Olga ran out the kitchen door, Vasya trotting in her footsteps. The girls’ embroidered sarafans stood out against the snow. Olga held her apron in both hands; piled within were dark, tender loaves, hot from the oven. Kolya and Sasha were already converging. Vasya tugged on her second brother’s cloak while he ate his loaf. “But why may I not come, Sashka?” she said. “I will cook your supper for you. Dunya showed me how. I can ride your horse with you; I am small enough.” She clung to his cloak with both hands.
“Not this year, little frog,” Sasha said. “You are small—too small.” Seeing her eyes sad, he knelt in the snow beside her and pressed the remainder of his bread into her hand. “Eat and grow strong, little sister,” he said, “so that you are fitted for journeys. God keep you.” He put a hand on her head, then sprang again to the back of his brown Mysh. “Sashka!” cried Vasya, but he was away, calling swift orders to the men loading the last wagon.
Olga took her sister’s hand and tugged. “Come on, Vasochka,” she said when the child dragged her feet. The girls ran up to Pyotr. The last loaf was cooling in Olga’s hand.
“Safe journey, Father,” Olga said.
How little my Olya is like her mother, Pyotr thought, for all she has her face. Just as well—Marina was like a hawk in a cage. Olga is gentler. I will make her a fine marriage. He smiled down at his daughters. “God keep you both,” he said. “Perhaps I will bring you a husband, Olya.” Vasya made a sound like a muted growl. Olga blushed and laughed, and almost dropped the bread. Pyotr stooped in time to seize it and was glad he had; she had slit the crust and spooned honey inside, to melt in the heat. He tore off a great hunk—his teeth were still good—and paused, blissfully chewing.
“And you, Vasya,” he added, stern. “Mind your sister, and stay near the house.”
“Yes, Father,” said Vasya, but she looked longingly at the riding-horses.
Pyotr wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. The mob had come to something resembling order. “Farewell, my daughters,” he said. “We are going; mind the sledges.” Olga nodded, a little wistful. Vasya did not nod at all; she looked mutinous. There was a chorus of shouting, the cracking of whips, and then they were away.
Behind them Olga and Vasilisa stood alone in the dooryard, listening to the bells on the wagons until they were swallowed up by the morning.
TWO WEEKS AFTER SETTING OUT, with plenty of delay but no disaster, Pyotr and his sons passed the outer rings of Moscow, that seething, jumped-up trading post on a hill beside the Moskva River. They smelled the city long before they saw it, hazed as it was with the smoke of ten thousand fires, and then the brilliant domes—green and scarlet and cobalt—showed dimly through the vapor. At last they saw the city itself, lusty and squalid, like a fair woman with feet caked in filth. The high golden towers rose proudly above the desperate poor, and the gold-fretted icons watched, inscrutable, while princes and farmers’ wives came to kiss their stiff faces and pray.
The streets were all snowy mud, churned by innumerable feet. Beggars, their noses winter-blackened, clutched at the boys’ stirrups. Kolya kicked them off, but Sasha clasped their grimy hands. The red winter sun was tilting west when at last they came, weary and mud-splattered, to a massive wooden gate, bound in bronze and topped with towers. A dozen spearmen watched the road, with archers on the wall.
They looked coldly at Pyotr, his sledges and his sons, but Pyotr passed their captain a jar of good mead, and instantly the hard faces softened. Pyotr bowed, first to the captain and then to his men, and the guards waved them through in a chorus of compliments.
The kremlin was a town in itself: palaces, huts, stables, smithies, and countless half-built churches. Though the original walls had been built with a double thickness of oak, the years had rotted the timber to matchwood. Marina’s half brother, the Grand Prince Ivan Ivanovich, had commissioned their replacement with walls more massive still. The air reeked of the clay that had been caked on the timber, meager protection against fire. Everywhere carpenters called back and forth, shaking sawdust from their beards. Servants, priests, boyars, guardsmen, and merchants milled about, bickering. Tatars riding fine horses rubbed shoulders with Russian merchants directing laden sledges. Each broke out shouting at the other on the slightest pretext. Kolya gawked at the crush, masking nervousness with a high head. His horse jerked at its rider’s touch on the reins.
