The Girl in the Tower

by Katherine Arden

  “The prince is come! The prince!” the cries rose louder and louder. “Aleksandr Peresvet!”

  All was movement and bright color. Here stood scaffolding hung with cloth; there, great ovens smoking amid piles of slushy snow; and everywhere new smells: spice and sweetness, and the tang of forge-fires. Ten men were building a snow-slide, heaving blocks and dropping them, to hilarity. Tall horses and painted sledges and warmly bundled people gave way before the prince’s cavalcade. The riders passed the wooden gates of noble houses; behind them lay sprawling palaces: towers and walkways, haphazardly painted, and dark with old rain.

  The riders halted at the largest of these gates, and it was flung open. They rode into a vast dooryard. The crush grew thicker still: servants and grooms and shouting hangers-on. Some boyars, too: broad men with colored kaftans, and broad smiles that did not always reach their eyes. Dmitrii was calling greetings.

  The crowd pressed closer, and closer still.

  Solovey rolled a wild eye and struck out with his forefeet.

  “Solovey!” cried Vasya to the horse. “Easy now. Easy. You are going to kill someone.”

  “Get back!” That was Kasyan, hard-handed on his gelding. “Get back, or are you all fools? That one is a stallion, and young; do you think he won’t take your heads off?”

  Vasya looked her gratitude, still grappling with Solovey. Sasha appeared on her other side, pushing people away with Tuman’s brute strength.

  Cursing, the crowd gave them space. Vasya found herself at the center of a ring of curious eyes, but at least Solovey began to settle.

  “Thank you,” she said to both men.

  “I only spoke for the grooms, Vasya,” Kasyan said lightly. “Unless you’d like to see your horse split more skulls?”

  “I’d rather not,” she said. But the instant warmth was gone.

  He must have seen her face change. “No,” he said. “I didn’t mean to—”

  She had already dismounted, dropping down into a little pool of wary faces. Solovey had settled, but his ears still darted forward and back.

  Vasya scratched the soft place beneath his jaw and murmured, “I must stay—I want to see my sister, but you—I could let you go. Take you back into the forest. You needn’t—”

  I will stay here if you do, interrupted Solovey, though he was trembling, lashing his flanks with his tail.

  Dmitrii flung his reins to a groom and dropped to the ground, his horse as unmoved by the crowd as he. Someone thrust a cup into his hand; he drank it off and pushed his way to Vasya. “Better than I expected,” he said. “I was sure you’d lose him the second we passed the gates.”

  “You thought Solovey would bolt?” Vasya demanded indignantly.

  “Of course I did,” said Dmitrii. “A stallion, bridleless and no more used to crowds than you? Take that outraged look off your face, Vasilii Petrovich; you look just like a maiden on her wedding night.”

  A flush crept up her neck.

  Dmitrii slapped the stallion’s flank. Solovey looked affronted. “We will put this one to my mares,” said the Grand Prince. “In three years my stable will be the envy of the Khan at Sarai. That is the best horse I have ever seen. Such a temperament—fire, but obedience.”

  Solovey turned a mollified ear; he was fond of compliments. “Better a paddock for him now, though,” Dmitrii added practically. “He’ll kick my stable down otherwise.” The prince gave his orders, and then added aloud, “Come, Vasya. You will bestow the beast yourself, unless you think a groom might be able to halter him. Then you will bathe in my own palace, and wash off the grime of the road.”

  Vasya felt herself turn pale. She groped for words. A groom sidled near with a rope in one hand.

  The horse snapped his teeth, and the groom dropped hurriedly back.

  “He doesn’t need a halter,” said Vasya, a trifle unnecessarily. “Dmitrii Ivanovich, I would like to see my sister at once. It has been so long; I was only a child when she went away to marry.”

  Dmitrii frowned. Vasya wondered what she would do about bathing, if he insisted. Say she was concealing a deformity? What sort of deformity would make a boy—?

  Sasha came to her rescue. “The Princess of Serpukhov will be eager to see her brother,” he said. “She will want to give thanks for his safe arrival. The horse can stay in her husband’s stable, if you permit, Dmitrii Ivanovich.”

  Dmitrii frowned.

