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

by E. P. Clark

  “But…” began Mirik, but Oleg Svetoslavovich had hurried them out the door before he could finish his sentence.

  “You’ll be bringing all of the North with you back to Krasnograd if you keep this up, Tsarinovna,” said Oleg Svetoslavovich, once they were out on the street. “Picking up strays like that.”

  “I feel so sorry for him, though,” said Slava.

  “You’d feel less sorry for him if you’d had to spend the past few days listening to his whining and complaining, Tsarinovna,” said Oleg Svetoslavovich. “You’re right, you know: Andrey Vladislavovich has already made himself so unhappy that Mirik would have quite a job to make it worse, anyway.”

  “Do you think he’ll try something?” asked Slava. “I’d hate for him to get into trouble…”

  “He’s certainly silly enough for it,” said Oleg Svetoslavovich.

  “He’s still very young, and very unhappy,” Slava pointed out. “We can hardly blame him…”

  “He’ll soon be seventeen, Tsarinovna! Were you like that at seventeen? Or were you already a woman grown?”

  “Women grow wise much sooner than men,” said Slava, and then realized she’d just repeated the kind of stupid saying that poured unceasingly from the mouths of her sister’s more vapid princesses. Not only that, but she’d said she was less foolish than Mirik, which was unkind. Although it could be argued that it was true.

  “But I was a very silly young woman,” she said with a smile, in order to cover up her unkind thoughts. “Living only in my head, full of foolish hopes and dreams and fantasies, that seemed much stronger to me than anything the waking world had to offer. I was a dreamer, Oleg Svetoslavovich. I suppose I still am, at heart. I love to think on things, and dwell on the pictures in my mind.”

  “Is that so, Tsarinovna,” said Oleg Svetoslavovich, giving her a look that was almost a smile, but much more dangerous than that.

  “What are you two talking about? Why are you smiling so much? What’s so funny?” demanded Vladislava, who was clearly tired of being excluded from the grown-up’s conversation.

  “Oh, nothing,” said Slava, smiling up at the eaves of a house they happened to be passing by.

  “It’s not nothing!” insisted Vladislava indignantly. “I can tell by your faces that it’s not!”

  “You’ll understand when you’re seventeen,” said Slava.

  “Or maybe thirty-seven,” said Oleg Svetoslavovich. “Some of us are not so quick on the uptake as our Tsarinovna here.”

  A sullen expression crossed Vladislava’s face, and very properly so. Slava didn’t know whether to laugh or slap herself. Surely she should have known better by now than to tell someone like Vladislava, “You’ll understand when you’re older.” It was unforgivable stupidity, nothing better. Her only excuse was that Oleg Svetoslavovich had flustered her. “Think of it as something to look forward to,” she told Vladislava soothingly. “We can’t all understand everything at once, after all.” Seeing that Vladislava was, and most rightly, not to be appeased by this, Slava quickly started asking her about other friends or acquaintances she might have who could prove useful in their search for the sorceresses, which distracted her enough that she was able to forget her hurt, at least for the moment.

  Chapter Four

  They arrived back at the kremlin without incident and were making their way as stealthily as possible to Slava’s quarters—they had agreed that that would be the best staging-ground for their assault on the hotbed of kremlin intrigue that awaited them—when a serving woman cried out at the sight of them and snatched Vladislava by the arm, saying, “Where have you been, little princess! Your mother has been going frantic with worry! How can you keep tormenting her like this…”

  She tried to drag Vladislava along after her, and when Vladislava resisted, the serving woman shook her hard and began scolding her in ever more heated tones, causing Vladislava first to shrink back, and then to gather herself together as if preparing for a vicious spring, possibly aimed right at the serving woman’s throat.

  “Come, Vladislava,” Slava said, taking Vladislava by the same arm the serving woman was shaking, and gently disengaging her. “We should go speak to your mother.”