Pyotr had been to Moscow before. A few peremptory words unearthed stabling for their horses and a place for their wagons. “See to the horses,” he said to Oleg, the steadiest of his men. “Do not leave them.” There were idle servants on all sides, narrow-eyed merchants, and boyars in barbaric finery. A horse would disappear in an instant and be forever lost. Oleg nodded, and one rough fingertip grazed the hilt of his long knife.
They had sent word of their coming. Their messenger met them outside the stable. “You are summoned, my lord,” he said to Pyotr. “The Grand Prince is at table, and greets his brother from the north.”
The road from Lesnaya Zemlya had been long; Pyotr was grimed, bruised, cold, and weary. “Very well,” he said curtly. “We are coming. Leave that.” The last was to Sasha, who was digging balled-up ice out of his horse’s hoof.
They splashed frigid water on their grimy faces, drew on kaftans of thick wool and hats of shining sable, and laid aside their swords. The fortress-town was a warren of churches and wooden palaces, the ground churned to muck, the air smarting with smoke. Pyotr followed the messenger with a quick step. Behind him Sasha gazed narrow-eyed at the gilded domes and painted towers. Kolya was scarcely less circumspect, though he stared more at the fine horses and the weapons of the men who rode them.
They came to a double door of oak that opened onto a hall packed full of men and crawling with dogs. The great tables groaned with good things. On the far end of the hall, on a high carven seat, sat a man with bright hair, eating slices off the joint that lay dripping before him.
Ivan II was styled Ivan Krasnii, or Ivan the Fair. He was no longer young—perhaps thirty. His elder brother Semyon had ruled before him, but Semyon and his issue had all died of plague in one bitter summer.
The Grand Prince of Moscow was indeed very fair. His hair gleamed like palest honey. Women swarmed around this prince’s golden beauty. He was also a skilled hunter and a master of hounds and horses. His table creaked under a great roast boar, crusted with herbs.
Pyotr’s sons swallowed. They were all hungry after two weeks on the wintry road.
Pyotr strode across the vast hall, his sons behind. The prince did not look up from his dinner, though calculating or merely curious stares assailed them from all sides. A fireplace large enough to roast an ox burned behind the prince’s dais, throwing Ivan’s face into shadow and gilding the faces of guests. Pyotr and his sons came before the dais, halted, and bowed.
Ivan speared a gobbet of pork with the tip of his knife. Blood stained his yellow beard. “Pyotr Vladimirovich, is it not?” he said slowly, chewing. His shadowed gaze swept them from hat to boots. “The one that married my half sister?” He took a swallow of honey-wine and added, “May she rest in peace.”
“Yes, Ivan Ivanovich,” said Pyotr.
“Well met, brother,” said the prince. He tossed a bone to the cur beneath his chair. “What brings you so far?”
“I wished to present you my sons, gosudar,” said Pyotr. “Your nephews. They are men soon to wed. And if God wills, I desire also to find a woman of my own, so my youngest children need no longer go motherless.”
“A worthy aim,” said Ivan. “Are these your sons?” His gaze flicked out to the boys behind Pyotr.
“Yes—Nikolai Petrovich, my eldest, and my second son, Aleksandr.” Kolya and Sasha stepped forward.
The Grand Prince gave them the same sweeping look he’d given Pyotr. His glance lingered on Sasha. The boy had the merest scrapings of a beard and the jutting bones of a boy half-grown. But he was light on his feet and the gray eyes did not waver.
“We are well met, ki
nsmen,” said Ivan, not taking his eyes off Pyotr’s younger son. “You, boy—you are like your mother.” Sasha, taken aback, bowed and said nothing. There was a moment’s silence. Then, louder, Ivan added, “Pyotr Vladimirovich, you are welcome in my house, and at my table, until your business is done.”
The prince inclined his head abruptly and returned to his roast. Dismissed, the three were left to take three hastily cleared places at the high table. Kolya needed no encouragement; hot juices were still running down the roast pig’s sides. The pie oozed with cheese and dried mushrooms. The round guest-loaf lay in the middle of the table, beside the prince’s good gray salt. Kolya fell to at once, but Sasha paused. “Such a look the Grand Prince gave me, Father,” he said. “As though he knew my thoughts better than I do.”
