The Girl in the Tower

by Katherine Arden

  She finished and fell silent. Sasha was frowning. She answered his look, not his words. “No, Father would not have been out looking in the forest, had I not been there,” she whispered. “I did it; it was I, brother.”

  “Is that why you ran away?” Sasha asked. His voice (beloved, half-remembered) was uninflected, his face composed, so that she had no idea what he was thinking. “Because you killed Father?”

  She flinched, then bowed her head. “Yes. That. And the people—the people feared I was a witch. The priest had told them to fear witches, and they listened. Father was no longer there to protect me, so I ran.”

  Sasha was silent. She could not see his face, and at last she burst out, “For God’s sake, say something!”

  He sighed. “Are you a witch, Vasya?”

  Her tongue felt thick; the vibration of men’s deaths still rang through her body. There were no more lies left in her, and no more half-truths.

  “I do not know, little brother,” she said. “I do not know what a witch is, not really. But I have never meant anyone ill.”

  At length he said, “I do not think you did right, Vasya. It is sin for a woman to dress so, and it was wrong of you to defy Father.”

  Then he fell silent again. Vasya wondered if he was thinking of how he, too, had defied their father.

  “But,” he added slowly, “you have been brave, to get this far. I do not blame you, child. I do not.”

  The tears came to her throat again, but she swallowed them back.

  “Come on, then,” Sasha said, stiffly. “Try to go to sleep now, Vasya. You will come with us to Moscow. Olya will know what to do with you.”

  Olya, Vasya thought, her heart lifting. She was going to see Olya again. Her earliest memories—of kind hands and of laughter—were of her sister.

  Vasya was sitting opposite her brother, on a cot beside the clay stove. Sasha had built a fire, and the room was slowly warming. Suddenly all Vasya wanted was to pull the furs over her head and sleep.

  But she had one last question. “Father loved you. He wished you would come home. You promised me you’d come back. Why didn’t you?”

  No answer. He had busied himself with the fire; perhaps he had not heard. But to Vasya, the silence seemed to thicken suddenly with regrets that her brother would not utter.

  SLEEP SHE DID: a sleep like winter, a sleep like sickness. In her sleep the men all died again, stoic or screaming, their guts like dark jewels in the snow. The black-cloaked figure stood by, calm and knowing, to mark each death.

  But this time a terrible, familiar voice spoke also in her ear. “See him, poor winter-king, trying to keep order. But the battlefield is my realm, and he only comes to pick over my leavings.”

  Vasya whirled to find the Bear at her shoulder, one-eyed, lazily smiling. “Hello,” he said. “Does my work please you?”

  “No,” she gasped, “no—”

  Then she fled, slipping frantic over the snow, tripping on nothing, falling into a pit of endless white. She did not know if she was screaming or not. “Vasya,” said a voice.

  An arm caught her, stopped her fall. She knew the shape and turn of the long-fingered hand, the deft and grasping fingers. She thought, He has come for me now; it is my turn, and began to thrash in earnest.

  “Vasya,” said his voice in her ear. “Vasya.” Cruelty in that voice—and winter wind and old moonlight. Even a rough note of tenderness.

  No, she thought. No, you greedy thing, do not be kind to me.

  But even as she thought it, all the fight went out of her. Not knowing if she were awake or still dreaming, she pressed her face into his shoulder, and broke into a storm of violent weeping.

  In her dream, the arm went hesitantly round her and his hand cradled her head. Her tears lanced some of the poisoned wound of memory; at last she fell silent and looked up.

  They stood together in a little moonlit space, while trees slept all around. No Bear—the Bear was bound, far away. Frost fretted the air like silver-gilt. Was she dreaming? Morozko was a part of the night, his feet incongruously bare, his pale eyes troubled. The living world of bells and icons and changing seasons seemed the dream then, and the frost-demon the only thing real.

  “Am I dreaming?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Are you really here?”

  He said nothing.

  “Today—today I saw—” she stammered. “And you—”

  When he sighed, the trees stirred. “I know what you saw,” he said.

  Her hands clenched and unclenched. “You were there? Were you only there for the dead?”

  Again he did not speak. She stepped back.

