by E. P. Clark
We dropped Mirochka off with her brothers, who were delighted to see her and wildly impressed that she had spent the morning sparring with me and the guards down on the barracks training ground. I was only able to escape them by promising that they, too, could join us in our training, if their mother gave her permission. At this rate, I thought to myself as the maid and I made our way from the children’s chambers to the Empress’s rooms, I would have all of Krasnograd watching my courtship of Ivan. Well, at least I would be able to observe how he handled himself around children, and no one could claim that I was pursuing him in secret.
Sera was not in her front room when I arrived, but lying on her bed in the rear chamber of her apartments, propped up on pillows and looking torn between extreme fatigue and righteous wrath. Vyacheslav Irinovich was sitting by the bed, and gave me a miserable look as I entered.
“Has a healer been summoned?” I demanded as soon as I walked in the room.
“No need,” said Sera, waving her hand limply. “It’s just…the usual.”
I walked over and took the hand she was trying to dismiss my fears with. It was clammy, and seemed puffier than when I had last seen it.
“Summon a healer this instant,” I ordered the maid.
She froze, her head swiveling back and forth between me and Sera, who tried to wave her hand dismissively again, but was unable to twitch even a finger out of my grasp.
“If I do not see a healer coming in through that door the next time I turn around, then by all the gods, everyone in this room is going to regret it,” I said. “Shut up, Sera!” I added before she could say anything. I turned back to the maid hovering on the threshold. “Now,” I ordered. She gulped and fled.
“You order my maids about very freely, Valya,” said Sera, smiling weakly. “Are you already preparing to take over my rule?”
“No, you insufferable halfwit, I’m doing my best to avoid taking over your rule entirely,” I said, stroking her hand. “How long have you been like this?”
“Oh Valya! It’s nothing. You know how it is…”
“I most certainly do not. I may have puked a time or twelve when I was carrying Mirochka, but I never found myself lying around in bed in the middle of the day, especially when I had hot-headed younger relatives to chastise.”
This brought a smile to Sera’s face, but I could see that even smiling cost her more strength than she could spare. “How long?” I asked Vyacheslav Irinovich, turning to him without releasing my grip on Sera’s hand, as if I could channel some of my own strength into her simply through the contact of my skin on hers.
“She awoke feeling unwell, Valeriya Dariyevna, and was…quite sick when the maids brought in breakfast. Since then she has been unable to rise.”
“And no healer was called?”
“I suggested it, Valeriya Dariyevna, but she was adamantly opposed.”
“Next time she’s unable to rise, call a healer even if she directly orders you not to,” I said.
“Yes, Valeriya Dariyevna,” said Vyacheslav Irinovich soberly. “I had already decided to summon one now, in fact, but I thought…”
“He would get less grief if you did the summoning,” Sera finished for him. I turned my attention back to her. Her voice sounded a little stronger, I thought, hoping I wasn’t deceiving myself, but I didn’t like the color of her lips, not at all.
“Well, it will be my fault if you are angry now,” I said.
“As…” she gasped a little, “…usual, Valya. I haven’t…” she gasped again, “…forgotten last night.”
“I thought you wouldn’t,” I said. “But don’t worry yourself about it! No harm was done. Well, except to the love the other princesses bore me, but that was already a hopeless case.”
“Oh Valya!” Tears started to leak out of her eyes. For all her mercurial nature, she very rarely cried, and now she had already cried twice in the two days I had been in Krasnograd. I tried to tell myself that people in her condition cried very easily, but that did nothing to ease the cold knot that had formed in the pit of my stomach. I stroked her hands with my thumbs and tried to will some of the courage, the resolution, and the good health that had always been mine into her body.
“Ivan Marinovich came to spar with me this morning,” I told her, hoping to distract her. “I think things are well in hand there.”
“Did you let him win, then?”
“Well, no,” I admitted. “I knocked him down twice in front of the guards.”
“Oh Valya!”
“But now he’s determined to beat me, and in pursuit of that aim has asked me to train him every day.”
“Oh Valya!” This time there was more joy and less despair in her breathless exclamation.
“And by the way, your sons have also asked me to train them. How I’m going to get any courting done is beyond me, now that I’ll have a whole herd of children following my every move.”
“Oh Valya.” She closed her eyes. “You don’t have to, you know.”
“Perhaps I’ll hold two training sessions every day,” I said. “One for the children, and one for Ivan Marinovich. It will be good for me to get to know my nephews, and for Mirochka to train with her brothers. We’ll just have to hope that no rumors start that I’m trying to steal them away from you, or some such thing.”
“Oh Valya.” She smiled faintly, her eyes still closed. “Only you…” She started to laugh, but that must have been too much for her, and her laughter changed to a cry of “The basin, Slava, the basin!” She heaved herself just upright enough to retch a little bile into the basin that Vyacheslav Irinovich had pulled out from under his chair and held under her mouth, and then collapsed back onto the pillows, even clammier and weaker than before.
“Would you like some water?” I asked, stroking her forehead.
“No…couldn’t face it.”
