by E. P. Clark
“I am sorry,” said Dasha again. “I didn’t mean to be born…who I am, but I was. I know that I hurt you, and Lisochka, and Prasha my sister, and Svetochka, and no doubt many others, just by existing. No doubt there are many who wish I’d never been born, and perhaps they are right. But I was born, so you’re stuck with me for the moment.”
“That’s not what I meant…”
“No more than I meant to make you feel bad about yourself and your kremlin. It is over, it is done, and there is no good in either of us mulling over old hurts, and throwing stale accusations at each other. We are sisters, after all, and we must stand by each other’s sides, whether we want to or not. I feel your fear, Vladya, I really do. Do you think that the same fear does not haunt me every day of my existence? Do you think I don’t constantly feel the abyss of failure opening up at my feet? And every day at least one foot slides in and threatens to take the rest of me with it. If I keep walking, I risk falling, and yet if I stand still, I will certainly go over and plunge to the bottom. So we might as well keep walking, Vladya, because what other choice do we have?”
“Run away?” suggested Vladya, with a small smile. “It’s what your father or Aunty Olya would do.”
“True.” Dasha gave her a small smile in return. “But we are not them, are we? And you are not your mother either.”
“Of course not!”
“But you’re afraid of it anyway, aren’t you?”
Vladya looked down at her clasped hands, and pulled them apart with a look of chagrin. “Maybe,” she said. “Sometimes I have nightmares about waking up and realizing that I’ve turned into her in my sleep.”
“But you haven’t, have you? But doing nothing is the fastest way to let it happen.”
Vladya gave a small laugh. “You have a point. Very well. I will tell my mother to consult with our priestesses on how best to help our very poorest people. They are the most likely to know, since many of them visit them every day. Perhaps they can come up with a brilliant plan in my absence.”
“Perhaps,” said Dasha. “It will do no harm to listen to them, at any rate.”
“You don’t know them.” Vladya made a face. “And I’ll tell her about your oath, and have her issue a decree banning the capture of wild animals for sport, and the hunting of wolves. Which is not going to go over well. And they’ll just start holding more dog-fights, you know.”
“So outlaw that as well.”
“Like as not they’ll just start doing something even worse. Forcing children to fight to the death, or something like that.”
“Like as not. But you have to start somewhere. Sometimes healing hurts, but you still have to undergo it.”
“If you say so. Come. I should go find my mother, and tell her of what we’ve decided. You can come with me, since it was all your idea. Let her wail at you for a while.”
Dasha made a face, but followed Vladya out of her chamber and in search of Vasilisa Vasilisovna. Who, just as Vladya had predicted, did wail and lament and generally create an unpleasant scene when Vladya told her what they had decided, but backed down in the end, just as they had expected, and agreed to all of it. Which, Dasha told herself, had to count as a victory, even though it left her feeling quite sick by the end of it.
***
Vasilisa Vasilisovna was still lamenting and moaning when they gathered on the square in front of the kremlin in preparation to set off the next morning, which made the usual chaos of departure even more headache-inducing than normal. Dasha couldn’t help but suspect that Vasilisa Vasilisovna enjoyed complaining, as much as she enjoyed anything, and would find life quite dull without a constant stream of trials and tribulations. Vladya, her teeth set, was being more polite to her than Dasha had ever seen, which was something, at least.
“Where’s Sister Asya?” Oleg came up to her. “Have you seen her?”
Dasha shook her head.
“Well, we’re leaving. We’ll just have to leave without her. Not that I’m surprised. I knew she was a flighty one the moment I set eyes on her.”
“Is that me you’re speaking of, Oleg Svetoslavovich?”
They both turned around. Sister Asya was riding up to them on a mule. She gave them both a bright smile that, Dasha thought, had something of the flirt in it. Which was very wrong for a priestess of her sanctuary. And also made Dasha cringe a little inside at the thought of someone flirting with her father.
“No,” lied Oleg.
