Solovey peered about in a futile attempt to see what she was doing. If you say so. He seemed to be reconsidering the advantages of grooming. Vasya ignored him, humming to herself, and began to weave the shorter hairs over his tailbone.
Suddenly a cold breeze stirred the tapestries, and the fire leaped in the oven. Solovey pricked his ears. Vasya turned just as the door opened. Morozko passed the threshold, and the white mare nudged her way in after him. The warmth of the house struck steam from her coat. Solovey flicked his tail out of Vasya’s grip, nodded in a dignified manner, and ignored his mother. She pointed her ears at his braided mane.
“Good evening, Vasilisa Petrovna,” said Morozko.
“Good evening,” said Vasya.
Morozko stripped off his blue outer robe. It slid off his fingertips and disappeared in a puff of powder. He took off his boots, which slid apart and left a damp patch on the floor. Barefoot, he went to the oven. The white mare followed. He picked up a twist of straw and began to rub her down. In the space of a blink, the twist of straw became a brush of boar’s hair. The mare stood with her ears flopping, loose-lipped with enjoyment.
Vasya went nearer, fascinated. “Did you change the straw? Was that magic?”
“As you see.” He went on with his grooming.
“Can you tell me how you do it?” She came up beside him and peered eagerly at the brush in his hand.
“You are too attached to things as they are,” said Morozko, combing the mare’s withers. He glanced down idly. “You must allow things to be what best suits your purpose. And then they will.”
Vasya, puzzled, made no reply. Solovey snorted, not about to be left out. Vasya picked up her own straw and started on the horse’s neck. No matter how hard she stared at it, though, it remained straw.
“You can’t change it to a brush,” said Morozko, seeing her. “Because that would be to believe it is now straw. Just allow it, now, to be a brush.”
Disgruntled, Vasya glowered into Solovey’s flank. “I don’t understand.”
“Nothing changes, Vasya. Things are, or they are not. Magic is forgetting that something ever was other than as you willed it.”
“I still do not understand.”
“That does not mean you cannot learn.”
“I think you are making a game of me.”
“As you like,” said Morozko. But he smiled when he said it.
That night, when the food had gone and the fire burned red, Vasya said, “You once promised me a tale.”
Morozko drank deep of his cup before replying. “Which tale, Vasilisa Petrovna? I know many.”
“You know which. The tale of your brother and your enemy.”
“I did promise you that tale,” said Morozko, reluctantly.
“Twice I have seen the twisted oak-tree,” said Vasya. “Four times since childhood have I seen the one-eyed man, and I have seen the dead walking. Did you think I’d ask for any other tale?”
“Drink, then, Vasilisa Petrovna.” Morozko’s soft voice slid through her veins with the wine. “And listen.” He poured out the mead, and she drank. He looked older and stranger and very far away.
“I am Death,” said Morozko slowly. “Now, as in the beginning. Long ago, I was born of the minds of men. But I was not born alone. When first I looked upon the stars, my brother stood beside me. My twin. And when first I saw the stars, so did he.”
The quiet, crystalline words dropped into Vasya’s mind and she saw the heavens making wheels of fire, in shapes she did not know, and a snowy plain that kissed a bitter horizon, blue on black. “I had the face of a man,” said Morozko. “But my brother had the face of a bear, for to men a bear is very fearsome. That is my brother’s part; he makes men afraid. He eats their fear, gorges himself, and sleeps until he hungers again. Disorder he loves above all; war and plague and fire in the night. But in the long-ago I bound him. I am Death, and guardian of the order of things. All passes before me; that is how it is.”
“If you bound him, then how—?”
“I bound my brother,” said Morozko, not raising his voice. “I am his warden, his guardian, his jailer. Sometimes he wakes and sometimes he sleeps. He is a bear, after all. But now he is awake, and stronger than he has ever been. So strong that he is breaking free. He cannot leave the forest. Not yet. But already he has left the shadow of the oak-tree, which he has not done for a hundred lives of men. Your people grew afraid; they abandoned the chyerti and now your house is unprotected. Already he satisfies his hunger with you. He kills your people in the night. He makes the dead walk.”
