She was out from under the furs like a cat, and perhaps the look on her face convinced him for he added mildly, looking amused, “Do you think I’d touch you, witch? But it’s a long time since I slept warm with a girl, even a bony one. I thank you for that. Or would you have preferred the ground?”
“I would have,” she said coldly.
“Very well,” said Oleg placidly, getting up himself. “Since you are determined to suffer, you may walk tied to my stirrup, so that Mamai doesn’t think I’ve gone soft. You are going to have a long day.”
* * *
OLEG LEFT THE TENT, which he called a ger. Vasya’s mind was racing. Escape? Forget they could see her and walk through the camp until she found her brother? But could she forget they could see him? And what if he was wounded? No, she decided reluctantly. It was better, wiser, to wait until midnight. She wasn’t getting two chances.
Oleg sent a man in to her, carrying a cup full of something foul-smelling. Mare’s milk, fermented. It was thick, clotted, sour. Her stomach roiled. When Oleg himself reappeared, he said, “Doesn’t smell like much, I know, but Tatars march for days on that alone—and the blood of their horses. Drink it, witch-girl.”
She drank, trying not to choke. When Oleg moved to tie her hands afresh, she said, “Oleg Ivanovich, is my brother all right?”
He drew the ropes tight around her wrists, looking at first as though he did not mean to answer. Then he said shortly, “He’s alive, although he might be wishing he weren’t. And he has not changed his story. I told Mamai that you knew nothing, that you were only an idiot girl. He believed me, although Chelubey did not. Be wary of him.”
At midnight, Vasya told herself, trying not to shake. We must only survive until midnight.
Oleg pulled her outside the tent, into the rising sun, and she quailed. In broad daylight, the encampment was bigger than a town, bigger than a city. Tents and horse-lines stretched as far as she could see, half-blocked by scrubby woods. There were hundreds of men. Thousands. Tens of thousands. Her mind would go no higher. There were more horses than men, carts on every side. How would Dmitrii muster an army to match this one? How could he possibly hope to defeat them?
Oleg’s horse was a stocky, big-headed bay mare. Her eye was kind and intelligent. Oleg slapped the mare’s neck with affection.
Hello, Vasya said to the bay, with her body, in the speech of horses.
The bay flicked a dubious ear. Hello, she said. You are not a horse.
No, she said, as Oleg fastened the rope about her wrists to his saddle and vaulted to the mare’s back. But I understand you. Can you help me?
The mare looked puzzled, but not unwilling. How? she asked, and jolted into a trot at the touch of Oleg’s calf. Vasya, trying to think of a way to explain, was hauled stumbling along with them, praying that her strength would hold.
* * *
SHE SOON REALIZED THAT Oleg was keeping her close in part to humiliate her, but also to keep her from the nastier elements of an army on the march. Perhaps he’d believed her more than he appeared, about having been sent from Dmitrii Ivanovich. Perhaps he was even not so loyal to the Tatar as he appeared. The first time someone threw horse-dung at her, Oleg turned with a deceptively soft word, and she was not troubled again.
But the day was hard, and the hours passed slowly. Dust got in her eyes, her mouth. It rained halfway through the morning, and the dust turned to mud, and she was relieved for a space until she began to shiver, her wet clothes chafing. Then the sun came out, and she was back to sweating.
The bay mare was persuaded to make Vasya’s way as easy as she could, by keeping straight so she didn’t pull Vasya off her feet. But the mare was required to keep up a steady trot, hour after hour. She tugged Vasya in her wake. The girl was panting, her limbs afire, the cut on her head throbbing. Oleg did not look back.
They did not stop until the sun was high, and then only briefly. As soon as they halted, Vasya crumpled against the bay’s comfortable shoulder, shuddering. She heard Oleg dismount. “More witchcraft?” he asked her mildly.
She hauled up her aching head and blinked at him resentfully.
“I raised this one from a foal,” he explained, slapping the mare’s neck. “She hasn’t bitten you yet, and now you’re leaning on her like she’s a plow-horse.”
“Maybe she just doesn’t like men,” Vasya said, wiping the sweat from her brow.
