The Breathing Sea II - Drowning

by E. P. Clark

  “What’s that?” said Arina suddenly, as the horses all raised their heads simultaneously and pricked their ears towards the forest on the other side of the stream.

  “A deer?” Dasha hazarded. “Or an elk?” But the horses were fidgeting and sidling in agitation as best they could in their harnesses, snorting, their hides rippling and twitching as if they were being attacked by flies, even though a breeze was blowing all the flies away. “A wolf or a bear?” she guessed. “He won’t hurt us,” she said, more confidently than she felt. “Not even a bear would attack a big party like this. He’s probably just walking by, on his way somewhere else.”

  “A wolf?” said Arina, her face drawn tight. “I hate wolves! Let’s,” her voice was trembling, and she had to make several tries to get the words out, “let’s get back on the road.”

  “Let’s,” agreed Dasha, and they carefully backed the horses and carts away from the stream and back onto the road, the horses tossing their heads and trying to bolt the whole time.

  “There’s a wolf out there!” Arina called, as soon as they were back on the road. “There’s a wolf out there! Let’s go!”

  “A wolf!” Fevroniya’s already-tight face tightened even further, till she looked like a human prune. “Don’t just stand there, you fools, get in! Get in, get in, get in!” Vlastomir and Borya were lumbering over from where they had gone off, presumably to relieve themselves, in the woods on the other side of the road. Without waiting for them, Dasha got up into the cart, in the driver’s seat, and took the reins. “Get in!” she called. “I’ll drive!” She was a far better rider than a driver, but she was, she was certain, at least as good as Vlastomir, even with these strange horses. Who had shed their earlier apathy and were prancing in place and pulling at the reins, sweat frothing on their necks and between their hind legs. Fevroniya and Arina had already scrambled up into their cart and were taking off without waiting for the rest of them, increasing the agitation of Dasha’s horses. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could hold them, and Vlastomir and Borya were still several paces away. Her horse on the right tried to rear up, slipped, crashed into the shaft bow of the middle horse, and for a heartstopping moment she thought all three horses were going to get tangled in their harness and go down, but then the right-hand horse jerked free and got all four feet under her again, trembling and sweating.

  Something caught Dasha’s eye in the woods. Just then Vlastomir and Borya heaved themselves up into the cart, distracting her.

  “Go, go, go!” shouted Vlastomir, trying to push her out of the way and snatch up the reins from her. She shoved him back into the cart and gave the horses their heads, and they shot forward, dirt flying back from the frantic scrabbling of their hooves and hitting Dasha in the face.

  “A bear!” shrieked Borya. “It’s a bear!”

  “By all the mother-raping gods, that’s no bear,” swore Vlastomir. “That’s a wolf, you stupid boy! Give me the reins, you stupid thrice-cursed girl, give me the reins!” But the horses were already running as fast as they could, so Dasha refused, shouting back that she didn’t want to risk dropping them. Vlastomir began hunting for his bow, swearing again, horrible words that Dasha had never heard before in her life, but by the time he found it, they had caught up with Fevroniya and Arina’s cart, and the horses had already settled back down to a brisk trot.

  “Keep going, what are you slowing down for, keep going!” Vlastomir shouted at her.

  “He’s gone,” Dasha told him. “If he were still here, the horses would still be running.”

  Just at that moment a hulking figure, at least as big as a bear but with the shape of a wolf, appeared clearly through the trees. The horses all squealed and bolted forward, causing Arina to scream and Vlastomir and Borya to tumble backwards into the bundles of flax in the back of the cart. As quick as it had appeared, the figure was gone again.

  “He’s gone,” Dasha repeated, as the horses settled back down into an anxious trot.

  “You just said that, you stupid, stupid girl!”

  “Yes, but this time it’s true,” Dasha said. “And he never meant to harm us anyway. We’re safe from him.”

  “Safe from him…” Vlastomir gaped at her. “How could we be safe from that monster?!”

