by E. P. Clark
They had come out behind a raised wooden dais, like the ones for her mother’s throne in the Hall of Judgment and the Hall of Council back home, only smaller. There was a chair, also like her mother’s throne but smaller, in the middle of the dais. A woman’s hand was drumming its nails in thought on one arm of the throne, and another woman was standing next to the throne, half-leaning on it for support. Standing in front of the dais were four young men, boys really, of about Dasha’s age, all chained together. Three of them were staring at the floor with slumped shoulders, and the fourth was doing the same thing, but also crying. A little ways off to the side of the dais a girl, also about Dasha’s age, was crying into a coarse kerchief she had pressed up to her face. Farther back in the hall, near the hearth, was a small group of older people, whom Dasha guessed to be the culprits’ parents. Some of them were crying too, and the others had their arms folded tightly across their chests as if trying to keep themselves from exploding with rage.
“It seems clear enough,” said the voice belonging to the drumming fingers, and Dasha recognized it as Vladya’s. “The accuseds’ guilt is obvious.”
“They didn’t do nothing!” cried one of the women by the hearth. “They ain’t guilty of nothing! It were all her! It were all her, and now she’s lying about it!”
“Why?” asked Vladya. She didn’t shout, or even raise her voice, but the steel in her question made Dasha flinch, and the woman who had spoken took half a step back. “Why would she do that?”
“She’s always hated us!” cried the woman, rallying. “She wants to get back at us!”
“For what?” asked Vladya. There was still that steely edge to her voice, but Dasha thought it also held a hint of amusement, if such a thing were possible in this situation. “I am all ears. Why would she want to get back at you?”
There was some uneasy muttering amongst the group by the hearth, which ended in the woman repeating defensively, “She wants to get back at us!”
“That may very well be true,” said Vladya, still sounding almost amused. “But she is not lying, of that I am certain.”
“It’s all her fault!” insisted the woman by the hearth, although less certainly than before. “She…she set the whole thing up! She made them do it!”
“Why?” said Vladya again, and now the steel was back in her voice. “Why would she set something like that up? We know what happens to women who have met her fate. If they don’t throw themselves under the ice or drink themselves to death, like as not they’ll die in childbirth. The damage to a woman’s parts caused by rape lasts a lifetime, and those unfortunate enough to suffer it can never bear a child without great risk; everyone knows this.”
“Is that true?” Dasha whispered to Aunty Olga.
Aunty Olga nodded grimly. “Seen it myself,” she whispered back. “Messes everything up, and you can’t bear properly afterwards. And of course many will kill themselves before it comes to that anyway. It’s practically a death sentence. They’d’ve been kinder just to slit her throat and be done with it.”
Dasha gazed with renewed horror at the girl off to the side, who was sobbing even harder into her kerchief. How cruel, Dasha thought, that she should have to stand there, all by herself, and hear all this said about her. What had Vladya been thinking, to make her do this? The group by the hearth were glaring at her with a deep hatred that made Dasha’s skin crawl; what must it be like for the girl herself to feel that aimed her way? Sensing the eyes of everyone on her, the girl bunched up her kerchief and tried to wipe her face clean, but the sudden motion made her stumble, as if she were about to collapse from weakness and shock. Quick as thought, Dasha found herself by her side.
“Here,” she said. “Lean on me.”
The girl gave her a startled glance, and cautiously took her arm.
“And here,” Dasha went on. “Here’s a clean kerchief.” She took a small silk handkerchief, which truth be told was not entirely clean, but was certainly cleaner than the girl’s own wool kerchief, which was large enough to double as a headdress or a shawl, out of her pocket, and handed it over. The girl took it hesitantly, and stared at it as if she had never seen its like, which, Dasha realized, might very well have been true. Like as not, she had never held silk in her hands before.
“Wipe your face,” Dasha whispered to her. “You don’t want everyone to see you with a messy face, do you?”
