by E. P. Clark
“It is an offense against the gods to mock their servants,” Sister Asya said, riding forward to stand in front of Dasha. “Lead us to where we may seek shelter, and those who wish to come to me for prayer or healing, may do so this evening. Come, Dasha: we have work to do.”
Svetochka sulked all evening, and berated Dasha a good deal more, as did Aunty Olga, Vladya, and Susanna. Only Oleg refrained, instead remaining silent, because, Dasha’s visions told her bitterly, he didn’t want to come between Dasha, the daughter whom he loved, and Svetochka, the daughter he had given his life for. The daughter who needed him so much more than Dasha ever would. He was Svetochka’s father first and foremost now, because she was the one whom he could save, when he couldn’t save Lisochka or Dasha or any of his other daughters. Svetochka had gotten this one thing that Dasha couldn’t have, and, Dasha knew, she would have to let her have it. It wasn’t fair, but it was as close to fair as either of them would ever come. So Dasha held her tongue and listened to Svetochka’s harangue in silence.
And now the morning had come (for them, if not for the lambs) and they were leaving that terrible place, terrible because it was just the same as every other village in the land that would one day be Dasha’s, and was therefore a part of her, as much as she wished she could cast it from her body, her mind, and her soul.
“Are you having a vision?” Svetochka interrupted her as they rode out of sight of the village, smiling as if she hadn’t said all sorts of horrible things the day before, and shown herself (Dasha thought darkly) to be no sister of hers.
“Maybe,” Dasha told her. “Maybe I’m seeing a vision of how wolves will not always live as wolves. After all, women have not always lived as women, but ran wild like savage things.”
Svetochka gave her a confused look. “That must have been a long time ago,” she said.
“Not so very long at all,” Dasha said.
“We live in villages an’ towns now,” Svetochka pointed out, in the tone of a person who was explaining something they didn’t understand and therefore thought they did.
“True,” agreed Dasha. “It was just a vision.”
“An’ a vision is just really a kind of dream,” Svetochka said knowledgeably. “You’ve gotta be able to tell the difference between dreams an’ what’s real.”
Dasha thought about answering that honestly, but she could tell that wouldn’t lead anywhere useful, so she said again, “True.” But then, unable to stop herself, she added, “But sometimes we see things in dreams that are connected to what’s real, or could be.”
Svetochka frowned. “How does all that about women an’ wolves have anything to do with what’s real?” she demanded.
“Oh, you know,” Dasha said. “It could make us think about how to build things up and make things better without breaking people down and making things worse.”
Svetochka frowned some more. “You don’t gotta do anything special to break people,” she said. “They generally do it themselves.”
Dasha smiled. “Very true,” she agreed. “Unfortunately. But maybe we could figure out a way to stop them from breaking themselves without hurting them even worse.”
“Like tying up a lunatic so she don’t tear her hair out an’ gouge out her eyes?”
“Something like that,” said Dasha. “Only all of us are the lunatics.”
But this exhausted Svetochka’s ability to follow Dasha’s thoughts, and she turned the talk to the ride ahead of them, and then they caught up with Aunty Olga, who once again had gone racing on ahead, and everyone who had gone chasing after her, and it was so noisy there wasn’t any space to talk or even think.
By midday there was strange new scent in the air, and something in Dasha stirred, as if she were being pulled in the direction of the scent like iron to a lodestone.
“You look funny,” Svetochka told her as they remounted after their midday meal. “Like there’s something in your eyes.”
“What kind of something?” Dasha asked.
Svetochka shrugged. “Sometimes it’s like…mist or something, like you’re going blind, an’ sometimes it’s like…I don’t know, like sun on water or something. Only I don’t see it right now.”
“Probably nothing to worry about,” said Dasha.
The scent intensified as they continued to ride West, and by midafternoon the air was filled with the haunting cries of waterbirds. They rode past fields, and through a narrow band of woods, and then came out onto a high bare hill.
“The sea!” cried Dasha.
Everyone looked at her.
“You’re right,” Oleg told her after a moment. “There’s Pristanograd, and the sea.” He shaded his eyes with his hands and squinted into the slanting sunlight, trying to make out the city. “It looks like the Tsarina is already there,” he said. “I see an encampment for a large party. Let’s go and join them.”
They set off down the hill towards the city. Pristanograd was on the edge of a large round bay, into which emptied the Krasna River. A kremlin with a tall tower stood on one arm of the land stretching around the bay, and a harbor was on the other, each served by a small finger of the Krasna. A bustling market stood between them, right on the mouth of the main channel of the river, where there was another, smaller harbor. As they went down the hill, the city went out of sight, and then rose up again before them. Like Krasnograd, it had an outer section of hovels, although it was smaller and less miserable than Outer Krasnograd. People stopped and stared as they rode past, but no one molested them, and in half a verst, no more, they were at the city gates, which stood wide open, although they were guarded by half-a-dozen guards.
“A lot of you here today,” Oleg said to the guards as they rode up. “Is it because of the Tsarina?”
