Firebird (Tales of Old Russia Book 2)

by Peter Morwood

  “No, not a werewolf. They make such a performance out of becoming a beast. So much pointless uproar.” The shaggy mane of fur across her shoulders moved in what could only be a shrug, like and yet peculiarly unlike that same gesture in human form. “But they have little choice in the matter. Once a month, as unavoidable as the tides that ebb and flow on the Ocean-Sea or in a woman’s body. Whereas we, mere beasts already, can become human whenever the fancy takes us.”

  “I think,” said Mar’ya Morevna, “I owe someone an apology.”

  Ivan’s grin diluted down to a smile, but stayed where it was. “It was an understandable misunderstanding,” he said softly. “And I’ll collect that apology in private, please.” Then he blushed to the tips of his ears as the wolf wrinkled her long muzzle and emitted an unmistakable chuckle. His voice might have been low enough for privacy from other human ears, but Mother Wolf had heard him quite plainly, and been much amused by the whole thing.

  Bitch, he thought, then laughed inside at just how accurate the insult was, if it was even an insult at all and not just accurate description.

  Darkness whirled like a fog beneath the lanterns, and the woman in the cloak was back. “From what they were saying to God,” she said, “I think your guards feel much more comfortable with this shape.”

  “Thank you for the consideration,” said Mar’ya Morevna, though it seemed to Ivan she would have preferred the wolf-form as being, if nothing else, less likely to provoke unseemly gossip. As if the appearance of a talking wolf in the courtyard of the kremlin after midnight wasn’t a source of gossip all by itself. Or maybe he was doing his wife the same injustice that she had done him.

  “There was some talk of favours,” he said. “You didn’t give me a reply. What brings you here?”

  “A favour indeed.” Mother Wolf made a dismissive gesture with one hand. “Nothing you can do for me. But my son is another matter.”

  “Your son?”

  “Yes indeed. He owes you his life, as I’m sure you recall.”

  “How could I forget, when you were breathing down the back of my neck at the time?”

  Mar’ya Morevna jabbed him in the back with one finger. “Easily,” she said. “Quite easily.”

  “Quite so.” The wolf-woman smiled thinly, but didn’t specify which statement she was agreeing with. “Now I, his mother, who asked you for his life, consider that various advices and assistances freely given have repaid the debt. My son, however, being a son and greatly taken with thoughts of his own honour, is of another turn of mind.”

  Prince Ivan was puzzled by that, and Mar’ya Morevna so mystified that for once she withheld her own opinions and just listened. Or perhaps she merely kept silent to better keep an eye on the astonishingly handsome woman who was talking to her husband. Whatever the reason, Mother Wolf glanced from one to the other and back again, then said “He has decided he should go into your service.”

  “My service?” echoed Ivan.

  “For the usual year and a day, no more and no less.”

  Shape-shifting may be easy enough in a furred cloak worn for the purpose, but doing the same thing in armour might be rather a problem…

  That was what he was about to say, and for all he knew similar sentiments were poised on the tip of Mar’ya Morevna’s tongue as well. Good manners and good sense prevailed. The question might be entirely reasonable, but at the same time he had seen Mother Wolf in her true form, and insults, even unintentional insults, weren’t something safely directed at a grim grey Russian wolf.

  “Mother,” he asked, choosing his words with care, “just what exactly would your son the wolf do in my service? Has he military training, or experience of sword or shield or spear?”

  “None,” said Mother Wolf. “Just as I had none of sorcery and politics. Yet I was of some use in your dealings with Baba Yaga and Koshchey the Undying. Certainly your head is still attached to your shoulders.”

  Ivan cleared his throat, grateful to be able to so. That she had saved his neck – and the rest of him – from Baba Yaga’s cooking-pot, was undeniable, although he wondered whether she knew how that same head had been cut off.

  “Thank you again for that. And thank your son on my behalf, since I don’t see him here.” He peered into the darkness beyond the kremlin’s torchlit gateway, but saw nothing. “Where is he?”

  “Off about his own affairs.” Mother Wolf sounded a little peeved. “I can tell you no more than that, and it’s little enough.”

