by E. P. Clark
I rode up to her cautiously. Places like Lesgranichnoe had people who made their living gathering mushrooms, berries, firewood, and small game in the woods, and bringing it all back to the surrounding villages and selling it, and once I could make out her face, I recognized her as one of those such woodswomen who had been in the inn last night. My heart leaped in hope.
“Good morning,” I told her, reining in Zlata and standing in front of her. “Are you looking for us?”
“I am, noblewoman.” She was probably about my age, but she looked older, worn before her time by a lifetime of hard work and poverty.
“Are you here to help us?”
She hesitated. “I’m here to show you the place you’re lookin’ for, noblewoman,” she said after a pause.
“The caravan stopping place in the woods?”
She nodded. “If you like. But there’s no one there right now, noblewoman.”
“Well, no mind. I’d still like to see it. Do you have a horse?”
She shook her head. “Better without one, in the woods.”
“You can ride behind me, if you like,” I offered.
“I track better on foot, noblewoman. You’ll have to keep down to my pace, though—an’ keep up with me, once we get into the trees.”
“Gladly, if you can take us to this campsite.”
“Follow me, then,” she said, and set off down the road, with me at her side and the others behind us.
As we walked along I tried to find out more about her, but all she would say was that her name was Masha and she was a woodswoman here. We followed the road till close to midday, when she suddenly slowed her pace and began casting about, before holding up her hand and indicating what looked like a deer track leading off into the woods.
“How did they bring carts and people down this track?” I asked, as we set off down it single file. It was barely wide enough for our horses.
“There’s another trail, a wider one,” said Masha. “One for the carts. A whole second road. This is just for people joining ‘em.”
“Have you been there before?” I asked her.
“Yes, noblewoman,” she said, but refused to say anything else about it.
We followed the narrow track for what must have been another hour at least, until Masha suddenly told us she would have to scout ahead, and to wait for her there. Accordingly we waited, still mounted, since, while I thought Masha seemed reasonably trustworthy, I couldn’t help but think that this would be a fine spot for an ambush, hemmed in as we were by the trees all around us.
But when Masha returned, she was still by herself, and she told us that the campsite, which was just ahead, was indeed deserted, just as she had thought. So we rode on, coming suddenly out from amongst a thick stand of firs into a clearing with crude huts and the signs of frequent habitation.
“Fifty people could stay here,” said Aksinya Olgovna, sounding impressed. “And look: there’s the road she was talking about.”
We went over to investigate, and indeed, there was a broad track leading in on one side of the clearing and out of the other.
“It goes all the way through the forest,” Masha told us. “But only…certain caravans use it.”
“Why doesn’t everyone use it?” I asked. “A good road like that…”
“It don’t lead nowhere, noblewoman. Not to any nearby settlements, that is.”
“Do you know where it does lead?” I asked.
She shook her head. “East, noblewoman, that’s all I know.”
“Well, that’s telling enough,” I said, and ordered everyone to dismount and feed and water the horses while I looked around.
I went first to the stable, which was crude but functional. It had not been cleaned after its last inhabitants had left, and the manure in the stalls was several weeks old at least. I went up into the hayloft and found a small supply of last year’s hay, still in good shape, so, reasoning that if anyone returned, they would have to bring with them a load of this year’s hay, and I was probably stealing from slavers anyway, I tossed most of it down into the paddock where our horses were drinking. I nosed around the hayloft and the tackroom for a while, but found nothing there that I wouldn’t expect to find in any ordinary stable, so I left and went into the largest of the huts.
This must be where Aleftina Vasilisovna stayed while she was here, since as well as a kitchen—and there were supplies in the cupboards, suggesting that the inhabitants were expected to return—and a bedroom that, while not luxurious, was as well-appointed as what one would expect to find in a travelers’ cabin or one of the less-nice waystations, there was also a study with a writing desk and a shelf full of ledgers. I rifled through the ink-stained desk, but found only a few bits of paper and a couple of old quills, before seizing the ledgers eagerly and flipping through them.
They resembled Anastasiya Olesyevna’s, even describing the same trading journeys, which was unsurprising. Like Anastasiya Olesyevna’s, there was a mixture of legal trade goods, which were listed by name—silks, embroideries, spices, and so on—and unnamed units, which sold for fabulous sums. I did some hasty calculations in my head, and concluded that Aleftina Vasilisovna’s wealth was at least equal to my own. The thought of stripping her of that wealth was extremely satisfying, and for a moment I indulged in fantasies of watching her grovel in poverty like the meanest denizen of Outer Krasnograd, before my attention was returned to the ledger I had in my hand, and I noticed that there was also a list of losses as well.
I dropped the ledger and, hardly knowing what I was doing, rushed out to the back of site, right on the edge of the clearing, where I found a large patch of earth that had been dug up in an orderly fashion.
“Is that a garden?” asked Ivan, who, followed by the others, had come to join me. “There’s nothing planted in it.”
