Furious, Vasya uncoiled a golden rope, and said, “Are we allies or no, Medved? I am getting tired of you.”
“Oh, I do not like that thing,” said the Bear. But his mouth closed; he seemed to shrink. Men were coming nearer.
“Get on the horse,” Vasya said to Vladimir.
There was no saddle or bridle, but the Prince of Serpukhov heaved himself to the gelding’s back, just as Vasya vaulted onto a piebald mare.
“Who are you?” whispered Vladimir, his voice cold with fright.
“I am Olga’s younger sister,” said Vasya. “Go!” She slapped the haunch of Vladimir’s mount, and then they were away, over the grass, dodging between sparse trees, seeking the dark, and leaving the Tatars at last behind them.
The Bear laughed at her as they galloped away. “Now, don’t tell me you didn’t enjoy that,” he said.
Answering laughter rose in her: the giddy joy of striking fear in her enemies’ hearts. She tamped it down, but not before her eyes met the gaze of the king of chaos, and she saw her own reckless delight reflected there.
* * *
SASHA AND MIDNIGHT WERE just where Vasya had left them, double-mounted on Voron. Pozhar met them there too, in the form of a horse. Her every footfall made sparks; her eye was molten.
Vasya felt a surge of relief at the sight of them.
“Brother Aleksandr,” said Vladimir, still sputtering. “Can it be—”
“Vladimir Andreevich,” said Sasha. “Vasya.” And to her surprise, Sasha slid down Voron’s back just as she got off her Tatar mare. They embraced.
“Sasha,” she said. “How—” His back had been bound, and his hand. He moved stiffly, but not in a haze of pain.
He glanced back at Polunochnitsa. “We rode into the dark,” he said, frowning as though it were hard to remember. “I was barely conscious. There was the sound of water on rock. A house that smelled of honey and garlic. And an old woman there who bound my back. She said—she said she preferred daughters, but that I would do. Would I like to stay? I don’t know what I answered. I slept. I don’t know how long. But every time I woke, it was still midnight. Then Polunochnitsa came and said I had slept long enough, and she brought me back. I almost—it seems like the old woman called after us, sadly, but I might have dreamed it.”
Vasya raised an eyebrow at Polunochnitsa. “You took him to the lake? How long was he there?”
“Long enough,” said Midnight, unrepentant.
“You didn’t think it would send him mad?” Vasya asked, with an edge.
“No,” said Polunochnitsa. “He was asleep, mostly. And also, he is very like you.” She gave Sasha a proprietary look. “Besides he couldn’t sit upright and reeked of blood, and that irritated me. It was easier to let the witch fix him. She regrets Tamara, you know, as much as she is angry.”
Vasya said, “It was kind then, my friend,” to the midnight-demon. Polunochnitsa looked simultaneously suspicious and pleased.
“You have met our great-grandmother,” Vasya added to her brother. “She is a madwoman who lives in Midnight. She is cruel and lonely, and sometimes kind.”
“The old woman?” said Sasha. “I—no. Surely not. Our great-grandmother must be dead.”
“She is,” said Vasya. “But that doesn’t matter, in Midnight.”
Sasha looked thoughtful. “I would go back. When this is over. Cruel or no, she seemed to know a great many things.”
“Perhaps we can go together,” said Vasya.
“Perhaps,” said Sasha. They grinned at each other, like children contemplating adventures, instead of a witch and a monk on the cusp of battle.
Vladimir Andreevich was shooting them both black looks. “Brother Aleksandr,” he broke in stiffly, making the sign of the cross. “This is a strange meeting.”
“God be with you,” said Sasha.
“And what in God’s name—” began the Prince of Serpukhov, before Vasya interjected hastily.
“Sasha will explain,” she said, “while I perform one last errand. If we are fortunate, we will have company on the way north.”
“Better hurry,” said the Bear. He was looking critically over the Tatar camp where they had begun relighting their fires. Pozhar’s ears twitched at the faint noise of their furious shouting. “They’re like a stirred-up beehive.”
