Konstantin’s open eyes were full of rainwater, spilling over, sliding down his temples like tears. “Your victory,” the Bear said to Vasya and bowed, sweeping a gesture over the field of the dead. His voice was colder than she’d ever heard Morozko’s. “I wish you joy of it.”
She said nothing.
“You have seen our end in that man’s prayers,” said the Bear. His chin jerked toward Sergei. “Brother, you and I will stay locked in our endless war, even as we fade into ash and frost, and the world is changed. There is no hope now for the chyerti.”
“We are going to share this world,” Vasya said. “There will be room for all of us: men and devils and bells too.”
The Bear only laughed softly at her. “Shall we go, my twin?”
Morozko, without a word, swept out a hand, caught the gold binding the other’s wrists. An icy wind leaped up and the two faded into the darkness.
* * *
THE WATER WAS SLUICING down Dmitrii’s hair, his bloody sword-arm. He crossed the dooryard with a heavy step, pushing his rain-drenched hair out of his eyes. “I am glad you are not dead,” he said to Vasya. “Cousin.”
She said wryly, “I, too.”
Dmitrii spoke to Vasya and her brother both. “Take the Princess of Serpukhov home,” he said. “And then—come back, both of you. Secretly, for God’s sake. This is not over. What comes next will be worse than a few dead men.”
Without another word, he left them, made his splashing way across the dvor, already calling orders.
“What is coming?” Vasya asked Sasha.
“The Tatars,” said Sasha. “Let’s get Olya home; I want some dry clothes.”
24.
Turnings
ONCE OLGA WAS SAFE IN the terem of her own palace, Vasya and Sasha changed their filthy dripping clothes and hurried back to the Grand Prince. Vasya threw the fur cloak they’d given her in Midnight about her shoulders; the rain had broken the heat and it was chilly in the wet darkness.
They were let quietly in through the postern and brought up at once, in silence, to Dmitrii’s small antechamber. The wind was roaring through windows flung wide. There were no attendants, only a table ready-laid, with a jar and four cups, and bread and smoked fish and pickled mushrooms. Simple fare, for Sergei’s sake; the old monk was with Dmitrii, waiting for them. He drank honey-wine slowly and he looked very tired.
Dmitrii stood out, vivid and restless, unwearied among the vines and flowers and saints painted on his walls. “Sit, both of you,” he said, when Sasha and Vasya appeared. “I will have to consult with my boyars tomorrow, but first I wish to be decided in my own mind.”
Wine was poured out, and Vasya, who had taken only a few tasteless mouthfuls when they stopped to rest by the river, now made her way steadily through bread and the good oily fish, listening all the while.
“I should have known,” began Dmitrii. “That yellow-haired charlatan, sweeping into Moscow to exorcise the dead things. We thought it was divine power. And all the time he was in league with the devil.”
Vasya wished Dmitrii wouldn’t speak of it. She kept seeing Konstantin’s face as it had looked in the rain.
“We are well rid of him,” Dmitrii continued.
Sergei said, “You have not summoned us all, weary as we are, to gloat.”
“No,” said Dmitrii, his triumphant mood fading. “I have been getting reports—the Tatars are on the lower Volga, marching north. Mamai is still coming. No word of Vladimir Andreevich. The silver—”
“The silver was lost,” said Vasya, remembering.
Every head in the room swiveled.
“Lost in a flood,” she continued. She set aside her cup and straightened her back. “If the silver was your ransom for Muscovy, Dmitrii Ivanovich, then Muscovy has not been ransomed.”
They were still staring. Vasya looked steadily back. “I swear it is true. Do you wish to know how I know?”
“I do not,” said Dmitrii, crossing himself. “I’d rather know more. Is Vladimir dead? Alive? Captured?”
“That I do not know,” said Vasya. She paused. “But I could find out.”
