The Midnight Land: Part Two: The Gift (The Zemnian Trilogy Book 2)

by E. P. Clark

  “Stop it!” The voice that shouted was Slava’s own. The words rang out across the room with a tone of command that froze the quarrelers in mid-sentence, and they all stared at Slava in shock.

  “What is this!” Slava heard herself saying. “Is this any way for the Severnolesnaya family to behave?!? And in front of an Imperial guest! Do you really want to be airing your dirty laundry and your succession troubles in front of the Tsarina’s sister? Come to your senses! Nobility is not just a matter of fancy clothes and kremlins, it is a matter of right conduct, and right now you are conducting yourselves like market fishmongers! I am ashamed even to be in the same room with you!!”

  Vasilisa Vasilisovna, Andrey Vladislavovich, and Lisochka all swelled up to shout back in indignation, but before they could, Olga burst out laughing.

  “Ai-da Tsarinovna!” she cried. “Your blood runs true, I see! I knew I needed you the moment I laid eyes on you, and once again I am proven right! Sister, take Dmitry Vladislavovich away from here; the poor man has enough troubles of his own without being saddled with fools like us. Let him eat his supper in peace.”

  Vasilisa Vasilisovna looked for a moment as if she wished to argue, but then got up and, with much anxiously solicitous fluttering, got the moaning Dmitry Vladislavovich up from his chair and out of the room.

  “I don’t know why she bothers bringing him down,” said Olga. “The poor man has been out of his wits for years, and being with the rest of you only makes it worse—although that’s hardly a sign of being crazy. If I had to eat with you day in and day out, I’d start putting my hands over my ears and moaning, too.”

  “So you just ran off and left us, instead,” said Andrey Vladislavovich spitefully. “You were too much of a coward to stay, so you ran off and abandoned your husband and daughter. Forgive me, Tsarinovna,” he gave Slava a look that was half-fear, half-contempt, and continued, “I know we’re ‘airing our dirty laundry’ in front of you, but the truth is the truth. Olga Vasilisovna is an irresponsible coward, you can’t deny it. And as for our ‘succession troubles,’ judge for yourself: would you entrust the ruling of Lesnograd to someone who runs away at the first sign of trouble? Who can’t even be bothered to raise her own daughter?” His face twisted into another ugly sneer for a moment, before settling into an expression of self-righteous satisfaction. He was clever enough, Slava could see, to know that he had hurt the others in the room in a petty and cruel way, but not clever enough not to take pleasure in the fact. For a moment Slava thought she might burst out again, but then she had a better, crueler, idea.

  “Vasilisa Olgovna,” she said, turning away from Andrey Vladislavovich, “are you happy?”

  “What?” Lisochka started and gave her a puzzled look. “Why? What business is it of yours? Tsarinovna,” she added as an afterthought. Slava could tell she was already forgetting the terror and shame she had felt a moment ago, after Slava’s reprimand, and that her mind was already repainting the scene into something that did not require her to make herself a better person. Slava had told her something unpleasant, and therefore, now that the initial shock was over, Slava must be seen to be wrong and be put in her place. And, as happened so often, the significance of Slava’s title was already draining out of her mind, leaving behind nothing but the insignificance of Slava’s figure, enabling Lisochka to treat her as she pleased.

  “I can see that you are not happy, Vasilisa Olgovna,” Slava said, kindly but firmly. “Your words, your actions, your very tone and bearing all scream out your unhappiness.”

  “Well…Well…How could I be happy?” Lisochka burst out, trying to cover up her unhappiness with self-righteousness. “My mother left me! If I’m unhappy, it’s her fault!”

  “Did your mother have a great hand in your raising, Vasilisa Olgovna?” Slava asked her.

  “No, of course not!” Lisochka gave her another look of puzzled contempt. “How could she? She left me! She never did anything for me at all!”

  “Except give birth to you, and save you from that disastrous marriage my mother wanted,” said Olga under her breath. “Many a mother has done worse.”