“Close your eyes, then. Think of your breath.”
“Why…”
“So you don’t think of…your stomach,” I said, not wanting to mention puking in front of her just then. “Think of your breath, Sera. All you have to do is breathe, and the healer will be here shortly.”
She breathed shallowly, her eyes still closed. Vyacheslav Irinovich and I exchanged a grim glance.
“I’m going to go see what’s taking the healer so long,” I said.
“No…stay with me, Valya. I feel better when you’re with me. It must be…those Stepnaya…healing hands.” She tried to clutch my hand, but her own was so feeble she did little more than scrabble at me.
“Very well, but only if you promise to lie perfectly still and not speak,” I told her. “No speaking!” I added sharply when she opened her mouth to respond. She smiled faintly and lay there. Her breath, I noted with relief, began to be less shallow after a moment.
After far too long, although I knew it had not really been long at all, the healer arrived. She was a calm, soft-moving woman of middle years, and I could feel all of us in the room, including myself, unclench a little as she came over to stand by the bed. In my experience, that was always a good sign in a healer, although I was more accustomed to dealing with the healers of horses than of women. But healing was healing, and I’d certainly witnessed enough of it in my sisters as well as my horses; attending to sick and injured guests to our house was one of the family duties I’d taken upon myself. If I’d trust her with a horse or one of my own people, that probably meant I could trust her with Sera.
She looked over Sera carefully, and spent a long time with her ear pressed up against her chest and stomach. When she was done, she told Sera that her biggest problem was hunger and thirst, and recommended that she try to sip a weak chamomile tea, and see if that helped her.
“With your permission, Tsarina, I will give the serving girl instructions for preparing it,” she said, and, bowing, left the room. I followed her into the servant’s room and waited until she had instructed the maid on the best way to steep the tea to the right strength, and the maid had left for the kitc
hens.
“We must speak,” I said as soon as we were alone.
She gave me a long calm glance. “I believe you are right, Valeriya Dariyevna. Can we go to your chambers? Or someplace private, at least.”
“My chambers will be the most private,” I told her.
“Then I will meet you there in a little while, once I am convinced that the Tsarina is improving.”
“The Tsarina wishes me to stay with her,” I told her.
“Yes…perhaps that would not be best, Valeriya Dariyevna, begging your pardon.”
“She seems to improve when I’m with her,” I said.
“Yes, but…I’m afraid you might upset her when what she needs more than anything is rest.”
Sera really had seemed to improve when I had held her hand, but as I didn’t want to start a quarrel with her healer as well as her princesses, I merely said, “I await our meeting eagerly,” and went back with the healer into Sera’s bedroom.
“Your maids should be bringing the tea shortly, Tsarina,” said the healer. “And I shall sit with you for a bit, until your stomach settles and you can take some liquid.”
“I already feel a bit better,” said Sera. She gave me a faint smile. “Valya must have healed me.”
“Your stomach is empty, Tsarina, so there is nothing for it to rebel against,” said the healer briskly, with an expression that said she didn’t believe in my healing abilities for an instant. “We must reintroduce it to food and drink slowly, starting with this soothing infusion. Once you have taken that, we can consider starting you on a gentle broth. And you must spend the rest of the day in bed, resting. On no account must you try to stand while you are in this weakened condition.”
“As you say,” said Sera, alarming me even further with her acquiescence to an order she normally would not even have bothered to contradict before flouting.
“I will let you rest,” I told her. “But I’ll be back later in the day, once you’re feeling better. Perhaps we should just agree to assume that you’ve already chastised me for what happened last night, and I’m suitably repentant, so there’s no need to waste our breath on going over it again?”
Her too-pale lips twitched in a half-smile. I tried to convince myself there wasn’t a bluish tinge to them. “When have you ever been suitably repentant, Valya?” she asked.
“I often repent of my actions,” I told her. “Just not as much as others would like me too. But I think things will turn out well from what happened last night, so there’s no need to worry about it. Just…rest, and try to drink something. If you need me, you know you only need send for me, and I will be here directly.”
“I know. Now go. We can talk later.” She had opened her eyes to speak to me, but now she closed them again, so I sketched a half-bow to Vyacheslav Irinovich and the healer, and left.
***
I spent the time waiting for the healer changing into less sweaty clothes and scavenging for lunch from the remains of the meal that had been brought to me and Mirochka earlier. Since Mirochka had devoured most of it, I had to content myself with a few crusts of bread, but it was a far sight better than nothing, and I was feeling almost my usual self when the healer arrived.
“Thank you for speaking with me, Valeriya Dariyevna,” she said as she entered.
“Since I’m the one who summoned you, I should be the one who’s grateful,” I told her. “I’d offer you refreshments, but my daughter already ate all the good stuff, and I just finished off the last crusts of bread. But if I had any refreshments to offer you, I would.”
“I thank you for the thought, Valeriya Dariyevna,” she said, giving me a sidelong look.
“I’m sure you do. How fares the Empress?”
“She has managed to consume a little of the tea I gave her, and seems to be rallying slightly.”