Moving as if in a daze, the girl obeyed.
“Dasha,” called Vladya, her voice ringing out through the hall with certainty and amusement. “You have inherited your family’s gifts, or so your mother tells me. Is she telling the truth?”
“My gift doesn’t work like that,” Dasha admitted, looking up at Vladya on the throne. Vladya looked the same as she had the day she had ridden out of Krasnograd, but there was something even sharper and harder about her face now, something brighter and less kind about her eyes, something that made Dasha shiver a little, although whether it was from what she was seeing right now with her eyes, or what she could see with her mind’s eye, she couldn’t tell.
“Well, what does it tell you?” asked Vladya, still sounding certain and amused.
Dasha looked uncertainly first at the girl, and then at the four boys chained together in front of the dais. After a little while she caught…not a whole vision, but little wisps of visions floating around them, not of what had been, but what might be.
“I don’t think anyone here in this hall is telling the whole truth,” Dasha began slowly. Vladya laughed in delight at her words, and cried out, “True enough!”
“But I don’t think it really matters,” Dasha went on, still choosing her words with care. “Harm was done, even if those who were doing it didn’t realize what it was they were doing, even if all they were thinking of was their own pleasure, without meaning to take away anyone else’s.” The boys all hunched up even more miserably at that, and a vision of Fedya in the same pose flashed uncomfortably through Dasha’s mind. Were they actually so different? Probably not. Probably they were all equally heedless in their search for their own happiness.
“And so what would you have me do?” asked Vladya. She sounded genuinely curious, through all her certainty. “How can I administer justice in this case? What punishment should those who meant no evil, but committed it anyway, receive? Can your gifts tell me that?”
“Yes, that, I think, they can,” said Dasha, still speaking slowly. “I think…I think they’re telling me that ‘punishment’ and ‘justice’ will only make things worse. Find something…something other than the mines, or even the road crews, for them. If we send them away, even if they survive, they’ll be…” she had to close her eyes for a moment to hold onto the visions and make sense of them, “they’ll be monsters in truth,” she finished, opening her eyes again.
“And her?” asked Vladya, nodding at the girl by Dasha’s side.
“Something should be found for her too,” said Dasha. “If not…” She swallowed back the vision that kept trying to show itself to her, the vision of the girl throwing herself under the ice from the pain of what had happened to her, and the guilt of being the cause of such a horrible fate for the boy she had thought she had loved, and maybe still did love, in a sick and ruined way. “Something should be found for her too,” Dasha repeated. “Something that will…keep her safe.”
“Very well.” Vladya bit her finger, something she had always done when she was thinking hard, and for a moment she was the same girl who had played at being a guard, or a horse, or a leshaya, or any number of other fanciful things, with Dasha ten years ago. But then she grimaced in distaste and jerked her finger out from between her teeth, and her face smoothed out into its previous expression of amused certainty to which it had always been prone, but which now seemed to Dasha to be so much more pronounced and so much more sinister. Dasha had to bite down on her own lip to keep from begging Vladya to have mercy. Mercy for the sake of mercy had not been an argument that had ever held much weight with Vladya, and Dasha co
uld sense that it would hold even less weight now. Vladya had always had to work through things so that they made sense to her, and so that she could justify her actions with clearly stated reasons that could be understood by someone standing on the outside. No wonder, Dasha thought, she had ended up giving up the study of sorcery, despite her obvious gift for magic; untrained as she was in her own magic, Dasha could already tell that it was bigger and stronger than her, and that any understanding she gained of it would always be partial, and from the inside rather than the outside. Then she felt ashamed of her thought, and tried to stop thinking it.
