The Midnight Land: Part Two: The Gift (The Zemnian Trilogy Book 2)

by E. P. Clark

  “She still should have made it by now,” said Dunya, and Dima nodded his grim agreement.

  “We still don’t know what happened, though,” said Slava. “Perhaps they are hiding somewhere…” This time she thought of Vladislava hiding, crouched somewhere…but where? There was nowhere to hide between here and the North Gate…unless they had managed to take refuge in some alley in outer Krasnograd…That was what they must have done…

  “We can’t wait here much longer, though,” said Dunya. “We need to be in the woods by morning, and the night is already more than half over…We must move on shortly, or our risk of being captured will become too great.”

  “And leave them?” demanded Slava. Her whole body flinched away from the thought of leaving Vladislava behind, alone and unprotected. At that moment she thought that she would have sacrificed anyone else, even Dunya or Olga, in order to keep Vladislava safe.

  “We won’t be doing them any good here,” said Dunya.

  “And even less good by being captured,” said Grisha. Dima remained silent, but Slava knew that he was thinking the same thoughts as Dunya and Grisha, and fighting them even harder than she was.

  “But to leave them…” argued Slava, even though she knew that it was not only pointless, but that the others were right and she was wrong. Somehow, though, even though she knew it perfectly well, she still could not force herself to give up on rescuing Vladislava yet. She couldn’t leave Vladislava, who was in part responsible for all this, and was still the dearest person in Slava’s life, now and perhaps forever. If something terrible were to happen to Vladislava, Slava didn’t see how she would be able to go on living…it was strange, but she had never thought that about another person…and for it to be Vladislava to inspire such a thought…And so they could not give up on her, they could not abandon her, absolutely not, not now, not ever.

  “If they are not captured, then they can make their own way to the sanctuary—Olga knows where it is as well as I do,” said Dunya. “Rather better, in fact. And if they are captured, then it seems to me our best hope is to carry on with our plan, go to your mother, and beg her aid. Returning to Krasnograd will only make things worse.”

  “Little as I like it, I fear D…Masha is right,” said Dima. He spoke with the voice of someone who has confronted unpleasant thoughts, and not run away from them. It was a rare sound to hear in a man’s voice, but in Dima’s it sounded almost natural. He stood up a little taller, as if Olga’s courage and decisiveness had flowed across those fields and into him, making him her stand-in for this dreadful decision. “I fear we have no choice but to go on. O…She would insist on it, I know she would.”

  It was a terrible moment. Slava knew Dunya and Dima were right, that their best hope was to try to reach her mother, and that Olga would insist on it were she there to make the choice for them, but every drop of blood, every fiber in her body, screamed at her not to leave, not to abandon Vladislava and Olga, and it was only with the most awful dragging reluctance that she was able to detach herself from the tree and follow the others down the road.

  From their slow, stumbling progress, Slava guessed that the other felt much the same. She didn’t dare look at Dima. She wanted to offer him some kind of comfort, but what comfort could she offer him? He knew, probably much better than she did, the dangers Olga faced, and what Olga would want him to do in such a situation, and there was nothing Slava could say or do that could make it any better for him. Her only way to help was to walk as quickly and boldly as possible in the opposite direction from Olga, and to remind herself over and over again that she wasn’t abandoning her, she was going to get help, she was going to rescue her. Her and Vladislava. When she thought of Vladislava, Slava thought she might turn around and run all the way back to Krasnograd…force her way through the gates…into her sister’s chambers…turn herself in, as long as Vladislava would remain safe…but surely, surely, surely, Slava told herself, her sister would not harm Vladislava. As far as she knew, Vladislava was nothing more than Slava’s ward, an innocent girl of ten who had gotten caught up in something much larger and more dangerous than she should have…Surely even her sister would not harm a little girl…surely, surely, surely—and they would rescue her. They would arrive very soon at the sanctuary, they would find her mother, and she would immediately return to Krasnograd and restore order and sanity and Olga and Vladislava would be rescued. All they had to do was make it to the sanctuary in time, and everything would be right again.