“It’s not a garden,” I said. “The only thing they plant here…it’s not a garden.” My voice was rising higher and higher. “And yet look how organized it is, everything in rows! Everything in plots, and look, they’ve marked out the next row! They expect to add to it! They expect…they plan for this, they know, they know what will happen, they know they’ll be adding to it, and yet…and yet…” I was shouting now, my voice shaking with rage.
“Valeriya Dariyevna,” said Ivan, speaking gently even though his face showed that I had frightened him, him and all the others. “Valeriya Dariyevna, what is it?”
“It’s a graveyard,” I said. “A children’s graveyard.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Everyone stood there in mute horror for a moment after I spoke, and then Alzhbetka said, “But there’re no markers. No gravestones.”
“In the ledgers,” I said. “In the losses column. That’s where the gravestones are.”
Alzhbetka looked like she might be sick, which made me like her a lot more than I ever had before. Still, she kept trying to argue against it, which also, perversely, made me like her even more. “How can we know for sure?” she asked. “With no markers…maybe it isn’t graves, children’s graves. After all, you said yourself that there was nothing written down for certain—unless these ledgers are different from the ones you’ve already seen?”
“No,” I said. “There’s nothing written down for certain in them, but…well, it should be easy enough to prove. There must be a shovel somewhere, probably in the stable.”
No one moved, but only looked at me with expressions of even deeper horror, which, to be honest, I shared, although it didn’t seem to be written on my face as it was on everyone else’s. Alzhbetka was giving me a look of deepest disgust and Ivan was staring at me as if he’d never seen me before, while Kseniya looked like she was about to bring up her midday pies. Not that I could blame any of them. The thought of digging up a grave, a child’s grave, let alone many of them, made me think I might be sick as well, but it would be proof, much better proof than these ledgers, which had been written so carefully so as not to say anything directly that could show the guilt of those
who kept them. It would be worth it if it would help us catch them and sentence them to the justice they deserved, I could look at the rotting corpses of children if it would help bring down the ones who had done this…
Masha had wandered off to the edge of the woods and was standing by one of the graves. I went over to her. Tears were running down her weathered cheeks, cheeks that should not have been so weathered, from eyes that should not have been filled with so much sorrow…
“Is that your sister there,” I asked, “or your brother?”
“Both,” she answered, her voice barely above a whisper. “Twins. Much younger than me. My mother thought she were goin’ through the change, she never thought she could be carryin’ again, after failin’ so many times afore, but she was, an’ it were twins…an’ then she died when they was still babies, she never recovered from bearin’ ‘em, an’ my father followed soon after, an’ it were just the three of us, an’ then…an’ then…” She gave a great sob, and I found myself putting my arms around her.
“I had to leave ‘em,” she said into my shoulder, her own wiry shoulders shaking with her sobs. “I had to leave ‘em all the time, in order to go huntin’…they was too little to come with me, an’ otherwise we’d’ve starved. An’ then…an’ then…I knew Aleftina Vasilisovna came through here, I knew about this place, but I didn’t let myself know what it were really for, I kept that thought hidden from myself, an’ I would bring her things, sell her things…it were the only way we made it through the winter, some years, an’ then…Ivanushka were sick, he got so sick, an’ I went into the village to look for an herbwoman, an’ when I came back… when we came back…they was gone!”
“Were they taken?” I asked softly.
“They must’ve been. She…she knew about ‘em, she’d offered before…but I’d never really understood what she were offerin’, I’d always kept myself from understandin’, but I’d turned her down afore, she’d offered to take ‘em off my hands, but I’d always said no, I liked havin’ ‘em around, an’ they was the only family I had, but she…she knew where our cabin were, she used to stop by sometimes, if they needed food or anythin’, an’ she must’ve stopped by while I were gone, an’ when I came back…I guessed, I guessed right away, I could see by the tracks that someone had come an’ taken ‘em, an’ I followed the tracks here, an’ I saw…it were the full caravan here, an’ all the huts was full, an’ I went from hut to hut in the dark, lookin’ through the windows, an’ I saw…I saw…they was all full of children, some of ‘em was tied up…an’ then…I found ‘em!”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Ivanushka’d been sick afore they took him, but Alyonushka…she must’ve fought back, she were like that…an’ they must have beaten her for it…the doors was barred, but they was barred from the outside, I were able to get in, an’ there was children…it must’ve been the hut for sick children, ‘cause they was all sick or injured, an’ Ivanushka were burnin’ up with fever, an’ Alyonushka…Alyonushka…they must’ve hit her in the ribs, children have such frail ribs…it must’ve broken somethin’ inside, pierced somethin’ inside…they was both dead by morning,” she finished.
“I’m sorry,” I said again.
“I was with ‘em to the end, though, I held their hands to the end, an’ then…I wanted to take ‘em, but…while I were thinkin’ about how to do that, how to carry ‘em both back, she came, she an’ some of her people, an’ I crept away an’ hid, and they took ‘em, they took ‘em, an’ buried ‘em, an’ then…” She trailed off.
“I’ll catch her,” I murmured into Masha’s ear. “I’ll catch her, do you understand? And when I do—are you willing to tell others what you’ve just told me, to stand up before the Tsarina and tell her what you’ve just told me?”