“Sort of,” one of the guards told them. “She warned us the raiders was growing bolder an’ bolder, an’ told us to increase the guard of the city. She wanted to shut the gates, too, but the Princess said no. Don’t want to stop trade.” The guard stopped and peered at Birgit. “Is that one of them raiders?” he asked, his face darkening.
“An emissary,” Oleg said smoothly. “Here to help advise the Tsarina. Let us through, and we’ll bring her to her.”
All the guards gave Birgit ugly looks, but they made no move to hinder them as they rode through the gates and into the narrow cobbled streets of Pristanograd.
Birgit said something, her face lighting up as she looked around at the buildings and streets.
“She says it looks almost like home,” Yuliya explained to Dasha.
Dasha looked around too. Pristanograd certainly looked different than any other town she had been in, although she was having a hard time putting her finger on why. There were the same brightly-painted wooden buildings, the same fanciful carvings decorating the windows and eaves…no, not the same. The buildings had slightly different proportions, the colors were slightly different, and the window and door trim was carved in flowing knot shapes instead of spiky leaves and flowers. It was still Zemnian—but not exactly. Dasha couldn’t say how she knew this, but she was certain that the difference was that here there was very little of the steppe, and therefore the East. Pristanograd shared a shore with Rutsi and Seumi, and it appeared it shared a good deal more, as well.
And indeed, when they rode into the market, there were dozens of traders there who looked enough like Birgit to be her sister, selling jewelry and knives decorated with the same knot-shapes Dasha had noticed on the buildings, as well as pots and utensils, many made of soapstone instead of wood; wool, clothing, foreign medicines, weapons, fish, all kinds of odd hides and bones that Oleg told her belonged to animals that were said to be like giant fish but that breathed air and had huge horns or tusks coming out of their faces, and many other odd things. Some of the traders called out cheerfully to Birgit in her own tongue, and some glared at her as she rode past and refused to speak. Susanna wanted to stop and buy up everything in the market, but Oleg persuaded her to wait and come back later, after they had re
sted and steamed, to which she reluctantly agreed. And then they were through the market, and approaching the kremlin.
It, too, like all the other buildings in Pristanograd, was a little bit strange to the eye. It was a large square brick building perched on the edge of the water, with bricked-over cliffs dropping away from it on one side and only half a wall, and the top of its single tower was squatter and rounder than the pointed conical towertops of the Krasnograd kremlin.
“Does it look like home?” Oleg asked Dasha with a grin. “Does your heart tell you that this is the home of your foremothers?”
“The sea does,” Dasha told him. “But the town itself looks strange and foreign.”
He shrugged. “No doubt it does,” he agreed. “With so much trade from the West, it’s half-Western itself, more so than back in Miroslava Praskovyevna’s day, although I think the kremlin was started back when she ruled here. Don’t worry! I’m sure you’ll get used to it.”
“I’m sure,” said Dasha. “It just doesn’t look very much like…Zem’.”
“It doesn’t look very much like the black earth district,” he corrected her. “But look! There’s the Krasna right over there!”
Dasha’s eyes followed his pointing finger over to where one channel of the Krasna emptied into the bay. She wrinkled her nose at the scent of mud and sewage rising from it. “It certainly smells like the Krasna,” she said. “I think I feel a flux coming on just sniffing it.”
Oleg looked at her in alarm.
“I’m joking,” she told him. “I almost never get fluxes. I just have fits.” She smiled to tell him that was a joke too, but he didn’t seem to find it very funny at all, so she dropped it and rode beside him in silence up to the kremlin.
They came up to the gate in the half-circle of wall that stood between the kremlin and the rest of the town. It too was guarded by half a dozen guards, one of whom was from Krasnograd and recognized Dasha immediately.
“Tsarinovna!” he shouted, jumping in front of the others. “Welcome to Pristanograd. Fonya! Go inform the Tsarina that the Tsarinovna has arrived. Now, laddie, now!”
The youngest guard, presumably Fonya, took off at a run towards the kremlin main building. They were let through the gate, and the guard from Krasnograd, who said his name was Vlas, called for stablehands to come take their horses, and organized an escort to walk them across the courtyard and into the main building. Heads were already popping out of windows and peering around corners, trying to get a good look at them. Just as they reached the main entrance, the door came swinging open and out came Boleslav Vlasiyevich.
“Dasha!” he exclaimed.
There was a cry from behind him, and then he was elbowed aside. Dasha’s mother came rushing out the door.
Chapter Thirty-Six
“Dasha!” her mother cried. “You made it!” She flung her arms around Dasha and held her tight. Her head, Dasha noted, only reached Dasha’s chin, and when Dasha put her arms around her, she felt light and slender, like a child.
Her mother pulled back in order to look her up and down, but first she had to dry her eyes. “No doubt you think I’m being silly,” she said to Dasha with a watery smile.
“No,” said Dasha, and then, to her horror, she had to dry her eyes too, and then she couldn’t dry them fast enough.