  “Perhaps we should leave them to their reunion,” said Kasyan. He had handed over his reins and stood sleek as a cat in the middle of the tumult. “There will be time enough for putting the beast to mares, when he is rested.”

  The Grand Prince shrugged. “Very well,” he said in some irritation. “But come to me, both of you, when you have seen your sister. No, don’t look like that, Brother Aleksandr. You are not going to ride with us all the way to Moscow and then cry up monkish solitude as soon as you have passed the gates. Go to the monastery first if you wish; flog yourself, and cry prayers to heaven, but come to the palace after. We must give thanks, and then there are plans afoot. I have been too long away.”

  Sasha said nothing.

  “We will be there, Gosudar,” Vasya interjected hastily.

  The Grand Prince and Kasyan disappeared together into the palace, talking, followed by servants and by jostling boyars. Just at the doorway, Kasyan glanced back at her before disappearing into the shadows.

  “THIS WAY, VASYA,” SAID SASHA, shaking her from contemplation.

  Vasya remounted Solovey. The horse walked when she asked, though his tail still swished back and forth.

  They turned right out of the Grand Prince’s gates and were instantly caught in the swirl of the moving city. The two riders rode abreast beneath palaces taller than trees, across earth turned to muck, the dirty snow pushed aside. Vasya thought her head would twist off from staring.

  “Damn you, Vasya,” said Sasha as they rode. “I begin to have sympathy for your stepmother. You might have pleaded sickness instead of agreeing to sup with Dmitrii Ivanovich. Do you think Moscow is like Lesnaya Zemlya? The Grand Prince is surrounded by men all vying for his favor, and they will resent you for being his cousin, for leaping over them to land so high in his good graces. They will challenge you and set you drunk; can you never hold your tongue?”

  “I couldn’t tell the Grand Prince no,” replied Vasya. “Vasilii Petrovich wouldn’t have told him no.” She was only half-listening. The palaces seemed to have tumbled from heaven, in all their sprawling glory; the bright colors of their square towers showed through caps of snow.

  A procession of highborn ladies passed them, walking together, heavily veiled, with men before and behind. Here blue-lipped slaves ran panting about their business; there a Tatar rode a fierce and stocky mare.

  They came to another wooden gate, less fine than Dmitrii’s. The door-ward must have recognized Sasha, for the gate swung open immediately, and they were in the dooryard of a quiet, well-ordered little kingdom.

  Somehow, despite all the noise at the gates, it reminded her of Lesnaya Zemlya. “Olya,” Vasya whispered.

  A steward came to meet them, soberly garbed. He did not turn a hair when confronted with a grubby boy, a monk, and two weary horses. “Brother Aleksandr,” he said, bowing.

  “This is Vasilii Petrovich,” said Sasha. A hint of distaste rippled his voice; he must be deathly weary of the lie. “My brother before I became a brother in Christ. We will need a paddock for his horse, then he wishes to see his sister.”

  “This way,” said the steward after an instant’s startled hesitation.

  They followed him. The prince of Serpukhov’s palace was an estate in and of itself, like their father’s, but finer and richer. Vasya saw a bakery, a brewery, a bathhouse, a kitchen, and a smoking shed, tiny beside the sprawl of the main house. The palace’s lower rooms were half-dug into the earth, and the upper rooms could be accessed only by outside staircases.

  The steward took them past a low, neat stable that breathed out s
weet animal-smells and gusts of warm air. Behind it lay an empty stallion-paddock with a high fence. It held a little, square shelter, meant to keep off the snow, and also a horse-trough.

  Solovey halted just outside the paddock and eyed the arrangement with distaste.

  “You needn’t stay here,” Vasya murmured to him again, “if you do not wish to.”

  Come often, the horse said only. And let us not stay here long.

  “We won’t,” Vasya said. “Of course we won’t.”

  They wouldn’t, either. She meant to see the world. But Vasya did not want to be anywhere else just then, not for gold or jewels. Moscow lay at her feet, all its wonders ready for her eyes. And her sister was near.

  A groom had come up behind them, and at the steward’s impatient gesture, he let down the bars of the paddock-fence. Solovey deigned to be led inside. Vasya undid the stallion’s girth and slung the saddlebags over her own shoulder.

  “I will carry them myself,” she said to the steward. On the road, her saddlebags were life itself, and she found now that she could not relinquish them to a stranger in this beautiful, frightening city.