“You’re coming with me,” she told him. “I don’t trust you out of my sight.”
“Quite right,” said the Bear and looked up at the sky with a sigh of pleasure.
* * *
WHEN OLEG OF RYAZAN came back to his tent at last, he looked like a man who’d lived eternities in one night. He pushed the flap aside, walked in and stood silent a moment. Vasya let out a soft breath, and his clay lamp flared to life.
Oleg looked utterly unsurprised. “If the general finds you, he will kill you slowly.”
She stepped into the lamplight. “He is not going to find me. I came back for you.”
“Did you?”
“You have seen the firebird in the sky,” she said. “You have seen flames in the night and horses running mad. You have seen the Bear in the shadows. You have seen our strength. Your men are already whispering of the strange power of the Grand Prince of Moscow, that has reached even into the camp of the Tatar.”
“Strange power? Perhaps Dmitrii Ivanovich has no care for his immortal soul, but am I to damn my soul, allying myself with devils?”
“You are a practical man,” Vasya said gently. She stepped closer. He knotted his hands together. “You did not choose to side with the Tatar for loyalty, but for survival’s sake. Now you see that the opposite may be true. That we can win. Under the Khan you will never be more than a vassal, Oleg Ivanovich. If we win, then you will be a prince in your own right.”
It was an effort to keep her voice even. She had begun to shake with spending too long in Midnight. The Bear’s presence made that worse too. The chyert was a knot of deeper darkness, listening from the shadows.
“Witch, you have your brother and your cousin,” said Oleg. “Are you not content?”
“No,” said Vasya. “Summon your boyars and come with us.”
Oleg’s eyes were darting around the tent as though he could—not see, but sense—the Bear’s presence. The clay lamp guttered; the darkness around it deepened.
Vasya aimed a glare at Medved, and the dark retreated a little.
“Come with us and have victory,” Vasya said.
“Maybe a victory,” murmured the Bear from behind her. “Who knows?”
Oleg was shrinking nearer the lamplight, without quite knowing what frightened him.
“Tomorrow,” said Vasya. “Have your men fall behind the main body again. We’ll be waiting.”
After a long silence, Oleg said firmly, “My men will stay with Mamai.”
She heard the echo of her failure in the words, just as the Bear let out a sigh of pleased understanding.
Then Oleg finished, and Vasya understood. “If I am to betray the general, better to wait until the right moment.”
Their eyes met.
“I love a clever traitor,” said the Bear.
Oleg said, “My boyars want to fight on the Russian side. I thought it my task to constrain their foolishness. But—”
Vasya nodded. Had she convinced him to risk his place and his life with naught but tricks and chyerti—and her own dogged faith? She looked him in the face, and felt the burden of his belief. “Dmitrii Ivanovich will be at Kolomna in a fortnight,” she said. “Will you come to him then, and lay your plans?”
Oleg said, “I will send a man. But I cannot go myself. Mamai would suspect.”
Vasya said, “You can go yourself. I will take you there and back in the course of a single night.”
Oleg stared. Then grim humor touched his face. “On your mortar? Very well, witch. B
ut know that even combining our strength, Dmitrii and I might as well be two beetles plotting to break a boulder.”
“Where is your faith?” said Vasya, and smiled suddenly. “Look for me at midnight, in two weeks.”
31.
All the Russias
THE MEN OF RUS’ MUSTERED at Kolomna over the course of four gray, chilly days. One by one the princes came: Rostov and Starodub, Polotsk, Murom, Tver, Moscow, and the rest, as a cold rain whispered over the muddy fields.
Dmitrii Ivanovich set his tent in the middle of the gathering host, and the first night they were all assembled, he summoned his princes to him to take counsel.
They were grim, heavy with fatigue from mustering and marching in haste. It was well after moonset when the last of them crowded into Dmitrii’s round felt tent, shooting each other wary looks. Midnight was not far off. Outside lay the Russian horse-lines, their wagons and their fires, stretching in every direction.
