can understand ‘em, ‘less they’s rabid, they just wanna live like any other creature, but these men…they came running in, screaming like halfwits, waving their axes an’ swords, an’ then they just…” she shook her head, “they just wanted to steal food, all they wanted was food, only we didn’t know, else we woulda helped ‘em, even though they was foreigners an’ barbarians, but a starving creature’s a starving creature, we woulda given ‘em what we could, even though it were spring an’ we didn’t have much ourselves, but they just came in running an’ screaming an’ stealing, they killed two of us, they killed poor Vanya the Fool an’ Danya the Halfwit just ‘cause they didn’t have the wit to get out of their way, an’ they took everything we had, even our seed grain, an’ then they run off. The next week we found a couple of ‘em, well, their bodies, off in the woods. They musta been fighting amongst themselves, well, what can you expect from barbarians, from Westerners, ‘cause it weren’t us as wounded ‘em, we hardly raised a hand against ‘em, we was so shocked, an’ they left those as they’d wounded to die, they musta just left ‘em there for a slow death, you could tell they’d lain there for a day or more, bleeding an’ thirsty—barbarians! An’ a couple of times since we’ve seen more of ‘em, not those same ones, I don’t think, but more Westerners, traveling alone, or two or three of ‘em, slinking through the woods looking half-starved. We talked of going to ‘em, bringing ‘em something so’s they wouldn’t starve to death, not in our woods, but after what happened, well, some of us don’t wanna have nothing to do with ‘em, an’ the rest is scared even if we do wanna help ‘em, an’, well, once my daughters tried to go bring a couple of ‘em something—it were a couple of women, finally, mostly it’s just men but this time it were women an’ we couldn’t just leave ‘em, one of ‘em was with child, the poor thing—my daughters went up to ‘em, but they screamed an’ tried to run away, an’ when my Branya went up to ‘em an’ tried to give ‘em some bread, they hit her, the barbarians, they hit her an’ run off, an’ after that we just leave ‘em, leave ‘em to starve as they will, an’ bury the corpses when we find ‘em.”

  “You are not the first to bring me such tales,” Vladya told the woman. “More and more of these Westerners are coming across our borders and molesting our people.”

  “The mother-raping jackals!” cried Fanya. “Why can’t they stay in their own lands!”

  “My mother said…” began Dasha.

  “Yes-yes, I’m sure she did,” said Vladya, waving her hand at her to silence her. “I’ll send guards to help defend you,” she told Fanya. “And you should also think of arming yourselves. I’ll send arms, extra arms for you to carry yourselves, with the guards. You may leave now.”

  Fanya and the rest of her delegation bowed down to their boot tops and thanked Vladya profusely, before scurrying out of the Great Hall. Their hasty exit was somewhat impeded by the arrival of another group of petitioners, who were trying to push their way in as Fanya and her people were trying to push their way out, which led to a scrum at the door.

  “My mother said…” Dasha began again, as they waited for the scrum to resolve itself and the next group of petitioners to make their way into the Great Hall and over to the dais where they were sitting.

  “Why are you here?” Vladya interrupted her. “Why aren’t you off with the other girls, seeing the sights and having fun?”

  “I had a fit, and…”

  “Are you going to have another fit?” Vladya cut in, looking her up and
down. “If you are: leave. I can’t have you interfering with my work here.”

  “I don’t know,” Dasha told her. “If I could control them, they wouldn’t be fits.”

  “Well then—”

  “I won’t have a fit,” Dasha said, before Vladya could finish. “I’ve already had one today.” Which meant absolutely nothing, but that kind of thinking was the sort that Vladya had always found satisfying, so she nodded as if Dasha had actually made a true statement, and then, losing interest, turned to the new group of petitioners, who had squeezed past the departing group and the door and were now huddled together in front of the dais, looking nervously back and forth between Vladya and Dasha.

  “State your business,” Vladya told them. There were dark circles under her eyes, Dasha noticed, and the beginnings of lines around her mouth when she pinched it closed. And…was that a silver hair, glimmering there at her temple? Was this how Dasha would look in ten summers’ time, tired and worn out, with the first signs of aging already making their way across her face? Ten summers seemed like such a long time away, and yet—Vladya was not that much older than Dasha, not really. In Dasha’s mind, she was still a girl, but she wasn’t, was she? She was already a woman grown, and past her first bloom. Other women her age had already long become mothers and worn themselves out in childbearing and chasing after husbands; Vladya had avoided that fate, spending herself instead on this thankless service to Lesnograd, even though there were others who should have been bearing this burden, who should have been sitting here in judgment and trying to decide what to do about this influx of barbarians, along with all the other petty problems that ruling brought with it every day. And Dasha’s problems would be even greater, because her burden of rule would be even heavier. Vladya was right: she shouldn’t be here. She should run away and spend her days in frivolity and entertainment while she still could.