The Breathing Sea II - Drowning

by E. P. Clark

  “So: A Southerner,” she said. She turned to Dasha. “Since when has your mother had you run around with foreigners?” she asked.

  “Susanna isn’t a foreigner!” cried Dasha.

  “Perhaps to a Severnolesnaya I am,” said Susanna, looking down her nose at Vladya. “I have heard these frozen Northerners find anywhere the sun shines so foreign, they do not believe it exists.”

  “Here in the North the sun shines all day and all night too, as you’ll find out if you stay,” replied Vladya evenly. “I doubt your mountains can make that claim.”

  Susanna drew herself up even taller than her already impressive height. Dasha felt a tingling sensation in her fingers. For a moment she was afraid she was about to have a fit, but then she realized it was her hands itching to smack both of them. “You’re both Zemnians,” she told them. “The mountains and the taiga are both part of Zem’.”

  “But the taiga rather longer than the mountains,” said Vladya. Dasha had to clench her fists to keep from slapping her. How could she be so stupid? Many Southerners had opposed their unification with Zem’, and still did, and even the histories that Dasha had read, which presented everything Zem’ and Krasnograd did in the best light possible, couldn’t gloss over the fact that it had taken place under duress, with the Avkhazovskiye forced to turn to Zem’ for help dealing with the slavers who were overrunning their country, and Zem’ only too glad to take advantage of their time of need…Now the Avkhazovskiye were sensitive to their status as the newest province of Zem’, and even more sensitive to the fact that they had become Zemnians practically at swordpoint. Surely someone as clever as Vladya could see that. Unless it was one of those things that Vladya liked to insist didn’t matter, or weren’t real. Or maybe she just didn’t like Susanna because Susanna was tall, and Vladya was short.

  That thought, that short people might resent tall people just because of something that was out of everyone’s control, had never occurred to Dasha before, and she had an uncomfortable moment of wondering how much the way people disliked her sometimes was because she was tall, and whether she would have to spend the rest of her life apologizing to those shorter than her, which was almost everyone, for her height. Which she hadn’t asked for, and most likely wouldn’t have if she had been given the choice. It just was what it was, whatever her father might say about it, or however much Susanna might flaunt her own tallness…which she was doing right now, in response to Vladya’s needling. It was a good thing, Dasha reflected, that neither of them was the Tsarinovna, and then she felt so guilty about that thought that she had to pretend she had never thought it at all.

  “My dear Vladya,” she said instead, “we have just arrived after a long and weary journey, and any refreshment you could offer would be more than welcome.”

  “Looking for the bread and salt, eh?” said Vladya with a laugh, but then she turned on her heel and, with a peremptory “Come on,” led them out of the hall.

  They wound around through some more dark corridors smelling faintly—or sometimes not so faintly—of earth and damp, until they ended up in a small stuffy chamber with no windows and a couple of tables and benches in the middle of a scuffed wooden floor.

  “It’s not fancy, but it’s home,” said Vladya, throwing herself down on one of the benches. “And better than that, it’s close to the kitchens. It’s where the servants take their meals, when they’re not eating in the kitchen. Aunty Olya! Send for some refreshments for our guests.”

  Aunty Olga gave her a half-disbelieving look at her temerity, but then stepped over to the far door and stuck her head into the next room, which Dasha could hear and smell to be the kitchens. She asked, rather more politely than Vladya, for some food to be brought out for their guests, and then came and sat down beside Dasha, squeezing her shoulder and kissing her hand.

  “It’s good to see you, my dove,” she said. “Really good to see you. I wasn’t sure…well, never mind. How long will you be staying? I was planning to head off to Naberezhnoye next week, but there’s no rush. I’ll stay as long as you’re staying.”

  “Ah, we’re not sure,” said Dasha. “And we wanted—I wanted—to go to Naberezhnoye as well, if we could, and maybe Vostochnoye Selo or Pristanograd.”

  “Wonderful!” exclaimed Aunty Olga, giving her a clap on the shoulder that was more of a buffet. “We’ll all go together, then!”

  “That would be lovely,” said Dasha. “And…” She looked over at Svetochka, who was avoiding her gaze. “We…we had a favor to ask,” she added.

  “A favor? Name it, my dove, and it’ll be done.”

  “Ah…we were wondering if you would…take on Svetochka.”