“Very well,” Vladya repeated more loudly. “Such is my judgment: The culprits,” she gave the four boys a sententious look through drawn brows, “will serve for five years in my guard, each in a different group, under the command of someone trustworthy and of good morals. If after five years their service is considered satisfactory, they will be allowed to leave my service if they wish, but any further infraction will result in an immediate sentence of exile and hard labor for life. If this judgment does not please them, they have the choice of retiring to a sanctuary, but that will be for life to a sanctuary of my choosing, and,” she gave them an even sharper look, “I am likely to choose the castrates. And you,” she turned to the girl at Dasha’s side, “will take up an apprenticeship with an herbwoman I know. Unless, that is, you prefer to retire to a sanctuary as well.”
The boy who had been crying collapsed onto his knees, pulling down the boy next to him with him. The other boys tried to jerk them back to their feet, resulting in all of them staggering around in confusion, until finally they were all upright again, the crying boy supported squeamishly by his comrades.
“Well?” demanded Vladya. She appeared to be almost smiling. “Do you accept my judgment?”
“Yes!” choked out the crying boy.
“He can’t speak for himself!” the woman with folded arms shouted out from the hearth.
“And you can?” asked Vladya.
“A mother speaks for her son at a judgment, if he ain’t got no wife,” said the woman with folded arms.
“True enough,” agreed Vladya. “As it is also true that in some halls, a mother is also culpable for her son’s actions. Luckily for you, that is not the case here, although I am disposed to think in this instance perhaps it should be. Be that as it may, do you accept my judgment?”
The woman pursed her lips, biting down on them hard.
“The castrates it is, then,” said Vladya cheerily.
“Wait!” cried the woman. There was some shuffling and some glancing back and forth amongst the group by the hearth. “We accept your judgment,” said the woman with folded arms, each word coming out as if she grudged the very breath it took to produce them.
“Marvelous!” said Vladya, rising from her throne. “Guards, take them away. They can spend the night in their cells, and we’ll deal with them in the morning. Oh, don’t worry,” she added to the parents by the hearth, “we’ll let you say farewell to them before we send them off.”
“Send them off?” repeated the woman with folded arms.
“I can’t be having them in Lesnograd,” said Vladya, with the false and insulting patience of someone speaking to a willful child. “But,” and now she was smiling with genuine good cheer, “we’ve been having problems with bandits off on the Severnovostochnaya Road, and Princess Dalnolesnaya has been complaining of poachers. We need to send some men up North to deal with these things, and I can’t think of a better place for your boys to begin their service.”
“But…men freeze to death up there,” protested the woman, and all the other parents nodded in vigorous agreement.
“That they do,” said Vladya. “But send men there we must, and why should others be sent and your boys stay home? It’s still better than the mines,” she added, arching one brow.
There was some more disgruntled muttering, but in the end the parents all nodded their agreement, and departed, half radiating angry resentment and half in slump-shouldered defeat. The boys were marched out of the hall, stumbling and sobbing. As they went by, the girl made as if to reach out to the boy who had cried throughout the entire proceedings, but Dasha instinctively held her back, and as he passed she flinched away from him anyway.
“And what about you?” Vladya asked, once the hall was clear of the others. She stepped down from the dais and came over to where Dasha and the girl were standing. Dasha wanted to throw her arms around her, and for a moment she thought Vladya wanted to do the same, but instead she only folded her arms across her chest and gave Dasha a lopsided smile that had very little of mirth to it. Up close, she looked exactly as she always had, her face a perfect pale oval, her dark sharp brows and smooth dark hair forming a striking contrast to the creaminess of her skin, and her dark gray eyes framed by thick black lashes. Dasha realized with shock that the top of Vladya’s head barely came up to her own chin. Vladya had always seemed so large and commanding to her, and commanding she still was, but compared with Dasha she was a tiny little thing, hardly any bigger than Dasha’s mother. Her eyes, Dasha thought with an inexplicable disquiet, were even slanted like her mother’s, although less so, and their gray was darker and sharper, but lacking in the lantern-like quality of her mother’s. Vladya, Dasha thought, would notice all your foolishnesses and failings, and unfailingly make fun of them, but she wouldn’t see into your soul.
