The Breathing Sea II - Drowning

by E. P. Clark

  “That can’t be right,” objected Oleg. “She can hardly go for half a day without falling into a fit.”

  “I can only say what I sense, Oleg Svetoslavovich. Perhaps things will change. The falling sickness is unpredictable. I will sit with her tonight, and watch over her. If she has another fit, I will be here to observe it.”

  “I don’t need anyone to sit with me!” Dasha protested. “I’m fine! And I’m not a little child.”

  “Of course not, Tsarinovna, of course not,” said Sister Galina, a little too smoothly. “But I always sit with any of the sisters after they’ve had a nasty knock on the head, like you’ve had. First we’ll give you some beef broth—”

  “Not beef broth,” Dasha interrupted.

  Sister Galina began to frown again. “Now is not the time to be finicky, Tsarinovna,” she said.

  “I can’t, remember?” Dasha said. “I can’t harm any living thing. I just swore it! I can’t go breaking my oath while it’s still warm on my lips!”

  Dasha thought for one awful moment that Sister Galina was going to argue, and she was going to have to go through all the unpleasantness she always did over this, but then Sister Galina’s face smoothed out, and she said, “Of course, Tsarinovna. I will tell them to bring you green soup instead.”

  “Thank you,” Dasha said. It was very hard not to add, “And why couldn’t everyone have been that nice to me before?” but she bit her lip and held her tongue.

  The green soup, which today was made of nettles and sorrel, was brought out, and everyone watched like hawks while Dasha ate it. When she pointed out that she’d been eating on her own since she could hold a spoon, she was told by everyone there that they had to be sure she hadn’t had her head scrambled by the blow she’d taken, Sister Galina’s examination both outside and in notwithstanding. It was not until she was finished, and Sister Galina declared herself to be satisfied that she was most likely not in any immediate danger, that the others agreed to leave her to rest, providing Sister Galina sat up with her all night.

  “What are you going to do if I’m ever actually injured?” she asked. “What are you going to do if I ever have a child?”

  “No need to worry about that just now, Tsarinovna,” Vlastomila Serafimiyevna and Sister Galina both told her. Oleg did look very worried at that thought, which gave Dasha some petty satisfaction. Probably the gods’ chosen should not feel petty satisfaction at causing her father worry, but at the moment Dasha was feeling more irked than chosen.

  “We should leave tomorrow,” she said. “In order to be back in Lesnograd in time to leave for Pristanograd.”

  “Are you sure you’re up for the journey?” Oleg asked.

  “Yes!” said Dasha, at the same time as Sister Galina said, “I will examine her in the morning, Oleg Svetoslavovich, and inform you then.”

  “You should inform me,” Dasha told her.

  “Yes-yes, of course, Tsarinovna. That’s what I meant.”

  Dasha was sure that wasn’t what she had meant at all, but after imagining how an argument over that would go, she decided to leave it, and simply made Oleg promise that, if Sister Galina said she was fit to travel in the morning, they would leave for Lesnograd.

  ***

  Dasha slept as well as could be expected, considering that Sister Galina was hovering over her all night, occasionally waking her to make sure that she hadn’t slipped into a permanent sleep. So not very well at all. Her head hardly ached at all, which she suspected might have had something to do with Gray Wolf and Sister Galina’s ministrations, but the rest of her hurt all over, and she desperately wanted to whine and complain and shout at someone, as she had when she really had been a little girl, as everyone around her seemed to think she still was. It was very hard not to make Sister Galina the target of her ire, but, with patience that astonished her, even if no one else seemed to notice or care, Dasha refrained from lashing out at her, and even managed to smile and chat politely when Sister Galina checked Dasha’s head yet again, before standing over her and insisting that she eat an enormous bowl of oat porridge. Dasha generally liked oat porridge just fine, but this was a very large bowl, topped with only a very small amount of jam, and choking down the second half of it proved to be quite a trial.