  “He didn’t mean to harm us,” Dasha assured him again. “He was just…looking out for me,” she trailed off.

  Vlastomir didn’t take this information very well at all, glaring at Dasha as he elbowed her out of the way and snatched the reins up from her hands, and giving the horses a vicious jerk in the mouth for good measure.

  “You know,” said Dasha, rubbing her stomach where Vlastomir had elbowed it, “he really was just looking out for me. He won’t harm you—as long as you don’t harm me.” Vlastomir gave her another poisonous look. “Or make me angry,” she continued, her temper too high for her to guard her words. “By hurting the horses, for instance. He doesn’t like to see animals being hurt any more than I do.” That was probably a lie, but Dasha said it boldly anyway, and took more comfort than she probably should have from the appalled look Vlastomir gave her, before stiffly handing her back the reins and retreating to the back of the cart, where he sat in wordless outrage for the rest of the afternoon.

  ***

  They passed a travelers’ cabin in the early evening, but Fevroniya said she didn’t want to risk stopping anywhere alone, not with wolves about, so they carried on into the late evening, till they came to a waystation full of light and activity.

  “You’re stopping here,” Fevroniya told Dasha, as soon as they climbed down from the carts. “You’re stopping here; you ain’t coming any farther with us. You’re bad luck, you are.”

  Several outraged responses ran through Dasha’s head, ranging from accusations of cheating and cowardice, to demands of what, exactly, Fevroniya thought Dasha was supposed to do after being abandoned here, to threats of Imperial retribution. In the end Dasha swallowed all those back, and, checking to make sure her hands hadn’t caught fire, said stiffly, “Very well. Return my money to me, then, and be on your way.”

  Fevroniya swelled up as much as was possible for such a thin woman, and said, her voice trembling with indignation, “Be on my way! Be on my way! Who do you think you are, girl, the Tsarinovna?”

  “Actually…” Dasha began, but Fevroniya barreled past her, crying, “And I won’t be giving you back a single grosh! After the trouble you’ve caused…”

  “Have you been injured?” Dasha asked. “Have any of your horses? Have you lost any of your goods?” She meant it sincerely when she said it, hoping to point out to Fevroniya that she hadn’t really caused any trouble at all, but Fevroniya, to Dasha’s surprise, swelled up even further, opened her mouth to say something, and then, unable to find the words to express just how outraged she was by Dasha’s words and behavior, struck out at her with her hand instead.

  Dasha, astonished by Fevroniya’s actions and even more astonished by her own response to them, caught her hand easily and twisted it, just as Boleslav Vlasiyevich and Oleg had shown her, until Fevroniya cried out in pain. “Why did you try to hit me?!” Dasha demanded. “I was just trying to help you! I didn’t cause you any trouble at all, except in your own mind! What’s wrong with you?! Why are you so mean to everyone all the time?! Why are you so determined to make yourself and everyone around you so unhappy?! Give me back my money and I’ll make my own way to Lesnograd!”

  Fevroniya looked around for help, but Vlastomir and Borya were taking the horses off to the stable, and Arina was looking on with, Dasha could sense, deeply submerged pleasure. Dasha dropped her hand and stepped back. “Give me back my money, and I won’t cause you any trouble,” she said. “Because I could, I just don’t want to. Give me back my money, and we’ll both be on our way.”