All that day, the Grand Prince had been getting reports. “The Tatars are assembling here,” he said. He had a map; he pointed to a marshy place, on the curve of the Don river, at the mouth of a smaller tributary. Snipes’ Field it was called, for the birds in the long grass. “They are waiting for reinforcements; units from Litva, mercenaries from Caffa. We must strike before their reinforcements can come up. Three days’ march and battle at dawn on the fourth day, if all goes well.”
“By how much do they outnumber us now?” demanded Mikhail of Tver.
Dmitrii did not answer. “We will form two lines,” he continued. “Here.” He touched the map again. “Spears, shields, to hem in the horses, and use the forest to guard our flanks. They do not like attacking in the woods—it turns their arrows.”
“By how many, Dmitrii Ivanovich?” demanded Mikhail again. Tver had been a greater principality than Moscow for most of its history, and rivals for the rest; alliance did not sit easily on them.
Dmitrii could not avoid answering. “Twice our force,” he said. “Perhaps a little more. But—”
Muttering went around the men. Mikhail of Tver spoke up again. He said, “Have you had word of Oleg of Ryazan?”
“Marching with Mamai.”
The muttering redoubled.
“It matters not,” Dmitrii went on. “We have men enough. We have the blessing of holy Sergius.”
“Enough?” snapped Mikhail of Tver. “A blessing is enough perhaps to save our souls when we are slaughtered on the field, but not to win this fight!”
Dmitrii was on his feet. His voice temporarily silenced the men’s murmurs. “Doubt the power of God, Mikhail Andreevich?”
“How will we know God is on our side? For all we know, God wants us to be humble, Christlike, and submissive to the Tatar!”
“Perhaps,” said a calm voice from the flap of the tent. “But if that were the case, would He have sent you the princes of Serpukhov and of Ryazan too?”
Heads swiveled; a few put hands on the hilts of their swords. A light kindled in the Grand Prince’s eyes.
Vladimir Andreevich walked into the tent. Behind him came Oleg of Ryazan. And behind them both Brother Aleksandr, who added, “God is with us, princes of Rus’, but there is no time to waste.”
* * *
THE GRAND PRINCE OF MOSCOW did not hear the whole tale until late that night, when all the planning was done. He and Sasha rode quietly out of camp, beyond the light and smoke and noise, until they came to a hidden hollow, with a low fire burning.
As he rode, Sasha noted uneasily that the moon had not yet set.
Vasya had made solitary camp and was waiting for them. Her feet were still bare, her face smudged, but she rose with dignity and bowed to the Grand Prince. “God be with you,” she said. Behind her, in deeper darkness, stood Pozhar, glowing.
“Mother of God,” said Dmitrii and crossed himself. “Is that a horse?”
Sasha had to swallow a laugh as his sister put out a hand to the mare, who promptly laid back her ears and snapped.
“A beast out of legend,” Vasya returned. The mare snorted disdainfully and moved off to graze. Vasya smiled.
“A fortnight ago,” said Dmitrii, searching her face in the moonlight, “you left at midnight to save one cousin. You came back with an army.”
“Are you thanking me for it?” she asked. “It was achieved partially by sheer accident, the rest through blundering.”
Vasya might make light of it, Sasha thought, but it had been a bitter fortnight. Through the Midnight darkness, they had ridden fast to Serpukhov, reducing Vladimir to prayers and muttering. Then had come the frantic mustering of Vladimir’s men, the long marches in the rain, to reach Kolomna in time, for Vasya could not, she said, take so many men through Midnight.
“You would be surprised at how many victories come so,” said Dmitrii.
Vasya was calm under his scrutiny. She and Dmitrii seemed to understand each other.
“You carry yourself differently,” said the Grand Prince. Half-joking, he asked, “Have you come into a realm of your own, in your travels?”
“I suppose,” she said. “A stewardship at least. Of a people as old as this land and of a strange country, far away. But how did you know?”
“A wise prince recognizes power.”
She said nothing.