  “It’s not even as if I’m so terribly skinny,” she said (which may have counted as a complaint, but she decided to pretend that it didn’t, and to continue to give herself credit for astonishing patience). “Most other girls are much thinner than I am, and they all manage to survive just fine. I even went a whole day without eating—twice!—and nothing terrible happened to me. And right now I’m hungry—well, I was hungry; I’m not any more—so I think I can be trusted to eat enough.”

  Sister Galina smiled an irritatingly agreeable smile, and murmured some irritatingly agreeable words, something about how Dasha was just fine, while still insisting that Dasha finish every last spoonful of porridge. Which she did, feeling slightly sick. She wanted to complain some more about that, but the words sounded ungrateful before they even came out of her mouth, especially once she considered that the sanctuary did not have large food stores, and the sisters might go hungry come winter. So she stifled her complaints and thanked Sister Galina instead. Then she was allowed—finally!—to return to her cell, where she found her washed and dried clothes waiting for her. She was so full that the effort of changing from her borrowed robe—goodbye scratchy wool!—into her sarafan, shirt, and kaftan left her slightly breathless, but she thought it best not to complain about that to anyone either. Like as not they would turn it into an excuse to keep her here longer, and grateful as she was to the sisters and Vlastomila Serafimiyevna, something was telling her, ever more urgently, that she needed to return to Lesnograd. The sanctuary was pleasant, and she could think of and agree with all kinds of reasons for her to stay there, first and foremost being training in her gifts, but she knew she would have to leave one day or another, and today felt like that day.

  All the sisters had turned out to see her off. Sister Yeseniya was even crying a little bit, which made Dasha feel embarrassingly like crying herself. She tried to cover it up by embracing her, which threw Sister Yeseniya into such a state of shock that she forgot all about crying, so Dasha counted that as a success.

  “Take care of Pyatnyshki,” she said to her.

  “Of course, Tsarinovna, of course! I’ll care for her like she was my own daughter, even though she’s probably old enough to be my mother.” This made them both laugh, and Sister Yeseniya seemed quite cheerful by the time Dasha stepped away from her.

  “Thank you for taking me in,” she told Vlastomila Serafimiyevna. “And for trying to train me. I’m sorry I’ll be leaving when there is still so much for me to learn. Perhaps I’ll be able to come back some day.”

  “You will always be welcome, Tsarinovna, of course, but just because you leave us does not mean your training has to be interrupted. When you are back in Lesnograd, seek out Sister Asya. She used to be part of this sanctuary, but she returned to the world to serve as a priestess. She had a strong gift herself, and was a skilled teacher. She might be willing to train you.”

  “I’ll be leaving Lesnograd almost as soon as I arrive,” Dasha pointed out.

  “You may be able to persuade her to accompany you, Tsarinovna.” Vlastomila Serafimiyevna winked at her. “She never could stand to stay in one place for long, Tsarinovna, which is why she didn’t last long with us. Of course, she could be off journeying already, but if she’s not, she’ll be on Priestess Street, where all the sanctuaries house their priestesses. Sister Asya. She’ll serve you well.”

  “Thank you,” Dasha said, and then it was time to swing herself up on Poloska’s back, and let Vlastomila Serafimiyevna walk her out the front gates, where, once the sisters had pulled them open, Oleg, Mitya, and Alik were waiting for her.

  “You could probably leave the gates open now,” Dasha said. “In fact, you probably should.”

  “True enough, Tsarinovna. Alt
hough…no one said anything about the deer not eating us out of house and home. I think we might all be a little happier and a little safer if we just leave the gates closed until the garden is harvested. A good journey to you, Tsarinovna, and to all of you.” She bowed to all of them in turn, and then stepped back inside the sanctuary. A moment later, the gates were dragged shut again, hiding the sanctuary and everyone in it.

  ***

  The first thing Dasha had to do upon setting off was convince Oleg and the others that she really was fine, and in no danger from the all-day ride to Lesnograd.