  Fevroniya’s mouth worked, and for a horrid moment Dasha was afraid she was going to start crying, but then she pulled her purse out of the pocket it was tied into, undid the drawstring with an angry yank, and thr
ew a chervonets on the ground at Dasha’s feet. “Take it!” she spat out. “Take it and get away from me, you, you, you, you…”

  “Thank you,” Dasha said, picking up the coin. “Try not to be so angry all the time. Other people might like you more.” She stalked off, already regretting her hasty words, but certain that going back and apologizing would only make things worse. She climbed up onto the waystation porch and jerked open the door, fuming and guilty at the same time. It was all Fevroniya’s fault! If she weren’t so horrid…well, she was horrid, that was true, and certainly deserved harsh words, and probably worse, but Dasha hadn’t exactly acted her best either, had she? Except that being nice and unassuming and apologetic towards Fevroniya wouldn’t have done any good either. She had been determined to pick a fight, and…

  “Evening, my girl,” said a woman who was almost certainly the waystation mistress, coming over to where Dasha was standing by the door. “Out late, aren’t you? Are you in need of accommodation? Food? Stabling for your horses?”

  “Accommodation and food,” Dasha told her, and then, struck by sudden inspiration, added, “and if you have a horse I could borrow or buy, I’d take her as well.”

  The waystation mistress sucked on her teeth and frowned. “Where’re you headed?” she asked.

  “Lesnograd.”

  The waystation mistress’s face cleared. “Ah, now, Lesnogorod, Lesnogorod we can do for you. We can always find a horse to go to Lesnogorod. The one we’ve got now—well, she ain’t as young as she once were, nor as fast, and she weren’t ever that fast to begin with, poor thing, but she’ll get you to Lesnogorod, providing you ain’t in a hurry, and she won’t shy and throw you over trifles, ‘specially if they come at her from the left.” The waystation mistress chuckled at that.

  “Is she blind in her left eye?” Dasha asked.

  “Now, how’d you know that, my girl?” The waystation mistress appeared as startled at Dasha’s guess as if she’d plucked the name of every person in the inn out of thin air.

  “Because of what you said,” Dasha told her, trying and, she could tell, failing to conceal her impatience. “How much?” she asked hastily, trying to cover up her rudeness. “How much for my room and food tonight, and how much for the horse to Lesnograd?”

  The waystation mistress sucked on her teeth again, as if contemplating a difficult question. “Fifty grosh for the room, thirty for your supper, and another twenty for breakfast in the morning,” she said. “And two chervontsa for the horse.”

  Dasha’s heart sank: that was almost all her money, and she still had several more days before she got to Lesnograd. She opened her mouth to agree, and then found herself saying instead, “That’s very expensive. Everywhere else I’ve stayed only charged half as much.”

  “Times is hard, my girl, times is hard,” said the waystation mistress, nodding her head sagely, or maybe with self-satisfaction.

  “How?” Dasha asked.

  “Sorry?”

  “How are they hard?” Dasha elaborated. “Has there been a crop failure or a sudden freeze that hasn’t affected anyone else? Have the Severnolesniye raised taxes only on this waystation? Because I haven’t heard anything about that, and since they are my kin, I think I would have.”

  The waystation mistress opened and closed her mouth a couple of times, caught flat-footed. “Fifty grosh for supper and bed and breakfast,” Dasha said. “And one chervonets for the horse.”

  “Sixty grosh,” said the waystation mistress, looking not at all pleased.

  “Sixty,” agreed Dasha. “But I want food for the next day’s journey as well.”

  “What, don’t you have any food with you?” said the waystation mistress, cheering up at this sign of Dasha’s incompetence. “What kind of a traveler are you, girl? Don’t you know any better than that! And traveling all alone, too! If I was your mother…”

  “I was separated from my companions,” Dasha interrupted her before she could explain just what outrages she would perpetrate, were she Dasha’s mother. “If they come looking for me, I am sure they would be most grateful for word of my movements, and also for the help that you give me. As would my kin in Lesnograd. Everyone would be most grateful.”

  This seemed to soothe the waystation mistress’s ruffled feelings, and she led Dasha off to a bench in the far corner of the main room, and then brought her borshch and black bread.

  “It’s cold,” she told Dasha, pleased with this information. “We’ve already shut down the stove, and I’m not starting it up again for you.”