  “Yes,” said Slava. “Many a mother has.” She looked Lisochka firmly in the eye. It was not something she was accustomed to doing, but she must have been doing it fairly well, for Lisochka quailed back under the force of her gaze. “If you wish to find a source for your unhappiness, Vasilisa Olgovna, you should look closer to home,” Slava told her. “Perhaps to those who raised you, who cared for you every day. Had they done a better job, you might be less unhappy. The absent parent is only partly at fault when a child sticks its hand in the fire. The one watching over it should bear the brunt of the blame. And, of course, the true culprit is the child itself. It decided to test the fire, and it must suffer the burns, and no one else can do anything about that. You are a woman grown now, Vasilisa Olgovna, and it is time to act like one. Are you a helpless leaf in the wind, or are you mistress of your own destiny? Do you want to be happy? Truly? Because you are not acting like it. It seems to me that you enjoy reveling in your unhappiness and the wrongs you have suffered, and you refuse to let them go. But this is a burden only you can lay down, Vasilisa Olgovna. And as for you,” she turned to Andrey Vladislavovich, “You were given a charge, and you failed. Your daughter is suffering, and you do nothing but add to her misery! If this is how you care for your child, how will you care for your city? How can you be trusted with so many children, if you have already failed one, and that one the most precious to you of all? No, Andrey Vladislavovich, you are not fit to rule a city. You are not even fit to rule yourself. A ruler must have strength, wisdom, and compassion, and you have none of those things. I fear some beggar on the street would be more fit to rule Lesnograd than you.”

  Slava’s torrent of words suddenly dried up. There was a ringing silence. Just when Slava thought she couldn’t take it any more, it was broken by a sudden sobbing, coming from Vladislava.

  “What’s the matter?!” everyone demanded at once.

  “Oh…Oh…Oh…I’m so happy!” she cried. “Finally…Finally! I’ve wanted to say all those things for so long, but I thought no one would listen, and now someone has! Someone has spoken them for me! Thank all the gods!” And, to Slava’s great surprise, she got out of her chair and buried her face in Slava’s shoulder.

  Slava reached up hesitantly and stroked her back. It was so thin and fragile. Slava felt even more sorry for her, even as she remembered that she had, perhaps, done terrible things and brought a curse down on Slava’s family.

  I must fix this, Slava said to herself. I must fix this, whatever it takes.

  “Oh yes, tell me my troubles are my own fault, and then comfort her,” said Lisochka, her face screwing up as if she were preparing to scream or cry. “Shout at us, and then comfort her! It’s always her, isn’t it! It’s always her! Always her!” And Lisochka did, in fact, start to cry too.

  “Now see what you’ve done!” said Andrey Vladislavovich. He was groping for his former spitefulness, but he was too shaken to find it, and sounded merely hysterical instead. He made no move to get up and comfort Lisochka, but only watched her squeamishly out of the corner of his eye. Slava almost felt a little bit sorry for him again. Perhaps in some other life he would have been a good man, but the life he had been given was completely unsuited for him, and he didn’t know how to escape from it. Kind of like Slava herself, she thought, only she had, at long last, perhaps found her escape, by going deeper into herself and coming right out the other side, so that she had some shield with which to face her tormenters.

  “Oh, by all the gods!” cried Olga in exasperation. “Come here, girl.” She gave Lisochka a good hard slap on the shoulder, which was probably her version of a motherly hug. “Cheer up and stop crying! It’s not so bad, you know. You’re young, you’re healthy, you’re free—why don’t you just leave this mess behind? Leave them to stew in their own juices and come with me.”

  “Where to?” asked Lisochka. She was still
sniffling, but it was a sniffle that almost had a hint of a laugh to it.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” said Olga. “Wherever! We could see all of Zem’, if you like.

  “I don’t know…” said Lisochka.

  “Oh, come on, you’ve never even been out of Lesnograd,” said Olga. “That’s your problem! You need to get out more! You’d be amazed the way your troubles melt away when you’re on the road.”

  “Maybe…” said Lisochka wistfully. “But I don’t know…”

  “You could come to Krasnograd,” Slava suggested. “At least at first. As an escort for Vladislava Vasilisovna.”

