The Bear and the Nightingale

by Katherine Arden

  That summer she rambled the woods, while the light lasted and into the night. There was no Sasha now to catch her when she fled, and she fled often, despite Dunya’s scolding. But the days drew in, the weather worsened, and on the short, blustery afternoons, Vasya would sometimes sit indoors on her stool. There, she would eat her bread and talk to the domovoi.

  The domovoi was small and squat and brown. He had a long beard and brilliant eyes. At night he crept out of the oven to wipe the plates and scour away the soot. He used to do mending, too, when people left it out, but Anna would shriek if she saw a stray shirt, and few of the servants would risk her anger. Before Vasya’s stepmother arrived, they had left offerings for him: a bowl of milk or a bit of bread. But Anna shrieked then, too. Dunya and the serving-maids had begun hiding their offerings in odd corners where Anna rarely came.

  Vasya talked between bites, kicking her feet against the legs of her stool. The domovoi was stitching—she had furtively handed him her mending. His tiny fingers flicked fast as gnats on a summer day. Their conversation was, as always, rather one-sided.

  “Where do you come from?” Vasya asked him, her mouth full. She had asked this question before, but sometimes his answer changed.

  The domovoi did not look up or pause in his work. “Here,” he said.

  “You mean there are more of you?” inquired the girl, peering about.

  The notion seemed to disconcert the domovoi. “No.”

  “But if you’re the only one, then where do you come from?”

  Philosophical conversation was not the domovoi’s strong suit. His seamed brow furrowed, and there was a suggestion of hesitation in his hands. “I am here because the house is here. If the house weren’t here, I wouldn’t be, either.”

  Vasilisa could not make head or tail of his answer. “So,” she tried again, “if the house is burned by Tatars, you’ll die?”

  The domovoi looked as though he were struggling with an unfathomable concept. “No.”

  “But you just said that—”

  The domovoi intimated at this point, with a certain brusqueness in his hands, that he did not care for any more talk. Vasya had finished her bread, anyway. Puzzling to herself, she slid from her stool in a scatter of crumbs. The domovoi gave her a tight-lipped glare. Guiltily, she brushed at the crumbs, scattering them further. Finally she gave up and fled, only to trip on a loose board and carom into Anna Ivanovna, who stood in the doorway staring with her mouth half open.

  In her defense, Vasya did not mean to send her stepmother reeling against the doorframe, but she was strong and rawboned for her age and could scamper very fast. Vasya looked up in quick apology but stopped, arrested. Anna was white as salt, with a little color burning in each cheek. Her breast heaved. Vasya took a step backward.

  “Vasya,” Anna began, sounding strangled. “Who were you talking to?”

  Vasya, taken aback, said nothing.

  “Answer me, child! Who were you talking to?”

  Vasya, disconcerted, settled on the safest answer. “No one.”

  Anna’s glance darted from Vasya to the room behind. Abruptly she reached out and slapped Vasya across the face.

  Vasya put her hand to her cheek, pale with astonished fury. The tears sprang to her eyes a moment later. Her father beat her often enough, but with a grave application of justice. She had never been struck in anger in her life.

  “I won’t ask again,” said Anna.

  “It’s only the domovoi,” Vasya whispered. Her eyes were huge. “Just the domovoi.”

  “And what manner of devil,” demanded Anna, shrilly, “is the domovoi?”

  Vasya, bewildered and trying not to cry, said nothing.

  Anna raised a hand to slap her again.

  “He helps clean the house,” Vasya stammered hastily. “He does no harm.”

  Anna’s eyes darted, blazing, into the room and her face flushed dully red. “Go away, you!” she screeched. The domovoi looked up in aggrieved confusion. Anna rounded back on Vasilisa. “Domovoi?” Anna hissed, advancing on her stepdaughter. “Domovoi? There is no such thing as a domovoi!”

  Vasya, furious, bewildered, opened her mouth to contradict, caught her stepmother’s expression, and closed it with a snap. She’d never seen anyone look so frightened.

  “Get out of here,” cried Anna. “Get out, get out!” The last word was a screech, and Vasya turned and fled.

  THE ANIMALS’ HEAT STRUCK up from below and warmed the sweet-smelling loft. Vasya buried herself in a heap of straw, chilly, bruised, and baffled.