“What about you?” Vladya repeated, fixing the girl at Dasha’s side with a piercing look that made her cringe back and tremble. “Will you accept my judgment as well? If, that is,” and she gave Dasha a look that was meant to be droll, but wasn’t, “the Tsarinovna doesn’t have something better in mind for you.”
“Ts-Tsarinovna?” repeated the girl faintly.
“You didn’t know you had the Tsarinovna at your side, did you?” said Vladya, in a tone that was almost jovial but that was somehow crueler than that. If Dasha were to protest or to accuse Vladya of being mean, Vladya would be able to demand that Dasha explain exactly how she was being cruel, and when Dasha wouldn’t be able to come up with anything more substantial than a certain timbre in her voice, and a certain way she held her lips as she spoke, Vladya would be able to laugh dismissively and say no one could be cruel just by the way she held her lips, or that Dasha was just imagining things…Dasha could see it so clearly she almost missed the horror-stricken glance the girl threw her way, before edging away from her.
“Well?” repeated Vladya, when the girl failed to reply. “Do you accept my judgment?”
“I ain’t got much choice, do I?” whispered the girl, looking down.
“No,” said Vladya, still speaking with that horrid joviality. “So what will it be: the herbwoman or the sanctuary?”
“The…the herbwoman,” said the girl, edging farther away from Dasha and Vladya, and talking to the floor rather than to either of them.
“Very good!” said Vladya. “Her name’s Matryona, and she lives on Travyanoy Alley, the end by the gate. Tell her I sent you to her as her new apprentice. Be off with you,” she added, as the girl stood there, still not looking at them. “Run along and find her. And try to stay away from bad company!” she called after the girl as she scurried away. “Try not to throw yourself at rapists! The next time you might not be so lucky!”
“Lucky!” repeated Dasha indignantly, as the girl disappeared from the hall. “Lucky!”
Vladya shrugged. “It could have been much worse,” she said. “Some of the things I’ve seen…”
Thinking once again on some of the people they’d encountered on the road, Dasha had to agree with her. “It was still a cruel thing to say to her,” she said reproachfully, and then could have kicked herself, especially when Vladya shrugged again, and said, smiling with a smile that brought out a disturbing gleam in her eyes, “So should I lie to her, then?”
“No, but…”
“And she almost certainly was partly at fault herself, in any case,” Vladya went on, not allowing Dasha
to stammer out whatever objections she had been trying to scrape feebly together. Her eyes were gleaming even more brightly, and Dasha could tell she was glowing from the judgment, radiant from the aftermath of imposing her truth and her will on others.
“At fault!” exclaimed Dasha. “You don’t think she really was...trying to, to get back at them for something by telling tales, do you? No, she was…she was so distraught, I could tell, something terrible must have happened to her, something terrible must have happened to her…”
“Oh, I’m sure it did,” Vladya cut her off. “But anyone stupid enough to go off on a tryst with those boys has no one to blame but herself for anything that happens to her.”
“Yes, but…I thought Aunty Olga said that she was…she was in love with one of them—was that the one who was crying?—and thought she was only going to a tryst with him, only…”
“Yes, Filya,” Vladya interrupted her, rolling her eyes. “The weak-willed son of the woman who destroyed her mother. My word of honor, I don’t know what she was thinking!”
“There is no shame in going to a tryst with a lover!” Susanna, who had come over to Dasha and Vladya, burst in.
Vladya looked over at her and raised both her brows. “And you are…?” she asked.
“I beg your pardon; Susanna Gulisovna, daughter and heir to Princess Iridivadze,” said Dasha hastily. “Susanna Gulisovna, my sister Vladislava Vasilisovna, daughter and heir to Vasilisa Vasilisovna, Princess Severnolesnaya.”
“An honor,” said Susanna, bowing elegantly. Vladya, though, did not return the bow, but stared straight up into Susanna’s face instead.