He snorted. “Perhaps. Here.” He handed her a skin of mead, and she gulped, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “We go until dark,” he said, putting a foot in the stirrup. “You are stronger than you look,” he added. “Fortunately for you.”
Vasya only prayed she’d make it to midnight.
Before Oleg could remount, his mare slanted an ear and Chelubey cantered up. Oleg turned, looking wary. “Not so proud now, are you, girl?” Chelubey said in Russian.
Vasya said, “I want to see my brother.”
“No, you don’t. He’s having a worse day than you,” said Chelubey. “He could make it easier for himself, but he just repeats the same lies, no matter what the flies do to his back.”
She swallowed a wave of nausea. “He is a man of the Church,” she snapped. “You have no right to hurt him!”
“If he had stayed in his monastery,” said Chelubey, “I wouldn’t. Men of the Church should confine themselves to praying.” He bent nearer. Heads were turning among Oleg’s men. “One of you is going to tell me what I want to know, or I will kill him,” he said. “Tonight.”
Chelubey had brought his horse right up alongside Oleg’s. Vasya did not move, but suddenly the bay mare lashed out with both hind feet, catching Chelubey’s horse in the flank. The horse squealed, shied, threw his rider and backed, eyes wild, two hoof-shaped gashes in his coat.
Oleg’s bay wheeled, rearing, and yanked Vasya to the ground. Vasya was glad of that, even as she tumbled painfully into the dust. No one would realize she’d done it on purpose. Oleg sprang forward, caught his horse’s bridle.
All his men were laughing.
“Witch!” snapped Chelubey, hauling himself out of the dust. To Vasya’s surprise he looked a little afraid, as well as enraged. “You—”
“You cannot blame a girl for my horse’s bad temper,” said Oleg mildly, from behind her. “You brought your mare too close.”
“I am going to take her with me now,” said Chelubey. “She is dangerous.”
“The mare or the girl?” Oleg asked innocently. The men laughed again. Vasya kept her eyes on Chelubey. The Russians were edging up on either side of her, closing ranks against the Tatar. Someone had caught Chelubey’s horse. He was staring at her with a kind of enraged fascination. But then, abruptly, he turned away, saying, “Bring the girl to me at nightfall.” With that he remounted and spurred off along the dusty column.
Vasya watched him go. Oleg was shaking his head. “I thought Dmitrii Ivanovich a man of sense, at least,” he said. “But to spend his cousins like water, and for what?” Seeing her face still white and afraid, he added, with rough comfort, “Here,” and gave her a hunk of flatbread. But she couldn’t have eaten to save her life; she thrust the food in her sleeve for later.
* * *
THE AFTERNOON DRAGGED ON, and the men of Ryazan began to experience something strange. Their horses were slowing down. It wasn’t lameness, and it wasn’t sickness. But though the men kicked and spurred, their horses would only break into a lumbering gallop, then halt a few paces later, ears flattened.
Oleg and his men found themselves falling behind the fast-moving Tatar column. By nightfall, they were out of sight of the main body. Only the dust, faint against the green-yellow sky, showed the location of the rest of the army.
Vasya felt battered in every limb. Her head was throbbing with the effort of negotiating silently with a whole column’s worth of horses. Fortunately, Oleg’s mare was a sensible crea
ture, held in awe by the others. She was a great help in creating the delay Vasya needed. If Vasya was to be dragged back to Chelubey, she wanted it to be at or near midnight.
They came to a ford, stopped to let the horses drink. Vasya, with a gasp, knelt at the riverbank herself. Gulping water, she was quite unprepared when Oleg took her by the upper arms, pulled her upright, turned her around, hands still wet. “All right,” he said grimly. “Is it you?”
“Is what me?” Vasya asked.
He shook her once, slamming her teeth together on her tongue. She tasted blood. She was reminded that, whatever small kindnesses this prince chose to show her, he would betray Dmitrii Ivanovich to keep his own people safe; he would kill her without a qualm. “I’ve protected you; do I deserve deceit?” Oleg demanded. “Chelubey said you’d ensorcelled a horse in Moscow. I had my doubts, but—” A half-ironic sweep of his hand took in the vanished column. “Here we stand. Are you doing something to the horses?”