“You brought armies to my mustering,” Dmitrii said. “If you indeed have command of a realm, then will you bring your own people to this fight—Knyazhna?”
The word—princess—stirred Sasha strangely.
“Greedy for more men, Dmitrii Ivanovich?” Vasya asked. A little color had come into her face.
“Yes,” he said. “I need every beast, every man, every creature, if we are to win.”
Sasha had never seen the likeness between Dmitrii Ivanovich and his sister. But he saw it now. Passion, cleverness, restless ambition. She said, “I have paid my debt to Moscow. Are you asking me to gather my own people now, and bring them to your battle? Your priests might call them devils.”
“Yes, I am asking,” said Dmitrii after the faintest pause. “What do you want of me in exchange?”
She was silent. Dmitrii waited. Sasha watched the light on the grass where the golden mare grazed and wondered at the look on his sister’s face.
Slowly, Vasya said, “I want a promise. But not just from you. From Father Sergei as well.”
Puzzled but not unwilling, Dmitrii said, “Then we will go to him in the morning.”
Vasya shook her head. “I am sorry—I would spare his years—but it must be here. And quickly.”
“Why here?” Dmitrii asked sharply. “And why now?”
“Because,” said Vasya, “it is midnight, there is no time to waste, and I am not the only one who must hear what he says.”
* * *
SASHA WENT, GALLOPING ON his gray Tuman, and not long after he led Father Sergei into the clearing. The moon hung strange and still in the sky. Vasya, waiting for her brother, wondered if Sasha knew that she had caught the four of them in Midnight until she chose to ride on—or go to sleep. But there was no sleep for her yet, that night. While they waited for Sasha, she and Dmitrii sat around her sinking fire, passing a skin back and forth, talking low-voiced.
“Where do you get your fine horses?” Dmitrii asked her. “First the bay and now this one.” He was eyeing Pozhar covetously. The golden mare laid back her ears and sidled away.
Vasya said drily, “She understands you, Gosudar. I didn’t get her from anywhere; she chose to bear me. If you want to win the allegiance of a horse like her, you would have to go questing through darkness, across three times nine realms; I suggest you concern yourself with your own beleaguered country first.”
Dmitrii looked undeterred. He had his mouth open on more questions. Vasya rose hastily when the monks appeared, and crossed herself. “Father bless,” she said.
“May the Lord bless you,” said the old monk.
Vasya took a deep breath and told them what she wanted.
Sergei was silent for a long time afterward, and Sasha and the prince watched him, frowning.
“They are wicked,” said Sergei at last. “They are the unclean forces of the earth.”
“Men are also wicked,” Vasya returned passionately. “And good, and everything in between. Chyerti are, just as men are, just as the earth herself is. Chyerti are sometimes wise and sometimes foolish, sometimes good and sometimes cruel. God rules the next world, but what of this one? Men may seek salvation in heaven and also make offerings to their hearth-spirits, to keep their house safe from evil. Did not God make chyerti, as He made everything else in heaven and earth?”
She spread her hands. “This is the price of my aid: Swear to me you will not condemn witches to burn. Swear to me you will not condemn those who leave offerings in their oven-mouths. Let our people have both their faiths.”
She faced Dmitrii. “So long as you or your descendants sit on the throne of Muscovy. And”—to Sergei—“your monks are establishing monasteries, building churches and hanging bells. Tell them also to let the people have their two faiths. For your promises, I will go into the night now, and I will bring the rest of Rus’ to your aid.”
No one spoke for a long time.
Vasya stood silent, straight and severe, and she waited. Sergei had his head bowed, his lips moving in silent prayer.
Dmitrii said, “If we do not agree?”
“Then,” said Vasya, “I will leave tonight. I will spend my days trying to protect what I can for as long as I can. You both will do the same, and we will both be the weaker.”
“If we agree, and we win this fight, what happens then?” asked Dmitrii. “If I have need of you again, will you come?”
“If you will do as I ask now,” said Vasya, “then as long as your reign lasts, when you call, I will come.”
The Winter of the Witch Page 31