  “Then what’s he doing, and why can he not come here himself to ask for entry to my service?”

  “And,” said Mar’ya Morevna rather sharply, “why is he asking through you now, rather than a year ago with his own voice when he first met my husband?” She came down heavily on the word.

  The wolf-woman glanced from one to the other and back again. “A year ago he was no more than a cub. Did your husband not tell you as much – or has he told you anything at all?” She sounded more disappointed than annoyed by the thought of being left out of whatever story Ivan had told. “At any rate, he’s grown now, and has heard – and read – too many legends and folk stories for his own good. He decided he would like to be in the service of a prince, and I see no harm in it. Some few hours of guard duty will get such foolishness out of his system.” Mother Wolf grinned crookedly, and her teeth glinted. “As for the rest, he’s past the age when mothers can ask where their children go at night. Even you, Mar’ya Morevna, fairest Princess in all the Russias, must know something of those tribulations.”

  “We don’t have any children.” Mar’ya Morevna’s toneless voice covered what she truly felt. “Not yet, at least.”

  The dark wolf-woman blushed darker yet, and made another bow; not just an inclination of the head this time, but the deep obeisance with right hand extended of Rus nobility before a superior.

  “My apologies, Highness. But from what I’d been told, and from what’s said by common gossip—” She stopped abruptly in the way of one who realizes that whatever they might say is going to be taken in ways other than intended.

  “That Prince Ivan and I would have had several children by now?” Mar’ya Morevna put out one booted foot and kicked Ivan lightly but firmly on the ankle-bone to keep him quiet. “Where that common gossip is concerned, Mother Wolf, we try. Oh, how we try. But so far without success. Never mind a son, politically useful though that might be, we would thank the good God for a daughter.”

  “Who when she grows could be married to a powerful prince,” said Ivan, then saw Mar’ya Morevna’s boot-toe twitch and quickly added, “if she wanted to, of course.”

  “Then,” said Mother Wolf, “until such time as God gives you a son of your own, I give you mine to take his place.”

  Mar’ya Morevna and Prince Ivan exchanged brief glances and briefer nods. Then she looked at Mother Wolf. “In such a case, duty and obligation would work both ways. And in my place as liege lady – and mother – I would be happier if I knew where your son was right now.”

  “You speak for both of us, Highness. I tell myself that he’s old enough to take care of himself, so that I worry less than I might.”

  “Do you worry less than you should?” said Mar’ya Morevna softly. “You told us that less than a year ago, he was only a cub.”

  The wolf-woman snuggled deeper into the hood of her heavy cloak and smiled, shaking her head. “I think not. As even the wisest of humankind will do when they see us only in this assumed shape, you forget we’re wolves. Cub he may have been last year, but wolves grow swiftly or not at all.”

  Ivan shivered a little; not at anything that had been said, but because he was growing cold, and he had grown tired long before. “Mother Wolf,” he said, “it’s so late that soon it will start to get early. We’ve both had a long and wearying day…”

  “Then ruling a realm requires as much work as I’ve heard?” said the wolf-woman with interest.

  Ivan drew breath, but it was Mar’ya Morevna who said, “More even than tha
t. Much, much more.”

  “And so,” said Ivan, “we’d like to get some sleep.” He looked at Mother Wolf, and if he was admiring what she had dismissed as her assumed shape, Mar’ya Morevna couldn’t find it in her heart to blame him. Even muffled by the folds of the ankle-length fur cloak, that shape was much to be admired. “You’re in human form. Does that mean you sleep by day, or by night?”

  “I sleep whenever the opportunity presents itself.”

  “Then may we offer guest-right in this kremlin?”

  “My son has said this long time that he wanted to serve a noble prince and his fine lady. He named you often. It’s pleasing to learn his choice was a wise one. I thank you both, and yes, I would sleep – if you could give me a private place to sleep in, with a door between me and outside. Humans sometimes walk in their sleep, but wolves change their shape. I wouldn’t want to scare your other servants.”