“I know you’re lying, Oleg Svetoslavovich.” Sister Asya laughed. “But no mind! You’re right, you know: I am a flighty one. But not about the things that matter. I was never going to let you down. And now here I am!”
“And Nastya?” Dasha asked.
Sister Asya’s face turned sober. “Passed away very peacefully,” she said. “Right at midnight. She never woke up after you left, and just slipped away as peacefully as you like. A good death.”
“Right,” said Oleg, looking uncomfortable with the turn of the conversation, as if he were a half-grown boy, not a man who had seen three generations precede him into the earth. “Are you ready?”
“As ready as I’ll ever be, Oleg Svetoslavovich! Minochka and I don’t need much.”
“I can see.” Oleg eyed the small pack she had slung carelessly behind her saddle. “What if it turns cold on the road?”
“Then we’ll take shelter, Oleg Svetoslavovich! Have a little faith. Besides, it’s Summermoon.”
“That doesn’t mean it can’t snow,” he told her.
She sniffed at the air. “Not any time soon,” she said. “Now stop delaying! You were the one in a hurry to set off.”
“You and Olga should get along famously,” said Oleg.
“Olga Vasilisovna? Fast friends we are already,” said Sister Asya, just as Aunty Olga could be heard bellowing at someone on the other side of the square to stop dawdling and get on his horse before they all died of old age.
“This should be a fun journey,” said Oleg. He caught Dasha’s eye, and winked. She smiled back. Her headache was starting to recede. Oleg was no doubt right that there would be many annoyances, but Dasha felt that they would be easy to weather, now that her father was standing by her side.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
It took till midmorning for their group to organize itself sufficiently to set off, and once they did, their progress through Lesnograd was slow. Along with Dasha, Susanna, Svetochka, Oleg, Mitya, Alik, and Seva, there was also Vladya, Aunty Olga, Dmitry Marusyevich, and twenty members of the army Vladya was raising, whom Vladya had brought along in case they encountered any raiders on the road, and also to show Dasha’s mother. And, of course, Birgit in one cart and Ratibor and Yaromir in another. They were all under the command of a man of middle years by the name of Vadim Sofiyevich, whose primary characteristic seemed to be a determined silence. Not that Dasha could blame him. As soon as they set off, all the other soldiers started singing, each one slightly out of tune with the man next to him, and Aunty Olga, Sister Asya, and Susanna burst into an impassioned discussion of the benefits of horses versus mules, punctuated by the snorting and squealing of Chernets, who had taken a fancy to Minochka, and the braying of Minochka, who did not return his passion in the slightest. Dasha could see a dozen ways in which that could go wrong, all involving someone breaking a leg, but Susanna and Sister Asya jogged along regardless, as if they were not one step away from a month off their feet, or death to their mounts. Dasha thought of going to say something to them, but that would mean getting close to them. She looked down at Poloska’s slender legs. Best not to risk it. Let them deal with their own self-caused problems. Besides, they all seemed like the kind of people who could take risks without suffering the consequences. She stuck close to Oleg instead, with Svetochka just behind them.
A gray sky hung over them as they wound around the muddy streets of Lesnograd, and a chill wind from the West blew droplets of rain into their faces. At least it blew away the ever-present smell of mud, chickens, and privies that
filled Lesnograd, and, as they drew nearer the city gates, brought with it the scent of firs and spruces and pines.
They didn’t pass out of the city till almost midday, which meant they were only a verst or two outside of the city when it was time to stop for a rest and the midday meal. Dasha marveled at how little progress they had made, and how tired and hungry she already was after having traveled only five versts at most.
“That’s traveling in groups for you,” Oleg told her when she complained of it. “It’ll be a bit faster now we’re out of the city, but it’ll take us twice as long to get to Pristanograd as it would if it were just the two”—he looked over at Svetochka, who was hanging back just behind them—“three of us.”
“Maybe we should have just gone by ourselves,” Dasha said.