  “Now there’s a thought!” said Olga. “We could all make a journey to Krasnograd in order to see your sister off! It’d be both proper and jolly, and you could learn about life on the road.”

  “No!” cried Andrey Vladislavovich. “I forbid it! You can’t just…just run away from your troubles whenever you feel like it! You have responsibilities, both of you, whether you like it or not!”

  Until then Slava had felt such a strong antipathy for him that whatever empathy she could generate had been overwhelmed, but now he sounded so forlorn that she found herself rising and going to him without a conscious thought.

  “Dear Andrey Vladislavovich,” she said. “I know your life has been hard, very hard, and I am sorry! But try to find it in your heart to forgive and forget. I know you may have had to shoulder burdens you were not prepared to carry, but who has not? I am sure, Andrey Vladislavovich, that if you search your heart, you will find the strength to let them go, and take up the burdens that need to be borne. It is there, Andrey Vladislavovich, I am sure of it! Search within yourself, and find it!”

  And to her immense surprise, Slava’s words seemed to have the effect she wanted on Andrey Vladislavovich, and he gazed up at her hopefully as he started to speak, his face wearing a more human expression than it had all day. It was almost as if his soul, so long in hiding, had decided to peek out for a moment.

  “Do you really think so, Tsarinovna?” he asked. “You said it yourself: my life is hard, very hard. Is there any hope for me, Tsarinovna?”

  “There is always hope,” Slava told him. “Especially when your troubles are in your own heart, and not elsewhere. And our troubles are always ultimately in our own hearts. Let them go, Andrey Vladislavovich! Become the man you wish you could be!”

  “Oh yes, papa, yes please!” cried Lisochka, tearing herself free from Olga and throwing herself in Andrey Vladislavovich’s lap. She was bigger than him, but neither of them seemed to notice. “Let us…let us put all this behind us! Let us be happy!”

  And somehow they all—Olga, Andrey Vladislavovich, and Lisochka—started to laugh, and Olga poured them all wine, and they drank and laughed and talked about their plans until late into the night. Vasilisa Vasilisovna returned and joined them, and there were many toasts “To Krasnograd!” and “To the Tsarinovna!”

  Vladislava sat next to Slava and they both watched in quiet fascination. Slava could sense that her part in this was over, and she had best sit silently on the side, so she did, only talking quietly with Vladislava when it became apparent that the others had forgotten them.

  “I think you were right, Tsarinovna; you are a hero,” said Vladislava at one point. “How did you know what to say?”

  “I don’t know,” Slava confessed. “I just opened my mouth, and out it came. I just spoke what was in my heart. Perhaps the gods put it there; I can’t say.”

  “Do you think it will last?” whispered Vladislava. “Even as long as tomorrow? Or do you think they’ll be sorry and ashamed when they wake up in the morning, and it will all be even worse than before?” She sounded as if she had witnessed many such supposed transformations for the better, and been disappointed every time. Probably she had.

  “I don’t know,” Slava whispered back. “Such changes seem to be more lasting in some people than in others.”

  “If it were you, would you change?” asked Vladislava. “Or would you go back to what you were before?”

  “I would change,” Slava said, surprised at how certain she was of this. “Once I change, I change forever. I will not go back to what I was before I came here, of that I am sure.”

  “And you won’t forget me, once we’re in Krasnograd?” asked Vladislava anxiously.

  “No, under no circumstances,” Slava assured her.

  “I’m glad,” said Vladislava. She yawned. “I’m very tired. It’s very late.”

  “Perhaps you should go to bed,” suggested Slava. She was a little afraid to break into the happy circle that the others had formed, but when Vladislava went up and told Vasilisa Vasilisovna that she was going to bed, Vasilisa Vasilisovna only laughed and kissed her good night. Slava and Vladislava slipped out of the room.

  “I’ll lead you to your room,” said Vladislava. “Otherwise you might never find it.” Many of the torches in the corridors were unlit, due to the lateness of the hour, but Vladislava made her way surely through the dark passages, and left Slava at her door with a cheerful “Good night! Until morning, then!” before disappearing into the darkness around the corner.