  There was no such thing as a domovoi? Of course there was. They saw him every day. He’d been right there.

  But did they see him? Vasya couldn’t recall anyone except herself talking to the domovoi. But—of course Anna Ivanovna saw him: Go away, she had said. Hadn’t she? Maybe—maybe there wasn’t such a thing as a domovoi. Perhaps she was mad. Maybe she was destined to be a Holy Fool and wander begging among the villages. But no, Holy Fools were protected by Christ; they would not be nearly as wicked as her.

  Vasya’s head hurt with thinking. If the domovoi wasn’t real, then what about the others? The vodianoy in the river, the twig-man in the trees? The rusalka, the polevik, the dvorovoi? Had she imagined them all? Was she mad? Was Anna Ivanovna? She wished she could ask Olya or Sasha. They would know, and neither of them would ever strike her. But they were far away.

  Vasya buried her head in her arms. She wasn’t sure how long she lay there. The shadows drifted across the dim stable. She dozed a bit in the manner of tired children, and when she awoke, the light in the hayloft was gray and she was furiously hungry.

  Stiffly, Vasya uncurled herself, opened her eyes—and found herself looking straight into the eyes of a strange little person. Vasya gave a moan of dismay and curled up again, pressing her fists into her eye sockets.

  But when she looked again, the eyes were still there, still large, brown, and tranquil, and attached to a broad face, a red nose, and a wagging white beard. The creature was quite small, no larger than Vasya herself, and he sat in a pile of hay, watching her with an expression of curious sympathy. Unlike the domovoi in his neat robe, this creature wore a collection of tattered oddments, and his feet were bare.

  So much Vasya saw before she squeezed her eyes shut again. But she could not sit buried in the hay forever; at last she screwed up her courage, opened her eyes once more, and said tremulously:

  “Are you a devil?”

  There was a small pause.

  “I don’t know. Maybe. What is a devil?” The little creature had a voice like the whicker of a kindly horse.

  Vasya reflected. “A great black creature with a beard of flame and a forked tail that wishes to possess my soul and drag me off to be tortured in a pit of fire.”

  She eyed the little man again.

  Whatever he was, he did not seem to fit this description. His beard was quite reassuringly white and solid and he was turning round and examining the seat of his trousers as though to confirm the absence of a tail.

  “No,” he answered at length. “I do not think that I am a devil.”

  “Are you really here?” Vasya asked.

  “Sometimes,” answered the little man tranquilly.

  Vasya was not greatly reassured, but after a moment’s reflection she decided that “sometimes” was preferable to “never.” “Oh,” she said, mollified. “What are you, then?”

  “I look after the horses.”

  Vasya nodded wisely. If there was a little creature to look after the house, well, then, there should be another for the stables. But the girl had learned caution.

  “Can—can everyone see you? Do they know you’re here?”

  “The grooms know I’m here; at least, they leave offerings on cold nights. But no, no one can see me. Except you. And the one other, but she never comes.” He sketched a small bow in her direction.

  Vasya eyed him in growing consternation. “And the domovoi? No one can see him either, can they?”


  “I do not know what is a domovoi,” the little creature replied equably. “I am of the stables and of the beasts that live here. I do not venture outside except to exercise the horses.”

  Vasya opened her mouth to ask how he did so. He was no taller than she, and all of the horses had backs several handspans above her head. But at that moment she became aware of Dunya’s cracked voice calling. She jumped up.

  “I must go,” she said. “Will I see you again?”

  “If you like,” the other returned. “I have never talked with anyone before.”

  “I am called Vasilisa Petrovna. What is your name?”

  The little creature thought for a moment. “I have never had to name myself before,” he said. He thought again.

  “I am—the vazila, the spirit of horses,” he said finally. “I suppose that you may call me so.”

  Vasya nodded once, respectfully.

  “Thank you,” she said. Then she rolled over and scurried for the hayloft ladder, trailing straw from her hair.

  THE DAYS WORE AWAY, and the seasons. Vasya grew older, and she learned caution. She made sure never to speak to anyone but other people unless she was alone. She determined to shout less, run less, worry Dunya less, and above all, avoid Anna Ivanovna.