Vasya was silent a moment, absorbing this. “How may he be defeated?”
“By trickery sometimes,” Morozko said. “Long ago I defeated him with strength, but I had others to help me then. Now I am alone, and I have faded.” There was a small silence. “But he is not free yet. To break free entirely he needs lives—several lives—and the fear of the tormented dead. The lives of those who can see him are the strongest of all. If he had taken you in the woods the night we met, then he would have been free, though all the powers of the world were ranged against him.”
“How may he be bound anew?” said Vasya with a touch of impatience.
Morozko half-smiled. “I have one last trick.” Was it her imagination, or did his eyes linger on her face? Her talisman hung heavy on her throat. “I will bind him at midwinter, when I am strongest.”
“I can help you.”
“Can you?” Morozko said, with faint amusement. “A girl-child, half-blooded and untrained? You know nothing of lore, or battle, or magic. How exactly can you help me, Vasilisa Petrovna?”
“I kept the domovoi alive,” Vasya protested. “I kept the upyry from my hearth.”
“Well done,” said Morozko. “One newborn upyr slain in daylight, one pallid little domovoi clinging to life, and a girl who fled like a fool into the snow.”
Vasya swallowed. “I have a talisman,” she said. “My nurse gave it to me. From my father. It helped on the nights the upyry came. It might help again.” She lifted the sapphire from beneath her tunic. It was cold and heavy in her hand. When she turned it in the firelight, the silver-blue jewel blazed up with a six-pointed star.
Was it her imagination, or was his face a shade paler? His lips tightened and his eyes were deep and colorless as water. “A little talisman,” said Morozko. “An old, frail magic, to shield a girl-child. A paltry thing to set before the Bear.” But his glance lingered on it.
Vasya did not see. She let the necklace go. She leaned forward. “All my life,” she said, “I have been told ‘go’ and ‘come.’ I am told how I will live, and I am told how I must die. I must be a man’s servant and a mare for his pleasure, or I must hide myself behind walls and surrender my flesh to a cold, silent god. I would walk into the jaws of hell itself, if it were a path of my own choosing. I would rather die tomorrow in the forest than live a hundred years of the life appointed me. Please. Please let me help you.”
For an instant, Morozko seemed to hesitate.
“Didn’t you hear me?” he said at last. “If the Bear has your life, well, then he will be free, and there is nothing I can do. Better you stay far away from him. You are only a maiden. Go home where you are safe. That will help me; that is best. Wear your jewel. Do not go to a convent.” She did not see the harshness about his mouth. “There will be a man to marry you. I will make sure of it. I will give you your dowry: a prince’s ransom, as the tale prescribes. Will you like that? Gold on your wrists and throat, the finest dowry in all Rus’?”
Vasya suddenly stood, sending her stool crashing to the floor. She could not summon words; she ran out into the night, barefoot and bareheaded. Solovey glared at Morozko and followed.
The house was left in silence, except for the crackling of the fire.
That was ill done, said the mare.
“Was I wrong?” said Morozko. “She is better off at home. Her brother will protect her. The Bear will be bound. There will be a man to marry her, and she
will live in safety. She must carry the jewel. She must live long and remember. I will not have her risk her life. You know what is at stake.”
Then you deny what she is. She will wither.
“She is young. She will suit herself to it.”
The mare said nothing.
VASYA DID NOT KNOW how long she rode. Solovey had followed her into the snow, and blindly she clambered onto his back. She’d have ridden forever, but at length the horse returned her to the fir-grove. The house among the firs wavered in her sight.
Solovey shook his mane. Get off, he said. There is fire there. You are cold, you are weary, you are frightened.
“I am not frightened!” snapped Vasya, but she slid from the horse’s back. She flinched when her feet struck the snow. Hobbling, she brushed between the firs and stumbled over the familiar threshold. The fire leaped high in the oven. Vasya stripped off her wet outer things, not noticing the silent servants that took them away. Somehow she made her way to the fire. She sank into her chair. Morozko and the white mare had gone.
At last, she drank a cup of mead and dozed off with her chilled toes near the oven.