Dmitrii only frowned at that, thoughtfully, and paced the room: grim, restless, leonine. “If my spies confirm what you say about the silver, then I will send word to the princes of Rus’. We have no choice. We have to muster at Kolomna before the dark of the moon, then march south to fight. Or are we to allow all Rus’ to be overrun?” Dmitrii spoke to them all, but his eyes were on Sasha, who had once pleaded with him not to engage the Tatar in the field.
Now Sasha only said, with a grimness to match Dmitrii’s, “Which of the princes will come to the muster?”
“Rostov, Starodub,” said Dmitrii, ticking off the principalities on his fingers. He was still pacing. “The ones in my vassalage. Nizhny Novgorod, for its prince is my father-in-law. Tver, to honor the treaty. But would I had the Prince of Serpukhov. He is clever in council, and loyal, and I will need his men.” He halted in his pacing, his eyes on Vasya.
“What of Oleg of Ryazan?” Sasha asked.
“Oleg won’t come,” said Dmitrii. “Ryazan is too close to Sarai, and Oleg is cautious by nature; he won’t risk it, regardless of what his boyars want. He’ll march with Mamai, if anything. But we’ll fight anyway, without Ryazan and without Serpukhov, if we must. Do we have a choice? We tried ransoming Muscovy, but we could not. Shall we submit, or shall we fight?” This time the question was addressed to all three of them.
No one said anything.
“I will send to the princes tomorrow,” said Dmitrii. “Father”—here he turned to Sergei—“will you come with us, and bless the army?”
“I will, my son,” said Sergei. He sounded weary. “But you know even a victory will cost you.”
“I’d avoid war if I could,” said the Grand Prince. “But I can’t and so—” His face shone. “We will fight at last, after a summer of fear and cringing. God willing, it will be our time to throw off the yoke.”
And God help them all, Vasya thought. When Dmitrii spoke so, they believed him. She knew, without asking, that the princes would come to his mustering. God help us all.
The Grand Prince turned abruptly to Vasya. “I have your brother’s sword,” he said. “And I have the holy father’s blessing. But what will I have from you, Vasilisa Petrovna? I was sorry to think you dead. But then I heard you set fire to my city.”
She got to her feet to face him. “I am guilty before you, Gosudar,” said Vasya. “Yet twice I helped defeat this city’s enemies. The fire was my fault, but the snowstorm that followed—I summoned that, too. As for punishment? I was punished.” She turned her head so the mark on her cheek showed stark in the firelight. Subtly, her hand closed on the carved nightingale in her sleeve, but that was not a sorrow she meant to parade before these men. “What do you want of me?”
“Twice you were nearly burned alive,” said Dmitrii. “Yet you came back, to save this city from evil. Perhaps you should be rewarded. What do you want, Vasilisa Petrovna?”
She knew her answer, and didn’t mince words. “There is a way to know if Vladimir Andreevich is alive or dead. If he is alive, then I am going to find him. You muster in two weeks?”
“Yes,” said Dmitrii warily. “But—”
She cut him off. “I will be there,” she said. “And if Vladimir Andreevich is alive, he will be there too, with his men.”
“Impossible,” said Dmitrii.
Vasya said, “If I succeed, then I will consider my debt paid, to you and to this city. And now? I would ask you for your trust. Not for a boy named Vasilii Petrovich, who never existed, but for myself.”
“Why should I trust you, Vasilisa Petrovna?” asked Dmitrii, but his gaze was intent. “You are a witch.”
“She defended the Church from evil,” said Sergei, and made the sign of the cross. “Strange are the
works of God.”
Vasya crossed herself in turn. “Witch I may be, Dmitrii Ivanovich, but the powers of Rus’ must be allies now—prince and Church must join with the unseen world. Otherwise there is no hope of victory.”
First I needed men to help me defeat a devil, she thought. Now I will need devils to help me defeat men.
But who could do it other than she? You can be a bridge between men and chyerti, Morozko had said. She thought she understood that, now.
For a moment, there was no sound but the triumphant wind, pouring in through the windows. Then Dmitrii simply said, “I will trust you.” He laid a light hand on her head, a prince’s blessing on a warrior. She went very still under the touch. “What do you need?”