  “She’s in the breakfast chamber, noblewoman,” said the serving woman. Her face was red with rage, and she was so focused on glaring at Vladislava with malevolent loathing that she seemed barely aware of either Slava or Oleg Svetoslavovich. “She’s been in a state ever since she discovered the little princess was missing, shouting at everyone, sending us out in the cold to search for her, imagining she’s hurt or dead, driving everyone crazy…and it seems she’s just gone off wandering again, as usual, without a thought for anyone else…if she were my daughter, I’d whip her till she couldn’t walk, every day I’d do it till she learned her lesson and gave up that nonsense…causing trouble for all of us…”

  “I’ll be sure to mention that to Vasilisa Vasilisovna,” Slava said. The sudden flare of hatred she felt for the serving woman was so strong that she felt as though her head might crack from the pain, and she could feel her hands shaking. Unfortunately, the serving woman was either too dull or too caught up in her own unhappiness to understand the threat behind Slava’s words, and she carried on ranting.

  “Someone should do something…running around causing trouble…Someone should teach her better…I used to whip my own daughters every day, for a whole year I did, and they never got up to this kind of nonsense…”

  “Good, then they’re used to it,” said Oleg Svetoslavovich. “That will make it much easier for them.”

  “What?” The serving woman stopped and stared at Oleg Svetoslavovich in bewildered rage.

  “It will make it much easier for them when Vasilisa Vasilisovna has them whipped in the little princess’s stead,” said Oleg Svetoslavovich. “Don’t you know? All this talk of beating the little princess that everyone is bandying about is just so much weak-headed nonsense. The Severnolesniye are blood kin to the Imperial line, and so laying a hand on them is death. Substitutes will have to be found for the whipping. I’ll be sure to mention your idea to Vasilisa Vasilisovna, and suggest that she use your daughters. And as you already said, it will be good for them—teach them better. They say the kremlin headswoman has a heavy hand—two men died last year from her floggings—they’re still talking about it in all the inns of Lesnograd.” He grinned at the serving woman’s appalled face, which was rapidly changing from scarlet to ashen (although, Slava couldn’t help but think, it was very unreasonable of her to be upset at the thought of her daughters being flogged, since she had just been bragging of flogging them), and walked jauntily down the hallway.

  Slava tried to say something to comfort the serving woman, but her hatred was still too strong for her to come up with any kind words, and so, after a brief moment of wavering, she hurried after Oleg Svetoslavovich.

  “That was cruel,” she said as soon as she had caught up with him. “She didn’t know what she was saying. She was just…upset.”

  “I don’t care,” said Vladislava, who was shaking even more than Slava. “I hate her! She’s always mean to me, if she thinks she can get away with it, and I can always feel her eyes following me, hating me, and I know she beats her children, and she likes to kick dogs and step on cats’ tails whenever she can, and anything else she can get away with. Her husband was a terrible drunk and knocked out half her teeth before she smashed in his head and made him a halfwit. He just sits at home and cries now, so she has to work all the jobs she can to feed them, and so my mother always uses her to do the most tiresome tasks, because she knows she can’t say no.”

  “That’s awful!” cried Slava. “Every bit of it! Poor woman—she has no idea of what she’s doing.”

  “Yes, and she would have cheered for joy if she could have seen the little princess whipped till she fainted, and not known what she was doing then, either. Probably she was at the front of the crowd, cheering for all she was worth, when those two men were flogged
to death last year. Besides, it’s no more than you thought, Tsarinovna—and knew needed to be said. In fact, you tried to say it yourself, only you made a mistake.”

  “Which I’m sure you’re going to explain to me now,” said Slava. With another man she would not have dared to say such a thing, or smile such a mocking smile, for fear of hurting his feelings, but Oleg Svetoslavovich seemed to have that rare and precious trait in a man, a sense of humor.

  “Oh, of course, Tsarinovna, of course,” said Oleg Svetoslavovich, with a smile to show he found himself just as funny as she did. “You see, Tsarinovna, your kind nature always assumes that everyone is as quick and sharp as you are, but that’s not true, not true at all. Some people will only hear you if you hit them with a hammer—and if you don’t, they’ll go right on and beat children and torture dumb animals and every other helpless creature they can get their hands on, and it’s all precisely because they don’t know what they’re doing—and maybe they’re not capable of knowing.” Oleg Svetoslavovich was no longer smiling now, and Slava could see that he was thinking of something sad, some sad personal story, and so she stifled her arguments, which she knew were wrong anyway, and only said, “I’m sorry.”