  “Cold is fine,” Dasha said. The waystation mistress sniffed in irritation at that, and then went off to serve Fevroniya and her family, who had come in and were sitting on the far side of the room from Dasha, which did not prevent them from casting angry glances her way. Fevroniya and the waystation mistress fell into an animated conversation, which Dasha couldn’t hear but, judging by the looks they kept giving her, was all about her. Dasha bit back the angry things she wanted to say to them, and tried to turn her back to them without making it obvious that she was doing so.

  The waystation mistress came hurrying over as soon as she’d finished gossiping with Fevroniya and brought out food for all of them—steaming food, Dasha noted—and told her that she had to go up right away, she was shutting everything down for the night and it was high time that Dasha stopped lounging around and went to her chamber. Dasha looked at her half-finished supper, thought about starting another argument, decided she was too tired, and let the waystation mistress chivvy her upstairs to her chamber, which was tiny, just large enough for the mattress that was lying on the ground.

  “I ain’t had the time to change the bedding recently,” the waystation mistress informed her, her chin raised in triumph.

  “I’m sure it will be fine,” Dasha told her.

  The waystation mistress sniffed in irritation at that, told Dasha not to be late for breakfast, as she didn’t have the time to wait for young ladies who lolled around half the morning, and then bustled off, somehow managing to convey that she was terribly busy even though she was just walking down the stairs.

  Dasha nipped off to the privy, which was conveniently right next to her own room, and then returned to survey her dreary chamber. There was one tiny window, more like a crack in the wall, that still managed to let mosquitoes in even as it failed to provide fresh air. There was a tiny space of bare floor, only a few handspans’ long, by the door for the chamber’s inhabitant to stand while she took off her boots and disrobed. Dasha discovered that it was more challenging than she would have expected, especially with her legs and feet still as sore as they were, and she almost tumbled into the mattress twice before she stripped down to her shirt, which was the closest thing she had to a nightgown, and crawled onto the lumpy mattress, which, she soon decided, had been stuffed with hedgehogs. Surely straw could never be this uncomfortable. She crawled on top of the blankets, which were unpleasantly rank and greasy, in the hopes that they would provide a little extra padding, but that left her chilled and exposed to mosquitoes, even though the air was too close and stifling (and redolent with the smell of the conveniently close privy) to make getting under the covers attractive.

  I wish I were back in the woods with the deer, she thought. I wish I were anywhere other than with all these humans. Maybe I should just run off into the woods. After all, lots of people do that. My father lives by himself off in the woods, and so does Baba Sofroniya, and…so many people. I never thought of it while I was in Krasnograd, but it turns out lots of people do it. I could too! Only…then who would be my mother’s heir? Someone more suited, that’s who. Such as...? Oh, surely there are so many candidates. Surely I’ve just proven I’m not suited. Only, only why can’t I think of any names? Why didn’t my family have more daughters? Why didn’t my mother have more daughters? If I had more sisters, and second-sisters and third-sisters, I could go off to live in the woods and no one would mind at all. A nagging thought told Dasha that that wasn’t true at all, bu
t she ignored it as best she could, which was about as well as she was able to ignore the mosquitoes whining around her. Her inability to deal with either of these irritations only served as further proof in her mind that she was totally unsuited for anything involving cleverness and fortitude, but, perhaps in refusal to contemplate such melancholy thoughts any further, she (much to her surprise) soon drifted off to sleep.

  ***

  Dasha had no need of the waystation mistress’s warning to rise early, as she was propelled out of her uncomfortable bed shortly after the very early summer dawn, driven to flee the cloud of mosquitoes that had decided to take up residence in her chamber and feed on her.

  “Surely that must be all the mosquitoes in all of Severnolesnoye,” she grumbled to herself, and was promptly proven wrong when she was bitten during her very brief visit to the reeking privy, and bitten again as soon as she stepped outside in search of her promised horse. The air was heavy and damp, threatening thunderstorms to come, without a breath of wind, so that she felt stifled even out on the yard.