“I haven’t been out of your sight,” she said, and did not trouble to keep the exhaustion and defeat out of her voice. “How could I have done something to the horses?”
He considered her a few moments more, narrow-eyed, and then he said, “You are planning something. What is it?”
“Of course, I am planning,” she said tiredly. “I am trying to think of a way to save my brother’s life. I haven’t thought of anything clever yet.” She let her eyes rise to his. “Do you know a way, Oleg Ivanovich? I will do anything to save him.”
He drew in a half-breath, looking uneasily into her eyes. “Anything?”
She made no reply, but she met his eyes.
He pressed his lips together; his glance went from her eyes to her mouth. Suddenly he let her go, turned away. “I will see what can be done,” he said, voice clipped.
He was an honorable man, she thought, and not a fool; he might threaten but he’d not lie with Dmitrii’s cousin. But that he was angry meant he was tempted. And he was angry; she could see the cords in his neck. But he didn’t shake her again, and he had stopped thinking about the horses, which was what she wanted.
As for the rest—well, she meant to be gone, and her brother with her, before the question was raised again.
Oleg remounted, spurred his mare, yanked her on. There was no more stopping.
* * *
IT WAS FULL NIGHT, well after moonrise, by the time Oleg’s Russians found their place in the host. Their horses were fresh, having enjoyed Vasya’s game greatly, but the men were sweating, sullen, sore.
Comments that sounded like good-natured abuse were hurled from all sides as the Russians straggled into camp in the moonlight. The exhausted men snapped at their restless horses. Oleg had not taken his eyes off her, Vasya was sure, for the last hour of marching. When they finally halted, he swung from the saddle and contemplated her grimly. “I must take you to Chelubey.”
A little cold tendril of fear wormed its way through her belly. But she managed to say, “Where? Where is my brother?”
“In Mamai’s ger.” He must have seen the involuntary fear in her eyes, for he added roughly, “I won’t leave you there, girl. Work on the most ignorant face you can manage. I must see the men settled first.”
She was left sitting on a log, with a guard nearby. Vasya looked up at the moon, tried to feel the hour in her bones. It was late, certainly. Her clothes, sweat-soaked in the day’s heats, chilled her now. She drew in a deep breath. Close enough to midnight? It would have to be.
Her head was clear now, though she was very tired. The nausea was gone, the pain in her head. She tried to push aside her fear for her brother, and concentrate. Small things. Little magic that was not beyond her strength and would not send her mad. Sitting on the day-warm earth, she forgot that her bonds were tight.
And she felt the rope give. Just a little. She forced herself to relax. The rope gave a little more, subtly. Now she could move her chafed wrists, turn them.
She looked round, caught the amiable eye of Oleg’s bay. The mare, obligingly, reared, squealing. All the Russian horses did. Simultaneously, they went into a very ecstasy of fear, bucking, heaving wild-eyed on their pickets, thrashing against their hobbles. All around, Vasya heard men cursing. They streamed over to the horse-lines, even Vasya’s guard. No one was looking at her. A twist, and she had yanked her wrists free. The chaos in the camp was spreading, as though the horses’ panic was infecting their fellows.
She didn’t know where Mamai’s tent lay. She ducked into the confusion of milling men and horses, put a hand on the good bay’s neck. The mare was still saddled; there was even a long knife attached to the saddlebag. “Will you carry me?” she whispered.
The bay tossed her head good-naturedly, and Vasya vaulted to her back. Suddenly she could see over the confusion. She nudged the mare forward, glancing back over her shoulder.
She could have sworn she saw Oleg of Ryazan, watching her go and saying not a word.
28.
Pozhar
VASYA WHISPERED TO THEIR HORSES of fire and wolves and terrible things. Wherever she went, she left the encampment in chaos. Campfires flared, throwing out sparks. Dozens of horses—more—were panicking all at once. Some bolted outright, trampling men with their passage; others merely reared and bucked and thrashed against their ropes. Vasya rode the bay mare through a wave of maddened creatures. More than once she was glad of the horse’s steady feet and good sense. Danger was a fizz in her throat and stomach.