  They walked for a long time through field after field, until finally, at long last, they came to a stand of trees. According to Dunya, it was almost morning.

  “There’s a village on the far side of this little woods,” said Dima. “Someone should go scout ahead while the rest wait here.”

  Slava instinctively looked around to see what Olga would make of this suggestion, and then remembered that Olga was not there. It was only then that the full tragedy of Olga’s failure to escape the city hit her: not only was Olga trapped and in danger, but she was not there to guide them, either. Slava had been so caught up in the misery of leaving Vladislava behind that she had not spared too much thought to the practical significance of losing Olga, which was twice as bad as losing anyone else. Much as Slava trusted Dunya, Dima, Grisha, and the others, they were not the same as Olga’s comforting presence.

  “Sasha: you should go,” continued Dima. By the heavy tone of his voice, Slava suspected he was suffering from the same doubts as herself. “Take Olik with you. See what’s what. And if you can get us some food, or blankets, or anything to help us survive our journey, do so. But don’t put us at risk. If you think people are suspicious, run away. And think up some kind of story.”

  “I’ll say that…that Olik and I are brothers, who…”

  “Came to Krasnograd to seek our fortunes,” put in Olik. He had looked frightened and distraught ever since they had decided to leave the oak tree without Olga and Vladislava, but now he was cheering up again.

  “Yes,” said Sasha. “Only we had to leave, because, because…”

  “Our sister’s new husband took a dislike to us and kicked us out of the house without clothes nor bread,” said Olik, sounding more and more inspired.

  “Yes, yes, and we have to make it all the way back to…”

  “Bolshoy Stepnoy Prud,” Olik finished for him. “It’s at least four hundred versts from here, so we’ll need a lot of provisions to make it.”

  “I see you should have been a bard, not an adventurer,” said Sasha, giving him a look that was somewhat impressed and somewhat suspicious at this sudden ability to tell lies.

  “There are a lot of bards in my family, it’s true,” said Olik, now sounding almost his old cheerful self again. “But I wanted a wilder life.”

  “Well, lucky you,” said Sasha sourly.

  “And lucky us,” said Dima, before Sasha could lose his temper or Olik could take offence. “Now go, and be careful! And don’t forget how to find us!”

  “Yes, mother,” said Olik, and set off after Sasha with a jaunty step that gave no hint of his desperate flight and many versts of walking. Slava wished she could be so hale and bold. But as she couldn’t, she settled for collapsing on a tree root that was slightly less muddy and damp than the ground all around them.

  “I think there’s a stream just over there,” announced Dima. “And look! I have a wine bottle I snatched up from our room as we were leaving. I’ll go fetch us some water.” He left, probably, Slava guessed, as much to be alone with his grim thoughts as to fetch water. She hoped he wouldn’t get lost in the dark: she wouldn’t have cared to venture deeper into the woods without a torch for anything.

  After a while he did come back, though, and with the bottle full of water. They all drank gratefully: despite all the mud, sources of clean water had been scarce on their walk. The sun began to rise.

  “I wonder how long they’ll be,” said Slanik anxiously.

  “A while,” Grisha told him. “First they h
ave to scout the place, and then they have to wait until people are up and about, and then they have to tell them their story, and see what provisions they can get…It will be a while. Try to get some rest.”

  There was, of course, no such thing as rest while perched on a muddy root on a damp spring dawn while fleeing, possibly for their lives, from the Tsarina, unless one defined “rest” as “not walking,” which, Slava supposed, it was. Her legs certainly thought so, although the rest of her body disagreed.

  The sun had already long risen, and some travelers had even slogged by, much to Slava’s alarm, when Sasha and Olik returned, bearing a sack full of provisions.

  “Bread!” exclaimed Olik exultantly. “Pies! And blankets!”

  “The villagers were truly generous,” said Sasha more soberly. “The gods grant that we meet such generosity elsewhere—and that we deserve it.”

  “If I am able, I will return and reward them,” Slava promised, touched by Sasha’s uncharacteristic thoughtfulness.