  “They mean for me to come to Moscow,” she said.

  “Do you wish to go to Moscow?”

  She nodded. “I want to see my sister. I want to see more of my brother. But I cannot stay a boy forever, and I do not want to be a girl in Moscow. They will try to find me a husband.”

  He was silent a moment, but his eyes had darkened. “Moscow is full of churches. Many churches. I cannot—chyerti are not strong in Moscow, not anymore.”

  She drew back, crossing her arms over her breast. “Does that matter? I will not stay forever. I am not asking for your help.”

  “No,” he agreed. “You are not.”

  “The night under the spruce-tree—” she began. All around them the snow floated like mist.

  Morozko seemed to gather himself, and then he smiled. It was the smile of the winter-king, old and fair and unknowable. Any hint of deeper feeling vanished from his face. “Well, mad thing?” he asked. “What do you mean to ask me? Or are you afraid?”

  “I am not afraid,” said Vasya, bristling.

  That was true, and it was also a lie. The sapphire was warm beneath her clothes; it was glowing, too, though she could not see it. “I am not afraid,” she repeated.

  His breath slipped cool past her cheek. Goaded, she dared to do dreaming what she would not awake. She twisted her hand in his cloak and pulled him nearer.

  She had surprised him again. The breath hitched in his throat. His hand caught hers, but he did not untangle her fingers.

  “Why are you here?” she asked him.

  For a moment she thought he would not answer, then he said, as though reluctant, “I heard you cry.”

  “I—you—you cannot come to me thus and go away again,” she said. “Save my life? Leave me stumbling alone with three children in the dark? Save my life again? What do you want? Do not—kiss me and leave—I don’t—” She could not find the words for what she meant, but her fingers spoke for her, digging into the sparkling fur of his robe. “You are immortal, and perhaps I seem small to you,” she said at last fiercely. “But my life is not your game.”

  His grip crushed her hand in turn, right on the edge of pain. Then he untangled her fingers, one by one. But he did not let go. For an instant his eyes found hers and burned them, so full were they of light.

  Again the wind stirred the ancient trees. “You are right. Never again,” he said simply, and again it sounded like a promise. “Farewell.”

  No, she thought. Not like that—

  But he was gone.

  12.

  Vasilii the Brave

  The bells rang for outrenya and Vasya jerked awake, dazed with dreams. The heavy coverlets seemed to smother her. Like a creature in a trap, Vasya was on her feet before she knew, and the morning chill jolted her back to awareness.

  When she emerged from Sasha’s hut, she was hatted and hooded and longing for a bath. All around was a swirl of activity. Men and women ran back and forth, shouting, quarreling—packing, she realized. The danger had ended; the peasants were going home. Chickens were being boxed, cows goaded, children slapped, fires smothered.

  Well, of course they were going home. All was well. The bandits had been tracked to their lair. They had been slain—hadn’t they? Vasya shook off thought of the missing captain.

  She was trying to choose whether she needed her br
eakfast or a place to relieve herself worse, when Katya came running up, very pale, her kerchief askew.

  “Easy,” Vasya said, catching her just before the girl sent them both into the snow. “It is too early in the morning for running about, Katyusha. Have you seen a giant?”

  Katya was blotched red with passion, her nose running freely. “Forgive me; I came to find you,” she gasped. “Please—Gospodin—Vasilii Petrovich.”

  “What is it?” Vasya returned in quick alarm. “What has happened?”

  Katya shook her head, throat working. “A man—Igor—Igor Mikhailovich—asked me to marry him.”

  Vasya looked Katya up and down. The girl looked more bewildered than frightened.

  “Has he?” Vasya asked cautiously, “Who is Igor Mikhailovich?”

  “He is a blacksmith—he has a forge,” Katya stammered. “He and his mother—they have been kind to me and to the little girls—and today he said that he loves me and—oh!” She covered her face with her hands.

  “Well,” Vasya returned. “Do you want to marry him?”

  Whatever Katya had been expecting from the boyar’s son Vasilii Petrovich, it apparently wasn’t a mild, sensible question. The girl gaped like a landed fish. Then she said in a small voice, “I like him. Or I did. But this morning he asked—and I didn’t know what to say…” She seemed on the verge of tears.