  “Of course, of course,” said Oleg. “You never were in any danger at all, just as I always said. And,” he grinned, “it’ll be faster this time, without Pyatnyshki to hold us back. We might get there in half a day, or not much more. I don’t know what you saw in that horse, Dasha…”

  “She was the only horse I could get,” said Dasha, for what seemed like the hundredth time. Why did everyone like to make fun of Pyatnyshki? All she’d ever done was be gentle and faithful, as best she could after a long hard life of work and, most likely, abuse. “And she was a sweet thing. I wish we didn’t have to leave her behind.”

  “She’ll have a good life in the sanctuary,” said Oleg, his voice softening. “And you’ll have other horses.”

  “You can’t trade one horse for another,” Dasha said. “I mean: you can’t trade one life for another. Each one is special.”

  “So it is,” said Oleg, giving her a funny look.

  “What?” Dasha asked.

  He shook his head. “Nothing. It’s just—that’s something your mother said. She told me of it later, after you were born. It’s…never mind.”

  “I’m sure I’ve heard her say it, too. And it’s true! No doubt I’ll have many horses in my life, but that doesn’t mean I won’t miss Pyatnyshki.” This melancholy line of thought was threatening to make Dasha teary-eyed again, so she said, with determined cheerfulness, “The weather looks fine today.”

  “So it does,” said Oleg, with equally determined cheerfulness.

  And in truth the weather was very fine. A clear blue sky filled the thin strip above them, allowing the sun to shine down on them, warming them without being too hot, and a gentle breeze, cool without being too cold, ruffled the needles of the trees on either side of them. Dasha could sense small clouds off in the distance, but nothing that threatened rain. She also felt a pull, much stronger than ever before, off to the West.

  “What’s West of us?” she asked.

  “West of us?” Oleg frowned. “The prayer wood extends at least a day’s ride in that direction, and then beyond that there’s a little village, and then more little settlements here and there, but mostly it’s woods. Hundreds of versts of woods.”

  “Oh,” said Dasha.

  “Of course, if you went far enough, you’d end up in Naberezhnoye, or thereabouts, and then you have the sea.”

  “Oh!” said Dasha. “Have you been to it?” she asked.

  “The sea? I’ve been to the coast many times. I’ve never actually sailed on the sea. The forest is my home, and even if I wanted to leave it, I don’t know that I could. But the sea…” He shuddered. “Some love it,” he said. “The mother of all things, they say. And when I stand on the shore, and smell the salt, and hear the waves, and the crying of the birds, I…I could see myself standing on the deck of a boat, sailing, sailing off to…where? I don’t know. There are other lands beyond ours—Seumi is just beyond our shores, they say; if you set sail from Naberezhnoye or Pristanograd you would be in Seumi in no more than a few days, quicker than you’d be in Krasnograd by far—but whenever I think of myself sailing to them, I never see that far. It’s as if my boat is swallowed up by some great dark abyss, and I never reach that far shore. So I don’t think I’m meant to. I think I’m meant to stay right here. But you—well, now is not the time to travel beyond our borders, and there isn’t much to see beyond them anyway, or so they say. Nothing but the wretched villages of Western barbarians. But you could sail on the water, perhaps, if you wanted to. From Pristanograd to Naberezhnoye, for instance.”

  “Do you think we could do that this summer?” asked Dasha eagerly.

  “That keen to leave Pristanograd already? You haven’t even set foot in it!”

  “I know. But…there’s so much to see! Every time I find out about something to do or see, I find out about something else as well, and I want to do it all! And I want to see the sea, and swim in it, and sail on it, and…do whatever else you can do there.”

  “Sailing might be possible, although it’s dangerous, more dangerous than sailing on a river, or so they say,” said Oleg. “And you could swim in the sea if you wanted to, but it’s salty. It’s not like swimming in our lakes and rivers. It’s poison to drink, not that you’d want to—I tasted it once, and once was enough!—and it’ll leave you sticky and dirty, not clean like a dip in a lake will.”

  “I suppose that doesn’t sound very nice,” said Dasha, although she still wanted to try swimming in it. Perhaps that was why she’d never enjoyed swimming? Because she was meant to swim in the sea, not little ponds and streams? Perhaps Oleg was wrong about the sea water being sticky to the touch and poison to drink? Perhaps for her it wouldn’t be like that? Perhaps…

  “There’s that prayer tree,” said Alik, interrupting her thoughts. “The one we stopped at before. My, but we’ve come a long way already! Do you want to stop and pray again, Tsarinovna?”