  A little mournfully, Solovey said, Be careful, Vasya.

  Vasya stroked the horse’s neck. “Don’t jump out,” she whispered.

  I won’t, said the horse. A pause. If they bring me oats.

  She turned to say as much to the steward. “I’ll come back to see you,” she said to Solovey. “Soon.”

  He blew his warm breath into her face.

  Then they left the paddock, Vasya trotting in her brother’s wake. She looked back once, before the curve of the stable quite obscured her view. The horse watched her go, stark against the white snow. All wrong, that Solovey would stand there behind a fence, like an ordinary horse…

  Then he disappeared, behind the curve of a wooden wall. Vasya shook away her misgivings and followed her brother.

  15.

  Liar

  Olga had heard Dmitrii’s cavalcade return. She could hardly help hearing it; the bells rang until her floor shook, and in the wake of the pealing came the cries of “Dmitrii Ivanovich! Aleksandr Peresvet!”

  A tight, reluctant ache once again eased about Olga’s heart when she heard her brother’s name. But of her relief she gave no sign. Her pride wouldn’t allow it, and there was no time. Maslenitsa was upon them now, and preparations for the festival took all her attention.

  Maslenitsa was the three-day sun-feast, one of the oldest holidays in Muscovy. Older by far than the bells and crosses that marked its passing, though it had been given the trappings of religion to mask its pagan soul. This—the last day before the festival began—was the last day they could eat meat until Easter. Vladimir, Olga’s husband, was still in Serpukhov, but Olga had arranged a feast for his household—wild boar and stewed rabbit and cock-pheasants, and fish.

  For a few more days, the people could still eat butter and lard and cheese and other rich things, and so in the kitchen they were making butter-cakes by the score, by the hundred, cakes enough for days of gluttony.

  Women filled Olga’s workroom, talking and eating. They had all come with their veils and their over-robes to do their mending in the pleasant crowd of warm bodies and chatter. The excitement in the streets seemed to have risen and invaded the very air of the sedate tower.

  Marya sprang about, shouting. Busy or no, Olga still worried about her daughter. Since the night of the ghost-story, Marya had often woken her nurse with screaming.

  Olga paused in her hurrying to sit a moment beside the oven, exchange pleasantries with her neighbors, call Marya and look her over. On the other side of the stove, Darinka simply would not stop talking. Olga wished her head ached less.

  “I went to Father Konstantin for confession,” Darinka was saying loudly. Her voice made a shrill counterpoint to the murmur of the crowded room. “Before he went into seclusion in the monastery. Father Konstantin—the fair-haired priest. Because he seemed such a holy man. And indeed he instructed me in righteousness. He told me all about witches.”

  No one looked up. The women’s sewing had a new urgency. In the mad revel of festival-week, Moscow would glitter like a bride, and the women must all go to church—not once, but many times—bundled magnificently, and be seen to peer out from around their veils. Besides, this was not the first time Darinka had regaled them with tales of this holy man.

  Marya, who had heard Darinka’s tale before and was weary of her mother’s fussing, pulled herself loose and scampered out.

  “He said they walk among us, these witches born,” Darinka continued, not much troubled by her lack of audience. “You never know who they are until it is too late. He said they curse good Christian men—curse them—so that they see things that are not there, or hear strange voices—the voices of demons—”

  Olga had heard rumors of this priest’s hatred for witches. They made her uneasy. He alone knew that Vasya…

  Enough, Olga told herself. Vasya is dead, and Father Konstantin has gone to the monastery; let it pass. But Olga was glad of the tumult of festival-week, which would turn the women’s attention away from the ravings of a handsome priest.

  Varvara slipped into the workroom, with Marya returned, panting, at her heels. Before the slave could speak, the girl burst out, “Uncle Sasha is here! Brother Aleksandr,” she corrected, seeing her mother frown. Then she added, irrepressibly, “He has a boy with him. They both want to see you.”

  Olga frowned. The child’s silk cap lay askew, and she had torn her sarafan. It was high time to replace her nurse. “Very well,” Olga said. “Send them up at once. Sit down, Masha.”

  Marya’s nurse came wheezing belatedly into the room. Marya gave her a wicked look, and the nurse shrank back. “I want to see my uncle,” the girl said to her mother.