  Vasya scowled. Katya saw, swallowed the tears back, and finished, creaking, “I—I would betroth myself to him. I think. Later. In the spring. But I want to go home to my mother, and have her consent, and finish my wedding-things in the proper way. I promised Anyushka and Lenochka that I would take them home. But I cannot take them home alone, so I don’t know what to do—”

  Vasya found to her chagrin that she could no more bear Katya’s tears than she could her own small sister’s. What would Vasilii Petrovich do? “I will speak to this boy for you, as is right,” said Vasya gently. “And then I will see you home.” She thought a moment. “I and my brother, the holy monk.” Vasya hoped devoutly that Sasha’s chaste presence would be enough for Katya’s mother.

  Katya paused again. “You will? Just— You will?”

  “My word on it,” Vasya said, with finality. “Now I want my breakfast.”

  VASYA DISCOVERED A SECLUDED latrine that she used with the speed of outright terror, and afterward made her way to the refectory. She strode in with more confidence than she felt. The long, low room was full of seemly hush, and Dmitrii and Kasyan were eating bread dipped in something that steamed. Vasya smelled it and swallowed.

  “Vasya!” Dmitrii roared affectionately when he saw her. “Come, sit, eat. We must hear service, give thanks to God for our victory, and then—Moscow!”

  “Have you heard the talk of the peasants this morning?” Kasyan asked her as she accepted a bowl. “They are calling you Vasilii the Brave now, and saying that you delivered them all from devils.”

  Vasya almost choked on her soup.

  Dmitrii, laughing, pounded her between the shoulder-blades. “You earned it!” he cried. “Raiding the bandit-camp, fighting on that stallion—although you must learn to wield a spear, Vasya—you will soon be as great a legend as your brother.”

  “God be with you,” said Sasha, overhearing. He walked in with both his hands thrust through his sleeves: a very monk. He had gone early to prayer with his brothers. Now he said austerely, “I hope not. Vasilii the Brave. That is a heavy name for one so young.” But his gray eyes gleamed. It occurred to Vasya that he might be enjoying, despite himself, the risks of their deception. She certainly was, she realized with some surprise. The danger in every word she spoke, among these great people, was like wine in her veins, like water in a hot country. Perhaps, she thought, that was why Sasha left home. Not for God, not to wound Father, but because he wanted surprises around each road’s turning, and he would never get that at Lesnaya Zemlya. She eyed her brother in wonder.

  Then she took another swallow of soup and said, “I must return the three peasant girls to their village before I go to Moscow. I promised.”

  Dmitrii snorted and quaffed his beer. “Why? There will be folk going out today; the girls can go with them. You needn’t trouble yourself.”

  Vasya said nothing.

  Dmitrii grinned suddenly, reading her face. “No? You look just like your brother when he has made up his mind and is being polite. Is it that you want the elder girl—what is her name? Don’t look prudish, Sasha; how old were you when you started tumbling peasant girls? Well, I owe you a debt, Vasya. Letting you play the hero to a pretty child is little enough. It is not too far out of our way. Eat. We ride tomorrow.”

  THE NIGHT BEFORE THEY left the Lavra, Brother Aleksandr knocked on his master’s door. “Come in,” said Sergei.

  Sasha entered to find the old hegumen sitting beside a stove, looking into the flames. An untouched cup sat beside him, and a heel of bread, a little gnawed by rats.

  “Father bless,” said Sasha, stepping on a rat-tail just poking out beneath the cot. He heaved the beast up, broke its neck, and dropped it outside in the snow.

  “May the Lord bless you,” said Sergei, smiling.

  Sasha crossed the room and knelt at the hegumen’s feet.

  “My father is dead,” he said, without ceremony.

  Sergei sighed. “God grant him peace,” he said, and made the sign of the cross. “I wondered what had happened, to send your sister out into the wild.”

  Sasha said nothing.

  “Tell me, my son,” said Sergei.

  Sasha slowly repeated the story Vasya had told him, staring all the while into the fire.

