His face darkened; with his soft curls and wide collar, he looked to Nadia like a little boy about to throw a tantrum. “So, you think you can do better than me? What, you want some noble’s son?”
“Sasha! Don’t be ridiculous.”
“You should hear what everyone has been saying about you! Up until now, I didn’t believe it, but first that monstrous house, and now this manliness. You really are acting like a witch!”
“Why, because I’m trying to continue the trade I was born to? You think I need a pizzle-stick to sell fur?” With a flash of inspiration, she snatched up the pestle and poked him in the belly with it. “Well here’s mine, longer than anybody’s. Go tell that to your friends at the tavern, and tell them to pay any debts they owe me as well, or I’ll make sure they feel the end of it.”
Aleksandr stared at her, aghast, then drew himself up and took a deep breath. “I will put this madness down to your grief,” he said at last. “And give you another opportunity to accept my suit next week.” He gave a jerky bow, then stalked out—leaving his hat still hanging on the nail. Nadia heard him pause after a few steps, could picture his expression as he struggled with his pride. Then he stomped on, bare-headed.
Nadia looked dolefully at the pestle in her hand. “Poor Aleksandr, I shouldn’t have spoken so harshly to him. He was only telling the truth. What should I do, Grandmother? Who is going to do business with a spinster?”
Not that Grandmother Yaga had ever had to worry about being mocked or short-changed, Nadia thought bitterly. Grandmother Yaga was the one woman who had commanded respect without a man beside her, and no brigand would have crossed her. Reputation was everything, in that way.
Nadia went back to her accounts and listened to the silence fill up the rooms around her. It smothered the tick of the clock and pressed against the panes, washing out from its source—the cold room, without a fire, where Daniil Ivanov’s chair sat empty.
She looked at the coat peg, where his sable coat still hung, his scent all but faded.
She began to cry.
Soft gasps at first, then great weeping sobs that shook her chest. Nadia ran to the coat and snuffled into its soft folds, her tears running down its hairs and staining the wood below her.
She knelt like that until the fire was down to its embers and the night was at its darkest. Then she took a deep breath and got to work.
She dug out her father’s sign from the pieces of her ruined stall and made the necessary adjustments. Then she packed a traveling bag, tipped her remaining valuables into her pockets, dragged the mortar, broom and pestle out onto the doorstep, and locked the front door. Climbing into the bowl, she cried out, “Take me back to Grandmother Yaga’s house.”
The mortar sprang into the air and soared over the white-capped rooftops. Nadia clutched its rim and blinked away the tears stung from her eyes by the frosty wind. The lights of the town-fires fell away behind her, and soon she was gliding above trees turned to quicksilver by the moon. Birds sang in their sleep as she passed.
Skimming across the waste, she caught up with the hut ten miles from town. It was striding across the snow, incongruously black against the white. Nadia drew up alongside and gave the door a poke with her pestle.
“Open up, my friend. It’s too cold a night to be alone.”
The door swung open and the mortar slipped inside, coming down on the planking with a crash. Nadia stepped out and stretched, then lit a candle from her bag. In the warm yellow light, the hut seemed as cozy as a root cellar. It needed a scrub, but afterwards it would do very nicely as a home.
Not a home, she corrected herself. A partner.
“How quickly can you get to Khotilov?” she called out. “There are men there with pelts to sell, and between us I think we can convince them to come to a deal. You’re not afraid of brigands, are you?”
The hut flapped its shutters derisively and quickened its pace until it seemed to be flying across the plains. Nadia leaned out into the cold night air and hung their new shingle by the door.
DANIILOVNA AND YAGAVICH: TRAVELING FUR EMPORIUM
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Copyright © 2015 Jack Nicholls
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Jack Nicholls lives in Melbourne, Australia, where on most nights he cannot see the stars at all. He is a graduate of Clarion West 2011. His story “The Tale of the Aggrieved Astrologer” appeared in BCS #101.
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COVER ART
“Kodran Migrant Fleet,” by Tyler Edlin
Tyler Edlin is a freelance illustrator and concept artist for the entertainment industry, creating epic fantasy and science fiction worlds. He gives back to the community providing regular classes and tutorials on such popular subjects as the fundamentals of character and environment design. View more of his work online at tyleredlinart.com.
Beneath Ceaseless Skies
ISSN: 1946-1076
Published by Firkin Press,
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