by E. P. Clark
“Tales,” Dasha told him. “Tales full of adventure and excitement.”
“I’ll send some up, then.”
“Thank you,” said Dasha.
He gave her a sideways look as he rose, as if he knew that she wasn’t as grateful as she was pretending to be, but, satisfied that she wasn’t planning to make another attempt at escape, he slipped out of the room, closing and bolting the door softly behind him.
Dasha turned and surveyed the tray of food. There was borshch with dried mushrooms, and two pies, one with apples and one with cherry jam, still warm from the oven, and kefir. She made a face at the kefir and pushed it away from her, but made herself eat the rest of the food. She was very hungry, and whoever had done this had included her favorite things. She wondered if it had been Aunty Olga, or maybe that nice cook, Sonya. It was all very tasty, and she was surprised at how much better she felt after eating it. She carried the empty tray over to the door, and knocked on it.
“What is it?” Alik called.
“I’m done,” she told him. “I ate all the food.”
“Good girl. Leave the tray by the door, and I’ll come get it.”
That was irritating, and it was even more irritating when it became apparent that he was waiting for her to move away from the door before opening it. Dasha stalked over to the bed and sat down on it, and told herself not to shout at him when he promptly unlocked the door and came in.
“I brought you a book,” he told her. “Look: here it is. It’s…” He squinted at it. “I don’t know, to be honest.” He set it down on the table and then went back over to the door and picked up the tray.
“You didn’t drink your kefir,” he told her. “You should drink it. It’s good for you.”
“I don’t like it,” she told him. “I’ve always hated it, just like I told you before.”
“It’s good for health.”
“Am I going to be locked up and told what to eat?” she demanded. “I suppose it wouldn’t be any different than usual, though! Everyone’s always telling me what I should eat, how I should dress, how I should sit and stand…what’s next? Are you going to tell me how to breathe?!”
“No,” he said. He had the grace to look ashamed. “If you don’t like the kefir, I’ll tell them not to bring you any next time. Would you prefer kvas? Or,” he grinned at her, “beer?”
“Kvas, please,” she told him, trying not to smile back. All he had to do was be the tiniest bit nice to her, and she was willing to forgive him for keeping her locked up! And the worst thing was that she knew it wouldn’t be just him. If Aunty Olga, or Oleg, or even Vladya, came in looking sad and apologetic, and explained why they needed to do this for their own peace of mind, she would forgive them, and feel bad about causing them so much trouble.
“Alik,” she called, as he turned to go.
“Yes, Tsarinovna?”
“What would you do?” she asked. “If you were me?”
“If I were you?”
“Yes. What would you do if you were me? If you’d been locked in here because your aunt thought you had the falling sickness. What would you do?”
“That…that’s different, Tsarinovna.”
“Why?”
“Because…because I’m not you, Tsarinovna. No one cares what happens to me.”
“Your mother seems to care.”
“Yes, well…that’s different too. If something were to happen to me, she’d be sad.” He grimaced. “More than sad. But it wouldn’t matter to anyone else. The world would go on without me just fine. But if you were to have a fit and fall down the stairs and break your neck—not that that’s going to happen,” he said, seeing her face. “It isn’t, is it? You weren’t having a vision of that, were you?”
“Not a true one,” she told him. “Just one warning me that it could happen, I think.” She shuddered. “But it still felt awful.”
“Do you feel them, then, Tsarinovna?” he asked. “The visions? I thought you just saw them.”
“No, I feel them too. Almost like they’re actually happening to me. Sometimes I can’t tell the difference.”
“Oh. That’s…that’s really bad, Tsarinovna. I thought…I didn’t think it was like that.” He looked more upset than she would have expected, like he could hardly bear the thought of her feeling the visions as well as seeing them. “But…but you see, hurting like you do, and it could come on you at any moment, well…you shouldn’t be out and about, running around, putting yourself in danger. And if something did happen to you, well, what then? Your mother isn’t going to have another daughter, and there aren’t a lot of other Zerkalitsy.”