  Dasha looked at the tree. The ribbons moved on it like living things, and she had the feeling that it was looking back at her. But there was no prickling or tingling spreading across her body, no sense that she was about to fall into a fit. She could look at the tree, and it could look back at her, with no danger of either of them attacking each other. It felt like looking at a sister, not a foe.

  “No,” she said. “I’ve already done plenty of praying. I’m sure the gods will speak to me, no matter where I am. Let’s keep going.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  They arrived in Lesnograd, just as Oleg had predicted, in early afternoon, as if the fifty versts they had covered had been half that distance.

  “Tfoo!” said Oleg, as they drew close. “You can always smell a city from ten versts off!”

  Dasha had to agree. Lesnograd certainly stank. She wondered if Krasnograd smelled as bad. No doubt it smelled worse. Was this what returning there would be like? An assault on the senses, telling her to flee and stay away? Or would she get used to it, as she must have been used to it her entire childhood? Both thoughts were melancholy.

  “Can we go to Priestess Street and look for Sister Asya?” she asked.

  “I will go to Priestess Street and look for Sister Asya after I’ve brought you back to the kremlin,” Oleg told her.

  “But…”

  “No! You need rest!”

  “I haven’t had a fit all day,” Dasha objected. “The falling sickness must be gone, if I ever had it at all. And you were the one who said I was fine and I’d never been that sick to begin with!”

  “You haven’t had a fit yet. It’s not yet midafternoon. You’ve had several hard days, gotten hit on the head, and you just rode fifty versts. I’m taking you back to the kremlin, where Apraksiya Bozhenovna will examine you, and then you will rest. No arguments!”

  “Is everyone going to order me around like this when I’m a woman grown, and Tsarina?” Dasha asked. She tried to make it sound like a joke, but she was too irked for it to actually sound funny.

  “I will. I can’t speak for others.” He smiled at her. “It’s because we care, you know that.”

  “You should show your caring in a less irritating way,” she said, but she said it too quietly for him to hear. When she thought of all the months and years he had been gone throughout all of her childhood, she didn’t want to complain about his current hovering and bossiness, for fear of driving him away, but she didn’t want him telling her what to do all the time either. But how to make him sto
p was presently beyond her, so she let him lead them straight to the kremlin, where they were admitted directly by two cheerful guards, and then taken inside to the Great Hall by two rather less cheerful serving girls.

  “Vladislava Vasilisovna is in a rare mood today,” one of the girls warned them. “There’s been another attack on a village by those foreigners. Vladislava Vasilisovna is threatening to take her army to march on them herself.”

  “I thought her army wasn’t ready,” Dasha said.

  The girl shrugged. “She says it’s ready enough, Tsarinovna, an’ better than nothing at all, which is what she says everyone else is doing. She’s in a rare mood, like I said.”

  “Maybe we should leave her alone,” Oleg suggested to Dasha. “You should rest yourself first before dealing with her. Let her cool down.”

  “I won’t be able to rest till I know what’s going on,” Dasha said. “I’d rather face her now. I can rest later. But you don’t have to come with me if you don’t want to.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Oleg told her, and then they were in the Great Hall.

  It was just as large and dark and overheated as it had been every other time Dasha had been in it. They could at least whitewash the walls, like those of the Krasnograd kremlin, she thought: that would make things less dark and grim in here. And open some of the shutters to air the place out. But maybe Vladya wanted things to be dark and grim, in order to remind people just whom they were dealing with. She examined Vladya, who was sitting on her throne-like chair on the dais. Her face was so displeased Dasha almost turned tail and ran just at the sight.

  She’s not displeased with you! she told herself. You’ve just dealt with wolves, water-maidens, and gods. A single princess should be nothing. She straightened her shoulders and marched over to the dais.

  “Ah, Tsarinovna. So you decided to return to us. Was the sanctuary not to your taste?”