  “About what, Tsarinovna?” asked Oleg Svetoslavovich, flashing his eyes up at her and pretending he had not just fallen into melancholy.

  “About the fact that sometimes people do bad things, and the rest of us have to suffer,” she said.

  “It’s sad, but it’s certainly not your fault, Tsarinovna,” said Oleg Svetoslavovich, who had gone back to grinning. “That would be a little too much guilt even for you to bear. But speaking of such things, I believe I hear the angry roar of an enraged mother in the next room.”

  And indeed, Vasilisa Vasilisovna’s hysterical voice was spreading out from the breakfast chamber to the hallway. Vladislava shrank against Slava, who was forced to repress a sigh. She also noted, with what at a less unpleasant moment would have been amusement, that, although she felt slightly bad about causing Vasilisa Vasilisovna so much unhappiness, everything about Vasilisa Vasilisovna caused Slava’s natural urge to sympathize and comply to transform into an overwhelming need to antagonize and rebel.

  “Where is she! Where is she! Have her brought to me at once! I must put a stop to this!!” Vasilisa Vasilisovna was screaming, with, it sounded, tears in her voice.

  “Calm down, Vasya,” Slava could hear Olga saying impatiently. “She probably just went to play somewhere when she saw we were about to start quarreling again, and who can blame her? I would have done the same.”

  “Yes, because we all know how much you care about your nearest and dearest,” Andrey Vladislavovich’s voice said spitefully. “Don’t flatter yourself that you have any inkling of what it means to feel a mother’s love.”

  “And thank all the gods for that!” said Olga. “If it means making a fool out of yourself morning, noon, and night, then I’m better off without it.”

  Vasilisa Vasilisovna emitted a sharp scream at those words, and then carried on hysterically, “I don’t know where I went wrong, I don’t know what I did wrong, I did everything right, I did my best, it’s not my fault, it’s not my fault, it must be some flaw in her blood…”

  “Which she got from you,” said Olga.

  “No no no, from Dima, from Dima…”

  It took Slava a moment to remember that Vasilisa Vasilisovna’s husband was also called Dima, which again, at another moment would have made her laugh.

  “The line is flawed, it’s flawed, she’s flawed, she’s going to be a halfwit like her father, I just know it, I know it, gods, why have you laid this burden upon me…” and Vasilisa Vasilisovna trailed off into tears.

  “I feel sick,” murmured Vladislava, huddling up even closer to Slava. “My tummy hurts. I think I’m taking ill.”

  “You’re probably just upset,” said Slava, stroking her hair, something she was sure Vladislava would never permit under normal circumstances. Vladislava buried her face in Slava’s side.

  “By all the gods, how do we stop them?” Slava asked, looking up at Oleg Svetoslavovich. “They’ll drive her mad if they carry on like this. I’m afraid to take her into the room.”

  “Then don’t, Tsarinovna,” said Oleg Svetoslavovich. “Take the little princess to your quarters, and let me deal with them.”

  “They’re very crazy right now…” Slava said doubtfully. “Who knows what they’ll do.”

  “All the more reason for the two of you to leave. I’ll knock some sense into them, while you take care of the little princess.”

  “I can’t leave you to do my dirty work!”

  Oleg Svetoslavovich laughed. “If ever there were a person ill-suited to do dirty work, Tsarinovna, that person is you. Besides, some of that screaming in there is my fault. No reason for your kind heart to have to suffer through all that. Take the little princess and go do…whatever it is little princesses do, when they’re not being persecuted by their nearest and dearest.”

  Much as it pained Slava to leave Oleg Svetoslavovich to deal with the others on his own, especially as it felt like cowardice to retreat from something she so strongly wanted to avoid, she had to admit that bringing Vladislava into the room just then was probably unwise, and so she only nodded gratefully and set off in the direction of her quarters, the sound of Vasilisa Vasilisovna’s hysterical crying, Andrey Vladislavovich’s spiteful comments, and Olga’s scornful rejoinders following her down the hall. Even so, her heart felt strangely warm as she walked away. Having another person—and a man!—voluntarily take on an unpleasant task so that Slava wouldn’t have to was so shocking, such a pleasant surprise, that Slava was a little afraid she might cry with gratitude.