“Maybe there’s someone out there who would be a better Tsarina than me,” Dasha said. “Maybe the gods need to get rid of me so that she can step in.”
“Don’t say that, don’t say that, not even in jest, Tsarinovna. And no. There isn’t anyone out there who would be any better. And even if there were, which there isn’t, it wouldn’t matter, it wouldn’t be enough to make up for all the troubles that losing you would cause. Zem’ would fall into chaos, and just when we’ve got barbarians stumbling around on our lands, running away from their own problems, and an army massing at our borders.” He grinned at her. “You didn’t think I listened, did you?” he asked. “You didn’t think I paid attention to that kind of thing?”
“I didn’t think about it at all, to be honest,” Dasha told him. “But even so. What would you do? If you were me, what would you do?”
“Why, I’d…I don’t know,” he said. “I just don’t know. But it doesn’t matter. You don’t need to do what I’d do. You need to do what you’d do. Which is what’s best for Zem’, and we both know that, don’t we?”
“I suppose,” said Dasha.
“‘Course we do! It’s what you’re going to do, because you can’t do anything else. So don’t worry about what anyone else would do.”
“I suppose that makes sense,” said Dasha.
“‘Course it does! So don’t worry about it any more. Read your book, and call for me if you need anything. Actually, call for Mitya: he’ll be coming to relieve me soon. But I’ll be back tomorrow morning. And they’ll bring in a healer for you, and like as not you’ll be out of here before you know it.”
“I don’t think so,” said Dasha, but Alik bowed and left the room as if he hadn’t heard her.
***
Even with just the one high window, it was light in the chamber until very late in the evening. Dasha tossed and turned on her bed, telling herself it was because of the lack of darkness, not because she was too angry and scared to sleep. It was not until the room filled with shadows that her heart slowed and her head grew heavy enough to slip into something that was sort of like sleep.
She was running through the tall grass. The bear, the bear from the market that morning, was loping along at her side. Something was pursuing them, something with heavy footsteps and heavier breathing. The grass was grabbing at Dasha’s gown, which seemed to grow longer and heavier with each step, till she stumbled on the hem as it wound around her feet, and went down onto her knees.
“Get up!” she ordered herself, but her legs wouldn’t work, and every time she tried to rise, one of her legs would collapse, and when she would try to stand on the other, it would collapse too, till she was down on her hands and knees. She tried to crawl along, but she was tired, so tired that she just wanted to curl up and close her eyes and never open them again, even though the thing pursuing them was right behind them, it was right behind them, right behind them…her hand slipped out from under her, and she was sliding, tumbling, falling, falling until she hit the water with a splash.
I’ve fallen into the river, she thought. Let the river take me. Whatever had been pursuing her seemed to have been stopped by the river bank. But her gown, a long heavy ceremonial gown, had fallen into the river with her.
I’m wet through, she thought. I’ll drown soon. She looked off to her side. The bear was swimming next to her, looking at
her with those sad, sad eyes that were not human and yet told a tale of suffering that she could all too easily comprehend, even though she told herself she could not. The weight of the gown was pulling her legs down under the water, and then her arms, until only her face was above the surface.
“Help me,” she said to the bear. “I’m drowning.”
The bear reached out an emaciated paw, and tried to draw her up, but he gripped her by the face, crushing her head and cutting off her air even as he tried to pull her to safety. She struggled against him, but he was struggling to stay afloat himself, and had no attention to spare for her.
I’m drowning, she thought, as the waters closed over her face. I’m drowning and I won’t be able to save myself, or anyone else.
Something touched her leg. Something gripped her ankle hard, and jerked upwards. She was flung out of the water, and flew high into the air, higher and higher, so that she could see the river far below her, and the hay-filled field, and the ravine off in the distance, and the forest spreading out on the horizon, and then she was facing up, and the stars loomed above her, so close it felt as if she could touch them, she was going to crash into them, she was going to crash into them and burn…
Dasha jerked awake. Something was touching her leg. She flung herself off the bed, crashing onto the floor, not really registering the pain as she bounced off the ground and onto all fours like a cat.