Vasya thought. She was still glowing with the words, I will trust you. “Clothes such as a tradesman’s son might wear,” she said.
“Cousin,” Sasha broke in. “If she goes, then I must go with her. She’s made enough journeys without her kin.”
Dmitrii looked surprised. “I need you here. You speak Tatar; you know the country between here and Sarai.”
Sasha said nothing.
Understanding came suddenly into Dmitrii’s face. Perhaps he had remembered the night of the fire, Sasha’s sister forced out into the dark alone. “I will not stop you, Sasha,” he said reluctantly. “But you must be at the mustering, whether she succeeds or no.”
“Sasha—” Vasya began, just as he went to her and said, low, “I wept for you. Even when Varvara told me you were alive, I wept. I despised myself, that I had let my sister face such horror alone, and I despised myself more when you appeared again at my campfire so changed. I am not letting you go alone.”
Vasya put a hand on her brother’s arm. “Then, if you come with me tonight—” Her grip tightened; their eyes met. “I warn you, the road leads through darkness.”
Sasha said, “Then we will go through darkness, sister.”
* * *
WHEN THEY GOT BACK to Olga’s palace, Varvara was waiting for them at the bathhouse. Sasha bathed hastily and sought his bed. Midnight would come soon: the hour of their departure. But Vasya lingered. “I never said thank you,” she told Varvara. “For that night on the river. You saved my life.”
“I would not have,” said Varvara. “I didn’t know what I could do for you but mourn. But Polunochnitsa spoke to me. I had not heard her voice for so long. She told me what was wanted, and so I went down to the burning.”
“Varvara,” said Vasya. “In the country of Midnight—I met your mother.”
Varvara’s lips tightened. “I suppose she thought you were Tamara over again. Only a daughter she could control, one who was not in love with a sorcerer.”
Vasya had no answer to that. Instead she said, “Why did you come to Moscow at all? Why be a servant?”
Old anger showed in Varvara’s face. “I have not the gift of seeing,” she said. “I cannot see chyerti; I can hear the stronger ones and speak a little of the speech of horses, that is all. There was no wonder for me in my mother’s kingdom, only cold and danger and isolation, and later my mother’s wrath. She had dealt too harshly with Tamara. So, I left her, went in search of my sister. In time I came to Moscow, this city of men. I found Tamara there, but already beyond my aid, dim and wandering, bowed down by grief beyond her strength. She had borne a child, that I protected as I could.” Vasya nodded. “But when the child went north to marry, I did not follow. She had her nurse, and her husband was a good man. I didn’t want to live in another land with only forest and no people. I liked the sound of the bells, the color and hurry of Moscow. So I stayed, and waited. In time, another girl of my blood came, and I grew whole again, caring for your sister and her children.”
“Why be a servant, though?”
“Do you ask?” Varvara demanded. “Servants have more freedom than noblewomen. I could walk about as I wished, go into the sun with my head uncovered. I was happy. Witches die alone. My mother and my sister showed me that. Has your gift brought you any happiness, fire-maiden?”
“It has,” said Vasya, without elaborating. “But grief as well.” A little anger threaded her voice. “Since you knew them both—Tamara and Kasyan—why did you do nothing for her, after she died? Why did you not warn us, when Kasyan came to Moscow?”
Varvara did not move, but suddenly her face showed sharp lines and hollows; the echoes of old grief. “I knew my sister haunted the palace; I could not get her to go, and I did not know why she lingered. Kasyan I did not know when he came. He wore a different face in Moscow than the one he wore when he seduced Tamara by the lake at Midsummer.”
She must have seen the doubt in Vasya’s eyes, for she burst out, “I am not like you, with your immortal eyes, your mad courage. I am only a woman, unworthy of my bloodlines, who has done what I could to care for my own.”
Vasya said nothing to that but put out a hand, and took Varvara’s in hers, and neither of them spoke a moment. Then Vasya said, with effort, “Will you tell my sister?”