  When he had finished, Sergei was frowning. “I am old,” he said. “Perhaps my wits are failing. But—”

  “It is all very unlikely,” finished Sasha shortly. “I can get no more out of her. But Pyotr Vladimirovich would never—”

  Sergei sat back in his chair. “Call him your father, my son. God will not begrudge it, and nor do I. Pyotr was a good man. I have rarely seen one so grieved to part with his son, yet he gave me no angry word, after the first. And no, he did not strike me as a fool. What do you mean to do with this sister of yours?”

  Sasha was sitting at his master’s feet like a boy, with his arms around his knees. The firelight erased some of the marks of war and travel and long lonely prayer. Sasha sighed. “Take her to Moscow. What else? My sister Olga can take her quietly back into the terem, and Vasilii Petrovich may disappear. Perhaps on the journey, Vasya will tell me the truth.”

  “Dmitrii will not like it, if he finds out,” Sergei said. “What if your—if Vasya refuses to be hidden away?”

  Sasha looked up quickly, a line between his brows. Outside a hush lay on the monastery, save for a monk’s single voice, raised in plainchant. The villagers had all gone, save for the three girl-children, who would depart on the morrow with Dmitrii’s cavalcade.

  “She is as like you as brother and sister can be,” continued Sergei. “I saw that from the first. Would you go quiet into the terem? After all the galloping about, the saving girls, the slaying bandits?”

  Sasha laughed at the image. “She is a girl,” he said. “It is different.”

  Sergei lifted a brow. “We are all children of God,” he said, mildly.

  Sasha, frowning, made no answer. Then he said, changing the subject, “What think you of Vasya’s tale—of seeing a bandit-captain that we can now find no trace of?”

  “Well, either this captain is dead or he is not,” said Sergei practically. “If he is dead, God grant him peace. If he is not, I think we will discover it.” The monk spoke placidly, but his eyes gleamed in the firelight. In his remote monastery, Sergei contrived to hear a good deal. Before he died, the holy Aleksei himself had wanted Sergei to be his successor as Metropolitan of all Moscow.

  “I beg you will send Rodion to Moscow, if you have word of the bandit-captain after we are gone,” said Sasha, reluctantly. “And…”

  Sergei grinned. He had only four teeth. �
�And now are you wondering who is this red-haired lord that young Dmitrii Ivanovich has befriended?”

  “As you say, Batyushka,” said Sasha. He sat back against his hands, then recalled his wounded forearm and snatched it up with a grunt of pain. “I had never heard of Kasyan Lutovich. I who have traveled the length and breadth of Rus’. And then suddenly he comes riding out of the woods, bigger than life, with his marvelous clothes, and his marvelous horses.”

  “Nor I,” said Sergei, very thoughtfully. “And I ought to have.”

  Their eyes met in understanding.

  “I will ask questions,” said Sergei. “And I will send Rodion with news. But in the meantime, be wary. Wherever he comes from, that Kasyan is a man who thinks.”

  “A man may think and do no evil,” said Sasha.

  “He may,” said Sergei only. “In any case, I am weary. God be with you, my son. Take care of your sister, and of your hotheaded cousin.”

  Sasha gave Sergei a wry look. “I will try. They are damnably similar in some ways. Perhaps I should renounce the world and stay here, a holy man in the wilderness.”

  “Certainly you should. It would be most pleasing to God,” said Sergei tartly. “I would beg you to do so, if ever I thought I could persuade you. Now get out. I am weary.”

  Sasha kissed his master’s hand, and they parted.

  13.

  The Girl Who Kept a Promise

  It took two days to cover the distance to the girls’ village. Vasya put all three children together on Solovey. Sometimes she rode with them; more often she walked beside the stallion, or rode one of Dmitrii’s horses. When they were in camp, Vasya told the girls, “Don’t get out of my sight. Stay near me or my brother.” She paused. “Or Solovey.” The stallion had grown fiercer since the battle, like a boy blooded.

  As they ate around the fire on the first night, Vasya looked up to see Katya on a log opposite, weeping passionately.

  Vasya was taken aback. “What is it?” she asked. “Do you miss your mother? Only a few more days, Katyusha.”