“Good evening, Tsarinovna,” said a domovaya. She was just the right height to look Dasha directly in the eyes.
Dasha jumped to her feet. The pain from her fall was starting to make itself known. She clutched at her elbow and demanded, backing away until she ran into the wall, “What do you want?”
“To help you, Tsarinovna.”
“You already tried that. It didn’t work out so well for either of us.”
“We are aware of that, Tsarinovna. But we want to try again. We want to give you a gift.”
“And what do you want in return?”
“Nothing, Tsarinovna. That is the nature of gifts. We are going to give this to you, for you to take as you will.”
“What is it?”
“You want to do something to help those who need it, do you not? But you don’t know how.”
Dasha stared at the domovaya, and then nodded hesitantly.
“We will help you. We will do it for you. If you come with me.”
“For how long?” Dasha asked.
“Just for a single night, Tsarinovna, just for a single night. Come.” The domovaya stretched out her hand. After a moment, Dasha reached out and took it.
Chapter Twelve
When they stepped out of the shadows, they had arrived in a barn. In the half-light of midnight Dasha could see, and more importantly, smell, the horses in the stalls at one end of the building, the cows at the other, and the bear off in the corner, locked in a stall barely any bigger than his cage.
“This is what you’re going to do for me?” Dasha whispered. “Help me free the bear? But…what are we going to do with him then?”
“Do with him? Why, set him free, Tsarinovna.”
“But we can’t just set him free,” Dasha objected, her whisper coming out with such intensity it brought spit out with it. “Look at him! He’ll never survive on his own, out in the woods.”
“Most bears don’t, Tsarinovna. In fact, none of them do. All of them die in the end.”
“You know what I mean!”
“Oh, very well, Tsarinovna. We will take care of him. We will take him as one of our own.”
“A domovaya?” asked Dasha doubtfully.
The domovaya gave her a gentle smack on the thigh. “Don’t be a fool, Tsarinovna! A servant of the gods. Like your father. He will be taken as a servant of the gods, and live many lifetimes longer than an ordinary bear. His misfortune shall be turned into great good fortune.”
“Oh.” Dasha couldn’t help but doubt that that would be as great a good fortune as the domovaya claimed, but it was likely to be better than what he had now. “How?” she whispered.
“We take him away from here, Tsarinovna. The city walls are not far. We lead him out of here to the forest. The gods will do the rest.”
This sounded more difficult to Dasha than the domovaya was making it out to be, but she made her way in the half-light, now almost darkness, over to the bear’s stall. He had been sitting there, looking at her with eyes that, despite the dullness of abuse that had filmed them over, gleamed with a non-human intelligence as they gazed at her.
“How are we going to lead him?” Dasha whispered. Up this close, he looked enormous, even though for a bear he was small and skinny. Sorry as she was for him, she was also afraid. The stall bars suddenly struck her as flimsy pieces of wood, easily knocked aside by something as determined as an angry animal. “He’s not a horse. He’s a bear. I can’t just slip a halter on him and lead him around as I please.”
“You can’t do that with a horse, either, Tsarinovna,” said the domovaya. “The horse has to want to go with you.”
“Horses aren’t as wild as bears,” Dasha argued.
“Are you afraid, Tsarinovna? Of this creature you’re so determined to save?”
“Yes.”
“Then why are you determined to save him? Wouldn’t you be better off just leaving him, if he’s really so dangerous?”
“This isn’t about me,” said Dasha. “This is about him.” Saying it made her feel a little braver. Even so, she asked, “Don’t you have some kind of magic that would help?”
“Perhaps,” said the domovaya. “But the better question would be, don’t you have some kind of magic that would help?”