“Come,” said her mother firmly, taking Dasha’s arm. “I must speak with my daughter alone,” she told the others. “Such a joyful reunion cannot be shared with everyone.” She led Dasha off, not into the building, but around it, to a narrow strip of paved ground between the building and the cliff dropping away from it into the bay. The sun was already low in the sky, hanging over the water, and long rays stretched out across the water, rippling and filling Dasha’s eyes with shining motes of gold.
“I love to come out here and look at the water,” her mother told her, her arm around Dasha’s waist. “Back home we have the Krasna, but it’s not the same, is it? There’s something about the sea.” She smiled. “Perhaps it is in our blood. This is where it all began, you know. Miroslava Praskovyevna. This is where her legacy began.”
“I know,” said Dasha.
Her mother hugged her more tightly. “You don’t sound pleased about that, my dove,” she said.
“I just…I don’t know if it’s a legacy I want to have. Our line was founded on blood and terror. Blushing bridegrooms and nursing mothers gave up their lives to Miroslava Praskovyevna’s axe the day she took Krasnograd. And yet she was within her rights: they—Krasnograd—had attacked her city and slaughtered her people. But I…I would end all that. I would”—Dasha’s voice wavered—“I would have it so that neither I nor any of my daughters would ever harm or kill any living thing, ever again.”
A cold wind suddenly gusted off the bay, striking them in the face. Two gulls cried and then took off, flying straight for the sun. To Dasha’s dazzled eyes, it looked as if they had flown right into it, transformed into golden heat.
Her mother shivered. “Did you feel that?” she asked. “It felt as if…”
“As if what?” Dasha asked.
Her mother shook her head. “Nothing. Just…it felt like the gods…”
“I think it was,” said Dasha. “I think I just made an oath—again—to them, and they were recording it.”
Her mother released her and stood back from her, looking her up and down again. “You have seen them,” she stated flatly.
“I have.”
“Of course you have…and the domoviye? They said, you know…and I thought…but I wasn’t sure…you can never be sure…”
“The domoviye as well,” Dasha said. “They…it’s a very long story…”
“Of course it is,” said her mother, and they both smiled at each other.
“I don’t know if I can tell all of it right now,” Dasha said. “Or ever. But the others…they might tell you all kinds of crazy things…”
“No doubt they will,” said her mother dryly. “Don’t let it worry you, my heart. What’s a journey without a few crazy tales told about you? But your oath…I hope it does not harm…”
“I think I had to make it anyway,” Dasha said. “I think I had to make it no matter what.”
“No doubt you did, my dove. And it is a good oath. In fact, it’s so good I wish I’d made it myself.” Her mother smiled again. “Well, I suppose it is every mother’s lot, at least if she is lucky, to find herself surpassed by her daughter. I will help you keep it, as best I can.”
“I wish everyone else thought as you did,” Dasha said glumly. “It would have made things so much easier for me. After what happened…after what happened in the village we were at yesterday…not just that village, but the waystation, and the village that was raided, and, and, and so many other things…after that…I can’t…I can’t believe in the goodness of others at all. I can’t believe that others care about me at all, no matter how much they might claim to.”
“What happened in the village, my love?” asked her mother. Seeing Dasha’s look of confusion as she tried to sort out all the things that had happened, she added, “Just the one yesterday. Start with that one. I’m sure it will be more than enough.”
“They…” Dasha felt her throat close as she tried to explain it. “They…they killed lambs.” Somehow words could not convey the horror of the moment, words could not convey all that she had seen and understood at that moment, but she had to try, because words were all that she had. “They, they killed lambs, and I saw…I saw…I saw that it was nothing to them! That they did it…they do it all the time, it was, it is, just an, an ordinary thing to them. If they thought about it at all, it was to congratulate themselves on it, and tell themselves that what they were doing was right, and, and, and rejoice in it! And…and…and the others, my own people, the ones who said they loved me and would do anything for me, who said they would do anything for me, anything for me…”
“What about them, my love?” asked her mother, when Dasha fell silent, her throat so choked she
could barely speak.
“They didn’t care about my suffering at all!” Dasha cried. “They wouldn’t even do the smallest thing in order to make it stop! They were afraid to see my unhappiness, but instead of taking even small, simple steps to stop it, ones that wouldn’t harm them at all, they lied to me and themselves and said that I wasn’t really suffering, none of those whom they hurt were really suffering, and even though they swore to help me, to serve me, they swore that they loved me, they wouldn’t even raise a finger to save me from themselves!”
“Well, of course not,” her mother said tartly. “These are people who kill lambs, after all.
“And we ate them! Well, not that time, not me—but how many times in the past!”
“We did,” her mother agreed soberly. “A stain of guilt we can never truly erase. But we could spend the rest of our lives mourning wrongs done to us and by us, and it would not change a single thing. And, my dear, we—or rather, you, because you have all the credit here—stopped. When you saw what it meant, what it is, you stopped, and you swore an oath never to have anything to do with such cruelty again. They knew the evil and had long grown accustomed to it. We mustn’t have high hopes for them.”