  “There is a boy with him, Masha,” said Olga wearily. “You are a great girl now; better not.”

  Marya scowled.

  Olga’s jaded glance took in the crowd about her oven. “Varvara, bring our visitors to my chamber. See that there is hot wine. No, Masha; listen to your nurse. You will see your uncle later.”

  DURING THE DAY, OLGA’S OWN ROOM was not so warm as the crowded workroom, but it had the advantage of peace. The bed was curtained off, and visiting there was quite usual. Olga seated herself just in time to hear the footsteps, and then her brother, fresh from the road, stood in the doorway.

  Olga got heavily to her feet. “Sasha,” she said. “Have you killed your bandits?”

  “Yes,” he said. “There will be no more burning villages.”

  “By God’s grace,” Olga said. She crossed herself and they embraced.

  Then Sasha said, with unaccountable grimness, “Olya,” and stepped aside.

  Behind him, in the doorway, lurked a slender, green-eyed boy, hooded and cloaked, wearing supple leather and wolfskin, two saddlebags slung over his shoulder. The boy at once paled. The saddlebags thumped to the floor.

  “Who is this?” Olga asked reflexively. Then a shocked breath hissed out between her teeth.

  The boy’s mouth worked; his great eyes were bright. “Olya,” she whispered. “It is Vasya.”

  Vasya? No, Vasya is dead. This is not Vasya. This is a boy. In any case, Vasya was only a snub-nosed child. And yet, and yet…Olga looked again. Those green eyes…“Vasya?” Olga gasped. Her knees went weak.

  Her brother helped her to her chair, and Olga leaned forward, hands on knees. The boy hovered uncertainly at the doorway. “Come here,” Olga said, recovering. “Vasya. I can’t believe it.”

  The erstwhile boy shut the door, and with her back to them, raised trembling fingers and fumbled with the ties of her hood.

  A heavy plait of shining black slithered out, and she turned once more to face the oven. With the cap gone, now Olga could see her little sister grown: that strange, impossible child become a strange, impossible woman. Not dead—alive—here…Olga struggled for breath.

  “Olya,” Vasya said. “Olya, I’m sorry.
You are so pale. Olya, are you well? Oh!” The green eyes lit; the hands clasped. “You are going to have a baby. When—?”

  “Vasya!” Olga broke in, finding her voice. “Vasya, you’re alive. How came you here? And dressed so…Brother, sit down. You, too, Vasya. Come into the light. I want to look at you.”

  Sasha, meek for once, did as he was told.

  “Sit down, too,” Olga said to Vasya. “No, there.”

  The girl, looking eager and frightened, sank onto the indicated stool with a loose-limbed grace.

  Olga took the girl by the chin and turned her face into the light. Could this really be Vasya? Her sister had been an ugly child. This woman was not ugly—though she had features too stark for beauty: wide mouth, vast eyes, long fingers. She looked far too like the witch-girl Konstantin described.

  Her green eyes spilled over with sorrow and courage and terrible fragility. Olga had never forgotten her little sister’s eyes.

  Vasya said, tentatively, “Olya?”

  Olga Vladimirova found herself smiling. “It is good to see you, Vasya.”

  Vasya fell to her knees, crying like a child into Olga’s lap. “I m-missed you,” she stammered. “I missed you so.”

  “Hush,” Olga said. “Hush. I missed you, too, little sister.” She stroked her sister’s hair, and realized she was crying as well.

  At last Vasya raised her head. Her mouth quivered; she wiped her streaming eyes, drew breath, and took her sister’s hands. “Olya,” she said. “Olya, Father is dead.”

  Olya felt a little cold place form and grow inside her: anger at this rash girl, mixed with her love. She did not say anything.

  “Olya,” Vasya said. “Didn’t you hear? Father is dead.”

  “I know,” Olga said. She crossed herself, and could not keep that coldness from her voice. Sasha glanced at her, frowning. “God give him peace. Father Konstantin told me all. He said you had run away. He thought you had died. I thought you had died. I wept for you. How came you here? And dressed—so?” She eyed her sister in some despair, taking in anew the disheveled shining plait, the boots and leggings and jacket, the disturbing grace of a wild thing.