  She even succeeded somewhat, for almost seven years passed in peace. If Vasya heard voices on the wind, or saw faces in the leaves, she ignored them. Mostly. The vazila became the exception.

  He was a very simple creature. Like all household-spirits, he said, he had come into being when the stables were built and remembered nothing before. But he had the generous simplicity of horses, and under her impishness Vasilisa had a steadiness that—though she did not know it—appealed to the little stable-spirit.

  Whenever she could, Vasya disappeared into the barn. She could watch the vazila for hours. His movements were inhumanly light and deft, and he would clamber all over the horses’ backs like a squirrel. Even Buran stood like a stone while he did so. After a while, it seemed only natural that Vasya take up knife and comb and assist him.

  At first the vazila’s lessons were in craft only: in grooming, and doctoring, and mending. But Vasya was very eager, and soon enough he was teaching her stranger things.

  He taught her to talk to horses.

  It was a language of eye and body, sound and gesture. Vasya was young enough to learn quickly. Soon enough she was creeping into the barn not only for the comfort of hay and warm bodies, but for the horses’ talk. She would sit in the stalls by the hour, listening.

  The grooms might have sent her out had they caught her, but they managed to find her surprisingly seldom. Sometimes it worried Vasya that they never found her. All she had to do was flatten herself against the side of a stall and then duck around the horse and flee, and the groom would never even look up.

  In the year that Vasilisa Petrovna turned fourteen, the Metropolitan Aleksei made his plans for the accession of Prince Dmitrii Ivanovich. For seven years the Metropolitan had held the regency of Moscow; he schemed and skirmished, made alliances and broke them, called men to battle and sent them home again. But when Dmitrii came to manhood, Aleksei, seeing him bold and keen and steady in judgment, said, “Well, a good colt must not be left in pasture,” and began making plans for a coronation. The robes were stitched, the furs and jewels bought, the boy himself sent to Sarai to beg the Khan’s indulgence.

  And Aleksei continued, as ever, to look quietly about him for those who might be in a position to oppose the prince’s succession. It was thus that he learned of a priest named Father Konstantin Nikonovich.

  Konstantin was quite a young man, true, but the fortunate (or unfortunate) possessor of a terrible beauty: old-gold hair and eyes like blue water. He was renowned throughout Muscovy for his piety, and despite his youth he had traveled far—south even to Tsargrad and west to Hellas. He read Greek and could argue obscure points of theology. Moreover he chanted with a voice like an angel, so that the people wept to hear him and lifted up their eyes to God.

  But most of all, Konstantin Nikonovich was a painter of icons. Such icons, said the people, as had never been seen in Muscovy; they must have come from the finger of God to bless the wicked world. Already his icons were copied throughout the monasteries of northern Rus’, and Aleksei’s spies brought him tales of rapturous, rioting crowds, of women weeping when they kissed the painted faces.

  These rumors troubled the Metropolitan. “Well, and I will rid Moscow of this golden-haired priest,” he said to himself. “If he is so beloved, his voice, should he choose, could turn the people against the prince.”

  He fell to considering this means or that.

  While he deliberated, a messenger came from the house of Pyotr Vladimirovich.

  The Metropolitan sent for the man at once. The messenger arrived in due course, still in his dust and weary, awed by his glittering surroundings. But he stood steadily enough and said, “Father, bless,” with only a little stammer.

  “God be with you,” said Aleksei, sketching the sign of the cross. “Tell me what brings you so far, my son.”

  “The priest of Lesnaya Zemlya has died,” explained the messenger, gulping. He had expected to explain his errand to a less exalted personage. “Good fat Father Semyon has gone to God, and we are adrift, says the mistress. She begs you send us another, to hold us fast in the wilderness.”

  “Well,” said the Metropolitan immediately. “Give thanks, for your salvation is just at hand.”

  Metropolitan Aleksei dismissed the messenger and sent for Konstantin Nikonovich.

  The young man came into the prelate’s presence, tall and pale and burning. His robe of dark stuff set off the beauty of his hair and eyes.

  “Father Konstantin,” said Aleksei, “you are called to a task by God.”

  Father Konstantin said nothing.