  Aunty Olga turned and gave Svetochka a sharp look. “Take her on…as a companion, you mean?”

  “Exactly,” said Dasha eagerly. “She doesn’t have anywhere else to go, you see, and, well, we thought…she’s a hardy girl, handy with lots of things…”

  “I’m sure she is,” said Aunty Olga. “After all, she’s my sister, or my niece, or something like that, isn’t she?” She grinned at Svetochka, who grimaced uncertainly back. “You’re welcome to join me for a season, girl,” said Aunty Olga. “It’s not easy, what I do, traveling around Severnolesnoye and keeping an eye on things, keeping the peace, but you’ll never be bored.” She reflected for a moment and amended that to, “Well, actually, there’s lots of boredom on the road, as you well know, along with the heat and the cold and tiredness and the hunger, but it’s a different kind of boredom than the kind you get locked up in cities. And if there’s a place you want to stay and settle down in, you’ll be welcome to, or if we get along and you like the traveling life, you’ll be welcome to stay with me, too. I’ve been thinking of taking an apprentice for a while,” she added in a lower tone. “I’d been hoping to train up…well, never mind.” Her mouth turned down at the corners so sharply Dasha thought she might be about to cry, but she shook her head instead and said briskly, “And who better than you, eh? What’d’you say, my girl?”

  “If you’ll have me, I’ll be honored,” said Svetochka stiffly.

  “It’s settled then. And where’s that food?” Aunty Olga stood as if to go bring their food from the kitchens herself, but just then the kitchen door swung open, practically in her face, and two serving girls came through, bearing trays loaded with tea, pies, and a loaf of bread and a dish of salt.

  “You see, Dasha?” said Vladya, as the girls set the trays down and retreated. “Bread and salt. Now you’ve nothing to fear.”

  “I never had anything to fear anyway, and there was no need to…to create this show for me!” said Dasha. “And if anyone here were determined to do us harm, which they’re not, I don’t think a little bread and salt would stop them!” She had to stop herself before she got any angrier at Vladya’s behavior, but Vladya only laughed and told them all to help themselves to tea and pies, “And bread and salt, if you want it,” she added with a wink, making no move to serve them herself.

  Susanna looked angry and discomposed by this greeting, and Svetochka was too overwhelmed by being in the Lesnograd kremlin to do anything at all, so Dasha found herself serving all of them, even though by rights that should have been Vladya’s duty. Dasha wanted to drag her aside and shake her until she confessed why she was behaving so…unpleasantly, but she didn’t see how that would do any good, so she served everyone as graciously as she could.

  Fortunately the food was excellent, and the pies were little boat-shaped ones filled with minced mushrooms and cabbage, so Dasha didn’t have to deal with any troubling visions, or even more troubling arguments with Vladya and the others over whether or not she would eat flesh. She didn’t need her visions to see all too clearly how Vladya would react to that. Surely, Dasha told herself, she could choke down a little flesh while she was here in Lesnograd, just enough to keep Vladya from mocking her too cruelly. It wouldn’t be such a terrible thing, since after all the animals would have already been killed, whether Dasha ate them or not, and kee
ping the peace with Vladya was a worthy goal, worth a little suffering and squeamishness on her part, was it not? She wouldn’t say anything of her visions, at least those kinds of visions, while she was here in Lesnograd, Dasha resolved. Keeping Vladya happy had to be her most important priority, for everyone’s sake.

  The food was tasty, and for a little while everyone was happy to eat, but after her second pie, Dasha began to feel that the silence was becoming awkward. She had hoped that Aunty Olga, who normally had no shortage of things to say, would start a conversation, but Aunty Olga was still sitting there and gazing on Dasha, and occasionally Svetochka, with a look of such tenderness that it made Dasha afraid she might cry from it. Vladya was watching Aunty Olga watching them, and doing nothing other than smile her most supercilious smile. Susanna was sitting very straight and eating her pie with such precise correctness it was astonishing that she hadn’t sliced the air into slivers with the sharpness of her movements. Svetochka was looking overwhelmed, and Oleg…Oleg was also looking sad and tender, so sad and tender that Dasha knew he was having a hard time holding back tears too, strange a thought as it was. The ghost of Lisochka seemed to hover so closely over them that Dasha half-expected to see her, sulking in the corner in death just as she had in life. But no. Dasha looked over into the corners of the chamber, just to make sure, but there was nothing there but shadows, not even a vision. Dasha knew she had to say something before the silence became unbearable and they broke into a quarrel, just to break the tension, and so, turning to Vladya, she blurted out the first thing that came into her head, which was “Have you…have you had to sit judgment on many interesting cases?”