  Ivan looked quickly from side to side. The guards had returned to their posts in the kremlin’s gatehouse, and they were unattended except for Captain Fedorov, who like most of the guard-captains of most of the kremlins of Russia, was the soul of discretion.

  “Captain,” he said, “it’s late and I’ve no wish to waken anyone. Is there a room for unexpected guests?”

  Fedorov saluted. “Yes, Highness, in the Armoury Tower.” He permitted himself a small smile. “Your Highness’s sisters and their husbands have a talent for arriving without prior warning, and High Steward Fedor Konstantinovich maintains the lordly suite in the tower at all times.”

  “Then have those chambers prepared for this guest,” said Mar’ya Morevna. “Candles and lamps, a fire, a flagon of wine, meat and a fresh-baked loaf under a fair white cloth.”

  “When the baking for the day has begun, of course,” added Mother Wolf. “Meat would be sufficient. A length of sausage, perhaps?” Mar’ya Morevna caught her breath and looked at Ivan sharply, but said nothing. “After all, I’m a wolf. Food is food, and bread is food, but sausage is meat and meat is better food by far.”

  She grinned more widely still, and Ivan saw just how very white her teeth were in that darkly tanned face. Human teeth of course, in a human face; but teeth not only white but strong, sharp and in excellent condition.

  Mar’ya Morevna showed her own teeth, but in a yawn-and-stretch as luxurious and extravagant as the one which had demonstrated her tiredness to the spies. “Your pardon,” she said, “but if I don’t get to bed myself, I’ll insult one and all by falling asleep right here.”

  Ivan kissed her hand. “Later.”

  “Not too much later.”

  Mar’ya Morevna strode away, and whether that was warning or invitation he wasn’t quite sure. If warning, it was unnecessary. Mother Wolf in human form was fair enough, but she wasn’t the fairest Princess in all the Russias, compared to whom any other woman could only strive for second best. And having seen her change to her true shape and back, right here on his own front doorstep, it was impossible to forget what that true shape was.

  “I didn’t know when last we met that you sought a wife,” said Mother Wolf, “though I soon heard mention of her beauty. Permit me to congratulate you,” and she bowed again.

  “Mother, no matter what your son may think, neither you nor he owe me anything. But I will always owe you my thanks, for my wife and for my life.”

  “I said before, Prince Ivan: once children get hold of an idea, it’s hard for them to let it go. You don’t know it yet, or remember from your own childhood – not so very long ago, surely? – but you will, soon enough.” When Ivan rolled his eyes at that, she leaned forward and smacked him sharply on the hand.

  “Now stop that nonsense,” she said in the voice perfected by mothers all across the wide white world. “I don’t prophesy; I don’t foresee; I don’t promise. But I speak the truth when I say that in God’s good time, you and your wife will indeed have children. A son, to preserve your line and keep your father’s mind at rest, and a daughter to fill your heart with joy. I look no further. Other sons, other daughters, other joys. But trust my sight in this at least.”

  Ivan looked at her long and hard, harder perhaps and closer than he might have done had Mar’ya Morevna still been there. “I trust you,” he said. “And I believe you. If that trust is misplaced, I think it will be through accident and nothing more.” He shivered again; it was really very cold, even in the lee of the gatehouse and out of the worst of the night wind, although Mother Wolf showed no sign of feeling it. “Let me show you to your room. But not, for honour’s sake, any further than the doorway of the tower.”

  “You’re concerned for the honour of a wolf?”

  “For the honour of a lady; and if that lady should be a wolf, then say I show respect to what I and the world can see, rather than what I alone might know.” Ivan stared into the darkness for a moment, then shook his head. “No. Regardless of the shape, I show honour where honour is due.” They walked together in companionable silence across the shadowed courtyard, and when they reached the Armoury Tower, Prince Ivan opened the door and held it for her. “The whole third floor is at your disposal.”

  Mother Wolf nodded abstractedly, looking at him with an expression of slight puzzlement on her face as though trying to think of something else entirely. Then she brightened, and one hand dipped into a pouch that hung from the belt around her cloak.

  “My memory can sometimes be as elusive as yours,” she said, producing a small flat packet. “Your father gave me this.”

