by L.K. Hill
Chapter 30
“Anne, will you hurry? Taras is waiting.” Anne eyed Inga with annoyance from the other side of the room as she tied up bundles for Natalya. Anne didn’t reply, but that was her way. Her eyes said more than her mouth ever did.
Inga discovered a degree of bitterness in the other maids when they learned she would be visiting Natalya, and they would not.
“Inga, stop nagging Anne.” Yehvah scolded her. “Lots of us have letters and gifts to send to Natalya, and you must allow them to be given. You would want the same courtesy if you weren’t the one going.”
Inga sighed. That was true.
“Sorry, Anne.”
“Besides,” Yehvah crossed the room to help Anne, “Taras has cleared his entire day to escort you. I don’t think it’s him that’s impatient.”
Also true. Taras didn’t care when they left. Whether now or in three hours, he would be waiting for her in the courtyard.
Inga would stay with Natalya for three days. A quiet, though manageable fear curled around her heart at the idea of being separated from Taras.
In the months after the fire, when she slept in the servants’ quarters, she’d been terribly lonely. It had never been that way before, but since staying with him, she found it difficult to go back to sleeping alone.
When Taras asked her to come back and she’d refused, she told herself she'd grown—that it was a sign of strength that she could tell him no. In the days that followed, she realized she’d been fooling herself. The day after their conversation in the hallway had been one of the most dismal of her life. Despite the conflict she felt about their relationship, she never wanted to be without him again.
Then Sergei attacked her. Too afraid to tell Taras the truth about what brought her back to him, she hid behind Sergei as an excuse. She would have gone back to Taras eventually, whether or not Sergei became problem. She wished she had the courage to tell Taras how she felt.
She worried about the coming campaign against Kazan. When dark thoughts crept into the corners of her mind, she pushed them away. Taras had proven an excellent soldier. Nothing would happen to him; she had to believe that.
“All right,” Yehvah finally said, “I think that’s everything.”
In the courtyard, Inga waved goodbye not only to the other maids, but to cooks, stable hands, grooms, and most of the other palace servants. They saw her off mostly to remind her of the messages she needed to give Natalya on their behalf.
Inga rode a packhorse weighed down with baggage. Some of the bags held supplies for her visit. Most were filled with gifts and tokens the other servants sent for Natalya. Taras rode beside her on Jasper.
They talked little in the city because the clatter of Moscow was too loud. Even when they reached the countryside, Taras said little. When they were half an hour from the estate, Inga spoke.
“You’re very quiet.”
He looked at her as though he’d forgotten she was there. “I have a lot to think about. That’s all.”
“With the campaign, you mean?”
“Yes. And you.”
She smiled, understanding his meaning. “Perhaps planning for the campaign will keep you too busy to miss me.”
“I wish that were possible.”
“I’ll only be gone a few days,” she smiled more deeply.
“I know, but this is a strange estate. I don’t know anyone—the servants or the other men here. You can’t expect me to feel secure about this.”
She gave him a don’t-be-stupid look, and he grinned. After a moment, the grin faded and he looked melancholy again.
“What is it? What are you thinking about?”
He stopped his horse and turned to look at her.
“This is nice. You and me, here in the countryside, riding and talking—laughing even—without a care in the world.”
“But we do have cares.”
“Maybe we don’t have to have them. Don’t you ever think of leaving it all behind—the palace, the city?”
Inga tensed. Taras had alluded to this sort of thing before, but he’d never asked her so directly. When he mentioned it—when she could tell he was so much as thinking about it—she felt afraid.
“We can’t do that.” She urged her horse forward again, but he grabbed the bridle. The stock horse halted without objection.
“Why not?”
“Taras, this is my home. It’s the only thing I know.”
“I understand, but that’s exactly why you’re afraid. If you could find other places where you could be happy—”
“I don’t know how, Taras. When my father abandoned me, I wanted to die. I nearly did. Yehvah introduced me to a life that has let me be content. I vowed always to cling to that life because I’ve known the lack of it. I can’t leave the Kremlin. This is where I . . . exist.”
His level stare bored into her until she dropped her eyes.
“I would take care of you, Inga.”
“Is Moscow so bad?”
“No, not at all. All I’m saying is . . . I’m still trying to explain my mother’s death. It’s going slowly, and now with this war . . . it might take years to get it all figured out. But I don’t think I’ll stay in Moscow forever.”
“Taras,” she turned her upper body in the saddle to face him, “every day you live there, you become more entrenched in the court’s politics. In another few years, you’ll be too entangled to escape. How do you expect—”
“They cannot hold me here against my will. No one can. No one can hold you either. You know that, don’t you, Inga?”
She pursed her lips, unsure how to answer. What was he talking about? She was a servant in the tsar’s palace.
“Taras, are you asking me to leave with you tomorrow?”
He sighed. “No, I suppose not.”
“Then let’s not discuss it now. Let’s not discuss it at all until we are faced with it. I don’t want to talk about things changing. I like things the way they are.”
He stared at her until she shifted in her saddle. Finally, he nodded. “All right. But, Inga, nothing stays the same for long. A day will come when you have to make a choice.”
The same cold fear gripped Inga’s heart again. “Then I hope it’s not for many, many years.” She turned to look straight ahead again. “We’re almost there. We should keep moving if you want to drop me off and make it back to the palace before dark.”
He let go of her bridle and she urged her horse forward. He hung back for a few seconds before following.