  “A woman,” the Metropolitan continued, “the Grand Prince’s own sister, has sent a messenger begging our help. Her village flock is without a shepherd.”

  The young man’s face did not change.

  “You are the very man to go and minister to the lady and her family,” Aleksei finished, smiling with an air of studied benevolence.

  “Batyushka,” said Father Konstantin. His voice was so deep it was startling. The servant at Aleksei’s elbow squeaked. The Metropolitan narrowed his eyes. “I am honored. But already I have my work among the people of Moscow. And my icons, that I have painted for the glory of God, they are here.”

  “There are many of us to tend to the people of Moscow,” replied the Metropolitan. The young priest’s voice was soothing and unnerving at the same time, and Aleksei watched him warily. “And no one at all for those poor lost souls in the wilderness. No, no, it really must be you. You will leave in three weeks.”

  Pyotr Vladimirovich is a sensible man, thought Aleksei. Three seasons in the north will kill this upstart, or at least fade that oh-so-dangerous loveliness. Better than killing him now, lest the people take his flesh for relics and make him a martyr.

  Father Konstantin opened his mouth. But he caught the Metropolitan’s eye, which was hard as flint. The guards waited at every hand, and more in the anteroom, with long scarlet pikes. Konstantin bit back whatever he had wanted to say.

  “I am sure,” said Aleksei softly, “that you have much to do before your departure. God be with you, my son.”

  Konstantin, white-faced and biting his red lip, bent his head stiffly and turned on his heel. His heavy robe rippled and snapped behind him as he left the room.

  “Good riddance,” muttered Aleksei, though he was uneasy still. He dashed kvas into a cup and tossed it cold down his throat.

  AT HIGH SUMMER, the roads were grass-grown and dry. The mild sun loved the sweet-smelling earth, and soft rains scattered flowers in the forest. But Father Konstantin saw none of it; he rode beside Anna’s messenger in a white-lipped rage. His fingers ached for his brushes, for his pigments and wood panels, for his cool, quiet cell. Most of all he ached for the people,
for their love and hunger and half-frightened rapture, for the way their hands stretched out to his. Devils take the meddling Metropolitan. And now he was exiled, for no other reason than that people preferred him.

  Well. He’d train some village boy, see him ordained, and then be free to return to Moscow. Or perhaps go farther south, to Kiev, or west to Novgorod. The world was wide, and Konstantin Nikonovich would not be left to rot on some farm in the woods.

  Konstantin spent a week fuming, and then natural curiosity took over. The trees grew steadily larger as they rode deeper into the wild lands: oaks of giant girth and pines tall as the domes of churches. The bright meadows grew sparser as the forest drew in on either side; the light was green and gray and purple, and the shadows lay thick as velvet.

  “What is it like, the land of Pyotr Vladimirovich?” Konstantin asked his companion one morning. The messenger started. They had been riding a week, and the handsome priest had hardly opened his lips except to eat his meals.

  “Very beautiful, Batyushka,” the man replied respectfully. “Trees fine as cathedrals, and bright streams on all sides. Flowers in summer, fruit in autumn. Cold in winter, though.”

  “And your master and mistress?” asked Konstantin, curious despite himself.

  “A good man is Pyotr Vladimirovich,” said the man, warmth creeping into his voice. “Hard sometimes, but fair, and his folk never go wanting.”

  “And your mistress?”

  “Oh, a good woman; a good woman. Not like the mistress that was, but a good woman all the same. I know no harm of her.” He shot Konstantin a furtive glance as he spoke, and Father Konstantin wondered what it was that the messenger had not said.

  THE DAY THE PRIEST ARRIVED, Vasya was sitting in a tree talking to a rusalka. Once, Vasya had found such conversations disconcerting, but now she had gotten used to the woman’s green-skinned nakedness and the constant drip of water from her pale, weedy hair. The sprite was sitting on a thick limb with catlike nonchalance, steadily combing her long tresses. Her comb was the rusalka’s greatest treasure, for if her hair dried, she would die; but the comb could conjure water anywhere. When she looked closely, Vasya could see the water flowing from the comb’s teeth. The rusalka had an appetite for flesh; she would snatch fawns drinking in her lake at dawn, and sometimes the young men who swam there at midsummer. But she liked Vasilisa.