by Naomi Novik
He hadn’t waited for me to answer. He had only put his hand on my cheek, and then he had gone back out again. Now I stood there at the turning for a moment, with the dirt of the duke’s tunnel under my fingers, a road to safety that I might close forever to my own people just to save the Staryk’s. Or I might be caught myself, if there were guards down at the end, and do no one any good at all. I had already answered the question, but I would have to keep answering it with every step I took down that passage, and I wouldn’t be done until I came to the very end.
*
After Miryem climbed out of the cart, I took off my boots and put them there poking out under the cloak. I did not mind taking them off because it was warm, and I was sitting in a cart anyway. I was so glad to be leaving that terrible city. It was even worse than before. The streets were all crowded with people everywhere because now there was no snow and they wanted to be outside and they all wanted to talk at the same time and make noise. I lay down in the bottom of the cart next to the sacks that were pretending to be Miryem and I tried to pretend to be a sack myself, but I wasn’t a sack. I had to just lie there and cover my ears and wait until we were out. It took a long time until we came to that big city gate and Panov Mandelstam got down to pay the man at the gate some money, because that city was such a terrible place we had to pay to be let out.
But after that Sergey shook the reins and clucked to the horses just like a real driver and the horses started to walk fast, and we got away. For a little while all of us were safe. Sergey drove down the road until it turned so much that you could not see the gate when you sat up in the back of the cart and looked back. I tried when he stopped the horses and I could not see it, although I could still see smoke coming up from all the houses and all the people in there. Then Sergey gave Panov Mandelstam the reins and climbed down and looked up at me and Wanda and all of us and nodded goodbye. He was going to go around behind the wall of the city and hide and wait until Miryem came out, if she came out.
I did not like leaving Sergey behind. What if Miryem did not come out, what if the Staryk came out alone? He could kill Sergey. He could leave Sergey lying there on the ground all empty again. Or what if the tsar came out instead? That would be just as bad or maybe worse.
But Panov Mandelstam had wanted to go instead of Miryem, and then he had wanted to go with Miryem, and Miryem had said no and no to him. First she said no because the Staryk would not hurt her, and then she said no because one person alone would be more quiet if there was a guard, and then she said no because we could not trick the guards about two people missing, but all of those were not the real reasons. The real reason was that Panov Mandelstam was hurt. There were bruises all over him.
I knew because there were some purple marks that you could even see up his neck coming out of his shirt even though the Staryk had not hit him there. I knew how hard someone has to hit you so that you get bruises somewhere else. That is how hard the Staryk hit him, so I knew there were purple marks all under his clothing too, and even if I didn’t know that then I would still know he was hurt, because he limped and sometimes he put his hand on his side and breathed carefully for a little bit as if it hurt him, and he had fallen asleep twice during the day already.
Miryem did not say that, though, she said those other reasons, and finally Panov Mandelstam said, “I will wait for you outside the city then,” and Miryem also said no to that, but Panov Mandelstam was just shaking his head firmly, and he had let her say no before but he would not listen to no anymore, and he said that she did not even know where the house was.
That was when Sergey said to Panov Mandelstam, “I will wait for her. You cannot walk quickly. I can bring her to the house.” And Panov Mandelstam was still worried, but Sergey was bigger and stronger than him already, and also not hurt, and Miryem said, “He’s right, we’ll make better time,” so it was decided that Sergey was going to wait for Miryem and meanwhile the rest of us were going to keep going so that if anyone came to the house looking for us sooner than they came back, we would all be there keeping busy and we would say that Miryem and Sergey went away already to get the goats.
Miryem said, “But we will be back long before then,” as if it was all as certain, as if all she and Sergey had to do was just walk from the city to the house, but she did not really mean that. At first I thought that she was being foolish, because she could not know if she was going to come out. But she was not being foolish; she just did not mean it. I found out because we went upstairs to our room to pack the things and Miryem came up to us and said to Sergey, “Thank you. But don’t come to the city wall. When you get off the cart, just wait in the trees near the road. I’ll find you if I can.”
So then I knew, she did not mean it. She also didn’t know if she was going to come out, and she was glad Sergey had said he would wait because she did not want her father to get hurt, and she knew Panov Mandelstam would not agree to stay in the trees. But she told Sergey to stay in the trees, and I was glad, but then Sergey looked at her and said, “I will wait for you near the wall. Maybe you will need some help.”
Then Miryem lifted her hands and said, “If I need help, I’ll need too much. If I don’t, I won’t.”
But Sergey shrugged and said, “I said I would wait,” so that was that, and he was going to be waiting near that wall that maybe a Staryk or a demon or even just men with swords would come out from. Those men with swords at the house who had taken the Staryk away were all big and strong like Sergey was, and they had swords and heavy coats that did not look like you could cut through them easily, so even if they were not as bad as a tsar or a Staryk they were bad enough. I did not want Sergey to be killed by any of them. I also didn’t want Miryem killed by any of them, but I didn’t know her so well yet and so mostly I didn’t want Panova Mandelstam to be sad, which was an important reason to me but not as important as wanting it for my own self, which was how I wanted it for Sergey.