“It’d be faster, but we’d miss the point of this whole thing, which is for Vladya to show up in force at Pristanograd and lend her council to the Tsarina. So we’ll have to suffer our slow pace as a result. Thank the gods she left Mstislav Mayevich and the rest of her half-trained army behind, or we’d be lucky to make ten versts a day. Let them go hunting for raiders as was planned without us, them that can do anything at all, that is, and pray we don’t have to call on them to defend our border, because by the time they made their way to Pristanograd, the fighting would all be over. Let’s hope we can make it in time ourselves, slow as we look to be doomed to move.”
The thought of all the slow days of travel ahead of her made Dasha want to gnash her teeth in frustration, but before she could complain more about it, Sister Asya, who had apparently settled the issue of horses versus mules to her satisfaction, swooped down on her and said they should spend the afternoon in her training.
“A nice slow ride like this is perfect for what I have in mind,” she announced. “Better even than sitting at home in prayer. Ride by my side when we set off, Tsarinovna, and you will see what I mean.”
Dasha found it hard to summon any enthusiasm for the idea, but after they had finished their meal and let the horses graze, and spent what to her mind was a ridiculously long time gathering themselves back together and mounting up, she dutifully took up a position at Sister Asya’s side. At least Minochka and Poloska had no objection to each other’s company, and Seryozha, as usual, trotted along placidly, not caring who was sharing his road space.
“Can you trot with your eyes closed, Tsarinovna?” Sister Asya asked, once they had set off.
“Of course,” Dasha told her.
“And know which foot you are following as you rise?”
“Of course.”
“Show me.”
So Dasha showed her. Once she had demonstrated to Sister Asya’s satisfaction that she could follow Poloska’s movement with her eyes closed, and know which side she was following as she rose to the trot, and switch sides at will, Sister Asya nodded and said, “That is good. A good start. You can sense that which is beyond your body. Now we will work on clearing your mind, for a priestess cannot work her magic with a cluttered mind.”
“What magic can you work?” Dasha asked.
Sister Asya laughed. A gust of wind lashed their faces with cold raindrops, and made the trees beside the road wave their branches.
“You see?” she said. “A minor thing, nothing more, but it is the one thing I can call on reliably.”
“What good is it?” asked Dasha.
“Good? I don’t know what ‘good’ it is, if you mean can I use it to defeat my enemies and bend others to my will. But I cannot do it without letting go of my self, emptying my mind of my petty selfish little cares, and becoming part of something larger. That is good enough, or enough good, for me.”
“Will I learn to do that?” Dasha asked.
Sister Asya shrugged. “Who can tell? Every woman’s path is different. But you can learn to let go of your self and become part of something larger, and that will allow your gift to flow through you. You may not learn to go casting spells like a sorceress, bending the world to your will, but you will learn to let the world bend you to its will, and that may give you more power than any force of will, if you let it.”
“And curses?” Dasha asked.
Sister Asya gave her a sharp look. “You want to learn to cast curses, Tsarinovna?”
“No! I’m just afraid that…I might do it by accident. I…I may have already done so. I don’t want to do it again, and I’m afraid that if I let this power, my gift, bend me to its will, I’ll do it again without even meaning to. After all, I didn’t mean to the first time. It just happened. It felt just as you described: as if something larger were using me to work its will. Only it wasn’t a good will.”
“That can happen when your mind is not sufficiently clear, and your heart not sufficiently pure, Tsarinovna. You cannot control the power, not if you learn to use it as I will teach you. What you learn to control is yourself. And it is not even control. You make of yourself a suitable vessel, and give the power form as it flows through you. That is the trick: to make yourself the right kind of vessel so that you do not distort the power as you allow it to work through you.”
“I think I might like the way sorceresses do it better,” said Dasha. “It sounds surer and safer.”
“Surer, perhaps, Tsarinovna, but not safer, and often weaker. And have you had any luck in learning to focus your will and harness your magic as they taught you?”
