by E. P. Clark
“Why?” Now his face was wary, as if I must have some sinister motive for everything I did. I supposed he was used to living amongst people who did have some sinister motive for everything they did, and he had no reason to believe I was any different. And of course, in some respects I wasn’t.
“Can we speak in confidence?” I asked, lowering my voice.
He looked like he wanted to make a withering, or at least angry, retort to that, but a lifetime of being polite, especially to women of higher rank, took over, and he only stared at me with mute irritation.
I took a step closer to him and put my hand on his arm. His skin rippled under my hand, like a nervous horse’s. “The Empress has asked me to lead a mission East, to the mountains,” I said. “To look into the matter of the missing children and the slave trade. We are going to hold a session of the Princess Council on it this afternoon, but between us it has already been decided—which is why I need to keep it in confidence. And she has asked me to choose the members of my party. I would like to choose you.”
“Wh…why?” he asked, clearing his throat and shaking his head. I couldn’t tell if it was the request, or my hand on his arm, that was unnerving him so. Probably both. Good. It was good for him to be unnerved. It would turn the little boy he still was into the man he was meant to be.
“Lots of reasons,” I said. “But the main one is that you’re a good fighter. You have it in you to be good at this kind of thing. I’d like you by my side on this mission, and I think you would benefit from it too.”
“Why?” he demanded.
The guards were trying to loiter ever closer without drawing my attention. I leaned in towards him and lowered my voice even more. “Because, Vanya, if you forgive me for speaking so bluntly, it will make a man of you. You’ve spent your whole life in your mother’s shadow, which is only natural for a child, but you’re not a child any more, you’re a man grown, or will be by next week. You need to leave your mother’s side and set off somewhere without her. And I’m giving you the opportunity.”
Hunger flared in his eyes and then was deliberately quenched. “You’re just…trying to convince me for your own ends, so I’ll end up in your shadow instead,” he said. “Besides, she’ll never let me go.”
“Some of my reasons may be…for my own ends,” I admitted. “But if all you want from me is to go on this mission, and nothing more, I will leave it at that, you have my word. As for what your mother will or will not permit—I intend to ask the black earth princesses, and her in particular, as the chief amongst them, to send a representative, preferably one of their own blood, and then I will suggest you personally. And if she balks because she fears for your…safety, let her send an escort along as well, someone she trusts to watch over you.”
“So once again I’ll be in her shadow,” he said glumly.
“Many princes, and princesses too, travel with an escort. But you would still get to travel across Zem’, and be part of an Imperial mission, and experience many other things that you have never experienced before. It would be a great adventure, Vanya, and I think you will truly be of use to us on it too. Otherwise I would not have asked you, no matter…what other things might lie between us.”
“I see,” he said guardedly.
“You can think on it, of course,” I told him. “But I must warn you that I will make the request this afternoon, and we will be setting off the day after Midsummer, so you will not be able to think for long.”
“I see,” he said again. He took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. “But there is no need for me to think on it any longer, Valeriya Dariyevna. I would like to go. I would be honored.”
“Really?” I broke out into a smile without meaning to. “That’s wonderful, Vanya!”
“Really?” he asked, breaking out into a shy smile as well.
“Yes, it is! Your first journey! I will make sure it will be a memorable one.”
“I’m sure it will be, Valeriya Dariyevna,” he said, now smiling wider and wider, as if unable to contain himself.
“The Tsarina will be delighted, too,” I told him. “She would like…she deeply regrets the trouble between our families, Vanya, and this will be a welcome first step to soothing the discord.”
“A first step made on our backs, Valeriya Dariyevna.”
“Well, since a lot of the trouble was my doing, I suppose I should have to pay to clear it up,” I said. “I’ll do what I can to see that you don’t suffer too much because of it.”
“I’m sure you will, Valeriya Dariyevna.” His voice dropped as he said it, and something flared in his eyes again.