“Anythin’!”
“Then…you will see justice done, at least,” I promised. “And you will be instrumental in bringing it about.” I let go of her and, looking up at the sky, called out, “Mirochka! Mirochka!” Everyone looked at me strangely, and there was no response. She must not have been looking for me just then, or maybe I was too awake. I’d have to try again later.
“Come on,” I said to the others. “Let’s go look at the other cabins.”
As Masha had said, the other cabins all had bars on the outside of their doors, like a stable. That was an uncomfortable thought, but I put it in my own ledger to consider later, and carried on with my examination of the buildings. They were even cruder than the main cabin, and filthy, which surprised me: I would have thought that the value of their inhabitants would have meant that they would have been kept in cleaner conditions. Surely they would be worth more clean and healthy—but perhaps they were worth so much already, it didn’t matter. It also made me feel better about myself: I would never let a stable get to anything approaching this state. I thought back to the uncleaned stalls in the stable here, and decided it was all of a piece: no doubt when so much flesh passed through your fingers, after a while it ceased to have any value, whether horse or human.
“The beds are so small,” said Alzhbetka beside me in dismay, while Ivan and Amiran hung back by the door, unable to bring themselves even to come all the way into the room. “They must have been no more than ten—no one older than that could fit in them.” Her eyes were very large, and she seemed on the verge of tears. “And what are…there are chains on the beds…what are those for…”
“To keep them from running, no doubt,” I said. “Look: they probably fit the children with collars, and then attach the chains to them when they need to.”
“How can you…” now tears really were spilling out of her eyes, which were gazing at me reproachfully, “How can you be so calm about it?” Ivan and Amiran’s faces seemed to echo the sentiment from the doorway.
“Because,” I said, “I am going to do everything in my power to destroy these people and everyone else like them. Mirochka!” For a moment I thought I felt her thoughts brush up against mine, and I tried as hard as I could to show her what I was seeing, and tell her to pass it all on to Sera, but I couldn’t tell whether or not I had succeeded.
“Why…” Alzhbetka was looking at me in bewilderment now, and the others were looking alarmed, as if I might have suddenly gone crazy, “Why do you keep calling your daughter’s name?”
“Because I think she might be able to hear me.”
Alzhbetka stared at me in even greater bewilderment, and the others with even greater alarm.
“It seems that is how our family’s gifts are manifesting themselves in her,” I said. “But she doesn’t know quite how it works yet. But it’s worth a try. Mirochka!!!”
This time I definitely connected, but only long enough to say, Tell the Tsarina and show her what I had seen, before our connection broke, probably because of her confusion and shock at what I had shown her.
“I’ll have to try again later,” I said to Alzhbetka. “But with any luck, she’ll have understood enough to tell the Tsarina about what we’ve found. Come: there are still more buildings to go through.”
Alzhbetka, Ivan, and Amiran followed me willingly out of the cabin, but rather less willingly into the next cabin, and soon even Aksinya Olgovna’s shoulders were hunched in a way that said she was sorry she had ever come here, and I could feel the others’ glances on me when they thought I wasn’t looking, glances that said they found my energy, my determination, my ability to go through room after room and look unflinchingly at revolting scene after revolting scene to be distasteful, even immoral. As if my ability to look upon the work of slave traders without breaking down were a sign that I was the same as them on some level. Which was probably true. Which was why Sera had sent me. She had sent me to catch these people, because I was the one who had been willing to get blood on my hands in my pursuit of them, because I could look at this kind of thing without flinching, because when I saw dirty child-sized beds and rusty child-sized chains, and—at this point Amiran and Ivan had to leave us, I thought to go throw up—kniv
es that I said looked to be used for gelding (and the guilt I had felt on seeing the bars on the outside of the doors was nothing compared to the guilt I had when I thought about how I knew to recognize the tools used for gelding)—because when I saw all that, I didn’t have to leave to go throw up, I just felt my strength growing and growing, so that I felt as if I could have searched through an entire city of horrors, if that’s what it would take to find these people and bring them to justice.
By the time we had gone through all the buildings in the clearing, it was late afternoon and my head was pounding with suppressed rage. I considered spending the night there, but when I suggested it to the others, they all looked so stricken that I quickly abandoned that idea, and with a great deal of relief. The little beds with their chains, and the graveyard with its unmarked graves, were all weighing down on us more and more, and besides, the stable was unfit for our horses to stay in without serious cleaning and repair. It was the state of the stable that, more than anything else, made me realize what kind of people we were dealing with. Stealing children, and keeping them chained up, and then selling them on to be used in degrading servitude, was so entirely out of my understanding of how one could behave, that I had a certain difficulty even grasping it, even when the evidence was staring me so starkly in the face. But someone who took poor care of their horses was very much a known quantity, and one I despised. I passed back through and looked over the stalls again just to convince myself, and found myself making a face of distaste at what I saw. The sheer pettiness of the stupidity and evil brought it home to me in a way the graveyard and the chains on the beds could not, horrifying as I found them.