And I was so tired of being afraid all the time. It felt like I had been afraid and afraid without stopping forever. I did not even know how afraid I had been, except that morning I had stopped being afraid of anything at all for just a little while, when Wanda came up to the room with that magic letter from the tsar and I thought everything was finished, and I did not have to be afraid ever, I could stop being afraid of so many things, and it was so good and I was so happy, and now I was afraid again.
But it was not up to me. It was up to Sergey, and he was not going to wait in the trees. So I sat up in the cart when Panov Mandelstam drove it away and I saw Sergey walk away from the road into the trees, but into the trees the way he would walk to go all the way around the back of the city, that terrible city, and I watched him until I could not see him anymore. And then I lay down in the bottom of the cart next to the sacks. They did not have to be Miryem now, so Panova Mandelstam put the cloak over me instead and let me put my head on a sack as a pillow, and I put my hand in my pocket around the nut that Mama had given me and I told myself it would be all right. We would come to the house and Sergey would come back and I would plant the nut and Mama would grow and be with us and we would all be together.
The cart had gone so slowly when we were in the city crammed with all those people, but outside on the road it went very fast. It was strange to be on the road without snow. There was no snow anywhere at all. We saw lots of animals like squirrels and birds and deer and rabbits all running everywhere so happy about spring. They were eating grass and leaves and acorns and they were so excited they did not care about us, about people. Even the rabbits just looked at us from the side of the road and kept eating; they were so hungry they could not bother to be afraid. It made me happy to see them. I thought, we helped them, too. It was like Wanda had said about making our house a place where we would feed other people. We had even fed the animals.
We knew when we came close to the house because there was another house on the road that we remembered, with a big wagon wheel stuck on the front of their barn and flowers painte
d on the side. We had only seen the very top of the flowers before because of the snow but now the snow was gone and we could see the whole flowers. They were tall and beautiful and red and blue. The farmer of that house was standing next to the barn and just looking at the rye all green in his field, and he looked back at us and then I waved my hand and he waved back and he was smiling also.
“We will not be able to drive all the way to the house,” Panov Mandelstam said, because there was not a road, and the trees had been so close together when we were walking, but then it turned out he was wrong, or we had not remembered it right. We saw the place we had come out and it was between two big trees and there was room for the horses to go between. And then we kept going and there was still room, even if not very much room. The cart was not a very big cart and we squeezed through. It was starting to get dark, and Panova Mandelstam said, “Maybe we should stop for the night. We don’t want to miss it,” but just then Wanda said, “I see the house,” and I saw it too, and I jumped out of the back of the cart even though Panov Mandelstam could keep driving it all the way, and I ran around it and got ahead of the horses and ran all the way to the yard and the house was there waiting for us.
If only Sergey had been there it would already have been the best thing, but it was still very good. I helped Panov Mandelstam take the harness off the horses and we cleaned them and fed them food. I could almost reach the back of the horses but not quite, but they stayed still even when I was stretching high up to brush them. I pulled two carrots out of the garden and gave them to the horses and they liked them, and I helped unpack the cart with all the good things inside it and we put everything away and Wanda let the chickens out to run and scratch. Tomorrow we would make them a coop. Meanwhile Panova Mandelstam was inside cooking, and a good warm smell came out of the house and light came out of the windows and the door that she had left open.
“Go and wash your hands before dinner, Stepon,” Panov Mandelstam said to me, and I went to the back of the house where there was a big washtub, full of water. I dipped a bowl out of it, and I was about to wash my hands, but then I thought, if I washed my hands, I would not want to get them dirty again, and then we would eat, and then it would be time to go to sleep. It was already late. And I did not want to wait anymore.
So instead I took the bowl and I went back out to the front of the house and right by the door of the house I dug a hole in the ground and I took the nut out of my pocket and I put it down there in the hole. I patted it into the dirt and said, “We are safe, Mama. Now you can grow, and be with us,” and I was about to put the dirt back on top of it and pour the water on it, but I knew that something was wrong. I looked down at the white nut. It sat there in the warm brown dirt and it didn’t look right at all. It looked as if I were trying to plant a coin and make a tree grow that would have money on it like fruit. But no tree would grow out of a coin.
I picked it up and I brushed off the dirt and I held it in my hands. “Mama?” I said to the nut, and then after a little moment I felt like somebody was putting their hand on my head, but very lightly, like they could not really reach me. I heard nothing back at all.
CHAPTER 22
Vassilia arrived for her wedding angry, of course; almost as angry as her father. She had expected to be tsarina, with the justice of all the excellent sense behind the match. Instead here I was triumphant in her place, and the next candidate in line for her hand was an unlovely archduke thirty-seven years old who had buried two wives before her, instead of a beautiful young tsar who would put a crown on her head.
That was bad enough, and now I had dragged her all the way through snow and ice to Vysnia, a small backward city next to her father’s main seat in the west with its great thick-walled citadel of red brick, and she knew exactly why, because she knew exactly how she would have behaved in my place. She would have proudly walked before all the princesses and dukes’ daughters of the realm with her crowned head high; when we arrived for the feasting, she would have inclined her head and deigned with cool, muted politeness to speak to one or another of us who had been particularly good at flattering and currying favor with her. I would not have been among them. So she knew I had dragged her here so she would have to bow to me and call me Majesty, so I could pay off all my own debts of tittering and smirks around us.