“Come, we should…” I let go of his arm, which I had been holding all this time, “…we should return to our respective quarters, to prepare for the day ahead. The gods know we both have some daunting hours ahead of us.”
“Very well, Valeriya Dariyevna.” He stepped back from me and sheathed his sword. We both turned to go, but then he turned back. “Valeriya Dariyevna?” he said. “One final question.”
“Yes?”
“Why do you…call me Vanya?”
“Do you dislike it?” I asked.
“No…it’s just very…”
“Forward?” I suggested. “Bold? Almost inappropriate? Actually inappropriate?”
He grinned in, I could tell, spite of himself. “I suppose, now that you put it that way,” he said. “But I guess I was going to say…unfair. After all, I don’t call you…Valya.”
“You should. After all, I told you to.”
“I know, it just seemed…”
“Yes, I know,” I said, when it became obvious that he wasn’t going to be able to put into words what it seemed. “But that was several days ago. Surely by now you can bring yourself to do so, especially since I’ve requested it twice.”
“Perhaps…Valya.” He wrinkled his nose. “It…tastes funny when I say it. I think I’ll only be able to say it when no one else is around, at least at first.”
Once again I was forced to bite down on the half-dozen ribald comments that his words had invited. Perhaps later… “Agreed,” I said solemnly, as if he were Mirochka. “And now, I fear, we really should go. We’re both sweating like warhorses; we’ll have to get cleaned up before the ordeals that await us. Will I see you here tomorrow?”
“Oh…” He frowned. “I hope so, Valeriya…Valya, but…”
“I understand,” I said. “If something happens, or…or if there’s something you must tell me, just send word for me at the kremlin.”
“Oh.” He frowned again. “Ah…I feel like a fool, Valeri…Valya, but how?”
“Have one of your servants bring word to the servants at the kremlin. The kitchens are normally a good place to start. Any of the kremlin servants will be able to find me and bring me a message.”
“And if…forgive me, I…” he blushed painfully, “but you must understand, V…Valya, it could be that the servants…”
“If you can’t get any of your own servants to do it, then there is no shortage of street urchins who will happily carry a message for a grosh, or even a lump of sugar,” I said. “And if you can’t get out of the house, then think up some pretext for sending a message to the kremlin that has nothing to do with me, and send me a secret message. Say that…that you have made a new friend who is being quartered in the kremlin, or that the tsarinoviches wished to make your acquaintance, or something like that.”
“I see that you’re good at this.”
“Practice,” I said. “And it’s stood me in good stead more than once. Are we agreed?”
“Agreed,” he said, and, with only a couple of backward glances, he left.
Chapter Seventeen
As I had promised Sera I would, after I had washed off the sweat from the morning’s training session and taken some refreshment, I attempted to put on a gown for the Princess Council, but after rooting through my (meager) supply of clothing and looking at myself in the mirror half a dozen times, I gave up any thought of gown-wear
ing and dressed myself in the same silks I had worn to the feast. At least it would create an impression. Probably a bad impression, but at any rate I would look like someone who was capable of riding all the way across the country and dealing with evildoers.
I was smoothing back my hair and trying to convince myself that I wasn’t nervous, when a maid came in and offered to help me dress. I thanked her and, ignoring the sideways looks she was giving my outfit, sent her away, and then, after a couple more deep breaths, I set off for the Hall of Council.
I was one of the first to arrive, which gave me the chance to go claim a spot near the throne dais, but off to the side. My plan was to be inconspicuous, but available when Sera would call on me. Aksinya Olgovna came sidling nervously through the main doors, and I waved her over. She joined me near the wall and looked around.
“Is this it?” she asked. “I thought there would be more.”
“There will be,” I said. “We’re early. Most of the princesses haven’t arrived yet, and the Tsarina won’t make her entrance until everyone else is here.”
“How will she know?” asked Aksinya Olgovna.