“Good. What’s wrong with her?”
The healer sat down at the small table by the unlit hearth, so I found myself sitting down across from her. She was not at all like me—in fact, I could already tell that if we ever had to work together, we would probably argue three times a day—but she did have a very calming presence. As someone who had quite the opposite effect on people, I couldn’t help but respect it, but right now I half-wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake her, just to make sure that she was treating the matter as seriously as it deserved and doing all she could to save Sera.
“Right now, her worst problem is the sickness common to women in her condition, Valeriya Dariyevna. Sometimes it takes them like that, and if they can’t eat or drink, just when they need their strength the most…well, it can cause extreme weakness. Normally they get over it.”
“I’ve seen women with child before. I’ve been with child before myself. I know about the sickness. But you can’t tell me that’s the cause of her other symptoms. Her color, the puffiness of her hands…that is not a good sign.”
“That is true, Valeriya Dariyevna. It is not a good sign.”
“So what does it mean?” I demanded, when it appeared that the healer was not going to speak any further without prompting.
She gave me another measuring glance. “As I understand it, Valeriya Dariyevna, you are next in line for the rule of Zem’, should something befall the Tsarina,” she said.
“Yes, the Black God take it. So what can be done to prevent anything befalling her?”
The healer sat there for a while in silence, mulling something over in her mind. “This is strictly in confidence, Valeriya Dariyevna,” she said, squaring her shoulders with the decision she had just come to.
“Of course.”
“The Tsarina’s heart is not strong,” she said reluctantly. “It is a flaw…her father’s mother had the same flaw, and died young because of it. In the normal course of things it does not seem to affect the Empress, but when she is with child the strain is too much for her. And then she has an unfortunate tendency to suffer from bleeding and miscarriage. It is only through the greatest of good fortune that she survived the birth of her sons, and this latest pregnancy is most ill-advised.”
“Can it be ended?”
“Unfortunately, Valeriya Dariyevna, at this point that would be just as dangerous as not ending it. The risk of bleeding, you see…If she had only come to me the moment she first suspected…but she says she had no thought of being with child, and ignored the signs when they first appeared, thinking it was just the beginning of the change of life every woman goes through. It was early, but...that is what she said, and it is not unheard of for women to go through it at her age. Anyway, that is not important. What is important is that she waited until it was too late to remedy the problem safely and easily. Perhaps on purpose. I believe she is determined to provide Zem’ with an heir, even at the cost of her own life.”
“Yes,” I said. “Will it cost her her life?”
The healer shrugged. “I have seen women worse off than she is survive and bring healthy children into the world, Valeriya Dariyevna…and I have seen healthier women die before they could even be brought to childbed. My sisters and I will do all we can for her, but it is in the hands of the gods now. But if I were you, Valeriya Dariyevna, I would prepare myself to become Empress before the year is out.”
“I see,” I said, more stiffly than I had intended. “I…I thank you for your honesty. Please do not let me detain you any further.”
“As you wish, Valeriya Dariyevna,” she said, rising and bowing. “I am sorry,” she added, looking down on me. “I am very sorry.”
“So am I.” I walked her out the door and, once I was alone, went over to the window that looked out onto the stables. The sun glinted off the roof and refracted in the tears standing in my eyes, dazzling me. I dashed away the tears, but more came to take their place. I would feel better if I could just pull myself together or burst into sobbing outright, but my chest was too tight to allow the tears to flow freely.
“The Black God take all you gods,” I said after a while. “Do you really want me to become Em
press? You do not! If you take Sera from me, I will make you rue the day you put me in her place!”
I waited for a while, but the gods didn’t answer. They never did.
Chapter Ten
No summons came from Sera that afternoon, so after a while I gave up on waiting and went out. I dropped in on Mirochka, but she and the tsarinoviches and their friends were absorbed in some complicated game and showed little interest in me, so I left their chambers and headed down to the stables. There I found our horses resting in their stalls and looking as if they were recovering nicely from their two-week journey. I received a promise from the stable mistress that they would be turned out later, once the heat of the day had passed, and allowed to stretch their legs for the evening, and we spent some time discussing the best way to rest them after their recent exertions and bring them back to full fitness in time for the journey home, which I said would take place at the end of summer, as if everything were going well and I were just here for a summer visit to my sister. As I was preparing to leave, Arina Svetlanovna, my traveling mistress of horse and the head of the few servants I had brought with me to Krasnograd, came into the stables.
“Ah, Valeriya Dariyevna,” she said. “I knew I’d find you here sooner or later. Are you happy with the state of the horses?”
“They seem well cared for, and are recovering nicely. Zaichik still has a bit of heat in his near fore, though.”
“That’s why I’m here, Valeriya Dariyevna,” she said. “We’ve been poulticing it twice a day. I think in a week or two he’ll be as right as rain.”
I reached over and scratched Zaichik’s forehead, much to his delight. These days he was a steady packhorse, but in his wild youth he had strained his near fore, and after long journeys the old injury flared up sometimes. “Have you thought of bandaging it?” I asked.