“I don’t. Unfortunately.”
“Are you sure, Tsarinovna?”
Dasha was about to say something about how her magic was useless, especially in situations such as this, especially since she didn’t really know how to use it, and how anyone else would be better suited to do this than she was, and so on and so forth, but instead she shut her mouth and studied the bear. He studied her back with that same non-human intelligence in his eyes. He certainly didn’t look threatening, or as if he had any intention of attacking her, or running off, or doing anything else dangerous.
“There has to be feed around here somewhere,” she said. She turned away from the bear and went over to investigate the other corner of the barn, the one which housed no animals. As she had guessed, there was a sack of grain and a couple of—excellent find!—dried-up old apples. She filled her pockets with the grain and took one of the apples back over to where the bear was sitting, waiting for her patiently.
“I’m going to come into your stall,” she told him. He continued to sit there patiently. She opened the stall door and then stepped, one foot at a time, waiting to see if he made any move, into the stall with him. He looked at her and then sniffed with interest at the apple, making the chain that was attached to his nose-ring clink.
“Here you go,” she told him, holding out the apple. A mouth large enough to swallow her whole head swung around and opened, revealing giant teeth, before a large tongue delicately lifted the apple out of her hand.
“Good boy,” she told him, as he chewed on the apple. She examined the chain. It was attached to a ring set into the stall wall, and, she was unhappy to see, locked shut with a crude heavy padlock.
“That is very inconvenient,” she told the bear. “And wrong! What if there were a fire?”
The bear finished eating his apple and looked with faint glimmerings of hope at her for another one.
“I’m sorry,” she told him. “I only brought the one. But you can have more when we get out of here.” She leaned out of the stall and hissed to the domovaya, “The chain’s locked to the wall, and there’s no key!”
“Probably in the pockets of his master,” said the domovaya.
“Well, now what do we do?!”
“I don’t know,” the domovaya told her, with maddening calm. “What do we do?”
Dasha m
ade a couple of attempts at pulling the bolt free from the stall wall, and breaking the lock and the chain, but the only thing she got for her pains was sore hands. She examined the ring in the bear’s nose, but, while it looked painful and certainly needed to be removed, she had no way of doing it. “We need the key,” she said. “But I don’t know how to get it.”
“Think of something,” the domovaya told her.
The obvious solution was to find the man who had been keeping the bear captive, and take the key from him. How she was going to do that, however, Dasha had no idea. She didn’t even know where he was. And if she could find him, how was she going to take the key from him? Wrestle him to the ground and take it from him by main force? Unlikely. And what if he didn’t have it on him, and refused to tell her where it was, what then? Torture him? Even more unlikely.
“I don’t even know where to start,” Dasha said. “I don’t even know where—”
“What’s going on?” A head peered down at them from the gloom of the hayloft. “Hey! What are you doing with my bear!” The rest of the body swung into view, and then dropped down from the loft, eschewing the use of the ladder. “What are you doing?!” demanded the man, coming over to them. “Leave him alone! Who are you? Why, it’s—it’s you!” He came up to Dasha and shook a finger in her face. “That girl from the market this morning, the halfwit with the falling sickness. What are you doing here?! Get out of here before you cause any more trouble! Get out of here before you hurt yourself!” He waved his arms at her as if shooing geese.
“I’m…” Dasha’s tongue felt completely stuck, and her throat refused to let the words come out. What was she going to say, anyway? That she was rescuing his bear from him? That would not go well at all.
“Get out, get out of here!” the man was saying, still waving his arms at her. “Go, go, go! By all the gods, you should be locked up! Get out, get out, get out!” When she continued to stand there in silent confusion, he gave her a hard push, making her stumble back against the stall door.
The crack of her head against the wood of the wall snapped Dasha out of her stupor. When he raised his hand to grab her, or maybe hit her again, she lashed out, smacking him so hard on the cheek that he reeled back and almost went down. His shirt jingled as he moved.