“No. Vlastomila Serafimiyevna was the only one who was able to teach me anything.”
“Then it seems to me it is time for you to try our way, just as she suggested. It is slow, yes, but all things worth having are slow to acquire. So now we will continue to work on clearing your mind. Let yourself feel the movement of Poloska’s feet, and count her strides. When your mind wanders, as it will, let it come back to her strides, and begin again at one.”
Which is what Dasha spent the rest of the afternoon doing. Sister Asya, to her surprise, was calm and patient when it came to teaching, and rode by her side in silence, only occasionally making comments to help Dasha bring her mind back from where it had wandered. Which it did a lot. By the end of the afternoon Dasha couldn’t help but burst out in frustration, “I think this is making my mind wander even more than it does normally!”
“Perhaps, Tsarinovna. Or more likely, it is making you notice how much your mind wanders. Which is no bad thing. It is the nature of the mind to wander. But as long as it is leaping from thought to thought, like a bird in spring flitting from branch to branch, there can be no rest for you, no control of what you think, or even who you are. You will be in a thousand pieces, like needles being shed from a tree. You need to learn to become the tree, not the needles. You have made good progress. We will continue our work in the morning.”
Dasha didn’t think she had done very well at all, but she had been the one to insist on bringing Sister Asya along with them so that she could train her, and she didn’t have anything better to do on their slow journey West, so she nodded as if she believed her, and promised to continue the next day.
***
The next morning they continued just as they had the day before, with Dasha trying to clear her mind by letting it settle on the movement of Poloska’s feet, and drawing it back whenever it wandered, which was about every third stride. She thought about more things than she ever could have possibly imagined before she had begun this exercise: about how her seat hurt, and the design of saddles, and what it would be like to be a horse, and whose idea it was to domesticate them (was it really something that was brought across the mountains by the Hordes, as some scholars claimed?), and whether it was possible for horses to love their riders the way (some) riders loved their horses, and what it would feel like to wear a bit and metal shoes, and whether horses thought about the future the way she did, and did they dream and have visions, and why people dreamed, and what was the difference between dreams and visions, and what would happen if she never learned to control and read her visions, which led to many many thoughts of the future that awaited he
r, each darker than the one before it…
“Tsarinovna,” Sister Asya interrupted her. “Your mind is wandering.”
So Dasha allowed her thoughts to return to the movement of Poloska’s feet, which made her think about roads: was there a better way to build them? She had heard that the roads in the Middle Sea empire were smooth and straight, and lasted for years and years. How did they build them? Could that skill be brought to Zem’, and if so, should it? Was it good to bring in ideas and skills from foreign lands, especially ones hostile to Zem’? Who would be waiting for them there in Pristanograd? Dasha had seen foreigners before, but not often. Some of them that had come to Krasnograd had stared at her in a way that had made her skin crawl. Why didn’t they ever send their women as envoys? Surely they had to know that their women would make better deals. But instead…
“Tsarinovna. Your mind is wandering.”
Poloska’s feet were heading almost due West, just like the rest of them. What was it about the sea that pulled Dasha to it? What would it be like to finally see the sea? Would it be everything she hoped it would (although she didn’t know what, exactly, that was), or would it be a disappointment after all the expectations she had developed of it? Why did the sea have waves? Lakes only had waves in a high wind, but they said the sea had waves even on the calmest days. And a special smell. Like what? Was she smelling it now? Was that what she was smelling? There was something…she was running towards it…running across the rocks and sand, straight into the water, which moved over her legs in rhythmic waves as she ran in deeper and deeper, until her feet no longer touched the bottom and she had to begin swimming. Which came easy, so much easier than it ever had before. It was almost like flying, flying through the deep green water, which grew deeper and deeper beneath her…she could see the sandy bottom, and little fish and plants, and then a black cliff, dropping off into darkness and unimaginable depths…