  “You will, Krasna Tsarina?” he said, cheering up.

  “Best not to call her that,” warned Grisha.

  “We’re unlikely to be overheard here,” said Dima comfortingly. “But Grisha is right: we mustn’t reveal the… ‘Zhenya’s’ true name.”

  “My true name is Krasnoslava,” said Slava with a smile. “You can call me that, if it would make you feel better. I doubt anyone would guess: no one calls me anything except…well, my title.”

  “Can we call you…just Krasna? Krasnochka?” asked Olik. “It would be better than Zhenya.” He suddenly remembered whom he was addressing, and, blushing profusely, fell into silent confusion.

  “Of course you can call me Krasnochka,” Slava told him. “It would be an honor. And now…Do we carry on?”

  “We should breakfast first,” said Dima. “And then…How far does this little patch of forest extend, Sasha?”

  “To the village. Then there are fields again, although there are more woods off in the distance.”

  “Does the road go through the village?”

  “Unluckily, yes.”

  “Do you think we could skirt around?”

  “If we were quick and careful, Dmitry Marusyevich.”

  “Well then, we’ll just have to be quick and careful,” said Dima. “And now let’s sample the delicacies of our benefactors from the village.”

  But when Slava tried to eat a pie, her stomach turned and she was unable to swallow so much as a crumb. All the men hovered around her in helpless anxiety, and refused to be soothed when both she and Dunya assured them that this was normal, perfectly normal, for women in her condition.

  “They say it is a test by the gods,” said Dunya. “To see who is truly fit to be a mother.”

  “Then the gods are cruel!” said Slanik indignantly. “Tormenting the…Tormenting our Krasnochka like this, and at such a bad time!”

  “No one will deny that the gods are cruel, especially to new mothers,” said Dunya. “I’ve seen my sisters go through this too many times to disagree. Will you be fit to walk, do you think?”

  “I’ll make it to the sanctuary if I have to crawl on my hands and knees, vomiting all the way,” said Slava, with such unexpected firmness that she surprised even herself, and made all the men take a step back.

  “Let us go, then,” said Dima, after a moment. “Quickly and quietly! And Grisha…”

  Grisha took Slava’s arm before Dima could even finish the sentence.

  As soon as they set off Slava realized that she was even more tired and weak than she had thought, and very shortly, despite all her intentions to support herself and not be a burden to the others, she found herself clinging desperately to Grisha’s arm.

  “I’m sorry,” she said at one point. “It seems like you’re always having to pull me along. Someday I’ll learn how to carry myself on my own two feet, I promise.”

  “You’re no burden, Krasna,” he told her. “And you’ll make it to the sanctuary if I have to crawl all the way with you on my back, I swear it.”

  They had to skirt well around the village to avoid being seen, which took up most of the day. They stopped once to rest and eat, but out in the fields they felt exposed and uneasy, and there was little rest or nourishment to be had under those conditions. Only by late afternoon did they reach the safety of another little clump of woods, and were able to stop and eat in relative security.

  Dunya, Dima, Grisha, and Sasha all debated at anxious length about the road in front of them, the benefits and dangers of traveling at night versus day, and whether they should risk approaching any settlements. Slava felt that she should contribute something to the discussion, but she was so tired that she was having a hard time focusing her eyes, let alone talk. She felt as if she were in some never-ending trial by walking, that she had been condemned to walk ceaselessly until she collapsed, and even that was little hope, because her body refused to collapse, the Black God take it, it kept going long after she would have liked to give up and lie down and never rise again. It was hard to believe that she had fled from Krasnograd only the day before: it seemed like a lifetime ago, some other life in which she did not keep putting one foot in front of the other, no matter how desperate she was to stop and rest.

  It was decided that they would keep going, at least for a while, after dark, and so as soon as the sun set they took off again, moving slowly and tiredly down the empty road between the trees, but moving nonetheless. Dunya walked in front, guiding them in the dark, and Grisha took the rear, listening for the approach of travelers, since travelers could be soldiers from Krasnograd. Dima took Slava’s arm, to keep her from swaying off the road in her dazed condition.