“They are all like that, the princes that live,” said Pyotr. He took a steaming slice of pie. “They all have too many brothers, and all are eager for the next city, the richer prize. Either they are good judges of men, or they are dead. Go wary of the living ones, synok, because they are dangerous.” Then he gave his full attention to the pastry.
Sasha furrowed his brow, but he let his plate be filled. Their journey had been an endless round of strange stews and hard flat cakes, broken once or twice by their neighbors’ hospitality. The Grand Prince kept a good table, and they all feasted until they could hold no more.
After, the party was given three rooms for their use: chilly and crawling with vermin, but they were too tired to care. Pyotr saw to the settling of the wagons, and of his men for the night, then collapsed on the high bed and surrendered to a dreamless sleep.
“Father,” said Sasha, vibrating with excitement. “The priest says there is a holy man north of Moscow, on Makovets Hill. He has founded a monastery and gathered already eleven disciples. They say he talks with angels. Every day many go to seek his blessing.”
Pyotr grunted. He had been in Moscow a week already, enduring the business of currying favor. His latest effort—only just concluded—had been a visit to the Tatar emissary, the baskak. No man from Sarai, that jewel-box city built by the conquering Horde, would deign to be impressed by the paltry offerings of a northern lord, but Pyotr had doggedly pressed furs upon him. Heaps of fox and ermine, rabbit and sable passed beneath the emissary’s calculating gaze until at last he looked less condescending and thanked Pyotr with every appearance of goodwill. Such furs fetched much gold in the court of the Khan, and further south, among the princes of Byzantium. It was worth it, thought Pyotr. I might be glad one day, to have a friend among the conquerors.
Pyotr was weary and sweating in his gold-threaded finery. But he could not rest, for here was his second son on fire with eagerness, bearing a tale of holy men and miracles.
“There are always holy men,” Pyotr said to Sasha. He knew a sudden longing for quiet and for plain food; the Muscovites were fond of Byzantine cookery, and the resulting collision with Russian ingredients did his stomach no favors. Tonight there was to be more feasting—and more intrigue; he still sought a wife for himself, and a husband for Olga.
“Father,” said Sasha, “I should like to go to this monastery, if I may.”
“Sashka, you cannot cast a stone without hitting a church in this city,” said Pyotr. “Why waste three days’ riding on another?”
Sasha’s lip curled. “In Moscow, priests are in love with their standing. They eat fat meat and preach poverty to the miserable.”
This was true. But Pyotr, though a good lord to his people, lacked an abstract sense of justice. He shrugged. “Your holy man might be the same.”
“Nonetheless, I should like to see. Please, Father.” Sasha, though gray-eyed, had his mother’s jet brows and long lashes. They swept down, oddly delicate against his thin face.
Pyotr considered. Roads were dangerous, but the well-traveled road running north from Moscow was not markedly so. He had no desire to raise a timid son. “Take five men. And two dozen candles—that should ensure your reception.”
A light came into the boy’s face. Pyotr’s mouth tightened. Marina was bone in the unyielding earth, but he had seen her look just that way, when her soul lit her face like firelight.
“Thank you, Father,” the boy said. He dashed out the door and away, lithe as a weasel. Pyotr heard him in the dvor before the palace, calling the men, calling for his horse.
“Marina,” said Pyotr, low, “thank you for my sons.”
THE TRINITY LAVRA HAD been carved out of the wilderness. Though the feet of passing pilgrims had beaten a path through the snowy forest, the trees still pressed close on either side, dwarfing the bell-tower of the plain wooden church. Sasha was reminded of his own village at Lesnaya Zemlya. A sturdy palisade surrounded the monastery, which was composed mostly of small, wooden buildings. The air smelled of smoke and baking bread.
Oleg had ridden with him, the head of his attendants. “We can’t all go in,” said Sasha, reining his horse.
Oleg nodded. The whole party dismounted, bits jingling. “You, and you,” Oleg said. “Watch the road.”
The men chosen settled beside the path, loosened the horses’ girths, and began searching for firewood. The others passed between the two uprights of a narrow unbarred gate. Great trees threw sooty shadows onto the raw wood of the little church.