I nodded at a door that was barely visible in the wall behind the dais. “She and her guards will be waiting there. You can see into the room through the door. Once the guards have told her it’s time, she’ll come out.”
“Oh.” Aksinya Olgovna gave the door an apprehensive look, and then gave the throne an even more apprehensive look. I followed her gaze. It was really just a high-backed wooden chair, with arms, sitting on a dais less than a foot off the ground. Flowers and birds were carved into the wood. Supposedly they were spells for health and wisdom. For the seat of the most powerful ruler in the Known World, it wasn’t that impressive. Except that it was. For centuries the most powerful person in the Known World had ruled from it. And the next person to sit in it could be me. I tried not to carry on with that thought.
More princesses were filing in, and the hum of hushed conversation was filling the hall. I could feel more and more pairs of eyes being turned on me. A considerable amount of words being spoken in half-whispers were speculating on my presence here—or perhaps bemoaning it. There was a sudden silence as Princess Velikokrasnova entered the room.
She was a tall woman, as tall as I was, and she walked with a straight back, her head held high, and the expression of someone who had just bitten a wasp. Her face was sharper than was common amongst the black earth princesses, and I had always fancied—not that it brought me any joy—that I could see a touch of the steppe in her high cheekbones. She was wearing a cloth-of-gold gown and an elaborate gold headdress to match, but none of that could mask the fact that she had already left her youth behind, and meanness and discontent were carving cruel lines in her face, revealing (I thought meanly and discontentedly) the true nature that had earlier been hidden behind her even features. Her eyes found mine. I looked back. The room stayed silent, waiting to see who would look away first…
“Valeriya Dariyevna,” whispered Aksinya Olgovna. “Valeriya Dariyevna!”
I turned to her, and the whole room relaxed in a collective sigh. “What?” I asked.
“When the Tsarina calls on me, what should I do?”
“Go stand beside the dais, bow to her and to the hall, and recount your story as we rehearsed.”
“No, but I mean…where should I go? Where beside the dais? Should I speak to the Empress or to the hall?”
“Go to the front of the dais, but on this side of the throne. Bow to her first, and then to the princesses. There aren’t many people on this side of the hall, and frankly, since I’m here, there aren’t likely to be many, so you may be able to stand at an angle and address both the Tsarina and the hall. If not, start by addressing her, and see if she commands you—which she probably will—to turn to face the hall instead. It won’t be that complicated; you just have to stay calm.”
“Thank you, Valeriya Dariyevna,” said Aksinya Olgovna, looking anything but calm. “And…who was that woman? The one who just walked in?”
“Princess Velikokrasnova.”
“And…why, if I may presume to ask, is she staring at you so hatefully?”
I looked at Aksinya Olgovna in surprise. “You mean you don’t know?”
She shook her head. Well, at least the scandal had not reached the mountains. Until now, that is. “Her husband is the father of my daughter,” I told her.
“Valeriya Dariyevna!” The sight of a weathered woman who had probably crossed Zem’ more times than many of her sister noblewomen had crossed their estates staring in gape-mouthed astonishment was almost funny.
“He wasn’t her husband at the time. In fact, I intended for him to be my husband. But he, and she, and all our families, had different ideas. But you can see why she bears me no good will.”
“Yes, I see, Valeriya Dariyevna,” said Aksinya Olgovna faintly. She gave me a sideways look. “And I’m sorry,” she added.
“Thank you,” I told her, and then we could speak no more of it, because the door behind the throne opened and Sera and all her guards came out.
We all bowed as Sera appeared, and waited until she had taken her seat to straighten up. I tried to look her over without making it clear that I was doing so. From where I was standing, she didn’t look so bad—no obvious tremors or faintness that I could see. But I noted that Vitaly Mariyevich was hovering unusually close to her elbow.
She thanked us all for assembling on such short notice, and then launched into the matter at hand, explaining briefly that reports had reached her of Zemnian children being taken into slavery, and that we must look into it. Then she called Aksinya Olgovna forward.