  Ivan took it and turned it over in his hand, looking at the criss-cross of cords and the two blobs of gold-sifted wax that held it shut. The seal, apparently untouched, was indeed his father’s, as was the handwriting.

  “It’s as I received it. I have no interest in the correspondence between father and son, and even less in that of Tsar and Tsarevich. So do with it what you will.”

  “If you got this from Tsar Aleksandr, you were in Khorlov.” He looked curiously at Mother Wolf. “What brought you there?”

  She grinned at him. “Trying to find you,” she said. “If the child is hard to find, then ask the parents.”

  “So my father told you where to find me.”

  “He regarded me with a deal less suspicion than your wife first did.”

  Ivan laughed quietly. “As well he might: he’s not married to her. But my thanks for this.”

  “A good night to you.”

  He glanced up at the sky, and at the few stars that blinked through the high, ragged clouds. “You mean, a good morning.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Ah. Yes. Until later…”

  Once the door of the Armoury Tower had closed behind her, Ivan cracked the seals. Regardless now of the chill, he found a stone mounting-block convenient to one of the torches that cast a guttering light across the courtyard, sat down and began to read. It was such a letter as a father and mother might send to their son now married and living far from home: inquisitive as to his doings, gossipy as to theirs – and yet, ordinary though it seemed, between the lines there was something more.

  Ivan read it again, and then a third time, and with every reading the small frown that had indented itself between his brows grew deeper. Slowly he folded the sheets of parchment back into their original packet, staring not at what he was doing but at the ground while his brain sorted through the various meanings of what it had detected. Then he stood up and went to bed, not now so much to sleep as to find somewhere warmer than the courtyard in which to lie and think and stare up at the unhelpful ceiling. This latest letter seemed just like all the others that he and Mar’ya Morevna had received, and yet somehow it felt different.

  It was unlike Tsar Aleksandr or even his mother the Tsaritsa, from whom such sentiments might have seemed more reasonable, to mention not once but four times that he was much missed and should come home to visit more often. Unlike, and unlikely, because despite the distances involved, Ivan and his wife returned to Khorlov frequently enough to keep any parent h
appy. Yet here, in brown ink on good cream parchment, was a request – no, a demand – that they not let so many months go by between visits as they had done the last time.

  Ivan had no need to light a lamp to read the letter again; it was as if its words were engraved inside his skull, and what all those words meant was Come home. Now. We need you. Both of you.

  *

  The pallid light of dawn found Ivan just as wide awake as when he went to bed. Courtesy – and simple caution born of past experience – prevented him from shaking Mar’ya Morevna awake, but once she began to stir he stroked her face lightly with his fingertips, both to speed the waking process and to make sure that she wouldn’t just roll over and go back to sleep. Never at her best first thing in the morning, she regarded him a little blearily; but when he showed her the letter and explained a few of his suspicions, she sat bolt upright in the bed and stared at it.

  Mar’ya Morevna drank cold water, splashed a little in her face and scrubbed the knuckles of both fists into her eyesockets. After that, certain she and her eyes and her brain were all as wide awake as they were likely to become, she took the letter from him and held it up in front of her nose. At first she didn’t read it, despite what Ivan had told her; instead, taking his suggestion to read between the lines quite literally, she studied the structure of paper, cords and seals to discover if there were other words than just the obvious and visible ones.

  “Nothing under the wax,” she said, “or mixed in with it. Nothing between the braiding of the cords. No smell of lemon or onion juice from the paper, and no pattern of pinpricks when it’s held up to the light. But then, Tsar Aleksandr – or more likely Dmitriy Vasil’yevich – knows all of those methods well enough to employ something more subtle. Sorcery, perhaps…?”

  “Or words, dammit!” said Ivan, his patience finally giving way. “There’s no secret writing. Do the one thing you haven’t done yet, Mar’yushka, and read the words. That’s where the message lies, a message I didn’t even notice first time round.” Mar’ya Morevna read it three times, as Ivan had done, and on the third reading slapped the letter down against the bed. “You see what I mean.”