  “I wouldn’t say interesting,” said Vladya, with a curl of her lip that showed just what she thought of life in Lesnograd. The vision that Dasha had been expecting suddenly rose up before her, only it wasn’t of Lisochka, but of Vladya, of what Vladya would become after a few more years here in Lesnograd, where no one was as clever as she was and everyone fawned and scraped at her feet while resenting her cleverness behind her back, until all of Vladya’s promise, all of her potential greatness, was twisted into bitterness and contempt. Was this, Dasha wondered, part of the curse that Vladya had, even inadvertently, cast? Was it still working its evil on her after all these years, or was this some simpler, non-magical evil?

  “You should come visit us in Krasnograd,” said Dasha, before Vladya could elaborate on how her judgments had not been interesting.

  “Oh?” said Vladya, lifting her left brow and the left corner of her mouth so that her whole face was twisted from its normal oval smoothness into something much more sinister. “Why is that?”

  “Because you’re bored here and it’s ruining you,” Dasha told her, and then could have clapped her hand over her mouth at her own bluntness. She was sure Oleg and Aunty Olga were about to reprimand her, but instead Oleg just looked up at the ceiling in order to hide his smile, and Aunty Olga let out a bark of laughter and slapped Dasha on the shoulder.

  “Listen to your sister, Vladya,” she said. “Lesnograd’s no good for anyone, and if even this innocent can see what it’s doing to you, well, it’s past time you saw sense and got out of here.”

  “She’s not my sister,” said Vladya. It had been a frequent bone of contention between her and all the adults even back when she was being fostered in Krasnograd. Her precise mind had always hated the imprecision of the claim that she and Dasha were sisters, when in fact the blood between them was so thin it was little better than water.

  Aunty Olga’s face darkened, and Oleg brought his eyes down from the ceiling and opened his mouth, probably to say something that would only make things worse.

  “Not of blood, no,” Dasha interposed, before a full-scale quarrel could break out. She had forgotten what obstreperous hotheads her Northern kin were, nothing like her at all…she jerked herself away from such thoughts. “Not of blood,” she agreed, “but by law, wards are considered second-sisters to the blood daughters of their foster-mothers. So by law, we are sisters. I think there’s even a scroll that says so, somewhere in the Krasnograd library.”

  “Oh, in the library,” said Vladya, rolling her eyes, but when no one made any response to that, she said nothing more, apparently pacified by the opportunity to show her contempt for everyone around her. There was a long awkward pause, while everyone chewed and swallowed in silence.

  “Come on girls, I’ll show you to your chambers,” said Aunty Olga, pushing away her empty plate and standing up and brushing off her hands briskly. “You can all stay together—we’ve got a nice suite you can use. In fact,” she turned and addressed Dasha directly, “it’s the same one your mother stayed in when she was with us.” She grinned. “And look how that turned out! Maybe it’ll work the same for one of you, and you’ll be heading back South with a little daughter in your belly, too.”

  Dasha flushed till she was sure her cheeks were the same color as her hair, and Oleg glowered at Olga and actually growled as he said, “Not likely, and rape your father with a red-hot poker for saying it!”

  Aunty Olga opened her mouth, shut it, opened it again, and then started laughing so hard tears came to her eyes. Oleg glowered at her again, and then his mouth twitched and he was laughing along with her, and the painful moment passed, and they were all laughing and not looking at Dasha at all, thank the gods.

  “Come girls,” said Aunty Olga, once she had brought her guffawing back down to a controllable chortle. “Let’s go find a bed for you, and leave him to sorting out his men, since the barracks seem the place for him anyway.”

  Dasha, Susanna, and Svetochka all followed her out of the little room and through several dark corridors and up some stairs and up some more stairs and out into a broad well-lit hallway whose graciousness was only slightly marred by its warped wooden floor, which appeared to undulate even though it was perfectly firm under Dasha’s feet. Aunty Olga pulled open a large door and let them into an equally large and comfortable set of chambers, with a huge, absolutely huge, puffy bed.