A slim man ducked out of a doorway, wiping floury hands. He was not very tall, and not very old. His broad nose was set between large, liquid eyes, the green-brown of a forest pool. He wore the coarse robe of a monk, splattered with flour.
Sasha knew him. The monk might have been wearing the rags of a beggar or the robes of a bishop and Sasha would still have known him. The boy dropped to his knees in the snow.
The monk pulled up short. “What brings you here, my son?”
Sasha could barely bring himself to look up. “I would ask your blessing, Batyushka,” he managed.
The monk raised a brow. “You needn’t call me so; I am not ordained. We are all children of God.”
“We brought candles for the altar,” Sasha stammered, still on his knees.
A thin, brown, work-hardened hand thrust itself under Sasha’s elbow and raised him to his feet. The two were nearly of a height, though the boy was broader of shoulder and not yet full-grown, gangly as a colt. “We kneel to God alone here,” said the monk. He studied Sasha’s face a moment. “I am making the altar-bread for services tonight,” he added abruptly. “Come and help me.”
Sasha nodded, wordless, and waved his men off.
The kitchen was rude, and hot from the oven. The flour and water and salt lay to hand, to be mixed, kneaded, and baked in the ashes. The two worked in silence for a time, but it was an easy silence. Peace lay thick on that place. The monk’s questions were so mild that the boy hardly noticed he was being questioned, but, a little clumsy with the unaccustomed task, he rolled out dough and related his history: his father’s rank, his mother’s death, their journey to Moscow.
“And you came here,” the monk finished for him. “What are you seeking, my son?”
Sasha opened his mouth and closed it again. “I—I do not know,” he admitted, shamefaced. “Something.”
To his surprise, the monk laughed. “Do you wish to stay, then?”
Sasha could only stare.
“It is a hard life we lead here,” the monk went on more seriously. “You would build your own cell, plant your garden, bake your bread, aid your brothers as necessary. But there is peace here, peace beyond anything. I see you have felt it.” Seeing Sasha still dumbfounded, he said, “Yes, yes, many pilgrims come here, and many of them ask to stay. But we take only the seekers who do not know what they are looking for.”
“Yes,” Sasha said at last, slowly. “Yes, I would like to stay, very much.”
“Very well,” said Sergei Radonezhsky, and turned back to his baking.
THEY PRESSED THE HORSES hard on the road back to Moscow. Oleg mistrusted the fiery look on his young lord’s face. He rode close to Sasha’s stirrup and resolved
to speak to Pyotr. But the young lord reached his father first.
They rode into the city in the midst of the brief, burning sunset, with the towers of church and palace silhouetted against a violet sky. Sasha left his horse steaming in the dvor and ran at once up the stairs to his father’s rooms. He found both father and brother dressing.
“Well met, little brother,” said Kolya when Sasha came in. “Have you done with churches yet?” He threw Sasha a quick, tolerant glance and returned his attention to his clothes. Tongue between his lips, he settled a hat of black sable rakishly on his black hair. “Well, you are in good time. Wash off the stink. We are feasting tonight, and it may be the family will show us the woman Father is to marry. She has all her teeth—I have it on good authority—and a pleasant…what, Sasha?”
“Sergei Radonezhsky has asked me to join his monastery on Makovets Hill,” repeated Sasha, louder.
Kolya looked blank.
“I wish to be a monk,” Sasha said. That got their attention. Pyotr was drawing on his red-heeled boots. He slewed round to stare at his son and nearly tripped.
“Why?” cried Kolya, in tones of deep horror. Sasha clamped his teeth on several uncharitable remarks; his brother had already cut a large swath through the palace serving-women.
“To dedicate my life to God,” he informed Kolya, with a touch of superiority.
“I see your holy man made quite an impression,” Pyotr said, before the astonished Kolya had recovered. He had regained his balance and was drawing his second boot on, with perhaps a bit more vim than necessary.
“I—yes, he did, Father.”
“Very well, you may,” said Pyotr.
Kolya gaped. Pyotr put his foot down and stood. His kaftan was ocher and rust; the gold rings on his hands caught the candlelight. His hair and beard had been combed with scented oil; he looked both imposing and uncomfortable.
Sasha, who had been expecting a drawn-out battle, stared at his father.
The Bear and the Nightingale Page 4