She had imagined it so well that as she stared up at me in my silver crown and climbed the stairs to meet me, she had her hands closed into fists, waiting to be humiliated, and she did not know what to do with them when I stepped down out of my place to meet her, too soon, and took her by the shoulders and kissed her cheeks. “My dearest Vassilia,” I said. “It’s been too long since we saw each other, I’m so glad you’ve come. Dear Uncle Ulrich,” I added, turning to him, startled on the step above me, where he was facing Mirnatius and my father, and he looked at my face as I held my hand out to him and forgot for just one moment to be angry. “Forgive me: it’s hard for a girl to live so far from her friends. Please will you let us not stand on ceremony? Let’s all go inside, and drink a cup of welcome, and let me steal your daughter from you.”
I took her upstairs to the great bedchamber with the balcony open, and sent all the servants away, and told her softly that there must be an heir for Lithvas sooner rather than late, and it might not be enough for Mirnatius to marry; I let her draw her own conclusions. And then he and my father came in together, with Ilias trailing sullenly behind, and I held Vassilia’s hand while Mirnatius said, as cold as ashen coals, “The joys of the nuptial state are so many, we have decided to bestow them more widely; Ilias, dear cousin, allow me to present to you your bride.”
He stood beside me in the church with his mouth twisted in cynical amusement all the time. Vassilia was happy, with cause—I had given her Miryem’s golden dress, so splendid she looked more like a tsarina than I did, and she was marrying a handsome young man who would bed her that night with at least some modicum of care. My father had seen Ilias’s sullen looks, and while my servants had been helping Vassilia dress, he’d taken him out onto the balcony and told him that if he meant to be a fool about the matter, we’d find another man. And if instead he behaved like a man of sense and made himself satisfactory to the great heiress he was about to marry, he could stop being his mother’s lapdog and be a prince and a ruler of men in his own right when Ulrich died. When they’d come back into the room, Ilias had kissed Vassilia’s hand and made a reasonably successful effort at compliments. It turned out that even great passions could be satisfied by other means.
Ulrich took over her anger and was livid enough for them both, of course, but he couldn’t do anything about it: we took them from the bedroom straight to the church without a pause, and Mirnatius claimed the privilege of handing off the bride for himself. And meanwhile I took Ulrich’s arm and spoke to him. Even if he had wanted to make a dash for it with her out through the ranks of his soldiers, silver gleamed on my brow; for as long as he looked at me, he forgot that he was angry, and there were already whispers traveling through the city by then, that his own men would have heard: whispers of winter overthrown by magic.
The feasting was reasonably splendid. Even if there had been nothing else, the greens heaped on the tables would have satisfied us all: not even archdukes had tasted fresh lettuce these last months. There were towers of strawberries gathered in a hurry from the woods by every hand my father could reach pressed into service, and though still small, they burst red and sweet and juicy on the tongue. Mirnatius ordered a servant to give him an entire bowl of them and ate them delicately one by one, all the while surveying the room with his hard mouth turned down. He didn’t speak to me, and I said nothing to him. All I could think of when I looked at him was the high sharp note in his voice, down in the cellars.
My mother wasn’t real to me. I didn’t remember the touch of her hand or the sound of her voice. All of that in me was Magreta. But my mother had brought me through to safety, twice; she’d carried me under her heart until I could breathe, and she’
d given me a last drop of magic almost thinned out to nothing in our blood, enough for me to find my way to winter in a mirror’s glass. I had those gifts of her, and I had taken them so much for granted that it had never occurred to me before to be grateful for them. And even less for my sharp, ambitious father, who would have delivered me to a brutish husband or even to a sorcerer without hesitation. I hadn’t believed there was a limit on the use he would have made of me. But with the memory of Chernobog crackling in the fire’s grate, smoke and red flame, I found a clear sharp certainty in me that my father, who had told me he was proud of me, would not have sold my soul to a demon for a crown.
There wasn’t much of a kindness to be found in that narrow limit. It had left me cold, all my life. But even that was more than Mirnatius had been given. I could hardly blame him any more for not caring. Where was there anything in him to care with? No one else had a minute for the witch’s get, he’d said, the only kind words he’d ever said of anyone; of the only one of whom he’d ever had any kindness.
In the ordinary course of things, the son of an executed wife would have been tucked away in a lavish monastery somewhere to keep from getting awkward children, once his brother had been safely crowned and he was no longer needed as a spare. I had imagined that as a fate he’d wanted to avoid, one of the reasons he’d made his bargain; it would have been a punishment to an ambitious man. But of course that wasn’t true. The man who spent demon-hot magic to build his own gilded cage and gave more time to his sketchbooks than his tax rolls could have gone into that retreat without regret. Mirnatius would have spent his days with pen and ink and gilt, shaping beauty, and been content. Instead his demon had murdered the brother he loved, to put a crown he’d never wanted on his head.