  “There’s just the one bed in here, but it’s big enough for six, so I dare say the three of you’ll fit into it well enough, fine strapping girls as you are even so,” Aunty Olga told them. “There’s a wardrobe over there, and more in the next chamber, and a maid’s bed and such in there as well, if any of you want to take it instead of gossiping with your sisters all night.” She grinned again. “Maybe one of you snores, eh, and the others are tired of listening to her?”

  “None of us snore,” said Dasha. “But we thank you for the chambers. They appear to be very spacious and comfortable, especially the bed.”

  “That it is, and—oh! There’s a privy in the other room too, but you’d better watch out! Whoever made the hole in the seat must have had someone’s horse in mind, not the buttocks of a normal woman, because if you’re not careful, you’ll fall right through!”

  This made everyone laugh, even Svetochka, and they laughed even more when Aunty Olga showed them the seat in question, and they all agreed it must have been made for a giant or possibly a cow.

  “The gods know we grow big up here,” Aunty Olga said. “But not that big! I keep meaning to have it replaced, but it always slips my mind till we get guests, and then, well, it’s good for a laugh, at least.” She winked at Dasha. “My head for beheading, your mother never told you about that part of her stay here, did she?”

  “No,” Dasha admitted, trying and failing to stifle another round of giggles.

  “Well, I’ll leave you to get settled in,” Aunty Olga told them. “Should I send up a maid?”

  Dasha and Susanna shared a glance (there was no point in asking Svetochka), and then Dasha said, “Thank you, but I think we can dress ourselves.”

  “Of course you can! But you’ll want your things laundered, or I know nothing of travel. I’ll send a girl up to get them in a bit. And she’ll be happy to show you around the kremlin if you want, too. Not that there’s much to see, compared with Krasnograd—or the South�
��—she nodded at Susanna—“but you might like walking about better than sitting in this stuffy chamber. And,” she sighed, “I guess I’d best go check on Fenya and make sure she’s being taken care of.”

  “Fenya?” asked Dasha. “Is she the…the girl?”

  “She is, poor child.” Aunty Olga sighed again. “And I can’t say I wasn’t relieved to hear Vladya’s judgment, which was fair enough, but Vladya’s…not the kind of person to, to take a girl like that in hand and do what needs to be done, take care of her like she needs to be taken care of.” A spasm of pain crossed Aunty Olga’s face. Dasha wanted to reach out stroke her hand or put her arm around her, but as soon as the thought crossed her mind, it was followed by a vision of how Aunty Olga would burst into tears if she did that, so she stayed her hand. “So I guess it’s up to me to do it,” said Aunty Olga, straightening her shoulders. “The gods know she needs it.”

  “What…what happened to her?” asked Dasha.

  Aunty Olga rolled her eyes. “You remember what Vladya said, about how those others, they might…deserve a little vengeance from her, from Fenya?”

  “Yes,” said Dasha, and Susanna nodded emphatically, her dark eyes flashing.

  “Well, our Fenya, her family wasn’t the richest, to put it mildly, and her mother ended up in debt to Tamara, that’s our Filya’s mother, who’s never met a chervonets she didn’t love more than her own children, and pretty soon Fenya’s mother was coughing her life out and her father was warming Tamara’s bed, or so they say, and pretty soon after that Fenya’s mother was in the ground and her father had been driven out of Lesnograd by Tamara’s husband, but Fenya herself was still there, living in their house and serving them like a maid, only without the money. Tamara told her—so the word is—that she would get it all back, everything she was owed, when Tamara married her Filya to her, and both Filya and Fenya seemed willing enough, but then Tamara’s husband took a misliking to the notion, like as not because Fenya turned down his advances, or so the story is, and insisted she be kicked out onto the street, and Tamara, well, she’s a hard woman but she’s always had a soft head when it comes to her husband,” Aunty Olga’s nose wrinkled in distaste at the thought, “and you know how it is: men attack women, especially those they love, and women defend men, especially those that attack them. ‘Cause they need help more than anyone, don’t they? Anyway, our Tamara let him talk her into it, despite our Filya’s complaints, and the next thing she knew, our Fenya was begging in the market, until our Filya found her and offered to take her back, only…well, you know what happened.”