  The frightened maid was waiting up for Slava in her room, much to Slava’s mortification. She dismissed the girl with many thanks and apologies, which only seemed to frighten her even more, and undressed herself and put on a—oh, luxury of luxuries!—clean nightgown before sliding into the warm bed.

  Despite the very long and eventful day, or rather, because of it, Slava was unable to fall asleep for a long time. She kept going over and over in her mind what had happened with the others downstairs. How had she done that? Normally, in such situations, which were all too frequent in families, she either retreated in revulsion, able to see the others’ stupidity but unable to reach out and help them, or found herself drawn helplessly into the argument, only to lose as she lost all control of her thoughts and feelings and was unable to do anything other than hit back with surprisingly stinging but ultimately useless blows.

  Perhaps the gods spoke through me, she thought. But then she thought about it some more, and decided that that was not true. No, this time, the part of her that needed to withdraw had withdrawn to some safe place from which she could watch and decide impartially, and the part that needed to reach out had reached out. It was not “magic,” as it had been when she had struck back at the bandits. There was nothing of the gods or their powers in it. It had been Slava’s own heart that had found the strength and wisdom to do what needed to be done, and had found the way to do what she had always wished she could do—give people the gift of choosing the good in themselves, while rejecting the evil. At least for the moment.

  ***

  The same frightened maid came and woke Slava up the next morning, her voice trembling as she did so.

  “What is your name?” Slava asked her sleepily.

  “Wh-wh-why, Ts-ts-tsarinovna?” quavered the girl.

  “So that I know who you are, of course,” Slava said. Unfortunately, this only provoked more terror in the girl, so that she stared at Slava in frozen horror.

  “You take such good care of me,” said Slava, smiling as reassuringly as possible. “I would like to know the name of such a conscientious servant.”

  “D-d-d-dasha, Tsarinovna,” the girl said. She made some indecisive fluttering movements in the direction of Slava’s clothes, which were lying on a chair next to the bed, but couldn’t actually summon up the courage to pick them up.

  “Are you from Lesnograd, Dasha?” Slava asked. She concentrated as hard as possible on appearing reassuring and non-threatening, and was delighted to see Dasha grow more and more relaxed with every word.

  “Yes, Tsarinovna,” said Dasha. “My whole life.”

  “It is a very beautiful city, although I have seen only a small portion of it,” said Slava.

  “Yes, Tsarinovna,” said Dasha, and then, gathering up her nerve, added, gulping and stuttering a bit, but managing to get the words out reasonably co
herently, “It’s a bit run down from what it used to be, Tsarinovna, but it’s still a fine city. You should ride around it while you’re here, though like I said, it’s a bit run down.”

  “That’s too bad,” said Slava with all the sympathy she could muster, and then, concentrating firmly on being as innocent and noncommittal as possible, asked, “Has it been that way long?”

  “Oh, only the past couple of years, Tsarinovna, but it’s been getting worse and worse, especially these past few months. And now that the Princess is ill, everything’s going to wrack and ruin, you wouldn’t believe how. The streets are in shambles, the guards do nothing but lounge around playing cards and running after anyone who will have them, and it’s not safe to walk alone at night.”

  “That’s too bad,” said Slava. This time she didn’t even have to concentrate on being sympathetic, as it really was too bad.

  “Yes, and they say…Pardon me for saying this, Tsarinovna, maybe I shouldn’t, but maybe you can do something about it, the maids are sick of it…They say that Vasilisa Vasilisovna does nothing but cry, wring her hands, and quarrel with Andrey Vladislavovich and Vasilisa Olgovna; they all think they want to rule but none of them has the stomach for it. We all thought Andrey Vladislavovich had gone crazy, Tsarinovna, when he run off, we don’t know why, but he was crazy with rage when he come back, and he hasn’t been the same since, and nothing’s being done except the guards got even more arrogant than they was before, and they haven’t been fit to talk to since Andrey Vladislavovich started running around town with them and that foreigner that was with them before he run off too, do you think Olga Vasilisovna will step in and rule now, Tsarinovna?”