The fire burned down, but the girl slept on. In the darkest part of the night, she dreamed.
She was in Konstantin’s cell. The air reeked with earth and blood, and a monster crouched over the priest’s thrashing body. When it raised its face, Vasya saw its lips and chin all covered in gore. She raised a hand to banish it, and it shrieked and sprang through the window and disappeared. Vasya knelt beside the bed, scrabbling at the torn blankets.
But the face between her hands was not that of Father Konstantin. Alyosha’s dead gray eyes stared up at her.
Vasya heard a snarl and turned. The upyr had returned, and it was Dunya—Dunya dead, staggering, halfway through the window, her mouth a gaping hole, the bone showing in her finger-ends. Dunya who had been her mother. And then the shadows on the priest’s wall became one shadow, a one-eyed shadow that laughed at her. “Weep,” it said. “You are frightened. It is delicious.”
All the icons in the corner came alive and screeched their approbation. The shadow opened its mouth to laugh, too, and then it was not a shadow at all, but a bear—a great bear with famine between its teeth. It roared out flame—and then the wall was burning; her house was burning. Somewhere she heard Irina screaming.
A grinning face showed between the flames, mottled blue, with a great dark hole where an eye should have been. “Come,” it said. “You will be with them, and you will live forever.” Her dead brother and sister stood beside this apparition and seemed to beckon from behind the flames.
Something hard struck Vasya across the face, but she did not heed.
She reached out a hand. “Alyosha,” she said. “Lyoshka!”
But a quick pain came, sharper than before. Vasya was yanked out of the dream, strangling on a sound between a sob and a scream. Solovey was butting her anxiously with his nose; he had bitten her upper arm. She seized his warm mane. Her hands were like two lumps of ice; her teeth chattered. She buried her face in his coat. Her head was full of screaming, and that laughing voice. Come, or you will never see them again. Then she heard another voice, felt a rush of frigid air.
“Get back, you great ox.” There was a squeal of indignation from Solovey, and then there were cold hands on Vasya’s face. When she tried to look, all she could see was her father’s house burning, and a one-eyed man that beckoned.
Forget him, said the one-eyed man. Come here.
Morozko struck her across the face. “Vasya,” he said. “Vasilisa Petrovna, look at me.”
It was like dragging herself across a great distance, but his eyes came into focus at last. She could not see the house in the woods. All she saw were fir-trees, snow, horses, and the night sky. The air curled frigid about her. Vasya tried to quiet her panicked breaths.
Morozko hissed out something she did not understand. Then, “Here,” he said. “Drink.”
There was mead at her lips; she smelled the honey. She swallowed, choked, and drank. When she raised her head, the cup was empty and her breathing had slowed. She could see the walls of the house again, though they wavered at the edges. Solovey was thrusting his great head down to hers, lipping at her hair and face. She laughed weakly. “I’m all right,” she began, but her laughter became tears, and she was seized with a storm of weeping. She covered her face.
Morozko watched her, narrow-eyed. She could still feel the imprint of his hands, and one cheek throbbed where he had struck her.
At length her tears slowed. “I had a nightmare,” she said. She would not look at him. She hunched on her chair, cold and embarrassed, sticky with tears.
“Do not look so,” Morozko said. “It was more than a nightmare; it was my own mistake.” Seeing her shiver, he made a sound of impatience. “Come here to me, Vasya.”
When she hesitated, he added shortly, “I will not hurt you, child, and it will quiet you. Come here.”
Bewildered, she uncurled and stood, fighting back fresh tears. He put a cloak round her. She did not know where he had gotten it from—perhaps conjured from midair. He picked her up and sank onto the warm oven-bench with her in his arms. He was gentle. His breath was the winter wind, but his flesh was warm, and his heart beat under her hand. She wanted to pull away, to glare at him with all her pride, but she was cold and frightened. Her pulse throbbed in her ears. Clumsily she settled her head in the curve of his shoulder. He ran his fingers through her loosened hair. Slowly, her trembling eased. “I’m all right now,” she said, after a time, a little unsteady. “What did you mean, your own mistake?”