  They walked and walked and walked, until it was decided that they were approaching the edge of the woods and they should stop and rest while they could still do so in the safety of the trees. They stumbled off the road until they found a fir grove that offered shelter and secrecy, where they wrapped themselves up in the blankets the kind villagers had given Sasha and Olik, and tried to rest for a while. They would, Dunya and Dima agreed, set off again at dawn, as their need for speed was greater than their need for secrecy, now that Olga and Vladislava had been captured. Slava gathered from their discussion that they would have little chance at a full night’s sleep until they reached the sanctuary, so intent were Dunya and Dima on reaching its safety as quickly as possible. She could not disagree with their plan, tired as she already was and doubtful as she felt over her ability to keep up such a pace for near on a hundred and fifty versts, especially as she seemed unable to take in any form of nourishment most of the time. Surely she should be past this sickness already? Or perhaps it was just nerves? Not that it really mattered in the end.

  Slava wasn’t sure how much of her rest was spent in dazed wakefulness, and how much in restless dozing, but when the others rose and shook her awake, she came to with the sensation that she had been dreaming, and that the forest had been talking to her in her dream, telling her not to worry, that it would watch over her on her journey. But when they set off again in the dawn light, Slava had no sense that eyes were following her, as she had on their way North. She wished she had: for once it would have been comforting.

  They walked out of the woods and through fields and into another little patch of woods, where they came around a corner and suddenly heard voices. Everyone froze.

  “Travelers—get off the road!” hissed Dunya.

  But the road there was old and sunken into the muddy ground, so that there were slick chest-high walls of dirt on either side. Olik vaulted up out of the road, but when Slava tried to follow him, she only slid against the slippery dirt and almost fell down. She and Dima stared at each other in horror, and Slava could see that he was exhausted too, too exhausted to lift her off the road to safety and climb up after her himself. They started scrambling back as quickly as their weary legs would carry them, looking for an opening in the banks hemming them in.

  The group was moving towards them, no
t very fast, but faster than they were escaping themselves. Slava could see Olik run along the top of the bank, back the way they had come, looking for a way out, and then run back to where they were, shaking his head. So it seemed their discovery was imminent. If only, Slava thought, the group coming towards them would prove to be incurious, if only they would pass them by without a second glance…

  Two members of the group were talking; it seemed to be an older woman and a younger woman. The younger woman had a soft, shy, and oddly familiar voice…Slava was sure she had heard it somewhere, if only she could remember where, if only she could recognize it and know whether it were friend or foe, whether they still needed to run…

  “Do you think the Tsarinovna is back from her journey, Svetlana Alinovna?” asked the soft voice shyly. “Do you think she’s in Krasnograd by now?”

  “I know she is, Yevgeniya Marislavovna,” said the older woman comfortingly. “I heard of her return from a sister merchant. Don’t you worry: you’ll see your Tsarinovna soon enough.”

  “If she’ll see me,” said the soft voice doubtfully.

  “If she’s as kind as you say, she will, I’m sure of it,” said the older woman, still speaking comfortingly. “Especially if she gave you a handkerchief, as you said she did.”

  “I hope she won’t mind that I came…I got on the first merchant caravan I could, that’s why I’m coming from the wrong direction…My mother doesn’t know…You don’t think she’ll send me back, do you? The Tsarinovna, I mean?”

  “Zhenya!” gasped Slava, recognition shocking her into alertness where fear had failed. “Princess Malogornaya’s daughter! Do we…do we reveal ourselves?”

  “We agreed Princess Malogornaya was untrustworthy,” whispered Dima.

  “But not Zhenya! She’s running from her mother to find me!”

  “We can’t escape anyway,” said Dunya quietly. “What fools we were, to stay on the road and not see the danger!”

  “You didn’t see it because you could climb out to safety,” Slava pointed out. “It’s only I who can’t. But now…Here they come!”