Aksinya Olgovna, giving me a backwards glance full of trepidation, went to stand at the spot by the dais I’d pointed out to her, and bowed as I’d instructed her, and then, with some throat-clearing and hesitation, began to tell the story of how children had always disappeared from the mountains, but this year more of them were disappearing than usual, and how she had indeed confirmed that they were being sold into slavery to the East, sometimes after being kidnapped, and sometimes voluntarily by their own parents.
I scanned the crowd. Some of the princesses looked angry, some disbelieving. Most of the ones who looked angry looked that way because they didn’t want to believe what they were hearing and were angry at being forced to stand in a stifling hall on a hot summer afternoon over something they would give almost anything to have not be true. My gaze found Princess Velikokrasnova. She was still standing with a very straight back and her head held high, looking dismissive, as if all this were beneath her. She felt my eyes on her skin and looked my way, but I had already turned my gaze back to the throne.
Sera questioned Aksinya Olgovna over a couple of points, and then dismissed her. Aksinya Olgovna bowed and retreated gratefully to my side, which she seemed to think (erroneously) was a safer and more protected place than in front of the dais.
“You did well,” I whispered to her. “You laid it all out very clearly. No thinking woman could have any doubts about the truth of your story.”
“Thank you, Valeriya Dariyevna,” she whispered back, and then we fell silent as Sera began speaking.
“In light of the word brought to us by our esteemed Aksinya Olgovna, and…other reports of a similar nature I have received, I have decided it would be best to send a delegation out to the Eastern mountains to investigate this matter,” she was saying. “What do you say, my sisters?”
There was a lot of muttering. “I suppose it must be looked into, gracious Tsarina,” said the youngest daughter of Princess Severnolesnaya, who was in Krasnograd as her mother’s representative.
“You suppose correctly,” said Sera. “Are we all agreed?”
There was some more muttering, but after further pressure from Sera everyone nodded their agreement that yes, a delegation must be sent East to look into the matter.
“I am pleased we have reached such a wise agreement,” said Sera. “I have decided t
he delegation should have representatives from the great families of Zem’, so that we all may be witnesses to what is happening within our own borders. I name my sister Valeriya Dariyevna as head.”
The whole crowd sucked in air at once. Sera turned to me, seemingly unruffled, and said, “Valeriya Dariyevna, dear sister, step forward and tell us: whom else shall we name for this mission?”
I stepped forward. Princess Velikokrasnova, I could tell, was trying not to look at me, but her eyes were burning holes in the space six inches to my left. “We should have representatives from the great families of Zem’,” I said. “I will represent the steppe as well as Krasnograd. Aksinya Olgovna should join us, for she represents the mountain folk, and she is also the one most familiar with the situation. Now we have only to select those who will represent the North, the coast, and the Southern mountains, for I have already chosen Ivan Marinovich Velikokrasnov to represent the black earth district. The rest of the party can be taken up with whatever guards and scouts we choose to bring with us.”
A great clamor arose, that was only quelled when Sera had Vitaly Mariyevich and his guards make threatening motions as if they were about to move on the crowd. As soon as silence had been regained, Princess Velikokrasnova stepped forward and bowed.
“Tsarina,” she said, and despite all her efforts her voice was shaking. “I demand…how is this…I forbid it!”
“I will consider your request,” said Sera. “But first I must hear my sister’s reasons for her choice.”
I bowed briefly. “With pleasure, Tsarina. As you must know, the journey is likely to be arduous. We will have to travel quickly and far, and it is possible that our mission will take us into remote villages or even beyond the mountains. We will need people prepared to face hardship and able to exert themselves. We will also need people who will be able to defend themselves and others if necessary. And yet they must be members of the great families of Zem’. Ivan Marinovich is currently the only direct descendent of the Velikokrasnova line. He is also young and vigorous, and an able swordsman. And he has already consented.”