She felt rather than heard him laugh. “Medved is a master of nightmares. Anger and fear are as meat and drink to him, and so he captures the minds of men. Forgive me, Vasya.”
Vasya said nothing.
After a moment, he said, “Tell me your dream.”
Vasya told him. She was shaking again when she had done, and he held her and was silent.
“You were right,” said Vasya at length. “What do I know of ancient magic, or ancient rivalries, or anything else? But I must go home. I can protect my family, at least for a time. Father and Alyosha will understand when I have explained.”
The image of her dead brother tore at her.
“Very well,” said Morozko. She was not looking at him, and so she did not see his face grim.
“May I take Solovey with me?” said Vasya hesitantly. “If he wishes to come?”
Solovey heard and shook his mane. He put his head down to look at Vasya out of one eye. Where you go, I go, said the stallion.
“Thank you,” Vasya whispered, and stroked his nose.
“Tomorrow you will go,” Morozko broke in. “Sleep the rest of the night.”
“Why?” said Vasya, pulling away to look at him. “If the Bear is waiting in my dreams, I certainly will not sleep.”
Morozko smiled crookedly. “But I will be here this time. Even in your dreams, Medved would not have dared my house, if I had not been away.”
“How did you know I was dreaming?” asked Vasya. “How did you come back in time?”
Morozko raised an eyebrow. “I knew. And I came back in time because there is nothing beneath these stars that runs faster than the white mare.”
Vasya opened her mouth on another question, but exhaustion hit her like a wave. She yanked back from the brink of sleep, suddenly frightened. “No,” she whispered. “Don’t—I could not bear it again.”
“He will not come back,” returned Morozko. His voice was steady against her ear. She felt the years in him, and the strength. “All will be well.”
“Don’t go,” she whispered.
Something crossed his face that she could not read. “I will not,” he said. And then it did not matter. Sleep was a great dark wave, and it washed over her and through her. Her eyelids fluttered closed.
“Sleep is cousin to death, Vasya,” he murmured over her head. “And both are mine.”
HE WAS
STILL THERE when she woke, as he had promised. She crawled from her bed and went to the fire. He sat very still, staring into the flames. It was as though he hadn’t moved at all. If Vasya looked hard, she could see the forest around him, and he a great white silence, formless, in the middle. But then she sank onto her own stool, and he looked round and some of the remoteness left his face.
“Where did you go yesterday?” she asked him. “Where were you, when the Bear knew you were far away?”
“Here and there,” replied Morozko. “I brought gifts for you.”
A heap of bundles lay beside the fire. Vasya glanced at them. He lifted an eyebrow in invitation, and she was child enough to go immediately to the first bundle and pull it open, heart beating quickly. It contained a green dress trimmed in scarlet, and a sable-lined cloak. There were boots made of felt and fur, embroidered with crimson berries. There were headdresses for her hair, and jewels for her fingers: many jewels. Vasya hefted them in her hand. There was gold and silver, in saddlebags of heavy leather. There was cloth of silver and a rich soft cloth that she did not know.
Vasya looked them all over. I am the girl in the story, she thought. This is the prince’s ransom. Now he will take me back to my father’s house, covered with gifts.
She remembered his hands in the night, a few moments of gentleness.
No, that was nothing. That is not how the story goes. I am only the girl in the fairy tale, and he the wicked frost-demon. The maiden leaves the forest, marries a handsome man, and forgets all about magic.
Why did she feel this pain? She laid the cloth aside.
“Is this my dowry?” Her voice was soft. She did not know what showed on her face.
“You must have one,” said Morozko.
“Not from you,” whispered Vasya. She saw him taken aback. “I will bring your snowdrops to my stepmother. Solovey will come to Lesnaya Zemlya with me if he wishes. But I will have nothing else from you, Morozko.”
“You will have nothing of me, Vasya?” said Morozko, and for once she heard a human voice.
Vasya stumbled backward, tripping on the prince’s ransom scattered at her feet. “Nothing!” She knew he knew she was crying and she tried to speak reasonably. “Bind your brother and save us. I am going home.”
The Bear and the Nightingale Page 27