Darkness and chaos, she thought, were better allies even than magic.
Drawing nearer Mamai’s tent, Vasya slid from the mare’s back. “Wait for me,” she said to the horse. The mare put her nose down obligingly. The horses here were bucking too; there were men everywhere, cursing. She gathered her courage and slipped inside Mamai’s tent, praying under her breath.
Her brother was there, alone. His arms were wrenched up and bound to the pole that held the tent. He was bare to the waist, his back raw with whip-marks; he had bruises on his face. She ran to him.
Sasha raised exhausted eyes to her face. He was missing two fingernails on his right hand. “Vasya,” he said. “Get out.”
“I will. With you,” she said. She had the knife from Oleg’s saddle; now with a single slash, she cut his bonds. “Come on.”
But Sasha was shaking his head dazedly. “They know,” he said. “That you stirred up the horses. Chelubey—said something about a bay stallion, and a mare in Moscow. He knew it was you, as soon as the noise started. They—they planned for it.” Sweat had run down into his beard; it gleamed at his temples, on his bare tonsured head. She whipped round.
They were standing in the opening of the tent: Mamai and Chelubey, watching, with men crowding behind them. Chelubey said something in his own tongue and Mamai answered. There was something avid in their stares.
Vasya, not taking her eyes off the two men, reached down to help her brother to his feet. He rose when she pulled, but it was obvious that every movement was agony.
“Step away from him. Slowly,” said Chelubey to her in Russian. She could see her slow death in his eyes.
Vasya had had enough. She wasn’t dazed with a blow to the head now. She set the tent on fire.
Flames leaped from the tent flaps in a dozen places; both men sprang backward, with cries of alarm. Vasya seized her brother and pulled him, limping, to the other side of the tent, used the knife to slice through the felt.
Rather than go out, she waited, holding her breath against the smoke, and whistled once between her teeth. The good bay mare came, and even knelt when Vasya asked, despite smoke and gathering flame, so that Sasha could get onto her back.
He couldn’t stay on the horse by himself. Vasya had to get up in front of him, pull his arms about her waist. “Hold on,” she said. The mare bolted, just as a shout went up from behind. She risked a glance back. Chelubey had seized a horse, ju
st as she broke out of the smoke. Half a dozen men had joined him; they were riding her down. It was a race, to see if midnight would come or her pursuers catch her first.
At first, she thought it was one she could win. Her bones told her that midnight was not far off, and the mare had a good turn of speed.
But the camp was crowded and churning; unable to bull their way straight through, they had to dodge and turn. Sasha was holding on to her for all he was worth, his breath leaving him in a silent wheeze of pain with each fall of the horse’s hooves. The plucky little mare was already beginning to labor under the weight of two.
Vasya breathed, and allowed the whole memory of the night of the burning in Moscow to come back to her. The terror and the power. Reality twisted, just as every campfire in the Tatar army sprang up into a triumphant column of flames.
Dizzy, struggling to keep a grip on herself, Vasya risked another look back, trying to see around her brother. Most of the men pursuing them had sheared off, their horses panicking. But a few had kept control of their horses, and Chelubey had not faltered. Her mare’s sprint was beginning to fade. No sign of Midnight.
Chelubey shouted at his horse. Now he was level with their bay mare’s flank. He had a sword in one hand. Vasya touched the mare and she sheared off, ears laid back, but it cost them more speed; Chelubey was herding them toward the camp once more, boxing them in. Sasha was heavy at her back. Now Chelubey was level with them again, his horse the faster. He lifted his sword a second time.
Before it could fall, Sasha heaved himself sideways, tackled the Tatar, threw him to the ground.
“Sasha!” she screamed. The mare’s pace freshened at once, the weight off her back, but Vasya was already wheeling the horse round. Her brother and Chelubey were fighting on the ground, but the Tatar had the upper hand. His fist snapped Sasha’s head back; she saw a glitter of blood in the fire. Then he was rising to his feet, leaving her brother where he lay. Chelubey called his horse, shouting at the other riders.
The Winter of the Witch Page 28