  “Do you think he’ll really knock some sense into them?” Vladislava asked hopefully, once they were out of earshot of the others. “They need to be threatened properly! Your shouting didn’t work on them for very long, Tsarinovna.”

  “Then threats probably won’t either,” said Slava. “Some people you just can’t teach.” As soon as she said it, she was sorry for saying something so unkind, especially about Vladislava’s own family, but Vladislava only nodded and said, “My mother won’t be coming with us to Krasnograd, will she, Tsarinovna?” Her tone made it very clear that she hoped not.

  “If she wants to, I don’t see how we can stop her,” said Slava. “You may have to…you may have to learn to manage her.”

  “I’m not giving in to her! I’m not becoming her little doll! And it would make me a bad ruler, anyway,” said Vladislava with considerable heat. Slava could feel her start to tremble again at the very thought of dealing with her mother.

  “I didn’t say give in, I said manage,” said Slava. “Perhaps if you learn to control yourself…If you have control of yourself, it can be surprisingly easy to control others.”

  “Like you do, Tsarinovna? Did it take much practice?”

  “Apparently not, since I just started,” confessed Slava with a laugh. “But just because this is slow-won wisdom for me, doesn’t mean it has to be for you. You can learn from my mistakes, and perhaps have an easier time than I did.”

  “It’s so hard, though,” Vladislava objected. “People make me so angry, especially my family! And they don’t deserve my kindness! It’s not fair that I should have to change myself, just because they’re selfish and stupid! They don’t deserve it!”

  “The gods forbid that we should ever get what we deserve,” said Slava. “And I think…I am coming to the realization that…that change is power. That if you can change yourself, you can change others, and even, perhaps, have great power over people and events. I think this was what they were trying to tell me all along this journey. My whole life I thought I was helpless, Vladislava, but now I see that that is not true. Perhaps I am not so strong, or so brave, or do not possess great magic or grand armies, but I do have one thing that no one else has, and that is myself. My whole life I’ve felt that I at the mercy of everyone else’s passing emot
ions, that I was nothing more than a rag for sopping up other people’s pain, but I am beginning to see that that is not true. Because, you see, I can see them, but all too often, they can’t see me. Not on the inside, that is, and the inside belongs to me alone. If I am strong and brave, that is, strong and brave on the inside. Perhaps you, too, Vladislava, can learn to be strong and brave on the inside. We can learn it together, because I dare say it won’t be easy.”

  “Like a kind of magic,” said Vladislava. “Like what sorceresses and priestesses do.”

  “Something like that, I think, yes,” said Slava.

  “We should ask the sorceresses, when they come to us,” said Vladislava. “And we should call some priestesses as well. I would like to speak to a priestess, and find out what she thinks. Grandmother didn’t like priestesses, so she would never let me talk to them. She said they were always poking their noses in things no normal woman would want to know, and she didn’t even want them in the kremlin. I think the priestesses are very angry with Grandmother.”

  “Oh,” said Slava. “Yes, perhaps we should talk to some priestesses.” An angry priestess, she thought to herself, might be an excellent ally against whatever it was that they were facing in the way of treason and curses.

  “Didn’t your mother become a priestess, Tsarinovna?” asked Vladislava. “Didn’t she leave the throne for a sanctuary? I thought I heard Grandmother say so.”

  “Yes, she did,” said Slava.

  “Do you ever see her?”

  “No more than once every other year, or maybe even less,” said Slava. “The point of a sanctuary is to be safe from the world. Even daughters are not welcome there, and she rarely returns to visit us.”

  “Were you sad when she left you? Were you angry?”

  “Yes,” said Slava. “But it was still the right thing for her to do. She had done all she could in this world, and it was time, as she said, for her to journey on to others. And it was also time for my sister to assume the throne. My mother said—and rightly so—that the responsible ruler trains her successor, and then hands her her power when she is ready to take it, not when the giver is ready to let it go.”