Varvara had her mouth open on what was obviously a sharp reply—and then she hesitated. “I never dared before,” said Varvara grudgingly. There was a thread of doubt now in her voice. “Why would she believe me? I do not appear old enough to be anyone’s great-aunt.”
“I think Olga has seen enough wonders lately to believe you,” said Vasya. “I think you should tell her; it would give her joy. Although I see your point.” Vasya looked at Varvara with new eyes. Her body was strong, her hair yellow, barely touched with white. “How old are you?”
Varvara shrugged. “I don’t know. Older than I look. Our mother never told me who sired us. But I always assumed my long life was some gift of his. Whoever he was. I am happy here, truly, Vasilisa Petrovna. I never wanted power, only folk to care for. Save Moscow for them, and take my wild Marya somewhere she can breathe, and I will be content.”
Vasya smiled. “I will do that—Aunt.”
* * *
VARVARA LEFT, AND VASYA finished her bath and dressed. Clean, she stepped out into the covered walkway that connected the bathhouse to the terem. The rain was still falling, but more gently. The lightning was sparser now as the storm moved on.
It took Vasya a moment to pick out the shadow. She stilled, the bathhouse door rough at her back.
Thin-voiced, she spoke. “Is it done?”
“It is done,” Morozko returned. “He is bound by my power, by his own votary’s sacrifice, and by Kaschei’s golden bridle: all three together. He will never win free again.” The rain fell cold now, beating down summer’s dust.
Vasya let go the door. The rain whispered on the roof. She crossed the walkway, until she could see his face, until she could ask a question that troubled her. “What did the Bear mean,” she asked, “when he said please?”
Morozko frowned, but rather than answer in words, he lifted his cupped hand. Water collected in his palm. “I wondered if you would ask,” he said. “Give me your hand.”
Vasya did. He let the water run lightly over the cuts on her arm and fingers. They healed with that startling spear of agony, there and gone. She jerked her hand back.
“Water of death,” said Morozko, letting the remaining droplets scatter. “That is my power. I can restore flesh, living or dead.”
She’d known he could heal since the first night she met him and he healed her frostbite. But she hadn’t connected it to the fairy tale, hadn’t considered—
“You said you could only heal wounds that you’d inflicted.”
“I did.”
“Another lie?”
His mouth set hard. “A part of the truth.”
“The Bear wanted you to save Konstantin’s life?”
“Not save it,” he said. “I can mend flesh, but he was already too far gone. Medved wanted me to mend the priest’s flesh, so he could bring him back. Together, my brother and
I can restore the dead, for Medved’s gift is the water of life. That is why he said please.”
Frowning, Vasya considered her healed fingers, the scars on palm and wrist.
“But,” Morozko added, “we never act together. Why would we? He is monstrous, he and his power both.”
“The Bear mourned,” said Vasya. “He mourned when Father Konstantin—”
Morozko made a sound of impatience. “The wicked can still mourn, Vasya.”
She didn’t reply. She stood still, while the rain fell all around them, overwhelmed again by all the things she didn’t know. The winter-king was part of the lingering storm; his humanity only a shadow of his true self, his power rising as summer waned. His eyes glittered in the darkness. Yet he had cared for her, schemed for her. Why should she give the Bear or Konstantin a passing thought? They were murderers both, and they were both gone.
Shaking off her unease, she said, “Will you come meet my sister? I promised.”
Morozko looked surprised. “Come to her as your suitor and ask her permission?” he asked. “Will it change anything? It might make it worse.”
“Still,” said Vasya. “Otherwise I—”
“I am not a man, Vasya,” he said. “No sacrament will bind me; I cannot marry you under the laws of your god or your people. If you are looking for honor in your sister’s eyes, you will not find it.”
She had known that was true. But— “I’d like you to meet her anyway,” said Vasya. “At least—perhaps she will not fear for me.”
There was a silence and then she realized that he was shaking with silent laughter. She crossed her arms, offended.
He looked at her, crystalline-eyed. “I am not likely to reassure anyone’s sister,” he said, when he stopped laughing. “But I will, if you like.”
* * *
The Winter of the Witch Page 25
